Tag: writing

October Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pumpkinsHonestly, I don’t have a lot going on this month. This is mostly due to NaNoWriMo looming. I don’t like to jam my schedule full the month before I’m going to be focused on writing 50,000 words as quickly as possible. It wears out my brain and renders me useless.

The only things I HAVE to do this month are finish the revisions on the novella-turned-novel, which hopefully include finally giving it a title, and finalize my outline for this year’s NaNo endeavor, The End of the (Werewolf) Curse.

Things that I could do if I feel the urge: revise Voice, revise “The Wind Chime Tree”, revise “Darling”. I don’t think I’ll start writing anything new unless something irresistible pops into my brain.

Most likely I’ll be saving that energy for November.

If you haven’t voted in the poll to decide the fate of the Ivy Russell novellas, please do so. The poll closes next week. Yes, I know it’s only been open a day. What can I say? This has been eating away at my brain for months now and I’d like to finally have a conclusion.

And, if the majority rules that I do anything other than nothing, then I’ll have something else to do this month.

Decide the Fate of the Ivy Russell Novellas

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Ivy novellas

I’m struggling with indecision so I decided the best thing to do is to take my dilemma out of my brains and leave it to someone else’s, namely yours.

Here’s the situation: the covers for the last three Ivy Russell novellas are still not done. I don’t know when (or if) they’ll be done. The disruption in my planned publishing schedule has been a drag, but it has also caused me to question repeatedly the best course of action to handling this change of plans. Every choice you see in the poll below are choices that I’ve seriously considered (and reconsidered and then considered again).

So, I put it to you, gentlefolk. What the hell should I do?

The poll will be open for a week.

Please, Won’t You Be My Patron?

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Boob Job FundYou may have noticed that a Tip Jar link has been added to the blog. You may be wondering what that’s about.  Allow me to explain.

Patreon is a site in which a person can be a patron to creators of various kinds of art. Like what they did back in the day, according to my humanities teacher in community college. Rich people supported artists while they worked, sometimes on projects for said rich people, sometimes on their own stuff. Such is the way Patreon works, except it’s open to anyone to be a patron, not just rich people, and it’s open to anyone to be a creator, not just dead Italian artists.

In other words, I’m a creator and now you can be my patron.

Here’s how it works.

You pledge a specific amount of money, one or two dollars, per writing project, aka published novella, anthology, or novel. When I make a post on Patreon that says, “Hey! I’ve published this! Woo!”, that’s when your pledge takes effect. You get charged the first of the next month. You only pay when I finish a project and you can stop being my patron at any time. I may mentally hex you, but I’ll respect your right to spend your money as you see fit. But if you do become my patron, you’ll get some nifty stuff, depending on how much you donate and whether or not you want it.

What could I possibly mean by that?

Well, it’s one of the main reasons I’ve decided set up my tip jar, so to speak. There are people that buy my work and I am grateful for their support. However, I know of a few people that do want to support me in the monetary fashion, but don’t want to buy an ebook they’re not going to read. Horror isn’t for everyone, reading isn’t for everyone (though it should be). This gives those people an opportunity to help me out. It also gives the people already buying my self-published work an opportunity to give me more money. Because why would I turn down an opportunity for more money? I wouldn’t and I shouldn’t.

What will I be doing with this money? Considering I’m only asking for one or two dollars per project (I suppose you could give more than that, but I don’t know why you’d want to), I will not be using this money to vacation in Cabo or Paris. Most likely it will be hoarded away so I can pay the blog bill and if I’m lucky, renew my Microsoft Office license. If I’m really lucky, I’ll be able to do something more with print. I’m a jinx when it comes to that formatting and proofs aren’t free, my friends.

As always, though, spreading the word about my stuff is free. Be it by recommending my stories to someone or leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads, it is something I deeply appreciate. So if you want to help without involving your wallet (or in addition to your wallet), this is the way to do it. Word of mouth will always be priceless to me.

So, with all that said…

Please, won’t you please, be my patron?

That’s Just the Self-Doubt Talking

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

esteemIn several areas of my life and in regards to several aspects of my existence, I am a confident person. In fact, I have been told that the confidence I carry from knowing who I am and how I relate to the world, from knowing my job and doing it well, from being smart and funny and tossing that 1-2 punch like I’m going for a knockout is really intimidating. From certain vantage points, it looks like I actually have my shit together and I know what I’m doing.

And then there’s the rest of the time.

While my self-doubt is always present in a few areas of my world, right now it is really rearing its unattractive head in terms of my unsuccessful writing career.

Here’s how it goes: I get the idea to do something. I think it’s a great idea. I think it could work. I think I could pull it off. I get gung-ho. I start to work towards bringing this idea to fruition.

And then I realize that it’ll never work. No one will go for this. I’m not popular enough/charismatic enough/smart enough/good enough to pull this off. It’s wasted time and effort because for this to work, people will have to participate/pay attention and nobody wants to do that. Nobody gives a shit what you do and they don’t want to play, Kiki, so stop wasting your time.

And then I get really bummed and start questioning what the hell I’m even bothering with all of this for.

It’s not just a vicious cycle, but it’s also very effective at ensuring that I don’t even try to do something because, hey, what’s the point? I’m just going to fail anyway and haven’t I landed directly on my face enough?

The latest aborted idea was the giveaway of one of my “wrecked” print copies. At first I thought, yeah, this will be fun. A few of my friends and family members will enter it. Nobody will get uptight if it doesn’t go completely smoothly because it’s my first one and I’m still learning the ropes and they’re my friends and family. It’s all cool. A practice giveaway! What fun!

It didn’t take long for the self-doubt to come strolling in like Blair Warner on a mission to out-snob somebody.

“Nobody wants one of your crappy wrecked copies. That’s a stupid idea. Nobody’s going to enter. They’ll just ignore you like always. You don’t even know how to run a giveaway. This is going to go tits up and you’re going to look like an idiot. Stop yourself.”

I don’t think I need to say that my friends and family don’t always ignore me. They don’t, of course. But my self-doubt is no dummy. It knows that I’ve been overlooked. It knows that I’ve been dismissed. It knows that I’ve been patted on the head and told “that’s nice” in order to be placated. It knows that people have shown absolutely no interest in anything I’m doing. It knows that I’ve been kicked aside in the rush for folks to surround someone else.

It knows.

It knows and it uses this to its advantage and I hate to say it, but I’m not completely up to the task of battling it every time it decides to make a grand entrance. My self-doubt gets a lot more encouragement than I do, unfortunately. Not always intentional, not always actual, but my self-doubt will bow to even an imagined applause.

And so I continue to struggle and I continue to fail through lack of action, but I keep coming up with the ideas and I keep trying to actually carry them out because one day, I might actually succeed.

But I doubt it.

September Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yellow flowersThe busy month of August ended up being a little less busy thanks to some cancellations and an unscheduled week off, so I was able to get some little things done that I didn’t anticipate, including a rearrangement of my writing schedule for the rest of the year.

That was nice.

And this month I have a planned two week vacation at the end of this month/beginning of next month, so if I can work those weeks like I worked that unscheduled vacation week, I could very well exceed my productivity expectations.  But let’s not get ahead of myself here.

I’m still revising (Vampires) Made in America and I’ll spend this week wrapping that up. I thought I’d end up revising it down to a novella, but cutting out a whole POV and a bunch of redundant, pointless stuff didn’t even get it below 50,000 words. So, I’ve settled on it being a short novel. There’s nothing wrong with that. I did some preliminary, loose outlining on End of the (Werewolf) Curse, which will be the next Outskirts book and NaNo project, and I think it will follow suit as a short novel.

Once that’s done, I’m going to spend the bulk of the month revising the novella-turned-novel that still doesn’t have a title. I’ve itched to get back at it as soon as I figuratively typed “The End”. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and jotting some of the thoughts that come into my brain. We’ll see if any of them work out when I give it a read and get going on it.

If the timing permits, I may write a quick short story called “The Wind Chime Tree” in between novel revisions as a palette cleanser. I got the idea during one of my dog sitting stints (one was planned, one was an emergency) and I think it will make a nice, quick little ghost story for the ghost anthology I’ve been slowly working on. If the timing doesn’t work out, that’s cool. I can do it next month.

This month, though, should be much more relaxed.

August Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

sunAugust is going to be rather hectic in regards to my non-writing life, which means I’m not going to get everything done that I want to get done and it’s going to disappoint me and make me feel like a loser who’s not working hard enough, but I’m still going to try it anyway.

I finally finished the novella-turned-novel at the end of last month. It’s been a long time since I’ve written a novel and it’s been a really long time since I’ve written a novel without writing it all in November. I enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment while I could because I didn’t get Voice or “Darling” done like I was supposed to, but I did finish Voice while house sitting for my aunt this past weekend. Done is done and that’s what counts.

So, in addition to finishing “Darling”, I’m going to revise “Cabintown Road” and “Through the Electronic Looking Glass”. I’m also going to try to start doing some serious revisions on (Vampires) Made in America. I tried cutting it down to novella size and while I did get some excess cut, I just really need to get in there and get it all done properly. I can’t avoid it, though I may put it off if August proves to be too difficult.

I’ve got weddings and family visiting and friends visiting and day jobs and while all of that is sure to be a real good time, it’s going to sap all of my little introverted energy and leave me not a lot to write with. Others may be able to meet all of those real life obligations and events and do all the writing and then some and not even break a sweat, but I am not one of those people.

I’m more like one of those people who will only break your heart.

Why The Timeless Man Got Postponed and Other Life Lessons

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Cheaters and ChupacabrasI was supposed to self-publish The Timeless Man last month and the reason why I didn’t publish it is because it didn’t have a cover.

It’s like this.

A friend did the cover for the first Ivy Russell novella, Cheaters and Chupacabras. I decided that I wanted the other three novellas to use the same background, but a different symbol for each novella (for Cheaters it was the wedding rings). I asked this friend if they could do the symbols for the other three novellas earlier this year and they agreed.

But between illness and humidity (because that affects art when you’re working with water colors, kids) and communication issues, it’s now July and the cover still isn’t done. I’m not sure when it’s going to get done or what I’m going to do when it gets done since this has sort of jacked up my entire self-publishing timeline, not to mention it’s not just this cover that needs to not be plagued by humidity, but the next two as well and I don’t feel like it would be a good idea for me to try to publish anything until I have every cover done. And so, we limbo.

The last time I inquired about the covers, which was Tuesday night, in the course of our conversation, my friend said to me, “I thought you got mad and just did it yourself anyway.”

See, that’s the life lesson I’ve taken away from every interaction I’ve had like this and there have been a lot in my existence. People I work with or ask for help from or ask favors of don’t come through for me often, so I just end up doing it myself, if I’m able to do it at all. It’s now such a common occurrence that people just expect it to end this way.

And it’s all my fault.

When you come out of the birth canal (or in my case, c-section incision) as a preordained responsible, independent human, then that’s your label for life. People go to you for help and you help them because you can and that’s what the world tells responsible, independent humans to do.

But when the script gets flipped and the responsible, independent human needs help, nobody knows their lines anymore. They don’t know how to react. Because the responsible, independent humans have a tendency to attract and surround themselves with somewhat flaky, dependent humans that just aren’t up to the task of helping. They want to, but they just can’t. Because reasons. Or they will, but it’s on their timeline, which is completely out-of-sync with your timeline, and that’s just too damn bad because you should just be grateful that they’re helping you at all.

So, I don’t ask for favors very often because I know the likelihood of being blown off or disappointed is pretty high and when I do ask for a favor hoping that maybe this time will be that one time things are different and they end up being the same, yeah, I tend to stop asking and keep on slogging through life on my own, doing everything the hard way because it’s been made pretty obvious that I’m a responsible, independent human and therefore shouldn’t not require much in the way of help. So, yeah, I either get pissed and do it myself, or I find myself in limbo, at the mercy of someone else’s timeline.

Which sucks.

‘Cause it makes my books late.

 

Disclaimer: I love my friends, I really do! Even though some of them aren’t the greatest at helping me out when I need it, they still have other qualities that are absolutely marvelous. All of my friends have their faults, as do I (and I have more than most), but they’re all really good people.

I wouldn’t be friends with them if they weren’t.

Give me some credit here.

July Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

FireworksThings don’t always go the way we plan, sometimes for good, sometimes for not so good. For me, this happens more than I’d like to admit.

For the two of you that were probably anticipating it, no, you didn’t miss it. The Timeless Man wasn’t published last month due to technical difficulties (which will get their own post). Because it wasn’t published last month, it sort of mucks up everything else planned to be published for the rest of the year and I’m still working out how it’s all going to get done. We’ll see, we’ll see.

In much brighter, less aggravating news, the novella I started working on at the end of May which I continued to work on in June is most definitely not a novella now. I’m at 44,000 words and still going, so. Yes. Definitely not a novella. Definitely a novel. Still doesn’t have a title. I’m only doing about 1,000 words a day on it and since I’m doing this without an outline, just seeing where the story goes, and I only have a vague idea of how it all ends, I could get it done this month, but I’m not going to carve that into stone.

In addition to this, I’m going to write a couple of other things. One is a short story called “Darling”, which will mostly be posted as a freebie here on the blog because it’s been ages since I’ve given away free, fictional words. The other is a novella called Voice, which will go in the next anthology. I will also be revising “A Ride in the Country”, also slated for the same anthology.

So, aside from the non-publishing debacle, things are chugging right along and I’m getting my To Do List of Doom wiped out.

Thank goodness for that.

May Writing Projects…and Some Furniture Moving

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pinkflowerHow you like this newness? Yeah, I’m feeling bored and uninspired with this bit of blog. I want to do something different with it, but I don’t know what I want to do with it. I’m sort of an asshole like that. So, I figured that maybe a little bit of a layout change my help with my blahness. So far it’s only sort of working.

At least I’ve been productive on the To Do List of Doom, though.

Basically, aside from some cover art and print proofs, I’m set for the rest of the year when it comes to the self-publishing schedule. Everything I’m working on for the rest of the year will be stuff coming out for next year. Right now that’s looking like an anthology and some novellas. One of the novella ideas could go full novel, but I don’t know. We’ll see.

This month I’m going to finish the first drafts of “The Electronic Looking Glass” and “Cabintown Road” which I started at the end of the last month. Then I’m going to start working on one of the novella ideas I’ve got. There are four and their themes are sort of similar so they might actually make a good collection. Not naming any names because I’m not sure which one I’m going to work on and I’m not sold on the titles yet and I’ll probably change them and a 30,000 word story doesn’t need 95 tags because I keep changing my mind.

I’ve got two weeks off of one of my day jobs this month (this year teaching our “spring break” is two weeks in May; “summer vacation” will be two weeks in September) so I’m hoping to use that time to get a lot of writing done.

Yeah, I was laughing before I even finished typing that sentence.