Started Outline for a New Book

I started the initial outline work today on a new story. It does not have a title, but I can tell you a little bit about it. The story centers around a new patient of a young female psychologist who lives and works in a city [not sure which]. He was referred to her by a local area hospital for treatment of possible dissociative disorder [or depersonalization disorder, not sure which yet]. They meet for the first time and the psychologist is shocked to hear the man's story and personal beliefs. From that point forward her life begins to unravel as she explores the depths of her patient's psychosis; in the end, she discovers not all is as it appears.

Felt good to do something creative today; I've been missing it. I hope to keep a daily schedule going, where I work on all aspects of story-telling each day (not necessarily on one project, though). I will do this by writing my minimum number of words each morning. Then I will do my edits (did two chapters of the Preparation today). Then I will work on an outline, so I have several to pick from when I need a new project. I will also be doing research, for those outlines that are stuck for lack of background. I find it very rewarding to set it down and spend some time researching out background material. Today I wrote a whopping paragraph on this newest story before putting it aside, knowing full well I needed to do more research on psychology. It wasn't until then that I discovered DPD and DID and what their symptoms are. It has really broadened my approach to the story, allowing the characters to become much more real. Lastly, I will devote time each day to the marketing side of writing - doing tasks to build on the social platform, so I'm ready if ever I have a break out. If not, no biggy. I'm already living a dream now. But I still would love it if it ever happened. Lotto style. Publisher's Clearing House is coming up on the 30th. Maybe I'll get really lucky and spend Christmas on a tropical island!

Still Reading, Reading, Reading...

I spent most of the day today reading, or listening to audio books while playing mind numbing video games like Atomica or Pipes or B-Jeweled or Tetris (though I don't think I ever actually played Tetris today). Topic of said books: fiction and writing fiction.

I polished off Amanda Hockings MY BLOOD APPROVES today. I think I finished the last five chapters in one setting. I love copying text over to Katie (my text to speech reader). If I tried to read that many pages with my eyes I would go batty (slow reader). Using Txt2Speech, I can burn through chapters without any trouble at all. I also finished IN STYLE, a punctuation manual - and learned very little. I also started 38 MOST COMMON FICTION WRITING MISTAKES. I would like to say I'm learning a lot, but I'm not. The closest I've come is from Stephen King's ON WRITING and I think it's more hilarious (and a nice break) than anything else. It does provide a pit of perspective, though; like I'm not trapped in a bubble all by myself with this thing called a writing career.

I have a dozen or so books I would really like to read, but I'm getting antsy because I'm neither writing nor am I editing. I have decided that when I do actually start my edits again, I definitely need to set a measurable daily goal - preferably a certain number of words edited. This is really the only way I can keep myself honest and can project with at least some level of accuracy where I'll be in said about of time on each project.

I would really like to edit 1000 words a day. I would REALLY like to get up to writing 4000 words a day, but I don't know if it's in the cards. I have several story ideas that are taking shape. But I do have some breathing time, since only one so far has been put to paper in any kind of legitimate outline form. I haven't done more because I don't yet have a dependable or effective schedule. It seems as if something always gives. If I write I dn't edit. If I write and edit, I don't work on story development. If I work on story development, then I forget to read up on marketing. It's not like I don't have the time here. I've got nothing but time. So, I know my boat is leaking, I just have to find the hole and put a freaking plug in it. 

Despite my uncomfortableness, I'm trying to give myself enough down time to get my head on straight when it comes to editing, since it is my Achilles Heel. I want to do as little work as possible for the greatest ROI, which means I have to be organized, strategic and systematic in my editing process. I can't wait until the body of work I've churned out recently is more than what I produced a year ago in my first two manuscripts. I also can't wait to have them put to bed once and for all. So far all I have to show for my new found efforts is a 100 page novella. it originally was supposed to be a 300 page novel. Yikes!

I need to get cracking. Thus explains my concern about taking time off. But, I want to do it right the first time so I don't have to go back and reinvent the wheel a third time. I'm already playing catchup to myself.

Finished Manuscript of Seeking Light Aurora !!!

I finished! I think it was over a year ago when I first thought about the idea of this story. It originally started out as a short story, intended to be entry into a writing contest. After I sketched it out, and wrote the first paragraph, I scrapped it and quit writing for several months. I didn't think I had what it takes to be a writer. 

Flash forward to last month and I read a book called I Could do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was. This book was phenomenal. It helped me deal with some of the many issues related to writing, building a writing career and life in general - especially dealing with my past.

Once I got my mentality properly adjusted, and realized [decided] that I really did want to write as a vocation - and hopefully my career [professionally, i.e. get paid to do it] - I set to work and completed the summary outline for Our Daughter. Then I shelved it to get some space and worked up the summary for Seeking Light Aurora. I became so enamored with the characters in this story that I decided to write it before Our Daughter. 

It wasn't until I was about forty pages into it that I realized it was not a very long story - definitely not typical novel length. I, of course, started to worry, running that tape in my head, "You're not good enough. You can't even write a full length book. You'll never make it work. You might as well give up."

I didn't give up, though. I did a little research on novellas and discovered they work in perfectly with writing larger books. It can be used as a free give-away, it can be sold alongside other, novel length titles, etc. It can even be incorporated with several other novellas and published as a collection. It's perfect, because I really didn't want to try and add more scenes [padding] to the story line. I really like it the way it is. 

I also found out that it is best to wait on running any big marketing campaigns until I have at last four books in print and ready for public consumption. This way there are several available titles for readers to buy and read while I have new titles in the works. 

But, as for Seeking Light Aurora, she is going to bed. I have set a tentative date to pull the manuscript back out in two weeks and start editing. In the mean time, I'm going to take a few days off from active writing and try to catch up on some items on my task list. I'm also going to focus my efforts on editing The Preparation, which I think I will need to then run it though White Smoke, then another edit. I did discover [via several blog articles] how to pre-process a manuscript for editing by find/replace with formatting for trouble words, like -ly's and then and that and my dreaded ." instead of ," . I now have a whole list of words that I go through and highlight in the text before I ever begin. It really makes them stand out and it will make it much easier to tell I'm making progress. I also found a edit hack blog, though I think they have stopped updating it.  

I also want to focus some significant time on reading/working through the grammar/English/writing books I have, and also the software and exercises available online. My goal is to hack my writing process to the point that I am producing much better work exponentially rather than sequentially or worse, remain flat-lined in my growth as a writer. I'm really starting to embrace the idea of developing my craft as a writer and also I think I might actually enjoy the marketing aspects online. It's just the face to face interaction I never could stomach. 

At any rate, here's to trying.

Quick Writing Today...

Well, I was a bit surprised at how easily the words flowed out of me this morning. I almost took the day off, too. When I got up I was again late by an hour. As I opened the gate and headed into the main house to take a shower, it hit me that all I really wanted to do was go back to bed and find a good movie to watched. But, I pushed myself and tried to snap out of it.

I got to my computer about two hours later and fired up the Aurora file and away I went. On one of the last scenes and the descriptions just unfolded like they were an old, familiar book I hadn't seen in years. I love writing.

I'm really excited to be almost done. I got around 1200 words in today, but not very much in way of editing THE PREPARATION. I really hate editing. It's so boring and tedious. I just want to run it through a program that will clean it all up for me. I want an editor on call that I can just email the manuscript off to and it will come back a shiny new bestseller. Of course, the real world doesn't work like that. I don't think it even works like that for traditional authors who have a whole staff working with them to get a book out. 

My plan is to finish this edit [I'm currently on chapter 7 and there are 42 chapters in the book] and then run each scene through White Smoke. Then I plan to put it away for about a week, coming back to do a final read through/edit (but hopefully only light). Then once more through White Smoke and then format, covert to .mobi format (or whatever Kindle needs) and plan a release date. Then I have to look at setting up a blog tour and whatever other promotional avenues I plan to take. I think at that point (before) the actual release, I'll need to write up a business/marketing plan for the individual book in particular: define what my short, mid, long range goals are, what kind of profit I'm hoping to generate, what my benchmarks will look like and how I will measure my progress, etc. Should be fun. What is nice is that it all can be done online. This is what really attracted me back to publishing and writing. I don't work well face to face. I really just don't like the idea of sitting in a physical book store 8-16 hours a day on a signing tour trying to pump people to buy, shaking hands, doing small talk. I much prefer doing my reader interaction over the internet, asynchronous. It's so intuitive for me, I doubt that I would consider it work at all. Ever. 

Editing, on the other hand, I consider grueling, tedious, laborious, gut-wrenching, eye gouging WORK!!!! 

Bones TV, Book Editing, Handbook Reading...

I struggled to get THE PREPARATION editing work done today. I just can't stand editing. It's driving me bonkers and primarily because I don't feel up to the task - I don't feel as if I am good enough to edit or that I will ever be good enough to produce something of any worth. But, such is the nature of self-doubt. I did do it and I think that's what's important. Really important. Doesn't matter so much if "today's" edits were "good" or not. It matters more that I went through the process and pressed on in spite of my doubts, in spite of my fear of failure, in spite of my desire to just pack it in and sit back and enjoy the X Factor tonight (UK - Go Kitty!).

I have been contemplating getting a top level domain, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. I can even get it for less than $5 for the first year. That's half off! Who knows what will be happening or where my career will be in a year. I need to just do it and set it up. Get a platform established. Like they say, "If you build it, they will come."

I also got several Social Media Marketing books today. I plan to jump up my game on my reading [I hope to] and get caught up and get way ahead. I have a lot of titles to get through, so maybe I need to cut back a little on the telli box for awhile. It's not like I'm going to miss out on anything when the internet is my own personal DVR.

So, I'm off to watch another X Factor UK extravaganza. It's double elimination this week! Yikes!

UPDATE: Hey! I almost forgot! Bones Season 7 Episode 1 was on tonight? No the other night. I had it saved on my hard drive. It was pretty good. Same old explanation drama [which drives me crazy], but at least Bones and Booth are together and having a baby! They saved the show.