Anyhow…

I was looking for some creative ideas, and I decided to click on the link to a blog that is written by another South Carolinian. I was shocked when the latest post was from some time in 2021, and the content was about her cancer coming back. A short search revealed her obituary just a few months after that post was made. She was 39 years old and died of ovarian cancer.

She was a creative genius. My next favorite refashioning gurus are DIY Blueprint and Coolirpa.

I suppose I need to catch up on some of my favorite bloggers.

The post A Little Saddened appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

Summer is almost here, and that means that the school year will be ending, but the next phase of my blogging business will also be taking off.

This week I launched another site to have a total of 7 out of 11 websites up and running.

I had placed a lot of emphasis on one of those websites, and I will continue to do so as it is an online store, but I want to add to my repertoire of blogs. For the weekend, I plan to do some writing in preparation of having content that can be scheduled for publication. When blogging, for consistent results, it is helpful to be publishing on a regular schedule, and while I can write fairly quickly, having the time to write consistently is something with which I struggle. It’s for this reason alone that I find I need to have something in reserve for those times when I cannot sit and put fingers to the keyboard due to other responsibilities.

I have shared with you my goals for building up my businesses. It has been a long journey, but it hasn’t quite been a year. I went head on into this in October 2021 with the goal of being successful within a year. While I’m half way to that year, I don’t feel like I’m where I want to be. That has nothing to do with writing, but everything to do with the fact that once I audited my online store, I realized that I had product that was not in the online store. This was a major setback for me, because I ended up having to audit my store and count everything. We’re talking pages of products that had to be checked one-by-one. It took an entire month to correct. One month I didn’t have to spare.

This weekend, because it is a long weekend for me, I plan to write for all of my blogs, make at least 3-4 new products to add, and prepare to launch another site. I have one more week of school before I am officially a teacher on vacation. Once that begins, we should see more activity and the next phase should see more website launches. The goal is to launch one site every two weeks until I have all twelve sites up and running.

Is it possible? Only time will tell.

Will it be successful? That’s my hope.

The end goal is to be able to leave teaching and to work for myself. I had a health scare this week that was brought on by my new medication. The new insulin along with my diuretic I take for my blood pressure completely depleted my potassium and calcium levels along with several other important nutrients that your body and brain need to function. I passed out in the classroom and fell from a standing position. I’m not sure if the fall knocked me out or if I was unconscious before hitting the floor. I do know that I need to work on my health. This was a scary event for my students and me.

Anyhow, moving forward in this phase, I should be able to flesh the newest website out to 10 posts and work on keyword research for 2 other blogs that I plan to launch. I will also create a guide for keyword research and how I use that for this site.

Until my next update…

The post The Next Phase appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

One thing for certain, I still believe in chasing dreams. I’m still chasing mine, still growing it, and definitely, I’m still writing about it.

It has been a month since I stated that I needed to detour away from trying to work on everything at one time and focus on one thing at a time. So here is my update.

Traffic to the one site has greatly improved. I changed a lot of things up, but I’m still not where I want to be in the grand scheme of things. Before I can go forward any more, I need to go through and work on improving the copy for each page and product that I sell. While there are many things that are ranking on page 1 of the search, I’m still struggling with others. Plus, I imagine those page 1 search results are what would be well below the “fold” so that searchers would have to scroll down the page to the bottom to find me.

I’m still choosing to work on getting that site to the top in most all of the searches. The website in question? K and R Styles. It’s the children’s boutique that I enjoy working. I love the sewing, the creativity, and the designing. Everything, I make myself. I have even stopped purchasing the tops to embroider or sublimate on and have chosen to sew those myself. For my bodysuits, I still prefer to use Gerber’s Organic Cotton Onesies. Plus, making those bodysuits are very time consuming, and Gerber is quality that I feel I can trust, unlike all of the other tee brands I’ve tried. Yes, Gerber has tees for toddlers, but I like the fact that I can add a design element to the tee or top. There’s freedom in creativity with things like that.

As for everything else. All those other websites. It’ll be a slow process growing them to where I need them to be, but like everything else, I’m slowly chasing dreams.

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There’s something to be said for Happy Planners. If used properly, a planner can be a great tool for organizing time and planning out daily activities. However, if you are not using a planner to its full potential, it isn’t going to help you at all.

Lately, I have been obsessed with the Me and My Big Ideas Happy Planners. I purchased a Happy Planner at the beginning of the year, and yes, I was caught up in the idea of stickers and cute layouts, but my planner wasn’t efficient. Over the summer, I purchased another Happy Planner to use as my teacher planner, and I found myself dividing up the pages, adding in sheets for parent contacts, adding in student information, and more. My Teacher Happy Planner went from meh to fantastic. It was useful and functional.

From extra discs, I created a FlyLady control journal, and I picked up a pack of the Happy Planner budget add-ons and created a budget planner. Once again, I made these functional with additional items that I created and put into them.

What’s the solution?

After looking these over, and then looking at my dysfunctional planner, I realized what the problem was: I hadn’t made it mine. I needed to decide what I wanted to truly track, and I needed to add in things that I used often that took me away from the planner. As long as I had a reason to open up the planner and use it, I would.

How to Create a Happy Happy Planner

My first job was to decide what each row would track: Personal, Household, and Business (websites, blogs, YouTube, etc.). My second job was to include a place to make notes that incorporated all of the business items. Often I would write down my blog ideas, product ideas, etc. in a notebook, but those things never were created because I didn’t have it in a place where I always looked.

I’m also considering moving parts of my control journal into the Happy Planner, but I know that when I do, it will be too big for the large expander rings. It is, after all, an 18 month planner.

I purchased the punch, and it has helped out a lot when it comes to making my planners personal. I would definitely recommend doing this if you are going to use the Happy Planner.

The post Organizing My Time One Happy Planner at a Time appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

When I think about something I want to write, I generally want to have an idea of where I’m going. I’ve heard many people in the writing industry talk about the Character Arc, but unless you have a degree in Secondary English Education or Literature, that term is something that will be very unfamiliar to you. So today, I’m going to simplify it as I do for my middle school students.

Many of you are familiar with the lovely triangle shaped plot chart.

The way a story is laid out, we have an exposition (where we meet the main character, we get to know the setting [time period, where, etc.], and we are introduced to the problem or conflict. In order for our story to move forward, our character needs some type of motivation. They need to want something. Sometimes it is as simple as finding a solution to their problem. We want this character to reach the peak of that little mountain in our chart.

The first time the character doesn’t get what they want is the initiating conflict. It sets off a chain of events that prevent that character from achieving their success. At the top of that mountain is the climax. Some in elementary school teach that this is the most exciting part of the story. Not true. Not always. It’s the turning point for our character. They will get what they want or they will not. Because of this, they will change in some way. (We want a good dynamic character that changes. They learn a lesson, and it adds to the theme.)

At the end of this climax comes the falling action and resolution. Perhaps the character makes that realization of change. This could be drawn out and reflected by the following:

Notice that it looks a lot like our plot chart, but it is more simplified.

To get a character from point A to point B, we want to plot out our story. Some prefer not to plot and just wing it. I like to have an idea, basically because if things get bogged down, I need to be reminded where to go. Trust me. It will happen. Writer’s block will start to take effect, and if you have an idea of what is going to happen next, you can continue to write (even if it isn’t well, and I will talk about that in the next blog post). When you plot or plan your story, you can choose to write it in scenes, an outline, or as I do: chapter blurbs. When I start, I write Chapter 1, and then underneath, I write a sentence or two about what will happen in this chapter. I try to keep my scenes inside a chapter. One scene. One chapter. I will do this for the entire book. I need to know where I’m headed. I may make a note that I want this character to change because of a certain event. This helps me to remember my character arc. Sometimes, the characters take over the story, and I go with it, and I change up my plot line as needed. I enjoy when this happens because then it seems more character driven rather than event driven. The more realistic I can create my characters, the easier it seems to write.

The post Writing a Story or Novel appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

I never do it intentionally. It starts out with the small and simple things that generally enlarge until I become a coward, and I’m unwilling to take back control. I am the world’s worst at losing myself within a relationship. I become the heroine in distress archetype who needs the masculine hero to come rescue her. I need to break this cycle. Otherwise, I’m living my life out like the male-generated archetypes throughout the centuries.

I am not weak. I am not defenseless. My life belongs to me, and I do not need anyone’s approval to live it as such.

I need to write a book that breaks such stereotypes. I need to write a heroine who rescues the hero. We need female characters who break free from the molds imposed on them by society and we need to make them brave… fierce… adventure-seeking…

Don’t fall into that cycle, young ladies! Live your dreams! Dream big! Do the things that they tell you that you can’t because of your gender!

That’s what I’m going to do.

The post Take back what belongs to you appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

I’m sitting here waiting on Trick-or-Treaters, and I cannot help but to think about Ashlyn Connor, the heroine of the Deirfiur (now The Necklace) series! Remember the incident that happened to her at the Halloween party?

Well, it’s time for a new set of heroines in the Ashlyn Connor stories. It’s time for her daughters to take charge!

The post Happy Halloween! appeared first on Martha L. Thurston.

After reading the novel I wrote five years ago, I realized that I can change it. There are improvements to be made. Not in the story line, but in the imagery details, character details, and writing, I can make improvements. Many of my students were concerned that the character sees her mother dead and has no feeling about it. Of course, I know why I didn’t include feelings about a death is because I still struggle with watching my own mother. Her reaction was mine. I stepped outside of my body, and I did what a dutiful daughter would: I took care of everything and everyone else. It led to me eventually having a complete breakdown several months later, but I still remember the numbness I felt. I suppose that students need the real stuff.

So, I’m rewriting my novels. And I’m submitting them to real publishers. How’s that for big thoughts and big change?

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Of course, he was referring to an accident that could have been fatal (and yes, he came away unscathed, as well as the car), but we could take that much further.

Are you living the life you have? Each day, when you wake up, do you love your life?

For my Motivation Monday, I decided I wanted to address the topic of loving life and what that means. I’m fond of the adage, “Life is what you make it.” We choose each day to make our lives whatever we choose it to be. A friend of mine came up to me after service Sunday and said, “I have a book, and I think that you could do more with it than I could.” She was referring to the fact that I played guitar, and I spoke to her about how music had often delivered me out of depression. The booklet was titled, The Sound of Healing. I sped read through it and paused a few places to take it in before putting it aside and realizing how right my friend was in sharing this booklet with me.

What stood out the most was how sound waves have the ability to transform us. We are all energy. We can choose to speak positive energy or negative energy.

For example, have you ever said, “This day is going to be horrible,” and it did, indeed, turn out to be horrible?

We hold the ability to speak positively into our life. We can embrace and make our lives into whatever we proclaim it to be. We need to fall in love with life. We need to speak positively into the life that we have until it magically forms into the life we desire. We need to always push forward to achieve the goal we desire. Sure, we have to do the hard stuff. We have to do the things that we don’t enjoy, but find the good in that, speak positively into it, and press forward. Life may seem short, but every moment should be enjoyed.

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