Thank You!

First of all, let me thank all of you who purchased and reviewed Just Enough. There was an overwhelmingly positive response and I am so glad that you all enjoyed it. Also, thanks to everyone who contacted me with ideas for the blog. I have already decided that I will be incorporating some of them shortly.

Some of the questions I received were good, and I will be posting my answers here on the blog. So, if you emailed me a question and haven't heard back from me yet, stay tuned, your question will likely be the subject of a future blog post.

The most common question I received has been "When will your next story be available?" I am so honoured that you all liked the first one and are anxious for more. Rest assured that I am currently working on it in addition to the novel, and I will publish it as soon as it is finished and let you know when it is available.

Thank you, again, for all of your comments, questions and reviews. Keep them coming!

Testing the Water and a Cry for Help

As you know, I am nearing the completion of my novel. (Which I have decided to rename, but don't know to what quite yet.) I still haven't decided whether I will self-publish or go the traditional route, as there are pros and cons to each. So, as an experiment I put a short story up on Amazon's Kindle store as well as on Smashwords, mainly to see what the process would be like and how difficult it would be. I will save my evaluation of the process for another post, but it was definitely a learning experience.

For one thing, there are various rules you have to abide by for each company and different formats that they will accept. Some of it is pretty straight forward, others are a bit more complicated, but overall it's not that hard once you wade through all of the information. I put it up for .99¢. I went back and forth whether to offer it for free or not, but in the end, because of some of the rules involved, I decided to put it up for the lowest price allowed. I really don't think that it's too much for just a short story, even though some entire novels are the same price or free, but I guess we will see.

Now, while I certainly would love it if you would all go purchase it and leave me a glowing review exalting my abilities as a wordsmith, I just wouldn't feel right about that. Not for the ten of you who actually read this blog. (Something I hope to change, which we will talk about in a moment.) So, if you would like to read Just Enough, let me know and I will send you a link where you can download it for free from Smashwords (Something that I can't do with Amazon and one of their definite cons) or I will just send it to you if you don't want to sign up with Smashwords. Although, if you read ebooks, it's a pretty good site. You can download in several different formats if you don't have a Kindle.

So, send me a message (ljstep749 at gmail)or go to Amazon or Smashwords.
[EDIT: Okay, on second thought, responding to too many emails will enable me to procrastinate and not get any work done, so I will just post the coupon code for Smashwords here. At checkout enter: TU43K
Reviews are very welcome.]

Now, on to the next topic: this blog. I eventually hope for this blog to grow to have a large following of rabid fans, but I would like to see it be a little more interactive. First of all, being a writer is a lonely job and I could use the interaction. Second, I realize that in order to build the number of blog followers that I envision, I will need to take this blog in a direction that will appeal to more people. And I would like your help. I know that all of you are very talented in different areas. I won't call you out by name, but I know that several of you are writers, poets, songwriters, photographers, and painters. If you would like to showcase any of your work, (Yes, you do.) or even do a guest post, send it to me. (I will post it anonymously, if your too shy.)

Okay, now that we have all of that to think about, I will leave you to get back to work. As always, if you have any comments, criticisms, questions, complaints or ideas, I would love to hear them. Seriously.

Emerging From the Cave

Okay, so I'm back out of my cave and my eyes have adjusted to the light. (Sort of.) But I got a tremendous amount of work done, for me anyway.

My loving wife, seeing that I was in need of some "cave time", graciously arranged for the children to go to grandma's for the weekend, leaving me to do absolutely nothing but write, write, write, drink coffee, and write. Okay, I did read a little bit. (Shotgun Gravy By: Chuck Wendig ,if you're curious. And, yes, I recommend it)

As soon as everyone left the house I check the e-mail one last time then turned off the internet and TV and left it off until they got home. Three and a half days of nothing but writing. Can you imagine? (Yes, the animals survived, geez!) I accomplished several chapters of the novel and a 9500 word short that I hope to have edited and available by the beginning of next week.

All in all it was a great weekend, aside from missing everyone about 2 hours in and then there was an unfortunate mishap with some of my daughter's pink hair dye. (Don't ask.) I built up quite a bit of steam on the novel, and I hope to move on to the editing phase soon. I hope everyone had a great President's day weekend, or at least a decent one. Now, get back to work!

Supposably, I Am an Ass

Okay people, say this with me: SUP-POS-ED-LY. Great. You did it. Was that so hard? I don't know why this angers me so much. I just can't stand hearing someone say "supposably." This goes double for other writers. When I hear someone put a "b" (or worse, a "v") in supposedly, I immediately cringe and my respect for the person speaking drops several notches. Yes, yes, I realize that "supposably" is actually a real word, but I have yet to hear it used correctly in a conversation and probably never will.

I usually keep my mouth shut and suffer in silence, but yesterday I made the mistake of attempting to correct a friend who says it often. The only reason I corrected him is that I know that he is an intelligent person and I thought that he would be more open to constructive criticism of his speech. Possibly even welcome it. I was wrong. VERY wrong. I guess some people are just not equipped to handle criticism of any type. And this guy is a fellow writer! Too bad spell check doesn't work on your mouth.

Am I alone in this? Do you have any pet peeves with other people's speech? Do you correct them or do you let them go on in ignorance? I think this will be the last time that I attempt it even if they are a friend.