Every year just prior to leaving on our trip to Disney World, I get my hair cut. And then dye my hair.

Our first trip to WDW, my hot pink hair with black stripes had faded enough that it needed to be redyed, and I picked out a luscious burgandy that earned oodles of compliments, but also stained everything it touched. For 2 months.

The succeeding trips were varying shades of bright red and more muted burgandies.

So here’s the thing. Hubs and I agreed that I should maintain a semblance of normality for this trip to Walt Disney World since we’re planning on getting some good pictures of us. And while I love the thought of my future children looking through a photo album (or these days- digital frame) and getting freaked out by mom’s blue hair, the inlaws are pretty old fashioned when it comes to things like that. And they sit through our hundreds of photos after every visit.

But. I love funky hair. And I’m too lazy to do the bleach thing anyway. So I’m on the lookout for the best BRIGHT, funky box dye- no bleach necessary. Preferably something in the reds since black fades too quick and is too hard to cover (and hubs doesn’t like it anyway). Something that goes with warm skin tones if possible. And believe me, I know it’s not easy. Usually the more interesting colors lean towards cool tones and purples.

Now- I found a color that I fell in love with from Herbal Essences. Problem is, it faded to boring within a week. An attractive boring, but NOT a fun color. And I have a fear of Feria since my hair practically grows out damaged.

So ladies (and gents if you’re so inclined), please throw me your best suggestions for awesome box dyes. Preferably the number code as well as color name and brand just in case I have to order it.

Thanks very much!

Miss Snark said:

First, authors aren’t paid based on where their books are sold, they are paid on the basis of cover price OR net proceeds. Net proceeds is used when big volume retailers (think BN, Borders, WalMart, Costco) buy the book at a steep steep discount (often 60% off cover prices). Author royalty rates for those buys are less than they are for other buys made by people who get a smaller discount (ie indie stores, libraries).

Same for online preorders – from whom you order is the key.

Ahah! So, my favorite authors will benefit more from orders placed elsewhere than they will if I buy from the convenient source. But, I don’t have to feel guilty about not buying in a brick and mortar store (as we don’t have any indie book stores around here). Yay!

Except- I’d only planned on two items. And they didn’t have either one. And we were running short on time, so I couldn’t look around for other items that I wanted but hadn’t planned to pick up.

(If anyone wants to know- I wanted Jenny B Jones’ new release The Big Picture, and Black Books the complete series)

Obviously, they offered to order both for me. Except that I can order them online and not pay for shipping. So why would I order them through the store?

Does anyone know:

Do the sales from a brick and mortar store look better to a publisher/author/whoever’s involved than sales from a stores website?

Do sales from a brick and mortar store generate a different level of royalty rates?

Is there a reason that I should buy through a store directly and deal with their horrible parking lot instead of ordering online and having it delivered for no extra charge?

If the sales look better from a b&m store, I’ll happily make the extra effort to help out a new author, but I don’t want to deal with it if all things are equal.

Anyone know?

Nevermind.

I’ve been getting a real kick out of researching my protagonist. One of the decisions that I made is that she no longer lives in the mid-west, and she didn’t go to college in Oklahoma (I had reasons for those decisions, but changing locations actually improved her character and back story). Instead, she’s been living in Nashville, had attended college there, and has just moved back to… well, it’s around Lititz, Pennsylvania (about 10 mins from me), but I haven’t decided whether it’s a fictional town, or to use what’s actually here.

I think what finally settled it to my husband that I’m serious about novel writing (since I’ve been talking about it for years, and have yet to produce a manuscript), was the day I asked him “Honey, when you turn right on Airport Road, you get to the airport and the movie theatre. Where does the road go when you turn left?”. To which he responded “I don’t know. Why?”. And I said, “Because that’s where my protagonist goes to church.”.

And then he asked what a protagonist is.

That was the beginning of the turn around in the way I thought of my WIP. I’ve had a number of other things that I know I have to research or make up, but I’ve already chosen her college, and her major and minor. I have to work on her former place of business, but I know what the business itself was.

What caught me up though, was when I was looking at her college’s website, trying to figure out what her major was. What would have prepared her for her future? What would have suited her personality? I finally decided on an English major (common major, appropriate to an avid reader, etc) and started looking at the courses available.

Holy cow. Now I want to go to college there! Some of those classes look great! One of the professors in particular seems exactly like the kind of prof Z would love. Looking at the staff pages, I can see her participating and classes, and how she’d respond to each prof differently. Of course, it’s all back story, but like Anti-Wife says, that’s how you get to know your character.

But then, I realized something.

I’ve never read the majority of books and/or authors that are required for this college’s major in English. Yikes! And I’ll never have the time to go through and read a few dozen heavy classics in time to throw in a half dozen lines referencing them. I could just look up quotes and try to find a thesis or two on a few of the authors, but I’ve got a better idea.

I’ll just ask you guys which books you’d most recommend. I’m focusing on historically focused books, or books written before 1901. Perhaps even websites that discuss various intelligentpeoplethings about the authors and the books (and themes, and hidden meanings, and…). For example: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Austen, historical romance something or other.

If you had to take a crash course to appear well read, well educated, and intelligent, what would you read? (I’m not starting yet- I’ve read enough to get me through the first draft, but I’d like to start planning for my rewrites).

Here are the courses that I’m looking at specifically:

ENG 3050—Satire (3)Readings in classical, neoclassical, and modern literature which emphasize reform and correction of individuals and societies, including works by Juvenal, Erasmus, Swift, Twain, Thurber.

ENG 3100—American Puritans and Romantics (3)A survey of the major authors and literary movements from the Colonial period up to the Civil War, including Edwards, Franklin, Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman.

ENG 3200—American Realists and Moderns (3)A survey of American literature from the Civil War to the present, including works by Twain, Crane, London, Dreiser, Anderson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, O’Neill, Cather, Lewis, Updike.

ENG 3510—Medieval Literature (3)A study of the Anglo–Saxon and Medieval period to 1400, focusing on Celtic prose and poetry, Chaucer, Langland, and continental influences.

ENG 3520—Renaissance Literature (3)A study of the period 1400–1660, focusing on drama and poetry, including Spencer, Marlowe, the Metaphysicals, and Milton.

ENG 3580—Enlightenment Literature (3)A study of the period, 1660–1798, including Dryden, Pope, Swift, Hogarth, and Johnson.

ENG 3610—Romantic Literature (3)A study of the Romantic period, 1798–1832, including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats.

ENG 3620—Victorian Literature (3)A study of the prose and poetry of Victorian England, 1832–1901, including Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, Bronte, Arnold, Wilde.

ENG 3630—Modern British Literature (3)A detailed study of twentieth century British writers including Yeats, Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, Shaw, Auden, Thomas, and Hughes.

I’m hoping for just one or two selections from each course. Given my time constraints, I’m preferring shorter or more obscure titles. I doubt if I’ll have time enough for even those, but it’ll give me a start.

Anyway. I have the first post on two of my new affiliate sites. I’d appreciate any feedback you can give me.

My affiliate dating site

My affiliate internet techy stuff site

I haven’t spent all day writing those, only the past few hours (while watching brit coms), but I have been updating the plug ins and signing up for affiliate accounts. I can’t believe how many companies are out there that offer affiliate accounts! I thought it was all done through the big sites. I actually like using individual companies better since I have a better shot at being familiar with the product.

Also, something that I forgot to add to yesterday’s post: once I have practice writing these posts and articles, I should have a better idea of what to charge than if I just jumped right in.

Man those cookies smell good.

Does anyone know how to get the themes to show up in my other domains? I have two others with WordPress on them, all loaded through Fantastico on HostGator. I really hate the default and classic WP themes (although I do like the color fade thing you can do on the default one) and I’m so close to being able to put up VixenCrafts, but this is just so not going to work if HostGator’s response to everything is “only available on your main domain”.

Can anyone help me?

Edit: Once I figured out how to do this, I started a website for all these things that I had needed to learn. I wrote a post on adding new themes to WordPress, as well as adding WordPress itself, and adding plugins. Just click here to see the whole site, or click on the link above for just that article.

Remember, it’ll be (probably) mostly how to craft articles and a page or three selling my jewelry and crafts. Plus, I’ll likely be adding a blog.

I’ve been working on branding the name WordVixen for my writing, and I’d like to stay in that theme. I’ve been thinking things like CraftVixen, VixenCrafts, and even DoCraft. I don’t think I want the terms jewelry or beading in the domain name since even though it’ll be the bulk of what I sell, it won’t be the bulk of the website.

I checked wordtracker, and while it did give me a few keywords to build the site on, no additional ideas as to the name/domain of the site.

It’s a little funny- I actually went to register the domain, and only realized that I didn’t have a domain to register when I got to the form!

There are a few How To articles that I was going to write for Associated Content, but I wanted to use pictures and you can only add them to the one section. I thought about starting a blog for it, but since I wouldn’t likely post much between how-to’s, it seems a little pointless. I considered separate Squidoo lenses for each project. That would work, and I’d get paid for it, but I couldn’t monetize the way I’d prefer since Associated Content would pay me up front and for each view. The ads I’d get with Squidoo would probably not be as much.

My husband wants me to start my own website. Now, I realize that this is because he heard about the 17 year old who made 17 million dollars from ad revenue on her site/s, but if it works in my favor…

Now, I know that I wouldn’t likely make enough to pay the ‘net bills off a website. It would have to be hugely popular, which isn’t likely if I’m the only one posting how-to’s. However, I’d always planned to have my own website to sell my jewelry. I’m thinking that I could combine the two. I could even add the jewelry making blog that I was going to start (the one on my profile doesn’t count- that was my first blog ever and I didn’t know what I was doing) to the site.

I’m not sure what I want to do, but I’ve been thinking about it pretty constantly since Hubby brought the subject up. I know that I can non-exclusive it and put the articles everywhere, but that’s only a temporary fix. I’m looking down the road and wondering where I want to be. And if I can even get there.

So, that’s why I haven’t been speaking up much lately. I’ve got a lot of thinking that I’ve been doing about where I want my life to go, and in which direction to focus my writing. I’m not good at decisions. I like options. But people who try to keep all their options open, never actually get any of them.

Opinions? Ideas?

(also, I know that I haven’t mentioned craft magazines- that’s another thing I’m looking into)