I’ve been resisting the idea of making a schedule for months, even though I’m not getting things done as well as I’d like. So it surprised me this morning when I started writing one in my journal while doing morning pages.

First I decided to write a blogging schedule. I did this because the day before I meditated on my problems with keeping blogs updated, and got the inspiration that I should update each blog once weekly. So . . . I made a little schedule to tell me which blog to update and on what day. The day for this blog is Monday — the top of the work week!

After a few more minutes of writing reflection in the journal I found myself writing a daily schedule to make room in my busy life for all the things I need to do.

Here’s what I came up with:

Today’s run-through with the new schedule was perfect. It helps immensely that my life partner, Bob, supports me in this effort. In fact, he’s been urging me to make a schedule for months, but I didn’t because they have never worked for me in the past. Why set myself up for failure? That’s what I was thinking… but now I’m willing to give it a try because I think it is the only way I’ll get everything done. Also it helps that Bob now knows exactly what hours I won’t be using the computer - so he can come in and read the news.

This morning after printing the schedule and posting it on the wall, I managed to write a post about the movie, K-Pax, on my Mystic Movie Reviews blog. I love that movie! We watch movies almost every night of every week, so I’ve decided to post a review every Monday of the movie I liked best from that week. That was done at noon. I hit publish and walked away from the computer - to go make an onion and tomato sandwich - which I took out to the screen house for a little picnic. While there I took off my shoes, watched my vegetable garden grow, and read a chapter in a time management book.

At 1pm I came back inside and spent a happy hour critiquing three chapters in a novel for a writing friend. Next I worked on my latest Squidoo lens — Chives - Cultivation and Medicinal Uses. I’m making a series of lenses about herbs and gardening. My new niche! I was thrilled to hit publish on that project too! I got it done just after 4 and by then I felt drained — so I lay down for an hour (couldn’t sleep) and then went downtown to get the mail.

I had a lovely evening with Bob and now, here I am, finishing up the day’s work… not feeling pressured by having too many other things to do. I feel I’ve done my share for the day. Probably the schedule has the effect of lifting the burden of work stress. Now instead of thinking that I’ve got a ton of work I didn’t get done today - I’m thinking - I achieved my goals for the day and kept to my schedule and everything worked out great. I hope this wonderful feeling lasts! By this time next week I should have more to say on the subject.

Okay, this has been fun… and I’d just like to know (in case someone reads all this) . . . how do you feel about schedules? Do they work for you?

I used to write poetry daily. In fact, for a while, it became quite an obsession. I also delved deeply into songwriting — the musical side of poetry. But I gave it all up in favor of sanity, long ago.

Lately I’ve dabbled at a bit of poetry, for the fun of it. I’m not diving into the deep end of the Mariana Trench this time.

A few weeks ago I wrote some limericks for a contest. Here’s what I came up with: The Irish Story of Frank Martin and the Fairies, Retold in Limericks.

Today I wrote an autobiographical prose-poem, free-verse style: A Baby Boomer Defines Life After World War II.

Are you on Twitter? If so, you’re welcome to follow me. So many people are connecting on Twitter for microblogging fun, I recently even discovered one of my daughters there. Most of my Twittering is about writing, including my content-writing work at Squidoo.Com. I maintain a second account to talk about herbs and gardening: Linda’s Herbal.

A new type of Squidoo lens was developed recently. It combines Twitter with Squidoo, and is called a Twttrlist. Each Twttrlist contains a list of favorite Tweets on a chosen topic.

[If you don't know what Tweets are, check out Twitter.]

My first Twttrlist was called Great Writing Resources, Tips, Twitters, and Inspirations. I pulled out all stops on this lens; it contains links to every lens on writing that I could find on Squidoo. Because it represents the work of many lensmasters, the range of writing topics covered is staggering. For example, some topics are mystery writing, writing children’s novels, ebook writing, and daily prompts. There’s much more.

If you’re looking for some handy writing inspiration, you’ll find it there.

My second writing Twttrlist is for those of you who may be interested in participating in NaNoWriMo this year: NaNoWriMo News, Tips, & Resources on Twitter and Squidoo. Again, I featured the work of other lensmasters as well as my own lens, Get Ready For NaNoWriMo.

After all these years, I finally have one novel revised enough to submit. That’s quite an accomplishment, for me. I never understood as I was writing it how intense my revision experience would be. I’ve been over that manuscript six times now. For most of the first year I was afraid to look at it!

When I did - I read the first chapter to my teenage son, and he made several suggestions immediately. I implemented them during the first revision. I tend to let a manuscript rest between revisions. My mindset resists burnout in this way. Once I actually start a revision it goes fairly fast — I manage to do about one chapter daily, and with twenty chapters, this one took me about a month to revise each time. I always enjoyed re-reading the story!

It wasn’t until the third revision that I got brave and creative by deleting big chunks of text. I had to get a handle on the art of perfecting by cutting down. This helped me bring the manuscript from 51K to 46K which is a much better length, I think, for an upper middle grade novel. The last two novels in the series are more young adult in nature.

The one novel I now have revised six times and am ready to submit is The Scribe of Irohila, the first novel in my Antediluvian Adventures Series. I’ve got a synopsis written, and even a query letter. Now all I have to do is start sending it out.

I want to thank my writing friends in the Silverweb critique group for their help in critiquing this novel. Thanks Beverly, Jennifer, Nancy, and Norma! Thanks also, Jeannie of the Literary Dreams group… who did a final read-through and edit. Your insights helped a lot!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you probably know by now that I make a bit of extra money every month by writing lenses for Squidoo.Com. What I’m making is not a living wage, but it is appreciated - very much so! Squidoo was originally created to have a venue for donations to charity, and many “lensmasters” (as we are called) are able to donate 100% of their earnings to whatever charities they like most. Others are actually earning enough to call this a great part-time job!

This last week there was a new type of Squidoo lens introduced: Twttrlists. A Twttrlist imports tweets on a chosen topic into a Squidoo web page (known as a lens). Of course, I wanted to choose writing as my topic… and so I created Great Writing Resources, Tips, Twitters & Inspirations. On that lens I featured lots of lenses written by other lensmasters, and they are all focused on various aspects of writing.

Two days ago I found out this was #1 on the Top 100 Twttrlists list. Today I was dethroned by a Kris Allen lens - but that’s okay - the Kris lens was done by a friend of mine, so I was happy about that too.

Today I discovered that there’s a contest going on for the next week. Squidoo Headquarters will give a free Kindle to whoever makes the 1000th Twttrlist lens. They’ll also give one to whoever makes the 2000th, 3000th, 4000th, and 5000th… the only catch being that this all has to be done within a week. The contest ends on June 5th, or whenever we hit 5000 TwttrLists, whichever comes first.

So, if you’d like to join Squidoo and participate in the great rush to build 5000 lenses (and possibly win a Kindle) please join, join, join! Also, if you do, please let me know (if you’re a writer or aspiring writer) so that I can feature you on my writing lens. Squidoo is a great place to write about writing, and to promote books.

Maggie Stiefvater is an urban fantasy novelist who is sponsoring a contest to promote her new novel, Shiver. Contest details are on Maggie Stiefvater’s blog.Shiver will be released this summer on August 1.

(Congratulations, Maggie! I know you’re excited!)

Here’s the official blurb about the new book:

“For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf–her wolf–is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human–or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.”

You can pre-order Shiver now through Amazon.

To learn more about Maggie’s current contest see Crazy People! There are better ways to get ARCs. She’s offering ARC copies of Shiver and Lament (another novel she wrote,) and critiques.

Sounds good! I’m posting this in the hope my friend Kai Strand can win the contest! Go Kai!

Anyone who needs a new hobby - or some great laughter - might enjoy looking at Improv Everywhere. This is my kind of fun!

This is my new motto: “If you don’t like it, change it!” I thought this up when I was doing the sixth revision of my novel, The Scribe of Irohila. It occurred to me that learning to change the words or paragraphs in a novel is an art. When I first started revising this novel it was hard to change anything. It wasn’t until the third or fourth revision that I became utterly comfortable with deleting large blocks of text. Fortunately, this helped the novel to shrink from 51,000 words to about 46,000. It is a middle grade novel, so shrinkage is good!

The motto, “If you don’t like it, change it!” applies to other areas of life as well. If I don’t like my hair, I can change it… by cutting, coloring, or whatever pleases me. If I don’t like my living room, I can move the furniture, sell the furniture, or paint the walls. If I don’t like my weight, it really is totally up to me to change. It makes no sense to sit around complaining about things I don’t like. The feeling of not liking something should be an indication that there’s action to be taken. And since I’m the not-liker, I’m the one who must take the action!

This extends to societal problems. If I don’t like the status quo, it really is up to me to find ways to change the order of things. This may be tricky because there are other people with differing opinions, and laws that are unbending. But if one dedicated person doesn’t raise the banner of hope, who will ever see a benefit?

It seems like 90% of the people don’t care to make changes. They seem to be happy with society so long as they have money to buy the things they want and maintain their lifestyles. And then there’s the others… the patriots, the activists, the vocal ones. I guess I’m one of those, in my own way. I recognize that I can’t change everything on my own, but I can focus on one or two issues and try to make a great difference there to benefit others who see the world the way I do.

1. Do you have a sacred space in your life wherein you can relax and create undisturbed and without distractions? This space would include a physical location plus a given time that you could trust will be yours daily, to pursue your creative delights.

2. Do you feel free to express every part of yourself in your creative medium without fear, without holding back? We creatives need the freedom to be able to express ourselves fully. To hold anything back is lacking the integrity to create the entire work of art.

3. Do you feel that when you create, everything is expressed in the way it should be, or do you stress-out over ideas that you’re not creating your art good enough? Stress is a major mind-inhibiting factor and you may find that creative work that is not accepted by the artist with a leniency toward flaws may be too exacting to the point of being stilted and unnatural, by being too worked over or too perfected. Sometimes imperfection is perfection - and we humans live an imperfect existence.

4. Do you have a clear intention regarding what you’re working to create? Do you have a plan for your work of art or are you working in the dark, expecting that one feature will lead naturally to the next? Sometimes this kind of organic creative endeavor can BE the plan with which we work. But it helps to know where we’re going before we start or we may be confused about where the process is leading.

5. As you work do you pay attention to the signals your body is giving you? What emotions cross your field of endeavor? When we’re angry there’s a tightening in the chest. When afraid, our hairs literally can raise up. So what does your body tell you when you’re working on your creative art, and how are you feeling as you work? If you’re relaxed and feeling exuberantly happy and enthusiastic, that must mean things are going well with your creative pursuit. But what if your arms are tense, your neck aches, and you feel slow, lethargic, and bored? Could it mean you’re not on the right path? Should you take a short break and walk around outside, smelling the flowers and breathing fresh air? Explore your feelings and resolve them. Aim for optimum creative joy.

6. Do you love what you do? Do you love your art? Do you, really? That’s important because art created with love flows freely and with beauty. Suggestion: stop here, open your writer’s notebook, and list ten things you love about your art.

7. If you were to teach others something about your art, what would it be? Remember: you teach best what you most need to learn. This is a great topic for a page in your writer’s notebook.

8. Do you feel impatient with any aspect of your creative life? If impatience assails you, take a step back - away from your work station. Say to yourself: “My creative endeavors are coming to fruition at the appropriate speed. My joy and enthusiasm are the fuels that will drive this project to its destination.”

9. Are you nurturing your project to life with a a rain of steady love? Have you developed a harmonious rhythm of work, for example, editing one chapter daily? Do you give your project the love, time, and gratitude it needs to become a great and towering achievement you’ll be proud of? Love your project to life - a life that will blossom in ways you cannot now imagine.

10. Does your project bring you into greater harmony with Universal Consciousness? Does it connect you to the gentle underlying rhythm of the entire infinite universe? If so, you’re on the right track, and nothing anyone else says or writes should ever stop you.

Not all authors understand teenagers, but Beverly Stowe McClure does. She has an innate understanding of the teenage mindset, perhaps because she was a teacher for many years. Her recently published novel, Rebel in Blue Jeans, transcends the mundane to embrace the emotions of a vibrantly opinionated and stubborn teenage girl whose mother has abandoned her.

Though her mother left the family home to live with a drummer, a man who Rebel never met, life on the ranch continues with Rebel’s grieving, workaholic father doing little to quell her wild nature or heal her aching heart. Left to mend in her own way, Rebel gives her time and compassion to her horses and some injured animals she’s collected in a makeshift hospital in the barn.

Rebel isn’t alone for long because her overly friendly neighbors, Will and Sully, won’t stand for it. There’s no time for moping - they want to take her places constantly. There’s a bit of romantic tension as Rebel chooses to date a college boy. Will and Sully are distressed by that and try to protect Rebel from her own willfulness.

The book reaches out to readers who learn to love Rebel  for her compassion toward animals while they sympathize with the shock she endures when her mother leaves. You’ll find this young adult novel to be full of excitement, tension, emotions, and even a bit of sillyness. The book ends too soon because once we let Rebel into our lives, it is hard to let go.

If you attended the Muse Online Writers Conference last October, you may remember the author, Beverly Stowe McClure. She presented a workshop for children’s writers. She has a website for this book: Diary of a Rebel.

More articles about this book:

Rebel in Blue Jeans: Meet Will and Sully! by Donna M. McDine, children’s author
Rebel in Blue Jeans: A Short Interview With Author Beverly Stowe McClure by The Book Muncher
Rebel in Blue Jeans by Beverly Stowe McClure by Tracee
Rebel in Blue Jeans: Author Beverly Stowe McClure’s Guest Post by Morgan Mandel at ACME Authors Link
Rebel in Blue Jeans: Meet Rebel Ferguson by Cheryl C. Malandrinos
Rebel in Blue Jeans - Beverly Stowe McClure by Tristi Pinkston, historical fiction author