One Page: Still Untitled

So I've started numbering the pages in this handwritten manuscript. This section is page 21 going on to 22.

Three hours later, after she had gone through the break-in step by step, affirmed she had never seen the man before, and defended her sister's honor by assuring them that he certainly wasn't an irate boyfriend out for revenge; Officer Kendrick held the door for a cruiser to take her home. Considering how Zara felt, he was lucky she didn't wrench his arm off before he could shut the door.

They pulled up to her apartment to find her landlady, Elise, sitting on the front porch in a lawn chair. Despite being the mother of a wildly independent high schooler, Elise didn't look a day over 27. And the look on that beautiful waifish face said woe to whoever got in her way. She brushed a strand of immaculate black hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her right ear.

Officer Kendrick got out first and approached.

"Good evening ma'am. I understand there was a problem in the upstairs apartment." He made it to the second porch step before Elise stood up and showed off the pistol she had in her lap. Understandably, he stopped and put his hand over his own weapon.

"Ain't no problem no more, officer. Unless you count the clean up." To her credit, Elise didn't gesture with the tunas she pointed into the shadowy downstairs apartment. "Gringo came barging in, yelling about where could he find the Crofts. They nice girls, pay their rent on time, quiet, no trouble. But he won't stop and now he's throwing things and he knocked down my good picture of George. No, no, that won't do. So I shot him. Then a second time to make sure he stay down. Rule Two: Doubletap."

Kendrick shifted his eyes to the darkened doorway without moving his hand. When Zara came around the car behind him, he waved her back. "Stay with the car." Then he looked to Elise. "May I come look?"

_______

Curiouser and curiouser. If nothing else, I fully enjoy the character of Elise. I'm starting to see a little bit of where this is going, but I won't tell. Leave your comments and I'll entertain your speculations.

2 Sentence Horror Stories [And it's not Halloween]

I discovered 2 sentence horror stories while I was browsing PINTEREST for horror story ideas and immediately fell in love. So I decided to give it a try myself as an exercise in brevity. Here is what happened.

1. "I'll love you forever," I said to my doll. When it said "Forever won't take long," I paled.

2. We were laughing and bouncing on the bed in the glow of the nightlight. Then something from the ceiling grabbed Sue.

3. My brother has been dead 3 years. He no longer smells when he follows me to school.

4. I stood over his grave exultant; I had finally won. His hand burst up from the ground.

5. The embers of his burning body swirled in the moonlight. Then came his voice from behind me, "We're not done yet".

6. Rest in peace all the tombstones say. My peace would be being alone in my own coffin.

7. I accidentally locked myself in a closet, so I screamed to be let out. Unfortunately, all I can hear over my screams is someone babbling and sharpening a knife.

8. It was all I could do to pray the prayers of my childhood. What else do you do when you find the Devil in your living room holding your dead daughter?

9. There was poison coursing through my veins, blood coming out my nose, and a grin on my face. He thought killing me would set him free when all it really did was piss me off.

10. I woke up and my entire head hurt. Stumbling to the mirror, I saw my mouth had been sewn shut and LIAR branded on my forehead.

11. Crazy they called me, but they never knew. Of course, they couldn't know what its like bearing your twin in your body.

12. They thought they finished me off. Guess I shouldn't have shown up to their party in the clothes I died in.

13. The horrible, terrible, inescapable truth is that we're all going to die. However, we are not all going to become vengeful poltergeists, I hope.

14. The downside of not surviving a suicide attempt, you get recruited by a demon to push others to suicide. Bummer.

15. Her head snapped up and she capered toward me like a broken marionette. I unloaded the clip into her and she kept on coming.

16. Lying beneath the stone, I felt my ribs crack as my chest started to give way. My last thought, I'll show them what it really means to kill a witch.

17. I often dream of my mother's lullabyes at night. Tonight, it's 3am, I'm home alone, and it's coming from just inside the closet door.

18. "There's nothing to be afraid of," I tell myself as I shelter my candle. The teeth flash just before the candle is blown out.

19. I found my mother in her workshop surrounded by the remains of her dolls with a knife in her neck. The next night, I awoke to my favorite of her creations standing by my bedside.

20. "Oh, human, you have so much to learn about paranormal warfare. Lesson one, meddle in the affairs of the Elders only if you're okay with being served medium rare, like a steak."

21. Being in his arms was so comforting, so safe. I wonder what it will feel like when I've reattached them to his torso.

Hope that was enjoyable and maybe a little spine tingly. Drop me a line in the comments to tell me your favorite.

One Page: Untitled

I still have no idea what to call this which is unusual for me since I come up with titles almost immediately. Guess I'll just have to wait until the title occurs to me. For now, here's installment three of my One Page project.

The gun chilled her skin where he pressed it. One bullet and she would be as dead as her sister. Had this asshole killed her?

Please don't.

Her sister's last words rang through her head and Zara tasted blood as she chomped down on her tongue. The world flashed vivid in colors she couldn't describe and she saw the hulk in front of her for what he was: a spineless bully.

Images assaulted her but she beat them back. Now wasn't the time. First live. Then investigate.

His eyes bulged as she pressed closer to the gun and took hold of his arm.

"Wrong one," she said before dragging him inside and off his feet. Tossing him into the staircase, she whipkicked the door shut. "You killed my sister." Zara spit a mouthful of blood on him and he cringed. The gun lay abandoned on the stair. Stalking closer, Zara heard his heart as it pounded, what a delicious sound. Hunger rumbled through her. He would taste delectable. She sniffed the air as she drew close enough to feel his terrified breath on her skin.

He struck hard enough to pop her head to one side and ring her right ear but not enough to put any distance between them. When she brought her gaze back with a snarl, he attempted to crab walk up the stairs backward. Snaking an arm out, she snatched him down by his left ankle. His head thunked against the stair.

"Where are you going?" The question, undoubtedly rhetorical, brought on a torrent of words.

"I'm sorry. Let me go. I'll pay you." The words shivered.

Coward. Yellow bellied bastard. There would be no dignity in his death. She felt pity asking her to spare him. Let the fool run free. Unfortunately, her inner predator said kill him, skin him, eat him, and do the world a favor. Plus there was the matter of him paying for her sister's murder.

Yes, yes.

One Page: Still Untitled

Here's the first one page piece from this story: CLICK HERE.

Zara finished off everything, including the jello, which her brain declared needed alcohol. At the end, she felt like she could have eaten more but the pain said what she really wanted was the medicine the nurse promised. Luckily drill sergeant nurse showed up as if summoned with a syringe in her hand.

"Now this is something for pain and to help you sleep, so don't be surprised if you find you can't keep your eyes open."

"Okay."

"There's a buzzer near your right shoulder should you wake up and need someone. Don't hesitate to use it. Here's the TV remote. Don't worry about falling asleep and leaving it on. It won't bother nobody." Then she smiled. "Get some rest." Even though the smile was all teeth, it was still comforting. Somebody cared.

It only took a few minutes of watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta on rerun for the drugs to start to work. The world turned soft, fuzzy, hazy and gray before the black crept in. Without fear, Zara let it take her.

Air, thick with blossoming magnolia, crowded around her as she turned in a circle. Trees pressed in though she stood on a red brick path under heavy moonlight. Night birds complained nearby. Gossamer peace held the scene by spider silk threads and they were breaking. Rolling in from the horizon thunderheads promised foul weather. Zara looked around for shelter but she might as well have been in the deep woods for all she saw. Silver droplets pattered down through the trees and she felt a massive footstep. Again, slow and rhythmic horror came but she couldn't see it. The urge to run scampered through her but her body stood frozen. Whatever was coming would find her an easy target.

K'ZARA

"Miss Croft!"

Voices layered on top of one another and they beckoned her to a world of daylight.

One Page: Currently Untitled

One page of new work.

For K'Zara Croft's 21st birthday someone shot her sister, Amara, and she felt it.

Partying on the second floor of Club One with a legally purchased Long Island in one hand, the night had been fabulous. Even the occasional grope from the not-gay boys and the very-gay girls failed to dampen her mood. She was 21 in one of the best drinking cities in the United States. Tonight was a good night. At 2 a.m., aware of the bar's imminent closure, she stumbled out onto the sidewalk and brushed her shoulder length locs away from her face. She breathed in the tainted air of the smokers as she walked past ignoring the appreciative whistle that followed. Coffee always said a man who whistled rather than introduce himself thought you were a dog and if you followed that, you'd end up with fleas.

Jefferson Street led down into City Market where some places were still lit while others had gone dark. People sat out under the Spanish moss draped trees smoking and talking with drinks in their hands or settled nearby. Zara had left her own plastic cup behind. Nothing in it, no reason to keep it. At the Broughton Street corner, she started looking for cabs. If she didn't find one, she'd have to hoof it home. Granted home wasn't that far, but anything that put her closer to falling into bed was not to be missed.

Zara fanned herself with one distracted hand. The hot humid air clung to her white t-shirt like a fog. Further down the street, a cab turned toward her. She threw her arm up to get its attention.

"Hey!"

Please don't!

Zara snapped her head around fully expecting her twin to be standing there chiding her for staying out so late. She was probably asleep in her favorite chair with a book on her chest. Then why did she sound terrified?

"Mara?"

A gun went off. Mara screamed until she gurgled. Zara felt as if she had been punched in the chest and sat down hard on the pavement. Putting her hand to her chest to check her heart, she came away with wet heat as black roses crowded out her vision.

Mara, what happened?

The world disappeared under a coal colored shroud as feet ran toward her.

Bullet Journal Lessons

My bullet journal isn't super pretty, but I like it.

Things I've already learned:

Get a journal with thicker paper. Otherwise, you end up with bleed through and indentions.

You can literally track anything if you decide you want to, all you have to do is come up with some kind of tracking mechanism.

Pick something big enough that you don't have to write super small but still small enough to fit into your bag. Otherwise, you won't carry it and it can't do you much good sitting at home on your desk.

Along with being able to track anything, you may find you wish to track everything. This is a bad idea. The glut of information is paralyzing.

Pretty is great, but functional is everything.

So I really only have one month in it and a couple of list pages where I'm keeping track of things like the info I need for my wedding and some exercise/habit stuff. Thinking of setting up a new habit tracker like I've seen on Pintrest. Might help me keep track of a few more things like what time I go to bed and whether or not I'm writing every day. Right now, I'm not writing every day but that's a thing for another time. I really need to write about my experience with burnout but I don't think I have anything really new to say. A post for another time. Here's some pics of what August looks like in my bullet journal.

Unintended Series [Chains of Fate]

When I originally wrote Chains of Fate, I intended it to be a one off attempt at me writing something a little romantic. The premise is a little romantic: a cursed king is given a second chance when his first love is reborn in the body of another woman. Maybe not 100% Harlequin material, but close enough for government work. However, after getting some feedback on it from various sources, it became clear that the story didn't quite end where I wanted it to. I won't tell you how the story ended in case you haven't read it yet. Suffice to say, several people said it was ripe for a sequel. Definitely not what I intended or expected. However, what do you do when your biggest fan clamors for more? In this case, it was my mother, who fangirls Vad'Alvarn, asking for a rewrite of how the story ended.

In response, I wrote Blades of Fate which hasn't come out yet. Unfortunately, after taking some time to look at it, that wasn't where the story ended either. So now I'm left with two books and no ending. Well, well, what do I do now? Why, you write a third one of course. So this week, in fact, today, I started writing the third installment in the Chains of Fate series which I have tentatively titled Cities in Time. If you've read the first book, you are aware of the living city of Backaran, which figures prominently in the narrative. It returns in Blades of Fate, but you're still wondering what exactly is going on with the fact that the city is alive and has a personality. I finally answer that question in Cities in Time. You also find out there are others, but I won't tell you too much about them. Must leave a few things for you to marvel over when the book comes out.

All things considered, I intend to wrap up all the loose ends with this book because truthfully writing book four doesn't appeal to me and I've got other series waiting for me to finish them as well. Here's to getting this book written and ready to go.

Hacking My Brain [Guilt of Pleasure and Achievement]

I'm on my second cup of coffee as I type this because I've decided that one of the things I want to take pleasure in is my coffee consumption. It's a small thing, but a very important thing when considered against today's topic. Recently I was listening to HEROINE, a podcast about women's creative leadership. If you haven't heard of it, you might want to pop on over to the link or check them out on Itunes so you can benefit from hearing about women who are doing amazing things. One of the features of the podcast is the Wisdom episodes, they're shorter and right now they're covering blocks to creative leadership. A block I struggle with quite a bit came up, guilt of pleasure. I connect it to my inability to allow myself to say I've achieved something.

It goes like this you don't want to take care of yourself because you feel like you should always be working. No matter what you've done already, you can't rest on your laurels, you have to always be achieving. This leads to a serious lack of pleasure in one's life and eventual burnout. However, that's the life I lead in a nutshell. No matter what I've done lately, I don't think I'm doing enough. Can anybody relate? In a conversation last week about my creative output, or rather lack thereof, my runner friend pointed out to me that part of the reason I may be having such a hard time creating is because my creative well may perhaps be dry due to lack of consumption. In some circles, the idea is in order to create you must consume what others create in order to have a well to draw from. If you have no ideas, don't try to write something yourself, go read something, watch something, listen to something, take in so that you can put out. I looked back over the past couple months and realized while I had been reading it was all work related. I didn't consume media for the purposes of allowing my brain to take pleasure in something. I read because I needed to learn some skill or another. (I'm planning a wedding. You can imagine how much information I've slogged through on that score. Add in the self-help books on relationships I've read and you get the picture. My nightstand looks like the self-help section threw up on it.) However, none of that helps me when you consider how empty my well was. I could no longer achieve because I could no longer write. To change thoughts, I had burnt my candle down to a nub that wouldn't even light anymore. Unfortunately, that's not the only area in my life where I've had some difficulty lately. I consider my problem with achievement a bit more deeply rooted than that. It isn't just my inability to take pleasure in getting off the hamster wheel, it is also my inability to give myself credit for what I've already done.

Case in point, I've written three books in the past year. That's no small feat according to most. However, I'm not willing to look at that and go, Wow, you worked hard. I'm looking at it going: I have how many more books that need to be written. In a lot of people's eyes, I have not only earned the pat on the back, but a day off (or three) and maybe a really nice dinner. My perception is the problem. Following up on that, I started going to the gym a month or so ago. I've been consistently two to three days a week since I started going because I try very hard to be consistent like that. However, I can't seem to give myself credit for it. In Nerd Fitness, there's a concept called 'Give Me the Loot', in which you come up with a personal system and reward yourself for your progress over the course of your work so that you don't lose motivation. I don't have a system in place. In fact, the idea of a system that rewards me for doing what I think I am supposed to be doing seems utterly foreign to me. Shouldn't one want to do something because it is the right thing to do and not to get rewards? Maybe in a perfect world that would be the case. We do not live in a perfect world, which should be no newsflash to anyone capable of reading. Therefore, in order to not give up when things are tough, I need a system of some kind in place to keep me going. I'm terrible at this sort of thing. Today, at the suggestion of another young lady on Nerd Fitness with me, I pulled out some old stickers and started putting them on my wall calendar. I have ascertained that a minimum of ten stickers (I earn a sticker every time during the month that I go to the gym) gets me a new t-shirt. I haven't decided where I'm buying the t-shirt from, but THINKGEEK or LOOKHUMAN are obvious candidates. THIS is one of my favorites. It speaks to me.

So in short, I've decided that coffee is one of the things I will not give up. It makes me happy. I will sit and sip my coffee and enjoy every minute of it. I've taken a few days off to just absorb other people's work. (I watched Victor Frankenstein which has Harry Potter and young Charles Xavier in it.) I will create a system that rewards me for doing what I know is right because its nice to be rewarded for things. (Yes, I realize that totally contradicts the post that says getting rewards doesn't necessarily help with habit formation, but it's not to help me build the habit, the habit is already there.)

Life Update [Dancing Together]

I really just wrote this post for the excuse to put up a photo of me and my fiance dancing together at a barbecue. Things have been going slowly, but fast enough that I'm occasionally worried that I will be missing something. In non-work news, the wedding planning is going well. The family continues to get along and move along. In work news, I've been trying to write a superhero story and having something of a hard time with it. I'm going to try a different method of getting the words on paper by writing the dialogue and just the dialogue first to see if that unsticks the blocks in my brain. I started my first Facebook ad campaign after watching the work of Mark Dawson. His numbers are impressive and he certainly has a number of students, so I'm going to give it a try and see how it pans out. Otherwise, not a whole lot to report. I'm putting the finishing touches on Blades of Fate, which I will be sending out to my mailing list sometime in the next week. Hoping to get the full book out by August of 2016, but I haven't picked a definitive date yet.

Hacking My Brain [Where's the Scarecrow? Goal Setting]

I was rereading Steve Kamb's book Level Up Your Life, which is some of the geekiest self-help you will find out there, when I came upon the section titled: Growth Happens At Our Limits. In this section, Steve relates the story from Fellowship of the Ring of Sam and Frodo leaving the Shire for the first stage in what will be a long and arduous journey full of fright and peril. However, before they ever get to that, they stop at a scarecrow. Sam says that this is the farthest he's ever been from home. If he takes one more step, he'll have gone farther than he has ever gone.

Looking at it from the perspective that he's got a much longer journey to make diminishes the scarecrow. Have you ever done that? I still have so far to go, so you miss the milestone of what you have achieved in a single moment. It's easy to do. Sam didn't have the benefit of knowing what was coming, but often we do and because we do, it's easy to lose sight of the progress in favor of looking at the much larger goal. For example, right now I'm trying to lose weight to fit into my wedding dress. I won't tell you how much I weigh, but suffice to say it is significantly higher than the goal weight I have set for myself. I am making progress. However, I have to remind myself that each new milestone in weight loss is the farthest I've ever gone. The scarecrow keeps moving. Sometimes he's fast, sometimes he's slow, but he's definitely not pinned down in one place. This is a good thing.

So how do you not miss the scarecrow and the momentous reality that you've reached further than you've ever gone? First, scale back your focus. It's a good thing to be able to see what's at the end of the journey, don't get me wrong; however, it isn't always helpful when you're trying to make sure you show yourself some love when you reach a milestone. Focus on the next milestone and put the end of the journey to the back of your mind. Also, keep in mind, the end of the journey is another scarecrow, another moment of going the farthest you have ever gone, and it will deserve its day in the sun as well. Second, pay attention. This should go without saying, but the truth is we forget. If you're just la-de-daing along, you'll miss the scarecrow. This scene would have had much less impact if they just walked past the scarecrow singing some drinking song. Third, mark the occasion. For Sam, he marked it by the awareness of the scarecrow and telling his friend about the occasion. You can do something similar. When you realize you've reached a scarecrow, call a friend. Mark it on your calendar. Do something related to the milestone you've reached. Whatever you do, don't just let the matter pass. If you mark it, you'll have something to look back on to tell you how much you can do when the next scarecrow seems out of reach.

Got something to say? Leave a comment. Check out my other writings in Books. Want a chance to read my next novel before it comes out? Sign up for my email list. The opportunity is opening soon.

Fledgling Starbucks Junkie or How I Converted my Mom to Starbucks

For those of you who aren't on my Twitter feed, you probably haven't heard my express my love for coffee. It is one of my favorite things on the planet and I drink lots of it in various forms. However, you would think I would be more of a Starbucks's junkie than I actually am. I've only been on Starbucks Rewards program for about a year. Before that, it was just get it wherever. I lived close to the Sentient Bean, a Savannah institution, and the nearest SB was up about 15 blocks. Not exactly conducive to my being in there every day. However, suffice to say, that changed and now I'm in Starbucks every other day or so and I make copious use of the Rewards program. I'll talk about my feelings for the various changes they made in another post. This is about my fledgling Starbucks' junkie mother whom I have slowly but surely dragged over to the dark side.

My mom is not as much of a coffee drinker as I am. I can have it and still head to bed less than an hour later. She, unfortunately, is much for sensitive to caffeine and thus cannot have regular coffee after about 2 in the afternoon if she would like to go to bed at 10. Thus, I never really thought I would be able to get her to darken the doors of a Starbucks as she works full time as a teacher and thus doesn't usually have time in the morning to be bothered. Far too busy getting the little kiddos into their appropriate places. Fortunately, I've been able to do things like bring her Starbucks on the weekend to get her more in tune with it.

For her birthday in April, I brought her a Starbucks gift card because she had been more and more interested in having coffee (and other things but I focus on the coffree). All things considered, she at first was just going to use the gift card and be rid of it much like every other gift card she is given. However, I had recently discussed with her that we were getting enough coffee that we would probably qualify for a reward if we used the rewards program. Thus began the discussion of whether or not we really got enough use of it to make it worth it. In the end, she got the app on her phone and even managed to know where the gift card was in order to connect the two. This past Sunday we were in a local Kroger which sported a Starbucks counter and she said, 'Why don't we get coffee? I have my gift card set up.' I was surprised and pleased. Surprised because my mother is not the queen of technological advancement without some kind of assistance and pleased because that meant I would get a cup of coffee without having to pay for it. (It's the little joys in life.) We did our grocery shopping and on the way out of the store, we stopped by the counter and I had to show her how to actually use the app. Her phone is a Droid, mine is an Iphone, so there was a momentary confusion there of learning the app on a new platform, but it went over well. She paid for our coffee and off we went.

So she has gone from a casual user to a member of the rewards program, I think I can officially say my mother is a fledgling Starbucks junkie. Now if I could just see about buying the coffee for the brewer here at the house. :)

Hacking My Brain [What am I getting out of this anyway? Rewards.]

In our ongoing discussion about building habits based on the Rubin model from Better than Before, we have figured out how to determine which of the four tendencies you fall into and what that can mean for your habit formation. Case in point, I am an OBLIGER and that means I need to insure there is plenty of outside accountability for me to be able to truly see my habits built successfully. We have also looked at why the concept of 'should' deserves to be shelved for the better part of your habit formation. Today, let's talk about ways you can help make your habits stick. You've chosen a habit, now you want to find a way to make it pleasurable (and thus repeatable) for you to do this habit on a regular basis. I'm here to tell you why it might not be the best idea to tie a reward to your habits.

It's a pretty easy thought to go from: I want to do something on a regular basis to I'll reward myself whenever I do what I'm thinking I'm supposed to do. Rewards are pretty ubiquitous. I do X, I get Y. If I keep doing X, then I keep getting Y. Y presumably being something that we want to get as often as possible. After all, it works with animals and children. You want to teach your dog to sit, you reward them whenever they sit so that they associate doing the thing with something pleasant and are thus more likely to do it again. Only then do you pair the command with the motion in order for them to make the connection between the command, the motion, and the reward. Dog training 101, right? Same with children, you want them to do something, you tell them they will get something out of it. It would seem this is pretty simple. Right?

Well, not completely.

On the surface, it is 1 and 1 makes 2. In practice, it's more like 1 and 1 makes 1. What actually happens is that we lose the motivation to do the action unless we're getting rewarded and the reward begins to lose its hold if we're achieving it too often. This on top of the fact of having to make a decision about rewarding ourselves (One of the things Rubin makes very clear is that the less decision making involved in our habits the better) create a perfect storm for the destruction of a habit instead of the creation of one. I hear you saying wait, that doesn't make sense. Consider this: children who is rewarded for coloring only color if they get rewarded whereas children who do not get rewarded for coloring will color much more frequently. Or perhaps you would rather the example from Daniel Pink's Drive in which creative thought processes for problem solving were actually inhibited by the introduction of a reward, in this case money. So what do you do?

It would be nice to say we're going to do a habit solely for the sake of the habit. That, in its purest form, should be why we're making changes to our habits in the first place because its good for us. However, if that just isn't going to fly and you want to use the reward model, consider a couple things:

1. Make the Reward Fit the Habit. All too often, we set up a reward which works directly against our good habit. Like if I lose ten pounds, I'll reward myself with chocolate cake. I've done something very healthy, so I'm going to give myself something unhealthy as a reward. When you look at it in black and white, that sounds crazy. Better to give yourself something in line with what you're trying to accomplish. I run consistently, I get new sneakers.

2. Know when you get your Reward. Automate the decision making process so that you're not trying to figure out whether or not you've earned your reward. Make it a milestone. For example, I lose ten pounds, I get a new dress. You have taken the decision making process away by connecting it to an external happening. This also cuts down on the desire to give yourself the reward without reaching the milestone which is much easier to do when you're just giving yourself a reward whenever you are performing the habit.

Those two criteria can help you to pick rewards and when to give them ahead of time so that you're not scrambling, but you're still able to reward your good behavior.

If you're interested in the ongoing saga of Hacking My Brain, make sure you subscribe to get your free short stories and to get the monthly newsletter including the posts I've written over the month.

Interested in seeing what I do with the rest of my life? Check out my books under the BOOKS tab. I have three full-length novels available as well as a book of shorts and one short story.

Great News! Blades of Fate is Ready.

After some work, I've finished the draft of Blades of Fate. It is now ready to be sent out to my Alpha readers. If you want to be one of those, feel free to leave a message on this blog post and I'll connect with you to send you an electronic copy of the book for your reading pleasure. They say a writer learns something new with each successive draft, so what did I learn while doing this?

It's Okay Not to Change Things
I've always sort of drafted with the idea that something was going to have to be changed in each successive draft of the book, like a major plot point. Cutting a character. Something. With this draft, I specifically told myself that unless something major needed to be changed for specific reasons, I was not changing anything. As one of my friends likes to say, I tend to rewrite books from the ground up. I told myself I was not going to do that this time around. Does that mean I think I turned out a perfect book the first time? No. However, is it a good enough book that major rewriting wasn't necessary? Yes. Therefore, I'm going to send it on as is to those who will read it and decide whether or not they love it before I make it available for actual purchase.

Part of this is trusting in my own creative process. My drafts are usually pretty good in that they don't have major holes in them. A tweak here or there is enough to make them readable. In this case, I changed the setting of one scene and added a snippet of another in order to make things a little more exciting. However, those changes were late stage changes that didn't affect the overall trajectory of the novel. They just added spice.

That's the good news for this week. Look for another "Hacking My Brain" next week when I talk about Treats versus Rewards.

Hacking My Brain [Shoulding All Over Myself]

After reading THIS POST from February on Gretchen's blog, I realized I really do should all over myself. The phrase 'Don't Should All Over Yourself' came up in the comments and I think its apropos. How often do we say we should or shouldn't have done something when it comes to things that we want to do? I forget which chapter of procrastination expert Neil Fiore's book "The Now Habit" deals with the problem of Should (despite having listened to the audio book quite a number of times, I find the narration soothing) but it comes up as something that makes us feel bad. Whenever we tell ourselves we should or shouldn't do something, we're taking a model of perfection and overlying it on our now which is by default not perfect. It's just another way for us to end up not wanting to do anything because we can't reach that perfect person or situation. Case in point, as a writer, I should be able to write everyday. That RARELY happens for me. Not because I don't have the best intentions but because I, as a person, have a tendency to prioritize too many other things over my writing. (This is something I'm working on, slowly.)

Another thing I have a hard time with is managing my social calendar. I have friends, a number of them. They like to do things. I like to help them do things or at least go sit in the audience and be in awe of the things that they do. However, I'm also an introvert who needs a certain amount of me time in order to not be a triple A terrible human. Plus I recently started a job where my go time is between 6 and 730 in the morning, not conducive to late nights. Facebook events make me feel like I'm always missing something, mostly because I am. I'm choosing sleep over interaction on a lot of cases. But the missing of things I want to go to and can go to is the problem. Until recently, I didn't really do well managing my calendar. I had one calendar over here which I barely updated and Facebook events reminding me of something else over here and while I should have been able to manage those things and keep track of everything, I was failing miserably. So finally, in an effort to not be completely lost about what is going on I instituted the habit of updating my calendar on my phone whenever I agreed to do something. That automatically syncs to my IPad at home which is where I keep my writing schedule and workout schedule. Plus I have a handy wall calendar (yeah, analog) so that I can see the entire month and make sure I'm not overscheduling myself without realizing by saying yes to too many things.

If you know that should is not helping, how do you deal? Having expectations for yourself is a reality. They have to be phrased somehow. If 'should' doesn't work, what does? Fiore's book deals with procrastination, contrasting between the language of the producer and the language of the procrastinator. Procrastinators unfortunately set themselves up to feel the need to procrastinate through the use of 'should' messages. On the other hand, producers use different language to feel empowered to make decisions. Things like 'I am', 'I choose', or 'I will' communicate a sense of choice and a possibility of accomplishment. They are not panacea however. You can say these things as much as you like without moving forward to actually doing any of these things. Trust me, been there, tried that. You still have to do the work, not just make the choice to do the work.

One of my other favorite blogs, Nerd Fitness likes to point out that the exercise program of the most worth is the one that you do and stick with. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, it matters what you do. If you can't get yourself to the gym everyday, but can manage three days a week, stick with what works. Don't beat yourself up over the 'shoulds' of life. I recently started going to the gym and told myself I would go to the gym three times a week. So far, so good. I didn't tell myself I should because as far as I'm concerned going to the gym at all is an 'I should'. How many times I get there is dependent on the week. (I schedule three times a week, but if I don't make all of them, I don't hamstring myself.)

What's the current should weighing you down? Are you shoulding all over yourself in an attempt to work toward a goal? Would a change in vocabulary perhaps add the spark needed to move from 'I should' to 'I will'? Oh and if you're into Gretchen's podcast, you might listen to the Little Happier 'Don't Let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good' available now. I listened to it earlier at the gym, it is, as usual, a little ray of hope in my day.

Hacking My Brain [So What's an Obliger?]

Learning about the four tendencies as outlined in "Better Than Before" by Gretchen Rubin has offered me a new framework from which to think about my habit formation and how to get myself to do things on a regular basis. Like blogging for instance. I'm not a very good blogger. I have a tendency to forget about this thing for weeks at a time. Which means I never build up much of an audience. One of the keys to blog audience building is consistency. I occasionally flirt with the idea of just letting this thing fall by the wayside and not worrying about it anymore. However, I have things to say that I want to share, so I keep coming back to it.

What does being an Obliger have to do with any of this?

I'll repost the handy chart I made that gives you the four tendencies and their interactions with expectations.

As you can see from the chart, Obligers are the ones who do well with external expectation and poor with internal expectation. In short, I thrive when someone else expects me to do something and have a higher rate of failure when I, solo, expect me to do something. Case in point, blogging. I have attempted on several occasions to put myself on a self-imposed schedule for blogging in order to keep this blog up to date. Unfortunately, because of how I feel about internal expectation, which is to say I can disappoint me without there being really any consequences, that has not worked. On the flipside, I have no audience expecting me to come to them with pearls of wisdom (or even a possible witty comment) on a regular basis so that doesn't work either. No consequences, no one breathing down my neck to say that I should. Nothing. Now that we have defined the problem an obliger faces, how does one create a system of accountability by which one can do something like blogging without it being cumbersome and useless? I'm still working on this. There is a hashtag called #MondayBlogs on Twitter. In order to work on blog traffic, I want to participate in that as much as possible. Therefore, I need to have content to post. External activity helping to drive internal motivation. I want to blog. I just need some reason outside of myself to blog regularly. If I take part in #MondayBlogs, then I have to post a new blog post by Monday every week. Considering that Monday is currently my day off, that works out rather nicely. I can write the blog post before Monday. Edit it on Monday, and make sure that it gets posted to the interwebs by Monday afternoon in order to take part in the Monday blog traffic.

Let's look at another something I've done recently where I am running into what I call the 'Obliger Wall'. The Obliger Wall is the awareness that I want to do something, but my nature is working against me for some reason. My obliger nature is making it hard for me to create and hold onto the habit.

Recently, I started going to the gym, Planet Fitness. I've been trying to get my weight back under control for a while now and I'm more than a little disappointed in my progress. I actually started this journey last year only to end up 20lbs heavier over the course of a year than losing any real weight. Needless to say, this was a trend I really needed to head off before it got any worse. So gym membership, here I come. Problem: Going to the gym is not inherently something I feel inclined to do. I know why I need to. I feel the mild unhappiness with my body shape that prompts it, but I'm not exactly super motivated in spite of my shortcomings. In most cases, this is where I quit. I cancel the gym membership and I give up. Who cares if I look like a whale in a bathing suit but me, right? I'm falling back on the online option for group interaction in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion and Habitica (formerly HabitRPG). I've written about Nerd Fitness HERE and HabitRPG HERE. These are two of my favorite sites on the internet and they offer me a chance at accountability that I don't have in my regular life. Through my party occasionally asking me how things are going and opening up a daily battle log on Nerd Fitness, I've tried to set myself up for success. This is not to say that I get a lot of interaction from these places and no one is riding my coattails trying to get me to do anything, but the occasional how is this going, which requires me to formulate my thoughts into some kind of update (and feel bad if I haven't done anything toward my goal) has been very helpful. I'm in week four of going to the gym and seeing some positive improvement in my weight. So I guess it's working.

One thing I will point out though: Just because I'm an Obliger doesn't mean that I cannot work off of internal motivation. It simply means I have better success when I have external factors spurring me on. At the end of the day, no one cares if my books get finished, but me so the motivation has to come from within me. I don't have an agent or a publisher or even a favorite reader waiting for these things. It's all on me. If it sounds like I can't get myself to do things on my own without someone standing over me with a stick, that's just not true.

Hacking my Brain [The Four Tendencies]

As a writer, I do a fair bit of reading. Some of it I even find useful for more than just allowing me to procrastinate about doing more important things. One writer I find very interesting (interesting enough that I also subscribe to her podcast) is Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen is a lawyer turned writer who specifically deals with habits and how to create a happier life. I first read her book, The Happiness Project, on a plane returning from New York with my mother. I bought it in the airport when the dramatic YA novel I had been reading ran out. It was a sixteen dollar book at the magazine kiosk, but I didn't regret it. That book, in short, is about a year long experiment Gretchen did on herself in order to create a happier life. It started from a place of stagnation and dissatisfaction and moved toward making real strides to improve her circumstances without necessarily changing much of anything. To me, this was a novel idea. In my own mind, though I had never said it out loud, I considered happiness a product of things that happened to me as opposed to something that I could affect and control. This may be an unintended side product of my interactions with a bunch of therapists over the years who have emphasized how much my condition (Severe depression/Schizophrenia/Social Anxiety/Aspergers) is not my fault and just the reality of faulty brain chemistry. In a way, that set me up as the victim. After reading The Happiness Project, I decided maybe just blaming bad luck and poor genetics wasn't enough.

I liked the book so much I lent it out on multiple occasions and that's my it isn't on my bookshelf right now. I lent it out and never got it back. Oh well, as I always say with books, they are enriching someone's life wherever they are, so no hard feelings.

In my pursuit of improving my life, I started seeing a therapist who fully believes my life is under my control. The worst of the faulty brain chemistry has been corrected through medication and now I'm enjoying a happier and more fulfilled life thanks to someone believing it was possible for me. However, that's not enough. I recently started embarking on changing my life a little further by tackling my habits. Gretchen wrote another wonderful book called Better than Before about the science and strategies of habit formation. Of course, I had to read it and see what I could glean for the use in my own journey of habit formation. The first thing I learned was that just as there are different personalities, there are different tendencies when it comes to habit formation. I put together a handy little chart to be able to tell them apart.

Now as you can see, you can be one of four. I am actually an Obliger. I thought I might be an Upholder, but from looking at how I handle projects and inner expectations like food logging and portion control, I realize I have a real problem dealing with expectations I set for myself. Is it impossible for me to do the right thing if I don't have external expectations or someone hounding me? No, but things go much more smoothly for me when I consider that I have someone else I am influencing, impressing, or just accountable to. The biggest question is what does this mean for my writing? I am generally capable of finishing a writing task without someone breathing down my neck or a real deadline other than the one that I set on the calendar. On the flipside, I do so much better on things like NaNoWriMo because it gives me a lot of external accountability. Others are looking at my progress bar going: Has it turned purple yet? They're asking me about whether or not I'm writing today. All stuff that makes me feel like 'Ah man, I really need to be writing today'. I'm going to think on this some more and see if there are ways to create external accountability to get things done more quickly. It would be awesome if I could find a system to get me writing more with fewer days off. Look for that to be upcoming. I also have a progress report due on where we are in creating the next two books: Wielding His Scythe and Blades of Fate.

If you would like to check out Gretchen Rubin, try her blog/website at gretchenrubin.com. You can also find her podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, through her website. If you want to find out your tendency, take the quiz found here.

Switching Gears

I had been working on the second in the She Becomes Death trilogy. However, with my new (much slower) schedule, I'm realizing in order to get Blades of Fate out by this summer, I'm going to have to switch gears and work on it. Otherwise, I'm never going to finish it in time. Therefore, I've switched over to working on Blades of Fate which is currently in need of revisions and additions so that I can make sure it's ready to be seen by the viewing public in August at the latest. I'm thinking of putting out ARC copies of it as is so that others can start formulating reviews. Which means asking my email list if they would be interested in reading a digital copy of the new book in enough time to put up reviews when I finally have it out.

Does this mean I've completely stalled on Wielding His Scythe, She Becomes Death book 2? No. It just means it isn't on the front burner right now. I'm still making a little bit of headway here and there with it. I've almost got the first fifth of it finished. I'm just probably not going to get it out before say December at my current pace. Knowing that, I have plenty of time to plug the first book and get people ready for the second.

In other news, I've almost got a venue for the wedding. It requires pre-marital counseling, which my mother is excited about. I think she's more excited about it than I am and I'm the one getting married. Aren't I supposed to be the one who is super excited about this whole process? Oh well, even if I'm not gung-ho about the whole thing, I am certainly looking forward to having the beautiful day followed by years of wedded happiness. That's the part I'm really looking toward, the bit after the wedding.

All things considered, things are going well. I just have a few more things I have to take care of and then I'll be ready to get down to some serious party planning.

What's Really Going On

Since Gnome Con, I haven't gotten a lot of writing done. Why? Because I'm working a new job within the job I've been working for several years. I now get up at 5:30 in the morning in order to be to work by 6:30 so I can work until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. It doesn't give me a lot of time left where my brain is not mush and I have to get up the next day and do it all over again. As a consequence, my writing is suffering. In a way, I expected this and perhaps it is for the better because it means I only write when I'm mentally together enough to do so. However, that means there is no way I'm going to be putting out more than maybe three books this year, if I'm lucky, and one of them is already out.

The first draft of Blades of Fate is written, but in need of edits and probably some additions. It is, however, already done. I can, with some effort, get it done by June which was my original plan. Unfortunately, the other three She Becomes Death books: Wielding his Scythe, Winning his Kingdom, and Matchmaker, Matchmaker are going to be delayed with this current writing schedule. Will they still get done? Of course. It will just take me longer than initially planned. As the saying goes, it will happen, I'm not dead yet.

Currently, I am working on Wielding His Scythe at an Arctic slow pace. The good news is: I'm still working on it.

In other news, I've started planning a wedding that isn't for another year and a half. I might be rushing things just a bit trying to get it all done before I have to worry about it too much, but then again, maybe not. Still many questions to answer, but I've answered a couple.

Gnome Con 2016, so that happened!

Amazing that it's already been more than a week since I went to Gnome Con and rocked out my first ever vending opportunity. So here's the essential breakdown. Gnome Con ran from March the 4th through the 6th: half-day Friday, full day Saturday, 2/3 of a day Sunday. I got there on Friday not long after they opened for set up and got myself all ready to go. I bought 15 copies each of my first two books. Though the third book was ready for downloadables that weekend, I didn't have any physical copies. That made me a little sad, but the good news was that it was done in time to be put on sale. On Friday, I sold about half of my physical copies. I was offering them for 2 for $20, in hopes this would help them move. I also included download cards, which I got from a blog post on Magical Words. They are super easy to make and they can be sold for a couple dollars a piece. I sold each of the three for $2 and then a pack of three for $5. All in all, a good deal to get my books in the hands of new readers. So far, I've only gotten one email about someone being unable to download the books that I put up through Google Drive, so hopefully that means everyone else has been getting them easily enough. I also, for the first time, used a Square reader. This was a little daunting as I learned how to make it work, but after a couple tries, I got the hang of it. Worked out pretty well.

I know, I know, you want to know how much I made at this shindig. Was it worth it for me to do? Yes, I have never vended before and having a chance to do so at a small convention in my hometown was priceless experience. Nothing like it. Monetarily, was it worth it? I made about $200 after taxes, in GA you have to pay sales tax even on things like convention sales. That is a hundred dollars more than I spent on the table, but didn't completely cover the amount of the merchandise. So did I break even? No. Would I still do this again? Yes. I'm actually currently in talks to take part in another public venue and perhaps sell more books. The chance to interact with new possible fans is something I simply can't pass up. My best seller was Dark King Rising though I sold a copy of Chains of Fate to, Bill Blair, one of the guests there at the convention through my boyfriend.

In other, not less important news, my boyfriend has become my fiance. He decided it would be a fabulous thing to do to propose to me at Gnome Con on that Friday after I got set up. I was surprised, pleased, and a little miffed because here I was trying to be a professional author and he was going to make me cry in front of a bunch of people I didn't know. Over all though, it turned out quite well. We're now planning a wedding, even though neither of us has some much as ever planned a party. Here's hoping we'll get the wedding of our dreams in a year or so.

So Gnome Con is gone for another year. I don't think I'll ever have another one as eventful as this one, but I don't need it to be. I look forward to do it again next year and doing even better.

Big Big News!

Hello again, ladies and gents. Of course, there are many lovely things I could talk about but I want to talk about one thing in particular: Handselling books. I never thought I would get the chance, but this year, I will be handselling at Gnome Con 2016. Gnome Con is a small convention held here in Savannah, GA, which is for gamers, comic book geeks, and readers. I am extremely pleased that this is going to be a part of my life. By the time this happens in March of 2016, I will have my third book out, Wearing His Ring. Dark King Rising and Chains of Fate will also be there and I will be taking preorders for the second book in the She Becomes Death series, Wielding His Scythe. It will be amazing.

On top of getting to vend at the convention, I will be joining friends of mine who always attend. This will make it a wonderful experience for me because I rarely get to share my professional happenings with my friends. One or the other at times, but not both.

What else is there to say? I'm in the second draft of She Becomes Death book one, Wearing His Ring. About 25k in with a little over a month left to write. So 50k due in 30 days. That sounds about like NaNoWriMo. With eleven years of that under my belt, I'm fairly certain I can manage.

Looking around the blog, I need to spend some time on what I've been reading lately. Lots of professional development books (Lots of craft and business books) thanks to the StoryBundle from November. I paid $30 for 25 ebooks including titles like Million Dollar Productivity. Writing about them should give me a better perspective on what I want to learn from each book. I also recently read Level Up Your Life by Nerd Fitness founder, Steve Kamb. Another book I learned something from, so want to talk about that too. Look for that review coming up soon.