Category: Jane in St Pete

The Hines Shakes

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Photo by Sunsetoned on Pexels.com

It has been a while. Only a few months until my 20th website anniversary, which is when I’m leaving the weekly blogging commitment…so I’m tapering. The earliest iteration of this website was mostly just a blog. I wrote every day for many years and yes you can read it all here. I’m not disappearing…but I didn’t have any books out yet in 2002. Blogging was my bliss. Now I’m a multi-published novelist with e-publisher The Wild Rose Press. I’ve just turned in the second book in my second series for them. I’ve written a few stand-alones too. I even have a couple of free books and stories here on the website. My earliest novels were Kindle novels and I think they’re all 99 cents.

It’s difficult to dedicate yourself to too many things, and so not a lot of blog posts while I moved from Michigan to Florida and finished my 12th book. I’m about 75 pages into the third book in Jane in St Pete series–and wondering if it will be a trilogy. It feels like something new is hovering. Hoping to get Jane 3 out closer to Jane 2–Covid kind of upended life for me (and the rest of the world).

The most difficult thing moving has been finding new doctors and explaining things to them like the Hines Shakes. I was born Cynthia (Cindy) Hines. Sorry, the Hines Shakes are not milkshakes, but a condition medically referred to as “essential tremors.” It can interfere with writing. In our family some folk can’t write their name without meds.

I use medication, but I don’t want to become a prescription medication addict, so I check in with the doctors. I think I have finally got a plan with a good doctor and a therapist as well as a neurologist and other specialists for other conditions besides these shakes. One priority besides being able to type my novels is having the energy to run a household again. We have been in condos for almost a decade. Now we have a big yard, several garden areas, a lanai (that’s what they call a screened in porch in Michigan) with a built-in hot tub. The house is our largest, too. Not by much, but at 67, it’s a bold move. My husband has more energy than me. As our financial manager, he’s been riding this crazy stock market wave with a cool head and well as fixing up this place, which was a bit more of a mess than we thought.

He does all the difficult jobs like landscaping and keeping the hot tub spotless, plus he’s been working on the master bath walk in shower. He had to pull up tiles, clean up rot and re-whatever it is you do to make them new. We have chosen a painter, who starts on the inside end of June. After rainy/hurricane season he’ll do the outside. The hurricane shutter guy is coming in a few days. We do have hurricane shutters but after having to buy a water system, replace a dishwasher plus those floor tiles and more, we don’t quite trust them.

I’m doing my same old cooking and cleaning and laundry and shopping. Al finally got a grill so I try to have him cook dinner on that a few times a week. I still make the salad. And I’m writing!! Just not blogging so much.

Summer School

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Look what popped up as we got our gardens ready to grow! We had no idea what most of the gardens would look like aside from the palms. Ed, who takes care of our lawn, also trims the palms. We have seven of them. They’re beautiful. It’s starting to rain a bit here in SWF (Southwest Florida) and rainy season soon will be about an hour shower or storm daily. That’s beautiful too. With wind, the palms stream water through the rain. So otherworldly. Well, if your world for 66 years was Michigan.

A snag occurred in Jane Book 3 last week when our calendar overflowed with invitations from friends. The Michigan people are going home, so we had get togethers to say a final goodbye (until next year) and the new neighbors are inviting us for get to know you cocktails. Someone had a party every day last week. At first I thought, oh that’s fine, I’m done writing by 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Well, ha, writers need to be in shape to write. Maybe just older writers? Party drinks and fancy snacks will sneak up on you. Over the week, instead of writing, I filling the gas tank with naps and reading to get myself ready to be social. The just-started story was reduced to scribbled plot notes.

Today I was determined to get back to work but it took me an hour just to turn on my new computer and find the Word program. I tried to do a blog post first but Windows didn’t recognize my Word Press sign in. So here I am on the Mac. But I have to stay with the story on Office/Word. I HAVE TO. I would like to maybe take an online class. Or two. http://www.wethegeek.com had some good info. I’d like a personal class like I got with my genius at the Apple Store. Not sure Miscrosoft has that. In an ideal world I’d like one tutorial for switching from MAC to WINDOWS when blogging and one for writing novels. Also email would be good too. Had no luck finding my email on Windows.

A thing about getting older is learning new stuff takes longer. Also Al is only willing to help me with this up to a point. He got my garden growing, moved furniture, painted living room, keeps the spa ready, and so much else. Even some golf. 🙂 My plan for now is to just use Word and get on with my story. And blog on the Mac. For now. Until school starts.

Van Go!

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Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

Work on the novel is going well. Today I’m taking a day off for a date with friend Donna to see Van Gogh exhibition. I have to get ready in a minute. I’ve spent some time trying to post photos of my darling granddaughter (she’s five) when she saw the same exhibit. There’s an installation of his painting of his bedroom–she’s posing in it! So cute. But those photos are on a private family account. Plus the other thing where Word Press does not like a jpeg anymore.

My blogette on Twitter didn’t work, either. I wrote it last Monday and it disappeared. One person did retweet it before that happened. I’ll try the blogette again next week. Maybe with my own Van Gogh photos. But for today, I typed Van Gogh into Pexels and got pages and pages of people driving vans. Ha!

Took 3 days to revise 10 pages. I moved a subplot so that was quick and easy. Mostly what I did was take out boring parts and add in some color. I noticed even when I was doing the revision without stop that I had mostly dialogue. I kept going. Next weekend we’re having a writing Zoom meeting so I revised and added lots of description. Well, not too much. I had one goal with this revision and the description helped.

My goal: go somewhere. Take the story from negative to positive or positive to negative. And I did it. I try to do that with every scene. Make it move. Van go!

Shake it Up

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Photo by Aishwarya Rivonker on Pexels.com

A few things. I’m not going through the hassle of converting from whatever photos is saving pictures to now or how WordPress is doing it now to jpeg anymore. That takes longer than writing a blog post. I am back to writing my novel daily and so I’m just using Pexels which comes with WordPress. I had a picture for today, too. My own, I mean. I’m so stubborn but finally I have caved into corporate blogging. It’s been twenty years and mostly the changes have been good. No more coding. I would code an image but I forgot how to do it <i/>. I could google it, but I’m trying to save time to write the book. Googling leads to trouble. Hours of it.

Yes back at the book for real. It’s been two weeks. Every morning first thing. I have a new writing partner who was having same stuck problem as me. We are in a mystery novel critique group together. She’s the reason I’m writing again and loving it again. Most of the time. I’ve never had a writing partner. It’s working for both of us. Before her, I was writing five pages a month, mostly spurred on by my group. Accountability.

Yes, the moving to Florida forever took a lot. But that’s done.

So from 1500 words a month, or 750 words in two weeks, I have progressed to 7000 words in two weeks. Maybe 14,000 by the end of the month?! After all my new writer energy burned out at about book 7 or 8, I learned this butt in the chair habit from NaNoWriMo. I learned it was possible to show up with a blank mind and build something. I built a Bat Cave 2020 today. (My book is set right before Covid). Didn’t know the spy house was coming. I knew Jane was going to visit Jesse’s house for the first time. I had no picture in my mind of what it would be like. The words and images showed up. I really like when that happens. So fun living in my head and following Jane around.

Now I’m learning the power of a partner. We do not stay in contact through the week with pep talks or anything, too busy writing. We are both determined self-starters. I keep a running tally like I used to do with NaNo. We just connect on Sunday, share what we’ve done and how we feel (we were both down and uninspired when we started this). She’s benefited as much from the partnership as I have. Writers are jealous of their writing time. They don’t want to share. But a minimal share like this (or a group!) can have maximum effect.

How did we find each other? Our group. She said “I’m struggling,” and I might have said “Me, too.” Then I got the idea to check in with each other once a week and texted her and she said she was in. I had no idea if she’d go for it. But she did. The thing is, if you want a partner, look around and then ask. If she’d said no, I would have understood. Writing is such a private thing (until you’re published and then it isn’t). Showing your word count feels like showing your bank statement. But nope, it’s motivation. And it works.

The other thing is I’m going to blogging every two weeks. One week I will post a pic of my own on twitter and write a blogette. The next week I’ll do this. For awhile. See how I like it. The older you get, the more you are willing to try things and then give them up if they don’t fit your life. Writers need to be careful what they let in. Speaking of, my dad and family are coming over today to see the house for the first time!

Writing is a Gift

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We had our first overnight guests (they brought gifts!) and watched our first sunset from our new beach which is maybe ten minutes away. This new place is so much more laid back than St. Pete and we love our house. When we booked the date with our friends, I told them I had my Zoom writers next day at noon and they were fine with that. Al was home so they hung out on the lanai while I worked. My writing friend and I are both having a problem pushing ourselves to finish our current WIPS. We decided on a simple weekly check in, how many pages, how many days. If for nobody else, then for each other.

Today is the first day. I talked it over with Al and have finally let go of the dream of sipping coffee and talking in the morning. He likes to check in with the market first thing so me writing first thing will help his plan. Our house is 99% finished and now it’s time to get back to work. Instead of 5 or 10 pages a month, I will try for 5 pages a day, or however many come out of a scene or sequence.

I noted that my writing has gotten a bit rusty, or maybe I didn’t revise enough, but I saw some plot holes in yesterday’s submission. So did my writing partners. They were very kind about it. Both of them saw the same problem and it was with the beat with which I was trying to wow them. Not there yet. I’m going to push on regardless. I have their notes and I know what I want to do there. I’ll come back to it. Now I’m pushing through to a finished first draft. I’ll let you know how it goes.