Category Archives: Word Count marathon

Checking In

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I have a confession to make. I wrote zero words yesterday, and I have been sitting here this mornig feverishly trying to get a word count going before I posted today. I’m like a kid in high school with late homework. I wrote 500 just now. I have to stop for awhile, but I think I’ll have some writing time this afternoon and this evening.

Yesterday I wrote a resume and a lesson plan. It has been forever since I wrote a resume. I’m thinking about getting a part time job as a chior director since writing is not currently making the bucks. It’s going to be a tricky balance.

How about you guys? DId you get some writing in yesterday??

Coffee…a writer’s Prozac

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Hello! How did May go for everyone? May was rough for me. Great stuff happened on the home front: there were plays, recitals, graduations… a lot of reasons to be proud of my kids.

But as far as writing went…OMG.

I finished my romance serial, which meant tons of publishing. I had to publish the last episode, the compilation of episodes 5-9 because I did a compilation of episodes 1-4 and then the compilation of all the episodes together. And, because I’m a little crazy, I decided I wanted a companion book to go with the series that was a nail design book. The story takes place around a beauty salon. I had blogged several nail designs throughout the serial, and thought it would be fun. The marketing strategy was to give it away for free to draw more interest to the series.

Surprisingly, everything came together well. Julie got the editing done quickly (I honestly can’t praise her enough), and though it was very time consuming, the nail art came together too.

But I always crash at the end of a big project. I crashed hard after finishing episode 9 before I had completed the nail design book. Foolishly, I decided to stop drinking coffee for a while too because I had had so much to get all the publications out. That’s when I realized that coffee keeps writers optimistic.

Without coffee in me, my opinion about my own writing plummets. But when I take that first sip before I start typing, I am the best writer ever. So I thought it’d be fun to put together this little poster for you:

writersprozac

The depression might not have been so bad if I had had any sales. But sales were way down. Particularly Amazon has been abysmal this month. I’m actually even at All Romance between April and May on number of sales, and I made more money because I sold the higher cost books this month more than the cheap ones. Barnes and Noble and iTunes are the other places with sales, but not nearly as many as in April. Fortunately I made enough sales this month to keep me at a sale a day average for the year because April was so good.

I wish I knew what caused the swing. So far the nail book isn’t helping me at all, but Amazon won’t put it at free and it won’t be out at iTunes and Barnes and Noble until sometime this week. Fingers crossed people love it there and buy my other books.

But the serial is done! I should really celebrate because it was a big project coming in at over 125,000 words. However, I must get on to the next book. It’s already Tuesday, but I’d like to do a word count marathon. No gift card this week since it’s a short one. Think of it as a warm up for next week.

My goal is 2000 words a day this week. It feels out of reach because I have several activities planned this first week of summer, but I have a publication schedule that needs attention!

So, ready! Set! Write!

Word Count Marathon Day 4

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So I did pretty much everything but write. I’m working on visual continuity with the covers for my serial and made the cover for the compilation of Episodes 1-4. On a previous day, I edited all of the episdoes for continuity issues that happen writing something off the cuff. Today I uploaded the compilation of 1-4 with the updated text and cover to three of my vendors.

Tonight was a great family night with concerts and banquets. But after, I took my test for my introduction to digital marketing and passed with distinction. That means I got an 85%. Hooray! After taking that course, I need to take a deep breath and start applying things slowly. It’s a little overwhelming to see how much behind the blog stuff there is to do.

In the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about the voice for my Nail Art book. I need to scratch it and start over again. I’m hoping by tomorrow morning to have a better idea.

How did you guys do? I hope the words flew onto the page!

Here’s a pic for inspiration:

coffee on the beach

Word Count Marathon Day 3

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I think I need a drink :)

I had a graphic design class today that had enough information in it for two or three classes. I worked on the first chapter of my Nail book and cleaned up the voice of the manicurist as well as the pictures. Both still need a lot of work.

I’m hoping to get a couple of chapters done tomorrow, at least for the text. I’m getting faster at changing the pictures, but it’s still slow. The graphic design teacher said his hand was in the permanent shape of a computer mouse–now I know why.

So I’m gonna make myself something tastey, maybe with Hypnotic. I hope you had a busy day! See you tomorrow!

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Word Count Marathon Day 2

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Maybe I should be calling this the chapter marathon instead. I got a mock up of the first section of my nail art book done and it looks horrible! Plus, it’s a huge file and it’s only one section.

The text I wrote for it was minimal, maybe 300 words, but it’s definitely a good exercise. I’m trying to give the manicurist a definitive voice. I don’t know if I’m succeeding, but I think I get closer every time I change a sentence to something different.

I’m learning a ton about photo editing as I mentioned in an earlier post. I have a class tomorrow. What I really need to know is what colors work best for different projects and what colors work well together.

Holly generously asked if she could donate the gift card back so we could giveaway another prize this week. What I decided to do was split it into three gift cards of $5. So Holly won a $5 gift card to Starbucks. Yay! I’ll pick a winner this week from all the names of people who post. Everyday you post in the comments section, you get another paper in the drawing. Invite your friends in your crit groups. I’d love to see more people here!

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Flash back to a sandwich I made a few years ago. I should make that this week!

Word Count Marathon Fail

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Hey!

I wrote like two sentences today for a book. I’m updating the episodes at the vendors now that I have the serial near completion and a new cover. I’m also taking a couple of courses for graphic design and digital marketing.

BUT I have to make headway on the book tomorrow. I’m going to have to post the next scene for the serial and then work on the book the rest of the day.

How did you guys do? I hope you got more writing done than I did!

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Word Count Marathon

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Only 1500 for me today. I got episode 9 done and called it good for the day. Of course there’s still editing on it to be done, but I felt happy I got the hard part completed. Tomorrow I have limited time, but I want to try to start the second book I had hoped to do this week also. I guess I was just slow because I was definitely putting the time in. I’m tired like I wrote a lot more words.

How did you guys do?

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Word Count Marathon Day 4!

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4000 words for me today and I can’t believe this episode isn’t done. I refuse to break it into two again. This has to be the last one. I need to rewrite one section and then add the last segment for the happily ever after. It’s going to come in at 16,000 words making it the longest episode yet.

Sigh.

I just hope it’s good. I know it’s better than what I wrote the first time through; I just don’t know if it’s the awesome ending needed to bring the story home. When it’s done, it looks like the whole serial will be about 120,000 words, making it the longest story I’ve written.

How did you guys do today? I hope it was a good one!

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