Tag Archives: Spazmatic

Way to post, like, once a month dude.

August 13, 2012 9:24 am ⋅ 4 Comments ⋅

It’s still summer here for another month. My kids don’t start school until mid-late September and it’s actually hot here, so we’re wringing all we can out of the season while we have the chance.

Of course, other things have been going on – the hubs and I had our 10 year wedding anniversary and we took a little trip to the San Juan islands. While we were there, we met authors Keary Taylor and Nikki Jefford. So much fun! And I’ll be meeting Amanda Hocking in person for the first time next week. I’ve been friends with all of these lovely ladies online for a long time – it’s great to finally meet face-to-face!

The kids have been in swimming lessons and track camp and they start sports camp this week, followed by karate and dance at the end of the month. My mom taxi is in full effect!

I also started a camp of my own, sort of, Crossfit! It’s really hard, but rewarding in that way where you’re using muscles you didn’t know you had. Right now I’m working out four days a week and will be moving to five next week. Wish me luck!!

There are birthday celebrations coming up, more weekend trips, the Pac NW YA bbq, a Gotye concert and back-to-school shopping! My August calendar has so much stuff on it, I can barely make out what I’m supposed to do from one day to the next!

So, what have I been working on? Found is coming along nicely, if not at a snail’s pace. The covers for the entire Penny Black trilogy should be ready soon – I’ll post them everywhere ASAP! The Awesome Robin Ludwig has done it again!! I finished listening to the audiobook of Glimpse last night – look for that to be available by the end of the month.

And, honestly, I’ve been reading a lot. Seaweed, Tangled Tides, Crave, and Envy in the past two weeks. I get to a point a couple of times a year where I just want to do nothing besides read. I always give into it. :)

I hope everything is going well with you all and that your summer has been a blast! I’m sure I’ll be around more often when it starts to rain. :)

Posted in: E-books, Fiction, good neighbors, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#ROW80 update (composed during shaved ice sugar high)

July 11, 2012 5:32 pm ⋅ 1 Comment ⋅

Update!

I’ve written every day since Sunday, except for today as I have barely been home. There’s still time! I’ve worked on a different project each day and have put in between 200-500 words. Not a lot, but it’s better than the zero I get when I stress about not having enough time to hit 1K a day.

I was good about not checking my stats until yesterday, when I was ordering a cookbook and saw in my history on Amazon that the Day of Sacrifice Omnibus had received its first review.

Which was 1 star…because the reader ”was disturbed” that it was targeted at young adults.

Ahem.

The second line of the book description is as follows: The Day of Sacrifice Omnibus is intended for adult readers due to language and sexual situations.

The Day of Sacrifice stories are by S.W. Benefiel. See over there on the right sidebar of this blog? Under the Books for Adults – that’s where all the Day of Sacrifice titles appear.

I’m not sure what else I can do to let people know that, yes I write YA, but I also write NA, stuff for adults and stuff for ADULTS.

Anyway, that set me off on a stats binge. I not only checked my sales on every platform, but I checked the reviews on all of my books. 

I’ll do better. Now that I’ve publicly vented (note that I did not engage the reviewer even though I really, really wanted to) I can let it go.

So, last round I started this tumblr called Be Awesome, Beautiful Dreamer and I was going to add essays to it for a new Toilet Business-esque book of essays. But, then I never had any time to actually write all the new essays because I was worrying about getting DoS done and I have all of these starts that I haven’t finished yet. Forcing essays doesn’t work the same way you can force yourself to sit down and write a scene. It takes me longer to think out my opinion and what I remember about certain events and what to cut…

I digress.

Instead, I changed the name of the blog to FAT WRITER. I’m putting my whole family on the Paleo Diet starting next Monday and I thought it would be useful/funny/entertaining/informational to blog about it. There are two posts up now and I’m about to add another after I make dinner. Check it out. There’s a huge picture of me riding a giant brass tortoise at the Oregon Coast Aquarium on it.

I know, how can you resist?

Happy writing, friends! I’m off to make brats.

 

Posted in: E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Midsummer Retelling Stand Alone #ROW80 Dream

July 8, 2012 2:16 pm ⋅ 8 Comments ⋅

Last night I had a dream that I was at an indie author convention and all of my writer friends were there. (I would die if this were ever really a thing. I have so many writer friends that I would love to meet in person!) After some hilarious antics involving a bee in my iced coffee cup and not being able to find the correct elevator that led me to my personal slot machine room, we all settled into a ballroom for the awards ceremony.

Lots of friends won awards and I was a little bummed. I knew I hadn’t won anything because I hadn’t put out a new novel since 2011 and no one was reading my short stories.

Then Vicki Keire suggested that I write a stand alone retelling of a Shakespearean play.

That’s when I woke up.

And realized that I have notes for a stand alone novel that’s a modern retelling of a classic.

Was the dream a sign? Is THIS what I should be working on?

Or, am I just freaking out?

I’m just freaking out, even in my sleep, apparently. I’ve got an overwhelming number of projects that I need to finish. Not that any of them have a deadline – apart from the one that I’ve made for myself that consists of GET MORE WORK OUT FASTER.

I’ve tried prioritizing works by projected release dates. I’ve tried daily and weekly word count, timing myself, writing for two hours a day, one hour a day, four thirty-minute intervals.

Blah, none of it works for me.

I need for writing to be fun again. That’s what works.

Therefore, my goals for this ROWnd are:

1. Write something every day. On any of the WIP’s, however much I get done, I get done. Eventually, one of them will be finished.

2. Stop reading reviews (I’m really close to doing this already.)

3. Check sales numbers once a week on Sunday morning. (The withdrawal is going to be a bitch. Ha!)

4. Always check-in on Sunday and try to check in on Wednesday.

That’s it!

Now I’m off to see what I can do with my new time travel short story, since I worked on Found several times this past week.

Happy writing!

 

Posted in: Blogs, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some thangs and #ROW80

June 6, 2012 10:54 am ⋅ 5 Comments ⋅

I have a list of things I keep meaning to tell you all!

If you have a blog: Sign up for the Indelibles INDIEpendence Day celebration!

If you like to read interesting posts and win stuff: Visit the Mid Summer Dream Fair! My post is called The Stage and it’s coming up at the end of the month.

If you want to win a paperback copy of the Day of Sacrifice Omnibus: Sign up on Goodreads or…sign up on that big sign up widget thingy over in the sidebar there.

If you want to get two monthly newsletters about new releases from the Indelibles and the Pacific Northwest YA Authors: Click the link for the Indelibles and for the PacNWYAAuthors to sign up.

Row80 update: I’m making decent progress on the pen name stories and I purchased an e-book cover, so that’s a done deal. I thought of yet another funny story for the BABD blog…and someday I might actually write it and the other 17 stories I have to put on there. I haven’t worked anymore on Found. 

With the kids out of school and my husband only working away from home three days a week, I just can’t get anyone to leave me alone. If I didn’t have to pay for a new roof in July, I’d seriously consider renting office space and putting the kids in day care for a few hours every day!

Whenever people interview me they always ask how I manage to write books and stay at home with the kids. It’s a friggin’ MIRACLE that’s how. I have no idea. It just gets done and never in as timely a manner as I want. ;)

Posted in: E-books, Fiction, Giveaway, Guest Post, Indelibles, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#ROW80 update

May 6, 2012 3:37 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

Hello all! Long time no update.

Well, Unfavorable isn’t done yet. It is the story that will not end. I think I’m having last book (story) syndrome. I just want everything wrapped up and for no one to be disappointed in the ending and all that CHATTER.

I keep thinking I have 1K to go and then I sit down and write 3K and still haven’t ended the bloody thing yet! My self-imposed deadline was May 1st, so that didn’t happen, but I DECLARE that mutha is going to be finished this week or…well, I don’t know what, it’s my birthday and Mother’s Day next Sunday and I kinda want to, y’know, get presents and eat cake and stuff and not be mean to myself and I already cheated and bought and read the latest BDB novel, so…I just better finish the damn story.

In other news, I went ahead and started plotting the Penny Black trilogy (previously known as the Society School books) and am RARIN’ to get started on those.

Lastly, there’s buzz that a group of bloggers are preparing some sort of interwebs raking over the coals of an author friend of mine. I have two things to say about that:

1. Why would anyone want their rep to be that they are a bully?

2. Get outside and enjoy some nature. Hanging out on the computer all the time getting whipped up into a frenzy is a lameass way to spend a day.

Peace!

Hope everyone has a great week writing and life-wise.

Posted in: Bad neighbors, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#ROW80 update

April 25, 2012 9:45 pm ⋅ 4 Comments ⋅

I’m getting this in at the very last moment!

Plugging along word count-wise on Unfavorable. This puppy needs to be done this weekend so that Sarah can proofread it next week and then I can send it to a couple of betas.

I wrote 1500 words yesterday and then spent the day today rearranging the scenes and writing a new one. My chronology was all off and I had characters explaining why things hadn’t happened yet instead of just having them happen. Also, in some scenes, they have two days until an epic battle and in others, it’s one! Super annoying. So, I stopped what I was doing and made a timeline.

I’ve been writing these stories since October 2010 and when I started them, I didn’t know how many there were going to be, who all the characters were or what was going to happen from one story to the next. (I had a similar experience with the Zellie books.)

Let me tell you, I’m never doing it this way again. It is way too difficult to keep track of everything.  The Society School books are getting a fat stack of Post-its and some poster boarding, that’s for damn sure! The timeline is going to help me a lot with Unfavorable, but I’m not sure why I haven’t made it before!  While I was perusing the stories 1-5, I also made notes of other things I’d flubbed up.  More rewrites!!

Then I will have only three more scenes to write. Or two. Ugh, I can’t decide!

Obviously, none of this is really up to me. :)

After I made the timeline, I combed through stock photography for three hours looking for the perfect woman/man/couple to put on the Day of Sacrifice Omnibus cover. I finally found them! They are a little more naked than I’d envisioned, but they are the right combo of hair and eye color and hotness level to be Flora and Julian.

The awesome Keary Taylor is making it for me.

That’s it! I’ve been on the computer for 14 hours. I think I can stop now.

Posted in: E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#ROW80 update and Green Acres

April 15, 2012 10:49 am ⋅ 6 Comments ⋅

Just a quickie update today because I have to clean my house. One of the things I said I’d do when I started making decent money as a writer was hire someone to clean my house a couple of times a month – well, the cleaning lady was supposed to start last week, but she got the flu, so my house is extra disastrous. I’m pretty sure the second I clean, she’ll call to reschedule. It’s the way of my world. :)

I’m not entirely sure of my word count this week – it’s around 2.5K. I tried doing my timer writing and writing without editing and…I sat down yesterday and didn’t time myself and started rewriting/cutting Unfavorable from the beginning…it’s not finished, but the first scene is a lot better and I got some enjoyment out of the process. Ha! My brain just really wants me to let it fix things in the moment. I keep working to retrain it, but she’s a stubborn bitch.

Another thing my brain is, is super obsessive. I had a dream that I bought a farm and then when I woke up I looked up farms for sale in my area and there is a huge one for a good price nearby. (And by good price I mean not a million dollars – it’s not something that I can actually afford.) Anyway, I drove by it. Then I drove up to the house and checked it out. Today I’m going to the open house and then taking the kids over to a friend’s farm down the road a bit so we can see how they manage it.

I have a hard time letting ideas go and I’ve learned to let myself just be a crazy person and dream about them until the last possible moment when my rational side kicks in and says, “hey, it ain’t gonna happen.”

It’s just thinking, right?

So, that took up some of my week too, but the farce ends today and I’ll be back to trying to figure out how to afford to put a new roof on the house I already own – which takes up way less creative brain space than dreaming about being a lavender farmer.

Every time I say quick post, I babble endlessly.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Posted in: indie authors, indie readers, ROW80, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#ROW80 update and My Pretties

April 11, 2012 4:13 pm ⋅ 7 Comments ⋅

ROW 80 update: Writing has been a little scattered this week. I had a hard time getting into Unfavorable on Monday because I’m trying to write without editing as I go and as a result of that couldn’t read what I wrote over the weekend without cringing. I changed a couple of things and rewrote maybe 500 words and then had to put it away.

I did end up starting one of the essays for my new, uh, book of essays - Be Awesome, Beautiful Dreamer. It’s not up on the BABD blog yet as it’s still in draft form, but that was a nice relaxing bit of writing that no one is WAITING for, so no pressure.

Tuesday I just finished the scene that was killing me in Unfavorable and moved on to the next one that was much easier to write. I got 1K in on that.

As for today – Imma bout to get to it. :)

My Pretties:

 

That’s that! Talk at you all on Sunday.

 

Posted in: Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The kitchen sink

March 22, 2012 2:03 pm ⋅ 6 Comments ⋅

We never talk anymore!  That’s my fault. :)

I thought skipping a round of ROW80 would help me feel less pressured to blog all the time and take one more thing off my To-Do list, but instead I’ve missed blogging! And I’ve only added more stuff to the To-Do list, so as per usual my “plans” are a bust.

Seriously, I win the medal for suckiest time management skillz.

Before I take off to California for Spring Break for a week, I thought I’d give you all a little update on what I’ve been doing writing and life-wise.

*Day of Sacrifice #6 – which I’m calling Unfavorable for now because I get tired of referring to stories by number - has to be finished by the end of May so I can participate in an Indelibles launch party.  I think six weeks is a totally doable span of time to write a 15K story…I’m just a little freaked out because it’s the last one and I have to wrap up the whole series. I’ve got a beginning and an end and absofrickenlutely no idea what happens in the middle. Guess I’ll figure that out as I go along!

*I’m finally ready to start the next trilogy in the Zellie world. This trilogy also doesn’t have a solid title. I have plenty of ideas flowing, but am having writer’s block when it comes to titles!  Perhaps there will be a contest.  Hmm.  Here’s the working title: Society School for Retroacts (Penny _____ #1, from the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy.)  Doesn’t that have an awesome ring to it? lol

Anyway, I’ve mentioned on Facebook that the main characters name is Penny and that this trilogy would be set in the future. It started out being a decade, then I changed it to twenty years, and now I’m thinking around fifteen.  The initial ideas I had for the books didn’t have enough oomph to last through a whole trilogy. The plot is still in the brainstorming stage, but I’ve definitely got a better hold on where I want it to go. I’m going to try to have this book done by August. (Do not hold me to this as a firm release date!!)

*Back in Time is not the last you are going to hear from Aurelia Lemon! After I finish Unfavorable, this will be what I work on when the Society School book is driving me nuts.

*Also I’m co-writing a contemporary New Adult book with Vicki Keire that is shaping up to be awesome – we’re taking our time with it, but I’ll keep you all updated.

*Also, also, I’m still working on pen name stories!

*Also, also, also, I’m starting a new blog where I’m going to write random essays about weird crap that happens to me. It’s going to be called Be Awesome, Beautiful Dreamer!  Basically, I want to put out another book like The Toilet Business and I need new material.  This idea could and probably will totally bomb, but whatevs, I’ll try some shit, y’know?

*On the personal front, I finally fricking got my dining room painted!! Only took two years y’all. I was on such a painting roll that I did the hallway, the closet doors in the hallway and all the doors.  My mom helped me because she is awesome and because she asked if she could! (DUH.)  All the paint looks great, although I can’t find one of the light fixtures that we took down. I rock at hiding things from myself.

*My old RAV 4 that my husband was driving was thisclose to breaking down on the freeway in a fiery explosion, so we traded that bad boy in and got a used Prius. The hubs is excited to have a new to him car and I’m happy that he won’t be stranded on the 26 during rush hour. We’re taking it to California and are both dorkily stoked to see how much money we save on gas. (Being an adult is super interesting and cool!!) I have had the pleasure of driving it once, on the way home from seeing John Carter.

*I quit smoking.  I know, you didn’t know I smoked. (Unless you’ve read The Toilet Business and then I’m sure you had a good idea that it was still going on.)  Well, I did. First, for a long time and then I had kids and I quit and then I started up again for a short time. I may appear loud and sarcastic and quippy, which I can be, but mostly I’m socially awkward. Smoking gave me something to do, it helped me tick off the time until I could go be alone again.  And when I was alone, it was a reward for getting things accomplished – especially writing.  However, I’ve quit a couple of times before and it’s been easier this time. I’m eating my face off, but eventually I’ll be mellow enough to concentrate on a better diet and exercising. It’s been a week. Go me!

*I got two new tattoos.

My indie publishing philosophy:My kids initials:

It’s been eleven years since I’ve had a new tattoo, so I thought it was high time I got a couple. The pictures are kind of crappy and I’m painfully pale, but you get the gist. :)

I think that’s all I’m going to overshare for today. Ha! I hope you all are enjoying spring and get to have a little break soon.

Posted in: Blogs, E-books, Fiction, Indelibles, indie authors, indie readers, ROW80, Self-publishing, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy Thanksgiving and #ROW80

November 23, 2011 8:31 am ⋅ 10 Comments ⋅

This year my family decided to do something different for Thanksgiving and get out of town. I’m headed to Mt. Hood in a couple of hours to enjoy a few days of eating and sledding and snowball fights.

Here’s where we’re staying:

Yes, that’s the Timberline Lodge – the hotel from The Shining. I fully expect my sister to wake me at least once by wiggling her finger in my face and saying “redrumredrumredrum.”

Our plan for Thanksgiving is to eat ourselves silly and then take the kids out to play in the snow.  We don’t get much  in the valley, and when we do it’s usually covered in a sheet of ice, so my kids have never been sledding before!

Wish me luck, I’m going to be the one driving and I haven’t ever put chains on my tires.  Actually, I haven’t driven in much snow at all since I was a teenager…why did I volunteer for this job again? :)

Enjoy the holiday, American types, and do yourself a favor and sleep in on Friday.  The 500 pack of socks for 10 cents will still be there later in the day.

Row80 update: I barfed up a whopping 3,279 words on a new pen name short story on Monday. I’m using barf in the best sense of the word – I’d been thinking about the story for a while now and wasn’t in the mood to work on my DBC story, so I thought I’d just get the beginning written.  It took off from there!  I probably would’ve stayed up late and written more, but my husband wanted me to watch How I Met Your Mother with him and my eyes were burning something fierce. I added another 400 words yesterday and have left off in an awesome spot so that I’ll be rarin’ to go on it  when I get back from the mountain.

I also completely reorganized all of my files and finally got the epub version of most of my stories up on All Romance.  A fairly productive beginning to the week that I will now completely ruin by being a sloth for three days.  Yippee!!

Have a good one, y’all.

Posted in: Darn good television, E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Kindle, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,