Category: Writing Stuff

arts and crafts, house and home, How To, humor, self-help, Writing Stuff

People, Plots & Planners

Rita Slanina

Without organization…

I. AM. LOST.

I truly admire those who can wander around through life without plans, schedules, organizers, alerts, banners, and alarms to get them through the day. Now don’t get me wrong. My Sundays are pretty unplanned.

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However; I must confess, I’ve LITERALLY scheduled burrito Sundays, movie binging, and couch potato-ing into my google calendar. For Sundays.

So… you’re still scheduled.

Uhmmm…. yeah. Ya got me.

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It’s possible I do have a problem. You do. Because yes, that may still be in the realm of being scheduled. I guess. *shrugs and shuffles feet against the floor

BAM! BUSTED!

Right. Anyway, moving on to my currently “scheduled” post…

LET’S GET THE BOOKS (AND OUR LIVES) ORGANIZED!

Have you heard of bullet journaling? It’s an overview of your month, followed by a tracker for your daily tasks you want done, followed by a list of other things you may want to do; but may or may not have time to get to. Which, you can push to the next month God-willing. This may sound complicated. But I promise it’s not.

I’ve come up with a simplistic version that has proven to work well for me. I don’t spend too much time creating the BUJO (short acronym thats super cute for bullet journal!), I keep it’s design simple, page count to a few pages (never more than FOUR), and I color code each task and check mark for easy eye-catching satisfaction!

200.gifSo, grab your markers, crayons, and stickers!

Mine are all items I already have on-hand. I don’t buy anything new except maybe the stickers. Which, if you know my obsession with Dollar Tree, you’ll completely understand… I find all my cute stickers and die-cut designs from, YEP. You guessed it!

DOLLAR TREE!

*insert bells and whistles here. **with streamers, sound makers and celebratory cheers

If I can get it at Dollar Tree, I do. She totally does.

I do not feel the need to hit the stationary store or the big box retailers of

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office confectionary to over spend. NO THANKS. Additionally, with the over saturation of “how much can we buy” instead of saving what we have and using a limited financially ambitious creative resource to accomplish the same thing someone else wasted their money on…. Why would you want to over pay?!

Seriously. Anyone?

Of course not!

So, here we go! Let’s plan. Let’s get organized. Let’s save moula. Let’s BUJO.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial on planning your own bullet journal to plot your month.

Speaking of plotting. I’ve barely mentioned it. But, I imagine that with

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planning comes plotting and therefore; plotting is planning…? Or planning is a plot?

What the hell are you saying?

Who knows.

And so, the plot thickens.

house and home, humor, self-help, Writing Stuff

Stationary Shopping: Restriction Mode

Rita Slanina
FiveStar

I have officially been put on journal and stationary purchasing restriction. *sigh

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE stationary, thank you notes, decorative or personalized letter pages, envelopes, journal writing books, and even sketch pads. Oh, criminy.

I know.

As if I don’t have enough clutter circling around my desk. *whispers… but there’s still room in the blank notebook bin!

Trees in the forest are quivering as I write this, I know. I’m a monster. Terrible person. Hush.

There is just something about putting a pen to the page that just feels nice. Cathartic. Meditative, even.

And with Camp NaNoWriMo just around the corner, let’s face it, how can I possibly be expected to refrain from buying more highlighters and stickers?! It’s a nightmare I tell ya. A nightmare.

I truly think that it’s the little things we should consider finding joy in and for me its staaaaaa-tionnnnn-aaaaaary! Echos. Echos. Echos. Did you hear the echoing voice calling out?

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Oh, dear Lord… *slaps forehead

Did I lose you at Camp NaNoWriMo? Well, if you recall, I did an annual writing event last year – for the first time – called NaNoWriMo. An acronym that stands for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, writers from all over attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. While I have written books with as much verbiage; I had not done so within a month. So, I thought I’d add a fun challenge to my writing by joining in on the fun!

Watch me track my progress and see how I did in the video below!

Now that spring is upon us, daylight saving’s time has switched back, and I’m overcome with an aching to wear tank tops again… It’s also time for Camp NaNoWriMo. Another writing event that I will be attending. 

Again, for the first time.  

The goal in this event?  I’ve given myself a 30,000 count of words to attain. If you watch the video above, you’ll see why… 

If I can accomplish this smaller goal, then I will be able to add an additional goal for a quieter project that I am keeping under wraps until it’s release. It’s a non-fiction and that’s all I’ll be able to spill on that. 

Takeya USA

Camp NaNoWriMo will be the same duration as the NaNo event in November; except that Camp NaNo occurs in April. If you are a writer, or aspiring writer, add me as a writing buddy.

We can help motivate each other! 

I surely won’t need any stationary, as most of my writing is done on my computer. But, I simply cannot help myself when I see those adorable, blank notebooks that I clearly MUST add to my collection! No, you must not.

As I prepare to begin my writer’s retreat, I am besought with the urge to visit Ross, and Target for a few more blank books. No, you’re not. To creatively organize my month with colored markers and marvelous stickers of station. Hearts, moons, stars and rainbows. All unnecessary.

Oh. I’m doing it.

You’re on restriction.

Tattle tale. I’m doing it, so there.

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Oh! And never forget the glitter…

Book Entry, contests and giveaways, humor, self-help, Writing Stuff

The Schoolyard Tag Game: Author Edition

Rita Slanina

Unknown-1.pngWe are well into the second week – uh, more like nearing the end of it, dear – of NanoWriMo. Scratch that. Yeah, It’s pretty much over. For those of you who don’t know what NanoWriMo is, which is an acronym for National Novel Writing Month where us writers emerge to challenge ourselves to write 50,000 words in just 30 days. Uh, you can’t be serious. Totally serious. That’s right, a novel in a month! Yikes!

As you write, you earn virtual badges. Badges for coffee. Oo. Badges for procrastination. Ooo! Badges for keeping track of your writing on a daily basis. Ooowee! Badges for writing streaks. Badges for well, whatever. You “Win” the challenge at the end of the month by accomplishing the challenge of getting a 50k manuscript… first draft of course. You don’t actually “Win” anything; although, I’d beg to differ as accomplishing the daunting task of writing a book is hugely satisfying… and if it can be accomplished within a month? Well, heck, sign me up!

This will be my first year as a participant and as far as my progress is going,

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you could say that I’m a bit behind. A bit? Okay, you got me. Actually, as I write this post, I am about 7k words behind. Ugh. It makes the task seem a bit more daunting but it is what it is. As long as I sit down and write something – ANYTHING – I seem to make at least an inchworm’s amount of progress and I guess that’s okay. No, it’s kind of pathetic. Hush, I know. It’s bad. Really bad. But I still plan on cruising along to the finish line. My last novel was a written in four months. I’ve always wanted to cut that time in half but my OCD puts me in the position to keep my words spelled as correctly as possible and pantsing a novel has sort of been my go-to.

Pantsing?

Oh, pantsing is writing your book without a planned or mapped outline of your story. For other novels I have in my idea pipeline, I actually do have SOME of them strategically organized; but, for this particular novel I’m writing? NOPE. Not even a little bit? NOPE. Hmm… YUP.

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You don’t realize how many distractions there are until you have to swat them away! I’m generally pretty good at carving out time each day to get a butt-load of things done; but when you factor in the fact that you have notes planned for your story – I thought you didn’t plan your novel on this one – and you end up writing by the seat of your pants. Right. Well, I attempted to do #preptober and outline my story.. and try hard I did! But?? it was pretty much useless and I’ll have to re-orchestrate the narrative. Yikes. Exactly, it sort of gets you a bit scrambled. My book has a lot of layers. If you read Harbor Excursions, you totally get it. It’s got the multi-facets of characters and world-building of a YA Fantasy fiction but in an adult contemporary, chick lit, thrilling romance kind of way.

I don’t think that’s a category…

Quiet.

Soooo anyway, I came across NaNoWriMo a couple years ago and decided to be a sideline voyeur until this year when I watched a NaNoWriMo Tag video. What the heck does that mean? Remember when you were a little kid and you played a game of tag in the school yard? Yeah, it’s like that. Once I watched a couple tag videos I felt compelled to give it a whirl. Speaking of whirlwinds: 2018 happened. So, what better way to get my next book going than with NaNoWriMo Challenge! Game on. I’m fairly competitive so it behooved me to give it a try.

The reality is, I felt quite compelled to jump in and do this because even if I don’t finish all 50k words in 30 days… At least I tried.

At least you got off your butt and starting writing books again. 

Yeah, that too.

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