blogging

Hello Again

/ legreene515 / 4 Comments

It’s been awhile. I have had a lot going on in my life. All good things, really.

Here’s an itemized list of my month of August

  • Kids started school. On August 6th. I mean, why? Super early. But, honestly, the routine has been good for them.
  • Hubby went out of town and came back on August 6th. Then he went out of town on August 15th for a week. This meant I had to go it all alone (with some help from my awesome mom and my awesome niece).
  • I started a new job on August 15th. Did you notice how that coincided with Hubby going out of town? Yeah, perfect timing! HA
  • My sister came into town to visit. I spent almost every night hanging out with her, except when she went to see Phish with my husband.
  • My sister and I drove up to see my other sister one weekend.
  • We went to the beach.
  • There were about 12,000 back-to-school nights, PTA meetings, and one conference.

I love my new job. I’m no longer in banking. I’m in education. And I’m working for a non-profit, which is seriously awesome and I feel more fulfilled in my life. That’s super important for me, I think. It took me a long time to make a leap out of the safety of my banking job, but I think I did it at the right time. I ultimately feel happier and more satisfied.

I promise to start writing a weekly blog. I will be continuing my race series, and adding some short stories. Maybe one of these days I’ll have time to work on my novel again.

But for now, I just wanted to say hi and that I’m around even though I’ve been quiet. August is just an insanely busy month.

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Facebook: http://www.facebook.com\laurengreenewrites

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenegreene

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What If…

/ legreene515 / 3 Comments

What if I had written all weekend long? What if I chose a different career path? What if I hadn’t had children? What if I had married someone else? What if I didn’t live in Alabama?

“What if?” is the essential question in writing a story. Most stories start out with an author thinking “what if.” I spent most of my weekend on the couch, because my five year old was sick. While having my hot potato of a baby lay on me all day, I watched the whole season of The Man In The High Castle. I realize this makes me an extreme couch potato. But the story was so good I couldn’t tear myself away. I went to the bathroom a few times, and ate, and my daughter cuddled up against me and I provided her comfort, which is what one needs when they’re sick. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a weekend, minus the “sick.”

This show on Amazon is so well done, based on the book by Philip Dick, which I have yet to read (it’s on my list). And it asks the question “what if the Nazis and Japan won WWII?” What a question to explore. The characters are so believable, and the suspense kept me watching. Highly recommended!

I tout myself as a character writer. The Devil Within mostly was written because I felt a strong connection to Will’s character. But the “what if
questions were still there. I asked myself, “What if I were growing up with an oppressively religious father? What would I do? What are the emotions I would feel? What if fundamental religion hurts more than helps? What if the person I’m supposed to depend on most hurts me the most? What if my ally is not a saint?” These are just a few questions I asked myself as I wrote The Devil Within. I’m not sure I found the answers, but writing through it helped me explore thoughts on religion, family, and guilt that I’ve had for a long time.

The new story I’m writing I’m asking myself : “What if everything is not as it seems? What if your whole life is one big lie?”

I often wonder why I feel the need to write, but I think it’s because I’m always thinking about the “what if” questions. Life isn’t black and white. It’s filled with choices, different paths, and to me writing is a way to discover what might have happened if…

“What if” question are you trying to answer today?

 

Follow Lauren Greene:

Facebook: www.facebook.com\laurengreenewrites

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenegreene

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109867402293227201728/posts

I’m A Winner!

/ legreene515 / 5 Comments

Last week I wrote Xs and Os for Mid-Week Blues Buster 3.07, and I found out today I won. For those of you who write flash fiction, you should try your hand at MWBB. They use a song prompt, and it always makes my mind spin a story. 3.08 is going on right now! I was super excited to win, since this was the first flash piece I’d written in some time. I’ve been so busy this month.

Here’s the cool badge I won:

bbster

Not only have I gone on a semi-second Honeymoon with my husband in Punta Cana (you have to go there), but I published a book, The Devil Within. My mother-in-law came in town, and we took the kids to Stone Mountain. And this coming week I’m going to the Midwest Writer’s Conference. So much going on!

And today, I’m celebrating another accomplishment. I went for a run and did 2 miles in 11 minutes 44 seconds. This has taken me forever to accomplish. And now I can work on increasing my mileage over the next few weeks and speed. I’m intending to do a 5K sometime later in the year (because you know, I don’t have enough on my plate). I mostly run because it helps keep the weight off and I’ve struggled with weight for some time. I also do it so I can organize the thoughts in my head. Running is great for planning and plotting out works-in-progress. Today, I worked on figuring out the next steps in the new Southern Lit novel I’m working on. More details on that later, when I’m at a point where I feel like I can share.

Blogging! Bananas!

/ legreene515 / 12 Comments

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Blogging seems an appropriate word for an A-Z Blogging Challenge.  Why is this post called “Blogging! Bananas!?” Because I’m sitting here at 5:20 AM badly wanting a banana. I can’t explain it, besides to say when I played around unsuccessfully with Canva this morning, a monkey mysteriously appeared in the “charge” box. I scraped that, because I didn’t want to pay $1 for a monkey who didn’t exist in my image. But ever since, I have wanted bananas. And guess what? No bananas. In my house, bananas either fester and grow black or they’re gone within a day. Sort of like blog posts. You either get a lot of hits or none at all, depending on so many factors: topic, tags, categories, advertising, marketing or just dumb luck.

I started seriously blogging about four years ago. When I say serious, I mean I tried to blog a couple of times a week. I’ve never made, or really tried to make money, on my blog. I blogged over at http://www.lululandadventures.blogspot.com/, which I’m sad to say I haven’t been updating recently. I need to, because I’ve changed that to my personal blog, and this is my writing blog. I came to blogging after years of ignoring an urge to write. I came to blogging to deal with the loss of my hair to alopecia areata. I’d had it as a child, but after I stopped breastfeeding my daughter I lost all my hair. At first, my blog was used as a cathartic release.

I feel like blogging gave me the stepping stone to start writing again. Once I started writing again, I had the motivation to start querying. When that didn’t work, I self-published. Now, one of my books is in editing with Booktrope, and I hope it’ll be published in May.  All of this, because I had the courage to put myself out there and blog.