Dhayaa Anbajagane's Blog, page 4

How I edited 40k+ words in 34 hours

Hi guys,

So this posts starts at 10am in the morning. I wake up three hours late to my original schedule of starting my writing at 7. So I'm already 3 hours behind. What's worse, my 99designs contest designer asks me for the ideas I need and the changes I have to make. And when all that gets over my internet stops working. The result?

4 hours gone. I still haven't edited chapter 11. The book cover for ConQuest has been redone. Printing for AcQuest is being discussed.7 hours out now. I'm almost done with one chapter. Optimized my Web images for fluid browsing. Drank coffee.12 hours gone. Two more chapters down. Few book cover design changes. Sent a few beta reader requests. Dinner. Image hunt for third cover.14 hours. I've looked up reviewing sites. Tracked Bookbub and BookSends data. Read through Timebound, didn't like it much.16 hours. A little hungry but I have a trusty packet of potato chips with me. 4 chapters done. Slight Internet problem so taking a break.17 hours gone. 5 chapters almost done and moving along quite fast. Feeling drowsy. I think I'll need coffee soon. Internet problem again.19 hours gone. 6 chapters done. A little tired but I'll manage. Got 9 more chapters to go. Got 6 subscribers on website too. Super excited!22 hours done. Haven't worked on any chapters. Loaded up my website at http://dhayaaanbajagane.com . Will write few blog posts and then edit book.24 hours done. Wooohoooo! Sucess. A grand total of 17 chapters edited (10 + the 7 from today), and a live website. http://www.dhayaaanbajagane.com 27 hours. Finished a total of 8 chapters. Website seems to have taken in some decent traffic. Mysterious. Professional launch on the 24th.30 hours gone. 9 chapters done. Still going at almost 3 hours a chapter. Spent lots of time on website revising too. http://Www.dhayaaanbajagane.com 31 hours gone and I have 10 chapters completed. That's a fast turnaround. Probably cause I haven't worked on http://www.dhayaaanbajagane.com  as much.32 hours gone and still 10 chapters complete. Website still the same. Working intensely on cover design for book 3. Hope to find a good one!33 hours. 12 chapters over. I've got a good start on a cover for book 3. No website updates to http://dhayaaanbajagane.com 34 hours. Break from book and website. Working up a few good puzzles. Exciting prospects about new book cover.

So that just about summarizes my entire twitter feed during the whole idea. But the fact is, it is possible! I was finished with about 43k words by the end of the stunt. So four to five days to finish the editing for one book shouldn't be too much to ask. Do remember, this is a once in a while thing cause it  drain's you completely.

This is what happened after I got my first nap after 34 hours,

Just woke up. After 38 hour night out, my mind said sleep! Went to sleep at 5pm, woke up at 8am. Worst thing? Missed a pasta dinner.

So that's what happens. You miss a pasta dinner. And those aren't very common, honestly speaking though. I don't think writers block is a hindrance at all. Us humans survive because of our instinct to do anything if our life depended on it.
A book deadline, thought not as scary, was still a time-based landmark, and the closer we got to it, the more our subconscious mind focused on it,

I was able to run through chapters easily and smoothly, while being as efficient and critiqued as usual. So the key to doing things fast is letting go till the end. But I still recommend you take a month and do your book editing thoroughly.

Have any thoughts? Feel free to share in the comments sections.

The Dhayaa Update

Hey guys,

I've got one major super huge change. BeQuest has been killed off. The title will be replaced by AcQuest, which in Archaic (Old English language) means 'To Acquire' and fits the theme of the story perfectly.
Also, BeQuest, which means 'legacy' by the way, will be published as the title of the third and final installment. As far as the second book goes, It's going to be released on Jan 2nd for my school's annual festival.
Given that I haven't really had a lot of time to work on revising it, I really want to get some time off to go finish off the whole thing. The cover for AcQuest is already in the works, so I'll get it up on the website soon. If you want to be the first to see it, I suggest you subscribe to the exclusive newsletter.

Cheers!

New beginnings

So Christmas is coming up and well, I’ve got much more pressing things to think about than a Christmas sales promo. When most of the world goes PRESENTS, a few of us Indie authors trying to make a buck go, MORE SALES.

Anyway, I’ve roped in a cool designer from 99designs to work out with me and finish all three covers for the series. I’m paying a moderately hefty amount but this guy is worth it. The covers are all illustrated so I’m hoping they’ll keep in accordance with the theme and category of the story.

I’ve been working on a new website which should be up by the end of the year, which coincidentally happens to be the same time I’ve been asked to release BeQuest. The book hasn’t been edited completely and thus, the pressing matters I was talking about have made their appearance. I HAVE finished 80% though, so it isn’t that much of a big deal.

I’ve also come up a new year’s resolution. Write 3k words everyday. It takes hardly 2 to 3 hours so it’s surely doable. Hoping to increase book writing for next year.

The new website just got a subscribe button and Boy isn’t it nice to have that. Now all I have to do is get content onto this and hopefully, like tim grahl says, I’ll be off to a flyer of a year.

Until then, Cheers!

The boon of KDP

Jacqueline Druga, author of Last Woman, shares her experience with Kindle Direct Publishing. 

"It’s hard to believe that a mere five years ago, I was standing in line at the food bank hoping to score a free can of baby formula and making the decision on what utility I could do without for the month. All that changed, thanks to KDP.

"I always wanted to be a writer and tell stories. But books weren’t a part of my life; the closest thing I saw to ‘reading’ in my family was when my grandmother browsed the tabloids over her morning coffee. At the age of 10, my mother gave me her old typewriter. Fueled by my imagination and obsession over Charlton Heston, I wrote stories and never stopped.

"It started with short stories and progressed to disaster-based romance novels. My first rejection letter came at the age of 17.

"Devastated, I stopped submitting. I kept writing though. Focusing on shorter works, I put the full-length books aside. Publishing was a pipe dream I wasn’t qualified to pursue. Then in 1997, all that changed. I started writing novels again, and with a renewed vigor, decided I wanted to be a published author. I slept very little and wrote seven days a week, every night. And believing getting published would be easy, I set an outlandish goal that I would quit writing if I reached enough rejection letters to place one on each step of the Empire State Building. It took 404 rejections to get my first ‘yes’ with a small house that went under two years later. That was it. By 2006, I had accumulated enough rejections to plaster the stairs of the Empire State Building: 1,172 rejections to be exact. (Yes, I have them all.) So I stopped trying to get published. I was convinced that no one wanted to read my work. I wrote primarily apocalyptic fiction. I ended the world any way I could. It was a genre that was deemed ‘unmarketable.’ Writing stayed my passion, relentlessly writing book after book, screenplays, and poems. In 10 years, I had written over 100 full-length novels. I was happy writing and accepted the fact that no one would really know my name or my stories.

"Following a divorce that left me to raise two teenage daughters alone (one of whom was pregnant), I had to work two jobs and bury the writing dream. In 2010, a writer friend suggested I give KDP a try, maybe make a couple bucks. I laughed at that. No one wanted to read about the apocalypse. ‘Give it a try,’ he said. So I did. My first royalty check was for $11. I danced a jig. It was the most money I had ever received for my writing. Little by little the checks increased, and more than that, people were reading my work. I dropped the second job. By 2012, I only worked part-time, and by 2013, I was able to quit working outside the home and do what I love best: be with my family and write full-time. I am the sole supporter of my family. Gone are the days of not having enough to eat or any electricity. For that I am beyond grateful. I take advantage of everything Amazon has to offer. Without KDP, my dream of being a published writer would have washed away. All I ever wanted was for someone to give me a chance and I’d run with it. KDP gave me that chance, and I am sprinting at a good pace on their publishing track." 

—Jacqueline Druga

(interview as published on KDP newsletter)

BeQuest cover

Hey guys,

I’ve got really exciting news for you all. The cover for my next book, BeQuest, is almost done and is like a week away from release. The book itself should be released in the month of May, preferably towards the beginning of the month.

I ran a book cover contest on 99designs like last time and I wasn’t even a bit disappointed. Amazing talent on those sites I tell you.

I better go now, I’m raring to see what new design has been submitted next.

Cheers!

The Quest Saga, Book 3

So, BeQuest is being wrapped up. You know what that means?

Of course you don’t, I’m a complicated person who cannot be read that easily. Well, I’m nice so I’ll tell you anyway.

The third book for The Quest Saga will now begin!

I’m going to set aside a few days during winter break. BeQuest was written in around 10 days so I’m hoping I can get the third one done by then.

For those of you wondering, yes its title will end with the common conformity, ‘quest’. I can’t really tell you what it’ll be called though. Be sure to subscribe to keep up with the latest updates.

The Dhayaa Update 25/10/14

Whooaa,

Been almost a month since I blogged, not a big surprise really. I’ve been doing a lot of work (not with my novels) so I’ve put my authoriness up on hold.

BeQuest has gone through one round of revising and I’m currently going through the second one. Much harder to do it the second time I tell you, but I’m learning a lot. I’m treating my manuscript as a question paper and I’m trying to figure out the ‘answers’, or the mistakes that I’ve made. Really helpful so far.

I figured that a series would be better established if you published all the books at once or at least wrote them all at once to make sure they conform with each other.

That’s pretty much it from me, BeQuest has been given a solid deadline. The 2nd of January. If it’s not up by then? Well, I haven’t really thought it out that far.

Cheers!