Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

Creativity

Who Says Machines Are In Charge?

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by Kimberly A. Cook              (Twitter@   WarriorTales)

Rant Alert: Does anyone remember volunteering to be our own tech support? At what point in this global digital age did some engineering genius decide us lay folk consumers not only knew enough to fix our own electronic products, but that we wanted to? Not me, I just want the darn things to work.

Social Media Old School - Classic Underwood typewriter at the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum in Madras, Oregon
This does not need a battery, a cable, a modem or an electrical plug-in. It’s a classic Underwood typewriter at the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum in Madras, Oregon. Sigh.

Kept getting calls from my cable provider that I needed to change out my modem. They said I needed to upgrade so I could get faster speeds and more fabulous things. I can barely use the basic package of channels as it is. If it wasn’t for the PAC-12 and NFL Channels, I’d be on budget cable because all I need to survive is HGTV, Hallmark, Food Network, Animal Planet and the Weather Channel. I don’t really NEED new channels or quicker download speeds; I don’t surf that fast.

But they made it sound like the universe would explode if I didn’t do it soon, but I ignored the phone calls. Then one day while logging onto my computer a whole series of cable company messages flashed on the screen about how I must get the new modem before a swarm of locusts attack my computer. Really? You’re now intruding on my computer since I have a tv, phone, Internet “bundle?”

Fine! I logged onto the web site and they were sending me my amazing, free new modem. It arrived like the next day on my front porch, complete with simple instructions to install myself. Why do I have to do their work?

The “simple” instructions are a tad confusing since I also maintain my own router due to paranoia. Mix my military background with my imagination and you can’t convince me big brother cable isn’t trying to use my home as a W-Fi hot spot or the next landing zone for the colonization teams from Tron. While I’m paying the electric bill for it all to boot.

The fabo new modem is still sitting in its box. I will get to it when I’m ready. It’s personal. The day they put those self scan check out machines in my grocery store I drew the line in the sand. I tried it one time and the machine kept yelling at me about moving my plastic bag at the wrong time and that was it.

Now I snub those self scan check out lines, I push my cart right over and wait in line for a human checker. I get to read the gossip magazine covers, scan for new snacks and candies and find out what my fellow shoppers are buying. It’s a bonding experience with a real person talking to me without yelling instructions. And I don’t even have to touch my bags, they pack my groceries too. Simple is best. Hear that cable companies?

You can’t convince me we aren’t close to designer pick only your fav channels packages or else  everyone will dump cable and head to Amazon video. Somehow I’m betting Amazon wouldn’t make me install my own modem; they’re getting delivery drones!  Take back your channels America!

Time For New Dreams And Adventures?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Back to the day job after a nice vacation between Christmas and New Years. Had a calm and fun-filled time with lots of cleaning and rearranging and moving stuff. Made me glad to go back to the day job to get away from doing more.

First squirrel sighting of 2015! Notice Spec Ops Cat reflection in the window.
First squirrel sighting of 2015! Notice Spec Ops Cat reflection in the window. And his ear!

Took some time to read and watch movies too, plus football of course. Made big strides in my office rearranging my office closet and organizing writing projects. Put together another cubie divider to store the piles of projects which seem to get larger with research.

Some observations about trying to sort and purge items:

1. Sorting paper is an activity which can suck your soul. Since I keep all kinds of things for reference, research and sentimental reasons, the paper is the biggest challenge. It really does breed in the dark like rabbits.

2. I love my hardback and paperback books, but I still have too many. However, sorting them feels like choosing among favorite children. The upside is ones I can’t sell I donate to our Friends of the Library and they make money and the books go to new homes. Makes me happy.

3. Organizing and streamlining my office space is freeing up my mind space. And I can use all of that I can get! I’ve read clutter causes stress and that seems so true in my home.

4. Been reading “Plain and Simple – A Woman’s Journey to the Amish” by Sue Bender. It jumped out at me when I was looking for another book in my office. (See, I can’t get that serendipity book discovery on my ereader.) It is nourishing my mind and my sense of cleaning out. Great read.

Game on stare down between squirrel and Spec Ops Cat. Both think they are super heroes with two panes of glass in between!
Squirrel advances in the stare down game with Spec Ops Cat. Both think they are super heroes with two panes of glass in between!

5. New calendars, new checkbook register, whole new year to make magic and dreams come true. Yeah!

“The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, something to give, and something to hope for,” by After Allan Chalmers from Susan Branch’s 2015 Heart of the Home Calendar.

What Do Boxing, Romance And Water Have In Common?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                     (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Those are the topics of the current books I’m reading. Seems no matter how I try, I’ve always got a rather eclectic reading list. At breaks at the day job I’m reading “Blows To The Head – How Boxing Changed My Mind,” by Binnie Klein.

Is this a great book cover or what? Girls box too!
Is this a great book cover or what? Girls box too!

Came across the title on Amazon.com while I was doing research on using speed bags. My Dad trained me on a boxing speed bag he set up in the basement when I was growing up. Loved the rhythm and sound of the bag going back and forth. Dad did some boxing in the Army, including aboard a Navy ship on his way overseas during World War II.

He taught me how to hold my arm straight, not bend my wrist and punch the mauve leather Everlast bag. With the onset of flabby upper arms and bingo wings, I’d been researching to try it again. (FYI – Tons of boxing instruction videos on YouTube.)

This non-fiction book is written by a middle-aged therapist who takes up boxing lessons. She explores how it changes her thought processes and views on life. Great read!

Before bed the book I’m reading now is “Life Drawing For Beginners,” by Roisin Meany. Stumbled upon this gem while cruising the books at Target. Love to find new authors on their shelves. It’s fiction about a group of students taking an art class and how their lives intertwine. Only started this last night, but enjoying it so far.

Last but not least on deck is the non-fiction, “Blue Mind – The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do,” by Wallace J. Nichols. How’s that for a secondary title? This is part of my plan to figure out  how to get more trips to Maui and claim it on taxes as research. It’s a goal! Or to fire up that little fake candle water fountain for my office; perhaps more realistic.

So right now I have boxing, romance and water on my reading plate.  To write we must read. What’s on your reading list?

Would You Push The Red Button?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Seems I am one of the three people on the planet who did not see this YouTube video last year. A co-worker at the day job sent it to me and I love it. Besides all the craziness, what really struck me is this is exactly what it’s like inside my brain!

I see my book scenes as movies. This is what is going on while I am trying to work at the day job, talk to family, clean up hairballs and chat with friends. All these MOVIES are going on in my head. It gets really iffy when different books/movies are all up in my mind at the same time.

Case in point. Sunday I was writing my fiction book and I was deep inside a cave in Afghanistan trying not to be caught by the bad guys. Somebody knocked on my window. I jumped a mile. Besides having a trained startle response from my military and newspaper reporter days, my home office is on the second floor.

Turns out it was Spec Ops Cat scratching an itch while lying on the windowsill in the sun, but I didn’t know that when I was in the cave in Afghanistan. Nice to know the old ticker still works and I can get the fiction scared right out of me. Took me awhile to get back to the cave. Pretty sure Spec Ops Cat did it on purpose.

All types of creatives have big red buttons in our brains and whether we are writing, cooking, building dog houses or making music, inspiration can hit at the oddest times. Many of our red buttons are even self starters and we don’t even need to push them.

Have you ever been startled and scared yourself? If you saw this box in the square, would you push the red button?

Life Gives Us Unexpected Pleasures When We Slow Down

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by Kimberly A. Cook                 (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Spent the past week on an unexpected stay-cation at home and it was wonderful. Seems we run around so fast we never get time to just be. While visiting my favorite antique mall and café, I spied a marked down jar of jewels. Score!

Marked down from $25! Happy Dance!
Marked down from $25! Happy Dance!

I snapped it up and kept it until I had time to enjoy the sorting process. Got my favorite bead storage container, I keep a stash, and spent a pleasant hour discovering new treasures. It feels like bead therapy to me, bringing order out of chaos and finding surprises.

The process was interrupted by Spec Ops Cat wanting to help out. Whether it is checkbooks, knitting, composing on the computer or trying to read anything, he thinks a RECON is in order.

There were more pins and buttons than I expected in the jar, but it made me wonder about who wore the pins and why I had four from one convention. The little mysteries of life. I’ve read research which says women can start to lose their passions at age 10, so figure out what you did then and try it now. Reading, writing and jewelry making were big for me at 10 and still are among my favorite things to do.

Spec Ops Cat helping out. Kinda.
Spec Ops Cat helping out. Kinda.

Of course, in those days, I’d get these same jars filled with broken jewelry parts at Goodwill for a few dollars and have a field day sorting my finds. This $15 jar was a big bargain since everyone has caught on to recycling and making “steam punk” jewelry these days.

But I spent a wonderful time playing with my new jewels and dreaming up new creations I want to make.

When we’re not thinking about creating characters, building plots and editing, a childhood pleasure can give us a quick vacation without even leaving home. When did you last take a break and just play?

Fini!
Fini!

How Do Writers Learn, Purge And Know What Their Book Is About?

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by Kimberly A. Cook              (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Met with my writer support group this past weekend and it always makes me feel better, more motivated and not quite so neurotic. We creatives have challenges on many levels when it comes to combining life and art.

There were three topics which came up that I thought it would be fun to discuss. Here goes.

1. We don’t learn a writing or life lesson until we are ready; no matter how many times it tries to smack us in the chops.  An experienced writer declared she made a breakthrough with her current memoir when she realized who her ideal reader would be and that she was actually writing a long feature story. A trained news journalist and business writer, this shift in mind revelation made all the difference in the world when she was able to discover it.

When I crossed over from newspaper writing to fiction, it seemed pretty easy for me since I had been the features section editor on the paper. Feature stories are some of the best training in the world for fiction since your story lives and dies with quotes (dialogue), you have a beginning, middle and end of the feature (same as a chapter and book), and the one difference is instead of tying up the end of the story, you put a honk’in hook at the end to drag the reader into the next chapter. My fiction chapters have always been about the same length as a long feature story, imagine that.

2. Is cleaning our offices and purging files procrastination or part of the creative process? Yes! Right on both counts. But we decided as a group that its more of the process for organizing chaos and letting your muse get ready to sweep out the cobwebs in the subconscious and gear up for the next project. Now if this takes years, there is a bit of a procrastination problem, but it took Margaret Mitchell twelve years to write “Gone With The Wind,” so what do we know about deadlines? To each writer their own process.

3. Only the writer/author knows what the story is going to be and that may be a crap shoot on any given day. My writing teacher Dee Lopez used to say,” No one really knows what their book is about until after they’ve written at least eight chapters.” Many times what you find when you finish a first draft of fiction is it started out as one book and ended up as another; that is the magic of imagination, fairy dust and creation. Which also means no one else can write your book for you, you have to do it yourself.

So, back to writing!