Tag Archives: writing

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?

 

 

Advertisements

1 Comment

Posted in Housekeeping, productivity, writing

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

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!

1 Comment

Posted in productivity, writing

Tagged , , , , ,

Autumnal AF!

Posted on September 22, 2017 | 2 comments

It’s the first day of Fall, you guys!

I’m drinking a hot caramel apple cider and wearing my fave boots to celebrate 🙂

IMG_0344

I love summer, don’t get me wrong. But when the temperature begins to drop, and the days are getting short, my writing brain comes alive and I get all kinds of great ideas!

No more pressure to use every moment of nice weather to the fullest (we get a limited number of nice-weather days here in the PNW!)  No, now it’s just the slow slide into months of overcast darkness and rain.

(All the better for live-tweet reading Interview with the Vampire!)

By April, I’ll be ready for some sunshine. But, for now, bring on the drizzle!

Who’s with me?!

 

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,