Ending Your Writing Year

We are very close to the end of the year. As a writer, I am looking at what I need to tie together, and how I need to tie it together. One project I needed to let go of, and I did. It was my first mystery book, and started during NaNoWriMo 2010. After many false starts, much editing, and a complete change of theme, I made the decision to scrap it, keep the main characters, move the location and revise the crime. January will see me starting anew, using the new online Hiveword novel writing software (Hiveword Novel Writing Software).

I am well into my second Tarot book, so there is nothing to "tie up" there. It is an ongoing project. The same goes for the promotion of my first Tarot book, "Tarot, Birth Cards, and You".

I have been all over the place this past year with schedules, projects, and deadlines. It is beyond trying to keep everything (or anything!) straight in my mind. I will be using Karyn Easton's "Tarot Lover's Diary" again, as it is small, and can be kept right next to my laptop.Karyn's calendar can be found here - Paranormality.com.

The other thing that I did was to go back to using my Google calendar. I have the rest of December and the month of January 2012 programmed into it. As projects and deadlines come up, they will go into the calendar, which sends me reminders via e-mail.I also found out that I could add a background to my calendar ... so I did! Go me! (And thanks to the lovely Catherine Chapman for getting me to start using the Google calendar in the first place!)

How is your new writing year shaping up?

(c) December 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Christmas For Writers

This week's blog is all about resources for writer's - to gift themselves, or to gift other writer friends. Enjoy!

Writer's Knowledge Base Search Engine - Resources For Writers

Literature and Latte/Scrivner

Novel Writing Software

Book Trailer As A Calling Card

Organizing Your Writing - Using a 2012 PLanner

The Self-Published Author As The Self-Employed Author

30 Holiday Gifts For Journalists

Your Writing Goals - Dare To Reach Them

Book Business Plans

Write Way Writing Software

Creative Writing Software

Writer's Software and Resources

(c) December 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

'Tis The Season

I love this time of year - the music, the decorations, baking ... the whole nine yards! With three young cats, the decorations are minimal this year - only things that they can't trash! They are cute, but their three little minds can come up with all kinds of stuff to do! (Like the time I looked up from my laptop to see one of them hanging from my curtain rod!) With not too many people around, the baking is being cut way back too. A couple of things that will be gifts to neighbors, sugar cookies, and that is about it. But I am happy with this, and that is what matters. :)

I am bringing things together as far as end of year goes - looking at what works for me, at what I need to release, and what I need to bring in. I was following a conversation on setting up a doc for the #FF for Twitter. There is actually a site that will send them for you automatically! That will certainly save time! You can check it out here - LazyShoutOut.com.

Here are some links that I am going to be checking out to help me get my books out there in good form:

Pricing Strategies For e-Books

Goal Setting For Writers

How To Prep Before Interviewing

Have Passion For Your Writing

Generating Ideas For Blog Posts

How And Why To Write With Power

Re-Finding Inspiration

4 Ways To End Your Writing Year Right

Thank you to Elizabeth Spann Craig of Mystery Writing Is Murder, for sharing an amazing list of resources for writers!

The new year is starting to look really, really good!

(c) December 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Multiple Use Of Material

I got an interesting e-mail today from a friend. She was talking about a three-part class that she was going to offer as a series of webinars,with the handout in workbook format. She was going to encourage her students to place the handouts in a three-ring binder, to keep the work for future reference. She went on to chat about taking the webinars and turning them into CD's for sale. I was impressed - she already has three products here from one source - the webinar itself, the workbook that her students will complete during the webinar, and the CD that can be purchased. This is certainly best use of time, energy and resources!

I have always read that story ideas should be treated the same way - that they should be able to be used at least three different ways to be truly useful. The material could go into a short story, a full length book, or even an article or two. If we get all that we can from our material, from our research, then we are making best use of our primary resources - our time, and our ability to write.

I am looking forward within the new year taking the material from my book "Tarot, Birth Cards, and You" and presenting it in different formats, so that readers will be able to use it in a manner that is comfortable for them. I may have the Fool chatting with each of the Birth Card pairs, I may have the Birth Card pairs themselves ruminating on the theme of their lifetime, I may even have a panel discussion with each of the Birth Card pairs contributing. What would you like to know about your Birth Cards?

(c) November 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Tidying Up Life

For writers, November is NaNoWriMo - the one month out of the year when we try to write 50,000 words in one month. Many people accomplish this, some do not. I tried it last year, and it was a disaster! I opted out this year - we have to know when we need to walk away from something. I spent this whole year trying to decide what to do with the material that I wrote last year. I tried using it as is,and simply "finishing" it. That did not work. I decided to change the local, and tweak the characters. That did not work. I finally made the decision that I should have probably made in the first place - let it go and start over. After the first of the year I will begin anew on my cozy mystery - with a good chance of finishing it this time.

In the meantime, I am trying to keep my book that was published this year - "Tarot, Birth Cards, and You" fresh through my Face Book page for the book. At the same time, I am steadily working on my second Tarot book, due out, hopefully, in the spring of 2013. To keep myself fresh, I am doing webinars on several different esoteric (and not so esoteric) subjects with Mary Nale. (The schedule can be seen here. Mary is giving a series of three classes herself that I highly recommend - they are all about setting up a personal blog, and what you can do with it. Her link can be seen here.

I am certainly feeling the affects of the conference that I attended with my sister last weekend - the Millionaire Mind Intensive. How we feel about ourselves has a lot to do with how we feel about our money. The conference sent us away with a myriad of tools of empowerment, and I for one am very happy that I attended! It will help me in every area of my life, for which I am very grateful.

One last thought - and I am going to continue to harp on this - please click on the 1+ icon when you are Googling a site, and please use the 1+, "like" and "share" buttons on the sites and articles that you visit. It will benefit that site, it will benefit your followers, and it will benefit you in that if you put out that energy for someone else, they will do the same for you. If you want to get really excited about life, you might even want to leave a comment!

(c) November 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Millionaire Mind Intensive

The picture above is of my sister, Becky Lundin, standing in the outdoor seating area of the restaurant in the hotel that we stayed at last weekend (the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown, in Burnaby, Canada). Why were we in Canada? We were attending the Millionaire Mind Intensive, given by Peak Potentials.Why were we doing that? To reset our financial mind-set, and free ourselves so that would be open to financial success. And why is this on my author's blog? Because my goal is to open myself to multiple streams of income,with my writing being only one of them..

I am not going to go step by step through each of the three days - they were looooooong days, and you wouldn't want that! What I will say is that we met some very nice people, heard some amazing stories, and were introduced to a company (Peak Potentials) that is very family oriented (we had three ten year old children that attended the Intensive with their parents).

We got to examine our beliefs surrounding money, and went through exercises that helped us to let them go. My sister and I are both implementing the "jar" system for resetting how we deal with money. Monthly finances are divided into several different categories, with a jar (or container of some kind)for each category. What a great way to use the remaining glasses that I have from a set that I bought when I was twenty-one years old!

I brought home some very interesting business cards from this event. I would like to share the following links with you:

The Authentic Adventure
Sites By Zenith
Cards Made Fun

While this Intensive may not be for you, thin k ab out what you want to do to expand your business, and allow yourself to live the lifestyle that you imagine!

The link below is to my sister's "Peak Potential" page. No, I get no money from this referral, it is simply something that I want to share with you!

Millionaire Mind Intensive

(c) November 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

New Laptop - I Am Getting Too Old For This!

I just got a new laptop - as in it hit my doorstep last Thursday! I had been using my mother's laptop for a few weeks - mine was acting too badly to try and use for an extended period of time. Sounds easy, yes? Pay the people, they format and send the laptop, you plug it in, and you are good to go. Let's just say that isn't even close to reality!

Now, there is nothing wrong with my new laptop - it works beautifully, including the "Z" key. (That key died a while back on my old computer.) I made the mistake of not ordering Word to be installed ... thought I was saving myself a few bucks. I did - I saved a few bucks. Got excited when I saw that the laptop came with a basic version of word - then found that it was hard for me to work with. Got done what I had to get done that day, then the next day I downloaded OpenOffice.org 3.3. That works wonderfully, and will be fine until I can get a "proper" version of Word installed.

Also downloaded Skype, and installed my scanner and printer. Not hard, but time consuming. Downloaded Google Chrome - the Google browser was already there! Next came all of the sites that I visit every day, including Twitter, both of my Face Book pages, My Space, and Live Journal. Had to enter user and password info into all of them. That's done. Then there were my bank and credit card sites that I needed to reassure that I was who I was, even though they did not recognize my laptop.

Thanks go to Anna Burroughs Cook for nudging me towards using the Google image feature. How quick was that!

The upside - I have a built in web cam and mic, and they work perfectly! I had my first webinar using this laptop Saturday am, and it went perfectly!

Soooo ... How has your week been going?

(c) November 2011 Bonnie Cehovet