Don’t work for free.

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Let me start this post by saying, welcome to all the new followers.

Okay, that’s done, now down to what I want to say.

This past weekend I let it be known I was probably going to publish a book on Amazon soon. I wrote about this decision on Monday’s post.

I’ve been debating this decision with myself and I’ve talked it over with my wife. We decided the book will not get any better than its current iteration and that I should publish, now back to the point.

One of my friends thought I’d give him a feee signed copy of the book when it’s released. I truly care about this person but they don’t write or doing anything creative, that I’m aware of.

This being the case, they don’t understand how hard it is to be a creative.

There are only two people who would get those signed copies, for free; my wife and my mom.

They have been my biggest supporters throughout my writing journey.

I have a date selected for publication and I’ll be going over the draft leading up to that date.

I’ll let all of you know when that will be in the coming weeks.

Happy writing and don’t work for free.

Sometimes you have to jump!

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Over the last six months I’ve been going through edits, revisions, and story changes.

It is the reason I took a break from the blog for a while.

I’ve been debating what to do with this book. Should I send it to an agent and cross my fingers or do I publish it on KU(Kindle Unlimited)?

I’ve decided to publish it on KU.

This is the first book I’ve published and I understand there’s a learning curve with publishing. I also know it will only be as good as I’m able to make it.

My wife and I aren’t able to afford a good editor so we’re making do with ourselves.

I know this may bring the quality down but I like this book and believe it’s the best work I’d done to the point when I wrote it last summer.

The debate on this went on all last week inside my head, I believe Friday’s post shows that.

Now that I’ve made this decision, I won’t be backing off the blog or my other writing.

Over the summer I’ll be submitting the novel I wrote in December to my writing group as well as working on the second book in that series.

I know this may catch some of my constant readers off guard but sometimes you have to jump.

I’m jumping this July. I’ll keep you up to date on anything further.

Happy writing.

How I’m ignoring things that disrupt my writing.

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As a writer, there are many times when I’ll be compromised by disruptions.

I’ll be working on a project, and, BAM!

New story idea, new way to adjust or improve the current project, a way to fix previous project. That’s the moment I want to scream, but don’t.

I’ll write down what the thought, idea, or whatever and get back to what I was working on.

It hasn’t always been this way.

It took me a while to ignore those things.

That pretty new thing sounds wonderful, but it will take you away from your current project and you’ll never finish a book!

I’m only 10k in on a new project and my brain has made multiple attempts on sacrificing the current project for another one.

It got to the point where I had to take a step back. Think about why my brain was doing that.

I came to the realization that there is a story I want to tell with another book, but I have pushed it away to focus on the current project. The other book is connected to the one I talked about here.

I’m trying to focus on writing something that is terrifying this year.

In other projects I didn’t do that until the second draft, but after discussing my writing with my wife(always my rock), she said I should go as dark and horrifying as possible. That’s something I’ve been afraid to do. Mostly out of fear of judgment. My wife told me, “Why care about what someone will say when they won’t read the actual book only the blurb?”

This changed my writing. I’m working on not only improving those things and the prose but shoveling those thoughts out with the trash.

I have a better grasp on my writing than I ever have before and avoiding shiny objects, not caring what people think and enjoying the whole process of writing, yes, even editing, is making me a better writer.

Anyway, have a good weekend and happy writing.

Changing direction.

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It’s become clear to me that my fiction writing and my blog writing should interact somehow. I’ve been working through how to do that in my head and came up with a solution.

I realized in order for them to interact, I should discuss what I’m working on, how I came to choose that project, and what my intent is for the project..i.e. publishing on Amazon, regular publishing, etc.

What I will not do it post excerpts from a work-in-progress(WiP). This causes too many issues with my work and how I maintain my writing schedule.

For the foreseeable future, I will be publishing blog articles Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I know this is a big change and will take time for me to get used to it, and it may change as I query novels during the summer.

For now, I will be publishing on those days. My writing will be focused on story, and not my daily life, for that, check out my Instagram.

On occasion, when I’m dealing with a recurrence of depression related issues, I will talk about them. I won’t hold that back, not ever. If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll understand my reasoning for that. For now, the blog will be focused on writing, with rare exceptions.

Happy writing and welcome to the blog.

Finding your voice.

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There is always talk about voice. But there isn’t a great description of what it is.

I’ll give it to you easier.

Voice is that part of your writing that is you. That little part that sounds only like you.

Here’s how I do it.

I only have the things I’ve experienced, the life I’ve lived and I pull from those things.

We each have the moments we’ve experienced in our lives. Each of us can only think like ourselves, with those thoughts, we’re able to find our voice.

When you think about how life was growing up, when you’re thinking about what that time you ate dinner at your friends house and their family interaction was vastly different from your own, those are the types of moments you should pull from.

The awesome thing is, you can write with that type of knowledge in every genre. Everyone gets uncomfortable at their friend’s house. All of have been there at some point. Use it.

How you perceive the world around you is different from how I do or anyone else. Use that perception and build your characters with it.

While building you’ll discover a voice that is authentic to only you.