Your Fiction Or Your Fanny? I WANT BOTH!!!!

Posted on January 10, 2011 by RoseAnn DeFranco

This is a bit of an inside joke amongst my writing friends.  When time is limited, how do you find time to exercise AND write?  Between family, work obligations and writing, I average about six hours of sleep per night.  I know that this is not enough, hence the name of my blog! 🙂

This is the best time of year to reflect on the whole Fiction/Fanny issue.  Posts are going up all over the writing circles and loops about New Year’s diet resolutions combined with completing manuscripts in time to pitch at the next conference.  If I’m being honest, I think about it all the time.  I have to.  I have fought the good fight all my life in the weight department.  Mom started monitoring my portion sizes at a pretty young age.   When I was told no more bread, my grandfather passed it to me under the table.  Love you, Papa Louie!  I have stared the point of no return right in the eye and for the most part (does pregnancy count?) haven’t gone over the edge.   I am finding that as my age goes up, it is getting harder to keep the weight down. 

The other night, I came home after work, hubby (God, love him!) prepped some leftovers for dinner.  I wasn’t really hungry, but ate anyway.  That’s just the kind of girl I am!  After dinner, I put on my workout clothes, took a load of laundry out of or the dryer, threw another load in the wash, and helped the little one with a school project while cleaning the kitchen.  By the time the kitchen and the project were completed, I had to decide…do I go into my office and write, or stick to the initial plan and hit the elliptical machine and weights?  This time, I hit the keyboard (and started this blog post).  Next time I’ll chose different, but the fact is…I don’t want to have to decide!  I’ve tried several scenarios to fit both writing and exercise in.  I’ve gotten up earlier to exercise every other day which means the alarm rings at 5:30am and then I’m too tired to write that night.  I’ve tried to exercise and shower at night before writing, but after a nice warm shower, I’m pretty much done for the night!  The creativity has gone to sleep!  I do try to get a solid workout in on both Saturday and Sunday, but let’s face it…sometimes social engagements, kid activities and writing meetings interfere.  Or sometimes, I just need to catch up on some sleep!    

There’s really no way around it.  Quitting the day job doesn’t work because that’s not gonna buy baby a new pair of shoes (or pay the mortgage!)  Clearly, I need a new plan and I think I’ve found it.  I’m going to dust off those Shape Up sneakers and bring them to work.  I have access to a fitness center in my building.  If I want my Fiction and my Fanny, I should be able to walk on the treadmill at least three times a week during my lunch hour, right?  It’s also time to practice some self-restraint.  I just loaded the Lose It App onto my iPhone.  The goal is a pound a week for a total of ten pounds.  Wish me luck.  This is going to be hard with my mother’s Christmas Cookies in the freezer.  Maybe I should polish them off before getting started!   I’d love to know how others manage the whole Fiction/Fanny dilemma.

Posted in Family, Focus, Goals | 4 Comments

The Clutter of My Life

Posted on December 31, 2010 by RoseAnn DeFranco

When I’m not up late at night plotting, crafting characters and creating towns that I’d love to live in, I’m busy with a fairly demanding day life.  Over the past six months I orchestrated two office moves for my day job.  While I was able to utilize the creative side of my brain to a certain extent when it came to paint, fabric selections and designs, I also found myself dealing with a lot of clutter.   In general, I discovered that it is much easier to remove someone else’s clutter than your own.  We filled dumpster after dumpster with items that had us scratching our heads.   Why would anyone hold on to these things?  When it came to streamlining my own work area, hitting the dumpsters was a bit harder, but it had to be done. 

All the organizing for work has me turning a focused eye on my home work area.  I tend to clean out my home office once a year.   It is not in a horrible state at the moment.  That is to say, it is not past the point of no return.  Last year (or was it two years ago?) I cleaned out 6 bags of trash and really organized my things.  I created this binder with treasured workshop notes from speakers whom I greatly admire.  The tabs are labeled with items like POV, emotion, dialogue, setting, plotting, and so on.  It is a great referencing tool, but if certain piles on and around my desk are any indication, I haven’t kept the binder up this year.  It is time to get re-organized and rejuvenated for the New Year.  I feel good about my current writing projects and I’d like my workspace to reflect that. 

To be fair, the desk is not entirely a writing desk.  It is also a Mom desk, a Housewife desk and sometimes on those days when I need to stay home with a sick child or if I’m sick myself, it becomes a work-from-home desk.  There are folders on my desk labeled Girl Scouts, CCD, Second Grade, Holiday/Birthday 2010 and Bathroom Renovation Project.  In a sense, the desk is a reflection of the various pieces of me. 

Upon further reflection, I don’t feel bad about the state that it is in.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s getting cleaned, but In the midst of the clutter on the upper shelf…tissues, hand lotion, candles, pens kept in a container decorated from my little one’s pre-school days, there are two pictures on either corner.  They are two of the most beautiful faces I’ll ever know.  My little Angel Baby from when she was 7 months old in a photo that will always be one of my favorites, and my husband, holding a fish on a sunny day after what looks like a fun and productive time at the Jersey Shore.  Clearly they are my anchors in this sea of clutter, and the reason why, regardless of the demands of work or life, I sit down at this computer night after night with the hope of creating something that will make them proud.

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WARNING!!! This Could End Up in My Novel!

Posted on November 29, 2010 by RoseAnn DeFranco

People talk to me.  Shortly after meeting someone they seem to want to share their entire life story, deepest darkest secrets included, with me.   I can’t say how many times I’ve heard the phrase…I don’t know why I’m telling you this…OR…This isn’t something I normally talk about.. OR…I haven’t thought about this in years!  I also tend to remind people of someone they know.  Doesn’t she look like so and so’s sister?  She even SOUNDS like her!  Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot.   This knowledge would have been helpful when I was on my pilgrimage into the theatrical world eons ago.  The whole point is to stand out in the world of theatre…clearly, I blend in!  Not the greatest asset for an aspiring actress, but as an aspiring writer, I’ll take it!  🙂

Talk to me!  Tell me what makes you tick.  I want to know your dreams and triumphs.  I want to know how you overcame adversity, faced your fears, and thrived.  There is nothing I love more than to hear YOUR story.  How did you get from point A to point B?  How did a girl from upstate NY with musical stars in her eyes land in the burbs of Jersey writing romance?  It might not be the most interesting of stories, but it’s mine and I love it.  Every single person that I’ve met along the way is part of that story, and then there it is…all the other stories within the story. 

In my writing, I strive to make my characters as authentic as possible.  They become real to me in every sense of the word.  I invest myself emotionally in their journey to happiness.  Remember…this is romance…a happy ending is the one thing you can always count on!  It is what happens along the way that keeps the reader turning the page.  When I finish writing a novel, it is hard for me to say goodbye to my characters.  Recently I decided that I didn’t have to and began a series.  I now have a whole cast of characters from the fictional Jersey Shore town of Audubon Springs and each of them has a story to tell.  The possibilities are endless! 

To those of you who have been so generous with your stories…you might find that pieces of you landed on the pages of the Audubon Springs series, and for that, I’d like to say…it was unconsciously done, but thank you for sharing!

Posted in Audubon Springs Series | Tagged , | 4 Comments