Writing: Blogging Momentum

This is my post for Day 28 of the Author Blog Challenge. (This is the final day of the challenge.)




What are you going to do to keep the blogging momentum going? What plans do you have to continue your connection with other Author Blog Challenge participants?


I am making plans to keep my blog momentum going, mainly, by continuing to post. I won't be posting every day, as I was doing for this challenge, but I intend to be posting once or twice a week, every week. Posting every day has eaten into my novel-writing time, so I don't want to be posting every day, but once or twice a week should be manageable.


Before doing the challenge, I was neglecting my blog and letting weeks go by without posting. That won't be happening any more. There are two blogs in my writing life that I intend to continue keeping updated and current, and those are this blog and my Skinny Dreaming blog. (I have over 20 blogs but not all of them are kept current.) The reason I want these two blogs to be kept current is that they are both about important aspects of my life: my writing and my fitness/healthy lifestyle. (My children are also super-important to me, and I have to admit that I have neglected my family blog for way too long.)

I have been building a list of topics for future blog posts to keep me posting more regularly. Having prompts has helped keep me posting, so I decided to create a bunch of "prompts" for myself to keep me full of ideas for posts for this blog.


I have joined a critique group with others from the Author Blog Challenge, and have connected with several members of the challenge on Facebook and Twitter as well. I'm really glad to have made these new friends who share my love of writing, and I hope we all can help one another.

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Writing: Traditional or Indie Publishing?

This is my post for Day 16 of the Author Blog Challenge.


 
 Did you publish your book as a traditionally printed book, an eBook, or both? How did you come to your decision? Which company(ies) did you use for printing and distribution? How did you select them?

I haven't published my books yet. I have some calendars for sale on Lulu.com and my children have books for sale as both ebooks and print books in the book shop there.

I am planning on using Amazon for my books which will be available as traditionally printed books and Kindle books. Amazon has the widest distribution of all of the different self-publishing firms I have checke dout so far, and the cost is minimal. However, I will only use them if I decide to go the self-publishing route. I haven't decided yet whether I want to go the traditional publishing route or not yet.

I may have to when it comes to my children's picture books, but that is because I have no skill at all when it comes to drawing and am not capable of illustrating my own books. I tried to teach myself to draw, but the best I was able to do just wasn't good enough for the way I want my picture books represented. You can see my attempts at drawing on Designing Doodles. I still have fun trying to draw though.

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Build

This is my post for Day 8 of the 15 Habits of Great Writers challenge.

"The challenge:

So let’s build something. You don’t need to start another project you’ll never finish. You already probably have enough of those. Instead, I want you to do something truly creative:

I want you to finish something. Anything, really. Just pick a project — an essay, a blog post, maybe even a book — and finish it. Not tomorrow. Today.

It should never take longer than 30 minutes to finish anything. If it does, you’re not breaking the project up into enough chunks. Which will lead to stalling, your worst enemy."

I just completed a blog post for the Author Blog Challenge, so I started and finished something today already. I start and finish writing goals every day, really. I blog frequently. I write short stories. I write chapters of my books. If I set out to write three chapters of whichever book I am currently working on, I will manage to finish those three chapters.

If I set my mind to do something, I get it done. I just need to be setting my mind towards writing more frequently when it come to my novels and my non-fiction book. Between this challenge and the Author Blog Challenge, along with the occasional short story I write, I am writing between 500 to 2,000 words a day. When these challenges are over, I am going to set my writing goal to write a minimum of 500 words a day and see where that takes me,

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Writing: The Challenges

This is my post for Day 13 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What has been the most challenging part of your book process: writing, building the book, printing, distributing, marketing, etc.? What do you wish you’d known before you began?

My books are not at the printing and distributing stages yet, so I cannot accurately discuss how difficult or easy those stages might be. However, I can discuss other aspects of the book process.


Writing the book is not the most difficult part. I can say this even though I have not finished any of my books yet, because I love the writing part of the process. I enjoy creating something from nothing. I enjoy letting my imagination run free and creating people, creatures and entire worlds that have never before existed yet come to life as I write them.


"Building the book" is a process I associate more with non-fiction books. With my nonfiction book, I feel more like I am buiulding it and putting it together than imagining it into being. And I am finding it very difficult. But maybe, in the context of the question for the writing prompt above, building the book has more to do with having it bound and creating the Kindle and epub versions of it. I admit that I have not yet created a Kindle file and don't know anything about the process yet.


This post is a bit rambling, but I am not finding any of the processes mentioned in the question difficult, not really. I think the hardest thing about writing a book is believing in yourself enough to know that you can do it.


P.S. Yes, I already know that the above picture has nothing to do with this post topic, but it's cute, isn't it?

 
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Writing: Book Covers

This is my post for Day 12 of the Author Blog Challenge.

Describe your process for choosing and designing your book cover. Who created your cover? How did you find him/her? What do you love about your cover? What might you do differently next time?

This doesn't really apply to me as I don't have a cover for any of my books yet. Just for fun though, I took a photo from one of my husband's Fairy Magic photo manipulations and gave it the title of one of my short stories. (No, I do not intend to create my own book covers, but my books aren't finished yet, so it doesn't hurt for me to play.)

I do not know yet who I will have creating my book cover and, to be honest, I haven't even started looking for someone yet. My main goal right now is to get my books finished, edited and ready. Organizing a book cover for each of them will come later.

(P.S. The fairy above is one of my daughters, Angelica.)


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Join the Chapter Book Challenge 2012!

Those of you who have been following this blog know that I have been joining challenges and submitting my writing to competitions quite often lately. The most recent challenges I have joined are the 12 x 12 in 2012 challenge and the Picture Book Marathon. Well, I am adding to that list now, and I want you to come and join me.

As you already know, I am currently working on three different YA paranormal novels,  and many children's picture books. There is another type of book that I have been wanting to try my hand at, in part, because I have children who are the right age for this type of reading - the children's chapter book.

Yes, I know and have read about what a difficult market it is to break into, but I don't really care about how difficult it is to be successful at writing and publishing a chapter book. I just want to write one of the chapter books that have been sitting in my mind whispering "write me" whenever I have a quiet moment.

During NaNoWriMo last November, I managed to write 50,000 words in 14 days and finished with 75,180 words for the month. A chapter book uses considerably less words than that, and so I am hoping that I will not only be able to finish a complete chapter book by the end of the month, but also be able to do a serious amount of editing on it. This will also be a learning process for me as writing a chapter book is a far different process tha writing a novel for an older teen or adult.

And that, in a nutshell is what the Chapter Book Challenge is all about. The goal is to write a complete chapter book in the month of March, starting on March 1st and finishing on March 31st.  I am running this challenge, but be kind to me as I have never run one of these before. I already have some prizes ready to be awarded during the challenge, and will be setting up the terms for being in the running to win the prizes soon.

I've even lined up a published children's chapter book author for a guest post/interview on the Chapter book Challenge blog. I am working on getting guest posts and interviews from more professionals in the industry to help all of us along during this challenge.

I would love for you to sign up for the challenge. The official sign-up form can be found here. (You need to be signed up through the official form in order to be eligible for the prizes.) You can also sign up for the Chapter Book Challenge Facebook page where I will post useful links as I come across them and our Chapter Book Challenge Facebook group where we can all help each other out with ideas, tips and general conversation about our chapter books.

Now that you know about the challenge, I dare you to join us! You won't regret it!

If you are a published chapter book author already or an agent who deals in chapter books or has in the past dealt with them, then I am asking you to please join us and offer your help with a guest post and/or interview.

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A Valentine's Day Chance (Short Poem)

My friend Susanna Leonard Hill from the 12 x 12 in 2012 picture book challenge has started a little contest on her blog. In it, she gives us:

A children's story, poetry or prose, maximum 200 words, about unlikely Valentines, posted on your blog (or in the comment section of mine) between Saturday February 11 and Monday February 13 at 5 PM EST. Add your entry-specific link to the link list on my blog so we can all come read your entries! There will be no new post on Monday so the link list will stay up. Instead, I will have a hitherto unheard of Tuesday post to celebrate Valentines Day, and that post will list 3 finalists (or possibly a couple more - you know how bad I am at choosing :)) for you all to vote on. The winner will be announced on Friday February 17 and will receive his/her choice of a copy of Ann Whitford Paul's Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On Guide From Story Creation To Publication or a picture book ms critique from yours truly.

So I whipped up this short poem as my entry. I used to be better at writing rhyming poems, but I am out of practice, and today my brain is also a little bit fried as I am just getting over the flu. But nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this brief entry. It was inspired my animal-loving daughter Isabella. A Valentine’s Day Chance It was almost Valentine’s Day, A day meant for love and romance. But poor Isabella had no one at all To partner with for the Valentine’s dance. Isabella felt alone and sad. She really felt down and blue. She would have continued feeling this way If she hadn’t thought of something to do. Who was it that she trusted the most? Who was it that she loved most of all? Who was it that she liked to be with? Who could she dance with at the ball? There was only one being on this Earth, With whom Bella decided was of worth. So Isabella made her way to the dance With her most beloved of friends, Her adorable puppy named Chance. Tweet

12 Picture Books in 12 Months in 2012

I am joining a new challenge that I think will fit perfectly with my goals regarding the children's stories I am writing. It is called 12x12 in 2012. The goal is to write 12 picture books in 12 months (one picture book a month) in 2012.

I first heard about it through Facebook friend and author Jo Hart. She joined the challenge and posted about it in her blog.

There will be monthly prizes for participants and guest posts from others in the picture book industry. What's not to like?

If you want to join too, just go here and follow the instructions.

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