S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 104

THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE Is On Sale For A Limited Time!

Just wanted to let you all know that I have THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE marked down to 99¢ until around the end of January. If you’ve been thinking about checking it out, now’s the time! I plan to have two books in this series out this year, so it’s a great time to start it at a low price. To read the blurb and learn more about the book, visit THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE page on my site.

Sale is on till around the end of the month.

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Sunday Update – January 15, 2017

I really thought I was going to blog this week! But then I got caught up in finishing my revisions on THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE OPENS A TEA SHOP and took a few days off from writing, which included the blog. Sigh. Some days, though, (or some weeks) I need a break, and the blog is the easiest place to take it! The good news is that I have a blog post already written for this week and I’ll be revealing the cover and blurb for the aforementioned Daydreamer book as well.

This week was filled with hectic running around, freezing temperatures, and long walks where I could get them in. I did plenty of normal every day things like grocery shopping, going to my chiropractor, shuttling the kids around. My oldest had an upset stomach all of Wednesday which meant that we didn’t go to tennis that day. The next day, the youngest had the same bug. Neither were really sick. Just full of complaints. Then yesterday we were supposed to go out to a fancy dinner to celebrate my upcoming birthday but my youngest had a fever and was feeling miserable, so we canceled and moved the dinner to later in the month. Never a dull moment around here!

The state of writing is pretty good. My next Daydreamer book is with readers right now. The Hikoboshi scifi is sitting and percolating. All of which leaves me to write something new! Now I’ve had an idea for another scifi series I want to write for a pen name, but I think it fits really well with my regular brand, so I’m going to write it and see where it takes me. I may just end up publishing it under my regular name. I’m going to write a lead-in story to the series first. Get a feel for the characters and their universe and then let it inspire me to write the novels. After I write this lead-in story, I’ll come back to my Hikoboshi series and Daydreamer books since I don’t plan on doing anything with the other series until fall at least.

I also bought Vellum this week and have been reformatting my books using it. SO MUCH EASIER. Gah. I wish I had bought it sooner, but it was expensive and I knew I didn’t have the money last year. I waited until this year to put it on my expenses. All of my books will be reformatted with it, Nogiku books first, then Daydreamer, then I’ll move onto the rest.

What else happened this week?

I made ramen one day this week and broke out some of the new fish cake logs from Mitsuwa. I didn’t realize I had purchased sakura shaped ones!

I got some good walking in this week! The nice thing about the walking is that I love it so much I don’t mind doing it. Then I end up burning all these calories I don’t normally burn, but I’m eating the same, so I’m already seeing changes in my body from all the walking.

And then there were some cocktails this week with sumo wrestling too! There’s a tournament going on in Tokyo right now and my husband and I are watching the highlights every day. Love me some sumo!

That’s about it! A fairly easy week and now that I’m done with this post, I’m going to schedule my posts for the rest of this week so I don’t forget! See you later!

ETA: I totally wrote 2016 on last week’s post and NO ONE NOTICED! Lol. We’re all stuck in a time warp. I went back and changed it but the URL will stay the same.

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Sunday Update – January 8, 2017

It’s the first Sunday Update of the year! I didn’t do one last week because it was January 1 and I felt like my yearly goals post should go up on that day.

So it’s been a crazy two weeks around here. Right now I’m sitting on the couch while my husband is outside snow blowing the driveway. We got about 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow yesterday. You know how much I hate winter, so I’m not pleased, especially since this means that my outdoor walking is now out of the question until the paths are cleared in the park. Which may or may not ever happen. Sigh. Being outdoors is really important for me and my mood. In the meantime, I’m walking and editing on the treadmill.

Here are the few things I remember about the last two weeks…

We had a great week off between Christmas and New Year’s and it went by super fast. We went to Mitsuwa, a Japanese grocery store in Edgewater, NJ, for groceries and Japanese food for lunch. It was a lot of fun and VERY crowded, but as always a great experience. We spent a lot of time around home and hanging out, which was a good way to rest.

I finished off the first book of the Hikoboshi series, my new scifi series spin-off of The Nogiku Series. That felt AWESOME. I’m so glad this series is off and running. And now I’ve been editing the third Daydreamer book! Hint: if you want to see the cover, blurb, and first chapter, you should be on my mailing list because I’m not going to share it here until mid-month!

My kids went back to school on Tuesday and I took the week to get back in the swing of things. I’ve been walking and working and having FUN, which was my goal for the year!

What else happened this week and last week?

Loved my Christmas gifts! Big fluffy slippers and a little fox figurine that says “What the fox?” when you press his head. Lol.

We really enjoyed shopping at Mitsuwa. There was so much to see and buy. My lunch was especially yummy. Mmmm.

My Instapot has been getting a good workout. I’ve cooked oatmeal, black-eyed pea stew, curried yellow split pea soup, and Japanese curry in it! Amongst other things.

Sunday Update – January 8, 2016

It’s the first Sunday Update of the year! I didn’t do one last week because it was January 1 and I felt like my yearly goals post should go up on that day.

So it’s been a crazy two weeks around here. Right now I’m sitting on the couch while my husband is outside snow blowing the driveway. We got about 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow yesterday. You know how much I hate winter, so I’m not pleased, especially since this means that my outdoor walking is now out of the question until the paths are cleared in the park. Which may or may not ever happen. Sigh. Being outdoors is really important for me and my mood. In the meantime, I’m walking and editing on the treadmill.

Here are the few things I remember about the last two weeks…

We had a great week off between Christmas and New Year’s and it went by super fast. We went to Mitsuwa, a Japanese grocery store in Edgewater, NJ, for groceries and Japanese food for lunch. It was a lot of fun and VERY crowded, but as always a great experience. We spent a lot of time around home and hanging out, which was a good way to rest.

I finished off the first book of the Hikoboshi series, my new scifi series spin-off of The Nogiku Series. That felt AWESOME. I’m so glad this series is off and running. And now I’ve been editing the third Daydreamer book! Hint: if you want to see the cover, blurb, and first chapter, you should be on my mailing list because I’m not going to share it here until mid-month!

My kids went back to school on Tuesday and I took the week to get back in the swing of things. I’ve been walking and working and having FUN, which was my goal for the year!

What else happened this week and last week?

Loved my Christmas gifts! Big fluffy slippers and a little fox figurine that says “What the fox?” when you press his head. Lol.

We really enjoyed shopping at Mitsuwa. There was so much to see and buy. My lunch was especially yummy. Mmmm.

My Instapot has been getting a good workout. I’ve cooked oatmeal, black-eyed pea stew, curried yellow split pea soup, and Japanese curry in it! Amongst other things.

What I’m Thinking About This Wednesday…

I’m much happier when I can get out and walk a few times per week. Something about the fresh air and the sky above really keeps my spirits up.

I really love when my house is clean and organized and quiet. It does good things for my brain and my creativity.

I’m so over Twitter that I might be completely done there by the end of the month and only ever just let the automated stuff take hold.

Making food ahead of time for the week is a great idea and I really should do that more often. Need to figure out how to make that happen on the weekends.

I’m so very glad that I finished another book! The first book of the Hikoboshi series is done and now I can get to editing the next Daydreamer book.

I have way too many books on my Kindle. I may make it a policy to cut back on book buying this year. I have already switched over to only buying a book if I can get it cheap on Audible.

Considering that this time last year I was waiting at the hospital for my youngest child to get out of surgery (she was having the rods in her arm removed from when she broke it the previous September), this year is starting off pretty great already!

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2017: The Year I Have Fun

Thank goodness it’s 2017! I thought 2016 would never end, and with the number of celebrity deaths that came in during the last week, I was beginning to panic that it might hold on for dear life. Phew! But here we are. Another new year and another declaration from me on how this year will go.

2015 was The Year I Say No.

2016 was The Year I Give No Fucks.

2017 will be The Year I Have Fun. Because now that I’ve learned to say no to the things that waste my time, and I’ve learned to not give a fuck over the things that I can’t control, it’s finally time to start REALLY having fun with this shindig. Really. The last two years, as the market has shifted around me, have been very frustrating. I’ve watched good friends stop writing and publishing altogether. I’ve seen people scammed and robbed of their earnings. I’ve witnessed what happens when I make my own bad decisions, too. And now that I’ve been at this three years, I think I have a good idea of what I can keep doing to stay afloat and still do what I love.

This gives me room to breathe, to run, to HAVE FUN. There were far too many times this past year when I wasn’t having fun, when I was depressed, when I was failing. Sometime in November, after the election, I woke up and said, “Life is too short for this nonsense. I should be having fun!” And indeed, I should. This is now my forever career, what I want to do until I die. I should be enjoying it.

I WILL ENJOY IT. I will enjoy every new idea I have. I will have fun with every new plot I create, with every new character I dream up. I will revel in all the little bits that make this hobby into a career. There’s so much here to have fun with! From reading to learning to creating, every piece of the puzzle is worth smiling about.

So that’s where my head is at going into 2017. I’m going to make this year fun, and hopefully you’ll enjoy it with me. I’m sure there’ll be ups and downs, but in the end, I want to be happy about this choice I made, to really be a writer again, to be an author. It’s my choice, and I choose to make the most of it.

Now, here are my goals for the year…

Books And Writing

I WILL PUBLISH FOUR BOOKS THIS YEAR. My plan is to publish two Miso Cozy Mysteries and two of my new scifi series.

I WILL WRITE ALL YEAR LONG. This is not a new kind of goal, as I’ve tried to do this in the past. BUT, 2016 was the year that I learned how to write on two projects at once. I want to have a first draft going at all times, whether it’s one that I work on at 500 words per day because I’m working heavily on some edits on another project, or whether I’m concentrating solely on it during NaNoWriMo. Regardless, I want to create more content, and I can’t do that if I’m not writing.

I WILL START UP A PEN NAME BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR. This is an experiment for me. I want to see how hard or easy it is in today’s market to launch something brand new. I came into this scene in mid-2013, before Kindle Unlimited, before newsletter services like Instafreebie. I can give advice based on what I see other people do, but I haven’t done it myself. It’s time to see how it works in 2017. This pen name will be a scifi endeavor, and I WILL let you all know about it once I’ve established it, at either the 6-month mark or the 1-year mark. This is one reason I want to be constantly writing this year. I just need to be careful about burn-out.

I WILL MAKE SOME BOX SETS THIS YEAR. Mostly of the Nogiku Series, but also of the Miso Cozy Mysteries once the 4th one is out.

Marketing, Promotions, Advertising, and Social Media

I WILL SPEND MONEY THIS YEAR. I got better about putting down the money to advertise this past year, and I’ll continue to ramp this up. I’m experimenting more with ads and making headway finally.

I WILL INCREASE MY MAILING LIST TO 10,000 SUBSCRIBERS. I want to double my list size before the end of 2017. My newsletter is my favorite way to talk to my audience, and I want to see it grow. I’m careful to keep it fresh and relevant, and I need to continue that this year.

MY SOCIAL MEDIA WILL NOT CHANGE. My Facebook personal profile is a place for me to be personal. I will continue to talk to people via my Facebook Page. Twitter is where I put stuff I’m interested in. Other than that, I will share my work to Google Plus and LinkedIn. My Tumblr is still doing well, and I will continue to post to Instagram every day.

Personal Goals

I WILL WALK 1000 MILES THIS YEAR. Yep, this is the big one. I’ve been gearing up to make this goal happen, and I’m ready to tackle it in 2017. Barring any physical injuries or sickness, this is something I have a good possibility of accomplishing. it’s approximately 84 miles of walking per month. Right now, I walk about 65-70 miles per month, so I’ll have to step it up and take it seriously. And with my treadmill desk and dictation, I feel I can do this! If you want to be crazy and join in, please say so in the comments.

I WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE AUDIOBOOK CHALLENGE. I’m going for the Stenographer (can listen while multi-tasking), 10-15 audiobooks in 2017. I plan to wrap up each month by tallying both this and the walking goals. Sign-ups are still open on the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

I WILL KNIT MORE. Lol. This is a yearly goal. It’s almost old now!

I WILL USE MY INSTAPOT AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK. Hopefully this will get me to try some new recipes.

What are your goals for 2017? Let me know in the comments!

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Ozoni And Onsens: A Daydreamer Detective Novella

If you’re a member of my mailing list, you got a surprise this morning in your inbox! (If not, please check your spam!) I’ve been working on this little novella for the Miso Cozy series, and today it went out to just newsletter subscribers! OZONI AND ONSENS is a story that takes place after THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE BRAVES THE WINTER. It’s not a mystery, even though surprising things happen in it, so sit back and enjoy the time, murder-free.

In OZONI AND ONSENS, Mei and Yasahiro try to spend a romantic New Year’s Eve and Day together, but the universe has other plans for them. As you can probably guess, things don’t work out so well! I loved writing this little adventure. It was nice to see Mei just be herself and discover that she has her own talents, even if she doesn’t think they’re spectacular. I hope you enjoy this little story too.

Not a member of my mailing list? You can sign up now and get this exclusive novella for free!

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A Look Back At 2016

Well, I think we can all agree that 2016 in general sucked a huge fat toe, no? Outside of my personal life, the world kinda exploded and went kablooey with the whole Trump nonsense, the election, all the celebrity deaths, etc. It was just not a happy time. In personal news, I started out the year in a big funk. I went through about four months of depression where I couldn’t write a word. I concentrated on editing and my marketing because that was literally all I could bring myself to do. At the end of 2015, I had decided to go exclusive with Amazon, and I went into the year really excited about that. It turned out that it almost killed my career. I then had to claw myself back from that horrible decision and make something of my life.

Let’s look at how I managed to get that done.

2015 was “The Year I Say No” and 2016 was “The Year I Give No Fucks.” I kept saying No this year, which was really good for me, but giving no fucks? Turns out that’s REALLY HARD TO DO. I had a lot of fucks that I gave away freely in the beginning of the year because I was failing so miserably at everything. I had cut down my monthly income to $30 by going exclusive with Amazon and I was bleeding money like someone had stabbed me with a katana. It was bad news, people. Really bad.

It was around March that I said FUCK THIS to just about everything and took some drastic measures. I pulled all my books back and published them wide again, I went full throttle on all my marketing efforts, and I worked on building my newsletter. I figured I had to start marketing to people who were already familiar with me, sell to a warm audience. It was a little piece of advice I got in a podcast about FB marketing that made a huge difference for me. Suddenly, things turned around as I gave few fucks about what I was doing. I launched my new series and that made a big impact too.

As the year went on, I gave fewer fucks about things I couldn’t control and used them for stuff I could have a hand in. By the end of this year, I finally had my attitude down pat. I know now what’s worth fighting for, what is worth a fuck and what is not. I can’t tell you how liberating that is. It was a hard road to get here, but I think I have it figured out.

In the end, I think I even made some money this year! Not a lot by any means, but some. My take home was greater but so were my expenses. I did learn a lot about what to spend money on so I’m hoping 2017 will see my actual net income grow.

MAIN GOALS ACCOMPLISHED?

(All last year’s goals are in bold, and my notes on what happened with each come after).

I plan to PUBLISH two cozy mysteries and WRITE a third. Omg, I actually did this! I’m surprised because I spent so much of my year totally sunk by depression.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH two more Kami No Sekai short stories and bundle them all. I did this, bundled them, and I continue to give them away to my newsletter subscribers.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH the first of a new scifi series. I’m still writing this.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH a scifi shared-world novella. I had to bow out of this project due to a contract I wasn’t prepared to sign.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH one non-fiction book. I didn’t do this because it turns out I don’t want to publish non-fiction. I ended up publishing a lot to the blog instead.

I plan to update the covers for FACE TIME and the whole Nogiku Series. DONE! Yay! Wow, this list is looking good so far! All the covers look pretty awesome. I’m very happy with them all.

I plan to bundle the Nogiku Series. I’ve only done this on Kobo so far.

I plan to give away books to my newsletter subscribers. Also DONE! Yay! I’ve given away a lot of books to newsletter subscribers and now have a new one to give away later this week!

I’m taking a very laid-back view of my writing this year. No stressing over deadlines, no fussing over tiny editing details, no fucks given if there are some typos (every book has them, and even if I hire five proofreaders, they’ll never all be caught), no stressing over book covers or layout. As I have learned, everything can be changed or updated later. No big deal. Yep. I was much happier with this and I think my depression earlier this year would have been 10 times worse if I had put more pressure on myself to be PERFECT. Instead, I came out better on the other side.

I plan to be Amazon exclusive for 2016 unless something drastic changes. Something always does, so we’ll see! Holy crap, this one little decision nearly ended my entire career. I know better now, and watching more people scramble to deal with Jekyll-And-Hyde Amazon is making me enormously relieved that I no longer rely on them for my entire income. I really want to thank iBooks readers who have take a chance on me this year. You all are awesome!

I did not join Author Marketing Club and I did not take Mark Dawson’s course. Due to the lack of funds January through June, I wasn’t able to. I learned more about Scrivener. I paid for promotions (did I EVER). I turned my Twitter into a feed filled with knowledge thanks to Quuu and Buffer. I posted to Instagram every day because I love taking photos.

Grow my mailing list by 50%. I more than grew it 50%! It went from 400 to 5000 which is an increase of 1150%!! Holy crap that’s huge!

PERSONAL GOALS ACCOMPLISHED?

I would like to continue my workouts and use my treadmill more. I did manage to do this! My treadmill desk is awesome and I love it. And besides this month when I was nursing my arm back to health, I was at the gym at least once per week.

I will continue to be okay with my body and love it for what it is. Yep! This went really well and I will continue this in 2017.

I’m going back to a goal from two years ago and concentrate on learning more Japanese. This was a big fat NO mainly because of the depression I went through earlier this year. I had to cut back on things in order to do more self-care.

I’d like to knit more and read more. Listen to more audiobooks and try to enjoy some downtime. Knitting didn’t happen a lot this year, but I did listen to more audiobooks and enjoyed some downtime.

Journal every day. Another big fat NO. I was so depressed and journaling every day only made it worse. I can’t even look at the journal now without feeling sucked back into that time. I got a new journal for Xmas that you write one sentence in per day. That’s more my speed.

I’d really like to cook more diverse things, try new recipes, and TRY to love cooking. Lol. I still hate cooking but this year I learned a few new things and I’m using my new Instapot a lot. I hope to continue that.

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED IN 2016?

The biggest thing was THE KITCHEN REMODEL. It took up the first half of the year but has greatly increased the quality of life in our home. I love my new kitchen to pieces!

We went to Puerto Rico in the spring and had a glorious time!

My littlest daughter finished up her first year of kindergarten.

We went to South Carolina twice, once for spring break and another time in November for my Dad’s birthday.

We spent all summer at the pool!

I WENT TO JAPAN!! Which was the highlight of my year. It was so awesome and I’m still reliving it a few times per month in entries on the blog.

MY HUSBAND MADE PARTNER AT WORK!! 2016 wasn’t all bad because this happened too. I’m super proud of him for accomplishing this dream 10 years in the making.

We had a year of very little sickness which is also awesome. My kids and I have both been fairly sickness free. There were two fevers and some puking but nothing huge. My husband was sick twice too but it’s mostly from stress.

Sunday Update – December 25, 2016

A quick update today since it’s Christmas and I need to get into the shower so we can celebrate with family today!

It was a busy week around here, again, and mainly because I was working on two projects at once. This week I finished off my Daydreamer Detective novella! I’m very excited to give it away to newsletter subscribers later on in the week. If you’re not a newsletter subscriber and want this 2.5 novella in the Miso Cozy Mysteries series, you should join my newsletter.

I also wrote on my scifi book most of the week too. So far this whole working on two projects at once thing is going well! I actually enjoy it and it gives me a break on days when I feel scattered. I think I’m going to keep it up in 2017.

Let’s skip right to the photos and I’ll be back during the week with a few posts! I need to look back on 2016, announce my novella, and update about Japan again.

Hanging Out In Tokyo – Japan Day Five

Continuing posts on my trip to Japan in August… Because I weathered a typhoon on my third day in Tokyo, I wasn’t sure what to do in the days after. I had originally planned to go to Kawagoe out in Saitama prefecture on this day, but train service to the area was still spotty and the area was pretty flooded. So I had to decide on something else to do. I thought I would travel someplace farther south for the day. What I should have done was go to Kamakura. I know that now, but then I just wanted a quick day trip, so I chose Yokohama.

But I got on the train to Yokohama, got off there, and couldn’t find anything. Unlike Tokyo where you get off the train and everything is RIGHT THERE, I had no idea what to do or where to go in Yokohama. I spent an hour wandering around trying to find signs to do something fun. Maybe it was the heat, but I was so disoriented and tired, I said, SCREW IT, and I got on the train back to Tokyo.

But not before running into a cute mascot of some sort!

I got back into Tokyo Station and left the station to walk around and find some food. I eventually ended up at a Dean & Deluca of all places for lunch. I had quiche for lunch and then a pastry as I sat and watched some rain fall and tried to gather up strength for the rest of my day.

I decided that I would do some shopping the rest of the day, head back to the hotel, and then out to dinner. So my first stop was Harajuku. This is always a super fun part of town. It’s very busy with lots of shops and tons of young hip kids in funky clothing.

This is the most busy street in all of Harajuku and yes I went down it. I bought super cute animal socks for both of my kids and then went to Daiso, which is a 100 yen store. It’s like a dollar store in the US but SO MUCH BETTER. Tons of great stuff in Daiso. I went nuts.

It was fun shopping for me and my kids here and I didn’t even spend a lot of money. If you go to Japan and want to buy lots of gifts on little money, this is the place to go. From here, I got on the Yamanote Line and went back up to Shinjuku and back to the hotel.

The Harajuku station (above) is set to go under construction soon, but I really hope that it doesn’t lose this facade. It’s been like this forever and it’s pretty iconic.

Back at the hotel, I spent the afternoon cooling off and relaxing.

I wanted to stay some place local for dinner so I did some research and found an okonomiyaki place for dinner, a place that makes them Hiroshima-style with fried noodles. Sounded good to me! I walked all over the neighborhood and found it!

They were super nice and I got my point across easily that I didn’t want meat. Just veggies. They cooked it right in front of me at the grill. The place was super hot, and I sweat through the entire dinner, but it was so so so good.

I then walked around the neighborhood looking for more convenience stores. I love Tokyo at night. It’s always hopping with people.

I eventually found a 7-11 much closer to my hotel, stocked up on goodies, and went back for an early night sleep. Why? Because the next morning I had an early bullet train to Kyoto!

Next up: my first day in Kyoto!

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