ANNOUNCEMENT!

May I have your attention, please? Starting Sunday, 1.15.2017, I will be generating a bi-monthly newsletter about my journey of transformation as I continue to discover who I want to be in the world. I’d love for you to travel with me – would you like to come along? If so, please send your best email to mrocwordcrafter@gmail.com  OR sign up for the e-mail list on the right side of the page.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Cedar Wolfsinger

(Michelle R. Owings-Christian)

Pep Talk 11/29/2016 – Tuesday -- Final Pep Talk of 2016

Hey, there, my friends!

Target word count for today to reach 50K this month:  48343

Your affirmation for today is:

Writing is my joy! Readers are my reward!

This is my final Pep Talk for NaNoWriMo 2016. I hope you are well on the way to 50K by tomorrow. Don’t forget to validate, if you have won.

If you didn’t make 50K, I hope you are pleased with whatever amount of words you did write. They are more new words than you had on October 31^st, after all.

I hope you continue the habit of writing daily, or at least most days, that you established during NaNoWriMo. It is one of the things that I have been doing this year – and it has made a big difference for me during November.

Don’t let NaNoWriMo be the only time you write. It’s a challenge, and fun for some folks. Writing with intention only one month of the year will not get you a finished manuscript. Make yourself a promise to write regularly, on whatever schedule makes sense to you.

Have a wonderful holiday season. May your celebrations be fun and festive. I hope you put writing on a regular basis into your goals for 2017.

Wherever life takes you, I hope you write with joy!

Bright Blessings --

Cedar

Pep Talk 11/26/2016 – Saturday, Week 4

Hello, there!

Target word count for today to reach 50K this month:  43342

Your affirmation for today is:

I am an amazing writer and today I prove it on the page!

This is the last Saturday of NaNoWriMo 2016. The month has flown by. At this point, some people have already validated and won. Others are on target and still pushing through, looking forward to 50K by Wednesday. Some of you may have gotten disgusted and given up. If that is the case – please don’t use it as a weapon to beat yourself up. Many things happen that we don’t plan. Your life may have exploded this month. So – OK – if you don’t think you’ll hit the goal this month, why not change the deadline, not the goal? Please do NOT fall into the downward spiral of thinking you are not a real writer because you didn’t make your goal this month. You have more words than you would have had by now if you HADN’T taken the challenge. I love NaNoWriMo. I have no plans of missing NaNoWriMo in the future. It’s one of those givens “What does Cedar do in November? Cedar does NaNoWriMo.” That being said – this challenge is not for every person. Some people thrive on it. Some people do not. If this is NOT a challenge that feeds your soul in the final analysis, perhaps you shouldn’t try again. Please do not do this if it is going to damage you and feed that hateful voice that says “I told you. You’re not a real writer. You can’t even do this challenge. You should just give it up and stop fooling yourself.” If it is just that stuff happened in November of 2016, and you feel you can do this another year – then, by all means, plan to do that.

This is my penultimate Pep Talk for the year! I hope I have helped in some small way.

Write bunches and write with joy!

Bright the Day!

Cedar

Pep Talk 11/24/2016 – Thursday, Week 4

Hey, there, my friends!

Target word count for today to reach 50K this month:  40008

Your affirmation for today is:

When the writer in me connects with the reader in me, magic happens!

Here in the U.S., today is Thanksgiving.  If you are one of the many people traveling to visit friends and family, I hope you are safely at your destination! If you have a house full of family and friends, I hope they reached your home safe and sound. Whatever your holiday looks like, I hope it is a time of joy and a time in which you are mindful of all the parts of your life for which you are thankful.

If you are NOT in the US, and today is just an average Thursday, I wish you joy of the day as well.

I wish you all a wonderful day! I hope you are still committed to NaNoWriMo and will write until the month ends.

Write bunches and write with joy!

Bright the Day!

Cedar

Pep Talk, Tuesday, Week 4

Hello, there!

Target word count for today to reach 50K this month:  36674

Your affirmation for today is:

Today my muse is persistent and consistent!

Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is on Thursday this week.  Many people are traveling to visit family or plan to have a house full of family and friends. Finding time to write this week may well be a challenge.

Find small bits of time to hide and do a word sprint or write a scene or plot a scene or do a character sketch or deepen your understanding of a character. If that is all you can manage this week, you will still be connected to your story and will be able to “hit the ground running” when you get back to having dedicated writing time.

I wish you all a wonderful day! I hope you haven’t given up on NaNoWriMo and will write until the month ends.

If you are in the US, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you are elsewhere – I hope your Thursday is a good day to be thankful for the amazing blessings in your life.

Write bunches and write with joy!

Bright the Day!

Cedar

Interview with Ginger Booth -- Participant in the NinjaWriter's Instafreebie Event

3. Tell us about your book(s). Include links so I can add them to the post please.

The Calm Act series is a day-after-tomorrow dystopian scenario. Climate change suddenly accelerates to the point where we can’t feed everyone, let alone curb global warming. The Calm Act itself is a draconian plan by the U.S. government to address the crisis by imposing censorship, martial law, and migrant-control borders. 

As her old world disintegrates, upbeat programmer Dee Baker teams up to build a new one.

This is a very different take on the post-United States scenario. For one thing, the action takes place during the fall, not after it. The military has taken pains to ease the disaster experience. There is no evil super-villain, just a bad bad situation, and decent people trying to cope against long odds.

Please see http://books.gingerbooth.com/content/calm-act-series for a book and blurb list, and links to buy the books. Or, sign up for the mailing list to receive two prequel stories free, at http://eepurl.com/bUSYaD .


2. What makes your protagonist different from the industry standard or genre standard?
In the usual post-apocalyptic grown-up story, we have a gun-toting tough guy, trying to protect a damsel determined to be her own worst enemy, both pitted against a cartoon arch-villain. Lots of blood and guts and guns, generally set someplace empty, like west Texas.

In the Calm Act series, Dee Baker is a craftsy programmer who likes to garden. She has a problem. Her world has fallen apart due to accelerated climate change. Sure, she can still grow vegetables and feed herself, but there are hundreds of millions who can’t. She needs protection or they’ll steal her food. If we all play that game, growing food is pointless, and we all die. Most people happen to agree with her, including the U.S. military – law and order is preferable to blood and guts. They’d rather find a way to work together, and shoot the bad actors as needed. 

Oh, and Dee Baker lives smack in the middle of the I-95 corridor, the most populated part of the country, about 100 miles from New York City. Climate-wise, it’s a real lottery winner, but alas rather crowded.

The forces for good have the upper hand in this series. Winning just isn’t easy.
The reason for doing it this way is that I believe really, deep down, people aren’t willing to face the truth of climate change. It isn’t a theory, and it isn’t in the future. It’s real, and it’s now – just not to this accelerated degree. I wanted a protagonist who has to face it, with little more than her wits and ethics and friends to draw on. Our heroes have the courage to do the right thing.

22. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?

It cost $200 to buy a nice cover for Civilly Disobedient, an intro prequel that I wrote for the sole purpose of giving it away for free. That was really, really hard to justify. But without a great cover, who would give my books a try? So far, I’ve spent nearly $1000 on book covers, wincing all the way. My cover designer Jalena does such a beautiful job on them, though, capturing the love of natural beauty that I wanted them to express.

33. Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

I certainly express myself spiritually through the practice. Some people get writer’s block. I get living block, where everything seems to get stuck. I need to write to clear that block. 

52. Do you believe in writer’s block?

I believe writer’s block is my subconscious trying to tell me I made a wrong turn back a ways. So go back and fix that. When I’m on firmer ground, I’ll be able to go forward again.

51. How long on average does it take you to write a book?

Actively writing the first draft, maybe 10-12 weeks, then another month or two on the end for beta reading, revisions, cover design, and publishing. That’s for the full length novels, about 90k words. That includes research, which I along the way as needed. The novellas are much quicker, maybe a month. On a good day, I can write almost 5k words. Most days are stickier than that, and life intrudes.

The Calm Act Series | Books

Time Ran Out on Climate Change Upbeat programmer Dee Baker is successful in her media career. But…

BOOKS.GINGERBOOTH.COM

Pep Talk 11/19/2016 Saturday, Week 3

Hello, there! Today is the 19^th day of the NaNoWriMo Challenge.  Your target word count to reach 50K by month end is 31673.

I hope you are all still writing. If you are behind, keep writing. Change your goal, and keep writing. If you are ahead, keep writing. You can see 50K from here -- Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!

If you have already hit 50K – keep writing!! You still have plenty of month left, see how many words you can write in a month.

I don’t know how many of the people I wanted to reach actually see these posts. It makes me sad to think that some of you aren’t seeing these and don’t know how much I am cheering for you to succeed.

For those of you who are seeing these, you do know! That makes me happy!

Your affirmation for today is: 

When I get out of the way, the words flow easily to the page.

If I can help you in any way, please comment here or send me a NaNoMail.

Write bunches, write with joy!

Bright the Day!

Cedar