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Showing posts with the label the business of being a writer

The Truth About Writing Advice

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash   I saw a tweet the other day that said: Ask 10 writers how to write, and you’ll get 13 different answers. As much as that did produce a chuckle from me, it’s also the truth. In fact, that might be an understatement. The amount of writing produced about writing is almost insane. Write every day, inspiration is for amateurs. Have a set word-count goal. Treat it like a 9–5 job. Churn out content like a machine. You can’t edit a blank page. Plot every syllable. Go with the flow, follow your muse. Pantsing is just as valid as plotting. It’s OK to write one great novel and then retire. Take 15 years to write a pamphlet, slow and steady wins the race. You do you. Be a reclusive artiste . Get out there in the real world. Write what you know. Don’t write about your real life, be creative. This famous writer wrote first thing in the morning on a laptop, with a huge amount of caffeine at hand. That famous writer wrote in the middle of the night by cand

Forecast: Continued stress with a chance of scattered nervous breakdowns

So, after two back to back 5wk summer courses - which I am thrilled I got to take, despite the workload, because they were fascinating, my one week off before the early start of Fall semester (thanks, Covid) vanished into thin air for personal reasons. Then there were snafus with publishing my novel - I hired someone to do a final proof because it's nearly impossible to catch all your own mistakes when you know what something is supposed to say - even if you are occasionally paid to proofread for others. It just takes fresh eyes to catch everything. Well, not only did the person I hired have an (understandable) emergency which delayed the process, but after I got it back I still found typos we had BOTH missed, ugh! Now, I'm behind in reading for my fall classes, am still trying to cobble together the right poems for a chapbook competition with a deadline of Aug 31st, am being harassed by code enforcement about some weeds at my vacant fixer upper which is frustratingly still n

Final Book Cover Design and Tentative Release Date!

I did it, I finally settled on a cover design for the first novel in the K at Steals Life series; Kathy Shearer's Second Act. I spent months going back and forth between two, unable to decide. But just like in most areas of life, if something doesn't jump out at you immediately, it's probably not right for you. The moment I saw this one I knew this was it. Now that this is settled, I'm fairly certain I can publish next month. And just because I like the look of the repetition in 8/8/2020, that's the date for which I am now aiming. Hope I can finish the edits/proofing in time! EDIT: REVISED RELEASE DATE NOW 8/18/2020! The Kat Steals Life series is about a woman turning 40 - divorced, no kids, no family besides her cat, and in a dead-end job that sucks the life out of her daily. She's always loved crime/heist/police procedural books and shows, so in the midst of this slight midlife crisis she works up the nerve to see if she can pull off a heist herself. The an

Consolidation

I'm something of a compartmentalizer. I had a personal blog and a writing blog. I had a website to advertise my freelance writing and other marketable skills, and a separate site to talk about my fiction writing saga. I have a personal twitter and a writing twitter. I didn't want to "bother" people from one area of my life with stuff from another. Didn't want to bore personal friends with talk of writing, or posted poetry. Didn't want to offend fellow word-lovers with my politics, or bore them with monotonous check-ins to the same handful of places (I'd be depressingly easy to stalk if anyone were so inclined, lol). But I'm done with that. Maybe it's the New Year, or my new word. Maybe it's just my age showing - I am in my fuck-it-forties, after all. Maybe it was an article I read which said that having a website under a cutesy online pseudonym (like my qwertyKayt) is best if your 'brand' is talking about writing, while having a

Upcoming Review: 3 Paid Promotion Services I'm Trying

In a bid to get some eyes on my new book, Freaky Shitty Things, and Men I decided to try a few of the paid promotional sites I've encountered online. I chose these three on the basis of liking the services they offered and the prices they were asking. Seeing as how I am just dipping my toe in with paying for promotional services I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg. Digital Book Today | Promote My New Free Book program - I'll be having a free weekend soon on Amazon. So, this seemed like a good thing to try to get some attention during that time frame. They have an option for promoting your book if it's a certain length and has a certain number of reviews on Amazon, but I didn't meet either requirement, so I did THIS VERSION . Cost: $15 - I will let you know how it goes after the promo is over. Books & the Bear | Social Media Promotion - It's a basic social media blast, designed and implemented by them, and sent to their audience of 210,000+ . Average