July in Review
Aug. 7th, 2015 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynHealth/Fitness
I cut back very slightly on junk food consumption. Most of that cutback was undone this week, 'cause I keep eating ice cream in the evenings. Ah well. Still biking lots, although I haven't done any long trips because the heat is killer.
Writing
I wrote a new story! "Inconceivable", which is about Wisteria, Justin, and Nikola and takes place after the end of A Rational Arrangement. I didn't quite start-and-finish it in July: I wrote the outline in early July, started the story on July 9, and finished the first draft on August 2. It's 17,455 words at present, just shy of novella length. Anyway, that's a pretty good clip by my usual standards. I am pleased.
The Business of Writing
The "all the details on self-pub sales" post covered my July activities on the business side pretty well. July was more about writing than the business of writing, though. This both pleases me and makes me feel a bit like a slacker. I think "feeling like a slacker" is my default state, however. Whatever I'm doing, I'm not doing enough of something else. Possibly the biggest downside to "I always feel like I'm lazy" is that there's not much differentiation in how I felt day-to-day whether I got a lot of stuff done or almost nothing. I was clearly slacking either way!
Anyway. On the business end, I decided to prioritize putting out a collection of Paradise stories, which means writing more of them. I've got two novelette-length ones now, and an outline for what'll probably be a novella. I may or may not write a fourth story to add to the collection; depends how long it is overall after the third. Once the stories are all drafted, I'll revise/edit/polish them. All of these steps will take longer than I want them to. It'd be cool if I could finish the draft for the new story in August, though.
I did not do a lot of promotional work for RA after the initial launch post/tweets. But I did write up a new scene to use in a promotional post on Angela Highland's blog.
Can I just say how freakishly weird it is that the "Business of Writing" section of these posts is no longer a joke? I mean, I know I've been pretending for a while now that I was going to do something professional-ish with my writing, but I truly did not expect it to work out. I've had "make money at writing" as a goal for most of my life. After 30 years of dreaming about it, it felt like one of those things that couldn't ever happen. Something I'd been saying I'd pursue for so long that I figured if I was actually going to go for it I would've by now.
But. Uh. I did.
SO WEIRD.
Art/Other
I wrote in July. I did not art. At all. It's a good thing I have a lot of buffer on the headers. I've got another three weeks of buffer left, so I am going to have to get back to the illustrating thing this month.
Gaming
I've been playing ARK: Survival Evolved with Lut. "Playing with" in this case is rather different from what it means in an MMO. Instead of going out and killing stuff together, I mostly stay at the home base and putter around my garden and feed the dinosaur herd and occasionally gather stuff. We work on shared goals together (like expanding the base and building bigger/better pens). It's pretty fun and low-key, and works fine in short doses.
Socializing
Outside of online and Lut, I saw Corwyn once in July when he took me to the store. I are an introvert. Yikes.
Happiness
Between sales of A Rational Arrangement vastly exceeding my expectations, and writing a new story, I spent most of July in a joyful daze. August has been more down-to-earth so far.
I cut back very slightly on junk food consumption. Most of that cutback was undone this week, 'cause I keep eating ice cream in the evenings. Ah well. Still biking lots, although I haven't done any long trips because the heat is killer.
Writing
I wrote a new story! "Inconceivable", which is about Wisteria, Justin, and Nikola and takes place after the end of A Rational Arrangement. I didn't quite start-and-finish it in July: I wrote the outline in early July, started the story on July 9, and finished the first draft on August 2. It's 17,455 words at present, just shy of novella length. Anyway, that's a pretty good clip by my usual standards. I am pleased.
The Business of Writing
The "all the details on self-pub sales" post covered my July activities on the business side pretty well. July was more about writing than the business of writing, though. This both pleases me and makes me feel a bit like a slacker. I think "feeling like a slacker" is my default state, however. Whatever I'm doing, I'm not doing enough of something else. Possibly the biggest downside to "I always feel like I'm lazy" is that there's not much differentiation in how I felt day-to-day whether I got a lot of stuff done or almost nothing. I was clearly slacking either way!
Anyway. On the business end, I decided to prioritize putting out a collection of Paradise stories, which means writing more of them. I've got two novelette-length ones now, and an outline for what'll probably be a novella. I may or may not write a fourth story to add to the collection; depends how long it is overall after the third. Once the stories are all drafted, I'll revise/edit/polish them. All of these steps will take longer than I want them to. It'd be cool if I could finish the draft for the new story in August, though.
I did not do a lot of promotional work for RA after the initial launch post/tweets. But I did write up a new scene to use in a promotional post on Angela Highland's blog.
Can I just say how freakishly weird it is that the "Business of Writing" section of these posts is no longer a joke? I mean, I know I've been pretending for a while now that I was going to do something professional-ish with my writing, but I truly did not expect it to work out. I've had "make money at writing" as a goal for most of my life. After 30 years of dreaming about it, it felt like one of those things that couldn't ever happen. Something I'd been saying I'd pursue for so long that I figured if I was actually going to go for it I would've by now.
But. Uh. I did.
SO WEIRD.
Art/Other
I wrote in July. I did not art. At all. It's a good thing I have a lot of buffer on the headers. I've got another three weeks of buffer left, so I am going to have to get back to the illustrating thing this month.
Gaming
I've been playing ARK: Survival Evolved with Lut. "Playing with" in this case is rather different from what it means in an MMO. Instead of going out and killing stuff together, I mostly stay at the home base and putter around my garden and feed the dinosaur herd and occasionally gather stuff. We work on shared goals together (like expanding the base and building bigger/better pens). It's pretty fun and low-key, and works fine in short doses.
Socializing
Outside of online and Lut, I saw Corwyn once in July when he took me to the store. I are an introvert. Yikes.
Happiness
Between sales of A Rational Arrangement vastly exceeding my expectations, and writing a new story, I spent most of July in a joyful daze. August has been more down-to-earth so far.
