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Start Small

If you’re struggling to get a foothold on your New Year’s resolutions this month, then let me tell you how I’m tackling my projects.  It might seem ridiculous, especially when you have a deadline you’re trying to reach, but I’m hoping that it’ll payoff. 

This article about kazien and goal-setting gave me the inspiration. 

Kaizen is a Japanese word that basically means continuous but very small change. This idea can really increase the momentum needed for habit change, because it works up to change gradually.

I’ve talked about getting up “Dark & Early” before.  With three kids and a full-time job, it’s hard to find time to write during the day or evening.  It’s even harder to get up an hour (or more) earlier in the cold, wintery months too.  The last thing I want to do is crawl out of my nice toasty bed!  (Did I mention that I adore the down comforter MIL gave us two Christmases ago?)  I know that I need to get up early to get as much done as possible before the day explodes in my face, but I’ve just been so tired.  I can’t.

I can’t get up at 5:30 or 5:00.  But I can get up at 5:45.

About two weeks ago, I started setting my clock a few minutes earlier than usual.  I’m doing everything I can the night before to make sure that once I’m up, I don’t have much to do.  e.g. I’m not wasting time washing the coffee pot — I’m getting a cup and heading straight downstairs.  I don’t have a ton of writing time by any means, but it IS time and I AM up.  This morning, I woke up before the alarm went off.

Next week I’m hoping to back my clock up again to 5:30.  By March — typically a pretty big month for me — I’m hoping to be up by 5:00 am.

This works for writing too.  I’ve been stalled this month by angst.  Even good news of a sale can stall me, because my mind immediately jumps forward to website changes, edits, promo.  Not writing.  The kaizen approach can work here too.  Instead of saying “I have to write 1K today!”  I’m starting with 200 words.  Yes, that’s it.  The first day this week, that’s all I got.

But the next day I got 400 words.

Today, another 400-500 words.

Eventually, I’ll reach the tipping point in the story where my writing muscles will be loose and the story will unfold in my brain faster than my fingers can keep up.  I need that slow, steady rise to build momentum.  Even if it takes the rest of this month, I’m allowing myself to settle for a couple of hundred words a day, as long as I’m working.

I know full well that I’m capable of thousands a day when my mind is ready.  The words will come. 

Another reason I’m settling for a smaller word count right now:  I’m exercising during the day.  Yes, that cuts into my writing time.  Instead of writing during my lunch, I’m exercising instead.  That does add up over the week, negatively impacting how much I can get done.  That’s okay, though, because I know eventually I’ll reach a tipping point there, too.  The exercise will make me feel better, relieve stress, and I’ll be fresher and more healthy when I do sit down to get my words.

That’s the plan, at least.  🙂 

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Good News Monday

Did you know that today is supposed to be one of the most depressing days of theyear? We did have a pretty sad weekend, and I’m working at the Evil Day Job today even though everyone else in my family is off, so I decided to have a POSITIVE post.

My good news for today and this month:

1. I’ve lost 8 pounds so far this month.

2. I made a significant breakthrough in my understanding about the direction I want to go with my writing for the next several years.

3. I’ve mapped out my writing plan for the next three months and it’s doable (vs. insane, which I sadly tend to attempt).

4. I’ve returned to modest exercise this month and I’ve been eating more natural, real, whole foods (see #1).

5. Doing the dishes (see #4 – requires lots of cooking from scratch) hasn’t killed me yet.

6. The monsters haven’t had a snow day yet (although they are home today – I hear them thumping around under That Man’s watch).

7. To earn money for DSis, the monsters cleaned the entire garage this weekend. All I have to do is go through the “Mom” pile (which
I haven’t seen yet, so I can call this a positive).

8. Other than a mild cold, none of us have been ill this winter (possibly linked to #4).

9. I’ve been reading more since I got a Kindle for Christmas.

10. I’ve made the first sale of 2011!

I’ve known for over a week but I’m always a little neurotic that they’ll change their mind before I get the contract. 😉 But I really need the good news and you might too! So I’m happy to say that Golden — an erotic novella loosely based on Imperial China — will be coming soon from Carina Press!

Come on, share some good news! Don’t let this be a “Blue Monday.”

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Hug Your Loved Ones

This weekend we received some terrible family news.  My 17-year-old cousin was killed in a car accident.

Sadly, I didn’t know this cousin very well.  I’d already left home for college, and then we moved out of state for years.  I can’t imagine what my Aunt & Uncle, her older sister (who we used to babysit, so I have tons of memories of her), and my grandparents are going through.  As the youngest grandchild, she was very special to them.

So hug your family and friends today.  Remember that life is so fragile and precious. 

My sweet young cousin is singing with the angels.

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Reviewers and Bloggers Wanted

I have the final files of Lady Doctor Wyre in hand!  If you’re willing to review a SF erotic romance (menage and some BDSM) that’s loosely “A Jane Austen Space Opera” then please e-mail me at joelysueburkhart AT gmail DOT com with your desired format.  You don’t have to have an official review site — if you’re willing to rate on Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, etc. that is wonderful too.  Release date isn’t until March, but I’d love to get some reviews ahead of schedule!

(Blurb)

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Knowing When to Quit

Also:  Knowing Your Author Brand.

First, let me recommend The Dip by Seth Godin, recommended to be by May.  It’s basically a book about knowing which projects to keep working on, and when it will save you time to quit.  Yes, quit.  It’s an evil word to an overachiever, but sometimes quitting a project is the best thing you can do.

Spinning your wheels?  Stuck on a cul-de-sac going nowhere fast?  Sometimes extra effort will get you back on the freeway toward success.  However, sometimes you’ll never get that particular car out on the freeway–maybe it’s nowhere close to road-ready–and eventually it’ll run out of gas, break down, and you’ll have to abandon it.

Choose when to abandon the car.  Errr project.  Save your time and effort by knowing when that project just isn’t going to work and move on to the one that will.  It’s not quitting because a project is hard.  It’s quitting because the project is wrong for you.

What does this have to do with author branding? 

I’ve been thinking about my brand–or lack thereof–for a long time.  I’ve blogged for years about my horse totem, not liking boundaries, struggling to balance on the fence between genres, etc.  I’m never going to be able to say “I’m a [insert single genre] writer!”  I’m just not.  That’s not my personality.  I’m a Gemini.  I have many different faces.  I can’t take personality tests because I’m torn between the creative side and my rational analytical side.  Depending on which hat I’m wearing, I’ll answer different on every single question.

However, I’ve been trying to be more mindful about what common element ties all my work together. Not all of my work meets that personal brand, but going forward, I need to do a better job of staying true to who I am and what I want to write, whether it’s a smoldering hot fantasy based on Imperial China, an epic fantasy assassin, or a sexy English professor.  They’ll all have this common element.  I just need to emphasize it.

So what does this have to do with quitting?  I’ve decided to file the project formerly referred to as Faced.  As I’ve currently plotted and built, it does not fulfill my brand.  That’s why I’ve been struggling this month.  My mind kept worrying over the details, endlessly churning about what I should and shouldn’t be writing.  The gaping hole didn’t appear to me until today when I was writing my morning pages in my journal.

Faced doesn’t fit my brand.  So at this time, it’s off my list.  The premise is cool enough I will definitely work on it some more, but I need to add some details to make it work with my vision.

So, the rest of the month, I’ll be switching gears to writing Lady Wyre’s prequel and finalizing the plot of Phantom–which thankfully DOES fit inside my brand.  I just need to finish some more plotting and characterization first.

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Pushing Through

In many ways, I’ve been stalled this month.  As I said in a post or two ago, it’s still busy for us even though the holidays are over, but today marks what I hope to be a “return to normal.”  No more birthdays until May, so it’s nose to the grindstone.

Even as I say that, though, I’m still dragging.  I’m tired and unmotivated, even though I have a deadline to play with.  Just the thought of getting up at 5 AM makes me want to curl into a ball and hibernate!  I just can’t get as excited about this story as I should be.  On paper, it looks good.  It’s got several really cool elements to play with.  But my mind is disengaged from the words.

So I’m gradually rolling back my wake-up time.  Last week, I got up just early enough to be the first one up and get the coffee made before the oldest needed to be up (her school starts an hour ahead of her sisters’ school).  This week, I’m waking up 15 mins earlier than that.  Plus, I’m going to get back into the habit of prepping the coffee pot the night before, which should shave 5-10 minutes off my morning routine.  (I could program it to brew automatically, and I might do that at some point.  I just hate the thought of wasting coffee if my alarm doesn’t go off.)

I’ve also been exercising more consistently this month, which I hope will eventually increase my energy.

Lastly, I’m working on morning pages again ala Julia Cameron.  I don’t always do them first thing (since I’ve not been able to get up early enough), but I’ve been writing in my journal a page or two each day, working on rebuilding that connection in my mind.  Words, I need words! 

In the end, I may not meet the deadline, but I’m not going to stop pushing on this novella.  It has some really cool elements, even if my sleepy hibernating side poo-poos it in favor of going back to bed!

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Review: Jenna Reynolds’ Kiss of Honor

A few weeks ago, Lianna Williamson won a copy of Jenna’s latest Ellora’s Cave release, Kiss of Honor, and Lianna was kind enough to send me a review to post!

Gawain (a descendant of the  Gawain) takes being a knight very, very seriously. Despite the general debauchery at court, he’s taken a vow of chastity, and he’s honor-sworn to serve a king whose cruelty he despises. When the king sends him on a quest to uncover the secrets of a magic ring, Gawain meets Miriam Wildrose, a strong-willed and beautiful witch. Miriam challenges every one of Gawain’s dearly held beliefs, and as the heat grows between them, and Beltane approaches, he must make a choice between duty and love, and learn where true honor lies.

Kiss of Honor is a quick read with well-developed characters, loads of conflict, hot sex, not one but two HEA’s, and the most hilarious mouse familiar ever. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Thank you, Lianna!  I thought the mouse was very cute and expressive too — definitely a different sort of familiar!

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Character Worksheets

Unfortunately, this new year is proving to still be as difficult as the holidays.  My two oldest monsters both have birthdays this month, yesterday and the 10th.  So we’re still in presents, baking, family dinner mode.  I’m still tired and having a difficult time getting up Dark & Early.  Needless to say, my production so far this month has been laughable.  I’m hoping that after the last birthday on Monday that I can dig in and get some serious work done — or I may have to drop a project from my list.  🙁  That always makes me sad.

Anyway, I promised to share the character and theme worksheets I’ve been using to help get myself back on track, so today, I’ll cover CHARACTER.

You may be startled by my deliberately vague sections.  I’ve seen people with huge BIBLES of details.  Hair color, eye color, birthday presents as children, family, jobs, sexual experience, etc.   If something specific stands out to you and helps you make your character live and breathe on the page – then by all means, go for it.  I just didn’t want to DEFINE a bunch of stuff that may or may not help.  For some books, I couldn’t care less about what identifying marks my character might have (until I need to fill out the art sheet) – because those marks don’t play a part in the story.  Why give your character scars or tats if they don’t actually MEAN anything?

I have two stories that never even NAME the character.  The name isn’t important — but the person’s AUTHORITY is. 

I guess my point is use what makes sense to you – but I didn’t waste a bunch of space for specifics.  For me personally, there are only a handful of things that I absolutely must know to make a vibrant, living and breathing character.  The rest is open to interpretation for each story.  I’ll list a few here but won’t get into tons of detail — if you have questions, let’s discuss in comments.

  • Story Goal and Motivation:  first of all, I need to know what’s driving the character at the beginning of the story, and why.  Note that a character’s initial story goal may evolve through or after the inciting incident — especially when circumstances force your poor orphan to leave behind his farm and go in search of a magic ring.
  • Static Trait:  this is something that the character always does – to the point that it becomes part of the plot.  You might have a character who writes letters.  Letters and letters for years!  She always does it, and eventually, those letters play a part in the dark moment and resolution of the story (Dear Sir, I’m Yours).  Or you might have a character who always plays with his ivory rahke a certain way, touching the heroine’s throat and cheek with it — even if later he’s supposed to be dead (The Shanhassonseries).  It’s something that should be innocuous and innocent on its own, but later, you can see it coming from miles away.  It’s tricky and not always something I manage to pull off, but it’s one of those little things that make me ridiculously happy when I do get it right.
  • Greatest Strength — which can always be turned against the character as her Greatest Weakness.  Oh, how I love to use a character’s best skills against her!
  • The bottom row pertains to the Emotional Toolbox and Hero’s Journey.  I highly recommend the Character Map if you’re struggling getting a character just right.  What is the deep underlying fear the character is struggling with?  What skills/traits can the antagonist use against her (similar to the greatest strength – these are things she can’t help doing over and over, even if they get her into trouble)?  What leap of faith does the character have to make to survive the story or fall to the Dark Side?

One thing I’m not entirely satisfied with is the romance arc.  I may end up creating one more sheet to help me get the “arsonist and firefighter” angle of conflict ironed out.  For now, this is working for me.  Good luck and let me know if they prove useful to you!

Character (Excel, pdf)  (Print landscape on legal-sized paper)

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Hello, 2011!

I’m not going to make a huge list of resolutions – I’m a goal-oriented person all year long, not just on Jan 1st.  However, I am going to work on faster turnaround from idea to finished book (as I said a few days ago), and I have a long list of projects I’d like to finish this year.  I’m going to put myself on the spot and list them here – and then see how many I can actually finish this year!  Of course this is way too many projects for one year, but I’m determined to get as many of them done as possible.

  • Lady Wyre’s Regret, free read due before March 29th. Should be less than 10K.  Loosely plotted, not started.
  • Lord Regret’s Price, sequel novella to Lady Doctor Wyre.  Guessing 35K.  Not Started.
  • Faced, novella 30K.  Due 2/1 if I’m going to submit it.  Yikes!!  Still plotting….
  • Phantom, novella 30K.  Still plotting…
  • Post apoc, untitled, 60K.  Still plotting…
  • Mine to Break, Mal’s book, 60K.  No t started.
  • Deathright, 60K, first 3 chapters written.

Better get busy!!!

I’d also like to read at least 50 books this year.

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Goodbye 2010

Looking back…

  • Sold three books.
  • Released two of those books digitally this year (Lady Doctor Wyre will be in 2011).
  • Had another print release, my first with Samhain.
  • Completed editor revisions on three books in various stages of production.
  • Promotion strategies for three releases.
  • Signed with a new publisher with a launch title.
  • Worked with two new editors.
  • Sold the first book in a new series that has the potential to make me very, very happy for a very, very long time.
  • Began reading more regularly on my iPhone.
  • Bought a Kindle.
  • Finished two new projects and two free reads.
  • Worked with Drollerie Press to sponsor Coyote Con and hosted MayNoWriMo.
  • Failed at NaNoWriMo.

Looking ahead to 2011, I have:

  • One definite scheduled release (Lady Doctor Wyre 3/2011)
  • One tentative scheduled digital release (Return to Shanhasson) and print release (The Road to Shanhasson)
  • One project currently submitted, not yet contracted.
  • One project nearly ready for submission.
  • Three other serious projects in progress unrelated to series already contracted.

May 2011 be better for each and every one of us!

Happy New Year!