Kicking My Own Ass, Yet Again

It's been a hard couple of weeks and I've been letting things overwhelm me when I should be working.  I know it's natural.  I also know it can become an excuse rather than a reason.

All in all, despite the grief and the changes and the fears of what lies ahead, things really haven't changed that much here at Sanderson Publishing (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sanderson, Inc. LLC*.)  I still have a computer to write on and internet access to communicate with the outside world.  My brain still works and so do my fingers.

So, yesterday I took myself in hand.  I didn't make huge strides into the editing, but it was a start.  

Also, I'm thinking about a sale.  My 6-year anniversary for publishing is coming up on the 13th, so that's cause for celebration.  It would be a nice time to market something.  I'll let you know what I decide.

Allowing myself to be derailed is not an option.  Not for any length of time anyway.  It's a luxury I can't afford.  I let myself be derailed for most of last year.  And we all know how that went...  $108.50 in sales** for an entire year (November 2019 - October 2020), that's how it went.

I have to do better.  I cannot wallow in my misery or let outside stuff live rent-free in my head to the point where the work isn't getting done.  

Consider this a personal ass-kicking.  And expect to see more writerly work out of me from here on out.  Feel free to jump on the ass-kicking bandwagon if you don't.

*Not a real company, folks.  It's just me and Hubs.  But I like to joke about being a company.

**According to Amazon's 1099.  If you haven't downloaded your 1099, best get to it.

Friendly Ass Kicking

Okay, so Silver James yelled at me yesterday because I was whining about not writing (see Sunday Update and comments from The Writing Spectacle).  I thought about the book and how to get past where I was so I could move forward again.  Last night, I ended up with 1644 new words.  And I finished on a shocker I hadn't seen coming.  So... Thank you, Silver, for verbally kicking my ass.  I needed that.  

I also set up a sale for the genie books.  The first book is free from the 23rd to the 27th.  The others are all 99c for the same days.  Merry Christmas.

Anyway, as you can plainly see, sometimes I need my ass kicked.  Usually I kick my own ass.   This time, someone kicked it for me because I was, at that point, unable to.  That what friends are for.  

Maybe I need to do some friendly ass-kicking, too.  I have a couple of writer friends who aren't writing right now.  Both of them are awesome writers.  I've loved everything I've read from either of them.  I'd love to see more.  So...  If they're reading this, and I suspect they are, here's a message to them both:  Get your asses in gear and write me some more stories, dammit.  Don't make me thrash you soundly.  Your mothers were hamsters and your fathers smelt of elderberries*.  Write or I shall taunt you a second time.  

Not sure if that was sufficient to get either of them going again.  Maybe I'll sic Silver on both of them.  She's better at it than me.  

*If you haven't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you really need to rent a copy**.  It's hilarious.

** do people even do that anymore?  Rent movies?  

Slogging Through

 I wish I had something brilliant and witty to say this morning.  But in a nod to Keanu Reeves in The Replacements, brilliant and witty just isn't my style today.

I think about 90% of the writing process is slogging through.  You get about 10% of glorious, flowing writing and sparkling clarity during edits.  The rest is putting one foot in front of the other getting the words down and fixing what ain't quite right.  And that's not counting the time you put into marketing and publishing.

This ain't for the weak or the fainthearted.  And I am both.  Some days.  That's not slamming myself.  It's just being real.  If I wasn't occasionally weak and fainthearted, this book would be done and in the hands of readers by now.

The point is, I'm not like that all the time.  I have to remind myself that this is the fifteenth book I'm working on getting published.  Fifteen.  I wrote all those books and more.  I might fall down occasionally, but I keep getting up and moving forward.  The movement might be slow sometimes, but it's movement.  

So, I'm slogging through.  The edits are going slow.  Right now, I can only manage to get through one page of notes before I want to run screaming through the forest.  These next three days, I will make myself do a page and then take a break, and then do a page and take a break, until the remaining pages are finished and I can start the process over again.  The next pass will go quicker.  It always does.

Just Get Up and Write The Damn Thing

Now I lay me down to sleep
When into my head the stories creep
If I don't get up and write them down
I'll wake up with a serious frown.
So, there I was Sunday night, trying to sleep, when this scene popped into my head.  The beginning scene for a new mystery laid itself out beautifully.  So I made myself get up and write some of it down.  That usually makes the scene stop playing so I can get some sleep, and it's also usually enough to get me going on writing the next day.

1)  It didn't stop playing in my head.
2)  I didn't write enough of it down to really get back in the groove with it.

I told myself I should just get up, turn the damn computer back on, and write the whole damn scene.  Did I?  Nope.  And the next day, as I was sitting at my keyboard looking at the few notes I had written, I cursed myself for a fool.  It's been so hard to write these past few months I should've recognized the story was more precious than the sleep.  But I didn't.

Still, I sat my ass down and wrote.  Oh my god, what came out was so lame.  Definitely not the glowing words I'd thought of the night before.  I wanted to chuck it all in the trash and go back to sitting on my ass.  But I couldn't just give up.  The story was shrieking to be written.  I tried again last night.  Whole new file, blank page, sit your ass down and write.

This try was not lame.  And it flowed pretty much the way it had when I thought of it the night before.  1300 words.  Woohoo.

I have only a slight clue where I'm going with this.  I don't know the MC in the slightest.  It doesn't dovetail with any of my current stories.  The MC is a whole new person.  It's kind of noir.  It's gritty.  More like Accidental Death than anything else I've written.  But more so.

We'll see if I can keep it going and not second guess myself (which has already begun by the way) and write the whole damn thing.  It's not the book I need to finish right now, but it's the book I need to finish.  Maybe writing this will jumpstart my lead ass so I can finish Cinder Ugly.  Fingers crossed.

Updates and Junk

Well, hello there!  It's been almost a month since I posted here, because, well, it's been longer than that since I actually did anything writerly or had anything writerly to talk about.  If you want to see what I was up to, go to The Writing Spectacle.  When I'm not here, I'm generally over there.

Things have been bad here with regard to writing or anything writing related.  The last time I worked was March 15th - you know, before it all went to hell.  The last time I sold anything was March 20th.

Since it had all gone to hell in March, I didn't even bother updating my spreadsheets to show the month of April.  And it's already getting near time to do May.  Yep, yep.

All of that changed over the weekend.  I made it change.  As I said on yesterday's Sunday Update post, this chaos crap has already taken up too much of my time and mental real estate, and it's time to get back to business.

To that end, I made myself sit down and work on getting Ugly and the Beast ready for publication.  I had hoped to have it to you by the end of last month. Well, hope in one hand... right?   The new hope is to have it to you by the end of this month.  Good lord willin' and the crick don't rise.  All I have to do is finish these edits my wonderful proofer friends sent along to me last month, weed out some crutch words, check it all over again, and then format the sucker.  (Your work was not wasted, proofer friends, just delayed a bit.)

Meanwhile, I have the next scenes for Cinder Ugly waiting for me to write.  I'm not promising anything with regard to dates for that yet.  Until I have the first draft completed, I can't even hint at a date.  All I can promise is that I seem to be back on track again.

Not sure what this'll mean in the long run.  Will sales climb out of the dumper?  Time will tell.  All I know is that I've had enough of this and I'm ready for a return to normal again.  I have no control over what happens out there in the world, but I can control what happens in here.  Time to take control again.

No More Excuses

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn sick of myself.  I keep intending to work on my books, but like Dad always said 'intentions are for shit'.  Meaning, of course, that you can have all the intentions in the world, but they aren't good for much of anything without action.

It's action I'm lacking.

I mean, I talk about... check that... whine about not having gumption or getting anything done.  But I don't actually DO anything about it.  Slacker.

Okay, so now's the time to do something.  As such, I'm making the commitment to have Ugly and the Beast ready to go out to one or two people for beta reading / proofing by the end of the month.  I was on page 115 of my edits as of quittin' time yesterday.  That leaves about 100 pages to go, understanding that I'm adding words and pages as I edit, and nine days in which to get those pages into shape.  How long it takes the readers to do their magic and me to fix what they find will dictate when UatB goes live, but it will go live.  Dammit.

Then I'm going to finish writing Cinder Ugly if it kills me.  Which it might.  It's a pretty ugly manuscript so far.  Like 'monster in Wish Hits the Fan' ugly.  (If you haven't read it, I can't help you understand it better.  Think big, nasty, gruesome bitch.)  I'll kill the beast and hang her head on my wall.

No more excuses.  No more whining.  Just get 'er done. 

All Up In My Face

I had to give myself a good talking to again.  I really hate to have to do it, but sometimes I let things slide to the point where the only answer is getting all up in my face and basically shouting at myself.  (On paper, of course.)

After I die, the things written in my notebooks should be an interesting find for my heir.  Sort of an 'oh, look, Mom's yelling at herself' kind of thing.  (She already knows I do it, I think, so it shouldn't be a surprise.)  If fans ever get a hold of those notebooks, they're going to think I'm batshit crazy, but I'll be dead, so I won't care.  Maybe the crazy will make me famous.  Again, won't matter then, but maybe the Kid will make some money off my books.

Anyway, these talking-to sessions usually works.  Not especially well this time, so maybe I'm not done giving myself a dressing down.  But I did get some editing done yesterday, so it partially worked.  And I did sit down to write last night.

Unfortunately...  Crickets.  I read through the last couple chapters I'd written and then drew a blank as to where the story was headed.  I think my story generator is on the fritz.  Sometime today I'll kick it's ass, pound on it like we used to pound on the old black and white TV to get the picture to come in better, and try again.

Now, I realize my little talking-tos are not the kind of positive self-talk stuff we're all supposed to adhere to these days.  I grew up when pulling yourself up by your bookstraps met the other end of the spectrum - Leo Buscaglia.  (If you're not familiar with Leo, he was all about hugs.)  Both are effective motivators if used in moderation.  Right now, I need less hugs and more ass-kicking.

So, I'm kicking my own ass. 

Of course, the things I say to myself as such that if anyone else said them to me, I'd punch them in the mouth.  I'm the only one who can get away with it.  It usually starts with 'Okay, Meissner, what the hell is your major maladjustment?' and goes south from there.  But it gets the job done.

And lest you think I'm nothing but mean to myself, there are usually some 'you can do this' and 'you've got this' thrown in alongside the 'you whiny baby' bits and the parts that sound a lot like Bluto's motivational speech in 'Animal House'.  "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?  No!"

So, today, I'll so a little bit more of this mental ass-kicking and then get some actual words down, along with editing at least 20 pages.  Or I'm gonna answer for why I didn't.  To myself.