Hitting the Pause Button (If It’s Good Enough for Pele…)
Things have settled down a bit here in lower Puna. We still have the 6:30 a.m. low-flying helicopter wake-up call, but, for the moment at least, Pele has paused in her advance toward Pahoa, or anywhere else. In other words, there’s not much happening at the surface. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s not much happening. But for some people, it’s a bit of a respite and more time to make plans (or at least plan to make them). On the other hand, it’s been very hot this week (our 75-pound dog spends the afternoons hiding in a cool Read more…
Birthing a Paperback (You Might Want an Epidural)
My first novel Back to Lazarus came into being on Kindle a couple of months ago. It was a relatively painless birth, from formatting to exporting and uploading. (I guess in this analogy the months of writing the novel was sex, much better than the pregnant years between writing and publishing.) I’m thrilled to say Back to Lazarus is now available in paperback on Amazon—woo hoo! Check out the full cover. The paperback birth was not so painless. It wasn’t one of those “I must forget the pain of delivery or I’ll never have sex again (that is, write another Read more…
Dealing with the First Bad Review (Or, Suck it Up, Girly-Woman!)
I hope everyone (the Americans with decent jobs who got the day off, at least) enjoyed their Labor Day holiday. In the morning, when I usually write, my husband and I worked on our house in the hopes of avoiding the heat. (We were unsuccessful: it was much cooler later in the day, and we were dripping with sweat by early afternoon.) Afterward, I finished and uploaded my paperback revisions. (Yay!) When my focus started to unravel, I found myself at Goodreads. I’ve started an author account there, but don’t have a sense of how often I should check in or what I Read more…
Distractions versus Butt Glue, in the Battle to Get Things Done
I don’t know about you, but my week has seen a fair number of distractions. Many, like the current political situation in—oh, let’s just say everywhere—are of immense scope and importance, and yet have no immediate and discernible direct effect on me on any given day. (Is that enough qualifiers? Sorry—lawyer flashback.) Others, like the beetley roach (that’s what I call the smaller non-palmetto bug roaches because it decreases my likelihood of shrieking) making his sporadic journey around the room right now, have a small scope and very little Importance, but a direct effect on me. (And once on our Read more…
Beware the Research Rabbit Hole
If you’ve signed up for my newsletter (hint, hint), you’ll know that I have a Sydney Brennan novella in the edits stage now. Yay, beta readers! I started working on the second full-length novel this week, gathering notes and bits I’d written previously into a Scrivener file and getting grounded. I’ve also been using Scapple. Not to be confused with a nasty southern meat product made up leftover butchered bits, Scapple is a software program by the Scrivener people that I’m finding really useful for mapping out the story, seeing connections, and keeping track of timelines. (I wish I could Read more…
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