Backwards and Forwards

I have to admit that I feel that I’m working from behind lately. I can’t say that things have been going my way, and that’s hurt my motivation and drive. I suppose that these are the times where I have to really ask myself if I want to be a professionally published author and hope to make money from this endeavor, or continue working at a cubicle.

When I get home, I work on some combination of writing, editing, or marketing my works. Television is something I’ll watch as I eat, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not that compelled to just lounge around and watch television until I’m done with writing stuff. I feel regret and slothful the times that I do just sit around.

 If I’m not staying productive, I feel that if I’m not moving forward, then I’m moving backwards. I’ve gotten in the habit and schedule to focus on writing as a priority. I kind of wish that I had this type of drive and focus when I was still a student, but I suppose that it’s just part of the learning experience.
 

Disappointment and Podcasting

I have to admit that I am lacking motivation these days to working on anything writing whether it’s actual writing, editing, but especially marketing through my podcast. I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels in sending query letters, working on the Chris’s Storytelling Corner podcast, and not getting anything in return. The podcast is particularly infuriating because I get next to no subscribers on Youtube, and just a slow crawl of progression as far as followers on Soundcloud. It doesn’t help, and honestly just seems so bizarre, that I receive next to no comments on my podcast as well. One video has a couple hundred views, but oddly doesn’t have any comments, for example.

It's disappointing because of the idea that if you work on something hard enough, you’ll get some sort of progression. In my case though, especially when it comes to the podcast, I work on it regularly, but see hardly any positive results.

I have to seriously consider changing something entirely, or stopping the podcast altogether as it does take a good amount of my time. I like doing it, but without having any type of comments and not seeming to have any type of audience as I have no idea who is listening, it’s more and more coming across as a waste of time.
 

Urgency and Rejection

I’ve been sending out more query letters to literary agents as of late for The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom. I have felt this particular urgency to send more as of late. I did not always put sending query letters out as priority, but now I feel that I have to. 

With sending out more query letters, I have been receiving more rejections. I’ve received some positive feedback about my book even in rejection, which I appreciate, but it’s still disheartening to get rejected. Now, it’s just most constant rejection.

I have a spreadsheet showing my rejections. If I reach the goal and actually get professionally published, I’m going to be really proud of that spreadsheet. 
 

Retro and Today

I have this, what I feel, peculiar interest in retro things. I particularly like 80’s cartoons, Tin Tin, Peanuts and others forms of media. For one thing, they surprise with how much content they have that pertains more towards adults. For example, in some of the 80’s cartoons I watch, characters actually die.

Things back then just seem a bit more straightforward to me. These days, there’s a lot more style that at times takes precedent over substance. I recently watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and I felt that it was all style with very little substance. My writing though is pretty straightforward, which gets more to the destination or goal quicker, and leads to more action, but I have a hard time having my characters just stop and smell the roses.

That’s not to say that all things today are bad. I quite enjoy a lot of the media that’s being put out there from The Marvel Cinematic Universe to some of the television shows out there as well. 
 

Cleanliness and Tasks

I was told that there are two types of creative people – those who are really clean and those that aren’t. I fall into the category under those that aren’t. At work, I’m clean, and I make sure to keep the common rooms and bathrooms of my house clean, but my own room and car are very messy. 

Part of it is just time. I dedicate a good amount of my time to writing-related things when I’m not at my job like writing, editing, or working on Chris’s Storytelling Corner. It doesn’t have to be clean around me in order for me to do those things, and I know that others have to have a clean workspace in order to complete their tasks.

The other part is also just being a bachelor as well. In my view, the only one affected by this lack of cleanliness is me. If I were with someone, then that would change the dynamic. I’m cognizant though that it’s just good in general to keep things clean, and I’ll attempt to allocate time just for cleaning. 
 

Hurry and Sloth

I realize that I’m in such a hurry to complete this goal of being an author that I’m making mistakes on the way. It seems to be the way that life has taken me. I’ve suffered from sloth for a good amount of my life, that when I decided to actually live my life in productivity and take becoming an author seriously, I’ve rushed it. Because of that, I’ve gone back to The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom or my short stories and have had to re-edit them. I’m in such a hurry to make up for lost time that my work suffers.

The re-editing process has been a great learning experience for me. I’ve honestly had to edit so much out simply because I was repeating things. It’s surprising just how much is just not needed in the story. I’ve also filled in gaps in a sense where transitions from one sentence to another or paragraph to another have been so much smoother.

I’m playing catchup, pretty much in life and in the writing process, and I’m kind of paying for it. All in all, it’s better than living a life of sloth.
 

Choice and Self-Reflection

Trying to become an author has given me some self-reflection. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of choice as to whether I work on writing or not. Outside of sickness or something else, I choose whether or not I work on writing. There are no outside factors to blame. I choose to do it or I don’t.

I’ve made it a habit to work on writing for so much time of my day every day, and it’s a good thing. After work, I would time the amount of free time that I have left on the day, and how much time I would put to writing, working on the podcast, or editing. I used to prioritize putting more time into this extracurricular work instead of free time. Now, I’m giving myself more free time than I am doing this extracurricular work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still doing this work but not sacrificing as much of my free time to do so.

Relaxing and having free time as an adult is not always available. It’s a reward for working eight plus hours a day. One needs to relax a bit. However, I do the extracurricular work (writing, editing or working on the podcast) first then my free time and relaxing is even more satisfying.
 

Systems and Goals

I’m having a problem lately of comparing myself to others. It’s the whole missing the forest for the trees type thing with me. It seems that so many of my peers are getting married, getting new jobs, graduating for college, etc. Because of this, I’m getting so focused on the goal of becoming a published author, as I feel the need for some sort of achievement. However, I’m missing the journey.

At the end of the day, all I can really do is what’s reasonable and what I am capable of. Reaching the goal is something I’ve been striving to do, so maybe there’s anxiety and frustration in working a long time to reach the goal and not achieving it yet. As long as I’m working towards the goal and having a system to consistently work on it, I can only have faith that I’ll eventually reach something.
 

Hope and Slow Progress

I’m going to see how submitting queries to independent publishers will work out. I’m still going to try with literary agents, but it’s another option for me to get published. I’ve never even gotten to where a literary agent is asking for further material, so I am hopeful that this will lead to something.

I’m actually getting some level of growth with Chris’s Storytelling Corner on SoundCloud. For some reason though, there is next to no growth for it on YouTube. The little bit on YouTube that I do get actually leaves comments, but I get no comments on SoundCloud. On SoundCloud, my movie reviews get the most viewership, and my story readings getting the least. The strategy though for the movie reviews is to just get people to my channel, and hopefully, some of these people may listen to one of my story readings.

It’s been relatively slow as far as progress in reaching this goal is concerned. My time is allocated very specifically every day in order to achieve this goal. I can only hope and pray for the best.
 

Time and Limitations

Time has been something that is becoming increasingly valuable. Besides having a full-time job, I’m trying to become an author as well. Everything that I’m doing is on a schedule, so even losing an hour is a lot to me. 

This lack of time makes it so that I’m limited in what I can do to market my works. It would be very difficult for me, for example, to go to some sort of writing conference or convention to network. I feel relegated to doing stuff from home such as podcasts, forums, and whatnot. It’s still slow-going with Chris’s Storytelling Corner.

I actually have a very few amount of people, mainly on SoundCloud, liking the stuff that I’m doing, which entails reading parts of my novels and short stories, and manga reviews. I wish that this stuff would take off faster, but maybe this is a test of patience and perseverance. 

A Slow Start and Frustration

It’s been a slow start to this new podcast, and I am a bit frustrated. I am hopeful that having a consistent product with original content will eventually get something going. It’s difficult though because I don’t know how to even get people to know of my product and watch it. There’s going to be a bit of luck necessary to get something going.

It costs money to put podcasts on certain sites, and I haven’t even come close to making that money back through selling my works. I am really curious as to how successful self-published authors get a fanbase and make money. 

I don’t really have any other ideas outside of this. I can only hope for the best.

Re-branding and Promotion

I have just gone through a major rebranding as far as promotion and marketing of my work. It costs me some money, but I do like what I see. When progressing, it seems that the reset button needs to be pressed every once in a while. 

So, I have rebranded all my promotional material as far as reading my works online through Youtube, Podbean, Soundcloud, and doing manga reviews under “Chris’s Storytelling Corner.” I took some pictures and even added music. Consistency will be key, and I have material prepared ahead of time.

I don’t really know of any other way to promote my works that is feasible to me and my time. Every book is different though, from its genre to how its written, so I suppose that there isn’t any one particular way to promote and market. 

The Idea of "Making It" and Indifference

I’m catching myself thinking about “making it.” I keep hearing from those that did “make it,” whether it be authors, actors, etc. that people will come out of the woodwork and act like they were with that person from the beginning of their journey. I can count on my hand how many people are truly with me in this journey, and it’s not many. They will be getting a Thank You card though.

I wonder what it is about trying to reach a goal like becoming a published author. Many around me seem so indifferent to what I’m reaching for. I suppose that there’s no real reason to believe in me, and that results are what matter in the end.

This grind is difficult, and the achievements so far are few. There’s nothing exciting about what I’m doing and what I’m sacrificing to achieve this goal, so I can see why there are those that are indifferent.

Sacrifices and Rejection

I’ve more or less given up watching television during the weekdays in order to really get serious about writing. I feel good about this read-aloud edit and cannot wait to send out a more polished version of The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom to literary agents. Thankfully, I have dvr, so whatever I miss, I check out on the weekends.
I wonder about ever truly “making it” as an author. This whole journey has shown me that there are no overnight successes in things like this. How many actors/actresses that have made it faced rejection in auditions and whatnot? I have a whole Excel spreadsheet showing how many times I’ve been rejected by literary agents or didn’t place in short story contests. 
The good thing is that I can’t say that I particularly miss watching television. I’m watching stories unfold on a particular media, but now, I’m writing my own.

The Journey and Making Mistakes

I just got my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blue belt, and it was a long and arduous journey to get there. Mistakes were made, there was a lot of trial-and-error, risks were taking, and it was both physically and mentally draining at times. Sounds a lot like trying to become a published author.

The latest thing that that I discovered with writing was something to do with the editing process. I’ve read The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom, and tried to edit the grammatical errors sentence-by-sentence. However, when I read the first couple pages aloud as part of a free short story reading on my YouTube page, it just didn’t sound right.

When I did my initial edit, it was mainly to look for grammatical errors. Now, I’m doing a read aloud edit where I’m reading entire paragraphs to see how each sentence flows to the next sentence. I’ve taken out many sentences doing this, as I’ve found words and sentences that just didn’t need to be there. I even changed the names of some of the minor characters. There were times that I was trying to be too “cute” with what I was writing, like putting events out of order, but reading it aloud, that was not a good idea.

I’m actually regretting putting this out and sending it to literary agents. Lesson learned, I suppose, but I can’t imagine this journey without mistakes being made.  

Work Versus Passion

I’ve been very busy as of late. I’m everywhere doing MMA Predictions, Post Fight Analysis, and Q &A. I’m also starting to do manga reviews starting with the manga, Rave Master. Finally, I’m doing free readings of my short stories.

Besides YouTube, I’m now using SoundCloud, Twitter, Tumblr and have my own Author’s Page on Facebook. The plan is to be everywhere to build awareness for me as an author, and especially for my works. I’m pretty much doing this every day.

It’s gotten to the point where when I watch television, I’m on my laptop working on these things. At least it’s fun for me, so while I do consider it “work,” it is a “passion.”

Advertising and Marketing

I’m focusing a lot on advertising and marketing my books and short story collections. I found out that this whole time, I was asking the wrong questions. The question I asked was, “How can I market myself and my stories?” The problem is that I needed to narrow down the questions to make them more specific to the book that I wrote and what I’m trying to do.

It’s a tough thing to crack though. So much is done online, and I needed to download programs and learn how to use them. There’s also just how I want to approach certain ideas, and what resources that I can use to make these ideas happen.

I’ve tried to market The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom before, but in hindsight, I focuses my time and energy on the wrong things. I didn’t consider my audience at times, and I wasn’t aware of the resources that are available. I’m hopeful though in that I have some ideas and will implement them soon.

Self-Publishing

I just put The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom on Amazon.com. I really didn’t plan on self-publishing to this extent in hopes that I would be able to get a literary agent and eventually be published through traditional means. I’m still sending query letters out to literary agents, but I have only gotten rejections so far.

Right now, I’m struggling to find a sort of best practices for self-publishing. I have no idea how to get my name out there. Admittedly, it has been frustrating and discouraging getting rejections from literary agents and not feeling that I’m really moving forward with self-publishing. 

I’ll put a lot of content on Amazon like short story collections, The Land of the Wooden Statues, The Wilderness, and if I get around to finishing it this year, The Mustard Prince in the Beverage Kingdom. While I shouldn’t expect things to go quickly right from the start, I’d like to have some sort of gameplan as far as self-publishing goes moving forward.

Characters and Procrastination

I watched Captain America: Civil War the other day, and I thought it was very good. I like the characters, and I’ve always been drawn into characters more than plots. My writing tends to reflect being more character-driven than story-driven as well. I think of the protagonist and imagine what he does and write it down as my general approach to writing stories.

I realize that I keep changing my approach to doing things in regards to writing. For example, I was of the idea to send one query letter to a Literary Agent once every two weeks or so. Now, I think it’s a better idea to send them a bit more frequently. I also have a good amount of short stories completed, but I only submitted to one or two competitions a month. With those especially, instead of letting them sit and do nothing, it is just smarter to send them out to various competitions more frequently.

I actually didn’t finish a short story within a deadline for a short story competition. Procrastination has been my biggest enemy ever since I was in Kindergarten. I’ve been good about getting these stories done before their deadlines, but I waited too long for this one. Hopefully, I can finish the story and submit it somewhere.

Inspiration

I watched the movie, Rudy, the other day and decided to write a short story inspired by the movie. It’s for a short story contest, and I’ll try to make it twenty-five to thirty pages. I’ve been inconsistent with my writing as of late, so this will be a good way for me to get into the groove again.

Inspiration is a strange thing because you’ll never know where you’ll find it. I created a villain from reading about a drug dealer in a magazine and made characters from looking at condiments while eating lunch. With this new short story, I watched Rudy and wanted to create a medieval version of the story.

Eventually, I’d like to travel more. At the very least, it helps me create settings by visiting new places. It’s another way to find inspiration and get fresh ideas.