JusJoJan: Day 7 – Robust

Not feeling robust today. I did not want to get up out of bed this morning. Usually I don’t have too much of a problem with that. Especially when, like last night, I was in bed by about 8:30.

I’m used to only getting 6 (usually less) hours of sleep a night. I usually get that straight through the night, though. I forgot how much more tiring it was to wake up every couple hours. That is one thing I do not miss about having really little babies. Mine stated sleeping through the night pretty early, though.

Now, though, instead of getting up to feed a baby, it’s to take a puppy outside. But with this face:  who needs sleep?

Go ahead and check out other’s jottings for today.

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Writing Wednesday: New Addition

We brought our new addition home yesterday. He’s settling in. Our older dog is actually handling it a lot better than we expected. The cat on the other hand…she’s not too happy about it.

helping me draft my RoW80 sponsor post

before the cat really noticed him. After that it was all hissing and growling.

my writing buddy

My progress has been a little slower this week for obvious reasons(see above pictures). But, I’ve still been getting things done. I’ll get to that in a bit.

But, first, another snippet from Flames of Retribution. 7 sentences(1+6) from Chapter 1. This is the day after last week’s snippet. This deals with some of Mark’s back story, though.

His fault. Those words had echoed through his head for days. More voices had joined it after the attack. Survivor’s guilt. That’s what the shrink had called it. Mark just called it guilt. Guilt he had earned by being the screw up his father had always said he’d be.

Mark’s guilt and the way he deals with it comes up a few times.

As for my progress for this week so far:

• Love Who You Love – get to 18000 words – 16068/18000. Still on track to meet this goal.
• Flames of Retribution – Read Through – 75% through this. Should finish it tomorrow, then I want to read through 2 short stories that connect with it. Still, not quite sure what I’ll do with them.
• Come Back Down – get to 12000 words – weekend project
• RoW80 Sponsor post – write & submit – got this drafted last night. Still need to read through & revise before I submit it.
• Read: Writing Vivid Settings – get to 30% – 15% through this one
• Read: Hope for Him(Sydney Aaliyah Michelle), Crazy Over You(Wendy Sparrow), A Summer Like No Other(Elodie Nowodazkij), Just One Reason(Brooklyn Skye), Off Campus(Amy Jo Cousins), & Heir of Fire(Sarah J Maas) – finished Hope for Him and am 79% through Crazy Over You, which I’m loving.
• Knit: Antler Hat – haven’t made any progress on this beyond what got done over the weekend. Hoping to get to it during the second half of the week.

JusJoJan: Day 5 – 2016

We’re only 5 days into 2016, so I’m not sure how much I can really say for today’s Just Jot It post.

I was thinking about sharing a teaser for my upcoming release today. I still don’t have a solid release date for it. Shooting for March or April hopefully. I did get together a cover for it, at least. I have 2 more stories in the series, and I’m hoping to release them in pretty quick succession, probably 1 a month. They’re only going to be available on Amazon, so they’ll be up for Kindle Unlimited. My other series are on all vendors, but they’re on-going ones. These ones will likely just be the three books, so they’re more contained, so I’m going to try it with them.

And 2016 is also the year when we add to our family. No, we’re not having any more human children. Not sure my sanity could survive that. But, we did add a new furbaby to our household. We just brought him home today.

riding home

Still currently nameless, though I do have a list to choose from. Now, to just pick one.

And as for that snippet:

“Last time I saw him he tried to kill me. Why would you put something like this past him?”
The sheriff pushed his hat back on his head. “That was a misunderstanding, William. He was angry because he thought you tried to steal his girl.”
“It was no misunderstanding. That’s the lie Ma prefers to believe. Thomas is always angry. I don’t think he knows anything else.”
“Knowin’ that, you should have more sense than trying to go after him without more proof. I can’t haul him in because you say so. I’d have to find him first.”
William clenched his jaw, his fist tightening at his side. “He’s capable of this. He wants me to know he’s around. What if it’s Anna he comes after next? He’s tried to take her from me since I met her.”
“He wouldn’t dare do that. He has to know you’d never stop hunting him down if he hurt her.”

WeWriWa: “Phoebe”

Welcome to the first installment Weekend Writing Warriors of 2016. Last month, I started sharing from Come Back Down, the sequel to Into the Sun. I’m hoping to make a whole series of these novellas. Today’s snippet takes place shortly after last week’s.

　　　”Phoebe.”
I heard the voice, but I didn’t respond to it. I wasn’t even sure he was talking to me at first. That used to be the only name I went by. But, now, and for the last five years, it was only when I went into town that I ever heard it. Everyone else called me Birdie.
But, Trace was turning to look at the guy behind us. He knew my real name, even though he never used it, either.

Who is this guy and what could he want? Why doesn’t anyone call her by her real name? I’ll share the next 8 sentences next week, and you just might find out.

I’m joining another blog challenge. Why not, right? I’m already doing RoW80(new round starts Monday), planning to do the A-Z challenge again in April. and after uncovering some old poetry notebooks, I’m thinking about participating in the OctPoWriMo this year as well. What can I say? I have a thing about challenges.

So, now I’m joining Just Jot It January. I may not post every day, but I’m hoping to at least most. I missed yesterday’s since I didn’t see it until this morning. I may include it with another post for that day(if that’s a problem, someone let me know please).

Today’s post always coincides with the Stream of Consciousness Saturday, which I’ve thought of joining before but never have. Today’s prompt is pause/paws, which works out well.

We’re getting a new dog. It’s something we’ve talked about for a while. We had to put my old dog, Shadow, down a few years ago. She was probably about thirteen years old. I don’t know for sure. I got her from a local humane society in 2000. They said she was about 2.5 years old then. She was mine from the minute my mom and stepdad brought her home. Followed me around everywhere. Which is how she got her name, not just because she was black.

She was a bit neurotic. Terrified of storms. She stuck even closer to me then. Always had to be right next to me. Even when we lived in an apartment and had two floors. Even though going up and down wasn’t easy on her aging joints. She really was my shadow. And she wouldn’t eat if I wasn’t there. We’re also pretty sure she was abused. Terrified of most men. And empty 2-liter pop bottles. You couldn’t even walk past her with one without her cowering away.

We still had her when we got our next dog, Lady. Another black dog, a lab this time(Shadow was a chow mix). They tolerated each other. Shadow was probably eleven at that time.

We’ve been a one dog family for the last several years. But, Lady is totally my husband’s dog. She mostly ignores me…unless I have food. But, she’s very protective of our son.

So, we’ve talked about getting another dog. Not sure how Lady is going to handle that. But, we took her to meet the new puppy, and she behaved a lot better than we’d expected. So, hopefully when he’s at our house, she’ll do all right, too. It may take some adjusting, though.

We aren’t exactly sure what the new puppy is. His mother is a staffordshire terrier. They got her from the same humane society I’d gotten Shadow from, and she was apparently pregnant when they got her. So, we don’t have a clue what the father is. The puppies have a bit of a lab look to them, though.

We’re getting the runt of the litter. He’s black(I’m noticing a trend here) with white down his chest and on his front paws. I was able to hold him in one hand the other day. We can’t pick him up for another two weeks, though.

So, now I need to come up with a name for him. Thought about something that goes along with Lady, like Duke, Earl or Baron(so it would be the lord and lady). I also have a thing for Irish names, so I looked through those. One stuck out: Kerwyn, which means small, dark one. Which fits on a couple levels. Who knows, I may think of something else in the next 2 weeks. And, of course, Shadow wasn’t named until we’d had her for about a week. So, maybe he’ll find a way of telling us his name.

shortly after we got her, running toward me.

with our lab mix, Lady