Wednesday, February 16, 2011

One of Those Days


Every once in awhile I find myself having "one of those days." It's not that anything went terribly wrong; I'm just not satisfied with . . . anything in particular. I actually managed to write 2489 words today, had minimal phone calls, and my husband fixed dinner. Still the flowers on the dining room table are dead and need to be thrown out, the sheets on the downstairs bed need to be changed, there are cobwebs on the entry hall chandelier, the kitchen floor needs to be mopped, and the wind has been howling like a banshee today with snow in the forecast. I know, some days are just like that.

Sometimes writers have some of those days too in their professional life. The words are drivel, there's no way to get an uninterrupted block of time, there are too many other demands on our time, and we'd rather play on Facebook than write.

An occasional such day can be chalked up to "that's just the way it is." Or it might be a hint someone has been pushing too hard and needs to take a break. Sometimes the same remedies we use to deal with writer's block work for overcoming a cranky, blah, nothing-suits-me day. Sometimes sitting down to the computer and getting lost in the WIP before us does the trick. Other times a good run, a chocolate bar, or vigorously scrubbing the kitchen floor will do the trick. And sometimes we just have to hope to wake up in a better mood the next day.

I've already told you this isn't one of my better days. It isn't a day when I can come up with a blog topic either, but I can tell you a few things that have crossed my mind to share but won't fill an entire blog. First, I've been invited to speak at a book club. There's nothing unusual about that, but this club is comprised of Latino ladies, and I don't speak Spanish. Should be fun. Funny thing is I've longed to have my books translated for Spanish readers for a long time without any success, but I feel flattered that women who struggle with English read my books and want to meet me.

I received the smallest royalty check of my life since I started writing fiction this week. It's fun to get the big checks, but I'm okay with this one. I chose to spend time with my sister before she died instead of writing and I have no regrets.

The temple is closed for regularly scheduled cleaning this week and next. It's good to have the time off, but it leaves me feeling a little disoriented and confused as to which day today is.

My sales of Run Away Home on Kindle are going pretty well and I like their system that allows authors to track sales. I'll post Journey Home on Kindle too as soon as I finish my long overdue pair of western Historicals I've been working on for a couple of years. And speaking of Kindles, I think the only way I can keep up with finding the called for scriptures in Sunday School is to look up all the scriptures listed in the study guide for each week ahead of time and book mark them. The Kindle works well for reading, but I find it dreadfully slow for trying to locate specific scriptures. I'm not sure I retain what I read on my e-reader as well as what I read on a printed page either, but that may improve as I grow more accustomed to using it.

I've got eight new books to read and consider for reviews on my shelf and four Whitney finalists. I can't read them all, so I guess it's the Whitney finalists that won't get read. I've finished everything in four categories and there are only a few in the other categories that interest me anyway. It just saddens me a little that I won't be able to vote for the overall top book.

Well, that's all I can think of, so I think I'll quit and go watch the Jazz game. Wait---that just might move me from feeling blah to depressed.

2 comments:

Jen plus 6 said...

Jennie,

There are several things I've wanted to comment on over on your blog, but I can't get my computer to open the comments section! I'm going to have my husband fix it because I've tried everything the "help" prompt said to do and it still won't work... so on to some of my comments ;^)

That picture of your grandson with George and Martha is adorable!
I am excited to read the new books you are working on!
I seem to remember you saying at one point that authors send you their books to review ( I hope that's right) I have always wondered like this month how do you decide which ones to read/review?

Jennie said...

Jen, I like that picture of my grandson and the Washingtons too. I'm sorry you're having difficulty posting to my blog. As for which books I choose to review, there are a lot of factors that go into this. I try to keep a variety of types of books, vary the publishers, and consider how well the book is written, and avoid reviewing the same author's works too often. I also consider whether the book is really LDS fiction or not. Sometimes I review a book by an LDS author that is just a good book, but has no LDS link, but if I have books that are definitely LDS, I'll consider them first. I read all of the books sent to me, admittedly I only read the first fifty pages of some, but I try to give books by LDS publishers, mainstream publishers, and self-published books an equal shot.