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Let’s start with the good stuff…my word count is 25,072. Woo hoo! Broke 25K almost 1/3 of the way complete. I figure the book should be at 80K for the genre it’s in and that word count will work if it is consider YA or Adult. Want to know how I came up with that word count? I read it on Colleen Lindsay’s blog post here .
Now everyone will have an opinion about word counts. There isn’t some standardized rule book everyone in the publishing industry follows. This is where accounting was an easier career choice. 1 + 1= 2 unless you were accruing over several months then there were different guidelines. (little accounting joke there). I am following these guidelines because they sound reasonable and I can tell the whole story within that word length and more importantly, I plan on submitting to Colleen so I will follow her guidelines.
On to other topics, Michy provided a writing prompt on the AWF here asking about good/bad customer service experiences. I am one of those people who will write letters thanking companies for good service and will ask to speak to a supervisor at a call center to praise on employee. I have worked customer service jobs and know how much it meant to me.
My best customer service is with my Farmers Insurance Agent Wayne Seyfert. He has covered my houses for over a decade. I have left Farmers only when the price is at such a discount at some other company that it is worth my while. Even when I wasn’t Wayne’s client anymore, he is always willing to take my call and answer any questions I have. His customer service skills are amazing and I know I can always count on him to answer insurance questions, recommend local businesses like mechanics and even offer me career advice when I was in the insurance business. If you live in AZ I highly recommend him. Here is his number…602.938.9554
So that is my customer service story. How about you? Have any great stories you can share?
I love saying that! The anthology is available for pre-order on Amazon. This is so exciting.
Oh and I guess it is time for a word count update…23,139. Yes I came in a little above my daily word count. This whole daily word count thing is working. I ended up going to bed around 3 AM last night. I didn’t feel like writing after watching Entourage and Being Human(have you seen that show on BBC- it is so cool) but I could hear the blog yelling at me so I did.
Once I got started I didn’t want to stop. I had to because my eyes were closing on me. But every time I work on the book I get excited all over again. I love it and can’t wait to finish it so I can see what happens. Yes, I know the ending. But the journey there might change if the characters decide they don’t like the ending.
I love to read. I want to know what is going to happen. Being the storyteller doesn’t change that- I still am excited about reading it. I have read some articles saying to keep your audience in mind when you are writing. I am trying, but really, I am writing for myself.
Who do you write for?
I didn’t feel like putting up a blog post but I can’t give up after my last blog post right?
So here I am writing again, though I am dragging my feet.
This is something I struggle with all the time. I don’t have writer’s block, just am lazy I guess. But the thing is, if I can force myself to start it flows pretty quickly.
This is the same for articles as it is for my book and apparently blog posts because look at me go now! I indulged in working on my book on saturday but I didn’t get too far. I think I contributed about 300 new words and did some revisions. I was sitting here thinking that it was a waste of time, but then I whipped out the calculator. You know what? If I type 300 words a day the book will be finished in 8 months. Wow!
There is no reason I can’t write that much every day. If I add to that the couple thousand I usually do when I have time to myself on the weekend I will finish the book before end of the year. I need to force myself to write every day though.
So, that is my writing goal. Write at least 300 words for the book every single day, along with updating blog post and the articles that pay the bills. Should be easy peasy right?
To hold myself accountable I am going to start posting word counts. Don’t laugh, but I am at 22,348 right at this very moment. I have the story written in my head so that isn’t as low as it seems right? Wow, I need to get going!
I was chatting with my mentor Michelle L Devon about something and she mentioned that I should blog about it. I laughed. I told her I would have to dust off the cobwebs because I hadn’t blogged in a while. You know what came next, yup. She wrote a blog post about it.
I have inspired 3 blog posts of hers that I know of- 2 were for grammatical errors and now this one.
She challenged everyone to dust off their blogs and post. So here I am, my poor neglected readers, ready to dazzle you with my literary charm. (drums fingers) so, uh, how you doin’?
Okay I am a little rusty at this, so I will skip trying to dazzle and strive to keep you awake. Unlike some writers I have a great excuse for not blogging. I took “the kid” (5 year old boy with more energy than a nuclear power station could generate) out of daycare and kept him home for 40 days until school started.
I was focused on survival so the writing was pushed to the side. During weekends when the hapless husband would volunteer to take care of him so I could do some writing, I concentrated on articles to generate enough funds to pay the bills. And buy Valium lots and lots of Valium.
My excuse fizzled out this week though. The kid went back to school and mom went back to writing full time. I started strong and followed Michy’s advice in this article to avoid freelance pitfalls. By Wednesday I was Bejeweling, IMing and surfing the web. oops.
If I had been blogging I could say I was doing something related to writing. Well, in my surfing, one thing I have been doing is reading a lot of agent blogs and information about query letters. That’s research for work, right?
One agent I stalk I mean follow is Colleen Lindsay. I was very excited to read she was open to submission for the month, and she is looking for submissions in the genre I am writing about! How cool is that?
Then I realized, I am only 1/4 of the way finished writing the book. I still need to proof read it, then edit, then submit to peer writers to edit then maybe hire an editor to edit before I am ready to submit to an agent.
If I had spent the time I wasted playing bejewelled working on my book I might have been ready to submit to her.
So the point of my long rambling blog post is… I need to focus more on writing. With my new found determination I plan on blogging more about where I am in my book and other writing endeavors. My hope is it will keep me motivated and accountable.
Wish me luck?
