Merry Christmas with Cute Puppy Photos

Zoey chews her new Nylabone after opening her presents during a previous Christmas celebration.

Merry Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas! Today and tomorrow are days to celebrate and not think about writing, blogging or editing—unless you’re a journaler or impulse poem writer.

This week, I thought I’d share some photos of my family holiday traditions that, of course, include cute puppy photos of Zoey the Very Cute Dachshund. She just turned 9 on Dec. 20, so she loves treats, toys and attention, all T-type words!

My family and I used to open up stocking gifts on Christmas Eve and presents under the tree on Christmas Day. Now, we mainly trade gift cards and an occasional present. We get together at my mom’s assisted living place, eat the noon meal, talk and then open presents. Zoey gets her own presents, too, usually rawhide, treats, a new toy and a re-wrapped teddy bear. She opens her presents all on her own!

Have a Merry Christmas and happy holidays and happy however you cherish your traditions. Happy New 2018!

Zoey opens her own presents during a previous Christmas celebration.

Zoey seeks more presents for Christmas, because more is better!

Zoey is tired from all of the Christmas fun!

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Merry Christmas (and happy writing)!

I’m showing off one of my gifts from Christmas 2015.

I want to wish my followers and readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2017.

I’ve enjoyed writing about the writing process, my ups and downs with writing and my life as a writer over the past few years.

Writing is a way to escape into a poem or story, play with language, capture experience and grow from seeing the world in different ways by finding new words, descriptions and visions, or ways of seeing, feeling and observing things.

I love when I’m in a coffee shop or on a walk and a poem strikes me, compelling me to find a piece of paper and start writing. I’ve gathered bits of napkins and pieces of paper over the years that I typed into my rolling poetry collection, which consists of all of my poems in one large document that’s too large for a chapbook or book of poetry.

I also love when I’m stuck in a short story or novel and meet up with friends for a writing session and feel like, um, I better write. So, I start writing and words come out even though what I write may not be the best—at least I’m writing and doing it. Oftentimes, I may write stuff to later cut, but I find that I’m moving forward in the story or figuring out something with plot or character.

My last love about writing that I’ll mention is how I may start off with a short story and somehow it becomes a novella, because I seem to not get to the story answer. This makes me wonder if the characters have more to say than I planned for, because I try to write my stories in one sitting session. Or it may be that I don’t know what I’m doing in this particular story and have things to learn about plot and character development.

Either way, it makes me feel a little stuck in my head and my own processes. Because I like to write without plotting, I decided for my next novel, I’m going to plot because that endless writing and not getting to the solution is a little painful, even if it is fun.

I hope you also had a fun year with writing.

And here’s to a great year of writing in 2017.