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.

I was reading a post in FB today where someone who is sound sensitive was raving about the noise-canceling Bose headphones they got and how much writing they were able to get done with them on as opposed to dealing with all the noise around them. Which I find interesting because I’m also sound sensitive and have misophonia (poor Ramón has problems chewing with his mouth closed due to a broken nose and I have to leave the room if he’s eating by himself because any sort of wet/mushy noise like that kicks in my fight or flight reflex), and yet I cannot listen to silence when I’m writing. I need something to listen to, preferably a soundtrack for the story that gets me into the mood for a specific scene (remember, frustrated screenwriter here).

Granted, when I’m listening to music I usually prefer instrumental stuff because I can’t listen to lyrics and write at the same time (I have actually been writing dialogue where the main character suddenly broke into the chorus of “Celebrity Skin”). I do have book soundtracks that include sung music, but when I listen to those I have the volume cranked down so low that I can barely hear the lyrics.

When pedal has to hit metal and I need to crank out serious wordage, however, I usually resort to instrumental soundtracks. Some of my favorites are the soundtracks for Salt (there is nothing better for writing fight scenes, I swear), Stage Beauty, Sherlock Holmes (the RDJ movie), The Crown, Interstellar, the Cirque du Soleil show O, and Naqoyqatsi, with a little bit of Westworld, Game of Thrones, and Iron Man thrown in there (I do love Ramin Djawadi’s work). I suppose I can always try Ramón’s noise-cancelling headphones and see what they’re like, but I’m pretty sure they’re not going to work for me when it comes to writing.

As many of you who read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog or attended 20Booksto50K™ 2022 may know, there’s been a lot of talk between indie authors about Kindle Unlimited, how it may be going away at some point (hence the creation of Kindle Vella which is 100% supported by readers purchasing tokens), and how that will impact authors who have been exclusive to Amazon.

Now, I’m not all that worried about this because I have Smashwords/D2D and Google Play accounts and can shift back to wide in a couple of days if I need to. Hell, I was wide until last July when I decided to try putting the bulk of my titles in KU and my income jumped five-fold.

That being said, it did occur to me that I might want to start looking at ways to sell ebooks directly without having to rely on Amazon, especially since they have a rule that if you price a title over $9.99 (as you might wish to do with, say, a box set) you can only collect 35% royalties on it. As I have hopes of publishing three box sets this year, that’s going to cause some complications which will require me to pull the titles out of KU so that I can sell the box sets wide (there’s a way around the ‘Zon’s restriction if you split the set into duologies but that’s a topic for another day).

So I checked all my titles in KU and when they were due to drop out. The bulk of these were going to drop out in late February so I unchecked the “automatically renew in KU” box to guarantee that none of them would accidentally be renewed. This was on January 13th.

On January 14th my KU reads dropped like a fucking rock.

In fact, the only sales I made were two title sales (the spike on 1/19) and KU reads from Shadow of the Swan, which happened to be the one title that I didn’t uncheck the auto-renew checkbox. Needless to say I freaked out. Clearly the ‘Zon took KU titles that weren’t signed up for automatic renewal out of whatever promotion its algorithm uses.

So I went back in and re-checked the auto renewal box for all the titles and waited. I know from experience that it can take them a week to apply changes so I tried not to punch walls and scream at the sky while my publishing income circled the drain.

And I was right to do that. Much to my relief I started seeing KU reads for other books than Swan today. I have left all of the Esposito County Shifters books out of KU, however, since that’s going to be my first box set once Shifter Woods: Claw is published and Shifter Woods: Growl ages out of KU in February. So if you were looking forward to reading Claw on KU, sorry.

That being said, I am going to prep D2D and Google Play editions of all my titles for the inevitable point where Amazon cancels KU, and as I finish the Olympic Cove and Paladins of Crystal series I’m going to take those titles out of KU so that I can publish them wide, as well. I also need to get the Shopify store up and running to sell signed print copies and find a good way to sell ebooks once they’re out of KU. Must think on that some more.

For the last month or so I haven’t been writing on the weekends, keeping them exclusively for cleaning, any publishing-related work, and generally relaxing and enjoying myself. And for the last month or so I’ve found that I’m generally happier and not feeling like I’m on some endless treadmill with no break in sight.

This weekend, however, I’ve been working on Shifter Woods: Claw and I can notice the difference. This doesn’t feel like a weekend evening to me; it feels like just another work day. I haven’t slept all that well and I’m achy from so much time in the chair. Moreover, I’m annoyed that I haven’t had a chance to do the cleaning and yard work I wanted to do this weekend.

And goddamn it, I’m in my mid-fifties. I’m not some hotshot twentysomething anymore who can write for 24 hours straight, grab a couple hours’ sleep, and head off to do something else. I need breaks, and water, and crafting, and two days where I don’t have to think about the WIP currently waiting for me in Scrivener.

So from now on I’m not writing on the weekends anymore unless I’m on an absolutely vital deadline. I’ll have to bump up my output during the week a skosh, but I think I can do that without wrecking myself. And next weekend, I am pruning back all that damned lantana come hell or high water. *nods firmly*

As you know, Bob, I write SF/fantasy/paranormal romance as Nicola M. Cameron and SF and urban fantasy as Melanie Fletcher. The problem is, Melanie has been nagging me lately for more writing time—apparently she really wants to finish Pharaoh of the Lone Star State (an urban fantasy set in Dallas that involves a psychokinetic engineer, an evil and long-dead Egyptian queen out to take over the world, and an Elvis convention. I ask you). I keep trying to explain to her that I have series to finish and readers to make happy, but man she whines.

So I’m going to see if I can’t cut her a little time in February. Or March, depending on how Crystal Reflection and High Tide are doing. As long as she stops wittering on about Pharaoh or her other projects (a time travel caper romp with Lewis Carroll, a take on Frankenstein from Elizabeth Lavenza’s POV, and Jane Austen in space. Once again, I ask you), I don’t care.