High Fives with Amanda: Gifts for the Authors in your life

Hello there!

Honestly, I can't believe that it's December. This year has flown past!

So to wrap up my Year of High Fives, here are five things you could think about getting the author in your life for the holidays. We are a strangely eclectic bunch, us authors, so there will be variations of this list depending on your author, but something here will probably work for this gift-giving season.

1). A master class, potentially from Master Class or LitReactor (not sponsored). Most authors I know love to learn about craft. They love to see how other creative brains work. And what better than a class taught by an industry professional that they can enjoy in their PJs with a cup of tea.

2) Something sparkly. Honestly, I'm a raccoon, so anything that sparkles I'm attracted to. I bought this emerald ring for myself and I love the way that light hits off my fancy finger as I'm typing away. Or perhaps sparkly nails (Color Street makes it really easy). Or a sparkly coffee cup.

3) Subscription service for coffee/tea/wine. You'll know your writer best. But a subscription service to their favorite beverage of choice will prevent them from having to put on real pants and get out of the house to re-stock. Which will keep them in their chairs. Which will get more books written.


4) Entertainment gift card to feed the muse. Again, you'll know your

writer best if they are a movie person, a book person, or a music person. The muse needs to be fed, so why not help your writer absorb more fodder to write those books!

And the last which can be an excellent stocking stuffer for all your writerly friends:

5). Buy their book and write a review! Or similar Social Media love! We are all slaves to the algorithms. A little re-tweet there. A sweet note on a review site here. It only takes a little bit of time, but might get your author's book seen by a new person, who shows it to a new person, who shows it to a ....well, you get the pattern. A little social media love goes a long way this holiday season.

Well, there you have it. The last High Fives with Amanda for 2019.

Thank you so much for another great year! And I'll see you on January 3rd when I'll have some AWESOME NEWS! and my theme for next year.

Until then, give yourself a high five!

Amanda Arista
@pantherista
Author
The Truth Series, coming Jan 2020
Diaries of an Urban Panther series, coming back June 2020

High Fives with Amanda: Things for NanoWrimo

High Fives with Amanda: Top 5 things you need for NaNoWriMo

The time is upon us. The one month of the year where writers buckle down and try to write 50k words in one month. Its approximately 1600 words a day. Which for some writers is not a lot and for others is the biggest ask ever.

I've been participating or cheering on people for NaNoWriMo since the beginning. I remember doing it in college. My first book, Diaries of an Urban Panther, was a product of NaNoWriMo.

If you have never heard of it, you can check out more about it here.

 So being a veteran of the event, here are my top fives things you need for NaNoWriMo.

1). New notebook and pen. Not all of us are office supply nuts, but there is a certain magic evoked when you crack the spine on a new notebook and pop off the cap of a fresh pen. You'll need this new energy as you start writing and think of things in chapter 12 when you are only one chapter 3.

2). Tea. I KNOW! I'm such an avid coffee drinker, but I'm also an avid believer in ritual and not overdosing on caffeine. I need a hot cup of something to write and when you are squeezing in an extra hour of brain time at 1130 at night (like I usually do), a cup of coffee is not the best thing for your sleep cycle. So I recommend finding a fancy tea (decaf, obvs) to make special for yourself as you sit down to write.



3). A comfy chair. A coffee shop. A spot where you feel safe and
focused. I usually pick the big green chair in my library and that is where I will write and write only. No reading, no watching TV. Writing only in this chair. It always helps my brain get back to what it was doing last time I was in this chair. Also, its comfy and feels like a hug when I need it.

4). Inspiration that is not the entirety of the internet. And you know me, I'm a Pinterest girl. But during NaNoWriMo it becomes important not to get lost in research and the unknown depths of the web. Pinterest allows for a surface understanding of most things and that is all you really need for drafting a book. Weeks of research on medieval poisons can wait until December as long as you get a dead body on the page in November.

5). Community! Friends! Compadres! I've spoken about the power of supportive writing buddies a
million times, but this is the time that you will need a few to commiserate with about why you do this instead of pottery or macrame. You can also connect with friends on the NaNoWriMo site or through Twitter #NaNoWriMo2019.

There you go. The five things you'll need to get through November!

If you have a Top Five list you'd like me to cultivate, please let me know in the comments below or at @pantherista. 

In the meantime, give yourself a high five!

Amanda Arista

Author, The Lanard Files (Coming January 2020) 

& Diaries of an Urban Panther (re-release 2020)

www.amandaarista.com

High Fives with Amanda: Five Awesome things about Back to School

Hello there!
I know, its been forever, but enough about me, let's talk School. As you might know, I have a Bean who will be in Kinder this year, so we are full on uniforms and backpacks and carpool lanes. As a new mom to this new clutter, there are a few things that are actually GREAT about Back to School and I thought I would share as they have drastically changed my life and my writing.

Top Five Awesome things about Back to School.

1. Germs. New school, new germs! Well after the past three weeks of stomach flu and head cold, I am ready for whatever Germ-pocolypse those scientists can muster up. I'm convinced I can survive everything with the immunity invested in me by the petrie dish that is Kindergarten.

2. School supplies. For a writer, this is the best time of year. This is when the post-its are all BOGO, in every shape and size, and in all the new fall colors. You can get a hundred pencils for three dollars. You can find compositions notebooks for next to nothing. Erasers shaped like Unicorns- no problem. Its like Christmas for writers. This is when you need to make your list for your families to check twice.

3. New for no reason. Need a pencil for Back to School- sure! But sheets? Pillows? Fridge? Coffee pot? Everything is on sale. Need a new organizer for your spirals- bet that is on sale. Need a mirror locker- bet its on sale! Back to School helped me get new journals AND new pants, just because we are going back to school and you can't go back to school in last years pants. Duh!

4. Forces a schedule. With the new carpool times, the Bean and I are on a pretty tight schedule and I find that I like it. She HAS to go to bed at 8:30, which means I have exactly from 5:30-8:30 to love and squeeze and feed and bathe her in an orderly fashion. There is no stay-up night (except on Saturdays) and there is no movie watching on a Tuesday. Our lives have become nearly predictable, which is great for my post-830 brain when I can sit down and actually get some writing done.

5. Time is precious. Please don't read the above as stifling. Its not. It has helped me realize that Time is a precious commodity. Those thirty minutes we get for dinner- you better damn well believe there isn't a screen in sight, because those minutes are now precious and might be the only ones I get to spend with my kid sitting and talking and telling stories. Back to School has brought me a sense of awareness that my kid is growing up and I won't let that slip past me. Knowing that I can focus on her now, because I'll have time to write later, has only purified my attention on those two times of time which are special and deserving of my attention.


So there you have it: the best things about Back to School.

If you have a Top Five list you'd like me to cultivate, please let me know in the comments below or at @pantherista. 

In the meantime, give yourself a high five!

Amanda AristaAuthor

High Fives from Amanda: Getting Burnt

I thought this month I would get SUPER honest. 

I'm exhausted. Even after a vacation, I'm exhausted.   So this month, I thought I'd five you a few pointers on how to avoid that other burn that happens during the summer time: Writer Burn Out.

Burn out is a warning you might be losing passion. You are running out of energy to actively sustain your love of something. If losing passion is not an option, then you need to heed the warning. And this isn't just for writing- this can be for a job that you are passionate about or, frankly, life in general. 

Here are my five tips for dealing with burnout. 

  

1). Negotiate a successful failure- If you really can't finish, what can you finish? If you can't do the edits on the whole thing, can you finish the edits on the first 15? the first 30? Thirty pages edited is more than nothing, and you'll be sane enough to edit another day. This is when having SMART goals comes in really handy. 

2). It is okay to suck. Leave your perfect Alice Hoffman and Steven King and Jim Butcher at the door. Accept that somedays it is okay to just suck. Just tell the story. Just get the words on the page because, very much like #1, it is easier to edit a page with words than a page without words. For me, sometimes this looks like (insert emotional beat here). 

3). Explore other creative outlets- the more physical the better. Sometimes you just have to get out of the 'writing brain' and use some other hemisphere. Work in a garden. Color-coordinate your bookshelves. Reorganize your living space. Clean everything. Honestly, sometimes just cleaning off my desk is enough to get me back in a writing mood. Mostly because I hate cleaning, and I tell myself, "Look Arista, it is either cleaning or writing, so pick one."

4. Sleep and Relax. When you are facing burnout, sometimes binging Netflix is TOTALLY OKAY. Its okay to watch five seasons of a TV show in a weekend. You are a) potentially angering your muse so much that she will start to saturate your brain with better ideas than this drivel and b) resting and releasing the tension that burnout causes. It is a powerful thing to just put your phone down, put the book down, and allow yourself to go to sleep at the same time as your kids. Try it. Ten hours of sleep is LIFE-CHANGING. 

5. Worry about yourself and yourself only. This one takes a few different faces. - Get off social media. When you are burnt out, the last thing you need to see is some peppy author with a three book deal. What she didn't post was the years that it took to get there- you're only seeing the snapshot and you don't need to see that right now. Stop comparing your journey to others journeys. There are others like it, but this one is yours.- Assess motivations for writing. Do you need to adjust your goals? Are you being too hard on yourself and that is causing burn-out? Is what you are doing today really advancing those goals or is it just busy work? If you stopped writing, what would happen? That last one is hard, but if its a scary thought- you're world without writing- then at least you know the passion is still there. - Eat better, drink water, and exercise with a purpose. Like throw yourself into taking care of YOU. Do that 10 step face cleansing. Try that three day juicing thing. Walk your dog. But do it for you. 

Not trying to be preachy with this, but I know. I've been there. So forgive yourself for the bad days and know that with a little sleep, some hydration, and maybe a walk around the block, it will be better tomorrow. 

If you have a Top Five list you'd like me to cultivate, please let me know in the comments below or at @pantherista. 

In the meantime, give yourself a high five!

Amanda AristaAuthor, Diaries of an Urban Panther SeriesInstructor, The Writer's Path at SMU

High Fives from Amanda: Conference Season!!!!

Five things to take to writer conferences

The season is upon us for writing conferences. The one time of the year that us hermits dust off our extroversion hat and meet other writers.

Personally, I love going to conferences. But I'm that perpetual nerd who loves learning and, as an instructor, I really love listening to how others have figured out something or how they frame a concept. I love the energy that conferences give me. Much like meeting with a writers group, there is a buzz that seeps into your skin and just makes you want to write, write, write.

In fact, I'm running a little behind schedule on my blog post because I'm headed out to Inkerscon tomorrow!

But there are some essentials to conference season, so here are my top five things to make sure you have when you attend any conference.

1). A TARDIS bag. Not in that it is a police box blue, but a bag big enough to hide the water bottle, snacks, notebooks, swag, free books, and computer with charger that you are going to be hauling around with you all day. There might even be another pair of shoes. You just don't know.
This thing needs to be like Mary Poppin's carpet bag and be HUGE on the inside.

2). Author Identification. Yes, self promotion can be icky, but always be on the ready when someone asks for your contact info or the books you have written. Don't shove them at people, but other attendees might actually keep hold of a business card for a day or two instead of that bar napkin that you write your email on. Also, sparkly business card holder for the win.






3). A scarf, sweater, or pashmina. The hotel industry has yet to find a way to regulate temperatures in conference settings. I'm either too hot or too cold, so I always have a scarf or something to wrap up in. And bonus points for any literary themed wear.
Also very helpful for hiding stains for when you accidentally spill coffee on yourself first thing in the morning or drop a carrot down your shirt during the keynote speaker. Trust me on this one.





4). Special notebook. Notebooks are precious to writers, so I always buy a new one for each conference, because I don't want notes getting lost in the back of some notebook that I'm using for plotting. I've also got the current novel notebook in tow as well just in case a presentation knocks loose a brilliant idea  and I must scribble it down now.
And of course post-its. Are there people who actually leave home without post-its?

5). Something interesting to read at break time. Conferences are hard. Lots of people in a tiny space. Lots of human noise. So I always take something to read. Something to use to help disconnect my brain from the conference even if its only over lunch or a small break in the afternoon. Doing something even for a few moments that isn't siting, smiling, or taking notes helps with my energy over the course of the conference. Just a few moments to focus, center-yourself, and in this case, get a little research done as well!



What do you take? Let me know if there is an essential that is essential to you at conference!

If you have a Top Five list you'd like me to cultivate, please let me know in the comments below or at @pantherista. 

In the meantime, give yourself a high five!

Amanda Arista

Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther Series

Instructor, The Writer's Path at SMU

High Fives from Amanda: Resources

High Fives:  Helpful tools and resources I depend on. 

I recently did a little speaking gig to an audience of relatively new writers. And they asked, as most do, what books I used to teach myself about writing. 

Well, I had to be honest. I didn't teach myself about writing. I took course, spoke to writers, went to conferences, and read in my genre until my eyes bled. But they seemed to want actual books titles, so I looked at my shelves and these were the ones that I didn't find there, because they were on the floor by my writing chair, or by my bed, or in my purse. 

So Top Five books I reach for when I'm stuck, when something isn't working and I need to go back to basics:

 1). The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition by  Christopher Vogler
This is my go to when I'm having a problem in a certain section in my book. If my Ordeal is not ordealy enough or my Ordinary world is just not working. I'll re-read the section I'm trying to work through to remind myself of what I'm going for. 

2) Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hauge Honestly, this one is on my shelf because once I learned the golden nougat about finding the authenticity in your characters journey, I was sold. It changed my game entirely. 

Hauge and Vogler also have a duo comedy act where they both share their story structures and how they can work together. 
GENIUS!


3). The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Becca Puglisi & Angela Ackerman. This one is just what is sounds like, a thesaurus. This duo has loads of them. And its just different ways to describe everything. I'll usually comb through this when I'm building a characters voice to find neat words that are different from what I would say. 


4) 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald TobiasThis is by no means means that there are only 20 master plots, but when you are dealing with one external plot, an internal arc and potentially 2 subplots, having this guy handy to tell you where your twist should be and make sure that you actually KNOW the story you are telling has become a story saver. Specifically for my subplots!


5). Netflix. I know it isn't a book, but the vast amount of storytelling that I can sample form all over the world now is AMAZING! I can see how they are doing it, see how others are twisting and turning and I'm not limited to what I can get on TV any more. Korean Horror. Swedish Paranormals. Comic books adaptations. Sometimes this is all I need to knock the ideas loose. 

If you have a Top Five list you'd like me to cultivate, please let me know in the comments below or at @pantherista. 

In the meantime, give yourself a high five!

Amanda Arista

Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther Series

Instructor, The Writer's Path at SMU

High Fives from Amanda: Reasons to find your Peoples

This year has not really been any better than the trash fire that was 2018. I looked up and it was March.

MARCH. 

Like I missed the first two months of 2019 with my head still spinning, my desk still unorganized, and resolutions... forget it. I did manage to nearly finish a new book in the last two months, but its still unfinished, unlike that box of girl scout cookies I was supposed to share with my family. 

So I thought this year, 2019, we might just keep it short and sweet. As Helen is working through her Year of Romance, I'm going to work through a year of High Fives from Amanda, a short and sweet series of Top Five lists from yours truly. 

Five reasons you need to find a writing group. 

5. Writing has its own language. How many other hobbies really talk about the dark night of the soul on a regular basis? Other writers speak the language and you won't have to explain yourself to your significant other. Again. I've always thought people talking about football was like listening to the Droids from Star Wars, but some people get it. So its important to find your droids. 

4. Writing is a strange hobby. Other writers get it. They understand the carpal tunnel and the caffeine addition that you do to yourself willingly because you have this strange drive inside. Most importantly, they understand what happens when you don't write. When writer's block hits. They've hit the highs and the lows and they will have your back. They will laugh with you and cry with you and celebrate with you. 

Look at the #WritersCommunity hastag on Twitter.

3. Some will have already been there, gotten the tee-shirt, and its already in the cleaning rags pile. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just have to get it on your cart. When you find a group, sharing experiences and problems and resources becomes natural- you join a flow of information that you too can add to with your own experiences. 

"You're having a character problem- have you heard of this book?"  

"You're dialogue sequels aren't popping-- try this exercise." 

Mi shelf of writing books es tu shelf of writing books. 

2. Importantly, finding a group is a face-to-face, screaming reminder of hope that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. So many times growing up, I thought I would never find anyone like me, and when I did, I was so much more confident in all aspects of my life. This part of me wasn't wired wrong. There are other weirdly wired people too. 

MOST IMPORTANTLY, 

1. You might just get lucky enough to find a wonderfully supportive group like the ladies here at the Supernatural Underground blog who have literally been with be since the moment I launched my book and who continue to inspire me. I'm talking about you: Merrie and Terri and Helen and Kim. Stina and Rachel and T. Frohock too! 

Now most of these can also go for a sewing group, or a model rocket group, or a scuba diving group, but you need to find others who share your interests, your drives, your passions.  

If you have a Top Five list you'd like me to cultivate, please let me know in the comments below or at @pantherista. 

In the meantime, give yourself a high five!

Amanda Arista

Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther Series

Instructor, The Writer's Path at SMU

Instigator, Writing Organizations 'Round Dallas.