Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘ROW80’

Final Check-In Round 2 – ROW80

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 25, 2014| 12 Comments »

ROW80Badge

This will be short and sweet. My goals were to write at least 15,000 words per month and to get my WIP ready for publishing by June 30. Neither of those goals will be met. According to my Supernatural (love Sam, Dean, and Cas!) spreadsheet, I would have to write 1898 words per day through the end of the month to make that goal. Not gonna happen. Maybe without the full-time job, but not working 40 hours a week. I really wanted the print version of Fire Wizard ready to take to the book fair at RNC, but it’s just not possible now. I’ve been concentrating on things that have to be done. Some of that is over now, so maybe I’ll get going in the next round. See ya then!

Read Full Post »

ROW80 Un-Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2014| 14 Comments »

My mom told me today I’m spreading myself too thin. I know I am. I’m putting everything before my writing and taking in too many jobs, but to tell the truth, those other things are making me more money than my writing at the moment. I have no desire to be a “starving artist”. Writing is something I love to do, but I need to make money. Hubby’s been out of work, and now we have to have a new heat pump.

So here’s the thing. I need to organize and prioritize. Since I took Virginia Nelson’s class on sprinting, I need to dedicate at LEAST 15 minutes per day on MY book. With the sprinting method, I can do about 500 words in that time. I think I’m going to have a little breathing room through June and July, because I’m going to be working on books that will be easy to proofread. I just tried to do too many things in May and the first part of June. The fact that I had five nights of teaching Vacation Bible School didn’t help. It put me behind. But I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

That brings me to something else. I feel like I’m neglecting ROW80 and the people who make up this wonderful group. What really made me think about this is that my last post was the revealing of who my next cover model will be, and I had very few comments. I was SO excited about this, and not many people came by. And that made me realize I hadn’t really visited many ROWers in awhile. I should be checking up on some of you, even if it isn’t a ROW80 post. All of you have blog posts you write besides those twice weekly ones. So how can I expect anyone to visit my blog when I haven’t been visiting theirs? So I want to apologize for that. It’s just been a time thing, but I need to make time. And we need to visit each other on other days besides Wednesdays and Sundays. We’re friends, right? I know all of us can’t visit everyone. But shouldn’t we pop in on one or two a week besides the check in days? What do you all think? Am I just being weird? LOL

I’m going to try to do better!!!

Read Full Post »

Bad Writing Week & Dragon Naturally Speaking

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 11, 2014| 25 Comments »

I wrote 249 words this past week. Bah! I normally work on Fire Wizard on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday, I decided hubby and I needed a date night. It had just been too long since the two of us had gone out together. So we went to Macaroni Grill and then to the Earth Fare store (kind of like Whole Food, I think). By the time I got home, I was too tired to write. It was kind of late. And Friday…well, that’s when I wrote the 249 words, playing with my Dragon Naturally Speaking software. More on that in a moment. Saturday, I found too many other things to do. Some productive, like cutting out a skirt pattern, and others not so much, like playing a Big Fish game and going to the matinee to see The Amazing Spiderman. Bad me.

Now, about Dragon. Honestly, I was afraid it wouldn’t be able to recognize my southern accent. But I read a speech by JFK to let it understand my speech patterns. I think this software is amazing. I would haven written more with it, but I was still learning. I could go faster saying a sentence because I can talk faster than I can type. But I have to get used to saying “period”, “comma”, “open quote”, “close quote”, etc. I was doing pretty well at the end, but I found I didn’t know where my story was going, so I knew I had to think about it some more. Anyway, the Dragon software was worth it as a business expense. It will be especially good when my hands are hurting or when my back is bothering me. When I get used to it, I think it will feel more natural than it does right now. It’s regularly $99.99, but I clicked on a FB sponsored link which took me to the Nuance website, where it was advertised as $59.99. When I put it in my cart, it was $49.99! And it comes with a microphone.

I’m thinking about doing some writing today since I slacked off last week. I never write on Sundays, but I might have to make an exception.

Read Full Post »

ROW Update 5/4/14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 4, 2014| 24 Comments »

I got a whopping 5,348 words written on Fire Wizard this past week. That feels awesome!

I’ve been trying to loosely plot the cozy mystery I’m thinking of doing under a different pen name. I’ll have to say, those people who write these on a regular basis have acquired genius status in my eyes. To have to figure out “whodunit” and why. And then all the investigative stuff. It makes me want to pull my hair out. I don’t know if I can do this or not, but I’m giving it a whirl. It’s good for writers to step outside their comfort zone. If it works, great. If I can’t live with the frustration…at least I can say I took the leap.

Read Full Post »

Scheduling My Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 30, 2014| 15 Comments »

I only got 2205 words written this week. But I’m soooo close to the goal I set on my Supernatural (Sam & Dean!) spreadsheet. So close. It said last night I needed to write 2561 words per day to meet my goal. I have only one day left. Today. It’s church night, so I really don’t think I can do it. But I WANT to so badly! What should I do? Could I handle an after church writing marathon???

I think one of the biggest problems I’ve had with writing is I’m not really scheduling my time. Yes, I have an idea in my head about what I want to do but…look, there’s another cool Big Fish Game. And I have a free credit, so I can download it! Um, where was I? Oh yeah. Anyway, I think schedules need to be WRITTEN DOWN. And then adhered to as best one can. It’s especially important that I get my schedule worked out because I have four proofreading jobs from now until the end of July. I’m just glad they didn’t all come in at once. LOL.

So here’s what I’m thinking for May:

Monday-Tuesday: Work on a cozy mystery I’m thinking of writing under a different pen name
Thursday-Saturday: Work on whatever my WIP is under Lauralynn Elliott
Sunday & Wednesday: No writing
Monday-Friday during lunch (and possibly Saturday): Work on my proofreading jobs

What do you think? Does this schedule make sense? Do YOU make schedules for yourself?

And don’t forget…if you need content editing, line editing (proofreading), formatting for ebooks, or all of these, check out The Forge: Affordable Book Finishing

Read Full Post »

Oops – A Little Late with my Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 21, 2014| 4 Comments »

I totally forgot to post yesterday. There’s not a lot going on anyway. I’m still working on a couple of other things that need to get done. I finished one and am almost finished on another, then one more. I’m not writing as many days as I want to (one day this past week), but I seem to be writing more at each session. I remember back when I could only seem to write about 500 words per day. But I wrote more days. On Friday, I wrote almost 2000 words in one session. So that’s like 4 days worth back in the old days. LOL. I’m hoping to get back to writing 3-4 days a week. Work is slowing down just a bit here at the full time job, so my brain power won’t be as depleted at the end of the day. Our church is doing a food thing for the homeless shelter this week, and I’ve never served at a shelter before, so that’s going to be an experience. That’s going to take up some of my time, but I think this is something that will be well worth it. As important as writing is to me, my spiritual growth is MORE important to me. If I strive to be a better person, I think life will improve in all areas. 🙂

Read Full Post »

ROW80 Update 4/9/14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 9, 2014| 20 Comments »

My Supernatural Spreadsheet says I’m on track to meet my goal for April. 🙂 It tracks your daily word count average and your goals based on what you have entered, and it will tell you how you’re doing. Like after I keyed in my progress for Jan-Mar, it said in each month “This month is over. Better luck next month”. Since I want my spreadsheet to be proud of me, I must meet my April goal. Hey, it’s Sam and Dean, ya know?

I’m still working on Fire Wizard, although I would like to set aside a little time for my cozy mystery. We’ll see how that goes. I’m working on a proofreading job for an author, too, and that’s always fun because I get to READ. I just have to read more carefully and slowly. And make red marks. I’m thinking of changing to purple…. 🙂

I’m also preparing for a trip to Asheville, NC for a work trip. I think I’ll enjoy that one.

Busy, busy. How about the rest of you?

Read Full Post »

Goals for 2014 Round 2

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 7, 2014| 22 Comments »

Is is REALLY time for Round 2? Seriously? It seems like just yesterday….

Anyway, I’ve tried to find a doable word count goal. I’ve done those in the past, and I’ve done time goals. Daily goals, weekly goals, on and on. It’s so hard to find a good fit. Then I saw these spreadsheets. Word Count Spreadsheets. How can you not love a spreadsheet with Sam and Dean? I have my own word count spreadsheet, but these spreadsheets are full of awesome! And if you’re more into fantasy, check out THESE. It got me thinking about a MONTHLY word count. That way, if I have a bad week, I can still make up for it with a good week. I’m going to give that a shot and try for 15,000 words per month. The spreadsheets have all kinds of bells and whistles, letting you know how you’ve done, what you still need to do, percentages, etc. This website is also where I got my word count meter.

Now on to another thing. I have an idea for a…hmmm, what shall we call it? Cozy mystery? Romantic mystery? There will be a romance and a murder mystery. There will be food involved. And it will be okay, because it’s part of what the shero does, so no one can say I’m talking about food too much. I’m looking at you, Pink Hammer. Bwa ha ha. And this is where I have to decide if I’m going to use Lauralynn or my real name or another pen name. I’ve been seriously thinking about creating a publishing company so I can publish under that imprint for two different names. The only drawback to doing this is that I would need to buy my own ISBN numbers instead of letting Smashwords (for ebooks) and CreateSpace (for print books) assign the ISBN, which would show those two entities as publishers. I would like some opinions and feedback on this. If I understand the process correctly, you have to have one ISBN for print and another for ebooks. But I THINK you can use the same ISBN number for the ebooks at all retailers. You just can’t use the same one for e and for print. Is this correct?

So that’s all for now. I would love to hear your comments!

Read Full Post »

ROW80 Round 1 Wrap UP

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 27, 2014| 9 Comments »

After my super “heavy” post last time, I need to keep this light. LOL

I’ve been with ROW80 since the very beginning. I’ve had good rounds and bad rounds. But I’ve been here EVERY round. The ROW80 community is awesome!

How did I do? Not so well. Not terrible, but not up to expectations. For this round, I wrote 19,534 words. I could have done much better than that. It averages out to about 227 words per day. I actually only wrote 14 days this round. So if I only use THOSE days, then my daily average is 1395 per day. See how you can look at something in different ways?

I will say, a lot of the reasons I had for not writing were legitimate. I’ve been doing some proofing, which actually makes me more money that my writing does. And then Susan, Kait, and I started The Forge: Affordable Book Finishing. So I have been a little busy. Writing is my passion, but I need to do what is going to put food on the table, right? So I plan to do both. 🙂

Here’s to a great Round Two! There’s something about spring that makes me more energetic.

Read Full Post »

ROW Update 3/16/14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2014| 15 Comments »

This has been a great writing week. Although I only wrote three days, I still managed to churn out 5,837 words! Yesterday, I wrote almost 2,400. Hubby was gone, so the TV in the living room was off and I was at my desk in my office, the sun shining through the windows beside me. Coffee was on the desk beside my computer. A couple of pieces of sugar-free chocolate. The conditions couldn’t have been better! 🙂

I really think it makes a big difference WHERE you write. If you have your own writing place, I think your mind says, “Okay, this is where I’m supposed to write”. I’m so glad I was able to fix up my son’s old bedroom and make it into an office.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »