Category Archives: Writing

Update: 82 Eridani

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82 Eridani Journey

The other evening, I shared chapter eight with my writer’s group.  I got pretty positive comments.  I’ve still got notes from the last two meetings to go through, but I’ve started on chapter nine.

Chapter eight involves one of the character’s reaction to finding that his wife is cheating on him.

It seems like I’m just a little more behind every day, but Spring Break is only two weeks away and after that, it’s only ten weeks till summer.  I can’t remember ever looking forward to anything as much as I am this year to summer.  Still, I’m cranking away, managing to get some writing done here and there.

One Little Error in the Spreadsheet

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I mentioned the other day that I had sold the same number of books in February that I did in January.  Turns out that wasn’t true.  But more than that, I didn’t have the right numbers for my sales for about the last five months.  My spreadsheet was off, because I didn’t change the formula to account for more rows ( I have more book titles than I did), so it turns out that I’ve actually sold about 40 books more each of the last five months than I thought I had.  That’s pretty cool.  I had thought my total sales number was about 10,006, but in actuality it is 10,236.

I spend way more time calculating my sales than is actually warranted, I guess.  I have spreadsheets of monthly and yearly sales and of my free downloads– which have hit 705,178, not including samples.  But it helps keep me focused on my goals.  You have to do whatever you can to stay focused.

You also have to remember that most books written don’t sell– at all, really.  Of those that do, most sell very few copies.  It’s easy to get discouraged.  I would easily become discouraged if I had only one book out there, or was selling through only one bookstore.  For instance, The Young Sorceress just hit its 100th sale.  I’ve sold 1 at Sony Ebookstore, 4 at Kobo Books, 13 at Smashwords, 13 at Barnes and Noble, 27 at Amazon, and 42 at Apple iBookstore.

So, every book sold, every email, every blog comment, every blog follower– each of these is a success for me.  And I keep plugging away.

Update: Patience is a Virtue

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

I haven’t had too much time to write, but I did manage a few pages this week.  I’ve been splitting my time between Patience is a Virtue and 82 Eridani.

I’ve gotten a lot of emails this month about His Robot Girlfriend and His Robot Wife.  People seem to be enjoying them and that’s great.  I wish I could tell everyone exactly when I will have the new book done, but I can’t.  I’m really planning to finish this summer.

I walked into school the other day and the first thing anyone said to me was “Four weeks till spring break, and ten more after that.”  So, I’m not the only one counting down.  I’d really like to get caught up during Spring Break, but I don’t know.  At least I’ll keep plunking away.  Whenever I get a page written I’ll have to give myself a little celebration.

Too Many Irons in the Fire

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Things really seem to be conspiring to keep me from writing.  I’m spending more and more time away from school working on lessons.  I definitely have more homework than the kids do.  In addition, we’re working on a reenactment battle of Gettysburg, which has its 150 anniversary this year.  I was out in the wind all day maneuvering the troops around– you have to give it to those Civil War soldiers.  You should see my kids trying to perform a “right wheel march!”  If that wasn’t enough, I’ve only got three weeks until the deadline for your yearbook.  I’ve got twenty kids working on it with me, but I seem to be the only one stressing out about it.  I don’t know if that’s because they’re confident or just don’t give a crap.  When I got home this evening, I just passed out in my comfy chair.  Anyway, I’ve got about two hours till bedtime, so I’m going to try and get a few pages done.

82 Eridani Update

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82 Eridani Journey

I finished chapter seven today and wrote a good portion of chapter eight.  I spent longer on seven than on most of the others.  I think it’s because it was one of the few chapters so far without much in the way of sex or violence.  Chapters five and six both had both.  They’re a lot of fun to write.  Chapter eight has some violence but no sex.  It’s a really fun chapter to write though, because I get to tear one of my characters apart– or at least to have him fall apart.

Most of my favorite characters are the really flawed ones.  The character in chapter five is a person that is so physically and mentally perfect that everyone else hates her.  And her flaw is that she hates herself more than anyone else does, for the same reason.  She hates her own perfection.  The chapter six character is a loving family man on the surface but has a deep and compelling need to kill people.  The chapter seven character is (maybe a little stereotypically) an introverted nerd, who is interested in a woman to the point of obsession.  The chapter eight character was a completely normal, well-balanced guy though– until his perfect world falls apart.  So now, he can be one of my favorite characters too.

Two Steps from Hell – Continued

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I mentioned the other day that I had purchased the album SkyWorld from Two Steps from Hell and that I wanted to listen to it while I write 82 Eridani.  Well, I am, and I really like it.  What I would like to do is identify each track with a particular character so that I could play that track while I write that character.  I haven’t done that yet though.  Maybe I will think about it today as I write.

Today is the first day in a while that I’ve reached my daily writing quota.  I kind of feel like I’m setting myself up for failure, because I’m already 200 pages behind for the year.  I hope that I’m able to catch up this summer…. come on Summer!  Come on Summer!  And not just because I want to get caught up on my writing.

I have another problem now too.  As I write this, my chair keeps descending.  I either need to lose weight or get a new chair… guess which one is more likely to happen.

I Had a Dream

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I had a dream last night.  It was the first dream I’ve had that I remembered in a few months.    I used to remember them all.  Well, despite the fact that my dream starred Lliam Neeson and Charisma Carpenter, I actually think I can use it in 82 Eridani, book 2.  I can’t remember ever using something I came up with in a dream before, though I often use events from my own life.

I’m not going to give too much away, but the dream involved characters named “the rose queen” and “potato soup.”

Two Steps from Hell

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As I have mentioned before, I like to listen to instrumental music as I write.  Well, I discovered Two Steps from Hell, a music company that writes a great deal of music that we hear in movie trailers.  They have several albums out, but I just purchased Sky World on iTunes, as it has a science fiction feel and I want to listen to it while I write 82 Eridani.

82 Eridani Starship

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Spacecraft

 

As promised, a bigger image of the 82 Eridani Starship.  Sorry it took so long.

Porn and Getting Things Done

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I usually visit Smashwords each day to check on sales and see if there is anything new ( I also check Kindle Direct Publishing daily).  Each day when I log on, there are new books on the main screen at Smashwords.  Hundreds of books are published a day there, so that’s no surprise.  What I was noticing was that usualy at least 3 of the 4 books shown are some kind of short porn story erotica.  They are usually between 3000 and 6000 words and sell for between 99 cents and 3 bucks.  I can’t help thinking WTF?  Are people buying this stuff?  You know you can get free erotica all over the net.  And these are barely long enough to be stories.  I’ve got novella’s that took me weeks to write for $1 and books that took me over a year selling for $3!

I’ve written well over 3000 words today… and yesterday and the day before.  I’m in a pretty good groove finally– for the first time really since the holidays.  Of course I have a lot to get done this year.  I have five books on the previews page and I plan to have them all out this year.  I think I can do it too.  At least I can do it if I keep going at close to the pace I’m at now.  I’ve just finished another chapter of Patience is a Virtue.