12.16.13

2400 today, a solid day’s work. I could have done more, but had a distracting phone call this morning that cost me an hour of work time. It’s so strange to me how easily distracted I am. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have answered the phone, but I’m one of those people who assume if you’re calling me during work hours, you need to talk to me. Call me crazy. It takes a solid 20-40 minutes to get back into the book when I’m pulled out like that. Texts don’t bother me, it’s phone calls that do. Clearly I’ve hit that time in the book when I need to turn off the phones whilst I’m working.

Which brings me to the whole concept of managing time. Creativity is difficult to quantify, that’s why I like daily word counts. Because I can’t tell you how many hours I worked, but I can give you the words. Hours wise – today I started writing at 10 and finished at 5, with an hour break for lunch and some reading, and at least an hour spent online. So let's say a solid 4 hours spent typing, deleting and revising, and another hour staring into space, or scratching the kittens, or looking at the every growing pile of Christmas present that need attending to, or moving the laundry from washer to dryer (it’s Monday, that’s always laundry day) or trying to come up with that next word…. You get the idea. Every day has mental space.

When you’re a writer, these mental breaks are absolutely necessary. Used to be, I’d smoke a cigarette, and that 7 minutes in nicotine heaven was the perfect interlude. Now, I absently go online and diddle around, glance at Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, my email with half an eye, then switch back into manuscript mode. Another break, I make tea and stare out the windows. Or I wander through the house, touching things. I stare at my bookshelves – a favorite past time, I must admit – and drink a glass of water. Then I lay down another 200 or 300 words.

And the words build like this, through the day, 200 here, 300 there, until I realize I’m sitting in the dark and it’s time to walk away. I don't work when Randy is home; evenings are his time. So it’s 5:30 now, and time to put the laptop up for the day. Fold some clothes, wrap some presents. Eat, read, play with kitties, bed, and do it all again tomorrow. So freaking glamorous, this writer’s life.

But 2400 – that’s okay. Not bad. Maybe I can do better tomorrow.

Sweet dreams!

12.15.13

December is whittling itself away. Time always flies, but why is it the holidays seem to go so much faster than the rest of the year? Is it the short days and long nights? Perhaps. I'm just not ready for December to only have two weeks left. And where is my snow, people? It's simply cruel to have such cold air and no snow.

1640 fiction words today, plus 1200 non-fiction. I have caught up to where I was before I went to California. I thought this revision would take a week, and I was right, though yesterday was lost to the vagaries of Christmas, and a road trip, which was protracted but fun, and by the time we got home, there was no work to be done, only couch laying and book reading and fire watching and kitten petting, so it doesn't count.

But today was good, solid words, and tomorrow, at last, I can start moving forward again. Two weeks lost to travel and revision - but it will make the real revision and editing process so much easier, so I count it as time well spent. I am at the halfway point, and need my first draft done by January 15 and will certainly take a few days off around Christmas, so there are a lot of long days ahead. Plus, we're looking for a new title. The powers that be felt YARD OF GRAVES sounded too historical, so it's back to the drawing board. I sent CC 25 titles this afternoon, we'll see if any strike her fancy. But ugh, and grr. I love that title. Murder your darlings, right?

 I'm also getting excited to do my annual review. I started glancing at word counts, and I might make my 300K goal. But even if I don't, I've laid down a TON of fiction words. Which is a happy thing.

Off to wrap the out of town gifts - Sweet dreams!

___________________________________

PLEASE PRE-ORDER WHEN SHADOWS FALL NOW!

(THE KITTEHS NEEDS FOOD)

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-a-Million / iBooks / Kobo / Walmart / Target

IndieBound / East Side Story / Mysteries and More / Parnassus  / Reading Rock

12.13.13

Friday the 13th, always a good day. 1600 net, and I realized that in the revising of these first 25 chapters, I've added five already. Which made me feel better because the numbers in the Binder haven't changed, and it seems to be getting longer and longer.... I do love Nicholas Drummond, he's just such a stud. Always has an answer, always knows the best thing to do. Oh, to have that level of confidence. He's fun to write, even when he's at a disadvantage.

Had a marketing call on WHEN SHADOWS FALL this afternoon, there's lots of good stuff ahead. This is Sam Owens #3, my very first hardcover, and I'm telling you, you're in for a ride. Sam was always a favorite for me in the Taylor books, and she's really come into her own in this new book. You'll be happy to see her sassiness reasserting itself. I was happy to see her reasserting herself. We can only grieve for so long before the need to get on with life interrupts us, you know? 

I should have the final cover next week (my name is going to be in FOIL, people!)  and I need to start sharing the link to the book and working on the pre-orders. This is the only part of writing I don't enjoy - blatant self-promotion. I don't know of any author who does, really. But it is a necessary evil, and so: 

PLEASE PRE-ORDER WHEN SHADOWS FALL NOW!

(THE KITTEHS NEEDS FOOD)

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-a-Million / iBooks / Kobo / Walmart / Target

IndieBound / East Side Story / Mysteries and More / Parnassus  / Reading Rock

There. Shouted from the mountaintops. This is clearly just a sampling of places you can buy SHADOWS - it would mean the world to me if you would march into your favorite independent bookstore and ask them to order it - at least three copies - one for you, one for a friend and one for the store. If every one of you who read this blog do this, and tell a friend about the book and ask them to pre-order it, all sorts of Christmas magic will rain down upon you. In the form of more words. From me. Isn't that a bargain???

Working weekend ahead -- time to make a Manhattan, have a slice of pizza and call it a night.

Sweet dreams!

12.12.13

2131 excellent words today, most of which was written with a kitten stretched around my neck (Jordan), and another on my legs (Jameson), her small paws thrust under the bottom of my laptop, like there's a campfire in there, and she's out in the woods, chilled. Oddly enough, as I began to type this, up they both popped and took their positions, apparently summoned by my merely thinking of them. It strikes me that these positions, while fun and adorable now, might become rather difficult to manage as they get older. But for now, it's comforting to have a small beast who inexplicably smells like popcorn strung about my throat, and anther who works as a blanket across my knees. 

I'm still moving things around in the first section of the book, but I'm through Chapter 18 now, so there's been a lot of progress this week. I knew this was a week-long job, and it appears I was right on target. Hopefully i'll be done and on to the new stuff by Monday. And of course a neat idea presented itself today, so something I was going to delete stayed, and became a whole different scene. Love it when that happens.

My first drafts are always rough, lacking details unless I get carried away with a description, so I've taken the opportunity to flesh things out a bit too, which will help with the editing process down the road.

Must get a handle on Christmas - a bit more shopping to do, all the out of town stuff to be sent, the cards -- oh, the cards. Every year I swear I'm going to have some pre-printed, with a fun, happy picture and Love, JT and Randy printed on them, and every year, I end up doing my cards by hand. I guess I feel there's something nice about seeing actual handwriting, since we so rarely do anymore. 

And there's this whole other elephant in the room - WHEN SHADOWS FALL, which comes out in just over 8 weeks - on top of the deadline I'm under, and... yeah. Think I'll just go back to celebrating a 2K day and, you know, KITTENS!

Sweet dreams! 

12.11.13

Over the weekend, we watched a special on Bloomberg about Jeff Bezos and Amazon. It was fascinating, and I had an interesting takeaway that relates rather directly to my current worldview. 

I'm a numbers girl. I track my daily word counts, (1460 today, by the way) set monthly and yearly goals. At the end of each year, I do a performance review on myself -- looking at the year in review, the year to come, and do some goal setting. I set a rather audacious goal of 300,000 fiction words this year, and I might just make it. 

Three years go, on my 2010 annual review, I put together a five year plan. I've hit every goal on that list, save one, which is underway and will be remedied in the new year.  

That's pretty heady stuff, right? Hitting goals, hitting marks. There's only one problem. Once you hit a goal, there's always another. And another. Gotta do better. Gotta sell stronger. Gotta get higher on the list. Gotta, gotta, gotta.

I've been putting quite a bit of pressure on myself lately - looking at the numbers, drilling down into the nitty gritty of my psyche, really pushing myself harder and harder. And for what? I hit all the goals. And I'm not sure I know what my new ones are yet. So instead of figuring them out, I've been micromanaging EVERYTHING, holding on so tightly I'm surprised some things haven't cracked.

Which brings me back to Bezos. They were interviewing one of Amazon's first 5 employees, the guy who was hired to write book reviews in the very beginning. He was, of course, a major stockholder. And Amazon's stock had a pretty phenomenal run before the collapse of 2008, when it went down to $5 a share. (It closed today down $5, as a matter of fact. To $382)

But when the stock was hovering at the $5 mark, and everyone had lost their shorts, Bezos shook his head and said, (and I paraphrase here)

Don't worry about it. Don't look at the stock price. Worry about what we're doing and where we're headed. Focus on doing the job well. The rest will take care of itself.

I made Randy play that back, because it really struck a chord. 

It's not that I'm worrying about my stock price. But I am worrying about sales. Every author on the planet worries about sales. And now that we have so many places to see our sales figures, or at least extrapolate how well we're doing (hello, irony, AKA Amazon rankings) it's hard to avoid. I mean, our sales determine how we live our lives. Sales feed the cats, the kids, and the monthly nut. They are hard as hell NOT to look at. 

Randy said something very interesting then. "You have to manage to the goal, not the number."

Hear the ringing bells? 

I am a storyteller. It's what I do. It's my job, yes, but it's also my passion, a fifth limb, a true extension of my entire being. Whether the sales are there or no, I'm going to continue being a storyteller. And I'm going to try managing to my goal, instead of to my numbers. I'll continue daily word counts, of course, but I'm going to step back a bit on worrying the business end of things. I have a great team in place, a great book coming out February 25 -- I think it's great, I hope you do too -- and another one due right around that time.  As soon as I finish this one, I'm on to Sam #4. All I really have control over is my product. And that's where I should be focusing my energy. Right?

Macro, not micro. Which is going to make this year's annual review and goal setting very interesting.

Sweet dreams!