S.M. Butler's Blog, page 46

It’s that time again! ROW80 check-in time! For those of you that don’t know what ROW80 is, it stands for A Round of Words in 80 Days. It’s a challenge done four times a year, and it’s meant for people with lives that can’t do a strict challenge like NaNoWriMo. Learn more about ROW80 and sign up on the website.

Basically, how I do my goals is that I have an overall blog post at the beginning of the round detailing what I want to accomplish this round. Then each week, I do three sections to each topic: what I meant to do, what I did, and what I will do. That’s me stating what my goals were, what I did to accomplish them, and what I’m going to do for next week. Because I’ve learned that if i don’t beat myself over the head with things, I don’t get it done.

This week was weird, I’m not going to lie. I might change up the goals just a bit.

Writing
What I meant to do this week:

Continue working on Full Circle. i would like to have knocked out 50 pages of revisions by next check in.
Make some notes on where to expand The Iron Legacy. It needs to be 20k longer.

What I did this week:

I have about five chapters left on Full Circle. It’s going well, but just slowly. But I’m on the downward spiral of it.
I didn’t end up making any notes for Iron Legacy.
I started a new story for the Ellora’s Cave Ball & Chain call that is due in August. It’s a contemporary erotic romance that I’m describing as a friends to lovers to marriage of convenience story. It’s been super fun to write and I’m having a great time with it. It’s been a while since I just dove into a story like this.

What I will do for next week:

Continue working on the new contemp, which needs a title. I have about four for it right now. Need to decide on one. Ideally, I’d like to have another 10k in on this for the week.
Get through two more chapters of Full Circle. I’m slowing down a little on this one because I’m balls to the walls on the contemp right now. It’s not often I get a burst like this, so I’m just riding it out.

Blogging and Social Networking
What I meant to do this week:

Post at least three times, which honestly, is nearly a no brainer for me at this point.
Brainstorm a few new broad topics to play with

What I did this week:

I’m pretty sure I posted 3 or 4 times, so got that.
I’m pulling in some old topics from my old blog under my other name. They aren’t online anymore and they’re all good stuff, so I’ll be rewriting them and posting them over the next few months. THat’ll help with topics I think.
I’m trying to be more active on my Facebook, posting at least once a day, and checking out other authors’ pages and stuff, and generally being active.  I’d gotten out of the habit because Facebook was irritating me, but I’d learning more about how it works now, so I’m ready to try again.

What I will do for next week:

Three posts for the week.
Edit and schedule a few of the old posts from the old website for future weeks.
Continue with my Facebook stuff. I’m kind of treating it as an experiment to see if it’s something I can do long term. So far, I kind of like it, so I’ll keep at it for a bit.

Publishing
What I meant to do this week:

Work on TIL cover.
Write the blurb for TIL.
Consider what I want to do for Standoff’s cover. No rush on this one.

What I did this week:

None of that.

What I will do for next week:

Still waiting on submissions that are out right now. I’m getting close to time, so I think I’ll hear something super soon.
The anthology I’m in, Spells and Swashbucklers, comes out at the end of the month. I’m considering promo ideas.

Crafty Stuff
What I meant to do this week

Probably nothing. I really want to do a camera strap, just to see how to do it.

What I did this week

Yeah, I didn’t do the strap.
I’m working on some pre-fab book covers that I’m considering selling on the site. I don’t really want to do custom ones because I don’t really want to deal with certain authors. But covers are important, and I make good ones. So I thought i would do some for fun and offer them up to those that might be looking, for $20-$40 a piece. I’ve seen them much more expensive.

What I will do for next week:

I want to work on and finish two pre-fab book covers.

Fitness and Health
What I meant to do this week:

Going to incorporate more fruit into my diet. I don’t think I eat enough of it, and it’s free on my diet, so yay, snack food.
Work out three times.

What I did this week

I did eat more fruit. I ran out of fruit, actually. I need to stock more.
Did not work out last week. It was a crazy week. I’m already doing better this week.

What I will do for next week:

Work out three times.
Stock more fruit to eat.
Go to GNC and see what they have for weightloss.

Overall

I’m loving how smooth and easy this round has been. I’m on a regular writing schedule, school is getting done. The stress I’ve been under for the last year or so is slowly getting under control. I feel good. I’m eating better, so I think that partially has to do with it.

Now, if I could just get a job…

I used to talk about #Rewritepocalypse on Twitter a lot. It seems appropriate for how my process works, and I wonder why I stopped talking about it. I originally said it as a joke but then when I really started thinking about it, I liked the label. It really fits what I go through during revisions, and incredible strain rewriting the messy zero drafts I have put on me. Maybe it’s not that way for everyone. For me, I fly through zero drafts, and then I’ll spend months revising and polishing that draft into something intelligible. In fact, in this last week, I realized that i really only write NEW stuff from about September to December. The rest of the year is all rewrites and revisions and edits. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, I just started a rewrite on a YA I wrote a couple years ago, since I need The Iron Legacy to sit for a bit before I go back and rewrite that book again. Full Circle was the story of an elemental cage fighter learning how to be civilized again. At least, that’s what I know now. When I tackled the synopsis, I discovered a HUGE plot hole, like tank-sized.  It’s surprising that I didn’t see it before.

So I started the rewrite process.

And it is a process. A loooooong one. At least for me.

Some authors like to make one pass and that’s it for the revision phase. Some make seven or eight. I’ve done both. Neither worked for me. And I either abandoned the story or I had to go back and do it again. Of course, it used to be never the same process twice with me, neither in writing the original draft or getting it polished and ready to catch an agent’s eye. There was always a different way I went about it. But then one day, I sat down and dissected the way I rewrite things and whether I do it chaotically or have structure to my madness, I discovered that the bare bones of my process are always the same. Yay for me.

My process

I always make three passes, or to go along with my world-end-rocks-fall-everybody-dies theme, Stages. Stage 1 is all about just making notes and comments, using the Track Changes feature in Word to cut down on paper costs. However, sometimes, I have to print it out. I highlight sections that aren’t right or confuse me when I read through. I make notes on where I’d like to insert a scene and I note my story structure. And I’ve got a very basic story structure too that I’ve always followed instinctively, even when I didn’t know what it was. All my stories seem to follow this pattern and honestly, most published works can fall into this too. I’ve seen it repeated a lot, all over the web. Look:

Inciting Incident - the point where the story starts moving forward.

Crisis #1 – Around this point, I introduce the subplots too, and mark those as well.

Crisis #2 – Taking the conflict up a step, maybe complicate it with a new love interest or something.

Crisis #3 - Each crisis elevates the stakes in a way that keeps your readers turning the pages, with Crisis #3 being the one that your MC makes at possibly the lowest point in their journey.

The Cheesy Showdown – this speaks for itself.

Resolution – Always make sure you tie up all loose ends, including subplots.

I mark all of these points during the first pass. If I don’t have them, I know something is wrong, fundamentally with the story. I also mark every awkward sentence but I do not change anything yet. The first pass is all about finding the issues, and identifying them. Once that’s done, I print out one of Excel spreadsheets with my story arc worksheet and fill it in. I’m a visual person so it works for me to see my story mapped out and that’s essentially what I do. For each point of my story, I write a short one liner of the plot point.  Then I write one for each chapter. (I always have 20 chapters. It helps with pacing.) This also helps me when it’s synopsis time because I haven’t yet figured out how to write a synopsis before the story is written.

Once all that is done, I’m ready to begin Stage 2: Live or Die Time, followed at some point by Stage 3: The Committal. Stage 2 is when the bulk of the rewrite is done. And once all that’s done, Stage 3 is where I print it out and go through it on hard-copy. Stage 3 is basically the clean up of the manuscript, in which I learn if the story is really worth salvaging or if I’ve made a complete mess of it. That’s only happened once…where I made a mess of it. Usually, it turns out pretty darn good.

But I’ll discuss Stage 2 and 3 another day. I have a manuscript that needs my help right now.

So how do you like to tackle your revisions? Is it sort of like my Rewritepocalypse? Or is it much more organized and easy? Share some of your tips in the comments!

Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday. So, I’ve finished the current draft of The Iron Legacy so I thought I’d switch gears today and do a SSS post from the current New Shiny, Entangled in Desire (I’m not happy with this title, so it might change). I’m telling people it’s a friends turned lovers turned partnership in marriage story. Ashlynn and Ethan’s story is different than stories I’ve written before. We’ll see how it works out for me.

“Ethan, stop. We’re supposed to be getting married in forty-five minutes.”

“Perfect,” he said. His mischievous grin lit up his face like a boy on Christmas Day. ‘So we have time.”

“Time for what?”

“Play time,” he replied as he untied her robe. “Glad I got here before you got the dress on. That would have been a bitch to get off.”

For those new to Six Sentence Sunday, you can play too:

1) pick a book– a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published

2) pick six sentences from anywhere in the story

3) post them on Sunday (hence the Six Sentence SUNDAY)

Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: Six Sentence Sunday

If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!

Welcome to Flirty Friday, the day in which Sidney Bristol and I take a moment to talk about our online dating adventures. It’s all in good fun, so there may be snark ahead, but no revealing of identities. Check out her website for her Flirty Fridays.

So last week, I posted about some guy asking me what I was doing that weekend. A couple days later, he emailed me again, with the subject “yo” and the content of the body was “what are we doing this weekend?”

Keep in mind that I didn’t respond to the first message. So, I ignored this one too.

The third one came yesterday morning. No subject. Content: “Hi, how are you this morning? OFF TO WORK.”

So, I’d really like to know exactly what the fuck that means, because I’m not getting it. What in my absolute silence said “Please keep emailing me” because I haven’t been able to find it.

Look, I know that online dating is a different culture. And I guess technically since I didn’t respond, I didn’t actually say no. But you know what? I hate people on a regular basis. If you’re not going to take the time to understand me or even talk to me like we were talking face to face, I don’t want to talk to you either.

If we were in a bar, and this guy walked up to me and said these things, one of two things would happen: Either I would go ask the bouncer to bounce his ass or I’d slam my fist into his face for being stupid and creepy.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just being too critical or cynical on these sites, but then I think about some of the messages I get and the complete and total stupidity that sometimes results from it, and I decide that being picky is better than not being picky enough.

And sometimes, I think being married was far less trouble.

It’s that time again! ROW80 check-in time! For those of you that don’t know what ROW80 is, it stands for A Round of Words in 80 Days. It’s a challenge done four times a year, and it’s meant for people with lives that can’t do a strict challenge like NaNoWriMo. Learn more about ROW80 and sign up on the website.

Basically, how I do my goals is that I have an overall blog post at the beginning of the round detailing what I want to accomplish this round. Then each week, I do three sections to each topic: what I meant to do, what I did, and what I will do. That’s me stating what my goals were, what I did to accomplish them, and what I’m going to do for next week. Because I’ve learned that if i don’t beat myself over the head with things, I don’t get it done.

Writing
What I meant to do for this week

I want to finish The Iron Legacy by the next check in.
Write at least two chapters on the hockey book.
Rewrite another chapter on Standoff.

What I did this week

I finished The Iron Legacy, only to realize the whole story needs to be in third instead.
Did not get to the hockey book or Standoff.
Started rewriting Full Circle, which was on my docket for later this year.

What I will do for next week

Continue working on Full Circle. i would like to have knocked out 50 pages of revisions by next check in.
Make some notes on where to expand The Iron Legacy. It needs to be 20k longer.

Blogging
What I meant to do for this week:

Schedule posts as early as possible to minimize scrambling.
Finish the damn header
Start working on the rest of the theme

What I did this week

Mostly got them scheduled, except for a couple last minute posts.
Took a break from Triberr for a couple days. Reading all those posts was sucking up a lot of my time.
Finished and uploaded the new theme. Still need to tweak it a little, but on the whole, I’m pretty happy with it.

What I will do for next week

Post at least three times, which honestly, is nearly a no brainer for me at this point.
Brainstorm a few new broad topics to play with.

Publishing
What I meant to do this week:

Agonize over the submissions I have out (I’m really good at this)
Tweak The Iron Legacy cover a bit. I think it needs to be a little more gritty than it is.
Once the cover is done for The Iron Legacy, I need to log on to Bowker and assign it an ISBN and get it set up on the retail sites.

What I did this week:

Agonized over submissions I have out.
Sent out two more submissions, in case there was any doubt that I was agonizing enough.

What I will do next week:

Work on TIL cover.
Write the blurb for TIL.
Consider what I want to do for Standoff’s cover. No rush on this one.

Crafty Stuff
What I meant to do this week:

Make a new camera strap for my Nikon, or at least start one.

What I did

Jack shit.

What I will do

Probably nothing. I really want to do a camera strap, just to see how to do it.

Fitness
What I meant to do this week:

Gym visits  three times in the week
Ice skating twice a week
Stop eating All the Things. (seriously, my diet will make anyone cringe…)

What I did this week

I worked out twice.
Didn’t go ice skating, because was low on cash.
Started Weight Watchers. First week was pretty good. Lost one pound. Here’s hoping it gets better.

What I will do for next week

Going to incorporate more fruit into my diet. I don’t think I eat enough of it, and it’s free on my diet, so yay, snack food.
Work out three times.

Overall

I’m trucking along. I’m feeling pretty good. This adjusting the plan as I go along is working out well. I have overall goals, but focusing on these weekly projects is making it much easier to get things done and crossed off my list. And man, do I love crossing things off a list.

 

Welcome to another edition of Tackle it Tuesday, the day in which I talk about thoughtful subjects like writing and blogging, or social media. Pretty much whatever comes to my mind. This week we’re talking about the Cautious Commuter, as the final part of the Writer Types series.

While the Free Spirit works for a lot of people, there are some personality types that just can’t abide with the “take a toothbrush and drive” philosophy. I call these people the Cautious Commuters. They need to plan everything out. They need to annotate the map to include rest stops, dining, and the time in which they will arrive at each point. They have a master plan.

The writers like this are extensive plotters. They might agree that boldly going where no one has ever gone before sounds fantastic, as long as you’ve got a GPS, a cell phone, and a full tank of gas. They aren’t going to be that person who suggests a road trip to see the Grand Canyon just because. There will be a rhyme and a reason for everything they do. Stepping off into the unknown can be scary. If you don’t know where you’re going, then how are you going to get there?

I can’t write too much on this type, because I lean towards the Free Spirit side. Trying to dissect how a Cautious Commuter thinks is insanely difficult when your own thought process is nothing like it. But believe me, I do see many benefits of being a Cautious Commuter. Having that road map for your story is handy. You know where you’re headed. There aren’t any surprises. No weird twists and turns to screw up your story.

On the other hand, there’s no surprises, no weird twists and turns. Sometimes getting lost is half the fun. Taking a wrong turn because you just want to, and map be damned. You may be headed to the Grand Canyon, but what if you decided to take a different exit and ended up at Mount Rushmore instead? Is that trip any less exciting or memorable than the one you would have had if you’d gone on to the Grand Canyon?

Unlike the Cautious Commuter, the Free Spirit thinks you’ll get there when you get there. Surprises are okay. Why plan things and suck the fun out of life? But… What if you get lost? Well, sometimes, getting lost isn’t so bad. You could always ask for directions. Consult your road map, find out where you got off track and head back. Or… just keep going to the next highway that is going where you’re headed. An alternate route can be just as fun.

Happy Monday y’all! It’s been a week since I started using Weight Watchers. I used this past week as a learning week, to get used to using the points system and figure out what foods are good.

Here’s what I found this week:

Fruit lets me eat all day for free (fresh fruit = zero points)
I don’t have to give up my love of pasta or bread
I don’t hate running as much as I used to (because it doesn’t hurt as much)
I have way too much junk in my trunk that tends to flop around painfully when I run.

And those are my lessons for the week. Now, why am I telling you this? Because if I don’t post about it, I will forget to do it and I will kill any hopes of a diet actually working (and the idea of wearing a swimsuit for the summer).

But in honor of my fruit revelation, here’s some fruit and why they are good for you:

Oranges

With one orange a day, you get the daily requirement of Vitamin C. Oranges contain antioxidant properties that reduce cholesterol and reduce inflammation. So, they’re good for your heart and protect from cancer. Vitamin C is like Calcium where it helps to build strong bones and teeth. Vitamin C also fights cell damage that could lead to cancer or heart disease.

Watermelon

I can eat the hell out of watermelon. I love it. But it’s also good for you in that it has antioxidants, namely lycopene, which protects from many cancers, including breast, prostate, and lung cancers. It also contains minerals that help relax blood vessels (certain ones that the relaxation prevents erectile dysfunction).It also contains high levels of Vitamin A (which is good for the eyes) and Vitamin C. Daily values: 1 cup of watermelon includes 18% of Vitamin A, 21% of Vitamin C, 1% of Calcium, and 1% of dietary fiber.

Strawberries

Strawberries contain phenols that have powerful antioxidant benefits. They help with heart regulation, and helps to prevent cancer and inflammation.Strawberries are also good for arthriti. They remove tartar from gums and teeth. The only bad thing is that they don’t last too long at home but there are ways around that too.

Oh, and one cup of strawberries give you 149% of your daily Vitamin C requirement, as well as some other good stuff.

There are more, but I’m tired of typing.

The result?

I weighed in this morning one pound lighter, and I’ve noticed that the range my weight stays in has dropped three pounds, so I’d guess that I’ve actually lost more than that. Not too bad for the first week where I blew everything anyway.

Hopefully the momentum will start carrying a little more weight (haha, I made a funny) and I will start losing it in places that will count for my swimsuit…

In other non-related news, I finished the new theme for the website, but I’ve been lazy about uploading it. Hopefully, this week I’ll get it done. I’m pretty happy with it. Oh, and I should make a pretty picture for McWeighty Mondays. Consider that on the TO-Do List today.

Welcome to Flirty Friday, the day in which Sidney Bristol and I take a moment to talk about our online dating adventures. It’s all in good fun, so there may be snark ahead, but no revealing of identities. Check out her website for her Flirty Fridays.

So today, this morning, actually, I got this message. There was no subject just the words “What are you up to this weekend?” I give this guy props because he actually formed a complete sentence, used correct grammar AND spelling.  Well, besides not capitalizing the first word, but I’m not really THAT picky…

You’d be surprised how many people can screw up a seven word sentence.

I got nothing for this one. He offered no information, asked nothing of consequence. I’m not going to talk to anyone I’ve never talked to before about my weekend plans.  I do, and next thing you know, I’m buried in a wall, missing fingers, with all my hair cut off and shoved in a jar. Okay, maybe that’s extreme, but is it really that hard to say: “hi, I saw that you liked such-n-such movie and like to run. I like those things too. Tell me about the last movie you saw.”

Okay, that’s an extreme example and I’d probably snark that too, but I get frustrated with this pointless emails. I can deal with stupid, because hey, the world has them and they’re all attracted to me. But the ones that don’t even put thought into it? Yeah. Not interested if they aren’t.

I swear I’m not really this high maintenance, but I’ve become very cynical in my dating life lately, thanks to messages like this. Thank goodness I have an outlet here, so I can vent to you guys. Because I could go postal on some of these guys.

It’s that time again! ROW80 check-in time! For those of you that don’t know what ROW80 is, it stands for A Round of Words in 80 Days. It’s a challenge done four times a year, and it’s meant for people with lives that can’t do a strict challenge like NaNoWriMo. Learn more about ROW80 and sign up on the website.

Basically, how I do my goals is that I have an overall blog post at the beginning of the round detailing what I want to accomplish this round. Then each week, I do three sections to each topic: what I meant to do, what I did, and what I will do. That’s me stating what my goals were, what I did to accomplish them, and what I’m going to do for next week. Because I’ve learned that if i don’t beat myself over the head with things, I don’t get it done.

Writing

So I sort of forgot to mention what I was going to do this week in my last check in. I mentioned what I did but not what I was going to do. I should fix that…

What I did this week

I wrote some more on The Iron Legacy.
I wrote a chapter on the second hockey book.

What I will do for next week

I want to finish The Iron Legacy by the next check in.
Write at least two chapters on the hockey book.
Rewrite another chapter on Standoff.

Blogging
What I meant to do:

Keep up 3 posts a week
Working on new theme
Plan book tour

What I did:

Decided to do away with my writing blog and condense it to just this blog.
Posted five times this week.
Still working on the new header for the new theme
Putting the book tour planning on the back burner for a couple weeks.

What I will do:

Schedule posts as early as possible to minimize scrambling.
Finish the damn header
Start working on the rest of the theme

Crafty Stuff
What I meant to do:

Dedicate a couple hours a week to relax and have fun

What I did:

Didn’t get around to it this week. I’m such a workaholic….

What I will do:

Make a new camera strap for my Nikon, or at least start one.

Publishing
Last week’s stuff I meant to do:

Work on setting up the store
Agonize over the submissions I have out

This week’s stuff  I did:

Work on setting up the store (this is actually on hold until I get the damn header done for the main site)
Agonize over the submissions I have out

Next week’s stuff I will do:

Agonize over the submissions I have out (I’m really good at this)
Tweak The Iron Legacy cover a bit. I think it needs to be a little more gritty than it is.
Once the cover is done for The Iron Legacy, I need to log on to Bowker and assign it an ISBN and get it set up on the retail sites.

Fitness

I’m adding a new section here this week because I need to get cracking on exercise. I started back at the gym this week so I’ve already started. Yay!

What I will do for next week:

Gym visits  three times in the week
Ice skating twice a week
Stop eating All the Things. (seriously, my diet will make anyone cringe…)

Overall

It’s been one of those “slow but steady” sort of weeks. School is keeping me mostly busy with the evil online class I’m taking, but for the most part it’s been fairly nice.

I got an iMac this week, so I’m setting that up. I’m putting Windows on it too. I told my dad that the Windows side would be for businessy things, like budgets and all that, and the Mac side would be for the fun creative side.

That’s it for me. I’m off to go dive bomb some #ROW80 blog posts with comments.