Progress Friday

Hey peeps

I know - this slot has been awol for the past 2 weeks. Reason? Let me stop being a total chicken and tell you the whole truth: I hadn't written a word in the past 2 weeks, and since I had no progress to show when I was supposed to be on deadline, I was ashamed of myself.

There you have it. Yes - I've heard it all (cut yourself some slack, take a breather, writers run into a funk sometimes), but none of that really helps when you're contemplating the fact that you are accountable for what is, inherently, your job. I'm an author and my job is to produce books, full stop.

I could try to explain my position the past 2 weeks. Week 1, my son was home on school break (plus there were 2 public holidays - whole family at home - and one of them was a personal celebration for us). In this case, forget about writing, unless you want to be downing Paracetamol tablets by the handful come tea time because writing and looking after a rambunctious 8-year-old equals the headache of the century.
So there, I had already lost my writing pace and groove, and that's the worst thing that can happen to me. When I lose my groove, it's hard to get back in, because I will be questioning myself and whether or not if what I'm writing is good, and will I ever be able to find the same pace and flow as before I was interrupted? That's my biggest Damocles' sword.

Week 2 saw me having a hospital appointment on Wednesday. And so what happens to me whenever I need to go meet my care team, I start getting worried... What if something has happened and I'm no longer in okay health? What if the doctors will have bad news? I'm a nervous wreck whenever I need to meet my doctors (and in case you didn't know, I'm a two-time breast cancer survivor. My second brush with the disease was less than a year ago). So there went the other week, and by the time the appointment came and went (with a clean bill of health for the past 4 months, thank goodness!), I was wiped and it took me the rest of the week to recover. So a cancer scare is my second Damocles sword.

Pair the two swords together, and you get me totally out of commission.

Until something happened to kick my arse and get me back in gear - my lovely publisher, Jill Noble, posted something on Facebook that had me glowing and basking with pride. It was this amazing , 5-star review by Just Erotic Romance Reviews for Walking The Edge.

This gave me faith, in myself and my ability to weave a story that would have readers (hopefully!) enthralled. I sat down and started writing again...

...and let me say the word count has been none too shabby this current week. About 8.4K added to the draft of Before The Morning, and this takes me across the half-way mark to end this week on the 55% line on the expected total word count! Woot!

Oh, and something else I wanted to share with you - my bestie (and she is like a sister to me!), author Angela Guillaume, kickstarted her writing blog this week. After a rev-up post on Monday, she hosted author Hope Tarr on Wednesday for the first of her Wednesday Interview slots. And today, she posts her own progress report. I'm curious to know what she's been up to writing-wise - join me to check out her Progress Friday post, over at her blog, angelaguillaume.blogspot.com

So that's it from me this week, beautiful people! Looking forward to a quiet weekend where I'll catch up on some (very late) crits for my CPs.

Oh, and if you're on Facebook, join me later today for the Friday/Weekend TideOver photo (hunky, yummy men... need I say more? *grin*)

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

If you're friend with me on Facebook, you'll have read my status update, as to how I actually punched myself in the face last night. I was pulling the second blanket up, but I pulled too hard and it was stuck, so I lost my grip and my fist came flying to crash into my nose. Now I know what it feels like to receive a knuckle sandwich - let me tell you it hurts like *beep!*

So, is that the only progress this week, me learning how to punch myself? Fortunately, no. I've been busy and running around like a headless chicken with the promo for Walking The Edge, and doping up on calcium and vitamin supplements to help me keep up. I could've fared way better if I had been sleeping normally, but insomnia reared its ugly head up over the past weekend and I end the week staring bleary-eyed at it.

With all this combined, I added just over 2,000 words to Against The Odds this week. Not bad but not stellar, and still very far from my goal. Hopefully, over this weekend, things will quiet down and I'll be able to delve back into the usual writing routine. Tomorrow my husband once again goes to work for most of the day, and takes the kid to my mum's. Should have a free day to look forward to where I can work without any distractions.

What have you guys got planned?

And I also wanted to say a huge, huge thanks to all of you who have bought my book! It's because of you guys that Walking The Edge made it to #6 on the Noble Romance Top10 Bestsellers list barely a week after it went on sale! I love you guys! XOXO

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Random Thoughts' Monday: Zapping Twitter...

Inspired by a post on Jodi Hedlund's blog that I read a few days ago, I have been giving a lot of thought to where I am and how I can be in all places to the best of my capacities. After lots of deliberation, to-and-fro-ing, pondering, thinking... I agree with what she says:

That we can't be everywhere and do a good job about it.

This got me thinking about my Internet presence. I agree, I am not all over the place (and totally not as socially prolific as a lot of people I admire!) but even this is, as many writers can attest, a huge time-suck.

I started the year committing myself to writing at least 4 books. 3 of the 50K length variety, 1 of the longer variety (80K+). And these are not gonna get written if all I'm doing is hopping all over the place. As my health takes another look-over and forces me to be expressly where I want to be, I have to prioritise...

...and decide where I want to be. Namely, Facebook and this blog. Sadly, I'll have to let Twitter go.

I didn't come to this decision lightly, but things are pointing me in that direction, and I'll try to explain.

First of all, I'm not good at Twitter. It feels so much like talking to myself. Yes, there are @whoever replies, but that's another issue (scroll down).

Second, my location. Not many people in Mauritius are on Twitter (as opposed to Facebook), so the site doesn't get the same kind of bandwidth support here. Yeah, true - I'm not even sure if what I just said is possible (bandwidth-wise), but this does look to be the case.

Third, bandwidth/connection woes again. Every time I'm on Twitter, I time out. I'm either told I timed out, or I get that huge whale being lifted by little birds image (the one up here. Yeah, totally unnerving, innit?). Not conducive to tweeting, you'll agree.
Try to tweet - time out and you have to re-type the tweet... to maybe time out again.
Check your followers' page to see who is connecting with you... sorry, you timed out, try later.
Check your @replies - seems like you timed out, try again later.

Fourth - I'm a zero at navigating Twitter. Watching the sheer amount of Tweets that flow in gives me a headache. And how can you expect people to follow you when you're not following them? Tweet-pics, I know what they are, have no idea how to see them, use them, add them. I tried a few times to read the scroll, reply, check profiles. A few hours had gone by me...

Fifth - location again, and the time difference. A big feature of Twitter is the immediacy of the medium. I mean, look at the #AmericanIdol discussion that went on during this season's premiere. Sadly though, when most of the people I can interact with are Tweeting, I'm asleep. I'm 8-12 hours ahead of US time, so that makes my working day Americans' sleeping time. As a rule since the fiasco of my 2010 time/family/marriage management, evenings are pretty much off limits for 'work'. Yes, I do drop by my email and Facebook sometimes at 8 PM, but it's a cursory zip-through, which I can't do on Twitter.

Sixth - my phone balks at connecting to Twitter. Again, it seems that since Mauritians don't use Twitter, it doesn't get the kind of direct link I need to access it via my 3G service provider. The link, if accessed, takes ages to load, takes ages to let you log in, and (see a pattern here?) most probably it'll time me out.

Seventh - I hate being one of those who only self-promote on their Twitter feed. The only reason I can even do that is because I've linked NetworkedBlogs with my Twitter feed. If I try to go in and add my link, I'll (you guess it!) time out!

I really would love to be able to handle Twitter, but you gotta admit defeat when you're fighting a losing battle. I have to prioritise, I have to time-manage, I have to write, I have to have a life outside of the cyber world, I have to be a wife and a mother and basically a person who takes a minute a day to look after herself.

This means de-junking, de-cluttering, simplifying.

So from now on, peeps, I'll be here and on Facebook. Join me, won't you? :)

From Mauritius with love,

Zee