Taking a run at my backlist

May 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the things I realised quite early on was the first full year of actually self publishing (and not just the foundation work before it, which, you could argue has been about 20 years in the making) is going to be *crazy*. I’m on my two week countdown right now and I’m really worried. Actually, by the time this post goes live it’ll be 12 days to go and it’ll be one of those crazy things I wrote in the downtime between *stuffs*.
And that’s where I am right now.  Taking a run at filling out my backlist and creating short stories in anthologies, and writing novels for publishing and and and…

And it finally dawned on me.  If I’m talking about it, I’m not *doing it*.  And if I’m not *doing* it, what’s the point.  Where’s the point in a todo list that carries over day to day?

So, that’s what I’m tackling now.  I’ve stepped down from jobs that I can’t reasonably do.   I’m reworking my days so that there’s a reason to get up in the morning instead of going back to sleep when everyone leaves.  I’m working on ensuring that I’m awake in the mornings, even if it means feeling like crap for the first few hours.

And I’m finishing Glass Block.  I have a week, and then it goes to my proofreader.  Woo.

Filed Under: Butterfly Mind

Leading a horse to water and getting back on it, only to be pitched off when it drinks

May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I have long lamented the good old days where all I did in the morning was get up, do a Livejournal entry and then *write*.  I’d write my ass off till he chased me off (he being the ex, not the current) and then give him the puter for a while, then stay up till one or two in the morning co-writing with a friend.  Those were the days.  And then he left, and all I did was write, but insiduously, other stuff started creeping in.  In my capacity as project supporter for something, I had to socialise for four weeks of the year, which led me back to gaming, which led me to changing my last name before we’re actually married, because it’s easier for branding.  And it led me away from writing.
I’ve quit…nine time since then.  And each time I tell myself it’s because I’m more useful as (editor/copywriter/mom).  And each time it’s a wild lie.  Close to true but not quite.
I’m now at the point where, if I don’t deal with this, it’s going to do more damage than it’s worth.  So, I’m getting back on the horse.  Back in the saddle.  Falling off when the dammed thing bends down to drink some water, and discovering actually, this mud is quite inspirational.  The usual.

What’s unusual about it is for the first time in my life, I’m actually making the deadlines that I’ve chosen to look at part of my ‘bucket list‘.  There’s three lists currently appearing on this site.  The main one, which is a mix of everything that I need to accomplish myself.  The shorter one which is the deadlines I need to hit.  And the even shorter still one which is tentative book release dates.

It works I think.  Till I land face down in the mud.
I’ve also got one final project to plan out/sneak in in the next few weeks.  It’s called ‘Garret’ and it’s something a little different.

Filed Under: Asides, Butterfly Mind, Daily slog, Fiction, Non-fiction, Professionalism, what's this got to do with writing?, Writing

Tiny voices and All the things that I have done

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

(sharp people will spot that these are two song titles from BoxCar Racers and The Killers respectively)

My muse is an elusive creature.  Most people say ‘she’ when referring to their muse – mine is definitively male.  I wish I could say I knew ‘who’ he was – so I knew better how to please him, but I don’t.  All I know is that lately, he’s sat neglected while I’ve done other stuff.  And I should know better – there’s no reason to ignore one element of my life to the detriment of others, but that’s what I’ve been doing.

And he’s going to get shunted off to one side for a while longer – I’m now, officially teaching.  On my own site, but it’s more organised than I could manage on Facebook, and is designed to let people go at their own pace (if they can’t, or we run a regimented one and a looser one, I’ve not decided yet.) it’ll be a lot of setup for now, then I’ll get more space to get on with it – but between it, my ‘day job’ (editing), my night job (Glass Block !!! WOOOOO!!!) I don’t know how I’m going to balance stuff, but it’s time I did this instead of giving away everything I do for free.

So that’s me.

Longer post tomorrow - I’ve got to start gearing up for launch, and I’ve got some nice blog posts queued for that.

Filed Under: Asides

Review – Shadow on the Wall by Pavarti K Tyler – Five stars

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Reviewables

(before anyone asks me if I’m doing reviews again, long and short answer is no.  I’m working through my pile, but Pavarti needed this sooner rather than later and asked MONTHS ago…so…)

Shadow on the Wall, by Pavarti K Tyler isn’t your typical literary exploration of terrorism, oppression and superheroes.

Morality police, tonnes of secrecy and a world where someone standing up for the things the believe in can be fatal, but the big standout of this book, for me at least was the spot on characterisation.  I actually *cared* for the characters in this book.  There was very little that bumped me out of the book – and those things were minor.
I loved the interaction between the main characters – I also have to say, I really appreciated the ensemble cast – and I feel confident in saying that though this novel is about big, sweeping ‘stuff’ in a world where ‘muslim’ rarely gets used in the same sentence as ‘superhero’ (with no offence to those that are both), that it was confidently handled.  But I can’t decide if it’s character driven or plot driven – it’s one of those rare books that balance all of that satisfyingly. And it’s one of the very rare pieces of fiction that I came away from with an understanding of the underlying issues in a far greater sense than when I went in.  I’ve often found books that deal with something that is as action and politically charged as that, I have to stop and look stuff up.

Oppression is a strong theme here – deftly handled.  From the way the plot moves on (almost while you’re paying attention to something else, but not in a bad way – kinda like a magicians slieght of hand instead of the stuff the box magic that we see right in front of us) to sand…everywhere, there’s a restraint, even to the characters at points which lent strength to the book.
This book would be perfectly at home with the others recommended for the final year of my degree – the transgressive nature of the book though is soon subsumed by the book.  In talking about it with others, I’ve mentioned Rushdie, I’ve mentioned Nabakov (beauty in terror, rather than the actual subject).  And that’s the thing.  This book is beautiful.  And terrifying.  I felt oppressed reading it – I felt for the characters and their dreams – the things they’ve stuffed down till there’s no room any more.

My one tiny niggle (which isn’t enough to actually detract anything from the book, but when I’m wholly positive, I feel like I’m cheating people) is that the book will be seen as controversial, simply because of the subject matter.  And while it’s a perfectly good thing to embrace, I don’t want people put off by that.  Read the book, you won’t be sorry.

Five stars.

D Kai Wilson-Viola, Ba(hons) Creative Writing, 2011 University of Gloucestershire

Disclaimer – Pavarti let me know that she specifically needed a review from a graduate, which is why it’s listed above.  I bought the book for the review, and there has been no monetary exchange for it’s provision.

Filed Under: Reviews

Sin – come into the Asylum – by Shaun Allan – 4.8 stars

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Reviewables

Disclaimer – I received a copy of this book free in return for a review (nearly a year ago, sorry Shaun!)

Knowing my mental health as most of my blog readers do (if you don’t, I’ll wait here, go on over and read bi-polarbears – that’s my mental health advocate site, and is designed to talk about the horrible things that I’ve had to live with as a bipolar for most of my life.  And the amazing stuff.)

So, when I encounter a character in an asylum, portrayed as skillfully as Shaun’s managed, I have to ask a few questions of myself.

Is this authentic? Yes.
Is it creepy? Yes.
Am I going to sleep after finishing it? No.

And a year on, every so often it sneaks up on me.  Masterful characterisation, mental health and insanity played to the bone, and an amazing ensemble cast, this book is good.  More than good, it’s haunting.  And mostly because the character’s voice is just spot on.  I’m not kidding on this one – I couldn’t find one way to improve the voice (and was so absorbed in the book that if I spotted mistakes they were trivial).  I did hit a couple of rough patches that I had to re-read, but overall this book is spot on.

I’d rate this almost five stars.  Close enough in fact that it’s practically unimportant to mention the two tiny points I’d take off (the rough patches mostly).

Filed Under: Reviews, Writing

Zombies, brains and other not so fun stuff

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I recently found out a press I’d worked with about four years ago is turning into a bit of a joke in the Indie community.

(For reference, the story below was published under Sabrann Curach, which is my pen name for horror)
My first zombie based story, ‘Footnotes to a Lesson’ was published in 2009 in an anthology put out by (name redacted).  If you ask me about it, you’ll still get all of the information about it.  And at the time, there were a couple of tiny niggles (he wouldn’t accept the contract as a scanned copy, despite the fact he wanted it yesterday and he was US, I was UK), he grumbled about how much I ended up paying for contributor copies and claimed he made a ‘massive loss’ on it and despite saying in the beginning that mine was ‘the best’ zombie story out there, that it was an inch from being dumped from the anthology three days before print and that he’d never work with me again because paying for the books in contributor copies was making him a massive loss, I think I came out unscathed.  I’ve still got three copies of the editon here (I misspelled the dedication in one, kept one for myself and my partner has one).  The email exchanges that we had were always really odd.  And his concept of editing, even back then was strange.  I was asked to review and provide a better copy of the short after he wanted something clarified, and I did, but he told me in the end, he didn’t want it and went off on me on a reply to the same email as the one asking me for the story.  I put it down to busyness on his part.

He was a bit odd again when my friend (who was looking at compiling an anthology of my work) got in touch with him (at the time I wrote it off to ‘busy’)  and asked when the rights released, and I got an email a while back about how the press was being targeted.  And another odd one about ‘knowing people’s writing like a fingerprint, so if I had anything to say…’

I think I finally got the pieces put in place for me.  Turns out that the press has gotten out of control and all that’s going on is anthology after anthology.  Which is sad, because I was in the first one with some amazing writers.

Footnotes is now available (after another edit) from Amazon (UK – US) and I’m no worse for wear, but I am kinda upset for the people who had this happen.

Filed Under: community, Publishing, what's this got to do with writing?, Writing

A change in direction

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Disorganised organisation

Ever felt like you’re faking it?

That’s been me recently.  And I know, I’ve been talking about this a lot lately, but the truth of the matter is I wake up in the morning with grand plans and discover that all I’m really getting done is making myself anxious.  Todo lists planned meticulously, and I don’t even look at them in the end.  And it’s not about discipline – it’s about feeling disconnected.  From everything.

Lots of people will identify this as ‘the post novel blues’.  In my case though, they struck before I even made the current novel ‘post’. Structure to my working day has always been difficult, and this just takes the biscuit.  And I think I know why.

I’m not an author.  I’m a storyteller that happens to share her stories on the side.  I’m not a copywriter – I’m a girl that writes to pay for all of the other stuff I do.  And it doesn’t mean that I don’t take copywriting and editing and all of the other stuff really seriously – I do.  The problem is I take it too seriously.

I don’t think there’s an easy answer to what’s bothering me right now.  I think easy answers are a cop out.  But I also think that all of this investing in a job when I want to be investing in ‘the greater good’ is doing me harm.  It’s why I sleep so long in the mornings if I’m not up and out of bed.  It’s why I go running when I’m pissed off till I’m so wobbly I can’t stand – then undo it all by drinking litres of cola when I’m depressed.

I’m flawed, I’m not special, and I’m tired – all the time.

So.  I’m changing direction.  And before anyone panics, this is a good thing.
Glass Block *is* coming out sometime around the beginning of next month along with a big project that’s been months in the making.    It’s pretty loosey goosey right now, but that’s ok.

Copywriting/editing/social media support/PR and coding only happen between the hours of 10 and three weekdays.  And only if there’s work assigned.  If I miss those slots, I move them, either by adding an extra hour on either side or by doing it during my free time.  I’m well aware that means I’m only working 20 hours a week – but it’s WORK – not ‘invoicing and other stuff’.  That gets fitted in around the other things I’m doing because invoicing and negotiation shouldn’t take away from my productive hours.  And that gives me eighty hours a month, with a bit of leeway.  it should be more than enough to make enough money part time to cover everything we need.  And if I manage that I’ve got two extra hours in the morning, daily that I can use.

The two extra hours, for now, are being invested in my own stuff.  And the hour after is being invested in fiction writing for me.  I have other ‘free time’ but I want to get into the habit of sitting down and working, not sitting down, procrastinating and dealing with ‘other stuff’ then working.  I’ve had an excuse lately – but that excuse is also the reason I’m wallowing.

I’m going to start doing *something* to give back to the community.  I haven’t decided what yet, but I’m going back to my roots and seeing what I can do.  I’m also looking at investing a portion of what I earn from now on to further myself, both as a copywriter and an editor.

But the main thing is spending time on my own stuff as well as on everyone else’s.  I don’t do ‘static’ well, and that’s what everything I own right now is.  Static and not moving, at all.  So I’m going to change that.

Filed Under: Butterfly Mind, Daily slog, Writing

Here’s my Workflowy pastable list – feel free to use it!

May 3, 2012 By 4 Comments
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Disorganised organisation

Workflowy rocks.  It’s basically an ever expandable todo list of doom.  You can keep everything in there, and copy whole segments and paste them elsewhere, and it’s accessible from most* mobile browsers.  And your laptop.

It’s part todo list, part idea store.  But my big problem has always been finding a way to categorise everything.  And though it was easy just to flick through and find stuff, I’ve found that the pattern laid out (with some additional bits, for writers) on this image works really well. (with thanks to the Workflowy blog and Stephen Pickering).  This is my system, though I think I’ll be adding to it.

How I use it.  This is at the top of my screen.  Directly below this is my inbox, where everything goes as I think of it.  Unless I can automatically categorise it, it’s ‘held’ there till I get to review my todo.  And then I pick off the stuff I need to do – I’ve found that putting a date on the work that has a firm deadline means I don’t need to build a specific todo list.

What do you think?

Got Workflowy?  Just copy and paste the list below.  Everything that is a tag will become a tag once you start typing.

Search

  • dates: #sep #oct #nov #dec #2011 #2012 #deadline #may15th #may11th #tomorrow
    • days: #mon #tue #wed #thur #fri #sat #sun
    • to be done on the next eg saturday #nextsat
    • #may15th #may11th #may12th #may20th #may22nd
  • time: #soon #pending #delegate #future #someday #today #tomorrow #hold #priority
    • #delegate – Waiting for(should have a specific day attached to ensure follow-up)
    • #future – anything we would like to do in next 3-10 years
    • #someday – anything we are thinking about in next 1-2 years but not definite
    • #hold – something we would like to do but pending eg money :(
    • #priority – for ongoing stuff not yet given a specific day
  • Type: #project #plot #idea #book #series #article #website #research #issue #checklist #template #link #snippet #blogpost
    • #research – all future things requiring research and thought (may have info added at any time, but once actively progressing is no longer project)
    • #issue – all future things requiring thought
    • - #checklist – make and keep for repeatable tasks to make it easy next time
    • #template – series of checklists saved and pastable.
    • #link – to useful webpages, can also add phone numbers, emails
  • Actions: #call #message #email #followup
    • writing actions #submit #bill #content #redraft #upload #format #edit #publish #sendout #idea #draft #trunk
      • #action -means something is in progress, not completed, without further input
      • #call #message
      • #publish
      • #edit
      • #sendout
      • #format
      • #upload
      • #redraft
      • #content
  • Projects: (your projects here, each one preceded by a hash symbol)
  • Books (your books here, each one preceded by a hash symbol)
What do you think?  Let me know!
Filed Under: Butterfly Mind, community, Daily slog, Publishing, what's this got to do with writing?, Writing

Getting back on the horse

May 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Disorganised organisation

(even when you feel like you can’t)

One of the major things I’m infamous for is giving myself too much to do.  Even if I do it with the best of intentions, at some point I have to acknowledge that the craziness that is my work schedule, and lack of some of the prep work that I’ve noticed lately is totally my fault.

And though it’s not an excuse, I know *WHY* I do it.  If I’m so busy that I don’t need to think for as short a time as possible every day, then I don’t feel bad.  When I can dwell, that’s when I start feeling like my world is outta control and that I need to do something about it.
Except, I’m adding to the outta control issues I have.
I’m a frenetic burnout type – I talked about it a while back on the Indie Author community.  What that means is that even with planning, I’m probably going to fail – I set myself up for too much and my expectations are completely unreasonable.

And for the last few weeks, I’ve been drifting.  Getting up – cramming as much into my day as possible, going to bed.  And still not achieving nearly enough, because part of what I’ve had to cram into the day has been family stuff.  And though that looks like it might settle in the next few weeks/months, in the interim we have to find a ‘patch’ of sorts.

So.  I thought I would spend a bit of time this week editing for clients and trying to get the todo list of doom under control.  Which led me quite neatly back to Workflowy.

So, I’m sorting things out.  Workflowy will run on my iPad and I can review every night before bed.
Next post in this series will be about how I’m organising Workflowy, and sharing my rules.  You can modify them to your own needs, or use them as  is :) .

Filed Under: Daily slog, what's this got to do with writing?, Writing

Inspirational stuffs

April 11, 2012 By 3 Comments

From next week, I’ll be blogging using one of these images every day.  From next week, the images will update to link to a post, and I’ll update the list to show which I’ve used – so this gallery may change ;)

Enjoy!
update – if you’d like to share these individually on Facebook, I’ve added an album to my author page – it’s at D Kai Wilson-Viola’s fanpage.

Filed Under: Butterfly Mind, community, Daily slog, Publishing, what's this got to do with writing?, Writing
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