Saturday, January 25, 2014

Days when you want to just do other things

There will always be other days when we just want to do everything but what we need to do.  You know like when you know you need to write something and all the other stuff gets in the way.

Ah...  writer's block!!!  I've got to get back into it.  I was taking a brief break and have realized the break has been longer than I remembered.  First, meaning I need to write a new post!

Being sick kind of halted me for a little while, and then the other fun stuff curtailed my writing process.  But, now I'm better and there is no excuse not to write.  Well, my one excuse was I don't like the fact there is a girl underneath me that would love to plagiarize me and has been hacking my newest chapters.  That made me so angry, I had to change my Comcast password, but I don't think it's keeping whoever out.  Ticks me off.

My writing is not published yet, and technically nobody should have it at all.  It's been my delay to write as I just don't want these people getting any of my good stuff.  It's not theirs, but thank-you for the compliment that my work may be good enough to plagiarize, however, please DON'T!!!!

I'm sure my chain is just getting yanked!  It got yanked on so many occasions, too many to keep count of.

Anyway, the knitting bug keeps me from writing obviously.  I should just put those needles down, but it's too easy to just pick up my favorite needles and knit instead of write.  I have been trying to finish up my pink cotton cone of yarn and foresee the end of it with another knitted dishcloth.

I did a scarf out of it too, which has to be for me as I've goofed on the cabled pattern a bunch of times.  Still pretty, but I feel I can't sell something if I know the pattern got mixed up.  I did do another one from a heart dishcloth pattern that I can sell, so there.

And I whipped up another headband out of wool yarn.  I will have to be careful washing it.  It's made out of a certain type of wool that shrinks wicked bad.  Ha ha.  There's my Maine talk!  We are famous for wicked good, you can't get there from here and lobsta dinna.

Typos, I know but you get the gist of the accent.  I've always been asked if I was from Massachusetts as people get my accent mixed up.  I moved to Vermont but never lost the Maine accent.

Yesterday, I had a fun afternoon singing to some of my favorite CDS.  I had to play Patsy Cline two times.  I love crooners.  It's funny how you can easily pick up the lyrics to some of the old fashioned songs.  And I got dancing to Elvis Presley.  I got reminding myself about old days growing up.

My Nana would come up to babysit us while our Mom and Dad went out to the polka dances.  We would play Elvis and other tunes and dance.  It was Nana's job to tell us which one of us contestants did the best dancing.  She could obviously never decide as we all were good in her eyes.

I'm sure she would get laughing as my brother, the youngest was the family comedian!  He always had us in stitches growing up.  He also is the youngest of all the cousins.

Then we got older and it was our cousins having the first babies who were the life of the party at my Nana and Grampy's house.

I'm going to slowly begin to collect music from my past.  I'm a 70's child.  The Bubblegum music got played yesterday too.  I got thinking of a few songs on the tip of my tongue.  Brand New Key!!!  I got singing the few verses I remembered, thought it was Linda Ronstadt that sang it but ends up it is Melanie.  Can't remember her last name.

Then looking up Linda Ronstadt reminded me of another song from my past.  Desperado.  I remember singing it in third grade music class.

You Light up My Life, was a song a favorite cousin and I sang for our Nana and Grampy one weekend sleep over.  Of course we were probably laughing through the whole thing.

We put on a play one year based on Country Mouse, City Mouse.  Laughter through the whole thing there too and one of us probably got knocked off a pillow or a chair at one point.

We sang In December becomes the rose.  Or some song from Bette Midler.  I remember we were in the back bedroom trying to make sure we had all the verses written down right as we recorded the song on those old tape recorders.

You know, the kind of tape recorder you could hide in the kitchen during a big slumber party and play it back for everyone to hear they got their voices recorded!

And, there's my pile of books I have been reading too that has been keeping me from writing on the book.  I'm currently reading one of Maya Angelou's biographies and want to read the Audrey Hepburn one.  Maya Angelou is a very powerful writer and a wonderful speaker.

I've got to make myself write, even if it's just hand written this week.  I'm up to 204 pages typed.  I got stuck on a few scenes where something important happens but I haven't decided what is going to take place.

Yesterday, while a song came on the radio station, I got an idea for one of my scenes.  I can kind of play it in my mind as it starts to burst onto the scene.  All I will say is a whirlwind of something a midst the ferocious things coming at them.

I think I should take a break from knitting soon and do this.  Although, when we get stuck with writer's block it is a good thing to just take some time to read as well.  It really goes hand in hand with the writer's mind.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted January 2014

 This is just about the easiest dishcloth pattern ever!!!  I'm halfway done with it with an hour into it at most.  Underneath is my list of songs and musicians I want to remember and slowly get some of the music.  It took me a little bit to remember Wayne Newton's name.  For the life of me, I couldn't remember the name while I was thinking of the cassette of his I used to have.  Thought of Moon River which gets played in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I also remember that one I think in an old fashioned family movie VHS my Mom's best friend made for her one year.  All the old weddings, and picnics, plus when my best friend and I were babies.  And there's one snippet of my Mom as a young girl hamming it up for the camera!  Classic and beautiful!!!



My kids school pictures in the background.  I've got my larger pictures framed but these ones are always on my coffee table.  My four A number ones!!!!!!  My priority!  They come before anything I love to do and will love them for a thousand years like the Twilight song and then to eternity and infinity!!!!!  Children always come first!!!!





My favorite music box of my Mom's.  It plays some sort of Japanese song!  Love it.  I had to play all my music boxes one night.  A tradition I used to do as a young girl.  My sister and I shared a room and at night, I would wind up all my music boxes and listen for them to play out.  I've got a memory of going to a shop filled with Music boxes in a part of Maine along the coast somewhere.  I want to think it was in Wiscasset, but I can't quite remember where it was.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Days for Hibernation

We all have days when we need to just rest.  Like when we get sick.  I finally got hit with a good whopping cold, sore throat and cough.  But, I shouldn't complain as I was beginning to wonder if I was like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable or that movie where suddenly he never gets sick.  I went through a few years wondering why no colds.

Also, I would like to take a moment to be thankful for everything good.  And a few days ago, there was a little talk about Honey Boo Boo's family members in a recent accident.  Everyone is thankful nobody got hurt.  That's the main thing in any accident that nobody gets hurt.  Everything is okay.

Then, I think back to a post I may have done at one point when there was controversy over all these child models and drinking the go go juice.  They all have good parents.  People put too much hype into all that controversy.  If that's the lifestyle they want for their children, that's there business and people should respect it.

Being a good parent is the first thing people should be.  Don't teach your children to be mean to the other parent.  That's just wrong.  Don't teach kids to pick on others.  Wrong.  Even if you think you can get away with it, that's not okay.

I'm putting my kids first, A number one as always.  I want me safe, and I want my children safe.  I want nobody coming into my apt to do something horrendous to me.  A number one, I'm putting my safety first and my kids too.  Before anything I love to do, my kids come first.  Top priority.

And I stomp on EVIL!!!!!!

While being sick, I've been knitting some more of those dishcloths and my yarn for these are almost gone.  I decided to do some more reading and have some new biographies from the local library.

While we are at it.  Let's STOP SUICIDE!!!!!  Just imagine if someone were to list all the suicides ever happened, what a horrid number that is.  I couldn't believe some of the mass suicides that have happened since BC.  Just terrible.

I'm always an advocate against it.  I got a horrendous threat a few days ago and I'm just livid.  Nobody has any right to come into my apt and do it to me.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted Jan 17, 2014


Saturday, January 11, 2014

Fun Weekends at Home

Don't you love weekends at home during the winter months.  I love to enjoy the weekends.  I've had my radio on today and love to listen to the songs.  I like the new radio station I've been listening to.  Not quite as funny as Jamie and Chantal, but it's a nice radio station I like listening to.  They will hit my funny bone sometimes too, I'm sure.

I guess we just don't know when we are going to laugh at something.  Today for me it was a few FB joke pictures and a birthday video from one of my FB friends.  Her head was kind of caricatured onto a smaller body flipping I think a skateboard around and my funny bone got jump started.

I'm loving there's no sign of break ins now, but I'm still cautious.  I did have to change my Comcast password as I know they're still hacking.  Makes me mad, that nobody should have any copy of my unfinished novels that aren't even published.  I hope that kicked them off for a little bit.  

I will feel better once I get the novel done and publish it without any sign of plagiarism.  Someone would have to be a real fool to actually follow through and plagiarize my unfinished novel.  

I've been getting a jump start on the novel within the past week, got myself caught up and am now at 204 pages.  Not that the page count matters.  It's better to have quality words instead of quantity.  I think I've got a way to go if I want to strive for an in-between number like Stephanie Meyer or J. K. Rowling.  

I've got to do some more writing on it this weekend.  I kind of got a little stumped on a few recent chapters and I want to maybe edit and change some things around to make them good chapters.  

I think all writers hit a point where we are not always sure if a chapter is going to fit the novel or break it.  If it doesn't go in a smooth way, then I will omit some things and re-write it.  I may just want to do some handwriting for these ones and see if it's going to fly.

And I've been taking some time for the knitting today.  I've been working on a head band this week that is going to turn into a scarf for me instead.  I've goofed on the pattern so it is my scarf.  Then it kind of did a twisted look so I am making it longer as it looks nicer as a scarf.  

I tried another cool pattern over this last week.  It's one of those knitted dishcloths, but this pattern has a heart in the middle.  I've got more cotton yarn, so will be making a few more of them, for me and to give away as gifts for family and friends.

I did another one from another pattern and am going to try something different with it.  The pattern came out too big for my cup.  I've got another idea for it that may end up being a prop for something.  It's one of those basic patterns for a leaf.  I bet it would be cool to make a whole slew of them and make different things with them.

And one of these days, I want to do some of the knitted flowers from Nicky Epstein's Flowers book.  My daughter once requested a rose on a headband, for which I have yet to try.  

So, my cats have had their lap time today and now I'm writing, etc....

And this weekend, I'm going to devote some time to reading.  A writer must read, read, and read some more too.  How else are we going to learn new words that may crop into our novels at any given time?

Tomorrow is going to be a baking day.  I got hungry looking at desserts and am going to bake a few things to bring to my kids as well.

I had to have a good laugh yesterday while visiting my kids.  I'm in the craft room downstairs with my girls and my Down Syndrome child, Jake is in the next room on his i-pad.  Once again listening to different music!  I got singing a few with him in his room earlier.  Then I'm singing a few from the craft room.

He got playing a few Wizard of Oz tunes, so Mom starts singing a few of the lyrics in the craft room.  All of a sudden, I heard him laughing.  I got a big kick out of it as he thought it was funny Mom was singing in the next room.  Too much fun.  But, I had to soon curb my singing after my girls got embarrassed of Mom singing!  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!!!!    

Here's Mom quietly lip sinking the next few verses of another song!!!

Ha ha ha!!!

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted January 11, 2014





I should try to draw this other doll sometime.  She's Elise one of the Madame Alexander dolls.




Monday, January 6, 2014

The Power of Words

Where do we think words come from?  What stems from the power behind them?  As a writer, one seems to constantly desire to find out what we want to do with our words, where are we going to go with them and when will we see the final products of our dreams?

Every writer, artist, photographer, and practically all humankind has a powerful voice.  That's why we have powerful speakers like that of Maya Angelou whose words just seem like exactly all we want to be.  We want the freedom of speech, the desire to strive for great things.

Even if great things come in small packages, like our children.  They start off as babies, and just evolve and become greatness.  There is nothing more powerful than a baby who becomes a part of this world.  Which is why I do not believe in abortion but it should always be a woman's choice to make the decision.

I vote for life always!  Beautiful life without death is just about perfect but we know we all have to die someday when we are old and gray!!  It isn't our souls that disappear.

THE WORDS.  The words who speak of us, who we want to be.  Where we want to be and what we want to do with ourselves for the rest of our lives.

So here enters the writer!  We are on missions of our own paths as to what we want to tell the world.  We want to be listened to, but first and foremost we need to speak to ourselves as we type.

Just what is it we want to spring forth into a novel anyway?  We want to tell a powerful story I believe, but what is it?  Do you ever just dream it before you decide what it is you want to write?  Do you know where it is going to end up?

Sometimes we just need to type, type and do it again.  Face the laptop the next day and figure out if it's what we wanted to happen in the novel.

I've been just typing for a while, working on some new chapters in The Glorious Money Tree Trilogy.  I say Trilogy right now, but it may go further.  I'm working my way to 195 in my book and I know I have to finish this first book at some point soon.  I'm typing, trying to figure out where it's going to.

I kind of have a plan as a writer, but I will say POWERFUL WORDS just seem to take you into another place you didn't know it was going to go.  I was thinking of some characters and thinking what the crap is going to happen next?  I've got the main character in a rock and a hard place and how is she going to escape turmoil of any sort?

I just got typing and just thinking of any possibility.  I thought back to my first novel and the editor who gave me a book review and wished the pet cat had entered the story again.  I didn't have the cat appear again, which was a good learning experience.

Not to say that everything in a novel comes back into the picture.  As a writer, we pick and choose what is going to possibly re-enter the story again.  What is the relevance of it?  Think about what is so special about it, the thing needs to be in the story again.

I will say a writer gets surprised over and over again as we come to the page.  It's an empty page before we decide it's going to evolve.

Like this picture I show here, of a child evolving.  My daughter years ago as a beautiful butterfly in grade school.  She evolves as the world comes full circle.  Mother, daughter, grand mother.  We all evolve.  Fathers, boys, grand fathers.  We all come full circle and decide what is going to be a strong meaning to us in this world we call ours.




I choose to write, to speak, to create.  I will say this novel wasn't even going to begin the way I was first visualizing, but wow, it's just incredible what an author can come up with.

I began with that first smut book, Lustful Evangelean which definitely is going to end up being completely different that the first version.  I'm keeping the first one as it holds a place in my life for me as an emerging novelist.  I never thought I would write a novel before that one. I will not deny lust did feed this novel, but I don't care about what fed it.  The thing I love about the first version of the book is that I began to learn how to create a story line and my words fed me.

It's a story which is going to of course change tremendously when I finally get around to re-writing that one.  All in due time as I plan on writing many, many novels!!!!  I'm on a role for a moment just typing.

I'm usually not one of those writers that can just talk into a microphone to figure out what it is I want to write.  I love just feeling my fingers click on the keyboard and I just go off on a wild tangent.

Perhaps the reason that I'm thinking writing fantasy novels can push the boundaries so profoundly.  It's just something so different than anything I've ever written about.  It's like MAGIC!

THE MAGIC OF WORDS.  Like a swirling whirlwind of what I thought I was going to write ends up somewhere else.  It's not where I perhaps originally wanted to go with it, but wow, it's amazing and I'm liking where it's going.

The one thing I'm trying to figure out is how my characters are going to change and grow.  No character can ever stay exactly the same.

And I have got to figure out how I'm going to end this first book.  Just haven't gotten there yet.

I wonder how Stephanie Meyer or J. K. Rowling felt as they approached the ending or any other author for that matter.  How do you all feel when you know you've got to reach an ending to the first book?  It's got to be done at some point.

It just can't go on and on.  We have to reach a page number where one novel ends and a new one needs to be written to continue on with our beautiful stories.  It's got to evolve and we have to think of how our words will effect it.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted January 8, 2014   Monday




Sunday, January 5, 2014

Kill Procrastination and Just Write

Ah, the danger word called procrastination!  Stomp on it, huh?  Knock it off and get off our laurels!  Why do we like to procrastinate anyway?  Is it the thought of we should do something about what we decide we aren't going to do today and we will just put it off until tomorrow or the next day!

I think everyone is guilty of this sometimes even if they are not a writer or an artist.  People all over the world somehow seem to gravitate towards the FINE ART OF PROCRASTINATION!

I knew a good college friend who was a fan of procrastinating and was probably inspired by me who at the time, didn't procrastinate.  I just kept painting and didn't want to stop making art.  Not to say she stopped, but she enjoyed procrastinating and probably just sitting back and relaxing or doing something else she wanted to do instead.

Over the years, I learned to procrastinate just like her!  We all do it.  It's also called a weekend to wear your jammies in this cold winter weather we are experiencing.  Days when the covers seem so warm and oh, can I stay under them for a few more minutes?

We all have to stop it and get on a better schedule, really.  Sometimes my procrastination against writing is the fact I would like to just spend some time on my comfy rocking chair knitting with the cats on my lap.  It's called, I don't want to write today.

Or, I KNOW I SHOULD WRITE, but I will do it tomorrow.  I promise myself.  And if we get writer's block, sometimes tomorrow ends up being later in the week or say when the mood hits us.

Anyway, the point of writing is to make oneself do it.  Even if we just get in a chapter each day.  Or more if we can really buckle down and do.

Today, I've been kind of goofing around on FB.  I like to go to Freedom with Writing page or Writer's Write and click like and share on quotes and sayings.  It just seems to inspire me to dive in and write.  Not every time, but when I really settle into my novel, I'm inspired.

I've taken a good amount of time just editing the book, and last night, I finally got in one of the hand written chapters.  I put a few of my pictures in today as well.  I've got a witch who would like to plagiarize the novel and she would be a real fool to do so.  I can come after her for a lot of crap.  This person would have to be a fool to do so. As in Monopoly, go straight to jail with no get out of free card.

Number one, everyone knows I've been writing this novel for several years, and the artwork in it is my classic signature artwork.  Nobody would be fooled.  And it happens to be UNPUBLISHED!  It's not anywhere except for in my private writing software.  IN PROCESS!  Makes me mad all the same, even though I should take it as a compliment that perhaps she thinks it's good writing.

The simple fact is NOBODY HAS A RIGHT TO MY UNPUBLISHED WRITING, in my PRIVATE LAPTOP.  But this world is filled with hackers unfortunately.  I can't control anyone who tries to hack my stuff, makes me mad, but they would have to be so completely stupid to plagiarize me.  And it's protected with Kindle Publishing as a few of the files for it went to Kindle in an email.

I've been protecting myself.  Sent copies of it to my email as well, dated and written by me it's mine.  Also it's protected with MY FREE COPYRIGHT!!!!!!!!

It's mine.

Anyway, after this post, I am about ready to dive into a few more chapters that have been handwritten and then I'm on to finishing up the first book.  Then there's editing, fine tuning all the cover work, etc....

I'm hoping for Feb or March at latest this first book will be done and I am into the formatting process.

If not for the PROCRASTINATION!!!  I'm really into knitting up headbands.  I made a little cabled bag for one daughter for her ipod.  It came out a little too big, so I'm going to be whipping up another one.

I guess when we do get the procrastination, we should just go with it a little bit, because we probably need that little break from whatever we need to do.

As long as we come back to the writing always.  We shouldn't just stop.

Keep going on.  Moving forward in any sort of writing is a great thing.

Maybe we should try to push the envelope and see if we could come up with a novel for each month.  A novel in five weeks!!!!  That would technically be about 12 novels a year if we really put the fingers to the keyboards all the time.

It may be no bed of roses sometimes, but we should keep it up.  Oh, and if I've used no bed of roses in another post on here, I am at every right I should be able to use it in any novel as well.  That's my right as the writer.  Every writer knows that.  

I don't want any major jerks hunting me down for any simple word.  And those are my words, not someone else's.  I have every right to use anything to benefit a novel if I think I like the phrase somewhere.  Just saying.  Not that every writer has to worry about this, but it's in my worries and I should not let it get the best of me.

Meaning, I'm done writing here for now and I'm onto diving into the book.  Maybe I will procrastinate another day.

Jennifer Jo. Fay

Copyrighted January 5, 2014