Jodie Leigh Murray

 

These are only a few that I can't wait to read . . .

 

I would think I'm like more readers and have an enormous stack of books to read. In fact, most people that I talk to at craft shows have a stack. Usually, this is the reason they can't buy my book. But, like my good buddy indie author E.H. Drake says . . . books don't expire. So add another to your stack! That's what I do. I'll read it. Eventually. My only dilemma is finding the room. But that is more of an issue with not getting rid of books, not having too many to read.

 

I'm a genre neutral reader. I'll read just about everything from fantasy to young adult to steamy romance. What do you like to read? Here's a few that I'm looking forward to reading. Some are on my shelf, and some are not yet there, but will be.

 

The Crowns of Nyaxia Series by Carissa Broadbent

The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King, and The Songbird & the Heart of Stone (releases in November 2024)

This is a dark, 'romantsy' series with vampires, war, mystery and magic. I have the first two books, but the third won't release until November and I've been on the fence about starting it until the third one comes out. I'm not sure how many more will be in this series. If you've been following my blog's and social media, you might have heard me shout from the rooftop about how frustrated I'd been after finishing Rebecca Yarro's Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, only to find out the next one isn't even written yet. It won't release until January 2025, but I at least have it pre-ordered through Barnes & Noble. Still, to have to wait that long!! Is that what everyone goes through waiting for me to release a book? If so, I am so sorry.

 

Born of Blood and Ash (Flesh and Fire Series #4) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Book number 4 in her Flesh and Fire Series, another romantsy with love and obsession, gods and fates and prophecies. This won't release until August so I have some time to read other things, but I can't wait to resume this series. If I didn't have such a large stack to be read, I'd re-read the series. This series has been jam-packed with action, steamy love and twists that you never see coming. If you like romantsy (romance and fantasy) and you don't mind reading really, I mean really, steamy and explicit scenes, I would recommend her Flesh and Fire series and From Blood and Ash series. She is a wonderful writer of this genre, by far.

 

Fool's Gold by Brenda Lyne

Book number 3 in the Regan O'Rourke series, this is Indie-author Brenda Lyne's fifth novel release of paranormal suspense. This series is based in Minnesota, as is Sister Lost. Her books don't disappoint, I can assure you. It's available on Amazon for pre-order or you can go to her website www.brendalyne.com and find her at an event. There may be one or two that we'll be at together, as that sometimes happens. The release is in September, and it will be available on her website. Check it out! I know I can't wait to read it!

 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This has been on my bookshelf for a while now, and I haven't quite gotten to it. If this book is anything like The Night Circus, I've been missing out! A very colorful writer, these are the stories that stick with you. It's hard to describe, you've just got to read for yourself.

 

That's all I have for now. There are a ton more books on my shelf to be read, and growing, but I have limited time if I want to get any writing done. And right now, I'm focused on getting my fourth book done and the next gangster book pre-writing done. Before I go to sleep and while camping are about the only times I have to read.

 

Happy reading!

 

To Do Audiobooks or Not, That's The Question

 

Ugh . . . audiobooks. There is usually someone who occasionally asks me if I have audiobooks available. Truth be told, it has not been in my budget, which has been extremely slim. This market is ginormous. Sales are hard to come by unless you work your butt off, and even then . . . Hey, I'm a reader. I know how expensive books are. I totally get it! But audiobooks are another expense and I'll tell you why.

 

Voice Actors

I can hire a voice actor to do an audiobook, hence the expense. Obviously, like editing, I would want the audio done right. To do so, I'd need to shell out some serious dollars to hire someone to do the voicing. Then, I'd have to consider my characters. My second book, The Duke's Daughter, is based in England and has several characters who would have accents. That may cost more than The Gangster's Daughter or The Gangster's Mistake. And this is part of the reason I do not have my books available on audio yet.

 

DIY (Do It Yourself)

Doing it myself is a viable, and much cheaper, option. You need the computer program, okay-easy enough. You need headphones and a microphone, okay-cool. You need a room that has buffers, hmmmm could do it in my closet. My office is much too open and it would cause an echo. BUT . . . my voice is not what you'd call audio worthy. Yes, I know there are many of you who have not heard my voice. Trust me in this! You do not want me to voice my own book, although many authors do so. I most definitely could not voice The Duke's Daughter. For this reason, I did not go down this path in doing an audiobook myself.

 

Sounded

Recently, I've been made aware (thank you, Ingram) of an audiobook production platform called Sounded. I looked into this and although Sounded is not among those popular places to get your audiobooks; they have affordable options for the little people like me depending on my book and how much I want. Meh, could be an option when my budget opens up a little more. Of the lowest two pricing options, the audiobook would only be available on their platform for a certain amount of time (the lowest option is 3 years, the middle option is 1 year). The highest priced option, I could have my audiobook available wherever the heck I want. The good thing about this program is that I control every single sentence and how it sounds. Is the voice excited? Sad? Fast? Slow? High pitched? Deep? British? Russian? Still considering it . . . I know people want my books in audio format, I just have to afford it and if my paperback and ebook sales are struggling, will audio struggle, too?

 

These are all things I need to consider carefully before I delve into audiobooks, but I can assure those who want my books available in audio form, I am looking into it!

 

Happy reading (or listening, eventually)!

 

How do I run a blog while being an author?

 

Writing a blog when you're otherwise preoccupied with author work is interesting. I won't tell you it's an effortless task. Like social media, it takes maximum effort to write my bi-weekly blogs, besides writing and scheduling my social media posts. I work a full-time job besides being an author of three published books, writing my fourth, planning my fifth, and having oodles (one of my maternal grandmother's favorite words) of other ideas knocking around in my head. To say I'm busy is an understatement. But . . . I have it under control thanks to my handy-dandy planner and my routine. I could not do all this if I wasn't so well organized as I am.

 

Ideas

It took me a while to get ideas for blogs and I did so by scouring the internet for ideas by other authors and what they blog about. I'm not a one-topic kind of person, so centralizing my blogs won't work for me. Boring you isn't a goal either. I took the time to put all the ideas I found online into a document. The next step in my organization is scheduling.

 

Schedule

Since I decided on bi-weekly blogs, I wrote all the dates I'd post on my blog. Why bi-weekly? Weekly would have been too much for me to handle and monthly, while it would work, wouldn't have given me much time to talk about everything I want to talk about. Well, not talk. Let's say write about. Writing comes easy to me. Talking to people, that takes work since I'm an introvert. I'm getting so much better with all the wonderful people I've met at craft shows and other events! Okay, so I have all my dates and I have my pages and pages of ideas. I run through it and schedule each blog idea based on what I feel is important to write about, keeping in mind that some blogs may center on releases coming up, such as sneak peeks, cover reveals, contests, etc. I have the entire year scheduled, so at the end of this year I'll do the same for 2025. That's how organized I am.

 

A bit about my social media posts . . .

Social media posts are more difficult than my blogs, even though in reality they are much shorter to write. I have a massive calendar of events, national days, historical events, famous people's birthdays, seasonal things, etc. Before the start of each month, I go through and pick out upcoming events I have for the next month and fill in the gaps, so I'm posting 3-4 sometimes 5-6 days that week. I have 3 major categories for my posts:

 

• Personal: Things I write about myself personally. I mean, you want to know about the person behind the book, right? Have I done something fun recently? Pictures of my office or my desk companions, my writing routine. Things like that.
• Curation: Recommendations (books I'm reading or preparing to read) or facts such as historical events or birthdays of famous or historical people. I admit, I've posted a lot of historical facts in the last few months.
• Brand/Book Posts: Post directly related to my books and my brand. Upcoming releases, book reveals, teasers, events I'll be attending so you know where to find me, those kinds of things.

 

I try to make all three somewhat equal for the month, so I'm not posting one category more than another.

 

Once I have my month planned with ideas, I schedule the weekly posts every Sunday (unless I'm busy that Sunday, then I'll do it Saturday or even Friday). Anyway, they're scheduled and they post to my Facebook and Instagram pages automatically. Pictures are another story because I'm not supposed to post pictures copyrighted to someone else. I try to be very careful about that. I'm not aiming to get sued for copyright laws after I so carefully register all of my books with the Library of Congress. Worse case, I'm hoping if I posted a picture I shouldn't have, I'll be asked nicely to remove it.

 

Happy reading!

 

What are the best ways to save and organize favorite articles from the internet?

 

Wow. That is a mouthful. As a writer, I'm always coming across articles to help improve writing or help me in my self-publishing endeavors. Especially marketing, where I'm less than knowledgeable. Like everyone else, well most people that use the internet, I come across that I want to read later or save for later use. How do I do it? If I'm on my phone, I keep that page up and don't close it until I get to my computer or I email the link to the page to myself. Sometimes, I do that anyway.

 

Saving

The best way I've come up with is to copy – literally – the contents of the web page. If it's allowed. Not every web page will let you do that. I paste it into word and change to the font to my liking before saving it. When I grab something from the internet, whether it's a blog or information, I always make sure the document has the following:

• the author
• the web page I got it from
• the date it was published

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pirating peoples stuff. It's for my own personal use, but I like to know where I initially got it from. I get a lot from Writer's Digest.

 

Organizing

Organizing articles is a whole different animal. I've worked at it over the year to figure out what works best for me. Most of what I'm saving has to do with writing. To that end, I have a folders specifically for writing on my folder (backed up by a USB drive, of course). For instance, I have a folder named Editing and Revision Information. Within this folder, I have a sub-folder called Articles where I saved several word documents. 5 Questions to Ask During Revision, How To Self Edit Like A Pro, The Power of Process – Prewriting, Writing, and Rewriting. Do I need all these? Probably not. I've forged my own self-editing process. But I have them, in case I ever want to breeze through them to see if I need to add something to my process. Or if another author asks for help!

 

I've tried my hand at printing and saving, and that does not help at all. The only binder that I grab is when I'm character building. The rest of them are sitting on the shelf gathering dust so I've wasted a lot of paper trying to organize that way. Best to have them on my computer to use. I use my computer every day.

 

Happy organizing!

 

First, let me apologize for the length of this blog. I love outlining a new book. L-O-V-E it. I'm a planner, not a pantser. What does that mean? It means I plan everything out before I begin to writing a book instead of just flying by the seat of my pants. To be honest, I outlined most of "The Gangster's Mistake" but I got hung up a little and part of it I had to be a pantser. I'd say the book turned out pretty good.

 

In my new book folder under outlining, I have 4 different methods of outlining that I like to choose from, depending on what I'm writing. The first one, a very simple outline and the fourth one, is very detailed. I'll expand on it more below. I tend to over-outline. Once I get going on writing, I don't like to stop because I have hiccups in my outline flow.

 

Method 1: Simple Scene List

This is just as it implies. Simple scenes. Write down all the scenes I can think of, then put them in order of how they should go in the story. That's it.  

 

Method 2: The 9-Step Plot

This is just the basic outline to get you to where you're going. Easy peasy.

• Ordinary World: the main character in normal life
• Inciting Incident: Something changes that normal life
• First Plot Point: Things are getting more intense, everything changes and there isn't any going back
• First Pinch Point: First major interaction with the antagonist
• Midpoint: a shift from victim to warrior
• Second Pinch Point: Second confrontation with the antagonist
• Second Plot Point: Battle lost, hope is almost given up
• Final Battle: The main character gets renewed vigor, then victory!

 

Same as the last one, you just need more details than just the basic six. You can still incorporate Method 1 into Method 3 with all your scenes.

 

Method 3: Save the Cat!

If you're a writer, you've likely heard this term. If not, you're in for a treat. The Save The Cat outline method is a popular outlining method for planners. It's 3 acts and 15 beats, with the second act being the bulk of the beats.

 

Act I

• Opening Imagine (0-1%): the main character in normal life
• Set-up (1-10%): Exploring more of the main character's normal life, including internal flaws, external challenges and supporting characters
• Catalyst (10%): Otherwise known as the inciting incident and life as they know it changes forever
• Debate (11-20%): The main character is balking at the change, seriously reconsidering moving forward

Act II

• Break Into 2 (20%): The choice is made to take the plunge into new life
• The Promise of the Premise/Fun and Games (21-50%): The main character gets used to the new world, whether loving it or hating it, doing well or not, and possibly introducing a new 'helping' character
• Midpoint (50%): Either everything is good, or everything is bad at this point
• Bad Guys Close In (51-75%): Things start going wrong for the main character and it gets bumpy
• All is Lost (75%): Your main character hits rock bottom, their absolute lowest point
• Dark Night of the Soul (76-80%): Time for your main character to wallow in hopelessness

Act III

• Break Into 3 (80%): The main character realizing what he/she needs to do in order to break through this problem
• Finale (81-99%): The main character does what he/she decided in Break Into 3 and succeeds or doesn't
• Final Image (99-100%): This is the opposite of your opening, the main character in the new life

 

The more in depth outlining, the more you have to sit and think things through, but then you don't have to do it when you're actually writing. And maybe you don't have to, if you're a pantser!

 

Method 4: 3 Act / 9 Block / 27 Chapter Outline

This is the mack-daddy of all outlining. If you love outlining, this is the one for you. Now, keep in mind that you do not have to stick to 27 chapters. It can be more, it can be less. But you will have 3 acts and 9 blocks. I use this, combined with Method 1. I also have very specific things I incorporate in my outlines, such as information such as date, time, chapter/scene,  scene props, scene purpose, characters in the scene. I go ALL out. And if you ever want to see any of my materials, just let me know. I'll share.

 

Act I: Set Up

• Chapter 1 – Introductions: Introduce the main character in the ordinary world
• Chapter 2 – Inciting Incident: A problem disrupts the main character's life
• Chapter 3 – Fall Out: The main character deals with the inciting incident
• Chapter 4 – Reaction/Rebel: The main character's long-term reaction
• Chapter 5 – Action: The main character makes a decision, impacting the rest of the story
• Chapter 6 – Consequences: The result of the Action
• Chapter 7 – Pressure: The main character starts to feel the pressure
• Chapter 8 – Plot Twist: Things get complicated and the main character wonders if the right decision was made
• Chapter 9 – The main character is pushed in a new direction

Act II (Conflict)

• Chapter 10 – New World: The main character experiences a new world or situation
• Chapter 11 – Fun and Games: The main character explores the new world
• Chapter 12 – Old Juxtaposition: Comparison of the new world to old
• Chapter 13 – Build Up: The main character struggles, which motivates him/her
• Chapter 14 – Midpoint: The main character encounters a complication
• Chapter 15 – Reversal: Everything changes.
• Chapter 16 – Consequences: The main character reflects on what has happened
• Chapter 17 – Trials: The main character takes matters into his/her own hands (see Reversal)
• Chapter 18 – Dedication: The main character is determined to overcome

Act III (Resolution)

• Chapter 19 – Calm Before Storm: A solution is found, but the main character has to overcome doubt
• Chapter 20 – Plot Twist: Worst that before. Everything is possibly ruined
• Chapter 21 – Darkest Moment: Everything seems list
• Chapter 22 – Power Within: The main characters finds the courage and strength to carry on
• Chapter 23 – Action/Rally: Taking action, the main character overcomes the plot twist and continues
• Chapter 24 – Converge: Everything comes together, the big event is imminent
• Chapter 25 – Battle: The main character fights the villain or tackles the issue
• Chapter 26 – Climax: The main character triumphs or succumbs to a fatal flaw
• Chapter 27 – Resolution/The End: All loose ends are tied up and the main character has changed

 

I'm sure there are numerous other outlining techniques out there, and I'm sure I have some saved in folders, but these are the ones I've tried to use and have had some success at. I've got these from researching and finding what others do for outlining and made my own modifications. Feel free to use any of these methods, all these methods, or none at all! Happy writing!