Getting the Most Out of Your Creative Day

This post is part of an ongoing series for HBIC Nation, a community that helps creatives learn, grow, and dominate in their fields. Our motto is Dream. Do. Dominate. You can find out more by going to HBICnation.com or joining the HBIC Nation Facebook Group. I recently transitioned from working a full-time day job and writing on contract for a publisher to writing full-time. I’ve been dreaming for years about making this jump. I figured I’d wake up, roll out of bed, and the words would just flow. If my fantasy was a formula, it would look like this:

All the time in the world + Writing full-time + Dream fulfilled = All the books in the land

Wasn’t I adorably naïve?

Instead of being the writer utopia I’d imagined, all of this uninterrupted time was daunting. In the past, my day job forced me to be extra disciplined and protective of my writing hours. I was getting stuff done before because, ironically, I had so little time in which to do it. It turns out that for me the formula looked like this:

No time + Deadlines + Stubborn determination = 4 books a year

Obviously, I was happy that I had one focus in my professional life instead of two, but without the structure of a demanding schedule I was feeling lost. I was too unstructured.

Fortunately, I have lots of creative around me who don’t work traditional day jobs. Instead, they create their own schedules that work at the pace of their own artistic flow and — this part is key — still get the work done.

I reached out and got a lot of great advice from women who’d made this jump before me, including from HBIC members Alexandra Haughton and Tamsen Parker. Then I took a step back to assess my own working habits and came up with these things that have been working for me.

Survey Your Week

I’m going to come right out and admit that I’m not great at future planning. At least not long, long-term future planning. However, what I am good at and find incredibly helpful is looking at the week ahead.

Every Sunday I sit down with my bullet journal and brain dump a list onto a piece of paper. I write down my appointments, important emails and calls, and every project that I know I need to get done next week.

Here’s a sample list of things I jotted down on my weekly to do list:

• Email London networking contact • Finish The Taste of Temptation draft • Make notes on Patreon • Dinner with Maegan, Tuesday • Agent/Editor lunch, Thursday • Podcast interview, Friday • Pick up dry cleaning • Long run • Cancel cable

See what I mean about brain dump?

One thing I don’t do is write down every little step to get those projects done. Finish The Taste of Temptation draft could look like this: finish hero realization scene, write grand gesture scene, write epilogue, finish transitional heroine scene you neglected to write because you got excited about other things. That, however, doesn’t help me see the big picture for the week. The nitty gritty details? Those are more likely to cloud up my view. Apparently I’m exactly who that seeing the forest through the trees adage is about

Make a Daily List and Make It Early

Once I’ve got a weekly list (which I make on Sunday nights), I get down to my big organizational tool: day-to-day task lists. The night before I start writing down everything I need to do the next day. Monday gets planned on Sunday night, Tuesday gets planned on Monday night, and so on. I do this because it helps me shut off my brain and keeps me from working 16 hour days. If there’s a to do list for tomorrow, those things can get done tomorrow.

This day-to-day list is where those nitty gritty tasks I avoid putting on my weekly list become helpful. They keep me on task and help break big projects down into actionable steps.

I’ve also found it to be helpful to sometimes write out a little schedule for myself like so:

7:45 a.m. — Shower, breakfast, morning pages 9 a.m. — Morning writing session 11:30 a.m. — Run errands, lunch 1 p.m. — Afternoon writing session 5 p.m. — Email catch-up 5:30 p.m. — Run

3 Daily Goals

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m a lister. I put everything on lists, and that sometimes makes it hard to figure out what absolutely needs to get done and what can potentially get pushed to another day. Because of that, I like to highlight the three biggest things that must get done on a given day. I literally write a 1, 2, 3 next to them to mark that they’re my priorities, but you can use this prompt to help you organize:

Today I Will: 1)   ____________________

2)   ____________________

3)   ____________________

If those three tasks get done, the day’s a win for me. (Don’t we all need little wins for motivation?)

Make Time for Admin — And Keep It

Admin has been a huge pain point for me for a long time. The problem isn’t so much sending emails, writing blog posts, and social media. It’s getting myself to stop once I start. There’s always one more thing that I could be doing. One more newsletter draft. One more Facebook post. One more tweet. It’s enough to make an HBIC want to pull her hair out.

I’ve started to think about admin like I think about my writing time. I build out space in my week for it and I protect it fiercely. However, I’d say I go one step further when I work on admin during the predetermined time because I’m protecting the rest of my life from it creeping out and taking over everything.

On Sundays I’ll go into my CoSchedule app — an expensive but worth-it-to-me content marketing tool — and set up my blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagrams for the week. If I have a newsletter I’ve got to send that week, I’ll make sure that’s ready to go and scheduled in MailChimp. I’ll fill up my Buffer with snazzy content from friends and make sure I’ve got some things ready to go if people I know have launches or book sales during the upcoming week.

Then, after all that is done, I close CoSchedule and walk away. Other than making sure that my content is going out into the world, I try not to open it again. I’ll jump on Facebook and Twitter from time to time, but that’s mostly for interaction and catching up on everyone’s news rather than promoting my content. The temptation to cut into writing is just too great. All of this content creation is supposed to serve the writing, not hinder it by taking excessive time and mental energy away from me.

I’m still learning my own best practices for working as a creative full time, and would love to hear what works for you whether you’re working on a side hustle or your art is your full time gig! Leave me a comment or shoot me an email at julia@juliakellywrites.com, and be sure to check out HBICnation.com.

#5forFriday: One Week in Hawaii Is Breaking Up! (And That Means You Save)

This is a special #5forFriday today because it isn't every week I get to announce TWO deals for readers.

1. My anthology ONE WEEK IN HAWAII is breaking up! What does that mean for you? A 99¢ book that gets you not just one but four sexy novellas just in time for summer beach read season. But remember, you've got just one week for the sale because after that the ebook comes down and you'll only be able to get it via paperback.
2. Speaking of great deals, my publisher has put together a bundle of 12 free reads including THE GOVERNESS WAS WICKED! It's all in honor of a great site redesign for XOXO After Dark. Definitely check it out, and don't miss this video the authors of Pocket shot for the big anniversary. I'm in there, big hair and all.
3. My sister and her Scottish boyfriend are coming to NYC! In fact, mere hours after this post goes up, they'll be on the ground (and probably jet lagged). My sister used to live four blocks from me in New York, so it's been tough not having her around. Fortunately...
4. ...my moving to the U.K. going along about as well as I could hope. There are a million little things that need to be done before I get on a plane, but I'm crossing things off the very long to do list.
5. Normally I'd round this out by saying I finished a draft of a book (true!) or turned in proofs (also true!) since my last #5forFriday, but really the best thing that's happened to me all week has been seeing friends and getting together those last few times. Even though I'll see many of them in a couple months — I literally just booked airfare to come back to the U.S. for my best friend's bachelorette party in Austin AND RWA in Orlando — there's something about celebrating seeing each other in the same city that makes all the difference.

Your First Look at a Second Chance Romance

Four years ago, I came back to New York from a conference buzzing with excitement over a new story I wanted to write. It was a sexy sports contemporary romance all centered around the NFL Draft. It would have a badass agent as the heroine squaring off against a charming and persistent sports reporter who's fighting to save his job by scoring a big interview with her client. Even better, he's a blast from her past — the guy who never noticed her in high school — but you can bet he's paying attention now. I sat down and started writing that very night.

Over the years the book changed as I grew as an author. I rewrote it a couple of times but kept coming back. Finally, it found a home with my publisher and got the love it deserves from a great editor. Now I can honestly say I can't wait for you guys to read CHANGING THE PLAY, and as a little teaser here's a look at the cover!

Rachel's a powerful agent who will do anything to guard her clients (her client list is full of basketball and football players just like those guys standing behind her). She's totally the type of woman to rock that suit and those shoes at work, and I love love love her!

Trust me, Nick doesn't even know what he's in for!

Here's a bit more about Rachel and Nick's story:

Rachel Pollard has never been a push-over. That’s why she’s a superstar in the world of sports management, making a name for herself with a shrewd eye for overlooked talent. She certainly isn’t taking any chances with her latest NFL draft prospect, Kevin Loder, who’s poised to shake up the league. But when Nick Ruben, a tenacious sports reporter who also happens to be the crush who ignored her all through high school, picks up the scent of a long-buried story, Rachel suddenly finds herself playing defense for the first time in years.

Nick usually doesn’t strike out with women, but his always-dependable charm isn’t getting him anywhere with Rachel or the interview he needs to save his job from his network’s impending layoffs. He knows he’s pressing hard, but she’s pushing back just as much—it’d almost be fun if his career wasn’t on the line. But after weeks of begging and finally striking a deal for an exclusive, Nick is surprised to realize he wants their relationship to be anything but professional. Now he has to figure out a way to save his job without hurting hers, and to make the girl he overlooked in high school believe he’s worth a shot at love.

If you preorder now, you get the book at it's promotional $1.99 price. That's down from $4.99! 

Amazon | Amazon UK | iBooks | Kobo | Nook | Google Play | Books-A-Million

You can expect to meet Rachel and Nick on August 21, just in time for football season to kick off!

Welcome to HBIC Nation

A few months ago I spent the best weekend I've had in a long time with five of my fellow authors. We holed up in a house in the middle of the Virginia countryside surrounded by rolling hills and cows mooing in the distance. The six of us were there to reconnect, write, and recharge. On the second to last day, after eating a huge picnic out under a tree on the unseasonably warm February weather, we stared talking about how being a part of this group of six had gotten us through the good and the bad in our careers. Personally, everything changed for me as a writer when I found a community that both supported and taught me, but that wasn't unique. All of us had stories to share about what "finding our people" meant to us.

Sipping wine and soaking up the unexpected sun, we began to wonder about how to share that experience with other people. The more we talked, the more we realized that all six of us wanted to do the same thing: foster a community for creatives where they could find support, grow, and celebrate success. We didn't just want to cater to writers but musicians, actors, designers, and others as well because we firmly believed that we can all learn from each other.

HBIC Nation was born on that February day. It's a website, a Facebook group, but most importantly it's a place for creatives to gather. An HBIC is a Head Bitch in Charge—because we know "bitches get stuff done"—and we welcome all HBICs who dream big, do the work, and dominate.

You can join HBIC Nation by going to our website, clicking on the "Citizenship" tab, and signing up. We're also kicking off a supportive, inspiring Facebook group where we'll start applying the principles of HBIC Nation right now. Expect to be challenged to think about your career, celebrate the HBICs who inspire you, and enjoy getting to know your fellow creatives!

We also have shirts for sale because who can launch an empire without a great logo for continuing inspiration? Use this link to get 15% off your purchase automatically until May 11. (No promo codes required.)

We hope you'll join us, and we can't wait to see how you'll grow!

Cleaning Out My Life and Letting Go

I am surrounded by things. My things. Nearly everything in this apartment I sit in while writing this was bought by me or for me with the purpose of filling up my life and shaping my home. There are things for comfort (the sofa I sit on), utility (a litany of kitchen equipment), or amusement (my prodigious book collection). And while they've all served a purpose and helped define a chapter of my life, many of them now seem superfluous.

When I decided to move to London, my first thought was for the friends I would leave behind. My second was for the sheer volume of stuff that would have to be sold, donated, and junked. It was staggering and almost crippling though despite my living in a home that is likely smaller than most of the people reading this.

I'm proud to say that my 320-square-foot studio has suited me well, in part because after nearly nine years of New York apartment living I've become an expert a bringing things into my home that serve multiple functions. No storage opportunity is overlooked. No kitchen gadget can have just one purpose. (Note the ice cream maker that I want so desperately but have been loath to buy because of giving up precious kitchen storage space.)

I realize the privilege it is to have stuff. I'm a woman who, through working both as a writer and as a journalist, has been able to make a comfortable living for herself. Fretting about what to do with excess things is a privilege of people who can afford to have an excess of things. Clutter is very much a first world problem and, at the moment, it's a problem I'm facing.

I read Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up when it was in vogue a couple years ago. Everyone I knew seemed to be Kondo-ing their lives, so I took a shot at it. I emptied my closets into the center of my room and sorted clothes, putting back only those things that I truly loved. (I did not hold every item and ask myself if it brought me joy and thank it for serving its purpose when I relegated it to the donation bin because that felt too woo woo for me, but if it works for you, more power to you.) I did the same exercise with my books, culling through things I loved and getting rid of things I knew I'd never read again.

However, despite this Kondo-inspired clean out a year ago I still found myself surrounded by things. I wasn't brutal in my purging because I wasn't going anywhere. My day job was solid and my mind was mostly occupied with writing books. I've also never found myself resentful of things. I've never felt the urge to seek out the freedom people write about in article urging us to eliminate material possessions and live out of one suitcase. As anyone who has perused my closet can tell, I derive too pleasure from clothes. I like being surrounded by books. There's satisfaction in finding the exact right set of wine glasses to go in my cupboard with the perfect water glasses and champagne flutes which sit next to the Moscow Mule copper mugs. (Yes, I do own those. Yes, I do use them. I enjoy cocktails immensely.)

All of my preciousness about my things changed when I decided to move. I'm now in the midst of the third or fourth round of clothing purges. I'm selling the majority of my wardrobe on Poshmark and ThredUp to see what I can get money for and what will be donated. Old technology has gone off to Decluttr as well as DVDs because I can't remember the last time I turned my BluRay player on. Some of my furniture and barware will go to my best friend who has already claimed it. The rest of my furniture will be sold in a Craigslist fire sale or placed out on the curb to be scavenged, a time-honored tradition NYC tradition. Bags and bags of books have already been taken to my local library's used bookstore for donation, and I still have many bags to go. (The people there are starting to recognize me.) Friends are also getting surprise boxes of books sent via media mail to fill up their shelves.

It's not as though I'll be traveling to London with nothing. A box of winter things is already winding it way there. Research books (some difficult to replace as they're out of print) are going via M-bags, a form of international shipping I didn't even know existed before this move. My sister and her boyfriend will be in New York the week before I leave by happy coincidence and will take a pair of suitcases back with them. I, a woman who travels light and hates to check luggage, will attempt not to break out in hives at the idea of checking a second pair of suitcases when I board my one-way flight.

When I arrive in London, I'll still have things, but they'll be highly curated — the best parts of who I've been in New York through my 20s and who I want to be in London.

#5forFriday: Moving, Hotly Anticipated Books, and Scrivener

It's been a busy week! Here are the top 5 things I've loved, learned, and listened to:

1. OMG I'm moving to London! I talked about the decision to move out of NYC in a post earlier this week, and while I'm thrilled I also still can't believe it. (But I'm sure it'll start feeling real once I bring the suitcases out and empty my apartment.)
2. I got to speak to Sarah Aswell from SheKnows about my top 10 most-anticipated romance novels for the rest of 2017.
3. This M. O'Keefe book is free right now and you better believe I grabbed a copy.
4. On this month's First Draught we talked about Scrivener (i.e. the writing and organizational software that makes it possible for me to write several books at once). Here's a link to the podcast.
5. This song by Odessa is giving me life this week:

Heroines, Choosing Happiness, and Why I'm Moving From NYC to London)

In a month, I'm going to be uprooting my life in New York City and moving to the United Kingdom.

I will do this to be living closer than a plane ride away from my parents for the first time in my adult life.

I will do this because my sister and her boyfriend will be only an hour away and I want my lady movie watching buddy back.

I will do this for adventure and a promise I made to myself a long time ago to do something that scares me to death every decade or so.

I will do this despite the fact that I'll leave behind friends and a life I've cultivated in weird, wonderful New York for nearly nine years.

I will do this without the security of a day job, giving me the chance for the first time in my author life to write full time for a little while.

I am excited and eager and trepidatious.

What I am not is uncertain about my choice.

My mother often tells me with a laugh that I'm just like my father. We mull over something as important as a life change or as simple as a new gadget for months, researching and weighing pros and cons. We learn everything we can about whatever it is that's caught our imagination. Recently this has led me to become a casual expert on:

1. Running clothes and training guides (This obsession started a year ago and has not let up, leading me to be somewhat angry with my runner friends who didn't warn me that my laundry would soon be all running clothes and one morning a weekend would be devoted to long runs, often done in the cold and rain because you need those miles in the bank)
2. Social media and content marketing programs like CoSchedule (Welcome to the sexy behind-the-scenes world of being a working author)
3. External audio recorders (Podcasting)
4. Shipping books internationally (My extensive research library is moving to London which is...a challenge)

My father and I will read, collect information, and take notes until one day we're ready. Like a flip being switched, we make our decision and rarely look back. It's as though steeping ourselves in all of that information has infused us with the ability to say, "Yes, that's exactly what I want."

It would make sense that this brand of seemingly contradictory dragged out decisiveness appeals to me. It's similar to the way that heroines in romance novels come to the realization that they are both in love and deserving of it.

The heroine spends the entire story getting to know the hero by talking to and interacting with him (or he does with him in M/M or she does with her in F/F). She might meet family or friends, see him on the job, or watch him at play. Often without realizing it, she's gathering information about the sort of partner he'll be letting that process in her subconscious until she's ready to choose.

All at once she knows. He's the one. It's Elizabeth realizing Darcy has saved her sister. Cher announcing "I love Josh" in front of the fountain in Beverly Hills. It's in the ah-ha moment we spend the entire movie or book waiting for.

Other people—even the hero—might try to move our heroine onto another path, but she's certain. She's chosen the love of the hero, just as she's chosen her own happiness.

This may I'll be choosing my own happiness as well as family and adventure. I plan to share bits and pieces of my move and subsequent settling in to the city I write about—even if the timeline is about 200 years off—and I hope you'll take the journey with me here as well on Instagram and Facebook.

#5forFriday: New Covers and Spring Days

It's been a bit since I've done a #5forFriday post because I've been off writing all of the books for you guys (seriously, I've written like 40,000 words in the last 10 days). In honor of getting over the hump of book 2 in the Matchmaker of Edinburgh series, I'm bringing #5forFriday back. Here we go! 1) I got to reveal the beautiful cover for my upcoming Scottish historical romance, The Look of Love, this week. If you missed it, here are all of the details, plus this is the cover. 😍

2) Last Sunday was the first hot day of the spring here in NYC, so I headed to Washington Square Park with Laura von Holt and her friend and business partner Luke. True to New York, there was a flash rainstorm, and we wound up having to run for cover under a twee blanket along with the tipsy picnickers next to us who kept yelling "Save the vodka!" and "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!"

3) I've been reading down my TBR pile and last week I blew through Adriana Anders' Under Her Skin. It was wonderful, and I highly recommend it with the caution that if you've got triggers for partner abuse you might want to proceed with caution. Look for a longer post about what I've been reading coming soon.

Under Her Skin has been on the list since I saw the gorgeous cover, and then I met @adriana.anders IRL last weekend so to the top of the TBR pile it went! #amreading #amreadingromance #romancenovels

A post shared by Julia Kelly (@juliakellywrites) on Apr 15, 2017 at 10:21am PDT

4) Now that I've finished all of the Great British Bake Off, I asked Facebook for recommendations for a new low drama/high entertainment show to watch while cooking and got a LOT of responses back. You guys have plenty to say about TV shows (especially British ones). Looks like I have a lot of show watching to do.

5) This is my second week of being a full-time writer, at least for the time being, and I'm continually amazed by the wonderful support of friends reaching out. It's an odd thing to go from working a day job and being a writer to just focusing on fiction. The way you structure your entire day changes, and what you feel like you should be doing vs. what you actually should be doing also shift. The people checking in on me to offer support and make sure I'm doing things like taking lunch breaks has been really touching.

COVER REVEAL: Book 1 in a Sexy New Scottish Romance Series

If you've been reading my newsletter or my website for awhile now, you know I've been hinting at the new Scotland-set historical series I've been writing. Well, the first book in the Matchmaker of Edinburgh series is now available for preorder, and it has a gorgeous cover!

Amazon | Amazon UK | iBooks | Kobo | Nook | Google Play

Isn't she beautiful!? The cover designer did an amazing job with this one, and I couldn't be happier!

I loved writing this heroine who is a fiercely independent sculptor who's near ruination lands her in a marriage of convenience with her best friend.

Here's a closer look:

An accomplished sculptor with secret ambitions, Ina Duncan has managed to avoid marriage for years until an accidental encounter at a party leaves her near ruin and in need of a husband. Fast. Determined to find a willing husband for Ina, Edinburgh’s most powerful matchmaker, Moira Sullivan, quickly realizes that the solution to Ina’s problem might be right in front of her.

Ina’s best friend, Gavin Barrett, has a secret no one knows: he’s loved her for years. As the second son of a baronet, however, he knows he has little chance with his brilliant, beautiful friend. All that changes when Moira convinces Ina to propose a marriage of convenience to Gavin to save her from ruin. Ina only wants two things from him in return: a vow she can continue to sculpt and a promise they’ll remain in Edinburgh.

After a rocky start, happiness—and maybe passion—seems on the horizon for the newlyweds until a twist of fate bestows the title of Sir Barrett on Gavin and forces him to assume responsibilities he’s never wanted. Forced to mold herself into the perfect baronet’s wife, Ina must choose between her dreams and the man she’s learning to love.

This book is slated to come out on October 9, and you can preorder it now so you don't miss it's big release day! Just click on one of the links below.

Amazon | Amazon UK | iBooks | Kobo | Nook | Google Play

Meet Me in Boston!

Boston-area romance readers, you're in for a treat! The New England Chapter of RWA is putting on a book signing from 6 to 8 p.m. this Friday at the Burlington, Mass. Marriott. The line-up is incredible with big-name authors from all genres of romance, and I'll be in the thick of it signing books and giving away downloads of The Governess Was Wicked!   I love meeting readers, and this is one of the few events I'll be doing this year that doesn't require a conference registration fee to attend. Please stop by and say hi!

The Weird Wonderful World of Edwardian Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day! As many of you already know, I come across a lot of really cool, interesting things in the middle of my research. Today I thought I'd share with some sweet, odd, or just down right concerning valentines from the early twentieth century. All of these images are courtesy of the New York Public Library

There's nothing weird about these first two valentines. They're going to be our baseline...

...because after this, things get weird (Okay I find the clown/jester weird but I have a thing about clowns)

Is it sweet or is it Claudius poisoning Hamlet's father while he sleeps in the garden? You decide

because nothing says love like two cherubs playing racket sports with your heart

The disembodied head in the middle of a pansy is...disconcerting

Because nothing says 'love' like a frozen heart and a half naked cupid wearing a fur with the sort of flair mae west would be proud of

Pro Tip: Don't Forget the Cat

what happens when cupid gets into mom's makeup baG? This horrifying mess

Painting spots on dogs. As you do

May your Valentine's Day be filled with love and your February 15th be rich with discounted chocolates!

#5forFriday

Here are five things making me happy this week: #1 I ran my first race on Sunday! It was a nice, low key 4 miler in Central Park that my friend Jena suggested might be a good way to get into organized runs.

It was brutally cold that morning, and it took awhile for my legs to warm up and I was freezing before and after the race. (But not during the race. I was just really sweaty then.)

No worries! I'm happy to say I beat my goal time and had a blast. The chicken and waffles at Amy Ruth's in Harlem afterwards didn't hurt either.

I'm already looking ahead to my next race in March and am thinking about signing up for a half marathon. (This is probably all your fault, Mary Chris.)

#2 On Monday I met up with Laura von Holt and we headed over to Lady Jane's Salon for the big eighth anniversary/Valentine's Day reading. It was her first time being there, so naturally Laura won a stack of books in a raffle and was fed champagne and brownies.

#3 This article about black fashion designers is a must read for anyone interested in fashion history.

#4 I've really been struggling with the pacing of this historical I'm writing right now, but ripping the structure apart with help from Gwen Hayes Romancing the Beat on Saturday was hugely helpful. I feel like I've had a breakthrough on this book all thanks to her story structure.

#5 And finally, thank goodness for the Second Avenue Subway which got me to my day job in the middle of a snowstorm on Thursday without my old 3/4 mile walk to the other subway station in the neighborhood. It's the little things.

Free Books for Historical Readers!

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I've got a treat for my historical readers! Fifteen historical romance authors and I are giving away copies of our books for a limited time. Want to wander the Highlands? How about a romp in the Regency? Or maybe retreating to the American Revolution is more your style? This giveaway's got you covered.

You can get these books for free until 2/27, but after that the deal's gone! Click on the covers below to be taken directly to the book download link.

#5forFriday

A super quick #5forFri from me today because this is so late! #1 I've had a good run of writing days all in a row, most of them hitting or exceeding my writing goals. As any writer will tell you, building up that kind of momentum is huge.

#2 My brilliant sister has gotten her book review website off the ground in a big way! She's a speed reader, so she's already got a bunch of review up on I Should Read That, and her Instagram game is solid. (There are plenty of cats with books pictures to enjoy.)

#3 Last weekend I indulged and bought myself a JBL Clip 2 wireless bluetooth speaker to finally replace my old speakers that died years ago. I've been happily listening to a lot of KUSC but also rediscovering much of the jazz I danced to when I was in college and a serious swing dancer. Sydney Bechet, Count Bassie, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker.

#4 I'm running my first race this weekend — a short 4 mile loop in the park.

#5 This dance to that Ed Sheeran song I can't get out of my head. (H/T my friend Sonia) And that's all for me! What are your five favorite things from this week?

What I'll Be Reading This February

Since I've been writing both contemporary and historical romance this winter, I've been doing my best to read outside of the genre for relaxation. Judging packets for the RITA Awards came out this winter which makes taking a break from romance a bit tricky but here are a few of the books I'm reading off of my TBR pile this month:

I'll See You in Paris, by Michelle Gable

This was a gift from my friend Mary Chris Escobar as part of a secret Santa present. This women's fiction follows a mother and daughter as they return to the mother's long-lost home in England. As the story unfolds, you get little bits of a mystery about a third woman as well.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin

Every reader's got catnip. Books about New York in the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s are mine. I haven't started this book yet, but The Swans of Fifth Avenue came as a strong recommendation from a good friend who shares the same obsession as I do.

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners, by Therese Oneill

This was a birthday gift from my sister and her boyfriend. I've read through a couple sections already, and it's a really irreverent, fascinating look at history. Think of all the unglamorous things you don't usually read about the Victorians: poisonous cosmetics, menstruation, weight loss and gain. I can already tell it's going to be really helpful for research.

The Mystery of Princess Louise, by Lucinda Hawksley

This book is strictly for research, although I really enjoy Hawksley's other books I've read. Princess Louise was a talented artist in her own right and served as stand-in for her mother, Queen Victoria, at many state functions while Victoria was deep in mourning.

She's also the subject of one of my favorite portraits. (One day, someone please paint a portrait of me that is as complimentary as this one.)

Grit:The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth

I'm tearing through this book about the psychology behind success and determination. A friend of my recommended reading it because it looks at the common traits that successful people share: passion and determination, or as Duckworth calls it, grit. (FYI, romance authors are some really gritty ladies.) Normally I don't think of myself as a big fan of psychology books, but I'm really enjoying this one and I also thought Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller was fascinating so I might have to revise my thoughts on the genre.

Five for Friday (With Kitties)

Last week I told you I'd be sharing this five things I've loved over the past seven days. Here's this week's edition: 1. If you've been reading my blog for awhile you might have noticed things look a little different. I've rebranded to reflect my new pen name for contemporary romance: Julia Blake! I'll still be writing historicals as Julia Kelly, but this will help make it really clear which genre you're going to get when you pick up one of my books. (PS You can check out what'll be coming out from Julia Blake thanks to this preorder which just dropped in price from $4.99 to $1.99!)

2. Hidden Figures. Do yourself a favor. Buy yourself a ticket and treat yourself to a really enjoyable, positive movie. It was exactly the story I needed to see with everything swirling around in the world right now.

3. This excellent post from Cara McKenna on using the 28/40 method to create dynamic heroes (and yes you can absolutely use it for heroines).

4. I'm a RITA judge so I'm working my way through a stack of six books in several different categories. I can't actually name check the author or title, but I'm practically bursting because I read an AMAZING RITA-potential book and I can't talk about it at all! One of these days, long after the RITAs are awarded, I'll slip it into a recommendation list and spread the good word and no one will know. How sneaky!

5. And finally, this photo of my sister and her boyfriends' cats looking very judgmental.

Why I Started Writing Romance

Many authors' stories start the same way, with some variation of "I've been telling stories since I was a little girl." I'm not any different, although I don't remember telling love stories when I was a little girl. Instead, my first "book" (which was one page long) was a mystery. Both my parents are avid readers, and my Mum has what sometimes feels like an encyclopedic knowledge of mystery and crime fiction. Between that and hearing the woman wailing as she faints during the wonderfully macabre Edward Gory's Mystery! opening credits from my bedroom every Thursday night as a child, I was pretty much destined to start off there.

I've talked before about reading my first romance novel. It was a sweet, wonderfully zany Zebra Regency Romance that I took home with about a half dozen others from a deep discount book store on Lake Avenue in Pasadena. While I'd always read voraciously as a child, I truly gobbled these books up, soon moving on to more complex plots with more intense romances (ie the hero and heroine started doing more than just kissing on the last page). The only natural step after that was to write one.

I started tinkering with an idea for a book the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. My family had just gotten a new computer, so I commandeered a desk that my sister was just using to store junk and parked the huge desktop on it. Then, I got to work.

The book, which I never finished, was called Charlotte's Choice and it was a second chance at love romance. I wrote by the seat of my pants — something I would later learn through several long, painful lessons isn't suitable for me — and finished about 25,000 words by the end of the summer. That alone felt like an incredible achievement. I'd never written that many words before!

This is where, unfortunately, I stalled out. I worked on that book on and off for the next three years, hauling a paper manuscript around with me from home to college and back again. Then, I graduated, and my focus became grad school.

I attended Columbia's University's School of Journalism in the broadcast program. I mention that only to say that the program compresses what most schools take two years to teach into 10 months long. They were the hardest 10 months of my life. I had two exacting introductory reporting professors who held marathon days of class on Mondays and Tuesday. Then there were radio broadcast and editing classes, TV broadcast and editing classes, workshops, law, ethics. If I wasn't in the classroom or desperately trying to grab some sleep after late-night editing sessions in the Avid lab, I was probably out reporting in South Brooklyn (or with friends at a bar if it was Friday or Saturday night because I was still a grad student and let's be realistic). It was a seven-day-a-week job getting that MS.

Somewhere in the middle of that mess of a year, I was laying on my futon late-night and watching Dancing With the Stars in an desperate attempt to turn off the analytical, journalism side of my brain. That was when I realized I wasn't enjoying my life. Everything was so focused on getting this degree, I felt completely drained. I've since heard Sylvia Day talk about needing to top up the well, as though creatives — or anyone really — have a finite amount of creative energy and inspiration. We keep the levels high by consuming things that stimulate us. Books, movies, media. We need a mental break from whatever it is that we're making in order to then go and do our job in a healthy way. Even though I didn't know to call it that, I'd drained the well as a journalist and was running on dry.

That was the night that I decided I needed to exercise my long-neglected creative side. I turned the TV off, pulled my laptop out, and started writing. It was a historical romance about a poor relation who resorts to writing and the earl courting her cousin who falls for her hard. By the end of the night, I had the first chapter of To Woo a Writer.

Writing it, however, wouldn't be quite so easy as that first chapter. For about three years I picked up and put down the book. In the meantime, I wrote a novella and shopped it to a now-defunct Harlequin line. I still have the slip of paper my rejection was printed on. I doubled down on my efforts to finish the draft of To Woo a Writer only to be distracted by other things because writing is hard and it's easy to set aside things that are hard and get to them later.

Finally, in 2012, I decided that it was time to — for lack of a better phrase — put up or shut up. I'd been talking about wanting to get published for a long, long time and I still didn't have a completed, full-length novel to show for it. I made the decision to finish the book and started saying no to some social engagements that would take me away from writing and leaving others early so I could go home and write. In two months I typed The End.

The book was a mess (first drafts are always a mess), but it was done. Done! I called Mum, told her I was revising it and I'd need her to read it if she was up for it, and began hacking away at book. After a couple rounds of revisions, I pulled out my copy of Writer's Digest Guide to Literary Agents (bought and flagged with Post-In notes in an optimistic moment), and drew up a list of agents that accepted romance. I ranked the agencies, and began sending out queries for representation. By October, I'd signed with Emily Sylvan Kim at Prospect Agency who is still my agent.

The story of getting from representation to contract is another long one. To Woo a Writer is still bubbling away on the back burner of my hard drive. I love it, but with so much distance and growth since writing it, I can see its flaws. Before the Governess series was picked up by Pocket Books, I wrote two contemporary romances (one of which will be published this August and the other of which is so bad it will never see the light of day), and self-published two contemporary romance anthologies. Getting that first contract took a long time. Then again, so did writing that first book.

Five For Friday, Plus It's My Birthday (and I'm Giving You Books!)

It's my birthday! I'm actually not a huge birthday celebration person (except on all important milestone birthday), but I wanted to use today as an excuse to give something back to my readers! But first, my darling friend Alexandra Haughton just started a new feature on her website. She's calling it Five for Friday, and I love it as an idea to share some of the best things she's run across during the week.

1) My best friend is getting married this fall, and so we went shopping for the bridesmaids. Her wedding is going to be a beautiful Hindu-Greek Orthodox blended ceremony, and the women will all wear saris. This was my first time trying on a sari, and I was almost overwhelmed by how many beautiful options there are (as well as how quickly the women in the shops could whip me in and out of them). We think we narrowed it down to a few great options, got some snapshots for the other ladies in the bridal party, and I just know it's going to be a beautiful wedding to an incredible guy.

On Sunday I went shopping for bridesmaids' saris for best friend's beautiful Hindu-Greek Orthodox blended ceremony this fall. This was my first time trying on a sari, and I was almost overwhelmed by how many beautiful options there are (as well as how quickly the women in the shops could whip me in and out of them). You better believe I've already asked the mother of the bride, who is a pro, to help me wrap it and pin it into place on the big day.

A photo posted by Julia Kelly (@juliakellywrites) on Jan 17, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

2) I made this fantastic banana bread on Monday night because I had a bunch of bananas that was rapidly getting too ripe on the counter. It came out perfect, and I've been eating it for breakfast all week. Sometimes it's the simple things.

3) I'm trying out Dragon Anywhere, an iPad and iPhone app that allows you to dictate long strings of text. Since I can speak faster than I can type, my hope is that this will help me get my first drafts down a little quick after some (admittedly hilarious) days learning how to retrain my brain for dictation.

4) The Bachelor is back! I know I'm late to the party (the show premiered during the last push for me to get edits in for my upcoming contemporary sports romance), but I'm already sucked in thanks to the NYC winter sending me inside for long runs at the gym. For those of you who don't know, I've never been a Bachelor watcher, but I've loved The Bachelorette. However I can already tell I'm going to have a hard time resisting the soapy, dramatic goodness of the highly staged reality show.

5) And finally for the birthday part. I've got a stack of paperbacks — some signed by their authors — to giveaway to readers in celebration of my birthday. You can check out all of the details in the Rafflecopter giveaway below, but you've got six chances to enter. The contest runs until midnight on January 23rd. Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

How a Book Becomes a Book

On Thursday, I turned in the developmental edits for my upcoming contemporary sports romance Changing the Play which will be published under a new pen name, Julia Blake. Authors know that this is cause for celebration. Developmental edits are a big deadline, and getting them out of the way is a huge relief. But others might be wondering what that actually means. Even though I'd published independently before signing with Pocket Books, I had to admit to being fuzzy on the whole publishing process at traditional houses. Today I'm going to try to walk you through some of the major steps that gets a book from draft to publication using my experience with the second in my Governess series, The Governess Was Wanton.

The First Draft

It seems logical that the first step in publishing a book is to actually write the book. Depending upon where you are in your career and the terms of your deal, however, there might be a whole negotiation before you ever write a word of prose. (Selling on proposal is a topic for another day.)

When my agent sold the Governess series, we had one completed book (The Governess Was Wicked) and proposals for two others (Wanton and The Governess Was Wild). Those proposals were really just two to three page synopses of what would happen in the book were I to write it.

If you have a completed novel when you strike a deal, the editor can begin working on it immediately. However, you've sold on proposal or there are multiple books in a deal and not all are written, this is the time when an author's got to get to work. When my Governess deal went through, my editor was able to get cracking on The Governess Was Wicked immediately, and that meant I had to get writing Wanton STAT.

I wrote Wanton over about five weeks, revising it up until the deadline. Then, blurry eyed and tired, I turned it in to my editor. That was stage one complete.

Developmental Edits

My editor took my first draft of Wanton and read it through. Then she wrote me an edit letter which is a document with recommendations about what to change, which parts need to be strengthened, and what new directions she'd like to see the story go in. Often these are very big picture changes to a book that develop character and plot (ie developmental edits).

In the case of Wanton, the edit letter included a big ask: rewriting the ending of the book because it was too similar to the ending of Wicked, which would be published immediately before it. Getting a note like that is nerve wracking because it seems like such a huge undertaking. ("I have to rewrite the whole end of a book? How do I even do that?!") In the end, however, my editor was absolutely right, and the new ending has one of my favorite scenes I've ever written.

Accepted Into Production

Once you've handed in your dev. edits and your editor has gone through them, they might ask for another round of edits. However, if they're happy with the changes made, your book will be accepted into production. Rejoice!

This is typically when authors get paid some part of their advance. (Advances are split up into parts. I've heard of a lot of different advance structures. So far I have been paid half on signing and half on acceptance of the manuscript.)

Line and Copy Edits

Next my editor did a line edit of Wanton (think a very close, line-by-line reading of the content of the text with lots of comments and markups in track changes) before she hands the book off to a copy editor. Some editors may send the line edits to their authors for approval and changes first, but the way we work I got the line edits at the same time as the copy edits.

The copy editor is looking for technical, grammatical problems with the manuscript. This is also the stage where the manuscript is checked for consistency. Copy editors have to be very detail oriented, and I've got a huge amount of respect for them because their job seems impossibly hard to me.

When Wanton went for copy edits, the copy editor made a list of all names, places, and dates referenced in the book. This is like a little bible that your book (and your series if you wind up writing multiple books in the same world) has to adhere to. They're looking for consistency in names, timelines, physical descriptions. It turns out I'm not a strong timeline writer (I'm trying to get better!) so ages and dates are challenging for me. I received several notes on Wanton about whether someone was 28 or 30, what color some else's eyes were, etc.

When I got back my line and copy edits, everything was marked up in track changes. This was my time to then accept or reject the changes in the manuscript. If I agreed with my editor and the copy editor, I would accept a change. If I didn't, I would STET the edit in a comment, which basically meant, "I don't agree with you, please leave the text as it was." With historical romances you have to be particularly careful because not everyone is as familiar with conventions of the time like how siblings were addressed. (I'm the eldest of two sisters, so I would've most often been referred to as "Miss Kelly" and my younger sister would've been "Miss Justine" until either or both of us were married.)

This was also the time where I got to write my dedication and my acknowledgements pages.

Proofs

Once you send back your copy edits, it's time for the pages to be set. This is the first time your book looks like an actual book. Since Wanton was published exclusively as an ebook, this meant that my editor sent me a PDF proof of what the book was going to look like on an eReader screen. This is particularly exciting because in my case it meant seeing the title page, pretty chapter headings, page breaks, etc.

The purpose of looking over a proof is to make sure that all of the changes from the copy edits made it in. It's also a time to sweep for typos. Thankfully I was far from the only set of eyes on the book because at this point I'd read my own manuscript at least eight times. Try editing something you've written and read that many times. It's...hard.

Proofs are the only time that I actually print out and hold my book anymore. I mark up actual pages with colorful pen (my favorite is pink which, now that I think of it, may delight or irritate my proofreader) and then send photographs of the galleys back to my editor to point out where I found typos.

Proofs are not the time for major content changes to a book. They are, essentially, a last check of the book to make sure everything looks okay.

Publication

Rejoice again! You have a book that readers can actually read!

There's a lot more that goes into prepping a book for publication including back cover copy and marketing, but that's a whole separate blog post for another day. In terms of the editorial process, you're done and ready to move on to writing your next great novel because writers never stop writing.

How Bullet Journaling Changed Everything

Last year was a game-changer for me. My first books with a publisher came out, and I switched roles at my day job and took on more responsibility than I've ever had before. The only way I was able to keep on top of those big, big changes and everything that came along with them was because for the first time in my life I found a planning system that works for me. Some people are planners and some people aren't. I'm definitely the planning kind, but in 30 years of searching I hadn't found a system that I liked. I've tried everything from simple pen and paper lists to complicated apps that give you lots of options to categorize and tag your tasks. Typically I'd use a system for a month thinking I'd found something I could stick with, but then each and every time I'd cast it aside because it didn't fit.

It turns out, I was looking for a planning system that "looks like my brain" and mimics the way I think. I found it when I discovered bullet journaling.

I'm not going to teach you how to bullet journal. There's a whole website dedicated to that and the video above is a good place to start. (I'm also not terribly artistic so I won't be showing off inspirational, beautiful bullet journal pages.) What I am going to do is tell you why this system worked for me.

Remember how I said I needed an organizational plan that looks like my brain? Bullet journaling has stuck with me for more than a year because it's flexible and nimble, just the way my brain is. I use a squared Moleskine Cahier notebook in a larger traveler's notebook for my bullet journal. That means no strict calendar pages or pages that I'll leave blank and that will bother me when I'm on vacation. Perfect.

My bullet journal is basically two types of to do lists and a meal planner. When I sit down each week, I start with a spread of two blank pages. This is my weekly spread. The left-hand side is a meal planning page with each day broken down into lunch, dinner, and an afternoon snack (especially important on days when I know I'll be working out after my day job). I use that page to plan a week ahead of time when I'm going to be cooking and build a grocery list next to it.

On the right side of the weekly spread I create a to do list for the entire week. This isn't every minor task that needs to get done, but the big picture things or tasks I don't want to forget about if they're a few days out. I don't separate out personal life, day job, and writing because I've found that if I do I neglect the tasks that I'm less enthusiastic about. (Who really wants to pick up their dry cleaning when it's 18 degrees outside?) If it's all in once place, I can't avoid it.

The second type of to do list I use is a daily one. I wanted to save paper in this example so I collapsed Saturday and Sunday onto the same page, but you can see that each task is listed. If I didn't finish a task on one day, I carry it over and write it down the next day. The list is always changing and very flexible, but it's always there. Since I'm adding everything from writing to appointments to household tasks, I always know what my time constraints look like at a glance. If I go on vacation, I can set the bullet journal aside and not worry about wasting paper.

Many people are attracted to bullet journaling because of the "collections" (more permanent lists that can easily be found because many bullet journalers also create an index and page numbers for their collections). I use a separate notebook to write down all of the books I read each year, and this year I've expanded to include a list of all of the movies I watched. For now, however, that's enough for me. I've realized that the best organizational system is one that you actually use, and the weekly spread, meal plan, and daily lists are what works for me.

What if any planning system do you use? I'd also be really curious to hear what readers to do keep track of their books. Goodreads? A paper list? Let me know by leaving a comment!