Wed. Jan. 18, 2023: Trying to Move Past the Lethargy

image courtesy of David Mark via pixabay.com of a painting by Franz Winterhalter

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Waning Moon

Uranus Retrograde

Mercury goes Direct today

Rainy and cold

The week’s post is up on The Process Muse, and it’s about building the ensemble. It was hard to write, and it still wasn’t where I wanted it when I ran out of time. But it’s there. I have to finish the Ink-Dipped Advice post and get that up this morning.

Because it was sunny, once I got The Process Muse post up, I pulled myself together and did the errands: library drop-off/pickup, pharmacy, grocery store, liquor store. People were cheerful for a brief respite of sun in between storms, and soon after I got home, the sky darkened, and it began to rain again. I bought two small pots of primroses, which made me happy.

Home, got everything unpacked, realized I forgot to get potatoes and orange juice, so I guess I’ll be going out later this week again. Finished the book I’d been reading the previous day. It’s pleasing the writer’s fanbase, but it’s a little too formula for me, in spite of being a page turner. I respect what she’s done, but some of her other books have had a much stronger impact, both for pleasure and in engaging my emotions.

Turned around two scripts and some scoring. One is missing materials, so I can’t finish the coverage and submit until I get the missing material, or am told not to worry about it.

Did the social media rounds to promote Episode 51 of Legerdemain.

I’m spending less and less time on Twitter, because it just makes me sad. The feeds are all screwed up. I’m tired of people whining about the feeds being screwed up and demanding everyone else provide free administrative labor on their timelines. Do your own damn work. If you have “too many followers” to be able to deal with it, maybe you haven’t earned them. I have my hands full adminisrating my own feed. I’m not working on other people’s because they think they’re so important. There are also too many right-wing trolls. My time is better spent elsewhere.

I’m skipping spending time on Cohost until February, when I’ll put up, daily, the #28Prompt posts. And then I’ll probably stop spending any time there. Tried navigating Hive on my poor old tablet (which now has a cracked face) and it’s just so frustrating.

I did not work on any of the scripts, because everything else took too long. Nor did I draft on Legerdemain or adapt any of ANGEL HUNT. Which is frustrating. I was logy and frustrated all day.

Started the next book for review. The premise is interesting, but so far, I’m less than thrilled with the execution. Put it aside to read a book for fun, the second in a series by an author I like, and it’s fine, but I couldn’t concentrate at that point, because I was too tired.

Fell into bed, tired. Slept decently, but was busy in the Dreamscape, everything from attending a writer’s conference to redecorating a house, so I woke up tired. Well, Tessa and Charlotte woke me up, once the coffee started burbling.

Wrote a couple of pages in longhand on a project, and then came up with a working title for the piece whose outline I started (eleven pages’ worth) on Saturday. Went down a fun research rabbit hole about women writing speculative and science fiction in the so-called “golden age.”

We’re under all kinds of weather alerts today, it will switch between snow and rain, although we don’t get much accumulation until tomorrow, where 3-6 inches are predicted. I’m hoping I can sneak out between the switch tomorrow morning to get potatoes and orange juice.

Today, I have to shake off the lethargy and focus. I have a lot on the agenda, both for myself, and script coverages.

I’m glad Mercury is going direct today, but the transition day is always a slog for me. Plus, tomorrow is the day before dark moon, always a low energy day. Still, needs must, and I needs must get my act together and get to work.

Have a good one!

Wed. Jan. 11, 2023: Steady Progress

image courtesy of Piyapong Saydaung via pixabay.com

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Waning Moon

Uranus, Mars, Mercury Retrograde

Cloudy and cold

Over on The Process Muse today, I talk about “Getting Back on Track” with my writing.

With Mars stationary, preparing to go direct tomorrow, it’s like wading through molasses while furious. Not fun, and I constantly remind myself that reacting rather taking a breath and a step back is an unwise choice right now.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I did about 1K in longhand while at the laundromat. After breakfast/putting everything away, I drafted another episode of LEGERDEMAIN. A character who was supposed to be rather one-dimensional and start as a comic red herring is turning into someone more complicated. I guess that’s a good thing, fully developed characters are always a better choice, but I have to make sure this character still works, in the plot, the way I need him to.

I adapted another chapter of ANGEL HUNT into four episodes. I then “created” the story on Kindle Vella, uploaded the series logo and the blurb, and polished, uploaded, and scheduled the first 16 episodes, which gets me through St. Patrick’s Day in March. I updated the Episode Tracking Sheets as I went, to make sure I know what’s going out when. I wrote the episode log lines.

But the more I think about it, the stronger the instinct NOT to do episode-specific graphics. LEGERDEMAIN episodes drop on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with episode-specific graphics. ANGEL HUNT episodes will drop Wednesdays and Fridays. The series logo is striking. I’m worried that too many different graphics will get confusing to potential readers. The episodes are short, by intent. Few are over 1K words. The narrative drive of this piece is narrower, without the sprawl that makes all those LEGERDEMAIN graphics both necessary and fun.  Individual graphics don’t make sense, unless I was good enough to draw original art, or rich enough to commission an artist. The style of graphic that’s been working for LEGERDEMAIN won’t work for ANGEL HUNT, and, frankly, along with not having it in the budget to fairly pay an artist, I’ve left it too late to commission. I would like to get ahead on promotion, but Kindle Vella doesn’t give me the link until the story goes live on launch day. They really sabotage their authors, between not allowing gift cards used as tokens, or allowing authors to put tokens in giveaway packages, or allow authors to put the serials on their author pages. I don’t think BookBub allows the serials on their author pages either, which is annoying. I know it’s because Amazon wants authors to buy ads on the Amazon platform, but I mean, come on, give us some support over here.

At least for the first few months, I’m going to continue with episode-specific graphics for LEGERDEMAIN (along with increasing the general graphics, as I expand the website), but use a consistent graphic for ANGEL HUNT. It’ll give me a chance to compare promotional styles, although the two serials are a bit of apples and oranges.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted, with a blasting headache from it all.

I didn’t work on the script, although I was trying to figure out how to write myself out of this corner. Then, I realized, that I really don’t need to. This is a first draft, and I plan to cut the scene anyway in the next draft. I can make a note to that effect in the “Action” line and just move on. Duh.

I finished reading a book by a new-to-me author, recommended to me by an author colleague I like and respect. The book understands the genre and puts interesting twists on it, although I did manage to get ahead of the plot a few times, and had to wait for the characters to catch up. I like the writing. But then, a minor character used the term “witch” as a derogatory against other women, and I felt slapped in the face. This author, particularly, knows better. I was also a little thrown because the flap copy has incorrect character names. In other words, I’m on the fence about whether or not to read any other books by this particular author. I may try the first book of one of the other series, and see if I encounter the same type of issues.

No scripts in the queue, which has me worried, but I have books to review and will get on the stick about that. Plus contest entries, which I need to start. And I’m behind in reading the book for NYU’s virtual book club.

I did the social media rounds to promote the episode of LEGERDEMAIN that went live yesterday. I’m definitely seeing where I want to scale back on some of the platforms over the coming weeks.

An “offer” landed in my inbox to ghostwrite. $15 for 1500 words, minimum requirement 10 chapters per week (meaning 15,000 words). Yeah, no. Not worth it to work on someone else’s ideas for so little money. If I’m going to write 3K a day for someone else, it’s not going to be for a penny a word.

Slept reasonably well, woke up to coffee. Only got about 500 words done in longhand. I’d lost the thread of that particular story, getting wound up in the other stories on which I worked yesterday. By the time I got back into it, the time I had to work on it was up.

The morning plan is to take some Excedrin for my headache, draft another episode of Legerdemain, adapt another chapter of ANGEL HUNT to serial (it’s so weird, going from serial to chapter back to serial format), promote the new post on The Process Muse, work on my article, hopefully get some scripts in my queue, work on the next book for review, start contest entries. I’d like to work a little ahead on Process Muse and Ink-Dipped Advice, too, but that may get pushed off until the weekend.

Next week, I have to look at the short stories that do not have a home and the plays, and decide where to submit. I need everything out the door by early March (I will wait to start submissions until Mercury goes direct). I looked at my submission and pitch logs for 2022, and I was lax. Time to make up for it this year. If it’s not out there, it can’t find the right match.

What’s on your agenda today?

Thurs. Dec. 29, 2022: First Draft of THE TREES WHISPERED DEATH is Done!

image courtesy of Dom J via pexels.com

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Waxing Moon

Uranus, Mars, Mercury Retrograde

Partly sunny and mild

Finally, there’s a new post up over on Gratitude and Growth!

To say I am unhappy about a FOURTH Mercury Retrograde this year is an understatement. I need a full year with NO Mercury Retrogrades (yeah, I know that won’t happen).

I did some work on some of the websites yesterday morning. The Devon Ellington Work website is missing a bunch of material I’d uploaded over the past months, which is disturbing. I managed to add the Serials page and rearrange a few things that weren’t working. I need to take down and re-upload the slide show on the landing page. I did some fixes on other pages, but also have to add in more buy links, since additional markets opened for some of the releases. I did some work on the Legerdemain website, but not enough. I wrote the blurb for ANGEL HUNT, and came up with the logline, which I will add today.

When all that was done, I sat down and worked on THE TREES WHISPERED DEATH. By the end of the first 2K, I knew I was only a couple of chapters away from the end. So I kept going (thank you, Paula, for the encouragement along the way). I wrote a total of three chapters, around 6K, and finished this first draft. Phew! I made my goal of finishing the draft by the end of the year.

It came in just over 68K,which is a little low for this genre, but it leaves me room to layer in more period detail, integrate it better into the story, and maybe put in another red herring or two as I revise.

Now it can sit for two months, before I start working on revisions. Before I revise, I also have to spend some quality time in the library archives with newspapers from the months the book covers, for more color and detail. I’ll have to see, on the schedule, if I need to book library time the prior week, or if that’s part of the “start of revisions.” It will depend how the rest of the schedule shakes out.

I noodled with some ideas I’m playing with. There are a couple that seem viable, but until I write my way in for a few chapters, I can’t be sure.

I should have worked on downloading the rest of the software and getting the other Gmail accounts up and running again, but I didn’t. No doubt, with Mercury Retrograde again, they will be a PITA. I shouldn’t be forced into 2-factor authentications for email. It has nothing to do with “security” and everything about collecting and selling my information.

I received the next two books for review; I hope to get them done over this holiday weekend, so I can submit the reviews and invoice for this last bunch. Since I took the time off from script coverage (not that anything was even coming in), I want to be able to invoice for at least a little bit at the top of the month. I have bills, plus things like another Chewy order coming up.

Brainstormed a bunch of ideas for The Process Muse, Ink-Dipped Advice, and the Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions blog, so now it’s about sitting down and doing some batch writing this week and next week. I’d like to get a little ahead, in case of more technical difficulties.

I read THE FORTUNE TELLER by Gwendolyn Womack last night. Wow. That was an intense book. If you like tarot, old manuscripts, and adventure, it’s a good read. I’m going to track down and read her other books, too.

Up early this morning, to the glorious smell of freshly brewed coffee. It’s amazing how much that small indulgence improves the start of my day. Charlotte kept waking me up all night, wanting attention, so I don’t feel particularly well-rested.

I wrote early, a few pages in longhand, playing with one of my ideas. It’s going well (in spite of the pages written at the busy laundromat last week, which don’t really make sense). It was difficult to stop and switch my focus over to meditation group, but I did, and I’m glad I did. Charlotte was thrilled to be back up on Zoom again.

This morning, I’ll probably do a little more work in longhand, before doing some more work on LEGERDEMAIN and ANGEL HUNT. I also want to work on ahead on some posts for next week, typing up the answers to the GDR Questions for 2023, and posts for Ink-Dipped Advice and The Process Muse.

I also hope to have time to make some specific notes on another project I’m noodling. Basically, I’m noodling three (or is it four?) different projects to see which is viable and can be fitted into the schedule, as I work on the writing schedule for this year. There’s a lot I want to finish and get out the door, and I also have to leave room for new work, work that’s coming out of stasis, and new opportunities. As I get an idea of how everything is earning its keep, I can make decisions on how much and what kind of freelance work to take on month-to-month.

Instead of being a roadmap, this year’s plan is more like a big lake of writing, and then I need to see which rivers of words are the most viable on creative and financial levels, and put my energy there.

Mercury just went retrograde, and I’m already over it. I dread putting up the new printer, but I need it.

And I’m finished a bunch of admin work and clearing file space, so I can put AWAY the old year, and make room for the new, with all its opportunities. I dreaded the turn of the last year, much as I wanted 2021 to be over. I feel like the internal work I’ve done this year is getting ready to affect the external portions of my life in 2023, and for that, I am grateful. I’m still a little afraid to be hopeful, but I’m grateful.

Have a good one, my friends.