Cue The Pointer Sisters!

"I'm so excited and I just can't hide it..." Yes, I have actually been singing today. (Now, aren't you glad that I'm not a video blogger? )

I have had a very exciting weekend, and the near future is looking pretty good, too. First of all, I finished my novel. Well, the first draft, anyway. Now it's on to the editing phase which I am told may take twice the time it took to write it, but that's okay. One step at a time. After editing, we can move on to submission.

Second, Nancy Allen was kind enough to review my short story, Just Enough, on her blog The Avid Reader. The story is really out of her preferred genre, but she read and reviewed it anyway. In some ways, getting such a positive review holds a little more weight when it comes from a reader who prefers a different type of story. Wouldn't you agree? So, go check out her blog and read her review of my story, as well as reviews of other good books.

Finally, I was chosen as the winner of the monthly book drawing for the month of February at Deidre Havrelock's blog, The Agent Challenge, and will be receiving the 2012 Guide to Literary Agents. Deidre has an awesome blog that is chock full of great information about finding an agent. Needless to say, I will be visiting her blog extensively over the next few months. (Additional news regarding this great blog in a future post, so stay tuned!)

So, that's all for now.  I have a lot of work to do, and I'm sure that you do, too. And if you don't, well, the least you can do is try to look busy so that the rest of us don't feel so bad.

Confidence and Support

I spent several hours last night putting together my new desk and chair. (See it there in the picture? Cool, huh?) Most of the problems that I ran into were my own fault, as I misread the directions. Okay, okay, I didn't read the directions at all until I realized something was wrong. Turns out they put just enough screws in the box to build the thing and they are not interchangeable. But, I finally managed to put it together and lovingly set up all of my stuff. Finally, I have a place that is set aside strictly for writing. To anyone else, this desk is just a desk. Nothing fancy about it, but to me it is much, much more.

In the past, I would hunch over my little net book and bang away at the keys in whatever room of the house was free of children, which was not always possible to find. Now, I have a desk, a chair, and a special place just for me to write in. I'm not sure how I can explain to you how special this is, unless you are a writer, then you already know.

It's not just about comfort, although I am sure that my back will feel much better writing here instead of bent over a comp in my lap on the couch. More importantly it has built my confidence. Why, you ask? Because it let's me know that my wife supports my work. Sure, she tells me all the time what a great writer I am, but every writer's family tells them that.  By buying  me the desk and helping me carve out my "office" area, she has given me concrete evidence that lets me know just how much she supports my writing.

How can a desk do this? Simple. Her actions tell me and everyone else that what I do is important. Important enough to warrant spending money  and rearranging our home. She could have gone on telling me that I was good enough and I would have gone on believing her (until the "I'm no good, this is all shit" feeling crept back up), but she showed me in a very real way that she's not just blowing smoke. She believes in me and supports the path that I have chosen, and that is much more valuable than any words of praise.

Do you ever lack confidence in your abilities? Who is there to support you in your endeavors and build your confidence up?

I Found My Agent, They Just Don't Know It Yet

I know. It sounds a little creepy, but I promise that I am not stalking anyone (yet). Even though I haven't completely ruled out self-publishing, I am leaning pretty hard toward not. I think I may want to continue to self-pub short stories, but when the novel is complete, I want to give it the best possible chance of succeeding and I am smart enough to know that I am too dumb to trust myself with that task. With that in mind, I used most of my daily "screw around" time to research agents and found my first pick.

Before you say anything, this is not the first time I researched them, so I didn't just randomly pick an agent. I know this agent will like my work, as it is similar to at least two of their other clients, and more importantly (to me anyway) is that their clients seem to love them. Is it wrong of me to be looking for agents when the book isn't even finished yet? Is that too cocky? Maybe. I don't think so. If nothing else, the power of positive thinking may help me out a bit. (I will be represented by agent X!) Plus, it gives me motivation. In my imaginary universe, this agent is waiting anxiously for my manuscript. Okay, so maybe that is a little much, but it works for me.

In other news, the response to my short story continues to overwhelm me. Thank you, again, for all of the encouraging comments. Especially thanks to everyone who pointed out the errors. (They have been corrected.) Of all of the articles and blogs that I have been reading lately dealing with Self-publishing, almost all of them emphasise editing, editing, editing. I knew this, but I guess I was so excited to get it out there and start the whole experiment that I only edited. I forgot the other two edits. Another lesson I had to learn the hard way. Why do I sometimes feel that the rules do not apply to me? Maybe that's a character flaw we should examine some other time.

Enough about me. What about you? Do you visualise your goals with lots of details (right down to who your agent will be) or is it just a general "I hope I get published someday" goal? Something in between, maybe?

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.