Tag Archives: writing

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2017 – A Writing Plan!

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So, I don’t have a clever image for this one so here’s a picture of that robot thing from Lost in Space. What I DO have is a plan. A writing plan, and here it is. I’ve got 1 book done, and going nowhere (not I didn’t actually burn every copy in existence.), I’ve got two more than 1/4 of the way through and at least reasonably well plotted, and another 2 that have strong concepts, but perhaps aren’t far down the road in the plotting and writing department. In any case. Here is my writing plan for the year, when I finally get on the Stick:

  1. Finish Deep Space Helpdesk – Priority!
  2. Add a chapter to the burned book and shop it to a publisher or two.
  3. Write The Dark Queen of Darkness
  4. Finish book #2 of the book that shall not here be named, because we’re looking forward, remember?
  5. Work on the book with Thittlebod and Penny Adventure.
  6. Write one recipe box per week for the Seward Journal Newspaper, and one Baked Goods & Bourbon post per week.
  7. READ MORE – I made it through a pitifully small number of books last year owing largely to the existence of audiobooks. I want to fix that this year.
  8. Also, LOADS of editing.

So, there it is, my forward-looking writing plan, yes it includes actually finishing like 3 books, super aggressive, and quite possibly a stupid idea t even attempt, but there it is, at least I have a plan!

photo credit: Sky Noir Robot via photopin (license)

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Looking Forward

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In 2016, I had one real resolution for the year -Finish Wine Bottles and Broomsticks and get it published. I may as well have just gone with the old stand-by of ‘lose 30 pounds and run a half-marathon’ because that was going to be a hell of a lot easier to pull off. Sure, I did finish, but that’s as far as I got in the success bracket.

On Christmas, we had friends over for dinner. It was a pretty mellow affair on the whole and the usual get-together at the Koster’s – food, drink & conversation. The topic of Wine Bottles and Broomsticks came up with the question “so what’s next for Wine Bottles and Broomsticks?” I thought I had a good plan and answer for that, write book two, and self-publish both sometime late next year. That’s what I said. However, in the week since, I’ve been thinking about it more. I even had a lengthy discussion with a co-worker the other day on the topic. His perspective was something to the effect of: “It doesn’t matter if it’s un-edited shit. You just need to get your name out there, put it on Amazon.”

I got to thinking about that in preparation for this obligatory new year blog. There are a lot of perspectives out there and I’ve received a ton of good advice. Hell, most of the blogs I even bothered to write in the last half of this year have covered just that. All of the advice has basically been in the vein of, “Don’t give up!” It’s good advice. Being discouraged is not a route to success. However, at some point, you need to move on.

The real, honest truth about Wine Bottles and Broomsticks is that I don’t have a plan. Yes, I could spend a lot of money to self publish – annoy all of my friends and family with pleas of ‘buy my book’ …. again. I could try to go through the process of crowd-funding using a slightly different approach, but I’ve basically burned that option down. The fact is, I did everything I could this year and it just wasn’t good enough – I’m not sure which part was not good enough, but it was a big enough part that the book wasn’t going to catch anyone’s eye. The only practical plan is to move forward. Don’t look back, just keep looking forward. What’s done is done and I need to look to the next thing.

So, if you’re wondering what’s going to become of Wine Bottles and Broomsticks, the answer is nothing. I’m moving forward now. Other projects are  in the works, and no I haven’t been moping around kicking myself either. I’ve got 3 other projects in the air just now and I’m happily plotting them out and moving them forward. My hope for this year is that I finish at least one of those and I’ll have something new to share.

Happy new year.

 

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Wine Bottles and Broomsticks takes a bow, moves off stage

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Last week, I wrote a blog post about how Wine Bottles and Broomsticks wasn’t going to happen. Today, it didn’t. It didn’t achieve the requisite number of pre-orders on Inkshares.com in order to produce a limited run of the book. After the post from last week, I received a lot of really excellent feedback and advice. The basic gist of the advice was to keep moving, not just with writing, but with this project. Publishing is a tough business and Inkshares was probably not the best venue for an unknown author, especially given the fact that a pre-order there is more expensive than readers are comfortable paying for, and the incentives weren’t enough to overcome that cost difference. In short, just because this effort failed, doesn’t mean that continuing to explore other directions isn’t worth the time. I just need to sit-down and re-think what I’ve done and what other options remain.

At the moment, the basic direction is to keep moving. I’ve gotten some interesting and creative ideas to work with, but I think the first thing is to hit up a few indie publishers to see if I can find a fit for the project there. In the mean time, I’ve started working on book two and hope to have that drafted and ready for editing sometime next spring. If I don’t manage to pick up a publisher for Wine Bottles and Broomsticks by then, I will move forward with publishing it, along with the sequel myself. I’m not sure what that might look like, and I might yet conclude that self-publishing won’t be a successful route for me, but at least I’ve got an idea of how to proceed.

Anyhow, that’s the state of things. Thank you all so much for all of your support, this isn’t the last word on Wine Bottles and Broomsticks, but it is going on the shelf for a while.

Thanks,

Dave.