I'm done!!

My nano novel, Flying Leaps, is finished at 61,506 words. I'll be using the month of December to edit it and hopefully beef it up a little, but it's done! WOO HOO!

Last week of NaNoWriMo

I have reached 44,500 words on my NaNo novel. Although the contest only requires 50k words, I'm working toward 60k. This has been a wonderfully motivating experience! To set a goal of writing an entire novel in one month, while working a day job and riding my horse, seemed ridiculous. To be well on my way to achieving that goal is incredible! I may not write all of my future novels this quickly, but I know I can if I want to. It's given me some good discipline, too. I highly recommend it to all authors and wannabe authors!

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month! www.nanowrimo.org issues a challenge every year to write an entire novel during the month of November. The idea is to just sit down and write that novel you've been thinking of writing for god-knows-how-long and just get it done--good or bad. No editing as you go, that's to be done in December. Many nanowrimo participants get their novels published, and there are prizes to be had. Just as important, there's about 79,000 other people doing it with you, and there are regional groups so you can meet other people and offer support, etc.

I've decided to go for it! I plan to write at least 2000 words per day during the week and 5000 on the weekends. I will also keep up with the Mommy's Survival Guide to Autism, sharedreviews.com, and my Associated Content articles (and ride my horse and play with my puppy, of course!). It's going to be a busy, busy month, but I think it will be good for me to get some discipline!

Please visit my nanowromo profile to watch my progress and read excerpts from my book, Flying Leap.

Sharedreviews.com

Sharedreviews.com will pay you $10 for every five product reviews, up to 75. This is for a limited time so they can build up their site before making it public. Check it out! If you'd like to write for them and make a little extra money, please use me as your referral. My referral link

I'm writing a new book!

When my friend Beth Sandland, who lives in another state, told me that her son Jake was autistic, I was surprised because she rarely talks about him doing anything unsual. However, the more I've talked to her about it, the more interested I've become in this fascinating disease.

Responding to an ad on a writer's site, I wrote an article about Jake and submitted it to a compilation book titled, "Voices of Autism." I don't know yet if they'll accept it, or how long it will take to find out, but it's out there.

A couple of nights ago, Beth IM'd me and said that she had an idea for a book for me to help her write: "The Mommy's Survivial Guide to Autism: What everyone should know but no one tells you." This will be the first book of its kind, telling parents everything they need to know about the disease in a language they can understand (no scientific mumbo-jumbo). They'll learn what steps they need to take and how to exercise their rights. Just as important, they'll learn that it's ok and normal to feel the way they're feeling! The book will be mostly written from Beth's perspective and will include stories about Jake, which will inject some lightheartedness while giving parents a preview of what is to come.

We also want to include a few stories and tips from other parents, particularly of older autistic children (7 and older, including adults) since Jake is only 6. If you know someone who would want to participate or has an avenue for marketing this book, please email me at twynkltoz@yahoo.com. Keep in mind that we won't be able to use everyone's stories.

I am hoping to finish this project by the end of the year or shortly thereafter. I think this will be the boost that my career needs and I humbly thank Beth for letting me be a part of it!

Now offering proofreading, editing, and writing services

I offer the following services via email only. Documents must be in Word format. Price and turnaround time varies depending on service and length of document; please feel free to contact me at twynkltoz@yahoo.com for an estimate or to request my services.

Proofreading
This service is best for writing that is already polished and just needs another eye to catch typos and spelling mistakes. Service is fast and economical.

Your cost: $3.00 per page*, $10 per 1000 words.

Basic Copy Editing
This service covers basic proofreading as well as correction of minor grammatical mistakes. I will make the corrections in your document, highlighted so that you can easily find them.

Your cost: $5.40 per page*, $18 per 1000 words.

Moderate to Extensive Rewriting
This option is for the author who has the ideas but not the writing skills to present them in their best light! I will restructure sentences and paragraphs, improve wording, and make suggestions or ask questions to help develop the piece.

Your cost: $15.00 per page*, $50 per 1000 words.

Ghost Writing**—Writing Only
You provide the research, story lines, key phrases, etc., and I’ll write your piece for you.

Your cost: $18.00 per page*, $60 per 1000 words.

Ghost Writing**—Research and Writing
You provide the ideas, I do the research and the writing.

Your cost: $25.00 per page*, $83 per 1000 words

*Page estimates based on standard manuscript form (using courier new size 12 and double-spaced lines) at 300 words/page. For most accurate estimate, use actual word count. All prices in US dollars.

**20% discount for “as told to” ghost writing.

Associated Content

There's a bit of a debate about content submission sites, whether they're good for freelance writers or not. After reading about people who have gotten their start as writers on Associated Content, I decided to give it a try! Please visit my profile at Associated Content and click on the articles. Tell your friends! I have a number of articles in queue so more will be added almost daily (at least until I run out of ideas). Please feel free to give me any article ideas you'd like to see me write about!

Time to get serious

I have decided that I am going to start really focusing on making writing my career. It'll be a while before I can quit my day job of writing board reports for my mutual fund company (well, at least it's writing), so for now I'll start with some freelancing to earn extra money and expand my resume.

I'm exploring several options, including articles and offering proofreading, editing, and writing services. One site that seems like easy money is www.brijit.com. This site offers abstracts of news articles so that you can get the gist of a lot of news in just a few minutes, or decide whether an article interests you enough to give it a full read. Here is one of my absracts that was accepted and published:

The Debate on California's Pot Shops -

Big surprise: medical marijuana in California is being obtained by people who just want to get high. Safer reports on marijuana clubs, set up to produce pot for AIDS patients and cancer sufferers, that are systematically being abused by people who don't actually need the drug. One supporter-turned-critic thinks the feds should step in to weed out the troublemakers. This 60 Minutes treatment is of barely mild interest, mercifully short, and doesn't break any new ground.
in 60 Minutes by Morley Safer, 23 September 2007
This abstract was edited by Brijit. Read more here...

Big news!

I have lots of big news to report! In the writing world, my article "Thirty-year-olds Don't Bounce" appeared this month (July) in Ride! and modern Arabian Horse magazines! On the home front, we bought our first home and moved in earlier this month. On August 9th, we fly to Seattle for our Alaskan cruise. Some day things will settle down!

Announcement! I have finished my first book! I think this is the first time I've committed to doing something this major and finished it! I'm very happy with it and my beta readers have received it well. I'm shopping for agents!

Seminole blog

"Get a blog," they told me, so I did. What the heck is a blog?

Hi, my name is Jennifer Walker, and I'm a writer. I'm also a rider, and a dancer, and a senior analyst, and a mother and a wife and a sister and a daughter. Hey, I'm like that song that every girl on the planet thinks is about her!

I've known how to write since I was about 6 or so, but never really thought about doing it voluntarily until a few months ago, when I decided that it was about time that I make my fortune. I need to support myself and my family in the manner to which we should become accustomed! To that end, I started writing some articles and am working on a novel. More on that later! Somewhere on this page I'll find a place to post links. My family says I'm funny, so it must be true...therefore, my articles are an attempt at a humorous outlook on my life. Most of them are about horses, unless I can't think of anything about horses at the moment I happen to be writing something.

Here goes nothing...PUBLISH!