Me

Word of the Year (2021)

Hi friends,

Word of the year: BUILD

I always choose a word for the new year. For 2020, it was REFINE and I think it worked very well for me.

This year, I’m choosing BUILD. I want to build stronger foundations in my career, I want to build a more stable career; I want to build up my reader community and fans, I want to build stronger ties with my readers; I want to build myself (in writing, in my mind, in my body, in my personal life); I want to build up others, help them out, build a stronger community overall; I want to build my family up, making our relationships even stronger than it already is; I want to build my house–we just moved to a new house, but there’s still plenty to improve here …

You get my point. I want to build a better life/career for me and all of those around me, including my readers! <3

Cheers,

Categories: Goals, Me, My Books, My writing

2016 Overview and Plans for 2017

Hi Friends!

For many reasons, 2016 was a terrible year, but it had good moments too.

In my writing life, I came back to writing and publishing after a 15 month hiatus. I was able to write 430k words, I published 2 novels and 1 novella, wrote a bunch more. I learned a lot about my own process and how I can be more productive – hopefully that sticks. I hope my writing got a tiny bit better, after all practice is everything, isn’t it? I strengthened my friendship with writers and connected with new people. I participated of a few workshops and read many craft books.

Hopefully, 2017 will be even better.

I don’t like to make resolutions or goals for the new year, but I like to state what I will *try* to achieve.

For example, in 2017 I will try to:

write even more – at least 450k words
publish 4 to 5 novels
read a bit more (my reading has been suffering!)
learn more about marketing
interact more with my readers (I’ve been really bad with Twitter and Facebook and I want to correct that). The first step will be to create a reader group on Facebook. More on that later!

I also want to:

change the colors of my website – I love the style, but I’m getting sick of the pink lol
take a new author pic
go to a conference? Maybe participate on a signing? We’ll see …

Also, I love the #wordoftheyear thing, where you choose a word for the entire year. I’m gonna be bold this year and go with this one:

This is the year. This is the year I’m gonna give everything I have to this writing/publishing thing and I hope it’ll work out … nothing will stop me in the pursuit of my goals. I’m determined to work hard, to go after my dreams, to write all the words and publish all the books, to make the most of everything, to enjoy my life and my family and my friends. In 2017, I’m determined to succeed!

That’s it so far. Nothing too big, just a little more than what I did in 2016 – but with more focus.

What will you try to achieve in 2017?

Cheers,

Categories: Challenges, Me, My Books

YA Buccaneers Spring Bootcamp

Hi friends,

I kinda love challenges. Last month, I won CampNaNo, and when Ghenet, a good friend of mine, mentioned she and other writers are hosting a bootcamp from May 1st to June 30th, I was very interested.

spring-writing-bootcamp-ya-buccaneers

So, I joined the YA Buccaneers Spring Bootcamp exciting challenge and here are my goals:

finish line-edits on The Everlasting Circle (The Everlast Trilogy, book 3) and send them back to my editor by the end of the week.
finish revising Breaking Through (The Breaking Series, book 3) by the deadline (May 23rd) and send it to my editor for content editing.
finish writing the first draft of my NA fantasy tentatively titled The Energy Within – I already have 32k word written so it shouldn’t take too long now.

I know it seems a lot, but I know it’s doable.

We have private groups on Facebook for support and also on twitter. And we’re using the hashtag #YABspring2016 on twitter and instagram – check us out!

So, why don’t you join us?

Cheers,

Categories: Me, My Books, My writing

Update

Hello friends,

I know I’m still very quiet online, so I just wanted to give you guys an update of how are things around this side of the computer.

My baby is 14 months old now and she’s very active! She’s still very attached to me, which makes writing hard. Thankfully, she naps twice a day, for about 2-2.5 hours (combined) which gives me time to write/revise, etc … And most nights, after both my daughters are in bed, I’m able to squeeze another 1 hour of writing/revising.

Because my free time is limited at the moment, I haven’t been online much – not here, not on twitter, not on facebook. I do post a couple of pics a week on Instagram and that goes to twitter and facebook, but it’s not the same. (By the way, are you following me on instagram? Click here to do so!) I try using my free time wisely and that means I spend it writing or revising only … Hopefully, I’ll be able to come back to my normal schedule and be a little bit more present online soon.

As for my books, I finished writing Breaking Through (Breaking #3) in January, and finished writing The Everlasting Circle (Everlast #3) in February. I already did one round of revisions on Everlast #3 and it’s now with my editor for the first round of editing (she should send it back to me by the end of this week). After I’m done doing whatever needs to be done for Everlast #3, I’ll send it back to my editor, then I’ll focus on revising Breaking #3 so I can get it ready to send it out to my editor too.

If all goes accordingly to my plans, I should be able to release both books during Summer (Everlast #3 in July and Breaking #3 in August).

In between revisions and sending this manuscript to one side and the other manuscript to the other side, I’m outlining a new book which I hope will also be released this year, but probably closer to the end of the year.

And that’s it for now!

See you guys soon!

Cheers,

Categories: Me, My life, My writing

My 2016 Plan

Hello friends!

In the past, I posted about my plans for the year (click here to see the posts for 2012, 2013, 2014-1 and 2014-2).

I got that idea from my friend Jani Grey. If I’m not mistaken, on her first post about it, she mentioned that having resolutions sounded too “set on stone” and when you can’t achieve your resolution, the failing feeling hits you hard. But having a plan, with wants is a better idea, easier on the mind. Also, the list included not only writing/publishing wants, but personal ones too. I agreed, and still agree, and this is why I’m posting my plan for this year below.

Note that I don’t have a post for 2015 … because my baby girl was born in January and I knew I would dedicate most of my time to her. I knew I wouldn’t publish any book in 2015, and barely write. So I didn’t even create a plan, other than to raise my baby girl and spend time with the oldest too.

Okay, so on with my 2016 plan:

1. Read at least 52 books. One per week. Though, I do hope to read more than that …

2. Write more. I wrote too little in 2015 – in fact, I only wrote again in Nov and Dec, but I’ve been doing pretty well since then. I hope to keep it up!

3. Spend a little more time on Social Media. For 2014, I posted I wanted to spend LESS time on social media. Wish granted. I’ve been pretty absent in all social media. Even pinterest, which I used to love, haven’t seen a new pin from me in months.

4. Publish at least 3 books. Two of them are almost done and almost ready for my editor – hopefully I’ll be able to publish them both before July …the third one (and more) are still on the limbo. I have too many ideas, I have yet to come up with a schedule for all of them and – the tricky part – stick to it.

These are the first two books I’ll publish this year (finally):

BTebook TEC - Everlast #3

How about you? What are your WANTS for 2016?

Cheers,

Categories: Breaking Through, Me, My writing

Writing 300 Words Everyday – Part II

Hello friends!

Remember a month ago when I posted about being in huge writing funk, then I found a quote by Stephen King and immediately went on to follow it? That first post was about my progress during the month of Nov while following that advice.

This post right here is to tell you about my progress during the month of December.

I’ve wrote EVERY DAY during the month of December. I didn’t even miss on my birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. And, because to me writing is addicting, I usually wrote more (and sometimes way more) than just my daily goal of 300 words.

Here’s how the month went:

Word count Dec

As you can see, it went well, even better than November. And I stuck with it. I’m proud of myself that I stuck with my plan, with the quote. And I’ll continue to do so in January, February, March … And forever, I hope.

(Though, once my baby girl starts halfday daycare, my daily word count goal will increase!)

If you are in a writing funk like I was, let this post (and the previous one) serve as an inspiration for you. 300 words is not much that it’ll disrupt your busy day, but enough to make a difference after a couple of minutes months.

I can do it, you can do it!

Cheers,

Categories: Me, My writing

Writing 300 Words Everyday

Hi friends!

So much for my I’m Back! post, right? I haven’t posted here in so long … again.

But I have a good explanation for that, I think …

In October, when I said I was back and I published my Halloween themed novella, I had a babysitter who came to my house 3 times a week for about 1.5-2 hours at a time. She stayed with my baby girl in the toy room while I worked in my office. But then, the babysitter, who is in college, said her classes were too demanding plus the drive here then back to campus were too long and took time from her study time. So she quit.

It took me two weeks to find another babysitter, but this one is in high school, which means she isn’t always available and she has lots of school activities … so, she was coming only twice a week for about 1 hour each time. My writing time had shrunk incredibly and it made me frustrated. I’m a firm believer that you don’t need to write everyday to be a writer, to be productive, but twice a week isn’t the way either, not for me at least. I need more consistency and frequency to make it work.

Also, the new babysitter had to cancel our dates a few times because of her schedule, so there were weeks when she didn’t come at all …

I was very, very frustrated about writing.

Around the last week of October, I told my closest writing friends (who became more than just writing friends years ago) that I was giving up this writing thing until my baby girl starts halfday daycare next year (around May or so) … She’s just too damn attached to me and I can’t even go to the bathroom for 10 seconds in peace. Don’t get me wrong, I love her to pieces and it’s a great feeling when she’s scared or fearful and she sees me coming and her face just brightens like I’m her own sun. Or even when she’s fine, she sees me and her smile widens. It’s amazing to cuddle with someone who wants you so much …

But I can’t get anything done like that, and writing is one of the many things that got neglected.

Remember the novella I published in October? I had plans to turn it in to a series and I wanted to start releasing the other novellas soon. But because of my precious baby girl (I’m serious, guys. I promise you, you never saw anything like this. Everyone that gets to see it is astonished), I never got to finish those. The frustration was too much. I didn’t want to feel like my baby girl was responsible for that and be mad at her, so I gave up on writing all together for the moment. She’ll only be little once, you know, and I have to take advantage that I can stay home with her, taking care of her and enjoying her. So that was what I was going to do.

Then, on Nov 2nd, around 10:30pm, I saw a quote on instagram by Stephen King …

That hit me hard and fast.

300 words a day is better than none. A novel a year was better than none. And I can write 300 words in 10 minutes, 15 at most. I could spare 15 minutes of my day to writing, even if it meant to go to bed 15 minutes later than usual. I didn’t have to sacrifice my time with my baby girl or be frustrated about not writing. That quote just made its way in my brain, it got rooted deep, and I just knew I could do it. And I started immediately, even though it was already my bedtime.

Here’s a pic of my excel spreadsheet below so you can see my progress.

word count

I only missed 3 days because I was moving, and because I was can’t-get-up-from-my-bed sick. But I think I wrote enough the other days to compensate for it – and I don’t count Nov 1st because I decided this new goal on Nov 2nd …

300 words x 30 days = 9000 words and I wrote over 20,000 so I guess I’m doing good.

And you know the best part? I wrote 20k words in November! The previous month = 0 words. And 20k words is soooooo much better than zero.

I know, I know, my brain sometimes tries to sabotage me. It keeps thinking about all the writers I know that write 20k words in 2-3 days. At first, I hated seeing the low words count on my spreadsheet but again, you guys, progress is progress. I repeat: I got zero words down in Oct, while I got 20k words in Nov. Which one is better?

When I started this 300 words per day goal, my plan was to have the novel I’m working on finished by the time my baby girl starts halfday daycare in May, but if I can keep up this rhythm, I’ll finish this novel by February and then I’ll have 2 months to work on something else! Isn’t that just great?!

I’m very proud of myself right now. I just wished I would have seen this quote and figured this out back in March … I would have written at least 1.5 books by now.

Well, better later than never ;)

PS: I’ll probably still not post here often and not be very present on twitter – but I promise that will be better when my baby girl goes to daycare and I have more time for not only writing, but all sides of the writing/publishing life.

Cheers,