Month: August 2019

And I’m calling it research. (Friends who know how old I am will laugh when they read this.)

I stayed in bed until 11:30am and was the last one in the shower. I didn’t comb my hair. Just ran my fingers through it. (Is it cheating that I have braids?)

Vitamins? No way. Breakfast? Oh, well. Guess not. Got up late.

Stuffed my face with Indian buffet for brunch as I pushed the bitter stuff to the side of the plate and swallowed down the spicy burn with Coke, my first drink of the day, with no thought about calories. Don’t worry. I sipped water too in an attempt to be healthy (and appease the mom in my head).

Oh, and I made it to the buffet line first.

I got a wind up toy and smiled each time it shimmied across the table with my birthday card held high. What teen doesn’t appreciate brainless playtime? Spending way too much time liking bday posts on FB and responding to texts was a blast.

I even watched like over 3 hours of TV. What 15 year old girl doesn’t enjoy watching older people’s attempt at romance? (I know. I’m exaggerating like a teen.) I even giggled at the sloppy kisses. (hehe)

Work email? Not a chance. What’s work? I walked the dog and stared at butterflies instead.

Cake and ice cream? Yum.

And after all that, I stayed up until almost midnight talking on the phone.

Today? I return to my real life, but it sure was fun being a teenager for a day.

Now, back to writing for them.

In June 2018, I entered my first ever short story writing competition. The Theme: Beach Fun. The Setting: Rehoboth Beach. The Problem: I’d never been to Rehoboth and had no idea what kind of beach plot would be of interest.

But I like stories about mermaids and learned that the they are a hit in Rehoboth Beach, too. Since stories about mermaids have saturated the market, I wrote about a merboy and his initial adventure on land. Learning about Rehoboth Beach via maps, pictures, and historical articles was a ton of fun.

About a month later, I received a phone call saying my story made it into the Beach Fun Anthology. Then, I joined other authors for the book signing at Browseabout Books in November.

This year, I wrote part two of Zale’s story. Although not picked for the Beach Dreams Anthology, I am one story closer to completing the planned short story trilogy. But who knows? Zale’s tale just might take me to other far away places.

Someone recently asked me about my web blog. Did it cost a lot? Was it hard?

It just so happens a friend set up my very first blog page years ago (blogger.com) because I had no clue how to do any of that. After learning some basics, I took it over and added more tabs containing additional content.

With that new skill in hand, I ventured out to create this website, which is in its third overhaul, now using WordPress. This is the first time I’ve added a blog to my website. I’m continually learning new skills to keep it going.

So, the only costs to me has been time and the web hosting fee because I had the inclination to learn how to do everything myself. Otherwise, I’d be paying someone else hundreds of dollars to create and update the site. It helps to have a great web host (InMotion Hosting) to help when I mess something up. Prices vary depending the plan chosen.

Basically, create an account and give it a go. Be sure to tell others about your blog via social media and include keywords so the search engines can find the page. Good luck and have fun with it!