Military Romance Author
by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
While many of us are still digesting/munching on our leftover New Year’s Day snacks, these highly trained athletes show us what it’s like to be in shape. I don’t know why I love these agility courses, but I do. Especially the rabbits who cheat!
So whether you can get up out of your chair or off the couch at all, look to these bona fide competitors to show us how to work off our holiday weight gain. Happy Quirky Friday!
by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
Back to the blog. Unlike many folks this year, I’ve decided not to make any New Year’s resolutions I won’t work on after February. Can’t spare the mental energy, so I’ll quit before I add to my list. I’m still working on last year’s goals, so those will roll-forward into this year. When you pick big goals, they can take more than twelve months or last your entire life when you’re a writer.
Part of the writing challenge these days is deciding to combine my office and craft projects in the same room to make an “art studio.” This decision has morphed into a mess of gargantuan proportions. If you don’t have the staff of hundreds they use on those organizing tv shows, the whole “shove two rooms together spill out in the hall mess” is daunting.
There have been some up sides; my crafty creative mind keeps straying over into the writing side of the “art studio” and vice a versa. When glue dots, beads and stickers hunker next to yarn, writing manuscripts and photos, interesting things begin to happen. Our environments are very important to us creatives. Of course, the whole finishing thing issue now crops up in all areas of the room. Squirrel!
But when life gets crazy and holidays and people need tending, the mess waits. So my goal is to get the “art studio” in shape by the end of this year. If I give myself tons of time, it feels like a fun goal and not a business plan. More fun, less work this year is my main goal. Along with simplifying. Now, if I can just get Spec Ops Cat to dust.
by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
Due to technical difficulties beyond my control, I am taking a blog break for the rest of this month. Happy Holidays and take some time to enjoy the season, family, friends and find some writing time.
Check out a few of my former posts in the meantime that you may have missed:
https://kimberlyacook.com/2011/11/01/which-dessert-would-you-choose/
https://kimberlyacook.com/2011/12/06/pearl-harbor-remembrance-70-years-later/
https://kimberlyacook.com/2011/12/27/what-would-hayley-mills-do/
https://kimberlyacook.com/2011/12/02/prep-and-landing-elves-to-score-again/
See you in 2014!
by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
Here comes turkey day and then the slippery slope to holiday festivities. In amongst all the carting, preparing, eating and clean-up, perhaps we can all steal some time to write. At some point we may try to lock ourselves in the coat closet anyway, given too much people time, but just in case make a back-up plan to steal some sacred writing time away from the chaos of the season.
To get us started in the right direction, read these Thoughts on Writing from Elizabeth Gilbert at http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/thoughts-on-writing/ Yes, we know I am a huge fan of hers, but with good reason. She seems so sane. And funny!
An article about her in the Nov/Dec 2013 “Poets & Writers” magazine said she didn’t write for three years while she researched her newly released fiction book. Three years! Fabulous. Here I was worried about sticking my non-fiction book in a box for a couple of months. (http://www.pw.org/content/novemberdecember_2013)
Every one of us has to find our own writer’s path. It’s like cleaning the cat’s litter box – we have to do it because the cat sure isn’t about to scoop poop, he’s got staff. Writers are our own staff and everything else – logistics! (And no, UPS will not write our books. Deliver them? Yes.)
With the changes I am making with knitting, combining my craft and writing spaces, plus focusing on what makes me happy and ignoring the rest, my muse is waking up from slumber. The creative power is eeking back into my veins and I might actually be a tad more pleasant to be around these days, Frustrated creatives are cranky people to be sure, I know this because my family has told me so.
So whether you are participating in the holidays at a DefCon 5 level or ignoring them completely, both are allowed, give yourself the gift of writing time. Plus pumpkin pie of course!
P.S. Turkey Bonus: For the three of you on the planet who don’t know about www.blackfriday.com, you can do shopping recon of the after turkey day ads right now. Happy Thanksgiving!
by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
This video clip makes me laugh every time. Have no clue what the turkeys outside the car are saying, but the one inside the car is too funny to watch. With Thanksgiving fast approaching, what better activity than cross-species communication!
Have a great weekend and make sure to get all the fixin’s for a good Turkey Day holiday with friends or family or both. When my buddy visiting from Australia experienced Thanksgiving for the first time she declared it her new favorite holiday! Happy Quirky Friday!
http://youtu.be/mOuve6jBjaE
by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
In my quest to purge paper files in my office, I’ve resorted to drastic measures – I’m moving my craft supplies and tools into the same room. This madness is so I can make my “writing office” feel more like an “art studio” and to corral my ever-expanding craft hoarding.
This mission is not without peril. When I made the big move of the jewelry/sewing table and the wire rack into the office, something had to go; the banker boxes of paper files which need to be sorted. After tripping over them in the hallway for two weeks, luckily Spec Ops Cat can squeeze by to get to his litter box, I finally started sorting this past weekend.
A piece of paper I could not locate a few months ago for a blog post charged into view. Must be time to use it!
The Romance Writers of America newsletter page from the Heart of Oregon chapter in May 1992 remains in my files for good reason. The short article from the Colorado RWA via the Florida RWA newsletter still has great information.
For those of us who proof on paper hard copy, if we use the standard manuscript format still used to submit to traditional publishers – 1 ¼ inch left margin and one-inch right margin – a double-spaced page will average 24 to 26 lines of text. Don’t count the header and use a 12 point font.
With that format in mind, you can use the following “pages-to-words” guide.
# words Pages
50,000 200
55,000 220
60,000 240
65,000 260
70,000 280
75,000 300
80,000 320
85,000 340
100,000 400
115,000 460
This is one way to get a quick idea of page length without trying to figure out your word/page count all mucked together. These guidelines are critical for romance writers who are writing to a specific category book word length. For instance, for those who love the Avon historical romances, most of them are 100,000 words so it means a 400-page double-spaced manuscript. They truly are big books!
This is also how traditional publishers figure out how large or small a book manuscript will be in a flash. Now with ebooks no such rules apply, unless you print out the hard copy like I do to edit.
Another reason to double-space your writing and print it out on hard copy? It’s so much easier to edit with the extra white space. Happy word counting!
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