by Christine | Life
Goal setting. Do the words send shivers down your spine, or do they make you want to dig out your day planner and your prettiest pen, and dig in?
I’ve studied goal setting under the Franklin Planner people; I’ve been a devotee for over twenty years of their system. I’ve learned goal setting (and mission planning) from Bob Mayer. I’ve done a five main goals for five years, completely under Debbie Macomber’s spell, during an RWA National Conference Keynote Luncheon.
And yet, I’m still figuring out how goal setting and I get along. I know that a big mission is propped up with smaller tasks that must get done in order for the big mission to be successful. In other words, “life chunks” – those big rock goals – should be put into your life bucket first, so the smaller goals – those pebbles, the sand – can fit into and around the bigger goals. And your bucket still has room for water (lesser goals).
But I’m looking for more. I’m looking for your opinions. How do you set goals? How often do you review them? Do you have daily, weekly, monthly goals? A one year plan, five year plan, ten years? Career goals, personal goals, fitness goals? Do you separate out your goals (financial, fitness, career, house), or are they all a part of a master plan?
I’d love to know. Please leave a comment and tell me how you work your goals list. The comments will be open all week – and at the end of the week I’ll pick one lucky commenter to receive a $10 Amazon card as a thank you!
~ Until the next time, cheers – and remember to drink responsibly! ~
Demon Soul, Blood Dreams and Demon Hunt are all available for the Kindle! Have you fallen into the Caine Brothers’ world yet?
by Christine | Uncategorized
After eleven years of writing, two books published and one short story, I’m finally taking myself seriously. This past week I’ve been working through Candace Havens’ Fast Draft. The goal is to write five thousand words a day. Over two weeks (which means you get the weekends to bank words), you end up with a 50k novel. Or at least a beginning of a novel, if you write longer.
I’ve done NaNoWriMo. One of those books I will never look at again. The other is book 3 in my Caine Brothers series, and needs serious rewrites which I will be getting to soon. This , Candace Havens’ process, however, made me feel like a real writer.
I gave myself an out. I started back to work last Monday, after major surgery and being off for six weeks. So I said to myself, okay. Three thousand words a day. You can do that. And every weekday last week, I got up and wrote words before I left my house to go to my job. When I could, I wrote AT the job. Then came home, and wrote some more, to make sure I hit my 3k goal. Last Thursday, the Creeping Crud got me and I only wrote a total of 800 some-odd words and I was done. Needed to go to bed, drugged out on Nyquil. Friday I came back and managed over 3k words.
Saturday and Sunday, I kicked ass and hit over 5k both days. At this point, I might add, I don’t know what the hell I’m writing. The setup I’d first envisioned is ALL WRONG and I’ll need to rewrite it, and I figured that out Wednesday night just before falling asleep. Damn and double damn. But.
I pushed through. I wrote those scenes that had to happen. The attraction scene. The sex scene. The confrontation scene. The scene in the rodeo arena. (Okay, maybe that’s just me.) And through those scenes that had to happen, I started to see my story. So how will the second week of Ms. Havens’ Fast Draft go for me? I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll go backwards, and write the beginning again. I don’t know. Don’t care. Because in 9 days, I’ve written over 32k words. Even if a lot of them have to get trashed, I’m learning.
I’m learning about my process, about my story, and that, hell yeah. I’m a real writer, even if it’s taken eleven years to feel this way.
I’m a real writer. Seriously.
~ Until the next time, cheers – and remember to drink responsibly! ~
Demon Soul, Blood Dreams and Demon Hunt are all available for the Kindle! Have you fallen into the Caine Brothers’ world yet?
by Christine | Life, Observations
So, the hubby, since I’m safely at the day job, decides he needs to see if he can get our smallest kayak on top of our Honda Fit. And when he does manage to get it on there and strapped down, he feels that he really can’t waste the opportunity – and so, therefore, goes kayaking without me. After properly taunting me with the below photo.
Small kayak.
Harrumph. I hardly think that’s fair. But, as I’m snuffy with a head-cold and out-of-sorts from this book I’m currently working on (Candy Havens’ workshop is kicking me in the ass), and oh yeah have to be at the day job today, well then – I guess it’s okay.
But really. I could have used some baking in the sun today. (See, Brenda? I wasn’t joking – we do have kayaks, lol!)
~ ~ ~
Demon Soul, Blood Dreams and Demon Hunt are all available for the Kindle! Have you fallen into the Caine Brothers’ world yet?
by Christine | Life, Observations
Carlsbad, California with Pelicans & a Kite – taken by me, February 2012
It has been too long since I’ve gone to the ocean. Too long since I’ve heard the waves crash onto the shore, felt the tug of the tide beneath my feet. This week, I was able to go twice. At Carlsbad, the riptide was fierce and I only went in up to my waist, not wanting to drown.
But the second time? We went to a small cove just outside of Channel Islands Harbor. Hubby has taken the kayak out onto smooth water, and he’s going out and around the breakwater instead of around the harbor itself. I’ve settled into my new beach chair, a big-brimmed hat shading my face, arms & legs covered and a book in my hands.
The sky is impossibly September blue. Two white wisps of cloud make the blue even bluer. Further out, a marine layer hides the Anacapa Islands across from the breakwater, 3 or 4 miles away. The waning moon overhead is heading west, and a crow and a seagull troll the shoreline, looking for food.
Three paddle surfers at Carlsbad, California taken by me, February 2012.
The crow is cawing, disturbing my reading so I watch him for a bit. He keeps cawing, but no other crow is showing up. It looks like he got the wrong directions to the party, lol. At the crow’s feet, the water is a dull brown, with a white ruffle as a small wave laps at the beach. The water turns to a muddy green a little further out, before melting into a sweep of sweet blue. There’s a tern bobbing out there, in the middle of my oh-so-private bay.
It’s kind of amazing. On this big, wide cove, there’s only one other person and they are very far away. There’s a gentle breeze and the sand is getting hotter. The crow still caws, the seagull has launched itself into the water, the tern is in a contemplative mood. With a sudden flip of his wings, the crow flies off in a huff to find his crow-friends. I can hear seals, but I cannot see them in my part of the bay. A small white butterfly skims the edge of the beach, looking quite out of place.
I finally abandon my book and give myself up to the lure of the water. There are hundreds of sandcrab shells littering the high tide line, and as I wade into the cool Pacific ocean, more dead sandcrabs bob on the surface of the water. I strike out, get beyond the ghoulish bodies, and float on the chilly water, treading when necessary as a mere ten feet away from the shoreline has me out of my depth.
The water invigorates me. Reminds me that I am alive, and gaining in health and strength, and lucky to be able to do what I love. I have new challenges on my plate for next year, but I’m ready for them. Right now I feel I can take over the world, lol.
The hubby comes back, rhapsodizing over the pod of porpoises that swam around him, and that he followed, for about twenty minutes. We are both renewed by our time in and on the water.
Ahh. There’s nothing that a bit of salt water and a briny sea breeze can’t cure. Sometimes, I only need to get my feet wet, my hands wet, pat my wet hands on my cheeks. Other times I need the full-immersion therapy.
How long has it been since you’ve allowed yourself the luxury of going into the water at the beach?
Family at Carlsbad, California at sunset. Taken by me, February 2012.
I need to note – the above picture is NOT of my family. They were strangers on the beach at sunset. I was actually going for the pretty colors in the water, lol!
~ ~ ~
Demon Soul, Blood Dreams and Demon Hunt are all available for the Kindle! Have you fallen into the Caine Brothers’ world yet?
by Christine | Life, Observations
So, the hubby and I were at a restaurant last week, in Santa Monica, on a weeknight. And while it was wonderful to spend some alone time together, we had a ton ‘o fun people watching.
Not Santa Monica. This is Laguna Beach, taken by me this past February.
The couple in the booth next to us didn’t seriously come to our attention until, as we were chatting with our waiter, we hear this querulous voice.
“Waiter, is my entree ready? Because we really have to go.”
Our waiter apologized to us, appeased the woman, and disappeared. About 2 minutes later the manager appeared, bearing a steaming hot dish (which looked delish!) to the woman who complained. She complains at once – shrilly – at “all the heavy sauces” (we’re in an Asian Fusion restaurant) and since “nothing suited me, just charge us for what we ate and leave it at that”. The manager, in a calm, low-voiced manner, thanks her and goes off to prepare her check, the steaming dish still in his hand.
She tells her husband, in piercing tones we cannot avoid, “the dishes were all right, tasted good, but the sauces were just so thick.” Um, seriousWhen they get up to leave, her husband has an embarrassed air about him and she has that discontented look about her eyes and mouth that tell me nothing, ever, will be good enough for her to accept. It makes me pity her husband. They were close in age to me and hubby, but I really just wanted to smack her.
After they are well gone, our waiter comes back. Apparently that couple is the talk of the staff – she had sent back four – FOUR – kobe beef dishes. And didn’t pay for a single one. That’s beef down the drain since it hit a customer’s table. That made me want to doubly smack that woman.
And here’s a flower from my back yard, around Mother’s Day. Epithilium.
A much more humorous (and oddly sad) attraction at dinner was the couple at the bar. He was in his early 50’s; thick, curly gray hair, slightly portly but well within attractive, nice gray suit. She was blonde, tanned, young – mid-late 20’s – in a figure-hugging black strapless dress, shirred front, back and both sides.
We first noticed them because he was fondling her hand, which she had hanging from the back of the bar stool. But her hand was limp – she was not returning his affectionate caresses. For the hour or so we were there, it was an interesting interplay – his eyes would light up, he’d speak, fondle, she’d turn away pick up her drink, turn back, say something.
He was slugging back glasses of red wine. She was sipping what looked like Cosmopolitans. We couldn’t tell if they were conducting a clandestine affair, if they were co-workers, or if she were trying to sell him something (get your mind out of the gutter!).
For awhile, he stood at her side, pressing kisses to her hair, before gazing down into her eyes. He tried to kiss her mouth but she kept ducking him, once even putting her hand over his mouth. He finally did land one, and sat down in triumph. Then she started showing photos to him from her cell phone (which made me think she was selling something) because she was talking non-stop while he was drinking.
I caught a look at her when she went to the ladies’ room. Creamy skin, big tits, smallish waist, big hips all wrapped in a come-get-me package including CFM pumps in a beige that just didn’t go but whatever. The jarring note was the ever-so-slightly pissed off look in her eyes, the tight way she held her mouth.
While she was gone, he ordered new drinks for them. Then when he went to the bathroom? He took his wine with him. Um, REALLY??? People are weird.
Soon after that, she became much more affectionate, leaning her hand on his thigh, touching his face. He chugged his wine down and most of her last drink while she put on more lipstick, then they got up to go. As they walked away, her left hand was in his left hand while his right hand was firmly planted on her ample bottom. What a fascinating peek into other people’s lives…the stories I could make up!
And about our waiter? He’s a new stunt guy in town trying to break into showbiz. We are now Facebook friends, and will help him as much as we can with our limited stunt people knowledge, lol.
We left the restaurant thoroughly entertained and very happy to be together. When was the last time you did some people watching?
~~~
Demon Soul, Blood Dreams and Demon Hunt are all available for the Kindle! Have you fallen into the Caine Brothers’ world yet?
