Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day! It's a beautiful day here in Connecticut. In fact, the entire weekend has been great. For many, this holiday weekend is the unofficial end of summer and the fact that I saw pumpkins for sale at my local grocery store on Saturday confirms it. Since I love autumn, I'm not sad to say good-bye to summer. I'm ready to put away the flip-flops and cropped pants and pull out my boots and sweaters. I'm ready to put out my fall decorations and to make soup. I'm ready to change out the light cotton bed linens for flannel. I'm ready to hunker down and write as the days get shorter.

This morning, like yesterday, was cool. It felt so good. This is truly my season (okay, I know it's still officially summer).

I'm finally starting to feel like my old self again. A writer.

Maybe it's the new idea I got yesterday and can't stop thinking about it.

Maybe it's the classes I'm taking.

Who knows. All I know is that I'm embracing it.

I said I would blog about my classes and I want to do that. I want to share the ups and downs of the classes. I had signed up for three classes this month. Unfortunately one of the classes got canceled. I was really looking forward to the novella class. Hopefully it will be rescheduled at a later date.

That still leaves my Conflict Grid class and "Yes, You Can Quit Your Day Job" with Kara Lennox. This class is just starting with the invites and the official welcome email being sent. But the Conflict Grid class is in full swing. I've already had two homework assignments.

For the first assignment we had to choose Archetypes for our heroine & hero. I've never done the Archetype thing formally. I've heard about them, I know writers use them, but I never applied them to my characters. For this class I've chosen to use two characters from a book I'd like to write, which means I know very little about them. And the assignment was eye opening.

My heroine is a Crusader/Nuturer. My hero is a Chief/Lost Soul.

Just by identifying their Archetype I was able to immediately get a grasp on who they were and how they would clash with each other. Even though both are chasing the same external goal of finding the murderer, they will do it differently and that will cause conflict. And that's what I'm going for. Conflict.

The next assignment was to set their short-term and long-term goals. The short-term goals were simple. Within minutes I had them written down. The long-term goals? That took longer. They were harder. Though by the next day I had them. I turned in my assignment (which turned out to be difficult for most of the class) and got a "well-done" by the instructor, Lyn Cote.
Yay! My goals rocked. LOL.

Going into the second week of the class, I'm seeing there might be something to this pre-writing thing. Who knows, I might just become a member of the plotter's society.

Today is also the Murder, She Wrote marathon! I love that show. It's like visiting an old friend and there is a group of episodes back-to-back that are set in Cabot Cove. I can't wait! This morning's first episode was about a dog who inherited a family fortune and was framed for murder. Luv it!

I will have to catch episodes sporadically throughout the day. We have a trip to the home center to buy new garbage cans. Exciting, huh? And I have some things to do around the house and I have a new scene to write. I also want to take the dogs for a long walk some time today.

My goal for the week is to post each day this week. That's seven posts. Hmm. I think it's a good idea to give you a heads-up that I have no idea of what the content will be. I'll be winging it. :)

I hope you had a great holiday weekend!

TTYL,
Debra