Hello, everyone!

Welcome to my blog series, Monthly Journal. I’m late again…I know. Doing a monthly journal is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I keep hearing my mother’s voice, “Melinda, time waits for no one.” I still want it to wait for me, I always have.

August started out really well, I decided to do some editing. It felt really good to get back into my story, instead of focusing on plotting, which always seems to pull me away from it. I’ve decided to embrace what I am and how I do things. I’m just going to keep doing what comes naturally to me. I’ll never be a plotter and that’s okay with me now. I tried, but it just didn’t work for me. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop using the Snowflake Method, I’m just doing it my way. I’ll do a little plotting, what I can see with my headlights on. As I go further down the road, I’ll see more. What I really need to work on is making sure that I write everyday, even if it’s crappy. I need to make it a habit. As far as editing goes, I’ll probably still edit as I write…I can’t help it! I’ll try not to, but I can’t make any promises.

I was doing so well, then on August 3rd, this happened! We had a very bad Haboob (dust storm) My husband was caught in it. He was on the highway, he couldn’t see anything except the tail lights of the car in front of him. He said the sky was black. I was in my office at home, and even though I put towels under the doors, I’m sure some dust got inside the house. The next day my husband and I had really bad sinus headaches. Stupid dust storm! My sinus headache lasted for days. I couldn’t write or even think, so I did some research on ancestry, researched some new glazes and trending colors, and sketched some new pottery designs.

On August 11th, while researching on ancestry, my characters started whispering in my ears. A new character decided to join the cast of my story. She totally came out of nowhere. The moment I found my 4th great-grandmother, on my father’s side, I knew my new characters first name…Theodora. I love this name. I wish I could have met her. Shortly after she had her name, I already knew what she looked like, and what she did for a living, but I didn’t have her last name yet. Sometimes my story has a mind of its own! This character was never meant to be in my book. I was going to mention him in my book series somewhere ( my character has always been a male, since I started my story) but, this character had other ideas. So did another one of my characters, who has been very stubborn. I could never come up with the right name for her, she’s had many names, I can’t even remember them all. Fortunately, she had a last name and a maiden name. She’s already in my book, I’ve been calling her Mrs. Reis. So, while researching on ancestry again, a few days later, I found the perfect name for her. Her name is Roslyn Reis. I had to change her occupation though, because I gave her job to Theodora. So now, Roslyn Reis is the owner of Miss Roslyn’s Dance Studio and Theodora is the Librarian at the Public Library in Seaside…perfect! I’m going to have to make some changes to chapter 9 and 10, and flesh these two characters out more.

On August 20th, my new pottery workshop was ready for me to start unpacking…Yay!

OMG…there’s a zillion boxes to unpack. When I wasn’t unpacking, I was researching on ancestry while I had some time, before I was knee-deep in making pots. The very same day, Theodora got her last name…Theodora Price. I like it! The more I unpacked in my pottery shop though, the more I focused on pottery designs, color, glazes and glaze combinations. Like these glaze-combination inspiration boards I made.

I had so much fun making these! Which color do you like?

By August 30th, I was getting a little frustrated and overwhelmed with the unpacking. Everything was everywhere, it was such a mess and I don’t like messes, not to mention my allergies were not happy and I was wearing a mask.

Unpacking is not my favorite thing to do…just saying!

Wish I could twitch my nose and everything would be in place…if only!

The very next day my Fibromyalgia flared up…big time! This is why I didn’t do my August Monthly Journal post on time. I needed to rest. I’m not as young as I use to be either!

Fibro slows me down but it ain’t stoppin me!

Thanks for stopping by!

Gonna work on my September Monthly Journal now. See you soon!