A change of direction

I've been thinking for a while about this blog and what I want to do with it. I considered shutting it down entirely but I don't think that's how I want to go.

After much debate, internal and with poor Mr. W, I have decided to focus on "helping women find great lighter fiction". I'll review other books, as well as talking a bit (only a bit - no sales-pitch-overload!) about my own, and will do my best to help women who like the same books as I do find great new authors and books.

I'm excited about this, in a way I haven't been excited about blogging for a long time, so I think it's going to be great. Over the next few days I will clean up the blog's sidebars to better suit its new purpose. I will be releasing my "Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many" in the summer, and I'll redesign the blog and my web site at that time so everything's pretty and new.

Oh, and if you know of any great authors along the "Marian Keyes/Sophie Kinsella" line, leave me a comment and I'll check them out!

Blog on the move!

I have wanted to move the blog onto my web site for a while, and I finally figured out Blogger's custom domain feature to do exactly that!

If all has gone well, the blog is now at http://blog.heatherwardell.com instead of the old address. The old address will keep forwarding you here, but feel free to update your bookmarks!

I feel all official somehow. :)

Want to improve your blog?

I've signed up for the ProBlogger "31 days to build a better blog challenge". It starts April 6th. (It was supposed to be today but it's been delayed.)

I don't know whether it'll improve my blog or not, but I'm willing to put 31 days into it to see what happens!

If you are too, sign up at http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/25/31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-sign-up-here/ and then we can work on our blogs together. :)

Heather

Three Columns? Why not?

I spent FAR too much time this morning, but I've now got a three-column blog! I quite like it - keeps the sidebar from getting too long, I think. I will no doubt continue to fiddle with it, and once it's solid I might revamp my web site to match it more closely. We shall see.

There's a danger of spending more time playing with the look and feel of the web site than actually writing, and since I'm a) a nerd and b) a former web developer, I find this stuff fun. But I will behave!

(Edited to add: I found the details for the three-column dealie at http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/07/create-three-column-blogger-template.html - don't want to suggest I came up with it all by myself. :)

Now, Mr. W and I are leaving this afternoon for a week's vacation, booked before I knew about NaBloPoMo. It's a little resort about two hours from here, and rumour has it they have Internet access. I contemplated pre-posting, so there'd always be something new here, but the point of NaBloPoMo to me is daily attention to the blog, and pre-posting kinda defeats that.

SO, if I get Internet access daily, I'll post daily. If not, I'll post when I do, and think happy blog-related thoughts the rest of the time. :)

Have a great week!

And thanks to all who've commented on the previous identity-related post - I think I'll be going with my name pretty much everywhere. Still trying to decide what to do on Ravelry, but as it's just for fun, I'm not sure it matters all that much what I call myself!

Heather

No more daily blogging

I've been working toward blogging daily, but I'm realizing a) it ends up feeling like I'm saying the same things every time, b) I'm actually avoiding saying some things I want to (like about Seven's agent search) because I worry about who'll be reading it, c) I feel 'forced' to blog instead of wanting to.

Therefore, the 101 updates will continue weekly, because they help me make sure I keep moving forward. Otherwise, I'll blog when I have something I want to say.

That is all. Carry on. :)

May 15, 2008: Crazy scheduling woman

There are probably rocket launches that aren't scheduled as tightly as I made today's plan. I launched my rocket, let me tell you. (That sounds dirtier than I'd intended.)

Raoul's outline is indeed done. The characters are itching to be written, but Seven needs to get out into the world first, so tomorrow I'll finish up some of what I've been learning in the emotions course (which is better and better with each passing lecture, incidentally) and get ready to go full-blast on Seven on Monday. (Yes, it's a holiday. No, I ain't takin' no holiday. My boss is a slave-driver. :)

As well, I cleaned out the linen closet (scoring 15 items to donate to charity - explain why two people need ten towels??), sent off my Computing Unplugged article, washed the floors, dusted, spent an hour applying the emotions course to Seven and another half hour on the next lecture... I am a beast. A tired beast. :)

Writing Project: Raoul's planning - last day, baby!
Time Planned: 2 hours
Time Spent: 2 hours
Favourite Part: How badly I want to start writing it. :)

Exercise: 40 minutes elliptical (scheduled to be 45 but I was going to be too late for breakfast!)
One Fun Thing I Did Today: I'm about to sit and relax and crochet for an hour. Heaven!

May 13, 2008: Too much tea?

I didn't believe it was possible to have too much tea. It's like having too much happiness or too many polar bears. (That last one could be just me.) But it is possible to have too much tea, and, as the LOLcats say, "I has it."

The picture shows an entire shelf in the kitchen cupboard I organized today, full right to the back. There's also a single box in a different cupboard because I just couldn't make it fit. Several are duplicates (I have three tins of strawberry tea, which I do like, but as far as I know we're not suffering a tea shortage so I could likely have bought more later) but most are different flavours. I drink one cup a day, two at the most. Egad. Still, it's nice to have options, right?

This week, I'm working through Margie Lawson's emotions course, about writing emotions and non-verbal communication. I've made some changes to Seven as a result, and am working on internalizing this material so I'll automatically write Raoul that way. Interesting stuff!

Writing Project: Raoul's planning - nearing the end!
Time Planned: 2 hours
Time Spent: 2 hours
Favourite Part: Recognizing the 'big decision point' that should have been near the end of the book was too early, and fixing it by just dragging scene titles around. Ah, outlining. :)

Exercise: scheduled rest day
One Fun Thing I Did Today: changed my Facebook profile picture and my Blogger picture to be the one taken after the race. I'm holding my race medal (although not facing forward for some reason) and wearing a plushy blue sweater I crocheted that I love.

What a week!

I finished editing "Sand, Surf, and Nine Ex-Boyfriends" on Sept 28th, and ran a marathon on the 30th!!

Then I got a vicious cold, from which I am just beginning to emerge.

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, so I will begin again to blog on Tuesday. I will use the time to think of what exactly I want this blog to be... it's not clear to me and it should be!

Consolidation

I have several posts on my old blog, writer-support.blogspot.com, that are still worth reading. I'll re-post them over the next few days, both to get me in the habit of posting and to avoid everyone having to traipse over there and read them.

Traipse. Fabulous word. Hope I spelled it right.

There's something deeply strange about blogging when you don't yet have an audience. I am talking, but who is listening?

It begins

I now have a blog. Excellent. I will update it at least once a week. I will. Really.