Writing on a Friday
Or: I don’t wanna.
I’m starting to think that I’m coming down with something because my energy levels are starting to bottom out and absolutely nothing, not even fun stuff, appeals to me. When I don’t want to watch Letterkenny, you know something’s wrong.
Which makes editing Claw just that much more of a joy, you betcha. I’ll keep plugging away today but I’m definitely taking the weekend off because I have a strong suspicion I’m going to become good friends with my bed at some point.
And no, it’s not COVID. I’m not coughing, I have no chest congestion, my eyes aren’t red, I can still smell and taste, no fever. If any of those pop up I will break out a RAT, but right now I think this is just one of those random bugs that pops up after a cold spell and people have been stuck in their houses for days on end letting their germs gestate. If I need to sleep it off, I can do it this weekend.
Closing In On the End
I’m pretty sure that I will have Shifter Woods: Claw in shape to send off to the editor and betas by next week, which is fabulous because once Shifter Woods: Growl is out of KU I can officially release my box set (sorry, Amazon—omnibus) and Esposito County Shifters can start shaking their tails and earning their money wide while I work on Crystal Blade and write the short story with which I’ll be kicking off my Patreon.
I have to admit, mentally recasting the lead made a huge difference in how I approached the sex scenes (for one, I now wanted to write them). I know other writers come up with completely imaginary heroes but I just can’t do that. I need to know what he looks like and how he sounds, and it’s easiest for me to base that on a real person. *shrug* My brain is a weird place, but I’ve learned how to make it work for me.
Oh, speaking of Patreon, the rights for my Paladins of Crystal novella that I wrote for F*ck the Patriarchy: Getting Smutty for a Cause revert back to me as of February 9th. Which means anyone who subscribes to my Patreon will get that novella in March, whee!
And Here’s February
The ice outside is melting thanks to the rain that’s currently falling, although that’s predicted to freeze later tonight, but tomorrow will be in the 40s and we don’t need to go anywhere until Friday anyway so as long as we have heat and power I’m good.
Now that you’ve had the weather report from the clavicle of Texas, here’s my to do list for February:
- Finish and release Shifter Woods: Claw
- Finish Crystal Blade
- Prep and launch my Patreon (which requires writing a short story—I think I’m going to write about Fyodora and Callum’s arrival in Egypt, much to Henry’s dismay and Louisa’s amusement)
- Start recording the audiobook of Shadow of the Swan
I’m also toying with the idea of releasing a serial story on Vella. Remember that contemporary romance idea I had that turned into an SF romance? It would lend itself to an episodic form and I could definitely release at least one 2K episode a week. But I would have to ruthlessly outline it first to make sure that I didn’t wind up boxing myself into a corner halfway through the story and annoying the readers. I may work on the outline this week and see if I can get it into shape.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to churning out 3K for the day, whee…
Happiness is a Warm Office
As I mentioned in the last post, our upstairs heating is rather wonky where the craft room (and upstairs bathroom) gets the bulk of the heat and the rest of the rooms are left to do credible imitations of iceboxes. Ramón’s office has three computers in it which helps with heat to a degree, but this situation has required us to purchase a space heater for our bedroom which lives in front of the window and does its best to hold back the cold.
The first space heater we ever got, however, seemed to stop working after a few years. Because I am who I am, I stuck it behind our bedroom door and got another space heater for the room, always thinking, “Yeah, I really should haul that downstairs and throw it out” when I cleaned.
In other words, the space heater is still in here and it occurred to me that it wouldn’t hurt to bring it into the office, plug it in, and see if it might fire up again. So I did. Lo and behold, it’s heating up nicely (Ramón came in and sniffed suspiciously but I reminded him that the damn thing was covered with dust and I was about to clean it off) and the chill draft playing about my feet is starting to abate.
Even better, Jessica just inspected it and gave it what I can only call an approving meow. I suspect I know what her favorite nap place is going to be for the next few days.
In other news, I have written 12,790 words in January. Which is pathetic, to be honest—I should have done 40K minimum. So that is now my goal for February, which is good because I need to get Crystal Blade finished and out by the beginning of March and having a word goal will help with that.
Anyway—onward to February and the return of warmth this weekend!
Kinda Hard to Write When You’re a Popsicle
Winter Storm Mara has well and truly hit our neck of the woods, and unfortunately my office window has the insulation qualities of a piece of Kleenex so it’s fricking freezing in here if I close the office door. And yes, I know I supposedly have heat in here, but for reasons we don’t understand because the baffles were supposedly reset to fix this, the bulk of the heat upstairs winds up in the craft room, which is great for Ramón when he’s resuscitating an ancient computer but not so great for me, or his office or our bedroom to be honest.
On the other hand if I open the office door to get some heat in here, at least two cats decide to join me, and at least one of them wants to be petted. Or sit on the back of my chair. Or stretch out on my desktop and rest his head on my hand while I’m trying to write. So I’m kinda screwed no matter what I do, unless I decided to pop for a space heater which I may well do (looking at Walmart’s website and apparently I can get the kind we have in our bedroom for $56. I know what I’m picking up come payday).
So I haven’t exactly gotten a lot done today, but to be honest it’s 25°F out there and I’m just glad that our power and heat are still on. I may put everything on my laptop and write in bed at this point, I don’t know.
My GOD, I Woke Up Productive
So far today, I have:
- Cleaned the master bathroom (swept the floor, dusted everything, cleaned the toilet/tub/shower cubicle/sinks, cleaned the mirrors, wiped down all the counters and cabinets, bleached a few places where the J Crew kinda missed with the litter box)
- Put clean sheets on the bed
- Washed both duvets
- Put the Christmas decor (3 storage boxes), a drill, the kneepads, and other items back in the garage
- Put my Workmate portable stand away so that I could park my car in the garage
- Cleaned off and dusted the foyer table
- Put my backpack/laptop bag away in the bedroom closet
- Shredded the 2015 bills and receipts so that I could start filing this year’s receipts and bills
- Tossed out two garbage bags full of shredded paper and other garbage from my office
- Made dinner
- Vacuumed my office and the upstairs
- Sewed 2 motifs for the quilt
- Did more editing on Shifter Woods: Claw
- Made a list of everything I have to get done tomorrow morning before the freezing rain hits in the afternoon
Frankly, my dear, I’m pooped.
I Think I Have a Solution
As you may know, Bob, I mentally cast my characters with actors because I’m a very visual writer and I see scenes in my head when I’m writing. In fact, I usually create headshots of whoever I cast and add them in Scrivener so that I can look at them on the right side of the screen when I’m writing. And I think I may have stumbled over the problem of why finishing Shifter Woods: Claw has been so difficult.
The people I mentally cast as Matt and Angela have the perfect chemistry for the story, and I admire them both as actors. Problem is, I’m not attracted to the male actor at all. I love his work, I love his interaction with the actress I cast as Angela, I have no problem with the man whatsoever—he just doesn’t do it for me.
So picture me sitting there and scrolling through pictures of actors in their forties, trying to find the ideal Matt. Which turned out to be kind of a struggle because most of what Hollywood considers to be pretty leaves me utterly cold. I needed someone who was American, mid-forties, could pull off being the head of a Search and Rescue group and a wolf shifter, could do grumpy yet sexy, and was hot in my unique opinion.
After literally an hour of searching, I finally found someone who works. And no, I’m not going to name him because it doesn’t matter who I see in my head when I write—the reader will pick their own favorite actor, which is how it should be. But suddenly the story has taken on a much deeper appeal and editing this should be hella easier.
Well, That’s Disheartening
So I sent out a newsletter today, as you do, which was actually the first one of the year because this month has been a bit hectic. I covered a little of what’s been going on, passed along the projected release date for Shifter Woods: Claw, and did a little promo for Storm Season (because what’s the point of having a backlist if you can’t promote it to people?).
As a result, seven people unsubscribed. Don’t know if I bored them, they didn’t want to read about a MMM urban fantasy romance, or what. Maybe they were annoyed that I didn’t add my section about jewelry and jewelry making, I dunno.
But I dutifully cleaned them from my mailing list, got rid of the two hard bounces, and I’m now down to 577 subscribers, bless each and every one of their tolerant hearts. I suppose I’ll need to take a look at some of the newsletter builder promos on BookFunnel and see if I can rebuild some of those numbers. To be honest, though, if someone doesn’t want to read my newsletter then I’m totally okay with them unsubscribing. Big numbers would be awesome, but in the end I’d prefer my newsletter readers to be people who genuinely want to hear about my books and the crazy stuff that happens while I’m writing them.
Or who want little jewelry and gem tidbits, either way. In any case, if you’d like to subscribe to my newsletter you can click the link in the first paragraph and it’ll take you to the signup page (and yes, people who sign up get a free book because free books are 🎵awesome🎶).
As for me, I have to go back to work. This novella won’t edit itself, you know.
Son of a…
There I was, innocently moving some music that I’d burned from CDs years ago onto my desktop and adding covers when I accidentally clicked on “Smooth Operator” by Sade.
By now everyone should know what this song is about, but years ago it prompted an idea for a contemporary romance where a newly elected female CEO of an up-and-coming tech company gets talked into attending a high-class kinky auction and wins the services of a handsome older gigolo, only to find out to her shock that she already knows him (and had a crush on him in her teenage years). She doesn’t want to be CEO—she’s on the spectrum and served as the company’s CTO while her older brother was the CEO until his suspicious death. She hires the gigolo to act as her platonic companion and social interface while she sets out to find who killed her brother, which boggles him but he’s aging out of the job and is happy to have one last gig to finish off his nest egg. And then hijinks occur, as they do.
It was a cool plot and I had a lot of it worked out in my head, but it was a contemporary romance and I didn’t really have time to do a Natasha M. Stark story so into the mental story trunk it went. And then I played “Smooth Operator” a few minutes ago and the story came roaring back, only this time it’s a near-future SF romance. Goddamnit.
Thing is, the MMC isn’t a cyborg or an alien. He comes from a rich family that owns mines out in the asteroid belt but loses all his money when his father dies and it turns out dear old Dad was broke, which is why the MMC chose to go into high-class prostitution (and has some enhancements that allow him to act as deadly bodyguard as well as lover). And SF romance these days needs the MMC to be some big, hulking male who is somehow “other,” otherwise it doesn’t sell. And I don’t have time to do another book right now.
Grah. Why you do this to me, brain?
Being a Small Business Owner is Tough
I wish I could say I started out in indie publishing as part of a carefully coordinated plan to jump from being a traditionally published author to being an indie author. Truth is, I did it on a bet—another writer challenged people to write an 80,000 word book, get it professionally edited and covered, and publish it in six months. I said, “I’ll do it in six weeks” and that became Empress of Storms, still my most successful book to date by orders of magnitude.
And Empress took off like a freaking rocket. I now realize that I was surfing the last months of indie publishing’s golden age; if I could go back in time to 2011 or so I would skip working with my original publisher entirely and publish all my books myself because people were making bank on ebooks back then. In three months Empress made more than all of my books with Evernight had combined. As I am not stupid and would like the Brit to be able to retire someday, I decided to jump into indie publishing and turned that bet of a book into a series while I waited for the Olympic Cove books to age out of my contract with Evernight.
Empress was the only book that earned me five figures, however. That golden age of indie books raking in tons of money is long gone and nowadays the market is glutted with indie books. If you want to make a career out of indie publishing, you have to realize that you are now a small business owner who needs a good, solid business plan to manage all the hats you have to wear.
As such, I’ve paid for courses on how to make Amazon and FB ads work for me, I have an accountant who tracks my assorted income streams and is worth her weight in gold come tax time, I’m on social media mainly to promote my work (and chat with people at the same time because an account that is only about SELL SELL SELL quickly gets ignored), I keep an eye on marketing trends and how to recognize the next big thing, I’m constantly tweaking blurbs and SEO terms to get better visibility, I read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s business of writing blogs religiously and joined 20 Books to 50K™ in order to learn how to improve my business acumen and sell more books (don’t get me started on registering copyrights, designating a executor for my literary estate, and all the legal paperwork that comes along with this gig)…
…and man, I’m tired. I’m hoping to get to the point eventually where I can afford a virtual PA who can help me with promotion and social media, but at the moment I’m doing it all myself plus all of the other things I have to do (cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, budgeting, managing JJ’s needs, etc.). I’ve been able to streamline some processes, and clawing back weekends so that I only do bookwork instead of writing then has helped, but I really need a nice break at some point where I can sit around somewhere warm and drink margaritas.
That being said, I wouldn’t trade this for traditional publishing. Yes, indie is a ton more work but with all the effort I put into it I also reap all of the rewards. The bulk of the purchase price of a ebook goes to me, not to some publishing company in NYC who may or may not be showing me my actual royalty numbers. And when I start selling audiobooks (coming soon, I promise), I’m not going through ACX. I’ll most likely use BookFunnel as my fulfillment app and sell them via some sort of storefront app (I really want to sell ebooks, print books, and audiobooks directly from my website and use PayPal as the payment app but apparently PP is wickedly difficult to implement that way. I may need to find a PP wizard to help me out with that).
So yeah, lots of work, lots of tiredness, but in the end I believe the payoff will be worth it. Still want a vacation and a margarita, though…
Nicola Cameron Writes 