Layout, newsletter, news

Happy New Year, everyone! I made some slight cosmetic updates to the blog - before it was really flat and white and gray and blah. So, I hope everyone likes orange. I have been reading a lot of articles about 2013, and my biggest regret is that I didn't update the blog layout sooner.

One of my New Year's resolutions is also to make a newsletter. You can sign up here.

Links to Things I Have Found Helpful

• 17 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs to Prepare for the New Year All writers are basically entrepreneurs, but even if you're not, this has very helpful, specific tips for organizing your life.
• Entrepreneurial Lessons From Amazon, It’s Not About The Drones And Future-Proofing Interesting read on Amazon's business model, and what it means for writers.
• Konrath's Publishing Predictions 2014 I have been following J. A. Konrath's blog for years, and he's always been quite prescient. 
• Why Bitcoin Has Value - A lot of news sources are disparaging bitcoin, but its full potential hasn't even been explored. Expect a lot more development as people try to sell, buy with it, and protect it in the upcoming year.

Word goals for December

Awhile back, Patrick Thunstrom made me a spreadsheet for writing progress. It's quite handy but only goes so far for me, because I tend to write a draft and rewrite it about twenty-five times (which is why Saturnine isn't out yet).

But I decided to dust off an outline of an old project I never finished, update the outline, and try to get 30,000 words written in a month. The results:

The left column is word count, bottom column is number of days. It's an 80-day chart, so look at the left corner. From this graph you can deduce two things:
1) I obviously messed something up when copying it to Paint, because it's blurry.
2) I did well early on but veered off course as time got closer to the holidays. I started on December 3rd, so the 21st day is Christmas Eve.

So this is some evidence that I actually can still write, I just need to keep focused and take breaks from time to time for real-world stuff. Awhile back I did a social media scaleback, and I'm going to attempt a social media comeback. Tweeting, blogging, and the like do take time and effort, but they help bring me into a writing frame of mind.

Oh, can I add New Year's Resolutions to this post? Release three books in 2014. Expect more wibbly-wobbly charts in the future, but I'll try my best to get my words out there.

Thoughts on (not) finishing NaNoWriMo

This year, I decided to try NaNoWriMo. I did it unofficially (I didn't even sign up at the website). I've never been able to successfully complete it, so I only wanted to see how far I could get.

November is historically a bad month for me, writing-wise. It's usually filled with a lot of school projects (And while I thought I'd be done with college at age 22 or 23, I keep going back for more). It has that late holiday, and is filled with a lot of birthday parties - which is a good thing for having fun, and not such a good thing for writing.

Adding to my stress this month were Real Life Issues at the place we're living ... oh, and the fact that I started working at a new job recently.

So really, I should've known I was lost from the start.

I finally realized that what I'm writing isn't a novel; it's more of a novella or even a long short story. And that's okay. I can finish it up without worrying about it being 50k and go back to working on other stuff.

I have a spreadsheet (made by the brilliant Pat) to set my own goals. Maybe ROW (round of words) is better for me, as it's more flexible. And I'm amazed at everyone who has the dedication and drive to finish NaNoWriMo--maybe next year, with a bit more preparation, I'll be one of them.

Updates

Okay, I just realized I haven't posted for a year, so my social media scaleback went on a lot longer than intended. I put Saturnine on hold for a bit for other projects, and have been writing a bit but haven't finished anything major. I also realized that the comment section got attacked by bots, so I'm requiring that everyone who posts have an open ID (bloggers should have this, but if you have problems, message me on Twitter).

A social media scaleback

I've been looking at my blog for awhile, and I couldn't really decide what I want to do with it. Some writers turn their blogs into awesome reads, and some people have very interesting lives they can talk about. I'm not one of those people, and I feel that my writing blog has no focus.

I would much rather spend my time crafting stories instead of writing blog posts and random tweets about what my thoughts are. In a few days, that information can become outdated. And In most cases, nobody cares. I can't really sit and give people writing advice, either, because I'm figuring out a lot of things as I go along.

I'll still keep my blog open for updates on new releases, but if I see some really amazing thing that relates to writing, I'll probably just tweet about it. I'll leave up the guest author slots on my blog, and can host guest posts in the future, but it's not a huge priority for me at the moment.

Instead, I'm going to channel my blogging energy into Paisley Sound, an indie music blog, and try to make something out of that.  A Writer's Notes will become more of a landing page, with a bio and information about my books. Trust me: you won't be missing much.

What I've been up to

I thought I'd update everyone on what I've been up to, since I last updated my blog in May, but in the past few months, I've published more than I have in my entire life. And this blog is titled A Writer's Notes, so I think we need to be on the same page.

Have I been churning out novels? Well ... not exactly. I am rewriting Saturnine from a new outline, and I've been eyeing my paranormal series. They're on the back burner, simmering but not quite ready. When they are, I'll shout it from the rooftops and you'll be the first to know.

No, I've been having Adventures Under a Pen Name.

You must understand, for about eight years now I've been convinced by numerous nonfiction books and magazines that the only way to make money through fiction is to write a novel, craft a perfect query, send it to 100 agents and then sip tea until the inevitable book deal rolls around, and then happily write my second book on my small advance while waiting 18 months until the book hits shelves and Oprah comes calling.

How many people does that happen to?

I was inspired to start writing under a pen name by Rebecca Knight and many, many other indie writers who have success stories. I've discovered that readers love short stories. They absolutely love them, in certain genres, and I can't blame them. When I'm running around all day, sometimes the last thing I want to do is pick up a hefty tome and read 15 more pages where nothing happens. But a self-contained, exciting, well-edited 5,000 word short story I can read in a sitting? Sign me up.

I'm not against eventually getting a publisher (I've seen some amazing things done by editing/publicity departments from both Big Six houses and small presses alike), but that isn't my goal right now. Instead, I've been writing in several popular genres, churning out short stories or novellas under a pen name.

I have full creative control over the editing, cover, and price, and my stuff has been selling. I didn't hit any bestseller lists, but it's reasonable, sustainable income.

The blogosphere is full of people who will tell you what to do, and many of them have shiny books on how best to sell or write or whatever. They say you need a Twitter account and a Facebook account and a brand and a platform. I think those things are all right from a marketing perspective, but don't get too wound up in them.

We forget that readers are constantly looking for new material, in bookshelves both in stores and online. If you put out enough well-written fiction, readers will find you. They know what they want, they know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and they're doing it every day with their money and their e-readers.

The Great Gatsby

Someone linked me to the trailer for The Great Gatsby (coming in December), and I was pretty thoroughly blown away. Like most people, I read the book in high school, but I think it's one of those works you can't quite appreciate until you're older. It doesn't walk you through the plot--you simply see events unfold through Nick's eyes, and have to connect them. Nonetheless, it's powerful, and at the end Nick's derision and sense of disgust is one of the most palpable feelings in modern literature.

The trailer is bold and beautiful, and makes some clear points (We're quoting lines from the book! See, we're being true to the source material. But here's some modern music, because this movie parallels modern fast living and self-destructive behavior!).

But I wonder how a movie can pull off the plot, because the appeal of the book isn't the love triangles, it's the pure narrative power. It's in the disillusionment of realizing how people behave, and that some people can never get what they truly want in life. All the high-octane living in the world can't buy you love.