Tag: writing

January Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Snowflower2016 has been put to bed (finally and thankfully) and 2017 has begun. I have a general schedule of what I want/need to get done this year in terms of writing. As of right now, I have a lot of free months, but that is just an illusion. Those blank spaces will fill up quickly as I get this ball rolling.

And of course, this ball starts its rolling in January.

My plan this month is to revise (Vampires) Made in America. This is part of my ultimate 2017 goal of getting this novel to the point of ultimate doneness. I’ve got three of these Outskirts novels just sitting there like lumps. Maybe if I do one, then the other two will follow. It’s a thought.

I’m also going to write a poem a day. I know it’s not National Poetry Month and I know that I ended up a big loser in the poetry contest I entered (I guess my Honors English teacher was right about capitalizing that last line after all), but I still have it in my head that poetry is something I can and should do, even if just for myself. Ideally, I’d like to put it to good use (by that I mean publish it in some form), but I feel that just to play with words in that medium will be largely beneficial overall.

As a side project this month, I’m finishing up a script outline that I started in December. Again, it’s an exercise in a different medium, outlining and writing scripts, but the ideas translate well to novels/novellas. So I count it as time well spent even if the movie would never be made and the script itself never even shopped.

And, of course, Murderville: The Last Joke starts next week, so don’t forget to get in on that.

I think this will be a good way for me to kick off 2017.

An Unexpected Push

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

ThinkingMy floorset days have come to an end.

The store I work for is closing for good on January 7th.

I’ve been there over four years. Sometimes the gig was a real hassle. I questioned whether or not it was worth the commute, the minimum wage, the sleep deprivation, the bullshit that accompanies every retail job. I seriously considered quitting multiple times, but never went through with it. In the end, the actual work and most of the people I worked with won me over. The money wasn’t great (child learnin’ has been my main source of income), but it really helped fill in the gaps between the ends I needed to meet, particularly during the Christmas/New Year holidays when it’s the only day job I worked.

Now I need something else to fill the gaps.

I’m feeling strangely optimistic about this. A few years ago, I would have been depressed and panicky, woe-is-me-ly about this whole thing. I would have felt like it was the Universe taking another shot at me, kicking me when I was already close to down. Not so much now.

Now, I feel like this is the Universe giving me a push.

This is a push to do something new. This is a push to get out of my comfort zone. This is a push for a new adventure.

This is a push to really work my writing and make my writing work for me.

I don’t make a lot of money from my writing, but now what money I do make will be very important. It will help fill the gaps. Self-promotion is going to be key. I’m going to have to talk about my writing A LOT MORE than I already do and not in the “here’s what I’m working on, here’s how I write, here’s my writerly thoughts” fashion. I’m talking in the “HEY, BUY MY WORDS” fashion.

Right now I’ve got three writing revenue streams going at the moment: my self-published titles, the Storytime Jukebox, and the upcoming Patreon project Murderville. I realize that I’m going to have to start submitting in earnest once again, but I’m also going to have to push these three things a lot harder than I have in the past. In the past, I didn’t want to be annoying or insistent. Now I’m going to be.

When I first found out about this turn of events yesterday and posted about it on Twitter, the people I know there were very supportive. I think that contributes to my optimism. I am blessed with knowing some really awesome folks who are really supportive of my endeavors and also really supportive of me in general. I really do appreciate them.

So, the new year will be starting off with an interesting challenge.

For once in my life, I feel up to it.

“Stop Working for Free in 2017!”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

flame box elder penThe title of this post came from a tweet in my feed. No, it wasn’t spam or some other kind of sponsored content, though it can read that way, I suppose.

To me it reads as the truth.

I have often struggled with the concept of getting paid for my writing. I feel like I’m imposing on people by asking them for money to read my work. “You’re an artist!” a voice in my head yells. “You’re not supposed to be doing it for the money!” And then another voice pipes up and says, “Dude, seriously? You’re writing all of this shit anyway. Get paid, man.”

But still, I struggle.

The second voice is right, though. More right than the first voice. I don’t write for the money. If I did, then I’d be writing to the trends, pumping out thin stories with excellent dressing, capitalizing on whatever looks like it will be selling in the next few months. Publishing trends can be hard to predict, but they’re pretty easy to get in on, especially now with the convenience of self-publishing (not at all putting down self-publishing as that has been my primary means for the majority of my writing career). Writing, revising, and self-publishing a decent novel in a few months that fits in with a going trend is possible.

But I don’t do that.

In fact, when people ask about the nature of my career and why I don’t sell more books and why I don’t have an agent and all of that, I tell them that my biggest hang-up is that I don’t write what other people want to read. I write what I want to write, what I want to read. And my tastes are apparently far from the mainstream. It’s hard to find any traditional success when you write stuff that can only find a small audience, no matter how loyal. Publishing, after all, is a business. They are very motivated by the money.

Still. I should get paid for what I do write. There is no shame in this. I’m not asking for a handout. I’m asking to be paid for my work. It’s no different than when I get paid for child learnin’ or working floorset. Just because the paycheck isn’t as regular doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve it.

This is the mantra I’m carrying into 2017. I’m not working for free. This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing anymore freebie stories on occasion. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to start charging you guys to read these wonderful, informative blog posts.

It means that I’m not going to act like I don’t deserve to ask for money for my work. Because you know what? I do. Because writing IS work. It IS my job. It’s the job I’d like to be living off of instead of my day jobs. How do I do that? By insisting that I get paid.

The Patreon project is a step in that direction. Adjusting the prices for my existing self-published works will be next. Working on something to get traditionally published is on the To Do List.

Come 2017, I will get paid.

Patreon Project! Murderville

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

MurdervilleAs I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the past couple of months and as I’ve been plotting for the last several, I’m putting my Patreon to better use and that better use starts in January.

Murderville was originally conceived as a short-season TV series. I don’t know why, since I don’t know the first thing about writing TV shows, but that’s how it came into my head and that’s how I outlined it and how I was going to write it. I’m all for learning and practicing different writing mediums. I never got around to writing it as an actual TV show, but the outline remained and the idea of it never really left me. Particularly the characters featured in the first “season”.

You know me. I don’t get rid of anything. Writing hoarder to the end. So, when I decided that I really needed to do something productive with my Patreon instead of just letting it sit there collecting dust and no money, I came back to Murderville.

I wrote the first “season” as a novella called Murderville: The Last Joke and then broke the novella into eight “episodes”. One episode will be posted each month starting in January. At the end of the year, I’ll put out the novella as an ebook.

Nifty, yes?

So….What is Murderville?

“Murderville” is the affectionate (or not-so-affectionate) nickname given to the industrial city of Munsterville. Because even though there’s not a whole lot of violent crime in the city, it seems that people have a tendency to die in really strange ways. Can’t just have a plain old shooting or stabbing, not in Murderville. There’s always a twist.

The Last Joke features Pam and Drew Bendixen, a couple hit hard by the economy and struggling to rebound. To add to their woes, Pam finds a dead man on the doorstep one morning. The one positive about this is that the deceased was a successful business man and there’s now a $25,000 reward for information that leads to his killer. That money could really help Pam and Drew out and since they did find him on their doorstep, surely they could work in a little detective work between their  multiple jobs and family demands. After all, what do they have to lose? Oh, and they could also help a family get closure and obtain justice and all that.

If you sign up to read Murderville through Patreon, you pledge either $1 or $2 per episode and you can read the episodes right there. You also get the novella at the end of the year. $2 patrons also get sneak peeks at the other projects I’m working on. Gotta sweeten that pot somehow.

Don’t want to be a patron? No problem. For the low, low price of $8 (the minimum amount the $1 patrons will pay) paid through PayPal, you get the password that will allow you to read all eight episodes here on the blog.

The episodes will also be readable on Google Docs.

So don’t miss out.

The fun officially starts on January 10th.

December Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Milwaukee Christmas treeShit kinda got wacky last month, I will not deny. Cubs World Series parade, the election, the world on fire, NaNoWriMo. Just unforeseen craziness. And so outside of NaNo, my writing really didn’t get a whole lot of attention. I was going to try write, revise, and submit a short-short to a contest, but that didn’t happen. I got it started and it ended up being abandoned in the chaos. The essays I’ve been writing for practice met the same fate. Only NaNo and a rough revision on my Patreon serial idea happened.

And now it’s December and the holiday season is upon us and if this isn’t my well-documented least favorite time of year. I automatically call a mulligan every December because it takes so much of my energy to find and maintain any little dribble of holiday spirit.

But I still got shit to do.

The Patreon serial project is going to be my main focus this month. I’m getting a beta read on it right now, I’ll do another revision on it, and then go from there. The goal is to have this little thing going starting in January.

Which means I will also be pimping this thing. If this sort of self-promotion annoys you, let me remind you that I don’t work one of my jobs for like a month because of Christmas/New Year’s. I don’t work, I don’t get paid. Any little bit of coin I can scrape together helps to ease that pain.

Speaking of, you may or may not (probably not) have noticed an update to the Storytime Jukebox. You can now read the short stories on the blog. You drop in your coins like usual (via PayPal) and I’ll send you a password to use on the story link. Nifty, yes? Sure. The novellas are still only available on Googledocs, though. Or you can buy the short story collections they’re in. That’s good, too.

Though Patreon will definitely be my main gig this month, if I have any spare brain power, it’s going to be spent organizing my plan for next year.

Because I’m going to need some kind of plan for 2017.

That’s Another NaNo Win

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

NaNo 2016 winNaNoWriMo was in the bag at a little over 50,000 words on November 19th and I got around to validating it on the 26th. I reconciled pretty early on in the story that I wasn’t going to hit 60,000 words like I usually do for my NaNo novels, but I sort of knew that was going to be the case. The story I had was a little thin, to be honest. As I wrote I saw places that will probably be fleshed out whenever revisions happen, but I didn’t bother following any of those tangents. More than any other NaNo, I just wanted to be done.

This was a sort of wild NaNo. For the first time in many years I didn’t make my usual 2,000 word minimum every day. Taking off for the Cubs World Series parade, I settled for only writing 500 words two days in a row, which set me back not only by my standards, but also by the NaNo daily need to stay on target.

I only made 4,000 words a couple of days. I usually hit that mark easily on the weekends, if not a couple of other days during the week. The fallout from the election really kinda consumed my existence for a solid week, week and a half. Most of my time was spent reading articles and being active on Twitter spreading information (I’m sure I was muted/blocked/unfollowed by scores of people because I wasn’t entertaining anymore and I’m sure the few people who know me in my offline existence were the first to go). I didn’t want to write anything, let alone some stupid novel about a conjurer that will probably never be revised and/or see the light of day, even if I do love my conjurer and her friends.

But I wrote it anyway.

Because that’s kinda the point of NaNo. Writing when real life intrudes. Writing when you don’t want to. Forcing yourself to make time for your words. This is my 13th NaNo. You’d think I’d have gotten that drilled into my brain by now. I guess it sort of is because that is what made me push to get my words written. I admit that some days were more of a struggle than others.

My final push saw me hit 6,000 words two days in a row. Like I said, I wanted to be done.

And I am and I’m glad and it’s win number 10.

Hallelujah.

November Writing Projects aka NaNoWriMo

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

nanowrimoIt’s that time of year again. Oh yes. Time to write 50,000 words (okay, 60,000 for me) in thirty days.

I finally figured out that I should just write another Outskirts novel. This one will feature truther (not THAT kind of truther) Maisie Day, conjurer LittleJessie Witt, and famed hunter Sister Mary Valle. The working title is To Tell the (Conjurer’s) Truth, which isn’t great, but not great titles are my thing. I’m not married to it by any means, so I can easily change it if I ever revise it.

Naturally, I say “if” because (Vampires) Made in America and The End of the (Werewolf) Curse still sit waiting. I’ll get around to them one day, I’m sure.

I’ve only outlined the first ten chapters of To Tell the (Conjurer’s) Truth, the idea being that for every chapter I write, I’ll outline the next. You know. Write chapter one and then outline chapter eleven. I don’t want to get too far ahead with this story because I only have a vague idea of what I’m doing with it.

Reassuring, no?

This could be a potential disaster, but I’m all in as always, baby.

Though my main focus will be on NaNo as my Novembers are usually spent (I think this is number 13 maybe), I did finish the first “season” of my Patreon serial idea. I’m going to attempt to revise at least the first episode or two during the month. Fingers-crossed that it’ll be something worth trying come the new year. As usual, I was feeling way too ambitious to think I’d have it ready to go before then.

I’ve also been writing essays on the side for the last month or two. Just another practice thing. A page a day of learning is good for my brain, I think.

Let’s hope I have some brain left after this month.

October Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pumpkinsLet me be straight about something. I have been in a writing fog for the last several months. It’s one of those things in which my head is crammed with ideas, but none of them have any immediate use. I want to execute them all, but none of them really further any of my immediate goals. And that’s been kind of frustrating for me because, obviously, it’s the immediate goals I need to be focusing on.

I have to produce dammit!

My business mind has a tendency to clash with my artist’s heart and it does my hellscape mind no favors.

So, in other words, I haven’t been making a lot in the way of tangible progress on certain things lately.

I have done some things, though.

I finished the first draft of another script called The Hitman’s List. I was emboldened by Open Christmas Eve receiving an honorable mention in the contest I entered it into to finish this one because it was my second choice for an entry. I’m pretty pleased with it, though I have no idea what I’ll do with it.

The victory also encouraged me to enter a couple of poems into a poetry contest. I actually got second place in a state contest back when I was in high school. It was an assignment/entry. I’m still bitter my teacher made me change the last line of that poem, even though I can’t remember what it was about (I can’t remember the theme of the contest). She made me all-caps the last line because she decided I didn’t have enough poetic devices in it. I don’t know if that change won me second place or lost me first. Now I’ll know if I win, it’s all me, baby.

The serial idea for Patreon plods on. I’ve got the first draft of the first two “episodes” done and I’m well on my way to completing the first draft of the third. It’s moving along a lot more slowly than I thought, but I think I might be comfortable enough to have something going by November maybe. Of course, I might be overestimating myself once again. I have a great talent for doing that when it comes to time. The planning fallacy. I has it.

Looming around the corner is NaNoWriMo. I should be planning what I’m doing for it. And I will.

Just as soon as I figure out what that is.

Oh, the scares October has for me.

Representation Matters (My Writing Included)

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

ghostbusters“I can think of seven good uses for a cadaver today.” -Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) in Ghostbusters

Thanks to an empty theater (one of the blessings of living in a cornfield; Thursday matinees are like private showings after about the first week of a new release), my roommate had no worries about disturbing anyone when she looked at me and said, “That’s you.”

And she’s not wrong. I do know seven good uses for a cadaver and probably seven more inappropriate ones. But it was really cool to see that weird aspect of myself verbalized on the screen in a major motion picture. Things like that happen so intermittently for a weirdo like me.

Representation matters. I strongly believe this. I strongly believe that it’s important for people to see themselves or aspects of themselves represented in stories, whether they’re movies, TV shows, or books. So while I left that showing of Ghostbusters feeling pretty empowered by seeing four women I could relate to and who reflected aspects of my existence back at me (please do not debate me on whether or not the movie was good based on your white man “well actually” perspective; I hate-watch Jason Takes Manhattan every time it comes on, so your detailed bullshit analysis is wasted on me), I’ve been thinking about representation in my own work ever since.

I acknowledge that I struggle with it.

I struggle because I’m very mindful about getting it right. I know representation matters, but I don’t want to just throw those characters into a story just so my work appears to be diverse. I want to present an accurate representation. And that’s hard for me. I don’t like to fuck up in this particular arena.

When it comes to fat, white women, I got you covered. That’s something I don’t even think about writing because, well, that’s just writing me. I have no trouble writing white men of any size because that’s the default norm. I believe that I’d have no trouble writing bisexuals of either gender or gay or lesbian characters as I am bisexual and I’ve known and loved enough gay men and lesbian women in my time that I believe that I could accurately represent them. I’ve ventured very tentatively into representing other races and letters of the LGBT+ (both in the same novellas, oddly enough; Art, who’s Puerto Rican, and Riley, who’s transgendered, both appeared in the Ivy Russell novellas). I tried to venture into that territory as carefully and as conscientiously as I could, but I’m still worried that I didn’t do either character justice, that I got something about those representations wrong. They weren’t meant to be plot devices or fill a diversity quota; they were meant to be real, fully developed characters. For that to happen, the representation needs to be accurate.

I admit to cheating a lot when it comes to representation in my short stories. The main character in my short stories rarely gets any physical description so the reader can project whatever they want to on them for a short time. It’s sort of a lazy trick of representation. Here, you do the work and see this character how you want to see them based on the personality traits revealed and the emotions conveyed in the story. While I don’t think being a reader should be a completely passive experience, I do think that there are times that I, the writer, need to put in a little more effort.

Okay, a lot more.

Representation is something that I think I’m always going to struggle with, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Struggle leads to change and growth.

And I’m all about growing into a better writer.