Category: Uncategorized

Actually, I’m at 3 different blogs today. :)

So, let me go ahead and link to them all, here. My post is up at A Good Blog is Hard to Find, where I’m talking about stock characters today–why they’re useful and putting a fresh spin on them.

I’m also on today at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, where I give some spring cleaning tips for the kitchen (y’all know I’m currently obsessed with spring cleaning.)

In addition, I’m at This Business of Writing for a look at online platforms and why it’s important to have them (even if you’re unpublished or an aspiring writer.) I think Patrick’s posts usually pop up a little later in the morning, Eastern Standard Time.

And…..I think that’s definitely enough out of me today for the blogging world! Hope everyone has a great Thursday.

It’s important to have an online “home base”—an established place to call your own—even if you’re an unpublished or aspiring writing.

To find out why you should develop an online presence, and how to do it, please pop over and visit me today at C. Patrick Schulze’s The Business of Writing blog.

Tomorrow, I’m hosting my fellow Midnight Ink author and friend Alan Orloff to the blog. Please join us!

I’m going to the Malice Domestic conference at the end of this month in Washington, D.C.

This has put me in a tizzy. Conferences and other types of public appearances do that to me. I’m on a panel, too. :)

Now, suddenly, I’m done with various deadlines (until revision deadlines come in) and I’ve got Malice coming up in just a few weeks.

Bookmarks!!!

I needed bookmarks. I’ve had postcards and business cards. But I needed bookmarks.

I’ve needed bookmarks for a while. I’m in a couple of promotional groups that are very good to promote me while they’re promoting their own events. I’ve sent along postcards to these folks, but really…I needed bookmarks.

Iconix is supposed to be one of the best places to order bookmarks online. A ton of authors have told me this. Somehow, something always came up, priority-wise for me, though….and I didn’t call to order them.

And so…I got down to the wire and suddenly Malice was right on top of me and it was too late to order them online and still mail them to Lorraine Bartlett who nicely offered to bring them for me to Malice since I’m flying.

So I decided to make my bookmarks on MS Publisher which is a program already on my computer. After designing them (which took maybe 30 minutes), I emailed the bookmark as an attachment to Office Max. I asked them to print them on card stock, in color, and to print about $50 worth…and gave them my cell phone number if they had any questions.

I’m not even sure exactly how many I got, but it’s definitely several hundred.

If you’re in a similar boat, here’s how to make a bookmark on Publisher: (they can be printed 4 to a 8.5 x 11 page), with space for trimming. This is right from the Microsoft Office website.

1. In the Publication Types list, click Blank Page Sizes.
2. Under Standard, click Create custom page size.
3. In the Custom Page Size dialog box, type 2″ in the Width box, and then type 7.5″ in the Height box.
4. In the Name box, enter a name for the new custom page size.
5. Click OK to close the Custom Page Size dialog box, and then click Create to create the bookmark.

   Customize your bookmark publication by adding any pictures, graphics, or text that you want. You can also customize by selecting color schemes or font schemes. For more information about any these tasks, search Publisher Help.

So I’ve learned two lessons from this experience.

One—You can make your own bookmarks in case of an emergency and get them back that same day. If you have Microsoft Office on your computer, you have MS Publisher. They may not be as nice as the Iconix ones, but they were nice enough for the Office Max worker to ask me if I were “the bookmark lady” when I walked in and then ask me for a bookmark.

Two—Perfectionism takes up time and makes me lose out on opportunities. It’s better, for me anyway, to just go with something that works fine and use it instead of miss out on promotions.

Are you putting anything off until you can do it perfectly?

For the past month, I’ve been dying to spring clean. But my schedule has been so busy that I haven’t had time to do more than just basic maintenance around the house.

The house definitely needs it. But I also try to fit in some writing-specific spring cleaning this time of year, too. It’s not hard to remember to do it—my desk is always crazy in April from having done taxes, and it reminds me to clear some space for my writing!

Are your financial and other documents encroaching on your writing space? I’ve finished my taxes, so I’m packing up 2009’s important receipts and documents in a box. Unimportant docs are being shredded. How long should you keep financial records? This link can help my American readers and my friends from other countries should be able to Google for a similar link.

My work space is usually the sofa in my den. I’m clearing off everything in that area to make it easier for me to think. I may move or give away old knickknacks, put the newspapers and magazines in the recycling bin, and try to look at the space with fresh eyes to make sure it still fits my needs.

As much as I’ve tried to eliminate paper from my creative process, I still have Post-It notes and papers from old WIPs. I’m throwing away papers from WIPs that have been submitted. If there are any for my current WIP, I’m making a new folder for them to keep them in one place until I transcribe them…which should be just a day.

I back up everything.

I clean off my computer desktop for improved organization and computer performance.

I organize my random Word files into folders.

Part of my spring cleaning process for writing is to figure out my direction for the year—what are my writing goals?

Has the spring cleaning bug bitten you yet?

I was at the grocery store (again) yesterday before taking ten kids to my son’s 13th birthday paintball party. I was buying lots of chips and soft drinks.

I saw a woman in the produce section and had one of those “oh no” moments where I desperately tried to come up with her name. And this was someone I was supposed to know. Could I hide? Retreat into the dairy section? Shoot! She saw me…

Then suddenly it came to me. “Peggy!!” I said with delight. “How are you, Peggy? And Peggy….how is your son? Have y’all had a good spring break, Peggy?”

Because, if I’m that proud of myself for remembering a name, I’m by-golly going to overuse it like a maniac. Whereas she, after greeting me with a “Hi, Elizabeth” once, didn’t mention my name again. Clearly, she doesn’t have the same memory problems that I do.

I laughed at myself on the way back home, because overusing names is a dialogue problem I’m prone to. Before emailing my WIP to my editor, I make a pass to make sure the characters aren’t referring to each other by name multiple times in the course of a conversation. It’s a useful device for a writer because it eliminates the need for ‘said Johns’ during the section of dialogue.

But it’s just not natural. Ordinarily.

Do you have particular issues that you have to guard for and edit out? Mistakes you’re prone to make?