On to some new projects

Now that I've finished Ma Tutt's Secret Spice, I'm catching up on a few smaller projects. Here's what I have in mind:

• Wrote Chapter 4 of Eureka!, a middle grade steampunk adventure that I'm working on with my friend T. M. Hunter. We're each writing a chapter, alternating moving the story forward and then editing each other's progress. We're maybe a fourth of the way through this last episode of a 3 part series. Parts 1 & 2 are available on Amazon - Escape! and Runaway!
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• Wrote the opening scene for my third Mister the Magical Cat novella called Cats in a Cradle. Books 1 and 2 are available online now - Cat Potion No. 9 and A Cauldron of Cats. I wanted to include a bit of book 3 at the end of Cauldron. Do people read those sample chapters? I never do, but I thought I'd include at least a little teaser for those who are interested.
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• Next up: I plan to write the origin story for my epic fantasy adventure, The Sword of Otrim. My thought is to submit the story as a stand alone to some S&S magazines, but I also envision this short story to be a prequel prologue that will open Book 2 in my Sword of Otrim series. Which I plan to write next year!

I also want to get to a few more short stories, expand a few on my harddrive that need more ooomph somehow. We'll see. Lots to do!

Random Writing Update

Haven't done too well on my daily writing goal (which is a measley 666 words per day for a 20k month). 

Other than this blog, I just haven't written much else. And most of these entries (word count below) fall far short of my goal.

I need to get crackin'! I've got my magical cat series to get to, and finish my biblical fiction story about Matthew, and then wrap up the Max McCannor series I'm writing with a friend, and also write the second half of the second Ma Tutt book (which I started in 2014!).

And, and, and...

Whew! They say confession is good for the soul, but that kinda hurt!

Anyway, here's the tally so far...

Jan - Words 

25 - 375 

24 - 510 

23 - 290 

22 - 150 

21 - 200 

20 - 50 

19 - 280 

18 - 295 

17 - 280 

16 - 525 

15 - 200 

14 - 200 

13 - 90 

12 - 0 

11 - 0 

10 - 175 

09 - 180 

08 - 160 

07 - 0 

06 - 200 

05 - 0 

04 - 290 

03 - 300 

02 - 300 

01 - 760

Totals out to 5,810 words if I'm not mistaken. And with 5 days left in the month to hit an additional 15k? That's 3,000 a day. Doable if I cleared the decks, but ain't happening with my current schedule.

Hey, wait a minute. With this blog post I'm already over 150 more words... Hmm!

What are your writing goals this month...and are you meeting them? Let me know!

~*~

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Writing Goals for 2022

Not big on New Year's Resolutions. Mainly because I don't keep them, lol. But looking ahead and thinking about what I want to accomplish with my writing, I guess it's a good idea to set some goals.

The quick and dirty: I will write 2 short novels and 4 novellas in 2022. 

See what I did there? Stated my goal in the positive. Not I want to, but I will. Now, to accomplish that I need to put x amount of words on a page each week. Fair enough. I'll tell you more about that as the weeks pass. Progress reports, and all that.

The novels themselves? Well, I will finish the three-part "Mr. the Cat" series as well as round out three "Ma Tutt" books. (Both series currently stand at one each, which isn't really a series yet, is it?) 

Both are magical cat adventures (maybe cozy mysteries?) and tie into each other, so that there will be 6 stories to choose from by the end of the year. That should help with branding and sales and crossover reads, etc, don't you think?

The other two novellas are finishing projects that I started long, long ago. First one, I'll be wrapping up an MG adventure called Max McCannor (with fellow writer T. M. Hunter). 

This story features a cast of orphans in search of Max's father, who was taken captive to exploit his genius inventions and skills. Sort of steam-punky, set in 1890s and full of fun gadgets.

We have episodes one and two done and just need to finish the story arc, save Max's dad, and put the bad guys in jail! Easy peasy.

The last project goal is to complete my Wool fan fiction series. Episode one sees steady sales or KU reads and is available here, The Last Prayer - A Silo Story. Has over 50 reviews, which is kinda neat.

I started part 2 and just need to finish the whole thing. I heard Wool will be streaming, possibly in 2023. So it will be good timing to finish my trilogy by then. This is with Hugh Howey's permission, btw. He gave all of us fan fiction writers free reign to play in his sandbox, which was super cool.

So that's the plan. To help me track my daily and weekly word count, I'm jumping in with some friends from Keystroke Medium and adding my numbers to our collective spreadsheet. It'll be fun to see how many words we eventually total as a team.

What writing goals do you have for this coming year? Comment below and let's get going!

~*~

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(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

Pulp Speed - Writing Friend Hits 900k words

A writer friend of mine, Rick Partlow, posted a writing update on FB recently. He said he’ll round out the year by finishing his 10th book while clocking 900,000 words for 2021.

For sure that’s dope.

Congrats, Rick, if you’re reading this. That’s averaging about 2,500 words a day. Including, he says, Christmas and his birthday!

How can someone possibly write TEN 90,000-word books a year? Um. Didn’t I just explain that? Twenty-five hundred words a day. Simple.

Let’s break it down. Personal numbers here. I can write about 500 words an hour, which isn’t very fast from what I’ve read and heard from others. Some writers can type 1000 words an hour.

Speed could depend on the subject matter, I suppose. This blog post so far, for example, is already at 125 words and I’ve spent, what, 10 minutes on it? Fiction follows the same trajectory, though, imo.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay.

Because the math is what the math is. For me, 2500 words translates to 5 hours of writing. 

People. You work 8 or 9 or 10 hours a day for The Man, surely you can find a few hours to write for yourself each day. Butts in chairs.

I actually try to get 500 words done in 45 minutes so that I can take a stretch, walk, and jumping jacks break. Gotta protect that back, those shoulders, wrists, and fingers!

Plus, I cycle write and edit as I go. Meaning, I’ll sprint for 100 words or so, read what I’ve written, make slight course corrections, then power forward another 100 words. Then cycle back, re-read, figure out what’s next and plow ahead.

In essence, I’m a one-draft writer. Sure, when the story is complete (mostly short stories and novellas, I’ve really only written 4 short books so far), I’ll read through it for any typos or glaring omissions, but I don’t edit and re-edit and rehash and “fix” it to death.

Multiple edits. Sheesh. That’s the best way to take all the uniqueness out of a story and make it sound like everyone else’s story out there. Leave your voice in your work! (done ranting, sort of, lol)

The great pulp writers of the past (and even today) were one-draft writers. Dean Wesley Smith has an interesting history of the pulp era and how these writers could produce so much material. Check out his article on “Pulp Speed” on his blog.

According to DWS, Partlow is approaching “Pulp Speed One” (think Star Trek’s warp drive!). That’s 1 million words a year. Pulp Speed Six is 2 million words a year. And interestingly, DWS has a goal to complete 12 novels and a short story a day in 2022. He’ll need to pass Pulp Speed Six to do it!

I know what some of you are thinking, that quantity can’t be quality; that ‘real’ writers slave over their manuscript for a year or more; that writers only work on one story at a time; blah blah blah.

These are myths, but I don’t have time to explode them right now. You see, I just passed 500 words and it’s been 30 minutes or so. Time to stretch, take a walk, and do a few jumping jacks.

Next time, I’ll share my 2022 goals and try to bust up some of those writer myths that so many of us believe. Until then, what are some of your writing goals for next year?

~*~

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(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

Power of Streaks - 30 Day Challenge

Image by QuinceCreative from Pixabay.

I didn't start out with a 30 Day Challenge in mind. I just knew I wanted to start blogging again. Every day.

And so this commitment to post a short blog entry has turned into a 32 day streak. Started Nov 6 and just passed the month-long target.

That's nothing, I know. But it's helped me get into a different mindset. I used to ask myself, "Do I want to write today?" And the answer was usually no, lol.

Now I ask myself, "What do I want to write about today?" I don't stress about it, but I usually fall asleep with an idea or two in mind and then wake up ready to tackle it. 

I think this will translate to when I start writing fiction more than just occasionally. If I plan to be a full time writer, then I better write, well, full time. Daily. Massive output. So this blog thing is priming my pump, as it were.

Plus I get to experiment with content.

If you've been dropping in every now and then, you'll have noted that these aren't long posts. Maybe 300 words at the minimum, 600 or so max. And the content varies. Heh. I have a lot of interests!

I don't expect readers to visit everyday. But I figure if you like my blog, maybe you'll pop by every few days or every week or so, see what's new and say hello.

Anyway, the power of maintaining a streak turns a task into something fun, building momentum as you see the days add up. My wife, for example, just passed 2 years of daily Spanish practice on DuoLingo. Crazy.

Oh, talk about crazy. In 2019, Seth Godin posted that he'd blogged daily for 11 years! It's almost 2022, so I assume he's kept that streak up! Here are three of his insights (taken from that post)...

• Streaks are their own reward.
• Streaks require commitment at first, but then the commitment turns into a practice, and the practice into a habit.
• Habits are much easier to maintain than commitments.

Plus, like many DuoLingo learners have discovered, maintaining a streak is like "gamifying" a task. Turning something that was a challenge at first into something fun and rewarding. 

Welp. That's it for today. See you tomorrow and then the day after that and hopefully the day after that! (Then you can call me the streak! wut?)

~*~

"Tip a buck, get a book."

(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

Where I'm At - Writing Update

Where ya at?

I used to be in sales and our supervisor would ask us every day, "Whereyat?" One word, really. It was a demand as well as a question.

If you wanted to stay on his good side, you didn't answer: "Standing right in front of you!" No siree.

He wasn't talking location, he was talking sales situation. Where are you in relationship to your sales numbers and sales goals? What do you have in the pipeline? What deals are closing? Who's on your prospect list and how many calls have you made today?

It's easier to ask whereyat!

I didn't last long in that career.

Now I'm a writer. And I'm still haunted by that question.

Where am I at regarding my writing and publishing schedule? What have I got in the pipeline? What's coming out next? How many words have I written today? What are your writing goals?

Buddy, where are you at! Boy howdy.

Welp. I'm not where I want to be but I'm a bit farther along than I was a few years ago. Here's a short progress update. Baby steps, I know. I'll have to ramp it up if I want to write full time in retirement. 

Anyway, since January, 2020, I've finished and/or published the following projects. (Links are to Amazon and contain my affiliate code so I get credit if you buy them from me, fyi.)

• Jan 2020 - Thee Will I Cherish (an Amish romance, under a pen name)
• Feb 2020 - Confessions (a Jack Daniels story, part 3 with JA Konrath, not yet online)
• Mar 2020 - published Pale Reflections by Gustavo Bondoni
• Apr 2020 - Tule Fog Tales #2 (collection of my dark fantasy stories)
• Oct 2020 - The Sword of Otrim (fantasy adventure, very pleased with this one)
• Feb 2021 - Runaway! (a Max McCannor story, part 2 with TM Hunter, not yet online)
• Oct 2021 - Cat Potion No. 9 (a Mister the Magical Cat novella, a fun adventure)

In the works...

• A Cauldron of Cats (Mister #2, pictured above)
• Max McCannor #3 (to finish the story arc)
• Ma Tutt #2 (sequel to Ma Tutt's Donut Hut)
• Matthew and Thomas (my Faith Journeys story)
• And a bunch more! (stay tuned for more updates)

Like I said, baby steps. But let me ask you a question now... if you're a writer or creator or in sales or whaetever your career...whereyat? Comment below!

~*~

"Tip a buck, get a book."

(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

Midweek Motivation - Overcoming Excuses

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

I used to write "positivity" blog posts about 15 years ago, back in the self-help / leadership / positive thinking resurgance. 

I still have the blog called Thought Renewal, so thought I'd crib from there on occassion and share some success strategies.

Here's my last post from that blog (from 2012!). It's a little midweek motivation for ya. If you're into that kind of thing. Which I should probably get back into! 

###

You've been there. So have I. A spark of interest in something creative. A new hobby, maybe. Or a project that you've finally decided to start. 

But then fear or intimidation or hesitancy sets in. "Oh, you should (fill in the blank)," someone says. You respond quickly with, "But I'm not (fill in the blank)."

Go on, you can admit it. You've said that phrase in protest to something or other in your past. 

• Someone recommends an excellent book. "But I'm not much of a reader." 
• A friend suggests you take Zumba together. "But I'm not that coordinated." 
• Back in middle school, your Language Arts teacher gave an assignment. "But I'm not a writer."

And so you let the "nottas" control your life. The truth is we are (and can do) almost anything we decide to be (or do). It's a matter of choice. 

Oh sure, there're some genetic limitations that limit an insignificant number of our choices in life. But those miniscule exceptions prove the rule - we can choose to do and be and create! 

In other words, we have the ability to choose, to a substantial degree, what our life looks like.

So here's my challenge: At least have the guts to say, "I choose not to read. I choose not to dance. Or I choose not to write." For at the point that we admit "we are choosing" we take ownership of our current state.

So, if you were not happy with your response to 2020 and 2021 (and all that happened "to us" these past few years), what that means is that you chose not to be happy with it. 

You didn't read that book, not because you aren't a reader but because you chose not to read it. You didn't exercise and get in shape, not because you aren't coordinated but because you chose not to. You didn't write that story, not because you aren't a writer but because you chose not to write it.

That's the tough talk! lol The good news is that you can do something different this next year. 2022 can be fantastic. Next month can be incredible. Next week, even! Or this next moment. 

You can choose to be happy with what you do, who you are, and the results you get. What's holding you back? Be someone different in the coming days. Do something different. Create something. Do it.

~*~

"Tip a buck, get a book."

(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

Good Reads #2 - Review of Write it Forward

Write it Forward by Bob Mayer is a very extensive "how-to" book structured much like a self-improvement book, providing strategies (Mayer calls them tools) that take writers to their next level.

Whether it's writing, marketing, networking, etc., the writer can employ these tools to plan, do, then evaluate one's progress.

Mayer is a former Green Beret and so draws on that experience for illustrations, which are surprisingly relevant. I especially liked the use of SOPs - standard operating procedures - for each stage of the writing process.

The nine tools are what, why, where, character, change, courage, communication, command, complete. These form a 'circle of success' for when you complete the strategies in one area or at one level of your life (or writing), you cycle through them again to continue to improve and advance in your career.

The book is a bit repetitive at times, but I think that's intentional as the material covers so much ground it's good to cycle back and read something you learned earlier but then again in light of a greater context. Very practical. Recommended and not just for writers.

Mayer has a website (bobmayer.com) where he blogs and gives away some free ebooks (I've read a number of his military thrillers and have enjoyed them). But he also provides some excellent slide-shows with great information on dozens of topics relevant to writers and life in general. Good stuff.

Peruse more of my #GoodReads.
Get yourself a free ebook.

Write Stuff #2 - Progress

Week of January 7 to 12, 2018

Write Stuff - Current Projects, Goals, and Celebrations.

My weekly writing goal for January is to compose a short story each week of around 5,000 words. So 1000 words a day is my target. If I miss a day, no biggy, the goal is 5k/week this month.

UPDATE for last week: I wrote a short story of about 5,500 words. So mission accomplished!

Long range, though, this translates to 60,000 words over the next three months. And since I'm about 20,000 words into book two of my "Mack the Magical Cat" cozy mystery series, my plan for February and March is to complete that short novel and publish it in April. You can read snippets of it at #WIPSnippet.

Last week I said I was going to focus on craft this month so I can submit January's short stories for publication. And I joked I would not write any silly space monkey pirate stories. ;) But I take that back. If I can sneak one more space monkey story in, I'll have a collection and will publish that later this month.

Why? Because of another challenge I think I'll take up. May not hit it exactly, but another writer posted an idea that I liked - publishing some project every two weeks for a total of 25 books or collections or short stories in 2018. That would be way cool. Two projects a month.

I already have an Amish romance novel nearly completed, so that could go up by the end of January. And if I finish my space monkey pirate collection, that will go online in a week or so. Boom, baby! Two projects for sale in Janaruay. Imagine 25 new books in my online bookstore by the end of the year!

I'm imagining it and going to work at making it a reality!
Thanks for reading. By the way, want a free ebook? :)

Write Stuff #1 - January Projects

New Column for the New Year: 

Write Stuff - Current Projects, Goals, and Celebrations.

I'm thinking every Monday I'll post an update on what I'm working on, where I'm at with my goals, and share some success stories (things I've published, acceptances, goals met, etc.). Sound like a plan?

So for this first day of 2018, here's what I have on deck for January. I've set up a writing schedule in my office, blocking out a project per week (or over multiple weeks) for the next three months. January's list includes 4 short stories of about 5,000 words each (short story a week).

My goal for each story is to submit them for publication. So I'm going to really focus on the craft here. No silly space monkey pirate stories this month. ;) Yes, I'll have fun with the process but these will be less off the cuff and more intentional.

Numbers wise, this means my daily word count goal is 1,000 words (5 days a week, that is). Which translates, 3 months out, to 60,000 words. That's equivalent to a short to mid-length novel. Keep that up for a year, and I'll have 4 novels done by the start of 2019. That's a stretch goal, to be sure...a quarter of a million words. Whew! But shoot for the stars and all that.

If you're a writer, what are some of your writing goals this year?
If you're a reader, what are some of your reading goals this year?
Comment below and I'll keep you updated as well.
Thanks for reading. By the way, want a free ebook? :)