Chick Lit Goddess

...because every author wants to feel like a goddess!

Isabella

It’s Fun Friday

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You’ve written a book!  Congratulations!  “Now what?” You might ask.  Why not try self-publishing?

Since having finished NaNoWriMo ten days ago I’ve done a lot of thinking about this book and am on the verge of beginning the process of self-publishing it.  Isn’t that what everyone is doing these days?  There are several book that I’ve read that have been self-published, Lisa Becker’s Click: An Online Love Story, for example.  (I will even be reading and reviewing some within the next couple of weeks).

I have done some research about where to start, but the internet was way too overwhelming with websites coming at me like there was tomorrow.  I had enough, so I went to B&N and bought THIS book.  It seems to have the basics, what to do and how to start, through making a profit.  If I do end up deciding to do this (maybe as a Christmas present to myself), I will share my experiences.  Wish me luck!

Have any of you thought about self-publishing?  Why, and/or why not?

Happy Friday y’all!

My 1st NaNoWriMo Experience

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When I set out to partake in NaNoWriMo I thought it would be a great idea to add a little chaos in my life.  On November 1st I wrote over 5,000 words, and did so again on the 2nd day.  I felt pretty good about how strong I started, and even so by the end of the week.  Week one was pretty good.  I was hopeful that I might win, and might even finish before the 30th.

Week #2 was not as great as the first, I still wrote at least 1,667 words a day (the word count in order to finish 50,000 in 30 days).  By the end of the week I was behind on the words for my own personal count, but still 1,000 or so ahead.

I began to panic during Week #3!  I was going out of town for the weekend to see my sister, and Thanksgiving was coming.  I wrote as much as I could during preparing for my trip to see my sister, while still giving my husband, cat, and other wifely duties attention.  During my flight to Orland, I wrote the entire time, but not enough to be all caught up.  CRAP!  My sister understood that while we could still have our good times (which we did), she knew that I had to write every single day–and I did.  Even though I wrote on the plane home, by the time I got back home, I was still behind.  The next day I dove headlong into my story and made finishing my second book my goal.  My thoughts were that if I was going to participate in NaNoWriMo, I would win!

Thanksgiving was the last weekend in NaNoWriMo and there were only a couple of days until the month was over.  It was the most memorable holiday, and for this I was-no, I am thankful!  I can’t remember a holiday (especially a Thanksgiving) where I was so focused on family and my book!  Everyone in my family, all seventeen of them, saw me writing, but I don’t think that some knew what I was in the process of doing, the pressure I was under, or what I was going through.  I wrote in the mornings, during lunches, and after dinner, some even between cooking meals-which I did quite a lot of, but it was all worth it.  I love my family, and I love to write.

On the next to last day of NaNoWriMo, I wrote my heart, and my fingers and hands out.  I wrote like there was no tomorrow.  That night I went to bed just shy of 2,000 words to go.

November 30th had finally arrived.  My husband had gone to work, the cat was fed, and our house was a mess.  I sat at my laptop for about forty-five minutes thinking of how to end it, but I couldn’t bring myself to write the ending.  I didn’t know my emotions then, but looking back on it now, I was sad to let my characters go.  Once I began to write, I found it hard to stop…but then the last two hundred words were the most difficult.  How did I want my characters to be known, and how did I want my readers to feel/think/say when they read the last word?  I finished NaNoWriMo that day around two o’clock in the afternoon.  When I called my husband to let him know, he asked me how I felt.  I couldn’t answer him, because I really didn’t know how to respond.  I was sweating, and I was nervous, happy, excited, and sad to see my time with the characters that I created had ended.

Overall, my first experience with NaNoWriMo was amazing.  It taught me to how be a writer, and it taught me how to trust what I write, but most of all it taught me to believe in myself as a writer.  It’s because of NaNoWriMo that I can officially call myself a writer.

I have decided to participate in NaNoWriMo 2012, and am thinking of picking up from where I left off from my second fully completed book.

 

 

It’s Fun Friday

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Not only do I love to write, I love to cook.  As a writer I think it’s important to cook healthy, so I’d like to share my favorite healthy recipe website that a friend told me about a few months ago.  It’s Skinnytaste.com, and since then I’ve cooked several dinners and desserts, which I loved.

Here are the recipes I’ve made from the Skinnytaste.com site:

In no particular order, the above recipes are all delicious!  If you’re like my husband and I, we add spices to these recipes to “kick it up a notch,” like celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.

I encourage you to subscribe to Skinnytaste.com because not only will you receive great tasting recipes, you will not only feel guilt-fee making them, but eating them too!

Happy Friday!

I’m Thankful For NaNoWriMo!

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I’M BAAACK!!!

Before I start blogging about why I’m thankful for NaNoWriMo, I’d like to take a minute to thank my faithful readers, friends, and family for being patient with me for not posting a blog the entire month of November.  Without your support, I don’t think that I would have made it as sane as I did (well, maybe).  I will be continuing to blog throughout the rest of the year.  As for next year, I will be reviewing more books, and interviewing more writers, (YAY)!

When one thinks of November, most will think of Thanksgiving, and about how soon it will be until Christmas is coming.  Well, when I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month, I knew it would be something that would be difficult, but I thought why not add one more thing to my plate (two Gotham Writers’ Workshop classes, a girl’s only weekend with my sister, and working on edits for my first book, and Thanksgiving with seventeen of members of my family), but I was ready to take the challenge.  (I will explain my whole experience in Monday’s blog, but I wanted to first explain why I’m thankful for NaNoWriMo being in November).

Here is why I’m thankful for NaNoWriMo:

  • Day after day I learned what it would be like to be a “real” writer.
  • NaNo taught me to focus on what’s important in the story, and to pay attention to the plot
  • I think that NaNo cured me of wanting to continually correct my grammar and punctuation, but since I had a thirty-day deadline I couldn’t which was so hard to not do
  • Most of all I’m thankful for the lesson of “just write,” which will teach me to be a better writer

Anyway, I survived National Novel Writing Month – and I won!  Writing my second book consumed me.  It was all I knew, and all that I thought about.

Love y’all!

NaNoWriMo: Less Than 24 Hours To Go!

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30 days & 50,000 words...

It’s less than 24 hours NaNoWriMo begins and I can’t wait, though I have a swarm of butterflies in my stomach!  I’ve been racking my brain all weekend for a plot, but I had no luck…until now!  (Yes, I know I’m late in the game, but at least I figured it out, and later today I’ll be doing an outline).  The thought of 50,000 words might seem scary, but I’ve gotten use to the idea, especially since my math capable husband (total opposite of me) figured that all I would have to do is write 1,666 words a day, I’m no longer as afraid of that scary number.  But, to make the goal, that means that I need to be dedicated, even on Thanksgiving!  Wish me luck!

I also wanted to let y’all know that during the month of November, I will be blogging less.  I’ll be back pretty much on a daily basis beginning December 1st, and will be sure to share my first NaNoWriMo experience.  I thank you in advance for your support and understanding.

Messy Bookshelves

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I can only imagine how many books I have in my house, in my car, and some even in the garage.  There are books everywhere.  Literally!  While I have a fair amount of bookshelves in the house, there never seems to be enough space to hold my book buying obsession, which means that there is no system of organization and I want to change that.  Just recently I took all the cookbooks on the shelf in our kitchen and organized them into size and type of food.  It was an all day job, but the end result is gorgeous and I’m proud of the work I did.  Cookbooks are easy, but other books aren’t.  Over the years I have accumulated so many genres of books it’s unbelievable (fiction, non-fiction, biographies, self-improvement, text books from high school, and sports, just to name a few).  I could open a bookstore!

This leads me to wonder, how do you organize your bookshelves?  Are they in any kind of order?  Your help is greatly appreciated…

**TO BE CONTINUED ONCE I’M IN THE PROCESS OF SOME KIND OF ORGANIZATION PROCESS**

NaNoWriMo Ideas

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**I’d like to apologize for a blog not being posted for the past week or so.  Things have been busy around here, but I thank you my faithful readers, for all your sweet comments and support.  Now, back to blogging!

It’s been about a month since I decided to take part in NaNoWriMo and I still haven’t made an outline (YIKES)!  I finally narrowed down my book idea and thought this would be so much easier, but writing it all out is easier said than done.  The parts I’m stuck on are the beginning and ending; I find this humorous because this is usually where I find it easiest.  Anyway, to help motivate me, I’ve started to watch The Bold & The Beautiful once again, and it’s working!  I quit cold turkey on my soaps (I loved As The World Turns) when I was writing my “Redefined Dreams,” and so much on that show has happened!  I can see why it’s won so many Daytime Emmy’s!

I can see how not only reading can jog some thoughts, but so can TV!  It can also be very distracting, which is a good thing B&B is only a thirty minute show.  I hope by the end of this week I will have an outline for what will be my second completed book!

Wish me luck!

Refreshed Writing

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A different kind of writing is like a breath of fresh air...

As many of you know I am taking a Mystery writing class from Gotham Writers’ Workshop.  Well two night ago I came up with a wonderful plot and then I outlined it, and then wham-I began to write my first mystery!  I started writing just after dinner and continued, as I sat in bed and listened to my husband and cat snore until three o’clock in the morning!  I was a mad woman.  During that time span I had written just over 3,700 words, which isn’t that bad-especially because I’m not a mystery writer.

With all the new ideas that seemed to flow, I found it to be very refreshing.  I needed this story to find me, and not for it to find me.  I needed the hows, what’s and the whys of my story and its characters.

I thought that it wouldn’t be a good idea to take the mystery writing class, only because it’s way out of my league.  Well, I’m encouraging you readers to jump out of the pond and do something that isn’t “you.”  Do something grand and make it fly!

Good luck!

Writing Backwards

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I have two Booth reviews in my Gotham Writers’ Workshop mystery class, each consisting of at least 3,750 words.  My first Booth submission isn’t due until the middle of November but since I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, I thought that it would be a good idea to get ahead on some projects that might conflict with NaNoWriMo.  Anyway after a sudden thought of a story, I jotted down some notes and thought I really had something.  After completing a few other items on my To Do list, it was time to start my murder mystery!

I finished the night with over 1,300 words and love what I’ve written so far.  After closing my laptop off for the night I thought of the next few events, but don’t know how to write from A to Z, but rather from Z to A.  Have you ever wanted to write the story backwards?  I’m seriously considering this!  BUT HOW?  Do I write line by line, from ending to beginning, or Scene Z to Scene A?  Have any of you done this before, or even thought about doing this?  I know it sounds crazy, right, but for you writers, is it really that insane?  You know how it is, Mr./Mrs. Writer’s Block comes for a visit and won’t go back home until you’ve had some time to mull and stress over until it hits you, and you beginning writing like a mad woman or man.

As I write this I’m beginning to think I’ve lost my mind and have too many things on my plate, but really it’s not that bad.  (See THIS blog for what I have coming up during the month of November).

Any backwards writing comments or advice are much welcomed!