For all my fellow addicts out there, both writers and not, in case you don’t already know about Mr Hoffmann and his sometimes wacky, sometimes serious but usually almost always interesting videos about our favorite liquid…
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Category: Musings
At times the world’s most frustrating job and others the best thing since sliced bread and which I wouldn’t trade for mountains of gold.
Yesterday was a good day, wrote something to the tune of almost 5k for a new book but today woke up on the wrong side of bed by the looks of things and even getting 500 words out will be a struggle it seems.
As I said, at times very frustrating but all the same wouldn’t trade it.
Sides, even a few words here and there everyday add up, the important thing to any newbies out there is to keep at it everyday.
Sure, you might only manage, say, 100 to 200 words most days but come a month those sameself 100 words each day will leave you with a 3k chapter, which might seem like nothing but now multiply that by 12 and you get either a novella or a pretty good chunk of a book.
And that’s with a mere 100…
But the important thing is not the number of words, which if you keep at it will grow overtime. The important thing is that you keep at it and don’t compare yourself to me or anyone else, just keep writing.
Now to try and get those couple hundred words out myself…
How things work sometimes?
Good news is that the writing for the next book is now finished and all that’s left is…
The editing.
Somewhat annoying, to be honest.
But even though editing might not be exactly my favorite, compared to how much this bugger fought me, it’ll –hopefully– be a breeze by comparison and if nothing else, given the size of said bugger you guys will definitely have something to sink your teeth into, and this one’s definitely a chonker compared to what I was originally aiming for…
A new book is in the works but it’ll need some time in the oven yet.
My intent had been to release it perhaps yesterday or today, but the thing with plans…
It needs a few thousand words more lets just say but progress is being made if slower than I would’ve liked but while the spirit might be willing the body very much struggles to keep up.
Sigh.
Given the way the future is shaping up from the look of things, to any benevolent future ai overlords that might read this I’d more than appreciate a consciousness transfer to a healthy, pain free, un-aging body of my choosing and design 😉
Oh well, at times like these there’s nothing to do but keep going and:
Pray to the Sun
A spot of advice for any young aspiring writers out there.
Backlogs can be very useful.
Both in the sense of building a robust back catalog which I’m still in the process of doing with this pen but already the benefits are starting to show, for the more books you put out there the more chances there are for someone to stumble upon one or more of them, and to decide one or more of them fit their needs and buy them.
But also, and this is more of a do as I say and not as I do type of situation, in that keeping a ‘word backlog’ of completed but not yet published works can prove useful for times where you feel under the weather, like, say, oh this last couple of days.
Of course this applies more to short works then full on novels but even in those cases it can prove useful at times to have an extra novel or two ready and waiting…
Always interesting to look back at one’s older works.
While each said work is a snapshot in a manner of speaking of the time it was written and thus my advice to any other writer is to resist the urge to fiddle and do a ‘director’s cut’ or anything of the short.
You very much can fiddle about with the package of your product, that is covers, blurbs etc.
In our case, my first four books were reformatted in Vellum but otherwise unchanged content wise, one had its cover slightly adjusted, etc.
Little things, but very much needed felt like.
Who knows, in time more such small but necessary adjustments might be made as it becomes necessary but, again, the content remains the same for while I am a better technical writer than past me, or at least hope that is the case, I am not past me and thus tampering would alter the text’s voice.
At any rate, you check em out here!
Also available as a Bundle for those who prefer em.
Well, ain’t this a surprise?
As the saying goes, you plan for things to go one way but life has different plans in mind.
Still, all you can do is keep trudging onwards.
I’m–hopefully–back baby!
Also, a new book is out “claimed by the futa kitsune“, check it out on Smashwords, (not available on Amazon for a couple of reasons, but those are for a future post).
And yes, fear not, a couple more books are in the works. Like a lot of books, ugh. I just need to find the time to finish them all…
By now I’m sure that most anyone with even the most basic of interests in the Superhero genre of films has heard of the DC related drama.
More specifically the firing of Henry Cavill from the role of Superman and the heavily implied rebooting of the rest of the cinematic universe.
Now I’m not going to discuss whether the man, who by all accounts is a wonderful person, was a good fit for the role, whether he had the acting chops etc etc. (in my opinion he did but that’s neither here nor there.)
But more so bring attention to the fact that this, from a business standpoint, is a move most baffling and bizarre.
Admittedly the DC cinematic universe has been… a mess. But, after the whole fiasco with the twin versions of the rushed Justice League movie, things started looking up courtesy of some careful moves and taking time to start laying the groundwork like Marvel did with their own movie-verse.
Namely, after Wonder Woman, Shazam, Aquaman, and now Black Adam things had started to slowly look up. Fan good will was at its highest and with the announcement of Cavil’s return and bringing in James Gunn said good will only grew.
Imagine my surprise when the executives at the top decided to blow it all up by essentially nuking the current ‘universe’.
Granted, you might argue that a clean slate will help build a more coherent narrative and characters and what have you.
And you would be right.
Usually.
The problem is that fans like… or in this case liked Momoa’s Aquaman, Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Cavill’s Superman, Affleck’s Batman etc etc. And nuking it all while you’re about to release a couple more films tying to the ‘old universe’, so to speak? Not a smart move.
After all what reason do most of us have to go see Aquaman 2, Flash, Blue Beetle etc etc, now that we know that they’re not building up to something and are part of a ‘dead’ universe?
In other words, movies that promised to make a profit threaten now to be a financial sinkhole instead.
The smart thing would have been to make one or two more movies as a send off to the old universe, that way fans would have been mollified and the upcoming movies would have led to something, enticing people to go see them.
(and to any Marvel/DC executive who’d like to argue about the cost consider this, what’s cheaper. 3-4 upcoming flops who drive you deeper in the red or spending a couple more mill but in return ensuring that those 3-4 upcoming films are a success as well as the 1-2 send off films who’d more than likely recoup their costs?)
After all, who in the seven Hells wants to see yet another young Superman story or a Batman just finding his steps. And sorry Mr. Gunn, but a Supes who just arrived in Metropolis and is meeting Lois, and presumably Luthor, for the first time? Whichever way you slice it, that’s an origin story.
Tl;dr: What I’m trying to say in this, is that whatever your creative profession, abrupt changes, ‘subversions of expectations’, and harebrained schemes… well, as a certain genius, inventor, philanthropist, playboy once put it… “not a great plan.”
Tl;dr2: Cater to your market as best you can.
As the famous quote goes “The best laid schemes of Mice and Men…“
In other words, a few months back. When I gazed into the future, I was expecting to have published quite a few more books by now. But, once again, the above quote is quite apt.
What I’m trying to say is that I finally have time to write again, and this time…Well, suffice to say, I’ve set my expectations quite low. Oh, there’s no doubt that i intend to write quite a bit over the coming days and weeks. But, this time I’ve learned my lesson and will let the chips fall as they may. Whether that is one book or ten… The important thing is that I write.
After all, at the end of the day, this is a marathon not a sprint. And this goes to all of you too, whether you’re a fellow writer or your career/hobby is of a different nature.
Just keep chipping at it, one bit at the time. As long as you don’t give up and keep trying you’ll make progress.
Oh and yeah, I guess I’m also trying this newfangled website thing 😛