Two Truths and a Lie

Today, I'm at Crystal Collier's blog for Writerly Wednesday. Come join us, play "Two Truths and a Lie," and have a chance to win a Screwing Up Time coffee mug.

Read An E-book Week

This week, Smashwords is celebrating "Read An E-book Week." Lots of books are discounted or are available at reduced prices. So check it out. And if you'd like to read Screwing Up Time, it's one of the books being offered for FREE! Just use the coupon code RW100 when you check out.

Today, I'll be helping my parents move. So, starting Wednesday I should be back to my normal blogging schedule.

Post-First-Draft-Creative-Exhaustion Syndrome

Last Friday I finished the first draft of book three in the Screwing Up Time series. Yay! It was the fastest I’ve ever written a first draft. It took three and one half months and the holidays were in there too.  I’m amazingly thankful.

But if you’ve never written a book before, you should know that writing “The End” is nothing like you see in the movies. In movies, the writer types “The End,” grabs the paper out of the typewriter, tosses it on a stack of papers, and smiles triumphantly. That cues the-worst-is-now-over-the-writer-will-conquer-the-world music. Very romantic. Very not true.

Here’s how it goes for me (and most writers I know). I type “The End.” Then, the first thought that goes through my mind, “Maybe I just wrote ‘The End’ because the ending is so bad that the reader would never know it’s the end unless I told them.”

The next three to five minutes is spent wondering how much the book sucks. A little, a lot, or toss it into the fire? However, having written other novels, I know this is post-first-draft-creative-exhaustion syndrome. The cure is to ignore self-doubt by chanting, “A first draft is a celebration of everything that can go wrong on a page.”  

Now two days have passed. It’s time to print out the tome, grab my red pens, my highlighters, and my multi-colored post-it flags. And so the editing begins. 

Screwing Up Time for FREE!!

Thursday is not a normal posting day for me, but I have some exciting news. In celebration of the release of Screwing Up Babylon and the release of "Screwing Up Mongolia" in Winter Wonders, I decided to give away Screwing Up Time for free from Dec. 6 through Dec. 10. Click here. Enjoy!!

Screwing Up Time is a 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Quarterfinalist.

Winter Wonders!

Saturday is a big day. It's the release of Winter Wonders, a winter themed anthology of short stories published by Compass Press and recommended for those aged teen and above. "Screwing Up Mongolia," a Screwing Up Time short story, is one of the stories included in the anthology.

The story is set in the time between Screwing Up Babylon and book three of the Screwing Up Time series. And, of course, the story has Mark (Henry) and Miranda in it.

Here's a link to the e-book version, which is selling for $4.99 at Amazon.
Here's a link to e-book at Barnes & Noble, also selling for $4.99.
And one final link to the paperback version, which is selling for $9.99.


One more bit of information, all the proceeds from the anthology go to Literacy Inc., an organization that teaches teens the importance of reading and offers them a chance to win  a free college education.

Riding the Bestseller Wave

A strange thing happened on Wednesday and Thursday. My YA novel shot through the ranks at Amazon. I found out what it’s like to ride the crest of the wave.

Ever since I first published Screwing Up Time, I’ve been trying to market it on a shoestring budget. When other authors said, “My budget for this novel is $5,000,” I said, “My budget for this novel is 5 bucks.” And I was okay with that.

But it’s very hard to get the word out when you don’t have a megaphone. Still, my efforts paid off and I broke small sales barriers. And I was/still am very thankful. Then, I found E-Reader News Today. And they were willing to advertise my novel (given it had enough good reviews and I was willing to sell it at a bargain rate—99 cents) for a part of the royalties. I figured it would be a win-win situation. If the book did well, I’d get a lot of exposure. If not, I wouldn’t have lost a big investment. So I submitted my book.

I hoped and prayed for the best, but kept my expectations very low. The site warned me that YA books aren’t the biggest sellers in the e-book biz. (I already knew that.)

Wednesday came around. I had a couple of sales. Good. By afternoon, I had a few more sales. By evening, I was pretty excited. The sales were really coming in. And by Thursday morning, Screwing Up Time was ranked #6 in Amazon Kindle’s Teen Literature and Fiction. It was only two spots below The Hobbit!

It was the most amazing feeling. People were interested in my book. I had my techo-son do a screen capture so I could savor the moment later because I knew it wouldn’t last. And it hasn’t—this morning my book has slipped to #15, which is still amazing. And the sales are still very good. Who knows what will happen today—Fridays are much better sale than Thursdays. But even if I slide down the charts, that’s okay. For a moment, my book was on the top of the charts. 

Shy Writers and Big Girl Panties

Yesterday, I emailed a group that reviews books, asking them to consider reviewing Screwing Up Time. I’ve known about the group for a long time. I’d had them bookmarked for almost as long. But I never asked for a review. Not until I asked myself “why.”

Or a better question would be “why not.” Here’s my dialogue with myself:

Bold me: Why not ask for a review?

Shy me: Uh, I’m an introvert by nature. The idea of drawing attention to myself is anathema.

Bold me: As a writer, whether self or traditionally published, you don’t have that option anymore. Next excuse.

Shy me: What if they hate my book?

Bold me: The book has some great reviews. It was an ABNA quarterfinalist and a Publisher Weekly reviewer liked it.

Shy me: Someone might still hate it.

Bold me: So? Suck it up, girl.

Shy me: They might never even look at it. They have so many other books. They only review books they’re interested in.

Bold me: And your point is….

Shy me: I don’t know.

Bold me: Honey, “put on your big girl panties” and send that email. (You gotta love those Southern phrases.)

Shy me: Okay, I’m emailing right now.

BTW, if you'd like to find out the title for the sequel to Screwing Up Time, click here to find a game that gives you the answer

Giddy Trepidation

This morning I have a giddy trepidation. I’m going to start my next edit of the sequel to Screwing Up Time. I'm giddy because I’m about to start an edit that will make the novel closer to the ideal that exists in my mind. And trepidacious because I know I won’t achieve that ideal. Not to mention the fact that I’m trying to learn to use the new version of MS Word and failing miserably.


After I downloaded my documents into the new computer/Word, they weren’t there. Tech guru found them and moved them for me. And I have now been tutored in the proper method of moving files. But I’m not sure that I remember, even after doing it once or twice—tech guru is a follower of the “teach a man to fish policy” of computer literacy. But then tech guru showed me there were multiple ways to accomplish the assigning-the-document-to-the-correct-place task, now I’m confused. I’m claiming my stupidity is post-general-anesthesia confusion. Yeah, I know that was more than a week ago. But that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. However, this morning I somehow deleted all the page breaks in a 200,000 word document—thankfully not the sequel. And the tech guru who is currently at home can’t figure out what I did. This does not bode well. (Not to mention the fact, the dictionary in Word doesn’t recognize “trepidacious,” and I’m pretty sure I spelled it correctly.)  However, I’m assured by the tech guru that I will come to appreciate the new version of Word….I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll be transitioning from giddy trepidation to gnashing of teeth.

Amazon Quarterfinalist

Amazon just announced the quarterfinalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. And I made the cut. Screwing Up Time is now in the quarterfinals! YAY!

Number One

This morning I had an email from a friend, Melissa Pearl (writer of the Time Spirit trilogy) entitled “Just Noticed!!” I opened it, thinking she had some great news to share. She’s had a lot of novel excitement lately—book readings, library interest, etc. But what she notice wasn’t anything about her book, it was about mine.

I’m not one of those authors who knows all the ins and outs of Amazon and their tags, lists, discussions, etc. I always feel overwhelmed by the wealth of information. Plus, it just gives me more to get stressed about. But today it was good news. My book was listed number one in young adult time travel. Melissa was giddy for me. And, of course, I couldn’t find it. So I figured I must have gotten tossed off the list—list rankings on Amazon change faster than the weather. And then, Matt sat at my computer. Click. Type. Click. “Here it is.” And here it is. (You can click on it if you want to see it enlarged.)

I’m beginning to feel like one of those pathetic relatives that everyone snickers about behind their back and says, “Bless her heart, she’s so ignorant.” And what will I do when all the kids move away from home? I don’t want to be the annoying relative who calls and says, “How do I...” I keep telling myself that once I have more time, I’ll experiment and figure out how it all works. But then I remember how I emailed everyone I’ve ever known/contacted including numerous NY literary agents and asked them to be my GoodReads friend. I’m guessing I’d rather be the whining relative than the “scary” author who wants to be “friends” with strangers.

Books On Writing

I’m just getting over a bad cold. I spent yesterday evening going over edits with my husband as his second set of eyes (He’s been asked to write material for a website and heard back from his editor.) I’ve also been editing the first draft of the sequel to Screwing Up Time. And I’m up to my neck in winter clothes that need to be washed. So instead of writing a long post, I thought I’d do a list of books on creative writing. Please feel free to add your favorites—I love reading new books and discovering new ways of looking at the process.

Here are my favorites:

1. On Writing by Stephen King

2. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King

3. How to Write a Damn Good Novel 2 by James N. Frey

4. Pen on Fire by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

5. The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell

Two more notes of interest.

A big shout of “Congratulations!” to Lydia Kang on the sale of her novel The Fountain to Kathy Dawson at Dial/Penguin.

If you didn’t see it yesterday, check out the Internet Book Fair. 

My Week Of Relaxation

Last Friday I finished the first draft of the sequel to Screwing Up Time. This week was supposed to be my week of relaxation. Week of Relaxation. I may have said those words, but I didn’t really mean them. What I meant was “my week to catch up on all the things that I slacked off on when I was writing.” (See this post.)

So did I get the yard work done? No, I didn’t even get Round-up sprayed. Instead, precious child number three, Jake, had a midterm in Calculus 2 (he’s taking a dual enrollment class—college and high school credits at the same time). Now you’d think that child one, Luke, and child two, Ariel, who are fulltime students at the university would be able to squeeze Jake into their schedule and transport him to review sessions/office hours. You’d be wrong. Luke and Ariel have jobs with weird hours. I drove Jake back and forth, even one time when guess what—the prof wasn’t available. I just love those car trips with no purpose.

Did I get the ironing done? Sort of. I got a pile finished, but not the one I wanted. I wanted to get Cal’s winter dress pants/shirts out of storage, washed, and ironed. (Our old house has miniscule closets.) I didn’t even get the clothes out of the basement. Child four, Matt, was taking the PSAT this week and needed help with the bizarre writing section—I had to explain that “B” was the right answer because the clause was modifying the correct noun even though it broke a grammar rule. I hate defending bad writing.

Did I get the refrigerator cleaned and washed? No. (Though I did throw out the scary food.) Instead, I helped Ariel get information sent off for a summer internship. You’d think that getting a transcript would be easy. At UTC, she just walks into the records office and they print one up. At Chatt State, she had to submit a request form and wait up to TEN days. And they don’t allow you to call and ask if it’s ready. And you actually have to drive down to the campus to find out. Seriously. When it was finally done, we had to fax everything. Except the fax machine was down at the site Ariel had to fax it to. It was finally back up five minutes before Ariel and Jake had to leave for class—Jake had his midterm waiting. He was doing the “I’d better not be late to my midterm.” I was promising, “You won’t be late. You won’t be late.”

So I’m looking forward to next week and getting back to writing. I never get anything done when I’m “relaxing.” 




N.B. If you're interested in discovering which character you're most like in Screwing Up Time, click here.

Top Ten Reasons You Know Your First Draft is Done

On Friday I finished the first draft of my sequel to Screwing Up Time. (Confetti and cheers.) Though, of course, after I wrote the final word, I thought, “Oh, dear, maybe it’s not really done. Maybe my readers will be disappointed. Or, maybe I’ve written too much and over-gilded the lily.

I figured that other writers must have the same problem. And while I can’t read your manuscript and tell you if it’s done, I think there are outside factors that may strongly indicate when a first draft is complete. So I’ve come up with a checklist.

 “How to Know When Your First Draft is Complete.”

1. Your beautiful flower garden is now being considered for a filming of Tarzan.

2. Your pile of ironing has collected dust.

3. You look in the mirror and discover your eyebrows resemble hedgerows—and the eighties look is not in. (Why can’t that come back?)

4. You’ve emailed your latest WIP (work-in-progress) to yourself, at least two hundred times—after all, you never know when your computer will die.  (BTW, in the old days, writers used to store hard copies in the freezer.)

5. The printed letters on your computer keyboard have worn off. My space bar is actually “grooved.”

6. When your children need you, they IM you.

7. You are adept at writing while cooking, which explains the spaghetti sauce smears across the laptop screen.

8. Your dog throws her water bowl into your lap.

9. Your refrigerator has Tupperware cartons of leftovers that are unrecognizable and move under their own power.

10. Your husband bites your neck and complains that he’s a book widower.

Book Reviews

One of the scariest things about being an author is book reviews. I had no idea.

A lot of reviews are unanticipated—the ones that show up on Amazon. Of those, there are the fun reviews, written by friends who aren’t writers, but read your book and loved it. Of course, an odd moment inevitably follows when you realize that they’re shocked that you could have written it and you wonder how much of a loser they think you are. But you let it go because you realize that they loved you even though they thought you were a loser, which is very cool.

Back to reviews. There are reviews written by strangers—they are the ultimate authorial experience. A complete stranger falls in love with your novel. Total rush. And, of course, there are the total loon reviews (thankfully, I’ve been spared these so far), where someone, who is most likely a sadist, decides you and your book are an appropriate punching bag. Not much you can do about those reviews except hope said person gets struck by lightning—just kidding, sort of.

Then there are the reviews you anticipate. Where either you ask a reviewer to consider your book or a reviewer contacts you and says they will be reviewing your book. These are wonderful opportunities. But too scary. (Talk about stress dreams.) You can’t help but wonder, what if my novel has spinach between its front teeth. Just because no one has noticed it thus far doesn’t mean it’s not there. Or what if this reviewer doesn’t connect to my main character or my plot or my voice? Those things happen.

A week or two ago a reviewer told me that she’d be reviewing Screwing Up Time. Yesterday, I got an email saying that she really enjoyed it. PHEW! I wanted to throw a party and dance around the house. Instead, I emailed my writing buddies, told my husband and sons (“That’s nice, Mom”), and made my daughter read the email on my laptop screen. So my blood pressure has returned to normal, that nervous twitch near my eye has disappeared, and I’m becoming more certain that my novel doesn’t have spinach between its teeth. At least, I’ll be convinced until I’m waiting for the next review.

Two Notes:

1. When the review and an author interview come out at the end of the month, I’ll post a link.

2. A big congratulations to Lydia and KO, who both signed with literary agents!!!

Recharge

Back in July I e-published my YA novel, Screwing Up Time. A little marketing research showed that I needed to write a sequel—indie books, particularly YA, sell better when they’re part of a series. Besides my novel had a few unanswered elements that I was planning to deal with in a sequel. Thankfully, I didn’t need to start from scratch because I’d done some writing on the sequel a while back. Although to my chagrin, half of what I’d written got scrapped or revamped.

Approaching this book, I knew that I couldn’t use my normal plodding style of writing. I needed to set myself a goal. I decided that 1000 words a day 5 days a week would work for me. (What was I thinking?!) After all, I know people, who appear sane, that write 5,000 words a day. I tell myself those writers don’t have kids, don’t work, and have full-time maid service. (For those of you who aren’t writers, one page is 250 words.) The most I’ve ever written in a single day is 2000 words. And that was when I was flying high on a creativity rush.

I’ve been doing the 5000 words a week for a couple of weeks now. The novel is moving at a brisk pace, and I’ve reached the halfway point. So everything’s good. Except my kitchen needs sanitizing (not good since I’m hosting a tea tonight—time to break out the bleach and other caustic chemicals). Every muscle in my body aches. I guess writing is a physical activity for me. (Does that mean I can cut down on my three mile runs?) And my brain is turning to word mush.

So I’m looking for brain recharge. Anyone have ideas? Two caveats. I can only watch an occasional movie as flashing lights give me migraines. Even on TV with the lights on. And I can only eat so much chocolate, or I’d have to increase my runs. And that is not an option since I hate exercise—I’d rather shove bamboo shoots up my fingernails. (Ack—my cliché meter is going off. Help me recharge.)

BTW, suggestions of a Caribbean cruise are appreciated, especially if you feel compelled to provide the cash for the trip. But since it’s hurricane season, it’ll have to wait. That makes me wonder, if I wrote 5k words a day on a cruise, could I deduct it from my taxes?

Friday News

Today is exciting for me. I’m being featured in the Author Spotlight on “The Word is My Oyster” blog, which is written by Lydia Kang. Besides being a writer, mom, and wife, she’s a doctor and writes the most fascinating posts. Medical Mondays are my favorites. If you’d like to read the Author Spotlight, click here.

One more exciting book announcement. My book is now available for Nook. So if you were waiting for the Nook version, click here.

I was hoping to post photos of Matt and Jake’s Shakespeare costumes today, but I’m searching high and low for ¾ inch silver D-rings. I need 16. I have 12. I’ve cleaned out the local fabric stores. And WalMart doesn’t have them. Neither does Hobby Lobby. And I can’t finish the gauntlets without them. I did find out that JoAnn’s was getting a delivery Thursday. Friday morning, I’ll be at the store, hoping for D-rings. If anyone else is there looking for D-rings, they’ll find out that I don’t run those 9 miles a week for no reason. Okay, I don’t run them so I can beat other women to important store items. (I actually hate shopping.) I run because it means I can be healthy, eat more of what I like, and read novels. I think I’m the only woman at the gym who runs a treadmill while wearing reading glasses. But, hey, I’m getting my exercise, which is good because Lindt chocolate and Salt and Vinegar potato chips are calling my name.

E-Pubbing Nightmare

We all know the cliché that says you don’t appreciate what you’ve got until you lose it. I’ve discovered a similar one—you don’t know how easy Amazon’s e-publishing is until to try to e-publish on Barnes & Noble’s PubIt or Smashwords.

I have to take a deep, cleansing breath even before I begin telling you about it. Imagine that I have uploaded my novel to Amazon without a single glitch. I scroll through the entire book in the preview mode, perfect. I follow the formatting guidelines, and everything including the cover art went up smoothly. I sigh in giddy relief.

The next night I decided to upload my novel to PubIt, so it can be bought for Nook at B&N’s site. I begin filling out the online paperwork. At some point there’s a glitch, most likely with the auto-fill and my email address is inserted incorrectly. So when I try to access the account, it presents me with the paperwork for filling out the financial information again. I assume (incorrectly) that it didn’t save properly and fill out the paperwork. PubIt sends me a note saying that my social security number is associated with another account and they can’t process my information.

So I send an email to PubIt customer service. They tell me that my SSN isassociated with another account. Uh, yeah, I got that. I send them another email including a screen shot. I wait several days. Nothing happens. I call. I talk to a nice man who makes me type in more stuff (which doesn’t work) and promises that whatever the issue is, they’ll fix it in 24 hours. I believe him. I am an idiot.

72 hours goes by. Nothing happens. I call B&N again. A very crabby man answers the phone. I explain my situation. He grumbles at me. He accesses my account and grumbles some more. Thanks to the first customer service rep, I now have three accounts associated with my SSN. I ask if the extra accounts can be deleted. He spews venom and tells me that it will take a week to do it and I won’t be able to use an account until then. I politely say that a week seems pretty long given that the first customer service rep said 24 hours. Crabby man spews more venom and says that it can be resolved in 24 to 48 hours. I ask crabby man if the situation could be resolved if I accessed the working account and changed the email address. Crabby man says, “NO.” I am beginning to see why B&N has financial trouble and why writers pay people to upload their books.

After another 48 hours, nothing happens. I call B&N and talk to a sleepy sounding woman. I explain my problem. She pulls up my account and says, “Whoa, I’ve never seen anything like this. I have no idea what to do.” I explain what crabby man said he would do to fix it. She tells me that he and the first guy did nothing to my account. Not even a notation. Imagine fire in my eyes. But this is not sleepy woman’s fault. I politely ask sleepy woman if I could just change the email address. Sleepy woman says, “Yes.” I change the email. It takes lots of finagling because the account doesn’t want to process the change. Eventually, I fix it and sleepy woman thanks me and I thank her.

To make a long story short, I try multiple times to up load my novel into PubIt. Every time, there are formatting errors. The bizarre thing is that when Arieland I fix one thing, another random thing pops up somewhere else. Right now we’re down to three random errors, which appear to be unfixable—Ariel’s checked the coding and there’s nothing wrong. We tried new documents, retyping, typing in the coding by hand, etc. Nothing worked. So now I have to decide whether I want to publish with three blank pages stuck randomly throughout the book.

In the intervening time, I decide to do Smashwords. After hours spent formatting according to their odd guidelines, I decide to upload... You know, it’s always a bad sign when someone names their conversion process the “meatgrinder.” It’s a worse sign when they tell you that e-pubbing isn’t about perfection in formatting (they mention random blank pages that appear for no reason), but getting your words “out there.” I might agree, but they are so far from perfection that I remove my novel from their site.

Anyway, if you’re considering e-pubbing, start with Amazon and follow the formatting guidelines. If you are meticulous, it’ll upload. When you get around to PubIt and Smashwords and need someone to commiserate, I’m the person to talk to.

Shifting Gears

In the midst of figuring out how to do publicity for my new book (I’m open to suggestions), it’s time for me to sew Shakespeare costumes. Matt and Jake are both in the play Mid Summer Night’s Dream. Jake is playing Demetrius, and Matt is playing Puck.

Jake really liked his costume from last year (blouson shirt and tunic with faux embossed leather accents). So he said he’d wear it again this year. GREAT. Then, I volunteered to make him accessories. He wants gauntlets and a feathered hat. They will be very cool, but a lot of work. I’ve done a hat before—more broken sewing machine needles than ever for one project. And the gauntlets are studded with metal studs, meaning I probably will need to purchase a studding tool, if there is such a thing. Matt needs a tunic covered with leaves, which should be fairly easy, I hope.  When the costumes are done, I’ll post photos.

For those who are interested, things with my novel are going well at Kindle. The exciting thing this weekend was discovering that a total stranger loved my book and wanted to contact me. (Yay!) I’m still having trouble with Barnes & Noble—their promises to rid me of the imps have not materialized. So I will call them again, and, hopefully, get better promises. As soon as that's done, I'll get back to the Screwing Up Time sequel. I've left Mark and Miranda in a very precarious situation, and I need to rescue them. 

Kindle Apps

Tomorrow will be the official announcement/celebration that my young adult novel SCREWING UP TIME has been released as an e-book. But I know people have already started talking about it, so I thought I’d go ahead and put up some information.

If you don’t have a Kindle, you can still read the novel. You can download a free Kindle app here (Kindle app for PC) that will allow you to read the book on your computer. If you have an iPhone, iPad, etc., the iStore has a Kindle app. Or you can click the various devices and I've put in links to the apps. And here's an app for Android. And one for Blackberry.

If you have a Nook, I will have the book available soon at Barnes and Noble. (Once B&N and I work out the kinks with my account.)

Here are some other links:

SCREWING UP TIME on Amazon This takes you to the place where you can buy the novel.

SCREWING UP TIME blog This takes you to my brand new book blog. (Don't worry, I intend to still write this blog.)

Thanks for everyone’s support and encouragement!!


BTW, if you enjoy the novel, please rate the book and write a review. (It helps with publicity and search engines.)