Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Impatience

(Note to the e-published: It's not actually necessary to check your sales stats every day. Or at all, ever, really. So don't do it. Take the various Dashboards out of your favorites and ignore them except for once every three months or so. Get back to writing.)

My theory of writing and, indeed, life is that if you do it enough, you'll eventually get better or you'll quit or, indeed, die. I intend to be as productive as possible. A major goal of mine is to have one-hundred short stories e-published ASAP, and since nowhere near all of my stories are even in the epub box, that means I've got to write at least two-hundred short stories.

It's doable! Once I get my brain in the right groove, I can knock out a short story in a day, know whether it's any good upon waking up, and if it's good proofread it the next day. I just need to keep that up for days on end. Or at least every weekend if I want to take the long view. I mean, c'mon: You throw enough stuff out there, and there'll be something for everybody.

Success will smile on you if you just let it roll free and proliferate. Just like nuclear weapons.



"What can we do to increase the destructive effect...?"

Get to it, writers.

Link
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Aww, she's reading in the park. It's been a long time since I've seen anybody sitting down and reading in public, besides newspapers. It's also been a long time since I've been to a proper park. Reading in the jungle is a different experience.  

(Note: I haven't actually read the eBook I've linked to there, this was just the first image that popped up on a search for "Smashwords" that wasn't the logo or dirty. It's free, though, for what it's worth.)

----
250 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
- - - -
Reading - ?

*116

4 comments:

  1. Great post. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Writing, writing, writing. That's all there is to it, really.

    How deep have you gone into "studying" indie publishing. I've been listening to some podcasts about marketing ... and I have to say, the ONE thing they DON'T talk about is WRITING THE NEXT BOOK.

    Huh?? I don't understand it myself.

    Maybe I need to write a blog post on it.

    One question (or challenge, really) -- Have you thought about writing a novella or novel?

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  2. I study indie publishing the same way I study any business: Do they know what they're talking about? Dean Wesley Smith, Kevin Anderson, J.A Konrath: They know what they're talking about. The two take-aways: 1.) They're, more or less, hybrid writers (that is, they do/did indie and traditional publishing). 2.) They Write the Next Book whilst selling the one they just wrote.

    As for your challenge, I'm all over it. I've got five book-length projects in progress, one of which is technically five novellas tied together with common characters. BUT...I really enjoy short stories, and I've come to terms with the fact that I'll probably always enjoy writing short stories more than books.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, checking stats (I haven't e-published, but just on my blogs) can be defeating. Best not to worry about it.

    You can really produce that quickly? I don't trust that it's good until I've let it stew for a while and then gone back to it. After a month, I always find things that make me say "what was I thinking?!"

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't listen to that little voice until after I've submitted the story, when it doesn't matter. If it's good, it'll sell. If not? I've got all these others, so it's not like I'm out of material.

    ReplyDelete

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