Crazy busy (again!!) with university stuff, so let's get down to it:
Travel:
Leicester, which is starting to seem like my second home. No other travel planned for a couple of weeks which is good - I love seeing my guys, but am totally exhausted right now. Barring something really evil happening, the next time I travel any distance will be April, when I'm flying to Australia - more on that later though.
I anticipated another evening of hunt the decent restaurant, so when my friend offered to take me home & cook a meal before I went back to the office I jumped at the chance.
Dinner was salmon with a slice of Emmental cheese, wrapped in pancetta and roasted. Followed by home made fruit crumble and custard. It was a very happy little Aries that waddled back to work later that evening. More than I usually eat in a week, and absolutely to die for.
Technical Malfunctions for the week:
Not too bad this week - my iphone is doing some weird stuff & I tend to suffer from Angry Bird rage, especially when the screen doesn't seem to recognize that I'm touching it. Since I read the screens are based on reading electrical impulses, and I wasn't wearing gloves, this freaks me out a bit.
The TV at the hotel was rolling - this is one of the reasons I hardly ever end up watching TV at a hotel; there is always something going pear-shaped with them. I'm actually not allowed to touch the remote control at home, as LSH reckons I'm the kiss of death. One day I'll post the saga of what happened to the computer shop when I went to buy my net-book..
The elevator at work tends to go in the opposite direction to the button I've pushed at the moment - a bit irritating, but I can live with it.
My home pc still insists on disconnecting from the net on a frequent basis. I have no idea why.
Study
Making headway; I'm about to post my draft of the group assignment to the forums for review. Then we have a week to put everything together.
I volunteered to type everyone's notes into one document (it's called masochism. I also type pretty fast), and then one of my classmates gets to put the slides together.
Books
Finished Night and Chaos, by Naomi Clark. Oh, my. This lady is good! Of course, it means she's going to cost me a lot of money in the future, since I'm going to be buying everything she releases..
Finished The Abbey, by Chris Culver. 5 stars all the way - from what I can tell this is his first book. I can't wait for the next one. Good, solid crime writing. At the moment it's sitting at 0.71p on Amazon - get it before the price changes. Hell, get it if the price does change. It's worth every penny & more.
Finished River Marked, by Patricia Briggs, the latest in the Mercy series. I love this series, and thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Haven't started anything else yet due to university work.
Writing and stuff
Time wise, I haven't had much chance to write this week. The deadline to get the uni stuff done is just too tight, and I desperately need to finish.
I get extremely cranky when I can't write, which is never a good thing.
LSH finished her copy of WolfSong and wanted to see what happened next. Made my day, although the first draft is nowhere near ready for beta reading yet, so she is currently sulking a bit.
Smashwords downloads took off this week thanks to e-book week. The site was incredibly slow up until Friday though - if you were trying to download a copy and couldn't let me know, I'll make a plan for you.
On Amazon.uk I hit the top 100 under epic fantasy for 2 days. I have no idea what, if anything, this means sales wise - I think you need to hit the top 100 overall for this to be a sales thing. But it sure felt good.
There's been some discussion on different blogs about being able to write full time. I'd love to. The thought of making a living from my writing, and not being so broke I have trouble paying attention (which is my usual state) is wonderful. Since to date I think I've made around $5 in total, I'm keeping that under the Sweet Dreams file. However, should the gods of Kindle change their minds and decide I'm about to become a mega-seller, I won't complain at all.
Considering most authors work a day job their entire lives, and in the current economy I'm actually happy to have a job at all.. Shrug.
I don't write for the money, which is just as well. Even if I never sold another book, I wouldn't stop writing (although I would be a bit depressed about it).
I'd love to end up like Amanda Hocking or J A Konrath, two of the top e-book authors out there. Maybe it will happen. But keep in mind that guys like that worked damn hard to get to where they are; nobody waved a magic wand at them and said "Okay, snookums. You're rich."
Too many new indie authors seem to think they'll be rich and famous in a matter of weeks. Unless you hold a winning lottery ticket - um, no. No matter what genre you publish in, (or how you publish for that matter) this is the real world, where you have to pay bills, and rent, and buy food. Stuff like that.
Word of mouth takes time to build up, your Amazon check won't come through for a while, and quitting your day job on Monday because you published your first e-book on Sunday is a horribly bad idea.
Please don't do this to yourself. Reality bites, and sometimes she has rabies.
Travel:
Leicester, which is starting to seem like my second home. No other travel planned for a couple of weeks which is good - I love seeing my guys, but am totally exhausted right now. Barring something really evil happening, the next time I travel any distance will be April, when I'm flying to Australia - more on that later though.
I anticipated another evening of hunt the decent restaurant, so when my friend offered to take me home & cook a meal before I went back to the office I jumped at the chance.
Dinner was salmon with a slice of Emmental cheese, wrapped in pancetta and roasted. Followed by home made fruit crumble and custard. It was a very happy little Aries that waddled back to work later that evening. More than I usually eat in a week, and absolutely to die for.
Technical Malfunctions for the week:
Not too bad this week - my iphone is doing some weird stuff & I tend to suffer from Angry Bird rage, especially when the screen doesn't seem to recognize that I'm touching it. Since I read the screens are based on reading electrical impulses, and I wasn't wearing gloves, this freaks me out a bit.
The TV at the hotel was rolling - this is one of the reasons I hardly ever end up watching TV at a hotel; there is always something going pear-shaped with them. I'm actually not allowed to touch the remote control at home, as LSH reckons I'm the kiss of death. One day I'll post the saga of what happened to the computer shop when I went to buy my net-book..
The elevator at work tends to go in the opposite direction to the button I've pushed at the moment - a bit irritating, but I can live with it.
My home pc still insists on disconnecting from the net on a frequent basis. I have no idea why.
Study
Making headway; I'm about to post my draft of the group assignment to the forums for review. Then we have a week to put everything together.
I volunteered to type everyone's notes into one document (it's called masochism. I also type pretty fast), and then one of my classmates gets to put the slides together.
Books
Finished Night and Chaos, by Naomi Clark. Oh, my. This lady is good! Of course, it means she's going to cost me a lot of money in the future, since I'm going to be buying everything she releases..
Finished The Abbey, by Chris Culver. 5 stars all the way - from what I can tell this is his first book. I can't wait for the next one. Good, solid crime writing. At the moment it's sitting at 0.71p on Amazon - get it before the price changes. Hell, get it if the price does change. It's worth every penny & more.
Finished River Marked, by Patricia Briggs, the latest in the Mercy series. I love this series, and thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Haven't started anything else yet due to university work.
Writing and stuff
Time wise, I haven't had much chance to write this week. The deadline to get the uni stuff done is just too tight, and I desperately need to finish.
I get extremely cranky when I can't write, which is never a good thing.
LSH finished her copy of WolfSong and wanted to see what happened next. Made my day, although the first draft is nowhere near ready for beta reading yet, so she is currently sulking a bit.
Smashwords downloads took off this week thanks to e-book week. The site was incredibly slow up until Friday though - if you were trying to download a copy and couldn't let me know, I'll make a plan for you.
On Amazon.uk I hit the top 100 under epic fantasy for 2 days. I have no idea what, if anything, this means sales wise - I think you need to hit the top 100 overall for this to be a sales thing. But it sure felt good.
There's been some discussion on different blogs about being able to write full time. I'd love to. The thought of making a living from my writing, and not being so broke I have trouble paying attention (which is my usual state) is wonderful. Since to date I think I've made around $5 in total, I'm keeping that under the Sweet Dreams file. However, should the gods of Kindle change their minds and decide I'm about to become a mega-seller, I won't complain at all.
Considering most authors work a day job their entire lives, and in the current economy I'm actually happy to have a job at all.. Shrug.
I don't write for the money, which is just as well. Even if I never sold another book, I wouldn't stop writing (although I would be a bit depressed about it).
I'd love to end up like Amanda Hocking or J A Konrath, two of the top e-book authors out there. Maybe it will happen. But keep in mind that guys like that worked damn hard to get to where they are; nobody waved a magic wand at them and said "Okay, snookums. You're rich."
Too many new indie authors seem to think they'll be rich and famous in a matter of weeks. Unless you hold a winning lottery ticket - um, no. No matter what genre you publish in, (or how you publish for that matter) this is the real world, where you have to pay bills, and rent, and buy food. Stuff like that.
Word of mouth takes time to build up, your Amazon check won't come through for a while, and quitting your day job on Monday because you published your first e-book on Sunday is a horribly bad idea.
Please don't do this to yourself. Reality bites, and sometimes she has rabies.
No comments:
Post a Comment