Years ago I quit a job ahead of time (I was going back to uni) and spent some of my meagre savings (that probably should have gone on rent) on art supplies. Nothing came of it because I couldn’t give myself permission to “waste” and learn. My history with art is … not great. […]
Author: Vanessa Smith
April Creative Contemplations
Project updates: My Fictional Life With Kids: Need to fix up hosting. It’s annoying. Totally Normal Dollhouse: Zero progress since I caught covid. Boo hiss to the plague. This month I was: Reading: All the Cassie Coburn novels. Gaming: Got obsessively into high scores on Mini Metro+ …letting it run for hours to get […]
Switching My Brain Off
Four days. I have four straight days off from my day job, thanks to public holidays. I tell you what, I don’t much like Christianity but I’ll take the public holidays they give me. But already my brain is swapping to “what can I get done?” mode. Why? Why do we do this to […]
Cozy Mystery Conversion Journal 2
Cozy Mystery Conversion Journal 2 I accidentally skipped a book in the cozy mystery series I’m reading…. and learned you can see some gaps but it doesn’t matter too much.
March Creative Contemplations
Feeling bundles of frustration and pain flares. Lots of “ugh, life: stuff to deal with. Pain flares, after effects of flood stress even though we didn’t flood. Wondering if I’ll ever have enough energy to juggle a day job and my creative projects and my business projects. Oh yeah, then, after two very successful years […]
Book Conversion
I have a romance series vaguely plotted out. Worked on it a bit during NaNoWriMo 2021. It’s sitting around 11k words. Only I realised I am not interested (which with ADHD means not able, interest driven motivation ftw I guess?) in writing a romance. But I did like what I had so far, and didn’t […]
Tendrils of Sleep
You can feel them long before they strike. Someone was missing, something in your space feels empty, and yet you know it’s lurking close by. You can go frantic looking for them, but nothing happens until you are alone and asleep. You wake up suddenly in terror. You notice the tightness of your […]
February Creative Contemplations
I feel like I did a lot in January (snarky gratitude journal, dollhouse project) and nothing in February. But I started a new day job and did that “be kind to yourself” stuff that was all about NOT doing things while I went through change. Ugh. Like, being kind to yourself is good but it’s […]
Pen Names
Pen Names I went down a small rabbit hole of blog posts about being a “successful” author. “Successful” of course was a particular income goal, which I’ve always thought is a terrible marker of success as what makes a “good” income is totally variable depending on where you live in the world. But […]
Cozy Mystery Conversion Journal 1
Cozy Mystery Conversion Journal 1 I’ve seen some posts around social media about writers notebooks … and decided to try one. I’m going to focus (as much as I ever focus) on a story I’m “converting” – changing the genre from romance to cozy mystery. Also, it’s a great excuse for pretty pens and […]