Dear Edward

~ Tracy Erler ~ Leave a comment

The one where we remember your flufflyness

Note: I wrote this to and about Ed five days after he passed. There has only been a small amount of editing to make more sense sharing this15 months later. Memories have also been added.

Hey buddy. I meant to share this a long time ago. You’re a cat so you have no idea about pictures or blog posts or what humans do when their fluffy loved ones pass one. You don’t need words and pictures shared about you because you were happy and loved and lived your best cat life. This is going live on the anniversary of the day after you moved into The Hobbit Hole with us. It’s very poetic for a writer, but mostly it’s just healing.

You weren’t the kitten we were supposed to bring home.

Alphonse always was.

Ant’s mom sent him a picture of the splotched black and white face long before he was ours. And then, around the time we were going to visit you and future-Alphonse and the rest of the litter—my mother-in-law posted a photo of you on Facebook. I showed your face to Ant and asked, “What about this guy?”

I promise you we only set out to come home with one kitten.

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Darling Files 02 // Write From the Perspective of a Guardian Angel

~ Tracy Erler ~ Leave a comment

Fiction Fiction Fiction

Photo by Ryan Conrow on Pexels.com

Oh in all the heavenly lands, they’ve done it again, Tobias sighed and kicked at the rock he’d been staring at for the last few minutes. When would she realize…

More about what/who Tobias is watching could be alluded to here. Set it up so that it’s shown/hinted at here that the female human (Tobias’s charge) is the one ended the RELATIONSHIP and then the ending won’t have to be so spelled out.

His thought trailed off and he slumped against the wall he was leaning againt. He looked up at the sky, “I don’t know what you see in these humans sometimes,” he muttered.

He pushed himself up from the wall, stumbled on the rock he’d just kicked—“Oh good gravy!”—and made his way across the park to the bench his charge was sitting on.

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The Giftstretch // Day 28

~ Tracy Erler ~ 1 Comment

Because writing a novel is a gift. Real-time updates from the final three days of NaNoWriMo

This post is made up of the updates I posted on my writer’s Facebook page and Twitter as I stopped to take breaks. I get real numbers crunchy in these posts. It was fun to post these updates.

Monday, 11/28/2022

9:32am

I’ve fallen behind on my NaNoWriMo newsletter updates. I’ve been sick two different times. I’m actually still recovering from this second round.

Currently, my manuscript is a total of 34,438 words.

Because I’m so behind, my new daily minimum for today, tomorrow, and Wednesday (the final day of the month) is 5,187.

My Dream Big Goal is: 12,229.

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Muddling Through the Middle

~ Tracy Erler ~ 1 Comment

Trying to write 50,000 when life doesn’t go as envisioned

Writer’s note: If this post seems familiar, it was originally written and published on the evening of 12/14/22 on Substack. I wrote it in real time during NaNoWriMo 2022. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!

Week 2 // Days 8-14

Week 2 started off with a bang: I came home early from my part-time shift at the daycare with the stomach flu. No writing was completed the rest of that week until mid-day Saturday.

Ant stayed home with me on Day 9 because I was so weak the night of the 8th. I did okay that day and he returned to work the next day. I was able to sit up (after spending most of the prior two days reclining on the couch) in the pink rocking chair and binge-watched the rest of Season 1 and started Season 2 of Boy Meets World.

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Best Laid Plans

~ Tracy Erler ~ 1 Comment

A post-NaNoWriMo Update of Sorts

Writer’s note: If this post seems familiar, it was originally written and published on the evening of 12/11/22 on Substack. I wrote it in real time after NaNoWriMo 2022. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!

In real time, a little over a month had passed since I gave the Day 4 Update. The intro will sound funky because you’re reading these back-to-back, but at the time I was feeling better and wanted to give the readers who had signed up for NaNo updates something, so I wrote the post you’re about to read.

I decided to keep it in this series because it portrays an accurate picture of what the creative life can look like at times.

Long Time No Talk

Okay, so November was a roller coaster of things. We’ve officially entered The Holiday Season and all the holiday things are in full swing. We’re two weeks away from Christmas.

I fell off keeping you all updated on my NaNoWriMo journey, but one 24-hour stomach bug on Days 8-9 and a week(ish)-long cold Days 18-28(ish) and trying to recover all energy around those was hard.

Ant and I had a low-key Thanksgiving here at The Hobbit Hole with just us and the cats. And while I missed being with the fam, it was nice not to drive an hour and spend the entire day tired 🙂

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NaNoWriMo // Day 3–er, Day 4 Update

~ Tracy Erler ~ 1 Comment

The one where I re-discovered Harry Potter Word Crawls and Wrote 3,669 words today

Writer’s note: If this post seems familiar, it was originally written and published on the morning of DATE on Substack. I wrote in real time during NaNoWriMo 2022. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!

Greeting ogres! Happy Friday evening =D

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) Version:

I wrote 3,669 words in the second half of the day to help me catch on NaNoWriMo! For a total of 7,534 words so far. *virtual confetti*

Goal for tomorrow: To write at least 3,334 words

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NaNoWriMo // Day 2

~ Tracy Erler ~ 1 Comment

Celebrating with imaginary confetti

Writer’s note: If this post seems familiar, it was originally written and published on the evening of 11/2/22 on Substack. I wrote in real time during NaNoWriMo 2022. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!

This is coming to you all 51 minutes before the dawn of Day 3 hits, but I did! I achieved another 1,667+ words today. On track to cross that 50,000-word deadline on time.

I wrote 1,804 words today. Cue all the confetti.

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NaNoWriMo // Day 1 Update

~ Tracy Erler ~ 2 Comments

Writing a novel or pulling teeth?

Writer’s note: If this post seems familiar, it was originally written and published on the morning of 11/2/22 on Substack. I wrote in real time during NaNoWriMo 2022. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!

Spoiler alert! You get to see that I made (and overachieved by 151 words) Day 1’s daily word goal =D

NaNoWriMo Day 1 ended for me at like 10:30pm. On the couch. In my pajamas.

I’ve spent a lot of time planning this novel that I’ve forgotten what it would be like to write the actual scenes. It was a lot harder than I remember.

This is how we started:

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Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-NaWriMo and Leah

~ Tracy Erler ~ 5 Comments

All the things NaNoWriMo and My Leah Novel

Writer’s note: If this feels familiar, it’s possible you read it way back in November 2022 when I wrote in real time during NaNoWriMo. The original post was on Substack. I have since changed platforms for me email newsletter. (If that still interests you, you can sign-up for “Postcards” here.) However, in making future plans for my online writing spaces, I have decided to house my NaNoWriMo 2022 story here on Mrs. Writer. Very little changes, if any, have been made. Enjoy!

What is NaNoWriMo?

Who? For writers and anyone who has wanted to try write a book 🙂

What? Short National Novel Writing Month. Where writers try and write 50,000 words in a month (1,667 words a day) 😃

When? The entire month of November.

Where? Anywhere in the world 🙂 hometown, on vacation, during the holidays, in your Air BnB or hotel room, at a coffee shop or library, in the comfort of your own home. 

Why? Because we’re crazy and would do anything for our stories 😝

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What I Read This Fall

~ Tracy Erler ~ Leave a comment

The books I read in September, October, and November 2022

These posts are a labor of love. The Fall installment of this series is late, but I’m proud of myself for still putting it here. And! It means I stuck with something for a full year! =D I am resolved to write these posts as I read through this year. It’ll ease the labor of them and I can still maintain the level of detail I want to.

I read 12 books this season. Here are they all are in order from first to last:

  • Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
  • Prismatic: Havok Season 5 by Havok Authors
  • Vox Machina: Kith & Kin by Critical Role and Marieke Nijkamp
  • Redefining Anxiety by John Delony
  • We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman
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