Hold the Whine

I meant to post this last week. I really did. But at some point, it simply slipped my mind--and apparently my to-do list. But all is well now, and we're back on track for lots of things to get done in October. 

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Most of the past week has been wasted on writing.

Hold on--this will make sense in a moment.

I've been doing a lot of writing this week. It seems like thousands of words just came pouring out. The problem? I'm not sure how much of it can be used. I've been in a mood. This happens to everyone, of course, but my mood has been seeping into my writing. Everything that's been written has a whiny tinge to it--including the fiction, which was surprising because many of those characters wouldn't be whiners. I know that I'm starting to come out of it, but not before everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I'm taking today to turn that around. Now I have the unfortunate uphill battle of rewriting everything so that I can get back to focusing on what I want to say without being an eye-rolling fifteen-year-old about it.

That, and I have another issue. I have to settle on a project to actually see through to the end. I've been skipping back and forth, with nothing really giving me that drive to see it through to completion. I have to find something, because I need one more finished product before the end of the year (I hit number three with my first-on-Medium piece: "The Ideal Reader Doesn't Exist").

The positive spin on all of this? I've had plenty of time to read while avoiding my indecisiveness, so I just may hit my reading goal for the year. It's the little things...

Weekend Reads: The Radicals

On the surface Eli and Sam seem like any other twenty-somethings—they are attending grad school, they philosophize just for fun, they play tennis together and they develop a social conscience. What sets these two apart is their eventual spiral into life's gray area where good intentions cannot solve the world's problems, only show them that as part of a privileged class, they are really just another part of the problem keeping everyone else down.

Eli and Sam take what was to be a stand against corporate America and its greed a step too far. They start by trying to save the home of a woman in Arizona who was getting a raw deal, but the other social activists that they meet during this time will help shape their outlook on social justice and plant the seed that turns a weekend college protest into a Weathermen-esque plot for violence against one of the one-percenters.

I do like the writing style of this novel, however, I don't have an ounce of sympathy for Eli, Sam, or any of the other characters that grace this book. Even Maria from Arizona ends up being a sellout, with little thanks to those who tried to help her. Eli and Sam are privileged themselves, which quite a lot of college and grad students somehow forget while they are trying to fight for social change, so it makes for a muted argument as to how they could get it in their minds that they are essential to national or global change. Eli in particular is living in a haze of laziness—at any point in this novel Eli could have just stopped, evaluated where he was, hit the parents up for another check, and established a life for himself. But he doesn't. If feels like he has little connection to the Group after Arizona, yet his indecisiveness just keeps him tagging along for it all. With the end not really giving readers any sort of satisfaction (whether you liked Eli or not), it sort of fell flat, just like Eli's good intentions from the beginning. 

Interested in reading this? Check out more information about the book and about the author.  

*Book provided by Blogging for Books

March -- Yeah, It's Going to Happen.

I think this cartoon pretty much sums up what's going on in March. 

Every 1st of the

A post shared by Ruby (@rubyetc_) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:42am PST

This month is all about writing and tons of reading, because as usual I can't say no to an ARC that sounds interesting. I won't hear back about anything I've submitted so far this year until April (which, if all goes wrong, will really be the cruelest month). April is always a huge month, with National Poetry Month celebrations and Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm spending my March writing time completing the first draft of a television script. I've got my sights on a screenwriting fellowship, and I think I have a story that will get their attention. It's for an existing show (as the application requires), so theoretically it should be a bit easier than coming up with a whole show of my own. Now I just have to figure out how to write it to mirror what it looks like in my head. Ahh, the life of a writer.

What are your writing plans for March?

The Marathon Has Begun!

I mentioned a couple of months ago I was setting up a reading project for myself, but stayed vague on the details. So, what's the project? I've embarked on a reading marathon. I'm giving myself a year (hopefully that's enough time!) to read the entire Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin--plus Super Specials, Mysteries, and spinoffs. Thanks to a user on this BSC board for the complete list, I know that it is 367 books. But they are children's books, so maybe I have to invest an hour and a half to each, including note-taking time.

Why am I doing this? Honestly, I don't entirely know. There was a hankering to do it, so I decided now is the time. I know what it's not--it's not some desperate attempt to recapture my youth, because most of the time I spent reading these stories as a kid I finished each book wishing I was a character in it and totally jealous that I wasn't. Though I can see it being beneficial to me as a writer, because it's a deep study of a successful series that's stood the test of time. And I never got to read them all as a kid, so now I can fill in the gaps.

Originally, this marathon was supposed to be for Sweet Valley High and all of those spinoffs because I only read a few Sweet Valley University titles in middle school (and loved them, of course), but there were a few problems with a SVH marathon--the major problem being the spinoffs are not available for Kindle yet. And I'm a stickler about reading in chronological order, which means there are three or four spinoffs that take place before the original series. The additional problem with a SVH marathon is that there is no single list of every title available like the BSC has, and as far as I can tell while I'm putting one together myself, there has to be close to 600 books. I'm a good reader, but whoa... maybe that marathon needs a little more planning.

Along with this is all that regular, mundane adulting I have to do. Like finishing the third installment for my Kindle Worlds series. It's going slow, but it's going. I still hope to succeed with 10k words before the end of the month. I just need to give myself a little boost to get through that first draft.

Old Projects Have New Plans

Things have been going in a slow pace around here. I realized that it was because I had so many projects that didn't have a solid ending--not just the story itself, but what I wanted to do with them once they were done. Now, things have been reorganized and I have a clear path for many of these projects.

To sum it up:

• In Another Life is no longer going to be a trilogy. Instead, books 1 and 2 will be combined into a single story, and the third book will be the sequel.

• Another series (one that I haven't said much about) is being planned and the first story is going to be posted on Wattpad sometime before the end of the year. 

• I'm still working on a project for Channillo, and hopefully it will be accepted. 

• The third (and last) installment of the Melody of Love Kindle Worlds series will be completed by the end of the year. 

• Something (I still don't know what) will be on Kindle Scout--I just have to pick which of my projects will have the best chance at success.

When it comes to new projects and challenges, I'm looking into doing a massive reading project. Since I still have a number of reading obligations for March, it's not going to start just yet. When I get closer to launching myself on this new journey, I'll have more information. That, and I have to be very good at staying away from NetGalley and Penguin First to Read so that I don't continue to bog myself down with even more reading obligations.

What are your reading/writing plans for March?

Now Accepting Requests for Early Reviewers

Are you interested in getting your hands on Haunting Melody a couple weeks early? If you can't wait to get your copy, you can join my Review Crew. For those who have already read Melody of Love and left a review, you have a spot waiting for you once you fill out the form (see below).

For those who haven't read it yet, don't worry! Even if you haven't read the first book in the miniseries, there are still spots available for you. For everyone that's accepted, you'll be receiving a PDF copy of the book, and I would love it if you leave your honest review within two weeks of the book's release, which should be the first week in October.

How do you get in on this great deal? Just fill out this form. I can't wait to share Haunting Melody with everyone!

Writing Off Write On

The time has come to let the dream die--Write On was not all that it was cracked up to be. I thought that I had found something that would help out with some significant gaps in my writing process, but it all ended up just being a big headache.

Write On, for those who don't know, is platform where you can upload your work-in-progress or completed project to get feedback from other members. I've tried it with two different projects and the results were less than thrilling. Is it a beta read site? Not really. Is it more of an online critique group? Not quite. Is it more like Wattpad, offering your completed work for free to build an audience? No. Definitely not.

Before publishing it last year, I put up my novel Seeing What Develops. I initially thought Write On was geared more towards the beta reading aspect of writing: users would take my almost completed project, tell me what's still not working, and I could go from there to complete a final round of revisions. While there was some interest, the comments were more of a "I like it" aspect without any suggestions. And once I put up the final chapter and marked it complete, it only received about 58 reads--and it's unclear whether those reads were counting the whole project or counting every time someone read a chapter.

So it wasn't for beta reading. This year I put up In Another Life to see if users would be more helpful earlier in the writing process. This project was two revisions in (I usually do 4+ before I think it's ready to go) and so far, I've had one helpful comment. But this time around, Write On has more options to provide information to the reader. You can choose to label your project as Drafting, Revising, or Complete. I left it on drafting for some reason. I don't know why, even though I was definitely in the revising stage.

The site isn't for early-stage critiques, either.

I guess the issue with this site is that most of the users are writers, not readers, unlike Wattpad where there's a more even mix of readers and writers. And the biggest problem with writers? We have egos when it comes to time management. Example:

"Oh, I would love for all these people to read my story. But I'm not going to bother with theirs. I don't have time to read something that isn't finished yet."

I'm not criticizing anyone--I've had these thoughts too. So if the site has something like 80% writers on it, then you're probably getting upwards of 60% with this mindset.

I don't like how the site works for my projects, but there are authors who've found success, like one author who only put up the first 5000 words of her novel, then took the critique of that and used it to build her Kindle Scout campaign (and won a contract). Let's just say that might have been my own intention, but again, it's not working for me personally. What I failed to realize from trying to mimic this situation is that she brought an audience with her. I was trying to use this resource to build one.

I haven't tried a fully formed, finished project upload to compare it to Wattpad. But I don't think I'll bother. Aside from the lack of enthusiasm I fail to generate, I also realized that my novel was 20k short of a standard-size novel, which means a massive rewrite or combining book one and book two (which I know at first draft is only 25k). Nowhere near ready for the plans I had for it.

I need to find something that's more helpful in shaping my writing to be the best it can be, which is probably building a small beta reading group just for myself. Of course I'll have to build twelve separate groups because I hate writing in just one genre, but whatever. As long as the story gets what it needs, it's worth it.

An Unplugged Moment

The cable company struck again on Friday. From noon until noon the next day there was no cable, no internet. It's not like this doesn't happen around this time every year, it's just usually shorter outages, maybe four hours or so.

I took it in stride. After all, I was already prepared because my schedule had been varied. I was all set for a potential disaster. So, all of the work for one of my freelance jobs was in my email, totally accessible from my phone. No problem there. I put a record on the turntable and relaxed. But one who is used to digital streaming quickly realizes that records are not easily paused. So I moved on. I had a number of previously downloaded podcasts on my Kindle that I could access (and had to get rid of anyway--memory shortage).

After a few entertaining podcasts, I moved on to reading. Without online access I had at least 100 different books at my fingertips. I read for awhile, skipping from book to book. I then looked at the clock. Surely hours had past? Nope. Just two.

By the evening, I was itching for some news. No, seriously. I get a little edgy when I'm out of the loop for more than a few hours. I decided to use my phone and stream my local news station's broadcast through their app. No problem for the first hour, but my cell service provider must have realized I had it too good and slowed my speeds so the streaming stopped working. Just as well, because the streaming used a quarter of my monthly data in just an hour. Hmph.

The rest of the night? Switching between season two of Get Smart and season four of Emergency! Thank heavens for my unruly DVD collection.

The next morning wasn't too bad because I try to limit my online access on Saturdays anyway. I went and got a coffee. I read some more. Played a little Mario on the Wii. But what angered me the most out of this whole matter? I didn't write. The absolute perfect time to write, and I didn't do it. Okay, maybe I snuck in a few sentences, but once I realized I needed to Google a question, I gave up. This experience made me realize how, even sitting watching TV, I'm addicted to Googling things I don't know. How did I survive before that search engine existed? Did I just walk around like a dummy, not knowing the answers to weird, random facts?

All is right with the world again, so it's time to get to work on August's projects. They are big ones, so get ready. It's going to be a wild ride and I'm taking you with me.

Race to the Halfway Point

I have a few days left to finish up my Camp NaNoWriMo project, but my eyes are not on the 50k prize. I'm aiming to get a solid 25k out of this month. It's not a huge deal for me if I don't make it to 50k. I know that the story will get there, just not in this short of a time frame. Now if this was November, I might be a little upset that I didn't make it. After all, the bragging rights alone are something you can bring up year-round whenever people say to you, "So you're a writer? That must be a pretty easy job." Ugh. Go away, you people! (you know who you are)

I wanted to get everything straightened out writing-wise so that I could maybe, possibly find a way to get out of town for a few days in August. Then I laughed at myself for even having such a thought. But no vacation is good news for anyone following In Another Life. I posted a couple new chapters over the weekend, and I'm expecting to have the rest of it up over the next two weeks. I'm still not sure whether I want to hold back the ending or not, but it seems on WriteOn that fewer people read works in progress than those labeled completed. I get it--I was reading things on there, following along, and tons of writers only put up a couple of chapters then pull the whole thing. It can be frustrating.

Since I totally went bananas requesting titles through NetGalley and Penguin, I'm going to go read for awhile. One book down, only ten more to go. ;-)

Scouting Kindle Scout, Phase 1: The Nominations

Before I venture into the realms of submitting a book to Kindle Scout, I though I would check out how the process works from the reader's side. Because, presumably, those voting for each project are dedicated readers.

First Impressions
I started looking through the projects a few weeks ago. I didn't instantly find something that stood out because of one major problem: bad covers. Now, I don't mean a cover that has the wrong font or a photo that doesn't accurately describe the contents. I mean absolutely atrocious covers. Ones that a first-time self-published author wouldn't even want to publicly represent their book. I would never consider wasting one of my three votes on a book that you know won't make it through the vetting process, because I assume the people that run the show behind the scenes are smarter than that.

Just to make sure I wasn't being too harsh on these nominees, I checked out all of the titles published by Kindle Scout so far. In my opinion, out of all the published titles only one of the covers wasn't up to my standards. Of course that's all subjective, but still. First impressions matter.

Casting My Votes
I did eventually find books that I wanted to nominate for publication. They had good covers, the blurb was intriguing and the sample provided hooked me. All I had to do then was wait for the results.

50/50
So far I have voted for six books. Two titles are still currently in the nominating process. Two titles have been accepted for publication and when they are released, I will be provided with a free copy for my vote.

And then there were two.

These two titles didn't make it to publication. I don't know how I feel about that. These were the two titles I was most excited to root for. The two votes that went to books which won a contract weren't that interesting, but were professional in their presentation. So what does that say about my taste in books? More importantly, what does that say about the Kindle Scout process?
 
The Aftermath
Without access to voting numbers, no one could tell you what distinguishes a book that makes it to publication with Kindle Scout and what books fall short of the finish line. I know the two biggest factors are the professional appearance of the project and the marketability, but which one is weighted more heavily is only known to the Powers that Be. What I can tell you by going through this nominating process is that I've found one significant drawback on taking a chance with this program. No matter what happens to the books you vote for, you as the voter will find out.

Think about it. You get dozens of nominations. Hundreds, maybe. Then your book isn't selected. Every single one of those voters will get an email telling them that your book didn't make it. That it wasn't good enough. That, in the words of certain political candidates, you're a loser. Do you really want your readers to know that your project didn't succeed? Would it matter to someone enough that they no longer had an interest in reading it?

I happened to be reading an article the other day about the downside of Kindle Scout and browsing through the comments. An author who submitted a project (which I happened to nominate) talked about the fact that they didn't win a contract. Not only did possibly hundreds of that author's current readers take the time to vote for the project, they also got that "sorry you didn't pick a winner" email. The author admitted to being embarrassed by it, and wondered how much of a setback it would be.

However, some may actually find this email to voters as a benefit. It could spark interest in previously published work. And the email also promises to let voters know if the book is eventually published on Amazon through KDP. So even the pros and cons of the program have their own pros and cons.

Marching On
Does this deter me from going ahead with submitting a book? I don't think it has changed my mind, but it is making me rethink my approach to the project before submission. Do I have a solid, interesting book to submit? Yes. Do I have a decent cover? It was designed by a professional, so yeah. Do I have the backing of a big enough audience to prove it's marketability? Unfortunately, no. And I know this. So the question comes down to whether I would submit a project knowing this and hoping there are enough Kindle Scout lurkers (who didn't come there specifically to vote for a project someone asked them to vote for) willing to give my project a chance.

And maybe I should move my expected submission date. Right now I have it scheduled to start in the middle of December. I'm thinking that's probably not the time a lot of people are hanging around, voting for books. Then again, a truckload of votes could be my one Christmas wish come true--that is, if I lived in a Hallmark movie. ;-)

What are your thoughts on the nominating process?

Back from my Staycation

While a vacation would have done wonders for my attitude, a staycation was a close second. I took most of last week off, except for some social media work I had to do. My vacation mostly consisted of staying on the other side of the room from the computer, reading a good book for hours on end. It was a lovely time.

I also ventured out of my little world to go do the normal July Fourth things: festivals, food, fireworks. Your basic American holiday staples.

July 4th Fireworks

My birthday was over the weekend too. Very quiet, no fuss--I'm beginning to like it that way. It also got me thinking of photography more (don't ask me how I made that leap) so if you see on my Instagram account a lot of pictures tagged with #almost30, you'll know why. 

The birthday cupcake.

I slacked significantly on the Camp Nanowrimo stuff, but I'm getting back on track today. The goal of 25,000 words should not be hard to meet, as long as I don't skip out on any more days the rest of the month. Then, all I need to do if find an editor and get the ball rolling towards a book release. I'm excited, but there's still quite a lot to do. Organization will be my best friend these next couple of months.

Work? Eh... still a sore subject. I've picked up a few articles, but everyone else needs to get out of their Monday slump before I can really get back on track with that one.

Changing Gears

Holidays are a great time to sit and relax. Do nothing. Me? I like to work extra hard so that the rest of the work week is smooth. That's only if work is available to me over the holiday weekends. Many times it's not. This happens to be one of those holidays.

So what am I working on? A lot of different projects, but still feeling like very little is getting done. I'm sure every writer knows that feeling at one time or another. I'll be honest--I stopped to write this blog because I was getting frustrated working on the novel. This novel is a new one, which means I'm adding one more work to the gigantic pile of unfinished, unpublished manuscripts but this one is a special one. It's the story that I never thought I would write. I always had that attitude about this story because I enjoyed thinking about it so much in my mind that I knew I just couldn't do it justice on paper. I have actually tried to write this novel twice before, but scrapped both of them because it just never seemed the same. My imagination still wants to hold tightly to this story, but I'm going slow and making sure that I'm not missing a single detail. Including thinking time, I already have more than four years invested into this.

I'm also trying to catch up on my ever-growing reading pile, even as I wait for more books to come in the mail sometime this week. I really take my Goodreads reviews seriously, but some of the books that I get are just completely not my style that a few have been very difficult to get through. But finishing one a day for the rest of the week should have me back on track. I hope!

Then there's real life. I suddenly found myself with things to do on the weekends. I have a car that I really need to learn how to drive (I'll get to it, I promise!) I have friends again. We all have fun. More than once I've woke up with a hangover in the past month. It's making more of a balance in my life, which is good, but it's giving me way too many excuses to neglect the writing. I'm gonna work on that. After all, most writers don't live their lives by the alarm clock... and from now on, neither will I.

Thought I Would Forget? Not Likely...

Okay, so I won't lie to my readers: I nearly forgot to post today. But it's all good... I remembered before I hid myself away for the night. Work has been going off and on at weird hours of the day, so I feel like I'm constantly working without making much progress. My mind then tends to go into Imaginationland. It's fun there, but you can never stay too long.

The good news is that I, as an avid reader, finally now own an eReader. I never thought I would really want one, but so far I love it. It was a super-belated birthday present from a friend. I think he gave it to me at the right time because I wanted something smaller to travel with and I have a lot of giant regular books on my reading list--and let me tell you, those aren't fun to carry around all the time. Especially since I'm still rocking a Huffy.


my pretty little baby

The script is still in revision #2. It's taking so long that I really hope I'll have a finished draft after this revision. Poetry? Short stories? Novels? All on the back burner, but just for the moment. One of these days I'll become independent wealthy and be able to do just exactly what I want to do. ;)

If It's December...

...then I must be feeling pretty rotten about myself. Usually happens around this time of year. All of my friends, family, and such seem to be dining at the world's fanciest dinner party. I'm out by the dumpster looking for table scraps to fulfill even a part of my life that's missing. The only problem is I'm still not quite sure what's missing. I could list the obvious (such as any sort of normal human interaction)--but that can't be the only thing missing, right?

My feelings about my situation are probably being a little exaggerated. I watched the HBO movie Grey Gardens the other day and I am probably the most fearful of ending up a person who could leave a situation any time they wanted, but they just couldn't get themselves to do it. But it wouldn't be the exact same with me anyway, since I really don't like cats and no matter how hard I try, I can't see myself becoming a hoarder.

And while I have been taught that money is not important, I've become consumed with making every little penny and that has caused me to recently tweet some strange ads, including coupons for tampons. While relevant to women's lives, not so informative for someone that wants to read about writing. It makes me laugh sometimes at the ridiculousness of my life. Let's hope for more sanity in 2011. :)

I think that it's strange I get certain pictures in my head depending on what I'm reading or writing. Most fiction of course gives you the picture that is described. But sometimes when I'm reading, I think about writing. Here's the deal: when I think about writing poetry, I think of myself in a converted-warehouse type apartment in the heart of New York City.

When I think about writing screenplays, obviously I am in Los Angeles. I usually have a great house in Beverly Hills, not too big but nice, and an awesome office in a downtown high rise.

When I think about writing fiction or novels, I think about being on an east coast beach, hiding out from the world for a little while. I think I get this picture from reading too many Nicholas Sparks novels.

Most of the time, these pictures comfort me. They let me know that I am on the right path in my life, though sometimes it really doesn't seem like I am. Then again, there are some days (like today, for instance) when I want to really be in those places instead of stuck in the middle of nowhere really, struggling to make sense of it all.

It's the good weather that is doing this to me. Good weather makes me think of prettier places than Indiana. Good weather makes me want to have an adventure.