Category: Writing

I Like Big Goals And I Can Not Lie

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

As you may (or may not know) I love setting 90-day goals – I started this in the fall of last year and it really did help me be more productive…until I wasn’t. 

That’s when I realized that I like having my goals mapped out for the quarter but only the first 3-4 tasks written down and on my Kanban board for just one month at a time – I don’t like to get overwhelmed.

So today I’d like to give you an overview of my three main goals and the few projects underneath each goal. I probably won’t give you a list of tasks, but if you’d like, you can follow me on Instagram where I’ll be talking about my Kanban board with all the tasks for the month.

Goal #1 – Writing and Publishing

Project A – 3rd Draft Revision of Novel 2 (working title – Etta & Gina)

Project B – Research ARC readers and/or Street Team

Goal #2 – Marketing

Project C – 1-hour week of learning time (the first month is Instagram)

Project D – Create a workable and fun content strategy system

Goal #3 – Jennifer 2.0 (being the Goddess I know I can be)

Project E – Beautifying the apartment

Project F – Lunar Planning

Project G – Health & Wellness*

*Which is further broken down into self-care habits, Orange Theory goals, and some personal development type things

What do your goals for 2020 look like? Do you plan yearly, monthly, quarterly? Or a combo like me?  I’d love to hear so let me know in the comments below! We can even keep each other accountable.

 

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Change Is Inevitable

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson
It’s been a while since I’ve written, I know. This is for a few reasons — 1) I thought I might have overloaded you guys when I was re-launching The Art of Lying and 2) I needed a little break from writing myself.
 
But…I’ve taken a little break, watched Gilmore Girls again on Netflix (still debating on rewatching that awful new year again), and started rereading my 2nd novel with my editor’s notes. Originally this story was called Etta in the Outfield, but I’m thinking that might need to change.
 
Which brings me to the topic at hand – change. As I’ve been reading and discussing things with my editor (the lovely Sarah Fox) it’s become clear that I need to add some things to this poor little book. For one, I need to bring in another point of view character – my first main character, Etta’s, best friend Gina! I’m actually excited about this, but since Gina will have 50% of the story, I can’t just call the thing Etta without putting in Gina so the title will most likely need to change.
 
Another thing, I’m aging my characters up a bit. I had them as Freshmen in High School, but we decided it might be better if they were a bit older – Sophomores or Juniors (haven’t decided yet). Finally, I have some things to think about surrounding the end of my novel – but I’m not going to talk about that right now – I might spoil things for when the book comes out.
 
BUT all these changes and the fact that my main characters go through quite a few things themselves that will be changing them and their opinions and thoughts and ideas, I realized that change is inevitable in both life and fiction. It’s how we handle those changes that make the difference.
 
I could have read my editor’s notes and gotten really upset, thrown my laptop against the wall (I mean, my bank account wouldn’t have been happy), and yelled and screamed, cried for days, etc. I didn’t do this, I wrote out some of my feelings, talked to my editor, voiced my worries and fears, and decided that together we can make this next draft amazing!
 
What’s changing in your world? How are you dealing with things? Are you having a temper tantrum that a four-year-old would envy or are you pulling your big girl panties on and acting like a grown-up? Side note: I’m not always a grown-up in these situations, trust me. HA

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Act As If

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

I had the immense pleasure of being interviewed yesterday by my friend, Brenda Vander Zaden, for her Postpartum Body Series project.  I had the best time talking about how much stronger I feel within my body after giving birth to my son – you can watch the Facebook Live HERE if you’d like!

The other thing we talked about is the concept of Acting As If and I thought it was perfect for this week’s blog post.  

Acting As If is an old theatre concept that is used when embodying a character in a play or movie and something I studied for years as a young actor, but it has also been insanely useful in my everyday life.

First, ask yourself: Who do you want to be?

For example, I want to be a professional writer.  Great!  How does a professional writer act?  What things do I have to do? What beliefs do I need to have? Once you have the answers, you just have to Act As If you are already that person, doing and believing things they would.

Sound simple? It is, in theory, but it can be difficult at first.  Keep at it though, it gets easier, I promise. 

To follow the example, and one straight out of my own life, a professional writer believes her books will find their ideal audience, she schedules writing days and times and follows through with her plan, and she shows up on social media as a professional giving helpful advice and showcasing her books.

Now, you have a plan! Think these things, do these things, and soon enough – you are that person! It’s a little like fake it until you make it, but I feel like this is more genuine, more active. 

You can use this for anything…I use it in my day job when I need to do something I’m scared about, like having an interview or talking with clients. I use it as a mother and I think – what would a calm and peaceful mother do in this situation?  It’s pretty amazing what things come to mind almost immediately when you think like this.

Have you ever used this concept? Do you think you might going forward in some area of your life? Let me know in the comments below!

 

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Have You Found Your Life’s Purpose?

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Have you found your life’s purpose yet? Do you cringe when someone asks you this question? 

I still hate this question and I feel like I’m way closer to finding the answer than I was even 2-3 years ago…but who knows?

My passions and dreams have changed so drastically in the 20 (what?!?!) years since I’ve graduated college that I can’t say for 100% certainty that THIS IS IT!

I moved to NYC in 2001 to pursue my love of Broadway and dreamed of belting out the 11 o’clock number to adoring fans. 

Now, 18 years later, I dream of seeing that orange Bestseller tag on my book’s Amazon page – and having adoring fans.

10 years from now? Maybe it will be to run a marathon a month — seriously, who knows?  I do know that I’ll want adoring fans no matter what I’m doing so get those giant Run, Jennifer, Run signs ready (just kidding – I don’t run!)

So tell me, what was one passion or dream you had when you were a kid or teenager and what’s one that you have now?  How different are they?  How different are you now? How similar are they? How are YOU the same?

Comment below and let me know and then take time today to celebrate YOU! Your dreams, your passions, your growth!

 

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Goal Setting For Dummies … Or Maybe Just For Me

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

I have written about my goal-setting process on here before, but as my life has changed and what I wanted out of my life changed, I knew I needed something different…but I wasn’t sure what.  So, when one of my favorite AuthorTubers, Sarra Cannon – a brilliant and successful indie author and lovely human being posted about her HB90 Goal Setting Course, I jumped right in.

She taught us how to take our vision for our life and turn that into 90-day goals.  Then we took those goals and turned them into little step by step tasks.  YES!  It felt exactly what I needed.  Her last step was to set up a Kanban Board (for more about hers – check out the YouTube video below). 

 

I grabbed baby post-it notes, color-coded my three goals and wrote all of my tasks on individual post-its and put them up on my board.  There is a section for To-Do’s, Doing (the tasks I’m focusing on for that day or week) and DONE!

The thrill when I get to move a sticky note down to Done is really amazing.  I’m a paper planner girl at heart so having this analog makes me happy, but you can also use digital tools like Trello or Asana or any project management app really.

The idea of only planning in 3-month chunks though was really fascinating.  Usually, I plan the whole year and then crash and burn sometime in March or April.  Here, you get a total reset every three months.  Every quarter you get to evaluate and replan.  Seriously, I’m kinda in love with this system.

So, what are my goals you ask?

Goal #1 is about writing my books and self-publishing.  So I’m working on Etta in the Outfield, brainstorming ideas for my next book project (which could turn into a trilogy with all the ideas I’m writing down!!), and researching how to take The Art of Lying wide (meaning into all online bookstores).

Goal #2 is about growing my Instagram following and being more engaged and present over there. Creating a real Author Persona and Brand and developing my style.  This will also bleed over into other aspects of my social media presence but for right now I’m concentrating on the gram.

Goal #3 is about growing my newsletter list and really forging a relationship with the people that are there — so, if you’re not already on that list, think about joining (you get a free Short Story Anthology when you do!).

Let me know — what goals are you working on?  How do you plan out your goals? How do you track them?  This fascinates me sooo much, so I would really love to hear from you and how you’re doing this year.  Are you planning a vacation? Writing a book yourself? Work-related goals?  Health and Fitness goals?  I have all of those too and at some point, I want to get a bigger Kanban board so I can have everything up in front of me.  For now – my board has my writing goals and my planner has my more personal goals – which is working…for now.

I hope you have an amazing day and don’t let the fact that it’s not January 1st stop you from starting something new, thinking about where you want to go and point yourself there – start today, start small but start now.  Think about your goals and pick one tiny thing and then plan when you’re going to do it and voila! You are well on your way!

 

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Tick Tock

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

No, the title isn’t in reference to the Ke$ha song (although, I do enjoy dancing to that when putting on my makeup) – today I’m going to talk about timers!

I love timers!  I especially love timers now that I have an Alexa (the Amazon Echo Dot that I talked about a few months ago).  Timers are everything right now and not just for cooking –  although I do use Alexa to help with that too. 

So, you might be wondering how I use timers….read on and let me know what you use timers for.

First, I use timers when I’m writing.  I usually do one or two sprints of 25 minutes each.  That seems to be my sweet spot both for writing new words and editing old words.  In one hour I’ve been able to get down 2,000 words or more!  I’m editing right now so sometimes I don’t set a timer, especially if I have free time and just want to work until I reach the end of a chapter or a section but timers can still be helpful if I don’t have as much time in my day and want to play beat the clock.

Which brings me to the second time I use timers during my day. To clean or do the dishes.  We live in New York City and don’t have a dishwasher – I know, I can hear your collective groans from here – so there are always dishes to do by hand and it’s not one of my favorite tasks of the day so I love to set a 15 minute timer and see how many I can get done in that time.  Music also helps (but that’s true for me with almost every task).

The third way I use timers is for my son.  My seven year old loves to play Roblox, Minecraft, and Portal 2; he also loves YouTube – but we try to limit him throughout the day and also we have to leave the house for school, errands, or other fun things so timers help keep him accountable for his own time.  We also set one during the day after he gets home from school for homework so he knows he has to stop what he’s doing and do math, spelling, or reading.  For the most part, it helps.

And finally, I use timers when I have any task that I’m dreading. I hate calling places to book appointments (except Disney World to book a vacation package – I would do that every day if I could) but making dentist or doctor appointments, dealing with any kind of service people (gas/electric/cable/etc) I just dread it so I set a timer, get out all my fear and anxiety – usually on paper, but sometimes I just talk it out, then the timer goes off in 5 or 10 minutes and I make the call.  Some people won’t need this, but it really does help me.  Calling my Mom or Best Friend – nope, I’ll pick up the phone just fine but calling unknown people – ugh!  Can anyone else relate, or am I just a freak?

Do you use timers during your day?  Do they help you or cause more worry and anxiety? When are they most effective for you and your family?  I would love to know so hit me up in the comments below!

Write On!

Jennifer

 

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Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Baby New Year is about to make his appearance again as we say goodbye to 2018 and ring in 2019.  Every year around this time, as I’m scrambling to buy Christmas gifts (seriously, why do I always wait until the last flipping minute?) I’m also thinking, planning, and gearing up for new goals, new dreams, and new experiences.

Goodbye 2018

2018 saw so many of my big writing goals come true – I started a newsletter/mailing list (psst…if you haven’t signed up yet, you get a FREE short story anthology eBook and awesome notes from me twice a month – sign up here ) and I self-published my debut novel, The Art of Lying (available from Amazon), in April!  I started working on my 2nd novel and started outlining my 3rd novel. I took classes, started working with my writing coach, and wrote more words than I have in the past two or three years combined!

2018 also saw us taking a non-Disney vacation and having a great time – we went to Great Wolf Lodge and did all the big water slides and enjoyed the lazy river! We spent time with family, we hung out with friends, and my kid started second grade (how is that possible?!?!).  This past year I also quit working for the VA company I was working for and went out on my own – and immediately got two kick ass clients (swoon!).  It’s been a pretty good year, and next year looks to be just as amazing!

I always choose three words to help guide my year – this year it was Courage as my main word and Magic and Open as my support words.  I definitely called upon my inner courage to achieve my goals and to quit the VA company and have faith in myself to go out on my own.  I started reading and studying and practicing witchcraft and using magic to manifest my dreams and I was open to ideas, people, and things that came into my life – seemingly from nowhere – to help guide me toward my big goals.  So this year, I sat and I thought and I journaled and I came up with Joy as my main word and Sacred and Balance as my support words.

Joy 

The past few years have been filled with grief and sadness and I want to enjoy the little moments in every day, I want to write with joy every day, and I want to enjoy my time on Earth for as long as I’m gifted.  I want to enjoy hobbies, friends and family, and my day job.  I want to feel lighter, happier, and be more pleasant to be around.

Sacred

I want to treat my body and my apartment and the Earth as sacred places.  I want to treat myself with kindness, find movement that’s fun and helps me feel like my best self. I want to clean up and organize our apartment so I can have friends over and know where things are – not be so frazzled.  And I want to continue finding ways to treat our home planet with love and understanding and that includes the people that inhabit it as well.

Balance

I want to have time for everything, including myself, every week.  My son, my husband, my parents, my family, my friends, my hobbies, my writing, my day job, etc and so on and so forth.  We all wear so many hats and I want each hat to get its time during the day, week, or month.  I want to feel whole and centered throughout the day knowing that each thing will get its time.

Hello 2019

And with my words come my big goals…and this year I decided to be a little loose with things.  I want to have certain areas of the apartment “finished” by mid-year.  I want to have Etta (book #2) done and up on Amazon by the Fall. I want to have started Circus (book #3) by end of year – meaning, first draft done and to my editor and possibly starting the edits by this time next year so we can self-publish in early 2020.  I want to have a rotating list of fun movements that I can do every day depending on energy level and weather.  

I want to have a rotating list of activities that bring me joy that I can do at least once a day.  I also want to learn to play my guitar so I can actually play one song by this time next year.  I want to attend a real life NYC planner event and make some planner girl friends.  I want to be consistent with Instagram (I have a whole plan for how to do this – but I don’t want to bore you – just know I want to post every week day, do some stories and engage with other writers and YA readers online).  

I also want to take another vacation this year – most likely over the summer – with my husband and son.  We just need to see if we can swing Disney or if we need to branch out and try something else.  I have a ton of dreams, plans, and mini goals to help me with these steps – but I’m not being super rigid.  I mean, this past year I had to throw out 78K words of a first draft because my story idea completely changed and I need to make sure that I have space for those kinds of things, because life happens.

Now, it’s your time — do you choose a word for the year?  Do you big goals for the new year? Or do you do 90 Day or Quarterly goals?  Do you have a vacation or ideas already in the words for 2019?  I want to hear from you, so share in the comments below. And have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year’s Eve!!!  

See you next year!

Reader's Group is now OPEN - join today to receive The Hit Parade, a short story anthology, for FREE!

My Reader’s Group is officially OPEN!!

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson
Join today to receive a free copy of her short story anthology, The Hit Parade!

Announcement time!!! My Reader’s Group is officially open and when you join you’ll get my short story anthology, The Hit Parade, for FREE….yup, three short Young Adult coming of age stories totally free!!  These stories all feature characters from the YA novels that I am currently writing or will be writing in the near future – so click here to join and start reading!

Send in the Clowns tells the tragic yet romantic story of a famous clown family – how they got started in the circus way back when and what made them decide to join the circus.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame shows Joe Marretti’s journey from promising pro-ball pitcher to back home in St. Louis nursing a broken heart and finding true love along the way.

Papa Don’t Preach is about Veronica and Michael’s unexpected teen pregnancy, family drama, and how love can overcome all obstacles.  The companion novel, The Art of Lying, will be available in Spring 2018 – more details coming soon!

I loved writing these stories and am so excited to offer them to you – as my gift – to you, my lovely readers.  By joining my reader’s group you will get insider info, sneak peeks into my book launches, freebies, and more! If you love Young Adult novels and free stuff – join today! 

Thanks….and share with your friends.    

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How I Use Pinterest To Help Me Write My Novels

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

My debut novel isn’t 100% ready to be published yet, but I have already started working on my 2nd novel.  Right now I’m still in the very beginning – or outline mode – but before I blink, I will quickly be descending into research, drafting, and revision modes so I already started a Pinterest board to help me.   

The working title of my second novel is Leo’s Decision which is set in my hometown of St. Louis, it has ties to Cardinals Baseball as my lead’s father was a pro baseball player, and I want to feature some of my favorite things about St. Louis including the food on The Hill, an old Italian neighborhood I grew up near.  Now, I haven’t lived in MO since 2001, and although I have visited and did live there for 25 years, I don’t remember everything – especially street names or where certain counties are located within the city limit – so I use Pinterest to help me find maps, restaurant menus (so I can spell food correctly!), and other goodies.

Also, I’m not a huge baseball fan.  Okay, full disclosure – I understand baseball, even played one summer as a kid, but I’m not a sports fan – so I have also pinned a few things about baseball including lingo, the uniforms from the 1990s, and other research links to help me when I need to write about the sport.

My other favorite thing to do when starting a mood board for a new novel is cast my characters.  If you head over to Leo’s Decision on Pinterest you will see I’ve picked a few people to play the characters in my head….and yes, I choose Steve Carrell for my lead’s step-father and John Stamos as my lead’s father – they have the right looks and I can imagine those actors walking around playing out the scenes as I write them.

During the outlining phase, I like to use Pinterest for inspiration as I work out scenes, come up with my complex characters, and help me finalize a research plan.  Once I start writing, I use the images to help me with descriptions, help give my scenes a sense of place, and can sometimes help me with tricky dialogue.  And after the book is all edited and ready to go to a book cover designer, I can look through other YA book covers and add to my mood board so all of my vision is in one place to send on to the artist to create my cover.  Exciting!   If you’d like to see an example of that, check out The Art of Lying’s Pinterest mood board as I added a bunch of covers so I’ll be ready for that part with my debut novel.

Do you use Pinterest to help you with writing or your artistic endeavor?  I’d love to connect with you over there, send me a friend request, show me your favorite board, or share an image you think might help me with my novels!

My Writer’s Toolbox

Posted on by Jennifer Gregson

Did you read that title and go, what is she talking about…writer’s don’t have toolboxes.  Okay, true – I don’t have a giant red Craftsman toolbox where I keep my writerly things, but I do use tools to write and that’s what I want to talk about today.

First, my laptop – I use a MacBook Air that I bought 2 years ago.  It’s lightweight, fast, has all the programs I need on it (more about that in a minute) and I can carry it around the house, or around town, if I need to.  I’ve been an Apple girl pretty much my whole life – my sister started me young, she bought either the 2nd or 3rd Apple computer that came out back in the late 1980’s.  I adore Apple products and although I’ve used PCs at my corporate day jobs, I wouldn’t want to write on one for long.

Next up, the programs I use to write.  Evernote for research and Scrivener for the actual writing.  I love Scrivener!!! (Oh man, do I sound like Oprah in those annoying Weight Watcher commercials where she tells us she loves bread?!?!) I even wrote a whole blog post about how I use Scrivener to organize and write my blog posts – you can find that gem HERE.  I do love this program though and I do use it to write pretty much everything from my blog to my short stories, to my longer novels – it keeps me organized, gives me freedom to write the way I want to write, and has a fantastic snapshot feature so I can keep track of edits and different versions to make the whole revision process a snap!

I use Evernote to keep links, documents, websites, articles, and everything else I use for research all neat and organized and in one place.  I usually create a notebook with the working title of my books and keep everything inside.  With The Art of Lying, I kept articles about art galleries, famous artists, information about New York parks and subways, maps, and other handy tidbits I needed during the actual writing sessions.  For novel #2, which is about St. Louis Cardinal’s Baseball, The Hill (a great Italian neighborhood), and the joys of being a teenager I’ve already started saving articles and research links for everything above.  I grew up in St. Louis, but I don’t currently live there so I will need maps and pictures to accurately describe things.

Third in my lovely toolbox is all the non-tech stuff. I use plain old spiral bound notebooks, gel pens, and index cards to help me plan, plot, outline, and revise.  Right now I have two notebooks being used – one for my short stories and one for Novel #2 – they have notes, ideas, character interviews, plot points, research to-do’s, and more!  Once I have notes and ideas out of the way, I grab a giant stack of white index cards and start writing down plot points, scene ideas, and anything else I want in my books or stories then those go into Scrivener and off I go.  But I still keep my notebooks around.  I use them while writing to make notes of character names, character descriptions that I don’t want to forget, and any other notes to myself.  I also use the notebook (or grab a new one if it gets full during pre-writing and first draft) for revisions.  I create reverse outlines, timelines, revision notes, and anything else that needs to happen during that process.

Now it’s your turn…what do you use for your creative endeavors?  Are you an artist?  If so, what kinds of materials do you work in?  If you’re a musician, what apps or computer software do you find most helpful?  Let me know in the comments and if you’re a writer too, what things do you just have to have in order to write?