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Making an Action Dream Board
Happy New Year, my friends!
A new year is now here. Time for a fresh start, resolutions, and setting goals. Everyone has their own ideas about resolutions and goal setting and I’m not going to claim to be an expert on those things. I will, however, be trying out a dream (vision) board to see how well they work. I’ve heard them called action boards with the hopes that you’ll be spurred into action instead of just dreaming. I love dreaming so I will be dubbing mine an action dream board – cause I will be taking some serious action! It’ll be an experiment for me.
Vision, Action, Dream Board.
Your board can be about whatever you, well, dream about, but sometimes it can be about whatever feels good to you at the time. (You may learn something about yourself in the process.) I feel it could be used as a fun therapy evening with friends or even alone with a feel-good movie or music playing in the background. It is advised to be as specific as possible so I’m going to focus in and do my best to be as specific as possible.
There are many categories that could be put on a vision board.
- Family
- Financial
- Spiritual
- Creativity
- Projects
- Self-improvement
- Travel
- Love
- Knowledge
- Health
I’ve chosen ten common ones (in no particular order), but the list is truly endless. My main focus is on gratitude, giving, and goals. I do have wants, desires, and needs and will be indulging in my dreams, but my main focus will be the first three. I’ll check back in a year to see how much I have accomplished. Let’s see if this works!
If you wish to give vision, dream, action boards a try I will suggest youtube, googling, or Pinterest for tons of inspiration. Happy dreaming and lets put this into action!
Cheers.
JT Harris.
Top photo: http://Photo on <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/f87054″>VisualHunt.com</a>
Second photo: http://Photo on <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/f87054″>Visualhunt.com</a>
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Writing Process for Indie Writers
Seasons greetings,
May your winter holidays be merry and bright – even if it’s just chilling at home or at work.
I have discovered that I like to research any topic that tickles my fancy and I like to organize it. I’m probably a word geek. Yes, a word geek ( or wordsmith, if you will). I can live with that. In my latest research binge and the love of organizing it I have conjured a decent list about the writing process from brainstorming ideas to publication. This list is not the only way to write or the One Great List to rule them all. This a launching point. Tweak as you will for whatever works for you. Everyone is different.
The writing process (checklist)
- The idea
- Brainstorming (write all your ideas down – do not edit)
- Character creation, map your world, worldbuilding (keep collecting those ideas)
- Outlining (this is important, but not everyone likes to do this – to each their own – you do you!)
- Drafting (do not edit at this point – just write – this might take a while)
- Revise (this is the time to rearrange, add, or take out what doesn’t belong – stories have a flow, voice, and rhythm, find it)
- Find someone or a few people to critique your story
- Revise again
- Hire a developmental editor or a talented book-lover friend to read your story (find those plot holes, things that don’t fit into your story, things that need more explanation, etc…)
- Start chatting about your book on social media (Soft Promotion)
- Revise again (some of you may start the editing process here depending on how your project is going – every process is different.)
- Find beta readers (more awesome critiquing!)
- Revise again (with feeling!) and/or self-edit
- Hire a professional copy editor (or another talented friend – I will recommend that you pick a different person to copyedit your work from the developmental editor. Everyone will catch different mistakes)
- Apply for an ISBN (if you don’t already have one)
- Write book blurb, acknowledgments page, and about the author page
- Hire a cover artist/ designer and someone who does interior formatting (Some of you are amazing at this already so you’ve got yourself covered)
- Promote your book! (Share book teasers, cover reveal, hit that social media pavement, etc)
- Send out ARCs! (Advanced Readers Copies) – (Ask for honest reviews in exchange for a free book – optional)
- Release your book!!!
- Celebrate! (you did it!!!)
Thank you for reading!
There you have it. My long writing process list. This list may go through a few tweaks in the future, but for now, this is what I have. I have learned a lot this past year about writing and publishing and I don’t intend to quit anytime soon.
I hope you all keep creating into the new year. Much love.
Cheers.
JT Harris.
Photo on <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/9b1f56″>Visualhunt</a>
Photo on http://<a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/9b1f56″>Visualhunt</a>
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A Good Seat For NaNoWriMo
So, it’s a wet, cold rainy day today, which is very normal at this time of year for where I live, and I am snuggled up with some homemade soup, hot cocoa, and my big couch potato of a dog, and am getting excited and nervous as “Preptober” comes to an end and NaNoWriMo comes to a start. November is less than a week a way and I must write 50,000 words in the 30 days. Yikes and yay! I have never attempted this. Please wish me lots of luck and speedy typing fingers.
Most of my story outline is complete and have a good idea where my story is going. I am not too worried about the story itself, but more or less whether I will allow myself not to be too picky about the fine details. I can tweak these later. I am not a fast writer, but am a fast thinker (when it comes to stories and ideas.)
Writing the outline is only part of my prep this year. The other part is making sure I am comfortable in my chosen/ favourite writing spot. My main goal is to get a comfy writing chair! I have some spine issues which can cause me a lot of headaches if I am sitting in the wrong position for too long. I truly need a better chair than the ones I have. So, I will do my research for a good chair!
Any suggestions for a good chair with proper back support?
Good luck everyone who is taking on NaNoWriMo. May the rest of your prep time be smooth and that you find/plan/prepare everything you need for November.
Keep creating!
Inkblade Writer. -
Fairy Tales and Costumes
A few years ago, there was a missed opportunity for me to dress up my daughter as Red Riding Hood and my son as the wolf (a lumberjack-type werewolf to be exact) for Halloween, but my son had his heart set on being a different character, so I put the idea on the back burner. This year for Halloween the idea came back into my mind: I wanted to have a Little Red Riding Hood group to go out trick or treating. It would be fun. I tried asking my kids if they wanted to do the idea with me, but they are still young to understand the fun of being in a costume group. They have their own ideas and I love their imaginations and want them to dress-up as anything they wish. Alas, the Red Riding Hood group would have to wait.Who Am I kidding? As much as I love to write I also love to create characters, and costuming is another one of my creative outlets. If my son and daughter wouldn’t be part of the fairy tale group I would make one with my husband (the woodcutter/ lumberjack), myself (Red Riding Hood), and my dog (the big bad wolf). This group will happen!Fairy Tales have been apart of my childhood and probably lit the fire for my love of stories and, at the very least, kept me in the dreams and wonder of where the fairy tales could take me. As a child, the fairy tales told to me or read by me were often the lighter versions of their darker counterpart, but as I grew older I began to explore the origins of these stories and, my goodness, were these ever creepy and sometimes down right disturbing. (Halloween and fairy tales seem to be a great fit, am I right?)Despite the ‘grim’ stories (pun intended) there are gold nuggets among the pages. Many authors in the past decade have searched these fairy tales and put their own twist to these stories of old and have come out with amazing retold stories of their own. Red Riding Hood has been told and re-told time and time again, each with small changes that make it slightly different than the last. Some re-told Riding Hood stories have been changed so much that they are hardly recognizable. Two things remains the same. The person with the red hood and a depiction of a wolf.Any hint of the essence of fairy tales being told in a story, consider my interest piqued.Tell me, what are your favourite fairy tales of old or new?Until next time, keep creating.Inkblade Writer.http://Photo credit: chiaralily via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC -
I joined NaNoWriMo!
Well, I have just signed up for my first NaNoWriMo! Dear Lord, what have I done?
I am not writing a novel from scratch in the month of November, but rather pushing through the final chunk of my story. I have, so far, written my fantasy in a single point of view and I feel it needs a secondary point of view. Joining NaNoWriMo, I hope, will keep me grounded at my computer to get through to the end, and perhaps, I’ll meet fellow NaNo friends to encourage each other to persevere and to finish what we have started.Here’s to early mornings and late nights of writing! And tea. Lots of tea. But before NaNoWriMo it’s still October and so I will take this time to keep on planning, researching, stockpiling my ideas, and working on outlining my chapters and scenes, with the hope that when November rolls around it will be easier to sit down and write. If I don’t take the time to prepare now I won’t be able to just sit and write. I have a very short attention span when it comes to story writing (or just being on my computer with all the distractions of the internet). My mind won’t turn off. Many ideas come to me all at once and I find it very hard to just sit still and just work on one scene without it flitting off to another scene or idea, or even different ways I could write the same scene over and over again.In the past, I have tried writing by the seat of my pants (pantser) and even though at times it has worked well for me there has been many times it has held me back. My personality needs a bit of guidance with the freedom to change paths. That is what has worked for me and until it stops working for me I will continue to plot.Keep creating.Inkblade Writer