Category Archives: Goals

Apr 12 2013

The Huffington Post is Gay

Me: The Huffington Post really has a tendency to fly off the deep end. Check out this article.

You: Vaccines Produce Homosexuality?

Me: Crazy right? Some old Italian (so-called) doctor still thinks being gay is a disease. Some days I just can’t wait for these old bigots to kick the bucket so their lame prejudices can die with them.

You: That’s a little harsh. You can hardly blame the elderly for their prejudices. It’s the way they were raised. Fifty years ago, being gay was practically synonymous with being a pedophile. Is it any wonder they have such differing opinions.

Me: This isn’t a differing opinion. It’s morally wrong.

You: I’m not disagreeing with you on that point. But from their perspective, if being gay is akin to pedophilia, can you blame them for thinking that being gay is the morally wrong choice?

Me: Yes. They need to update their world view. Homosexual behavior is nearly universal in the animal kingdom.

You: Come on. You know most people don’t stay abreast with current scientific news. Especially the Baby Boomers, an entire generation of elderly and soon to be elderly, with a world view filled with skepticism for authority figures, like scientists.

Me: Don’t get me started with the Baby Boomers and their New Age – Egalitarian – Everybody’s opinion is equal bull crap. Some people become experts and their opinions bear more weight than others. They should deal with it.

**SHOUTS** Hey old people: Science! It works bitches!

Getting back on point, this isn’t new news. I first started hearing about traits of homosexuality being universal over a decade ago. This research has been ongoing since the 80′s. That’s 25 to 30 years they’ve had the chance to acquaint themselves with modern science and reality in general.

You: Try not to alienate too many people will ya? I thought you wanted people to read this blog. Your thoughts are all over the place. What point is it you’re trying to make?

Me: Hmm, what point indeed… I think I’ll go right back to to the top: The Huffington Post. I firmly believe printed news is effectively dead. Which means those of us who want quality news are going to have to look for it online. Unfortunately, the masses tend to shun actual science news. Even worse, most people will head straight to the low hanging fruit when it comes to news aggregation. I think it’s the responsibility of modern news organizations to report the news accurately. They should filter out obvious nonsense.

Just because someone writes a press release, it doesn’t mean you have to print a story based on that press release. On the contrary, you could even print a story saying: “Hey! Look at this old bigot and his fake scientific bologna.”

You: Now who should update their world view? Besides, the article isn’t uncritical. The author states, “Some of Vanoli’s arguments, however, have been disputed for more than 30 years.”

Me: True, but not really true. This style of reporting is uncritical in my opinion. By treating “all opinions as equal” this automatically lends credibility to a guy who is an obvious fraud as a doctor. Consider his own words:

“The problem will especially be present in the next generations, because when gays have children, the children will carry along with them the DNA of their parent’s illness. Because homosexuality is a disease,…”

He’s talking as if being gay is a disease that one can contract, but he’s also talking as if being gay is genetic and passed on through DNA. Which is it?

You: In his defense, their are some diseases that can be passed on from mother to unborn child. But I get your point, most of those diseases are passed through the blood and if being gay is a disease that passes through the blood how does it also get passed through DNA? Of course, you’re also missing the point that gay people don’t breed in the numbers that heterosexual people manage, so how are we going to be inundated with gay people in the coming generations?

Me: Oh, I wasn’t forgetting that. I just found it too obvious to mention. Like if being gay is passed through the blood, say from mother to child, why don’t EMT’s, doctors, and nurses who get exposed to other people’s blood suddenly become gay?

You: I’m sure he’d say that heterosexual people so exposed are adults and already have their sexual identity set, or something along those lines.

Me: That’s called “special pleading“. It’s a logical fallacy that people should be taught to see through and respectable news organizations should reinforce proper logic in their readers by asking the “next question” rather than taking his comments at face value. There are plenty of experts out there that can refute this guys nonsense and expose it for the mystical mumbo-jumbo that it is.

I’m not even a medical doctor and I can see through this crap. What’s wrong with the reporter? You see, I do live in the real world, and I know most people aren’t going to critically read that article. Which means that even if they don’t buy into it, they’ll have the nagging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, there might be something to what this quack says when very obviously there is not.

You: So what do you suggest? People stop reading the news?

Me: No. People should stop reading generic news aggregation sites like the Huffington Post. I know they’re convenient, but getting your news from more specialized sources, written by appropriate experts that take a more critical look at the news can only improve one’s understanding.

You: Basically, you’re asking people to push themselves mentally? You got out of education because the average student all but refuses to intellectually push themselves and you want people to do it with their daily news because it’s good for them?

Me: Yes?

You: I thought you said you were living in the real world?

Mar 21 2013

Some Days

You: What are you doing?

Me: Uhhh-I’m looking to procrastinate from working.

You: You really should get to work.

Me: I know. I’m rationalizing that I don’t have a lot to do until I get to the courthouse later this afternoon.

You: I see. But, if you’re not going to do some real work, why don’t you get some writing done?

Me: I was just thinking that. I thought a quick blog post might get the writing motor running.

You: How’s that been going? The writing, not the blog post.

Me: Alright. Not as productive as I would like, but I’ve managed to get in three thousand words this past week. So I haven’t been completely useless.

You: Not bad. It’s at least a little something.

Me: Still, if I’m going to procrastinate, I really should learn to be productive with my procrastinations. You know, rather than watch TV or some other time waster, like a browser game, or some other mindless nonsense, I’ll do some cleaning, or go to the store. Other things I generally budget time for, I’m trying to get done during my unproductive periods.

You: That’s probably a good idea.

Me: Thanks. … You’re being awfully nice today. Why is that?

You: Nice? What do you mean?

Me: You’re not being critical, sarcastic, or ironic.

You: That’s being nice?

Me: For You, it kind of is.  Besides, some days, I think that’s as nice as the world gets.

You: **Sigh** Sadly, you’re probably right… About the latter, not the former.

Me: That’s more like it. Contrariness for its own sake.

You: Whatever.

Me: Something has to be bothering you. You’re much too subdued.

You: I don’t know. Maybe it’s just one of those days.

Me: What does that mean? I’ve never really understood what a “those days” are.

You: Like I said. I don’t know. Ever have a day where you’re sort of uninspired; Not up or down; Not happy or sad. You’re just Being. You’re just numb.

Me: Sure. We all have “those days”. I think those are the days where it’s most important to motivate yourself into doing something. Preferably something you enjoy. If you can push through, be productive. Make yourself enjoy the day in spite of yourself. I think those days are the most satisfying. It’s like you took a little something away from the soul-sucking aspects of the world and gave it back to yourself.

You: Hmmm. **Nods** I like the sound of that. You should get on that.

Jun 19 2012

Hopes To One Day Write For Food

The title for this post I stole from myself. It is one the vanity subheadings off a writer’s forum I frequent at Absolutewrite.com. It’s funny how such a simple statement about one’s desire to attain one of the basic necessities of life is so insurmountable in the context of the writing profession. Most of my friends are fairly amazed at what an austere lifestyle I manage to lead. And lot of that can be credited with the amazing set of supportive friends that I do have.

The statement implies I would like to write for a living, so not just write for food, but write as if it were my job that pays all the bills. As cheap as I manage to live, it will still take a whole lot for me to earn a living at writing. In this post, I’ll describe my living expenses and show that even I probably will never be able to earn a living off my writing.

First off, I have been given a house to live in.  It’s a long story, but speaking of one of the basic necessities of life: shelter. I have managed to finagle for free at the moment. Really, it is a perk of my job in helping run a hotel, but even if I were to quit that job, my friends would let me stay in the house if I wanted. So we can pretend that I don’t have a mortgage or have to pay rent. I do have to pay the utilities and for the upkeep and such. Basically my friends own the house without a mortgage, they pay the taxes and that’s it. So as long as they don’t see any other expenses, I can live in the house.

My housing expenses consist of:

Gas & Electric: $100

Cable internet (no TV): $50

Water, sewer, garbage, other town expenses paid on same bill: $100

Or about $250 a month, sometimes a bit more, but why quibble considering how cheap it is? At some point, I will have to invest in some sort of upkeep, but for now the house is not falling apart. Though it c0uld use some carpet in the living room and bedroom. At the moment, it’s just a bare wooden floor. I’ve pulled up all the staples and stuff that could stick in my feet, but it’s pretty ugly. Doesn’t bother me, but most people like their houses to feel cozy or whatever. I mention this only to point out that I wasn’t given a palace to live in. It’s a partially remodeled, one story bedroom; maybe 600-700 square feet. And I haven’t bothered to finish remodeling it.

Next, I have a PhD in Math, so I have student loans. Fortunately, I was paid to go to school in a lot of ways with scholarships, teaching classes, and even some grading assignments. I walked away from 11 years worth of school with about $32,000 in loans. That’s actually amazing. Most people under those circumstances have between 200-300 thousand dollars in loans. More than they can ever pay off with the degree they get, but that’s another story and one of the reasons I am no longer in the field of education. That’s a lot of preface to say my student loans are an extraordinarily low $200/month.

The last category is the actual food category and for good measure I’ll throw in clothing. I probably spend about $350 dollars a month on this. Food itself, I’d guess $200-$300. I honestly don’t keep track. Once or twice a year I’ll buy a new pair of shoes/sneakers for work/play. A couple of cheap Chinese Walmart shirts for work per year. Shorts in the summer. So after all is said and done, I’d say I probably average at least $350 a month for food and clothing. If I were to keep track, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were under estimating and it turned out to be $400, but for now, let’s just go with $350.

So there you have it. I live on about $800/month. I would guess this is atypical for most people not living with their parents. I actually need this money to survive, so to earn a “living” I have to account for taxes, and I’m not going to get into the tax return nonsense, I’m just going to point out that I’d need to gross a little more than $1100 to earn $800 cash. We can pretend that future income tax returns go into the upkeep of the house. Sound fair? For simplicity, I’m sticking with that.

Now the question is, how much does one have to sell to be able to live like the glorious king that I live like?

At the moment, I am selling Dim Speak for 99 cents. Is it worth that? I think so. For an unproven author and a book that was not edited by a professional, I think that price is more than fair in terms of the “risk” a reader incurs for taking a chance on such a novel. If someone orders the book at Smashwords, I get about 79 cents per copy, and if someone orders at Amazon, I get about 35 cents per copy.

Thus for me to earn a “living”, I’d have to sell about 3150 copies at Amazon per month. Clearly, that’s ridiculous. Those are George R. R. Martin type numbers. Even if we pretended that I sold a small percentage from Smashwords, I’d have to sell  around 3000 copies to live like a pauper.

Suppose now, I sold the book for $2.99. At this threshold, Amazon gives the author 70% minus a small fee for the kindle transfer, so I would get about $2 per book (plus a few pennies). At this price the Smashwords royalty rate is comparable to Amazon’s, and I’d get about $2.30 per book. Things are looking up. I would only need to sell about 550 copies at Amazon, or let’s pretend about 500 copies between the two distribution methods.

Though it might not sound like a lot, those kinds of sales would put me in the top 5 or 10 in the fantasy section at Amazon pretty much round the clock. A lot of good authors are not selling at these rates. They might be if they have a backlist with five or ten books to draw from, but if they have one book like me, not so much. This is why I haven’t really pushed Dim Speak. I figure why spend a few hundred in advertising, with only one product to sell. I need to have more to offer readers to justify that sort of expense.

Another common price point is $3.99 retail, or about $2.75 from Amazon and about $3.05 from Smashwords to the author. Monthly sales to earn a living is about 400 copies per month.

This price seems a bit high for my current copy of Dim Speak. As I said, my current work is an amateur endeavor. I wouldn’t feel right about charging such a steep price. Then, again, I spent the better part of three years off and on working on the project, so if someone else said they felt they deserved that much for their work, I wouldn’t argue.

I hope this gives people an idea of how difficult it is for an author to actually earn a living from writing alone. In this context, it seems even more daunting. I guess I’d better get to work!

Jun 8 2012

Doing Well, but not TOO Well

I know! I know!

I keep meaning to get back here and blog more, but I really have been focusing on my writing. And since I don’t have any real fans anyway, I’m not really disappointing anyone but myself.

That is a firm rationalization, if I ever saw one, and I challenge anyone to poke holes in my logic.  ;)

I have amped up my writing in lieu of blogging. Almost two weeks ago, I finished the first draft of Blood Speak, my sequel to Dim Speak.

I then wrote an erotica short story. I did that mostly for fun. It’s surprising what kind of filters one must assuage in order to write about sex. I’m sure it’s easier for others, but I had to set aside some of my own writing norms. It was very educational. And since the story makes me giggle, what more can one ask of erotica? Besides, uh, hrmmm, never mind.

Next came the congestive heart failure of one of my best friends. She’s 43 and wound up in the hospital for four days. I had to work 50+ hours that week, since she owns the hotel I work at. In fact, there was a 72 hour period where I worked every minute of the day at some point, except for the 45 minute span from 11:15pm to midnight. 35 hours in three days, not bad, right?

Anyway, now that that disaster has passed…

What? Oh, yeah,… My friend is now walking around with a battery pack that is prepared to zap her back to life in case her heart stops. Apparently, in three months they’ll be implanting something in her chest to do the same thing. For now, she has to heal a bit, but she is alive and claims to be doing better.

So anyway, now that that disaster has passed. Yesterday, I started a novella in my Dim Speak universe. I have three of them planned. I want to release Blood Speak and these novellas by the end of the year. This will finally give me some product to sell. I have not bothered to advertise Dim Speak, because what’s the point? With only one book for sale I’d spend hundreds in adverts for only one product. If I’m going to spend money on such a thing I should have a number of items for sale.

This week, I also submitted Dim Speak to Evolved Publishing.  Since I’ve only sold six copies (and have given away two). If a small press were to pick it up, I wouldn’t have any qualms about revising it one more time with a professional editor. (No offense to Kaitie, who edited it for me line-by-line for free! Thank you once again!) Additionally, I like Evolved Publishing’s author-centric co-op model. It is precisely the type of business model that I think will be the future of publishing. If you haven’t heard about the sort of work they’re doing, you should check it out.

They promise a three week turn around. We’ll see if anything comes of it.

Also starting yesterday, I began the edits to Blood Speak. Alas, I am already a couple of months behind on my schedule for this book, but such is life.  I’d like to spend the rest of June and July doing a second draft while working on the novellas mentioned above.

In last post, I know, three weeks ago,don’t remind me… In my last post, I mentioned learning something about my own writing process. I found that first drafts are really hard for me and I work much better and faster when editing and rewriting. I have decided to do my best at keeping more than one project going at a time. Preferably, a first draft project where I can scrape together 500-700 words a day, which seems to be my limit on most days. And an editing project where I can edit/rewrite some amount. I hesitate to put a word goal on such things because it will vary so wildly with the state of the previous draft.

These two processes takes different parts of my brain. They overlap a bit, but I think I can be most efficient if I work on two things at the same time. I’ll have to blog the results later.

Just for kicks, here’s an edited line from the first page of Blood Speak:

Well, the genocide AND the three Angels I was suspected of harvesting while staying in Heaven had been enough to get me banished. That’s why Faith and I were here. She wanted to prove I was innocent of the harvesting charges. I was probably guilty of the genocide though.

May 17 2012

How Does a Writer Think?

I probably should apologize for neglecting the blog this past month, but honestly, this blog isn’t the most important thing for me at the moment.  Have you ever had someone tell you that they are trying to find a direction for themselves? I’m sure most of us have. Finding a direction for yourself is only half the problem, and believe me, I know it can be a tough half!

The other half, actually traveling the path can be just as hard. Sure it’s easy at first. Once you decide you’re going to do something, motivation abounds. The energy for your new projects/hobbies/lifestyle whatever it is you’re looking to change about yourself flows like a freshly tapped well. After the shiny has worn off, that’s where the adults are separated from the little boys and girls. I mean, if you’re truly looking to change yourself, you have to be that person even when you feel like all motivation is gone.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I had high hopes for this year in terms of getting a lot of writing done, but it just hasn’t panned out. Mind you, I’ve done okay. Just nowhere near what I was looking forward to accomplishing. I spent some time thinking about it, and rather than lament squandered opportunities, I focused on gathering knowledge about myself.

I came to a conclusion. I wasn’t thinking about being a writer enough.

I was thinking plenty about my writing, but I wasn’t thinking like a writer should. Or at least, the way I presume a writer should be thinking at this early developmental stage where I’m at.

How does a developing writer think, you ask?

Beats me.

I’m sure it’s different for everyone, though it seems reasonable that step one is finding a process that works for you. I’ve spent over five months working on my sequel to Dim Speak and I had hoped to be done with it in about four. One of things I’ve been thinking about a lot this past month is why it has taken me so long. If I’m to write and make promises about my writing in the future it seems I need to know what I am capable of and why I couldn’t write the first draft of this story in that time frame.

Additionally, much of my efforts have gone into actually finishing the story, and I should be done in a couple of weeks. I’ve already decided on at least one darling I shall have to kill during the edits, but that is what edits are all about. Chopping that which doesn’t work no matter how much you love it.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. In summary, I wrote more in the last month than I have any other 30 day period this year, and I have been focusing on my own process in order to make myself more efficient as a writer.

It seems to me that a “pre-published” writer should be focusing on these two things.

I’ll get more specific soon.

Mar 4 2012

Words, Words,…

In an effort to make good on the promise to myself to “keep my eyes on the prize”, I have been focusing on being successful on a moderate and reasonable goal of writing about 500 words per day for now. I had been trying to write a minimum of 1200 words a day and that didn’t seem to be a figure I was ready to tackle. We’ll see if I can maintain my current pace.  If I can, I expect about 15 to 18 thousand words this month. That should put me about 70% done with the first draft of Blood Speak. I should be able to finish the first draft by the end of April if I maintain that pace.  I’d be quite happy with that result.

The nice thing about later drafts, I tend to be able to rewrite faster than I write. A thousand words a day on a topic where I know exactly where I’m going has been more than doable in the past. It’s just that initial draft where I can’t seem to write with any speed. I also have a tendency to write a lot of drafts.  I wrote more than ten drafts for Dim Speak, but there was a lot of searching done in those drafts. I have a better idea of where this story is coming from and going to right from the outset. So maybe I can get away with five drafts with this story. Fingers crossed.

I really would like to get Blood Speak released by this fall.  I’m shooting for September, but give or take a month is okay with me. There is one major unanswered question from the first book I really feel guilty for not addressing.  I had no “time” in that story to answer the question, but it gets resolved in the second book. The minor unresolved question, that of how Chip was summoned through the barrier around earth won’t be addressed until book three. Though the story I have in mind for book three is not fleshed out enough for an entire novel.  I may have to settle for that story being a novella. We’ll see what comes.

As for the sales of Dim Speak, I am utterly shocked at having sold four books already. Considering I haven’t spent any time marketing the book, this means the sales are either from the paltry collection of hits this blog gets or through sheer luck in that a billion people are on the internet and statistically it stands to reason someone would have come across it and be willing to drop 99 cents on it.

Well, to those statistical anomalies. I thank you. I hope you’re enjoying the read.  :)

Feb 28 2012

Phase One: Steal Underpants

After all my talk and meandered musing about how I should release my first novel, I finally sat down for a couple of days and formatted Dim Speak for the meat grinder on SmashWords.  Considering how many hours I spent formatting the manuscript, I am thankful I know the simple tricks to removing all the tabs and double spaces at the end of each sentence using the search and replace feature, or else I’d still be tapping away at all the things that were proper formatting when I was in grade school and high school.  I apparently had 6167 instances of putting two spaces after a period (or other mark) ending a sentence.

I don’t think the process will be too bad the next time around.  It just took a lot of time because I made sure I went through and did everything correctly.  Fortunately, I sat down and re-watched some English dubbed Japanese anime while performing the conversion process.  That way, I only had to pay attention from time to time, yet gave my brain something to do.

The actual hard part of uploading was coming up with a concise, as in 400 character (not words, characters!), description of the book. This took me almost an hour.  I think I finished with 393 characters.  What do you think:

Chip found himself worlds from Earth, attacked by a dragon, prisoner of the Angels, suspected of murder, and suddenly able to “speak” with plants. What would you do? Chip tries to run away, following the omens of Faith, the most dangerous, complicated, maybe-not-fallen Angel in Heaven. Long before Faith is able to forge Chip into a warrior, the fate of the Angels ends up in his shaky hands.

My diligence with the formatting paid off, as my book was accepted the first time around without any errors.  I must now wait for the human check to go through and make sure all is well.  I presume this will take a few days.  After that, I’ll be in the their “premium” catalog which will allow the book to be sold by Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Kobo, along with a handful of other distributors.

After uploading, I fumbled around the dashboard a bit to get a feel for what was going on.  I decided I should sign up for one of SmashWords free ISBNs for ebooks.  By the time I did this, I had my first download.  Within 10 minutes of me uploading my book someone had already checked out the free sample.  I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked, after all, my book is now listed first in the “newest” category under general fantasy.  If I’m lucky, It’ll stay on the first page for a day.

I started to look into the publishing process for the Kindle and less than an hour later I received an email stating that I had made my first sale.  Apparently, whomever checked out the free sample felt it was good enough to blow 99 cents on the rest of the story.  So I made my first sale!  And I don’t even know who it is to thank them, so I will just do that here:

Thank you mystery person!  Every time you buy a book, you become a patron of the arts.  You’re allowing someone to go one step closer to being able to work full time on their passions.  You’re the best!

As for the price, I don’t expect to charge much more than 99 cents ever.  Unless I magically become famous and start selling thousands of copies.  Should that be the case, then I’ll know the story is worth more, until then, I need to do everything I can to encourage people just to check out the free sample.  So yeah, GO HERE for the free sample.  I set it for 20% of the book, so you can get in a fair ways before you have to make a purchase decision.  Though honestly, I think the middle and ending are better than the beginning.

You are, perhaps, wondering about the title to this post.  It references the Underpants Gnomes from the second season of South Park.  (This is back in 1998!)  The Gnomes had the following business plan:

Phase One:  Steal Underpants
Phase Two:  ?????
Phase Three:  Profit

At the time, Matt Stone and Trey Parker were riffing on all the internet companies that were collecting millions in investment dollars with no business plan capable of making a profit.  They were prophets because two years later the internet bust came along and put a stop to all the crazy investing.  Alas, there still exist companies with the above business plan.  Twitter anyone?

How does this relate to me?  Well, I have completed Phase One:  Write Novel.  Next is Phase Three:  Profit.

Oh wait, it’s Phase Two:  Marketing.  This is going to be harder than writing the book.

Feb 7 2012

Progress is Progress: World Building

Some days, I just don’t have it in me to write.  Actually, that describes a lot of days, but I’d like to change that.  When I count up my daily words, I don’t just count the ones that go into the work itself, I count all “support” words as well.  Namely, the words that go into my so-called “world bibles”.  The notes I prepare to remind me about how one culture behaves as opposed to another.

Honestly, I don’t write the bible stuff all that often.  I tend to be very good at keeping such things straight in my head and I can add to them as necessary.  But the last couple of days I’ve been really tortured to get down some words for my current work in progress, Blood Speak.  I think this is because I’ve written up to where my mental outline goes and I’m not sold on how to progress the action.  Thus, my interest in finally writing up a piece of the world bible.

Just writing words get the creative juices flowing.  Even if it’s written rather dry, simple, facts regarding politics, geography, and ecology.  Thinking about the ecology of an archipelago (the geography of where my current story is being told) can help in how I want to shape the story.  Taking a day writing out 1277 words that I had amorphous in my head has helped nail down a few things.  Maybe not precisely where the story is going, but it has helped to flesh out certain motivations of the surrounding cast of people.  Deciding more clearly how a population might think politically and economically is really going to help flesh out my ancillary characters.

Hey, it’s more meat on the bones.  Even if I don’t have the full skeleton as yet, taking this time has certainly benefited the work.  So the next time you’re at a loss as to where your story may be going, try figuring out in more detail how your world actually works.  This might be just the trick you’re looking for in terms of motivating you and your characters.

Feb 2 2012

February’s Goals, a.k.a, Personal Responsibility pt. 3

January was not a good month, and most of it was my fault.  The first half of the month I was busy with work and sick for a week, but I knew the former would be happening, and thought (hoped?) I had planned appropriately.  The latter half of the month I screwed off as evidenced by my not posting in over a week.  I just couldn’t seem to get focused on anything but playing Dragon Age.

Which is pathetic!  I know I haven’t really played a video game in a good nine years, but that is no excuse to let it rule my free time.  And I think that’s the problem.  Without a regular schedule insisting I work, I think of my time as my own.  It isn’t I have assigned myself certain responsibilities and I shirked them.

The worst part of it all is I don’t feel guilty abpout such things.  I don’t put irrational pressure on myself and it seems this is one of those circumstances.  There is no sense in beating myself up for goofing up. My energy is best served fixing the problem.  Alas, tomorrow I have to do some paperwork for the hotel and prepare my taxes, so I’ll be three days into February with nothing to show for myself.  That leaves me 25 days to get my act together and fulfill February’s goals.  Which are as follows:

Write 30,000 words of writing.

At least 13 blog posts for another 7,000 words.

I started the reformatting process to post my stories to the Amazon Kindle and Smashwords.  I want to finish that.

As I said, I have no excuses as to why my results were so abysmal in January.  All I can do now is better.

Jan 20 2012

Talking About My Brand

I really don’t like talking about myself in the “I’m so great” hype type of sense.  If I plan to self-publish, I guess I need to do a little chest thumping every now and again, but it really isn’t me.  One of the things holding me back from getting my work “out there” is I’ve been struggling with my brand.  I’ve been collecting all sorts of information on what I should and shouldn’t do.  All sorts of advice on how to market myself and so on.  I think the best piece of advice I’ve received is the traditional, “be who you are” advice.

I’ve been trying to pigeon-hole my first book in the traditional book way.  I’ve started the sequel and found I’m struggling with the “book” mentality.  I don’t seem to write that way.  I’ve written part one of book two and started part two.  Each of these first five parts taking about 100 pages as a substory all its own.

Let me back track about five years and start where I started writing again.  I started with a space opera that went nowhere.  I wrote 160,000 words in two years and no end was forth coming.  The problem lay in the way I was writing the darn thing.  The first “book” consisted of seven stories (novellas if you will) that were complete (in the first draft sense of complete) on their own.  Each told a mini-story about a series of galactic events.  So I had seven stories that I could put together and call a book, each progressing the over arching story, but the seven stories themselves didn’t tell a story.  That is, there was no reason to call those seven together a book as opposed to six or eight.  Essentially there was a missing layer of story that prevented the first book from being a book.

Then I switched to a fantasy story that I’d been wanting to write for nearly twenty years.  I’ve spent the last (going on) three years writing this story, I’ve found something similar happening.  The first book, while a complete book this time, is broken into three distinct story parts.  Each making sense on their own as a sub-story.

Over this same period of time, I have been getting more and more into Japanese Anime and Manga.  I really like the serialized episodic story telling.  Essentially, that’s the way I’ve been writing.  A story arc, followed by the next arc, and so on.  The nice thing about this type of story telling is that it goes on as long as the story needs.  It doesn’t force itself into a certain size, it doesn’t force itself to wrap up all the loose ends before the next arc begins.  Stories flow one into the next.  Unfortunately, I’ve been trying to write this way, only trying to press the story into a book form as well.

After doing a little research into the way things are being marketed on the Amazon Kindle, I’ve decided to release my work the way it ought to be released, namely, episodically.  More and more serialized fiction has been appearing on the kindle, so it seems there is a market for the stuff.  I had thought about this a lot last fall, but a couple of months ago, I heard an interview with Sean Platt and David Wright (actually the interview was with one of them and I don’t remember which one it was).  They’ve written a post apocalyptic serial that seems to be doing quiet well, and it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about trying myself.

So when considering my so-called “brand” I think I will specialize in episodic fiction.  It just seems to make more sense for the way I write.  The nice thing about this type of writing is that I can take an episode and make it an aside to build the characters that support the protagonist.  A technique I really enjoy in the Japanese Anime/Manga story telling form.  It really gets the reader invested fully in all of the characters, and I want to do the same thing.