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My son has an associate’s degree!
This week’s post for the Celebrate the Small Things blog hop celebrates a not-so-small thing: my son is almost done with his 2-year associate’s degree! There’s no graduation ceremony this year (thanks, Microbe That Must Not Be Named), but he got a lovely box in the mail yesterday from his campus, with his class of 2020 tassel and membership card for the alumni association. My baby is an alumnus! In the fall he’ll move on to a 4-year university, but for now, we’re celebrating this milestone with him. And congrats to all the graduates out there! I’m sorry you don’t get to have big parties and ceremonies this year. I…
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My writing ritual (warning: it ain’t pretty)
Happy IWSG Day! For those who are new here, I participate in the monthly Insecure Writers Support Group blog hop. Details and signup here. This month’s optional question is: Do you have any rituals that you use when you need help getting into the zone? I hope my fellow IWSG-ers have some great responses to this question. I need all the ideas I can get, because right now my ritual for getting in the zone is pretty simple: sit my butt down in front of my computer and get to work. I wrote about that process in a post last December. Part of why I don’t employ much in the…
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Celebrate the Small Things!
I have just joined the Celebrate the Small Things blog hop. The rules are simple: each Friday, post about something you want to celebrate achieving/doing that week. This week I’m celebrating the fact that I submitted a short story to an online magazine. Big deal, right? But for me it is. Until about a year ago, I’d never shown anyone my fiction. Since then, I’ve joined a critique group, entered (and won!) a literary contest, and, just this year, submitted two pieces for publication. Will my two submissions get published? Maybe, maybe not. In both cases, I submitted to markets that are a little out of my league, but then…
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Photo safari through a historic Flagstaff neighborhood
My first novel, Vanishing, Inc., is set in a fictional mountain town in Arizona called Ponderosa. I live in Flagstaff, a not-so-fictional mountain town in Arizona that makes an appearance in my story, but since I’m writing a paranormal romance (a time travel romance, to be specific), I wanted the freedom of a fictional setting. I don’t want some overly-literal reader leaving me a one-star review because there are, in fact, no time portals in Flagstaff. Hey, you know it could happen. I’m sure plenty of tourists have walked through standing stones in Scotland and become very grumpy because they did not immediately find themselves in the arms of a lusty…
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Q is for Quotes (#AtoZChallenge)
Back when I started this month-long challenge, I said the theme would be discovery, and I would write about the the things I’ve discovered during coronavirus lockdown. I’m always discovering stuff. When I was a kid, I did what most kids do: find random stuff and bring it home and hoard it like Blackbeard’s treasure. I don’t collect stuff now (unless we’re talking about plants…), but I do collect random bits of information and save it in my journal. One of my favorite things to save this way is quotes. I have pages and pages of quotes I’ve copied down. Each one spoke to me at the moment I found…
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On the LITA blog: Strategies for Surviving a Staffing Crisis
Every now and then, I blog about library-related stuff. Today I contributed a guest post to the LITA (Library Information Technology Association) Blog, titled Strategies for Surviving a Staffing Crisis. The post is library-focused, but much of the advice would apply to other settings as well. Hop on over and give it a read if you’re so inclined.
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P is for Patience and Persistence (#AtoZChallenge)
I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in California, where every November and December, a layer of tule fog settles in. Sometimes it lifts during the day, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s so thick you can barely see the end of your car hood. That’s when you hope the road you’re on has those little raised bumps along the shoulder, so you can ride on them to guide you. We called that driving by Braille. 0/10 Do Not Recommend. What I do recommend is walking in the fog, especially at night. There was something magical about a walk on a foggy night, when I could barely see 30…
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O is for Outside (#AtoZChallenge)
After four weeks of quarantine, I’ve learned a bit about what helps keep me mentally healthy in lockdown, and exactly none of it is a surprise: adequate sleep, nutritious food (apparently woman does not live by Doritos alone, though heaven knows I’ve tried), meaningful work, exercise, and fresh air. Spring in Flagstaff is wind season, so getting outside without being blown into the next ZIP code is challenging. Usually the best opportunity is before nine AM, which is why I’ve been outside gardening at 7 AM. Yes, I know that is sick and wrong, but one does what one must. I could write a long, not-so-eloquent essay on the beauty…
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The Art of Writing an Epic Blog Post
The author of this post demonstrates the techniques he’s talking about… with this post. I love the clear, practical advice in an easily-digested format. Highly recommended. Be honest. You often dream of writing an epic blog post, the kind that gets shared thousands of times, liked, tweeted, and pinned, commented on by … The Art of Writing an Epic Blog Post
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N is for Now (#AtoZChallenge)
What’s the worst part of quarantine? Not the boredom. I’m not bored. I don’t have time to be bored. I’m my usual committed self, swamped with Zoom meetings, writing, Zoom meetings, cooking, Zoom meetings, chores, Zoom meetings, gardening, and Zoom meetings. I could do with some boredom. Not fear of the virus. I’m past that. Or, rather, like the adaptable, resilient human I am, I have adjusted to it. We humans can adjust to nearly anything. What I mind is the uncertainty. I am a planner. I use two different to-do apps and used to keep a bullet journal (now it’s mostly a regular journal). I check my calendar at…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
