What are your days filled with?

I've had some technical difficulties with my blog, but hopefully I've figured them out. And I've been spending more time working on my novels than blogging. I do hope to improve my blogging schedule.

To do that, I'm starting with the goal to do mostly book reviews, some author interviews, and doing some links to things I find interesting when it comes to writing.

First off, I'm going for my 3rd time to LDStorymakers writers conference in May. I've already signed up. I even signed up to do a pitch to a real agent. Just thinking about it makes me nervous, but it's still exciting.
 If you want to know more about LDStorymakers conference go HERE  I've loved it the other times I've gone. It's during mother's day weekend, but it's gonna be my gift to myself and from my husband (who will be staying home with 5 kids to experience "Mommyhood" himself. He'll do great.)


Also, I won NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. So basically, I wrote 50,000 new words on a new project in the month of November. I also got a certificate, and a cool little button.

 

I've got 2 projects in the work right now. 2 completed MS. One is ready to send out to agents and publishers by query. The second will be reviewed again to see what needs to happen to get it ready to send out into the world.

 

So, my days are filled with writing things: Facebook to socialize with people outside my imagination, imaginary friends, magic, betrayal, love, kissing, research, laptop, reading, daydreaming...

 as well as my motherly things: diapers, dinner, lunch, dishes, breakfast, dishes, laundry, diapers, homework, kisses, love, joy, diapers, tantrums, reading board books, and so on...

but I love it all .

 

What are your days filled with?

Book Review. BROKEN by C.K. Bryant

Here's what the book say's about itself: 
With Kira injured and dying, Octavion's last hope is to plead with the king of Panthera for a cure. But King Ramla's magic isn't free. The price he asks Octavion to pay goes against everything he's fought so hard to protect and could destroy his bond with Kira. Will Octavion trade his crown and swear allegiance to a kingdom feared by all, or will he sacrifice the woman he loves to remain faithful to his father and Xantara? Find out when BROKEN takes you on a journey into the savage and unpredictable world of Ophira.               

Here's what I have to say about it.

Book 2 is awesome. If you liked Twilight, you'll love this. If you didn't like Twilight, I think you'll still like this. Though Kira is a human in love with a man who craves her blood *spoiler alert if you haven't read book 1 yet*(he's part wild cat from a different planet). Kira is a much stronger character and has lots of spunk. You see how she won't let Octavian control her. I still think he gets too angry, but I guess that happens when you are in his position. The only thing I found annoying about their relationship is that she kept doubting herself too much and doubting his feelings for her. The characters were totally in love, but the romantic scenes never went above a PG rating in my mind. They maintained decent interactions with each other, but I still felt the heat and steam. You don't need to have sex in a book to make it romantic and Mrs. Bryant knew how to make it romance without the smut.
I loved how Mrs. Bryant told the story from his and her viewpoints.
The characters were well developed. The trials and conflict of a new world were there and I loved being able to see this new world through Kira's eyes. The story kept me very engaged, but I almost felt like the main threat never materialized. I know it will come up in book 3 but it was sure forefront in my mind, and when it didn't deliver at the end I was only okay with it because of the way it did end. I seriously can't wait to get my hands on book 3.

C.K Bryant is a great story teller and I've really enjoyed reading these.


For a short time, Book 1 BOUND is free on Amazon. Check it out here

I loved this book and hope you will too. Go check it out on her blog HERE.

Order it from Barnes and Noble HERE

Smashwords HERE

or Amazon HERE

So much going on.

Do you ever experience so much going on in your life, you just can't fit it all in? Of course you do. We only have so much time in each day and we have to use that time wisely.

I of course haven't been using my time all that wisely some days, but others, I'm right on top of it. I would like to promise to get my little tail in gear and make consistent post to this blog, but I will probably not. I'll do more than I've done in the last month, (see, I'm already doing more.)

I have been working on my writing. Switched from 1st person narration to 3rd person. I think it's helping the manuscript. I've also decided to go back to a previous story and spruse it up a little so it can be out in the world getting looked at, probably rejected, and possibly requested while I continue writing.

And when I'm not actually typing at the computer, I'm networking... (hey, facebook is networking) I've also had ideas and plots, and story lines running through my mind. Reading other books is very important as well.  Currently, I'm reading the Fablehaven series to my kids. Brandon Mull was a genious. I'm reading Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker to myself. I've read free books I've gotten on the kindle app, and doing some editing and beta reading for my writing buddies.

It's a fun journey and I do stop the writing to take advantage of the precious time I have with my young children. I realize that I might not get published as quickly as another writer, but I'm okay with that. I still think my kids and husband are more important than my writing. Don't get me wrong. I still am very selfish about my writing, but only to the point where I don't let it consume my life. Just part of it.

How do you do it all?

Book Review. Million Dollar Diva

Million Dollar Diva. The Smart Woman's Guide to Getting Rich Safely by Tristi Pinkston, Brett Kitchen, and Ethan Kap

This book is a fast and easy read with great information. Tristi is a writer friend of mine and when she asked for people willing to review her book, I jumped at the chance. Free book right? What could be better than that? Well, the information in the book is so valuable I really encourage you to check it out. If you do it quickly, you can get the book for free until June 15, 2012, just pay the small shipping fee.

So let me tell you about the book and why it would be a great read.

Tristi and her husband actually put their real figures and their real debts out there for you to see. You can get the specific advice that Brett and Ethan (both financial advisers) give to her. I've heard these get out of debt principals before, but seeing it in the works for a real person helps. See their website here to learn more about Brett and Ethan

First off, start putting money into savings and plan for retirement. With that money out of the way and not thought of as yours, but as your retirement age self, you'll never miss it.

 Pay off your smallest debt first as you continue to pay the minimum payments on all other debts. When first debt it paid off, then apply the money you had going to first debt to the other and soon you'll have things paid off completely.  Sound advice. Easy right? As long as you remember to keep paying that to the other bills instead of using that "freed up cash" for something else. I've seen it before, but actually seeing the charts in the book showing Tristi's examples and seeing how soon she could have things payed off helped to solidify it for me.

They also talk about how to adjust your spending, looking for ways to cut out unnecessary things. In Tristi's case, they didn't have a whole lot of wiggle room for cutting anything more. They'd already cut plenty. But when they brainstormed and discovered they could adjust their Tax withholdings to free up money to pay off debt instead of giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan they could take control.  Also coming up with ideas to use what they have, or getting lower interest credit cards just by asking the bank to help. Also how to think of ways to bring in extra income by doing things you know how to do.

One thing I really liked about the book is they tell you that becoming a Million Dollar Diva happens in 3 steps.
 1. Taking ownership.
 2. Living the proven wealth process.
 3. Having a "Dream Scene" to keep you on track.
You don't have to give up everything. You don't have to live so frugally that your pennies scream cause you hold them so tight. You just need to plan for your expenses. If you want nice clothes, plan for them. Save for them. Don't go into debt to buy them.

As I finished the book, I determined to make some small changes in my spending. We are pretty fortunate and don't have a lot of debt besides the house and the car we are paying off, but I do have a tendency to let the credit card build up. After paying it off completely recently, I vowed to never let it get out of hand again.  Just as said I wouldn't buy anything I didn't have cash in hand for, my dishwasher died.  So holding true to my promise, I haven't bought a new dishwasher yet. We washed by hand for a couple weeks, but a friend of mine who had just upgraded their dishwasher let me have the old one for free.
We also got the kids on board. They've been saving up their money to buy their Wii game they've been begging for. We also let them know why we don't just buy what we want when we want it. We've explained how the whole money thing works at our house and why paying bills and putting money into savings is so important. So I can say it's possible to be frugal with your money. You just have to make the effort.

A few times as I read the suggestions the financial guys gave, I thought: I'm already doing that. Or That makes total sense, I should do that. Or That will never work for me. Or I don't agree with that. Or the thing I have in effect now works great for me. Nice thing about this book is they give you ideas, brainstorm with a real person and then you get to go to the website and see as Tristi posts updates to show how things are working.




Go to the website here to get your free copy until June 15. You only pay the shipping fee. I think it's totally worth it.

If you happen to read this after June 15 you can go to Amazon HERE to find the book.

What have I been up to?

I've been working on a new project and have really enjoyed the process about as much as I've hated it. It's hard work, but so much fun.

Let me explain. I am either new at this or I've been doing this whole author thing for awhile. Depending on your point of view. Some writers have done this for years and years and even decades. I'm approaching 4 years of writing, though only 3 of it would I consider myslef as being serious about it. In those years I've been fortunate to go to a couple of writing conferences.
  Recently I went to LDStorymakers conference in Provo Utah. It was awesome and while I wished it could have gone on for a few more days, I also knew there was no way I could have absorbed any more information and been able to keep my mind. I needed to take a break at the end of it. Take a long nap on Sunday and try to wrap my mind around the awesomeness that was presented there. And I even had to miss about 8 classes that I really wanted to take because I was attending another really important one scheduled at the same time.

Now while I can't even begin to tell you of all the awesomeness, I wanted to share a few pointers that I garnered from the conference. Some are direct quotes from the presenters, and others are from the way my own mind interpreted what I heard. (Don't worry, you're allowed to do that.)

* Writers need other writers. Spouses, family members, and friends are valuable to the writer and support them in so many ways, but a writer can THRIVE when they have other writers to socialize with. We need other people to GET us.

* Formulas for stories can be very helpful as you are building your plot, but a formula shouldn't be followed exactly, or the story will get boring. Write the story how it needs to be told. If that means breaking a couple of the "RULES" of writing, then do it. But you better know the rules before you break them.

* "Been done means squat." according to John Brown. All stories are the same in some ways, but since the author puts thier own twist on it and tells it their own way, you can have the same premise and it will be a completely different book. See his youtube video about the Hunger Games and what it did right HERE

* You can write anything you want to write. You can build whatever fantastic and unreal world you want. Just remember to pick it apart and poke holes in it as you do so you can fix those holes and make it stronger and better as you develop your story.

* When writing a series according to Dan Wells, author of the I'm not a Serial Killer trilogy, see his blog HERE you can elaborate on the first book by keeping in mind what people liked about the first book and develop it, but don’t repeat it exactly. If your audience loves something, deliver on it, but don’t overdo it. Give them what they want and you have to interpret what it was they wanted while still give them something new they don’t expect. (if you can't get the jist of it from my class notes, I'm sorry, you can interepret it how you want.)

* When editing your own manuscript, watch for all the normal gramar and punctuation stuff, but don't forget to watch for repetive words or phrases. Make sure the word you use really means what you think it means. This is where you should remember Inigo Montoya and Vincinii in the Princess Bride. Is your character reacting realistically? Condense your words. Use fewer to say the same thing. Example. He was going to go to the store. Change for Bob went to Albertsons. More information with less words.

* The price of magic class was great and though I can't give you all the notes I can send you to Writing excuses podcast and have you look for their discussion on it. Go HERE to hear the magic system and rules and then spend more time listening to their other podcasts.

* One great thing I learned as well is that since it takes practice and hard work and contiued effort to become successful in anything, if I want to become a published author it's totally up to me. And as Howard Tayler said so wonderfully in his class I'm going to do it so someone can say, "Wow, you must have worked hard on that." Another great quote from his is "I've been practicing the wrong thing" so if you find you've been doing something wrong, then change it and practice it in a better way. See a youtube of Howard Tayler discussing how talent is irrelevant HERE

Thanks for letting me sum up what I learned and only touching on the surface of it. What kind of advice would you give to a writer? share in the comments and then go check out Natalie Whipple's blog post about it HERE

What are your goals?

My goals change daily.

When it comes to my writing goals, I have the goal to get a book out there into stores. To do that I have to get published. To do that I have to get a book deal/publishing contract. To do that I have to get a manuscript accepted. To do that I have to get a manuscript read completely. To do that I have to get an agent to either read it and or pass it on to an editor. To do that I have to send out a partial. To do that I have to send out pages. To do that I have to send out a query. To do that I have to have a completed manuscript. (I have 2 so I'm doing alright there, but I'm needing another to send out soon). To get a completed manuscript, I have to have a completed first draft that I can give to my critique group to read and make suggestions that I accept or reject. To do that I have to write the last chapter. To do that I have to write the chapters that come before the last one. To do that I have to write. To do that I have to stop this blog post.

To do that I will hit publish post and get onto the writing part of my day.

And one last thing before I go.

What are your goals?

Laura

The more you know...

The more you know about writing the harder it gets. When I first started writing a few years ago (I can't believe it's actually been that long) it was so fun and easy. I just wrote what came to mind and let the ideas flow. Of course after reading what I'd written it was obvious that I was very much an amateur. I didn't know the rules and ins and outs of writing, but it was fun. I came up with a passable plot and some good characters, but it was lacking in conflict and wasn't more than a pleasant read for those I could get to read it.

Once I joined a writers group and started going to conferences, researching online about the whole publishing process and basically teaching myself about writing I realized I had a lot to learn. I was naive thinking that you could write a book, send it out to an editor, they'd tell you how to fix it or fix it themselves and it would be on the book store shelves in no time. (HA HA) that is definitely not how it works. I have been working on my craft for some time now and am still far from being published. But I'm getting better with each word I write.

Now working on this current project, I've begun to fear it a little. What if it ends up being no good? Why should I spend this much time on something that won't be seen by anyone besides my critique group and beta readers? Then I think to myself, if its just practice writing, then it's better than quitting. No one ever succeeds on accident. Athletes, artists, business owners, scientists, doctors, and so on spend countless hours perfecting their craft. And so will I.

Don't worry, I'll be sure to let you know when I do succeed but for now, it's back to practicing.

What are you working on?