Maria's Journal

Family/Friends, Okay, so this week went in a flash! What with entering contests, writing articles, editing articles, attending meetings and uploading story after story, the week went by in the blink of an eye. The good thing about 'spreading yourself around' is notoriety and name recognition, at least that's what I keep telling myself :).  So if you happen to catch me in the airwaves or see my name pop up somewhere, do me a favor and send me a SHOUTOUT, it'll keep me motivated. Thanks! And now off to do the really exciting stuff, food shopping...YUK. Have a great Sunday folks! Maria

Family/Friends, The last couple of days here in Phoenix have been gloomy, cloudy, and rainy.  Now, anyone who is familiar with desert climate would know that this is atypical for us, unless of course we're talking about Monsoon season :-/ So, all in all I've been sort of 'unproductive' with continuing Chapter 3 of my newest eBook. I've only written about 500 words per day, a third of what I could do on a good day. Oh well!  I did however, spend Friday/Saturday catching up on my Social Media and on my reading and blogging, so that's still good :-)  Talking about reading, I have created an author profile on Goodreads if anyone ever wants to stop by and take a gander: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6398579.Maria_Piork That's all for now folks. Until next time! Maria

Family/Friends: As I communicated before my goals for this summer were to publish an eBook a month (June/July/August). To date I've already exceeded my quota for June and I'm target to meet July's and August's.  More importantly will be meetings my other goals this year: Increasing my word count per day Better self editing Read more Manuscript to major publishing firm Well folks got other other commitments to get to right now, so gotta run.  Oh and before I forget...if you haven't purchased one of my eBooks yet, what are you waiting for?? :D Amazon: http://amzn.to/Nygmv8 Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/Nb79HI Smashwords ( coming soon ) Until next time! Maria

Family/Friends, Last night as I was reading a few pages of The Last Precinct before I went to sleep I heard fireworks go off. At first I thought, am I imagining it? But my husband heard them too, sort of weird, but I guess with the 4th of July being in the middle week this year some of my neighbors have started on the festivities early. Holiday or not, I'm still working, and yes I know I'm always working. I have to say however, that my work/life balance is much better now than it was several weeks back when I'd be writing 60-70 hours a week, today that has been reduced to about 40 hours dedicated solely to eBooks, with another 10 hours dedicated to blogging/reading books/writing book reviews, emails and miscellaneous writing 'stuff'. On a side note, as some of you know I've been actively participating in all three of the writer groups I belong to here in the Phoenix area. As a matter of fact I was recently granted a monthly spot on the Phoenix Write...