Series

The learning curve

/ catconnor / 2 Comments

This morning I was thinking about all the changes in the last 8 months. Some are good and definitely for the better, some sparked a steep learning curve, and the last one was an expensive lesson. Didn’t need that. At all.

Without going into detail: Lesson learnt and sometimes (professionally) change isn’t a good thing. Now I know exactly what I need to do for Vaporbyte next year, and I best start saving!

One of the other changes was a trackpad malfunction which has forced me to use a mouse again. This is not a good situation. Two weeks into this new hell and my wrist is more fucked than usual and now I remember why I made the switch to total trackpad use four years ago. 😦 Would be nice to get this trackpad sorted but it’s ridiculously expensive and I’d have to send my Mac away and I can’t work without my Mac. Catch 22 and then some.

Right now, I’m going over notes for todays writing group. And quite excited to meet the participants. It’s nice having a week day group. Hopefully this will help the next few weeks race and I’ll be in Perth before I know it.

Readers, I’m a bit over this ‘being apart’ bullshit because this is a long stretch and it’s no fun. The sooner we’re back together the better.

You know what would help cheer this author up and keep me motivated to move forward despite the stress of the last few months? Come on, I bet you do … yeah, see, you got it. Buy a book! 🙂

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Drinking coffee with Jimmy Buffet …

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Obviously not in person, but I’m drinking my coffee and listening to Jimmy Buffet on YouTube – so that’s close, right?

Don’t have much time for mucking around this morning. Got a rep rugby game to watch at 9. Grandson 2 is playing. Last time our surname was in an Upper Hutt rep team it was my brother and it was about 42 years ago

Yesterday was supposed to be a writing day – but for whatever reason it wasn’t. And that’s okay. Because, sometimes you need to take a moment. I learned a few years ago that I need to trust the process and trust my brain. (Who we call Brian brain because I can never spell brain the first time.)

Despite knowing exactly what was happening in the story I’m writing, and I thought I had a handle on the subsequent scenes … Brian had other ideas. Brian decided I needed to take a moment. Once upon a time I would’ve pushed on regardless … but I’ve learned a thing or two. And I know, the next scene will be a shit-ton better because I stepped back.

Sometimes writing is about not writing. Sometimes it’s about letting your subconscious do some work. Usually (for me) that’s because I didn’t see something than can change everything … 🙂

Anyway, when you’re writing (or doing anything creative) how often do you listen to your brain and take a minute?

It was Crashbyte …

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This morning I opened a file called ‘Crashbyte’ – that’s what Vaporbyte was always supposed to be called. Book 12: Crashbyte. Somewhere as I was following the story, (and it happened pretty fast – two chapters in) I realized Crashbyte wasn’t going to be book 12. It may not ever be an anything. That’s okay, it happens. I left the file and a few days later I saw an entire scene – nothing at all to do with the two chapters I’d written.

I started writing. I knew straightway it the beginning of something. By the third chapter I knew it was something called ‘Vaporbyte’. Great.

This morning I opened that other file, the Crashbyte one. As I read, a slow dawning occurred. By the time I’d finished I knew what I was looking at. It’s not a nothing at all. It’s part of Vaporbyte. It’s the other story thread.

Apparently I’m writing again. Need to catch up? Then, here …

Life versus writing

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Funny how things change. Used to be writing that was my happy place. Now it’s Perth. I have little time for writing and am struggling to find a reason to carve that time out. Finding writing time has been increasingly difficult for the last four years. The only real writing time I get is when I’m in Perth.

I’m too tired to go back to writing late at night and way too tired to get up earlier than I already do.

My days are spent helping other writers, that can be fun and rewarding, I guess. BUT I cannot write in the bookshop – not effectively. Some days I can, but mostly I cannot. Interruptions are rife. Now if they were interruptions because people were buying books, it’d be okay and worth it! But generally, they are not. They’re time consuming phone calls or people coming in asking for directions or browsing (but not buying) or in people calling in for help. Days like yesterday when it was probably a perfect writing day – our internet and phone were out. So, no writing. Hard to work when you work in the cloud and the internet is shitty. And it’s often shitty. Thanks for that Spark.

Smashwords store wide sale is on this month. Fantastic, right? Usually, yes. This time around. 12 days without a sale. I have no idea why or what is going on. The only thing that changed is Facebook pretty well suppressing all links to the outside world and not letting anyone ask for posts to be shared. But I don’t know if that is what made a difference.

I am tired of hearing how great my books are. If they were THAT great then sales would reflect that, right? And people would take two minutes and write a review on a platform that actually helps other people make a choice (and NOT post it on GOODREADS or AMAZON).

Or is it that everyone just tells me but not other people, because I’m accessible?

Sometimes it feels like Ellie is still a fucking secret? This is my 10th as a published author, for almost all of the 10 I was with the same publisher.

I don’t know what it is. I do know that it’s hard to generate sales without money and without sales there is no money (that goes for me personally and the bookshop). Catch 22.

If you have any ideas that do not involve ANY money, because neither the shop nor I have any. In fact, my stupid positive thinking means I have less now than I did before. Yeah, I had more 2 more titles printed for the shop – thinking they’d sell. AND I’ve got an editor to pay for a book that I’m wondering if I should even release. It’s a fabulous story but who will read it?

The same five people?

Well, hey, that’ll pay for the cost of printing! 🙂

July!!

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Hey, come here! Gotta tell you something.

It’s July.

That’s right, July, and that means the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is on now. There are some serious bargains to be had.

FYI the ENTIRE Byte Series is on sale – if you hop through the link you will notice that there are 11 books listed in the series (so far) that is because Snakebyte has now taken its rightful place as 5.0 BUT the site only accepts integers so it had to be 6 which has a flow on effect. We also have sale prices on the boxed sets. Remember the Boxed Sets have additional content. You get an extra story in each boxed set. In in-between Bytes category Dead Flowers is free, the others are already very very reasonable. [The in-between byte are stories for series fans who already know the characters.] Just a little note: Snakebyte was missed out of the boxed sets so it still needs to be purchased separately. Despite being a novella it is an important story and a vital part of the series. 🙂

Don’t daly! Now’s the perfect chance to get in there and meet Ellie or pick up the next book in the series. (You could probably get the whole series for two cups of coffee, not even joking.)

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you may have seen the 15 second videos created for each book in the series. There are more to come so keep an eye out!

xxx

Last Chance Train

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Blog title is a song from “100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong”.

You know what makes an author happy? Come on, you do. You got this … say it with me, “REVIEWS.” There ya go. I knew you had it. I would be ridiculously delighted if you’d leave a review of the Byte Books you’ve read – but especially ridiculously delighted if you left the review/s on Smashwords, Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble … pretty well anywhere that’s NOT Amazon or Goodreads. Why? Because most of my books are no longer available on Amazon and I don’t think “3rd party sellers” should be benefiting from my reviews. Thanks in advance for being cool about this.

In other news: I went home. I came back. That’s all I have to say about that.

I’m working on Crashbyte – and kinda feel like it might get a name change because of Cryptobyte. Do we want to C’s back to back? No we do not. So, I’ll be fossicking through my Byte list shortly looking for something suitable … meanwhile, I know where this story is headed location wise. Ellie is going home. Where is home? Where is she really from? If you’ve read the series so far, you’ll know, or maybe have enough information to guess. It’s going to be a fun book. I can feel it in my bones. There’s a few things my bones are good for 1) detecting weather changes and 2) knowing when a story is going to be fun to write.

EDITED TO ADD: Crashbyte is now known as Vaporbyte.

FYI it’s cold and building up to a storm this afternoon. So here’s a picture of Mahau, (where I was for the weekend).

Mahau Sound, Marlborough Sounds.

Read an eBook week!

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Smsahwords Read an eBook week is on now!

Here are the links you’ll need for the Byte Series books:

In-between bytes are mostly free this week.

Byte novels (including Qubyte) are 50% off.

Boxed sets are 50% off.  

That is exceptional value for money right there! Remember the Boxed Sets have an extra story each that you cannot get anywhere else, and those stories give a bit of insight into other things that have happened in the SSA Conway/Delta A timeline.

Get amongst this folks. These are some great deals!