Author: jordainasydneyrobinson

Goodbyes and fresh starts!

~ jordainasydneyrobinson ~ 2 Comments

Hey, y’all!

So, I know I’m a newbie to the Ladies of Mystery blog and I’ve only been gracing your computer/phone/whatever screen for a short time with my awesomeness but sadly the time has come for me to say adieu.

But I wanted to leave you with something awesome. (No, you can’t have Mr Wolf!) It’s my birthday tomorrow. (Woopwoop!) And when it gets around to this time of year (once we get the celebrating/crying out of the way!), I start thinking about all the things I’ve achieved (or still have yet to achieve) this year. And my goals next year.

Because I love fresh starts, I always start the new year off with resolutions. Mostly it’s things like “eat better” or “make time to exercise” or “stick to your darn writing schedule”. And I always think that because it’s the first day of the new year, it will be easier to keep the resolutions. Like starting with a clean slate … but it never is! And yet each year I do the same thing. Over and over! Have you heard the Einstein quote …

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”

Yeah. So that’s me (and probably a lot of other people too!) at the start of every year. And, by the second week of February, most resolutions have failed. So this year I thought, “How awesome would it be if I ended the year with all my resolutions in place and started the new year exactly where I want to be?”. I’m sure you guessed my answer was, “Wow, you’re really smart. You should totally do that!”.

And it’s twelve weeks until the end of the year. So that’s plenty of time to get those resolutions up and happening. There’s no “new year” pressure to get things perfect straightaway and even if you make a few slips, you’ll still be in a much better place by the start of the new year.

This is my plan! Are you going to join me? I know I won’t be on this blog to keep you in check but you can sign up to my newsletter (if you aren’t already) and we can keep each other accountable that way. Or you can always follow me on Insta (where I keep promising I’ll post more!). Just don’t follow me on Twitter. Yes, I’m on it but I just blueeergh—I’m terrible at it. Someone tweeted me ages ago, and it took me four months (FOUR MONTHS!!!) to see the tweet and reply. Yep, so don’t tweet me with how you’re doing because I likely won’t see it until the middle of the year and that’ll be no help to anyone.

So! Are you in for getting your resolutions in place before the end of the year? AWESOME! I totally knew you would be.

If you’re not signed up to my newsletter, then it’s been a pleasure having your company these past few months and I hope you have the BEST possible end to the year!

*waves* Jordaina 🙂

Cage match! You against your subconscious!

~ jordainasydneyrobinson ~ 6 Comments

JordainaHey y’all,

What’s the happs where you are? *listens* Cool. Uh-huh, yep. Okay. Let’s talk about me now!

Let me tell you what the happs are ‘round here. The biggest happ is that I have finally finished alllllllllllll of my courses. WOOP!

No, I’ve not just become a fully trained dentist/gardener/pilot/bounty hunter/Tasmanian devil catcher. (FYI, I am a fully trained Sports Massage Therapist and an EFL teacher and some other stuff, but that’s by the by.) The courses I’ve finished were writing-related courses. I say “writing-related”, but that’s a really loose description. I bought them because I thought they could help me with my writing career, but they weren’t necessarily directly related to writing in the sense that they taught you how to write a book.

When I was first starting out I spent thousands and thousands of pounds on these courses that promised to teach me how to do everything! How to write emails, how to get newsletter subscribers, how to master Facebook messaging, how to run AMS ads, how to conquer some other new fad. Every time something like that was advertised to me, I was like “Hell yeah! This will be so useful to me! Quick! Take my money!”. Because when you’re starting something new, it’s overwhelming. And you need a guide.

So, I bought them but never watched the videos or did the work. Ridiculously, right? I was working a day job, trying to steal moments to write so my writing career can take off … and yet, all that knowledge was just sitting on my hard drive, twiddling its thumbs, getting lonely and waiting for me to check in and find a use for it. Why? I was self-sabotaging. I can see this now.

And that’s a big thing to try to overcome because you’re not always aware of it. I wanted to be able to quit my job and write full-time, but a part of me, my subconscious that tries to keep me safe, didn’t think that it was a safe bet. So, she sabotaged me.giphy-10

I know that sounds crazy. And you might be one of these very lucky people who has a carefree subconscious who throws caution to the wind and you go on crazy adventures together. #Luckyyou My subconscious is more like, “Ooooh, do you see that cracked paving stone? Be really careful when you step on it. You might get your shoe caught, trip, completely lose your balance, hit your head on the curb as you fall, roll into traffic and get squished by that oncoming steamroller. Don’t you regret not wearing matching underwear today?”. Which is totally at odds with my conscious mind who happily lets me skip along over all the broken paving stones I want to.

So I’m taking steps to correct it (that makes it sound easy—it’s not easy, it’s an ongoing process!). See, my fully conscious mind was buying these courses because she saw the value in them, but my subconscious mind prevented me from actually completing them because she saw the “danger” in them.

Now, the “danger” was just that I’d get to quit my job and write full-time. And that’s an unknown situation. Hence my subconscious sounding the “Danger! Danger!” alarm.

So, if you have something you’re putting off, courses sitting on your hard drive, a conference, joining a writer’s group, doing something not writing-related at all, then take a moment and think about whether it’s your over-protective subconscious preventing you from doing it or if your reasons for not wanting to do it are genuine.
Now I’ve finished all the courses (there were eighteen!!), I feel awesome. It was hard going cajoling my subconscious the whole time, but I think it’s important to point out that we all self-sabotage. You just have to recognise it.
Until next time …

Jordaina 🙂

Summer sun and mutating ideas!

~ jordainasydneyrobinson ~ 10 Comments

JordainaHey folks. What’s new with you?

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but here in the UK, we’re suffering through a heatwave. (I’m English—gotta talk about the weather! I went to Nashville a few years ago now (we can talk about my Nashville adventures another time) and mentioned the weather to someone, like “It’s warm today”. They replied with, “Yeah, it is.” And that was it. Back home, that’s at least twenty minutes worth of conversation, right there. Or maybe he just didn’t like me … ).

And, yes, I did say, “suffering”! It’s lovely to see the sun, but shoot! I wouldn’t mind a bit of cloud as well. Maybe even a breeze. (I’m complaining about this now, next time week speak I’ll be whining about the rain!)

Anyway, with it being England, summers are unpredictable which sucks because whenever I can, I love to write outside. Maybe it’s because it’s rare to have days when it’s warm enough to do this. I feel like when I write inside my ideas are contained. They’re trapped in the room with me, and they can’t mutate into much better ideas because there isn’t space and then they suffocate each other, and I have to go downstairs to get a chocolate bar and a cup of tea.

giphy-4But when I write outside? I imagine my ideas multiplying and changing and growing limitlessly. I want to say they dance around on the breeze, like Julia Andrews in The Sound of Music but, in reality, I think it’s probably more like what happens to that alien in Evolution when they hit it with napalm. Only my ideas are much prettier. Maybe.

My point is being outside makes me feel more creative. Or imaginative. Maybe it’s because there’s more going on outside so there are more stimuli. For example, I love watching the planes fly over and wonder where the passengers are going. Are they going on holiday? Coming back? Did they find a holiday romance? Are they moving away and starting a new life? Are they leaving a new life and coming back to their old one because the new one didn’t work out? Are they on their first leg of an around the world adventure? Are they coming back from an around the world adventure wholly changed? What are their plans now?

I’m pretty sure everyone thinks about this when they see planes. Or maybe they wave their fist at the plane, super annoyed that they’re not on that plane, going on holiday. (I’ve been there. I briefly worked in a retail store in the departures area of an airport. It killed me! Killed me. I had to go through security every day as if I were going on holiday … but I was just going to work. Gut-wrenchingly depressing.)

To get back on track, even when it rains, I’m outside. I might be huddled under my garden umbrella, clinging onto my hot-water bottle as I type, but I’m outside. I thought about investing in a fancy summer house, but it still has that “inside” feel to it.

lisa-in-coffee-shopI know people who write in coffee shops, but I just can’t be doing with all that noise and commotion. And, oh my days, there would be so many conversations to eavesdrop on I’d never get anything done!

Is there anywhere you love to write? Anywhere that fills you full of inspiration? Add a comment and let me know!

Until next time …

Jordaina 🙂

Judging a book …

~ jordainasydneyrobinson ~ 7 Comments

Hey, y’all.

What’s new with you? Hope everything is good down your way. Read any good books lately? (Here’s a cyber cookie if you said you’d read mine and you thought they were “good”. I appreciate it, yo!)

If you didn’t say mine (not cool, bro) then how did you choose the book? Was it recommended to you by a friend? (I used to know a guy #douche who would get really offended when I didn’t rush out and buy whatever book he recommended. Like, sulk-for-a-whole-day offended. He used to think he had the best taste in books so he could never accept why I didn’t read what he suggested. I did mention he was a douche, right?)

Anyway, to get back on topic, how did you find your latest book? Recommendation from a non-douchey friend? Email from a promotions company? Did the cover catch your eye while you were browsing the digital Amazon/iBooks/Nook/Kobo shelves?

 

Beyond Dead
Old Bridget Sway cover

I ask because I recently changed all of my book covers. #nightmare Well, it’s wasn’t really a #nightmare as such but it was a LOT of work. Originally I hired a professional cover designer to do them, and I was super pleased with the result. I loved the cover for the first Bridget Sway book. It had been my idea (I wanted her hair to take up the cover and for you to not be able to see her face) and the designer ran with it. I remember I was ridiculously pleased with it at the time. It was my first ever cover! And then I got the second one done. And the third. And the fourth. And the shine completely wore off. 

 

The colour scheme was a bit limiting. (Straight up, I’m not really a black/red/grey/white type of girl. I do like those colours … but I’m more of a rainbow person.) And I was a bit fed up with how her face just moved around the cover. And I can’t tell you how many people asked me if they were horror books.

 

Beyond Dead - FINAL COVER-2
New Bridget Sway cover

So, I redid them. Yes, I did them myself. I didn’t know how much you know about that, but that is a huge no-no for independently published authors. It’s like an unspoken rule. But I did. And I LOVE them. I LOVE them so much. To me, the really express the tone of the stories the way the other covers didn’t. But you might not like the newer version, and that’s okay. Different strokes for different folks, yo. 

 

The biggest thing I took away from this is that you have to trust your gut when making these decisions. You have to trust your own instincts. Writing is a business, but it’s a personal one. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your covers or a comment that your editor makes. You have to trust that you have a story to tell and only you can tell it your way. 

 

Now, I believe you were about to tell me how awesome my covers were! Yeah, thought so!

 

Until next time …

Jordaina

Haunted Timer Tales

~ jordainasydneyrobinson ~ 6 Comments

Hey yo. What’s up?

So, this month I’d planned to talk about summer, writing outside and why it’s awesome BUT, instead, we need talk about something spooky that happened.

I don’t know if you remember from my last post, but I was talking about how I’d just started writing full-time and how I was having difficulty managing my time and settling into a routine. (And pomados! Let’s not forget the pomados!)

Anyway, I modified the whole pomado technique (because I just love being able to say to people, “I can’t right now, I have to pomado”—not that I’ve had the chance to say it to anyone, but I practice saying it in my head all the time). Yes, so, now my version of pomadoing means I estimate how long I think it will take me to accomplish something, halve that amount of time and set a timer. Why do I halve it? Well, I used to have a boss that would set unrealistic time goals on tasks:

Her: We got a hundred boxes of stock in delivery. You have until lunchtime to get all stripped, hung and tagged. (“stripped” just means taking the plastic off—in case you were wondering.)

Me: Lunchtime when? Lunchtime next Thursday? Cool, I can do that. (I’ve always had a poor work attitude!)

Her: Lunchtime today.

Me: *checks watch* That’s three hours. There’s no way we can do that.

Her: Well, you have no choice because that’s when I need it done. *walks away*

Me: *flips her off behind her back* (see above comment about poor work attitude)

Her: I can see you in the mirror.

Me: I was stretching my fingers. Didn’t want to pull a muscle and not get this done by lunchtime … *slinks off to the stock room*

Now, every time I think of estimating how long it will take me to do something I always think back to that and her unrealistic goals. Because of that, I got into the habit of setting deadlines much further away than I really needed. There’s nothing more demotivating than setting a deadline that is going to be impossible to hit. Or one that’s going to be so tight, you get stressy over it. Life’s too short.

So I got into the habit of overestimating … and then I found this nugget of time management wisdom: “However long you set for a task, that’s how long it will take. If you set a week—it’ll take a week. If you set a month—it’ll take a month.”

Which is true (for me, at least). Even with this last book. I set the goal to have it ready to send to my editor a week earlier than the deadline. But that didn’t happen. I got it finished the day before I needed to send it off because that was (technically) how long I actually had to get it finished.

Anyway, so I halve my time estimate and set the timer. And there’s something about seeing a timer count down and thinking “Maybe I can get it done much faster than I thought”.

But, time management aside, the thing I wanted to tell you was that I have a battery operated timer (remember this—it’s important). Just a regular kitchen timer. I’ve used it for nearly two months now. It counts down (timer setting) and it counts up (stopwatch setting). I wanted to use it to count up so I could time something—I forget what now. Naturally, I pressed the “mode” button thinking that it would switch it from “timer” to “stopwatch”, but I found another setting called “clock” … and it tells the time.

I can hear you’re, like, “So? What’s the big deal?”. Well, the “big deal” is that it’s a battery operated timer! It has no way to know the time. It’s not wifi connected. I frequently take the batteries out so they don’t run down. There is no way for it to connect to the internet or anything to sync with to get the time. But it knows the time! How does it know the time!!? And, it is always nine minutes fast. Crazy.

I suppose it could be counting up from whenever I put the batteries in but that seems like a huge coincidence …

Worlds Collide - FINAL COVER

So, obviously, I channelled that experience into a story. It features two of my main characters and it’s free … but you have to sign up for my newsletter to get it (sorry!), but you can always unsubscribe straight away. Why can’t I give you a link where you don’t have to sign up? I promised my newsletter peeps the only way you could get it was by being a newsletter peeps—gotta be a woman of my word, yo.

 

Here’s the link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/qujqdjo00l

Yeah, so that’s my haunted timer tale. Have you had anything like that? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time,

Jordaina 🙂