Beth Alvarez's Blog, page 34

Day Four: Playing Catch-up

Yesterday’s word count fared a little better at 525, but it wasn’t enough to make significant headway into making up for Sunday’s lost time. Catching up is hard, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t handle pressure very well. But I set a deadline for myself, so I need to see it through.

Aside from this cold I can’t seem to shake, the biggest obstacle I’ve encountered is that I just don’t feel like working on this story. I’ll talk more about that another time, though–maybe tomorrow, depending on how well my efforts today work out.

Today I’m going to try to work on catching up. My little helper came to get us out of bed at 6 this morning, so our day’s gotten a slightly earlier start than usual. I’m hoping to use that to my advantage and make up for Sunday’s lost words. We’ll take care of all our responsibilities first, freeing up the afternoon for work. Or, that’s the plan, anyway. We had a rainy day yesterday, but it’s supposed to clear up today. If I know for sure it’s going to be clear and dry, I might take my laptop out to the backyard with me to squeeze in a little work while she plays. Otherwise, a notebook is a safer bet, if considerably slower.

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I can’t bunch catch-up work right against regular work, or I get tired, burned out, or just plain overwhelmed and can’t make any real progress. I tend to work best in short sprints of 5-10 minutes anyway, so breaking up the word count through the day is a better way for me to work. I’d prefer to do all my work that way eventually, but I haven’t been able to work it out just yet.

Of course, it’d probably be easier if this was a project I was excited to be working on. When I was finishing the first draft of the last book in the (yet-unpublished) Snakesblood Saga, I was consistently able to pound out 200-300 words in my 5-10 minute sprints, so my daily word counts were much higher. This project has been a struggle since the beginning, but I’m sure I’ll feel better about it once I get the first draft done.

12% done so far; hopefully we’ll reach 20% before the end of the day.

Day Three: Sick Days

33 words.

That was all I got done yesterday; nowhere near my goal of 500. Pretty discouraging for a start, but I’m trying to give myself a little leeway. I’ve been sick for weeks, and though I felt better over the weekend, I did a serious crash and burn last night, curling up on the couch and almost falling asleep before dinner even though I basically never nap. I tried to make myself work anyway, but the Ny-Quil got the better of me before I could get very far, so 33 words is all I managed to write.

Like many who take this path, I daydream about reaching a point where I can consider writing a full-time job and earn enough doing it to feel like it’s a real job, too. But the problem is, unlike a decent full-time job I could get elsewhere, writing doesn’t come with paid sick days.

One of the great appeals of self-employment is setting your own schedule. Unfortunately, this also usually means your schedule is set with many more hours than what you’d be working at a typical job. I have friends doing it full-time and it’s not uncommon for them to work 10-14 hours a day. Every day, including weekends. I have friends doing it as a side gig to their day jobs, and they usually log 8-9 hours at the day job and then come home to spend 5-6 hours working on their writing.

Writing is work. Writing is hard work, and until you treat it like a job, you’re really just a hobbyist. People get mad when other writers say that, but to be a writer, you must write. And for writing books to be your full-time job, you have to treat it like it is.

This is a place I personally struggle. I’m a parent first and foremost, the primary caregiver to my daughter, who is quite a busybody. I have other interests and hobbies, plenty of responsibilities, and dozens of other things that call for my attention. Right now, a couple hours a day is really all I can manage–which is why I’m really just a part-time writer at this point in my life.

Like most part-time jobs, calling out because I’m sick means forfeiting compensation and struggling to catch up later. It’s just that at this point in time, the only compensation I get is words on paper, rather than monetary gain. Unlike a real part-time job, I can call out as often as I need to without fearing my job will be lost. I can pick it up again any time I want. But each day I step away from it is another loss, so I can’t keep putting it aside. I’ll be trying to make up for lost time over the next few days, but I might stick to daytime cold medicine for the rest of this cold–or this project, whichever lasts longer. Right now, it’s seeming like the cold.

Day Two: Keeping Track

Since I started keeping a planner, one of the things I’ve used it for is tracking my daily writing. I do well with a physical calendar to keep track of my work. The problem is that if I move my work between computers, or if I dictate pieces into my phone, it gets harder to keep accurate track of my word counts. Last year, there was an enormous discrepancy between the words logged in my planner’s calendar and the word counts in the actual projects I wrote. I’m hoping to avoid that this year.

I still plan to keep everything written in my planner, if only because I like the act of actually writing down the numbers. But I’m also experimenting with logging them in a different way. I’ve encountered lots of authors who use phone apps to track their word counts, but the pickings are slim for iOS. Instead, I’m giving a site a try.

Pacemaker (http://pacemaker.press) might work, so it’s what I’m using for now. Since I can access it from any computer (and my phone) I should be a bit more accurate about logging word counts–I’ll be able to save my counts from anywhere, so long as I have an internet or data connection. I’m still working out how to use the site, and some features are only available to paid accounts, but I’ll write up a full post with my thoughts on the site once this project is complete and I have a better feel for things.

In any event, I wrote 602 words last night. It’s a small number compared to what I’m used to, but that’s why I set my daily goal as 500 words for now. It gives me a chance to ease into it and get things rolling again. I had hoped to get a higher count today, but I doubt it’s going to happen. I was excited about feeling better yesterday, but ha-ha, April Fool’s, I’m back to being sick today. If I can still make it to 500, I’ll be happy enough with that. We’ll start pushing upwards later.

In the meantime, here’s a widget showing my progress for my WIP. I’ll try to remember to include this in each post so it’s easy to reference, but we’ll see how well that works. For now, I’m off to try to write.

Day One of a New Project

I suppose technically, it’s not day one. I started this project at the beginning of the year, but life happened and got in the way. It’s been shelved for several months while I get things in order, but now it’s a new month, and that means a good time to start working on it again.

But getting started again isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

I work best when I have momentum behind me. It’s easier to muster the will to sit down and write something every day when I’ve been doing it for every day, and I’m pushing three months without writing anything of importance at all. It’s been there in the back of my head since this morning, but I haven’t been able to sit down and make myself concentrate. Getting back into the groove is going to be tough.

Partly to help hold me accountable while I’m getting back into the swing of things, I’ll be posting something short to my blog every day while I get this short story done, most likely just a brain-spill of the difficulties I had in writing, or getting to writing, or something along those lines.The trouble of getting back into the groove is one of the reasons I picked a small project to get rolling with. I’m shooting for just 10,000 words and giving myself a bit over two weeks to do it. If the story finishes before that, then that’s great.

The trouble of getting back into the groove is one of the reasons I picked a small project to get rolling with. I’m shooting for just 10,000 words and giving myself a bit over two weeks to do it. If the story finishes before that, then great! I’ll be aiming for 500 words a day for the first week or so, working my way up to 1,000 words a day to finish the project. That should give me enough momentum rolling into the next project that I’ll be able to hit my goals for it fairly easily.

And who knows–maybe if the blogging-about-it-every-day works out for me, I might blog my way through the next project, too.

Until then, I have a story to write, so I’d better get cracking.

Rusty or not, 500 words should be easy, right?

Splitting projects to help them grow

New names. More words. New plans.

It’s been a frustrating few months, but now that I’m getting a clear vision of what’s still to come, I’m finally feeling a little better about everything going on.

If you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about my epic fantasy series, the Snakesblood Saga.

Different books have different needs. I’ve always felt like my paranormal stories are better served by an indie path, which is why I’m still planning to release my upcoming paranormal series on my own. There’s not as deep or wide of a traditional market for paranormal books, which means anything that breaks from the current ideal market isn’t going anywhere traditionally. The ones that get turned down aren’t bad books… they just aren’t the “hot now” category. YA and shifter stories are the big sellers in the past year. Next year, who knows what it’ll be.

From the time I started working on the Snakesblood Saga, I always envisioned it working best as a traditionally published series. Now that I’m older and have more experience–not just with writing, but with the different facets of the indie world–I’m not married to the idea, but I do want to give it another shake before I look at alternate venues.

In the past, this has been a difficult subject for me to discuss. I’ve had a lot of people ask me why? or why not? when it comes to my choices to pursue traditional publication over an indie route for this particular series. The difficulty has nothing to do with my feelings on the state of publishing and everything to do with that I don’t know how to explain it to people who don’t already have intimate knowledge of the series.

I am not rejecting the idea of an indie route, and indie publication is not “less” in any way. It’s not the last resort, it’s not vanity press, it’s not a sign of failure for an author to pursue it. Mind you, I’ve chosen the indie route for my upcoming paranormal series despite interest from traditional publishers, simply because it’s what’s best for the series. In some ways, this whole situation has everything turned upside down. Indie authors are used to having to defend themselves and their decision to self-publish, but this is the first time I’ve ever had to defend my choices to pursue traditional publication!

The thing is, regardless of what you know about the series, traditional publishing offers me a few small advantages I may not have otherwise. I’ve made headway into identifying branding and design for paranormal books, but I don’t have familiarity with what sort of covers and descriptions will sell epic fantasy. They also have a wide range of distribution, and fantasy readers tend to love the weight of a beefy paperback book in their hands. These aren’t insurmountable obstacles for the indie author, but when I’d rather be spending my time writing the next book instead of researching covers and colors and whatnot, it’d be nice to have someone else in my corner.

But traditional publishing has its downfalls, too. For one, though I’ve gotten positive reactions to the overall quality of my writing, the main response I’ve gotten from traditional agents is that for an unknown author, my fantasy books are just too long. A good story will sell itself, but let’s be real. Publishing houses are concerned with one thing: profits. The bigger a book is, the more expensive it is to edit and have printed, cutting into their overheads. After spending several years querying and getting that response time and time again, it means it’s time to suck it up and try something different.

Each of the books in the Snakesblood Saga will have to be split and revised.

In some ways, this may be a blessing; I originally cut a great deal of content from the series for fear of the books getting too big. They got too big anyway. So when I cut the first book into two volumes, that gives me a little leeway to go back and put in everything I’d originally removed. This means a richer world, a deeper story, and lots more little intricate details weaving everything together. I’m excited about that, if not excited about all the heavy editing and rewriting to put this lost content back in place.

In the long run, I think this will be best for the series. It’s not how I planned things, but it gives me room to grow, while also getting each volume down below the recommended word count per book in this genre. It just means a little more work, plus more time before queries can resume.

The least thrilling part of the whole situation as been coming to terms with the fact that splitting the books means finding more titles.

Titles are my bane. For me, the worst part of writing is coming up with a name for a book. This particular situation makes it even worse; the 3 current titles come from events that happen late in each book, so they’re going to have to become the titles of books 2, 4, and 6. That means new names for the first volumes. Names for 3 and 5 came pretty easily, but I’ve spent several weeks warring with myself over a title for the first book. I didn’t understand why it was so hard until my awesome friend Megan laid it out for me: nothing was going to sound right because I’ve been calling the first book Serpent’s Tears for the past fifteen years.

And it’s true. I reached that title for the series when I first began writing it, years and years ago. Shifting it from book one to book two has been difficult and awkward, even if it’s still technically being used for the volume it’s relevant to. It also leaves a big void to fill. The new title for the first volume has to be relevant not only to the first volume, but to the entire series. No small feat!

It took a while, but I did finally settle on a title for book one yesterday. Serpent’s Tears will now be the name of book two, and volume one–the first book in the soon-to-be six-book series–will be called Serpent’s Mark.

I’ve been giving my site a slow overhaul, so I’ll be changing the information on the project overview page soon… I’m just not sure when.

In the meantime, that new laptop is calling me. We have a lot of work to do. bringing these books to life.

After Undeath: Books One and Two Box Set Now Available!

It was a long time coming, but the two books that constitute the After Undeath series are now available together as a box set!

It’s available from Amazon for $4.99 (which is cheaper than the two books separately, of course) or you can read the whole thing for free with Kindle Unlimited.

If you’re a new reader, this is a great opportunity to get started!

You can pick up your copy here:

After Undeath: Books One and Two Box Set

I’ll have more writing news to share soon, but I’m going to keep it under wraps a bit longer.

Happy reading!

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Take care of my writer

“Take care of my writer.

She’ll forget to eat. You’ll have to have reminders set to help her remember.

She treats us writing machines better than the desktop. She’ll always wash her hands before touching your keys.

You’ll have a place beside her bed. Sometimes you’ll work with her late into the night, only to be woken at 3 in the morning to write down something that just can’t wait.

Whenever she’s away from home, you’ll be with her.

Sometimes she’ll carry you around the house for no reason, meaning to work, but never getting to it.

You’ll record things that make her cry, but she’ll always dry the tears off your keyboard.

Sometimes you’ll have good days, logging ten thousand new words or scrubbing errors from fifty pages at a time. And sometimes you’ll have bad days where there’s not even a full sentence done.

She’ll spend a lot of time certain her work is awful, but it won’t keep her away. She’ll be back. She can’t help it.

You’ll visit worlds together, places that only exist in the millions of words you’ll record.

We wrote ten and a half books together.

Take care of my writer, and you’ll write many more.”

–

All good things must come to an end… including the life of my trusty writing computer.

You can read the story of my hand-me-down iBook G4 over here.

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Born of the Moon paperback now available

Finally! The paperback edition of Born of the Moon is now available!

If you don’t have an e-reader, a paperback is a great way to go. It’s a sleek and comfortable-to-hold 6 x 9-inch paperback and is now available directly through CreateSpace. It’ll be available through other retailers soon, but for now, the eBook edition is always available through Amazon!

Next up is the 2-book box set containing both Death of the Sun and Born of the Moon, which is currently scheduled to release on February 21.

See you soon!

New year, new covers–and a box set

It’s 2017 and I’m still not planning to blog regularly, because I’m spending my time writing books instead!

Right now, I have 3 new releases planned for the second half of this year. Two will be paranormal stories, while one will be a fantasy tale with a bit more action than the small-scale adventure told in Gale’s Gift. We’ll talk more about these upcoming releases in the coming days, but for now, we’ll focus on the first change of the year.

Now that Death of the Sun and Born of the Moon have been around a while, it seemed like it was time to give them a little update and a more cohesive look. So both books got brand new covers, which have already rolled out across most vendors. The new cover for Death of the Sun just went out for the paperback edition this morning. Here’s a glimpse at the change, putting the old and new covers side by side:

And here’s the old and new covers for Born of the Moon:

I’m pretty pleased with how these came together; I’m still at a point where I do all my own covers, so I’ve been trying to give myself a workout in developing skills.

It was important to me that I keep the elements I originally wanted, so I kept the Aztec necklace and the moon. But I also added the necklace to Born of the Moon, creating a more obvious connection between the two stories.

Not only will Born of the Moon will be getting a paperback edition in the next few months, but there’s one more little thing…

Now that the series is complete, the two books will be bundled together as an e-book box set. This is great for new readers, since it gives them an opportunity to grab both at once!

Like with Born of the Moon’s paperback, there’s no release set just yet, but you can probably expect them both to drop some time around the end of February or early March.

I’ll be sure to post again when the dates have been set.

See you then!

Tea review: Sage on Sage White Strawberry tea

Every now and then, I’ll receive a recommendation for a tea only available from small, local shops dotting the country. I’m always eager to try them, but if I can’t find an online storefront, it’s a lot harder to get ahold of the tea to try it. Today’s blend is one of those.

Sage on Sage is a small shop in Hillsboro, Illinois that actually came to my attention because an independent coffee company from the same town (Black Rabbit Coffee) gained traction with my friends in southern Illinois. I’m always happy to support small businesses in my home area, as is most of my family. So when my mom came to visit, she brought a sample of Sage on Sage’s White Strawberry tea with her.

It’s a colorful blend, containing lots of cornflower and hibiscus petals, as well as a lot of dried fruit. I was surprised to see the blend contained rooibos tea in addition to the more delicate white tea, so I knew it would be unique.

The tea brews a pretty pink-gold color, redolent of dried strawberry with a hint of something sweeter. Had straight, its flavor is a sweet and fruity. It bears a clear strawberry taste, but with a hint of blueberry and sweet apple alongside it. There are warm undertones contributed by the rooibos, but it also contains notes of vanilla that make it quite pleasant. I drank most of the cup neat since I found it so enjoyable, but I did add sugar and milk to see how they changed the flavor.

The addition of sugar brought out the vanilla, but it didn’t change the flavor much otherwise. Milk toned down the taste of the rooibos, bringing out the sweetness of the berries and enhancing the flavor of vanilla and strawberry in particular.

Overall, this was an exceptional tea, one of the better blends I’ve been able to sample, and I’m looking forward to a chance to get more than a sample packet the next time I’m visiting Illinois. I haven’t been able to find information on whether or not the owner sells the tea blends via internet or mail, but if you want to give it a try from elsewhere, you can always contact them through the Sage on Sage Facebook page and find out.