Monthly Archives: January 2011

a day in the life, ePublishing, Random Thoughts, Rants, Writing

Site redesigned, ebooks online…time to get back to writing!

Leave a comment

I find myself checking my download count for the three poetry books I have published so far, like an expectant gardener watching his crops turn from seedlings into blossoming fruit.

It is difficult not to feel a shade excited by a ‘good’ day of downloads.  The danger is, of course, that I’ll be down in the dumps after no or low downloads.

More interesting, to me at least, is the fact that I need the feedback of people choosing to download my books to feel better about my writing…or do I?

Truth be told, I have probably spent more time mucking about with my blog (thank you Adam for making it look so good…on Monday this week – I’ve probably already wrecked it by putting up ‘halfway’ decent graphics – sorry man!), checking my download count on Smashwords and generally not doing what I should be – which is rewriting my Killer Application book.

It is way too easy to get distracted.  The procrastinator kicks in and tells me all is well – I still have six months to get it into second draft shape.  Yet that is a goal I set so as not to put too much pressure on myself, an arbitrary goal to say the least.  Yet it is counting down towards me and I have lost a bit of traction on the rewriting.  Not a bad thing – distance may give me a better perspective, yet I feel it is not the right time for perspective.  The danger, of course, is slowing down too much…or is it?

I wonder if all artists, writers, creators feel this way.  Maybe this is a common theme – to keep the pace up while not burning all of the energy at once.  It is a hard balance to strike – between sleep and writing.  Seeing as this is only my ‘hobby’ (until I publish Killer App and start to actually ‘sell’ books instead of give them away), I guess I have to take the balanced view.

Oh to be able to spend all of my time writing – what joy, what excitement, what unbelievable bliss!  I envy you, full-time writers, I really do.  I am sure there are issues with it, but as Terry Pratchett once said, “Writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves.”  It is true.  Nothing I have ever done on my own aside from writing has given me so much joy and satisfaction.

No, this does not count ‘raising children’.  That is not done on your own, even as a single parent like me.  That is done with the child or children – they are as much a part of the ‘raising’ as we parents are.  In fact, I’m pretty sure my daughter raised me as much as I her. 🙂  Thanks Sky!

Anyway, I’ve decided to go away and stop mucking about with my blog, and the store I tried to create, and the ebooks I keep playing around with (oooh oooh ooh, I’ll just waste another three hours placing the new logo my mate Adam created for me for Darker Zeus on my ebooks…and create a new anthology of free stories…NO!  Get back to work!).

Sometimes we have to be the disciplinarian.  I think parenting others (children, people you know, your own parents) is easier than parenting ourselves.

Do they teach classes in ‘parenting yourself’?

Til next time, adios and good luck in all your endeavours!

Em (mE)

a day in the life, Killer Application: Dead or Alive, Novels

Just ‘About’ anything…really…as long as you can read it!

Leave a comment

I am an author (at heart at least).

I have been writing since I can remember – when other kids were playing in the sand during preschool I was crafting tiny foldaway books.

I would draw the cover of the book, title it, write all of the story, do all of the drawings and feel so very proud of myself when I was able to write in ‘The End’.

My first book had such a profound effect on me that I can still see where I was, probably no more than four or five years old, sitting in the middle of the classroom, studiously focused on my book, which as I recall was about a damsel in distress, a castle and a knight. (And I’ll be darned if it wasn’t hard to draw the teeny-tiny turrets on the castle fortress walls, but I did it!)

Many books were to follow, including two novel-length forays during a month of illness when I was 18.

Then for some reason it all stopped – life got in the way and fast forwarded me to the here and now.

So I thought it was about time to write another book…and two years later it is almost ready.

Not only that, but the “Killer Application” series of books (yes, I said series) has birthed a second book already (even though I’ve not finished the first).

I hope you like it – please come along for the ride as I rewrite the book to perfection (or as close as possible) and self-publish it as an ebook and POD (print on demand).

The pitfalls are many, the workload vast, the wordcount insanely high, yet I am undaunted – I am up to the task.

A nice little cheering squad would help me out no end when I hit those lows…so please come on in and sign up.

Your help in motivating me by reading and responding to what I write could be just the key to set me off on a fantastic journey as a writer.

I can’t promise you riches (I wish!) but I can promise you a good gas.

So come on for the ride – step inside and let me know your thoughts.

I look forward to learning more about you than you wish to say. 😉

Yours in trouble and out,

Em

Random Thoughts

Two rules to…erm rule them all?

Leave a comment

I think we only really need two commandments:

“Help as many people as much of the time as possible.”

and

“Hurt as few people as little of the time as possible.”

As far as I can tell pretty much everything we ever have to decide fits into these two rules.

The fact is that we cannot go through life without hurting other people. Even something as simple as getting a job or a place in a good school means that someone else did not get it. Any competition will have winners and losers. If we won, someone else lost. Fundamentally that means we are directly accountable for any upset that loss causes them. Therefore it is impossible to go through life without negatively affecting anyone.

Yet we can control how many people we actively hurt and how much we hurt them, by managing our behaviour and being aware of how our actions and behaviour affect other people. (And yes, this is even more difficult in a different culture, such as an American living in England. I’ve been here most of my life – 23 years to be precise – and yet I still run into idiosyncrasies that remind me how different the two cultures are, some of which still have the ability to sting…more on that later!)

This is a constant learning curve but that’s what keeps life interesting! 😉

Til next time, this is Em signing off,

mE

Compilations, ePublishing, Poems

Poemetics – poetry anthologies volumes 1-3 published online…

Leave a comment

Hello all there out there in blog land…

I spent a good few hours over the weekend creating and publishing a handful of poetry anthologies entitled “Poemetics Volume 1…” to “Poemetics Volume 3…” on the ‘Smashwords’ website (smashwords.com).

You can find all three Poemetics volumes (now on Amazon instead of Smashwords) in one volume available for download here.

I will soon be adding ISBN references to them to get them onto Barnes & Noble, iBookstore and others.

Even only having them available on Smashwords (taking into account I have no idea how big this site’s user base is) these books were downloaded more than 100 times from about midnight Friday to lunchtime today – a very impressive statistic for a set of poetry anthologies for an unknown author on a single website.

It will be very interesting to see how this changes or expands (hopefully!) when these go online to the main ebook suppliers.

I am considering having these published as a ‘Print On Demand’ single volume book.

Any thoughts? (Feedback on the back of a postcard with some pretty scenery…it makes the day go by quicker and covers the holes in the walls.)

Until next time, live long and prosper! 🙂

mE