Are you intentional?

Sunrise at Flahertys

We are having spring in February here in Indiana. Not sure how long it's going to last, but this week is looking pretty good! It is a time of hopefulness for Good Things to Happen and I'm pinning my wish-I-may, wish-I-might thoughts on that.

How are you all coming on your reading for the year? I finished Number 13 this week, a Maggie Osborne re-release, The Bride of Willow Creek, which was every bit as good this time as it was the first time I read it. Right now I'm reading an ARC by a good friend with an excellent voice and enjoying it a lot. Kristina Knight's Famous in a Small Town, the first book in the Slippery Rock Series, is available for pre-order and so worth the wait. I've also read wonderful new releases by Kristan Higgins and Mary Balogh.

I'm not ready to call 2017 a success--there have already been too many bumps in my personal road for that--but I'm grateful to Curtiss Ann Matlock for issuing the reading challenge. I have been more intentional in my reading than I have been in several years. Not every book has been a winner--there are a few I didn't even list because I didn't make it past the first couple of chapters--and I've listed a couple that I only read half or three-quarters of simply because sometimes the books are too long for my taste.

There is a question for you, by the way, in case you thought I might let a week go by without asking you one. Do you prefer long books or short ones? When I was young, I loved long ones. I have no idea how many times I read Gone With the Wind, most of Kathleen Woodiwiss's offerings, and some others, but now I like short ones. I love novellas, although I seldom read all the stories in the boxed sets we find on every shopping corner at Amazon. I think it's funny-peculiar that I read a gazillion series romances in my younger days, went almost entirely to single-title for a good many years, and have returned in large part to series, or at least series-length.

I just read back over this post, mumbling, "Geez, Liz, did say anything?" Well, I did, although it was kind of lost in there. It was the word intentional. 

We talk a lot about writing, about scheduling it or not, about writing every day or not, about (on bad days) whether we are really writers or just hacks with computers. (I may have made that last thing up, but doesn't it look writerly?) I sometimes get discouraged because I don't stick with my schedule or make my goals. I know Nan and Margie do this sometimes and I imagine Kristi, Ava, and Jana do, too. But the truth is, just as the the reading challenge has made me into an intentional reader, we are all intentional writers. If we don't make the goals or stay in our chairs until time to leave them, we are no less intentional than if we punched clocks at our office doors.

Yeah, I'm good with that. How about you?

Have a good week!

Liz

We hope you visit us on the web. I'm not going to list all our links here, but just in case you wanted to give us a hello at Amazon, here we are.

Kristina Knight, Liz Flaherty, Nan Reinhardt, Ava Cuvay, Jana Richards. Margie Senechal's internet home is here on Word Wranglers, for which we are all most grateful!