Forced Stop

Last month I wrote a post whining about the Blogging Conundrum-- do I? Don't I? Does it help within the sphere of publishing? Yes, no, maybe. There's no right or wrong answer, basically just do it if you want to, don't if you don't.

Last Wednesday, I was given the opportunity to put my priorities in order. Yeah, in the giant sphere of life, blogging isn't all that important.

On Wednesday morning at 9:38, Monster's father fell off the roof cleaning the gutters. I know exactly what time it happened because I had just come out of the house with the broom to sweep the stuff into the bin. I heard stumbling on the roof and then I watched him fall. Twelve feet from the roof onto the cement of the carport. It was a James Bond movie. All of a sudden this guy is landing in my driveway.

I called the EMT's they took him in. He broke both of his feet. Yes, BOTH of his feet. Left ankle, right heel. Instead of falling, he jumped, and landed straight down on his feet like a cat. The doctor told me on Sunday morning, Robert's prognosis is a year, at best, before he'll be able to stand on his broken heel. He will never walk right again.

This is a total guilt trip--I told him the gutters needed to be done. He's a roofer, that's what he does. Or did, until he took disability. But I knew he had experience on a roof.

I've had to wrangle the insurance claims, the Social Worker case manager, the hospital doctors and nurses, the PT guys, the medical equipment company who is coming to my house to bring a hospital bed, wheelchair, commode, walker, and other assorted items that a complete invalid might need. I've had to set up appointments for future care, and wrangle transportation to and from the doctor's office.

I've had to arrange for all this because Robert will not be allowed to go to a rehab facility.
The insurance company will not pay for rehab because the doctor said Robert was in for observation, not as a patient. That's a whole other side line I won't get into. It was HOURS of bureaucracy. Yes, let's thank the doctor for that as well.

*Pause for the telephone* I am writing this on Saturday morning.

Robert just called and said they were going to release him today. With no equipment in the house. His doctor gave me a follow up call two minutes later and said they were going to release him today. I explained to him the equipment wasn't here-- there was a long dramatic pause-- and then he said, "Well, we'll see if we can get it sorted out." I also explained to him that Robert needed to be taken home by ambulance on a stretcher because his (the doctor's orders) were that Robert was NOT supposed to be on his feet at all. Obviously. The doctor said, "Well, we'll see."

*Pause again for telephone.*

The lovely Ginger from After-Care at the hospital said she spoke to the Doctor who is releasing Robert today. I asked about the equipment. She said she'd get back to me. Fifteen minutes later she returned my call and said she spoke to the medical supply company who is bringing the bed and said they couldn't get out here until Monday. Not five minutes later, I received another call from the medical supply company that said they couldn't get out here with the bed until Monday.

I am writing this next on Sunday morning.

Robert now needs to have a bed downstairs. Unfortunately, the only way to bring Monster's full downstairs, is if I clean the entire house, move furniture, and spring clean at the same time. So, that is what I did, from Friday night into Saturday morning. It looks like I may even be able to paint upstairs now that he's living on the main floor. (I have to look at the bright side somewhere.)

Robert is now in bed, (which I will also have to move BACK upstairs tomorrow morning before the medical supply company arrives with the hospital bed.) He is happily encased in purple haze of pain medication. I am trying to figure out which closet to clean next.

Tomorrow brings a whole other nightmare of phone calls and furniture.

In the larger scheme of things, blogging is NOT important when the fit hits the shan.

There's a line from an old song

"... don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."



Anne Gallagher (c) 2016

Writing is Hard "Work"

Good Morning. I've been thinking about my five year plan. I touched on it with this post in January. The Year of the Popcorn Kittens. Writing the Regency series took a lot out of me, in more ways than I ever thought. During my last blog break between March and June my brain just shut down. I didn't want to write anymore. Seriously, I thought about giving it all up. Actually, I just wanted to sleep until I decided to get up again.

However, writing is my JOB. I am (for the most part) an historical romance novelist. That's what I do to make money. Yet, after pushing out so many Regencies, (7 novels and 6 novellas in 4 years) I just didn't want to write another word. But as self-published authors, we're taught to write, write, write. To get it out, publish, rinse and repeat.

not all the books are here

What I had forgotten during the last two years, and what my blog break showed me was how much FUN I used to have while writing.  I always have five or six different WiP sitting on my hard drive. (If one gives me fits, I just go to the next.)

However, the guilt I felt for wanting to abandon my chosen genre was eating at me like a cancer. How could I disappoint my readers if I didn't churn out another series when I said I would write it? Would I lose my fan base? I had found success by publishing every four months or so. Would they wait for the next book? (To make a success of a series, readers don't LIKE to wait. They want to read them all from beginning to end. Write, write, write, publish, publish, publish.)

However, what I found when I sat down to write the next series was that I had no new ideas. I have six heroines I have to find plots for, and I had already pretty much done them all. Mistaken identity, brutish hero, war hero, lies, spies and country bumpkins and long-suffering women who waited for their man to come up to snuff. I had nothing left. And I couldn't bear to do any more research. (The timeline for the new series is set 5 years before the last one. Different wars, different people, different politics.)

So I said f*ck it. Yes, I did. I had written 5 chapters for the new Regency series first book and I stopped.

And let me tell you what a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Writing this detective novel has been like a breath of fresh air. New characters, minimal research, contemporary language. I feel as if I've been reborn. (Could I have any more cliches in that paragraph?)

Like that rhyme we used to sing at the end of the school year -- No more teachers, no more books, no more bully's dirty looks. Well my rhyme is now -- No more Dukes, no more Viscounts, I can write whatever I feel like. Yes, I know it doesn't rhyme, but I never said I was a poet. lol

I'm writing for FUN again and it feels so good. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel like I'm driven to the brink of madness doing research. I don't feel as if I'm wasting my time writing other things when I should be "WORKING".

And this, my friends, is the most important lesson I learned --

No matter WHAT I write, that means I AM working. 

Tell me -- Do you write for fun? Or are you writing as a job? Do you ever feel guilty if you write out of your chosen genre?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2015

Life Smackdown

Good Morning. Well, it's been a month and a couple of days since I've been here last and well, I've been hard pressed to get back into the blogging groove. I know a lot of you are doing NaNo and don't pop up again until the end of November, but I thought I would fill you in.

The Seduction of Mr. Summerville was going well until the end of October. I have now written 76,000 words, but can't seem to find the right ending. Yes, I have it in my head, but getting it down is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I had this crazy idea that I needed another "big" thing to get down before I
finished it, and so I put it in. Then I had this other crazy idea that I needed a ghost. Yes, you heard right, a ghost in my Regency romance. It's not paranormal, it's just crazy, and I think it works, but I'll let my critters decide. I set aside this past weekend to finish it (I only needed a few more pages) but, alas, I'm still writing. Maybe by the end of the week.

Google Play Well, after trying to upload for several days to Liberio (the only epub maker that will upload to Google) I found out that both laptops and my pc wouldn't allow me to do it. Luckily, Liberio has opened other channels to accept manuscripts to upload and Dropbox is one of them. I haven't had a chance to get to this yet (see above) but as soon as I do, I'll let you know how it goes.

Anne Gallagher Blog For the last couple of weeks, I've been doing posts about Writing a Series. I try to give helpful ideas of what I did, just in case you wanted to write a series. Or maybe spin-off one of your books. I'm in the final stages of wrapping it up. You can find it here.

Volunteering at School I'm still volunteering at Monster's school as the Gift Card Coordinator, and last week I was also the chairperson for the Veterans' Day Observance we had. It was really nice (everyone said so), and the food was fabulous (everyone said so) and the Vets who came had a really great time (they all said so). I'm glad I did it because I proved that we didn't need to spend any money to throw a reception (all the ladies baked something) and we rounded up loose ends from various programs (coffee cups from the Booster Club, napkins from the cafeteria, table cloths from the PTO, and I used all my pretty platters and bowls from my defunct catering company). It was a lot of work, but something I'm glad I did. Veterans' Day is more important to me than Christmas.

Second Reader Services I've been putting together a small business plan for content editing services that I hope will be ready to launch soon. I've edited/critiqued/helped authors in the past get their books ready to publish, and have gotten pretty good feedback from them. My name has appeared in several acknowledgments, so I think that's high praise indeed. I expect to keep the cost down (so much so that my dearest friends are telling me to go higher because I'm worth it) BUT, I know struggling authors don't have a lot of money. I'm hoping to get this into gear in December.

Other than that, I'm trying to decide whether or not to let Monster get her ears pierced for her birthday in December. She'll be 10. I told her she had to wait until she's 12, but I'm wavering. However, I can barely get her to brush her hair before she goes to school. Can I trust she'll take care of her earlobes? Hmmm....

Tell me -- What are you doing? How is everything? What did I miss?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Writing Detox

Good Morning. Last Monday I touched on what we Should and Should Not do as writer/authors. Of course, that list is free to interpret any way you wish. I just wish "they" would stop hammering it down our throats. Perhaps if they made them "suggestions" it might be a little easier to swallow.

Anyhow, for the last couple of years, everyone has agreed on this one essential issue where writing is concerned. Something that we all SHOULD do. Write the next book.

I can remember being in query hell, and the resounding response to my "What do I do while I wait for responses to come back?" was write the next book. You need another in the coffer if the agent makes a request. And if not, you'll have another to query when you give up the first one. Write the next book.

Putting a book up on Amazon and debating whether to promote or not, and the resounding response was write the next book. This is a long tail enterprise, and the more books you have out, more readers will find you. Promotion can wait until book four or five. And besides, blog tours don't work. Neither does a Twitter campaign. Just write the next book.

Trying to play the Amazon game, and the resounding response was write the next book. Don't worry about getting reviews, bad reviews, no reviews, whether KDP Select "free" works or not. It's a game, and the only rule is to get the next book out there. The more you have, the better off you'll be. Write the next book.

Okay, so here I sit, after 18 months, with 4 novels and 4 novellas (published) under my belt, with another novel ready to fire up in the next week or so, and what should I do? Why, write the next book, of course.

But you know what, I'm tired of writing. I'm tired of figuring out plot points and inciting incidents and figuring out how to make my heroine less irritable. What I really need is a vacation. A nice long vacation with beach sand in my Virgin Mary, and sun burn on my nose.

But then I think how my books will suffer if I don't write the next one. My readers will be heart broken and leave me if I don't cough up another "something" within 2 months. My sales will plummet to nothing, I'll lose my ranking, my audience, my shot at being #19 again on the New Releases Best Seller List. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there in publishing land, and if you're not top dog, or even mid-list dog, you're nothing.

And then I think I'll lose my mind if I have to sit at the damned computer staring at a blinking curser for days on end wondering how to write when I really don't want to.

We've all heard how we SHOULD write every day. How we SHOULD churn out something, even if it's 500 words of crap. How we SHOULD keep notebooks in the car, by the bed, in the bathroom when inspiration hits.

Yeah, okay, I was on this kick for awhile too. Writing, writing, writing. Letting the house get so bad I could have been a candidate for Hoarders. (Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea. The dust bunnies even packed up once and left.) Ignoring the phone, my mother, my daughter, all for the sake of the next book. I've forgotten how to live in the real world because I've spent so much time with my characters.

And that's just not right. The guilt I have because I'm not sure what to do. I feel guilty if I spend time with my daughter and not writing. And I feel guilty I'm writing and not spending time with my daughter. Or cleaning the house, or mowing the lawn, or for God's sake, just doing laundry and keeping the dishes up.

Until I read one of those posts I mentioned earlier. And this guy, Bob, is his name, said, "You need to detox every once in awhile. You need to take a break to replenish your imagination." (paraphrasing here)

And I KNOW this. I take breaks off the blogs. But this guy was talking about something more. Just walking away from it all -- blogging, social media, writing, marketing, all of it. Just walking away for a good long while, or until the next big idea hits and you can't wait to get back to the keyboard. That, he said, was the key. WANTING to write. (And he's got 50 books under his belt, so he should know what he's talking about.) Writing because you WANT to, not because you SHOULD.

And that, I think, is where I am now. I need a writing break. Detox, if you will. Oh, I'll still blog, for the time being. But I'm not writing. I can't. And why churn out shit, when I know I'll just scrap it all anyway. That, my friends, is an exercise in futility. If I can't write 1000 words of something half-way decent, then why bother.

Tell me -- Do you ever willingly detox? Does it replenish your imagination? Or do you keep working away because you think you SHOULD?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013

The Shoulds and Should Nots

Good Morning. Today I'd like to discuss things we should and should not do when we're writer/authors. I've been around the blogs for a couple of years now. I've followed agents and big name writers, read blogs followed by thousands of people. These people know what they're talking about. I guess. But as with everything, I take what they say with a grain of salt.

We SHOULD blog with captivating content no less than 500 words no more than 800. We SHOULD Tweet and be friendly and engaging. We SHOULD have a Face Book author page and update it once a day. We SHOULD do blog tours when we publish. We SHOULD do this, that, and the other, so our name will be seen and heard and we will sell millions and millions of copies.

Uh, no. We don't. What we SHOULD do is find a place where we are comfortable.

I blog because I like it. I started my blog to meet people, like minded writers who I could engage with. Some of you who have been around with me from the beginning know me. I've written whatever the heck I want. Some days it's about writing, some days it's about romance, some days it's about my daughter, or the fact I'm building another fence. Some days I'm captivating, others I fall flat on my face. But I'm not blogging with specific content because I SHOULD. I'm blogging because I want to.

I've been reading forever about how to do a blog tour when you have a book coming out. You SHOULD set up no less than 15 stops, guests posts mixed with interviews, make sure you reply to every person in the comments etc. etc. I personally, don't do blog tours. Yes, I may do a cozy interview or two when my book comes out, but that's about it. And you know, there have been a couple of books I've released and only mentioned it once on my blog. (One story I never mentioned at all.) But that's me.  I don't have time for all that fuss and bother. Sure I might be missing a whole lot of sales, but you know,  I'm of the old school where word of mouth sells books. The writing should speak for itself.

I read a big name blogger a few weeks ago who said you SHOULD NOT reply to every single comment on your blog -- she said, it's padding the comments. Makes you look like you have 50 comments when you really only have 25. Now I had a "block comment" system in place for years. It's a pain in the butt sometimes. So I decided to go with "reply" comments instead. But you know, that turned into a pain as well, so I'm back to block comments. I'm making life easier on myself.

I also read over and over how I need to be on Twitter 3 or 4 times a day. I need to "engage" with people. I should be friendly and retweet. Then I also read that I should not retweet anything. Makes me look like a brown nose. I should have a schedule for Tweeting, 15 minutes morning, noon, and night. Uh, no. I don't have time to be sociable. I'm a writer. And personally, I don't think people give a fig what I had for lunch, or if Monster is home from school. I get on Twitter when I feel like it. I retweet interesting stuff if I think someone I know might like it. I Tweet because I want to and when I have the time.

And I've also read over and over how I need to get on Face Book so my "fans" can find me. As I've said before, I will never get on Face Book. In the back of every one of my books is my blog link to my Anne Gallagher Regency Romance Writer blog. I update every Sunday. I share what I'm doing in my books so my readers will know what's coming out next, what I'm doing, what's happening in my little writing world. My readers don't give a flying fig what page line edits I'm on, updating my status every 15 minutes. They just want to know when the damn thing will be finished.

I SHOULD do blog hops to find new followers. I SHOULD NOT do blog hops just to find new followers. I SHOULD follow every single person who follows me. I SHOULD NOT just follow someone blindly because they follow me. I SHOULD do memes and writing themes. I SHOULD NOT put my writing on my blog. I SHOULD use pictures. I SHOULD NOT use pictures. On and on and on.

Let me tell you what I have learned from the SHOULD and SHOULD NOT list. I SHOULD be true to myself and do whatever I feel comfortable doing. I WILL NOT do what every one else is doing. I mean, fish all swim upstream together. Why SHOULD I? I can zig zag if I want to. I'll still get to the same place. Maybe not as fast as the other fish, but I'll get there eventually.

Tell me -- What's on your SHOULD and SHOULD NOT list? What else have you seen on the blogs that you SHOULD be doing but don't? Or are not doing, but SHOULD?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013

Happy 500th

Well, today is my official 500th post. Seems kind of weird to think I've written so many. I didn't know what I was doing at the beginning, but over the last three and a half years (wow, it's really been that long, my how time flies) I think I've come a long way, baby.

I've learned how to

                                                                                             

write books

link

post pics

comment                                                                            

publish books

handle a comma

review books

critique

query

format

market books

Tweet

make friends

revise books

and

make a book trailer

That's a lot of stuff to learn how to do.

And I couldn't have done it without all of you, who were here with me, helping me to learn and grow as a writer and a person.

So thank you, everyone, for making my little corner of the blogosphere so fabulous.

Summer Vacation and the Blog

Good Morning. I know this post is late in getting up, but that's because The Monster got out of school yesterday for summer break and I got up late this morning. Well, not so late, 7:30, but that's late for me as I'm usually up at 5. But I didn't set the alarm this morning and I didn't have a post already planned. So here I am.

There's been a lot of chatter around the blogosphere about the blogs, and bloggers coming, going, leaving, comments, no comments, is blogging dead, is it cyclical, do we even care anymore....

I don't believe there are any definitive answers. As with writing, it's all subjective. What one may think about blogging, another may think about Twitter or Pinterest, or FB.

I think, and this is only my opinion, as most of us have been around for awhile, and have come far from where we started a few years ago, we've either gotten agents, small publishers, or took the plunge and self-published. And as everyone knows, once you do any of those things, your life takes on a whole different direction. I know a few weeks ago, I had a post about blogging and although I love it, it's just sucking the life out of me. I don't have time for it anymore.

I've always said the writing comes first, and that will not change. (Well, first after The Monster and my mother's constant demand to have her lawn mowed and gardens in perfect order.)  I haven't been around lately because I've been working on my latest story -- Monday's post --. We'll also be moving very very soon, add to that painting and fixing the old house, and throw some vacation in the mix and well, what do you get?

Me, in a straight jacket.

Well, sort of, but no, more than likely, you just won't get me around. I have some posts pre-planned for Monday's in the next few weeks, and I still would like to celebrate my birthday before I leave, so I hope you'll just keep me on your radar for a little while longer.

Tell me -- Are you getting ready for summer? Are you taking a blog break? Is blogging dead, or just cyclical?

What is it About Blogging?

Good Morning. I don't know about you guys, I'm sure you've all felt this way at some point or another, or maybe not.

What is it about blogging?

Let me just say this right now, up front -- I LOVE BLOGGING. I think it's the coolest thing I've ever learned how to do since I found the Styles and Formatting tab on my computer. The interaction, the people, the news, gossip, comments, sharing...I love it all. It's like going back to college for me every single day. Hanging out in the lounge until all hours of the day and night, just talking books and writers and publishing. It's such a great time!

But then why does it suck so bad when I just don't want to do it anymore? And it's not that I don't want to do it, I just don't FEEL like doing it. I just don't feel like going around to all the posts, leaving comments, finding new friends, ideas, threads to chase and ponder. But when I don't, I feel guilty. Oh. So. Guilty.

I mean, I love you guys. When I'm on hiatus, I mope around, I can't concentrate, I feel like I'm going to miss something (and have on several occasions), and then when I come back everything's great for like two weeks, but then I start to feel bummed out again.

Is it the time suck? Or is it the guilt? I know I should be writing instead of blogging. But then if I don't blog, my friends don't come around anymore. And if my friends don't come around, then I feel guilty, so I blog and comment, but that takes time away from my writing. Such a bitchious circle. (No that was not a typo.)

I know several friends who've stopped blogging altogether. Do I want to do that? NO!
I've run the gamut from 5 days to 2 days back up to 3 days down to 1 day.
I've taken hiatus (hiati?) I've switched to Google Reader, come back to Blogger, and gone back to Reader.

I just don't know what it is. I can't live with it, I can't live without it.

How about you? Do any of you ever feel this way? Or is it just me?

Me and Social Networking

Good Morning. I'd like to broach the topic of social networking. Much has been said about this ever-evolving media and I'm not about to rehash every topic, but what I would like to do is share my thoughts with you.

First, I do believe it's a necessary evil. Back when I first started writing, I had no clue about blogging. NONE. A friend at my daughter's then pre-school said, "Oh you should blog if you're writing a book." And I was like, "What is that?" Seriously. Clueless. So I jumped into the fray with my blog and made oh-so-many mistakes, but I found my way, and a few friends, and lo-and-behold, I have a nice blog, a nice smattering of friends and followers, and I'm quite content.

Now some people really get the machine that is Blogger and how to go about building scads of followers, but I'm not one of them. Not that I would mind 1500 followers, but I would have no clue what to do with them. As I put writing at the top of my priority list, right below The Monster, it's impossible to follow the almost 400 blogs I have on two separate blog rolls everyday. I do what I can and hope that's enough.

Now, let's take a look at Twitter. I joined because everyone kept telling me it's a great way to get my books "out there". I have a love/relationship with it. I admit I am inept at it, don't know the "rules", have made mistakes and quite frankly don't care. People follow me, so I try and be polite and follow them back. I hate  that I have to wade through  90000000 bits of information just to find anything remotely interesting. I post once around 6am and find that's about all I can handle. Not much socializing there. (I did make lists, but don't use them.)

Goodreads is meh. I feel like I don't spend as much time there as I should. I want to, but I don't read as many books as I used to. I haven't read anything "new" (published within the last 5 years) unless it was given to me, or won in a contest, or have been asked to write a review. Quite frankly, I don't know what to do with it.

LinkedIn is another social network I have. I do like it, because I don't have to do anything with it. I have it linked to my Twitter account, (and I think it's linked to my blog but I'm not sure) and I rarely check on it, maybe once a month, because it's not something I know what to do with either.

I am NOT on FaceBook, nor will ever be. I know I was on the fence with Twitter and finally caved, but rest assured, I will NEVER join FaceBook, not even with a fan page. I have my reasons and they're private.

As far as Tumblr and Pinterest and whatever else is out there, nope, not doing that either. I might even close my Twitter account because I just hate it so much some days.

Now some people can be social butterflies and are very good at it. Throw me into the midst of a cocktail party, or any other kind of social function and I can chat it up with the best of them. But it's a different atmosphere. This whole other thing that is "media" is just daunting, and quite honestly, exhausting.

The one thing we're told as writers with published books, is that we need to keep writing and keep publishing, whether traditional, small press, or indie. That is a FACT! Follow the big name bloggers and they all say the same thing. Just write. Write the next book, and the next, and the next.

The problem is, without the machine of a publishing house (and sometimes even with it) we're also told to promote, promote, promote. And what better way to do that with social media.

Tell me --  Do you find social networking as daunting as I do? How many sites are you on? Do you use it every day, or just when you find the time? Is it just a promotional tool for you, or are you actually socializing?