Cali helps Kristina write her novel.
Jasper getting himself psyched up to set the table. Wouldn’t want to rush or anything.
Me doing the laundry. Okay, so I needed a nap before washing the clothes. Who am I to make fun of Jasper.
Woof Woof.
Author: Kristina Stanley
Farley’s Friday: A Five Dog Weekend
Farley here.
How does a Wheaten Terrier cope in a small space with four other dogs?
I’m the wheaten in the photo. The dogs with me are a lab/springer mix, and two Australian Shepherd/Poodles mixes. Callie, the Jack Russell is below. She refused to have her photo taken with us because she was too busy napping in the pillows.
So we were on a boat but who invited the thunder storm? Smudge (Lab/Springer) and I don’t like them. The other dogs didn’t care.
Five dogs and only a couple of snapping incidents – not by me because, as you know, I’m perfect. One of the Australian Shepherd’s snapped at Smudge. Smudge, being a lab, just ignored the dog. I hid behind Kristina’s legs. I don’t like conflict. The humans all talked about how to stop aggression in dogs. The conclusion. Someone has to the be the alpha and take control. I didn’t get whether that meant a dog alpha or a human alpha. All I know is I’m not the alpha. It’s all so confusing.
We swam, we ran, we got wet, then we had to stay on the back deck until we were dry. All the human’s got to go inside and warm up. but not us. Oh, except the spoilt one. Callie gets cold, so she got to join in side and bury herself on the couch. And you thought all this time, I was the spoilt one.
Woof, woof.
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How to Keep Track of Time in a Novel
Time and dates can be straight forward or complicated.
- Are you writing a novel that happens in order of events?
- Do you jump back and forth in time?
- Are you writing a time travel novel?
The farther down the list you go, the more complicated keeping track of timing becomes. My novels are in the order the events occur, and I can’t imagine how difficult it is to keep track of a time travel novel.
On a basic level, I use a calendar on my computer. I put key events on a day. This helps me make sure I didn’t make an error.
Things I check include:
- day of week in a scene
- scenes are in order
- an event isn’t happening on a day off, a statutory holiday etc. when a person wouldn’t be at work
- clues aren’t referenced before they happen
- when villain is introduced
I also use a spreadsheet to keep track of the details of a scene and combined with the calendar I hope I find any errors in timing before the novel goes to my literary agent.
As an added bonus, when you complete the calendar, you should have the key elements you need to write a synopsis. Anything that helps write the dreaded synopsis has to be good. Right?
What tools to you use?
I made a calendar in Excel but is there anything better out there. I’d really like to know.
Thanks for reading . . .
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Farley’s Friday: A Wheaten Terrier and Thunderstorms
Farley here.
I like to think I’m brave, but I get the shakes when the skies are shaking. I don’t understand the booming that penetrates my body or the flashes of light that make me squint. I tried to hide, but there was no where to go.
My human, Kristina, has endless patient. I signal to her to follow me, and she does. I check out every room at the cottage. To my amazement the thunder is in every room. I thought if I hid in the back bedroom, I could get away from it. Not such luck.
My peeps won’t coddle me when I’m afraid, but Kristina’s so smart. She grooms me. She thinks she’s tricking me by performing a mundane task to distract me. I know what she’s doing and yet, it works. She pulls the brush gently down my back in repetitive motions and I find myself calming down.
When the storm finally passes, I crash. I get so tired when I’m stressed. Sometimes a dog just needs a nap and to dry out.
Woof Woof.
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Leaving a job? How To Get a Dream Reference Letter
When leaving a job on good terms, you’ll want a reference letter in hand. Ask your employer for a letter. If they agree, offer to write a draft for them.
While working as the Director of Human Resources for five and half years, I was asked regularly for a reference letter. From an employer’s point of view, I found it easiest when the employee prepared a draft letter for me.
In a busy job, with my own deadlines, I found it difficult to make time to write a reference letter from scratch. That meant I had to look up employment dates and main job responsibilities, and I had to think of the person’s best characteristics. All easy to do,but time consuming.
Employees were sometimes shy about writing the letter, maybe thinking it was presumptuous, but what it really is, is helpful.
But what do you put in your letter?
- Job title
- Start and end dates
- Main job responsibilities
- Qualifications required and held for position
- What you were good at. This is important. Don’t be shy about saying what you did well.
End the letter with some form of the following sentence: Given the opportunity, I would happily rehire – insert your name here.
The last sentence means the company was pleased with your work and is code within the HR circles that the reference is good.
Next, print two copies with room for a signature. Put one copy on a storage device. Present both to your employer. Thank them for giving you a reference, and state that you have prepared a draft for them as a starting point.
In many cases, I signed the letters as they were presented to me. In some cases, I felt the person under sold themselves and added a few things, and only rarely did I think the person went overboard and I took a few things out.
I hope this helps you get the reference letter you need.
Thanks for reading . . .
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Farley’s Friday: A Wheaten Terrier at the Cottage
Farley here.
The summer is coming to an end and that means all my peeps go back to their own lives. The kids go back to school and get too busy for me. Not to mention, they live in different parts of Canada. I get to go to the Bahamas, which is great, but I’m still sad about the pack dispersing.
I don’t understand kids. They’re always in the water. No matter how hard I bark at them to stay on land, they jump in. This time, they took a camera.
“Get out of the water,” I bark in my frantic manner.
They laugh and swim deeper. Now I’m not sure they can hear me when they’re under water, but I bark more anyway.
They get the giggles and have to surface, but not before taking this odd photo of me!
It gets worse. I told you about tubing, well now they want to water ski too. I make sure I get in the boat and can at least bark safety instructions. Why oh why do kids like water? It’s just too stressful for me.
Woof Woof.
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Scene of the Crime Writers Festival: Genre Talk
This year Scene of the Crime brought us Barbara Fradkin, author of the Michael Green Detective novels. Barbara led the morning workshop at writers festival on Wolfe Island in Kingston Ontario.
Fradkin talked about the difference between cosy mysteries and hard-boiled mystery.
If you’re writing a cosy, she suggested:
- no swearing
- limited violence – could be off screen
- sex mostly off screen
- set in a tight community, village or club
- write in a genteel pace
But if you’re on the other end of the spectrum you can write whatever you like.
I think my writing falls somewhere in the middle. What about you?
Thanks for reading . . .
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Farley’s Friday: When a Dog Visits
Farley here.
After a wild weekend of playing with my new girlfriend, Jersey, I had to nap. Jersey is a 10 month old Portuguese Water Dog. And don’t you think she has the best hair ever?
If you have a visiting dog, make sure they play nice and can share. Once a a golden doodle visited me and snarled and snapped when I tried to take her bone. After that incident, my humans supervise the first time I play with another dog’s toy. Jersey didn’t have that problem.
Being young, Jersey has trouble settling down. The humans picked up every shoe they could find and placed them on the railing. Ha, don’t they know dogs are patient? All Jersey had to do was wait for her moment, and then, and here’s where she gets a bit silly, she runs straight to the closest human and shows her prize.
This is me chasing Jersey away from the shoes. Okay, it looks likes she’s got the upper hand, but I saved her first by distracting her from the shoes.
Jersey didn’t listen very well and didn’t seem to care when the humans got all excited. She even knocked over a table. Kristina is strange – she just laughs at it all and says she likes having other dogs around.
When another dog is visiting, especially a puppy, the house needs to be dog-proofed. No food can be left on counters, no chemicals can be left out, for sure put away your favourite shoes, and don’t forget dogs love to chew leather so any electronics with a leather cover should be out of reach too.
Don’t leave young dogs alone with children. They don’t know how to be gentle yet. Don’t let the dogs eat in the same room as another dog. I don’t mind other dogs eating my food, but some dogs growl a me if I go near their bowl.
But really,having said all that, how could you not love a dog with hair like Jersey’s?
Woof Woof.
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Offline Blogging Software
There is always something new to try or learn. This month, I decided to try the 30 day free trial of MarsEdit.
Why? I work offline most of the time. Living on a sailboat means I don’t have regular internet access, hence I need to write my blogs and upload when I have access.
I downloaded the free trial – I love a free trial. The free trial gives me time to decide if I want to spend my money on the software without taking the risk that I won’t like it.
My advice on first use: Once you download the free trial, check how many blogs you’ve written and set the refresh limit to this number. The first time in the software all of your blogs will download to your computer. After that’s done. reset the button to a lower number to speed up the process.
My likes:
- When you write a scheduled post, the date columns lists the date the post is scheduled for so you can see your upcoming posts without having to go online. Sometimes I forget how far in advance I’ve written posts.
- Easy addition of photos.
- Adding categories and tags offline.
- Works with WordPress – since that’s what I use for a blog platform.
- Any time an idea strikes me for a blog and I happen to be working on my computer, I can pop over to MarsEdit and store the idea.
- Free Trial.
- MarEdit will download the latest version of a post when you hit the refresh button. This is helpful as I often write the blog but make changes when I see it online. These changes get sent back to my computer and then I have the latest version of the post.
Where I would like to see improvements:
- Help file could be better. For example I couldn’t find an explanation of the Refresh vs. Refresh All command. I didn’t try the community forum or the support function. Since I work mostly off line these are not features I would use.
- I’d like to create folders so I can organize my blogs and couldn’t figure out how to do this.
- I’d like to be able to add a link but I guess that’s not a reasonable expectation from software what is meant to be used offline. To do this, I underlined the text to remind myself to add the link once I was online. Then I submitted the post in draft status so it wouldn’t go public on my blog. There is a link function, but you have to know the URL, and if you’re offline . . .
- If you do add a link offline, and you want to the linked URL to open in another page, you need to go online and set this feature
- Even though I set the post date to a later date and left the Post Status button as published I thought the post would be published on the date I chose. Instead the post published immediately. This is fine, except that I have a schedule I like to keep. I thought If I set the date, then it would post on that date. I learned I had to set the Post Status to draft and the go online and set accordingly.
- Not all of my pages downloaded to my computer.
I think the software is a little over priced. After the thirty day trial I’m not sure I’ll buy the software. I’m still very positive about it, but I think I’ll look around and see what else it out there. If the price was $29 or lower, I think I’d buy in now.
These are just my views on trialling the software. If you’ve had a different experience I’d love to hear about it.
Are there any programs you use to help you write or blog? I’d like to try something else before I make my final purchase decision.
Thanks for reading . . .
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Farley’s Friday: A Dog Dreams Of Sailing in the Bahamas
Farley here.
I had a dream last night, and I thought you’d like to see what I look like in my dream.
I dreamt about the Bahamas and sailing on my Lagoon 380 catamaran (with my humans of course).
Why am I dreaming? My papers arrived. Here’s how it works. Kristina sends $10 to the Bahamas with a form telling the lovely Bahamian people all about me. Then they decide whether I can enter the country, and I’m so wonderful I don’t see how they could refuse.
They mail back my visa along with a receipt for the $10, that’s US dollars by they way.
Right before we sail to the Bahamas from Florida I have to go to a vet. I don’t really like this part, but I have to have a health certificate. That doesn’t seem fair because my humans don’t need one.
Then we set sail across the Gulf Stream. I don’t like sailing overnight. I just can’t go to bed until Kristina does and she likes the midnight to 4 am shift. I try to convince my humans to only sail to Bimini. We can get there before dark and I get a good night sleep.
Once we arrive, my humans visit customs with my papers and then I’m set for the season. It’s a great deal – $10 for an entire year.
Now all I have to do is wait until November and we can get going.
Woof Woof.
