S.M. Butler's Blog, page 36

Fall is my busy writing season. It’s when my muse kicks it into high gear and I can’t help but have fun with it. It’s got NaNoWriMo, a month long writing challenge to finish a novel. In fact, this week I’ve had three people guest post here about NaNo this week, with more to come.

What do I love about Autumn?

The colors: Here’s where we transform from those warmer colors into cooler colors of winter. As a designer, everything seems more vibrant to me in the fall.

Also? Books. Books come out heavily in the fall, in preparation for the winter holidays. I usually buy a bunch from October on through the end of December and then use the rest of the year to read. Or that’s what I’m officially saying. It’s probably more true that I buy them all year long, but only find time outside of Autumn’s writing binge. But… shhh… don’t tell anyone about that, okay?

Autumn is super special for me this year. It marks the release of my first self-published work, a Christmas novella, O Christmas Three.

So in honor of my new release and this blog hop, comment here to enter my giveaway for an e-copy of my novella, O Christmas Three and you’ll be entered to win the grand prizes of the blog hop as well! Giveaway ends when the blog hop ends!

There are  THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!

Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet
2nd Grand Prize: A $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card
3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains 10+ paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

I had to take off the linky list. It wasn’t playing nice with my site, but do visit the other blog hosts here!

With NaNoWriMo here, everyone is scrambling to line up their plots before November, or they were last week. Now we’re not quite to the notorious Week Two  that claims so many WriMos every year. In fact, I’ve been a victim of Week Two Blues before, myself. Usually, what needs to happen is I need to stop and do some more plotting, since I don’t plot that much ahead of time. So, in anticipation of the Week Two Blues, we’re going to talk about my newest plotting craze.

If you listen to Writing Excuses at all, you’ve probably heard Dan Wells speak about the Seven Point Plotting System. While he’s not the originator of it (he freely admits he swiped it from a Star Trek RPG book), he is almost more famous for this plotting system than his own books.

As a pantser, the word plotting tends to give me hives. I can do a certain amount of preparation, mainly because I’ve trained myself to do it, but once I get past a certain detail, it doesn’t work out and I can’t write. That’s why I’ve learned to LOVE the Seven Point System. I can do a treatment of the first 10-15k and then I can stop and fill in these seven points. It’s enough detail to keep me writing, and not enough detail to derail me completely.

So there’s five videos on YouTube and all five take just under an hour. I listened to them while I was coding a website for school.

You should definitely go watch those videos, but in the meantime, let me break it down to you.

The Seven Points

Hook
Plot Turn 1
Pinch 1
Midpoint
Pinch 2
Plot Turn 2
Resolution

The temptation to go in the order of these points is overwhelming for my OCD, but that’s not how you work them. I suppose you could but I’ve found this order below actually helps me more.

Protagonist/Antagonist – I actually work on these two concurrently. They’re often very similar to each other or they FOIL each other in my books, so I usually want to be able to go back and forth between the two.
Resolution – This is the peak  of the writing structure. The climax. It’s not the end of the book. it’s just where everything leading up to this point meet each other. All subplots will converge here as well.
Hook – Here is where you have to “hook” the reader. This is the opposite of the resolution, found in the beginning of the story. Here is where you get your readers invested in the story with your hook or risk them putting your book down after the first few pages. This is probably the most fun part of the book for me.
Midpoint – Here, your characters will move from reaction into action. This is the point where the character has to change something, fix something, or make something happen.
Plot Turn 1 – This is the change from normal world into special world. The character’s world changes, due to meeting someone new, or confronting a new idea, or learning a secret.
Plot Turn 2 – This is where the character obtains the final item/idea to do the thing she/he must in the Resolution. Yes, it is vague, but a lot of times, it’s the last piece of the puzzle before he can move on to victory. It’s the point in almost every fantasy where hte main character realizes “The power is in me!”
Pinch 1 – Pinches are something I’m struggling with still. I get them confused with plot twists. A pinch is when something goes horribly wrong and forces characters into action. For this first pinch, often times the villain is introduced here. Maybe a tenuous peace is destroyed here. A leader is assassinated.
Pinch 2 – This is just after the midpoint, when the characters are typically just starting to act or are at their lowest. You have to pinch more here to add more pressure until the situation is hopeless. Maybe the mentor dies, the Plan A fails, the villain has won the day (or so it appears). That gets you ready to tackle this last section of the book.

The great thing about this system is that it works for subplots too. Just follow the same method. Once you do that, you can interweave them into your plot to give your novel the right pacing and line them up so that the Resolution is as powerful as it needs to be.

There’s not a lot of plotting methods that work for me, and honestly, I’ve changed my process for every book, but this one has stuck through two different books and maybe a third by the end of this November.

What’s your favorite plotting method? Are you a pantser like me? Afraid of plotting? Love plotting? Talk to me, and tell me all about your process!

Hi y’all! Got another NaNo guest today. Margaret Fieland is here to share her NaNoWriMo story with you.

I decided to do Nano — National Novel Writing Month, a month during which crazy writers like me attempt to churn out 50,000 words of a novel — in 2010 in order to overcome my fear of writing science fiction. Although I am a huge science fiction fan, at the point I decided to do Nano — late September of 2010 –  I’d never written a science fiction story. In fact, I’d written only two novels: a children’s chapter book which had been accepted by a small print house, and which is due out next year, and another middle grade novel that I’ve put aside as needing major revision. The latter, at 15.000 words, was the longest thing I’d ever written.

I started my life as a writer as a poet and taken up fiction writing when I joined a writing forum and got hooked. As to the science fiction thing, tthe world building intimidated me,  so In late September, 2010, I decided that I’d simply go for Nano and write a science fiction novel in order to overcome my block. I had nothing to lose.

I spent the next month on heavy world building — it turned out to be loads of fun — a little time to the characters and situation, and a page of notes about the plot, most of which went out the window when I started to write. I created my aliens, their society, its values, literature, artwork, the Terran Federation, the politics of the inter-species relationships, and lots more.  The ideas had been percolating in my mind for quite some time, but I’d simply ignored them.

I created some characters, a couple of which I actually used in the novel, and a page of notes about the plot. The notes, when I read them now, make me cringe. Agh! No! Was I really going to write that? No, I’m not sharing them here, or anywhere else, for that matter.

Robert Lee Brewer runs a November chapbook challenge in November as well, and since I wanted to participate in that as well, I invented a poet as part of the universe of the novel and had my main character study him. Eight of the poems appear in the text. I wrote 31 in all. Plus it was another way to generate word count for the novel.

I have a day job — I work as a computer software engineer — and what would often happen is that I’d plan out my next scene in my head on the ride home, mostly by listening to my characters acting out the scene in my head, and plan the next couple. I’d take notes on the scenes to come and write out the current one when I got home. Fortunately, I’m a fast typist — over 50 words a minute. But the time-consuming part of writing is figuring out what to write, not jotting it down. To quote Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock, Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself–it is the occurring which is difficult.”

Did I do a lot of editing for the 2010 novel? Yup. The trade-off, as best as I can figure it, is more planning, less editing. Not much plot planning resulted in some reorganization post-Nano.

I’ve participated twice, in 2010, and again in 2011. The 2010 novel, “Relocated,” and the poems, “Sand in the Desert,” were published this past July. I’m still editing the 2011 novel, another YA with a 14 year old main character, one of the secondary characters from the original novel. I’m also editing an adult sci fi novel that takes place four years after the action of these two. I’m editing that as well.

The second time I had maybe two pages of notes, and I stuck to the scenes for maybe the first quarter of the book before my characters took over That time, however, I wasn’t as shocked about it.

Since I’m editing two novels already, I don’t plan to participate in Nano this year. I have, however, collected a few sketchy notes about the plot of the next novel in a file on my computer. I’ll get to that one after the I push the two I’m editing out of the nest.

~~~

Margaret Fieland is the author of “Relocated,” and of “Sand in the Desert,” the book of poems that goes with the novel. She is one of the Poetic Muselings. Their poetry anthology, “Lifelines,” was published in Nov. 2011.

When fourteen-year-old Keth’s dad is transferred to planet Aleyne, he doesn’t know what to expect. Certainly not to discover Dad grew up here, and studied with Ardaval, a noted Aleyni scholar. On Aleyne, Keth’s psi ability develops. However, psi is illegal in the Terran Federation. After a dangerous encounter with two Terran teenagers  conflict erupts between Keth and his father. Keth seeks sanctuary with Ardaval.  Studying with the Aleyne scholar Keth learns the truth about his own heritage. After Keth’s friend’s father, Mazos, is kidnapped, Keth ignores the risks and attempts to free him. Little does he realize who will pay the cost as he becomes involved with terrorists.

You can find “Relocated” here:

Publisher’s website
Amazon
Smashwords
Bookstrand

J. Rose Allister’s 2011 NaNoWriMo-win. Ellora’s Cave, June 2012.

Please join me in welcoming J. Rose Allister to the blog today. Hang out to enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post.

It’s that exciting first week of NaNoWriMo. You’ve got NaNo-themed wallpaper on your computer, wiped out your local food mart’s coffee and snack inventory, and spent most of October carefully outlining your plot. At the stroke of midnight on November 1, you launched eagerly into your novel, and the process has been shooting along like a train on a newly oiled track.

Then, something happens.

Suddenly, you realize you’ve written yourself into a corner. Or that your character would Never. EVER. Do. the-main-thing-driving-your-plot. Or maybe the steam in your engine just plain stops. So does your word count.

Over the years, I’ve used plenty of tricks to combat writer’s block. Lately, this often involves some sort of break, sometimes allowing days or even weeks to sit back and leisurely ponder my plot woes. But this isn’t just any writing time, baby, it’s NANOWRIMO! Time is of the essence. So when my NaNo project hits the wall, it’s time to pull out the big guns and blast my way through it.

Enter the challenge scene.

No doubt you’re familiar with the concept of a drinking game, right? You know, where you have to chug an adult beverage every time someone says a certain word/phrase, a TV character appears on screen, or your favorite team scores a goal. Well, I’ve given that concept a heinous twist to fight writer’s block.

For those of you who just perked up, I’m sorry to say my strategy doesn’t involve belting back a shot every time you hit a snag on a NaNo novel. Such advice would find some of us under the table by the end of the first week. Others might forget what NaNoWriMo is altogether. So rather than risk liver damage, I have a variation to offer.

The NaNoWriMo Challenge Scene Game

Rules:

Any time you run into a snag that halts your word count, you must change gears and write a challenge scene. What’s a challenge scene? That’s where you add in a twist, conflict, or general torture for your character.
The challenge scene must use a plot/twist/character device taken from an existing list you have easy access to. I offer some resources for this below.
You must use the very first suggestion you run across. (Should the idea run completely, utterly opposite to your moral fabric as an author, you may skip it and select the next one. ONCE.) Next time you’re using the same list, move to the next suggestion.
You can’t skip a suggestion just because it doesn’t seem to mesh perfectly with your story.
If need be, you may skip past the point you are stuck on and write the challenge sequence as the next chapter/scene.
Lather, rinse and repeat whenever you find yourself blocked.

Say you’re writing a chapter where Aunt Bessie comes to visit the main character. The sequence fizzles until you’re bored to tears, and you can’t write your way out of it. You must do a challenge scene. You open a link to suggested twists, and the first one says “a vampire searching for an ancient relic.” Suddenly, sweet Aunt Bessie turns out to be a bloodsucker whose real reason for visiting is to find a medallion hidden in the family home.

FYI, there are reasons why I include rules 2 and 3. If you’re feeling blocked, chances are you can’t simply conjure a spontaneous plot twist. Rule 2 gets you around this. Rule 3 ensures you don’t fall farther behind by surfing lists for “just the right idea.”

The challenge scene can be a very useful strategy. It is highly motivating to know you’ll have to deal with a potentially freaky plot shift every time you get stuck. And the conflicts you weave in can transform a story into something better than you planned. True, not every challenge works out. If the Aunt Bessie book is a serious drama, the “vampire” angle would be a bizarre shift. WRITE IT ANYWAY. You can always drop what doesn’t fit later, but you might gain good insight. Maybe Bess is more fascinating portrayed vampire-like (vicious and cold, with verbal “fangs” and a hidden agenda).

At the very least, challenges keep the word count going and creative flow running. Even if you decide to edit one out later, you might find it’s perfect for the next book.

So if you find your NaNo train derailing, give the challenge scene game a try! Here are some links to plot twist lists to help you. Happy NaNo-ing!

http://storytoolz.com/generator/conflict
http://funstuff.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-plot-twists.htm
http://www.nanowrimo.org/forums/adoption-society/threads/66806
http://futureisfiction.com/plotpoints/index.cgi
http://mochakimono.chipx86.com/AGEN.html
http://www.archetypewriting.com/muse/generators/plot.htm

 ~~~

J. Rose Allister is a Southern California native and the author of over 20 published novels, mostly erotic romance. She is currently pounding on her keyboard in a fury, hoping to win her seventh NaNoWriMo challenge. For more information on her work, visit http://jroseallister.com or her blog at http://jroseallister.blogspot.com.

eBook Giveaway:

Post in the comments for a chance to win your choice of the following NaNoWriMo-winning erotic romance titles by J. Rose Allister!

Full Moon Fire (M/M paranormal-werewolves, 2011 NaNo)
Crystal’s Cowboys (M/M/F/ contemporary western, 2010 NaNo)
Tropical Heat (M/F contemporary/urban fantasy, 2009 NaNo)

18 or older to enter, please. Winner selected at random. Book prize is available as an ebook only, either in Kindle, .epub, or .pdf format.

So I was just thinking, NaNo-wise – you know who feels your pain?

Kermit the Frog.

Think about it.  That poor guy is always having to scrape together a show on a shoestring and ten minutes’ notice (and if you’ve got a better metaphor for your creative process than trying to corral a mad menagerie of pigs and chickens and an English-limited axe-wielding chef and arrange them into something resembling a coherent presentation, I’m not sure I could handle hearing it.)

And you KNOW Mr. The Frog second-guesses himself.  There’s no way he watches Bunsen Honeydew being terrorized by the three dozen cloned Beakers running around the set without wondering if it’s not too late to score a cush gig on Sesame Street.

But one problem he never has is mojo.  No matter how crunched things get, there is always some googly-eyed closet anarchist ready to kick out a musical number or kidnap a celebrity or juggle trout to keep the show going.  So as you wade further and deeper into your self-inflicted storytelling tar-wallow this month, it’s worth pausing occasionally to check: what raw, unconnected, randomly fantastic ideas do you have bouncing around backstage?

For example, you might have an especial affinity for:

–19th-century medicine – consumption, hysteria, and laudanum for everyone!

–X-Men-style mutant powers

–French desserts

–devastating alien diseases

–redneck colloquialisms (“Hotter’n two mice humping in a wool sock”)

–funny animal names (Sugarlips, Prudence, Geech)

–the Devil as a charming, dapper fellow

–tiny mishaps that accumulate to cause massive disaster

–colorful idioms from other languages (“they get along like a fingernail and its dirt”)

–a fearsome, almost legendary character who is never seen

The things on your list might not look like they could ever share page space together, but if you let yourself write them all down, freely and without any pre-pruning, you will have a fantastic inventory of what tickles your storytelling brain.  (And you might be surprised at what can work – who would have thought you could tell a story about an old man, Argentina, balloons, a Boy Scout, a talking dog, and dirigibles until Pixar went and did it?)  More importantly, you will have a whole toybox full of potent notions to refer to whenever your energy flags or your plot stalls – for this project and every one thereafter.

And let’s be honest: this first draft is not going to be some golden, untouchable thing.  There will be plenty of drafts later where you enrich and connect and perfect the acts that work and cull the ones that don’t.  But this one, the first one, where everything after the blinking cursor is endless white space, is your single best opportunity to put something weird and brave and borderline ridiculous on the page, not because the narrative arc and the three-act structure demands it, but because it’s fun and interesting and you feel like it.

So the next time you start running short on any of the above, give serious consideration to brainstorming via the Muppet method.  There are a limited and specific number of problems that can be solved by launching a furry felt creature from a metaphorical cannon – and your book might just be one of them.

~~~

Tex Thompson is an aspiring writer of fantasy Westerns, currently represented by Jennie Goloboy at Red Sofa Literary.  Her first novel, One Night in Sixes, has the improbable distinction of including every item on the above list.  In her spare time, she enjoys prolonged Wikipedia binges, expensive HBO dramas, and waxing pedantic about fiction at www.tex-books.com.

Writing Stuff
My goals:

Finish the hockey romance rewrite.
Write To Score His Heart, hockey romance #2.
Edit and publish the Christmas novella by late October. (Done!!)
Write zero draft of the untitled fantasy science fiction bounty hunter story.
Plan writing/publishing schedule for the Spring/Summer 2013 season. (Done… ish.)

Current progress:

The Christmas novella is published! Whee!
NaNo started on the 1st, so now I’m working on the bounty hunter story. It needs a title eventually.

I’m really enjoying this round. I feel like I’m getting things done and that makes me super happy. I spent most of this year flailing around not getting what i wanted done, so it’s nice to see the changes each week.

Design Stuff
My goals:

Continue to work on school design projects. I’m in the home stretch. I have three quarters left.
Line up projects for 2013. (So, like, if you need some graphic work done… I have some openings…)
I really want to stretch my knowledge and improve my skills so I’ve bought some digital art and Photoshop books. My plan is to read one book or work from one book every two months.
Create a stockpile of pre-made covers to offer on the website in the future. I actually have about 20 right now, but I’m really looking to expand that to 80 before offering them for sale on the website. I like having buffers.

Current progress:

Working on a cover for a client this week still. It’s going well. I’m super happy with how the mock ups are turning out. Can’t wait to send them out.
The two projects in the works will be coming up next after this one is done. I’m excited about these.

Personal
My goals

Continue to blog every day for the 365 Days to Life series, because that’s really fun and it’s doing what I’ve needed it to do.
Increase my income 15% to put me on the path to a new, better quality of life.
Stick to the Total Money Makeover plan and get an emergency fund set aside before the end of the year.
Stick to the actual WeightWatchers plan to lose 15 lbs.

Current progress:

Blogging isn’t where I need it to be, but I’m happy with where it’s at right now. It’s doing what I need it to be doing, and that’s what’s important.
Got my first publishing check! Granted it was small, but still!
Got caught up on backed up bills. I’m almost to the point where everything is current. That’s a great feeling.

My weekly plan

So we went over the overall goals. Here’s my weekly lists.

Last week’s plan:

Almost done with final edits. Next week by this time, it should be published. (OMG!)
Blogging was better. I blogged three times, so not quite the four I wanted. I’ll do better this week. Scheduled first week of November on the blog.
Did not lose weight this week. Pretty sure this is because I’m about to have a visit from that crazy bitch Aunt Flo.
After the novella is done, I’m going to take a few days break from writing, get design stuff out of the way, and critique some, too. I think it’s important to take breaks sometimes, even if you’re in a crunch.

This week’s plan:

Christmas novella is published, so now I’m on to the SFR bounty hunter story. Would like to be about 20k by next Sunday.
I passed my weigh in for the military. I’ve lost 9% body fat in a year. I think that’s awesome. i didn’t think I’d lost that much fat.I think I’d like to just continue my current trend of eating better.
Critiquing will take priority after drill weekend. I’m going to be late on it. October was a much crazier time than I expected. But I’ll get it done.

That’s it for me. I’m all goaled out. Good progress this week. I’m probably going to do some separate NaNo updates to keep myself accountable. Haven’t decided how I’m going to do them yet. Hope everyone else’s November is doing well!

 

 

Hey, look. More actual content than me just whining! I know, that’s crazy-making, yes? Anyway, I’m doing NaNo this month, so I might start throwing in some word count updates for the month too. But today, I want to talk about what you might need for NaNoWriMo.


The thought of writing 50,000 words in a month is daunting to many writers. When I first started participating in National Novel Writing Month, it was for me as well. So, since I am a great fan of lists, I’ve compiled a checklist of sorts. It’s not all required, and it’ll change according to your particular needs, but this is something to get you started so you aren’t caught by surprise during the month.
Getting started

Register on the NaNoWriMo site.
Find a local region to join.
Talk to your family about what you’d like to do.
Add writing buddies. Find a local friend through the local region who can keep you accountable and motivate you (also helpful if you can do this for them as well).

Supplies

Notebooks – buy the surplus back to school stuff. Maybe find one that fits in your pocket or your purse.
Pencils – In those early outlines (if you’re an outliner) you’ll be erasing a lot. Buy stock in eraser companies as well.
Pens – For when you start your draft, because there is no deletion in NaNoWriMo.
Highlighters (optional) – I don’t use highlighters during NaNo. I do use them for edits, and I like those retractable ones. But we don’t edit during NaNoWriMo.
Smart Phone (optional) – Use your phone to sync to your region’s Google Calendar so you always know where the write-ins are. Use your phone’s notes app to jot down plot changes, dialogue, or character ideas. Heck, use your phone to write on the go.
Timer – I love kitchen timers. They work wonders for my motivation.
A writing space – Living room, bedroom, Starbucks, B&N… This is where you’re going to write. Make sure it’s somewhere you’ll be able to sit for long periods of time. Comfort is priority here.
Music – I can’t write in silence. If I don’t have music, I’ll have the TV on in the background. It never fails that iTunes gets a lot of business from me during November.

Nourishment

We all know that NaNoers guzzle coffee like it’s the end of the world if we don’t. But don’t forget water, because caffeine will dehydrate you after a while. Have some healthy snacks around, because this may jumpstart your brain functions; stuff like fruits and veggies and cheese. Don’t forget the cupcakes. My local region NEVER forgets the cupcakes.

Another thing to do is maybe make some snacks ahead of time or pick a day a week to make them so you don’t have to do it during the week.

Computer Things

Laptop – I only write with a laptop, but I’ve seen people with iPads and Alphasmarts as well.
Some essentials I suggest, especially if you’re going to be connecting to new and strange networks: virus protection (I suggest Norton 360, I love it and it’s saved my ass plenty of times), firewall and/or spyware protection
Writing Software, and of course…
Back up – back up, back up, back up. There is a reason why NaNoWriMo sponsors a Back Up Your Novel Day during November. Set your word processor to save at regular intervals. Scrivener has an auto save function. So does OneNote and Word. Also, save it to an external source as well. I save my NaNo novels on my Dropbox and on a thumb drive. If the thumb drive fails (which has happened to me a few times) I still have the copy on Dropbox‘s server. Trust me, losing a whole day’s work is traumatizing.

Overall Sanity

The thing to do  here is stay healthy. I have a habit of going overboard on NaNo and it takes a lot out of me. It took me three months to get back to writing regularly last year. And don’t forget your family. Plan your wordcount goals so you can take a day or two off a week and spend that time with them, away from your computer. It’ll also keep you from feeling like you’re chained to your writing.

What’s on your NaNoWriMo list? What is your must-have item? Did I miss something you’d put on the list?

Today is going to be somewhat of a long post and it’s going to be less about me whining, and more about books. Yay! Right? No one wants to read about my whining. LOL. As many of you know, I’ve been working on getting my first self-published book out there. Today is release day, so here’s the obligatory cover and blurb here:

Garrett and Brianna Zane have the perfect marriage on the surface. They share everything from love to their wildest sexual desires with ease. So when Brianna confesses she wants a threesome with his best friend Leobardo Vasquez, it awakens feelings Garrett has long tried to forget.But the smoldering attraction between Leo and Brianna is hard to deny and even harder to dismiss when it’s all he can think about, especially when the three are trapped together in Leo’s cabin during a snowstorm. Seducing Leo will test their relationship, reveal old secrets, and maybe tear them apart. While there may be room for Leo in bed, there may not be room for a third in their marriage.

So, I kind of wanted to document my process to get this done here, because I’m sure it will improve with each book and get better and I like seeing how I change. It kind of why I blog about writing too.

I was on a strict deadline with this book, since it was a Christmas story. I knew I wanted it up in an October/November timeframe so it got some traction before the holidays. I’ve heard Christmas books sell well all year, but I really wanted it to be available and visible for Christmas.

Editing

So the first steps I had to take after the book was written was edits. These are the most lengthy part of the process for me, and now I know I need to build more time into my schedule for editing. I’m not a fast editor. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before. Maybe I wanted to be a fast editor and somehow convinced myself that I was? I don’t know. Either way, I have to build more time into my schedule for it. Anyway, Team Awesome got the book. I gave them two weeks to read it and tear it apart, and they did well. I got all the critiques back, as well as a line edit, and got to work fixing all the crap that I screwed up.

And it took forever.

But I got it done and then I had to think about other things (which really I needed to start way earlier in the process, but I didn’t know that…)

Distribution

I had to get distribution set up. Yes, I could do all the self-publishing portals, like KDP, PubIt, Writing Life, ect. but I also wanted to expand distribution to every retailer I could reach. Now I have a hatred of Smashwords’ meat grinder, because it ruins all my pretty formatting. So as of this post, I have not uploaded to Smashwords. That may change. But I’m not sure the pittance that Smashwords generates is worth the time to put into going through the meat grinder. I also signed with a distributor, mainly because I wanted the option to have a preorder button if I so wanted. I didn’t with this book because it was so fast going up. I’m very happy with the care they’ve shown me so far.

For this part, I really should have started way earlier. I should have given myself at least a three or four week lead time. For the next book, I’ll be attempting to try out the preorder status, so be on the lookout for that one…

I’m also considering a print option, but that might be a while coming. It’s a little more expensive to go that route and I want to be sure it’s not super expensive for the consumer to purchase the book as compared to the ebook pricing. Seeing a $16.99 price tag associated with a print book whose ebook price is $3.99 always rubs me the wrong way. I don’t want the gap to be that big. I might combine it with another novella and do a print option for the larger book that way. I’m not sure yet. I am considering those options though.

Marketing

I actually haven’t done much more than announce the links as they go live for each version of the book. My real promo is set for the first couple weeks of December, so I’ll let you know how that goes when it happens. This is the part I’m most worried about. I’m not a marketing professional, and I’m not sure if this is something I can do a lot of. I’m hypersensitive to being the annoying marketer, which is why I think I shy away from it. That’s the other thing about my distributor is that they have options for me to buy a marketing package with them. Things that will help me get reviews, buy ads, and generally get my name out there.

Overall

It’s been a good experience. I’m trying not to obsessively look at sales and rankings. I literally refreshed ARe a couple times in a row… So… That means it’s time for me to step away from the computer, and let the book do its job. It’s the best product I can make, and I’m proud of it. While menages might not be to everyone’s taste, I will always love this book and I hope that people enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.

I’m a bundle of hypersensitive nerves, so I’m going to go grab some tea, sit down and watch some Warehouse 13 for a few hours. Then I’m going to get back to work, because I have a book due November 30th.

Is it Sunday already? Doesn’t feel like it should be. Where did my week go?

 

Writing Stuff
My goals:

Finish the hockey romance, Off Her Game, and submit that to the requested places. (OHG is now a self-pub project)
Write To Score His Heart, hockey romance #2.
Edit and publish the Christmas novella by late October.
Write zero draft of the untitled fantasy bounty hunter story.
Plan writing/publishing schedule for the Spring/Summer 2013 season. (Done… ish.)

Current Progress:

Started edits on Christmas novella. About halfway through now. It’s looking like I probably won’t get it done until tomorrow. Want to get as much as possible done today though.
Booked a blog tour in December for OCT. Kind of excited. The book releases next week. (OMG!!)
Pretty much have gotten nothing else accomplished. I’m realizing that while I’m super fast at drafting, I really am super slow at editing.

Design Stuff
My goals:

Continue to work on school design projects. I’m in the home stretch. I have three quarters left.
Line up projects for 2013. (So, like, if you need some graphic work done… I have some openings…)
I really want to stretch my knowledge and improve my skills so I’ve bought some digital art and Photoshop books. My plan is to read one book or work from one book every two months.
Create a stockpile of pre-made covers to offer on the website in the future. I actually have about 20 right now, but I’m really looking to expand that to 80 before offering them for sale on the website. I like having buffers.

Current Progress:

Loving my classes, but man, they take a lot of work.
I’m doing a client’s cover this next week. As soon as OCT is uploaded and published, I’m going to concentrate on that cover, since it’s overdue, and though I’ve communicated with the client, I still feel horrible that it’s taken this long.
I’ve got two more projects for 2013. It’s to the point where I need to figure out how many a month I can logically get done and not have my writing suffer.

ddd

Personal Stuff
My goals

Continue to blog every day for the 365 Days to Life series, because that’s really fun and it’s doing what I’ve needed it to do.
Increase my income 15% to put me on the path to a new, better quality of life.
Stick to the Total Money Makeover plan and get an emergency fund set aside before the end of the year.
Stick to the actual WeightWatchers plan to lose 15 lbs.

Current progress:

Blogging is better this week. Just need to stick to it more.
Weight has stalled again. Looking into workout options.
Looked into a Zumba place and a kickboxing place. I’m thinking maybe December of starting those, but I need to see what my money situation will be since that’ll be a combined $200 extra a month. Also? I’ll need to go shopping for workout clothes.

My weekly plan

So we went over the overall goals. Here’s my weekly lists.

Last week’s plan:

Got the Christmas novella done, sent to CPs. Due back at the end of this week, so final edits will be next week.
Blogging sort of fell off this week. I’ll be back at it this week though. Want to post at least 4 times.
Also scheduling guest blogs for November this week.
Diet is going well. Sticking with that. Want to drop another 2 lbs.
I love my CPs. Want to get through five chapters this week on one of the manuscripts.
Get out of the house at least one day.
Exercise 3 times this week.

This week’s plan:

Almost done with final edits. Next week by this time, it should be published. (OMG!)
Blogging was better. I blogged three times, so not quite the four I wanted. I’ll do better this week. Scheduled first week of November on the blog.
Did not lose weight this week. Pretty sure this is because I’m about to have a visit from that crazy bitch Aunt Flo.
After the novella is done, I’m going to take a few days break from writing, get design stuff out of the way, and critique some, too. I think it’s important to take breaks sometimes, even if you’re in a crunch.

 

 

I’ve developed a pattern these last few weeks. I never noticed it before I started blogging about these things and it’s strange to me. The progress I make here comes in bursts and false starts. I’m miserable, I work my way through it, empower myself, feel good about it, and then plummet back to miserable. It’s a messy, messy thing. it’s starting to become a monthly cycle as well. It might actually be connected to my monthly cycle, which is slightly TMI for everyone, but I feel it’s necessary to explore these aspects of my life.

Right now, I’m heading into the Week Before. What does this mean? I feel like hell, my body is sore and bloated and unhappy. Inside, I’m messy, un-opinionated, lost and confused. I’m irritable because I don’t know what I want, who I am, and it pisses me off to be this way. The control freak in me wants all the emotions nice and neatly folded and put on the shelf for future use.

You’d think after nearly nine years I would be over my divorce. I think in many ways, I am. But in other ways, I’m still struggling. Divorce, for those that aren’t aware or haven’t had the experience, is a grueling, maddening, super messy process. Mine was messy and my ex didn’t have a leg to stand on. And even though I am so glad to be gone, there is this gnawing sense of loss. I shouldn’t feel that loss. Divorce was the right thing to do. But it’s there. I try to wrap it up in other negative emotions to throw out with the trash, but it somehow gets snuck back into my mind for another run at me.

If it weren’t for my family, for my parents, I would have a tremendous sense of loss. I lost my husband. But my family was there, kind and loving, and super supportive. Even though I have them, I still feel like I don’t have any anchors for my life. The most important aspects of my life are my friends and my family. They function as cornerstones, instead of anchors. They’re helping me to build a permanent dwelling, instead of living on that boat house all the time, relying on that anchor to keep me close to shore.

I feel such an overwhelming sadness. My family, my friends… they are such a huge part of me. What I need to do is learn how to let go, how to set fire to my past and leave only the ashes of memories behind. I need to stop dwelling on things that I can’t change, or allowing my body to rule the way that I feel. I’m not sure how to do that, but it has to be possible. It’s just… when I’m at that miserable low point of my life, it feels like loss after loss after loss is piled up on me, until I’m totally and completley overwhelmed by it all.

I made the right choice eight years ago. For me, for my kids. They’re happy, and healthy. I’m a better person, in a better place. I know. Surprisingly. I’m ripping out my miserable heart here and I’m still a better person than I was eight years ago. I’m surrounded by people who love and care for me, regardless of how ornery or passive aggressive I can be. I left because I had to, because it was right.

But none of that will make this new life any easier.