Blog Archives
Going wide and slowing down.
The past couple of days has allowed me to do a lot of thinking away from the computer. Some changes and all of it good. I think.
First off, I’m going to slow down the planned release schedule. The more I look at the schedule I’ve laid out for myself, a release a week for 12-18 months, looks incredible on paper. It really does. I’d be excited to hold to that schedule.
That said, I don’t think it’s tenable. I think I’d get started and fall flat on my face because I’m trying to run too far too fast. There’s no hurry. There’s no rush. I have a limited audience (and if you can’t wait, let me know and I’ll send you books now!). With that limited audience, there’s no one banging down my door for the next release.
On top of that, I still have a family and a day job to content with. If I burn the candles at both ends, I’ll burn out quickly and this won’t be fun any more. I don’t want writing to be painful and beat me down. I want it to be fun. If that means I need to slow down and not pump out content at breakneck speed, so be it.
For writing, I would still like to get a book every 2 months done and on top of that, get 2 short stories per month written. This will keep me filled with backlog and should something happen that breaks my writing stride, I’ll still have a backlog to content with and keep content flowing without interruption.
Secondly, I’m not going exclusive with Amazon. I’ve given this a LOT of thought. I want to maintain control over what I’m doing with my stories and where they’re released. If I go exclusive with Amazon, I wouldn’t be able to participate in a book bundle, should I get an invite. I wouldn’t be able to sell direct from my website. There are so many other reasons, but mostly, with the amount of content I’m going to put out, I want to reach the most readers possible. I don’t think Kindle Unlimited is the way to do that. Again, if you’re desperate for my books and on a limited budget, drop me a note and we’ll work something out. Heck, join my beta readers team and you’re all set.
Thirdly, My Favorite Daughter got her first full-time position with what she’s calling “her dream company”. The company is based out of Hawaii and they have an office here in San Diego. She’ll be a Jr Graphics Designer with, for a starting salary, do quite nicely with her first job.
I wouldn’t be more excited for her. She applied and interviewed for this last year. After a series of interviews, the company put all hiring on hold. She reached out to them recently and jumped back into the interview process. She signed her paperwork today and starts toward the end of the month. It’s an exciting time for sure!
Finally, an update on my reading goal for 2021. I plan to read 40 books this year. Currently I’m sitting at 7 read. With all I did this month, and very little reading, I’m not concerned that I’ll miss this target. I finished Patrick McLean’s Manligator yesterday and started Dee Dee Ramone’s autobiography today. Can’t keep a good reader down.
I’m off to relax and read a little before bed.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0111-eu4mq9
A little slower than intended…
Hey Howdy Hey gang!
I didn’t do as much this evening as I intended to do. These things happen.
You want to know how the sausage is made? This is going to be that kind of post. If you’re not interested, feel free to skip this post. It’ll be dry. Probably short, but not very interesting.
Still here?
I’ve cleaned up and prepared V&A1, 2, and 3. Also Golden West 1,2 and I’m almost done with 3. I had wanted to do another 3 books tonight, but with the weather pounding on my brain, I didn’t get to it.
I still have Almost-Super Heroes 1 and 2 to clean up as well as GRPC 1 and 2. Then I need to get to Astel, Paradise Palms, and Super Natural Learning, 1, 2, and 3.
When I get the clean up/edits done and back into the manuscript, that’s when I can prepare the ebooks. And then I can work on getting the print versions ready to do. Finally, I can upload everything and start scheduling.
There’s a lot to do and I’m putting pressure on myself to do things quickly. Today I needed to take a step back, take a deep breath, and realize all I really need to get accomplished is to have the books and short stories ready for May. Yes, it’d be nice to have EVERYTHING done, but this isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. I will have time to get it all done.
I’m off to get some sleep and get my head back. Tomorrow it’s not supposed to rain again, is it?
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/etheig
Learning about hiking and limitations.
Getting older sucks. Plain and simple. Recently I was diagnosed with arthritis in both my knees. I’ve got pain in my hip and pain in my lower back. I need to get all those addressed. It limits my range of motion and what I’m able to do.
I’m not dead. I will still try and push myself as much as I can. What I’m doing is learning what my limits are. For example, I cannot keep up with my wife on a long walk on a hard surface. Just isn’t going to happen.
However, on a trail with lots of turns, steps, bridges, streams, I can almost keep up with her. And to get past many of the obstacles, we need to work together in order to get past them. I’m thankful to have her in my life even if I joke that she’s trying to kill me with hikes.
For myself, I know that I need to take Advil or Tylenol before we take one of these adventures. I need to take myself, plan my steps, and find alternate routes when the path looks challenging. I took a few bad steps and my knees let me know instantly that wasn’t where I needed to put my foot. I took things slow. I know now that I need a hiking stick for these adventures to help support myself when taking those big steps that might hurt when I come down unsupported.
Much of this applies to writing as well. I’m not getting as many words down as I’d like to. I need to access what’s preventing me from doing that. At the moment, it’s all the other activities I’m throwing into my schedule. I’m getting up early and working and trying to cram everything into the evening. EVERYTHING!
Well, I’m shifting my schedule around. I’ll get getting up earlier so I can get my workout done before I start work. That will free up an extra hour in the evening. It’ll take some pressure off and I’ll be able to spend more time in the evening writing.
I’ve said this before, but I’m planning on writing 5 days per week. I’m getting less than 1000 words per day right now and I’d like to step that up to at least 2000 per day. I feel that’s an achievable goal. It’s learning my current limitations and taking steps to move past them. We’ll see how it goes.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
A day off…from work.
I’m doing my recording and posting done early today and I’ll spend time writing next.
Had the day off today and got a bunch of yard work/house work done that I’ve been putting off. Needed to take a long break after that (and some Tylenol).
Then I started digging through my emails and found a LOT of WMG Publishing campaigns I’d back and never went to get my stretch goals. D’OH! I have rectified that as best I could. Sent off an email for some rather old ones and I have no expectations that my email will be honored because it’s entirely my fault for waiting far too long to redeem those rewards. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I get them and will take full advantage.
Those rewards are lectures and courses WMG offers. I’ll link below to the teachable site so if you’re interested, you can also check out what they have to offer. So worth the money to invest in your writing career.
As well, here are some links to other writing resources I recommend. If there is interest in this, I can post more in the future. Let me put in this one caveat: Don’t get so obsessed with writing advice that you fail to write.
WMG Publishing on Teachable:
https://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com/
Dean Wesley Smith’s Blog:
https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/
Kris Rusch’s Blog:
https://kriswrites.com/
I should be Writing (Mur Lafferty):
http://murverse.com/subscribe-to-podcasts/isbw/
Harvey Stanbrough:
https://hestanbrough.com/
Dead Robots’ Society:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/drspodcast/
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Backup your work! Please!
Tonight I had me a good scare. I’d opened up V&A Shipping 3 to double check an event that I was going to reference in GRPC3 and…huh. What do you know. The book was ~60,000 words long. I seem to remember it being far closer to 90,000 words.
Panic set in.
I opened one back up and it was the same. Another back up, the same. An ebook conversion from Scrivener…the same.
I wasn’t 100% certain where I’d finished writing this book, but I knew I had. I doubled checked my word count spreadsheet and sure enough, that word count was far higher and showed the date I’d finished writing it. So it had to be somewhere!
Now, I’d built a new PC at the end of 2019. Really nice PC. I love this thing. It’s what I’m using to edit all my YouTube videos on. It’s a monster machine. I had the old SSD connected (and backed up on the new machines 8TB drive). I ran a scan there and VIOLA! I found the finished version.
I must have completed the work on the old PC and neglected to put it onto the thumb drive I normally do my work from.
Just because I do my work from an attached Thumb Drive doesn’t mean I don’t back it up regularly. I backup weekly and usually keep a few additional backups just in case I run into a situation like I did this evening.
All I can say is, if you work on a computer in any capacity, backup your work. Do it regularly. Do it consistently. Do it for your own sanity.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
J.R. Murdock 