Jamie DeBree's Blog, page 2

Writing Notes: April 30, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
DLA (Revisions): Two chapters reviewed, plot timeline started.
24C: 500 words

Hey – did you know it’s Independent Bookstore Day?! Go visit your local bookstore, and buy a book or three! Don’t have one? Borrow mine, and order a book off their web site: This House of Books

This week hasn’t been as productive as I would have liked, but it’s my own fault, and I did make progress, so I can’t complain too much. I got some words in on 24C, and started plotting that a bit as I go. Getting to know the primary characters is the most important part of the first few scenes for me, and I’m definitely getting a feel for the personalities I have to work with, which makes the writing go a bit more quickly.

I’ve also gotten some work done on revisions for DLA. I read through the first couple of chapters, reoriented myself to the characters and how the story starts, and started plotting it out in Plottr, using an action template as a guide (and I just added a romance plot line to the timeline). So, moving along with that as well.

It feels like it’s taking *forever* just because I don’t have that much time each day to work on it. Half an hour is barely time to get anything done, and I’ve been using that first half-hour to plot, and then my reading time at night to read the draft.

And of course I need to be moving 24C along as well if I want to meet my new publishing goals, so that gets half an hour too, but I had one “throw-away” night this week, the next night I had to install updates on my Freewrite, etc. It just is what it is, but I may have to figure out a way to work on the revisions/plotting while I’m watching TV or something, just to make faster progress with that part.

I’d work on them over the weekends, but on the weekends I need to do things like these blog posts, and updating cover art, updating book files and finding marketing and cover art images. Right now, it’s 3:14am and I just spend a couple of hours setting my very first book up on Ingram Spark for publication there…which was going pretty well until I couldn’t find my formatted print file for it. So now, I can add reformatting Tempest to my to-do list, and considering Amazon is having a hard time republishing it since I went in and checked out the record there, it might have to be sooner rather than later.

Though I’ve been thinking maybe I should update it a bit, since I have to reformat it and publish it under a new ISBN anyways (when I first published it, I used a free ISBN from CreateSpace, so I need to swap that out for one of mine, which means unpublishing that one and republishing the new one back on Amazon after I get it published on Ingram.

Publishing print is a pain in the butt, honestly. But I love print books, and I’ll keep publishing them for those who do.

Now, it’s time to get some sleep so I can at least half-heartedly tackle the weekend once I finally crawl out of bed. The hubby and I are headed to a Rock & Gem show tomorrow. Any guesses about how many book ideas I come home with?

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 30, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
DLA (Revisions): Two chapters reviewed, plot timeline started.
24C: 500 words

Hey – did you know it’s Independent Bookstore Day?! Go visit your local bookstore, and buy a book or three! Don’t have one? Borrow mine, and order a book off their web site: This House of Books

This week hasn’t been as productive as I would have liked, but it’s my own fault, and I did make progress, so I can’t complain too much. I got some words in on 24C, and started plotting that a bit as I go. Getting to know the primary characters is the most important part of the first few scenes for me, and I’m definitely getting a feel for the personalities I have to work with, which makes the writing go a bit more quickly.

I’ve also gotten some work done on revisions for DLA. I read through the first couple of chapters, reoriented myself to the characters and how the story starts, and started plotting it out in Plottr, using an action template as a guide (and I just added a romance plot line to the timeline). So, moving along with that as well.

It feels like it’s taking *forever* just because I don’t have that much time each day to work on it. Half an hour is barely time to get anything done, and I’ve been using that first half-hour to plot, and then my reading time at night to read the draft.

And of course I need to be moving 24C along as well if I want to meet my new publishing goals, so that gets half an hour too, but I had one “throw-away” night this week, the next night I had to install updates on my Freewrite, etc. It just is what it is, but I may have to figure out a way to work on the revisions/plotting while I’m watching TV or something, just to make faster progress with that part.

I’d work on them over the weekends, but on the weekends I need to do things like these blog posts, and updating cover art, updating book files and finding marketing and cover art images. Right now, it’s 3:14am and I just spend a couple of hours setting my very first book up on Ingram Spark for publication there…which was going pretty well until I couldn’t find my formatted print file for it. So now, I can add reformatting Tempest to my to-do list, and considering Amazon is having a hard time republishing it since I went in and checked out the record there, it might have to be sooner rather than later.

Though I’ve been thinking maybe I should update it a bit, since I have to reformat it and publish it under a new ISBN anyways (when I first published it, I used a free ISBN from CreateSpace, so I need to swap that out for one of mine, which means unpublishing that one and republishing the new one back on Amazon after I get it published on Ingram.

Publishing print is a pain in the butt, honestly. But I love print books, and I’ll keep publishing them for those who do.

Now, it’s time to get some sleep so I can at least half-heartedly tackle the weekend once I finally crawl out of bed. The hubby and I are headed to a Rock & Gem show tomorrow. Any guesses about how many book ideas I come home with?

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 23, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): Complete!
24 Carrot: Plotting
RS Romance Draft: Initial read-through

It’s been two weeks with my new desk setup, and I tell you what – it’s made all the difference in the world. I finished revisions on the draft I was working on, and sent that off to the editor. Tentative publication date is June 1st. Yay!

Now I’m ready to plot the next short story draft (24 Carrot), and do the initial read-through of a romance draft I finished last year that needs revision. Those are next up starting Monday (though I’m toying with the idea of having google or my kindle app or something read my draft to me while I’m doing housework this weekend. We’ll see).

I even scheduled hard publishing dates for the rest of the year on a paper calendar that now hangs over my new desk. Yes, I have a myriad of digital planning, list and calendar tools. And they keep me on schedule throughout the days, weeks and months. But in order to feel any sense of urgency at all, I need to see the calendar boxes, and visualize how few days are actually between me and the deadline before it really tickles my brain into taking action.

Basically, having a professional, organized space has freed up my mind for a lot more creativity and productivity. With any luck, by the time the newness wears off, I’ll be stuck in some very good habits that keep pulling me forward.

I’ve been playing with different marketing ideas, and I’m getting to the point where I need to actually implement some of them, but the biggest one is just to publish more books. After that, I’m looking at social media posts (not advertising, just taking part in the book community conversations), and rebooting my newsletters. One thing at a time, and I know I need to be careful about how much I add at once so I don’t burn out. I think I have a good handle on things at the moment. Even if I am impatient to get them all going *yesterday*.

Now I need to finalize the title for BD, and get some cover art going. I see a lot of pictures of beets in my immediate future….

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 23, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): Complete!
24 Carrot: Plotting
RS Romance Draft: Initial read-through

It’s been two weeks with my new desk setup, and I tell you what – it’s made all the difference in the world. I finished revisions on the draft I was working on, and sent that off to the editor. Tentative publication date is June 1st. Yay!

Now I’m ready to plot the next short story draft (24 Carrot), and do the initial read-through of a romance draft I finished last year that needs revision. Those are next up starting Monday (though I’m toying with the idea of having google or my kindle app or something read my draft to me while I’m doing housework this weekend. We’ll see).

I even scheduled hard publishing dates for the rest of the year on a paper calendar that now hangs over my new desk. Yes, I have a myriad of digital planning, list and calendar tools. And they keep me on schedule throughout the days, weeks and months. But in order to feel any sense of urgency at all, I need to see the calendar boxes, and visualize how few days are actually between me and the deadline before it really tickles my brain into taking action.

Basically, having a professional, organized space has freed up my mind for a lot more creativity and productivity. With any luck, by the time the newness wears off, I’ll be stuck in some very good habits that keep pulling me forward.

I’ve been playing with different marketing ideas, and I’m getting to the point where I need to actually implement some of them, but the biggest one is just to publish more books. After that, I’m looking at social media posts (not advertising, just taking part in the book community conversations), and rebooting my newsletters. One thing at a time, and I know I need to be careful about how much I add at once so I don’t burn out. I think I have a good handle on things at the moment. Even if I am impatient to get them all going *yesterday*.

Now I need to finalize the title for BD, and get some cover art going. I see a lot of pictures of beets in my immediate future….

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 16, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): 4 scenes

Every once in awhile, I think it’s a good idea to revisit the reasons why I’m doing what I’m doing, or in this case, writing what I’m writing. In mapping out my writing/revising/publication schedule for the rest of the year, I started really thinking about the drafts I have waiting to be revised, and whether they are worth actually revising or not. Mostly because I still don’t like revisions, and I was looking for a way to move back to drafting new stories instead of reworking the already-written ones.

So, as one does when one’s procrastinating/pondering, I made some lists. Specifically, lists of what genres I’ve written in, and why I want to write in those genres. I asked myself what it was about those genres that drew me to write in them (as opposed to just liking to read them) and what my intentions for writing in them were/are.

I’ll admit that when I started this little exercise, I expected that in romance, I would decide that the cons outweighed the pros, and that I’d probably be better off not writing it. I’m really not an outwardly romantic person, and I feel like that’s somewhat of a liability for a romance writer.

But, I surprised myself. I listed out all the things I love about romance and interpersonal relationships, and also what I wanted my romance stories to embody, and I basically convinced myself that I still have plenty to contribute to the genre. The types of stories I want to tell won’t appeal to everyone, or maybe not even a majority of women, but I do think there’s an audience for them, and I’m still interested in telling romantic stories with certain features.

So that was enlightening and empowering, and also made me realize that the drafts I have ready for revision are probably worth the work after all.

I also decided that it may well be worth the time to revisit some of my older books and update/revise them as well. Joanna Penn has been talking about (and doing) the same thing recently, and I’ve been very interested in her experience with that. Definitely something on my radar for a few specific short stories (and one longer one).

In any case, I did not procrastinate the whole week, by any means. I got my new desk set up, which you can go read about on my main blog (The Variety Pages) next Tuesday if you’re so inclined, and that has spurred a flurry of creativity translating into actual progress. Hooray! I finished revising four more scenes, so the first two chapters are done, with three more to go.

Even better, I like how it’s coming along, and I have a much clearer picture of what I’m doing with the story arc thanks to the plot grid I filled out in Dabble, which makes it easier to stay focused and know what to change.

So that’s all going much better, and I can see a good path forward, which is very motivating in and of itself.

My goals for next week are to finish the BD revisions and send that off for editing, and also to start writing the next short story I want to publish this year. I have the main premise, and I think I’ll just go ahead and start writing, and then plot it when I feel like I have enough info to do so.

I also want to get my print covers updated on the books I updated the digital covers for, and get those titles set up on Ingram Spark. Currently they’re only available in print from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, so it’s time to get them put somewhere bookstores won’t mind ordering from. And if I do that before April 30th, there’s a code I can use to publish five books without the one-time setup fee. It’s a really good deal, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t take advantage of it.

So, busy busy, as usual. But it’s a good kind of busy.

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 16, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): 4 scenes

Every once in awhile, I think it’s a good idea to revisit the reasons why I’m doing what I’m doing, or in this case, writing what I’m writing. In mapping out my writing/revising/publication schedule for the rest of the year, I started really thinking about the drafts I have waiting to be revised, and whether they are worth actually revising or not. Mostly because I still don’t like revisions, and I was looking for a way to move back to drafting new stories instead of reworking the already-written ones.

So, as one does when one’s procrastinating/pondering, I made some lists. Specifically, lists of what genres I’ve written in, and why I want to write in those genres. I asked myself what it was about those genres that drew me to write in them (as opposed to just liking to read them) and what my intentions for writing in them were/are.

I’ll admit that when I started this little exercise, I expected that in romance, I would decide that the cons outweighed the pros, and that I’d probably be better off not writing it. I’m really not an outwardly romantic person, and I feel like that’s somewhat of a liability for a romance writer.

But, I surprised myself. I listed out all the things I love about romance and interpersonal relationships, and also what I wanted my romance stories to embody, and I basically convinced myself that I still have plenty to contribute to the genre. The types of stories I want to tell won’t appeal to everyone, or maybe not even a majority of women, but I do think there’s an audience for them, and I’m still interested in telling romantic stories with certain features.

So that was enlightening and empowering, and also made me realize that the drafts I have ready for revision are probably worth the work after all.

I also decided that it may well be worth the time to revisit some of my older books and update/revise them as well. Joanna Penn has been talking about (and doing) the same thing recently, and I’ve been very interested in her experience with that. Definitely something on my radar for a few specific short stories (and one longer one).

In any case, I did not procrastinate the whole week, by any means. I got my new desk set up, which you can go read about on my main blog (The Variety Pages) next Tuesday if you’re so inclined, and that has spurred a flurry of creativity translating into actual progress. Hooray! I finished revising four more scenes, so the first two chapters are done, with three more to go.

Even better, I like how it’s coming along, and I have a much clearer picture of what I’m doing with the story arc thanks to the plot grid I filled out in Dabble, which makes it easier to stay focused and know what to change.

So that’s all going much better, and I can see a good path forward, which is very motivating in and of itself.

My goals for next week are to finish the BD revisions and send that off for editing, and also to start writing the next short story I want to publish this year. I have the main premise, and I think I’ll just go ahead and start writing, and then plot it when I feel like I have enough info to do so.

I also want to get my print covers updated on the books I updated the digital covers for, and get those titles set up on Ingram Spark. Currently they’re only available in print from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, so it’s time to get them put somewhere bookstores won’t mind ordering from. And if I do that before April 30th, there’s a code I can use to publish five books without the one-time setup fee. It’s a really good deal, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t take advantage of it.

So, busy busy, as usual. But it’s a good kind of busy.

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writer’s Notes: April 9, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): 1 scene done (again)
Poems: 4

I wrote poetry this week, so I definitely met that goal. My downfall(?) was deciding to use it as a dual purpose exercise, and experiment with making TikTok videos of me…writing poetry. Literally.

As with all new skills, it took me few tries and some fiddling to figure out how/what I wanted to do with that, and between writing a poem each night and then rewriting it while I took a video, and then clipping said video and uploading, captioning, etc….

It was a lot. All things that were good to learn and figure out, and by the third one, more than one person hit the “like” button, but it just took a lot of time that I should probably have spent doing revisions. Or maybe it was good to spend the time learning this, since every time I do it, I go faster, and now that I know what I’m doing (sort of), I can save up bits of writing and make a bunch of videos all at once to schedule posts throughout the month.

Sometimes taking the time to learn something new is exactly what we need to do in order to move forward in the long game.

I also went back over the first scene of BD, and re-revised it again. I’m much, much happier with it now, and I feel better about moving forward with the rest of the story. I’ll revise what I can, and rewrite what I can’t, and hopefully get this story done and to the editor within the next two weeks. BD has 17 scenes, all around a thousand words or less each, and the first one is done. If I revise/rewrite an average of 2 scenes per night, I should be done on time, if not early.

I’ve been going easy on myself with the deadlines, but I think I’m actually hurting myself by doing that. I need good, solid deadlines to push me to work even when I don’t feel like it, because while I hate revisions and will use any excuse to put it off, I really, really want to get to that end goal, and the only way out is through.

We creatives often tell ourselves to just “let it happen”, but if I do that, it’s not going to. So, I’m going to try the hard deadline approach.

And…you know. No more posting late night TikTok vids. I need to take a bunch, then batch prep them and schedule them out. I’ll be working on that next week too.

I’ll leave you with my first TikTok poem, plain as it is. We all have to start somewhere, right?

My first poem on TikTok

@jamiedebree Have you written a poem today? #poetrymonth #writeapoem #poetic #writing ♬ original sound – JamieDeBree

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writer’s Notes: April 9, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): 1 scene done (again)
Poems: 4

I wrote poetry this week, so I definitely met that goal. My downfall(?) was deciding to use it as a dual purpose exercise, and experiment with making TikTok videos of me…writing poetry. Literally.

As with all new skills, it took me few tries and some fiddling to figure out how/what I wanted to do with that, and between writing a poem each night and then rewriting it while I took a video, and then clipping said video and uploading, captioning, etc….

It was a lot. All things that were good to learn and figure out, and by the third one, more than one person hit the “like” button, but it just took a lot of time that I should probably have spent doing revisions. Or maybe it was good to spend the time learning this, since every time I do it, I go faster, and now that I know what I’m doing (sort of), I can save up bits of writing and make a bunch of videos all at once to schedule posts throughout the month.

Sometimes taking the time to learn something new is exactly what we need to do in order to move forward in the long game.

I also went back over the first scene of BD, and re-revised it again. I’m much, much happier with it now, and I feel better about moving forward with the rest of the story. I’ll revise what I can, and rewrite what I can’t, and hopefully get this story done and to the editor within the next two weeks. BD has 17 scenes, all around a thousand words or less each, and the first one is done. If I revise/rewrite an average of 2 scenes per night, I should be done on time, if not early.

I’ve been going easy on myself with the deadlines, but I think I’m actually hurting myself by doing that. I need good, solid deadlines to push me to work even when I don’t feel like it, because while I hate revisions and will use any excuse to put it off, I really, really want to get to that end goal, and the only way out is through.

We creatives often tell ourselves to just “let it happen”, but if I do that, it’s not going to. So, I’m going to try the hard deadline approach.

And…you know. No more posting late night TikTok vids. I need to take a bunch, then batch prep them and schedule them out. I’ll be working on that next week too.

I’ll leave you with my first TikTok poem, plain as it is. We all have to start somewhere, right?

My first poem on TikTok

@jamiedebree Have you written a poem today? #poetrymonth #writeapoem #poetic #writing ♬ original sound – JamieDeBree

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 2, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): 1.5 scenes done
Ten Word Stories: 3
Poems: 1

Squirrel!

The door opens. A brown blur streaks by. Dog gone!

This should have been posted Saturday, and was ready…I just forgot to actually post it. Such is life when one is distracted by researching dog supplements and replacement desks.

I miscalculated when I made my goals last week – I generally only write four days a week, so that should have been 3 ten-word stories (instead of 4) and 1 poem, which I did. Now I just need to decide which ten-word story to send in to the contest…hmm.

It’s poetry month! I love to read poetry, and I like to play with it as well, though I wouldn’t call myself a poet by any means. I tend to see April kind of like St. Patrick’s Day though – everyone’s Irish on March 17th, and everyone’s a poet for the month of April. Or anyone who wants to be, anyway.

So I decided that while I’m working my way through revisions (slogging, whatever), instead of starting something new, I’ll write poetry. I’ll be reading a lot of poetry too – and to that end, I went to the bookstore yesterday and bought myself a stack of poetry books (plus the free one I got for shopping on the first day of poetry month). I also bought a copy of The Whimsical Muse: Poetic Play for Busy Creatives (that’s me!) by local author Danell Jones. Therein lie 84 writing exercises, many involving poetry that are categorized as either “quick” or “lingering”. I plan to pick out some of the quick poetry prompts to play with this month as a warm-up before I settle in with my revisions each night.

Do you read or write poetry? Will you do one or both this month?

My goals for next week are pretty simple: write a little poetry nightly, and revise a few pages nightly. That’s it…just keeping up the routine, and making it a habit. I would like to work on the plot for the next draft, but…we’ll see if I get to it or not. I need to clean off my desk, too. It’s a mess and driving me nuts.

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible

Writing Notes: April 2, 2022

Weekly Writing Progress
Beet Down (Revisions): 1.5 scenes done
Ten Word Stories: 3
Poems: 1

Squirrel!

The door opens. A brown blur streaks by. Dog gone!

This should have been posted Saturday, and was ready…I just forgot to actually post it. Such is life when one is distracted by researching dog supplements and replacement desks.

I miscalculated when I made my goals last week – I generally only write four days a week, so that should have been 3 ten-word stories (instead of 4) and 1 poem, which I did. Now I just need to decide which ten-word story to send in to the contest…hmm.

It’s poetry month! I love to read poetry, and I like to play with it as well, though I wouldn’t call myself a poet by any means. I tend to see April kind of like St. Patrick’s Day though – everyone’s Irish on March 17th, and everyone’s a poet for the month of April. Or anyone who wants to be, anyway.

So I decided that while I’m working my way through revisions (slogging, whatever), instead of starting something new, I’ll write poetry. I’ll be reading a lot of poetry too – and to that end, I went to the bookstore yesterday and bought myself a stack of poetry books (plus the free one I got for shopping on the first day of poetry month). I also bought a copy of The Whimsical Muse: Poetic Play for Busy Creatives (that’s me!) by local author Danell Jones. Therein lie 84 writing exercises, many involving poetry that are categorized as either “quick” or “lingering”. I plan to pick out some of the quick poetry prompts to play with this month as a warm-up before I settle in with my revisions each night.

Do you read or write poetry? Will you do one or both this month?

My goals for next week are pretty simple: write a little poetry nightly, and revise a few pages nightly. That’s it…just keeping up the routine, and making it a habit. I would like to work on the plot for the next draft, but…we’ll see if I get to it or not. I need to clean off my desk, too. It’s a mess and driving me nuts.

Support your author:
This House of Books (my local bookstore!) | Bookshop.org
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | Audible