It’s day 2 and I’m over at Lisa Hazelton‘s talking about…what else?,,,writing and my new release!! Stop by and take a chance on an Amazon gift card!
Category Archives: Life challenges
#GoddessFishBlogTour day 1
I’m over on Christine Young’s blog today doing a writing interview. Stop by!
More reasons I’m not fit to walk around unattended…
Yesterday I shared my embarrassing shirt backward moment. Here’s today’s equally as mortifying event that happened just yesterday morning.
You all know I go to Planet Fitness because sitting all day and writing will tend to increase the ass size proportionately to the amount of time you sit. I sit 8-10 hours per day. Yeah…My butt has gotten huge these past 2 years!
Anyway. Planet Fitness.
I put all my non-gym stuff in the locker ( purse, phone, glasses), locked the locker with the lock I bring with me – key operated ( no combination because..you know…menopause memory) and proceeded to the gym-proper for an hour. When I was done and I went back into the locker room, for some strange reason my lock wouldn’t open. I swear I grappled with the damn lock and key for 10 minutes, cursing and sweating. I really didn’t want to have to have the staff bolt cut the damn thing open. There were several women in the locker room changing and one asked if she could help. I gave her the key and she couldn’t get the damn thing opened either. She asked if I was sure it was the correct locker. I’m dumb at times but not stupid. Of course it was my locker, I told her. She shrugged and suggested getting the staff to cut it open, that the lock must have somehow broken.
To calm myself down I stepped back and sat down on the bench for a minute to catch my breath and figure out what to do. While I was relaxing ( not!) another gymite came into the room, proceeded to go straight to my locker, stuck in her key, and opened it.
Yeah. I was at the wrong locker. The locks looked identical but my locker was #43. The one I’d been trying to open was # 34.
So let’s add some dyslexia to the list of menopause maladies I now possess.
#FML. For those of you who know what that hastag means, yeah…
When I’m not being stupid you can find me here:
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Filed under Author, Life challenges, Strong Women
On why I need a keeper…or at least a dresser.
True story.
Yesterday, hubman and I went to early Mass. Usually, we go to the 4 pm Mass Saturdays because we both like to relax on Sunday mornings, but this Saturday we were both busy so we missed the 4.
After Mass we’d planned on going to the gym together. When I typically go to the gym, I leave my house in my workout clothes because I don’t like to change in open changing rooms. Body issues come in all ages, folks, even in successful, intelligent, chubby menopausal women.
Anyway.
Since we were going to Mass first, I couldn’t wear my workout clothes. If you are Catholic you know why. If you are not Catholic just accept it as a fact that I couldn’t go in anything other than Church-clothes, and leave it at that.
I wore nice clothes to the Mass and then planned on changing – in the bathroom(!) when we got to the gym.
Here’s the part of this story that tells you the reason for the title.
When I went to take my blouse off in the bathroom at the gym ( body issues, remember?) I realized I had my blouse on backward. The back of it was in the front. How did I know this? The tag was sitting right under my chin line. All during Mass I felt like the shirt was tight, as if it had shrunken in the dryer or something. Nope. Fit is fine. Wearing it backward will make it seem like it’s tight, though, because there is more material in the front for….proturberances ( read, breasts!) and the back is flatter.
Yeah…I know. 57 years old and I can’t dress myself.
Seriously, I need a keeper or at least someone who can dress me appropriately for when I go out in public.
When I’m not making a fool of myself and wearing my clothes incorrectly, you can find me here: Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triberr
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Foodie, Life challenges
Facebook….turns out, it’s a good thing
Yesterday I extolled some of the wisdom Jane Friedman imparted last weekend at Fiction Fest 2017 in her master class. One of the biggest takeaways from the workshop for me was how powerful Facebook can be for an author.
When I first began my journey as a published author in 2015 I had the typical Facebook page where I trolled the news feed for posted info on family and friends. It was my then-editor who suggested I make myself a professional FB page for my author career. The thought of now having to manage and keep track of 2 things on FB, not to mention Twitter, Pinterest, my website, my Amazon page, yada yada yada was a little daunting and a whole lot of nauseating.
But I heeded her advice and did it. The one thing I was adamant about though, was that the professional author page was going to be for anybody who wanted to follow me as an author. I was going to keep my personal page just that – private. The reason was an easy one for me because I have small children in my family and friends circle and their parents post pictures of them frequently. I didn’t want some wackjob creepy person to see those pictures. There are a lot of undesirables on the Internet, hunting for innocent prey. And I know that sounds dramatic, but have you read the news lately??? Not dramatic at all.. simply proactive.
So. Two pages. Two separate entities. Double the work. More to keep track of. But you know what? it was a good thing. I have waaaaaaay more “friends” on my professional page than my personal one. I don’t post anything on the professional page I wouldn’t want everyone in the cyber world to see, but I’m able to keep private what needs to be kept private on the personal page. One of the good things about Facebook is that you can set up protection and privacy settings on posts.
Jane is a big proponent of reader and follower engagement on her FB page. She uses her page as a tool to interact with readers, answer questions, make announcements, show her blog postings. She feels authors should use the Professional page as their number one tool for marketing and acquiring new followers who then become readers. I always felt that Twitter gave me my biggest bang for engagement, and in reality, I have more twitter followers than I do FB followers (not many more, but a few). One of the drawbacks, Jane says about Twitter, is that it is very much a right here- right now thing. In other words, once you post something you have about 17 minutes or so for people to see it. After that, it gets lost in the quagmire of a hundred billion other tweets and the scroll shoves you waaaaaaay down low. Makes sense. On Facebook, your postings get added to the newsfeed, your followers get notified you’ve posted something, and if you come back to the post a few hours later and simply “like” it, it brings it back up in the current scroll. That’s genius in my mind. Plus, everytime someone likes or comments on your post you get a notification and respond in kind.
Facebook parties are a fabulous markteting tool for new readers and engagement as well. Facebook ads can be a tool to drive people to your page, but be careful. Don’t go crazy and spend more than you think you really need on an ad.
So. Facebook. I will now be using it a great deal more than Twitter. Still love to tweet though!
When I’m not Facebook-ing or Tweeting, you can find me here:Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triberr
Filed under Author, Author Branding, branding, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, research, Romance Books
A weekend Conference
A great weekend hosted by The Connecticut Romance Writers group. Already off to a fabulous start with a master class taught by the amazing Jane Friedman. I will be making some BIG changes in my social media content, I can tell you, just based on her suggestions and insights into the publishing and marketing world.
More to come today… stick around. I’ll be Instagraming and blogging about it.
Filed under Author Branding, Life challenges, Romance
Managing my writing time….
I’ve mentioned before that I’m blessed and lucky to be retired so I can write whenever I want, for how ever long at a stretch I want. This usually adds up to 5-9 hours daily, depending on everything else in life that needs to be taken care of : laundry, grocery shopping, exercise.
But….there was a time not too long ago where that wasn’t the case. I worked outside my home at a job I detested, so writing was relegated to the back burner. During that time I’d sneak a few minutes before getting ready for the day to jot down a few lines of dialogue. Or I’d bring my lap top to work me so and take a solitary lunch so I could finish a scene. My menopause insomnia ( don’t laugh. It’s a real thing!) was good for one thing and one thing only: I used my inability to sleep to write in the middle of the night when everyone else was dreaming. My first book, SKATER’S WALTZ, was completely written between the hours of 1 and 3 am.
My husband worked, my daughter was out of the house, so it should have been easy to eek time out of the day to write. But it wasn’t because, you know….life.
Balance is a hard work for some people and for me it’s one of the most difficult concepts to accomplish. I never felt like I was giving my all to anyone or anything when I was working and writing. I am in awe of writers who have small children, volunteer at their school, plus work and have husbands/wives they need to care, in addition to homes that need to be tended. And by tended, I mean cleaned! Those writers truly have super powers that I do not possess. They can write a book, bake cookies for the school fund raiser, prepare nutritious meals for dinner, and everyone has clothes to wear, even on laundry day.
These writers have found their inner balance between writing and life.
I never did. It was only when I retired from that despised job that I was able to finally devote the time necessary to each part of my day and not feel as if I was cheating some aspect of it along the way.
So the title of this piece is Managing my writing time. I’m doing pretty well now that I don’t have any place to be during the day light hours – and by that I mean I don’t have to go to a job location. All my friends still work, so there is no one I can get into Thelma and Louise trouble with during the day and the last time I went out to lunch on a weekday was way back in the beginning of the summer. I have no life, really, and I think I’m doing just fine!
Find out what the other authors in this blog series do to manage their writing time because they all have, you know…lives! I don’t! heehee
Filed under #Mfrwauthors, Author, Life challenges, Strong Women
Hey Canada!!!!
Just FYI, I am a steal, or rather COOKING WITH KANDY, is. Until 9.11.17 the book is one of KOBO CANADA’s 500 books under $5.00 sale! At still just 99cents it’s a great price!! Thanks, my friends. BTW I LOVELOVELOVE Justin Trudeau! Just saying!!!
My bad habits…
oh, peeps, there isn’t enough space in one blog posting for this topic as it applies to me!
Quick look at some of them: I bite my nails, I stress eat, I emotionally eat, I eat when I’m bored ( you get it: I EAT!) I have knee-jerk reactions to things, I’m impatient with people. The list goes on and on and…..
You get it.
So, instead of picking one of my own terrible character flaws to expound on in this piece, I’ll stick to a bad writing habit. (It’s easier and less demoralizing!!!)
The worst writing habit I have is that I am not focused. I tend to flit from project to project, book to book, plot to Pinterest, continually, taking forever to finish one thing.
Every night I make a list of the writing things I need to get done the next day. The list usually has between 5 and 10 items ranging from: finish current WIP plotline, to write Friday blog piece, to everything I have to post onto Hootsuite. Interspersed into those writing necessities are things like: do laundry, go to bank, iron. Here’s yesterday’s list:
And every day my list is completed to about 90-95 percent. I rarely have 100% done because…you know….life.
But still. 90-95 percent is great.
Yeah, it’s not, really, though. The 90-95 percent stuff that gets done, does so in drip and drabs. When I should be working -totally invested in- my current wip, I will write a little, stop, do one of the things ( or more) on the list, then MAYBE get back to my writing again later on. After errands….laundry…..lunch.
It gets frustrating at times that I can’t just sit down and focus all my attention on the one thing that I want to, namely, just write.
Is this procrastination? Distraction syndrome? Or is it just the flitting and meandering mind of a woman whose husband claims “has too much time on her hands?” HeeHee
I truly don’t know. My mind never rests, never stops, never says, “Whoa there, Nelly. Let’s focus on one thing at a time.” NO. My mind is like the genie in the Disney Aladdin, in constant motion, never calming, never taking a breath, always in motion, going from one thing to another.
It’s exhausting.
And you know what else it is?
Me. That simple.
So, bad habit, curse, or just the way I’m made, my mind will continue to meander. My thoughts will continue to jump from one thing to the next with lightning speed. My focus will remain….un. (Focused, that is!)
Want to read about other authors and their “bad Habits?” click on the links below and visit them. Leave some love. Or support. Or encouragement….or, wait…is it raining? let me go look…..
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Filed under #Mfrwauthors, Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, Strong Women
I’m the visitor today!
Join me as I talk about characters and writing stuff over on friend, writer , and award winning Casi McLean’s blog today. Stop by and leave some love. Here’s the link: Writing about Characters
Peggy Jaeger, Author 