25th state, Florida Writers Conference, etc.

RUNNING: I finished the Grand Rapids Marathon on October 28, bringing my state count to 25! I'm planning to do St. Jude in Memphis, TN on Dec. 1, so that I'll be more than half way before the end of the year. I hope to do seven or eight next year. I'm working on my plan for the year.

Now, I know that back-to-back has come to mean doing marathons on Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend. I'm not to that level yet. I'm just to the point of attempting marathons on successive weekends. I'm planning to do Space Coast Marathon the week before St. Jude, just to see if I can handle it. I'll post the results soon after.

WRITING: I attended Friday and Sunday of the annual Florida Writers Conference this past weekend. In addition to the pleasure of seeing many friends, I had the pleasure of hearing knowledgeable people talk about writing and publishing.

I still believe I'm better at editing than at writing, but I'm inspired to go back to the keyboard, and give it my best effort.

Effort. That's one thing that distinguished mediocre writing from good writing. It's the effort we are willing to put into it. It came to me clearly this weekend that I haven't been putting enough effort into my writing. Producing something worthwhile takes more effort for some of us.

TUTORING: Speaking of effort, I have been making at effort to write SAT practice booklets. I've looked at so many tests, and I've analyzed them for math and grammar concepts that are frequently tested, words often used. I'm in the process of producing workbooks that I hope will help students increase scores significantly.


For my tutoring service, visit http://WiseOwlTutoring.net.

For more information about my writing and editing, visit http://BettieWailes.com.