Weekly goals

Oddly watching YouTube videos has inspired me. Time to start getting some habits made.

For the next 10 days (until the end of next week) I want to spend 5 min a day writing. It will take longer to get my laptop warmed up and open but I'm hoping small goals will make this easy.

I also want to add to that, reading 1 book every month. In high school I used to take out Stephan King novels in a week, I think I can make this work.

Now, this goal isn't about my blog, but about my novel. Posting these regularly have been a massive help and I look forward to keeping up with them this time.

Writers and day jobs

I was chatting with one of my writing friends and found out that as of a few days ago, he quit his day job and is writing full time. I got oddly excited at the thought, even though I have no plans of quitting my day job. I asked how long it took him to get there.

"10 years I've been writing." He answered.

I could feel my heart break.

As someone who has only recently come to the conclusion that writing is my thing, I knew it wouldn't happen overnight. On the other hand, I didn't realize that it would take so long either.

As of today I've been published for about 3 years now, and honestly even with all the progress that I have made, I don't feel like I am anywhere near where I should be.

My heart breaks again.

The numbers hurt, I won't lie. The months with .35 cent paychecks from book sales, hurts.

I keep going though. I do it for myself. For my readers. I do it for the LGBTQ persons who have not found their comfort yet.

I will write on.
I will continue my journey.

I'd Rather Be Writing

     I'd honestly rather be working on my current commission. I've been doing a lot of word sprints to kick out some decent progress on it. However, my brain has decided to fry because of the heat. It's just after one in the afternoon here and with the heat index it currently feels like 103. I'm not looking forward to going to my day job today, but such is life.

     Why am I writing this then instead of working? Because I at least wanted to get some sort of writing in. I'm also thinking about doing a new 30 day challenge. This next one might be to write a blog post every day. Maybe. Could be, or it could just be me working on more word sprints. Not to sure yet, but I would like to work on setting more goals.

Almost 10,000 Words

     While I haven't been as focused on my blog as much. To be honest, I haven't really had a lot to say. At least not about any of this kinda thing. Plenty of other ranting but I don't think you all want to hear about that. Anyway! I have been happily writing at least 1,000 words a day. I just passed day nine today and it feels so good to see those numbers. I mean about 90% of them are just trash and ramblings. Heck one day I even counted down the last ten words by just writing out said words. Sad, but I at least did it. I refused to shortchange myself.

   

1000 Words a Day

     Today starts a new project for me and I'm going to see how it goes. I'm going to write 1,000 words a day. I'm going to wake up and just write 1,000 words. No matter how I feel or what I am going to do otherwise. I was reading this article about how it inspired another author and how it helped with blog posts and what not. I'm hoping to find some of the same magic. I also hope that this will get me some more ideas for these posts as well as my novels. So here's to hoping.

A bit more about "Werewolf Wednesday"

I’ve recently had an idea, and we all know that never means anything good for my scheduling, but as always, I’m going to do it anyway. #werewolfwednesday happened to be trending on my twitter feed the other day and put two and two together. “Silver Mane is werewolves, and people like those. Why not move the release date of a werewolf series, to werewolf Wednesday? This won’t change much really, just moving it to Wednesday. This also gives me a bit more time to work on the newest post for “Silver Mane” and perhaps I can even squeeze in some editing on the project.

March Goals

     This one is a bit personal, but I feel like I need to write it down somewhere so that I can try to focus on it. Recently my life has been flipped upside down with the loss (not death) of a loved one. It's been very hard for me this past week or so while I try to get my life together without said dear person in my life. She was a great inspiration to me and it has for sure changed a lot of my work mentally. I've found it hard to write, and even some days just hard to function. When you live with someone for over six years, it's just odd once they are gone. Anyway, I need something to start getting me focused again.

     I want to read. I've been working on the same book for way to long now. Back in High School I could easily go through a 500+ page novel in maybe a week or two. It's taken me almost two months to get through "A Game of Thrones". So this month I want to get back to reading. That will also mean more book reviews for you guys!

     I want to publish. Sense I've gone back to working a normal "day job" my writing has suffered. I've gotten more written in the past two months that I have for half of last year, but I feel like it hasn't been enough. Yes I still want to focus on my series on here (Silver Mane) and I have a lot planned for it. I'm also starting up my Tumblr again, and I'm going to be putting a different series on there. I also want to get a few more novels out this year. Last year was 5, I want to at least match that this time.

    I want to keep writing. Above everything else in my life, I want to keep writing. Keep working towards my own personal goal.


     Current projects and status:
          Silver Mane- Book 1 is roughed and ready for editing. Book two is being worked on and ready for small chapter publishing on here.
          Tumblr series is fully mapped out ready for rough draft.
          Between Heaven and Hell is still being drafted, but at about 70% now.
          Another lesbian romance is still in planning stages and beginning draft work.
          Fantasy erotica- first draft 80% done.

February Update

     I just wanted to real quick toss together a small part of my progress so far this year. Mostly this is for my own good. It's meant to inspire me and to show me (and you) how much I have gotten done when I look back. February is almost over so two months in sounds like a good spot to gauge my progress and line up my hopes for how the rest of the year will go.

      "My hopes for this year. To write. To keep writing. To pour my heart onto the pages for you all to enjoy, but mostly to just get the voices out of my head. I do plan on redoing this blog. I want to shift my focus from just updates to more of a free web series. I will be testing the waters on this project over the next few weeks."

     I can for sure say that I have been writing. I have also been working very hard on this blog, not only keeping it updated regularly but I have kept up on my web-series. I've written well over 6,000 words already this year. That's a pretty decent number. I do however, believe that I can do better. I've also submitted a short story to a few magazines at this point. In the beginning of the year I had hoped to attempt to submit one every month no matter what. So far, I've reached that goal as well.

     I've also wanted to (for a few years now) keep a better handle on the books that I have read, even if I don't review them all. To be a great writer, I need to read. Good books, bad books, and everything in between to hone my talent. So I would like to also start keeping track of those. Perhaps even making a separate page on here for what books I have read. I can also just put up a quick list for my year start and attempt that with my next book. haha. I haven't read a lot so far this year. The first one took me forever because it was so painfully bad that I had to make myself read it. I did a silly thing and bought a book from the dollar store, only to realize it was in the middle of a series. (This may not have been the first time that I've done this.) It was just a poor book. Enjoyable in a few passing moments, but I'm not going to go out and buy the series. The other book is the one I am still working on (and painfully close to the end, I wish some books would go on forever, or that the next one would just appear on my doorstep) is the first book in The Game of Thrones. I'm truly enjoying that one, so I expect to post something more about it later.

     Overall, I feel like I am getting somewhere. I've been keeping up on this blog (a first!) and I've been working hard at starting marketing for my next novels as well. I have two planned for release this year and I still aiming for a few shorts as well. On top of the monthly submissions to magazines. I have a lot going on but I can handle it. While I didn't quit my day job, I did leave one to focus more on my current job, as well as my writing. I can really tell the difference in my work. 

     End note to future me: Great work me, keep doing what I'm doing. 
          ~Past me.

My best Writing Advice.

     Don't quit your day job. Trust me. I know it will be hard, but even just going down to part time will be better than quitting. It takes time and money to build your name as an author. Even if your first book is a hit, it will take time to write, edit, and perfect, all while getting your name out there. One self publishing author I spoke too said it took her three years to earn a wage.

     Do yourself a favor, keep your day job until the checks start coming in.

~Skadia

Leora’s mother opened the seal and read the letter. By the time she reached the end she was in full blown tears. -A Paladin She'll be. Skadia Trazon 

Finding Time to Write

     Some people want to write, other's just do it. There is no true excuse for why you don't write. I am guilty of this sometimes myself but then when I really look at myself, I realize I'm a lie.

     Now you might be saying "Hey now, I work and have kids, I don't have time to write!"

     Yes you do. Don't lie to me. You can only lie to yourself. Do things like that make it harder, yes, but not impossible. Okay so you have kids, writing at home is hard, I'm guessing they have a bed time. Tell them a story, lights out. Gather your thoughts for a bit and then get at least 20 minutes of writing in. I'm also guessing that they like to sleep in as long as they can. Get up just 20-30 minutes earlier, and right there you have almost an hour of writing (on average I can type almost 1,500+ words in that time easy).

     Now you say you work, I'll bet to support that family you work full time, normally that's an 8 hour day or more. Those normally come with a 30 minute lunch. Eat while you write and get another 300+ words done.

     So now, at the end of that busy week you can have a total of at least 3,000 words just by writing on that lunch break alone. If you ride a train or bus, you can even take that time to start mapping out your story with notes so that when you do have time to type,  you can just crank it out.

     Even if you only write one word a day, you are getting closer to finishing that book that you want to write. So no excuses, just take that first step and start writing!

~Skadia, the word pushing panther