Yes. I'm still here.

These are not new years resolutions, only the things I currently have planned, coinciding with starting a monthly news letter and email list. With the way Amazon, Facebook, and other platforms may change their policies over night and cut my exposure down in an instant, it only makes sense to create a more intimate source, a more individually captained source, for contact with people who might be interested in my fiction.

So, if you're interested, here's what I have planned:

A monthly newsletter updating the status of each of my projects, sharing personal successes in writing, running, and family life, probably sharing an absurd observation or two, and sharing a short story from one of my fictional environments which shouldn't be available elsewhere.

Projects I currently have going are:

The Price of Friendship (ebook). It is through edits. I'm working on the book cover and formatting. It should be out by the end of February 2019.

The Galactic Battle Base: Space Dust (ebook) It is also through edits, the cover is almost done, and it needs formatting. Also should be out by the end of February 2019.

The Pariah. Episodes 15-20 are ready to be recorded and released as podcast episodes. After that, they will be released as the fourth novella/chapter book. I'm editing Episodes 21-24. When they are recorded and released as podcast episodes, I will re edit the entire novel and then send it to an editor.

Shooting Stars 4 needs another major edit with another 10K words.

Next week I'm taking a day off from the day job to outline my short stories for my monthly new letters with the first news letter due out at the beginning of February.

Imposter Syndrome

I read a post on Twitter this morning where an author was describing how much of her was consumed various thoughts and actions. She mentioned something called, "Imposter Syndrome".

That's one of those things which keeps authors from finishing their books, or if they finish it, it keeps them from seeking out agents or publishers. I think the idea runs along the idea that, "I'm not really an author. I'm just faking it. I'm an imposter. So I don't deserve to finish the novel, or get published, because then, everyone would see what an imposter I really am."

I feel that myself. On the one hand, I believe that anyone has the right to write the requisite number of words as long as they meet the criteria of following a story arc which logically proceeds from beginning to end. They can then call themselves an author, writer, novelist, etc. A real one, too. 

I tell myself that all the time.

And still, I look for validation all the time. Sales and reviews of my books help me validate it. Though, if you know me personally, books sales have not been phenomenal. I somehow think that if sales had rocketed through the ceiling, I would feel much more validated. 

I work full time as an orthotist. I'm a good one. I'm creative and talented and many of my patients even like me.  But then, I feel like, if I'm an orthotist full time, then I'm only trying to be an author, writer, novelist part time, faking along the best I can until... 

I was running the projects through my mind that I currently have going, mentally trying to get a grip on what I should work on next. Here was the list I came up with:

The Pariah Podcast:
    The Intro and Episode 1 are recorded and in the can.
    Episodes 3 - 7 have been edited once.
    Episode 2 has been read out loud, re edited, and ready to record.
    I want the first 4 Eps in the can by the launch date of February 6th.
    I've decided to broaden the plot of The Pariah and will probably bring another 25K words into it. So I need to outline that and write those five episodes.

I need to make bookmarks of my books and podcast to hand out at a Comic Convention I'm going to and get them printed.

I committed to a website trying to serialize digital writing for a monthly subscription. I said I will serialize a Galactic Battle Base Novel and will need to have my first episode ready by March 31. Again, I would rather have the first four episodes ready, about 2500 words each to be release every two weeks.

The Galactic Battle Base is with the editor. I would like to release that in May. I need to do another edit, at least, and get cover art for the book.

I want to release "Shooting Stars 2" in the summer. So I need to do at least two full edits of that before sending it to the editor.

In the fall I want to release "The Price of Friendship 3" on Podiobooks.com. So that needs to be written, edited twice and recorded.

So, the realization which I had was that, while I may not believe the rest of the world should take me seriously as a writer, if I am to get all of this done on time, I need to take myself seriously as a writer.

Happy New Year

In the last quarter of 2013 I stepped up my writing career to a new level. I feel like I made some significant progress. Here are my four successes of that quarter:

1) Submitted a novel manuscript to a publisher. This was the major turning point for me. After five years of practicing it's time to start playing the game.

2) Purchased my dedicated website. If you are reading this, you're at my site. That's good.

3) In November I took my sixth Nanowrimo challenge. I've completed at least 50K words each year, but never really felt like I had a complete novel in that amount of time. This year I finished the story in 28 days with a total of 100,138 words. That was almost 3600 words a day.

4) I edited my 2011 Nano, "Fly Paper Boy: Coming of Age" before January 2014. That ended up with 93K words.

What I believe this shows is that I can create a rough draft in a short period of time. With this years Nano, I did outline heavily in October, but ended up only covering the first third of the plot in this novel. It also shows that I can take that rough draft and smooth it considerably in an equally short period of time.

Goals for the first quarter of 2014 are:

1) Edit "The Pariah" (2013 Nano)

2) Write a short story for Jeff Hite's new anthology about a magic portal beneath the kitchen sink. I'll look for the link.

3) Fine tune Fly Paper Boy for submission. It's currently out to several beta readers and I've asked them to read it and get back to me with in 30 days.

Other things on the back burners are outlining the second and third books for "Shooting Stars", outline for the final book of "The Price of Friendship", a first edit on "Human Magnetism", my Nano from 2012, and finally, the second book after "The Pariah".

That should be enough to keep me busy.

Norvaljoe