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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

ROW80 Update 7/30/14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 30, 2014| 12 Comments »

Is anyone else having cooler than usual temperatures for July?

I was really wanting to get Fire Wizard done by the end of this round, but I don’t guess that’s going to happen. I’m working on two line editing jobs for other people right now, so I haven’t had time to even touch my manuscript. Once I get done with one of them, I think I’ll be able to find some time to pick back up on the book. It’s in the middle of the climax of the story right now, so I’ll have to read back over the last 2-3 chapters to get the momentum back. My cover artist, Anya Kelleye, isn’t done with the cover, anyway. So I guess that works out for both of us. LOL

So, were my goals met? My proofing goals, yes. My writing goals, a world of no. 50% is better than nothing. 🙂

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ROW80 Check In 7/16/14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2014| 11 Comments »

Since I was in Vegas for a conference last week, there was no way I could make my weekly time goal for writing and proofreading. While I was there, I did work on two line editing jobs I have. And I took Virginia Nelson’s sprinting class twice while I was there, so I got a little work done on my WIP. I actually took her class at Buildin’ the Dream, too, so I’ve done it three times. Such a great class!

I got home Monday night and got no sleep, so I didn’t work on anything last night, either, since I was so sleepy. Tonight is Wednesday, my usual day off from doing any work, but I might make an exception to make up for Monday and Tuesday. Maybe I can get my goals met that way.

How are ya’ll doing?

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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!!!

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Secret Project – Not So Secret

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 19, 2014| 11 Comments »

I’ve been tossing something around in my head for a long time. This is sort of a Christian post, so fair warning. I noticed the last time I posted something of a religious nature, I got only a couple of comments. We’ll see what happens this time.

Anyway, I truly believe we are supposed to use the talents God gave us. Some people are better at some things, and other people at other things. We are all so unique, but we all have SOMETHING we can do. Our preacher did a sermon on this very thing on Sunday, and it touched me because I had been thinking along the same lines. I’ve been thinking about writing a book that could be used as a book in a ladies’ Bible class or maybe just to read. The first one I’ve thought about writing is called “Nurturing a Christian Marriage”. Honestly, it makes me sad to see how many marriages don’t last anymore. If I could just make one person think about the permanence of “I do”, it would be worth it to me.

Now is the question of…would I charge for this book? The answer is yes. Churches expect to pay for class materials, and I want to write for a living someday. This might be another direction to go in for income. However, I would like to keep the cost low. This won’t be a long book.

I’ve worked on this some tonight, mostly figuring out my chapters and some Bible verses pertaining to each one.

So that’s my news. Oh, and I won’t be writing it under this pen name.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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. 🙂

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Falling Behind on Everything!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 17, 2014| 12 Comments »

Yikes! Mostly what I’m falling behind on is visiting blogs. I have a LONG list of emails where I’ve been notified of blog posts. Now I have to make the decision whether or not to try to catch up with all of them, or delete them and start over. I have been able to read and comment on a few here and there, but I’m getting more than I can handle in my email. I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. So if I haven’t commented on your blog in awhile, and I usually do, it’s just a time issue.

I’m falling behind on my current book, too. There are legitimate reasons for this, mostly other things I need to do. But I hope I can dedicate Saturday to my writing AND to some of the other things I need to finish. I will be mad if someone tries to take up my time on Saturday. That day is MINE! I had to go on a work trip this past weekend, so I pretty much will have worked 12 days straight with no time off. I need Saturday. Desperately.

My husband has been out on medical leave since mid-December. He’s feeling great right now, but he’s still not allowed to go back to work. The good thing is, he’s getting really antsy, so the house is staying clean, plus some little projects are also getting done. He’s also done a couple of major things outside. I’ve been a little worried that he’s overdoing it on those things, but he’s a grown man, and I have to trust him to know how he feels. If he can do those things, he can definitely work, but the doctor has the final say on that. When hubby goes back to work, I guess I’ll have to help with the housework again (FlyLady, I’m coming back to you!). I’m going to try not to fall behind on THAT. When housework falls behind, it seems you can never catch up!

So what do you all do when you fall behind? Do you feel overwhelmed? How do you handle it?

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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?

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