Screw the Circumstances!

Posted on June 1, 2013 by CrissyMoss

The circumstance dictates that my life should be a failure.

No, wait, I’m not done.

I am 36. Divorced. I have three teenagers. I work a low paying, dead end job with no opportunities for advancement. Two years of college but no degree. Very little job experience. And I’m broken from years of abuse.

Circumstances dictate that I should be a failure. Never get anywhere, never accomplish anything, and die alone. The little old lady with a house full of cats. (Sorry, apartment, I make too little to get a house.) Too many kids, and too much baggage for any sane person to take a chance on.

Well, screw the circumstances!

Your life, and your situation do not dictate who you are, or where you are going, unless you let them. We are not the sum of the experiences we are dealt, rather we are the sum of how we deal with those circumstances.

There have been men who hiked to the top of everest despite not having feet. Women who made families, and raised children despite lack of legs. People who won contest, performed great feats of strength, painted, sculpted, created, and THRIVED despite the circumstances of their life.

What’s your excuse?

I have a lot of circumstances, but they don’t define me. I am using my time, energy, and passion to pursue the one thing that I have always loved, and always wanted to do.
I write.

I am turning my circumstances into useful things. Using the past, the baggage, and the brokenness, as springboards for stories. Using my job as time to think through plots while I sweep floors. Enjoying my family, and building a new life.

Life isn’t always easy. But the truth is… the trees that are sheltered, that never stand up to the winds… those are the weakest trees in the forest.

Don’t let circumstances get you down. Use them. Grow. Stand firm against the wind. Lean on friends and family if you need to, and prune away the rough bits. But above all else, don’t let the circumstances dictate your life.

Adventures in a Book Warehouse

Posted on June 1, 2013 by CrissyMoss

A friend called me up the other day and told me about this amazing sale. A book warehouse was selling everything, just $10 for one bag of books. And you brought the bag, any size.

Well, I had a rolling cart. I could fit a lot of books in that thing. Maybe even a couple hundred. Didn’t matter, she said. Ten bucks.

The warehouse was actually three buildings FILLED with shelves of books. The shelves were pretty close together, too.

Enough that I sometimes had to squeeze through to fit.

Books upon books, stretching out as far as you could see. All of them mixed together in no logical order.

We were hunting for hours to find any that we might like.

Many of them were romances. A lot of mystery. It took me hours to find some sci-fi and fantasy, or paranormal. But I eventually came away with a nice stack of books. I grabbed some Nora Roberts, who seemed to be one of the most prolific authors there, and a few Dean Koontz, and then a bunch of random books with interesting covers.

And you know what I discovered while crawling through those three buildings with thousands and thousands of books laid out before me? Mind you, I could throw as many as I wanted in my cart, and price wasn’t really an option….

2013-05-30 20.20.18

Book covers are boring.

Nora Roberts, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, and more… all of them.. boring covers.

You have the authors name in HUGE letters, a boring picture, and not much else. Most of them just labeled them as “fiction” so I couldn’t even get a read on what kind of fiction it was. It was frustrating… three warehouses worth of books and not much time to pic out a book, and this is what I had to choose from.

I did manage to find a lot of books with good covers… but it was hard to find them. And a lot of them were meant for younger children.

I notice that Sci-fi and Fantasy are more likely to have expressive covers. Romance is likely to have two people kissing, or something like that. Paranormal will often have an expressive cover.

This is why I work so hard on my own covers. I want someone to be able to look at a glance, and get an idea of what’s inside the book. So far I think I’ve done alright… You be the judge.

Prophecy By Barlight, Get It While It’s Hot!

Posted on May 31, 2013 by CrissyMoss

A prophecy taunts the proprietor of a little bar, until he can’t take it anymore. Mayhem ensues.

Prophecy by Barlight is out, and available for this weekend only at 99 cents.

After this weekend it will go up to $2.99.

So get it while it’s HOT!

Prophecy by Barlight is a comedic tale about a barkeep, and his desire to get rid of a prophecy. He’s willing to go to some extremes to do it, too.

Finished!

Posted on May 29, 2013 by CrissyMoss

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).

Fan Fiction, and Amazon

Posted on May 27, 2013 by CrissyMoss

A few days ago Amazon announced their intentions to start a new line. Fan fiction… for pay.

This is unusual because fan fiction is usually skirting copyright by avoiding pay.

Basically, if you write fan fiction for “Vampire Diaries” or “Pretty Little Liars”, and it isn’t porn, then you have a chance of earning some money from the sale of that fan fiction. However, in exchange Amazon, and the original IP owners (in this case the studio producing that franchise) get to use your stories in whatever way shape or form they want to, and they don’t have to cut you in on the deal.

This is good, in the way that it allows some people who like writing fan fiction to write it, and sell it. To earn money they would not have been able to earn otherwise.

This is bad because if you do write the fan fiction, then the producers decide your fic is good and they want to make that into an episode… well they already have it. You aren’t getting paid anymore for it, no matter what you say or do. You don’t even get the regular writers fees for people who work on these shows.

If you write it anyway, maybe it is okay for you. But in all honesty I like Hugh Howey’s idea of fan-fic better. He encourages it, and lets you sell. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t even care what kind of fan-fic it is because it’s your work. He even advertises it on his website!

Fan fiction is an interesting beast all it’s own. I wrote it when I was younger. E.L. James wrote it then changed it up and made millions off “50 Shades of Grey”. Fan fiction isn’t going anywhere.

But I don’t agree with giving Amazon, or “Pretty Little Liars” the ability to use your work unchecked. If they want to hire you as a writer… great. If they want to use your work, license it. But don’t just claim it for a few bucks while they make millions.

John Skulzi had something to say about Amazon’s new world, and Neil Gaiman agreed with him. Here is Neil Gaiman’s opinion on fan fiction itself.

If you want to write it, and publish it, just know what you’re getting into.

NOTE: “Twilight Tales” will only be available for a few more hours, but if you did pick it up, and read it, please consider giving it a review. Reviews mean so much to new authors. Also, there are three more books available ranging .99 to 2.99.

Expanding

Posted on May 26, 2013 by CrissyMoss

I’m going to be moving some of my books to Kobo, and possibly other platforms. That will make them available in a wider area, and give people more options.

It’s going to take a little while to get everything up and running, but hopefully I will have “Prophecy by Barlight” and “Small Bites 2” out by then.

“Twilight Tales” will be free until the 27th. Because I put it though KDP select that means I won’t be able to put it up on any other platform for a while. But… that’s okay. Eventually I may make it permanently free just to give people a taste of my writing. But that won’t be for at least three months.

BUT, that gives me time to work on some other projects.

I really like how “Footprints” is going. It is a first person story in which a man goes to his family’s cabin to deal with the death of his father. And while there something strange happens.

“Small Bites 2” should also be out soon. It has three more flash-fic stories. Each dealing with curiosity, and what happens when it bites back. “Scarecrow“, which is available in Twilight Tales, “Carmine” which is about a telepath and a vampire, and “Price of a Book” about a woman who finally fights back.

Look for each of these toward the end of the month.

Overflowing with Ideas

Posted on May 15, 2013 by CrissyMoss

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.

Stats

Posted on May 8, 2013 by CrissyMoss

It’s been a while since I shared my word count.

You can see the steady rise of daily word counts. I went from an average of 200 in February to 500 in April. I’m pushing that even higher this month.

What I’ve noticed….

When I finished a big project (in this case, Osiren’s Tears) I had a sharp drop off in word counts because I ended up spending a lot of time doing edits, cover design, formatting and the other “boring” parts of self publishing. I also had no idea where to start on the 20 projects I have lined up.

When I got a new idea the words just flew out of my finger tips. I ended up with two days over 2000+ words because of two great little ghost story ideas. Similarly, back in March I had a 1000+ day because of a brand new Sci-fi idea that I am still working out the kinks for.

Good news, I’m getting faster. Bad news, I’m going to have to spend a few more days here and there ironing out the “boring” parts of self publishing because I’ll have more content to put out there.

And a teaser for the ghost story….