Quick and dirty update and weekly goals. 09/10/2011
 Word! First things first: I'm on Kindlegraph - if you want signed and inscribed copies of my eBooks A video review of Bad Juju: Vol. 2 - many thanks again to @meandersfit for taking the time do this. Writing-related stuff I managed to get done in the last week and a half:
This upcoming week's writing-related goals: 1 post - apocalypsehub.com 1 post - zerotorockstar.com Finish one of my many WIPs. That's right, finish it. I'm starting this sucker today - have the outline in front of me. Will let you know next week how it went. Oh yeah, school started this week so the time management skills is in fuel rocket mode right now. Woo!!! How's your week been? ****** If you like this post pls. take the time to Tweet RT, link back, send a link to someone who might like it, subscribe to my blog, sign up for the newsletter, leave a comment, etc. Add Comment One down, more to go. The never ending push to get that next project done. You're still buzzing from the completion of your last one. The confetti hasn't hit the floor yet and you're already itching to work on something else. It's gotta be some kind of illness, seriously. You know the moment when you type "The End" and you're feeling pretty bad-ass about yourself until you realize- I'm not done yet. There's rewrites, edits or send off to editor, formatting, proofreading, send off to beta readers, contact your reviewers, design the cover or pay someone to do it, another read-through for good measure then upload that baby up. I think I'm just now hitting my stride with my many roles as author, proofreader, format person and cover designer. I'm a control freak so I enjoy the process for the most part. Everyone's got their own way of doing things. I'm not so concerned about being everywhere. It doesn't seem to have any effect on sales and website traffic if I don't sign up for another site.Time spent futzing around sites is time not spent on writing and creating stuff. It's weird how my 3-4 mos. lag in between blog posts had little to no effect on my unique traffic. It actually went up - maybe it's because people are checking up on what I've been up to, which is always a good thing. The amount of time spent browsing my site also went up. Sales have been steady during that brief break as well - not bad for not spending a lot of time with social media sites. In saying that, here are my current online hangouts and why I use them (if I use the term "social media" one more time, I think I'm gonna vomit): Twitter: I love, love, love this one. It's like a chat room on steroids. It serves a dual purpose for me: 1) it allows me to stay current on what my fav writers/artists are up to. 2) it allows me to engage people in my world Facebook: I've actually been thinking about deleting this account with the exception of my Apocalypse Hub Page. The only reason I keep it is that not everyone on my writer page is in Twitter. Plus it's already up and running, might as well keep it. It makes it easier to post there with the Hootsuite client. Tumblr: I just signed up for this one. It serves as a repository for things that inspire me, things I find all over the web that I think is pretty interesting, as well as a place to dump some of my mobile photos. Goodreads: - Meh. I find the user experience still awkward at this site. It's a little frustrating - if someone can tell me how to combine my books that are under R. Van Saint plus the ones under Ro Van Saint, maybe it won't be so bad. Right now I just occasionally add books on it, not really very engaging at the moment. I don't even have a proper profile up yet. Anyway, I don't even remember where I was going with this post but whatevs. It's late and I've got the munchies. (Edit: I wrote the first draft of this post late night - 2 days ago) So I guess my point is to keep producing, keep writing, keep creating. Quit talking about it and just do something already then share it with the world. ********** If you like this post pls. take the time to Tweet RT, link back, send a link to someone who might like it, subscribe to my blog, sign up for the newsletter, leave a comment, etc. Punching letters (See ya 2010) 12/30/2010
 Everyone's doing a year in review retrospect kind of post in their blogs. I've got a lot of things rattling about up in this old noggin of mine so here goes... Where should I start? It's been a fast, dizzying ride around this obstacle course of a year. You know what it feels like? It feels like I've dodged some bullets and maneuvered through treacherous roads: falling boulders, sharp turns alongside cliffs (and you know how much I hate heights - It's not so much the actual fall, it's the abrupt stop at the end that gets you). Had I known the trip was going to resemble a stunt in one of those box-office action-adventure hits of the summer then I would've suited up appropriately, maybe even packed up some provisions. But life just don't play it that way - no heads up, no memos, no reminders, no forewarning, no tips, not even a friendly reminder to buckle up. Just BOOM! Before you know it, I'm engaged in what seems like a high velocity chase: steering past people, places, and scenarios. THAT'S the kind of pace I've had for most of 2010. It's always nice to see how far you've gone since the beginning of the year. Where you stumbled. Where you failed. Where you outperformed even your own expectations. If you're gonna do an end-of-year flashback, get the good and the bad in there. It's always good to reflect - a way of tracking your progress, to see where you need to improve on. I'm all for that. The good. I can honestly say that 2010 has been my most productive year writing. Ever. I've written a lot of short stories, started a couple of novellas/novels (which are still in progress), have a couple more ideas for books/comics/screenplay waiting in the wings, jumped in and messed around with a lot of new media just to get a feel for what works for me and what doesn't. Even started a second site that's closing in on its 100th post. The bad. I've started a lot of things that I didn't follow through on. My reasons for dropping it? It varies, really. It either didn't feel right, took too much of my time to produce, just wasn't fun anymore, or didn't have the potential for profit. So I trashed it. The ugly. Too much fucking drama. Just a lot of distractions. Personal and professional. A lot of it was beyond my control. Anybody that knows me well, knows that I despise that kind of thing. Who needs that shit? It goes against my grain. In summation: It was a rocky year but my accomplishments far outweighed anything negative that happened. What about you? So what now? Full speed ahead baby!!! I prefer to plan ahead and look forward to things to come. Take steps to get the ball rolling. No resolutions. Those things are bound to get broken, compromised, even forgotten. You know it. I know it. Yet people continue to make 'em. How about setting goals instead? Start with smaller, actionable, easy to achieve ones that build your confidence so you can crush the larger ones. Make it a year with less distractions and more focus. More action and less excuses. More confidence and less doubt. More storytelling. More interaction. Whatever it takes right? Whatever our goals may be. Since this, for the most part, is a site to chronicle my (mis)adventures in writing and making money off it, then I'm primarily addressing all of us who sit alone and spend an unhealthy amount of time sitting on our asses and staring at a screen, punching letters and hoping that the story unfolds the way we see it in our heads. I've roughly written out an editorial calendar of sorts for my writing. Specific dates for specific works. Looking at it right now looks like an impossible task especially since I'm going back to school. But I work well under pressure. At the end of 2011 even if I come up short with these self-imposed deadlines, I still win. As with any creative endeavor, it starts out with an idea. Then you break down how to get from point A to point B. Then you just do it. Here's to 2011. Let's make more signal and less noise. ********** Dear reader: If you dig what you've just read please help me build even a wider audience by spreading the word (via Twitter, Facebook, email), leaving a comment and joining my mailing list.  Dropping words like bombs. I covered a lot of bases on my last post and there's some very important points there that deserve its own dedicated post. So today I'll be chatting a bit about why choosing a topic is detrimental to not only your site but also keeping your own sanity. So let's flip this around. Say you're wasting time surfing the web, cruising the Twitter highway. A Tweet buddy puts up a link and you click on it. It takes you to the destination page - a landing page. You quickly give it a once over, scanning it like most people do. After a few seconds you realize you have absolutely no idea what kind of site it is you're looking at. If you're a patient kind of person you'd probably look around for some kind of clue as to what the site is about but most people would probably exit the site, never to return again. Why choosing a "unique badge" will help people remember you and keep your brain from exploding. Choosing a topic or a focus for your blog doesn't mean that's all you'll ever talk about. But your audience needs to be able to identify what your site is about without having them hunt down for it. Areas you can place your unique badge Banner. For example - - Author of YA zombie novels - The funny chef: cooking and telling jokes since 1995 - The beer brigade: We drink beer. Then we review it. If you can't decide what your "thing" is just yet or if you can't peg it down to one, you can whittle it down to a select few Kinda like what I did. Sidebar. In your about me or Welcome section. Just a few words to describe your site. Don't be vague, be as specific as you can. For example - - Welcome to my blog. This is where I write about what I'm doing to get back in shape. I'll be sharing my recipes, work-out regimen and daily progress. - Hello and welcome. This site will chronicle my life as I build an urban homestead. Title tags. Keep his short and to the point. Try to use keywords that will help you be found. These are things that get you indexed in search engines. Don't just put your URL either. And you shouldn't leave it blank at all. ******* Benefits from selecting your unique badge: It helps people identify and associate you with it. Retention improves with repetition. You want them to say "Hey, you're that guy who blogs about cupcakes." or "You're the B-movie blogger", or "You run that site about being an urban minimalist." You get the point. It helps you keep your focus on the content. If you're like me you get to be scatterbrained and want to blog about everything under the sun that strikes your fancy. Brain explosion!!! But trying to be everything all at once will make you an expert at nothing. Concentrate on a few things you're really excited about and build on your strengths. ******* Questions to ask when you're trying to decide what your blog focus should be about. - What is the one thing you want this site to be known for? - Who are you trying to reach? - How do you plan on getting people to notice? - What topics get you excited enough that you can talk about the subject and keep the level of intensity up? ******* Be an action figure. Do something. (Comments are closed for now instead you can do the following) 1. If you like this post, please share/recommend with others - email, Twitter, FB, Stumble, Digg, link from your site. 2. Or you can give me the warm and fuzzies by joining The Hooligans and subscribing to RSS. 3. Send me a quickie e-mail to say hello - let me know what your unique badge is for your site. Would love to check it out.  No, I'm not talking about dressing up like a G.I. Joe, a Ninja Turtle or a Power Ranger and kicking some supervillain ass. And I'm not talking about slipping on a spandex suit and running around with a cape either like these guys -  (hey, what you do in your own time is your business, I'm not judging).
It's about keeping the fire alive, the passion, that thing that keeps you working on your top secret project of revolutionary proportions when nobody but your significant other and your mom seems to give two bits about it. Everyone's got something that they're working on, creating. If not, maybe you should - it's good for you. These days it's so easy to start something, anything. The actual challenge is in following through. And that's really what I meant by Action Figure. Action Figure = Follow Through So how do you follow through? When you're dead tired from your day job, you get home and all you want to do is write/paint/compose/cook or whatever the hell it is that get's you excited. It takes discipline to stick to something especially when the speed in which modern life carries us is a dizzying pace. Surely there's people out there who are masters at juggling a 100 things in the speed of light then blog about it and still have time to eat dinner and watch a movie. Damned freaks.  First things first. {Interview} I have a live interview on June 25 @ Blog Talk Radio's Nadia Sahari Show scheduled 8pm CST with writer AR Braun. We'll be talking about our collaboration together among other things. Feel free to call in (347) 855-8333 {Panic in Year 2020: A Zombie Novel Episode 1: Prologue} My first ever podcast plus a bonus introductory screencast talking about it is posted here in my blog. I'll continue to post screencasts as part of my author platform. I think it's something different that I haven't seen a lot of writers use so I'm experimenting with it. As far as I know you saw it here first! {Fresh Fiction} I put up a new story over at the production journal called The Dead Don't Sleep. I promised all those who joined my Hooligan list that they would get exclusive content, and that includes stories. Here's a teaser for it: There are strange people in my house. They wear peculiar clothing and carry with them a variety of equipment. Black and silver boxes that buzz and hum softly. Some have small flashing lights. Some have glowing screens. Some emit a steady high-pitched noise that cause my ears discomfort. I was awakened by the noise of their caravan. A clunky steel box with beams of light shooting out from both ends. It was shortly after dusk, they entered my home with ease as if they had been here before. They walked from one room to another, each one carrying a small device with them. You can read the rest of the story by signing up. Method of Madness #1: How do you tackle your WIPs? Everyone's got their own pace, preference and method of working. I'm just curious to know how you go about it. At the moment I have 2 main projects. My serialized audio zombie novel and my short stories. I usually set up a writing schedule a week ahead. Evenings after work are often split up for both the book and whatever story I'm working on at the moment. Days off are usually saved for longer writing sessions. I usually spend 5-6 hours on a day off juggling both, sometimes bouncing from the novel to a shorter work - it keeps he material fresh for me that way. I prefer to batch similar tasks together. I have a white board that I use to jot down my to do list. I helps to visualize everything. That or write it down on post it notes and tack it up where I can see it. It's also easier to shuffle i around and reorder it this way. It looks something like this: Web -> Design = need font, stock image = update site, analyze traffic Offline = Work on chap. 2, edit story, rewrite blog post Podcast = record initial read, overdub, edit I don't always get it all done but I do make a significant progress when I apply this method. Your turn: Care to share any tricks/tips/techniques? Don't be shy, leave a comment.  This post is about where and how I come up with ideas for my short fiction and books in progress. These days I've been lucky to have a constant stream of ideas which I keep semi-organized in notebooks. The muse isn't taking credit for this one. Not this time. The back story: I fell into the trap of the whole writer's block bulls***t in the past. It's like Ray Bradbury said: writer's block is when your brain tells you "I don't like you anymore." Which is one of the reasons why I took a break from writing and submitting. I lost the love of/for writing because I put too much pressure on myself to make this deadline and submit to this anthology and so on and so forth. Writing had turned into a hassle, a chore I had to get done, instead of it being a way for me to tell the stories in my head. It wasn't all a negative experience, it opened up the doors for the freelancing design and illustration phase of my life. If I hadn't taken a break from my writing, I never would have landed any of the cool projects I was able to participate in. But anyway, that's for another blog post. The truth is, even during the writing hiatus, I continued to jot down ideas. Then slowly those turned into a couple of lines of prose, then a paragraph, then flash fiction, you get the gist of it. I rediscovered how to tell stories again. Not because I wanted to submit to an anthology, but because it was fun to see a story evolve. During this time I only shared my work to close friends and some family. Present time: And now I'm back on the wordsmith saddle again and I feel effing great. I write what I want and make it available for mass consumption. Either on Smashwords or my blog My first release Sid Valentine has been downloaded a total of 176 times. The first week alone it hit 100 downloads. Not bad for an initial release and minimal marketing effort from a currently unknown writer. I'm now sure how it works for everyone else but my ideas come from the strangest things. While there is no secret formula, if I had to make one up for myself it would be something like this: Formulas for R. Van Saint's brand of fiction Asking "what if" + asking "what the f**k?" + defy logic (always) = my ideas Be bold + experiment + break rules = my style Practical application for these are: 1. Jot anything of interest down. Names of people, places, words. If it sounds good to me, it gets written in the journal. 2. Staying hyper-aware of surroundings. I can be sitting here watching the food channel and something strikes a chord, which in turn becomes a new storyline (this actually happened). Even my commute to work has turned to be a good source for ideas. 3. Observing people. The people you meet, the ones you barely know, the ones you see on the train but never talk to. The things you hear (especially dialogue). What they wear, how they smell. Mannerisms. The ones you love and those you loathe. 4. Reading it out loud. Not sure about everyone else but I put everything I write through a test - it has to read well. Funny, because I don't even podcast (yet, soon though). I'm just particular about how sentences and words flow. This is a part of my final editing process. So there you have it kids, hope it gives you a bit of insight to how I roll. Feel free to toy around with your own formula as a response to my blog. ***** Today's post is inspired by an awesome chat yesterday via The Creative Alliance If you enjoyed this post please consider posting the link on your site, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace. Comments are always welcome! If you have an hour to spare, you can watch the vid below, it's where I got the Bradbury quote from.  So I've been thinking a lot lately about my personal time and how it's being spent. I'll be the first one to tell you that I use entirely too much of it watching movies and staring at a computer screen.
I wouldn't say it's wasted time since I love and enjoy watching films and reruns of old shows. It's the way I relax and de-stress. As for staring at the computer screen - 3/4 of the time I'm actually working on my businesses but you all know how distracting the internet can be. I've read my share of productivity tips from various blogs but it almost feels like you have to be some kind of a superhero to be able to perform these tasks and get a lot of stuff done. Propel Yourself Forward: 3 little things you can do today to train your brain how to accomplish more 07/21/2009
 No, I'm not saying you should literally propel yourself forward like the guy in the picture above. |
| Dark fiction writer |
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