Makitia Thompson's Blog, page 8

Be realistic or find yourself depressed

 

Everything I'm about to say is most likely going to be something you've known for a while now and it's going to make me sound like a complete idiot not to have known. Regardless, I'd like to say it all anyway and just put it out there. Do NOT expect success right away or at all. Don't write one book and then assume it'll fly off the shelves at any point. Don't be 10 books in and start thinking that it's or think that you're about to some variation of a bestseller. Because realistically speaking you won't be, though of course it's very possible and I hope you're able to reach success. My point is that it won't happen when you'd like and you'll just mess with yourself thinking otherwise. PLEASE DO NOT EVER WRITE A BOOK BECAUSE YOU THINK IT'LL MAKE YOU LOADS OF MONEY FAST. The best thing you can do for yourself is write for the love of writing and just put the book out there for a chance at success. Everybody feels like they can write a book and plenty of people have, which means there's already at least millions of books in your genre alone. Hell Amazon has millions and millions of books, by tons of authors. Everyday there's new books and authors, creating competition you're nowhere near ready for. Just think about it, there's millions of books published just on Amazon and there's however many more places for authors to publish a book. Which unfortunately means you and I are probably wedged between at least a million books on a good day. I wrote a book and published it thinking, "this is it and everybody's going to be buying a copy as soon as possible". My dumb ass actually expected to walk right into the publishing world and become a bestselling author like that. Remember that it is possible and people have achieved that, it's just extremely rare. Especially in 2025, a time where everybody and anybody can publish whatever the hell they want. My first book is currently sitting at 3 sales, 1 of which is mine and another one my mother bought in support of my journey. Which might not and hopefully won't be the case for you, but likely will be. I just want you to know that it's OK to set goals and see yourself as a major success, but it's not ok to actually bank on that happening. Do NOT make selling 10, 100, 1000 or more copies on the first day something that absolutely has to happen. because you will be disappointed and for myself it was a bit discouraging until I came to my senses. Dream as big as possible, then wake up and live amongst the real world. 

Don't let popular book genres hold you hostage

 

I didn't find my niche right away and even though I've mostly figured it out, I'm still tempted to stray away. My first short story was an interview style biography about a bestselling author who gave up on her career to be a stay at home wife and mother to her 6 children, only for the husband to be a scumbag. It's not a great book, but I enjoyed writing as the interviewer and interviewee. Initially I was like, "this is my niche, I want to write interview style books and make them the focus in my writing career". Like I said, the book's not great, but I loved writing it regardless. I was all geared up to start coming up with new characters and ready to begin plotting stories, then I opened up google. I was searching up how likely it was for me to succeed as a writer and what books were best to write. Through every Google search I kept seeing that Romance novels were always in high demand and that a romance book is more likely to be read than any other. Which might just be true, but I had no interest in writing some romance novel. I had no interest in it and I felt like the book would be nothing but the same story that had already been written 100 times in just that year alone. The last thing I wanted was to write a book because it was a trending genre, that might sell far more than anything else. But I wasn't seeing a bunch of popular interview style biographies and I was way too focused on writing a trending book. I was scaring the hell out of myself with every Google search and I ultimately convinced myself that success couldn't be found writing books I loved. Making the most noise and money was crowding my mind. So I tried my hand at a murder mystery, I enjoyed writing it and for a second book it was some good work. Still I didn't want to be a mystery writer, so I moved onto romance novels and wrote like 20 different romance stories that I still haven't managed to finish. I kept getting stuck and my mind wandered elsewhere, I wanted to get better at writing the interview style biographies I enjoyed. So after failing a few more times, I said fuck it and wrote books that I wanted to read. My niche isn't making me really any money at all and I don't make any noise with my books, but I love them. My characters make me happy and I'm always eager to write my next interview. My point today is stop being so damn stuck on numbers and that's more me talking to myself. Just write a book that you love, fail and then try your hand at it again. Maybe fail some more, but enjoy yourself while you do it and the failure will end up feeling like a success anyway. This is a " I had something to say and nobody to talk to" post. But I do hope that it still helps whomever might be in need. Thank you for reading this ramble session, I do very much appreciate it. 

Fall in love with Terrible movies

 

Now that I'm getting into a groove with my writing, I've been able to narrow down most of the ways that are best for me when it comes to inspiration. Like everybody, I have favourite movies that I love to watch and have no problem seeing that same film back to back. I've realised that when a movie interests me because I enjoy watching it I can't focus and I'm really just watching a movie, rather than coming up with new ideas. I really had no plans on discontinuing seeing films I enjoyed, my plan was to find an alternative to generate inspiration. Then I got bored one day and watched this horrible drama, which was absolutely ridiculous. But I sat through the whole thing. Through my laughter and confusion during almost every scene, new ideas kept coming to me. Plenty of them were as terrible as the movie and I felt no need to write them down. Then there were the two that had potential, just enough for me to take my time and create book worthy plots after a few weeks. A serious and or award worthy movie is usually too refined to find an idea someone else hasn't already done something with. Unpolished films are full of creativity, though sometimes it does come off quite odd. The films explore every possibility, every character in an unpolished film has the ability to inspire 10 fresh characters with amazing backstories. But I'd like to be clear and say that every unpolished film doesn't fit into the category of terrible, some of them just have some minor flaws. Some of the films are just unpolished while others have no real plot, there's levels to it and I don't want that to be lost. Finishing my original sentiment. A movie made with less restrictions, budget and simply done because of someone's passion for film tends to get ideas flowing. I flock to less desirable films when I need to generate ideas, movies like that push boundaries. I get a kick out of the strangeness of the films and potential book ideas all at the same time. This post isn't really me advising anything or making suggestions. I just felt like chatting and I'd like to thank whomever sees this for listening to my ramblings. This post probably didn't make much sense, it's kind of a late night writing session. Regardless, thanks for sticking it out and getting to the end. 

 

Create a brand immediately

 

I made the mistake of writing two books, publishing them and then beginning the process of promoting myself. My brand came along while I was writing my third book and it put me back in terms of getting my publications out there, I set myself up to start off much slower than necessary. Not having a brand meant that my social media accounts weren't where they needed to be and my online presence was practically nonexistent. It was a stupid mistake that I've thankfully been coming back from. I'm sure you already knew that it's best to promote a book far before it's ready to be published. Hopefully your online and in person presence is far stronger than mine was in the beginning. But if it's not and you're currently working on something you plan to publish soon, take a step back from that and put yourself out there. Connect yourself with multiple writing communities, manage as many social media accounts as you without taking on too much and find a signature something that will best identify your brand. Always think of your work as a business and a major brand, then handle it as such. Having it all done or at least in progress allows you to stress a little less about where your book will go after publication. Nothing needs to be finalised or set in stone, I'm still adding and changing things every other day. My point is that not having things already planned out or in progress can take time away from your book and might just take the fun out of publishing. I put myself in a small box by not treating my work as a business and just assuming someone will be interested right after publishing. This is just my personal experience and waiting to create a brand might work for you. I just want you to plan a head, promote a head and generate anticipation before there's even anything to wait for. Give yourself a leg up however that may look for you.

Why I created my Through Tainted Eyes series

 

Through tainted eyes is meant to give a wide perspective on all of the different, unique, wonderful and horrible people that can exist. I'm fascinated by how extraordinary people can be. It's absolutely amazing to see how different people could be, especially when they were raised together or in the same place and crazy to witness or hear about the things people are willing to do to benefit themselves. I've always found it interesting to see the lengths people will go to achieve success. After I figured out what my series would be about, I had waves of ideas just coming to me. I realised that there was no shortage of stories to write in a series about the variety of people that are or could be in the world. The series was created because I saw it as a great opportunity to provide myself and others with insight into the many characters that we could be living amongst. Though my stories are fiction and I made them up just off of  forcing myself to think outside of the box to create someone who's out of the ordinary in their own way. I still felt as though my stories could give some sort of explanation as to why people behave in a perplexing way. The series is also a chance for me to challenge myself as a writer and it gives me many opportunities to better my craft. It is so immensely fascinating that an individual can be very vindictive, selfish, angelic, intelligent, innovative, crazy, murderous, deceitful and or naive. I find my curiosity peaking when I'm wondering how a person can go through life living in multiple lies or allowing people to walk all over them. Through tainted Eyes is for those like myself, who can't help but wonder. The series is meant to teach about the people who walk around everybody giving the impression of simplicity, all while living the most complicated lives. 

Don't give your book a release date

 

For my first few books I gave them release dates and did my very best to meet the dates or have the book done early. It worked in the beginning and then the days started to suffocate my writing as I was forcing myself to finish a book in a certain amount of time. I could see my book quality wasn't the best and that my writing was becoming a chore. Stupidly, I tried to put out a short story every month with each book being somewhere between 120 to 150 pages and done with no break. Two books went by easily and then the third story fell apart as I was writing it. I gave myself almost no time to plot the story and even less time to actually write a story worth paying for or reading for free. Of course I should've known that quality needed to be my number one priority, quantity is nothing when the product doesn't provide anything for the consumer. So I cancelled all of my pre-orders and gave myself a 3 week break before I went back into writing. Now I choose to put out a book every two or three months after the last, giving myself more than enough time to spend hours giving a novel or short story everything I've got. But your production depends solely on you and you might be able to write books back to back without a problem. Usually I try to write at least 15 to 20 pages a night, but I fail at that sometimes. What i'm really trying to say is don't rush yourself and don't feel like you need to keep up with someone else. A novel a year or every two years, any amount of short stories a year should be entirely based on how you write. The quality of your book can determine whether or not a reader comes back and rushing a book hurts your growth as a writer. Slow down, take breaks, read other books, watch shows or movies for inspiration and give yourself some grace.