In today’s Journal
* On My Goals
* Ugh. It’s going to be a full day
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
On My Goals
Another update. I never want my goals to limit me. That would just be stupid. Goals are there to make us reach, not to hold us back. Duh.
So for the duration (now through June 2020) I don’t necessarily have to START a short story on or after a Sunday, but I have to have a new one finished every Saturday by midnight.
Likewise, I don’t have to START a novel on or after the first of the month, but I have to have a new one finished by midnight on the last day of every month.
Does that make my goals a little easier and a little more achievable? Yes, definitely.
But it also keeps me from being tempted to “wait” until an appropriate start date if I have an idea in mind. So win-win.
Any questions that might help with your goals, please ask.
Ugh. It’s going to be a full day today. Maybe a long day too.
I rolled out at a decent time, but soon found an inbox full of emails, many of which I wanted to answer quickly, so I did that.
Two of those emails brought up questions I combined into another topic. So I wrote that Patron-only email and sent it off. (To become a patron, see Patronage.)
Then there were a few items to investigate for inclusion in the “Of Interest” section below, all from my inbox, all without me having even started browsing my usual sites on the internet. As I write this, I still have that to do too.
I also need to set up a new spreadsheet to track submissions etc. on my individual short stories. For the forseeable future (it’s a business experiment) we’re going to submit my short stories to traditional magazine markets. Then, only after a story has garnered several rejections or a paycheck and has been published and the rights reverted, we’ll put it up indie.
So I need to design a spreadsheet to track all of that. I’m just glad I won’t have to do all the tracking myself. I’ll just add the title, date finished, word count and genre to the spreadsheet, then ship the story off to my business manager (my wife). She’ll do all the submitting and tracking. She’ll also add the data to the spreadsheet (thank God for Dropbox) like market name, date submitted, date published, etc.
I also received feedback from my first readers on my last novel (Jonah Peach), so I’ll make the recommended changes that I agree with, then design a cover and get that up on D2D, Amazon and Smashwords, then out to my Patrons.
So it’s going to be a full, busy day. (grin)
But I have a daily writing goal and a novel in progress, so now that my head’s clear and my coffee mug is full again, I’m off to write. (grin)
And after I wrote all of the above, I realized although I had yesterday’s Journal post all ready to go, I hadn’t clicked Publish. I think that’s the first time I ever did that. (grin)
I thought briefly about doing what Dean does and publishing the Journal one day late, but I don’t want to do that. Instead I reset the MailChimp send time and clicked Publish on yesterday’s post. After that one goes out at noon, I’ll reset the MailChimp send time again and click Publish on this one. So you should receive two posts from the Journal today.
I wrote a thousand words, then up to the house for breakfast.
Well, life happens. At around 8:30, an ambulance pulled up across the way for our beautiful friend, who’s suffered for months with breast cancer. So that interrupted things for awhile. Kind’a took the wind out of our sails.
Still, you know. My wife had to go off to work, and I have a novel to write and other things to do here. Everything just seems less significant than it did a half-hour ago.
I’ll do some more writing later today maybe, but probably not. For now, I’ll do some of the writing-related stuff that’s just stuff.
Then I only have to remember to post this sometime after 12 and change MailChimp’s posting time back to 5 p.m. so this one will go out right.
Got the Submissions spreadsheet done. I’ll work on getting Jonah Peach (novel) finalized and published this afternoon after I post this. Then I’m taking the rest of the day off.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Business Musings: Fear And Publishing” at https://kriswrites.com/2020/01/08/business-musings-fear-and-publishing/. A great read. When I saw this on Patreon a week ago, I commented that I wasn’t sure why Dean and Kris equate “publishing” with “paper publishing.” She told me if I’m not going to paper, I’m cutting out about 70% of my potential readers. For what it’s worth.
For a somewhat related post, see “Keeping Books Special” at https://mailchi.mp/xmission/david-farlands-writing-tips-keeping-books-special.
See “Making Time To Write” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/01/making-time-to-write.html.
For fun, see “Your Writing Is Your Resume” at https://prowriterswriting.com/your-writing-is-your-resume/.
See “72 Free Image Sources for Authors” at https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2019/05/72-free-image-sources-for-authors/.
See “The Basics of Book Design” at https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2019/07/the-basics-of-book-design/.
See “10 Top Posts from The Book Designer for 2019” at https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2020/01/10-top-posts-from-the-book-designer-for-2019/.
For those of you who like podcasts, are you remembering to check these daily?
“6 Figure Authors” at https://6figureauthors.com/
“Self-Publish Strong” at http://selfpublishstrong.com/podcast/
“The Creative Pen” at https://www.thecreativepenn.com/podcasts/ (Joanna also has a blog in which she provides transcripts of podcast sessions)
Finally, from Dawn Turner, beginning with her January 15 newsletter, she’ll begin sharing short stories and vignettes. And it’s FREE. To sign up, click http://newsletter.everythingingodstime.com/ChristianFiction. Dawn is an excellent, long-term professional fiction writer. You could do worse than read her stuff.
The Numbers
Fiction words today…………………… 1363
Nonfiction words today…………… 960 (Journal)
Writing of The Cazadores Lounge and Lonely Place (novel)
Day 1…… 3044 words. Total words to date…… 3044
Day 2…… 3189 words. Total words to date…… 6233
Day 3…… 2145 words. Total words to date…… 8378
Day 4…… 1301 words. Total words to date…… 9679
Day 5…… 3248 words. Total words to date…… 12927
Day 6…… 3180 words. Total words to date…… 16107
Day 7…… 1363 words. Total words to date…… 17470
Writing of “” (short story)
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for the month……… 20618
Total fiction words for the year………… 20618
Total nonfiction words for the month… 9790
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 9790
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 30408
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 45
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 198
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31