Finally, time

I've neglected my blog. Dare I say it, I've mostly neglected my writing and editing, too. Why? Time. As they say, there are never enough hours in a day and lately I've been feeling so overwhelmed that I just couldn't continue.

Don't worry, good news is coming.

Like many writers, a full time job is something that is a necessity and I was sad to say mine was consuming my life. Even when I wasn't at work my mornings before I started were spent not editing, but sending resumes. My nights involved a few glasses of wine and unloading to my husband after a long day's misery and then falling asleep on the couch. Days off were consumed with being depressed at the thought of going back to work after only two days' escape. In short, my job was making me miserable and despite how hard I tried to force myself to get my editing and writing done, it just didn't happen. I was maybe, at most, dedicating two hours a week to it.

Again, there is good news coming

The worst part is, if I had full time hours available to finish Awake My Soul, I'd probably be done in two weeks. Working at it like a nine to five job, eight hours a day, it would be done. That's about eighty hours, give or take. Now take eighty hours and only do two hours a week of work, that's forty weeks. As I said, that's a good week, so it's realistically a year, minimum. At this rate, honesty, I'll never finish.

Now the good news. I'm not longer at said job. Yesterday was my last day. Though things didn't quite go as I planned and I would have preferred to have another job lined up when it happened, I knew for a while it was coming. My position had become redundant and I was the odd man out, so it was time for me to go.

The really good news is now I have time, and in accordance to employment laws, I'm still getting paid. For the next few months I'm getting paid to finish Awake My Soul. This is my first full day of being a full time writer and aside from writing this blog and maybe some puttering around the house, my day is dedicated to editing. So is tomorrow. And the next day. And so on.

In even better news, my husband is a graphic designer and hopefully soon I can get his butt in gear designing a cover that I can reveal here. It was hard to convince him to do the work when I wasn't getting anything done myself. Now I can tell him to do it and soon there will be a reveal. I promise!

I know being let go can be scary, but I'm taking this as an opportunity to do something I truly love. I really hope that I can have Awake My Soul complete and available as an E-book before Christmas, and I hope people will love it as much as I do.

Finally sent to an editor!

Big day for me folks, I've finally sent my manuscript off to be edited. I've sent it to Coraline Denhart (http://coralinedenhart.com/index.html) out of California to go over and fine tune the more minute details. I know I'm behind schedule, but I do truly hope I can have my book ready to publish by early fall at the latest.

Now that Awake My Soul has been sent off to an editor I hope to get a bit more time to work on my other projects that are on the go. I really, really hope to get time to finish Lay Me Bare within the next few months. Editing has taken a lot of time and has, to be honest, zapped my energy while I was working on it. I should have expected it to happen, I was warned that editing is the hardest part of the whole process, but I thought I could power through.

Boy was I was wrong! Editing took four months and each time it was a struggle to sit down in front of the computer and get to work. Every time I went to write for another project of mine I felt guilty I wasn't editing Awake My Soul and gave up on both and went and watched TV.

Now that it's off to the editor I have to wait and see from here. I'm very, very excited and proud of myself I've gotten this far. I've doubted myself a lot and it seems every time I was ready to give up I received feedback or messages from people pushing me to keep going. Well, it worked and I'm done (for now)!

I am still waiting on the cover, I've asked a friend to make it and right as I asked he got a new job and has been very, very busy so once I get my manuscript back from editing I'm going to push him to get something done for me. 

Then once that's in and my final edit is complete, yes I'll finally be publishing it as an e-book! Way, way behind schedule, I know. But I am working hard and trying my best to get this done. Who knows, it might be out sooner than you think!

Writer's Block and How I'm Getting Through It

I've been away from my computer for much too long the past few weeks. I've been busy with my 9-5 (which kind of became a 9-8 6 days a week thing for a bit), but things have settled down for the time being and I finally got some time to write again!

And I didn't. No editing got done, no new ideas jotted down, heck, no new ideas at all. A weird resignation to complete laziness struck me and I admit I wallowed in it. Even when some of my online readers reached out to me and gave me some wonderful words of encouragement, nothing happened. There was nothing in my heart that pushed me to continue. I ignored my twitter, this blog, my email, everything.

Thankfully, yesterday I finally seemed to get myself back into gear, even just a little bit. I applied the edits I'd done on two more chapters of Awake My Soul and now it's half way done. I know I could be done done if I hadn't have taken the 'break', but maybe it was necessary.

So, how did I get through my writer's block? Or at least, how am I getting through it? 

The first thing was those kind words really did start to add up and encouraged me enough to start at least thinking about doing work again. I really feel like I'm letting people down by not continuing, and letting myself down too.

Second thing is necessity. I wont lie, I would eventually like to make some extra money with writing. Why not do what I love and make a living from it? Any author who denies this desire is probably a liar. I don't make enough money from that 9-5 alone to do what I want in life, if I can be moderately successful as an indie writer, it could change my life.

Third was that I saw my husband working hard on projects he enjoys doing too. He's a great artist and wants to do a some t-shirt designs and I've been pushing him to actually work on it and realized how much of a hypocrite I was being.

Fourth, and probably most importantly, was I started reading again. The last few months any time I had to read was spent reading my own work and editing, or writing something new. I haven't picked up a novel on my ereader or in actual paper format since early spring. Reading something new helped me remember how much I not only love reading, but writing.

So... I'm back!

Genres

When an idea strikes me, I find I have a hard time not putting the words down on paper, or as it were, in a word document. The first full length novel I finished, Awake My Soul, was inspired by me reading a nonfiction book about women who ruled in England. It's a great book called She Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, and I highly recommend it. I also have a history degree, although my focus was not medieval England, where Awake My Soul is set. But I was struck by an idea that was inspired by these women and I wrote it down.

Historical Romance isn't often what I pick up when I'm reading romance novels. Of course, I've read quite a few, but when it comes to short stories I've written and most other ideas I'm working on those are usually set in the present. When I write, I usually enjoy writing things that are happening now, and when I read romances, the ones that stick with me the most are contemporary.

As I've been editing Awake My Soul and spending free time writing Lay Me Bare, a contemporary I hope to have out this year, I worry that going from historical to contemporary may hinder me in some way, that people who read one will have no interest in the other. I'm especially worried that since most of what I write is contemporary, and readers I build up with Awake My Soul will be disappointed with what else I have to offer. I just don't want to see myself pigeonholed.

In the end though, I'm writing stories I love and at the end of the day it's all I can do!

Halfway Done My First Edit!

I've been working at a pace of about two chapters a day for a week, some days more, some days less, and I'm pretty happy with my progress. I'm hoping to be done by the end of the week, and then the changes need to be made in the actual file. Kind of crazy to think how close the true finish is after this!

I'm also trying to find the time to write more for my other stories, particularly Lay Me Bare, the contemporary I've been working on for a few months. It's over half done, but I want to be able to get the first draft done before the end of August. I just wish I had more time! If you want to read what I have so far, it's online here!

I've been very lucky that a bunch of people have been willing to beta read my book and I cannot wait to hear their feedback. I had posted every chapter online for people tor read for free as I was writing the first draft and I couldn't believe the amount of positive feedback, but I am really hoping for some people to give it a critical eye. Can't wait to hear back on that!

Finding Time to Write

When I've told friends and family about my progress with my writing one of the first comments I get is "I don't know how you find the time to do it." Like many, if not most or all, writers of independent books right now I have a 9-5 to pay the bills and being a full time writer is still a fairly long off goal.

A benefit of my job is that I do work in books. Not high enough to pull some clout with a publisher, but I do manage a book store. I work Tuesday through Saturday every week and I get up most days about two and a half hours before I leave for work so that I have at least an hour of that time to dedicate to writing. This has been the number one thing that's gotten me to finish Awake My Soul when I did, or if at all. I write some nights, but 90% of the book has come from those early mornings.

Before I pushed myself to get up every day, I would complain I didn't have the time, couldn't manage it. It was the easy way out and honestly it was to keep myself from trying and then failing. 

My real hope is that I will have more days to dedicate solely to writing in the future, but right now I'm okay with mornings.

Editing has begun!

Today I spent the first actual money on getting my novel finished. I went to my local printing shop and had my manuscript printed and bound so I could carry it everywhere with me and edit as much as possible. The printing and the binding cost me about $30, but it's well worth it to save my own limited ink and paper, plus having it bound for easy transport and reading.

What I should have bought while I was there was a red pen, though! We have none in the house and for now I'm going to use a red marker until I can get my hands on an actual pen for making notes.

I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've written a novel at no cost until this point. I see other blogs that talk about all this cash they've spent getting their novel off the ground and I was a little worried, having limited funds myself. For anyone who is about to sit down and write something for the first time my first advice is spend no money. Zero. Unless you don't have access to a computer, then buy that.

Most computers should come with at least Word in some form. You don't need to spend $50 on a fancy writing program, a fancy keyboard, or any of the bells and whistles you might see some famous author talking about. Word, or even notepad, will work just fine.

Two things that you'll obviously need to drop money on are editing and a cover, but really that should be it. Watch the price on the cover and editing though. This day in age almost everyone probably knows one graphic designer and someone with an English degree that's gathering dust. Speak to them before giving money out to strangers online, at least for some background information.