After vacay ROW80 update

1) Write 100 words a day – minimum. Barely. Transferred all the handwritten words done during vacation into the manuscript. I think there was a day in there where I was under 100, but I did somehow manage to write every day.

2) Retweet other writers’ posts on Twitter. Big fat fail. After being away from technology (and seriously enjoying it) its been difficult to get back into it. Think I’m going to reassess some of my goals.

3) Finish When Love Waits edit/rewrite by the end of the month. Not gonna make it. Planning for and then going on vacation put a huge monkey wrench into this. Not that I’m complaining. Just saying, not gonna make it.

4) Comment on blogs I’m subscribed to instead of just reading them in my email. Tried to get to a few, but haven’t even read the posts in my email subscriptions let alone get around to ROWers. :/ Must do better.

5) Finish follow up novel to When Love Waits by the end of the round. Zilch.

6) Read more craft material. Zero.

On a high note, I did finally finish a book I’ve been slowly reading over the last two months. Plus I downloaded about 4 free books today, so hopefully I can find some time to read.

Vacation helped me refocus and I plan to reassess my commitments in regards to the time spent on the internet. I enjoy writing, but I’m also missing out on other things which this latest trip helped to remind me of.

As far as the blogiversary giveaway, I’ll announce the lucky recipient Friday. Sooooo, I just might include comments on today’s post considering we’re still in May.

Have a great week, hope you’re all accomplishing your goals.

Melanie

Short Post – Still on vacation (mentally)

Howdy all of you out there in the blogosphere. I am still mentally on vacation and celebrating a birthday. I can’t remember the last time I took this much time off work that didn’t involve a sickness. Eleven days and I’ve enjoyed every one. So, I’m going to be lazy and just post a few pictures from our vacation. The hubby and I took a 4-day trip which included a stay at the Bar 1o Cattle Ranch in the Arizona Strip and white water rafting on the Colorado inside the Grand Canyon. I’ve seen the Canyon from the North and South Rim, but I think this is possibly the best way to see it. I tell you, four days with absolutely NO signal and zero power sources is a nice treat. It’s been very difficult to want to turn on a computer or check anything electronics related. Hopefully by Friday, I’ll be back in the groove.

 

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Here’s a glimpse into our vacation. The hubby and I agree that it has taken over the top spot for Best.Vacation.Ever.

Melanie

1 Year of Blogging – Reflections

I knew I was getting close to the one year mark, but I had to go back to my dashboard to check the actual date. May 23, 2011.  One year of blogging. If you had asked me a year and a half ago what a blog was, I might have been able to sort of give you an answer about what it thought it might be. Exactly, I didn’t really know what it was.

Over the last year, I feel like I’ve learned a new language. Blogosphere, widgets, posts, links, dashboard, tags, RSS feed, Twitter link. Blogoversary.Widget? What??? Okay, isn’t a post one of those things that hold street lights or a stop sign? Yeah, I know what a dashboard is and I need to clean mine. Oh, wait, not the one in my car? What does RSS mean and how do I use it? I know there are a lot of others out there who are or once were in that same state of confusion.

What have I learned from this great adventure? Let me see.

1) Scheduling is a very, very good thing. When I started, I wrote when the muse struck. So posts were extremely sporadic. Never on the same day, weeks apart. Just a bad way to do it. At the beginning of the year, I came up with a schedule. Regular posts every week but not so many that my subscribers feel totally inundated with updates. I’ve seen readership steadily increase and site hits are more consistent.

2) Figuring out what to post and sticking with it. I do not feel anywhere near comfortable enough to offer strictly writing advice so I decided to do a mixture of personal and writing posts focusing more on what I’m learning during my journey than offering advice.

3) If you comment, they will come. I know, totally stolen but its the truth. When you comment on other blogs, it leaves a quick link to your blog.  If someone is interested in your comment or it resonated with them, they may come check out your blog. Make sure there’s content there for them to read (see #1) or they may not come back and be frustrated that they wasted time to check it out.

4) The Golden Rule. I have not personally encountered this yet, but I’ve seen it elsewhere on the net. Do you want positive and encouraging feedback on your blog? Then leave positive and encouraging feedback on others’ blogs. The post itself and my response to comments will hopefully set the tone of what’s acceptable on my blog. What did our parents tell us? If you don’t have something nice to say…

5) Not everyone gets my sense of humor. This is a daily battle for me. Well, not really battle. More a reality. Few people get it in person and it’s even more difficult to convey through a post. My sense of humor can be extremely morbid at times and people think I’m insensitive. I try to edit it out sometimes, but then its hard to do that because its who I am. If you read this and something comes across weird either ask me about it or ignore it. Either way, its just me.

6) I no longer feel so alone on this writing journey. And on the heels of that thought come the thought Will I ever be published? There are so many good writers out there!!! Well, I will be published when my writing is better. And reading these blogs and talking with other writers has helped me recognize my weak points, given me tips on how to make it better and introduced me to some fantastic and supportive people all around the world.

Blogging isn’t for everyone. I should be writing in my work in progress, but I also enjoy the interaction with people who frequent the blog and they’ve helped me, so I’ll keep on keeping on. Thanks for sticking with me or joining me this past year and I hope you’ll stay for a while.

Melanie

ROW Update and 1 year Blogiversary

It has officially been a year since I started blogging. Insane!! When I first started I didn’t know what the heck I was doing and I felt like I’d been thrown into a foreign country without a translator. I remember it took about two weeks to get the hang of just posting. A widget? No clue. Here’s my favorite definition from Wikipedia “Widget, a male or baby gremlin“. Okay, that makes sense! And sums up how I feel about those little widgets sometimes. Grr.

In honor of my 1 year blogiversary, I’ll be giving away a few books. I’ve tried to include a wide range of genres. Check back on Friday to see what’s up for grabs and to celebrate. I’ll pick a random winner out of the comments from both today’s, Friday’s  and next Tuesday’s posts. Thanks so much to everyone who’s subscribed, visited and supported me this last year. It has been very much appreciated!!

Now on to the update!

1) Write 100 words a day – minimum. Done! And mostly by hand. Hubby and I have been on vacation the last week but he bought me a notebook to take with me so I can still write my 100 words a day. It was a challenge. Sleeping outside makes it a little more of a challenge to write at night which is usually when I write.

2) Retweet other writers’ posts on Twitter. Limited technological access so not too much on the Twitter front. Have a three day weekend from work coming up so I’ll try to make up for it!

3) Finish When Love Waits edit/rewrite by the end of the month. So close!! Will let it sit during June. Want to start sending queries out next month for this one. Hope it has a better chance this time around.

4) Comment on blogs I’m subscribed to instead of just reading them in my email.
See number 2

5) Finish follow up novel to When Love Waits by the end of the round. Next month. Going to start working on this one.

6) Read more craft material. Read some of the ebooks I have on my phone. Again, limited access so I didn’t read too much so I didn’t completely drain my battery.

I hope to be rested up enough to post pictures on Friday from vacation. Hope everyone had a productive week last week.

Melanie

FEAR (and how to conquer it)

FEAR. It paralyzes, it keeps us from trying something new and/or fun. It keeps us locked in our houses and minds.

FEAR plays a big part in the life of a writer. FEAR of rejection, FEAR of acceptance, FEAR of not being good enough.

First, FEAR of rejection. Yep, I think even published authors have this fear. Simply because the industry is experiencing so many changes right now. We’re sending our “babies” out there into the world. Unattended. We’re sending our work to agents, editors, magazines or just self-publishing. We FEAR others won’t like our work. We FEAR someone will send back our manuscript with red streaks and notes all over it. Or even worse, at least for me, is FEAR of rejection  by the non-response. I’d rather have you make notes in the biggest red sharpie you can find than not hear from you. I liken this to asking out that one guy (or girl) you’ve had your eye on for weeks or months or however long. You know you’ll forever kick yourself if you don’t at least try, but you dread that potential look of revulsion and the rejection from this object of your dreams or desires.

Next, FEAR of acceptance. Wait, FEAR of acceptance? That doesn’t make sense. Sure it does. We sent that manuscript out with the highest hopes of someone accepting it and wanting to publish it because they love it.  Now, how do we keep this going? Will the next manuscript be just as good or better? Can I make it by the deadline this publisher/agent/editor just gave me? Why did I send it out in the first place? See, FEAR of acceptance can lead to FEAR of the unknown. Which will kill our creativity and make all those FEARS come true. 

Last, FEAR of not being good enough. After receiving enough rejections, most people will naturally start to doubt their own abilities. This FEAR can stop us from not only sending our work out into the world, but also stop us from writing all together. This just might be the worst type of fear. It can lead to destructive self image and loathing. It’s definitely a creativity killer.My first thought for this was the person you see constantly having plastic surgery or excessively working out because they FEAR they’re no longer good enough to keep their spouse/significant other interested.

So how do we as writers, and humans, overcome these FEARS? It really is a simple answer – though the implementation is a little tougher. FACE THEM. ACKNOWLEDGE THEM.  Looking back, I did some pretty bone headed things in high school. I asked a guy out that I knew would flat our reject me. I did it anyway because I knew I’d keep obsessing over it if I didn’t. Guess what? The rejection sucked and I felt like a total idiot because he rejected me in front of a group of the “popular, pretty” girls. After that happened, I stopped obsessing over it and was finally able to move on. And that’s the key. We can move on once we acknowledge the fear, then face it.  The only power fear has is the power we give it.

Source

Do I still fear rejection? You betcha! But I also know from past experience that it drives me to be a better writer. Do I fear being accepted? Absolutely! A standard has been set and now I have to strive to be better. Do I still fear not being good enough? About once a week. I make mistakes, but I also try to learn from them. There are some fantastic writers out there and I fear I’ll never be as good as they are. I also know that they are their own person, I am my own. As long as I continually try to be better than myself, that’s all that really matters in the end.