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?

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?

ROW80: Working Through Fear

Ever have that feeling where you haven’t done something for a long time… it’s something you know how to do, yet when you get back to it, it’s downright scary?

That’s sort of how my writing went this week. I accomplished my fixes and release of Time’s Fugitive, no problem. I did Michele’s cover design (she loved it – yay!). And when I could put off my writing workshop no longer, I dug back into How to Write a Series.

It went slowly at first, because it was making me think things through on my series that I frankly, had no idea of. I had to do some brainstorming. Something I haven’t done much of for my writing in the past couple of years.

Fortune's Foe by Michele StegmanThen I got to the last task in Lesson Two, Part Three, and it stopped me cold.

That task was: “Write scene one of the first book.”

I froze. I procrastinated. I played Spider Solitaire. I farted around on Facebook and Twitter. I read several blogs. I downloaded WriteWay Pro, because I’ve been wanting to try it, and it made sense to try it with a new book. I read through some of the documentation, and set up my book.

My husband left for the AMVETS hall, and I dropped my daughter off at a friend’s house. Then I could delay no longer.

I had to do something I haven’t done in over two years: write new material.

By the time I got a few paragraphs down in my shiny new software, my husband had returned from the AMVETS hall, and turned on the TV. So I put on my headphones and kept going. I will admit, it wasn’t all a real scene – much of it is written in “blocking it out” form, a technique I learned years ago from Liz Bemis, and more recently read about on Rachael Aaron’s blog. I stopped for a few minutes to watch a car chase on Hawaii-five-o (hey, it was a Camaro!), but an hour later, I had my scene sketched out.

Here’s how my week’s progress went:

  • Make fixes and re-upload Time’s Fugitive – Done!
  • Finish book cover I’m designing for historical romance author Michele Stegman – Done! Check it out, above…
  • Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series – partly
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – uhhh, not so good; I wasn’t feeling well a couple days this week.
  • Track exercise and consumption – also done about halfway.
  • Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

Now I’m looking forward into doing more digging with How to Write a Series.

Here are my plans for this week:

  • Complete print layout and print cover design for Time’s Fugitive
  • Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Track exercise and consumption
  • Bonus: Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source
  • Bonus: How to Write a Series, Lesson 3
  • Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

 


Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Ebook done. Print interior started.
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – in progress.
  • 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

How about you – have you ever stopped doing something for an extended period of time – then found it scary to start back into it? I’d love to hear from you! What kind of goals are you setting for this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

ROW80: Slight Change in Plans

Another good week! And that was with adding a task I hadn’t planned for – but it’s all good!

A few weeks ago, my friend Michele Stegman put out a call for guest posts on her blog. She wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day by spending the month of February featuring the real-life stories of how romance writers met their real-life heroes.

So I wrote up my story, sent it to her, and pretty much forgot about it until the day she’d scheduled my story to post. Oh, I went to her blog and commented some of the others stories – there are some good ones! – and tweeted a few, but that’s about it.

A couple weeks ago, she asked me if I’d like to be in an anthology – not a new story (thank goodness, since short stories are something I haven’t really mastered!) but my real-life story, “Looking for Mr. Goodwrench.” It turns out her husband had read some of the stories, and suggested she collect them into an ebook.

Thus was born How I Met My Husband: The Real-life Love Stories of 25 Romance Authors. I designed a cover and helped Michele with some of the formatting, and guess what – I have a new release on my virtual bookshelf! It’s free on Smashwords, and $0.99 on Amazon (although you can download the Kindle format on Smashwords). We expect it to be available on Barnesandnoble.com, iTunes, Sony, Diesel, and Kobo ebookstores soon. These are fun stories that you can read in a few minutes – great while you’re waiting in line somewhere! And there’s an excerpt of each author’s latest release. Did I mention it’s free? So if this sounds like something you like, go to Smashwords, download your free copy, and read how I met my own, personal Mr. Goodwrench.

With my graphic design background, I’m super picky about formatting and of course, the cover art, so this did take me some time. But I still managed to get my ROW80 goals accomplished, because I’d left them flexible, and allowed room for surprises!

Last week’s results:

  1. Review HTTS Lessons 1-5
  2. Send Hangar 18: Legacy to beta readers
  3. Finish budget for RWA chapter (I’m the treasurer)
  4. Set up reader newsletter
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food intake every day (Still missed a meal or two on this one)

I marked my first goal, review Lessons 1-5 in How to Think Sideways, green, even though I technically didn’t do all of them. I actually reviewed Lesson 1 the week before, and didn’t get to Lesson 5. But I marked it green because I decided I wanted to do her How to Write a Series course before going further with the plans for a single book, because the book I want to work on next is indeed the start to a new series, and I want to do this right. I completed Lesson 1 yesterday, so I count that as being equivalent to a lesson on HTTS. What’s awesome about HTWAS? The work I do for the exercises and worksheets will be the start of planning out my book.

Next week’s plans (I can’t believe this round is over after this week!):

  1. View videos 1-3 for Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series (yep, this is the one that has videos. They’re worth it.)
  2. Complete worksheets for part 1 and 2 of HTWAS Lesson 2 (These are very in-depth and will take a while!)
  3. Request two more beta readers for Hangar 18: Legacy
  4. Write content for reader newsletter and start promoting it
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food and exercise each day

OR, if my copy editor finishes with Time’s Fugitive, put off items 1 through 4 to get that formatted and uploaded, since that was my primary objective for this ROWnd.

How did you do this week? Have you had to change plans lately regarding your goals? Are you still on target to meet your goals for this ROWnd? I’d love to hear from you!