Tag Archives: Writing

May 30th – Is this the month that never ends?


Seriously – is it?

I know we typically all lament how darn FAST the days/weeks/months fly by, but either this blogging every day thing has made time slow down or else the 31 days of May are THE longest 31 days of the year!

Now, I know I cannot attribute this feeling to just the fact that I committed to writing every day because 15 fully supports my description of May as THE LONGEST MONTH EVER!

I think it is a combination of the daily writing and just the events of the month. May leads into June. June means the end of traditional school. The end of homework monitoring and tussling with him over doing said homework. It means the end of those daily check ins to the online grading system and seeing those soul piercing RED BOXES OF HELL (missed assignments). It means no more weekly check ins to each teacher’s website to plan out homework for the week. June means the end of all of that. Something that clearly both of us are more than ready to get to! May was the lead up to the AP exam and it felt like once that exam was over that it should be time to take finals. And yet? Finals are a full 3.5 weeks later! WHAT?

While it seemed like the days leading to the AP exam flew by, the days since? Crawling.

May was the software upgrade for me at work. We’ve been on the march towards this for 6 months. It seems like it snuck up on us this weekend even though we were clearly well prepared. But then when it was over and the Go Live was official on Sunday, it then seemed like it should be June. Like we should be going right into working on closing the books for May and posting journals and…what? There’s still how many more days? Gah!

And then, yes, there is the writing thing. I certainly do sort of walk through the day perhaps a little more present or focused and thinking now and then about what I will highlight in here at the end. That simple act has probably tricked my brain into feeling like time is moving more slowly. Which, of course, is a GOOD THING!

Right?

 

May 28th – Pattern broken but writing done!


I toyed with pushing myself up this morning to run again. Keep that even day in may pattern going. But..since I did do that track workout yesterday and my toe is not 100% I decided it was OK to skip today and switch things around. I’ll still run every other day. The goal is to run before work tomorrow.  I’m OK with that. Will be interesting to see what my total miles for May will end up being!

I lounged, had breakfast and that went head first into writing again by 10am.

In fact, here’s where I have been pretty much all day Saturday and today:

Writing space for the weekend

I am very thankful that 15 was scheduled to be with his dad for this three day weekend. It allowed me to take over what is normally his main computer space. Those papers scattered all around me were the references I’ve found that helped me increase the quality of the instructions in the guide. I feel a lot better about the product now. I’ll admit to feeling fairly apprehensive about the first version because I knew there were gaps and places where I was clearly “vamping” to keep the word count healthy. Luckily, of the 19 books sold only two had to be refunded. One due to a third party vendor failure (the customer never received the files and by the time we could respond to offer a direct link, he had started the refund process). The other is an odd one. Someone bought the book, then 30 minutes later requested a refund directly from us stating the information was “amateurish.” Oh, that hurt, but I couldn’t argue too much! However, it took us several hours to be able to initiate the refund (we do work after all) and in that time frame, what neither of us noticed is that he accessed link to the book files about a dozen more times! In fact, he literally ”trolled” the site every day for three days even after we had refunded him and then disconnected his access to the file link. Weirdo! So I almost don’t count him as a “dissatisfied” customer. Not that he needed to grab the files so many times. Once he downloaded it if he wanted to share it print it out a bazillion times he could. There’s nothing we can do about those scenarios. The lesson we learned is to go ahead and wait 24 hours before initiating a refund and watching the site stats first.

The point is – I am no longer nervous about any of that. The 6000+ words in the book are all now *quality* and so are the website pages (most of them at least…still have a couple of deeper pages to update)

Yeah, between the book, fresh pages, supporting blog posts and oh yeah, writing in this place I figure I’ve pounded out a cool 10,000 words between Saturday and today!

Phew!

I did have enough brain power afterwards to go to the grocery and do laundry – aren’t you impressed?

And now – I am going to sit my ass on that sofa and surf the 1000s of channels for some mindless crap on TV.

Toodles.

May 26th – My writing writing writing motivation


But first….

The *plan* today was to lounge as usual during Uppers, then run on the 56 trail avoiding the extreme hills for a change, then shower, then start writing, then eventually head over E & R’s place for afternoon working and dinner.

That latter bit didn’t quite happen, but I did have a really really enjoyable run. I used to whine about the rolling hills on the trail, but after three straight weeks now of running the ass kicking hills around my block, those gentle hills finally do seem – gentle! I didn’t want to overdo it since we have a longer run workout tomorrow but I did run for 3.3 miles over 35 minutes and honestly felt fantastic the whole time. I enjoyed the smell of the chaparral, the bird songs and even getting to see some of the little songsters as well as many butterflies. There was a lot of activity in general on the trail including a little girl being led around on one of the local horses that board along the trail.

After the usual post running routine and a few chores, I sat down to write.

OK, so why am I embarking on this writing and web business development journey? Is it just for money?

Well, since in the last 9 months I’ve made a grand total of $400 on it – no, not entirely! Is there a damn good chance of more money than that? Absolutely!

But that’s not everything. I have never in my life been about money for the sake of money only. If so, I would have gone on to get my MBA or my CPA license.

No, I truly truly LOVE what I do at NU. And I have found out since working with Eve, that I also really really LOVE this writing thing!

OK, so technically it is copy writing that I am doing along with (so far) a how to manual.

But I am also learning. And I have always loved learning. It’s why I read so much. Mostly online of course, but still doing the best I can to read magazines and books.

Do I *want* this to replace my day job? Not at all – at least not yet! I need and love my day job for what it is: financial security, benefits, retirement accounts, an awesome work environment and something completely different from writing. It’s like I get to use both sides of my brain nearly equally through the day. Balance. Love it!

Since I do have a means to support myself already, (and so does Eve), we are not desperate to start something and screw it all up. We can take our time and go through the proper steps and make mistakes and learn from them and it isn’t life or death.

Given all those reasons why I am enjoying this, I was actually not terribly disappointed when it became clear as the day unfolded that the girls would not be able to meet tonight. I started in on a new version of the ebook at 11am and I didn’t stop until 7pm. There are 9 chapters, 8 needed to be completely re-written or replaced and I am plowed through 6 of them today. I stopped at 7 because I could feel myself getting tired of the topic which means I would start cutting corners and I don’t want to do that. No, I’ll let this sit.

Tomorrow will probably be an off day from pergola topics. Got the message that the upgrade is going along as planned so I will need to get into NU at noon. We are running at 6:30. I’ll be at NU for 3-4 hours. I really really need to buy groceries. If we meet at all it will be on the topic of other business sites. It’s a three day weekend so I’ll pick this up Monday and probably finish it and even still have time to sit in the sun.

Enough rambling – lord, I’ve writing a bazillion thousand hundred words today! Have some not unexpected beautiful lavender flowers:

 

May 25th – Losing Steam


Uh oh – I guess I should be impressed that I maintained my motivation to write in here every day for this long!

I was literally in bed before I remembered tonight.

Can you blame me? It’s Friday. It’s been an intense week. I left work after FINALLY training with my co-worker on her tasks about as late as we possibly could today. If anything at all goes wrong in this upgrade process this weekend and we cannot start testing until after 2pm Sunday, then I have to cover two systems. That’s fine – but I haven’t worked on a daily basis in the Asset Management side in several years and I really needed a refresher. I’ll be fine, but let’s all of us out there in internet land cross our fingers for a smooth process ok?

Meanwhile, after spending every night this week heading out *somewhere* I was just thrilled to get home and not have to go anywhere.

The problem is that I did have to write. Just studying the first module of the web business design class has reinforced to me how much the site AND the ebook need upgrades. To my dear friend who amusingly pointed out that having the read the word “pergola” in every other sentence was jarring – I agree! Thankfully the focus on heavily laden keyword articles for SEO placement is falling away. Now I get to write for CONTENT, simply placing the keywords in more naturally occurring places. I was fighting that all along so this will be much easier. But, it also means yet more re-writing. Argh!

So after a rather disappointing Bistro Meal package dinner of shrimp risotto, I got down to the business of improving the business. Two new website articles and the first chapter of the ebook are revamped and I’ve got the new chapter titles and approximate order of them assigned.

After all that I watched the season finale of Glee :-) Needed the total focus shift. I still love that show. It’s more of a guilty pleasure now and other’s have fallen off the trendy bandwagon (especially since some episodes did sink into silliness), but I still laugh and cry and smile and sing along with the songs. Kurt’s dad doing “Put a Ring On It”? Utterly, perfectly, touching and hysterical. Love those two characters and their interactions.

Anyhow – a moment of beauty – no pictures today. That would have meant I prepared! But, as I was typing away in the blissful silence of the house because all other occupants were gone…well THAT was a moment of beauty for sure. Then off in s distant corner of the room I heard a faint sound that is even more fabulous than silence.

It was Chip. Drinking water.

I could hear his kidneys continuing to heal with each exquisite lap of liquid.

Dream on my friends!

May 19th – Hearth and Home


Catchy title eh? Ads a lovely delusion of grandeur to the much more boring reality that I basically stayed put and did chores ;-)

OK, not entirely true.

I did run out to Starbucks to grab breakfast. My cereal box for the week was empty and I didn’t want to make eggs and I have $ on my gold card so – Saturday treat! I enjoyed it while watching Up & Nerdland on the DVR.

THEN the chores started.

Well, sort of because I had planned on getting that water fountain for the cats and also some new everyday shoes for 15 and then meet up with Padres/Adam Lambert buddy David at the mall so he could pay me for the tickets I bought for him. We decided to meet up for lunch there so we could catch up because I realized that while I “see” him on twitter on facebook everyday – and he is constantly updating both – I had not actually TALKED to him In Real Life (IRL) in almost two years!! So strange. I swear I feel so close to many people who I engage with every day via one of the social media sites that I forget how rarely I see them IRL (if at all).

It was a great time and also quite encouraging to talk to him about things like college with 15 there. David is young – younger than 26 – and he and his boyfriend are both just finishing their bachelors (though David started a little late). Sergio graduates in June and David graduates next year. The encouraging part was when 15 told him about wanting to study computer science, David’s eyes lit up and he shared that his brother completed his degree in that at SDSU and went right to work as a programmer with SDG&E (local utility company). That got 15′s eyes to light up and hey – as you all know all too well – ANYTHING we can do to get his motivation and interest perked up is a huge blessing!

Ok, once we got home from THAT we did stay put. Cleaned, did laundry, cleared out the ‘fridge,  setup the fountain and watched the cats. They decided it was interesting but not worthy of drinking from it. Grrrr. Chip stuck his nose in the falling water and promptly jumped back shaking his head. I let it run for awhile since it was supposed to do that to prime the pump and then later I turned it off and sure enough about 10 minutes later they both drank from it. Stinkers!

Spent the rest of the day reading and researching for improving the ebook and also just in general on content writing or simply writing techniques. It was good to see that the system of steps I came up with on my own to do this research seems to be consistent with what other web content folks follow. I’m either brilliant or a lot of this stuff is just common sense ;-) Sometimes though, we need to be reminded of the basics to get them to click more solidly in our pea brains that retain knowledge for a grand total of about 3 minutes!

Now back to Lizz Free or Die which I am absolutely loving.

Peace out!

May 15th – Nada Mucho


In my quest to learn as much as I can about web marketing and copy writing and those new adventurous things I’m trying to do to help me earn more money for things like, oh, cats and their clogged up bladders (ahem) – I watched part 1 of a video series specifically on copy writing. The first assignment from this lesson? Write. That’s it.

Just write.

The goal is 200 words a day on anything at all. I’m like “yeah, I got this!” – apparently my instinct towards pushing myself to write even about nothing every day was a good one. I have to admit that when I do sit down to compose something either in here or else on the other sites, I have found it much easier to simply get started. That often elusive first sentence tends to be right there waiting for me even on more technical topics. Speaking of which I will probably have to re-write the process documents at work with this new upgrade we launch in two weeks. I used to dread….and I mean DREAD those types of tasks. I would put it off as long as possible and much like essay assignments in school I would rather manually scrub an oven than do that!

Not anymore.

Kinda like running – the more I do it, the less I loathe it and heck, maybe I even like it a little (or, a lot!)

Case in point, I opened this window just after dinner – cooked again by 26 who made my mom’s special chicken teriyaki with veggies recipe – with the intention of writing something before 15 and I got into watching a 2 hour Glee. But, I got into research for improving on the pergola ebook and the next thing I knew it was 8:30 and we needed to start watching it in order to get to bed at the usual time. We finished the show at 10 (still love it!) and just as I went to turn out the lights I remembered by commitment to post every day. Normally, I would have grumbled and uttered some choice words, but instead I thought “no problem” and gave myself 15 minutes to drop some words on a screen.

The day itself was unremarkable which is pretty much the best kind. No drama. No tussling over homework. Chip did pee on the floor, but it seems more to have been mental since he’s otherwise showing no signs of a blockage and the vet did say that the feliway spray takes almost a month of application to fully stop the behavior no matter how it started.

427 – that’s how many words are up there after 10 minutes of typing. I don’t know whether or not I am getting *better* at this writing thing, but I do know it sure is a whole lot easier now.

 

 

The merry month of May


So here’s a rarity. I’m going to try to write in here every night this month. Sort of like a (gulp) actual diary. I’m sure it will largely be boring and frequently short, but I know I will need to do some non technical writing to keep my brain clear. Having sold more books we are going to really ramp up the fresh content & format of PDIY. Also going to update the book itself & look into formatting it for kindle, nook & iBooks. Oh yeah, and finish up the in depth market research for the next site.
Yipes! I’ll need a place to process the rest of my day so prepare for the mundane.
Por ejemplo:
The first 60 mins of today (4/30) were a total fail. Woke up sore as hell from three hours of workouts yesterday & as an added bonus! Special! Sinus headache included. Chip peed on the floor while I ate breakfast do I got to clean that before I left which caused me to leave my phone at home. Ugh. Thankfully, I managed to shrug off the foul mood (though not the headache) as the day wore on. It helped that work itself went along pretty smoothly and that two more ebooks sold – yay! 15 was his usual uncooperative self regarding school & did the bare minimum as usual at first. Then he started talking about his Xbox “clan” and a schedule & goals and I said. “THAT! Show me THAT organization & motivation to meet goals with school & I’ll help you clear the space & time to reach your clan goals!” jeepers! Got a bit of agreement on that actually.
Meeting with Eve to get organized over dinner helped finally turn the day around.
Then Chip peed again :( ugh that cat!! I know I should take him to the vet soon. $$$ other than the peeing he is fine though. At least it’s just two spots on the wood floor (so far)
Now for the dorky part of this experiment: I am rating Monday Yellow. A little pee, a little virtual sunshine with both jobs & a middle of the road schoolwork day.

It’s a good busy!


It is so damn odd to have Sports Boy here during the month of July! I have felt so disoriented. Every summer for the past five (six? seven?) years he has hopped on a plane to Sweden pretty much within a week of school ending. Sometimes the very next morning. He would return the last weekend in July because pop warner football practices would be starting Aug 1. Even though he started high school last year, he still went on his trip because he could get away with missing the summer weights program as an incoming freshman. The next three years? Not so much. As a JV or Varsity player you had better participate. There is a mandatory No Contact period for two weeks beginning the week of the 25th before two a day practices start so football families are expected to plan their vacations accordingly. This year he is saving the Sweden trip for Christmas. It will be his first winter over there and while I will most likely whine about it, I have also known for three years that he would go there this year. Great grandma turns 90 at the end of December and yeah, he needs to be there for that.

So this summer has been a whole new experience. Weight training 4 days a week. Passing league (since he is a wide receiver) for a couple of hours after weight training two of those days. Sometimes the passing league is away at another school so they can compete in a touch football style game. That means driving since there are no buses taking them anywhere over the summer. Then he has his dog sitting job providing him with a little spending money which has been just perfect. The house is around the corner from mine and once we gave them his football schedule they have inserted a few hours every week for him to give their new puppy a break from the crate while they are at work. We opened a teen bank account for him this week so that he can deposit the checks he is getting and I’m sure it will be fun teaching him cash management!

Then there is my fitness routine. No longer is it an after work for an hour class thing. Now it is me finding time to run – often in the morning no less! It just makes sense in the summer to go out before work. No school drop off to rush to and it is a much more pleasant temperature. I can get in a good 30-40 minute run and still get into work by 8am without too much effort other than actually getting OUT of bed when I wake up vs lounging around with the cats watching TV until 7am :-) Since I am trying to run 3-4 times a week that means at least one or two morning outings. The other times I usually join our teammates on their training runs. This week I did intervals for the first time. That was interesting! You try to run faster for intervals of 5,4,3,2 and then 1 minute with short 1.5 minute rests in between to get your heart rate down. I kept it still fairly slow the first 3 intervals but then I really tried to keep up with Eve on the 2 minute one and I ran flat out with her on the last one. My heart rate shot up to 184 at the end and I was starting to get a bit fuzzy vision but it was pretty fun! The good thing is that my recovery was no problem. No soreness or pain anywhere after.

I’ve also started helping out a friend on a business idea which means me doing more writing. Which cracks me up to no end! Me? I *hate* writing! Well, yeah, but I also hate running and well..see the paragraph above. Apparently I need to be careful about what I declare that I hate because sure enough, that will be the next thing the universe puts in front of me that I just cannot avoid. On the other hand, in just about 20 minutes I’ve written over 700 words for this blog post so – I guess it’s not so bad eh? So if I can find a way to make a little extra $ then I am on it. Plus, it’s pretty interesting and fun. That’s the best right? When you can do something that sparks your imagination and interest?

That’s the first half of my summer so far – how is yours going?