One Week Until Christmas Eve, Hannukah begins tomorrow night! I've got 4 and a half days until winter break. BRING IT! Here's what I've been doing since last week! My Next Quarter is Planned! I started planning my writing life 90 days at a time and I think I had pretty good success last quarter. It's hard to know what would have happened if I hadn't been without a laptop for a month (Actually I do know a little, more on that below), but I wrote a book, kept a dream diary, did some advertising, created a Tik Tok account, made some teasers, and blogged here much more frequently just to name a few. I set up my kanban board yesterday for the first Quarter of 2023! It looks like a lot, but it's actually a lot less than I planned for Q4. The blue is a social media goal (including my intent to keep posting here weekly.) The purple is editing The Things They Stole From Me, and the green is writing book 2 (which I will name drop below). Each green sticky is for 1,000 words which was really motivating during NaNoWriMo. The one lone green sticky that's in progress right now is to outline book 3 which I've been doing on and off for a while.
Overall, I'm really excited and hope I can get most of it done between January and the end of March! New Anchor Series Update! So remember a minute ago, where I questioned what my life would have been like if my computer hadn't died? Getting all my handwritten stuff into a manuscript on my computer has been a b*tch, but there's really nothing that can be done about it. Tedious, but it's helping me find places to add and tweak so I'm trying to not get too upset about it. In other news, I've been busy making teasers, working covers, and finding quotes that will be good for my social media goal. I've decided that the series title will be "Enemy from the North" which has, as usual been a "I don't hate it, but it doesn't make my heart sing" situation like the titles have been. I feel like I've been leaving bread crumbs about what this series will be about, but as spoiler free as I can make it, my female MC Leora has lived a unfortunate life and the only shining light in it is her boyfriend and fellow orphan, Ephraim. As the books continue, everything she thought she knew about her family that left her behind, the orphanage she lived in, Ephraim, and even the moral stance of the country she lives in begins to to unravel and is called into question. She's got a lot of growing to do. I've got ideas for 5 books but possibly a 6th. Book 1 is done, Book 2 is outlined and Book 3 I basically know what happens. 4,5, and 6 are kind of just a sentence in my brain but we got time for that. Book 1: The Things They Stole From Me Book 2: The Lies They Told Me Book 3: The Truth They Hid From Me Book 4: The Freedom They Denied Me Book 5: The People Most Dear to Me Book 6: ????Something with the color black because *redacted*) Also to be slightly cryptic, the "they" in each book varies, but is also kind of like a plot twist in the over arching series, because the Enemy From the North really isn't the only big bad here...uh oh I think I got carried away and said too much. Ideally, I'd like to have the first three written before I start even thinking about publishing book one. In my heart I'm hoping by the summer, but I also think that will have to do with the day job and if I'm actually able to compete at any Irish dance competitions In Q1 and Q2 because there's work that goes into being prepared for them. Right now It's look like at least April, but we shall see! This has gotten a scattered, but here have some things I made in Canva to hold you over until next week! Kay
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We're winding down on the end of the year here which is exciting! It's almost time to make new goals and plans for 2023. I'll probably have more about that in the next week or two, but for now here's what I've been up to since my last post. The Things They Stole From Me I couldn't wait a week, but I started edits late last week. Guys, I'm not sure if it's because I haven't completed something for myself in a long time, but I'm almost done doing my initial read through, and there is a good story in here. Like it makes me so happy and excited for the future! Next thing is to make sure I'm hitting all my plot points before I start typing all the hand written stuff into the document. Plot wise I think there's not too much to fix, maybe some more detail and clarification in places which is pretty good for a NaNoWriMo project. Honestly, my biggest thing to fix is I need to water down and downplay a sex scene that is WAY too much for a 16 and 17 year old because apparently explicit love scenes and YA do not mix. Ooops. Everything Else
Another week has passed and I STILL don't know what to do about Enshrine and Eminence. Just for fun, I put the first chapter of Eminence in my editing software and the tense, irritated feeling IMMEDIATELY came back. I am starting to think I need to table it. It sucks because I paid for new covers, but I have no desire to work on it. I'm sick of wasting my life deciding if/when I'm doing this series. There was a time that I actually took Enshrine off vendors and then I had people emailing me looking for it. It's not even on this website anymore. Gah. Ask me again next week. Still no series name for my new series, but I've got ideas for 5 or 6 books now. Hopefully I will have enough material to actually flesh them out. At least I've got an idea about where book 2 and 3 will be going which is awesome! See you next week, Kay WOO! I FINISHED MY NANOWRIMO PROJECT! After ghostwriting and not being able to pick a story to work on for so long, I'm so proud! She is currently 70,000 words and I usually add 10-15k more with edits, so I'm curious to see where she ends up, though I'm not quite ready to start edits yet. No, I'm super motivated to keep going! As I mentioned in a pervious post what I thought was going to be a stand alone book is quickly becoming more. Three books for sure, but potentially a fourth if I can think of enough material. Long story short, I will be working on book 2 after a few days break (That's always a struggle for me because writing is a way that I relax. Not writing makes me feel antsy and stifled!) Introducing Leora and Ephram! These are my newest book children! I don't want to spoil too much, especially since I have no idea when this series will be ready, but these poor kids have been star crossed lovers from Day 1. They live in the fictional country of Vostella which has been at war with an enemy nation located to the north for 20 years. Both are orphans that live in a state facility called the Refuge. That's all for now...hehe Other things in the works with this story... I finally have a title! As is usually the case, I like it, but don't love it, but it's better than calling it NaNoWriMo2022 like my Spotify playlist currently says. The Things That Were Stolen From Me is where I am currently at. I also have working titles for the next 3 books that follow this theme. Now I just need a series title. Other Week Nine News: -Purchased a editing software on Cyber Monday. Maybe now I won't need to back $150 for a proofreader? Especially since I've got multiple titles that need to be looked at now. See you next week! Kay Well, that was a hiatus that I certainly wasn't intending on happening. Typing to you live on a new laptop because my personal one died an ugly death and then I had to give my old job their's back. While my phone was able to do some things...blogging here, running advertisements, and formatting Enshrine did not happen. So my Q4 plans were shifted slightly and that's okay. I've still got at least 30 days to go. I won NaNoWriMo when I wasn't planning on it and without a computer I had hoped to get a laptop far closer to the end of October when I left my old job, but my husband convinced me to wait until Black Friday. My original intention was to use Strange Sedition as my NaNoWriMo22 project, but it was just going to be too hard trying to use the different documents on my phone so I tabled it, thinking I wouldn't do anything this year... ...well my brain had other plans. Another goal I've had for this quarter was to keep a dream journal. I've gotten some of my best ideas from dreams. Well a day or two into November I had a really cool dream and I needed to write about it. No plot, no planning, totally the opposite of my usual strategy. As of this afternoon, I was at 52,000 words and change. It's evolved a lot over the month of November. It went from being a stand alone to a trilogy, from having magical elements to none whatsoever. The playlist I made for it is 50% angsty love songs and 50% Slavic/Baltic Songs. It has no title and I think it might be dystopian, but I'm THRILLED to finally have something new for myself, especially after the shiny object syndrome was so bad this summer and being a prisoner to Clean Western Christian Romance before that. I may post more about it in the future when it's finally done, but that's my crazy NaNoWriMo story. Oh and did I mention I wrote 52,000 words by hand? Other than that...I don't have much to report. -Strange Sedition is at 18,000 words -I've made the decision to be finished with my Enshrine/Eminence stuff after the reformat and proofreading. I need to move on for my mental health. -Gonna try to do some advertising while there's still time! See you next week! No really! Kay I'm a day late, but here we are! I can finally share my news because it feels like LITERALLY everyone knows. I'm leaving my current job of 5 years! My last day is Friday! Which is good because this is how I felt today... I have an opportunity to work at my local public elementary school and I'm stepping back into more of a assistant role. I hope this means more time for writing and publishing new books. I'm excited, but it has certainly been a wild ride to get here. Now for writing updates! Amazon Ads were a dud So it ended up not costing me very much, but 10,000 impressions....no sales. I went from being number 2 in my category to about 36. Which is still excellent, but the Facebook ads seemed to be the better hit. That being said, I may run multiple next month or one week promoting book 1 the other the entire series and see if I get more traction on all the books and not just the first. Still chugging along with Strange Sedition 17,000 words and change as of yesterday. I've got a lot of packing and last minute obligations between now and Friday so I'm not sure how much I'm going to get to this week. As stated earlier, I feel like Aaron's POV is a lot more bitter (especially all the drama with his ex-girlfriend). I'm loving writing new stuff, despite the stuff that's already happened (Conversations that he was in in Cassie's POV that need to stay the same, for example) feeling tedious. Did nothing with Enshrine last week. That's it. That's the update. Fighting Shiny Object Syndrome My biggest problem lately has been committing to a project and seeing it through. I get to about 20,000 words and want to jump to something new. Or maybe I should rephrase it, I want to jump back. I want to outline and play with my Paranormal Demon idea that I did two NaNoWriMo's ago. Ugh, I blame my male protagonist...I'm telling myself maybe next year sometime! Okay that's it for this update! See you on the other side of leaving my current job! Kay Seriously. Not sure if it's because I'm getting over being sick. I've got shiz happening in my "real" life or what, but all I want to do is nap or watch House of the Dragon. (I never got on the GOT train when it was on, but this show is making me a convert!) That being said, I do have a few things to update. October is for trying different advertising Seeing as how I used to do NOTHING for advertising, I'm definitely researching and trying out different avenues to see what works best. I just wrapped up two weeks of ads on Facebook with decent results. 2,700 views, almost 600 link clicks. 355 downloads which is great. The only problem is not many purchases of the rest of the series. Honestly, I think the sales I got came from TikTok and not the Facebook ads so...while I'm hoping that people are just reading book one and people will buy later...I'm curious to see if running ads on Amazon might go a little better. The ad I'm doing this week is for the entire series so I'm hoping maybe we'll see more sell through...honestly...I need to just publish something new. I did actually write this week I hit 12,000 words with Strange Sedition today! It's a little slow going because were in those early chapters where the action hasn't really started yet, though there is plenty of mystery (Don't want to spoil it if you haven't read Limited Truth. Go download it, it's free!). Also had some day job stuff that had to take top priority and you know...the disassociating lol. I did a little more formatting too 7 chapters chapters formatted in Enshrine now. Not sure if anyone out there plays the Sims, but you know how they get tense doing certain things? That is literally how I feel when I work on this book.
I feel like I need to be hypnotized or something to figure out why that is...(I have an earlier blog post about it, but I thought I was over it) I feel like there is an audience for this book that is different from my Squad Treble readers, one that would buy anything from that world. Heck, I need to write the final book still and the thought makes me want to scream! So pretty much 7 down...30 something to go... See yah next week, Kay I'm back! October is shaping up to be an exciting and eventful month! I've got personal life news that I can't share just yet, but it certainly wasn't in my plans for the final quarter of the year. That being said, this development should allow me more time for writing so I'm really excited. Writing wise...here's what I've been up to since last week's post: Advertising...it's like it works or something? So it's only been a week of Facebook Ads and posting to TikTok almost everyday, but it's working...like more action than I've had in MONTHS. The whole analytics side of it is fascinating. The demographic who is downloading the book on FB at least is older than I expected, but that's okay! It's also been fun to slowly see people buy the rest of the series and I hope to see more of that in the coming weeks as well. Currently Limited Truth is sitting at number three in her Category on Amazon and I would love to see her hit number one by the end of the month! I took a picture for evidence! Aaron's First Book Has a Name I've written a little over 8,000 words since last weeks post. It's a little slow going because there are parts of Limited Truth that I'm consulting for dialogue but the new stuff has been so fun to write. Aaron's POV has been a bit more...sassy than sweet innocent Cassie's was and I'm LOVING IT. The tile of his first book is Strange Sedition at the moment. I like it, but don't love it. It goes along with my theme of two word titles like the previous four books, so it stays for now. The title for his his final book is *chefs kiss* so maybe I'll learn to love the others.
Reformatting Enshrine is a process... So the original final draft of Enshrine was on a laptop that died two computers ago...I do have the pdf that I got back from my publisher when we split, but it needs some love and reformatting before I put it on multiple vendors. I thought I would read a paperback version and use speech to text to make a new manuscript, but HOLY CRAP that's been tedious. So, I may go back to using the PDF and making a new document that way. It's needs a few things tweaked and proofread anyway before I rerelease it. I've literally made this decision as I've typed this post so...stay turned I guess. That's it for now. Until next week! Kay Hey there! Part of my goals for the final few months of 2022 is to post to this blog weekly. So here's what I've been up to and some of my plans for the next thirteen weeks. I'm on TikTok I never ever thought I would do it...but it's actually quite addicting. I'm getting a decent amount of views (not viral or anything), but not sure if it's translating to more sales yet. I'm @kaybennsonauthor if you want to look me up. Got new covers for Enshrine and Eminence I am ADAMENT that Enshrine will reformatted by the end of December. Currently it is only available on Amazon, but I want to get her cleaned up so she can be available on all the vendors like my Squad Treble series is. Eminence needs to be proofread but I got both covers done at the same time! I will always love the original covers that were so soft and elegant, but I really wanted to capture Sage's transformation from a meek village girl to *Redacted because spoilers*, especially since it had been so long since the first book came out. Here's a sneak peak below. Doing Some Advertising for Squad Treble
Going to try both Facebook and Amazon advertising this quarter to see if I get some more sales. Since Limited Truth is the only thing that's ready I thought I would start with them. That being said, I wanted to make sure the books were ready to have tons of eyes on them so I went through and read the paperback versions. WOO there were some typos, but I fixed them and they are ready for the campaigns, I'm so glad I did because... Squad Treble isn't over! Well not exactly. Going through the four books and listening to my story playlists (I have one for Cassie, Aaron, Brayden, and Jared) summoned the muse and after struggling with a project to work on for a while, I've think I've finally figured it out. I will be attempting to write 4 more Squad Treble books from Aaron's POV. While there were several scenes that were written this way, the OG Squad Treble Series was 90% Cassie and I am really looking forward to diving into what Aaron was feeling and experiencing. I've got working titles and a general outline for book one so that will be another thing I hope to update you on weekly! So far I've only got about a thousand words, but now that I'm done reading the original books, I should be able to add to that word count quickly. See you next week! Kay Watch this video...this is what my brain feels like lately LOL
So it wouldn't be me if I fell of the face of the earth for almost six months and then came back. Also, I have Covid and am currently in quarantine, thus why I have the time to blog. Don't worry, it's really just like a bad cold, but thought I would get through this unscathed. Oh well! The biggest reason that I've been away is that I took on a ghostwriting contract for 3 books in October. I have had literally no time to write anything for myself which has been a bit stifling. I'm nearly done with book 2, and honestly that might be it for me. I've learned a lot in the process and I feel like it's helped me become a stronger writer in some ways, but OH MY GOD I WILL NEVER WRITE HISTORICAL ROMANCE FOR MYSELF EVER. Also how dare I ever complain about sex scenes again. I'd rather write a sex scene than all this clean sweet stuff I've been doing. That being said, I've made more on this venture than I ever have with royalties. I just really miss writing for myself. That being said, I think the next thing on my plate is to final format and clean up Enshrine and get Eminence Polished enough for betas and editors. Still want to work on my Sci Fi series that is constantly in my brain, but may be taking an outline for six books and spreading it out into three larger books. This is mostly because the company that made my first three covers is Ukrainian and they have bigger things to worry about than making my covers. Praying that they are all safe (the website is up and running like nothing has happened so fingers crossed) I have a bunch of ideas but I think until I have this ghost writing job behind me, formatting and editing are probably all that I can do. More later? Kay That is the question of today's post. I've made mention of it before, but NaNoWriMo is usually not enjoyable for me. November is typically busy and shoving an entire rough draft into thirty days makes my anxiety prickle. That being said, I managed to win last year. I was really proud of myself and at the time, I had plans on having at least a sequel. Recently, I got a spark of inspiration so I decided to reread it and see the possibilities... Don't get me wrong, there is a good story in there somewhere, but it's so painfully obvious that I did not outline and that I rushed to write it in a month. There are under developed characters, side plots that go no where, and then a relationship between the good guy and bad guy that goes from enemies to lovers like I flipped a switch.
So we go back to the title of my post. I know people "shelve" things all the time, but I still feel like I put a lot of time and effort into this and to see it just never go anywhere makes me sad. I cry when I think about my freelance project that got pulled and wish I asked for the rights for it and that was a joint effort, so something that is entirely my own seems like a crime to waste. If I start over, it would a huge project. I would do my outlining ritual and comb through the current manuscript for anything worth saving. I think I will end up doing this, but as I said in a previous post, it's low on the priority list. I REALLY REALLY want to start working on My Apocalypse Heart Saga once Eminence is good enough to go out to betas and my editor. So temporarily shelved? Yours in Writing, Kay |
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