Wattpad, what’s that?

Picture by Shannon Hauser

I’ve been hearing a lot about Wattpad these days. Maybe it’s just because the latest blog I’ve followed has been posting about it, which has sparked my interest and got me looking deeper. Whatever the reason, it has been on my mind recently, and from what I gather, it is a social network for readers and writers. It seems you can read free stories that people have posted or you can post stories yourself and get feedback on them. This can be done one chapter at a time or as a complete story. It also seems you can get picked up by publishers if you have a large enough interest in your writing and at the very least you can build a following – as a writer this interests me. It could be a good tool to get feedback, gain new readers and build a bigger following on my Author platform. So I’d like to know if anyone that follows my blog has had any success with Wattpad that they would like to share? I’d be very interested in hearing all about it if you have. If you have a success story you’d like to share, please comment on this post with the details.

Wheresoever…

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”
― Confucius

Happenings in the Life of an Author – Part II

After the recent update on my current position, I thought I would recap on what I’ve been doing over the last 2 years leading up to this point. So here it is, so far I have:

• Joined a writers’ group and attended critique sessions on a regular basis
• Gained feedback on my novel and edited (again and again and again)
• Written and published a story in the anthology ’18’
• Presented a critique session with my writers’ group at the QLD Writers’ festival
• Set up a Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account
• Set up an Amazon Authors Page
• Set up a Goodreads account and posted book reviews
• Set up a Goodreads Author page
• Set up a WordPress blog and maintained a constant blogging presence to build my Author platform
• Set up a Facebook account as an Author
• Set up a Facebook Author Page
• Set up an e-mail account for myself as an Author (including a signature sign off with links to my social media)
• Created the back blurb for my novel

On top of all this, I’ve also researched:

• Formatting with HTML
• Marketing
• Writing techniques
• Story arcs
• Writing book reviews and much more

I’ve been holding off on getting an Employer ID Number (EIN) from the IRS which will prevent getting slugged with a high tax rate for sales in the US, but I will set this up before I publish.

And that’s pretty much it in a nut shell.

Happenings in the Life of an Author.

Things are looking up for me right now. I’ve finally managed to sell my cash-devouring 1996 Audi that cried “feed me more money or I’ll break down on your ass” every 2 months. I now lease a new car with all expenses included for the same cost as I was paying to maintain the old one (a much better deal, I think). The best news is that I have obtained an unconditional contract on the sale of my old house – Yay! because that is a massive relief. All I have to do now is shift the remaining junk from the old place before settlement and I can get my writing schedule back to normal.

And speaking of writing, I have more good news. Over the last few weekends, I have managed to get some writing done and I now have 5000 words for the short story that preludes my novel. I’m about two thirds of the way through and once it’s finished, I’ll concentrate on the novella that fills the gaps between the short story and the novel. As previously mentioned, I plan to publish all three pretty closely together. The marketing plan is to put the short story out for free, then release the novella, followed by the novel. I will also do a boxed set for all three at a discounted price. I’m considering making the novel available in the boxed set before it is available on its own, but I’m still thinking that through at the moment. I have the cover for my novel, but I still need to come up with one for the short story, the novella and the boxed set. I also need to format the lot for e-book publishing and possibly create templates for print copies. All this should happen early next year if I’m on schedule (but don’t hold your breath, it has been pushed back a few times already).  Oh, and I’ve also recently completed a short spec fiction story for an anthology scheduled to be published in 2016.

Brisbane Writers Festival 2015

Brisbane Writers Festival 2015.

This Makes Perfect Sense To Me!

This Makes Perfect Sense To Me! Felt like sharing this, I found it amusing 🙂

Book review: The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham

The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Dragon’s path follows four different characters along their journeys as war threatens to grip the land.

The Bad Stuff: Maybe I’m becoming a grumpy old codger, but I struggled to get through this book as the story switched between the four characters, again and again. While the characters were well developed, I wanted something more from the storyline and less head hopping would have made this a more enjoyable read for me.

The Good Stuff: The story was well written and I found most of the characters interesting. Marcus and Cithrin held my attention, but Cithrin was by far my favourite and I wanted to see more of her in this book. I think a lot of people will love this novel and maybe I just had my grumpy pants on when I read this one, because as I reflect on the content I find I remember more than I thought I would.

I enjoyed the prologue to this book and was expecting to enjoy the rest of it, unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations. I think that if the prologue had not been there, I wouldn’t have built up a preconception about what I was going to get from this book and I probably would have enjoyed it more. I’m only giving it 2 out of 5 golden bookmarks, at least until I take my grumpy pants off.

View all my reviews

Searching For My Mojo

“Image courtesy of Gualberto 107 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.

I missed my writers’ group today, though I have e-mailed the critiques that I completed to those who submitted this month. I seem to be finding it increasingly harder to focus on my writing at the moment, whether it be critiquing, writing, blogging or whatever. I spent hours staring at the words on my screen, trying to make them better. I should have been adding more words, but I couldn’t find them. After all the time I spent looking at the screen, I started making some changes here and there, and I think I finally understand the concept of ‘show, don’t tell.’ I mean, I thought I understood it before, but I’m sure the penny has finally dropped. I have to go and stare at the screen some more now, go over what I’ve written and make it even better. Maybe then I can add more words and finish what I’ve started. Maybe then I’ll get my mojo back.