So, since last week's wackiness in the blogosphere and writing/reading/reviewing world, I've had to slowly pry myself away from the trainwreck fascination.
The internet can be such an incredible tool, yet such a time-suck. And for a newling like me (new to being an author on the internet, not being-on-the-internet. God, no. I've been an addict since before the web had images.), it's especially dangerous. So easy to procrastinate
screaming into the void writing by gawking and/or snarking at industry-related drama. Especially since the only deadlines I have at the moment are self-imposed. It's taken some practice to look at all that and say, "gee, it must be nice to have all that spare time. Well, gotta get back to work."
On a similar note, I kind of tilt my head and squint at this whole blog thing. Particularly the part where I'm posting something every Wednesday about writing, like I know what the fuck I'm doing and someone out there is actually interested in reading it. Am I just procrastinating some more? No, I have to remind myself that I am "building a platform." And no one expects me to be an expert. At least, they'd better not - they're in for a rude disappointment if they are!
In short, I don't fucking know, y'all. But I'm here, blogging this crap. And here's what's going on with me, the writer, CC Denham (or Christine, but I'm kind of diggin' the CC version of my name, to tell the truth):
-According to Kristen Lamb, and Idunno, probably some other people in the know out there, it takes a minimum of three books to get the ball rolling. I've got one completed, and it's a paltry short story. Okay, I'm not going to call it "paltry." It's steamy, sexy, sweet and not
that short, especially considering the price tag. (BTW, if I can help it, I will always price my works the way I buy. It's rare that I'm willing to spend more than $2 for something under 20k in wordcount.)
Point is, The Ball is definitely
not rolling in that context. Sure, I might have had my little moment of squee over my first 100 copies sold, but that's barely a drop in a huge bucket. And it's OKAY that the ball isn't rolling - it normally isn't at this point. But it's up to me to make it roll.
-I have a day job. One that's slow right now, but my husband also just got let go from his job, so I have to amp up my contract work and start pulling in more money.
Normally, one would use this as an excuse from writerly expectations. Not so, little pumpkins. I used to blaze through NaNoWriMo; there's no fucking excuse whatsoever for not getting some wordcount in every day. I have multiple WIPs - stories that haven't even been backburner'ed, but are still right here in front of me. At any given time, I have at least three Word documents open on my desktop. They will grow every day from here on out.
I'm thinking of getting a wordcount widget for those, actually. Not that they mean anything to anyone but me, but that's the point.
-I need to remember to read.
Seriously, I took probably a month or two off from reading any kind of fiction, because I couldn't find anything that grabbed me. What I've found is that when I stop reading, my writing slows down considerably. Granted, I was doing a lot of editing and formatting and blog-building and crap for those months, but you know what? The big boys and girls do all of that
and they keep writing. But back to the reading thing. We all know this - in order to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. Read outside your genre, blah blah blah yackity shmackity. Of course, I happen to
like my genre. But I also have some Max Barry to catch up on, and Wendig's
Blackbirds, and the rest of the Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson, and the second Kalix book by Martin Millar. To name a few. I love my e-reader, btw.
...Have I mentioned that I probably have ADD/ADHD? Yeah. What was I saying, again?
OH, now I remember.
I was going to just randomly wrap this all up with a "what I've done" list, because those "to-do" lists and resolutions and shit always get depressing and overwhelming.
-In the last week, dear readers, I have finally managed to get through the first-pass of revamping of the plot set-up for my BDSM novella. Now I'm working on filling out the smut. It's already got a lot of smut. But my writing beastie wanted to throttle me because I skipped over the hot male submission parts. Plus, if I don't fill that stuff in, it'll wind up a short-story instead of a novella, and I'd really like my readers to see more of the complex and plotty smuts that I'm doing.
-I also opened up my fairytale-retelling novella that I'd set aside a few months ago. That one's a romance more than erotic-romance so far. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's going to be fairly low on the smut-scale. I'm excited about it, though. Love the hero in it. He's got that kind of sexy-geek-growing-into-his-badass-trousers thing going on (either that, or I've been watching too much Primeval lately. Mmm. Connor.
-I kept up with blog posts, even though I still haven't built up a backlog (that'll be a project for this weekend, I think!).
-I started reading again. Currently gnawing on
The Breaker's Concubine by Ann Mayburn. *fans self*
Okay, then. Got all my "I"s and "me"s out of my system. Onward!
