Category: Personal Growth

Posted on by Fern Brady - 2 Comments on A Hallmark-esque Christmas Tale

A Hallmark-esque Christmas Tale

I have a subscription to Freedom With Writing, which sends out a newsletter every week. In it the team that hosts this service compiles contests, calls for submissions, editorial pitch requests, potential work in a vast array of writing related jobs, conferences, and other cool information aspiring writers can use.

One of the latest editions contained a call for submissions entitled “The 12 Knights of Christmas.” The publisher, Button Hall, is relatively new on the market. They are looking to produce an anthology of romance stories set at Christmas time that have the making for the next great Hallmark movie. It would release Christmas 2025.

What caught my attention was the title of the submission: Knights. Well, I happen to have a knight or two in my world. And there is one in United Vidden who already has a bit of a romance thread laid out for him — Sir Andross. So, naturally, I decided to make this the focus of my Galveston Winter retreat writing with the full intention of submitting it.

Now, I had to do some research to make sure I understood the qualities that make a Hallmark holiday movie great. I spent an evening watching a couple films with my dear friend, Violet Shelton. We also read summaries of the top 25 films in the genre. Here’s what we gleaned:

Successful lady living in the big city has to make a trip to quaint picturesque small town. There she rekindles her romance with an early love or meets a local man and falls in love. She learns the importance of simple life and the meaning of Christmas.

There’s also the version where successful male professional is having to drive through quaint picturesque small town. Something happens and he is stranded there for the holidays. He meets jovial successful local lady and falls in love. He learns the meaning of Christmas.

Another version is where successful attorney lady is fired from her high stress law firm after some backstabbing by others. She meets a successful doctor who has come up from Florida (by the way Florida is mentioned a lot in these films — not sure why) to convince his elderly grandfather to retire there. They meet at a pub and she takes a temp job as bar tender, but it turns out that the bar owner is the grandfather. In the end, both forgo successful careers as doctor and lawyer to marry and run the pub. They learn the meaning of Hannukah. (yes, they have jewish versions of this as well).

After that exhaustive and somewhat mind numbing research, I decided to go with the following for my story:

Continent of Vidden
Planet Jorn by Araceli Casas

Lord High Marshal of the realm is notified of sheep farmer dad’s death. Returning to small town to deal with the estate he reconnects with the only woman he ever loved. In the past, she refused to marry him because she is a medicine woman and wants to serve a small town community. She is now living in his old hometown. After they uncover the horrible way a large corporation is taking over farms, the two rekindle their love. He is offered a chance to run a prestigious military academy in the community and so they both get to have the careers they want and still be together.

Oh… and they learn the meaning of the Festival of Lights, basically planet Jorn’s version of Christmas.

No mention of Florida though. Hope the omission doesn’t ruin my chances.

I’ll let y’all know what happens with the submission. Wish me luck!

Posted on by Fern Brady - 2 Comments on Shifting Gears in the New Year

Shifting Gears in the New Year

Ellen’s world features grim reapers and the lore behind these fascinating characters.

Ellen and I met up to enjoy a lunch and talk shop. There are many fun projects we work together and so much to discuss for the coming new year. One of the topics was this blog. RoadBroads has had a journey of its own since its inception. Now, it may be time for it to take a new path once again.

This blog began with a trip Ellen and Melanie took to Boulder, Colorado for June Retreat. This was pre-pandemic and every year Max Regan of Hollowdeck Press hosted two 10-day sessions to get your project growing. Ellen and Melanie decided to drive up from Houston. The drive birthed the idea of a blog for traveling women — RoadBroads.

My stories are set in an intergalactic alliance of planets called Thyrein’s Galactic Wall.

During those first years, Ellen and Melanie wrote about an array of trips they took, some by car, others in various modes of transportation. They hosted guest bloggers, like me, to talk about their own trips. I remember writing up Rental Car Hell from my trip to Italy for the blog.

Then COVID struck. Ellen and Melanie decided that the focus of the blog should shift. They began writing about a creative woman’s life journey. When Melanie stepped away from the blog, Ellen brought me and Rachel on board. This created an interesting dynamic of the life of three female creatives at very different stages of life’s journey.

Now, as Rachel has stepped back, and life begins to shift once more, Ellen and I discussed the future of this blog and what we want it to be moving forward. One consideration we discussed is our desire to grow the blog’s audience. In researching blogging, we found that the strongest blogs have a narrow topic focus.

Both Ellen and I are speculative fiction authors with unique worlds that our characters live in. Ellen has her grim reapers. I have Thyrein’s Galactic Wall. We have both had short stories set in these worlds published as a result of contest wins and anthology submissions. While Ellen is still working on her first full novel in her world, I have two novels out for mine.

The world’s we create are a blend of fantasy and science fiction with tinges of horror and humor built in.

In view of this, we have decided that in 2025 this blog will focus on our worlds. Each post will discuss some element of our respective story universes. We might write about the setting of a particular scene or short story, or we might share tidbits of character’s backstory that can’t go into the book proper. In the midst of this, we will discuss our writing process as well as share insight into what makes our creative juices flow and why we work in these genres.

Of course, there will be blogs on creative life in general, such as when we do readings or enter contests, as well as conferences and retreats we attend. In fact, I’m writing this post from Galveston, Texas, where I’m on a short writing retreat with some friends now.

We hope that by sharing our writing, our worlds, and the journey of being a working author, you will enjoy and follow not only this blog, but our publications as well. And, maybe it will help us to grow the consistent audience of this blog. One thing is for sure, we enjoy collaborating and that’s not changing any time soon.

So be ready this year to learn all about Willow, the Paladium, Grim Reaper Headquarters, Dragonborn Kings, Intergalactic Alliances, Gortive Offensives, Rajin Masters, their Elmalin counterparts, and a whole host of other beings and places from the wild imaginations of Ellen Seaton and Fern Brady.

Ellen and I wish everyone a wonderful and prosperous new year and hope you enjoy the journey RoadBroads is about to take!
Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on A Poetry Sandwich for Authorpalooza

A Poetry Sandwich for Authorpalooza

The Houston Writers Guild will be hosting our Authorpalooza conference the weekend of October 4–6. 2024 at Rice University’s Student Center. We are excited at the line up that is coalescing for this year’s event. It is one of the best parts of my job as head of the Guild.

Last year, we ended the event by hosting a Renga contest. However, the participants were not familiar with creating Renga and we were all very tired at the end of the main conference day. So we just created a single Renga about our conference together. You can see it posted on the HWG website’s Writer’s Room page (www.houstonwritersguild.org).

Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton is an award-winning writer, director, performer, critic, and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, TX. Praised by the NY Times as an artist who “defies categorization”, her genre-bending works span from stage to page, and everything in between.

This year, we will kick off the event on Friday night with the incomparable Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton leading participants in a group poetry activity. Friday night is when the Guild celebrates the book launch of the anthology collection of winning entries from the collaborative short story contest we host in conjunction with Women in the Visual and Literary Arts and produced by Inklings Publishing. There will be readings from the authors in the anthology and some light refreshments. But to start the conference weekend off, D.E.E.P will have those present work to create a poem and perform it. 

If you have never met this amazing poet and talented writer, you are in for a treat! Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton is an award-winning writer, director, performer, critic, and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, TX. This amazing lady has written and performed poetry but, beyond that, she has written and produced plays and operas including Marian’s Song with the Houston Grand Opera. She has an upcoming children’s picture book and just released her memoir Black Chameleon which examines Black womanhood through afrofuturistic mythology. She is working on various projects including film and stage adaptations of her work and is a former Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater, Rice University, and the Houston Museum of African American Culture.

The samurai were expected to be fully well-rounded, excelling in the physical as well as mental and spiritual arenas. Most of the earliest Japanese writings were done by samurai authors.

After kicking off the conference with D.E.E.P, we will close the event on Sunday afternoon with a Renga competition. Yes, I’m not giving up on the idea of bringing this ancient Japanese event to life here in Houston! The Renga has a very simple form of alternating stanzas with 3 lines and 5 lines. The triplet stanzas take the form of Haiku with the 5–7‑5 syllable count and the cinquain stanzas use the form of Tanka with 5–7‑5–7‑7 syllable counts.

Traditionally, Japanese samurai poets would meet and compete to form the best Renga by taking turns each adding a new stanza. The poems content would meander from topic to topic as the poets added their verses spring boarding from one idea of the previous stanza. Sadly, most of these poems are lost since it was a game and no one thought of preserving the work. There are Renga in existence and during the final session of the conference on Sunday I will share more about the history of the art form and lead participants in a competition of our own.

If you want to learn more about this year’s conference event visit the HWG’s website at www.houstonwritersguild.org and consider purchasing your ticket to be a part of this exciting event now during the early bird pricing time.

Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

For many years, Nanowrimo has been an integral part of my writing year. The camaraderie and the goal setting aspects of the program have helped me shape my writing journey. But things are not as they should be in the Nano World, and I must step away from the organization.

The main reason for this decision lies in the wording of the new Municipal Liaison contract. As ML, you are a volunteer and you are hosting write in and other events to encourage participants of the program to meet their goals. Unfortunately, after having faced a regrettable situation last year which they handled poorly, the organization has knee jerked and passed the buck of liability to the MLs. Having my own company to protect, I cannot take the risk and continue to be a part of the program.

One of the cool things about Nanowrimo is the the website they host. It allows you to set goals — in word count — every month and it has very nice graphics that show your progress and give you stats on your writing practice that you can use to be more introspective and purposeful. While I don’t discourage anyone from enjoying the organization’s offerings, I am greatly disappointed in the attitude and handling of the MLs and their concerns by the headquarter personnel. So I decided to do a little research on potential sites that could allow me to set and track goals just as Nano does.

Here are two interesting options I found:

  1. myWriteClub hosts a very simple site but it gets the job done. It looks like they may be adding to it and working on bolstering it up. Currently, it allows you to set goals for the month and track them. Graphics are not as cool, but it’s effective.
  2. Pacemaker is another site that hosts a wider array of methods and options for tracking your goals. There’s the free version and then there’s the premium option which adds bells and whistles.

During the month of April, I am going to use both of these to see which one I like best at this time. I may use different sites next month to compare. Once I find a site I like and that meets my needs, I will let y’all know all about it here and on the Facebook page that used to be our Houston Nanowrimo group. We now call it Write-in Central. There, myself and the other former MLs will continue to encourage writers and offer opportunities to gather both via zoom and in person for group writing time.

It’s sad to see the end of another season in my life. But it goes to show the importance of not getting hung up on people, organizations, or places. Life is about continuous change and growth. Goodbye to Nanowrimo and hello to new adventures as my writing journey moves forward.

Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on STAAR Testing

STAAR Testing

This week was the final one before we went on Spring Break. I am looking forward to enjoying some time off from the kids. When we return, we will have four intense weeks of preparation for the STAAR Reading test. As a teacher, finding a way to make this fun and honor the learning that they actually need, beyond learning to test, can be a difficult quandary.

Monday, March 18, launches the World Cup STAAR Tournament of 2024. In each classroom, there will be five teams competing. They will be grouped by ability so that the struggle can be productive. If you put a more proficient student with very low students, then the higher level students end up doing all the work so the team wins.

Some might say having teams with high achieving kids go up against teams with struggling readers is unfair, but that’s sports for you. All teams are not created equal, and the point here is for the kids to push to the next level for the testing in a fun way. Thus, each day for 20 days leading up to D‑Day, the teams will have one Reading practice and one Revising & Editing practice to complete. Each week, teams will also have to complete two SCRs and one ECR response.

What are those, you ask? Well, an SCR is a short constructed response to a text. Essentially a single paragraph where students show they understood the question, found evidence in the text to support their answer, and can write with basic English conventions and good spelling. The ECR is an Extended Constructed Response. You might think this means an essay, and for later grade levels the requirements for paragraphing are more rigorous. However, for my 5th graders, the ECR is simply a longer paragraph which includes two reasons for their answer, two pieces of text evidence in support of their reasons, and a sentence explaining the connection between the reason and evidence. These are sandwiched between an opening statement that shows they understood the question/prompt, and a concluding statement that wraps it all up nicely.

Each week, the teams will have an opportunity to score goals. On the wall of my classroom, I have the goal posts and I have plenty of soccer balls to put in the net when they score. Each player scores a set number of goals per day depending on the grade they get on each practice, or doesn’t score as the case maybe. Additionally, a randomly selected player can score extra goals if they have done ALL the strategies we are teaching them to aid in their analysis and comprehension. One random player for the reading, and one for the revise and edit practice.

The defending champion will host the trophy at their table for the following week plus get to have an extra snack, a candy, and a special lunch provided by the teacher. Second and Third places for the week get snacks and candy prizes.

I’m thinking that for the final showdown, each homeroom can create a team and play out a real soccer game the week we take the test. The Friday of that week at recess, the two teams can go up against each other and we can see which one wins the World Cup STAAR Tournament of 2024.

Once we take the test on April 17, we can return to learning to read and write for the success of our lives. And this is exactly how I have presented this to my students, because I teach them to read and write, and then I pause to teach them how to successfully apply that in a testing genre. Wish us luck!

Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on Holiday Time!

Holiday Time!

Well, we finally are on holiday. I rather like the school calendar CyFair has more than the one we used in Alief. We let out for the winter break on Thursday but we don’t return to work until Monday, January 8th. It’s nice having those days post New Year’s to get things done rather than extra days during the hectic pre-Christmas time.

I have to say I was very proud of my students this past week. Many classes were acting up and being squirely but not my kids. They were focused on finalizing work and finishing our sports book club. We had a lovely day on Thursday as we completed an art project and did some writing while listening to music and enjoying snacks.

The one bad thing about the calendar is that we don’t get a day of work before the kids arrive. January 8 is the first day back for everyone. So there’s no time to be in our rooms and prepare. The school will be open on Friday January 5th and I will go early and do a morning of cleaning out the old and being ready for the new.

For now, it is time to clear the mind of that part of my life and focus on other things. During the holidays, I will need to reorganize my work study at home. We had the carpets cleaned and so everything is just topsy-turvy in there. It will be good to go through my files and purge and organize again.

Plus, now that I have a better handle on the time I need for school work, I can plan the time allotments for Inklings, Houston Writers Guild, and my own writing time much more realistically. It has been hit or miss with that this semester and it has added stress as I toggle from one thing to another in a disjointed manner. I hope to start 2024 with a more streamlined agenda — you guys remember my post about how I do my time allotments, right?

Right now, as I write this I am enjoying some quiet holiday rest. The house is set for Christmas and it is Christmas Eve. We are hosting at our home. And, starting yesterday, we are on a Terminator Saga binge watch. Seems appropriate to choose that series this year…

This will be our final blog post for the year. Ellen, Rachel and I will be back the first week in January. Hope everyone’s holidays are full of love and laughter. See you in 2024!

Posted on by Fern Brady - 1 Comment on Author’s Professional Growth

Author’s Professional Growth

As a writer, it is important to stay abreast of what is happening in the publishing industry. Many things have changed and when you are serious about having a career as an author, you must stay informed. Author conferences are a wonderful place to network and learn about what is happening in this vibrant industry.

The Houston Writers Guild is hosting an in person conference the weekend of October 6–8, 2023. There will be many amazing sessions to select from as well as lunch as a group on Saturday. Here’s a few things the Guild is offering this fall:

The venue is both comfortable and ideally located for a wonderful view of Houston.

The conference venue is the beautiful Hilton Houston Plaza/Medical Center Hotel located at 6633 Travis Street I Houston, TX 77030  Friday night kicks off the weekend with a session on how to use anthology and journal publications to build your author platform followed by the celebration of the winners of the Journey Into Art short story contest. The compiled anthology features the authors that won this contest sponsored in collaboration with Women in the Visual and Literary Arts as well as local publishing house, Inklings Publishing. (yes my company)

Saturday is the main day and starts with a powerhouse keynote by renowned fantasy author Kevin J Anderson. Sessions offered during the day include: Tips to being a freelance author; legal issues for authors; several sessions on different types of editors and when you need which; using writing to bolster your personal and professional life; a magnificent panel on writing diversity into your books; effective kickstarter campaigns; writing for radio; marketing tips for authors; using critique groups effectively; and even an old-style Samurai Renga Poetry competition.

Sunday the weekend closes with a wonderful session by Kevin J Anderson on how to maximize your productivity.

In addition to the presentations, the conference offers add ons such as pitch sessions with agents and aquisition editors of small presses looking for new voices. Plus, an opportunity to have a one-on-one session with a social media expert. Aimee Ravichandran of Abundantly Social is an award winning influencer who can help authors expand their reach and build audience. This is a golden chance to have her look at your platform and give you specific tips to improving your reach.

If you are an author, I strongly encourage you to check out this conference. It will be a great event and offers many oppotunties for authors to grow professionally. Here’s the link to the website for a more complete description of the offerings as well as a chance to get your tickets. While you are there, consider joining the Houston Writers Guild. It is a volunteer run organization that truly seeks to help ALL authors succeed by offering many different programs. You can check out the membership benefits at the link below.

Link to conference information:

https://www.houstonwritersguild.org/writersroom

Membership Page for HWG:

https://www.houstonwritersguild.org/membership

Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

An actual picture of me recalibrating my carefully managed life. LOL

There are moments in life when you need to stop and assess. Life has a way of pushing you forward, the ebb and flow of it moving you in an inertia that never stops. If you are not purposeful, you end up living life by default rather than by design.

In order to be purposeful, you need to intentionally build in the habit of stopping and assessing. There are some good moments in the year for doing this that seem almost built in for it. The end of the year and the beginning of a new one in December-January is one good moment for introspection. Though the holiday season can be a very emotional time as well as very busy for people with families, it can be difficult to carve out time to spend on evaluating how your life is going, where it’s going, and what if anything might need to change. Never-the-less, taking a few days to stop and see what the year that is closing results are and planning some goals for the one that is opening is a good habit to get into.

My new classroom. Excited to be back on the front lines of learning.

Another moment for introspection is the summer which can be a time to refresh and evaluate, especially for those who work in education or who have kids. A school year ending, and then a few months later, a new one starting can provide a great moment to stop and evaluate things.

For me, the end of this school year brought an awareness of many things that needed to be recalibrated in my life. The fiasco that occurred with the parents that went against Writers In The Schools, and me being caught in the cross hairs, brought into my awareness the reality of my work with WITS. The fact is, I was devouring what amounted to a full time job, in terms of hours on campus due to class schedules, while not actually being paid for all those hours. Because the program pays only for the hours you teach, the down time in between when you can’t go anywhere else or really do much else is unpaid.

Still needs a lot of work, especially decorative pieces for my walls, but it’s getting there.

Looking at the economic growth Inklings Publishing has made from the set backs of the pandemic these past three years has made me very happy. Yet, as I look at the new marketing options before us, I realize that continuing to take a salary from the company might not be the best option. I can take that money and invest it into growing it with new avenues of advertising and marketing.

So, I made the decision this summer to apply for a full time teaching position. I will basically be spending the same amount of time in a school, only this time I’ll be working the whole time and getting paid a full salary with benefits. This frees up my salary with Inklings to be used to grow the company. Some might argue against reinvesting my pay from the company. But, I have found, that this path worked well for us in the beginning years, when I did not pay myself and lived off of my other work.

Hmmm. Gotta think of some anchor charts and displays.

Am I going to be exhausted? Yes. But then again that’s not really new. Will I need to redo my handy-dandy time budget so I can stay balanced and get my writing out within the scope of time I have been planning? Absolutely. If you don’t know about my planning process, check out some of my first blog posts I did here. I laid it out for anyone who wants to follow it.

Back to School Time is Here!

Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on Beach Time

Beach Time

There are moments in life when it becomes necessary to take yourself off somewhere and reflect. My trip to Brownsville proved an amazing time of refreshing. The last day I was there, I visited South Padre Island.

As a child, we would often go to S. Padre to hang out at the beach. It is barely twenty minutes from Brownsville and the sand is so beautiful. My godmother had a condo at the Bahia Mar. She put us as authorized users so we would go there and hang out for the day.

During my recent visit, I took a day to enjoy the time by the ocean. There’s something about water that brings on a deep sense of peace. Listening to the waves, feeling the salty breeze on your body, the kiss of the sun’s rays on your skin, all this makes for a great time of meditation.

There was a lot to process that weekend. The attack by a parent group that is pushing for puritanical cleansing of education was high among these. My name was smeared by them as if somehow my author persona made me unworthy of working with kids. After being a teacher for 23 years, my identity was called into question.

I won’t lie. It shook me deeply. But as I sat there, on the beach listening to the waves and praying, I felt God’s presence in my life. He is my vindicator. I felt sorrow for these people. Their lives are so full of hate and insecurity. They can’t stand seeing others living a full and happy life.

As kids, my brother and I would sword fight when we went to Blackbeard’s.

How dare I enjoy writing science fantasy romance? How dare I enjoy smoking my cigars? How dare I not conform to what the evangelical lifestyle says a woman should be?

Well, I won’t conform. I will continue to be me, unabashedly and unashamedly. I’ve worked too hard to like myself to allow small minded people to come in and try to stick me back in the box that never fit to begin with.

There’s an interesting verse int he bible: I’m making something new. A woman shall encompass a man.

Their seafood is delicious but I always order the avocado burger. To die for good.

God called me to do great things. He is the author of my faith and of my journey. He is well able to finish the work He began in me. So I will continue my journey and I will let go of the hurt these people caused. I hope He is merciful when he deals with them. But I know He will give me justice in the end, for He despises those that try to shed innocent blood — and the tongue is an instrument of death with these kind of people.

After the time by the sea, I went to my favorite eatery not he island: Blackbeards. As a kid, I always called it black birds. I think because it has birds not he sign. Whatever you call this spot, it has the best damn burgers anywhere in the world. I challenge anyone to find better burgers.

Me enjoying my last cigar of my personal retreat time.

If you go down to the Rio Grande Valley, be sure to check out S. Padre and Blackbeard’s. You won’t regret it.

Posted on by Fern Brady - No Comments on Brownsville Trip #2

Brownsville Trip #2

During my last blog post, I wrote about the quick trip I took down to Brownsville with my parents. The weekend after that visit, I returned having booked a nice Airbnb to stay there for a long weekend. It was a time of refreshing, healing, and writing.

I headed out onto the highway on Thursday. Of course, I had all manner of snacks along with me. It isn’t a legitimate road trip unless you are eating a bunch of junk food along the way. At least, that’s my philosophy. I have a strong bladder from having been a teacher all my life, so I made only one pit stop at Refugio. I was met there by a seagull who was most upset when I told her I had nothing to offer her.

Back on the highway, I drove along singing loudly in my car. You absolutely must have a good playlist when on a road trip. I have one I labeled as Karaoke and it is great for in car singing. The trip from Houston to Brownsville takes almost six hours without stops.

Arriving at the little studio I rented, the first thing I did after lugging the five hundred suitcases and bags I brought with me — okay maybe it wasn’t THAT many but it sure felt like it — into the space was take in the view. In Brownsville, the Rio Grande river has left behind during its lifetime pockets of river that have been cut off from the main flow over the years. The locals call these resacas. One of the prime real estate assets for property down here is if it has a resaca in the backyard. This little studio did, and it makes for a fantastic view.

This church is on the edge of Refugio. As a child when we would drive by it, I always imagined I might get married here some day.

I spent the first day in the studio. I enjoyed morning reflection and coffee with my cigar outside with that relaxing scenery. I bathed, put on one facial mask and some strong conditioner on my hair. I spent time just reading and reflecting on the very hard situations I’ve been dealing with for the past 3 years. After some time, I took those products off and put on a renewing facial mask. I used the time while it worked on my skin to list out all the people and situations that have been hurtful these past few years and any that came up even from before.

Sometimes you think you’ve processed something but it pops back up, so you have to deal with whatever lingered. After my final bath, I was ready for my Friday night writing group. It was lovely to catch up with everyone and set some intentions for the writing I was planning to do that weekend. Most of it centered on getting out emotions and viewing situations so that I could make better sense of where I was and where I am going. But I didn’t plan to just stay in doors and process feelings the whole time.

The view from the studio of the resaca. Sitting out on the patio to smoke my cigars and take in this natural beauty was a major part of the refreshing effects of this trip.

I made my preparations to head to the zoo and to the beach while I was there. I’ve run out of words in this post to share those experiences, but you can come back when it’s my turn again to post and you’ll find out about my zoo and beach excursions and about the writing and resolutions I came to during that weekend. See you next time!