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Two Words Behind

April 13, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

After all the problems with my laptop, I’m now only two words behind on my goal. Two words! You would think I would have thought of just two more words to write. LOL.

In other news…I’m reading a book where the writing is so awful, I can’t believe I’m still reading it. The thing is, the story is interesting enough to make me want to know what’s happening next. I keep wondering if I’m EVER going to finish this! Ugh. I actually downloaded a sample and it wasn’t bad. But the writing just kept getting worse. I can’t wait to start on something else so I can purge my mind of this book. I’m usually very easy to please, so if I don’t like it, most people won’t. It even switched from 1st person to 3rd person a few chapters into the book, which felt very strange. I know now how I can torture “The Pink Hammer”. Make her read this book. Hahahahahaha,

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ROW80 Check In 4-11-11

April 11, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

Ok, ok, I know. I’m a day late checking in. Sunday was just a whirlwind of STUFF. Anyway, I’m a couple of days behind on my word count, but I finally have my computer back. Yay! So no excuses now. I see no reason why I can’t catch up to my goal word count in a few days. I’ve got the next scene in my head. :0)

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What Do People Expect From Indie Books?

April 7, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I usually don’t show my book reviews in my posts. But I found this review on Goodreads for Guardian Vampire and I think it points out what’s wrong with a lot of indie published books. Here is an excerpt (the review was much longer, but I just wanted to show the pertinent parts).

“Whenever I buy a PubIt! ebook, the quality is going to be hit or miss. Guardian Vampire surprised me in a way no other PubIt! ebook has ever done before: it was well edited both in grammar and content. This is rarer than you might imagine.

I read this little 192 page novella in one night of insomnia. It was quick, action packed, and enjoyable. So I’m surprised it doesn’t have higher rating especially when compared to othe PubIt! ebooks like ****** which made me want to rip my hair out with the lack of content editing and flat characters.”

I blanked out the name of the book the reader mentioned out of respect for a fellow author. But this just shows what people are expecting out of indie authors. That’s why it’s so important to have good editing. I know that people have found a typo or two in some of my books, but I agree with the author of this review. There are very few indie books I’ve read that had good editing. A lot of them have so many typos that I can’t believe more of them weren’t caught. Professional indies like Zoe Winters, Susan Bischoff, and Kait Nolan (I know I’m leaving some awesome authors out, but I’m just giving three examples of authors with well edited books) always make sure their books are as good as they can be before putting them out there. But I’ve found that this is a rare exception. I know not everyone can afford a good editor at the beginning, but if you have several sets of eyes on your book, the chances of bad grammar, typos, and incorrect punctuation get slimmer and slimmer. So let other people read your books before you publish them. Have both beta readers and proofreaders. That will help you put out a better product. If there’s a typo or two, it’s not the end of the world. But when there’s 20 (or about 50, like a couple I’ve read), that’s just not good.

I know the reviewer mentioned editing for “grammar and content”, but I know she probably also has experience with typos and bad punctuation in indie books (I have). So this post really encompasses all of it.

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Frustration!

April 6, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

Well, “life” has happened to me again. My husband called in a panic yesterday morning because our laptop had contracted a virus. It’s probably more like malware. It’s that stupid MS Tool that makes you think it’s really an anti-virus program and wants you to buy it because it found so many viruses on your computer. And you can’t do anything. No icons will work. The desktop background is gone. I restarted the computer in safe mode, but you can only do so much that way. You can’t save a Word document with any other name or location than the original. Luckily, I have my manuscript backed up on a flash drive. And, also luckily, I know the guys that work where I took my computer to get it fixed, and I trust them not to mess with my files. The big drawback (except for having to pay for the work) is that I’ll be without my computer for THREE DAYS. Yikes! What about my writing? My plans are to load my WIP on my work computer and spend my lunch hours the next two days writing. I hope no one messes with my plans! Grrrrrrrr! Anyway, I refuse to be beaten down by this setback.

On the bright side…I’m about 360 words over my cumulative goal of 500 words per day.

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ROW80 Round Two

April 3, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

Round One is over, and I didn’t get everything accomplished because of things going on in my life. But Round Two starts tomorrow and it’s a new challenge.

Goals:

1. Write an average of 500 words per day until my novella (part one of a series) is done. I’m expecting it to be somewhere around 25,000 to 30,000 words. So that will take 50 to 60 days. That will give me 20-30 days left to edit and get some people beta reading it. The editing goal will depend on how much time I have after writing the first draft, so that goal will be set later.

2. My secondary goal is to spend a little bit of time working on my garden gnome story from Round One. This isn’t a “have to” goal, just an aside if I have time. I can’t really give this one a measurable goal, so it’s kind of a maybe.

Good luck to everyone. Go writers!

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My Mom

March 31, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I just wanted to post a quick note to let you all know why I’ve not been around much. My mom had to have her other stent put in Tuesday. So I was at the hospital all day Tuesday and half a day on Wednesday. We found out that the infection she had at the pacemaker incision was staph. So I had to take her to an infectious disease specialist this morning. Tomorrow, I have to take her back to the hospital to get an IV put in, and they are going to give her antibiotics that way. Then home health is going to come to her house Saturday and get her set up for IVs at home, which she will have to do for two weeks. So I’m at the hospital or doc’s office all day and working all night to catch up. Hopefully, next week will be better. I think my blood pressure is up….

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Reflections

March 24, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

As I look back on the first round of ROW80, I have some mixed feelings. I was doing so well at meeting my goals until my mom had a heart attack. The good thing about ROW80 is that it’s very forgiving and allows you to change your goals at any time. But I didn’t even set any new goals. This was mostly due to the tremendous work load from my full time job. I just can’t take that much work home and still write. Some people might be able to do it, but I just don’t have that much stamina. So I didn’t finish my book.

Turning to the bright side…Round Two is coming up and my work will hopefully slow down to the point that I won’t have to take work home with me. I won’t mention my ROW80 goals in this post because I’m sure there will be a chance to state those at the beginning of Round Two. I will mention one thing, though. I am determined to get in better shape physically because when I’m in control of my body, I seem to be in much better control of my mind. Funny how it works that way, but it always does for me. When I’m in control of one aspect of my life, the others start falling into place and it’s like a chain reaction.

I’ve really enjoyed doing this challenge with all of you. Even when I was really busy, I tried to be a halfway decent sponsor and encourage those in my group for that check in. I think I only missed 2 or 3 check ins when things were the worst.

Congrats to everyone who met their goals, and for those who didn’t, it’s not failure…just restructuring. I look forward to seeing familiar faces (figuratively, lol) and, hopefully, some new ones, too. Good look with Round Two!

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New Walking Shoes

March 23, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

Since I decided I was going back to walking, especially in light of the recent sunny weather, I knew I needed some new walking shoes. I’ve been a big fan of New Balance for years, but my friend decided to get some Shape Ups by Skechers. She loves hers. So I thought I would give them a try. I ended up actually getting Tone Ups instead of Shape Ups because the tongue of the shoe bothered me on the Shape Ups. Otherwise, they were really comfy. Anyway, these shoes are supposed to tone up your legs and butt. And I’m telling you…my muscles were definitely feeling it after about a 45 minute walk. And there was so much cushion in these shoes!

So, wasn’t that an exciting post? LOL. I’m just really psyched about getting back into exercise. Thanks, Kait, for inspiring me even more. Although I was going to start walking again, anyway, it helps to know I’m not alone. :0)

As far as eating goes…I’m still working on those portion sizes.

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An ROW80 Update…Sort of

March 21, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I really don’t have a lot to say. Most of you know that I had to put my WIP on the backburner when my mom had a heart attack. As soon as she was back to normal, the craziness broke loose at my full time job, causing me to take work home nearly every day. There’s no way I can work all day, work at night, and THEN try to write. (Maybe when I was younger, LOL.) Anyway, things are slowing down just a tad here at the office, so I’m trying not to take work home this week. Now my main concern is whether or not to try to finish my WIP from Round One or put it aside until I finish my Round Two project. Or maybe try to do both at the same time. We’ll see.

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Typos

March 4, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I want to talk about one of my pet peeves. Typographical errors. I’ve read a lot of indie books lately, and that’s been one of my biggest problems with them. Do my books have them? Yep. My mother was reading one of my books the other day and caught two. She’s the best “typo catcher” I know. I have no idea why I haven’t used her as one of my proofreaders. That book that she caught the errors in had already had three different sets of eyes on it and still had at least two errors. I can live with two without freaking out, but I need to fix them and reload the books. (The beauty of ebooks!)

When I read a book published the indie way or the trad way, I expect to see errors. Today’s books have them, regardless of how they’re published. I don’t know if paid editors are getting sloppier or if this world is getting so rushed that everything sufferers. But I don’t mind if I see three or four errors in a book. Not a big deal. But I just finished a book last week that really disappointed me in the amount of typos I found. This book was long and I lost count of the typos. I would guess 50 or more. Seriously. I have only read one other book that had that many. I’m not going to mention the name of the book or author, because…well, you understand why. I wouldn’t want to embarrass an author that I like so well. This book was absolutely wonderful. Well written, interesting, great action, great interaction of the character. It was imaginative and well thought out. An outstanding novel. But the typos….wow….

Whether you pay someone to proofread or have people that will do it for free, I would suggest having more than one person look at it. I saw a review on a book by a really well known indie author that said that the book was full of typos (this is true because I read it and saw them, too), and the author’s response was that she paid an editor. So even paid editors aren’t perfect, although whoever it was shouldn’t have let THAT many errors go through. That’s why more than one person should look at it.

I really, really want to tell this author about all the typos. But I’m sure he already knows it by now. And I don’t want to alienate anyone, especially someone I seriously like and whose books I love. Sometimes, I guess it’s just best to keep your mouth shut.

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