Focus

I've been reading some Napoleon Hill, and though my intent is not to get rich by writing, I am still finding ways to apply his points to my writing goals.  I said I was torn between trying for traditional route with Lab/Six and the self-publishing route.  Well, one key ingredient to success is to know exactly what you want.  I can't want both traditional and self-publishing.  That divides my desires.  That makes me the dog with two bones who ends up with none.  I have a hard enough time writing with allergies, overtime, stress, and enervation all eating away at my time; I can't spend my time worrying about what to do with this novel.

Enough is enough.

I want to see Lab/Six out there with the world.  I want to see a related duology out there too.  And I want to be in control of my "vision" of this interlocked series.  Therefore, I am going to self-publish and I my goal is to have all three in ebook form by Nov 1, just in time for a nanowrimo break and an anniversary celebration.  After all, these novels are all nanowrimo novels.  That would be easy, if all three were in the same condition as Lab/Six, which needs the least amount of editing work.  But Book One of the duo needs major surgery and Book Two needs rewritten.  Doesn't mean I'm going to say, "Impossible."  Instead, I'm saying, "Hell yeah, let's give it a go."

But there is more to success than a definite desire, a definite goal.  Another important ingredient is deciding what I am willing to sacrifice to see my desire come to fruition.

My first sacrifice is distraction.  I'm addicted to reading agent and publishing blogs, keeping up-to-date on the markets and the tastes of agents and publishers.  Well, no more.  I will stop reading them.  Self-publishing these novels will take up the entire year, at the least.  I do not have time to work on and research markets/agents for a "traditional route" novel and my self-pub trio.  Not this year.

Which leads me to my other sacrifice.  That vampire novel that I wanted to be my "traditional route" novel?  That I was hoping would hit before the trend grows sour?  That I wanted to work on at the same time as Lab/Six?  It will wait until January 2011. 

Final sacrifice?  I'm cutting back on my nonfiction.  Originally, I intended write three writing articles a week on my blog and submit four articles to outside venues every month.  Now it is just Motivational Monday posts and about two outside articles a month.  I would love to do more.  I would love to self-publish some writing article ebooks, but that is no longer a goal for this year.  Rather, that is pencilled in for 2011.  This is a year for fiction.  My fiction.  My way. 

These are the first steps toward success.  Though they may be small, they will lead me far.  I'll keep you updated on just how far in this blog.

Lab or Six

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet." 

--Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

I wish that were true with fiction.  As you can tell by the title of my post, I'm torn between two names for my fantasy novel.  Six or Labyrinth--Lab, for short.  Both would work for this novel . . . wouldn't they?

I could just be displacement at work.  I've started Lab/Six/Temporarily-Nameless novel again.  I've been going back to my old novels, novels that I still believe in, and decided instead of trunking them, I'm going to dust off those old dreams and release them.  . . .. but I'm still undecided whether or not to try the traditional publishing route with this novel or try a free-post/self-pub route.  There are reasons for both routes (suppressing the urge to open FrontPage and whip out a table showing those differences in nice tidy rows and columns).....The point is, I got lotsa words, lotsa thoughts on both sides of the issue, but I'm not getting anywhere on what to do with the novel once I am done.  When you don't know your destination, it is easy to get lost.  It's even easier to give up before you really get started.

I hate getting lost.

New Blog

This blog used to a be a part of my old blog

Why did I move?  The old blog felt too cluttered.  This way I can focus my fiction in one place, my writing tips and motivations in another place, and my somewhat personal writing experiments and my speech disorder blog elsewhere entirely.

I have copied over some old posts, but I hope to start new content before too long.  Thanks for your patience.

Contract Signed

Well, I did a little happy dance on the 3rd. After some email kerfuffles, Drollerie Press was in contact with me and sent me the contract to sign. Sent it back today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my email won't cause problems this time.

Serendipity

Don't you love serendipity? I'm one of those people that believe it is a sign, especially when it relates to writing and creativity.

My bee geisha story originally did not have bees in it, but the story idea started taking off in my imagination when I connected bees to it.

First off, the germ of this idea came from watching Memoirs of a Geisha far too many times. I wanted to write a story involving the same level of details into a cultural subset as the movie/book goes into with geishas. Anyway, that lead to me reviving an old idea about magical living tattoos. Presto, chango. I have combined the two.

The first real bit of serendipity came from an encounter with bees and some later knowledge about them. For some reason we are seeing an increase in bees where I live. In fact, they frequently land on me while I am lounging outside to the point I get fed up and go inside. Next, I read in a book on myths that bees were considered psychopomps in the Greek world--and since my book has one culture as Greek-inspired, the lightbulb went on. My psychopomps in my world for my Greek-like culture are bees. They aren't like butterflies, which are pretty. These hold a bit of apprehension instead, just what I need for my story. That is serendipity #1.

Serendipity #2 came from the fact I got in the mail a catalogue for Daedalus Books for the first time. Inside was this book, A Keeper of Bees: Notes on Hive and Home. Bees play a big role in my story since Serendipity #1 occurred. This book find was fortuitous, because I need research material on bees and I heard good reviews of this book. So, now it is on order.

Let's see how well my serendipity holds--and let's see if I can't find me a nice geisha book to go with it ;-)

One Who Sees

Well, I got some good news, and much needed it was. It looks like I got an acceptance with Drollerie Press on "The One Who Sees", my novelette. Check them out. The concept behind the publisher is great, and I love the covers.

Good News

A while back in '08, I posted I had a short story accepted at an anthology. Well, I heard an update today. The publication date the editors are shooting for is 2010, not 2009. Although it is a year later than I expected, that is still great news. So great even, that I am almost inspired to try my hand at some more short stories in the meantime :-)