I was productive except for Dr. Who

After a flurry of editing, submitting, reviewing, etc., I treated myself by catching up on this past season of Dr. Who. By no coincidence, this coincided with a week where the kiddos woke up an hour early, didn't nap, or went to bed late every day of a week. They are back on schedule now, and so am I! I have been finalizing the ebook for Pendragon Variety - Issue #1 - In Memory of Dragons. Copyediting and ebook coding has been a wonderful adventure. I'll let you know when it's for sale!

Me on the interwebs:

YA Report: "Never" by K. D. McEntire

YA Report: "Cascade Effect" by Leah Petersen
OSC Intergalactic Medicine Show #33 (May/June 2013)
Fantasy & Science Fiction - May/June 2013
(The above review was mentioned at Blackgate.com!)

I just received an acceptance for one of my flash submissions! More details to come.

Project Status Check

I'm the kind of person who likes to have a lot of projects going on at once. I might focus on only one or two in a week, pounding at once until I finish a draft, for instance, but in the bigger picture I have a ten-point bullet list of to-do tasks spanning multiple projects - plus the projects that don't make it to the list for fear of setting up impossible expectations. Anyway, if you have multiple projects, it can be easy to lose track. It's easy to tell yourself that you'll resend or re-edit that story that you just got a rejection for, but then forget when someone else asks you about a project with an actual deadline.

So, I combed through my writing in all of its glories and not-so-glorious stages of draft, editing, and submitting. I've edited, submitted, and researched further submission possibilities. Researching short fiction markets has led to new drafts and ideas for drafts. I feel like I'm getting my balance back as far as fiction v. nonfiction. Whew!

I've also noticed that I need more beta readers. I've been expanding my writing into other age groups, researching middle grade fiction and below. If you're interested in beta reading SFF for young children then definitely give me a ring. Well, a tweet. An email. What-have-you.

And the best of luck with your own project status check!

Requesting: Boots to the Head

If the title has given you a Dr. Demento ear worm, you're welcome!

I've been having a minor problem the past couple of days where I'll write a wee bit by hand during the day, sometimes as if my life depends on it, but then at writing time, doing any thing but writing. I'm not sure if the problem is that I already feel like I've "done" something, which has never been a problem before, but I guess I feel that way a bit... or if it's because I'm writing right after I've had my coffee, but feel it's unwise to have more coffee a mere two hours before bed. Or maybe I'm forgetting my ritual of taking my vitamins before I sit down in my chair and (hopefully) open my goals list.

SHOOT. I knew I was forgetting something!

I blame the weather. And forced disruptions to my routine throughout the week. Darn you, routine disruptions!

Everybody, please send me Boots to the Head in whatever quantities you can spare.

Make Guilt Work for You!

A lot of writers experience a roller coaster of guilt powered by lofty goals crashing into real life. Most of us admire the full time, experienced writers who write the first draft of a 100k novel in a month or appear in every sf/f magazine throughout the year. That's cool! Lofty goals aren't bad as long as you break them down into manageable chunks and make allowances for that real life thing.

But telling ourselves that we're not superheros doesn't mean we don't still feel guilty about it sometimes. There's always that person who's better at that thing you do, and there's always that time that you could have been writing but instead you were hanging out with friends. The question I present to you is, why do we do that?

For instance... I haven't posted here in a month. Could I have? Yes. Technically, physically speaking. But I chose to bump the blog down to a lower writing priority - and writing as a whole had to bump down, too - and there was even one day that I wrote up a blog post about the family medical emergency that blew my month away... and I then I didn't hit submit. The medical emergency was no big secret, and if you're on my facebook you probably know already. But I want this blog to be about what I do get done and how happy I am to share it with you. And, maybe, occasionally, those moments when I'm correctly annoyed at myself for having flubbed something or wasted my time.

So recently, as in, today, I started to feel guilty about not having gotten more done. Hold the phone! Worst month of my life, yes? We've been sick all winter! If I had actually accomplished all my lofty goals this winter, or even since the start of the year, I'd probably be dead from lack of sleep, food, and/or sanity. Why am I suddenly not at peace with this fact?

And then I realized something about myself, or rather, how to put it into words in a way that makes it fit in with the rest of my life. I believe they call that an epiphany. A mini epiphany, at least.

I start to feel guilty when I start feeling capable. Present me says to myself, "I feel great! Let's get things done!" But then she also turns to Past me and wags her finger. "Now I have to pick up your slack! Watch me get this all done in a week!"

I then look at it logically and tell Present me to calm down. But, the emotion is still there. I still feel that twinge of guilt. Do you know what I do with that guilt? I put it to work! So, I say I can get it done in a week? DO it, then! Goodness knows, I might not get a whole week before someone is sick again or something else comes up, so if I DO get that week, I'd better take advantage! When I have the energy for the whirlwind of activity, each thing I get done feels like a notch in my belt.

Although, maybe I'd feel even more accomplished if I stopped planning all my projects as if I'll never get sick. Hmm. Get right on that, Future Me!

(Sure, right after I finish my to do list...)

Cross Promotion takes TIME.

Sometimes I forget how much time cross promoting across my social networks can take. That is, until I take an entire afternoon to catch up!

Each individual thing - posting to G+, twitter, Pinterest, writing this blog, sending emails and checking dates for upcoming reviews - most of that takes less than a minute, by itself. It sure does add up, though!

I think it's a great thing to do. I think that promoting the same link on different days can be a benefit, too. I only wish that it felt more like, well, like writing. Also, I have this terrible luck with technology because I'm fairly proficient at the user friendly stuff, but not expert enough to avoid or quickly solve the normal but annoying delays and hiccups. Today Pinterest acted up in my Chrome browser and it felt like it took forever to bring up firefox, log in, and do it there. It probably only took a minute, but, yanno.

I'd probably be less frustrated if I had planned for the evening to go like this. It was more like when you start the clean the living room but then notice something amiss in the kitchen but then notice something in your bedroom... and then you complain that it took you "all day" to clean.

So, this is a complaint and a reminder to myself: sometimes you just need to schedule an hour or two for 'advertising'! It's a necessary component to being a part of the online writing community!