Surviving November... #nanowrimo

For anyone who participates in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), they know how crazy hectic November can be for a writer. This year was no different, of course!

This is where it all starts, signing up for NaNo, putting in all your info and telling yourself your going to spend the month working on ONE book until you hit 50,000 words. 

For me, sticking with one book for an entire thirty days is nearly impossible. I've yet to make it through NaNo without cheating and taking some time off to write something else. 

This year was no different! 

The official project I uploaded to NaNo was INVINCIBLE, because my poor Wattpad readers have been begging me to finish it. Yes, they think an author can produce a book in a week, and they are teenagers who tend to be a little impatient, but I still love them :) 

My goal was to have Invincible finished by November, 30th, which meant writing about 65,000 words in FOUR weeks. I'm a fast writer, so I figured this was doable. What I didn't count on was my usual writer's block-inspiring fear of finishing a series added in with family, work commitments, and a funeral this November. 

I get so anxious about wrapping up a series, hoping I didn't forget anything important, double checking to be sure I didn't leave anything out, making sure I wrapped up all the lingering questions, and just plain making sure the ending doesn't SUCK! As you can probably guess, feeling like this makes me not want to touch my manuscript with a ten-foot pole. Makes writing a little bit hard. 

So, what do I do normally? Work on something else until I mellow out and quit being a spaz. 

BUT IT'S NANO MONTH!!! 

Yeah, I still did it. Completely unable to focus on Invincible, I switched to a new project I'm working on, my first New Adult novel, THE GHOST HOST. Before the start of NaNo I had maybe 10k words written on TGH, and had dutifully abandoned it for NaNo and my poor Wattpad readers. I got about three chapters written on Invincible before I just had to step away and work out my weird issues. 

I spent the first two weeks of NaNo writing TGH, and finally hit a wall where I needed to stop and think about things 55k words later. So, I had already hit my NaNo goal, but on the WRONG BOOK! 

Maybe that part doesn't really matter since I was writing, and that's the whole point of NaNo, but I still had my Wattpad readers to pacify since I had PROMISED to finish Invincible by the end of the month and have it ready for publishing by Christmas. 

So, back to work! 

I had already had Invincible planned out on a couple dozen sticky notes, so that wasn't the issue. It was making sure this series that has been read several million times on Wattpad (literally) wouldn't disappoint the dedicated fans who have stuck by me since last October when Invisible first popped up on everyone's news feeds on Wattpad. How could I let down all the Robin-haters and Olivason-ship fans who were dying to know what happened in the end and whether Mason and Olivia would be able to stay together? 

I had to get writing. 

As I do with housework and errands, I bribed myself. Seriously. It wasn't chocolate this time. Normally that does the trick. So long as it the good chocolate. No, this time, I told myself I wasn't allowed to watch even a single episode of Supernatural until Invincible was finished, and I couldn't read the Denise Grover Swank book all my friends have been telling me I HAVE to read. (Okay, I cheated on both of those toward the end, but shhhhh!) 

To really get myself moving, I posted it publicly that I'd be releasing Invincible by Christmas Eve. Facing angry teens from all over the world if I failed finally got me motivated and broke past my end-of-the-series anxiety. 

So long story not so short, I hit 50k words on Invincible by November 28th. I missed my self-imposed deadline of Nov 30th to finish the book by two days and Finished on Dec 2nd, but I was pretty close, so I'm calling it a win. As depicted below :) 

So...the plan...

Right now I'm working on editing Invincible and I plan to have it up for pre-order by December 12th, with the final release on Christmas Eve, because...that just seemed appropriate! 

Merry Christmas to all my "Invisible" fans. You guys are awesome and I'm so thankful for all your support with this series. The final chapter of Mason and Olivia's story will be arriving for Christmas this year. I hope you enjoy it!

#TensList: Top Ten Reasons Writers are Crazy

If you know any writers (which you must if you're here), you probably already know that they are usually a bit strange. Well, here's just a few of the reasons why...

#1. 

When you're standing in line at the check out counter or sitting in a restaurant and someone inevitably makes a scene because the line doesn't move or your waiter has disappeared, most people look away and pretend nothing's happening. 

Not writers. We may not outright stare, but we're listening closely and catching all the glorious details out of the corner of our eye. Why? Because we love to make our characters lose it. Sometimes over completely silly things like bad food or poor service. Sometimes at the end of a long line of

tragedies. Most writers, however, tend to be introverts, and don't make a lot of big scenes, so we need inspiration for turning our characters into raving lunatics. Just keep that in mind next time you want to lose your cool in public. There are a lot of writers out there. ;)

#2. 

Ever been stuck in a conversation where the other person just won't stop talking about the most random things? Most people politely listen trying to come up with a polite excuse to escape. What do writers do? Pull out a pen and start taking notes! We love random facts, fun tidbits of knowledge, and bizarre happenings. Why? Because you never know when a story might call for knowledge that there's a guy who's job it is to roam the world weighing a garden gnome to test the effects of gravity at different heights. 

#3. 

People watching is a lost art for most people. It used to be an actual thing back in the day. Now, it's a trick just to get people to put their phones away long enough to walk from their car to the front door. Writers may be some of the few groups left who still love to people watch. Not that we go around staring at people all day... well, not usually. Why do we watch people, though? It's not just to see how they talk and interact with people so we can write more realistic characters and scenes. We might be looking for our next over model too! Be sure to pick your outfits for the day with that in mind. 

#4. 

Conversation skills are important, but writers aren't always the best at this particular talent. We may write great dialog, but we're also highly distractible when immersed in a project, and half our conversations with real people end up starting with things like... "I need you to read something for me." or "How hard do you think it is to drag a body in high heels?" or "Which of these sentences sounds better..." 

#5. 

Speaking of conversations... at least half, probably more, of our conversations take places with people who don't exist. It's not just working out dialog, either. True, I'll repeat pieces of dialog out loud, acting out the voices and intonations to see if I'm getting the right effect, but many writers take it beyond that as well. You get to the point where you find yourself consulting your characters, asking things like, "Would you really do that?" or "How could you do something so awful?" If we zone out while talking to you, don't take it personally. We probably had at least two other conversations going in our head at the same time and forgot which one was taking place in the real world for a second there. 

#6. 

Writers tend to be contradictory by nature. We have this dual concept of ourselves that on one hand we are creative geniuses to some degree, and on the other hand have this crippling fear that we are utter failures. It's boggling, even for us, but a tough one to shake. Please forgive us when we jump around like crazy to celebrate a great idea or contract, then have to be drug out from behind out desks to face actually letting someone read our work.

#7. 

Writers may be the only group of people who are selective perfectionists. Our houses may not get cleaned the week we're trying to finish those last blasted five chapters, appointments may be missed, and we may have forgotten to shower once or twice that week, but by golly... every freakin' word in our manuscript will be absolutely perfect! That will likely be the only thing that's perfect, and even that's a big delusion, but we'll certainly work at it until our fingers go numb. 

#8. 

There's something to be said for becoming an expert on something. It takes a lot of hard work to learn that much about a certain topic. Experts are a writers' best friend, but most writers are not experts on anything, even writing. Sure, there are some writers who become experts on a specific topic while writing a particular piece, but most writers can really only claim to be semi-experts on about a hundred different topics. Why? Book research. We'll research anything under sun, but only enough to make what we're writing believable. We have to get back to writing, after all.

#9. 

We all know that friend who constantly asks you for advice but doesn't listen to a single word you say, right? Sorry, but a lot of writers are that friend when it comes to writing. We constantly ask people's advice about words, phrases, ideas, and concepts. We take in all the comments and suggestions, and then we do whatever the heck we want, which is often exactly what we planned on doing in the first place. It's not that we don't value what other people say. Most of the time, we already knew what we wanted to do, but just needed to talk through it from twelve different sides before we're sure. It's nothing personal. 

#10.

There are times when writers really HATE writing. It's can make us miserable at times, but we still love it. Why? For many writers, it's simply part of who we are. Writing is like an appendage. Even if it hurts or refuses to work properly, we can no more ditch it than we could an arm. Bear with us when we rant about characters and plot holes and endings that fall flat. We may want to quit at times, but we never will because writing is a part of us. 

What are you passionate about that makes you a little crazy?

#Perfectionism and #Writing...

I think a lot of writers will agree that making sure their books are "perfect" is a bit of an obsession. 

We obsess over every word, line, paragraph, chapter... you get the point. We'll research something until our fingers are about to fall off from too many internet searches. Our friends will be sick of hearing about a particular troublesome scene and threaten to throw a book at us if we ask them to read it one more time. 

Having said all of that, I completely agree with Anne Lamott when she said... 

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”

All that obsessing over how we write our books or scenes can really kill a story. When you over think while writing, you second-guess your decisions, which leads to endlessly rewriting particular scenes, changing whole passages to try it another way, or scrapping the whole project. 

Now, yes, sometimes these things have to be done, but not every time you sit down to write. If this is your process, it'll be awfully hard to ever finish a book or story. Every writer has to develop their own process, but here are a few tips I've picked up over the years. 

Tip #1: Whether you like to outline or not, don't limit yourself to sticking to your outline or notes verbatim. If you feel like the story needs to take a left instead of a right, or a U-turn in a whole new direction, go with it. Let your plot develop organically and don't feel like you have to go back to an outline and re-outline after every change. Just write. 

Tip #2: Don't edit while you write. You'll kill your progress if you go back and edit what you've just written. Give yourself some time to let that chapter or scene sit and solidify. Even if you have to reread a chapter or two when you come back so you know where you left off, DON'T EDIT, aside from maybe a few typos. Even when you finish the entire book, don't jump right into editing. Work on something else. Give it at least a week (longer if you can) and come back to it when you have fresh eyes. 

Tip #3: Sending your work out to beta readers (readers who read an early draft in order to give you feedback and suggestions) can be anxiety laden. It always is. Waiting to send it out until your book is perfectly edited and all the holes are filled in just isn't reasonable. Find beta readers you trust to be honest, let them know it's not a perfect story and you need helpful critiques, and hit the send button. There are always problems with a manuscript that you as the author won't be able to see. Waiting until it's perfect just prolongs the inevitable and often leaves you with more revisions to make than you would have had otherwise. 

Tip #4: Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Don't want to put a scene on hold to do a little research? Not sure if what you're writing is possible, but the scene is just begging to be written? Great! Keep writing! You can always go back and correct mistakes. In fact, you usually learn a lot from making those mistakes, and then you don't make them as often in the future. It's tough to get into a writing groove sometimes, and if you're in one, let yourself just get your ideas down on paper and worry about refining later on. 

Tip #5: Accept the fact that your book will never be perfect. That's just how it is. There will always be something you think could have been better, or should have been changed. Reviews will make you doubt scenes or chapters or endings. It will never, ever be completely perfect...and that's okay. 

What perfectionist habits keep you from getting things done? 

Finding Balance

Finding balance isn't easy, and sometimes it takes someone else stepping in to make you realize what needs to change.

I want to be perfectly honest in this post. Balancing family, work, and writing is not easy, and I'm not very good at it. I tend to have an obsessive nature. I get very fixated on whatever I'm doing and ignore other things I shouldn't. Maybe that means I get a lot of writing done, when writing is what I'm focused on, but it usually means I don't take the time I should to spend time with my hubby and kids.


Lately, I've really struggled with that. I went from working full time to only working part time, and it wasn't by choice. I felt a lot of pressure to make up for the income I wasn't getting anymore, but really, that was largely an excuse to allow myself to put off more important things I should have been focusing on.


I was spending too much time on my computer either writing, working on marketing, or wasting time on social media. It was consuming my evenings and being unfair to my family. I really was becoming completely conumed with all of this book stuff and it was causing a lot of problems. My husband and I finally had to sit down and have a discussion about it.


My husband is one of the best people I know. He's is extremely patient and supportive, more than I deserve most of the time. He's stuck by me through a lot of really tough years and he's the reason I haven't given up on many of my aspirations. My argument for spending so much time on my writing has been that it's my job just as much as my regular day job, BUT my day job has set hours. I go home when it's over. Writing has to be the same way.


As much as I love writing, I love my family more. I'll still be writing, but it's going to stay within the confines of my "writing hours" from now on. If I'm not online in the evening or on the weekends anymore, it's because I'm playing video games with my hubby and kids, watching soccer practices and games, trying to teach my daughter to sew without her getting her fingers poked by the needles, or just hanging out.


Finding balance has always been a struggle for me, no matter what aspect of life it is, but it's now my top priority. It's important to be passionate about something, but not to the point of shutting everything else.

The Joys of Editing...

I don't know how most authors feel about editing, but it's not my favorite part of the writing process. It can be tedious, and I usually end up feeling rather foolish when I get my edits back and see the same mistake pointed out over and over again.

At least, that's the case when you actually work with a good editor.

It's been a while since I've worked with an editor who actually knew their stuff. Cynthia Shepp, who not only has her own freelance editing business (Cynthia Shepp Book Reviews and Editing), she is also the fabulous editor for Clean Teen Publishing, one of my publishers. Aide from the lovely Phyl Manning, who passed away this year, I've had a heck of a time finding an editor who is thorough and truly an expert in their field.

I was thrilled when Wicked Power was recently handed off Cynthia, because I knew she was top notch. When I got edits back from her and I didn't find an error free page until I got to page 95 in my manuscript, I had mixed feelings. Cynthia clearly did a great job and caught all my errors, but I was rather annoyed at myself because the errors she fixed were pretty much the same four errors over and over again.

So, to serve as a reminder to myself, and possibly to keep other authors from tripping up over the same things, here's what I learned from Cynthia. 

Ellipsis

Three dots. Not too difficult, right? It's the spaces that were getting to me this time. 

There should not be a space between the word and the ellipsis. Ex: I want to...

There should be a space after the ellipsis and before the next word. Ex: The kids are... somewhere.

There should not be a space between the ellipsis and final punctuation, but their should be a space between the last word and the ellipsis. Ex: How are we supposed to ...?

Hyphens

"Compound adjectives and/or compound modifiers need to be hyphenated when preceding the word it modifies, unless one of the modifiers is an adverb ending in –ly. They don’t if after the noun." ~ Cynthia

Ex: Three-foot platform, petal-soft, miniature-sized ballerinas

Also, I may be the only who frequently forgets this one, but five-year-old sister should also be hyphenated. 

I and Me

Poor Cynthia had to fix so many "you and I's" and "me and my family's" because I can't ever seem to get this rule straight. 

I kept writing things like "With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes Ketchup and I." 

• Here's what Cynthia had to say about this one: "
  • Easy way to remember whether to use I or me. If you take out the other person, the sentence has to make sense with either I or me. 
  • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes Ketchup and I. (WRONG).
  • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes I. (WRONG)
  • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes me. (RIGHT)
  • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes Ketchup and me. (RIGHT)

Another rule I learned, or maybe re-learned, is that the person who is speaking should be put at the end of a list of people whenever possible. 

For example: Aside from my siblings and me... rather than Aside from me and my siblings... 

Commas

On every other point, Cynthia was able to explain why what I had been writing was incorrect, and it made sense. I'm sorry to say, I'm still a mess on commas, and I fear I always will be. 

I don't know why commas are so difficult for me, but they are. I'm good with commas used for series (I was taught to use the Oxford comma), and setting of introductory elements. Here's some of what I get tripped up on when it comes to commas: 

1. Apositives and Parenthetical Elements. This trips me up a lot, because what is or isn't essential to a sentence isn't always easy to decide. I read a sentence one way, and it makes perfect sense, but my husband will read it and disagree. I'm sure most of that is because I know what the sentence means, so I'm reading it the way I want it interpreted, but it's hard to read it any differently. 

•  Although Andrew spent several years in Africa, he still found the heat of the desert overwhelming. 

2. Strong and Weak Clauses. Again, this seems open to interpretation, and for some reason, I seem to interpret it differently than other readers. 

• Ex: If you're not sure about the color, let me know VS Let me know if you're not sure about the color.

3. Separating Strong Clauses. This one can depend on the length of the sentence, but it's still be tricky, in my opinion, because sometimes the way I read it makes me unsure. Strong clauses should be separated by a comma when they're joined by a conjunction. 

• I have done all the laundry, but he has only vacuumed one room. 

I'm sure there were other rules I was breaking, and will continue to break, but I will do my best to send less commas errors to Cynthia the next time we work together! 

What grammar and punctuation rules do you find yourself breaking regularly? 

On the Radio

So, I recently took a leap of faith that I wouldn't be terrible at radio and agreed to be interviewed on Bestselling Reads blog talk radio program. Here it is!

Discover Books Internet Radio with Best Selling Reads Radio on BlogTalkRadio

That's what those are for ...

How many times have you been doing something on a regular basis, thinking you've got it down, only to realize later that you've been doing it all wrong? 

I've recently had one of those moments when it comes to choosing keywords for my books when I list them on ebook stores. 

Earlier this week, my new publisher, Clean Teen Publishing, sent all of us authors a link that gave a breakdown of Amazon's Most Popular Tags. Now, this list isn't just for books, it's for everything searched for on Amazon, but it's easy enough to pick out book related tags. And there are a lot of them. 

What did this link cause me to realize? 

I had been using keywords or tags wrong this whole time! Previously, my keywords were specific to each book. For my first book, Escaping Fate, I had chosen tags like "Aztec," "Arrabella," "Myth," and so on. Seems logical, right? 

After looking at the tag cloud from Amazon, I had an epiphany -- probably one I should have had years ago. What use are book specific tags if no one knows about my book? Why would anyone search for "Arrabella," the MC of Escaping Fate, is they didn't know anything about my book? I saw that I had done the same thing for my other books, choosing tags like Libby and Milo, and similar words that only applied to The Destroyer Series. 

What I realized after studying the cloud was that people are not going onto Amazon and searching for a particular book most of the time. They are searching for whatever genre they like to read and then perusing the search results for something that catches their eye. 

So what did I do after having this epiphany? 

I went and changed the keywords on all my books on the various sites I have my books listed. What did I change them to? Instead of sticking with book specific tags, I chose tags that will help readers find my books within the genres they like to read. 

I write YA fiction ranging from paranormal to science fiction and urban fantasy. So my new tags include words like "Young Adult," "Science Fiction," Paranormal," and "Fantasy." And because I love to add in a good romance to compliment each storyline, I also included tags like "Romance, "Love," and "Paranormal Romance." 

What now? 

Well, now I see how this realization pans out. Will better keywords that are directed at readers who have no clue about me or my books help get my books in their search results better than book specific tags? I'll just have to wait and see. I'm excited to see the impact it will have. I love learning new things about publishing and marketing, and this one is so simple yet important. 

I've been learning more about using Pintrest as and author as well, so check back next week for a new post and some new ideas. 

Distractions...

When you're an author, sometimes multitasking isn't a good thing

In between graduating with my degree in Dental Hygiene and staring my new job, I had the summer to spend time with my family and get caught up on a few projects. Well, I planned to get caught up on a few projects anyway. 

With my To Do list looking something like this...

And my reading list looking something like this...

I didn't get quite as much done as I thought I would. 

But, the real reason I didn't finish as many projects as I would have liked was because I kept starting new ones! 

My main goal this summer as far as writing went was to learn a ton about promoting my new book, Wicked Hunger, and finish writing the sequel, Wicked Power. I did spend a lot of time figuring out how to market my book (the jury is still out on how effective it was) and got a lot done, but I made only about 12,000 words of progress on Wicked Power. 

Why? 

Because I wrote a completely different book instead and almost finished another one besides that. I thought taking a break from Wicked Power would help me work through a few plot issues I was struggling with. Instead, I got completely distracted. Sorry readers! I know you're waiting for Wicked Power, and I promise I will get it done over the next few months. 

So what got me so distracted? 

My very first published novel, Escaping Fate, has been falling behind my series lately. As a standalone book, it just wasn't grabbing as much attention. So, I decided to turn it into a series. Soul Stone is the second book in the series and follows Arrabella as she begins to realize her connection with Aztec gods has left her with an ability she'd rather not have and a new curse to figure out before someone gets hurt. Soul Stone is now going through beta readers and is planned to be published in early 2014. A third book, still unnamed, will complete the series, but will likely not be ready until 2015. Anyone who'd like to take a peek at Escaping Fate in preparation for Soul Stone can check it out Amazon, ibooks, and most major ebook retailers. 

The other project that stole my time away from Wicked Power was a story about an Invisible boy named Mason. After watching his family murdered in front of him, Masons tries to get help, but realizes no one can see him...except for Olivia. They become best friends instantly, but now as teenagers they begin to realize their feelings go beyond friendship. In the midst of trying to figure out the logistics of falling in love when one of them is invisible, Mason and Olivia become aware that a group of killers is hunting Mason, and if they find him, they have no intention of letting him live. The book is temporarily titled "Invisible" but I'm working on coming up with something better suited to the story. You can check out Invisible now on Wattpad! 

One last project to share, even though this one didn't take up much time this summer since it was already written. You can check out my YA post-apocalytptic novel, Child of Destruction, right now on Swoon Reads for FREE! Swoon Reads is a new pilot project from Macmillan Publishing where readers and editors get to vote and comment on the novel uploaded to their site. The novels that garner the most attention may just be published by Macmillan! So stop by Swoon Reads today and check out Child of Destruction.