Stephen Burckhardt's Blog: My Blog Ramblings, page 72

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I have been going nonstop today and I'm about crash. But before I do, I wanted to toss out a quick blog to let you know what I'm up to and ask for some opinions. First things first, my Independent Author Network profile page is not live. You can find it here: https://www.independentauthornetwork.... . Please take a moment and check it out. If you are an avid reader this network would be a great place for you to find new authors to follow. Second, I'm trying to choose a novelty item to and to my promotional material. I want to go with something simple and useful so I chose a pen. I found a great deal online and can get a lot of 50 for less than $50 but I'm having a difficult time choosing the color. So far, green is in the lead but a few people suggesting something closer to brown. I found a burgundy color but that is as close to brown as I can get. I'll admit I'm a bit torn. I love the green, it's my favorite color and the orange is nice and bright so it will catch your attention, but the burgandy one does match the color scheme on my website. I'm not sure which way to go on this. If you have an opinion of what you might like to find in a swag bag from me, drop me a line and let me know. The other swag bag item I'm working on is the actual swag bag. I bought a few plain canvas bags and plan to iron on images but I can't decide which images.I thought about the book covers but then again I thought I could keep it simple and just print the new logo I made with a few contact addresses. I'll post photos when I get something worked up. Well it's time to get of the computer and get some other things taken care of around here.Take care and thanks for following me!Stephen

Sneak Peek Sunday!!!

Hello Posse, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I'm pleased to report I got a lot of work done today. I did not get as much written as I would have liked but anything is progress at this point. I will have a listing on the Independent Author Network beginning this week. I will post a link on my website when it's live. Please keep watching for the news and check it out. I've been working my behind off to make sure the website is SEO optimised, all the links work and trying to streamline the look so it's easier to read and navigate. I would love to get some feedback. What do you like? What do you not like? What suggestions do you have to make it even better?And now for what you have been waiting for, I have a Sneak Peek up on the Members Only page. If you aren't a member it's easy to join and best of all it's FREE! You can cancel your membership at anytime but with all the freebies in there, why would you want to? Give it a gander and drop me a line with your thoughts on it. Remember, the sneak peeks are unedited rough drafts. There will be mistakes but they will be cleaned up later. I'm working on some new promo materials and I hope I can have a contest soon to give away a swag bag with all my goodies in it. I also designed a simple logo today. My web hosting page asked for one so I put one together quickly. I just took my name and title off the top of my webpage and added a wolf. I like the wolf because when I was going to the Mid-American All Indian Center in Wichita, Kansas, I was talking with some elders from the Cherokee Nation. I was telling them about my ancestry and they said they knew my family name that was on the roles and that I was Wolf Clan, their clan. We never had anything that I'm aware of that told us what our clan affiliation was so I have always just gone by the word of the elders. I was rather thrilled to learn this from them. When I was young, I always dreamed about wolves and have always had a strong bond with my dogs. I am sure there are those who would ridicule all of this but that's none of my business. I'm happy.I think that is everything, updated my website, posted a sneak peek on the members only page, I'll have a page on the Independent Authors Network website this week, I designed a logo and will be designing some promo swag which I hope to use for giveaways soon. So take a moment and check out all out then drop me a line and tell me what you think. I'll be counting the moments until I hear from you!Thank you for following my work! Stephen

Is This the End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End?

For the last few years, my focus has not been on my writing career. I have been more concerned with my marriage, making friends in out new city, and my part time teaching job, which actually pays my bills. However, it has come to the point when I must fish or cut bait with my writing career. So here is my game plan. The next two months, I'm going to make a run at actually gaining some recognition for my work. I have tweaked the website to make it more user friendly. I'm going to make a mad dash to try to get book three done and published by the end of November so I can push sales for Christmas. Today, I joined the Independent Authors Network that has hundreds of thousands of followers. They will tweet about my work daily for three weeks and then occasionally retweet my tweets to their feed if I use their hashtag. My books will be included in their book directory and I will have an author page on their website with links to my social media and purchasing links for my books. I'm going to look for a similar Western Writers group to join in hopes of reaching my particular genre demographic. I'm going to make a few rounds here locally to bookstores and book club meetings. I've already been invited to meet with one such group. If I can get any significant increase in interest in my books I'm going to keep going with this serial until the end. However, if I can't, I'm going to take a break after the new year and try my hand in a different genre to see if I can get any significant income coming in with my writing. P.R. is being wonderful about all of this. P.R. has not put any pressure on me at all about which direction I should go with my career. When I ask P.R. for opinions, all I get is, "Do what makes you happy." I won the lottery when I married my better half. So, check out the website and tell me what you think! I would love to get some feedback on the changes. For now, I've got some more research to do. Tomorrow and Monday are going to be devoted to writing book three. If you haven't already signed up for the Members Only page, you might want to do that. It's free to join. You can cancel at any time. I will post a Sunday Sneak Peak of what I manage to written tomorrow. I regret that I have but one social life to give for my career! Stephen

Sometimes I do Stupid Things . . .

Shocking, I know! (I can practically hear my friends' and families' eyes rolling.) I have no idea how I didn't realize this before but I have a domain email address I have never used. So I have finally set up s.burckhardt@stephenburckhardt.com. I'm changing all of the email links on this website today. I hope I catch them all. But if I don't, the old email Stephen.Burckhardt@gmail.com works too. Also, I have been wallowing in despair these last few months. Not over my life, that is wonderful, but over my current lack of a writing career. I am truly at a loss. I love writing these westerns but I have yet to hit on a formula for getting more attention for them. I'm going to give it all one last push and spend some decent money to advertise part three, Into the West: Sharon Springs. I am determined to have this book out in November and push it for Christmas. I will even do a holiday tie-in with the last scene being about Elizabeth's first Christmas on the prairie and even include a few family recipes from the time period. I want this become a viable income for me so I can eventually just write but so far that is not happening. If I cannot garner any significant improvements as far as followers by the first of the year, I am considering taking a break from this serial and try writing something more mainstream, like horror, to get some income coming in. For now, I'm going to get my butt in gear and finish part three and do some serious promoting. Wish me luck!Stephen

Pushing Through

[image error]I am trying to find my motivations for book three and it is just not coming. I tried reading a favorite author but their latest installment was about as disjointed and hard to follow and I have been feeling lately. I'm trying some writing exercises to get the story flowing again but lighting hasn't struck yet. Maybe I should try working on the audiobook version again of book one and see if that helps. Dianne Burckhardt and I had put that on the back burner for a while because the platform we were going to use to put out the audiobook stopped supporting audio, maybe now is the time to start looking into that again. I'm trying anything and everything I can think of to break through this writer's block. I'll keep try to push through. Think good thoughts for me.Stephen

Second Western Anthology On Sale Now

I may be having a hard time writing book three in my own series right now but I have been able to finish all my contributions for Scott Harris' western anthologies. For those who don't know, I have been lucky enough to be included in a group venture with award-winning and best-selling Western author, Scott Harris. Harris challenged a group of western authors to craft 500 word stories using the exact same writing prompt. The result is a book of 52 short stories from 52 different authors all putting their unique spin on the same few words. We all had such a good time with his challenge, Harris decided to make it a series. He issued three more challenges to us. I've have written all four of my contributions and am just waiting for the book releases.I used these challenges as a way to expand my own western universe. I use characters and places from my Into the West Serial Saga for these writing challenges. One story features character who would be the next generation of my current story while another is set just a few months ahead of the current storyline. It has help get me past my writer's block to some extent and been an avenue to help me keep writing about my western world even if I wasn't working on finishing book three right now. For those who have read my first two stories, these shorts might be a fun read to get a new look at the same storyline. The first two anthologies, are on sale now on Amazon. You can find links to them on the Homestead and My Books pages of this website. Be sure to check them out.I am still plodding away at book three but it's just not coming together as I had envisioned. I will keep working on it. Who knows, maybe all of this angst and stress will lead to this installment being the best one yet. I can hope! Thank for following along and I will be sure to keep you all updated on the progress. Sincerely,Stephen

July Has Come and Gone and I'm Still Stuck

My stepdaughter came to visit and it was fantastic. I didn't write a single word the entire time she was here. I tried on a few occasions to work but then we would start talking and decide to go out and run errands and I got distracted like a Labrador seeing a squirrel. She has since gone back home to Chile and I am once again trying to get back into the swing of writing. I finished my last short story for the group projects with western author, Scott Harris. This makes the forth story I have contributed to his western anthologies. It's been a real pleasure to be a part of these books and I look forward to buying a few copies so I can read all the other submissions. Now it's time to focus on my own work. I have decided that I need a break from westerns. I have been promising book three for so long |I know I need to get this finished first before I move on to anything else. I still plan to finish out the entire 5 or 6 book serial but I think I want to try my hand at another genre after I finish book 3 before i go ban and finish the serial.I really think taking the break will help with this writers block I've been having with the serial. At least, I hope it will. |i really want to finish write book 3 by the end of the month and get it to my editor. With luck I can have it ready to publish by September. I might still be able to make it to the book convention in October but we will have to see how things go. Until then, I plan to keep plugging along. Thanks for sticking with me!Stephen

What Happened to June?

[image error]I have been having a difficult time getting work done the last few weeks. I'm so far behind my self-imposed deadline that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep my schedule I had in mind. Several things have contributed to this lately.First, we finally had friends come to visit. They were our first house guests since we moved into this new home three years ago. It was so much fun! We took them on a tour around town and spent a lot of time out going to shows, restaurants, and shopping together. I didn't write a word while they were here. Second, I have been having a difficult time writing part three. I'm not sure why. Parts one and two were no trouble. I sat down and wrote them straight through pretty quickly but three has been like pulling teeth.I have been trying to get into the grove and keep sitting down to write but it feels clunky and disjointed. I'm still pushing through but I have a feeling this one will need a lot of rewriting when it's done.Third, my step-daughter is coming next week for a visit. She will be here for three weeks. I doubt I will get much written while she is here. I haven't seen her for about two years so I want to enjoy as much time with her as possible. I hope to get a lot written this weekend, we will see. Think good thoughts for me.Thanks for sticking with me and my crazy life as I try to figure out how to be a writer. Sincerely,Stephen

Sneak Peeks, Promo Goodies, and GDPR

I think the time I actually spend the least amount of my work time writing books. Most of my time is spent taking care of the behind the scenes promotional and business side of trying to build a writing career. This Monday was a work holiday for P.R. so we had a long weekend. We packed up on Saturday and Headed off to yet another Sci-Fi convention. I had gone 50 years without ever making it to a science fiction or comic book convention and now so far this year I have been to three and there will be a few more before the end of the year. I'm having the best time! But all of this fun is distracting me from writing. I have been trying to stay up late and get some actual writing done but it's been difficult when I'm wiped out from running around conventions all day. Sunday night I seriously wanted to get a good excerpt for my fist Sneak Peek Sunday for the Members Only page on my website, StephenBurckhardt.com. I want to give you all something at least slightly juicy but I just haven't gotten that far into the story yet. I was trying to write up to a really intriguing part but I was literally falling asleep on my keyboard. I decided to just grab something and post it so I could go to bed. I still haven't reread what I posted on the Sneak Peek Sunday section. In truth, I'm a bit afraid to see what I put on there. God only knows! I am also hoping to make it to a writers convention this year in October. To that end I have been designing and ordering promotional material to get ready for the event. I want to design things now and get a small run printed so I can make sure things will look good and all be in order before October. Here is what I have been working on. Last, but most certainly not least, I have been trying to make sure this website is GDRP compliant. Since people have accessed this site from Europe, I have to meet the personal data protection standards the European Union is putting in place in regards to the collecting of personal data online. I think I have everything in place now but I'm not a real wiz when it comes to these kinds of things so I hope I got it right. P.R. looked it all over for me and seems to think I will be in compliance. I hope so! Now, I'm off to see just how crazy my Sneak Peek Sunday post actually was. I hope it wasn't too weird because I was so tired, anything is possible! Thanks for following along with my work, I hope at the very least you find my misadventures entertaining. Sincerely,Stephen

Monday Writing

I actually got a good start on book three yesterday. It's such a relief to finally have at least the first three chapters locked in my head. The way I'm setting this book up is a little different than the last. I still go back and retell part of the story from the point of view of another character like I did with Sister Mary Clare in book two but this time I am doing it with two characters, Tim Ruth and Doc Pete. Chapter 11 is all about Tim Ruth and what leads him to go to the meeting and take on the care of Elizabeth. Chapter 12 will be about the events that lead Doc Pete to ask to adopt Conner. Then we go back to the meeting where Mrs. Kelly makes her decision and the story takes off again from there in Chapter 13. This next Sunday will be the start of my Sneak Peek Sundays where I post an excerpt from what I have been writing. Be sure to join my Members Only page on my website so you can get the sneak peeks on available on the Members Only page. It is free to join and you can leave at any time.Today I was really excited. I had a doctors appointment (that is not the exciting part) and I thought today would be a great day to finally take advantage of the portability of the Notebook computer I bought. I was going to be spending a lot of time on public transportation an waiting in the doctor's waiting room so I thought I could take the Notebook with me and get some more writing done. I was also planning on doing some grocery shopping so I seriously considered whether or not I would want to carry around that extra weight when I was going to be carrying home groceries too. I decided to do it. I got to the bus stop and took the Notebook out to finish this blog and realized the battery was dead. When I got to the doctors office I remembered I had a back up battery for my iPhone and thought I could use that to get my Notebook charged enough to at least finish this blog post but I didn't have the right cord to hook them up. So I just ended up carrying about the extra weight for nothing. But now the Notebook is charged and I was able to finish this just before I need to go to bed. Ah well, tomorrow is another dayThanks for following along with me. You'll never know just how much I appreciate it!Sincerely,Stephen