Phases of decorating

I’m starting on the slightly daunting, yet very exciting, task of making our new house a home! For now, we’re just using the furniture that we have, but over time, we want to buy new things for this house. I’m guessing most of my decorating will be done in two or more phases, depending on our budget.

Then I started thinking about the order in which to do the rooms. And if I’d want to complete one room before starting another. And I think the answer is no. Part of me would love to tackle each room, finish it, and then move on. But I don’t think this will really be in alignment with the priorities I’ve been setting for purchases.

I have SO many purchases I’d like to make, but not too many that I really need at the moment. So I’m trying to prioritize the purchases based on how much we want them and how much they cost. Top of the list right now is rugs. I think rugs will make a huge comfort and style impact. Right now, I feel like my living room is just a huge expanse of space with scattered furniture. I’m leaning toward this one, but we’re not set enough to pull the trigger on it yet.

We did find a clearance rug at Target for the office! It’s no longer listed on their website, so I can’t share the link, but I’ll share a picture once we get it in place.

Next up, I think I’m going to make some mood boards for different rooms so we’ll feel more comfortable making purchases and not feel like they are just random items that we hope will fit together.

Tell me, do you decorate one room at a time or move from place to place?

Creating flawed characters

I just finished reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Around the same time, I was looking for quotes for a chapter I was writing for the new book I’m coauthoring and I came across this one in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: “a person’s faults are largely what make him or her likable.” And I would add, interesting.

The plethora of characters is what I found most intriguing about this book. At the center of the plot the book becomes a true-crime novel, but that is not what kept me coming back to its pages. It was the characters. The Lady Chablis, the preoperative transsexual, who captivates both the narrator and the reader. She’s a drag queen and you are never sure what she will do next. Several who try to give the impression of perfection, but it doesn’t take much digging beneath the surface to see their real flaws, limitations, and motivations. Joe Odom, the lawyer and con-man, who moves from house to house with his entire entourage, having a knack for finding a place where he easily take advantage of a situation. And Savannah itself feels like a character. I found the following review by the New York Times Book Review particularly true: “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil might be the first true crime book that makes the reader want to call a travel agent and book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”

This book is a perfect example on how to construct characters for any story, both fiction and nonfiction. People want to relate to characters and since none of us are perfect, why should the people we read about be? Anne Lamott goes on to say “I like for narrators to be like the people I choose for friends, which is to say that they have a lot of the same flaws as I.”

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It’s been awhile…and some big news

It’s been so long since I last posted, but it’s been an incredibly busy couple of months!

First, we bought a house! We’ve been waiting for years to be in a position to buy our dream house, and we’ve finally done it. I’m so excited to decorate and personalize this new space of ours and I hope to document the process with all of you. I’ve already made some progress making our new home feel inviting with a wreath, a new doormat, and some mums to welcome our visitors!

I also spent some time to really clean it up, and that has made all of the difference! Sometimes all you need to make a space beautiful is to tidy it up.

Another big announcement: I’ve been invited to be a co-author for an upcoming anthology. I’m so excited about this opportunity and I’ll be sure to post more details soon!

I’m also ramping up the marketing on my business. If you’d like to check it out, visit me over at www.graveswriting-publishing.com. I’ve just created a new logo and website. It’s a nice way for my creativity to really spill over into my work.

So what have you been up to since we last chatted?