The 100,000th Miss

So, interestingly enough, looking at my word count goal, on Pi Day (3-14) I was supposed to have already written 20% of my word count goal, or 100,000 words.

Whoopsie, sadly, I got about a third of that.  So, I'm pretty behind as far as the word count goes.  However, we (seem to have) had a break-through with the neighbors - they've at least been quiet today!  And I have taken full advantage of that by writing my little fingers off.  I'm hoping to clock at least 3000 words today.  We have some plans to eat dinner with the beau's parents, and I agreed to help my mom out by taking my bros to school for their band contest (tenor sax and trombone).  They're going to be wearing TUXES!  That makes me laugh and laugh, we're really not a very dressy family ;)  Not to say we don't clean up nice, but I think my bros would agree that we like to kick back and relax an usually high amount.

But -around- all that, I'm getting the writing done ;)  This post is in the interval between two chapters, as I shed that last idea and fully grasp the next one.

I don't know how it is for other authors, but I can say when I have an idea I need to get out, it just runs around and around in my head.  And after I've written it, it goes silent and thankful at being expressed.  And then the next one comes up :)  Since I've been so interrupted recently, ideas have been crowding and crowding.  It's a relief to release some of them :)

If everything manages to go swimmingly today and tomorrow, there's a good chance I could crack the 40k mark.  Here's hoping!

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

Doo doo doo do DOO, doo doo do DOO DOO
*flashback sequence, sometime 2011-2012*

I'm just a surfing around the internet trying to think of good writing goals.  Hmmm, you know, I hear authors are finding a lot of success with Amazon.  They're getting good, decent contracts and really making a name for themselves with a publisher that seems to care about them as people, not machines.

Huh, Amazon has a Breakthrough Novel Award Contest?  How did I not know about this sooner?  Boy oh boy, my heart is full of happiness and joy and puppies licking candy canes!  But despite my excitement, I am an author who cares about her career. I know that NOT understanding what's expected of me in my contract, and NOT understanding at least enough legalese to protect myself is a DUMB MOVE.  Let's look over the terms of this contest hmmmm...

*SCREEEEEEEEEEECHing halt*

Huh.

If you win Amazaon's BNAC, you get a contract for your book.

From Penguin.

Thanks, but NO THANKS.  You can collect your consolation prize at the door there, Penguin, but you won't be wringing me dry, a new and vibrant author, with your machine of lies and death.  If Amazon isn't offering the contract for their own contest, well, I didn't avoid the query-go-round for nothing!

*close window, forget about ABNAC 95%, fast forward to today*

Oh, Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.  I remember this.  The one with Penguin that was actually not a very good deal at all.  Well, maybe they've changed something, let's have a looksee...

Well, I see the $5,000 paid against royalties for the winner has been increased to $50,000.  That's pretty substantial.  And now there are also 4 "First Prize" winners that get paid $15,000 against royalties along with the printing of their book.  That's kind of nifty.  What else?

Oh, previously self-published books can be submitted, as long as they meet the 50-150k word requirement. So I'd be okay on "Shackled" but not so much on "Youth" which falls a little shy of the 50k minimum.  Anything else?

... Huh.

Amazon has taken control of their contest.  Now, if you win Amazon's contest, you get published... by Amazon.  Well that certainly sounds more appealing!  Hmm, but if you "win", you have to accept the contract "as-is" with no negotiations.  Now, I've heard contracts from Amazon are a-to-the-wesome, but I've never actually SEEN one.  Though, I suppose I could take the contract to a lawyer once it was offered. Let's do a little more digging...

Well, I'd have to give up worldwide rights.  And there would be no "end" on the contract, as far as this shows, so if they don't get me in the right places and it never sells, I don't have recourse to get that book back.  I have to be honest, I don't understand if "Interactive Editions" includes if the book is optioned for a movie, or is made into a movie.  Am I expected to give up revenue for that?  Is a movie an "interactive product"?  I'm not really finding anything to back it up with a yes or no.

Gross vs Net, people often don't understand this.  My book might make $400,000 gross.  But if Amazon says they spent $400,001 dollars in marketing/layout/overhead, that is subtracted from the gross to leave the net: -$1.  That would mean that after the initial advance royalties, I wouldn't see a single red cent.  I don't like Net Revenue.  I think without defining exactly what CAN come out of Gross, you're leaving yourself open to a dangerous, expensive and vague loophole.  I always push for points (percentage of Gross, Ex: 5 points = 5% gross), because then no matter how much they spend, as long as money comes in, you get a part of it.  I am incredibly wary of this "net" business.  Especially when I don't understand what "interactive editions" could really identify.

But on the other hand, who am I?  I'm not a big name, I'm not well known and talked about with reverence.  I'm still a fledgling author, in the grand scheme of things.  $50,000... or even $15,000 in advance royalties and all the power of Amazon behind me?  Am I willing to essentially give up one book for that kick in the behind towards the door marked, "Success"?  How many books do I think I have in me?

More than one more?

...

HELL YEAH I DO!

Pffftt, one more book in me.  Who'm I kidding?  I have dozens, maybe hundreds, if I don't stop getting in my own way of writing them!  I can write a book for this contest!

Okay, you've nabbed me now, Amazon.  So I can just submit my novel anytime next year, right?

What do you mean, NO?

What do you mean you're only accepting the first 10,000 entries?

Starting January 14th?!?!  And you'll only accept them until you reach 10,000 or January 27th?!?

Hungry, hungry hippos, Batman!  I'd better get writing!  (And you should too!  Good luck everyone!)

The Kobo Experience

I've dallied about, posted my work on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but sort of gave the hairy eyeball to that "Kobo Thing".

In one of my frequent chats with Michael Kingswood we got to discussing the success he's found with Kobo's platform.  My hairy eyeball came creeping out again, and I decided to take another swing around the block to peek for myself.  What was this Kobo Thing?

Plainly put, Kobo is kind of what is Amazon is... where Amazon is not.  Kobo, for instance, has a considerable presence in Japan.  KDP, Amazon's proprietary blah de blah, does not list in Japan.

This is not the only place Kobo is working it, while Amazon is lagging.  In fact, it appears Kobo is quietly becoming a powerhouse... in other parts of the world.

So, hairy eyeball intact, I signed up and took a swing around Kobo's Authors Enter HERE site, weirdly titled (at least for me) Kobo Writing Life.  It just doesn't roll off the tongue.

The site seems clean, easily navigable.  Things are logically placed.  There are notes to help you along.  The unimaginatively entitled Dashboard has very insightful and interest-piquing promises... once you've published a book, that is.  It has features like quick stats, if you just want to eyeball (hairy or no) your income.

It has a graph that shows your daily sales... you know, for you, so you don't have to swim through ugly excel sheets just trying to figure out your monthly numbers coughAmazoncough.

It conveniently lists your top sellers in order, and also has (what promises to be) a cool map showing you world interest by region!

I've been meaning to go back through the IH series with a fine-toothed comb.  I know I have typing errors, weird errors, in there.  I'm sure of it.  In fact, I went through "Cheat", the first episode today.  Oh yeah, best error?

He felt like a fool.  Except, I didn't type fool.  I typed food.  I wonder what type of food he felt like?

But I've been pondering over DWS, and the value of my time, my work, ect.  At 20k, the IH episodes should be sitting pretty at the $2.99 mark.  So that's my goal.  As I update them with the cleanest possible copies, and little teasers like "Look out for episode HARGLE" (where HARGLE = the next number in sequence) I'm going to start prodding the price points up to $2.99.  So if you're somewhere in the middle of the series, here's your warning - they won't stay $1.99 forever!

So back to Kobo.

The update process was remarkably painless, after remembering my early days stumbling through Amazon and B&N's complicated, often slow and annoying systems.

There is even a link, prominently placed and easily visible, for people to provide feedback and "I'd like to see..." suggestions.

I think Kobo's really got their heads on straight when it comes to bringing in the talent.  Honestly, Amazon's site looks like something I'd picture from the DOS age and B&N is kind of all over the place.  And one major point that Amazon just cannot understand, but that B&N at least has down - when a book has been edited, you can easily go back in and change your edits.  Leave out something in the description?  No problem, change it before it goes to review.  Kobo is fatalistically simple to get back into your queued-for-review books.  Amazon locks them down like Fort Knox, often making you wait hours, (days, in the beginning) to be able to worm back in and fix an error.

So, I uploaded "Cheat" to Kobo today.  I'm hoping to get at least 1 IH up a week until they're all up, and then we'll start on the rest.  "Shackled"'s KDPS runs out at the end of this month.  Time to get 'er back out there, and on a new market!

Oh, and the best part is that Kobo is running a special through the end of November - any titles at the 70% price point... will be bumped up to 80%!  That's not only a sweet deal for authors that just... well... sweet.  You can't help but wonder if Kobo maybe, just maybe, cares about us.

Kobo, you've got yourself a convert.

7.5k

Wow, I haven't been here in just over two months.  I am terrible at keeping up, haha!

Well, some good news for any Medrick fans out there.  I've finally kicked my own derriere hard enough and got myself moving.  I didn't do any writing yesterday, but I wrote the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 27th and I wrote 7.5k new words for my next brainchild in the pipeline, Youth.

7,531 to be exact.

This is a novel, not a short story, and I'd say it's about half done word-count wise.  As in, I'm expecting it to clock in around 50k, and if you look at my handy little word count meter down there, you'll see it shows 48.88% completion.  So yaysies for that :)

I have to throw a good thanks out to Michael Kingswood.  Awhile back he posted on his blog about this handy little chart he made for himself that helped him track the actual costs of his book.  (I'd post the link if I had it handy, but I don't remember even what month he posted it in.)  Basically you put in your start time for writing, and your end time, and how many words you wrote in that time, and (at $50/hr, which I think is reasonable for a writer) it tells you how many copies of your book you have to sell at your desired price (that you set, it figures your royalty).

Wow, looking over that sentence it sounds confusing!  But it is really, really, cool.  And on top of that, it's deeply motivational to someone who thinks like me.  I'm pretty creative, but I also have a hard science side.  I like to see things happen, know results.  When I write, yeah, my word count goes up, and I know some hours here and there, but how much time am I actually spending?

What is the cost of my time?

As writers take the dropped ball from agents and publishers and have to look more at the business side of their craft, things like this become really important.

Say it took me a year to write a book.  (I know, I know.  A year?  What the hell am I doing?!?  Haha.)  As a business person, I'd have to ask myself: why?  When I take typing tests, I always clear 90+ wpm.

Say my novel is 50,000 words long.  Now say I type a flat 90wpm.  With that math, it takes me a little over 555 minutes to complete a novel.  Or, in another sense - less then 9 1/2 hours.

Now, why did a 9 1/2 hour project take me ONE YEAR to complete?

Okay, okay, I'll give a little slack.  I don't thunder-type for an hour straight at 90wpm when I'm writing a manuscript.  Sometimes I have to stop, and think.  Are my characters behaving realistically?  Do I have enough setting?  Can you see this scene, or is it vague?  Those questions take time to answer.  Also, sometimes I misspell words and backspace doesn't count toward your keystrokes, ha ha ha.

Here's another fun fact: The longer I sit at my computer, the less work I'm going to get done.

It sounds like baloney, but I think a lot of people will agree to being the same way.  If I were at a cubicle job, doing the same general tasks over and over, that's different - I constantly have something to do, with little variation.

But when I'm writing, worlds are flowering under my fingertips, through the imperfect filter of my own brain and vocabulary.

There's going to be hitches.

So I find, in the end, I write fantastically in small spurts.  Then - I walk away.  Yes, WALK AWAY!  I go play video games for an hour, or frisbee with the dog, or watch an episode of some random television show. I do something that clears the filter, and then I come back later.  Sometimes an hour, sometimes a day later.

Okay, so 7.5k of a 50k novel is 15%.  If it were a 9 1/2 hour project, I should have completed it in a mere 85 minutes!

Truth time?  It took me 4.06 hours.  (Another fun metric this spreadsheet tracks!)  BUT, those were a very productive 4 hours.  They weren't all at once, they were over 4 days.  Huh, that sounds suspiciously like the, "Write at least an hour a day" mantra I hear going around :P

Aaaaand, I don't manage to write 90wpm while writing.  My best day of those four, I wrote at a speed of (thank you, spreadsheet!) 2324.52 words/hr, or (haha) 38.7wpm.  I blame the thinking time variable!  (At that pace it would take me 21.5 hours to complete the first draft manuscript... still considerably more reasonable than the YEAR it supposedly took.)

But I guess the most important things to take away from this post are:
1. Write at a comfortable pace.
2. "Thinking" time can eat into your hours.
3. A novel shouldn't take a year to write.
4. If you wrote 1,000 words a day, every day for a year, you'd write 365,000 words, or more than 7, 50k novels.
5. Know your business!  Writing has a cost all its own!

And for anyone with a geeky maths and science side like me, have a gander!

And, now that you can all see it, I can't hide.  This is the truth about writing, for me.  I often don't spend more than a half hour at a time sitting still, and yes, each one of those sessions represents a complete chapter.

The Bedside Table

When I was a kid, I fell asleep on a dime. The instant the lights were out - so was I. As I got older, I slept less and less. It wasn't until I was in college and I forgot to sleep for three days (and started hallucinating) that I realized I might have become an insomniac somewhere along the way.

I don't suffer from rampant insomnia, just very, very minor. I have a friend who would stay up for a week or more at a time and then crash - and there was nothing he could do about it.

Stress obviously inflames my insomnia. But if I'm not quite tired when I lay down, I have the worst habit.

With my eyes closed, my body relaxed, waiting to drift into sleep under the warm covers, I start to create.

The perfect scene.

The perfect line.

The next bit of the story I'd been stalled on while sitting at my computer all day.

And who wants to get up then? When you're already snuggled into bed and waiting for sleep? And what are the chances you will exactly remember that phrase or scene or word, just as you had it, in the moments before slumber? I'll give you a hint. It starts with "Z" and ends with "ero". For me, anyway. I am most perfectly, unquestionably creative when the last thing I want to do is get up and write it down.

So on my bedside table, I left an empty notebook and a pen. And my booklight...

Just in case.

Last night Andy fell asleep within milliseconds of laying down. And SNORED (sorry, hon, but it's true!) I couldn't fall asleep. But what I could do, was imagine.

Imagine I did!

I couldn't take it anymore, I wasn't sleeping. But then it hit me - I was prepared. I snapped on my bedside light, opened up the notebook and exploded all my thoughts onto the paper, effectively writing the first chapter of a novel I've been hemming and hawing over for the past... three? years.

Turn your weaknesses into strengths, that's what I say :)

That New Year's Thing

Well, I had a blast for New Year's Eve! We had literally all of our family in the surrounding area crammed into our tiny house (including us - 10 people and a dog!) Everybody brought way more food than they should have, so it went over quite well :) We all played Wits and Wagers as well as Mad Gab, before watching the ball drop.

Being decidedly of German descent, we did our age old tradition of pork and sauerkraut for New Year's dinner. The more sauerkraut you can cram down your gullet, the more GOOD luck you will supposedly have for the coming new year. (They had to make up SOME good excuse to eat rotted cabbage!)

For the record, I ate more sauerkraut this year than any other year previously. Despite the tears in my eyes. (And that's after mom pre-rinsed it and added brown sugar to take the edge off... and after mushing it in with my stuffing and mashed potatoes...) That means lots of good luck for me!

I have some pretty lofty goals this year - goals that are concrete and will probably take me the entire year to complete. Here are some, in no particular order:

1. Pen 500,000 publishable words. (Including but not limited to 6 IH episodes, 3 novels, 3 short stories.) This should be achievable if I write 5days/week, 2k/day!

2. Lose at least 40lbs. (The holidays were not kind to me :P... or rather, I was too kind to myself...)

3. At least, triple the royalties earned last year. (Which is to say, I still won't be making mortgage payments or swimming in my own pool of gold coins like Konrath ;D)

4. Try to go through every box I have in the house, and really throw away/condense it down.

5. Publish at least 1 new piece per month. Period - no excuses! (Compendiums and omnibuses excluded!)

So, what do you think of my short list? :)

The March Continues

Another productive day for THE THUNDERSTORM! (Krakakow!)

"Youth" is blazing through my heart and my keyboard as probably the saddest story I have ever written. But, the more I write, the more I feel like this story needs to be told. Watching it unfold makes me shiver - I really hope the readers feel what I'm feeling when it's finished.

The funny thing is, sandwiching each chapter I've been watching old episodes of Roseanne to keep my spirits up :P

So far today, 2 chapters of "Youth" in. We'll see if I can pick myself up (fighting off a throat infection) and get anymore written before I head to bed.

...

KRAKAKOW!

Mental Disorganization... or Just Mental

My mind stays busily, sometimes painfully active. I think about everything, and I mean everything, constantly. When I lay down to sleep, my thought process goes something similar to this:

"Okay, time for some sleep. Let's get comfy. Yeah, okay, that's good. Close my eyes and..." three seconds later, "the first of the month is in a couple of days, I'd better remember to give the dog his heart worm medicine. I should remind Andy to get a haircut tomorrow, it's getting long. Did I put my keys in the key turtle? Do I know where they are? Retrace my steps... no, they're on my desk, under the credit card bill. Can't forget that. Do we have bread? I think Andy threw it away. Should I check? No, I'm in bed, forget about it. Are my car doors locked? Did I roll up the windows? Is it raining? I have to remember to do some laundry tomorrow. I wonder if Andy knows where Ajax's red ball went. What day is tomorrow? Do I work? Is my alarm set? I think I remember setting it." and on and on until I literally pass out from exhaustion.

Some nights I can control it, by picturing a blank white nothingness and repeating "white" over and over to myself.

Rarely, very rarely, I can count sheep. But then I start thinking, are they walking, or jumping over a fence? Do I have to visualize them jumping? Are they fluffy sheep or are they recently sheared? White sheep? Black sheep? How many should walk/jump? Do they trot up and hop over the fence? Do they walk around it? Is it just a small, stand-alone section of fence? And that goes on until even the sheep are glaring at me in annoyance.

There are only a few things I know of that can "shut off" my brain. One of them is reading - when I'm immersed in a world outside myself that is interesting, I have laser focus. The other is video games because I have some horribly competitive monster in me that thrills at earning achievements and learning or mastering. Funny enough - time management/strategy/city-builders are my favorite type of game. Younger, I played Tetris into the ground and older, Lumines.

If things are particularly stressful and my brain is clocking in overtime, I might go on "video game benders" that waste hours and days of my life, because I just need a break. From myself? I guess so.

When I'm depressed, my ability to focus on a single task or project recedes into the land of make-believe.

Stressed and depressed, you can imagine I'm pretty useless.

On my desktop right now, I have 7 separate stories in progress, and four more in my head, unstarted. When I start to work on one, I seem to get a new idea. (It's getting really crowded in there. Oh, and I just remembered I have some stuff started on Google Docs, too...) It's gotten so bad, I'm afraid to work on anything, because I'm afraid I'm failing by not finishing one. People tell me, "Just sit down and do it. Work on one thing, and finish it." Oh, how I wish I could. Add in the fact that every job now includes, "must be able to multi-task in a fast-paced environment" (because I'm trying to improve my situation in life) and my business degree (teaching me that focusing on one thing at a time is a terrible way to do business) and I am a recipe for Failed Disaster.

I'd like to put my head in my arms and go to sleep, hope that my brain can rewire itself in the night and make things work, but I can't even get to sleep properly. Then I have outlandish dreams that I'd like to share and multiple people - never just one! - say, "That would make a good story!" and before I can run away - "You should write it!"

Yes, yes I should.

Let me add it to my list.

I'm sorry I'm ranty today, I'm tired. Andy's sick and I know I'm catching it. So much to write - doesn't my body know I don't have time to be sick? There's unfinished writing to be done, a career to mold and... wait, no, I'm not doing so hot there either :(

September sales were dismal - 6. All but one at the very beginning of the month. +1 Depression, -1 Medrick :P

I know, I know I need to just write and get them down and get them out there. Can someone please get the memo to my brain, to just calm down and focus? I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Love you guys, seriously.

Eventuality

So everyday I keep saying to myself,

"Today is the day, I'll settle in and write the next piece of "Frigid"!"

And then something happens, and, well, I don't. And I get mad at myself and the next day I say,

"Today is the day,..."

Which is a bad cycle. One I didn't break yesterday...

But today, I did! So, yay for me.

I'm hoping to keep up on it. I really do want to finish it and keep moving. I've got big plans for November, and I'd really like to have "Frigid" and episode 7 titled... "Fi..." ahaha, teaser :P... finished.

Here's to hoping I don't have a lot more tomorrows like yesterdays.

Pat Yourselves on the Back

Hello everybody, and may I also say WOW.

From comments here to mails in my box, I have gotten tremendous support from you guys and you all rock my socks off. (Seriously, cannot wear socks for like 6 months, they have been rocked so hard, and so far.)

There are a lot of things in motion right now. I am trying to set myself up for success and I've made some hard decisions and spent more time on the phone in the last 48 hours than in the last 2 months, combined :P

As far as I know, my head is healing fine and my hand is doing much better today! The road rash is still very sore and the scabs tear a little easier than one would hope but I think I'll be okay ;)

Hopefully I will come bearing good news, and soon! But for now I want to tell you all to just give yourself a big pat on the back because you guys are totally awesome. I have a recognized terror of failure and even thinking about changing the IH schedule put me in tremors. My good friend, going for a PhD in Psychology recently did a career counseling session for me.

Probably one of the biggest things I took away from him was when he looked me in the eye and said, "It's okay. It's okay to fail. It's okay to give up sometimes, or try again later. It's okay."

It sounds stupid but I burst into tears because it's so much harder to live with that understanding (for me) than to just get it. You guys have been amazing friends, backing me up even when I'm falling and I thank you for it.

I love you guys!!! My colleagues, my fans, my FRIENDS!!

Chart, Canyon-Style!

Hey all! I know I said I'd post some fun sales number, etc for you yesterday, but joke was on me! I was home from work with a wicked case of creeping crud. Sleep + Mucinex + water + video games = I feel better today! (Less coughy, too. I stayed home in large part because I didn't want to hack all over my deliveries :P)

The fiance is out of town visiting some friends, which means I have the house all to myself (plus the dog and the cat)! So, I can dance around and sing and generally be the biggest idiot I can be when no one else is watching :) Though, my shenanigans are a little culled by the fact that I'm still hack-y. It also gives me a lot of time to write in peace, though, and THAT is the gift I appreciate most about time alone :)

Just some news, before we get to the fancy-schmancy chart - Twelve Worlds releases this month! Looks like we're just waiting on the Foreward and it will be hitting e-Shelves! "Liar" also drops on the 15th, so if you haven't picked up "Cheat" yet, please do! There is a convenient IH widget in the upper right-hand corner, plus the link I just provided :)

As authors, we have different goals we want to reach with our work. Some want to inspire, some want just to write and have it read, and others want money, among other reasons. I want a comfortable life doing what I enjoy the absolute most. That is writing. I'm in it for personal satisfaction, and money. No reason to lie about it, it's not a shame to want money or a comfortable life (just don't get greedy!) So I write and write and write, tappa tappa tappa and hope I sell better a little each day.

I'm nowhere near self-sufficient for writing, yet. Yet. As I said, a little more each day... and maybe this whole thing can work out for me :) I have two works out, "Shackled" and "Cheat". Will I see additional sales of one from the other? I'm not sure. They are radically different genres/age-groups, etc.

But, without further delay, I'll share my chart with you, inspired by the wonderful Derek J. Canyon. (One of the coolest names EVER.)

I don't have a lot of data yet - my journey only began on February 17th.

I can tell you a few things, however:
1. "Shackled" is holding its own at $2.99. It's not moving truckloads of copies, but it IS getting read. Especially the sample, judging by my Smashwords download count ;)

2. "Cheat" is $.99 and is obviously moving faster. No surprise there, it's so cheap! I'm glad a few people have picked up copies. Hopefully they'll stay interested enough to pick up Episode 2 when it hits in less than a week! And the news will spread...

3. In March, in terms of units, I sold 225% of units in February! Amazing! That's a big number. To continue that momentum, I need to sell 20.25 units in April (let's say that's just 20 for argument's sake!) My April goal is now 20 sales (across all titles). With "Liar" being released, plus "Twelve Worlds" dropping, I think there will be enough buzz to do that! Though, I won't count "Twelve Worlds" in my personal sales count, I will mention it as much as possible :)

So that's my fun chart information. I'm also hoping to do a bundle of short stories sometime this month, but realistically next month. I'd like to write one short a week, time permitting. My goal is to bundle 20k words or 5 stories, whichever comes first. I am also interested in excerpt trading, for anyone who might be considering something similar.

I've had one sale so far this month, so here's to hoping (hopping? HAH) the Easter Bunny brings me the other 19 ;)

Cheers!

Tomorrow, TrAuSt Returns!

So make sure you stop by to see K. Gorman's answers to my insidious questions!

Amphibious questions?

Sequestered questions!

My questions. :)

I'm also having a blast with my editors using Google docs. I wish they had a track changes feature (or at least, I've not seen it yet), so we're making do with comments and highlights for now. But it is VERY bizarre to see someone typing in the same document in which I am ALSO typing. I'm sure they agree, plus they can see me type my story in real time. (It makes it a little nerve-wracking when I'm searching for that perfect word and they are watching my cursor blink along with me, and I know they're WATCHING MEEEEEE) It's an interesting twist to a solitary sport like writing.

Other than that, I've still a case of the Creeping Crud. Hoping to finish THAT up and feel better. Liar drops on April 15th, as well as the Twelve Worlds Anthology sometime this month :)

I'll probably also post some sales updates on Friday, since I haven't gone about doing that in any formal way. So, look forward to that. But first, look forward to K. Gorman, here, tomorrow!

Good time to be me, I'm thinking!

Music in My Fingertips

Today's title (Music in My Fingertips) is the only way I can describe the past few days, because my fingers are dancing across the keys...

I've popped out chapter after chapter, and now I'm up to 66% of my word goal. I've been working on this project for about 5 days, so that's pretty rapid progress. Though, I have to say, once an idea solidifies in my head, it's only a matter of getting it down, then editing up to a nice, clean polish.

I'm really excited about this part of my writing career. I'm trying something a little different than where I'd thought I'd be, and I feel like I am excelling at it. I've gotten positive feedback on my story, so far, a definite interest in the main character and some side characters. There's so much room for me to keep writing... it's really nice.

If everything falls into place, this story will be available on March 10th. That leaves me 9 days to finish up 7k words and edit... but as I'm a rolling editor, I'm not terribly concerned about it. I -am- worried about pushing my cover artist too hard. He's a great guy and I keep dumping cover concepts on his head, eh he he... But if things don't work out then I'll be aiming for March 17th.

Everyone writes at a different pace, I happen to write pretty concisely. (I've also had 22 years of practice, prior to actually finishing a story) So, I hope you won't let my pace deter you, and in a week or two, you'll pick up a copy of Cheater's Pass. (only $.99! You can afford that, to try out my YA episodic adventure!) Then, if it's really bad, you can come here and rant, or if it's good, you can come here and rant. Really, you get to rant either way, so why not give it a try? $.99 for a rant! Not bad!

Back to work tomorrow and I'm bound and determined to actually GO!

Heartburn... of JOY (Plus: Twelve Worlds)

I am almost entirely unable to sit still today!

Sometime this year (definite date not yet set), I will have some work released in an anthology called "Twelve Worlds". Derek J. Canyon of Dead Dwarves Don't Dance and Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds decided to put the idea together. We are looking to donate the proceeds to charity, probably one focused around writing or literacy.

I wrote a piece called Insomnomancer, my word ticker up there says Sleepeater because I changed the name right before editing submissions. I also handed off a copy to my buddy G to the Niz of E-publisher's Manifesto fame.

Our round-robin submissions mean that 3 of the other 12 authors will review our story, edit and provide feedback/suggestions. One of my editors, plus Aaron got back to me today and I think both critiques were very positive! Both enjoyed the story and had a little to say about my adjective use. (What can I say? My world is just more emo than yours, ha-ha... but I'm not dying my hair, growing it over my eyes and walking around depressed so don't ask.)

It is such a thrill to me to have others enjoy my writing. For anyone who has never been locked in a shell of their own making, you don't know what it's like when the sunlight finally comes pouring in. Self-imposed writing abstinence did me NO good and it feels good to be stringing the lines of a story together. It is also very cathartic in that - the ideas won't leave me alone UNTIL I empty them from my head. I have more "room to breathe" as it comes to thinking, when I write! I hope you understand what I mean.

I have that warm fuzzy feeling in my chest and big dorky grin plastered on my face. Hello, Heartburn of Joy! Days like this re-fill my write-o-meter and make me want to push myself even further :)

Curing the What Ifs...? (or: How I Learned My Insomnia Could End), Part 2

Last time I talked a little bit about how I see my day-to-day routine.  Little things make me go, "What if...".  I realized after I wrote it that I may... perhaps... seem a little paranoid.  I want to assure you, I'm not paranoid, I'm just curious about alternate possibilities.

Here's a fun example.  Yesterday I opened at work.  We prepare our onions, cut by hand, every morning.  They are fresh and yummy (and a big pain in the butt to do).  I was peeling the paper skin off when a cloud of white dust poofed out of the onion in my hand, startling me.

Here was my thought process:
What was that?  What if that was anthrax?  No, that's silly, there's no anthrax in these onions.  Wait, are these foreign onions?  Are onions in season in the States right now?  What if it's a foreign onion?  What if it carries the seeds of some strange, buried prion or something?  Holy crap, what if that turns me into a zombie?  Do I feel like a zombie?  I wonder how many people I'd infect before being taken down.

From there, it was an experiment in how I think a zombie outbreak would look, with the epicenter being my sleepy little Ohio town.

I think you get the point by now... basically, I feel like I'm always considering what could happen, and in thinking about it, I entertain myself.  Greatly.

Until middle school, I was always able to fall asleep on a dime.  I could close my eyes and I was gone.  If it was bedtime, I was asleep. I didn't argue or ask questions, I simply laid down and that's all she wrote!  As for what I wrote - whenever the mood struck me, on any topic and for any length of time until I was bored/done with it.

In middle school, I made the worst decision of my young life.  I joined Power of the Pen.  It was a competitive writing group (we actually went to competitions!).  You'd be given about two hours to write, and everyone would be given the same topic.  Some competitions, you'd do this two or even three times (yes, six hours of writing by hand).  We also met weekly to talk about writing, how to improve, et cetera.

My writing was deemed not entirely acceptable in this setting.  I am just not good at being given a topic and told to write on it - especially on a time limit.  I made the team... barely.  I was second alternate.  Basically if someone got sick, I still wouldn't write.  If two people got sick (inconceivable!) I might have a chance to get into the competition.  However, I was assured, this had never happened in all the history of PotP.  (Be ready to hear that more, 'in all the history of PotP')

So, of course, it happened with our last writing competition.  I had gone all year glumly cheering my team on from the sidelines.  I didn't want to cheer, I wanted to write!  It was why I had joined in the first place.  I smiled as best as I could, but my heart was heavy.  When I was told that for the first time ever, the second alternate would be permitted to join the competition, I literally bounded about, an unbridled source of joy and energy.  I thought my heart would explode, because it was far too small to contain my happiness.

I wrote with all my fervor that day.  I remember my topic, "Write a story based around the idea 'Just wait 'til your father gets home!'"  I wrote a story about a kid finding a little alien and causing a lot of mayhem with it.  The boy took credit for the alien's misdeeds.  The mom got angry and made the exclamation.  It was unpolished, unfinished, maybe a little ugly, but I wrote with everything I had.

At the grading ceremony, our team was all set up to win the whole competition.  Story after story was rewarded with stellar marks.  Then, my story, graded last.  How apropos.  I received the worst marks in history, for our club.  We lost the competition.  We didn't go home with any awards.  I was devasted; my team was furious.  My friends would not longer speak to me.  I cried like any heartbroken child would.

The next week at school, my English teacher (Vice President of PotP) approached me about my scores.  "Your writing is terrible," she informed me.  "You received the worst marks, ever, in the history of our club.  I don't even want to look at you right now.  You will never be a writer.  Never.  You should give it up.  Do something you're actually good at, like math.  Spare yourself the embarrassment, and don't write anymore."  Then she walked away, red tresses flowing behind her in the cryptic winds of the hallway.

My heart was in my shoes.  It was beneath my shoes.  It was dripping in rivulets down through the dirt to burn up in the core of the earth, never to be recovered.  I cried, right there and quietly through the rest of the day.  I swore off writing.  I packed up all the stories and ideas I was working on, clenched my jaw and gave up.

Less than a week later, the insomnia started.