2015 Resolutions

Once again, we're at the end of a year and looking forward to a brand new shiny one. Time to think about what changes we want to make.

I'm going to stay away from the long lists and health related resolutions this year. I always end up depressing myself by the middle of February with those anyway. I'm going to keep it short and sweet for 2015.

1. Write for at least thirty minutes every morning.

"Write every day," is a bit of good writing advice you see all over the place. It's something I've tried and failed to start doing time and again, and I've come to believe my reason for failing is because I've never set a specific time aside for it. So that's what I'm doing this year.

I'm a person who peaks in the late morning and afternoon, so if I had my druthers, that's when I'd pick for my writing time. Unfortunately, my late mornings and afternoons are taken six days out of seven, so the half hour or so I've been using to check various social media and have my morning coffee will have to do. It'll probably be like pulling teeth the first week or two, but I figure slow and steady is better than the hit or miss thing I've had going on the past several years.

Some days this might mean writing a few blog posts and scheduling them out, but most days, I'll probably be working on my current works in progress. I'm hoping to start releasing a novel once a year, starting with The Icarus Project sometime in late 2015 and then returning to the Yekara series with Midnight Rising in 2016. Then alternating between the Icarus trilogy and the Yekara series as time goes on.

2. Stick to the cleaning schedule.

I'm a very neat and organized person who lacks in the follow through department. Or well, lacking in energy a lot of times, would probably be more accurate. I do well enough the days I'm off or work-from-home. However, the days I go into the office, I have a bad habit of just crashing once I come back through the door.

I wrote up a workable housekeeping schedule for our family to follow, but we never gave it a go after Hubby's school year started. We're going to try to stick to it going forward in 2015. I figure it might take us a while to get everything back in order following the holiday chaos, but we'll get there eventually. The trick will be sticking with the schedule and not becoming complacent when we get back to just maintaining the house in it's clean state.

That's it. I just have two measly little resolutions this year, but sometimes the smallest things can have the biggest impact.

What are your resolutions for 2015?

Right of Succession is Available!

Long time readers will know I've spent more than half my life working on my first full novel. I've written other things in the past nineteen and a half years, but I kept going back to Right of Succession.

Well, it's finally been finished and published!

It is available on Kindle and in paperback form. In fact, you can snag an electronic copy free from Amazon if you head over and download a copy by Tuesday, June 24.

For local folks, I'll be at Con Kasterborous this weekend, and I should have about twelve paperback copies available for purchase at my booth. (If they arrive when my publisher says they will, that is.)

Personalized, signed copies will be available through contentedcomfort.com along with all bath and body, knit, and crocheted items come mid to late July when I finish integrating my storefront with the main website. My Etsy store will stay up as a means to accept inquiries from existing customers and to direct returning customers to the main website.

If you read and enjoy, please help a new novelist out and leave a review. And as always, thanks for your support!

Musing on Character Archetypes

So, I was listening to one of the local radio stations this morning, and they read something called "Captain America's Top 10 Complaints" since they're giving away movie passes to Winter Soldier. One complaint stuck out: "That Iron Man gets all the girls."

Movie still from The Avengers

My first response was to roll my eyes. Both have plenty of fangirls and can do well enough in their own right. Besides, Tony's in a committed relationship. And Steve, so far as the latest movies go, hasn't been awake for long and is still grieving. It's not something I think either character would care much about anyway.

It's been a busy few weeks.

It's a bit later than I wanted, but today's Right of Succession update is all the better for it. I've made a lot of progress in the past week!

What's in my desk?

Just a bit of fun this Friday morning. Ever wanted to know what you'd find in a writer's desk. Now you know.

If you can't see the video, click here.

One Year from Today

This is the time of year businesses are setting their goals for the quarter, half year, three quarters, a year, three years, and five years, so I thought it might be fun and interesting to do the same.

I'm not going to bore you with a mega post laying out specific goals for each quarter or years to come. I'm just going to fantasize a bit about where I want to be this time next year, and then I can look back come 2015 and see how I did.

So, where is Right of Succession?

I know I said Right of Succession would be published in 2013. First, I said June. Then, I said September, and then, I said just by the end of the year.

Murphy seems to be getting back at me, because it's not going to happen. I could try to rush it, rip my hair out in frustration and stress, and fall behind with Contented Comfort. But I would rather take my time and make the last three and a half chapters the best they can possibly be, even if that means not hitting publish until sometime in 2015.

Artwork from Joy's Designs showing a woman reading "Surviving Murphy."

So, Thanksgiving is coming up next week.

As has probably become obvious by now, I'm still trying to find a good balance here on the blog itself after merging The Tekaran Lady, Contented Comfort, and this blog into one as well as with my newish YouTube channel. This process will probably intensify over the next few weeks or months as I get back into posting and uploading on some kind of regular basis. Things might get a bit crazy around here for a while, so please have patience with me.

Boo Bear took advantage of everyone talking to sneak HALF a pie!

I've been brainstorming, and of course considering the time of year we're in now, a lot of what I've been thinking about revolves around the holidays. I'm currently working on a child friendly Thanksgiving tag and planning to shoot a few Sunday Sides and Suppers videos featuring a few super easy but delicious gluten free sides and desserts as I start into my holiday cooking. I'll also do a couple of writing posts and/or vlogs as I get back into working on Right of Succession and start pre-writing my next project. And, of course, there are some things I may end up co-writing with Hubby regarding homeschooling and the other change ups we've had going on the past couple of months.

Writer Fail, Lion's Club BBQ Recount, and a Rebirth

Yes, I know. I promised I'd have Right of Succession published at the end of last week. Sorry folks, I wasn't expecting the events of last week.

First, I threw my hip out of socket somehow on Wednesday morning. I couldn't sit at the desk, and it's next to impossible to type while lying flat.

I recovered from that just in time to set up for the Lion's Club BBQ Cook Off. I normally don't work events this late in the year. But it was a free booth, and I thought a tent would be enough to keep myself and the soaps from damage. I was wrong. I lost about thirty to forty sample soaps, even in the shade, and I wound up with heat stroke.

New policy: no outdoor events between mid-May and the very end of September. It's just too hot and humid here in the Tennessee Valley for items that start melting at 90 degrees.

Slacker Writer

I've become very disappointed in myself lately. These past few months, I had fully intended to not only get ahead with my soaping but with my writing as well. The plan was originally to be finished with the Right of Succession rewrites and edits by now and be working on creating the paperback proofs.

Yeah, I'm not done with the rewrites yet. I'm doing okay on soap production, despite running out of half my fragrance oils getting ready for Homespun last week and having to wait on a resupply order to get in. The problem is, I tend to get started with one particular thing and become obsessive about that thing until I finish. Last week, I spent four days obsessively soaping, taking product photos, and wrapping all these new products to get ready for my first show of the year after the others got canceled. I didn't to the first bit of writing.

My Favorite Movie Revealed

There are a lot of movies I really love, but there's something about Dragonheart that keeps pulling me back to it. Maybe it's the characters. Maybe it's the Arthurian influences in it. I don't know why exactly, but it's one of those movies, like a favored book that keeps pulling you back time and again.

I've talked about it before over as one of the main influences for the Yekara Series. Though there, the novelized version was as much of one as the movie, mostly in learning to deal with descriptions of a species as large and alien as dragons.

Ten Years from Now

Day two of the blogging challenge. Where would I like to be in ten years?

I certainly hope I will be coming up on my seventeenth wedding anniversary, with both Hubby and I still in good health. The girls will be fifteen and thirteen, so they'll be in high school. I want to be able to hunt out a couple internships for Boo Bear for the next year, and maybe even have helped the girls create their own thriving projects.

I want Contented Comfort to be chugging along and to have five or six novels released and selling a modest amount of copies. I hope by then to have made a few conferences and conventions, both for blogging and maybe some of the smaller science fiction conventions. And on a related note, I hope I'll have gotten over being a sociophobe. It's pretty bad to hope for success and be terrified of it at the same time.

Dealing with Increasing Migraines

I don't know how many of you have migraines, but it's near impossible to write through one. Even the painless ones, and yes there is such a thing. 

They're almost like having a petit mal seizure but without the zoning out. Sometimes I'll see bright lights or shadows. Others I get vertigo so badly I have to lie down on the floor or crawl to keep from slamming into walls or falling over. The really scary ones completely mess up my ability to manipulate words. It's like how my dyslexia gets ten times worse when I'm sick or tired, only instead of making it just difficult to read or pronounce words, I loose the ability completely for several hours. I can't even bring the letters into focus or remember half my vocabulary.

They used to be rare occurrences. Then about two years ago, I started getting them something chronic. After several months on beta blockers to prevent and control them, I learned certain foods or additives can trigger migraines. It turns out the artificial sweetener I was using in my coffee didn't agree with my system, and switching to natural sugar had me virtually migraine free once again.

However, I've begun having them more frequently again. I kept track of them for several months and soon noticed a pattern. I was having auras and full blown migraines whenever CMEs or solar winds were hitting the earth's magnetosphere. The same is true for Mom and some other migraine sufferers in the family as well. (It's even a trend noticed and prepared for by hospitals, so I know I'm not alone even though it's not something that's been studied so far as I can tell.)

So what's a writer to do?

Other than keeping triggers to a minimum, there isn't much I can do unless I want to go back on a daily medication that causes lots of other issues I find just as troublesome. And I don't. I just now got my system back in order after last year's stint on them.

And on the plus side, slipping on a character and working through troublesome scenes makes for a good escape from the pain when they do come.

Writing Challenge One

Today's writing challenge for the Writer's Platform-Building Campaign is to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long beginning with the words "the door swung open." For an extra challenge, we were to keep to exactly 200 words and end with "the door swung shut."  

Below is my entry. It's exactly 200 words long and is set in the Yekara universe a week or so before Right of Succession begins.

Ralic's Mistake

The door swung open, the well maintained hinges giving her no warning save its motion. Chantal shoved the papers she’d gathered between the pages of the tome she carried before her father entered. He was deep in conversation with his steward, giving her precious seconds to calm herself.

“Chantal,” Ralic said, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I finished my studies early, Father. I wanted to see if you’d take lunch with me,” she lied. Her heart beat in her chest like a wild thing, and she marveled neither her father nor his steward could hear it. If they knew she’d stolen records from Ralic, her father would turn her over to Eugrin for punishment, daughter or no. What would he do if he knew what she intended to do with them?

“If only I could, precious,” Ralic replied. “Unfortunately the rarity of pleasant days during transition leaves little time for rest when they come.”

“I understand, Father.” Chantal nodded slowly, trying her hardest to appear disappointed and understanding instead of giving away her relief. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

She nodded to Eugrin as she stepped into the hall, only allowing herself a secret smile as the door swung shut.

Third Annual Writer's Platform Campaign

If you haven't heard about Rach Writes' annual writer's platform building campaign, make sure to head on over and sign up today.

Yes, I'm very naughty and waited to the last moment, but to be fair, I only heard about it a few days ago. And I've been swamped.

No seriously though. Join in and help other writers in your genre build their writer's platforms while increasing your own. Hurry though, the list closes today.

The Fan Fic Debate

There's been a fair amount of talk about writing fan fiction of late during #writechat. Is it cheating? Can it actually lead to up to a publishing career? Does it actually count as writing? Would it provide a ready audience when you publish your original work?

Long time readers will know I'm pretty pro fan fiction so long as the author doesn't try to make money off of their fan pieces. I write some myself as a way to warm up, practice, and just experiment with voice and new character archetypes.

I read a bit too. Most is mediocre or just down right awful, but there are those few authors, the ones I want to write original novels.

Have you ever read any fan fic? Do you write it? Anyone from the anti fan fic camp out there?

* The poorly Photoshopped illustration over to the side is one I did for a compilation piece titled In Debt Up to Our Crossbows over on Twisting the Hellmouth. Yes I know I can't do photo manipulation. We all suck at something.

Support your favorite authors. Become a book ninja!

Tuesday, Carrie Harris wrote about a phenomenon I didn't even realize was out there. We've all heard about pirated movies and music, but books are feeling it now too.

There's been debate over the advent of digital books and their effect on the publishing industry for years now. I guess it was inevitable the same type of folks who upload music and movies to pirating sites would start doing the same for books.

Don't think it makes a difference? Make sure to head over to Saundra Mitchell's blog and read what she has to say about her personal experiences with book pirating.

Don't believe the rumors that authors make huge bucks for all their books. Stories like J. K. Rowling and others who hit the big time with block busters right out of the gate are few and far between. And even then, take into consideration how long it takes to get a book from idea to the shelf. It takes years. Yes, years folks, especially for first novels. And all those downloads don't count toward the author's sales numbers, making it less and less likely with each successive one that the author will be able to sell their next book. So, the pirates are gleefully hacking off their peg legs without realizing it.

Imagine pouring your heart and soul into something for a year or five, then to wake up one morning to find people happily stealing from you and stomping all over your career while smiling and waving, all while there's very little you can do to stop them. Kinda makes you sick to your stomach, doesn't it?

What can you do about it though? 

First off, don't join in. There are all sorts of alternatives. Being low on funds or not having the book available in your local stores or library right now isn't an excuse. Ms. Mitchell gives directions on how to get your hands on a book in ways which aren't detrimental to your favorite author.

Second, spread the word. Unless the author is making their own work available for free for whatever reason, getting a "free" book isn't free. You're getting it at the expense of the author whose work you want to read and making it less likely you'll ever see anything else of theirs available.

Support your favorite author. Become a book ninja!

Tuesday, Carrie Harris wrote about a phenomenon I didn't even realize was out there. We've all heard about pirated movies and music, but books are feeling it now too.

Make sure to head over to Saundra Mitchell's blog and read what she has to say about her personal experiences with book pirating.

Okay, I know I'm posting Right of Succession for free right now, but I have my own reasons for doing so. I'm still getting something out of the deal. It was my decision to do so, so it's all good. Not every author wants to take the route I decided on, and even then, should the same happen to my stuff, it would hurt like heck.

It takes years. Yes, years folks, to get a book from idea to the bookshelf, especially first books. Those downloads don't count toward the author's sales numbers. They don't see a penny for them. Worse, each successive lowers the chance the author will be able to sell their next book because it cuts into the number of sold copies, which is the only number their employers, the publishing companies look at. I mean, why should they care how many times it's downloaded? Do they see anything from the downloads? So, the pirates are gleefully hacking off their peg legs without realizing it.

Imagine pouring your heart and soul into something for a year or five, then to wake up one morning to find people happily stealing from you and stomping all over your career while smiling and waving, all while there's very little you can do to stop them. Kinda makes you sick to your stomach, doesn't it?

What can you do? 

First, don't join in. Ms. Mitchell gives directions on how to get your hands on a book in ways which aren't detrimental to your favorite author even if the book isn't currently available in your area, or you can't afford to buy it.

Second, spread the word. Like Ms. Mitchell says, "Free" books aren't free. You're getting it at the expense of the author whose work you want to read and making it less likely you'll ever see anything else of theirs available.

Happy New Year!

I want to wish you all a happy new year a couple of days late. Please pardon my tardiness, Hubby, the girls, and I just returned from visiting Hubby's family out-of-state on New Year's Day. And I spent yesterday sick as a dog.

We had a good holiday, and a wonderful trip down along with Hubby's father, brother, and my new sister-in-law. We had a good visit with his family, and I managed to stitch together a few pretties for the Etsy store opening on the 29th on the drive.

I'm not really much of one for making resolutions upon the year's end, but I do have a few goals for 2011.

1. Now that I have a working treatment for the chronic insomnia that's been squashing my health and metabolism, I intend to get into decent physical shape.

2. Open my store and at least break even if not actually turn a small profit for the year.

3. Finally finish the rewrites on Right of Succession and submit it to agents.

4. Now that our greenhouse will be ready before March, I intend to be growing, harvesting, and preserving all the vegetables for our family using organic methods by June.

What are your goals for the year?

"The Cookbook" Finally has a Title!

Come on, you didn't really think I'd be calling it "The Cookbook" forever did you? No, I was just having a difficult time coming up with anything good enough to be a real title. It's a pattern. I tend to go through four or five working titles until I find one I love, so I've stopped trying to give a piece more than a descriptive title until I finally find the one.

Now, for those of you who are new to the blog, it's not actually a cookbook so much as a book of tips. In truth, only about a forth of the book is made up of recipes. The rest is the story of our little family and how we've managed to save money and hold on to enough of our savings to buy a house, even while technically living under the poverty line. In the writing of it, I noticed we seem to be one of Murphy's favored punching bags.

I know we're not actually more prone to things going wrong than anyone else, but it can certainly feel that way when you're going through it. That idea is where the title comes in.

"Surviving Murphy: Keeping it Together when Everything Goes Wrong"

The cover art is still a work-in-progress, and I will post the full cover once I have it in hand.

Surviving Murphy is heading into final revisions now. If all goes to plan, it will be fully proofed and coming to Amazon and Etsy in November. Watch here or over on Facebook for more details as they become available.