Good morning! Boy do I have lots to fill
everyone in on about the comings and goings of business, writing and life in
general in my home office.
But I’m going to tell it fast, furious, and as briefly as I
possibly can.
You see, about a month or so ago I fractured my left wrist.
Now, I’m a righty so this isn’t the worst tragedy on earth
but still, typing? Wasn’t happening.
The good news is that I caught up on a couple shows I never
finished watching and reminded myself of the importance of naps, pain relievers
and grippy things that help you open jars.
The bad news is that without the ability to type or even move
very much, my working life slid into oblivion.
Just as Kate & I were getting the Blogging Your Book blog off the ground, I had to go and limit my working ability!
Can someone say, frustrating?
It’s a pro and con to run your own business
The pro is that there’s no pressure, no one is beating down
my door to finish the next blog post or newsletter. So I can take the time I
need to rest and heal.
The con, of course: no income!
But I had to let some stuff slide so I could be smart about
healing.
As A+ as my personality is, it was important to get the rest
I needed in order to have a functional arm for the long-term as opposed to
busting out a few hundred words in the short-term.
But I couldn't just sit here forever. I was starting to go a little crazy. So I purchased voice to text software, started writing in a journal with my one good arm and transcribed everything by talking.
It feels pretty great to be working again!
Which is good because…
In addition to Blogging Your Book, I’m
also taking part in NaNo for the 4th time this November.
Yup, as in starting this Saturday!
For those of you who have never attempted or heard of NaNoWriMo, it’s short for National Novel Writing Month. This is a challenge
put out to the world by the good folks at The Office of Letters and Light, an
organization dedicated to helping people pursue their creative passions.
I’ve done 2 NaNos (writing a 50,000 word novel in only the
month of November) and won both times. In fact, my first self-published novel
came from one of those crazy November word-purges.
And I also failed once at a Camp NaNo but did so on purpose.
Camp happened in August of 2012 and that’s when I wrote the
majority of Reckless Abandon, which I
self-published in October of that same year. As far as I’m concerned I may not
have “won” the contest to hit the word count, but I got another book written
and released so I won in many other ways.
And that’s what I’m
looking forward to this year!
For the past few weeks I’ve had a lot of time to think and
plan and it hit me: Kate and I teach book marketing but my last book was released 2 years ago. It is high time to get back in the saddle again.
As a matter of fact, I’ve been planning to give Shaw
McLeary, my sometimes fearless main character from Reckless Abandon, her very own series for a while now.
Well, here we go, boom!
Building stages of plotting have begun for the next 3-5 books
in the series so if you enjoyed her the first time around there will be more to
come!
So where am I with
all of this healthwise?
I can type with 7 fingers for about an hour before my arm
starts to feel sucky. A vast improvement over 2 weeks ago, but I obviously still
have a long road ahead. That’s why I’m so jazzed about the voice conversion
software.
Because 50,000 words within 30 days won’t be easy.
But I’m absolutely looking forward to every crazy minute of
it!
