The good news is that it’s nothing that I can’t take care of with a few lifestyle adjustments.

The better news is that I have a surpise coming up… A very good looking surprise…

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing is a great article I came across that basically knocked all the sense into me that I could ever need (with a few swear words along the way).

I highly recommend you check it out.

I read this cool article last week — “30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself” — and I thought, hey, heeeey, that’s interesting. Writers might could use their own version of that. So, I started to cobble one together. And, of course, as most of these writing-related posts become, it ended up that for the most part I’m sitting here in the blog yelling at myself first and foremost.

That is, then, how you should read this: me, yelling at me. If you take away something from it, though?

Then go forth and kick your writing year in the teeth.

Onto the list.

Read more.

As you can see (from the widget in the sidebar) I have been writing. However, not nearly as much as I would like. That is where the title comes in.

I’ve also been spending some time getting a new schedule put together so I can be more productive in writing (as well as in other things). While I don’t make new year resolutions, I do have the goal of treating my writing more professionally.

In the end, if an authors wants to be successful, I fully believe one must treat it like another job. Otherwise, it is way too easy to give into distraction and find reasons to not write.

More than enough people have either asked how the writing is going or asked if the next book is out yet (or both) for me to realise my writing habits need to change.

My goal is to have Fading Echoes published by June, if not earlier. To keep to that schedule, I need to get my act together. No more ‘waiting for the muse’ or, more accurately, waiting for when I ‘feel like it’.

I will, of course, still be posting here.

It’s all part of the schedule…

After all, they are your readers. And your readers usually only ask for sequels when that, you know, want them.

Because I never meant Echo Falls to have a sequel, the next book takes place seventeen years later with Charlotte (the giggling, bubbly toddler in Echo Falls) as the focus. She’s nineteen years old now (subject to change, given it’s the first draft), and though she can’t remember much of what happened to her as a toddler, she bears the scars.

Benjamin Baker is a young medical intern who has come to Echo Falls for his residency and to explore the town his grandfather grew up in. The youngest in a big family, he’s always been self-motivated and eager to make his own way. He’s funny in a dopey sort of way, which makes his chosen specialty, pediatrics, a natural choice.

So I have my main characters, I have my setting, I have big plots and subplots… and a severe case of second novel-itis.

Second novel-itis is when you’ve released a book, seen some successes, sit down to write the second and then find yourself finding a whole different kind of pressure to the kind you felt when sitting down to write the first.

Of all the problems to have, it’s not a bad problem. But it’s still a matter of trying not to stare at the screen to long without at least typing something.

Today, after getting all my other work done, is for mind-mapping. When all else fails, I sit down and map out all the things I think I want to happen and release my brain to make its own connections. I’d say about a quarter to a third of my mind-mapping doesn’t make it into the book I am writing for various reasons. But the process itself is very important, if for no other reason than to relax into the story.

While this will probably put me even further behind for NaNoWriMo (how am I already behind on day three?!), one does what one must…

I tend to go with the flow when it comes to how much planning a story requires. This year for NaNo, I am spending more time getting into the heads of my characters before delving into the novel. This isn’t exactly a new thing for me, but part of it is…

Meet Charlotte. Or rather, the model for Charlotte.

This year I have decided to take my character notecards to the next level by finding pictures of people who look at least somewhat similar to the pictures I have in my mind for the characters. I actually have no idea who this girl is, but she looks as close to the nineteen year old Charlotte I have in my mind as I could find.

I also have pictures of seven other characters that I wanted to get my head around more.

The funny thing about this exercise is that it’s something I laughed off in the past as something that I would never do. Then it jumped in my mind to do it yesterday when I was working on characters.

This is why I am an author; I find every step of the process fun and fascinating.

Now if only I can get a bit plotted out before NaNoWriMo starts…

My fingers have been itching a little today, and it has been odd not to be working on some writing. But I have needed to take a little break to catch up on other things. I am looking forward to my next project: NaNoWriMo. Eesh. It shouldn’t be November already…

I am alive and mostly well. I have been having trouble with what I am now calling the Great Australian Superbug. From what I have heard, apparently it is common to have this flu bug for six weeks or more. I’m up to two months and so is a friend of mine. And we’re not talking the cold that someone mistakingly calls a flu; we’re talking the ‘everything in my body hurts so much‘ influenza virus.

I seem to be coming out of it slowly, but as happens when you are ill for a long time, my get up and go got up and went.

As you can see, I have managed to update my sidebar and add tickers for a few of the projects I am working on write now. So You Want an Online Book Tour is at the top of the list and is coming along nicely.

I’ve also been keeping in touch elsewhere and have a guest post featured at The Top Shelf. Stop by and say hello. Here’s a little taste:

Ah, the top shelf. It’s where we keep our good scotch, our special crystal wine glasses, our trinkets we don’t want the kids getting to, the fine spices or that special collection we’ve had all our lives. The top shelf is a special place – a place distinguished from all others and slightly honored above the rest.

On my top shelf…

When I finally sat down to really dig into Love on the Fly and sarted waffling around, I knew what I needed to do. New spreadsheet, daily word count goal, so on and so forth. The first day went splendidly.

Then I got the flu.

Not a cold, not a mild flu, not a light flu… I got the hard hitting, take not prisoners, you might just feel a few muscles you didn’t know you had because they all hurt so much kind of flu.

As far as I am concerned, I was in some sort of alternate reality for the bulk of last week because I could swear it’s not September yet. I could also swear I didn’t lose so much writing time. Sigh.

More soon…