Monday, February 27, 2012

If Only I Had More Time

What I'm reading: Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, by Temple Grandin (book club)

A common enough lament: If only I had more time. What if someone gave you an entire extra day?

On Wednesday, we're all getting that gift. Is it going to be just another day for you, or are you going to embrace the extra time?

I know my editor promised to have my manuscript back to me today. I'm obligated to have it published no later than March 14th. In effect, I've been given an extra day to work on editing, formatting, and making sure it's perfect before I hit that "upload" button at Barnes & Noble.

That's also one more day to work on taxes. It's one extra day of book sales for February royalties. Another day to finish reading a book. It's another day to meet your word/page count goals, and maybe get ahead of schedule for your completion date. One more day to tackle learning Wordpress so I can update my website. And, on the flip side, it's one more blog post to write.

And sometimes, life intervenes. It's been a very busy weekend, starting with trying to keep up with people wishing me a happy birthday on Facebook (and thanks if you were among them), a day spent with my son trying to explain the difference between posts and pages on Wordpress, and which I needed for my website revamping, and then a day down in the Springs at the monthly RWA chapter meeting.

If you're wondering what you can do with your extra 24 hours: Start by checking out the feature for Deadly Secrets at the Kindle Mystery Authors site. (I'm not sure what time posts go live, so mine might not be ready yet. If not, you can check tomorrow--it's a 3 day feature.)

Read Finding Sarah (half-off Smashwords coupon in Deals & Steals) and Hidden Fire so you're ready for book 3, Saving Scott, when it releases next month. Consider signing up for a guest post. Enter my Goodreads contest for a copy of Rooted in Danger (see the link in the Deals & Steals tab). Sign up for my newsletter (here). If you didn't enter my January newsletter contest, hurry -- I'm picking the winner March 1st. (See--you get an extra day to enter!)

And, if you want to get a sneak peek at the work in progress that will become my new website, you can click here. If you see anything that doesn't work, comment or email me to let me know. It's got a long way to go, but I think the basic skeleton is there.

As for me, I'll be "lecturing" for the POV class I'm giving at Savvy Authors, and I hope to be deep in edits for Saving Scott.

What plans do you have for your extra day?

Tomorrow, my guest is author Shelly Munro coming to us from New Zealand. She'll be talking, appropriately enough,  about what writers (or anyone) can do to squash that procrastination bug. 

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6 comments:

Jan Morrison said...

I am using it as an extra day of getting my package ready for a contest. It is the last day! I'm actually using it today though. I'm seeing clients on that day and finishing my writing today and tomorrow. I like it!

Terry Odell said...

Jan - Yes, anything due after February means you get an extra day to finish the task. Good luck with the contest.

Kathy said...

Hey Terry, I spent Saturday moving thank you to my brother-in-law. He did an outstanding job of helping. In fact he did most of the heavy stuff. I pushed and pulled and tugged and moved what I physically could. My body tells me not only am I out of shape but you are going to pay for what you did lol. I still managed to get my words written for the day. It just makes it one more day until pay day for me. Nothing special just another day to put things away and wash stuff up that is dirty from being stored and sigh from 14 years of smoking in the house. I quit in 2004 but that is still 8 years I helped put nicotine all over everything. TOday I am picking my great nieces up from school and bringing them back over here. Then we are doing McDonald's for dinner courtesy of their mom. Then I will go over there to watch TV as my TV is still in storage. I may go back over there tomorrow and see what I can tote and carry out to my car and bring over by myself. If I can I will try to talk my nephew into helping me lol.

Terry Odell said...

Kathy - sounds like you've got more than enough to fill the day.

Karen C said...

I used my extra day to walk another 3 miles in the quest to become healthier!

Terry Odell said...

Karen, good for you!