Writing Decisions

Decisions.  Decisions.  I seem to be doing nothing but make decisions about my writing because everything keeps changing.  The publishing world hasn't changed as much as what's going on it my head.  The more I think I know what I'm doing, the less I seem to know.

The biggest change:  I'm no longer writing to amuse myself.  When first writing about the Half-Elven of the Far Isles, I had this scene of a discontented woman standing on a cliff edge over the ocean in a gale with her long reddish hair blowing away from her head appear in my head.  Imagine my surprise when Mariah turned out to be a Half-Elven (though actually she's a true elf, but that's another story), and her daughter had just been almost killed by sea raiders.  The words flowed as I wrote about events before and after that initial scene until I had over 400,000 words.  [Chopped it into three novels plus bits and pieces.]

That opening scene and the subsequent events became the novelette that WolfSinger Publications bought for release in 2011 -- Taking Vengeance.

Now I'm fighting to write short stories ... not my strong point ... for Renna's Tales.  After struggling for a week I finally got the words flowing.  The problem.  I kept writing summaries about the action and where it fit into the long history of my Half-Elven ... rather than showing the adventure at hand.  --  This is complicated because the events Renna gossips about are forming into a novel of its own about the struggle for power after the Treaty with the Suthrons created the Marches.

I think I'm on the "write" track for the current short story now.  So, a decision ... do I continue to play with the Half-Elven ... or do I go back to the middle grade stuff I've written which has just as slim a chance of being published?

Being rather dense, I think I'll try to do both.

Another change:  I entered my website url for "free" search engine exposure.  So, I've adjusted the counter on my site.  Maybe I should have just left it with 400 viewings, but I wanted to see if the free sites made any difference in the visitors.  I'll keep you posted.  

One thing I've notice is that my traffic from foreign countries for this blog has increased the last couple weeks.  But, it's not the result of the search engines.  Their confirmations warned me that it'd be weeks before the freebies got crawled.  If I wanted things done faster, I could pay for their accelerated service.  --  I'm sticking to my orginal plan of getting some original artwork up on the site and then use the GoDaddy submission service.  [Incidently, the artwork's progressing.]

Wrestling the Short Story

Still ... trying to cobble together a short story for Renna's Tales.  The piece is progressing, but not as fast as I had expected.  [The story of everyone's life, I'd guess.]  My hopes of knocking out a short story [around 3,000 words] a month have withered for lack of skill.  One problem:  making a magically powerful Half-Elven vulnerable.

While I'm not particularly happy about the delay, I think the effort is worthwhile ... if only as a training exercise.  I'm into "keep it short, stupid" mode.  The "it" being my writing.  Hopefully, I'll get new content on the website next month.  

The going-for-a-story-every-other-month idea made me feel less a dunce ... then, I discovered the anthology Must Love Hellhounds was out in mass paperback.  Sat back with great expectations of a Charlaine Harris and Ilona Andrews story ... plus a couple other entertainments ... and got whopped up the side of the head.  Charlaine, I hardly knew you.  Her story, while interesting, dragged.  It took nine pages to offer the first of her dry [in character] commentary statements.

Must thank the editor for introducing me to a new writer though:  Meljean Brook.  Loved the way she made the stock tough former CIA operative character stand out as an individual.

Pictures?   You wonder.  I'm working on it, but I really feel uncomfortable being a "nag".

Still, Agonizing Over Pictures

First, a Warning ...

I picked up a virus on Sunday night.  As soon as the little shield on my bottom tool-bar popped up, I shut the computer off -- so I don't think I infected anyone.  But, if you visit a lot of the stuff I do, you probably already know you've been infected.  Whatever, it took two days to get the computer guru to remove the stuff.

Seems to be a lot of the stuff going around from the stories the guru told.  So, if you haven't updated your security lately ... you should look into it.

Pictures...

Finally, managed to get my picture transferred to the author bio section of the website.  As much as I'd like the increase in numbers, it's not worth going to to see.  I put up the same picture I have on my blog.  [Not the cat though he's prettier.]  

When I enlarged my new "professional", I was sneering.  Or, at least my lip was curled.  Do you think that's the way I smile?

My first artist backed out of the commission for my home page ... so I'm looking for another picture for the home page of my website.  For now, I'm not going to worry about it.  The page can just sit as it is.

Story Progress ...

Experienced a little deja vu while my computer was off.  I wrote by pencil ... so I could erase often and much.  Discovered I write about twice as fast on the computer in spite of all the backtracking and copy/pasting.  Won't repeat the experiment soon.  My thumbs would whine if I spent one more hour with pencil in hand.

The next Half-Elven short story progresses ...  featuring Mariah after the Rebellion was won.  Again, Renna has her nose in the action.  Now, I get to worry about whether the story has a plot or not.

Website Building

As if I don't have enough headaches.  I'm up to my ears in  learning how to build a website.  Fortunately, I have someone to hold my hand.

Other big project.  Getting a query set up for Dark Solstice, the story of Mariah and Linden's reconcilliation.   If I'm doing a Half-Elven website, the logical thing to do is to market one of the main books.  Watch out agents.  I'm stumbling forward.