by Madelle Morgan
Some authors publish a new book every month or so. Apparently volume is the freeway to success. Write fast, get them online, and sales will roll in.
Well, I'm stuck on a back road, having taken too many detours...
I've indie-published a book a year, for a grand total of two.
Not twenty.
Two.
And, I'm behind schedule to revise and publish the next in the Hollywood in Muskoka series this fall.
What's new with me is that I decided to find out if I could write faster. I signed up for a course called, what else, Write Better Faster, taught by Becca Syme at MargieLawson.com. It started May 1.
Meanwhile, I've been analyzing why I don't seem to have a block of time to write. The answer?
"My brain has too many tabs open."
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| Source: Business2Community.com |
There's so much valuable information about writing, publishing, marketing, what's going on with my friends, those funny memes... you get the gist. What if I miss something important?
For example, Sunday morning, prime writing time, I was browsing through a favorite Facebook writers' group posts, and discovered a link to a Myebook.co.za article on how to create 3D book covers.
Of course I had to try it. Marketing is so important for indie authors, right?
Then I went to Canva.ca, a free design site, and created this.
And this:
The end result? All my books have 3D images. Writing word count on Sunday? Zero.
You already know what I need to do in order to carve out time to write.
Disconnect
Ah, easy to say, not so easy to do. Social media is like a box of chocolates--difficult to resist.
I discovered, online of course, that there are applications to force a person to disconnect from those time-suck distractions. Efty Konick published a list in a Linkedin post entitled 5 applications to disconnect from the Internet and be more productive.
The post is three years old, so there are probably many more apps available today. I'd search for them, except for the fact I'm trying to limit my time online.
As of now.
Seriously.
After I play my Scrabble turn on Facebook...
Happy spring!
Madelle
Madelle has written and published Diamond Hunter, a romantic suspense, and Caught on Camera, a Hollywood wedding romance.
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5 comments:
Had to laugh, Madelle. On the one hand I'm grateful I do not have the 'on-line' gene but on the other, getting on FB, Twitter much less doing a Google search for anything does not sing a siren song to me. I'm sure there is a happy medium.
Here's an idea, I could write your book and you could do my social media? Thought it would make you smile if not actually laugh.
Seriously though, I belong to a group called Goal Reporters. We voluntarily share our yearly goals and then each week report our new words. We count blog posts, short stories, novellas, novels...we don't count FB, Twitter, Goodreads, etc. Right now I'm the one entering the data and then sending ot the spreadsheet. Maggie Lynch started this a couple of years ago. June 1 is coming up. You could join us for the rest of 2017. Let me know, you certainly are welcome to join in.
Fun post, Madelle! I get your point--lots of us find online distractors or allow ourselves to put off writing time for other things. It's hard to chain ourselves to the keyboard, but necessary if we're going to write that next book..
Thank you, Judith. Tracking goals and progress makes a person accountable. I currently do not track number of words written, which may be part of my problem. Please add me to your Goal Reporters list. I'd like to try it, starting in June. I don't want to be the person in your group who falls behind. Oh the shame... That will motivate me!
Sorry, your social media is ALL YOURS. :))
Madelle
Great post! This is the stuff I think many of us know deep down, but we don't want to give up our social media time!
I've actually wanted to do the Write Better Faster course myself (I've done a lot of Margie's courses and couple of in-person Immersion classes). I might give it a go because I could definitely be more productive.
Ah, yes. Distractions. I'm developing the habit of sitting down at my computer, opening iTunes and starting my instrumental playlist, opening Scrivener (which opens to exactly where I left off the day before), and starting work. If I do this, I get a butterfly sticker on the calendar page of my log book. I like the look of a lot of stickers at the end of the month. It's silly, but it helps. And so does the goal reporting loop. I've been a member since the beginning. Definitely come join us for some added help.
Barb
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