Hi all! Welcome to my June recap, and I’d love to hear how things are going with you!
We’ll start with a little talk about the movie…
Sometime next month, hopefully, I’ll be going to Vancouver to a visit the set of the movie based on my book, Her Knight at the Museum. I’m still trying to get firm dates, but I’m excited about it! My husband and I can’t afford to both go, because that means boarding the dogs and a second airline ticket. After all, we’re already planning a family trip at Thanksgiving, and hoping to go to Kansas City for a few days to see old friends. So I’ll make it a quick trip. 🙂
A few people have asked me about what I’m getting paid for the movie. There are practical reasons why I don’t want to get into specifics. I will say that the money I’m getting for the movie may be less than most people would guess, but it makes a big difference to me and I’m very grateful for it! And hey, I’m doing well enough to give subscribers…
A free ebook!
Blank Page to Final Draft is my step-by-step guide to planning, writing, and revising a novel. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to write a book, but has never managed to finish a draft…or for anyone who wants an organized way to write a novel and make steady progress while doing all the other things in their busy life. (You can read the reviews on Amazon if you like.) If you do one step a week, you’ll have a fairly polished novel in a year’s time, but of course, you can go as fast as you want.
If you don’t already have the book, click here to go to Bookfunnel.com, where you can download it! I’m giving away this book in order to get more blog subscribers, so if you happen to be reading this and you’re not subscribed, downloading the book means you’ll be subscribed. I hope both the book and the blog encourage my fellow writers as we all pursue our goals. 🙂
One of my TikToks went a little viral.
When you make a little video, having a great opening hook is key. Honestly, I usually don’t have one! But it turns out that a smiling redhead saying “I am on an FBI watchlist” does get people’s attention.
This is a joke authors love to make about their writing research (and writers, you’re welcome to steal it as a hook). In my book Master Lists for Writers: Gold Edition, my lists on ways to kill people (for mystery authors) and ways to overthrow an evil regime (for dystopian and fantasy authors) did require some questionable online searches, though I also did some of the research with books at the library.
I posted this video in April, and in May, I did promote it: in other words, I paid a little money to show it to more people. But it just kept going hard after the promotion, and now it has 264,000 views.
Even though we’re not taking a summer vacation, per se…
We’ve been making the most of the summer, and being a little touristy in our own neck of the woods! Last weekend, we went to the top of John Hancock Center, on an absolutely beautiful day; last Sunday, on a whim, we trekked up to Milwaukee on a whim to see our Cubs play the Brewers and get the win in the tenth inning.
We’ve also been rewatching The Office. This is extremely boring of us; everyone rewatches The Office. But we didn’t see a lot of it when it first aired, and we love it. We went to see Toy Story 5—the concerns about screen time resonated with me, and the movie made me cry, like all the other movies in the franchise. And I’ve been reading a lot of thrillers, and finishing the plotting on my own!
Don’t forget we have WIP Wednesday tomorrow!
It’s always hard to remember when Wednesday is the 1st! For those new to the blog, WIP Wednesday is when I share an excerpt of a work in progress, and if you want to, you can do the same in the comments (400 words maximum, no explicit material.) Here’s last month’s WIP Wednesday, if you want to check it out!
I hope everything’s going well with you! Thank you so much for reading!
CONGRATULATIONS on your movie! That’s an exciting milestone and it will be so fun to visit the set as the originator of the story! I resonate with what you said about the money part of being an author and, while OF COURSE we like to make money, for the most part we do this work because we love it. I’m going to work as a script supervisor on a Christmas movie in July and I’m not getting paid a dime, but I’ll be learning a new skill on the production side of things and collaborating with other creative people so it’s totally worth it to me. Last, yay for being a tourist in your home town. I used to live in Chicago and LOVED it. Now I live outside Seattle. Finally going to my first Mariners game in August. Guess who they’re playing—the Cubs! 😀
Hi Jill! Ohhh, that is really cool that you’re going to be a script supervisor! It’s an exciting opportunity and I bet it will pay down the line in so many ways! I would love to visit Seattle again someday. I only went once, in the 1990s! I loved it. That game is going to be fun. 🙂
I hope you enjoy your stay in Vancouver, where I grew up. Unfortunately I moved to Vancouver Island a few years ago, so I won’t be meeting you for coffee, but I imagine your schedule will be pretty packed anyhow.
Hi Naomi! Ahh, that’s too bad for me that I won’t get to see you 🙂 Vancouver Island looks like such a beautiful place to live!
Thank you, Bryn!
Thank you for reading the blog! 🙂
Thanks for all the kind advice and suggestions you give to authors– and for sharing your successes in such a humble –and excited–way. Appreciated!
Hi Jody! Thank you for reading the blog! 🙂
I enjoy getting your recap.
Thank you for reading the blog, Patty! I appreciate it!
I’m so glad you get to go, and I wish your hubby could go, too. I do understand budgets.
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Yeah, we are so rarely apart, and I always miss him so much! But it will be a quick trip! 🙂