5 Things to Make You a Happier, More Productive Human and Writer

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic, relaxing weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead. I have so very much left to do in order to be ready for Chapter.con, but I have it worked into my schedule for next week. Yay! But that's not what this post is about. Today, I'd like to give you a quick list of ten things you can do that will help you become a happier, more productive individual. Ready? Grab your coffee, and let's get going!

1. Take Care of Yourself
This might be the single most important thing you can do. If you're not functioning at 100%, you're doing yourself a disservice. Need a mental health day? Take it. Trying to find a way to not go crazy every day? Find an outlet. Do something for you each and every day.

2. Stop Stressing About What Other People Think
If there's someone you don't want to interact with, stop. No one should own you or your mental space. Don't let those people eat your time. You have more important things to do.

3. Schedule Yourself
New to the blog? You can find my tips on scheduling here. An old hat? Y'all know exactly what I'm talking about.

4. Let Things Go
Don't let others' actions nag at you, and don't beat yourself up over mistakes you've made. Apologize and move on. If that means moving past that person, go back and read number two. Let it go. Sometimes, "it" is a person.

5. Write (or be Creative) at the Same Time Every Day
This way, your muse knows when to show up. If you're asking her to pop her head in on odd days, chances are, you'll end up staring at a blank screen (or canvas) pretty often, not knowing where to go next. And if it's not working, go do something else for a minute then come back, but don't give up.

Got anything to add?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

A Free App to Help With Your Writing and Marketing Goals

Happy Friday, everyone! Ah, it's the end of the week, and you have a whole weekend of R&R to look forward to. Doesn't it feel good? To start your weekend off right, I'm going to introduce you to a tool that's A) 100% FREE and B) Amazingly helpful to get you organized (and keep you that way). Ready? Get your clicking fingers ready, and let's get going!

Allow me to introduce you to Asana. Clicking the name will take you to the website. You can sign in with your Google account. They have an iPhone app, too, so you can manage on the go!!

Here's a screenshot of my personal tasks:

This is a place where I can put all my book writing and launching information. As you can see, there's nothing on it at the moment. I'll be spending the weekend plotting timelines for my next two book launches. It will include dates to hit word counts and dates to schedule release day promotions. I'll add a project and tasks here in a few to show you how that works.

But! I also have a page for collaborative works:

We'll get to why that matters in a moment and why there are little pictures of other folks in the top, left corner. Stay with me!

Not only can you plot out your timelines, Asana will nag you via email of your incomplete tasks per your designated release date. If you want, it'll also email you when you have something coming up. It all depends on how you set up your tasks.

Let's go through one now.

As you can see, when I hover over the Add Task button, an Add Section button appears. Since I'll be scheduling two different books, I want two different sections. Click Add Section.

Fill in the relevant information.

Now, click the ellipsis in the top, right corner and select Convert to Project.

Click Convert. Pay attention to what happened on the left.

Now you can add tasks within that project with different sections like writing and marketing.
Let's do that now. First, click on the project name on the left side. Then click add section. Type in Writing, assign the task to yourself, pick a due date (completion of actually writing the book) and then click the second button that looks like a branched t with dots.

This will allow you to put in your word count goals. Be sure you set due dates and assign the tasks to yourself to get email reminders.

Fill out as many or as few as you like. I did just four so you could see what it's like.

Now, close the window and go back to the main project board. Add another section. Call it Editing and assign the task to yourself. Add all the dates you want to have edits done by (these aren't real because I haven't gotten into due dates with anyone yet... Just for show).

Keep going until you have marketing dates setup, too. You CAN overlap them with editing or writing. Don't worry. It looks like it's all truncated now, but here's where the magic happens!
Now, all your tasks are in there, and you're ready to look at the whole. Go to the top and click on My Tasks.

Boom. There's a list of everything you have coming up. If you'd like a different view, click on Calendar.

As you scroll, you'll find items you've added to your tasks in the order they're supposed to be completed. How cool is that?

Now, if you're working with other writers or people on a project of any kind, this app reallllly comes in handy. We've used it a ton with the F5 projects we've done. It helped us set due dates for everything from book trailers to marketing to writing and beyond. Each week, it also sends out a project status email that tells everyone in the group what's been done and what's left to do.

But the best part about the whole thing? IT'S FREE for up to like 10 collaborators. You can add them via email, and their photos pop up on the top left. Plus, you can sync it to your phone's calendar or export the whole thing as a CSV or print to PDF for sharing with someone else, add files to the tasks, and soooo much more. You just click the dropdown next to the project name. See?

I love it for my own stuff, and it saves trees. I hope you find it useful!

What do you think? Plan on trying it out? Let me know how it goes!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Midlife Crisis or Just a Good Idea?

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today I'm going to talk about something I've been pondering (I've been doing a lot of that, eh?). If you'd like to join in and discuss, feel free. If not, just sit back and enjoy the inner-turmoil of a nearly forty-(what?)year-old. Grab that coffee or tea, and let's get going!

As you all may know, I'm a freak about schedules. They give me order among the chaos that's life. Since about June of last year, my schedule has been all shot to hell. I blogged about a lot of it here because I needed a way to get it out/off my shoulders. Well, now, things are starting to calm down and come back to the way they should be.

So, I made a weekly schedule to accomplish some things I've been needing to do (write, business stuff with IBGW, grow a couple of my platforms, etc...) and hit it hard.

But I did something I hadn't planned for: I changed the way I eat and added an hour a day for exercise.

Yesterday, I started to think about why I did that, and I realized I'm only a week away from my fortieth birthday. Yep, that's right, I said forty. When it hit me, I had a moment of panic. There are still so many things I want to accomplish in my life. I have books out the wazoo that I want to read, write, and publish, too.

Because I have MS, this also dragged the question of how many years do I have left to do all those things? I know I don't feel like I thought a forty-year-old woman should feel. I still have the energy of a twenty-year-old cheerleader some days.

Could this be the beginning of the end, and how long will the end really take to greet me?

Thinking about that has me contemplating where I'm going with my life. Am I going to be content working on things for others forever, or do I want to dive into my work and keep breaking down conventional walls?

Was changing my eating habits just in time, or too late to make a real difference? Am I having a midlife crisis, or was all this just the sensible thing to do?

I'm a little frustrated. Like I said, there are still so many things I want to accomplish, and I feel like every tick of the clock is robbing me of another moment.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

There goes another minute of my life.

Of course, all this may be stemming from writing Utterances. I can't say a whole lot about the book right now, but I think you'll all love it when I'm done. I'm such a sucker for anything to do with the human condition and learning/surmising what makes people do the things they do and how life occurrences change the way we think.

I'm happy to say my schedule is working out fabulously though. Just look at the blog! What you can't see is that I have a clearer head, and I feel like a million bucks. Maybe it was just a good idea.

That brings me to my question of the day:
Do you ever examine your own humanity? What are your biggest goals and/or life questions? Is there anything BIG you want to accomplish before you shuffle off this mortal coil? Do you find it difficult to get a grasp on a schedule?

Talk about it!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

I Suppose You've Noticed

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I hope you're all having a fabulous week so far, and you're raring to go for the weekend. Just two more days now. Today, I'm gonna talk to you all about what's going on and why the blog has been spotty. Ready? Grab your cup of Jo, get comfy, and let's get going!

As you all know, I don't talk about my personal life very often. This will be one of those rare times. You've invested your time and interest in my blog, so I'm gonna be honest for a moment.

And, no, I'm not apologizing. Missing posts when I have so much going on isn't anything I'll ever apologize for.

So, here's the skinny:

First, my health went to hell at the end of May. I've seen so many doctors in the last two months, I'm pretty sure I've earned a badge of some kind. No, I'm not gonna go into what happened or what's going on; just know that it's an ongoing thing, and I'm still trying to find ways to balance stuff. It WILL happen, and I'd love your patience as I figure it out. 2016 can suck it.

Second, I've been doing things offline for the new F5 collaborative project. Days when I can't look at my computer screen to write or blog are spent working on things we need (details will be coming SOON). Speaking of which, if you'd like to help us when we start rolling things out, fill out this awesome Google form! Thank you in advance!



Third, I've been doing a lot of stuff around my house, and my sons have been here visiting. It's time consuming.

I'm still on track to do a lot of things I wanted to do (and committed to do) this year, but I gotta get a handle on my health first. That and my family will always be priority one.

Today's a good day, so I'm able.

Sending you all light and warm wishes on this rainy Wednesday in Georgia. :)

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Schedule - What to Expect from the Blog and Radio Show

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful 4th yesterday. I know I did! If you were here two weeks ago, you know that I spent last week thinking about what I was going to do with the blog and a re-launch of my radio show, A Daily Cup of Jo. Tomorrow will be my Utopia 2016 recap, but I'll get into the following next week. Well, no more rambling! Here's the new schedule!

• Mondays: On the radio! Highlights from the show will be posted here on the blog. Expect a book reading and discussion or review.
• Tuesdays: New author lessons. You wouldn't believe how many people don't know the basics. Devoting time to teaching all the things I assumed people knew and didn't. You old hats can probably skip these and be okay.
• Wednesdays: A new release, blitz, or other something like a guest post.
• Thursdays: On the radio! Highlights posted here. Expect news on new releases (with blurb readings) or stuff happening around the Indie author world.
• Fridays: Whatever I feel like talking about. Could be a new book from ME, or it could be random discussion. Tips and tricks for established authors will happen now and again, but it's mostly for me and my big mouth. I'll also post any book reviews I may have written on this day if I didn't do them on the air earlier in the week.

So, there you have it! Pretty exciting, eh? Yeah, it's also back to the basics of what I've been doing here since I started. Tips and books. *grin*

What do you think? Sound like we're gonna have some fun?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Organizing Life

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm just talking. It's probably a topic you're all too familiar with, so I do hope you'll read along. Ready? Let's get going!

So, as you all probably know, I reorganize my everything once a year in January. I look back over the previous year and measure what's working, what isn't, and add new things to my schedule I'd like to try.

This year killed me! I just tried to do too much. I'm not afraid to admit failure. After all, I'm only one person; I can't do everything all the time.

So, what to do about it (because I refuse to take it lying down)?

Drop back and re-group. That's all I can do. I have to nail down a schedule and stick to it like superglue.

Things I want to look at:

• My blog--Formulating a plan and a posting schedule
• My book publication schedule--I want to amp this up
• Takeovers in events--I'm looking to pair this down to one a month (they take a lot of my time and $$)
• My radio show--Figuring out content that doesn't require me to rely on other people--that KILLED me
• IBGW--Finding new avenues to promote my amazeballs team
• My downtime--Scheduling in time for me outside work
• Time, period--finding out where all mine is going, and why I can't seem to get a grip on managing it right now
• Reviews--I have a ton of books on my list to read still--gotta carve out time for those

So, there's my to-do for the week after Utopia this year. I like to set goals. *grin* Like you didn't already know that about me. haha!

Thank goodness I have a planning app! Deadlines are things I need, and clear direction is something I thrive on.

Do any of you have suggestions on how I can tackle all that (like desired content for a bookish radio show)? What about your schedule? Tell me in the comments!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

2015 in Review - 2016 Blogging Goals and Schedule

Well, happy Tuesday, everyone! If you've been a long time follower of the blog, you'll know I do a recap and goals post in January every year. Basically, I look over the last 12 months, decide what's working and what's not, and make goals for myself for the upcoming months.

2015 was a doozy! Here's what I accomplished this year:

• I published 245 posts on this blog - each blog post was an average of 300 words, for a count of over 70k.
• I held one massive event (12 Days of RR) and it was bigger than last year.
• I launched A Daily Cup of Jo to make my interviews more awesome.
• UtopYA (now Utopia) was attended in June.
• I took a position as the Utopia official blogger coordinator.
• I re-organized the blog for ease of navigation by my visitors.
• I reviewed 16 books for the 2015 Review Team (missed my goal of 20+).
• I wrote four novels - Markaza, M, Emancipation, and 7 - for a total word count of over 200k words.
• I published two writing books in a new series for kids.
• I typeset fourteen novels.
• I edited over 400k words.
• I proofread over 200k words.
• I have 58 new subscribers to this blog, and about 10 on Tumblr.

Here were my goals for 2015 (taken from last year's look back):

• Publish three novels and another anthology with the ladies of Fractured Glass.
• Attend UtopYA Con again in June.
• Publish a blog post every day (M-F) unless I let you all know otherwise.
• Write one book review per week (which should get me very close to 52).
• Keep up with my author interviews and make them bigger, badder, and more awesome.
• Find a way to launch my 12 Days of Review Requests event to the next level.
• Follow my schedule for posting to various social media sites and blogging to the Nth degree.
• Get the Review Team's posts into the hands of more readers.

In green are the ones I accomplished. Orange indicates something I did most of. Red is what I totally failed at. Totally. There is no in between place there.

So, here are my goals for 2016:

• Publish three novels and another anthology with the ladies of Fractured Glass and 7.
• Bring Emancipation into the world kicking and screaming.
• Do more to share promotion with other authors (back of book excerpts, etc...) on every book I publish.
• Write at least 20 book reviews.
• Cut off my client list at IBGW with the ones I work with now. It's getting overwhelming.
• Do more with A Daily Cup of Jo - see new schedule below.
• Hold an online workshop for authors - details to come.

There you have it. I don't reach far, and I keep my goals reachable. One of them is already done: Cut off my client list at IBGW. This will give me time to do a better job for the clients I already have and give me more time to write and focus on things I need to do.

Here's the new blog posting schedule, so you know what's coming:

• MONDAYS: I'll share news I find on Facebook and Twitter. Could be writing articles, new release information, or information about something going on in the writing world. You never know!
• TUESDAYS: Author Spotlights for NEW Indies.
• WEDNESDAYS: This is my day for writing. There will be no Wednesday posts unless it's about a new release, or cover reveal, or something else like that.
• THURSDAYS: Blogger OR Reviewer spotlight. I'll be bringing you information on bloggers and reviewers that help Indie authors.
• FRIDAYS: Whatever Jo wants. You may get a post, and you may not get a post. Again, it'll be whatever. If I write a review for a book, this is the day it'll show up.
• SATURDAYS: Daily Cup of Jo shows for the week will be highlighted.
• SUNDAYS: Nada. This is my day off all the things.

This will start next week. We'll see how it goes. As you all know, if it's not working, I'll change it.

Did you do a look back for the year and set goals for the next? What are they? Share!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

UtopYA Con 2015 Pro Sched User

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! It's time for another utopYA 2015 update! I know you're all super excited. BUT! Even if you're not going to utopYA, you can still figure out how to use Sched if an event you're attending in the future chooses to be green and save a few trees by going digital. Don't be the girl left out of the party. You'll lose out on a chance to join a huge family of like-minded creative people. Ever wanted to walk into a room and know the people there get you? Yeah, that's utopYA. So get your tickets here. Right now. The price goes up at the end of May, so don't dally!

Let's get to the info for today, shall we?

If you've been following along with the official bloggers this month, you'll know most of the ways you can use Sched to your advantage. Let's do a quick recap (links will take you to the corresponding posts):

Here on my blog, you learned how to create and update your profile. We went through connecting your social media and adding a cute profile picture.

When A Book Vacation took over, Shana taught you all how to mark things you'd like to go to, and she showed you a few awesome tips in her video.

Then, we went to The Paisley Reader. Maria walked you through syncing Sched with your phone (or freaking KINDLE)!

Today, we have the Book Junkie: Not-So-Anonymous, Ashley, walking you through how to change your ticket information and finding your friends!

By the time you get through all the posts above, you should be ready for the conference and have your reminders set so you don't miss a single panel. Have fun!

There won't be printed programs this year! Sched is what you need to learn how to use to get the most out of your experience.

What did you learn from the bloggers this month? Are you all set to go with the app?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Scheduling and Planning for Maximum Efficiency

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm sharing with you a little tip I read over on The Book Designer. If you aren't familiar with that blog, go check it out right now. Joel is a wealth of information on self publishing, book formatting, book covers, and typography. It's worth your time to browse around.

Anyway, one of the posts last week was about planning your blog posts (they were talking to market a book, I'm talking just planning). I used to do this, and seem to have fallen off the wagon since the move. Actually, everything has kinda been bananas around here since the move, UtopYA, and changing the kids' bus times and stuff around. I've been in headless chicken mode.

Why? Because I didn't take the time to re-schedule my life. To be fair, the kids did just go back to school a couple weeks ago, and I didn't know what time buses would run, etc...

I don't have that excuse anymore.

So, scheduling it is! You all know how much I love schedules. I've written about scheduling your day down to the minute so you're able to be more productive, and there's a post here about scheduling your social networking time so you can hit everything in a week. I even went as far as restructuring my schedule here once I got where I wanted to be search-wise.

That schedule has now been printed off and will be used to create a schedule like the one I shared on ChaBooCha (first link above). I'll also be scheduling in my editing/proofreading on a separate sheet so things are interchangeable when I have a job to do on that end.

Here's hoping.

How about you? Do you schedule like that? Would you like to? What's stopping you?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Monday Morning Musings

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had as fabulous a weekend as I did (though I doubt that's possible). Anyway, moving on! Today, I'd like to talk with you all a little bit about writing; as I so often do here on the blog. It's time for a bit of Monday Morning Musings. What are Monday Morning Musings? Well, it's time to reflect on your weekend and consider new avenues to take your work to the next level of publishing, sales, and other such fun stuff. Ready? Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

As you're all very aware, I'm a meticulous scheduler. I like to plan my writing day down to the minute. This helps me stay focused (and off Facebook), and allows me to know when I need to call upon the most awesome muse in the world (mine). With that being said, I'm considering changing things up a little. I dominate Google searches for my name now, but that's not enough for me. I want to dominate the world.

Okay, that's going a little far, but you see where I'm headed with this, right?

My social media schedule needs tweaking. I need to drop focus on some things and use the time to aim my dastardly glare in another direction. Let's look at where I was putting my time, shall we?

Monday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. You should have something integrated so your posts are automatically sent to your social networks when you click publish. I have the buffer button and all I have to do is click it after I post. 20 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the next two days. 10 minutes browsing Twitter and re-tweeting things you find interesting.

Tuesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes to answer a single question over on Quora. 10 minutes to share interesting things others post on Facebook. 10 minutes to visit and update your GoodReads page. Make sure you're clicking like on any reviews you've gotten.

Wednesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 20 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the next two days and make sure it's all running smoothly. 10 minutes to record a video you'll use later.

Thursday - 10 minutes to upload video to YouTube. 20-30 minutes for a blog post incorporating said video. 15 minutes to create a Squidoo lens (can be about and incorporate your video as well!). 5 minutes to pin a couple of things over on Pinterest.

Friday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 30 minutes scheduling everything to update until Monday and coming up with blog post ideas for the next week and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Saturday - 20 minutes sharing on Facebook. 20 minutes re-tweeting on Twitter. 20 minutes to visit other blogs and pop in a comment or two.

Sunday - 30 minutes sharing on Facebook, 30 minutes re-tweeting on Twitter.

I do all of this between the hours of 8 and 9 am.

But it's just not working for me. So, I give you a new schedule that I think will help me reach more readers alongside the authors I try so hard to help:

Monday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post with an author interview. 10 minutes to schedule posts across all media for the rest of the day. 20 minutes browsing Twitter and re-tweeting things I find interesting.

Tuesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes to schedule new posts for the rest of the day. 10 minutes to share interesting things others post on Facebook. 10 minutes to visit and update my Goodreads page if needed.

Wednesday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post with a book review. 20 minutes to schedule posts for the day and post the review to relevant sites. 10 minutes to dink around on Facebook and "like" some status updates, answer people, and share stuff.

Thursday -  20-30 minutes for a blog post with something for another author. 10 minutes to schedule posts for the day and include at least one shoutout for one of my books. 20 minutes to pin a couple of book-related things over on Pinterest.

Friday - 20-30 minutes for a blog post. 10 minutes scheduling everything to update until Monday, coming up with blog post ideas for the next week and make sure everything is running smoothly. 20 minutes to update my Book Reviews magazine on Flipboard (I'm finally up to over 1k readers, yay!).

Saturday - Is my day off. I'll use this day to come up with new story ideas and spend time with my family.

Sunday - Is my day off. I'll use this day to connect on Facebook and Twitter if I want to.

So, this is where I think my time will be better spent now that I'm where I want to be regarding a Google search for my name.

If you don't dominate Google, consider using the first social media schedule for a little while before moving on to the second. Trust me, it works.

What do you think? Do you Google yourself often?

I won't be around tomorrow. Lots to do in my personal life and not a lot of time to do it in. See you all on Wednesday!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

My NaNoWriMo 2013 Survival Kit

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm talking about NaNoWriMo and what I do to survive a month of writing when I need to crank out 50k plus words and make Thanksgiving dinner. Grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, what planet do you live on? Seriously, if you're an author and you haven't heard of NaNo, you need some edumacation. Click here to find out more!

Now, about that survival kit...

I have:

• fingernail clippers (you never know when you're gonna have a hangnail)
• a fingernail file (same reason)
• pre-written blog posts for the month (self-explanatory)
• dinners planned out (some frozen already) for the whole month (and groceries bought to fill the menu)
• Hootsuite (my helping hand for all social media)
• an iPad (so I can keep up with other commitments when I'm not writing)
• a warning sign on the door (so people won't be knocking while I'm trying to write)
• a blanket (for those freezing cold days)
• an outline of my novel (hey, I want to jump right in with both feet)
• a cover designed for my novel (why not get that out of the way now? Winner below!)
• a plan to take every weekend and three weekdays off during the month which leaves me 18 writing days
• my super awesome writing schedule which outlines how much time I have to dink around with other things that includes solid time slots each day to write no less than 3k words in order to meet my goal of 50k (I had 6k word days last year)
• my family on high alert
• a ton of amazing writing buddies

What I need now is an emergency button! When I'm stuck or overwhelmed, I need something I can push that will call for help. Haha!

Here's the winning cover design for I, Zombie (image only, text may change):

Let the insanity commence!

In case you missed the special posts from this week, check out my interview with UtopYA author Tania Penn and get on over to the Mystic~Coralie release post to enter to win copies of the awesome fifth book in the series!

Are you participating in NaNo this year? What's in your survival kit?

Add me as a buddy and let's support each other! You can find me here: Jo Michaels on NaNoWriMo

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Writing Through It

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! I hope you all had an awesome Memorial Day weekend. Having a Monday off is tough, but it did help me process some thoughts I've had concerning this blog. We'll be delving into punctuation this week and I wanted you all to have a head's up because, running in tandem, will be a contest for you to win some very cool prizes both here and over at INDIE Books Gone Wild. Today, I'm going to stress scheduling. Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

If you're at at-home writer with kids, your summer just got difficult. I beg you to do some re-scheduling. Lighten your writing load for the summer. As long as you're writing every day (some of you, like me, are sans weekends because of family, anyway) you'll still have forward progress. Keep that.

As I suggested in the post over on ChaBooCha, schedule your day down to the hour. Here are a couple of the images from that post:

As you can see, I had a lot of writing time. That's going to be cut by half because of the summer. I've rearranged my own schedules to only write for three hours in the afternoon.

You really should go read the post and see how scheduling can help you maximize your writing output. If you're writing at the same time every day you shouldn't come upon writer's block. Just make sure the people around you know you're not to be disturbed while you're working. They can give you three hours a day; it won't kill them.

Don't let the summer overwhelm you. Keep doing what you can to retain your writerly brain and write through it.

Do you schedule like this? Why/why not?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo