black girl nerds

Tip Tuesday – Make it Work with One Notebook

For those of you who’ve seen me flitting about on social media, especially Instagram, then you know how much I love my journals and notebooks. It is truly an affliction. I can’t resist the call of a beautiful looking journal, knowing I can fill its blank pages with my genius thoughts.

Once I get the journal home, it’s another story. The pages are so pretty and pristine, I am reluctant to sully them with my less than important. So, I put the date on the journal and place it on the shelf. It still looks pretty, but it’s unused.

What happens next? Well, I get into an organizing frenzy. Since I see so many journals on the shelf, I pick one for story ideas, one for daily to do lists and one for note taking. Since they’re so disparate, I do need the three journals, right? After about a week, that plan, as brilliant as I thought it was, is all shot to hell.

Enter 2018 and yet another renewed effort for organization. My daughter encouraged me to purchase yet another journal, because 1) she wanted one and 2) they were on sale for 4 dollars each with a coupon and 3) they were so pretty I couldn’t resist. Not only did I end up purchasing more journal-ly meth, I also drew my daughter into the dangerous world of stationery addictions.

When I got home, I determined that this HAD TO STOP! There was no way I could go on with piles of beautiful but blank journals. That’s not what they were made for. I needed to use them for their intended purpose.

And then, I watched a rerun of Breaking Bad. Hank is investigating the death of someone and it winds up they kept meth recipes, titration diagrams and vegan brownie recipes…in the same notebook. While this may seem minor, it was a true epiphany for me. I could use my journal in a multipurpose way.

Which notes do I write in this journal, you may ask?

No. I did not organize it. No, I didn’t do anything cute like those nifty bullet journals. As Dirty Harry said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” I scribble book snippets that occur to me at odd times, partial grocery lists, passwords and story ideas. And guess what?

IT WORKS!

Not only am I keeping up with it after a full seven days (a record), I am saving so much time. Yes, I do have to flip through a few pages to find what I’m looking for, but that’s what stick flags are for. The point is, I KNOW the information is there because I KNOW I wrote it down. For a disorganized kinda gal like me, this is just so…..liberating!

Oh, yes, the tip for Tuesday? Try a one notebook approach!

Shout out to Breaking Bad for the breakthrough! (See what I did there?)

How are you handling organization? Are you a journal person? A phone person? Let me know in the comments.

1Love
Dahlia

5 Gifts for Writers

It’s that time of year again. Shoppers are hitting the stores and the Internet to look for the perfect gift for that special someone. Some of you lucky dogs out there have some stellar writers in your lives. I’m going to tell you what writers REALLY want for Christmas. Well, at least me.

Pens and Journals: Most writers love pens. Though we tend to dither between our beloved writing software, a writer almost always comes back to the pen and the paper, especially if experiencing a bout of writer’s block. Pens make us feel like REAL writers, with a cigarette clenched between our teeth and a glass of bourbon at hand. Debauchery aside, the physical aspect of forming letters and words often is a trigger for ideas. Often, we get more words flowing on paper than we do sitting in front of the screen. In addition, pen/paper keeps us from the distractions of the Internet, and is portable. Sure, we can compose on the phone in our car, but it’s so much more lovely to write in a beautiful journal with a great pen.

Some of my favorites:

InkJoy Pens – The name says it all. I simply love these pens.
Leatherette Journal with Magnet – Doesn’t have to be fancy to be useful.
Cherish You Journal – Pretty and practical
Moleskine Journals – Can’t go wrong with these.

Beverage Containers: Not all writers drink coffee, true, some of us have Coca-Cola as their breakfast beverage (not me, of course, I have both!) However a beverage container is the writer’s true friend. We don’t have to get up to get our hydration/fuel/liquid courage to keep pushing forward in our work. Plus, the little sayings make us feel important.

Heat Activated Banned Books Mug – You can’t get any more writerly than this.

Inspiration Assistance: Sometimes our best ideas come to us when we’re in the shower, seriously! Well, yes, we DO get ideas OTHER places, but let’s keep it PG and simply suggest Aqua Notes, a little doodad that sticks to the wall in the shower. Handy note taking at it’s finest, for sure! The pencil is also included. When I saw this little cool thing, I couldn’t resist putting it on my list. Writers will love this! Aqua Notes

Totes, T-shirts, and Hoodies: Working from home doesn’t afford us much chance to flex our fashion muscles. We do, however, enjoy cool accessories related to writing. And those accessories include T-shirts and hoodies, so we don’t get too cold as we hunch over our keyboards in the basement. Visit Out of Print for more goodies.

Where the Wild Things are Tote

Organizational Software: Next to writing, the biggest task is research. How far can an eagle see? How much blood is in the human body? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? We search every day for answers to these types of questions in order to make our writing as realistic as possible. Well, some writers do. (Yes, I’m throwing shade.) How do we keep all those links and cool websites in one place? Why Evernote, of course! Evernote has two levels – free and premium. Be a doll and gift your writer person a year of premium. They’ll have a year to figure out if they like using it, and if they do ,then they can pay for it themselves!

Evernote Premium

With a list like this, there’s no way you can go wrong with your writer gift giving this year. Order early!

1Love

Blogtoberfest – Poor Fellas and Gals: Dog Halloween Costumes

I have a dog. I think she’s a rather judgy dog. She doesn’t like it when I dress her in her winter coat, even though as a pit bull, she has zero undercoat and needs the insulation in the colder weather. Still, the eyeballing she gives me as she stands there in her Land’s End insulated doggy coat. I mean, come on, what dog can’t look good in Land’s End outerwear? Not Athena. She hates it, and makes it clear she hates me for putting in on her.

However, I won’t be a party to dog Halloween costumes. I find them unwieldy, a pain to put on and something that can really be only worn once a year. The dogs, themselves, seem so….pitiful yet revenge filled when you snap that picture. After one year of one of my dogs dressing as something or other (I really don’t remember), I’ve learned my lesson. However, some humans never learn. Let’s take a look, shall we?

All Pictures courtesy of PartyCity.com, except where noted.

Yoda’s looking like he could drink from the toilet at any moment.

This TinMan looks sad enough to be the REAL TinMan.

Oh yeah, this Superman dressed dog is totally JUDGING you.

This dog has just decided to give in and roll with it, baby.

Blogtoberfest – Not Just “IT”: More Creepy King Stories

From what I’ve heard is that the new IT movie is pretty scary. I have to say “from what I’ve heard’ because I haven’t seen it yet. Nothing like seeing something scary on the big screen to scar you for life and I’m not as young as I used to be.

While being scared on the screen is fun, being scared from words on a page can be even more fun. Yep, I just touted reading above movie watching and you all know how I LOVE reading. Following this, Stephen King has written just a tad few more stories than IT that are guaranteed to take you over the creepy/scared line. Here are five of my favorites.

From Nightshift

Graveyard Shift – Whose nose doesn’t twist at thethought of working in a mildewy, dark, damp basement? Bonus points: it’s hot and there’s rustling in the walls. This is a story that will make you wash your hands after you’ve finished reading it. Don’t forget the hand sanitizer.

Grey Matter – Strange things can grow in beer – something about those hops – and when you guzzle one down without thoroughly examining the contents, bad things happen. I promise you’ll pour your beer in a glass after reading this one. Gross, scary body horror.

Sometimes They Come Back – Like a little melancholy with the heebie-jeebies? Well, this story is perfect for you. A man gets revenge for something that happened in his childhood, but remember, the devil is hell to pay.

Skeleton Crew

The Raft – Those of you who’ve seen Creepshow 2 are familar with this story. Yes, the charactersare archetypes and the whole thing reads like a B-movie script, but you won’t be so eager to jump into the lake next summer, now will you?

The Monkey – Short, but gets under your skin. A haunted toy monkey does….bad things, for lack of a better term….to those who find it and wind it up. I’ve always found those mechanical toys weird anyway, so to find out this monkey was haunted was no big surprise.

And just like that, we;’ve come to the end of our Blogtoberfest visit! Check out some of these King shorts that I mentioned.

Dahlia

Blogtoberfest – Did You Hear That? 13 Classic Spooky Songs

Today, I’m back to tap on your shoulder and tickle your ears. Music in movies has always been used to set the mood, whether it be for a love scene or the stinger for a horror movie jump scare.

If you’re having a Halloween get-together or even just want to hang out with the lights out and create a Poe-like atmosphere, here are 13 songs for you, and of course, one to grow on. A baker’s dozen, plus one.

Spookily yours,

Dahlia