Category Archives: Publishing

Self-Discipline and the Scribbler (Plus Reading)

by Liana Posted on January 10, 2014
This entry is part 42 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Experiment number one: no internet reading, commenting, etc. until after I type up the morning side of this status report, then write at least a thousand words for the day. If I’m going to get my sleep cycle turned back around, I need to not write or read between eleven p.m. and one o’clock in the morning!

These posts are getting rather long-winded. Anyone want me to split out the reading from the writing? I doubt most people are interested in the writing, and I don’t really know if anyone’s interested in the reading. I just plug this stuff here for my own accountability.

Reading

Last night I finished out Debt Collector, Season 1, by Susan Kaye Quinn. I had mixed feelings by the end. The story was very good, just like in Open Minds, and I loved the main character, but.

Lirium is twenty years old and that is well established. When dealing with men or enemies, he acts like it. Unfortunately with women and in several other situations, he is consistently portrayed with the emotional and cognitive maturity of a teenager between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. There is a cognitive shift in the brain between that age and Lirium’s stated age that makes this unbelievable for me; thus, my annoyance with the series. Also, there was some rather problematic objectifying of women and using them as rewards for the main character, something I would rather not have encountered.

In short, this read very much like a tv series, and in that respect, structurally, it was amazingly well done. It’s one I would like but not watch next year until I could buy the whole season and I wouldn’t cry my eyes out if I didn’t get to watch it for some reason. Further note to self: the first episode’s title was too iconic for the series. I keep calling the entire series Delirium instead of Debt Collector. Next season is supposed to be about a different collector. I might not buy it. The fifth season will have all the collectors that were introduced, meaning to me that there will be Lirium. I’ve got other books to read and will probably skip out on Season 2 for the time being.

A long time ago, I read an SFF writing book by Orson Scott Card that included tantalizing snippets from Octavia Butler's book, Wild Seed. I've wanted to read it since. I just did. Wow. Still processing this book. It's grappling with tough questions and ideas. I did love it.

Next on my reading docket: The Drought by thecatisacritic.

Publishing

So the formatter needs my cover file. :groans: I might not be able to get to that until Saturday night, but he did say I should get my Dowse and Bleed Kindle file around Tuesday of next week. I’m really excited about all of this, as its my first major professionally done book launch. Usually I treat it a lot like fanfic: post it and get back to writing. This time, I did categorization and metadata and careful typesetting and hired a formatter and really tweaked the cover until I was satisfied, etc. It’s a good feeling. I’m going to try and make a system of this.

Publishing Plans

I do want to publish twelve pieces this year as you might remember, but that means finishing eleven more pieces. I’m going to start trying to choose between my options for the eleven stories I want to flesh out and complete. The collaboration, fanfic, and short stories don’t count. As much as I like shorts, I was surprised by reading Debt Collector to realize how dense I pack my work. I don’t think shorts are enough to do what I want them to—I want more fiction like Rachelle’s—and I don’t think I’m going to magically start writing looser fiction either, so I suspect I’m about to get very happy in the novelette/novella word count range.

Writing Goals for the Day

Today, I want to get the antagonist side of things hammered out on the collaboration, enter my notes on Splintered Gates into my working file, then sketch or flesh out another good-sized chunk of words on it.

I’m thinking I’m going to take a break from the Laurie fic, simply because I still don’t feel equal to canon. I know the piece I want to write, and I don’t feel like I can do it justice yet.

Writing

First I wrote 755 words of brainstorming on the collaboration. It’s not fic, but it’s a start. Back to no internet until we get more written. I think we’ll do the notes on Splintered Gates before we try to write any more new stuff.

Procrastination

So that didn’t work. At all. But I stuck to The Passive Voice, Dean Wesley Smith, and one post of Hugh Howey’s, so not bad, right? Then, I screwed up and peeked on LJ for a reply from my collaborator. None, of course. I had to make myself close the browser window. Self-discipline is vital, but it’s harder than it looks.

Writing Again

Forget typing. I need to distract myself from distraction with new words, not compilation. Got 174 words on Splintered. At fifteen sentences, I’m thinking I’m technically good for the day. I can technically spend the rest of the day plotting out what I want to do for the year and how I want to do it and whether I want to go ahead and do a series or not—that is until my collaborator tells me whether I’m on the right track or barking up a tree.

Brainstormed with collaborator. We both like the same ideas for the most part, so time to get some words on page.

I sketched and tossed and will need to rewrite. Not counting them.

The Fangirl

The Giver by Lois Lowry is being made into a movie? :nearly faints: :makes grabby hands:

Word Count

  • Fiction: 174 words
  • Poetry: 0 words, 0 lines
  • Blog: 1700 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 174 words
  • Total: 2175 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 56,380 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 5232 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 5958 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
  • Fanfic: "Mistakes," 1397 words.
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Open Document, Apply Words

by Liana Posted on January 8, 2014
This entry is part 38 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Publishing

So Dowse and Bleed is officially in review and I’ll get to proof it soon. I’m actually going to order a proof this time and will probably redo the typesetting on Gone Hunting soon and order that too. This round has been something of a revelation for me. And sent the Word file off to the formatter. :braces self for the invoice:

Writing

When in doubt, just write it out. I dove into my gift-fic and let’s just see what happens, shall we? Note to self: I haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m doing. I made it 167 words into the gift-fic before stalling out.

Upon switching to Splintered Gates, I got 728 words. That wasn’t actually the plan, but I’ll go with it. I’m starting to get scenes, and that’s a good thing. They’ll need later fleshing, but I’m not starting from sketch only either.

And back to the gift-fic. It’s going well, even if I can tell I’m not wholly comfortable in this character’s head. Either of theirs. I have no idea how I’m going to merge these scenes either.

In line with the idea of catching up on sleep, I'm going to stop here. I chose to write less today in favor of publishing. I regret nothing.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 1304 words
  • Poetry: 0 words, 0 lines
  • Blog: 253 words

Gift-Fic

  • Today: 576 words
  • Total: 576 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 728 words
  • Total: 1757 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 56,380 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 3993 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 3730 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
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This is What Happens When...

by Liana Posted on January 7, 2014
This entry is part 37 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

...I'm trying to move too quickly.

Scribbling today was aimed toward two things: reformat Dowse and Bleed to 6x9 instead of 5.5x8.5 because I forgot what size I made the cover and write a Yuletide gift-fic.

I'm really wishing I had this book in paperback. Of course, I don't. I'm headdesking pretty well at the moment, which isn't good because I have my once-a-year headache too. :growls:

I did get the story from inferno redone (I need an icon for it, don't I?), and I get to go home, Createspace a template, and fit the cover to the spine width requirements. The new size knocked 12 pages off the book. Pity. I'm down to 60. Ah well.

Procrastination

Wrote a blog post about Collateral Damage. Made an executive decision there. Made up a wishlist of books I'd like to read and/or buy this year. Wandered through the SF classics. Wasted my work break doing the above. Got struck by the lightning and wrote another blog post, this one on my authorial challenge for the year: learn how to at least consider plot.

Writing

You mean I actually did some? I decided to do the direct approach. Start typing and just make yourself do it. Got somewhere on the collaboration.

Publishing

Realized I had a good opportunity for once to finish the cover of Dowse and Bleed without my sister around, so did that. I forgot to email myself the PDF for the interior, but after I do, I can finish the last touches on getting it to Createspace. The only issue remaining on that front is I'm going to have to email them to get additional BISAC categories. Apparently, for the print edition, you only get one. I went with procedural and I'll have them add the science fiction.

Health

While I'm not happy with my word counts for the night, I'm calling it a night, primarily because I need to catch up on my sleep. I had a headache today, which is not a good sign. I usually have one a year under duress and that's it, so I don't have any coping mechanisms developed really.

Word Counts

  • Fiction: 402 words
  • Poetry: 0 words, 0 lines
  • Blog: 1504 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 1028 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 402 words
  • Total: 56,380 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 2689 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 3477 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
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Headdesk Equals Scribbling?

by Liana Posted on January 6, 2014
This entry is part 36 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So yesterday was nothing but :headdesk: and today was quite productive. I thought it wouldn't be because I... um... :coughs: read a book this morning into the wee hours again. I know I need to stop, but it just keeps happening. Anyways, it was Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn, and it was very, very good.

Publishing

Finished a decent draft of metadata for Dowse and Bleed and finished hyphenating and PDFing the file. I might actually get this baby out in January. :prays that it will be so:

Writing

First, I hammered away at Splintered Gates, choosing to do so on computer instead of tablet simply because that's where my file with all the original notes was. I had this realization I was in the wrong tense and suddenly I thought I could do something with this. I dumped most of what I had and went from 2239 words to 558 words, then scribbled. And got somewhere. This is good.

I decided randomly I wanted to write a poem today. I wrote three-fourths of a poem, scrapped it, then wandered through my WIP file. I added a couple snippets to Lovemark the Seasons and paragraphed a scene on my way through then stopped at two lines of poetry that had come to me ages ago and given me nothing else besides. I wrote the poem.

Happy Belated Yuletide

Otherwise known as fanfic. I am intimidated by my source material. Full stop. Hint to the scribbler: pick another character. Working... This requires immersion reading. See you on the other side of the flood, 'kay, y'all?

Note: That means tomorrow.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 602 words
  • Poetry: 212 words, 45 lines
  • Blog: 300 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 470 words
  • Total: 1028 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 55,978 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.

January Totals

  • Fiction: 2287 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 1973 words
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A New Year's Scribbler: January 1, 2014

by Liana Posted on January 2, 2014
This entry is part 31 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

The daily scribble posts are back. On New Year's Day, I didn't actually expect to be productive. I expected laid back holiday, wherein we ate a scrumptious meal, spent time with family, and kept our four-year-old tradition of a treasure hunt, albeit a week late due to my sister and I having been sick heading into Christmas.

We did that, but I was also productive.

Reading

Read through some Yuletide reveals and one of the two new stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I also 'accidentally' stayed up to 2 o'clock in the morning reading Lynn Austin's Return to Me.

Note: I am extremely picky about historical and non-Old Testamental Biblical fiction. Most of it bores me unless it's written extraordinarily well. I tend to like Old Testament stories and I like classics that were written in historical periods, but not ones written about said historical periods. That said, I liked Lynn Austin's Gods and Kings series about Hezekiah. This book is set during a period of Biblical history that fascinates me (and is Old Testament): the interval between Daniel and Esther wherein there was Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, and Haggai. So I figured I'd like this book.

It had issues. Overall, I liked it. Can't say I loved it because the prologue was fabulous and then the first ten chapters were so tedious that I skipped five of them and probably never will read them. The middle was driven by a bad promise the main character kept despite knowing better on so many counts it wasn't even funny. The ending was fabulous. So... mixed feelings. Probably won't reread.

I've been reading The Drought and Quartz as well and am hoping to catch up within the next month.

Publishing

Hammered away at "Dowse and Bleed" by tweaking four or five lines that were bothering me (apparently I'm one of those artists who won't stop editing until you pry her work right out of her hands), laying out the interior less hyphenation, and figuring out whether to add chronology to the cover. Also categorized it as a science fiction procedural per BISAC. Thank you, lithiumlaughter and in_the_blue, for helping me figure that one out. I haven't decided whether I want to add an excerpt for a forthcoming story in there, but am leaning strongly toward not.

To publish this baby in January, I particularly need to finalize the cover and finish pounding away at the summary, which I was doing yesterday. I thought it was perfect than realized it really didn't have a strong enough emphasis on what a special-type human was or that this was superhuman fiction. :headdesk: Back to the drawing board.

I'm tempted to work on Kingdoms and Thorn for the February story, but then it might be waaay better to do one of the other storyworlds for lots of reasons, so leaving certainty on the back burner.

Writing

Wrote 12 sentences instead of seven on book I should not be writing but is pestering me anyway.

Did some percolating research for fanfics in progress. I've got a particular scene I want to write for Finding the Ground and am still mulling over exactly where I want to check into Laurie. I think I know, but I keep waffling.

Also reread a bunch of Divergent series stuff. Is it awful to say I want a serious romance fic on the level of short story like what I write for Rogue/Gambit? Tris and Four have this serious fade to black moment and I'm pretty sure it was the standard fade to black and I wanted more. Additionally, I've got other serious Divergent plot-bunnies. I'd like to make them wait until I update some of my older fics so many people are waiting on, but no promises. Never those.

Collaboration

Discovered the joys of Scrivener for collaboration. I can add status notes about who worked on which part last, setting keywords, folders for our alternate chapter/scene orders and compiled files, etc., etc., etc. And we're sort of writing multiple timelines, so the brain went crazy with ideas yesterday. For collaboration, Scrivener is awesome.

Which brings me to...

New Arrivals

Scrivener: I officially love you, thecatisacritic. Thank you!

Duotrope: I thought about submitting "Dowse and Bleed" before I changed my mind, but now have a trial of Duotrope. I should do Heinlein's challenge in light of it, but I don't need the pressure, so probably won't.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 49 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 81 words
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More on Goals

by Liana Posted on January 2, 2014

7 Sentence Challenge

Each day, I am challenging myself to write seven sentences on my tablet in my odd time. This should stick to the same story until complete.

Collaboration Challenge

I'm challenging myself to produce roughly 5000 words a week, in the recognition of reality that my 1K daily average goal will doubtless include missed days.

Publish 12 Challenge

I'd like to publish one new title a month on average. I have no idea how I intend to do this.

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Reading and Writing, October 14

by Liana Posted on October 14, 2013
This entry is part 13 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Stage One: Assess

So today, I wrote a blog post before getting to other writing. A lot of stuff about fandom and original fiction has been hammering in my head lately and that gorgeous piece of early Yuletide goodness put me over. Of course, now I owe a Laurie fic back and that's mulling in the percolator. In the meantime, there's what to write for Nano to consider and how many ficlets I can plow through today running on a late start, to say nothing of the three I haven't read yet from thecatisacritic.

Submissions

Got a rejection letter late in the day. It was a good rejection letter and very helpful. I do have a strong tendency to write vignettes, and I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be cured of that, though curiously, this fic isn't actually a vignette. Nevertheless, the comments gave me some great ideas on where to go when I'm ready to flesh out Alliance more, as my first angles were fizzling badly (I'm apparently not that into school fic, I just thought I was), and it also made me realize something: I have come to expect rejection. I never actually want to see the response to a submission. That's a very odd thought.

Stage Two: Work

I tried to make some progress on "Everything is Blood" and I did make some, but I wasn't impressed and it's still not coming together for me, so I decided to hit Kingdoms and Thorn again instead. And there goes 184 190 198 words on Lovemark the Seasons. I was actually thinking ficlets, o muse o' mine. Please?

Oh, bother it. Sorry, thecatisacritic. I'm going to bury myself in Lovemark.

Stage Three: Count

  • Fiction: 1,187 words - Month to Date: 16,629 words
  • Blog: 822 words - Month to Date: 6,512 words

365 Challenge

Speaking of the challenge, what day am I on and how's the overall progress going? I'm on day 287/365 and written piece 215/365.

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A Fandom-Original Writer: Markers of Success

by Liana Posted on October 14, 2013

A while back, Kristine Rusch wrote about markers of success, which are entirely dependent on goals. Recently, I exchanged some dialogue on beta readers with Elle Casey and came to the realization that our goals were quite different. Her goal is to build a readership; mine is to build a fanbase. She didn't really understand the difference.

I have a pen name, my most successful one, where the goal is to sell books. The way to reach that goal is simple: write and publish more stories fitting the brand. It works. It pays my utilities bill when I get the payout.

Her goal is to draw in many new readers with each successive book. This means she'll probably have more reviews and sales overall than I do and each book probably should go through a new to her reader, as she suggests, to see how it'll go over with new-to-her readers.

My goal with Liana Mir comes straight out of fandom: I want fans. I want to write what I love and what fascinates me and know others feel the same way. That means I don't need many new readers with each release; I need to hold onto the ones I have, to make them feel something. It means that my ideal beta reader is both active in fandom and someone who becomes invested in my storyworld and can react like a fan, pointing out problems as they arise, such as the failure to sufficiently characterize Pieter. Important stuff, this. One of my favorite TV shows ever, Awake, had a relatively small viewership, but it had a devoted fanbase. I'm perfectly content with that sort of result. In fact, that's what I want. I want fans, who may or may not ever review and may be small in number but are high in engagement.

That said, my markers of success are:

  • Have readers who ask questions and want more.
  • Have fanwork created for my worlds.
  • See an in-depth review or piece of meta from someone I don't know.
  • Have readers I don't know who ask questions and want more.
  • Have fanwork created for my worlds by someone I don't know.

These are my personal goals and benchmarks. I've got number one with Kingdoms and Thorn and Faeology got interest and wanting more from strangers (though I've yet to deliver, having gotten sidetracked). Number two has happened for Vardin (fix-it fic) and I got that gift from my beta in Kingdoms and Thorn. The rest haven't happened yet, which is fine as I haven't actually gotten as much into the world yet. These stories are created for my fangirl side. I actually care about canon, so if it's not quite right, it doesn't get published.

I don't pretend everyone wants this, but it's what I want. To create something that rich and awesome that if it were authored by someone else, I would fangirl it.

What are your markers?

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A Day in the Life of the Scribbler, October 5

by Liana Posted on October 6, 2013
This entry is part 5 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So last night, instead of worrying about writing, I read my incredibly wonderful beta notes that came back from multiple parties and got one set compared to the document to remember what I'd done. Learned a few things.

Audience

Interestingly enough, the anthology I put together while definitively needing work turns out to have been aimed strongly at a poetry audience, which explains a lot of its failings as a fiction anthology.

En brief, on the tin I go after a fandom audience and aim to appeal to those in my own community (go figure), but in reality, I have three primary audiences I appeal to with different pieces and some overlap: SFF, literary, and poetry. Tone is a bigger part of this than just story. Half of my flashfic appears to be solidly in the poetry camp, which hardly surprises me as that's how I got into flash fiction in the first place.

Proofing

Proofreading, oddly enough, is not the same as copyediting. Proofreading in the vernacular has come to mean typo and grammar cleanup, but that's not what it actually means. Proofreading is where you take that carefully copyedited manuscript and make sure the document going to press didn't do wonky things to your formatting.

When the Clock Chimes had some very wonky things happen to my formatting. I am henceforth adding proofing back into my writing/publishing process. I've got a few edits I could've sworn I made already not present in the file I'm working from and the italics! Oy, the italics. To say nothing of the line spacing. :headdesk:

Will write some on the 6th, but that's primarily devoted to cleaning, shopping, and an all-day virus scan, so we'll see.

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