Reader Error/Writer's Fault

I have a confession:

I am probably the worst avid reader you have ever met.

I love reading. I always have. And if you have read any of my other posts, you would not doubt that.

But lately (by lately, I mean the last few years), my reading has fallen to the wayside.

I want to read. I really do. I have a whole stack of books that I can't wait to read, but I can never seem to be in the mood to open any of them.

After some soul-searching (and recreational Facebook creeping), I think I have figured whose fault it is that I'm not reading any of the approximately 1.5 million awesome books I have waiting for me.

The writer in my head.

Why is it her fault?

It's because I want to read the book she's writing and she's not done with it yet.

It might seem kind of conceited to some people, that I'd rather read something that I wrote than what somebody else wrote. And I supposed it is, to a point. But I don't want to read my own work because I think it's better than everybody else's.

I want to read it because it's the story that I want but can't find anywhere else.

Picture from LikeSuccess
I feel you, Toni.

I also feel guilty reading somebody else's books when I have so many books of my own that are unfinished. It seems disloyal for some reason. Those characters, who I love like friends, are sitting there in limbo, with half their stories told.

I swear, one of these days, they're going to gang up and go full Misery (Stephen King reference #1) on me.

A part of me is also terrified that if I read something similar to what I'm writing, that story will leech into my own and then it's no longer mine.

All of a sudden, my western Thelma and Louise story starts sounding like The Dark Tower (Stephen King reference #2) and then where would we be? Thelma hunting Louise, a creature from the swamp shows up and kidnaps the mayor's daughter while a deadly plague wipes out the entire town (I've never read The Dark Tower so I actually have no idea what happens, but it is in the stack of books I need to read).

So here we are, not reading.

Buying books sometimes, but not reading.

Writing lots, but not reading.

The crappy part is, it's because of all of my reading that I become a writer. I have learned so much about storytelling and character development from the books I've read. Those authors are my mentors and now I feel like I'm skipping class, not doing my homework, and running the other way when I see them on the street.

I also never seem to have the time to read...

I'll chalk that up to the recreational Facebook creeping.

The Bane of My Existence: 5 Tried and Proven Block Busters

What is the bane of my existence?

Picture from A Blog to Watch
Seeing as I'm not Batman (or am I?), not this Bane.

What is the bane of any writer's existence?

Picture from WikipediaWell, now you're just being mean. 

Writer's block, kids. I'm talking about writer's block.

It can kill progress, it can promote procrastination, and is one of the most frustrating thing that can happen to any author. Advice for busting writer's block is probably the #1 or #2 thing that writers ask, especially those who are just getting started.

Here is a list of things that I've use (or heard from other writers) to smash that writer's block into gravel that will look lovely on the country road in your next story.

#1 Take a Breather

Probably the last thing you want to do when you are confronted with the inability to advance your story is to walk away from it, but sometimes space is the best thing for you and your story. Staring at your computer or notebook is not going to make the words come, you might as well do something else until they do. Go clean the kitchen, mow the yard, watch a movie, check Facebook, or take a walk.

But I must warn you, Alice, don't let these short breaks become rabbit holes that take you days or even months to climb out of.

It took me 6 years to finish my first novel because I had bouts of writer's block 6+ months long. I also didn't know I wanted to be a writer at the time and didn't know the first thing about working through writer's block, which probably contributed to the extensive hiatuses.

#2 Power Through

This may seem contradictory to the first tip, and it is, but it isn't.

Roadblocks in a story can be stubborn, but you can be more stubborn. Write a different scene, go back and do some light editing, add more detail to your outline. As long as you're working on your story in some capacity, the writer's block won't win. Eventually, you break through and you'll already have all of this other work done.

The glory of what we do is, even if we write absolute shyte while trying to overcome a block, we can go back and fix it or delete it. Nobody is looking over our shoulder judging us for the bad stuff we write. They can only see the good stuff we put out there. 

But if somebody is looking over your shoulder judging you, elbow them in the stomach and tell them to go do something more constructive, like making you a sandwich.

#3 Move On

This doesn't mean give up on the story.

Let me repeat this for the people in the back: 

THIS DOESN'T MEAN GIVE UP ON THE STORY!

This is kind of like #1 but instead of taking a breather from writing, you're just taking a breather from the story that you are blocked on.

Start a short story out of your genre and comfort zone. Write a children's book. Give a favorite fairy tale a new ending.

This helped me so much when I was blocked on a novel a couple of years ago. I had been staring at the page for days with nothing new coming. I decided to open a new Word document and just start typing, no thought involved. I ended up with the beginning of  an interesting fantasy story. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but it helped me get back to my original story.

#4 Change It Up

This bit of advice actually came from a writing friend a few months ago and she heard it at a workshop I believe. 

They said if you are stuck in a story, not sure where to go or how to continue, pick a side character and write a scene from their point of view. 

It's not anything you have to include in the book, but it might help you understand that character a little better and help you find the next path for your story.

Along these lines, you can follow in the footsteps of the great J.K. Rowling (our queen) and write colorful and complete backgrounds for your minor characters. I don't know if she actually used this for block-busting, but she is famous for feeding us little tidbits about her beloved characters that she didn't tell us in the books.

#5 Find Your Peeps

Almost a year ago, I was suffering from pretty intense writer's block. Not only could I not write, but everything I had ever written began looking like absolute crap. Even the stuff I loved and was proud of started looking like something E.L. James scraped off the bottom of her shoe. It was definitely a low point in my writing career.

Then, I made it to my very first writer's group meeting.

Talk about enlightening.

Here was a group of people who knew what I was going through and could commiserate, they could offer advice, and could distract me with ideas for other aspects of my writing and self-publishing. I don't know if the group I joined is special or if it is pretty much the same with other writer's groups, but everybody is so encouraging, understanding, and energetic. They are a talented group of people and I am glad to be a part of them.

If you have any other tips for bashing writer's block, feel free to share. I am always stoked to find new writing tips because I'm kind of fond of my computer. I would hate to see it smashed against the wall in a writer's block-induced fit of literary rage.

Self-Publishing on Amazon: Learn from My Mistakes

I don't know how many of you are interesting in self-publishing, but I thought I'd share some of my experiences. I am far from being an expert. Frankly, I'm just stumbling through it and learning as I go, but if I can keep you from repeating my mistakes so you can make some of your own, then I did my best.

I self-published my first e-book, 1-800-Henchmen: First Shot (originally titled It Begins) just short of two years ago. I was so excited that I finished the book, I threw it up on Amazon before it, or I , was ready.

And it showed.

My first review that wasn't from a friend or family member was a 3-star from somebody who liked it but said there were a bunch of grammatical errors.

Photo from Getty ImagesOh, the horror!

So, my editor and I went through it again more diligently this time, and put the new version online. Then, I got another review from somebody who liked it but didn't like my title. Well, surprise for that guy, I didn't like my original title either, but I couldn't come up with anything better. As soon as I finally did, I changed it immediately.

That is when I noticed why it is so important to truly be ready to publish before you publish.

If you make any changes to your book on amazon, all books that were purchased before the changes don't update.

This means there are a bunch of books out there titled It Begins with a lot of grammatical mistakes.

Photo from Getty ImagesStill terrible.

I had to chalk that one up to a learning opportunity and move on or I never would have put out another e-book, but take my advice: much like print books, don't put an e-book out there with errors.

Now for Amazon's e-book portal. It is very self-explanatory, free (they just take a cut of the royalties), and easy to use. They have a searchable message board for questions and lots of helpful hints scattered around the page that answered most of my questions. I don't quite remember how the initial set-up went (2 years ago, remember?) but I do recall just kind of muddling through it (tax stuff tends to make my brain flip to the static channel).

What about cover art?

I was a little unprepared for this aspect of self-publishing when I started. Thankfully, Amazon was looking out for me. They have a bunch of different, free cover options you can choose from and modify slightly to suit your needs. They're not the greatest, nor the most diverse options, but they work for somebody just starting out who doesn't want to pay for original work or doesn't have the ability to make their own.

If you're like me, you like keeping track of sales numbers. It took me a bit to figure out how to do this other than to just write down each book sale as it came up on my sales dashboard. At first, I was only watching my Monthly Sales Report but that stopped being helpful when I realized that it only tracked two months at a time. Then I discovered the Prior Months' Royalties Report.

If a blessing could show up as a spreadsheet, this little dear would be it.

It shows every book you sold for a month's time in every country that it is available in and how much you earned for each book. It also shows pages read if your book is part of the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select Program. Amazon only keeps them for 12 months, but I've been saving them on my computer and transferring numbers to my own spreadsheet so I can track each book's sales numbers for the whole year.

I also check the Payments Report but that's just so I know exactly how much my last royalty payment from Amazon was (usually around $1.37. I'm totally rolling in it).

Now for the tough part.

My most recent e-book, Love Drunk and Dragon Tears, was a rather large disaster to publish (all of my own making).

Here's why:

I didn't realize that I still had the track changes option turned on on the word document that I uploaded to Amazon for publishing. By the time I realized it, two copies had been sold (thankfully one was to me and the other was to a friend). The resulting email exchange with Amazon makes me want a drink just thinking about it.

Photo from Nosferatu's Coffin
If an email exchange was a person.

They were super helpful considering it was my stupid mistake that was causing the mess. After many emails and giving examples of extreme errors in the book, they said they would send out corrected copies, I just had to upload a good one. Well, stupid me uploaded yet another messed up one. A couple more emails and we got the correct one loaded into the portal. A couple of weeks later I got an email saying all sold versions should be updated and good to go. Well, mine never updated and neither did my friends. I should probably look into that again. *shudder*

It wasn't until after this whole shitstorm did I discover a handy little option on the main portal before you finish uploading your book to Amazon's site.

It's called "Preview Your Book".

I am never not using this ever again.