October in Review

November 4, 2015 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

Starting in January, I decided it would be a good idea to look back at each month and see what I have accomplished in my writing and marketing as well as reflect upon what needs to be improved in the future.

This month has been kind of crazy for me. Steph, my best friend who lives in the UK, came to stay with us (and is still here for a few more days), so a lot of October was spent getting her room ready, stressing, and finally enjoying her company. I’ve been having a great time and venturing to places even I haven’t gone. The downside is, this is all at the expense of my writing, but for two weeks with my best friend, I think I can make that sacrifice.

What I accomplished:

Wrote 10,000 words of The Earl and the Artificer (87,000 words total)
Edited the first two “acts” of The Earl and the Artificer, which is about 155 pages out of 221
Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Finished or nearly finished a lot of my grad assistant work (department newsletter and such)
Have enjoyed my time with Steph thus far and have thrown social anxiety to the wind and just had fun
Made a Goodreads page for The Earl and the Artificer

Goals for November:

Actually finish The Earl and the Artificer
Finish editing The Earl and the Artificer and send it off to the betas
Get ahead of my schoolwork to avoid end of semester stress/meltdown
Read 2-3 books
Finish book cover
Maybe begin thinking about book 4

Yes, this is slightly late, but I’ve been having fun with my best friend and would rather be doing that than blogging. October has been a weird month for me. With Steph here, I’m much more social and am out and about, but even before that, October felt like an in-between month. I felt like I was in a holding pattern. I wanted to do things, but I didn’t know if I had the time or energy to really get involved. Writing fell to the wayside for prepping and doing schoolwork, and I’m okay with that. Usually I would be beating myself up over it, and I was at first, but I see that I needed to step away a bit.

With my writing, I’m nearly done with The Earl and the Artificer. I only have about three or so more chapters to write, and I am so ready to be done and move on to serious editing. More than anything, I want to start my prep for book four. At first, I had delusions of NaNoWriMo for November, but it’s not happening. There’s no way I can manage that right now. Plus, I need to finish book three before I throw any more projects on my plate. December may turn out to be my replacement pseudo-NaNoWriMo. I don’t need hoards of writers peer pressuring me with their daily stats to make me write; I just need time and energy. Both of which are in short supply at the moment.

So let’s discuss November. November will be my catch-up month. I plan on finishing everything this month. I need to finish writing The Earl and the Artificer, get the cover together, start doing my major editing, and hopefully send it out to my beta readers. Get shit done is basically the plan. Originally, I had hoped to publish book three in December, but it’s looking more and more like it will be January. That’s okay, but December would have been better. Thus far, I have been doing edits to tighten it up, but a few more rounds will be needed before I think about publishing it, and that takes time.

For my readers, please stay tuned for more info. I hope to have a pre-order link up in the not-so-distant future.

Monthly Review

September in Review

October 1, 2015 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

September means… GRAD SCHOOL IS BACK IN SESSION, which really means added stress, learning how to juggle again, and feeling anxious on the days when I have class. Ultimately, I was less productive than I hoped, but I still got quite a bit of writing done. I really shouldn’t complain now that I look back at the stats.

What I did accomplish:

Wrote 17,000 words of The Earl and the Artificer (77,000 words total)
Read Pantomime by Laura Lam, Afflicted by Brandon Shire, Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker, and The Cogsmith’s Daughter by Kate M. Colby
Wrote every day and kept my creative reservoirs filled for the most part
Survived my first month of the new semester without freaking out too much
Gave away The Earl of Brass for free in record numbers

Goals for October:

Finish writing The Earl and the Artificer (about 13,000-15,000 words)
Begin editing The Earl and the Artificer
Read 2-3 books
Keep on top of my school work without too much stress
Have fun while my best friend from England is staying with us (really looking forward to this one)
Get the ball rolling on the cover for The Earl and the Artificer
Begin outlining book 4

So I didn’t write 20,000 words, but I did write 17,000 and that’s pretty damn good for a month where I have class. At first, I was kicking myself for lower productivity level, beating myself up for not cranking out 3,000 more words this month to meet my far goal. This kind of thinking is rather self-destructive and completely counter-productive. I should be really happy that I wrote 17k in a month because usually during the school year I’m lucky if I write 5,000 words.

I still can’t believe I’m this far into The Earl and the Artificer. It’ll be out soon. SOON. I still can’t really fathom that; it doesn’t seem real. I began writing it (half-heartedly) in February and really got into it in June. So from July to September, I’ve written 62,000 words. For some writers that wouldn’t be much, but I have never written this much this fast before, and I’m pretty proud of what I’ve been able to do this year. This month I’ll be moving into the production aspects of The Earl and the Artificer with editing and cover design. It’s insane how fast it’s coming.

What shocked me this month was how much I read. I really didn’t expect to get through four books. I fluctuate between reading voraciously and not picking up a book for a week, but I enjoyed the mix of books. A dash of romance, some info on writing, and a bit of fantasy.

So the most exciting thing happening next month is that my best friend is coming from the UK to stay with us! We speak all the time on messenger, but we’ve never met. I’m hoping we’ll have time to hang out, see the sights, and enjoy our time together while she’s here. I’m super stoked. I don’t socialize very much outside of the university, so I’m hoping we can have a lot of fun. Also, I’ll finally have someone to go to the amusement park with as long as the weather holds.

Well, that’s it for now. Let’s see what October brings.

Monthly Review

August in Review

August 31, 2015August 30, 2015 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

Much like July, August has been a rather productive month. It seems so long ago that it just started, and I am absolutely amazed that it’s already over. This month I have tried to get as much done as possible before graduate school started again for me in September. Usually when school starts, my productivity tanks for a while as I adjust, but I’m hopeful that September won’t be too bad.

What I did accomplish:

Published my series companion short story “An Oxford Holiday” on Amazon
Wrote 25,000 words of The Earl and the Artificer (60,000 words total)
Met my “far” word count goal for the month
Read For Love or Money by Susan Kaye Quinn and 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love
Released the audiobook for The Earl of Brass
Proofed the first 15 minute clip for the audiobook of The Winter Garden
Put The Earl of Brass ebook on sale for 99 cents for a limited time.

Goals for September:

Write at least 10,000 words of The Earl and the Artificer (but optimally more like 15k to 20k)
Read 2-3 books
Manage my grad school stress
Continue to write every day
Balance life, writing, and fun
Refill my creative reservoirs
Possibly work on another bonus short story (if an idea takes shape)

So I think I have finally found something that works when it comes to keeping my productivity up and at a good pace. Seriously, the word count tracking spreadsheet has done wonders. I’m now about 60,000 words into The Earl and the Artificer, which blows my mind because I’m over 2/3 through it! A few months ago, that was unimaginable. Now, the end is in sight in a few months (probably October). During this time, I also finished and released the audiobook of The Earl of Brass and the ebook of “An Oxford Holiday” on Amazon. Now that I know I can work on a short story and a novel without sacrificing either, I hope to release more companion short stories in the future. The best case scenario is that I might be able to release a Halloween themed one in October, but I can make no promises there, especially with the semester starting. I also got a glimpse of the audiobook for The Winter Garden, and it is perfect! I am so looking forward to hearing more, and while I would like to say that I hope my narrator will send me some this month, I won’t push it. He has a life outside of narrating.

This has been an odd month. I’m feeling very productive in terms of what I have produced, but as of the last few days, I’m feeling incredibly drained. Last week, I had a workshop to go to, which is mandatory for my degree. I enjoyed it and it was incredibly interesting (about teaching writing), but it kind of drained me. It’s hard for me to be social and outgoing while surrounded by new people. It’s done now, just in time for the semester to start. Yay… Prepare to see me crawl back into my shell for about a month while I continually scream internally until I’ve adjusted to dealing with people again. Current status: exhausted and in denial that school is starting again in a few days. Today, I will be reading and chilling with my dogs in hopes of recovering some of that creative mojo since it’s edging toward burn-out level.

This month also brought a new addition to our family: Miss Kate (named by my dad). Kate is a border weenie, meaning she is dachshund and border collie. If you think she looks oddly familiar, it’s because we have 2 other border collie mixes (Edgar and Finny) who are also black and white and look a lot like her. The boys are still ignoring her, but they seem to be getting along. Don’t let her cute face and squeaky toy voice fool you, she has plenty of attitude. She already hip-checked Edgar and took a bone from his mouth.

For September, my hope is that I can keep writing every day, even if it’s only a few hundred words. 500 a day for 30 days still equates to 15,000 words. I only have two more semesters of grad school left until I have my MFA in creative writing, so I just need to power through and get it done. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be able to start outlining book four of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices. I’d love to begin writing that while editing The Earl and the Artificer.

One last thing of note: The Earl of Brass is on sale for 99 cents for a limited time on Kindle. You can pick it up here.

Monthly Review · Writing

July in Review

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

July was an oddly productive month. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this happened, but I think a good part of it is that I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo, which forced me to be disciplined about my writing routine, and that I made sure to replenish my writing mojo by feeding my creativity with outings and good books.

What I did accomplish:

Wrote 20,000 words of The Earl and the Artificer (The Ingenious Mechanical Devices #3), which equates to about 5 chapters
Met my Camp NaNoWriMo word count goal + 5,000 words
Read Cold Magic (The Spiritwalker Trilogy, #1) by Kate Elliott and Indie Author Survival Guide by Susan Kaye Quinn
Finished proofing the audiobook for The Earl of Brass (IMD #1)
Got the ball rolling on the audiobook for The Winter Garden (IMD #2)
Fixed/”finalized” blurb for The Earl and the Artificer
Balanced writing, fun, and life better

Goals for August:

Write 15,000 words of The Earl and the Artificer
Finish and send “An Oxford Holiday” to my beta readers
Read 2-3 books
Build up my daily word count and work on a plan for when grad school classes start again
Continue to strive to write instead of striving for perfection

For once, I went above and beyond with my goals this month. Usually I find myself groaning when I reread my goals from the previous month because I’ve missed the mark on around half of them. In July, I exceeded my word count goal by 5,000 words, finished my audiobook (which should be available in a week or two), and was still able to read on the side. The Earl and the Artificer is finally cruising along and coming into its own (FINALLY). Seriously, this book was dragging so badly for a while, and it was all me. I needed to get my ducks in a row and really figure out where the story was going. By digging in and plowing through to meet my word count, there was no time to “get stuck” or make excuses as to why I wasn’t writing. Instead of taking a day or two to figure things I out, I consulted the color-coded outline I made and kept on going. One of the things that I think helped a lot was downloading one of these word count tracking spreadsheets. All you do is add the amount of words you wrote that day, and it takes it out of the your monthly or yearly goals. It’s a hundred times better than anything I could have made.

The downside to being so productive with book 3 is that I totally put “An Oxford Holiday” to the side. I’m still about 80% through it, but I need to take a day or two and wrap it before I give it a quick edit and send it off to the beta readers. It will be done by the end of August, but obviously the larger project takes precedence. I also need to convince my cover artist to make me a simplified cover for “An Oxford Holiday”.

This month I turned twenty-four, and I’m incredibly amazed by what I’ve done in the past year. Last year around this time, I had just published my first book and had no idea what I was doing. Now, I feel much more confident in my abilities, and I have two books out and four poems published in different literary magazines. Hopefully by the time I’m twenty-five, I’ll have at least three books out and a few short stories. It still amazes me how far I’ve come in a short space of time and how much I’ve learned. During the month, I hope to read Susan Kaye Quinn’s For Love or Money to add to my knowledge of author entrepreneurship.

While I’m looking forward to August and what I will hopefully accomplish, I know I have lost certain things to my goals. The main thing is cutting back on blog posts, but I’m pretty okay with that. People seem to be responding to my update posts as well as they did my other ones.

To wrap up, I have two posts to make note of:

I’m running a Goodreads giveaway of 2 paperbacks of The Earl of Brass and I did a guest post for the lovely Kate M. Colby about creating realistic characters.

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Monthly Review

June in Review

June 30, 2015June 30, 2015 Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

Sometimes it’s hard to be upbeat when you feel that you haven’t quite met your goals from the previous month. I don’t think I did as much writing of The Earl and the Artificer (Ingenious Mechanical Devices #3), but I’m okay with that because I did a lot more writing and tinkering with my short story “An Oxford Holiday,” which I am enjoying immensely. Now to get down to business:

What I did accomplish:

Wrote and edited two chapters of The Earl and the Artificer (IMD #3)
Wrote the majority of my companion short story “An Oxford Holiday”
Finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (if you have seen the thickness of this book, you’ll know why it’s an accomplishment)
Got out of the house more
Wrote or edited more days than I didn’t
Uploaded The Earl of Brass and The Winter Garden on iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Oyster, and other ebook platforms

Goals for July:

Finish “An Oxford Holiday” and ready it for publication
Plan and write more of The Earl and the Artificer
Blog more
Read 2-3 books
Stop making goals by the number (apart from reading goals)
Strive to write instead of striving for perfection

One of the things I have learned this month is that setting numerical goals drives me crazy. I had writers block for a good chunk of the month, and the longer it lasted, the more I focused on my previous goal of writing four chapters of my novel. Of course, the more I focused, the more I froze. To loosen up and break the block, I decided to work on a short story that was knocking on my brain and would come between books two and three. As soon as I began working on it, the words flew onto the page, and I was writing double what I wrote on my most productive day earlier in June. Immediately I began to wonder why “An Oxford Holiday” was taking shape so much faster than The Earl and the Artificer. Some obvious answers are length and complexity– since it’s a short story, both are a lot simpler than a novel. Was it the characters? While I love working with Adam and Immanuel, it shouldn’t make the story that much easier to write. The big difference between working on my for-fun short story and my novel was fun. Ever since I sent in my thesis proposal, I have been so hard on myself about The Earl and the Artificer, and it is sucking the fun out of the writing process. I’m constantly catching myself over-thinking scenes or freezing up because I’m worrying that it isn’t perfect. This is why my fifth and sixth goal are there. I need to stop over-thinking and making numerical goals because it’s apparent that I get fixated on them. After bouncing back and forth between my short story and the EatA without any pressure, I suddenly banged out a chapter in like two days.

The upside of June was that I had a great time and actually got out of the house. On the 20th, my boyfriend and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. We went down to a lovely waterfront town not far from our house, pigged out on pub food, French desserts, and sea air. It was wonderful. The same week my mom and I had a girl’s day, so I enjoyed spending an entire day with my mom and also made an impromptu stop at the bookstore. For once I actually spent time out of the house, and it seemed to revive my mood, especially after an incredibly stagnant first half of the month. Because of this slump, I may have bought a few too many books. Can you really have too many books? And I didn’t drain my bank account, so all is well.

I am so looking forward to finishing “An Oxford Holiday” in the coming weeks. It’s a short story that falls between books two and three, which I will be offering for free on all ebook platforms when it’s finished. The basic idea of the story is that Adam goes to visit Immanuel in Oxford as promised, but they soon realize that finding a place to spend time and speak freely is easier said than done. A bit of information will also be revealed regarding Immanuel’s life at Oxford and what his future with Adam holds. It’s just a little tidbit to hold my readers over between books, but I am greatly enjoying writing it. Hopefully you will enjoy it too.

One of the best things to happen this month is of course the supreme court ruling that gay marriage is legal in all fifty states. Living in New Jersey, I have taken it for granted, but I am so excited my southern or mid-western friends who thought having marriage equality in their state would be a pipe dream. As a supporter of gay rights, it made my day. The funny thing is, I bought this shirt in May and it finally arrived in mid-June. It says “I support LGBT lit” on the front and “Because everyone deserves to see themselves in fiction” on the back.

My hope for July is that I can finally put aside my perfectionist tendencies and be consistently productive or at least more productive than I have been. I think having a few chapters go smoothly will boost my confidence and hopefully produce more success in the future.

What are your goals for July?

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Monthly Review

May 2015 in Review

June 1, 2015June 1, 2015 Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

School’s out for summer! May has been the month of sweet freedom. Unlike April, which was stressful and made me want to tear my hair out, May has been lovely. Currently, I am at home except for one day a week where I work at my office job, and now I finally have time to write and read, which means, I can hopefully get a lot of work done in preparation for the fall semester. Yes, everything revolves around grad school… and writing, which is practically the same thing when you’re working toward an MFA in creative writing. Shockingly, I think I accomplished most of the goals I set last month.

What I did accomplish:

Finished my last bit of schoolwork and received good grades
Continued to blog and create a monthly newsletter
Wrote 2 chapters of The Earl and the Artificer
Edited The Earl and the Artificer
Read 3 novels, a novella, and a short story (and began Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)
Didn’t stress out at the Steampunk World’s Fair

Goals for June:

Write 4 chapters of The Earl and the Artificer
Work on creating a routine to be able to write every day
Read every day
Continue to produce content for my blog and newsletter
Research marketing (possibly buy Susan Kaye Quinn’s marketing book)
Get out of the house more

The last goal may seem a bit odd, but as an only child who lives at home and has the summers off for the most part, I become a hermit– a cranky, bored, semi-delusional hermit by the end of the summer. Cabin fever does not help my productivity, so this summer I am hoping to maybe get out a bit more when possible. I’m hoping that on Thursdays when my boyfriend is home from work that maybe we can go to the beach and sit and write/draw by the water. We are also celebrating our 10th anniversary in June, and while we probably aren’t doing anything that spectacular, I am still amazed that we’ve been together this long.

Anyway, getting back to goals, I only wrote two chapters this month. Part of this was due to my transitional period between school and vacation and the rest was caused by my own confusion regarding my plot. That week between the end of the semester and vacation beginning was a sort of limbo for me. My brain was still in work-mode, but I didn’t have any work to do and my story was not coming to me because I had been pushing it away for so many weeks. At that point, it felt like all I could do was read and recover from a lovely cold I developed at the same time. The other issue was my confusion regarding the plot of my current project. From writing bits and pieces over the course of a few months during the semester and never truly focusing on my book, I had no idea really where the story was going apart from the major plot points. If I don’t know where I’m going, I end up not going anywhere.

A good chunk of May was devoted to rereading The Earl and the Artificer and plotting what points I covered and what points needed to be addressed in the next few chapters (introducing certain characters and facts). As I reread it, I edited what I had, tightening the plot and beefing up some of the descriptions and scenes. I must admit that I tend to panic when the beginning of a story takes me a while to get into. Somehow I forget that I do this with every book, but when the threads of the plot are incredibly loose and not yet knitting together I worry they never will come together. I keep reminding myself that they will. I just need time and words.

Right now, I’m hoping to sit down in the next day or two and loosely plot chapters 6-10 of The Earl and the Artificer, so I can get cracking for the rest of the month. Maybe I’ll even be able to slip in a short story for the Ingenious Mechanical Devices universe or possibly for an anthology I have been looking into. One thing I have noticed with my writing is that it tends to pick up when I’m reading an inspiring book. Currently, I am reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and I am loving it. It’s a huge book compared to what I usually read, but it’s moving quickly and I catch myself reading it as often as possible. Because of its size, I haven’t given myself a set number of books to read this month.

As a final note on May, I decided to run a sale where I set both books to 99 cents for a few days. I accidentally set it for Memorial Day weekend, and I’m not sure whether it was a good or bad thing because tons of authors planned sales for that weekend but it was the first official week of summer when people look for beach reading. At the same time, I ran an ad with Ereader News Today and sold quite a few copies of both books. Part of the reason I like to run sales is not necessarily to make money off of it (especially since the mark down obviously cuts my royalty) but to get my books into the hands of new readers. At 99 cents, readers are much more likely to take a chance on an unknown author, and after running the sale, I received a few more reviews and hopefully gained a few more readers along the way.

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Monthly Review · Writing

April 2015 in Review

May 1, 2015April 30, 2015 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

April was a crazy month. At the university, it’s crunch time for papers and projects along with a deluge of events. I think I spent more time at the university than I ever have in my past year and a half there. With all of these extra curricular activities, I was a tad stressed out. Okay, a lot stressed out, which led to me buying quite a few books. I have no shame regarding that, but I don’t think I should have rewarded myself for not getting as much done as I hoped.

What I did accomplish:

Finished reading for class and turned in portfolio
50% done with final paper (I’ve been bad about finishing this)
My thesis portfolio was accepted
Learned more about marketing by reading Joanna Penn’s How to Market a Book and Tim Grahl’s Your First 1000 Copies
Scheduled a 99 cent sale for The Earl of Brass from May 22nd-26th
The Winter Garden has 6 Amazon reviews and 7 Goodreads reviews
Sent out my first newsletter

Goals for May:

Write 3-4 chapters of The Earl and the Artificer
Do a preliminary edit on the chapters I write
Read 3-4 books at least
Stay positive and work on stress (as always)
Do well with my reading at the Steampunk World’s Fair
Get my art commission done

I think I’m most excited about the last one. One of my favorite artists opened her commissions again, and I jumped at the chance to get one. At first, I was wait-listed, but she added more slots to allow me a few others to get in. I won’t give too many details, but it will be Adam and Immanuel from The Winter Garden. As much as I’m looking forward to (and dreading) the Steampunk World’s Fair, I am super excited about more artwork of my characters. The date and time of my reading at the Steampunk World’s Fair will come in a few days. They’re still working on the schedule.

Anyway, April has been a difficult month for me. Everything was due for class, so I quickly polished off the books I needed to read and started my papers and portfolios. This means I have only been able to write one chapter. Luckily, by the end of the first week of May I should be able to really get back into writing book three. In my last post, I discussed how book three has been my problem child, and it really has been. For me to write, I need to figure out what story within all of my random ideas I would truly like to read. Otherwise, the book is stilted and just not fun to write. After having a discussion in the car with my boyfriend last night, I feel that I have a better handle on where it’s going. I’m sure I’ll still pester my bestie some time this weekend about it.

I know I’ve set myself a somewhat rigorous schedule for May in terms of writing, but I think with time on my hands and a plan, I can get through at least three chapters. I tend to be a slow writer because I hem and haw over every word, yet I’ve gotten through that much before in a few weeks when I was really determined. The hidden “to-do” is to figure out the rest of my major plot points and get maybe the next five chapters mapped, so I can hit the ground running when I start writing in the next few days.

Last month, I gave myself the goal of working on managing my stress. I didn’t. I was a mess this month. Part of me doesn’t want to rely on excuses, but this month was insane. It seemed like I was constantly on the go. I was definitely stressed out, so much so that I threw my body out of whack. I really don’t want that to happen in May, so I will try to take things as they come and not freak out. This is partially why I gave myself the goal of reading a few books this month. I need to take time to read something good to engage my mind and imagination and to unwind a bit. Reading always helps me focus and inspire my writing. Some books I’m hoping to get through are: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, A Case of Possession by K. J. Charles, Auraria by Tim Westover, and Possession by A. S. Byatt. It’s an eclectic mix, but I’m dying to get to them.

So what are your goals for April?

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