I hope everyone had a great New Year’s Eve and Day! I rang in the New Year at home by myself. I watched a little TV, but most of the time I was racking my brain trying to come up with an idea for a new novel.
I’ve suffered from writers block since I got sick last September. I’ve sat down and tried to write, but ended up mostly just staring at my blinking cursor. I signed up for a writing competition called JANO through my Sleuths’ Ink Mystery Writers group this year. The object of JANO is to write 50,000 words or more during the month of January. I entered the contest hoping it would inspire me. Writing began at 12:01 a.m. on January 1st. At that time, I still had no ideas. So I went to bed around 1:30 a.m. with the thought this would be my shortest JANO offering ever.
I woke up later that morning with a wonderful idea for a mystery. Historically, I have written predominantly romance. However, in the last couple years I’ve found myself leaning more toward mystery and science fiction. Well, I sat down at my computer with a fresh, new idea and realized I still had to set up several things on my new laptop before I could actually write on it. Even though my programs were registered on my old computer, and I simply transferred them, I still had to register them on my new laptop. Crazy.
I also wanted to load my Dragon Nuance. That meant starting over from scratch because I couldn’t transfer it. I had to load it with the original disk. Thankfully, I had the foresight to order an external CD Rom because I couldn’t find a single laptop with one built in. If you’ve ever used any Dragon product, you know it’s a lengthy process to program and get it acquainted with your voice.
Loading Dragon meant taking my computer out of “S Mode” for which I had no idea on how it was done. “S Mode” means my computer would only allow Microsoft aps to be downloaded. My new machine refused to let me use Google, so I was using an unfamiliar browser. I spent some time researching what I needed to do and finally enjoyed the sweet taste of success. Once all that was finally completed, I pounded out two chapters in record time. If I hadn’t needed to make dinner, I could have kept going undeterred.
After dinner, Jim and I watched not one, but two movies. Even though I’m in a writing competition and felt the need to work on my new book, I recognized the need to spend quality time with my husband. He’s far more important to me than any writing project could ever be. We have precious little time together due to our work schedules being opposite each other. I quite enjoyed our New Years weekend. Hanging out in front of the TV with the love of my life while sipping mugs of hot cocoa is a pretty good way to spend a frigid weekend.
As far as the competition goes – I’m pretty close to being on target with my word count. If I can maintain my momentum, I should reach my 50,000 words on schedule if not before.
I am an Amazon Associate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. #ad
Thank you for reading Ozarks Maven! If you’ve enjoyed my little seeds of wisdom and joy, please subscribe to Ozarks Maven, Like Ozarks Maven on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @OzarksMaven.