My Town Monday: What’s Up with the Saturn Society? And ROW80

I’m not one to blog about my books very often, but some of my recent email tells me it’s time for an update. (I figure this fits into My Town because so far, all of the Saturn Society books take place in my home town, Dayton.) Readers want to know, what’s going on with the Saturn Society? Namely, when’s the next book coming?

There are common reader expectations here. Currently, there are two Saturn Society novels. Books typically are either standalone, or come in threes (or more). Duologies are rare. But the fact is, there isn’t a third Saturn Society novel in the pipeline – at least not yet.

You see, traditional publishing was the only viable path to readers until a couple years ago. Writers were typically advised to only write one book in a series, one that could stand alone, for a couple of reasons. One, the book might never sell, so why put a lot of time and effort into a second that would definitely not sell?  Two, even if that first book sold, there was never a guarantee that a second would. Sometimes debut authors would get a two- or three-book deal, but they often didn’t. And if that first book didn’t sell well, the second would not be purchased.

So back to the Saturn Society. Time’s Enemy was the third book I’d written, but it was the one where I was really figuring out my process. Among other things, I learned that I could not write a book without outlining or pre-planning, when I ended up with 600 pages of rambling with no ending in sight (but I had a lot of fun!). However, I still loved the story, and there was enough usable material in there for a book. Or two, I realized, when I tried to write a synopsis.

So I reworked it enough to come up with a real antagonist (also missing from those early drafts) and a logical ending for the first book. Although Time’s Enemy was still too long (150,000 words – yikes!), I dutifully pitched it to agents and editors while I worked on Time’s Fugitive. I knew the odds of selling them were dismal, but I loved the story too much not to finish it. I never bothered to give Time’s Fugitive a complete revision until I decided to publish last year. However, I wrote it with the possibility of an out for my antagonists, on the off-chance that readers would want a third book.

So there’s my long-winded explanation of why there’s no third novel in the Saturn Society series.

Yet.

Because it does appear that readers want one! I have a couple other projects on deck right now that are closer to being ready to write, so those are going to happen first while ideas for a third Saturn Society book percolate. Who knows? There could be more after that – I’ve set up some possibilities for books and series for other characters, too.

In the meantime, I’m offering a little something to hold my readers over. “Time’s Holiday” is a short story that gives a fun glimpse into the background of a couple of minor characters. Hopefully, this will entertain existing readers while pulling in new ones.

In “Time’s Holiday,” seventeen-year-old Taylor Gressman sneaks away on Christmas Eve, hoping to find the angel who saved her life a few weeks earlier. Instead, she takes an unexpected trip back in time, and finds herself in the midst of a murderous street gang. Now it’s up to Taylor to ensure that she and a newfound friend don’t become the gang’s next victims, and in the process, learn that giving is the best gift of all. There is also a brief excerpt here. This is not your typical sweetness-and-light Christmas story. It includes a bit of true crime based on the “Christmas Killings” that happened in Dayton in 1992.

“Time’s Holiday” is currently available for free on Smashwords, and will eventually be available on other major retail sites. It will also be a part of the Home for the Holidays anthology that my RWA chapter will soon release.


On another note, it’s time for ROW80 Round 4! This is “the writing challenge that knows you have a life,” where writers set goals and report back on our progress twice a week. I typically haven’t done the Wednesday updates, but am going to try to get back on that bandwagon this round, since I’ve changed my posting days to Monday and Wednesday, instead of Monday and Thursday. The Sunday updates will continue. Round 4 ends right before Christmas. Last time, my goals were a bit, shall we say, ambitious. So this time, I’m going to step back a bit. Maybe. Here are my overall goals for this round:

  • Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology
  • Revise Hangar 18. This one was on deck for the last round, but the changes needed after beta reads were more extensive than I thought, so this is going to take longer.
  • Keep up with my exercise, five times a week.
  • Finish the Get It Together exercises (description of that here).

I’d like to get a new book planned and possibly started (maybe even do NaNoWriMo?) but I’m not ready to commit to that just yet. Same with finishing How to Think Sideways, which really goes along better with working on a new book. The great thing about ROW80 is that we recognize that life happens, things change, so our goals can change too.

This week is mainly going to be taken up with #1, so I want to get that formatted and done, although I’m waiting on one more story. So for this week, the goals are:

  • Format Home for the Holidays anthology if all materials are received – otherwise, get as much done as possible.
  • Physical activity 5x this week
  • Finish list of major revisions for Hangar 18
  • Get it Together exercises 11 & 12

If you’re participating in ROW80, what are your plans for this round? And either way, do you like holiday stories?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Weird Things We Love: Lolita Fashion

two gothlolitas

Two Goth Lolitas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, as mentioned on my Monday post, the car trip to Chicago didn’t start out with The Worst. Fanfic. Ever. The girls spent the first hour or so on the 3G tablet, surfing the web for com sales and checking out fashion.

I heard enough of my daughter and her one friend’s conversations during our France trip to know that this specifically refers to community sales – of Lolita fashions put up for sale by individuals, usually on LiveJournal pages.

I would never have heard of “Lolita fashion” if my daughter weren’t into it. To start with, it has nothing to do with Nabokov’s novel or creepy pedophiles with  schoolgirl fantasies. If anything, it’s on the opposite end of the spectrum in that Lolita fashions are very modest, Victorian-inspired dresses, skirts, blouses and accessories.

And let me point out here that the “weird” in “Weird Things We Love” should not be taken negatively, but rather in the spirit of things that are unusual or not mainstream. Originating in Japan, and popular with anime fans, Lolita fashions are (depending on one’s taste) beautiful, elegant garments, often hand-made, and made with high quality lace and trims. The fabric prints are a big deal, as many are custom-designed, limited editions. As someone who sews, it’s easy to see the care taken in the construction of the dresses, skirts and blouses – these won’t come apart in the wash (not that I’d put them in a regular washer!).

Sweet Lolitas em Harajuku

Sweet Lolitas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are three major sub-styles of Lolita fashion: goth, sweet, and classic.

Goth is, as one might guess, mostly black or dark colors, and is a blending of the overall Lolita look with goth. However, people who dress goth Lolita don’t do the extreme cosmetics, but keep toward a more mainstream look as far as makeup is concerned. The character Taylor Gressman in my books Time’s Enemy and Time’s Fugitive dresses in goth Lolita style.

Sweet Lolita is probably the most widely-recognized form of Lolita fashion. Its emphasis is on being not only pretty, but cute – and I mean extreme, saccharine cute in some cases. Sweet Lolita prints are typically stuff like cakes, cupcakes, and candy or puppies, kittens and unicorns. Pink is, of course, the quintessential sweet Lolita color; peach, baby blue, and mint green are also popular. Think cotton candy. A LOT of it.

Classic Lolita is somewhat of a cross between Goth and Sweet, with a more “mature” look and less in-your-face cuteness. I would consider the dress my daughter bought in Paris to be classic Loli, although the maker is technically considered sweet. Hence, one stop on our France trip that my daughter and her friend were most excited about: shopping at Baby the Stars Shine Bright.

BtSSB is one of the premier brands of Loli fashion, and like the others, is based in Tokyo, with stores in San Francisco and Paris. Going to the BtSSB store was a big highlight of the trip for my daughter and her friend, who’s also into Loli clothes.

Arriving at Baby, the Stars Shine Bright

What was even more exciting was when we went in the store, and she found a limited-edition print she’d seen online and was hoping she’d find: the Romeo and Juliet print.

Of course, she had to try it on.

The blouse was perfect – no small feat for my daughter, who’s pretty curvy. One thing nice about Lolita blouses and dresses is that they usually have a lot of shirring (or gathers), so that they’ll fit a wide range of sizes. Even cooler, many of the blouses – this one included – feature detachable sleeves, so they can be worn long- or short-sleeved.

The jumper was a bit tight around the bust, so we loosened the corset ribbons in the back and managed to zip it. Then one of the other girls in our group pulled the ribbons to tie them, and disaster struck: a tiny, delicate strip of lace broke.

The Romeo and Juliet dress

We had to buy the dress. At full price. Did I mention these are limited-edition, custom designed prints (and therefore, designer clothes)? My daughter assured me that if I could fix the lace (I could), she could re-sell it at home for at least what we paid for it, if not more. So she planned to get online with her own community page and find a buyer for her own “com sale.” We bought the dress with that plan, along with the blouse, which I said she could keep since she could wear it with anything.

The print features scenes and quotes from the play

When we got home, she tried on the dress again to show her dad. This time, she took the ribbons out altogether… and the dress fit!

He took one look and said “you’re not selling that.”

That dress was more than I’d paid for any dress before besides my wedding dress. But it turned out to be a happy accident, and hopefully something she’ll enjoy for many years. Just hope she doesn’t gain the Freshman 15 when she goes off to college!

Had you ever heard of Lolita fashions? What do you think of them?

Enhanced by Zemanta

ROW80: Worst-Case Planning

I didn’t even manage to make a final post for the final check-in last round; I’ll use “being in France with only occasional Internet” for my excuse reason. At any rate, trip preparations, my mind being elsewhere, and last-minute things I had to do around the house prevented me from making much progress, so my report would have been pretty much the same as the one prior.

But it’s a new round, time for new goals, and a fresh start! I’m having trouble getting back into the swing of things, even though I was only gone a week and a half, so I’m going to start out easy. In the last round, I also learned (again) that I need to limit my goals to things that are 100% in my control. My two beta readers still have Hangar 18, and I don’t want to rush them, so I’ll make that goal conditional.


I’m also adding something new, and not writing-related; I guess you could call it worst case planning. My parents are 70 and pushing-70, and my husband’s been after me for years to find out where they keep their personal papers, powers of attorney, health care wishes, etc. in the event that something happens to them and someone needs to make decisions. It’s not a pleasant topic and one that no one wants to discuss, so I keep meaning to do it if something leads in to it, but that time’s never come.

Then it occurred to me that my husband and I need to have this stuff collected together in case something happens to us. Thing is, it’s even more certain than taxes, will happen to everyone eventually, and no one knows when. So I found a book that looked like a good guide to organizing all this info and walks you through doing a little bit at a time. Baby steps! So completing those exercises will be my goal this quarter, and if I like it, I’ll suggest it to my parents when I hand my information to them.

Here are my goals for the quarter overall:

  • Work through Lesson 18 of How to Think Sideways
  • Release Times Two (combined ebook of Time’s Enemy and Time’s Fugitive)
  • Complete Saturn Society short story for holiday anthology I’m hoping to participate in – kind of scary because I haven’t written short fiction since freshman year of college, and that wasn’t very good
  • Complete Get It Together exercises and data gathering
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts per week
  • Work back into tracking exercise and consumption
  • BONUS: Release Hangar 18: Legacy (if I get it back from the beta readers sometime this month, and depending on edits needed)
  • BONUS: Plot out and begin writing first book in new series

And here’s what I’ll do this week to work toward them:

  • Research online for short story
  • Come up with synopsis sentence for short story
  • Review How to Think Sideways exercises for ideas to work in to short story
  • Complete Get It Together Chapter 3 & 4 exercises (the authors suggest doing 1 & 2 last)
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts

What are your plans for the rest of summer, whether or not you’re doing ROW80? Have you collected together “life plans” and info for your family?

ROW80: Just Zippy!

On the gerbil front, things are just peachy! We removed the divider on Monday, and things were a little touch and go as there was a lot of chasing and confrontation to establish who was the alpha, mostly between Sandy (our older gerbil) and Finn. They were still at it when we were ready for bed, so we replaced the divider.

Later in the week, it occurred to me that a cage cleaning might help, as the bedding would have had more Sandy-scent on it than the young gerbils’ scents. It did the trick, and we now have a happily-slumbering pile of gerbils in the corner of the tank!

I also added to my menagerie yet again the other day. Last Christmas, I asked for a fancy, lighted 5-gallon aquarium and other stuff for a betta fish. One of my coworkers has one at the office and her fish is so fun to watch! I got a couple things, but didn’t receive the aquarium until my birthday a couple weeks ago. So Friday we made another trip to Pet Supplies Plus, where I bought food, gravel, and the tank’s occupant.

I chose the fish that got the most excited when I reached for his cup, a pretty red betta with iridescent blue highlights. Boy does he love his new home! He zips around in it all day. Thus, his name: Zippy. He sits on my desk, so hopefully he’ll bring a little “zip” to my writing process.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much of that this week, and even less in the fitness department:

  • Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways, plus Lesson 6B, which I missed last week. – Lesson 7 done, still working on 6b. It’s more time-consuming than I expected.
  • Cover design for Times Two – started, but not done.
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts. I can blame migraines and too much running around, but that’s just an excuse. Going to do better this week!
  • Track exercise and consumption – uh…. no.

I checked with my beta readers for Hangar 18, and that’s not going to be ready in time for the deadline. So my focus there has switched to Times Two. Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 – on track!
  • Release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on track!
For this week, I’m going to go a little easy again. I have a  Memorial Day party later today, and a Readers con this coming Friday and Saturday, both of which will be fun but make it hard to track food. So I’m scratching that for this week, but still going to try to get my workouts in. It does, however, mean less time to work on my writing.
  • Complete Lesson 6B of How to Think Sideways
  • Cover design for Times Two
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

ROW80: What’s in a Name

First of all, the baby gerbils have names! It took us until Thursday to come up with the ones that both my daughter and I said, “Yes! That’s it!” We took Ginger Calem‘s  suggestion for the lilac gerbil, and named him Finn, short for “infinity,” which is how far he’d run on that wheel if he could. Thanks, Ginger, and to everyone else who offered suggestions!

Reggie and Finn (curled up sleeping) in a rare moment of stillness

The spotted Siamese boy was trickier. It turns out, he likes the wheel too – when Finn stops long enough for him to get a turn. He’s also calmer, and friendlier – when we hold him, he often purrs. (Finn has a couple of times.) My daughter thought with how pretty he is, he deserved a regal-sounding name. After several “nah, that’s not it,” I came up with Reginald – or Reggie. She liked it. So today we’ll remove the divider, and see how Finn and Reggie get along with Sandy.

And how did I do with ROW80? Not as well, I’m afraid. The various celebratory dinners and such cut into writing time. It’s also been nice out all week, so that cuts into motivation as well. However, it’s a new day, so I’m going to do better next week!

  • Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways – Got about halfway through. This was a long one.
  • Follow up with beta readers for Hangar 18 – Done! One is almost done, waiting to hear back from the other.
  • Write two guest blogs I promised – the one from last week, and a new request – Done!
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – Nope. Got the three intervals in, which is the more important.
  • Track exercise and consumption – Not even close. This was a lost cause with it being birthday week. I’ll do better next week.

Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 (1-4 done previously) – on track!
  • Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on track!
  • Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished
For this week, I’m going to go a little easier. This coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend, which means extra socializing, and we also have my daughter’s choir concert to attend one evening.
  • Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways, plus Lesson 6B, which I missed last week.
  • Cover design for Times Two
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Track exercise and consumption

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring? Do you have any big plans for Memorial Day weekend?

Three Birthdays and a Mothers’ Day

Like many families, mine had planned to spend Mothers’ Day together last Sunday. But instead of attending a cookout in her honor, my mom was bringing my dad home from the hospital – something she was glad to do (and everyone else was glad she was able).

But this wasn’t just to be a Mothers’ Day cookout. We have three birthdays in my family this week, and it was going to be a quadruple-combo celebration! My birthday was Tuesday, the 15th, my husband’s is today, and my brother’s wife’s is Saturday. Dad is doing well, so it looks like our postponement to this weekend is a go!

It’s always hard to buy for my mom. She’s trying to declutter – she has not only her and Dad’s stuff, but both their parents’. My parents also typically just buy for themselves whatever they want and need. Gift certificates make a good clutter-free gift, and have pretty much become a default in my family. The surprise is where are they from. 😀

I do have something special for the other mother in attendance (besides me, I mean), my sister-in-law’s mom. She’s like the aunt I never had – my dad’s an only child, and my mom’s only brother was divorced when I was little. I don’t think Ann reads my blog (she’s the kind who’d comment if she did), but she’s always been wonderfully supportive of my writing – not that the rest of my family hasn’t, but she’s an artist, and really understands what it means to me. So for Mothers’ Day, she’s getting a brand-new copy of my newly-released print version of Time’s Fugitive.

Yes, it’s now out in print! So if you’ve been waiting to read it in pulped-tree form, it’s now available at Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon, and should be coming to other online retailers soon.

The get-together should be a good time – they always are! My daughter and my brother have birthdays nine days apart in August, so we celebrate theirs together, too. And my mom’s birthday is always near (or on) Father’s Day, so we combine those.

Do you have combo family celebrations? Any special person who’s not related, but like family? I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments. And if you have any ideas for clutter-free gifts that aren’t gift cards, I’d love to read them!

ROW80: New Beginnings

Last night, I drove my daughter and her boyfriend to prom. To prom. I can’t believe it! It seems so cliche to say, but it really does seem like only yesterday she was six pounds, thirteen ounces, in my arms. And now she’s sixteen, and going to prom.

I drove them their in our ’70 Bonneville convertible, which my husband bought and restored almost 20 years ago, and finished just in time for our wedding.  Normally he would have had the honor of being the chauffeur, but he had to work. I’ve only driven it once or twice, and that was before our daughter was born. Like writing new material when you haven’t for a long time, it was scary at first, but by the time I pulled out of our street, no worries!

Isn't she lovely? Oh, the car, too...

Both driving that car, and sending my daughter off to her junior prom, were new beginnings of sorts – which brings me to this week’s ROW80 check-in.

I’ve finished the How to Write a Series workshop, one of my primary goals. I’ve also completed the print publication of Time’s Fugitive, another of my major goals. So now it’s time to move on to my other goals, one of which is planning my next book. I’m going to jump back into Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways workshop with this one, so I’m going to modify the goal to reflect that. But it’s really the same – still about planning the book.

Here’s the rest of the skinny:

  • Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source – Done! Proof received and approved, and coming to an e-retailer near you!
  • Complete Lesson 4 of How to Write a Series (which will finish the workshop) – Done!
  • Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy – Done! Cover reveal coming soon!
  • Write two guest blogs I’ve promised people – got one of them done, still need to email it to the blogger
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – still not there, but better – 3 intervals, 1 short workout done
  • Track exercise and consumption – still only about halfway there
  • BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books – No
  • BONUS: Write content for author newsletter – No

Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 (1-4 done previously)
  • Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – Cover design for Hangar 18 done! Also got some great feedback from first beta reader – thank you, Carey!
  • Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished
For this week:
  • Complete Lesson 5 of How to Think Sideways
  • Develop Book Info sheet for Hangar 18: Legacy and follow up with other beta readers
  • Write guest blog I promised, and email the written one to the blogger
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Track exercise and consumption
  • BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books
  • BONUS: Write content for author newsletter

I’d love to hear from you! Have you started anything new this week? How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

No, it’s not Cheers, although for some of us, it is indeed a bar. My husband owned a bar like that for over ten years.

But in this case, I’m talking about a place, or a group of people, where we feel like we belong. Some people can find this almost anywhere. But for misfits like me, it’s unusual and special.

I can find that in my RWA chapter, now that I’ve been part of it for over ten years. And this, I think, is what makes writing groups something special, far beyond the learning craft and business that goes on there: we’re with people who understand us. Who don’t give us weird looks when we say a character started talking to us the other day. Who understand when we don’t want to stay out late partying, because it cuts into the writing.

I have another group like that too, and it took even less time than the writing groups. These are people I can talk about cars with to my heart’s content, and their eyes don’t glaze over. We understand one’s excitement when a small change made to our car makes it sound just a little different. We nod knowingly when one of us describes our Christmas wish list that’s half car swag (or more). We compare notes on the best cleaning products, waxes, and little cosmetic extras we can get for our cars to make them more “ours,” and compliments on our four-wheeled babies are always abundant.

The past Saturday was what’s become an annual event among my local Camaro friends: Mod Day. We gather at one friend’s huge pole barn that’s outfitted with heat (unfortunately needed yesterday), a lift, all kinds of power equipment, and best of all, friends to help each other with small projects or maintenance work.

Of course there is a lot of socializing – in fact that’s all some of us do. Many of us have other things in common – several of the Camaro friends work in the IT field like me, for example. But the talk always comes back to the cars sooner or later.

Another fun thing about spending the day with my Camaro friends is it gives me an excuse to put cool Camaro pictures on my blog!

A really cool surprise awaited me when I arrived at the garage this year. One of my friends had bought a paperback copy of Time’s Enemy and brought it there for me to sign! I’m not sure if he was aware, but yes, there is a Camaro in Time’s Enemy. (It’s also in Time’s Fugitive. 🙂 )

I’d love to hear from you! Did you do anything exciting this weekend? Do you have a special group of friends who just “get” you? Please share!

ROW80: Funny Misunderstandings

One day last week, I was eating lunch with the girls at work, when a woman from another department stopped by to say hi. Apparently, she’d emailed one of my coworkers earlier this week about the “snatchin’ shoes” she’d bought that weekend. “I want to see your snatchin’ shoes!” my coworker said.

One of the other ladies’ eyes went round. “You want to see her what!?”

Apparently, she’d misunderstood, and heard “snatch and shoes!”

The conversation degenerated from there, especially when a third coworker described something she’d misunderstood: she’d woken up that morning to find three ducks in her yard fighting. She grabbed her camera and took some video, before she realized only the two males were fighting. 😀

Similarly, I’ve been misunderstanding some of my ROW80 tasks, although with much less comical results. I underestimated the amount of time How to Write a Series Lessons 1 and 2 would take – there’s a lot of work in planning a series, especially when you haven’t written Book 1. (Yet, that’s the best time to plan, so good on me!) OTOH, Lesson 3 dealt with planning subsequent books in a series after Book 1 (or more) is already written, so there wasn’t much for me to do at this point, and it went quickly.

However, I made up for it by (again) underestimating the amount of time proofreading would take. Fortunately, it all evened out.

Here’s how my week’s progress went:

  • Complete print layout and print cover design for Time’s Fugitive – Done!
  • Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series – Done!
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – uh, two and one. Still need to work on this.
  • Track exercise and consumption – not quite – missed yesterday.
  • Bonus: Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source – no, b
  • Bonus: How to Write a Series, Lesson 3 – Yes!
  • Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

Here are my plans for this week:

  • Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source
  • Complete Lesson 4 of How to Write a Series (which will finish the workshop)
  • Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy
  • Write two guest blogs I’ve promised people – this has been hanging for way too long
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Track exercise and consumption
  • BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books
  • BONUS: Write content for author newsletter

Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Ebook done. Print almost done.
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – in progress, should be done this week.
  • Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises – on hold until other goals accomplished
  • Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on hold until other goals accomplished
  • Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

I’d love to hear from you! Have you ever heard something you thought you understood – then realized you didn’t? Do you have trouble estimating the amount of time a task needs? How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?