Taking Stock

It's now officially autumn, and the leaves here in northern Ohio are beginning to fall. Soon, my front yard will be covered in discarded oak leaves and I'll be scrambling for firewood.

This is the time of year I like to do a look back over the year and see where I'm at in this writing journey and where I'm headed. My yardstick contains several components:

1) October is one of the months during the year where royalty checks are issued. There will be one more issued when the books are closed for the year in December, but March and October are the biggies. I like to compare this year's checks with last year's and see if I've made any headway. If not, I need to explore ways to provide an additional revenue stream.



2) I check my swag to see if I need to order any more bookmarks, business cards, etc. Have I promoted myself enough?

3) Has my supply of my books dwindled to the point where I need to order more? Do I need to plan more public appearances next year?

4) I take a look at my book project folder to see if I'm able to mark anything off that list and update accordingly. Do I have any more compelling story lines to consider for next year?

5) I also look at my five-year plan, which gets extended out by a year each time. It's a good benchmark to keep me on track. Am I accomplishing the goals I've set forth?

Even though it's technically not the end of the year, it is the end of the year for my business, more or less. Before the craziness of the holidays happens, I can reflect on what I've accomplished this year and what even bigger things I can do for next year.

How about you? Do you take stock of your career at the end of each year? Do you make plans to do things differently in the coming months?

Summer & Editing

Brace off my leg completely–Check
Book signing at NEORWA conference–Check
Clean house in anticipation of family visit next week–Well, not yet

I'm taking things one cautious step at a time these days, since I have a busy June coming up, and then the RWA conference in July. And it just occurred to me how much of life is like editing a manuscript.

Come on, Becky, I hear you saying. Isn't that a bit of a stretch, even for you?

Well, I'm here to say "It makes perfect sense to me." Let me explain:

When I first started lining up events for this summer, it was overwhelming to me. I'm sure, if you've been following the blog for some time, you've picked up on my panic. But I like panic. It's my go-to response to everything. Once I get through the panic mode, I can then start to sort things out, put things into an orderly format–a check list, as it were–and begin to make sense of it all by knocking off one item at a time.

The same holds true of editing a manuscript. I look forward to getting the first round edits back from my publisher. But when I open the file, and see all the comments and things I need to think about and change, panic overwhelms me. I usually close the file quickly, wait for my racing heart to calm down, and those nagging "why did I ever think I could put two sentences together into a story someone would want to read" doubts to dissipate. When I get back to it, an hour or a day later, I take a deep breath, and go through the manuscript and suggested changes one item at a time and wonder why I ever doubted myself in the first place.

So I'm applying the same thought process to my summer. I'll knock one thing at a time off the list and realize as I do so that everything I'm doing is making my memories of friends, family and adventure that much better. After the family visit, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail beckons, followed closely by the Tennessee Whisky Trail, all in the name of research for another book, of course.

So be sure to put returning to my blog on your own check list.

Making A List, Checking It Twice

Anyone who knows me, even a little bit, will tell you I'm a compulsive list maker. Grocery lists, weekly work check lists, weekly writing check lists, new launch check lists--you name it, there's a list floating around on my desk for it.

Right now, the list that's truly giving me trouble is the checklist I've devised for each book I produce. I go scene by scene through the book, checking for overused words, my seven deadly sin words, four news ones to avoid as a result of my most recent workshop, and if the senses are in evidence--not all of them in each scene, but I want an adequate representation of them throughout the book. It's the most tedious and boring part of my process, and I just have to grit my teeth and get through it.

When I'm done, and can send off the polished up version of my manuscript, I can breathe a sigh of relief, but only for a minute. Once the contract is signed with a publisher, I pull out my self-promotion checklist and begin working on that. Once I have an ARC for review, my checklist of what I need to do to get the book ready for launch comes out and I begin to check those items off. This part of the process only gets more complicated if you are working with more than one publisher, or are self-publishing.

Am I compulsive? Maybe, a bit. But, in this past year as a published author, I've learned that there are so many different facets to this new face of publishing and in order to keep them all straight,  I need a checklist. My early tries at winging it had me duplicating myself, asking for guest blogs in places where I was already scheduled, going through the tedious process of having my book listed on Book Pulse or Author's Den, only to find I'd already done so. I'd go to bed at night with all these little to-do items screaming around in my head like cars on a NASCAR track, I couldn't sleep. Coming up with a checklist just made sense to me.

And allowed me to get my eight hours of snooze time.