Hello!
Real Soon Now (tm) I’ll be an actual published author. The date we’re now looking at is late February. This gives me time to have War Mage possibly read by my beta reader before going off to the editor (or should it be the other way around?).
Anyway, I have a blog right now that consists of mostly Champions Online stories. I’m going to be changing that to just Champions Online stories. I try and do other writing every day (that’s the new year’s and birthday resolution, btw), but I have no place to put it so people can see the progress.
I plan on having the webmaster create another blog for me, this time for a daily word count of 800 words, which is what the other blog was supposed to be. Thing is, most of those fans are from Champions Online, so they’re not interested in seeing stuff like Iron Butterfly or War Mage, or dips into other genres like dystopian fiction or romance, or other writing prompt exercises that I find on the web or in my many writing prompt books that I own.
I’ll link to it from this blog, of course.
Now, what else? I decided to put aside Iron Butterfly in favor of editing War Mage. I’m not doing so well with that. I find myself not editing, but reading. And although I see everything in my mind’s eye in three dimensions and with colors and smells and textures, I’m not putting it across very well on the page. Maybe I should try scriptwriting.
I’m not lyrical or flowery, it’s the journalism teaching in me. I pay attention to what people say, how they say it, not what’s around them, and that translates to the page. They’re talking heads in space. Mind you, I can keep the pace going and advance the plot, but as for the setting, or the surroundings? Not so much.
So I’m going through the manuscript, in chunks and sections, not in sequential order, to see if I’m describing everything well enough. Also doing line editing at the same time. I’ll edit for consistency on another pass.
I’m also working on trying to get together a mailing list. I’d do a newsletter once a month to let people know what I’m working on and what’s coming next down the pipeline. Maybe once I get that going, I’ll put together a Patreon account and try and get people to see if they want to patron me to write stories for them. I could do different things, like write novellas or short stories for people using characters either from Champions or from other books, Or I could do a few non-fiction pieces about the writing craft and stuff. Or I could get some artists from deviantart to do work for me. (Hmm. Anime Grim…)
This year I hope to have 3 published books, not counting Homecoming. War Mage, maybe Iron Butterfly at a different publishing house that does romance-with-a-twist, Blood From a Stone with Paper Angel…or who knows, maybe something entirely different. What’s important this year is the marketing and getting my name out there, I think. The writing, although still daily, will be secondary.
Oh, and to blog here at least once a week, probably on my own stuff or ideas on what I’m doing to help plot/character. Watch for my book reviews on Goodreads. This year the goal is 100 books!