Of All Things Lee

On Being Enough and What That Means to Me

I always have a difficult time with feeling as if I am enough on my own. Then I realized, being enough didn’t necessarily mean being alone the way I understood it. Here’s where I talk on being enough and what that means to me. Continuing my reading of “Girl, Stop Apologizing”.

Read other essays regarding “Girl, Stop Apologizing”.

Choosing to be Me or What If

Stop Apologizing. Well, this girl…

Choosing to be Me or What If

Continuing with my discussion spawned by Rachel Hollis‘s book, “Girl, Stop Apologizing”. How am I choosing to be me?

My current author photo standing next to a mummy at ConCarolinas.

What if I was just me, I ponder. What if I were simply to allow myself to do as I please without worrying about the lives of others and how they will be impacted? Well, there is one way this could go, which is to say…

Publication Updates AUGUST 2020

Halfway through the month and I have publication updates to report. I sold a story and I recently received the cover art for “ALICE”.

Cover art for “ALICE” my zombie horror novel due out on September 15th.

For those of you who remember, “ALICE” is due out September 15th. I received the cover art recently and I love it. I’m ready for this book to be out, but I know there are edit rounds it must go…

Stop Apologizing. Well, this girl intends to.

I just started reading Rachel Hollis‘s “Girl, Stop Apologizing” for the second time. In the introduction, she points to what she is no longer apologizing for. In her case, it’s having huge dreams and goal setting. So I got to thinking, what am I no longer willing to apologize for? For the many people who know me, I live my life fairly loudly, willing to talk about (with friends) almost anything.…

Max Out Your Rewards to Create New Habits

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, creating a habit is difficult. However, this may be because your feedback loop is not strong enough. Rewards are the backbone of your feedback loop; without the right ones, creating a new habit can be nearly impossible. Here’s how to max out your rewards to create new habits.

What’s a Feedback Loop?

A very simple feedback loop from Psychology Wiki.

Put in…

Prep Your Writing Day for Success in 3 Steps

Do you ever have the kind of writing day you wish you could have over and over again? The words flow. Your brain seems to be on fire. Everything works out magically. Those days are pure gold. However, they also seem to be elusive. I’ve found there are three distinct steps to prep your writing day for success.

Knowledge. As Rachel Aaron pointed out in 2K to 10Kit is head-slappingly obvious that…

How Habits Happen and What You Can Do About It

We’ve all been there: we start doing something and before you know it, we’ve developed a habit. A daily cup of coffee. Picking up breakfast at the drive thru. Vegging out in front of the television after work. Just a habit. However, in a lot of cases, we don’t understand how these habits are formed. They just happen. So today, we’re going to figure out how habits happen and what you can do about…

Learn New Things Fast By Learning Your Type

If you’re anything like me, you want to learn new things. However, that leads to the question of HOW. After all, learning new habits and skills requires getting the information into your brain somehow. Yet looking into it, habits and knowledge are based on two different systems of how the brain processes information. Here’s how you learn new things fast by learning your type.

First let’s talk…

Write Fast: 2K to 10K Method

I’ve mentioned Rachel Aaron‘s 2K to 10K method on the blog before, but the method truthfully deserves its own post. You can read about Rachel HERE, but like she says the internet mostly knows her for writing fast. Her book, 2K to 10K, has changed the way some writers write. Of course, for a person who is interested in writing and habits, I want to take a look a little more in-depth at the…

Moving in the Right Direction: July/August

Hey there, Story Fiends. Alle Here. It’s the end of July which means my birthday month is officially coming to a close; however, that doesn’t mean the party’s over.

July Remembered

Let’s check out what I got done this month. I decided this month I was going to actually use my blog on a regular basis, so I’m super chuffed with myself for putting out 12 pieces this month,  not counting this one.…

4 Steps to Handcraft Your Morning

Handcraft Your Morning

Let me tell you a secret: I’m not a naturally early riser. Two things affected me to get me to where I am today: having a job and having cats. Chiefly, it was the having cats which affected my sleep schedule. My assistants, as I like to call them, are very good at remembering when something happens especially when it involves food. However, I had to teach them to want to…

Horror and Habits: SAW Seeing the strategies of habit change in the horror genre. Starting with Jigsaw.

Jigsaw and the Lightning Bolt: How John Kramer used the Strategy of the Lightning Bolt for Habit Change

In this current day and age, every horror fan knows John Kramer aka Jigsaw from the Saw franchise. I’ve written about my feelings on Saw as a franchise previously. Check those out:

Things I Love [Saw: the Franchise]

Things I don’t Love [SAW: The Franchise]

However, what I want to talk about…

The Closed Loop: Identity & Habit Formation

Identity and Habits are a closed loop. Who you are is what you do and what you do is who you are. 

So here are some simple-ish ideas on how to make that work for you.

Know Thyself

That seems so simple it barely bears being said, but taking stock of one’s self before beginning the road to habit change is perhaps one of the best things you can do. Why? Because you have to know where you are before…

4 Steps to Killing It Writing: The PESO Method

4 Steps to Killing it Writing

4 Steps to Killing it Writing

This post is dedicated to my deepest influence: My mother.

She once asked me how I manage to get some much done on my writing. I honestly didn’t know how to answer that question because I hadn’t sat down and codified what I was doing to get so much work done in the first place.

Step 1:  Process That’s where you start, with knowing what works for you. What do I mean by process? I mean you need to…

2 Color Time Management

Time Management: Why You Need It

Let’s be honest, it’s easy to be busy. It’s a bit harder to be productive. Knowing what you have to get done and getting it done are two different things. “Neo, you will learn there is a difference between knowing the path and walking it” says Morpheus. For me, it was a matter of getting control of my time. I have time. If you’ve read my discussion of how much…

Why KonMari? Why I choose the KonMari Method when I started going minimalist

Choosing to go minimalist is all the rage these days. Partially because, I think, we are starting to realize how much our stuff owns us rather than the other way around. From needing sophisticated home security systems for a house that sits empty for hours (sometimes seemingly days) at a time to needing things to be at the exact right temperature, our stuff dictates how we live. Not gonna lie, I…