Yesterday, I was determined to get on with my 'Schedule' and write a word or two on my novel. However, life gets in the way. You know how that can go!
I had to sweep up dog hair, mop the dog mud off of the hardwood floors then make some chocolate cookies. I cleaned up a few other places that needed it because I get tired of looking at the dust etc. when I spend all my time writing stories. By the time I was finished, it was dinner time, a TV show (Not Grey's Anatomy), then bedtime. So, 8pm, I"m off to bed to read someone else's story. Falling asleep, I had another one of those nights where I wake up around 2 or 3 am my mind doing double-duty. First it was another dream with a character from Grey's Anatomy, Dr. McSteamy. I don't see him as a steamy guy but a lot of women on the show do, so he showed up in my dream! I won't go into the details, because truth is, his pseudo name, McSteamy says a lot about my books, which I ruminated on for hours. I've been considering ways to not write about sex. Why you ask? Because, while my scenes are merely suggestive. I don't go into details that take over an entire chapter, like some writers. Those books I have to skip through those chapters because they take away from 'the story' solely for the sake of gratuitous sex. In my books, the sex has a purpose. For instance, in one book, Miriam, the angel, arrives on Earth. A witch sets a spell and her memory is gone. Of course, hell's new ruler, Andras contrived the scenario. She's sold into the demon Astaroth's pleasure house as a whore. That starts off with a sex scene to set the stage for the rest of the drama and Astaroth's attraction to this woman he believes is a whore named Honey. When he discovers she is an angel, oh goodness! Yes, there's goodness deep in this demon and now his guilt and shame surfaces and must be dealt with. You get the idea. Sometimes sex serves a purpose. Miriam's memory returns, and she's ridden with shame and guilt because in another novel she was taken captive by spider demons and secured by a binding that would not allow her to transport away, as angels can. In that book, she again has sex with a demon incubus. She is trapped and cannot get away so she enjoys the physical pleasures and it takes a while before her guilt and shame push her to escape. Again, sex served a purpose as did other tortures she endured. Why, you wonder does the Lord of Heaven allow this? Well, it serves a purpose wherein her loss of faith and enjoyment of sensual pleasures strengthens her faith so later on she can help others overcome lust. Now, I'm sort of accepting there's a reason for writing these stories, and can see myself finishing "Descent into Hell" where three angels on Earth fall prey to temptation. Guess who will step in and help them overcome. Not their mentor who's supposed to train them on Earth. No-o-o. He's busy dealing with his own temptations, especially after one of the angels ends in hell and the other two go into help her escape. When they get caught up in hell's fiery depths, he goes in but is taken captive. Now I know who I can send in to help retrieve them. After all, Miriam is familiar with Astaroth and Asmodeus (demon of lust) so knows how to get around his temptations and sly manipulations. Writing this blog helps me to think through my story and what I'm doing, which characters I need to do what and when. I hope to have this story, "Descent into Hell" published by the first of the year. Stick around for more of "Tales in the Beyond" musings. The stories I reference are in the "Children of Adonai" series on Amazon, which I will write a brief story about to finish up the characters and how they life as gone on. However, I cannot sell it as an add-on on Amazon, but let people know, if they want the free copy they can contact me on my website. If you're interested in the series go to: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1CQ772L .
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The first several books I wrote - well, I had no trouble starting them, but after about a dozen, even though I had a title and knew what the book would be about, I slowed down. Came to a standstill........
It's not like I had a brain freeze, more commonly known as writers block. Indeed no. I'm always full of ideas for books. I even have a folder with a list of what could come next. Most of the time, at least with my first few books, I wrote by the seat of my pants. They call it pantser. I'm not a plotter, or I wasn't before now. Now, I'm all for plotting because I've become a procrastinator. As I write this, I'm suddenly aware of what my roadblock or tree-that-needs-to-be-removed may be. It's the subject matter. Anyway, before I share anything about that very hot topic, let me go on with this post. To remain on track, or get back on track, I looked up what other writers do to not procrastinate when a tree is down in the middle of their writers road. They make a plan to follow. At least Stephen King does and one website even gave me a list of what to do. It's stuff I've always sort of done, but now need to become more serious about it. Are you ready to get organized? Here's a schedule: 1. Find a time of day. 7am onward is me. I organized my files/folders to make sure I had what I might need close at hand. 2. Create your own writing calendar. Oops. Still need to add that one. 3. Prioritize your projects. List of your ideas in order of priority. The novel I'm writing! Write an outline or a step-by-step ideas. Did that, and cheated by using AI to outline for me. I hate making outlines. Don't want to learn and why should I if an AI can do it probably better. Create milestones and deadlines. A chapter a day sounds good. I've done that sort of thing before, Wrote a book at my first Na-No-Wri-Mo a few years ago. Nowadays I'm too busy writing to bother with Nano. 4. Have a plan for writer’s block. Daily writing prompts or do stream-of-consciousness freewriting. Either one works for me. 5. Set a daily word count goal. A minimum word count. Usually 3000/chapter and if I write two, then the tally goes up to six or seven thousand. 6. Find a writing space. Set it up so it’s ready for you to write when you sit down. Happy day. My sofa is curved sort-of white leather. I have three Aussies so it's never really white. More like, dog dirty muddy footprints, but they wipe off. 7. Keep your writing files organized. Save in Google Docs [done] or Microsoft Word [yup] Keep them in folders labeled with the working title. Will do. 8. Start blogging. Start a blog. I did that, as you can see, if you're reading this. Build a following that you’re accountable to. Huh. What the hell. Now I have to learn to use mail-chimp or some such to do the email thing. Yuk. Dedicate a portion of your writing sessions to blog entries. Got it. 9. Join a writing community. Find inspiration with other writers. Find a local writer’s group, and writing workshops. Love Meetups. One favorite is in England - 8 hours ahead. The 0730 meeting is 2330 for me, Not going to happen. I'm in bed by 2100 at the latest. 10. Start right now. [Already done] Now with the blog written, I can get on with my story, Descent into Hell. ~ Oh my goodness. I had dreams last night, two I remember. I dream a lot and last week, one night I had several dreams all night long but do not recall one thing about them. But last night, and the night before, those dreams stay with me. I rather suspect there's a reason for it.
In reading up on Angel powers (not biblical) and discovered our dreams sometimes can be a message from an angel. Or at least one Adonai has sent the angel to impart. Before I get onto last nights dream, let me tell you about one dream... No, it was not a dream and it was scary, at first. I woke up during the night and saw someone standing by my bed. It was not human, so I reached and briefly touched the entity before it vanished. Wow. I've not forgotten that one. Talk about moving between dimensions. Do you ever wonder if that's where heaven is, in another dimension and Angels move between ours and their's? Just an idea. I've been having memorable dreams since the third grade, so I'm never surprised by even seemingly frightening dreams. I find them intriguing and assume there's a reason for the dream. Sometimes my mind/brain is simply rehashing events of the day and other times, it's a warning or a message about change that needs to occur. Last nite one of the dreams was about my feet being hurt in some way. I was with a friend going to the doctors fearful I would loose my feet. _______ Feet are those parts of our bodies that move us around and get us where we're going. It’s also what we stand on. What comes to mind? Is there a principle I stand on that needs rethinking? If my feet are hurt, the dream could indicate I am unable to move into my own sense of self, or unable to "stand on my own two feet." An injured dream foot - the soul might point to some injury in the soul--some deep pain that needs to be acknowledged and healed. Except it was both feet; they were red and swollen from an injury or an infection. Regardless, I use my dreams in my stories. So, if you read the stories and a character has a dream or vision, chances are it was a dream of mine that I found meaningful for the story. Comments anyone? Until a short time ago, I didn't know what ghosting was, then I saw an article on it. Was I surprised they had this weird name for a common behavior.
A while back, I had a friend who suddenly stopped phoning (she never did very often anyway) but now she didn't answer when I called, nor did she call me back when I left a message. I've known this person for over twenty years, so I was hurt and confused. I imagined, as a 'good Christian' she was feeling guilty and I didn't want to feed into it, so I didn't call back. I tend to be self-focused and take the blame for a lot of what happens in my world. But is that a reason for someone to cut me out or 'ghost' me? Anyway, I looked it up and was surprised by what I found. I'll give you the short version and a link if you want to follow up on it. In this article, admittedly, they are often speaking about intimate relationships. But these can be friends who ghost you. Take a look: GHOSTING Some ghosters keep you on the hook or use "ghosting" to keep their options as open as possible. They'll drop all contact with you because they're interested in someone else, but save your number to return to the "backburner" relationship when their main relationship inevitably dies down.[1]
If a ghoster comes back when they think you're moving on, feel free to give a second chance if they claim to have feelings for you, but don't give them endless chances. Someone who repeatedly deceives you isn't worth your time. Some ghosters return because they think you'll put up with it. When you're a kind-hearted person who is always there, a ghoster might take advantage of your willingness to forgive and forget. A ghoster's bad behavior is not your fault! However, tolerating it repeatedly reinforces the message they can do it as much as they want. To end the cycle, putting your foot down and cutting the ghoster off is best. Tell them firmly that you need some space.
I've changed my novel design once again.
While change is a constant in my life, with my books, I am never satisfied until I have the novel and its cover as perfect as possible. At some point, one must stop writing and get the wonderful story out there for others to enjoy. However, that doesn't mean much if no one buys the book. I'd been told or read it somewhere, if your book isn't selling, change the cover. So, I did, more than once. When editing my stories, I get stuck sometimes and that's when I use AI to get me unstuck. Although I have to rewrite what the AI comes up with so it's still me writing. And so, I decided to ask the AI what would be ideal cover design ideas for my novel? I was given 20 different themes for a cover. Holy cow! That's a lot to choose from. Nevertheless, as I read the names over and over, the last one on the list really struck my fancy. AI said it would be unusual and attract attention. Well, I like unusual and I like to attract attention, so, the one image of two lovers against a background of stained glass seemed appropriate. And then, going online (naturally) I found a stained glass design that was perfect. Not one hundred percent, but close enough. Into my editing program it went. Then downloading a bunch of new fonts and voila, before long I had a new cover that I think hits the spot. You probably saw it on page 1: "An Affair with An Angel" It's an ebook on Amazon and paperback. After the 26th of December it will be on sale, assuming I can figure out how to do that one. Amazon has some weird in's and out's that are not easy for me to canoodle, but I'll give it a go and see if I can make it work. I'll let you know. So check back and hopefully before the 16th I'll have it done. Yahoo! So, last night I fell asleep way too early. That was a mistake - as far as my sleep went. However, as to ideas that loom while sort-of-awake and trying-to-sleep, I was besieged with several.
First came the idea for a new title for my novel, 'An Affair with An Angel'. I couldn't help but think there was so much more to the story than his attraction to the angel, Miriam. So, I had to open the darn book and read through it in skips and jumps. Wanting the book's title to better reflect its contents, which is more than an angel attraction, I used an AI (artificial intelligence) to consider a few new ideas for titles and settled on one - for now. But, that also meant I had to rewrite the story, and now I needed an outline. It's an arduous task. I wrote one, and this is what I came up with and I'm liking it better. ”How you have fallen Son of the Dawn.” These words Adonai spoke casting Lucifer out of heaven. Little did Lucifer know he was destined to fall even further one day - possibly into love. And so we have the beginning, a bit different than before. It's a good thing not too many have sold so far because now, readers won't be disappointed when I delete 'Affair with an Angel' and replace it with 'Lucifer’s Temptations: Redemption of the Fallen.' I remember years ago when I could get a 'Buy Now' button from Paypal. Yes, it's been a while since I've tried to sell anything on Paypal. Anyway, it's now impossible, at least for me.
On my website, I posted several books for sale. All the books for conferences I've attended and came home from with left over inventory. Long story short (like that happens), my idea was to sell the books at a huge discount. The nightmare began when I went online to Paypal. As I said, it once was easy to get the html code to Buy Now. Except now, it's pages upon pages of confusing html code, API, and any other terms along with a process that is impossible, at least for me. I spent over an hour on the phone with a 'helper' from Paypal who couldn't figure it out either. Now what does that say about overly complex. I know she was reading from a 'how to' manual, which was absolutely not helpful. Now, I'm stuck with three boxes of various books and cannot sell them because it's become so complex. Churches have their own bookstore with authors they prefer and my books (the fiction anyway) does not comply with their terms of acceptable. I write about Angels and demons. Now, I'm going to try something different. On my for sale page, I plan to place all the books on sale for $6 + postage $4 and see if I can intrigue my visitors. Fingers crossed. |
AuthorI'm a talker and always have something to say. And so, it stands to reason, I should turn my thoughts into stories. ArchivesCategories |