The Journal, Thursday, January 3

Hey Folks,

Today’s “Of Interest” is long and loaded with great links. I encourage you to read them. You’ll learn a ton.

I considered pasting an excerpt of Kris Rusch’s post on Pricing here, but I decided against it. All you have to do is click the second link below and you’ll get the whole thing. And it’s good. To see what I was going to paste, scroll down to “Here’s [sic] the other things you need to do on setting the right price”.
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Whether or not you decide to use BookFunnel (mentioned recently by Kris Rusch), for some great ideas on marketing with exclusive content, I recommend visiting https://blog.bookfunnel.com/. A lot of great ideas there.

If you haven’t visited the Writers Resources page recently at http://harvestanbrough.com/writer-resources I suggest you take a look. Some great stuff over there.

Topic: On the Challenge

Thanks for all the kind comments via email re my current writing conundrum. Overall, I’m not worried in the slightest. I’m a fiction writer, which means writing fiction is what I do.

For me, writing is fun. Being deep in a story with my fingers poised on the keyboard ready to record what the characters say and do is the most relaxing, enjoyable thing I can do.

So I’m not afraid the words have dried up or any silly thing like that.

I only shared my whiny take on my own current problem yesterday because I promised early-on to share everything about my writing process, warts and all. (grin) In other words, I wanted you to see I’m in the same boat you’re in. We all have our problems.

At the moment (I rolled out a little before 2 and it’s currently 4 a.m.) I’m still in the middle of writing this Journal entry.

Until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t sure at all what I was going to do about my challenge. Then I re-read what I typed in yesterday’s Journal: “Not a great start to the year.”

That was just silly and very negative. Remember this:

Negative thoughts ALWAYS come from the conscious, critical mind
and they are NEVER helpful.

Besides, a new year, a new beginning, starts every time we roll out of bed.

I realized I was giving too much power to a particular date that’s really just like all the other dates. That power-drain sucked all the fun out of writing and froze me solid, like a Popsicle at the North Pole. (grin)

So I made a decision.

Rather than forging ahead with the same start date (January 1) and writing-off the first couple of days of the challenge, I’m simply going to restart.

So I’m tossing out what I’ve written on The Farmhand. Period. Just to show it who’s the boss. There’s no reason to struggle with something that should flow naturally. Maybe I’ll start it over someday, and maybe not. No biggie.

What matters is that now I can breathe again. (grin)

When I start a new novel, whatever it is, I’ll restart the challenge from that date.

The challenge will remain the same: to write 10 novels in 150 days (inclusive) from that start date. When that happens, I’ll update it here so those of you who are interested can follow along.

Just in case you’re wondering, the 15-day per-novel time constraint won’t add any pressure either. Once I begin, I’ll just write, aiming for 4,000 words per day. Some days I’ll hit it, and some days I won’t. Some days I’ll shoot past it like it’s nailed to a tree.

Some novels will finish sooner than 15 days and some will take more time. The average is what matters, and 150 days after I start, I fully expect to have 10 new novels to my credit. There’s absolutely no reason I shouldn’t.

The plan is to spell-check each new novel and get it straight out to my first reader, then begin the next one. I won’t worry about designing covers, creating a promo file and all that until the challenge is over.

Anyway, you can watch it all unfold right here and judge for yourself how well it works.
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For today, no fiction writing. Today I’m going to do a little marketing, and that probably will continue tomorrow and through the weekend.

Today I’ll at least set up a D2D author page and see about setting up some book tabs. With 37 novels published or coming soon, I figure it’s about time. (grin)

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Business Musings: Sales (Planning For 2019 Part 2)” at https://kriswrites.com/2019/01/02/business-musings-sales-planning-for-2019-part-2/. If you’re serious about selling your books, read this. It also has some great links in it.

See “The Business Rusch: Pricing (Discoverability Part 7)” at https://kriswrites.com/2014/01/15/the-business-rusch-pricing-discoverability-part-7/.

See “Wednesday Musings: A Faulty Hip and MurderCon” at https://www.leelofland.com/wednesday-musings-a-faulty-hip-and-murdercon/.

See “A Dirty Dozen of Dos and Don’ts For Your CSI Characters” at https://www.leelofland.com/a-dirty-dozen-of-dos-and-donts-for-your-csi-characters/.

See “My Life As a Psychopath” at http://www.thepassivevoice.com/my-life-as-a-psychopath/. This can be invaluable if you write crime fiction.

See “What 2018 Looked Like Fifty Years Ago” at http://www.thepassivevoice.com/what-2018-looked-like-fifty-years-ago/.

See “You Tell Me: How Often Do You Buy a New eReader?” at http://www.thepassivevoice.com/you-tell-me-how-often-do-you-buy-a-new-ereader/. My own experience is identical to the Passive Guy’s.

Via Dean Wesley Smith, see “Public Domain Day 2019” at https://law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2019/.

See “Mentoring and Workshops” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/mentoring-and-workshops/.

See “Tips on Writing a Domestic Thriller” at https://killzoneblog.com/2019/01/tips-on-writing-a-domestic-thriller.html.

Via Jordan Dane, see “123 Ideas For Character Flaws” at https://writerswrite.co.za/123-ideas-for-character-flaws/.

Finally, a new resource. Take along a salt shaker, of course. Use what works for you and discard the rest. See “Writers Write” at https://writerswrite.co.za/.

Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 880 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 880

Writing of (novel, tentative title)

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… 1628
Total fiction words for the year………… 1628
Total nonfiction words for the month… 3421
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 3421
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 5049

Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date………………………… X
Calenday Year 2019 Novellas to Date…………………… X
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date……… X
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 37
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 7
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 193
Short story collections…………………………………………………… 31