New Year's Resolutions are so Passé

By Elaine L. Orr

I should probably make a few anyway. 

I attended a class on time management in my early thirties, and the lecturer said something like, "If you find you work much more efficiently as a deadline approaches, it means you don't work efficiently the rest of the time."

I took it to heart. It absolutely does not mean I always organize my life more efficiently, but it does mean that I am mindful about starting a project or task earlier than the last possible moment. Which I had been known to do. And could get away with because once I got started, I worked fast and well. 

But that's not good enough when you want to write more than two books per year. An author can write quickly sometimes, but the ability to write two to three thousand words a day is not enough. Stories aren't simply pounded on a keyboard. They grow holistically.

What I can do is write at least 1,000 words per day. That's two single-spaced pages. Using my technique of (when desperate) writing scenes out of order, 1,000 words per day is ALWAYS possible.

Today I started a new novel in the Jolie Gentil series. My goal will be 1,500 to 2,000 words daily, and I will be finished in mid-February. Full stop, no excuses.

Take that, New Year's Resolutions. And Happy Damn New Year.

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A Few Things I've Learned Using TikTok

 By Elaine L. Orr

A better blog post would be what I have left to learn. Except I probably don't have the vocabulary to make that list.

I have always liked taking photos, even back when we had to pay to develop film. This was especially true when I traveled -- and I have the albums to prove it. I didn't get into making short movies (we didn't say videos) as a teen or young adult, in part (probably) because the people I saw doing it were guys. And it was a relatively expensive hobby.

As an author, I need to reach readers in ways they like -- which means videos they can watch on their phones. It's not just younger readers who use them -- anyone can watch a short video while waiting to pick up a kid after school or sitting in a physician's waiting room.

The key is to create a video people want to watch. Digression: My husband and I were in a community writers' group in the mid-1990s, and people were discussing what they tried to achieve in their writing. The last person said what really mattered was to "write something catchy." To this day, my husband can be walking through a room in which I'm writing and tell me to be sure it's catchy. I said it was a digression.

General advice: Don't worry about your background beyond making it neat and uncomplicated. We have less space in an apartment than we did in a house, so there's no space for a single-use room or designated area. However, a corner of the dining room table, with books behind me, works fine. 

A Few Things I've Learned

• Find a friend or family member to hold the camera -- at least the first few times. If you're trying to do a selfie, you'll have to focus on more than your content.
• If your friend or family members wants to do a lot of stage direction, go back to selfies.
• Take videos in landscape mode. Ignore this if you know how to edit videos (as in rotate a portrait video to become landscape). 
• I find that ClipChamp (a free Microsoft program) is easier than other software to rotate and add captions, but I still forget a lot in between each use.
• Do lots of Google searches when software stumps you. One of the responses will be understandable for a novice.
• Check to be sure you're holding your book right side up, that your hair is combed, and (for me) lipstick is fresh. (I look like a ghost without it.)
• Don't aim for perfection! You want to look professional (or funny -- whatever), but it's not an audition tape for a movie. Perfection can be the enemy of the good. 
• Make many TikTok videos about things other than your books. I like gardening, and one of my sleuths is a gardener. I posted photos of the day we had ten purple Morning Glories and did a demonstration on harvesting marigold and zinnia seeds to plant next year. My post with the most views was one I titled, "Who said the mall is dead?" I took it from the 2nd floor of the White Oaks Mall, showing Santa and decorated trees below. Who knew?
• Make adding videos a habit. Even if you only do it once per week, you have to appear regularly to have much impact.
• Don't forget to add hashtags that relate to your book, its location, or content. Don't forget to include #booktok.

That's it for now. If you want to see my videos, here's a recent one. https://bit.ly/3S1a78U. My TikTok site is https://www.tiktok.com/@authorelaineorr/.

Don't stop with TikTok. Lots of sites let you add videos. The more you do it, the more comfortable you'll be.

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My Elephant in the Room

By Elaine L. Orr

The expression, the elephant in the room means a problem that is not discussed because it's uncomfortable to do so. 

In business, if a meeting features a company's new product (let's say generic spell check for writers), it may be announced in glowing terms. However, you and a couple other staff have tested the program and found that it changes the spelling of some common words to naughty expressions. Developers are frantically working to fix that. 

You glance at your colleague with a knowing smile, "I notice President Flimflam is avoiding the elephant in the room." (And wouldn't you love to know how to code software to do something like that?)

The elephant-in-the-room concept can be useful in fiction. A houseguest has just discovered Uncle Cluster in the wine cellar, passed out with a corkscrew and his favorite bottle of wine in his lap. Since the guest has been sent to retrieve the exact bottle, she gently lifts it from Uncle Cluster's lap and goes back to the party.

Upstairs, people are politely commenting on the uncle's absence. Perhaps he's simply running late. Maybe he's having car trouble. Uncle Cluster's drinking problem is the elephant in the room. And in this case, a character knows about it but conceals his whereabouts. Interesting...

I have my own elephant in the room. In 2014, I published a post called "Linda Rae and the Nellie Chronicles." I highlighted the life of my fun-loving cousin Linda, who died at 62 of colon cancer. She had never had a colonoscopy, and she'd actually had symptoms. My advice was, "Don't let your life end before it should because you didn't have time for a cancer screening."

Nine years later, after my sixth colonoscopy, I learned I have colon cancer. It can't be more than 3.5 years old, because I had none at my last screening. (Linda's doctors told her she'd had it for at least 10 years.) 

Because the illness runs so strongly in my mom's family (grandmother, uncle, and two first cousins who were not that uncle's daughters), I have been vigilant. This time I also had to be mildly adamant. The GI doctor (new to me) advised I could wait five years, which would comport with current guidelines for someone who 'only' had one precancerous polyp in 2020. I insisted and, when I explained the family history, he readily agreed on three years.

The cancer may be ensconced in my colon. If it has spread some, it won't be much. I learn my surgery date next week.

I'm optimistic because I had those six screenings. In fact, my husband tells me not to be so damn chipper. Much harder on him than on me.

I'm not going to write about this a lot. I hope in a  year or so to report that I am cancer-free. 

I'll end with what I said about screenings back in 2014. Do it. Now. 

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