Thursday, January 23, 2014

I finally set up my Amazon page!

Okay, I know I should have created my Amazon author page ages ago, but being a tech klutz, I procrastinated.  Seeing another writer talk about her Amazon page on a message board finally prodded me into creating my own.  See it here

I owe a special thanks to my friend and fellow Totally Bound author H K Carlton for providing me with the link to showcase my blog on the Amazon page.  I'm determined to take more advantage of marketing opportunities this year and FINALLY creating an Amazon author page is a step in the right direction.

P.S.  Stand To Attention, Totally Bound's military anthology which contains my story, Trusting The Army Captain, is available for early download on Friday!!!


Friday, January 10, 2014

Led By Desire Available Today!

Led By Desire, my first M/F story for Totally Bound is available TODAY!!!  I hope you all check it out and let me know what you think.  :-)


Wednesday, January 8, 2014

#PitMad!!

I started to write a post yesterday and I'm so glad I didn't.  It was a very uninspired post, something about how cold it was and how I didn't feel like writing.  I scrapped it when I nearly fell asleep writing it.  I figured, I'll try again tomorrow, maybe something will come up that will interest me more.

So glad I waited!  Recounting my 'experience' with #PitMad is way more interesting than crabbing about how cold it is.  I've seen tweets for over a year referring to #PitMad but didn't really understand what it was.  Basically, it's writers on Twitter pitching their stories to participating agents and publishers.  The twist comes in creating a tweet in less than 140 characters using the hashtag #PitMad that describes your story well enough to intrigue an agent or publisher.  It takes me half a day to come up with a 150 word blurb and a 25 word tag line, so anyone that can get an agent's or publisher's attention with a 140 character query has my deep admiration.

Although I didn't participate directly in #PitMad, I did retweet the pitches I found interesting, which wound up leading to a few new followers on Twitter.  I even had an exchange with an editor who invited me to submit work (!) after I whined about not having anything ready to pitch today.  Another #PitMad is taking place in March, and maybe now that I know what it is and how it works, I'll be ready to participate.  :-)

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

What's Ahead in 2014

Happy New Year!!!

Although I'm getting tired of hearing "It's hard to believe it's 2014 already," it does bear repeating.  2013 dragged in some ways, but flew by in others.  Time seems to go really slow when I'm writing, but it seems to go at lightning speed when it comes down to meeting deadlines.  I got five short stories written and published in 2013, but it falls short of the goals I'd set.  I'd hoped to write more stories, including ones of longer lengths.  But distractions, both unavoidable and self-imposed, kept me from being as productive as I would have liked.

For the upcoming year, I think I'll try a different strategy.  Instead of setting production goals in terms of finishing stories, I think I'll focus on word count.  Some writers set out to write a million words a year, but I think I'll be setting myself up for failure if I attempt even half that much.  For me, 20,000 words a month is more realistic, yet still ambitious since I've done practically next to nothing in terms of writing for the last couple of weeks.  I do want to write longer works, including a novel, and I will do my best to fulfill that aim this year.  But for right now, I'm going to concentrate on productivity and actually writing the story than worrying about how long the story will be.