A Writer's Break & A Book Giveaway

It’s been a long week, you know? I realize as I’m writing this it’s only Monday, but last week is sort of lapping over.  

 My newest digital release, Hawke’s Indians  is free on Kindle this week Monday through Wednesday Aug. 4 through 7.  Grab a copy, you know your Kindle needs feeding and if you have a minute, throw up a short review on Amazon. (No pressure though ). So I’ve been spending some time getting the word out about that including my book trailer that accompanies it.  

Two more books are in the pipeline to be released in digital edition over the summer.

Keep an eye out.  Oh, and poke around here to see the books already in digital format and available. 

Meanwhile I’ve been blogging away, for others and for myself. It’s a lot of words, especially when you’re supposed to be finishing writing another book at the same time. 

It was a week when I also finished a paying project not my own for a client and got the time to put together the info needed to submit a script for consideration. 

Now, not that I’m complaining, but I have a checklist on a spiral pad close to hand. I keep checking things off and, well, gladly adding things on the bottom. I like it like that, but well, I needed a break.

So I stumbled on the Giving Bunny project. I couldn’t resist. You don’t have to be handy with needle and thread, you can use glue, though I stitched mine.

The idea is you make these little bunnies and place then in tucked away locations to be discovered by somebody who’s day needs a bit of brightening.  So far I’ve turned two bunnies lose, one at a small local mall and another at a restaurant.

It made me smile to make them and think of their discovery so I hope some other folk will feel the same, grab the simple pattern from the website with the printable tags and get those bunnies out there! The person who finds it may feel all warm, fuzzy and sparkly inside, but they have no idea how sparkly it makes the anonymous giver feel. A wonderful break from 'real' work.

Have a great week – it’s back to work for me. Let me know if you decide to join the bunny brigade and where you leave one…

Life Lessons for Writers ...and Others

There are lessons that have been learned having been a writer over the course of years.  So, I thought I’d share some of them with fellow writers and at the same time give readers a glimpse into the writer’s life. 

Here’s the thing. A writing life is a great life. BUT, some additional planning needs to go in to it above and beyond what working at say an office or a store or another profession might require.  I mean, stuff happens. 

And, when it happens, you’re a self-employed indie with few resources other than the ones you’ve prepared and planned on.  If you’re ‘laid off’, i.e. can’t get a writing gig at the moment, you don’t have unemployment. You also no doubt don’t have health insurance. Some writers take the route of having an outside job for money as well as benefits, but if you are exclusively an Indie, welllll….. you need to plan for the down times. 

Save as much as you can. This can be tough because many Indie writers  whether published by major houses or self-published, live pretty much on subsistence level income. Keep a file on resources that can help such as organizations you might belong to that offer assistance for artists/writers in distress. Those same organizations such as The Freelancer’sUnion, The Author’s Guild (if you live in the right state and qualify to be in the Guild), Romance Writers of America and other writers’ and independent workers’ associations offer avenues to pursue health insurance at a cost you might actually be able to afford because in our country we don’t have the good sense to have universal health care available. Of course there are usually membership dues that have to be met, but not always.

Do you have family that might help out in an emergency? I wouldn’t make a habit of that, but in extremis, it’s good to know.  

Take your writing and yourself seriously. You’re not just a creative, you’re a business person. You’re going to have to learn to read contracts, negotiate and generally keep track of what’s going on in the industry (aka writing/publishing world). Yes you can have an agent who negotiates contracts for you, but I hope you aren’t reading those things blind and are actually taking time to understand the language. And that’s IF you have an agent. If you’re Indie to the bone, doing it all yourself, then  you’re going to have to learn or you’re really going to get shafted somewhere along the road. 

Another lesson I’ve learned is never throw any of my creative work away.  Rewriting a story written years earlier, one you just didn’t have the skill to do justice to at that time, can be an unexpected boon. And that doesn’t count cannibalization. Maybe that old story stinks, but some of the characters were great or the setting was perfect for a new story idea. Think about it, work with it. Don’t throw past work away, especially now that it can be saved on disc!

 Yet another lesson. Give your readers something to think about. Don’t give them all the answers. Now, by that I don’t mean leave your story hanging, but rather leave a little something behind that gets them to ask questions that might not have occurred before. Something to remember you by. Something that niggles enough that they want to read what you write next.