Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 37

Self-publishing Numbers: Cici

This is going to be another boring post for anyone not interested in self-publishing, but it’s the most efficient way for me to keep a record so skip it if you’re not interested. I suppose it would be more efficient of me to post it on my seldom-used business blog — which I haven’t even updated with Cici, oops — but I’d never remember to look for it there, so it goes here. 

So, I published Cici a week ago, to all the usual spots. Much though I love her, I have very low expectations for Cici. My most similar title is A Lonely Magic, which is the book that I spent the most money on by far — professional editing, professional covers, advertising on multiple sites, NetGalley membership to get reviews, etc.  and which… well, has not rewarded said expenses. ALM was the book where I tried to get serious about self-publishing and while it was an interesting experiment, being serious did not lead to success. (Grace has earned more money in its first four months than ALM has in over four years. Ouch. Sadly, this is not because Grace is making me rich.) 

Anyway, I’m sure a self-publishing guru would tell me that I need to spend money to make money, etc, but eh. Maybe someday, if I ever get a real job and have extra money floating around. Meanwhile, I would prefer to continue to eat. So I’m not spending money on Cici, much though I adore her.

My sum total of marketing dollars on Cici was $5 on a Facebook ad sent exclusively to people who have liked my page. That ad reached 161 people, had 37 engagements, and 6 clicks. So if each of those clicks led to a sale, I might have sold 6 copies because of the FB ad, therefore spending $5 to earn $15, for a profit of $10. 

I also sent out an email to people who have subscribed to my mailing list. Mailing lists are such an interesting thing: I bought a book recently about being a mailing list ninja, something like that, and apparently I should be using my mailing list to chat with readers, “engage them,” and most definitely not to simply tell them when I have something new published. Because apparently telling readers that there’s a new book is asking them for something as opposed to providing them with information that they supposedly wanted to receive? But I honestly hate email, I don’t want junk cluttering up my inbox, and I really think that if anyone actually wants to hear from me on a regular basis they could just read my blog. I view my mailing list as being the people who simply want to know about new books. But apparently not so much: of the 1415 readers who have signed up for my mailing list, 474 opened the email, and 100 clicked on the link. 14 unsubscribed. 2 reported me for spam, sigh. These are, of course, not terrible results: the industry average open rate is 17.2 and mine was 33.7 and the industry average click rate is 3.6 and mine was 7.1. So at least I’m running better than average. 

BookBub also sent out an email to my followers there, approximately 6000 some. I know they did because I follow myself and I got their email. And the chance exists that Amazon will also let people know, those who follow me on Amazon. (I just started following myself so I didn’t get anything this time but maybe I will next time.) 

So, potential marketing outreach: 1415 mailing list readers, 6000+ Bookbub followers, 500+ FB followers, 300+ Twitter followers, and the 30+ of you who read my blog.

Total sales for week one – 103: 

Amazon: 85Barnes & Noble: 16Kobo: 2Draft2Digital (Apple, Scribd, Tolino, Overdrive, etc.): 0Google Play: 0

I think there’s some conversion rate thing that I’m supposed to figure out — around 1% of the people reached decided to buy?  That’s probably not a bad number for professional marketers. 

Anyway, I’m really just saving this data for future reference. Cici obviously doesn’t look like my other books, so it’s no surprise that she’s a niche read. Someday I might have to separate out my identities so that people who like true fantasy, no romance involved, aren’t mixed into the audience who likes romance with a little fantasy involved. But at the moment that’s far too much work and I’d rather spend my time writing. Or doing laundry, which is what I should be doing right now! 

And meanwhile, far more importantly with Cici, I have been really delighted to hear from people who enjoyed her and loved the ending and even more delighted that no one’s spoiling it. I usually try to avoid reading reviews because they are not good for me, but I’m totally reading every Cici review that comes my way because I so enjoyed writing her and really like reading that people enjoyed reading her. 

A Happy Early Birthday to R

[image error]This photo has not been cropped. It just got cut-off because the giraffe was too close to fit in the frame of the picture. 

There is a new ride at Animal Kingdom, in a new area of the park based on the movie Avatar. It is, apparently, the best ride in the world, the best ride that ever there was, and so, for his birthday, I took R and his girlfriend, M, to Animal Kingdom. 

Backing up, it’s actually really hard to buy appropriate presents for a person who’s living more or less out of a backpack. Me selling my house means that R doesn’t have a real home at all, no bedroom with a permanent closet where he can store things. He owns what he can carry with him and the more he has to carry, the more difficult that becomes. So I decided to look for an experience to give him, rather than an object to give him. Animal Kingdom was our favorite theme park when he was young, but it had been years and years since we’d gone there. It felt like a good choice.

So we were not actually at Animal Kingdom specifically to go on the world’s best ride. Which was fortunate, because although we arrived at the park a little after 8, an hour before opening, and headed straight to the world’s best ride, the line was four hours long by the time we got there at 9:05. Yes, you read that right. The resort guests are allowed into the park an hour before non-resort guests and enough of them beat us to the world’s best ride that the line was 240 minutes long. 

We didn’t wait. 

The good news was that the Avatar crowds meant the rest of the park was reasonably nice. We had a fantastic safari ride, where we got to be the people whose truck had to stop while the giraffes sauntered by, plus see all the other animals who were out and active on a chilly day; nice walks through the gorilla and tiger zones; rides on some of the other main rides, including Everest, Primeval Whirl and (for R & M) Dinosaur; and great seats at the Finding Nemo show, which is really beautiful.  And, of course, excellent company. 

At about 5, we went back to the Avatar zone and the line time had gone down to 210 minutes, so three and a half hours. We didn’t wait, but we did wander around the Avatar zone which is actually worth wandering around, too — very pretty and interestingly done. R wanted to write academic papers on the conflicts inherent in turning a movie whose overarching storyline is about kicking exploitative humans off a planet into a theme park whose goal is to attract humans to buy stuff, but figured it was fundamentally too obvious. 

The one minor bad note in an otherwise lovely day was food issues for me. I made bad choices because I was hungry and the lines were crazily long and I paid the price very promptly. Disney offers plenty of reasonable choices for people with food allergies, but it requires planning. It is not a good idea to wait until you’re already hungry and then start looking around for something to eat. I know this, but apparently I have to relearn it every so often. I’m hoping yesterday’s lesson sticks for the next few years. 

In other news, many, many thanks to people who have reviewed Cici. She is so much a book that I published because I wanted to share her, because I wanted other people to read her story and laugh with me, so I’m delighted to hear from people who have. People have asked about sequels and given how many promises I’ve broken about Grace and Fen, I’m not going to make any promises. But I will say that when I found the artwork for the cover, the artist had multiple variations, and I got all the variations. Which means that unlike A Lonely Magic, which is going to require that I find a cover to go with its sequel when I finish writing it, I will have possible cover options ready for Cici sequels whenever I feel like writing them.

Published

[image error]http://books2read.com/cici

I’m at Trimble Park, one of my favorite campgrounds, and I spent all day yesterday on the computer, fighting to post Cici in the various places that I publish books. All the usual suspects, in other words, including Google Play, which honestly has such a ridiculously bad interface that I’m not sure it’s worth the bother. I kept telling myself that I should just wait until I went back to my dad’s house because internet is a lot faster when it’s not a cell connection, but I guess I felt persistent. 

By evening, it was up in most spots — not Apple, of course, because Apple takes forever and a day — so I went ahead and sent an email to my mailing list. This morning I posted to Facebook, my three different pages, and paid $5 for an ad, so that people might actually see the post, and now I’m posting to my blog, and then I will be done with publishing Cici. This is why I’m really not a very good self-publisher — one is supposed to do all kinds of marketing, release day promotions, newsletters, giveaways, ad campaigns, blah-blah-blah. Does knowing what one is supposed to do and not doing it mean that one is: a) bad at business, b) rebellious in all the wrong ways, c) lazy? All three, obviously. But Cici is available for purchase, so at least I’m getting the “Step One: Write a Book, Step Two: Publish It” part of self-publishing right. 

Meanwhile, it is raining. Not heavily, but persistently. The main reason why I am sitting in this lovely campground is to dump the tanks and I cannot express how unenthusiastic I am about doing that in the rain. Also, I left stuff outside which is now going to have to come into the van and be wet and drippy inside. Sigh. But! The good news is that it’s a lovely tropical summer-feeling rain, so I should be counting my blessings. And I need a shower, anyway, so probably I should just enjoy it. But sewage in the rain always seems to smell more: psychological, I think, not real, but still.

And the clock is ticking, so I guess I can give up on the rain stopping before I pack up. It’ll be good for me, right? Right. 

Cici and the Curator

I’m not totally satisfied with the ending, but then, when am I ever?

[image error]

But I am done and ready to move on to something else, specifically Fen. I haven’t decided what I’m doing with Cici yet. Probably publishing her, mostly because she makes me laugh. She is very much my sense of humor. I haven’t really edited or revised her at all, though, apart from a quick run through where I deleted a bunch of extra words: probably, actually, really, just, truly, simply, seriously, manage, and some.

However, I am willing to share! If you want to read a first draft, let me know in the blog comments and make sure to include your email address in the appropriate field (unless you’re positive I already know it). Also, if you want it in a format other than a Kindle file, tell me that, too.

In other than book news, there’s been lots of Christmas in my life this week. I went to the Candlelight Processional at Epcot with a friend last Wednesday, which was lovely. Neil Patrick Harris was the narrator, and the music was beautiful. On Friday, I went to another Christmas musical event at a huge Baptist church in Orlando. Very loud, very majestic. When they burst into “Joy to the World,” it was glorious. On Sunday, I saw my third Christmas musical at the Methodist church in Mount Dora. I should be thoroughly in the Christmas mood by now.

I’m not really, though. Partly, I’ve been obsessed with Cici. And partly, Zelda is reminding me on a daily basis that we’re running out of time. Grown-up Me knows that means I need to be sure to appreciate every day: Kid Me would really prefer to stop time right now. I know I claimed to have a ZLSP (Zelda Loss Survival Plan) in development, but… well, I think the ZLSP starts with a broken heart, no matter how good it is.

But today is what it is, and what it is, is the 7th anniversary of the publication of A Gift of Ghosts! Hmm, that almost tempts me to just put Cici up on Amazon. I was so much more relaxed seven years ago. My plan back then was to write a million words and then consider whether really I wanted to be a writer. By now, I’m supposed to be hard at work as a therapist. Ha.

I have no idea how close I am to my million words, although Grace was probably half a million all by herself. Those wouldn’t count, though, because it had to be a million words I was willing to share. But the short stories up in the Scribbles section would count. I should add them up and see how close I am.

I’m not actually sure I need to, though. Post-Grace, I could definitely see giving up on being a writer. Post-Cici, I know that I am a writer, whether I’m earning my living at it or no. It might be a terrible job, but it’s not a hobby I ever want to give up, because when it’s fun, it’s really, really fun. Regardless of whether Cici ever earns a dollar (and obviously, she will, because my dad would always be willing to buy her!), she was a delight to write.

Bet Me for $1.99

My favorite romance novel of all time is available in Kindle on Amazon today (December 4th, 2018) for $1.99: Bet Me by Jennifer Cruisie

Now I’m second-guessing myself, though — is it really my favorite of all time? There have been others I have loved along the way. There was an Elspeth Thane book, sadly not available as an ebook, that I adored as a teenager. (The fact that it is about ghosts might have had something to do with my future leanings.) There’s a Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, that doesn’t call itself a romance but really is. There are definitely books outside the romance category by Robin McKinley and Sharon Shinn and others that might be slightly higher on my favorites list.

But you know, now that I’ve analyzed this question deeply, I’m going to say yes, Bet Me, still my favorite romance novel of all time. I love the relationships between the characters, the representation of male friendship, the way that the hero/heroine support each other in stressful family situations, the way the hero encourages the heroine to enjoy food, and absolutely the humor. So much the humor. Also, though, the actual romance — the attraction between the characters is fun. So much “romance” these days feels like obligatory lust followed by insta-amazing sex and I find that seriously boring. Cal and Min are attracted to one another, wish they weren’t, still are. It’s appealing. And now I’m going to go read a good book all morning.

Best of November 2018/NaNo Win

[image error]

I bought myself the t-shirt. No, really! There’s a winner’s t-shirt that falls squarely into the category of “Things I Don’t Buy,” because why spend $20 on a t-shirt when any Goodwill store is filled with dozens that would cost $3? But I did buy it, because when I copied the text into the validator and got my little winner’s badge, I felt pretty proud of myself. A t-shirt felt like the least I deserved.

Also, as t-shirts go, I thought that this one might open me up to interesting conversations. One of the things that I’ve discovered in my travels is that certain t-shirts simply invite interactions with strangers. Fair warning: do not ever wear an Ohio State Buckeyes t-shirt unless you really want to chat with people about football. Ohio State fans are serious! Possibly the same would be true of any football shirt, but the only one I’ve ever worn is from Ohio, so I can only attest to the Ohio fans.

Moving on: the good news is that I wrote 50K words in a month, about which I have Thoughts. It got hard. It got really hard. It started feeling filled with things I had to do (like find an ending); mistakes I had made (a whole pointless middle section that is complicated and contradictory); and duplications of things I had already said. The urge to edit was, at times, irresistible. And I did not entirely succeed in resisting it.

I had some particularly bad days right around Thanksgiving, including one where I did nothing but play solitaire from early morning until the middle of the night. It was like binge-eating, where you know you ought to stop, you know you’re not making healthy choices, and yet you just keep going. I kept looking at the file for 30 seconds and then opening solitaire again. Again and again and again. It was not a good day.

But I definitely had more fun writing, more joy in the (ridiculous, absurd) story, than I’ve had in years. And while it’s true that writing is work and all jobs have hard parts (as Patricia Wrede says, “The only thing one can do about it is slog through the sloggy bits“), it was a lot more fun to write without caring if anyone would ever read my words. Which doesn’t mean that I’m not going to share — honestly, Cici is a riot, she makes me laugh and she absolutely fulfills my once-stated writing goal of simply letting other people share my daydreams — but I do think I should get myself a real job so that I don’t have to care when Cici only earns $50/month. (That’s how much A Lonely Magic has averaged over its lifetime. Not exactly a number that supports a food-eating habit, much less a roof-using, shower-taking, aging-dog-caretaking habit!)

That real job, however, is not going to happen until I do a few more things I have planned, like head to California and spend some time with my friend S, visit my friend P in Seattle for her birthday next May, spend one more summer eating blueberries at my brother’s house, and write the sequel to A Lonely Magic. Eventually, though, real job. On my list.

Meanwhile, though, the best of November. Honestly, what happened to this month? It zoomed by at the speed of light, or perhaps of an interstellar space craft complete with wine bar. Thanksgiving was super nice: I cooked, so I got to have gluten-free pumpkin pie and it was delicious. I got to see several friends, stayed in four different driveways and one state park, plus spent the past week house-sitting. In a real house. With a bathtub. I haven’t taken nearly as much advantage of the kitchen as I thought I would (apart from cooking Thanksgiving dinner in it) but when C gets her water bill next month, I expect it will reflect the absolutely delightful number of baths I’ve taken.

But I have to say that the best of this month didn’t take place in reality, but in the world of my imagination. The best place I visited was the Guanyasar Exhibit on Tirquilk, “one of those in-between sorts of planets.” And now — despite having reached my 50K words — I’m going to go back there, because the story is not finished, even though the month is almost gone, which means I have more words to write!

Mid-November update

My dad called me this morning to point out that I haven’t posted to my blog in a while. (Hi, Dad!) It’s only literally been a week since my last post, but maybe it was a long week.

In my life, the week included a lot of writing, some good time with a writing friend in Merritt Island, and an unfortunate gluten-reaction. I’m assuming now that it was a gluten-reaction, because yesterday I was pretty sure I would never feel healthy again and today I feel pretty okay. The fast recovery, for me, is one of the hallmarks of a gluten response. There’s no long, lingering malaise, just a reasonably swift move from “I’m clearly seriously ill” to “hmm, I think I’m okay.”

I’m glad I got back to “I think I’m okay” today, because I decided last night that I might have to reschedule Thanksgiving, which I could obviously do — none of my guests would be heartbroken to eat their turkey on Saturday or Sunday instead of Thursday and no one is traveling long distances to join us — but still, there’s something nicer about celebrating holidays on the day when everyone else is celebrating, too.

The combination of being sick and hitting the murky middle of Cici was not particularly good (nor tremendously bad) for my writing goals. Cici is currently floundering around in a spaceship, contemplating her life and ethical choices. I suspect that if I ever decide to let some beta readers have at her, the honest responses will range from “it drags a bit in the middle” to “it gets really boring at about 35K words.” Fortunately, it’s NaNo and I don’t need to care about that — all I need to do is keep pouring words out onto the page and hit that end-of-the-month writing goal.

After that, I can think about what comes next for Cici, whether she gets shared with a few friends or revised mercilessly or stuck in a random folder on my computer, to languish unseen. Or, possibly, sent off as-is (more or less) to drift unnoticed on the sea of casually self-published books available on Amazon. She’s not in a genre likely to sell much, so it doesn’t make any practical sense to spend months polishing. Plus, I’ve got other impractical promises to keep regarding my time, notably for poor Fen who has been waiting years for her turn on the screen. But Cici has some very entertaining moments, at least to me. It’s been lovely to be flat-out amusing myself with my words and not worrying about anything else.

Another snippet:

She screwed up her face, wrinkling her nose. Her mouth felt weird. Her lips, in particular. She tapped them with her fingers.

Yep, weird.

She tapped her cheek. Also weird.

“Was that drink poisonous?” she asked.

Huh, those words had popped right out, too.

“The algaro? No.” Seven returned to his chair and frowned at her. The other two were doing something with the trough and the dogs were doing something, too — eating, probably. Cici hoped they weren’t eating the people. But she couldn’t hear any screaming, so they were probably fine. Her eyes didn’t want to focus and it was taking all her concentration to keep Sevyn in sight.

“Feels like poison,” she said. She didn’t feel particularly emotional about it. She would have thought that being poisoned would be upsetting, but she didn’t feel upset. She felt quite tranquil, really. But maybe that was a side effect of the poison.

“It is not poison.”

“Alcohol is poison, though.” Cici tapped her other cheek. Did they feel different, her two cheeks? Was one more numb than the other? She tried the first one again. No, they were about the same. Both feeling very weird.

“Algaro is fermented blood. The level of alcohol in it is very minor.”

Cici stopped tapping her cheeks and replayed his words in her head. Fermented blood. Fermented…

“Ew!” She jumped to her feet in protest and nearly fell over. Her feet were numb, too. “Fermented blood? Why would you feed me that? That’s disgusting!”

“It is an honor offered only to Players.” Sevyn put his hand out as if to steady her, but Cici batted it away.

Blood-drinkers.

They were blood-drinkers.

There ought to be a name for that. A disgusting name. A name that implied horrible things.

A name that revealed them for the monsters that they were.

“Mosquitoes,” she spat out. “You people are mosquitoes.”

Yep, I make myself laugh.

Cici and the Curator

I meant to write a blog post yesterday, being as it was Monday and all, but I didn’t. (Obviously.)

I did, however, write 2468 words on my NaNo project. Per my usual daily word counts, it would have been an absolutely spectacular day — I consider myself doing okay anytime I break a thousand, doing well when I break 1500. However, on Sunday I wrote almost 2600, so yesterday wasn’t even the best day of the week. On November 4th, I wrote 3457, possibly making it my best day of all-time. (Not a sure thing, since I don’t generally track word count like this, but definitely close.)

In other words, my NaNo project is going well. I’m learning some interesting things along the way. Some of them feel like things I knew when I was writing fanfiction but forgot when I started writing for publication, namely 1) the person to amuse is me, and if someone else reads it someday and is also amused, that’s just icing on the cake and 2) get the story down, fix the words later, and if later never comes, so what?

But some of them are absolutely new to me. The most important of those is that choosing to go along with the story is so, so, so much more fun than demanding the story stick to the script. I had intentions for this story and multiple times now I’ve done something that three paragraphs or two pages later, I’ve had to say, “Oh, no, X won’t work, I screwed up.” In past projects, I would have gone back and fixed the problem or I would have deleted pages. Frequently, in past projects, I’ve gotten stuck for days at a time, finally decided that I was headed in the wrong direction, and deleted chapters or more. In this project, I keep saying, “I guess I’m headed someplace else,” and letting the story take me where it will. Obviously, I have no idea whether this project will ever even be readable by someone else, but I’m having enormously more fun writing it than I’ve had while writing in… well, years.

And yes, that does mean I’m questioning my life choices again. Writing is more fun when it’s for me than when I have to care about the people who are going to leave me one-star reviews and let me know they’re disappointed that I didn’t write a better book and tell me all the things I did wrong and suggest that I should have spent more time editing. Ha. I have to admit that specific review kind of made me laugh. Seriously. Seriously! I’m glad I believe in karma.

I haven’t gotten very far with said questioning, though. At best, it’s realizing that I’d rather not have money thoughts mixed up with story thoughts, but then realizing that I seriously don’t have time to worry about that this month. This month, I have 50,000 words to write. This month, I have an entire novel to finish. This month, I get to have fun with the words.

And so, a random snippet, because while the words are imperfect and flawed and a rough draft (blah-blah-blah, excuses), they’re mine and I love them.

(The story begins here.)

Cici and the Curator snippet:

“One?” Cici asked brightly. Human generic but something about his attire looked familiar, as if it were a uniform she ought to recognize.

“No, thank you.” He pronounced the words carefully.

Not a native speaker, then.

“I search for my captain,” the man said. “It is that I believe that she came here a few days ago.”

Cici’s heart stopped beating.

Not literally, of course. If it had literally stopped beating, she would have been dead. But it felt like it stopped beating, like every drop of blood in her veins froze in place.

“Oh?” she asked, keeping her voice as casual as possible. “We don’t allow guests to stay in the exhibit overnight.”

“No, of coss not.”

Not unexpectedly, it was the same slithery accent as the blue woman had. But this man looked nothing like the blue woman.

Cici felt almost indignant about that. If he’d been blue, if he’d had orange eyes, she might have had some warning. She would have known what to expect. She would have been prepared for trouble.

But this guy just looked like a guy. Well, maybe his skin was slightly purple-tinted and his eyes perhaps were more to the yellow than those of the average human being. Still, she wouldn’t have recognized him as related to the blue woman.

The man held up a picture. It was the blue woman.

“Can you tell me if she was here?”

To lie or not to lie, that was the question.

Cici licked her lips. “She was, yes.” She hoped she didn’t look anywhere near as nervous as she felt, but her skin was prickling like mad, and a dangerous heat was rising in her chest. “With two big dogs. Very big.”

“Yes!” The man flashed white teeth at her, looking delighted. “That is good news, very good news.”

“I didn’t let her in,” Cici said.

He deflated. “But no?”

She lifted a shoulder, looking apologetic. “The dogs, you see. We don’t allow pets in the galleries.”

“I see.” He frowned. “My captain, she is very…” He paused, seeming to search for the word. “Persistent.”

“She was, yes.” Cici didn’t say anything more. She let the silence stretch. Partially it was because she was trying very hard to channel her mother — no one in ten systems would dream of trying to interrogate her mother, she’d wither anyone who dared with a single look — but mostly it was because she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Not one.

Her brain was totally blank, except for thoughts of the dogs sleeping in the lunchbox practically under her feet.

Please let them keep sleeping. Please let them have had enough lunch. Please let them not hear a familiar voice and come out to investigate. Cici had no idea who she was begging for help, but every thought she was capable of having was running along the same lines: Please let the dogs be good.

Good? A sleepy voice said in her head. Guard? Work?

With each word, the voice got a little more alert.

No guard, Cici said, trying to keep her mental voice calm and soothing. Sleep.

Sleep. Cici could practically hear the dog’s mental yawn.

Sleep, Cici repeated.

Meanwhile, with her actual voice, she was completely silent.

The man in front of her was moving his lips, soundlessly, and then he said, “Tell me what happened.”

Cici could almost see the waft of purple magic that flowed from him like air. It reached her and hesitated, flowing up and over her.

She didn’t change her expression, but her panic hardened into annoyance.

Magic? On her? How rude!

It was probably a truth-telling spell, or maybe a total-recall spell with a nudge of persuasion to force her to talk, but what kind of person used mind magic on a total stranger without permission?

She was tempted to turn him into a toad. Very tempted.

But that would just be doubling her problems.

[image error]

In related news, in my spare time I’ve been having fun with cover designs.

So far, so good

I’m currently staying in my friend C’s driveway: it’s a comfortable and familiar driveway, so I’m not exactly taking a lot of pictures. I decided to start this post, therefore with a throwback photo from some other November 4th. The only photo I’ve ever taken on November 4th (at least in the era from which I have photos stored on my computer) was of the tree that I had two photos of in my last post.

[image error]

The same old tree

I thought that was really interesting and kind of cool, and then I realized… today’s not November 4th, it’s the 5th. Oh, well, it’s still a pretty picture of a tree. And in answer to a previous question, I have no idea what kind of tree it is. I hope it manages to survive Pennsylvania’s lanternfly invasion, though. Those bugs were absolutely everywhere when I left PA.

So far, NaNoWriMo is going well for me. My story may make no sense when I’m done, but it’s quite fun and I’m enjoying the serendipity of discovery writing. I resolved when I started that I would never backtrack, no revisions along the way. No such thing as a bad direction (with the exception of my “delete the last three paragraphs” die roll.) Twice already — in the first five days! — I’ve discovered that I’m headed down a path that wasn’t where I meant to go. Instead of “fixing” it, I’ve played along. Honestly, that is so much more fun than revising. A thing to remember for the future, perhaps.

I was going to give you a snippet, because I am amusing myself, but one of my other new NaNo principles is no rereading what I’ve written and it’s hard to find a snippet without reading. Also, a lot of the parts that are most amusing to me are either spoilers or require context. So I will spare you a snippet. But now I will get back to writing, because I’m still aiming to write at least another 1000 words today — along with laundry and dishwashing and cooking prep and a shower and dinner with a friend. My clock is ticking fast!

Best of October 2018

With four driveways, two guest bedrooms, two Walmart parking lots and one state park, October 2018 was not a month of scenic trails and beautiful sunrises. Instead, it was a month of much sociability, at least by my standards. I started in Boston, went to Cape Cod, Maynard, and Allentown, and eventually made it back to Florida, with quick stays in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia.

[image error]

Autumn color

But I’m struggling to come up with highlights. In my journal writing, day after day begins with “nice day yesterday” before I start writing about Fen, brainstorming where she is and what’s she doing and character motivations within the scenes I was working on. I know I ate some good meals; I had some good conversations; I took time for breathing and meditating and appreciating my life as it was happening…

And I guess that’s the summary of the month — “Nice day yesterday.” I count my blessings, everyone should be so lucky as to have a month or two that can be summarized that way.

Things that I’d like to remember about the month:

Hanging out with my niece, watching Doctor Who and discussing books, writing, politics, life, social conventions, school. Watching her discover the world as a passionate 8th grader was amazing & so rewarding. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get that with R because he wasn’t nearly so interested in having actual conversations at that age, probably especially not with his mom. Talking with an aunt is not the same.

Going places with my brother. Out to lunch, to a coin show, running errands. It’s so nice to get to be part of his life in a mellow way. Not visiting, not packing a year’s worth of conversation into two days, just hanging out.

My incredibly peaceful, pleasant, warm day in Georgia. I was exhausted but a day spent puttering around the van, with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing through the windows, birds flying by, the sounds of wind rustling tree leaves, was so much what I needed. Nature rejuvenation.

Enjoying autumn, eating apples from my brother’s apple trees, taking brisk walks — and then getting to drive into summer instead of sticking around for the quick hit of winter. As I write this, it’s too hot in the van: I’m either going to have to turn on the air-conditioning, or go inside, and while three months ago that would have frustrated me, today I don’t mind. Nothing like a taste of winter to remind me of why I prefer to be warm!

[image error]

The same tree, two weeks later, from a different angle