Tag Archives: writing

First check-in of 2019

Posted on March 6, 2019 | Leave a comment

Wow. How is it already March? That was one heck of a winter. Was it incredibly eventful and scheduled for you too?

Seeing as how I haven’t posted to the blog since the Shift Series Re-Release (which was AWESOME, btw!) I thought now would be a good time for a quick “What Am I Working On?” post!

First and foremost, I’ve added some self-care/self-kindness to my goals and habits for 2019. I’m more than two months in, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s been SO worth it! I’m going to write a future post about the five-minute reflection excersize I do each night because it’s been revolutionary, so stay tuned for that!

In the land of Elle-the-author goals, I’m currently focused on completing the re-write/major revision of my current work in progress, currently titled Cloaked. I wasn’t certain about this re-write when I first started it, but within a few chapters, I knew the effort would be well worth it. The draft I finished a couple of weeks ago is set up to be light years more compelling than the original (and the original kept my beta readers reading, so, yeah. Hoping this might be a stay-up-all-night kind of book. You’re welcome!)

Beyond that, I’ve been digging into the Facebook and Instagram advertising engines, and I frequently thank my lucky stars for my background in digital display advertising. Without that, I would be much more lost and much less successful. So, if you see an ad for SHIFT floating around on either Facebook or Instagram, give a little cheer into the universe for me!

Anyway, it’s WAY too late and I should be in bed, so I’ll wrap up. But tell me how your 2019 has gone so far! I want the deets, so comment below or shoot me a message!

Love you all! Stay badass!

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Happy New Year!

Posted on January 5, 2018 | 1 comment

After a much-needed hiatus over the holidays, I’m back and ready to look back on 2017, as well as look forward to the year ahead.

So what in the heck did I accomplish in my author life in 2017 anyway?

  1. I wrote 2 books (the last two books in the Cloaked Series)!
  2. I found titles for those two books (a harder task than it sounds–it took all year!)
  3. I learned that an e-newsletter is not within my capabilities right now (but later, it will be!)
  4. I began re-writing Harbinger (Mythologicals Saga #1) (hint: it won’t be the first book in the series when I’m done!)
  5. I attended Emerald City Writers’ Conference for the second year in a row.
  6. I pitched Cloaked to three publishing professionals (and all three requested material!)
  7. I posted to this blog 46 times (which continued my run of success on one of my resolutions from all the way back in 2016, to post to the blog with regularity!)

Not too shabby, right?

That’s a high bar to live up to in 2018, but I think I can manage it. Here are my goals:

  1. Submit Cloaked to at least 50 agents/editors (or stop when I’m offered a contract!)
  2. Write All In (Cloaked #2.5) – which will fully finish the series.
  3. Complete the Mythologicals Saga re-write/re-order.
  4. Begin writing Corrolary (the last book in the Mythologicals Saga) for 2019 release
  5. Re-edit and re-release the Shift Series with new covers
  6. Write and publish Linking 2 (the second Shift Series Novella, telling more of Cici’s story.)
  7. Post to the blog at least 40 times.
  8. Attend Emerald City Writers’ Conference
  9. Bonus: Attend the RWA National Conference, if possible/reasonable.

Okay, so that’s a lot. When I started writing the list, I got a little overwhelmed, but when I read it back, it’s doable. And it’s awesome to list it all out like that, like zooming out on the year ahead and viewing my goals from 10,000 feet–which starts to look a whole lot more like a plan than a jumbled list of wants. This time, next year, I’ll come back to this post and check-off all the things I accomplished. Boo-ya!

So, what about you? What are your goals for 2018?

 

 

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To Sleep, Or Not To Sleep…

Posted on November 3, 2017 | 1 comment

I need your help solving a problem. Writing it all out here will help, but your input will help even more. I gotta know: how do you balance sleep and pursuing the things you love?

Here’s my deal:

I could get more writing done if I woke up just one hour earlier each morning. But I’d be missing one hour of sleep.

I could go to bed one hour earlier, but I’d be missing an hour spent with my hubby (which is a rare, valuable thing these days!)

I could start drinking caffeine again, and get everything I wanted–but I might end up crashing or getting sick after some weeks.  But that’s a maybe, not a definite.

So do I bet on the maybe?

A little more than a year ago, I spent a month waking up each morning at 5AM; I got ready for work until 5:45, then wrote until 6:40 (when I got my kids up and ready for daycare.) It was amazing for my writing! I made so much headway on my projects (plus, I’m at my most creative first thing in the morning, so it was even high-quality headway!) But, I fell asleep on the sofa before 10PM each night, which cut into hubby-hangout time significantly. And then, after a month or so, I crashed. I couldn’t make myself get out of bed before 6:30AM to save my life. That felt worse than the early rising had felt good. So then I was back to square one. I make decent progress on my projects as is, but I know I’m capable of more/better.

So, what do you all do?  Any of you out there who have to slot your passion into impossibly small slivers of time, how do you do it?  Have you come up with any key observations/practices that have made the whole thing easier/more successful?

I’m all ears! Send me your success stories, horror stories, and lessons learned!

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