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Slow Start To NaNo...as the world explodes around me

11/16/2020

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As a mom of three, there are many instances where I am not sure what day it is, or who I am supposed to have where for what. 2020 has been the year that I have been unable to make any plans. The only constant in this crazy year has been inconsistency.

And last week we found out our schools have to close down again. Bars and restaurants and churches get to stay open, but schools where they are actually enforcing mask mandates have to close. Cool story, dudes in charge who will never have to call off work to homeschool their kids...

via GIPHY

Of course in the middle of this, we had an election result come through, along with learning new tech for schooling, and new procedures almost daily at work, and I decided I was going to write this month too.

Everyone laugh with me.

But I'm working on allowing myself a little grace. I've given myself permission to suck this year for NaNoWriMo. I'm giving myself permission to just shake shit loose and work on finding that spark of creativity that I have been trying to keep alive while my real life has been smothering it beneath work, homeschool, and attempting to have more than one clean spoon in the house.

I thought I would share a few things I have been doing to make myself write and toss all judgement about the end product out the window.

1. I am only re-reading enough to figure out where I am. I am not going back through and fiddling with all the shit that was written as I was dozing after a long day of errands and kids. If I think about it at the end of a writing session, I make a note about where I am and what's happening next. So I can just jump right in.

2. I am letting dialog tags be simple and basic. I have been horrible at dialog tags from the beginning. It's a weak spot for me, but I love writing dialog lines. It helps me see the characters when I can hear their voices. So if I don't have a good dialog tag, I'm just plopping down the name of who said what and moving on with my life. 

3. I am trying what has worked in the past. For me, what finally let me have a 3k day was sitting in a spot removed from the house (Normally this would have been going to Panera, but...Covid. So I was in my office.) and plugging in my earbuds. I still have a Pandora station. Yes. I'm old. But it is curated with songs that are upbeat and ones I know so well, the words fade for me. The music put me back into a place that my fingers remembered what they were supposed to do. Instead of 1k/1hr, I knocked out 1100 words in 30 minutes.  

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Am I anywhere near the NaNoWriMo halfway point? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...no. Am I anywhere near the point I wanted to be at for my own 30k goal? Again...sadly...no. 

But I found a glimmer of why I love writing again. And even if I don't get anymore than 20k words this month, it will still be an accomplishment. Because...seriously...it's 2020.

Are you writing for NaNo this year? How are you doing? I'd love to hear about it!

~Roxy

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Let's do this thing

11/1/2020

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Today is November 1st. It's daylight savings time, which means I felt like I slept in when I woke up at 4:45 this morning. And...

It's the first day of NaNoWriMo!!

I am being a rebel this year and going for a daily word count goal of 1304 words. This means with my planned days off I should have 30,000 words by the end of the month. That won't seem like a lot of words when NaNo's official goal is 50k, but it will be a huge accomplishment for me.

I already have 1400 words under my belt which feels GREAT. Because that's also more than I have written in a single sitting in...well over a year. I am also amping myself up because I have to go vote today.

My boss laughed at me when I asked if we were going to have adjusted hours to allow people to vote, so I'm assuming that's a "No." With poling places in my area stacked with three hour wait times and round the block lines, I am packing up some warm clothes and heading to the poles as soon as they open today. 

While I am there, I am hoping to sneak in some NaNoWriMo work. If you are getting your wait line care kit ready too, here is what I am taking with me. 

1. My plot notebook -  I got burned in the past by making up world-building facts in my writing sprints and then promptly forgetting what I wrote. So I am taking notes on what I have already written to make sure my details are recorded.

2. My Word 365 app - Who knows, maybe I can sneak in a few more paragraphs while I am waiting in line. I have Word 365, which is a cross platform saver for my work, and everything I do on my phone will auto-save for me. It would be nice to be ahead of the game for that inevitable mid-month slump.

3. Wired Headphones - I don't want to talk to people while in line at the poles. Like...not even a little bit. I do have wireless headphones, but those aren't visible when I'm wearing my hair down, or have a hat on, so I'm bringing bright white wired headphones to make sure everyone can see that I can't hear them. I won't be listening to music, because I want to be safe and know what's going on around me, but the earbuds make a great excuse for outright ignoring people.

4. Hot Hands - Normally I bring a cup of coffee to sip on and warm my hands, but with three hour wait times...coffee is a BAD idea. I will be wearing a mask anyway, so having something to drink is pretty pointless. I have disposable handwarmers left over from Halloween, so I am shoving those into my pockets before I leave.

I know I started this blog out talking about NaNoWriMo, and it morphed into voting, but each topic is about having your voice heard. We cast our ballots in private, and we put words down on first drafts without others' input. But both tasks are powerful, and create future stories to tell to others.

Are you working on your NaNo draft? Have you got your voting plan in place? I'd love to hear about both or either! Let's get our voices out there.

~Roxy

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I was going to go on a rant...

10/27/2020

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I had a whole blog post on here that was ranting about how a Facebook argument erupted on my personal page over the sign pictured here. 

This is a sign posted outside my local fabulous pizzeria that reads...

"Please do NOT enter if you have any symptoms of:

~COVID-19 (Or any other sickness really)
~RACISM (This establishment is owned and operated by POC)
~SEXISM (And Women :) )
~HOMOPHOBIA (We don't care who you love <3)

PS. Leave your political views at the door"


I was so happy to see a local space let people know they are welcome, and anyone harassing them will be removed. Slurs around these topics are far too common in the area I live in. 

So of course a relative crawled out of the woodwork to tell me exactly how I was wrong to be happy about this when I posted it on Facebook. 

I had a whole blog written about the argument, and how it made me sad, and the internet ate every word. The post was sitting on my drafts page, but I hadn't hit save.  So when I reopened my blog, I was left with this picture, and no title.

I haven't logged onto any Facebook group in 24 hours, and getting a glimpse at the sign, knowing the people who run this place, and seeing it without the influence of a pointless argument made me smile. 

If you are drowning in people telling you why you shouldn't be happy in a time where happiness is hard to find, mute the bastards. This sign made me smile, and the pizza we bought to support the business was DELICIOUS. Garlic knots are the best.

This sign, and homemade garlic butter made me happy yesterday. What are you finding joy in today? I'd love to hear about it. I needed an internet glitch to remind me to hold onto my happy. I hope you find the space to have a happy moment too.

~Roxy

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#Preptober during a pandemic: Day 2

10/19/2020

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Today is all about putting ideas down. 

I never said they had to be good ideas. They just have to exist. The first book I ever sold was one that I began with the idea that no one would believe me when I told them I knew immediately that my husband was the man for me, so I made the characters vampires and werewolves to have the story work.

Write down what ideas you'd love to express. Write down something funny your friend said two years ago. Write down what your mail man wore when it was too hot to breathe this summer.

When I say write it down, I don't necessarily mean pen and paper. You can type it out on a laptop, slap some keys on an Alphasmart, make voice memos on your phone, use a digital notebook on an iPad. However you put ideas down, do it.

Just make sure you pick a single style, or transfer all ideas to a single spot. If you have cloud storage you can access from different devices, this could be a great time to take advantage of that feature. 

My biggest struggle this year is one I never in a million words thought I'd have to grapple with. 

GENRE.

I have been a romance reader since I picked up my first romantic triangle YA book in middle school. I have adored romance as an adult, and couldn't fathom writing anything else when I was in the thick of it. 

But now we are in the middle of a pandemic, and many of the tropes we would play in seem incredibly foreign. And how am I supposed to think about a happily ever after right now? The idea of our old "normal" seems far away. Writing is different for me at this point in my life. Frankly, watching my books evaporate from the web when Samhain Publishing shut down, changed me. 

I have a few WIPs I had pitched before the pandemic hit that got some interest. I have a few books plotted, or planned out before life got in the way. I may pick one of those up, or I may scrap it all and just put words to paper that inspire me.

Today, I am simply writing down ideas. I am brainstorming things that interest me. I am going to put a few of them on post-it notes and stick them on the slat wall above my desk. I'm going to sit with them there until November and see which one stalks me into my dreams. 

I have a shit ton of extra note books lying around too, so I grabbed three of my dollar store mini books. Whichever ideas make it to my top three will get notes in these. Might as well make use of the stationary I have lying around, and these bad boys will fit into my everyday planner pockets. 

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This is my goal for today. I will sit down and vomit ideas into a digital notebook on my iPad. I'm going to narrow my options down to three and shove bright yellow post-its into my line of site so I am forced to think about my top three favorites. Then I will carry these mini notebooks around to get ideas up until November, or until I make up my mind about a story, whichever comes first.

Do you have any ideas about what you want to write about? Have you been struggling with the idea of a HEA in our new world, like me? 

Or are you just going to say fuck this whole plan business, and start on November 1st with whatever pops into your head?

I'd love to hear about it. Let me know what you're doing to brainstorm.

~Roxy

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Preptober During a Pandemic

10/17/2020

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I would love to say I am as excited as I was during years past about NaNoWriMo. I would love to hop on this blog and say I am getting things together and ready to kill the word count. In past years it might have been true. 

But this is 2020.

This is the year I had to camp out at the grocery store at 5am and wait in line for an hour to stand a chance at getting toilet paper. This is the year I had to wait with bated breath to make sure when hubby's company laid off 30% of its employees that he wasn't one of them. 

This is also the year I get yelled at on a daily basis by customers about masks. I get yelled at when I wear gloves, I get yelled at for signs on the door asking them to wear masks, and I get yelled at for what other adults are doing that I have no control over as a part-time retail worker. 

When I think about putting words on the page, especially words involving love and an HEA...

I seriously can't even begin to get there. Right now romance involves someone treating me to an unlimited supply of sanitizer and spaghetti sauce. 


But I miss writing. I miss the escape, and I miss the community. I'm going to attempt to write for NaNoWriMo, but I'm going to write for fun this year. Over the next 5 days, I'm going to put up a post a day with absolute back-to-basics style of Preptober work. 

Are you exhausted by the clusterfuck of the world too? Play along with me. Are you still a functioning human? You're a better person than me. So come along with me and cheer me on.

See you tomorrow for the most basic #Preptober work on the planet.

~Roxy

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The Lovers : Tarot Pull For the Day

10/15/2020

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I'm working through a Tarot class with The Sisters Enchanted, and the Major Arcana cards are what I'm studying at the moment. While I have been pulling a card a day for a long time now, this is the first time I was confident about the meaning without even glancing at a guidebook. 

And I wanted to share.

​I have family visiting me this week, and when I asked what I needed to focus on, my Lovers card came flying out of the deck for me. Now...the lover's card is a very intimate card in the deck I'm working with. There is a man and woman in a lovers embrace surrounded by lush greenery.

But in working with this deck and doing the course work, I have been amazed at what I previously missed about this card. For me, this card means it is time to let all the "should do" and the "supposed to do" lists fall away and get lost in human connection. 

The Lovers just had a very regimented structure they are coming out of and are at a point where they have to decide where to go next. But in this moment, they need to cherish each other and let the rest of the world fall away. 

So I'm going to enjoy my coffee and prepare a delicious breakfast bake for my family. Because we're not going to worry about cooking today, we're going to have each other to enjoy.

If you have the opportunity to hang with your people, maybe take a moment and do what the Lovers would...let the people mean more than the lists today. 

Hug your loved ones. And if you can't see them in person, maybe suck it up and turn on the video call. They don't care that you haven't showered.

~Roxy

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Taking my own advice and eating frogs

10/14/2020

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I was in a really bad spot for a really long time this year financially. I would break out in a cold sweat whenever it was time to pay the bills, because I knew there wasn't enough to cover it. 

Covid-19 hit my family really hard. Both my husband and I were deemed essential workers. But there was a shortage on every bit of cleaner and PPE on the planet. I had to take to online ordering to buy good masks, and gloves and cleaner. Only the organic meat was in the stores, and there was a limit on it. Our expenses went through the roof when we were already struggling. Even with no one getting sick, the financial burden was huge. 

I'm letting you in on this because I know I'm not the only one struggling. 

We ended up doing a lot of sacrificing, and cashing in to get out of that spot. But like clockwork, when I start to see bills...I get scared. Because I know that feeling of panic that comes from wondering if we are going to need to pay for an unexpected expense. 

I have been working a lot with my tarot cards, and my intuition. Today my cards told me to suck it up and get to work, and quit whining. 

My deck is hella sarcastic. 

I stopped my morning pages practice and opened up my laptop and dug in. I didn't give my over-analyzing brain a chance to panic, I just got started.

I feel a million pounds lighter knowing it's done. 

I know I have talked about this phrase "Eat That Frog" before. It comes from one of the few self-help books that stuck with me after I read it.  Mainly because the whole book can be knocked down to one idea.

Do the hard/scary shit first.

Literally. That's the main takeaway. You can still read the book. I don't remember anything beyond the main point, but you can grab the ebook on Amazon still. 

If you read the book or not, it's still great advice. Today, my frog was my bills. I had been putting them off for almost two weeks, and today I just grabbed my fork and knife (in the form of my bill bullet journal and pen), and chowed down (by actually going through and paying my bills). 

Sometimes it's good to remember the advice you've preached to others. Today I took my own advice and ate my frog. What frog do you need to chow down on today? 

~Roxy

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#5amclub

10/11/2020

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I didn't used to be a morning person. I was one of those people who reveled in the 2am television zone out time. I even worked a third shift job. My co-workers and I would talk about the best infomercials to relax to after we got home and nothing else was on. 

This was before DVR, kids. I'm old.

But then I became a mom. I somehow gave birth to a morning person. An early riser erupted from my loins and I got into the rhythm of being up before the sun. I also learned how to exist on no sleep, and cold dinners, but that's another story.

Now my kids are older and finally sleep in, so of course my dumbass went and adopted animals who are also early risers. 

The lesson here is...I'm an idiot. Or at least, a glutton for punishment.

I have tried to make the best of the fact that I am up in the mornings if I want to be or not. I even, for a good portion of time, had myself convinced it was a choice. I fell down the Miracle Morning rabbit hole. (You can find my Miracle Morning Posts HERE.) I did get a LOT done. I was using my planner and checking off all the boxes. I discovered something about myself. If I don't get shit done before Noon, it doesn't happen. 

The creatures both big and small, wake me up, or rely on me to wake them up for school. I will be up and at 'em before the sun no matter what. Because of that early morning, lunch time is when I crash. Anything that requires brain power or motivation needs to happen before lunch, or it's getting bumped to tomorrow.

I also learned something about myself during this extended quarantine. I was running on a combination of caffeine and guilt before. I had a severe complex about getting absolutely everything done, and even when I found myself adding to my To Do list in the middle of the day, I felt guilty when I didn't get absolutely everything checked off. Quarantine forced me to stop. Literally. I couldn't go anywhere to get anything done. And my entire day was spent scrubbing shit down and going in search of toilet paper.

Were there days before the great bleach shortage when I did get everything done on my list? Absolutely. But guess what...I still felt guilty, because there were things from yesterday's list, or last week's list, or last month's list, that I still hadn't done. No matter what I accomplished, it was never good enough. 

I always set myself up to fail, and that was the only thing I accomplished like clockwork. Because when I put way too much on my list, I guaranteed I wouldn't get it all done. 

I was exhausted, and I was sad. A lot. 

This year I turned 40. If my family history has anything to say about it, I am most likely middle-aged. Half of my life is over. That fact hit me harder than I expected it to.

Sure I accomplished a lot that many people don't ever do. But I wasn't finding my happiness on a daily basis. 

My word of the year this year was "Joy". And who knew in January what a fucking challenge finding joy would be in 2020. But at this point in my year, and in my life, I think I am finally taking steps towards finding "Joy" each day. I'm not getting everything done, and I am not always super productive, but I am working on the negative pressure I put on myself first.

I have been using my time awake before my family again. But I'm not using it to be a #bossbabe or #hustle, or any of the other hashtags that are emblazoned in glitter on some network marketing coffee mug. I'm using my morning time to reconnect with myself. I'm pulling tarot, I'm journaling, I'm blogging. (See?)

Taking time for myself that is actually for myself and not a business move is new territory for me. I lit a candle today and let my family sleep later than usual. We are all on a staycation and while they got the joy of sleeping in I had coffee and video games. I had tarot and stickers in my journal. I had an online class that I bought myself with my birthday money.

Happiness isn't about who has accomplished the most, and it's all about the journey. It has to be. Because I'll tell you what. I wanted nothing more in my life than to get a book published, but then I did it, and it became...Okay...what now? If I don't stop and enjoy moments in my everyday, I am missing the point. 

I'm using my time in the #5amclub for me now. It's my time. Maybe it always was, but now my time is all about what brings me joy.

What are you doing for yourself on a daily basis? I'd love to hear about it.

~Roxy




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Daily Tarot Practice

10/9/2020

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I got my first Tarot deck when I was 15 or 16. It was a mail order item out of a magazine I loved at the time. I ordered a tie-dye shirt covered in dolphins with it. I was always drawn to the Tarot, and tapping into my intuition. I had some weird stuff happen as a kid that I ran screaming from. So I'm sure I blocked off a lot of what I would have otherwise been able to cultivate. Add into the mix that I was raised Catholic, and it's easy to see why I put a pin in it. Spirit boards and tarot don't jive with Catholicism.

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As I got older and got a little sick of hearing that everything I did was evil, I found my own path and made my way back to Tarot. Fun fact, I did a bunch of tarot spreads when I met my husband, and every one of those cards kept yelling that this was the man for me. So two weeks into dating him, I told him we were going to get married some day. He rolled his eyes then, but we've been married for 18 years and have three wonderful kids, so...

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What I've been working on lately is making time for myself. As a working mom of three, that's tough. Working mom of three in a pandemic? Let's just say I miss sleep.

So I've been working on pausing for a few minutes every morning to draw a single card from one of my tarot decks each morning to get myself more familiar with the cards and get my own technique under my hands again. 

I was journaling just a bit with each card pull and then found this adorable little planner from the Happy Planner line. I don't know if you can still get it, but this thing screamed that it was perfect for me. The space available is just enough room for information about one card per day, and a notes section if anything comes of my intuition throughout the week.
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I've felt more connected to myself by simply taking this meditative time every morning. And I feel my ability to read the cards without a book glued to my hand has improved as well. Of course, my life is pretty repetitive at this point, so most of the cards I've pulled as of late are of similar messages. But I'm happy to get a chance to do something I've loved since I was a teenager on a daily basis again.

Do you read tarot? Or have you always wanted to? Or are you dowsing your screen with holy water at the thought of me using something so foreign to you? 

I just wanted to share something that has centered me and made me happy. So tell me, what are you doing just for yourself every day? I'd love to hear about it.

~Roxy

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When you need a laugh with a side of nostalgia

10/7/2020

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This year has been a clusterfuck of rabid zombie squirrels taking over the planet with MLM huns fanning the flames. Something I have learned about myself this past year, is that I need to zone out sometimes. 

I am not a movie buff, but I am the type of mom that will click on those lists of shit from the 90's and hope that someone besides me recognizes them. No one at my job does. I could literally be their moms. (*old lady sigh*)

But I found this gal in a random recommendation and immediately went down the rabbit hole. She has a fan-fucking-tastic sense of humor and I feel like I'm chatting with a friend while getting ready to go out for the night. You know...when we could go out of the house and do things.

So this was my latest YouTube binge. I haven't made it through the whole list of her movie nights, but I am savoring them when I can. Thought I'd share.

What are you binging on when you watch YouTube? I'd love to hear about it.

​~Roxy
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