Virtual Brush Box

Art of the outside world. World Origami Days: Origami Documentary. In celebration of World Origami Days that started on 24 October and end with World Origami Day on 11 November. Explanation, WOD: World Origami Days. Despite the title, the page lists many things to watch. Enjoy.

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Farmers’ Almanac: Month Names Explained: How the Months Were Named, Lederer, August 7, 2026

Numbers would have been a better visual. Used words instead due to connotation of these numbers.

Onwards!
Katherine

✍️✍️✍️

Hello!

Whew. Finally time to write. I owe the blog a long explanatory post, after – let me check – two and a half months (!?!) of short updates.

Part of the issue has been overwhelm. There are so many new people here (Welcome!). It made me self-conscious. At the beginning, writing to a few folks was easy. I knew most of you IRL (waves hi!). Then the blog grew. Writing to few hundred could be intimidating, but mostly I didn’t think about it. Now that numbers have exploded, it feels as if I am standing in my pajamas in the front of an auditorium. What should I say? What do they want to hear? Finally, I decide to ignore all of it and write to the same folks who have been with me all along. This is the blog, Life of an Author. I talk about the mechanics of writing and living the writing life, with the occasional cat photo. What would the Internet be without cat pictures? But I digress.

In addition, part of the issue has been time. I have been stunningly busy with promotional activities for my latest book. I mean that literally. Stunned. I look around and think Wait? What? How is this my life? I’ve published books before. I’ve done promo tours before. Granted they tended to be local or regional, but I have done them. Podcasts. Books signings. I’ve been on panels at conventions. I am familiar with what the modern publishing landscape requires of authors.

Or I thought I was familiar with what the the modern publishing landscape requires of authors. Turns out there is a whole other level for a book that takes off. Suddenly I’m getting national tours! Yes, I was a theater kid, why do you ask? My agent has had to turn down requests. I’ve been on television. Twice! It’s been amazing. And thrilling. And, as I said, stunning.

How did we get here?

For the record, and for anyone who is new around here, I wanted to recap the relationship between the blog and the book. I talked about it a little in the epilogue in the book. Here’s the full story.

As it says on my About page & in the first post, I was told that authors needed a media presence. So, here I am. I couldn’t see myself doing videos, but I can make words. So I started a blog. You may have noticed that I don’t talk about the content of my work in progress. Some writers love to hash things out beforehand. I am definitely in the keep-it-to-yourself camp. That left the mechanics of the writing life. That was hard to come up with content at first. My books may be interesting, but my day-to-day schedule is not, since it is mostly sitting in front of a screen wiggling my fingers. Sometimes I go elsewhere and wiggle my fingers there. Not the stuff of gripping narrative.

Although my books weren’t the stuff of gripping narrative either. I’ll get to that.

I started to have fun. A few hundred words on what I had been doing lately. Who doesn’t like to talk about themselves? I could type away without worrying about character development, or what I had named that town two chapters back. Just, Hi, this is me stepping out from behind my keyboard.

I also start to get fascinated with the how of it all. How did writers develop their ideas? How did I develop my ideas​? I was able to place a few articles on the subject with writing magazines. Felt good to get back to my non-fiction roots.

I started the blog as my first book was being ushered into print. Kept at it through my second book. It’s all back there. Copy edits. Contracts. Conventions. I took Scalzi’s advice and tried to be transparent about money. Bottom line, I’m making a good living. I also have a spouse with a steady job and health insurance.

And then my agent started shopping book three. The reception was … nice. The people were nice about it. I was told the book was nice. The money offered was nice. It was a festival of niceness.

I flew to Chicago for a requested face-to-face with my agent. Apparently, there are some things you just can’t say thorough the ether. She told me there were three roads in front of me, some under my control, some not. One, keep cranking out the books I had been writing and have a nice – there’s that word again – comfy career. Two, keep cranking out the books I had been writing and watch my career slowly tank. Nobody had said anything specific, nothing she could point to but she felt that interest was fading. People taking longer to get back to her. Other people not responding at all. Just a little for this book. Maybe more for the next. Or she could be wrong and everything would work out. She admitted she had nothing to point to, it was more of a feeling that she couldn’t shake.

Nor could she point to anything specific in the books. My word usage was clever but not pretentious. My plots were tight. I hit all the technical marks. It was floundering on artistic merit. Too calm to be action; too exciting to be cosy.

She challenged me to do something different. She would continue to work on selling this book, while I worked on the next one, which I should be doing anyway.

So I went home. There was whining and moaning. There was self-doubt. Waves of self doubt. Gales of November waves of self doubt. I thought of myself as a writer. Was I some sort of vanilla hack cranking out – her words – books? I cared about my characters. I worked hard on those totally average books.

While moping, I didn’t write, not even the blog. What was I going to say? Waaah, my agent thinks I’m mediocre? News flash, most of us are mediocre. By definition, the majority of us are average. That’s what average means. But anyway. I didn’t think it was fair to pin this on her, at least publicly. Until now.

So what could I do that was different? That was special? That was my own unique gift to the world?

I.
Had.
No.
Idea.

Enter the first poll.

I finally dragged myself back the keyboard. I appealed to blog readers for help. I wrote a post that said that I was stuck in a huge rut and would they give me hand. I had picked three characters and assigned each one a number. I had picked three settings and assigned each one a letter. I set up a simple poll that asked two questions. Pick a number and pick a letter. I didn’t explain the options. Just asked them to pick.

The result was an out-of-work clown on a space station. It was insane. It was clearly never going to be a book or a short story. So I just started typing. It was a hoot. To let folks know how the poll went, I posted a plot summary and a few scenes. The unedited version was way too chaotic for public consumption. That was the point. It shook me loose. Got me going.

I tried a few more. Since I had no way to compensate each person for their time, I promised a donation to charity for each person who responded to the poll. I always listed the charity, so people had a choice. It worked well as an exercise. I even wrote a post to that effect and recommended other bloggers try it for themselves.

One of the exercises eventually grew into the base for the new book. I kept going with the polls. I tried to vary the questions to keep the polls interesting. I might ask if a character should turn left or right. Or ask people chose among a selection of colors. That’s were Alex’s yellow hat came from.

I always included at least one wild card outlier. Sometimes they were picked up, sometimes they weren’t. I tried to be true to the results, even if I thought the answers were wrong or weird.

On at least one occasion, the result was outright impossible. Y’all wanted Alex to be a parent. I don’t have kids. I can’t write a main character who has a entire section of their life closed to me. But I wanted to be responsive. The whole point was to do new things. I thought about this for over week. I decided that maybe there were nieces and nephews for whom they had some sort of emotional and/or legal ties. As if waiting for her cue, Alex’s sister, Beryl, and her kids stepped onto the stage. I can’t imagine the book without them.

On another occasion, the timing was wrong. Being true to the poll results would have given away too much of the ending too soon.

But mostly, I tried to do as the power of the poll commanded.

When I sent the manuscript to my editor, she responded the next day. Her entire email was an exclamation point.

No polls this time. A heartfelt thank you to every reader who has joined me on this adventure. Your gift to me has been, well, stunning.

✍️✍️✍️

Afterword

Websites of the outside world. The Mary Sue.

Blog ticking along. Didn’t have anything to say for State of the Blog. [Archives]

Decided to use the opportunity as a chance to practice more fiction. While I will happily admit that the result is 100% wish fulfillment, it was a hoot to write. I had more, but I was out of time and figured 1,500+ words (!) was enough to get the idea across.

Previous Semi-Related Posts

[Rage Anthem, A Fictional Author Interview]

[Blog As Literary Device, A Consideration of Fiction Techniques]

Onwards!
Katherine

Sports of the outside world. Historically, ESPN: What is an EBUG? What to know about NHL backup goaltenders, Jenkins 2025. Appears to be changing this year. Holley Patrol: Every NHL team will now carry a No. 00 emergency goalie home and away, McAfee, August 26, 2026. Example from the new position, NHL: The Sunday Read: Meet Kyle Chauvette, the Bruins’ New EBUG, Fraser, BostonBruins.com, October 04, 2026.

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Walks continue. Everything else, not so much.

Pelham City Park

Daily Walks

Walked every day, even when I felt punk. [Milton’s Interesting Leg, Horsekeeping]

I didn’t particularly want to, but we took Milton on a lap for his leg. [Milton’s Not So Interesting Laps, Morning Walk Stories]

After that, well, I’ve gotten this far, might as well finish.

Daily walk included 5K day.

Monthly 5K

Pelham City Park
31 October 2026

Walked back & forth along creek.

Aimed to maintain 3 mph rather than simply strolling. One, for a change. Two, walked during errands & didn’t want to keep my ride waiting.

Only tough part was the last .5 mile, where I did short loops to finish the distance. My walking assembly did not enjoy bypassing the finish line.

Strava map
Distance: 3.16 miles (5.08 km)
Time: 57:50

Previous walk [5Ks, Final Fitness Friday for 2024]

Photos [By The River, Reflection, Leaf]

Swim

Once.

Week one. Check, four laps.

Week two. Day I set aside for swim was the day they put the bubble over the pool for winter.

Week three. Work, show, and thinking it should not be this hard to fit in one ten-minute swim in the space of a week.

Week four. Show & work continued to consume my brain.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. USA Facts: Why does daylight saving time exist? Lesson below started at 5 pm and was losing light at the end. By the time this is posted, 4 pm lessons will lose light at the end. Survey of the Internet says permanent DST unlikely. What about permanent Standard Time? I’m good with either as long as we can stop swapping. Animals agree. They do not like feed times moving about.

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Goldy
Golden Evening Light
Rosewood Stables
21 October 2026

This week, I was the second one to ride, which is just as weird as being the first one to ride. At an ASB show, when I’m sharing a horse I usually go first, since the Academy section starts off with the Adult classes. [Goldy Sparkles, first to ride]

We still went for a walk to start. While Goldy didn’t need to loosen up after his lesson, I still did and I thought a stroll might be a nice break for him.

Still getting help from running through the checklist from a previous lesson: heels, weight, shoulder hands. [Goldy Sparkles]

Now I have to start watching for overcorrection. For example, shifting my weight to the center without pulling up my leg and losing the stirrup on that side. Generally this happens with the left stirrup as we head left. Heading to the right, my weight is already to the outside.

My wonderful groom reminded me that Goldy responds to motivation with my post rhythm. Anything involving rhythm is a dubious proposition with me, but more bounce in my bounce seems to translate to more bounce in the horse.

Flubbed by canter transitions. Wonder groom said I was leaning forward. As soon as I sat up/straightened up of course Goldy was flawless. Getting better contact at the canter.

While the evening was pretty, it also meant the light was fading by the end of our lesson. We didn’t end up jumping much nor very high. Goldy saw no reason to find it exciting.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. A black woman is governor of a Deep South state. My bingo card has melted.

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{Busy this week. Leaving you with a bunch of horsekeeping posts.}

Today’s stunningly obvious conclusion. People think differently.

Horse dinners in our house involve assembling meals with a range of scoop sizes from a variety of bags.

I do breakfast. Other Horse Minion does dinner. The ingredients are the same. The amounts differ between the two meals.

Recently, OHM was at work late. He walked me through preparing horse buckets for dinner.

It was weird.

My system. I go bag by bag. A scoop each of this. A scoop of that. A cup of that. Move to the other.

OHM’s system. He goes by scoop size. A scoop from this bag. A scoop from that bag. A scoop from the other bag. A cup from this bag. A cup from that bag. A cup from the other bag.

It felt viscerally wrong to be serving Outlast in the middle rather than towards the end.

People are weird.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Vote.

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{Busy this week. Leaving you with a bunch of horsekeeping posts.}

Problem

The middle section of the outer casing of the leadrope tore, leaving a strip of fabric and a multitude of strands.

Repair

Step one. Divide strands into two groups.

Step two. In a closed loop, make a braid with two groups of strands and one strip of fabric.

How to keep the braid from unraveling as soon as you let go? Option a. Tie two of the three elements together. Or, option b …

Step three. When the braid is tight, bring the end of the leadrope through the middle of the braid. This reverses the bottom half.

Result

Useable leadrope.

Cool.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Gender is everywhere. On the ESPN telesport Slippery Stairs, men wear black bodysuits covered with colored t-shirts while women wear colored bodysuits. Adjustment is possible. In a recent broadcast, one entry on the girls race opted for the masculine bodysuit & t-shirt outfit.

~~~

Busy this week. Leaving you with a bunch of horsekeeping posts.

Remember when I said it wasn’t winter woollies?

“Day Four, Thursday … Put a cooler on to warm up his muscles … Other Barn Minion claims the cooler is therapeutic. It does not count as the first blanket of the winter.” [Milton’s Interesting Leg]

That didn’t last long.

Day Four was Thursday 8 October.

Ten days later, Sunday 18 October, Rodney got a cooler for morning walk. On Monday, the 19th, they both got one.

We are in that part of the year when it is too warm for blanket at dinner and then chilly in the morning. This year, we have the added wrinkle of getting outright hot during the day. Welcome to warm evenings, chilly morning, and hot days.

Right now, it’s just light blankets for a brief period. However, it’s a sign that heavy blankets all day are on the horizon.

Do they need coolers for their walk? No. They seem to enjoy them.

Onwards!
Katherine