I don't know what to say. Well, that's a lie - I have a lot to say about what has happened since my last post just over two weeks ago and I don't think I have ever had such an exciting and productive period of time before. I suppose I should pick up where I left off:
In my last post on Sunday 23rd June, I ended by saying,
'...last night (Saturday), I unexpectedly started working on one of the short stories I had an idea for and ended up writing 1,605 words. I will continue to work on it today...'
Well, I certainly did that and ended up writing 3,408 words and finished the first draft of it. In my last post, I also mentioned that I had recently read through a short story I self-published many years ago under the pen name Lily Divine called Circle, which I really wanted to work on again and hopefully re-publish. Well, the following day (Monday 24th June), before and after work then the morning after that, I did a thorough read-through/edit of of it before going over those edits with my mum that evening. I had an absolute ball cutting and shaping existing sentences into (hopefully) much better ones. Ever since reading it the previous week, I'd been excited to get my hands on it - and I certainly did that. In the end, about fifty/sixty percent was edited in one way or another.
The following day before work (Wednesday 26th June), I read through and tinkered with the short story I wrote at the weekend and was pleasantly surprised with it and the *official* word count for the first draft was 5,134 words. It might be cheating to call this the word count for the first draft when I'd already said that I'd finished it a few days before previous. But, after I've tentatively written a first draft, I always like to read it through once before officially calling it the first draft - and anyway, I've realised, who cares; it's mine and I can do whatever I want. I then sent it to Mum (something I do after every *official* first draft) and she liked it a lot too. I think as time is passing, my *official* first drafts are cleaner - don't get me wrong though, they are FAR from perfect, just a little more coherent and less of a panicked jumble of words on a word document.
On the Thursday morning before work, I started writing yet ANOTHER short story. I'd already written 781 words of it a little while ago (which I mentioned in another blog post... that I awkwardly can't find) and added a couple of hundred words to it before writing about 2,000 that night after work - and that was when I found myself distracted by EVERYTHING. The following morning before work (Friday 28th June), the madness continued and I wrote a further 900 words and also worked out exactly what was going to happen in it. I've realised as I have developed as a writer, that I prefer to write by the seat of my pants, not having a clue what will happen next ... but sometimes it's cool to have a bit of a clue... Anyway, that evening, I planned on having a night off but after dinner, I thought I would just 'look at' a 'couple of bits and somehow wrote another 876 words, bringing the total to 4,735. I then attempted to have the rest of the evening off, but because I hadn't learned my lesson, I looked at another bit and of course ended up writing 363 more words, taking the total to a causal 5,098. The following morning, I ended up finishing the thing, writing 561 words, but in the afternoon I made it *official* and read through it once, tarting up bits and bobs making the first draft 5,820 words. There are still a few past/present tense issues but at the time, I was too hot and bothered to care as the UK was in the middle of a heatwave. That Sunday, I forced myself to take the day off, but I couldn't have done anything even if I wanted to as I spent the day broken and prostrate with suspected heat stroke.
Before work the next day, I read through/edited Circle again, before going over those edits with Mum that evening. I can't tell you how great it is talking it all over with someone else. Oddly, they don't have to say anything, but sometimes by saying something out loud, the answer comes to you before they have even opened their mouth, if that makes sense.
The next day I couldn't go into work but from my sick bed I ended up writing YET ANOTHER short story that I had an idea for, coming in at 5,308 words. The following day I read through it once and tarting it up as I went and the *ahem - official* first draft ended up being 5,406 words. I then sent it to Mum, as per, for her opinion, and she liked it very much again. The best thing about my wonderful mum is that she is completely honest and if she doesn't like something, she will tell me, so when she actually enjoys something, I believe her. To have someone in your life that you know will not lie to you is VITAL. There is no point being wrapped up in cotton wool and only told the positives as that will only end up being a negative.
On Thursday 4th July before and after work, and the following morning, I read through/edited Circle before chatting through those edits with Mum in the evening. Straight after that, I wrote about 150 words of the last short story I had an idea for, but was waaaaaaay too distracted and tired to write any more - after all, it was about 11pm at this point. The following morning, I said to myself, I hope I can a least write something as Mum and I were off to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter in the afternoon, but I casually ended up writing 1,724 words - well, more like 1,600 if we count the 150 words I'd written the previous evening. On Sunday (yesterday), I wrote 3,759 words and ended up finishing the thing, coming in at a total of 5,483 words for the *official* first draft. I then sent it to Mum - natch - for her opinion and she amazingly said it was her favourite short story so far. This morning, I read through and edited Circle twice before sending those edits to Mum.
- Done a fair few read-throughs/edits of Circle which is currently in a very good place.
- Written FOUR new short stories which I'm very happy with that come in at a total of 21,843 words.
- Gone to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter and visited Gringotts.
On a side note, today I listened to a writing podcast that was really inspiring and got me thinking again about the marketing/promotional side of things. Even if you have just read one blog post on here, you will probably have gathered by now that I am not a fan of that side of things and after a lot of thinking a few months ago, I made the decision to concentrate only on writing and leave the rest to fate as (and I might be wrong) it is such an oversaturated market and anything I might do, would also be done by thousands of other writers, so I'd much rather build up a body of work than waste my time asking people to join a bloody mailing list or something of that nature.
...although saying that, after listening to the podcast today, even though I feel the same with regards to marketing etc, in some ways, I know I haven't helped myself in certain respects and there are a few little promotional tweaks I can do that will hopefully make a big difference, which are:
- Continue to work on the covers for my Weighting to Live series. This cover saga that has been a constant ever since I set up this blog. I started to work on them AGAIN a few months ago, but after putting them up on Amazon recently, I realised that apart from the first book in the series, the rest were oppressive and the colours have to be more pretty and pastel. They need to look like they are part of a set that people would want to buy and if I wouldn't want to buy them as they currently are, how do I expect other people to?
- Now this is a very important change I need to make ASAP. Ever since I published my non-fiction book, Curing my Incurable Eczema back in December 2017, on my Amazon author page, my 'also boughts' have been medical/diet-based non-fiction and nothing to do with my fiction titles. To try and rectify this, I am going to be setting up another Amazon author page for my fiction books which will hopefully help with my 'also boughts' meaning my books will (fingers crossed) get to the right people.
- Research and play around with the key words for all my books on Amazon KDP.
- Reach out to reviewers.
And so my tentative plan for the next few months is as follows:
1. Finish editing and self-publish Circle in the next couple of weeks (hopefully).
2. After that, edit then self-publish the four short stories I have written over the last two weeks.
3. Work on the marketing points above that I would like to implement.
4. Go back to Gringotts.
This is a recipe for burnout if I ever did see one.
Until next time,
Cara x
P.S. For 'fun', I did a quick word count to see how many words this blog post was: 1,665. Jesus.
