A Long Journey Indeed

Hello friends, family, fellow writers, and the few random strangers who maybe clicked on my blog (I like to be positive and think that this is happening).

It's been awhile since I've blogged. I've been a little scarce in the blogging/Twitter world. My mom has been sick with COPD for several years. In January, her illness took a turn for the worst, and it's been terribly painful watching her go through that and not being able to help her. She passed away at the end of March, and I miss her terribly, though I'm glad she is no longer suffering. I couldn't have asked for a better mother. I'm honestly afraid of making it in this world without her.

My mom has helped me through many rough times, especially in the past few years. I wouldn't have made it through my most recent ordeal without her.

For five+ years I worked at a non-profit job as a community connector (this is a title that encompasses behavioral analysis, counseling, driving, CNA-type duties, care-taking, paper-work, janitorial work, etc. etc.). I took care of older adults with developmental and degenerative disabilities. I loved my job, mainly because of the wonderful people I had the pleasure of meeting and serving.

One day in June of 2014 I was assisting a client with gait issues walk. This is something I've done dozens of times over the years. Even with assistance, he was so unsteady that he fell frequently. He fell this day, but it wasn't like any other fall. He bumped my knee and took me down with him. I landed with my foot trapped underneath me. I immediately got up to assist him. It was a few minutes before I even realized I was hurt.

A visit to the urgent care revealed that I'd incurred a mild ankle sprain. The doctor advised rest, ice, compression and work restrictions, and said I'd likely be fully healed in two weeks. Except I wasn't. I was no better than I was immediately after the injury. I was referred to a specialist, where the injury was re-diagnosed as a high ankle sprain (less common, more severe). I continued working on restrictions and began going to physical therapy. After several weeks of PT, my injury was still no better. I was in pain all the time and miserable. It was very difficult to get through the work day, even with the restrictions. It was too much on my body. Finally, I had an MRI, which showed that surgery would be necessary to repair the damaged tendon and ligament.

Just after surgery, I was let go from my job because the company did not have a position that could accomodate my needs. It was past 90 days, so they were in their legal right to do this.

The surgery went well, and after a month of wearing a cast, I returned to physically therapy. Things were starting to look up. I was working hard in PT and gaining more function and the pain was lessening. But just when I thought I was ready to return to work, the pain began to worsen, and the swelling in my ankle returned. After being referred to a new podiatrist and having another MRI, it was revealed that while the ligament was well and good, the tendon was not. It had had a bad reaction to the sutures and was torn again. So once again I went under the knife, this time with a rather attractive surgeon holding said knife. I told him so while recovering from surgery and possibly a little looped on medications.

I went through the drill all over again: rest, non-weight bearing, crawling on the floor to carry hot coffee, cast, and finally physical therapy. And more physical therapy. And pain. And more pain. Continued pain and swelling. The function in my ankle returned, while some swelling and pain remained. The surgeon admitted that he did not know where to go from here, while the physical therapists tried various techniques, including weird electric things and tape. Yes tape. I guess their reasoning was that what two surgeries couldn't fix, surely some freaking tape could. As shocking as this might my seem, the tape didn't work. I was sent to a pain specialist, an occupational therapist, and a psychologist, because at this point, most doctors believed the pain was in my head. I had a new worker's comp doctor put in charge of my case, and she did a pretty terrible job of listening to me and assessing my needs.

At this point, I had to become a strong self-advocate, something that is terribly hard for me. I had to fight tooth and nail to get necessary treatments. It took forever, and I wanted to give up many, many times. The insurance company was ready to kick me to the curb and my doctor was no help. She did not listen to me and accused me of wanting money, despite my insistence that I only wanted treatment. At this point, the pain had spread from my ankle, to my foot, and up my leg. This is called  peripheral neuropathy, and it's a real asshole. It hurts like hell and is the weirdest kind of pain you can imagine. It has to do with angry nerves and can be caused by compression or surgery. Burning, pounding, crushing pain spread through my whole foot and up my leg into my knee. After a while, it moved to the other leg. Yes, it did. It sounds crazy, but it can happen. I was put through a number of tests to see if I had Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a severe form of neuropathy that occurs in a limb. All my test results were negative, but every symptom I had fits perfectly into CRPS. Several physical therapists said they suspected I have CRPS. In much of the research I did, it was stated that none of the tests are fully accurate or conclusive. According to my research, CRPS is the only condition in which the patient experiences mirror pain--pain in the opposite, uninjured limb, like I had.

I was in pain all the time and severely depressed. My doctor didn't believe me and was closing my worker's comp case, meaning I would no longer receive disability benefits or any treatment. I was in no shape to go back to work. I was forced to hire an attorney. Just finding an attorney was yet another trial. Most attorneys won't take ankle cases, mainly because they don't pay much. Attorneys want severe car accidents and back injuries, and they told me this point blank. After talking to close to ten attorneys, I finally found one who was willing to take my case. But even so, it was still a battle. I had to see an independent doctor for an exam, and convince this one man that I needed more medical care. I couldn't just go to any doctor, I had to go to one my attorney and the worker's comp insurance company agreed on. It's a pretty messed up system. My attorney was not thrilled about the doctor I wound up with. Lucky for me, my attorney was wrong.

Dr. Regan listened to me and heard my frustration and agreed that I needed more care. He diagnosed me with CRPS and ordered more tests, and also thought I needed to see another ankle surgeon (something I'd been trying to tell my primary WC doctor, who wouldn't listen.) It was actually pretty satisfying taking this report back to my WC doctor. I wanted to wave it in her face and say, "I told you so!" I of course didn't, but I didn't have to. The report said it for me. She was wrong, and she knew it. Ever since then, she's listened to me and what I have to say.

Of course, the insurance company wasn't ready to give in. They filed for a hearing to dispute Dr. Regan's assessment, but it never got that far. The new surgeon used a more appropriate test than an MRI (dynamic ultrasound) and determined that my tendons and ligaments were a giant mess, like spaghetti noodles all clumped together. Likely there was an angry nerve trapped in that mess, causing all that awful nerve pain. So after jumping through more hoops, the insurance company was forced to back down and accept that I needed a third surgery, and reinstated my benefits. That was one year ago. My ankle is now strong. It still hurts, and I still have neuropathic pain in both legs, but it is much less than it was. The surgeon believes the nerves will likely calm down with time.

I've mostly made it through that ridiculous ordeal. I'm exhausted. It was a nightmare fighting so hard against the insurance company and doctors. The whole thing made me feel like shit mentally, on top of the physical pain. I felt like a worthless loser. I was unable to work, yet most doctors said I was fine. I was terrified about money running out and had no control over anything.

Luckily, I had a lot of support from friends and family. They played an important role in getting me through it, but they couldn't stop the depression, or that feeling of uselessness. Nothing stopped it completely, but there is one thing that helped it a great deal, and that's writing. Writing is my passion, my long-term career goal, my obsession, and my great love. I wrote before my injury and continued after. On good days, I pretended I wasn't disabled, but instead a full-time writer. My stories were my saviors. They gave me hope and purpose. I can say with perfect honesty that I don't know how I would've survived that time if I didn't have my writing. It gave me purpose. Without it, my depression might've taken over. I'm not exaggerating. It's just the truth.

I'm now back at work, and it feels really good to be out in the world again. It also feels good to be helping people again. My work is very different than what I did previously, but still rewarding. I work at a large non-profit helping homeless veterans find housing. I enjoy it and hope to continue it. The irony is that the book I've been working on for the past two years is called Pieces, a literary mystery about a combat veteran with PTSD trying to put his life back together.

I went back to work in December, just before my mom got sicker. She was thrilled to know I was doing better; she'd been very worried about me. In early March, she asked if I was better, and I said yes. This wasn't completely true, but true enough. This was about two weeks before she passed. I think she needed to know I would be okay.

Even though I have a job again, writing is still my goal. Pieces is almost ready to send to agents. My strength as a writer has grown over the years, but there is always room for improvement. The best way to improve is to network with other writers, attend workshops and meet agents and editors. Lucky for me, there are several events like this in Colorado. One is in June, called LitFest. The other is in September, the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Conference. I plan to enter Pieces in the RMFW Gold Contest this May. The winners are announced at the conference. It would be wonderful if I could be there, whether I'm a finalist or not. There will be many agents and editors at this event, and I would love the opportunity to meet them and discuss my novel with them.

Unfortunately, conferences are expensive. Really expensive. But this is where my wonderful friends come in. One of my best friends set up a Go Fund Me for me, to help me fulfill my dreams, and some of my friends have already contributed. It's starting to seem possible that I might get to attend these conferences, and I couldn't be more grateful. The link to the campaign is below. I would appreciate any contributions anyone can give. If you can't, please share this post with your friends. Thank you so much! Love to all!

https://www.gofundme.com/help-this-amazing-writer

I'm Back

For real, I swear. Until my next blogging hiatus. But with four works in progress, a volunteer non-profit charity biz, a new jewelry biz (very new), a new job for the first time in 3 years, continued chronic pain, exercises to keep up on, chronic migraines, two cats to try and get to stop killing each other, and a sick/dying parent, it's hard to keep up on the blogging. But I want to blog. I want to do all the things.

As is tradition for when I've taken a blogging hiatus, I will discuss my current writing projects. Because that's how it's done. More about all that other stuff later. And it's a lot.

Four works in progress.

My first priority: "Pieces" A contemporary mystery with light paranormal elements. It's in the final stages. I've gotten good feedback from drafts 2 and 3 from different sets of beta readers and am working on the 4th draft, which is more editing than rewriting. Finally! When you've moved from constant rewrites into actual edits, you've gotten somewhere. Because I said so. I think it may be done by mid-year, maybe sooner. It's hard to say. But I'm super excited. I plan to enter it into some contests and try to attend some writing conferences this year to meet with agents in person. I think this one is the most commercially-marketable of all my stories, so I'm definitely going to try the traditional route with it. I think I will be in fully querying-swing by Fall, definitely winter.

Priority 2 is "New Year's Revolution" (Formerly Bloody New Year and Vampiric Vanguard. Still thinking of using Vampiric Vanguard as a series title.) This is an urban fantasy/paranormal/post-apocalyptic novel. It's my first baby, and has therefore seen many rewrites/edits. Somewhere between 7 and 10. But I've discovered the solution: it's not a three book series, as originally planned. It's four. The first book needs to be cut in half. I feel confident about these changes. My goal is to have this ready to be queried (again) by the end of the year. It's doable. I've queried agents for this in the past and gotten roughly 30 rejections (go me!). I'm aiming for the 3 digits. When your number of rejections hit the hundreds, you know you've made it. I plan to query some agents, but mostly small/indie publishers.

These two books will keep me busy most of the year, but I have not forgotten my other two children. I began my fourth novel "Eternal" in November (NaNoWriMo 2017). While I got it past 50k, I did not complete the rough draft, but that's okay. I know where the story is going and felt like continued work on the sloppy rough draft wasn't productive. I don't know when I'll be ready to work on it again, but I feel like I'll be ready to write a solid draft two when the time comes. Oh yeah, it's a speculative romance. I know, I'm writing a romance. Who would've thought? While I won't be writing on it for a while, I will be reading in preparation: lesbian romance novels, stories that take place in the 80s, and stories that feature mixed race characters.

Last but not least is "Caribou Canyon" later called "City of Secrets". This is my second baby. I love it, but don't know where to go from here. It's a YA paranormal, and the story is too big. There are 3 MCs, and I fell in love with all of them and gave each character many subplots. The polished first draft rounded out at 250k words. Yes, you read that correctly. I started releasing it as a serial on Jukepop, but that didn't pan out. Then I started releasing it on my blog, but I'm not sure that's what I want to do with it. I think I'm going to remove it from my blog and set it aside in my mind, but I definitely want to continue it. At this point, I would likely polish it up and self-publish it, maybe in installments.

Okay, so those are my writing projects. I'm having a busy 2018, and that's just about the writing. So many other things are happening, many of them painful and trying and sometimes I just want to curl up and sleep, and keep sleeping, and keep on sleeping. But writing is my passion, my art, my life. I will take all of this crap and funnel it into my stories.

Get ready world. They are coming.

NaNoWriMo Time

It's that time of year again already! I'm participating in NaNoWriMo for sort of the third year in a row, but really it's only my second time. The idea is that you write a rough draft of a brand new novel in November. Last year I began the 2nd draft of Pieces, which I wrote during 2015 NaNo. This year I'll be doing another new one, an idea that only just came to me in August. Usually my ideas marinate in my head for several years before I put them to paper, so we'll see how this goes.


Here's what I'll be writing this year:

Speculative lgbtq romance that takes place over the course of 30+ years. 

25 yo Vera is a wild, free-spirited bisexual writer who is celebrating one year of sobriety. She just moved to Bloomington with her best friend, savior, and sponsor, Stuart, who is starting medical school. Estranged from her family due to tragedy, Stuart is all Vera has. She spends time on campus, working on her first novel. 

18 yo Ember is the daughter of a white man and a black woman. Plagued by the question "what are you?" her whole life, she feels like she doesn't belong. Add that to the fact that she is an artist living in a family of intellectuals, and a closet lesbian, she doesn't know who she is or where she fits.  She is attending IU Bloomington and majoring in business, though it isn't what she wants. She pursues her art and sticks to herself. 

Ember and Vera witness a horrifying and uncanny murder on campus. Both women are drawn to the scene of the crime. Vera is writing a horror novel: she likes the ambience. Vera also likes the place to go and think. Stuart has unexpectedly relapsed, and Vera doesn't know how to help him. Ember likes the quiet of the place: most of the other students stay away. The two women meet and bond, sharing their lives with one another and falling in love. The more they get to know one another, they begin to realize that things they thought were quirks, might be more than that. Vera starts to realize that something isn't right: about Stuart's relapse or about Ember. 

The women are forced to make a painful decision that may affect the future of their relationship, and Stuart's life. 

And here's a little collage I put together in order to stop myself from cheating and starting early. 

If you're also a NaNo person, find me on the site here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/becky9637

Happy writing! 

It's finished!

This post is a wee bit late. I have finished the 3rd draft of Pieces. Yay!

This is super exciting. In case anyone missed the news, Pieces is a literary mystery with paranormal elements, and it's "the one." Some authors say you shouldn't bank on having "the one." But I have it. It's Pieces. For the 3rd draft, I took into account most of the feedback I got on the 2nd draft from my wonderful Writ & Art group. I have found 4 new beta readers, two of which are my experts: an Army vet and a psychotherapist.

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do more than 3 drafts, but there will definitely need to be a polish/edit once I get their feedback. I'll probably name the file 4th draft, but I should be able to do it very quickly, unless I totally effed up the military stuff, in which case I'm screwed. But I don't think I did. My wonderful Writ & Art group will be reading the "4th and please for the love of god let it be the final" draft.

The thing I'm still worried about (of course) is the freaking word count. Word counts are the bane of my existence.

At 135k words, it's still way too long. I'm not sure what to do about this. I love all of it. I have already trimmed most of the fat, though there may still be some hidden fat to trim here and there. We'll see, but I don't want to compromise what it is to make it fit the standards of today's novel. Today's novel is short. I blame the internet and shortened attention spans.

I'm excited to hear what people have to say. And nervous. But it's also almost November, which means I'll have a wee bit of something to distract me from thinking about Pieces.

More updates later.

Psst! Like me on FB!

My poor neglected blog

Hello, poor neglected blog. I've really missed you.

Okay, so it hasn't been totally neglected, mainly because I've been posting my YA Paranormal, City of Secrets, on it. But still, as far as my blogging about writing: it's been neglected.

So much has been happening over the past year. The main reason it's been neglected is because last summer I began working on multiple projects, which I swore I would never do. I was trying to keep up regular installments of City of Secrets while working on my Adult Post-Apocalypse vampire novel, New Year's Revolution. Now NYR is on hold while I work on Pieces, my first ever in the Adult literary fiction category (more on the progress of Pieces later). So many projects. I told myself I wouldn't work on multiple projects, but I did. The ideas just started building up and I didn't want to ignore any one of them. So the blog suffered. Big time.

Then I started throwing myself into jewelry making. I am now a seasoned jewelry maker, though I like to say craftivist. Why craftivist? My friend started an organization called Pins With Purpose. Artists volunteer time and supplies to make jewelry to sell for charity. Learn more here:
Etsy.com/shop/PinsWithPurpose
Yes, that was indeed a shameless plug.
Along with jewelry making, I've thrown myself into the advertising and marketing of PWP, so I'm on the net all the time tweeting. That is not an easy task. So the blog suffered. Big time.

I've also spent the past year dealing with chronic neuropathy and ankle pain and battling with a WC insurance company to get healthcare. The pain makes me very fatigued. I did finally have surgery number three on my ankle. It's hard to say at this point how I'm recovering, but I'm thinking positively. Guess what? That contributed to the suffering of my blog. Big time.

Those are just a few of the things that made me neglect my poor blog. But I worked hard on getting this blog going, and I don't want to lose it. So I'm back. I will be blogging about writing again, and whatever else comes to mind.

Stay tuned . . .  Exciting news (I swear) to come.

Until then, you should check out my YA Paranormal serial, City of Secrets. It's about a small town with plenty of juicy secrets and some ghosts. It's free to read here on my blog. I'd love comments and opinions. Thanks.
bit.ly/2onwkig

Also, I'd love a FB like! Facebook.com/beckymunyonauthor
Thanks! You're all awesome!

Way too much . . .

     Well, I've neglected my blog again. As is customary after neglecting my blog comes the post explaining why I neglected it and how I'm going to get back on track again. For some reason, I can't get back into blogging until I write this post. I guess it's like hitting the reset button.

     Wow. So, my last post was early September, which may be a new record for me as far as neglecting my blog goes. I'm sorry, loyal readers!

     Since July, I changed my writing "system", for lack of a better word. I began publishing my serial "City of Secrets" weekly, and while trying to keep up with that, I was also working on "New Year's Revolution." All while trying to keep up on my blog, which I was actually managing for a while. Also, I was spending a lot of time looking for freelance writing jobs which took up about an hour a day, though I'm setting this venture aside for now. All while reading research books for my literary mystery (the novel I wrote for NANO last year) which may be titled Broken Minds. Still not sure on this though. I have about titles four I like.

     Then came my first major writer's conference in early September. That was awesome, and there will be more about that in a later post. The conference took up a lot of time and energy. I'm also dealing with my ongoing injury/worker's comp case, which has been stressful and time consuming. Along with various other things, my stress level has been through the roof. Something had to give. Which meant the blog got pushed to the back burner.

     Things have calmed down a little, so I'm trying to balance my many writing ventures again, though with a few changes. Unfortunately, choosing to publish my serial weekly might have been biting off more than I can chew, but for the time being I'd like to see if I can make it work, while still working on my other novels. I really don't want to switch to a bi-weekly schedule, because the story is so long that it will never finish if I do it that way, but we'll see. I'm hoping that maybe now that I actually know how much work is involved, I'll be able to balance it better. Fingers crossed.

     Anyway, I'm back! You can look forward to more posts soon. Promise!

     If you haven't checked out my YA Paranormal Mystery "City of Secrets" yet, you totally should. It's free to read, and my friends tell me it's really good. ;-) Here's a convenient link for you. :-)

http://bit.ly/2a7FNDD

Clicking, Commenting, and Creating Celebrities

"City of Secrets" has been up on JukePop serials for about six weeks now. It's going pretty good so far. Unfortunately, it hasn't gone viral. The entire world is not talking about it. I haven't been hit up by agents and movie people and television guys or whatever. It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Is that really the greatest thing, by the way? Why aren't cars, or airplanes, or modern medicine the greatest thing? Are we really so lazy about slicing bread that we have an entire saying about how great sliced bread is?) Not that I was really expecting any of these things to happen. But everyone dreams big. You have to, right?

My friends and family have been great. First, my wonderful writer's group who devoured and critiqued the monster first draft are happily devouring the web version (which will also be a monster) and giving me plus votes. Thanks guys. I've got some Facebook friends reading it, and my boyfriend (who for some reason doesn't read fiction) is reading it. Thanks, honey. I've even got aunts and uncles who hardly understand the Internet checking it out. Thanks. 

The greatest problem has been advertising it. It's been really hard to get traffic to my story. I've been on Twitter for over a year and have 2000+ followers, so this shouldn't be that big of a problem, yet it is. There are various sites designed to specifically advertise web fiction for free, which I've been using, but I don't think I've gotten a lot of readers from them. Most of my readers came from real life word-of-mouth and from interacting with other authors on JukePop. 

I've been bothered by the realization that few people on Twitter and Facebook click on external links. I think I already knew this to some extent since I've been sharing my blog, but I really figured it out once I started advertising my story. I get lots of retweets, which are great and I appreciate them, but they aren't enough. I think only a couple of people actually click on the links to blogs and stories.

I've been trying to figure out why this is. I haven't done extensive research or anything, so I'm just going to toss out a few of the thoughts I've come up with. 

I've only been using Twitter for a little over a year, and Facebook as an author platform for a few months, so I don't know if they used to work better for advertising, but I have a feeling that they might have. I'm thinking that maybe when Twitter first got going it was a great way to advertise, but then so many people started doing it, that people just got sick of it. I get that. I'm a little sick of certain kinds of advertising too. 

An obvious reason is that some people are very aggressive in their efforts, and are very insincere about it. I ignore those people too. Advertising is all they do. You follow them, and they tell you to like their FB page without even saying hi. No. That's not cool. You have to interact with people. You have to assist them in their advertising efforts as much as your own. I talk to a lot of people, and I'm not aggressive or excessive in my efforts. Yet I get only retweets. (Again, not complaining. Retweets are great, but they only go so far.)

Okay, so is it because when people are on Twitter they want to stay on Twitter? When on FB they want to stay on FB? Maybe they don't want to click on a link to be redirected to a blog or a story. Part of me says yes, another part of me says no. People hop on social media to read articles all the time, so this doesn't completely add up. Are they only reading professional articles, and not personal blogs/stories? Or are they clicking on blogs and just not commenting? My blog tracks how many views I get, so there might be some truth to that. 

The lack of comments is another thing that bothers me. I get views on my blog, but very few comments. Sometimes I'll get comments on the FB or Twitter link, but not the blog page. It would help me a lot more if they were on the blog post itself. If people see comments, the more likely they are to comment. That's just how we work. I'm guessing part of the reason people don't comment is that you have to put in your email, and not everyone wants to do that. It's the reason why I don't always comment on other people's blogs. But then I thought, does it really matter at this point? I've got a FB, Twitter, Instagram, tumblr, a bunch of emails, and random other accounts. Really, does one more matter? 

So, I don't know how to help myself. (Actually, I do have an idea, but I'm super, crazy busy right now, so I won't be putting this idea into action for about a month.) So, while I don't know how to get people to click my links, comment on my stuff, and like my Facebook page, I do know how to do this for other people, so that's what I've started to do. If I can't help myself, I might as well help other aspiring authors. Readers, you should start liking author FB pages, clicking a web serial or blog link from time to time, and even leaving a comment. Let's help each other out. 

And, speaking of, (yeah, of course this post was going to end with a link to my story), you should check out my web serial, "City of Secrets." It's free to read, and new chapters come out weekly (for the most part) on Tuesdays.

bit.ly/2a7FNDD

It's starting to get like the DMV up here...only much more awesome

Way, way more awesome.

Where is up here, you ask? Well, that would be the inside of my brain, of course. Beckyland. The place where ideas and daydreams are born. It's the place where my characters live while they are awaiting for me to finish their stories. . . . hmm . . . does that mean it's like purgatory? And if it is, what does that say about what happens to the characters when their story is finished? On no! They're not dead after that, are they?

No . . . wait . . . it's the opposite of purgatory. It's the before. It's like the womb. So, when their story is finished, they've been born, and they are out in the world.

Phew. That was scary.

Okay, none of that was actually the point of this post. The point is that my brain is getting to be like the DMV (only much cleaner, prettier--lots of purple--,more things to do while waiting, etc.). A while ago I wrote a post about how I was afraid that my first novel was just a fluke and I'd never have another story idea, but then suddenly the ideas started coming. Last night at 2:00 AM (almost on the nose; it's the magic time), another novel idea came to me. Thankfully, it's a standalone. The idea I had a few months ago was for a trilogy (or maybe a longer series, that has yet to be determined). And this new idea is for a romance novel, which is really weird because I don't do romance as the main genre, but I'm going to write it, because it's a good idea.

Where does the DMV thing come in? Well, while I'm no longer opposed to working on multiple projects, I am not going to start any new projects until at least one of the three I am currently working on is finished. And by that I mean, I am going to try very hard not to start a new project until at least one of the three I'm currently working on is finished. So that means these new ideas have to take a number. Right now, since I'm new to this publishing thing and don't have a lot of money, I just have one of those cheap little machines where the ideas pull a paper number out and a new slip moves forward. In the future, I'd like to upgrade to a fancy computer system where the ideas will see a touch screen and they can type in what kind of idea they are: what genre, memoir, stand-alone, series, novella, short story, etc. That way, they may get a different place in line depending on what kind of attention they need. But that may not need to happen until the ideas start getting backed up into the two-digits.

I don't know how some writers churn out twenty or thirty books. I suppose you get faster over time, but I'm still waiting for that to happen. At least I know the idea train is functioning.

Psst . . . Have you checked out Chapter 1 of my serial, City of Secrets, yet? You totally should:

https://www.jukepop.com/home/read/9558?chapter=1

Genre Classification and the Vomit Scale

     As I mentioned in a previous post "I wrote a novel. Now what?" genre classification is a touchy subject. There are so many sub-genres out there that it is difficult to decide how to categorize a novel. This matters both when submitting a manuscript to an agent or publisher, and when putting a new book up for sale. I think most stories contain elements of several different genres, and which genre the book gets classified as is pretty subjective.
     In my frustration,  I've come up with my own method for classifying genre. I call it the vomit scale. It's really quite simple.


A lot of action + little to no vomiting = Suspense/Thriller

A lot of action + a lot of vomiting = Horror

Vomit that glows green, sprouts tentacles, and can power a spaceship = Science Fiction

Vomit that has magical properties that can bring unicorn figurines to life = Fantasy

Characters bury their vomit in the dirt = Western

Characters vomit on stolen jewels in order to uncover secret codes = Spy Novel

Characters do their best problem solving while vomiting = Mystery

Characters are not vomiting at all, but readers have the strong urge to vomit = Romance

And here is how you tell the difference between young adult fiction and adult fiction:

Young adult: the vomiting is described with extremely vague wording and the readers aren't quite sure if the character has actually thrown up or not.

Adult: The vomiting is right out in the open in glorious detail along with everything else.


So there it is, folks. I hope that helps.

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Addition: I'm ready to take my writing to new levels! My literary mystery, Pieces, is almost ready to be sent to agents. I'm looking forward to some writer's conferences, but need a little financial assistance, so check out the Go Fund Me my friend set up for me. Thanks!
https://www.gofundme.com/help-this-amazing-writer?member=51762