Goals and Writing Plans for 2013-Mandatory for Success

It is 18 days into the New Year and as a writer I have a map to follow. Three major goals have been placed on my year long plan and now it is my responsibility to take the action steps to make those goals come true.

My plan is different from last year and the year before and it should be. Yours should be different too. As writers we should be taking what worked for us the past year and making it part of the map for the New Year. We must also delete anything that didn't work well from last year and make a list of new things to try this year.

This is the most difficult part of a new map because to grow and make changes we have to step out of our comfort zone and for me that is just plain hard. It is facing up to the failures and admitting that I need to make changes. Failures become the lessons that promote change.

Here are a few tips to follow when working on this plan.

1. Remember nothing is written in stone, changes can be made every week, every month, every 2 months or whenever you realize that what your doing is not working. But the other side of that thought is to give your plan a chance to work and to see the results before making major changes.
2. Seek advice from experts but follow your heart. Advice is a wonderful thing but it doesn't mean you have to recreate who you are or who you were meant to be. It does mean that sometimes expert advice can be beneficial to what it is you are writing and trying to publish. Seek it and make it work with your goals.
3. Make your goals attainable and measurable so you are not flapping in the breeze and getting no where. Set dates, page limits, word counts, financial aspirations and any other way to measure your actions to meet your goals.
4. Failures are really not failures at all but life lessons that spur us on to be better writers, artists, etc. Don't dwell on them, rather use them to your advantage to move forward and be better.
5. Take classes, find a mentor, learn more marketing strategies, but the key is to keep writing and creating. Don't let the classes distract you from the main part of the plan which is to write.

If you don't have your plan ironed out  quite yet, no worries. Take time to review and make some notes so you can get a productive start to the New Year.

Taking Time Out!

By "time out," I mean taking time "out" and perhaps even outside.

This weekend I have taken myself "out," for a private writers retreat.

For most of us, writing is a passion, it's what keeps us happy,

but it's a full time or part time job that keeps us in a home with food on the table.

Juggling writing with family and work is always a challenge,

and at a certain point you may find that taking time out might benefit you. 

I find retreating really helpful when I've completed a manuscript and need some time for heavy duty revision. I may also retreat  when I'm feeling blocked and need to force my seat in the chair for a period of time.

Here are some guidelines to getting the most from your writers retreat:

Finding the spot for your writers retreat.

I generally find that cabins in the woods or on lakes work really well for me. 

1. You will most times bring in your own food, which means that you will not be distracted by where to eat. 

2.  I find these places quiet, which also helps with limiting distractions. 

3. A walk along the shore or on a deserted path creates a great "head" writing opportunity. 

Cabins are not the only places that writers may find to retreat to. Many authors use hotels or motels as places to disappear to and work. 

Where doesn't work? I find it challenging to use my home, even when the rest of the family is gone, because there is always something that can be and should be done. Remember distraction is your enemy.

All work and no play?

You may find, like myself, that you accomplish so much that taking the time for a walk only makes you more creative. I find my fingers fairly flying across the keyboard when I return from a stroll. 

1. Plan your writing/editing/revising time.

2. Plan your creative building time - otherwise known as walks, and/or hot baths.

So this year, plan your own retreat and get "out."

_______________________________

Currently, D. Jean is retreating to work on her latest women's fiction novel about reincarnation.

She is a writer of Women's Fiction and a co-author of a Young Adult Science Fiction Series. Her latest book, Flight from the Water Planet, Book 1 of The Exodus Series was written with coauthor, Austine Etcheverry.

D. Jean loves to tell stories of personal growth – where success has nothing to do with money or fame, but of living life to the fullest. She is also the author of the novels: Rocky's Mountains, Fire in the Hole and, Perception. 

The Mermaid, her award winning short story was published in the anthology, Tales from a Sweltering City.  

She is a wife, mother, grandmother and business coach. In her free time . . . ha! ha! ha! Anyway, you can find more about D. Jean Quarles, her writing and her books at her website at www.djeanquarles.com

You can also follower her at www.djeanquarles.blogspot.com or on Facebook

As a Writer You Should Have Paid Attention in Math

I'm new to this blog and am tonight staring down one heck of a rabbit-hole-disguised-as-deadline. Thanks for allowing me to disengage myself from my non-fiction work and return to a technique I use in fiction writing.

Certainly time is always pressing and I don’t read nearly as much as I’d like to, but I always use reading as a writing tool.

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion talked about how John Gregory Dunne would often read a novel several times “to see how it worked.” When I was working on my novel, I turned to my favorite in the middle grade-YA genre, Missing May by Cynthia Rylant, and charted the book out on a graph.

Along the y axis was the word count by chapter; the x axis noted where the various plot points occurred, when characters were introduced….the whole arc of the plot. It served as an invaluable road map because I was, and still am, a novice at plot development for anything other than a short story. I have a greater appreciation for Rylant’s craft and a graph of Missing May that is real purdy.

But, seriously, read the 'good ones.' Do this for a recent adult novel like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and learn how
and when a real pro inserts plot points.

Mary-Margaret Simpson writes for gardening and outdoor magazines as well as for higher education. And if you can make any sense of that, please let her know.

Self-publishing on Smashwords

Self-publishing on Smashwords

Guest Post by J.Q. Rose

With the advent of this new age of e-book technology, you can publish your writing easily and quickly at Smashwords.com.( https://www.smashwords.com/) Founder Mark Coker describes Smashwords as a distributor because the e-book you publish on Smashwords will be distributed to the world’s largest retailers. It costs you nothing to produce the e-book or to have it distributed. You do give up a percentage of the e-book sales for the privilege of having the book available for purchase on Smashwords.

I chose to self-publish my non-fiction e-book for middle grade girls, Girls Succeed: Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women, with Smashwords because the e-book is published on-line in many different formats and available to readers all over the world. I also wanted this e-book about careers to include hyperlinks so readers can immediately access information about the woman I interviewed and about her career.

Once the formatting meets the standard for Smashwords, the title becomes available for sale on Smashwords. I chose to wrestle with formatting my e-book, but Smashwords maintains a list of providers who will format your book for forty or fifty dollars. If you want to have wider distribution to other online booksellers such as Kobo, Apple, B & N, and Sony, your book will have to pass strict guidelines in order to deliver the best product to online booksellers. I have heard some authors say not to use Smashwords because they are too particular. I can only ask, “Don’t you want to deliver the sharpest book you can to your readers?” I do.

Before publishing, I suggest you download the Free copy of founder Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide.( https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52) Everything you need to get your book through the “meatgrinder” is included in the book. The meatgrinder is the lovable name Coker calls the process of turning your finished manuscript uploaded as a Word file into the many formats necessary for the various e-reading devices now available to readers.

I studied Mark Coker's extensive Style Guide and followed each step carefully in my manuscript.  When I was ready to upload the file, his constant warnings about remembering to do this and don't forget that rattled in my brain. Taking a deep breath after filling out the form for Smashwords, I clicked on "upload the file" and crossed my fingers. I was told I was #16 in the queue.  I checked email and Facebook and surfed the Internet to get my mind off the fact that I had dumped my pure and perfect word file into the Smashword meat grinder.

When I returned to the screen on my Smashwords dashboard, a list of problems appeared that needed to be "fixed" before they could okay the e-book for sale. Actually they were easy fixes--more than four returns on the title page, using a table which is a no-no for this publisher, and a few stray tabs I'd missed. I re-submitted the file and jumped for joy when I saw conversion complete. It was available for sale on Smashwords.

I have to admit I had a difficult time passing the review to get into the premium catalog because I could not get the Table of Contents to link correctly. A linked Table of Contents, a helpful addition in non-fiction works, is a plus only available in e-books. Readers can click on a link and jump to the chapter they want to read.  I finally discovered the error after I downloaded the Adobe Digital Reader and checked the e-pub version.

After publishing, Smashwords allows authors to assign coupon codes to be used toward discounts or giveaways of your e-book to reviewers, fans, and for promotions.

When you’re ready to share your writing with the world, Smashwords is a good way to go to dip your toe into this vast and wonderful world of self-publishing.

BIO: After writing feature articles in magazines, newspapers, and online magazines for over fifteen years, J.Q. Rose entered the world of fiction writing with her first published novella, Sunshine Boulevard, released by Muse It Up Publishing in 2011. With Girls Succeed: Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women she returns to her first love, writing about real people.  Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, and travel are the things that keep her out of trouble. Spending winters in Florida with her husband allows Janet the opportunity to enjoy the life of a snowbird. Summer finds her camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and
granddaughter.

Connect with J.Q. Rose online at
Girls Succeed blog http://GirlsSucceed.blogspot.com/
J.Q. Rose blog http://JQRoseAuthor.blogspot.com/

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Create a Unique Opt-in Button Webinar

Writers on the Move finally has a new webinar scheduled for this month: Create a Unique Opt-in Button – Have it Link to Your Opt-in Landing Page.

It’s set for Friday, January 25, 2013, at 4PM EST (U.S.). It’ll be around 30 minutes, maybe less, so it won’t take much time out of your busy schedules. If you're on live and time allows, we learn some of PowerPoints button-making features together.

It's a clever little button that will make you look like a pro. You can use in your sidebar or anywhere else you can link a JPG. And, it's done with PowerPoint!

TO REGISTER GO TO: http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E952DE88884F3E

I’m hoping to record it. If you’re not registered you won’t have access to the replay.

The image above is a quickly made rough opt-in button. If the image had link capabilities I could link it to the landing page of my choice. It's pretty cool! The 'how to' information was courtesy of an article at HubSpot.com.

You can check out the complete details for the webinar at: http://www.writersonthemove.com/p/workshops.html

Hope to ‘see’ you there!

PLEASE SHARE THIS EVENT.

Karen Cioffi

Writing and Weather

Forget the April showers, May flowers and March coming in like a lion, because that's January's job.  Here in South Carolina, only 12 days in, we have had rain, freezing temperatures, warm balmy temperaturres and a few things in between.  I was watching the news the other night based out of Asheville, North Carolina, and they were mentioning the snow in California and the single digit temperatures in the Utah-Colorado-Wyoming-Montana areas. 

Our writing is somewhat like the weather - we have that perfect day where everything falls into place and the weather isn't too hot or too cold; we have those really cold days where we can't think of anything to write and then we have those really hot days where we are smokin' and accomplish a lot.

I've been a funk, like the weather, and haven't really been able to shake it and get back to writing anything, although I'm hoping that by the end of the month to have many new ideas for my middle grade/YA characters to make into a series.  I'd love for more of the balmy, perfect days of writing but for now, it's just not happening. 

Maybe I need a total getaway from everything and start over like my daughter did or maybe I just need to open a document and start writing again and forget about the perfect days, just do it.  Whatever it is I need to get back on track, I hope it shows up soon so that I can get more stories published. 

Hoping all your writing days are balmy and perfect and not the super cold or super hot days - see you all in the postings - E :)

Elysabeth Eldering
Elysabeth's blog
Elysabeth's website
JGDS series blog
JGDS series website

Guest Post: The Challenges of Writing and Illustrating A Book with JD Holiday

The Challenges of Writing and Illustrating A Book

OR

The BRIEF Challenges of Writing and Illustrating A Book

By: J.D. Holiday

  

I found the challenges of being both the author and illustrator was only in the beginning. I self published after many years of trying to get published the traditional way. Though doing my own artwork was not something I found easy. I wrote for twenty-five years without doing the illustrations for two reasons. 

The first was traditional publishers told authors in those days, and still tell them if authors do their own illustrations, they, the publishers, might not want the book. Publishers reasoned they might like the stories but not the pictures which would make them reject the book entirely. 

Secondly, I didn’t feel confident enough to do my own art work because to that date, I had painted for fun and enjoyment.

It did take me some time to get to the point in a painting I was doing where I felt the painting was heading in the right direction and it took me a while working with digital art programs to do whole painting that way. I use to just use my paint programs for touch ups on my drawings and paintings. 

Now, my being the author and the illustrator is actually helpful in putting the story together. Doing both allows me to easily move back and forth between the story and the pictures. I can easily revise the storyline and the paintings to match. Once I let myself go and commit to doing the artwork myself, being both the author and illustrator became an asset.

Since I am the artist, too, I don‘t have to worry who will do the drawings and paintings for my books. Nor will I have to split the money made on the sales of my books with someone else. And I also have the satisfaction that comes from doing it all and having a good product.

About the Author: 

J.D. Holiday is the author and illustrator of four children's books. Picture books: JANOOSE THE GOOSE, THE SPY GAME, and Matt Shelley's Halloween Misadventure with Award-winning author, Christy Condoleo, and the chapter book for 6 to 8 year olds, THE GREAT SNOWBALL ESCAPADE. J.D. Holiday is a co-host on It's Story Time, Gather 'Round with Christy Condoleo on Blog Talk Radio's World Of Ink Network:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/worldofinknetwork

You can find out more about J.D. Holiday, her books and World of Ink Author/Book Tour at http://tinyurl.com/bzwlprd

Follow J.D. Holiday at

The Book Garden http://www.thebookgarden.net

J.D’s Writers Blog http://jdswritersblog.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @JDHoliday

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JDspage

Facebook Fan: www.facebook.com/BooksByJDHoliday

Publisher Website: http://www.thebookgarden.net

 

What happens when you end up with a dog you don’t want and only stares?

About the Book:

Eddie would love to have a puppy to play with. A puppy would pull on a rope. Catch a ball and lick your face. But his Uncle brings Eddie an older dog named after a famous spy. What can you do with an old dog? It probably couldn't learn new tricks and the only thing this dog did was stare. It's what they find to do together that makes them the best of

friends!

Publisher: Book Garden Publisher, LLC

ISBN: 978-0-98186-144-9

Publication Date: August 2012

Places available for sale: Amazon, B&N