On Running Behind

I’m a lazy, lazy bum. Or, at least, I feel like a lazy, lazy bum.

The advice all writers are given, especially going into indie publishing is, “Just keep writing.” That’s not just to mean that you write forever and a day, but that you write, publish a book, then write some more.

I haven’t really been doing that. I feel like during the summer, I’m not myself. At least, not my productive self. All I want to do is head out into the sun, or clean my apartment. Thanks to two cats fighting over territory, it seems there’s always hair and kibble everywhere.

I need to start another mass edit of Death Mask, which was supposed to launch August 9th. There’s still a chance that it will launch on time. It’s a very slight chance, but still a chance.

I have almost a week in August off and I plan to write Fragments. This is the much waited for second book for the Daughters of the Alphas series. I thought that Masked Intentions received mixed reviews at best, but I keep getting questions on when the next book will be coming out, so…

When people ask for something, give it to them, especially if it was already on your to-do list. Just jump that sucker up some. Unless you were having issues for another reason.

I’ve fixed everything up so that I can edit at work. I’m so flipping pleased with myself. New tablet. Old one… uh… yeah, I could use it for writing if I was super patient.  But I couldn’t use it to edit or access pretty well anything except Facebook… ish. That’s the problem with that kind of tablet. Without the ability to install new tech, the thing became obsolete. And I think its company realized its mistake because the new ones can be upgraded.

In the meantime, the old one will sit to the side and gather dust but it’s still useful if necessary. I can breathe again, I can do my things again. I can touch a button and see all the things. Darn it, when I come on the new tablet, it’s like viewing the sites from a laptop instead of getting a mobile version that makes me pick up and shake the tablet in frustration.

I feel like I’m ready to get back to work. Like, maybe, I was a little burnt out from so many words so quickly, so much work while working the full-time job. Now the only problem is all those nifty ideas that I’ve had over the past year, that I haven’t gotten around to? They’re all arguing over which gets to go first.

Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns gets told that he has pretty well every illness possible? I feel like that almost. Except instead of diseases, it’s ideas and I’m the doctor and Mr. Burns is my muses humming and skipping away instead of listening to me and just fixing the problem.

I swear, if they toss me one more idea… I’ll… I’ll…

I have no idea what I can do to them that they wouldn’t enjoy. They were the ones giggling at the back of my mind as Mr. Wrightworth beat on someone ruthlessly.

On Paying Attention

When you publish through KDP, your books default in the list to the most recently changed at the top. You can change that, but I don’t know if it sticks between visits. I’ve never played with that, as the most recently modified is usually what I’m looking for.

Two days ago, Contract Broken appeared at the top of the list. I foolishly thought it was in preparation for it being removed from KDP Select, but no. 

That was it being removed from KDP Select.

Shoot.

Me doing arts and crafts, and Contract Broken could have been through the Smashword’s vetting process by now. I’ve now got that on my list of things to do at work today (on my breaks) so there goes my fifteen minutes of wandering the Internet and just taking a freaking break from all the things.

If I had been paying attention, like I should have been doing, I would have actually investigated the change instead of making an assumption. Know what I’m constantly trying to get people at work to do? That. Exactly what I didn’t do for my own book.

I feel like a bloody moron!

Ugh.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, the next chapter for Death Mask started playing through my head. That’s great news, fantastic news.

How does chapter ten end, exactly, brain? You know, the one we’re currently writing?

Still haven’t heard from the betas. Super uncomfortable about that. I’ll just be curled in the corner, rocking back and forth and muttering to myself about how it’s not a completely terrible book, someone will like it.