Tag: Writing fiction

I write fiction—it’s how I earn my living—and I like to ramble. Just so you know. Nearly everything I do these days relates in some way to writing and publishing, so most of my posts are here.

Attemping to break my one-day word count record—in a record short time

Lynn

It’s 5:42 pm. I’ve never started writing so late in the day and successfully written a lot of words. I can’t say what my upper limit is for such a late start, but I’d say it’s in the 2,000–3,000 word range. Definitely not 5,950 words, which is where I’m planning to end today. (Because, confession time, I totally screwed up yesterday too and wrote only the words I got as I made a couple of fixes I needed to make in my book. Or, you know, 318 words.)

I will need to write super fast tonight, much faster than my usual average. I will also need to write freely and not get hung up on anything as I go. Deep breath. I can do that. I’ve written 5,000 words in 6 hours before, so all I need to do is write fast, take super short breaks, and stick with it until I’m done.

No more tea, water, or other drinks at the computer. I take too many breaks when I have them.

I’m doing two quick things and then I’m getting started. I’m going to get this done tonight if I have to stay up half the night. Bad idea, I know, so I’m going to finish before that happens. You can’t see me, but I’m wearing my serious face. :-|

I can do this.

Update: I got started at 6:39 pm. I’m currently at 2,273 words. My pace isn’t anywhere near where I’d like it, but surprisingly it’s actually not bad either at 921 WPH. Normally I’d be thrilled at that pace. It’s 10:11 pm though and I’m not staying up until 2 am, which is how late I’ll need to stay up to write 5,950 at my current pace, so I must get faster because I do not want to stop until I’ve reached that word count! :o

Update (next morning): I reached 2,625 words, and although I called it a night after that, I think this little challenge served its purpose: I wrote more words than I would have if I hadn’t tried it! Today I try again, but this time, I have the time to make this a success. :)

Off to a slow start today

Lynn

I’m off to a very slow start today with writing, but I do have another chunk of my Christmas shopping done and am feeling a lot of relief about that!

I don’t know if I’ll be able to break a record today, because it’s now 1:02 pm, but I am going to aim to get my 4,558 words done. I’ve decided today is a restart for my 1,144,000 word goal for the next 12 months, and I don’t want to end up behind on my first day back at it.

I’m restarting because playing catch up is nothing but a sure fire way to end up procrastinating the rest of the year away.

It’s been a disappointing few days for writing

Lynn

Today is the 18th. I still have Christmas shopping to do. I really am a last minute shopper. Unfortunately, I’ve also been unable/unwilling to do the writing I need to do this month too. I have reasons, but I’m not really pleased with myself about them. They’re legitimate, when I think objectively about them, but they don’t feel legitimate. It’s that emotion versus rationality thing. Humans aren’t rational beings, and I am human. ;)

But . . . I’m going to have a few days to myself now, and I’m really hoping I can get back on track.

Today, however, might be a lost cause. I’m hoping to get something written, but I’m running out of steam fast and the night has come much more quickly than I expected. So… I’ll be back tomorrow to get moving on this book and maybe try for a word count record again. See you then. :)

 

Blogging my progress today

Lynn

I want to beat my current one-day word count record—and get a few other things done today too. So to help myself stay on task, I’ll be blogging my progress today. :D

Here goes. 10:30 am. I’m getting started with a 50 minute timed session.

Current stats at 12:55 pm:

93 Total minutes
840 Total words
542 Total WPH
1.55 Hours completed
6.860595238 Hours to finish

(I really miss the ability to paste in a table from Excel!)

And here it is 7:14 pm and I haven’t written another word yet. I had to stop for lunch, family was home, I needed a nap, had to Christmas shop, then more Christmas shopping, then thought I could get back to writing but it was meal time again, and finally here I am. Unfortunately, I have to stop at 10 pm at the latest because I have plans tomorrow. I also won’t be likely to get any writing done, and I am fighting a serious case of “I’m ready to give up and just try this again on Thursday instead of fighting today and tomorrow to get going again” but I’m not going to let that attitude win.

I’m going to get back to writing until 10 pm and I’m going to make a point of writing at least 1,000 words tomorrow no matter what I have to do to get them done.

Also, starting Thursday, I’m going to do my first Book in 7 Days Challenge. It’ll be a little bit of a cheat since I do already have about 10k words written on this book, but it’s going to be a great experiment. The reason I’m planning it is because I want to finish this book before Christmas. And if I can’t do it, I want to be able to say I worked like a maniac trying.

So, here I go. I’m going to set the timer for 60 minutes, which’ll put me breaking at 8:30 pm. Be back then.

I’ve managed a few more sessions, shorter than I’d have liked them to be and at 10:47, it’s still later than I wanted to end the night.

Here are my ending stats for the day:

178 Total minutes
1,256 Total words
423 Total WPH
2.966666667 Hours completed

Tomorrow is a day off, but I’m still planning to get in that 1,000 words. I’m at a place now where I should be able to pick up speed. No more writing through scenes I’d already written, replacing what was there with new stuff and deleting what I didn’t replace. It’s pretty much all new stuff from here on. At least until I hit another wall. ;)

Goodnight!

Tomorrow I aim for my record one-day word count

Lynn

I’m committing to this now. Tomorrow I’m going to get up, ready to write, and aim for my one-day word count record, with the intention of setting a new one. That’d be 5,759 words. :) Or something like that.

Today, on the other hand, has been less than stellar, and somehow I never even got around to writing. Boo. This isn’t going to happen tomorrow.

Now I must scramble to put something on the page for my new book so I don’t break my barely alive writing-every-day streak and then get to bed so I don’t start writing late tomorrow! :o

KBoards needs a reality check

Lynn

Of course, I’m too introverted to actually say that on KBoards. :D But it’s true.

The survivorship bias is huge on the boards, because no one wants to talk about what it means to earn a living writing, and yet not be one of the superstars. Some of that is because quite often any income that falls below HUGE is met with stuff like “if you want to be average that’s all well and good but I don’t want to be average so I have to do the things that will make me not average.” It’s a terrible paraphrase, but that’s the attitude I feel like predominates the talk when writer income gets mentioned.

From Wikipedia:

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2014 that:

  • U.S. real (inflation adjusted) median household income was $51,939 in 2013
  • Real median household income averaged $50,781 from 1964-2013

I bolded this, because household income is not personal (per capita) income. It’s the income of everyone in the household. $51,939 yearly comes to $4,328.25 a month. This isn’t after-tax money. Oh, no. This is pre-tax.

From Census.gov:

Median household income (in 2014 dollars), 2010-2014: $53,482
Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2014 dollars), 2010-2014: $28,555

The per capita income is the one to look at: $28,555. That’s $2,379.58 in pre-tax money per month.

A new writer might want to make a lot more money than this in the longer term, but at the beginning of a career, to expect a whole lot more from a job that requires more skill than money to get started with seems kind of crazy.

And yet so many writers on KBoards are getting the idea that income like this, normal income for U.S. citizens, is failure.

Failure.

That’s why I titled this post the way I did. It’s just crazy to think of oneself as a failure because you aren’t a superstar.

This has been my public service announcement to all writers everywhere, especially to those just starting out.

Don’t quit when you’re just getting started because the income you’re earning is less than that of a superstar. Everybody can’t be a superstar. If that’s really your goal and you aren’t getting there, then quit, but if your goal is to just write and make a living, start with realistic expectations and go from there. Dreams are great. Pushing for more is great. But don’t feel like a failure because you’re average out of the gate. It can take time for most people to build up to better earnings in a career. This career path is no different.

The howling wind is talking to me

Lynn

I kind of want to scream. The wind is howling outside and I’m tired and I always love the breezy days and nights. Something about the way the gusts hit the house and make it shake just a little always makes me feel so … restful. Odd, I think, but that’s the truth.

Restful isn’t what I need right now though, because I’m only at 1,522 words for the day—far from my 4,558 word goal.

But I really want to stop and just … do something else. I’m not really bored with the new book, I’m just tired.

Although I haven’t been writing for the past 15 days (not counting the days when I worked on publishing stuff for the last book I wrote), I have been doing lots of other publishing stuff and working on book covers, formatting, etc, and I’ve had a lot of really long days. I think I’m just burning out a bit, and I need a break.

I haven’t made time to read any fiction or watch more than an episode of tv here and there. I think … I’m going to shut down for a while, do these other things, get some Christmas shopping done, and see how I feel at about 9 pm. If I feel like resuming the writing for an hour or two I might try, and if I don’t, I think I’ll just read something fun!

42,000 words in 10 days: day 5

Lynn

Well. Unless I can write 2x what I needed to write to reach my 42,000 words in 10 days challenge, I’ve really blown this one.

I’ve been working, but I haven’t written any appreciable number of words in the last 4 days. That leaves me 6 days. But no, it really doesn’t, because I have one of those days scheduled for a personal day, because, holidays. And there’s just no way. I’m going to have to rethink this challenge and do something different.

Whatever I do, I’ll be starting it today. I am going to do everything I can to write my 4,558 words today.

The goal is to hit these markers as I go today:

(Well, that sucks. I just discovered that the update to WordPress has killed the ability to paste a nicely formatted table in from Excel. I had to paste it into Evernote and then copy it back from there to get the table.)

11 am 651
12 pm 1,302
2 pm 1,953
3 pm 2,605
4 pm 3,256
7 pm 3,907
8 pm 4,558

If I can stay on track, this will be a nicely paced day of writing for me; I’ll reach my goals; and I’ll have time for some other things I want to do before I go to bed tonight, despite having started writing late.

(3:04 pm) I’m not on track at all. I did complete 2 sessions before lunch, but my word counts were … not good. I’m at 136 words for the day at the moment, and although I did write quite a few more words than that, those words have been lost to the number of words I deleted. A rough guess says my pace isn’t that far off the mark, but I need to complete several more writing sessions to prove it. Now, it’s time to get back to work.

42,000 words in 10 days: day 2

Lynn

Hmm. So far, not so good. I’m not restarting this challenge so my big fat zero from yesterday has really put the pressure on and my 271 words so far today isn’t doing much to release it.

Oh, well. Gotta keep going. That’s really all I can do. I don’t want to give up yet so I’m not going to. :)

Finish the next book challenge: 42,000 words in 10 days

Lynn

I need to finish my next book. That’d be about 42,000 words, and to finish on time to publish when I’d like to publish, that gives me about 10 days to write them.

Uh.

I’d better get started. I’ve puttered around long enough since I finished the last one. It won’t require anything more from me than meeting my reasonable daily word count for 10 days. (4,251 x 10 = 42,510 words, or better yet, 4,558 x 10 = 45,580 words). I can do that.

I’ll post my chart with session times and word counts for the day later. I’m determined to make today count. I want to beat that no more zero word days record of 122 days and today is day 1 (again). :D

First thing: No WiFi!

See ya!

Sales milestone

Lynn

Unless I’m mistaken, and it is possible, although not likely, I’ve just reached a sales milestone. It appears that I’ve sold more copies of my books today than I’ve ever sold in a single day. This is easy for me to know, because I’ve never done a promo outside of a Kindle Countdown deal for my new pen name, and so I’ve never had a crazy good sales day that has just blown me away. That deal wasn’t advertised so I hardly sold anything.

The thing is, I don’t have to sell a crazy number of copies of my books to earn quite a decent amount of money, because I sell my novels at $6.99 and I don’t price promotionally except in really rare circumstances. I’ve done one .99 sale on one of my books, because I was testing out Google Play, and Amazon price matched. Because I didn’t advertise the price, I sold relatively few copies. Not enough to cover the revenue from what I would have sold at full price if there’d been no promo price at all. Then I’ve had that Kindle Countdown deal for my other pen name book, and sold a few copies, but again, no advertising of the price, so not many sales.

Everything I’ve seen so far suggests that if I’m not going to advertise, I’m much better off keeping my books at full price all the time and putting out more books. When a new book comes out in a series, all the books benefit in a significant way.

And that brings me to today. Best sales day ever for me, and nothing to credit for it except the new release and organic growth. Here’s to hoping today isn’t the peak and tomorrow isn’t the crash. :D

And if it is, it was fun while it lasted. :D

So much to do! More on book covers

Lynn

No restart on the writing streak last night. Today I will definitely be writing. Even though I have plans to do some other stuff too.

I stayed up way too late making those cover adjustments, but I feel like I’m starting to get somewhere with the covers. I can see a huge evolution in my skill level between the first covers I did and these last few.

I’m toying with the idea of playing with my earlier covers and not outright changing/rebranding them, just cleaning them up. That right there might be enough to make me happy with them for the time being, while I fight with myself over hiring a designer who can create something I love for them. :D

But hiring it out means less practice, and lots of practice is exactly what I need. I like designing the art for the covers, if I don’t put pressure on myself: if I needed to release this book I just finished the cover for in the next week, I’d be in a whole different frame of mind, and it wouldn’t be good for my stress levels.

Anyway, I have a lot to do and I need to get started. I want to write a lot of words today and I need to do so much other stuff too. Busy day ahead and I’m exhausted already. 4.5 hours of sleep last night isn’t going to do me any favors today!

The new book is doing okay

Lynn

So I was worried about the new book, but it’s actually doing okay. :)
Screencap

These are category lists, not the whole store. I’d be dying here if this was my book’s rank in the whole store. ;)

The book is $6.99 and has been from the moment I published it, so these numbers show that you don’t have to price super low to get into the top 100 genre lists. The #68 is only two categories deep.

On the other hand, my books never seem to get sticky, so I don’t expect it to last more than a few more days.

I think my last release in this series was doing a bit better than this one at this point, but it’s been 7 months between novels so I’ll just blame it on that. :) (My other last novel was the first book under a different pen name, so no Amazon algo love for that one.)

Update Friday Morning

Amazon Rank ScreencapThis morning the book is doing a little better than it was last night, so I thought I’d screenshot it for an update.

Of note, I thought only one of those rankings was 2 categories deep, but it’s actually 2 of them.

Hope to write today, but I have puffy eyes

Lynn

Not that puffy eyes will stop me, but I also have sneezing and snot and am very tired! Colds suck.

On the other hand, I’m pretty happy with how yesterday turned out. Sure, I didn’t write, but I did finish a cover that I’ll need in the next two months (I hope) and I finally submitted those paperback files I originally tried to get done before my October vacation this year. :o I never did get back to them when I got back and my reasoning was that I’d decided to update my book blurb to something better and I needed to wait until I’d done that. Didn’t work out and I just gave up. I submitted the book with the description as is. I can always change it later and resubmit the files then as a new edition or something.

(Why don’t most indie publishers publish new editions as new editions? I mean, if the book is linked up properly to the ebook on most stores, wouldn’t that keep all the reviews and stuff? Maybe it’s the rank. A new edition would have its very own rank on stores like Amazon (and we all know Amazon is the big dog for most indie publishers) and it would have to build up to the rank of the old edition.)

I might try it just to see what happens if I ever change my covers or decide to do a new size of paperback. A new book description alone probably doesn’t warrant a new edition. :)

Also, audio. I need to think about it again. I thought about it a few years ago, but not enough upside to the downside for me. ;) Too little reward for the effort and time required, I should say.

Anyway, going away for a while to work on the following, then I’ll start writing if my head starts to feel better.

  1. Paperback formatting for a book I published in the last month
  2. Paperback book cover for that same book
  3. Book cover for the short piece I copy edited today
  4. Corrections for the copy edited short piece
  5. Formatting of the short piece so I can publish it
  6. Publishing the short piece so I can sell it!
  7. So much more stuff I’m not going to bother writing down

As a side note, I do believe I’m going to redo my paperbacks for my main pen name so I can sell them cheaper. The 8 x 5 size is nice to hold, but it makes the price higher because each page holds less text at a reasonable font size and that means my books are longer than they have to be. I’m not really willing to compromise on font size because I like easy to read books. I don’t have reading vision woes (yet) so that’s not it! I like the looks of generous leading and a nice sized font. A slightly larger font (12pt Adobe Caslon or Garamond) looks really nice in a book, IMO. :) Since I don’t sell many anyway, I’ve always just done them for me. That’s what I like. :D

But I did compromise on this latest paperback I formatted and I like that I’m going to be able to sell it at $14.99 and still make the same profit I make on my other pen name books. And I have a feeling this book turned out really well. It looks beautiful on screen. I’m excited to get my proof copy of it and see how it looks in my hands.

It’s an 8.5 x 5.5 book. Just a half inch extra top and side but it made a big difference. I didn’t have to compromise my font size at all. 12pt Adobe Caslon Pro. I also used the native widows/orphan control features of Word* instead of taking the time to match each page in a spread, etc. I looked at the output expecting to hate it but willing to compromise because that had just cut down the time it took me to format a paperback from days to hours. I didn’t mind it at all! And as a reader, I know I wouldn’t care. It still looks good.

*Yes, I format paperbacks in Word. I know people all over the web say you shouldn’t do that, but I like Word and it turns out very nice books for me. InDesign’s learning curve is just more than I want to deal with right now (I did try Scribus, but the text looked IDENTICAL in the test pages I created to compare it to Word’s output. I expected something a lot different, and yet…. the pages were identical! But the set up was a pain in the ass. I later tried InDesign again, and I decided I just didn’t want to put the time in to learn how to do everything I’d need to know to do it “right.” Screw right. Perfection is my enemy and I’ve had to come to terms with that.

No writing of note, but not a loss

Lynn

I’ve been working on book covers today. I have two books I’d like to finish in the next two months. (Three, actually, now that I think about it.) And another I’d like to publish that’s already finished. (That short story I mentioned I wanted to copy edit today.)

Although I haven’t written anything today, I did do the copy edit (I still need to input the corrections), and I’ve been working on book covers. I’ve almost completed a paperback cover, and a cover for one of those books I’ll hopefully be writing as soon as I feel better.

It’s nice to know I’ve gotten several things I needed to do out of the way. It will make publishing those books a lot less stressful when the time comes! Cover design frustrates the crap outta me.

Something else that frustrates me: feeling like I’ve accomplished nothing when I have, in fact, accomplished quite a few things.

Here’s what I need to finish ASAP (practicing follow-through). :)

  1. Book cover I’m working on for an unwritten book DONE
  2. Paperback book cover for a book I published more than 6 months ago (ouch) DONE
  3. Paperback formatting for a book I published in the last month STARTED
  4. Paperback book cover for that same book
  5. Book cover for the short piece I copy edited today
  6. Corrections for the copy edited short piece
  7. So much more stuff I’m not going to bother writing down

I don’t like putting off writing to do these things, but if I’m going to be putting off writing anyway, well… might as well get something done.

Still sick, stayed up too late again, had caffeine

Lynn

Hmm. I have to wonder about the cause of my rash of bad decisions. :) I had caffeine again yesterday, although it wasn’t coffee. After another sick day away from writing, I didn’t want to cook, so we had take out, and that included sweet tea. Shouldn’t have done it, but I did.

So last night, despite being tired, feeling bad, and needing to get to bed early, I stayed up about an hour and a half longer than I should have.

Six and a half hours sleep is not enough for me! Especially when I’m not feeling well.

Yesterday was all about sore sinuses, sneezing, and nostrils; today is all about snot.

Yippee. :o

I’m going to doze this morning while I read/copy edit that short story/novelette I wrote a few months back and then I’m going to write. I’m saving the writing for after the nap and other work because my brain just doesn’t feel up to it at the moment.

Sick day… lesson learned… again… so maybe not

Lynn

I feel like I’m getting a head cold, and I blame the lack of sleep.

I stayed up too late too many days last week and the weekend and now I’m sick. I can’t actually say with certainty that’s why, but I’ve managed to avoid getting sick with lots of the colds and other more unmentionable illnesses everyone around me has suffered through, until now.

Today I’m taking another day off. I say “another” because I wrote only 324 words yesterday (in one 50 minute session) because I stayed up too late into the morning the night before and didn’t feel so well yesterday either. I’ll tinker today and get enough to keep my streak alive, but I think I’m going to nap.

No more staying up late, because I’m never able to make up the sleep the next morning. Lesson learned. Again.

Or maybe not . . .

Lynn

I’m apparently not writing today. It’s 10:30 pm and I haven’t done diddly. Zero words so far, which of course, I’ll have to correct, because I can’t go to bed without keeping my no more zero word days / write everyday streak alive. :o

I worked on a cover upgrade that turned out quite nicely (a tweak really, because I just made some simple adjustments to the artwork and text to make it look nicer). I just didn’t finish it. I should do that. I have a bad habit of starting these things and never doing anything with them.

Hmm.

I’ve just realized I need to practice follow-through. Because not following through isn’t a habit I want to reinforce.