Just wanted to quickly note that I've officially entered the 3-Day Novel Contest and am finalizing the outline today and tomorrow for the second book in The Courier Series.  

I've been thinking about posting how the contest is going on The Courier's website once or twice a day, but haven't made up my mind.  If I need to vent, I figure posting there is as good as in my journal, so drop by Saturday night if you'd like to check out how I'm doing.

I love the storyline I came up with for the second novel.  It is much different than book 1 and filled with lots of new characters.  It's all pretty exciting and I can't wait to get started on Saturday!

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a ladybug when I found one crawling through my hair over the weekend. Then I found another one this morning. It met me by the refrigerator as I gathered rice milk for my cereal and orange juice.

When something catches my eye and grabs my attention, I can't help but wonder what spiritual message I'm being sent.  So this morning it was off to the Internet to search for the meaning behind ladybug sightings.  I was pretty happy with what I found because it so perfectly suits where I am in life at the moment.  In summary, I feel my funky block melting away and now is the time for renewed creativity.  I felt it this morning, even before the second ladybug sighting, when I woke up to sparks of ideas for three new characters and more of the storyline for Warrant for Damnation. Exactly what I need while I finish preparing for the 3 Day Novel Contest.

If you are interested in learning more about ladybugs, here are a few things I've found:

"LadyBug Life, Rebirth, Abundance, and Hope. Lady bugs, a type of winged beetle, is a gardener's friend in keeping other more harmful bugs out of the flower beds. Lady bugs with their bright red shells and black spots carry the magic of rebirth. Red and black are the colors of thoughts and manifestation. Often Ladybug will appear to us when we have an opportunity to succeed, grow, and start something new. All of the beetle family transforms from larvae to adult, showing us we too can transform our lives. Ladybugs can consume large quantities of aphids and other harmful bugs which eat and destroy plants. When we garden with more conscientious we can be aware of this balance within the garden. Allowing nature to show us how it takes care of the pests, without the use of harmful pesticides and chemicals. So as Summer begins to fade into Fall watch for Ladybug to fly into your life. Let Ladybug consume your unwanted fears and encourage new adventures."  -- Raven Medium Website

"The Ladybug is associated with spirituality and religious devotion. The name Ladybug originated in Europe during the Middle Ages, when insects were destroying the crops. Catholic farmers were said to have prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. Soon after, Ladybugs appeared and began eating the pests and saved the crops from destruction. The farmers began to call the Ladybugs “the Beetles of Our Lady” and eventually they were known as Lady Beetles. The Ladybug's red wings are said to represent the Virgin's cloak and the black spots her joys and sorrows."

The Ladybug is widely considered a symbol of luck and is seen as a good omen when it comes calling. In Sweden, it is said that if one lands on a young woman's hand, she will soon get married. In France, it is said that if you are ill when one lands on you, it will fly away with your illness.

Ladybugs are also considered to be symbols of fire and the Sun.

Ladybug teaches life is short and it teaches to let go of ones' worries and fears, to trust in spirit and enjoy life. It brings the gifts of renewal and regeneration. The message of the Ladybug could be asking you to “Let go and let God”."  -- Montana Dreams Website

Yesterday I began reading week 2 of The Artist's Way.  It's all about recovering a sense of identity.

"This week addresses self-definition as a major component of creative recovery.  You may find yourself drawing new boundaries and staking out new territories as your personal needs, desires, and interests announce themselves..."

I got to a section on crazymakers that I found as entertaining this time through as the last time I read it some ten years ago. 

"...those personalities that create storm centers.  They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive.  And for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive.  You know the type:  charismatic but out of control, long on problems and short on solutions."

Rather than quote more of the book, I found this fun blog post, Five Traits of a Narcissist or 'Crazymaker' you must drop by and read.

I've tried to steer clear of these types of people, but I've sure put up with my fair share, some way longer than I should have.  Lately though, I've cut them out of my life as soon as I've figured them out.  It almost became a necessity after I started dealing with some health issues, thank you God, that are almost gone.  So I figured I wouldn't have much to work on in the crazymaker arena. 

LOL!!  I ran into one the very next morning.  A few doors down from our home.  Now ROFLOL!!

It was almost like God sent her to me to say, "Hey!  Wendy!  I guided you back to The Artist's Way for a reason.  Now go back and read that section again." 

I don't really feel it's necessary to go into the details of the crazymaker encounter because the message was sent and received.  Am now headed back to read that section again.

The first thing you've gotta get used to doing while following The Artist's Way are the morning pages.  Every morning the program requires that you write three pages of the first things that comes to mind.  I'm three days in and wondering why I stopped the brain dump journaling so many years ago. 

I used to do my morning pages on the bus ride into Downtown Denver every workday morning and with coffee on the weekends.  I think I still have the notebooks around the house somewhere.  I remember working for Qwest (U.S. West at the time) as a project manager back then.  It was the most stressful and irritating job I've ever had.  In hindsight, doing the morning pages probably saved my sanity.

Anyways, after dumping just 9 pages, I can feel the clutter in my brain chipping away, WHOORAY!  Funny thing is though, I don't remember what I wrote.  You're not supposed to go back and read over it.  So I have to ask myself, how insignificant is the stuff I let clutter up my brain?

If you read Tuesday's post, I complained that another year has passed and I'm not happy with my publishing progress, like I complain most years around my birthday.  By the way, it was an amazing birthday.  Thanks you so much to everyone who sent me happy birthday wishes.  You're all wonderful!!  Anyways, it turned out to be the best birthday gift I could have given myself, being critical that is.  It finally got me to admit that I'm going through the dreaded "writer's block," which I prefer to call "the funk."

Hey, we all go through it at least once in our careers, right?  For me this is trip number two through the thick gunky dark bottleneck of writer's block.  I didn't recognize it at first because I've still been writing, which is why I feel this is more of a funk than a block.  It's the low number of new words and frustration with editing that were the first clues I ignored.  The second clue is the pages of The Courier that are sitting in the word processor, ready for release on Twitter and the website, but I just can't bring myself to copy and paste it in.  Third clue, doing lots of research for Bloodleggers and avoiding connecting with my main character, Miss Regina Todd. Oh, yeah, and there's the whole wanting to quit thing I've written about in the Bloodleggers and The Courier blogs.

So what now? I asked myself before I rolled out of bed yesterday.

First thing I did was pull one of my favorite books off the shelf that I keep handy for such emergencies.  It hasn't seriously come off the shelf for ten plus years though. The Artist's Way got me through a pretty "funky" rough spot back then.  All it took was a quick read through the introduction and I realized that I have more than writer's block.  This is also a spiritual disconnect.  This quote alone in the margin of the book spoke to me and confirmed it.

"I myself do nothing.  The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me."

--William Blake

I don't want to go into too many details on the spiritual disconnect today, but after reading the introduction to The Artist's Way, I needed some spiritual guidance.  So I went searching for the nearest spiritual book I could find, which around here could be connected to about any religion.  Beside me was Jefferson's Bible and The Koran and neither were quite appropriate for what I was seeking out.   So I walked into the living room and found a quick read, The Essence of Happiness, A Guidebook for Living by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D.  This is a tiny little book my sister gave me years ago.  It sits on an end table in our living room between a statue of Jesus and The Buddha.  I try to read this book whenever I feel my life path is being distracted by anger or other negative emotions.  I read it, and to make a long story even longer, I found this passage inspiring.

On a personal level, being open and sharing things can be very useful.  Because of this nature I can make friends more easily, and it's not just a matter of knowing people and having a superficial exchange but of really sharing my deepest problems and suffering.  And it's the same thing when I hear good news, I immediately share it with others.  So, I feel a sense of intimacy and connections with my friends.

So I've decided to share my journey in the midst of my "funk" here in my blog.  Mostly it'll be connected with 12 weeks of following The Artist's Way, which is also, as the title states, "a spiritual path to higher creativity."  I'll be sharing lots of the negative, lots of the positive, and lots of spiritual talk that will be connected to about every religion and philosophy on Earth, past and present.  It all depends on where The Universe and God decide take me. 

I don't want to make this just about me though.  If any other writers out there are experiencing what I am, and you want to pick up a copy of The Artist's Way and join me, let me know.  I'd love to include links to your blog or make my blog available to you if you need a place to vent.

And so the journey begins...

Best birthday present I got so far today came to me while doing a P90X upper body work out this morning.  Physically I don't feel any different than I did twenty years ago, and I have greater endurance.  Of course I have to sneak in the gluten free and mostly caesin free diet over the last couple years has helped decrease aches and pains tremendously.  Smile and frown lines are a little deeper, but I've earned 'em along with a few more gray hairs.  

Still, this isn't a completely happy day.  What gets to me every year is the progress I've made as a fiction writer.   It's hitting me especially hard this year.  Maybe that's why I've been in such a foul mood the past month or two.  You'd think I'd be working harder for success, but I'm still fighting the urge to quit.

Oops...it's my birthday.  Keep it positive!

Now that I'm a year older, maybe a nap would help.

While perusing through blogs this morning I came across 10 Things I Love About Being a Writer by Erin Cole on Listen the the Voices. Drop by and read her list. She had me chuckling and there's some great comments.

What are my 10 things I love about being a writer?

1.  I can get away with saying reading fiction novels is a part of my occupation, and books are a tax write off.

2.  I get to work every day with the beagles within petting distance, and take them out for a walk whenever I feel like it.

3.  I can do housework in between writing and editing. 

4.  No insecure moron control freak boss to deal with every day, although the ones from my past keep popping up as evil characters in my books.

5.  You get to meet tons of other fabulous writers.  Writers and just great people!

6.  When people hear I write horror they assume I'm crazy, and they're mostly right.

7.  I don't have to live in reality for 5 or 6 hours a day. 

8.  I get to legally kill people in print.

9.  I have total control over my best friends--my characters.

10.  When something I've written makes people laugh.

We're big winos around our house, attend wine tastings whenever we can and enjoy sharing our likes and dislikes with anyone who will listen.  In fact, we've keep a spreadsheet over the years that contains our and friends' ratings on various wines.  It's up to 264 different varietals...oh my.

Lately I'm finding that I really enjoy white wines from Chili.  The reds we've tried are okay, but that could be because we haven't tried many of them yet.

On a side note, an interesting fact about Chilean wine:

Outside of its dramatic landscape and picture-perfect climate, Chile is unique in all the wine world in that its soils have never been infested with the insidious root louse, phylloxera. This vine pest almost completely devastated all of the vineyards of Europe in the late 1800s.

So I had to mention that last weekend I made breakfast for dinner and the pictured 2008 Sauvignon Blanc from Veramonte was especially good with eggs and bacon and sausage and pancakes.  It has a very light pinapple and citrusy flavor that we both enjoyed.  And considering we eat breakfast for dinner frequently on the weekends, finding a wine we can drink with it is worth mentioning.  It would also be great with Chinese.  Keep this one cold though.

I finally made the big move.  This blog, The Courier, and Bloodleggers are now on their respective domans pointing to the Blogger blogs at:

• http://www.wjhoward.com
• http://www.thecouriernovels.com
• http://www.bloodleggers.com

And FYI, I'm not updating the Wordpress blogs anymore.  Unfortunately I can't forward them here, but there are links to the Blogger blogs over there.

In case you hadn't noticed, the blog design has changed. Did it Friday. Just couldn't bring myself to get on the computer for most of the day. Then when I did, I could only concentrate on doing something distracting. So I paged through the btemplates.com website for nearly two hour.  After I turned the darn thing off on Friday, I didn't turn it on all weekend.  So I actually forgot I changed the template, duh, and it still needs a few changes to the CSS, like the link colors, which blend in with the other text.  I'm not sure what some web designers are thinking.

Anyways... What'd I do instead?  Glued my attention to the TV, watching movies and a Law and Order marathon.  By the way, loved From Paris with Love with John Travolta.  What FUN!  Like Jason Stratham's movies.

I've actually been spending more time away from the computer since I started a strenuous workout regiment--three plus hours of exercise a day--about a month and a half ago.  I think it's harder to sit in one place for an extended period of time when the body conditioning improves. 

Besides that, sitting in front of the bright screen, switching between windows, writing new storyline and editing can kinda give me Restless Body Syndrome. 

I realized this morning, after turning on my laptop and letting out a long hard sigh, that I've not been using some of my other techniques for writing and editing:

• I've written most of my first draft novels on a hand held recorder I take out with me on dog walks.  Months ago I replaced the recorder with books on CD, which has been a great way to do research at least.  I'll be doing some book reviews over on Bloodleggers this week on the great books that are really getting the creative juices flowing.
• I used to do most of my editing on paper before sitting down with the word processor to make changes.  I've got a notebook sitting next to me just filled with red pen.  Actually purple.
• All my ideas for a story were once written in a paper notebook.  Used to write drafts (mostly short stories) in a paper notebook too while on the bus or in a coffee shop.  Lately all I put on paper are notes and shopping lists.

I'm always crabbing about all the distractions on a computer.  Going on a computer vacation might not be such a bad idea, at least for part of the day.   Only problem is I feel like I'm doubling my work by writing it on paper and then transcribing from there.   More sighs.

But then again, I now have bouncing globe telling me to update my computer, and I just posted a link over on Vamplit Writers.  I won't mention all the other stuff I also did while writing this post.  Even more sighs.  And now I'm back here, finishing up the post.

I'll end this by saying the last paragraph just proved my case.  I'm off to find some paper.

I found this on io9 in How Walking Dead made the lip-less zombie girl a reality.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've settled into tumblr at http://wjhoward.tumblr.com/.  

Funny, but after I announced that I'd only be posting my writing status here in my blog, I found that Tumblr is the perfect replacement for the Writer Wednesday Blog Hop.  So as I find interesting blog posts and articles, I'm posting a link over on my Tumblr page, which automagically posts on my Twitter and Facebook accounts as well. 

If you have a Tumblr account, drop by and follow my page and I'll follow you back.

I settled on a title for the second Courier novel this morning.  It's Warrant for Damnation.  What do you think?

On to write the one sentence pitch even though I still haven't settled on one for The Courier.

I was up kinda late last night, thinking about what I'd write about today. No...make that over thinking about what to write. So I didn't actually fall asleep until around midnight. After the fact, I probably should of gotten up and just wrote this damn post, but I didn't, and now it's 9:30 A.M. and I'm finally writing it. Let me warn you in advance that you might get snared in the babbling a bit.

So what did I think about. Mostly about not writing in this blog anymore. Lately I've seen a lot of posts in other blogs with advice on what to write in a blog. Number one (or maybe two :-)), don't write about yourself. I have to say I can't argue with this way of thinking. I also have to say I glance over other blogs where people rant on like I was or just talk about themselves. This includes writing about the struggles of writing. It's what I do for a career, right? So by writing about writing, I'm essentially writing about myself. Except of course if I'm writing about writing from a technical perspective, and guess what? There are lots of other people who write about writing and publishing, and I love reading their blogs, but I personally have no interest in doing it myself.

So I thought about how much time I spend blogging, yet again. If you've read my blog in the past, I've been complaining about this for awhile. And the answer is TOO MUCH TIME! I get sick to my stomach when I think about the amount of time lost on blog posts when I could be writing fiction. But, I've decided not to dwell on it. Reason? I also thought about popular writers who've written over ten books. Not many of them feel the need to blog regularly, yet here I am with three blogs. Well, technically two. The Courier's blog is the actual book. Another reason I've decided to not sweat it is because I'm a toddler when it comes to fiction writing. I'll admit I don't like to always think of myself as such a youngling because I wrote nonfiction for so many years, but they are completely different animals. So trying to portray myself as a seasoned author or give advice about fiction writing really seems absurd considering I'm not even published.

I really sorta figured it out last night while finishing up the parts of Mary Kay's book I wanted to read. These are some of the wisest words I've ever heard:

"We fail forward to success."

I'm not a professional blogger. I'm a fiction writer. I want you readers out there to read my fiction, not my life story. So, struggling every week to add content to this blog is one of my failures because I'm not producing what I want you to read. Admitting your failures is a huge step, and so now I breath a sigh of relief and give up this blog. Well kinda. The whole format will basically change/return to a home base with links to my fiction accomplishments. Sorry, but this also means the Writer Wednesday Blog Hop ends, although I'll add influential links as I find them.

So, in closing, I leave you to go do what I long to do...write fiction...

Every week I weed through over 100 blogs, looking for writing advice and new and interesting books to read. Considering how time consuming this is, I share the posts I find the most interesting here every week. If you’d like me to add your blog to my feeder or a link from my weekly tour, leave a comment on the most current tour or send me a link via Twitter @by_wjhoward.

All About Writers

• On Dance on Fire, Hitting 50 ...and more, James Garcia Jr., on his four month journey through publication.

All About Books

• On Overbury Ink, Number 38, part 7 – by Ian Eliot LeWinter
• On Farm Lane Books Blog, White is for Witching – Helen Oyeyemi
• On Fantasy Literature's Fantasy Reviews, Who Fears Death: A book I will never forget
• On Bookgasm, Strip AND Blood Guts & Whiskey
• On Marissa Farrar's blog, The Strain by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

All About Writing & Publishing

• FAV! On Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors, Use All 5 Senses to Bring Your Setting to Life
• FAV! On Copyblogger, Charles Bukowski and the Secret to Immortal Writing
• On Vamplit's Library, Artwork A Personal Story of Jekyll and Hyde
• On the Wicked Writer's blog, Internet Writers Resources – free for the taking!
• On Rachelle Gardner's blog, How to Become a Better Writer
• On a Newbie's Guide to Publishing, The Difference Between Sales and Fans
• On Wylie-Merrick Literary Agency's blog, Has Your Ship Sailed?

Weekly Features

• Literary Agent, Nathan Bransford's This Week in Publishing
• Win on Wednesday on All Things Urban Fantasy
• This week's Where Stories Are Made: Paul Magrs over at Book Chick City
• On Book Lovers Inc., Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Blogging Events

• July 16 - 18, Book Extravaganza
• September 13 - 17, Book Blogger Appreciation Week

Join the Hop

Are you highlighting writers and books in your blog for Writer Wednesday? Then add your blog to my new blog hop link group. Powered by Linky Tools Click here to enter your link and view the entire list of entered links...