Slowly I am realizing that my exuberance of last week is premature. Yes, the first draft of Years of Stone is done, but now the real work begins. My quilt squares are off the cork board and the 3x5 scene cards are posted instead. Feedback from the harshest critics are ahead, and I know I will need to face down days of doubt.
This early morning crane (a photo taken this summer) makes me think I should not question the process, just take each writing session and work away at building a deeper understanding of character, motivation, and conflict. If I really want to understand what it was like to live in mid-19th Century, I must dig deeper. And that's all right.
ROW80 update: Tested Scrivener, liked the corkboard, the visual prompts for writing, but still not a good fit for me. I think my projects would collapse of their own weight (research files, photos, maps, outlines, character sketches, and that's not counting the story writing).
Worked rather desultorily on a market plan for The Mermaid Quilt & Other Tales. Made me feel like a used car salesman. Made me question my purpose in trying this avenue of self-pubbing. I hate to ask for favors, but this week, I will ask for a review. And maybe set up a 'free day'. What's aggravating is that the preview shows typos and I have uploaded the final correct copy three times now -- surely no one would believe an English teacher would spell 'dedicated' like this: 'DEDICATed.' Aargh! Well, I got it right here. Oh, and I didn't post on Weds. But reading what others have written keeps me going. Thank you all, ROW80 participants!
Self-pub or not, marketing has fallen on the shoulders of all writers, save a select few. I do hope the preview updates soon for you. Lots of people judge on that, and I'm sorry to say they can be cruel and unforgiving. I wish you the best.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not familiar with Kristen Lamb (warriorwriters.wordpress.com), she has excellent suggestions regarding the issue of marketing, and I highly recommend checking out her blog.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned before, I purchased The Mermaid Quilt and Other Tales because of the opening sentence of the opening story. I checked out the collection as well as your other work because of your authentic presence in your blog. In short, authenticity is what sold me.
True, I am an older reader and not representative of many of the readers on Amazon yet I still believe that people purchase books because of the writing quality/authenticity of the author. Just my nickel's worth but trust your instincts on this, Beth.
Karen
I also tried Scrivener but couldn't get on with the corkboard as I like physically moving post its around. I also lost (but recovered) several thousand words during NaNoWriMo last year!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment over on my blog. As a teacher I would struggle to write in my lunch time as I tend to run around getting things ready for the afternoon but I am happy to say I have managed my 1000 words today! Have a good week!