Julie Kenner's Blog, page 115

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Yay! Divergent by Veronica Roth is my neighborhood bookclub pick! Excited to read! Yes, as usual, I’m WAY behind the times…

Time Management Apps – Check these out!

I’m impressed with two apps that sync between my Mac and my iPhone. If you’re a techno-nut like me, give them a look. You might find them useful in helping organize your life.

The first, ToDo, I’ve been using for a while. I like the fact that on the MacBook Air, I can drag emails to the ToDo list, creating an instant task. I also love the subtask feature and the checklist function.

What I’m not as crazy about is utilizing ToDo for Major Tasks, such as, for example, the organization of my indie releases. It can be done, but it’s not as clean as I’d like my system to be.

Recently, I discovered Michael Hyatt (yes, I’ve been living under a rock), and on his site, I saw an advertisement for Priority Matrix. Despite the $20+ cost (to get for my iPhone and Air), I went ahead and purchased, and I’m glad that I did. I’ve only had it for a few days, but I love the interface that allows you to categorize items within projects as Critical, not critical, immediate, not immediate, and uncategorized. There are a few minor nits that I have with the program, but on the whole I think it’ll work for me. I’ll do a full review after I’ve used it a bit longer.

If you’re looking for time management apps to help manage your tasks and projects, give these two programs a glance. I hope you like them!

Got programs and/or apps that you recommend? I’d love to hear about them!

And speaking of that indie release project, I hope you check out my latest indie title, The Cat’s Fancy, available on Kindle, Nook and in other formats!

Monday, Monday …

Lotsa stuff today…

I’m over at Romance At Random talking about the lies we tell in celebration of the upcoming releases (next Tuesday!) of When Passion Lies. Come say hi!

And today (May 21) is the last day to enter the contest! Don’t miss out!

And on a personal note, I’m going to be so freaking productive today it will be scary. Really. (I’ll report back.)

Sometimes, you just have to die

Overheard at my house:

INT. STUDY – NIGHT

WRITER sits at her computer, face lit only by the blueish glow of the monitor. Her fingers tap a rhythm on the keyboard.

A CRASH interrupts the stillness.

DRAMA PRINCESS (O.S.)

What do I do? What do I do!?!

Writer tilts her head, looking up at the ceiling, toward the disturbing cries that filter down through the house.

THE ONLY MALE IN THE HOUSE (O.S.)

Sorry, kiddo. Sometimes you just have to die.

CLOSE on Writer. That really can’t be good.

Thankfully, my husband hadn’t pulled a Jack Torrance. He was just imparting wisdom to the Ten Year Old. One of those heartwarming life lessons that come naturally when playing Resident Evil Number Who Knows What.

Hopefully he’ll have her trained up better by the time the real zombie apocalypse is upon us.

Tomorrow (May 21) is the last day to enter the contest! Don’t miss out!

You want to do *what* with the evil men?

So there I am working diligently in my office the other night.

Pitter pat, pitter pat (enter the Youngest, stage left)

Youngest: Can I get on Club Penguin?

Me (glancing at clock. It’s after 10. WTF is the kid doing up at this hour anyway??): Uh, that would be a no.

Youngest: Please, please, please.

Me: No. Tomorrow. After school.

Youngest (with big, pleading eyes): But the evil men party starts tonight. I want to go to the evil men party!

Me: ??!!???

(brow furrows in confusion

Mommy worry rises … could this Club Penguin thing have been a mistake??)

Me: Uh, Evil Men?

Youngest (with MAJOR roll of eyes): No! You know! Where we wear fancy dresses, like when there was the man who was the tree.

Me (frantically trying to process this new information…man who was a tree? Ah ha! Success! Sherwood Faire!): Not “Evil Men,” sweetie. It’s Medieval.

Youngest (gives up after three attempts to pronounce it).

Me: Just say Middle Ages.

Youngest (victorious!): Middle Ages. So I can I go?

Me: Nice try kid. No.

(But the truth is I’m thinking that the evil men party sounds worth dropping in on….)

How about you? Any evil men in your life?

I’ll be sending out a newsletter soon with all kinds of cool Julie Kenner and J.K. Beck news. If you haven’t subscribed, click the link up top and sign up!

Contest deadline coming up!

Don’t forget about the contest … a signed copy of WHEN PASSION LIES by J.K. Beck and any backlist Julie Kenner book (subject to availability). Deadline is midnight May 21, CST. The more folks who enter, the better the prizes! Kindle Fire, anyone? Get all the contest details here!

The Cat’s Fancy – now for the Nook!

I love this new cover!

Yay!!! The Cat’s Fancy went live for the Nook this morning! Doing a happy dance!

Today’s Tip: Quick Trick for Writing Fast

My secret writing weapon!

I posted the other day about time management, and one of the reasons that managing your time is so important is so that you can put chunks of time into a “savings account” during which you can do your work. For me, this means being efficient at the house and school stuff so that I have a large chunk of writing time.

Intentions, however, do not always equal practice, and sometimes those large chunks come in 15 minute spurts. Maybe an hour (ah, the glorious days when there’s an hour of uninterrupted writing time!)

So how do you make those spurts count? First of all, planning is important, and I’ll blog more about that later. But let’s say that you do have some idea of what you want to write. You just need to get those words down on actual paper.

One word: Plastic.

Okay, not really (who got the joke? come on, you can admit it….)

One word (really): Post-it Notes.

That one, I’m not kidding about.

My secret writing weapon is Post-it Notes.

How, you ask? Do I keep snippets of dialogue on Post-its throughout the day? Tidbits of plot points? Fascinating reversals and character insight? Well, actually, sometimes I do. But that’s not the tip I’m talking about here today.

I’m talking blank Post-its. And I’m completely serious.

As Nora Roberts has said (and others, I’m sure), you can’t edit a blank page. Sometimes, you need to burn through the page count. (And, frankly, I’ve been amazed at the quality of work when you write fast; your internal editor turns off, you get lost in the story, and some true gems end up on the paper).

So what do you do?

Figure out what your page goal for the day is. Let’s say that you need to write 1500 word today. Now break that 1500 up into reasonable chunks. 250 words is the equivalent of one page (courier, 25 lines/page). So we’ll use that number. (I’ve done this with 10,000 word days, and I used 1000 word chunks, but don’t try that without a net! Actually, my ideal is 2500 or 3000/day. That’s a nice sweet spot for balancing writing and life.)

Anyway, here’s the trick. Put Post-it notes on your wall, around the edge of your computer monitor, on the door of your study. Wherever works for you. Each Post-it represents a chunk (here, 250 words). Sit at your desk and type, type, type like the wind!

When you stop, see how many words you’ve written and yank off that many Post-it Notes. As you see the line-up of little Post-its go down over the course of the day, you’ll become more and more motivated, and I bet that the next chunk of time you grab will be even more productive because you’re tricking your brain into sliding into competitive mode (or not tricking–you’re competing with your unproductive self!).

By the end of the day, I’ll bet you’ve ripped off all those Post-its! Next day, add one more Post-it past your goal. Inch your goal up daily until you find your sweet spot.

Congrats! You’re writing faster! (Ideally, you’ll keep that forward motion. Once the draft is done, then you go back and edit. Tips for editing … and more tips for writing fast … coming later.)

Have you tried the trick? How did you do? What’s your tip for writing fast?

Riffing on the Vampire Diaries Season 3 finale …Finally, forward motion! (spoiler city here, folks)

If you don’t like spoilers and you haven’t seen The Vampire Diaries Season 3 finale called The Departed, then you should leave right now (wait, no, don’t leave. explore the rest of the site! Yeah, that’s it…explore….. I compel you to explore….)

Ahem.

Anyhoo, there’s no way to talk about the finale and not give away the Big Thing That Finally Happened. And that I knew would happen (and presumably so did a lot of other folks) from the moment Alaric turned bad.

How did I know? Because of foreshadowing, folks: “You’re life is tied to mine, Bad Alaric. I die, you die,” says Elena, albeit not in those words. To me, that’s a big, flashing neon sign that, hello, to defeat the Big, Bad Vampire Killing machine, Elena is going to have to die.

But…but…she’s the heroine of the show! She can’t die!

Ah, but it’s a vampire show. Sure she can. It makes sense that she will die (high drama, folks!). And in my opinion, it’s about time!

And, yupper…die she did.

And then, in that last shot … the eyes open. She’s a vamp! (Cue the balloons! Next season something new will happen! Yay!)

Do I sound like I was getting burnt out on the show? I wasn’t…it’s still a hoot and a half … but it was bumping into that epic problem of series shows (and books for that matter). Viewers like the schtick. We enjoy the world built by the shows creators. And so the creators are hesitant to move too far, too fast. So instead of evolution, we get a couple of seasons of the same thing with different characters. Epic Bad Guy. How to defeat him? Done! But we don’t get to relax because now there’s a new epic bad guy (seriously, there are a lot of epic bad guys out there, and they all congregate in Mystic Falls).

That’s all fine and fun (and I even came to enjoy Klaus, who really got on my nerves at first), but after a while the character stuff (I’m looking at you, Elena) got incredibly one-note. She’s the main character, the core around which the show spins. Either she has the chance to grow and develop, or the show withers and dies.

Kudos to the folks behind the scene for making the jump to vampire-ism.

I’m actually impressed that they did it this season. I saw it coming a mile away, but it didn’t have to happen this year. Alaric being bad could have been fodder for a full season, or at least half of one. So I’m glad they went ahead and did it, and next season will be fun watching Elena make the transition and then deal with her new vamp-ness.

Minor nits:

Would Stefan really save Matt before Elena? I don’t think so…unless he figured out what she was doing.

In the past, if Dad had enough in him to point to Elena for Stefan to save, then couldn’t Stefan have at least tugged him out of the car? He ripped the door off anyway. Why not at least give dad a shove to the surface?

She picked Stefan over Damon (okay, that’s not really a minor nit, and it’s also not necessarily a done deal, but I’m team Damon, so bummer, man).

Favorite line:

“Do you need anything” (to run away together).

Caroline “No, just you. And maybe a curling iron.”

Most bittersweet moment:

Elena tells Damon that maybe it would be different and she’d have picked him if only they’d met first. Turns out they did meet first…but he compelled her to forget.

The only question now is: what do I watch over the summer? I’m thinking it’s time to check out the “new” Battlestar Galactica. I still haven’t seen it! How embarrassing is that?

Did you watch the finale? What did you think? Got suggestions for me for a summer show?

Today’s agenda: giving one of my best friends grief and finalizing The Cat’s Fancy for e-release!

I love this new cover!

About five minutes away from finalizing the formatting of THE CAT’S FANCY, my first full-length ebook release (which, coincidentally, happens to be my first full-length novel!).

Originally published in 2000, CAT holds a special place in my heart. It’s a light fairy tale about a cat in love with her master, and it was published in a time (was there such a time?) when folks said that paranormal just couldn’t sell! Read all about it here and look for it on Kindle, Nook, and at other retailers soon! (Maybe tomorrow, fingers crossed!)

After that, I have to burst through a bunch of school with the kids, then schlep (in the rain no less) to Austin for Isabella’s pre-surgery appointment. She has a lip revision and nose revision next Friday. There will be much pampering in her future.

But throughout the day, I’m giving Kathleen O’Reilly grief. She said that Game of Thrones Season One pretty much wrapped things up. I couldn’t disagree more. So I’m calling her out. I think she owes me a coffee! You can read all about it over at our Whine Sisters blog.

What are you doing today?