Reading

Laying Out Some Plans

/ W.A. Roberts / Leave a comment

Laying Out Some Plans

Yes, I know. I’m doing that dreaded thing where I lay out all of my plans for the next couple of months. I use to do this on a regular basis but soon discovered that I would write everything out, post it, and then nothing would happen. Or hardly anything would happen and I would have to admit how much of a lazy bum I really am.

I think I’ve admitted that plenty here on this blog. It’s no secret that I will procrastinate on a project until the project no longer matters.

I’ve gotten better about this. Meeting the deadline for anthologies that I wish to be published in have really pushed my drive to set a time frame and meet it. Part of the reason I’m doing this goal thing again because there are a couple of anthologies that I wish to attempt to get into this time around.

These deadlines are also the reason I tend to disappear from all other social media for weeks because I’m really bad at clustering my time to work on different projects.

My apologizes.

I’m trying to get better.

So, without further ado, here’s my goals for May and June.

  • Finish this underground novella. – This is a project that I’ve been working on for at least 6 months and you would think after that much time I would be finished but of course I’ve held off until the very last minute. The final call for this novella series is in June and I’m going to hustle to get this one in. Even if it doesn’t get accepted here, I am going to work to get it edited and eventually published on my own simply because I really do enjoy this story.
  • Coffin Blossoms Anthology – This is supposed to comedic horror. And while I’m still relatively new to the whole horror genre I do want to explore what I’m capable of so I’m going to attempt this. So, this is due at the end of May and I’m — once again — going to find out if I’m capable of coming up with something before that end.
  • It Calls From the Sea submission – haha, luckily this one doesn’t open until July and I’ve already gotten something written that I want to try and submit. I just need to go in and re-read, revise and yada yada yada
  • Tick Tock Short- Or another one anyways. I’ve submitted something for this anthology but I’ve been brewing up another idea to send it that might be better than the last. IDK. But luckily it’s only a 500 word submission and typically I can finish that all in one day.
  • Youtube- at least one video up in May and in June. I was doing really good at keeping up with the one video at the end of last year and I then I started buying a house and the moving process and it’s all kind of gone to shit. But that’s life. Best laid plans and all that. Now that I’ve got a schedule with my kids and if I can get my ass out of bed earlier, I might be able to actually do this.
  • Weekly blog posts – This is where planning ahead would actually do me some justice. If I can just spend a couple of hours in the day writing blog posts I would have this made. Admittedly, I’ve got the habit of getting stuck on an idea and not moving away from it until I realize it’s been five hours and only a paragraph is written. Go figure. I will do better.

 

  • Reading at least one book a month- I’ve fallen on the way side of my reading. It’s been a slowly coming to halt for the past year, but has completely stalled out as of now. I realization I had when I moved and came across The Shining that I picked up last February(?) and never actually finished. I’ve read some anthologies and a lot of fan-fiction but not a whole lot of actual books and I need to get back into reading them again. So, here’s my goal post to do that. Starting with finishing the damn Shining!

There is one other goal of actually getting my novel STOP THE RAVEN publish. I was looking into small indie presses and submitting to them but unfortunately most of them have stopped looking at submissions due to shortened staff because of Co-Vid, so the universe has stalled my plans on this one, but I am here to say I’m not giving up on this story. It’s just been temporarily pushed to the side.

There’s also another whole novel that I will eventually get to writing at some point. You see it under the big “Top Secret” in the picture. It’s going to be a fun project idea that my husband gave to me. Just the technical details of the whole thing is what’s putting me off. Maybe for the next –camp nano (?) —or nanowrimo I’ll actually take it on and see what I can do with it.

Those are my writing goals for the months of May and June. I will check in when June has finished to inform you what has happened and what hasn’t. Keep in my mind I’ve got personal goals and basic life mixed in there as well, so of course some of these things may just end up pushed to the side.

Crossing my fingers that I manage to find the time and energy to do all these things however.

Until next time

5 movies that I’ve seen but haven’t read the books to.

/ W.A. Roberts / Leave a comment

5 Movies that I’ve seen but haven’t read the books

So as a general rule that I’ve kind of adopted when I was in high school was if there was a book based on a movie I would try to read the book and then watch the film, or watch the film and then read the book.

I’ve mostly succeeded in this venture.

There are several books that I can honestly say are far better than the movie. (Honestly, we can say this about a lot of books to movie adaptions.) But there is, of course, a handful of films that I watched before I read the books, or even knew they were books. It’s only a recent discovery that I learned they will sometimes base a book off of a movie. Suicide Squad is the movie to book adaption that made me aware of this practice. Why bother is beyond me, but whatever.

There are some books that I haven’t bothered reading simply because I’ve already seen the movie or television show and don’t want the movie ruined for me.

(I’ve also refused to watch The Book Thief simply because I loved the book and don’t want it ruined. Go figure.)

But here’s a list of five books that I haven’t read simply because I’ve watched the movie. (I might be confessing some book lover sin here, but here we go.) I should have it noted that I do own all of these books and keep them for one reason or another.

  1. Day After Tomorrow – I have no complaints about this movie. As far as apocalyptic films with original end of world plotlines go, it’s great. I found the book several years ago in a freebie bin and grabbed it up. It’s since sat in boxes and later on a shelf for the past couple of years collecting dust. At one point I said I was going to get to it but let’s be honest here, do we ever get to those “eventually” TBR’s.
  2. Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – This is another one of those books I meant to read and have attempted to on several occasions. Perhaps it’s the way Douglas Adams wrote his books that I’ve found it difficult to get into. Don’t get me wrong. I love the story and I’ve watched the movie several times but I just don’t see it happening unless the world actually does come to an end.
  3. Matilda – A childhood favorite and a book that I’ve had since… childhood. This is one of those books that my mom bought me when she realized how much I loved the movie and attempted to read but couldn’t get into it. Think eight years old me trying to picture a movie that I’ve already watched a dozen times and didn’t like it when things started changing. This was back when my love for reading was just starting and my attention span not that great. I’ve kept for sentimental reasons but don’t ever see myself reading it now.
  4. Death Note – Seeing as this one of my all-time favorite anime’s you would think I would have read the mangas. But no. Yet another series of books that I’ve started to read and for whatever reason just haven’t finished. Considering there are twelve books in this series and at the time of falling in love with the anime I was just plain broke. I could always go back one day and get the complete series and read them. Lord knows I love the movies (Japanese version not that one that Netflix put out.) as well as the anime itself.
  5. Pet Semetary – Honestly don’t know why I haven’t read this one yet. It’s a Stephen King novel and I do I love his books, but its either because the hype for it hasn’t been all that great or I’ve seen the movie (newest adaption anyway) and wasn’t all that impressed. The only thing that even remotely frightened me was the relationship between the mom and her older sister. (Or lack thereof.) Either way, it’s on my TBR just somewhere at the bottom when I run out of everything else.

So, yes those are five books that I have seen the movie adaptions and just haven’t bothered to read them. Some of them I might get some flake for but oh well. Whatever some books that you’ve seen the movie adaption to and just haven’t bothered to read the books, or vise versa? Maybe you have a favorite book that you refuse to ruin with a movie. Just let me know in the comment and until next time.

Closing Old Doors and Opening New Ones. (Literally)

/ W.A. Roberts / 1 Comment

I went on a bit of a hiatus for the past two weeks because I moved.

My husband and I have been together for 10 years and one of the main things we’ve always talked about doing was buying our own home. Of course this crazy dream of ours would happen just as the world shuts down, but here we are.

We bought our own home and barely managed to move into it before my home town decided to declare a Stay-at-home order. So we get to fully settle into our new home and enjoy it… locked inside… with the kids.

Yay!!!

Leaving our old home was kind of a bitter sweet moment. We spent four years in that apartment. It was in that apartment, in my little space next to the hall, that I penned STOP THE RAVEN and several other short stories. I got my first short story accepted for publication there (got the email while browsing FB at midnight and woke my husband up because I was so excited) and my first query rejection. Started this blog, my Youtube channel and my twitter account all in that spot.

Met a many new online friends that I love talking to on the daily. (And am missing sorely because I’ve been so disconnected from the online world.)

A couple pics of the old set up

In that home, we planned and took our first trip to New York. (Well my first trip, my husbands been there before.) My youngest started school there, my oldest brought his friend over for the first time in that apartment. We had our last Thanksgiving with my mother in law before she passed in that space.

To say that saying good-bye to that place was easy would be a lie. But at the same time, I’m excited that I can now call a home mine. I can shape into what I want without restrictions. (Mostly… there’s still city codes and yada yada…but you know) And we can set down some roots and settle into a place.

My kids will have a place to fully grow up in and come back to when they are older and its exciting and nerve wrecking all at once.

We’ll make new memories here, start up new traditions, happy ones to boot.

Especially since Corona isn’t letting us out any time soon.

It’s strange sitting a new spot. We’ve turned our third bedroom into a game room / office (For the husband mostly) But I’m in here. In a little corner that I can call my own and it’s a bit of an adjustment. I don’t have the kids hanging over my shoulder like I used to because we were in the living room. I don’t have them flying by from their bedroom through the hallway.

I can shut the door and block them out if I really wanted to but the noise has always been a welcome background. (I grew up in a loud, busy family so quiet tends to throw me off.)

There’s going to be an adjustment period, I already know this but as I hang up pictures and find new places for everything it’s starting to feel more and more like home. And in no time I’ll be back into some kind of an old routine and thing will settle down enough that I can get back into some kind of writing schedule, that’s been uprooted thanks to forced homeschooling. But it writing will happen. I already find myself going stir crazy from not being able to sit down with my characters and write their stories.

So anyways, I’m going to wrap up this post. There are some announcements that I failed to upload in the past couple of weeks.

One is Love and Hate from the Dark Drabbles series has been released. It was released on Mar. 17th, but I believe I was pulling a muscle carrying a dresser on that day so I’m letting you know now but I’ve one in each and I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about them so go and check them out since you’ve probably got no where to go anyways.

They are both available on Amazon and through the website.

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Also the 9th installment of the Dark Drabbles series, OCEANS will be released on April 14th. I’ve got 4 drabbles in that one and am excited to get a hold of other stories as well.

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Also, also Blood and Beetles is to be released on April 18th with a short story called Janet’s Price by yours truly. Pre-order is now available. And if you are interested check out the first installment of this series, Death and Butterflies

So as you can see even though the world is slowing down the world of publishing is not.  I hope everyone is being safe and taking all the necessary precautions during this time of uncertainty and until next time.

The Perfect Writing Day

/ W.A. Roberts / Leave a comment

One thing we all think about when we first start writing is that perfect schedule. How we would run our days if we were to become full time writers. So here’s a run down list of what my ideal schedule could be. (Or would be if I buckled down and actually stuck to this kind of schedule.)

Think of this as an experiment to see how well this would work out.

6:30 AM – Wake up, get kids ready for school.

7 AM – Spend 15 minutes on social media before taking the kids to school.

8 AM – The dog’s gone for a walk, which allows me a stretch, and my coffee is poured. This means WRITING TIME!!!! Well, time to work on my blog anyways. With any luck this won’t take the whole hour, but who knows. (This blog post is currently taking almost two hours. Have I mentioned I’m the procrastination queen?

9:30 AM – Hubby goes to work and when I return home it’s work out time.

10 30 AM – More writing! This time I work on either a short story or edits or another project that I’ve got going at the moment. (So many projects, so little time.)

12 PM – Lunch and probably some time to chill and watch a couple of videos on youtube. (Also the dog is probably bugging me to go outside again.)

2:45 PM – Time has gotten away with me and it’s now time to pick up the kids….

…

I kid.

…

Seriously, let’s jet back to fantasy land here for a moment.

12:15 PM – More writing! I’m really hoping with all this writing I can get a good chunk of this short story that I need to write before November finished.

1:15/1:45 PM – At this point I need to stretch and so that means some quick pick up around the house before it’s time to get the kids. Also dog.

2:45 PM – Seriously time to pick up the kids! That means sitting in the car line for 30 minutes and read. My current read is The Shining by Stephen King. This is my second attempt to read this book, I was reading it a couple of months ago and got interested in another story and this got put on the side burner, but I’m back at it and still enjoying it.

3:30 PM – From here my day descends into chaos. Kids are wanting snacks, homework needs to be finished. (Bursts into rendition of NeverEnding Story.)

4:30 PM – Kids are settled, homework is done, and they’re probably already playing their video games. If nothing happens I could write for another 30 to 45 minutes.

5 PM – Cook dinner, eat, clean up.

6:30 – Time to pick up husband, come home. Baths…Dog needs to go out for the 4th or 5th time this day and it’s probably going to be a longer walk to calm him down for the night along with the kids.

7:30/8 PM – More writing? Possibly. At this point it would make sense since everyone is quieted down for the time being.

10 PM – Bedtime / Some mindless TV or reading. Depends. My husband is wanting me to watch an anime called Hunter X Hunger, so probably a couple of episodes of that before bedtime.

So there it is. My perfect writing. Was it all spent writing? No, probably because I find that if I spend exhaustive long moments in front of the computer I get angsty and need to get up and move. Include the kids in that mix with all their needs and after school activities and if I don’t dedicate the morning hours to writing and partial of the evenings I don’t get a lot of writing done. Also, I’m good at procrastinating, as I’ve mentioned, so to achieve this I would have to turn off social media so…

I’m going to attempt this kind of a schedule in a vlog on my youtube channel. If you want to see the results of that, head on over there. Should be going up about the same time as this. And let me know what you think?


What is your ideal writing schedule? Obviously, if I didn’t have kids I would definitely devote whole days to my characters, but alas, I enjoy being a mom and wouldn’t change this schedule for anything.

Also in case you didn’t know. I have another drabble coming out in Black Hare Press Beyond Anthology next week. Sept. 17th. You can pre-order it here . There’s a 100+ stories from various different author’s from all over the  globe. So buy it. Enjoy it. Review it. All that good stuff.

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Until next time!