S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 100

May 2017 Goals

Well, April did not turn out the way I thought it would. First I got sick, which maybe I had coming, seeing as I hadn’t been sick in over two years. Lol. Then we had Spring Break and we were away for a whole week. Then when we returned, I spent several days dealing with computer troubles. So three of the four weeks were pretty much shot. I’m hoping for much better this month!

What Happened With April’s Goals?

Keep writing. I would like 1000 words on each book, each day for April, which means another 30,000 on each book. This DID NOT HAPPEN. Not even close. I started April with Hikoboshi 2 at 14k and I only got to 40k with it, so that’s 26k. BUT, I stopped writing on Daydreamer 4 once I got the first act mostly down. So I didn’t really add to that book. Boo.

Get covers made for Hikoboshi 1 and 2. I got my cover for Hikoboshi 1 and I expect to have the cover for Hikoboshi 2 by the end of the first week in May.

Listen to and finish Mark Dawson’s Ads for Authors Course. I have not finished this but I’m still making progress on it.

More audiobooks. I did listen to two this month but only one made it into the Book Chat due to timing.

More walking. I didn’t meet my miles goals this month, which is sad, but that’s what happens when you get sick. I’m about six miles short of my walking goal for the month. BUT I am still way ahead for the year. As of today, I’m 36% to my goal of 1000 Miles in 2017, and I need 336 miles, but I have 362!

My stats for the month! I’m about 8.2 miles short of my monthly goal of 84 miles.

But my progress for the year is still good! I’m way ahead due to front-loading my miles in the beginning of the year when I was healthy.

Start an herb garden. I didn’t do this. Instead I went back to knitting! Lol. Are you laughing? Because I am. I had that knitting goal set every month for the last year and didn’t meet it. I suddenly change my goal to herb gardening and I go back to knitting.

Read up on AppleScript. And didn’t even touch these books. Man. I really missed the mark this month. Boo!

Business Goals For May

Finish Hikoboshi 1. I need to work hard and finish this book before June. Basically, I have to pull a NaNoWriMo this month. I think I’ll set up my Scrivener to motivate me.

Finish the Mark Dawson course and set up my Facebook ads. Soon, I’ll be ready to move over to MailPoet and when I do, I want those Facebook leads to go to MailPoet, not MailChimp.

Personal Goals For May

The usual. More audiobooks, more walking.

Finish my knitting project. I’m actually in the last section of my knitting project. If I can get my writing done during the day, I can knit in the evening while my husband watches Breaking Bad.

Finish reading one ebook. It’s a low goal, but I think I can do it.

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Sunday Update – April 30, 2017

Finally, things were mostly back to normal this week, except for my husband staying home sick for two days. He was really down and out with a nasty cough that sapped all his energy. But by the end of the week, he was much better, so no worries. It was just some virus and I suspect this week he’ll be back to 100%.

I worked hard on trying to meet some writing goals this week. April pretty much sucked for meeting goals, but that was bound to happen eventually. I’m a human being, and I get sick or busy. But I made some good progress this week and I’m sure I know where I want to take this book and the whole series now. I’ve also returned to discovery writing instead of plotting everything, which is leading to discoveries about my characters I wasn’t expecting. I love it because it feels unexpected (one of my major goals as a writer). When I plot, my stories feel boring. When I just write and see what happens, my ideas are so much better. So even though it’s slower, this feels like it’s the better choice.

On Monday, we had time after school, so we picked up the house and then I treated the kids to frozen yogurt. On Tuesday, I concentrated on dictation and then writing in the afternoon while my kid had her tutoring. On Wednesday, I left my sick husband at home to rest, and I went to Panera for the day to hang with my buddy, Amy. Then in the evening we had tennis and the spring choral concert at school for my oldest kid. It was a lovely day, even though it was busy.

On Thursday, I concentrated on dictation and writing at home again, after going back to bed in the morning. I woke up that day and my entire right eye was bloodshot. Like blood red. Gross. Hello, Spring Allergies! So I hit the Visine and went back to bed. When I got up, I ate and got to work. I was off all day, but I made it through with some Benadryl at bedtime. On Friday, I dictated on the treadmill before heading out to the gym to lift weights and then Whole Foods for lunch. Then I worked in the afternoon outside, enjoying the spring weather, before taking my youngest to a birthday party.

Yesterday, I got a nice long walk in and then wrote in the afternoon outside. I was feeling a little lost in the story, so this morning, I plan to hit my notes in Evernote and go over what I’ve written and what should come next.

Tomorrow is May 1st! Which means I go over my goals from April and set goals for May. I’ll also be doing my first ever Facebook Live event and going over the results from my Readers Survey! So if you want to stop by and watch, I’ll be live on my page at 1PM EDT. Once it’s over, I plan to upload the video to my YouTube channel for others to watch.

What else happened this week?

I crossed the 30k mark on Hikoboshi 2.

I’m actually in the home stretch on this knitting project I’ve been working on for almost 3 years.

We saw two different houses in our neighborhood get flocked. This is some fundraising thing for the school.

Sitting outside amongst the pollen. It was too beautiful to be inside.

And spring is looking beautiful! New trees are blooming and old ones are dropping their petals. I love seeing everything green again!

Coming up this week on the blog: May Goals and a post about where my shoes have been this year.

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Book Chat #32 – A Month Of Sci-fi From from Carysa Locke, Lindsay Buroker, & John Scalzi

April was an interesting month for reading. I was sick in the earlier part of the month, and then came Spring Break which is always a time for picking up a good book.

What I read…

PIRATE NEMESIS by Carysa Locke

After scrolling through my kindle for an hour while I was running a fever, I alighted on this gem from Carysa Locke. I read the prequel to this last year and enjoyed it, but always felt like something was missing. THIS is what was missing. I was so enthralled by this story, by Mercy and her history, and the reason why these space pirates were the way they were. It was one of those rare times where I could see how the author was setting everything up, and I totally didn’t care. Huzzah! It thrilled my inner editor because it was done so well. I super enjoyed this, didn’t want to put it down, and was bummed when it ended. The next book will be out soon, and I will gobble it up like candy, for sure. Super love!

STAR NOMAD by Lindsay Buroker

Before picking up STAR NOMAD to read after reading PIRATE NEMESIS, I went through four different books that I just could not get into. It was so frustrating! Finally, I said, “Ugh. Just choose something from an author you know and like!” So I went with Lindsay Buroker. I loved STAR NOMAD! And I’m eager to read the rest of the series in the near future. I loved the adventure part of the book, the unknown world I was heading into. I’m curious about Leonidas, Alisa, Beck, Yumi, and what’s going on with Alisa’s daughter, Jelena, and what we can look forward to on Perun. There was a curious lack of contractions in the descriptive part of the story, which I now attribute to anyone who dictates. I often have to edit contractions back into my own work. I tried to just ignore my brain correcting them. Lol. This is a strong first book in a series, and perfect for those that are looking for something to binge read. The whole series is out with 9 books, and now there’s a spin-off series as well.

What I listened to…

THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE by John Scalzi

I ignored all of my podcasts so that I could just listen to this book in all my spare time. I had gone into the book knowing that Scalzi (who is one of my top favorite authors) borrowed on some of the themes in the Foundation series, another favorite of mine. But honestly, I barely saw the connection. I definitely see the influence of the themes of a large galactic empire on the verge of collapse, but that was about it. Scalzi took his own spin on everything with the usual delight. I loved that the travel system “The Flow” and how everything about The Flow was categorized by river or ocean terminology. It made it easy to understand and relate to. The system of families controlling everything was believable and rich for drama. I loved the creative cursing coming out of Wil Wheaton’s mouth. It delighted me to no end. Also, I’m tired of people who are angry with Scalzi for being “woke.” It’s the future. It’s totally believable to think that women and men are equal by then. If you can’t wrap your head around that, you need to have a seat. I’m looking forward to the next in this series.

And that’s it! I’m currently listening to a cozy mystery that I’m enjoying and I’m auditioning ebooks for my next read (they have to wow me before 10% or I move on.) We’ll see what I have next month!

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Sunday Update – April 23, 2017

Well, this April is not going as planned at all, but I’m trying to roll with the punches. First, I got sick early in April which put me out of commission for a whole week. Then we had Spring Break and I didn’t get much in the way of work done because we were so busy.

Now this week I’ve been dealing with computer troubles. This was bound to happen. I love my computer and I’m a long time Mac user. Which means I’ve had five Macs before this one and each time I’ve upgraded, I’ve always just plugged in my old computer and told the system to bring over all my files and settings. I knew someday this would be a problem because the OS would get clogged with settings files that were old and out of date. I’m going to run some more tests, but I suspect I’m due to have the whole computer wiped, reformatted, and reinstalled. That will take me many days to accomplish, so I’m gearing up for it now. This week, I spent plenty of hours trouble shooting my problems and I didn’t get as much done as I had planned. There goes my lofty April word count goals!

But I did have a lot of success in the writing department despite this setback. I did go back and revise my current WIP, move some things around, and clarify my story points. I also had a great nap/brainstorming session which helped me figure out the whole second act of the book. So now I know where I’m going and what to do. Just gotta do it.

In other news, if you’re on my mailing list, I sent out a newsletter this week asking my readers to fill out my Readers Survey. The results so far have been great! I’ve had over 300 entries so far and the feedback is about 90% positive. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please check your email and follow the link there. I’ll be sending out a reminder email tomorrow or Tuesday to those that didn’t open their emails. I plan on doing a Facebook Live video to talk over the results! Hopefully on May 1st. If you’re not a FB user, no worries. I will download the video when it’s done, and upload it to Youtube afterward.

Last Sunday was Easter Sunday, and we spent it in traffic driving out to visit family and in traffic on the way back. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, for once, despite my computer troubles. Let’s go to the photo evidence…

What else happened this week?

I found my omikuji from Asakusa when I went to Japan in August! It had been hiding in my wallet, and I came upon it when I finally decided to clean out all my receipts. This is a paper fortune that you pay 100 yen for at the temple. Omikuji are truly special and I have mentioned them in several of my books. Mine was pretty good! I hadn’t been expecting a good fortune when I got it.

Early strawberries are coming around the stores! I bought two packages and cut them all up for me and the kids.

Somedays you need a drink to go with the bags under your eyes.

Somedays you also may need ice cream in the middle of the day with some good reading.

Computer trouble. Boo.

My park is looking gorgeous. I love walking here.

And just today, my youngest got to go to the local horses stable and see how horses are groomed and ride one around for a bit! She loved it.

This week on the blog, I’m planning a Book Chat before the end of the week, and that’s it. Because I plan on writing my heart out!! Gotta get the words in somehow.

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PIRATE ISLAND Cover Reveal

Today on the blog, I wanted to celebrate a new book on the way out to the world. I usually only post books by other authors here when I know them really well, and their work really well, and Katie Carroll is by far one of my favorite people and authors. I really loved her YA fantasy novel ELIXIR BOUND (see my post here), so I’m sure PIRATE ISLAND will be a winner as well. I plan to read it with my own daughter as soon as it comes out.

PIRATE ISLAND

by Katie L. Carroll (katielcarroll.com)

Cover Illustration by Susan Tait Porcaro (susantaitporcaro.com)

Coming October 2017!

A thrice cursed island, a legendary pirate treasure, and one not-so-brave boy. What could possibly go wrong?

For centuries, the whereabouts of Captain William Kidd’s lost pirate treasure has remained a mystery. When Billy’s best friend, Andy, proposes they look for it on nearby Pirate Island, Billy thinks it’s just another one of their crazy adventures. It’s usually Billy who ends up in trouble as a result, but he goes along for the ride…like always. The more he delves into the life and death of Kidd, the more he thinks the treasure is real and that it might be buried on the small island in Long Island Sound. Billy—nope, call him William—becomes obsessed with the captain of the same first name. He even believes he’s possessed by Kidd’s restless soul. Now he and the spirit of a long-dead pirate are leading the crazy adventure on Pirate Island. And what they find is far bigger than the treasure they imagined.

About the Author

Katie L. Carroll always says she began writing at a very sad time her life after her sister Kylene unexpectedly passed away. The truth is Katie has been writing her whole life, and it was only after Kylene’s death that she realized she wanted to pursue writing for kids and teens as a career. Since then writing has taken her to many wonderful places, real and imagined. She has had many jobs in her lifetime, including newspaper deliverer, hardware store cashier, physical therapy assistant, and puzzle magazine editor. She works from her home in Connecticut that is filled with the love and laughter of her sons and husband.

In addition to PIRATE ISLAND, Katie is the author of the YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND. Find Katie on her website, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

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Sunday Update – April 16, 2017

It’s Easter Sunday, so if you celebrate, Happy Easter! If not, enjoy the half-price chocolate tomorrow.

Sunday Update – April 9, 2017

Late Sunday Update today because I’ve been traveling all day. But Spring Break starts now and it’s time to get our vacation on.

What happened this week? First, I was recovering from a virus for most of the week. Monday was a real sick day for me. My husband stayed home from work and took care of the kids. He even packed their lunches and got them to and from school. I was a mess so I wasn’t going anywhere. I read on the couch pretty much all day and napped. Tuesday, I had to suck it up and get back into the swing of things even though I was still feeling pretty poorly. Wednesday, I started feeling more like myself. Thursday I was mostly normal. Friday I was 100%. So whatever I had knocked me down for almost an entire week. Crazy.

I did get some work done, but not a lot. And that’s okay. I have pie-in-the-sky goals for this month, but as I’m working out the kinks with my stories anyway, I’m not going to be disappointed if I don’t meet those goals. My sanity and health come first. The important thing is that I’m still writing, still creating. I won’t let myself sink into the depression hole of last year and not write for such a long period again.

Here are some photos from last week…

Being sick means lots of time spent with my Kindle and, of course, ramen.

Counting fake money with the smallest child.

Getting back to writing after a few days break.

The nice weather meant that everyone was out fishing.

And now we’re on vacation while our house gets some much needed TLC back home (our house-sitter will be dealing with contractors and cleaners and many more things.)

Not sure if I’ll be posting at all this week! Be good and I’ll see you back here next Sunday.

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Losing (And Finding) My Way

I am totally in love with experimentation. When I was a kid, I wanted more than anything to be an astronaut and I was heavily into the sciences (chemistry was my thing). So even though I loved stories and creative writing, and I studied film and screenwriting throughout college, it was no surprise that I got an IT job out of college. Programming spoke to me on a basic level, and I loved the problem solving aspects of getting websites built.

When I quit my job and started writing full time, I began writing by pantsing, writing from the seat of my pants without an outline. It worked for me but it was slow. I was hampered by the multiple revisions I was doing, and looking back now, I realize this was because I was learning story structure. Still, I wanted to be faster.

I’ve been published since late 2013. At the time, self-publishing was just getting into swing and becoming a legit way to publish. I had an agent before this (we have since parted ways but remained friends) and I had been querying before that from late 2011 on. At the time, 2 or 3 books per year was considered WHOA. No one really wrote that fast or published like that, but as people did start to gain speed to a book per month or every other month, I thought, “Hey, maybe I can do that.”

So I went back to my science roots and experimented. I tried fast drafting, plotting, writing multiple stories at once, fat outlining, snowflake method, story beats. You name it, I tried it. And the more I tried, the more lost I got. I had written 4 books before I started experimenting and they were so much fun to write, and this? This was torture. I wasn’t learning anything new and changing my process was making me depressed.

Guys, I can’t tell you how lost I was.

Then I read a blog post by John Scalzi about his writing method. If I could find it on his website, I would. I think he was in Hawaii at the time. Anyway, he mentioned that his writing method was to edit as he went. He would write, edit, write, edit, and then at the end, he had an almost finished book, ready for some edits. I thought, “You know what? That’s what I used to do. That’s what worked for me.” It was slower, but it was a happier writing time for me.

Could I go slower in this market? The market is very demanding right now. Readers are used to getting new material from their favorite authors at blinding speed. I have author friends pumping out a book a month, sometimes more! But writing faster, no matter how hard I’ve tried, has never worked. Not with all the plotting and dictation. Not with fast drafting. Not with story beats. My writing (and my sanity) suffered every single time I tried to speed up.

No matter what the market demands, I have to go my own pace. Three or four books per year *is* something that I can do. It’s a good speed for me. A book a month? No. I can’t do it. I admire those that can, a lot. They blow me away. I had to have a come-to-Jesus moment over the fact that I can’t do it. It’s been hard to see those I came into self-publishing with rise to the top, get best seller credentials, make a lot of money, have a lot of fans, etc.

But that’s not my path. Finding my way in this business has been like soul-seeking, something I haven’t done since my twenties. It’s interesting to see how there are waves of my life where I learn new things about myself and my place in the world. I may have lost my way the past few years, between writing my books and choosing what to write, but now I’ve found the path and I intend to stick with it.

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Sunday Update – April 2, 2017

I’m going to pants my way through this update because I seem to have a virus that’s knocked me down for the count. I felt it coming on on Friday, and today, I’m finally spiking a fever. I’m shaky and feeling gross. Blah. Sucks.

The week did not go well. Monday went okay. I was a little slow but I got the work done I needed to do.

On Tuesday, I decided to take my oldest to the walk-in hours at her pediatrician. She had been coughing for almost 4 weeks, and though I didn’t think it was ever serious because she never had a fever, I figured 4 weeks was kinda long, and I should do my motherly duty and have her checked up on by a professional. Of course, they said, “It’s nothing. Tough it out.” So I drove her back to our hometown, dropped her off at school, and came home. Where I found a voicemail from the school nurse about my youngest not feeling well. Ugh. She was sent back to class but then came back to the nurse later, and they insisted I come get her. Great. Of course, there was nothing wrong with this child either. She just wanted a day off. Fine. There goes my Tuesday.

Wednesday was crap too, unfortunately. Someone decided to pick a fight with me online and it basically ruined my entire day. Thanks for that. Thursday, though, made up for Wednesday because I spent the day at Panera with my buddy, Amy, and I managed to get in a nap in the afternoon. Then we had Art Night at the school which was fun.

But the nap should’ve been my clue that things were not going well with my body.

Friday, it rained ALL DAY. I think we got an inch and a half of rain! I didn’t want to go out in it because I wasn’t feeling 100% (I had a mounting headache) but I did, too many times. I went out to the gym to lift weights and to Whole Foods to go grocery shopping. By this time, my headache was killing me but I thought it would get better if I drank more water. Nope. I went out again to get the kids from school in the rain at 12:30 because they had a half day, hosted a play date, back out into the rain again to drop everyone off and pick up my other kid. Then back out into the rain again to take my kid to gymnastics. By the time I got home, my headache was so bad I was nauseous and couldn’t eat dinner. I went to bed at 9:30pm which is unheard of. I took ibuprofen and a full dose of Benadryl and hoped for the best.

Yesterday it was plain as day that I was coming down with something. I passed out in bed for an hour in the middle of the day and woke up disoriented (never happens to me unless I’m sick). So I took it easy with only a small, slow walk on the treadmill.

Today, I have a fever, so I’m going to read on the couch, and maybe write later if I feel up to it.

What else happened this week?

The week started off well on Sunday.

Popcorn is my favorite snack.

His and hers.

Got writing done at the tennis club.

A selection of art from the Art Night at school.

This is when things went downhill on Friday.

Hopefully you saw the Google Maps prank yesterday. It was cute!

And I finished off the week with mussels marinara.

I have no idea what to expect this week, so hopefully I’ll see you around here or elsewhere soon!

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April 2017 Goals

Despite a ton of personal obligations in March, I did rather well with my goals for the month, so now it’s time to look forward to April and decide what to do this month!

What Happened With March’s Goals?

Start two brand new books. I nailed this! Started both Hikoboshi 2 and Daydreamer 4 and am more than 10k into both books. I’m excited about both stories and prepared to move forward with writing them both during April and May. I hope to finish them by June 1.

Promote THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE OPENS A TEA SHOP. Done and done. The book is out there and I did teasers for it, and promoted it both to my newsletter list, social media, and ran some Amazon ads on it.

Learn more about MailPoet. Done. I have this all set up on my server and I hope to move my whole mailing list to it by summer. I just heard they’re updating the plugin, and though I have some reservations about what they’re offering, I’m hoping to upgrade too.

Format all the Kami No Sekai stories with Vellum. Didn’t happen. I just didn’t have the time this month. Hopefully soon.

More walking. Though I had some days in March where I didn’t walk at all, I did well with this goal and hit at least 2.8 miles of walking each day. This leaves me on task for my yearly goal.

As you can see, I’ve already walked 287.1 miles this year, which is about 39 more miles than what I need to stay on goal. This means I could basically rest for 2/3rd of a month and still be on track to hit my goal in December.

This total for March is just a little over 2.8 miles per day, which is the basic minimum I need to hit my goal. All in all, this is one thing that’s working out for me this year like gangbusters!

More audiobooks. I was only able to listen to one audiobook this month and I found it totally enthralling, so no big deal.

Get through all the personal stuff this month. I made it through everything by the skin of my teeth.

Business Goals For April

Keep writing. I would like 1000 words on each book, each day for April, which means another 30,000 on each book. Right now, Hikoboshi 1 is at 14k and Daydreamer 4 is at 12k, so I’d like to see them at 44k and 42k respectively. Let’s see how I do with this! We have spring break right in the middle of April and I may not be able to write as much.

Get covers made for Hikoboshi 1 and 2. I have my favorite cover designer booked! I’m super excited and we get started next week!

Listen to and finish Mark Dawson’s Ads for Authors Course. I bought this course and I’ve gone through the first 3 modules. I want to put what I learn to practice and be using it by May.

Personal Goals For April

More audiobooks. This is an easy one.

More walking. This is my goal every month this year.

Start an herb garden. I need a hobby and I suck with plants, but I’d like to do something that doesn’t require my hands too much (like knitting does) and gives me something to watch and use. Herbs are a good idea, so I’m going to give it a shot.

Read up on AppleScript. I bought books to help me learn AppleScript because I want to automate some tasks on my Mac that take up a ton of time for no good reason. Hopefully this will help.

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