Well, I lost the journal the day before the assignment was due, which is just the sort of thing you’d expect from me. I really wish he would have let us do the assignment digitally. A digital file, I can make copies of and hang onto. Hard copy? It’s as good as lost.

I know it’s probably at my grandmother’s house because I’m pretty sure I took it up there on Thanksgiving. I’ll find it. I know I will. I’ll find it just because I stayed up all night faking a couple of month’s worth of journal entries.

I’m also doing my end of term paper on H.P. Lovecraft because, well, who else would I do it on? It’s about “art.” Just “art.” Because English professors love being vague as hell. Mr. Lovecraft is as artistic as anyone, in my opinion, so there you go. It’s due in a couple of days, and I know I should probably to work on it, but I feel much more like working on the new  chapter of Divided Lands. Normally I can talk for hours about my love for all things Lovecraft, but for some reason when I’m asked to come up with a ten page paper about him I just have no idea what to do. That’s the way it goes, isn’t it?

Anywho, I have a web fiction to write a new chapter for and a report to do at the last minute. Sorry for the crappy post. In the next couple of days I’ll have that story posted.

Okay, so what really happened is that I’d been thinking about the alternate ending for a really long time and pushing it to the back of my mind and then finally, when I got the lame one all typed out, I let it have the control it was fighting for all along. Everybody’s been there, right? Sometimes you  just have to let go of what you’ve been  planning all along. What is it that writers say? Murder your darlings? Anyone who’s ever read any of my flash fiction knows that I have no problem at all doing that.

So, anywho, here I am after a long hiatus to deliver the wonderful news that the novel is pretty much squared away and all I’m doing now is working out the new ending. Then I’ll revise until I hate the damn thing so much I’m disgusted with it and never want to see the damn thing again. That must be how God feels.

School is also becoming quite manageable as well. It’s not that it was hard before, but rather that I did an absolutely terrible job managing my time. TERRIBLE. I looked around at some of my friends who had jobs as well as several hobbies plus more demanding majors than mine and realized that maybe the problem wasn’t that I was juggling to much. Maybe the problem was that I just didn’t know how to juggle. Isn’t it crazy how no matter how low our self esteem is, we rarely think to blame ourselves first when times get stressful?

It is for those of you who stress out constantly that I’ve compiled this nifty little list of the things that helped me manage my time effectively in hopes that you’ll find you have a much more productive life when you’re done:

1. Know that there’s a good chance that you have enough time, just not well structured time.
2. Try out the Pomodoro method. I got an app on my phone called Pomodroido because it includes a little “level up” type system, which is all you ever need to get me to do more of anything at all, period.
3. Try out Astrid. This little motherfucker will not leave you alone until you do what is on your Todo list before the deadline. It gets even more insufferable after you let the deadline pass. If you’re using it on a phone,  it won’t let you clear it off of your notifications bar until you either do the task or at least lie and say you did. Just making a list is good for people (like myself) who get overwhelmed just by having their tasks floating around in their head instead of spelled out in front of them. The app also has different categories for personal and fun tasks, which I make sure to use to the fullest extent. I include all of my hobbies, watching my favorite shows, and reading my favorite books on my Todo list, too, to make sure I don’t just do all of the work and then space out in front of the computer for the rest of the evening. That’s a one way ticket to depression-ville. Make sure you put some fun, recreational, ‘don’t have to’ stuff on your Todo list to check off.
4. If you notice you actually didn’t have that much to do, just sucked at time management, and actually have a lot of extra time once you’ve checked off your daily tasks, by all means, get a few new hobbies. Start learning to do some things you’ve always wanted to do. Take some classes on Udacity and look up video tutorials for stuff you’ve always wanted to learn. I started dabbling in jewelry making and even opened up an Etsy store. It’s AMAZING what you realize you have time for when you actually know how to manage time.

Oh, and will it ever need revision. The only way I was able to get anything done at all was with the “Get it written, then get it right.” attitude. I honestly wish I could get paid for all of the times I’ve forced myself to avert my eyes instead of going back to correct a sentence that barely even sounds like it’s in English.

On a (sort of) completely different topic, I just want to make sure everyone knows that I haven’t forgotten about my web serial, Divided Lands. I’ve been urged to get my ass in gear, and rightfully so, with the series, and I hope to begin the next chapter soon. Very, very soon. I had the notes to it and was all ready to type it up some time ago.

I have, however, decided to put the story on Wattpad and make future updates from there. I really just want more happy readers than anything else I could possibly get out of a web serial, and I know for certain that putting it on Wattpad will at least make it more easily accessible.

Sure, I’ve read Wattpad stories on my phone before, but I actually got an account for writing stuff just a few hours ago. I GIMPed together a cover that doesn’t look anything like what I planned but still looks decent and slapped the first eleven chapters up. I’ll put the last three on tomorrow.

I really love what I have planned for this story, so I hope it takes off. Be sure to check it out!

I’m giving myself a somewhat generous deadline of two weeks from now to get this thing finished and ready for revision. The only question is how long I should wait before I sit down to start revising. Some writers wait for months, but I don’t know if I can do that. In all honesty, I want to wait as little as possible for me to get those “fresh eyes” of a critic that are able to look at a novel and find mistakes so much easier than the writer who’s just typed the final words. I would really love to wait less, but I’m starting to feel like about a month would be the best.

Well, maybe not the best. Just the best for the amount of time I’m asking for. How many revisions does a book need before you start the self-editing before the real editor gets to it, anyway? I know it’s probably different for every book, but I know that the writing world is full of people who think that there are a fixed set of rules for everything literary that are as constant as…as, well, Planck’s Constant. I’m thinking mine will need two big ones, but I’m ready for the need for more to pop up. 

I was looking over the .mobi file, though, and I noticed that there were spelling errors EVERYWHERE. Most of them were small, but still, they were there. Turns out  I had been working on the whole thing in Scrivener with spell check turned off. And here I thought I was just awesome, what with my sudden ability to spell Chrysanthemum without seeing that little red line popping up and everything. What bothers me even more is that no one else caught it. Of course, every now and then you do get a beta reader that just scans over your stuff, says, “Yeah, it’s good.” and hands it back. My advice? Request that they try their hardest to at least find 5 or more things wrong with your work. If they’re really interested and trying to help you make your work better, they’ll agree. If they don’t give a hill of flying bananas and are just saying yes because you asked, they’ll say, “No thanks.”

I’ve since combed through it and fixed every single one and uploaded the fixed file to KDP. It’ll take an eternity for the file to update, though, so if you downloaded one of the botched files I recommend you wait a little while and then download the correct one. I’m  running a free promotion, so it should be as easy as just going in and getting it again.

If you happen to miss that time window, though, just feel free to email me at harlowclark93@gmail.com and I’ll send you a new one. I’m lucky only about three or four copies have moved so far, but if you’re one of those three or four copies, don’t hesitate to ask me for a corrected version.

I’ve notified Amazon of the corrections I made, so hopefully before long it’ll be as easy as just going into “Manage Your Kindle” and clicking “Update Book.”

This is my longest release yet at about 50 pages. I know, I know…readers like novels to sink their teeth into. Poetry anthologies and short stories just don’t sell very well. That’s to be expected. But I’ve gotta have some way to put bread on the table while I pound away at the keys on my novel.

I’m a novelist at heart. I’ve only written one short story in my life–the one available on Kindle–and poetry is something I see as a hobby. I love reading novels, by gum, and I love writing them just as much. The sooner I can raise my book baby and raise it up right, the better.

But I do love haiku, and I’m definitely going to make “Haiku Headmusic” into a sort of poetry anthology series if people seem to like it. Also, don’t be surprised if you see me a lot more often on the Internet. I’m trying to do more marketing. Any marketing for me is more, because, well…I haven’t been doing any. I’m scared of getting on peoples’ nerves.

If you’re looking to review it on Amazon or something, drop me a line and I’ll see about getting a review copy to you.

A bit…cooler. More “my style.”

That’s exactly what I had in mind when working on the cover for my next eBook, “Haiku Headmusic.” It’s a collection of haiku that has been described as “weird” in just about every critique circle I’ve taken it to. I think the cover does an okay job at reflecting that:

Now that’s weird. Weird is what I do. I’m trying to make sure I spend a lot of work and energy on the cover, because I know it’s probably the single most important part of the book. I’ll confess to having bought Catherine Fisher’s Incareron just because it was shiny. I hope this cover dazzles the eyes as much as the haiku inside will dazzle the…soul? Maybe?

I have no idea.

Haiku Headmusic  will be released in just a few days, but in the mean time, I’ve got it up on Figment Fiction if you want to go ahead and read it.

I’ve discovered that if I put the cash back, I probably can afford a professional editor if I go with a freelancer instead of a big editor mill. I’m definitely putting the cash back, because I know it’s worth it to have a well edited book—for me, and for you.

But there’s a problem.

I’ll have to contact most of them. By e-mail.

No convenient “add to cart” services like with those aforementioned editor mills and POD editing services. If I want this to be affordable, I’m going to have to *gulp*…start a conversation.

I have no people skills. This will be quite the happy little disaster. I don’t even know how to send a professional e-mail.

So, I’m totally prepared to go on several forums, ask how to send such an email, and get laughed at. Hopefully I’ll walk away with a few pointers.

One of my closely guarded secrets is that, while I’m not very good at writing poetry, I secretly love it. A lot.

I’ve got a book of my poetry (and two short essays) up on Amazon for free for a little while, so I thought I’d put the link up so you guys could check it out if you wanted. I’ve already got one other short story up that I ran a promo on for a little while, but I was far too nervous to put up a blog post about it. I was too afraid of annoying people.

I know. Annoying people reading my writing blog with writing that I’ve done. Who would’ve thought?

If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written, though, you’ll know that I have a horrible, irrational fear of people not liking me. I’d actually rather never talk to a living soul than risk talking to someone who might judge me/be an asshole to me. You always hear these stories of cave nerds who are too shy to speak to anyone in person but will start such bold arguments on the web. I’m even worse than that. I’m shy on AND off the net.

Forum posts used to take me hours to write because I would draft them, revise them, and…erase the whole damn thing and start over again. I know, I know. That’s a ridiculous amount of time to spend over a few sentences, but the thought of someone thinking I’m stupid or irritating scares me much more than anything else.

I…do not belong on Twitter. I have no business there, really.

Just look at that evil batard. He’s trying to ruin us all. 

Be honest–am I too weird to have writer friends?

I’ve heard how important it is for independent writers to network, but I’m scared to death of meeting other writers. I heard that they’ll be mean to you in perfect schoolyard bully fashion the moment they know you’re indie.

Sure, I could try and defend myself from the, “You’re just not good enough to be published by a publishing house but you still want to force your crappy books on the world instead of getting a normal person job like a nurse or something” stereotype, but I’ve done enough lurking on forums to know that my specific reasons for being indie are looked down upon in the writing community as well.

I want copyright reform, and they want to sue the pants off of anyone who so much as thinks about writing a fanfiction. I encourage readers to share and share alike, and they talk down about poor Neil Gaiman like he’s Satan himself just for saying that he likes digital piracy. I want readers, and the more I hear their gibberish, the more I think that they just want glory.

You know. A pat on the back from Harper Collins that says, “Congratulations, we didn’t have enough manuscripts submitted by people who actually matter and will make us money, so we decided to throw you a bone down there in the slush pile.”

I know, I know. I’m not helping. A bunch of traditionally published writers have been having hissy fits on their blogs lately about the “chip” that indie writers tend to have on their shoulder.

If you couldn’t stand up straight before you were knocked back down again, wouldn’t you have a chip in your shoulder, too?

Sometimes I really do feel like giving up and getting a “normal job” simply because I don’t think they’ll ever let me be a writer, too. If I get out a digital megaphone and protest, I’ve got a “chip in my shoulder” and am just making it harder for myself. I guess you tend to have that attitude about anyone who speaks for themselves when you’ve been kissing the collective asses of any publishers who noticed you for the past 200+ years.

Networking is just too damn impossible. I’ve signed up on a few popular writing forums and such, but everyone there who’s got a book published seems to have done it traditionally, and I’ve read through so many anti-piracy threads by now that my head is spinning. I’m prepared to introduce myself, clarify much later on when I ask for publishing advice that I don’t ever plan on publishing traditionally (not until traditional publishing changes its attitude, anyway), and be asked just what it is I’ve “got to lose in sending my manuscript to an agent to try and find a publishing house.”

Nothing but my time and dignity.

The scene that is online writing groups: where they’ll degrade you for publishing independently, but all of the ads on their websites are aimed towards self-pubbers.

It’s the end of the world and I’m feelin’ fine.

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