Multitasking

I almost always have several writing projects going at once, just because my brain seems to work better that way. If I'm a bit blocked on one, I can move over to another. And I try to have one thing in progress that's in a phase that doesn't require much thinking. Because there will always be days like today. when I don't feel all that great, but really want to accomplish something aside from going home early from work and being unconscious. So I have one very long book that I wrote quite a while ago that I'm re-reading and re-organizing in Scrivener so I can do some changes to it and hopefully submit it. So, even though my creative brain is a little bogged down at the moment, I can still make some forward progress between naps...

Website Revamp

I spent a good part of Saturday redesigning my website. I originally put the design together back when 1024 pixels was plenty wide enough for a background graphic, but sense then default resolutions on most screens have gotten big enough that the background was tiling. So I redesigned the layout so I could still use the same picture, but with a neater layout. I kept the castle picture because I'm a bit attached to it--I took that shot of Edinburgh Castle when I was in Scotland back in '86, so it has sentimental value.

Drop by and take a look!

Font Humor

This video completely cracked me up...

Font Conference.

Earthchild Trailer

I spent a couple of weekends fiddling with a new trailer for Earthchild. Normally I can do these in an evening, but this was my first time with iMovie, and I also did the music in Garage Band, which was a bit time-consuming. I probably won't use iMovie for future trailers, because I'm not completely happy with its limited options, but I think it came out pretty well for a first effort.

Take a look:

An Interesting Thing of...um...Possible Interest?

I'm not sure I get this, but maybe it'd help me type faster?

Where There's a Will

I've gotten a sneak peek at the cover art for Where There's a Will, upcoming from Samhain Publishing in October, and it's beautiful. I can't wait to share it with you all. :-)

How To Write a... Movie? Book? Anything?

The title of this article is How to Write a Movie, but I think there's a good deal of advice there that could be followed for writing a book, as well. Especially the bit about rewrites, read read read, and casting in your head. (Hey, I do that--doesn't everybody?)

Need Some Writing Prompts?

From the Romance Wiki, here's a list of common romance novel plot devices that might get you jumpstarted on a new plotline. I think I'm going to pick one from each category and stick them all in the same book...

Productivity

Follow the link to an interesting article about productivity. Basically, it talks about using heatmapping to work out your most productive times of day, and then how to increase those productive times through diet, exercise, etc. It's an interesting article with a lot of practical tips.

I think my most productive time is between 10 and 10:30 am. I wonder if I can optimize that so I can write an entire novel in that half-hour...

What I'm Up To

I just turned in the final line edits for Where There's a Will, my upcoming release from Samhain Publishing. It's due out in a few months--I'll keep you posted as news arrives.