Tag Archives: writing

Anthology Deadline

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Greetings! Thanks for all the encouragement to keep the blog going! I’m settling in with the job now. At first I was pretty much coming home and conking out. The girls would come by throughout the afternoon and remind me of things like music lessons and Kung Fu. I’d get a chocolate fix and then start the driving. Now I don’t nap every day.

I’ve been getting some writing done. About 10k words since I last posted. Most of it has happened recently. Last year I volunteered to be in an anthology. Everyone has to contribute an original erotic paranormal romance story at least 15k words long. The project has changed leaders several times, and I thought it was dead. But someone ressurected it and set deadlines. I have 8000 words done and it’s due Friday. Yikes!!!

Unfortunately, out of those 8000 words, there’s still not a sex scene. The story is riddled with raunchy language but no one has gotten it on yet. Part of the problem is the story was originally envisioned to be written under my real name. In fact, I submitted short stories of it to several places. But the main character is a satyr, which obviously lends himself to my pen name much more than my real name. But the world building gets me every time. And now that it’s going to be longer, the other two characters are demanding more time on the stage…you know how characters can be.

So I’ll be coming by this week to let you know my progress towards the looming deadline. I’d love to hear how your projects are going too!

For inspiration, here’s a picture of my favorite satyr drawn by Kevin Yancey:

silas3

 

Real Numbers from an Indie Publisher

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If you are an indie writer, you might be like me and feel that all indie writers are bringing in at least 50K a year. Part of the problem is the only people posting numbers are the super successful. But I’m going to keep it real. If you are not even close to a four figure yearly income from your books, much more a five figure income, this blog is for you.

I’m at three figures! Of course, it’s gross and not net, but hey, I’ll take it. Since June, I’ve wanted to sit down and look over the sales figures, but I also didn’t want to do it because June was so bad. But July was good once again, so I took a peek.

My seven month publishing numbers:

Published 9 works and 86,500 words.

Republished one work with a new cover and added fractals.

Designed and created 4 covers.

Sold 223 books which is a book a day average.

Made almost $250 in royalties.

The disappointments:

Though sales and downloads for my billionaire serial started strong, they fizzled for the last two episodes. The blog readership for the pen name was steady, so I have to wonder if readers quit buying and started reading for free on the blog. I also sunk a lot of time and money into a picture book for the series, and it didn’t bring new readers as hoped for.

The surprises:

My holiday series has had steady interest despite the only holidays in the series right now are fall holidays. An even bigger surprise is the first episode of my slipstream romance is my third best seller.

Overall

I’m going to keep at it. I was pretty upset at the end of June, but after taking a few steps back I see that I’m having some successes. I’m hopeful that the next holiday books will have good releases.

How is your writing year going? I’d love to hear your ups and downs!

 

Summer

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How did it get to be July 18? I swear the Fourth of July hits and summer disappears. I haven’t gotten the writing done that I’d hoped for. And my low sales are keeping my spirits down as far as publishing. I actually decided not to publish this month and probably not next month so that I could work on the stories for the fall. Maybe that will take away the feeling that I’m spinning my wheels.

I’d like to give this blog a lot more attention coming into fall. It’s be nice to do some recipes again and Actual Writing Advice. I’d also like some sort of fiction writing on the site, but I don’t know what. If you have an idea for anything on the blog, please leave it in the comments section.

This week I do plan to get some words down. I got 500 earlier today and plan to do some more now. There’s a really nice rainshower going on, which always inspires my mood. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a steady word count this week. Anyone who is still out there listening and writing, I’d love to have you join me.

Writing Question for the day: What do you think of first person POV? Hard to write in? Easy to write in? Too close to the character? Not distant enough to provide some info?

I’m thinking about trying a story in first person POV which I haven’t done in a long time. For me a big challenge is staying in one characters voice constantly without slipping into a more narrative structure. Any tips and thoughts would be great.

Art Muse

What’s Up?

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Sorry it’s been so long. Last week I was teaching music for vacation Bible school and knew I wouldn’t have a high word count. I finished the first episode of my slipstream though. Julie was quick with the editing, so I was able to format it and get it published. All for three whole sales.

This month has been really bad for sales. At first I was ignoring it, but now that the new release is out, it’s hard to. I thought I was building up a readership, but maybe I did something wrong. I really have no idea what happened, making it hard to know how to fix it.

I’m redoing a cover tonight. Next week it should be back to serious writing. I’ll try to run a word count marathon with a prize. Those are fun for me, and I hope for you too.

Happy Fourth!

G1

ARENA by Holly Jennings

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The lack of word count over the weekend is brought to you by Holly Jennings. Oh, and I went to a Ren Fair.

But Arena is great! It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down and really enjoyed a book. I had several tasks to do like packing and cleaning the house that tried to keep me away from the story once I’d started, but I bought the audio book too so I could keep enjoying the story.

It’s a sci-fi book where virtual gamers are the sports stars of the world. Kali is the first female captain to take a team to the finals. Kali’s voice is refreshing and keeps the narration fast paced. I love that she’s strong, independent and knows how to get the job done. In fact she’s so strong I would’ve liked to see her struggle a little bit more. The “sponsors” loomed large as the evil entity, but despite Kali throwing wrenches into their system repeatedly, they never came after Kali directly. Perhaps in the sequel? It’s something I’d love to see. That and more face to face interaction between the teams. This book was all about getting Kali’s team to work together despite drug problems, game addiction and the sponsors, which was cool, but we needed more smack talk between the teams :)

Holly is the master of action scenes. Wow. I wish I could write like that. My absolutely favorite part was the final battle. But I’m not going to go into that because I want you to go out, buy Arena and enjoy the awesomeness for yourselves! You will be very happy you did.

IMG_3078That’s an updated picture of Holly’s book from when I went to Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago. I hope to see it on the Best Selling Science Fiction shelf next!

A good book like Arena is always inspiring. I’m home from the weekend getaway and ready to write tons of words this week. I’m going to try for 5000 a day. I doubt I will make it today, because I’m starting now at 10 pm. I will resist the coffee. I hope you join me as I post my progress this week.

Ready. Get set. Go!

 

Checking in Wednesday

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I wrote over 1500 words today. Hooray! Yesterday I only had the 500 from the morning. But I’m pleased with my progress. I’m working on a slipstream romance. I really don’t know of any others, though a Google search turned up one possibility on somebodies blog. I do enjoy the flexibility of indie publishing. I’m sure a publishing company would never accept a slipstream romance. Of course it’s probably because nobody will read one.

I have a completely new story and world churning in my head. I haven’t decided if it’s a pen name story or a me story yet. There’s definitely a romance, but there’s a lot more than that going on. I see a lot of similar themes in it that are in some other stories I’ve written but never published. I’d like to start writing it to flush it out a bit more, but I can’t take the time at the moment.

Here’s some art from a game called Gems of war that I waste a little time with. I find it inspiring:

Checking In

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I have a confession to make. I wrote zero words yesterday, and I have been sitting here this mornig feverishly trying to get a word count going before I posted today. I’m like a kid in high school with late homework. I wrote 500 just now. I have to stop for awhile, but I think I’ll have some writing time this afternoon and this evening.

Yesterday I wrote a resume and a lesson plan. It has been forever since I wrote a resume. I’m thinking about getting a part time job as a chior director since writing is not currently making the bucks. It’s going to be a tricky balance.

How about you guys? DId you get some writing in yesterday??

2000 Words a Day…Go!

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I got some writing done last week! It wasn’t 2000 words a day, but it was about 5500 for the short week. I worked on two different stories, which also made me feel good. I’m going to keep my goal down at 2000 words a day for this week. We have a lot going on, and I’m trying to get a balance of realism and optimism going.

I’ll check in each day this week to post what I managed and maybe a picture or two. Please join me! If you’re feeling rusty, maybe 500 words a day is good. Or if you have a looming deadline maybe 5000 words a day is good. Do what you think will work for you, but write every day!

Good Luck!

coffeepartners

May the coffee be with you :)

 

Word Count

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I wrote 2200 words today. It felt good! Yesterday I got distracted because my kids were watching Harry Potter 6 when I sat down to write. I should’ve moved to a different room, but I didn’t.

But now that I have a start, I’m confident that I can keep going. How are you guys doing heading into the weekend?

inspiration