As I am always and forever trying to be a better version of myself, I often change up my routines. I find that some thing don’t work, or don’t work as well as new things. Sometimes I just find something new and awesome that I have to at least try to incorporate into my life. My routine also changes as my life ebbs and flows. My day job schedule changes three to four times a year. My energy waxes and wanes with the moon and season. My children’s schedules also influence mine, of course. And I’m a damn fool who signed up to assistant coach my kids volleyball team for three months.

So here are my current routines that are keeping me grounded, sane and productive. Maybe these will help you, too.

Daily when I get home list-

I think I’ve mentioned before that if I sit down after work I’m done for the day. I will lay back on the couch and fall into a black hole of tv. So I don’t let myself do this!

• I start by cleaning for 15 minutes, in whatever room needs it most. (Thank you, FlyLady.)
• Then I grab my computer and head to my office. My kids are usually busy when I first get home, so I can do a writing power hour. A big note is that I don’t do any office maintenance stuff at this time! This is a full hour on my current wip.
• After my power hour I collect my outfit for the next day, set up my coffee pot and go over my to do list. Anything not done at that point isn’t getting done until tomorrow.
• Then I park myself on my couch and do social media stuff while watching tv with my kids. The darling husband is usually making dinner around this time. Social media takes me about half an hour, and then it’s all about dinner and my family until bed.

Home Blessing Day and Office Day-

If you’re familiar with the FlyLady you know what a Home Blessing Day looks like. And if you’re not familiar with Fly Lady, Google her. Do it now, thank me later. But my list looks a little different, because I am not the homemaker in my house.

• I start out with a quick pick up of each room in my house. I find that I create specific pockets of mess. Like piling make up remover clothes on the sink. Or piling coke cans next to my seat on the couch. I take care of all of that.
• I also run a couple loads of laundry, fold them and put them away.
• Next I wash my bras and makeup brushes by hand. I, um, have large bras and they’re expensive. I do not intend to wreck them by putting them in the wash.
• One chore the darling husband hates is cleaning out the trash can. So I take it on myself to give it a quick bleach swipe every week.
• Finally I go through my morning makeup bag and freshen it. I like to change my blush and eyeliners out because I get bored with the same routine and colors.

On my Home Blessing Days I also run errands with the family. I still pick out my ‘after work’ routine, usually at about 6:00.

Finally, I have an Office Day. The problem is that my Office Days are sporadic right now. Here’s a list of things that might be on my list.

• Running to the post office to ship books.
• Making a book order.
• Scheduling, prepping for and attending book signings.
• Doing PBW batch days, which means writing a s*&$ ton of blog posts on one day.
• Building e-books.
• Sending my books to reviewers and begging polity asking them to review them.
• Catching up on writing book keeping.
• Any upkeeping I need to do on my PBW site.
• Really any random thing I’ve decided is my new way I’m going to reach new readers.

This is the only day of the week I don’t make progress on my wip. Because by the time I’ve done all that other office stuff I need some non computer time.

Planning Day List-

My planning day is usually Saturday afternoon after work. It doesn’t matter what day you do this, but I highly suggest you do all of these things once a week. Seriously, all my other things are great for me but maybe not for everyone. Everyone should do these things.

• I start out with my planner. I plan for the current week, then three weeks in advance. So, the first thing I do is decorate my planner three weeks out. I’m a big fan of stickers, washi tape and doodles. So all of that goes in my planner.
• Next I make my schedule for the week. I start with my day job schedule. Then I schedule in my kids plans. Next I plan my Home Blessing and Office Days.
• After I do that I make my to do list for the week. This is pretty self explanatory. I write it into my bullet journal, notating if I need to do a certain thing on a certain day.
• Then I sync my paper planner to my Google planner to my day job planner. I’m sure you know that sometimes an event gets in one place and not on the other.
• The next thing I do is set all of my alarms for the week. I like doing it all in one go so that I don’t have to remember that for the rest of the week.
• I also go through any mail that’s been sitting on my desk all damn week.
• Finally, I back up all of my writing for the week on Drop Box. Listen to me, Do This! Do this because you don’t want to have your computer crash and lose your project! You will want to die.

My ‘kind of’ morning routine-

I will admit that I don’t have a proper morning routine. I have to be at my day job really freaking early, so I just don’t have a lot of time.

• I start when my alarm goes off by playing my little time management game for ten minutes. The light of my tablet wakes me up in the winter when it’s still dark and makes me not dread being awake.
• After that I dress, do the whole hair and teeth brushing thing and put on my makeup. All together this takes about half an hour.
• If it’s a school day I wake the child who has an early class. Then I head downstairs, start my coffee, feed the cat and walk the dog. (The awake kid will feed the dog when she’s up.)
• I then pour my coffee in a travel mug, throw on my boots and coat and head out the door.

Of course, this whole routine depends on a solid after work routine that I shared above.

So that’s what I’m doing to stay sane during the crazy as hell season of my life right now. What are you doing to keep your mind?

We all know I am super proud of Paper Beats World. I love it to pieces and it is my home online.

I put a lot of work into making and maintaining PBW. I’ve been running it for about two and a half years now. It is, very much, the public face of my writing.

I’d like to take some time over the next few weeks to talk to you about creating your own author website. I hope it inspires you to make something you’re excited to share with the world.

Today, we’ll start with what to include on your Author’s website. This is going to depend entirely on what you want your site to do. But I think most of you want your site to do the same thing I want my site to do. Introduce people to my writing and show them where they can buy my books. Assuming you want the same, here are some things you should definitely include.

Blog

Yes, a large part of PBW is my blog. But it’s not the only part. It’s a place to begin, though. Posting blog posts does a ton of good for your writing. It introduces people to your voice, allows you to share part of you and maybe even teach people something. There’s no end to creative and awesome blog post ideas, which we’ll discuss further in a later post.

News about your writing

This is kind of a big one, obviously. You should be the first source of news for your writing. So readers should be able to find out about sales, new releases and events on your site.

Extra goodies

I post short stories, extra content from books and behind the scenes information about my books. People who just read my books don’t get that content, only PBW followers. That gives your site value to fans who want more of your writing. (Yes, you should totally give some writing away for free on your site. More on that later.)

Contact info

You don’t need to put your home address on here. I would highly advise against that, in fact. People are crazy as hell, you know. But you can put up your public social media links, or an email you don’t mind getting fan mail from. This helps readers who want to connect with you.

Links to buy books

This should be the biggest ‘well duh’ on the planet. If you have a book to sell, sell it on your Author Website! You don’t have to have a buy button if you don’t want. I just have a link to the Amazon page.

Check me out next week, when we’ll go a little further into creating your own author website.

Feel like I missed something that every author website should have? Let us know in the comments below.

I have a reading list that I keep in my Bullet Journal. Every time I hear about a book I want to read, I write it down so that I don’t forget. Since books are written at a far quicker speed than I can read them, the list gets bigger not smaller, all the time.

This is not my whole reading list, because damn is that long. I thought I’d just share the next six books I’m reading. Since there’s a whole series on the list, I’ll include them as one book. So this is actually the next nine books I’m going to read. If you guys like this, let me know and I’ll make a new reading list when I’m done with this one.

Clockwork Princess, by Cassandra Clare

I’m almost done with Clockwork Prince right now. I have to say, the writing leaves something to be desired. But the story is boss! I definitely recommend the whole Infernal Devices series to you.

All The Wrong Questions, by Lemony Snicket

I loved Series of Unfortunate Events. I read all the books, then read them to my children, then read them again just because. I loved the first season on Netflix, by the way. Check it out if you get a chance.

That being said, I don’t know how it took me so long to find out that there was a prequel series! I just got the first two, cannot wait to dig into them.

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S Lewis

I don’t often talk about my faith, but yes I am a Christian. I have always wanted to read this, so when I saw it second hand I grabbed it like a rat grabs pizza.

Falling Kingdoms, by Morgan Rhodes

I found this while shuffling through the fantasy section, and just couldn’t set it back down. I haven’t started reading it yet, but I keep stopping myself from starting it. I let myself get into a bad habit of starting books when I’m not done with the last one. Bonus, it’s the start of a series.

The Name Of The Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Confession, time, I’m a bad friend. You know how I just explained that I haven’t started Falling Kingdoms because I don’ want to get distracted and stop reading the book I’m in? That’s what happened with Name of The Wind. I was given this book as a wonderful gift by my friend and her husband in Christmas 2015! I got halfway through, loved it, then I don’t even remember what happened. But I obviously got distracted and now it’s 2017. If you’re reading this book, beloved but unnamed friend, I’m sorry. I’m getting to it, I promise.

The White Dragon, by Ann McCaffrey

I read the first two Dragonriders of Pern books and really enjoyed them. The problem is that I read most books on my tablet, and I had this in this big huge three book hard cover monstrosity that is A. hard to carry around and B. impossible to read while walking. It’s just not a convenient book to read, is what I’m saying.

I’ll go ahead and start these books so that they are the next six that I read on my list.

What’s on your reading list right now? I’d love to know. Please tell us in the comments section. And if you want to read along with me, check out my social media links. I always share what I’m reading there.

I’ve been reading a lot of business blog posts recently. One thing that keeps popping up on nearly every one of them is a simple but powerful practice.

Figuring out your ideal client or customer.

ByRegina talked about it, Lisa Jacobs talked about it.

I’m not going to talk about it, though. Why? Because for the most part we don’t deal with customers. We deal with readers.

Books don’t work like a service or a product. You can’t scan a demographic and write to them. Even if you could, it would be a bad idea. You should write what you want to write, or it’s gonna be DOA anyway.

But these Ideal Customer practices did give me great inspiration. So I decided to make a list for you. It’s an Ideal Reader list. This isn’t designed to help you cater your story to a specific person. Only certain aspects of your writing style, word choice and marketing.

• What age is your ideal reader? Are they going to be comfortable with, um, adult situations coming up? Are their parents going to lose their minds if they catch them reading cuss words?
• What education level? Writing to a certain reading or education level is important. While I’m never a fan of dumbing myself down, I also don’t need to use language that is likely to go over most people’s heads. Unless the character who’s speaking would and there’s someone else to explain it. Fun fact, did you know most newspapers in America are written to a 3rd to 5th grade level? True story.
• Where do they hang out online? Important if you want to do advertising.
• Where do they hang out in the real world? Important if you want to do advertising that doesn’t involve the internet.
• What else do they read? Not so you can mimic, so that you can understand.
• What shows and movies do they like? Same as above..
• How are they most likely to read your book? So that you can focus your attention. A lot of fantasy readers, I’m finding, like the weight of an actual book. So I need to make sure to advertise that you can get my book in physical form
• How are they most likely to hear about you? Their friend? Scrolling through social media? Wandering into a coffee shop or book store? You should be where they will see you.

I hope these questions have given you a little more perspective on your ideal reader.

How much do you worry about ideal readers? Is it a concern when you’re writing, or when you’re marketing?

Hi, my name is Nicole, and I’m a feminist. Shocking, I know. Especially with my Mormon/Catholic upbringing. As such, I was excited about the Women’s March. All over America, women stood up and said that we will fight for equality. We will fight to keep the rights we already won. Lots of women and men that I have a ton of respect for showed up and stood up.

But as so often happens with feminism, there was a backlash. Specifically, there was a backlash from women who were not involved in the movement. With all due respect, and without naming any names, let me give you the gist of their concerns.

How dare we, as American women who are for the most part safe, well cared for and free, complain about our situation? There are women in other countries who know the real meaning of oppression. These women would be grateful for our lives. We should be grateful for our lives.

I am grateful for my life. I also support global feminism that aims to better the lives of our sisters all around the world. That doesn’t mean that the struggles we face as American women are lessened.

We have a right to be angry, but I want to go beyond that. We have an obligation to fight for total equality and total control of our own bodies. We owe that to our daughters. I will not settle for more freedom than some women have. I demand total equality and freedom. I’m no willing to compromise on this topic.

Of course, this issue is not just found in Feminism. It’s everywhere.

“Don’t complain about your job, there are lots of people who would love to have it.”

Well, maybe you should strive to get a job you like more, and let one of those people have the one you have now.

“Don’t complain about seasonal depression. Lots of people are in far worse conditions.”

That doesn’t make you feel better on the days your down.

“Don’t complain about your living space. There are homeless and hungry people on the street.”

But your home is not a source of joy for you, and you should try to do better for yourself and your family if you can.

I’m sure you can think of more examples.

Please, I’m begging you not to do this to yourself. If you’re feeling pain, feel it. Don’t tell yourself that you don’t have a right to feel that because someone else has it worse. Someone always has it worse. Your emotions are never wrong. Sometimes your response to those emotions can be, that’s true. But the emotions themselves are honest and you should listen to them.

At the same time, don’t do the opposite to other people. Don’t belittle their pain because you think yours is worse. It might feel worse, but that’s because you don’t know what theirs feels like.

So if you feel like something in your life is an injustice, unfair or just wrong, do what you can to fix it. Fix whatever is causing you pain in your life. Don’t ever let someone tell you that you should suck it up because someone has it worse.

Someone always has it worse. That does not discredit my pain. It only inspires me to help us both.

When in your life has someone made you feel guilty for feeling pain?

Everyone seemed pretty happy about my Social Media for writers series. So, I decided to keep the party going for a little while longer. I wanted to take a look at how we as writers present ourselves to the world. Of course, many of us rely on our blogs.

I wanted to start this series out by talking about SEO. (That stands for search engine optimization if you don’t know.) Here’s the problem though. Someone I love already wrote everything I wanted to say about the subject!

Here is a link to the website By Regina. Read this SEO post first, then come back to me.

Back? Awesome. Now let’s talk about what you don’t want to do when using SEO.

Don’t use misleading titles

Funny story. I wrote a piece about a poetry form called burlesque. I posted it and didn’t think much about it. Then every single time I checked my monthly stats, I was seeing that post. I didn’t realize how insane it was until I realized that it made my most popular posts of 2015 and 2016!

It’s not because it’s a super amazing post, you guys. It’s because the word burlesque is in the title.

I don’t know how many people found that post because they wanted to write a new poetry form and how many people found it because they were looking for something risque. Since I do pay attention to my most popular posts and use them to guide what topics I talk about, it’s not helping me!

I also worry that people found my blog that didn’t want to be here. And the whole point of using SEO is to help people find you who want to be on your site.

Now, I did that by accident. I know some people do that on purpose. How do I know? Because I am an internet dweller and have ended up clicking on a title that I was interested in,only to find a post that I have no interested in. You know what, it pissed me off. I didn’t want to have anything to do with that post anymore.

Don’t forget your image!

A long time ago, I was given the advice to use images with every blog post. I balked. “I’m a writer!” I whined. “I use words and language. What kind of image would I ever use for that?”

Now I use images with every single blog post. Since I’ve started doing that, my stats have gone way up. I like pretty images, they catch my eye more than just a text post. So please, if you think like I used to, that you don’t need an image on your blog post, try it. Use images on everything for one month and see if your numbers don’t go up.

Don’t use a long phrase.

The basic building block of using SEO is repeating a phrase a few times in a post. If you have a simple phrase, it’s going to be a little easier. If your line is supercalafradulisticexpialafreakinglong it’s going to be hard to make that flow smoothly. So come up with a phrase that, if searched, will bring people to your post, but is still pretty simple.

Finally, don’ shoehorn SEO in.

This is why the last ‘don’t’ is important. You are a writer. Your first concern should be creating content that is entertaining to read. If it’s secondary function is to inform, educate or persuade that’s fine. But to be entertaining is number one. There’s nothing entertaining about a clunky SEO phrase repeated a ton. It sticks out and is jarring. Even when you’re using SEO, your shouldn’t remind your reader that they’re reading.

By the way, my SEO phrase for this post was using SEO. Did you notice it before I told you, or are you now going back to count how many times I said it? If you’re doing the second, I did my job right.

If you have any technical questions about writing or blogging, please feel free to ask.

Have you ever tried to write using SEO (see, I did it again.)? Tell us about your experience.