It is Wednesday evening and for two days running I have not been writing on my #wip. Arggg! I even am a bit late on my blog. Not good.

So what is the status on Book 4 of Students of Jump you ask. Well, so far it is the longest book I’ve written, coming in at just a bit under 100,000 words.  Besides watching out for typos and diction errors, I’ve been adding a scene here and a scene there. My fabulous beta readers, friends and fellow writers Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden have pointed out some issues and areas for expansion and those have been keeping me quite busy this month. (By the way, all my books are available at Smashwords, Amazon, Kobo and other fine ebook retailers.)

I have been busily writing and content editing. Until yesterday. Family stuff, a bit of Trivia Crack and dog maintenance. Let’s deviate off the path of wherever I was going and focus on dog maintenance a moment. I have two Labradors, lovely ladies. We call them the bookends because they tend to take positions right next to each other and either mirror each other or lay identically. Of course, one is a chocolate and the other a yellow so they are always opposites in one way. The yellow sheds year round, while the chocolate sheds twice a year.

Consider this: they are both Labrador retrievers, not quite a year apart in age and they live in the same air conditioned residence. Yet, when I brush Cagney, the yellow, I am left with enough hair to cover a whole other dog. Lacey, however, produces about half a tennis ball size of hair fluff, unless it is the start of spring or early fall when she drops considerably more. After an hour of brushing Cagney, I simply give out. If I keep brushing, she just keeps letting go of hair. I look her over, and other than looking sleeker, she’s still well favored in soft yellow hair.  Do you remember those dolls that had hair that you could pull out of the top of their heads or roll it back in by pressing a button at the center of her back? I had one of those, still do in a cedar trunk. Cagney is like that. No, no buttons, but it sure seems like there is an unlimited supply sprouting from her skin, perhaps brush activated.

Where am I going with this? Well, I will admit, I had no idea at first. But something came to mind, just now as a matter of fact. Here it is. Sometimes writing is like this. There are days when I am a Cagney and the keys just keep activating my word production and other days I wonder if I am trying to write in the wrong season. See Cagney is the lots of words day and Lacey is the drought day. And if you think about it, they are the same but opposite too. At the end of the day, something was written. Good/bad, a lot/a little, brutal/effortless, willingly/forced, ears back/ears forward, mouth open and panting/mouth clamped shut.  Writing is like having two dogs, same breed, but different.

It was a struggle, I know, but I found a connection. I challenge you to write about something that enters your mind and show how it is an metaphor for an activity you love. It need not be writing. But if you got to the bottom of this twisted doggy run, you are probably a writer, or at least a reader. Thank heaven you exist.

#writing
#creativity
#dogs

The post Writing metaphor: two dogs, shedding a little of the dark and the light first appeared on L. Darby Gibbs ~ Author.

Blossoms to hold onto.

It is that time of year again when everybody is writing
either their New Year resolutions or their accomplishments for the past year.
My thought is more along the lines of what is still present, still ongoing. So
here is my New Year list post.

• My Labrador companion Cagney it turns out is not
  turning ten years old in a few months but in fact is going to be nine for
  another year. She and I are quite pleased about this turn of events now that
  she is over me aging her faster than she needs to. 
• Cagney is still an excellent backwards tap dancer
  and gives a show every night when I measure out her evening meal. 
•  I am still working on Book 4 of the Students of
  Jump series, which appears each day, (though I keep writing more scenes) to still
  have another 6K of words to get to the end. My book apparently has some Dr.
  Who Tardis qualities: the inside is larger than one would expect. 
•  I am still disappointed with the movie version
  of The Hobbit. Where in heck did this
  white orc come from and since when was a dwarf the main character of a book
  titled The Hobbit? 
•  Don’t get me started on Ender’s Game. But I still feel the same. Good news: no white orc.
•  When building a house, everything takes longer
  than expected, still. Yet the roof is on, windows are in, garage doors are
  going in as I write and siding is going up. I remind myself daily that I could
  still be smoothing the concrete in the garage, and suddenly I feel as if we
  have been moving along quite swimmingly. 
•  I am still getting older and expect to continue
  aging in the future 
•  Teaching has been, is and will continue to be
  very hard work. Fortunately, students still have the capacity to learn despite
  their nearly all out effort to avoid this. I get updates a year or two after
  graduation that show that these kernels of learning take root and remain
  exponentially active for many years. As of this year, I began teaching my first
  grand-student. He is a much better student than his mother. Appears kernels
  imbed themselves in the genes. Who knew? 
• Creativity still begets creativity. I am testing
  a theory: One can never run out of creativity. I’ll let you know the results,
  but you have to hang around. I won’t make the post until shortly before the
  end, and I plan to live a very long time. 
•  There are in fact motor homes that one can be
  comfortable in. You just might not want to bring along two Labradors and two
  family members to test the comfort level. 
•  You should still floss the teeth you want to
  keep. 
•  Teenage girls notice teenage boys faster than
  the speed of light. Boys might be a little bit faster noting girls. Research is
  still coming in. 
•  Having to pay bills teaches responsibility.
  Politeness, consideration, appreciation, timeliness, good work habits and
  sympathy are also benefits of this experience. Earning grades through one’s own
  personal effort teaches the same lessons. 
•  A kind word still makes a difference worth
  noting and is therefore worth giving. 
•  Still keeping company with the best of writer
  friends, Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden. 
•  Another year with the best man in my life and he
  assures me he is looking forward to another. 
• The finest of daughters continues to grow into a
  woman who will one day also be my best friend. Though I don’t look forward to
  letting go of her girlhood, I am already reaching for her adult hand. 
•  My daughter’s Labrador is still terrified of
  white floors of any material. She treats them like ice and skates on her curled
  black nails in a comic lack of control that promises to end with all four legs
  spread out like Bambi but never happens. It seems an appropriate phobia
  considering the time of year. 
•  I expect to continue blogging for another year,
  and probably longer. 
•  Based on my current writing projects, I see
  several years of writing ahead. Theory on creativity appears well supported.

#NewYears
#Creativity

The post A post about the constancy of life and New Years first appeared on L. Darby Gibbs ~ Author.