pretty little recap: 'tis the seAson...for murder and stuff!

5.13 How the 'A' Stole Christmas

It's been a long wait PLLers (especially since Baby H being born in the summer resulted in no recaps for the first half of season 5!), but the bitches are back, forgoing their usual Halloween episode for something a little merrier and more stabby. Okay, probably not more stabby, but definitely as stabby, plus there were thrills, chills, and Santa boxers (oh my) so let's get to it!

If you want your stars to look like teens, maybe don't dress them as though they're on Dynasty. Photo credit: ABC Family 

Pretty Little Highlights 

1. This episode was so delightfully over the top. It was everything you'd expect from a PLL holiday special and more. The Ghost of Mona Past (or was she Mona Future? Or all of them in one?) was great, especially her crazy, hot mess, glam ghost look. Work it, Ghosty Mona. 

2. I'm not normally one to dig anything Creeper Toby does, but the shout out to Rear Window (or as I associated it, the 'Bart of Darkness' episode of The Simpsons) was very cool. And really, that was just a general PLL decision. Not a Creeper Toby one. He was just doing what he does best. Being a creeper.

3. Umm, I'll just leave this here:

Photo credit: Lindsey Shaw's twitter

4. Hot Caleb and Hanna making with the charity. And Hot Caleb's elf costume. It's official: he's adorable year-round.  

Pretty Little Mistakes (a.k.a What Aria Did)

1. I'm again weirded out to say that I can't really bag on Aria too much this week. Aside from not doing anything stupid/ill-advised, she was the only Liar who appeared to be wearing something even remotely youthful to Ali's Ice Ball. Seriously Em, what is up with that dress? It makes you look 35. Don't get me wrong, Shay looks gorgeous in it, but I am not buying her as a teenager in that dress...

2. Oh Hanna. I love you girl, but rule #1 when you break into someone's house as part of a major plot is to always keep your cell handy. How many times do you have to be attacked by crazy hooded people before you learn that lesson?

3. Am I the only one who found it super weird when the Liars and their paramours were snowed in and Ezra was at the head of the table as though he was the dad? Like, it's one thing for him to hang with Aria, but in scenes like that he's basically just some older dude hanging with a bunch of teenagers (most of whom are or have been his students!). Isn't it weird when they're chatting about school gossip and Ezra's all "Mortgages! 401Ks!" Or is that just me?

Pretty Little ZOMG WTF?!

1. Creepy mask staring at Hanna and Spence after Hanna gets knocked out. NOT COOL.

2. Ali's teamsters are willing to go behind her back. Or are they? Was it all part of a bigger plan? I'M ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS OF YOU ALI'S TEAMSTERS!

3. More creepy masks as Ali's minions provide a diversion. Stop with the masks and dolls already, people! But no, don't. Because we love how creepy it is. 

4. Ali definitely knew Bellamy = THEY ARE DEFINITELY TWIN SISTERS SEPARATED AT BIRTH. 

5. A decorates a mean Christmas tree. What? I found it kind of shocking. That would have taken some serious time. How did he/she manage? 

I'm certain there were more things worth mentioning, but my viewing up the episode was a bit chopped up due to teething Baby H, and now he's crying to get up from his nap, so I'll leave it at, bring on season 5b!

~PLR~

the horizon

The back half of 2014 has been, well, a bit of a blur. The idea that 2015 is only a few short weeks away seems impossible, but yeah, there it is. The bad news is, I've been lost in a haze of sleepless nights (thanks to Baby H falling into a textbook four month sleep regression) and busy days (rocking baby, entertaining toddler, trying to keep the house from crumbling around us). The good news is, things are finally looking up a bit.

I feel like I spend a lot of time waiting. No, I know I spend a lot of time waiting. That's the nature of publishing. Being on submission means waiting. Being on submission with a new book means more waiting. Having a newborn means waiting. At least with that last one, I know all my waiting will pay off.

Over the past few months, I've often found myself wondering how I not only finished a novel during my first maternity leave, but also found enough time to research and query a slew of agents (a process that ultimately matched me with my stellar agent, Marlene). Where on earth did I find the time to manage that? But now I'm remembering. Because I've finally reached the point (I hope) when things start to shift from feeling like I never have enough time to do anything, to the baby being able to entertain himself for 20-30 minutes at a time, and take longer naps, and suddenly things seem possible again. I've even managed to get in a bit of work on my WIP--enough that I'm now rather anxious to spend even more time with it. I have my fingers crossed that early 2015 will allow me the time to really dive in.

So what does all this mean? Hopefully, it means this blog will be back in business soon. Hopefully, it means I'll have a fifth novel under my belt before long. Hopefully, it means I can hit the ground running when the new year begins. It's an excellent time for it, don't you think?

And now I hear the telltale wail of a baby waking... he slept for a full hour this time. Not fantastic, but not bad. Not bad at all.

the writer's arsenal: digital baggage

Writers today have a plethora of digital tools at their disposal to, ideally, make their lives easier when it comes to mapping out ideas, and writing anywhere, anytime. (That's right. Plethora. Thank you, online thesaurus, for example!) But this is one of those cases where too much can potentially be a bad thing, or at least, a complicated thing, involving too many software and service options.

I recently downloaded a master password keeping app (1Password if you're interested), deciding it was time to get the minefield that is my online identity organized. The very thought of all those accounts I have out there (plus the ones I've made and undoubtedly forgotten about) is overwhelming. Services, online shops, online banking, site logins--the list goes on. Thanks to the master app, I'm now starting to feel a bit more organized with all my accounts and passwords (which I beefed up in the process) in one place, but the exercise has also brought to my attention the vital importance of a little digital housekeeping from time to time.

It's time to leave some of that baggage behind...

If spring is the time to clean house, then I propose fall be the time to organize the scope of our digital lives. I firmly believe organization is the key to productivity so if you're having trouble in that area or even if you're just feeling bogged down by all the services you're signed up for, here are a few tips to get you moving in a better direction:

1. Are your apps holding you back? Mine were. And not just because I didn't have enough space to upgrade the software on my iPhone. I simply had too many apps kicking around that I downloaded to "check out", but the problem was, most of them had been downloaded for the same purpose--I wanted somewhere to write on the go. But after a while, I had so many of them that I couldn't remember which was which. I couldn't remember which ones I liked. I couldn't remember which ones I'd synced to the cloud or which ones were even capable of that. It was time for a major purge. After categorizing my various apps into folders, I started the process of opening each one to remind myself of how it worked and whether or not I liked using it. If anything about it didn't meet my needs, I ditched it. Even if there were aspects of it I did like, I don't have time for multiple apps that do the same thing. In the end, I isolated a trio of writing apps that each serve a distinct purpose, including one for writing on the go, and I trashed the rest, deleting related accounts as I went. I then did this with the rest of my apps, cleaning up anything I wasn't really using. I could already feel the digital burden on my shoulders getting lighter.

2. Next up was cloud storage services. Most of us don't only subscribe to one, even if we didn't make that decision consciously. But doesn't it feel a bit scattered to have your online storage be so, well, scattered? I found myself signed up for several of these online storage services (again to try them out in an effort to find the one I liked best, or sometimes because of a promotion offering extra GBs for free). It got to be a bit much. So I made a list of all the services I was signed up for and started to cull the list where I could (again, closing the accounts of anything I no longer planned to use). I still find myself with multiple accounts--Google Drive, iCloud, and a few others can be unavoidable--but the ones I've kept each serve a distinct purpose and now that I've got myself organized, I can start to use each one more effectively than ever (including the use of a highly secure service, Tresorit, to back up my most sensitive documents).

3. Email. Oh email. You started out so simple once upon a time. I had one email address to meet all my needs. But that has somehow spiralled out of control to the point where I have several. As with cloud storage, there is a certain amount of necessity to it, with different emails being used for different purposes, but still, there are extras that can go. Again, I made a list of all the email accounts I've accumulated over the years so that I can decide which ones to keep and which to shut down. Even if you find yourself keeping several, as I did, it's good to have them catalogued in some way, to have them on your radar, and again, to take the opportunity to strengthen any passwords that you created back before online security was the issue it is today.

4. Which brings me to my final (for now) note about digital baggage--if you're anything like me, you have more miscellaneous online accounts than you can account for (see what I did there?). It's not easy, but it's really important (and ultimately very rejuvenating) to make a list of all the online accounts you can think of, make sure that you close accounts you don't use anymore, and securely lock down anything you do (especially if it's linked to personal information or banking info). Trust me, the very act of having an inventory of all the accounts you own goes a long way toward feeling more organized and in control of your digital footprint.

Now that that's taken care of, I can focus on writing my next WIP, and because of the work I put into cataloging/culling things now, the exercise of tidying things up again next year should be a breeze :)

What do you do to keep your digital baggage from getting too heavy?

it's amazing what you can do

Motivation is not always easy to come by. But it's something writers need to get the job done. Often we'll feel motivated at the most inconvenient times (in the shower, as we're falling asleep) but that's what mad dashes to find pen and paper are for :) The key is to stay motivated and excited about a project until you're able to see it through.

Chocolate can be an excellent motivator ;)

Motivation is how I usually decide which project to work on next. Which idea am I most excited about? Which one am I most likely to not give up on? One of the biggest problems people who start writing books but never finish experience is a sudden lack of interest in where the story is going. Some call it writer's block. But really, it's a lack of motivation. Finishing a novel is all about getting the words down on the page, no matter what. 

I've come to believe it's possible to learn to motivate yourself. I'm finally in a position where I can get myself in gear fairly easily, but with a newborn at home, I have to find creative ways to facilitate that motivation. But that's the great thing about motivation. It moves you to take action. And that's why you sometimes see witty prose scrawled on napkins, or, as I've recently discovered, the beginnings of a new WIP typed with one hand into a smartphone writing app. I'm going to have to format the crap out of it later, but at least I'm taking advantage of the motivation when it strikes :)

What do you do to keep yourself motivated?

one day at a time, with an eye on tomorrow

It's been hard to find time to blog lately. It's been hard to find time to do much of anything lately. My infant son turns one month old today. Need I say more?

I've been blessed with a baby who sleeps surprisingly well at night (so far--knock on wood) which means he occasionally doesn't sleep well during the day. I'm not complaining. But I am ambitious and I often end up feeling like I've accomplished nothing in a day. That's okay. I know the early weeks after giving birth should primarily be spent making sure both the baby and I eat and sleep and keep breathing. If that's all a new mother accomplishes in a day, she's doing her job. 

But I'm also close to finishing work on my fourth novel. Painfully close. So close I just want to finish revisions so that it isn't sitting nearly ready on my desk anymore. So I'm working on it when I can. I've learned it's possible to revise a book in small chunks. I've also learned it's possible to revise a book while nursing and with a baby sleeping on your chest. It's not ideal. But that's okay. Sometimes you have to step back and remind yourself to take things one day at a time. And if things don't go as planned, you can hope tomorrow will be better. The ability to do that is something worth valuing. Robin Williams' recent suicide was a painful reminder of the fact that not everyone is able to always see things that way. But, though cliche, it's true. Tomorrow is full of possibility. No bad day can't be conquered by that hope. But you have to remind yourself to hold onto it. It's what moves us forward. 

Another thing I've learned is that I can blog from my phone with one hand. This entire post was written that way. Again, it's not ideal, but it's okay. I know it won't be like this forever :)