Experimentation

So, as I’ve established before (or at least I think I’ve established it here before), I suck at marketing for my book. I’m trying something a little different now, though.

I’ve actually set up a temporary free promotion through Amazon KDP for a few days, starting tomorrow. I’m trying to see if this generates any “sales” (yeah, they’ll be unpaid sales, but sales nonetheless) and if it gets the word out more about the book.

I don’t know how well this will work. I don’t know if there will be ANY sales during my promotion, but I figure since it’s not selling now, what am I really missing? At least this has the potential to get more reads, reviews, etc. Maybe some of my friends & coworkers who have said they’ll read the book will actually “buy” it? 😉

But what’s this? I’ve also put my poetry anthology & collection of horror flash fiction/short stories on a free promotional period as well? I must be crazy!!!

Or….I’m just lost.

We’ll see what the next 5 days brings.

By the way, here’s a link for my Amazon author page (where you can find all three books):

amazon.com/author/AJMullican

It’s already showing Whispers of Death as available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers…I don’t know if I did something wrong (the promotion is supposed to start tomorrow), but what the heck. Here I go!

Onward towards Twenty

No, I’m not turning twenty years old. I’m long, long past that. No, I’m talking about 20,000 words on my manuscript. It’s slow going, but I broke 19,000 this morning and think I have a decent momentum.

The story rapidly evolved from straight sci-fi to sci-fi/dystopian, which works fine for me. It’s interesting to try to imagine what the world will be like in a century or two. I haven’t fully explored the possibilities yet, but I already have ideas brewing. What wildlife would survive the crap we humans are doing to the environment today? What repercussions will our actions today have on the future environment? What cities/countries will survive the passage of time and what ones will fall?

With my first book, I kept the time frame current and used Christian mythology as a base for some of what I was writing. Now? Now I have almost total autonomy. I’m not creating a new world; I’m not up to full world-building status yet. Still, it’s envisioning the future of this world, so it’s a creation of sorts. I’m creating the future. It’s unreal.

Well, of course it’s unreal. It’s a work of fiction. But you get my point.

Workin’ Hard for the Money

Well, I made it through a long, tiring work day. My back is sore, my legs are sore, my arms are sore … in fact, not too many places on me aren’t sore. Still, I made it through, and I got rare praise from the surgeon.

Tomorrow is an off day, and though it’s my anniversary (yay!–three years strong), my husband will be working until 1pm, giving me plenty of time to write. I also plan on writing some more tonight. If I keep it up, I’ll break 20k before the weekend. Pretty amazing, considering the first draft of Whispers of Death was not even 40k words long, and this book is in its infancy still.

I probably should exercise tomorrow, too. I have got to get back into exercising. Just because work gave me a workout today is no excuse to not get back into the swing of things exercise-wise. I have the day off, my husband will be occupied with work, and I can try one of the workout DVDs I have in the living room while he works from the bedroom. I get so self-conscious when anyone sees me working out, even my husband, so this should be interesting … he’d better not laugh. 😉

Back on Track (for now)

Well, thanks to the advice of an author friend of mine, I think I’m slowly getting back on track with the manuscript. It’s still slow going, but it’s picking up speed and I think I’m going to have a better time of it … for the time being.

Writing is so hard to predict. I don’t know how full-time authors do it. I would be staring at the screen for half the time. I guess it comes down to focus and practice and developing a routine, but even with my routine of writing (or trying to write) every morning before work and every weekend when I have time, I still hit blocks.

This week I have Wednesday off (which, though it’s my anniversary, should give me time to write since my husband will be at work for half the day), so my plan is to write as much as I can.

Will I reach my goal of a completed first draft by the end of the year? It’s looking less and less likely as I get more and more stuck, but I still hold out hope. Whispers of Death was going slowly at first as well, but I blew through the ending once I had a good momentum going. This book will be interesting, because I sort of wrote a scene in the sixth or seventh chapter that belongs more like 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through the book. So I have to keep the scene and just write the parts in between. Which will be tricky, given the way I normally write. I like to write in order, but I hadn’t planned on the scene being as integral to the plot, and I surely hadn’t planned on it spawning a new plotline of its own.

I love it when a story takes on a life of its own–probably why I enjoy pantsing more than planning–but this one is really challenging me. Political plots and intrigue aren’t my thing, but apparently they’re the thing this book wants to have.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Thank the Gods for the “Find” feature in Word.

So, let me give you some backstory here: Every Wednesday, Twitter has a trending hashtag called #1linewed where there is a theme set and writers can post a line or two from one of their works that fits that theme. For example, today’s theme is “eyebrows.”

Dear Gods, I never realized how many times people raised their eyebrows in my current manuscript!

Being the obsessive-compulsive person that I am, I can’t just let it go until it comes time for edits and whatnot. I have to fix it now. That has been the majority of my writing this morning–taking out a multitude of eyebrow raising and finding other ways for the characters to express emotion.

It happens. Writers get their little quirks or favorite phrases and they don’t even realize until revision/edits that they’re doing it. Well, apparently I’m an eyebrow-raiser. I don’t remember doing it in my last novel, but I think I’m trying too hard to “show don’t tell.” I know there are other facial expressions/body language-type things I can use, but I guess my go-to is the eyebrows.

I suppose I should thank whoever picked today’s theme. Now I can go through and fix this before it gets out of hand, and be wary of it as I write further.

Ooh, shiny….

Yeah, I know. I should be writing. Not writing a blog, but writing-writing. Today has been one of those distraction-filled days, where Facebook and Twitter and Google Play and staring into space (and this blog, I guess) all keep me from making any progress on my work-in-progress.

Okay, so maybe I made a little progress. Regressive progress. I did some more work on strengthening my main character, but in order to do so I took out a few hundred words. Granted, the words I took out weren’t necessary anymore (and not really necessary to begin with, I found out), but it’s still a step backwards.

Maybe this weekend I’ll get more done. Or at least Saturday. Sunday I need to get back cracking at finishing up the minor final details on our cosplays. That’s another thing I keep getting distracted away from.

At least the commission art project I spent so much time on is done. It was fun, but it’s a weight off my shoulders to have it completed. One less distraction.

Tonight will be a live tweet of the 100th episode of Grimm for Talk Nerdy With Us. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve live tweeted because I’ve been caught up in stupid adulting, but I think tonight I’m going to take some time to focus on the show and getting a good live tweet done. It’ll be good practice for getting back in the swing of live tweeting, because next week I’m back on Pacific time so I can tweet alongside the people who are watching the West coast feed (so few people live tweet during the Mountain time zone! No one interacting, which makes it less fun).

Aaaaand I got distracted. Again. Well, since it’s almost time to go to work I guess I’ll leave my poor neglected WIP off to the side for a while. Until the morrow!

In Deeper Waters

I ended up revising my first few chapters–again–because my main character was falling flat. She was whiny and skittish and just too scared of EVERYTHING. Too neurotic to be likable. Who wants a candy-ass heroine? Not me.

So far the male protagonist seems likable and believable. Okay, it’s a sci-fi type story, which means some of the stuff isn’t necessarily going to be believable. That’s the fiction part of sci-fi.

^^Wow, I got distracted by something… I started this post a day ago & forgot to finish typing it up.

Anywho, much revising left to do to ensure that my female protagonist doesn’t end up a flat, whiny brat.

The Journey Continues

Things are moving right along with the new manuscript. I’m not writing as quickly as some authors might, but I’m getting a lot accomplished for my personal pace. Less than 9 months left in the year for me to finish the first draft, but I’m still optimistic that I can do it.

My protagonists are out of the city where they were being hunted by the authorities and have now reached another city where their arrival will cause something of a stir.

I’ve noticed that I could be more descriptive. I kind of lack in that department, so during revisions I will probably bump up the verbal painting until the pictures are more vibrant. I can envision my characters clearly, but will the reader be able to?

As is, probably not. But I’ll make it better. I’ll learn and adapt. I’ll create a world that people can step into to escape their own.

In the quiet before dawn

Despite my former hatred of mornings, I’ve come to embrace the time before the sun rises as “me” time, a time when I can get things done that otherwise wouldn’t get finished. I write. I draw. I mess around on the Internet–a lot. Some of my most productive non-work hours are now predawn.

Sure, I’m sleepy when I first get up and sometimes I’m able to get back to sleep, but for the most part once I’m up I’m up and that’s all there is to it. Might as well make use of the time somehow, right?

Yesterday morning I got about two thousand words written on the new manuscript. Will I get as many today? Doubtful, because I have to go in to work early, but still, it’s a start. I may take some time to stare at the computer screen waiting for a name to come to me.

As my husband snores softly next to me, slow and even, I wonder if I should be trying to get back to sleep. Then I remember that there are whole worlds that I have to create in these early morning hours. So here I am: bright eyed (more or less) and bushy tailed (I guess squirrels are early risers?) and raring to go.

It’s slow going, but I hope to finish the first draft of my manuscript by the end of the year. If this novel is anything like my first one, once I muddle past the first half a dozen chapters it will flow much more smoothly.

A Whole New World

I think I’m getting there. It’s been a rough road these past couple of months, but I’m finally starting to get inside the world I’m writing. I’m understanding where the characters are coming from and their motivations.

I still have a long way to go, though. I don’t even have a name for where the story takes place. I have a bunch of places in the story that say “[insert city-state name here],” but I haven’t gotten a good name for said city-state yet. I’m just plugging along, hoping it comes to me eventually. Then a little “Find and Replace” will take care of that part.

The first two chapters are really short, which is a problem, but I keep trying to tell myself to just get the story down and worry about chapter length once the first draft is done. I’m terrible at listening to myself, though. Lol

At least I have something to fill my early mornings once again. I think I’ll be able to move along more quickly now that I have my head more immersed in the world I’m creating. But we’ll see. I still have 10 months to reach my goal of having a complete first draft by the end of 2016.