Author: jrvincente

TMI Tuesday: January 11th, 2022

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TMI Tuesday is posted, asking you to write about your first. . .

1. First app you check in the morning?

Jayden: Whatever notification is on top, usually. Unless I see something important. Often it’s Google Chat where I talk to my best friends. ❤

Richard: Usually Discord, so Jayden can ask permission to go the bathroom.

2. First kiss location?

Jayden: Uhh, my house, I suppose. I was pretty young. Too young.

Richard: Like, first first kiss? Probably the playground in elementary school. First “serious” kiss, the banquet hall we had junior prom at.

3. First major purchase over $1000?

Jayden: I guess my first house? I don’t think any of my laptops have ever been over $1000 and I didn’t buy any appliances when I lived in the rental. Oh, my first car? But my parents bought it and I paid them over a few years, so I don’t know that that even counts.

Richard: A bed. We still have it as a guest bed. Good bed. Anne Hathaway worthy.

4. First song choice in karaoke song book?

Jayden: I usually pick My Baby Loves Me by Martina McBride.

Richard: Something fun that everyone can sing along to like Sweet Caroline or Build Me Up Buttercup.

5. First internet screen name?

Jayden: I’m not telling because I still have it on my emails and such for my real accounts, not my author name accounts.

Richard: I think it was Psycho something, and I’m pretty sure I spelled Psycho wrong, because I was like 12.

6. First break up reason?

Jayden: Distance? I guess. I mean, it was half an hour away, but when you’re young and can’t drive, that doesn’t work well.

Richard: Probably also distance. It’s hard to be in a relationship when you work and live at a summer camp, and you only get about 24 hours a week off.

7. First concert and how old were you?

Jayden: I was 10. Joan Armatrading. My mom didn’t want to go, so my dad took me instead.

Richard: I saw TSO for Christmas in my early 30s? I don’t know, I always say none of the ones I’ve been to count.

8. First crush?

Jayden: I remember him well. If I’d had a son, I would’ve named him for that guy. But he passed away when I was in college. It was really sad.

Richard: I dunno. I had a couple crushes in elementary school, but I couldn’t tell you their names.

Bonus: What was the title of your very first blog post?

Jayden: First Post! All the way back on March 5, 2015.

Richard: I don’t think it had one? It was on Xanga though.

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How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!

Happy TMI Tuesday!

Million Words FINISHED!

~ jrvincente ~ 2 Comments

We made it! Technically a week late, but we decided we deserved some time off for our elope-moon. It’s also Richard’s birthday, and all he wanted was to be finished with this. It was a long, tough road. Both of us can handle fifty thousand in a month or more when that’s our main focus, but maintaining close to that pace month after month with life (and a divorce, and moving, and getting married, and trying to have sex 555 times…) getting in the way is hard. But we did it! Here’s what each of us learned, thought of things, etc.

Continue reading →

#Bloganuary 5-7

~ jrvincente ~ 4 Comments

Hello readers! We’re back to post Bloganuary #5-7 because we got a little bit behind. This is a common theme in our lives, unfortunately. If only we could just be bloggers. Then we’d always be on time! (Maybe.)

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Bloganuary 2022 Participant Badge

So here is the next installment. Day 5-7:

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The Insecure Writer’s Support Group #IWSG

~ jrvincente ~ 5 Comments
The Insecure Writer's Support Group

We’re back for a 10th month of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group! We’re excited to be back, and to have at least one challenge we haven’t dropped the ball on. This is still the only one we’ve been consistent with, though we’re mostly back on track with TMI Tuesday.

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

January 5 question – What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

Jayden: Well, I’ve published a few novels and don’t really market them. I like writing a lot, but editing isn’t my forte. I can line edit and continuity like nobody’s business, but keeping track of all the details and big picture things just isn’t what I’m good at. One of my good friends once said to me that there’s a market for write book, grammarly, read once, publish. I think that’s about where I am in my writing process. I’ve done *a lot* of writing, but not as much editing or publishing especially in the last year. So I’m working on overcoming it.

That said, writing is NOT my primary career, and I don’t really have a goal of that being the case. Someday, I would like to retire young and use writing to fill in the gaps until I can be really fully retired. But… I’m in my 30s, so I have a looooong time until it’s even a concern. So ‘overcoming’ isn’t really a big deal right at the moment.

Richard: I don’t really think I have a writing “career” as such, so it’s hard to have regrets for it. Like Jayden (and probably 99% of writers) I wish I’d written more, published more, started earlier, etc. I wish I’d pushed a little harder for other MFA programs. I may still have wound up where I did, but it never hurts to put out more applications, have more options, etc.

What are your stresses and delights when writing? Drop them in the comments!

TMI Tuesday: January 4th, 2022

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Wishing you all a wonderful 2022. Now for the first TMI Tuesday of the year 2022.

1. Do you feel that happiness is luck or is it a practiced mindset?

Jayden: A practiced mindset, at least for me. I know people who have terrible luck that saps away their happiness.

Richard: Luck. You’re either born into circumstances that allow you to be happy or you’re not.

2. If you could transport to the happiest place in the world where would you be?

Jayden & Richard: Finland. According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, “Finland has been the world’s happiest country for four years running.” Source.

3. In 2022, what will you do to improve your health?

Jayden: Walk more. Move more. Eat less. Eat better. A little vague maybe, but that’s all I can commit to right now.

Richard: Walk more. I used to walk all the time, but I haven’t made time for it lately.

4. What is your money psychology?
a. Money worshipper: Those who associate money with security, but in a kind of arbitrary way. The danger is no amount of money is ever enough.

b. Money avoidance: When you tend to think of money as bad, corrupting or just something you do not deserve. This can manifest in many ways, such as, not trying to negotiate a raise at work or avoiding looking at your retirement account.

c. Money vigilance: These people seem really great with their money, but there is a lot of anxiety around actually using it. This type can be great savers but rarely treat themselves.

d. Money status: People with this mind-set see money as a way to feel good about themselves and appear a certain way to others. These folks tend to run up credit card debt, pick up tabs they cannot afford and otherwise mismanage their money — while judging others who do not have the same status symbols.

Jayden: b. Money avoidance. I don’t feel like any of them really fit me, but I guess that’s the closest one. I definitely had a lot of anxiety last time I had to negotiate salary.

Richard: a. Money worshipper. It’s a factual statement, and I don’t understand how anyone can be anything else.

Bonus: Do you have any goals for your blog in 2022?

Jayden: Just to be more consistent. With bringing on Richard at the beginning of 2021, I was a lot better, even posting many days in a row for a while, but then life got busy and we fell off the wagon. It’s fine, though, we still kept up with most things, and hopefully 2022 will be a little more settled, so I can post more consistently.

Richard: Actually publish it so people can read it.

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How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!

Happy TMI Tuesday!

#Bloganuary 1

~ jrvincente ~ 1 Comment

Hello readers! We’re here today to bring you the first in a new series: Bloganuary! It’s a challenge to blog every day in January with a prompt from WordPress. Even though we didn’t find out until the very end of the day on the 1st, we decided to give it a shot! The prompts don’t come out until almost the day of, so we have to write every day for it to work. (And hey, this will help inch us closer to our 1,000,000 words goal!)

Blue ribbon badge with the words "Bloganuary 2022 Participant" in all capital letters. The WordPress logo is in the center.
Bloganuary 2022 Participant Badge

So here is the first installment. Day 1:

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Continue reading →

Magic Number: 524 Sexes

~ jrvincente ~ 2 Comments

Here is our final update about our 2021 goal to have sex 524 times in 2021:

We knocked it out of the park!

So, what does all that mean?

  • We had sex an average of 1.52 times a day.
  • We had sex 293 days or 80% of days.
  • We had sex a total of 555 times in the year.
  • We had 31 more sexes than our goal.
  • 44% of the time, we had only one sexual encounter per day.
  • One time, we had seven in a day. Twice we had six in a day. Seven times we had five in a day.
  • Of those seven times, three of them were the last three days of the year.
  • In the last week of 2021, we had sex 29 times. 19 of those were on our elope-moon.
  • In 2021, there was only one week we went down to less than four days.
  • There were only three weeks we had five or less sexes in a week. The lowest was four, and it was one week.

What did we learn from all of this?

  • Tracking how often we have sex is hard. We probably missed a few numbers in there because we thought it was once or twice, so we went with once.
  • Tracking how often we have sex makes it sometimes feel like a chore. “Oh, we’re falling behind, we should have an extra today,” or “Let’s just do this quick so we can put a number on the spreadsheet.” (That’s not to say that we don’t have a very active sex life naturally, but there are times when we are exhausted!)
  • We are glad that we tracked it, and we had a good time doing it, but we’re glad that it’s over. We’ll probably keep track in 2022, but just for curiosity’s sake.
  • Apparently we have a much more active sex life than most? Feel free to tell us we’re wrong and that you’re just as active!

Thanks for following along on our sex journey from 2021! We hope you had all got to have some lovely sex of your own!

Surprise!

~ jrvincente ~ 4 Comments

In our last TMI Tuesday we said our next post would be an update to our 524 sexes, 1 million words, and a surprise. The first two parts are coming, but not quite yet. We’ve decided to give ourselves a few extra days because…

WE ELOPED!

We were already going on vacation this week, and when we learned that there was no waiting period for a marriage license where we were vacationing, we decided that we were ready and we just wanted to get married. We had been talking about a wedding for a long time, and got engaged earlier this month. But with the pandemic and all, planning a big event just was more than we wanted to do right now. So instead, we eloped. It felt right to do something that was just the two of us. From the very beginning, our relationship has always had other people involved. Other people’s opinions, other people’s input, other people we were dating. This was just us. We met an officiant we’ll probably never see again, went to a beautiful park, and got married.

Our Eventually Ever After has arrived.

So now we’re Mr. and Mrs. and we couldn’t be happier.

TMI Tuesday: December 21st, 2021

~ jrvincente ~ 1 Comment
Often it is the small things in life that bring us joy and clarity. Welcome or welcome back to TMI Tuesday.

1. Do you have a favorite author? Who?

Jayden: Mary Higgins Clark. She was the first mystery author I read. I have loved her since I was a kid.

Richard: I would like to preface my answer by saying that Jayden’s is the most un-Jayden answer possible. I have never seen her read a mystery in my life. I was really expecting Laurel K. Hamilton or something.

I’m going to go with Phillip K. Dick. For today anyway, It’ll be someone else tomorrow I’m sure. I think he hits the sweet spot between “thinky” lit-fic and “pulpy” pop sci-fi.

2. Do you make your bed each morning? Why?

Jayden: Yeah, mostly, just because otherwise the cat will get into the bed and I’m allergic.

Richard: I sort of make the bed every morning, because Jayden goes to work earlier than me. When she gets up, I pull her pillow and tiny snuggle blanket under the covers to cuddle in her absence, and then I make sure the comforter is pulled over all her stuff when I get up. I don’t tuck the corners or anything though.

3. What is one recipe that gets you through busy, hectic times?

Jayden: Recipe? Uhhh. If I’m really slammed, I’m a hot pocket kind of girl.

Richard: I don’t know if it counts as a “recipe”, but when I’m short on time I often make a pseudo-ploughman’s lunch. Butter up a big hunk of sourdough, grab an apple or whatever fruit is around, slice up some cheese (or grab the pre sliced) and pour a tall glass of milk. Takes less than 5 minutes to put together, very filling, and a total comfort food.

4. For therapeutic venting, who do you call–friend, sibling, parent, significant other?

Jayden: I call Richard. But I also have a therapist and several friends. Sometimes I vent more than once.

Richard: Most of my venting is work related, so I have one or two work friends that are probably my most common. Non-work (grad school being stupid) related, definitely Jayden.

5. When did you last de-clutter the camera roll/pics on your smartphone?

Jayden: Ummm. I guess when I got my new phone in February/March?

Richard: I probably do it a couple times a year if I’m waiting in line or something, really bored, and can’t find an article to read. I also take like 2.3 pics a month on average.

Bonus: What is the subject of your next blog post?

Jayden: It’s a good thing we did this one late! The next post is going to be a year-end wrap up about our 524 sexes, a million words, and a special surprise!

Richard: For my non-Jayden blog, I think my next post is about can openers.

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How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!

Happy TMI Tuesday!