Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 44
July 7, 2012
Sunday Update 7/8/12
It’s been an interesting week. The heat continues to assault us here in East Tennessee. We will get some relief, I think, starting Sunday or Monday. The kittens are growing and actually aren’t getting into trouble in the house as much as they used to. Writing is going VERY well. Life is good. Here are some things relating to my goals.
1. Writing: Even though I don’t set word counts, but time goals, I like to keep up with word count. Mon-874, Tues-1464, Wed-91, Thurs-1474, Fri-0, Sat-2588. Look at that Saturday count! I don’t know if I’ve ever written that much at one time, but I was really loving my scenes!
2. Proofing: The proofing of Vampires’ Curse for print is going slow and steady. It should be ready by the end of the week.
3. Health: Exercise has been a no go all week, except for Saturday. It’s been too hot (I don’t even want to be outside when it’s over 100 degrees) to walk or bike, and I just haven’t gotten on the treadmill, except for about 45 minutes on Saturday. But, hey, that’s a little exercise. Also, my whole “quality instead of quantity” eating style is going pretty well. I’ve decided that eating less is better than depriving myself of good, tasty food, so that’s going to be my philosophy unless it stops working for me. I’ll keep you updated on that.
So, how are things going for the rest of you? Are you working diligently toward your goals? Let me know. I’m here for you if you ever need me!
July 4, 2012
A Late Night Scare and Cat Pictures
The two subjects in the title have nothing to do with each other. But I wanted to blog about both of them, so I combined them. LOL.
I almost didn’t tell this one. But, hey, I share. 
Anyway…Tuesday night, I fell asleep on the couch, which isn’t unusual. I woke up at almost 1:00 am with a sharp burning pain in my side. I walked, sat, lay down, but I couldn’t get any relief. The pain was too high to be appendicitis and not far enough toward my back to be kidney stones. The scary thing to me was that the pain was basically where my lung is, and I’ve been paranoid about blood clots in the lung since my best friend died from that last year. I finally put my clothes on, put my contact lens back in, and called my mom. Yes, I woke my 77 year old mom up at 1:15 in the morning. She came to my house (she only lives two houses down) and we talked about whether or not I should go to the emergency room. Finally, we decided it was better to be safe, so she drove me to the hospital. Before we even arrived, my pain just vanished. We sat in the hospital parking lot waiting to see if it came back, but it never did. So there was no way I was going to pay for an emergency room visit, since my $1500 deductible hasn’t been met, if I had no pain. So we drove back home. I apologized to my mom, but she said she didn’t have anything else to do. LOL. So we decided we would just say it was an adventure. She seems to think that it’s possible I slept wrong and strained the muscles in my side. I do have a problem where my side muscles cramp up sometimes if I move a certain way, and the pain is excruciating for about a minute, then it goes away. So it could be related to that somehow. Anyway, I was scared. I kept thinking of all the things I had left undone in case I died. I hadn’t given my husband the password to our online payment accounts. The people at work don’t know my password for a lot of things they would need to know if I wasn’t there. Lesson learned? Make sure all your stuff is taken care of in case you croak in the middle of the night. LOL
Okay, after that rather bizarre story, here is something sweet and cute to look at. My two kittens.
Willow
Oz
July 3, 2012
ROW Update 7/4/12
Hey, it’s the Fourth of July! Which makes me wonder if anyone will even be sitting at their computer reading this. LOL
What I’ve done toward my goals this week:
1. Word count: Mon-874, Tues-1,464. Although my goals are time, not words, I still keep up with word count. I can’t help myself. But I’ve found that when I started setting aside a time instead of shooting for a certain number of words, I actually end up writing MORE words.
2. I’ve proofed the first novella in the Libby Fox trilogy. Only two more to go, and the collection will be ready to format for print. I can’t BELIEVE how many times I used the word “that”. I know I don’t do it much anymore, but I must have “reformed” after writing the first in the trilogy. LOL
3. Exercise – not so much. I was doing well until it got so hot. It’s starting to cool down just a bit…mid 90′s…so I’ll probably go back to walking and riding my back on Thursday.
July 2, 2012
ROW80 Goals for Round 3
I can’t believe it’s actually that time again! I really meant to finish my WIP in Round 2, but those of you who’ve followed my blog know that I was a slacker. I bounced back the last couple of weeks of the round, but it was way too late. Anyway, here are my goals for Round 3.
1. Finish my WIP by writing one hour per day, five days a week (Sundays and Wednesdays are church days, so I intend to take those days off unless I’m itching to write).
2. Proof Vampires’ Curse a second time, then format it for print.
3. Exercise five days a week.
Some writers have said they only want to post writing goals on their blog, and they won’t talk about anything else, but I’m a firm believer in putting all of myself out there and connecting with people. I also believe that exercise goals HELP with writing goals.
Good luck to everyone this round, and if there’s anything I can ever do to help, please let me know! We are all about support here at ROW80!
July 1, 2012
Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale!!!
All during the month of July, Smashwords is having a sale! Authors are selling their books at some really good discounted prices. (Some are even free!)
You can get Vampires’ Curse and The Gnome for 50% off. Regularly $2.99 each, you can get them for only $1.50 through July 31 by using coupon code SSW50.
Here are the links.
To see all the books included in the promotion, go to smashwords.com and click on the sale link at the top left. There’s something for everyone!
June 30, 2012
Lots of Random
Yesterday my boss let me work from home the second half of the day because it was too hot for my kittens to stay outside in their cage. They have a fan blowing on them out there, but 105 is too hot for them to be out there. I think it’s just awesome that my employer had enough concern for my cats that they let me do that. My kitties were glad to be able to be in the house for hours. It’s going to be that hot again today, and I’m getting ready to let them in soon.
I’ve started cooking lately. I got my first shipment of cheese, butter, Devon cream, and tampenade from igourmet.com. I’ve tried the cave aged Emmental (Swiss) and it’s delicious. I’m planning on making au gratin potatoes with the Emmental and the Devon cream for dinner tonight. My husband will probably think the cheese is too strong, so I might have to fix another potato dish for him. LOL. And I’m making meatloaf in my Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker. In the MICROWAVE. I never thought I would cook meat in my microwave, but it’s the best meatloaf I’ve ever had. And I made Burrito Bake in it the other day. I also made a cheesy rice dish I found in my Fine Cooking magazine. I LOVE that magazine. I’m becoming a cooking machine. LOL
I’m currently in the process of proofing the Libby Fox trilogy again for print. Even though it’s in ebook form already, I always go through another proofing for each print book because it’s a lot harder to correct typos after a book is in print than when they’re in ebook form. Besides, I get to read it again that way, and I have a fondness for Libby and Adam.
I’m just lazing around today. It’s too hot to go outside, even though my rose bushes really need watering. Maybe later this evening….
Okay, I’m off to let Willow and Oz in. They can spend some time annoying my husband. LOL
June 29, 2012
Should I Write More Horror?
Many of you who follow my blog know that I struggled with the writing of The Gnome. My struggles were mainly about whether it was going to be good enough, and whether or not I could write decent action scenes. I had only written paranormal romance up to that point, but I love to read horror, so I wanted to give it a try. And the kind of “light” horror I wrote wasn’t that far from paranormal romance. There was some romance in The Gnome, but that wasn’t the focus. I feel like The Gnome ended up being one of my better books. I worried about the action, but one of my beta readers told me that’s the area where I “shone” in the book. So where do I go from here? Do I stick with paranormal romance, or should I write more horror? And then there’s the book my husband has an outline for that I need to write, and it seems to fall somewhere in between. Although, since I’m the one writing it, I might put romance in it whether he likes it or not. LOL
How many of you cross genres in your writing? How comfortable do you feel writing something out of your normal genre? I would love to know!
June 28, 2012
Stupid Things I Leave Undone
A good while back Kait Nolan called me out for not having a book page listing all my books. I promptly obeyed her command and set up such a page. I just realized today that I have published THREE books since I updated this page. *blushes in shame*. I can’t believe my mind wasn’t in a place where I think about those things. I could use the excuse of my day job, my household chores, my family, my kittens, my new puppy…. But my mind needs to be on my business, too. And I fell short. Today (yes, while I was supposed to be working!) I fixed my book page. In doing that, I also realized that Kobo had changed the URL for the books where I had links to Kobo. So if any of you have links to your books on your blog, please check and see if those links are still good, especially on Kobo.
I still have one glitch on my book page. After I inserted Vampires’ Curse after the individual Libby Fox novellas, My Haunted Lake cover picture is askew. Every cover is supposed to be left adjusted, but Haunted Lake is sticking out, farther to the right, like a sore thumb. I’ve looked and looked at the html on Vampires’ Curse, and I can’t find the problem. I experimented and inserted it in a different place, and Haunted Lake was fixed, but the book after Vampires’ Curse was then affected. So it has to have something to do with Vampires’ Curse. I reinserted the cover image, and I reinserted the Kobo link (since it’s the last thing), but to no avail. I can’t find ANYTHING wrong with the html. Grrrrrrrr.
So, do any of you drop the ball on things like this? I hope I don’t do this again. As soon as my next book is published, I need to get it on my book page!
June 26, 2012
Gourmet Food – I’m Giddy!
A couple of posts ago, I asked for suggestions on finding gourmet items that are hard for me to find locally. I only got a couple of suggestions, which disappointed me. But one suggestion was the one I needed! I had seen some things sold by “igourmet” on Amazon, and someone commented that they could vouch for them. I checked out their website, and now I’m giddy as a school girl. They have everything I could possibly need! My mouth is watering at all the cheeses they have to offer. And they have the Irish butter I need. I chatted with customer service and asked about shipping it in this heat, and they promptly responded and said it was packed with lots of dry ice. I should still probably have it shipped here at work rather than let it sit outside at home. Squeeeee! What a yummy site!
June 25, 2012
Fairy T-shirt
My husband is awesome. He saw this t-shirt and thought I would like it, so he bought it for me. See the dragon at the upper left? Cool shirt, huh?
