DenNoWriMo at Fan Expo Denver

We’ve had a lot going on behind the scenes lately with DenNoWriMo, which is the former Denver region of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  This weekend we’re actually at Fan Expo Denver with a community table to let our region know we’re still here — and hopefully pick up some new participants as well.

About DenNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo — and now DenNoWriMo — has always been a labor of love for the three of us who run the program in the Denver area.  For those who aren’t familiar, National Novel Writing Month was the (actually international) challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November.  While the challenge primarily existed online, the Denver region was a very active in-person community, and we organized a ton of write-ins (where we literally get together with other participants and write) and other events.

So when NaNoWriMo closed down last year, we decided to keep going on our own.  We had already started distancing ourself from NaNoWriMo the previous year, calling ourselves FauxNoWriMo in 2024 (when NaNoWriMo was still operating).  When they announced they were shutting down for lack of funding, my co-organizers and I rechristened ourselves Denver Novel Writing Month and carried on as usual in 2025.  This year we made it official with a 501(c)(3) designation.

Come See Us at Fan Expo Denver!

The Denver NaNos table at Fan Expo has been a thing for years, since the event was Denver’s Comic Con (later Denver Pop Culture Con, and finally bought out by Fan Expo).  This year we’re trying to spread the word that we’re still here, as we lost contact with much of our region when NaNoWriMo reorganized (and began their death spiral) in 2024.

If you miss NaNoWriMo and the writing community the challenge offered, feel free to check us out.  We’ll be at Fan Expo Denver all weekend, but you can also check out our website and join the mailing list from there.  While we’re primarily based in the Denver area, we also have an online community, and long-distance participants are always welcome.

Writing Again

After nearly two months, I am writing again.

I hope.

I’d been thinking about writing again since our write-in (which we hold year-round now) on Tuesday, but I had a busy week and didn’t get around to it right away.  But yesterday, I had some time and a good idea, so I opened Scrivener.  Before I knew it, I was writing.

And before I knew it, an hour and a half had passed.

I’m not saying “I’m back!” or promising I’ll stick with it this time.  But I’m glad to be writing again.

I’m not even sure how or why I stopped.  I’d been so happy, having resumed my near-daily writing habit.  But then I got busy (a lot), and then I got sick (most of April), and I had a bazillion other things to do.

But here we are.  I am writing again, and I hope to get back into the habit.

Again.

My April Reads

I really like this feature of Fable’s that creates an image I can share on social media.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, Fable is a really good app to track what you’re reading, as well as what you’re watching (although I don’t use it for the latter part).  It imports from Goodreads and provides some good statistics, although not as much as Storygraph.  (I like the interface and the social networking features better than Storygraph, though — Fable has a light social media-type community, as well as a platform for book clubs.)  If you’re looking for an alternative to Goodreads, I highly recommend Fable.

I didn’t blog about my monthly wrap for January or February, but I read three and four books those months, respectively.  If you saw my reading wrap for March, you know April blew all of those months out of the water.  Seriously!  I doubled the number of books I finished between March and April, not to mention I also nearly doubled my books for the entire year: I am up to 23 books for the year, and 10 of those were finished in April.

I’m not sure what changed, exactly, except maybe a bunch of good book coming across my “currently reading” list.  A couple of those were also books that I had been reading in the background for a while (whenever I could get them out from the library, basically) and finally finished.  I don’t usually like reading more than one book at once, but that’s been happening a lot lately, usually because I wait too late to start something and it goes back to the library while I’m reading it, so I start something else.

I also have been listening to more audiobooks lately, which accounts for two of this month’s books (and four of the five in March).  I’ve found I enjoy listening to nonfiction while I do something that would normally bore me, such as driving, cleaning, putting away laundry, or showering.  It’s also useful as a body doubling method when I’m trying to overcome a lack of motivation to get something done.

In any case, I’m enjoying reading a little more often, and hope to continue doing so.

March-ing Through My TBR

I don’t post here much about my reading habits, but I think I’m going to change that, if only because — as Stephen King says — reading is such a crucial foundation for writing.

I read a lot, although not as much as I’d like sometimes.  I usually set a goal in Goodreads (and now Fable) to read 52 books throughout the year, which is an average of a book a week, which seems pretty reasonable.  Most years I read significantly more than that, but I keep my goal at that every year since that’s my minimum.

My reading is all over the map (which probably explains why my writing is too).  I read classics and literary fiction, sci fi and fantasy, historical fiction and popular fiction, even a fair amount of children’s and young adult.  And I read a lot more than just fiction, too — according to my stats in Fable, last year about half of what I read was nonfiction.  Lately I’ve been reading a lot of political books, and in the past couple years I’ve started listening to audiobooks during times when I can’t physically read (in the car, in the shower, while brushing my teeth, while cleaning).

I used to use Goodreads to track my reading, and I guess I still do a little, but I decided a little over a year ago to find an alternative due to how disgusted I was with Amazon kissing up to the current administration.  I wasn’t sure whether I’d like Fable or Storygraph better, so I just created accounts and started updating both — and then I ended up still updating Goodreads too, since I feel like as a future author, I should keep that active even if I don’t care for its parent company.

Anyway, Fable ended up being my favorite for its blend of tracking, statistics, and social features.  One of the things they do is the “reading wrap” images you can generate at the end of each month, and a reel you can create at the end of the year.

Over the past month, I’ve been plugging along through Lucky Loser, which is a long and detailed book and totally worth reading, but has been taking most of my attention.  All of the books I finished in March except for Wizard of Oz were audiobooks that I was listening to on the side while reading Lucky Loser.

I should be finished with Lucky Loser in the next day or two, though, so I’ll be able to move on to something else soon!

On Writing, Health Care, and Why Writing Is Political

We need to talk about health care.

Specifically, we need to talk about politics and health care, and how it affects us writers.

Health care has been in the news a lot under the new administration.  First there was the One Big Beautiful Bill, which made significant cuts to health care.  Then there was the fight in Congress over extending the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies, which actually shut down the government for over a month until six cowardly senators caved under pressure and traded our health care for a promise.

Now, we’re in an illegal war in the Middle East that Congress won’t fund, so the administration is looking for pots of money to steal from — and of course their sights fell on health care, because what else would they cut?  They’re using the standard excuse, of course, claiming they’re going after “waste and fraud and abuse.”

Even if you try to avoid following politics on a normal basis, as a writer you should care about health care, particularly if writing is your main job.  For those who don’t remember what it was like to buy individual health insurance before the ACA, health insurance companies could refuse to cover you at all if you had a preexisting condition, or they could refuse to cover anything relating to the preexisting condition (the primary reason you needed health care, usually) for a period of time such as a year.

The ACA was revolutionary for writers and, really, all entrepreneurs.  Suddenly we could get not only health insurance — regardless of preexisting conditions — but also, policies now offered standardized coverage, so you knew what you were getting for that money.

So when the administration talks about cutting health care, you know that is going to affect people like you and me — writers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, those who don’t have health insurance offered through a traditional job.  Even if it doesn’t affect you right at this moment — maybe you have health insurance through your spouse’s job, or maybe you have another part-time or full-time job that provides coverage — but it’s important to remember that you can’t count on that always being the case.  I’ve been through a divorce, my husband being laid off, and other mishaps that have resulted in us losing health insurance under our group plans.

In fact, you may have been affected by the cuts to health care already.  In the past year cuts have been made not just to Medicaid, but also to funding for the ACA tax credits.  The expanded tax credits were not renewed, and the projected number of people dropping their coverage as a result led to an additional increase in premiums.

And now they want to make even more cuts to federal spending on health care?  For a war that the president promised on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t start, that his voters didn’t want, and that the American people overwhelmingly oppose?

Even if you don’t follow politics on a regular basis, this is a moment — and an issue — that writers and entrepreneurs everywhere need to speak up about.  Make sure your elected officials know that health care is more than just political for you — it’s personal.

Caution: Busy Week Ahead

Every Sunday night, I like to plan out my week.  By “plan out my week,” I mean that I sit down with my calendar (TickTick), look at what I have going on in the coming week, and exercise extreme optimism while I schedule out my tasks.  I habitually schedule too little time for tasks, plan too few breaks, and assume I can work far more hours than I actually can.

There are some weeks where I have lots of white space to fill, and other weeks where I have so many things scheduled that there’s little room for my to-do list.  Not that it stops me — I use that same time optimism even when I know I’ll desperately need whatever down time is available to me.

This week is the latter kind.  I have something going on every day, and for the most part they’re major, time-consuming things.  Effectively it means it’ll put me into survival mode, where I do the minimum necessary to take care of myself around my scheduled things and don’t get a lot else done.  I suppose it’s not a bad thing — at least I prioritize myself — but it’s also frustrating not to get as much done at home.

Since I have a lot to do in addition to the things scheduled, I’m trying to approach this week with intention.  My time optimism wants me to still try to do it all, but logically I know if I try that, I’ll get overwhelmed and the survival mode will be worse.  Instead I’ll try to prioritize and just plan for the things I most want or need to get done, such as writing and working on taxes.

How do you handle it when you’re busier than usual?  Do you push yourself to still get things done, or do you focus on the necessities?

How I Took Back My Writing Habit

I know a lot of you will know what I mean when I say the past, oh, 14 months have been tough for writing.

I documented a lot of my struggles week by week in my progress reports for 2025, so I won’t go into that now.  But suffice it to say that my near-daily writing habit, which had gotten to be so strong throughout 2024, petered out in 2025.  In fact much of my motivation petered out in 2025.  It’s hard to focus on much of anything when the world is on fire… at least until you get used to the heat.

I knew I needed to find a way to get back on the horse, so to speak, and jump start my regular writing habit.  The question was how to do it.  I had tried on and off throughout 2025 and had not been successful.  I had tried new calendars and productivity planners and none of it had worked.  I was failing, and I was desperate.

During this period I had also become certain that I have ADHD.  It was a suspicion that had been growing for several years — a story I’ll go into another time — which led me to join a few groups on Facebook.  And through these groups, I discovered Finch.

I suppose “discovered” is not quite the right word — I had heard of it before, even had friends who used it, but had not looked into it nor seriously considered it as an option for me.  But people in the neurodivergence Facebook groups mentioned it occasionally, and I took note.  Eventually I decided to look into it.  It’s supposed to be a self-care app, but it quickly became obvious that you can use it for almost anything that helps you, so I decided early on to use it for my to do list.  I figured when you’re struggling as much as I was, getting things done IS self care.

Now, I have kind of a love/hate relationship with productivity tools.  I guess it’s a whole thing for ADHDers to go through various planners and systems, always trying to find something that works — that’s definitely the experience I’ve had.  Currently I’ve been using Tick Tick for about a year, which I switched to after Google decided to be evil and get rid of their DEI.  But like all systems, eventually it stopped working as well for me and I stopped getting things done, instead deferring tasks over and over again.  It’s been especially bad in the past year, with my motivation in the toilet.

But Finch has something the others don’t have: an external, compelling reward system.  Rewarding myself has never really worked for me — I don’t have the impulse control to wait for my “reward,” or I don’t see it as connected.  But Finch rewards me with rainbow stones for tasks I complete, which I can use to buy clothes, furniture, and colors for my birb.  Plus there are cute monthly themes, and data tracking that allows me to earn more for consistent streaks.  It’s fun and effective, as it keeps me invested in the system.  Even after three months, I don’t feel like I’m at any risk of petering out; quite to the contrary, I’ve been getting more done and building daily habits.

One of those habits is, of course, working on my novel.  I started using Finch just before the end of the year, and decided that as soon as 2026 started, I would start trying to work on my writing projects almost every day again.  And immediately, I was able to.  I just needed that little added incentive.  Since then, I’ve been using Finch for more and more of my to do list, added more daily or weekly habits that I wanted to build, and learned to weight harder and more time-consuming tasks to give me the extra push to get things done.

Another feature I’ve found helpful is Finch’s focus timer.  It works better than a regular focus timer for me, since I can’t minimize the app for very long or I lose my timer and the rainbow stones I was earning.  So it keeps me from getting distracted on my phone when I’m supposed to be doing something else. 

Finch might not work for everyone.  And even for me, it could never be my only way of keeping track of things — I still want and need that visual calendar to schedule tasks and rein in my time optimism.  But using Finch along with my calendar has helped me to overcome one of the toughest slumps I’ve ever experienced.  Thanks to Finch, I am writing nearly every day again!

That New Novel Feeling 🥰

We’ve had a mild winter in Colorado!  Spring is here already: The crocuses and daffodils in my garden are blooming, the days are getting longer, and I have a new novel growing in Scrivener.

Generally when I write, I try to stay focused on one novel, even when other ideas pop up (and they do — it seems like the more you write, the more ideas you get).  But sometimes there’s an idea that comes along and grabs you so thoroughly that you can’t help but start writing it.

I had that moment about a month ago.  My previous novel project had languished all throughout 2025, and while I had gotten back to work on it in 2026, I had lost some of the excitement for it — I was just doing the minimum on it every day to satisfy my to-do list task.

But this idea — basically a thoroughly steampunk retelling of Oz — grabbed me on February 14th.  I wrote a little of it and decided I needed to read the original book (since all I knew of it was from the original movie and the Wicked movies).  My retelling will be different, of course, but still very much a story for our times.  I’m tentatively calling it The Last Automaton of Oz.

I’ve updated my TrackBear profile to display my current projects — this new one, the novel that I have on hold, and a short story I wrote a while back and need to revise.  I also have (but didn’t include on my profile) the pair of suspense novels I wrote in 2024 that need a second draft, but that will be a big undertaking.  For now I’m going to keep working on Oz since it feels the most timely.

It feels good to be excited about a project again.  I don’t plan to let my unfinished novel project stay unfinished, but with everything going on in the world right now, I needed something that would be a more compelling competitor for my attention.

Reading as Resistance: Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

I’m going to start a new series of posts called “Reading as Resistance.”  I read a lot of political and politically-inspired books these days, seeking to keep myself as informed as possible as we resist our country’s free fall into fascism, and I want to encourage others to do the same.

My most recent read was Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s memoir of the abuse she suffered, at the hands of Epstein and others.  It has been said that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were adept at finding hurt and broken girls, girls who had already been groomed for abuse and would be easy to manipulate into accepting more, and Virginia certainly fit the bill.  Her descriptions of the abuse she experienced throughout her life were heartbreaking, and of course Epstein and Maxwell capitalized on that.

It also broke my heart to read about her struggles with suicidal thoughts and attempts toward the end of her life, especially knowing she had finally — apparently — succeeded.

One thing I thought was very interesting was at the end, where she talked about the men she had named versus the men she didn’t, and why.  She specified one that she was afraid to name because he was too wealthy and powerful, and would ruin her with litigation she couldn’t afford.

The damning files that have been released so far — and the power play that has slowed their release — definitely suggests whom she might have meant.

The remaining files need to be released, and the abusers within their pages brought to account.

Katharine Swan Is Now on Bluesky!

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about my 20 years of blogging, and how much the writing industry and social media have changed during that time.  The rise of Facebook and other social media sites and the corresponding decline of blogging have dramatically changed both of those things.

I think we’re now on the cusp of more changes, and the domination of the big names hangs in the balance as independent media and platforms are on the rise.  Twitter’s star has already started to fall since it was taken over by Elon Musk and has turned into a home for right-wing extremists, and it kinda seems like Facebook and Meta are headed in a similar direction as they ramp up the Big Brother approach, burying liberal content with their algorithms while the comment sections are overrun by the administration’s disinformation army.

So I’ve decided to expand my reach to additional platforms.  I have this blog and an author Instagram, and I intend to eventually have an author page on Facebook as well.  I have a limited presence on Substack as well, primarily for my sporadic politics newsletter, What to Know Today.  I plan to do eventually do more with Substack, and I’ve also decided it’s time to carve out a corner for myself on Bluesky.  The latter seems to be more of a Twitter replacement than a Facebook- or Instagram-style platform, just without the crazy overlord and MAGA leanings.

I’ve also found that politics has been creeping into my writing persona more and more.  How could it not, as central a role as it’s starting to play in our lives?  I’m taking my inspiration from other writers and creators who are outspoken about their political views.  I even think politics may have to play a bigger role in my 1920s vampire series, given the implications of the era’s corruption on current events.

If you are on Bluesky, be sure to follow me there too!

Twenty Years of Blogging

I was sick and didn’t post on the official anniversary, and then the rest of the month pretty much got away from me, but December 5, 2025 — exactly a month ago — marked 20 years since I started my blog.  Two decades is a long time, and sometimes I can’t believe it’s been so long.  To give you an idea of how much has changed in that time, I’ve composed a list of then versus now.

In twenty years:

• I’ve gone from fledgling freelancer, to part-time, back to full-time, and finally to not freelancing at all while I focus on my own projects
• I’ve worked on the side as a part-time nanny, a house cleaner and assistant, a babysitter, and a stall mucker (and I still do the last two)
• I’ve gone through three iterations of my website
• I’ve started 11 novels, finished first drafts of 5 of those, started second drafts of exactly one, and published none
• I’ve participated in 20 years of NaNoWriMo (now DenNoWriMo in the Denver area) as a writer, 9 years as a volunteer Municipal Liaison, one year (2024) as a rogue community organizer, and one year (2025) as a co-founder of a shiny new local organization
• I’ve also started volunteering at the local doll and miniatures museum, primarily as a board member but also occasionally writing newsletter articles and other short content 

Also during this time, the market has gone through many changes.  For instance:

• Freelancers have been undercut first by lowballing writers from India, and now AI
• Freelancing opportunities that once abounded have dwindled
• Blogging has diminished in popularity, replaced by social media and video format posts

Twenty years ago, I had graduated college and started my career only a year previous.  I had worked full-time as a technical writer for nearly that entire year while freelancing on the side, before making the jump to freelancing full-time about two months earlier.  I think it was a lot easier in those days; the internet was advanced enough to offer lots of opportunities to aspiring writers, but not so advanced that it actually took away opportunity (like AI does today).

At the same time, the logistics of freelancing was harder in those days.  Before the Affordable Care Act, it was harder for freelancers to get health insurance.  The ACA was a game changer for freelancers (as well as for anyone with preexisting conditions).

And then there was the community.  Back then, MySpace was still a thing, Facebook was just starting out but hadn’t taken off yet, and blogs and forums were how writers established community.  I miss those days sometimes.  I used to “warm up” every day by reading other writers’ blogs before I got to work myself.

Finally… money, because that has to be addressed.  I don’t feel like writers’ wages have gone up as much as they should have in 20 years, certainly not enough to keep up with how much the cost of living has risen.  It’s kind of scary how much incomes haven’t kept up with the cost of things, honestly.

I’m not where I thought I would be in 20 years, that much is for certain.  I didn’t foresee getting burned out by freelancing, or struggling so much to follow my lifelong dream of writing and publishing books.  But I’m also not sorry about where I am.  I have a good life and I’m (hopefully) back on track to finish and publish some books in the near future.

I wonder where the internet, the industry, and this blog will be in another 20 years?

For funsies, here is my very first blog post!

New Year: Threat or Promise?

I know I haven’t blogged in some time.  Last year developed quite the snowball effect, and by the last few months of the year, there was so much to deal with that I didn’t have the bandwidth for blogging.  As a result, I fell off the wagon as far as blogging weekly about my 2025 goals.

I’m not going to set my New Year’s resolutions as high this year, or really at all.  Last year I found how fatally distracting to my goals the current events could be, and it made it even more demoralizing how much I fell behind as the year went on.  I’m also going to discontinue my weekly check-ins.  Instead, I’m going to go back to basics and blog about writing and writing-related topics.

Honestly, I was eager to say goodbye to 2025, because it’s been so awful both personally and politically, and I had cautiously optimistic hopes for 2026.  If I’d written this post on the first or second day of the year, it might have been very different.  Unfortunately, it only took 2026 until day three to deliver a whopping gut punch to our democracy, as we all woke this morning to the news that the administration had carried out an illegal (i.e., not approved by Congress) strike on Venezuela.

With the understanding that 2026 is likely going to continue in quite the same fashion as 2025, possibly getting even worse if today is any indication, I’m going to adjust my expectations for the year accordingly.  If I had a hard time staying focused last year, and this year is potentially going to get worse, I need to be realistic with my goals.

With that being said, I have two goals… or maybe it’s better to call them “focuses,” as I am not going to militantly track progress the way I did last year.  I spread myself too thin, and then found myself in crisis mode thanks to current events and my suspected ADHD burnout.  This year will be about learning to cope with what 2025 and 2026 have dealt us, rather than expecting to go back to the easy successes of 2024.

For 2026, I would like to:

1. Get back to work on my personal writing projects.  I have completely lost the habit of writing every day.  I decided I was going to start working on my novel again on January 1st, and set a goal to work on it at least a little every day.  If that is adding a single word, so be it.  I just want to move my writing goals to the front burner again.
2. Find a better system for managing goals and motivating myself.  As I noted, I have come to suspect that I have ADHD.  It would explain my struggles with chronic burnout throughout my freelancing career, and my problems with motivation.  Obviously I need to find a way to work within this framework so that I stop burning myself out all the time.  Currently I’m trying out Finch to see if it can help me, particularly with motivation.

My blog posts from here on out will focus more on my writing life and the journey to find some kind of structure that works better for me.  Expect too that politics may make it into my ramblings from time to time.

Happy New Year, to everyone except the administration currently ruining my focus and wellbeing!  Thank you for your attention to this matter.  KSL

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week ?: Back on the Wagon

It’s been over two months since the last time I did a goals check-in.  My life just got to be too, too much, and something had to give… and that something turned out to be, among other things, trying to meet the goals I set at the beginning of the year, before the world went crazy.

Things are marginally less chaotic right now, not because my life is no longer busy but because the busyness is somewhat more focused, so I’m going to try to hop back on the wagon and finish out the year a little stronger.

Where I’m at Now

The last couple of months have been one major thing after another, and sometimes at the same time.  There was the Fall Show for the Museum of Miniatures, Dolls & Toys, which I had to prepare a doll exhibit, part of a doll program, and a workshop; there was all the house sitting for my husband’s parents, which made it difficult to get much done at our house; there was trying to get the house ready for my mom to stay with us; and there was my mom’s surgery and recovery.

Once we got all that done, we still had NaNoWriMo FauxNoWriMo DenNoWriMo to get ready for.  Our local region did a fun spin-off of NaNoWriMo last year, after everything blew up, and called it FauxNoWriMo.  This year, after NaNoWriMo announced they were officially shutting down, we decided to rename our local community DenNoWriMo, and start building it out to be a local replacement for NaNoWriMo.  Getting it ready for November meant building a new website, planning events, planning fun extras like stickers, writing email blasts, and beefing up the social media community.

Now DenNoWriMo is just a few days away, and November is sure to be another whirlwind month.  With only two months left in the year, I’m hoping to get back on the wagon and finish out the year a little stronger than the last, oh, nine months have gone.

Where I’m at right now:

Writing

I haven’t worked on my novel in months at this point, although of course I’m hoping that’ll change in November.  And obviously I haven’t been maintaining my blog and Instagram either, except for the Banned Books Week post I made in October.

Decluttering and Organization

We worked on decluttering and organizing the house before my mom came to stay with us, and a bit during and after that too.  Unfortunately our progress was stalled more recently, as we had DenNoWriMo to prepare for and unexpected additional house sitting for my husband’s parents.  I’m hoping to get back to that in November, though, in addition to working on my novel and running DenNoWriMo.

Dolls

I haven’t worked on a doll in ages, and honestly, the decluttering and organization project will take precedence over doll projects.  But I do hope to get back to them soon, possibly by December.

Lessons Learned

Honestly, if there was a lesson in any of this, it was that plans and goals don’t always turn out the way you want them to.  I can’t blame myself for not sticking to my weekly goals because it’s not like I knew when I set them that my mom would need surgery, or my husband would lose his job, or that we’d have a fascist regime taking over our country and stressing us all out.

Sometimes the best you can do is just to get through it with your life and yourself in one piece.

Like I said, if I can pick things back up and finish out the year a little stronger, I’ll be happy with that.

Happy Banned Books Week 2025!

It’s been a while.  Life has been hectic and I’ve gotten away from tracking my progress — mostly because I’ve had to focus on so many other things that my goals for the year have fallen by the wayside.  But I couldn’t go without posting about Banned Books Week!

Today kicks off Banned Books Week for 2025.  To celebrate the week, I always like to browse the list of top banned and challenged books from the year before, and read one or more of them if I can.

As usual, the list of the top challenged books for last year includes quite a few repeats.  And as usual, the list betrays the homophobia/transphobia, racism, and sexism that runs rampant in our culture.

1. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson
2. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (TIE)
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (TIE)
5. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
6. Looking for Alaska by John Green (TIE)
7. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (TIE)
8. Crank by Ellen Hopkins (TIE)
9. Sold by Patricia McCormick (TIE)
10. Flamer by Mike Curato

In fact, I’ve now read all of the usual suspects except for the first two, possibly the first three.  All three are now on my TBR list.

I’ve been celebrating Banned Books Week in this manner for almost 20 years, but never has it seemed as important as it seems this year.  With the year’s events — the threats to our Constitution, particularly to our First Amendment rights — I feel like our rights to read and write what we want is quickly becoming ever more precious.

So I will definitely be reading the remaining three books on the list in the coming weeks.

Never forget how lucky we are, for the past 250 years, to have been able to read what we want.  Nazis burned books to try to destroy their influence.  Don’t let history repeat itself.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 33: Tough Times

Last week was not what I expected, to say the least.  My energy and focus, and therefore my productivity, basically fell off a cliff with the drop in hormones during that part of my cycle.  It shouldn’t have surprised me because it has happened every month since I’ve started tracking it, but I had hoped to be able to continue using the break method I’d found to be so effective the week before.

So much for that.

And on Friday, we got some especially bad news: My husband was let go from his job, which had started out as a contract-to-hire position but there were never any open positions for him.  So now he’s back to job hunting, after a little over a year at that job.

It’s a little more stressful this time, since our finances are in rougher shape.  Our kitty’s care before she died last December had added to our debt, so we have more bills to cover now.  Plus we also didn’t have the advantage of knowing in advance this time that the end was coming, so we weren’t able to prepare for the gap in pay as we had been last time.

I have been in a slow period with my own income, so I’m going to step things up and see if I can contribute a little more, which will unfortunately cut into my time cleaning and organizing around the house.  Fortunately, my mom’s surgery was delayed a week, so I have until later in September now to get the house ready.

Last week was pretty dismal — about the only goal I met was my blogging and author IG posting goals, and a single day of working on novel research — so I’m going to forego the rundown this week.  Hopefully this week will be more productive, and I’ll have more positive stuff to report next Monday.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 32: The Power of Breaks

Last week was productive, but it required a lot of maintenance, and I had to be fairly single-minded with my focus, which means that I didn’t get any writing done — only organizing.  But that’s the biggest priority right now, to be ready for my mom coming here during her recovery, so that’s okay.

I think one of the biggest reasons I was so successful last week was that I took a lot of breaks.  It wasn’t a rigid Pomodoro approach, as there were no timers, but whenever I achieved a small task or felt like I was getting to a point of overwhelm, I took a break and regrouped.  It allowed me to keep moving forward all week long.

Unfortunately, it was also extremely exhausting to be pushing myself so much, and by the end of the week I could feel that I was struggling to maintain my energy levels.  I also found I was capable of many fewer focus sections by the end of the week.  Perhaps if I’d had the entire weekend to rest and recoup, I’d have been able to come back feeling refreshed today, but I had a restringing class at the museum yesterday and as a result, was “on” for the most of the weekend, too.

Today, unfortunately, the focus sessions and breaks are not working.  It could be that I’m still exhausted from last week and the lack of break since yesterday was a big day, or it could be that this is my period week, and I’ve consistently found through the last few months of tracking that my energy and focus levels take a nose dive during the week of blank pills.

Regardless of the reason, my focus is in the toilet today, and it has taken me two and a half hours (and counting!) to get this far in my blog post.  And only now, at nearly 6pm, do I finally feel any degree of focus.

Last week was good, though, so let’s focus on that.  You can find out next Monday how I managed to deal with this week’s lack of focus.

Writing

I was so focused on decluttering, organizing, and cleaning last week that I got nothing done on my novel.  I did get my blog post and Instagram post up, but not until Thursday.  I also got some minor work done on my ADHD planner, which I’m kinda halfway counting toward my writing goals.  I’m working on making small tweaks and revisions now as I use it and discover what works best.

Decluttering and Organization

This is where essentially all of my productivity last week was centered.  I started cleaning up the kitchen and made a ton of progress there.  I also made major progress organizing in the doll room.  I’m working on organizing the collections of all the “named” dolls, and then I’ll move on to reorganizing the non-collection clothes and accessories so that I can start putting things away from around the house.

Dolls

Ironically, despite my restringing class, I didn’t get any of my own doll projects done.  The doll I restrung as my demo was the museum’s doll.  So I’m not sure if that really counts toward my goal… but I guess it isn’t a significant issue at the moment, since I need to prioritize getting the house ready for my mom’s stay.

Taxes

No progress here, but I fully expect that to be the case for a few more weeks.

Lessons Learned

I’m hoping that my use of breaks will be a lasting technique that I can use to power through other tasks, although of course I’m hoping that I don’t have to power through every time.  I’m a little worried since it’s been so ineffective today, although as I mentioned, there are a few possible reasons why that could be the case.  I’ll keep trying, though, and report back next week.  I still have lots to get done this week!

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 31: Creating Is Motivating

Last week was a strange week, but it reinforced the idea that when I create more, I am more motivated.  So while on paper it’s going to look like I missed the mark with a lot of my goals, it felt like a pretty productive week.

On Monday, I was getting ready to work when I got hugely derailed by an idea for a new project — not a writing project, per se, but an idea to create an ADHD planner.  I’ve come to suspect that I have undiagnosed ADHD (more on that in a future post), and I’ve had ADHD planners recommended to me — but when I look at the ones available, I never see anything that quite meets my needs.

So I started thinking about what I might find useful, and with that, I was off to the races.  I started designing mine in Canva (and realized when I did so that most of the ones you see for sale are just Canva templates with “ADHD” slapped on them).  Most of the day Monday and Tuesday was spent on this, and in the end I think I came up with a planner page template that suits my needs much better.  I also have ideas for other planner pages that could potentially be combined into a comprehensive, hyperlinked planner with the same goals in mind.

A few Facebook friends voiced interest when I posted on social media on Monday about my day, and I ended up creating a Facebook group for the purpose of finishing and beta testing the planner template.

It’s not a writing goal, per se, though in a way it’s in the same category.  I’m leaving it out of the writing category goals, even though I do intend to keep working on it.

Here is the rundown for the rest:

Writing

On the subject of being more motivated and productive when I create more, on Wednesday — after two days in a row of intense focus on my planner project — I had a sudden idea for a short story.  Without thinking about it too hard, I immediately wrote the story.  The result was that I spent about three hours writing a little over 4,000 words, and I love the story.  It’s one I hope to do something with eventually.  I’m going to sit on it a little, then revise and polish it a bit.  It might be a good freebie when I start self-publishing.

This gave me one of my two days of writing last week.  Even though it wasn’t on my novel, I’m happy for the burst of motivation and the lesson that following my focus and creating, even when it’s not something that’s on my to-do list, both energizes and motivates me.

Decluttering and Organization

My goals in this particular category kicked into high gear last week when I discovered my mom will need surgery again soon — this time, the other hip.  Last February she had her first hip replacement surgery and spent a month at my house, recovering.  I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare before that one, either — maybe even less — which made cleaning and organizing for her pretty tough, plus I got sick right beforehand and that meant I had even less time.

Hopefully before this surgery, I’ll have more time to organize and truly get everything in order.  I have a lot of stuff in my living room that is to be fixed up and/or resold, so I may need to consider storing it somewhere until after she has recovered.  I hate to pay for a storage unit, but if I don’t, I’ll have to depend on other people’s kindness and hope someone will let me take over a corner of their basement or something.

One thing at a time, though — I have at least five weeks and a lot of organizing to do before I need to make that decision.

Dolls

No progress here and I don’t expect a lot over the coming weeks, since I’ll be more focused on decluttering, organizing, and cleaning — and after that, taking care of my mom.

Taxes

No progress here either, and I expect this one to be tabled for a little while as well.

Lessons Learned

I feel like there are two lessons to be had here:

1. Creating is a motivating activity for me.  Theoretically, if I follow my creative urges around more often, I could potentially have all the motivation I need — but I do suspect that I would crash at some point from doing too much.
2. Life doesn’t just give you lemons, it wings them at you like they’re fast balls.  Forget the lemonade!  If you’re lucky, you can hit them out of the park.

This post is going up late too, obviously, and I’m happy to say that, like last week, it means that I’ve been productive.  I actually started this post on Monday but I’m just getting around to finishing it!  That’s also partly because I’ve also been pretty distracted all week, despite being actually rather productive.

Exciting things to blog about next week, but… I’ll leave that for next week’s post.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 30: More Writing (A Little)

This post is coming late in the week because I got majorly distracted and worked on a new project most of Monday and Tuesday.  Last week was a little chaotic, which wasn’t totally unexpected, as I knew it would be another busy week.  Incidentally, this one will be too, as it’s my friends’ daughters’ last chance to go to the barn before they go home for the school year.  So of course I’m taking them, even though it means another day lost!

Anyway without further ado, here is the rundown for last week:

Writing

I worked on my novel(s) again!  One day I worked on planning out my next novel (an idea I got recently and couldn’t shake), and another day I worked on research for my current novel.  I also blogged and posted to my author Instagram exactly once each last week, even though I’ve been planning some additional posts recently.  I’ll get to those soon… I hope.

Decluttering and Organization

No progress here.

Dolls

No progress here.

Taxes

No progress here.

Lessons Learned

Based on my progress (or lack thereof) of my goals, it seems like a pretty dismal week.  And the truth is, I struggled with focus some of those days.  But it was also a busier week than this rundown makes it look.

Last summer I read a book called Four Thousands Weeks, the message of which is primarily that we need to stop fixating on overall productivity and instead focus our efforts only on what really matters to us.  Last week was, at the heart of it, one of those weeks.  I struggled with focus and motivation for some of it, yes, but I also went to the barn, spent time with my horse — who is getting older — and with my friend’s daughters — who are growing up far too quickly.

So if you think about it that way, maybe I achieved more last week than what it looks like on paper.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 29: I Wrote!!!

Last week was a bit of a struggle for getting things done, but I had a lot of demands on my time so I’m not surprised.  I also was extremely unfocused, unmotivated, and struggling with energy levels all week.  I have some theories about that, which I might address in a future post.  But suffice it to say that this week should be a lot better.

That being said, here is the rundown of last week’s goals:

Writing

I worked on my novel last week.  This feels like a big deal because before that, I had a three-week streak of not writing.  I wrote a few hundred words on Thursday, and worked on research on Saturday.  And I worked on outlining a new story idea on Sunday, one I’m pretty fired up about (but will try not to work on just yet).

I also got a post up on my author IG last week.  I do want to work on some different posts for my IG though, something a little more fun and relatable.

Decluttering and Organization

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to work on any organization projects.

Dolls

I didn’t work on any dolls, but I was busy with doll museum stuff last week, mostly planning and recruiting.

Taxes

Unfortunately, I didn’t work on this either.

Lessons Learned

I’ve been tracking my motivation, energy, and focus, and last week was pretty much just a bad week for all of it — and I think I know the reason, but need to keep tracking it a little while longer before I talk about my suspicions too much.

I do think I’m on the right track with my new schedule.  I’ve built in time in the morning for Facebook and journaling, since I can’t seem to get going in the morning without spending some time on both.  We’ll see if that — and my reminders to help me switch gears when it’s time — help going forward.  I didn’t expect any of it to be successful last week, but this week should be more telling, even though it’ll be another busy one.

I have some other updates to post, and hopefully I will get to those this week as well.

2025 Weekly Challenge, Week 28: Not as Expected

I had been hoping last week would be more productive than last week, but it turned out to be a bit spotty.  Part of it was that we were housesitting starting on Thursday, which meant my week was only really Monday through Wednesday, since I lost most of Thursday to packing and heading over to the house.  It also meant that my weekend, which is usually when I catch up on the things I don’t get done during the week (often house projects), was taken up with other things.

We’ll be housesitting a lot this summer, but fortunately for right now we have some time at home — and I hope to use this time to develop a good routine.  So even though this week’s rundown is a little discouraging, I have some plans to make the coming weeks better.

Writing

I did not write at all this past week, which means it’s now been about three weeks since I wrote last.  With any luck that unproductivity streak will be broken this week.

I did also get a blog post and corresponding social media post up, but just one (of each).

Decluttering and Organization

I didn’t work on anything around the house — partly because, as I noted, we weren’t home over the weekend — but I did formulate some plans and buy a few shelves that I’m hoping to put up this week.  I’d say that counts, but tentatively, since I do have a habit of buying things and taking a long time to actually finish the project.

Dolls

No time to work on dolls last week, especially since I wasn’t at home for half the week.

Taxes

I still need to finish going through emails — a big job, since I am (if  you haven’t guessed) terrible at managing my inbox — but didn’t get to work on that this week, partly because I took my iPad with me to the house we were watching, instead of the computer where my emails are downloaded.  I did, however, work on updating my time entries in Toggl, which I think counts as a taxes catchup project since the main reason I track my time is for business reporting.

Lessons Learned

I still plan out my week in my calendar-based to-do app every Sunday evening.  It rarely all goes the way I planned — partly because I am terrible at making realistic predictions of how long things will take or how much time I need between tasks — but it helps me to know what my goals are for the week, and what scheduling difficulties I might have in achieving them.

One thing I noticed last week while working on this was that my plan for working on my novel first thing after coffee was not working out.  I should have known, honestly, as it takes my brain some time to get up and running in the mornings, but I saw a scheduling recommendation of doing something creative in the mornings, and of course my first thought was working on my novel.  But I think I need to schedule something else in that time.  I’ve never been good at tackling the hard things first, and trying to force myself to write first thing was just contributing to my focus issues as I avoided what I didn’t yet want to do.  And then, because the rest of the day was fully scheduled out, it made it difficult to find time to get back to my novel later in the day.

This, as much as my busyness, may have contributed to me not writing for the past three weeks, as I think it was around then that I started trying out this new schedule.

So I think I’m going to try the revolutionary approach of working with my habits, instead of trying to fight them.  That is, I’m going to start scheduling time in the mornings to check Facebook and email, journal, and take care of any administrative things before I do anything involving more focus.  I’m just going to expect to start my day with those things, instead of constantly expecting myself to be able to do something else and being disappointed when I fail.  Actually planning for it also helps as I’m able to set reminders to combat my time blindness and help me transition to another task.

We’ll see if the new approach helps this week, and if so, I hope to establish an effective routine until housesitting disrupts it again.