Blog Archives
Daily Update: It’s the little things.
I’ve always heard bigger is better. To an extend I subscribe to that concept. But big things can come in small packages.
Take for instance two little things that can in the mail. One yesterday and one today. Both made me extremely happy. The first was a 32GB USB drive. It’s actually smaller in size than the 4GB I was using, but it’s bigger where it counts. Of course I’m only using a very small portion of its capacity, but I’ll figure out what to do with it.
The other little item I got is even smaller. It’s a 32GB Micro SD. I have a xoom tablet that I use for everything these days except for writing. I had filled up a 16GB micro sd card and have made some music and video purchase I wanted to include on the card. It’s, obviously, the same size as the 16GB in physical dimensions, but with twice the capacity.
Now why did I buy myself a couple little things? I felt like I deserved it. Why did I deserve it? Because I hit my one third mark. I’m now 150,000 words into my 2012 goal. I bribed myself with a couple little gifts for hitting a goal. A little less than half of those words are new fiction, the rest would be blog posts.I can’t remember the last time I’d written this many words in a year and I’m just getting started. I’ve got big plans and here’s what I’m planning.
I’m going to finish up My Teacher is a Werewolf. I’m only about half way with that one, but should be able to knock it out quickly. I need to record the next episode of Golden West. That story is really shaping up. Left off on a couple good cliffhangers. Then I’ll be starting Of Gnomes and Dwarves. As much as I hate to do it, To Fall From the Sky just isn’t going where I want, it’s not keeping my interest right now, and it’s slowing me down. I need to get into a work that’ll excite me again and get me fired up to sit and write.
Speaking of getting fired up, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. I’m going to do the complete read through/edit of Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty. I won’t count that 100% toward my word goal, but I will count the edits/rewrites as 1/4 word for each word edited. So I need to edit at least 5000 words per day to hit my writing goal. I think I can manage that. Once those edits are done, I’ll fire that over to Mike who’ll give it his once over and then it’s off to Beta Readers.
Only then will I begin Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I love everything about those books. I know that I love them more than they deserve as the writing is utter crap. I’ve done some reads of the start. It’s bloated, very slow in parts, even slower in the beginning, but has a great story to be told. I won’t be changing the story much, but I will change how it was written, paced, and make it a stronger story. I started it over 20 years ago. I think I’ve gotten a little better at this writing stuff.
Once I finish with that, I’m going to write the sequel to V&A Shipping. No, I haven’t gotten the first picked up by a publisher yet. I had told myself long ago not to write any sequels until I’d gotten the first in a series published. But I’ve got a wonderful idea for the sequel and it’s just begging to be told. If you liked the first, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the second.
My plan, after those two, is to write the sequel to Astel. Again, this is a sequel that’s been banging on the side of my head for years and needs to be written. I put out Astel over a year ago and many people have asked where the next book it. It’ll be there soon enough.
That’s what I’ve got scheduled for the near future. I’m not going to try and plan too far out. I might sneak in another My Teacher is a… depending on how the second is received. My Teacher is a Zombie has gotten good reviews by those who’ve read it, but sadly sales aren’t there. I know I need to do a lot more about this self promotion stuff, but I feel I need a bigger body of work for people to pick and choose from.
I still have a couple short stories out there that I’m waiting on edits for. I have covers. They’re awesome! Once I get the edits, the ebook will be assembled and BANG! Out there.
But right now I’m just spending a lot of time talking about writing instead of actually writing. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Let’s get serious for a minute
There comes a time in every person’s life where they must begin to understand their limitations. A time for reflection and deeper understand of one’s self. A time when…
Wait, where was I?
Oh yeah, so I mentioned the other day I was helping my favorite daughter and her friends shoot a video. The video was for a project. I helped with the acting by dying twice, getting dipped in ketchup, and rolling in the wet grass more times than I would have liked. I was also the only one to do a ‘costume change’ because of the aforementioned ketchup dipping. Want to see what the final product looked like?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
In happier news, Kance Encounter is available everywhere. You can name your own price over at smashwords (even if you want it for free). It’s .99 everywhere else. Same goes for My Teacher is a Zombie! That’s right, Dan Dan the Art man did an awesome cover for me and I’m all kinda excited about getting that one out there. Check either of them out, let me know what you think. Here’s the link to my author page where you can see all my smashwords titles.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jrmurdock
You can also pick up the titles from Amazon or B&N.
If you hit the Amazon of B&N link look for me as some of the titles in the search aren’t me. It’s funny some of the titles that actually show up.
My Teacher is a Zombie is getting a lot of hits, very few sales. I’ll let you know if that picks up. I’m just excited to get that one out there. I’ll be doing more in the series so let me know what you think.
You’re still thinking about that video, aren’t you?
Work has been crazy busy. Taking lunch to type this up. Things won’t be slowing down any time soon either. Ah well.
Writing has been difficult. I’ve got a scratchy throat. Not sure where it came from but I hope it goes back there. It’s made breathing painful and swallowing unbearable. It’s an annoyance that I don’t need and it’s kept me from getting down as many words as I’d like. That combined with many personal things to deal with (shooting the video, the editing, special effects, sound, etc) and getting my favorite daughter registered early for her classes next year. There have been a lot of distractions. I’ve still managed to get a good number of words down, but far less than I’d hoped. I’m falling further and further behind on my Lent goal. I think I’m at 82% of my goal to date. I’ll have to work on getting that number back up.
Even with being down on my Lent goal, I’m still 10 days ahead of my annual goal. Perhaps I’ll get a big block of time to really knock some words out, now that I’ve got that video edited and all.
Ok, ok, you keep bringing up that video. Here it is.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Astel E-Book giveaway winner announced
Scott Roche announced the winner for the Astel:Chosen giveaway. Read more here…
http://scottroche.com/thoughts/2012/02/06/shira-ebook-giveaway
I’ve been thinking about…
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Usually that just gets me into trouble, but lately there’s a lot of thinking that needs to be done. What have I been thinking about? Funny you should ask.
Self Publishing.
I’ve written a lot and I feel I tell a pretty good tale. I know what it takes to make a story interesting and write characters that are enjoyable. I’ve written and edited the stories and sent them to many agents and publishers. I’ve gotten request for full manuscripts and partials and I’ve had a lot of rejections. In fact everything has been rejected. It’s not rejection that bothers me. It’s that I’ve always gotten notes on the rejections like “good writing”, “great premise”, “I like the way this sounds” and then I get the ‘but’. “We just don’t have room in our schedule”,”We just can’t take on another client at this time”,”Please try us again another time”.
Frustration has been had aplenty. Obviously my query letter and synopsis were good enough garner attention and warrant a request for more. I just haven’t been able to make it past that point. This is where my thinking cap has been put on firmly and I sit in front of the computer and wonder if I’m doing this all for myself or is there something I could do better? Or could I really do this myself?
What’s prompted all this thinking about self publishing? I cannot take all the credit myself. I have wanted to see my name on a book for a long time and almost succumbed to the temptation of such scams of sites like Publish America (back in the day) though I always felt I was going to make it one day.
That day has still not arrived and I continue to hear people like Mike Stackpole and Mike Mennenga on The Dragon Page talk endlessly about doing it yourself and that the day of big publishers is nearing its end. I hear podcasts like Get Published doing interviews talking about the great success people are having with doing it yourself.
The fact is that I can find an editor to edit my books fairly inexpensively. Back when I wanted to do this myself it was anywhere from $2500 – $5000 to have a manuscript edited. Now you can find people willing to edit your manuscript for as little as $150. That’s a huge difference. You can also find people willing to do book covers for around the same price. Suddenly it’s not so daunting to get an edit on your book and a cover and be ready to publish a book.
So where has all this thinking gotten me? Well. I did podcast two of my novels and it would seem that many people do enjoy my stories. So I’ve decided to head out on my own and start publishing my own books. You may have heard me on a podcast or two lately talking about my YA Fantasy story Astel. In my next post I will tell you a little more about the story and what I’ve done to prepare it for print. I know it could have been as easy as saving the word document as an HTML file and loading it up to Smashwords but I want to do a little more than that. Stay tuned. I’ve decided to start blogging and self publish my books and I’m not looking back.
Look out 2011! Here I come!
J.R. Murdock 