That’s a good question. I’m miles away from being a full-time author, so the day job continues to consume much of my time. But, I have done some writer things. Since the last update, I have:
- Attended a Convention at the last minute
- Finished a short story for a contest submission
- Gotten “active” in social media for the first time in a few years
- Learned more about how I most effectively edit
Penguicon – the Convention:
Penguicon is a local convention that I had started attending the first year it started. It’s a different kind of convention than most – a mix of fandoms and creative types – with an emphasis on “makers.” It’s kind of cool. Even before the <redacted> shut down the world for two years, I had slowed my involvement, often just buying a pass and showing up to see friends on a Saturday evening. But, between being a new author and Penguicon super short on room nights and attendance to keep the con going, I dedicated a whole weekend. End result – saw friends, helped save a convention (a little bit), and sold a few books at the Writer’s Block. It was worth the time, but it did eat into my writing time.
The Writer’s Block was interesting. Instead of having individual author tables, they grabbed programming space and set up a table where any author who had registered with the con could put the books that they wrote (focus on makers, remember) up for sale. A single merchant account with a Square register had everyone’s books and the prices that the authors wanted to charge loaded into it. In exchange for a few shifts staffing the Block, an author’s books were on display and able to be sold without the author being present. There was no charge and no table fee to do this. The folks with the merchant account deducted the processing fee, collected sales tax, and should be sending the net sales out along with the collected sales tax out this week.
The Short Story:
I’m afraid that I can’t talk about the story itself much because there’s a small, but not negligible possibility that one of judges for the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award may read this. I don’t want to disqualify them from judging my story or sabotage my chances. I’ll have to keep quiet for the next couple of months, but I really like this one.
One of the things that I’ve been learning in this journey of mine is how important community is. My friend and author, Monalisa Foster, was one of several individuals who gave my story a read ahead of time. She took the extra time to point out some things that, when fixed, made for a much more polished submission. I am not relying on this sort of deep review from her, or anyone going forward, but it’s a great example of why you need to maintain and grow your network. Pay it forward, pay it back… be kind and build up others.
Gotten “Active” on Social Media:
Following advice from the books on writing and getting published that I’ve been reading, I’ve dipped my toes back into Social Media. What does this mean? I’ve started posting again on Facebook and created an Author account there. It can be a tremendous time sink and I’m carefully managing my time and efforts there, with a focus on keeping engagement with my friends and potential readers. I’ve also recreated a Twitter account. And, unlike my first account, I have actually started engaging people. I have followed and am being followed to a much greater extent than before. My last account consisted of a single tweet over several years of the account being active.
“I have more Twitter followers than Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Ghengis Khan combined.”
There’s a balance here, staying active and engaged without it taking time from the more important things in life. Like writing more stuff for you to read.
I may have mentioned before… if not here, then definitely in other forums… that I need to get out of the house to be really effective at creative writing. Too many distractions at home and I spend 8-10 hours a day, every weekday, working from home. I need the physical disconnect, different space, etc. in order to be creative.
That’s exactly the opposite of what I need to effectively edit. I spent four hours doing what I thought was a final editing pass at my Friday Night Writes hangout.
Fortunately, I took some time Saturday afternoon to do a “last minute” pass before submission when I was at home. My time the night before was largely wasted and it took me just as much time to re-edit everything as I had spent the night before. Lesson: Creative space is not the space I need for editing.
Well, I never stop reading for one.
As predicted, Larry and Steve’s Servants of War was amazing. I’m still going through the third book in the Author Fundamentals series by Chris Kennedy Publishing. Kevin Steverson’s Salvage Fleet book (book 2 in the series) was a fun ride.
Talons and Talismans is a bittersweet read for me. I apparently just missed the cut with a story submission for the two book anthology (tons of great stories in there). Even without my contribution, it’s a great read.
Up next for me is one of my favorite authors, Joel Shepherd, with the eighth book in the Spiral Wars series, Ceephay Queen. I can’t wait to dive into it. The first book in this series, that I can’t recommend highly enough, is called Renegade. Start there!
As far as writing goes, I’ll be getting back to my science fiction novel WIP this week.
And now, I leave you with a picture of a kitten, guarding my books. Peanut is more likely to run from you than to attack, but he at least pretends to be fierce.
Nathan Balyeat 