Sundays Videos About Writing

I'm taking some down time today so I'll just post a couple of video's I found on YouTube about writing and editing. Enjoy.

Can you guess the book?

Now a word or two from Dean Kontz about editing...

And now a video about social media just for fun...

 

And as always...

Keep writing and loving the Lord.

Horror of Horrors

It's been a blog fest for me this week with all the chatter about the children's book "Who Stole Baby Ruth." Thank you for the kind comments on my artwork. I'm still on schedule for a June 1st or 15th release (I haven't decided yet)

I've switched gears again, are you surprised? While I'm still hard at work on "Surviving Hank," "The Mayan Serpent" remix, creating artwork for the next in the children's series "mr. Goodbar Goes to the Hospital" I couldn't pass up the opportunity to let my creative talents get really nasty. <wicked evil grin>

A conspiracy buff tidbit came to my attention, House bill HR 465. Wait you haven't read that one yet? Let me tell you a little bit about it. It sets up refugee camps in ten states. One of them being mine in Georgia. Madison to be exact. To hear Jesse Ventura (wrestler turned governor, turn conspiracy spouter) who has visited these sites noticed the concertina wire is positioned to keep people in, not out. Hmm, sounds a little like WWII with the concentration camps to me. But how would Americans feel about that? How would you get Americans to voluntarily go to one?

I am sure you have heard through the news, social media, radio or wherever...the world was supposed to come to an end at 6PM yesterday.  Well, I'm still here and writing. Fox news broke a story from the CDC about a Zombie Apocalypse. (Yes, I know it was a hype for hurricane preparedness). All these things were running around in my head while I took a long, hot bubble bath yesterday. Yeah! down time...sort of. My mind started putting together a story. Of course, I'm a writer and that's what all writers do, right?

The whole zombie thing streaked through social media sites. "The zombies are coming!" I in fact also posted this with the CDC link. It hit a chord. My children even called me! They feared their old mother had gone off the deep end. Not that me doing shenanigans like this is anything new to them. I've been a writer for most of their lives.

Okay, so I might write horrific scenes in my adult novels, but to write horror? Never done it, and thought I never would until yesterday. I got out of the tub and sat down at my computer and laid out the premise for a story. Tentatively titled, "Zombie Apocalypse:Redemption. I got my pens and watercolors out and played with a cover. To the right is what I came up with. Bloody colored, clouded moon/sun (oooh ahhh!), streaked text, cityscape, one lonely light shining through a window, and of course, a zombie. (shivers!).

I estimate it to be a novella of about 25,000 words by the time I finish. It's was 10,000 words as of yesterday. Yes, I typed that many words yesterday and another 5,000 today so far. I'm on a roll. I am estimating.completion in about three weeks with the editing. It will only be available through smashwords.com. I will keep you posted on this. As with my tag line at the top..life happens.

I can hear y'all screaming, "Jo, make up your mind on what you want to write!" My answer is this.. Why? There are so many new things out there and so many genres to play with, Why not try them all if they interest you, and you can do it well? But yes, I understand. If I was still a standard published author, I'd be writing in one genre only, but the fact of the matter is I'm not.

Will I make a huge splash in any genre pond by writing this way? Nope, but little ripples in a big pond can still rock a boat. I don't relish the thought of being tied to one genre at this point of my life. My nonfiction is my nonfiction. My children's books will always be geared for children. My suspense is carried through all genres I write whether it is espionage novels with a touches of romance, & chick lit, or southern fiction with touches of romance & chick lit, or horror with touches of chick lit.

I guess if I had to be catagorized in one genre it would be chick lit now that I look at it. That's only because I am female and that's the way my mind works. All  my protagonist are female. They face insurmountable odds, and come out on top. I basically believe in happy endings so the end of any book works out this way.

Do I hope to be discovered? Not really. Do I hope to be standard published again? Possibly. Do I write for my fans? Nope, I write for me and the love of storytelling. Can I tell a story which will grip you, twist you around, and then leave you panting for more? Oh, yeah I can!

As always keep writing and loving the Lord.

Guest Blogging and My Partner in Crime

Imagine my surprise when I was asked to guest blog on another site.  But it's true.   Tomorrow's blog at the http://pinkfuzzyslipperwriters.blogspot.com/  will have been written by yours truly.   My old partner in crime, Mary Barfield, asked and I happily agreed.  I feel honored beyond belief at the confidence they have in me.

I have called Mary my partner in crime for over a dozen years...since we met at my first Southeastern Writer's Association Conference on St Simons Island.  It was first time and her umpteenth.  We bonded in seconds. 

At the welcoming ceremony were all asked to introduce ourselves and make it memorably.  Imagine, I'm in an auditorium with a hundred plus  strangers and was a wee bit nervous. (I stopped counting at 100)  Although I have given seminars and things to groups before, this was different.  I wasn't the expert.  I was a novice at fiction writing. It didn't matter that I had been published in nonfiction for years.  I ran through a couple of things in my head but nothing seemed to stand out.

Mary was an old professional at conferences and was sitting next to me.  She got up and did her memorable line of crime and passion with a devilish sparkle to her eye, and then sat down.  Those who have met Mary know what I mean.  Then It was my turn.  I stood and told everyone my name and that I lived on the mainland, Brunswick. Then said the first thing that popped into my head.  "I've got 'Made in Japan' stamped on my butt."

I was thinking of the little dolls made after WWII with the little stickers which said that on the bottom. (now they say China) Well, I am Japanese. I'm short...five foot nothing, at the time I weighed about 120 lbs (which now I resemble a squat little Buddha).  It seemed to fit.  The room exploded in laughter and nobody forgot me.  Even to this day, several members from my first time will see me and point, and say "made in Japan" and laugh.  They may not remember my name, but they remember my introduction line.

Mary had the same attitude as I do when going to one of these things...if you can't have fun, why bother. Since then, we've become side kicks, hammered out details for novels, swapped family stuff, writing, critiques, run away for writing huddled weekends, had water gun fights in hotel hallways after midnight, etc, and even though she lives across the state from me, she is only a phone call away.

Oh, in case you were wondering...my blog is about breaking free of Spring runaway desires and writer's block.

Keep writing and loving the Lord.

Jo

Time Management for Writers

Everyone has 365 days a year (give or take a leap year), 7 days in a week, 24 hours in a day...right?  But I think everyone fights the worst with time management.

Within your twenty-four hours, an average of 6-8 hours is spent sleeping.  The body needs this to repair all the damage you did to it in the previous 24-hours.  To make the math simplier let's just say 8 leaving you with 16 hours to do what needs to be done.  

Wait!  Subtract 8 hours for your job and now you have eight full hours left.  EIGHT! That's a whole lot of time, but wait... you have commuting time back and forth to work...possibly an hour on a good day with little traffic.  What do you do during your commute time?  Remember we are trying to maxmize the 480 minutes a day you have that is not committed to work and sleep.

For me, my commute time is spent in devotion. The way some people drive-- prayer is definitely needed.  Oh no, I'm not talking about the way you drive, but everyone else on the roadway is either an idiot who needs Divine guidance, or a little, gray-haired, old woman who has trouble seeing over the steering wheel...wait I ressemble that remark. Oh, nevermind, you know what I mean.

Other useful driving commute activities: audio foreign language lessons, the lastest novel you've been wanting to read but haven't had the time, lecture notes review for classes you've recorded not written.  I have very strong feelings against text messages and computers while driving.  Those same feelings apply to women putting on make-up, men getting dressed, and other activities which take your hands OFF the steering wheel.  Okay, you've made a selection from the above list or other you have thought of to take care of otherwise wasted communte time.  Your time management skill is on the way up.

So what do you do with the other seven hours?  Well, I gotta eat, you say.  Whether you hit the drive-thru or cook it yourself that's another hour at a minimum so let's say six hours left to your day.  Now everyone has these six hours, or 360 minutes, or 21,600 seconds if you really want to get anal about time management. If you resorted to seconds you have passed your time management test.

Some of us bring work home, some have homework, children, and assorted other duties.  (I won't include laundry in this because you have 30 minutes per load that you can be doing other things)  Let's say two hours have lapsed.  All these other things take time. Tick, tock, the seconds are counting down.

You now have four hours, or 240 minutes left in your original 24-hours.  On average I spent thirty minutes catching up on world and local events courtesy of the internet, so I'll subtract that. Another thirty minutes, checking out blogs, writer communities, and emails, so I'll subtract that.  Three hours left.

Now, you want to be an author/writer/journalist in your lifetime.  So now you have three hours, or 180 minutes left in your day. You spend an hour in research.  Two hours left. You are a part-time writer so you spend at least an hour in front of your computer actually writing.  No distrations, no getting up to get a drink, going to the bathroom, or thinking about what you are going to write. Actually writing/typing. For me, I type 50 words a minute that's 3,000 words on a good day.  At that rate, you could complete a 110,000-word manuscript in 37 days. One hour left of your 24-hour day.  Your last hour is spent in editing. 

As a writer/author/journalist, you will spend equal amounts of time researching your material, editing, and actually creating your novel/article/or whatever you are writing.  So if you spend 37 days in research, 37 days in producing your manuscript, and 37 days in editing your manuscript...at a minimum it is a 111 days or 6,660 minutes in producing one manuscript. I'm a writer not a mathematician... Almost 1/3 of a year...in case you were wondering that's 122 days (rounded up)-- 2,928 hours-- 175,680 minutes and I won't begin calculating with the seconds.  That's if you adhere to a schedule like this.  I hear y'all out there yelling, "Ya right! I've spent over a year so far on mine!"

The only problem is life tends to get in the way.  All those things like someone going to the hospital (I stands up and wave wildly), spouses, grandchildren, children and their spouses, etc.  Friends, telephone calls and cell phone...geez how could I forget that? As writers we are lucky if we can spend three hours a day in writing, if we do not make our living writing books.    Of course, we could chuck it all out the window and only write on weekends, but where is the challenge in that? So how do you use the three hours a day of writing? I've spent an hour writing and tweaking this blog, so now I have to choose between writing or editing.  Whatever you choose to do make it worthwhile.