S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 122

Sunday Update – December 13, 2015

I didn’t have a lot of energy this past week so blogging fell off (except for my random thoughts post) as I was harnessing everything I had to get in my 2000 words each day. It was a weird week because my kids had three half-days in a row, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and I had to bring my youngest back to the orthopedist for a check up on her arm. That made getting other things done difficult. But the weather around here has been so mild! I love it! Today it’s warm outside and I plan to go for another walk as soon as I get this blog post up. I love the fact that we haven’t had any snow yet. Snow is so inconvenient. I don’t care how “pretty” people think it is. It makes it hard to get around, schools close, and then people start to get sick. I hate it. So it’s been great that there’s been no snow yet!

I’m writing a steady 2000-3000 words per day on this project and the writing part is going really well. Yesterday, I had a moment of “OH GOD THIS SUCKS THE MYSTERY ISN’T MYSTERIOUS ENOUGH AND I THINK IT’S WRONG” but I realized this has a lot has to do with my pacing of writing, which is a lot slower than the pace a reader will read the book. I feel like it’s dragging, but going over my outline, I’m sure it’s not. This is usually a point in the process where I would stop writing and read everything I’ve written so far. Back when I used to pants a book. But this time I can just look over my outline and keep moving. I think it’s important that I keep moving and writing. When I go back to revise, I’ll re-read and make decisions then.

I also have plans going on behind the scenes for some of my other books, but I think I’ll write about those this coming week!

What else happened this week?

I got in writing while my kids were at a birthday party last Sunday.

And more writing while my husband was at his work’s holiday party.

I relaxed while watching Bob Ross, which is like meditation but better.

I started listening to season 2 of Serial! I’m very intrigued so far.

And we got our Christmas tree! The house smells really good now and I love seeing it all lit up at night.

I have another busy week coming up! And hopefully some of my energy will return and I can blog a little more. See you later!

Random Thoughts On… December

I keep writing posts for the blog and deleting them. I wish I knew how to talk about my feelings openly without coming off as a whiney complainer, so I write them all out in a heartfelt post, and then delete it instead of publishing it. I’ve done this five times now. It’s cathartic in a way, but doesn’t really get me anywhere. Lol. Maybe I need to be journaling at home…

Here’s what you really need to know. I’m working, but it’s hard. I’m trying to get in my 2000 words every day, and most days, it’s not too bad. I write and I feel good about the story. On days like yesterday where I got my seventh Bookbub rejection, writing was like pulling teeth. They must have really deliberated over my book because it took them FIVE days to reject me instead of the usual ONE, so as you can imagine, I was pretty hopeful for several days, then it all came crashing down on me.

I could not get the words out yesterday. I was tired. I was depressed. I was once again sitting and watching my friends succeed and wondering what’s wrong with me and my work. My husband came home with great news about his job (he sold a huge contract to a client that he had been working on for months), and HE FELT BAD TELLING ME THAT. I love him because he was considerate about my feelings, but man, I felt like a selfish bitch right then. Not that I really complained to him about my Bookbub rejection. I just sent him one text with the update. But he must have sensed I was down about it.

I realize a lot of this has to do with December. It’s the end of the year. I’m looking back on what I’ve accomplished this year in regards to sales and reviews, and the numbers are A LOT lower than I thought they’d be, especially having seven books and several short stories out. Even my mailing list is not doing as well as I thought it would. I tried to be positive going into 2015 and not give a f*ck about a lot of this stuff, but some days that’s easier said than done. 2015 is going to wrap up to be a fine personal year, but an otherwise dismal professional one for me.

What do I do? Head down, keep writing. Now would probably be a good time to take more Vitamin D, go to the gym, and just push through this. I’m glad our winter has been mild so far, and with no snow on the ground, at least I’m not struggling to get to the gym because I have to dig my car out from a drift! Hopefully in the coming weeks, I can turn this around and find something positive to show you guys, whether it’s progress on my new book or whatever. For now, it’s time to just get back to work and keep on truckin’.

Sunday Update – December 6, 2015

Where did this past week go? I know I say that all the time, but this last one zipped on by in a blur. I think the fact that I’m careful to work or stay busy every day helps. This past week I went to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday, I worked out on Monday and Wednesday, and then I spent the day with my friend Amy at Panera on Friday. Plus I’ve been writing every day! I’ve managed to write at least 2k each day on my second cozy mystery book, and so far the story is chugging along at a great pace. I’m pretty happy with it, and with where the story is going.

I had a week’s worth of Japanese curry too, from making it for dinner on Monday night. I then ate it Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for lunch. LOL. It was really good and I felt happy to be eating the leftovers. A couple of nights called for strong drinks though. The kids were in MOODS this week, and they would come home and fight after school. I don’t know what was up with them, but hopefully this next week is calmer.

What else happened this past week?

I took Sunday off from writing before starting the new book, watched KP play on his new Playstation, and I knit. It was a nice break.

I got a lot of writing done with tea and my planner by my side. I’m keeping track of all my daily word counts in it.

We went and saw Neil deGrasse Tyson at NJPAC on Thursday night! He did a lecture on Science Illiteracy and I learned a lot about other cultures, how they treat science, and common science misconceptions.

We ordered Chinese for dinner last night instead of cooking and I got this awesome fortune. You all know that I work hard because I believe it’s the right thing to do. Trying to have confidence in myself will lead me to great things one day.

Now, I need to take my kids to a birthday party where I will probably skip out and write in the lobby of the YMCA. Lol. Have a great week everyone!

Book Chat #21

I haven’t done a Book Chat in almost two months now. What with family emergencies (my daughter breaking her arm) and then writing a whole book, I didn’t have any free time to read. BUT, I did have free time to listen to audiobooks!

I finished UNSOULED, the third book in the Unwind Dystology (which is a great word, by the way). UNSOULED was really well done and I enjoyed all the subplots of the book once again. This is turning out to be a major contender for best dystopian series ever. There were a few points where I would say, “GET BACK TO RISA!” or “What ever happened to Miracolina?” but otherwise, it was a solid book and I recommend this series to anyone who happens to want a good dystopian.

After I was done with UNSOULED, I went on to buy the first book in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, OLD MAN’S WAR. I had read this book ages ago, but I want to listen to the whole series on audiobook, so I spent a credit on it. It’s still great the second time through. I love the premise of old people being reborn as soldiers and taking on the aliens of the galaxy. It’s smart, funny, and totally sucks you, just like all of Scalzi’s books.

Over the holiday weekend, when I had finished writing my first cozy mystery, I decided I wanted to read a classic scifi, something I hadn’t read before and I chose DAWN by Octavia Butler. Holy crap, people. This novel is not for the faint of heart, but I LOVED IT SO MUCH. The basic premise is that humanity just tried to kill itself in a nuclear war and only a few humans are left. An alien race comes and saves those humans and fixes the Earth while they are all in stasis. The aliens wake up Lilith and recruit her to be their emissary, but they have a price for all their help and cooperation. They will change humanity forever by cross-breeding and evolving humans beyond what they are now. While the “sex” in the book is not graphic at all, it is disturbing to think of how the aliens will mate and bond with humans. I was totally fascinated with the whole thing, and I couldn’t stop reading.

I have since bought the box set of all three book in the trilogy and I hope to read them all. Butler’s writing was both beautiful and sparse, and there were times I was very frustrated with Lilith and her distrust, but ultimately I loved seeing her character grow and change. This is the scifi that I love, the kind that focuses on humanity and human emotions. This book comes with a HIGHLY RECOMMEND stamp.

Being Too Honest

Sometimes I’m too honest about my inner thoughts and feelings, especially about publishing. I posted on the blog earlier today in hopes that hearing about my negative mindset would let other authors know they’re not alone. I know many of us beat ourselves up for not being good enough or successful enough. It’s hard work doing what we do, both emotionally and physically. But I didn’t want to come across as looking for pity, and I’m afraid that’s what happened.

I want you all to know that you’re capable of anything, even if you believe you’re not. Maybe I could take my own advice on this. In the meantime, I’ll be back with a Book Chat tomorrow.

Have an awesome day!

Sunday Update – November 29, 2015

Today is my husband’s birthday! Happy birthday, KP! He’s a rockin’ 42 years old, and I’m about join him in the 40s in about six weeks. Where is the time going? I swear that 2015 just started a few weeks ago, and here we are about to go into 2016. It’s hard to believe.

Anyway, it was quite a busy but relaxing week. I worked hard Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to get my first cozy mystery done and in the books, and I achieved my goal! The week was short because it was Thanksgiving here in the States. The kids had a half day on Wednesday, and I had to volunteer at the school library on Tuesday. My exercising was cut a little this week as we had to accommodate for family gatherings and I really just wanted to sit and read. And I did! I read a whole book between Friday and Saturday, which felt great. More on that in a Book Chat this week.

I started brainstorming for Book 2 of my cozy mystery series and wrote out beats for the first six scenes of the book. I have a pretty good idea about the murder and I already had ideas for the personal and romantic storylines, so I feel like I’m ready to go with this one! I wonder if I’ll burn out on the story after this book? I’m not sure. Something about writing the first book was so freeing. I hope I feel the same way with the second one.

What else happened this week?

We’re using up the very last of our CSA veggies! The season is over and now we’re heading into the winter of no farm fresh local veggies. Very sad times.

I have decided that I’m just not capable of walking outside when it’s below 35ºF. This was one very frosty morning and the temp was around 31ºF and it was just too cold for me. Sigh.

We started off Thanksgiving right with vegan yeasted waffles. Yeasted waffles are the absolute best and these ones turned out perfect!

I love love love these new Jamberry wraps! This is Happy Go Lucky and it’s the perfect combination of color and pattern.

When I’m between writing books, I obsessively clean and reorganize. This is the activity center for the kids and it was an absolute mess before I got ahold of it. Used paper and coloring books everywhere. Dirt from the plant in the corner stuck to the wall. A MESS! I recycled all the used paper and cleaned and organized it. Now they have stuff they can do and it no longer looks like a disaster. Later, I tackled our Tupperware area! I was on a mad streak!

And today is KP’s birthday, as I said above, so we got a babysitter and went out last night. First we had all-you-can-eat lobster buffet and then saw Spectre. It was pretty good, but I’m looking forward to another James Bond reboot. Hopefully the next one will move on.

Okay, everyone! Have a great day and week! I’ll be back with a Book Chat and possibly other posts too.

Finished Writing My First Cozy Mystery!

I just finished writing my first ever cozy mystery book! This is the eighth full-length novel I’ve ever written, and it’s also the smoothest time I’ve ever had writing any book ever. Really. I think I finally upped my game by learning more about story structure and plotting ahead of time. The plotting helped significantly! It was great to always go back to my spreadsheet and see where I was in the writing process, where I need to get to, and what to write next. I never sat down at the computer and hemmed and hawed about what to write. Sure, the outline was pretty vague at some points with notes like “The Funeral” and nothing else. Lol. But that always got me going on the right track.

Now I’m going to take off Thanksgiving weekend, start plotting out Book 2 of the series, and then get started on writing that on Monday. I’m really hoping I don’t burn out before mid-January!

As a little treat, I’ve made another teaser for this book, so here it is!

One thing I’ve noticed about every book I write is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE to poke fun at the genre the book is written in. In the Nogiku Series, we had…

“…Three weeks ago, he decided to stick to his fifth wave slot, and I doubt we would have survived an interstellar, long distance relationship.”

“That sounds like something out of sci-fi romance novel.”

And in SUMMER HAIKUS, we had…

I had dreams of slipping into his room and his bed but chided myself for being creepy. Who does that shit anyway? People in romance novels maybe.

Lol. Of course, I’m going to poke fun at cozy mysteries too while I’m at it.

Winning #NaNoWriMo Is Just The Beginning

When I set out to write the first two books in my new cozy mystery series, I had planned to start in early October. All of September I had been editing and finishing REVEALED, so I knew my target date for starting a new draft of something would be October. Then my youngest broke her arm in a really bad way. She was in the hospital for 3 days and then home for a week. There was no starting a new project then. I could barely function most of those day because I was worried about her, and she was home every day.

Then came the doubts. Joanna Penn talks about this a lot, the “I have finished writing a book and I will never write anything ever again!” feeling that comes with every novel we write. I remember having my ideas for this cozy mystery during the summer, but I worried that I wouldn’t be able to write it. I wouldn’t be able to make the dream come true. So I had to sit down and reassure myself that I had written books in the past and it always worked out! Always. Sometimes an idea may change, but something always came out of my brain through my fingers. I had written a whole series. Surely, I could write something new.

Starting my new first draft coincided perfectly with NaNoWriMo. The past two years I was busy either editing or publishing other books so I wasn’t able to do it, but this year I had my chance. On October 20, I started a brand new book and wrote 17,617 words before November 1. I fumbled around a lot right in the beginning because I was trying a lot of brand new things. I was trying to write in past tense and dictate as well. Eventually, I dropped past tense (opting instead to write in present tense and revise to past tense in the next draft) and kept dictating to when I just needed to get a kick in the pants. I went from an average of 1600 words per day to 2386 per day once I made the switch! I just write faster and with more confidence in present tense. I’m hoping to up this significantly in December by adding in even more dictation.

I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line last night with 50,123 words in November, but I’m not done. My goal was to write 2000-3000 words every day until my birthday in mid-January. I’m doing something I’ve never done before and I’m writing two first drafts of the first two books of a series right in a row. Forget 50,000 words in November. My goal is 160,000 words by mid-January. I’m hoping that my momentum will keep me going until I’m depleted because I really want those two books. I’m already day dreaming about the second book and what the plot will be so if I go straight into it, it’ll feel like I’m just continuing the first book. I’m in love with these characters and this little town I created in the prefecture north of Tokyo, so spending more time with them will not be a bother, that’s for sure!

These words in November are just the beginning of my journey, but it’s been fun to work alongside all these other authors struggling or sprinting to get their words in at the same time I did. There was a sense of community and purpose while we all wrote our stories and some of them are still going strong since there are still 8 more days to go.

According to my schedule for next year, I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo again come November 2016. I’m already looking forward to it!

Sunday Update – November 22, 2015

Well, this was quite a week for me! I just looked back on my photos for this week in preparation for this post, and basically, all I see is writing. And that’s such a good thing. I went many months this year not writing (revising or taking a break were high on my list) so it’s fun to be back in the groove again. More on that this week when I take a look back at NaNoWriMo.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I won last night! I was so excited that I didn’t get to sleep until after midnight. Lol. But I crossed the 50,000 words in November mark and validated my words, making me a “winner.” My husband asked me, “So you’re the first?” “No. We’re not competing against each other, we’re just trying to cross the finish line.” “Oh.” He totally didn’t get it. That’s okay because I know how hard it is to get those words in in November, so I feel the win. I feel it.

What else happened this week?

I donated a huge box of books to the local library for their upcoming book sale. It felt good to get rid of all of these. Plenty were books I read once and knew I would never read again. Some were books I knew I would never read. And honestly, if I suddenly decided I needed them, I would buy it on Kindle. Lately, I feel weighed down by physical objects, like I’m being buried alive by “things,” so I was glad to see them go. Plus, I know these are going for a good cause, to support my local library, and someone else will hopefully buy them and read them.

I kept track of my NaNoWriMo words everyday, both on a calendar and in my planner. I’m going to continue to do this whenever I’m writing a first draft!

Oh right. I had a book birthday on Wednesday! It was great to see REVEALED make it out into the world. This book was my 2012 NaNoWriMo project so it was fitting to publish it in November. I had some good pre-sales of this book and then only a few sales the day of. But it’s interesting that I no longer care about my release days. I only care that I write and publish.

I sat down and planned out 2016 on a master calendar. I plan to publish 3 books (2 cozy mysteries at the beginning of the year and 1 scifi book near the end), 2 short stories, and 1 novella (in a shared world project). Now it’s possible these numbers could fluctuate, but right now I’m aiming to hit all of my goals.

And then this happened last night! I worked hard to hit a big goal yesterday and win NaNoWriMo! Woo! It was an amazing feeling to hit that goal.

Okay, it’s time for me to get back to writing! Have a great week everyone!

It’s Release Day For REVEALED!

I’ve been talking about this for weeks so it won’t come as a surprise to most of you. But today is the release of REVEALED! This is a Nogiku Series companion novel, titled as Book 5 of the series because I want you to read it last, and the release of my seventh full-length novel. Where does the time go?

I’m pleased to report that I had pretty good pre-order sales for this book! And I’m happy that this book comes to those who have stuck with the series the longest. I know that’s not many of you, but those of you who have stuck around mean the world to me. I love you. Each and every one of you.

Okay, here’s the purchasing details for anyone who hasn’t already bought REVEALED.

Only available at Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo until December 18! Get it now if you want it from those vendors!