Blog Archives
Welcome to 2021
Today is the start of a new year. Welcome. As I say in the video (if you don’t feel like watching it), two of my books are currently free. Links below. If you’re a subscriber, drop me an email at jay@ofgnomesanddwarves.com and I will send you any ebook in my collect to you, free. This is a small way to say Thank You for sticking with me while I figure things out.
Secondly, Harvey, I’ve followed your blog and I’m glad to see you’re back as well. Always good to see your posts in my feed even if I don’t comment often. That’s something else I’ll need to change in the coming year.
I’ve big goals for 2021 and you are all part of that. Growing my audience is the only way I’ll ever be successful. I’ve been neglectful, and for that, I’m sorry. You’re tired of hearing that, so we’ll move on and I’ll get to work cranking out books.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Free Books:
Monday Update: Book Covers!
Hey Howdy Hey! Check these out! I finally got my new book covers for the Golden West trilogy! What does this mean for you? I means shortly I’ll be posted that these are for sale! The Trilogy is complete. The print and ebook editions are uploaded. The moment they’re live on Amazon, I will let you know.
I also went ahead and dropped them onto Kindle Select as I was seeing exactly 0 sales over the past year from every other platform. If you don’t read on kindle, please let you know and I will send you another format FREE! All I ask for is a review (if you don’t like Amazon, on GoodReads, or somewhere else).
It took a while to get them done, but now that I have them in my hot, little hands, I couldn’t be happier. Just stunning. Wait until you embiggen them. HOLY CARP! Beautiful.
I spent most of the night getting these uploaded, so I’m only making a short post tonight. Hope to have another post up as soon as they’re live (tomorrow?). We shall see. I’m off to go make words happen.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: Hey, Jay. It’s not Monday.
So it’s the end of May. Yes, I know I missed my Monday update, but it’s for a good reason. Today is May 31st and I figured I’d get to the end of May and let you know how my 3K a Day in May challenge ended.
Let’s get that out of the way first. I hate long, drawn out conclusions.
I missed…by that much. I was close and if I were to stay awake until midnight I could probably still get there. But I’ve got work in the morning and sleep still sounds like a good idea.
How close? My target was 93,000 words over the 31 days of May (3000 words a day, you know, it’s that math stuff). What I actually accomplished was 89,296. I missed by 3700 words. About 4% away from my target. Yes, I got to 96%. If that were a grade, it’d still be an A.
So, I failed amazingly well. Honestly, as I said before, if I’d gotten to 50%, I would have called it a success. Getting to 75% a huge success. I never thought I’d hit 93,000 words in one month. That’s crazy talk right there.
And I didn’t change much in the way of my habits. I still did stuff, watched TV shows, saw movies, went to a dance show, spent Sundays with the family and went to church. All the normal things. I worked. Oh, and I got food poisoning which dragged me under for a couple days where I thought I might be able to get caught up but wow, do room spins and writing NOT go together.
I learned a lot about my writing and myself over this past month. Like what? I’m so glad you asked.
- I waste a lot of time. Like wow do I spend too much time watching the news and thinking “I should be writing.”
- No matter how late I would start, I would usually finish around the same time. Usually around 10pm. Yes, I waste a lot of time.
- I can write, on average, 1000 words every 30 minutes if I write and don’t allow myself to get distracted. Tonight, for example, I started around 8pm and finished my 3000 words before 9:30pm AND I cooked dinner in the middle.
- Communication is key. My favorite daughter and my wife both knew what I was trying to do, understood, and were supportive. I’ve talked with them about my short term (3k a day in May) and long term (see my 1, 5, 10 year plan post). If I hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have known what I was up to and would have wondered why I’m typing away like a madman all the time.
- Starting a book in the middle of a large challenge like this is difficult. I completed Golden West 3 on May 12th and started Almost-Super Heroes 2 on May 13th. Two very different books with totally different plots, casts, and goals. Wow did my brain not want to start a new book that way. I’ll be going back to the first couple of chapters and doing a lot of cleanup, but it’s a good start and got me back into the character’s heads.
- Writing takes a LOT of energy. It’s mentally taxing. I wouldn’t have tried this challenge if I hadn’t completed my Lent goal and written 2000 words a day during Lent, and started 3K a day ‘Til May before running into May. It’s like any form of exercise, to maintain that kind of pace is challenging and you need to work up to it.
At this point, all I can say, I’m super excited for what I got completed in May. I’m happy with what I wrote and where the new book is going. I’m VERY happy with how Golden West turned out. I’m excited to hit June running though there will be a slight bump.
I’ll be taking a short break. I’ve been going non-stop on writing daily for 130 days. I’ve written 296,000 words over that time. I need a break, so I’m taking one. When I’m back, I’ll be writing like a fury once more. My goal to complete 5 books this year is out the door. I plan on going for 8 books. I plan on writing at least 8 books next year as well. Though I’ll only be releasing a book every other month, this will give me a backlog. That’s what I’m going for is a backlog of books so should something happen that knocks me off the rails, I’ll still be able to continue to drop a book every other month on schedule.
If I get far enough ahead, I’ll start to drop monthly, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Instead, I’ll focus on this year and seeing what other challenges I can set up and actually complete or at least get close to.
So how is your writing going? Have you set any challenges for yourself? Any targets you’re hoping to hit? Let me know how you’re doing. I’d love to hear from you. For now, May is done. I’m taking a break and will return with tales of adventures.
Until Next Time
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: Stay on target. Stay on target!
63,190 words.
So far for this month, I’ve written 63,190 words.
I…no, seriously. I’m astonished. I was a touch behind, but now…I’m a tiny bit ahead. I’ll be doing my words in a little bit. I don’t want to lose that tiny bit. I’d like to stay on target.
Never did I think I’d maintain this pace for half the month. Now with ten writing days left, it looks like I might actually make it. Another 30,000 words and I’ll do it. I’m not sure what to say. I guess we’ll see where I land.
As I said from the start of this challenge, I’d be happy to hit half my goal. That would have been 44,000 words. I’m already past that so I’m excited! Like… very excited! Currently, I’m 100,000 words ahead of my annual goal. I think I’m going to leave that goal of 438,000 for 2017 in the dust. In fact, I’m already looking at 2018. I’ll be bumping up that goal to 2000 words a day and see where that takes me. It’s very likely I’ll come close to that goal this year, but we’ll wait and find out. I’ve a couple more challenge months I’ve set aside, so we’ll see where that takes all this.
I’m also thrilled that I’m knee-deep into Almost-Super Heroes 2. I’m so excited that I decided to do a little timelining on when these books will drop. As I said in the last post, I’m looking at a 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year plan. As it stands, here’s what I’ll be dropping for the rest of the year.
July 1st, 2017 – Golden West 3: Showdown
September 1st, 2017 – Giant Robot Planetary Competition 2: Villain
November 1st, 2017 – Almost-Super Heroes 1: Escape
Yes, I’ve already plotted out 2018 releases as well. All of this will lead up to the Military Sci-Fi trilogy I have planned with the 4th book in V&A Shipping, GRPC, and Almost-Super Heroes all tying in.
In total this entire story arc will take place across 15 books. Yes, a massive undertaking. That’s a lot of books. A lot of teams. A lot of moving parts. To be honest, at this stage in my writing, I’m finally ready to take it all on. I can’t wait to start dropping books over the next two years to see what happens.
All of this wouldn’t be possible if I hadn’t challenged myself to see what was actually possible. I’ve had a few of you following along and thank you for your encouragement. It means a lot to me. I’ve cleared away many roadblocks and mental challenges that I’ve had. Those prevented me from really allowing myself to move forward with this.
I’ve got a lot of words to write and I’m going out tonight (Yes, I still have a life beyond writing) so I’m off to make words happen.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: My 5 Year Plan.
My kid has a thing. My family had a thing. I need to be somewhere else. I’m tired. It was a long day and I just want to relax. I’ve got so much else to do. My favorite show it on! I’ll just watch the news for a little bit.
The list can go on forever. I get it. I honestly do. There are a billion excuses that can be made for not writing. The biggest being “I need to do my job.” Ok, that’s not en excuse. You need to do your day job to pay the bills. It can’t be your excuse for doing nothing.
I have a day job. I watch TV with my wife. I do things for my favorite daughter. I spend time with family, friends, go see movies, etc. I’m doing all that.
I’m also writing 3000 words a day. On average! If you recall last week, I put up a bit of a buffer. This week I had some other things going on and didn’t write 3000 words a day every day. Here are the numbers.
Monday: 3127
Tuesday: 4314
Wednesday: 3042
Thursday: 3292
Friday: 1427
Saturday: 2040
Sunday: 720
Yes, that’s only 2566 words per day. I needed to be out of town on Friday and Sunday was Mother’s day. Saturday I was plain wiped out and took a 4 hour long nap.
I had excuses. I still wrote each day. I wanted to hit my numbers, but life prevented me. I still found time though. So, I lost my buffer. I was a day and a half ahead of schedule. Now, I’m dead on. This week isn’t about getting caught up or trying to get ahead. No. It’s about staying on track. It’s about making sure excuses don’t get in my way. It’s about setting my priorities and moving forward.
For the month I’m sitting on 42,127 words. Honestly? I’m still shocked I’m hitting the numbers I’m hitting. I set this goal and like all my other goals, I’d be happy hitting half my target. To think that I’m on track to hit my goal, I’m stunned.
I’m also having a great time. I’m getting stories done I’ve been waiting to get done. I cleared away all my excuses. I communicated my goals with my family. They’re helping me and pushing me. Motivating me. I have friends both IRL and online giving me encouragement. It’s empowering. it’s a driving factor and helping me put up the numbers you’re seeing.
I’ve not only broken through a writing block that’s plagued me for years, I’ve also overcome the misconceptions of I need to write slow to write well. I blew past the myth that I could only write X number of books a month. From what I can tell, at this point, is there is no true upper limit other than the ones I put on myself.
I took 53 days to write GRPC2. I took 32 days to write Golden West 3. Sure, one was 97,000 words and the other 80,000 words, but guess what, they’re both done. Yes, last week I finished Golden West 3. That trilogy is done. Finished. I most likely won’t go back into that world of revisit those characters. I have a different direction for my writing now and I need a lot of books done to start on that target.
Yes, I still have a master plan. Do you want to know what it is? Here is goes.
Golden West 3 will come out later this year. Probably July. I need to record book 2 and book 3 for audio. Book 1 is already recorded. Then I’ll look at releasing GRPC2. I need to record books 1 and 2 so it’ll most likely be September before I drop that book. Then I want to release Almost-Super Heroes 1 in November. I need to record that one as well. I’m currently writing ASH2 and should have it done before the end of June (vacations need to happen). After that I’ll be writing GRPC3 and ASH3 as well as V&A Shipping 3. If I can keep up my writing pace, I’ll have those done before the end of the year and start dropping them in January, March, May. That will complete what will be leading into a Military Sci Fi trilogy. There will also be ASH4, GRPC4, and V&A4. That will be a total of 12 sci books before the end of 2018.
That’s when I’ll reassess where I’m at. If I release that many scifi books in 2 years and I get little or no traction, I’ll be flipping to Fantasy for two years. That’s when I’ll jump into Of Gnomes and Dwarves and write the 10 books I intend for that series. I’ll also write a few books in the Astel series. That will be nearly 2 years of fantasy.
After that, I have a fun idea for another series, plus I can work on books in the Supernatural Learning series. I could easily spend a year writing 10 books in each of those series (I’m planning on those being 30,000-40,000 words long each, so much shorter books.
Now, that’s a five year plan, subject to change and depending on the level of success for any of those. If my Sci Fi takes off, Fantasy will take a back seat. My goal is to make money at this endeavor, so if I’m making money and having fun writing the stories, why would I stop? If I’m not hitting the numbers I want to hit, I have SO many other stories I can write.
After 5 years, I’ll assess where I’m at. I’ll keep writing, but if after 5 years, I’m not getting any traction, I’ll most likely write for another 5 years and then reassess again. If I write at this level for 10 years and I’m still not making money at it, I most likely won’t be having any fun with it either at that point.
So let’s review the 5 year plan. Shall we?
I’ll be writing 10 Sci Fi books to have a total of 12 across 4 different series. I’ll be writing 10-15 fantasy books. I’ll be writing 20 paranormal fantasy. I’ll write somewhere between 40-50 books in 5 years of varying length across different genres. So you think that’ll make an impact? I honestly have no idea what will happen. I’ll hope for the best, but honestly have no expectation that this will be anything more than me writing a lot of books.
So you’re reading all that right. it sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Not if you look at the pace I’m writing. it’s actually less than I’m capable of. And it’s all subject to change at any given time. It’s subject to life happening. It’s subject to a large number of factors all which may be out of my control at any give time.
My hope for the coming months it to average 60,000 words a month. I know I can do more and get ahead of schedule, but mostly I want to set an achievable goal and have shorter term targets like I’m doing to try and push myself from time to time. I don’t want anxiety to creep in and I give up.
There it is. It’s out there. My 5 year plan. go back up and reread that Derek Jeter quote. I saw it on a friend’s feed and had to share. There are a lot of writers out there that are better than I am. Faster. More popular. More successful. I’m not measuring my success on theirs. Don’t measure your success on mine. Work as hard as you can toward your own goals. Set your targets. push yourself. if you know you’re not putting in the time you know you could be, push harder. If you’re not working as hard as you can on your own goals, there’s only one person that can change that.
I’m off to get my 3000 words in. It’s late, it was a rough day. I watched too much news. Now it’s time to put those excuses away and write.
Until Next Time.
Stay Awesome!
Monday Update: Gloom, despair, and agony on me ooooOOohhh.
Two weeks ago I set out to write 3000 words per day until May. How’d I do? Well, if you’re following along at home, you know I didn’t succeed the first week. How’d I fare the second week? Worse. Dang nab it.
The first week I knocked out 17,118 words. The second week I only managed 15,205. So my hope was to hit 42,000 words over 14 days and I only managed 32,323. I hang my head in shame and disgrace.
Pfft, who am I kidding? 32,000 words in two weeks? I’ll take that. Sure, I missed my goal, but I also spent a lot of time with the family doing family stuff and sometimes, that happens. Yes, I still wrote every day, but when you don’t get a chance to start writing until very late at night, makes it tough to get those 3,000 words out.
As far as I’m concerned, 3K Per Day ‘Til May was a rousing success. For the entire month of April, I managed 66,321 words for an average of 2211 words per day. I finished Almost-Super Heroes (title subject to change cuz I had a brilliant idea) and I got knee deep into Golden West 3: Showdown (sitting at nearly 43,000 words). It was an exciting month and I’m looking forward to May.
One of the things I learned in the 3K challenge is that I really needed to stretch to hit that word count on a daily basis. Out of the 14 days, I hit that target 8 days. Yes, I missed the target 6 of those days, and most of the time it was all my fault. I’m the king of procrastination. I know this and it’s something I need to work on. The news won’t change from hour to hour, therefore I don’t need to watch 3-4 hours of news while I’m doing things about the house. In fact, I shouldn’t because it eats into your brain. It caused me to lose focus. Other days work did the eating and I didn’t want to look at a computer screen for one more minute. So I didn’t. Until late. Then I chose to sit up trying to hit my target.
With all that said, yes, I feel my 3K per day challenge was a huge success. I got a lot of words done. I stretched my limits. Spread my wings. And, though I didn’t fall out of the nest, I didn’t soar as high as I’d hoped.
So what’s next? I’m glad you asked.
Next is my next challenge and you might have guessed, it’s very similar to the challenge that just passed. 3K per day ’til May was a warm-up to the main event. That’s right. 3K Per Day in May! I will attempt to write 3000 words a day for an entire month.
What? Has Jay lost his mind? Is he nuts? A job, A family, and writing 3000 words a day? Where does he find the time?
For me, it’s about small sacrifices. Taking advantage of those little slices of time to write and to write as quickly as possible during that time. I’ve got a lot of books in my head demanding to be let out, so it’s time to turn the crank and get them out.
Speaking of which, I’m off to go make words happen. If you need some motivation, follow along with me! I’d love to see how you’re doing. Set your own challenge and post here. Let me cheer you on. It doesn’t have to be writing related, could be art related (a sketch a day in May), could be poetry, painting, basket weaving, anything. Let me know, post it here, and go for it! Let’s push each other to do more.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Golden West 2 now available!
First off, Golden West 2 is now available. This is the sequel to Golden West which first appeared as a podcast with the Action Pack Podcast. Yes, it’s been a while, but I love where the story went after book one and I already know how the trilogy will conclude. To celebrate the release of book 2, book one is currently free for the entire week! So you can get started with the series at no risk.
Get Golden West 2 for only $2.99!
I’m so excited for this series. How excited am I? So excited that I already have the cover for book 3 and I hope to release it before the end of the year if the stars align and nothing prevents me from doing so.
So if you grab a copy, thank you for helping me out. If you don’t own a kindle, you can still get the ebook. If you buy a copy (or pick up the free ebook) let me know and I will email you an epub version that’ll be usable on any other ereading device. Every sale helps push the book up the Amazon ratings. If you loved the podcast, please consider leaving a review. Those also help more than I can explain.
Thank you so much for your support.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Covers Covers Everywhere!
I got myself busy this weekend. I made a whole bunch of covers for upcoming releases (and a couple for next year). Check them out. Let me know what you think. I’m open to suggestions. Once I have edits applied I will be getting these books out there. My next step is to get a cover for V&A Shipping II. Then I only need a couple more covers and I’ll have everything I need for the rest of this year. I’m having so much fun using my new found photoshop skills 🙂
J.R. Murdock 