I’ve been thinking a lot about William’s character lately. In a romance novel, men have a role to fill, especially if you are writing a paranormal novel. They have to be a little bit larger than life. Joe the plumber, unless he is 6′ tall and has a secret life as a super-hero, need not apply. No offense to Joe, of course. He might be the perfect guy in his own novel. He just doesn’t belong in this one.

One of the biggest obstacles with Will was finding him a job. He needs to have a steady source of income. At the same time, I couldn’t put him in a career that would take up most of his time; he needs to have time for falling in love. I considered a few different ideas. Own his own business? Work part-time for the fire department? He needed something that complimented his talents.  His well paid side-job with the police department fit perfectly.

Which led to another problem I’ve been having with him. I’m still not entirely certain what his “unique talents” include. I wanted someone who could fit into normal society without drawing attention. I need there to be the possibilities of late date nights, without the risk of him turning into a mythical creature. Whatever I came up with, it needed to have an aspect of manliness to it. Oh, and he needed to be able to accidentally bring Suzy from her world into his.

That narrows it down a bit. What I ended up with is a man with much higher brain function than the rest of the residents of his world. I’m still exploring what he can, and cannot, do. I think he’s still trying to figure it out, too, as evidenced by what happened with Suzy. He doesn’t really know what his powers are yet. I think that there’s a lot more than what meets the eye with this character.

One of the big parts of Will’s character is his backstory. I’m not going into details (you’ll just have to keep reading), but there are definitely a few parts that I’m going to have a lot of difficulty writing. But each little event has added up to the man he is now. If I try to rewrite his story, it wouldn’t work out right. More than most any other character I’ve ever worked with, he showed up on my doorstep with almost all of the details in place. There have been a few details he’s been hesitant to share, but I think those are the same things he’d be hesitant to share with anyone. He’s a very private man.

It’s disconcerting to be writing about a man I don’t know everything about. But it’s also fun. It’s like getting a gift that I just get to keep opening.

What happens when you combine two cases of sinusitis and pink eye, a nasty cold, a seriously clogged shower, and a dead vehicle?

A blog that hasn’t been updated in about a week an a half.

Sorry, everyone. But we’re all on the mend now. I was playing caretaker for a couple of weeks while my husband and daughter dealt with some pretty nasty sinus infections, and then they both got pink eye. Luckily, they are both doing better, and my cold isn’t nearly as bad today as it was a couple days ago. I’m starting to get caught up again. There will be a new post up either today or tomorrow.

Until then, I’ve found something for you to enjoy. Incidentally, there are three (at last check) potential cases of swine flu in my county. We are not it. We really just all have colds, ect.

It's Not the Swine Flu!

Hello!

It is finally April 1st. After months of planning, Writer at Home is up and running. Please feel free to look around.

Writer at Home features writing tips, book reviews, and information about the topics to freelance writers. If there is ever anything you would like to see covered, please let me know, and I will do my best to help you out.

Is there anyone you think should be on my blogroll? Do you have a great site for work at home moms or writers? Please post the link and a brief description in the comments section. I would love to check it out.

The layout for Writer at Home is in a bit of a transition still. I decided yesterday evening that the theme I had originally picked, while very nice, wasn’t suiting my needs. After looking around, I came across Atahualpa, which is what I am using now. It has the most customization features that I have ever seen. If you are putting together a blog, or even just want to revamp the one you have now, I highly recommend it. It took me a little bit to get started on customizing, but once I figured it out what I was doing, it was really easy. It’s not quite where I want it yet, but it’s close.

If you have followed me over here from Write at Home Mom, please don’t forget to update your subscriptions and bookmarks.  If you’re new to my site, please feel free to subscribe before leaving.

Thanks for stopping by!

Okay, I know. I know…

I said it would be a few days, and it’s been a month. I suck. But, things are turning around. I’ve decided to drop the “daily theme” idea. It was hard to work with. Instead, I am just going to stick up whatever I can think of. All good stuff, though.

I am working on some new things right now. By the end of the week, I hope to have a “bookshelf” section up and running. I have collected a few blogging/writing/programming books, and I will be putting up reviews as I finish them. Nothing monetized. Just there so you can see what I’m reading, and what I’d recommend.

I will be moving this blog to its real home on April 1st. Now you all know, and I have to stick to it. I will also be starting up a mom-blog. But there is a lot of work to be done. Wish me luck.

I will have a real post up by the end of the day. I swear. And thank you for your patience.

xWrite At Home Mom

Hi, Everyone.

It’s probably going to be a few days before I get some posts up.  Things have suddenly gotten really crazy for me.  Sorry.  Please check back, though.  I’ll try to get a post ready for friday.

Like most of you, I am a wife, a writer, a business person, and a mom.  Of those four job titles, I am a mom first.  My daughter is everything to me.

Unfortunately, she can make it very difficult to get work done some days.  This is especially true if she is sick or just tired and cranky.  During those times, she needs mommy.  And I need to work.  So how do I get work done while being a mom first?  Here’s what I do.

I get up early, usually around 6:00 am.  While everyone else is still sleeping, I try to get a quick article or two done, write a blog post, and get myself set for the day.  The house is quiet, and I can usually count on 2-3 hours of uninterrupted writing time.

My daughter is at the age where she can keep herself busy for a little bit here or there.  So, after cuddles, breakfast, and a little play, I try to get a little more work done before my husband wakes up an noon (he works nights).  Later, he gives me an hour to work while he plays with our daughter.  Once he leaves for work, I let Becca (our daughter) entertain herself for a bit longer, and then I try to finish up by 5:00.  I end up with about five hours to work by the time I add everything up.

Since I have started writing, I have learned a few tricks to maximize the amount of work I get done during those hours.  I use lists to keep track of what work I need to get done on a daily and weekly basis.  Every night, I’ll make a list of the next day’s writing assignments, and give myself the chance to plan them out before bedtime.  In the morning, I’ll make rough outlines, and look for my sources.  Being able to digest the information makes writing easier, and more natural-sounding.

If they’re available, I try to claim multiple articles about the same, or similar, topics. This makes research a lot easier, and the writing goes a lot faster. But be careful of writing the two articles that are very similar unintentionally, though.  I try not to write about two very similar topics for the same site in a row, for example “How To Plant An Organic Garden” and “How To Plant a Vegatable Garden.”  By working on something else between these two articles, I can make sure that they both sound unique.  I try to put one other articlebetween them, so that the information is still fresh, but not so fresh that I write the same article twice.

And for those sick and cranky days?  I turn off my computer, and spend a little extra time making my girl feel extra special. She deserves it.   There’s always that night, or even the next day, to get the work done.

What are some of your tips for squeezing in extra writing time, or for maximizing the time that you do have?  If you are nice enough to share your ideas with me, I’ll put them all in a post tomorrow, along with your name and the address of your blog or website, if you have one, so others can see where the idea is coming from, and hopefully check out your site, too.

Can’t wait to see your ideas!

At the beginning of a New Year, it is easy to get caught up in the tradition of planning resolutions and goals. I look forward to it.  It’s like staring at the first clean page of an empty notebook.  Nothing but possibilities.

It’s also important to look back, though.  What were your goals for last year?  Did you meet them?  Exceed them?  If so, then maybe this is the time to set more challenging goals for yourself.  If you didn’t achieve your goals, was it because they were too difficult, or because you weren’t as committed as you could have been?

I usually fall into the second part of that.  It’s easy to get distracted, and off-track.  I also have the tendency to think I can accomplish a lot more than I reasonably can.  And that can be discouraging, especially when I am looking at my to-do list, with almost nothing crossed off.

By looking back, I can see where I have succeeded (great job, decent income, learned a lot) and where I need to improve (less distractions, better time-management, more realistic expectations.)  I need to learn how to set better goals, but I also need to get better about pushing myself to reach them.

What is a realistic daily writing goal?  Should I be counting articles, or counting overall productivity?  I know where I want to be a year from now, but I need to set concrete steps along the way.  It is important to not only have annual goals, but also quarterly, monthly, and even weekly goals written down.  Make them goals that you can reach, but not too easily.  Goals should be a little bit challenging, to help you stretch and grow as a writer and business woman (or man.)

This is especially important when you work for yourself.  There is no one standing over your shoulder, telling you where you need to improve, or letting you know that you are doing a great job.  As write-at-home moms, we need to figure these things out for ourselves. How? By comparing our goals with the progress we’re making.  If it feels like we’re spinning our wheels, stuck in the same place we were a few months, or even a year, ago, it’s time to make some changes.  And that’s the amazing thing about our careers.  If a change needs to be made, we get to decide where that change will take us.  Branching out into other formats of writing?  Concentrating more on our niche?  It’s up to us, but we need to set goals to get us there.

I know that I need to get a bit more serious about writing.  I have a lot of goals for this year.  I want to increase the amount of writing I can produce in a day, and I want to improve my writing skills.  I want to set up my website, find a few private clients, and build a decent residual income.  I have a long way to go, and I still need to figure out all the details, but as the first of the year starts to fade behind us, it’s nice to know that I have a lot to look forward to.

I will officially kick everything off on here on Monday. I wanted to post a quick bit about myself, though.  In case anyone was interested.

I am a work at home mom, with a career in freelance writing.  I started on October 29, 2008.  In the past two months, I’ve learned a lot about writing as a career, but I still have so much more to learn.  I write for QualityGal and WiseGEEK.  QualityGal provides web content for companies, based on their needs.  I love writing for her, and this is where I’ve been doing most of my work lately.  WiseGEEK is a huge information site, with articles about anything you could imagine.  I’ve written a lot of really fun articles for them.  I also write, on occasion, for Text Broker and Associated Content.  I just put up my first eHow article yesterday.  Over the next year or so, I want to spend a lot more time working on building residual income, which will allow me more time to focus on other parts of my career.  Not to mention, I barely get writting time now, with one child, unless my husband is home.  When there are four of them running around, I won’t be getting much of anything done.  It will be nice to still be making some money at that point, even if I’m not getting a lot of writing time.

During the rare moments that I am not writing or being a mom, I love to cook and read.  I will read just about anything someone hands to me.  I am a member (read: addict) of Paperback Swap.  I also enjoy papercrafting.  I want to learn quilling at some point, and I love to scrapbook.  I am addicted to chocolate.

Before becoming a writer, I wanted to be (in order): a 911 operator (I was 6), the owner of a horse ranch/orphanage facility, a writer, a singer/musician, a high school history teacher, a chef,  a forensic psychologist, a clinical psychologist, a child psychologist, and an elementary school teacher.  My previous jobs include a cook at Applebee’s, a clerk at a grocery store (also making subs and serving ice cream), cooking at a ski resort, and working on a few farms.  I think I liked the farm work best, for the same people I enjoy working at home.  Working with too many other people is annoying. On the farm, it was pretty much just me and the cows.

I have two other blogs, both focusing on parenting.

Mommy Moments

My Momaroo Blog

Feel free to follow me at these locations, too.  I’ll be posting these links on the main page, along with links to some of my writing, within the next week or so.  I will be back on Monday with the very first business post.  Until then..

I have been putting off working on this blog for a couple weeks.  I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go in. There are a lot of possibilities for a writing mom blog.  I knew I wanted it to be professional, but not how I wanted to set it up.

Today, I did some planning.  Part of my 101 in 1001 goals (see here) is to have a work-related blog.  Today is kind of quiet, and it seemed like a good time to get this done.

I began thinking about the sort of readers I wanted to attract.  Mostly moms, like me, who write for a living, or even part time.  I know a lot of these writers have aspirations to someday write a work of fiction.  I know I do.  A lot of them are great writers who want to improve their craft. So, how could I reach out to these other moms?

I planned out for four blogs a week, set up like this:

Monday: Business information and tips

Wednesday: Writing mom life

Friday: Back to the Basics — Writing tips

Saturday: Fiction and other ‘fun’ writing.

That leaves me some days for writing about whatever strikes my fancy, but provides me with enough structure to avoid those “Nothing to write about” days.

I’ll probably kick things off officially with an introduction page in another day or so, and then launch the writing goodness on Monday.

‘Til then..