PJL's Write Life

Since I was mostly focused on declaring war in January, I really didn't get to think much about my goals for 2026. It didn't help that I was exhausted already. I had 3 days off from the day job and two of those days I spent about 2-3 hours each shoveling snow. On top of it I had a sick husband. Not a relaxing way to start the year. When I wrote that post, I knew there would be a chance I'd be working two jobs again this year. Two day jobs really took a lot out of me last year, and I fell behind on a lot of things as a result. I knew I couldn't let that happen again, so I've been formulating a battle plan. First, I picked three books I have ready to publish. MLK Jr Day I had a three day weekend and not a lot of snow, so I devoted time to keyword research, checking the files were correct, uploading, and even scheduling a pre-order. ***  Side note: That book, Balance of Love , released yesterday. It's a novella, so it won't consume your entire day. (Is that a ...

You know, a new book is supposed to be exciting. Normally, I’m chomping at the bit for it to release after setting a pre-order. But my enthusiasm has been dampened, quite literally. Because today, we discovered this. That’s the bottom of our kitchen cupboard and it’s dripping . Now, a few hours later, the paint at the top of the cupboard is getting wrinkly and water damaged. I just submitted a claim to our house insurance. Cross your fingers for us that whatever is going on is covered and we aren’t just paying Progressive for fun. I’m not even getting into the MI DHS letter I also got that claimed my husband didn’t fulfill his work/job hunting requirements for SNAP. Never mind nothing on the website asked us to upload said requirements. I haven’t told him yet as I don’t have the energy for his reaction. I already had to deal with that over the dripping water and another more minor incident. All this sob story to say is I really, really really want you to go buy my books now. Because i...

I tend to declare war on problems. Slugs eating my plants? WAR! The one donation room at work a mess? WAR! Squirrels digging up my seedlings? WAR! Ice dams on the entryway roof? WAR! There's been a few things in our house that has cropped up and we have no money to hire someone to fix it. That did not deter me. I got Youtube, dammit. I'm gonna figure out if I can do it myself. So to start of 2026, I am declaring war on the year. YOU ARE GOING DOWN 2026. I do not care what sort of BS you try to throw at me. I will defeat you out of pure spite. I still hit publish on books even though I suck at marketing and get too shy to tell people I have a new books. I'm no stranger to rough times. I've gone without plenty of times. I've endured I want to die pain . Life's a bitch and then you die as my mom says. But remember: I take that as a challenge. So, yeah, I'm starting the year determined to get through it by the skin of my teeth. I have no idea what to expect in ...

I'm not sure how December crept up on me so quickly. I swear yesterday was October and I was prepping for the November Christmas craft shows. Yet here we are. This month tends to be quiet as many people are busy with holiday activities. I have my fair share of activities as well, but I wanted to pop in and end the year with a big thank you. Thank you to everyone who helped me and hubby out this year. Thank you for every word of support and encouragement. Thank you for all the prayers and good vibes. It's been a trying year, but a strong support group makes it easier to bear. I really hope I can come here soon with good job news from hubby, but for now, it's one day at a time. Thank you again for everything. See you next year.  Today's post was part of the Insecure Writer's Support Group .  Created by the ninja captain, Alex J. Cavanaugh, it's a group for writers struggling with writing insecurity (AKA all of us) to gather and discuss their fears or to celebrat...

Today I decided to crowdsource some ideas. With it now being over a year of hubby job hunting, you can imagine he's racked up the rejections. For writers, it's no big deal. If you can't deal with rejection then you don't get into writing. It's expected to happen. It happens more often than not. But for a regular job seeker? That's a different story. The hope and goal is to get a job and get it quickly. Rejections happen, but not on the scale of writing. It can be soul crushing and hard to over come. Hubby has been struggling with it the stack he's gotten. I've done my to help him out and talk to him about how I deal with it, but I thought why not pose it to everyone at IWSG. Between us all, I can't imagine how many rejection letters have accumulated! What is your methods for dealing with lots of rejection? How do you get back up and get on the horse after being hit with a slew of rejections? What pep talks do you give yourself? I look forward to your...

Well, I am pleased to say that after last month's post I have written more. After that initial story, I had a nice 3 days streak of micro-fiction writing. Then I got too tired and didn't write much more. Then I got a second job at Sault Historic Sites as a cashier at 1 of 3 museums that meant a 6 day work week. I was certain that meant no writing was going to happen for a bit then. But this new second job is different than other jobs I've had. It's the first time I've had a job where I didn't spend the entire shift running around like a chicken with my head cut off. In the past, I've mostly worked restaurants as a line cook. If you've held those sorts of jobs, you know there is not much downtime and if there is, well, you're boss probably said, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean." Meaning if you weren't serving customers, you were cleaning some part of the restaurant. Breaks were often cut short because of orders. Restaur...

Last month , I talked about the energy my brain requires to write and how the majority of mine has been channeled into finding ways to make ends meet and get the bills paid. I was getting to the point where I was starting to get curious just how long I'd go without writing some fiction. Because my brain can be a jerk like that. I once signed up for Nano only to have my brain decide I shouldn't write a single word out of pure spite for Nano. I can fully see my brain deciding to see how long it can keep the no writing streak going just for the lolz. Then I did a little interview with a fellow writer over on Substack, Natalie Philips , and would you look at that. A little creative spark flew to live in my noggin' and I opened a WIP and wrote a little 200-word story. It may not be much, but after a 3 month dry spell, it feels like I just climbed a mountain. It feels amazing. Despite life being lifey (coming up on 1 year since hubby got fired) I still have the words hidden insid...