Happy Sunday everyone!
Sunday’s for me, have their true meaning again. A day of rest, the second day off, the day before work.I am now working Monday to Friday and have weekends off! Pretty exciting 🙂 I can go to the local markets again, and spend more time with my family and boyfriend. But the best thing of all:
More structure to my week.
Last year I had weekends off as well and was working relatively the same number of hours. However for most of this year I had an ever changing roster. My shifts were different and many were at odd hours. I found it hard to keep a structured writing routine as I did in 2013 when my work hours were Mon-Fri 9-5.
Now that my day job has reverted to these hours I should be able to concentrate on writing my version of morning pages.
A great post landed itself into my inbox by my favourite blog Terribleminds. The post is about how to motivate yourself as a writer, and one of the things the author, Chuck, writes about is putting writing first. Now this doesn’t mean it should be the absolute first priority of your existence, he means literally the first thing you do in the day.
You’ve got a full time job? Or even a part time one like me where I work five days a week. No problem, just get up an hour before you usually would to dedicate to writing.
I work in an office doing all types of brain totaling administration work. It’s hard coming home to stare at another computer screen especially when you don’t have a boss motivating you. I’d much rather go home and do something physical, like poling or horseriding, or something that means I can zone out like watching TV.
That means you need to write either after dinner or in the morning before work. I am choosing to write before work because when I wake up I’m motivated. If I actually get out of my lovely warm comfortable bed its for a damn good reason.
My mind is fresh and I can write before my brain has it’s effort for the day taken out of it.
This doesn’t mean I show up to work brain dead. Quite the opposite. I show up to work in a more sunny mood (sometimes I’m slightly peed off I had to stop writing to go to work, but hey weekly pay check!). I feel like I’ve actually accomplished something and it’s only just hitting 9am. I feel like I can achieve so many more awesome thing during the day now.
I also don’t have guilt weighing me down, shrieking to me, “you didn’t write at all yet!!”
You can read Chuck Wendig’s post about How To Motivate Yourself As A Writer here.
How is my editor going you ask?
Well thank you 🙂 We are continuing to email at least once every two days, and she’s asking me all these questions I’ve never given much thought about like “Australianisms” and page numbers.
Of course I’d thought about page numbers, but I’d always assumed that’s something the publisher would add in. My editor asked if I’d like them in the centre, right, left…I had no idea! In the end I said centre.
She hopes we will be finished editing by Christmas, but my gut tells me there is more I can add to my novel. I know, I know, this is things I should have thought about before, but taking time away from it, then reading it quickly before sending it to her…
I’ve noticed things I want to change. It will be interesting to see what she says when she’s finished. If there are things she thinks I should change, and whether they match up with what I think needs changing.
Social Media
I posted onto my Facebook page the news about obtaining an editor. It was an interesting exercise to see if the people who liked my page when I first put it, still saw things. I did get three comments from people who don’t usually like my posts. I’m not sure if that’s just because the post got heaps of likes therefore was more visible in everyone’s news feed, or if they do get every post and don’t find a reason to like them. I might have to ask some questions and get some responses. Maybe a Facebook Friday, asking lots of book & write related questions.
I’ve been consistently getting more likes and followers on Instagram because of the book meme’s I post. Tags are important. It is easier to reach more people with tags. I would recommend everyone uses tags relating to what they are posting, on every social media type that uses them. It really puts you out there in the crowded internet.
I’ve been Tweeting a little more and received one new follower. Yay 🙂 I aim to go on Twitter more regularly. Maybe when I get home from work and want to dedicate my time to something writing related but don’t have the brainpower for writing I can scroll through Twitter and get involved.
How Googleable Am I?
I really love Googling myself each week. It is super interesting to see where I am in the scale of things.
For the combination Jo Carter…
Oh my god guys! I am on the front page. First link is to Facebook profiles, Jo Carter and I am there. The second is a pinterest board which isn’t mind, and the third… drum roll … is my blog! Yay 😀
But to make sure I wasn’t dreaming I went onto my mum’s laptop and Googled Jo Carter. I wasn’t there 😦 It was Facebook profiles Jo Carter and the nothing.
Google was customizing itself to me. It realised that I go onto my sites the most and put them up front. Disappointment! I thought I was getting somewhere.
Now all you internet smart people are probably snickering at me for thinking I could see how Googleable I am every week.
But I have a plan! I’m going to ask different people to Google me every week to get an unbiased result. If you’d like to be one of those people you can comment below, or contact me on my contact page! You can find the link in the menu at the top of the page 🙂 I’d love to do it for you too 🙂
This week I asked one of my best friends: John Britten. He always, always, supports my writing. As well as my cousin, he’s the first person I go to about writing related issues, outbursts, support, motivation, and help. Mainly because he’s only about ten minutes away from replying to my messages, but also because he gives me good straight forward advice and isn’t afraid to disagree with me.
When John Googled “Jo Carter” he got to page 30 and there was nothing. THIRTY. 30, thirty…God that is heaps bad. I’ve been totally deluding myself. When he Googled “Jo Carter Writer” I was on the first page. Of course. I wonder how important URL’s are in being able to Google yourself. As my URL has writer in it maybe that doesn’t help. I will have to research and find a way to get myself on Google.
A Newsletter coming in 2015!
I’ve been thinking about this idea for a few days after listening to Allison Tait & Valerie Khoo mention their newsletters during an Australian Writers’ Centre podcast. All of these ideas kept popping into my head about what I could include, and the ideas range from helpful to entertaining. Here’s some of my ideas:
- Top Five Writing Articles found on the web
- Social Media Tip
- Author interview
- Book reviews
- Book cover competition
- Book meme’s
- My personal writing highlight for the month
What would you like to see in a newsletter? Would you like to be included in the newsletter mailout? Tell me in the comments below or contact me via my contact page.
It would be on a monthly basis, so everything listed above would be monthly.
I have a contact page now!
Finally! I’ve been thinking about putting one up for WEEKS and just never got around to it. I’ve got a contact form on it to send me an email & all my social media details.
The next task I need to do is put social media buttons on. I talk so much about it and yet where are my buttons?
In the meantime if you’d like to contact me on social media head to my contact page on the menu above for all the links etc.
That’s it for another Social Media Sunday! Thanks for joining me again, I like being able to reflect about the week, and share my ideas, thoughts and feelings with everyone 🙂
Don’t be afraid to drop me a line via comment, social media, or my new shiny beautiful wonderful contact page!
Jo Carter 😀 x
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