Missing a Meeting
April 6, 2013 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as Family, Killer Hobbies, Linda O. Johnston, writing
I unfortunately won’t be at the upcoming OCC meeting. It sounds wonderful, but I’ll have family in town. And family comes first! Especially since the visitors will include my little grandson, who’s ten months old. He, and my son and d-i-l, live in Chicago.
I saw them just over a week ago, too, on a Florida trip that I blogged about in my weekly Killer Hobbies blog. Great trip, one on which I’d intended to do a lot of writing. But despite the best of intentions, I spent more time with family than writing. Since then, I’ve pretty much caught up on what I’d hoped to accomplish, which makes me even happier that I did what felt best at the time.
Will I get much writing done next week? Maybe not. But I’ve fortunately met the most compelling of my deadlines, so I can afford to have fun and spend time with family.
So how about you–does family come first, or your writing, or your day job, or other obligations? Or are you able to juggle them all so nothing is ignored?
0 0 Read moreOCC’s Upcoming Meeting and More
November 6, 2012 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as Harlequin Nocturne, Killer Hobbies, Linda O. Johnston, Pet Rescuer Mysteries, SoCal RWA ConferenceI’ve missed OCC! I was unable to get to the last two meetings because of family travel plans, but I’m in town now and am delighted to say I’ll be at the Saturday meeting.
Both speakers sound interesting to me. In the morning, Tara Lain will be speaking about blog tours–and I’ve participated in quite a few. I’d love to learn other people’s perspectives about them. I try to utilize a few different social media avenues to let people know what I’m writing, and blogging is one of them.
I’ve said this before, but once upon a time, when I started writing, I thought that was all it was: you write, get published, and things are great from there on. It turns out that, yes, things are great, but there’s more to it than that. These days you write, publish and promote. As a result, I’m always eager to learn about other promotional opportunities.
For example, I’m participating in a blog hop tomorrow. Come visit my post at KillerHobbies.blogspot.com and learn more about me and this particular blog hop.
I’m delighted to say that I’ve signed up for the SoCal RWA Conference in March. Have you? I belong to two of the four participating RWA chapters and have for years. I’m really looking forward to this first SoCal RWA joint conference.
How about you? Do you blog? Are you going to the SoCal RWA Conference?
0 0 Read moreUp Early… and Writing!
September 6, 2012 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as Killer Hobbies, writing life
A couple of days ago, I had to get up very early–I set my alarm clock for 3:15 AM–to take some family members to Los Angeles International Airport for a 6 AM flight.
These days, I seldom even get up before 6 AM. In fact, my goal is generally 6:30. But years ago, when I had a full-time job as an in-house attorney, I had to get up much earlier, especially when my job moved from 10 miles from my home to 50 miles away. I’d already begun publishing by then so my coworkers knew that, when I arrived at 6:45 AM, I wasn’t really “there†because I would write for an hour before the official starting time of 7:45.
But since then, even when I’ve had law projects that required me to work in an office, I’ve seldom had to get up very early. Which now seems a bit of a shame!
On the day I went to LAX early, the drive from my home near Studio City was only about a half hour each way. Compare that to the usual round-trip drive to LAX of at least a couple of hours, thanks to traffic.
I was able to get in a workout at Curves that started at 5:45 AM. I returned home for breakfast and obeying my dogs, then started writing this blog plus my Killer Hobbies blog to be posted this week.
And then I got to work writing.
Okay, I admit that my eyelids were a bit droopy, thanks to my fatigue. Even so, it felt refreshing to start working so early. I think I even got a bit more done that day than I would have otherwise. Although I also admit to taking a twenty-minute nap–and that I still would have liked to have accomplished more.
Will I do it again? I’d like to, especially if it helps my writing productivity. Not sure yet whether I will… but I hope so.
How about you? What’s the earliest you get up to write?
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