Dragonfly Focus

Lessons on life and writing from a dragonfly, plus a goal and a new book.

Burning 2020 to the Ground

Every year Steve and I check the progress we made on the goals of the current year. This year there are a whole lot of “Goal Cancelled Due to Plague” as I’m sure is the case for others who made goals on January 1 only to see them burned up in 2020’s inferno of challenges….

Fitness, Food, and Health

My sister is a yoga teacher and physical therapy assistant. My husband is an ultrarunner. My mother is slim, active, and healthy in her 80s. You’d expect with all those good examples in front of me that I’d be much the same. But I’m not. I struggle. Some folks asked in a private group about…

Endurance Through Challenge

I finished my latest short story, the first for 2020, and sent it in to Dean. A time travel story called “Double Exposure” it follows a Time Rescue Service team trapped in the Arctic. It’s a good yarn. I think it conveys that doomed Arctic tone that so many of the stories of exploration have….

Planning the Year of Publication

Yesterday we dived into 2020’s intensive planning, looking at how our Year of Publication will break out. 2020 is more complex to manage than 2019 was. I found 2019 challenging because I had to learn quite a bit to write a good short story and then I had to write a story a week. (I…

Wisdom in the Cracks

Today is my first workout of 2020. Yes, I know that it is still 2019, but every good project has a prototype that you can tweak and improve before it is due. So let’s call today my first prototype workout. 2020 is filled with ambitious plans, including writing, publishing, coming back to fitness and losing…

Fitness Conundrum

I wrote a lot this last year. I participated in a lot of writing events. I made a lot of art. And I gained a lot of weight. it turns out that writing about people burning calories doesn’t translate into a calorie burn for the writer. I’m working on a fitness plan for next year….

March Forward! Goals

There are a number of challenges to my timely production of short fiction in March. I’m going to attend a race with my husband in a week. Then MidsouthCon in two weeks, and a variety of other activities that interfere with writing. So I’m taking a cautious approach to my March plans. Short Story Challenge…

January in the Rearview; February Goals

Looking Back on January It was challenging but I have accomplished some major writing goals this month and in one respect exceeded goals. In the Short Story Challenge, I ended up writing four short stories this month instead of three. I submitted one of them. My goal was to submit three. I’ve took Dean Wesley…