It's Official!

So I spent the morning updating my website, which always makes me want to poke myself in the eye with something sharp. 

How was your Monday morning?

Anyway, I loaded the details of my TWO 2014 Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense books, Double Agent and The Final Curtain. Check them out!

I also put up the back cover copy/blurbs for the full length Inspy Romantic Suspense that I'm hoping to release January 31st, along with the e-book short prequel. I can't WAIT to show you the covers my fab cover designer, Kristine McCord is making for me. Seriously, they are BEYOND cool. I took one look and said, "That looks like a Dee Henderson novel!"

So, all in all, the coffee pot is empty and it's raining outside, but I'm a happy girl. *smile*

How about you? Any news? Prayer requests?

Why NaNoWriMo Works

I remember back in high school my maths teacher always said, "Break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks."

For some reason that's always stuck with me, and I've found it's true for writing. Or any big task. Undertaking small portions of it over time help you not get swamped by the magnitude. Because, let's face it, a hundred thousand word book, or seventy-five, or fifty-six is big enough without it all having to make sense, flow, have heart, change people's lives and be compelling.

So let's throw all the fear and doubt out the window and just go for it--which is why I love NaNo. If you sign up (which I did last year with My Book Therapy) on their official website there's such a sense of community you get encouragement and a whole squad of cheerleaders for a month of intensive writing.

Here's my top three reasons why it works:

1. 1667 words per day is manageable, even if you have a life. I don't, but you might.

2. It's only 30 days, which is how long it takes to make an activity into a habit. Presto-changeo, you're a regular writer!

3. At the end, you get to say, "I did it!" Last year my sister and her husband visited from England for a week in the middle of November. A whole week where I wrote ZERO, which means the last week of the month I doubled up every day so I could make it to, THE END. It's a great feeling.

Try it. The worst that can happen is you only get to thirty thousand words in November, or twenty, or fifteen. But hey, that's more than you have now.
And even though my editor hated like, the WHOLE of act two and I had to rewrite 30k of a 56k word novel, I don't regret it. Switching off your inner editor and worst book reviewer ever who hates your guts while you pound out a first draft...worth it.

What Isn't Quantifiable

Recently I read an agency blog where one of the agents put out a call for submissions of a particular genre. What caught my eye was the need to include your number of Twitter followers, Facebook friends and blog page views.

Now I understand the need for social media influence and for agents to know you're active and you have the potential to grow your contacts into a tribe of influencers. That's not where I'm going.

I want to talk about that point we all reach (hello, brand new blog readers) where we realize no one is listening to us. We have to prove ourselves in this new world of branding and platforms and no one except those people with a million followers seem to know what that is, or how on earth to go about it.

We get mired in the NUMBERS. As though our worth is something that can be quantified. As though this:

or this:

or this:

will tell you anything about my worth as a human being.

So if that's you today, I'd like to share these verses with you:

For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery]. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.

(From Psalm 139)

I chose the amplified version, because I love how it likens the way we are made in our mother's womb to embroidery. On the back side the threads will look like a mass of tangles, cut-off ends and mis-matched threads, but on the front side the Maker is creating something beautiful. 

That's your worth. And mine.