To keep myself on task with everything I have to do outside of my day job, I've started Accountability Monday where I'll share my successes and failures from the past week and my goals for the upcoming one. If you too need something to keep yourself honest, feel free to join in. How I Did Last Week Ha ha ha. Past Alicia is hilariously deluded with her expectations because those goals? None achieved. I only got 15 revision hours complete out of my proposed 56 maximum. This revision is much harder than it looks. (That alone is a separate blog topic.) Also my goal of up to 6 hours of revision a day was way too optimistic. I work full time in a job that uses the same side of the brain used when revising. Even though I know this I'm angry at myself for not meeting or exceeding my goal. Progress is happening though, Lurkdom. If you remember last week , I was on page 48 with almost 300 comments that needed addressing. But now? I'm closing in on page 100! And look at a...

If you've been reading this for a while, you know I have a thing about cats. If you've been reading recently, you know that I've been dealing with a lot of life crap. Further, if you know me in real life you also know that the life crap is the kind that's hard or impossible to resolve. Which, in turn, has kinda made me a sad, cynical sack. Credit To battle this horrible thing called depression, I use Pinterest to find pictures of things to cheer me. This usually involves looking at cats, dogs, and baby animals in general. Then I found The Happiest Cat in the World . Yeah, he's been around for a while. But I don't care. He's adorable and seeing him just puts a smile on my face. I'm not the only one who can't resist this happy, happy cat. When I showed Hubby, he had the biggest smile he's had in forever. That alone is important. See more on  Know Your Meme But, Alicia, you have two cats. What is it about this cat that makes you so h...

To keep myself on task with everything I have to do outside of my day job, I've started Accountability Monday where I'll share my successes and failures from the past week and my goals for the upcoming one. If you too need something to keep yourself honest, feel free to join in. How I Did Last Week Much better. On the revision front. I did about 18 hours of revisions this past week, but I still need to step up my game if I want to actually hit my goal of having this done by mid-October. Past Alicia left me so much work to do that it's actually daunting at times. I mean, look at this screen shot from my revision session today. Each revision item makes the WIP stronger. This was taken when I was on page 48 and I still have 298 comments that need to be addressed. That's right, queue panic. And lack of sleep. Alicia, what about that exercise routine you've been talking about? Shhh... Let's not talk about that now. My Goal(s) For This Week  Achieve...

We're at mid-September already, Lurkdom. How is this happening? How can we make it stop? Or at least go on pause because I have a lot of stuff to do and haven't done half of it because of life. Speaking of doing or not doing things, you're here to see how I did last week. I almost forgot. If you're new, welcome to Accountability Monday where I tell you my goals for the week and how I did last week. Anyone can join in. :) How I Did Last Week  Simply put, bad. I completed my read through SCENES FROM LAST NIGHT and inserted all of my handwritten notes into the manuscript, but that's it. I kept wanting to nap and read Dark Tower 5 instead. My Goal(s) For This Week  Achieve 2-3 hours of revision per day for SCENES FROM LAST NIGHT. Actually start that exercise routine we failed to do last week. Biggest Challenge I Faced This Week Motivation and anxiety. The day job triggers my anxiety something fierce which makes everything else a major challenge. So thi...

The fantastic Erin Funk tagged me in the 7-7-7- challenge. How does it work? Post the 7th line on the 7th page of your WIP, followed by the next 7 lines. Then, tag 7 other writers to take part in the challenge too. This challenge was deceptively hard.Good thing I had several projects to look through. The scene below is taken from PHOENIX RISING. During this scene, my character is in jail. (Not for the first time either.) Over the din of conversation, Walker picked up the clang of a steel door in the distance. The only time it opened was when a guard brought food in, but it was too early for that. And if it weren’t, it would be only one pair of feet with a cart. Walker clearly heard two pairs. One of which had a definite limp that he knew all too well. Rage overtook Walker’s fear as his master’s mocking laugh echoed against the walls.  “I’m serious, Ianos. You should consider it as an alternative to… you know.”  Walker barely registered the officer that stopped in fro...

Credit Happy Labor Day to those in the US. This is one of my favorite holidays because I can thrift store shop for 50% off. On a weekday. Don't judge. But you're not here to listen to me fangirl about thrift stores. You're here for other things. Fact: I was a very prolific blogger. Further fact: Unemployment and subsequent employment threw all of that out of the window. Because of this summer's Ready. Set. WRITE! I managed to blog more than I have in years. And because of this, I'm going to continue with the blogging. Starting today! My new blog schedule will be Mondays and Wednesdays*. Mondays will be similar to what I've done over the summer by sharing goals and achievements. The other day will be a wild card. For Accountability Mondays, I'll use the following headers: How I Did Last Week My Goal(s) for This Week Biggest Challenge I Faced This Week Something I Love About My WIP Random Factoid of the Week Since I consider it fall as soon...