Curl Up and Write » blog

A Little Here, A Little There…

Trina — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:13:29 +0000

With the Hubby and my daughter home I’ve been enjoying the family time. So I won’t be blogging until next week, but I promise to be back with great interviews, updates on my book, and of course hair! I’ll also be doing a few tweaks on the ‘ole blog, and updates on my FAQ page.

So until next year folks!

Ring the Alarm

Trina — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:43:36 +0000

In case I haven’t told you guys before, one of my favorite authors is Barbara Delinsky. I like her simple writing, her description of people is spot on and I love the fact that she keeps her fiction clean—no bad language at all. (This is in her later works, her earlier books have a few choice words, but for the most part she writes without cursing.)

I’m a big fan of her blog too. She drops pearls of writing wisdom throughout, and one pearl I picked up on is the fact that she uses a kitchen timer to help with her writing.

Yes, a plain old-fashioned kitchen timer.

She sets it for thirty minutes, about the time it takes her to write a page, and she doesn’t move her butt out of her chair until the timer goes off. She does this continually during her writing, setting the timer again and again until she hits a place where she feels comfortable to stop.

So of course I had to try it, right? I have a timer sitting on my window seat in my bedroom, next to my rocking chair, (my favorite place to write) and I set it for 30 minutes while I write. I must admit I wasn’t industrious as her, some days I didn’t set it again, but I felt better that I got thirty solid minutes of writing done. No picking up the phone, no emails, no checking text messages, all I do is write.

It’s heaven. Today I plan on getting ninety minutes under my belt. It’s cool to know just how much time I spend writing, if it’s too pitiful to say out loud then chances are I need to up my writing time. I’m working up to at least four hours a day, split in two shifts, (morning and after 8 pm when my daughter is sleep). That’s the ultimate goal. But right now, baby steps. Set at thirty minute intervals.

Harder Than It Looks…

Trina — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:46:00 +0000

I’ve been blogging for over two years now, and let me tell you—blogging ain’t easy. I took last week off to refocus my endeavors and to improve the direction of Curl Up and Write.

So yes, the blogging has been slow, but it has a purpose. No, I’m not burned out, (not yet anyway). Blogging is still something that I love, and something that I’ll continue in the future. But I will admit it can be hard finding the energy and time to write blog posts. The funny thing is that I have not run out of topics. Topics and ideas are things I have plenty of, but time is a factor on why the posts have been less and less.

What I’m trying to get at here is that blogging is a lot harder than it looks. One post can take at least an hour—more if you want to add pictures, links, or videos. (I once searched for an hour looking for a video of Bethenny Frankel burning a draft of her book on vacation. It would have brought my point home, but for the life of me I couldn’t find it. It still bugs me…)

So if you like to read blogs from your favorite authors, let them know you appreciate their hard work. And for all the authors out there still blogging? Give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it.

Katrina Spencer Spencer

Trina — Wed, 25 May 2011 02:59:02 +0000

There are many things that people don’t know about me. But one of them that A LOT of people don’t know is that my middle name is Spencer. You guessed it folks, my legal name after getting married is Katrina Spencer Spencer.

Find out more about me at Minolta C. White’s lovely blog. We dish about Unbeweaveable, my favorite authors, my writing style and much more. Click here to check it out and make sure to follow Minolta on Twitter!

Blog Tour—How Did I Do?

Trina — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:00:00 +0000

I know, I know, shame on me. I try to blog at least three or four times a week, but things have been crazy around here. The re-writes are still going on—painfully slow I might add. I’m dreading having to do a major overhaul on one of my characters. I know it’s going to take a lot of work, which is probably one of the reasons I’m writing so slow. But I have to keep going and I plan to tackle more pages each day so I can reach my goal of finishing this book by the end of the year.

A lot of you know that when Unbeweaveable came out, I set up my own blog tour and visited several sites. The funny thing about blog tours? You don’t know how well they work until months later. I do know that it helped bring more followers to my blog, and a few more followers on Twitter, (hey tweeps!) and Facebook. But did the tour actually help sell more copies of my book? Well, sorta. The thing with any marketing plan, is that you don’t usually see results right away. But the more you’re out there, then the more you stay in reader’s consciousness, so in the future when they see your name they’ll think, “Hey, I’ve heard of her before…” thereby leading to increased book sales in the future.

All in all, I would definitely do a blog tour for my next book, although I don’t see myself arranging it. It takes A LOT of work to contact bloggers yourself, and to arrange interviews, reviews, etc. I knew that going into the process, but I don’t think I can handle that much work again.

So all you writers out there, have you ever done a blog tour? What did you like or dislike about it?

Silence

Trina — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Sorry for the blog silence last week.

I feel like such a hypocrite, especially when I read this post.

But it was only a week right? That isn’t long. But I promised myself that if I started a blog I would try to post something at least three times a week. (It’s not a lot when you think about it. I’m not on Twitter and Facebook remember?)

Being quiet is soooooo unlike me. I’m one of those people who can talk to a rock. (Hey, I caught that eye-roll! Yes, I happen to be one of those…)

Now ask me how a girl that loves to talk chose writing as a job? Who knows, but I love the written word as much as the spoken word. When I was a stylist, I jabbered away, all the while twirling a curling iron in my hand. I loved hearing my clients stories, loved interacted with different personalities everyday. Everyday was a different day—something a creative person like me thrives on.

That’s the biggest thing I miss about doing hair—talking to people. Writing is a lonely job, lonelier still when you don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account. (One of the drawbacks of my I-only-have-time-for-one-social-media-outlet-and-I’m-sticking-to-my-guns attitude.) I can count the number of writers that I interact with on one hand. Totally my fault of course, but still, I miss talking to people.

But then again…

I do like typing to people!

Not the same, but it comes a close second.