Advent is coming, which means Christmas isn’t far away.

How was your Thanksgiving holiday? It’s a great time for catching up with folks I don’t see or hear from often.

My volunteer work at the nonprofit thrift store is going along at a regular pace. Monday mornings, I make my way up the road from the house and get there within five minutes. Then I’m busy all morning, either getting items onto the racks or helping the staff check out the customers.

Although I prefer being in the back room working, sometimes it’s just impossible to get onto the floor, it’s so busy, so why not spend the time getting the customers out the door?

That works well. Each day at the store, I see what the needs are, and I think about what I can contribute. This means I’m donating more now, and I understand the process for tagging items and putting them onto the racks, so I just go ahead now. I donated a jacket and a coat, neither of which I even wear anymore.

How’s the writing life?

With respect to the project I first began in January, I finally finished the first draft of the manuscript.

The writing classes I took in the winter and spring gave me time to think about my writing. I wrote and rewrote the first chapter several times. By the time the second class ended in June, I had four chapters.

Between June and November, I wrote on average a chapter per week, for a total of 18 chapters.

I registered for the next class in January, this one is more advanced. My goal is to work on the revisions.

I like the idea of giving each chapter its own document. I spend so much time in critique groups, it seemed to me that this would be the easiest way of writing and revising.

But that also means I can’t do a real document search for whatever I want to look up. I need greater familiarity with each of the chapters so that I can make my searches specific to each chapter.

The goal is to put all the chapters into one document at the end for the second draft of the manuscript.

Next, I returned to the new project that I’m working on through my current writer’s class.

The latest assignment was to submit a page of dialogue. Later in the month, we were to submit a full scene or as much as a chapter.

I figured the best thing to do would be to write the full chapter. But here’s what’s interesting. Who was going to lead the point of view in the scene?

It isn’t always who you think it should be, especially when the instructor had us write the scene from each character’s point of view.

I thought at beginning with the hero was the answer, but it didn’t sound right. I shifted to the heroine, and that was when it worked better.

I sometimes have a showing v. telling challenge. If I’m telling, the words just flow onto the page. Showing, I must step inside the characters’ heads and go into deep pov–what’s going on, the feelings, the actions.

Here are some books I’m reading and a craft book I learned about:

Here are some items I baked for the church social hour and some items I bought for a children’s outreach the church is sponsoring: buying items on the holiday wish lists for needy children.

Have a great month!

Copyright Barbara James, all rights reserved.