Journaling for the Chronic Journal Abandoner

My stack of pretty notebooksI'm a writer. This means I love books and writing and pens and paper and pretty notebooks and words. Also, my first career was as a therapist, so I'm introspective and navel-gazing to a fault. You would think that this would mean I'd be a prime candidate to be a journal or diary keeper.

Sadly, this has not been the case. I've started many a journal. I like the *idea* of a journal. However, in practice, it usually last 2-3 entries before I bail. Something about writing to no one but myself doesn't appeal. The reason why I can maintain a blog is because it feels like it has a purpose--someone is reading, there is interaction. But waxing poetic in a journal that only I'm going to see--well, it feels like a waste of time. I don't need to write down my thoughts to know them. I ruminate enough as it is.

However, this week I finished reading The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun  by Gretchen Rubin, and she had a quote in there that really resonated with me. "The days are long, but the years are short." 

How very true this is. I feel it when I look at my son who somehow is now five even though I feel like I just cried, "My epidural is wearing off, DO something!" to my dear doctor. So, this got me to thinking about finding a better way to track the days and the memories that pass in a blink. And one of the suggestions in the book was to do a one-sentence journal. That way, the journal abandoners of the world like me wouldn't have to commit to anything more than a few words a day.

This concept appealed to me. One sentence. I could do that. So I went to Barnes and Noble and looked at some of the 5-year journals that provide 2-3 lines for each day. However, as I looked at them, I realized that although I didn't want to do long journal entry. I wanted to have room to say what I wanted to say and maybe I'd need more than a sentence at times.

So after spending way too much time looking at all the journals, I decided to get a blank, spiral-bound one. And instead of a one-sentence journal, I'm doing a bullet list journal. So maybe that will only be one bullet on a day or maybe there will be three. It will depend on the day. And I'm not recording private things that no one else can see. I'm treating it instead like a record of life passing--something that my husband or son can look through years down the line with me. It's like a photograph but with words instead. 

Here's my first journal from Monday:

• President's Day - Kidlet informed me this morning, "Mommy, no presents for us. Only presidents get presents today."
• Best moment of the day: Eating cookies in the mall with kidlet and hubs while we watched the carousel.
• Caught kidlet singing Lady Gaga's "Judas" while he played with his cars. Adorable.

So, as you can see, it's no deep and meaningful pondering on life, but it's the stuff that will drift from my mind and disappear in a week or two. Little important moments that I don't want to forget. The years are short indeed, and I want to be able to look back and smile at them.

Do you journal? What do you think of the idea of the one-sentence journal or my version, the bullet-list journal? Any other journal abandoners out there? How do you keep track of the little moments you don't want to forget?

FALL INTO YOU is going to be on Good Morning Texas!

Hi, everyone! Just wanted to pop in and share my good news. FALL INTO YOU is going to be featured this morning on the Buy the Book segment on Good Morning Texas!!! I'm so excited to see my book on TV, squee!

If you live in the DFW area, the segment will air between 9-10am central time on ABC. And if you're not, it will be available online here shortly after the broadcast. I'd love for y'all to watch. Here's a sneak peek on the books selected. The theme is picks for your Book Club.

And thanks to Fresh Fiction (@FreshFiction) for choosing my book! Here's all the info if you want to folow along today and for future segments:

You can find more at FreshFiction.com/GMT, on Good Morning Texas or follow Gwen on Twitter at @ReelVixen and Good Morning Texas at @WFAAGMT

Should You Write That Potentially Controversial Scene?

Photo by CarbonNYC (Flickr cc)Writing any story is a risk. You're putting your heart there on the page, and people may hate it. And, of course, we want everyone to love our stories, right? But here's the thing: it's an impossible task. There is no book that is going to resonate with everyone. Even the greatest works of fiction have their critics.

So when you sit down and are writing your story and you hit that scene where you think--should I go there? Will this offend/freak out/piss off this A/B/C group of people?--do not cower. If it's right for the story and those characters, then write it. 

Inevitably, in each of my books there is THAT scene--one scene that divides my readers between two camps. Some of my more traditional readers think the scene went a little too far, and then my more seasoned romance and erotic readers declare the scene their favorite. It never fails. What one side hates, the other adores. Though, I do get a lot of converts over from the traditional side with each book, lol. *evil grin* But regardless, there's always that scene. In STILL INTO YOU, it's the scene with my married couple and Ian. In MELT INTO YOU, it's the scene between Andre and Jace. And now with FALL INTO YOU, it's a scene involving a "make me" role play between the hero and heroine.

Do I know these scenes may push some buttons when I'm writing them? Yes. Do I still put them in? Yes. Because that's part of what makes the story interesting. It's not controversy for the sake of controversy, but it's those scenes that make the reader wonder in your next book and keeps them guessing. If I always wrote the safe way, then you'd know exactly what to expect in each book. Who wants that? That's why I love Tiffany Reisz's books so much because I know she's willing to go wherever the hell she wants, lol. So as a reader, it keeps me on my toes. And recently, I read Reflected In You by Sylvia Day. I'm not going to give away the ending, but what she did there at the end made me go all 0.0  I was like--oh, she WENT there. And I loved that. It made the book so much better because she didn't shy away from a truly risky move.

So when you come across that controversial scene in your own book, don't worry about what will so and so think. Put on your big girl (or boy) underoos and write what fits the characters and the story. That's your job. 

Have you ever worried about a scene being too controversial in any of your stories? How do you feel when you run across those scenes in the books of others and it pushes you out of your comfort zone?

Reading Challenges for 2013 - Clearing the TBR (and Netflix Cue)

So for those of you who have followed me for a while, you know that I like to sign up for reading challenges each year. Besides adding an extra dose of motivation, I like keeping track of what I read and feeling like I'm moving toward some goal. (This basically means that I love to make a list and look back at it.)

In 2012, I did the 50/50 Challenge where the goal was to read 50 books and watch 50 movie in a year. That was a fun challenge because it didn't have a lot of restrictions, and it helped me focus on watching movies too--something I tend to neglect. As a writer, movies can be super helpful because the story structure is so clearly observable. And since I tend to plot using screenwriting techniques, it's especially useful to watch movies.

My final results for last year's challenge: 42 books and 33 movies  You can see what I read and watched here.

So I didn't quite make it but I was pretty happy with that. And I just found out they're doing it again, so I'm definitely doing this one again. They are still building the new website, but you can get all the details here. And if you'd like to follow how I'm doing on the challenge, I have a page on Pinterest for it. Let me know if you decide to sign up too!

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Next is a challenge I'm in desperate need of - The Dusty Bookshelf Challenge. I recently blogged about My Crazy TBR Pile & My Tough Love Rules To Cut It Down so this challenge is perfect to help with that. Basically, I suffer from the "ooh, look, shiny!" diseases when it comes to choosing my next book to read and end up ignoring perfectly good books that are sitting patiently on my shelves or in my e-reader. So this one will hopefully motivate me to read what I've got. This is NOT an agreement to not buy new books this year or not read new releases. Let's not get crazy now. But this will hopefully make me more balanced with my choices.

You can sign up for this challenge and get the rules here at Books: A True Story. There is a Goodreads group as well if you're interested. You can sign up for different levels (how many dusty books you agree to read) and the rules are that I'm supposed to post which ones I'm going to read. However, that's like plotting ahead and I'm a pantser. I don't know what I'm going to be in the mood for at the time. But I will agree the "Grungy" level and aim to read at least 20 that were added to my shelf between 2009-2012. 

So those are the two I'm signing up for. Are you doing any challenges this year? Feel free to let us know about the other challenges that are out there via the comments. Have a great weekend!

Most Popular Posts of 2012 and Introducing Must-Read Mondays

Putting 2012 in our rearview mirror (kidlet does this with a cape)Happy New Year!

First, before I get to today's post, I want to say thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate FALL INTO YOU's release yesterday even when you were busy doing your own holiday thing. *hugs* I hope those of you who bought it, enjoy it, and those of you who didn't--come on, get to it. Don't let those book gift certificates waste away! ;)  But seriously, I'm always indebted to each and every one of you who read my books. You rock. Thank you.

Now, on to today's post..

It's that time of the year to look back and evaluate what has gone right and wrong so we can decide how we want to move forward in the bright, shiny new year. So I thought it'd be interesting to see which posts were the most popular here on the blog in 2012. And though I knew which one would be number 1, the rest were a bit surprising. So here's what the numbers look like and what I'm going to do about it. :)

Top Posts of 2012

1.  Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog - My Story - Yeah, this wasn't a fun situation, but the post went viral and seemed to resonate with a lot of people. So, though I'd prefer not to have gone through it, I'm very glad it helped all of us learn how to do the right thing with regards to pics on our blogs.

2.  What to Read If You've Read 50 Shades of Grey and Want More BDSM Romance - Not too surprising considering the 50 phenomenon, but I was surprised that people found their way here considering the glut of info about 50 out there.

3.  BDSM Romance: What To Read If You've Never Tried It Before - This one is probably here for the same reason as number 2.

4.  Want Private Inspiration Boards? Alternatives to Pinterest - I did this post before Pinterest implemented access to 3 private boards. Clearly, it was something a lot of people were looking for (especially after my photo debacle.)

5.  What Will Make An Agent Gong Your Pages - We all want to know, don't we? :)

6.  Zang...Best American Idol Performances Ever #atozchallenge - This one surprised me. It was kind of a random post.

7.  Readers Face the Slush Pile: A Few Hard Truths - This one talked about how readers are now going to have to sift through the slush since it's hard to tell what is good and what isn't now that the indie movement is so big. (I wrote this last May and since then, have read many indie books. I've discovered that how I sift through the slush is simple--I wait for recs from friends and reviewers I trust before I buy a book. And I read samples on occasion.)

8.  Author Websites: Layering Yours With Sticky Extras - I think this one was popular because sometimes we focus so much on our blogs that we forget that readers (especially non-blog-readers) might want a little more on your author website.

9.  Kink & BDSM 101 - What It Is & Why It's So Popular In Books  - I probably have to credit 50 Shades on this one too.

10.  Because Good Smut Should Be Shared...Book Recommendations

11.  The New Adult Genre: Here To Stay This Time? - This genre is on fire right now, so I'm not surprised a lot of people stopped by.

12.  Finding Your Novel's Theme and Your Universal Theme 

So what was pretty interesting to me in this list is how it's changed so much from years before. Usually, my writing posts have been the big winners each year. This year, after an effort to balance my site a bit more so that I could provide content to readers and not just writers, it seems to have shifted. I was surprised at how popular the book recommendation posts were. 

Therefore, since I love doing the book rec posts, and y'all seem to appreciate them, I'm going to continue those this year in a more structured way. I'm making Mondays - Must-Read Mondays. Now, if I don't have something to recommend, I won't do a post. But generally, I'm reading enough that I always have a good book to share. And this will NOT be a place for other authors to solicit me for reviews/guest posts/etc. I'm happy to host people on occasion on other days, but I don't accept books for review. Anything I review, I picked up on my own. Plus, I want y'all to know that if I'm recommending a book, it's with no ties or strings or author-is-my-buddy bias--it's just me loving a book as a reader and wanting to pass along the word.

Now for the rest of the days on the blog, I'm still going to cover writing and social media topics when I come across something I haven't covered before. And I'll continue Fill-Me-In Fridays where I round up all the best links. However, those round up posts may be spaced out instead of every Friday because I've been too busy with writing lately to surf the web and have enough links to share each week. Also, I'm not sure if people are still loving the round up, so let me know if it's something you want me to keep around. 

I'm still working on some other features, but that's what I'm changing for now.

Now, go buy FALL INTO YOU, and enjoy your New Year's holiday! ;)

Are you making any changes to your blog this year? What posts are you most likely to stop by for here?