Saturday, January 4, 2020

My House is a Mess and my To Do List is Longer Than I Am Tall

I love the holidays.  No.  Seriously.  I do.  I just always seem to have a mess on my hands of one sort or another before, during, and after.  Maybe that is part of the charm of the holdiays.  Or not.  Either way that's just the way it has always been.

However I find despite the mess and chaos I do get things accomplished.  One thing that I just finished is to complete the story "Starting Over and Over."  See the link on the right side of this page.  If that doesn't work try https://www.fictionpress.com/~motherheninflorida and then scroll down the page to the section labeled "My Stories" and it will be in that list at the top or close to it.

Just when or if you read it … forgive the editing, or lack of editing I mean.  The last couple of chapters have a lot of mistakes.  They aren't terribly egregious but boy are they noticeable as you are reading along and them WHAM hit you right between the eyes.  I was trying to get it all posted last night and I missed a bundle of things I shouldn't have.  I'll get that fixed but not this weekend.

As soon as I knock a couple of projects off of my real life to do list I'll pick another story and hammer at it until I finish it.  Hopefully there will be another finished before the end of the month.  However, I'm done guessing if my plans will actually come to fruition or not.  Get too frustrated that way.  

Most of February is going to be made up of another business/pleasure trip, this one to South America. Gonna be interesting at the very least.

Hope everyone had a blessed and joyous holiday season and will have the same in this new year.  There's a lot going on in the world to worry about but since worrying never has a pay off I'd try and keep it to a minimum and enjoy what you can.  You'll live longer that way.

Kathy

Monday, September 16, 2019

Update # Who Knows? LOL

Just FYI to some people that have been nice enough to drop me a line ... the plan is to finish "Zombies Aren't Real, Are They?!" by the end of October.  An October surprise kind of thing.  LOL.  Other stories both at FanFiction and at FictionPress are rolling out and getting completed and the plan is to get one finished per month.  That may not always happen, especially during the holidays and during a month I travel, but even then I hope to make significant headway.

As you can see by the list on the right hand side of the blog (links to all of the stories both complete and in progress) I have a lot of work to do.  I'm editing the last few chapters of "Over and Over" and "Hartford" so they can both be finished sometime between now and end of November.  I'm not promising to complete anything in December but I will continue stories in progress and hopefully "Trash" will get close to finished by then if I do nothing else that month.

I took my parents on a bucket list trip in August and came back with a combo infection of Flu type B and some upper respiratory infection.  It put my dad in the hospital, triggered my mom's chronic bronchitis and COPD (that she'd had under control for almost two years), and laid waste to a couple of people in our house as well, primarily me and adult son who had to help with my dad when he collapsed and we had to call the EMTs.  Ugh.  I am just now finishing the last of this ever loving coughing.  My son is still in recovery mode.  Did I mention ugh?  Luckily no one else in the house came down with it so severely as I'd had disinfection protocols running hot, fast, and mean.  But that's time that I had to take from one place and use in another which is my latest excuse why I haven't updated nearly as often as I had been.

It also caused a pretty good reality check on my writing schedule.  I have it sketched out now in something more realistic and I will be posting something every day but Sunday (and sometimes Saturdays if I'm playing catch up); however, each story I am working on will probably only get posted to once (maybe twice) a week.  That gives me time for real life and business and the rest.  I also don't want to short change my high schooler who is the youngest and whom I oversee his education.

So I'm finding a realistic balance between my wants and my needs, with responsibilities taking priority while not ignoring the rest of it that keeps me human.  Sign up for updates at FF or FP … either by story or by author … and you'll receive an email when an update appears.  Thanks for understanding.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Do Me A Favor?

Do me a favor? I have a poll up at FictionPress at https://www.fictionpress.com/u/1056183/MotherHeninFlorida and the purpose is to see which stories people are MOST interested in seeing completed first. There are 13 options and you can choose up to 5 stories. I'll give it two weeks and then try and build a writing calendar from the data that comes in. If you do not see a story in the list it means that either it is already in my personal cue, if finished and being posted concurrent with the poll, or it is near the bottom of my to do stack and I just need to let it hang for a while longer but I will get to it. Thanks for participating. I have my own ideas but I'd like the readers' input as well.


Also, there are two new stories going up but they will go up slower, as in one new chapter a week. There are some others that I'm debating whether I'll start to post or not. I just need to keep everything organized.


Another question I have is whether readers would prefer for "Up On Hartford Ridge" to be moved from FanFiction to FictionPress. There are pros and cons to leaving it or moving it so this is another instance when I'd be willing to listen to readers' opinions.


New Story Direct Links:
Clarity
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3338008/1/Clarity

Ettie
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3338007/1/Ettie


Thanks for taking the time to read.



Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Updates ...

I mentioned in the last blog post that I would try and create a comprehensive index of the stories and their locations.  Someone else also asked me to start a character index.  The first is certainly going to be easier to do than the second, but I think it might be useful even for me, though how to format it will take some thought.

I'm also trying to figure out how to save the Character Index as its own page here on Blogger.  This index is going to cover everything from both FanFiction to FictionPress to those that haven't been moved off of Blogger yet and possibly even introductions to stories that are still being outlined.  It sounds like a mess of work so it might have to be one of those "in progress" projects that get worked on as I find the time.

I have managed to update all of the links on the right side of the page so they go directly to the active copy of each story.  Despite being alphabetical, it still looks messy.  I'm working on that problem but I'm a little limited by the formatting here on blogger.

Below is an updated list of the stories that is less mess but no links.

I've had a couple of people ask me about the "CSI" stories.  Well they are pure fanfiction written just to please me.  No big deal if they aren't your cup of tea.  They just helped me get through a creative dry spell.   


STORY INDEX

CSI: Miami Series:
Episode 1: As Good As He Once Was (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Episode 2: Every Mile A Memory (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net

CSI: New York Series:
Episode 1: Missing Heart (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Episode 2: Rules of Engagement (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Episode 3: Buried Above Ground (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Episode 4: Bridget Over Troubled Water (on hiatus due to co-author's schedule) - Fanfiction.net
Episode 5: The Haunted Theater (in progress) - Fanfiction.net
A Study in Ginger (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction



Dystopian Series:
The following books are a trilogy. Each of the three can be read as a stand alone story but they all take place in the same AU, just at different points along the timeline. Their order is "Larkspur in Eden," "Fel By the Wayside," and lastly "The Linder Legacy." There is another story in this series tentatively titled "Evie and Tate" that I hope to get posted this summer after finishing Larkspur. That will change the series into a Quad.
Larkspur in Eden (In progress) - Fanfiction.net
Fel By The Wayside (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
The Linder Legacy (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net



Zombie Stories:
Journal of the Zombie Years (in progress) - Fanfiction.net
Zombies Aren't Real ... Are They?! (in progress) - Fanfiction.net
Emi on the Caloosahatchee (in progress) - FictionPress.com



All Other Stories in Alphabetical Order Regardless of Location
A Bunch of Wild Thyme (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
A Girl Called Jack - (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
All Roads Lead Somewhere (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth - (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men (COMPLETE) - Fictionpress.com
Carry On (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Dark Days (in progress) - migrating from blogger soon
Eidetic Sunshine (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Enduring on the Lake (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Forsaken Harvest - (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Georgie (COMPLETE) - Fictionpress.com
Gurl - (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Il Agita di Amore (in progress) - migrating from blogger soon
Life is a Fractured Fairytale - (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Over the Mountains and Through the Fire - (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Rain, Rain, Rain (COMPLETE, being edited and reposted) - Fictionpress.com
Starting Over … and Over and Over (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Teaghan (in progress) - migrating from blogger soon
There Is No Such Thing As A Thornless Garden (in progress) - migrating from blogger soon
This Is Me Surviving (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
To All Things There Is A Season - (In progress) - Fanfiction.net
Trash to Treasure - (in progress) - Fictionpress.com
Up On Hartford Ridge (in progress) - Fanfiction.net
When All Doors Close (in progress) - migrating from blogger soon
Will To Survive (COMPLETE) - Fanfiction.net
Yelyseveta Book 1 (COMPLETE) - Fictionpress.com
Yelyseveta Book 2 (in progress) - Fictionpress.com

Friday, June 7, 2019

Vacation Time Is Over ... For Now

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go ...

I think I've finally recovered from our adventures in May, gotten all the laundry finished, and all the rest of the yada yada caught up.  I'm still categorizing and filing the pictures and postcards but to me that's fun.  Our youngest was at one summer camp and just came back yesterday.  He's helping with another camp starting Monday for a week.  Then a week after that he is going to Boy Scout camp for another week.  And then the first week of July he and my husband leave for two weeks in the outback at one of the Boy Scout high adventure camps as they hike around and do manly stuff.  LOL   One of my daughters is now part time manager at both of the retail stores she works at and is taking in more babysitting jobs.  All this to save up for school this fall when she'll have to give up at list one of those jobs.  My other daughter still at home starts her Internship for microbiology this summer.  And my oldest son is job hunting again after taking a hiatus and working with us full time.  All this to say my help is flying the nest and it looks like my idea of job sharing so I could get more projects completed may not come to pass.

However, I am determined.  LOL  I have my list and I'm sticking to it.  ROFL!

Just to let you know, this is the progress I am making on the stories:

Starting Over and Over and Over
Being edited and posted at FictionPress
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3337694/1/Starting-Over-and-Over-and-Over

Veta Book 1
Completed and posted at FictionPress
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3335256/1/Yelysaveta 

Veta Book 2
After a lot of thought and the characters banging away at me I have most of the outline written already.  As I write, edit, and post you can find the story at FictionPress
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3337692/1/Yelysaveta-Book-2

Up On Hartford Ridge
Being edited, is partially up on FanFiction
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12844543/1/Up-On-Hartford-Ridge

The following stories will soon see daylight at FictionPress:
Enduring on the Lake
Rain, Rain, Rain
Trash to Treasure (something no one has seen yet)

More notes:
  • I'm trying to decide whether to leave Up On Hartford Ridge up at FanFiction or move it to FictionPress.  There are pros and cons to both and I haven't made a final decision yet.  That is the next story that I am going to complete, along with Starting Over and Veta Book 2.  It will probably be a race between which character nudges me the hardest along the way.  I'm shooting for the beginning of August for at least two of the three but no promises.  Life can get crazy real fast so we'll have to see.
  • I'll be moving others off of their blogger pages to FictionPress as soon as I can but it will be a piece at a time as I try and write and edit during the process.
  • I'm trying really hard to figure out which ones that I will complete after "Hartford" but if I say one, undoubtedly it will wind up being a different one.  Who knows?  I might even do a poll to see which one will come next after I get this next few off of my plate.  But I'm not going to put that pressure on myself until I'm a little closer to being able to implement it.
  • I have a lot of partially written stories that haven't ever been published.  Some of them keep singing out and I'll write a chapter of them here and there.  I'm debating posting them on FictionPress but haven't decided yet.  Part of me would rather leave them hidden until the others are all completed but I don't know.  I have decided to post Trash to Treasure but may not post any of the others any time soon.  I'm back and forth on that too much.

So, that's it in a nutshell.  I will try and post something every day except Sunday which most of the time I am going to take as my day off.  I may post on Sundays but don't count on it.  And it won't be every story every day.  When a character bangs away at me I try and listen but the God's honest truth is there are not enough hours in the day to get my real life responsibilities complete, sometimes writing just has to take a back seat.

For those once again not able to find the new locations here they are:

FanFiction (index of my stories there)
Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the active links for each story.  The story with the most recent addition will be at the top.
https://www.fanfiction.net/~motherheninflorida

FictionPress (index of my stories there)
Same as with FanFiction, just scroll to the bottom of the page to find the active links for each story.  The story with the most recent addition will be at the top.
https://www.fictionpress.com/u/1056183/MotherHeninFlorida

Next time I'll try and post all of the direct links for all of the stories that I have published right now.  However, that requires some formatting I don't have time for tonight.  Or, I might go through and update all of the links on the side of the page.  Or I might do both.  Depends on my real life work giving me a break.

For now, feel free to sing out and ask a question if you have one.  I'll try and answer as soon as I can.  I know I owe some people emails and PMs.  Just a matter of finishing them and doing more than hoping they make sense before I hit the send button.




Wednesday, May 8, 2019

May Be A Slight Delay

Hi Everyone!

I have been feverishly trying to get stories edited and posted over at FictionPress and FanFiction.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to go as fast as I have wanted.  I had a little trouble with OneDrive not syncing properly as I moved between machines and as I tried to fix it, I missed some pretty egregious mistakes.  Sorry about that.

Veta's story is almost finished.  I only have about five more chapters but they are complicated chapters requiring a little extra editing and removing scrips and things like that.  However, I am also going out of town starting tomorrow and my internet time will be limited.  I hope to get it completed as soon as possible but there may be a blank day between posts … and that's assuming I can get on line from where I am going.

As soon as I do finish with Veta's story I am going to finish up Starting Over and from there get back to some of the older stories that need updating and completing.  I am in the process of trying to set outlines and a schedule that doesn't burn me out and works with my real world/real life.

I want to thank everyone for their encouragement and forbearance.  If I have a chance, again depends on connectivity, I'll try and post some pictures here.  It might be when I get back which will be about the 25th of the month.

Thanks,

Mother Hen

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Spring Is In The Air

Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods.  We reached 90 degrees F several times this week.  Felt good.  Warm and inviting with the worst of the humidity holding off.  My confederate jasmine hedge is in full bloom and smells divine.  And what does all that mean?  Spring cleaning.

We are finally getting around to doing something with the lanai.  After nine years in this house its about time don't ya think?  We had a patio table out there.  The bar has a few beat up stools around it.  But the majority of the large space was just sort of meh with plastic chairs and loungers put out when we needed them.  But hubby and I decided to stop putting so many things on the back burner or by the time we got around to them there would be no time left to enjoy them.  We purchased patio furniture.  Big commitment for us.  LOL  What was nice was I didn't even have to set it up, our fifteen year old wanted to earn some money.  Wahoo.  Now I just have to do the finishing touches.  Which may or may not happen in the next decade or so.  (insert eye roll here)

Older son's trees have come back which is a little surprising for a couple of the varieties he is trying. Last year we had a couple of baby apples but they didn't survive to maturity.  Maybe this year, though the blooms were a little lackluster. The blueberries are going gangbusters as well, requiring a wire cage around the bed because of all the critters that come out of the swamp. And I have about a dozen Ponderosa Lemons sitting on the kitchen counter that I need to do something with; probably juice and then dry the peel as we are fond of lemon-pepper seasoning on things.

Middle daughter will start her microbiology internship this fall.  Some of the stuff they do in the lab is just … ew.  LOL  She's happy and we're happy for her but it is going to mean I have less help around the house which I suppose in a sense is as it should be as they grow up and out on their own.  Hopefully she will be able to continue to do all of the business filing for us.  That is one thing I don't want to take back but will if I must.    

And next daughter down currently works four jobs … a clothing store, a shoe store, and two child care related jobs … that gives her at least 50 hours a week.  She took the spring off from school and had a summer mission trip planned but it fell through due to things out of her control.  She's tried to plan several other projects for the summer but nothing has panned out so she's thinking she should make hay while the sun shines (earn money) as she will be back in school this fall and hopes to start nursing school in the Spring.  Not sure if she'll be living at home or have to move at that point.  We're just taking it one day at a time.

The fifteen year old … good gravy.  Between last summer and this one he has grown nearly a foot.  But while most boys wind up a "stork" after that kind of growth spurt, he's fully formed and looks more like a young college student than a freshman in high school.  And yes, the girls have noticed.  How did that happen to my baby?  I can see him cringing at the very thought I'd say something like that.  LOL.  I have a couple of more years of home school and then he'll be on his way and I'll close a chapter in my life that will have lasted three decades.  Whew, been a long time coming.

Hubby and I have something special planned for our 31st Anniversary next month.  I'll let you know more as it gets closer.  We are excited.

Now for news on the writing front ...

I've started to migrate the stories off of blogger.  I'm happy to see (by the stats) that people are reading.  The comments being posted are always welcome.  A great big gob of thanks and appreciation going out to those folks!

My last post I c-n-p'd the list of all of the stories, where they are going to be at, and what stage they are in.  Have only had a little time this week to spare for the editing and migration but I was able to get a bit of a structured plan in place.  I'm going to migrate the stories over to FictionPress (and some that are already on FanFiction) first; except for Veta's story which I am editing and posting which should be finished the first week or so of May if all goes as planned.  In May I hope to put the finishing touches to "Starting Over" and get it posted.  In June I am leaning towards finishing "Hartford Ridge" but I'll have to see where the muse leads me as I have a couple of unpublished stories that keep asking for attention as well.  Anyway, here are the stories I've moved thus far:

A Girl Called Jack (posted up to Ch 10, but has 19 in the que)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3279512/1/A-Girl-Called-Jack

A Bunch of Wild Thyme (posted up to Ch 20, but has 93 in the que)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3336171/1/A-Bunch-of-Wild-Thyme

Emi on the Caloosahatchee (posted up to Ch 30, in progress)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3336116/1/Emi-on-the-Caloosahatchee

Gurl (posted up to Ch 38, in progress)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3301880/1/Gurl

Life is a Fractured Fairytale (posted up to Ch 21, in progress)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3279511/1/Life-Is-A-Fractured-Fairy-Tale

Yelyseveta (posted to Ch 209, in progress)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3335256/1/Yelysaveta
Veta's story is complete on my side of things but I'm having to edit it extensively to get it posted onto FictionPress.  It is a slow process as I made the mistake of using some fancy formatting in Word and when I change one thing it messes up something else.  I'm going to post this story on weekdays and give myself the weekends to get the editing done, and hopefully get it done correctly.  As I have it planned out everything should be posted by the first week of May give or take a day or two.

I am making no promises because real life happens but if my plan works out I hope to finish at least a half dozen of the "in progress" stories by the end of the year.  That is asking a lot of myself so depending on my commitments to family and our business that could very well change but it is a goal I have set for myself.  At least I'm going to try.