Since embarking on my journey as a writer I've learned quite a few lessons. The first was to be careful who I shared my stories with; I started out on a well known publisher's 'indie author' webpage and forums and the members there were less than friendly. They started out by giving me very thoughtful, constructive feedback from my submissions - great, right? Well, yes and no. You see I followed all of the 'official' rules outlined by the website itself but then I found myself in a public forum discussion with an 'outcast' and was then sent several 'tut tut, naughty naughty' messages from supposedly 'well meaning' members of the page.
I found their advice to distance myself from this friendly, helpful person to be quite rude and so I ignored it. Lo and behold I became an outcast myself; I got 'ignored' in group chats, talked about as though I couldn't see and then all reviews and comments on my work completely dried up, even though I actively reviewed and commented on other people's work in a constructive, polite way.
Lesson two was that I rush in. I write a piece and say 'ta daaa', read it through right away to check for mistakes, correct what I find and submit it. No stepping back, breathing, letting my mind clear before checking and finding ALL of the mistakes - oh no, not me! And then I don't even have a build up to my releases! I have been as patient as I can with Becoming - I finished it just over a week ago, and although I relented a little, it is still not being released until this Friday... it's killing me to wait of course. But this time there has been some build up; I even have a little 'Release Day' event on my Facebook page... It isn't well attended so far but I won't let that get me down, it is early days for me after all.
Lesson three has been to at least try to plot out my stories! Pieces of Me has been a joy to write. Most of the time. Sometimes Celeste dances in to my head telling me her story without a single prompt; other times I have dragged her kicking and screaming by her red curly hair and still not gotten a peep out of her. It's taken just over five months to write a 32,000 word story and if I had planned a little more earlier on it would have been written sooner (five months, by the way, is still good going for that word count). Certainly once I go back to edit and correct it I expect it to reach 35-40,000 words. But draft one is done and I'm very happy with that; draft two will come during the editing stage where I'm sure some parts will be rewritten and new parts will be added.
Lesson four I am still working on... self promotion, publishing, marketing and 'selling' my work when people ask me "so what's it about then?" I dread that question! I need to get better at answering it. Apparently there is such a thing as an 'elevator pitch' and that's still beyond me!
As they say, you learn something new every day!
I found their advice to distance myself from this friendly, helpful person to be quite rude and so I ignored it. Lo and behold I became an outcast myself; I got 'ignored' in group chats, talked about as though I couldn't see and then all reviews and comments on my work completely dried up, even though I actively reviewed and commented on other people's work in a constructive, polite way.
Lesson two was that I rush in. I write a piece and say 'ta daaa', read it through right away to check for mistakes, correct what I find and submit it. No stepping back, breathing, letting my mind clear before checking and finding ALL of the mistakes - oh no, not me! And then I don't even have a build up to my releases! I have been as patient as I can with Becoming - I finished it just over a week ago, and although I relented a little, it is still not being released until this Friday... it's killing me to wait of course. But this time there has been some build up; I even have a little 'Release Day' event on my Facebook page... It isn't well attended so far but I won't let that get me down, it is early days for me after all.
Lesson three has been to at least try to plot out my stories! Pieces of Me has been a joy to write. Most of the time. Sometimes Celeste dances in to my head telling me her story without a single prompt; other times I have dragged her kicking and screaming by her red curly hair and still not gotten a peep out of her. It's taken just over five months to write a 32,000 word story and if I had planned a little more earlier on it would have been written sooner (five months, by the way, is still good going for that word count). Certainly once I go back to edit and correct it I expect it to reach 35-40,000 words. But draft one is done and I'm very happy with that; draft two will come during the editing stage where I'm sure some parts will be rewritten and new parts will be added.
Lesson four I am still working on... self promotion, publishing, marketing and 'selling' my work when people ask me "so what's it about then?" I dread that question! I need to get better at answering it. Apparently there is such a thing as an 'elevator pitch' and that's still beyond me!
As they say, you learn something new every day!