Finding Time to Write

Being successful as a writer sometimes comes down to one thing.

Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. Or for those who love acronyms, BICHOK.

Easy, right?  Maybe not.  Finding that perfect time when you’re calm and ready to go may be impossible based on your lifestyle.  Or your choices.

When a co-worker came to me to complain about her supervisor harping on her, I let her vent for a while, then asked, “How did you choose to feel after she said that?”

Dumbfounded, the woman explained, she wasn't choosing to feel a certain way, the supervisor made her feel that way.

I beg to differ.  No one can make you feel anything.  You do that all on your own.

So, what’s choosing got to do with finding time to write?  Everything.

Make a list of what you’ll do today, heck, plan it out for the week.  Then go over the list.  Is there room, even thirty minutes where you can sit and write (either on a computer or longhand?)If yes, congrats, go forth and write during that found time.

If not, then let’s look at your list.

Some things, like work, commute, meals, sleep, are pretty mandatory.  I know my job counts on me to show up every day, so, I do.  Mostly because I like the paycheck.  But could I change my commute? Could I ride the train into work or move closer to save a few minutes on each end of the day?  Or could I carpool and take the days when I’m not driving as my personal writing time? 

Sleep, I won’t tell you to mess with that.  I do love my eight hours.  But maybe you could get up early one day a week or thirty minutes early on workdays. Whatever you carve out, don’t let the internet or a chatty neighbor take your time.  Be ruthless.

What else is on your list?  Volunteer work? Television?  Working out?  Making gourmet dinners every night?  Baking your own bread?

If your list is long, maybe you have to consider if you really want to write or not?  Volunteering is great karma, unless it eats up your personal time and you aren't getting BICHOK time. But they need me.  I can hear the cry now.  So does your manuscript.

I’m going the kill two birds route and limiting my television time to only time I’m working out.  If my butt’s not on the exercise bike, no television. And I can move that time to my writing. 

What are you willing to give up to finish your novel this year?  

Lynn

Happy Holidays

Since today is Christmas, at least at my house, I thought I'd just wish you all a very merry holiday season and a fruitful and productive new year.  And for those of you without snow, here's a glimpse of what living in the Idaho mountains could bring.

Happy Holiday's.

Procrastination? Or Promotion?

I'm working on a cozy mystery.  I started this story from what I can see from the file, in February 2012.  Since that time, I've finished a romance, wrote two novellas, and a full length contemporary romance.  

And I still have 29,000 words left on this cozy. 

I've released three books this year.  I spend a lot of time blogging, posting on Facebook, social networking, and, not, writing. Finishing this book has been on my to do list for three months.  And I'm making progress, just not finished. 

I'm good at time management, really.  So what's the problem? I'm not sure, but my goal for this December is to finish the darn book. 

I still have edits to finish before December 15th, my edits for Return of the Fae could arrive any day, and I'm doing a signing one weekend at the beginning of the month.  And of course, I have the day job. (I am taking off days around Christmas that should help.)

Wish me luck.

Anyone got some helpful hints? Ways to stay off the internet? What are your goals for the last month of the year?

All in the name of research.

Guns scare me.

I guess my fear started when I was a kid.  One night, my step brother pulled the shot gun out of his truck to go into the single wide and shoot his wife.  Instead, he got a bullet in the gut when the gun stuck behind the seat and he jerked the gun toward him, barrel first. 

Tough to manage shooting yourself with a shotgun, but he did it. And survived to marry wife number two, three, and four. 

Redneck stories from the wilds of rural Idaho.

I kid you not.

So when I started writing a thriller as part of a Masters of Fine Arts class, and my first scene is a kidnapping at gun point, I needed to research. I needed to know more about guns, what they feel like, and even, what it felt like to fire one.

Going to one of my brothers was an option, but the sane one was out of state and well, see above.

So what’s a girl to do?  I found two gun aficionados at the local watering hole, The Alibi. Recently divorced, I would stop once or twice a week and chat with anyone.  One day, I told a guy my dilemma with my stalled story and he said he owned a gun.

I peppered him with questions until he offered to take me for target practice to the desert (Warning sign #1) on the outskirts of town. 

I don’t know if it was the alcohol or the chance at researching for my craft that made me say yes.  It definitely wasn’t common sense.

The next morning, I met the guy and his buddy (warning sign #2) at the apartment complex. As they stacked an arsenal at my feet, adding duffle bags with ammo, calling out about different types of guns, I started rethinking my bright idea.

Finally, we were ready, but the guys sat on the couch and watched out the window.  When I asked when we were leaving, they informed me that a police cruiser was out front, handling a domestic dispute in a nearby apartment.  So they had to wait for the cop to leave to load the truck.  (Warning sign # 3)

By the time we got to the desert, I knew I was the target, not the shooter. 

Fred, the guy I’d met the night before, pulled the truck over, cracked open a beer, and handed me a gun. 

Not what I’d expected.  Fred carefully taught me how to hold a pistol, how to check to see if it was loaded, we practiced with the safety on, then, he pointed to my target, a can on a rock a few feet away. 

I shot so many guns that afternoon, I have no idea what they gave me.  I tried an AK-47, a shot gun, several different pistols, and a rifle.  When I’d gone through their bag of militia, we sat talking on the tail gate of the truck and had another beer. 

While we talked, I told him my stories plot and what I wanted to happen and they walked me through the type of gun that would be used.  He handed the pistol to me, I checked to see if it was loaded, then shoved the gun in my side.

The boys freaked.  Fred jerked the gun away from me and then I got the lecture about never pointing a gun at myself.

I explained I needed to know what it would feel like to my POV character, but they now looked at me like I was the crazy one.

The ride back to the apartment complex was quiet.  And I never saw Fred at the bar again.  But my chapter turned out amazing.

So what have you done in the name of research?

Lynn

What happens when an idea sparks? Let It Sew.

I told you we'd have a guest.  Hey, help me pick up the magazines and books off the coffee table.  Are the dogs outside?  What about the cat? Who ate the cookies I sat out a few minutes ago...

Okay, now, I think we're ready... my friend, Elizabeth Lynn Casey, aka, Laura Bradford, is here to talk about her latest release in the successful Southern Sewing Circle Mystery series, LET IT SEW.  BTW, I love this cover! But I'll stop fussing and let Elizabeth talk.

Lynn
***

Ask a dozen writers what sparks a story and you’ll probably get a dozen answers with a handful of similarities—a news article, a radio snippet (a big one for me), and/or a dream. And most of the time, that’s probably the case. Sometimes though, at least for me, the initial jumping off point comes from a flash of something that, by itself, seems rather meaningless.

Take for example my latest book, LET IT SEW—the 7^th book in my Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries. I knew it was going to be a holiday book and that it was to be released in November of 2012, but beyond that, I didn’t really have a plan. Then came the flash, or, rather flashes.

Flash One: A woman with Alzheimer’s and whether their long term memory could remain intact, at least in spurts (the answer, according to my personal neurologist, was yes—hurrah!).

Flash Two: A different woman hell-bent on claiming her spot in a man’s life—his children be damned.

Most non-writers would probably see those flashes as odd thoughts and move on. But for a writer? Game on!

Once I’d confirmed the memory possibilities for my Alzheimer’s patient in the first flash, I began to build outward—using her skill with a sketch pad to slowly unlock a murder. Sketch by sketch this woman releases a chilling secret she’s hidden for nearly five years, a secret she thought she’d been keeping to protect one person only to find out her silence had actually enabled the real perpetrator to pull of the perfect crime.

But will anyone listen? After all, she has Alzheimer’s, doesn’t she?

The holiday aspect of my book grabbed hold of the second flash and spiraled that woman’s evil intent in multiple directions, making her the perfect female Grinch to wreak havoc among the series’ staple characters.

The next thing I knew, my fingers were off and running on my keyboard as my first flash took center stage and the second flash morphed into two different—yet interwoven—subplots.

Ahhhh…

I love it when that happens, don’t you?

*** 

Elizabeth Lynn Casey is the author of the Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries with Berkley Prime Crime. LET IT SEW, the 7^th book in the series, is now available. Additionally, she is also the author of the new Amish Mysteries (also with Berkley) under her regular name, Laura Bradford. HEARSE AND BUGGY, the 1^st book in that series, released in June. When she’s not writing mysteries, Laura occasionally dabbles in romances with her most recent release in that genre, STORYBOOK DAD. To learn more, visit: www.elizabethlynncasey.com or www.laurabradford.com.

   

What’s a Blog Hop? Social Marketing 101 Series

No Bunny Hop - Blog hop is a different animal.

(First a teaser – Laura Bradford, writing as Elizabeth LynnCasey, will be my guest on November 13^th.  Her latest Southern Sewing Circle Mystery, Let it Sew, a holiday story, will release November 6^th.)

Social Media is an uphill learning curve.  Marketing isn't for sissies.  Or a one-time check off your list action. You have to get your name out into the universe. Richard Bach said (Paraphrasing here…) writers are just amateurs that didn't give up.  So I keep going.  Just when I get a handle on how to schedule and complete a blog tour, I’m confronted with this new animal.  The Blog Hop.

Mostly a blog hop is a group of authors who band together to promote a theme across a variety of websites.  I've signed up for hops with themes like Autumn, or Black Friday, or even the one I've just finished as this blog runs, The Alpha Male Blog Hop.

I wonder if this is more a romance writer’s tool.  I haven’t seen a Black Friday Noir Hop, or a Kill Your Favorite Mystery Character, or Cozy Cookie Exchange Blog Hop, although these would be kind of fun. Maybe I’m just not on the right loops.

Setting up a blog hop is like herding cats as my Crimson Romance author group found out earlier this month.  First, you can’t do anything that will please everyone, so make a decision and go with it.  We tried making group decisions on the yahoo loop with little success.  Finally, we appointed a group of three authors to spearhead it, gave them our proxy to make decisions, and they came back with a great button, dates, process and a handy ‘how to’ sheet. 

Each author sets up a blog hop button (or widget – I won’t get too techy here because I’m already in technical deep water for me…) Then on the first day of the hop, participating post a blog that relates somehow to the theme and hopefully to their books.  This is a marketing tool. The blog host gives away a small gift (I like to do $5 Amazon cards because it’s easy.) And usually there’s a large giveaway from the hop organizers.  Again, the power in this is numbers.  At a $5 donation from each author, the prize can be pretty amazing, without a huge investment from an individual author. 

Blog readers go from one blog link to the next, reading and commenting, to increase their chances at winning a prize.  The more comments, the higher your chance to win.

But what’s in it for the authors who are participating in these blog hops?  Hopefully promotion and sales. You can check out my web page for examples of blog hop buttons here.

Bottom line, I’m out $10 and had to post and monitor my blog for three days.  Hopefully, I’ll see sales from the effort.  As I write this today, it’s early.  But I’m getting people to my blog which for me is great.  I’m new and I don’t have a lot of traffic, unless I beg.

What about you?  Have you participated in a blog hop either as an author or a reader? 

(Off Topic - A Member of the Council, a paranormal romantic novella, and my 2nd release ever - comes out November 5th. - I thought I'd share my cover, just in case you haven't seen it.) 

Lynn

Lynn Cahoon, Woman of Mystery

Standing on a street corner, leaning against the light pole, dressed in a London Fog trench coat, my fedora pitched forward, hiding my face, I’m entering the ‘Make Mine Mystery’ blog world.

Okay, that’s what I think I look like.  I’m probably really look more like my amateur sleuth heroines –frazzled and frumpy.  A woman just trying to get through the day with work and relatives and all the day-to-day crap.  Then she stumbles over a dead body.  Of course, my heroine is the prime suspect for oh, so many reasons.

I've found some success in writing romance.  My debut (THE BULL RIDER'S BROTHER) came out this June, with next in the series releasing in November.  And I have a paranormal romantic novella (A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL) releasing in November as well.  Not a dead body in either.  But my paranormal does have a homicidal cousin – who will in a future episode, will at least try to kill my heroine. 

I’ve also sold essays to Chicken Soup and short fiction to the confessional magazines.  Yeah, I’m sounding more and more like Mary Poppins as I write this introduction. 

I assure you, I have a dark side.  I’m the writer who stops at a roadside rest stop during a car trip, checks out the woods surrounding the parking lot, and thinks, what a great place to hide a body.  So I write mysteries.

I’m currently shopping a cozy set in a coastal California town known for its love of tourists.  And while that series looks for a home, I’ve started a new cozy set in a small fictional town near Sun Valley, Idaho.

So if you see me leaning around street lamps on a dark and foggy night-- stop by and talk.  But watch out! You know I’m up to no good.