Started from the bottom now we’re… here?

In a lot of ways I’m starting at square one.

Sure, I’m have some books published, but I’ve been floundering around the publishing world, unsure what to do.

I want to write full-time but the catch is not all genres sell enough to write full-time. At least, that what it seems like.

My marketing budget is nil.

So I’m traversing the land of genre charts, trying to find genres and books that I might like that I would be happy writing. Because I want to be a full-time author but I also want to enjoy what I’m writing.

I don’t know how it’s going to go. I don’t even know why I’m sitting at my desk typing all of this. I’m just letting these words go out into the world, unsure how I’m going to arrive at my final destination, but for some reason I still have the crazy, hope-filled optimism that I will.

Will I look back on this blog in a year, in two years, in five years and see things changed?

Is anyone even reading this?

New Goal: 1500 Words

Okay, just an update for a blog post today to say this whole goal of trying to blog every single day for an entire year has been a giant failure.

But that’s okay.

Blogging is fun and it can get my creative juices flowing, but it’s not necessary. What is necessary is to write. So I’ve established a new goal.

1500 words. I’m going to try and make sure I write at least 1500 words every day. Seven days a week.

Doing this is going to make sure I stay on track on creating and releasing my fiction work. I’ll post updates here on my blog weekly about how I’m doing, and maybe I’ll post some other stuff too. But the word count is what is important.

Let’s do it.

It’s all in the details (15/365)

I’ve always been someone who doesn’t like to get bogged down in the details. When I was younger I wasn’t very much of a reader. When I actually did read something, as soon as I saw a huge block of text my eyes always glossed over it. I didn’t want to get bogged down in all the details, I just wanted to get to the action. The meat of the story.

As a writer, I kind of feel the same way, but I have to work on that. I just want to write the juicy stuff. The fun stuff.

But I know readers, real readers (not the kind of reader I was growing up) want those details. They want to be submersed into the world they are reading about. So it’s a constant fight with myself in getting down all the action and making sure I slow it down a bit to allow for world building. It shouldn’t be boring but I need to add things that will interest readers so they learn more about the characters and the world they inhabit.

So that’s what I’m trying to do with my current projects. I have Fire Mage, my urban fantasy, and Monster Hunter, my supernatural monster hunter book. I’d like to just be kicking vampire ass and using cool elemental magic, but I know I need to slow some parts down so readers actually learn about who my character are. I need to do that so readers feel something for the character, develop a relationship with them. They need to laugh with them, cry with them, feel excited when they do and feel fear when the character is afraid.

That’s the job of the writer. So that’s what I’m trying to do.

See you tomorrow.

Monday Motivation (14/365)

Not much to say today, except  the more I write the more I’m learning that urban fantasy is really where my sweet spot is as for what I like writing. I’m working on a couple projects, having trouble on deciding which one I really want to focus on, which I guess is good. At least it’s better than trying to decide which one I want to write because I’m having trouble writing either.

Today’s Monday Motivation comes from Ray Bradbury, who is quoted as saying or writing “You only fail if you stop writing.”

So don’t stop. Keep writing. Keep creating.

 

The Blank Page (13/365)

What is it that makes the blank page so intimidating?

My apologies in advance but I feel I’m using today’s blog post as a sort of inner monologue, a self-help kind of post. A coping mechanism as it were. I have a number of ideas floating around on my desktop right now. I keep the ones I’m really interested in on my desktop, while the dozens of other ideas get stowed away in a folder, to be visited again possibly one day.

But as for my desktop, here’s what I have: Continue reading