(I made a baby bootie that is large enough for a camel, and a scarf that is long enough for a mouse. Neither of which will ever see the light of the camera.)

Both attempts were fraught with stress and frustration, so it was with great trepidation that I agreed to help my daughter try out her new knitting kit. To my immense relief, the kit didn’t contain needles, but rather a loom and a hook.

I was intrigued.

It took very little time for my daughter to master the basic technique, and within an afternoon she had knitted a purse.

I was curious.

She graciously let me try my hand at knitting a few rows, and I discovered it was ridiculously easy–even for lefties…

I was hooked. (Pardon the pun.)

My daughter’s loom was soon joined by four more round looms. Then came the square/long looms. Then the flower maker and the sock loom…

(And yes, my knitting-palooza over the holidays meant I did little to no writing.)

However, I do have some lovely things to show for my “spare” (i.e., sacrificed writing) time:

I made this lovely hat and scarf set for my mother.

And then…

I whipped this scarf off for my own use (I’m attempting a more complicated stitch pattern for the matching hat…).

And what could be more fun than flowers?

A doll hat with pillow accessory!

Pigs! Pigs are more fun than flowers!

Let me introduce you to Mr. Morris Wiffles, Esq.

I’m sure I’ll get back to writing at some point (like when my husband steals my credit card so I can no longer buy out the yarn store…), but until then, rest assured that my hands are not idle!

I am an incredibly socially awkward person, yet I don’t have enough fingers or toes to count the number of people I chatted with over the past four days. People from all over the Lower Mainland, people from around the province, people from across Canada, and even people who flew in from other countries to take part in one of the pre-eminent writing conferences in North America.

Many amazing things happened throughout the course of the weekend–one moment has likely changed the course of my writing career forever–but tonight I want to talk about the annual Silly Writing Contest.

I’m sure you’ve seen this type of contest before. Writers are given a story prompt (or beginning) and are required to finish it within a certain word count. Sometimes the contest is made more challenging by having an additional requirement where contestants must include certain words within their entry (Janet Reid frequently runs these sort of contests on her blog).

Anyway, hundreds of attendees entered, and three were chosen as the winning entries in the 20th Anniversary edition of the contest. As luck would have it, mine was one of those three!

Before I post my entry (because I am quite proud of it), I need to preface it. First, the conference had a theme: the roaring 20′s. Second, bestselling author Michael Slade writes and narrates Shock Theatre every year, putting his signature spin on tales of horror from decades past (this year he managed to mash up The Fly, Jeckyll & Hyde, Jack the Ripper, and a smattering of 50 Shades of Grey into an amazing retelling of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine). There was much noir-esque description throughout the performance, as well as a dramatic abuse of alliteration (followed by the breaking of the fourth wall–writers take note–to point out the alliteration).

Now that I’ve given you a little context for the contest, here’s what we were asked to do:  We had to finish the following story in 75 words or less, and our entries had to include the words: gangster, twentieth, fringe, vamp, prohibition, and zozzled. Yes, zozzled is a real word. Google it if you don’t believe me.

The story starter:

Mike Slade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting angle under a thin mouth. His eyebrows angled too, giving him the look of a pleasantly greying Satan.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he said to his assistant, Eileen Sea.

She was a real looker, her lips a slash of red above pearls and a dress of thin wool that clung to her like a lost kitten.

She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it and said: “There’s a girl to see you, Boss. Her name’s Miz Espenson.”

“A customer?”

“I guess so. You’ll want to talk to this one. She’s a knockout.”

He grinned wolfishly. “A knockout with a problem?”

“A big problem. It’s her – husbands, Boss. I think they might be…”

And here’s where entrants had to fill in the rest.

Wanna know what I wrote?

Yeah, well I’m going to tell you anyway, so pffft.

Here’s my winning entry:

“A big problem. It’s her – husbands, Boss. I think they might be… zozzled.”

Slade frowned.

Widows seeking solace were one thing, but married dames weren’t worth dodging bullets.

“What’s the matter; the vamp’s for prohibition? They a fringe group of Amish?”

Slade eyed Eileen’s gorgeous gams—“gorgeous gams;” writers take note—and wondered if she’d let him run his letter opener through her envelope.

“This is the twentieth time it’s happened.”

“She should hire a gangster.” He fumbled in his pocket. “We’ve got mail needs tending to.”

By the way, the judging panel dubbed it, “50 Shades of Silly Writing.” I couldn’t have been more flattered.

Here’s hoping there’s another twenty great years of SiWC!

This year, I am taking the Thursday evening Masters Class with Donald Maass. I attended his sessions last year, and my poor writer brain nearly imploded from the awesomeness. I can hardly wait to scrape my grey matter off the floor again this year!

I was reading through the Friday-Sunday sessions and am still blown away by the depth and breadth of topics being offered by incredibly high-calibre professionals. Want to learn how to keep track of your characters from Anne Perry? Or how to weave backstory into your plot from Diana Gabaldon? Or how to put a thrill in your thriller from Michael Slade?

I can hardly wait!

I will not be an armchair novelist ever again.

During the 31 days, I lost TEN pounds, walked 58.31 miles, and burned 7876 calories. Oh, and I did this by walking/writing at 1 mph on a 1.0 incline for an hour and twenty minutes a night.

Not too shabby, eh?

If you’d like to see what I’m writing (and maybe even chip in your own $0.02 on whether or not it grabs you), just follow the link below!

http://writeoncon.com/forum/showthread.php?8206-YA-thriller-THE-DOLLMAKER&highlight=thriller

And remember, WriteOnCon starts on Tuesday August 14th! The full schedule is up, and you should totally check it out!

C.

You want to attend really awesome conferences, but they’re either too expensive, too far away, or you just can’t get enough to fit into your schedule?

You feel like you’ve come home when you hang out with a group of authors walking their own journeys?

If any of the above applies to you (yes, even if it is just one thing), I strongly suggest you attend WriteOnCon next week.

But, Cheryl, I just told you I don’t have time/money/interest/an alpaca…

No worries!

Go to http://www.writeoncon.com – it’s an ONLINE writing conference. It’s FREE. It’s totally focused on kidlit. And even though there are live events, everything has a transcript (or is archived in the forum), so you can check it out WHENEVER your schedule allows!

Seriously, check it out. It’s worth it.

C.

Highlights from my amazing DFW conference and tourist trip!

Now I can relive the trip whenever I am on my treadmill (yes, I hung it on the wall next to the computer monitor).

I did not do so well in the June camp, but I have confidence August will be different. For one, the writing is coming easier now. And two, I am going to set myself an entirely reasonable goal.

(Don’t worry, I’m all in for 50,000 words in November.)

Apparently 30,000 words was too much in June–I managed just under 22,000–I am averaging around 500 words a night this month–but that was free-writing with very little thought toward plot and character arcs. Now that I’m working on another novel with an eye to publication, I need to allow myself to progress more slowly. So I’m thinking 20,000 will be a decent challenge.

I wish everyone who is shooting for 50,000 the best of luck. I am looking forward to playing for real in November!

C.

However, the glories of the treadmill desk are not the focus of tonight’s post. No, tonight I am going to tell you I have a secret.

*leans in close and whispers*

I’d tell you what it is, but it’s a… secret.

I’m working on a new project, and (all you author types will totally get this) I am in love. I LOVE my main character, I love the problems I’ve set up, and I love how the story is unfolding.

I’m a little more than 6,500 words in, and I haven’t told anyone about it – not even my agent. Well, actually Becky knows I’m working on something, but has no idea what it is. It could be a “How To Build Your Own Treadmill Desk” bible, a trashy romance a la “Fifty Shades,” or something not, you know, those things.

I have to admit though, it was hard to start something new. I’m still feeling the effects of the self-doubt that nearly overwhelmed me this spring, so while it’s getting easier, I’m not at my usual levels in terms of production.

June’s Camp NaNo helped – A LOT. I didn’t hit 50,000 words. Heck, I didn’t even make my personal goal of 30,000. What I did do though, was sit down and write EVERY night. I chose a topic totally unrelated to anything I’ve published (or tried to publish), and I wrote for myself; for the love of writing.

I shared my story with my dear cheerleader and one other close friend because they are awesome and said lovely things about my writing, and I really needed to hear those words as I tried to pull my writing-self together.

*hugs writer friends*

As I reached the end of that particular tale, I started to get that tiny niggling at the back of my mind. You know the one that says it’s time to start a new project? Yeah, that niggling.

Self-doubt said I couldn’t do it. But self-doubt doesn’t know what it’s talking about. In fact, I doubt self-doubt could find its way out of a paper bag without explicit instructions and a DVD.

So, with trembling fingers (and a fancy schmancy treadmill desk) I opened a new Word doc and put a few tremulous words to screen. I was so nervous I tried to fool myself into thinking this wasn’t a new book that would get sent out to editors by refusing to format the document correctly. I left the crappy font, weird spacing, and widow/orphan controls on. In fact, I refused to put anything in the header, not even page numbers!

Fortunately (for me and my agent), I have since adjusted things to a more acceptable industry standard.

Part of me wants to tell you what I’m writing about, but another part of me is mean and evil, and wants to make you wait and wonder. I think I will let the mean and evil part of me win – for now.

Maybe after the next 6,500 words I’ll feel differently.

C.

(0.70 mi walked and 95 calories consumed in the creation of this blog post)

My amazing treadmill desk!

I started with a simple shelf and propped my laptop on it. That worked fine for the short term, but it wasn’t good for my neck to be staring down at the screen. Plus, the screen made it hard to reach the treadmill controls. And let me tell you, when you gotta go, you gotta go, and you need to be able to hit that STOP button!

My original plan was to transfer all my files from my laptop onto the household computer, hook up a larger monitor, and get a wireless keyboard. This seemed like a good plan (although I wasn’t thrilled about transferring all my files – or having to save them somewhere else, like in the cloud, because my laptop is my life; it has all my preferences and everything).

Then I had an epiphany: my laptop has the funky little plug thing that lets it connect with a projector. Shouldn’t it connect to a monitor too? I called out, and my dear husband came running (I was too busy walking at 0.8 mph at the time to go to him), and I shared my thinking with him. He confirmed my hypothesis, and so a new plan was born.

I bought a kick ass 27″ flat screen monitor and mounted it on a shelf behind the treadmill. I then added a wireless keyboard and wrist rest to the shelf. Being vertically challenged, it so happens the board sits at exactly the correct height for ergonomic health while typing. If you’re taller than me, you’ll have to build yours up higher, and if you have the misfortune to be shorter than me, you’ll have to engineer an under-arm shelf.

I cemented a couple of pieces of those anti-fatigue mats to where the board rests on the arms of the treadmill, not because it slips – nothing really moves when the treadmill is only going 1.0 mph – but because I didn’t want the cheap laminate extra IKEA kitchen cabinet shelving to scratch my new toy.

A closer look at the set up.

As you can see, it’s now very easy to reach the controls and give myself potty breaks. One of the really cool things you can’t see in this picture is the result of another epiphany. Despite any indications to the contrary, I really am quite lazy, and I was not thrilled about having to put the shelf up, put the keyboard and wrist rest on it, and then take it down after each writing session.

Moving all those things just seemed like too much work. So, I did this:

Look Ma, no hands!

I used industrial strength Velcro! Now all I have to do is move my mouse each night! (I would’ve Velcroed the mouse too, but that seemed counter-productive when it came time to, you know, use it.)

And my laptop? What about it? Well, it sits on a lovely ($24.99) desk and is still totally ready to use even if I’m not on the treadmill. I refinished an old stool (like 1950′s old – it came with the banquette we gutted when we moved in), and it tucks in under the desk when not in use. And, unless I’m putting on socks, it’s pretty much never in use.

Don’t worry, it’s not really lonely. It just looks that way.

And there you have it, all the gory details about my new treadmill desk. I’ll leave you with one other picture though, because if you’ve ever been in a basement office (especially one where there’s a treadmill people sweat on each morning) you’ll know things can get a little ripe.

My solution is quite simple. For one, I put the treadmill as close to the window as possible to give me access to fresh air (and daylight). I then added a little fan to help beat the summer heat (I use this mostly when working out because so far the evenings have been cool enough for writing without it). But, my favourite beat-the-sweaty-dungeon-rankness solution is my essential oils diffuser.

The smell is so rejuvenating!

I use it when I run in the mornings, and again when I write at night. It sits there, puffing away, and makes my office smell wonderful. It’s currently vaporizing a combination of lemongrass and eucalyptus, but I have also enjoyed peppermint as well as lavender.

If I hadn’t taken the picture late at night, you would have also seen that I have a lovely view of my back yard from my treadmill desk. This will be a wonderful asset if I ever find the time to write before my children are in bed…

Oh, and in case you’re wondering whether or not this set up does any good, the display says I burned 117 calories while composing this blog post. Somehow I doubt my couch ever came close to that!

Cheers,

C.