S.M. Butler's Blog, page 29

I wish I could unsee this mess. Because that’s what it is. You know how kids have this fascination with one thing, and they shove it under people’s noses over and over and over again? This is what Miley did. She has discovered that she had sex appeal, and she pushed that under people’s noses over and over again. Sex is a scary forbidden thing to teens, and that makes it exciting and fun and attractive.

For teens, it’s usually a whisper in the locker room, a giggle in the back seat of a car while you tell your girlfriend. But Miley? She decided to proclaim it to the world, on stage, in front of thousands of people. “Hey look! I know what sex is!”

From the air guitar that looked more like she was masturbating to the uncoordinated dancing and tweaking that made her look like she was on something, she embarrassed the world. It was traumatic to watch, and sad to know that it was really happening.

The world knows that Miley has a tongue now, and can straddle a giant bear. Sticking your tongue out like you’re a five year old isn’t provacative or sexy. It’s just juvenile. She may be a young woman in age, but she is still a child that hasn’t learned to grow up, to discover what real sexual appeal is. To be confident and glorious as a woman. Hell, I’m not sure that I’ve learned how to do that yet.

There isn’t enough brain bleach in the world to erase that mess from my mind, or anyone else’s. But let’s chalk it up to the fact that she is young, and immature, and that someone should have talked her out of that. I feel bad for her. I do not feel bad for her dad, because he made her into Hannah Montana, and this is her big F U to Dad and to Disney.

Honestly, I wonder if she should have taken some lessons from Hilary Duff on how to shed the Disney skin.

It’s release day… Actually that was yesterday, but it has somehow carried over to today. I’m pretty much useless in all aspects of my life right now. Oh, and if you haven’t picked up your copy of No Strings Attached, you should go do that. Go on. I’ll wait here.

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Oh, good, you’re back.

So this week has been pretty crazy. It’s the last week before school starts for the kiddos. I’m excited about having a routine again. I love having them home, but it’s nice to have those hours to get work out of the way too.

I missed updating ROW80 last week, so now I don’t even remember where I left off, goalwise.

I do know that I’m back working on Heart and Snow. It’s going much better now that I’ve had a couple weeks away from it. I don’t know why it wasn’t working before. I just couldn’t get the story out. So I worked on the Seekrit Bunny of Awesome (SBoA) for a couple weeks and now that one is set aside until after I get H&S done.

So until H&S is done, that’s going to be my primary focus. After that, I’m probably going to take a week off and then hit Scoring His Heart, which got pushed to the back burner for the same reason that H&S did. I think there’s a point where I just need to stop working on a book, let it rest, and come back to it a couple weeks later. That seems to be becoming part of my process. And you know what? I’m okay with that.

So talk to me about your writing process. Is it the same every time, or does it change with each book? Got any quirks or tricks while you’re writing?

 

I’m so ready for school to start. I love my kids. I adore them. But I’ve barely been able to write this summer with them home all the time. It’s crazy how busy it’s been and long and unstructured…

Yeah.

I love having my kids home, and spending time with them. Both their birthdays are in the summer, so we usually do a big celebration for both between their birthdays. Not so much a birthday party, but going and doing things. Like last year we went to a waterpark. This year, I’d planned on a big movie day, but we didn’t get it done before the second birthday. I’m still planning on taking them. But we hadn’t liked the movies that were out. We might wait until November and December when Thor 2 and Hobbit 2 come out.

All that is awesome. It really is. But I’m ready to send them back to school. I miss writing. I don’t get nearly as much done during the summer. It’s a big reason why I stop taking on graphic work from June through August too. I’m so unreliable during the summer.

Obviously, the kids don’t share my sentiment. Neither want to go back to school. Who can blame them? When I was their age, I didn’t want to either. Pretty soon, though, they’ll have no choice. And then my excuses for not working will be gone, too.

I’m excited. I have a ton of things that I wasn’t able to get to this summer. But fall brings NaNoWriMo, which is awesome. I’m so super competitive that I always seem to do well during the November challenge. And… I already have the story I want to push for that month.

So what about you? What do you like about the fall?

School?

NaNoWriMo?

Thanksgiving?

Oooh, I forgot about Thanksgiving. I’m excited about that too…

 

You guys, even though my kids are home, I’m having a great summer. I’m not getting a super amount of writing done, but I am getting some done, and I think it’s just going to have to be a slow trickle until school starts again. But still, I’ve been really…happy this summer, and I can’t say that I’ve felt that way a lot in the past. It’s kind of an awesome feeling.

So, last week, I wanted to write 10k on H&S and keep up with homework. Um… I got 10k… but it wasn’t on H&S. It was on the Seekrit Bunny of Awesome. And because i can’t get it out of my head, I’m taking this week to really lose myself in the story and get as much of it done as I can. After that, I have to get back to Heart and Snow. I just… things weren’t gelling for H&S because my mind was on the Seekrit Bunny, so I’m going to indulge myself and then come back to Heart and Snow after I manage to get Seekrit Bunny out of my head.

I also have 13 days before No Strings Attached releases, so I’m working on getting promotional things out of the way and organized for that. I’m not doing a big blowout thing, but I’ve got a couple little things worked out.

So I’m still really busy, but at least I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore. I feel like I might actually have a handle on things, for once.

Anyway, so for this week, it’s all about the Seekrit Bunny. Sorry, guys. I know some of you are waiting on Heart and Snow, but if I can’t make it my best work, I don’t want to put it out there yet. Besides, even if I take a week off, I can still make my deadlines for H&S and get it out on time.

I also want to pick up another blogging day during the week. Having a blog full of ROW80 updates is okay, but I feel like I need a little more substance than that. So, that’s one of the goals this week too. Blog once that is not ROW80.

And I think that’s it from me this week. How’s everyone else doing?

 

It’s another ROW80 update! For those that don’t know, ROW80 is a writing challenge for those people that have lives. You set your own goals. Achievable ones.  Reasonable ones (unless you’re like me) and you have 80 days to do it.

I’ve been working on Heart and Snow for a couple weeks. It’s been giving me fits, but I’m liking the new couple I put there. I had to start over, as I talked about last week, and I built the story back up. I actually paused last night and decided to think about the story a little more. Some things were fuzzy, but I think I’ve got things worked out in my head now.

I also came up with a super awesome bunny that I’m not going to talk about here, so I’ve been using it as a carrot. If I finish my daily goal on H&S, then I’m allowed to play with the fun bunny. So far, so good. I’ve gotten my word count every day except for yesterday, and that was mainly because I got stuck on the story and had to re-brainstorm to figure out what I was doing. I also didn’t work on the new bunny as a result. So, upping my word count by 20 more words each day to make up for the non-wordage. My goal is still to finish this book by August 31. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be longer than I originally wanted. But when is that a surprise?

On the publishing front, I have two giveaways going on right now over at Goodreads. I have 10 copies of Off Her Game and I have 5 copies of No Strings Attached to give away this month. So if you’re interested in either of those, go check them out. These are print versions too.

I have some other things in the works for NSA’s release next month (this month? It is the last day of the month after all) so stick close by so you don’t miss it.

Oh, and my newsletter will be going out in a couple days, so if you haven’t signed up for it yet, go do that! I give out first peeks to those on my list. And they get it before the blog does.

So, goals for next week:

10k on Heart and Snow
Keep up with homework for school

On a non-writing note, I discovered My Boys on Netflix. If you knew how much I loved this show when it was on, you would be jumping up and down for me. I was so sad it went off the air and i wasn’t able to catch up on the show. And now I will jump for joy because when I’m done writing for the day, I can watch My Boys.

Goodreads Book Giveaway


No Strings Attached
by Suzan Butler

Giveaway ends August 19, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

So, I was going through some stuff and I found some extra print copies of Off Her Game.And since I’m doing a new cover (not that there’s anything wrong with the old cover, but I wanted it to match the rest of the series), I figured I’d just give the books away.

I decided to do a month long giveaway on Goodreads. So, if you’re interested in being one of the ten people who get a book, and live in the US (sorry, international readers. Postage is killer! But I’ll have something for you guys real soon, okay?), you can go enter now.

Goodreads Book Giveaway


Off Her Game
by Suzan Butler

Giveaway ends August 27, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

This past week I’ve been using Write or Die to achieve word counts. It doesn’t always work, but this week, it’s been especially helpful to keep my focus on the words and not on everything else.

So, as I reported last week, NSA is off and on its way to the retailers. Now I’m turning my attention back to my hockey books for a few weeks. Scoring His Heart is up to 5k, and Heart and Snow is… well, it was up to 7k, but I’m starting over, so I guess I’m back to zero? It’s sad, but I think it’s a good move. I want these books to be awesome, and to keep the timeline of what was happening in Off Her Game in line, I have to switch around what I was working on.

You guys will get a Texas Highlanders holiday novella (that’s Heart and Snow), and then Scoring His Heart will be out in January. That’s the plan. I don’t see it changing. I had a little setback with the novella, but it’s still going to come together like it should.

I’m also toying with doing another menage, but it’s on the back burner simmering for now. More about that another time.

So the goals this week:

Get words on Heart and Snow
Get words on Scoring His Heart (which is currently my secondary project until Heart and Snow is done)

And that’s pretty much it for me. I’m trying to keep these updates short and sweet, because I have in the past made ROW80 updates over 1k words long and who has time for that when there’s writing to be done?

And also? I need time to play Candy Crush too….

What? Don’t judge me.

I’ve been in a serious writing funk lately. It’s been rough. I haven’t been getting my normal word counts in, and I’m getting irritated with it. The thing is… I can’t pin it down to just one reason. There’s a lot of them. Here’s some:

Part of it was the kids being out of school for the summer. That always screws with my writing schedule. I love my children, but having them home all the time without any kind of break makes me crazy and kills my writing mojo.

Another reason is my grandpa died recently, and while I don’t feel like I’m affected by it, I know that I am. I can feel the difference in myself. It’s hard to explain, but the simple fact is that I miss him. I wasn’t that close, but I still miss him.

The third thing is that I’m in my graduating quarter. It’s my last three months of school, and I’m busy getting my portfolio ready, even though now that the writing is taking off, it’s looking like I may not use the degree in the job market.

All of this led to one thing: I wasn’t writing.

In the last two weeks, my word count has been abysmal. And I just couldn’t muster up the capability to write, even though I would sit down and try. I’ve never had this problem before. I always power through blocks like this.

I don’t believe in writer’s block.

I never have. That’s why I power through blocks, because it’s just my mind tricking me, or trying to tell me something important. But this block wasn’t a creative block. It was an emotional one, which I think is far worse, because then you WANT to write, but the words won’t cooperate. For me, the creative blocks are usually something wrong with the story and I don’t want to rewrite parts to get the story moving again. Easy (theoretically) fix.

Enter Write or Die.

So, this weekend, I dug out my copy of Write or Die Desktop Edition. I set my goal for 250 words in 10 minutes and just wrote. My first 10 minutes, I wrote over 500 words. I was encouraged by this, and the words somehow managed to flow some more.

The thing was… Write or Die isn’t always that effective for me. I have this thing with deadlines. I like to rebel. So often timed sprints kind of have this adverse effect on me. But this time, because my focus has been everywhere but on the writing, it helped to sit down and take ten minutes to just write. I never do longer than ten minutes, because my attention still wanders if the sprints are too long.

But at least I’m writing again.

And my disposition has much improved in the last couple of days since I have. Now the words I did on Heart and Snow the first couple of days? Yeah, I’m probably about to trash them, but I think that their purpose was only to get me writing again, and now that I’m in a groove, I’ll go back and write the right words for that story.

Luckily, I’m still on track to get Heart and Snow out in time for the holidays in the fall/winter, even if I start over.

I can do this.

What’s your favorite way to bust a creative block? Or even an emotional one? How do you deal with those days when you just can’t get those words on the page?

Welcome to another ROW80 challenge, wherein those participating set goals for 80 days and work toward finishing them, all while juggling what life throws at you.

My overall goals are simple. I’m a little behind on Scoring His Heart, but with the crazy of last week, the funeral and all, I’m not too worried about being behind. I expected it, so now I’m working toward catching up. I also decided to do pull a subplot from Scoring His Heart and make it into this year’s Christmas novella, so now I’m working on that one as well. It’s not going to be too long, just a novella, so I think that I can get it done fairly fast.

No Strings Attached is done and ready to go. The files are uploaded and it’s all on its way. I opted not to do a blog tour this time around, so we’ll see how this goes. I may do something a little different just to see how it does.

I think that’s all I got now. So I’m trucking along here. Not as fast as I wanted, but things are happening so I can’t complain.