Category: Lessons Learned About Writing

Wednesday Words 1.3

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

It’s a new year of Wednesday Words. I want to try to be more regular about this but I suspect it will still be hit and miss.

I wrestled a lot last year about whether I have the right temperament for the battle it takes to get any traction in the publishing world. I’m caught in the standard catch 22. I need more reviews to get more marketing but I need more marketing to get more readers to get more reviews.

So I’m giving it one more year. I’m shelving the debate about my emotional state and going full out. Whatever ads and marketing I can secure, three more novels, and probably one anthology, if Dan wants.

I was asked to post more of my writing. I can do that. I will do that. Soon.

What writing goals do you have for yourself this year?

Kindness Challenge Day 31

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

Day 31: Plan what acts of kindness you will do in 2018.

I think I’ll keep on being me. I do pretty well. Except for the forgiveness thing. I’ll keep working on that. LOL

In the mean time, let’s talk about the blog. Yup. End of the year. Time to review, take stock, see what’s working and what isn’t. I firmed up into three standard posting days this year with occasional offshoots and surprise posts. Fiendish Friday, Sunday Sup, and Book Review Monday are all doing evenly well. Except….

The pure stats:

Views: 4435 (Last Year 7794)
Visitors:  1623 (Last Year 1475)
Likes: 1386 (Last Year 1502)
Comments: 452 (Last Year 761)

Most Viewed Posts:

Allison Maruska’s new book review and interview.

A funny little ditty about what it’s really like to home school

A ridiculously boring post on rebranding my blog

An amusing travelog of our time in Amsterdam

A strange little question about the nature of the Great Oz

Blog posts I thought were funny but got fat ignored:

Um. I got nothing. I spent about 90 minutes going through my lowest views posts looking for some that deserved more attention and I got none from this year. LOL. Maybe my posts weren’t as funny as previous years. Maybe I was more concerned about offending people than necessary. Which leads me to …

I think when all is said my blog has plateaued. I need to figure out how to jump start it’s growth again. I don’t have the foggiest clue how to make that happen.

If you’ve got thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Til next year my friends.

 

Wednesday Words 11.29

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Today I got to see a review of my short in The Box Under the Bed.

The reviewer complained that he knew what was going to happen from the start and that it was all sexual tension instead of fear.

But it was well written. Gee, thanks.

LOL. I always though one of the hallmarks of classic horror is that you know it’s coming, you see it coming, and yet you are helpless to stop it.

Silly me.

At least it was well written. LOL

Fiendish Friday: Book Signings

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If you aren’t a self pub author this may never have happened to you but…

I have been to a lot of author panels signings. Generally you sit there talking to the other authors, waiting for people and when they come, they want to talk to the hot author of the hour. It’s never me. I always assumed this had something to do with me. I’m not a big name. I don’t have enough books out. Of course people are here to see Bob who has 9700 books published and is about 400 light years ahead of me in the process.

Then I went to SiWC. Saturday night they had an author signing event. All the presenters who were authors had a table and you could get your stuff autographed. I usually don’t do that. (Occasionally I author crush and I will seek out that author if I can but never at a signing event. Buying them a drink in a bar is much more effective.) However, one of my friends taught my writing class while I was gone and refused to take money for it. So I bought her a book and went to get it author-graphed.

I come downstairs in the middle of the event hoping to miss the early rush and the late stragglers. I see this line. Long, long line. Wiggling through an adjacent ballroom. I grab a volunteer. “Is this the line for the signing?”

“This is Diana’s line. If you want to see anyone else, just go right in.”

huh. So I walk in. Enormous ballroom. Tables all along the outside and in rows down the middle. The room is practically empty except for the authors who are standing about talking to each other. These are reasonably mid-list authors. Big enough names to get flown to this conference, put up for the weekend, and paid a stipend. All they’re just milling about talking to each other while all the attendees line up to see Diana, the hot author of the hour.

It was a total “holy shit” moment.

At lunch the next day someone asked me what I thought the dividing line was in the author realm. Published or not? Trad versus indie? An amount of money made?

I think it’s this. You’re either the hot author of the hour or you’re just another published author seeking your fan base.

Speaking of which, Ostrich Mentality launched on Wednesday. Have you got your copy yet? Have you left a review? Have you joined my readers group on FB?

Wednesday Words 11.8

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Did you hear that loud crashing sound? Yup, that was my stomach falling though the floor as I pressed send on an email to that editor at Source from SIWC. Gulp.

I am working hard on rewriting the murder mystery in question. I know, I know, why did I pitch something that wasn’t done?

Well, the truth is I went to Surrey to pitch something else but went down hard in flames. Rather than keep doing the same thing over again, hello insanity,  I took my first chapter of the murder mystery, which I brought for an editing session, and I threw that up against the wall. It stuck. Three times.

What’s a writer to do in those circumstances? Look a gift editor in the mouth? Wait, that so didn’t translate.

To be fair, I was honest and upfront and told everyone I was in the middle of rewriting.

So that’s the big enchilada, writing. Fast.

For the rest of you, you can still get that pre-order special (99 cents) of Ostrich Mentality, for one more week before you gotta pay full price for my genius. Just saying.

How’s your Nano?

 

Wednesday Words 11.1

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Happy Nanowrimo! It has begun.

Back in 2016 I sent Ostrich Mentality, unnamed spy novel at the time, to a ton of people for beta. You might remember this, I complained a lot about the conflicting responses. Along the way a couple of people sent me super detailed line edits. But I was so overwhelmed that I shelved the whole project for a year.

This summer I picked it back up, rewrote, re-edited, and now I’m on the verge of publishing. I send copies to a half dozen author friends, asking for a quote to use in marketing.

One of them responds, “Um, it seems like a lot of my edits didn’t happen.”

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

You have got to be kidding me. In all the various revisions and comments and edits, I missed hers.

Twelve brief hours later I had finished the worlds longest, highest stakes game of spot the difference. Because of course, 50% of things she commented on were gone – rewritten out of the book. 25% were already fixed. And 25% were rewritten but maybe or maybe not fixed.

My eyes are still blurry from that much intense screen time. LOL

Oh yeah, did I mention, pre -order is open! That’s right. You can get your very own copy of Ostrich Mentality for just 99 cents right now.

Wednesday Words 10.25

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 12 Comments

Greetings and Salutations my friends. I’m posting a bit later than normal but I find myself constantly running behind these days. On the other hand I am getting a lot done in regards to my books. Oh well. Late is the new Early, right?

Last weekend I schlepped up to Canada for the Surrey International Writers Conference. I will right a long post detailing the conference soon but for tonight I will hit the three coolest things and the three “you have got to be kidding me” things.

  1. I met seriously amusing people. Just flat out amazing, holy cow people.
  2. I learned some new bits about publishing, self publishing, and marketing that I did not know before.
  3. And yeah a couple of agents and an editor want the first 40 of my murder mystery.

Now the cruddy parts…

  1. Due to three traffic accidents and some weather straight out of Sharknado, I got to the hotel too late to eat lunch before my 3.5 hour long Masters Session. Now this might not seem like a big deal unless you know I don’t eat brekkie usually, I drink coffee. So I pull an epic bar out of my bag and power through. I can get dinner before the evening session. Tell me you know where this is going? The afternoon session runs so long I don’t have time to eat dinner. So I pull another epic bar out of my bag and settle in for 3.5 hours. An hour in I hated the presenter so much I got up and walked out. Room Service? HGTV? Yes, please.
  2. I went to a panel that described as X. And then the presenter did not talk about X, he told “aren’t I great” stories. And during Q&A when I and several other people tried to ask pointed questions about X, he dithered and talked around an answer. Thanks ass, I missed a good workshop on editing for this.
  3. The temperature. Seriously. I have been to conferences before I knew what to prepare for, but this was like – welcome to the Sahara during the dry season and  now Antarctica in winter.  I have never seen such epic temperature discrepancies, easily 20 degrees between rooms. All dry too. The kind of dry where your nose starts spontaneously bleeding, that dry.

All in all however I will call it a successful weekend. Look for more on the conference in the coming weeks. Also keep an eye out for Ostrich Mentality pre-sale, next week.

Wednesday Words 10.18

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

Hello nerves. I am currently in the middle of packing for the Surrey International Writers Convention, which I leave for tomorrow morning. It is my first BIG convention. It is also my first writing only convention. It is my first sit down with an agent.

If I could just ignore the colony of butterflies trying to escape my stomach, I could convince myself that I’m not scared witless. But alas….

On to happier notes, The Box Under The Bed, is kicking ass and taking names. We are beating Stephen King in the horror section. Yes, folks, beating the master. Woo-flippin’-hoo.

And things are almost ready for Ostrich Mentality. Editing is done, until my ARCs tell me otherwise. It’s been formatted. I have a marketing plan this time. I am essentially waiting on some quotes for my back cover about how mediocre, I mean awesome it is from best selling authors who are kindly helping me out.

How about a little cover preview? Yeah?

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Wednesday Words 10.11

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

Greetings my darlings. Much is afoot today so stay close because this blog is going to meander.

First off, I guest blogged over at Dan’s, again.   I was moderately funny and definitely baring my soul. Go take a look. Halloween is almost here, what better time to be scared, right?

Speaking of which….

If you missed it before, The Box Under the Bed, is free today through

https://www.freebooksy.com/

When I looked we were the 3rd one on the front page!

GET YOUR COPY NOW!

And finally a few bits of news.

Ostrich Mentality,  my sophomore novel will launch in November!

It will be ready for ARC in the next week or two. Message me now if you would like a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Also let me know what format works for you? PDF? Kindle? Word? I’m happy to oblige.

The weather is turning cold and crisp. I know for many people this is when they hibernate. Not for me. I perk up when the weather does this. I am raring to go. Third novel in the works. Yup, third novel, in the works.

Thank you, thank you very much. LOL