I Love My New Planner!

One of the side benefits of becoming a teacher was developing the practice of using a plan book. I remember feeling like there were so many tasks, big and little to remember, that I had to write them down in order to be prepared for each day of teaching and learning.

A few years ago, feeling like I just wasn’t accomplishing anything on a daily basis, I remembered my lesson plan book and decided to use the same approach in my home life. I loved it! It worked! I’d record what needed to get done each day and check each item off as I did it. At the end of the day, I could see that I actually did get quite a bit done, even if it was two dozen tiny chores. I was hooked.

The Great Planner Hunt

Up until this year, I have always used a spiral bound planner. Each December I would look all over town for the perfect planner and agonize over how pretty or colorful it was or was not.

This year, tired of the last-minute search, I started looking in the fall. There were very limited numbers of spiral bound binders available, and none were very pretty. However, there were oodles of those removable/re-arangable-page-planners. They were colorful. They were pretty. But…they had flimsy laminated covers. I like the solid feel of a hardcover spiral planner.

So I looked and I looked and I looked. I could not find a planner I liked in a style I liked. Finally in December, I surrendered. I bought one of those new-fangled, laminated cover planners.

It was pretty, but I did not even look at it again until January.

Now, I love it.

It was originally an 18 month planner, starting in the summer of 2017. So, I was able to pull out the July – December pages and insert them, and their dividers, in the back of the planner as resources.

As a planner, this new planner is as fully functional as my old style planner.

But those re-arangeable bonus dividers and pages? I am in love.

My Bonus Sections

I have four sections in the back of my planner–Routines, Lists, Cooking, How-Tos. Using techniques picked up reading about bullet journaling (such as establishing a table of contents) here’s how I’ve filled my pages so far.

Routines

The routines section contains notes for how I want to set up my planner, a template for teaching days, a template for weekends, a template for vacation days and holidays, and a schedule for medications and supplements.

For example, on days I do not work, here is how I like to start out:

• Read my daily section of the Bible
• Pray
• Read some of the Blogs I follow
• Clean up the kitchen
• Get dressed and put away clothes
• Check my phone
• Clear my email inbox

Lists

I like making lists. The act of doing so helps me to remember things that are important to me. I have lots of lists:

• Favorite exercises and stretches
• Things I want to make (both practical and crafts)
• Things I want to learn (both just for fun or for personal/professional development)
• Personal pleasures: things to do for fun and relaxation
• Asthma home improvement to-do list
• Ideas for Family dinners (my kids are grown and out on their own, and I want to come up with some fun ways for us to get together regularly)
• Chore lists: including an order of rotation so that over time, everything routine gets covered.
• Writing project lists and priorities
• Blog ideas and to-do lists
• Home improvement projects
• Once-in-a-blue-moon chores
• Projects, big or small, that once I do them, do not need to be repeated
• What I am learning about managing my asthma

Cooking

• Recipes my husband likes
• Baking (snacks and desserts) my husband likes
• Side dishes my husband likes
• Mixes to make

I focus on my husband here because I already and always know what I like. When it’s my turn in the kitchen, I want to be as considerate of my husband as he is of me.

How Tos

• How to embed a pin in a blog post
• How to embed a Facebook post in a blog post

As I learn new things I expect this section to grow.

And More…

I have two more dividers left and multiple unused pages. The possibilities are open before me. I love it!

Your Turn

Do you use a planner or some other form of organizer? Use the comment space below to tell us about it. Let’s inspire and encourage each other!

Happy New Year! Hopes and Dreams for Your Literate Lifestyle in 2018

Happy new year! I hope your holiday season was peaceful, joyful, filled with abundant blessings.

And now it is a new year. I love the opportunity for a new start, so much so I think “new year” in both January and September. Having been a student, been the parent of students, and the teacher of students, September is just a very logical restart.

However, for me, January is a little more magical. It starts with clean new calendars and clean new plan books. And after the inevitable joyful excesses of the Christmas season, it feels like being washed by a raging current into a quiet side stream. Time for quiet. Time for reflection. Time for dreaming and goal setting. (I love the quiet of January after December!)

What hopes and dreams, plans and goals do you have for the new year? I have two I’ll share right now:

1. to blog about how having a literate lifestyle keeps me sane during crazy-busy/sick seasons
2. to add an additional day of content this year (coming late spring)

I pray this greeting finds you refreshed and dreaming.

Use the comments box below to share your hopes and dreams for your literate lifestyle in 2018. Let’s inspire each other!

Meet Carol Riggs, Author of The Lying Planet

Today I am launching what I hope will be the first of  many interviews that will provide you with a peek into some of my writer friends’ lives. Today, I’d like to introduce my long-time conference roomie, Carol Riggs, and her newest novel, The Lying Planet, which releases September 19!

Carol: Thanks, Debby, for inviting me here on your blog!

Debby and I met at an Oregon SCBWI retreat many years ago, and we’ve been event roommates ever since. We share a love of fantasy and other speculative genres. We support each other’s writing along with enjoying a great friendship.

I’m an author of young adult novels who lives in southern Oregon, USA. My books include The Body Institute, Bottled, and my September 19 release, The Lying Planet. Hobbies (besides writing): reading, drawing and painting, writing conferences, walking with my husband, and enjoying music and dance of all kinds.

Book Summary: THE LYING PLANET

Promise City. That’s the colony I’ve been aiming for all my life on the planet Liberty. The only thing standing in my way? The Machine. On my eighteenth birthday, this mysterious, octopus-like device will scan my brain and Test my deeds. Good thing I’ve been focusing on being Jay Lawton, hard worker and rule follower, my whole life. Freedom is just beyond my fingertips.

Or so I thought. Two weeks before my Testing with the Machine, I’ve stumbled upon a new reality. The truth. In a single sleepless night, everything I thought I knew about the adults in our colony changes. And the only one who’s totally on my side is the clever, beautiful rebel, Peyton. Together we have to convince the others to sabotage their Testings before it’s too late.

Before the ceremonies are over and the hunting begins.

Debby: I think it’s really interesting to get a peek at the roots of a story. What was your inspiration for Lying Planet?

Carol: This story was born one night in 2010 as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and I thought I heard a noise out in the living room. It was probably our “haunted refrigerator” as we called it—that thing made more noises than a backfiring old jalopy. Whatever it was, my mind started spinning scenarios about What If. I figured this could be the initial pivotal moment of a YA novel, the story about a teen lying in the darkness of his room, and hearing… something. And getting up to investigate.

Debby: Describe your novel in 5 words:

Carol: Terrible secrets. The Machine. Banishment.

Debby: What themes play an important role in your novel?

Carol: I explore integrity and courage, with a splash of romance. Betrayal also factors in.

Debby: Who is your favorite character in this story?

Carol: Jay, the main character; he’s a conflicted hero who desperately wants to protect his friends and two little sisters, but hates how he is forced to go about doing it.

Debby: What was the hardest scene to write?

Carol: The ending scenes, because they involve battles, fighting, death, and other more gritty things that I usually tend to shy away from.

Debby: What scene did you most enjoy writing?

Carol: Jay in the hay barn of the cattle compound with a friend or two. Fun, flirty romance and goofing around.

Debby: Speculative Fiction requires strong worldbuilding. Tell us a bit about the world you created for this novel.

Carol: The planet Liberty has a 26-hour day where noon and midnight occur at 13:00. It has two moons; their magnetic pull causes the water from the underground tables to rise every night for an hour starting at 1:00 am, which irrigates the yards and gardens. It never, ever rains. There are 8 days in a week, Monday through Restday.

Twenty-five years ago Liberty had a war. Now most of the planet is bombed out and covered with deadly genomide dust, which clings to skin and sifts into lungs causing chemical burns and mass killings. The few exceptions are Jay’s colony of Sanctuary, along with the other safe zone colonies of Refuge and Fort Hope.

Turning 18 is a big deal in this colony. There’s a Machine that Tests the teens on graduation day. If they score high, they get rewards like a wristcomm or a hover vehicle. If they score low, they’re branded with a “B” on their foreheads and banished to the outer zones. That’s great motivation to work hard and obey all the strict rules in the safe zones.

Foods include greshfruit, which is a sweet fruit like an apple only softer like a nectarine.

Animals include vermal, similar to coyotes, but more bulky and powerful, and worrels, turkey-like creatures with shimmery bronze wings.

Debby: What is it about this novel that has turned out to be the most meaningful to you?

Carol: The value of not giving up on a story if you really believe in it. Sometimes you can dig out old manuscripts that were shelved and breathe new life into them. In the case of The Lying Planet, it started out as post-apocalyptic dystopian, and in 2015 I changed the genre to science fiction—and I’m really glad I did. I also plowed through numerous revisions with my excellent editor at Entangled Teen, and although it was challenging, I think it’s a much better story for it.

Debby: Describe your early life as a reader/writer.

Carol: I mostly devoured Nancy Drew books, sucked in by the mystery genre, and in retrospect, I think I admired how confident and smart she was as a character. Even today, I love inserting secrets or mystery elements into my own novels. I didn’t read anything more “literate” until my sophomore year of high school, where I had two great English teachers and I fell in love with Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Great stuff! That’s when I also began writing, myself.

Debby: Describe your “Literate Lifestyle” now.

Carol: I used to say I could never read a book while writing one of my own, but now that I’m published and had two novels release in 2016 with overlapping revisions for my editors, I squish in reading whenever I can. I read for pleasure, but also for “research,” to check out the latest in other young adult novels. I wrote one middle grade (ages 8-12) novel last year and had fun with it, but mostly I stick to YA.

Debby: What are you presently working on? What’s next for you?

Carol: I’m writing the final scenes of a fantasy novel that’s a retelling of a rather obscure French fairy tale. I’ve always wanted to do a retelling, and I’m having a blast putting my own creative twist on it. It’s taking on a life of its own.

Debby: How can readers help get the word out about The Lying Planet?

Carol: Reviewing on Goodreads or Amazon is extremely helpful no matter what the rating is, because it shows that people are reading the book; people are generally wary of trying things no one else has. Also, with Amazon’s analytics, having a certain number of reviews enables the book to get mentioned in the “also viewed” or “also purchased this item” areas on the site.

Any form of social media is good for a shout out, whether Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, emailing or talking to friends, etc. Sharing links to my website or bookseller sites works well. Word of mouth is a great way to spread news!

Debby: Thanks so much, Carol, for visiting with my readers here on Literate Lives.

• You can learn more about Carol and her books on her website.
• You can follow Carol on Facebook and Twitter.
• And if you want to be one of the first people to read The Lying Planet, you can reserve your copy here. 

Joy vs. Responsibility

Please do not think this is a post about abandoning your responsibilities. Responsibilities play an important,  sometimes even a survival role in our lives. However, have you ever considered that some responsibilities, aren’t nearly so essential as you have convinced yourself they are?

Ever since I reconfigured my thinking about Literate Lives (Wow! Was it only a week ago?), I have been eager to write to all of you lovers of reading and writing, and those who yearn to embrace a lifestyle that incorporates reading and writing as a valued practice.

How did this happen?

The Birth of a Blog

In the beginning, I started Literate Lives as a means of giving back to the world. I had just retired from teaching, or so I thought, and wanted to continue to encourage people to read and write, and to foster a love of reading and writing in their children and students.

Why? Because reading and writing have been a source of tremendous blessing in my life, and I know the practice can be a blessing to others as well.

So, I prepared. I read all kinds of posts about how to blog. I learned it was important to have a purpose, set up a schedule, offer varied, valuable, and useful content. And I got so serious about blogging, it ceased to feel either worthwhile or fun.

So Why Are You Blogging, Anyway?

This was just one of the many questions my friend asked me last weekend. There are many answers–another whole post worth of answers. However, today I will provide just the micro version: I want to share the joys of a reading/writing life.

Another Question from My Friend

“So, if I’m reading a book and not enjoying it should I read it to the end anyway as part of my commitment to a reading lifestyle?”

My answer: “No. If you aren’t enjoying it, stop.” My purpose here is to celebrate the joys and benefits of reading. In my thinking, there is no drudgery allowed.

Doctor, Heal Thyself

As our question and answer session wound to a close, my dear friend dumped the pail of my philosophizing over my head. I had bemoaned my mixed feelings about the blog, how difficult it was to both teach and write novels, let alone keep up with a blog. Her response: “Don’t blog unless you feel like it.”

But what about all those rules about schedules and responsibilities?

And yet, she had a point. How can I write about the joys of a reading/writing lifestyle when doing so feels like a burden?

No Schedule

So, I decided to take her advice and quit worrying about a blog schedule.

Now, I find myself wanting to write to you far more than I have time to do it! All this week (Is it really just a week?) I have not so much looked for ways to squeeze in blogging time, as I have simply embraced the treat of sharing my love of literacy with you.

What a difference!

Do you have commitments in your life to activities you once undertook for pleasure that have become, instead, a burden? Is there a way you can reframe this activity for yourself that will permit you to recapture the joy?

Have you already done this? How did you make it work?

I would love to share your responses.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m off to read a novel!

 

Journaling Lists and Prompts: A Break from “Me,” Yet a Vehicle for New Discoveries

Today I journaled using a pre-made list of questions:

and a list of listing prompts:

What a great experience!

A Break from “Me”

Returning to work (I am a teacher) and keeping up with my writing obligations and a new role as women’s Bible Study leader at church, while not yet fully recovered from this spring’s concussion, has really set me back both emotionally and physically. I am so tired, and when I am tired, I am so prone to feeling sorry for myself. (Pity my poor husband!)

And yet, these past few days I have felt a huge urge to journal.

However, I am so sick of myself, the last thing I wanted to do was open up my journal and write about me and my life.

Enter “Pinterest: Debby Zigenis-Lowery, A Literate Lifestyle” Pinboard

One of the many things I collect on Pinterest are journaling prompts. I decided it was time to pick a prompt resource and use that to inspire my journal entry.

Question 1 from 365 Questions September: “What decision do you wish you didn’t have to make?”

At first I didn’t think I wanted to try and answer this, but I had committed to following the list.

I though and I thought. Hmm. There are no difficult decisions I have to make right now. Wow! Suddenly I realized, I am pretty blessed.

I wrote about this in my journal and emerged with a true attitude adjustment in a far more positive direction.

31 Days of Lists Challenge

I had also collected a number of list prompts. The idea of simply listing sounded simple and fun.

Prompt #1: Favorite Sounds

Here is my list:

• Gently moving water
• Little birds singing outside the window
• My granddaughters sweet little-girl voices
• The summer breeze moving in the trees
• The boom of fireworks
• The boom of thunder, especially in the mountains
• The jingle of little bells
• The jangle of sifting through a pile of bottlecaps
• The splash of driving through a puddle
• The absolute quiet of snowfall
• The clatter of a jar of buttons
• The crunch of kicking through autumn leaves
• The scrunch from crinkling tissue wrapping paper
• Hymns and Christmas carols sung a capella
• Gentle piano
• Gentle guitar

New Discoveries…

I feel so much better, so much less sorry for myself. I have discovered I love journaling to a prompt.

Yes, there is a time and place to journal your experiences and feelings. It is very therapeutic. However, it is also pretty wonderful to turn your mind onto a new track and make discoveries you may have never have otherwise encountered today.

What about you? Have you followed a journal prompt lately? What was it?

And what are your favorite sounds?

*image: depositphotos_72324853_original.jpg

My Plan for Getting Healthy and Staying Healthy

Post-Concussion Update

I am at the end of week five of my post-concussion syndrome recovery. My headaches, while still constant, register at about a 1.5 or 2 on a 10 point scale–that is much improved. I can now read to my heart’s content (Yay!!!), as long as the reading material is not too abstract.

I am starting to feel impatient.

This week I will try writing.

Getting Healthy 

So what has got me this far? A whole new way of thinking. It came to me as a little rhyme:

Do not rush.

Do not hurry.

Bloom where you’re planted,

And do not worry.

Not terribly original, I know, but it has helped me to be patient through these long, uncomfortable, exhausting, inactive weeks.

And Staying Healthy

I’m going to take this little ditty with me as I begin to return to my everyday activities.

Looking back on the early months of the new year, I recall my discontent with myself and the way I was managing my life. There was too much to do, I was always striving, and I was overwhelmed.

Over the last decade, God has developed a pattern of forcing me to sit still when I get so driven I am making myself crazy. The little “trip” that resulted in this concussion seems to have been another such incident. (I wish I could get better at listening when he says “Slow down.”) And this time, I had to sit very still, for a long, long time.

To recover, because of the exhaustion and pain, I had to learn to move s-l-o-w-l-y. I have practiced it enough now to know rushing around just increases my stress. And as I sat still I realized, if I truly believe as I profess to, being content with where I am needs to be part of my faithful living. Furthermore, worrying cannot change anything. I need to trust my God, and I do.

What about you? Is there anything you need to adjust about your approach to daily living? What does blooming where you’re planted mean to you? Is it possible to live more slowly and turn our backs on worry?

It will be interesting to see what I can manage to hold true to as I slowly re-enter my life over the next few weeks.

Many Apologies: Reality Therapy

I am now three weeks into the school year and feel compelled to issue a heartfelt apology. I really wanted to get back to blogging regularly this year (and have even made commitments–like resurrecting Greek and Latin Roots). Already, however, I have found that goal impossible to meet.

Why?

Well, I work 32 hours per week coaching student writers in my school district’s GED center. I have two completed novels for which I am searching for an agent/publisher. I am working on a third novel. I am also working on a non-fiction picture book. In addition, I am a wife, mother, and grandmother, and the kind of person who needs to read daily and requires 9-10 hours of sleep in order to feel human. I have also agreed to be the Published and Listed Communications Coordinator for my local SCBWI–an organization that has been very good to me and that I am happy to serve.

Therefore, I have discovered I cannot commit to 3, 2, or even 1 blog post weekly.

Yesterday, I decided I would discontinue the blog completely. However, today I woke up thinking, “Hey, wait a minute! I have a lot of things I want to share.”

And so, while I cannot promise to blog at anything that looks like regularly scheduled intervals, I do commit to continue posting when time and interest allows.

I wish you all happy and fulfilling reading and writing times. The value of both in my life are what led me to accept this latest round of reality therapy. Alas, there are only twenty-four hours in a day, no matter how much I wish otherwise–hmm. Maybe there’s a story in that. What if…

School Starts Tomorrow: List Your Way to a Happy New Year!

School starts tomorrow here in Salem, Oregon, at least for the staff. Most kids don’t actually come back until Wednesday. And for me–first as a student, then as a parent, and now as an educator–the start of school has always been the start of a new year.

I stand on the cusp of the new school year a little sad; summer is truly over, and it rains a lot in Salem during the fall, winter, and spring.

However, I also stand hopeful and a little excited. The commencement of the school year shakes up my routines, creating room for me to reflect on what is working and what is not, and what I need, long for, and aspire to.

My objective this school year is to live a well-rounded life. Balance has been my buzzword for so long, however I think in focusing on balancing my responsibilities to God, family, work, and self, I am missing what I really long for and what I need. This year, I want to live my life fully around the whole calendar, not constantly postponing what matters or what is needed until weekends or the holidays.

How do I propose to do this? Lists!

I know, your first thought is, “Crazy you! Aren’t lists the things that exhaust you and make you feel like a failure in the first place?”

Well, yes, but these lists are different. One set of lists are sane routines tailored to the demands of each day of the week. They cover the basics–like housework and exercise. However, the newest list is my “happy secret.” It is a reminder of what I love, what makes me feel content, creative, productive, alive–things like drawing, reading widely, learning something new, hand sewing, or crafting for people I love.

So with my little 3 x 5 cards of routines and my enrichment list of activities that I will no longer put off, I enter this new year ready to fully live my life day-to-day, month-to-month, throughout the year.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013.

My words for this year are Contentment and Opportunity.

I have been stressing out too much these last few weeks. It’s time to get my act together.

• Contentment: I will seek to be content in whatever moment God had placed me in.
• Opportunity: I will seek to follow up on the opportunities that lie before me now.

What will that  mean for the Literate Lives blog?

Who knows!

But I sense more poetry, more journaling, more thoughts about the reading and writing life, and more “wonderful words” and websites to check out just over the horizon.

Welcome to a new reading, writing, living year.