I’m taking the dive into self publishing. I got myself set up with a pseudonym earlier this year and I have been reading books on self-publishing like a fucking nut. I picked a genre and I got a website and I got accounts with all the right places and I’m about 60% done with my short story.
Holy cat balls, Batman, just 60% with a short story? What the fuck is wrong with me?
Well, lots of things, but not this. I wrote several stories (see all the badass shit on this blog!) but I felt they weren’t good enough to sell at $2.99 at 1000 words. I want to give some more value and amp that bitch up to 6000-8000 words. That’s actually a bit longer than the genre demands, but when I write, I do some stuff, like, you know, shit that happens and the sub-plots weave into the main plot and I need room to develop characters so you believe their motivations and actions and all that malarkey.
I worked “malarkey” into that paragraph to see if you’re still paying attention or if I lost you already. You’re such a fucker.
But, back to the point, I’ve got the thing plotted, I’ve got characters with backgrounds rich enough for me to get into their heads and really believe their motivations, and I’ve got 60% of it written. Well, about 2/3, so that’s 66.6666% if you’re the type, and I am, so let’s leave it at that. You’re so pushy.
I think it’s a huge accomplishment. I want to have it up on Amazon before Thanksgiving. I’m feeling some pressure but, fuck my ass, it’s NaNoWriMo so why the fuck not? What better time?
You know what THEY say (and you should always be wary of a nebulous formation of people) – THEY say that you should just write and get it out there. Lather, rinse, repeat. So that’s what I’m going to do. If it sucks, well, at least I did more than 90% of you bitches ever did, so there’s that. I’m better than the 20 readers of this blog, lulz.
The deets… using Scrivener for Windows, which lacks a bunch of features, fuck you very much, Literature and Latte. Using that really slowed me down but the actual creation of the .mobi for Amazon will be much faster in future writing because I’ll have gotten all the niggling little doodads beat into submission.
I resisted and it’s got a learning curve, but Scrivener is where it’s at. Spend it to make it, right? And fake it ’til you make it, too, right? So… spend it ’til you fake it? Wait, that’s not right.
Okay, I’ve got a story to finish, then edit, then tweak in Scriv, then tweak some more, then go to sleep and wake up realizing why my story isn’t working, fix that, edit a zillion bits, then, well, at that point it’s done and it will be live and I will sit there refreshing Amazon like a freak and I know nothing will happen for many months, so I will immediately begin work on the next story.
Remember, no matter what happens, you learned all you need to know in Kindergarten when you did the rounds of Row Row Row Your Boat… life is but a dream.
