Tag Archives: self improvement

Huh! Never saw that coming.

I’ve spent a month beating myself up about all this promotion. It’s felt like lather, rinse, repeat for weeks – at least to me. However, there is an upside I never saw coming.

This time out, I’m asking my hosts what they want for their sites. Some of them are throwing me a curve or two, and the posts are coming out differently than previous outings. I’ve always pre-written a bunch of posts that I could send out when I was ready, but having both books so close together, that didn’t happen this time.

I’ve been a whiny baby about it, (and could be again), but I think the posts are better this time.

Writing has always been a journey for me, and this feels like a baby step along that path. It’s not as easy, or convenient, but that small bit of challenge is working for me. I’m not talking about sales here. Those may, or may not, come. I just feel like the tour posts are an improvement over my usual fare. It’s just a tick, and some of you might not notice, but I’m feeling it.

I spent the day custom writing posts for the coming week. They’ll spread out, and won’t fill the week, but it’s a comfort zone. If I find more time this weekend, I might even draft some new material. (My favorite thing.)

Many times, I tend to lower my head and charge into the work that needs to be done. I get a lot accomplished that way. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and assessing that production, both for volume and quality.

That’s a lot of words to say, I think I learned something. Blog hosts know their own followers. They know what will connect with them. I will still keep my living document about promotional topics. There is always someone who says to send them whatever I like. I may be adding to my list for future blog tour material.

Next weekend, I’ll reach out to a few more hosts and find out what challenges they give me. I’ll do it with a positive attitude, and hope I’m able to deliver what they want. Obviously, it has to fit with the story. I can’t turn Serang into a horror story or a sweet romance, but maybe I can pluck a few strings that will be different than my usual fare.

It’s a challenge, but I recommend trying it. You likely know your hosts as well as I know mine. Ask them what they want the next time you go on tour. It may be harder, but the results might be better than you imagined.

Aside from the tour posts, I also have one of my Story Empire posts coming up. It’s going to be another Expansion Pack post about characters you might not have considered. Plenty of me to go around this week, and I still have a few open days if anything exciting happens around here.

Here’s something interesting. I’m trying to make a pin board for all of my stories these days. I use them as reference while I’m drafting the manuscript. I found some amazing things that influenced Serang, and you might want to check it out. Asia has some beautiful scenery, interesting wildlife, and more. (I’d kind of love to visit someday.) Here is the link to the Pinterest Board. You’ll find pictures and artwork that influenced the story. Things like Fu Dogs, the Temple of Wind, martial arts, marketplaces, and more. There are simpler things, too, like watercolors of tiny birds, drying persimmons, and musical instruments. The secondary bonus is my boards aren’t going anywhere. They make a nice reference for stories that have been filtered down to specific settings. Mine and yours.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend.

27 Comments

Filed under Writing

Blogging, writing, and rambling

This is going to be one of those rambling posts. I learned about a writing exercise called “free writing”. This is where you just write, without any outline, specific plot, or preconceived outcome.

Apparently, I’ve been doing it with my blog. Whenever I write about my Muse, or my characters, I’ve been free writing. This isn’t to say that I don’t check my spelling or give it a quick proofread. I want everyone to enjoy it. I’m just not doing a deep edit and spending hours making it just so. I even found an ly adverb in an old post.

This isn’t the same effort I put into my fiction. I’ve been working over some of those stories for years. I learn something new, then give an old story another read. They ought to be pretty decent when I finally get them online.

I’m reading an older book that was quite popular. (No names) The author made a lot of mistakes. It gets hard to tell who’s speaking in several places, and I’m having a hard time visualizing what he wants me to see. The formatting is awful. I won’t blame him, since he died before ebooks existed. There are places where two or three words don’t have spaces between them. Words like ‘in’ became ‘m’, and ‘f’ was translated to ‘t”.

I pray for the skill to format my manuscript such that I don’t irritate readers. I also want to make sure readers can see what I need them to, without being annoyingly descriptive. (Look an ly descriptor)

I was told (ordered) to read Stephen King’s On Writing. I was really struck when he said writers need a special place, a far seeing place to just ruminate and receive new ideas. I’ve been telling you about my imaginary writing cabin in some of my old posts. I guess I’m getting some of it right.

No one wagered a guess at last month’s background image. It was a group of trees covered in mistletoe. I changed my background to one of ice for January. No need to guess, in my mind January means ice.

I am starting to see a lot of re-blogs in my Reader. There are a couple people that re-blog a dozen or more posts per day. This probably goes back to my fear of blowing up your timelines. I promise not to re-blog something unless I think it’s particularly interesting. One of them re-blogs exclusively, there is never any original content. I promise to provide original content. I figure you can surf around for interesting stuff as well as I can.

I had a secret dream to get 100 followers by 2014. I wound up with 92. Since I’ve only been blogging since September, I’m actually very happy with this number. Hello and welcome to the visitors I had from Germany and St. Vincent. I’m embarrased to say I had to Google St. Vincent. It looks like a cool place. I love seeing my map expand showing the international visitors.

I have plenty of work to do in 2014. I need to make changes based upon my critique group, then take up the more serious tasks I got from the editor. I want to read more, which is easy enough. I also want to keep working on my new story. My word count is in the toilet now, but I’ll get back on track. I also need to take the editing lessons and apply them to my old work. Somehow, I’m going to get them up on Amazon this year. Then there’s the need of my real job, you know, the one with a paycheck.

I don’t do New Years resolutions. I can attempt a change any time I want. I like to have a kind of task list though. I suppose this post was a step in that direction. Happy New Year.

8 Comments

Filed under Blogging, Writing