When Computers Do Too Much for You

Last weekend, I planned to replace the hard drive on my work laptop because I literally ran out of space, and I didn't had an extra slot for an additional drive.

Well, DH had been paid, and I entered all the bills and receipts, both business and personal, and reconciled accounts on Quicken over Thursday and Friday. I closed the Quicken window, realized I'd forgotten a receipt, and reopened the application to enter the info before I started my laptop's backup.

And for some reason, an update decided to re-initialize my data file. And by reinitialize, I mean the update blew away the data file I'd spent two days getting up to date and created a new, and very empty, data file.

ARGH!

Thank goddess for backups! I still had the mid-October backup on a couple of different storage mediums. Then I spent Saturday and Sunday re-entering everything I'd entered on Thursday and Friday.

And of course, NaNoWriMo started on Friday.

So, I'm a week behind on installing the new solid state drive. I also 7K behind on my NaNo project novel and 15K behind on A Cup of Conflict.

The family funeral on Monday, the election on Tuesday, and my annual cancer check-up on Wednesday have not helped my mood whatsoever.

Some stories may come out later that I planned, but dammit, I WILL get them done!

Writing Goals

 

Have you made out your list of goals for the year?

I'm not talking about resolutions. I'm talking about the concrete steps you've taken to achieve a particular goal.

Say you want to write a novel, and you've never written one before. Break it down into realistic bite-sized pieces. 100 words a day during your lunch break. Or wake up fifteen minutes early to write. Cut out a TV program to write. Whatever works for your schedule.

This picture is the Treasury House in  Petra, Jordan. The people of Petra literally carved their city into the cliffs. They sure as heck didn't do it in one day, much less a year. So why do you think you can write a novel in a matter of days when you have no experience?

Eons ago when I still practicing law, I wrote my first novel 500 words at a time in the local IHOP during my lunch hour. Think about it. 500 words X 5 days a week X 50 weeks in a year. That's 125,000 words a year. Roughly one and a half novels.

Write a novel one bite at a time. The same way you eat an elephant.

Learning to Say No

One of the hardest parts of owning my own company is learning to say no. There's always some cool new thing coming down the pike, and there's a part of of me that's worried about missing the next big idea. But at some point, there's simply not enough time and/or energy to do everything I want to do.

 

Of course, the hard part is figuring out which offers to take up and which ones to leave by the wayside. Let's start with my current situation. Darling Husband and I just moved into out new house over the weekend. We haven't totally cleaned out the apartment yet, mainly because my comic collection is a bitch to move, and I trust third parties to touch it even less than my couple of pieces of nice diamond and gold jewelry.

Add to that is the upcoming holidays. Even though there won't be a huge gathering of the family, Genius Kid has three weeks of leave, and he plans to come home for Yule and Christmas, assuming his car is fixed. (That's a story for Friday.) So everything is already chaos at Casa Harden.

I've got my regular publishing schedule, which the December release has to be moved back two weeks because of the aforementioned move. I tried to get everything done on time, but there was too much packing to do at the apartment.

And in the middle of all that, I got an invitation to participate in an anthology for next year. I was going to graciously decline, but as I lay in my recliner, eating pizza while watching the Steelers-Washington game and waiting for the naproxen to kick in, an idea for the anthology sparked in my brain.

Then yesterday, a friend sent a proposition concerning his new venture. As much as I wanted to participate, I hit a wall. My own work was languishing. I still hadn't read and returned a novel someone else asked for comments on back in June.

And dammit, I really needed shower!

I should have said no to some other stuff much earlier than I did. I'm achy and exhausted. And I have to admit I can't do things or stay up all night to complete a project like I could in my twenties.

So, learn from my experience. Decide what's important. You can't do everything. And that's okay.

Your mental health and physical well-being are more important than anything. You can't do anything if you've burned yourself out.

The Best Thing to Help Yourself

I'm in a weird position in that I basically had to start over with my career this year. My sales gradually fell from 2014 through 2018 simply because I was lucky if I got one book out a year. When I did manage to publish, it was at random times during the year.

I can honestly say there are two things that work in getting reader eyeballs on your stories:

1) A new release triggers interest in all our other works.

2) Publish on a consistent and manageable schedule.

New releases doesn't mean a new novel every month. Put out a single short story or a novella in between bigger novels. If your schedule is too tight for new work, publish an anthology of previous short works, or a collection from a series.

When I say publish on a consistent schedule, post your publishing schedule for the year in a public place, like your website, and stick to it. You don't have to release a something every month.

And now, some of you are freaking. "But, but, SUZAN! You published nearly every month in 2019!"

Yeah, I did. Because I WROTE a good chunk of those books during the chaos of 2014-18, including during my stint with breast cancer. So it was a matter of finishing and/or polishing the new works this year.

And shit still happened in happened. A Matter of Death was supposed to come out in June. However, my father passed away in May, and I knew the novel wasn't going to be ready because my headspace wasn't there. So if something major happens, cut yourself a break and don't beat yourself up over it. Let your readers know there will be a delay, and why if you're comfortable enough.

You'll find readers can be very patient when it comes to reader life rolls as long as they know what's going on.

Will I be releasing eight stories in 2020? That's what I've been trying to figure out  over the last couple of weeks.

There's a couple of Justice Thalia short stories I've written. Do I release them singly, or do I write a couple more and release them as an anthology? Some readers want new Anthea novels, Others want new HERO books. There's a little paranormal mystery series I've been toying with. It's a spin-off of Bloodlines that has been nagging at me for several years.

So you see, I've got to figure out how I'm doing all of this. And that doesn't include a fun, one-off side project I really want to write, even though it probably won't sell a damn.

Back to my original point, release new content, release it consistently, and let your readers know when to expect it. And as always, YMMV.

Sticking to a Schedule

In trying to get all my minutiae finished for Hero De Novo, I find myself still awake at 4:30 a.m.

No, I haven't been to bed yet. No, it's not insomnia for once. This is my own stubbornness of sticking to a publishing schedule.

I need to learn how to stick to a schedule again if I want my business to work. Back in 2012 and 2013, I didn't have a problem. I HAD to schedule everything, or nothing got done. I was homeschooling, working a retail job, and writing.

When everything fell apart in 2013, I still managed to keep a schedule. I would have collapsed into a ball of despair otherwise.

But when 2015 rolled around, I was having to keep other people's schedules. That lasted until 2018, when I simply didn't have the mental space to schedule anything beyond the multitude of my own medical appointments.

So I found myself working on relearning something that used to be habitual. Hopefully, this old dog can relearn her old tricks.

Murphy Is the One True God

Dear Readers,

I'm so very disappointed to say that any new releases scheduled for 2018 will be delayed indefinitely. My body has run into a brand-new issue that necessitates a bunch of diagnostic clinic and assorted doctor visits.

What does this mean for the current books-in-progress exactly? I will continue to write in between various scans, the taking of bits of flesh and blood for assorted tests, and talking to medical personnel. However, my mind is not in a place to concentrate on the finer details of publishing, such as editing and marketing.

Once we know the extent of the issue and we have a treatment plan in place, I'll let you all know the revised release schedule.

In the meantime, blogging may also become sporadic for the reasons above. Thankfully, I'm a few blogs ahead. LOL

Thank you for your patience.

Love,
Suzan

Riding the Priority Train

That priority list I wrote up two weeks ago? I'm still chipping those grains away.

After a week of edits and relearning how to format e-books, the Alter Ego novella turned short novel was uploaded to retailers Friday. Ironically, the one place I had problems was Smashwords. After two tries with the Epub version, I gave up and loaded the Word document. Obviously, I need more practice, or I need to turn things over to my formatter. In the second case, I need to ask her if she's willing to do erotica.

It's amazing what folks will and won't do in this business. If she isn't comfortable, which is totally fine, I'll put feelers out for an additional formatter through AE's network. However, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will because she does such a fabulous job.

Of course, DH's opinion is the formatting is worth the money so I'm not pulling out my hair in frustration at all the changes in all the retailers TaC's since 2013. He also suggested we save up for a Mac so I don't have to go through a distributor anymore.

On the other hand, I'm enjoying creating my own covers again!

So Monday, I hid at Panera's with my bacon and spinach soufflé and tea while I started through my beta's notes concerning A Question of Balance. Ideally, I'll have the corrected manuscript to my formatter by Friday.

My writing restart is all going a little slower than I expected. Life is intruding again. I'm trying not to let it get to me. But I failed to follow my own advice last week. Big time. Specifically, don't compare myself with other writers.

One writer, who started about the same time as me and whose work I greatly admire, finished her third novel for the year. DH reminded me that this writer doesn't have kids or elderly in-laws to deal with. Then I followed Dean Wesley Smith's efforts as he wrote a novel in seven days. DH pointed out that Dean has thirty more years of experience than me.

So Sunday afternoon, DH insisted we go out, just the two of us, which is why you had the review about My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 on Monday.

I obviously needed the day off because I was ready to tackle my priority list again when I woke up on Monday. And I continue chipping...

How Far I Got This Week

As I posted Monday, I put together a priority task list for this week. So how did I do?

Alter Ego's paranormal erotic short story is live on Amazon. Since this is outside of her usual realm, I decided to put it, and its companion shorts when they are ready, into Kindle Unlimited just to see what happens. Eventually, I'll bundle them into an anthology.

Since Monday evening, I've been working on the Alter Ego novella. Oh, crap, let's face facts, it's now a short novel. I managed to get 426 words in that night after hitting the publish button on the other short story. I worked on it Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday night was also when I had a major bout of insomnia. Instead on the short novel, I fiddled with another story in the Alter Ego idea folder. Over 3K words later, I've got a new series mapped out and the first couple of chapters written.

But, none of the insomnia session had anything to do with the short novel. Priorities, remember?

So after I awoke to the lovely screech of the tornado sirens, I buckled down and worked on the project I wanted to finished. Or I did until my brain turned to mush about five p.m. Then I started searching for potential covers for the new series and the paranormal series.

Thursday was taken by helping out MIL. Since she still can't drive because of her leg, I took her to her hair appointment. But then she insisted on buying lunch for me since I chauffeured her. By the time we finished at the restaurant, I needed to pick GK from school. Then take MIL back to her apartment, and stop at the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for dinner. By the time we got home, it was after three p.m., and I was exhausted.

So I worked on Zombie Goddess (the story's been in my head for ten years now, so I don't really have to think that much about what to write next) and doodled around on covers for Alter Ego.

Today? I've got one scene left in Alter Ego's short novel, and I really don't have a lame-ass excuse for not finishing it.

And looking back over my week, I can see where and how much I got distracted from a current project. I don't tend to get upset with myself since I'm usually working on something else business related, but I definitely need to work on my focus in completing what I started, which is Heinlein Rule #2.

Robert A. Heinlein was a very smart man.