Life Rolls…

That Means “Life Events”…

And so many different kinds of Life Rolls and different sizes and events. Health issues, family issues, money, job issues, publishing issues, and so on and so on.

Major life events can stop you cold, like me falling last fall and smashing up my shoulder and being in a brace for a month after surgery and then nine months of PT.  (Quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders just had that happen to him on Sunday, same injury.)

You just never know what kind of life event will hit and what size and shape. Today, (Monday), Kris and I both had pretty busy days planned with writing and workshops and business. And then Wham-O (a trademark that means something else but you get the idea…) a simple email sent us scrambling with business stuff, dealing with an event left over from the crap we went through in the spring with WMG.

And for both of us, the day was lost to our plans, even though it turned out we moved a lot of stuff forward.

A small but annoying Life Roll… Or in this instance, it was called a Monday.

A Fun Kris Challenge

December Writing Challenge with Kris

The challenge is to write three or more short stories in December. Kris is planning on writing three by the end of the year. So she thought she would open it up as a challenge, see if others wanted to write along.

— Short story must be over 3,000 words. No upper limit.

— No genre limitations.

— Kris will report to all of you in the challenge on January 1st. Not before. You will report in also on January 1st. (This is not a daily report challenge.)

— The cost is $200. You must sign up by Sunday, December 8th.

(No credit from anything, I am afraid. Can’t buy in with credit to get more credit.)

— If you write fewer or the same number of short stories than Kris writes (She will write a max of three and no more), then you get your $200 in credit for anything on WMG Teachable. If you write more stories than Kris (4 or more), you get $400 in credit for anything on Teachable.

— So in essence, you are buying at least $200 credit and getting the chance to see how you do against Kris in a short story writing challenge.

The challenge is on the first page of WMG Teachable. You can sign up there. Picture of Kris running, so easy to spot.

Kris is excited to do this. She really wants to get a few more short stories done this year and feels this challenge will keep her focused on it.

This is a win/win/win challenge. Jump in, should be fun and get your writing fired up for the new year!

Lifetime Everything Subscribers, if you want to jump in, write me and I will send you the code and you can do it for fun.

Questions, write me directly or ask the question in the comments…

And Lifetime Everything Subscriptions are still on sale for $4,000, about as good a deal as there is.

Another Cat…

Putting up a picture of Cheeps two days ago and the Wild Bunch last night got me thinking of the really fantastic cats I have been able to share this planet with for a time. So tonight going to put up another picture…

The picture below is of Squeak. Maybe one of the shortest-time cats we ever had, but one for me who left a lasting impression.

One day I found her outside our house in Lincoln City. She was tiny and looked like she had been dumped in an oil bin in a garbage dump. She smelled horrid.

We got her to the vet and got the first layers off of the grime and oil. Vet said she was very old and had no idea what happened to her.

We took her home and gave her one or two baths a day, lots of food and lots of love. She seemed to always be purring.

After a few days the stink slowly went away, but we still had to give her a bath a day to keep the smell at bay. She didn’t mind at all, and loved being toweled down.

She lasted maybe a month and then the smell came back really strong and we got her to the vet who said basically she was just so old, she was rotting away, so we let her go over the Rainbow Bridge.

So she only managed to be with us for a month or so, but wow does her memory hold for me. She was a total love.