Happiness is Writing

I wrote! I wrote!

My heart is happy,

my soul is light.

My eyes and hands are tired,

so I must say goodnight.

Editing questions

Hello my friends,

I am stuck.  I have been ignoring other tasks to focus on editing my two manuscripts and unfortunately I am not getting anywhere with the edits; except maybe burnt out.

I would love any advice you can give on how you edit and what works best for you.

I am at the point now where I am thinking of writing up a summary of each chapter and just writing the whole thing from scratch using the summary as a guideline.  I could then go back and pick and choose the best from each version and combine it into the new and improved manuscript.  Does that sound crazy?  It sounds like a lot of work but the writing is the fun part and I am missing the fun so I thought if I just wrote it again I would enjoy it and maybe the editing would go faster.

I am obviously grasping at straws here.  Please help!

Really?

 

Natural Tree Stump Side Table

$199

Seriously! Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? 

I have had a crazy week. My pay the mortgage job has seen some crazy things this week so I wanted to take a break from the nuts and thought I should shop for a new patio umbrella since the insanely high winds broke ours.  Instead of an umbrella I found a block of wood for $200!  I can get a cord of wood for that price and that is delivered.  I am sure this one costs a lot more to ship.  This is the equivalent of milk crates and cinder blocks for home decorating, yet it is not cheap which was the appeal of the other two.

People at work made some idiotic choices this week leaving me wondering about the validity of a comment I made to a supervisor.  He did not want to follow the law and report the issue.  He said if we do the person who did this can go to jail.  I had not thought of that but even with that in mind I responded, "These are adults, not 2 year olds, they understand that their actions come with consequences."

Do they really?  Are these the generations of kids who got trophies for every team they played on and had time outs or no restrictions at all?  Maybe they have absolutely no idea about repercussions for bad decisions because they were never allowed to make mistakes or forced to clean up their own mess afterwards.

My lovely daughter is 8 and she has friends whose parents are shocked when I make her clean up and rinse her plate after dinner or ask her to help with dinner prep.  They are even more shocked when they find out she makes her own breakfast and occasionally her own lunch.  But why is that shocking?   They think it is because I work so my poor daughter has to fend for herself.   I had a stay at home mom and I learned how to make my own lunch and breakfast and helped prep meals.  I never had to clean up afterwards because no one can live up to my mother's cleanliness standards.

Is asking your kids to clear their dinner plate from the table and rinse it in the sink crazy or is it preparing them for life?

Do these people I work with get the severity of the mistake they made?  If they don't now they will soon.  If they somehow get away with it this time will they learn or keep behaving the same way?

Are the people buying $200 tree stumps the ones with huge credit card debt who file bankruptcy and have no money in savings?  I'm betting yes.

Mother's Day

My daughter made me a lovely mother's day present at school today.  I opened the rolled up paper and started to read the answers she had filled in about why I am a wonderful mother.

Should I be upset that the first two answers were not actually about me?  I read to my daughter every night and the first answer she wrote was that I she loved when I read her a story I have never heard of.  Oops that was a staff in aftercare.

I hid my bruised ego and read the next item; which turned out to be a continuation of item number one and about the same staff.  Bruised ego tamped down again.  I hopefully read the next item, Yeah! it was actually about me.

There was a craft at aftercare today that my son could have participated in but it was art and jewelry and he's a big fifth grade boy.  I'm sure he appreciates everything everything I do for him; he expresses as much every time he says, "come on mom" or the whinny "mom".  I feel the love.

My daughter has to learn a poem every week and this week's poem ended with a line about helping my mom all year.  When I asked her if she meant that she laughed.  She then said she helps all the time but couldn't think of a time.

I am sure that I was the same or worse about appreciating my mom; so I want to say Happy mother's day and thank you for everything that you did to my mom.  For everyone out there that has taken the time to mentor and help a child, happy mother's day to you.

If my family is reading this, all I want for mother's day is three hours to work on my novel.  Thank you.

Happy writing!

#saturdayscenes

One of the many incredible writers I have met along my journey is +John Ward .  He is the moderator of the Google+ communities 'Writer's Discussion Group' which is 18,000+ strong.  I picked that group to join because it had a very active group of regulars, one of whom is John Ward.  I am amazed John has time to do anything else with how active he is as the groups co-moderator.

But somehow, in his plethora of spare time he came up with a brilliant idea.  He created a hashtag for writers called #saturdayscenes.  

Saturday May 3 was the inaugural roll out of #SaturdayScenes.  I was not able to post but there were some great pieces posted that I enjoyed discovering.

So if you are a writer who wants to post a scene from your work, published or not or a scene you are looking for comments on post it with #SaturdayScenes and participate.

If you are looking for a few quick reads type #Saturdayscenes to find some great scenes to peruse and enjoy.  It is always helpful to leave comments for the writer.  We love all the feedback we can get :) 

I look forward to seeing your work up there!

Happy Writing!

Ahhhh

I am decompressing from the A to Z challenge today and taking the day off since it is my husband's birthday and I have to spend time with him.

Happy writing and relaxing!