A Time For Everything

GRL is the conference I go to. This year it's in Albuquerque. I've never been and looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to the drive--I'm gonna take the more northern route and check out some Route 66 tourist spots--namely The Cadillac Ranch. I haven't decided about the drive back--if I want to take the more southern trip and hit Roswell, although I'm not much into aliens and such. So maybe not.

In the mean time...

I mentioned the other day I'm trying to get two books out, so there are plenty of things to populate my TO DO list.

Things like write the book / back cover blurbs for both books. Assign ISBNs for various formats of each book. And by format I mean the epub, mobi, pdf, and print formats. Yes, an ISBN is required for each one. After that, I have to create said formats, except for print right now. And you know, finish that second book. :0)

I'm so close to finishing the second major proofing pass. I'll read it through one more time to address any last notes I've made, but there shouldn't be anything major left. I've addressed them all during this second pass.

So far, in each book of my Ten Rigs series, I had the first chapter of the next book to use as a preview. I have a first chapter for book two of this new series, except I wrote it so long ago when I was still writing heterosexual couples. I don't know if the plot line as written will convert easily as a pregnancy is involved. So do I add an extra character or do I remove the pregnancy angle? Things to ponder. There will be no chapter preview in the short anthology book.

Other things to prepare for are the book signings--do I have all the SWAG I need as well the signing accoutrements needed? That would my table signs and table runner, pens to sign with, etc, etc, etc...

Sounds like I need to borrow my kitchen table at some point and do a mock setup.

Hope your week is going well!

Catch you on Friday.

"Darn," you're thinking, right? Y'all finally got a break from my hockey obsession and here we are again.

I just want to express my disappointment in the San Jose Sharks--who I'm sure are way more disappointed in themselves than I truly am--but I digress.

The Sharks were supposed to win the third round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and send the St. Louis Blues home laden with disappointment. The Blues, you remember, won over my Dallas Stars in the second round of said playoffs and sent my boys home laden with that disappointment.

Instead, the Blues are moving on to the Stanley Cup Finals, playing the Boston Bruins. I hate the Bruins and I hate the Blues this year, so I don't know who'd I'd prefer to win. Not that it matters since it's not the Stars, the Golden Knights, or the Penguins.

 Now back to whatever I was originally going to ramble on about... Um... No, seriously, blog topics are a crap shoot. Did I think of something and forget because I didn't make a note somewhere? Did something happen in the world that I have an opinion on? Is there anything exciting going on in my life that rates coverage? No, no, and no.

Let me roll the metaphorical dice and see what occurs to me...

Okay, so...

I used to think life was busy with kids and that once they'd all grown up and moved away, life would be less busy, but that's not the case. It's not a bad thing, but anyone who has reached a certain age (it's different for everyone, I think) knows that time starts to pass faster. I do think you have to be at least 50 years old, though, yeah?

One of our speakers at writers group this past weekend talked about business plans. Now, several years ago, I put one together. It wasn't nearly as detailed as this person's but it served its purpose at the time.

Something she said struck a chord and is something I'd heard or considered before, but didn't really put into practice. Fast forward to two and a half months ago when an opportunity to participate in an anthology was passed along to me. I wanted to do it, but with all the hockey going on, could I pull it off?

I had to consider the deadlines, the scope of the project, if I could even come up with characters and a plot line, and how many days I'd be out of commission to write in the early morning because of a late night of hockey. I spent a weekend on characters and plot before I joined. If I didn't have that, there was no point. Then I figured up how many days were available to me and how many of them would be writing days. After that, I calculated how many words a day I had to write.

One of the woman's points when drawing up the business plan was how many books a year do you plan to write and or publish. You've obviously got to factor in your real life (day job, children, travel, etc) as well as how fast a writer are you.

It was a concept I'd considered previously but didn't do much with it, but I probably won't have the two books I wanted to publish out in the world this year. I will have the anthology I just mentioned and possibly another little volume of very short "coffee reads"--they're short enough to read while consuming a single cup of coffee--but not the two longer books I have despite both of them being half written.

The fact that they're both half-written and I can't seem to get them done maybe speaks to other issues. I'm trying to sort those...

Anyway. I need to try the approach of deciding on how many books to publish, how long they're going to be, plot and plan them, set deadlines maybe, sort daily word counts, and then--as Nike says--JUST DO IT.

Yeah, some of that ain't so easy. The plotting gets me every time.

Anyway, back to work. Have a great rest of your week.

I have successfully set a new routine in place...

I prefer to get my trip to the gym done in the mornings. I also write best first thing in the morning, but for the longest time, my trips to the gym were chewing up two hours. That was also back when I was in weight loss mode and I needed to burn enough calories in a day.

Now, though... I'm in maintenance mode and fat-utilization mode, so I don't need to work out as long or as hard. I've cut the length of a trip to the gym almost in half, leaving the rest of that early morning quiet available for writing.

It's been working out (heh) really well. I get my workout in, get my energy for the day, and I get my brain online enough to write. So I'm getting writing time in every day as well. And now that I'm in writing/editing mode, that's a wonderful thing. No matter what happens during the day, I've spent time with the words already.

Remember when I said it was crunch time almost two weeks ago? Well, now it's really crunch time. At that point, I hadn't fully grasped how much work was needed to get this book done. Now I do. I told my editor I'd have it to her by September 15th. That gives me three and a half weeks to get the book sorted and cohesive and finished.

I think it's going to take more than just the hour I have each morning. Granted, on Saturdays, I can work for three or four hours, so that's good, but I might will have to start carving out time here and there during my workday (the boss is lenient that way) to make sure I can send the book off by the deadline. Starting today...

Have a great day. See you Friday. :0)

One thing that a lot of my author friends complain about is all the ideas they have that they may or may not ever get to turn into books.

I've never really had that problem. In fact, I'd worried that once I'd finished with the nine Ten Rigs Texas books, that I'd be S-O-L. But then a new series idea came to me. It was a relief because I'm thinking it'll be another nine-book series. Of course, I have to finish the last three Ten Rigs books, but it's good to know I have something new in the pipes.


I've created a file and I've been adding plot and character ideas as they occur to me. I'm not banking on my memory here. Scrivener, the writing program I use, is wonderful in this regard. I can import files and web pages too.

So that new series has been floating around in the back of my brain for a good seven months and it's comforting to have it there. It's not a ton of ideas like some people I know, but it's good for a few books at least, right?

But then...when I was working on my writing groups' contest the other day, I processed a Highlander book, and I thought to myself : "I want to write a Highlander series." Highlanders are always popular and I enjoy the heck out of them myself

So now I have two series ideas and, while it's still nowhere the number of ideas a lot of my writer colleagues have, I'm excited to have a second idea rolling around the old noggin.

Might have to start another Scrivener file...

Have a great weekend!

A few weeks ago, on my writers group loop, a friend posted a link to a blog post about how to stay connected to readers without feeling overwhelmed by all the social media platforms available these days.

The advice was two fold--be clear and consistent and make it easy.

The blogger suggested that I and anyone else reading his words of wisdom take an hour and write a new message. From scratch. Then post it wherever I or they maintain an online presence.

Saturday morning while the house was quiet, I took that hour. Then I posted my message on my website as well as Amazon and here and an abbreviated one at Goodreads (they only accepted 2000 characters) with a link to the page here. If you want to read it, click here.

The thing that I really liked about this post was that this blogger verified my feeling that it's okay to be on only one or two platforms consistently rather than being hit or miss across all of them. Someone else has said it before too, though I don't remember who. Kristen Lamb or J.A. Konrath, I think. Writers get inundated with social media advice, most of which says you have to be everywhere. When are we supposed to write if we've got to juggle a day job, kids, spouse, and house too? And if it's not fun, you're less likely to do it.

One of the reasons why I finally took that hour--well, really, it was forced upon me. DH was sick and had to sleep on the loveseat, so I didn't want to disturb him with housework and stuff while he was actually getting some sleep.--is that last week I worked to get my second Romance Writer's Guide book ready for publication and I wanted my author message current, consistent, done and out there.

Remember, one of my goals for the year is to publish at least three more of them. The topic had been percolating for a while and it needed to get put on paper, so to speak. So I spent time before and after work, writing and revising and finding examples. I read it out loud to hear the cadence and flow of my sentences. I tweaked some more. I added new text. I deleted repetition. It needs another read through before I'm comfortable putting it out there. The cover is done too. I took some time this weekend to create it as well. That's my least favorite part--creating the cover. I find the process tedious and time consuming. But it's ready to go when the book is.

Another of my goals was to read books about plotting--the hardest part of writing for me. I think. I spent some time on Christmas day looking for books about plotting on Amazon and bought five of them with the gift card I had. I started reading one of them last week. We'll see what nuggets I can pan from it.

How about you? Making any headway on this year's goals?

I haven't been able to get my pictures from my old hard drive, so we're going to just skip this week altogether and see what happens next week.

Instead, let's just celebrate the fact that it's FRIDAY!!

I've got lots to do tomorrow in preparation of my trip and before I leave for Oklahoma City (Sunday at 8am.). My trip has been extended to two nights. YAY!! It'll be hours and hours of brainstorming and revising (maybe) and chatting and getting to know two new friends better. We'll do a bit of sight seeing while we're there, too, so pictures next week for sure.

So last night, I watched a movie in my writing room on the big screen for the first time. And no...I didn't choose Harry Potter, I watched another of my favorites: Penelope! It's a cute, fun, live-action fairy tale starring Christina Ricci and the yummy James McAvoy. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Remember I mentioned my Batman fan girl status a few posts ago? Yes? Well, I found the action figure I mentioned:


And that's about all I have for now.

I'll be posting Monday's entry from OKC!

Have a good weekend.

I feel like a yo-yo or to be a little more unkind a kid with ADHD.

I get into writing, I get into critiquing, I get into writing, I get into critiquing...

I can't seem to focus or decide if I want to write books or edit them.

It's both really, but can I achieve both. Sure with a bit of effort. Maybe it's just laziness. I don't want to expand that much effort. Or do I?

I think part of the question (and think Tim McGraw here) is : How bad do you want it??

My job and a key personal issue preclude me from being more aggressive about pursuing these two goals. Is that a good enough reason to just drift along right now?? I don't know.

I am taking a few steps, one technically, and that is to take some online classes this year about things I am not so good at. Namely plotting. I spent a few hours several Sundays ago surfing the 'Net for options. I found five or six that looked interesting.

I receive GrammarBook.com's weekly newsletter. It's not a weakness, but it's good to be reminded of things and I do occasionally learn something new.

I also signed up for dictionary.com's Word of the Day. Learning new words can never hurt a writer. :)

I've been humoring the idea of trying to become an unpaid intern at one of a plethora of e-publishing houses. But do I have the skills? I don't have a degree. How do I offer myself and for how long? What do they get for hiring me, for imparting their wisdom? I'm still mulling how to go about that. Do I approach the "big name" e-publishers or try for a "mid-list" publisher to get my feet wet?

Ah, well...now it's time to get the trumpeteer to jazz band practice and then it's off to the office to write for at least an hour. Actually I have to revise. I found a pretty big flaw... *sigh*

I want to post today, though at first I didn't have a topic in mind or a bee in my bonnet. Now I do. (:

Social media for writer/aspiring writer. Does using social media help aspiring writers generate sales once they've sold the book?

It's an interesting debate and I think the answer is yes and no. The problem is that most aspiring writers have a following of other writers and personal friends when they begin the journey. And that's okay. And eventually, I think, friends of friends and friends of other writers might find you and join the bandwagon. But that takes time.

Some people find social media fun to use. But it's time consuming, and so does an author spend his/her time working the media or do they spend the time writing the best damn book they can?

I guess that's for each individual to answer, but I'd think one would err on the side of writing the book. You can't have fans or sales if you have no product.

I know people who start blogging or tweeting or what-have-you and go great guns for a while and then their activity dwindles and you never see them online. That's frustrating for the followers.

Personally, I have an author website that has seen no updates in quite some time, but while this blog consists of my personal musings on a wide variety of topics, I post fairly regularly.

And the real kicker is that I have 8 followers. I don't know who half of them are, but it's kinda cool. :)

Have a good day.

What would that look like?

It would look much the homemaker's life: stay-at-home wife, keeping the house and the yard and the kids in order. In between cracking the whip or wielding the mop, I'd be banging away on the keyboard cranking out words on my latest WIP. Actually, it's be the other way 'round, at least during the day. Un-numbing my butt by mopping or scubbing a toilet or changing a load of laundry.

Hubby is well aware of my desire to be a homemaker, but for right now, I have to be a workin' girl.

One day....