Tag Archives: Story

Finished!

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I finished re-writing “Prophecy by Barlight” last night.

I’m going through it again to smooth it out, and I am hoping for release on Friday at 99 cents. It will be 99 cents for a week, then it will go to $2.99.

“Prophecy by Barlight” is the tale of Galdris, the poor hapless sot that buys the Drunken Unicorn, complete with a prophecy in vibrant blue letters on the wall. He soon discovers that the prophecy might draw customers in, but it also causes problems… problems that slowly eat away at him, until he’ll go to great lengths to free himself.

A comedic, fantasy story. 3500 words. (14 pages).

Loving it!

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I got an email from a friend today. A forward actually. He wanted to share with me what Amazon was trying to sell him.

me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There I am, right at the top! I know it’s just a little thing, but it really is awesome that they included me in their email this month.

Overflowing with Ideas

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I suppose this isn’t a horrible problem.

I am OVERFLOWING with ideas.

Tons of ideas! Why, just within the last two weeks I have written four complete plot-lines, each at least 1500 words, with fully sketched characters, settings, and worlds.

But have I finished anything?

Well, I actually have two finished short stories (3k words each) that i am trying to get polished up so I can send out. But the new ideas keep flowing.

I hate losing new ideas, so I try to write just short blurbs (fifteen minutes worth of writing) but sometimes the stories get away with me. Sometimes I see some potential for something good in them, and I just go with it.

Like last week, I was reading a thread on Reddit when I had a moment of inspiration to start writing a ghost story. The entire story sprang into my head, and I had to get it all out. I have a good chunk of both stories finished, and it would probably only take a few days to get them to the editing stage if I put my nose to the grindstone. In fact one of them, “Tux”, I already created a cover for. I liked it that much. But it also has a lot of work to go through since it is going to be a longer story. “Footprints”, however, is going to be a shortish story. And “The Ring” is the first in a series about some mysterious items.

SO!

  • Prophecy By Barlight
  • The Ring
  • Footprints

All good ideas. All nearing completion. I need to get my butt in gear.

Around the Web

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Your semi regular dose of news from around the web.

The saga over Penguin exploiting authors continues. And now there is a class action lawsuit over unpaid royalties to go with it all.

On some lighter notes:

Some of the best known authors prove it’s never too late to start writing.

The Creative Penn discusses marketing and selling learned from some top selling indie authors.

Pets of favorite authors.

The SPP interviews CJ Lyons. (youtube)

 

Happy writing.

FINISHED!

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I just sent “Osiren’s Tears” off to the editor! I finished the final chapter at 8pm tonight. I am so excited! But I’m not taking a break now. I have six more books for this series alone, not to mention short stories, and a few paranormal romances and science fiction stories that I have planned.

Being called out

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I’ve been trying to surround myself with people who believe in me, and who push me to do… better… to do things I am not comfortable with.

Alright, lets be a bit honest. I think I have a touch of social anxiety disorder. No, I haven’t been diagnosed, and I don’t think I have the full onset disorder. I just know that sometimes I have to retreat from everything, and everyone, and hide in a little space where I slowly breath and cry, and try so hard to forget there is anything outside my little head. Try to find a place that is safe, and secure. One where the world isn’t closing in on me.

I do this as a self preservation technique. I actually started it when I was in my teens, and during my marriage it got worse. Since my divorce it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does happen the moments can be almost more overwhelming. I think because it use to be a constant stress that I was holding my walls up against  and now that the stress is gone I have let most of the walls down, so when a sudden stress happens it gets closer to me. Closer to my core, and my identity. It hurts much more and I have a bit of a freak out. But I also recover a lot quicker then I use to.

So that brings me to today, and The Story Telling Podcast. Sigh, and YAY at the same time.

Okay, I really like Garrett, and I consider him a friend. An internet friend, to be sure, but a friend. He’s read one of my stories, given me a nice review, and said “KEEP WRITING” often. That means a lot to me. Oh, and he’s actually laughed at my jokes, which doesn’t happen much.

So today… Garrett asks for people to call in and leave voicemail, and he CALLS ME OUT! Okay, so I watch every episode. I tweet them during the show. I comment, etc. etc. I suppose I deserved it, but…

No one knows this. I’ve been trying to get the nerve up to do some audio recording. I’d like to record one of my own stories, or just a little mini podcast on my blog here. But every time I pull up the recorder I look down at the glowing red button… and… freeze… It scares the hell out of me.

I am so afraid of sounding like an idiot. With type I can change the words, rewrite, edit, and adjust things for a while, and then release it to the world. With audio it starts with the fact that I absolutely hate my voice, and ends with the fact that I can’t think of words when I am speaking. They just suddenly fly away into the surrounding air, unwilling to land upon my tongue. I have no idea why I don’t have that problem while typing, but with speaking… it’s a HUGE problem.

But, on this journey that is my life I am trying to improve myself. I am trying to do things that make me uncomfortable and doing more. Doing things to get where I want to go.

So yes, Garrett, I will send you a comment or question. I will be your “bathtub girl”, lol. I will be scared, but I’ll do it anyway… Because I can.

Stats

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year graph
Half way through March, and I thought I would share my progress.

Now that I am tracking my daily word count I am having a lot fewer days with zero word count. I have had a few days, this month, of less than 200 words, but a lot more of them have been over 500, and I see it growing.

Last night I sat down to write and kept checking my word count after ten minutes or so watching the numbers go up hundreds, not just tens and twenties. I was thrilled! The words are tripping off my fingers with ease now. It isn’t a struggle to sit down and write. It’s more of a demand.

I bought a new game. Tropico 4. Instead of playing it I dangled it as a reward to get myself to write. Now that I’m in the habit of this it is completely natural for me to deny myself something until I write.

I do not yet have a set word count that I need to reach each day, or else. That is my next goal. At the moment I have a monthly goal of 9000 words for March. That’s about 300 words a day. I am just about half way there, so I think I need to increase my expectations.

What I’m learning is that just putting that expectation that I will write, no matter what, each day has been the most effective way of getting the words down on paper. And the more I exerciser the muscle that is my brain, my fingers on the keyboard, my imagination, and my story telling skills… the easier it all comes.

I’d been fretting and lamenting my writers block for all these years. And I am going to give myself a small… I guess it’s an excuse, but I really did have a reason to fall into the trap of writers block. I did not, however, have a reason to STAY in that trap, especially for as long as I did.

I think I’m going to talk about the trap of writers block, and the exercising of the brain like a muscle next blog post. It’s been on my mind a lot lately.

Stats

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I happen to love numbers. And anyone who has watched some videos from vihart might understand why numbers are so fascinating. They can draw pictures, tell you stories, and draw a world on a flat surface. Music is math! Art is geometry. Words are symphonies played out with the written language.

One thing I learned from NaNoWriMo is that I love to watch the numbers going up. I love to see how much I wrote each day, and try to beat the number from the day before… or at least writing more each day.

I started keeping my own set of numbers to help me write without the help of NaNo forums, graphs and news letters.

I have a database that tracks how much I wrote on what projects (including this blog, though the blog is not added into the graph below) and I am trying to track how many hours I spend on each project each day. Reminding myself to punch in and out of the little app on my phone that charts the time isn’t always easy though since I write in 20 min spurts several times a day.

feb graph

The graph shows my daily word count, with red dots for every day I skipped. Since I hate putting in those red marks I’ve actually been writing more. I even added in the blue line which is my guess (hope) of future progress upward.

Speaking of progress. “Osiren’s Tears”, which I did for NaNo, is half way through the final edit. Then I will start looking for an editor to clean up my spelling and grammar before I publish it. I still have to polish the cover, but hopefully that won’t take long.

As for “Small Bites”, I’ve decided to break it into four mini books, each with three short stories. They will be put out as 99 cent volumes, then I will put up the entire “Small Bites” book with all twelve stories for $3.99 once they are all finished.

Once I have all of these up I will feel comfortable trying KDP select and start offering a few titles for free.

Writing is a long process, but I still believe it is worth it.

Misconceptions

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I find it incredibly frustrating when I finish something, and then figure out it wasn’t finished after all.

There it is, laid out in all it’s wordy glory. There is a complete plot, a few fully fleshed characters, and a wonderful vista for their story to take place.

Putting “the end” on a manuscript is so wonderful. Knowing it’s finally finished, edited, and complete.

Then you send it to be read and when you get the comments you realize… it isn’t finished at all.

Such a terrible feeling. But all you can really do is pick up where you left off and polish some more.