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Archive for the ‘Goals’ Category

The Streak Begins

So the writing in shifts thing has been working out pretty good except for one tiny issue.  I keep working on one thing.  Despite my brain being fully capable and willing to write two (or ten) things, apparently once I get into my groove, it wants to finally settle down.  That’s not a bad thing at all.  I am learning my limitations, however.  Like that it takes me realistically six weeks instead of four to write a novel because I like to goof off and procrastinate and do all manner of things that aren’t writing.  Or that I don’t really like working more than 4 hours a day (some days, I do.  Some days the words and flowing and I’m on a roll and don’t want to stop, so I don’t).  Four hours (broken up into a couple shifts) of writing brand new fiction feels pretty good.  I usually get 3-5k words done in those four hours, which is a totally acceptable pace for my goals.

So I’ve decided to start a streak, a writing streak.  I’m going to write every day for at least 20 minutes.  I find writing is like exercise, I don’t necessarily feel up to it instantly, but usually once I’m doing it I feel pretty good and want to keep going.  I’m usually less focused and more distracted on weekends (weekends being when my husband and cat and stuff want my attention most).  But I’m going to keep my streak up.  Every day. Every. Day. 20 minutes minimum.

I’ve also decided what I’m going to do during my streak.  I’m going to focus my efforts this year on the various novel series I already have going.  I’ve set up a calendar of novels and deadlines because I work best to deadlines.  Most of these books are already outlined.  I intend to use weekends for short story writing so that my short story submissions don’t fall behind and because shorts are awesome.  One and done.  One day (sometimes two) and I’m finished.  They are very satisfying.  When stuck in the middle of a novel, it is nice to remember what finishing something feels like, so I like to do short stories to mix things up.

So here’s the rough deadline schedule:

Wrath (Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Book 2): March 19th

The Raven King (Cymru that Could Be: Book 2): April 29th

Delilah in Paradise: June 10th

Beyond Casimir (Lorian Archive: Book 2): July 22nd

Casimir Rising (Lorian Archive: Book 3): September 2nd

Hunger (Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Book 3): September 23rd

The City is Still Hungry (A Remy Pigeon mystery): November 4th

Vainglory (Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Book 4): November 25th

Delilah in Hell: December 30th

The Slow Beat Down (A Remy Pigeon mystery): February 10th, 2012

Sindra’s Storm (possibly a duology): March 23rd, 2012

So that’s the schedule.  Unless, of course, a giant wrench gets thrown in it due to either success (like a contract or two) or disaster (but hey, I could still type in a hospital bed, so I’m good, right?).  And of course keep the streak up and hopefully get 52 stories written and submitted.  I’ve done two shorts so far this year.  I’m a little behind.

Go go gadget streak writer *grin*

2010 Recap

This is the obligatory post where I look at my goals from last year and then see where I stand on them now, a year later.

Goal 1. Write 4 novels and submit them
Well, I have three submitted. So that’s not a total fail. I’m short one novel, but will have it ready by Feb.

Goal 2. Have at least 30 short stories in my folders and keep them out on markets until they sell or have nowhere to go
This is a win. I have over 30 short stories in my folders and have been pretty good about keeping them out until they sell (and some have even sold, crazy!).

Goal 3. Finish everything I start
This is a fail for a couple reasons. I started a Middle Grade novel back in June, got about 12k words into it, and quit. I don’t know if I’ll return to it because I just wasn’t feeling the love with the story. I mean, I like the story, but I wasn’t so keen on that whole “middle grade” thing and kept wanting to do horrible things that young people probably don’t want to read about. So it might turn into a weird novella for e-publishing.
I also decided to work on beginnings this fall and toward that end started a bunch of short stories without finishing them. I will finish them at some point (probably during the story a week challenge next year).

Goal 4. Submit everything I finish
Win. I’ve been crazy good about getting stuff into the mail.

Goal 5. Keep track of receipts and other things for taxes (I was abominable about it this last year, sigh)
Mostly a win. I know I’ve lost track of some receipts and I wasn’t sure about what counted or not for others, but I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping track of the big stuff (putting it all into a spreadsheet soon is going to be scary. I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve spent at the post office and on workshops etc…).

Goal 6. Try writing at least three things outside my genre comforts (mystery, horror, erotica, something…)
Win. I wrote an entire mystery novel, I’ve been messing around with erotica, and I’m about to start a romance novel. I’ve definitely been writing outside the comfort zone.

Goal 7. Keep going, never look back, never surrender and all that
Well, I haven’t given up yet 🙂

Basically, I did pretty well this year. I sold three short stories, got a Semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future contest, learned how to put stuff up on Kindle, and wrote almost 350,000 words. I missed my word count goal by about 100,000 but I ran into snags this year that I couldn’t foresee, so I don’t feel that annoyed. I got a lot done, by any measure. And next year is going to be even bigger. I’m just getting warmed up.

2011 Goals (The Work)

So last goal post I did the numbers.  The sheer word counts I hope to hit.  Now I’m going to break it down a little more specifically.

This year (2010) I focused on just learning and getting more work out.  Coming into this year I’d written one novel and only a few short stories that I considered possibly publishable.  2010 was the year I decided I needed to step up production and see what I could do.

2011 is the year to put the writing car in overdrive.  I want to be more consistent with my output and to finally get to some of the hundreds of ideas I’ve got bumping around. This is also the year in which I intend to explore e-publishing options while keeping things in the mail to the traditional side of things.

So here’s how that 900,000 words is going to (hopefully) break down:

I’ve been playing around with writing romance because I love to read romance and want to make sure I’m covering my genre bases.  I’ve got a Regency romance novel outlined that I’ll be writing in January for traditional publishers, which will put my novels out to publishers count at four, in four different genres.  I’m aiming for 75-85k words on that book.

For e-publishing I want to write my favorite lengths, which is shorter.  I have a few series romance ideas outlined for this.  So my goal is to write seven books in one series (or nine, depending), three books in another, and three in another.  Each of these will be about 25k words.  So thirteen novellas at 25k words should work out to about 325k total.  I’ll be writing one or two of these a month and putting them up online as soon as they are copyedited and formatted.  I’ll also being doing omnibus versions and making those available in print as well.

I’ve also got four Pyrrh books planned (am finishing the first one now, in fact) which will be about 50k words each.  Those will be available in print as well, and I’ll probably make an omnibus version (I have eight books for that series planned in total, releasing four a year).

I also want to write at least one more novel for traditional publishing (to bring my year end total up to 5 or 6 depending).  And if by the end of next year a couple of my novels that are out now don’t sell and have gotten more than 25 rejections, I think I’ll probably just write the sequels (one is a duology, one is a trilogy) and put them up for sale electronically and in print.  It’s my goal, however, to keep at least four or five novels out to traditional publishers each year so that I don’t let that side of things slide.

On the short story side of things, I’ve enlisted to write a short story a week and mail it.  So that’s 52 short stories to write next year.  But, because I don’t want to neglect the e-pub side of things, I also have ideas for four collections.  Each collection would deal with the same characters and have about ten stories in it.  I intend to write these stories solely for the collections (though I might mail them a few places first while I’m working on getting the full ten).  I’ll also put up one of the stories from each collection at .99 to be a sample for the rest.  I’m going to make print versions also for all these.  So that’s actually about 92 short stories total written next year, 52 for traditional publishing and 40 for my e-pub collections.

So, to sum up.  13 romance novellas (7 contemporary romances, 3 nerd romances, 3 paranormal romances), 4 fantasy/mystery novels, 2 novels for traditional publishing, and 92 short stories.  Which should work out to around 900,000 words next year, or 2500 words written per day if I write every day or 3500 words per day if I write only on week days.  So between 2 and 4 hours of work.  Not so bad.

As for how I’ll do money-wise, I have no idea.  I might sell nothing.  But that’s why this is a goals post, not a dreams post.  I don’t have any control over what I sell or not, only what I write and how much I work on my craft and on telling stories.  My dream is to make six figures a year at my writing.  My goal is to write stories that people can’t put down.  I can’t control the dream, but I hope that if I can someday learn enough and practice enough to get good at meeting my goal, the dream will follow.

2011 Goals (The Numbers)

Yeah, yeah.  It’s only December, which is pretty early to be making a goals post for the new year.  But I’m a rebel or something.  And I’ve been looking back on this year and then looking ahead and figuring out what I want to accomplish.  So this post will be purely the numbers without specifics.  I’ll do another post on the specifics (things to work on, etc) at a more traditional time (like say, January 1st?).

This last year was all about building up my magic bakery and figuring out a lot of things about my writing style and working modes.  I’ll do a full summary post about how this year went sometime this month.  But the short version is that by February I’ll have four novels out to traditional publishers in four different genres.  That’s a decent start to my bakery.  I’ll also have about 25-35 short stories out to markets (depending on many factors like hopefully sales).  That’s a good start, too.

2011 is going to be all about taking it up a notch and all about dipping my feet (and legs and body) into the e-publishing world.  I’m going to be writing novels and novellas almost exclusively for e-publishing next year while I continue to shop around those four novels with trad publishers.  I’m not ruling out writing a novel or two for trad publishing next year, but it won’t be my focus (unless I get a contract and have to write a sequel or something.  But that’s the sort of hiccup in a plan you hope for, not count on).

Besides getting my feet wet with e-publishing, my main goal this year is to get more consistent with my writing.  I’m a bit of a binge writer and I’d like to stop being so all or nothing and work more on just getting *something* done most days of the week.  I’m a generally competitive person, so to further this goal I’ve undertaken a couple of challenges that will hopefully (and are so far) spur me to get just more done in general.

The first challenge is with a friend of mine and the goal is to write 100,000 words a month.  That’s about 5k words a day, 5 days a week.  So about 4-6 hours of work, 5 days a week.  I tried this in November but got derailed at the halfway mark due to wrist pain and some other health issues, but I’ve adjusted my workspace and am working on the other things, so hopefully that will no longer stand in my way.  However, I’m still not sure that, as a naturally shorter length writer, I can quite manage 100k words a month.  So I’ll probably just owe her a lot of dinners since I’m setting my goal at about 75,000 words, which works out to 2500 words a day, 30 days out of the month, or 3750 words if I only work 5 days a week.  Which is 2-4 hours of writing a day, and completely doable even with wrist issues because I can break it down with lots of rest periods.

The second challenge is the story a week challenge.  Ray Bradbury did this, writing one story and submitting it each week.  We all know how well that worked out for him.  Some other writers I know have started the challenge and are calling it the “Write 1 Sub 1” challenge.  The title there will link to the website detailing the challenge.  With short stories I’ll be sending them to all the pro-paying magazines first before putting together any collections for e-publication.  I intend to bring back my old “Short Story Monday” thing for this, so that each Monday will be dedicated to writing a short story and submitting it by Friday.

Ideally, over all, my goals break down thusly:

900,000 words total by end of December 2011.

240,000 words of full length novels for e-pub or trad pub.

200,000 words of shorter novels for e-pub.

300,000 words of novellas for e-pub.

160,000 words of short fiction for pro-paying magazines and/or e-pub.

That’s the numbers for 2011.  It looks like a lot, but it breaks down to under 3 hours of writing a day, which really isn’t that much.  Writing is my job and I damn well better be willing to put at least 2-3 hours a day of work into my job.  Fortunately, having to do only 3 hours or so of writing a day means I’ll have plenty of time to put in the hours for the things that aren’t writing, like formatting, editing, wasting time online (ahem, I mean…researching!), reading, playing videogames, etc.  What? Videogames are totally integral to my job. Really. Seriously.  It’s…uh… consumption of story!  Vital. Totally vital.

November Summary plus Extras

So first, my story “No Spaceships Go” will be out from Daily Science Fiction on December 17th it looks like.  So go sign up for their daily stories already, geez.  (Though it will also be posted on the website at some point as well if you’re somehow allergic to getting awesome fiction in your inbox each weekday morning).   Besides this being my first pro sale, it is also a story I really love.  I write a lot of stories and I’m not sure I could even list the titles of all of them off the top of my head (probably, with some serious thinking, because I do have a good memory, but I might miss one or two).  However, I play favorites like woah.  This story was one of my favorites and I’m very happy that Daily SF took a chance on it.

So in November my writing went not too poorly, but I’ve discovered that writing while in pain really, really sucks.  Or perhaps rediscovered, since I had to do it this summer when I pinched a nerve in my shoulder.  I have my new keyboard now and am so far liking it (it’s only been a day, so no idea how it will serve in the long term).  I’ve also adjusted my desk and my chair and gotten a wrist brace to try for the more sore wrist.  All these things will hopefully contribute to less pain and a more consistent writing schedule.

All that aside, I managed about 52,000 words this month.  That means a handful of new stories out to markets and some of what will be the first novel in my Pyrrh Considerable Crimes series.  I’m going to be finishing up the novel in the next week or two, then it’ll go to first readers, then to the copy editor, and finally (hopefully!) on or around Jan 31st, 2011, it’ll be available to purchase.

For December I’m going to take it somewhat easy.  While I’d like to be writing 5-6 hours a day, I know that on many days I’ll have other commitments (I have a huge family, and the holidays are always made of crazy sauce).  So I’m setting my daily goal at 10 pages each week day and 5 pages each weekend day.  I’m planning on writing the second Pyrrh novel this month, as well as starting a romance novel that will go out to traditional publishers in Feb.  I was going to write my horror/western, but it needs to percolate more I think, and I’m debating writing it for e-pub instead of trying to figure out how the hell I’d pitch something like that to trad publishers.  We’ll see.  I like that I have all sorts of options now and can pretty much write whatever I feel like (not that I wouldn’t anyway, I’m stubborn like that, but nice to know I might actually get paid for this stuff).

So November was a mixed bag.  I didn’t hit my goal, but I got over the halfway point and I still got something done, which is better than nothing.  Even if I only get 50k words each month next year, that would still be 600k words of new fiction ready for various markets and experiments, which isn’t a bad production rate.  So we’ll see.  I’m going to aim for more like 75k to 100k a month, but it’ll depend on schedules and wrists and my own laziness.

Speaking of laziness, I’ve been playing some Mass Effect 2 (well, helping my husband play by mining planets for him and such).  I mention it because the world-building is boggling and awesome.  Flying around and reading the different planet descriptions alone has been a joy and very inspiring.  After I finish up the next couple novel projects (or perhaps in between), I’m totally going to get some sf stories done.  I wrote fantasy in November pretty much, so maybe it’s time to return to space.  Hmm, I wonder if I can write ME2 off on my taxes? It’s totally helping my writing, totally. *grin*

(Speaking of taxes, I’ll be filing my first schedule C this Jan.  I’ll definitely be posting about that process around then, because I think more information needs to be available on how this works exactly.  I’m going to hire a professional to talk me through it the first time, because while I’m competent as the house accountant, I’d rather not mess up when it comes to the IRS.  They aren’t exactly forgiving of honest errors.  So look for a post about that, and some neo-pro interviews coming soon!)

Lorning and Practice

(Yes, ‘learning’ is misspelled in my subject.  On purpose. It’s a joke. No, it would take too long to explain. Deal)

I tend to talk very openly about my writing goals and word counts and issues that crop up and the like.  This has led to comments, both on this blog and privately, that are along the lines of “maybe you should slow down (ie, write less) and learn more”.

Sounds like a reasonable plan, right? Except, it isn’t.  This statement and statements along the same lines have  logical fallacies in them.  They imply that a) writing slow= writing better and b) learning somehow happens outside of the actual writing work.  Neither of these things are true.

Let me demonstrate my point using videogames (because I can!).

Starcraft 2 is arguably the best real-time strategy (RTS) game out there.  A few months ago I discovered SC2 replay and tutorial videos on you-tube and have been watching them since.  I also own the game and have played a bit, but writing work has gotten in the way of that and I haven’t had nearly as much time as I’d like for videogames (and what time I’ve had, I’ve spent playing Borderlands with my husband).

But I’ve watched hundreds of hours of strategy videos and games.  I basically use SC2 videos as my mental break time during the day or late at night when I can’t sleep and don’t feel like working or reading.  I can discuss build orders and micro/macro strategies and unit choices with the best of them and probably, if no one saw me play, sound pretty much like a hard-core SC2 player.  My knowledge of the strategies and ideas behind them is huge.

I suck at SC2.  I’m really, really bad at it.  I haven’t played my ladder games (the multi-player ranking is called ladder) yet, but I imagine I’d be bottom of the heap.  I can barely beat the AI on easy.  Why is this? I mean, I’ve studied hard core, right? I know how hot-keys work and which units counter which units and what my timings should be on scouting and getting which building when.  My brain is stuffed with SC2 tactics and ideas and strategies.  But I can’t play the game to save my life.

Because I haven’t practiced.  I haven’t PLAYED the game nearly enough to get the practical skills to implement my knowledge.

See where I’m going with this?  Writing is the same.  I can read every book on writing ever written.  I can attend every conference, join every critique workshop, read and talk about writing and other people’s stories until my tongue and eyes bleed, but that won’t make me a good writer.

Only writing will.  All the side things, all the reverse-outlining best-selling novels, all the reading long-time pro’s work and blogs, all the industry knowledge and the business knowledge and the craft books in the world won’t mean jack or shit unless I’m writing my own words.

If I’d spent 200 hours playing SC2 instead of watching these videos, I bet I’d be at least Gold rank on ladder by now.  If I’d spent 100 hours watching videos and 100 hours playing, I might be Gold rank also.

It’s about doing both.  I’m learning and reading about writing and studying good books, but I’m also writing.  Writing is the first and most important thing to do.  All the rest is gravy and, like gravy, if you don’t have anything to apply the skills to, it ends up being a plate full of soupy worthlessness (okay, bad imagery, but you get the point).  Without practice, knowledge means nothing.

So yeah, I’m working hard to get my word counts up, to be more consistent in setting aside three or four or six hours a day to write.  Because the fifty or so writing books on my shelf won’t do me any good if I’m not putting the practice in, if I’m not doing the work.  I need to be writing more, in other words, not less.

So if you find yourself frustrated, if you feel like you aren’t getting anywhere skill-wise, don’t slow down.  Speed up. Do more words.  Stab those voices of doubt that are telling you that you don’t know enough, you haven’t studied enough, your words aren’t good enough, and just put your ass in the chair and write more words.  Because the easy AI might kick your ass while you’re trying to figure out how the hell you tech up to hive, but eventually you’ll have your revenge with an early 7 roach cheese push.   Because you practiced it. Over and over and over.  Until you could do it right, until you found what worked for you.

Practice. Write more.  Want a career in something? Put in the hours to get good at it.  Put in the hours for study also, but don’t neglect the practicing.  Practicing is more important.   Talking and reading about writing will never equal what you can learn by just doing it.  We’re all different, we all have different strengths and weaknesses and habits.  But if you don’t practice, you’ll never learn what those are.  No book, no other writer, no seminar or class or critique can ever tell you how you work and what your exact path in this career will be.

Only writing will do that.  Only writing can do that.

Do eet!

That Time of Year Again, or NaNoWriMo

I’ve technically done Nanowrimo (or National Novel Writing Month) three times now.  I’ve “won” it twice.  Last year I intended to be a nano rebel and do a short story a day for the month until my brain got hijacked by insomnia.  This year I’m going for a hybrid of sorts.  I’m going to write a 45-55k novel and also aim to complete 11 short stories.  I predict this will be 90-100k words this month.

There are many conflicting opinions about NaNoWriMo.  Some seem to feel that it encourages bad writing, and for people to try to publish bad writing in the after months (I’ve even seen some agent blogs complaining that they get nano novels in December and how annoying that is).  My personal opinion is that NaNo is what you make of it.  If you want to write a crazy book that is full of in-jokes, word and plot prompts, and probably something only your mother will love, go ahead.  I don’t care.  Doesn’t bug me a bit.  Writing is fun, or I wouldn’t be doing it.

If you want to write a novel with the goal for publication? Do that.  Is it possible to write 50,000+ good words in a month? Hell yes.  In fact, many professional writers do it all the time.  It’s simple to do if you carve out the writing time.  Here, I’ll do the math for my own plans:

11 short stories: word count on this will vary.  I’m aiming for between 2500 and 7500 words per story.  A 7500 word story takes me generally 6-9 hours to write (depending on multiple factors like plotting, research, etc).  Most of my stories tend to fall in the 4-5k word range, so we’ll say 55,000 words from shorts.  That’s about 55-60 hours of writing at my usual pace.

Then the novel.  I’m going for 45-55k words, which is a short novel.  But this novel isn’t going to be shopped to traditional publishing.  It’s going to be e-pubbed (after first readers and a professional editor see it, of course. I wouldn’t put a rough draft up for sale, clearly).  My natural length for novels is fairly short, so I think this is a good length and a pace I can keep up for four books a year.  The novel will likely take about 70 hours of work (I’ve done a lot of world-building and pre-planning over the last year, so now what’s left is to write the damn thing).

70+60=130 hours of work in a month.  130/30= 4.3333333 hours a day.  That’s right.  A bit over four hours a day.  When was the last time you worked a four hour day?  Writing is my sole source of employment, so there’s really no reason I can’t put four hours a day into it.  My actual plan is to put six or seven hours a day in on weekdays and whatever I can fit in on weekends.  November is  full of weddings, baptisms, parties, Thanksgiving, etc for me, so I know I won’t be able to find hours every single day.  Hence the over-writing on some days so I can have slack time for when things come up (because when in life don’t things come up, right?).

So that’s my NaNoWriMo plan.  I’m on the nanowrimo.org website under “izanobu” if anyone is doing it and wants to be buddies there (progress bars are fun!).

Good luck to everyone going along on the fun of NaNo!

Writing Goals: Things I Like

As I gear up for my next big project (ie, novel), I’ve been thinking a lot about what kinds of stories I like to read and how that impacts the sort of stories I want to tell.  I figured it might be interesting to have the list (so far) posted on my blog.  Maybe some of you reading will post your own lists (hint, hint).

Things I like to read about/want to write about in fiction:

Fighting. Crimes. Sex. Serial Killers. Details about day to day activities I’m not familiar with.  Training montages.  Bad-ass people doing clever, bad-ass things (note, these characters don’t have to be the protagonists, I like bad-ass antagonists as well).  Love stories.  Space stations.  Starships or outposts in space in isolation type setting.  Post-apocalyptic.  Kick-ass, detailed magic.  Anything that reminds me of a table-top RPG (ie I could envision giving the characters stats and seeing how the world would be laid out etc).  Happily ever after enough endings.  Series.  Epic world-building.  Secondary characters strong enough to merit their own books/stories.

That’s my list so far.  I’m sure it’ll expand as I think of things or find things and go “hey! THAT! I love THAT!”

The next project I’m working on is the first book in my e-pub novel series.  The website for the series will be up shortly and then I’ll make it its own post.  What excites me about this project the most is that I think I can cover a lot of the above list in just one series.  (Not the space-station stuff, alas).  I’m going to be writing something that I fully love, with nothing in it I don’t.  Sounds like fun to me.

I’ve got a lot lined up, actually.  We’ll see how much I get to by the end of the year.  And I’ve got a pile of short stories waiting on final consideration at various markets with “we’ll tell you by X date-ish” dates coming up in the next few months.  Lots to be excited about and lots of work to do.

So, fellow writers (and readers…):  what are your favorite things in fiction? What are your reader cookies?

Appropriating and Updating the Race

In this crazy new world of e-publishing, the rules of getting published and making a living at writing are shifting.  As anyone reading this blog at all will know, I’m a huge follower of Heinlein’s Rules for Writers.  But where does putting my own stuff up without going to an editor who can pay me fall in the mix of those five rules?  I’m not sure.

But e-stuff sells.  I’m selling handfuls of copies of two literary short stories a month, stories I’ve done basically no marketing for at all.  How much better will novels sell? Novels I intend to push in front of people and do as much marketing for as I can handle?  Does that count as “keeping it in the mail until it sells”?  Maybe.

Dean Wesley Smith came up with a points system called the Race back in the years when I was a wee little girl.  The gist is that you get one point for each story in the mail, three points for each novel proposal (only for each novel, not for each editor you send it to), and eight points for each full novel out (again, only counts once per book).  Dean explains in his blog here and here much better than I can.

But if I put a story up on Kindle… I lose the point in the Race.  I’m sure that Dean will come up with a new Race point system to account for that, but in the meantime, fellow writer Amanda McCarter and I decided on a rough new plan, which we’re calling the E-pub Race (different from the Trad-pub Race).  It works like this:  (and this is probably way more complicated than it needs to be, but hey… games are fun!)

1 point for each short story.  If you bundle shorts, this counts as 1 point up to 4 shorts bundled.

3 points for each short story collection (5+ shorts minimum, repeats allowed with shorts on their own).

5 points for each novel. (Novels bundled in Omnibus form count separately unless they are repeated, in which case you only get the points once).

No points count until you’ve sold at least five copies (the original race has you losing points after getting paid, so we figured the E-pub race should have something opposite of that).  Copies you buy yourself don’t count of course.  Editions don’t count as separate (so if you do a POD version, you still only get points for that novel once).

Ok. Hopefully that isn’t too complicated.  Suggestions and comments are welcome, of course.

Now that *that’s* over…

Home from the Dean Wesley Smith novel workshop.  Two query packages are in the mail, three more will follow those as soon as I unpack and transfer the right files to the right computer and update all my folders.

Once again, learned so much at the workshop that I can’t even begin to sum it up.  Re-affirmed that ebooks are a good idea (balancing with NY publishing), and learned great things about POD stuff that I hadn’t even started to investigate on my own yet.  Having a professional, proofed query package is a great benefit of the novel workshops, but the real meat of learning at these things is in all the side information, the stories, the questions that others ask and answer, and so many other little details (not to mention the cool people I meet and the books I get to read…).

But now, it means I’m done with that novel until I get a full request.  So what’s next?  Well, here’s the rough plan for the rest of this year:

Plan for rest of October:  write a handful of short stories and mail them.  Get the world-bible nailed down for my ebook project.  Keep things in the mail.

Plan for November: Write the ebook project book 1 as a nanowrimo (hey, why not, right?) and start back in on TVMoSS as soon as that’s done.  Also write another handful of short stories and mail them.

Plan for December:  Get ebook novel ready for launch in Jan.  Finish TVMoSS (or as near as I can given I’m going to lose a lot of time due to holiday stuff).  Write another handful of short stories and mail them.

It looks like a lot, but Oct/Nov are usually fairly productive times for me, so I’m not too worried.  I just need TVMoSS done by Feb 1st, and the ebook book 1 done by December-ish (to get time to edit, clean it up, and format before Jan.).

So yeah, that’s about it.  I’m planning a post on my library project, so hopefully now I’m done with that mind-eating novel I’ll get something up on this blog that’s at least nominally interesting on a more regular basis.  Thanks to everyone who encouraged and supported me while I struggled through finishing this last month or so, you guys are awesome!