Blog Archives
The Diabolic – A Review
Yes, I’m WAY behind on my TBR pile. I know this. I’m slowly working through it as I add many more to the stack. It happens.
To be upfront, I won this book in a contest that was run on TOR.com when the book came out…gosh, 4 or 5 years ago. I loved the cover, knew nothing about the book. It sat on my shelf and if you’ve seen my YouTube videos, might have seen it on the shelf behind me. It wasn’t from lack of desire that I didn’t read it.
We recently took a trip to Florida and Georgia. Long flights back and forth. So, I chose to pick a book off the shelf to fill the time. Again, I knew /nothing/ about this book before diving in.
It was quite apparent after the first couple of chapters, it was a YA book. I almost stopped reading because I wasn’t in the mood for a YA book. But, it was the book I’d brought with and my phone wouldn’t last the entire journey. Therefore, I stuck with the book.
Now that I’m done with it, much like many other YA books of this type, I won’t continue with the series. This is a personal choice as I don’t find books of this type interesting.
All that said, this is a good book for the right audience. I’m not that audience. Yes, I finished the book. I did enjoy it for what it is even though little caught me by surprise. Again, I’m not the right audience for this book. For the right audience, YA, most likely YA females, this book will be right up their alley. I’d recommend it to My Favorite Daughter were she into Sci Fi.
SJ did a good job with building out the politics without being too deep. Good building out what a Diabolic is. There’s even good character building in this book. If you’re the type that loves books like The Hunger Games or even Maze Runner, this book will be something you’d enjoy. Pick it up, check it out. I’m glad to see there is more in the series.
As with any book, there is a fun typo (no book is immune). There’s a scene where someone is thrown into a pit and reaches back up to the main character. Reaches for her “food”. This was supposed to be foot and made me laugh out loud on the plane. 🙂
7 days out.
One week. How fast we got here. Next Wednesday is May 5th. The day I start dropping content like crazy. It’s something I’ve wanted to do and talked about doing for a very long time. In the video, I do some reflection on this point.
Yes, over the years of me publishing books, I’ve made many mistakes along the way. One of the biggest mistakes was stopping and starting and starting over again trying to reboot something that never got off the ground in the first place.
The other major mistake I made was throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck without giving anything a chance to find an audience.
I accept that I did this and I’m moving past those failures. There’s nothing I can do about the bad books I put out or the poor editing I did in those books. What I can do is clean up what I did, and let them be. That’s what I’ve done and it’s time to move forward.
For the most part, the next 2 months of content is already scheduled. I’ve one more upload to do and I need to order print copies so I can verify the print proof. Other than that, we’re on auto-pilot.
In the past, many authors would have a lot of fanfare for what they were doing. Book trailers. All day events and giveaways. Video chats. You know the like.
I’m not doing that. I’m not ready to start shouting to the heavens that it’s all there. I’m doing this, no quietly, but I’m also not shouting from the rooftops. I’ll post across all my social media accounts. That I’ll do. But I’m not going to try and generate a fuss about what I’m doing.
I’m a small fish in a big pond and the best thing I can do is drop book, after book, after book. Let others make the noise for me. Again, I’ll promote to my current platform, but I’m going to do a slow burn. As we get closer to the first 12 books in this major arc out there, then I’ll start to make some noise. Why? Cuz we’ll be getting the something major happening and I’ll have a lot of books for people to buy and read. That’s when it’ll get interesting.
What does that mean? It means I’m ready for many months of slow sales and little movement. I’m prepared for that. Mentally. Before when I launched books, I wanted to ride in a limo lighting cigars with $100 bills. Yes, I’d bought into the myth. I’ve matured since there and I’ve got my head back on the ground and out of the clouds.
Not only have I seen what my mistakes have wrought, I’ve also watched my friends succeed and how they succeeded. What they did to get to the level they’re at. It’s time for me to be consistent and push forward. It’s going to be a tough couple of years getting the ball rolling. I may slip a time of two, but as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, I’ll make it up that hill.
I’ve said this before and I’ll continue to say it, thank you for coming along on this ride with me. It’s going to be exciting!
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0126-evv8kj
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!
V&A Shipping is NOW AVAILABLE!
I’m a well-known idiot.
Ok, so I’m neither well-known or an idiot, but I’m still quite capable of doing really stupid things. I’m good like that. Honest. I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my time. Like that time I took the egg beater and…well…nevermind.
So what did I do that’s so brilliantly stupid? I’ll tell you what I done went and did. I accidentally released V&A Shipping a full two weeks early! D’OH!
My mistake is your gain. For the next two weeks, here’s what I’m going to do:
1) If you buy a print copy of V&A Shipping, I will mail you the ebook version. Just send me a copy of your receipt and the version of your choice and I’ll get that right over to you.
2) If you buy an ebook version, I will put you in a drawing for a print edition. What are the odds of winning? For every 10 copies sold I will put up one copy (that I will defile with my signature and perhaps a crazy little picture) into a random drawing. That’s a one in ten chance. Where you gonna find odds like that? No where, that’s where. You’d have a better chance of getting hit over the head with an egg beater.
3) For every 10 comments, for every 10 tweets (or retweets), for every 10 facebook likes, for every 10 Google +1s, for every 10 ways of getting word out about V&A Shipping, I will give away 1 ebook version of V&A Shipping in a random drawing.
4) What? You want more? Fine! If you buy a copy (print or electronic) I will send you a copy of Astel. FREE! That’s like…like…like 2 ebooks for the price of one or something.
This will only be until February 1st, so get out there and pick up a copy! Leave a comment. Post about it on your favorite Social Media site. You don’t want to get left behind. I made a stupid mistake, you reap the rewards! What are you waiting for? What, do I need to tell you where to go and get a copy as well? Oh, yeah. I guess that would help, wouldn’t it?
So how am I going to do this random drawing? I’ll record it and put it up on YouTube, that’s what I’ll do! I will do all the leg work to find out who’s doing what, so if I miss your comment, or miss your tweet, or I miss you blogging about V&A Shipping and how excited you are to see this book, make sure to drop me a note. I’m pretty easy to find!
How much easier can I make this? I’m all kinda excited to be getting this book out to to readers. This is just the start of something bigger! Can you feel it? Can you? I know I can.
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 