Holy crap, my to do list just tripled!  Now, I just went through the whole thing during my plans for the month post about ten minutes ago, so I’m not going to rehash the whole thing.  I am going to give you all a quick update on my 16 before 16 list.

1. Finish Broken Patterns.  That one’s a great big done!
2. Unpack the house.  Um, not so much.  But I planned to spend this whole coming weekend on that project.  I am sick of not knowing where my books are.
3. Make a nice holiday printable pack for all of you.  Check back with me later in the month.  It’s going to be tight.
4. Don’t drain the emergency fund for Christmas.  So far so good.
5. Buy new pillows.  That’s going to be a gift my husband and I are getting each other for Christmas.  My neck will thank him.
6. Get Days on the market.  Still waiting to see if one last story is going to be accepted, and then I am so ready to go.
7. Take advantage of the park more often.  So, that’s been a bust.  I haven’t set foot in that park once.  I can’t even blame the weather, it’s been beautiful.  I have to do better this month.
8. Schedule monthly dates with the husband.  We had a great stay in date night that included some good wine and the roast of William Shatner.  Low key, but that’s us.
9. Schedule and perform end of year review.  I have a list of though provoking questions to ask myself, and a big heart shaped sticker on my planner.
10. Plan and take one day off a month.  Totally nailed that one last month, and I will take two this month.  Christmas Eve and Day.  We’re going to bake and make crafts, and watch movies.
11. Read Yes Please.  I need to get that one on my tablet and get reading.  I’m almost done with Big Magic, which I love by the way.
12. Make and keep my doctors appointment. In all honesty, and this is really bad of me, I might not get that done this month.  I will at least make the appointments, they just might not all be this month.  I am so bad about that sort of thing, not going to lie.
13. Plan a day to make gifts for co workers at the day job.  I have great plans, that I will not share here, since some of them might read this.
14. Get a significant amount of Starting Chains done.  I am almost done with the first read through.  It’s going to be a project, but the story is solid.
15. Get a puppy.  Not yet, but pictures will follow.
16. Rethink stock building.  I’m collecting coupons and doing math to figure out how much of a thing I should have in the house at any one time.  It’s a whole thing.

How are your lists coming?

What Rocked Last Week.

• Thanksgiving was awesome, as always.  We had a great dinner at my mother in law’s place, watched It’s Thanksgiving Charlie Brown and listened to Alice’s Restaurant.  Perfect holiday achieved.
• We got the tree up, and I got all of my Christmas cards written.
• I got JR Tolkin’s Letters From St. Nicholas.  I’ve never read it, and I am very excited about it.
• I sent Broken Patterns to ten literary agents.  Best case scenario is ten polite rejection letters, but it’s a start.

What I’m Looking Forward To This Week.

• I am looking forward to getting all of these dumb boxes unpacked and all of this junk dealt with.  Nothing makes you hate every single thing you own like moving.
• I get to order Christmas presents this week.  I like doing that.

So what are you doing this week?  Any fun holiday plans?

Alright, I know that there are a ton of posts like this right now.  Every single blog I read, (and I read a lot) have had a ‘best gift guide’ in the past month.

Mine’s different.  This is a list of things to give creative writers, but none of them will cost you a penny.  But I bet that any writer/parent would rather have the things on this list than anything you can buy in any store.

1. Take the kids for a few hours.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my little monsters.  But they do not love my writing time.  They want to mess with my papers, and ask a million questions, and pester about lunch.  If anyone wants to take them out of the house for me for an hour, I love that person.
2. Offer them some constructive criticism.  I don’t know why, but everyone one says they want to read my book, but no one gives me feedback other than ‘I like it.’  Listen, if a writer is serious about their writing, they want to know the parts that made you put the book down.  Critique with honesty, please.
3. Cook them dinner.  So that we don’t have to, and can spend more time writing.  Okay, so this one I don’t have to worry about, because I don’t cook (my awesome husband is my homemaker, so I don’t cook.)  But when I was a single mommy, I would have killed for someone to cook for me so I didn’t have to.  I swear, that’s half of why I got married.
4. Help them clean, but not their office.  You might accidentally throw something important away.  Really, if anyone wants to come do my dishes, I would love that.
5. Let them talk about their WIP.  I love to talk about Woven, and sometimes I get think people get sick of hearing about of it.  I would just love it if someone besides my husband would let me just talk about my book for awhile.  Also, if you could give some honest feedback, that would be cool. (See number two.)

• Run some errands for them. Grab stuff from my po box.  Maybe get some milk and bread for me.  Stop and pick up some wine. (I’ll pay for it, but I live in a place where you can’t just grab some while you’re at the grocery store and State Stores are a little out of my way.)  Return my library books, please.  Anything that might have fallen through the cracks while I was working on my master work.

1. Make a promise right now to not say, “You should use this in your book,” at all on 2016.  If I want to use it, I’ll use it.  If I don’t, I won’t.

• Share something of theirs on Social Media, but only if you really liked it.  I love it when my non writer friends share my posts.  I hope they liked it, and it touches me to think they wanted everyone on Facebook to know they liked that post.

If you must spend money, though, here are some things most writers would love to get.

• Pay for their Netflix for a month.  For, um, research.
• Make a donation to Wikipedia in their name.  I donate every year this time, and I am committed to seeing it stay ad free.
• Buy them some of their favorite writing materials.  But it has to be their favorite.  I would love some moleskins, and le pens, and some college ruled notebooks.  There are writers who would not touch that stuff, though.
• On Writing, by Stephen King.  I don’t agree with him about plotting, (he’s a filthy pantser) but On Writing inspired me.  I learned so much from it, and often come back to it for inspiration.
• Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Look, I’m about halfway through this book, and it is so inspirational.  I mean, really, I’ve already devoted myself to my kids and my writing, but it makes me feel really good about that decision.
• Get them a gift card for their favorite takeout place. I guarantee sometime in the next twelve months I will have a night where I need to order some dinner.

I hope you all have good luck finding the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, no matter what you’re celebrating.  After eleven years of being a mommy, I’ve learned the secret to a perfect Christmas morning; one gift to cuddle, one gift they’ll play with all year, one gift that includes time with you, and one gift they’ll appreciate later.  Happy Holidays.

Before I had the awesome day job I have now, I had a terrible day job as the manager of a shoe store.  From that experience I got a lot of great retail horror stories, a deep appreciation for how good my current day job is, and an introduction to this really cool charity.

One day, an older gentleman came in, and asked if we had any extra shoe boxes.  We did, we always did.  I asked the man what they were for, and he said they were for the Samaritan’s Purse drive.

So, you might have heard of this charity before, but if you haven’t, let me break it down.  You get a shoe box, and you fill it with gifts.  You can do this by age or gender.

I love this charity for a lot of reasons.  The biggest one is that it gets my monsters involved.  I let them each fill a shoe box with gifts, which is a blast for them.  It also makes them think about the child in need that will get just that box of gifts for Christmas, and how blessed they are.

If you want to help out, here’s what you can do.

• Hop over to this website to get all the details, and send a shoebox to a needy child.
• Post about Samaritan’s Purse on your own site.  Feel free to leave a link in the comment section below, so we can all check it out.

If any of you were to meet me on the street, or in a professional setting of any kind, you would never be able to guess this, but I have a really dirty mouth.  I’m fond of saying that my monsters got their advanced vocabularies from me.  That includes some four letter words we try not to say in front of Grandma anymore.  Unless the Steelers are playing, then we are reminded that my mother in law was actually a sailor.

I cannot stand to hear someone say that swearwords show a level of ignorance in a person.  I am an intelligent, professional person with a wide vocabulary who sometimes thinks that fuck is the right word for the given situation.

I’m not here to tell you that you should start swearing in your everyday life.  I’ve found that swearing is like smoking; people who do it are offended by people who don’t, and people who don’t are grossed out by people who do.  I don’t smoke, though, that’s disgusting.

I am, however, here to make the point that maybe your characters should swear.  Here’s why.

It’s honest

It is not realistic for every one of your characters to have clean mouths all of the time, because that’s not how the world works.  It’s full of people swearing at other drivers, their spouses, their bosses, strangers on the bus.  Not everyone swears, and not everyone swears all the time.  But lots of people do, and if none of your characters do, it’s not going to feel as real.

It tells us about your character

Whether or not someone choses to swear does tell us things about that person.  But you can do so much more with it than that.  When someone chooses to swear is often far more telling.  For instance, someone who swears but has the good sense to not do it in front of the boss is a far different person than the one who doesn’t.  Likewise, the character that never swears, but then tells someone to go f*%& themselves is telling us a lot.

It can help set a scene

If you have a scene in church, or an office, or a child’s birthday party, there isn’t going to be a lot of swearing.  But there are a lot of places that can be more flexible.  Take, for instance, an ER.  If your mc is walking into the ER and she hears “Son of a bitch!” well, you know it’s an ER with a problem.  People don’t generally swear for mellow, pastel feelings.  I always say that it’s a strong word to convey a strong emotion.  Use that.

Our language is so versatile.  It’s colorful, it can be very subtle or very direct.  Don’t limit yourself by declaring certain words out of bounds.