One does not simply question Sean Bean memes

What can you accomplish in 10 minutes? More than you think!

If you find yourself crunched for time amid your work-in-progress, I highly recommend 10 Minute Novelists.

The header on the site says, “Recognized by Writer’s Digest List of 101 Top Websites in 2016, 2018 & 2019,” and there’s good reason why. The site includes informative blog posts, writing challenges, and perhaps most important, a community of like-minded people – i.e., time-crunched writers.

It was started by Katharine Grubb back in 2006, and … well, she tells the story best here.

The community “gathers” in a Facebook group (check it out here). I joined many years ago, and it’s still one of my favorite groups. Like many Facebook groups, there are strict rules (e.g., no self-promotions, membership restricted to individuals, professional courtesy maintained, etc.), which keeps the group – now up to 15,000+ members – running smoothly.

The Facebook group includes a Question of the Day, Monday Blogs (where you can share the latest post of your blog if you have one), Buddy Day Tuesdays (where you can find help, such as beta readers), and Author Happiness Wednesday (where you can share whatever good is happening in your world).

The posts from members, usually regarding a particular problem the writer is having with a work-in-progress, are often valuable lessons and sometimes entertaining.

A pandemic does not stop the work flow

Click to embiggen.

See more of the Belle Tower Epistle comic strip.

Mike and his spaghetti models keep us all even-keeled

Huge shout-out to www.spaghettimodels.com (on Facebook as Mike’s Weather Page and on Twitter as @tropicalupdate). I recommend following him everywhere you find him.

It’s not necessarily something to help with your writing, but it’s definitely a sanity saver if you live on the coast and see a hurricane heading your way. As was the case this week with Hurricane Isaias.

Mike’s web site is a treasure trove of graphs, charts, and models curated from weather sources. Seriously – this screen grab (below) is showing only a tiny piece of all the site offers.

Mike typically gives live updates on Facebook to explain the different models and charts – and he does it with a dash of humor, which, let’s face it, one can use when the weather gets crazy. He often features his two sidekicks (French bulldogs), Hurricane Louis and Hunter.

I Do Declare: We need to do something about this month’s lack of holidays

Welcome into month number eight of the Craziest Year Ever. When I was casting about for something nice to say about this month that we can all agree is the hottest, most humid, and most conducive to hurricanes (we have one off the coast even as I’m posting this), I realized that August is the only month without an official holiday.

It’s true. You can look it up.

January has New Year’s Day and MLK Day.
February gets all the love with Valentine’s Day and President’s Day.
March goes green with St. Patrick’s Day and a lot of basketball madness.
April gives us Spring, Easter, and tax day (except when it’s a crazy year like this one).
May is remembered for Mother’s Day and Memorial Day.
June celebrates Father’s Day.
July waves the Independence Day flag.
August – ???
September touts Labor Day.
October has Columbus Day and Halloween.
November revels in the Thanksgiving four-day-weekend.
December gives us Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

See? No holidays for August. It’s also one of the months with 31 days, which only adds insult to injury: More workdays without a break. No parties for you, August. It’s like the month is constantly in trouble.

Helpful Wikipedia informs me that August was originally called Sextilis – which might explain why it’s always in trouble … haha, kidding … no seriously, sextilis actually means “sixth” in Latin (back then it was the sixth month) – and then around 700 BC it became the eighth month when January and February were added. (Wouldn’t you like to see the minutes of that meeting? “We don’t seem to have enough months, and that’s messing up my PTO. I move that we add two more and put them at the beginning.” “Second!”)

Years later, Julius Caesar, whose ego required him to name things after himself, created the Julian calendar (see?), added two days to August (a-ha, I bet that’s why they stabbed him!), and renamed it August (again with the ego). Apparently he chose this month as his namesake because that’s when he enjoyed most of his triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt.

Which still doesn’t count as a holiday.

Fortunately, in my quest for something praiseworthy about August, I stumbled across a site (nationaltoday.com), which has quite the list of celebratory moments for each month. (It’s a fabulous site. Go bookmark it.) One in August is National Just Because Day on August 27, which pretty much sums up the whole month.

Here are some of August’s more interesting festive features. Plan accordingly.

Food and Beverage