Journal

Lost in Writing… A quick update on stuff

You know how I was having trouble writing a month ago?

That’s not a problem now. LOL.

I don’t know what happened. But i started writing this book on Friday last week, and it’s literally all I can think about. it’s torture at work, because I have zero time to do writing-related things at work. I’ve written 13k in a week when I haven’t written 1k in a year. LOL. It’s crazy, but I’m running with it.

I’m trying hard not to ramble about the new book on here, because I don’t want to curse it. It does feature some Lucky Thirteen characters, even though, i think I’m going to put it as the first book in a new series. I think it’s a little different in tone than the Lucky Thirteen series, but it still has the charm I think that everyone loves about that series.

I’m also doing another redesign on the website, because I’m ridiculous and can’t help myself. But I really love the new look. Make sure you’re subscribed to my BFF newsletter, because they will be getting a sneak peek and be able to see the site before it goes live. More info on that will be going out via email later, if you are on my list. It’s been about a year since I sent out a newsletter, so I’m preparing myself for the massive unsubscribes that will happen when I do send one out. And also, I’m not incredibly sure how to broach the email, since it’s been a year. We shall see how it goes soon, though.

I think that’s all I had. New book. New website. New newsletter.

I’m probably forgetting something.

I always do.

That’s okay though. I’ll make another post if I remember it. I’m trying to think of things to do for Patreon too. This book I’m doing isn’t the right project for it, but maybe I can think of another one that might do well there. Or maybe I need to concede that I just need to write something specifically for it. LOL

Okay. I’m going back to writing. Y’all have a fantastic Friday, and a wonderful weekend. I’ll see you guys on Monday!

Which couple would you like to hear from?

Just For Fun

I’m considering a quickie little short story from our Lucky Thirteen folks for Christmas. Would you rather read about Brody and Devon or Murphy and Addison?

Not saying it’s has to be one or the other, but I’m trying to get a feel for what folks would like to see. And also, I don’t know if I’m going to have time to get two out in time for Christmas. But who knows?

Let me know your choice in the comments.

Learning to Plot the Things

Writing

I’ve always been a pretty hardcore pantser. In fact, I used to boast about it quite a bit. But when you take a year off from writing, your writing muscles atrophy. You have to relearn a lot of what was already automatic.

I think for me, it was less that I didn’t plan, but that the process I used was so automatic that I could hold it in my head. When I came back to writing, I found that I couldn’t do that with any kind of success anymore. So I spent a good couple weeks rereading writing books I’d read before, and picked up a couple new ones recommended by other authors to me.

So maybe my process has changed a little. I realized this may be the case as I was prepping for NaNoWriMo, and figuring out the story I wanted to tell in November. I don’t know how much yet, just know that it’s different.

But different isn’t bad. It’s different. It doesn’t mean that I won’t love the process any less. But maybe I might love it more? I don’t know yet. Let’s see how it goes.

What’s that, Mom?

Just For Fun

Moxie didn’t like the bad beeping from my iMac when I tried to upgrade the RAM. I didn’t like it either. She has good senses.

Being Creative is Hard Work

Being Creative

Creativity has been such a part of me for so long, I never really thought about it being hard work. It was just there. It was something I did because I had to. It was part of my very being.

So this last year, when it left and I was stressed and out of sorts, I didn’t think it would be so hard to get it back. I started in July, trying to write and failing. I picked up other creative outlets. I started hand lettering. Painting. All things I’d wanted to do before but I was a full-time writer and didn’t have time for those Other Creative Things.

I swung back around to writing when I nuked my old website and had to completely start it over. I wanted to blog, but I didn’t want to just talk about writing, especially since I really wasn’t writing much. I launched this blog in August. I promised myself I wouldn’t pigeon-hole myself in topics, and I think I’ve managed to keep that promise.

Why am I saying all this right now?

Because I want people to know that even though being creative is a part of you that you can’t quit…. It’s not easy. It’s fun, and it keeps me from stressing, but it’s not easy. I still have to put forth the effort to do the creative things, like drawing, or hand lettering, or writing. It takes mind power. I think when it’s fun and we enjoy it, it takes the “slog” out of the long hours of sitting in a chair typing.

When I wrote full-time, I would put in 8-10 hour days just writing. I obviously can’t do that now with a full-time job, and I think that was where I was going wrong. I still wanted to put in those 8-10 hour days writing.

Time management has become my new best friend. A girl’s gotta sleep, particularly when she works an overnight job. My primary writing time is when I get off work in the morning now. I stop by Starbucks and I get a coffee, and I write for 2 hours. Then I go home, say hi to my family, and pass the hell out.

I guess I’m saying all this in a long-winded way to say that it’s okay to not spend all day and night on your books. Being creative is hard work. Many times, it takes hours and hours to perfect that sweater you’re knitting or practice the hand lettering that’s giving you fits currently, or to rewrite that scene that just isn’t quite right yet.

It may not seem as strenuous as my day job that has me on my feet for 10 hours at a time, constantly moving, but it is in a different way.

So the next time someone is giving you a hard time about spending the time doing what you love, well, don’t worry so much about it. And be happy that you can do something that you enjoy. A job doesn’t have to be something you hate, but no one ever said that you couldn’t enjoy it either.

Preptober!!

Writing

The season for NaNoWriMo is upon us! You may be wondering what Preptober is or maybe you’re a seasoned veteran of NaNoWriMo, a month long writing challenge to write a 50,000 word novel, and you already know. If you do, bear with me for a minute, because I need to explain to the newbies.

Preptober is the month before NaNoWriMo starts. It’s when you sit down and figure out all the little things you need to start writing your story on November 1. Plotting sheets, notecards, world building… wine… It’s your time to get everything about your story out of your brain and on paper/computer without actually writing it yet, so when November 1 rolls around, it’ll be easy peasy to bust out that 1667 words a day for the entire month.

Now that I have explained that, here’s what I’m doing this week.

I’m attempting my first NaNoWriMo bullet journal.

I have a BuJo for my Level 10 Life, I have one for my Financials, and I have one for my Overall day to day stuff. One of these days, I’ll be brave enough to show y’all, but for now, you’ll just have to imagine them.

Anyway, you might be thinking, why the hell does she need a fourth BuJo??

Because I’m nuts. Haha.

But really, since starting my morning miracle routine, I’ve started journaling everything. Every aspect of my life gets chronicled. I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad thing though. But also, another reason is that I wanted to have one place where I put all things NaNo in. A BuJo specifically for NaNo lets me do that, and forces me to write things I’d usually be lazy with and copy and paste into a document.

And also, I wanted to be able to help people, and write out a guide that works for me that others might feel like they want to try and see if it works for them.

What kind of journal did I want to use?

My first problem was do I use another bound notebook, or readapt my ARC notebooks to do this BuJo? I realized that I move stuff around a lot when I’m writing, and I take stuff out and cross out things and it gets messy and drives my OCD up a wall. Plus I have like thousands of dollars of disc bound planner stuff sitting around that I really need to use. BUT… I decided in the end to use a moleskine I bought on impulse a while back from Barnes and Noble. It’s one of those big composition size ones, not my usual A5 size, because I know I’m going to be putting a lot of info into it, and this would force me to consider organization beforehand instead of as I go along.

What am I putting in it?

I have no clue yet.

Well, that’s not completely true. I set up the typical NaNoWrMo things, like a word count tracker, and a goal tracker, and a monthly spread to keep track of write-ins.

I know I need to do character sheets, which I do still do on paper, because it works better in my head. I need to clarify some rules of magic in my world. I think i’ve mentioned before the current WIP is a fantasy story, which is quite the departure from my military romances. But that’s a post for another time.

So…

Character sheets
Plot scribbles
World building
Word count tracker
Goal tracker
Monthly spread

Once I get the characters nailed down, I’ll start working on the plot stuff. I’ve never written a book the same way twice, and this book will be no different than that. I’ve never done so much planning before on a book, so I’m hoping that the writing goes way smoother than my usual zero drafts, which are always a huge ordeal for edits and such. One day, I will have my writing process nailed down, I swear. LMAO.

NaNoWriMo cometh…

Okay, so that’s all I got for now. I’ll take some pictures as I’m setting up, and I’ll post what I decided on here in a few days or so. In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram for my spur of the moment journaling adventures and more.

Are you going to be doing NaNoWriMo this year? How are you prepping for it?