Okay, I was doing great with writing last week, and then, I just lost it on Friday. Friday and Saturday I can excuse myself for with the retreat and everything. I feel like the weather has been draining my energy since then. Tonight I could barely think of writing. Wanted to, but I just could not get myself into the story. I got a page done, which is better than nothing, but still. I do know that part of my problem is that my elbow is very sore from being at a computer almost all day yesterday and today. It's that ergonomics thing.
softkey viaccess progdvbWell, tomorrow I'm going to send Mind Games off to its last contest. Entries for the Kiss of Death Chapter's Daphne du Maurier Award are due in by March 15th, so I figured that I may as well kick my butt into gear and get the sucker sent in. Especially since I don't have to revise my synopsis for the first round of the contest. YEAH!! And god help me if I final.
I keep telling myself that as long as I accomplish something writing related, I'm advancing my career that one, tiny step further. Though I'd love it if I could just prod my brain into writing mode.
Okay, plan for tomorrow:
1. Finish putting together Daphne packet.
2. Mail that sucker off.
3. List everything that I want to go on my unpublished site and categorize.
4. Write 4 FREAKIN' pages!
Okay, at the retreat yesterday, one of the other members, Jesse Petersen of The Passionate Pen gave a workshop on "The Why, The How and The What of Website Design" at the beginning. Jesse had some provocative reasons on why an unpublished writer should have a website. One of the most compelling was that her agent, Michelle Grajkowski of 3 Seas Literary Agency, pointed out to her at the National Conference last July that she, Michelle, uses The Passionate Pen when querying publishers with Jesse's books. The point she tries to make is that Jesse has built up a potential readership with the website.
Now, considering that I have done a lot of work with websites and website design over the last year and a half, I've spent most of the day trying to figure out what to do for a writing related website. All it really would be is an umbrella site for this blog, my research guide, and information about my works in progress. What I'd want to do though is come up with a nice, but sophisticated design, that makes the visitor feel at home and is easily navigable. That's where my information science training peeks through :) So, I went to the RWA Members Websites list and picked my way through some of them.
As much as I know about website design, I always feel intimidated by sites where I can immediately tell that the person is either a bigger techno geek than I am, has a graphic design background, or both. So, now I need to think of not only what I want to include content-wise for this website, but also a really kick-ass design theme. What can I say? I'm competitive. Also, it will look really good on my resume for my job hunting for a librarian job :-D
Theme has also become a big thing within the romance genre. Well, when theme is known as branding. Example: you write light romantic comedies? Your website theme should probably be along the lines of light colors, airy space, and a humorous tone to the content. In other words: no black backgrounds and/or knives dripping blood. Okay, I've got all of that, but I'm not sure how to classify my writing. I've definitely got a sarcastic tone that runs through my lead female characters. Hmm, I wonder why. The problem is that the two books that I've written/am writing are not in the same subgenre of romance. Mind Games is romantic suspense, and Seasons is chick lit edging into women's fiction. The idea that I'm toying with to work on once I finish Seasons is definitely within the chick lit realm though. What to do, what to do?
This is where my little bit of design experience gets me into trouble. See, I'm so comfortable with what I've done previously (and I like it), it's kind of hard to think of something new and different. Well, more like PUSH myself to think of something new and different. At this point, I don't have any books to sell to readers, but I have to sell myself to publishers. But, as Michelle told Jesse, if I can sell myself to POTENTIAL readers, that will help sell to publishers.
I'm beginning to feel like I'm talking to myself in circles. All I really need to do is decide on how I want this site to look. Once I've done that, it usually only takes me a couple of days to come up with a finished site. Though, like all good sites, I tweak a little here, a little there, some more over there, until a few months later I'm REALLY happy with it :)
Okay, now that I've wasted the entire weekend with absolutely no writing done (bad Katie, bad Katie), I'm going to wrap this up so I can get some sleep. But hey, I've given some thought to this project and plotting of the book, so it's not like I slacked off career-wise, just working-in-the-moment-wise. *Sigh* Tomorrow's another day.