Perseverance

I was just sitting by the computer right now. Searching the App Store over for a good journaling app – which means a journaling app review/rundown is probably in the near future. But the point is, I’m not actually doing anything that I’m supposed to be doing. It’s November. November means NaNoWriMo time (see nanowrimo.org for details). I ‘m supposed to be writing.

I’m supposed to have written 13,333 words by now. I’ve written just over 2,000. In fact, this blog post is likely to be almost as long as my entire novel at the moment.

This is my 4th year taking part in NaNoWriMo, make no mistake, this isn’t the first time I’ve very much on purpose procrastinated. There is no other excuse for it, I have been genuinely procrastinating this first week of NaNo. I haven’t had much else besides the occasional class here and there, but nothing to have a genuine excuse for not reaching my daily word count goal. No real reason why I shouldn’t have 13,333 words right now.

The point of all this? It’s perfectly possible to catch up all those words. It’s perfectly possible to still reach 50,000 words by the end of the month. Procrastination is okay… to a point. It’s perfectly normal to procrastinate – especially on things that our minds make harder than the task actually is. There’s nothing wrong with it, on one condition – you do not give up.

The more you procrastinate, likely the more work you’ll have to do, and the more perseverance you’ll need to achieve your goal. It just means that at one point, you’re going to have to be doubly focused on what you need or want to get done.

So if you’re taking part in NaNo – don’t give up. After procrastinating in NaNo in years past, I have written 5,000 words in a hour in order to catch up. So if you get down to the last day and found you haven’t written a word, with enough perseverance, you can actually finish that novel in one day.

Of course, that would be master Yoda writer mind level, and I really, really don’t recommend it. But it’s 2% staying on schedule, 98% perseverance that will get you through. So keep going!

NaNo is a Go

Hello readers! I feel like a zombie - just in time for Halloween too. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to be… unless I can find a fake wound so I can be a vampire victim, so I’m still between costume ideas. Still, I’ll be one of the two. But this is all absolutely and completely irrelevant!

So, I have a lot of things in the works, I’m setting up online classes, getting ready for a big Halloween party, and two big things are going on this November.

First, is NaNoWriMo (if you haven’t heard of it, click it). I wasn’t sure that I was going to have time to participate this year because of school and work, but I’ve decided to give it a go. Hopefully with a few cheerleaders (I’m adopting NaNo cheerleaders, by the way) I’ll be able to pull through to get my 50,000 words.

What am I going to write this year? Well, I’m cheating - a bit - because I’m not starting a book from the beginning, I’m going to be continuing two novels that I started a few years ago. One is a genuine NaNo novel that I started last year Howl, and the other is the second book in The Artifact Series. Both require about 25k more words to be called complete, give or take. So it seems kind of perfect to do… okay, you can flog me now for not starting entirely fresh this year.

Oho, and you’ll also be able to read Howl and keep up with my progress on Smashwords, I’ll be uploading what I write everyday for your viewing pleasure (and to hopefully cheer me on, because I’ll need it)!

The other thing that is going on in November is Adopt an Indie Month. I’m an indie, and I’m still waiting to be adopted.

*Presses nose against window and looks awfully adorable*  

From what I hear, those who adopt an indie have the chance to win a big, professional, blog makeover. So, if you’re interested, you could adopt me… I don’t chew rugs or shoes and I’m housetrained.

For this last bit of info, I wanted to let you all know that I just updated my Facebook author page – http://www.facebook.com/HCPaye – if you want to keep up with me (and cheer me on for NaNo) this is the place to do it.

This really isn’t a big deal, you’re just opening up a can of worms and turning it into Texas. (Howl quote)

Carolyn Howard-Johnson vists!



Carolyn Howard-Johnson
(3rd person from the left)
accepting an award.

          Today, I'm featuring a skilled promotion, editing, and writing guru who makes my skills look like baby-talk. So, let's see a little bit more about what Carolyn does from her mouth. Yep, I'll stop gibbering now.

         As a college freshman, Carolyn Howard-Johnson was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune--"A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper"--where she wrote features for the society page and a column under the name of Debra Paige.
         Later, in New York, she was an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping Magazine. She also handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List, where she wrote releases for celebrity designers of the time including Pauline Trigere, Rudy Gernreich and Christian Dior. She was also a consultant for the Oak Park Press in the Chicago area.
         Her nonfiction and humor have been seen in national magazines and her fiction and poetry appear regularly in anthologies and review journals. She has been a columnist for The Pasadena Star News and is now a columnist for Home Décor Buyer, a trade magazine, and Myshelf.com and others. She writes movie and theatre reviews for The Glendale News-Press.
         She studied at the University of Utah, graduated from USC and has done postgraduate work in writing at UCLA. She also studied writing at Cambridge University, United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University in Prague.
          The author’s first novel, This Is The Place, and her book of creative nonfiction are award-winners. She also wrote a screenplay, The Killing Ground. Her book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't was named USA Book News' Best Professional Book of 2004 and won Book Publicists of southern California's Irwin award.

          The second book in the HowToDoItFrugally series is The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success which also won a USA Book News Best Book nod. It is also the winner of Reader Views Literary Award and a finalist in the New Generation Indie Best Book Awards. Her marketing campaign for that book took top honors for marketing.

         Howard-Johnson’s stories have appeared in anthologies like: Pass/Fail, edited by Rose A. O. Kleidon, PhD; Calliope’s Mousepad in review journals like California State University at Stanislaus's Penumbra and the Mochila Review.

        She was honored as Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award by California Legislature members, Carol Liu, Dario Frommer and Jack Scott. She is the recipient of her community's Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance. She was honored by her city's Character and Ethics committee for promoting tolerance with her writing and was named to Pasadena Weekly's list of 14 women of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen".

          Born and raised in Utah, Howard-Johnson raised her own family in sunny Southern California.

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         Now, here are some links to get to know more about this wonderful person. And if you're a NaNoWriMo participant this year, you might want to grab a copy of her Frugal Editor, so when Nation Novel Editing Month (December) comes around, you'll be ready to edit each and every one of those 50,000 words!

BLOGS FOCUSED ON WRITING AND RELATED TOPICS

http://www.SharingWithWriters.blogspot.com


          Sharing with Writers is a blog on all things publishing with an emphasis on book promotion. It was named to Writer's Digest 101 Best Website list.

http://thenewbookreview.blogspot.com/

          The New Book Review is a great way for readers, authors, reviewers and publicists to get more mileage out of a great review. Guidelines for submitting (and recycling) good reviews are in the left column. Scroll down a bit. It's free.


http://www.SizzlingBookFairBooths.blogspot.com

          The Sizzling Book Fair Booths is a blog where participants in in my HowToDoItFrugally cooperative fair booths exchange ideas that make a ho-hum booth into a sizzling success. We keep it open so all authors can learn from our successes and mmmm...challenges.



http://www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com/

          This is the Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. It covers everything that has anything to do with editing from grammar to formatting. The question and answer format encourages you to get the answers you need.

OFF THE SUBJECT OF WRITING--MOSTLY

www.warpeacetolerance.blogspot.com

          My creative writing is mostly inspired by the need for tolerance--nay, acceptance--on this planet. War Peace Tolerance also includes resources so that people can--no matter what they think of our wars--support our troops.

Also check out Carolyn's Website where you can see what other kinds of books she has written. She's also on Twitter!

Follow the blog tour - Marvin Wilson is hosting Margaret Fieland!