Oh Wait, How Did We Get Here?

It's already into 2017 and I am still accidentally writing 2016 on everything. This new year is a time for clean ups and clean slates. I recently tidied up my own office space (again) and its looking much more eclectic and cozy:

I put effort into cleaning it so that I will actually write.

*******RECORD SCRATCH*******

I started writing this damn post on January 19th. It is February 7th and I am finally dragging myself back to it. I had so many aspirations to write blogs/chapters/mini books whilst on vacation during the first month and I honestly did zero of those things. I had great times relaxing and seeing my friends and family and it was an excellent vacation, BUT I keep beating myself up for not writing. I've talked to peers and looked up how to be a better writer and bookmarked the best tips for myself and dang it I'm gonna use them starting now!

*Write everyday for at least an hour. Y'all may not see all of the fruits of that on here but surely some of my writings will be the posts on here.

*Start making "To-Done" lists. I've seen this used by so many people lately and I like that you're low-key congratulating yourself at the end of the day to say, hey I did this! Instead of Oh..I have to do that?! 

*Read more. I spend a lot of my time on the internet and though it is obviously beneficial in certain aspects of my life, I miss just relaxing with a good book and giving my mind some exercise. 

Here's to 2017!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

Clean Slates

It's not quite the new year yet but I have been thinking about the reset that we are about to have. I bought a dry erase calendar over the summer and it is always very nice at the beginning of every month to wipe it clean and start over:

You see it as a new month, a new chance to get you goals in. To really take charge of you career, your life, your world. Sometimes I write goals out on the side and the are carried over from the previous month, knowing that I didn't get to them. I should get to them, I might still not, but I've definitely made an effort in writing them out.

Here's my November, it looks towards Christmas and has repeat goals of things I would really like to earnestly have come to fruition in 2017. I already gave you a preview of my untitled Great American Novel....I will give you a preview of the children's book too. Whether it will be an excerpt or a character drawing.....only time will tell.

Here's to a new month! Here's to a little clean slate in this crazy world!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

Sneak Peek!!

Today I give you a rough draft of sorts. I've been writing a novel and a children's book  for a while now and I'm ready to put a part out there and receive some feedback! 

So without further ado, enjoy an excerpt from my currently untitled Great American Novel:

    So allow me to introduce myself: name's Zelda, more specifically Zelda Rubylyn Ziggler. I am 100% a native Floridian and proud of it. You will come across folks in your life who do not always consider Florida as a real part of the South. Well that is a wrong assumption.

     Look: Florida is full of transplants, we are a transient state by nature due to all the tourists who came on vacation and decided to reclaim the Sunshine State as their home. We have wild creatures living among new apartments and golf courses. We have become a state to reinvent yourself in. We have become the butt of jokes with every weird and crazy news story. Florida is it's own bird, through and through. As you can see I have a very grand old South name despite my 5'4" waif frame. My momma was a Georgia debutante and my daddy is a born and bred Florida boy still in charge of our family business, which was of course citrus. 

     The Ziggler's citrus plantations have been a boom crop for centuries now. Started in the rich untapped soils of St. Petersburg, then moved into Central Florida and now branched out towards the Everglades. That's how I ended up living here in Hialeah near "oh-so glamorous" Miami. I'm not trying to get ahead of myself quite yet, but y'all need a bit of background before diving headfirst into this.

That's it for today! Let me know what you think and if you'd like to read more!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

PS: Copyright 2016 Meghan R. Rose. All intellectual property belongs to me. All likeness to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. 

Choose You Own Adventure

I've been both busy and not busy. Not busy, but busy playing tablet games. Busy having a wonderful time distracting myself from both my blog and the 60 day write club to write and illustrate a picture book for my 2 year old neighbor. But also busy with work. Flipside-busy having great chats with my neighbors and bonfires. I've come to the thinking that maybe there's two forms of busy on the life spectrum. You can choose how busy to be, and with what, I will always want to choose a good busy (so bonfires and drinks and building an empire of books)

Life in general is about choices, some are hard and some are easy but as far as it being a personal matter-it's always the right choice in the end. Hear me out: even when you make a so called wrong choice, you learn/recover from it, so thus it teaches you something, so it can't be that wrong. Obviously there are other situations where a choice is very clearly wrong and I would like to think that anyone reading this would never have to make a life or death choice.

Stay busy in the way you'd like, and make good for you kind of choices.

Keep on, keepin' on,
M.

It's 2016!

So without meaning to I took the entire month of December off from this blog. Sometimes life gets in the way of things whether good or bad and you put things on the back burner without a thought. I work in retail as well so it gets pretty hectic with hours and late nights and then there's all the get togethers after and all the christmas shopping you do for your families. Basically it's alot, but now its January and it is time to begin anew and get going on making 2016 a great one.

First: So much more home organization and making our spare room into an actual office for actual work. Both with my man's business and my own writing dreams.

Second: Writing dreams are going into FULL swing this year. My dear friend Candace has been a journalist for all our years of schooling and has multiple side projects. One of them, Life Between Weekends, proposed a challenge for this year, well for the next 2 months: Write the novel you've always wanted to-and do it in 2 months! Not like write it, edit it and publish it, but get those words and thoughts down on paper, so to speak. I love the idea and to have a small team to hold each other accountable seems like a really good fit for me. So here's to me writing the next great American novel!

Third: Have more adventures. Go more places. Really travel and have a reason to pin places on the map. Live my best life.

I'm turning 30 in 6 days. Why not go for it all this year?? Make 30 the best year and banish the old stereotypes!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

Judy Blume!

     Happy Sunday! Today is the day for sleeping in (if possible) and then languidly going to hang with friends/family or run errands. So this early afternoon as I sat out on my porch enjoying my second cup of coffee and having my Sunday convo with my folks, my mom told me easily one of the most exciting things to be upcoming in a long while.

 Ahem:

JUDY BLUME IS COMING TO DOWNTOWN ST PETE FOR THE FESTIVAL OF READING AND SHE IS GOING TO HAVE A BOOK SIGNING FOR HER NEW BOOK BUT ALSO SHE WILL SIGN ONE OF HER OLDER BOOKS! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

    Ok, to start at the beginning, my mom was always big on reading to me and made up different voices for characters and would have me read aloud to her before I stated kindergarten. So my whole childhood was a wonderful world of imagination and far off places and great people that whenever I got lonely, would be waiting for me right in the chapter I'd left off at the night before. My two favorite authors during elementary school were Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. After I started middle school, Judy stayed to give me advice on puberty and friendship. Then I moved on to high school and Judy was still in my corner, never to far to advise. As a grown up I still continue to re-read her adult novel Summer Sisters . I am also currently reading her new adult novel In The Unlikely Event , which takes place in the 40s/50s up to present day. Because of this new novel, she is going on promotional tours around the US and Canada again and today mom told me this wonderful news. Down the street from my house (basically) I will be able to listen to one of my favorite people ever speak about her stories and THEN tell her hello and how awesome I think she is whilst she signs one of my favorite books. I haven't finished In The Unlikely Event yet so I haven't put it in my list, but it is very good so far.

    Also I wrote a question to Judy Blume and she answered it on Buzzfeed and I fangirled ALOT.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/pieces-of-advice-judy-blume-has-for-young-writers-readers#.yqnqdlJk13

    Keep on , keepin on!

         M.