Slow and steady. Kind of. Okay, not this week!

It’s time to do my weekly check-in! For those who have been reading this, or know what #ROW80 is, feel free to skip this paragraph. For those who are just popping in, this is my A Round of Words in 80 Days check-in. Once a week on Wednesdays I account for what I’ve been doing and what I want to do. As a goals oriented person, this is my crack, so humor me, okay? ROW80 is a tailor made challenge, allowing people to set their own goals and moderate them as opposed to a lot of other challenges like NaNoWriMo who have one goal. You can find out about all the details on the #ROW80 website and see when the next challenge begins.

Since last check-in I’ve had a little bit of forward movement. Mostly it’s been all about the partying for The Birthday Week of Awesome. My friend Suz and I have back to back birthdays. Hers was yesterday and mine is today, but we started celebrating over the weekend with a hockey game, a party and all sorts of crazy awesome fun.

I can say that I am an official NaNoWriMo winner! See what I mean about a challenge junkie? I really didn’t think I’d make it this year. Between the surgery and hosting Thanksgiving, I thought there was no way I’d make it to 50K this year, but I did it! Especially at the end I was pushing myself to make word count every day. This 50,000 words spans three projects, the bulk of which is an unplanned book I would like to finish by the end of ROW80.

NaNoWriMo isn’t for everyone, but it’s a great challenge for building that daily habit. I think that daily writing is what has helped me be as productive as I am, or try to be!

As far as this week’s productivity, I’ve written a third of my outline. I think that now that the partying is behind me, I’ll cross the halfway point this coming week. It’s a lot to write still, so it might only get to the halfway point, but I’d be happy with that.

I did realize this last week that I have to take away a major thing that the heroine uses to identify herself. She’s not herself so much as she is this thing, and I think for the hero and heroine to really get to the same point in the story I have to take that away from her permanently. I always feel bad being mean to characters, but I know that it gives the story that much more kick-in-the-teeth potential. I can’t say more than that, but it’s going to hopefully be a good move for the book.

Health wise, let’s just not talk about my waist line today! I’ve eaten meal after meal that isn’t on my diet plan. Right now I’m only a pound over where I was last week, but considering all the cake, pasta and fried stuff I’ve eaten, let’s just consider this a success. I’m going to be happy to go back to eating my diet food though. My tummy has felt decidedly weird the last few days and I think regulating what I eat will make me feel much better.

Besides those items, I’ve also done the FLEs (Final Line Edits) for Bound with Pearls, my December 12th release. I’m also getting down and serious about writing all my promotional blogs. I ran into a pickle with this one because my initial plan had been to use a blog tour service. They’re a lot of good ones out there, and there are some not so great ones. Unfortunately for me, it seems that the current pricing standard has doubled and call me cheap if you want, but I couldn’t see spending that much, especially so close to the holidays, on a blog tour I could really organize myself. So instead I set out and put together a two week tour on my own.

Some people don’t believe blog tours do a lot for you, others swear by them. I’m somewhere right in the middle on my opinion. I think it’s good exposure and if nothing else, it makes me feel like I’ve done my job. People are going to buy the book or not buy it based on their own decisions. There’s very little I feel that I can do to change their minds except put the book out there. So I do that by blogging where I can and being around and present.

How to set up a blog tour is an entirely different topic and I’m not sure if there’s a need for me to talk about it, so I’ll move on!

A Kiss for a Cure final files landed in my in box, but because of all the super crazy birthday madness going on, I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, so I really need to make some time to go through and read this book one more time before it’s all said and done. I’m also starting to work on promo stuff for it in January and February. My theory is that it’s better to set it up before Christmas and just have to turn it all in rather than wait until after the holidays and I’m super rushed and pressed to find space to blog.

Sunday I received my first edits for Collar Me in Paris, which is the follow up to Bound with Pearls. Collar Me in Paris will be out February 13th. I made some pretty dumb mistakes, but over all I can see where and how I’ve improved. There’s some grammar I still haven’t mastered and some other things that cropped up particular to this book. But I can really see the leaps and bounds I’ve come since Flirting with Rescue came out in January! I really have gotten to work with fantastic people this year and I’ve gone from being clueless about how the process goes to being able to anticipate things.

Well, hopefully by next week A Kiss for a Cure and Collar Me in Paris are off my plate and I’ve managed to do a little Christmas shopping. Anyone already finished with their shopping?