Believe it or Not - Exactly 1234 Words Today !!

I am having a pretty good day so far. It's not even 9am yet and I've written over a thousand words [almost finished with SEEKING LIGHT AURORA], already finished with my only two clients I had scheduled today and also got some cleaning in on the facility. It feels good to have a sense of accomplishment. Much better than feeling like your behind all the time or things are falling through the cracks. I credit my sense of stability to David Allen's Getting Things Done system. It is wonderful. I will do a review on it in the near future. 

Also News Update: I now have a TLD for my website as an author. It is www.stevenveach.com . I finally pulled the trigger last night while I was watching tv. I was originally going to go with one registrar because they were offering a new domain for $4.99, first year, $10 after that. But, they say the devil is in the details, so on closer inspection, it looks as if they do not provide domain masking except for those people who have hosting plans with them. That's defeats the purpose of having a domain forward to an out-of-box service like blogger. I want to keep costs down [translated: non-existent] until I gain an actual paying audience. So hosting my own blog/website is out of the picture for the foreseeable future. With the mydomains.com I know they offer masking, so it works great. I also found a coupon online and got almost $2 off my first year! Yah!

My 2.0 website [hosted, possibly contracting a web designer] will have a static website + an updated blog design integrated. At least, this is the plan. Have to rustle up a readership though first. 

I am two scenes away from finishing the first draft of SEEKING LIGHT AURORA. I'm quite pleased with what I have produced here, though I'm debating on whether I should release it as a novella or beef it up with additional scenes to make it into a novel. It's probably going to be at 100 pages when I'm done [currently it's 19556 words] and I really don't see where I could add anything worthwhile to the story. I think I will leave it as it is and just release it on Amazon as an ebook, see what kind of traction it can get. Thoughts like that remind me of the dancing frog. That's what I see my books as. Very exciting - I have found in my stories this energetic, dancing frog; it is literally a miracle to see. But every time I put the frog out in front of an audience, all I hear is crickets chirping. The enthralling sound of perpetual obscurity. Every author's death nail.

Nothing I can do about that, though. I just have to keep writing, keep adding to my communication platform, to my author brand and maybe - as J.A. Konrath puts it - maybe I'll get lucky. ;-) Here's to getting lucky as an author.

729 Words [The Calories in a Totino's Pizza]

Totino's Pepperoni Pizza is my FAVORITE frozen pizza. It contains exactly 729 calories in one box. And this is how many words [exactly] that I wrote this morning. I wrote a pizza worth today. ;-)

I will say, writing today was difficult. I struggled to get the words down and the story seems to be floundering under a lot of self-doubt and negative personal criticism. Just a part of the territory, I suppose. When in doubt, I just have to keep writing. Pizza helps. Especially Totino's.

On a brighter side of things, I added a few more things to the blog, and I think [maybe] I will be getting a top level domain soon and have a static website, along with my blog here. I know Amanda Hocking does not have a static site [yet]. I'm sure the good people at St. Martin's Press will be putting one up for her soon. So, it is probably better to say, Amanda Hocking became a successful Indie writer without a top level domain. I just can't stand the cost, even if it is only $10. And I can even get it for a few dollars the first year and I'm still struggling to get it. I think the biggest resistance is - I worry that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and quit writing again. Then I'll have wasted that money on a domain that I'll just let lapse again. I've done it before. www.stevenveach.com is available again. It used to be owned by a Steven who is an artist. Apparently he doesn't keep domains alive either.

Anyway, I figured you would like my pizza word mash this morning. It's making me hungry. And I even have Totino's Pizza in the freezer! Yum!

Skipped a Day

I managed to knock out 1100+ words this morning and also finished editing a scene with Campbell Shaw in THE PREPARATION. Editing is, by far, the worst part of writing books. I literally hate it most of the time. Going over my writing again and again, even though I know I'm going to miss something, constantly thinking my work is never good enough, knowing full-well someone is going to find an error and use that one error as reason to give me a bad review. I just have to shrug, and throw my hands up in the air. Just keep plugging away at it. Tomorrow is another day. The more I mull it over in my mind, the more I feel my personality and disposition are perfect for a writing career. So I just have to keep editing and not worry about it.

I also have been thinking that SEEKING LIGHT AURORA will end up being a novella, simply because it will be only around 25,000-50,000 words when I'm finished. It's a short/quick story and most of it takes place in one room, or at least 90% of it does. We will see. It will definitely be a $0.99 center on Amazon. I'm pretty excited about it, though. I'm curious to find out what others think.

In other news, at the recommendation of my cousin, I started a new TV series yesterday called The Walking Dead. I saw a preview of it and thought it pretty hokey, but on his insistence, I watched the first episode and ended up downloading a bunch more. It's really good so far. I like zombie movies for the most part, if they are well done. My favorites are: 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later and Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, 4 [not the cartoon, no thanks]. If you get a chance watch The Walking Dead on AMC. It's great!

1130+ Words - Good Pizza - Truck Shopping

I was able to jump back into it this morning and knocked out 1100 + words on SEEKING LIGHT AURORA. Also did some editing on THE PREPARATION, but that was where my regular schedule pretty much ended. I got three or four tasks finished on my tasks list - just random stuff. Created a MySpace page and got it started. Need to read the article now to find out how to tweak it for authors. Also found out that I can never get back my youtube account with the stevenveach domain on it. It is permanently locked into the old email account [changed the password one day and now can't remember it]. No biggy.

Had pizza for dinner from Papa Murphy's. That place has the best pizza! And so greasy. Yum! Also talked with family today about a truck. I'm shopping for a truck that I will buy in 9.2 years - one that has the extended cab, but one that is wide enough that I can lay down in the back seat comfortably. This would serve as my home unless or until I decided to move up into a cabover camper. I wouldn't do this unless the seat turned out to not be big enough or I decided to firewatch. Several years ago I had a pickup truck and put a canopy shell on the back of it, then outfitted it to live in. Loved that truck.

Not much else to talk about - oh, I thought of a name for the new story that popped into my head the other day while I was working - I think I will call it OBLIVION ENCHAINED.