Fear Facing Prep

Yesterday, I mentioned the idea of doing a Face Up To Fear Day this Thursday. The basic idea was to do a few different things that I've been putting off for one reason or another that could summarily be called Fear. I've been afraid to put myself and my work on the line, and I've decided to put an end to that.

So, Thursday is going to be my inaugural Face Up To Fear Day. It might be a weekly thing.

Because it's such a personal thing, I'm not going to be listing everything I'll be doing on Thursday as part of this. However, one thing I have no trouble mentioning is that I'll be releasing a series of videos. I've been writing poems every day this month, as I'm sure you know, and a few of these have been about some of my favourite YouTubers.

The idea behind that is that I've been avoiding doing recordings of poems for a while. This is possibly because they've been so personal in a lot of cases, and while I don't plan on keeping those poems a secret forever and ever, I don't think I have the guts to put them out in the world myself just yet.

So, that's my compromise, and it's an example I can work with.

I drew up a list of everything I need to do to actually face up to that fear of putting some work out there, focusing on something that isn't so personal it'll terrify me if people hear me reading it. This list included:

- Write at least one more poem.
- Type up the poems.
- Memorise the poems - or enough of them at a time - for recording.
- Edit the videos.
- Release, and create a playlist.

Since I've been announcing the poems on Twitter as I've been writing them, I can reveal that the YouTubers who have poems written about them are, in order of writing:

- Carrie Hope Fletcher
- The World of Orange (WOTO)
- Charlie McDonnell
- Alex Day
- John and Hank Green (the vlogbrothers)

I consider this Volume 1 of The YouTuber Poems.

I'm not presuming them to be brilliant poems, though I'm happy with what I managed to do with a few of them, and I very much doubt any of the seven people above (two in WOTO) will ever see the videos. However, if they do, and/or if people enjoy them, I'll take that as a positive sign and work on writing poems about some of my other favourites.

I have a few other items on the list for Thursday, which will require putting myself out of my comfort zone. And that's the point. I've been hiding behind this safety net, and I want to get out of it, to get into the world and to start experiencing something new and exciting. I can't do that if I hide behind fear all the time.

On Thursday night, I'll go over how everything went with the day (and I'll embed the videos here). This'll be a fun day, I think, if not a little bit terrifying in parts.

How Many Ebooks Does It Take?

Every day, I do two things: I check my ebook sales through Amazon, and I update a file that keeps track of my monthly earnings, and my earnings per book. But how many ebooks does it take to match my monthly earnings in work?

Let's break this down a bit:

- A $0.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €0.30.
- A $2.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €1.70.
- I earn, on weeks in which I don't have extra hours, roughly €90 from work. We'll call it €360 for the month.

With those figures in mind, I would need to see 1200 ebooks at $0.99 per month to be matching my earnings from the bookshop. You read that correctly.

I currently have three books with that price tag stuck on them: Planning Before Writing, Old Gods Returned, and Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring.

Similarly, I need to sell 212 ebooks at $2.99 to make the same €360 per month. It's considerably less, as you can see. Right now, I only have one book published at that price: Balor Reborn.

I'm under no illusion that this is an easy task. Selling even a tenth as many books as I'd need to just to match my bookshop earnings is difficult. If a writer planned on making a living from writing, they'd need to: (a) have a massive readership and/or (b) earn money from different sources.

I would recommend the latter. Ebooks, as I think I've said here before, are not the goldmine people seem to think they are. Unless you become a bestseller, you're probably not going to put food on the table three times a day every day of the month from ebooks. (Unless you can feed your whole family on €1.70 per meal and sell only 90 ebooks at $2.99... and even then, that's a challenge.)

Considering the fact that rent for most people is at least as much as I earn per month, most likely more, there are obvious obstacles to overcome financially. Believe me when I say this, I would much rather be able to earn from ebooks than mop up a shop floor on a Sunday afternoon. But that's just not possible at the moment.

Why the honesty about the figures? I guess because I want to make it clear to myself why I'm not just packing in the job every time I feel like I don't want to be there (mopping up floors with people walking on them at the same time, or carrying out rubbish bags that are torn in several places...) The reality is, I don't currently have another way of making money than working in a shop that isn't getting enough business to keep me constantly busy. I wouldn't mind if there was something to do throughout the entire day. I would prefer be nearly run off my feet in the shop keeping the till going or replacing stock on the shelves. I wouldn't feel like I was just waiting for the next person to show up with a book to buy or a complaint to make about how we don't, as a small bookshop, have the out of print book they're looking for.

Part of me had these high hopes that when college finished up, I'd be in a position to change my life drastically. That just isn't so. Sure, life is different. But I didn't make that change. Maybe I'm afraid to do something about it. That seems very likely. I'm going to try challenge that fear this week (Thursday's going to be my Face Up To Fear Day) by doing something different, by breaking out of the mould I'm in. While I'm still going to keep publishing ebooks (and I'm working on getting Planning Before Writing available through Smashwords, but the site is giving me some trouble), I'm not going to pretend that it'll be easy to even match my income from the bookshop any time soon.

It take a lot of ebooks to make a difference in a life. The best way you can help an author is to buy their books and recommend those books to friends. It can help pay food bills, or make life more meaningful, or help save for education, either their own or their children's or their partner's. How many people does it take to change an author's life?

Back On Track

Today, I wrote a wee list of things I wanted to get done in the evening. For once, I've actually managed to stick to it. The list included:

- Finish the chapter I was writing.
- Write a blog post.
- Write a poem.
- Update my sales file on my laptop.

As of writing this post, I have everything else done. While it's not enough to stick to my previously intended publication date for The Hounds of Hell, it's certainly enough that I might be able to get myself back into some rhythm of work again. I had no trouble actually forcing myself to write the rest of the chapter.

As for the poem... well, that was a bit more difficult. Sometimes, I have an idea of what I want to write. Today, I just focused on 's' sounds, and went with it from there. Rather than trying to write The Best Poem Ever, I decided I would just attempt to improve upon how I use certain words and sounds in my poetry. The only way to do that is through practice. I was fairly happy with that.

As you might have guessed, updating the sales file was the easiest thing to do this evening. I have my file set up in such a way that I just need to change one figure (the number of books sold) to determine: (a) how many copies of that book I've sold in total, (b) how many books I've sold in total, (c) how much I've earned, roughly, from a single title, and (d) how much I've earned, roughly, from every book I've published.

What most surprised me was the surge in sales since last night. I was not complaining. I had expected sales to dip from the moment Planning Before Writing stopped being on Kindle Select. I was wrong, and I was glad I was wrong. It seems that the book is simply selling because people wanted to read it, not because Amazon was pushing it especially hard for being a Select book.

With that in mind, I think tomorrow I'll arrange for Planning Before Writing to hit the shelves of Smashwords. Renewing the Kindle Select agreement would only do one thing: allow Amazon, exclusively, to earn from my wee book. I don't have an plans to make that book free again, at least not for the foreseeable future, and so this is the best way forward with it.

It'll be interesting to test the waters of Smashwords again, albeit with a totally different book to Stepping Forward. It'll require updating links on my website and on ModernIrishMyth.com to ensure readers have a choice in where they're sent to, but it'll be worth it. Plus, it'll mean the book will eventually be available for purchase on various stores online. Huzzah and such.

So, that's part of tomorrow's plan. I'll also have to write like crazy, which will be fun. I don't plan on staying up too late tonight, but at the very least I'll be awake in time to take advantage of the day ahead of me. I'm back on track to writing regularly and keeping myself busy. It's about time.

Does Honesty Pay?

Tonight, we watched The Campaign. If you haven't seen it, and don't care to, here's a brief plot summary: two politicians from the same town are competing for Congress. One is being backed by billionaires, the other has never been competed against and is running for his fifth consecutive term. They both play dirty, they both lie. On the day one finally speaks honestly, he loses the election; the other secedes the position, and the honest guy wins by default.

Simple put, honesty paid off.

However, this was honesty on the back of lies and deceit. This got me thinking, if he had been honest from the beginning, would things have gone the same way for him? Would be have won if he had never lied during his campaign?

It then made me think, how would my life be different if I was completely honest with people all the time? It would mean spilling the beans on things I prefer not to talk about. It would also mean telling people what I think of them if they ask. That, I think, might cause more problems than not having personal secrets.

That is not to say that my opinions of people are bad. Rather, it means that people might behave differently around me, or no longer wish to be around me at all (either because I've insulted them, or they're not comfortable with what I think about them.) Whether it's flattery or insult, a lot of people don't like to know what people actually think about them.

I can understand that. On the days when I'm especially self-conscious, knowing what people think of me is one of the last things that appeals to me. It's not constitutive to a health relationship with someone with whom total honesty is not a fundamental aspect of being together. Friends don't have to know everything about each other, and especially not their opinions of each other. (Again, for either flattery or insult.)

For me, I even recognise that my opinions of people could easily be wrong. Having to tell people what I think of them - in the moment - isn't necessarily the truth as I see it. As the spectrum of human emotion can determine what we recognise as the truth, the latter might not always be the reality of the matter.

What's worse is that there could come massive generalisations. Thinking someone is annoying is often as a direct result of something that they do when they're around you. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that that's how they always are, and it is entirely constitutive on what you might consider annoying at any given period in time. (And I get this entirely from other people's perspectives, too. I'm fairly sure that a lot of what I do might be considered annoying. That would, rationally, explain difficulties with bullies in secondary school; what they consider annoying is enough for them, but for me - and for other people - it's not necessarily an annoying habit or action.)

With all of this in mind, then, how should be treat our lives? Social media has put an increasing stress on honesty, with some perverted idea of safety in being behind a screen. The reality is that this encourages people to express opinions - generally or about people - believing that they're free from consequences. This includes status updates and tweets that talk about disliking a particular type of person, when referring to someone one actually knows.

You've seen those ones, right? They're usually aimed at ex-es.

What about the bigotry that spouts from people's Facebook pages, in some foolish belief that they can never be found out about it if they keep their Facebook account private? The truth is, of course, that nothing on the Internet is private anymore.

Everything we post or upload or share is public. Everything. The lovely and insightful Rebecca Woodhead could tell you more about this, but the essence of it is this: everything can be accessed by The British Library. This means that when you think no one can find out that you've been spreading hate messages or talking about your sex life online, anyone can see it at some point, even if you don't want them to. Sure, it might not become public knowledge until after you're gone, but is that the mark you want to leave on the world?

And what about the simple process of page-printing? Let's face it, if you post something unflattering online, anyone can make sure it exists forever, no matter what you do with your account. All it takes is for one person to save it, and you can no longer remove it. This means every time you've said something negative about Muslims or women or homosexuals or people from a different town or country, you're allowing your words to be used against you. If means that every time you post a photo online that doesn't put you in the best light, you're allowing your image to be used against you. It's not just celebrities who are the objects of scandal; they're just the only ones we ever hear about.

You might think it unfair, but that's the truth. And while someone might excuse something you said as a sixteen year old, once you're legally an adult, you more or less lose permission to say anything stupid and offensive online without suffering the consequences.

Does honesty pay? I think it depends entirely on what you're being honest about. Opinions on people - people you know or people you don't - are probably best kept a secret. But those secrets you've been keeping on yourself? It's up to you how honest you want to be, so long as you're aware of the backlash that might occur. Remember, once something is seen once, it can be seen a million times.

This Brain is on Hiatus

I had meant to write about my experience in Belfast today. However, having only gotten home and in bed with time for tea to be made, I don't quite have the energy. We awoke at 5.30 in the morning, to arrive by 10-ish.

However, at 1am, this was how I looked:

(I'm not even sure where that's appearing in the post as I write it...I'll fix it tomorrow when I'm using my laptop. Update: yep, that was in the wrong place. But it's fixed now. And no long gigantic.)

Basically, I'm too exhausted now and up too early for work to say much about today. Tomorrow, if I get my hands on the photo, you'll at least get to see me lording over Westeros in the Iron Throne.

So That's What My Floor Looks Like!

Since I was released from the shackles of third level examinations, I've been cleaning my room. It's been and on-again, off-again task these past couple of weeks, because I just didn't want to do it. As far as I was concerned, sitting about playing games or watching videos or reading books was much easier to do from the chair or bed in the room. It was a rare thing to have to actually use the floor for anything.

Alas, that logic does not hold up with the house-owners (i.e. my parents.) While I'm still too underemployed and poor to move out, this is how it has to be. If they want my room to be clean so that they could, theoretically, walk about it (while ducking... no matter how clean the floor, the ceiling will always be low), then that's how it has to be.

In practice, they never enter my room.

They've done so on...three occasions in the past two weeks. Once to open the windows during our heatwave. Once to get something copied in my printer. And once just to look and see if the room was clean.

However, I've really gone at it of late, and it's paid off...kind of.

I mean, I still have to do a few different things to finish up, but the majority of the rubbish has been cleared from the floor. Now there's just a lot of things that don't seem to have a home anywhere.

I have no idea what to do with them, and they're all necessary to keep. So...that's going to be difficult to manage. On the bright side, at least I've made some progress and can see my floor more easily. Once the tidying is done, I'll be rearranged my room to better suit my needs. Whether my parents like it or not, I'm thinking of adding more storage space to my room.

That equates to more bookshelves, and possibly somewhere to put the likes of folders for various projects. It needs some planning, and some money. So that'll be fun.

Tomorrow's post may be a little bit short... I'll be out pretty much all day, and depending on my levels of exhaustion and my ability to type on my phone at said levels of exhaustion, my ability to say anything of value may vary considerably from the norm.

Poetic Focus

Progress on The Hounds of Hell was practically non-existent today. I'm still hoping to have the energy to write at least the rest of the chapter I was working on once I finish up here.

My principal problem was that I couldn't sleep last night. This put me in a position of having a headache for most of the day that makes looking at a screen a challenge and a half. I've been avoiding writing this blog post all day for that very reason, instead focusing on part of what kept me awake so late in the first instance: poetry.

Last night, upon realising that it was Bed Time and I hadn't written a poem in the whole day, I started writing one. Forty minutes later, I put down my pen and did a line count: 120 lines. Rhyming. It took quite a lot out of me, and not just because it's an mini-epic of life and death.

Having written it, though, I couldn't sleep. When I then woke up, I wasn't sure if I could leave it there as the last poem I'd written. So, I wrote a happier poem, one about The World of Orange. That was followed by poems about exams and spelling and grammar, because there was something there that I could see, something I could take advantage of that was fun and simple and less miserable than last night's poem.

It didn't make me feel horrible to have written it, mind you, but it was a bit dark in places and I didn't want to just leave it there. I've been writing poems in the same notebook for the past couple of weeks, now, and I don't want there to be a wholly negative chunk of it as some form of conclusion. (Not that it's actually a sequence.)

This has, of course, all been part of my hopes to write more poetry, because I didn't feel like I'd written enough, or was writing enough. Now, I'm facing something of an opposite problem: I'm taking a huge focus on poetry, and not enough on fiction.

That is something I want to change, without sacrificing one for the other.

If I can manage it, I'd like to up the ante a bit. From tomorrow onwards, every day shall see me:

1. Publishing a blog post here.
2. Writing a poem.
3. Writing fiction.

Not necessarily in that order, of course, since the five poems I've written today were all completed before this post had even been conceived. (I'd planned on writing about "strong female characters", but my brain is too melted for that. Soon. Soon.) Tomorrow, I'll write a chunk of fiction - definitely enough to finish the chapter if I don't manage that tonight - as well as writing at least one poem and writing a blog post.

So yes, that'll be busy.

But it's a necessary busy-ness. I can't afford to not write fiction every day. It has to happen. I won't actually write enough if I don't write fiction every day. I'll probably have to take on Camp NaNoWriMo next month, too, to ensure I'm writing a ridiculous amount of fiction every day in an effort to destroy the deadline-target.

I've definitely got my work cut out for me, but this is the life I want to live. I just need to figure out the sleep thing, first. If I keep losing sleep (for some reason... I wish I knew) then I'm going to keep struggling with the writing. Fingers crossed, tonight I'll sleep, and my new daily writing plans can get under way.