Camy's Writing Diary

Yesterday I did my evaluation, and I also did some brainstorming for my next writing project, which will be a Romantic Suspense series set in Hawaii. The brainstorming is always fun, but even moreso in 4thewords.com , since I get to defeat monsters! Today I'll continue working on my Reader Magnet novella. Ugh, I still haven't come up with a name for it. During my walk I listened to a 6-Figure Authors podcast about productivity! How appropriate! Apparently Jo also likes to use external sources--an app that also has a corresponding website--for his productivity. He uses Habitica to create daily goals for himself and he checks them off each day to create streaks. If he's had a streak of writing everyday for 15 days, he's more likely to push himself to write even if he doesn't feel like it because he doesn't want to break his streak. Before I started using 4thewords, I was using a website called Writing Streak which also records your writing streaks. (But 4...

Edited to add: Sorry, I forgot to post this on Sunday! Posting it late. I forgot to do an evaluation at the end of September, so I'll do one now. Translation issues The Japanese translation of Sushi for One is finally done! My translator has been wonderful, especially because she worked with the proofreader, who doesn't speak English very well. If I didn't know any Japanese, I would have had to hire out some of the things I did, but since I know just enough Japanese to be dangerous to myself, I did the formatting into eBook and print book. The print book translation was straightforward, although a bit tedious since there were some furigana corrections that I needed to make (so I wouldn't have to pay someone else to do them). The eBook conversion was difficult, and I had to really stretch my very meager html skills in order to make it happen. I discovered a new way of doing it later in the process, so the next book might be a lot easier, but the conversion me...

Again, I'm not certain how much I'll get done today. I did some blocking on my Reader Magnet novella earlier, but then I got a headache. I've taken medication to make it go away, and it's not too bad, so I'm hoping I'll get more done. I am hoping I have recovered from the gaming insanity of yesterday and will be able to fully focus on my work today. I feel a little like an addict--once I get started, it's hard for me to get myself to stop. I've never been chemically dependent on anything, but mentally I really felt the pull of gaming, maybe especially since I'd been away from it for a while. I don't know if it's possible to be able to game moderately for me. My brain might just not be wired that way. In which case, I need to take steps to avoid it altogether. I feel pretty pathetic. I don't know any other writers who have the same types of problems that I do. Many of them are so much more self-disciplined. One woman on a Facebook g...

I almost called today a sick day, since I woke up with a slight headache and had some IBS issues this morning, but now that it's after dinner, I'm feeling a bit better and decided to try writing a bit. I'm not going to worry about writing speed, I'm just going to defeat a monster or two and see how things go. I'm still working on my Reader Magnet novella. I did a little more blocking yesterday, but I'm still not certain if I like the way the scene is structured. I'll have to see. *** Uggghhhh I wasted a lot of time! When looking for pictures for research I got caught up again in a game I had to give up last year, Memoria Freese, because it was taking up too much of my time. And now it's done it again!!! I am realizing my bad habit triggers, and one of them is certain types of games. In the case of 4thewords.com , my gaming addiction worked in my favor and helped with my productivity, but today that went down the toilet because of another of my ...

Just yesterday I blogged about using tricks to make myself get back to work, and today in her Facebook group, Elana Johnson talked about how she uses timers and Peanut M&Ms. Timers don't work for me--I've tried them before, including using a nifty Pomodoro timer that I bought and which now I barely use. I will work without stopping most of the time, but once I take a break, I just don't get back to work in a timely fashion. Even when I set a timer and it goes off, telling me to get back to work, I'll ignore it. So for me, using 4thewords.com motivates me more than just a timer since I'll lose the monster battle if I don't get my butt back in my chair to write. I'm just not as self-disciplined as other writers, because many of them on the Facebook group mentioned that they use timers, too, and when it goes off after their break, they get back to work. I'm also the sort of person who will snooze my alarm right up until the absolute last minute, ...

I took another sick day yesterday, so I didn’t post, and while I got a late start today and I’m still not 100%, I want to get some work done on my Reader Magnet . I’m still doing my experiment of switching workstations to cause less stress and injury to my body, since using only my standing desk or only my sitting desk causes problems. Today I’m writing a little bit outside in a deck chair. Most of my yard is pretty ugly since we stopped watering the grass when there was that drought a few years ago, but this is the corner of the yard, which is my view as I’m writing today: Something about the green trees is rather soothing, so I’m hopeful I can get a lot done while I’m out here. I’m on my Alphasmart and I started a 2-hour monster on 4thewords.com , but I intend to switch to my standing desk after an hour, so I won’t have any problems with my word count or finishing on time. *** When I first started using 4thewords, I didn't like the large word count monsters because the...

I had mentioned before about how I started learning all about marketing and sales funnels . I also posted about Reader Magnets recently, but my previous marketing blog post didn't mention much about them, so I'll write a little bit here. I got most of my information from the book Reader Magnets: Build Your Author Platform and Sell more Books on Kindle (2019 Edition) (Book Marketing for Authors 1) , which is a free ebook, and also Launch to Market: Easy Marketing For Authors (Write Faster, Write Smarter Book 4) , which explained a slightly different tweak on the type of Reader Magnet you can offer. A Reader Magnet is basically something free that you offer to people if they join your newsletter. This is important since you now have a captive audience for when you launch a new book. You want to build your newsletter list with people who like your writing and might actually be willing to buy it, and a Reader Magnet is a tool that will automatically draw in people who already l...