Frequency

Yesterday morning I sat at the laptop, staring at the screen, and decided to change the frequency of my posts here. When I first started this blog almost two years ago, I posted every day. Admittedly, that was a little excessive, but hey, I was excited. Then I moved to three times a week on a M-W-F pattern. My most recent thought is to go to twice a week, on T-Th, with extra posts as needed. It’s mildly less writing on here for me, but I think at least for the time being it’s a good idea while I work on editing several books and think about finishing another. Plus, making goals for 2025 and considering the possibility of an audiobook. I don’t know that going from 3x to 2x/week will save a ton of time, but it’s worth trying out in the short time and seeing if it works out okay. And like I said, I can put up random posts or even change the frequency back if I want.

Remains

What remains of 2024? Just a little over a month. And what do I want to do with the time that remains? Well, the first item on the agenda is to finish editing Assignment Day. I’d like to get it in final form by the end of the year so I can then determine what’s the best timing for publishing the book. I don’t know, some of the editing might bleed into the new year, especially considering some of the changes I’ve been making. It’s going well, though, and my latest work on the book involved taking a couple of pages of narrative and turning it into a character interaction and conversation. Much better than a big block of prose. Back to the remainder of 2024 - I also need to consider my year-end promotions, such as dropping prices, running more or different ads, etc. I don’t intend to go crazy, but should probably do something so people are inclined to use those Amazon gift cards on my books after Christmas. If I do finish Assignment Day, then my next task will likely be to do the edit of the first draft of First Step, which has been sitting in the virtual drawer since the end of October. Of course, the other thing I need to do this year is plan for 2025 and set goals. Lots to do next year!

Gracias

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. and it seems appropriate to take a few pixels to convey some gratitude. What do I have to be thankful for this year? First of all, I’m thankful for the thousands of readers who enjoyed First and Next Time, and even those who didn’t. I’m thankful I got to publish Next Time earlier this year, and I’m thankful for the awards and recognition both books won. It’s been quite a ride. I’m thankful to have a job that pays the bills and leaves me enough left over to self-publish and indulge my writing addiction. I’m thankful for the support of my awesome wife and family and for cheering me on. I’m thankful that I live in 2024, where the publishing industry isn’t ruled any longer by a cabal of agents and publishers, and I can have complete ownership of my work and how it’s produced and marketed. And finally, I’m thankful to God for giving me the inspiration and ability to write stories that people have enjoyed from here to Canada to the UK to Europe to India to Australia, and all places in between. Muchas gracias, indeed.

Vacay

I’m taking a staycation this week from work, which hopefully means more time to work on Assignment Day and other assorted activities. I spent a good amount of time on Saturday doing some editing, and that’s my plan for today as well. And sounds good for tomorrow? And so on. I like how the changes are working, but I’m still looking for the thing that puts it over the top. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a very good book. I just feel there’s that one little thing I need to change to bump it up to the next level. That might be refining some of the key scenes to ratchet up the drama, or it could be a plot element I need to add. Not sure yet, but even though I can’t define it, I’ve learned to trust that nagging little feeling of unease. Maybe a few days off work will help.

New

I’m pretty sure what I’m doing with my Assignment Day editing is not something they teach you to do in Creative Writing, especially when you have a book that’s almost ready to publish. And I took Creative Writing back in my college days, so I should know better. What is it, you ask? I added a new character. A minor one, but definitely not in the previous versions of the book. And now for the follow-up question: why? Remember a couple of posts ago where I said I felt the book relied too much on exposition? Sometimes that’s fine, because the reader wants to know what the narrator is thinking. Plus, as a writer I need to build a believable world, and explaining how that world works is essential. However, I found in this book that there are plenty of moments where the exposition could be changed to a conversation. The problem was that the main character was by himself in those times. Too often, in fact. And I didn’t want him talking to himself since that’d just be weird. Hence, a new character. That’s the easy part. Making those expositions into conversation without making it seem like I took expositions and made them into conversations is the hard part. We don’t make expositions to our friends about the evolution of AI, for example. I feel like I’m reverting back toward a first draft of the book with these changes, but that’s okay. The end product should turn out a lot better for it.

Site

It strikes me that it might be time to update the bloggy part of this site. I have almost two years’ of posts at this point, all in a list that isn’t the most accessible. I’m taking off next week from work, so maybe that’s a project I will work on then. I don’t know what it takes to archive everything so that future readers can scroll through the posts easily, but I have a feeling it’s not going to be a half-hour project. It’d also be nice to figure out a new format for these and also make them easier to scroll through without periodically archiving. That might not be possible, but at least I’ll have the time to figure it out. After all, that’s what vacations are for, right?

Pending

My book plans for the holidays are still pending. I figured at some point I’d lower the prices on the eBooks, probably a week or two before Christmas. That way everybody who gets an Amazon gift card will be more inclined to give one of them a try. Other than that, I don’t really have any promotional ideas. Guess I should research that a little more. I suppose I could do the signed book thing again - that went all right last year but didn’t generate a ton of sales, just enough to make it worthwhile. Last year when I did my usual bit of minimal research, I found that to get into catalogs or other promotions, you have to start early. That’s not really my strong suit when it comes to book promotion. Regardless, I’ll figure out something, whether social media ads or otherwise.

Exposition

As I’m editing Assignment Day I’m trying to get rid of passages where there’s a lot of exposition. It’s difficult to build a future world without a little bit of explanation, but I also don’t want to bore the reader with lots of prose. I’ve already changed one scene to have the characters talk about things rather than me explaining them. I think there’ll be more of that as I go along. Speaking of exposition, I started reading the first book of The Wheel of Time series, and oh my stars and garters, there’s a lot. I don’t know if I’ll read the whole series, but it’s something that’s mildly intrigued me for years. I might get a little bit deeper into the book and decide it’s not for me, which is what happened with Game of Thrones. I read the first book in the series about fifteen years ago and made the decision to stop there. Kind of glad I did, since I’d be pretty upset with George Martin for not finishing the story. Anyway, that’s what’s going on with me. How about you?

To Edit

I completed my most recent pass through Assignment Day yesterday, and as I said previously, it’s going to take a lot more editing than I anticipated. I noted several nagging thoughts I had about the story and its progression, but also found several instances where I consider particular chapters as weak. What does “weak” mean in this sense? Among other things, it could be one or all of the following: a bland beginning, a scene that’s too long, it doesn’t drive the story forward in a meaningful way, or it has an ending that doesn’t compel you to immediately read the next chapter. How do I fix these problems? I’m going to first determine what story changes need to be made and then I’m going to go chapter-by-chapter, dissecting and making each one as tight as it can be. Wait, does this mean Assignment Day is a bad book? No, I actually like it and one of my sisters thought I should publish it before Next Time. I think it can be better, though. If I’m going to tell a story and let other people read it, then that story deserves my best effort. I didn’t slack off during the original writing and editing, but I’d say the perspective of viewing the book after not reading it for 20 months allows me to use the experience gained during that gap to make Assignment Day worthy.

Reading

What am I reading right now? Glad you asked. I have a couple of books going, one real book and one on Kindle. Last week I finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow, a wonderful read. Amor Towles is such an incredible writer, one whose mastery of language shines in every sentence. The story was also first-rate, taking the confined world of a Russian hotel and making it into its own universe. I liked it so much that I bought his first novel, Rules of Civility, and started that this past weekend. He breaks convention in the storytelling like they tell you not to do in a first novel, but who cares what “they” say? It works. I’m not that far into it, but it’s just as engaging as A Gentleman in Moscow. The other book I’m reading is quite interesting in a different way. It’s called Just Stay Away by Tony Wirt. I’d read another of his books as one of my free monthly Kindle books, and figured I’d try this one, too. It’s an effectively creepy read, probably made more so because the main character is a writer trying to finish a book, but a 9-year old psycho neighbor wrecks his life. It’s a tough read and makes my skin crawl, which means the author did his job very well. There you have it, two totally different types of books.

More Work

I’ve discovered that Assignment Day is going to take a bit more work than I’d planned. I thought I could go through the book once as a refresher and then one more time to tighten up scenes. Instead, I think I’m going to have to do more than that. One of the notes I made myself yesterday was to have more dialogue and character interaction than narration. As they say in Creative Writing 101, show, don’t tell. I’ve found several places where I can change the setting and add a character or two to have a discussion rather than a bunch of exposition. Mind you, it’s not that way everywhere in the book, but I’ve already identified scenes that need to be reworked. It’ll be worth it, though, since I want to put out the best book possible. I only get one crack at debuting Assignment Day to the world, and I prefer to take the time to make it better.

Thank You

I was sitting on the back patio last night, watching election returns come in, and realized there’s a certain group of people I need to thank. Those people are the ones who take a few minutes to write reviews of my books, whether on Amazon, Goodreads, Apple Books, or wherever. It takes time and extra effort to do that and I want to convey how much I appreciate it. Seriously. I’m terrible at following through and I don’t do it for every book I read, so I know how rare it is to receive written feedback. And I don’t discriminate: whether someone gives me five stars and a glowing review or they give me one star and tell me what they didn’t like, I appreciate it. To those who’ve gone that extra mile and left your commentary, I thank you.

It Begins

Yeah, I know I said I’d start editing Assignment Day this week. I decided on Saturday to go ahead and get started. Let’s just say I didn’t have much else to do that day and ended up going through the first ten chapters or so. I’m back to getting a sense of the storyline and feel for the characters, meaning this is going to be a readthrough where I don’t make any substantial changes. Once I’ve read through it all, I’ll take the time to assess what I feel are the weak points and nail down the nagging thoughts about it that are harder to put into words. Then I’ll fill in the missing parts, change some of the existing story, and take out what doesn’t need to be there. That all means I’ll probably have at least two more readthroughs in this process, followed by a final one for proofing. These books don’t write themselves, you know.

November

Well, hello there, November. You kind of snuck up on me. Seems like just yesterday it was summer and I’d kicked the writing of First Step into high gear. Now we’re down to the last two months of 2024 and I still have a lot to do. This week I’ve knocked several items off my task list, including the rearranging of my website. It looks a lot cleaner now and also provides room for easy expansion when new books come out. On the pages for my most recent books I put in some nice blurbs from reviews that I think enhance the look and feel. Also, I updated the BookBub ad for Next Time. The previous ad did just fine, but I had a great quote from a review that I think will produce more clicks and hopefully purchases: “The Time-Traveler’s Wife meets Outlander…a gorgeous, affecting read.” That ad went live this morning. Now I need to update my author’s pages and profiles and make sure everything is current. My plan is to start editing Assignment Day next week. Like I said, still a lot to do this year.

Tasks

The first few days this week involved making a list and starting to check off tasks. Yesterday I entered Next Time into three contests and today I’m going to start streamlining this website. I also need to mail copies of my books, one to a contest and others to the book fair I believe I mentioned previously. I kind of like it that one of the contests I entered requires a physical copy of the book rather a .epub or .pdf file. There’s nothing wrong with electronic copies, but I think the actual book is a better presentation to a judge. Anyway, as I work through my task list this week, I have to start thinking beyond that. Last night I pondered going back to writing the first book in the series I’d started earlier this year, but Assignment Day needs to be taken care of before that. Then maybe in December I’ll work on that series. By then, though, I might also decide to start the long editing process for First Step. Seems that I have options.

Interim

As I noted last time, I finished the draft for First Step, which means I’m now between projects. What to do, what to do…I have a few things on my to-do list. I think it’s time to rearrange this website. The list of links under First and Next Time has become too long and would be better suited on their own pages instead of cluttering up the main page. That’ll make the landing page a lot cleaner. I need to do some posts on social media for the PenCraft awards. I also need to evaluate other contests, since there are some with due dates in a few days. I need to email copies of First to the Readers’ Favorite book show that takes place around the time of their awards ceremony, which I won’t be attending, but they sell donated books with the proceeds for charity. I need to finalize my plans for holiday promotions and re-pricing, if that’s the route I decide to go. Lots of little things to do that should keep me busy before I start my final pass through Assignment Day. I have a feeling that’s going to take a little more work than expected. I say that to mean I like the story, but I have a feeling I can tighten it up and better communicate what’s at stake. All that to say, I have a lot to do in the interim between writing books.

Done

Hot off the presses! Just now finished the first draft of the sequel to First. I began in late June, according to when I created the folder on my computer. That’s four months to write 75k words, which seems like a long time to me, especially since I cannibalized parts of it from previous attempts at the story. I’m not sure of the whole timeline, since it looks like I continued brainstorming and changing things up into the later stages of summer. Oh, well, no matter when I actually started it, it’s done. (Edit: I actually went back and looked at previous posts - late July is when I took the 50k words I’d already written and threw most of them in the trash, starting the new and much improved version of the story) My tentative title is First Step. It’s been an interesting journey to get this wrapped up, with false starts, wrong directions, and changes up ‘til the end in the climax. I’ve already started a list of edits that I know I need to make, but for now the draft is going into the virtual drawer for a while before I even look at it again. I’m pleased with the story overall, and I like the POVs I ended up using to tell the tale. It’s interesting to have an AI as one of the narrators, presenting some challenges but also a lot of opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Since I already have another book in the queue to publish, First Step probably won’t see the light of day for 12-18 months. In the meantime, I need to get Assignment Day out the door in 2025. My immediate plans are to catch up on marketing and contests and other stuff that I’ve put off while writing the draft, as well as taking another pass through Assignment Day and making it the best I can. In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate the completion of another book with some frosty beverages.

Double Win

Woke up to a couple of good emails yesterday morning from PenCraft Book Awards. Both of my recent books, First and Next Time, won 1st Place in their respective categories! The former in Science Fiction and the latter in Romance - Fantasy/Sci-Fi. If you’re keeping track at home, Next Time won the PenCraft seasonal contest for 2024 Summer, but these new awards are for all of 2024. If you’re interested in checking them out, they’re linked from the main page of this site. I was surprised at winning for First, since it didn’t win when I entered the Fall 2023 portion of the contest. The emails said they host an awards ceremony next year, and as much fun as it would be to go to Vegas again (I loathe Las Vegas), I’ll probably have to pass. Also, they said that a large number of people entered but they didn’t have winners in some categories because the books didn’t meet their criteria for excellence. I was glad to see they listed 2nd and Runner-Up winners in both of my categories. That means I didn’t win by default but actually took the prizes for being the best. That maybe sounds a bit arrogant, but my point is that it’s better than winning by forfeit. Anyway, I’m incredibly humbled to win with both books I released in the last year. The competition in the marketplace is high and I’m grateful that my efforts have been recognized with these awards.

Neighborly

It’s time to wrap up my walk through the libraries and bookstores of my life and we’re going out in style. I’m pleased that a new bookstore opened in downtown McKinney a few months ago. It’s a great addition to the scene in our city square and so far it’s been crazy busy almost every time I’ve stopped in. Neighbor Books is the name and the owners have done a great job putting a bookstore into an old building that doesn’t seem like a great configuration for a bookstore. When we moved here, the space was one of those antique/knickknack/junk spaces. To their credit, the bookstore owners have kept the space open, partly because a row of columns runs down the middle of the store. That relegates the books to the side walls, with some on display around the columns, but they didn’t feel the need to cram racks of books in every space, instead opting for a place where people can walk around and not bump into the fixtures. It’s more relaxing that way and allows people to wander. I’ve already bought several books I probably wouldn’t have otherwise by browsing through the shelves. It’s a far cry from online shopping and it’s a nice, unexpected addition to the area. I hope they stick around a long time and I’ll do my part.

Bigger

After moving from my hometown to Tulsa to Kansas City, the rule of the game for bookstores seemed to be BIGGER. In the former we had B&N nearby and a short-lived store called Media Play that sold books, music, and movies. It probably lasted four or five years and I mostly bought things other than books there. The B&N is still there across the street from Woodland Hills Mall, which had its own bookstore or two back in the day. B. Dalton or Borders or Waldenbooks, maybe? Once we moved to KC, I went through a period of getting more books from the library than buying them. For those years as well as until recently in Texas, our bookstore of choice has mostly been Amazon. The KC libraries were really good and allowed me to sample a lot of books I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise. The Zona Rosa shopping area in the far north of Kansas City hosted a B&N, which I’d check out on occasion but really didn’t buy much there. More like window shopping. During that time I donated a lot of books, trying to trim down the number of boxes we had to deal with every time we moved. Many hardcovers and trade paperbacks made their way into the donation bins, which was probably a good thing. I kept favorites and others that had meaning and still have them.