J.L. Wilson's Blog: Why I'm not here often, page 7

My hands are tired

I ended up rewriting book 8 of my Endless American Dream series, pillaging bits and pieces from book 7 (which I then ended up editing) and bits and pieces from the current book 8. I finished that on March 15, took time to review a mystery to submit to my editor, now I'm on to Book 9.

This is the final book in the series and I FINALLY know the key points I need to wrap up. I've been working on this series for years and never had a clear end game in mind. Well, now I do. I just have to get it on the page.

I set a goal of June 1 to be done. Stretch goal, for sure. But it might be doable.

Wish me luck.

Copy, paste, stupid

If you're not in Publishing Land, you're probably unaware of a big copyright/plagiarism scandal occurring right now. I'll add a link about it all. There are a lot more links out there (just google it and you'll see).The bottom line is: some people copy, wholesale, what other authors have written, mush it all into a book, then slap it on Amazon and make money off it. I will not call those people authors.Have I been copied? Maybe. I honestly don't know. I know my books have pirated (copied and put on a site where people can just download them for free). Not much I can do about it except get angry.Readers: please. Pay a fair price for a book. Believe me, 99% of authors are NOT getting rich. We're writing our stories because we want to write them.And copiers: don't piss off a romance author. You seriously do not want to tangle with them.Here's a link that describes it all. Or go to Twitter and put in the hashtag. You'll see what's happening.

http://www.courtneymilan.com/rambling...

Bring on spring!

February has been more challenging than usual. I always think of it as the longest month. It's a transition month and those are bad. We're getting tired of winter, spring is too far away, autumn is a pale memory, and it's day after day of crappy weather.I don't mind the cold. I don't mind the snow. Ice, though -- Father Weather and Mother Nature can just shove that you-know-where. One day last week we had rain, wee tiny snowballs, sleet, snow, more wee snowball things, then sleet again. It was like a weather machine gone bonkers.But, again: perspective. I am warm, I am dry, I have ample firewood and wine, my electricity is on and I have food in the fridge. Life. Is. Good.

Life is change, I know, but ...

I now have 5 orphan books.

Sigh.

Yes, a second publisher closed up shop. Now my Dalton family mysteries (Shadow of Doubt, Brilliant Disguise, Lie to Me, and Nowhere to Run) are homeless.

These books are all tied together in that the main characters either know each other or are related to each other. I have plans to add If Not To You into this mix and make the ties between the books even stronger, making a 5-book set.

"Plans" being the operative word. For now, it will just have to wait. I am deep into writing in my current world (the dystopian future 9-book series) and I don't want to pull out of it to focus on business stuff.

I love these homeless books. They're some of my earlier work, but I think they stand the test of time. I hope to give them some of my time later this year.

Until then ... fingers, don't fail me now. I have two books to write by July 1.

Yikes. What have I gotten myself into?

I did a major re-read of all the books in the Endless American Dream series and decided that Book 8, which I wrote last year, really has elements in it that belong in Book 9.

So I did a re-thinking of the plot lines for all of volume 3 and now I am writing Book 8 (with pieces from old Book 8) and I will also write Book 9 (which will have lots of new words but also parts of Book 8).

Yes, it is confusing. No, I'm not crazy ... yet.

That age-old conflict

Well, it seems age-old to me.

It's the conflict between business and creativity. I really need to focus on the business aspect of writing: publishing. Yes, I have a publisher that I love (The Wild Rose Press) and they manage most of my books.

But I have 5 orphan books that have come back to me from publishers who folded. So I need to figure out what to do with those.

And there's the series coming up: The Endless American Dream. It's not a good fit with Wild Rose. That means I'll need to pitch it to a publisher or self-publish.

Then there's publicity: I don't do squat for marketing and I really should.

Business takes energy that I want to use for writing. This is a familiar complaint to anyone who is creative. I'm not rich enough to pay someone to do my business for me, so I need to do it. But I'm not doing it. I'm writing, which is what I love to do.

If you have an answer to this quandary, I would love to hear it (as would a bunch of other authors). Until I have an answer, I've decided that I'm going to focus on writing for the first half of the year. The second half, I'll focus on business. I'll try to set aside two days a month in the creative half for business, and two days a month in the business half for creativity.

That's the plan, anyway. Let's see if I can make it work!

Welcome to 2019!

What will be in store for me this year?

Let's see: I started a new job (part-time) and I'm enjoying that so far. It keeps me just busy enough.

I'll be writing the last book in the original Endless American Dream Series. I have plans to write another one that is a follow-on to the originals, but the initial 9-book series should be done this year (except for major edits, I'm sure!)

I'll write one or two more mysteries this year. I have at least one releasing this year, and maybe two.

My health appears to be fine and no major worries there (fingers crossed!)

Based on all that, it looks like smooth sailing ahead -- stay tuned and I'll let you know if I'm right!

All the news that fits!

Check my news link for my latest newsletter, in which I talk about being un-retired. I also talk about my plans for 2019. Never let it be said that I don't have goals -- I wonder if I'll hit my goals for 2019?

Stay tuned and find out!

My last anniversary post for this year

This was one of the tougher books I wrote because of the subject matter. The heroine was kidnapped, but she escaped her tormenter. She's a wounded soul, though, and this book chronicles what she went through when she came back from that experience. She's the only victim to ever escape this predator, and she's used as bait to catch him.

When he takes the bait, she has a chance to get her revenge. I think the tagline says it all: Can you imagine how good revenge feels if no one will hold you accountable?

This is also my favorite cover of all time (seriously). I really think it captured the feeling of the story.

This is the last anniversary post for this year. It's been fun to go back and look at all the books I've written. I'll have two more coming out next year and (hopefully) many more after that. I have a few books that I need to re-edit and re-publish, so I'll be working on those in between writing all the new ones.

Fingers, don't fail me now ....

The game's afoot!

This is the anniversary of another book -- Dogged came about for a couple of reasons: 1 - I wanted a Sherlock Holmes story, but not having Holmes as the main character. The more I read about him, I thought Conan Doyle was far more interesting. 2 -- I wanted a story about an animal sanctuary. There are volunteers out there who do so much for wildlife and they are unsung heroes, as far as I'm concerned.

I combined my two interests and Dogged came into being. It's about a woman who is working with others to set up a sanctuary on land that's been donated. But the person donating the land is murdered and then one of his heirs is murdered and before you know it, there's a mystery afoot!

Remember: not all predators are the four-legged variety ...