Another Way To Help

Hi, everyone!

By now many of you may have seen the Go Fund Me my wonderful friend set up for me. If you haven't, I'll link it at the bottom. It's to help me raise funds to attend a couple of upcoming writer's conferences. These events are very important in helping me to achieve my goal of becoming a published and full-time author. I am very close to finishing my literary mystery "Pieces" and will soon be ready to shop it to agents. These events will allow me to meet with agents and editors, network with other writers of all skill levels, and attend workshops that will help me grow my craft. If you know me at all (online or IRL) you know how important writing is to me, and how hard I've worked over the years. You also know that it's been a rough three years for me, which is why attending these events without financial assistance is difficult. With the help of some friends, an anonymous person, and a former friend and coworker of my mom's, I am closer to having what I need to attend, but I'm not quite there yet.

Aside from writing, I've also been an avid jewelry maker. Some friends and I sell our jewelry for charity on our Etsy shop, Pins With Purpose. It's been very rewarding. To date, we've raised over $3000 for various causes. In addition to making jewelry for our shop, I also do much of the social media advertising. It's been great to know that I've been able to help people, especially while things haven't been going well for me. I've enjoyed making jewelry so much, that I have more than we really need for our charity. With the encouragement of my fellow craftivists, I've opened up my own for-profit Etsy shop, My Voice Boutique. There are just a few items up so far, but I'm always adding more.

I mention this here, because the money I would make from My Voice Boutique is extra money, therefore I could use it for things like writer's conferences. So, if you're not into just donating/giving me $ (which I totally understand) you can buy something from me. It's a win-win. Here are a couple of the items I have for sale:

You can view more at my shop: etsy.com/shop/myvoiceboutique

And here's the Go Fund Me page if you'd like to learn more:https://www.gofundme.com/help-this-amazing-writer?member=51762

Thanks!

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.

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!

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

Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, and Picking the Marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms

Because come on, don't try and tell me you didn't pick out the marshmallows. Those are the best part. Sometimes I just wanted to have a bowl of nothing but marshmallows. I mean, what was even the point of those, those--what were those other things anyway? Were they even healthy? Probably not.

The second best thing about the cereal was of course digging through the box for the toy. Even better, when you had to get out a big mixing bowl to dump the cereal in just so you could get the toy. And then your mom would come and get all mad about it. My boyfriend bought a box of Cheerios a couple weeks ago that had a toy from "The Secret Life of Pets" and I started reminiscing about this very topic. He informed me that he'd never done this. I was appalled, and insisted that we do it right then and there, but he refused.

Some people.

I just don't even know.

Anyway, you're probably wondering why I'm writing a blog to talk about breakfast cereal, and actually, I'm not. I intended to talk about a serial. Not serial killers. I mean, sure, there's plenty of interesting stuff to talk about along those lines, but I'm in a pretty good mood after thinking about that bowl full of nothing but marshmallows, and I don't want to ruin it. So instead I'm going to talk about web serials. Books. The reading kind. Books books wonderful wonderful books.

In case you haven't heard me mention it once or twice or eight hundred times, my YA paranormal "City of Secrets" is being released chapter by chapter on JukePop serials. In all of my excitement in getting it ready and hyping it up and promoting it, I'm not entirely sure if I fully explained exactly what a serial is. My boyfriend pointed this fact out to me. I was like, "Oops."

Serial fiction is not a new thing. Charles Dickens and his contemporaries made it popular. (I feel like I got smarter just by composing that sentence.) It sparked up again recently as sort of a cross between reading and social media. Some of the most popular sites are Wattpad and Jukepop. It's free to readers, and while most authors get to choose when they release their chapters, readers have the luxury of just reading one chapter at a time. So, it totally fits the fast-paced lifestyle of the 21st century.

Mine's been up for almost three weeks (chapter 3 goes up tomorrow--hint, hint). It's going fairly well so far. I'm still looking into the best ways to advertise. I started out with the standard Twitter, Facebook, and blog, which I'm learning aren't the best. I think when people are on Twitter or Facebook that's where they want to be at the moment. They don't want to click a link to read a book. Or maybe they don't understand that it's free, or that they don't have to commit to reading an entire novel. I'm not completely sure, but those are my best guesses. So, I'm looking into advertising on more reading/book oriented sites. But it's a lot of work, in addition to the eight million things I'm already doing. But it's been fun so far, and I've started reading some of the other stories up on JukePop, and I've found some good ones.

I will definitely share more of what I've learned from this in the future, so you will all know what to do and what not to do in case you are thinking of following in my footsteps.

But definitely, have a bowl of marshmallows.

And also, read the first 2 chapters of "City of Secrets." You know you want to.  Oh look, the link just happens to be right here for your convenience. http://bit.ly/2a7FNDD