Sunday, August 19, 2012

Same Old, With a Bit of the New

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I wrote a blog post.  Oops.  :)  In my defense, my inlaws have been up visiting for the past TWO weeks, and with that, and a sick AND teething baby... it's been busy over here.

New baby... man this has been tough.  Because no offense to him, but he basically ruined my chances of finishing Camp Nano.  It is really, really tough to write at 5 AM when you've been up all night.  It is also really really tough to stay awake during nap time and write, when you know it is the only time you'll get to sleep.  So for like 5 days I wrote nothing.  And I'm still massively struggling in that dept.  Terris: 17,639.  Angel Book: 2903.

Still planning to keep on with Camp Nano because it is a good motivator, but I'm pretty certain at this point that I won't be able to catch up in time to finish.  And that's okay, because whatever words I get out of it are words that wouldn't be written otherwise.  I'll take that any day! :)

So many things to write about!  So, I don't know if you remember, readers, but this time around I decided to write one story line at a time in the hopes that I wouldn't hit as many plot/pacing roadblocks as I did with Aeris.  So far it's working out great.  I'm doing Luka's story line right now and I've written some stuff that I'm actually proud of.  I plan to stop his story at part 1 and then start in on another story line—probably Zyander—until they're all caught up to each other.  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to be writing Luka's story line this time around.  I was excited last book, but this book will get into the real meat of some of his character changes.  I'm doing some serious setup work for the next book, you see.

Aeris continues to surprise me in the sales dept.  Double the sales of Compis thus far.  Amazon, in a move that surprised me, put Compis up for sale at 99 cents.  Not sure why, but I will of course still get my $2.99 royalty, so I'm not complaining.

The best part of releasing the second in my series has been the reader feedback.  I've gotten more emails in the past week and a half than I have in the past 4 months. :)  It's so fun to talk to people who are enjoying where the story is going and who are downright curious about where it's going to end up.  I even got my first international fan email from a nice woman in France.  Hi Rut!  :)

This is the part of writing that I was always hoping for—finding an audience for the stories in my head.  Obviously not everyone loves my books and that's a-okay.  But the people that do are making writing so enjoyable for me.

One more thing:  I made my books free for any library that uses Smashwords to purchase ebooks, so there may be some point in the future when you can get my ebooks from a library loan.  How cool would that be?  I've always dreamed of having my books available for library users.  I'm a huge library advocate and still go there when I can't find an ebook for a good price.  (Also, for my son! :))

That's all for now. Happy Reading!

4 comments:

Nadja Notariani said...

Congrats on the sales with Aeris! And the emails too. Feedback is so encouraging!

Sorry to hear new baby is suffering with teething. Sleep deprivation is a drag...I don't envy you in that department. :{

It's good to see you've accomplished so many words despite lack of good sleep. Your excitement for writing Luka's story is, I'm sure, fueling your low gas tank. Lol.

Yes. Beta reads take too long...lol. But I must wait. Sigh. Next week should be exciting, as I expect to see some critique/feedback. I'm having trouble waiting patiently. If I lacked manners, I'm sure I'd be harrassing my beta readers and driving them crazy! lol.

Hope you have a great week, Kate!

Michael said...

I'm impressed that you're still getting writing accomplished with the new baby. Writing in a haze of drowsiness is a major challenge!

Our kids are finally getting old enough where the sleeping through the night is getting easier.

Best of luck, and congratulations on the growth of your audience!

Deniz Bevan said...

That sounds lovely, to be interacting with so many readers!
Wishing you lots of sleep and writing :-)

Claudia Lefeve said...

I've been a bad camper myself. I started out with a bang, then I stopped adding to my word count. I got in a grove and forgot about it!

SO happy that Aeris is doing so well!!! YAY! *doing cartwheels*