Jamie DeBree's Blog, page 5

Weekly Writing 11/3 – 11/09/2018

Weekly Word Counts

TIK: 631

DD: 155

TBS: 331

BD: 0

Total: 1,117

Editing hours: 0

Last week the word counts didn’t go as planned, but something else did, so I’m still counting it as a success. I had some serious brain fog issues going on that were just unavoidable, unfortunately (should not be an issue this week).

But! I sat and wrote every single night last week between 11:15pm and midnight. And even though I didn’t get a lot of words on some nights, I maintained the routine, and I feel like I’m finally getting back into the daily habit of writing, which is what I’ve been trying to do for the last year. It felt good. It *feels* good. And I worked on three drafts, all of which I know where the story needs to go next, and am anxious to get back to work on. Even with the low overall word count, I feel like I accomplished a lot last week, instead of being down on myself for struggling every day and not getting anywhere. That’s good mental progress, even if the word count is still low.

I also realized that writing on the weekend is just not going to happen. I can’t stick to my normal routines, and the schedule has to be flexible due to all the other stuff going on. So, not going to sweat it. No writing on the weekends is just fine. It’ll still be okay. If I can eventually find weekend time, I’ll use it for publishing stuff (which really needs some attention as well).

Friday nights, I’m going to set aside for editing. I need to get going on that too, and it’s not going to happen if I don’t give it a set weekly time. But if I can get the other day counts up, that’s not going to be a problem. And BD is a short story, so it should be finished in a couple of weeks, and that time can go to one of the other three novel drafts.

The last word count increase I did was to 600, and then I got stuck trying to make 650. This week, I’ll start with the 650 goal and see if I can work my way up a little more slowly from there.

This week’s goals:

Mon: 650 words on TIK

Tues: 650 words on DD

Weds: 700 words on TBS

Thurs: 700 words on BD

Fri: Editing for DLA

I may need to switch back to the Neo – my right wrist is sore due to something stupid I did while getting Halloween decorations out, so good writing position is important for it, and I’m not sure the smaller netbook keyboard is helping with that. We’ll see. Either way, I have plenty of different options, so I should be able to find a more or less comfortable way to write. No excuses!

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 11/1 – 11/2/2018

Weekly Word Counts

TIK: 619

DD: 557

TBS: 0

BD: 0

Total: 1,176

Editing hours: 0

You may (or may not) have noticed I missed a couple week’s worth of posts. I’ve been having another ridiculous pity party centered on not being able/willing to find time to write. I do that because of course, I want to do “all the things” and “right now” and all the things I want to do will not fit in a normal time period, so I have to set priorities and decide what’s important and what’s not and what is a waste of time and what’s not and pretty much every time I have to try to rearrange my far-too-full-priority list, I tend to have a mini-meltdown/temper tantrum because…well, you know. I can’t actually do “all the things”. Which sucks.

But, writing always makes the “high priority list”, and while I’m not participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) this year, I’m definitely writing novels, and doing my damnedest to find enough time every single day/night (weekends included) to write a specific number of words starting at 500 and increasing by 50 words every weekday in November. It’s going to get harder as the month goes on, but that’s kind of the point. Once the month is over, I should have successfully found and made a habit of writing at certain specific times during the day – a habit/habits that I can continue indefinitely.

Early this week, it was Halloween, and that is one time of the year when everything else gets pushed aside for a few days while we set up and run our annual yard haunt, so there was no writing Mon/Tues/Weds. But Thursday, I picked a starting point, organized the rest of my day to make that time as free as possible, and wrote just over 600 words (the goal was 500).

Friday, the goal was 550 words, and I barely squeaked in at 7 words over, but I still made the goal, even after a long day and getting a late start writing. So I feel pretty good about those.

Today (Saturday) and Sunday, the goal stays at 550 words per day. I’m cycling through four drafts (just one after the other, every day a different story to keep the brain hoppin’), so today I’ll work on TBS, and tomorrow BD.

Next week’s goal list looks like this:

Mon: 600 wds on TIK

Tues: 650 wds on DD

Weds: 700 wds on TBS

Thurs: 750 wds on BD

Fri: 800 wds on TIK

Sat: 800 wds on DD

Sun: 800 wds on TBS

I’m equal parts scared that I won’t be able to make it happen, and determined to do whatever needs to be done to make sure it does happen, so…we’ll see. Goals are good. Progress is good. Finishing stories is good.

One of these days I might even get a little editing done too.

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 10/7 – 10/20/18

Weekly Word Counts

TIK: 568

DD: 561

TBS: 0

BD: 0

Total: 1,129

Editing hours: 0

Not a lot of progress this week, but at least it’s some. I’m trying to be more flexible with the writing times, and that seems to be working out…some of the time. But I also still have a pretty severe “distraction” problem, and I need to really force myself to focus when I do have time to get some words in. I’ll keep working on it.

I’ve given a lot of thought as to whether or not to do NaNoWriMo this year or not, and have decided not to. I have plenty of drafts that need to be finished, and a couple to edit, and I really don’t need another draft waiting impatiently for its turn to be edited and published while the current WIPs sit languishing for a month.

So, I’m sitting this one out, and instead, I’m going to make my own challenge to write 500 words minimum every day in November, and then add 50 extra words every weekday (cumulative). Like so:

Nov. 1: 500

Nov. 2, 550

Nov. 3 & 4:550

Nov. 5: 600

Nov. 7: 650

Nov. 8: 700

Nov. 9: 750

Nov. 10 & 11: 750

Nov. 12: 800

I’ll do that all month continuing to move my word count higher, and by the end of the month, I should have myself “re-trained” not only to write consistently, but to focus on it longer and more steadily. A win-win in my book.

As for this week, my goal is simply to write every day. No matter the word count, just open a document and work on *something* daily to get ready for my November challenge.

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 10/6 – 10/12/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM/TIK: 308

DD: 251

TBS: 0

BD: 650

Total: 1,209

Editing hours: 2

Long time no update! Only two weeks, actually, but the first week I just plain forgot, and last week…well, there was a Godsmack/Shinedown concert, and yeah, I forgot again. Not that I’ve been writing particularly much lately, but still.

My main problem with writing has been that I haven’t been able to find set times to form a habit around. Every time I think I have a new routine set, something co-ops that time spot that I have little or no control over. And I have a problem taking time away from my husband or dogs when they get little enough as is, which leaves me very little time left for myself. Generally time I’d be using for sleep. And then I have to make choices prioritizing writing or editing/publishing tasks. I have a couple of drafts that only need editing and publishing, but I can’t ever find the time to get those tasks done, and publishing is kind of the “cherry on top” of writing. Without that, I’m not sure why I keep trying. But I do.

In any case, I’m working on it, and constantly trying to form a more flexible “habit” of sorts (which goes against every personality trait I have). The other option is to give up writing, and I’m not ready to do that again. At least not yet.

But I feel good about the progress I made last week, and I plan to keep working on it this next week. Eventually, something will stick and I’ll be in a more productive place again. For awhile, at least.

I have started using a new writing program called Novelize. It’s a nice little program, well organized with a lot of nice bells and whistles. My only complaint is that it’s only accessible in the cloud, which means if the internet is out, you can’t access it. Granted, I am rarely without internet access, but it’s certainly a possibility. It means I need to remember to export a copy of all my drafts at least weekly (after each writing session would be better, but I tend to be lazy). At least the exports are rather beautifully formatted, and I think that will also help with the print formatting as well.

The nice thing about a cloud program is, of course, that I can access it anywhere I have internet. Which makes it easier to get a few minutes of writing in here and there around other things on the schedule.

It’s not quite as nice as Novlr (Novlr is both cloud-based and available offline too, though Novlr doesn’t have weekly progress emails), but Novelize is half the cost at only $5 per month, which also makes it rather appealing.

My rather lofty goal for this week is 500 words of fiction per day, plus 30 minutes of editing. We’ll see what happens, but it’s good to have goals. Even better to meet them.

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 9/22 – 9/29/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM/TIK: 0

DD: 86

TBS: 0

BD: 354

Total: 440

Editing hours: 0

I got a tiny bit of writing in this week, but not nearly as much as I’d have liked. I need to change my writing times again, so I’m trying out a few different things. So far, one thing worked…for all of one day. But I’ll figure it out. It’s just going to take some serious discipline, is all. Something I seem to be sadly lacking in at this point. Although it’s not quite that simple. It never really is, is it?

In any case, I started a new short story today – another one of Alex’s Death by Veggies stories. It would be great for Halloween, but while theoretically I should be able to finish it in plenty of time, my writing record of late says otherwise. We’ll see. I have a couple days off coming up soon, and I plan to use them for writing and/or editing. But I should skew towards the editing so I can get a couple of books published this fall.

Another week, another seven day’s worth of possible writing opportunities. Onward!

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 9/16 – 9/21/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM/TIK: 636

DD: 0

TBS: 0

Total: 636

Editing hours: 0

Yes, it was one of those weeks. No, I don’t particularly want to talk about it. So why am I posting?

I’m posting because I did write six hundred words in one session this week. Which isn’t bad progress, and if I could do that more regularly (say, daily), life would be good. Grand, even. Awesome. Wonderful.

I had a lot of distraction this week, and a lot of having to have my head in other things, which just left no room for writing. And that’s just the way it goes sometimes, so I’m not going to feel bad about it. I will try to do better next week, however, and the week after that as well. That’s all we can do, really. Try, try again. And hope that you can switch gears when you need to in order to make room for “story”.

Because unless you’re a professional writer, that’s really all you can do. I’m a hobbyist. And that’s okay…for now.

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 9/8 – 9/15/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM/TIK: 397

DD: 286

TBS: 0

Total: 683

Editing hours: 0

Yes, I know. I’m going backwards. Not good. It was a busy week, I’ve been dealing with stuff, yadda yadda, but yeah. I need to get back into gear and be more disciplined about my writing. I have some different things to try this coming week, so we’ll see.

I did have a slightly larger word count on MMM, but I was editing to fix some continuity problems the day I added them, so when I was finished, I had a negative word count for the day even though I added some new words before cutting a bunch of different ones. I just didn’t pay attention to how many I added before finding the problem.

You might also notice that MMM has a TIK behind it now. As I was writing along the other day, one of my characters from The Matter of Misty Mardeaux (MMM) used the phrase “The Immortality Key”. And the latter makes a much better, much more fitting title for the book than the former, so I’m going with it, at least for now. A nice subconscious “stumble upon”, methinks.

So, not much writing last week, none in sight for the weekend, but definite potential for more next week. Such is the way of things, I suppose.

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 8/31 – 9/7/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM: 877

DD: 0

TBS: 0

Total: 877

Editing hours: 0

The Labor Day weekend kind of threw me for a loop, and not only did I not get my writing post up, I didn’t do any writing until Thursday night of this past week. I’m actually happy I got the words I did down, because it was just a rough week all the way around, with lots of interruptions and distractions going on. Annoying, to say the least.

The entire long weekend was spent organizing books, and I’m not even close to done cataloging them. That will take some time yet, but I’ll work at it a little each week until I have it done.

But I also did something just yesterday that was scary and motivating at the same time. I took two of my books in to our local downtown bookstore – This House of Books – and put them on consignment. So Tempest and Desert Heat are both on the shelves there now, ready for someone to pick them up.

It’s an odd thing, knowing my books are on those shelves. It’s validating in a way, but also scary knowing that people who know me could see them, and my guilty little writing “secret” (that isn’t really a secret, I just feel “removed” from it most of the time) is out. It has motivated me though to get the editing for the next romantic suspense done so I can release something new to take over there. And to get the cover art done for two more books that I’ve got the formatted files for, and just need print cover art to publish the print versions. Not to mention the one that I just need to replace the internal file for…though that one will probably have to wait for the whole CreateSpace/KDP integration to be completed. Unless I figure out how to format it for Ingram Spark soonish.

Finishing/publishing books isn’t writing, but it’s still part of the process, and I need to get my butt in gear. Hopefully just having my first two books in an actual store will help. So would cooler weather, but that’s still a few months out.

This weekend, my goal (aside from performing some library duties) is to rework my weekend schedule to give myself time on Sunday evenings for editing/formatting/publishing work. Not an easy task, given our complete lack of scheduling on the weekends, but I’m determined to figure it out. And then…do some editing.

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | This House of Books

Weekly Writing: 8/18 – 8/24/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM: 818

DD: 394

TBS: 268

Total: 1,480

Editing hours: 0

Funny how counts go up and down from week to week, isn’t it? Or maybe just annoying, really. I’d much prefer they just keep going up, but…it’s been a busy and distracting, smoky week. I’ve had low-grade headaches most of the week due to all the smoke in the air, and that plus distractions equals less productivity. It is what it is, I guess, but it’s quite annoying.

You can tell which stories I have a better grasp on, too – I have about the same amount of writing time each day (30 min or so), but the word count goes down when I’m unsure of where the story is going. But I did work on the mind maps for TBS this week, and got quite a bit more of the plot hashed out. Hopefully that will make next week’s writing session easier.

I held off on posting this until late Saturday in case I could get some editing time in to add, but alas, no luck today either. I think my “edit on the weekends” plan isn’t going to work as long as the weather is decent. I need to make it more of a priority during the weeknights, I guess. Next weekend is a three-day holiday weekend, but the hubby will be trimming out the bookcases he made for our office, which means I get to move all the books out so he can do that, and put them back once the trim is done. I’ll be starting to catalog our library while we do that, so next weekend is busy with books, but not my own books.

My buddy Carol and I have been doing “flexible” word wars this week, and that’s worked out pretty well for both of us, I think. It’s easier to get motivated to write when you know you need to report to someone immediately after you finish, and also when it’s a challenge to see who can get the most words written in 30 minutes. Gives it a little extra “oomph”, so to speak. Fun!

Hopefully next week will be less distracting and easier on the writing…

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks

Weekly Writing: 8/11 – 8/17/18

Weekly Word Counts

MMM: 673

DD: 701

TBS: 560

Total: 1,934

Editing hours: 0

As you can see, I did not get my editing day this week. Things went kind of haywire Weds night when I grabbed a wasp (literally), and that set a spiral of events into motion that I’d rather just forget about altogether. But, I nearly doubled my word count from last week with a couple of word wars with my buddy Carol on Friday, which is awesome. We’re going to try this whole word war thing with sort of a “flex time” thing next week, and see how that goes.

In other writing news, I get a lot of my ideas from other people’s visual artwork – things like drawings, paintings and pictures. I don’t work at this at all…the ideas just come to me, and this week, I got an amazing main plot from a photograph that the artist entered into our county fair. I bought the picture, and will be bringing it home along with another one this weekend. It’s not a happy picture, or particularly pleasing at that (it’s actually very disturbing, even to me, which is saying a lot). But it’s the basis for a story I know for certain I’ll write one of these days, and I try to buy artwork that inspires me when possible in order to give something back to the artist (along with a credit in the book, of course). It’s not often that I get such a fully-formed plot as this particular artist has given me, and I’ve already written the synopsis down. It’s too bad it’ll be another year before I get to start it, but I’m already looking forward to finding out all the little details and meeting my new characters.

So, even without the editing, it was a very productive week, and I’m still hoping to maybe sneak some editing in this weekend. Here’s hoping…

Support your author – buy a book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks