Hello! How did May go for everyone? May was rough for me. Great stuff happened on the home front: there were plays, recitals, graduations… a lot of reasons to be proud of my kids.
But as far as writing went…OMG.
I finished my romance serial, which meant tons of publishing. I had to publish the last episode, the compilation of episodes 5-9 because I did a compilation of episodes 1-4 and then the compilation of all the episodes together. And, because I’m a little crazy, I decided I wanted a companion book to go with the series that was a nail design book. The story takes place around a beauty salon. I had blogged several nail designs throughout the serial, and thought it would be fun. The marketing strategy was to give it away for free to draw more interest to the series.
Surprisingly, everything came together well. Julie got the editing done quickly (I honestly can’t praise her enough), and though it was very time consuming, the nail art came together too.
But I always crash at the end of a big project. I crashed hard after finishing episode 9 before I had completed the nail design book. Foolishly, I decided to stop drinking coffee for a while too because I had had so much to get all the publications out. That’s when I realized that coffee keeps writers optimistic.
Without coffee in me, my opinion about my own writing plummets. But when I take that first sip before I start typing, I am the best writer ever. So I thought it’d be fun to put together this little poster for you:
The depression might not have been so bad if I had had any sales. But sales were way down. Particularly Amazon has been abysmal this month. I’m actually even at All Romance between April and May on number of sales, and I made more money because I sold the higher cost books this month more than the cheap ones. Barnes and Noble and iTunes are the other places with sales, but not nearly as many as in April. Fortunately I made enough sales this month to keep me at a sale a day average for the year because April was so good.
I wish I knew what caused the swing. So far the nail book isn’t helping me at all, but Amazon won’t put it at free and it won’t be out at iTunes and Barnes and Noble until sometime this week. Fingers crossed people love it there and buy my other books.
But the serial is done! I should really celebrate because it was a big project coming in at over 125,000 words. However, I must get on to the next book. It’s already Tuesday, but I’d like to do a word count marathon. No gift card this week since it’s a short one. Think of it as a warm up for next week.
My goal is 2000 words a day this week. It feels out of reach because I have several activities planned this first week of summer, but I have a publication schedule that needs attention!
So, ready! Set! Write!
Hope you do well on the challenge, Melinda. I wrote a little yesterday, but we’ll see how well I do the rest of the week. I have been writing, at least a few times a week. I’m working on a Krampus story right now. My work has been crazy. I’m waiting for a new person to join our staff, who was supposed to come last week and still hasn’t showed yet. Until she does I am working extra hours to clean her area. Yesterday, I had to clean her area and my area and help load four racks of folding chairs. I’m bushed. Have a great writing week.
I hope this means your leg is doing better
That sounds like a ton of work. Good luck getting the Krampus story down. Great to hear from you!
You should celebrate! You’ve accomplished a lot.
Congratulations on all the awesome kids stuff!
Maybe sales were down for the month for the same reasons that you haven’t written as much — things get busy for a lot of folks this time of year. A sale-per-day is still great!
Kids are still in school for a few more weeks around here, so I still have some of that coming up.
I made progress on my story in terms of figuring out a few more areas were I felt stuck. That’s something! Now I need to get it down on paper. My overall word count so far has been puny. Had several things going on that required I get some extra sleep. Hopefully, heading in to the home stretch on that. I see a pattern in my lack of writing progress, so hopefully now that I see it I can do a better job of fixing it (though I seriously feel like a broken record in that department).
I hope everybody has a great week!
I should drink more coffee or tea or something. Definitely need to find my writer’s Prozac!
Thanks Deb!
The best advice I can give is to make yourself write everyday, even if it’s only 15 minutes. Making it a priority and a habit seems to be key for a lot of people. I know it’s easier said than done, but it does seem to work.
Great to hear from you!
Thanks, Melinda! I totally agree. As busy as things get or as tired as I may be, I can find 15 minutes to write (or even just 10 minutes). Some days I’m even happy about 2 minutes. 😉
The main thing is to do it.
Its tea for me. I drink it by the quarts all day. Except I am getting of an age that those quantities wake me up in the middle of night more than they used to.
Melinda, getting your series and free material out amidst all that activity is impressive. Good luck on the sales.
Deb, I love me some Krampus, so good luck with your project.
May was particularly busy for my writing. I am between jobs and pouring that time into my novel. I was getting worried about the growing word count and managed to change the 4th of 6 big action scenes into a new conclusion. It changed the overall theme of the book slightly, but the original theme will carry into the next book So I plotted out a new theme, and managed to tie the hero’s conclusion in with two subplots of secondary characters. I dreaded having to chop my original concept for months, so I am surprised how well it all works now. And it means 40% of the next book is already written.
The second draft is done. Now I just need to made tweaks to certain scenes to reinforce the new theme and perhaps add a lit color and scenery that I skimmed on to save words.
So it was a good May and I look to be done in June. So it will be the best of Junes.
Whoops. That was Shari with the Krampus story. I guess I know who will be after me with a switch for that mistake.
Haha! Hummm, Krampus story. I should just go with it.
One of our family names is Rupprecht, as in Knecht Ruprecht. Growing up my grandfather used to say his name meant “Santa’s Helper.”
So glad to hear about your writing! Sounds like you’re making tons of progress! Keep it up! It’s great to hear about it.
I’m with Deb. You’ve accomplished a lot. Hats off to you! Also, good luck this week.
Currently, I’m still knee deep in sequel edits. It’s coming together really well, but I felt the ending was still a little weak. So, my editor gave me an extension to really hit those last few chapters right out of the park.
Thanks Holly! I’m glad you got an extension. I’m sure your ending will be awesome. I bought your book on audible too, so now I can listen to it while I clean the kitchen. Hooray! Great to hear from you!