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Challenge Check-In #3

For those of you just joining us… we’ve been talking about resolutions and goals since New Year’s Day, encouraging each other to decide on realistic goals and report back on how we’re doing each Thursday of this month.

As some of you may recall, I got off to a rocky start, but I’m proud to say things have taken a turn for the better. I did a LOT better this week! I’ve improved a little each week since we started this, but the most important thing is – I started. I hope you did too.

The initial week was a disaster. Then things got busy and the second week was a trial, but I did manage to start working on my writing goal in earnest. This third week, I added in the exercise goal I’d been trying for, in addtion to the writing.

I’m happy to report the writing went even better this week. I got the galley proof of Jaci’s Experiment off my desk, turned in 2nd round edits on Phantom Desires, finished Dante’s story, which I’ll be submitting soon, and managed to write new material 5 out of 7 days. I also reached my goal of 2,000 words/day on those days, so mission accomplished on that! Yay!

My fitness goal was small, but since I’ve not been exercising at all for the past few months, I wanted to start slowly. My goal was to work out twice each week. This week, I managed to do it for the first time! Double Yay!

I want to build on this small success. I want to continue to aim for twice a week for the next few weeks and if/when that becomes relatively easy, I want to add on a third day. Then I want to extend the length of the workouts and make them more challenging. But that’s a goal for down the road. Right now, I’m just thrilled to have done ANYTHING on my fitness goal. Yay cubed!

So how did you all do?

Guest: Meg Benjamin

I spent a lot of time trying to think of something about me that might motivate somebody else to write. My writing habits aren’t all that special (at least three pages a day, best done in the afternoon after I’ve had time to wake up and kick-start my brain). My way of getting myself going is mainly just to do it.

But then I started thinking about how I got to where I am currently—one novel about to be published, another under consideration, several more ready to send out—and there is one thing about me that’s different. I’m a woman “of a certain age.” No, I won’t tell you what that age is. Let me put it this way—the Beatles aren’t just historical figures for me.

I think there’s this feeling sometimes that writers need to start young if they want to get ahead. But it took me a long time to get around to doing this. I wrote a lot of other things—technical manuals, newsletters, textbooks—before I finally realized romance was where I wanted to be. So here I am, pushing my doddering brain to come up with new plots, new characters, new ways of describing sex without overuse of the words slide and thrust. And I’m not alone. One member of my local RWA chapter started publishing in her late sixties, and now (in her seventies) juggles three different personas for her successful mainstream, erotica, and inspirational romances. I figure if she can do it, so can I!

And so can you, whatever your age. Start now. Write three pages—anybody can write three pages, believe me. So what if you’ve got grown children? It’s easier to write if you don’t have to chauffeur them to soccer games. So what if you’ve got a few wrinkles and one or two gray hairs. They don’t show up on the page, do they? So what if you get drowsy by ten? Write in the early morning when you wake up. And don’t ever think your age is an impediment to writing that novel. Helen Hooven Santmyer published And Ladies of the Club when she was 88, and it was a bestseller. So if someone says you’re too old, tell them “So you think I should wait until I’m younger?” Then go home and work on your novel.

Venus in Blue Jeans: A guy, a girl, a Chihuahua. Two of them will find the love of their lives.

Meg Benjamin lives and tries to write in South Texas. Her first novel, Venus in Blue Jeans, will be available from Samhain on January 27. Learn more at www.megbenjamin.com.

Guest: Eliza Gayle

Goal of Balance

It seems like there are a lot of writing goals running around the blogs this month, but what about that dark and murky side of writing we all try very hard to hide from. You know what I’m talking about I know you do. It’s the one word that can cause uncontrollable chills to shudder through an author’s body every time they hear it.

Promotion.

There I said it. Now we can all breath a collective sigh of relief. Ahh… There are aspects of promotion that can actually be a lot of fun, like interacting with readers via blogs or conventions and forums. But it’s finding the right balance that works for an author and applying that in regular intervals that becomes key. Balance.

Scheduling has become a priority for me in 2009 so that I can strive toward the goal of balance between the day job, writing and promotion. I’m breaking things down into small manageable chunks as I learn what works in my schedule and what doesn’t and my daily calendar and task lists have become invaluable.

For January though I have two new releases and I had to prioritize the promotion a little higher for this month. So between website updates, newsletters, ad creation and so forth, I’m determined in 2009 to find a daily schedule that allows me to accomplish my work and still make time for family.

January hasn’t worked perfectly so far but I am seeing subtle differences as I adjust. How about you? How do you balance your many duties between professional and personal? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Eliza Gayle is a published author of erotic romance in several sub genres including paranormal, fantasy and contemporary. This month she kicks of her new Black Cougar series at Linden Bay Romance and invites you to visit her website at www.elizagayle.net to learn more. For more about Lucas, check out MBAM.

* Eliza is offering a free download of a book from her backlist to one lucky commenter. Leave a comment on this post and you could win!

For Dieters

I’ve been looking around the Web for sites that could help me figure out a good strategy for eating better and getting more exercise. I thought I’d put a list of some of the sites I found here, in case any of you are pursuing a goal of losing weight and/or getting fit. Here are some of the sites I found interesting…

General Health Sites:

Discovery Health National Body Challenge - meant to follow along with TV shows on the Discovery Channel.

Yahoo Health Diet & Fitness - a general site for all kinds of information.

Food-Based Sites:

The Daily Plate - an all-around site where you can keep track of food you eat. It actually looks up nutrition information for thousands of foods and keeps track of them for you. Very cool and free!

Special K Challenge - diet based around Special K foods.

Slim-Fast - diet based around SlimFast foods.

Got any others you can recommend? Let us know in your comments!

Challenge Half-Way Point

31 days in January, so today is our mid-way point. Wow. Where did the month go?

If you’ve had a hard time getting started with your goal, well, you’re not alone. I’ve done pretty well with my writing goals – at least in the past week or so – but I haven’t even considered my exercise goal yet.

See, I got super busy in the past week and a half, and since my livelihood is writing, I thought that was the goal to get a handle on first. Makes sense. And I stick by that decision. But I really need to start considering how to work exercise into my days more often.

I don’t understand how I became such a couch potato. I used to TEACH martial arts. I studied ballet until I was 18. I was a gym rat for a good portion of my life and dated weight lifters in college. I even had a subscription to Muscle & Fitness because of one of my ex-boyfriends. I studied chemistry in undergrad and was fascinated with supplements and how different vitamins and minerals affected our bodies.

Somewhere along the line, I gradually stopped working out and started becoming a couch potato. I think it was becuase of grad school (I went at night, working full time), but that’s been over for a while now and I’m still comparatively inactive. So what’s up with that?

Here we are at our half-way point and I haven’t done anything with my fitness goal. Okay. So it’s time to get started, right? No time like the present and all that. So in addition to writing, this week I really want to work on working out. I’ll let you know how I do next week. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, the new Samhellion newsletter is out with lots of good articles on resolutions and such. I’m one of the editors and I contributed a piece this month, so take a look!

I also wanted to let you know that we’ll be having more great guest bloggers! Please comment on their posts to make them feel welcome and let them know that someone is out there, reading their guest blogs. Thanks!

Challenge Check-In #2

Woops! Sorry – a little late with the Check In post today. It’s been that kind of week.

I’ve done much better this week than I did last. I got hit with edits and a galley proof, but I still managed to write 5 out of the 7 days and surpassed my 2,000 words/day goal twice. That’s way better than I expected with so much going on.

How did you all do?

Guest: B.H. Dark

What my new year’s resolution?

It’s totally to be abducted by an uber-hot space alien. Like Dr Who (David Tennant incarnation preferably, though I’ll take Christopher Ecclestone or Paul McGann). Or Superman. Or Ziggy Stardust. Or Mork from Ork. (He was hot. You wanted to be Mindy. Admit it.) Or the Good Terminator. Or Han Solo. Or Worf. Or Zaphod Beeblebrox. Or Kang.

Well, maybe not Kang. I’m not so keen on sloppy kissers.

What I am keen on, though, is a life of travel, adventure, laser beams, android slaves and super-freaky mind-melding sex.

Anyway, to that end, since January first, I’ve been hanging out on a lot of high places. Rooftops, cliffs, mobile phone masts, flat-topped mountains. I’ve made some big signs, saying things like “Hey! Sexy alien! Here, please!” or “Need a lift to Eroticon 6”. (I had to put away the “Anal Probing OK” sign after that creepy guy down the street thought I meant him.)

I’m wearing Lt. Uhuru skirts. I’m listening to Alien Ant Farm. I’ve even painted myself green and poured the contents of a dozen glowsticks over my head.

So far, nobody’s offered me a lift any farther than the 7-11. But I’ll let you know when I get there.

B.H. Dark is offering a free download of Close Encounters to the commenter who leaves the best tip about how to be abucted by a sexy space alien. Go on, help her out. She’s desperate.

B. H. Dark is the pseudonym for bestselling authors Julie Cohen and Kathy Love.  Like all good pseudonyms, B. H. often says and does things that neither author would say or do in real life.

Guest: Jody Wallace

New Year’s Resolutions are made to be broken. Kind of like rules and ugly ceramic duck planters. However, when that New Year hits, so many of us are struck by the notion that we want a fresh start. We want to wipe last year’s slate clean and do something incredible this year, even when last year was incredible, too. Everything we didn’t accomplish last year–when the New Year tolls, we’re filled with hope that this will finally be the year we make it happen.

With writing, I’ve seen a lot of resolutions flying around the ‘net this week. I’ve seen 2000 words a day (Bianca!). I’ve seen write three new manuscripts. I’ve seen get an agent, get published, get busy, get serious.

Here’s a writing resolution that’s a little easier to keep. Have you heard of Club100? It’s a productivity system first dreamed up by writer Avis Hester and maintained in YahooGroup format by author Beth Pattillo.

The premise is simple. Write 100 words a day for 100 days in a row. The 100 words isn’t a problem–my first two paragraphs were 122 words, and it took me about 3 minutes to get them on cyber-paper. 3 minutes a day. Can you write for 3 minutes a day?

The 100 days in a row is a bigger problem. You can choose vacations ahead of time — like you’ll only write 6 days a week, never on Mondays — but if you miss a day you didn’t plan to miss, even if it’s day 99, you have to start over.

Of course, starting over isn’t as depressing when you have so many words under your belt to show for it!

I’ll keep this post short and sweet, like Club100. May you find your resolutions both satisfying and productive!

Jody Wallace is published in romance fiction under the names Jody Wallace and Ellie Marvel. She has always lived with cats, and they have always been mean. To learn more about Ms. Wallace, please visit http://www.jodywallace.com/  or the cat’s website, http://www.meankitty.com/.

Progress Meters

Talina asked about where I got my nifty progress meters. Great question! The ones here on the blog are an older WordPress plugin called ProgressFly. I think newer plugins would be “widget ready” though I’m still operating on old stuff pretty well.

If you don’t have WordPress, there are lots of ways you can get progress meters. Here are a few…

Writertopia has a simple meter at http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters that looks something like this:

Zokutou lets you fill in the blanks on their site with a little less code tinkering than the Writertopia meter. It’s located here http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/ and looks like this:

5,000 / 90,000 (5.6%)

Sometimes you can also adapt a ticker if you feel like tinkering with those. Usually the free ones on the web are for ticking down things like pregnancies or weight loss, but some are customizable and you could use them like a progress bar. (They’re also usually prettier.) For example:

www.my-calorie-counter.com     The webs free Exercise Journal

Of course, you probably will get some advertising on those, as above, but you can usually choose the bar picture and the kind of “bug” you want to mark your progress. I chose a ladybug for this example, but they also had cars, rabbits, etc. Some allow you to change the units of measurement as well. Just search under “tickers” and you’ll find a plethora of sites that have them. Cruise around until you find one you like and have at it!

Good luck!

Guest: Selena Illyria

You Want a Resolution?

Okay, it’s the New Year, time to reevaluate your life and make some resolutions right? For me not usually but this year I decided to try something different and make a goal I could keep, just keep writing. That’s it. But then I decided added to it and decided that in November I was going to do my own version of NaNoWriMo (Nation Novel Writing Month).

I have to admit, I’m a bit scared, I’ve never taken on anything like this, but I’m determined to get through the month. For me it would mean: no promo, very little time on the internet and just writing. All the little time sink things I would normally do would be unacceptable. I’m excited about this project and really hope I can reach my goal, in one month  I have to do get at least three stories, 25k+ word count for a one author anthology.

I can’t wait to take on this project. Wish me luck.

I/R Author, Selena Illyria was born with need to write and an over active imagination. To find out more please visit her at: www.selenaillyria.com