Category Archives: Method

First Impressions

Now that I’m in my third week of classes (but only my first full week thanks to our ridiculous starting schedule) and I’ve had at least one session with every class I have mostly put my fears to rest. I like all of my classes, though some more than others. Unexpectedly, I am seriously enjoying my ENG242 English Literature class. It’s one of two required for all English majors and covers English Literature from the late 18th century onward. We’ll be reading “Pride and Prejudice,” “Wuthering Heights,” and other classics. So far though we’ve only gone through selections from Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful and Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man. I’ve been far more interested in this very thick and heavy reading than anything from my previous literature class. My least favorite class so far is my creative non-fiction workshop. Mostly because I’ve always been a fiction writer, and reader, at heart. I’ll read most any story if it’s done well but somehow fiction has always resonated more with me. Still, it’s very early days.

What I didn’t underestimate, and fully expected, was the workload accompanying taking four English classes: one literature and three workshops. I’m already a very busy bee doing classwork. Pile on top the copy edited version of Avatars & Identity that I still need to finish plus the audio book version of Transformation that I need to get through ASAP and I’m swamped. I really wish both of my book items would have been ready for me before school started but thems the breaks, as they say. For now I’m up to date with homework and slowly chipping away at the rest.

Brainstorming for Summer

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

With just two finals left this semester will be done before I know it. This has been making me anxious. Mostly because it means that my schedule next week and going forward will be up to me and it would be nice if I could manage to not waste this free time. After all how many 30 something’s get a real summer break? I know I never thought it would be possible once I was neck deep in the soul sucking 9 to 5 grind. To that end I’ve been thinking that it’s time to brainstorm and come up with a list of goals for this summer. So without further ado (and in no particular order), here is the list:

  1. Write book 3 of Stephen’s trilogy
  2. Do my own Let’s Play series with the Terraria 1.3 patch
  3. Do video readings for some of my short fiction
  4. Finish re-edits for Transformation & Induction
  5. Edit and publish Avatars & Identity
  6. Complete at least one Let’s Play + VG Writing Series (Fuzzy Adventures)
  7. Compile, edit, and publish the class fiction and poetry book
  8. Find and check out local writing meetup and social groups
  9. Design BFG Publishing website
  10. Shampoo the carpet
  11. Move my desk
  12. Re-organize this blog
  13. Write more short fiction & poetry (At least 1 poem & 1 short story/flash fiction per week)
  14. Send stuff to magazines/publishers every week
  15. Continue the Live Writing series or combine with some of the above

 

Whew. Looking at this list I realize that I have my work cut out for me this summer. This to-do list is in addition to the usual goofing around and just having fun that will be required to stay sane. I’m also going to have to prioritize if I want to get even half of this done. The Fuzzy Adventures series is something I’ve been thinking about most of this semester. I love video games and I love writing & reading. I wanted to combine those somehow. That’s when I struck on the idea for re-visiting some of the games that I loved so much as a kid and doing a combination let’s play with an episodic writing series. The basic idea is that I’ll play a game in sections and write a story to go along with it, also in sections. Basically I’d have a separate area of this blog devoted to these series with each game getting it’s own sub-section. Each blog entry would be an episode of the story and video both. I’ve got a short list of games I’m considering, but I’ll probably start with something short like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night instead of an epic length game like Final Fantasy 6.

I’m thinking the other thing I’ll need to help keep me on track is some kind of daily schedule. I’m not very good at sticking to schedules that I come up with on my own but I might need to give it a shot. Anyway, glad I finally got all of these thoughts down. The list reminded me that I’m missing a couple of key pieces of hardware that I’ll need for a number of these ideas. Amazon ho!

A Quick Update

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It is now the last week of classes at UW Madison so things are hectic indeed. Next week come the finals. My Create Writing class doesn’t have a formal final thankfully so once I turn my portfolio in on Friday I’m done with the graded work. Not done with the class though as we are putting together some of the stuff we worked on over the semester to publish as a free ebook. I offered this as an opportunity to the class and everyone was all for it. I’m interested to see how it turns out.

In other news the UW Creative Writing Award ceremony is this Thursday and since I submitted a couple of things to two different contests I will be attending. They don’t tell the winners ahead of time so you have to show up to find out. A rather devious way of making sure plenty of people attend, not just the winners. No idea what my chances are but I’m not holding out much hope. I am a very new writer after all.

I also received my very first rejection notice from the folks over at Flash Fiction. Woot! I was pretty happy to see that and I plan to keep every rejection I get as a souvenir of the work I’ve done. This may seem a bit strange but I think of it as proof that I’m really giving this writing thing my all. I hope to have many, many more rejections by the end of summer. And a few acceptances as well of course. Without classes to worry about I have some big plans. Which I need to sit down and write out. After finals.

Changing Schedules

This entry is part [part not set] of 5 in the series Live Writing

It’s always a bit tough to change schedules once you’re used to your old one. Yet sometimes it is necessary. This is the case with my Live Writing events. I was doing them most Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1:30 PM CST but this ended up being a really bad time for me. In the past two months I’ve had to push back the time more often than I was able to stick with it. I originally picked that time and those days because of my class schedule. It gave me plenty of time to get home from my only morning class and then get down to some writing. Unfortunately these times also turned out to be best for very important things like appointments with my doctor or business that can’t wait until later in the day.

To that end I ran a short survey here on my blog asking when I should move these events to and 8 PM was the time voted for. This actually conflicts with a few things during this month but will work fine in May. So next week, barring any problems, I will be moving my live writing event temporarily to 6 PM. When May rolls around I’ll need to reassess my times anyway since classes are done in early May. I’m thinking of increasing Live Writing to anywhere from three to five days a week. If I do that though I’m thinking I need to make themes for the various episodes. Not just novel writing but maybe something like super fast short story writing. I’ve got a lot of ideas and I’m looking forward to playing with my Live Writing format to see what works best and is the most fun.

A Time for (Non-Epic) Change

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

As most will be unaware, I do two Live Writing events every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 PM CST. This is where I write for about an hour or so while streaming to my Twitch channel. Afterwards I upload the resulting video to my YouTube channel for archival viewing. It’s not the most exciting thing ever conceived to watch but it really helps keep me writing at least twice a week on something other that school work. Yet for the past couple of weeks it has been impossible to keep to this schedule due to intrusions on the part of real life. Now it is apparent that my selection of 1:30 PM for the starting time was in error. It also got me to thinking about my schedule, for this semester I’m in, over the summer, and next fall. I knew my Live Writing would change over the summer but I hadn’t anticipated the multiple conflicts that would arise. It turns out that I regularly need my down time in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays for medical appoints and other things that have to get done. Thus I am led to posting my first ever poll!

What time do you think my Live Writing should take place on the T-days of the week? I’ve put in some time possibilities but left an open answer you can fill in as well:

[polldaddy poll=8747366]

 


 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

My Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

My Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

My Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message


 

Midterm Madness (or Damn You Daylight Saving Time!!!)

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

This is a big week in school for me with two midterms, both in literature, on the same day. Coming on the end of an exhausting weekend has made this a tough Monday. Thanks to Daylight Savings my roommate’s bus to the airport came an hour early. Despite the fact that Daylight Saving didn’t officially start until 2AM on Sunday. No notice on their website of any kind that they decided to use midnight as the change over point. Thus did a frantic drive ensue where we powered down to O’Hare and back in the wee, and not so wee, hours of the morning on Sunday. To this I can say that naps do not adequately replace a full-night’s sleep and so today has been a very tired one.

On the writing front I’ll be submitting a few of my select pieces, poetry and fiction, to a couple of undergraduate contests. I’m pretty nervous about this and I have no idea what my chances are, but I’m going to go for it. The prizes are very small so it would definitely be more about the recognition and getting my work out there than anything else. It would also be nice to know that people like what I do. The hard part now is sitting down and deciding which items to submit. How do you know what your best work is?

As far as the whole audio book process goes, I’ve selected the reader/producer I want to work with but I am still waiting for ACX to finalize my account info. Until that happens I’m not allowed to make offers on their site. I know I submitted my books, and account info, late Wednesday night so effectively they’ve had 2.5 work days to get my stuff done. It still feels like it’s taking forever. I’m super eager to get this audio book show on the road already.

 

BTW, why for the love of my holey socks do we still observe Daylight Saving Time?! Enough is enough I say!


 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

My Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

My Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

My Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message

With Apologies to School Girls

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

There are now three total auditions for my two books that I posted on ACX last night. Late. Three auditions. I’m still listening to the first one at the moment and I have to keep pausing to squee. I find myself giddy as a school girl. (See apology in title.) I don’t know why this is hitting me so hard. Perhaps part is I never expected to get a response so quickly. I think also it is strange and awesome, in the fullest sense, to hear someone else reading my work out loud. It’s like seeing my own work from someone else’s perspective and is both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Like probably every other author out there I want people, some people, any people, to like what I do. And just this little bit is enough for me to dance around the room. So yeah, um, I’m going to go back now and hopefully finish listening. Without pausing to squee again… ::deep breath::

 

My previous post on trying out this whole audio book process: http://fuzzynerdcorner.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/the-audio-book-process/


 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message

The Audio Book Process

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Last night I posted both of my published books, Induction and Transformation, on ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) to get the ball rolling for an audio book format. Late last night in fact. It was suggested by the forms I filled out that I include marketing information as well as info about the books. In the end I just included a brief summary of where the books are available for sale. I’m such a new writer, and not J.K. Rowling, that there’s little point in trying to brag about sales, followers, or popularity. Apparently that was good enough because there are already auditions for both books. This is a very promising start to a process that is completely new to me. Here’s hoping things continue going this smoothly.

The breakdown of the process is this (just for ACX of course):

  • Decide to put a book/story/etc up to be produced in audio format
  • Fill out the title info including info about the work, reader voice preferences, etc
  • Decide on royalty format
  • Submit the info and open your work to auditions
  • Review auditions
  • Accept preferred audition.
  • Producer will create a 15 minute initial sample of your work
  • Approve or Disapprove the sample (Disapproval requires submitting change requests)
  • Producer finishes audio version of your work by agreed upon date
  • Final approval of work (with any necessary changes)
  • Audio version goes on sale (with ACX it sells on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon)

 

It’s a pretty straightforward process, and unlike most software licenses I sat down and ready every bit of fine print before agreeing to the terms. My favorite parts of the terms were that the Author or owner of rights to the work retain those rights and that the standard contract term is just 7 years. Both of those are very important to me after reading about all of the horror stories of authors who signed away their rights to traditional publishing companies for life. All in all I am incredibly excited to be doing this and exploring yet another avenue for getting my work out into the world. It just goes to show that with these new tools and sites anyone can make their dream of publishing come true.

 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message

New Book Published!

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Super excited to finally have my second book, Transformation, published and on sale!  It was a long time coming but it finally came together. This time was definitely easier as far as the actual publishing process goes. Just a few minor issues with things I’d managed to forget between my first book and this one. As usual the Smashwords edition is giving me the most problems but I’ll have time today to sit down and fix them.

Once that is done I can focus exclusively on Avatars & Identity and getting it done. I have a couple of people reading it as I go along and so far it’s my most exciting story yet. I find that funny since it’s the book I’ve struggled with the most. Not to mention the majority of it was written very quickly in the first half of November 2014. It’s been nice taking a break from Stephen’s story to try something different. Lately though I’ve been missing the old gang so I’m also looking forward to getting back to them and finishing off my first trilogy.

On the school front I’m looking into the various writing opportunities available here. I’ve discovered we have an excellent fellowship program for graduates, though I don’t hold out much hope of getting a slot. There are apparently well over 600 applicants for the 6 spots each year. Still won’t hurt to try. I’m also talking with the English department about putting together some kind of information packet or workshop on self-publishing since that is a very new and valid option for budding authors (or even long time authors for that matter).

All in all it’s been very busy but very productive and I’m feeling much better about my situation in general. No idea yet if this whole writing full-time thing will pan out but I’m making progress building up my body of work. I’m also discovering that I enjoy writing poetry a whole lot more these days than I did waaaaay back in high school so that is yet another avenue I will be exploring.

Onward and upward!

 

 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message

The Novel Continues

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Another week of class just about done with another two live writing sessions complete. Finished up chapter 15 of my NaNoWriMo 2014 novel Avatars & Identity today. The past three days have seen more writing on my part on the book than I’ve managed to do in the last month. I’ve muddled past another difficult story section and I only have a few major plot points left to hit. I’m not holding myself to the 50k word target for NaNoWriMo for this story though. It will be how ever long it ends up being.

The physical proofs for Transformation came in today. I’ll finish reviewing tomorrow, a last check to make sure everything is good before approving the book to go live. Very excited to finally have the second book done!