Category: Writing

Writing–Back Into Print

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yearly special editionThe very first self-published thing I did was print. There was something very exciting about holding a physical book, even if it was self-published. It was a real thing with weight and dimension that contained my words.

And then it didn’t sell and the luster faded and I decided that eBooks were they way to go. They were easier to format, with fewer distributing requirements, and they were cheaper. They didn’t cost me anything to do whereas the actual books required me to buy a proof copy and verify everything was golden if I wanted wider distribution. As cheap as it sounds, I didn’t always have the money to do that.

However, when I realized that Yearly was selling well as an eBook and it wasn’t a fluke that it was selling well (by selling well I mean relative to the meager sales of my other works, not like selling well I can buy a yacht), I started thinking about print again. I wondered if a physical copy would sell as well as the digital one.

I think I already know the answer to this.

But!

There’s actually something egotistical about print copy. I can SIGN a print copy. I can scribble my name on the inside page with some not-nearly-clever-as-I-want dedication. I can actually physically hold this thing as I look at someone with crazy Gloria Swanson eyes and say, “Have you read my boooook?”

There’s also something about the physical form of a book that pushes me to be more of a salesman. Let’s face it, as an indie author, it’s just me trying to hock my cheesy wares out here. And I’m not very insistent about it. I’m very uncomfortable with forcing a product. I was a shitty up-saler in retail and the fast food industry. Nobody got the credit card or the extra nachos for sixty-nine cents. But if I’m going to build a fanbase (and more and more that’s what agents and publishers want to see, that you’ve already got people ready and waiting to buy your shit), then I need to learn to be a little more involved, I suppose.

The eBook of Yearly sells itself.

The special edition print version is going to have to be sold by me.

So watch this space for details.

Writing–Reading Goals Update

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

booksSince we’ve accomplished half of a year already, I figure it’s time to check in to see how I’m accomplishing my reading goals.

As you may or probably don’t remember, this year I laid down the gauntlet of reading 24 books in total, 2 books a month, only 4 could be re-reads. The object of these goals was to get me into the habit of reading steadily. I also hoped that I would continue reading widely, which was what my reading goals emphasized last year, even though I put no restrictions on what I could read.

So, according to this, six months should equal 12 books. Let’s check the math. Here are the books I’ve read so far:

1. The Badge by Jack Webb

2. The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations edited by Alex Ayres

3. Jaws by Peter Benchley (re-read)

4. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

5. Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt by Kenneth McKenzie and Todd Harra

6. Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way by Marcia Wallace

7. Ron Santo: A Perfect Ten by Pat Hughes and Rich Wolfe

8. Horns by Joe Hill

9. Just Farr Fun by Jamie Farr

10. The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

11. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

12. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

Looks like I’m right on target. Decent mix of fiction and non-fiction. Even got some chick-lit and a classic in there. It hasn’t always been easy getting in my reading time every day and I admit to being lazy about it sometimes, but I’m meeting the challenge pretty well. Reading two books at once helps.

The best part about this is that I have a pile of books waiting to be read. I won’t need to be scrambling for something to read any time soon.

Writing–July Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperIt’s official. I am burned out on revising.

This revision/rewrite of The Timeless Man has been most successful. I think I’ve fixed most if not all of the major story problems that were plaguing it. It’s not nearly as boring now! Everything in it now has a purpose. The only thing left hanging right now is the ending. It needs to be changed, yet be the same, if that makes any sense at all. Don’t worry if it doesn’t. I’m not exactly sure how to work that either.

But since I’ve had my revising, I’m going to take a step back from that and focus some energy elsewhere.

The read of (Vampires) Made in America continues (I got a late start on it last month and I measure out the reading so I fully digest what I’m I’m dealing with). The ideas I had for fixes going into the reading are sort of not going to happen at all. It seems that the first draft was a better than I remembered it being, so far story-wise. There are some changes that need to be made, but they’re not nearly as big as I thought they’d be.

I’ll be honest with you. When I got to the end of the first chapter, the last line made me laugh out loud. Now that doesn’t mean I’m fucking brilliant or anything, but it did signal to me that maybe this story wouldn’t be so bad after all.

To counteract my revising fatigue, I’m going to write something new. Sure that seems counter-intuitive since I’ve already got a huge list of projects that need revising and duh, stupid, why are you adding to it? But I need to flex my first draft muscles more often than just in November. The idea is for a longer short story, possibly novella, something that I’ve been kicking around in my brain for a while. I think it’ll be nice to just take the month and play in that world for a while.

And finally, I’ve decided to journey back into print, at least for a while. I’m going to put together a special print edition of Yearly featuring Gone Missing. I may throw in the first part of Night of the Nothing Man, just to see if I can’t drum up some interest in it. If this project goes well, I might look into giving other projects the same type of treatment, most notably A Tale of Two Lady Killers, since it is a novel. It’s going to have sell a more than a few more copies before I commit to that, though.

I’m really looking forward to shaking things up in July. My brains need the break.

Writing–And, Lo, Here Is the Fix You’re Looking For

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperI’m not going to lie to you. The revisions/rewrites on The Timeless Man have been a slog, a real downer. I like the story, but I don’t. I like the character of Arthur Meadows, I like what Ivy is doing for him, I like the Blackout Wednesday parallel I worked, but the story is damn boring. I realize that I don’t need a mythological creature trying to kill people to make a story interesting, but dammit, something needs to be happening. And I have struggled all month long with that.

Until, like a beam of light straight from the Heavens coming down, washing me over with its brilliance, I think I found a way to make this story interesting.

Of course, it couldn’t come at a better time (she said sarcastically). After all, I’ve only slogged through this first round of revisions/rewrites and I’m almost to the finish line and I was so looking forward to putting this masterpiece away for a little while before I tried tackling it again. And for me to put in this fix, I’ll have to go back to the middle of the story and write in the new stuff, the new scenes and characters, which means I’ll probably end up changing part of the last third of what I wrote and probably the ending as well. So, here, when I thought I was almost finished (at least for now)…I’m not.

I am excited about the idea and I think the changes will improve the story greatly. I think it might actually save the whole mess from being a snooze-fest. This is a great, great thing.

However, I’m not thrilled with the amount of backtracking this change will require.

This is what I’m talking about when I keep thinking the more I write, the more fluid and less time-consuming the process will end up being. I keep thinking the more I do this in general, the less I will end up doing THIS, i.e. rewrites because I should have thought of this in the damn first place.

Oh, well.

All part of the gig.

Writing–My Writing Process

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperThis post is part of the My Writing Process Blog Hop, which is  pretty nifty. I’ve never participated in a blog hop before, so I hope you’ll be gentle.

Anyway, I was drawn into this by my lovely, long-time internet friend Helene Kwong, a writer of novels, short stories, blogs, and reviews. Helene and I achieved internet buddy status through LiveJournal, Twitter, and NaNoWriMo. She’s delightful and I could hardly say no when she asked me to do this.

So the premise of this blog hop is to answer four simple questions and then tag three more victims writers to do the same. Groovy. Let’s go.

1.  What are you working on?

At this precise moment, I’m currently rewriting/revising my novella The Timeless Man, the second novella featuring my fat-girl private investigator Ivy Russell. I’m also prepping one of my old NaNo first drafts, (Vampires) Made in America, for revisions. It features another one of my frequent characters, happy-go-lucky vampire Stanley Ivanov.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I imagine it differs because I’m lousy at genres. My short stories are usually very easily defined as horror, but the longer the story goes, the harder it is for me to slap a nice, neat label on it. I suppose the one thing that sets me apart no matter where I’m at is that my female characters don’t necessarily end up with a male character, even if the story line would strongly indicate such a thing happening. If my female main character enters a story single (Kim Ales in Night of the Nothing Man, Ivy Russell in Cheaters and Chupacabras, Edda Blue in A Tale of Two Lady Killers), then she’s probably ending the story the same way.

3. Why do you write what you do?

When it comes to fiction (I’m still experimenting with non-fiction so I can’t really answer about that), it’s what comes to my head. It really feels like this is just what I was programmed to write. I seem to do better when there’s some kind of horror/paranormal/supernatural element to my stories. I’ve tried to write straight stuff and it doesn’t feel like it’s as good to me. I was not meant to write literary fiction, my friends. I just don’t have those chops. But if you want something quick and entertaining and don’t mind getting creeped out, I can help you.

4. How does your writing process work?

Slowly and sometimes with many hang-ups. I keep hoping that the more I do this, the more fluid and faster I’ll get, but so far, that hasn’t happened. I tend to do a lot of the first drafts for my longer works (novellas, novels) during NaNoWriMo because I’ve become incredibly disciplined in the context of that contest. For me, the worst part of writing is the first draft, so the quicker I get it all down on paper, so to speak, the quicker I can get to revising, rewriting, and editing.

There’s almost always at least two revising passes on any given manuscript and then a polish. Some stories I find don’t need a lot of work and some need tons. I probably revised A Tale of Two Lady Killers ten times over five years before I decided it was done. As a self-publisher, I’m a stickler for good editing, particularly the technical stuff, but when it comes to the story, I just know that I got it right and it’s done and I can stop revising. Then comes the polish, which is just correcting errors and spiffing up the word choice.

So which writers do you need to check out next week because they’re answering the same questions?

Johi Jenkins, who’s published Resurgence, The Thirst Within, and Margarette (Violet) (Volume 1) (with K LeMaire). She’s a Chicagoan and if you ask her, she’ll tell you that she writes young adult paranormal romances because she’s clearly immature. Ha!

Shana Hammaker,  author of creepy stories like Charlie (I love this one, so it gets shout out) as well as unflinching memoirs The Cookie Dumpster and Hieroglyphs. She writes shit, reads shit, drinks shit, and talks shit, and she does it all like a pro.

Lisa Fernandes is a long-time friend of mine. I think we’ve known each other around fifteen years or so (let’s not say longer, otherwise we’ll start looking our age). She and I have both struggled through this writing life together, walking different paths, but still in the same forest. In addition to fiction, she also does some really fabulous reviews.

Writing–June Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

roseAfter a month of doing a lot of revisions and polishing…I’m going to be doing more of that.

I’ve decided to go ahead and tackle The Timeless Man. I still haven’t worked out all of the kinks I think need to be worked out, but I’ve got several of them figured out and I might as well get them down on paper (or laptop computer files, as the case may be). It’s quite possible that the act of making those changes will lead to me figuring out the solutions to my other problems (or deciding that they’re not problems at all; that’s always possible).

I’m also going to prep (Vampire) Made in America for revising. This mostly involves re-reading the manuscript, putting everything together in one file, and making notes on what needs to be changed. I hated this manuscript when I finished it for a NaNo win a few years ago but after finishing The World (Saving) Series, it occurred to me what I could do to fix (Vampires). So I’m going into this reading with an idea of what needs to be done, which should make the read easier.

This should be enough to keep me good and busy for the month, but I’m aware of a growing itch to write something new. It’s been a while.

Also, it’s time to publish my latest masterpiece. It should happen in the next couple of weeks. Which will it be? Novel or novella?

I guess you’ll have to stay tuned.

Writing–The Grand Writing To Do List

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Rainbow paperI’ve mentioned before that I’m working on clearing off the bulk of my Writing To Do List. I thought that maybe some of you would like to see this mythological creature, as I’m frequently mentioning it, but not very good about getting too specific about all of the projects I have going on.

It’s not in any sort of special order and all of it is writing related even if it’s not actual writing.

  • Revise Hatchets and Hearts
  • Polish Hatchets and Hearts
  • Revise “She’s Not Here Anymore”
  • Polish “She’s Not Here Anymore”
  • Revise The Timeless Man
  • Revise The Rainmakers 1
  • Revise The Rainmakers 2
  • Revise (Vampires) Made in America
  • Write Fairliza
  • Write Parlor Tricks
  • Publish A Tale of Two Lady Killers
  • Publish Spirited in Spite

Hatchets and Hearts is, obviously, the novella I’m currently revising. “She’s Not Here Anymore” is a novella that I revised down to a short story. The Timeless Man, as you should know by now, is the next novella in the Ivy Russell series. The Rainmakers 1 and 2 are the two novellas I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year. (Vampires) Made in America is a Stanley Ivanov novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo a few years ago. Fairliza (which isn’t a title, but the name of the character) is an idea for either a long short story or a short novella that will more than likely be written this summer. Parlor Tricks is an idea for a what will probably be my NaNo project this year (or one of two projects if it looks like it’ll be a novella).

How the To Do List works: Projects that are/will be getting my attention are on the To Do List. I don’t put polishing any project on the To Do List until it’s had at least one round of revisions/rewrites.

That’s the Writing To Do List.

A living thing.

Writing– The (Self-) Publishing Schedule

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Rainbow paperAt the beginning of the year, I established a sort of publishing schedule for myself. I knew that I’d be putting out Yearly in February, but I decided that I should set a couple more dates for the year to keep myself motivated and producing with the end game in mind.

After some thought, I settled on June and October (dates not specified, of course), already having some idea of what would be going out when. I thought the time span was reasonable enough for me to finish what I wanted to publish while publishing often enough to attract potential readers while keeping others interested with the new content.

I have a great way of overestimating myself.

The good news is that, provided I can come up with covers, I will be publishing according to my little schedule. The sort-of-bad-but-not-really news is that I’m not publishing what I thought I’d be publishing.

In January, I thought it’s be The Timeless Man and probably Hatchets and Hearts, even though one wasn’t even written at the time. Now, in May it’ll be A Tale of Two Lady Killers and Spirited in Spite, though I haven’t made the final decision on what will be happening when.

Turns out that Hatchets and Hearts and The Timeless Man have ended up being a lot harder than I anticipated.  Surprise, surprise.

This is why I end up working on so many different projects in different phases. I may think I know what I’m doing, but in reality, I’m a moron in need of plans A-Z.

Thank goodness for my need to always be working on something.

Writing–I Think I Got a Hit

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YearlySo, Yearly has been selling pretty well, much to my surprise.

By selling well, I mean that it sold an average of a copy a day last month (the final count was 33). That’s pitiful if you’re someone else, but that’s fantastic if you’re me. Thirty copies of one title in a month is more that I’ve sold of everything else in over a year. I’ve sold over 60 copies of Yearly since its release in February. And things are already looking good for this month, too. If I could hit 100 total by June, that would be like meeting a goal I didn’t think I could even set. Sad, but that’s just how my writing career has gone so far. Slow build.

And by surprising I mean that I didn’t expect Yearly to do much of anything. It’s a short story anthology. I didn’t expect it to really hit on anyone’s radar. And yet, it seems someone finds it nearly every day. I’m not sure if this is the power of word of mouth or keyword searches or what, but I like it.

I think it also automatically sets me up for disappointment.

My own publishing schedule had me putting out something new next month. There’s almost always a surge of interest right after I publish something (except for Night of the Nothing Man, that’s just hated) because it’s new and people want to see if it’s worth the time and money. Inevitably, after that first week, interest disappears.

At least that’s the norm.

Right now, Yearly is a hit, but it’s also an anomaly. I’m not sure that the next thing I do will do so well. I may be a one-hit wonder instead of a chart topper.

I hope I can handle that.