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Posts tagged as “fun”

The Joys of Self-Promotion…eh

The announcement of the release date for Duality is drawing near, and I find myself spending every spare moment – outside of work and writing my second novel – on areas of promotion and creating promotional material for the book. I have to admit that while I have an intense fondness for the creative process as a whole, it does take a certain type of vision to make a promotion pop and I don’t have the interest…

Patchwork Wordsmith

Last weekend was rather fantastic. Because it was a three-day weekend, I had the opportunity to get all of the logistics out of the way by early Saturday afternoon with two full days still remaining to do as I liked. Obviously, part of that time was spent working on my second novel. I also read over some of the finer details with regard to publishing and came several steps closer to finalizing a release date…

How Deep is Too Deep?

One of my characters has made me angry. Well, it’s more accurate to admit that I wrote a section of a chapter during which I caused a character of my creation to do something that, ultimately, made me angry. In case you don’t recall my saying so previously, I am an organic writer. What that means is that I create the opening to a novel, decide upon how it might end, and then create a…

Switching Gears – When It’s Time to Move On

I admit: It has not been easy to switch from Duality to another novel. I lived, breathed, and agonized over my debut novel for nearly a year. I thought of little else, even when forced to distance myself from the book to make room for Real Life. I was and still am elated to have finished it, and I look forward to the input from my beta readers and from the editor. I even dove right…

What Happens When Dreams are Lost?

If your dreams don’t come true the way you hope, should they be abandoned? One of my coworkers stopped me while passing in the break room last week. She asked how things are going with the novel. Another coworker was present, and his ears perked up at the announcement that the book is now finished and in the hands of the beta readers. She congratulated me, asked that I keep her posted, and we all…

We Have Reached Beta!

I realize that there has been radio silence here at Always Ametra as of late. But, for good reason! For the last three weeks, I have spent roughly 18 hours out of every weekend doing nothing but writing. Yes, I continued to write every evening during the week after work, but it became the norm to get in on Friday before 5 pm and spend the next eight hours at my desk writing and editing…

Reading is Fun and Mental

Last night, I finished reading a novel that I started sometime last August or September. It isn’t because I’m slow at reading by any means. I can usually, when Life allows, plow through the average novel in a day or so. The reason this particular novel took so long to complete is because I couldn’t find a redeemable character anywhere in it. The novel, based upon historical accounts of actual events, was well put together.…

Editing…The Horror!

Had anyone told me that editing a novel might take as long as it did to actually write the novel, I’d have thought them insane. I will admit to being very naive as to what the editing process would entail. After all, I’ve been writing for years, but this is my first official foray into becoming a published author. Editing a novel is also not at all like the research papers we had to write in…

The Conflagration of Creativity

As my weekend draws to a close, I realize that I’ve made an error. I was able to finish most of the tasks that I started, only I went through them in reverse order. Saturday was beautiful: Slightly-overcast skies, cool temperatures, gusts of wind and the occasional threat of showers. I love that kind of weather, and I spent much of the day here at my desk in my little workspace as I plowed through…

Taste This! (The Inaugural Edition)

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been encouraged by my friends to share the occasional recipe here on the blog. Some of these will be original concoctions of my own and others will be based on a recipe I discovered elsewhere and needed to try and then share.  This will be a biweekly feature to start, and I may change the frequency depending on little things like popularity and demand. But, I cook at home often…