Did you ever notice there just aren’t enough hours in the day sometimes? Why is that? There are 168 hours in the week, every week, yet I find myself scrambling to make time at times. If I were to couch this phenomena in Star Trek terms, I think what I’m seeing is a temporal anomaly. I must be living in an alter-verse where time runs quicker than it does for everyone else. I write and hours pass with only inches of text created. Inches! Now granted, I self edit along the way and who knows how many words actually come and go before I settle on the perfect scene or the best dialogue.
About three weeks ago, I finished a book project for my work that took nearly two years to complete. Logic says, with it out of the way, there should be more time, right? Uh uh. I try not to let everything around me suffer but there’s no doubt in my mind that it does in small ways. Take dust for instance.
My house is dusty right now. I have seasonal allergies and a dust allergy. I live in one of the prettiest places in the Midwest but there’s an allergy sufferer’s price to pay for that beauty. The entire place is in wildflower pollen right now and the neighboring corn fields have filled the air with it. I can’t draw a breath without exposure to some irritant or another. So here I am doing my mid-week promoting and blogging, blowing my nose for the hundredth time since I woke up this morning on a sneezing jag. Ugh. Needless to say, the thought of dusting and stirring dust mites into the air to add to this itchy-eyed, runny-nosed, itchy-throat, itchy-eared, wheezing wretchedness, has not entered my mind since the end of July. An early hard frost has been on my mind.
So things have been busy like I mentioned in my previous post. I’m writing my book of course and see the ending in my mind’s eye now. I’m also finishing up an author interview and trying to come up with catchy posts for both the upcoming 2-day End of Summer Bash at The Romance Studio August 26- 28th, and the month long October Starving Authors’ spot (of which I most definitely qualify) over at the TwoLips Reviews page.
Speaking of reviews. I’m way behind in sending review requests out for Dreamscape. *sigh* Like I said I’m putting in for the 28 hour day.
My author’s group just started planning for the Fall for Romance extravaganza similar in breadth and scope of the successful Summer Love-In all day promotional event.
Here are the details so far:
Welcome to the
FALL FOR ROMANCE 2011 ONE-DAY EVENT!
Fall into PASSION with the tumble of the leaves!
Coming
Thursday, November 10th!
Mark Your Calendars!
One Lucky Person Will Win $25 eBucks from ARe.
Just Join Our Chat…And Chat!
We’ll Pick One Name at 8PM Eastern Time as the Lucky Winner!
We have INTRIGUING authors, DIZZYING stories
to sweep you into a cozy autumn affair!
Enter contests to win for
FREE e-books!
Mainstream and Erotic Romances!
Historicals, Contemporaries,
Futuristics, and Paranormals!
Delve into love with our FRESH and SEXY heroes!
They await you with each turn of the page.
Chat with your favorite authors:
Lisa Alexander-Griffin, Rose Anderson, E. Ayers,
Mary Corrales, J. D. Faver, Michele Hart,
Tara Manderino, Missy Martine, Jane Leopold Quinn
This event starts at NOON Eastern US Time
and ends when we pass out!
Don’t miss the chance to Fall for Romance!
🙂 I just love these ladies. The last one was fun and exhausting given I lived in chaos at the time. So to get ready, I loaded my reader freebies onto the temporary Fall for Romance files. The doors will open for readers, and access to the author files to poke through will come closer to the event. My giveaways were very popular the last time around. Mind blowing to say the least. Readers wanted t-shirts and tote bags and my quote magnets along with a few free ebooks. Extrapolate ahead 80 years or so to a Christies auction and find my author promotional goodies as sought after collectables! Hehehe 🙂
This time, along with a few given out for contests the day of, I’m trying this to see where it’ll go:
Collectors of Romance Memorabilia
Rose Anderson Goodies!
Would you like some? Just send me an email with your address and I’ll mail your choice.
roseanderson4858@yahoo.com
~ My Bookmarks ~
~ My Cool Bumper Sticker ~
Other drivers will wonder!
~ Autographed Book Covers ~
Soon to be Famous!
~ Quotes by that sexy, sensual, smooth talking, man S ~
On refrigerator magnets!
~ Free Downloadable Bookplates ~
Print on adhesive-back paper at home
Ok, my feet are back on the ground. As busy as I am, I still read up on many things involving the business I’m in. There are several bits worth mentioning. The first — I saw some sobering news last night —
National Public Radio (NPR) posted some info that said there are risks associated with prolonged periods of time sitting. It’s really bad for you. A study was done calculating how much time men spent sitting in their cars, at their desks, in front of the TV. Men who sat more, were considerably more likely to die. Men with more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those with 11 hours a week or less of sedentary activity. According to this study, many of these men regularly exercised too! What the heck? Apparently the major muscles are not contracting enough. Those big muscles in your legs and back, the muscles need to be used or metabolism slows down and undesirable levels of cholesterol, blood sugar, and triglycerides rise. An increase in waist size comes with it too which increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, etc. Great. I write all day and I don’t do it standing up.
Next, I read an article by Gary McLaren entitled WHY SHOULD WRITERS USE TWITTER?
I have tweeted but admit I’ve not known how to fully utilize this venue. After reading this article, I plan on doing better.
His Ten Reasons are really well thought out –
1. Write a Professional Profile. Who you are, what you do, and your various links.
2. Join the Conversation. Find pertinent conversations and contribute.
3. Research a Topic. Bone up on those questions everyone is asking.
4. Build Your Reputation. Speaks for itself.
5. Use HashTags. What are these # anyway?
6. Find Experts. Make contacts!
7. Job Hunting. Why not?
8. Interact with Other Writers. Good advice and tips.
9. Tweet Quality. Don’t blather.
10. Follow Potential Clients. Hmm…
Find the full article without my condensing here:
http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/freelance-business/50-general/240-why-should-writers-use-twitter
A post shot by my inbox the other day regarding a promotional opportunity over at Sizzling Hot Books called Back To Smut (a catchy spin on Back to School). I don’t really consider my work smut, certainly not after one review site gave my steamiest novel, Hermes Online, a heat rating of 2 (on a range from mild simmering 1 to a conflagrating 5 ½). Still, a weeklong opportunity to pitch my works there might entice a few new readers to look me up. I’ll post more as I get info. So far it’s set for September 2nd and runs to the 7th. Here’s their link: http://www.sizzlinghotbooks.net/
Before I sign off on the blog, I just want to say wordpress.org was the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to figure out. This page is created on wordpress.com. And it’s another creature entirely. I tried to expand it a little with a new template of theirs. Blah. I know there are many happy people that use this site for their blogs but I envisioned something else. I wanted a more fluid website to attach to my blog — an author’s showcase to offer space to all the great authors I’ve come to know and easy access to everything I have to offer. I bought a program and made a beauty of a template too. It was perfect, it was fluid, and it was eye-catching and inviting. I set it up to be every single thing I wanted in a website. Unfortunately I couldn’t use it. I just couldn’t figure out how to get it onto wordpress.org to park it at the webhost I entered into a contract with. 😦
Following wordpress.org’s less than simple directions, I bought a domain for two years and tried to get my template up and running that way. I asked people for help, several of whom really tried but what they were telling me to look for was never on any of the pages I saw before me. To this day I have no idea why. I suspected my browser, Mozilla’s Firefox, for a while and even tried to go through Google Chrome and Internet Explorer to no avail. I talked to a great tech person at BlueHost who tried like hell to get my website set up. Unfortunately, the issue was with wordpress.org and I wasn’t hearing anything from wordpress.org other than silence. Seriously not one peep, not even a form letter saying they don’t help. Not being able to figure out the tech speak myself by digging in wordpress.org’s user forums, I gave up and got my refund from the very nice BlueHost people, minus the cost for my month of pain. I have this wordpress.com blog paid for until April 2012 then it’s time to move on. I’m hoping I can keep my web address. I have a lot of promotional items sporting CalliopesWritingTablet. That would be almost as bad as getting Billy Bob’s name tattooed on your arm then breaking up. 😦
That’s it for now. Looking at the clock, I see my morning hourglass has run out of time, and once again, I just don’t know where the time has gone. Scotty beam me up!
calliopeswritingtablet.com 