Elevator Enlightenment

I walked into my office building today and for the first time I was able to go right through security with my new badge. I got to the elevators and walked right in before the doors closed. There were about 7 other people in the elevator already and as the doors closed I stood carefully avoiding contact with any of them. Personal space, you know.

In the few seconds it took before the elevator stopped on my floor I had kind of a funny thought.

"This is like a scene in a movie."

I haven't had too many moments like that, where I felt like my life mirrored something I had seen in a movie, so it made me smile.

Have you ever thought that before? Or have you ever seen something in a movie that had actually happened to you?

New Life

I got a new job - I really like it and I'm making new friends.

I have a new apartment, a new place to live. It finally feels like home.

I am living in a new part of the country, a beautiful part. The Washington D.C. area is amazing.

Life changes so quickly and sometimes it's difficult to adjust as fast. Things you value might move to the back burner for a while. Now that I'm adjusting, I am excited to get back to my writing and reading. I wish that it was already a solid part of my life that didn't fall through the cracks so often, but I guess that's part of being a writer. I have to choose to write and keep making time to write even when there is so much going on.

New life is good.

Inspire the Imagination

About a month ago my husband and I visited the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. They have a beautiful facility and it was extremely busy, probably because it was also a holiday weekend. But the hangars are so spacious I didn't feel crowded at all.

The first thing you notice when you enter is the SR-71 Blackbird. It's sleek, black, and impressive. You can tell right away that it's something awesome. The fastest jet in the world travelling at 2124 miles an hour. Just cool.

They have some other really fun stuff on display. They have the space shuttle Enterprise, one of the Concords, various other planes of historical significance, and lots of missiles and rockets. We spent 4 hours there and I can't wait to go back for more.

I walked away with my imagination effectively sparked. And I was ready to sign up for flying lessons.

The point is, your imagination needs nourishment. Your mind, like other parts of your body, needs food and exercise. Your imagination should have a chance to soak in some things from the real world. So, get out and have some fun!

All Settled

My husband and I have moved from Arizona to Virginia over the last month. It was fun and scary. Now that I'm all settled into my new apartment, life is starting to feel more normal again. I have one more box to unpack and then it will feel like home. I have also been hunting for a job. I've had several interviews in the last few weeks, but no solid offers yet. I should be using this time to write, but I've been enjoying my time off too much.

Meanwhile, I submitted my NanoWrimo project to CreateSpace for a proof copy. It was really exciting to get it back, but only highlighted how much more work it needs. There is still some major editing to do before I'll really put it out there.

I also redesigned the site - let me know what you think.

So, it's back to normal life and back to writing.

Endings, Beginnings, and In Between-ings

I've had some major life changes the last month that got me thinking. My husband graduated with his MBA in May and took a job on the east coast. We took a month off to do some traveling and see family and friends before driving across the country to our new home. Now we are in Virginia and mostly settled again. He's finishing his first week of work today, and I'm in the thick of job hunting.

A big part of our lives ended when we left Arizona. We were there for 2 years, and although we knew we were eventually going to leave, we got pretty comfortable. We had a fantastic group of friends, which made it feel like home more than anything else, and I had a great job. When the guys graduated everyone took jobs in different places, though, so even if we had stayed it wouldn't feel the same. There were a lot of goodbyes and lots of promises made.

Then we had Summer of Road Trip. We drove from Arizona to Colorado to Utah to California and back to Arizona. Then we flew to Virginia and back. We packed up all our stuff and hit the road again stopping in Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. It was a lot of driving. And while it was awesome to see friends and family in all of those places, it felt like limbo. We didn't have a place to go back to and no emotional attachment to our destination. I don't think I could ever be a nomad.

Now we are making new beginnings. We're making new friends, finding new places, and generally having adventures. We're figuring out this new life and looking forward to what comes next. It's nice to be out of limbo, and all those goodbyes feel like forever ago.

These experiences over the last month were a little sad and stressful at the time, but I think that it will be good to reflect on for future writing. We have to have these personal experiences in life so we can understand what our characters are supposed to feel. My life makes my characters more genuine.

Do you have any life changes or experiences that have helped, hurt, or influenced your writing?

Coming Back

I have been very out of the swing of things recently. For a while there I didn't read anything, write anything, or blog anything. But I'm coming back. I've read 4 books in the last month and I'm starting to think about my WIP more frequently and I'm posting this.

When I go through these phases I realize how much I really enjoy reading and writing. When I don't make a point to pick up the next book or pull out the writing project I start to feel a difference in my life. I miss it. So I plan a trip to the library or remind myself to keep working on that novel. Soon life begins to feel balanced again.

Do you go through these phases, too? How does it change your daily life?

When Do You Give Up?

I've been reading The Third Translation by Matt Bondurant for almost a month now and just cannot seem to get into the story or the characters. Usually I give it until 100 pages before I make the call and I'm at 102 right now. I was expecting more action and adventure but it's more a careful product of some intense research into ancient Egypt. The subject does interest me, but I wish I had more realistic expectations at the start. I think I'm going to put it aside.

At what point do you decide to stop reading a book? What does it take for you to give it up? Have you ever been glad you kept reading when you almost didn't?

Life Distracting

Well! Where have I been!?

I'll tell you... life sort of got in the way of life. I do event planning, among other things, for my job and I had a huge event last weekend. It was a big deal and ridiculously stressful to the point that I was completely engrossed for two weeks straight. I thought about it all day at work, worried about it all evening at home, dreamed about it a night, woke up nervous in the middle of the night, then started worrying all over again. I am pleased to report that it went really well and all my superiors were happy with the results. I'm just glad it's all over. And I'm happy it went well.

So then it took me an entire week to feel like myself again. Now it's been three weeks that I haven't hardly thought about my novel. I was good in some ways. I emailed it to some trusted readers so they had time to read it without me pestering for feedback. I also had a great break from it all so I can come back with fresh eyes. The problem, however, is that I'm having a difficult time getting back into the swing of things.

I have decided to start today. I am posting here for the first time in a while, besides my Monday quotes, and I'm going to pull out my manuscript again.

Gotta start somewhere, right?

300th Post!

So this is actually my 316th post, but better late than never, right?

This is a big deal for me because I didn't know how long I would be able to keep things going here on Book 'n' a Mug. Granted, I know it's been slow recently, but I still enjoy what we've got here.

In the last 300 posts we've covered a lot of ground, but there are still paths not taken that we can explore! I'm excited to see what happens in the next 300 posts...

After the Holidays

The holidays are so wonderful but it's the time afterward that always makes me stop and think. In the midst of getting back to normal, real life I realize how much I want to accomplish and change before another year passes by.

It feels like a dream, those two weeks I spent relaxing and visiting with friends and family. It goes by so quickly and I know I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. It was wonderful and lovely but now it is past. The best part is that I feel renewed, relaxed, and refreshed. I am so ready for 2010!

I'm still working on first round edits for my current project but I am encouraged and excited for the work. I have so many things I want to do in my writing life this year and now that I've discovered how much writing means to me I hope to keep up the daily routine.

I don't know about you, but I got several books for Christmas that I can't wait to start reading! Because I've been so focused on writing I haven't made time to read recently, but that's definitely on the 2010 to do list.

I hope you'll continue to check in here at Book 'n' a Mug throughout the year. I'll continue to try and make it worth the effort. And thank you for stopping by! Let us know how your holidays were and what you're looking forward to in the New Year.

You Are So Creative!

What does creativity really mean? What defines a creative idea or what makes a person creative? Are we all creative or are there certain people who are inherently more creative than others? And why do we all strive to be creative?

With NanoWrimo only a few days away I've been thinking about planning and writing a lot. And the start of any creation is an idea. And before the idea is creativity.

Writing that sentence just now I see that the root word 'create' says quite a bit about what creativity is and what makes someone or some idea creative. I believe we, as humans, all have a desire to create. We all need some way of expressing ourselves by building and creating something from our mind using our hands. And that goes a long way to answer my last question above - we want to be creative because it means that we are building, contributing, and creating something new.

My sister is the most creative person I know. She has many interests but she's also very opinionated about the things she likes and hates. Her musical talents have been her main medium of creation and although she hasn't 'hit it big,' she still finds the time and joy in writing and singing her music. Although she's stuck with a boring secretarial temp job right now she is already planning her next adventure. I'd always hoped she would get a job where she could write ad jingles or slogans because she'd be so great at it. And because I have such a high opinion of her creative view I was flattered to tears when she praised a story I wrote a few years ago (my first NanoWrimo attempt, actually).

We admire creative people and strive to find creativity in ourselves. We all want to be unique. We all want to have a great idea we can be proud of.

So how can we cultivate creativity in ourselves and others? While you're thinking about that, let's give you more to ponder:

Mark McGuinness asks "Is Everyone Creative?" and includes Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk as well as quotes from Gordon Torr. Do you think we're all born creative or are there special creative people out there?

If you've decided that we can learn to be more creative, read on. Mary Jaksch of Write to Done gives us a fantastic overview of the Directed Creativity process developed by Paul E. Pisek. It outlines four phases: preparation, imagination, development, and action. This is how I'm going to start being more creative.

Want more things to work on to become more creative? Request approved. Dean Rieck illustrates 11 Traits of Highly Creative People at CopyBlogger. At first glance it makes sense that creative people have these traits. But at second glance, when you decide you want to develop some of these traits, it seems overwhelming. So, let's take it slow and start at the first one: "Have the courage to try new things and risk failure." I think NanoWrimo is the perfect vehicle to improve on this... Maybe we can move on to the second one in December.

Or maybe we should start with a simpler list. Leo Babauta gives us exactly that in his post "The Little But Really Useful Guide to Creativity" on his blog Zen Habits (which is a great one, by the way). The list is helpful, simple, and, most importantly, motivating. Let's go be creative!

And, since I usually do things in fives, my last creative creativity link. In your quest for fantastic and amazing ideas, think about where they come from. Dustin Wax of Stepcase Lifehack writes: "What separates the creative from the not-so-creative isn’t so much the ability to come up with ideas but the ability to trust them, or to trust ourselves to realize them." The rest of his post offers answers to the question "Where Do Ideas Come From?" and I must say they are rather good answers.

So what do you think? What do you do to increase your creativity? Where do your ideas come from? What are you having for dinner tonight? Just leave a comment, any comment.

Stargate Addiction

I am addicted to Stargate. I had heard of the movie that originally came out in 1994 and I think I saw it on TV once or twice. So when I saw Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis listed on Hulu I thought I would see what it is all about.

The first season of Stargate SG-1 aired in 1997 but I was immediately impressed with the feel of the show because it didn't strike me as very dated. The TV series follows 4 main characters who comprise the team SG-1 on their exploration missions to other worlds through a wormhole device named the Stargate. Click here for a more comprehensive explanation.

There are several things I like about this show. First, the stories are great. Granted, they have a lot of possibilities with the setup - they can create any sort of world they want to and that opens up all sorts of opportunities for conflict and plot. But the writers have come up with some really creative stuff. There is some structure which provides continuity, however. They have a core group of characters that we see in each episode (SG-1 team). They also established a antagonist in the form of an alien race whose main goal is to see the end of the human race. So these things form a baseline for most of the episodes.

Second, the characters are so much fun! You might think that with so many seasons of SG-1 the characters would grow static and boring, but I haven't gotten bored yet. You really get attached to the members of the team which makes the stories even better.

I haven't started watching Stargate Atlantis yet, so I can't give an informed opinion about that offshoot series. But I have become a quick fan of the new Stargate Universe series that just barely started. I highly recommend you check out the pilot. They did a good job of giving the basics so you don't have to watch all the previous Stargate shows to know what's going on. But you should anyway...

Wanna know more? Here's the official site. Totally disagree with me? Leave a comment and tell me why. Agree with me? Leave me a comment and tell me why. Have a TV show recommendation? Bring it.

Get Motivated!

So my post last week about feeling very unmotivated was kind of fun but not productive. And I didn't get any better the rest of the week. But this week I've been feeling the writing urge. I keep wanting to write something but haven't made the time to sit down and actually get it out. I think it's time for some serious motivation! I find that I always get excited about writing when I read about how others are doing it and they're words of advice. I've listed some links below to other articles and blog posts that got my heart racing. Hopefully something here will inspire you or at least light a fire hot enough to burn bright until you can get something out on paper/word processor.

Great post at ZenHabits.net about creativity that helped me feel confident and motivated. This is good not only for writing but any other creative endeavor you might be considering.

I tracked this one down to the original post because I thought it was quite good. Some tips from author C.M. Mayo via Work in Progress blog. Mayo gives 12 tips on how to hang in there and finish a novel and some are very helpful in getting started, too.

And sometimes the best way to start writing is just to start writing... deep, huh? But really, I have found that the best way to shake the dust off is to not try and write the next best-seller but to get the muscles working again. Give some of these a try and see if some inspiration hits.

Let me know if any of this is helpful and I'll post tomorrow about what I write today.

Unmotivation

Feeling rather un-motivated today - just tired and bonty (yes, I know that's not a real word, but it has become one in the Woodbury household when my Dad used it to describe his tired, confused, unfocused, and general out-of-it-ness). So here are some links that might entertain if you are feeling similarly unmotivated...

One of my favorite days of the year is 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' and they have a whole website dedicated to it. Also, this translator to assist those of us that are more inclined to proper speaking.

I'm always looking for more books to read and Random House posted this list of 100 best novels that gives me a great place to start or continue.

Words I wish I could use in every day language - thanks AbeBooks for a great blog.

Some very very cool enhanced pictures of the sci-fi/fantasy type. Some of these are amazing and really spark the imagination. The second one is my favorite.

And you know you've either been one of these people in a bookstore... or at least laughed at one.

This compilation of pictures almost deserves it's own post. Some of these libraries give me chills. Anyone else want to go on a world library tour?

Tomorrow: MOTIVATION!

Book Awards

I love following the AbeBooks blog Reading Copy and they post a lot of book news and information. It seems like every day they are announcing another book or author that won another award. Maybe I'll get it someday in the future but I just can't keep up with all of them. Do there really need to be so many? And how is anyone supposed to keep up with all the names, what they're for, when they're awarded and who has won them all?

Do you think it takes away from the honor of winning an award when there are so many? 'Award-winning book' almost doesn't mean as much. Of course, I would most likely feel very differently were I ever to actually win an award...

David Allison Quote

So I guess what I’m saying is – don’t worry about what you’re trying to say. Worry about the ideas, worry about your characters. Make your ideas bold and brave. Ensure your characters are real, live people not a mere mouthpiece for your opinions. The rest will follow, because it’s being written by you, and only you believe what you believe; only you look at the world through your eyes. And only you can say what you want to say. That’s why you became a writer, right?

David Allison did a guest post over at a blog I've recently discovered (thanks Strictly Writing). I rather liked his closing bit, but the whole post was rather good - see it here.

Actually, I've been discovering a lot of blogs lately, mostly through Twitter. So I will do some crazy referrals coming up soon.

Quote: Neil Gaiman

Only have time for a quick post right now and since I've been neglecting my reading it will be a little while longer before I have anything else to post about. But I continue to think about writing more... and I'm starting a Science Fiction Studies online course on Monday so that might provide me with more material. So now, a quote that Mr. Gaiman posted on his blog for the New Year that always inspires and motivates me:

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."

Twitter as a Resource

So I now have about 80 followers on Twitter and I'm following about 70 people. Among these, I get updates from several publishers, book fanatics, authors, and other readers. It is really a fun way to connect with other readers and book lovers because everyone shares so much information. I've been collecting links I found interesting or intriguing and figured I would start sharing them here as well. (I'll admit that I snagged this idea from Neil Gaiman's blog - he does posts like this all the time and I think they're fun). I don't want overwhelm you with all of them at once so we'll start with 5:

A fun blog post at Strictly Writing that had me nodding my head and laughing at the things only writers could understand.

An entertaining blog by writer/comic - fun to read. I like her tone and the flow of her posts.

Some tips from the new site I found (WEbook.com) on how to become an effective writer. I'm sure a lot of these will work - I just have to start doing them!

I've been trying to write every day the last couple of weeks. It's not going very well, but I've noticed some things about myself. One of these things is that when I get going I seem to latch on to a word or two and use them a little too much. This site caught my eye - tells you how often you use words.

I'm always looking for good lists of book recommendations. With so many books in the world I'd hate to miss out on some of the best. This line of thinking has also helped me justify not finishing any book that I don't enjoy. Here's two lists (board's and reader's) of the 100 Best Novels (thanks, Random House!).

So, a little for writers and a little for readers. Enjoy!

Chillin'

So I've totally been slacking on the whole post thing but I'm sitting here at home by myself watching a chick flick and felt like jotting some things down.

I'm watching Twilight for the second time, and I like it better this time, too. It's been cloudy today and it made me realize how much I miss that kind of weather. I like a cold rain every once in a while because it makes me reflective and cozy. I'm more prone to feel like writing when I feel cozy and thoughtful.

I've been slacking a bit on reading recently. I read a novel on WEbook.com by Rob Hansen called Sonnet Harbor. I finally finished it last night and it was really good. I'm hoping it gets selected for publishing because I think it was really well done. The characters are sincere and I liked the story a lot. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I've also been spending some time watching Stargate SG-1 on hulu.com. They have season 1 and season 2 posted right now so I got to start from the beginning. I love the stories - they are such great sci-fi plots. And the characters are growing on me now, too, although I thought they were a little cheesy at first.

So now I think maybe I'll do some writing and then get back to the book I've been reading on and off the last little while. The Chronicles of Amber have been highly recommended so I thought I'd give them a try. I'm only a little way in but I'm intrigued.

What have you been reading recently? Find anything fun to read or watch?

Flu, Cold, Birthday, Busyness

I always think that looks strange spelled that way (busyness) but business is a totally different word...

Yes I've had all of the above: I was sick with the flu first for a few days and missed work; then I was sick with a cold because I didn't rest up long enough to get completely better; then it was my husband's birthday, which was nice; and now there is just general chaos as I try to catch up from being sick. However, the lovely part about being sick is that you have a wonderful excuse to lay in bed all day and read. And you can bet your shoes and socks that's exactly what I did.

When I was better again I was craving more to read so I had a lovely trip to the library last weekend and now have a fresh stack of books on the counter to keep all my idle hours full. I started with Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. I'm very much interested in his work since I follow his blog and now follow him on Twitter, too. He's a great person to follow on Twitter, by the way, because he always has the best statements and news. Plus, he is always doing so many interesting things! I got halfway through this short story compilation and decided to put it on hold. Several of the stories were quite enjoyable, but several of them were not really to my liking. But I won't let that taint my high opinion of Mr. Gaiman.

So I moved on to Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I read Elantris last year and really liked it so I figured I would give his second book a try. And I am lovin' it! I'm just shy of halfway through and it is just what I was craving. I will be sure and give a full review when I finish.

But first, I have a couple other books and one movie that I need to cover so you can expect that in the next few days. (Let's be honest - it might be another week.) Although, I think I will probably finish Mistborn soon and move on to another story in my stack.

And Happy St. Patrick's Day, too!