Tag Archives: Camptown Ladies Talk

The Writing Life: Never Rains but It Pours

Have you ever noticed that weeks and even months can go by without much  happening, and then all of a sudden everything pops at once? It’s been like that around here.

Last week what should come in the door but…well…not one, not two, not three, not even four, but FIVE editing projects! I haven’t seen a lonely scribbler all summer long, and now here’s a mob of them at my door, just as I’m trying to crank 87 gerjillion Camptown Races Press books for the holiday season!

Speaking of the which, we’re about to promulgate our first Hallowe’en Treat: Janet and the Djinn, a whimsical story of a despairing jilted wife who answers a Craig’s List ad and gets a much more spirited romp than she expected. If you’d like an advance copy, come on over to Camptown Ladies Talk and grab one TODAY, before it hits Amazon. Sign up for the newsletter there (the form’s at the top of the page) and we’ll send you a .mobi or a PDF version ASAP.

Craig's List Janet LoResAdvance copy NOW!
Camptown Ladies Talk

So, back to the issue at hand: five freaking editorial projects when we’re trying to crank eight books this month, one of which I STILL HAVE TO FINISH WRITING!

Lordie! I haven’t been able to get to my own stuff in weeks. But I really couldn’t turn them down. We need the money to keep the business going. Not only do I have to cover the regular overhead — the Cox bill, the web hosting bill, the web wrangler’s bill, the association dues, the paper, the ink, the you-name-it — I now have four (maybe five, soon!) writers to pay. Pay for three of these projects, taken together, will keep us going another two months past the date I figured we’d go broke if we’re not turning a profit.

Crazy-making!

But last week I tried a plan that shows some serious promise: divide up the day in chunks, and devote each chunk to one (count it, 1) specific task. Don’t do anything else during that period, no matter how tempting or urgent it seems to be. Okay.

So, Friday went like this:

• Three hours: Post Bobbi and the Biker. Publicize: Build widgets, manage Twitter and post tweets there, write blog posts, plan marketing campaign.
• Three hours: Edit copy
• Three hours: Write scene for The Taming of Bonnie (Ouija Lover II)

Et voilà! There’s a nine-hour day, right there.

I ended up spending another three hours cleaning up some very messy computer files and backing them up to a gigantic flash drive and then to the iMac. That was quite a job, but it’s going to make life a lot easier.

Saturday was blown away with a three-hour meeting of a writer’s group I habituate — plus the two hours it takes to get there and back. When I got home, I discovered the power had gone out while I was gone, and it had knocked the wireless off the air. Try as I might, I could NOT get the wireless back online. I called my son, who was pissed that I bothered him on the weekend and not very friendly about the prospect of having to help me fix it. Continued to struggle with it. Went to bed with no wireless Internet access.

Naturally. Just as I needed to push HARD to publicize our first Racy Book for Racy Readers.

Sunday morning I managed to get the system back online and then fly out the door to choir. Singing occupied the rest of the morning.

I fell in the choir loft when one of my platform sandals came loose and dropped off my foot. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt, other than a few mild aches, but it was embarrassing and disturbing. Got home and had a drink with lunch. And then another. And then didn’t feel a whole lot like writing or editing. Blew off the afternoon with a nap and reading someone else’s naughty book.

So spent all of Sunday evening, way into the night, editing copy.

Today I’m going to try the three/three/three schedule again. It’s already almost 7 a.m. and I haven’t had anything to eat or walked the dogs, but hope to squeeze those things in before sitting down to work. Started around 5 and I’ve updated the Twitter buzz, posted the FREE ADVANCECOPY OFFER(!!!!!) at Camptown Ladies Talk and here, answered comments at Funny about Money, built widgets here and at Ladies Talk, reviewed copy I wrote on Friday, checked a subcontractor’s edits and sent her work, with a bill, to the Chinese academic client, worked briefly on the Mongolian expat client’s work, fielded e-mail, and…not gotten a heck of a lot else done.

It’s starting to rain: that gets me out of having to walk the dogs — they hate rain. Thank goodness!

And so, to post this, plug it on Twitter, and slap up a post at Funny about Money. Then: breakfast. Then: real work.

 

CONTEST! Name the Ladies and Win a Free Advance Copy

wooHOO! Camptown Races Press is running a contest to NAME THE CAMPTOWN LADIES, over at Camptown Ladies Talk. The prize is an advance copy of one of the Press’s first Racy Books for Racy Readers, Bobbi and the Biker.

Naughty? Us?

Naughty? Us?

To win, all you have to do is come up with the best idea for noms de guerre for those naughty girls. And their (uhm) mentor Aunt Tilly has already overruled “Ashley” and “Madison.”

To enter, hop on over to Camptown Ladies and enter your best idea in the comments section. Be sure to leave a valid e-mail so we can send you a .mobi or PDF version.

Remember, these books are for grown-ups. 😉

2 Bobbi&Biker2

woo Hoo! Twitter Site ESTABLISHED!

Well, maybe not “established” in the Grand Sense, but certainly founded, started, more than a twinkle in its mommy’s eye.

I’m delighted to say I finally figured out how to create a Twitter page for the Camptown Ladies, those chatty souls who soon will be talking up a storm about some very lively novelettes. Their Twitter handle is @RacyLadies, and their profile page there is at https://twitter.com/RacyLadies.

Please do check them out, and follow them on Twitter!

For reasons I can’t fully explain, this whole process of launching our enterprise on social media has given me the whim-whams in the big way. It’s been irrationally stressful. But why?

Primarily, I suppose, it’s that I’ve become exponentially less techie than I was when I was a young thing. Believe it or not, back in AOL days, when IBM and Xerox dominated the PC market, I was an early adopter of everything. I learned every piece of software that was even remotely relevant to my work or my interests — in EXTREME believe-it-or-not, once I even interviewed for a job as a software reviewer.

Over time, though, my interests shifted away from things technological. Even though I developed the first online courses in my campus’s College of Liberal Arts, the teaching demands and then the editing work absorbed so much time and attention that I grew increasingly disconnected from things high-tech. And as you know, once disconnected from this stuff, it’s almost impossible to reconnect.

Then we have the fact that when it comes to things “social,” I am not good. The very phrase “social media” makes me wince. It’s not so much that I don’t like people as that they tend not to like me. That’s been true since I was a small child. And though adults have developed ways to hide their mean thoughts, the fact still remains that few of them seem to think other than mean thoughts about me. I’ve never learned why or what I do to alienate people, but one thing’s clear: I wasn’t born to live in polite society. So I’m really, really put off at the prospect of having to jump into anything dubbed “social.”

Oh well. The Twitter thing is up, and in just a few hours the girls have already got sixteen followers!!

Tomorrow I’ll work on building them a Facebook page, and I see we now finally have something called a Goodreads Author Page. So the other thing I’ll have to do tomorrow is figure out what that is and how to make it work.

And THEN and then and then… By the first part of next week (sooner if possible), we’ll have a BIG GIVEAWAY CONTEST to choose stage names — noms de blog? — for the Racy Ladies. I figure to run this through Camptown Ladies Talk, and to offer the first-prize winner a choice of 1 PG-13-rated Fire-Rider story, or our first X-rated Camptown Races Press book, or a hard copy of How I Lost 30 Pounds in Four Months. If we have a second and a third prize, I think those folks will get our choice of a free book.

Maybe I can get my hands on an Amazon gift card, too.

LOL! The belly has been so upset over the past few weeks, I’ve made an appointment with my old high-powered gastroenterologist, thinking something real was wrong.

But no. Now that the worst of all that is done — or at least launched to sea — suddenly I feel fine. It must have been stress.

Oh, how I wish I could farm the marketing out to some stronger soul! Maybe after I’ve become a rich old porn queen, I’ll be able to afford a real, live marketing agent!

😀