I am quite envious of lots of people on the internet. I look at what they're doing and see so much happening and think, "If only I had the time, I might be able to get in on that or do something similar." I've really reduced the amount of time available for me and writing. I've never been very disciplined when it came to writing and it probably shows, but now I've really stretched myself thin. I'm taking two classes this semester. One is work related sort of in a subject I know nothing about and the other is for personal enrichment. I'm also still working full-time. Writing is unfortunately at the bottom of a very long to-do list, and I will admit, watching stuff on Hulu often trumps writing. I need my Eureka fix. I have been working on Unicorn Bait, but MAN that's taking a lot of editing. I thought I was editing it before when I was posting it but that was a joke. I'm rewriting so many scenes and am giving myself headaches on how to resolve plot holes that I'm about to throw my hands up in defeat.
Oh and I'm seeing the same type problems editing UB in Open Office as in MS Word which is weird. They aren't exactly the same display problems but definitely similar. I'm going to try working from a .txt file now to see if the problems persist. I think the story may be cursed, probably by Errilol.
I want to write. I want to create characters and have them do stuff and have fun, but I just don't seem to either have the time or the energy. I wish I'd win the lotto already. Too often I'm having to steal time, like I am now, to work on writing stuff. I should be going to sleep now, but I'm going to go open a story file and try writing a few hundred words. I hope I don't oversleep again. I may not like my job, but I do want to keep it.
If Only...
Writing Difficulties
I've uploaded a copy of Scary Mary for the Kinlde and like the iPad I have to charge .99 for it. It's still free on Smashwords so I'm worried that someone becomes annoyed that they purchased this book when it's free elsewhere. (I've sold a grand total of one copy.) I don't know if I should remove the Kindle version from Smashwords or not.
I've gotten my first review over at Smashwords. That's nice. The reviewer was very fair. I hope she comes to my website to read Stalking Shadows. I'm still seeing sluggishness at Smashwords. Right now, I can't get the site to load. Over 300 copies have been downloaded.
I'm very annoyed with Microsoft Word. It is making it nearly impossible to edit Unicorn Bait. The display goes wonky whenever I change anything. The cursor appears on different lines after I type something and lines repeat or disappear. It's maddening. It's all in the display. The lines don't actually repeat or disappear. They just appear to. It's very difficult to keep track of where I am or to keep any sort of flow going when I have to page up and down to refresh the screen. I've spent way too much time searching for a fix to the problem. I thought it was being caused by some images that were embedded in the text and removed all of them, but the problem persists. I'm downloading OpenOffice in the hopes it will treat me better. Scary Mary and Stalking Shadows don't have this problem in Word. I don't know if it's the length of the work that's causing it or not. Microsoft's website offered no help, only the chance to buy the latest version of the program.
Random Tidbits
Scary Mary has been downloaded 248 times from Smashwords since I posted it 2 weeks ago. It has been approved for the premium catalog, but it hasn't been uploaded to any other vendors yet. Considering my total lack of real promotion, I still think this is pretty good. A lot of people are taking a chance on my story. I hope they like it.
Haven't really been editing Unicorn Bait like I planned. I've been writing new stuff instead. Started a completely new story which I'm not sure will really do anything. I started it when I was feeling pretty down in the dumps so it's a depressing sucker, which is an unintentional pun if you know the story features vampires. Man, I really hate how mainstream vampires have become. The market is over saturated with them. I don't know why I'm bothering, but it's a story I can go to when I'm not feeling cheerful in the slightest. I've also been working on my superhero story a little. I need to work on The Shackled Witch, which is the story I plan to post next, but I ran out of steam on that one for a bit. Waiting for the charge to come back up on it.
I think I'd really like to get a netbook. I've been looking at them a little, and Woot.com isn't helping any by offering some at very low prices, but I can't decide if it's worth the expense. I have a laptop, which is what I'm using right now to type this, but it's old and heavy. I don't use it a lot. I weighed it today, and it's eight pounds. It's not very easy to lug around. I have an iTouch which I've tried writing on some, but it's useless for editing. I've actually been using a spiral notebook lately to write the new stuff. But then I'm going to have to sit down and transcribe it to computer and that's really annoying. I'll keep mulling it over I guess.
A Few Updates
Well, it appears the copy of Scary Mary has been removed from Wattpad. That's encouraging. I don't know if it was the member or the site admin that removed it. I think probably the site admin since my comments to the member were unanswered. I get the feeling she's no longer participating on the site. I don't know if I should go put it up on Wattpad or not. I don't really want to. Offering the story in multiple locations will just make managing responses difficult.
Scary Mary is still getting downloaded on Smashwords. I'm over 150 free downloads now. Still don't know if that's normal or not, but either way it's encouraging. It hasn't been approved yet for the premium catalog, but I did reload it over the weekend so that probably made it go to the back of the queue. Still no reviews of it, but it has only been a few days. I have noticed that the site is sluggish a lot and there were a few times where it would not load at all. That's a little frustrating, but so far, I'm pleased with the experience.
I don't know if Smashwords will offer Scary Mary through Amazon. They format it for the Kindle, but from a few things I've read, they haven't been able to upload items to Amazon for some time. I may have to go the direct route with Amazon, but like the iPad, Amazon requires a price of at least .99 to be listed. Still feel weird about offering it free one place and charging at another.
Pirated!
Well, I don't know if this means I've finally arrived, but I found an unauthorized copy of Scary Mary up online last night as I was searching for reviews of SM. It seems a young lady has put my story up at wattpad, which is funny b/c Lulu has just partnered with them and sent me an email saying how wonderful the site is. Didn't figure I'd already be on it...I've left comments for the user to kindly remove my story, but I think she may no longer be active on the site. I'm not upset per se, but I don't want to leave the story up like that. If I don't see any action in a few days, I'll pursue channels on the site to have the story removed.
My insistence that this copy be removed may seem strange b/c I do offer SM free here and now over at Smashwords, but I feel like I should have some control over where the story exists. I don't like the idea of people posting my story and getting feedback on it and generating attention for themselves. I want the attention. I'm greedy like that. We'll see what happens...
I posted what happened over at Web Fiction Guide to hear other authors take on the subject. Those that publish in .pdf form were much happier to see their stuff posted by others on download sites. I think the format of how something is published will determine an author's reaction when something like this happens. Well, the authors feelings on this will probably determine the format they publish in actually. I think its interesting the willingness some authors have in sharing their work. Sharing my writing has always been kind of nerve wracking for me, so their happiness with it being everywhere like that is sort of incomprehensible. I mean I get stage fright so their freeness is something sort of alien. Anyway, I set up some Google alerts for all my work to try and keep better track of stuff like this and not find out about is six months or more after the fact.
