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This is the third of three posts focusing on 8 tips for the writing environment. In order to help you do your best writing, you have to know what it is that helps you focus on the writing.

Missed the first post on Location, Essentials, & Time? Find it here.
Missed the second post on Noise and Light? Find it here.

Temperature, Snacks, & Clutter

6. Temperature: Pay attention to the temperature of your writing area. If it is too cold, or you get too hot, you will start thinking about your comfort, which interrupts your writing process. I usually need to cool my writing area down or at least get some air flowing. I’m super sensitive to a stuffy atmosphere, and sweat easily. And trust me, when sweat is dripping in your eyes and stinging the heck out of them, you won’t be accomplishing any word counts. I have been called a polar bear by some (yes, I’m looking at you, Hope Collier) because I’m comfortable at temps where others are thinking about putting on a jacket. But an environment that is too cold is just as bad as one that is too hot. If you’re shivering and blowing on your hands and your toes are so cold you can’t think straight — again your word count suffers. What is the right temperature? The one that feels the best to YOU.

   Do what you need to, to make your environment comfortable. While most of me is hot most of the time, my toes and fingers easily get cold, so I make sure I have something soft and fuzzy for my feet and in the winter, I use fingerless convertible gloves to keep my hands from getting too chilly.

7. Snacks: Do you write better with things to eat close to hand or not? Writers on deadline have notoriously bad eating habits because they are working furiously to get the current task done. So often times healthy eating goes by the wayside to be replaced with junk food like Cheetos, chocolate, chips, candy — sweet and salty items that don’t have to be refrigerated, can be kept on hand by the bagful to allow the butt to stay in the chair long enough to accomplish what needs to be done. A friend of mine, Branli Caidryn, shared the neat little trick of eating cheesy snacks with chopsticks to keep the cheese dust off the fingers and keyboard.

   I am definitely not recommending the above snacks as normal fare. It is much better to keep some healthy snacks on hand, or maybe even better yet, take snack breaks to get up and stretch and get away for a moment to rejuvenate and refresh. I like to write with a big mug of tea to the right of my keyboard, within easy reach, so I don’t have to think about where the mug is, but can just grab it while I am thinking. And in my office, I keep a small refrigerator, a portable kitchen island, and a tea kettle.



Photo: Alamy

8. Clutter: Is your writing area well organized? Some people believe an uncluttered leads to an uncluttered mind, but I have always liked this quote by Albert Einstein: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” Some people like to have toys around to help them in the creative process. I like to have a few familiar things around me as a stark writing area for me creates a blank mind rather than an uncluttered one. And while I start with a neat desk, throughout the writing process, more clutter accumulates, and then I purge once again. It’s cyclical. (And no, that is not a picture of my desk.)

By the way, all of the these tips are also good for creating a good environment for doing homework as well.

The post YWS: The Writing Environment – Part III appeared first on Be the Cat.

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This is the second of three posts focusing on 8 tips for the writing environment. In order to help you do your best writing, you have to know what it is that helps you focus on the writing.

Missed the first post on Location, Essentials, & Time? Find it here.

Noise and Light

4. Noise: Noise is definitely a factor. Some people can’t work with noise and some people can’t work without it. I find the noise of television or conversation a distraction and will most times listen to music while drafting and have been known to sing along. What do I listen to? Whatever will make my characters talk to me. I have learned to make it their choice because I get a lot more done that way. Some characters are very specific about what they will work to.

   Melody and Katie are my most finicky about music. Katie loves to listen to Country, Sara Evans is her current fave. And Melody loves Pentatonix and Chase Holfelder, but is much more eclectic in her music tastes, so we’ll see how many different varieties of music and artists the book will take. My crew of Seventh Graders prefer music with no words — which is good because with so many kids all talking at once it is sometimes hard keeping up with their conversations. And Angela likes 70s pop. Whatever will take me into the writing zone as quickly as possible with the characters is what I listen to … always low volume, so as not to distract or clash with the words in my head. After all, I have to hear what the characters are saying above the music, don’t I?

   Oddly enough, one of the sounds I have the most difficult time in blocking out is the hushed tones of a library. The low-level noise keeps me from being able to sink into the manuscript, and pretty soon I’m frustrated and packing up my things. If you do like noise while you work, then play music or have the television on low sound. The last thing you want to do is to distract yourself from what you are working on.

5. Light: Light makes a difference in your concentration factor as well. Do you like the light soft, or bright, or even no light at all? I do the majority of my writing while looking at a computer screen, so my optimum light is a soft, indirect light — if I use any light at all. The mole and I have something in common — a love of the dark.

   Overhead fluorescent lights tend to bother me, so if I am in a place that has those, I turn them off so I am do not get a headache from the glare that they cause. In the workplace, my desk is known as the dark side because I do keep the fluorescents off in order to ease the strain on my eyes and keep me from getting a headache. Others need a great deal of light to keep from causing eye strain or fatigue. Writing outdoors? Is the day sunny enough to require sunglasses? Do you need the sunglasses even on a cloudy day to cut down the glare (answer for me is yes.) Be sensitive to your needs and figure out the optimum light to reduce eye strain and keep you focused on your writing tasks.

That’s it for this segment on the writing environment. Check back soon for the next installment of tips. And happy writing.

The post YWS: The Writing Environment – Part II appeared first on Be the Cat.

Wallpaperswide.com

Since I am getting ready to start working on some new material, I thought it would be a good time to share some of the things that are important to determine before you begin writing. In order to help you do your best writing, you have to know what it is that helps you focus on the writing. This is the first of three posts focusing on 8 tips for the writing environment.

Location, Essentials, & Time

Anna Tan

1. Location: Where do you do your best writing? Is it in your bedroom, the living room, the local coffeeshop, or somewhere outside? Where do ideas seem to flow for you? Wherever that place is for you, that’s where you should set up your writing space.

   I recently met up with a long-time Twitter writing friend, Anna Tan, and we discussed our preferences in writing environment. Some writers seem to focus better while life swirls around them. I have several friends who go to Starbucks for writing time. I get too distracted writing in public because I can’t reach my writing zone because I’m too busy eavesdropping and looking around — even when I use headphones. So, confession time — any time I post that I’m going to Starbucks to write … it really means I’m going to socialize and pretend to write.

   While I was writing my first book, my best place was the kitchen table. I thought it would be my bedroom because, after all, it was my sanctum, but for some reason, in my bedroom I kept getting off track and couldn’t focus on writing. Perhaps the bookshelves were calling me too loudly. Now I do my best writing in my office. Wherever your best place to write is, make sure it is comfortable and you have everything you need to hand.

2. Essentials: Make sure you have a comfortable seat — it could be a chair, a bean bag, a nice tree to lean against. And don’t forget to get up and stretch and move around every so often. Unless you’re able to write while walking on a treadmill, writers tend to stay in one position, usually sitting, for far too long of a time, which is not good for your body. When I get in the zone while writing, I completely lose track of time, and my back reminds me later that I didn’t get up enough.

   What are your essential writing utensils? If you write using pencils, make sure you have several sharp pencils and erasers available. Or if you use pens, keep more than one on hand so you won’t run out of ink. The last thing you want to happen is for the lead to break in your pencil or your pen to run out of ink right in the middle of a scene where the words are flowing. If you don’t have spares, you may not be able to recapture the moment.

   Do you have enough paper? I work on the computer, so I don’t have to worry about pencils, pens, or paper during the creative process, however; what happens if I’m working without an electrical outlet? How long will my battery last? And MOST importantly, if I do cut it down to the wire, will I save my changes in time? For me having a nearby electrical outlet is essential because I will lose track of time and would hate to lose my work because I didn’t plug in. And above all, I need to make sure that where I am working is properly setup and comfortable.

3. Time: What time of day do you get your best ideas? Is it morning, during the middle of the day, or at night? The middle of the day can be problematic because of school or work.

   Are you prepared to capture your ideas no matter what time they come? Some writers keep a mini-recorder with them, or use their phones to capture ideas when they hit. Some use notebooks for jotting ideas down. Once again, the computer is my friend (and I make sure I have copious backups of everything in case of mechanical failure.) While I have a method for notating story ideas for the future, I’m still searching for my best way to capture things like priority, status of the project, etc. What happens if an idea hits me while away from my machine? I keep the files on dropbox, so can use my phone if necessary to jot down the essentials and get it posted. Even that is not always convenient … I once had a story hit me hard while driving, complete with the opening lines. I nearly had to pull over to the side of the road, but kept going and repeating the lines over and over until I reached a point where they could be recorded.

   Do the times you get ideas correspond to your best working time? Ideas will hit me at any time during the day or night, but I have always done my best work at night going into the wee hours of the morning. For some reason, the creative juices seem to flow much better for me then and I can concentrate more clearly while my characters become alive for me. It’s almost like I can feel the creative vibrations in the air. Others work best when they first get up … or before the household is awake. And others need that first cup of coffee, and a little time for their brains to wake up before attacking the page.

That’s it for this segment on the writing environment. Check back soon for the next installment of tips. And happy writing.

The post YWS: The Writing Environment – Part I appeared first on Be the Cat.

Why am I revamping the site? Well, when I had just the one site, management was pretty easy and I was able to utilize existing software and knowledge to create the environment I wanted. But, I have now outgrown that format and want to add a little pizzaz, and I need to integrate my sites to have the same look and feel to them. With Griffie World Happenings (this blog), it will be a little easier and faster because the site is already in the right format for conversion to a new theme. This is the same for Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?, my traveling book site.

So, don’t be surprised when you see the construction sign go up at Griffie World.

Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering if I am avoiding working on Nowhere Feels Like Home, I’m not. It is still in the content/copy editing process by other people, so I don’t want to make too many changes to it. The sequel to Nowhere Feels Like Home? Well, I have been working on chapter 1 (first chapters always go slow for me), but I don’t want to get too far into it, just in case there is a drastic change which needs to be made to Nowhere Feels Like Home.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Construction Coming Soon to Griffie World appeared first on Be the Cat.

I will be scheduling some time for book signings, and am generally excited about the networking opportunities. The theme appears to be along the lines of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a staple of the preschool set, which is having its 40th anniversary.

I also plan to go through the list of authors expected to attend to see if I can hunt down a few of my favorites. If you happen to be in the area – tickets are free. I’d love to see you there.

The post Book Festival appeared first on Be the Cat.

1. Dreading the Day **Untitled** Reliving the Nightmare
2. Out of Sarah’s Past
3. Bad Boy Rusty   Motorcycle Ride **Untitled** Family Rift Overprotective Cousins
4. Overprotective Cousins Whiskey Kisses
5. Slander Anyone? Slander
6. Matchmaker Midge
7. The Accident
8. Keeping Secrets
9. Hiding Timmy Runaway
10. Crankiness Rising
11. Managing Anger Take a Deep Breath
12. The Deal is Done Admission of Guilt
13. The Talk
14. Added chapter Retaliation
15. Sneaking Out
16. Return to School   Tell It To The Marines New Beginnings

Don’t get too wedded to these names as even this morning some of them are up for the chop. But, it helps me to have names for the chapters, so I feel good to have a list to start playing with.

**Addendum** – I’ve decided to edit the list every time I change a chapter heading just for fun to keep the list up to date, but leave the old title as well using strikethrough, so we can see how many changes the titles underwent before publication.

The post Nowhere Feels Like Home – Tentative Chapter List appeared first on Be the Cat.

It’s not a description that I can work into my current project, but I committed the brief encounter to memory for future use. Then as I continued past Magic Way, I wondered how many times writers do what I had done. Experience something and as you are experiencing it, you are also tucking it away for future use. I think I do it without even realizing it most of the time. The other description I will definitely use one day is the row of palm trees that line the street and how on a gorgeous day in Mickey Mouse land, the palm fronds glisten in the sunlight as it streams down, and the the tips sway back and forth in the gentle breeze. Just the memory of those moments gives me a feeling of peace and contentment. Every experience in life, no matter how small, can be summoned up as a writer to use as background, integrated into a character, or provide the turning point for your work. Who’s to say how or even when you will use it in the future.

Without experience to draw on, could we write?

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Visuals appeared first on Be the Cat.

My plan was to get a lot of editing done this weekend. Unfortunately, my mind was stuck on revamping my website and I ended up at war with myself over modifications or editing. Then I got the sucker punch from puppy dog eyes.

I decided (on some foolish whim) to integrate The Paw Princess Diary into this blog, but to have a separate tab to display those posts and not mix them in on the front page. Sounds simple enough right? An entire day later, I have finally accomplished what I set out to do. One of the issues was that the creation of the page to pull the information by category worked great, except for the fact that it broke the navigation, so that you couldn’t look at older posts. I finally found something indicating that this was an issue with setting the category. And when I excluded the paw princess category from the front page, it broke the navigation there as well.

My page design was actually pretty slick, because I could put the post footer information into the meta area and that meant I didn’t have to put it in each individual post. Imagine my chagrin, when I decided to sidestep the navigation issue by using a redirect to the category search, and therefore, the footer information in the meta area no longer applied. So, back to the editing function went I and now have updated all of the posts individually. I haven’t deleted the page template, because ultimately I would still like to find out why the use of query posts would break the navigation. I found a plugin to allow me to exclude the category from the front page (without breaking navigation), so I may (later. . .much later) look at that code to see if I can get an idea as to how to unbreak it for the query post on the template.

While I got actually quite a bit accomplished, it wasn’t what I had planned.  I guess I’ll just have to get it done during the week.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Weekend Updates appeared first on Be the Cat.

Of course, since on the way to work myself not long after that thought, I mused over the different possiblities that invoking the Twitter mentality in the workplace could foster. Just think of it. . .managers would check those that they are following on twitter every morning to see whether anyone would not be arriving at the work place as expected. What if the employee blocked the manager so that they couldn’t see their updates?

Every company has them. The people who go on and on and on and on in email and never quite get to the point. Just think how implementing the Twitter mentality in email would be. Everyone would be limited to a certain number of characters, so they couldn’t waste all that time typing up their latest dissertation to confuse the masses with and would have to get to the  point. Straight to the point every email. No room for fluff. And for those who tend to pontificate and never say anything of value – that’s the beauty of the block function. Most companies would save paper because those employees who insist on printing out their emails so that they can be maintained in paper files, would now be reduced to printing a single page which could contain several communications.

(Now, this one’s my favorite) Meetings. . .I’m in meetings all the time, and if not meetings then conference calls. Wouldn’t it be great to implement the 140 second rule? Once the time had passed, your turn is over and the floor turns over to someone else. We’d get them over with in record time, and you eliminate having to listen to someone drone on and on for an hour on a topic that actually has nothing to do with your job.

Let the Twitter revolution begin.
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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Twitterizing the Workplace appeared first on Be the Cat.

How does this relate to change for me? Well, in order to keep the status quo, I am having to take on one of the new laptops so that my current/old laptop can be used for parts. Most people would be thrilled with this event. I’m not for a couple of reasons. I know that the unit I now have due to putting my old laptop on the chopping block is only temporary, so I will have to go through the process of transferring all of my pertinent files again in the near future (whenever they finally break down and decide the time is right to buy new equipment). So, that’s an inconvenience and I’ll get over it.

The screen on the new unit is wider, but shorter. I’d love if it were wider and the same height, but shorter? Come on. Ok, I’ll get over that too – eventually. But as I was driving along musing over the fact that I was bugged by a change that would have thrilled most, it hit me. The old laptop had a software on it that I am not going to install on the new one as we are driving away from it, and I need to let go as well because I no longer use it for work.

The issue? I do use it to work with my website on occasion and will now be forced to do what I have actually wanted to do for awhile, which is change platform for how the Griffie World website is set up. I’ve been meaning to, but don’t actually want to go through the pain of again rebuilding the whole thing. There are so many reasons that I should. Better integration of the website and blog being a primary factor, plus some of the additional flexibility/functionality that I will have at my fingertips that I don’t have to build from scratch, like I do with the current website.

So, while I’m thinking about revamping the website, the characters in Nowhere Feels Like Home and its sequel were popping up to say Not so fast. I realized that they are right. Before I can even think about revamping the site, I need to get the editing process completed on Nowhere Feels Like Home because I don’t want to lose the momentum on the project. In the meantime, thoughts of what I would like to do with Griffie World kept surfacing and I really am going to have to figure out how to carve a little more time out of the day. There truly are not enough hours to do what I want to do, as well as those things that I have to do.

Don’t look for a revised site in the near future. I’m going to have to get all of my ideas marshalled and map out my strategy, and besides Katie McCabe won’t let me work on that until I finish her story.

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Griffie World appeared first on Be the Cat.

Which took me off course and I started to think about how it would be if we could actually beam places. No – wait! I don’t want to beam anywhere, I want to travel like Elizabeth Montgomery in her role as Bewitched! A little wiggle of the nose, with the appropriate sound affects, and bam you’re at your destination. No Scotty to have to rely on. Really, what would happen if Scotty had to answer the call of nature when Capt. Kirk and Spock really needed that beam? Samantha handled her own stuff. Plus, I can remember as a child trying to twinkle my nose like Tabitha and being very disappointed that it didn’t work in the same way. I mean after all, we were much the same age, we both had blue eyes, and we were both blondes with petite noses, so why didn’t mine work like hers did? She didn’t even have to wiggle it on her own. . .she could use her finger to help herself out.

Many times I tried to get my room to clean itself up, or the bed to make itself, and all with utter failure. Was it true, was a I mere mortal like Derwood, I mean Darren? And if Darren were such a mere mortal, then how could he change his appearance like that?

Well, now that I have really gone off the beaten path, it’s time to get back to editing Nowhere Feels Like Home. Do you think I can get it to edit itself if I wiggle my nose?

PS Letting my thoughts wander that way did take my mind of the fact that I was crawling along on the freeway, so maybe the nose wiggle did work.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Traffic appeared first on Be the Cat.

Before this turns into a rewrite of my elementary school essay, let me get back to the actual topic of Read Across America. On the NEA website, they give a brief history of the event.

While not being an official participant this year, as I just found out about it, I feel like I am hosting my own Read Across America event with my traveling book project, Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? I have sent eight special edition copies of my young adult novel, Misfit McCabe out into the world where the purpose is for them to be read and passed to the next person. It will be very interesting to see how far they go. My whole reason for starting this project was to promote reading. I loved to read as a child and still do to this day. I firmly believe that children who are motivated to read, not only do better in school, but in their adult life as well.
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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe
in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Let’s Read appeared first on Be the Cat.