Category Archives: Writing

Thoughts, tips or recommendations on writing.

Confessions of a Quitter Starter

Unfinished knitting projects

(Partial) stash for future projects

I have a confession. I am really good at starting things. Really good. Strategy and planning and getting the ball rolling are my strengths. Finishing? Not so much.

Just look at my knitting projects. I have one and a half socks, two partial sweaters, one partial poncho, two barely begun scarves, and a baby blanket in need of the finishing edges. And I don’t even have a baby in my life!

And these projects don’t take into account the ones I am planning. My stash of yarn and patterns that I have been hiding from my family in boxes in my office? Maybe I have been hiding them from myself.

The problem is these half-finished projects nag at me and deplete me of energy and probably add to my being Stuck in the Middle of my writing. I simply have run out of energy.

So how do I get more energy? Start something new, of course. See the vicious cycle? But no more. I am clearing some of this backlog of projects off of my list — while continuing to write. It’s no fun just wearing one sock, after all. So I will finish it by next Thursday. And that poncho will be really cute around Halloween.

I’m excited about having a new plan. One that includes deadlines for projects other than my writing. There is power and energy in finishing, too. And I’m tapping into it. Finishing…. now.

What are you good at starting? Are there unfinished projects pulling you down? Or if you are really good at finishing, what are some tips for us starters?

My Favorite Things: iPad Edition

NOTE: Earlier today, you may have seen my iPad Pics post. Sorry about that error. Newbie blog mistake as I posted instead of drafting that from my iPad. I’m still learning to post into WordPress from the device. Until I get that down and their iPad app is a bit more like the website, it isn’t among my favorites. The following apps are, however.

When my family surprised me with an iPad for my birthday last fall, I wondered how useful it would be since I already have an iPhone, laptop and desktop computer. It didn’t take long for me to find several apps that were perfect for the iPad format and have made this newcomer almost indispensable. Here I share four of my favorites, two are general use and two I use for my writing.

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Flipboard iPad App

My top favorite is Flipboard, a free social media magazine providing content from partners, it’s own topics pages and my social media streams.

This app is most appealing for keeping up with Facebook and Twitter. Flipboard pulls in the posts and any referenced images and articles and lets me read and reply to them in a magazine-styled format. Flipboard also partners with various publishers letting me pull in content from places like Oprah and Car and Driver. I use it to pull in my Google Reader stream and follow a few of Flipboard’s favorites.

Kindle Contents

Kindle iPad App

Kindle for iPad rocks. Not having a real Kindle, I don’t have anything to compare it to, but being able to take notes, highlight, bookmark, search text and look up words from inside the app are great features that I use. iPad’s color screen and crisp resolution coupled with the app’s font size settings make it easy to read even without my reading glasses. It’s built-in WhisperSync lets me download straight to my iPad from the Kindle store, allowing me to get books while I am away from my computer. I am now reading about half of my books in Kindle format, the rest being pool and beach worthy. I’m not worried about getting sand or water splashes on my print media.

Index Card

Index Card iPad App

Index Card is a great writing tool that I use for working on my book when away from my computer. This $4.99 app lets me create content on index cards and see it in bulletin board view or as an outline. I can put notes on the backs of cards (however, they aren’t included in the export, only the content) and can reorganize easily to change the order of my scenes. I can share what I create through DropBox (free for up to 2 GB of space, letting you access info across devices) and then open it on my computer and import it into my writing program.

iThoughtsHD for iPad

For thought gathering, project planning, brain dumps, blog ideas, character development, and various other “out of brain, onto page” uses, I go to iThoughtsHD. This is a mind-mapping tool and there are many out there. I have tried several and this one was my favorite for ease of use and intuitive controls. It is $9.99 and exports through email (basically a bulleted list) and to many of the most common mind mapping program formats.

I’ll give you some more of my favorites in a future post. If you have a favorite iPad or iPhone app you just can’t live without, let me know. I’m sure others want to know about it, too.

Performance Napping

This week’s post is brief as I am busy preparing for our annual party celebrating the most exciting two minutes in sports that takes place Saturday.

I pulled this little gem out of my blog ideas folder and thought you might enjoy it. It is an intriguing article from PsyBlog on the connection between mind and body. Specifically, how certain postures can enhance performance.

Among the 10 recommended activities were smiling to boost happiness (really, they studied this stuff), gesturing to enhance learning, and mimicking to increase empathy.

However, I had three favorites….

The first is crossing arms for persistence. Apparently, if you are stuck on a problem and persistence is required, crossing your arms will help. I’ll have to add that to my list of tips when I’m stuck in the middle of my next project. Of course, I find that crossing my arms (and raising my eyebrows) provides my husband and children the persistence they need to finish their chores. Amazing how this stuff works, isn’t it?

If crossing your arms fails, you can lie down. Test subjects trying to solve anagrams were able to solve them faster in a prone position. That’s because lying down increases insight and creative problem solving. Maybe that is why all my best ideas are when I’m asleep. Which leads me to my favorite…napping.

Yes, if lying down doesn’t work, taking a brief nap should. According to the article, “for increased cognitive performance, vigour and wakefulness, the best naps were 10 minutes long.” This is golden information for me. I LOVE naps and would take one every day if I could. And now that I know they boost performance, I can move them out of the “guilty pleasure” category to “work process”.

Now, for a brief nap while the sausage balls bake and then back to party prep.