41, 4.0

Another goal of mine is to improve my craft. Writing is a never ending learning process. There is always room for improvement.

So far, I've been learning from friends and those who have generously offered to read my work. But I have books. I have Stephen King's book, On Writing. I have books on grammar and punctuation, books on how to develop characters and make your story better.

I want to be the best that I can be. With that comes dedication, hard work, sacrifice, being open to criticism, surrounding yourself with people who inspire and motivate you, and understanding that you will never reach perfection.

Thanks for reading.

Kisses,

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Megan

EDITED TO SAY: My friend Jeff pointed this out. "Great writing takes a combination of talent and skill. Talent comes from practice; skill comes from knowledge. You can be a good writer with either/or, but you can't be a great writer without both."

He's so right, and I forgot to point out that while I want to learn more to perfect my craft, it also takes practice, which goes back to one of my other goals which is to write more. :)

41 cont.

One of my other goals for this year is to write. Yes, I know I already write, I mean write more. Try to avoid the distraction that keep me from writing (can you say facebook?)

I think we improve with every word written.

That's it. Short and sweet for today.

Kisses.

:*

Megan

41 redux

This week I'm blogging about goals I'd like to meet during my 41st year on earth. (or is that really my 42nd, I was never really good with the maths). Yesterday was making and keeping connections alive, today it's my health.

At 41 I am in pretty good shape. Pretty. Good. Shape. I have my faults. I'm a little soft right now, and I hate it. I look much better when there is some kind of form to my muscles and my stomach doesn't look like I swallowed a watermelon.

I like food. I can't help it. I like to eat. I don't like to be hungry. This means I HAVE to exercise, which, um, I've kind of been slacking on as of late. So that's part of it, so start exercising again religiously, which to me is five days a week.

I also do not drink enough water. I try. EPIC FAIL. This was my goal over the last month and I think I may have actually drank LESS water than the previous month. My goal is to keep a big cup of ice water right next to my computer so when I'm writing, it will be there saying, "Drink me."

I also need to include more veggies in my diet. I'm not a big fan. I like my fruits, but veggies are another thing altogether. It will be different when the garden is bustling with peas, zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce, and radishes. There is nothing like home grown veggies, but right now it's difficult.

And, er, don't even get me started on red wine. Bacchus has a cruel sense of humor.

So, there's goal #2.

Thanks for reading.

Kisses

:*

Megan

41

That's me. Yesterday. Well, and everyday for the rest of the year. With every birthday I try to make a plan of attack for the coming year. Things I want to work on, make better, that kind of thing.

One of the most important things for me are making and keeping connections. It's hard. Facebook is so cool, because they're all right there at your fingertips. But I have a lot of facebook friends, and it's difficult to keep up with them all.

On a daily basis, I'll connect with the most active ones, and mostly they are the ones I've met through the ABNA contest.

Just lately though, I've started to check all my friend groups on a daily basis and try to leave comments. To connect. Juts to show them that I'm thinking about them. This includes, family, friends, and other writers.

Another thing I'm trying to do is visit all the blogs I'm following whenever they post something new. I want the writer to know I'm reading them and I'm interested in what they're saying.

But I not only want to stay connected to these established relationships, but also forge new ones. I love meeting other writers, readers, people with like interests. I love that I have Facebook friends from India, and Iraq, and Holland, and Italy. I know I say I'm not much of a people person, but online friendships are different. You don't see all the things that might annoy you in person, quirks, traits, religious or political differences, the things that might cause you to NOT be friends in the tangible world. It makes them easy to maintain.

So, at 41 one of my goals is to keep my connections as tight as I can and to make new ones.

You'll hear about some of my other goals throughout the week.

Thanks for reading.

Kisses

:*

Megan

Hotel HELL!!

May as well talk about hotels since this has been a vacation blog week.

I remember from a long time ago, my family traveled to Washington DC. I think I was 8 or 10 at the time. I found a big bug in the bathroom. This is my curse, to find strange big bugs in hotel bathrooms. I don't like bugs. Looking back, I think it might have been a cockroach, but I'm not sure. Then after swimming in the pool there, I got a big black tick in my side. Not fun for a girl who doesn't like bugs.

Strange, after staying in a dump in Texas, my oldest daughter got a tick behind her ear. We kept that one and put it under the microscope. Those things are gross *shudder*. That hotel was gross too, thanks Dad (kidding Dad, well, not about the hotel, but I appreciated the trip).

Same trip (prior paragraph was on the way back from Oklahoma, this one, on the way to) we get off our plane in Texas, we already have a hotel booked. We grab our rental car and start driving and thus begins the torrential downpour. It was raining so hard, we literally couldn't see two feet in front of us. We were driving so slow, not knowing where the car ahead of us was. And forget finding our booked hotel in an unfamiliar city.

Then the clouds parted and we saw god. Okay, kidding, we saw a Holiday Inn sign, so we immediately got off the freeway (I did mention we were on the freeway, right?) Apparently the state of Texas gets that kind of rain only about once a year, and we found it. We were given rooms on the 14th floor. We had no idea the indoor pool was on our floor, oh, wait, that isn't a pool, that's a giant puddle in the middle of our hallway. I'm not a praying person, but I prayed that the 14th floor would not collapse sending us to our deaths that night.

That's probably enough hotel horror stories. I'm sure I could come up with more like the crappy cabin in Grayland where the front door didn't lock, or reserving a room at Edgefield McMenamins for the wrong day and not knowing until getting there (they gave us what's called the "oh shit" room, thank god, or Rusty would never have forgiven me).

What are your Hotel Hell experiences?

Thanks for reading,

Kisses

:*

Megan