Tag Archives: writing

by

One Story Is Not Enough

A lot of the time, when I finish a story, I spend a while lamenting the end of it.

It’s a bittersweet thing. The story is so much fun along the way, the characters are like friends, and then they’re gone. I don’t mean that they die because stories don’t mean everyone dies at the end–not usually, at least, though that’s the best thing to tell someone if they ask you about how a movie was or how it ends.

No, the characters still have their lives other than the story, but usually, unless I go back to reread their story, they don’t come around.

Occasionally, I get sequel ideas. A lot of the time, it’s more me wanting to get back those friends, and there’s no real plot there.

Some of them are more full-fledged, and they are ready to start right after the first is done.

Nickel and Dime is like that. I ended it yesterday, and I was immediately ready to move on to its sequel. Parts of that were so clear in my head that I was not about to stop.

Other sequels aren’t as easy to pin down. I keep thinking that Thyme and Whim should come back in an alien invasion story (yeah, so you’re so laughing now) and that Dennison should show up at the villa to disrupt Frankie and Rico’s lives, that maybe Jax should have his own story and continue Franklin and Mira’s a bit. I think there’s only one I finished recently that doesn’t have any potential sequels, and that’s the spoof. Still, the ideas I have for the others haven’t developed into anything I’d actually be able to turn into a book.

Maybe a moment or two for some of them. I was considering small stories in a collection as a possible idea. Most authors would maybe give some holiday stories, but as I don’t celebrate them and actually loathe most holidays, that won’t happen. Still, a collection is a possibility.

It’s just that one book is too short a time to spend with a great character (or two or more) and sometimes you want to see more, even if there’s no long sequel, no second story to tell.

You won’t find me telling stories about their kids, though. No, that’s a personal pet peeve of mine. I hate the stories that turn it all about their kids, even if the kids are grown up. So I won’t go down that route.

A glimpse or two or a sequel, that I can do.

by

Edits, Edits, So Many to Do

Editing has to be the longest process in a book.

Possibly, in the past, publishing was the longest, but the thing is, once the format and cover art are done, it can be published as an ebook within a relatively short time. Really, how long the site takes to make it “live” is not nearly as long as editing a story can take.

Now, before, arguably, editing was a part of this publishing process. It still is, I guess, but I tend to separate it in my mind from the “publish” part where the button gets clicked and websites make the book available to the world.

What I learned the last time I went through this process, though, was that the actual end part, the final step, was so much simpler than the ones along the road.

My main delay in getting Just a Whim out there was really myself. I had edits, but I was scared to take those last steps and put them in and format it.

I find myself with almost the opposite problem now. I’ve got four complete stories–novels–and another three nearing that point, but I don’t have edits. In the last week, I’ve gone over them myself, with new fresh edits for Nickel and Dime, In the Family, Variety Store, and Any Other Reality. I’ve begun edits on The Memory Collector and after that, I’ll move onto another one. I’ve got plenty of them to work on, and while I’ve been putting off All the Men in My Life since I’ve been expecting edits back on that one, so it will probably be the last.

I was joking with myself about editing all of them in January, but with only a few more days to go, that’s not that likely, not with four novels to do and two of them over 80,000 words long. Still, it would be good to get as close to that as possible.

Every little edit is a step closer to publishing, after all.

by

If I Was an Artist with Something Besides Words

If I was an artist with something besides words, then I would already have beautiful cover art finished and ready. I’d have my little scene dividers ready made and inserted.

I’d illustrate my own children’s book. I already wrote it. It’s there, finished but for the art.

Alas, I know my strength is with words, and if I do have any real artistic talent, it lies with my ability to tell a story, an entertaining and amusing one that diverts a person for a short time. I like to share stories, let people see the world and the fascinating characters that I’ve met along the way.

Since I am not an artist with pictures, I trust that to the other half of Kabobbles. Third, I suppose, since the cat is the ringleader, after all. Anyway, at the end of the day, I managed to accomplish… finally getting the right size and format for the scene divider for In the Family, multiple editing programs (Paint.NET, Gimp, Inkspace, Open Office Draw, and a couple from her Mac) later, many saved files (either of the document with the divider in it or the divider itself), many tests converted with Calibre, and a bunch of frustration (it’s too big! now it’s too small! it’s not transparent! it’s fuzzy! it’s in pieces!)
my brain hurts and I don’t understand half of the programs I played with, but I finally have it where it works.

I think. My brain hurt too much to be sure, so I’ll look again tomorrow.

The cover art for The Not-So-Super Superhero is coming along, and I edited a good part of The Monster in My Garden Shed and finished The Memory Collector. I even got my hair cut.

I was hoping to finish Variety Store today, too, but perhaps I was a little too ambitious.

I’ve still got a bit of time left before the end of the day and month, though, so… Here goes nothing. I know what’s supposed to happen. It’s just a matter of getting it on paper…

by

Sometimes a Story Creates a New Story…

Having finished Matched Set, which took me about a week, a fact that I’m still stunned and amazed by, I turned my attention back to my other projects.

I have many, many incomplete stories and projects lying around. Some of them aren’t really worth salvaging, and some of them deserve a hell of a lot better than this.

It was starting to look like The Monster in My Garden Shed was heading toward this inglorious fate, and I refused to let that happen. Not only have I been talking about it in a public forum, which makes the idea of abandoning it less than appealing for the fact of everyone knowing my defeat, the story is too good and the characters too deserving of having their story concluded to let that happen.

I’d edited the story before I put it aside three weeks ago, all the while unable to decide how to keep going.

The problem was wanting to tell two stories. The Monster in My Garden Shed is, in my opinion, a story with considerable depth and complexity and layers, a challenging world that continually draws me in (and thwarts me at every opportunity) and characters that I love spending time with. In the middle, though, the idea of a subplot entered the narrative, and that subplot was not something that helped the story reach a conclusion. It would have derailed the rest of it, to be perfectly honest.

I thought I’d given up on it back in chapter twenty-five, but in thirty-one, it was rearing its ugly head again. I wrote a couple of scenes that almost took it down that route, and the reader I torture with all my new fic told me they were over the top.

I admit, this put me in a bit of a funk. I couldn’t quite let go of that idea or those scenes, so even though I knew that wasn’t where The Monster in My Garden Shed should go.

After finishing The Memory Collector and Variety Store, I’d wanted to get The Monster in My Garden Shed back up to the top of the list. I couldn’t. Five and Ten was coming along, and The Not-So-Super Superhero faltered for a couple days but came back again, but instead of the garden shed, I went into Matched Set.

I don’t regret that. Wichita and Reece have a great story, and I love the explanation of the reason the killer does what he does.

After playing around with a few fun things, toying with the idea of another new story since Net almost stole the show in Matched Set like Spider did in Any Other Reality, and finishing my edits to hopefully release In the Family soon I finally figured out what I needed to do for The Monster in My Garden Shed.

I had to take that plotline out completely and give it to someone else, someone who shared enough traits with Ren to make the situation work, but one who didn’t have to worry about saving the world, either.

Now I get to keep the scenes I wrote (not exactly as they were, that didn’t work, but bits and pieces of them) and yet they’ll get cut from The Monster in My Garden Shed.

Verina Harvey now has that story, and it’s hard and painful, but it’s her story to tell, not Ren’s.

by

So, in writing the historical fiction that I have done lately, I came back to what seems to be nearly a brick wall.

 

No, I’m not talking about research or the difficulty involved in doing it. No, I am speaking of the traditional roles of men and women and even children in those historical times.

 

It seems, and I know this is a generalization, but if you don’t have a strong female character, if she’s not liberated and challenging all the boundaries and roles of the times and even modern times, you’ve written a poor character.

 

Actually, no. I disagree. You’ve written a realistic character of the time. If you have a liberated woman of today there, you’ve just created a huge anachronism and have failed at the very idea of historical fiction.

 

Sounds a bit harsh, doesn’t it? I’m not going to say that women back then weren’t strong, didn’t have minds of their own. They did. But there’s a reason for the saying “well behaved women rarely make history.”

 

While today we have debunked and rejected “the cult of true womanhood” as I have heard it described, that does not mean that it didn’t prevail in the days that many historical fictions are set in. Moral standards were more “strict.” Reputations meant everything. No one wanted scandals. Repression, of people and of opinions, was the norm.

 

Today we’re liberated, or at least, we think we are. (I’m now thinking of Working Class Hero by John Lennon, though I put a different song in the Sing Along section.) Back then, though, such liberation would have made you an outcast and not fit for normal society.

 

One of my more recent characters, Mena, she had no idea that there was anything outside the life she’d been raised to, one of near complete obedience. Her husband, Merritt, ended up opening her eyes a bit, and she took that much further, but she’s still aware of her limits.

 

Another character, Tillie, knew that she was “unnatural” and considered wrong for her times as well. She bit back her opinions and observations and was cross about it the entire time, even if she thought she was fooling people. Her life changed with a rural teaching assignment that gave her freedom and introduced her to people willing to acknowledge and even accept the way she was, but she and everyone around her know that they are not the norm as well. Their understanding is rare and forces them to build a community of their own after the town they were a part of more or less casts them out.

 

Lady Nichols, in some sense, had more freedom, living twenty years after Mena who was twenty years after Tillie. She also doesn’t. Even with the roaring twenties gaining steam, Lady Nichols walks a fine line between the changing times, the realizations she’s made of her position and role in society, but also propriety. She’s a chaperone in her first story, a role model and someone held to a higher standard. She tries, she fails, and she acknowledges that her actions are not what a woman of her class and age should be doing.

 

I doubt my balance between liberation and the time period is perfect, but my biggest pet peeve about historical fictions is when they fail to at least acknowledge the fact that the character is acting against the social standards of the times. You want a strong female character? That’s great. I support it.

 

Just remember: the people around her wouldn’t.

 

In Merritt’s case, he grew up watching his mother suffer after his father’s death, and he didn’t want his wife to do the same. Makade has, for the most part, rejected society after the way he and his family were treated. And Forsythe is just… abnormal himself. He prides himself on being a “black sheep.” There are others besides the men in the women’s life who see the value of some liberation, but it’s not something everyone appreciates.

 

That’s the part to remember: those old roles were not the ones we have now. People’s opinions were different. They were biased, they were sexist, and they were racist. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking today’s political correctness makes for believable historical fiction.

 

Our past is not always something we should be proud of.

by

Plans. No, Not Plans

I have to admit: I don’t like making plans.

 

In my experience, plans never seem to go the way they should.

 

Therefore, when I considered the idea of scheduling releases and all that would go with that, I didn’t think it would work.

 

We’ll go with what I’d like to do, then.

 

What I’d like to do this month is simple, I hope. I want to launch the Nickel and Dime series by publishing the first one in that series, Nickel and Dime.

 

Next month, I’d like to get All the Men in My Life out there. Hopefully by then I will have a concept for the cover that I am actually happy with. It seems like every time I come up with something, I shortly afterward start to hate it. I would release the next Nickel and Dime novel, Variety Store, in a few months (haven’t quite figured out if it should be two months between them or three or if I need more since I haven’t actually completed the fourth one yet. I might also put out one of the other possible series starts before the second N & D.)

 

I would also like to get one of the books for another name out there. I divided them up according to genres, so I have one for the science fiction, one for the contemporary mysteries, one for historical mysteries, one for more humor/satire type stories, one for contemporary romance, and one for fantasy.  I’m leaving it open to create more if necessary, but those are my categories so far.

 

It had been my hope to do something for the science fiction one, to publish The Memory Collector, but I decided that it needed major rewrites first. That process has been started, but I’m still working on it. I don’t have any of the historical mysteries completed, and so that would leave something from either contemporary romance (Unexpected Gifts) or satire/humor (Any Other Reality or The Not-So-Super Superhero) but I’d need to get someone else to go over them besides me and my initial readers. That hasn’t happened yet.

 

Also, now that I have completed The Not-So-Super Superhero, I would like to have another daily story going (this time I think it would be on the new site, not a blog), but I cannot decide what is best to use for that. Something from one of the other pen names, probably, but I am having trouble deciding on what. I’d also like to have a cover or some kind of art first, but the artist/tech side of Kabobbles has been very busy with moving houses, so that would also have to wait.

 

In the meantime, of course, there is always more writing to be done. I have some new stuff, my edits, and I have ressurrected another older fic that I did not finish typing before, but now I’m actually getting it closer to completion (it is mostly done by hand, a few bits missing here and there, I just hadn’t fixed the major plot hole or had the patience to type it all.) It marks the second older story that has gained new life, The Consultant and the Cat being the first one, and I do hope this trend can continue with several more completed stories at the end of it. I think I know the one that I would pull up next, though I will probably resume my serial work with Nickel and Dime and The Consultant and the Cat after the stories I have now are complete.

 

Near the end of the month, I will hopefully be participating in a training course for living history at my local museum, and that will be useful research. I need to call them again because they didn’t call me back when I tried to RSVP. Maybe they don’t want a crazy writer there.

 

Anyway, that’s the “plan” for now.

by

Have I Mentioned Lately How Much I Hate Summaries?

So, in an effort to work with the “plan,” I’ve been working on some of the pieces that I need to get another book out there.

 

Mostly… I’ve been trying to come up with a summary for Nickel and Dime.

 

So far, my attempts have been:

 

Effie Lincoln owns a secondhand store and has a weakness for vintage clothes. Business hasn’t been great, and her habit of taking the best of the clothes for herself doesn’t help.

Her real problem has nothing to do with the store or her addiction to getting more clothes.

It’s her name.

She’s always hated it, but she never expected it to get her killed, either.

 

Which was a bit disconnected and everything, so I tried again with this:

 

Effie Lincoln has always hated her name, but she never expected it to get her killed.

Now, though, a case of mistaken identity has forced her from her home and beloved secondhand store. On the run for her life, her only protection a man who’s more dead than alive, what Effie would really like to know is why.

Who was this other Euphemia Lincoln, and what did she do that’s going to get Effie killed?

 

So now, feel free to give an opinion on either summary, and if you’d like to see more of the story, keep reading.

 

Pain didn’t lead to answers. They should have known that by now, but someone clearly hadn’t gotten the message. It would have been simpler if they had. It would have been nicer if they had. It wasn’t drugs. It wasn’t pain. None of that was going to get them the answer that they wanted—nothing would. He was sure of that. He could hold out beyond this. They were fools to think he wouldn’t. He had training. He had a high pain tolerance.

Most of all, though, he didn’t know the answer.

“Give us the location, and we will let you go.”

“I told you; I don’t have it.” It didn’t matter what he said. They weren’t going to believe him. He could tell them the truth; he could make up any of a dozen lies, but they weren’t going to accept that. He would still get hurt. They’d still think they could make him tell them more than he had. They were going to try and force that last bit of information from his dying breath, and what good would it do anyone? He couldn’t change their mind—and he was not going to last long enough for any of it to matter.

He was just a delaying tactic—he’d known that from the moment he got the assignment. He’d never really be in charge of this thing, but they wanted people to think he was. He was, simply put, expendable. He could make it all go away if he held out long enough for them to think that what he finally gave them was the truth, and then they’d chase after wild geese, right off into the sunset. He liked that idea, liked it a lot.

“You could make this pain stop.”

“It tickles, actually.”

“You do not impress me with your false bravado, Agent. It has come time for the truth. Only that location will allow you to live. If you do not give it to me, I will kill you.”

He knew that. He was fully expecting to die when this was all said and done. It was a waste, but if he was going to believe in a greater cause, in the greater good, he would have to believe that what he was doing was worth his life. The sacrifice was not that great. He would be okay with it. He wasn’t that great of a resource in the first place—lousy agent, lousy human being. “Sorry, I’ll pass.”

The interrogator grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back. “You cannot hold out forever. You will see the need to end your suffering, and when you have, you will give me the answer I seek.”

“Yeah, sure. And I’ll tell you I gave it to my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“Real piece of work. Kind of crazy. Touched in the head, I think. Makes for an interesting relationship,” he said, laughing. He didn’t have a girlfriend, but they were clearly desperate enough to hold onto anything he might say as a possibility. They’d go looking for a woman in his life, and they’d find only the old woman next door with all the cats.

“Give me her name.”

“Come on. I don’t have a girlfriend. I can’t believe you fell for that. Who has time to date in our business? Hmm? Or do you have a wife and kids back home?”

The blow that followed that remark almost knocked him out of the chair he was strapped to. They’d started with the drugs, but when that didn’t work, they’d gone for pain. It wasn’t working, either. He’d had worse, though they probably didn’t know that.

The man stepped on his fingers, and he heard them snap as he looked up. Nice. Well, he’d be dead soon enough, so fingers weren’t that important. “I still don’t know where it is. Can we just get this over with already?”

“Give us the name of the woman.”

“Weren’t you listening? There is no woman.”

They unstrapped him from the chair, took him to the middle of the room and chained his hands above his head. He stared at the bindings, aware that he was probably going to get very familiar with a horse whip soon. Lovely.

He lost count of the blows against his back, but they only barely outnumbered the amount of times that he was asked the same questions over and over again. He still couldn’t tell them where it was. He couldn’t give them a name. The woman didn’t exist. He really didn’t have a girlfriend. He should never have made that joke, clearly.

“You still refuse to cooperate?”

“You could get to the merciful part already and kill me. That would be fine. I keep telling you—I don’t know where it is. I don’t have it. And there is no woman.”

“Give me a name, and I will give you the mercy of a quick death.”

“Oh?” he considered for a moment. That had some appeal; he had to admit. He thought about it for a minute. “Okay. I can give you a name.”

“You will?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I will. And it’s a good one. Really.”

“Tell us.”

“Effie Lincoln,” he answered, giving them the name of a scandalous and long dead actress with a laugh. The blackness came almost before the next blow.

by

Working Titles

I was preparing a little entry for the Kabobbles Sing Along section about the song that inspired my choice for the working title for The Lady in Black’s sequel. Working titles are what I call the story while I’m writing it. Not all of them come with the right title instantly. Some do. Others refuse to be pinned down right away.

 

Some titles were easy. In the Family was always In the Family from the moment it was begun on my phone. Any Other Reality was that from the beginning as well. I don’t know what else The Monster in My Garden Shed or The Memory Collector could be. The same goes for The Not-So-Super Superhero. He is that. His story could be told under no other name. As soon as I started typing it, I had the title for The Consultant and the Cat. The Lady in Black had a working title years ago that was abandoned before typing began.

 

On the other hand, other titles have not come so readily. Some don’t even feel right now. That would be the case with The Geek and the Fed and Unexpected Gifts. Each of them took on a new name from their working title, “Geek” and “Obligation” respectively, but they haven’t entirely settled on them. Criss-Crossed Paths started out using its first chapter title, and then it became “Tempest and Lonely Hearts” after the nicknames of two of the characters. The new title is still being debated.

 

Other titles come along as the story progress.

 

Just a Whim, believe it or not, started out as “The Crankening,” owing to the other half of Kabobbles Publishing’s daughter, who was extremely cranky when I began the story. Matched Set started out as “Favor,” but once the figurine set started to feature so heavily in it, the matched set made perfect sense.

 

All the Men in My Life began as “Old Love Best Unseen” which completely doesn’t fit it. The new title owes from a line that Franklin says to Mira, “All the men in your life piss me off.” She responds with, “Franklin, you’re one of the men in my life.”

 

The series that starts with Nickel and Dime each had their own working title. Nickel and Dime was “Change Your Identity.” Until the end of it, Variety Store was just “Nickel and Dime the Second.” The third one, however, was Five and Ten from the beginning. The secondhand store owned by Effie Lincoln could be called a “nickel and dime” or “five and ten” or even “variety store,” so all the stories have that theme to their titles.

 

Last night, I named a story “Lollipop.” Funny how names go, right?

by

Some Things to Stop Doing, Some to Start

Sometimes, when I’m not absorbed in my own fiction and that need to flip windows is strong, I head over to a blog that I was first introduced to by a friend on livejournal. The blog, deanwesleysmith.com, is one I have been extremely grateful to have found. I don’t think that Just a Whim would be published if not for articles there, the new world of publishing ones and killing the sacred cows of publishing.

I happened to go from there to an article that he’d linked to, 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing.

I read over the list, finding things that yes, I have done and sometimes still do.

 

So… What did I do on the list?

1. Running Away? Did that for most of last year after completing Just a Whim. I didn’t want to edit it, didn’t want to fix the issues that were pointed out, and was scared to publish it. Well, no more running. It’s out there. It’s done. Ha.

2. Stopping? I had quit All the Men in My Life for a while. I put it away, did other things, pulled it back out, and then I put it away again until November, and then it took off and got done, mostly because I was supposed to be working on Any Other Reality. I have other stories that are still stopped. Can they be restarted? Maybe. Or maybe they should stay right where they are.

3. Writing in Someone Else’s Voice? To my knowledge, I do not and have never done this. I write stories like other people’s stories, maybe, or you might call fanfiction someone else’s voice because I make sure the characters are true to what I’ve seen/read, but I always thought there was enough of me coming out in it.

4. Worrying? Yeah, I’ve known about this one for a while, and yes, I still do it. I can’t stop. Or so I keep saying. I’ve been working on it, though.

5. Hurrying? I know I’ve felt like time is getting away from me and that all of these books that I’ve finished lately need to be published right this instant. Not true, of course, because they need edits and cover art and other things, but I still want them done, now, and out there. I also want to get through more stories because I’ll never have the time to do all the ones in my brain and I keep getting more ideas.

6. Waiting? Well… Waiting has to happen, in some things. I am waiting for other people to give me edits. I am waiting for cover art. Am I waiting for writing? No. I write daily. I have The Not-So-Super Superhero, The Monster in My Garden Shed, and the second novel in the Nickel and Dime series, and more that want to be written that I might just give into.

7. Thinking It Should Be Easier? I have a fairly natural gift for writing and the stories just come sometimes. Not always the case with editing. Not easy to find readers. Not easy to get feedback. Not easy to make changes. Not easy to make art. Not easy to promote. Not easy to make money. So I’ve learned these things. I have started to accept them, too.

8. Deprioritizing Your Wordsmithy? Nope. Not guilty of that. Ever. Sorry, but if all I do is write (and that’s pretty much true) how could I possibly be deprioritizing it? Even the stuff I have to fight to get out is better than it was years ago, I know that much. I am improving with everything I write.

9. Treating Your Body Like a Dumpster? Well, yeah. I have depression, too, and there are days where I don’t care about taking care of myself, don’t even feel like eating. So, yes, guilty. Part of the reason for the Great Hat and Hair Experiment of 2012 is to make sure I take care of myself and pride in my appearance for change. Oh, but I did somehow lose ten pounds last year, so I think that’s something.

10. The Moping and the Whining? Haven’t quit that yet. I was doing it this morning. So that’s something to work on, too. On the other hand, I have made great strides in moving past that. I pulled out the file for the Not-So-Super Superhero and I wrote on it and cleaned a bit and worked with my cover artist. So there.

11. Blaming Everyone Else? I admit, it has been convenient for me to put the whole editing thing on everyone else. I didn’t have edits back, so I could pretend I didn’t have to work on them myself. My cover artist was busy, so I didn’t have cover art. Does that mean that I shouldn’t have done anything? No. It also doesn’t mean that I didn’t do anything. I wrote. I keep writing. I keep creating ideas. I keep blogging and updating the website and the facebook. I’ve done pretty good, but I did blame a few things on other people, yes.

12. Shame? I don’t know that I’ve ever been ashamed to be a writer. I’m sick of getting asked if I’m doing homework when I’m writing, since I am not in high school and haven’t been for a decade, but hey, I look like I’m sixteen, so it’s awesome being mistaken for a student all the time. Not. Am I hesitant to share things with people? Yes. But I’ve been kind of burned before, so that’s why. I’m paranoid about people taking my ideas, too. I don’t know why, but I am.

13. Lamenting My Mistakes? Oh, that’s something I’m still working on. Yeah, I can’t seem to let go of those old ones. As far as writing goes, I’m getting better at fixing them. In real life? Not so much.

14. Playing It Safe? Hmm. Well, I am a coward by nature, I admit that. I’m not sure that I’m necessarily a coward when it comes to fic. I am trying to break free from my “types” and likes and have a whole list of things I’m not allowed to do in the next new things I do because I’ve already over done them, but that’s more of a part of number sixteen instead.

15. Trying to Control What You Can’t Control? Guilty. Yeah, I would love to control it all, and I get frustrated when I can’t. I’m working on accepting what I can and cannot change, though. It is an improvement from years past, but a lot of work to go there, too. Right now, I don’t look at reports or traffic and just try and keep my mind on writing.

16. Writing One Thing? I’m worried I’m writing the same characters over and over. Not that they’re all alike. That’s not what I’m saying. But I have a type, that’s true, and I’m trying to break free of that type, give myself some new changes, though I’ll always love those types. As far as variety, I’ve got science fiction and mysteries and even a bit of fantasy, so I don’t think I’m limited by genre by any means.

17. Writing for the “Market?” Um, no. Don’t think I’ve ever done that. I write for me, to tell that story I want to tell, and while it still stings and hurts if no one wants to read it or it doesn’t sell, I still enjoyed it. That’s okay by me. I still stick by that advice I read long ago: “write what you want to read.” And I do.

18. Chasing Trends? Okay, I snorted when I read that. I do maintain that there is no such thing as a completely new idea, just new spins on them. So, I admit that nothing is completely my own, but you sure as hell won’t find me doing any sparkling vampires or writing for teenagers.

19. Caring About What Others Are Doing? Again, a bit of laughter. My friend had a hard time convincing me to look at other authors’ websites to see what I could do to improve mine. My reasoning? I didn’t care what they were doing, and I wasn’t going to copy anyone.

20. Caring About the Publishing Industry? I think I know enough to know what I’m doing, hopefully, and that’s all I need to know.

21. Listening to What Won’t Sell? I had someone ask me to collaborate with them on a script project a while back. I learned the technique, the formula, and I said, no. He wanted me to follow what worked for the network, and I agree, it works. For them. Not for me. I don’t write that way. I would rather sell nothing at all then try and force myself to write what supposedly will. I’ll write the story I need to tell, nothing more, nothing less.

22. Overpromising and Overshooting? I don’t think I’ve done that. I’ve set some goals that I missed, particularly in publishing Just a Whim, but I have learned from them. I have never been big on making promises because I know I’m not good at keeping them. I just set somewhat realistic challenges. I knew I was capable of Nanowrimo, knew I could maintain a daily blog story, and so far, I have. Overshooting? Maybe with the three novel completion in November…

23. Leaving Yourself off the Page? Not a crime I’m guilty of. Every character has a bit of me in them, even if it’s only my love of coffee. The places are based off where I’ve been. I mean, the garden shed story started because of the garden shed incident (more on that later) and so I don’t think I’ve left myself out of any of my original stuff. Even some of my not-so-original stuff had me bleeding on the page. Oh, and my stories made me laugh and made me cry.

24. Dreaming? Do we count story dreams in this? Not going to stop them, but I do think I’m doing a lot more than I used to, putting it down on paper, sharing it with others, and taking those steps toward publishing.

25. Being Afraid? I said before: coward. Still, if I could overcome the fear of getting that first book out there, and I did, then I’m not only way past where I was two years ago, I know I can handle doing the next one and so on. Publishing doesn’t terrify me anymore. I want to publish. I want to write–that hasn’t changed, but I know I can do the rest of it, too.

by

May Maybes

I have things I’d like to have done this month. I’ve got quite a bit going on this month, so I’m going to call this a “maybe” list, kind of like how I hate using the word “plan.” This is what I’d like to do, but time and unforeseen occurrence will dictate what actually happens. Maybe by the end of May…

 

  • The Not-So-Super Superhero will be fully edited and transformed from a once-a-day blog story to a cohesive novel. Wave one of the edits are complete, and I have all the pieces I need otherwise. It’s just the edits holding it back. As always.
  • The cover art and divider art for Any Other Reality will be done, I’ll have the edits complete, and that can be put together in a nice ebook for publishing as well.
  • All the Men in My Life will finally have its cover. Then, from cover, divider art. Then I can get edits done and back from a couple people and not only do an ebook but also attempt to make an audiobook of it. I need the edits first, though.
  • We will have the custom page and cover art for The Memory Collector and the first bit of it completely ready to be posted to the website.
  • I should be launching the Kabobble’s Choice excerpt section of the website with a story suggested for the picture in this post. I am still open to getting more stories for the picture. I haven’t actually had a chance to put the ideas rattling around my brain on paper yet, but I will. Soon.
  • I’d like to have the issues keeping me from finishing The Monster in My Garden Shed and Criss-Crossed Paths resolved so they can be moved to the only needing edits state, and then, of course, I must edit them.
  • I need to finishing figuring out createspace and get print versions of the already published titles.
  • I would like to have summaries for all the stories that I have completed.
  • Have more research done on my new historical novel.
  • On a more personal note, I think it’s time I start acting like something other than writing matters.

 

Well, that’s probably plenty for May, and I think it’s a good thing those are all maybes because I don’t think I’ll get to half of them, unfortunately.