Me & Red

We've been spending a lot of time together lately. Me & Red.

Red is my new computer. It's an HP Pavilion dv5, or so it says on the lower righthand section of the screen. Red is--well, red, hence the not-so-clever name.

I'm one of those women that names things. My first car, a 1977 Rally Sport Camaro, was affectionally known to my mother and me as "Rally." After I got married, I got my husband and sons in on the act, too. We owned a Chevy Celebrity named "Joshua," a Jeep Cherokee known as "O'Neill," and we leased a Ford Explorer (we loved that car!) known as "Topanga"--named after the Boy Meets World character played by the lovely actress, Danielle Fishel. Currently, we still have O'Neill, but we've also added my Dodge Neon, "Candy," and our older son's car is "Naomi 2," since he traded in "Naomi 1."

Yes, we ARE a nutty family.

And this is the first time I've got a computer with a name. Kinda makes it harder to exchange it, even though the mouse on this laptop acts weird. I'm already attached to Red, and even more so since we started--uh, I started--doing Book in a Month.

We were off to a good start, though we had a couple rocky days. During one, I didn't get any writing done at all, and during the second day, I only wrote about 300 words. But now I'm right on target, with about 1,300 words to write for the day.

So who cares if Red's mouse disappears? He's helping me write my first YA novel--a paranormal--in many years. That'd be like ditching a friend...or a beloved car!

Unique Writing Tool

Lately I've been published under another pen name, one that's separate from both Connie Keenan and Consuelo Vazquez, and just this week I really got energized. I don't know what it is, but there are two times a year that I get especially jazzed to get some coals in the fire, writing-wise, and the first is spring. There's something about spring--you know, the "young" season, the season when everything's new and sultry summer is right around the corner. That season's got a way of giving birth, so to speak, to new projects.

The second season is right now, at the end of the year. When everybody's reflecting on what they've done, I find myself making plans for the coming year.

That means this is also when I get those all-important writing tools ready. You know, things like a new calendar to keep track of deadlines...a case of Diet Pepsi, preferrably Cherry, for that fizzy caffeine kick needed for writing late into the night...a folder for story ideas and clippings that inspire me and I might need for research...extra notebooks and pens, because I'm an antique that still totes those things to work with me so that I can sit in my car at the park at lunchtime, getting some time with my WIP.

And most recently, a writiting mascot--my dog, Chi-Chi! Poor Cheech got roped into that one the other night. She was resting comfortably on the rocking chair in the bedroom where my hubby, her daddy, was watching Everybody Loves Raymond before falling asleep.

"Aren't you writing?" Bill asks me.

"Yep."

"But you came in for your dog?"

"Yep!"

Luckily, Chi-Chi is a natural born princess. She doesn't care where she can lounge out, just as long as she can curl up and nap. She happens to do that very regally, too. That was her extent of overseeing my writing that night. No biggie for her, but she made my job of telling a story a lot less lonely, just having her nearby on the daybed in my home office while I tinkered away at my desk (really a baker's rack that I've had for years. Kind of a stylish workspace--efficient, too!).

And having her there worked even better than a tall, frosty glass of Diet Cherry Pepsi!

Burning Calories WHILE You Write!

Though we could have stayed one more day soaking up the sun in Myrtle Beach, me & Bill decided to come back earlier. That was a great idea since you KNOW I had tons of laundry to do yesterday!


With all that out of the way, I'm able to enjoy this last day off from work. We 40-somethings get up early anyway, force of habit, so I was out of bed not much later than I would've gotten up from work. Breakfast was heavenly! Enjoyed it out on the porch while doing some scribbling on my WIP.


But you know how it it when you're back at home; you're also back to your routine. For me, exercise is part of my routine. It's not just something I do to keep fit; I've done it for so long that it's just a part of my life now.


Instead of going to the gym, which I can do any day, I decided to head out for a walk on the greenway. Just me, my Ipod, the trail in the woods and the book I'm working on right now.


Because walking is so much more than just exercise. It's a writing tool--at least for me, it is. Writing isn't something that should be always be done within the confines of your workspace, whether it's your private office at home or on a bench in the park on your lunch hour, or wherever you do your writing. There's that part of writing that's done without pen or PC, that part of the creative process that occurs before we get anywhere near a notebook or keyboard.


Now since I'm working on a book that will be written under my Consuelo Vazquez pen name, I listened to a bit of Celia Cruz and Tito Puento during that hour. When your feet, clad in sneakers, are hitting the trail, and you're closing out all the clutter that life throws at you, and you're connecting with nature (especially in the morning, it seems), the muse will meet you there.


Parts of the story began to unravel. Especially for someone like me, who doesn't write quite as much as I used to, it's nice to know my imagination still works! LOL! Stories are amazing things. But they have to amaze US first, the authors. If they don't, they'll never touch our readers, and that's a fact. This story, that is as yet in its baby stages, scenes of it became very clear to me as the sunlight peeked in through the trees and washed onto the footbridge ahead of me on my 3 mile-long walk. Like a movie that plays across the screen of your mind, for those of us who rely on the "unheard" rather than a complicated outline that's going to change several times before the story ends, anyway.


Now home, I'm putting off trying out our new pool until I get back from Office Max. I'm going to follow the advice of another writer I once read, who suggested treating yourself to some "back-to-school" treats. Since, yes, I DO write by hand first (usually) and then type it into a document on MS Word (sometimes you need to "touch" the story), I'll be picking up a couple of neat, new notebooks, pens and pencils and other fun junk, and then I'll be ready to write.


So if the weather's nice out there, writers, put off the gym today. Load up your MP3 players with whatever music that's apropros for your current WIP. Lace up your sneakers. Find the nearest park, woods, wherever there are trees and birds and the scent of fresh air.


The muse will be there waiting for you.


And hey--your heart will thank you, too! ;D

Coffee for One?

At last, I got one of THESE little guys! Coffee, as we all know, is one of those writing "tools"--right up there with laptops, the Internet (for researching &, yeah, goofing off) and Alphasmarts, etc. As long as it's enjoyed in moderation, can't live without it, right?


Well, while visiting my cousin Pep and his wife, Marlene, she introduced me to their new coffeemaker...one of those amazing Kreiger thingies. You must've seen them in Bed, Bath & Beyond, Kohl's, Walmart's, they sell them everywhere. All you do is load a small container of coffee into them, press a button, and voila! Coffee for one! Marlene's explanation to me as why she put up her 12-cup coffeemaker? "We were wasting so much coffee, I figured I'd keep the other one for times when we have a lot of guests over, but we'd keep this one as the every day coffeemaker." Turns out my sister-in-law, Jackie, has had an "every day" smaller coffee maker, too, for just that very reason. Wasting coffee is a SIN, people!

Nobody was wasting more coffee than I was, especially since my machine *usually* makes great coffee, but the paper filter shifts around inside the filter cup and you get grounds all in the coffee. Yuck. I found a smaller version, a 5-cup Mr. Coffee. Not only does it make good coffee and the filter stays in place (it's small, so it doesn't have much room to shimmy around), but it doesn't take up much space on my counter, either.

Ahhhh, it's the little things that get you excited at this age! ;D