Hungry Freelancer Interview

The Hungry Freelancer interviewed me about the Screwing Up Time series. Check it out. 

Anniversary Sale

Today my husband and I have been married 25 years. To celebrate I'm putting Screwing Up Time on sale at Amazon for 99 cents. Here's a link. Also Book Gorilla is advertising SUT today and they gave it a starred review. WooHoo.

Here's a photo of Cal and me--we celebrated yesterday with dinner and a movie. And, oh yeah, there was a trip to Paris too. Too bad we can't celebrate our 25th again next year.

Indie Life--Writing Two Books At Once.

Yesterday, I was reminded that I've been forgetting to do "Indie Life" posts. (Sorry!) Indie Life is a once a month feature where Indie writers discuss the indie life. If you want to visit more blogs, click here. 

Recently, I've been reading about authors who are thinking or trying to work on more than one book at a time. Scary. A few months ago, I was pondering doing it two. One problem with being a writer is that there's always the "shiny new idea." And when you're sludging through edits or proofreading or even figuring out how to get out of a plot corner, the shiny new idea sparkles like gold. But is it real gold or fool's gold?

So I asked a writer friend (a real expert since she has 50 published novels) if she'd ever written two books at once. She had. She told me the way she did it was to work on one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. So that's what I've been doing. And she's right. It works. But it takes discipline.

I've gotten it to work because I force myself to do edits in the morning. If I work on the new book in the morning, I find that I can't put it down when the time becomes afternoon--the new gold sparkles too brightly.

I worried about whether doing two things at once would hinder my creativity. It doesn't. It actually feeds it--my word count on the new book has dropped at all.

Of course, the time isn't coming from nowhere. My yard and garden are getting pretty skanky. And there's a stack of boxes (my son moved out last week and didn't take everything) sitting in the corner. Maybe I need to be thankful that my computer needs to go in for servicing (mother board issues) so I can get everything organized again. Although that gold is really sparkly and I know how to write with pen and paper.

Because being Indie doesn't have to mean going it alone.

JOIN US FOR INDIE LIFE!

1.	Susan Kaye Quinn, Author	2.	Steena Holmes
3.	Claudia Lefeve	4.	Author Laura Diamond Lucid Dreamer
5.	ali cross	6.	Tonya Fitzharris
7.	Katie Klein	8.	Larry Kollar
9.	Faith McKay	10.	Civil War Horror
11.	Ansha Kotyk	12.	Chandara Writes
13.	Amy Gregory	14.	Secondhand Shoes, A Novel
15.	Terri J. Haynes	16.	The Open Vein, E.J. Wesley
17.	Secondhand Shoes, A Novel	18.	Eclectic
19.	Lisa M. Buske	20.	Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
21.	Heather Allen	22.	J.R. Pearse Nelson
23.	Rochelle Maya Callen, Author	24.	Melissa Pearl
25.	Cherie Reich	26.	PK HREZO
27.	Travel Experiences	28.	Victoria Escobar
29.	J.L. Campbell	30.	Planet Tommo
31.	K. A. Last	32.	The Murphey Saga
33.	Tyrean's Writing Spot	34.	Suzy Turner
35.	Jessica Bell	36.	Aurora Smith
37.	Laura Pauling	38.	C.M. Brown
39.	Barb Best Humor blog	40.	Stephen Tremp
41.	Jennifer Writes Things Sometimes	42.	LindaHarper
43.	Cynthia Marcano	44.	Capri Montgomery
45.	Shah Wharton's WordsinSync	46.	Indiscriminate Writes
47.	Rachel Bateman	48.	Tony Noland
49.	C. M. Keller, Screwing Up Time	50.	RaShelle Workman
51.	J.J. Bonds	52.	HilaryMB
53.	Why I love the indie life	54.	A First Look at Indie Life
55.	Teri Hall	56.	Emily White
57.	Mary Pax	58.	Anne O'Connell
59.	The Irony of Vengeance	60.	Mama Diaries
61.	Cerita Lucu	62.	Co-Authors Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels
63.	Isobel Loren	64.	Beta Readers
65.	Self Book Publishing Tips	66.	Notes from the Jovian frontier
67.	L.E. Waters~Fantasy Prone	68.	Dana Tyler, Romance Writer
69.	I Am Just Julie	70.	Laura Rae Amos
71.	The Indie Children's Authors Connection	72.	Christian Superheroes
73.	Ellie Garratt	74.	Baju Batik Wanita
75.	Write Me, Kaye Draper	76.	Can You Make a Living Writing? (Author Nikki Jefford)
77.	Corvus Rising	78.	Nicole R. Taylor
79.	Sally Rogers-Davidson	80.	Shelbi Wescott
81.	Ada Winder	82.	Poison Arrow Pubs
83.	Paulita	84.	Michelle Isenhoff
85.	A. J. M. Mousseau	86.	Catherine Stine's Idea City
87.	The Lina Lamont Fan Club	88.	Patricia Sands
89.	Donna Hosie	90.	Rinelle Grey
91.	Word by Word	92.	Defending the Pen
93.	Author Jacqueline Gardner	94.	Taryn Taylor
95.	Riann Colton	96.	Strange Pegs

Screwing Up Mongolia

N.B. Sorry for the short post today, but my computer is on the fritz and will be heading out for repairs--it looks like the motherboard is shot. Thank you, Costco, for your warranty extension! The regular warranty expired 2 months ago.

As you know, I’m in the midst of polishing book three of the Screwing Up Time series. Hopefully next month, I will be releasing a Screwing Up Time short story entitled “Screwing Up Mongolia.” The story was original part of an anthology Winter Wonders, but the rights will be reverting to me soon.

If you haven’t read “Screwing Up Mongolia,” it’s set in, obviously, Mongolia. The story comes between Screwing Up Babylon and book three. So be on the lookout for “Screwing Up Mongolia.”

One more bit of news. Last week I went to a book signing. Authors Lurlene McDaniel (who's written her fiftieth published novel—yes, 50^th) and Lauren Morrill, a debut novelist, were signing their books. Here’s a link if you’d like to read about it and see photos.

Paris, My Cure for Writer's Block

As you know, I recently had the vacation of a lifetime—my husband and I went to Paris. (If you want to read more about it, click here, here, here, and here.) But now, it’s time to get back to the grindstone. So I’m editing again. (A fan recently asked when book three was coming out—he has another round of intense physical therapy coming up in the fall and wants the book as a distraction from the pain. Yes, Adam, I hope to have the book out in the fall.)

But it this round of edits, I’m doing something different. Something I’ve never done before. I’m working on two books at once. While I’m editing book three, I’m working on a new literary fiction. Two vastly different books and genres. When I first thought about doing it, I was nervous because I was afraid the books would influence each other—that the voices would bleed into each other and I’d end up with a romantic comedy/literary fiction and a literary/action adventure—not your typical cross-genre novels.

But I tried to write the lit fic anyway. (The story has been in my head for years.) It was horrible. The narrative was flat. I rewrote the first 2,000 words over and over. But they were still deader than dead. I told myself that it was because I couldn’t write two books at the same time.

I considered scrapping the book. But when a story’s been in your head for years, it doesn’t go away. I put the decision on hold when we went to Paris. And when we came back, I opened the document—I was going to rewrite those two thousand words one more time. So I did. And the two thousand words of straw changed to silver (not gold—that takes several revisions).

So the morale of the story: when you have writer’s block, take a trip to Paris. For my next book, I already feel writer’s block coming on. To cure it, I think I’ll need a trip to Venice or Florence. Or maybe both. That’s my cure and I’m sticking to it. 

Here's a photo of my husband and me in the gardens at Versailles.

Don't forget about the book swag giveaway. I still need some more reviews.
Here's a link to Screwing Up Time's Amazon page. And here's one for Screwing Up Babylon.

Book Swag

If you're not a writer, most likely you don't know how important book reviews are to writers. Obviously, it makes a difference to people deciding whether to read your book or not. But reviews affect whether Amazon will suggest a novel to readers, and some book advertisers won't consider a novel that doesn't have enough reviews.

Of course, authors know how hard it is to write reviews. That's why we appreciate the reviews so much--that someone took the time to thoughtfully share their feelings about our books means a lot to us.

I've been thinking of ways to encourage more people to write reviews and give all my readers a chance to have fun. So I came up with the idea of giving away book swag. I currently have 23 reviews of Screwing Up Time on Amazon. If I get five more reviews, I'm going to do a Rafflecopter giveaway that anyone can enter. And I'm going to do the same with Screwing Up Babylon. I have eight reviews on Amazon. Whenever I get five more reviews, I'm going to do another giveaway.

The two items up for the first giveaways are coffee mugs. Here's a photo of what they look like.

Giveaways for mugs are limited to the US.

Here's link for Screwing Up Time if you'd like to write a review. 

And here's a link for Screwing Up Babylon.

Victor Hugo and Me

I got just back from Paris! My husband and I had a wonderful time. While we were there Cal and I went to a restaurant called Le Grand Vefour to celebrate our anniversary. The food was fantastic, and the ambiance was amazing--gilt decorations, mirrors, plush velvet, etc. Interestingly, LGV has been a restaurant since 1784. And it has been a hot spot for writers, politicians, and those spreading sedition (not mutually exclusive categories). Napoleon, Sarte, et al. had their own tables. We ate at Victor Hugo's table!

Here are some photos. If you want to read more about our Paris trip, click "Really, I'm Not French."