I hope J.K. has some $ in the bank

Or some British pounds. :-)

I'm going on a little trip and wanted a new Kindle book to read on the plane. So hey, why not J.K. Rowling's new non-Harry Potter book, "The Casual Vacancy"?

Holy cow! Have you seen the user reviews for this book?

Maybe she doesn't care.

Maybe she doesn't read them.

And then there are the pro reviews, like the one in the NY Times: "Unfortunately, the real-life world she has limned in these pages is so willfully banal, so depressingly clichéd that “The Casual Vacancy” is not only disappointing — it’s dull."

Ouch.

Easy for me to say, right? I haven't written a bajillion best-seller. But if I had, those reviews would still hurt.

Nobel flu shot, subway silliness

Today was a funny day:

1) I got my flu shot at the same time a Nobel Prize winner did -- he was sitting next to me because we both happen to work at the same place. (I'll leave him anonymous, but he's a very nice man. I've had the privilege of interviewing him before, and he was gracious and generous with his time.)

2) On my subway ride home, someone recognized me from my one TV appearance. She said, "I just want you to know, your episode of 'House Hunters' was the best one ever."

Sharing is fun (& tasty, too)

I am a total -- and I do mean total -- newbie when it comes to book promotion.

Basically, I'm relying on two things right now:

1) You, my readers, to share my stories with your friends and family :-)
2) Me, myself and I, to keep writing fun, high-quality stories for you to enjoy.

We're a team, you and me.

So if you've read my stories and have enjoyed them, please tell your friends. You can take advantage of Amazon's lending program, too. It's just like the old days, when you'd lend a friend an "actual" book (after writing your name in it, of course!).

There's nothing better than sharing something we find with another person and turning them on to it -- and then having those awesome conversations about it ("What did you think it meant when he said that?" "What do you think will happen next?").

I'll share my book "finds" with you, too, OK? My latest is "Half-Broke Horses," by Jeannette Walls. LOVED IT. Great family story about an adventurous woman who didn't settle for anything, ever.

I am so very appreciative when a reader tweets about my stories or posts something on FB about them. It makes my heart sing.


Here's a giant
THANK YOU!

How to work 9-to-5 & publish 10,000 words every 2 weeks

This is how my brain feels all the time.

Basically, I make myself crazy.

OK, not totally crazy. Just partly crazy.

I work a 9-to-5 job. So here's my typical weekly schedule of writing and publishing a 10,000-word story every two weeks.

Week 1

Monday/Wednesday/Friday: 

• Leave apt. at 8:30 am. 
• Ride subway for 20 minutes and read something (on Kindle, of course) or write notes for next story. 
• Work 9 am to 11 am. 
• Take 10-minute break and jot more notes for story. 
• Lunch hour: read on Kindle or write a few more plot notes. Buy food to eat dinner at 4 pm at desk. 
• After work: Ride subway to gym and -- guess what? -- read Kindle or write notes. If it's fall or winter, I might take a break and knit while on the subway, instead. 
• After gym: Ride subway home (about 40 minutes) and do more reading, writing and/or knitting. 
• Get home around 7:45-8 pm: Spend time with husband and cats. 
• Write until 11 or 11:30 pm.

Tuesday/Thursday:
Same schedule as M/W/F except I don't go to the gym and I come straight home, instead. On those days, I'll either use the extra time to write even more, or I'll cut my writing short to watch something on Netflix with hubby.

By this point, I will usually have about 3,000 words written and the story completely plotted.

Saturday: 

• Get up by 8 am and write for 8 hours, total.
• Take a break for an hour to go for a walk.
• Take another break for an hour or two to clean the apt. and go grocery shopping.
• May go out in the evening, but only if I've hit my word count for the day, which is 3,500 or so.

Sunday: 

• Get up by 8 am and finish drafting story, as long as it takes. 
• I'm usually done drafting by mid-afternoon Sunday -- another 3,500 words or thereabouts.
• If I'm really lucky, I'll have finished drafting almost the entire story by the morning, and my husband and I will go to a matinee. Then when I get home, I'll finish writing.

Week 2

See schedule above for working, going to gym, riding subway and so forth (M/W/F gym, T/Th come straight home).

Monday: I don't work on story at all, unless I just can't make myself leave it alone.

Tuesday: Re-read story and begin editing it myself.

Wednesday: Finish editing it myself and give to my editor/reader (my husband, who is also a writer).

Thursday: Proofread.

Friday: Proofread and make cover myself. I use Fotolia and Photoshop. I wish I had more fonts, sigh.

Saturday: Proofread and publish.

Sunday: Day off.

And then we come to Monday, and I start again.

October isn't quite going to work out this way because I'm on vacation the first two weeks. However, I do plan to plot the 4th story of The Pandora Chronicles, so I can write it quickly when we get back.

In case you're wondering, I write everything in a Google doc, so it's always accessible.

In an upcoming post: How I work book promotion into the mix, like writing this blog, tweeting & finding the best places for my upcoming free ebook weekend.

New today on Kindle: "Freefall"

Are you ready for it?

Obnoxious email marketing -- yuck

I recently unsubscribed from a bunch of email lists.

And I need to do it again.

I signed up for an email newsletter that sounded pretty cool. This person has spent years interviewing and talking with well-known marketers and has asked them to share what they know. If you sign up, you can listen to the interviews for free and also read transcripts.

Sounds good, right?

This guy needs to pay closer attention to their professional advice, because I'm sure his tactics aren't part of it.

In the past couple of days, I received not one, but TWO emails from him asking me to call a number and wish his son a Happy Birthday.

Um, what?

So his son is going to get a gazillion voicemails wishing him a happy birthday? Gee, thanks, Dad.

If you've signed up for my mailing list, you'll notice I haven't sent you anything yet. And that's because when you signed up, you expected to hear from me when a) I release a new book, and b) if I'm offering a free book.

That's it.

I should probably give this guy a break, but my email box gets so crowded -- doesn't yours? -- that I have to slash and burn anything that doesn't truly support what I'm trying to do, professionally and personally.

Time to purge my email subscriptions again.

After that, it's on to the junk mail I get in my actual mailbox. How DO I get on all these catalog mailing lists, anyway? Sheesh.