I am at present reinventing my online presence a bit, so while a lot is going on behind the scenes, I will not be adding much in the way of new content for a bit. Hope to see you all soon.
Tag Archives: plans
The New — Blogging Beyond the Comfort Zone
How many times do I reinvent myself? I try this and that and fail and succeed, then hack away at it again. Anyone who has been following my Twitter feed may have noticed my struggles with striking the right balance for City of Glass, creating a beautiful online journal and blog aimed more at my readers than my fellow writers, and deciding how to earn an income from my fiction when I simply do not finish novels at the pace of those chunking up the change in independent publishing.
The truth is, I have been afraid, so very afraid, that I have been doing the wrong thing, even while moving forward on projects unrelated to Liana Mir and that I cannot discuss here. But these things take time and understanding.
The goal of this post is to sort through some of the things I have been struggling with, experiencing, and what they mean. In particular, this is where I come to grips with what this blog is about, what I want to be, and embracing the new. Continue reading
Posting Schedule Change-Up for City of Glass
Due to a fear on my part of moving too slowly, I bumped up my initial City of Glass posting schedule to twice weekly. Due to the reality of my first thought being the better one, I'm bumping it back down to once weekly. The novel will now update on Thursdays only.
Posted in Publishing, Website
Tagged change of plans, plans, storyworld: alliance
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5 Things Meme: Goals
Comment to this post saying "FIVE!" and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.
Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!
From arliddian:
Current Goals and Resolutions
The difference between where I am now and where I want to be can be measured in concrete, physical things: earn a decent weekly income at writing, get x stories published as ebooks, get x stories into print, post this many articles weekly, blog about things that matter, finish writing City of Glass, etc. But that isn't how I measure this journey.
See, there's another challenge arliddian gave me, the challenge to write 100 things about creativity. I took that challenge, held it in my mental palm, side-eyed it, set it down, then turned it over until finally I did the inevitable and took it completely apart to reassemble it into something better, something me. The result was I saw a journey I wanted to make, and it had nothing to do with outside goals.
Creative Plans: Daily Reports, Kickstarter, and Fishbowls
The Daily Creation was an idea I had to create something daily. Well, one week in and I'm discontinuing it. While I still intend to create daily, I will not be reporting or sharing along that aspect of my life. It's too stressful, and as I told someone else, I work well under deadline and lousy under pressure.
On the other hand, I have looked into Kickstarter as an option to bringing you more fiction projects but have found them insufficient to my long-term needs and recalcitrant at allowing me to use a non-DBA penname. Surprisingly, you don't have to get a doing-business-as to use a penname. Just provide your real name whenever legal items or payment is involved.
That said, I've been studying successful fishbowls of Anke Wehner, rix_scaedu, and Ysabet the Wordsmith, and I think it's a good way to develop and stockpiling the fiction and nonfiction frontlist I've got mulling over here.
Choosing Vulnerability
Some days I hate my writing. Today is one of those days and the reason I almost failed to update City of Glass, my current serialized science fiction novel, this morning. I hate the whole story. I want to throw it in a river to go and rot.
Every writer I have ever met has experienced this at one time or another. It's a side effect really of our pursuit of perfection. We need that pursuit. It's what brings you fully-developed wonderful literature instead of half-baked half-written stories that leave you wondering what we were doing when were supposed to be writing. It's important. Without that pursuit, we would be unable to create the works that inspire us and make us want to keep putting pen to paper day after day.
But there's thing called a commitment. I made a promise to not just put pen to paper, so to speak, but also to put paper to bed and send it out into the great wide world twice a week for readers to enjoy—or not. I really can't control that part. Commitment is important too, necessary to us artistic types who want every word we produce to be perfect. Without that commitment, we would never be able to stop writing, editing, revising, etc. and hand over our work to the reader. It would never get to you.
And then, there's resolve. It's that murky bridge in between the two. My resolve is what allows me to do what I need to do, even when I don't want to. I still hate City of Glass as it stands. I still hate the chapter I finally kicked out the door this morning. I still wish I had never, ever made that stubborn commitment to produce a novel that wasn't finished first so I could belabor it into perfection.
But I am resolved to fulfill my commitment. The new installment is up. I have done my duty and must wash my hands of perfection.
There.
Asking for Reader Feedback on the Blog
So I've been blogging for a while now and I'm starting to find a rhythm I like, but I'd still rather make sure my readers and friends like it too.
So I discovered that my poll plugin is broken. (I got your answer to the first question only, Rabia.) :growls: So here goes on simply asking:
- What is your favorite kind of post?
- Do I post too often, too infrequent, on too many topics, too few topics, or just right?
- Is there any kind of post you'd rather not read?
- Would you like to see more of any kind of posts? Fiction prompts? Any category or theme?
And last but not least, is there any way you think I could do better?
Letter from One Muse to Another
Dear Muses,
About that Pinterest thing: We know you've been putting off dealing with it because of valid points of inspiration and all that yada and primarily the fact that tracking a picture down to its original source is hard. to. do. 'Nuff said.
But we've been reading up here and here and here, and something's come to light you simply have to address. Not only are we held liable for what we pin, but also for what we repin? Oooh, goody. Nice going, Pinterest. Make sure every single person micromanages every other just so long as you don't get held liable. :grumbles thunderously:
So what happens now?
Considerations
I'm in the boat of eyeing the income streams again, needing to add more of them. Which brings me back to Kickstarter. Again. But I haven't figured out how to tweak out a project I want to do.
Then there's City of Glass. I'm feeling a need to bump it up to twice weekly updates instead of once, but I'm not sure if that will be cost-effective for me, as until it's gone a little ways, it probably won't produce income. Note to self: It also needs a cover.
I've thought about monetizing writing to prompts, but don't think I want to go there when I write for free to prompts. Have prompt, will write.
Something's got to give.
:plunks chin on hand and gets thoughty:
