Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 12

Round 3 Goals

Wow, it’s already time to state Round 3 goals. Where did the time go?

1. Finish and publish Fire Wizard

2. Start my mystery and my science fiction

3. Write a MINIMUM of five hours per week

4. Work on my line editing jobs a MINIMUM of ten hours per week

Yes, I know I have twice as much time dedicated to editing other people’s work than my own, but I have to go where the money is since I’m broke. LOL

Adventures with Oz & Prayer

In this picture, you can see where they shaved his leg for the IV.

If you’ve been following my Facebook posts, you already know my cat, Oz, was in the hospital for three days. He had blockage in his urethra. Luckily, it wasn’t very far up, and they were able to open it up with a laser. They kept him until he could pee on his own. His nerves were messed up from his bladder being so full, so it took three days for all that to come back.

So I brought him home yesterday. I got him at lunch and took him back to my office where he stayed. My boss’s son brought him some litter, and I fixed him up a box, and he used it twice, so I knew he was okay.

Now here’s where the adventure began. I had taken him to the vet in a laundry basket because I couldn’t find the carrier. (Hubby moves stuff all the time!) He rode in it just fine on the way. But, at the time, he was very sick and wasn’t moving much. When I took him out to the car from my office, I set him in the basket from the passenger side. If I could keep my hand on him the whole time, he wouldn’t get out of the basket. However, there was that little window of time between when I put him in the car and when I got in the car. He was able to move lightning fast and dart under my seat. Just great. How could I get him out? The fact was, I COULDN’T get him out. I coaxed and coaxed to no avail. I had no choice but to get into the car and drive. I was afraid my weight would press the seat down onto him, so all the way home, I had to rest my weight on my heels and my back against the seat back. I live 20-25 minutes away from work. That means, all that time, I was careful not to put my weight on the seat. Can you imagine how my legs felt by the time I got home???

So, at home. I put my face in front of the seat trying my best to get this cat out. He wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t pull him out because I could have hurt him. There was very little wiggle room. I tried pushing him a little from the back. All he would do was purr and “play the piano” on the carpet. (If you don’t know what that means, it’s when a cat is really happy and pulls his claws in and out. My grandma called it “playing the piano”.) I couldn’t believe this cat was enjoying being under there. It was hot, and I knew I couldn’t leave him in the car long, although it was in the garage, and it’s not too hot in there. What could I do? I talked to him, I prodded him from the back, and got so frustrated, I was crying. Nothing worked. Then I prayed. HARD. And, believe it or not, he suddenly came out. Now I know some of you aren’t believers, and that’s your choice. But for those of you who are, I’ll say to you…prayer works! Sometimes, during a crisis of faith, I wonder if God is listening, and this proves to me He does.

Final Check-In Round 2 – ROW80

This will be short and sweet. My goals were to write at least 15,000 words per month and to get my WIP ready for publishing by June 30. Neither of those goals will be met. According to my Supernatural (love Sam, Dean, and Cas!) spreadsheet, I would have to write 1898 words per day through the end of the month to make that goal. Not gonna happen. Maybe without the full-time job, but not working 40 hours a week. I really wanted the print version of Fire Wizard ready to take to the book fair at RNC, but it’s just not possible now. I’ve been concentrating on things that have to be done. Some of that is over now, so maybe I’ll get going in the next round. See ya then!

ROW80 Un-Update

My mom told me today I’m spreading myself too thin. I know I am. I’m putting everything before my writing and taking in too many jobs, but to tell the truth, those other things are making me more money than my writing at the moment. I have no desire to be a “starving artist”. Writing is something I love to do, but I need to make money. Hubby’s been out of work, and now we have to have a new heat pump.

So here’s the thing. I need to organize and prioritize. Since I took Virginia Nelson’s class on sprinting, I need to dedicate at LEAST 15 minutes per day on MY book. With the sprinting method, I can do about 500 words in that time. I think I’m going to have a little breathing room through June and July, because I’m going to be working on books that will be easy to proofread. I just tried to do too many things in May and the first part of June. The fact that I had five nights of teaching Vacation Bible School didn’t help. It put me behind. But I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

That brings me to something else. I feel like I’m neglecting ROW80 and the people who make up this wonderful group. What really made me think about this is that my last post was the revealing of who my next cover model will be, and I had very few comments. I was SO excited about this, and not many people came by. And that made me realize I hadn’t really visited many ROWers in awhile. I should be checking up on some of you, even if it isn’t a ROW80 post. All of you have blog posts you write besides those twice weekly ones. So how can I expect anyone to visit my blog when I haven’t been visiting theirs? So I want to apologize for that. It’s just been a time thing, but I need to make time. And we need to visit each other on other days besides Wednesdays and Sundays. We’re friends, right? I know all of us can’t visit everyone. But shouldn’t we pop in on one or two a week besides the check in days? What do you all think? Am I just being weird? LOL

I’m going to try to do better!!!

Cover Model for Fire Wizard Revealed!

This isn’t a huge secret, I just hadn’t said anything yet. So I’m going to let you all see the cover model for my next book. Some of my friends and “co-horts” already know who it is. But since the book should be out within the next couple of months, I think it’s time to tell everyone. Drum roll, please….

James and Me!

This is James Magnussen, and he’s not only gorgeous, but he’s a genuinely nice guy. Very friendly, but he’s also very professional when it comes to the business end of things. So ladies (or gentlemen), if you need a cover model, and James fits the bill, you can contact him on Facebook at James D Magnussen. Okay, so I’m in the picture, too, but I didn’t have one of him by himself. LOL

So, ladies (and gentlemen?), what do you think? Doesn’t he look like the perfect Fire Wizard??? Cover reveal will come in a few weeks, I hope.

Buildin’ the Dream and Arizona Dreamin’

I’m still here in Scottsdale, AZ at the BtD and AD conference. A little bit about it…Buildin’ the Dream is for authors and Arizona Dreamin’ is geared toward readers, although many authors and readers attended both.

We kicked off Thursday evening hearing Diana Gabaldon speak. I read her book, Outlander, YEARS ago. She’s lovely and funny, and I enjoyed the presentation so much!

Today, we had classes, and they were so helpful. Rose Gordon did a class on marketing, talking about how this is a business and your book is your product. She also did a class on mistakes made by historical authors. This was such a fun class.

Deena Remiel did a class on “crafting the dark moment”. It just so happens the scene I’m currently writing is the dark moment for the shero, and Deena made me realize I could make it even darker. Bwa ha ha.

Virginia Nelson did a class on sprinting. Although my inner editor balks against this, I think I know a way I can do this. We did a 10 minute and a 15 minute sprint in the class, and I got quite a few words in. If I had been on my laptop instead of my iPad, I would have gotten more.

And of course, I sat in on Anya Kelleye’s class on book covers and working with your cover artist. She did a great job.

Tonight kicked off the Arizona Dreamin’ part of the conference. We had a little reception with auctions and entertainment. And pictures could be made with the Men of Our Dreams contestants, as well as last year’s winner. Tomorrow there will be “book clubs” with featured authors and dinner with authors. And some other stuff.

Somehow, Anya and I will have to find time to get together to do the photo shoot with the cover model for my current WIP. He’s really nice, and he looks great. I’m really excited about this cover because it’s the first time I’ll have exclusive pictures for a cover.

RNC last year was my very first writer’s conference. This one is my second. The two are very, very different….

Secret Project – Not So Secret

I’ve been tossing something around in my head for a long time. This is sort of a Christian post, so fair warning. I noticed the last time I posted something of a religious nature, I got only a couple of comments. We’ll see what happens this time.

Anyway, I truly believe we are supposed to use the talents God gave us. Some people are better at some things, and other people at other things. We are all so unique, but we all have SOMETHING we can do. Our preacher did a sermon on this very thing on Sunday, and it touched me because I had been thinking along the same lines. I’ve been thinking about writing a book that could be used as a book in a ladies’ Bible class or maybe just to read. The first one I’ve thought about writing is called “Nurturing a Christian Marriage”. Honestly, it makes me sad to see how many marriages don’t last anymore. If I could just make one person think about the permanence of “I do”, it would be worth it to me.

Now is the question of…would I charge for this book? The answer is yes. Churches expect to pay for class materials, and I want to write for a living someday. This might be another direction to go in for income. However, I would like to keep the cost low. This won’t be a long book.

I’ve worked on this some tonight, mostly figuring out my chapters and some Bible verses pertaining to each one.

So that’s my news. Oh, and I won’t be writing it under this pen name.

Bad Writing Week & Dragon Naturally Speaking

I wrote 249 words this past week. Bah! I normally work on Fire Wizard on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday, I decided hubby and I needed a date night. It had just been too long since the two of us had gone out together. So we went to Macaroni Grill and then to the Earth Fare store (kind of like Whole Food, I think). By the time I got home, I was too tired to write. It was kind of late. And Friday…well, that’s when I wrote the 249 words, playing with my Dragon Naturally Speaking software. More on that in a moment. Saturday, I found too many other things to do. Some productive, like cutting out a skirt pattern, and others not so much, like playing a Big Fish game and going to the matinee to see The Amazing Spiderman. Bad me.

Now, about Dragon. Honestly, I was afraid it wouldn’t be able to recognize my southern accent. But I read a speech by JFK to let it understand my speech patterns. I think this software is amazing. I would haven written more with it, but I was still learning. I could go faster saying a sentence because I can talk faster than I can type. But I have to get used to saying “period”, “comma”, “open quote”, “close quote”, etc. I was doing pretty well at the end, but I found I didn’t know where my story was going, so I knew I had to think about it some more. Anyway, the Dragon software was worth it as a business expense. It will be especially good when my hands are hurting or when my back is bothering me. When I get used to it, I think it will feel more natural than it does right now. It’s regularly $99.99, but I clicked on a FB sponsored link which took me to the Nuance website, where it was advertised as $59.99. When I put it in my cart, it was $49.99! And it comes with a microphone.

I’m thinking about doing some writing today since I slacked off last week. I never write on Sundays, but I might have to make an exception.

ROW Update 5/4/14

I got a whopping 5,348 words written on Fire Wizard this past week. That feels awesome!

I’ve been trying to loosely plot the cozy mystery I’m thinking of doing under a different pen name. I’ll have to say, those people who write these on a regular basis have acquired genius status in my eyes. To have to figure out “whodunit” and why. And then all the investigative stuff. It makes me want to pull my hair out. I don’t know if I can do this or not, but I’m giving it a whirl. It’s good for writers to step outside their comfort zone. If it works, great. If I can’t live with the frustration…at least I can say I took the leap.

Scheduling My Time

I only got 2205 words written this week. But I’m soooo close to the goal I set on my Supernatural (Sam & Dean!) spreadsheet. So close. It said last night I needed to write 2561 words per day to meet my goal. I have only one day left. Today. It’s church night, so I really don’t think I can do it. But I WANT to so badly! What should I do? Could I handle an after church writing marathon???

I think one of the biggest problems I’ve had with writing is I’m not really scheduling my time. Yes, I have an idea in my head about what I want to do but…look, there’s another cool Big Fish Game. And I have a free credit, so I can download it! Um, where was I? Oh yeah. Anyway, I think schedules need to be WRITTEN DOWN. And then adhered to as best one can. It’s especially important that I get my schedule worked out because I have four proofreading jobs from now until the end of July. I’m just glad they didn’t all come in at once. LOL.

So here’s what I’m thinking for May:

Monday-Tuesday: Work on a cozy mystery I’m thinking of writing under a different pen name

Thursday-Saturday: Work on whatever my WIP is under Lauralynn Elliott

Sunday & Wednesday: No writing

Monday-Friday during lunch (and possibly Saturday): Work on my proofreading jobs

What do you think? Does this schedule make sense? Do YOU make schedules for yourself?

And don’t forget…if you need content editing, line editing (proofreading), formatting for ebooks, or all of these, check out The Forge: Affordable Book Finishing