Michele Venne's Blog, page 9

When an Experiment Fails

Publishing a book can be many things: joyful, stressful, a lifelong dream, disappointment, exciting, wonderful, confusing, etc. I’ve sent enough titles out into the world to feel just about everything. After publishing 43 titles, I decided to try a preorder on my website. My web designer did his part, connecting the book information from Book Funnel to WooCommrece. I thought I did everything right…

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Cover Reveal

This is the part of publishing books that builds my excitement and pushes me to finish everything so I can hit the “publish” button. I love revealing the cover to readers. No matter what we think, we really do judge a book by its cover! A couple holding hands points to romance. Snow and storm clouds predict the time of year. Water and a rocky shoreline hint at the setting (in this case, an island).

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New Release Coming Soon!

Every book project has a life of its own. The Found Gift has its own “coming into being” story. No, this photo isn’t the cover, but it reminds me of the different layers, colors, and depths that each project has. I wrote the first draft, then added 11,000 words in a rewrite. I sent it off to the beta reader. Though I got it back last week, I’ve yet to start on the edits. The book cover has gone…

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The Wins

I mentioned to a friend that because the day job has taken a tic up, I haven’t gotten as much written as I planned. I explained that I finished a college class I was taking as part of my CEUs, wrote and sent out my monthly newsletter, wrote the monthly update forms on my clients… and she said, “Well, that was your writing for the week!” Each one of those completions is worth a moment to pause…

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Choices

Some wise person pointed out the obvious when they said, “When you say yes to one thing, you say no to countless other things.” I said yes to more clients. That automatically put a giant “no” on other things I could do with my time. I’m not regretful or wistful, just observing the shift in my energy and how I juggle daily tasks. And as those tasks get completed (if my plans actually turn out)…

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Finally Finished?

Today is the day I finished The Found Gift. At least this round of edits and rewrites. I thought I might be done at around 14K words, then more of the story came to me. It now sits at 20K. And, yes, I know a couple of sentences I still need to add. I have to tweak geography a little to make the story work. I sent it to a beta reader and will do 3 or 4 more rounds of edits when I get it back.

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The Words

There are times, as a writer, when words are my friend. Other times, I can’t fish the one I want from my brain that will make the sentence or paragraph or scene what I want it to be. I also know that sometimes a slight interruption breaks the chain of words, and I can’t get back the sentence I was writing. Some famous writer has a quote defining writing as putting the right words in the correct…

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So Many Hats

Sometimes I know why I’m tired at the end of the day. If I went for a long trail ride, had lots of clients, squeezed in errands or life tasks, by ten o’clock I’m done. But sometimes it doesn’t seem like I’ve got that many to-dos on my calendar. When I look back, especially at a week like this one, I understand the feeling of being wrung out. All of us fill multiply roles in our lives.

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Knowing When It’s Too Much

Years ago, when my mom moved from her home in AZ to CO, she cleaned out all the boxes she kept in the garage. I visited one day, and she showed me calendars from when I was in high school. Every weekend was a horse show. One night a week was 4-H. I played sports, so I had practice after school and games on Friday. I also worked at two ranches close to the house and at different restaurants in the…

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It All Comes Back

For two weeks, I’ve been joining a local writer’s group in their Zoom write ins. The first day, the treasurer of the group, who leads the write in, asked me what I was working on. I said, “A holiday short story that was supposed to be published December 15.” We all laughed. She said, “Well, the holidays come back around.” Yes, they do. Last year, I convinced some of my newsletter subscribers that…

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