The Realms of a Fantastical Mind

Yesterday was quite the stressful experience.  Everyone who has kids, knows the dangers of the two year old.  They are fearless beasts who will do things that will make your heart stop.  They will climb heights that were not meant to be climbed.  They will get into things that were securely put away, and they will go places that will put them in danger.  This is the world of the two-year-old.  To explore and to drive their parents into a frenzy. My children have all passed that stage, thank the goddess.  However, my niece has been in that stage since she could climb, and being so much like my sister, she probably wont be out of that stage until her teens.  She is an adorable peanut who would win the heart of even the hardest heart. Yesterday she pulled off her trademarked dash at my house.  (It was a pet cemetery rerun in the making) I live in a fairly busy city, right on the main road.  She ran straight down...

I've been trying to get my crap together. Organize what I'm doing when and trying to get things running smoothly. And what happens but I find myself snuggled up to my kobo reading series after series of my favorite authors. Nothing I wanted to get done, gets done and my poor book is again neglected like the house plant that hasn't been watered for weeks. It sits with it's pages drooping over the edge of the table, practically begging to get picked up and revised fully into the 5th draft. 'Please' it whispers in the dark of night as I lay sleeping, 'please remember I'm here.' so after 2 weeks of my horrible behavior of reading, in which I've been poking and prodding at other writers work, only because I've done so much to my own book that I can't help but see what the holes are, I opened my critiquing folder and had a crack at a 1st chap of a MS that I should have opened the day I got it. I'm not even saying that out of duty, oh ...

So how busy can one person get that doesn't have a full time job, other then raising kids?  I can tell you, very busy!  I have to take care of the kids, like making sure my 12 yo has everything for school, first and foremost! Then there is the cleaning of the never-ending dishes, the floors need to be swept and mopped. The  bathroom... yeah that stuff that needs to be done, the kids, making sure they are doing their chores and keeping their space clean.  Cooking and then cleaning that never-ending dish pile again.  Sending my son off to kindergarten. Then 2 hours of me time, my youngest having nap-time.  Pick up my son, make sure my eldest has her homework done and making sure my son puts his school things away.  Then there is wedding planning and making sure I have everything done that I wanted to do that day, usually done when its my me time.  So my poor writing plans get pushed off to ...

So today I have decided that my Friday mornings will be focused on critiquing fellow writers in their works (and hopefully continuing on into the weekend).  The problem I have with that is not the ones I critique from AQC but the ones from Critters Writers Workshop .  Perhaps it is because I do not talk or chat with the ones from the workshop.  I do not know them in any way.  I have no problems with the site itself or with the people but some of the work that is offered up for review is so raw it is as if they posted their rough drafts without trying to polish and enhance their work.  Some have written stories with not enough research, so it seems beyond reason of suspended belief and others are just choppy and need to learn how to flow more.  It may be that those were the very reasons for them posting on Critters but some how I would think that they would have done more research on what works better, what flows better and the like before showing their wor...