I Found My BAG!

If you’ve been following me the past couple of days, I have been plotting my Big Audacious Goal. (Not a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, which is very corporate focused and jargon-y.) A Big Audacious Goal needs to be extraordinary, must challenge yet be attainable, and must push one’s self-concept forward.

My BAG fits all of those conditions for me. It’s a simple goal, but one that requires a lot of courage on my part. And the BAG is … attending one writers’/fans’ conference to sell my books.

This sounds like a simple decision for an indie writer, but it’s one I’ve been putting off for years. Why? Because it’s scary promoting my books in the Big Leagues. I don’t always have faith in my books, and I am afraid to fail. I have done two writers’ open houses at libraries, and at the last one successfully sold 11 books (which is big for me).

This would be a step up for me, perhaps even a big step. St. Louis has a big science fiction/fantasy con with book sellers. It used to have a writers’ conference but no more. Kansas City has a writers’ conference that might include science fiction/fantasy. There’s a big conference in Colorado somewhere that intimidates me.

Face it, these intimidate me.

That makes selling at a conference the perfect Big Audacious Goal.

Time to Think About Big Audacious Goals

I think I’ve mentioned that there are two types of goals — there’s goals, and there’s Big Audacious Goals. We probably agree on goals — they’re expressions of desired outcomes, and we make plans to bring them into place.

Big Audacious Goals (BAGs) share that definition with ordinary goals, but BAGs have an added dimension. Big Audacious Goals are goals that lie beyond our comfort zones, demand that we believe in ourselves, require more from us. Big Audacious Goals start with wishes we believe are not possible for us. Fulfilling them changes our definition of ourselves.

My BAG this last year was to publish Apocalypse. I’ve published several Kringle romances and the prequel in the Hidden in Plain Sight (or Archetype) series, but Apocalypse was different. I had trouble letting the story go, because it was bigger and more important to me. It will be published January 1, 2024. Publishing it felt like a risk, and it still does. I don’t pretend it’s going to vault my career to stardom. But I’ve announced to the world that I am the person who wrote an alternative path to the end of the world, and an alternative path out of it.

I have to come up with a Big Audacious Goal for the New Year. Goals are easy; big audacious goals are not. Where is the place I need the most challenge? What will help me become a different person once I’m done? (Positive goals only; it occurs to me there are many serial killer routes that could be audacious in the wrong way.)

So, over the next week or so I need to find my Big Audacious Goal for the year. Any suggestions?

New Computer

After the incident with the cat peeing on my Surface, and wrestling with a used replacement Surface, I wanted a new computer for my work on books (writing, editing, formatting, creating covers, creating advertisements, etc). The computers I was working on were over three years old, and I could see their end-of-life coming soon.

So, confronted with a $500 off sale on out-of-box Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, we bought it. After a day of playing with it, I have a few observations:

Out of the box, it’s heavy. The specs said 4 lbs, but they forgot to mention the weight of the power brick, which is a metal power adaptor that, if thrown, could kill someone. It is apparently lighter than its direct competitors (mid-level suitable for most graphics tasks).
It has one TB storage and an i7 processor. And a graphics card. So it’s set up for the graphics I do (designing book covers and advertisements). I might push my knowledge base further and see what else these graphics are good for (within my meager ability).
The screen has visually stunning clarity. The book covers my niece designed for me positively glow on it. I’m hoping this clarity reduces eyestrain.
It’s fast. See also i7 processor. (I suppose I could have gotten the i9 model, but it’s too expensive and I don’t know if my skill level deserves that power).
It doesn’t have a touchscreen. Why would it? It’s not a tablet like my Microsoft Surface was. To be honest, I never used my Surface as a tablet. But I used the touchscreen when the Surface got one of its occasional glitches.

So far, so good. No weird glitches (as I have suffered with a few times on the Surface.) Working smoothly. Looks great.

Time for me to go play with it some more.

Happy Christmas Eve from The Elms

I’m sitting in the lobby of The Elms in Excelsior Springs, Missouri celebrating a very mellow Christmas Eve. Having no children or grandchildren, this is how our holidays go.

We eat at the local restaurants, we shop, we soak up local history. We got our massages yesterday (and that was marvelous!) and have had time to write. We’ve had time to relax, and heaven knows I needed that.

I’m posting my Christmas greetings to you now, because I will probably be busy watching Christmas movies tomorrow in-between writing and the buffet.

Merry Christmas!

Computer Problems

Did I mention my darling geriatric kitty, Me-Me, peed on my computer the other day^*? I didn’t know until it started ticking. And zapping. And smoking. And sizzling. Then I watched its battery meter plummet to zero, and that was the end of my computer.

I would do very poorly living in the future I’m imagining for my friends at Barn Swallows’ Dance right now, one in which they wait for the technological world as they know it to collapse. I have discovered that my computer is an extension of me — at least an extension of my creativity.

I know I could write on paper, but the convenience is gone. With the current technology, I can write and edit in Scrivener (a composition software), proofread in ProWritingAid, and format in Atticus. I can download the ePub file or pdf file which will go straight into KDP for publication. I can create covers for the book in Photoshop. If that sounded like a bunch of babble to you, I just described the steps of writing a novel from writing to publication.

I now have a new — well, used — Surface Book 2, hopefully temporary. Once I got rid of the glitch that caused mouse clicks to fail and me to consider yeeting it through a window, it’s working pretty well. It’s a pretty muscular machine with a separate video card and an i7 processor (That’s technobabble for “good for graphics but not top of the line video professional specs”).

My goal for our tax return is to get a similarly-situated machine with updated specs, maybe a faster i7 chip. The biggest thing about a new machine over this one is that this one is not only technologically obsolete, but is probably at the end of its service life, or how long it will live before it breaks. And I don’t want to be without a computer again anytime soon.

^*You may wonder what would possess a 14-year-old cat to crawl on top of a table and maneuver herself to pee on a computer. I myself wonder. My best guess is jealousy, as I pay a lot of attention to my computer.

25 Years

Today I was recognized at the university for 25 years of service.

It’s an odd feeling to realize that it didn’t seem too long ago. As my memory always works, there are a handful of snapshots I can bring to mind, with little recall of when they happened except that they happened here at Northwest Missouri State University and I was younger then.

I have survived financial exigency and the loss of the Family and Consumer Sciences department, a bipolar diagnosis, several budget cuts, many boring meetings, a couple ice storms, and the football team not making playoffs. I have experienced the university’s centennial, six national championships for the football team, the world’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade, and gratitude for all the people I have known here.

Eventually I will retire. But not right away; I’ll make it to my 30-year recognition.

Christmas Cheer is Postponed

The nature of being faculty is that fall semester ends in the middle of the Christmas season. That means that, while others are playing Whamageddon, I’m grading two major papers and three essay exams. Plus doing those end-of-semester things like filling out paperwork and fielding student questions (some of which would be answered if they read the syllabus). I’m single-minded and all I can think about is getting through finals week. I still have the three essay exams to grade and one exam to write.

I’m sitting in Starbucks looking at festive cups in green and red and — pink? I feel like that cup; something’s distracting me from being merry. Probably the three essay exams and one to write.

After finals (next Friday), I’m free for three weeks. I have to do a little research and set up my classes for next semester, but that’s on my time and in a place of my choice. The thing, though, is the change of pace, the ability to rest my mind and let go of the semester.

And, of course, taking the time to pay attention to the season, with its lights and tinsel and classic Christmas movies like Hogfather. I will get there. It’s less than a week away.

A Few Minutes to Think

I’ve had a few minutes to think between final project grading and final exams, so I’ll share my thoughts:

I don’t believe in “manifesting”. God is not an ATM. But just in case I’m wrong, you’ve heard it here first: I want my niche to discover my writing. I want an engaged group of readers who can identify with the small magics of Barn Swallows’ Dance and the power of InterSpace.
On being 60: I have to accept that I’m now reminding my students of their grandmas rather than their mothers. It’s a shock to the system; I don’t feel that old. Moreover, I think it’s affecting my ability to write romance, because I’m not getting those looks anymore. You know, THOSE looks. (Not lustful, but playful. That’s just how I roll.) It’s not bothering me; it’s just weird, like I’ve lost a color in my vision (say magenta) and I barely remember having it.
If I didn’t have a third item in this list, you would feel vaguely dissatisfied. That’s because three is a magic number. It’s not universally magic, but in a list, we feel satisfied when there’s a third item. Two becomes magic because of its connection to ‘either … or’. And couples, of course.

That’s enough. It’s time for me to write for a while. But first, a cat:

Thanksgiving

I like the idea of a festival to celebrate giving thanks. I don’t like the mythology of Thanksgiving so much — the white savior narrative, the lack of acknowledgement of the genocide of the Native Americans after that.

I like stuffing and mashed potatoes. I‘m not so fond of turkey. Turkey wasn’t even part of the original Thanksgiving (venison and fish were). Turkey is very dry unless you deep-fry it.

I like the fact that Starbucks is open, and the youngsters running the place are a bit silly today. One keeps doing bird calls for reasons I don’t understand.

I like being off work!

I Don’t Know What I Want for Christmas

I think this is my official announcement that I am getting old — I don’t know what I want for Christmas.

Given that “to be thin” isn’t a possible Christmas gift, I don’t know what’s left. I don’t feel a need for anything in my life. I have upgraded all my electronics except my computer (mostly with my own “mad funds”). I’m not in the market for anything small (like fountain pens; I found the fountain pen I like and need no more). I don’t wear jewelry. The only thing I need is a new computer, and the household doesn’t have the money to buy that as a present. The only thing I want is a squishmallow.

This is strange. My husband doesn’t want anything for Christmas either. I guess we’re both getting old.