There are a lot of birthdays. There is Carol’s birthday and today is my husband’s birthday. I made him look for a lego ninjago that the boys took from a neighbor’s house and then lost in our house which is a big black hole where nothing exists for more than five minutes.

It was a really fun birthday! 

So fun, in fact, that now he’s a Walgreens getting pictures for my son’s VIP poster which I forgot to make because I didn’t look in his backpack the whole weekend until five minutes before class and then I just sat on the floor and almost cried. 

Happy Birthday! Yay!

Here are some Birthday writing exercises:

1. Write about your worst birthday ever. Write every detail. Describe your house, your mom, the presents (or lack of), the food, the feelings, the weather, the hair.

2. Write about your best birthday ever. See instructions above.

3. Write about the birthday party you wish you were invited to. Mine was to a certain shallnotbenamed girl’s sleepover birthday party which she had every year and everyone got to go but me because she could only invite so many people and I would sit on my porch and close my eyes and imagine I was there and were they playing Nintendo? Eating Ding Dongs? Calling boys? I was so sad. And my mom sat with me and she said it wouldn’t matter in twenty years. It is now twenty years. Does it matter? Write about that.

4. Write about your character’s birthday. Does he/she care about it? What do they want? What don’t they want? How would they react to a surprise party? What about a water park party? Or Chuckee Cheese? 

I think Chuckee cheese is sort of gross. 

5. Write about the birthday of your MC’s enemy. Who goes? Does the MC? why or Why not? And who cares?

 

Take time every day to free write. Even in the constrains of your novel. It will make everything looser and fresher. 

The end. And happy birthday. 

Monday, Monday

So last week my computer crashed.

That means we didn’t have two or three days of blog.

 

If I post today, it means I was able to make my laptop do its job.

 

So, I have been thinking about several things.

Yes, it was my birthday.

And I received two very nice cards. One card that brought tears to my eyes.

And that card made me think even harder.

About all kinds of things.

 

Like my family and my writing and my attitude.

Yes! I know it! No one has to tell me I have a bad attitude.

Plus the other crummy things about me (that I try to keep hidden but unfortunately my poor girls have to deal with).

 

So, the deal is I have just under a year before I have another birthday and I want to work like crazy to see if I can be a better person. Better on the inside and on the outside. Better in my health, and better in my thoughts. Better at the way I look at things.

 

I once went to a therapist. (Okay, I went more than once.) And I told her I have really bad luck. And she said, no, my bad luck was all in my head. Then she saw me on the news after a freak accident and said to me, I guess you do have bad luck.

 

But I have wondered if I bring that bad luck on me because of my stinky attitude.

 

So I want to work on that, too. I invite anyone to join me.

Because part of my change is looking at myself more professionally. If I do, maybe I’ll start making money as a writer. You know, enough to live on so I can quit worrying.

 

Here are my writing goals for October:

1. Write daily. Write 1000-2500 words per day.

2. Finish a rough draft of my funny ghost novel.

3. Try to write an outline for two other novels. Not a deep outline like J. Scott Savage does (http://jscottsavage.blogspot.com). Just something loose that gives me ideas and direction.

4. Get all the conference stuff done in October so we can go live with the website on January 1, 2014.

 

Please share your goals or thoughts or dreams or whatever.

We still have to  think and plan for November and NaNoWriMo.

And after that, we have February when we will write our romance novels.

Then we’ll all be rolling with the homies.

 

PS I tried to send this and did it wrong so this post may be floating out there in WordPress land. 🙂