ROW80 | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, May 20, 2012

First of all, the baby gerbils have names! It took us until Thursday to come up with the ones that both my daughter and I said, “Yes! That’s it!” We took Ginger Calem‘s suggestion for the lilac gerbil, and named him Finn, short for “infinity,” which is how far he’d run on that wheel if he could. Thanks, Ginger, and to everyone else who offered suggestions!

Reggie and Finn (curled up sleeping) in a rare moment of stillness

The spotted Siamese boy was trickier. It turns out, he likes the wheel too – when Finn stops long enough for him to get a turn. He’s also calmer, and friendlier – when we hold him, he often purrs. (Finn has a couple of times.) My daughter thought with how pretty he is, he deserved a regal-sounding name. After several “nah, that’s not it,” I came up with Reginald – or Reggie. She liked it. So today we’ll remove the divider, and see how Finn and Reggie get along with Sandy.

And how did I do with ROW80? Not as well, I’m afraid. The various celebratory dinners and such cut into writing time. It’s also been nice out all week, so that cuts into motivation as well. However, it’s a new day, so I’m going to do better next week!

Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways – Got about halfway through. This was a long one.
Follow up with beta readers for Hangar 18 – Done! One is almost done, waiting to hear back from the other.
Write two guest blogs I promised – the one from last week, and a new request – Done!
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – Nope. Got the three intervals in, which is the more important.
Track exercise and consumption – Not even close. This was a lost cause with it being birthday week. I’ll do better next week.

Overall goal progress:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 (1-4 done previously) – on track!
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on track!
Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

For this week, I’m going to go a little easier. This coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend, which means extra socializing, and we also have my daughter’s choir concert to attend one evening.

Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways, plus Lesson 6B, which I missed last week.
Cover design for Times Two
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
Track exercise and consumption

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring? Do you have any big plans for Memorial Day weekend?

by Jennette, May 6, 2012

Last night, I drove my daughter and her boyfriend to prom. To prom. I can’t believe it! It seems so cliche to say, but it really does seem like only yesterday she was six pounds, thirteen ounces, in my arms. And now she’s sixteen, and going to prom.

I drove them their in our ’70 Bonneville convertible, which my husband bought and restored almost 20 years ago, and finished just in time for our wedding. Normally he would have had the honor of being the chauffeur, but he had to work. I’ve only driven it once or twice, and that was before our daughter was born. Like writing new material when you haven’t for a long time, it was scary at first, but by the time I pulled out of our street, no worries!

Isn't she lovely? Oh, the car, too...

Both driving that car, and sending my daughter off to her junior prom, were new beginnings of sorts – which brings me to this week’s ROW80 check-in.

I’ve finished the How to Write a Series workshop, one of my primary goals. I’ve also completed the print publication of Time’s Fugitive, another of my major goals. So now it’s time to move on to my other goals, one of which is planning my next book. I’m going to jump back into Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways workshop with this one, so I’m going to modify the goal to reflect that. But it’s really the same – still about planning the book.

Here’s the rest of the skinny:

Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source – Done! Proof received and approved, and coming to an e-retailer near you!
Complete Lesson 4 of How to Write a Series (which will finish the workshop) – Done!
Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy – Done! Cover reveal coming soon!
Write two guest blogs I’ve promised people – got one of them done, still need to email it to the blogger
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – still not there, but better – 3 intervals, 1 short workout done
Track exercise and consumption – still only about halfway there
BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books – No
BONUS: Write content for author newsletter – No

Overall goal progress:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 (1-4 done previously)
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – Cover design for Hangar 18 done! Also got some great feedback from first beta reader – thank you, Carey!
Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

For this week:

Complete Lesson 5 of How to Think Sideways
Develop Book Info sheet for Hangar 18: Legacy and follow up with other beta readers
Write guest blog I promised, and email the written one to the blogger
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
Track exercise and consumption
BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books
BONUS: Write content for author newsletter

I’d love to hear from you! Have you started anything new this week? How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

by Jennette, April 29, 2012

One day last week, I was eating lunch with the girls at work, when a woman from another department stopped by to say hi. Apparently, she’d emailed one of my coworkers earlier this week about the “snatchin’ shoes” she’d bought that weekend. “I want to see your snatchin’ shoes!” my coworker said.

One of the other ladies’ eyes went round. “You want to see her what!?”

Apparently, she’d misunderstood, and heard “snatch and shoes!”

The conversation degenerated from there, especially when a third coworker described something she’d misunderstood: she’d woken up that morning to find three ducks in her yard fighting. She grabbed her camera and took some video, before she realized only the two males were fighting. 😀

Similarly, I’ve been misunderstanding some of my ROW80 tasks, although with much less comical results. I underestimated the amount of time How to Write a Series Lessons 1 and 2 would take – there’s a lot of work in planning a series, especially when you haven’t written Book 1. (Yet, that’s the best time to plan, so good on me!) OTOH, Lesson 3 dealt with planning subsequent books in a series after Book 1 (or more) is already written, so there wasn’t much for me to do at this point, and it went quickly.

However, I made up for it by (again) underestimating the amount of time proofreading would take. Fortunately, it all evened out.

Here’s how my week’s progress went:

Complete print layout and print cover design for Time’s Fugitive – Done!
Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series – Done!
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – uh, two and one. Still need to work on this.
Track exercise and consumption – not quite – missed yesterday.
Bonus: Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source – no, b
Bonus: How to Write a Series, Lesson 3 – Yes!
Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

Here are my plans for this week:

Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source
Complete Lesson 4 of How to Write a Series (which will finish the workshop)
Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy
Write two guest blogs I’ve promised people – this has been hanging for way too long
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
Track exercise and consumption
BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books
BONUS: Write content for author newsletter

Overall goal progress:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Ebook done. Print almost done.
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – in progress, should be done this week.
Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises – on hold until other goals accomplished
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on hold until other goals accomplished
Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

I’d love to hear from you! Have you ever heard something you thought you understood – then realized you didn’t? Do you have trouble estimating the amount of time a task needs? How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

by Jennette, April 22, 2012

Ever have that feeling where you haven’t done something for a long time… it’s something you know how to do, yet when you get back to it, it’s downright scary?

That’s sort of how my writing went this week. I accomplished my fixes and release of Time’s Fugitive, no problem. I did Michele’s cover design (she loved it – yay!). And when I could put off my writing workshop no longer, I dug back into How to Write a Series.

It went slowly at first, because it was making me think things through on my series that I frankly, had no idea of. I had to do some brainstorming. Something I haven’t done much of for my writing in the past couple of years.

Fortune's Foe by Michele Stegman Then I got to the last task in Lesson Two, Part Three, and it stopped me cold.

That task was: “Write scene one of the first book.”

I froze. I procrastinated. I played Spider Solitaire. I farted around on Facebook and Twitter. I read several blogs. I downloaded WriteWay Pro, because I’ve been wanting to try it, and it made sense to try it with a new book. I read through some of the documentation, and set up my book.

My husband left for the AMVETS hall, and I dropped my daughter off at a friend’s house. Then I could delay no longer.

I had to do something I haven’t done in over two years: write new material.

By the time I got a few paragraphs down in my shiny new software, my husband had returned from the AMVETS hall, and turned on the TV. So I put on my headphones and kept going. I will admit, it wasn’t all a real scene – much of it is written in “blocking it out” form, a technique I learned years ago from Liz Bemis, and more recently read about on Rachael Aaron’s blog. I stopped for a few minutes to watch a car chase on Hawaii-five-o (hey, it was a Camaro!), but an hour later, I had my scene sketched out.

Here’s how my week’s progress went:

Make fixes and re-upload Time’s Fugitive – Done!
Finish book cover I’m designing for historical romance author Michele Stegman – Done! Check it out, above…
Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series – partly
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – uhhh, not so good; I wasn’t feeling well a couple days this week.
Track exercise and consumption – also done about halfway.
Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

Now I’m looking forward into doing more digging with How to Write a Series.

Here are my plans for this week:

Complete print layout and print cover design for Time’s Fugitive
Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
Track exercise and consumption
Bonus: Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source
Bonus: How to Write a Series, Lesson 3
Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

Overall goal progress:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Ebook done. Print interior started.
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – in progress.
Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises – on hold until other goals accomplished
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on hold until other goals accomplished
Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

How about you – have you ever stopped doing something for an extended period of time – then found it scary to start back into it? I’d love to hear from you! What kind of goals are you setting for this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

by Jennette, April 15, 2012

First, last week’s progress:

Make final edits, format, and release Time’s Fugitive in ebook – Done!
Bonus: Anything on Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – No (but it was a bonus anyway)
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts each week – two intervals, one short
Track exercise and consumption each week – uhhhh…. similar to the above.

As for that first goal, you know how the rest of the post title goes…

“…two steps back.” Yup, I finished proofreading, made the changes, formatted, then uploaded – then found a couple of mistakes. Not typos, but technical details, revealed by a writing workshop I attended yesterday. Luckily, I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the book to publish on the retail sites, so I’d waited to make a formal announcement. So I’ll be making those changes today, and uploading, then I’ll announce when it’s up. If you’ve already purchased, no worries – this stuff isn’t something that most people are likely to even notice. But now that I know it’s wrong, I want to fix it – because I can.

So for this week, here are my plans:

Make fixes and re-upload Time’s Fugitive
Finish book cover I’m designing for historical romance author Michele Stegman
Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series
Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
Track exercise and consumption

Overall goal progress:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Ebook done, but needs a couple of changes. Print interior formatted.
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – on hold until TF out
Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises – on hold until other goals accomplished
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on hold until other goals accomplished
Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

How about you? I’d love to hear from you! What kind of goals are you setting for this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

by Jennette, April 7, 2012

Time’s Fugitive is very close to release! All I have to do is type in the changes from my proofreading, format it, and upload! My primary goal this week is to accomplish that.

Here’s what my first readers (beta readers) said about Time’s Fugitive:

– I could not stop. Very fast paced. Such a convoluted plot. I don’t know how you kept all those threads from tangling! Whew! I feel like I just got off a roller-coaster! What a ride! And I certainly enjoyed it–a lot. Although at times I was thinking what an evil woman you were throwing all that stuff at your poor hero and heroine! And more than once I worried that there was no way you could get them out of the fixes you had gotten them into!

– I am in love with this book! I converted it so I could read on my kindle and I’ve been sneaking it into the bathroom at work to read. LOL! As soon as I finish, I’m going back to read Time’s Enemy. Really, by 1% I was hooked.

– Talk about a roller-coaster ride. And having a baby in prehistoric ohio? It CAN’T HEAR YOU over how awesome it is! This one reads like a thriller–the romance does definitely take a backseat, though it’s still pretty strong in places. This reminds me of the old-school 70’s romances a little–where the heroine went on incredible adventures and went through shipwrecks, strandings, and sometimes multiple partners, and a lot of cheese (it was the 70’s you know) but damn if it wasn’t EPIC CHEESE. Time’s Fugitive doesn’t have any cheese in it, epic or otherwise, but I love the characters, and the settings are aMAZEballs.

As for my ROW80 goals, I forgot something last week when I posted last week. When setting goals, it really helps if you set some means of measuring them! And breaking them into doable chunks. I posted the goals for the overall challenge, but I forgot to break it down to the goals for this week. So I’ll just review the results as they relate to the overall goals, and whether or not I considered them to be met for the week:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – finished proofreading
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – on hold until TF out
Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises – on hold until other goals accomplished
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on hold until other goals accomplished
Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts each week – Got the interval workouts, one short workout
Track exercise and consumption each week – Done!

And for this week, I’ll break them down:

Make final edits, format, and release Time’s Fugitive in ebook
Bonus: Anything on Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts each week
Track exercise and consumption each week

How about you? I’d love to hear from you! What kind of goals are you setting for this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

by Jennette, April 1, 2012

Cool post title, huh? Unfortunately, it’s totally… well, check the date. 😀

That’s about the extent of my joking. But it’s also the start of a new round of ROW80, the “writing challenge that knows you have a life,” and that’s no foolin’. This round ends June 21, and here’s what I’d like to accomplish by then:

Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print
Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop
Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises
Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook
Bonus: Both of the above
Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts each week
Track exercise and consumption each week

I received edits on Time’s Fugitive from my copy editor last Wednesday, and I expect to finish them today. So then it’s a matter of proofreading, formatting, and publishing! I’m planning to get that done this week, so look for an announcement soon.

My third goal is an “OR” because it’s dependent on others. Hangar 18 is out with beta readers right now, some of whom are new, so I don’t know when I’ll get that back. One thing I learned last ROW, is to be sure and build flexibility into our goals, especially when they hinge on others.

How about you? I’d love to hear from you! What kind of goals are you setting for this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

by Jennette, March 21, 2012

Quick ROW80 update, since I don’t normally do mid-week updates, but today ends the round.

My primary goal was to release Time’s Fugitive.

That didn’t happen. But it’s close! Here’s the breakdown:

Finish revision of Time’s Fugitive – Done
Send to beta readers – Done
Make changes based on beta reads – Done
Send to editor – Done
Prepare front matter, back matter, product description, and everything else needed before release – Done
Format book – nope
Develop marketing plan (preferably before release, but probably after) – Mostly done
Release Time’s Fugitive – no, but soon!

So what hit the wall? Well, some of those goals were dependent on other people: my beta readers and copy editor. My revisions also took a little longer than I expected, so that set me behind by about three weeks. Then the beta readers also needed more time than I expected – this is a looooong book. So it’s now with my editor. The good news is, she says she’s not finding much! So look for Time’s Fugitive soon!

The next round of ROW80 starts April 2. I’m definitely in! How about you? How did you do this ROW? Will you be joining us for Round 2?

by Jennette, March 18, 2012

Another good week! And that was with adding a task I hadn’t planned for – but it’s all good!

A few weeks ago, my friend Michele Stegman put out a call for guest posts on her blog. She wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day by spending the month of February featuring the real-life stories of how romance writers met their real-life heroes.

So I wrote up my story, sent it to her, and pretty much forgot about it until the day she’d scheduled my story to post. Oh, I went to her blog and commented some of the others stories – there are some good ones! – and tweeted a few, but that’s about it.

A couple weeks ago, she asked me if I’d like to be in an anthology – not a new story (thank goodness, since short stories are something I haven’t really mastered!) but my real-life story, “Looking for Mr. Goodwrench.” It turns out her husband had read some of the stories, and suggested she collect them into an ebook.

Thus was born How I Met My Husband: The Real-life Love Stories of 25 Romance Authors. I designed a cover and helped Michele with some of the formatting, and guess what – I have a new release on my virtual bookshelf! It’s free on Smashwords, and $0.99 on Amazon (although you can download the Kindle format on Smashwords). We expect it to be available on Barnesandnoble.com, iTunes, Sony, Diesel, and Kobo ebookstores soon. These are fun stories that you can read in a few minutes – great while you’re waiting in line somewhere! And there’s an excerpt of each author’s latest release. Did I mention it’s free? So if this sounds like something you like, go to Smashwords, download your free copy, and read how I met my own, personal Mr. Goodwrench.

With my graphic design background, I’m super picky about formatting and of course, the cover art, so this did take me some time. But I still managed to get my ROW80 goals accomplished, because I’d left them flexible, and allowed room for surprises!

Last week’s results:

Review HTTS Lessons 1-5
Send Hangar 18: Legacy to beta readers
Finish budget for RWA chapter (I’m the treasurer)
Set up reader newsletter
Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
Track food intake every day (Still missed a meal or two on this one)

I marked my first goal, review Lessons 1-5 in How to Think Sideways, green, even though I technically didn’t do all of them. I actually reviewed Lesson 1 the week before, and didn’t get to Lesson 5. But I marked it green because I decided I wanted to do her How to Write a Series course before going further with the plans for a single book, because the book I want to work on next is indeed the start to a new series, and I want to do this right. I completed Lesson 1 yesterday, so I count that as being equivalent to a lesson on HTTS. What’s awesome about HTWAS? The work I do for the exercises and worksheets will be the start of planning out my book.

Next week’s plans (I can’t believe this round is over after this week!):

View videos 1-3 for Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series (yep, this is the one that has videos. They’re worth it.)
Complete worksheets for part 1 and 2 of HTWAS Lesson 2 (These are very in-depth and will take a while!)
Request two more beta readers for Hangar 18: Legacy
Write content for reader newsletter and start promoting it
Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
Track food and exercise each day

OR, if my copy editor finishes with Time’s Fugitive, put off items 1 through 4 to get that formatted and uploaded, since that was my primary objective for this ROWnd.

How did you do this week? Have you had to change plans lately regarding your goals? Are you still on target to meet your goals for this ROWnd? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, March 11, 2012

This round of ROW80 has brought more learning – never a bad thing!

I learned that I do better if I schedule tasks throughout the week, particularly big tasks that need to be broken up into smaller chunks, like read-aloud editing and type-in.

I also learned that too much scheduled stuff is an invitation to get even less done.

It’s a balancing act – schedule what needs to be, without being overwhelming.

It's a balancing act!

I think I pulled it off this week. I scheduled my workouts (which I always do), and some of my writing tasks, since I’m still in a weird, in-between place there. I didn’t get quite everything done. But overall, I’m happy with what I did.

Last week’s results:

Finish Time’s Fugitive beta reader changes and send to copy editor
Format Hangar 18: Legacy for Kindle and send to beta readers (emailed them, waiting to hear what format they want)
Collect remaining tax stuff for accountant
Read nonfiction book for research
Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
Track food intake every day (missed one day, but getting better!)

So, I am pretty much in limbo for the two current projects, writing-wise. One is with my copy editor. The other is ready for beta readers. So it’s time to – yikes! – work on something… new! To that end, I’m going to jump back into a writing course I bought a year ago, and only got through five lessons before I decided to focus on getting other work out. This is Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways.

This week’s plans:

Review HTTS Lessons 1-5
Send Hangar 18: Legacy to beta readers
Finish budget for RWA chapter (I’m the treasurer)
Set up reader newsletter
Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
Track food intake every day (keeping this one on the list, because I’m still going back and entering this stuff the following day, which means I’m probably forgetting a few things)

Last week, a few folks asked about my Weekly Status Report. I totally stole this from my day job a few years ago. It’s pretty simple. I list each active project, with a total of how many hours I spent on it the past week, what my accomplishments were, and my plans for the upcoming week. My time estimates are rough, but this still gives me a good idea of time spent – and will further my case that my writing is a serious business, should the IRS ever come calling. I’ve put an example of it here, in case you’re interested.

How did you do this week? Do you keep track of your weekly progress somewhere besides your blog?