Watch your thoughts, they become your words.

Watch your words, they become your actions.

Watch your actions, they become your habits.

Watch your habits, they become your character.

Watch your character, it becomes your Destiny.”

-Frank Outlaw (Maybe? Several people are credited with saying it.)

During college, I had this written on a piece of paper and taped above my desk. I’m starting to think that maybe I should write it out and tape it up again because the truth in it is still as relevant today as it was then. 

Recently, when our car troubles started, I found myself blaming the situation for my bad mood and for not keeping my writing schedule. I kept going to bed frustrated that I’d spent all day playing shuffle the cars to get either Squeak or Laylana to the shop for repairs. Remembering this quote gave me pause.

I was letting the situation drive both my thoughts and my actions. It was a humbling realization. I was giving the situation the power to decide whether I was content.

Yet, we humans have this amazing capacity to own such situations with our thoughts. I didn’t have to hand over the keys to my writing or my contentment to random car issues. Even writing for five minutes at the end of the day would have been enough to keep moving forward. 

Maybe some days even five minutes isn’t an option. That too is okay. I still have the power to decide how it affects me. The situation doesn’t get to decide that I’m frustrated. It doesn’t get to own all my time. I can accept that we’re having frustrating car issues and still enjoy dinner with my husband and go to bed with a smile.

Past experience tells me that owning my thoughts like this isn’t easy, especially after allowing the situation to drive me down ugly roads for a while. But it also tells me that it’s possible. I just don’t get to be lazy with my thinking anymore.

Anyway, I’m rambling now, so I’ll kick my pondering soap box back in the corner and leave it at that. I just needed a reminder that I do, in fact, have a choice about how I think. And I thought I’d share because I doubt I’m the only one who finds situations driving your thoughts down roads you don’t want.

Thankfully, we have a choice

Blessings

The post Watching My Thoughts appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

One day my home room teacher has a great idea. She’s got a problem student who needs some coaching, so she places the guy next to me and says I’m now his tutor. Panic sets in. I can barely read and she wants me to tutor one of the cool guys? It’s a dreadful idea. Like ice cream on the face humiliating. 

But I’m also terribly shy. The idea of speaking up is just as terrifying as tutoring. 

Next thing I know, she’s passing out the day’s quiz. On our answer sheets we’re supposed to write the number of the quiz and the word “quiz.” That should be easy, but my brain does that thing when you stare at something long enough, it doesn’t look right. So, I try adding an -e on the end of the word. 

It’s at this point that the kid I’m supposed to be tutoring glances over and sees what I’ve written. He adds an -e to his paper as well. 

I immediately know that it’s spelled wrong. But then, I’m still shy, so I let it ride and we both turn in our quizzes with the first word misspelled. 

He never trusted me after that, and my teacher soon moved our seats again. 

***

Sometime later, my sister’s boyfriend hands me a book he’s excited to share. He doesn’t know that I can’t read it and I’m still too terribly shy to speak up. Plus, he’s cool. Like I tag-along-as-a-third-wheel-any-chance-I-get kind of cool. So, I take the book home. (We’ve since debated if the book was Eye of the World by Robert Jordan or one of David Edding’s books. You’d think I’d remember such an important detail, but I read them so close together that the timeline has blurred.)

Anyway, I take the book home and attempt to read it. 

It’s fantasy. It’s really long. It somehow starts to paint pictures in my head. 

There’s a condition called aphantasia where a person can only conceptualize an object, person, or scene. For instance, they can’t actually see an apple in their mind, but they can conceptualize that it’s round and red.

I am not one of those people, and this was when I found that out. I’m not Hyperphantasia either. I don’t have photographic memory and faces tend to give me issues. But describe a scene to me and I’ll fill in vast details. 

For the first time in my life, the words on the page disappeared and I was seeing the forests and the swords, the fancy dresses and the castles. 

It was magic I’d never encountered before. I loved it. 

When I finished the book, I asked my sister’s boyfriend for another to read. As I hinted before, I sped through the Wheel of Time series (what was available at the time) and all of David Eddings’ books as well. I went from a third grade reading level to post grad in a year. 

After dozens of tests to see if I was dyslexic or had some other reading disorder, it finally clicked and I still don’t know why. This might be why I never assume reading is beyond a person. Maybe they just haven’t picked up the right book yet. 

This is also why I write. I want to paint pictures, create magic, and hopefully help others read because the stories are just that interesting. 

Blessings,

Jennifer

P.S. Some of you might recognize this story. I’ve written about it before but, since it’s been so long, I thought I’d share it again with a slightly new part of the story. Here’s the original post.

The post Quiz -e appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

Although I could name dozens of tidbits, here’s two lessons that really stand out. 

1. Having the “Perfect” writing schedule is an illusion. Having the “Right” writing schedule for right now is possible. 

Perhaps there are people who find the “Perfect” schedule, and it consistently works for them. After reading my past posts, I must confess I am not one of those people. Time and again I’ve reworked, updated, and reorganized to figure out something that works for me. And for a time, that new schedule will run great.

But then something happens to totally upend my plans. For some reason, I’m picturing what snowboarders like to call a “yard sale.” Since this is such a strong picture in my head, I’ll run with it. 

A “yard sale” is when you catch the edge of the board and fall, and all your gear ends up scattered across the mountain slope. Your hat is half buried a dozen yards behind you, your goggles somehow ended up around your neck instead of on your face. One glove is still sliding down the snow like a runaway kitten. 

It takes time to recover. And when you start moving again, you find things don’t quiet work the same way they did when you started. 

This is my writing schedule. I’ll get down the mountain and mostly have a blast doing it, but I may have needed to recalibrate how I move midway through the run and I left my beanie behind because the effort to recover it is way more than the effort of just finding a new hat. 

I now hold any schedule with an open palm and try to have an idea of what takes priority because not everything from my to-do list may get done. Maybe the hat needs to be left behind.

2. Roll with the Punches

Life likes to toss in surprises now and then. It’d be really easy to get frustrated and beaten down because I somehow found a chunk of ice in the snow and now I’m staring at the sky. In writer words, something diverted me from a day of writing like our vehicle troubles have recently.

But I’ve found the frustration steals more from my writing than the mishaps. It doesn’t help me to dwell on the time lost. What does help is laughing at the absurdity of the overall situation, writing about it, and moving on. 

So, I didn’t get the 1,500 words written that I’d scheduled. That’s okay. It’s the accumulative over a longer period of time that matters, not the speedbumps that happen on any odd day. The trick is to keep moving.  

There’s so much more I could talk about but that would make this post reallllyyy long, so I’ll stop there. How about you? Are you able to keep a steady schedule? How do you handle mishaps that mess with your plans?

Blessings,  

The post Journal Lessons appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

I still love living here but the awe-novelty factor has dimmed.

This reminded me of some writing advice that I sometimes have to lean into. I don’t remember who coined the term, but I remember it as, “The Curse of Familiarity.” It’s basically the idea that we tend to overlook the things that feel normal to us, assuming those things won’t be interesting to others.

In writing, this looks like leaving out the detail about how the grilled zucchini turned to mush because it got left too long in the foil packet. Seems blah. But it adds texture and something concrete to the writing. I can imagine the squishy look, the slightly acidic smell, and the bitter taste of over grilled zucchini. Something so simple can bring the world to life. 

It’s good then to sit back and purposefully take in such details. For one, it helps me slow down to savor life. For two, it helps bring small details to my writing that add depth. 

Even if you’re not a writer, I encourage you to see your life through the eyes of a visitor. I might suggest looking at something other than mushy grilled zucchini but there’s just something that brings perspective and appreciation when the things around you aren’t written off because they’re familiar.

Blessings,

The post The Curse of Familiarity appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

Don’t get me wrong. The longer a person practices, the better their work becomes. However, the illusion espouses the idea that the artist no longer doubts him or herself. That we know exactly the quality we’re working at and are totally satisfied that we’re “there.” 

Pardon me while I quietly chuckle in dismay. This illusion hurts more artists than you might think because it makes us feel like we’re not succeeding. It makes the doubt louder and harder to ignore. Look at all the artists who are strutting their stuff! Why haven’t I managed to get there yet? 

The reality is, we’re all still growing and learning and at no point do we have a solid, objective scale to understand the quality of our own work. If we’re aware of the illusion, it becomes easier to accept that every story, sculpture, painting, or other piece of art comes with its learning curve. Every piece stretches us. And that’s part of the beauty of being a creative. Instead of being scared of the difficulty, we can view it as a signpost that we are succeeding because we’re still creating. 

I say all of this because I’m running into an interesting dichotomy as I’m working on Hidden Mythics III. I wrote a large portion, about 40K words, last year. Now, as I’m returning to the story, I’m finding a difference in the tone and structure of my writing. The writer I was last year is no longer the writer I am now.

I’m continuing to learn and grow. 

It’s a weird new kind of half editing/half writing for me. To keep the story from sounding like it has a split personality, I’m having to blend the old with the new. Some days I find myself staring at a single word because I love how it sits in the sentence, but it’s completely wrong for the scene as a whole.  There’s a saying that writers need to kill their darlings because we often want to keep things that don’t serve the story. 

Let’s just say I have been kindly cutting out such darlings and pasting them into a separate Word document for potential later use. You never know. Maybe it’s just a way to trick my brain into accepting them leaving the story for now. 

Anyway, the new HMIII is currently sitting at just over 27K words. Even as I’m having to blend my old writing with my new, I’m constantly reminded why I love this story. I’ve missed Na’rina’s quiet resolve, Icarus’ fierce protectiveness, and El’s spunk. And in HMIII, I’m getting to add a few new view points as well and it’s being really fun!

There’s just so many darlings that want to sneak their way into the story along the way!

Blessings,

The post HMIII August Writing Update appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

Of course, that all led to a tow truck and the shop having to get parts to fix the problem. So, Squeak has been in the shop awaiting some much-needed attention, which left my husband and I with one car. This isn’t usually a problem.

Fast forward to last Thursday when the Saga continued. 

My husband agreed to host an event for his work on Friday night. This meant he agreed to smoke pulled pork. This is a whole process involving setting up the smoker with the meat the evening before, checking it periodically throughout the night, and then finishing it the next day by wrapping it in foil, for the meat to be ready by around 3 pm on Friday. Planning ahead, we woke up early Thursday and headed to the next village over where they have a fantastic butcher. 

Halfway there, our SUV pops a code telling us to stop immediately and check the hybrid drive. I have an immediate, “Oh no!” moment. We’ve had this happen once before. Now, when there’s a potential issue with the hybrid drive, the SUV all but shuts off the electric side of the engine. It’s a smart safety feature that still allows us to drive the car, but by no means does said car, named Laylana, drive well. 

Remember, this is our only car unless you consider motorcycles, which my husband can’t ride while he’s recovering from his knee surgery. So, we quickly finished our grocery run and headed to the dealer to have them look at Laylana. 

In true German fashion, they agreed to look at it but gave no promises on how long it’d take. We sat in the show room looking at shiny new cars and sipping coffee while trying to get ahold of the shop working on Squeak to see if she was fixed yet. No dice. They never answered their phone. About forty minutes later, the technician informed us that the problem is the hybrid drive’s water pump, but they can’t get to it until Monday. She’s okay-ish to drive but watch the temperature. 

Driving away with an appointment for Monday, we decided to stop by the shop with the mini. The mechanic was returning from a test drive on Squeak when we arrived. Looked promising. Test drive went well but he warned us to watch the coolant because she was bone dry when he checked it. This was odd because we’re careful to watch our vehicle’s fluids.

Anyway, Squeak now acquired, we decided to return Laylana to the dealer. Maybe they could get to her sooner than Monday. Afterwards, we headed to a gas station to fill up Squeak. (Happens to be the same gas station as when she originally died on me.) She made it there all right, but when we shut her off, the fan was running like it’s going to explode. Along with getting gas, we decided to check the coolant. We found it bone dry again. Buying coolant, we filled her up but now we were a little shy to drive her, so we headed to a row of food trucks down the road for lunch. 

It was all of a five-minute drive. We checked the coolant again and found it low. Ugh. Now we were really struggling because in no way, shape, or form did we want to drive Squeak with a major coolant leak. 

But first, food.

We stopped long enough for some grilled salmon and rice. Once we had sustenance to fuel our brain power, we decided to check on renting a car for a week. This was not ideal by any means, but we agreed we could swing it for a short time. After calling around to several places, it turned out the best rental option was right next door to the food truck location. 

God is sooo good! We wandered in, enjoying the AC because everything else up to this point had been in 98 degree temperatures, and rented a car. 

Believing we were over the car issues for the day, we headed to the grocery store to get the other food items for Friday. Items procured, we headed back out only to find that the back hatch of the rental wouldn’t open. And now we had food stuffs to worry about. Namely, cheese. It’s at this point that I started just shaking my head because I couldn’t make this stuff up and I’m a writer! If I put this into a book people would say it’s not believable!

Heading back to the rental place, we all attempted to open the hatch by climbing in through the trunk and pressing the safety release. No dice. They kindly rented us another car and took back the problem child. 

Now with a working rental, we took Squeak back to the shop and dropped her off for more fixing and headed home to put food away. 

All said and done, it was a four-car, eight-hour day in mostly 98-degree temperatures. And we still had to smoke meat through the night.

But hey, the cheese and our sweaty selves made it home okay! And now we’re waiting to hear from either of the repair shops to see which car will get fixed first. Fingers crossed it’ll be the SUV because my husband still can’t drive the manual mini with his knee. As the old saying goes, it never rains but it pours! And the saga continues. 

Lessons learned for writing adventures: Decisions need to be hard! There’s always another twist to the story! And unless it kills you, you will make it out okay at the end. 

Blessings,

The post The Squeak Saga Continues! appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

One, they synthesize something that impacted each author deeply. Namely WWII. Several classics came from people who lived through WWII and who turned to a creative outlet to, in part, process what they experienced. Think Catch-22, The Hiding Place, The Catcher in the Rye, and even 1984 despite George Orwell being rejected from enlistment due to health. I think that’s part of what I’m encountering here. Two authors who let the tragedy, and subsequent profound questions, flow into their fictional worlds. 

The second aspect I think that may have influenced these books is that neither author created the stories fast. Myrer wrote Once an Eagle over about five years. That’s pretty quick for the early 60’s but it’s also a while after the war ended. I suspect that in-between period allowed for some processing beforehand. 

The Lord of the Rings was written over roughly 12 years starting in 1937. And there were some Inklings – Tolkien’s writing group – who expressed gratitude that it was published because it harnessed things they otherwise struggled to say. 

I’m not saying an author has to experience war to write a classic with amazing depth. But I am reminded that storytelling is an artform that allows us to process life on a deeper level than we’re sometimes able to put into plain words. It helps the human soul express when words feel hollow. The catch is, we have to allow ourselves the time for the soul to form the story and many of us have lost the ability to sit long enough for the soul to speak. It’s a thoughtful creature, only expressing itself when it’s given the space and the silence to be heard. 

Today’s publishing world drives authors to produce more, to write faster, to always have new things before their audience in order to stay relevant. They’re pushed toward rapid releases. Two or three books a year. Constant marketing. It’s a rush, rush, rush mindset. AI just adds another ugly element to this. I don’t want to dive into the controversy of AI right now, but this is the thing constant rush tends to smother and AI cannot replace. It’s the soft, yet often profound, expressions of the human soul. 

So, what I’m trying to take away from this is to let myself think and process deeply. Not to shy away from the difficult things such as my mother’s passing this year. But to let it wash over me and out through my fingertips in stories that communicate with other souls. To not be afraid that this takes time. Sometimes lots and lots of time. Because what comes out is lasting and might help the soul express what plain words can’t handle. 

What stories have connected deeply with you? What’s the secret sauce, do you think, to why they connect when others don’t?

Blessings,

The post In a World that Wants to Rush appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

That’s what Friday turned out to be. Type 2 kind of fun.

It all started with a trip to the grocery store. I crawled into our mini, affectionately named Squeak, and headed down the road with grocery list in hand. 

Unfortunately, poor Squeak doesn’t have a working AC, so I drove all cool like with the windows rolled down and my hair a rat’s nest. 

No worries, it was only for a grocery trip. Food bought, I headed back home, taking a detour because of construction on my usual route. Hopped up onto the Autobahn briefly, hopped back off, took a few roundabouts, and ended up stuck in traffic due to a car that had caught on fire and closed down the road. It was about 95 degrees at this point, and my back was sticking to the seat. 

In Germany, it’s illegal to idle your car longer than 3 minutes. So, I shut off the engine and waited. Turned her back on when we inched forward. Shut her back off. Back on to inch again. And then started wondering how long the groceries would last in the heat because the only reason I was inching forward occasionally was because other people were flipping U’s in the road and heading a different way. 

I finally decided to follow suit to take the route past my husband’s work. I turned the car back on and flipped around to head back through the last roundabout. At about that time I started to smell hot car. You know, that rubbery, burning smell that has you looking around trying to figure out if it’s you or someone else. 

I was almost to the next roundabout when a taxi pulls alongside me in the other lane with his window rolled down. 

He shouted, “Something’s coming out of your car!”

Dang! “Thanks!” 

I’d slowed down to hear him and sure enough smoke wisped from under Squeak’s hood. My brain started scrambling to figure out what to do. At times like this my brain doesn’t always think in full sentences. So, the thoughts went something like: Low coolant? Explains smoke. Need gas station!

Because of my husband’s recent knee surgery and me chauffeuring him around for a while, I actually knew about a gas station right by his work. Set on a goal, I headed that direction with two more roundabouts to go. 

I was midway through the first one when something thudded against the front right passenger side of the car. A glance in the mirror showed nothing on the road, so it was something under the hood. By now I was praying hard. Lord, gas station, please! It’s a good thing God understands Jen because this wasn’t fully coherent either.  

I reached the last roundabout and realized my power steering was gone. I mean, I was wrestling the wheel around the circle to make the left. That counted as my Friday workout because dang that sucker didn’t want to turn! 

Finally in the station, I parked and shut Squeak off, thanking God that she made it that far as smoke billowed out from under the hood. My back and legs were stuck to the seat from sweat and I was sympathizing with the poor mini. 

A quick call to my husband and he swooped in like the hero he is in my life. Groceries were saved while I stopped melting under our SUV’s glorious AC. 

After a look under the hood, we found the serpentine belt hanging loose. Not sure yet if it was the actual belt that broke, the tensioner, or something else, but I suspect it was the tensioner because the belt was new when we bought her. Either way, Squeak done stopped running. Turns out, her name’s a bit ironic. She squeaked because of that new belt.

I’m still thanking God for all the little details that lined up for me to safely get to a gas station! So yeah, type 2 kind of fun and a lot of providence in this recent adventure!

Blessings,

The post Squeak Done Stopped appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

I started to wonder if I’m a bit lazy in this because I use taste a lot! But then I realized that foods are a strong element in real life when I’m experiencing new places. I can’t think of Washington without remembering picking peaches, the juices of our “test” peach making our fingers sticky. Or cherries and raspberries! We’d eat just as many as we picked sometimes because they’re never quite as flavorful as when they’re fresh off the vine.

So, it’s no surprise that Germany has some really fun experiences with foods too. A while back I was introduced to a Rumtopf or Rum Pot. Around January, you start to see rum fruits with ice cream on the local menus. Of course, we had to try it! 

Yum!

Beyond the yumminess of it all, however, a Rumtopf is ripe for worldbuilding. (Pardon the pun .)

The process of making Rumtopf Fruits

What Germans do is they start a Rumtopf in May or June using the first fruit of the season, usually strawberries. They layer cut strawberries with sugar and cover everything with rum in the bottom of a glass or ceramic jar that has a good sealing lid. 

Then they wait for the next ripe fruit. Apricots or maybe cherries. They cut these up and add them as layers to the jar along with more sugar and rum. This continues throughout the growing season until September or October with plums, grapes, or maybe pineapple. 

You can probably see where this is going. Once the last fruit is added, the Rumtopf is closed again and left to muddle through the rest of the year until Christmas time. All the juices and sugar meld together into a delicious slurry of fruits and rum syrup. 

Traditionally, it’s served over ice cream or cake, and Germans often put it into jars to gift to others. 

Well, you can imagine my reaction to this. This is a traditional German dessert?! It has fruit and rum?! Yup, gotta try it! 

I think I might have gotten a jar that’s too large, but we’ll see. So far, I have strawberries (forgot to take pictures of that. Oops!) apricots, and cherries. Because we don’t have AC, it’s now become our habit to change out ice packs daily in our cooler to keep the Rumtopf cool. Beyond that, I think it’s going well. It smells amazing! 

I’m noticing another thing. Many of my foods/tastes in my world building involve fruit. Hmmm. Caution to self to add variety!

Anyway, updates on the Rumtopf to follow throughout the year! 

What’s a tradition you like that involves food? 

Blessings,

The post Taste the World! appeared first on Jennifer M Zeiger.

I’ve come to expect this, and I know that if I push through, if I set aside even thirty minutes each day to write, that the resistance will fade. That’s what I’m working on right now. 

And I know from past experience that there are some signals to the resistance fading. One of the big ones happens when I go to bed. I’ll lay down, and my brain spins up on anything and everything, including the story I’m trying to write. Whether I want it to or not, it’ll rehash anything I’ve focused on recently. 

• It’ll repeatedly put German sentences together, even if I’m unsure of the accuracy. 
• It’ll repeat whatever book I’m reading. 
• The last scene I was working on will suddenly have a plot twist I didn’t write that day. 
• Details from the conversation I had with my sister or best friend will replay, usually focused on some inane bit like what I forgot to ask about. 
• New ideas for book marketing will grow. These usually seem amazing at the time and then less so the next morning when I try to recall them. 

All of this and more will spin through my head on repeat. I imagine it’s the synapsis in my brain rewiring for creativity and learning. They’re waking up because I’ve added fuel over the smoldering story and touched a match to it. 

This usually only lasts for a night or two and then it settles down. If I take advantage of it and push to keep writing regularly afterward, I notice a greater capacity to write, learn, and remember things. It’s a turning point that ignites a more focused and productive life. 

That sign hit me this week. It focused mostly on German but little snippets of scenes snuck in amidst the Fußballmannschaften and the Teppichboden. Somewhat annoying, but it’s overall a good sign! 

Blessings,

P.S. Last year I started HMIII, the third book in the Hidden Mythics Series, and kept the progressing word count on my Home Page. I’ve since had to entirely rework the story, so I’m going to restart that counter. Some days may jump drastically because I’ll be pulling in revised scenes from last year but if you’re looking for regular progress updates, that’ll be the place to look. 

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