Zoe Carmina's Blog: Zoe Jane Carmina, page 27

Interview with Zoe Carmina

What are your five favorite books, and why?

1. “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. [Science Fiction]

I never believed I would be into a Science Fiction Novel. I didn’t see it coming when I got to the end. I was so thoroughly engrossed in the storyline. I have bought a physical copy of the book 8 times now because everyone I’ve ever lent it to kept it.

2. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. [Classical Literature]

This is my favorite piece of Classic Literature. I honestly love the relat...

2017 Quarter 3 Goals Recap

I've never really posted all my goals on here like this before, but I figured you guys might be interested in knowing that I started really doing some goal planning this year, and it has become an extremely effective tool for me.
I started a quarterly goal planning schedule as opposed to a daily/weekly/monthly goal schedule for quite a few reasons. I am a list maker, and I like to have lists and cross things off of them. It makes me feel super accomplished. However, when I plan every hour, every day, every week, or even every month, these small periods of time, I find that I give over more time to planning out every moment, and I actually somehow manage to accomplish little of what I have planned in any given period of time. 
As I'm sure you know, life never manages to go as planned, and even planning a week in advance is difficult, since I end up getting further and further behind as the week progresses. For this reason alone, planning one day at a time seems the most effective use, and yet that doesn't really seem to work either, because I have to use a portion of every day, and stay on top of doing it, in order to make it relevant. 
So I decided this year to try out quarterly goals, and lo and behold, I have been kicking ass all year. The idea is to achieve at least half of the goals you set per quarter. I typically set 10-20 goals per quarter that I simply have to achieve. At the end of the quarter, you re-evaluate your list, make a new one, and continue kicking ass. This is way more effective than any other goal setting method because of the way you need to broadly word things.
Here's an example. With other goal setting methods, you typically make goals that say specific things, for instance, "Write 500 words per day" or "Edit 6 pages per day." With a quarterly goal count, it covers a longer period of time, while still being specific.  In this manner, you would say, "Write 60,000 words of my WiP," or "Edit 100 pages." If you can't see the difference yet, let me explain. 
There are about 90 days (give or take) in any given quarter. If you make daily goals, you have to count the number of times you reached 500 words every day. No lesser amount will count, even if you only achieved 492 that day.  So in this example, in a 90 day period when I was doing daily word count goals, I would have achieved this count perhaps only 50 or 60 times per quarter.  Which means that even though I did really good, really often, I still failed 30 or 40 times. In my mind, those are 30 complete failures. If I instead set the goal to write 60,000 words in three months, I win or I lose, and even if I lose, I've only felt like a failure once, instead of 30 days in a period. 
This is the method that has really worked for me this year. I don't have all the stats to show you, but I wanted to share with you how I did for this quarter's goals, and set new goals for the last quarter. I tend to break my quarterly goals up into categories, so that I can work on several aspects at once. 
2017 Quarter 3 Goals:
Writing 1. Write Multiverse Story
Editing 2. Find 10 Beta Readers
Marketing 3. Setup a Kindle Free Book Promotion4. Finish Setting Up Patreon Account5. Research Websites6. Make a Web page
Publishing 7. Update all eBooks with the latest books, websites, social media, and publishing information.8. Finish Publishing a Hard Copy of 71 Quarter Circle Ranch on Amazon9. Finish Publishing a Hard Copy of The Story of Rachi on Amazon10. Finish Publishing a Hard Copy of Overcoming Darkness on Amazon
Life 11. Transcribe 20 Pocket Items12. Transcribe 40 Pocket Items13. Transcribe 60 Pocket Items14. Upload Pocket Items to Google Drive15. Sort Google Drive16. September Dental Appointment

So for 2017 Quarter 3, I completed 12 of 16 goals which is a huge WIN!
I have made editing one of my stories a huge priority this quarter, though it wasn't originally on my list, so writing has simply been put on the back burner until that is completed. 
If you are interested in becoming a Beta Reader, please put in an application. You can find the link to it here: https://goo.gl/forms/Hf1IqPb52NFhsfuC3
As you can see, I now have a Patreon account, with tons of exciting goodies for you all. If you were curious, you can find more information about it on my page: https://www.patreon.com/zoejanecarmina
Many of you know that Kindle Unlimited subscribers can get all my ebooks for free. I have also published paperback versions of several of my ebooks for those of you without a Kindle. You can find those on my Amazon page: amazon.com/author/zoecarmina
Pocket is a cool app that I use to save web pages and review them later.  I sometimes forget to look at the pages once they are saved, and often have to make it a goal in order to declutter my life. I copy the text of any informative site I come across, and link the web page I found it on, and then save these to a place on my Google Drive for later use.  
Now let me share with you my 2017 Quarter 4 goals:
Writing  1. Write Multiverse Story
Editing  2. Find 10 Beta Readers 3. Finish a Round of Critiques
Marketing 4. Look into Word Press for Websites5. Evaluate the current Social Media Situation6. Find 10 Marketing Opportunities7. Look into making Youtube Videos8. Upload Patreon-Only Content9. Make a Kindle Countdown Deal
Publishing 10. Undisclosed Sales Goal
Life 11. Look into setting up a P.O. Box12. Redo Chrome’s New Tab Page on Laptop
 What do your goals look like? Let me know in the comments below!

Commonly Misused Words (and What they Really Mean)

Commonly Misused Words(and What they Really Mean)

Today I want to spend a little time talking about the misuse of words in writing. For a lot of writers that give me their manuscripts to read, I find that a lot of people have trouble with using one word when they really mean another. Sometimes it’s because the spelling is similar, sometimes it has to do with the sound of the particular word, but mainly, I think people use certain words interchangeably because they simply were never taught what the difference is between the two.

I am one of those people who cannot, for the life of me, tell you what something means, the dictionary definition, if you will, of most words. I am that person that tells you how it is used in context, how it fits into different sentences. Not everybody learns one way or another, so you should know that in an attempt to accommodate varying learning styles, I will be pulling dictionary definitions from the internet and giving specific examples of the usage in a sentence. With that, let’s get this started.

Accept/ExceptTo accept something, you are taking or receiving it. You could also be receiving something with approval or favor. You can accept suggested changes to a document. You can accept a point of view. Specific examples of this include: “I cannot accept your apology for something you didn’t do.” or “I can accept this concept.”

Except is mainly a preposition, which typically means excluding. You can take everything someone has said except that. Specific examples include: “I like everything about this car except the color.” or “It’s a good start, except I think your method could be improved.” or even, “They had all been there, except me.”

Affect/EffectAffect means to act upon. In this way, someone can affect a change in the quality of the bread they are making by using milk instead of water in their ingredients. It is the act of doing the thing. They are acting upon the recipe to produce a change to the result. Affect typically describes the act which has caused the change in present tense. Specific examples include: “This drought has affected the crops.” or “The play affected him deeply.” or perhaps “

Effect, on the other hand, means the result, the consequence of an outside cause. Validating a hypothesis could be the effect of having tested said hypothesis, or the effect could be to invalidate the hypothesis in part or in whole. Something has acted upon this situation to produce an effect. Effect usually describes the thing that has been acted upon in past tense. Specific examples include: “The sun exposure had the effect of reddening his skin.” or “She effected a plan.” and even “Her pleas produced no effect whatsoever.”

A lot/ AllotA lot (don’t confuse yourself and write alot, that is incorrect entirely) means very many, a large number. You can love someone a lot. Specific examples include: “Romance movies make her cry a lot.” or “The state of the economy has improved a lot.” You can also emphasize this further by saying a whole lot, as in, “We are gonna need a whole lot more food for all the people that showed up to this party.”

Allot means to divide or distribute by share or portion. You can allot the number of pizza slices each child gets at a birthday party. Specific examples include: “You must finish the test in the allotted number of minutes.” or “Each person has an allotted amount of water gallons given to them each week during the crisis.”

Assent/Ascent and Dissent/DescentAssent means to agree about something. You can assent that someone is right. Specific examples include: “Please give your assent to my petition.” or “He had to assent that it was the right thing to do.”

Ascent means to go up or to rise. You can ascend the stairs. Specific examples include: “The steep ascent was tiring on her old bones.” or “She could feel her soul ascend into the clouds.”

Some people may not be aware that you can also dissent. Dissent means to disagree about something. You can dissent a point of view. Specific examples include: “The child clearly wanted her to agree, but she shook her head in dissent.” or “I must give my dissent to that statement.”

In the same way, you can Descent. This is not to be confused with the same sounding word, decent which means to conform with the generally accepted standards of moral behavior, as in the sentence, “He was a decent human being.” You can descend the stairs. Specific examples include: “The plane went down in a steep descent.” or “She watched his slow and painful descent into madness, knowing she could not help him in this.”

Breath/BreatheBreath is that air inhaled and exhaled during respiration. This is the object that we physically take into our lungs. In other words, you can take a breath. Specific examples include: “Let out all your breath and then take a deep breath in right after.” or “Go out and have a breath of fresh air.”

Breathe, on the other hand, means to inhale or exhale air in respiration. Breathing is the physical act of taking a breath. People will tell a person in danger of suffocation to breathe. Specific examples include: “Breathe, damn you! Breathe!” or “I need some room to breathe.”   

Lose/LooseWhen you lose someone or something, you have come to be without it. You can lose your temper. You can lose your mind. Specific examples include: “How could you lose the car keys when they were just in your hand?” or “Let’s try and lose the cops.” or even, “Don’t lose this phone number.”

Loose on the other hand, means that something is free or released from attachment. You can break something loose. You can let loose. Specific examples include: “I think my shoelace came loose.” or “My pants are loose thanks to all the weight I’ve lost.” or “Get out of here or I’ll loose my dogs on you!”

To/TooTo is a preposition used in directing motion towards someone or something. You can go to the bank. Where are you going? To(wards) the bank. Specific examples include: “I’m about to go get lunch.” or “I might go to the fair this evening to see the fireworks show from the ferris wheel.”

Too means as well, or in addition to. You might agree to something too. Specific examples include: “I want to go see grandma and grandpa’s house too!” or “I, too, feel the same way.”

Vial/VileA vial is a container which is typically used in science or alchemical experiments, and sometimes they are capped or left uncapped. Specific examples would include: “I need a vial of your blood.”  or “Hand me that vial of potion on the shelf just there.”

Vile on the other hand, means that someone or something is gross, vicious, or even evil. It is also often used as a curse word. Specific examples include: “I will not drink that vile concoction!” or “She is a vile woman.”

How to Build a Realistic Daily Writing Goal

How to Build a Realistic Daily Writing Goal



Let’s talk about making daily writing goals. I think that everyone tries to make daily writing goals of some sort, but it’s not often that I find somebody who actually keeps them. Starting a new habit is extremely difficult, and keeping that habit is even harder. So today I want to talk about making a realistic daily writing goal that you are able to keep.
First let me explain that most writing goals start off either way too optimistic, or way too pessimistic. Everyone wants to write every day, and that’s fine, but when you start off trying to write too much or too little, it’s a bad deal all around. Let me give you a few examples.

Optimistic GoalsOptimistic writing goals largely come about because you look at full-time authors who put out several books a year, and think to yourself, oh, I should be doing that too. If this author can write three books a year, I can as well! But that’s not entirely true.
Let me remind you that comparing yourself to any full-time author is not a good measuring stick for your success, because they likely have their own marketing crew, editorial staff, and publishing team. All they have to do is write the book and approve the edits, and they are published. Indie Authors have to do all these things themselves, and work a full 40 hours a week on top of that, which means you’ll be lucky to roll out a book a year.
And thinking you won’t write during the week, you’ll just cram all your words in on the weekend won’t happen either. I mean, you’ll have two days to get your writing done, in addition to errands, housework, time with the family, and time for yourself.
When you make optimistic writing goals, what really happens is you will only ever reach them rarely, and this will leave you feeling crappy about it most of the time.

Pessimistic GoalsOnce you’ve gotten it out of your head that you aren’t a famous author writing loads of books a year, you start to make pessimistic writing goals. You say to yourself, well, that didn’t work. What’s the absolute least I can allow myself to do every day? These goals really low-ball your writing efforts. While you can make them fairly easily, what kind of words are you putting down on a page when you’re only writing, say one page or 100 words per day?
At that stage, the writing really isn’t a challenge. You can make these goals so easily that it makes you complacent in your work. You might feel like you’re doing great because of your low goals, especially after failing so abysmally with the optimistic ones, but you’re really hurting yourself in the end, because you could be doing a lot more.

Realistic GoalsRealistic writing goals come about when you get really serious about your writing. They take into account all the things going into your life, as well as your capabilities as a writer, and bring them all together into one nice little package. A realistic goal is both attainable and sustainable. Let me show you what you need to consider in order to build one of your own.


So Let’s Talk About Goal SettingThe first thing you’ll want to do is figure out what your measuring stick is going to be. By that I mean what determines whether you had a successful day or not? There are three main types of goals.
Minutes per Day. In this type of goal, you say, I want to write for (x amount of) minutes per day. If you can honestly sit yourself down and say you gave your project your full effort for that time, you’ve done it! Mark a star in your calendar. This type of goal setting is particularly useful for the research and planning phase of a novel, when you aren’t necessarily writing your own words down on a page.
Words per Day. In this type of goal, you say, I want to write (x amount of) words per day. If you write that many new words, you’ve made it to the goal. This type of goal setting is especially useful when you are in the midst of writing your piece. It helps you concentrate on writing it a small chunk at a time.
Pages per Day. In this type of goal, you say, I’m going to write (x amount of) pages per day. This is helpful if you are in the editing stages, to get you through your manuscript without giving up. 
Keep in mind that I have also seen successful authors use pages per day in the writing phase, or use words per day during the entire project. The main thing is to think of what makes the most sense to you, and use that to measure yourself by. And just a friendly reminder that you’re measuring up to yourself. You cannot compare your first draft to a published author’s final draft.

Now, once you have it in mind how you are going to measure your progress, you need to chart it all out. You can’t begin to know how to do this until you know how you operate. I use a word count goal, and my chart looks something like this:
Sunday – Day off from work – 500 WordsMonday – Deposit day – 150 WordsTuesday – Work day – 300 WordsWednesday – Work day – 300 WordsThursday – Deposit day – 150 WordsFriday – Half day at work – 500 WordsSaturday – Day off from work – 500 Words
Notice anything? My word counts vary based on how my typical workweek goes. Here’s how I came up with those numbers.
You have to figure out how many words/pages/minutes you can write in a typical day. For me, I use my lunch hour at work to write, so it was about figuring out how many words I could write in an hour. If I scarf down lunch and am super motivated, I can write about 500 words in an hour. But looking at this seriously, I am not usually motivated, being at work, and asking me to write that much at work is kind of stressful. So 300 words is about all I can typically manage on a lunch break. On days that I have to make a deposit for my job, my brains are typically fried by the end after all that math, so writing even 150 words those days are sometimes a total chore. Yet on the weekend, I fully expect myself to write at least 500 words a day.

The idea here can be expanded as well. Don’t simply think about how many words/pages you can get through in an hour. Think about how many hours you actually have that you can devote towards writing per week. For me, writing before or after work just isn't an option. Life is too busy to expect me to come home and do that. But on the weekend, I get in a cool 500 words, and often much more than that. This is difficult to do, because it means you have to be totally, completely honest about when you have the time and energy to write, and when you don’t.

I encourage you to 1. find out when you like to write the best by tracking your week and typical writing times and 2. try to find any extra pockets of writing time that you can, especially if they happen during your peak writing time. Really examine yourself and your schedule. Getting up an hour earlier for you morning people or staying up an hour later for you night writers could be the key. If that isn't feasible, see if  there's a way to rearrange your day so that there is less to do during your peak writing time, for instance, doing half a sink of dishes every morning instead of doing them at night if you find that you like to write at night. Or packing lunches and setting up the coffee maker the night before instead of doing it in the morning for you morning people. Get your other chores out of the way as much as possible during your peak, so you have more time to write.
When you do the math you’ll see that writing a 50,000 or 100,000 word novel isn’t very difficult to do. If all you write is 500 words per day, in 14 weeks, or a little over 3 months’ time, you’ll make 50,000 words. If it needs to be longer, you can achieve 100,000 words in six or seven months’ time. And if you get in extra words over the weekend like I do, you’ll finish even faster.

Add in a Zero Day
One last thing to consider, and that is to add in zero days. By that I mean, schedule in days where you aren't required to write any words at all. Think about it seriously. You aren't going to write any words at all if you're expected to be cooking Thanksgiving Dinner that day for the whole family. Have a night out with friends planned? Nope, no words on that day either. Maybe a movie is coming out that you've been dying to see, or maybe a friend is having a housewarming party. The point is, I schedule all holidays as off, knowing myself well enough to know I won't write on those days. You need to know yourself well enough too, and give yourself a few days off every month in order to just do what you want to do. 
It’s easy to see that with just a small commitment to yourself and your craft, you can use this to write several first drafts per year, edit many pages very quickly, do a lot of research, and just generally get things done. Assess yourself and your skill. Figure out how you want to measure your progress, and find out how much time you can really devote to your writing every day. Track your peak writing time, find extra pockets of time within your busy schedule, even if you have to rearrange. Add in zero days whenever you will need them. With this, you'll carve out a writing schedule for yourself that works, and that you can stick to.

What methods do you use to track your writing progress and set attainable goals? Let me know in the comments!

5 Word Count Killers (and How to Avoid Them)

5 Word Count Killers (and How to Avoid Them)


Whenever you go to author blogs, or hear interviews from your favorite author, the number one piece of advice is always to write every day. While it is good in theory, for an Indie Author, it doesn't always work that way. Starting a writing habit is extremely difficult. Life so easily gets in the way. So here are the 5 worst word count killers, and how to avoid them.

The Problem: Writer's BlockTo tell you the honest truth, I'm not convinced that Writer's Block is actually a real thing. I'm really only half convinced this might exist. What is this mysterious thing we blame for 90% of our problems not writing? Words are hard, I get that, but I really feel that what most people term "Writer's Block" they are using interchangeably with words like "Procrastination" and "Lack of Motivation". 
Don't get me wrong. I once put a novel on hold for two years because I didn't like a plot twist that had come up and couldn't figure out how to work with it. I woke up from a dead sleep one day, after two whole years not thinking about the novel at all, and voila! I suddenly knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it, and that novel was back on track. Writer's block is a thing, and it does happen. However, if it hits you unaware, it's most likely because you haven't done enough planning. 
The Fix: BrainstormingFirst off, you need to come to terms with the fact that it might not be true Writer's Block that you're facing. If this is not the case, and there is no other underlying cause, then you could truly have a blockage that you need to work on.
The easiest way to get yourself out of a block is to brainstorm plots and ideas. The reason this works is that it forces you to confront what's really causing the block, and to work out ways around it. There are a lot of different things that could help, no matter the situation. 
A mind map is a graphical way to represent ideas and is a visual way to help structure your information. Using your character as the center bubble, branch out things about your character that motivates them, that they like or dislike, main concepts you're trying to portray, or even situations they might face. If you use the plot as the center bubble, you can line out important plot points that are the crux of your story, and branch out to scenes that you have which move each piece of that plot along.
You can also use writing prompts. There are thousands of prompts for every genre, and even vague ones for every genre. Pick one you like, and write them as if they are taking place with your character, within your story, or inside your world. Use the rules of your world to make it as likely an event as possible, and really explore the character and the situation they find themself in. 
I've even had success with rewriting the scene from the perspective of another character who is also in the scene. This forces you to reevaluate the importance of why these things are taking place, and helps you to understand how each character is experiencing the same scene.

The Problem: Not Knowing Where to Go NextSometimes as authors we get so excited about a story or a scene that we jump straight into writing it, the words flowing freely out of our heads and onto the page, but then your inspiration flags in the middle of the scene. Maybe your characters have gotten themselves arrested without warning, or have taken your story off in an interesting direction that was different than you had thought it would be. No matter the cause, your character is now legitimately dropped into the middle of the ocean, and treading water with no direction or land in sight.
The Fix: Plan AheadPlanning ahead is a great way of staying on top of your writing habits. If you're especially pleased with what you've written today, at the end of the writing session, scribble in a few more words into the end of the document about what you're thinking will happen next.
Another option is to spend about 5 minutes before bed writing in a journal or notebook about what you need to accomplish in the next day. Don't just say that you need to "write 500 words today." Think a bit about it, and ask yourself what your characters need to accomplish tomorrow. This way, you have something to write about even before you sit down. The main idea is that you are a little bit ahead of the game.
Finally, keep a scene or two in reserve, which are really clear in your head. All of us have pieces of the plot that are really clear, and pieces that are really blurry. You know, even before you write it, what has to happen in certain scenes, so most of the time you want to write them, and get them down on the page as fast as possible. But because these scenes are so clear in your head, it's unlikely that you'll forget them. Make a few notes on each scene, so that you don't lose your vision, but leave these scenes largely untouched. This way, if you are really stuck, or having a rough time putting words on the page, you can pull one of these brilliant scenes out and get to writing something right away with no word counts lost.

The Problem: Time ManagementAs an Indie Author, I actually have a day job that doesn't involve my writing. Because I work 40+ hours a week, I used to find it incredibly difficult to write even 300 words a day after I got home. I would get off work, sit at my desk, and the internet would immediately turn my brains to mush until I went to bed. Because I was exhausted and couldn't brain any longer, no words would get written.
I tried waking up an hour early like some writers do, getting some words in before I started my day. While this might work for some, I'm not a morning person, and I spend the first two hours of my day, going largely by autopilot until I have enough tea and moving around that I can finally wake up. This utterly failed for me.
The trouble was, I was thinking that in order to write anything at all, I'd have to sit down at my desk at home for an hour or two every day and work at writing, or spend my whole weekend cramming as many words onto a page as I could possibly manage. I mean, how could I call myself a writer if I wasn't as serious about writing as I was about my day job?
I've read tons of blogs that say you have to structure your writing time in some rigid, grid-like way. They say you have to pencil in appointments for your writing and then keep them. Well, that's a lovely sentiment, but again, that was something that sounded great to me on paper, but just didn't work in practice. One thing I came to understand was that it wasn't about me not being serious about writing. It wasn't about not having time or not making time. For me, it was not utilizing the time that I already had.
I'm an afternoon writer. Finding that out about myself really clued me in to what I should be doing. I really encourage you to figure out when you naturally like to write, because that information is the single best piece of information for you to know about yourself as a writer. No matter what anyone says, for an Indie, I find that you can't force your writing into these neat little packets of time. Life happens. You're already busy enough. If you schedule these time packets, it just doesn't seem to always work out. So you miss more days with a rigid schedule than anything else.
The Fix: Restructure Your Writing TimeSo what do you do? You do what you have to do. It's that simple. You write whenever you can. I can get in 600 words or so on my hour lunch break. Only have half an hour? Take ten minutes to scarf down some dinner leftovers and then get in as many words as you can.
I write on notebooks when I am waiting for a movie to start, or for a friend to meet me at a restaurant.
Do you have a commute to or from work? Use the time in commute. Instead of listening to the radio or something, I typically dictate my novels using apps on my phone when I am driving or can't otherwise use my hands.
I will even admit to putting my tablet in a plastic baggie so that I could take it with me into the shower and finish my word counts while I'm rinsing my hair one-handed. Let's be totally honest. You get a ton of good ideas while you're in the shower anyway, so why not?
The main point is that I identified all the tiny bits of downtime that I possibly could have during the day, and with the help of my handy dandy notebook, or cell phone, or tablet, or whatever, I get words in every single day. And you have no idea how nice it is to come home from work and have my word count done, or nearly there already, because I worked on it while I was on lunch at work. It's like finishing your homework while you're still at school.

The Problem: MotivationFor writers, doing the thing is so very hard. You're sitting there staring at your Work In Progress like "Wut R Werds!" Some days, you literally can't even. And you know what? That's okay. I'd venture to say that most people who become writers do so because we're introverts. And this is important to our writing life. I'll tell you why. 
You may think that as an introvert, sitting in a room by yourself, pouring your heart and soul out into your story, is the best thing ever. I mean, why would we give up our lives like that to be by ourselves and in our own heads if not? But you are actually pouring your soul into your novel when you give it some of your precious time. Unlike an extrovert, who absorbs energy by being around other people, introverts make their own energy inside themselves. We give to others, and we put our energy into everything we do, totally exhausting ourselves in the process.
The Fix: Recharge Your BatteriesRecharging is an essential part of being not only an introvert, but a writer. Sometimes, you really have to allow yourself some grace and take a few days off the writing gig. You can't give if your well is dry. This one is harder to give a definitive answer for, since so much of how you recharge depends on you. Let me attempt at least to give you a few examples, and maybe you can think of some of your own as well.
One of the biggest things to recharge is to clear out anything that is causing a backlog in your life. Finish a book or a video game that you've been putting off. Clean the house. Give the dog a bath. Weed out the lawn and mow the grass. Whatever is bothering you, take a day or two off from writing to fix it. 
Another idea involves exercising. Get yourself out of the chair, or out of the house and go do something active, whether it be hitting the gym, pounding the pavement, meditating, stretching, doing some yoga. Go to the park and take a turn on the swings. Go to the beach or the pool. Get up and dance. The main thing if this is your way to recharge is to move. 
Sleep is also an obvious choice. Being exhausted and trying to force your way through a scene, a page, an outline, is never going to work. Get to sleep, even if it means going to bed an hour or two early for a few nights. Sleep is a super recuperative method for recharging, and it can help you out in other areas of your life too, so this is a must.
None of those things work for you? Listen to loud music. Take a long bubble bath. Hang out with friends once in a while. Take the time for you, and make sure that you are making recharging a high priority in your life, so that you can always be in top form when you come to the page.

I can guarantee that the time spent away is not wasted. When I'm hanging out with friends, I'm thinking of my characters that I made based on these people right in front of me. When I'm out at the park, I'm thinking of how I would describe this place in my novel. I think about how this grove of trees in my world could be a secret hidden entrance to meeting fairies or mermaids at the beach. So much of my away time is spent thinking about my novels that by the time I come back to them I'm positively itching to write. Getting away from it all can bring you back to it in the best way.

The Problem: ProcrastinationIt's said that for a lot of us writers, you can always tell how well the writing is going by looking at the state of their house. While this is a funny statement, you can immediately see why it is so relevant. At the heart of this statement is the idea that when the writing isn't going well, you end up doing other things, namely, cleaning the house. 
Here's an example. I've been off all day today, and it's taken me till nearly 3 PM to write this part of the post, when I got out of bed before 10 AM with the set intention to finish it. What did I do instead? Ate breakfast, opened up the post, got on Facebook, looked at my word count spreadsheets, cleaned the kitchen, ate lunch, finished reading a book, looked at the post again, organized my desktop, threw out my broken printer, cleaned my office, did some research. I even considered building a bookshelf for my manga collection from scratch before sitting down to write this part of the post. Procrastination is honestly more detrimental to my word counts than any other reason. 
The Fix: Figure Out the WhyThere are tons of reasons we procrastinate, so the main thing to understand is that you need to identify the why behind it. Are you unsure how to proceed from where you are? Maybe you need to do some thinking and brainstorm more ideas. Have you lost steam? Go back to your earliest notes on the book, and see if your current writing matched the vision you had for it when you were truly inspired by the idea. 
Figure out why you're procrastinating. There's always an underlying reason, and address it directly. Why didn't I want to write this post today? Because writing prose is super easy, and I hit my word counts and then some each day I write a blog post. I knew that I would likely be finishing this post today, and didn't want to let it go because, if I'm being honest, I'm stuck in my current WIP and didn't want to go back to struggling to make my word counts. 
Once you have the why of it figured out, you can begin to make your writing a priority again. I understand that I don't want to go back to being stuck in a fictional world, but I can also see that it is incredibly important to get my characters unstuck again. Only I can do that. 
You can think of your task list as a number of rocks, in many shapes and sizes. The biggest rocks are your most important or closest deadline tasks, whereas the smaller rocks represent the lesser tasks that aren't due for a while, or aren't as important. Sure, you can fill a jar with small rocks, but there will be no room for big rocks if you do. You need to put the big rocks, the important rocks, in first, and then fill the rest of the day with little rocks in between. Make it a priority to work on your writing every day, and you will feel way better about your writing career. 

What do you think? What's the worst word count killer for you, and how do you get back to writing? Let me know in the comments!

General Word Count Guidelines

You know, I've always wondered what kind of word counts I should be looking to accomplish for a full-fledged novel. Part of this is because of NaNoWriMo, where you have to try to make 50,000 words in a month, the idea being that you would potentially have a first draft of your novel in hand. And part of this is my own general curiosity as an e-book indie author, just to find out how I 'measure up' to other authors who have published physical books. 

Scouring the net, I have seen a whole bunch of word counts, and so I have a very generalized idea now for how many words a finished novel should be. Bear in mind that these are very loose numbers, and I can tell you that none of my 'finished' novels reach these general goals. As an indie author, I think that's okay though, and it could be a useful tool to give you something to strive for.



Book Genre                              General Word CountsMiddle Grade                                25,000 to 40,000Young Adult Fiction                    50,000 to 80,000New Adult Fiction                       60,000 to 85,000Romance                                       60,000 to 100,000Mystery, Thriller, Suspense      70,000 to 90,000Non-Fiction                                  70,000 to 110,000Horror                                           80,000 to 100,000Literary Fiction                           80,000 to 110,000Fantasy, Science Fiction           90,000 to 125,000

Books Now Available on the Kindle Store!

For a long time, my books were only available to be downloaded at Smashwords.com and the 5-10 retailers they ship to. Amazon was not one of them. And so I navigated the extremely complicated Amazon Kindle Publishing site, and (lucky for you) have successfully put all my books (to date) on the Kindle Store~!

Click on this link to see them all!

As always, thank you for being such awesome people!

Authenticity in Writing

I had someone post on Facebook, saying they had a concept for a series of books. They wanted to know, if they wrote these books, if we thought they would sell.

This was my response:

"That sounds really inventive, and unlike anything I've seen in recent years. However, as an indie author, I'm against writing a book because you 'think it will sell.' I have to write books for myself, without the thought of 'if I write it this way, will it sell?'

I write it in whatever way it occurs to me, or else the story isn't really authentically me. I want to stand by whatever I write. Do I wanna quit my day job and just write passionately and sell thousands of books? Absolutely. But I try to keep in mind that isn't the reason I write, either.

Should you write the books? Absolutely. But do it for yourself first and foremost and I think you will be much happier with the outcome."

What do you think? Do you agree?

Badass Training #003 - Needles

Needles

Level One: Watch someone else get poked with a needle.
Level Two: Watch yourself get poked with a needle.
Level Three: Get a tattoo on yourself.
Level Four: Administer a needle to someone else.
Level Five: Administer a needle to yourself.

Badass Training #002 - Blood and Gore

Blood and Gore

Level One: See blood coming from a dead human or animal without feeling uneasy.

Level Two: See blood coming from a living human or animal without feeling uneasy.

Level Three: Interact with a dead human or animal with ease. (Move something that's dead to a more appropriate space, chop up a whole chicken into pieces to fry, et cetera).

Level Four: Interact with a living human or animal with ease. (Stitch up a wound, give someone an injection, et cetera).