Playing In Tune

Three years and two days have passed since I left my job.  Time has been both swift and slow as I reflect on that time.  Slow as in it seems like a long time ago and a different me who used to go to a day job.  Swift as in, where has the time gone and where are the other books I had planned to write by now?

And that dream of living off my writing hasn't happened yet.  Of course I'd need at least a few more books to make that possible.  Although to see other Indie writers, I've done pretty well with my one short book.  The downside to my success is that I've no idea how to replicate it.  All I did was tell family and friends and a couple years later, it has sold over a couple thousand copies.

Perhaps though, the advice to write the best book I can and to edit it until it screams (or I do) is the best advice of all.  And to have a good cover too because books are really judged by their covers or their thumbnails for ebooks.

And now, I'm taking my soon to be published book, India by Faith, chapter by chapter.  The feedback has been good so far with the overall story and content.  It's just the fine tuning that's taking place.

I remember when I thought I'd learn guitar and my dad showed me how to tune it.  It's actually fairly easy.  Get the first string to play a certain note, then press the next one and get it to match it.  Then press down the next and match that to the previous one.  And so on until it's all perfectly tuned.

So really, when one is fine tuning a book per say, first get it to match the right structure of a book.  Then take your thumbprint, press down and let it sing harmoniously against the original structure.  Open up the next chapter, press down and do it again until you've gone through the whole thing.

It sounds so simple.  But the pressing down with your own thumbprint part, that's a bit tricky.  However, once it's done, you're all set to go.  Just run your thumb down the pages and hear it sing and whisper.  It's ready now to be played and enjoyed.

Time To Write

Last night I got up from bed as I usually do, after my hubby was snoring.  Had a little snack and then suddenly, phrases of a story flitted through my mind.  I sat down in my chair to write it out and then looked at the spot on the couch where I usually sit and pray and night.  It was as if it invited me to come sit there and write instead.  And so I did.

I wrote and it kept flowing and in the end it was a complete essay.  Slightly stunned at what happened, I remembered why this blog is named, epbulishing by Night.  I do indeed write best late at night.  It has been awhile since I sat in the quiet of a late night hour and poured words onto the keyboard.

Perhaps the best writing does indeed come by night.  Or perhaps it was all in my brain, marinating for awhile until it was ready to come forth and it happened to be late at night.  All this to say, writing doesn't punch a time clock.  Oh there are writing jobs that punch a time clock.  But this art of writing often comes and goes on untidy time.

I read an article once about a writer who set his writing hours like a job.  He said that if he got up at 5am he was already hours ahead of other writers.  What if another writer stayed up until 2am the previous day, does that mean the morning person is behind?  And why does this matter, anyway?

What matters is that writing happens.  By all means, schedule a block of time and stick to it.  But also be aware that sometimes, that doesn't happen.  And sometimes, more happens.  Pay attention to the flow of your writing.  Are there certain hours or days that work better for you?  Then write at those times and protect them from distractions.  Why try to force yourself to be a morning writer when you write best in the afternoon or vice versa.  Most of all, just keep writing.

If you're curious, here's a snippet of what I wrote last night.


White Lily

On the first night that my mother held me in her arms, she said I called her “Uma,” and patted her face.  This was the first of many late nights with me.  I was used to sleeping when it was day and being active when it was night. So she held me close in a snug house on a wooded dirt road in a little town in the Midwest of the United States of America.  

She sat in the upstairs living room late at night with me; a room that was off limits except for special occasions.  Sometimes she would try to mold the back of my head into a normal round shape.  It had become flat from lying in a crib for most of my life which was eighteen months so far.  This wasn’t the first time she would try to mold the unmoldable of me into shape...

The Ups and Downs of Sales

I noticed something different in my stats last month.  No borrows were reported.  I thought that was odd since it had quite a few last month.  And then I realized, somewhere along the way, I had either not renewed it or had taken that option off.  I have no memory of this, so I'm probably not the best person at keeping track of my publishing options (there's a newsflash for you).

What I did see was a jump in sales.  This confirms my dilemma that I posted about in August about A Royalty Pain.  I've decided to no longer have Knitting by Faith in the lending library or any other program of that sort for now.  My last royalties were small with the "pennies for page" payout on the borrowed books.

And of course, once I decided on this, my book sales dropped.  But I'll let this play out for a month or two and see how it goes.  Someday when I have a nice back list, I'll have at least one book available for lending.  But in order to have a back list I need to get back into writing.

My September sabbatical was over yesterday.  I've gotten half the feedback back from my frienditors (friend editors).  Final editing will commence shortly.

Processing

On the Rimrocks

I woke up the other morning with a knitting pattern design in my head.  It all came pouring out like a line of writing.  Guess it's time to get that one down on paper.  I've been dreaming up a couple of them, both based on the sandstone cliffs in the area.  I'm surprised that I haven't found any knitting patterns out there already like this.

As for India by Faith, I haven't given it much thought.  It's out of sight, out of mind.  Early feedback is good so far, the rest should be in by the end of the month.  I'm enjoying the feeling of freedom in the afternoons.  I'm able to explore more of the area, sort through some boxes and clean up for the in-laws.  We're having our first house guests arrive shortly.

I'm not sure yet what the next book will be.  I have three options right now:

And There Was Much Rejoicing

Did you hear that?

Did you hear that?  That was the sound of my dog and I dancing around in the kitchen.  We're both so glad to be done editing India by Faith for now.  We have a whole month with no editing!  The manuscript has been sent off to my volunteer editors.  I've asked them to be done by the end of September and then I'll do final edits in October and publish in November.

There's such a euphoric relief in my heart right now.  This is the joy that comes of months of editing and angst.  I wish I could bottle it up and remind myself of how this bliss feels.  

And I have plans for my extra time now.  Lunches out, shopping, selling stuff online, cleaning....wait.  Since when was cleaning a good thing?  Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to the yarn shop and maybe the mall and have a lunch date on the phone with my Minnesota writing friend, Linda.  We've had a standing 1st Tuesday of the month lunch date and we're not letting 800 miles stop that.  

Time to get ready since hubby and I are going out to celebrate.  Even though we're doing $5.99 burgers at Applebee's with a $10 gift card, it's still fun.  I might even splurge for an Arnold Palmer and carmel pretzels for dessert.  Livin' it up in Billings!

How Not To Edit

How Not To Complete A Deadline for Book Editing

1. Spend a half hour in the morning looking at facebook
2. Make appointments and sort through papers
3. Take your dog to the dog park for an hour
4. Run all the errands you can think of on the way home
5. Have a snack and look at your email
6. Clean the house
7. Eat lunch and look online some more
8. Sit down and write, download some critique you've already received
9. Gloss over critique, get up and eat an orange with the dog
10. Sit down, open up the draft and then, oh wait - 
11. Check the smoke conditions for the area
12. Check to see if driving to Wyoming would be better than Montana this weekend
13. Remember to check on a local coupon book
14. Click on a link from the coupon site to home furniture
15. Return to facebook, then pinterest, then....
16. Growl at yourself and close down that browser window
17. Get a text from husband, reply, reply...
18. Find the papers you uncovered about your India trips in the paperwork this morning
19. Read through papers, realize there's nothing new to add to the book
20. Blog about how you haven't been editing

Ready Or Not

Wife: (a little angsty) do you really think anyone will want to read about my stories in India?
Husband: It doesn't matter.
Wife: Why?
Husband: Because you're almost done with the book.

6 Days until I'm done.  Ready or not, here I come!  You'd think I'd be editing like crazy and taking every spare moment.  But instead, I'm still pretty good at procrastinating.  I do make myself sit down for at least an hour at a time before I get too antsy.  Then I go and Konmari something or clean something.  Since when is cleaning a better option than writing?  That's so messed up.

Other people apparently have more faith in me than I do.  They keep asking when I'll be done, expecting that I'm just a busy editing bee at home.  In a way, I have been, more than usual.  But I know that I could do more.

It's that Other Self (OS) popping up again.  I think OS doesn't really think this book is worth finishing.  That once it's done, then the bad things will happen and no one will love it.  And then I'll realize that maybe writing isn't for me after all and I better get a day job and give up on my dreams.

In that scenario, it's so much better to be almost done and never finished.

Today I'm going to alert those who have volunteered to edit my book.  I'll let them know to expect it in their email box in a week.  My real self is ready to cut the apron strings on this baby and get on with something new.