I noticed I have a morning routine before I do anything. Whether it be going to work, school work, writing, or just getting up in general. I have a list of things that I do, but not necessarily in the exact same order.

Before I start my day, I must relax and reflect. Meditate. It's hard for me to just get up and go. I have to take at least 30 minutes to lay while away, or else, "my ass is grass" for the rest of the day. This rolls right into lighting incense and meditating. Right now, I meditate in my bed. When I get around to it, I want to buy a new zebuton and zafu set to meditate on the floor, at sunrise, in front of the sliding glass door.

Then I have to have at least one cup of coffee. Two cups on Saturday and Sundays, spaced between a couple of hours. While I'm drinking coffee, I'm on the net. Twitter and Facebook are routine. I browse for inspirational quotes to post for status updates. I then look at my phone to go through emails in 3 different email accounts. One is for motorcycle related stuff, one is for author stuff, the other is for personal stuff like bill payment alerts, receipts, bank account info, etc.

Okay, from there, if I have time, I'll browse a couple of blogs and comment if I have something to say about it. I'm trying to get back into writing to my own blog. Right now, the goal is once a week. In September, I want to increase it, but no set goal yet. I also want to increase my surfing on the net. Not spend hours a day, but a quick browse. The internet is such a great and fast tool for writers to use. This thing is a godsend. Although you have to be careful, a lot of information can be gathered and shared.

Another thing that I want to add to the routine is a quick early morning workout a couple of days during the week.

So those are my must do morning routine items before I'm able to get into anything on the agenda for the day. Do you have a set routine?

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In a situation regarding trauma, one advantage a writer may have is the immediate therapy that writing can provide. While this is a tool available to anyone, the writer may feel the most comfortable with this form of therapy and may be able to get to it quickly without worry about how is done. They may be able to just pick up the pen, remove themselves, and just let emotions fill the page.

I feel that I have an advantage.

Memories from the back of my mind, in the recessed part of my brain, have slowly been coming to the forefront over the past few years. I have two major traumatic experiences from my past, and a couple of little ones that stem from one of the major one. Despite these incidences, I have managed to put them behind me and strive for success in whatever I decided to do. But as I run toward success, the past is finally catching up to me and forcing me to take notice. It's actually not a bad thing. I think it's going to be a blessing.

For the first time, I'm realizing that the two major traumas may actually be related. One may have caused the other. For years, I couldn't understand either. But now, after never speaking on either, I feel compelled to let it out in writing. I've forgiven the person who caused trauma in my past, but I haven't been able to forget, and that has led me to distance or divorce myself from a normally prominent figure in ones life.

Writing has long been used as a tool to assist people in facing traumatic experiences, past pains, or to confront hurtful matters. The Veterens Administration has used writing workshops to help veterens deal with the traumatic experience of the Vietnamese War. Putting bad experiences in words can lift them off of your spirits and provide relief for a person. It can leave a person feeling happier, healthier, and more carefree because they are "releasing the demons" that are holding their mind hostage. Writing can be therapeutic for the mind and body.

I'm feeling a pull to do this. It's a sudden realization and a sudden connection of events that may provide explanation to events that I had no clue about. It also may be the initiation of a new calling. I don't know. But when you're quiet and you're listening, and you keep hearing the same thing over and over, what you have to do is listen, be obedient, and don't worry about where the path may lead. You have to trust in the fact that your Creator has brought you to the place in which you now reside and that He will take you to the place where you are to be. Whatever it is that you were put on this earth to do.

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As I'm slowly easing back into writing, I'm slowly getting a look at the big picture ahead of me. Conversations with two authors helped to bring home the point of the larger task that is ahead of me. I'm speaking of that giant monster of marketing and promotion.

This weekend, I read the blog of author-friend Peggy Love, who wrote about Social Media's Exploding Frontier. I also had a chat with author Michelle McGriff and the conversation turned to marketing and promotion and social networking. The last time I was heavy into promotion was not that long ago. I spent the years 2004 through 2008 doing heavy promotion for my self-published book, then the traditionally published version of Counting Raindrops, plus the second book, First Fridays. I LOVED doing promotion. Despite my shyness and disdain for public speaking, the actual work behind marketing and promotion is enjoyable...if you just do it and don't think about it. Meaning, take it step by step and don't let it overwhelm you by looking at the big picture and trying to do everything at once.

Yet, that's exactly what I find myself doing, even as I have not completely finished book three. So much has changed since I've stopped heavy promotion, and it hasn't really even been two years. My promotion was book clubs, book events, postcards, business cards, bookmarks, mailings, newsletters, website, and blog. These things seem to still be good promotional tools, however, now we're in the age of social media and I have to admit that I'm lost on some of it. Myspace was already going and I fell right into FB and twitter. But even these are expanding and I'm probably only using 25% of their networking capabilities. Then there are sites and terms that I hear flying around that I don't yet know the ins and outs of and I don't have time at the moment to research and investigate.

So, come September, I see the need to start over. Just like it was in marketing and promoting book one, I'm going to have to sit at the computer and do research and catch up with the latest social networking and media tools. Being an author or any type of entrepreneur, keeping up with the latest marketing tools are a must if you want to have any chance of success or survival. If we didn't know it before, we should know it now by witnessing the election of President Barack Obama and as we can still see it throughout is presidency. We've been able to connect with him and keep up and informed, and even participate on town halls through Facebook and the White House website. We've also been able to track him on Twitter and YouTube. Social Media is not an optional thing for the author, but a must in order to reach a wider audience. It's not instead of the old tools, but in addition to the older tools.

To be an author or any type of business person, one must accept being an eternal student of marketing and promoting. You can't rely on publishers to do it for you. You can't rely on old promotional tools being the end and be all to targeting and reaching a wider audience. And even with all that it is today, social media and promotional tools will no doubt continue to expand. It is a must to keep up and stay on the cusp of new changes and new tools.

Yep. Time for me to take off the graduate student hat and put back on my marketing and promotion hat...and keep it on.

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I'm starting to get excited now. Six more weeks of school and I will have all my classes completed for my Master's Degree. So much has been on hold since I started school last September. I've been taking one class at a time, but the semester long class is squeezed into six weeks. Plus I'm trying to study periodically for a quality certification and a project management certification. When I started back, I tried to balace everything: work, school, writing, working out, and me time. But after awhile, things started dropping off. First the me time. Gym went from 5 - 6 days a week to 1 -2 on the weekends. Work hours got longer after three rounds of layoffs. I'd come home from work with about an hour and a half of study time, then prep for work the next day, then sleep. Weekends are filled with writing a weekly paper or doing a weekly assignment, plus all the errands of life (groceries, laundry, cleaning, etc.).

Writing was sporadic until it fell off. I tried to keep in touch with the creative side by listening to audiobooks whenever I got into the car. Everything else with writing has fallen by the wayside. No time for blogging. Website is down; no time to maintain one or to put information together. Newsletter writing and book promotion...gone. The writing life is a very busy life. Writing is the easy part. But whether you self-publish or you're traditionally published, there's a lot of work in promotion and maintenance. It's a full-time job within itself. Something that writers know, and most others don't realize. There's a lot of time and work that goes into trying to be a successful author.

One thing that most authors need is a day job. My day job helped me to publish my first book. I'm considering the time I've spent working on my MBA as an investment in my day job to further advance my writing career. And now, six more weeks to go and I'm getting pumped because I can get back to the writing life. I'm not actually even thinking about graduation or anything. My thoughts are on finally having my time freed up to concentrate on writing again. August 17th is the last day of class. August 18th, I start reviewing the first draft of my third book. Can't wait.

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Six more weeks until school is over and I can go back to focusing on writing. Yay!

I never write about stuff like pop culture, fashion, makeup, etc. because I don't find it enjoyable to read or write about. But the passing of MJ has made me look, notice, and reflect on several things. With the passing of a musical icon, I notice the immediate reflection on negativity, gossip and speculation, and disregard for the emotions and feelings of family members. How awful it must be to have your every move tracked, your emotional highs and lows immediately published along with unconfirmed speculations. There is so much positive to focus on. For most of us that grew up on Michael Jackson's music, there are probably several songs that will spark up memories of when and where we were when we first heard it. We can remember the excitement of watching his energetic an magical performances at concerts, on TV, and in videos. We can be proud of the musical barriers he broke and how he brought the entire world together musically. We can look at the ways that he made a positive contribution to the world through giving time and money to various charities. It's a shame that we cannot take a moment to give respect to the passing of life and to reflect on the positive contributions made and celebrating his life before immediately delving into negativity. We've all had troublesome parts of our lives, but yet we want to make ourselves feel better by pointing out and highlighting someone else's troubles as greater than our own. We all have battles. And our battles are between us and our Creator, and anyone else we choose to invite in. It is not for me to judge anyone, I feel.

I'm not a music buyer, but I downloaded my favorite MJ songs onto my iPod and worked them into my workout rotation. Six weeks to go...it's time to get back in shape. Enjoy life!

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I borrowed a dvd from the library: AGAINST ALL ODDS - THE ARTISTS OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE. The interesting thing about it was some of the issues amongst black artists at that time. Of course, there was more discrimination and segregation during that time and their struggles surrounded that, as can be expected. There were argument's within the race of whether all arts should be to only show the positive side and to advance the race. This was the position of W.E.B. DuBois. On the other side was Alain Locke who felt that individual creativity was important. Questions surrounded whether to depict black life in art or whether to avoid it to make works more appealing to white audiences. The aim was to mix black arts in with other art in order to make it salable. Even when this was done, sales and recognition of black arts by non-blacks was little to non-existent.

What's interesting is that while this could be understood to exist in the '20's and '30's, these same arguments and struggles amongst black artists exist today, about 80 years later. There's still widespread debate on what the purpose of black writing should be. Should it be only positive and advance the race? To show we are intelligent? Is urban fiction a disgrace to the race? Does it bring us down? Should we not write about gangstas, pimps, hos, drugs, and violence? Why are our books segregated in an African American section in bookstores? Non-whites don't go there. Should we mix our books in with the other writers of the same genre to gain more non-black readers? Is that the problem? Is it because our books are segregated 100 feet away in a different section? If we change the location of the books, will they be purchased more?

80 years. Same internal positions. Same exterior arguments. The difference today is the rights gained through civil rights acts,and the increased avenues to publishing. Yet, our voices remain many faceted as it did in the past. Our perspectives are many. But is our perserverence and determination as strong as our predecessors? We have an additional motivation. Money. Black artists of yesterday knew they had to work. It appears that their passion drove their expression while in poverty. Notariety, showing exempilary talents, and assisting other aspiring artists seemed to be the motivations. We can learn a lot from history.

So what's going on now? I've gotten over the behind and just really need to catch up to survive syndrome to the really need to stay on top of things so I won't drown syndrome. All in all, I feel like I'm in a much better place. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for school. I'm midway through my Finance class and have 2 more classes to go after that. I should have completed my MBA program on August 17th, as of now. Yay! Hopefully the health issues won't interrupt that, however, got to take care of health first. Many women may be familiar with fibroids. Although not life threatening, it can have the potential to cause problems depending on how large and how connected to you. Well, mine has been determined to be large and removal is recommended. In the process of getting scheduled for that surgery. And I'm finding the headaches, which has extended to pain in limbs may be stemming from nerve damage from the slipped disc in my neck. So hoping I won't have to undergo surgery for that. Doing testing. We'll see.

Between work, school, and doctor visits, trying to focus on writing whenever I have a free moment, but that's slim to none. Not worried about it now because after August 17th, I can focus more on writing. In the meantime, I'm trying to stay connected by reading on structure when I can. About to order a couple of audio since I'm finding that helpful. Got to do what you can when you can.

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So right after my post last month about my apparent underlying quest to be busy and innundated with chaos at all times, apparently I decide it's the perfect time to move. (Huh???) And move, like, now. And, of course it's just me and I'm in school so I have to work around all that. So I spend 2 full weeks arranging for a mover, and packing a little each night and on weekends. Move one weekend. Then unpack a little at a time and on a weekend. So that brings me up to March. Who know's what I'll decide to do this month. Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, I think it was a good choice. Decided to move from the spacious 2 bedroom to a 1 bedroom. Since I hadn't yet bought any furniture since living in my studio apartment in St. Louis, well, it was kind of empty. And I had too much time to come home to an empty apartment to think about what it would take to fill it up. Not necessarily buying the stuff. But the fact that I would HAVE the stuff. And if I HAVE stuff, when I move again, I'd have to move stuff. And I guarantee you, I will be moving again. It's gonna happen. Then I got to thinking that with the economy the way it is, now would be the perfect time for me to organize and get funds together for my FINAL move. Meaning, the next move will be the purchase of a permanent location. It will definitely be here in Georgia. I'm feeling that. So I decided to downsize now to prepare for that final move later.

Even before doing everything, I missed reading. Don't have time to do it at the moment. I'd always listened to audio books here and there, but I decided to do it more since I have no time for reading. Got my library card and I go faithfully every two weeks for new "reads." Couple of weeks ago, I decided to pick up a lecture series on Plato and Aristotle and now, I'm hooked on revisiting Greek literature. I haven't read or studied since high school and even then, I don't remember it being as interesting as I'm finding it now. I don't know if it's just because I'm older and have more of an appreciation for it now. Or if it's because since high school, I've become a writer and I'm now more interested in the early works of literature. In any respect, my mind feels like it's drinking. Like it's been thirsty and it finally found something satisfying enough to qwench its thirst. I can't wait to get in my car and drive to work every morning or on the weekends because I'm ready to listen to more.

I finished Plato and Aristotle and just picked up another lecture series on the Epics. Greek and Roman, and others. And I also picked up the first epic being discussed, Odyssey by Homer. Listening, somehow I feel like I'm learning something about me. It's like getting an understanding of early writers and what made them write. That's the question people ask writers all the time: Why do you write? Although writers will have an answer, if they're like me, the real answer is "I have no earthly idea at all." Honestly, it freaks me out that I can't answer that honestly when asked. It's like there has to me an understandable reason that I can convey to people and they can understand. But truthfully, how can I do that when I don't.

All I can say is that it has nothing to do with being published or making money or being famous for writing. Just like now, I don't get a chance to write much and I miss it so dearly. I still think about my story. I think about writing all the time. I think how much I'm going to write when I finish school. I don't think about publishing or making money. I don't care. Don't get me wrong, when it comes time to promote and sell, I'll do what it takes. It's just that that's not the motivation. I don't think about publishing and money. It is truly like and urge within. It feels like anxiety. And it feels personal. Nothing I want to wear on my chest to announce to the world. I want to write for my own satisfaction. And why that is, especially when there could be nothing to gain, I honestly cannot truthfully explain to anyone. Listening to these lectures feels like a path to understanding myself, because I'm understanding the ancient works of some of the earliest writers. And I feel like I'm reading in between the lines, trying to find and understand me.

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So the day after Superbowl weekend, I'm IMing with a friend, and once again, complaining how I don't have time to do everything I want to do. How there just isn't enough time and I can't relax and enjoy myself, even when I schedule the "me time" in. You know, my usual complaint of the last five years or so. Well, then she replies back, "I think you like being busy." She pretty much says that if I had free time, that I would fill it up with something anyway.

When she said this, my thoughts actually stopped for a minute. A wrinkle (well, several wrinkles) set in on my forehead. Because it rang true. I've cut down my schedule before so that I could focus on my priorities. I've gotten to that space where if I can't do it, I have no problem telling others no. I've gotten to that place where I do only what I want to do. Now, whether that's an epiphany or just plain ol' old age I'm not quite sure. Point is, I've gotten there. But I seem to have removed those things and filled my time up with something else.

So, she goes on to tell me to make a list (don't you just hate the whole make a list and jot down everything you do and go down the list and blah, blah, blah thing) and go through each one and take off the things that don't add value to my life. Take out the things that I'm not getting anything out of. So, I do this. Not in the physical sense but I give it my best mental rendition. As I'm going down the list, I'm finding a way in which everything on my list adds value to me. Now I'm questioning, does it really add value or is that the little lying engineer in me who can make anything to be whatever I want it to be. Engineers are experts at that.

I'm still looking for the answer to this question. Bottom line, I think she's right, as I do think I would literally keel over if I had nothing to do or very little to do. As a matter of fact, I can't even see that happening. I got a waiting list of things that I want to do as soon as my schedule frees up. I want to die with a waiting list of thing to do that are yet to be fulfilled. Because it's like if I run out of goals, I run out of reasons to go on. I'm a goals oriented person and I need tasks to live. That's who I am. I want to relax but too much relaxation is the path to insanity for me.

The other sad reality is that I don't know exactly how to remedy my issue. I'm a hopeless case. *sigh*

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Second day back at work. I'm struggling trying to find a routine to balance work, school, writing, working out, AND SLEEP. I have to fit these in and be able to get 7 to 8 hours sleep, else I'm no good. I hear people all the time talking about how they can get by with only 4 or 5 hours of sleep each day. Okay, I do not find this admirable at all. LOL And that's not something that I'm striving to do. I want to balance my priorities, and still give my body (and muscles) the proper time to get well rested so I can be as fully alert as possible.

Today I'm going to try 10 - 15 minutes of strength training this mnorning, schoolwork (complete a discussion question and a response) and writing (minimum 1000 words) after work. Debating on whether I can do 40 minutes of cardio this evening.

I'm determined to find the proper balance to complete my goals in each area of my life this year.

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Well, it's that time of the year. Time where we review the current year and decide where we failed or what was lacking and determine what changes we will make for the new year. I've never been big on resolutions, but I do like determining what I will focus on and specific actions to modify. Okay am I word playing here? Is that really the same thing as resolutions? LOL Well, not calling them resolutions makes me feel better, but here are things I'm going to focus on:

1. I've already decided and made changes to prioritize better. I've discovered that I'm a natural busy body. I have a problem with over-committing myself. Life just isn't right if I have an ample amount of down time. Could be good, except that I believe I mix true priorities. So my top priorities in 2009 are:

a. Health - Striving more earnestly to eat healthier and exercise. Sure, I want to lose 20 lbs still, but I'm getting older and need to be sure I'm healthy. I've already scheduled a January appointment at the doctor for complete physical. Need to get another mammogram done and in 2009, I know I will have fibroid surgery to remove the softball sized fibroid I have. Hoping to put that off until I finish school in August. Periodically, I wake up with mild to severe headaches. Most of the time, they go away 30 minutes after waking. Sometimes I have to take a pain reliever. It happens too many times and I know it's not normal. I need to get to a doctor.;

b. Writing - I need to actually schedule time, just like I schedule everything else. Whether it's daily for a minimum of 30 minutes or 10 hours on the weekends. I need to carve out something where I can settle into the story and not feel rushed. I'm going to write out a plan.

c. Meditation - I plan to focus on being more consistent in my meditation. Clearing my mind and focusing on my thoughts has been beneficial. It has helped me to get in touch with me, to understand myself better, to understand my purpose and my blessings, to focus on the things I want to improve, to change my thoughts and to think positively and more. Some days I can wake up focused on just getting started that I skip meditation. I can always feel the difference.


d. School - Want to focus on school and continue to get good grades and complete my MBA program by the end of August. The good thing is that this is for a set period of time and will be something that falls off the list;

e. Volunteering - This is one of the things I miss. Even though I know I don't have a lot of time, I think it's important to give back and contribute something to my community. I'm looking into something where I can dedicate a few hours of my time a month. Right now, I just want something administrative. When I have more time, I would like to commit to tutoring in either reading or math. I don't want to sign up for tutoring now when I have so many things on my plate and may end up breaking that commitment. But I want to contribute something.

And to focus more intensely on these things, I've already made a little room for them. I've decided to put the article writing on hold and I've gone inactive in my bike club (until I finish school and have the surgery behind me).

So 2009, I'm ready for ya! ;-)

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I'm feeling good about the ending of this year. It's been a chaotic one for me, but chaotic good. Like the past four years, I spent the first few months of this year toggling between on and off employment contract assignments. Trying to get on somewhere permanent in my hometown of St. Louis. But frustration set in after the last assignment ended and I decided to open myself up to relocation to selective areas. Within six weeks of doing so, I was packing up to move to Georgia.

Writing-wise, nothing got accomplished through all of this. Through job hunting and interviews, I had been able to write a page or two here and there. All which more than likely was either done away with later or severely modified. It was difficult to get into the space of the story. By the time I got there, it was time to get and do something critical.

Then, I decided to take advantage of work benefits and go back to school and finish my MBA degree. The plan was to completely finish the book first, but no, didn't happen. So then, I was in a place of trying to finish the book while working and going to school. It's moving slowly. Yes, draft one was completed, but the story is currently only plot and dialogue and even with that, is so disjointed, it's still a no-go. So the second draft is going slowly. And I'm feeling that I will need a third draft on this one as well because of the major things I'm fixing and adding in the second draft. But because I've finally come to grips with the fact that I needed to let some additional writing projects fall to the side like guest blogging and article writing.

But all in all, I feel good about going into 2009. That's because of the way I've been blessed to end this year. I'm fortunate in that my job closes the plant between December 19 and January 5th. The original plan in this was to do nothing but write for two weeks straight. But then, I looked at all the stuff around me that added chaos to my life and decided that now was the time to organize. I'm so glad I did. It took a good week to unpack, shelve books, go through stacks and stacks of papers and sort and either trash or store. Still got a few wall hanging to put up but other than that, I feel relieved. I don't feel as anxious. I feel relaxed. Because chaos is not staring me in the face everytime I walk through my front door.

So I'm back to writing now and I'm able to get into my writing space and write without rushing. Even when school and work starts back up January 5th, I feel writing time will be better. It will still be short, but better because I will have quality writing time. I will be able to sit in peace and not have all this stuff hanging over my head, trying to figure out when I'm going to get it done. As much as I tried to block it out before, it interfered with my thoughts.

Hopefully, this will be the longest amount of time its taken me to write one book. But who knows, maybe not. But I'm no longer worried about how long it's taking me. I feel comfortable in knowing that it's within me. That I'm continuing to write while I advance myself and grow. That I continue to indulge in books, the craft of writing, and the literary industry.

Writing is now my life. No matter what else is going on, I know that writing is something that I will always do, no matter what. It's not really a choice. It's something I just have to do....or else I'll die.

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Been off since December 19th and I've gotten so much accomplished thus far. Well, first of all, I had about six or seven boxes of books and "stuff" sitting in the livingroom that I'd been wanting to unpack for the longest. Every time I walked through the front door, there they were, staring at me, looking hideous and begging to be unpacked. Since April they've been doing that. But I never had the time. Was I going to sacrifice needed chores, school work, or writing when I was able to get some good quality writing time in? None of the above. So, the first week of my vacation I spent doing all the stuff that I never had time to do. Unpacked and put my books on shelves, sorted through and trashed or filed needed papers... Everything's clean now and it's such a relief.

Now, I'm spending these last few days to focus on re-writes of book three. It feels good to have the time to really get into the mood and feel of the story instead of snatches of time here and there and trying to just add a piece just to make progress. I've had time to go to favorite writing spots and take my time to get into the characters. Vacation has been great!

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Whoa! Since August, huh?

Well, the good news is, I finished the first draft. The bad news is...that thing is a mess! It's disjointed, it doesn't flow, and in some places, just plain doesn't jive. I'm thinking now that it just doesn't pay to try to rush something just to get it done. Yes, I had the story all outlined and I was doing only plot and dialogue, so there was going to be a second draft anyway. But I blew through it so fast that it's bound to almost be like writing from scratch just to correct it.

I have issues with characters and their backgrounds and storylines. As with any story and outline (at least in my case), it can change as you get into the story. That's fine, but I kept changing things as a result of the story, but saying I would rectify the character later. Well, I did this a lot. So now...it's a mess.

So, I started school. I'm back in grad school finishing up my MBA degree. If I stay on course, I'll be done at the end of August. With the first class, I had to get used to the scheduling. I swear I was doing 20 - 25 hours of school work EVERY week. We had a paper due every single weekend and team project due of a couple of them. I'm in my second class now and I have a better feel for things, so now I'm working my writing back into the schedule. It's going to go a lot slower now, but it looks like that might be best.

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I've been away this time because I'm busy writing. The end is almost near. :-) I'm trying to have it finished at to my agent by the end of this month. Might be away until then.

Cherrio!

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Yesterday was my blog day on Blogging In Black. Check out my post, "Writers, Get Your Hate Up."

I'm off to Chicago. See you all Tuesday!!! :-)

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Yesterday, I went to Barnes and Noble with the intention to write. I often take my laptop there, pick up a book or magazine, read a little, then write. I skimmed the latest issue of Poets & Writers and the July issue of The Writer. I got a lot of useful information out of it, so I decided to buy the August issue. I used to be an avid reader of Writer's Digest and I've gotten away from it. I think these magazines have brief perspectives on the elements of writing that spark inspiration and drive in writing. I immediately came home and went through my outline to ensure that I had conflict in every chapter. That was one of the articles. It talks about keeping the reader interested in your story once they've gotten beyond your great beginning. The way to do that is to ensure that there's conflict in every chapter. Now, actually, I understood this before. When I do my plot outline, I write it by the major action of each character in that chapter. However, I wasn't specifically focused on the level of conflict in that chapter. I think this focus will help me to improve the story.

Um...it also had an article on, basically, writer procrastination. But hey, I did go home and get my writing in. :-)

I think it's time to subcribe to writing magazines since Zinio doesn't offer a digital version. :-( I have a couple of subscriptions there and it's great! You can read your magazines online or download them yourself. I like it because I can keep my magazines on file instead of trying to keep a physical copy around when I want to save an article, which usually adds up to clutter. So, guess I will have to have actually magazines delivered. How old school is that?!

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Made it through another week and another two chapters. I've finally found my writing rhythm in Georgia. :-) During the week, I get up and write a little before work, but I'm finding that a bulk of my writing is on the weekends. I'm inching along on the novel, but moving nonetheless. Moreso that I've had the time to do over the last couple of years.

I'm also reading while I go. Reading books on writing. What I'm reading now is Hooked, by Les Edgerton. I'm at the beginning, reading a few pages before I write or at night before I go to bed. It's very interesting to me so far. Les talks about the change in story structure over time and I'm finding it quite true. It correlates to what I've learned in writing courses as well as being a published author. He's talking about stories staring with an inciting incident, then following through with the protagonist trying to reach resolution. Backstory and narrative being primarily throughout the story, rather than the big set up at the beginning of the story and with each scene.

Before I even picked up this book, this is what I was striving to do with my current novel. I got a lot of feedback on the descriptions in my first two novel. Yet, I also got feedback because it was "slow to start." At the time, I honestly couldn't understand it, because I felt I needed it to get readers to understand the characters and their motives. NOW, I see where I can jump right into the story, and insert background in small spurts as I go.

I'm getting to see how fun it is to try to improve and change with each book you write. It's like each one is a stepping stone and an evaluation tool for the next one in determining how to make your writing better.

I'm looking forward to another writing weekend and to completing more chapters!

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I'm like having the most relaxing morning ever! I don't think I've had a morning since I've been here where I'm not getting up, ripping and running all day, doing this and that, then trying to squeeze in some writing. So this weekend, it's reversed. I'm having my coffee and 8:30AM. I'm sitting here calmly drinking it, reading blogs, and blogging myself.

Then I'm going to go to the gym. Get my workout on for about an hour and a half. Lost 5 pounds in the last 10 days. Now I'm focusing on the next mini-goal of 3 pounds by next week.

Then, it's writing ALL DAY!!!! Nothing else pressing on the agenda. Now, if I can, I will squeeze in finally shelving my books and removing all the packaging from moving that I have stored in the dining room. But that's not pressing. :-)

It's going to be a wonderful weekend. Hope yours is the same!

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I just realized something. I'm an addict. A political addict. A political junkie. I recently posted to a fellow author's blog about dating at work and her writing referenced Rocsi and Terrance at BET and the drama behind her not being on the show anymore. Another author posted about a newly married "Hollywood" couple. I knew who the bride was, but not the groom. Still wondering if he's supposed to be famous or a behind the scenes type of person. Well, I was out of the loop. That's where I find myself quite often when reading blogs about entertainment people and industry.

And I had to sit back and think about it. The reason that I'm out of the loop is because when I get home, I immediately turn the TV on to MSNBC to watch all the political shows. I have to have the TV on while I sleep, and I leave it on MSNBC. If you're a fan of MSNBC, you know that overnight and through the wee hours of the morning, they just repeat the shows. Well...I watch/listen to the repeats. I mean, as if I'm seeing them for the first time. Now, from time to time, I feel that the repeats are too much, so I WILL change the channel...to CNN. Or even Headline News when CNN is running a non-political story.

And I thought about it. This is not new to me, at least in this election season. I did the same thing during the Bush-Gore election season. I watched all the political shows on them day and night. I can actually remember being up in my bedroom with Tom Brokaw, watching the all night count of the popular votes, the Florida votes, to determine the election of the next President. And that election extended my addiction for a few additional months, due to coverage of the Florida vote. But after this election is over, no matter who wins, I know to be prepared for withdrawals, like right after the Bush-Gore coverage was over. I just didn't know what to do with myself. There was a certain emptiness that existed. A void that watching just regular local or national news couldn't fill. So, I got to prepare myself for the big let down come February 2009, after the presidential inauguration.

What's most baffling is the reason for my addiction. Because you're usually addicted to things that make you feel good. But often times, while watching these political shows, I'm either angered or disgusted. Yes, more informed and more aware, but more irritated as well. I get irritated when either side blows up a blunder of the other side. Especially blunders in words. I get angered by mischaracterizations and harping on them. I get angered by the constant talk of issues that are not the top issues of most Americans. I get angered by catch phrases and labels that are developed, repeated constantly by the media, and weaved into the minds of average Americans.

It's funny to me when regular people are interviewed, asked a question about a candidate, and they can basically only regurgitate what they heard about them on TV. In the rare instance that the reporter and show is unbiased and ask the individual for examples of what they speak of, they rarely can provide one, unless an example has been reported over and over by the media. I listen to it all and like to think that I'm not falling for the ridiculous. I like to think that I recognize when things are blown out of proportion, when points are exaggerated, when I'm being bullshitted and being sold a dream just to get elected, and when there's an attempt to brainwash me. It baffles me how some of the other intelligent people who are interviewed on TV don't seem to see this.

I'm a nutcase. LOL

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Okay, here's a picture of me posing with one of my bike club members with my new hair style. Ahhhhh! No more braids. What do you think?

It's been funny. Since I've moved here, a lot of my friends and family are saying, "So you move to Atlanta and now you're spicing things up a bit." LOL I guess that has been true, but not because I moved near Atlanta. I felt so good with the move and change in life and the first thing I vowed was to get healthy. Exercising and going to the gym has never been an issue for me as far as forcing myself to go. I love working out. Music keeps me going. But consistency is usually the issue. Things come up and throw me off my routine. So, I've committed to becoming consistent. I've also commited to eating healthier and actually preparing my own food from time to time so I can control salt content. And I now drink about 10 glasses of water a day, which I noticed actually helps with the hair and skin. I was having skin issues when I got here and a trip to the dermatologist helped me to smooth out the skin on various parts of my body.

Well, you can't have great skin without improving the teeth. I've scheduled a dental appointment to schedule routine check ups and cleanings, and in the meantime, used whiting strips until I can get them whitened at the dentist.

Okay, with great skin, whiter teeth, and with feeling better from eating, water, and working out, a girl just HAS to get individual eyelashes, right? But of course. And you just can't get indivudual lashes without trimming up the eyebrows. That wouldn't be right! And with that focus in the facial area, you have to get new earrings. Yeah...that's it...new earrings. A NEED!

Getting the nails and toes done in french manicure was a must even before moving to Georgia. But with all of this, I just had to change up the hairstyle, right? I mean seriously, what other choice did I have?

And now, I'm back on the serious mission, as always, of getting to my ideal weight. Started last week and lost 3.5 pounds. Now, if I can just be consistent so I can stop losing the same 10 pounds over and over and over! LOL

All of this has been fun. Next....A NEW WARDROBE!!!!!

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D-DAY HAS COME AND GONE!!!!

And now.....drumroll please....IT IS FINISHED!!!!

Uh, no! Not book #3. I wish! But my hair! LOL Well, after ten long years of wearing microbraids, I've finally laid them to rest for good. I took out the braids for the last time last Wednesday (and Thursday, and Friday), and got myself one of them cute li'l ol' hair styles with long sleek black hair and wispy bangs. :-) I was hoping to be able to put up a pic, but as usual, I haven't had time. :-( But I'll get one up soon as possible.

I've been slowly going through small changes since I relocated. I'm feeling real good. So maybe it's like I'm feeling good and looking to do things to treat myself. Yeah, that's it. LOL But I'm not going to lie. For some reason, changing hair styles can wreck your mind. Because you see a style, but you don't know if it's going to look on you. But lucky for me, I seemed to have made a good choice. Good thing I decided against the beach blonde highlights and the burgundy rinse. So let me tell you, a sistah is feeling good right about now.

Now off to sleep so I can wake up a write another chapter before work. :-)

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Let the countdown begin....two days til D-DAY!!!!

It's 5AM and I just finished up another chapter! I don't know how many times I've started over on this book. Not having a hard time with it at all. But everytime I'm away from it for a prolonged period of time, I find it's best to start over from the beginning so I can get into the flow of it. And each and everytime, I come up with what I think is a better idea. So I end up going back and making changes to my outline, cutting old chapters and building new ones. One the one hand, I feel like I'm constantly building a better story. On the other hand, I'm so ready to have uninterrupted time so I can get out of this beginning phase and get through the story! LOL

And now, I just added another factor. I'm just a glutton for punishment! LOL So, now that I'm settled in Georgia, I've decided last week to go back and finish up my MBA. I started it years ago, before I wrote my first book. I got a year into my program, then set it aside to chase after my dream of writing and publishing my first book. Now that it's accomplished, I want to finish up book three, then go back and take a year to finish up my MBA program. And the goal is to start this the beginning of August! :-)

Ahhhh! Pressure. You gotta love it! :-)

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Relocation is rough! Sucks all the life right out of ya. The first two weeks I was here, I was basically trying to get to know the area. A small area, it is, unfamiliar nonetheless. Then apartment hunting after work and weekends. Finding new doctors and going for the initial visits (of course, they send you out to other facilities for testing for this and that...still gotta reschedule that mammogram...oh, joy). Then, there's the wonderful experience of the DMV for driver's license and car registration. I got it down to about five trips between the DMV and state office to get them. It seemsed like a constant running around for about three months.

But of all the tasks that have sucked up my late afternoons and weekends, I'm undergoing the toughest task of all. Looking for a hair stylist! OH MY!!!! Oh geez! Let me tell you. It's been tough to find new services the way I like them. I've had individual lashes put in with so much glue that you could only see the tips and it peeled off the next day like a rubber strip. I had my naturally thin eyebrows trimmed to pencil thin lines when I specifically stated that I only wanted the tails shaped. Sigh. And now, I've been wearing braids for about eight years and ready for a change. What better time to do it than relocating and starting life anew? :-) But, I think I found a stylist. You'll know that I did if I post pics. LOL

So how much reading did I do? Uh, maybe a chapter in past three months. :-( Writing? Well, although not much, I did fare better than reading. I manage to submit and article to Urbanburnout in May that is in cue for posting. And I just submitted two articles to The Black Biker Magazine for the summer issue, which should be out mid-August, I'm told. And for the book, very little. But now, I've returned back to my writing schedule of Counting Raindrops and getting up at 3:30-ish, 4:00 AM to work on the book. And that's my cue to hop to it! :-)

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It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally settled! :-) The last few months have been hectic. Relocation is a mutha! LOL Anyway, so after living in a hotel for two months, going back to St. Louis to move my things to storage somewhere in the midwest, finding an apartment in Macon, moving my things from storage, unpacking and organizing, I'm finally settled!

As you can imagine, writing has been scattered during this time period, but I have been writing here and there. Got articles finished and submitted for publication, and back to working on book three. I know I'm early in my writing career, but this is the longest I've ever spent on writing a book. And not from lack of inspiration, but from absolute chaos and lack of premium writing time. For me, once the flow is interrupted, I have to get back into it by reviewing the entire story to get back into it again. And it seems like I've spent a lot of time in this phase because of all the interruptions. HOWEVER, it can only get better from here. I have permanency and can now allot time to writing and actually commit to a writing schedule. That feels good!

Lots to catch up on, but gotta go for now. Ta ta! :-)

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Okay, you know the drill...boy have I been swamped! LOL So you know how I've been saying that lately, everytime I have a deadline and a good groove going, life steps in a throws a curveball? Well, needless to say, opening day has started early this year. So, my last contract assignment ended for me and it's one of those things that's both good and bad. Good, because it frees me up and lets me make some changes.

Bad, because the timing is when I really need to focus on finishing up book three. So, while I feel relieved, I just wished the change could have been a month later.

However, good again because I found something else on a permanent basis and if it had been month later, then I might not have this.

Good because now, I'll have a regular routine and be able to have a regular writing schedule again and be in control more because I know what to expect.

So, basically, the good outweighs the bad and I'm excited! Okay, you know the trip to Atlanta? Well, it was for job interviews. The day my last contract assignment ended, I decided to throw out my resume out there and open myself up to relocation, JUST TO SEE what was out there. And I was only looking at the only area where I had a large amount of family members. I didn't want to start all over in a new area where I knew absolutely no one. Been there, done that. Too old for that now. LOL So, anyway, long story short, after putting out the feelers, in two weeks, I had not only one, but two job offers. Two companies that really wanted me. It was like being torn between two lovers. I mean, not that I've ever experienced that before, but I imagine that's what it would feel like. LOL

So, anyway, yes, now there's another major delay in getting the third book to my agent (*note to self...think of excuse to provide to agent tomorrow and beg her not to drop me). But on the exciting end....I'M MOVING TO GEORGIA!!! Macon, GA to be exact. It's a great move. First of all, the company seems to be a great one. And I believe I'll be in an area that actually will be good for my third book. I have family in Atlanta, which is an hour north of Macon. Plus a ton of friends and sorority sisters. Come to think of it, it seems like I know more people in Atlanta than I do here in St. Louis! LOL

Supposed to be moving into corporate housing later this week, so now I'm in the midst of packing up as much as I can load in my car and whatever I'll need over the next month or two. So, naturally, that means loss time from writing my book and on my blog. But hey, that's a writer's life for ya! :-)

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Okay, okay....I jest. I only WISH I had that much fun for my birthday. It's been so long since I had a drink, I'd probably puke. LOL

But anyway, my usual statement....things are a little hectic right now. LOL I'm about to go on a little trip. A trip to handle a little "bidness," if you know what I mean. No, not the illegal kind. Perfectly legal. I hope to be able to share when I get back on Wednesday.

In the meantime, I'm so excited for my agent. :-) I met my agent in 2003 at the BEA in Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, she was just getting started in literary agency. She's a writer as well...Jenoyne Adams. She started with the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency out of New York. I don't think I was her first client but I do believe I was in her first few. I took my first three c hapters to the BEA, let her read it, then she requested the first 100 pages, and the rest, as they say is history. She got me my first 2 book deal with Hyperion Books. Well, she has grown so much in the literary world that she has now started her own agency out of LA. I'm excited because I just signed and returned my contract earlier today. So now, my agent is Jenoyne Adams of BLISS LITERARY AGENCY. So, all you inspiring authors out there who are always asking about my agent (if you're reading my blog, lol), stop by her website. She has submission information and requirements available to you.

Well, I gotta do some prep work, pack, then catch a 9:30AM flight to Atlanta, so I'm out! See you next week! :-)

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In the midst of celebrating a birthday here. I'll be back when I sober up...uh...I mean, when I stop seeing two of everyth...uh, I mean..... Just give me tittle lime. I'll back be...

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Another unplanned, busy, crazy week. Does any other type exist? I think not. Does it interrupt the planned writing schedule. But, of course. It just wouldn't be like right if it didn't. Yes, got quite a few loose ends that I'm in the process of tying up and hopefully I can do that soon because it's eating some of my writing time. But that's how it is when you're a working writer. Yes, you have to sacrifice and say "no" to some things so you can get your writing time in and your projects done. But there's always those "life" things that you have to take care of. Sure, you can say no. But you'd have to be willing to deal with possible consequences like writing in the dark, or say, starvation. You know. Little stuff like that. In Stephen Covey's words, FIRST THINGS FIRST. lol

But, regardless, I always keep my mind in the literary mode. I just finished up Vanish by Tess Gerritsen. It was my first Detective Rizzoli mystery and it won't be my last. Awesome! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I'm still reading Words of Farewell, a book of short stories by Korean Women Writers. And yes, Imajica is still by the bed. It's an awsome book, I'm just squeezed for time. I'm listening to Judgement in Death by J.D. Robb. And for kicks, I'm reading a book on Dialogue. Always gotta have something to continually sharpen the writing skills. :-)

All right. My workout is done. I just finished up a bagel and I'm pumping in the caffeine at Panera. Time to get a writin'. :-)

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Blustery cold days in St. Louis now. These are those days when you just want to stay at home, huddled beneath the covers with your laptop and a pot of coffee, with incense burning. And I think that just might be what I do today. I deserve it. :-) Besides, I'm buried to my neck in writing. I have a great momentum going. I'm collecting stories during the week and writing the magazine stories on the weekends. And I'm working on the novel through the week, plus weekends as well. The more I get into the magazine writing, the more I get excited by it. I feel like I'm in a new area with so much that can be covered. I would liken it to the start of the hip-hop culture. In it's newness, there was a lot of uncovered ground and any writer had free reign on the writing possibilities. Relating real life situations and realities to those of the hip-hop generation and expressing their opinions on everything from music to the economy. After being in and becoming acclimated to, and now being of the urban biker culture, I'm able to see the gap and the lack of voice of expression. I got article topics coming out of the butt hole and I'm blessed to have two avenues of expression right now, Even with that, it would take years to cover my topics at least once. Which means it will be a while before I run out of fresh stories.

And there are two other important ingredients.What I have found is that bikers are full of stories and information AND they LOVE to talk. It's almost as if they've had something pinned up in them for so long and they've been looking for an outlet in which to let it explode.

I think about all this. I must be in one of those reflective moods again. LOL Because, writing and motorcycle riding are things I've always wanted to do. But never did I think I'd be able to combine the two. After writing my novels, I wanted to freelance, but think I would because I didn't see anything that I WANTED to write about. Entertainment, fashion, cooking, etc, are of absolutely no interest to me. Writing about them would be a chore and feel like work, which is something that I hate when I comes to writing. I can't write if it feels like work. Which is why I decided not to major in Journalism or Communications in college, which I had considered because it seemed like the natural path. I'm so glad I didn't. I don't want to have to write for my meals or to pay my bills. If I draw income from writing, that's great. But I don't want to have to depend on it to live. We all know how impossible that is anyway. LOL

Wait, so what was my point?

Reflecting...oh yeah. So I think about how I love writing and riding. How I came back to St. Louis and without seeking it, got into the urban biker scene. How, without me actually pursuing it, that has led me freelancing about the set. This is like my dream. Who knew?

See, it's stuff like this that makes me believe in destiny and the belief that some higher power is guiding our lives. We don't know what's coming, but we have to work and be open for anything. Okay, let me stop before I get cosmic again.

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Friday was an extremely good day for me!!!! :-) Something happened that I was hoping for over the last month or so. The start of something big. The start of a process that will allow me to change some things around and move more toward my purpose. Now, all I have to do is take action and complete the process...then I can blog about it. :-) It's just one of those things where you have something that is a real big burden that holds you back and you need it shake it off so you can be at peace. But how you shake it off is key. You have to be certain of the moves you make. Look at all the consequences of your actions and choose the best route for the outcome, even if it means tolerating stupidity, stubborness and ignorance for a little while longer. Sometimes you have to go with the flow. Play along until the time is right. Then, you can breathe! :-) And that I did. I slept well yesterday and woke up with a big smile. Time for Phase III. :-)

Okay, enough of the obscurity. LOL Got a lot on my plate today. Finishing up one article for Urbanburnout.com, starting a new one for the new magazine I'm now writing for, write more on book three, conference call, then I'll finish up the day with a little reading on writing, and then, maybe treat myself to reading a novel.

I'm on cloud nine right now. :-)

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Okay, point blank: MY ASS IS SORE!!!!! Well, more than just my ass. My hamstrings, my lower back, my inner thighs.... This is what I absolutely hate about laying off a weight routine, then having to start all over again. No matter how lightly you try to ease into it, a couple of days later you open your eyes in the morning and feel like you're tied down to the bed without anyone dressed in a cowboy outfit to tell you you've been a naughty girl. I mean, DREADFUL! To the point where people at work are saying to me that either I had a really good time last night or I've been in the gym. SIGH. Well, I'm on my way to the gym in about half an hour to punish my body even more. I've been a naughty girl...spending time with twinkies and ding dongs. LOL As much as I want to go home and get in the bed, I know the best way to get beyond this stage is to keep exercising and stretching the muscles. I feel like a binge drinker as I beg the heavens that if He gets me beyond this, I promise, I'll never let myself get out of shape ever again (and I'll call my mother daily and twice on Sundays). AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

Well, three more weeks until I'm supposed to turn book three over to my agent. Will I make it? Will if finish???? I highly doubt it. However, I want to write my butt off until this to get the most done as possible. If I have to ask for more time, I don't want it to be a long period. So I'm absolutely putting everything aside, except what I have to do (like work, and workout. That's a must) to write. No movies, no parties, no hanging out. In other words, normal life. LOL Well, but I did have to skip out on a friend's birthday party this weekend. And yes, she's pissed. Because I've been so busy and every time she throws a party (she's one of those, "It's a dreary Tuesday, time to throw a party" people) I always promise I'll be there, but I never show, because I'm busy doing something. Well, my plan was to actually write all day, then take a break and go to the party in the evening. No problem, right? No. I found out Friday that I needed to work the next day, Saturday. The day of the party. So, there goes my plan of writing eight ours in the morning, and if I go to the party, my writing for the day would be totally shot. I'm already way behind and the more I don't write, the further behind I'll get and the longer it will take me to try to get something else published. If it was one weekend, fine. But every weekend I have not been able to get quality writing time in. And it's February now and I have to start drawing the line. But, she knows I'm a writer and that writers have deadline and that you can't write a book over night and that the weekends are my time to write so she'll understand, right???? So, I write her a text explaining that I just found out yesterday I had to work, which killed my writing plan. I explained how far behind I was, gave her the word count that I needed to do...she'll understand, right? I don't know. Maybe she does. I wouldn't know because I haven't heard from her since. :-/

But not too worry. When I finish book three, all I got to do is buy her a pair of killer boots and she'll forget she even had a birthday.

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I had to suddenly take a little time off. I experiences two lives cut short, way before their time. My nephew at 15 months and a fellow biker who died of a heart attach at 26. Things like this can cause you to be very reflective. We all expect to see death and know we're going to experience death. But when we see it before we think it's time and we don't understand why, we can spend much time wondering and thinking about it. With each passing, expected, or unexpected, it draws my thoughts closer to my family and friends. I mentally went through the list of people I haven't talked to in a while because I've been busy and vowed to touch base periodically. It made me reflect even more on my purpose and doing what I want to do. It made me change my schedule. Yes, since I've gotten my body adjusted to the new sleeping schedule, I still get up at 3AM, but I'm putting writing first. :-) And I'm working out in the afternoon. I'm on track.

And the workout is working. Yay! This morning was my first weigh in and I lost pounds and inches. Getting ready for summer! :-) The clothes are loosening up again and I'm motivated to keep on going. And, of coiurse, this time, I'm promising myself that once I get where I want to be, I'm going to maintain and get out of that circle of losing it for the summer, then gaining it back in the fall. LOL

Great news!!!!! Someone enjoyed my artlcle writing at Urbanburnout.com so much that he recommended me to his friend, the publisher of The Black Biker Magazine. It started out as a West Coast mag, went national, and now he just got national distribution and is looking for another writer. He said he LOVED my writing and wanted me to write for his mag. I'm so excited!!!! It's quarterly, so my first article should appear in it in the June issue. It really feels great to be able to combine my first loves: writing and riding. Now, gotta work on getting a new bike that I can lower so I don't have to ride in 5 1/2-inch stillettos! :-)

Hey check out my post on January 30th on Blogging In Black. Yesterday, I wrote about Honing Your Craft. Hope you enjoy it. :-)

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The last few days have been rough. I've been attempting to rearrange my internal clock to better achieve my goals. I've decided to workout first thing in the morning before work, then go to work, then spend the evenings reading and writing. With me already leaving at 5:45AM to go to work, and it usually taking me an hour to get ready for work, it's been like having jet lag. And in addition to that, I'm not one to wake up and just hop out of bed (only weird people like my coworker do that, lol). I have to slowly come into the morning to greet the world with a smile. LOL Seriously. Whatever time I need to get up, I set the alarm 45 minutes prior to "wake up" time and snooze every 15 minutes. So, my alarm goes off three time for me to "wake up." Now, once we reach that point, I get up and make coffee, light incense and get back in bed until the coffee's done. Yes, those additional two minutes are important to the morning wake up process. Then, I get up, make a cup of coffee, and mediate while it cools. I drink coffee while browsing emails, and then, finally, I can actually get up. :-) So, with me now adding a 30 - 45 minute workout before work, I'm getting up at 3AM.

Now, in order for me to get up at 3AM and make through the entire day without biting somebody's head off, I must,.. I say, I MUST, get at least eight hours of sleep. I know some go-getters can survive off 4, 5, or 6 hours of sleep. My body don't play that. LOL So I'm trying to train my body to go to sleep at 7PM. Not an easy thing to do. And it strange because I'm thinking if I get up at 3AM, come 5, 6, or 7PM, I'd be dog tired. But not so. I can feel fatigue in my body, but the mind is alert. So I'm trying sleep aids for the moment. The package said they're not addictive and I'm counting on that. :-)

On the upside, I'm loving getting my workout in first thing in the morning. Because then, it's done and I don't have to feel bad about skipping because work made me to tired or I just plain don't feel like it. And after work, I can just concentrate on writing. When I'm able to train my body to go to sleep on time, I think I'm going to love this schedule.

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I had a great time yesterday. Went bowling with my Stunnas Motorsports Club members and had a nice and relaxing time. Yes, I had to answer to all the tough texting I did, but secretly, they love it. LOL The fact that I honestly don't know what I bowled should say a lot about my score. But it didn't matter. It was nice to get out and have fun. Now, I got up, went to the gym, got my writing in, then spent a few hours bowling. Came home and did some reading before drifting off to sleep, so I felt it was a productive day.

I recently posted an article about what bikers do over the winter. Over the winter, and actually even in the riding season, my bike club members typically do stuff like this. We go out to dinner together on on occasional Fridays and other group things. One of the things that I have found funny since being in a bike club is the GREAT misconceptions about bike clubs from the general public. When I tell people I'm in a bike club, the typical response is, "YOU???!!!" and "You don''t LOOK like a biker," or "You don't ACT like a biker." Whenever I receive this response, I ask about their opinions of bikers. And all the time, I get motorcycle gang images fed back to me. Like Hell's Angels and outlaw bikers. I get sleezy, slutty women, who are rough, bisexual/lesbians who can take a bullet easily, are tatted up with piercings out wazoo, and can drink like a fish. Uh, no. LOL

But you know, I understand the thought. Pretty much all biker movies show this image. And with the exception of a biker charity ride or two, the media does seem to only show bikers speeding, dying, or otherwise behaving negatively. Yeah, it does happen. The stereotypes do exist, but not to the degree that people think (which seems to be 100% unless they actually know a biker). The bike community now is so mixed. It's more mixed and more of a "melting pot" than America herself. You have all nationalities, economic status and backgrounds, educational bacgrounds, professionalisms, spiritual beliefs, etc. And generally, they get along. The iron (motorcycle) is common bond between them. Yes, you can look and easily find the thugs and sluts, but actually, more prevalent now are doctors, lawyers, engineers, managers, husbands, wives, etc. Professional people with a passion for riding and enjoying life.

Bike clubs are surrogate families. I suspect that because of the risk involved in riding, bikers are usually close. They greet and part with warm hugs. They look out for one another. They value life and every single breath. No one will verbally say it, but you never know if it's the last tiime you will see that person. It's how we should behave with our blood relatives and friends. They keep in touch on a daily or near daily basis. They encourage and help each other.

Now, I don't mean to glorify bikers like they're all perfect. Like I said, clubs are like typical families so you do get arguments, fights, jealousies, tantrums, etc. And it's still an organization made up of different people with different ideas. Because of that, it possibly could be more difficult to come of one accord if your bike club is made up of all these differences. But typically, one club will be comprised of members of similar agendas. Much like political parties. LOL

But all this to say....look to the left of you, then look to the right. Do this at work, at church, in your professional organizations, etc. Chances are, one or more of these people are bikers. LOL

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It was a busy week. Had a few non-job, non-writer things going on, but I got through them, AND STILL wrote. Yay! At this point, if I'm able to write for an hour during the week, I'm satisfied. My biggest writing times are the weekends. Fridays are my off-days. No writing (unless I'm just dying to), no working out. Fridays after work are now for going out with the team, going out with the club, going somewhere to read, or like last night, going home to sleep. LOL I think I went to bed at about 8PM last night. I know. Single and such a bore. LOL

So I'm very much alert this morning and I'm about to go to the gym, then to Panera's to write. After that, my motorcycle club is going to hangout and go bowling. And before then, I have to prepare my excuses as to why they're beating me badly. See, at everything, I have a tendency to do much trash talking behind my Mogul. I text them about being punks and how my skills (at whatever) are more superior and that basically, there is no reason for them to go on living because they will never measure up to me. You know, something like that. You name it, basketball (well, I did play for two years in highschool....pont guard), football (I have Poweder Puff experience), baseball (I worked at Busch Stadium during baseball season back in the day), bowling (uh....I dreamed a high score????), pool (sat my ass on a pool table once and absorbed skills through osmosis), etc.

So, I'll think up excuses while on the elliptical trainer. :-)

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I do a little freelancing and my latest motorcycle community article just posted on Urbanburnout.com. Visit the FEATURES page to read the rest!

Winter Bikerland

“The weather outside is frightful,” begins the winter classic song that urges the skies to let it snow. But snow and the bitter cold weather that comes this time of year in the northern states leaves the average biker with a dismal feeling. For most, it equates to the winter ritual of properly preparing their bike for at least three months of hibernation while the biker waits with much anxiety for spring to break.

So what’s a biker to do over the winter? Invite the homies over for egg nog while wiggling and warming their toes by the fire? Whip out the Scrabble board to partake in a game or two while loading up on hot chocolate with marshmallows? Or do they sit and stare at their garaged bike, hoping, wishing, and waiting? I pondered the thought and decided to throw out the question to find out just exactly what the two-wheeled road warriors and bike clubs do over the bitter cold winter months.

READ MORE AT Urbanburnout.com.

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Okay, I guess I can't put it off any longer. It's the end of the first week of January. So, no matter how much of a procrastinator I am, I have to admit, it's time to take down the tree. Uh, or rather, in my case, time to put the tree away on the top shelf of the closet. LOL I loved this custom made tree. My coworker makes themed tabletop Christmas trees as a hobby and made one for me with motorcycles. Little Suzuki 600's in every color. My kind of tree. :-)

Well, it's official. The race is on. I broke down and called my agent yesterday. Well, let me rephrase. I texted my agent yesterday. I had been avoiding this for months because I knew I we would get into the status of the completion of book three, which is not complete, even though we talked about it last year this time. So, I texted and she immediately called me back. Like in two minutes. Oh...joy. Isn't it great to have an agent with immediate response? I mean, like, real IMMEDIATE? Great. Sigh. LOL

I jest.

So, she called me back in like 2.4 seconds and it turns out she could tell I had a lot going on and was giving me time. See, she was/is a writer as well and understands how life can get in the way. And she could tell, from what I submitted, that I didn't have the time to focus on my book. We agree that it's a great story, but hey, what I turned in just truly sucked big time. Being the agent that she is, she didn't say that, but stated that it "needed to be developed." No, it SUCKED Jenoyne. Say it! Say it! IT SUCKED!

But anyway, she actually proceeded to share with me some exciting news that I hope to be able to blog about this month. Details are not complete yet so I have to wait. But we talked about projects going out and agreed that I should have book three finished by the end of February. So, it's a little different now. Yes, I set a deadline for myself for this same date, but it's different when it becomes an actual deadline. But, now, since I'm already writing and the character sketches and chapter-by-chapter outline is complete, I don't feel rushed. But it does mean I need to write everyday. So, another excuse to put off socializing until Spring! :-)

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I sleep with the TV on (a necessity. can't sleep in silence) and every station I turn to is about Britney Spears most recent breakdown or drug excursion and I want to scream. But I'm comforted by the reports of the Iowa caucus and the talk about the New Hampshire primaries. Soothing, :-)

Well, I finished the audio of The Price of a Child. It really wasn't for me. I never got a feel for the time frame, setting, the characters or the plot. It was kind of strange to me. Because it was set in the 1850's, yet it seemed like modern times. The main character had just obtained her freedom, and immediately went on to live a normal life makinng speeches against slavery. This is where I become a little perplexed. Because my expectations would be that the main character would have some emotional issues, some slavery to freedom adjustments, some hesitations about living free, etc. But no. So, I question myself a little as to am I mentally trying to write the story and I'm dissatisfied because the characters didn't act the way I wanted to? Or is it really that the characters are unbelievable to me? Where's the line? I think I'm just becoming more cautious of calling a book bad, and if I do, really looking at the reasons why I would think that way. Is it the book or is it me?

I mentioned reading even more before and how it help with motivation to write. One thing I noticed as well is my change in what I think about books or what I consider a good book. And how it's different for everybody, I've noticed where a book could be touted as a bestseller or even other readers give it glowing reviews (in discussion groups, not Amazon reviews), and it does absolutely nothing for me. And vice versa, there will be books that others "toss across the room," and I absolutely love it. Being a writer, it makes me reflect more on the impossibility of pleasing ALL readers with one book. I knew this to be true even before I started writing. But the more knee deep in reading and writing I get, the more I realize it. And I hope it translate to my feelings not being hurt in the future if readers don't enjoy my books. lol

I've also moved to the notion that if I don't enjoy a book, it doesn't necessarily make it a bad book, just one that I don't particularly care for. But others might.

Guess I'm feeling a little reflective this morning. :-) Got a long day ahead. Yeah, I know it's Saturday. But I'm on my way to the gym with the hundreds of other folks to start on the resolution of getting fit. Need to get there early for a parking space so I won't have to WALK to the gym door. LOL Just kidding. Then need to work on my article for Urbanburnout.com. Just finished and posted my #1 Stunna article a couple of days ago. Then, of course, work on book 3. And I want to go to the store to find some sugar free hot chocolate so I can finish up the night reading in bed. I'll start socializing next weekend. LOL

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I've been mulling over what resolutions I want to make this year. I like resolutions, as I believe they help me to focus on things I want to improve. I don't have any bad habits that I want to break, but there are things I'd like to do better. My resolutions are social. I think it's high time that I move beyond the phone with the texting and emailing, and actually...help me...actually TALK to my friends. Ahhhh. There. I said it. TALK. Last time I checked, I did about 3500 texts a month. Okay, I'm not going go overboard and say I want to reduce the amount of texting I do, but I want to start adding in actual conversations. At least 10 minutes. At least on the weekends. Hey, it's a start!

And I'm going to try to socialize more. I doubt I'll ever be a social butterfly. I'm a private person and I have no desire for that. But I can afford to loosen up a bit, approach others and strike up a conversation, and heck, maybe even accept an invitation to go out once in awhile. LOL

In addition to my resolutions, I do have things on my "to do" list for the year. Of course, writing. I'd like to complete 2 novels, tidy up my current short stories as well as write one more. At the end of last year, I started reading/writing on a daily basis again and I'd like to keep it up.

I'd like to take off 15 pounds. This was slated for last year, and I achieved it, but, of course, I gained ten back at the end of the year. At this rate, I'll meet and maintain my goal by 2011. LOL

And I believe this will be the year that I actually go skydiving. It's been on the list for more than 5 years now. But now, I think I finally have the time and I got buddies. I'm going with my office mates! We're planning on June. :-) I'll be sure to post the video. ;-)

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Back from Atlanta! Had a great time bringing in the New Year with friends. The drive was pretty cool too. Devil in a Blue Dress was a great road story. I'm still listening to The Price of a Child. Although I'm going to finish it to the end, I'm not too crazy about it. I can't get a feel for the characters or the time frame. It's supposed to be set in the 1850's and the main character obtains her freedom when her master passes through Philadelphia and she ends up leaving her newborn, who is still at home on the plantation. But the characters speak perfect English (better than some kids today), I can't get a feel of the time frame from the story, and I don't feel any emotion. The story is a little flat to me. But, I'm going to stick it out since it's audio.

Resolutioin time! Yes, I do make resolutions. I'm still mulling them over, so I'll be back to jot them down. Fun, fun! :-)

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I scheduled in fun yesterday and by golly, I had it! LOL I made it to Atlanta. Got in last night and hung out with friends. I watched them play Madden and I made one of the guys choose the Rams. The other one refused to play my Rams. He chose the Patriots and guess who got SPANKED!!!!! Yep, Patriots. This game is just like real life! (NOT!) LOL Well, this got me to thinking about my own Playstation. The one that's lying on the floor, next to the TV and not connected. The one that I bought maybe 4 years ago so I could learn to play Madden and spank butt. Yeah, that Playstation. So now since I finally bought a second controller for it last year, even though I've only played it twice, maybe now I'll finally buy Madden and learn to play. I'll have to pencil that into the schedule.

So I did have Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Moseley and I listened to it on the way down. It was great listening. Walter Moseley's Easy Rawlings stories are awesome to listen to on the road. They are so engrossing, funny, and enjoyable. I love them. Then had time to listen to my Jack Johnson's Brushfire Fairytales CD. I like this CD as well, but I do like In Between Dreams better.

And now, here I sit at a Panera's in Lithonia, getting some writing done before I welcome the in the New Year. Even though I bring my camera, I'm bad at remembering to take pics. Even worse at posing for them. But I'll try to put up a couple of good pics of tonight's New Year's party with my motorcycle club.


Here's to wishing you have a happy, healthy, safe, and prosperous NEW YEAR!!!!!

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It's the 30th of the month which means it's my day to post at BloggingInBlack.com. You can check it out by clicking the link. I also place an RSS feed on the side of my blog. Check it out today, and any other day to see what the writers there are blogging about. :-)

Well, I'm up and packing. I'm heading to Atlanta to bring in the New Year with friends and members of the Atlanta Chapter of my bike club. It's also part work too because I'm doing a write up on their New Year's activities. Along with doing that write up, I'll be working on a short article for Urbanburnout.com. And between working on Book 3, I'll think of ideas for my feature at Sportwave Online. I'll have fun too because I do plan to get some socializing in. That's actually going to be one of my New Year's resolutions because I don't spend enough time socializing, I think. :-) Still something I have to push myself to do. Maybe the first step would be to actually TALK on the phone though. LOL I don't know. I'm a text queen. My coworkers joke with me about basically having a computerized phone on my hip and I do everything on it except talk. I rarely pick up the phone and when I do, I'm anxious to get off. I'd rather text our conversation. It's just that I prefer talking in person rather than on the phone. The phone to me is just for the set up. When, where, and what time. But, of course, for me to have a person to person conversation, that means I have to uh, get out and socialize. Sigh. I'll work on it for 2008.

Well, I'm all geared up for the ride! :-) I bought Jack Johnson's Brushfire CD. A coworker let me borrow his Between the Sheets (?) CD and I absolutely LOVED it. He told me Brushfire was even better, so I bought it for the ride. I already listened to the first couple of songs and I've enjoyed them so far. And, I also have 20 hours worth of books on CDs. I have something by Walter Moseley. I think Devil in a Blue Dress, but I'm not sure. And I have The Price of a Child. So, believe it or not, the drive to and from Atlanta will be exciting. I'm looking forward to it. I love long driving trips specifically for this reason. Also gives me time to think about what I'm writing as well.

Toodles!

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I've been spending time going over the chapters I've written already. I confess. I'm like, "What the hell was I smoking when I wrote this mess?" What I'm finding out is that I'm not a good at writing under pressure or forcing myself to write if I'm not feeling it. Which is one reason why it would be hard to write to whatever the market dictates.

Okay, let me tell you what happened. Earlier this year, I was trying to hurry up to submit the first few chapters to my agent to shop. Probably wouldn't be an issue, except that I had so much going on this year (moving, job hunting and hopping) that I couldn't fully concentrate and get into a groove with this book. I've known for the longest the story I wanted to write. But in a rush to submit SOMETHING, I skipped my normal writing process. I didn't fully sketch or flesh characters. Well, I was only going to submit three chapters. Character sketches wouldn't matter for that, right? I could always go back and flesh them out later. NOT!

And then, I found what is comfortable for me is to just focus on the plot the first draft, then round out the story and flavor the second and subsequent drafts. Cool. Okay, but I don't know what the hell I did for the first five chapters that I wrote. It didn't flow. Characters were flat. I had first and third POV in the first chapter. I mean, I really looked at it and said, "What the hell? Who fucked up my story?!" LOL It was so screwed that it took me a minute to figure out how to smooth it out.

Well, the first thing I did was go back to my normal writing process. I went to what works for me. I sketched my characters to the fullest, then did my chapter by chapter plot outline. It still took me a minute to smooth out the first chapter. It was the opening I wanted, but it didn't flow. But I massaged it and massaged until now, GWA-LA! It's the way I want it.

Whew! That rush job? Remind me never to do that shit again....

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This is surprising to me, but I'm tickled pink. :-) I have to admit, the best gift I got for Christmas actually came from my manager. Now, who would have thunk a thing like that? A manager actually picking out a gift that fits you as an individual rather than say, one of several fruit cakes that was distributed to every employee alike? No, rather than give a "one gift fits all" present, he gave all of his team gifts that fit their individual personalities. He gave me this cute little writing inspirations book. I'm in a unique situation where my manager actually knows I'm a writer and thinks it's cool. He even asked me a few questions about writing, as he dreams of writing his own novel himself one day. So, anyway, the book is The Pocket Muse - Ideas and Inspirations for Writing by Monica Wood. It's just a tiny book with tips and writing prompts to get you writing. This is my first little book like this and flipping through it makes me anxious to try some of the writing prompts and put them on my website. It probably don't sound as fascinating as I'm making it out to be and actually, I don't know why I'm so fascinated by it. LOL But I just think it's the coolest little thing.

One thing that really got me though was the writer's opening. She talked of leaving her job and becoming a full-time writer. And how, after a while, she longed for her old job. She longed to be amongst people again on a day to day basis. I could really relate to that. When my first book was published, I wrote full time for a while. I felt blessed. I felt like it was such a dream fulfilled. But after a while, I wanted to go back to work. Writing is definitely a lonely profession, and I confess to having somewhat of a reclusive personality. It's nothing for me to go days without seeing a single soul or weeks without socializing, and I don't get lonely. I'm comfortable. Too comfortable. I can easily see myself becoming a total recluse closed off from the world. I have to force myself to socialize as it is. Not working, I think I'd end up being the reclusive senile drunk we've all heard of a time or two. LOL Besides, I agree with Monica's quotation of the paradox: You can't write without fully living and you can't live fully and still find the time to write. So true.

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Well now. I'm finding that the more I blog, the more I keep up with my writing. I'm thinking, maybe it's like doing more or being on your best behavior when you know your parents are looking over your shoulder. Being that I'm a writer and I'm supposed to be writing, the mark of shame would be to come here and have to confess that no, I haven't written a thing in over a week for no other reason, other than I've been goofing off. But as it is, by writing everyday, it's feeding into the current desire to finish my long overdue third novel, as well as sprouting ideas for new one. Just by thinking about what I could possibly write today, I thought of a new idea for a book. Now, exactly how the thought came about, I have no idea. Thinking about a blog post, and the final story idea, I see no connection. lol

But one thing I'm starting to think about is the route of publishing for the next book. Yes, when I'm finished, I will go the route of publishing again. Of course, I'll submit to my agent to shop for a deal. But to be honest, I don't feel the urgency or the necessity of getting a publishing deal anymore. No, I'm not saying that I don't want one. If one is indeed offered, yes, I'd take a look at it and consider if it's worthwhile. But one thing that comes with publishing your own first is that you know you can do it again, so there's no worry about whether or not you will have a published novel. Yes, there's still a stigma with self-published vs. traditionally published books, but when you've done both, I think, you're beyond caring what people think of your route of publishing. It would be the same book regardless of the route (provided you self publish a quality product). For me, the only think traditional publishing does is perhaps give you an advance to where you can promote (and you'll do the same promotion no matter the route). You lose a little control over your final product though, I found. And for book three, I have a clear visual in my head of the title and cover, and I'm not sure if I want to part with it. And that makes it more important to look at the current products of the publisher. So, basically, I've learned a lot by having done both methods. I had my agent when I self published Counting Raindrops and she was supportive. I'm sure if I chose to do that with book three, she would be supportive again (at least I hope so).

Like book one, I'd do it all myself if I self published. This morning, I was reading Lee Goldberg's December 26th blog posting about a posting he read on a vanity publisher that was sued by 275 defrauded authors. Aspiring authors, beware. Doing it yourself can be expensive, but you know you're not going to rip yourself off either.

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So yes, as I counted on, there was wrapping paper and Christmas boxes from last year at my mother's house. And I discovered that apparently procrastination runs in my family, as I and my two brothers all took up a secret location in the house to use mom's wrapping paper (and scissors, and tape, and labels, and bows) to wrap gifts that would be unwrapped in less than 15 minutes. You can't just give someone a gift at Christmas. Unwrapping is 95% of the gift exchange experience. Nothing like going home and feeling like your shortcomings are normal habits.

It's becoming tradition for my family to go see a movie on holidays and yesterday we went to see The Great Debaters. Awesome movie! This brings my movie viewing total up to one this year and it was well worth it. I'm not a big movie watcher only because I never make the time. I have to pull myself away from books to do so. But seeing this movie makes me want to check out a flick more often, if it's going to be as worthwhile as this. As I get older, I find my interests changing. I'm more into stories of real life obstacles turned triumphant victories. I'm also finding myself becoming more interested in science fiction and fantasy, which I can't help to notice, seems like a total contrast to me. It's like, one minute I want something real that I can relate to, and the next minute I want to escape from it and go to Never Never Land. I feel so creatively bipolar sometimes.

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It's Christmas morning and I've put in work already. So far, I've spent a good hour sending out text messages to wish all my friends and distant family members a Merry Christmas. This year, I wasn't too good at getting my Christmas cards out in time. How many? How about zero. It all just happened so fast. One day I'm eating a turkey dinner, then, KAPOWAH! It's Christmas. So, I'm taking the procrastinator's way out by texting all my friends and family. I'm about halfway done because I'm reading and replying to my other texting family and friends who are doing the exact same thing. So, like for every text you send out, there's 10 to reply to. LOL I'll finish the rest later.

Okay, I went Christmas shopping at the bookstore right? And they have gift wrapping, only, I have a $20 bill. I don't want to have my books wrapped and not put something in the donation jar because, well, everybody's looking. So, I ask the cashier for change. "We can't give out change," she says. I give her the stupid look. And I want to say, "Well, I can't purchase these books," and walk off after she's rung them up, but it's Christmas Eve and only a few hours left til stores closed and I don't want to go anywhere else anyway. So, she has me over a barrel. I give an empty look and say, "Ok." But I'm thinking, that's okay. Because I'm visualizing the leftover roll of Christmas wrapping I have in the back of my closet behind my suitcases. It'll be fun to wrap them myself, even though I'm not good at it. After all, sloppy wrapping shows effort. :-) So I take them hope and prepare to go to the closet to get the wrapping, and it's not there. Uh, not the Christmas wrapping....THE CLOSET!!!! I was envisioning the wrapping in the closet of my OLD apartment! I forgot I switched apartments in my building last year and that closet, nor the Christmas wrapping, does not exist. So, I'm left with either the non-biodegradable grocery bags (news report said they contain petroleum so while we thought we were doing the environment a favor, it was all for not. Yet again, we were guilted into making corporations richer), or going over Mom's house early so I can borrow some of her wrapping paper. And yes, she DOES have wrapping paper. Because at worst, there will be the old paper that she saved from last year's Christmas gifts.

Sigh. A procrastinator's work is never done...

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Okay, it's Christmas Eve and I just started and finished my Christmas shopping. Yes, I'm forever the procrastinator, when it comes to shopping. Anything to put off fighting for parking spaces and crowded shopping malls. But this time, it wasn't so bad. One, because I listened to audio books while I drove. So having to circle the lot a few times gave me more time to find out what happened next. :-) I even pulled it to a spot and waited a few minutes until I got to that "breaking point" in the story. And two, well, I cheated. I decided to do the majority of my shopping...in a bookstore. LOL Yes, I cruised the bookstore, which is my passion anyway, until I found a book that would be suitable for each person on my list. And so what if I spent extra time looking at books I was interested in? That's not the point. LOL So anyway, after three or so hours in one store (which is triple the time I like to spend in an entire mall), it was off to buy supplementary gift cards and I'm done. And here I sit at Panera's again, doing a little writing. What a deserving treat!

Writing is flowing again. Reminds me especially of writing book one. I get goosebumps thinking about certain scenes and I'm anxious to describe it on paper (or screen) as best I can so the reader can get the full impact of what I'm seeing and envisioning. Yeah, it's that writer's feeling again. I haven't really set a target for completion. Ah, what the hey...I'm going to shoot for the end of January. Wait...maybe mid February. Forgot, I'm an Engineer again. LOL

So, I'm back in a reading and writing frenzy, as I've said before, I'm sure. The thing about reading to me is, that it makes you itch to write. I haven't experienced it yet, but I would imagine that when I get writer's block, all I would have to do is pick up a few books to read. It inspires me to write. I've heard some writers say that they can't read when they write because they fear copying someone else's style. It's hard for me to relate to that. Yes, reading inspires me to write, but in my own style, I believe. Mainly because it seems difficult to honestly write in another style than what I comfortable with. When I write, it's like there's a drum and I'm writing to a rhythm. I'm familiar with the rhythm, which makes it easy. It's natural. I don't have to think about it. If I purposely try to write in someone else's style, or just force myself to write another way, it's difficult to me. I would imagine the writing would be choppy or disjointed. Because I wouldn't know what the hell I was doing.

On the contrary, even though I'm reading for pure enjoyment, I'm learning various methods other writers use say in presenting an idea, showing motives, introducing characters, using props and scenes, etc. It's like word association. When someone says a word and you're supposed to name the first thing that comes to your mind. You don't think of the same word that was said, but something else. And you probably could think of MANY different words from the mention of that same word. That's what reading while writing is like to me. It's pretty cool! ;-)

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Aaaahhhh!!!! I've finally found another groove. Another writing groove. Now, after work, I head straight to Panera's in the Loop and get in my writing for today, as well as do a little reading. All while sipping a latte or eating a toasted cinnamon crunch bagel (or brownie on naughty days). It's a relaxing environment and I have the background noise going on so I can write (I can't write in total silence. Silence is loud and distracting. I can't concentrate). And often times, like right now, you can find some interesting characters for future use. Listening to dialogue is fun too. Ahem...not eavesdropping....but um...research. lol So there's a couple of older gentlemen sitting at a table across from me. Got to be late 50's. One black, one white. Old managerial fogey look. And they're sitting here gossiping their behinds off! If I was reading it in a book with no tags attached, my mind would conjure up two teenagers or two women sitting on a porch with curlers in their hair. The conversation just does not match the looks.

There's another group of older gentle a few tables over. Hey, it's not my fault if they're talking loud enough for me to hear. But the white male (and I know that he is white not because I look at him, but appaarently, he feels the need to make this known to the men he's sitting with. And I look up to find that they perhaps have roots in India, and from what I can tell, not blind) is emotionally talking about a verbal conflict with another what sounds like co-worker, and talks about speaking to each other from the heart and with understanding. It's just the emotion in it all. Makes me want to sing kum-baa-yaa.

Lesson learned....if you're in a coffee shop and there are people by you with laptops, keep your voice to a minimum because you never know when someone is randomly blogging about you under your very nose. lol

So anyway, I'm making consistent progress on getting book three done. Finally. :-)

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*walking slowly into the room, whistling, like I've been here all along...*

,,,so as I was saying, the solution to health care, immigration, and global warming is all evident. Ahem.

Okay, so yet another long lapse in blog posts, and yes, things were still busy. I know I've said this before, but I think I'm on the verge of some normalcy now. LOL We'll see.

Well, in the meantime, I've started book three over from scratch. Hopefully, this will definitely be the longest period it's taken me to write a book. It's funny, because it's certainly not due to writer's block. On the contrary, it seems like the longer it's taking me to write it, the more ideas I come up with for it. The only problem is finding the time to sit and write. Lots of changes in my life this past year that has prevented me from doing a lot of writing and reading. But the last couple of weeks is an indicator to me that things are turning around.

I'm reading again. Yea! I'm in a few online reading groups, plus my co-workers and I are talking about starting our own little book club. Nothing structured yet but the plan is to discuss during our after work beer sessions. Now, THAT should be a fun book club. I can imagine our discussions already. Our first book is Moby Dick. LOL But in addition to that, my manager introduced me to Clive Barker. A couple of weekends ago, I went to the bookstore to look him up and ended up reading one of his short stories called the Book of Death. I really enjoyed it. This made me realize how narrow my reading choices have been. I never would have picked up a horror or sci/fi book. I did enjoy a mystery here and there though. But now, I want to read a book in each and every genre to see what I've been missing. Right now, I'm reading Imajika by Clive Barker and Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult. Just picked this one up yesterday and I'm starting Chapter 5 today. I'm also listening (in my car) to Chasing the Dime, by Michael Connelly. I've purchased on audio The Husband by Dean Koontz and Snow Falling on Cedars by David G. And purchased Can't Wait to Get to Heaven, by Fannie Flagg. Plus, I still have a lot of good reads on my bookshelf. :-)

So much for the reading, I'm also writing again too. Like I said, I'm pretty much starting from scratch with book three. Not really major changes, but major enhancements. This weekend, I went over all the main characters's sketches, back story and story line. Today, I want to go back over the outline, then re-evaluate the first four chapters. The time away from it gave me time to things more about it and come up with ideas that will make it more authentic. So, actually, I think the time away from it will serve me well. All in all, I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of the year, so I can immediately start my next book, which will be the beginning of a series. Yes, I do have it all mapped out in my head!

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Whew! Been a while since I posted. It's been over a year now since I've been saying that things are going to slow down and I'll be back on a regular schedule in a minute. Yet things keep getting busier and busier. So busy that I'm not meeting my own personal deadlines on my books, and well, you know that's gotta stop. So, I made up my mind, starting today, everything else comes secondary to finally finishing books three AND four, and, uh....making money. LOL

But guess what? I'm finally getting over it. I thought it would never happen, but I'm finally getting over my fear of public speaking!!! It was so cool. Yesterday, I was the Keynote Speaker at the 4th Annual Indianapolis Book Fest. I'd been knowing about this for months (which probably helped) so had time to mentally prepare myself for speaking. Usually, when I speak before an audience, I get that queasy feeling in my stomach, I'm a-sweatin' and my voice is a-trembling... LOL But this time, I really thought about it. I mean, what am I afraid of? The audience is my friend. :-) No but really, I thought about myself before I wrote my first book or being a reader. And when I went to events, I wanted to receive any information the author could give me. So, instead of looking at the speaking opportunity as me having to talk about myself or promoting my book, I looked at it as giving others information and sharing my experience with them so that they can know what they could possibly expect. WOW! It worked. I wasn't nervous because I felt like I was giving useful information in a casual way. Man! I could do that again! That was my best speaking experience thus far.

Don't get me wrong. My inner critic evaluated me and pointed out areas where I could improve, and, to me, that's okay. I just feel like I've gotten over a major hump in public speaking, and now I can move on to making a core speech and perfecting it! :-)

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Hey peeps!

It's been a while again, but as always, I'm busy plugging away. Hope you've been checking out my posts on BloggingInBlack.com. I do a monthly post there on the 30th of each month. I also post it on my myspace blog when I post a new one.

I'm also the new feature writer at Urbanburnout.com and my first article posted yesterday. Yea! This is exciting for me. Because I'm combining two things I love: motorcycles and writing. I was never interested in freelance writing until this opportunity came. There was never a subject that I was interested in enough to make it not feel like WORK! LOL But when it's something that you love, you don't mind doing. Only thing is, I so wish I had more time to write more than one article a month. Hopefully, in the future, I will.

Anyway, check out my first feature!

THE EVOLUTION OF THE URBAN BIKER SET:
Have Motorcycle Clubs Changed Their Focus?

PART I

If you’re ever blessed with pleasure of conversation with motorcycle club (MC) riders who have been on the set long before the biker boom of the ‘90’s, almost immediately you begin to feel their sense of pride in the unity and solidarity they possessed. You come to know their strength in having bonds tighter than any blood related family. You feel the cohesiveness that was formed by their common, undying passion of both living their life and in experiencing the world on two wheels. You feel a brotherly love that just has to surpass that of any love known or felt even in the deepest pocket of the city of Philadelphia. You come to know of a family fully committed to life on the road, to each other, and to living life to the fullest. And of these old school bikers, as their children, and their children’s children began to rise and go forth on two—two wheels, that is—and as technology has advanced and wealth increased, the black biker set of old has exploded and evolved to what best can be described now as the new urban biker set. In that evolution, with the additions of many new MCs, along with the exponential increase of Riding Clubs, the sprouting of Social Clubs, the movement of female riders from “riding bitch” to making some of the boyz eat dust, and the relentless flow of money onto the urban biker set, one has to wonder if all of these things have had an effect on the committed and strongly bonded brotherhoods of MCs of yesterday. One has to wonder, have motorcycle clubs changed their focus?

READ THE REST AT: www.urbanburnout.com/Features.html

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Just like life to get in the middle of your book promotion! LOL Well, it's been a hectic two months. Things were going great with promotion of the book, then I had to tend to some unplanned personal things that popped up at the most inconvenient time. And, as I've been saying, the day you stop promoting your own book is the day your book doesn't get promoted at all. And so it goes. But that's the life of an author and something you have to adjust for. So, now, things are back in order and I have to get caught up (once again) and get back on track.

Through it all, some great opportunities have come my way. I've never been interested in freelance writing because most of the topics I've seen never piqued my interest. And when I'm not interested in what I'm writing, that's when it feels like work. And I've got enough of that. LOL But over the past months, I've had 3 freelance writing opportunities to come my way that I'm very much interested in.

Today, Monday, April 30th, check out my first post at:

I'm excited about posting there every month along with my fellow authors. I'll post a commentary on the 30th of every month, so bookmare the site if you're not a viewer already, and check it out.

Also, coming soon, I will also be a regular poster at a sports website and an urban motorcycle community website. I'll let you know as soon as the first post is published!

Hey, if you're in Atlanta this weekend, I hope you can drop in and join me at a literary event hosted by my Sorors of the Atlanta Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. They are hosting "A Good Book and a Glass of Wine" event. Join us at the black owned restaurant and wine bar, Vino Libro at 933 Garrett Ave in Atlanta, GA. We will be there from 3 - 5 pm. Hope you can join us!

All right, gotta go get back on track!!!

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Ah! Finally getting a chance when I can breathe a little. Most of my activities this month are at home, so I’m finally getting to tend to some things during the weekends as well. And yes, while I did have to buy new underwear, I finally found the time to do laundry! LOL I’m telling you….trying to promote, do events, and write a book, all while going through the normal routines of life, is no joke. It ain’t easy. But it’s so true that if it’s your passion, you’ll do it no matter what’s going on around you. I’ve been fortunate to have opportunities to come my way. But even when they come your way, still, a lot of follow through and follow up is required. Sometimes quite a bit of back and forth. Sometimes requiring you to put additional promotional documents together (if you want it promoted). Dozens of phone calls, emails… Trying to create and supply everything needed, which can be different for each event. And then, add to that the event and opportunities you seek on a daily basis, in addition to finding and exposing your work on a daily basis, to readers who are not aware. Doing this on the internet, in addition to going out in your area on foot to network, street team and distribute promotional material at literary events, in stores, the post office, wherever you go and tagging cars…on a DAILY BASIS. Sit and imagine. Imagine how tiring it can be, how you have to squeeze in exercising, fun and relaxation; how while you’re at home alone doing all this, your friends think you’re sleeping or laying on the couch eating bon bons while watching a bootleg movie. Because no one SEES a writer working. Wondering why you don’t pick up the phone to just chit chat, maybe thinking you're just ignoring them. Dishes and bills are piling up and waving at you; the laundry basket is overflowing and if the mold in the fridge continues to grow, it’s going to open the fridge door itself to take a seat on the couch and say, "What's good?". And, because they can’t see all this, your friends say, “You can put it aside ONE day (and they say this every other day) to come hangout until the wee hours of the morning, or party, or go skating, or go on a date, or...etc. And you want to just shake your head, sigh, and say, “You think you know…but you have NO IDEA…”

It’s work, it’s a challenge, and it’s a rush…

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Okay, my apartment’s a total mess again and there’s no time to straighten in up. Can you say, tornado central? LOL Once again, I feel like I’m there for a few hours to sleep, do a couple of hours of “book work,” then shower and get ready for the next day. I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m just going to have to buy a pack of underwear now because I haven’t had time to do laundry. Shame, I know. But I’m going out of town tomorrow morning and since I’m driving to Cleveland, that means I need to just get home, pack, and get to sleep so I can drive out at 4 or 5am. No time to do laundry! Well, if things are busy, that always means things are going good as far as promotions. To me it means I’m doing all I can. If I’m sitting at home doing something other than promoting my book, then I feel like there’s a problem.

So like I said before, the primary focus right now is my hometown peeps. So, I hired a local “publicist” and she is GREAT! Funny how we started working together. She’s a poet (Mocha Latte) with her own platform on Wednesday nights (at the Loft starting Feb. 28th). So, I’d been going to her shows, and she came out to my signing. Without any intent, sistergirl was selling my books for me like hotcakes. I mean, she literally convinced folks to give my book a try, since most had never heard of me. I’m still a little reserved. But she’s one of those open people that can walk up to someone and talk about anything. Plus, she LOVES to promote others in whatever they do. In seeing how she worked, I’m like, I need this lady with me! LOL So, we started talking, worked out terms and now I’m her first client. It’s something she’s always wanted to do and something everybody she knows has been telling her what she should do. I could relate to what she was saying. Same thing with me in becoming a writer. So now, we’re helping each other. I’m telling her what I know about the needs of a writer as far as a publicist. She’s helping me because she has a local literary fan base and connections, plus she’s a driver into getting what she needs to promote. To me, it’s a match made in heaven. We’re just getting started but having her on my team for local promotion has been a blessing already.

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Feedback about First Fridays is starting to come in and I'm cool with what I'm hearing. It's always great to hear reader's opinions of what you wrote. And, like I said, this time, I do feel more mellow with the feedback. After Counting Raindrops, there were some thoughts shared that made me want to ask, "Are you sure it's MY book you read?" LOL Not because it wasn't liked. But usually because of some reference drawn that was from an internal perspective and projected as the underlying factor for a scene, a character, or the whole purpose of my book. Usually something I never even thought of, but they swear up and down, that that's what I was saying. LOL Yeah, it was with Counting Raindrops that I learned that in addition to personal reading tastes, readers all have different realities which may cause them to have a completely different interpretation of your book and believe to the depths of their soul that "this" is what you meant. While they may be wrong in stating what I meant, they're not wrong in their personal interpretation. That's what I've come to learn and respect about readers. If they think it's the best thing since Vaseline...it is..to them. If they think it could be better...it could be...for them. I think getting to this understanding has made me a sane writer. LOL

On another note, man...lots of stuff going on (stay tuned at my Myspace Page. First, I'm scheduled to do an interview for an online magazine that's off the hizzy (can I still say that?). Can't wait to share it with you. Also, I'm on eTour with Marguerite Press and will post the site locations and chat times. And I'm traveling to Cincinnati this weekend will sign at the following locaton:

Friday, February 9th, 2007; 6 – 8pm
Book Signing
Waldenbooks
Kenwood Town Center
7875 Montgomery Rd
Cincinnati, OH 45236
513.791.0011
Bill Carl

Busy, busy, busy, but I guess that's always a good thing. :-) And hey, I'm running a Valentine's Day Contest! Check it out! And for those of you who come out and get a book in Cincinnati, you'll be entered too!

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Okay, I'm cheating. LOL I posted this on my myspace blog last week, and I'm cuttin' and pasting it here. Sue me. LOL



This weekend starts off my events, and it's the second time around for me. My second book. And with llke anything, you learn from experience or you change things around from experience. And your thoughts and attitudes can changed, based on the experience from the first time around. What's different this time?

I'm more relaxed about things. The first time around, I was worried about getting all positive reviews, packing the bookstores with interested, avid readers, and trying to be everything to everybody and be everywhere. Now? Bump all that! LOL I've learned from the first time around that not everyone is going to like your writing or your stories. Does that make you a bad writer or a bad storyteller? No. It's just a fact that just like I might not enjoy a certain genre or prefer books that have less narrative, so might other readers and reviewers have a preference. Although I can say about a good 98% of my reviews from my first novel were positive, it's funny how as a new writer, you focus on the 1 or 2% "bad" reviews (and honstly, thinking back, I can only remember 2 not so kind reviews). You can allow one harsh review negate the 99 positive ones you receive. So, what I've learned is to concentrate on those that enjoy my style of writing. I've learned to take in constructive criticism and separate and absorb that from actual personal preferences in reading (because I found unpleased readers can take your story and re-write it for you in their mind and tell you how you should have written it to make it more pleasing or more relatable to them...all different ways, of course. So the moral is that no matter what you write, someone is not going to be totally pleased.). I've learned to focus on my audience. They'll let me know who they are.

And this second time around, if I can say, I've learned that it is very true that African American women give very little attention to reviews, ads, and accolades. But rather if their best friend or cousin Shaniqua read your book and if she loved it or hated it. That determines whether they buy your book or not. So again, focus on the readers who love my style rather than give thought to those who don't.

And this second time around, I'm enjoying it more. I don't worry about packing the house because I'm a new writer and I have to prove myself and build my readership. So, should I happen to have only one reader to come out to a book signing or 50, the focus is to connect with readers and encourage them to pass the word along to fellow avid readers if they enjoy my writing style. Now, thus far, I've been blessed to have even more readers to come out over my debut. And I pray it will continue to build from there.

This second time around, although I promote like crazy, I don't feel the need to push like I did the first time around. I mean, push readers to post reviews on Amazon.com, push reviewers to read and (hopefully) post positive reviews on my book. I'm very anxioius for feedback and reviews. But, this time around, I feel comfortable in allowing whatever to happen to happen. And with that, thus far, I've gotten positive feedback and friends to come to me and offer to do certain things from the heart, and not out of obligation. And that certainly feels better.

And because of all this and more, this second time around it's even MORE enjoyable. Because I don't look at or compete with other authors. We all have something to offer and an audience that will receive it. I'm more relaxed because the readers who come out either enjoy my writing or who are interested in what I'm doing and want to know more about me and my writing. And now, I'm loving this even more. I can be me, and have more fun this second time around. :-)

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One down and one to go! Had my first event for First Fridays last night. Pics will be coming this weekend. But it was great and I had a great time. We just hung out at Mack’s Sports Bar and Grill, eating, drinking, and chatting. My motorcycle club members were hosting and ever present in their vests. And they even bought books too! How awesome! It was great to get the support of family and to see my different friends come together and act like they knew each other. Well, actually, some of them did, but we just didn’t know it. Found out that night. Small world. Isn’t it funny how that works out sometime? People came from Lyrics of the Lou, a Wednesday night poetry set I hit up at the Filter Bar (if you’re in St. Louis, you got to check this out. It’s hot!). And then there were people I’d never met before who told me they heard me on the radio and came by to check me out. Now that was so cool!

So, today is Friday and I’m chilling and fixing my mind to Saturday’s signing were this time I’m actually going to have to get up and talk in front of people. It’s a reading, Q & A session, and whatever before the signing. Then I get a call from someone that I came to find out was a Soror, who wants me to come to her book club meeting next week and to bring books because she selected my book for February! Awesome! And of course, I offered to come back in February and sit down and chat with them about it. But, of course! So, I’m feeling good about the 11 books for each member that she’s telling me to bring. Because I also know that my other friend, Angelia, who works in the school district and sold 25 of my self published books in a single day at work (and who gave the book club lady my info to contact me)…well, she’s taking orders for this book, so I’m feeling pretty. Next thing I know, another friend, a nurse at a hospital, calls and tells me she has a minimum order of 30 (but she hasn’t talked to everyone yet and this is only one of the hospitals she works in), and can I come up to the hospital next week to do a “hospital signing?” Okay, I never did that before but, HELLZ YEAH!

These are FRIENDS. It feels so good when you don’t ask, but people offer because they WANT you to succeed and sell books. They see you out there chasing your dream and they want to help you catch it. Asking nothing in return (although they will get something). I can’t tell you how warm that makes me feel. I got their back at any time.

So, kick off weekend is going GREAT thus far. I don’t think I could ask for anything better.

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In the midst of things. Going to events, passing out promo cards. And to people on the street everywhere I go. Calling on the job to try to hook up events, interviews, making arrangements for the book release party, doing follow ups, making my infamous "to-do" list...checking it twice.... Oh wait, that's Santa. LOL In other words, at the daily author grind.

Well, if you're in the St. Louis area, at 11:15AM tomorrow (Wednesday, January 17th), tune in your radio to FOXY 95.5FM because I'll be on the air for a live interview! Hope you're able to give it a listen!

Then Thursday is the book release party and I'm still in the process of tying up loose ends for it. But come on by Mack's at 6PM. You can pick up a copy of my book, get some Mack's appetizers and a free drink. And what's a party without cake?!!! It's going to be a good time. :-)

But if you can't make that, stop by the Brentwood Border's on Saturday afternoon at 2PM. I'll do a reading, take your questions, and then sign books. It's my kickoff weekend and I'm scurrying around trying to make things perfect. Yeah, I can be a bit of a perfectionist. LOL

It's the writer's grind. LOL

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Just got wind of a review in the Seattle Medium News: First Fridays Review Check it out.

And that reminds me, forgot to mention that the December/January issue of Heart & Soul magazine recommends First Fridays as a read in their Searching for Soul section. Check that out too!

Lots of good things are happening and I'm still working hard to put things together and doing promotions for my upcoming book release party. Overslept this morning cuz I was doing promotions last night and now I'm sitting here at this computer tired as all get out, hoping like heck this cup of coffee is going to do the trick and wake me up. LOL

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My page is finished!!! Check out my Myspace Page. Let me know what you think about it. If you're on Myspace too, hit me up and let's be friends! I know it took me a long time to get around to getting one done, but I've been on it ever since! It takes awhile sometimes for me to get with the latest program. LOL But check in with me there too. I plan to keep this blog and talk about my writing/publishing experience only. But there, I may talk about that, plus any other literary related thing that's going on. Check it out!

Well, so I'm back doing the promotion thing now. With the first book, I was in Cleveland and I did a lot of internet publicity, and ads, and did fairly well. However, this time, my strategy is to hit up the hometown and get word out on the street about me as a hometown author. It's easier to do that now that I'm here in the city. My first promotions was to hit attend our local First Fridays event and get word out. Now, usually, I'm shy and not very good about approaching people and starting discussions. But one thing I'm noticing, since joining a motorcycle club, I seem to be coming out of my shy shell. What?! Say it ain't so! LOL It's funny when you find out what it takes to get you to change. I'd taken public speaking classes and considered Toastmasters...who knew that all I needed to do was become a biker. LOL There's no such thing as being shy around bikers. They will make you talk, make you dance, and just make you be sociable. So much to the point where you're like, to heck with it. And you're always at functions where you no one knows each other but in 15 minutes, you will know everybody in the room! So, I've gotten a lot better at approaching people and I was able to do so Friday night. A lot of ladies were very receptive, especially since the book was called First Fridays. Hope they show up to the book release party! So, after I passed out my promotional business cards, I waited until the party got going, then I went to the parking garage to hit up everybody's cars, just in case I missed them. LOL Yeah, it's on again.

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Release day was yesterday!!!! Hopefully books are on shelves. Okay, now here comes the part where I have to make people aware that it's there, tell them who I am and what I write and try to get them to give a new writer a chance. Hard work. But this time, I a book wiser. With Counting Raindrops, I tried a little bit of everything within my budget and too much stuff outside of it. So, with just a teeny weeny bit more knowledge and a little bit of experience, I'm choosing my promotions wisely. Being here in my hometown this time around affords me to introduce myself to St. Louis, so that's the focus this time. So peeps here will come across me in email, see me pubbing at events, in bookstores, and just walking down the street. LOL I got work to do!

Hey, if you get Heart & Soul magazine, check out the write up on First Fridays. In the Searching for Soul section that begins on page 63, First Fridays is included as a recommended read!

I'm also in the process of constructing my MySpace page. I want to keep this blog as strictly my writer's blog to capture my writing and publishing experience. Yeah, ,I know, when I write to it. LOL But there's so much other stuff I want to write, share and talk about that's not necessarily writing. Like about other things I'm involved in and riding my bike and my motorcycle club and just living life. I'll post when it's done.

Well, here's to praying people will pick up First Fridays and check it out. I'm anxious to start getting feedback.

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Okay, um…yep. I’ve heard it, but now I think I can confirm for myself. It gets more difficult the second time around. LOL Wow. Now I’m looking back at writing, publishing, and promoting the first book and thinking, “Those were the good old days.” LOL Because now, with the second book, you’re not only trying to promote for it, but also trying to write the next book or short story on top of everything you normally do. Whew! So, back to not having a life and spending every free moment on book related activities.

If there are any aspiring writers out there, I agree with all the other writers out there who constantly say that if you write, you gotta do it for the love of it, and not for the money. I wouldn’t even know how to estimate it, but I would guess that if I were to be able to calculate all the hours I put into my writing career vs. money made from it, it would HAVE TO average out to somewhere around $2/hr. And that’s a generous guesstimation. LOL But still, the truth is, as much as it’s wearing me out, I really love writing and creating stories and I find myself always anxious to finish the next writing projects to have someone read it. It’s funny how when I’m finished, I’m not thinking how much I can sell this story for, but rather my thoughts are on whether or not readers will enjoy this story as much as I do. The thought is a nervous one on whether or not I created a story that will engross the readers and whether the reader will have difficulty in putting the book down because they want to see what happens next. It’s like, yeah, I do want to be able to support my lifestyle by writing, yet, money isn’t the primary source of satisfaction in the completion of the story.

Get it? If you do, explain it to me because I don’t. LOL

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When you start a new venture, EVERYTHING is exciting about it. Because you're full of enthusiasm because it's all new and fresh. Like starting a new job. That first day, that first week, or that first month, everything is all good. Until you've been through it before and you discover what you dislike about it. You discover which tasks are mundane and which ones you actually might even hate after you've gone through it a few times.

The literary world is the same. Yes, I love writing and I love publishing and promoting. When I self published Counting Raindrops, everything was new. It was fresh. It was exciting. I loved writing the book. I loved putting it together, soliciting to get bookstores and libraries to order it, promoting it, selling it, getting myself involved in literary events, traveling, etc., etc., etc. Loved it all. Even when I sold Counting to Hyperion. It was still exciting. It was new and I loved every bit of it. Same book, but re-done, so, a fresher product. And now, under a traditional publisher. So...exciting. Less stuff to do, because a publisher is involved now. But more stuff to consult on.

And now, here we come to the second book. I took time away from the literary world to enjoy life. I got out of the flow of things. I'm hopping back in and going back to what I did before. Planning publicity and promotion, consulting with the publisher and writing the third book. Only, this time it feels different. I've been down this road twice before and I'm discovering the things that I really don't care for. Can't say I hate any of it. But now, I'm finding myself wishing I could just sit back and write. Read and write. Study the craft, and write better. But a writer can't do that. Well, I can if I'm not concerned about selling a lot and having a full-time writing career.

This weekend, I got so into a book. I'm reading Quicksand by Nella Larsen and I love the narrative. I didn't want to put the book down. And when I did put the book down, I immediately wanted to start writing. But I couldn't because there were things on my list that I had to get done for the second book. It's very frustrating to have a fire burning within you, but you can't tend to it. You have to put it aside and hope that it's there burning when you get back. And it's the beginning of the week and your weekdays are long and you know you'll have only an hour or two here and there until the weekend comes again, but you have plans already for the weekend and there's not going to be much time for writing which means another week with scattered hours until the next weekend and...sigh....

Just feeling a little frustrated at the moment....

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Well, I successfully got through a great two weekends of events and had a great time doing them. The Friday before The Big Read, I did a radio interview on the St. Louis NPR radio station. It wasn’t until that day that I thought and realized that it was actually my very first in-studio radio interview. I didn’t know if I was going to be nervous or not, but when I got there and did it, I found it was virtually impossible to be nervous. Because even though you have a large audience, you don’t see them. So I felt comfortable freely answering the interviewer’s questions and engaging in conversation. Okay, so that’s one part of speaking that I do like!

Then the next day was the actual event. I did a panel from 11:30am to 1:00 pm with Eric Jerome Dickey and Professor Eugene Redmond of SIUE. When we first got there, there were only people in the first three rows or so. Very light crowd. And I confess, while I wanted a large crowd for sales, seeing the small crowd made me feel comfortable in speaking. And before our panel, I mentioned to Eric how this was the part that I disliked the most and he gave me tips right there on the spot and talked to me about doing speaking engagements in general. Told me of some of his experiences and how he still gets nervous. So that was cool. And by the time I spoke after him, I was completely cool. The room filled up a lot more as the panel continued and I kept my cool! I read from First Fridays for the first time. Not surprisingly, I waited until the last minute to pick a passage to read. And this experience is different because unlike the first book, I haven’t had a reader to read First Fridays. So, I don’t know what the reaction will be. So, I read my excerpt and during my reading, people are just laughing and laughing. And I’m listening, and even Eric and Eugene are on the stage behind me laughing. And I’m thinking…. “WOW!!!! They like it!!! They REALLY like it!” LOL

But it was a really cool event and I had a really great time. I’m definitely looking forward to participating in The Big Read next year!

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Well, things are moving right along. I should be able to notify you of website updates in the next couple of days. Now, I'm currently working on preparing for The Big Read on Saturday. But before then, I'm doing a radio interview Friday, October 6 from 11:25 a.m. to 12:00 noon on 90.7 KWMU, the St. Louis NPR station. Check me out!

And here's info on my participation in the BigRead:
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
African American Writers Of Today Panel

Eric Jerome Dickey, Chasing Destiny
Eight-time New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey’s new novel is filled with intrigue, speed, and sex appeal. And an unforgettable female narrator rides her sexy yellow motorcycle right through it all. Dickey was born in Memphis and is the author of twelve novels, eight of them New York Times bestsellers. He now writes full time and is currently at work on a series of comic books for Marvel’s popular X-Men series, featuring the characters of Storm and The Black Panther. He lives in Southern California. The New York Times calls him “addictive”, While Entertainment Weekly hails him as the “king of African-American fiction.”

Cherlyn Michaels, First Fridays and Counting Raindrops Through a Stained Glass Window
A bright new talent in African-American fiction returns with her second novel, filled with smarts, sass, and sex . . .Naja’s on a nine-month countdown -- for her baby, but not the kind you’d expect. Naja’s baby is an Internet café, the entrepreneurial dream she’s been pursuing secretly while working in a St. Louis office. When she’s laid off, Naja finds herself looking for new ways to network; at her best friend’s suggestion, she attends a First Fridays get together. To her surprise, she meets Russ, a handsome, charismatic man who offers to back her venture. Soon enough, he wants more, but Naja is reluctant to mix business with pleasure. However, resisting Russ’s charms is trickier than she imagined. Cherlyn Michaels was the 2004 Shades of Romance Magazine Best new Multicultural Author of the Year and was nominated for the African American Literary Awards Show Open Book Award for Best Self-Published Author of the Year. She lives in St. Louis.

Eugene B. Redmond, Drumvoices Review
Eugene B. Redmond, Poet Laureate of East St. Louis is currently a Professor of English and the editor of Drumvoices Review at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Pan-African Movement USA, a Pushcart Prize: Best of Small Presses, a Tribute to an Elder from the African Poetry Theater of NYC, and an American Book Award.

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Well, time is getting close and we're right outside the busy window. Three months before release and that's when things really start to get hectic. And I'm so waaayyy behind on everything! Blog updates are few and far between, still haven't updated the website (working on it now) or put together the next newsletter. But things are about to get underway now. I finally came to the realization that I need to prioritize more and that I just can't do everything that I want to do right now. So, I had to make some tough decisions. I had to let go of some things that I wanted to do and that I loved to do. Sometimes you have to do that. You have to take care of business, then later, have time to take care of the other things that you're passionate about. Gotta set the priorities.

In addition to all the things that come along with promoting the next book, I have an upcoming event that I need to prepare for as well. The Big Read here in St. Louis (Clayton), MO. It's going to be Saturday, October 7th. I just found out that I'm sharing panel space with a writer I look up to, Mr. Eric Jerome Dickey (11:30 am - 1:pm). That's going to be cool. If you're going to be in the area check it out: http://www.bigread.net/AuthorTentB.htm

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Every time I think I’m back, I’m not.  LOL  No, but this time, I’m good.  For real. Free time is winding down and I got to get back to the consistency I used to have in the writing career.  I’ve been writing here and there, but long gone has been the writing 10 – 12 hours a day.  I’ve enjoyed the summer and I’ve been practicing riding my motorcycle, a Ninja 600 ZX6.  Like writing a book, it was one of my dreams and I’m fulfilling it now.  I bought it in June and have had some major issues with it.  Can you guess?  Yes, height issues.  We took 2 or 3 inches of cushion out of the seat, plus lowered the bike a couple of inches.  But I was still tipping over…like a cow.  A sleeping cow.  But now, I’m in the game and doing good. Got my stiletto boots and I’m rolling.  LOL  And for the bikers out there, no, I won’t be relying on the 5.5 inch heels forever.  I’ll have the bike lowered in the “off-season.”

So now, it’s back to business.  I’m planning to finally get that website updated, and to post to my blog more often.  I’ve had so many people to email me about my blog being informative in showing them the path that I took to publishing.  I’d love to keep you all in the loop about the process and progress of book two.  I’m working on my next newsletter where I’m giving away an advance copy of First Fridays, so if you haven’t signed up, you might want to do so now. :-)  I had a phone conference with my publishers many weeks back and I got to get back to business.  The book comes out January 2nd and believe me, now I know, that’s not a lot of time to work with.  Time to get movin’!

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*Rolling over and rubbing my eyes with my fists*
What time is it? It's spring now? Almost summer? Dang! What day is this? The 4th of JUNE???

Ok, ok, ok... See, what had happened was...a few months ago, I was about to do my routine post to my blog, right? So, then, one of my girls called. And she was like, talking, like she always do, right? That girl know she can talk the ears off the dead. Just talking and chewing and chewing and talking. So, when she asked me that, I just said, OK, thinking it was done, right. And I can get back to blogging. So, I go, right? Then, next thing I know, BAM! It's June!

LOL. I'm back and no I still don't have any sense. It's going to take a few posts to update everything. But to sum it up, I just took some time off. Had to get some stuff in my personal life sorted, organized, and filed. Lost 15 pounds. Met my goal. Yea! But you know how it goes. I made a new goal to lose 10 more. Went and filed child support against the baby daddies that I could have had or might have one day. You never know and with the way the court system works, it's best to start early. I went to motorcycle school, passed the class, got my endorsement on my license that says I am legally allowed to rule the road. So y'all better watch out! LOL I'm working on getting a bike right now. Looking for a '92-'95 GSXR600. If you happen to come across one, holla.

So, book stuff. Counting Raindrops is doing very well and the publisher is pleased. It's always a good thing for the publisher to be pleased. The second release, First Fridays, is scheduled for release on January 2, 2007. I'm joining a literary tour group and hope to be in an area near you. If I am, come check out my books! I know January is a long time away and not exactly a date that we're rushing to get to. At least those of us up north or in the Midwest. So, I'm preparing to update my website with the new cover, the first chapter, and reading guide questions. In the meantime, the cover and synopsis in on Amazon.com and you can even pre-order it, if you so choose. :-)

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back soon. :-)

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So I have my new story carved out now, but I'm still doing research on my major issue and trying to decide what angle to take. What's going to make it the most interesting? Since the issue is surrounding a married couple, I need to ask some of my married girlfriends what they think if.... How would they respond to.... What would they do if.... The thing is, I like to do this without them knowing that I'm asking for the purpose of writing a book. I've notice that when I ask questions of my married friends who think it's for a book, I get textbook or relationship retreat answers. LOL But take the same question, and ask it after talking about the frustrations of raising children and the frustrations and raising a husband, it's like they're caught off guard and the answer is totally different. Until they realize who they're talking to then they sober up and try to clean up the real response. LOL

I've had to stop awhile to try to get my reader's guide questions together for First Fridays. By the way, a lot of people have been asking and my publisher set the publication date for January, 2007. Only 11 more months to go! :-) Gives me the time to write 2 more novels and the 3 short stories I want to get done this year. So, anyway, I'm having to go back and re-read First Fridays to try to pull out deep, gripping questions. It's funny because as soon as I'm done with a story, I'm finding that I don't remember all the details. I actually have to sit down and really READ it in order to consider meaning. I know what's going to happen. But what are the underlying messages that the writer slipped in or was trying to convey? That's what I have to try to capture again. LOL It's not easy. When you're writing, you're in a moment. A different world. On a different level. Then you come back down to earth and have to figure out in your normal mind what the heck the your message was if you had one so that you can explain it to people because, believe me, they WILL ask! Lawd! Book club people had me doing flips at meetings asking me about minor details and what a character was thinking when he/she said or did this or that? They had me going back to re-read excerpts in the meeting because I didn't know and I wrote it. LOL

Well, this re-read is the first of many. My editor told me that I should expect to get the copyedits back February 17th (my birthday weekend!). I must have read Counting Raindrops 25 - 30 times, and STILL don't remember all the details! LOL

Here's a synopsis of First Fridays that I wrote recently:

When Naja Rodgers loses the dead end job she didn’t want, she accepts the invitation of a friend to attend First Fridays networking parties to find a business partner and move her entrepreneural thoughts from dream to reality. At a St. Louis First Fridays event, she finds a sultry and savvy business partner in the form of the handsome Russom King. Despite his good looks and their obvious attraction for each other, out of fear of possibly bringing bedroom drama to the boardroom, Naja vows never to mix business and personal relationships and to keep things strictly professional with Russ. Eventually, however, she falls for his charm and into his arms, and soon finds that bedroom to boardroom drama is the least of her worries. She finds that mixing business and personal relationships could cost her more than she ever imagined.

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Well, I'm getting a good start. I'm finally settling into a good morning routine for book three. Right now, I'm working on shaping my story idea and doing research. I know the main story idea, but I'm considering different ideas to bring a twist to it. What's helping me with that is research and finding out what is the most common or most familiar response to the set of circumstances I'm presenting, then consider "what if's" in the opposite direction. I'll talk about the book more once I flesh out the idea. So, those of you around me, quit asking me what the book is about! I'm shaping it now. LOL

Hey, do you subscribe to Essence or pick it up? Well, there's a page called "Feel the Fire Fiction" where they have recommended books for your Valentine's Day reading. And, you guessed it, they recommend my first novel, Counting Raindrops through a Stained Glass Window! Now, how cool is that? Way cool. :-) I didn't find out until one of my friends sent me an email congratulating me for the mention in Februrary's issue of Essence (page 90 to be exact, but who's paying attention? LOL) I'm finding that a lot of mentions I find out only when someone who knows me see it, then congratulates me on it. As if I knew all along. LOL It's pretty cool though. :-)

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Okay, so it's already the middle of January and I'm STILL not back on track yet. LOL But no, I'm not vacationing still. Wouldn't that be nice? :-) But doing a little life sorting and organization. Getting things lined up for myself for this new year.

Literarily, (is that a word?) I finished up a book, Soul on Bikes - The East Bay Dragons Motorcycle Club and the Black Biker Set. Yeah, I'm really gearing up for this spring! LOL It was a book I bought a while ago and, like so many others, it was sitting on my shelf. Since I joined a club, I selected it to read to see what the experience was like back then. The book was quite interesting and I really enjoyed it. It even got me pumped up about doing things with my club. But even if you're not into motorycles, it was a great read because it also reflected on the times, which was from the 50's until present day.

Okay, other than that, I haven't done much literarily, except thinking. A LOT of thinking! LOL I've come up with so many story ideas that it's not even funny. But it's time to get to writing! Okay, the new goal is to start writing on Monday. January 16th. Yep. That's the NEW plan!

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I forgot to post the contest winners!!!! The winners are everyone who posted (by the due date) their list of favorite authors/favorite books. If you posted your list on my blog, send your mailing address to cherlyn@cherlynmichaels.com and I will send you an autographed copy of my book! I'm on vacation, but you will get them the first of the year! LOL Congratulations and Happy Holidays!!!

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I guess I'm getting a hang of this writing vacation thing! LOL Yes, I've still been taking care of "life" stuff and relaxing, talking, and hanging out with the friends I haven't spent much time with since I've been back in St. Louis. It's been really great. This is my last week of vacation, as I've planned to start working on book three beginning January 2, 2005.

But don't get me wrong, even while I'm on vacation, I'm still an author. I carry my promotional cards with me everywhere I go and everytime I come across readers, I give out my cards. I also keep a small stash of books either on me or in the trunk of my car. Since I'm no longer self-published, I don't have the box of books like I used to. But I figured a way around that. I invested in a small stash and every time I make a sale from it, I used the funds to restock the stash. So, I can still bring the bookstore to the people. And I've also shared a handful of books with several family members for the same thing too. They take the autographed books to their jobs. So, I'm still out here trying to work it while I'm having fun.

A colleague of mine sent me an email to congratulate me on the review of my book in Black Issues Book Review. It's in the January/February issue if you want to check it out.

Well, I'm out. Going sportbike shopping today! I hope not to be away too long. :-) But I'll be back in the swing of things at the beginning of the year. :-)

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Isn't it funny how time flies? I know I said I'd be back December 1st. I can't believe it's the 7th already!

Okay, so I can breathe a little bit. It's like, you know when you get a cold, and both your nasal passages are blocked? Then, things get a little better and one of them opens up so that you're breathing through only one side of your nose? It's not 100% clear, but hey, at least you can breathe a little? Well, that's what it's like for me right now. LOL And first, let me say that if you've sent messages to my inbox, I'm not ignoring them and I promise I will answer. :-)

So, I finally finished up that short story that I was working on for an anthology. My story is called Kettle Black and it's about a young woman who has been scarred in a marriage and thus has developed some trust issues for her future relationships. Sounds familiar doesn't it? But you know me. There's always got to be a twist. Let's just say that when we are wronged, sometimes we can come up with some pretty trifling answers and try to justify them to ourselves as reasonable. Also, while we're busy pointing out what's wrong in others and the world, sometimes we need to look within. So, when will this story surface? I don't know but I'll be sure to let you know. The line up of authors on this project is pretty awesome and I'm sitting here wondering how in the heck did I get selected. :-) It's cool, though. I'll let you know.

So, I finished the story last week and basically took another week of to relax and enjoy life. I've retired my pen for the remainder of the year and I'm trying to have a social life (while I still promote and sell out of my bag on the streets. You can never stop promoting and selling! LOL) Trying to hang with my new Ruff Ryder family (I discovered that I may have to adjust my 10PM bedtime schedule on certain days and take a nap in the afternoon!), meeting new friends and going out, hanging out with old friends. It's been cool. A girlfriend of mine called to give me two tickets to the Rams game on X-mas Eve. So, you know I'm excited about that. I've already invited a friend to go. Finding a football enthusiast who wants a free ticket is never hard to find!

But, of course, this is life and nothing is ever all fun and games. I had to go back to making a "to-do" list. All the things I neglected while trying to complete my short story, and now are urgent items that I must do if I don't want to be sued, pistol-whipped, or disowned by family and friends. And the plan is to get as much reading done as possible before I start on another short story for another anthology at the beginning of the year. Next year's writing goal is to write a minimum of 3 short stories and 2 novels. And I've learned my lesson. The plan is to do it immediately and at my leisure to prevent myself from writing under a deadline. Because that really sucks!

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Okay, I dropped in because I know I've been on an unofficial and unannounced hiatus. LOL As you can probably guess, I'm overloaded with stuff. I'm finishing up a short story and I have my last booksigning this weekend in Baltimore. By chance, if you're there, and you were planning on coming out, please note that my Sunday signing at Urban Knowledge has been changed to Friday from 6 - 8 PM.

So, this time, I'm going to officially say that I'll be on hiatus until round about December 1st (I'll post the contest winners to the blog).

Oh, and speaking of Thanksgiving, I'm going to be on the road, driving to Baltimore on Thanksgiving day. But, before I go, I'm going to hang out with my new MC family, as they volunteer to serve Thanksgiving dinner at the Larry Rice Center (in St. Louis). Yep, that's right. Last week, I became a prospect member of a motorcycle club.

So, last week, they spent time volunteering with the Feed the City program. This Thursday, I'll joined them for a few hours to serve Thanksgiving dinner to many St. Louis families in need. I love what they do and I'm extremely happy to be able to join in and be part of it all. There are so many families here and elsewhere who are not able to gather together and have a meal with their own. I want nothing more than to be able to share a part of my day and spend time with others on that day of thanks.


Well, I'm out for a little while, so, everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving!!!!

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I had an unexpected dilemma on Monday. I really needed to make more headway on the new short story I'm writing, then I still needed to do a re-read on the current on and offer feedback to my co-authors. So, I was all settled in for a full day and evening of writing. I was even planning on nixing Monday nite football and just watching at home. Then, I got a call from a friend who works for Anheuser-Busch. She says she has free tickets to see a private concert and did I want to go. It was Nelly.

I pride myself in dedication to my work. A lot of times you have to make sacrifices. Sacrifices that hurt. Even though you set your own schedule, you know what you can and cannot do. Or at least what you should or shouldn't. You know that to get to that place that you want to be, there are some calls you're going to have to not take, some places you're going to have to pass on going. Some concerts you'll have to pass up. Even Nelly.

I wasn't a huge rap fan anyway. I love old school rap, and I do listen to rap on the radio, although I admit to switching the radio station when it starts to get crunk.

"So, do you want to go see Nelly tonight?"

I felt like a true author as I pulled my cell phone away from my ear, gave it a twisted look, and answered, "Girl, are you drunk? Hells, yeah I wanna go!" And I tossed my laptop to the side, scattered my writing notes all over the floor, and made a mad dash to the closet to find an outfit to wear.

I had a good time. The three of us devised a plan, divided up, and got front row seats together. There were about a million acts that came on before Nelly. Local talents. It was my first rap concert and I must say that I enjoyed it. I put the music aside and focused on the verbal talents. Once I got into that, I found myself really impressed with these local kids for being on the stage. I still don't get the presentation: a million and one people on stage in the background, just strutting around, drinking, and bobbin' their head every once in a while. But I liked it.

And then Nelly came on and put on a nice decent show. I do wonder if it was tamed down from a normal concert (after all, this was an AB concert and it was 21 and up), and if so, I appreciated that. :-) He did some of his hits, then sang a little old school R&B, did a little old school rap, while sharing the stage and the mic with Murphy Lee and the rest of the Lunatics and then brought it back to their current day hits before leaving. It was a really good show and a really good break.

I went home and smiled at my laptop and told her I'd see her in the morning. :-)

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For those of you in the St. Louis area, we're looking for the support of 100 teachers, authors, artists, and illustrators!!!:

If you've visited my blog, you may know that I am working with a group of dedicated individuals to begin 826STL  – a fabulous offshoot of 826 Valencia, writer Dave Eggers’ commitment to providing free writing workshops, tutoring, nurturing and inspiration for kids 8-18 who love to write (or to get them excited about writing and its power in their lives).

The very best thing about 826 is that it SUPPORTS BUSY teachers!  Imagine a group of 10 professional writers and/or artists coming to a classroom free-of-charge, and working with young people, at the teacher’s direction.  So, for example, if kids are working on a book report or an essay about Lewis & Clark, the 826 volunteer team could (and would) come to the classroom, sit down with the children and give them POSITIVE guidance and support!  And…this is only one of the many creative programs 826 offers in its work with St. Louis area teachers  Super cool organization.Yay!  

We have partnered with the 150-member St. Louis Writers Guild and we’re getting the ball rolling on the long and complicated process of applying to develop an 826 St. Louis. As part of that process, we must demonstrate that St. Louis teachers need and want this service, and that St. Louis has a strong community of writers and volunteers who will support the organization.

If you’d be interested in and willing to have your name appear on a list of 100 TEACHERS, EDUCATORS, WRITERS, ARTISTS, AND ILLUSTRATORS FOR 826STL, please contact me at cherlyn@cherlynmichaels.com. If you know any other area teachers/educators, writers, artists who would be interested in lending their name and support to this fabulous organization, please pass this note along. I think this would be an amazing asset to our community!

Please let me know or contact me if you need any more details. Please email me your consent to be listed on our application if you are in support of this program.

THANK YOU!!!

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CONTEST! (FROM NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER)

Giving away books is cool! I'm having a ball. But this month, I want to know a little something about you and you're reading habits. So, I have two numbers in my head (no jokes about nothing else being there besides those numbers!). I'd love to hear who are your favorite authors and your favorite books. The two people to post that match the numbers in my head will receive an autographed copy of Counting Raindrops. For example, the 57th and the 93rd persons (not posts). Those numbers are examples only, so don't try to post in those spots (you'd probably be waiting years! LOL)

So, tell me now, who are your favorite authors and what are your favorite books?

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I had the most pleasant surprise Tuesday night. I had a meeting with my non-profit startup team for Studio STL (if I hadn't mentioned before, this is a writing organization for kids that we're trying to get up and running by June next year. Currently, we're applying for affiliation with 826 Valencia.). So, team member Beth is going over the draft of the application from beginning to end, and she has this excerpt about St. Louis that would be perfect to convey why St. Louis would be the perfect location for the affiliate writing center. She says that she hopes she can get the author's permission. So, she does this wonderful set up, and we're all on pins and needles to hear this excerpt, including me. Then she starts, "The Es-Tee-El. I cruised into my city westward bound..." And I just break out in something. Either a chuckle, or a light scream of excitement. I don't quite know what it was. Don't think anybody else had a clue. But she was reading from Counting Raindrops, Vanella's description of St. Louis when when she's driving home. I was so honored. I actually started blushing. She felt that it really captured the excitement of St. Louis and why it would be perfect for an 826 writing center.

There are centers in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, to name a few. And we're trying to get in our application by December to get the next affiliate here. With or without the affiliation, we're establishing ourselves as Studio STL and will be up and running by next year. We're meeting every week until we get the application in. Yes, somehow, I'm managing to squeeze this in amongst everything else. But this is something I really want to be a part of. It's funny because when we're at the meetings talking about it, I'm getting all excited. I love stuff like this. It's more than a writing center. But it's a place of creativity and imangination. Each location has a theme. Like one has superheros and they'll have a store that sells superhero supplies. The writing center has the superheros theme. So, we've been going over themes for our center and I'm getting all excited because I want to be one of the kids and explore. I'm forgetting that I'm supposed to be the adult and put it together and assist the kids. I love exploratory stuff...like museums and science centers. I can spend all day in a science center. Anyway, to get a better idea, check out 826 Valencia. It's going to be awesome.

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The book signing at Urban Knowledge in Memphis was great. It was hosted by the Unique Women's Social Club and they created quite the scene and drew in the crowd. They had nice little gift bags that they raffled off, had tasty refreshments, and just looked spectacular in their red shirts. I like red. :-) And Kim J. had already read my book and just talked it up a storm to customers. She got quite a few people excited. LOL Anyway, I don't think I ever had such a good time at a book signing. I didn't want it to end.

With one more weekend signing left in Baltimore in 3 - 4 weeks, it's back to the grind. I stated that I was going to take Sundays off. Well, let's just say that I had a light Sunday yesterday. Did a few things while watching the game. It wasn't a full day off, but I'm good.

I have 3 weeks left to finish up a story for an anthology. I'll be able to talk more about it in the near future. I'm also working on a revision to a story for another anthology. That's due the end of this year. Copyedits of First Fridays will probably be back any day now, so I'm trying to clear the plate as much as possible. Speaking of First Fridays, I had a conference call last week with my editor and publisher. It was the first time I've had the chance to actually talk to my editor directly about FF. I knew she loved it, but didn't know exactly how much. She says she feels it's an even stronger novel that Counting Raindrops. That was great to hear. Like I said before, unlike Counting, I hadn't had anyone to read First Fridays before my editor saw it. So, I didn't know what type of feedback to expect or if someone else would like it as much as I did. I was worried about a "sophomore jinx". Wondered if I would be able to be creative on the second book and have it get positive feedback like the first. But after hearing my editor's comments, I think I stand a chance. ;-)

Well, as usual, there's work to be done so I best be gettin' to choppin' some wood! (Don't try to figure out what that means because I have no idea myself.)

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Hey Peeps!

I know it's really been a while now, but things are crazy hectic. Just so much to do. Last weekend, I did the St. Louis Book Festival as planned. However, I hadn't expected to be in the midst of another revision, so I was knocking that out too. Got it Thursday and spent that night and all day Friday doing the edits. It was pretty much all line edits, which requires just adding commas here, changing a word there, deleting that, and rearranging this. So, no scene creations or anything...simple stuff. But a lot of stuff. So, when I say, I edited all day, I mean, ALL DAY! Don't know what time I started, but I remember finishing at 10:30PM and my bottom was hurting!! LOL I sat on the sofa, so it was soft. But I guess sitting in that position for so long got to me. Anyway, I got it done, Friday night, but then I had to find time to print it out, burn a CD, package it, then ship it overnight. Worked all that around the 2-day festival and shipped it off Sunday morning. Feels good.

Now, all I need to do is make it through a signing in Memphis, TN this weekend and my busy October will be complete. I had events every weekend. I'll be at home the next few weekends before heading to Baltimore for signings Thanksgiving weekend. The biggest shopping weekend of the year! Yep, I'm going to need some rest for that. Because it's going to be a challenge trying to shop in between signings. LOL

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I need to hurry and finish up a few little things. I'm expecting a guest today. That's right. My editor's assistant emailed me yesterday to let me know that First Fridays is on its way back to me and should be here today. That was quicker than I thought! I just knew I'd have at least two weeks to work on other stuff, but intead, my editor finished it in a week! So, I'm about to do the serious apartment cleaning and laundry that I've put off for what seems like ages. This afternoon, I'll be into the second round of revisions for First Fridays.

Ups and downs this week. For the first time this season, I went out to watch Monday night football. Last year, I lost a Superbowl bet and was to pay one of the guys $50. Last night, I just knew the Colts were going to win, even though the Rams are my team. But then, the Rams were up by something like 17 points. So, Mikey comes over to me and says, "Double or nothing?" So, I say yes, because I'm thinking there's no way the Rams can lose a 17 point lead. Then I say no, because I'm like, it's the undefeated Colts. Then, he's taunting me about being a chicken and my pride kicks in. So, I stick my chest out and say "It's on!" and I proceed to talk trash the rest of the night. Well, at least until the third quarter. That's when I got up and told Mikey that I'd pay him his #$%!&*! $100 later.

I went upstairs just in time to see Pujols hit a home run at the top of the 9th to win the game and bring the game back to St. Louis. Then I watched last night as we lost. But we had a good season! :-) Going to try to be there when they take the wrecking ball to Busch Stadium.

And, I didn't win Powerball. But then again, I didn't play either. Gotta remember to start doing that...

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Back in for a moment. Had a bad mishap at my signing this weekend. I go to the store to sign, and I see no indication that I'm supposed to sign there. No store announcements, no signs on the door, no nothing. Worse yet, I see all this stuff for another author. I case the place and see a set up with his books on display. So, I approach the associates and tell them that I'm there for my signing that's schedule for a half an hour from then. They tell me that they have me nowhere on their event calendar. I'm so distraught. I've been advertising my butt off for this signing. So, she gets on the phone to find out what's what, and I call my agent in near tears.

So, she can't find me in their system, but says they can set up a table on the lower level (which is good) for a meet and greet. Problem is, the 50 books that my publicist said were at the store are not there. They only have 3 books in stock. It's 15 minutes before the signing. I tell her I have a few books at home (my author copies) and we agree on terms to sell these. I'd use the money made to replace them. So, I get in my car to go home to pick them up. That's a 15 minute drive, one way. So, I arrive back at the store at 20 minutes past the time I'm supposed to sign. There's a small line of people waiting for me to autograph their copies (how cool is that?!). So, we count in my book, she goes up to get an invoice, and I start signing copies. The first few people are people who read the self-published version and enjoyed it so much that they bought the new version. How cool!

So, the associate comes back down with the invoice and shows me were they're selling my books that are listed as $12.95 for $7.99 because that's the only price she could find in their system. I only get a fraction of what we sell the books for, so I won't even make enough money to replace the books. This would be a total loss for me because the books wouldn't count as sales anyway. I think things over and decide to cut my losses and just learn from the experience. So, after 45 minutes, I wrap up and take the rest of the books with me.

I get home and do some research and find out that my publicist mistkenly booked me for a Brentwood Borders...in Tennessee. Instead of my hometown, St. Louis, MO. So, no doubt, this store had my 50 books, and probably signs everywhere saying I was going to sign. And probably cursing me out because they think I was a no-show.

Well, aspiring writers, this just "shows to go ya." Sometimes, things can go wrong when you least expect it. Hey, crap happens. You just gotta pick up and move on to the next thing. So now, I'm preparing for another St. Louis event this weekend at the St. Louis Book Festival at the Muny in Forest Park. The following weekend, I'll be in Tennessee, for real, this time! LOL In Memphis.

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Popping in for a brief moment. I'm still working on my edits for First Friday and I might possibly be able to finish up today. Spent all day working on it yesterday. Can't tell you how many hours because the day is a blur. All I can tell you is that I was in my pajamas all day and I listened to the television as the Cardinals won the first game of the Championship series (you know I had to get that in, right?) LOL

Anyway, my Twin posted a comment yesterday that I thought would make a great post for today. Here's his comment and question:

I've been noticing that you've been doing ALOT of legwork on your own lately . . . aren't you with a major publishing house? I know that you can't afford to let up at all, but why are you working yourself into 25-hour stupors constantly doing things that they should be handling with ease? Am I missing something?



Well, Twin, and all, :-) Yes, I'm with a major publisher, but I'm also a new writer. Most publishers may not do a lot of promotion for new authors. And these days, any author should expect to have to promote themselves. As a matter of fact, my agent said my marketing and promotion skills were an added bonus in picking me up. My publishers came right out and told me this over dinner too. That in addition to loving my story, they were attracted to the fact that I was a self-promoter. I'm hearing that a lot of publishers are looking for new authors who are also self-promoters.

So, that's one piece of the answer. The other is that I'm neurotic, anal, somewhat controlling, and have perfectionist tendencies. I like to give it my all. I have a tendency of going overboard. For advertising, and promotion, my mind is going 24/7. I'm trying to think of ways to reach the readers who might enjoy my story and my writing. I'm trying to think of ways to reach the people who don't normally read, but would read or buy my book because they are related to me, they know me, they know someone who knows me. etc. I'm thinking of ways to expose myself to people who wouldn't hear of me otherwise and I'm trying to get to where they are. Even if they don't buy my book the first time around, I'm working on name recognition so that they'll be familiar and want to give it a try when First Fridays come out.

Even if 5 or so years down the line, I ever reached the point where readers bought my book instantly at release, I don't think I'll ever be able to sit back and relax. I think that's just me. I think the focus would change, but I think I'd still be out there. Because I do enjoy emailing and talking to people who read my book. I enjoying going out and introducing myself and my book to readers. I enjoy thinking and carrying out new ways of promoting. I enjoy the hand-to-hand promotion.

I do get tired, but I think I enjoy being a busybody. It'd be great if my publisher put tons into promoting me (and hopefully we will get to that point). But I still think I'd be on the go and working myself to the bone. I'm unstable like that. :-)

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I took the day off yesterday and I must have slept 25 hours. :-) Okay, maybe just a good part of the day. But I did feel exhausted. I had a whole day planned, but decided to just sleep, and watch football in between naps. Apparently, I needed it because I barely moved all day. LOL I even read a couple of chapters of the short book I've been reading for the past month or so, Soul City by Toure. And I feel refreshed now. Energized! Which is good, because I'm going to need all that energy to get caught up. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I took an entire day off.

More of the same. I have mailings and announcements for this week's signing; make arrangements for books for an end of the month signing; finalize an additional signing for next month, prepare and mail shipments, sell sheets to stores to request they order my book (if they haven't already) mail receipts to my publisher, put together my final email campaign, and do promotions. And then I have to squeeze in editing First Fridays. :-)

Well, let me get started. Ain't nothing to it, but to do it!

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If you're a frequent visitor to my blog, you've probably noticed that I'm becoming a little scarce. And you can probably guess why. Yeah, things are hectic right now. But it's a good kind of hectic. From what I can see, things are going to be busy like this at least for the remainder of the year. Within the last couple of days, I came to this realization, and made it a point to calm myself and just do the best that I can. I create my daily to-do list and get through as much as I can. If I don't get to something, I'm not going to stress out, or die, I decided. :-) I've come to terms with the fact that I may not hit everything 100% and everything doesn't have to be perfect. Each morning, I look in the mirror and tell myself that the most important thing is that "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it...people like me." LOL

I spent the last few days trying to get everything prepared for my upcoming signing this weekend and putting out a major fire associated with it. The unexpected. Good thing is, my publisher step in and got some things squared away for me. I'm still working on trying to get edits done and I'll admit that I haven't had any of those 10 hour days because there just aren't enough hours in the day. This time around, promotion and preparation is a must if I want to avoid having signings where zero people show up. The editing is coming along a little slower than I'd like, but it's getting done. At worst, I'd probably have to ask for a few more days. But we'll see if it comes to that.

And, believe it or not, I'm making time for mysellf so I won't stress myself out. I made it a point to get back in the gym this week. I had gone from working out 4 - 5 days a week to not at all. It's been about 2 months and I was starting to feel the effects. It's strange because I was getting more tired. My energy was zapped. It's funny how that works. The less active you are or the more rest you get, the more tired you are. So, I've got to get myself back in the gym so I can tire myself out so I can have more energy. LOL Sounds backwards, but that's the way it goes.

Okay, gotta get to working. So much to do that it'd take me forever to list it here. The first local signing is tomorrow and I gotta make sure everything's squared away for that. :-)

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Another thing that I got in email this morning and I thought I'd share it with all my fellow aspiring authors:



Consider This

Pearl Buck's 'The Good Earth' was rejected fourteen times and
went on to win a pulitzer Prize.

Norman Mailer's 'The Naked and the Dead' was rejected twelve
times.

Margaret Mitchell's classic 'Gone with the Wind' was turned down
by more than twenty-five publishers.

Mary Higgins Clark was rejected forty times before selling her
first story. More than 30 million copies of her books are now in
print.

--Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Bud Gardner
From Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul
Text © 2000 Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Bud Gardner

_________________________________

This is a good book by the way. I have a copy. Great for when you need a little inspiriation. :-)

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Back from the Pen to Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH. It was nice. It reminded me of the writer's conferences that I went to in my first year. They were small and cozy, and you had short sessions on various topics that were just enough to get you started and pointed in the right direction. Small conferences like these also allow people to speak freely and go in-depth about experiences. Attendees are able to pose any question that is on their minds. And you make contacts. If you're an aspiring writer, I highly recommend looking into this symposium for next year. They have a lot of good information to offer you.

So, yes, I had a great time at this event. I was invited to participate when another author couldn't make it. So, I had only a short period of time to prepare my discussion, but I managed it. I used this event to work on my speaking and presentation skills. I might have said before that I hadn't been good with public speaking in the past. I get extremely nervous to where my voice is shaking, I break out in cold sweats, my mind goes blank, and I ramble and talk at breakneck speed. LOL Well, I had planned to use this event to work on these things, and I think I did a good job for starters. Just the fact that I didn't feel nervous and my voice didn't shake was an accomplishment. Of course, I had a small crowd. But in the past, it didn't matter. I could be before 2 or 3 people and would be on the verge of passing out. LOL So, I'd say I made a step in the right direction. Pretty soon, I'll be an old pro at speaking in public. ;-)

Well, lots to do. I've already started working on the edits for First Fridays. We agreed on 2 weeks, and I'm going to see how much I can get done by then. My editor does love the story, but offered some recommendations that I think are going to make the story even better. I think we work well together. She's awesome. It's so amazing how she can figure out what I mean when I totally botch up a sentence. I noticed that sometimes, my brain and hands do not work cohesively together when writing. I can throw in an extra letter, transpose words, or add or leave out words in a sentence. I mean, huge chunks of words. Like I say the whole sentence in my mind, but only write down half of it on paper. My editor gets it every time. Sometimes I'm looking at the sentence and trying to figure out how in the world did she get it because it looks like mumbo jumbo when I read it. LOL Anyway, she's great.

So, I'm trying to do the line edits first. Then I'm still working on my mail campaign and trying to mail at least 20 - 25 mailings a day. I'm preparing for Saturday's first local book signing. Need to get my October newsletter complete. AND, I was invited to participate and write for another anthology! I already got the story in mind. So now, I need to finish up First Fridays so I can work on the short story for the anthology, which means I'll have to delay book #3 for maybe a month.

Hopefully, I'll get to unpack the suitcase before I go to Memphis at the end of this month. :-)

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Well, as usual, somehow I'm pulling it though. Somehow, I keep forgetting that the 10 hours a day I spend writing...that's the easy part. :-) Promoting for books and events, that's where the real work kicks in and it's nonstop. You're praying for ten hour days then! LOL

I mailed out signing invitations to my local newsletter list, made store flyers and delivered them, plus a whole lot of little stuff. The suitcase is still packed, but what the heck! I have to repack it for tomorrow anyway. :-) I'm putting the finishing touches on my discussion for the Symposium this weekend and I'm looking forward to going. After this weekend, I'll be home for much of October, which will be cool. Doing signings in other locations can be fun. But it's great if you can spread it out instead of going somewhere every week. Personal preference, of course. Last year, I did what I had to do. Sometimes, I was in a different city every week trying to push my book to the locals. LOL Some authors do enjoy that type of travel and do it with a full time job! I might just be burnt out from it because I traveled 85% of the time on my job when I was working. Another reason why I prefer driving rather than flying these days.

So today, I'm finishing up my discussion, packing the suitcase, and then I'm going to a special luncheon today! It's called: Understandiing your Government - A conversation with members of the City of St. Louis Board of Estimate and Appointment." This is an opportunity provided my sorority to meet with public officials to talk, have dinner, and ask questions. Should be interesting.

Then I'm back on the road in the wee hours of the morning, headed for Dayton, OH. Then I'll come back and continue with mailings and weekly preparations for the next signings. Oh, and I should get First Fridays back sometime today or tomorrow. If I get it today, I'll be able to take it with me and review the recommended changes and consider the issues, then come back and begin on it Monday.

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Back and swamped. Okay, I'm not going to get overwhelmed...I'm not going to get overwhelmed....inhale, exhale.

I keep saying I'm going to recruit an assistant, yet I don't have the time to do so. I know of an author who took on a college assistant (intern) who was interested in writing. The benefits for both were great. The author received much needed assistance in projects and promotions, while the assistant, who was an aspiring author, received first hand knowledge about the publishing industry, plus one on one contact with an author. The intern has since completed her own manuscript and has struck out on her own. I'd like to do that. If I can find the time to solicit for one.

Anyway, just got back and I need to prepare a discussion on Plot Tension for my session at the Pen to Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH this weekend. I also need to send out flyers and invitations to my upcoming local signings, make and deliver store flyers, begin discussions with my new host of my Memphis signing, make arrangements for a 3rd local signing that I've been invited to join, make and send out my October newsletter, and submit a contract for a book tour that I want to participate in. And that's just the prep and planning stuff. We haven't even gotten to the errands I need to run yet, unpacking and repacking the suitcase for one.

Okay, I got three days to do all of this and this is quite a bit of woman-hours. And I got a message from my editor that she expects to send my edits for First Fridays tomorrow. Wow! I thought I'd have at least a month before edits came back! So, I need to get the bulk of this out of the way before edits come back. I'm imagining that edits during the first months of the book release is going to be a little tough. But I'll get it done! :-) The good thing is that she says she LOVES it!

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Made a little progress yesterday. Finished an interview, drafted a letter, made handout flyers for my upcoming local signings (will distribute beginning next week), finalized my travel plans to Baltimore for this weekend's Baltimore Book Festival, and few more little must do things. I'm preparing to hit the road, so I won't be back until Monday. I'll see you then!

In the meantime, I got this email from an online group that I subcribe to. I like it, and thought you might like it too:


How To Increase Happiness in Daily Life

1) Endeavor to change the way you look at things. Always look at
the bright side. The mind may drag you to think about negativity
and difficulties. Don't let it. Look at the good side of every
situation. 

2) Think of solutions, not problems.

3) Listen to relaxing uplifting music.

4) Watch funny comedies that make you laugh.

5) Each day devote some time to reading some pages of an
inspiring book or article.

6) Watch your thoughts. Whenever you catch yourself thinking
negative thoughts, stop them, and try to think of pleasant
things.

7) Always look at what you have done and not at what you
haven't. Sometimes you start a day planning to do several
things. At the end of the day you feel frustrated that you
haven't been able to do all of those things, and you become
unhappy. 

Look at what you have done, not at what you have not been able
to do. You may have accomplished a lot during the day, and yet
you let yourself become frustrated because of some small things
that you did not do. You have spent all day carrying out
successfully many plans, and instead of being happy and
satisfied you look at what was not done and you feel unhappy. It
is unfair towards yourself. 

8) Each day do something good for yourself. It can be small
thing, such buying a book, eating something you love, watching
you favorite program on TV, going to a movie, or just having a
stroll on the beach. 

9) Each day do at least one thing to make others happy. This can
be a kind word, Helping your colleagues, stopping your car at
the crossroad to let people cross, giving your seat in a bus to
someone else, or giving a small present to someone you love. The
possibilities are infinite. When you make someone happy, you
become happy, and then people try to make you happy.

10) Always expect happiness. 

11) Do not envy people who are happy. On the contrary, be happy
for their happiness.

12) Be where happy people are and try to learn from them to be
happy. Remember, happiness is contagious.

13) When things do not proceed as intended and desired, do your
best to stay detached. Detachment will help you to stay calm and
control your moods and reactions. Detachment is not
indifference. It is a completely different thing. Detachment has
much to do with inner peace, and inner peace is conductive to
happiness.

14) Smile more often.

Read more...

Okay, nothing got accomplished, book-wise, yesterday. However, I drove to my orthodontist in Erlanger, KY yesterday and finally....THE BRACES ARE OFF!!! And I've been smiling all night, and all morning long. Even smiled in my sleep. You know Bob's smile in the Viagra-like commercials (can't remember if that's his name or the name of the product), well, my smile is bigger than his now! LOL Now I can take some photos that my publisher and agent will actually like. They wanted me to smile more, but I didn't want my braces to show.

But anyway, I got a lot to catch up on because I only have a couple more days before I head to Baltimore. Got to get to cracking. It's going to be another long day. But I'll be smiling through it all as my tongue keeps molesting my teeth. Now that the bars and wires have been removed, it can't seem to keep its buds to itself. :-)

Read more...

Hey, that ad in Sister 2 Sister that I mentioned a few days ago is in the current issue. The October issue with Whitney and Bobby on the cover. Check us out on page 2. :-)

The good news is I got through half of my "to-do" list. The not so good news is, three more things were added. :-) I can't say it's a bad thing though because things being added are things that could possibly increase exposure. UCLA Writer's Program invited me to do an interview for their quarterly byline. They like to follow the successes (being published equating to success) of students of their programs. So, that's always cool. I'm also sending them the Hyperion version of my book for the library. They already have the Archland version.

So, another day in my apartment, except to get out and run errands. I haven't fired up my printer in months, so I finally did yesterday and it will only print in color. Not black. Black ink is pretty important to a writer, I've come to find out.

But, I did make some progress. I got in the first draft of a timeline I'm putting together for the Writer's Studio. We're all moving forth with that full steam ahead. It's an exciting process. I'd been a little bit behind due to finishing the first book, and now I'm finally getting caught up and able to add more input. And I'm starting to think about my lesson plan for my discussion on Plot Tension for the Pen and Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH on Oct. 1st. An author had to pull out, so the organizers considered me and invited me to talk on the subject of Plot Tension in her place. How cool is that? Eventually, I want to get into teaching writing. I didn't think I was ready yet. After all, I only have one published book and a completed manuscript. I went to a St. Louis Writer's Guild Banquet a couple of days ago and met a lot of interesting literary people in the area. One of them teaches creative writing at a higher learning institution here in town. When he told me that he taught creative writing, I discussed my desire about getting back into writing classes. I missed the UCLA Extension workshop this year and that's been the best writing experience I've had to date. So, he looks at my book, looks at my publisher, and says, "You should be TEACHING writing classes, not taking them." I've heard this before. In the back of my mind, it's something that I want to do eventually, but I still feel that I'm not really ready yet. I feel I need to establish myself more as a writer before I can be considered qualified to teach.

Of course, promotion is number one and most important in the initial months after the release. Balancing this is proving to be difficult. It's on the list and it should be something that I do daily, but I'm having a hard time getting to it like I want. I expect to promote a minimum of 4 hours a day, and as of yet, it's not happening. But I got to make that happen, do or die.

Read more...

Hey, that ad in Sister 2 Sister that I mentioned a few days ago is in the current issue. The October issue with Whitney and Bobby on the cover. Check us out on page 2. :-)

The good news is I got through half of my "to-do" list. The not so good news is, three more things were added. :-) I can't say it's a bad thing though because things being added are things that could possibly increase exposure. UCLA Writer's Program invited me to do an interview for their quarterly byline. They like to follow the successes (being published equating to success) of students of their programs. So, that's always cool. I'm also sending them the Hyperion version of my book for the library. They already have the Archland version.

So, another day in my apartment, except to get out and run errands. I haven't fired up my printer in months, so I finally did yesterday and it will only print in color. Not black. Black ink is pretty important to a writer, I've come to find out.

But, I did make some progress. I got in the first draft of a timeline I'm putting together for the Writer's Studio. We're all moving forth with that full steam ahead. It's an exciting process. I'd been a little bit behind due to finishing the first book, and now I'm finally getting caught up and able to add more input. And I'm starting to think about my lesson plan for my discussion on Plot Tension for the Pen and Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH on Oct. 1st. An author had to pull out, so the organizers considered me and invited me to talk on the subject of Plot Tension in her place. How cool is that? Eventually, I want to get into teaching writing. I didn't think I was ready yet. After all, I only have one published book and a completed manuscript. I went to a St. Louis Writer's Guild Banquet a couple of days ago and met a lot of interesting literary people in the area. One of them teaches creative writing at a higher learning institution here in town. When he told me that he taught creative writing, I discussed my desire about getting back into writing classes. I missed the UCLA Extension workshop this year and that's been the best writing experience I've had to date. So, he looks at my book, looks at my publisher, and says, "You should be TEACHING writing classes, not taking them." I've heard this before. In the back of my mind, it's something that I want to do eventually, but I still feel that I'm not really ready yet. I feel I need to establish myself more as a writer before I can be considered qualified to teach.

Of course, promotion is number one and most important in the initial months after the release. Balancing this is proving to be difficult. It's on the list and it should be something that I do daily, but I'm having a hard time getting to it like I want. I expect to promote a minimum of 4 hours a day, and as of yet, it's not happening. But I got to make that happen, do or die.

Read more...

Hey, that ad in Sister 2 Sister that I mentioned a few days ago is in the current issue. The October issue with Whitney and Bobby on the cover. Check us out on page 2. :-)

The good news is I got through half of my "to-do" list. The not so good news is, three more things were added. :-) I can't say it's a bad thing though because things being added are things that could possibly increase exposure. UCLA Writer's Program invited me to do an interview for their quarterly byline. They like to follow the successes (being published equating to success) of students of their programs. So, that's always cool. I'm also sending them the Hyperion version of my book for the library. They already have the Archland version.

So, another day in my apartment, except to get out and run errands. I haven't fired up my printer in months, so I finally did yesterday and it will only print in color. Not black. Black ink is pretty important to a writer, I've come to find out.

But, I did make some progress. I got in the first draft of a timeline I'm putting together for the Writer's Studio. We're all moving forth with that full steam ahead. It's an exciting process. I'd been a little bit behind due to finishing the first book, and now I'm finally getting caught up and able to add more input. And I'm starting to think about my lesson plan for my discussion on Plot Tension for the Pen and Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH on Oct. 1st. And author had to pull out, so the organizers considered me and invited me to talk on the subject of Plot Tension in her place. How cool is that? Eventually, I want to get into teaching writing. I didn't think I was ready yet. After all, I only have one published book and a completed manuscript. I went to a St. Louis Writer's Guild Banquet a couple of days ago and met a lot of interesting literary people in the area. One of them teaches creative writing at a higher learning institution here in town. When he told me that he taught creative writing, I discussed my desire about getting back into writing classes. I missed the UCLA Extension workshop this year and that's been the best writing experience I've had to date. So, he looks at my book, looks at my publisher, and says, "You should be TEACHING writing classes, not taking them." I've heard this before. In the back of my mind, it's something that I want to do eventually, but I still feel that I'm not really ready yet. I feel I need to establish myself more as a writer before I can be considered qualified to teach.

Of course, promotion is number one and most important in the initial months after the release. Balancing this is proving to be difficult. It's on the list and it should be something that I do daily, but I'm having a hard time getting to it like I want. I expect to promote a minimum of 4 hours a day, and as of yet, it's not happening. But I got to make that happen, do or die.

Read more...

It's starting again. The "to-do" list is growing faster than I can get items complete. I'm back to creating and following a list again. I got ten items on the list today and praying that I can get through half of them. I'd hire an assistant, but I'm sure they'd want to get paid, and, well...

Okay, good news. I've been spotting several copies of my books in stores locally and I'm making my rounds. Hit a few stores this weekend. I went in to see if they were in stock and where they were located with plans to rearrange display areas, if necessary. :-) But, I didn't have to do that. Not yet. Store personnel can make you feel good. They always seem so elated when you stop by the store to ask if you can sign the copies of your book. Their eyes light up and their mouths drop as they grab the "autographed copy" stickers. And for just a second, you feel like you've done something special. LOL But seriously, it's a great opportunity to talk and greet store personnel. And, of course, I took it upon myself to greet anybody browsing the AA book session. I feel like I could run for office. I smiled, gave my card, shook hands, and introduced myself and my book. If anybody had a baby, I definitely would have taken him/her in my arms for a hug and a kiss. :-)

Okay, got lots to do. I need to come up with a lesson plan for a discussion on Plot Tension. I was invited to teach a session at the Pen to Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH the weekend of September 30th. Then, I need to finish a timeline for the St. Louis Writer's Studio, print, sign, and mail off a contract, create and send a special newsletter on book tour dates for this month, write a letter to a book club, and notify my newsletter contest winner and get address so I can mail free book. And that's just to get started and that's before I begin the promotion work for today. It's always a bunch of little stuff.

But first, I need to walk 'round the corner and down the street to Starbucks to get another half pound of Breakfast Blend. If I don't, nothing on this list will get done.

Yea! for the Cardinals who clinched the division on Saturday! And for the Rams who beat the defectees, the Arizona Cardinals and our former quarterback, Kurt Warner (even though he's a good guy.).

Read more...

It's starting again. The "to-do" list is growing faster than I can get items complete. I'm back to creating and following a list again. I got ten items on the list today and praying that I can get through half of them. I'd hire an assistant, but I'm sure they'd want to get paid, and, well...

Okay, good news. I've been spotting several copies of my books in stores locally and I'm making my rounds. Hit a few stores this weekend. I went in to see if they were in stock and where they were located with plans to rearrange display areas, if necessary. :-) But, I didn't have to do that. Not yet. Store personnel can make you feel good. They always seem so elated when you stop by the store to ask if you can sign the copies of your book. Their eyes light up and their mouths drop as they grab the "autographed copy" stickers. And for just a second, you feel like you've done something special. LOL But seriously, it's a great opportunity to talk and greet store personnel. And, of course, I took it upon myself to greet anybody browsing the AA book session. I feel like I could run for office. I smiled, gave my card, shook hands, and introduced myself and my book. If anybody had a baby, I definitely would have taken him/her in my arms for a hug and a kisss. :-)

Okay, got lots to do. I need to come up with a lesson plan for a discussion on Plot Tension. I was invited to teach a session at the Pen to Paper Symposium in Dayton, OH the weekend of September 30th. Then, I need to finish a timeline for the St. Louis Writer's Studio, print, sign, and mail off a contract, create and send a special newsletter on book tour dates for this month, write a letter to a book club, and notify my newsletter contest winner and get address so I can mail free book. And that's just to get started and that's before I begin the promotion work for today. It's always a bunch of little stuff.

But first, I need to walk 'round the corner and down the street to Starbucks to get another half pound of coffee. If I don't, nothing on this list will get done.

Yea! for the Cardinals who clinched the division on Saturday! And for the Rams who beat the defectees, the Arizona Cardinals and our former quarterback, Kurt Warner (even though he's a good guy.).

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Hey, remember the St. Louis Writer's Studio that I said a group of us was forming here? Group member, Erik, has put together our St. Louis Writer's Studio Blog. Check us out and read about who we are and how we bumped in to each other to form this bunch. :-)


Okay, I don't think I'm ever going to get out of my apartment for an extended worry-free, non-book related period of time, until like February. Thursday is when I had the conniption. That's when I went around to a couple of bookstores and a couple of Wal-Marts to check out where my book was so I could tell people where to go (...to buy my book). Well, all 4 locations that I went did not have my book on display. So, being a writer and over dramatic, I'm thinking that there's probably not a book of mine available in my hometown of St. Louis (I have reported sightings of it in other parts of America), so, after hyperventilating, I round up the posse to stage a march. A march on bookstores. So, there we were, down the street from the first bookstore, donned in our "Free Counting Raindrops" T-shirts, just coming out of the huddle where we practiced our literary rendition of "We Shall Overcome." You never heard a literary rendition of We Shall Overcome? Believe me, you don't want to either. ;-/ We had signs: On front "Counting Raindrops on shelves"; On the back "By any means necessary." I was leading the pack with my bullhorn, ready to lead our chant:

Me: What do we want?
Radical Readers: Counting Raindrops!
Me: When do we want it?
Radical Readers: NOW!!!!

So, just then, my editor calls me on my cell phone. I tell her I need to call her back because I'm right at the start of the protest here. She knows because I always tell my editor what's going on. :-) We cool like dat. So, she tells me to hold the phone. She says a call just came down from Sales, and then she runs down what the bookstores purchased. I get off the phone with her and quiet the now raunchy radical readers...they've got determination in their eyes and fire in their bellies and they're ready to march. So, I call up a few bookstores again. I can do that, see, because I put them in my cell phone on speed dial. So, I call store after store, and sure enough, they do have copies of my book after all. Some are just getting them on the shelves. Some say they just got the shipment in and it's in boxes, and to call back tomorrow and they should be out.

So, there's nothing left for me to do but to disperse the angry crowd and tell them to go home. I explain through the bullhorn what happened and they're grumbling and I can see that adrenaline has set in and they're ready to rumble and if I don't do something, there's bound to be some cracked skulls soon. So, I step through them, shouting through my bullhorn, "Move it along! Nothing to see! You ain't got to go home, but you got to get the heezy out of here!" Most of them calmed down, mumbled as they went to the bookstore and browsed the bargain book section, got tea, coffee, and cookies, then sat down and got their read on. Didn't take much.


And now, I'm home, sending out newsletters, updating my email and mailing list, creating flyers for my local signings (October 8th @ Knowing Books, 3-5pm; October 15th @ Brentwood Borders, 2pm), preparing mailings to bookstores requesting that they order my book and sending them promotional cards, promotion, promotion, and more promotion and 10 hour days. And as you can see from the story above, I'm getting delirious.

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LadyLee put up her more, um, formal review of Counting Raindrops on her site. Click on her name to check it out. :-)

Thanks to all who have left encouraging comments on yesterday's post or sent an email. I really do appreciate all comments. As you can imagine, no matter what, there are always butterflies. And it's not like a one time performance. Like you have butterflies before a speech, or a play, or a dance, and then you do whatever and 2 - 4 hours later, it's gone. For the first time novelist, the butterflies last the entire first 3 - 6 months, because these are the crucial months. LOL So thanks to all of you for congrats!

I called my agent to catch her up to date and had planned to get off the phone quickly. I always feel like she must be busy and I always plan to make my statements quickly and keep myself to a two minute maximum. Well, after giving me a pep talk, inspiration, and coaching, I found that we were on the phone for over an hour. This is one of the reasons I'm so grateful for my agent. She has a very beautiful spirit, encourages me to call her anytime, and gets back to me as soon as she can when I have to leave a message or send an email. She even helped me to decide not only which story would be the next best to write, but also we put in order the next three books from my list. She's awesome. She's an author too, and she's been in my shoes. So not only does she know the industry, it's like she knows what I'm thinking and feeling. She knows exactly what I'm going through, whether it's the upswing or the down, because she's been there herself. She always knows the right things to say and to tell me what to think about, and what to consider. Just by nature, she's one of those people who ask you questions to pull things out of you to help you to come to your own conclusion about things when you are conflicted about something. Then, only after you've come to a conclusion will she add her input. She doesn't seem to want to influence your decision.

As you can probably tell, I like my agent. :-) You know how it is when you call up your best girlfriend and you talk for a long time, just gliding from subject to subject just by going with the flow of the conversation? That's what it's like in talking to my agent. Sometimes we have to go, "oh, and back to business...." LOL

I think she's a keeper!

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IT'S RELEASE DAY!!!

Okay, now that the second book, First Fridays, is submitted, now I can turn my focus back to Counting Raindrops. I'm excited about the release under Hyperion and pray that it does well. Later this afternoon, I'm hoping to get out and about to visit bookstores and Wal-Marts to see where it's available locally, and to drop off some promotional cards. I hope that you will either go out and pick up a copy at a Wal-Mart or bookstore near you, or online at Amazon.com, or BN.com. I'd really appreciate your support. :-)

This month, I'll also watch out for our ads. We're supposed to be in Today's Black Woman and Sister 2 Sister. The latter has already put up a cute little ad on their website. They've animated the cover a little bit. Click the link to check it out now because I don't know how long it's going to be there.

So, how am I going to spend release day? Well, I'm going to actually turn the cell phone back on again. Then I 'm going to try to complete and send my September newsletter (I'm a little behind), submit minor website updates, then go store hopping. I might even treat myself to some Broccoli Cheddar Soup from Panera's. Aaaahhh!!!! Can you say, FREEDOM!!! In case you didn't recognize it, um, that's basking. LOL But on a serious celebratory note, I'm going to try to go to the Cardinals game tonight. The magic number is 2 to clinch the division and we could do it tonight. AGAIN!!!

The work begins tomorrow. The focus is back on promoting Counting Raindrops. Then I need to take care of things I've neglected. Got like a foot of new growth under my braids that I need to get taken care of, my fill is going to be about half of my nail bed, and I gotta clean up because THIS PLACE IS A PIG STY!!!
LOL Not really. That's just one of those over exaggerated terms that my mother used to use when I was growing up and I like saying it any chance I can get. :-)

What's next for writing? I got the next 7 - 10 stories (can't remember how many off the top of my head) ready to be written. The next three are vividly in my mind. The next two, I'm actually conflicted on which one to write first. I could go either way so I'm going to try to get some advice from my agent.

I'm excited. :-) Please pick up your copy today! And of course, drop me a line if you do, and especially when you read it.
Okay, until tomorrow....

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IT'S PRINT DAY!!!

It's a wrap! My second book, First Fridays is in final form and ready to see my editor. Okay, here are some specs and facts:

Word count: 76,000
Pages: 357
Estimated ACTUAL writing time: 3 months
Revisions: 3
Title: First Fridays
Genre: Contemporary fiction; relationship
General themes: business and personal relationships
Setting: St. Louis - Mill Creek Valley (resurrected from the dead!)
Main Cast Members: Naja Rodgers (main); Allison "Allie" Rodgers (li'l sis); Andi (Allie's daughter); Russom King (Naja's business partner); Vlora Dern (Naja's best friend); Chaney (owner of Mill Creek Valley's "Rosebud Cafe" - the neighborhood hangout/meetiing place); Jarvis and Manny (neighborhood kids)

Stay tuned for small excerpts in the near future. :-)

All right. Let's get this baby printed and shipped!

I smell FREEDOM on the other side of the horizon!!!!

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Congrats to the New Orleans Saints! They won 23-20 over the Carolina Panthers in a kickoff in the last few seconds of the game! Awesome! On the flipside, my team, the Rams, got creamed. By the 49ers. THE 49ers??? What the...! Okay, okay, enough about that. I won't turn this blog into a football blog. :-)


Okay, I'm jittery and I'm not getting any sleep. I'm excited. Now, you probably would think I'm excited about the release date the day after tomorrow. I would think that too. But that's not the case. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about it. But that's not what's keeping me up. It's the completion of this second book and actually turning it in to my editor and awaiting her feedback. The more I revise it, the more I get excited about it.

And this process is a bit different than Counting Raindrops. With the first book, I had tons of feedback--although I didn't believe them when they told me that they liked it because I thought they were just trying to be nice. LOL The first to read it and give me feedback was Tiffany in Cincinnati (You'll see her in the acknowledgments). I remember going to her house and she read it for me in installments as I wrote it. It was nerve wrecking for me, although I don't think she knew that. I was sitting across from where while she read pages. She'd read silently, then all of a sudden, just burst out in laughter. And I'm wondering, "What? What? What's so funny???" And she'd read some more and just laugh. And (she probably doesn't remember this) her first feedback comments to me were, "Oh! You got skillz!!!" LOL And I'm sitting there, grinning until my face hurts, but wondering, "Okay, what does that mean?"

I find that I'm analytical. It feels so good when people say they enjoy your story or enjoy your writing. But I always try to capture it. To put it in quantifiable terms so I can understand. So I can create a formula that I can repeat over and over. I still don't have that yet and that's the only thing that makes writing nerve wrecking for me now that I have one (and almost 2) completed novels under my belt. On the other hand, maybe it’s good that I don't know because if I knew exactly, I would probably try to concentrate on that as I write instead of writing freely. With the first and now the second book, I just wrote without worrying about style. And perhaps for those who like it, that's the reason they like it. Logically, I'm sure this is the case. But still, there's that knuckleheaded nerd in me that's trying to figure out a formula.

Okay, last day of revisions!!! Got to make it good because right now I'm running on caffeine, adrenaline, and no sleep! LOL

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IT'S FOOTBALL SUNDAY!!!!
Ladies, put on your jerseys...just your jersey, m'am, just your jersey. LOL Don't have a jersey? Well, I guess you best be headin' on over to your favorite department store's LITTLE BOYS SECTION! If you've already read my book, you're feeling me right about now and you know what I'm talking about. LOL As I do my third and final revision, I'm kicking off my first football Sunday with the Fox pregame show, then, whoever is playing at noon, then the Rams at 3:15pm Central. Wish I could go tailgate or go to a sportsbar to watch, but I'll be able to do that next week!


Right on schedule! Finished the second draft last night. Whew!

I'm quite pleased with it. Honestly, I'd be comfortable printing it out right now and sending it in a couple of days early. But I'm not. After I finished last night, I still had enough energy (believe it or not) to outline a plan of attack for the next couple of days.

Over the next two days, I'm going to review the additional scenes that I've outline. I briefly did this last night. These are scenes that came into my head from nowhere while I was writing. And rather than go back and search and try to work it in immediately, I wrote it down for later. I already went through some of them and scratched them. While they may have been interesting, or funny (to me), they really did nothing to advance the plot. Maybe it'll fit in another story another time. But there's a couple of ideas there that I will fit in.

Then I'll go over each character one more time to make sure they're distinct and realistic. And finally, I want to go over the flow again and check for over used words.

Well, on with revision three---the final revision! :-)

HAPPY 1ST FOOTBALL SUNDAY!

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Awesome progress news. I met my two chapter minimum AND revised another two chapters. So, I'm all caught up to my original goal and SHOULD finish up the second revision at the end of the day Saturday, if I keep up the two chapter minimum. I probably revised the same as far as word count. But I knew toward the end that I had one really short chapter (1000 words) and a couple that were in the 2000+ range whereas my other chapters are 3000 - 3500 words. So, that's why I was able to catch up. Nonetheless, I'm almost finished with the second revision. And I think I'll be able to squeeze in two days for a third revision where I'll make sure there's a closed loop on each main character and input things from the side notes I've made.

I was thinking, did I ever talk about what the second book is about or even the title? Not sure. I haven't done the dreaded synopsis yet (I hate those), but I did sum it up for an interview that I did recently. The title of this second book is First Fridays and the main character contemplates mixing business and personal relationships. In a nutshell, here's what it's about:

In First Fridays, my 2006 release, the main character Naja Rodgers is a entrepreneur and is very much attracted to her business partner, Russom King . Problem is, she doesn't believe in mixing business with pleasure, for fear that mixing the two could possibly result in relationship drama that carries over to the board room. And she's not sure she wants to take that chance and put her baby--her business--on the line. But after Naja does give in to a relationship, she comes to find out that it could even be worse than she ever imagined.

Why "First Fridays?" If you're into professional networking and you're in one of the host cities, you might be familiar with the First Fridays networking events. While the characters contemplate business and personal relationships, they take you and give you an inside view of these First Fridays events. Some of the people you will meet are quite funny. Some of the happenings are outrageous. And yes, some of this is from personal experience and observations. I attended quite a few First Fridays events in Cleveland, and a couple here in St. Louis. :-)

What I'm hoping to bring is another contemporary relationship novel where a main issue is explored and the reader will also laugh and find the journey enjoyable.

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Sigh! Only met half my goal yesterday. Had some things to take care of. Life started getting in the way again. Started getting late notices in the mail and under my door. They want their money and they want it now. I'm like, Geesh! Can't you see I'm trying to meet a deadline here?! For pete's sake, give me a break! But since nobody was listening, I thought I'd better take care of some things before I found myself sitting in the dark. But great news to report! Went to my last visit with the chiropractor. I'm good as new! Well, except for those 10 pounds I said I was going to start a couple of weeks ago...then September 1st. Well, after I get this book done, it's number one priority. I mean it this time.

So, I'm still two chapters behind, but in no danger of not meeting the goal. Still, I like to have a fews days of cushion, just in case.

*STRAIN* Must...get back...to writing....*pant* *pant* Must...get back...to writing....NOW! *pant* *pant* *END STRAIN*

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Another 2 chapters and I don't know how many hours. Let's, see...5 in the morning, then a long break, 6 in the evening, so, roughly 11 hours. I added a couple of scenes as well as revised.

But, early on, I got an email from one of the contest winners, LadyLee, and she shared with me, her thoughts on my book. Although I can't share the whole thing here, as she gives a lot of details, I'd love to have a little fun and edit and post her comments: (WARNING: THIS IS EXTREMELY EDITED, BUT FUN)

Hey Cherlyn,
"Counting Raindrops..."  was off the chain!!! I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's rare for me to get choked up when reading a book....But that part in your book...Oh my God!  That messed me up.  And she wakes up and sees...  Oh Jesus!!! I had to put the book down.  I've read some similar scenarios, but with your writing... I don't know, it was just like I was right there inside Vanella's head feeling what she was feeling, you know what I mean? 

And then when ... And the Daddy was ... Whoo, goodness!!! That was another part that shook me completely up.  Had to put the book down again.  I was an emotional wreck! Thanks a lot, Cherlyn (LOL)! Let's not even talk about when Vanella goes and...That whole porch scene... It just messed me up... And that scene where Kizaar and his Daddy are...You had me holding my breath there!

Now when Vanella ...and it looked like they were going to ...I was like... Hmm... I don't know Cherlyn... don't go corny on me, now!  But I liked how that didn't play out after all.  That was quite realistic.

Overall, I loved the fact that this book had a different female protagonist.  I love it! I love it! I love it!

And I liked that near the end...That's been my attitude of late, so I can relate to that.

But I liked how you had ... I didn't know how you were going to pull that off.  Quite original indeed! 

I thought the title was superb.  I was thinking while reading the book "what does this "Counting raindrops..." title have to do with anything"?  I kind of figured it out a few pages before you mentioned it.  Real cool concept.  I love it!

This book was good to the very last drop!! 


P.S.  A quick writer question:  how much of your own personality/habits do you allow yourself to write into a character? I mean do you guzzle that Pinot Griot wine like Vanella does? (LOL) (That type of stuff.).  I noticed that you said in your 9/6/05 blog that you like football.  Did you purposefully have Vanella like football because YOU like football? 


Okay, this is Cherlyn answering the question. :-)
Uh, yes, there was a lot of me in not only Vanella, but in several of the characters. Let me see if I can name a few of the things we have/had in common:

-We both were engineers and work for a Japanese manufacturing company,
-We both sipped Pinot Grigio (I think that's still her favorite, I've since moved on to Merlot,
-We both love sports, football and the Rams in particular,
-We both were born and raised in St. Louis and lived in Cleveland,
-We both avoid button down shirts like the plague,
-And as a confession, we both did that measuring tape thing for a while. Three-eighths of an inch? Oh, LAWD!!!! LOL

But still, I'm not Vanella and the story isn't about me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!


But yes, I do incorporate some of the things that I'm familiar with and may do and like myself. But I also mix in things of friends, family, people I've worked with or met. And some things I just totally make up. This would all be stuff that I put in my character sketch so I can keep straight who has what quirks and why.

Okay, enough fun for today...gotta go write... :-)

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Well, I did it! After getting one chapter done I managed to break away for a moment and get to the Big Muddy Blues Festival on Sunday night. It was great. There were maybe five or so stages set up at different spots on Laclede's Landing and bands played various styles of blues. Food and drink vendors lined the cobblestone streets that were closed off to traffic. Tons of people. In bars and restaurants, walking and sitting along the streets and lawns. Young, old. I quickly saw that this was an extremely popular event.

And here's one of the downfalls to leaving your cell phone off. I had a friend trying to get in touch with me because he had tickets to the Rams' last preseason game. My friend knows how much I love football. My friend knows how much I love the Rams. And I missed the call. I wanted to kick myself. On the other hand, it's probably good that I didn't know because that was my 11-hour workday and I do think I would have ditched the writing for football. Well, hey. I'll be done next week and will have all season to go to the games.

Yesterday, I got another chapter revised after spending part of the morning volunteering with United Way to collect money for the Hurricane Victims. So, now, I'm two chapters behind where I really want to be, but I'm not really worried. Okay, the countdown is on. I got exactly one week to whip the last half of it into shape and get it to my editor.

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Turned out that the Muddy Blues Festival was yesterday and today (not Friday). And I didn't get to go yesterday. :-( I'm hopeful that I can step out a bit today, but I gotta meet my quota. I actually revised two chapters over ten or eleven hours yesterday. Yeah, took a lot longer than I thought. I stopped for no more than 30 minutes each for lunch and dinner. Maybe a couple of 10 - 15 minute breaks to stretch out and that's it. I probably went over the chapters beginning to end, word for word, about five or six times each (before I split them up, because they were quite lengthy). I kept at it until I felt the characters were extremely visual, their dialogue was individually realistic, and the entire chapter flowed. I guess sometimes it goes easy like my first couple of chapters, and sometimes it takes time. I have to confess that sometimes, I can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to projects. Maybe that played out yesterday because I am treating this like this will be the last revision before I turn it in to my editor. So, I want to make sure it's shaped to my satisfaction and it's something I enjoy and that I think readers enjoy. That's the goal here.

So, I gotta get to through my two chapter quota today and I hope to do the festival at least a little bit tonight. But if not, I'll be free to do whatever after I finish this book, so, no biggie! :-)

If you're in the St. Louis/East St. Louis area and you'd like to donate to the Red Cross for the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund, I'll be one of a few St. Louis Cares Volunteers who will take donations on Labor Day at the St. Clair's Square Mall in Fairview Heights, IL. I'll be at the donations table Monday from 10 AM - 2 PM, so come on out!

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Didn't quite finish with the two chapters from yesterday, but chapter three was like double the average word length, so it was like completing two chapters by itself. Only have five pages to complete chapter four, so it's all good. Actually, I got stuck at a point much early in chapter four. Just couldn't find the flow. It wasn't extremely late, but I'd been writing six hours straight, so I gave myself a pat on the back for a good effort done, and decided to give my mind a break until the next day. I may not have even put the laptop down five minutes before creativity hit again for the spot that I was having trouble with. So, I pick up the laptop and tell myself to just write that part, then give it a rest. So, I do. But then I clearly feel what happens next. It's in my fingertips and I just have to get it out. So, of course, I do. Next thing I know, I'm typing for another couple of hours. I kept typing until the breaking point which was five pages before the end of chapter four. How cool?

Well, I'm about to drink and savor my morning coffee (especially savoring now because when I have to go back to Starbucks for another pound, the price may have gone up, IF they have the kind I like at all. They were out of Breakfast Blend, due to Katrina). Then I'm going to get my quota in so I can hang out at the Muddy Blues Festival! I'm getting excited just thinking about it. It's going to feel like a jailbreak!

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Hey, if you get Black Issues Book Review magazine, check out our ad for Counting Raindrops on page 2! ;-)

First day of revisions went smoothly yesterday. Did chapters 1 and 2 and as a matter of fact, I hope the rest of the chapters go like that. I got finished rather early in the evening and was considering doing chapter 3. But I thought it important to space it out. To just let it flow and not force it. To not rush it, just to try to get it in earlier. In between time, the story doesn't leave my mind and new thoughts and ideas will pop up at any given time. I'll find myself jumping up to add a word, or a sentence in a certain spot. It's like, the littlest, the oddest, or the most insignificant thing can trigger a thought for the novel. Or sometimes, it seems like the thought just comes from nowhere.

I also read in between. I usually read a page or a chapter of something before I start writing. Reading helps me to jump start my mind and put me in the writing mode. Last year, I remember reading EJ Dickey and Gloria Mallette books. This year, I'm reading my own, Counting Raindrops. How cool is that? LOL But seriously, I'm reading my own book to get me back in the flow of my own writing style. But I do read other stuff too. I just finished up Seeing Red by Jill Shalvis. I hadn't read a romance novel since I was a teenager. Seeing Red was good. The storyline had a bit of mystery to it, plus there was humor laced throughout. This wasn't like the Harelquin romance I read way back then. And now, I've gone back to my Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and I'm in the midst of The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. I read and study classical writers and try to alternate in readings.

Okay, if I'm good, I'm going to attend the Muddy Blues Festival this weekend. This is another event on Lacelede's Landing, which, again, is right around the corner from my place and I will probably hear activities from my apartment. The Muddy Blues Festival goes Friday to Sunday or Monday and I expect there will be Blues singers and bands all weekend long. This is an annual event in St. Louis, but it will be my first time ever attending. So, the plan is to get two chapters a day revised in the morning and the afternoon, then spend the rest of the day hanging out. Well, at least two days. We'll see if I can do it.

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I made another must-do list for the things I let get behind and spent all morning carrying them out. A lot of little tasks, but a mini break from writing. I actually got outside to walk to the post office and stop at the local Starbucks to get a refill on ground coffee.

Then I watched TV (kinda hard not to now) as I went through my character sketches. I wanted to go through each character and revise to fit what they had become and what new habits that had come about in the story. I tend to get very detailed in my character sketches. I include background information like who their parents were, what they did and where they came from. Who their brothers and sisters are. I outline the usual physical attributes (height, weight, shape, hair/eye color, imperfections, age, birthday, sign, etc.) as well as their personality and preferences (personality traits, habits, musical tastes, hobbies, books they read, etc.). Other stuff like marital status, education, employment history, any funny little quirks they have or phrases they use.. I also sketch their issue in this story, their perspective, their goals and desires, their greatest fears, and their motivations. Then I sum it all up around the current issue by writing a paragraph on their upbringing and how that affects their issues in this story.

So, I fill out this form for all the main characters (Excel spreadsheet). I also do a sketch on the minor characters, but not nearly to this detail. Then, as I'm writing in each chapter, for the characters in the scene, I constantly review their characters sketch to see how they react, what they might say, how they feel about whatever it is that's going on, how they try to come across and how they actually come across, etc. I only have to keep referring to the sketches in the first few chapters. It seems like after that, they come so alive that they just do what they do.

In addition to all of this, I make a story sketch too (theme, conflicts, setting information, etc.) and refer to it periodically while writing and revising.

All right. Time to get to revising chapters one and two! :-) It's going to be a long day.

And I accidentally left my cell phone on yesterday and picked up a call from a friend, who, as usual, began chewing me out for not calling--even though I've made friends aware of my deadline and I will be in touch after I meet it--say that "you don't write ALL day. You gotta eat. You can call me then." True, I gotta eat. But when I eat, I wanna eat. Not talk. Then it's "You can take 2 minutes to talk to me." When I point out that all my friends say this, they all will reply, "I'm not talking about everybody else, just me." So argument ensues (I have no idea why I'm arguing) and the conversation ends on a negative note of the friend saying, "Well, FINE. I'll tell you what then. Why don't you just call me when you're done writing the book?!"

I guess they feel better with it coming from them because that's what I've been saying since I started the book. In any respect, this is why the cell phone remains off. LOL

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IT'S DONE!!!!!

The first draft is done! Let's celebrate! Everyone, get a 40 and join me in a toast! But make it Michelob Ultra to cut carbs. And don't forget to pour some out on the curb in a moment of silence for the characters that didn't make it. They were beautiful people. Just caught up in the wrong story at the wrong time.

Ah, a major milestone has been reached, but it's not over. Today, I'm going to go over all the character sketches and revise. A lot of them have just gotten out of hand. They created their own personalities. Then, tomorrow, I'll refer to these character sketches as I take two chapters a day and revise. I expect to be done about September 10th. Maybe a day or 2 for last minute additions/changes, then it's off to the editor by the September 14th deadline! Yea!




I try to stick to the topic of writing on my blog, but some things you can't bypass. Even though I don't have relatives in the areas where Katrina hit hard, my heart goes out to all. I do know of another author and his family in New Orleans that safely made it to Houston and are still there now. I'm watching the reports on TV and it's truly devastating and many will not have homes to go back to. I know you are already, but please, continue to join me in a prayer for lives in that area.

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Here we go now. One more chapter to go and the first draft is done!

I forgot to mention last week... If you're a member of Black Expressions Book Club, check me out on page 7 of the September catalogue. Author Lexi Davis emailed me to let me know about my feature. Yes, I'm eagerly awaiting my catalogue in the mail. But she tells me there a picture of me (I'll smile when I get the braces off in a few weeks), a mini-bio, a blurb, and a small excerpt. I can't wait to check it out myself. Anyway, the hardcover of Counting Raindrops is being sold exclusively through Black Expressions.

All right. I'm eager to get started on the last chapter, so let me get to it. :-)

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Only two more chapters to go to the completion of the first draft!!! On schedule and rolling!

So, last night, I was in the umptieth day of seclusion, tired, but still finishing up the daily chapter. Then, *ding*, I get an email. Barely having enough energy to click from my Word Document to email (okay, maybe that's the little drama queen coming out in me), I opened email to find this message from Kim J., a reader in Memphis:



Hi Cherlyn, I received a copy of your book at a book signing with Carl Webber and Alisha Yvonne back in February. It was several of us reading it at the office and girl it was off the hook! I am friends with Alisha and Sherita the president of R.A.W. Sista of Memphis. I am president of Unique Women Social Club and we are reading it now which will be twice for me. I will be at your book signing when you come to Memphis.
Thanks and keep on writing.




Immediately, I felt invigorated. Energized. Touched. It's simple messages like these that you get out of nowhere, at any given time, that pumps you up and encourage you to keep following your dreams. They're soooooo much better than emails that say, "your writing sucks. Give it up and do us all a favor and die." Now, thank goodness, I haven't received that email YET but I'm bracing myself. I know it's coming because from what I've seen I think every author gets at least one. Even the best authors.

But in the meantime, after I got this email from Kim, with newfound energy, I returned to my Word Document and finished chapter 18 out of 20 of book two! Thanks Kim!

For Friday's winners, I hope you all enjoy it just as much!

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AND THE WINNERS ARE....

Okay, first let me give the numbers I wrote down and the reasons behind them:

I preselected #1 because although I am grateful to all who are interested, the first person to say so always makes you feel good. :-)

I also preselected #11 because I wanted a double digit winner, and possibly someone who would post on Friday so I could have a Thursday and a Friday winner, but I didn't want to go too high, just in case I didn't get that many posts. (whew!)


But, in seeing the response, I wanted to throw in another winner. Problem was, I couldn't just pick because there were too many people that I knew, who've been so suppportive, who's blogs I've read, etc. So, I came up with a simple method to select another winner. I took the total number of posts, divided seven (number of days in the week), took the cubed root (in honor of cubed steaks), then raised it to the fifth power (for the 5th Dimension), integrated from zero to one, then ADDED the number of dollars I made as a self-published author. Unfortunately, this left me with a negative number. So, I scratched all that.

Then I cut up pieces of paper with the numbers 1 - 21 (well, minus the previous winners), and pulled. Out came the number 20.

So, will the following posters please send your mailling address to cherlyn@cherlynmichaels.com:

TJBrown
AlwayzLovely
LadyLee

CONGRATULATIONS!!!


This was fun! I love giving away stuff. Why, if I was Oprah, I, too would...wait. Don't let me get to lying....
But, I'm going to have to do this again sometime soon! :-)

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Another chaper down. Yea! Five more to go. Should complete the first draft by Monday, if not before. :-)

Another mail surprise! I got a box of my books in the mail yesterday. How cool! I get to use these to hand out for reviews, promotions, and.....CONTESTS!!!

And I'm so excited. So, I think what this here blog needs is a contest so I can give away a couple of books!

Oh, but what to do, what to do?

Hey, I know! Okay, I'm thinking of a number. No, two numbers. I'm even writing them down. (See----->scribble, scribble.)
Now, if you'd like a copy of this new release, just post a comment and let me know. The winners of the books will be the posters that correspond to the number that I've written. For example, if I was thinking of numbers #1 and #2, then the first and second poster would win the books! Cut off point is going to be midnight Friday, Aug. 27th. Good Luck!

(Lawd, please let someone post!) LOL

All right. I'll be back here Friday!

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Moving right along! Finished another chapter yesterday.

I'm suffering a little bit because I finally went back to the gym yesterday. I know a couple of weeks ago I said I was going to get back on track, but I failed to do so at that time. So now, 2 weeks later, I went back and even after just two weeks I have that oh-not-so-in-shape-feeling. The only way to get beyond this is to keep on going. I know because I've been here too many times before, sad to say. But hey, I accidentally confided in my gym-mate that I was going to start working on those 10 - 15 pounds on September 1st. She guilted me into starting today. I don't know how that happened.

So, I got my promotional cards that I ordered in the mail yesterday. I've learned from the first time around. Instead of bookmarks and large postcards, what I found to be the most effective was little promotional cards the size of business cards. These are great to hand out on the street, at meetings, or wherever. They're also great for slipping in between book and magazines pages at bookstores, drugstores, and libraries (did I say that?!). I've already started a list of promotional activities with dates. This list consists of downtown lunch runs (selecting various locations to introduce myself and pass out cards at lunch hot spots), mall lunch runs, bookstores and other stores, free newspapers, ladies restrooms around town, and anyone I happen to cross paths with at anytime. I'm also planning on doing mailings.

As a new and unknown writer, you gotta do what you gotta do to make people aware that you and your book exist. It's a lot of work, but hey, somebody's got to do it (and that somebody is you.) ;-)

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Okay, I don't know whether to say I met yesterday's goal or not. Here's the deal. All of my chapters currently are running between 3K and 3.5K words. In yesterday's chapter, I got to an end of a scene at 3.2K words. I look at what I had remaining for that chapter and thought it would be best to create another chapter because I estimate another 3K words to write it. In the second draft, I'll go over it again and break chapters more appropriately, but they're broken up write know for easier writing purposes. So, essentially, this adds another chapter for me. Which could be more words. I don't know. I'm just going to get to the end of the first draft in seven days and see what's what.

As a new writer, I'm like a baby just discovering my fingers and toes. As I'm writing this book, I'm paying attention to the way I write, my preferred writing environment, how I write scenes, etc. I've noticed some pretty quirky things about me when it comes to writing.

Like, I can't write in total silence. Silence it "too loud" and I can't concentrate. I prefer to have background voices (TV, people) going on.

I prefer to write by outline. I've heard of authors who just start with a blank page and no outline and just go at it. Okay, I'm in awe of that. They don't know what's going to happen to whom or anything until they actually write it. Now, with an outline, things always change. Some new things/people are added, some characters turn out to be not important at all and are unceremoniously dismissed, some people's personalities changed from the ones I outlined for them. I can handle that, because I have a path. I think I'd have writer's block on page one if I tried to write from a blank slate.

The funny thing that I really noticed just yesterday is that I actually do put myself in each character to write the scene. It's almost like I'm possessed. You know, like in the movie Ghost when Patrick enters Whoopi Goldberg and takes over her body to talk to Demi (I don't remember character names)? And I feel their emotion and record what they're feeling, what they say, and what they do. But I REALLY feel their emotion. For any high intense emotion (anger, excitement,...) my body goes through the feelings: my jaws tighten, my body tenses, I'll type very fast, my heartbeat quickens. If it's a mellow emotion (sadness, sensual,...) my body becomes very relaxed, and my eyelids droop.

I was typing an argument scene last night and when I had stopped, I was breathing hard; my jaw was hurting because I was clenching my teeth together for so long, and my heart was racing. You know, it's probably best that I do write in seclusion. I could only imagine having a male friend next to me while writing and I'm in the throes of the scene and he says something to me and I just reach over and slap him because I'm feeling that emotion at the time. LOL It's just that real.

Well, that would teach him to bother me while I'm writing. Bet he wouldn't do it again. LOL

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Back on track! Yesterday, I finished up the half-chapter that I skipped out on to go to the Expo. PLUS, I wrote the next chapter. So, I'm still on pace for finishing in eight more days. Let the countdown begin! And I have to admit, Jill Shalvis provided me with additional motivation. She's trying to finish her manuscript in eight days too, so she offered to race me. I'm a girl that loves challenges. :-) (Hmmm....maybe that's what I need to do. Have somebody challenge me to lose these last 10 pounds and...hmmm.....). I ended up not leaving my apartment at all yesterday so I could catch up.

I just shot my editor an email too because I'm worried about word count. I have a minimum of 65,000, which I'm going to have no problem meeting. I'm actually getting worried about going over a maximum! If there is one. At the rate I'm going, I'm going to meet the minimum with the first draft. When I revise, there's going to be more words added because right now, I'm just laying plot and dialogue. There's very little description or narrative. I don't expect it to be a saga. I think Counting Raindrops was maybe 80K - 85K and 302 printed pages. Well, I'm just glad I'm worrying about a maximum rather than trying to come up with words to meet a minimum. Before editing, I'm a very wordy writer. Not sure if I'll ever have a problem meeting a minimum.

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Let the beatings commence.

I played hooky and went to the Missouri Black Expo yesterday and I only got half a chapter written for the day. The pressure was just too much! Apparently, the entire city is conspiring against me and taunting me this weekend, just because they all knew that I would be stuck inside writing. So what do they do? They bring an entire concert series for the weekend and put it on the levee, which is like right around the corner. And to rub salt in the wound, the end it off with like a twenty minute fireworks that I can't help but hear and feel because it's like an earthquake, every night.

Then there are the baseball games. First Arizona, and now the New York.

Then there's the Missouri Black Expo. I always know a few of my book friends are going to be there, book storeowners, and readers that I could promote to (salivating at the thought). The Hip Hop Summit was there as well.

Well, it all got to be too much for me. More than my guts could fathom. I left my laptop with a half written chapter, promising it that I would just take a small break and that I'd be back to finish up. Then I got on the other side of the door and thought, "Sucker!" as if I had told one of my high school teachers I was going to the bathroom, then proceeded to head out the front doors and to the streets (not to say that I've ever done this before. Okay, maybe once. But it was with friends, so I was heavily influenced and under duress.).

So I went and talked to fellow St. Louis author Brenda Hampton and one of her authors. Also saw Tia Dionne and Anthony Carr, authors from Chicago. Of course I saw and chatted with a few literary supporters in the area. Met the publisher of Who's Who in Black St. Louis (networked, of course, so that I could be included in the next edition). Then I sat in on two panels with the discussion topic "Black America Today." Omar Tyree sat on the second panel.

Although I didn't attend, one thing that really impressed me was the Hip Hop "Financial Matters" panel (not the exact name). The panel included Russell Simmons, local hip-hop artists Nelly and Chingy, and a few others. The were able to bring out 4,000 young people to discuss personal finance. They gave these kids workbooks and taught them about balancing accounts, saving, investing, their credit and FICO scores, how to buy a house, and more. They were teaching these kids what to do with their money when they obtained money. I just thought that was the greatest thing. It's great to see the hip hop artists using their power over the young people to teach them something that's going to make their lives better. And just seeing all those kids... It was such a beautiful thing.

Okay, the goal today is to finish the half of chapter from yesterday, plus another chapter. The countdown is on. I should be finished with the first draft in nine days.

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I've been tagged! Blog tagged!

AND I'M TAGGING:
LINDA DOMINIQUE GROSVENOR
LEAH MULLEN
MARCUS HARRIS
FREDERICK SMITH

Okay, this sounds like fun. And this saves you from the whining post that I was going to write this morning. The one about everything that's going on here this weekend in the downtown St. Louis area. EVERYTHING THAT I'M MISSING!!!! as I sit here and tap out the second book. Stuff like baseball, concerts on the levee, Nelly, MO Black Expo. It was going to be a doozy. So, you're spared. Until tomorrow. :-)

So, the way this tag thing works is that I list the 10 songs I've been listening to. Well, easy, and not so easy. Easy, because I load songs onto my PC and have them on continuous play all the time. Not so easy because I have in rotation about four CD, so that's about 50 or so songs. So, being the creative engineering nut case that I am, what I'm going to do is list the top 10 songs from these four CDs in rotation that make me stop, breathe in deeply, sway (because I can't dance), or just take me to a whole 'nother level. (Pretty clever idea, huh? Thought of that all by myself). Okay, so here it goes:


1. I Want You - Erykah Badu
2. Think Twice - Erykah Badu
3. The C