The first thing I did when I found my error was count my lucky stars that it hadn’t been published. Now what I have to do is some research and rethinking to make the plot more plausible.
My error had to do with technology — in particular, the technology concerning encryption and the fact that my example was not secure enough. As my writing is fantasy rather than science fiction, I don’t have to get into the details of the tech. I do have to be somewhat realistic (given my style of writing, which is closer to magical realism) and plausible.
So this morning is going to be research and rewriting some sections of the book. Not my favorite thing to do, but I want my books to be good.
As far as my writing goes, not so well. I don’t know what to do with this book. It starts slow, and is still slow toward the middle. Something is finally going on plotwise, but not fast enough. I am wondering if I have to start it over from scratch. It just isn’t writing right.
As far as my garden goes — we scaled it back because of the lack of sunlight in the yard — it’s now herbs and tomatoes. I don’t mind this. Now to keep the weeds out — there’s a lot of marauding wild garlic in there that buries itself so deeply you can’t pull up the roots. That’s a bit of a pain for weeding.
As far as my diet goes, I have lost 10 pounds (I think). I’m not hungry a lot of the time, which is a good thing. I think this will work well.
As far as book sales go, do you know I have a couple of books out? I have written several. They can be found at: Lauren Leach-Steffens Amazon Page.
It’s just Sunday, and it’s promising to be a hot one. Time for a leisurely breakfast and some coffee. We have plants to go in in the morning. We scaled down our vegetable garden to tomatoes because of the lack of sun in our yard, but we have a full herb garden that needs a couple more herbs. Lots of basil to go in with the tomatoes.
Once the tomatoes are in, we may be waiting for rain. I would like a good thunderstorm to come through. We might go and write for a while; I don’t know. Not an exciting day, but a good one.
I ask my students in internships what they do for self-care. It’s a very important practice for people in helping professions, because of the stress levels they experience. Self-care can stave off burnout as well as help people reclaim their free time.
When I assessed my own self-care activities, I found that I was somewhat lacking in them. Writing is a flow activity for me, and flow fits into self-care, but I have not been doing as much of that lately. I’ve started walking again, but right now I can only walk for short periods of time, which makes it not as much of a self-care activity. I don’t meditate as often as I could. I am definitely lacking self-care activities.
What can I do about this? Obviously put some of these practices back into place. Walking will come back a little at a time because of my current fitness level. Meditating can start today. Writing is a struggle given my current motivation level. But it’s important to have my self-care routines together, especially for when the school year starts and I’m back to more pressure in my life.
I am writing, although my output on this book seems to be more like 600-1000 words a day. I don’t think the book is as unsalvageable as I did before, but I’m still not feeling it.
I think the drop in writing progress is because I don’t have my identity wrapped up in being a writer these days. Most writers, it turns out, sell few or no books, and that means little or no recognition. I became a writer for the wrong reasons, it seems; I wanted people to read my stuff and tell me it was good.
In the midst of that, I found out that I really liked writing. I loved writing in my little world, and I got to know my characters pretty well. I became a writer, in other words.
I don’t know what the remedy is for not feeling like a writer. Is there one?
I guess I have a Big Audacious Goal to post for 365 days straight. So posting daily is a thing, even when I’m tired and have nothing to post about. Even if I’m on the road and it’s raining out and I’d rather sleep a while longer. It’s good for me while I drag my feet on writing a new novel. It is purpose.
There are probably more than three books that have had an impact on me, but the prompt tells me to pick only three, so I will. These books are very different from each other (and I’m cheating on one of them).
The first book, which I read in eighth grade, was The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. This book, the second in a series of five, is a fantasy novel set in contemporary Britain in the 70s. It’s definitely juvenile fantasy, of which there was not much during that time period. The depth of the fantasy totally captured me, with its Arthurian and fae undertones set at Christmastime. I totally escaped through that book. I read the series again last Winter, and it read just as well to a 60-year-old adult.
The second book, which I read probably 20 years ago, was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Although I worry this book is considered New Age pap marketed to those of us who grooved on Carlos Castaneda, those four agreements pack a psychological punch. The agreements are: “Be impeccable with your word”, “Do not take anything personally”, “Do not make assumptions”, and “Always do your best” (Wikipedia, 2025). These could fit comfortably into cognitive journaling (and do make for good contradictions to cognitive distortions). I live by these now, and they offer me a different way of living.
The third book fits the prompt, even though it’s one that I wrote, because it impacted my life. That was the first book I wrote, The Kringle Conspiracy. That book was impactful because I didn’t think I could write a book until I wrote it, and I didn’t think I could publish a book until I published it. I came up with the story when I was in high school, and published it in my fifties.
There are my three books. I would highly recommend all of them.
I’m 62, so I’ve lived life before the Internet. It was a time before information flowed readily and before we had the world at our fingertips (literally).
I remember researching before the Internet, which required reading through periodical indices and card catalogs. A lot of reading, and a lot of taking notes, and for someone like me who was not organized as I should be, a lot of frustration.
I could not write novels before the Internet. I wanted accurate detail in my books. For example, I had my idea for what became Whose Hearts are Mountains in graduate school, but I couldn’t pack up and live in the desert for a year to find out about desert life. It would have been hard for me to pick a spot in the desert and determine the flora and fauna, the temperature, and the layout. What I knew back then was that deserts were hot and deserted.
Now, facts flow almost as fast as I can type. I have written several novels, because I can do research while writing. I can access publication databases online from my home. I can answer random questions or look up childhood experiences to reminisce. I don’t know how I would do without the Internet, and I hope I never have to find out.
I achieved two items in my bucket list yesterday, both dealing with dinner. The first is that I got to eat a (reasonably priced and portioned) Black and Blue (Pittsburgh) steak, and the second is that I got to sit at a Chef’s table (in view of the kitchen).
My bucket list is ever-evolving. If I see something I want to do that’s not an everyday thing, I put it on the bucket list. Sometimes I put it on the list immediately before doing it. I think ‘helicopter ride’ was put on that list just as I climbed into the helicopter.
Sometimes things fall off the bucket list. Skydiving is definitely off the list, as I have become somewhat acrophobic in my old age. Walking the Illinois-Michigan Canal trail is prohibited because of my knees and my endurance these days.
I’ve got a new one I hope my husband will indulge me on one of these days. I want to go on that big Ferris wheel in Kansas City. Despite my acrophobia.
This will be a quick post, because I’m at Broadway Cafe in KC doing a mini writing retreat. Also because my keyboard is having trouble with the Space key, which I have to mash to get working. It’s going to be a rough day writing, I can tell.
This trip is going to include some rare steak eating — both in terms of “I seldom eat steak at a fancy steakhouse” and “I’m ordering this black and blue”. I apologize to all the vegetarians out there.
Words Like Me 