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November: A month of stress and delight in writing (#IWSG)
I just finished NaNoWriMo. For you non-writers (a/k/a normal people) out there, NaNoWriMo, affectionately known as NaNo, is National Novel-Writing Month, a worldwide phenomenon in which millions of writers try to write 50,000 words in the month of November. Free investment tip: buy stock in coffee companies before November. Alcohol and cigarette companies too. But I digress. A subgroup of NaNo participants are known as NaNo Rebels. We bust our butts all month like the “regular” NaNos, but we do something other than write 50K words of a brand-new novel. In my case, I committed to spending as much time revising a previous NaNo project as it would have taken…
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Seeking new holiday traditions (Weekend Coffee Share #16)
Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! We had a quiet Thanksgiving week here in Satan’s Anus (where it’s currently 71F and sunny, so not so Satan’s Anus-y). It’s just the 3 of us now for the holidays–my husband, my adult son, and me. I really feel the shifting stages of my life around the holidays. When I was a kid, our celebrations were also small, just my parents and me, sometimes with brief visits from the few family or friends my father hadn’t driven away yet. Then after I became an adult, and my father died, it was just my mom, my then-boyfriend-then-fiancé-now-husband, and me.…
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Tucson Botanical Gardens and a few laughs (Weekend Coffee Share #15)
Good morning! Writing and work have kept me busy this week, so I’m a little late getting the Weekend Coffee Share (hosted by Natalie the Explorer) up for this week. Today I’ll share a few pics from my visit last weekend to the Tucson Botanical Gardens as well as the usual funnies at the end. But first: This Week’s Writing Update, Brought to You By Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers The writing update for this week is that there isn’t much of an update. I’ve heard exactly nothing about any of my pending submissions, including the story I submitted for the Christmas horror anthology that was supposed to be published…
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Rock and Roll Rosebud (#FOTD)
It’s literally sunshine and roses in my garden right now. We don’t really have fall color here in Tucson. I’m a little jealous when I see other bloggers posting beautiful photos of red and yellow fall leaves, but then I remember that I won’t have to shovel snow or endure 6 months of rain, and I stop complaining. Now that the weather has cooled off here in Satan’s Anus, the garden is perking up, the tomatoes are threatening to eat the house, and the roses are blooming like crazy. For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, meet Rock and Roll, one of our favorite striped roses (Of course we…
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Delta Dawn won first place! (Weekend Coffee Share #14)
Good morning, and happy Friday! I have big writing news to share with y’all, but first: Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Have a seat, grab a treat, and let’s chat out in the garden on this gorgeous desert morning. Big writing news I’m excited to report that my second novel, a domestic suspense/thriller called Delta Dawn, won first place in the unpublished novel division of the Arizona Authors Association Annual Literary Contest! I still need to make substantial revisions before it will be ready to query, but I’m so excited that people actually liked it. I’m also grateful to the judges, who provided helpful…
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Quick updates (Weekend Coffee Share #13)
Just a few quick updates for the Weekend Coffee Share (hosted by Natalie the Explorer) this week, because I’m swamped today. I hope to get back to my usual debauchery next week. So why am I too busy for a lengthy chat this week? Because: I spent a chunk of yesterday catching up with friends on Zoom (yay! Not quite an in-person coffee share, but pretty dang great.) This morning I have a couple of writing-related webinars from Sisters in Crime, including a gathering for the class I mentioned in last week’s post. The other is on crime scene investigations. Fun! (yes, we writers have an odd definition of, “fun.”)…
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Blurbs, pitches, loglines, and other book marketing necessities I suck at (#IWSG)
For those of you who aren’t masochists don’t write fiction, here’s something about the writing world that you may not know: authors have to be marketers. Yes, even traditionally-published authors, because apparently even the big publishers don’t invest a lot in marketing authors unless they are big names. I’m going to admit 2 things up front that will color the rest of this post: I find this fact frustrating. With a family and a day job, I barely have enough time to write, let alone learn how to market my writing. When I first started writing, I thought that’s what publishers got paid to do, seeing as how they have…
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Lock up your chocolate, I’ve been left unsupervised (Weekend Coffee Share #12)
My long-suffering husband is camping in the desert this week, and I’m taking a few days off to enjoy having the house to myself. In other words–I’m entirely unsupervised. Unmonitored. Responsible to no one. Free as a bird, baby. Let the debauchery begin! But before we get to the debauchery, good afternoon, and happy Friday! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, graciously hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Come on in, grab a treat, have a seat, and let’s party! Now, where were we? Oh, yeah–debauchery. Those of you who read my last attempt to portray myself as cool already know the sad truth: I’m boring as hell. I’ve been on…
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The desert is in the details: Tucson Mountain Park (Weekend Coffee Share #11)
Good morning, and happy Saturday! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Today we’ll visit the rough, rugged, and prickly scenery of Tucson Mountain Park. I wish we could have coffee in person, maybe sit out on the patio (it’s cool–55F–and sunny this morning) and talk and share and laugh. Dang, I miss doing that. But, as with so many other activities in these plague times, virtual will have to do. So pull up a seat, and let’s share our weeks with each other. As I mentioned in last week’s post, husband and I drove to Flagstaff last weekend. We weren’t there long, just a night…
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Camille Pissarro Rose (#FOTD)
Cee’s Flower of the Day post today is a lovely portrait of fall leaves. We don’t really have fall leaves here in Tucson. I vaguely remember one neighbor’s tree providing a bit of fall color last year–in December. Right now, my garden is full of flowers, bigger and brighter now that the weather isn’t so hot. I think I’ve mentioned on here before that my husband and I have a thing for striped roses. We bought this one last spring at Lowe’s, and it bloomed all through a Tucson summer. Want to see more flowers? Take a look at my Flower of the Day archive and Cee’s wonderful blog.
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
