RWA Nationals

Claudia Blood Leave a comment

I leave Tuesday morning to go to RWA Nationals in Orlando, Florida.  Being from the upper mid-west, the idea of going to Florida in July is crazy.  You can always put more clothing on, but there is a legal limit in most places to what clothing you can take off. So that part of the trip, I’m not excited about.

This will be my first year at RWA nationals, my first writing conference. I have the chance to meet some writers that I really admire. Hopefully, I can resist being an over-the-top fan girl.

What advice would you give to a gal at her first conference?

Feeling Philosophical

Claudia Blood 7 Comments

Sometimes I am so myopic that the grains of sand look like boulders.

Think about that for a second.   I get so focused on the minutia, that small stuff becomes bigger, harder, and immovable.  A permanent fixture in my life.

Generally, I am a glass full, there’s silver lining, make it have a purpose kind of gal.  I acknowledge the things that have a high probability of happening and do my best to sway the odds the way I want them to go.  But shit does happen.  I write stories about the stuff I don’t want to happen and I find a way to give them a happy ending.

Recently my sister died.  That knocked me back and forced me to look at things differently.  I view this as a good thing.  Not my sister’s death, but the chance to reset and take stock of where I am.  The chance to decide what I’ll focus on. The chance to make different choices.

So I asked myself questions like:

Am I doing the things I am doing because I want to or because I am caught in a rut or because I am afraid to change them?

Am I spending my energy on the things that are the most important?

What do you spend your energy on?  Are you too close to the small stuff?

New Signature

Claudia Blood 3 Comments

You may not know this, but I really like art. I tend to like pictures of cute fantasy animals, magnificent solar systems, or women surrounded by desolation.

So for fun, I decided to see if I could get a logo / signature from Fiverr.  I chose to have three unique concepts (with some revisions allowed).  I was pleased with the results, but choosing is so hard.  Since I am in urgent need of a blog post and have to leave early tomorrow on a trip, guess what?  I am going to ask you guys to help me choose!  See that? Two birds…

Contestant #1:   Unicorn and a Quill Pen

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Contestant #2:   Swirly Planet

Claudia2

 

Contestant #3:  Swirly planet with different font  (This is really more a 2a)

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Contestant #4: Unicorn coming out of a book

Claudia1

Add a comment with your vote.  If I get no votes by the time I come back from my trip, I’ll have to roll a D4 to decide.   🙂

Spring Cleaning in July

Claudia Blood Leave a comment

With recent events, I decided I needed to declutter and organize. This is a project where everything gets dumped on the floor. Then I take each item and decide to put in the garbage or give away or keep. The goal is to put more in the first two than the last. My intention is to do this for as much of the house as I can before I lose my steam. Added bonus if the stuff does not just stay on the floor.

What do you do to get yourself decluttered and organized?

Pulling the Plug

Claudia Blood 5 Comments

I’m waiting for someone to die.

Not in the literary sense, but in the tragic real world way things happen. My sister is on life support right now. She made a series of bad decisions that lead her to be brain-dead in the hospital being kept alive by machinery.

As I wait for the switch to flip, I look at my life and work through my emotions. Anger, sadness, regret, and guilt are having a cage match in my psyche. The echo of what might have been is strong right now. I don’t want to get caught in the waves of the past.

I want to believe that she’ll be going to a better place. I’m not sure that I do. The scientist in me thinks that she’s just ceases to exist. Her particular uniqueness gone forever. Leaving behind a puzzle. What was missing that made these choices seem like good choices? What really happened? The only person who might be able to tell us, if she even knew, is no longer able to tell us anything.

I have landed on two ways to make her death meaningful in my life.

First, I will do what I can, even using her as an example, so my kids make different choices.

Second, my sister will be a character in a book. It will not be a FaceBook post sort of character, but as real and true as I can make her.

She would’ve liked that.

What have you done when dealing with a death?