The first draft of this book was written in a notebook while I was at various doctors’ appointments. At the time, I was keeping a Bullet Journal. I had several people ask me how to do it.
I repeated myself so often, I decided to write a book. It’s not very long, but it doesn’t have to be. Please be aware that in this book, I’m not talking specifically about the Bullet Journal Method. That is the intellectual property of Ryder Carroll. I am, however, talking about ways you can create your own DIY planner. Because of that, I have no doubt there are some similarities.
Image used courtesy of The Public Speaking Project under a Creative Commons license.
I have been sitting on a couple ideas for quite a while and I think it’s beyond time to get going with them.
What is it?
Courses!
I have two in mind.
40 Days of Creativity Challenge
This one will start the day after Thanksgiving and go for 40 days. That will take us into January. If you look at the calendar, that’s going to be more than 40 days because we will skip Christmas and New Year’s Day. Anyone who enrolls will receive a Kindle copy of 80 Creativity Tips as part of the cost of the course. I’ll let you know more details very soon.
Journal Your Way to Creativity
This course will be more involved. The book, Journal Your Way to Creativity, is a 90-day self-guided journal to help people tap into their creativity. That’s three months. This would have weekly videos where I would talk about the prompts and some of the reasoning behind them. A Kindle copy of this will also be included in the cost. Once again, I’ll let you know more details very soon. This one would not start until sometime in January.
Book Bundles
Not exactly a course, but still a source of (possible) education/information. I will offer bundles of books, a box set, if you will, at a special price for a limited time. I will have these ready to go by the day after Thanksgiving.
This is all going with the plan to be more intentional in what I offer to you and why. It will come together in a cohesive program I call Living Your Creative Life.
Look for more details soon! Don’t want to miss anything? Consider signing up for my email list so you’ll be among the first to hear about new books, courses, and videos.
It has been implied recently that I am not a “real” writer because I am not “serious” about my career. I’m not naming names or anything like it. That is counterproductive to what I am doing here.
It is true that I don’t brag and send out press releases every time I have something going on. That’s my fault. And that will change. But for now, here is a list of–well–a lot.
I have over 20 years of experience in writing for publication. My work has appeared in WritingforDollars.com (unfortunately now out of publication), Writers JOURNAL, Ada Evening News in the main paper (series on meth in Ada) and in the annual Progress Edition, Ada Hub Magazine, Ada Magazine, 4HEALTH Magazine,World Of Myth Magazine, and the OWFI Report (a column of website reviews and Internet-based tools for writers that ran for five years). Articles have also appeared on eHow.com and Demand Studios.
I am a hybrid author, meaning I have been traditionally and independently published. I have two novels and three short stories out under the pen name Kat O’Reilly. I have a series of short ebooks (currently three titles have been released with more to come), a book of devotions, a book about Twitter, books about creativity, and books about planning. Currently, I am working with The Wild Rose Press toward the publication of a paranormal/mystery novel, which is the first in a trilogy.
The complete list of my titles is:
Devoted to Creating: Igniting the Creative Spark in Everyone (currently out of print) Get “Twitter”pated: A Writer’s Handbook to Twitter
Windsong & Other Poems
80 Creativity Tips
Create Your Own DIY Planner
Project Planner for Creatives
8 Patterns to Crochet
Journal Your Way to Creativity
JEN Enterprises Presents: Why You Need a Writing Practice
BOP Your Way Through Writer’s Block
3 Keys to the Kingdom
Written as Kat O’Reilly: Navajo Rose
Kiernan’s Curse “They Call Me Malak”
“This Is Your Karma”
“Sex, Politics, & Vampires”
My articles, novels, and poems have won various awards. I have been a writer-in-residence on several occasions at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs. I have presented at conferences, civic organizations, and even this group. I have served as a contest judge for OKRWA (the Oklahoma chapter of RWA – Romance Writers of America) and OWFI. I have served in numerous volunteer positions within OWFI, including as 1st and 2nd Vice-President. If you are unfamiliar with the OWFI organization, the 1st VP is the person in charge of the contest.
I do not present any of this to put-down or disparage anyone. I mention it only to correct the implication that I am not “serious” about my career.
In a recent post (A Few Items of Interest), I mentioned that Amazon was merging CreateSpace and KDP. I didn’t know a time frame, but I knew it was happening soon.
It’s happened.
I talked about having re-release/launch dates and events as I converted my books from CreateSpace to KDP. Let’s just say that the process of moving them over went quite a bit smoother than I expected. They’re all moved.
I’m not going to do re-releases. I am, however, going to spotlight them here and do some promos on all of my books between now and Christmas.
You heard right.
Christmas.
It’s surprising to me that it’s already time to be thinking about Christmas.
The first book I’ll be spotlighting will be a Kat O’Reilly release. It will be up next Tuesday.
In the meantime, I have more writing to do, so I’ll see you back here with another post on Friday.
Photo of reporter’s notebook by grafixtek on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.
There are a few things I’ve been thinking about. Some relate directly to this blog and others are about my writing and books in general. Let’s start with the blog-related stuff.
Schedule
I have been aiming for two posts a week. There have been some weeks I’ve had three and some I’ve had one. I don’t think there have been any weeks that I’ve had none since I started this. (I could be wrong.)
My upload days have been Tuesday and Thursday.
That is going to be changing somewhat. I will still upload on Tuesday, but the second day will be Friday from here on out. Bonus posts will go up whenever they go up. That’s why they’re bonuses.
Books
Many of you know the majority of my books have been indie-published. I’ve used CreateSpace for this. However, Amazon appears to be merging CreateSpace and KDP, so in the very near future,
I will be migrating everything over to KDP. When I do that, I will have re-release dates/events for all the titles. I will announce those here and on my Facebook author page (not my profile, though they will be shared there too).
RealmWalker: New Beginnings
I finished the passive voice editing pass tonight. Tomorrow, I will start using Word’s “find” feature to look for some specific things. I think it’s close to being ready to send back to my editor, though.
RealmWalker: Anchor
I can’t mention New Beginnings without talking about Anchor, can I? Well, I guess I could, but I won’t.
Progress on Anchor has been slow because of editing New Beginnings. However, with this round of edits nearing completion, I will soon be back to work on writing this second book. On the plus side? In one pivotal scene in New Beginnings, I put a hint of what is to come in book two. That was fun.
Personally
There are a couple other reasons why progress has been slow on Anchor. I thought about not sharing them, but I decided to. Not because I feel like I owe anyone an explanation, but because we’re all human. We all have problems that keep us from what we want to do sometimes and I want you to know you’re not alone in whatever you have going on.
I have had problems requiring visits to Wound Care. Because of that, I have to keep my foot elevated more than not. It’s not easy to do computer work like that. So I’ve limited myself to an hour to an hour and a half in the evenings. Today’s visit was good, though. One area is completely resolved and the other is close. Maybe I’ll be done with Wound Care (again) very soon. (Don’t get me wrong. There are wonderful people there and I’ve made some good friends through the times I’ve had to be there.)
I have been having problems with my left wrist, too. At first I thought it was just arthritis. Then I noticed that there is an area that stays swollen. I mentioned it to my doctor a few months ago. He pressed down on my thumb and I just about came up out of the chair, the pain from that surprised me so much. We both laughed about it. He said it was a “positive Finklestein’s test” and I have tenosynovitis, or tendonitis of the tendon that goes from my wrist up into my thumb. He gave me a prescription steroid ointment and told me to wear a brace for a month. I did. It didn’t help. I started sleeping in the brace. I mentioned it again this week when I saw him. He prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication and said to wear the brace during the day but don’t sleep in it. That’s where I’m at now.
I can type with the brace, but not at my usual speed. I’m seriously thinking about using voice-to-text when I start back to work on Anchor.
At any rate, those are the relevant updates I’ve been thinking about here. Have a great weekend.
I’m going to do something I don’t usually do. I’m going to send you to other sites to read/listen to what I want to talk about. These links will open in a new tab or window, depending on how you have your browser set.
Second, I mentioned I’ve started a podcast. It’s Wandering on the Creative Path and it’s on SoundCloud. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s going to stay on SoundCloud, so if you have any free podcast hosting suggestions, send them my way. Anyway, episodes 0 (the introduction) through 3 have been uploaded.
The first draft of this book was written in a notebook while I was at various doctors’ appointments. At the time, I was keeping a Bullet Journal. I had several people ask me how to do it.
It has been implied recently that I am not a “real” writer because I am not “serious” about my career. I’m not naming names or anything like it. That is counterproductive to what I am doing here.
