ROW80 | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, August 11, 2013

Get your mind out of the gutter! I don’t mean that! I’m talking about a nonfiction book I read last week.

18minutes 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done
by Peter Bregman was the Kindle Daily Deal one day for $1.99. Finding focus and dealing with distractions are both challenges for me, so I figured what the heck?

There are some pretty good ideas in this book, some of which I’ll put to use right away, others I’ve already been doing. The 18 minutes in the title refers to spending five minutes at the beginning of the day planning what you’re going to do (I already do this), and five minutes at the end of the day going over what you did and are going to do the next day (I do this, too). The other eight minutes are a new concept to me, however. The idea is, once an hour, pause for a minute and take stock of your day. Are you being the person you want to be? Are you focusing on areas that you want to? I’m assuming he only has allowed for eight of these pauses because this book is mostly focused on business (although it does touch on personal life and relationships, too). But I found it an interesting concept.

Another concept I found interesting was that, while most time management books tend to focus on getting all the stuff on your to-do list done, this one instead tells us that we try to do too much – more than anyone can reasonably do in a day – and that we should instead choose five or so areas in our life we want to focus on, and build our to-do lists around those to the extent we can (while acknowledging that there are going to be things we simply have to do). And get rid of the rest. This is also something I’ve been trying to work on this past year, although I hadn’t thought about it this clearly. It’s why I always put off marketing and promo activities – I simply hate them, and don’t want to do it. The time I accidentally wiped out my to-do list was almost a relief, because I remembered the really important stuff, but most of the marketing stuff simply went away. And I decided I was OK with that, even if it meant I sell fewer books. Because I also decided that I’d rather have fun with my writing than let it become focused on sales, and something I dread.

ROW80 is something that can be whatever we want, and for me it’s fun! So here’s how I did this week:

Skim/read three chapters in research book – Nope.
1500 words on new ms – Yes!
4 workouts – Yes!

I am just going to shelve the research for now, since it’s not turning out to be very interesting, it’s for a different story than the one I’m working on right now, and I want to focus on that. So I’m raising the bar on wordcount this week, but I again have things going on several evenings, so not too much:

2000 words on new ms
4 workouts

What about you? Found any tips for managing the to-do list lately? Whether or not you did, and whether or not you’re doing ROW80, how did your week go? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

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.

by Jennette, August 4, 2013

Most of the time, not much, or so it seems.

But if it’s your eighteenth birthday, it could be a lot.

Today is my daughter’s eighteenth birthday. Like most parents, I can’t believe it! I’ll spare you all of the “it seems like only yesterday” blah blah stuff. Today, we’re doing the usual celebratory things – a cookout and party with family and friends. But first, we’re attending another special event: my daughter’s senior recital for her vocal lessons. She’s been practicing for this for months, working on a wide range of music from the Baroque period through modern-day musical pieces. It will be hard work for her, and a performance like none of us have ever seen: one hour of just her.

Of course, she’s been thinking a bit of what she can do, now that she’s eighteen. With her birthday this late in the year, most of her friends are already there, so she’s had plenty of time to ponder it. She can:

Register to vote. She’ll definitely do this, probably next month or so, even though there’s next to nothing on our ballot this November. Ironically, one of her best friends turned eighteen last year, on the last day one could register to vote in the presidential election. Because they had choir rehearsal, she did not make it in time.
Buy cigarettes. Yuck! That’s what she says, too. Last year, one of her friends didn’t smoke, but bought cigarettes when he turned eighteen, just because he could, LOL.
Buy smut. Probably not – there’s plenty of it for free on the Internet. If she does, I don’t want to know.
Buy a shotgun. Nope. Her dad/my husband owns several; he’ll be glad to teach her to shoot and/or take her hunting any time she wants!
Work full time. She would have liked to do that this summer, but hardly any place wants to hire anyone under eighteen these days, nor do they want people who just want to work summers, unless it’s a seasonal business. In those cases, they hired people back in the winter, when my daughter was busy with schoolwork. Maybe next summer!
Get a hotel room. This is something she will definitely do, probably for an anime con she goes to every year.
Join the military. Nope, she’s going to college.
Buy lottery tickets. Maybe? But I don’t see her being a big spender here. After all, they’re terrible odds.
Get married. Seeing as her boyfriend’s still in high school (his birthday is in November) and they both plan to go to college, I don’t see that happening for a while. At least I hope not!
Get a tattoo. We’ve talked about that. A lot of the kids she went to school with have them, but like me, she says she can’t think of anything she’d want permanently on her body for life. But who knows, that could change.
Get a credit card. She has a debit card, and can buy online with that, so she really doesn’t care about a credit card, but realizes it would be good to build credit. We talk about responsible spending and managing finances regularly, so I don’t worry she’d go nuts with it. We’ll see!

As for me, I did get a credit card soon after I turned eighteen – it was a Visa card, with a $300 limit that my dad cosigned for. I registered to vote too – that year was a presidential election year, and it was cool to be a part of it. I also had a full time job in the summer – they were much easier to come by in the mid-eighties! There also weren’t the restrictions on hours for people under eighteen during the summer back then. But my actual birthday? I don’t remember it at all! (And no, I wasn’t drinking! I didn’t discover that until a couple years later. :))

Which brings me to my ROW80 goals, which were rather hit-or-miss this week, due to all the party preparations:

Skim/read the smaller of the two research books – No. Got one chapter read, that’s all.
1500 words on new ms – Yes!
4 workouts – Got 3 in.

I have a few obligations this week as well, so I’m going to keep the bar low. Here’s what I want to do:

Skim/read three chapters in research book
1500 words on new ms
4 workouts

What about you – what did you do on your eighteenth birthday? What newly-legal activities did you partake in soon thereafter? 🙂 And like me, do you now have that Alice Cooper song stuck in your head? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, July 21, 2013

My latest book cover design!

I don’t feel like I did a lot this week, but when I look back, I actually did. I knocked out my book cover goal quickly–on Sunday, in fact–to make sure it didn’t slip this week. My friend Jim Winter loved it, approved it, and is now in the process of updating his retail listings!

But what really doesn’t feel like I did much was the rest of the week. The plan was to continue working on my outline. I did get some more done on this, but my ideas seemed to stall out midway through the week. I guess this is what happens to non-plotting writers (aka “pantsers”) when they are writing the draft and hit the sagging middle. But I couldn’t figure out why it was happening to me, and why now. Then I read this blog post by Kristen Lamb on Friday, and it hit me. The post was appropriately called “The Single Largest Cause of Writer’s Block–Might Not Be What You Believe.”

So true! And it was exactly what she said: I hadn’t figured out my story’s antagonist. Oh, I had minions – secondary bad guys left over from the previous books in the series, but who was (to use Kristen’s term) the “Big Boss Troublemaker?” I had no idea. So I had to figure out who he or she is, what s/he is doing, and perhaps most importantly, why.

I’ve done a lot of sitting and thinking these past couple of days, and have figured out a lot. But I still have more work to do in that area, so on to the goals.

Last week’s goals went well:

Continue brainstorming/outlining for SS Book 3 – Not as much as I wanted, but I’ll count this as a yes!
Initial cover art for friend who’s going to beta read – yes!

For this week, I want to:

Do the Character Pre-plan Exercise from Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways workshop. This walks the writer through some basic questions and helps us to figure out who the character is, his/her goals, motivations, background, etc., and can be used for any major characters.
Work on outline–create 25 cards to add to my virtual bulletin board. It sounds easy, but I have a feeling it won’t be–or maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised!

So, let’s talk about antagonists, books, TV, movies, whatever. Probably the best bad guy I’ve read is the Del-a-Shar from Sheri McGathy’s epic fantasy Elfen Gold. He destroyed his entire race, yet when we find out why, he’s chillingly relateable and understandable! Antagonists need not be villains, but this one certainly is. Who are some of your favorites, villainous or not? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, June 16, 2013

Last week, I had one primary goal: figure out my next project. This wasn’t a matter of coming up with a new project, but rather a choice between which of several I’d already planned, would I work on next.

I had several to choose from:

“Time’s Tempest,” the Saturn Society short I just turned in, is a complete story in itself, but left a lot of threads open. I intended it to be part one of a serial. So “Time’s Tempest, part two” was one possibility.

I also have two other projects that have been bouncing around for quite a while. One is a standalone novel, and has a rough outline completed.

The other novel is about half written, during NaNoWriMo 2009. Yep, it’s been sitting around that long. The part that’s written needs extensive rework, but I do eventually want to complete this one. It’s intended to be the first in a series of three or four.

And then there’s the third Saturn Society full length novel, the follow-on to Time’s Fugitive. This one’s still somewhat murky in my mind, but I have some cool ideas bouncing around for this one, and have started pulling them together using a new resource: The Busy Writer’s One-Hour Plot. This book is mostly marketed to writers who don’t like/want to plot, but I found it’s very useful for those of us who have the opposite problem: I plot too much (and spend too much time at it). I will admit I didn’t finish the whole hour, as I was interrupted, but it’s broken down into several sections, so it can still work that way. Best of all? I’ve just started working on this, and I’m already having fun (and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?)

And considering that I’ve already had readers asking about a third Saturn Society novel, so I’ve decided that’s the project I’m going to work on next. This will take a while, so no promises as far as a time frame! But I am at least working on it now. 🙂 I’m also thinking of fun things I can do with the serial novel that will tie in to this third full novel.

So that brings me around to this week’s goals:

Review Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series
Re-read Time’s Enemy and make notes of loose plot threads this third book should address
Finalize friend’s book cover if I hear back from the client
Fitness 4x (got this one last week too!)

This week brings us to the end of Round 2 for ROW80. I didn’t end up meeting my overall goals of writing 30,000 new words, but goals change. I still accomplished a lot by getting that short story written, and IIRC, that wasn’t part of the original quarterly goals. But those word goals? Next time for sure!

What about you? Whether or not you’re doing ROW80, have your goals changed recently? Have you made any decisions, big or small, that changed them–and did others, like readers or perhaps family, influence your choice? I’d love to hear from you – please share!

by Jennette, May 19, 2013

Not much to report on my ROW80 goals this week – in fact, I did not complete any of them. I could blame it on having three birthday dinners to attend, a band concert, and continued work on planning the graduation party, but really, those are nothing when we also had a houseguest this week. And not just any guest, either, but a Norse god…

Yes, the THOR TOUR has arrived in Dayton!

I was a little worried last week when Thor failed to appear in Wapakoneta, about fifty miles or so up I-75 from Dayton. But it was shortly thereafter that we had some really snarled-up traffic on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We never found out why (we seldom do), but that night, Thor arrived at my house on schedule, asking about the aliens that are supposedly stashed away there in Hangar 18.

“No, you can’t go to the base,” I told him when he asked. “They don’t care if you’re the god of Thunder. No ID, no entry. Besides, there is no Hangar 18. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” I then offered to take him to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

“What is this ‘United States Air Force?'” Thor asked.

When I explained, he seemed to approve at first. “Ah, warfare. This I understand. But… metal flying machines?”

I tried to explain to Thor about aircraft, but he wasn’t buying it. “I have no need of giant flying machines. I smite my enemies with my mighty Mjollnir!”

I was losing this battle. Then my daughter came in and saved the day. “Cool! Thor’s here! Are you going to take him to Carillon Historical Park?”

“I don’t know…” If he wasn’t interested in metal flying machines for warfare, I doubted he’d be interested in the world’s first practical airplane, with wings of wood and cloth.

My daughter had an idea. “It’s a lot scarier than the Air Force Museum, even if it is supposed to be haunted.”

Then she told me her idea, and I agreed. “That would try the intestinal fortitude of even a Norse god!”

Thor, always one to take on a challenge, agreed. “I should like to go to this ‘HIGH SCHOOL…'”

The students escorted Thor around as befitted a Norse god, on the back of a giant bumblebee.

Thor did not understand band. “What is this… flute? What is the purpose of blowing into it to make sounds? It would make a much better weapon, methinks.”

He took to Chemistry like, uh, oil to water. “I shall smite them with this pipet!”

Some of the students were rather taken aback at the appearance of a Norse god in class.

…while others exhibited the proper appreciation of a god: “Thor? I LOVE Thor!”

Thor tried his hand at painting.

He didn’t care much for English class: “These books are inferior. They are all in English!”

He wasn’t so sure about German, either, but enjoyed the attentions of the ladies.

Thor was completely stymied regarding Calculus, so he punched a student in the face. The boy didn’t seem to mind.

Thor even tried his hand at teaching, and learned that some things–such as commanding the attention of a classroom full of seniors on their last week of school–are beyond the abilities of even a Norse god.

Then it was play time. “It’s your last day, or your last year of school, so let’s pretend we’re going back to our first year,” one teacher described what was otherwise known as Kindergarten Day.

“This is not usual High School activity?” Thor asked when presented with shaving cream. “Uh, no,” the students told him. “Just have fun.” Thor thinks he might have seen one of the Hangar 18 aliens…

Thor left, parting a sea of shaving cream. “I think I shall leave High School to the young mortals henceforth!”

To see where Thor’s been, and where he might show up next, check out the THOR WORLD TOUR page on Debra Kristi’s blog!

The giveaway has ended. Thanks for your interest!

Quick ROW80 update: Not much to report. I did not get any work done on my revisions, and two out of three workouts done. This week, the plan is to get back into a routine: four workouts, and get through the markup phase of the revisions.

What about you? Do you find your goals pushed aside by things like birthdays and houseguests? Can you imagine hosting a Norse god in HIGH SCHOOL??? I’d love to hear from you! And I hope Thor’s adventures will be a bit less fearsome wherever he’s headed next. 😀

by Jennette, May 12, 2013

MC900444732 It’s what we learn, as writers, that we should be putting into our stories: all the battles, the falling-in-love, the sexytimes, the tension; none of the teeth-brushing. In my case, it’s Life: the Good Stuff that’s keeping me from meeting my ROW80 goals, or in the case of next week, demanding that I once again set the bar low.

I’m talking things like end-of-year school programs, concerts, senior recognition programs, and planning a graduation party. We had each of those last week, and more this week. In addition, this week is Birthday Week: me, my husband, and my sister-in-law all have birthdays this week, plus today is Mothers’ Day. So a lot of life-interference, as far as the writing goes, but no complaints here, as it’s all good.

Despite the busyness, last week didn’t turn out too bad:

Writing: partial – complete research for short story & and do initial read-through – I researched, and got about 1/3 of the way through the read-through.
Fitness: partial – 5 workouts – got 3 in.

The giveaway has ended. Thanks for your interest!

I also got graduation announcements out, and got the brochure for my new-business-owner relative completed and off to the printer. So not a bad week at all, despite the lack of green above.

We have a family get-together today, and another one evening later this week. There’s a band concert another evening this week. We also need to have a family meeting to pin down the rest of the details for the grad party, so I’m setting the bar even lower this week:

Writing: complete initial read-through and mark-up for revision
Fitness: 3 workouts

What about you? How do you manage to keep going on your normal activities when life’s crazy all around you? Even when it’s a good-crazy? I’d love to hear from you (and could use the tips)!

by Jennette, May 5, 2013

I’m coming up on making another one of my major goals for ROW80, and it’s time to ask myself a basic question that I think is important to ask every now and then: What have I learned?

The first draft of my short story is done. The story itself isn’t; it still needs revision, but close enough. So what have I learned?

I don’t need to outline a short story. I did last summer when I wrote “Time’s Holiday.” Not only did the outlining seem to take forever, but the story took much longer to write than it should have. So this time, I got an idea and started writing. I worried that the ending wouldn’t come to me and that I’d wind up with a hundred pages of drivel with none in sight. (I have tried to write a novel without an outline, and that’s exactly what happened – only I had six hundred pages of drivel with no ending in sight. I did have fun, though.) But this time, the process worked, and the story’s ending came to me right before I needed it.
1500 words/week (or 300/day, five days a week), won’t get anything done very quickly, but it will keep things moving forward. I can up this pace – the 2500/week is not unreasonable, and from NaNoWriMo, I know I can do 12,000 words/week. Need to keep working on this after I get the story revisions taken care of.
It doesn’t take long to write 300 or 500 words. Even without an outline, I can get 300 words out in 10-20 minutes.
We don’t need big chunks of time to write – a bunch of little ones will get the job done – see above.
It’s helpful to do some basic research and make some basic decisions up front. I’ve decided to change the setting of my story, so I don’t have to deal with getting the main character from one place to another (which would mess with other things). But the new setting requires research, and that’s going to be the bulk of my revisions. Getting this right up front would have been helpful, and greatly reduced the time needed in revision, but oh well. OTOH, I know better than to do more than minimal research up front. That may work for some people, but for me, it ends up being an excuse to procrastinate getting started writing. I prefer to do most of it after the first draft is written, so I have specific things I can look up.

So a lot of learning, and overall, a good week. Here are the details:

Design flyer for relative’s small business – Done!
Writing: finish short story – Done!
Fitness: 5 workouts – partial – got four in

This week, I’m going to keep it simple. I have some boring business stuff on my Weekly Status Report to do, but don’t really want to list that here. I also have stuff going on this coming weekend. So we’ll just stick with:

Writing: complete research for short story & and do initial read-through
Fitness: 5 workouts

What about you? Whether or not you’re doing ROW80, or whether or not you write, how are you doing with your spring goals? What have they taught you lately? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, May 1, 2013

First, a couple of WANA Wednesday new releases this week I’m excited about!

thenunandthenarc Last week, Catherine Castle, one of my Ohio Valley RWA friends, released her debut novel, an inspirational romantic suspense. The Nun and the Narc is the story of novice Sister Margaret Mary, and where she goes, trouble follows. When she barges into a drug deal the local Mexican drug lord captures her. To escape she must depend on undercover DEA agent Jed Bond. Jed’s attitude toward her is exasperating, but when she finds herself inexplicable attracted to him he becomes more dangerous than the men who have captured them, because he is making her doubt her decision to take her final vows. Escape back to the nunnery is imperative, but life at the convent, if she can still take her final vows, will never be the same.

Nuns shouldn’t look, talk, act, or kiss like Sister Margaret Mary O’Connor—at least that’s what Jed Bond thinks. She hampers his escape plans with her compulsiveness and compassion and in the process makes Jed question his own beliefs. After years of walling up his emotions in an attempt to become the best agent possible, Sister Margaret is crumbling Jed’s defenses and opening his heart. To lure her away from the church would be unforgivable—to lose her unbearable.

I’m reading this book right now, and really enjoying it! For more info, see Catherine’s website/blog.

IronLocket

Samantha Warren has a new romantic fantasy out, too. The Iron Locket is the story of Aiofe Callaghan, who comes from a long line of faery hunters. Hired by one of the faery queens, they protect the human world from chaos and destruction. But when Aiofe stumbles through an open door into the land of Faery, she discovers the job isn’t as simple as it seems, and neither is she.

Arthur Pendragon spent centuries in blissful nothingness, until the day the four queens banded together to raise him from the dead. Along with his twelve most talented knights, he leads the warring armies of Faery against the greatest enemy they have ever known: one of their own. Can they overcome their differences to confront the greatest challenges either of them have ever faced? More info and buy links on Samantha’s website/blog.

The Book Sale of the Summer!

And now, the big news – there’s a fantastic sale on right now for three days only. The Booklovers’ Buffet Bouquet of Books Sale includes over 150 books in a variety of genres, all for just 99 cents each. These are not short stories, or books that are normally only 99 cents – these discount prices are only in effect for the sale, and after the 3rd, they’ll go back up. So if you’ve thought about reading my books Time’s Enemy or my newest, Hangar 18: Legacy, this is a great opportunity to pick them up for a special discount, so head over to the Fantasy/Horror/Science Fiction page. Not only that, there are contests, where we’re giving away several gift certificates for the online retailer of the winner’s choice – up to $100!

Quick ROW80 update: ROW80 is going well so far! I’ve finished my short story, although of course I had to think of a good change to make 3/4 of the way through that will involve more work. But the draft is finished! I also got two activity sessions in, if washing the car counts – I think it should, don’t you? Finally, I got half of the brochure design done, and my relative really likes it! So a good start this week.

by Jennette, April 28, 2013

Two out of three isn’t bad, although this is yet another week where I totally could have accomplished all three goals if I would have just kicked myself into gear on the writing and gotten it done. I did give it priority over the brochure design, but instead of working on that project when I didn’t feel like writing, I just goofed off more.

The good news is I got my 2500 words in, and I did finally kick myself into high gear, by using an old friend: the timer.

My friend, the timer

I’ve also been following Dean Wesley Smith’s progress as he chronicles ghost-writing a novel in ten days. Writers, this is very worth checking out, to see how a seasoned pro does it! He takes plenty of breaks, and does lots of other stuff too – but when he writes, he sits in the chair, gets the words down, and doesn’t slack. This evening, I had another 800 words to reach my weekly goal of a measly 2500 words (Mr. Smith writes over 7k/day), so I told myself, if he writes 1000 words in an hour, I should at least be able to get these 800 words in about the same amount of time (I’ve also timed myself before, so I know I can). I also remembered what Flylady says: “You can do anything for fifteen minutes.” Well, I made it a little easier and set the timer for ten minutes. (I use the Windows 7 Widget, in case anyone’s curious.)

When it went off, my first thought was that I’d set it for one minute instead. But then I looked at what I’d written, and I’d gotten over 200 words down! So yes, I did get those last 800 down in less than an hour.

Here’s the quick rundown of this week’s progress:

Design flyer for relative’s small business – started, but not much done
Writing: 2,500 words – Done!
Fitness: 4 workouts – Done! Actually, I went one better and did five. Back to my old routine!

So this week, the goals remain pretty much the same, except that the story will be done in less than 2500 words.

Design flyer for relative’s small business
Writing: finish short story
Fitness: 5 workouts

What about you – do you have trouble with procrastination sometimes? What do you do to get over it? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, April 21, 2013

dress front The prom dress is FINISHED, along with the petticoat!

This is a huge accomplishment. My daughter picked out the pattern, and we bought the fabric in January. We started cutting in February (some fabric had to be ordered online), and I’ve done a bit each week since, although I had a couple of slow weeks when I was sick in March. Her boyfriend’s prom is next weekend, and hers is the week following (they go to different schools), so the timing is perfect.

Making this dress took a lot of time, and took me away from my other work (writing)–and it was totally worth it. Even though she arrived home for a school function pretty late last night, and was ready to go to bed, my daughter couldn’t wait to try the dress on. Seeing her face when she wore it for the first time with everything complete was what made it totally worthwhile to put my own dream work on speed: slow while helping her achieve her dream.

My relative with the startup business was really excited with his website, too. They’d had a setback earlier that week, that really bummed him out, and he told me seeing the website gave him and his partners renewed motivation. Another totally-worth-it!

So here’s the recap:

Dress: make the petticoat, hem and finish the dress – DONE.
Writing: 2,500 more words on short story – Partial – got about 1700 words written.
Fitness: 4 short workouts – DONE.

So the dress is done. I’ll let my daughter do the celebrating next weekend!

On the writing front, I didn’t quite reach my goal, and truth be known, that was because I spent too much time goofing off playing computer games on the weeknights. I also have a feeling this short story is going to turn into a novella, but not sure yet so we’ll see. Anyway, here’s my plan for the week:

Design flyer for relative’s small business
Writing: 2,500 words
Fitness: 4 workouts

How about you? Have you knocked out any major goals so far this year? Have you put your goals on hold or on speed-slow to help others reach their goals? And was it worth it? 🙂 I’d love to hear from you!

Life and Love in Four Dimensions

Tag Archives: ROW80

The Book Sale of the Summer!