I’m back! Did you miss me? Did anything exciting happen during the week I was gone?

Before my vacation week, I was already in full blown holiday planning mode. Not surprisingly, I still am. It’s already September 12^th, and I’m not really sure how that freaking happened.

Now, if you’re trying to be a full time writer, you’ve got to get used to being frugal. I spent some time recently figuring out what kind of money I’d have to make writing to quit my day job and guys, it’s not pretty. So I’m working on reigning in my lifestyle, so that I can more comfortably write full time.

The holidays have a way of messing of the best of budgeters. For someone like me, who has little self-control in the best of times, the holidays can easily spiral out of control. It’s happened more years than I’d like to admit. Especially when my monsters were itty bitty. I wanted so badly to have a ton of prettily wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree, the perfect store bought Halloween costume, and brand new dishware for Thanksgiving.

I’m thirty now, and my monsters are twelve. I don’t want to say that I’m smarter, just more realistic. So, here’s what I’ve done to lower the financial hit of the holidays.

Activities, not gifts.

In my house, we’re big movie and tv fans. I capitalize on this. During Halloween, my monsters are pumped for horror movies, a TreeHouse of Horror Marathon and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We make warm apple cider in the crock pot (pour in apple cider, add cinnamon and a splash of vanilla. Let cook until warm. For adults only, add some spiced rum). Thanksgiving has its own Charlie Brown movie, and some other fun crafts.

• We take a small tree branch, and hang it with the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving dinner. Strings of popcorn and toast. The monsters get the jellybeans and pretzels. Even at twelve, the kids love this.
• Cooking Thanksgiving dinner is a whole family event, with everyone making their own signature dishes.
• Everyone writes on a piece of paper what they’re thankful for. We take turns pulling them out of a mason jar and guessing who’s is who’s.

Then there’s Christmas! There is just no limit to the Christmas events that cost little to no money.

• Baking cookies.
• Decorating the house.
• Putting up the tree.
• Buying gifts for Toys for Tots (even on our brokest years, we’ve gone to Dollar Tree and gotten something to put in the box)
• Opening crackers on Christmas eve.
• All of the Christmas books to read together.
• All of the Christmas movies to read together.

I am totally confidant that we could have no gifts, and everyone in my house would still be excited for Christmas.

Potluck holidays

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do this for Thanksgiving. Everyone brings a dish, and there’s a ton of food without beggaring any one family. But, please, consider taking this further.

• If you’ve got a lot of friends with little kids, or live somewhere trick or treating isn’t safe, have a bunch of people bring candy and host a little indoor trick or treat.
• Have everyone in the family make (or buy) different kinds of cookies for a holiday party.
• Don’t get touchy when your mother in law wants to make the stuffing. You don’t have to buy stuffing if she makes it, and it will make her happy.
• If you celebrate Christmas, have everyone buy a bunch of little gifts In bulk, and swap with each other for stocking stuffers.

I’m sure you can think of a lot of things that can be ‘potlucked’ for the holidays. I’d love to hear them in the comments section below.

Homemade gifts, décor and costumes

I am a Pinterest fanatic, and I honestly don’t believe there’s a thing I can’t make. I knit, crochet, sew, do origami and love mason jars like nothing else.

These are not things that you can’t learn! Check out a YouTube video and crochet a hat and bootie set for your friend with a newborn. Spray paint some mason jars and stick fall flowers in them for Thanksgiving centerpieces. Make your kids Halloween costumes. They’ll probably turn out better anyway, and the kids will have a blast helping. If you can’t do anything else, use some construction paper and make paper bats and snowflakes. Trust me, you’ll have way more fun this way.

Check The Cheap Sites

Wish.com, Ebay, Amazon, even Craigslist can all be great places to get good stuff cheap. I have gotten some awesome stuff online for the holidays. Especially as the monsters are getting older and want more expensive things. I can find Halloween makeup, costume accessories, and nifty decorations.

You can also use sites to get stuff in bulk! So, if you’re good at storing things, you can buy things that aren’t going to go bad this year, and have it for next year.

Don’t think I’ve left out cheap stores, by the way. Dollar Tree is great for decorations, little gifts, candy, and wrapping paper. I start there before I go anywhere else.

The power of holiday cards/ Not everyone needs a gift from you.

I don’t buy gifts for a lot of people. In fact, here’s a list of people I do buy for.

• My kids
• My pets (but that’s actually for the kids)
• My husband
• My mother and mother in law
• My grandmother
• My friends that have children, and I’m going to explain this one. People with kids get shit upon during the holidays. We do all this work for our kids to make the holiday for our kids, our in laws, our whole family. And I don’t know about you, but I went three years without a Christmas gift after my daughter was born. I didn’t want a lot, but hell a box of cheap candy would have been touching. So I make the effort to remind my new parent friends that they are still people deserving of love and gifts.

That’s not a lot of people. But I have a lot of friends, both in and out of my day job. And I’m a sentimental, giving person who likes to take opportunities like holidays to show people that I love them.

So I give out cards with little festive chocolates, and call it a day. It’s a small thing, but it’s enough to show that I care. And I’m always, by the way, touched by a holiday card. They make me feel loved.

Rebate sites

If you must buy a gift, and you can’t find it on one of the cheap sites, try to get it through a rebate site. I use Ebates, and I make back a tiny fraction of the money that I spend on stuff that way. Usually I just use this to order grocery items from Walmart, but the holidays are when it really pays off.

Plan ahead

And that’s why I’m talking about all of this in September. None of this works if you don’t plan ahead. Plan as early as you can, and get as much done ahead of time as you can. I already have my Halloween game plan, and the Monsters have already told me what they want so that I can get their costumes together. (One wants to do a cross gender cosplay of the Tenth doctor. I am really glad that I have two months to pull that together for a twelve year old. Where do I find a brown trench coat in her size?!)

I also take huge advantage of after holiday sales. I pick up Halloween items in November, stock up on evaporated milk and Thanksgiving decorations in December, and all of the Christmas stuff in January. I got a ton of Christmas lights last year, and I’m looking forward to unpacking them. If you’re the sort who’s good at keeping track of things, and if you’ve got the storage space, do this!

If you missed it, don’t forget to check out my post about keeping to your writing routine during the holidays.

And don’t forget to check us out on Wednesday, for the launch of Seeming!

It’s finally September! I love this time of the year more than any other time. There’s all sorts of good things to look forward to, all the good horror movies are on tv, the holidays are just a breath away. But it’s also the craziest time of the year at my house. Here’s a list of my obligations over the next four months.

• The darling husband and I need to weather proof our house, unless we want $300 gas bills.
• With Christmas (and higher gas bills) I’m picking up extra hours at the day job.
• School’s back in, which means lots of time helping with homework. And by helping, I mean making sure it gets done.
• Planning Halloween.
• Co-coordinating Thanksgiving. I cook two things, but somehow I’m always the one deciding who’s cooking what at whose house and what time we’re eating. At least I’m not in charge of the dishes.
• Christmas planning. Cards, decorations, gifts, cooking, cleaning. Bullet through my head if I hear Santa Baby one more time.
• The darling husband’s birthday is in December, and I try to make him feel special. Too many times, his birthday got lost in the carols and Christmas cookies.
• The election doesn’t cause any extra work for me, but it does cause extra stress for me. Lots and lots of stress.
• I’m publishing two books in the next four months. At least I’m trying to, because I’m a bloody idiot. But, ‘self-published four books in 2016’ just sounds way too awesome to not at least try.
• I also have a list of 2016 goals that still need done. The biggest is finishing Starting Chains.
• Oh, and we’re still going on vacation at some point. (Great thing about cyber school, we can go on vacation whenever.)

And, of course, this is all happening on top of the everyday. The laundry and the cleaning, walking the dog and checking the email. None of that goes away during a hectic season, it just gets harder to find the time.

This will all end eventually. January will come and I’ll be catching my breath, sweeping glitter out of corners and fighting seasonal depression. For now, though, my hands are more than busy. I’m excited and a little overly caffeinated.

You might be too. A lot of people start September feeling a little overwhelmed. Changes are your list looks a lot like mine. And if you’ve worked all year to make a writing routine, you just can’t let the last quarter of the year rip your dreams apart.

Here’s what I do, to make sure my writing (not to mention my self-care and sanity) don’t get lost in the craziness this time of year.

Schedule everything!

I’m not kidding. I’ve gone into detail about what planners I use before, so I won’t bore you with that. Seriously, though, schedule it all! Schedule grocery shopping, charging your phone, shopping for holiday stuff, everything.

Most importantly, for our purposes, schedule writing time. It’s a lot harder to stick to that scheduled time this time of year, when I’m needed to plan Halloween costumes or research papers, which is why scheduling it is important. If the only time I’m going to have in a day is from 6:30 to 7:00 in the morning, I need to know that at least the day before. But knowing is the difference between a productive half hour and a wasted one.

Only plan with people who respect your time

Look, I know this is a sore spot for a lot of people during the holidays. You’ve got family you want to see, and spend time with. Or maybe you’ve got family you feel obligated to see and spend time with.

I bet, and I might be wrong but I don’t think I am, you have at least one friend or family member who will not respect your time. This is the person who doesn’t take your writing or your time in general, seriously. Maybe they have this bad habit during the rest of the year, but it’s really glairing during this busy season.

If I can be real with you for a minute, you deserve better treatment than what you’re getting from that person. You are (probably) a grown up and you have a right to say no to people who don’t respect your time. You are allowed to say, “I am writing during that time,” or “I am too busy to do that.” Hell, you are more than allowed to say no and give no explanation if you don’t want to.

Maybe the person you’re dealing with is doing something a little worse. They’re making plans with you without giving any thought to what you want or need. Don’t deal with these people. Tell these people, lovingly, that they need to treat you like an adult and deal equally with you. If that doesn’t work, try it not so lovingly.

Write everything down (Another rally cry for bullet journaling)

It never ceases to amaze me how much my brain moves. I jump from topic to topic, idea to idea. It’s like someone else is in control of my mind, and they’re on cocaine. Sometimes this is awesome, because I come up with great story ideas. Most of the time it blows, because I get the best story ideas while trying to maneuver Walmart on a Friday afternoon.

I cannot stress to you enough what a lifesaver my bullet journal is. That way, no matter what bolt from the blue comes to me I can write it down and not lose it. This time of year, that can range from “I want to make sure I pickle eggs this weekend so we’ll have them when my mother in law comes over,” to “Oh, this is the best blog post idea ever!” The worst lie we tell ourselves is ‘I will remember this, I don’t need to write it down.’ No, you won’t remember and yes, you do need to write it down.

Start now

Right now, if you can. If you know that October through December are crazy time for you, do what you can right now. Get your Halloween plans made, costumes bought. Don’t wait until the last minute, even if you have little ones. Especially if you have little ones. Start as early as you can. Imagine how awesome it will be to be looking for turkey recipes while everyone else is scrambling for candy corn. Even better, imagine being done with Christmas shopping and kicking back with a peppermint mocha while everyone else is losing their minds looking for ‘that one gift’.

Work smarter or an ounce of planning

For example, I hate shopping for essentials. I don’t like going to stores during the holidays, and I’m less inclined to impulse buy online. So, I’ve been ordering my non food groceries online, and having them delivered to the house. This also forces me to consider what I’m about to be out of, and order accordingly.

There are countless ways to make your chores easier that just take a little forethought. Long days can be made easier with dinner prepared in the crock pot the morning of. Doubling recipes and freezing the extras is an easy way to save time now with little extra effort at the time. Doing the dishes the night of, not the next day, is always easier.

Take some time, and think about what you have to do in a day, and what you can do to make it happen easier.

When prioritizing, put self-care first

My days are nuts this time of year. I’ve got mile long to do lists, and little time to get it done. Lots of things I’d like to be doing, I don’t get to do.

But there are certain things I do every day, no matter how busy I am.

• I put my makeup on, because it makes me feel more confident all day. Even if it’s just a little primer and eyeliner, it makes me feel like I’m ready for the day.
• I sit down for all three of my meals, without work of any kind. I read, or talk to my family. I focus on the pleasure of my meal.
• I meditate for at least 5 minutes in the morning.
• I go to bed early enough to get eight hours of sleep, which means going to bed eight and a half hours before I need to get up.
• I take at least fifteen minutes a day to read.

I’ve said this before and I’m not the first person to say it. You can’t pour from an empty cup. If you want to take care of your family, you’ve got to take care of you first, and this can’t stop because you’re busy. This goes double if you have kids, because they learn from you how to behave. So if they see you taking time for self-care every day, they will do that too. So, whatever you do to recharge, do it even on your busiest days.

Plan your down time

I don’t crash, I land. I know there’s a time of the day when I am done being productive. I am used up, and nothing decent will come of any work after that.

It took me almost 30 years to realize that pushing past that point does me no good. Work done after that point will be poor, rushed, and often require hours of fixing.

I plan for that. I know that, usually around 7:00 in the evening, I’m going to focus on dinner, my family, and binge watching The Simpsons. During the holidays I might do some low impact things like sending out Christmas cards. But I don’t ask a lot of myself at that point.

Progress is progress

I really do live my life in minutes. You have to, if you’re going to get anything done. And there are days year round when I have fifteen minutes to devote to writing, if that.

But I take those minutes. If I get no more than fifteen minutes every day for a week, I’ve still written for an hour and 45 minutes. If I have to do it for a whole month, as I sometimes do in December, that’s still almost eight hours of committed time. If that seems like a really small amount of time to you, you’re right. But you want to know a secret.

Eight is still more than zero.

Let’s all take a deep breath, and finish 2016 strong.

By the way, next week is my yearly scheduled PBW vacation. There will be no posts next week, but I’ll see you back here on Monday, September 12, ready to start Year 3!

I’ve been talking about it since January, and you all have been very patient. Finally, today, I’m ready to reveal my secret project.

I’ve written a science fiction novella, and I’m going to publish it here on Paper Beats World for all of you.

This will be the first of a series, of course, because I can’t ever just write ‘a’ book. The series is called Station 86. The first story, which will begin on September 14th, will be called Seeming.

If you just can’t wait, and as a special birthday present to all of you, I’ve included a spoiler below.

By the way, if you want to enter to win a free copy of either Days, and Other Stories or 30 Days, 30 Ideas, here’s three ways to enter.

1. Comment on this post. Anything will do.
2. Go to Facebook, and watch for my post today asking for comments.
3. Go to Twitter, and watch for my tweet today asking for comments.

Good luck!

And now, meet Sennett.

The transit wasn’t as busy as most mornings. Sennett managed to find a seat, and settled in to nibble on her breakfast and try to distract herself with her news feed. It didn’t work, but it gave her somewhere to look besides into the frightened faces of her fellow passengers.

An older man sat down next to her. “Ma’am?” he asked, “Excuse me, Ma’am?”

“Help you?” Sennett asked, looking up.

“You’re a peace officer, right?” he asked.

“That’s what my badge says,” Sennett said.

“Right,” he said, “Do you know anything? About what’s going on, I mean.”

“Only what everyone else knows,” she said, taking a bite of her hatsu.

“Oh, okay. So, um, should we be worried? I mean, do we know who attacked the councilwoman?”

Sennett sighed. “Sir, we live in a great big station hanging in the middle of space. On that station, every day, we hunt down thieves, loan sharks, killers and your garden variety asshole who just wants to get drunk and punch someone. The only difference today is that the person who was killed was someone we all know. So, I think, we shouldn’t be anymore worried today than we are any other day.”

“Oh,” the man said. He got up to find another seat.

Join Sennett, Godfrey and Station 86 on September 14 for Episode One of Seeming.

We’re coming up fast on the two year anniversary of Paper Beats World. It’s amazing to think I’ve stuck with it that long, but I have. I’ve got to say, I’m pretty impressed with me. If you knew my history, you’d be pretty impressed with me, too.

Of course, it probably helps that PBW is nothing like it was when I first started out. I basically don’t write any of the columns that I started out writing, and I do so many things I never thought I was going to be doing here. But that’s one of the great things about a blog format. It can be a living, breathing entity in ways that other mediums just can’t. Here are just a few of the things that have changed in the last two years as PBW has grown.

The background, a lot

I am, far too often, changing the form from one thing to another. If I had the time I would change the theme every week. I think that would irritate people, so it’s probably a good thing that I can’t do that. It took me awhile to find a theme that looked professional, and also showed off my newfound love of images to good effect. I think I’ll stick with this one for a while, though. It’s working for me.

The content

I have tossed and added a lot of columns over the last two years. I used to write columns about websites for writers, poetry columns, charities in need of help and markets that you could send your work to. These dropped off for numerous reasons. No one was reading them, I was bored writing them. I wanted more flexibility in what I was presenting to you guys.

In this, I got a pretty big surprise. Since I’ve been posting my stories here, I’ve been getting a huge response from all of you. I can’t tell you how touched I am by the response. I have some awesome things planned for you guys because of it.

The schedule

I was a little stupid, starting out. I used to write literally five columns a week, most of which were time consuming and frustrating. I didn’t like what I was writing, it was taking time from my fiction work and stressing me the hell out. None of that was good for me or you. I figured that my website hits would go way down when I dropped two days. I was wrong, they went up. I think it’s because the content got better, even as the quantity went down. It probably helped that I wasn’t dreading writing my weekly posts. Just saying.

Me

Finally, I’m a different person than I was two years ago. Back then I was clinging to my book for dear life, praying that I could stay afloat. Now, I have hope for the future. I have two published books (that you can buy right here) I’ve written three novels, one novella, and a ton of short fiction. I have a game plan for my book if it gets traditionally published, or if it doesn’t. I have confidence that I can make it on my own if I need to.

One thing that hasn’t changed is how awesome I feel about this blog. I love reading your blogs, and I love it when you all give me feedback here. It reminds me, as I’ve said before, that I’m a citizen of Planet Earth, in all of it’s crappy, shiny glory.

Thank you.

I hate summer, except for the movies. My goodness, do I love summer movies. It’s the only reason nerds like me get out of the house during the summer. Well, that and jobs. But if I didn’t need food…

Anyway, I’m sure it’s not a surprise to any of you that I am a huge Star Trek fan. I have seen every movie, and at least a few episodes of any show. My favorite Captain is Picard, Next Generation is the best series, and my favorite of the movies is First Contact.

I think it’s safe to say that I loved Star Trek Beyond. But I think I can safely say that even non trekkies will agree that it was a very good movie.

The story is solid, which is where everything needs to start. It had a beat to it, a flow that worked really well. An enemy named Krall kidnaps the majority of the Enterprise crew, leaving only the major players like Spock, Kirk, Bones and Scotty free. They’re stranded on a strange planet, having no idea who’s kidnapped them or what they want.

As it turns out, what they want is an artifact called the abronath that is part of a bioweapon big enough to wipe out a whole space station. Like the space station called Yorktown, which happens to be the home of Sulu’s husband and daughter.

The first thing that jumped out at me for this movie was the flow of danger. First, the whole crew is in danger. Then, just one person, who Kirk must save at great risk. Finally, the whole station of Yorktown, which we particularly care about, of course. This was a great way to keep tension fresh throughout the movie.

Now, of course, a lot of this is dependent on seeing the first two movies and being emotionally invested in the characters. That shouldn’t be an issue, you want to see the first two. Which brings me to my next point. This movie is a really good continuation of the first two ‘new’ Star Trek movies. There are moments that are throwbacks to earlier in this series, like Beastie Boys Sabotage playing at a crucial scene. But you don’t really need to see those movies to enjoy this one. It’s fine standing alone. Seeing the first two just adds a deeper understanding to this one.

Likewise, you don’t have to be a long term trek fan to appreciate the new series. But it adds something. There are moments that made me lose my geeky little mind, like when the Enterprise crashed and burned. (Not a spoiler, it was in the freaking trailer!) Or when Spock is given a box of the other Spock’s belongings that included a picture of his Enterprise team. I literally started crying at that.

I also cried during the very memorable speech for ‘Spock’ that was obviously for Leonard Nimoy. It was touching as hell, and just reminded me how much the acting world lost when it lost him.

Finally, I understand that there’s been some fuss over Sulu being gay in the new movie. I don’t want to get too far into this particular fight except to say this. Anyone complaining about continuity needs to stop. Spock wasn’t dating Uhura in the original Star Trek, either. Kirk’s dad is alive, Captain Pike is in a beeping chair, and Vulcan is still there. Get over it.

I’ve been trying to find an agent for Broken Patterns since November. I understand that this is going to take some time. In fact, I planned on it taking up to three years.

But I recently started a new strategy. I’m still sending to agents, but I’m also actively looking for independent publishers that are more open to un-agented material. As I mentioned in a post last week, it’s been a really good experience. Honestly, I can count on one hand the list of ‘bad’ experiences I’ve had as a writer, so I’m not surprised.

As indie writers are becoming more prevalent, and indie publishers are getting clout, I’m sure some of you have considered this alternate path. If you have, you want to keep in mind that there are similarities and differences between an indie and a bigger company. Here’s what I’ve found so far.

The Similarities

What you need to keep in mind is that an indie publisher is still a publisher. They’re still professionals in a highly competitive field that gets more competitive every day.

Don’t waste their time, any more than you would waste the time of a bigger company. In fact, go farther out of your way to not waste their time, if you can. What can you do, you may ask, to not waste their time?

• Check their submission guidelines. Don’t send them genre fiction of they don’t want it. Don’t send them info through the mail of they only accept online forms. Don’t send when they’re not reading.
• I feel like I shouldn’t have to say it, but if I don’t I’ll feel like I wasn’t thorough. Finish your book first, if you’re writing fiction. If you’re writing nonfiction, you usually just need a proposal and some sample chapters, but that’s it.
• And by finish, I mean finish. Edit, polish and get some beta readers. Make your book as good as it can be before you send it. Indie publishers are not less discerning than big publishers. They are, after all, running a business.

Along the same line, you’re still going to need a query packet. That means the query letter, synopsis and bio. The exact same information you’d need if you were submitting to an agent.

The differences

If you’re struggling to decide what path to take, this might help you make up your mind. As much as the basic mechanics of submitting are the same, it’s a totally different publishing game.

First of all, there’s a greater desire for non-genre work in an indie company. This has proven difficult for me, as I am a speculative fiction writer. But there are lots of indie publishers that want to see anything, just anything. I’ve found plenty of places to submit, but I’ve found a lot more that don’t want anything to do with anything that smacks of ‘mainstream’.

Another thing you want to keep in mind with indie publishers is that they are often small businesses, which means that they don’t have as many people doing stuff. With that being the case, it’s no wonder they have specific reading times through the year. I ran into a lot of places I think would be fantastic places for Broken Patterns, but they’re not reading now. I just put a note for myself in my planner, so I don’t miss their next reading time.

You want to remember, that indie publishers do have a few downsides. They don’t have the same relationship with book sellers as the big companies. That might mean your books show up on fewer bookshelves. But, with fewer and fewer people buying paper books, that might not be an issue.

With an indie publisher, though, you are running one big risk; the risk that they will go out of business. A lot of indie publishers fail, just like a lot of other indie companies.

Please understand, I don’t mean to frighten you away from indie publishers! I am willing to take the risk of a company falling out from under me, if it means I also get the chance to be one of the first books to make it big with a successful new company. I’ll take a lot of risks to be part of the start of something.