News and Notes from the Writing Desk: September Edition

 The year is going by fast--but then again, it's dragging on pretty slowly too. I'm in one of those moods this week where I feel like I have to get thirty things done all at the same time, which always leads to nothing really getting done. So what have I been doing? It's a varied list. 

To Medium or Not to Medium

While I've been slightly obsessing over my stats on Medium, I know that there's a lot that goes into the decision to publish specific pieces on Medium. While I want to write fresh stuff, I still have a vast backlog of things that I would love to get out there. The question is: should I post on Medium or keep submitting to lit journals? It's not an easy question, and there's no right answer for any and all of these pieces. While lit journals rarely pay, they do get the work in front of people who have a specific appreciation for writing. However, if I publish something on Medium, there is a chance of getting paid for it. Then again, with low views/reads on most of my work, I'm not provided with reader insights that can help me tailor my work to my audience. 

Like I said, not any easy question to answer. I occasionally get discouraged, especially when I know I have a good piece. I just don't know where it belongs, and I don't know how tightly I should hold onto it to make sure it finds the right home and the right audience at the right time. 

Intense Publication Research

Since I have so many pieces without a home, I'm back to scouring all my emails for places to submit. I'm finding it harder and harder to avoid journals with reading fees, but there are still quite a few out there that I haven't submitted to yet. I've also looked into Medium publications, and those are all looking pretty good to me right now. There are plenty of options and I know that these publications could lead to bigger and better things on the platform. The only issue with all the list-making is that I have to not bury this list in my desk. I have to plot, plan, and take action. 

Considering Long-Form Options

Although I haven't been that focused on longer works, I do need to get back to those novels. I'm considering which one I want to work on next. I could take the easy route and start from something that only has a few chapters, or I could tackle ones that are in the depths of revision. I could start completely from scratch. With the way my days and weeks are structured now, I don't know if NaNoWriMo will be an option this year. Too many things are pulling me in different directions, which leaves little time for the writing that comes after both the writing for work and the short-form writing for career advancement. If I get a few more short pieces out of the way, maybe I could make room for the long stuff. But as it happens to everyone, you plan, plan, plan and the world laughs in your face. 

That Bullet Journal Thing

I started a sort of practice bullet journal in just a small, regular notebook turned sideways, because, you know, lefty here. I'm not a huge fan of it right now, but that's why I'm practicing so the 2021 journal comes out pretty and I keep the process fun. That, and I'm not about to jump right in with the more-expensive journal options. 

NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 2

I don't want to take up a lot of my writing time working on this, so let's just say I'm still in the game. I am totally a lap behind the rest of the pack, but I'm still in it, I'm still working on it. If you haven't been following the daily posts on Patreon (and why not?), here are the posts from the past week:

Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14

Now I'm getting back at it. 50k in the near future? Maybe!


*A Freelancer's sidenote: What's up with all the follows on Medium? On the surface, that's great. I thought I suddenly had a hot title there. Nope. Three follows in two days, zero article views. I see your game. No follow backs from this gal. 

News and Notes from the Writing Desk: March Edition

It's getting quite busy over here. There are a lot of projects in the air, and I'm trying to give equal time to it all before my mind decides it wants to go off and create something new.

If It Was New York, Summer 2009

The preorder is good to go--I have nothing left to do but promote it. I still have to work on the cover for the print edition, but other than that, it's just getting you to buy. And you want to buy it. Of course, you could also jump on the Patreon bandwagon and get it before anyone else... just think about it. 

In Another Life

I've dug this out of the huge virtual pile. Before opening the first file, I looked and noticed that I haven't opened and changed anything on the file for two and a half years. Yeah, that's the pace I'm going with this one.

I'm also kicking myself a bit because when I started this one, I thought it would be so much better to have a different file for every chapter. I was insane. I'm starting this revision process by simply putting it all together into one file like the Book Gods intended. Once that is finished, I have to pump up the action and intrigue, otherwise this title falls a little flat.

Short Stories

There has been no progress on this aspect. I would love to sit down and write a whole short story every day, but many of my ideas are not fully formulated, and those that are, I already wrote half the story and forgot where I was heading. That's a whole twisted ball of yarn to figure out in itself. I'll try to get one out of my head this weekend and see what it looks like.

Camp NaNo

I'm starting to get emails from Camp NaNo, and I'm not sure whether I want to participate this year or not. I know I could dig up something to concentrate on fully, I just don't know what that is yet. Maybe something else from that list I made...

I have a lot of writing to do. Let's get to it!

NaNoWriMo 2018 Has Begun

It's the start of the craziest month of the year for writers. I'm glad that I'm finally able to release the title and the cover of my project! You can find it on my project page, and I'll be updating my Books tab in the coming days... you know, when I want a distraction from writing.

I started my novel... two months ago... (still counts!)

I'm also keeping a daily log reflecting on the writing process throughout the month of November. I'll be releasing those exclusively on Patreon, so if you are ready to join in on the fun, sign up and get a glimpse into every plot twist, procrastination, and hangnail. Lots of fun to be had!

Are you entering the depths of a NaNo project this year?

Just A Week Away

November is Coming...

NaNoWriMo is almost here! I can't wait to try and finish my project. It's not going to be easy, but I think I will be able to carve enough time out of each day to get things rolling. That, and I'm excited that the title and the cover will finally be revealed to everyone. Watch my NaNo novel page to see when it happens.

I also want to keep everyone updated on how I'm doing, so this year I'm going to try and keep a daily log. I've tried updates in the past like this, so I don't know how it will go, but I'm going to make the daily logs exclusive to Patreon, so there's another awesome thing you have to look forward to if you sign up now.

A Note on Fiverr Freelancing

Even though there is so much to do for November, I still have to also split my time with the day job, though that load has lightened a bit. As of midday yesterday, I'm no longer taking new work on Fiverr. All of my gigs have been paused. It's unfortunate that I have to do this, but I got scammed twice within the span of a couple of hours. By scammed I don't mean anything as serious as stolen personal information, but I was scammed in that I did the work, then the customer turns around and says it wasn't what I portrayed in my gig description (it was VERY clear, by the way, and to the dozens of others who have successfully ordered it). They got out of paying me while probably running around using what I wrote for them. This does nothing to the customer on the Fiverr platform. To me, it dropped some of my stats below the level I need to maintain for Level 1 status, which means on November 14th, I will lose that status. Again. And for the second time, this demotion wasn't something I did--except, you know, trust that a customer was serious about the job. I get it. Fiverr protects buyers over sellers because without any buyers, they make $0. It still sucks.

I know that pushing through it would be the best choice because I've developed quite a few repeat customers who love the work I provide. I am sorry for them, but I know they'll go off and find someone else to fill my place if it's that urgently needed. For my sanity, I have to take a step back. I was already so frustrated with many of the one-time customers I had because they were asking for things I just didn't provide, and it was always a long back and forth that was not worth a whopping three bucks and change. And sometimes if it was small, I gave in, which made me feel worse because I knew that had this been a gig extra, I could have charged $5 extra for every one of those jobs (assuming, of course, that they would have agreed to pay for the extra). I know I shouldn't admit this, but I'm terrible at upselling.

If only Fiverr had a platform where I as the expert in the situation would be able to pick and choose who I work with instead of any old yahoo who pressed the order button, it would be a lot different. I like working for myself, but right now Fiverr is like working for a terrible employer who doesn't even have to bother to pay benefits, yet takes from all its employees. The 20% cut per gig is one thing, but plenty of my customers have given me generous tips, and guess what? Fiverr took 20% of those, too.

There's no set return date for me on that platform. If I truly want to have a good holiday season (minus the income I was bringing in), I don't see myself coming back before January. I probably should rewrite my gig descriptions and be that jerk that I hate to be, but as I've noticed with most of these orders, people read just about as well as they listen, which is not much at all. My gigs weren't saving the world, so I'm sure the world will keep turning without them.

The plus side? I get to work that much more on my poetry project and my NaNo project. That's a big plus for me, so I'm still smiling. See you in November!

New Poetry Project

This is one of those weeks where I just can't sit still. I know that I have tons of half-completed projects, but a new one seems to have pushed its way to the front of the line. It's a poetry project that's contained under a very specific theme. I only have two pieces written, but it looks like its heading for something that is chapbook length. It may expand to a full manuscript, but for now, I'm only concentrating on what ideas I've already come up with.

I'm also getting back on the submission cycle. Although there is one publication that I've submitted to twice already (one regular submission, one contest), it is now the one thing I want to conquer. I know that sending in poetry to a single publication more than once is just asking for rejection, but I'm still convinced that I know what they like, and I have pieces that they'll eventually publish. The key is in finding the right combination of pieces for my next submission. One of the publication's upcoming themes is Persona, and I have a stack of poems that meet this theme (from an unpublished manuscript entitled Personas, if you can believe it), so I should have something good that they haven't seen--or they have, just as a single page in a chapbook entry.

There are also a few other places where I'm looking to submit, including places that produce broadsides, which I've always loved. 

Outside of the poetry world, I'm almost finished with chapter five of Love Bites the Big Apple, I've been working on getting the diamond thief novel to a place where I can start revising it, and I've been thinking about putting together an editorial calendar for myself, but that seems like an impossible task at the moment.

That's what's on my desk right now. What are you working on?

PS: My Melody of Love novella series won't be around much longer! Make sure to pick up your copies from Amazon before they disappear.

Tis the Season for NaNo

NaNoWriMo, Day 1:

This is what you would call a better-than-nothing start to NaNoWriMo 2016.

But all is not lost. I caught up on yesterday's word count this morning and intend to add some each day until I totally crush this contest. As you can clearly see, the first week enthusiasm as not worn off yet. Don't worry. It will.

I can also say congrats, international readers! You now have another option for buying my novel Seeing What Develops. It's now available for purchase at Kobo and more options will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks.

And I know what you're thinking--where's your traditional Year One post about Seeing What Develops? I didn't forget about the post--just haven't finished it yet. I'll get it to you soon.

Off to more writing adventures...

Writing Off Write On

The time has come to let the dream die--Write On was not all that it was cracked up to be. I thought that I had found something that would help out with some significant gaps in my writing process, but it all ended up just being a big headache.

Write On, for those who don't know, is platform where you can upload your work-in-progress or completed project to get feedback from other members. I've tried it with two different projects and the results were less than thrilling. Is it a beta read site? Not really. Is it more of an online critique group? Not quite. Is it more like Wattpad, offering your completed work for free to build an audience? No. Definitely not.

Before publishing it last year, I put up my novel Seeing What Develops. I initially thought Write On was geared more towards the beta reading aspect of writing: users would take my almost completed project, tell me what's still not working, and I could go from there to complete a final round of revisions. While there was some interest, the comments were more of a "I like it" aspect without any suggestions. And once I put up the final chapter and marked it complete, it only received about 58 reads--and it's unclear whether those reads were counting the whole project or counting every time someone read a chapter.

So it wasn't for beta reading. This year I put up In Another Life to see if users would be more helpful earlier in the writing process. This project was two revisions in (I usually do 4+ before I think it's ready to go) and so far, I've had one helpful comment. But this time around, Write On has more options to provide information to the reader. You can choose to label your project as Drafting, Revising, or Complete. I left it on drafting for some reason. I don't know why, even though I was definitely in the revising stage.

The site isn't for early-stage critiques, either.

I guess the issue with this site is that most of the users are writers, not readers, unlike Wattpad where there's a more even mix of readers and writers. And the biggest problem with writers? We have egos when it comes to time management. Example:

"Oh, I would love for all these people to read my story. But I'm not going to bother with theirs. I don't have time to read something that isn't finished yet."

I'm not criticizing anyone--I've had these thoughts too. So if the site has something like 80% writers on it, then you're probably getting upwards of 60% with this mindset.

I don't like how the site works for my projects, but there are authors who've found success, like one author who only put up the first 5000 words of her novel, then took the critique of that and used it to build her Kindle Scout campaign (and won a contract). Let's just say that might have been my own intention, but again, it's not working for me personally. What I failed to realize from trying to mimic this situation is that she brought an audience with her. I was trying to use this resource to build one.

I haven't tried a fully formed, finished project upload to compare it to Wattpad. But I don't think I'll bother. Aside from the lack of enthusiasm I fail to generate, I also realized that my novel was 20k short of a standard-size novel, which means a massive rewrite or combining book one and book two (which I know at first draft is only 25k). Nowhere near ready for the plans I had for it.

I need to find something that's more helpful in shaping my writing to be the best it can be, which is probably building a small beta reading group just for myself. Of course I'll have to build twelve separate groups because I hate writing in just one genre, but whatever. As long as the story gets what it needs, it's worth it.

Race to the Halfway Point

I have a few days left to finish up my Camp NaNoWriMo project, but my eyes are not on the 50k prize. I'm aiming to get a solid 25k out of this month. It's not a huge deal for me if I don't make it to 50k. I know that the story will get there, just not in this short of a time frame. Now if this was November, I might be a little upset that I didn't make it. After all, the bragging rights alone are something you can bring up year-round whenever people say to you, "So you're a writer? That must be a pretty easy job." Ugh. Go away, you people! (you know who you are)

I wanted to get everything straightened out writing-wise so that I could maybe, possibly find a way to get out of town for a few days in August. Then I laughed at myself for even having such a thought. But no vacation is good news for anyone following In Another Life. I posted a couple new chapters over the weekend, and I'm expecting to have the rest of it up over the next two weeks. I'm still not sure whether I want to hold back the ending or not, but it seems on WriteOn that fewer people read works in progress than those labeled completed. I get it--I was reading things on there, following along, and tons of writers only put up a couple of chapters then pull the whole thing. It can be frustrating.

Since I totally went bananas requesting titles through NetGalley and Penguin, I'm going to go read for awhile. One book down, only ten more to go. ;-)

The Next Chapter is Live

For weeks I've been trying to get more chapters up of In Another Life. Yesterday I finally succeeded in getting one new chapter out there. But guess what? That was just the start. I spent Sunday evening going through all of the edits I did on paper months ago. I updated the chapters with the changes, changed some more things around after that and now they are ready for your eyes. I'll be uploading new chapters over the next couple of days. As always, feel free to let me know what works and what doesn't.

NaNoWriMo 2015: DAY 3

I love how much I hate my characters.

(This sentence made sense in my head.)

What I mean is that my characters are deeply, deeply flawed. They are the type of people that if I had to meet them in real life, I'd be pleasant to their faces (that's just my Midwestern way), but I would definitely wonder what the hell was wrong with them. I'm not even through introducing all six of them yet and they are so scattered, disillusioned, defeatist and more that it's exciting to keep writing. Although I have an outline, I'm really not sure where these characters are going next.

I do know that even though they are broken now, they all have room to grow--if I let them. *evil cackling*

Seeing What Develops is Coming -- PreOrder Your Copy!

It's been nearly a year in the making, and the release date for Seeing What Develops is finally here! The book will be released on October 15th. Pre-orders for the Kindle book start TODAY, and the paperback version will be available by the 15th. And don't forget to to add it to your Goodreads shelf!

I wouldn't be here on the brink of the release of my first full-length novel without the place where it all started--National Novel Writing Month. It was November 2014 when I took this short idea I had scribbled on a piece of paper and just ran with it. I didn't stop until I hit 50,000 words. Not only was this a product of NaNoWriMo, it also gave me my first NaNoWriMo win. Seeing it in print only makes it feel like every grasp for a word, every edit of repetitious phrases and every hour spent glaring at a computer screen to get here was worth it.

And this is just the beginning. I have many more writing projects in the pipeline, so I know that I'll be busy throughout the final months of 2015 and into 2016. This year's NaNoWriMo is coming up too and I have a doozy of an idea for it. If all goes according to plan, I'll have the first draft of the next Great American Novel by December 1st. Maybe. ;-) 

I hope you continue to join me on my journey!

The Cover Reveal: Seeing What Develops #novel #coverreveal

Here you go. Let me know what you think!

Win a Copy of Melody of Love #bookgiveaway

This week's blog post will be short and simple. I'm hard at work on the second round of revisions for the novel, which up until now has been known as my 2014 NaNoWriMo project. Today I can start calling it by its official title: Seeing What Develops. Lots of little details are being worked on too, such as the blurb, the cover and getting it all ready to be uploaded to WriteOn.

While all that is going on, I thought I would treat everyone to a chance at winning their very own ebook copy of Melody of Love. You can enter below. Good Luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Kindle Scout and Write On -- Can These Programs Help Indie Authors?

I pose the question in the title of this post for purely selfish reasons. I have two novels deep into the revision process and if I want to use Kindle Scout or Write On for either of them, now is the time to decide.

Kindle Scout
If you aren't familiar with either of these programs offered by Amazon to authors, here's what I know about them. Kindle Scout is is program where you can submit your manuscript (with cover art and all that other good stuff) and have a 30-day campaign to see if readers are responding to your book synopsis and cover. They nominate the ones they want to see published and at the end of the campaign, a select number of books are chosen by the Kindle Scout team to be given a publishing contract with Kindle Press. The terms include a 5-year renewable contract, a $1500 advance, an ebook royalty rate of 50% and marketing through Amazon. Sounds amazing, right?

There are plenty of drawbacks to this program too. First, if you have a huge following, you can get a ton of your peeps to nominate your book whether it's good or not. Although getting the most nominations doesn't guarantee publishing, it could sway the Powers That Be of it's potential sales. Then, you have to write to specific categories listed. They currently don't have categories beyond their bestsellers, such as romance, suspense and thriller.

Getting deeper into the guidelines and agreements, you have to give up exclusive rights to consider your manuscript for 45 days. And if chosen for a contract, Amazon has the discretion to shop the rights for foreign language translations, third-party licensing, any rebranded version of ebook and audiobook of your work, and other control you may not have known you had with your manuscript. The details provide a range of royalty rates that will be provided by Amazon for these other editions, but the terms of what they can do with these are not negotiable.

The biggest potential for any author considering this is probably the promise of Amazon marketing and promotion. Reading the fine print, your book may be eligible for this type of marketing, but nothing is guaranteed. Another part of this process that isn't getting quite as much hype is that if your manuscript is chosen, the Kindle Scout team does work with authors on editing to get the manuscript as great as it can be.

I've read plenty of first-hand accounts of the Kindle Scout process, and I think that the first book of my trilogy In Another Life would have the best shot at winning a publishing contract. And even though it seems small, that $1500 advance would go a long way in getting me back on track (and convince people that getting paid for writing does happen). I'm just not sure that I could rally a large enough group to nominate the book without totally spamming my social media accounts.

WriteOn
WriteOn is a bit different. I actually didn't know anything about this program until I received an email last week, although the program has apparently been around for a few months. The email was very short and kind of just said, "Hey, try this out." I looked and saw something that I've definitely seen before. WriteOn by Kindle looks a lot like Wattpad, however, it is a program that serves a different purpose. WriteOn is a place where you can essentially have a virtual writing workshop, but instead of trying to get feedback from other writers, you are getting feedback directly from readers. With Wattpad, what I have experienced is that people just want their stories read, not necessarily any criticism, no matter how helpful it may be. But to be fair, I don't spend a lot of time on Wattpad, so I may be wrong about that.

In theory, this is great--readers and writers are getting together to make the stories better. In practice, I still have a hard time showing what I think isn't my best work to a bunch of strangers to make it better. I also have a problem with anyone going to the site and being able to read it. Yes, there are protections in place so no one can copy it, but only the ability to comment requires a username and password. I do agree with this blog post that assigning the ASIN before publishing and connecting this service to Goodreads would make it much more helpful for writers and more accessible for readers.

I thought my currently untitled chick-lit novel that I'm revising would work well for this service. I still don't have much of a beta reader list, and this could be a great way to get feedback on the areas where I think a good beta reader could help. However, getting people to read it and give it well thought out feedback might be an uphill battle, especially since it still isn't a popular service.

As much as indie authors don't want to admit it, Amazon rules our world whether we use their services and programs or not. That is why I'm seriously considering trying both of these out because with my current book sales and promotional marketing efforts, what do I have to lose?

Have you tried either of these services? Would you put your novel to the test on either platform? 

It's Starting to Fall into Place

I've struck gold! Okay, not really. What I have discovered are resources for people who write scripts and don't either a) currently live in Los Angeles (though I'm totally not opposed to moving there) or b) have industry connections. So I've been putting effort into using these to network and figure out what I have to do to sell a script.

I joined Stage 32 which is a social media network for industry novices and professionals. I created a profile on ShowBizCentral, though I think that will be beneficial only once I have some writing credits to my name. I've also signed up at InkTip, but I don't think I'm ready to pay for people to look at my work. Thought I was lucky when they said you can post short script loglines for free, however I would have to pay anywhere from $20-$55 each to get the scripts registered first as per the terms of the site. I guess I'll just have to save up a few bucks for that.

Things are finally starting to fall into place. I'm still not where I need to be, but I have resources for my scriptwriting endeavors, two novels in the middle of editing, and a brain that just won't stop generating new ideas. I'm pretty lucky right now. The only two things that would make it better is a steady paycheck and a new address, but that should come in time.

Onto The Next Project

Yesterday I spend some time looking at half written manuscripts and first drafts. Guess what? There was something in the pile that didn't make me reconsider my whole career as a writer. The gem I'm talking about was last year's NaNoWriMo project--the only NaNoWriMo session I have completed so far (not counting the camps or the dearly departed Script Frenzy, of course).

Before I could change my mind, I put the project on the top of my revision list. It's getting the full I-love-you-I-hate-you-I-wish-you-would-die editing and revision process, and hopefully you'll be able to read it soon. I would love to tell you what the title is, but that's one of my major hurdles on this project. There's no title. There's already half of a cover design, but still no title. Yes, if you stalk my NaNoWriMo profile page there was a tentative title, but it sucks. Big time. However, if you are itching to get your hands on something, I can slip you a short synopsis. Ready?

Lindley Neil knows nothing but her small town. When her job as a photographer's assistant takes her Los Angeles and New York, Lindley is having the time of her life. She also meets a handsome man in each city who are both falling for her. Love is in the air, but which one will she choose?

Yes, clearly the synopsis needs revamped too, but I'm working on it.

It's really nice to have clearly defined goals. I'm glad I have one to concentrate on. 

It's Not Over #CampNaNoWriMo

I met my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo this weekend! It's a good thing, too because I woke up this morning in one of those moods that's not particularly good for getting a lot of writing done.

Anyway, it was a goal of 25k which is really only half a novel. And I technically ended up with a whole novel because that's where the draft came to a natural end. Book #2 of the trilogy has a drastically short first draft, but that's just the way I tend to write. Most writers suffer from overwriting. I suffer from underwriting. Oh well... it's nothing I can't fix during the revision process.

And I'm not done yet. Since April isn't over and I still have a third book to write, I started right in on it yesterday. This one has a much longer, more detailed outline so I should be able to get a full-length draft out of it.

Oh, and don't forget to help support NaNoWriMo and all the great things it does for writers by visiting my donation page. You still have plenty of time to contribute!

Starting the New Year Off Right

Some days it just hits me. There are so many ideas in my brain that they can't be contained any longer. Since the 1st I have written half of a short story, a new novel outline and I'm about ready to tackle another previously planned novel outline. I also managed to squeeze in a couple hours of revision. A lot is getting done, so I'm way more optimistic about this year than I thought I would be. Write on, people. Write on.

Since this is the first post on TSW of the New Year, it's also time to do a little roundup for those who are just joining us. First, I want to let everyone know that I love connecting with other writers and creative people all over social media. I know everyone has a favorite platform, and some of you already follow me on a few of them. I don't do a whole lot of cross-posting, so if you want to follow all of my accounts, here's a rundown of where I'm at:


Twitter:
My freelance life in 140 characters.

Facebook:
As you can see, a big 2015 goal of mine is to get more Facebook likes so I can access my analytics.

Google+:
I'm here, but not every day.

 

Instagram:
I love photography. Some are weird, some are fun and some are just me. Enjoy.

Tsu:
A relatively new social media site. If you are a writer, artist or musician I definitely recommend signing up. This is a great way to gain exposure and Tsu lets you earn ad revenue share off your posts.

And I may also have a little haiku book out there you may have heard of called Unfolding Life. If you don't already have a copy, check it out.

In the coming year I hope to publish more, so stay tuned of all of that good stuff.

Victory is Mine!! #NaNoWriMo14

Well, I did what I set out to do--I won NaNoWriMo this year! I wasn't too excited when it first happened because it was 6:30 on a Sunday morning. But I caught up to the greatness of my victory after my daily caffeine fix. I'm glad that I was able to do it, and by proving that to myself, I know that I can continue writing for the rest of my life without worrying about taking time away from the money-making process. That's because I realized that 1667 words per day can happen in just three or four 20-minute writing sessions. This does not break the time bank whatsoever. I will now hold myself accountable for at least 1500 per day from now on. No more excuses and no more guilt.

Revisions? Well... those will probably have to be long weekend projects. Once I start that, I usually can't put it down for hours. Today is the only day I'm taking off before revisions start, so I have to get organized and find the best way to do it. I'm not going to revise this year's novel because it's too short of a turnaround. I need to get some space from this project. Instead, I will revise last year's novel. I didn't finish that one in a month, but I did finish it so it will be ready for Phase Two tomorrow.

I'm also celebrating because I saved Amazon gift cards for the past few months (I somehow seem to win a lot of them online...) and was finally able to get a new Kindle Fire HD 7. It came in today, which made it seem like a prize I awarded myself for all of my efforts. I'm a happy camper all around.