Went to the pool today and tanned a little bit. I don't really like to tan, though my skin turns brown very easily, but I read some studies that getting vitamin D via sunlight can help you feel better, etc. Since I spend a lot of time indoors, I thought it might be good to get out a bit.

I don't know about the health effect, but my arms and legs are quite tan now. (I didn't tan my face…for obvious reasons…)

P.S. The studies / articles I've read about vitamin D:

• Vitamin D & depression
• Vitamin D & allergy
• Vitamin D & pregnancy complication
• Vitamin D & breast cancer

P.S.S. No, I don't have all the issues mentioned above, but I can get mildly depressed from time to time.

If you wanted to get the conference tapes but were hesitating over the price ($129.99 plus shipping and handling), here's a chance to get the complete set (DVD or CDs) on sale at www.billspro.com/order/rwa/index.html.

Promotional code for August is RAug9226. Mention that you're on Facebook and that you've seen Bill Stephens Productions Facebook page, and you can get additional $5 off. So that should bring the total down to $94.99 plus shipping and handling.

I found their shipping charges very reasonable, even if you live overseas. I already ordered my copy. If you have any questions, you can email them at ServeMe2@BillsPro.com. Their customer service is prompt and courteous.

P.S. As of August 19, their mp3 download page doesn't contain all the recordings from their master catalogue.

I'm not sure if you've seen it, but Linda Howard briefly discussed the trouble she's been having with her work due to her health issues on Facebook. I'm not surprised that less than good health can affect one's creativity and productivity and everything else so much. It doesn't even have to be something hormonal. Even something as non-specific as chronic pain can bring on numerous problems and kill productivity.

When little aches here and there let themselves known, I used to just forge ahead until my body went on a massive strike. It did for two months soon after I signed with Agent. It did again last year. After two devastating battles that lasted five months total, I've decided I cannot win against my own body. So these days I try to be kinder to myself, even though it's very hard, especially because I never used to have joint pain. My first instinct is usually to flog myself for being lazy or whiny or something.

So what do I do when I feel achy or fatigued? I allow myself a very short nap and half an hour of stretching. On top of that, I see my physical therapist at least twice a week to keep my joints in working shape. And I eat fresh fruit and vegetables every day. I should exercise more regularly as well, but one thing at a time.

What do you do to keep yourself healthy?

In the last two weeks I thought I'd read and relax, but none of that happened. Instead I got sucked into an epic historical drama with awesome larger-than-life characters, and I couldn't bring myself to read anything afterward. It's disappointing, but basically 007 Dukes and so on that I had on my TBR just lost their appeal.

I'm sure my appetite for them will return by the end of the summer at the latest.

How's your August so far?

Thanks to Nadia for having me here today!

Nadia asked me to blog about my experience as an indie author and how it's working out. In some ways it's working out great. In other ways it's definitely not easy. I'm not sure if authors who are traditionally published get a rulebook or not, but I know that indies don't.

We're expected to know the rules going in both socially and from a business angle. We're expected to know how to interact with our readers and fans, with reviewers (positive and negative), and with the online publishing world in general.

From the beginning, I've been a very opinionated indie. I'm someone who isn't afraid to speak my mind about things. Sometimes this gets me into drama. Sometimes it earns me enemies or just people who “will never read me now”. That last part sucks, since as an indie, I need readers or I won't make it. I don't have somebody else's marketing department to help push me to a wider audience. Though I realize many traditionally published authors don't have that nearly as much as they'd like or need either.

I'm on a very steep learning curve, not just in publishing, but in social interactivity… how much to market, when to stop, what lines not to cross, and which lines to cross. Sometimes being seen as controversial is a good thing. It gets me exposure I wouldn't have normally had. It gets me talked about. It ultimately gets me sales.

Sometimes the fallout isn't as good. And even when it nets me sales, it also nets me stress and drama.

So my experience has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, I really love self-publishing. I love being in control of the entire process, hiring a cover artist, picking my own editors, and telling the story I want to tell with no apologies. In romance there are a lot of formulas. Many publishers want a certain number of sex scenes occurring at certain points in the story. They want a certain heat level. They have rules about what language you can use. Etc. etc.

I didn't want to be stifled in that way, and so that's been another wonderful thing about being indie.

I've met a lot of really cool, talented, and self-possessed indie authors like Moriah Jovan, R.J. Keller, M.T. Murphy, and Kait Nolan, to name just a few. Each of them has a different way they go about being indie and slightly different goals and motivations.

I love running my own business and keeping all the profit.

I really love being a part of an indie movement in authorship that should have happened back when it became cool to be an indie musician or indie filmmaker. But it's happening now. So that's what matters.

Initially a lot of people told me not to do it, that it was some sort of career suicide. I never felt that way, since I could just start over with a new pen name if I didn't like how things went for Zoe. I didn't want the pressure of traditional publishing and deadlines and such. The irony is that I've learned a lot about myself here, including that I often create my own pressure and chaos no matter what road I'm on. And it's not something I can avoid by merely taking a different aesthetic path.

I ignored the well-meaning advice of those who told me not to go indie. I saw a future in indie authorship and particularly in ebooks. I started growing my audience and marketing my work. One of my little marketing projects is the Zoe Who? series, which is a youtube cartoon series about my self-publishing journey poking fun at the publishing industry, romance, and myself (lots of material there, LOL).

I try to be genuine, looking for that line between being genuine, and maintaining some level of emotional privacy. It seems to be overall paying off, since more people seem to be attracted to me than repelled by me.

Right now, as an indie, I live pretty naked because I talk a lot about my experiences as a writer and as an indie in particular. There are a lot of things I struggle with including “how should I present myself?”, “how should I engage?”, “when should I disengage?” that often become the topics of blog posts because I know I can't be the only author who feels this way, who feels sometimes the creative flow shuts off from too much Internet connection.

I try to form genuine connections with readers and people on Twitter, Facebook, and through blog hopping because we all want connection and if someone likes you they are more open and receptive to checking your work out. This has opened a lot of doors to helping overcome reader objections and getting my work read by an ever-widening audience.

My three novellas, Kept, Claimed, and Mated, generally hang out in the top 1,000 of the overall Kindle store, out of over 700,000 titles. I'm very proud of that, but I have a long way to go.

I'm constantly growing. This growth takes place in my writing and how I package my work. I recently had the novella covers slightly revamped by my cover artist to look more polished. (I had designed those particular covers originally.) The growth is also ongoing personally in how I handle the various emotional changes involved in putting work out there without a net or rulebook.

Hopefully my experiences help someone else who wants to do the same things.

Overall, it has been an incredibly rewarding journey and, yes, I would go indie again. And I want to stay indie forever.

You can find Zoe at:

http://www.zoewinters.org
http://zoewinters.wordpress.com
http://www.twitter.com/zoewinters

I have been utterly and completely turned off reading fiction.

I'm not sure why, but I just don't wanna.

I've been to the library a couple of times since I got back home — and god, I love the public libraries here in Singapore! — and I always walk away empty-handed from the fiction section. I go to bookstores, and wander out again, not having spent a single, precious penny. Which means I'm spending a ridiculous amount of cash on needlework stash and I really don't need any more — FYI, my TBR pile is usually about 10 books and I have already achieved what we stitchers call SABLE: Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.

Do you know what amount of monstrous effort that would normally require of me? Do you have any idea?

I'm someone who usually reads upwards of 200 novels each year. There are years when I make it close to, or even past the 300 mark.

Now I can't remember the last time I read a novel. Can't remember the last time I wanted to.

It's depressing, is what it is. I don't think I'm going to make it to the two hundred mark this year for novels.

I watch some TV. I have gotten rather addicted to NCIS for reasons best known only to my squishy, pulpy inner self. And I know it's not the same. My true self, who is a bookworm, would never dream of likening TV to a book.

I listen to a lot of podcasts from the BBC and the Economist — I save a lot of time by not reading newspapers any more and using that time for stitching.

So I'm thinking.

An enforced year of reading only non-fiction. There's nothing to stop me from reading narrative non-fiction, or watching TV or movies (I want to watch Salt!).

It might kill me. Or it might be my salvation and I'll read nothing but fiction in 2012 — assuming that the world's still here, and that I'm back at university, I'm pretty sure I'll need it.

Do you think you could do it? Or do you think your soul would shrivel up into dry and cracked leather?

Emily spent the past three years in the cold and wet, and is now basking in the tropical sun. She was born in Malaysia, grew up in Singapore, and educated in Britain, and wishes people would realise an international lifestyle is actually all about the packing and unpacking.