Let's blame covid

The end of 2018, I sold my home and moved in with my son in Needles, CA. The plan was to help him with his fixer for a year or so while I decided where to live next. His siblings with children both live in areas I can't afford. I had a minor foot surgery scheduled for the end of January 2020. Once that healed, I was going to find my own home again!

Of course it didn't happen that way. Instead of house hunting, I was shopping online and wearing my painter's mask when I had to go to the grocery store. I watched more television in 2020 than I have at any other time in my life, binge-watching series I'd heard of but had never seen and calling it research for screenwriting. Right. A lot of it was simple inertia. But I wasn't a complete slug. I kept working on my novels and editing.

I finished up 2020 by publishing Peg's Story: Detours and Running Away: Maggie's Story. Peg's the mom in my first novel, Running Away, and readers had asked for her story. The character took over at the bus station and shocked me by bringing trafficking and other issues I hadn't anticipated into her story, so it took forever to write. Maggie's Story is a mildly revised version of Running Away - primarily updating quotes from Peg's journal to match the new book.

In March 2021, I published Tough Times, which is Michael Dolan McCarthy's story lightly revised, re-titled, and given a fresh cover. I can't believe I never posted here about these books! I've done a wee bit of promotion and sales are happening, but I really need to do better. I have entered the books in some contests and have submitted several short stories to publications. No great results yet, but a lot of it's still out there. I'm continuing to write and submit. I've also done some editing this year.

One good thing about COVID - Capital Film Arts Alliance in Sacramento went online with their screenwriter and other meetings. I got to rejoin and participate from eight hours away! That got me working on my scripts, too. I prepped and submitted a feature-length script of Tough Times and three shorts to the Austin Writers Conference and Film Festival. They had over 14,000 entries for a handful of awards. No, I didn't win. I did attend the conference in October, which was exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

Other bits about 2021:

I spent about ten weeks on the road - one to the burn area in Northern California and two cross-country trips - going to a reunion, visiting family, looking at real estate, and going to the conference in Austin.

I've spent a lot of time on cars and insurance. On June 9th I made the wrong left turn and a truck killed my Kia Rio. No injuries, but I was due to leave on the first big trip, so I bought my son's 2020 Mitsubishi Mirage. On June 30, I was driving on a dark road in Wisconsin when a really big deer tried to fly over the hood. While he smashed into the windshield, his forward momentum carried him on across the car instead of his landing in my lap, so I wasn’t hurt. However, that was the end of that car, too. Not my normal June.

I finished the trip in my first automatic - a 2010 Ford Escape. Still getting used to it; still searching real estate; still writing and editing while I figure out the design of my future.

Information Overload

Before computers, the difficult part of research was finding materials. As a kid, I had to ride a bus a half hour downtown to the big county library when I needed to do serious research for school.

Thanks to the internet, I can look up anything that pops into my mind immediately, I can search any question. I can not only pull up a map of a place I want my character to go, I can see the satellite view of it and, most places, pull the little guy onto the map and see what my character would see driving down a road, turning to look side to side.

It’s beyond awesome. I love it.

However, the old dilemma of when to stop researching happens more quickly and is compounded by the necessity of sorting through to discard information of questionable value. Libraries used to do that for us.

Now, even when you’ve narrowed it to solid sources, it’s likely you have an overwhelming amount of information to review. Personally, I procrastinate at this point. I let it all sit, hoping it will somehow sift itself into some kind of logical order.

That doesn’t really work, though. I eventually start sorting through everything, shoving it into physical or computer files labeled by categories of information. Then I attack one category at a time.

This is an imperfect process. For example, I have a four-inch stack of notes on my table about marketing right now, and folders within folders and files that overlap folders floating around in the main folder unfiled. There are a lot of resources that fit more than one part of marketing.

My method to deal with this information overload?

I start with the best resource – the best NEW resource if there are several.

For my marketing project, I’m starting by reading Carla King‘s Self-Publishing Bootcamp Guide, 4th edition. I’ll take notes specific to my project and make an outline or timeline. Then I’ll quickly review old books I’ve read before, scanning for anything to add. If I hit a better outline, I’ll combine the two.

With that solid base, those other piles of pages will read quickly, because most of it will be review. I’ll be skimming through, looking for unique information. That makes the prospect less daunting. And the details will be plopped into the right place on the outline as I find them.

Yeah. It’s not so bad. I’m ready to get to it!

#marketingwriting #research #selfpublishing #CarlaKing #informationoverload #Selfpublishingbootcamp #refiningresearchinformation #Writing

First Quarter Review

Back at the end of December, I set my goals for 2018. Well, March is behind us – the end of the first quarter of the year, when businesses assess how they’re doing.

My primary writing goal for the year is to make at least $10,000 and I’m losing money at this point. So when I looked at the page with three columns of objectives and steps to reach each that I set up at the beginning of the year, I initially felt disheartened. Then I took a closer look and made notes.

To achieve that one writing goal, I have three objectives. I’ve made progress on each.

Goal #1: Maintain and build on promotional activities, center them on the book coming out later this year (Peg’s Story). Progress:

1. I haven’t had any shorts published yet, but I’ve researched markets, organized my submission process, and have seven pending. I know where each will be sent next.

2. I’ve written this blog every week and several posts have been dedicated to how my writing needs to link to the Me Too movement, which ties in with Peg’s Story.

3. I’ve listened to podcasts and started reading the new edition of Self-Publishing Bootcamp. I’ll focus more on developing the release and marketing plan for Peg’s Story in the next three months.

Goal #2: Keep working on new material. Progress:

1. I have several chapters of a romance novel written and re-written with critique group input. I set up rules for myself in previous blog posts – I want strong heroines.

2. I am developing a YA paranormal novel with feedback from two critique groups – one gets the first draft, I revise, then submit it to the second. This pushes me to keep producing at least two chapters a month through polished level.

3. I’m reworking shorts for the specific markets I’ve decided my work fits.

Goal #3: Do workshops. This goal needs to be amended to Do Activities that Generate Income. Progress:

1. I’ll be teaching a summer workshop Self-Publishing for Educators through Community Education at Sierra Community College and have applied to teach that and a Self-Publishing Basics workshop in the fall.

2. I’m shepherding a local artist and writer, Suzanne Blaney. Her website had been shut down and her Amazon author page was incomplete. I’ve started updating her online presence and her domain is pending transfer to GoDaddy, where I’ll be able to rebuild it for her. She’s finishing up a new art book and I’ll be editing that.

3. I’m negotiating a contract to write another screenplay for Nasser Entertainment. They don’t want to pay anything up front, so I’ll be gambling that they actually produce the film, but they probably will.

I also have two non-writing goals: Maintain balance in my life and Improve my financial status. I’ve made some progress on those, too, spending time with family, doing a little subbing. I still need to get back into a regular exercise routine. Blocking that in may actually increase my productive writing time. We’ll see how the next quarter goes.

www.sherimcguinn.com www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

#usingthegoalsyouset #writinglife #writingprocess #quarterlyreview #planning #writinggoals #goalsetting #goals #Writing