Author Archives: CrissyMoss

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About CrissyMoss

I've been writing as long as I can remember.

Day 16: Full time Author

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Last night I went to sleep instead of writing my daily blog post. I wrote until I couldn’t think anymore, then burned through a bunch of youtube videos trying to exhaust myself enough to actually fall asleep. Probably not that healthy for a person.

I did, however, write. I started a short story for the Bradbury Challenge, and it’s going pretty well. I also worked on revamping the print cover for Witch’s Curse.

I start work on Monday… That means less time to work on writing because I will be leaving at 9am and getting home at 8pm. Fudge. 11 hours of my day… gone. I hope I can find time at the new job where I can write. Lunch or something? I’ll make it work.

My To Do List For June:
Finish re-edit “Witch’s Sacrifice” – Half done
Format print books, WC –  Done
Format print books WS – half done
Format witches trilogy – Half done
Reformat small bites with pictures
Edit/format “Mirror”
Cover for the trilogy – DONE!
Finish “Magi” short story
Finish “The Deep” short story
Finish Minotaur short story DONE
Write “Half Blood Sorceress” novels – Half done book 1, quarter done book 2.

Four days left, and how much of this can I get finished? Let’s find out, shall we?

Day 15 : Full time Author

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2016-06-21 20.07.46Today I got the print proof for Witch’s Curse back. The inside looks awesome. The map is set right, the author note at the back is right. All the numbers in the table of contents are right.

The cover…is off. I had to go in today and adjust it a bit. Add more color to the girl so she wasn’t a green lady, and move the words so they are (hopefully) centered on the page.

What really struck me about this book is the sheer size of it. It’s thick, 360 pages, and feels like an honest to goodness BOOK to me. The first print book I put out only had about 150 pages, so this feels a lot more substantial. It’s kind of awesome, and I still can’t believe I did it. Now I can’t wait to get the third one done and have the trilogy sitting on my shelf.

Gregg and I also got our glass back from the glass blowing session the other day. It’s BEAUTIFUL! I’ll have to take some pictures tomorrow with the sun streaming in through the window.

A little more writing done. A lot more planning. I have to go through book one in my Half Blood Sorceress series to see what I need to fix. Round one of edits, I suppose. However, I am also 7k words into the next book so… there’s that. But I am hoping to have book 1 finished before I start work on monday. It would be a nice accomplishment. Then off to the editors while I figure out covers, and other things. Then released a month later.

Sounds good to me.

Alright, time to stop procrastinating. Time for sleep. Goodnight all!

Day 14 – Full Time Author

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I’ve been getting my sleeping schedule back to normal. That means yesterday and today I’ve been kind of tired. I’m going to bed earlier tonight, so I’m hoping that means I’ll be awake tomorrow.

Today I started a new short story for The Bradbury Challenge, and worked a little bit on the “Half Blood Sorceress.” I also spent a few hours doing admin things, like news letters and updating files. Yay, admin!

Not a very eventful day. I spent a few hours cleaning house and getting my phone fixed. Tomorrow I have to take my son up to the DMV to get his ID so he can get a summer job. But hopefully that doesn’t take too much of my day. I need to get back to the writing.

Alright, tomorrow is writing day. Tonight is sleeping.

Goodnight.

Day 13: Full time author (sort of)

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Today was fathers day, and podcast day. It was also a day where I was incredibly sleepy.

 

I did some writing, after taking a long nap and having a nice dinner with Gregg’s parents, but it wasn’t a lot. Now it’s 3:30am and I’m realizing that I need to start going to bed by midnight again or I will never get my schedule back on track.

I also wrote a bunch of new reviews for my other blog (a place where I review mobile games, which I started for fun.) I generally take a day every month, write a bunch of reviews, then schedule them to go out over the month.

And I wrote a tiny bit in Half Blood Sorceress. Not much though.

Yep, not a very productive day, but a fun one.

Goodnight, everyone.

Day 12 – Full Time author

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Another day, another chapter done. Well, another few chapters with a bunch of words in them at least.

2016-06-18 19.22.17Today was date night, so that took up a large portion of the night. Gregg and I went to a glass blowing shop and had a session with a glass blower where we helped him make a few items. I asked for jellyfish paperweight, and he said “sure, why not.” It was awesome. He clamped a piece of the molten glass and had me stretch it out across the workshop, drawing out a long thin filament of white glass. We stretched it a good 20-30 feet and it still didn’t want to snap.

We also made a beer glass, and Gregg made a couple of really beautiful, and creative items. The “paperweight” he came up with even had the instructors mind going with new ideas for glass art. That’s my Gregg though, incredibly talented in designing things. Just look at his armor.

Even with all the excitement I still got a lot done on the new book series, and I sent out the newsletter that I was suppose to send out yesterday with “Immortal Knot” in it.

Now it’s just time to go to sleep. I really need to start going to bed before 1am. But I’m looking forward to tomorrow and finishing another short story. things are really starting to feel right with the writing.

 

Day 11 – Full time author

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It is 3am and I’m about to head to bed. We just finished watching Zootopia an hour ago (a fantastic movie btw), then I wrote another thousand words bringing my count up to 2500 for the day.

For the first time in a week I feel like I did my job. That satisfaction of completing your work, and knowing you did a good job…I have it from writing! What? Is that a thing?

I want this feeling every time I finish writing for the day, just knowing I’ve done a good job, and having the satisfaction of a day well spent.

Now I’m going to bed, and I’m going to dream of more days like today.

Goodnight, everybody.

Day 10- Full Time Author

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Today has been an eventful day.

flightofgriffinskoboI finished “The Immortal Knot” and will send it out to my newsletter tomorrow.
I wrote an article on medium about the changing nature of the English language.
I redid a cover.
And I sorted out some things in the first book of the “Half Blood Sorceress” novels.

WORKING COVER DRAGONSpeaking of “The Half Blood Sorceress”, I am now incredibly confident in the story. I’m 17k into it, and I can see the end. All of the little pieces are fitting together, and I’ve also got some scenes written in the next book in the series.

I do need a tag line, a cover, and a blurb though. Ug. The cover I have is…okay. It just isn’t what I’m going for, and not the final name of the book either.

It does feel like the books will be short novels though, about 50k or so, which is perfect for the serial I have sketched out.

In this first installment Sybel has everything ripped away from her, and then she must make her way, alone, across a mountain pass and into the wide world beyond. She has to find answers to the mystical things happening to her, and she doesn’t have much time to do it.

All right, it’s almost 3am, and I need to get some sleep. Have a wonderful day everyone.

day 9 – Full Time Author

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I start work on the 27th. That means I have two more weeks of this little experiment. And…The results are odd.

After a week I’m still trying to motivate myself to write some days. And it isn’t the writing, the writing I can do. It’s this nagging feeling that I’ve wasted my day and I need to be productive. So, I just washed my entire kitchen, and now I feel like I’m allowed to write. What the heck is it in my head that still thinks writing isn’t a job, and I shouldn’t be taking it seriously? And how to I get past it?

Don’t take that to mean that I didn’t write. I actually wrote a short story today, and have most of it finished. Just need to go back and add some details so it isn’t a “talking head syndrome” going on. I also updated more of my books on Amazon, and wrote a few paragraphs in next weeks short story.

but having that done doesn’t excuse the fact that I put things off too much. I write 1-2000 words in an hour, which isn’t bad. But I usually only actively write for an hour or two a day. Sometimes less, very rarely more. I couldn’t help but think how much more I would get done if I would just sit down and right.

I won’t lie, I miss having a regular job. I miss getting up, going through the motions of getting ready for work, and actually leaving the house. Gregg suggested going to the coffee shop to see if that helps. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.

Until then, good night.

 

Day 8- Full Time Author

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Today has been a day for reformatting. That took a while.

You know the back matter in a book? Author notes, pleading for reviews, etc, etc? I had to go through my already published books and re-do them. I managed to get through nine of them today. I still have a few more to do, but now that I have a system it’s getting a little easier… a little. I also had to fix the cover for the print edition of Witch’s Curse. That took several hours of fiddling with because the dimensions weren’t right. But I think I finally got it, and I will be able to order proof tomorrow before putting it up for sale.

I think I spend more time trying to get the covers the right size with the words at the right spacing then anything on print books. But it’s so worth it. Having the book in my hand is just…wonderful.

I also managed another 500 words in the Dragon Project. I’m rather happy with this first story. It’s at 20k, and I see at least another 10-20k in this draft. That makes it a shorter work than I had expected, but with ten books in the series that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, I think I’m going to throw a few more bad things at the main character. She needs the growth that comes with those bad things happening.

It’s interesting to write this story because there is no real “bad guy” in this series. I mean, there is at the end, sort of, but not one that really plays a role in the whole series. He is a force of nature that effects the land more then the main character directly. Rather the books are about her struggle against the environment, and everything going on around her. This is a personal journey for her.

I’d be lying if I said this series wasn’t influenced a little by Nathan Lowell or Patrick Rothfuss. Both of them write stories that are about the people in an environment. Neither of them have a big baddy that is hovering over the whole story (though Rothfuss certainly has a mystery with those spiders) but the stories are compelling anyway. I’m probably not as good a writer as either of them, but maybe some day…

Anyway, my lovelies, I am off to bed. It is already 2am and I am exhausted. More writing in the morning.

Day 7- Full Time Author

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Ever have a day where you just feel like you have no idea what you’re doing, or how you’re going to do the thing you want to do?

Yep. That was today.

Sometimes you just need to relax, so for the first time in a few weeks I didn’t write. I’ve been reading, and making perler bead crafts, and laundry. You know… Relaxing time.

And I’ve been thinking. About stories and covers. About whether or not this new series is the right direction. About where to go from here, and what I can do. And I don’t have a lot of answers. I just keep going, and hope eventually I find some answers. But I won’t give up, even on days when I feel like I should.