MONDAY MOTIVATION - Deadlines!!

 Good morning, everyone!

The last couple weeks were completely crazy! I'm still trying to get the studio/ office redo done and now I have a deadline of September 14th. My brother-in-law and his wife will be here for a long weekend visit, arriving on the 16th. Of course, Bob comes home the week prior so I really only have two weeks to get the studio finished. Progress is being made but not as fast I'd like as I'm also working with creative deadlines.

Bee Journals

I'm on the final push to finish these three bee-themed journals. The prototype is for me but the other two are for two very special 'bee' friends. My plan is to finish these up by the weekend and get them mailed. That will let me put the remaining bee-themed items in my Etsy shop then clear the deck for the next creative project.

Graphic 45 Papers

I LOVE  working with Graphic 45 papers. The quality is amazing and the vintage images fit my style. Of course, throw in anything Halloween in the mix and I'm all over it like whipped cream on pumpkin pie!  They currently have a challenge going on to create something using their product. Winner will receive $150 credit to their store. Yes please!  Deadline is September 2nd but I'm shooting for the end of this month.

OZARK CREATIVE WRITERS

I've been attending the Ozark Creative Writers conference for the past twenty-six years. I've missed two conferences. one - when my youngest granddaughter was born then the one that was canceled due to Covid.  Each year they offer a long list of contests (with prize money) 'free' to enter for the cost of your conference registration. Unless I get something done and submitted by August 25th, this will be the first year I've not entered. I could really use the prize money to pad the author bank account for covers, business expenses, and funding research trips.  I can usually write short stories pretty quickly so I'll be really pushing on a couple of those this week. Technically, the deadline to enter is August 28th, but while I do work better in a time crunch, I hate the thought of actually entering last minute. 

I heard something from Sarra Cannon yesterday that I'd been thinking all along. An Ozarks Homecoming story isn't ready to be written. All I'm doing by forcing the story to come out, is burying everything deeper. Trust me, I really did not mean for this book to take me three years - and I have no intention of letting the other stories I have rattling around in my head (or starts in the file drawer) to take as long either - if I can help it. 

For those who don't understand, writing is a process and I'm a stickler for getting things right the first time. That was drummed into me in second grade. If you're going to do something, do it right the first time. Don't waste your time having to go back and do something over.

In the case of An Ozarks Homecoming it's imperative I get things right the first time. There is no 'do-overs' or opportunity to correct mistakes you will catch. I fear you'll call me on something then never pick up another one of my books. I can't risk that!

While I do these other things, the story is percolating in my brain. I've not turned loose of the story, I promise.

So my goals for this week:

* Catch up on Publish & Thrive course (meeting with attorney on Wednesday about LLC)

* Entries for Ozark Creative Writers aka OCW

* Finish bee journals

* At least 1 entry for G45

* Finish the cube storage unit organization.

Those should keep me out of trouble. 

I'll be back tomorrow for the wrap-up of Something Blue with my review of the anthology.

All my best

~Angela

MONDAY MUSINGS - Deadlines

Deadlines, whether self-imposed or given to us are important. They keep us on track and on our toes. I have to tell you, I will be like a ballerina for the next eight weeks. I have not one but THREE crucial deadlines that all come to a head the first of October in some form.

My main goal is to have AN OZARKS CHRISTMAS ready to sell at the Ozark Creative Writers Conference October 11-13. That means I have to finish the revisions, get my cover, pass inspection of Beta readers plus a final run edit then set up and copies ordered by end of September. Also, I'd love to have my cover by the end of THIS month so that I can have something to begin marketing when I'm on Tiereny James' Sizzle In the Kitchen at the end of this month. We're going with a Christmas in July theme (since those are the best pictures of my kitchen!) so a great opportunity to start building interest in the upcoming release.

Speaking of the Ozark Creative Writers Conference. When you register for the conference, you may enter as many of the individual contests as you want at no additional charge. I have a list of about twenty out of the twenty-six categories I'd like to enter. This gives me the opportunity to write out of my comfort zone, try out new story ideas and hopefully win some prize money. I REALLY want to enter the Oxbow Award which has been a long-standing category offered by Dusty Richards. This year, the category will be a tribute to Dusty as he passed away earlier this year. OCW just isn't going to be the same without the big guy. Those entries HAVE to be postmarked by August 25th! Yikes! Have I started? What do you think? LOL

I am speaking at the conference this year on selecting the Social Media platforms that work best for you. There is NO WAY I can cover everything in a 30 min (plus 10 min for Q & A) talk. So I want to have a companion workbook available to sell. Note that also has to be done by end of September so I can get copies ordered.

Are you seeing a pattern of craziness here?

To top it all off, I'd love to have the rough draft of Jayson's Range finished so that I can pitch the story to Tiffany Schofield. Tiffany has been waiting two years and I feel this is the year. Jayson's Range is the first in a trilogy set in late 1800s Texas. I plan to dedicate the series to Dusty Richards.

So.. as I exhale here and think I may have lost my mind, I'm off to kick things into gear. I hope to later this week introduce you to my Writer's Bible and how I'll be using the set-up to keep me on task.

Tomorrow, we get back to our Spotlight Author series. Addison Brae will be joining us for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.

In the mean time,
Happy Writing, Enjoyable Reading!

When life happens.

I realize I've not gotten back in here as soon as I'd planned. Where does time go? I know my days stay full with writing and creating and life. Someday I'll strike a balance that will prevent me from letting some things lapse while others roll along without incident. Yeah.. right! And if you find the solution before I do, please share.

My weekly column has been well-received so far. I'm getting great feedback from the community. Partly, I think, because it's about community. So I spend some of my 'free' time knocking on doors, introducing myself to business owners and others responsible for keeping Birch Tree MO in existence.

Aside from the weekly column, I've been able to add some feature stories to the paper. I've reported on local entertainment and crime news. I guess you could say my focus has been more on Non-Fiction than on Fiction in recent weeks. It's been an interesting change of pace.

But over the past couple of weeks I've found my love for fiction again. I entered four categories in the Ozark Creative Writers competition. One of the most challenging entries, and the most fun I've had in a long time, was to write a 500 word piece of sale-able fiction, without using the letter E. Have you ever tried to write a sentence without the word THE - let alone an entire flash fiction piece? I put Thesaurus.com through it's paces over the course of two days and came away with a story I'm happy with. We'll see how it does in competition.

I also entered the first chapter and a 5 pg synopsis of the Western Romance I've been playing with. I entered it in another category last year, sponsored by Western Author - Dusty Richards. I thought the chapter was good. But when it didn't place at all, I went to Dusty and asked if he'd do a critique on it for me. The one thing he found most lacking was INTERNALIZATION. I wasn't in my character's head enough. Okay. I can do that. But my biggest question was, Why in all these years of critique sessions has no one else ever pointed that out? I know I don't write a lot of it because it's the part I will skip over in a book. I love dialogue and it is my strength.

So with Dusty's critique in hand, I fine-tuned the first chapter yet again and submitted it in a different category. I'm anxious to see if it fairs any better. We'll know on October 8th when the awards are handed out.

I also had the pleasure of speaking to the Springfield Writers Guild on Saturday. I've known the current president for over fifteen years and this is the first time we've had the opportunity to work together. I was asked to give my Pitch workshop. With conferences still popping up through the end of October, I think some of them will have the opportunity to put the tips into practice. I wish them luck and would love to hear how they do.

I've been lining up more guest authors beginning in September and hope to fill the calendar out to keep the guests coming in this door through the end of the year.

As to my writing...

I'm writing every day on something. I'll try to be better at keeping you posted.

What are you writing today?

Busy Week

Good morning, everyone!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here. As most of you know by now, when my husband comes home after being gone for three weeks, my world centers around him - at least for the first of the 3 he's home.

This time he brought a friend with him. Kassie has been a part of our lives since the day she was born.... she's now 14. But every couple of years she wants to come spend time with us. Having a teenager around the house wasn't really an issue. But I don't get to spend much time with her. When she comes down, I try to show her places she might not otherwise get to experience and she enjoys that.

The third week she was here, we also had the grandtoddler. Man, is that little girl growing. She'll be 4 in November. This time she was all about 'grandpa'.

So as you can tell, writing wasn't really part of my agenda. When you have the babies home, you just want to enjoy them.

By Tuesday, the house was all mine again and I had news in my email. I will be writing for our local newspaper on a weekly basis as a reporter for our small town - one of many small towns included in the paper's readership.

So I have lots of writing in my future. I won't be forgetting about the novels but short story competitions loom and now the weekly byline. As a result I need to reassess my GOALS. So give me a couple days and we'll get back to speed.

Monday Musings

Happy Monday everyone!

It's going to be a busy week around the house but I hope to still be in frequently to throw some new things your way.

Contest entries are coming slow. There are days I think I should have named the blog Writing Through Life.. or not. It seems like since I cleared everything out of the living room and ripped up the carpet in here in prep for the remodel, I've lost the urge to work on fiction. I'm doing plenty of non-fiction but the desire to work on contest entries just isn't there. I HAVE to find it - and FAST!

My husband will be home on Wednesday night and then the huge remodel of the living room begins, disrupting my 'routine' yet again.

But there is good news on the horizon. I've finally made the jump and am having Hughes Net installed on May 2nd. Anything has to be faster than this dial-up. Every day is a struggle to get everything done in a timely manner. If it will help me cut my non-fiction aka freelance writing time by one third, I might have time to do ALL the writing I want to do.

I guess today's post is a good example of how the writers life really works. Life gets in our way, we have days where writing just isn't what we want to do. Although we are lucky enough to have a job that allows us to do what we love, it is a job and a business.

So I guess I need to quit taking sick days and get back to business.

Happy Writing & Reading

Angela

Back in the swing!

I made it!

And I’m healthy again. Kind of hard to believe considering we’re moving into allergy season. I can always tell because our local weatherman always reports the pollen/ mold index as directed by the Green County Health Dept. I’m waiting for the mold spores index to go up, signaling it’s time to go hunting mushrooms 

In the mean time, I’m keeping busy writing a little of everything. For those of you who don’t know, when I’m not writing fiction and entering short story competitions I am a freelance journalist for the Texas Music community. We’re at the heighth of awards season with the Texas Music Association so I’ve been busy doing interviews and writing about the roots of Texas Music.

For the fiction venue, I have contest entries do for the Arkansas Writers Conference due to be postmarked by April 30th. There are 10 categories out of the 20+ available to me I’d like to enter. A couple are for Haiku poetry, which I haven’t written since middle school. But one of those categories is sponsored by a dear lady by the name of Peggy Vining . Peggy is the Arkansas Poet Laureate and one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet in the writing community. I first met Peggy fifteen years ago at the Ozark Creative Writers Conference in Eureka Springs Arkansas. She is a true southern gentle lady on the outside but full of spunk for all of her petite size. I’m not concerned with whether I place in her category or not but it would be nice. I just want to play in Peggy’s world for a little while.

Today I’m researching for an essay on The War Years from 1941-1945. I’d hoped this would be a short story category and was already playing with a paranormal idea when I reread and was reminded it was for an essay. I’ll do the research and see what jumps out at me.

I haven’t forgotten about Death By Design. The novel work comes in the evening. I’ll fix me a Cowgirl Quencher and curl up with the critique comments my sister sent back.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting Conference news so stay tuned!

I’m also going to be guest blogging at Chris Redding's blog tomorrow. I’ll be speaking on Pitching at a Conference. Come by and say hello!

Happy Writing!

Angela

Changed GOAL

Yes, you read that right. I'm in the middle of the second week with our granddaughter. And has always been the case with me, if I get around a child for any period of time you can bet I'm going to catch a cold. Factor in it is Spring cold season and you guessed it, I have a doozy of a cold. Needless to say I've not written 250 words in the last eleven days. And at this point, I'm not even interested in doing anything above updated a blog now and then. I just want the cold to go away so I can enjoy the remaining three days with my precious granddaughter.

Okay, that's part of the Changed GOAL.

The week before my granddaughter was to arrive, The Knight Agency posted their 2nd Annual Lottery for a chance to be one of 3 finalists to submit a completed manuscript to them. They started by having you post to their blog in a 1-hour time span. From over 500 posts, they used Random.org to select 125 people to begin the elimination process. In anticipation of being one of those 125, I decided my best 'sell' would be Death By Design. Erotica sells. That simple. Throw in a serial killer and you have something they will look seriously at. My best critique partner to get the manuscript ready should I be selected would be my older sister. It's her genre and she's currently job searching so has time to devote to edits.

I didn't make the 125 but still want to take advantage of my sister's eye since I don't know how long I'll have her semi-undivided attention. I'm still battling this cold and can't figure math right now so I'll post the Target Deadline in a few days.

For now, I just want to get over this cold and enjoy the few remaining days with my granddaughter.

Until then,

Keep Writing! Keep Submitting!

Starting with the Top 5

Last week I told you we'd talk about prioritizing the GOALS and breaking them down into manageable units. The Top Five were:

1 - Finish rough draft of Winter's Peace

2 - Finish rough draft of Autumn's Healing

3 - Finish rough draft of Death By Design

4 - Finish rough draft of Gangster's Lady

5 - Enter/ place in Arkansas Writers competition (multiple categories)

I'm going to reverse #1 and #2... putting Autumn's Healing first.

Autumn’s Healing was my Nano 2010 Novel (see pretty button to the right). It has a ways to go from being finished, but it’s closer so I want to do it first.

Before I go any farther let me explain something I learned by trial and error last year. Some writers can write all day, some early morning and others late into the night. Me, I’m an Evening Writer. I can work on shorter pieces throughout the day, but my novel-length comes later in the day. I don’t know if it’s because I have to get the daily stuff out of the way so I can focus on the other world or what.

I word sprint with a group of writers on Yahoo Instant Message. That means we meet in a conference room, someone is in charge of the timer and we write for a set period of time. We take a health/ stretch/ food break at the end of the period and then go again. You can find out more about how this works at Endurance Writing.com. Most recently our time sprints have run in 45-minute increments with 15-minute breaks. When we would do these all day on Friday – beginning at 9 a.m. CST and ending twelve hours later (with a lunch/ dinner break somewhere in there), I documented my word count for each sprint. The later the day, the higher the word count would climb.

So I work on short pieces like blog entries and short stories for contest entries during the day. Then about 4 p.m., my brain switches to longer length mode. I pull up the manuscript file and will sprint from about 4 p.m. if I’m home alone (6 p.m. if Bob is home) until 9 or 10 o’clock. Sometimes I sprint with the group. Other times I just bury myself in alone. I do know that I get a much higher word count during sprints. Sprinting is like Nanoing in minutes. You don’t take time to puzzle things out… you just write. The puzzling things out comes later.

So this will be my process for the Top 5. Short stuff like those contest entries during the day and noveling at night.

Now the big thing. I said we’d talk about a Time Line. Time Line’s are important. If you don’t set a deadline for something you’re more apt than not to do one of two things. Either you’re going to drag it out, thinking it still needs ‘something’. Or you’re going to keep putting it off, never finishing it so you can move on to something else. But how do you set a deadline?

For editors, this is easy. They know when things have to go to print. With that date in mind, they know when they must have it in their hands. Setting SELF-IMPOSED DEADLINES are great practice for when you have to meet that editor’s deadline. If you don’t train yourself to meet a deadline, it is my opinion you’ll never see publication. That simple.

Autumn’s Healing needs approximately another 15,000 words. If I make myself pull up the file and work five nights a week, at a minimum of 1,000 words per night, that’s only 3 weeks. Less than 1 month to finish the rough draft of Autumn’s Healing.

But, I already know I’m having my granddaughter for two weeks in March. Grandpa can occupy her part of the time in the evening, but she likes her TV time with grandma before bed –and we’re sleeping together on the hide a bed. So my nights will be cut short.

Because Bob will be home he can help sometimes, but we’re also going to be going/ doing stuff with her so my daytime writing will be hindered too.

So I’m going to say Six Weeks to finish Autumn’s Healing. That takes me to April 2nd.

See how I did that. Don’t groan but it was all MATH. I knew how many words I needed to finish, how many words I average in an evening AND knew ahead of time of an obstacle I’d have to over come. I entered everything into the equation and came to a solution I can work within.

But what if you don’t know about an obstacle? One that drops into your path like a reindeer on a bad test flight?

Unless it’s something critical, you can count on something coming down based on how your life usually runs. Factor in a cushion. Tack on an extra week if you think you might need it… but try to stay to the original configuration. Remember; short of a death in the family, editors don’t have time for whiney excuses. Practice now how to work around obstacles and still meet your SELF-IMPOSED deadline.

So here I am.

Autumn’s Healing by April 2nd

Arkansas Writers Entries due postal April 30th

I’m hoping to enter 9 categories. That gives me 1 week per entry INCLUDING polishing.

Stay tuned for my progress. On April 4th, I’ll set the new deadline for Winter’s Peace.

Until then….

Keep Writing! Keep Submitting!