Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 65

ROW80 Check In and NYC

I still haven't done any editing. Not in about a week and a half. Excuses: wedding, preparing for my trip, getting things ready for Vacation Bible School (which starts the day after I get back!). So I figure the best time to work on this is in the quiet of my hotel room.

Which brings me to the next thing…New York City! I've stressed about this trip because we are going to have to dress a certain way for certain functions Friday morning and Friday evening, and then we have an all day thing going on Saturday and I'll be so tired. I also hate to fly, and our flight is 6:30 tomorrow morning. I don't know WHY the guy I'm going with had to book the flight so early! We won't even be able to get into our rooms when we get there. The good news is that I'll have some free time on Friday afternoon. But it looks like it might rain. Bleh. I hate to go to NYC and not see anything there. Any suggestions on what to visit? Is there anything interesting around 57th (that's where the hotel is)?

I wish my sweet hubby was going with me.

Be Careful What You Say

I know that most of you don't need me to tell you this. But if there are any newbies out there reading this, you may not realize the backlash that could occur from anything you say on the internet.

Back when I was ignorant of a lot of things pertaining to indie publishing (or any publishing), someone left a bad review on one of my books. This was before I acquired a thick skin about this kind of thing. Some of the things that were said were a little snarky, so it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. One of my friends jumped to my defense and replied to the review, and she said some things that I wish she hadn't, but that started the ball rolling. Then I put in my two cents worth. I thought I was just being honest and I didn't really realize at the time that I shouldn't respond to bad reviews AT ALL. I thought I was pretty calm about the whole thing and the reviewer was pretty nice in her response, but it still was a bad, bad thing for me to do. Reviews are for the readers, not for authors to get defensive and respond to. Not everyone is going to like your book. Anyway, the only reason this is coming up now is because there was a response today on the comments from that review. A year later! And the person who wrote the comment felt like I was out of line, although I didn't agree with a lot of what she said about my response. And it took all the willpower I possessed not to respond to that comment. But I took the high road and didn't. This is just one instance of how what you say on the internet stays on the internet. I did have one review that I responded to a little more recently (although not too recently, lol) and it was because I was attacked personally. It wasn't a true review. My author friends told me I shouldn't even have responded to that one. I asked Amazon to take that review down and they did immediately.

So please, when you see something said about your book you don't like, take a deep breath and forget it. I know you want to respond. It will drive you crazy not to. But don't do it! It looks unprofessional and whiny when you respond to negative remarks. There are some reviewers who write bad reviews because they enjoy it. That's just going to happen. And some people will simply not like your book and feel like they have to tell everyone. If you can't handle anything negative said about your book, take Zoe Winters' advice and don't read your reviews. Try to stay cool and professional on the internet. Because what you say on the internet stays on the internet!

ROW80 Check In and Wedding

I haven't done any editing for almost a week. With my son's wedding coming up, I was in a tizzy. LOL. Last night, I was really going to edit, but my power was off, and I don't like to use the computer in the complete darkness. It hurts my eyes. But this week, I'm going to get back on the editing track. I want this novella published by the middle of June.

As for the wedding…it was beautiful! The preacher who conducted the ceremony was actually the one, along with his wife, who brought the two together in the first place, so he was able to tell a few good stories during the wedding. That made it fun. Then, my son cried during his vows, which made me cry. That was so sweet. Everything was perfect, and the bride was beautiful. I am one happy mom!

New Book Cover!

Here is the book cover for my soon to be released novella, Dark Relic: Vampires' Curse, which is the first of a three novella series. Thanks to Anya Kelleye for the cover design!

ROW80 Check In 6/2 (A Day Late)

Editing sucks. I'm just saying….

Seriously, I'm not doing very well, although I did get some excellent input from awesome author Michelle DePaepe. After seeing her comments, I felt like my story wasn't as full of problems as I originally thought. I think my biggest problem is that my son is getting married Saturday, and I can't concentrate on much else. Maybe after the wedding, my mind can remain more focused on editing my story.

As for one of my other goals, I believe I have Jonathan Eli's book just about ready for print publication. I got some awesome suggestions from Susan Bischoff which will make the interior look better, I think.

I hope everyone else is doing well!

ROW80 Check In 5/29

I finished my novella on Thursday. I decided to take two or three days off before getting seriously into editing. So my new goals are:

1) Edit Dark Relic for an hour a day (or at least most days) until it's done.

2) Get The Last Cabbandeum formatted for print for Jonathan Eli (I think this is mostly done).

3) Get Haunted Lake formatted for print.

The editing starts tonight (yeah, I know, I meant to start last Friday), so I'm going to shoot for that hour.

Now the Editing Begins….

I finished up my novella last night Yay! Now the editing starts. The bad thing is that there are more problems in this story than there have been in my previous ones, at least in my opinion. There is one major problem that I see, and my friend and cover designer, Anya Kelleye also saw the same thing. I need to figure out how to fix that. There are also some characters that need fleshing out. I have a bad habit of ignoring minor characters because I don't care about them. I'm kind of like that when I'm reading, too, so it naturally sneaks into my writing. But I'm not sure how much one needs to know about a minor character. Do readers really care about them? Does it depend on how minor they are? When there are a dozen characters in your book, how many of them need back stories? So many questions. Grrrrrr!

Anyway, the editing process begins. After that, final proofreading. I hope to have a few other eyes on this story before I take a final look. I wanted to have this published by the beginning of June, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. But, if I'm lucky, it will be done by the middle of June. By that time I'll have my son's wedding and my trip to NYC out of the way.

ROW80 Check In 5/25

As of last night, I was 580 words ahead on my word count goal and probably one chapter away from finishing my novella, which is the first in a trilogy. By next check in, I'll be listing different goals since there will be editing and also formatting for print going on. It's going to be hard to do goals for that, so I'll be switching to a "time" goal instead of a "word" goal on Sunday.

On an entirely unrelated note…has anyone seen the movie "Half Light" starring Demi Moore and Hans Matheson? It's a really dark story involving both trickery and supernatural elements. It went straight to DVD (a long time ago), and when my husband rented it for me on a whim, I loved it so much that I had to buy it. I've watched it multiple times. But I can't find a single other person I know that has seen this movie. If you like dark tales where part of the mystery is left to your imagination, you might like this movie. I loved Hans Matheson in this! Demi Moore plays a writer who has had a tragedy in her life and had to get away for awhile. Hans Matheson plays…well, it's complicated. LOL

New U Kicked my Butt

After hearing Kait Nolan talk about New U for the Wii, I got all excited and decided to try it for myself. I only had a small snippet of time, so I did the quick workout the first time. Even that was longer than the time I had, so I had to just turn off the Wii before I was finished. Apparently, Kait is in much better shape than I am. Well, you can tell that by looking at both of us, but anyway. Just from the short workout I did, I was sweating profusely. What got me was the Sun Salutation (I think that was the one) because you have to quickly move from a standing position, downward dog, cobra, etc., so you're going up and down a lot. My body doesn't do up and down…yet. I even chose the option for people who never did Yoga since it had been so many years ago. At least I have good balance according to my instructor. :0)

What I've learned: 1) I'm in TERRIBLE shape (apparently walking on the treadmill doesn't cut it), 2) I need to always put a floor mat down behind the balance board (my poor knees on hardwood floor!), and 3) I'm going to get in shape or die trying (I'm hoping for the former).

ROW80 Check In 5-22

I hope everyone is doing well with their goals!

Thursday, I was 611 words ahead of my goal, writing a whopping 2261 words that day. (Ok, that's whopping for me.) Friday, I went to a birthday party, but I didn't feel well, so I went straight to bed when I got home. Saturday, I went to a graduation party in the afternoon, and I just didn't feel like writing. But, today, I wrote 1604 words, bringing me to 715 words ahead of my goal. And the good news, since this is a novella instead of a novel, is that I'm almost finished. So the last part of ROW80 will be used for editing. I think I'll be done with the writing in a couple of days.

I'm seriously trying to improve my health. I haven't felt good in awhile, so I've been worried about some things. Yesterday, I went to the health food store and got a vitamin/mineral supplement. My husband has started taking probiotics because he heard a doctor say that most bad stuff that happens to your body starts in the digestive system. If your digestive system has problems, then your whole body can have problems. So I'm thinking about taking them, too. Also, I bought some more alkaline water. What I've read says that if your body is more alkaline, then it's harder for diseases to form there. Who knows? For every article that tells how something is good for you, there's another article that says it's hogwash. I figure we do the best we can. Exercise and a healthier diet certainly can't hurt!

So how is everyone else doing? Is there any way I can help?