Why I Self-Published

In 2012, when I was preparing to write Balor Reborn, I had to make a decision - write and prepare a book for publication in a week, or do the whole thing by myself. The first option would have only been exciting if (a) I had written a full-length novel that (b) was accepted by a publisher in (c) a short period of time after the writing.

The second option at least allowed me to publish by the end of week.

But that wasn't the only reason I decided to self-publish. It wasn't just a time issue. It was also a case that there weren't, at the time, many publishers of novellas that excited me. There was no one there to take my book seriously, that I knew of, because of its length.

I was aiming for short and snappy, and I could only provide that publishing service myself.

The same reason stands for why I continue to self-publish some books, and why I don't self-publish others. At the end of the day, I still want my first full-length novel to reach publication to be through a traditional publisher.

However, self-publishing, for the time and books that are in it, is ideal for me. It gives me complete control over everything I want to do with particular stories, and allows me to figure out what does and does not work in an actual marketplace - not just in terms of what books sell and what books don't, but also which marketing methods I can pull off, how I can run a business, that sort of thing.

All in all, I like the control I can get from self-publishing, and I like that I can bring certain stories into the world without going through a gateway.

This isn't to say I don't appreciate the work of publishers, because I do appreciate it, but when it comes to new projects that require particular care in terms of pacing and publication, I'd like the risk of not meeting publication deadlines to be entirely on me, and not down to a department in a company not being ready to deliver, or doubting the decision to publish at a particular time.

(Some context: I plan on releasing a series of books with publication dates at very particular times of the year - several books per year. Only big-name authors can get away with that in the traditional publishing field, because of the cost involved in printing the books. This is why I'm sticking with ebooks, for the time being, too, because I don't have to worry about finding the right price from a printer, while trying to balance several other aspects of life.)

All in all, the decision to self-publish comes down to my lifestyle. I work three days a week, and mind my niece every week, too, and this is on the back of spending my entire week either in college or working. I have a limited amount of hours free in the week, one way or another, and that's all about to happen again - I need to know that the deadlines are mine to impose, around everything else I've had to do in my life for the past few years. To be perfectly honest, I'm still striving for the right balance in my life. I'm not ashamed to admit that. But I'm getting there. I'm figuring things out. And at least I get to do it on my own time.

Writing About Writing

At the time of writing this - on a sunny Monday afternoon - three of the seven books in my Amazon store are about writing, with one more almost ready to go live. That's half the books I have published, focusing on some aspect of writing. The big question is, Why? Why write about writing at all?

It's not for the money. Really. There's not a huge amount of money to be made from writing, and I can't exactly boast huge royalties from my sales. It's a niche market, and each book addresses a different aspect of it.

I write about writing because no one ever taught me about it. I had to figure things out from books by people I'd never heard of, people who were twice or three times my age, and who didn't know what it was like to be in school anymore. I only ever had books to read that treated books like an entirely alien object, with many of them stating the obvious: if you want to write, you have to read.

So, I decided I could do better than just a standard book on writing, with a $20 price tag to go with it. I decided to write books about things that would help people with different aspects of writing, and make them more approachable and affordable than what I'd read growing up. The far-away best seller of the books I've published is Planning Before Writing, which shares the techniques for planning book and stories that I've used for years.

Why do I mention that? Because it highlights that there was a gap in the market for a book that would deal with precisely that one problem, of how to plan a book. I don't just offer one option, because that one option would never be enough for everyone. I don't just offer the how to plan information, either. The book is as much about why to plan as it is how to plan, and that's the information that people need to focus on first.

I realised that a long time ago, and wrote and published 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block as a result. Why? Because people always look for advice on how to beat it. Not just writers, but college students, too. There's are a lot of people who need help with it, and few people out there who can say not just what to do, but also why to do it, and how it benefits to do it. 

That's what I wanted to focus on. I could have written a blog post with just the table of contents, and that might have helped some people. Except it wouldn't have been beneficial to them in the same way, just like the methods in Planning Before Writing are useless without some guidance and reasoning behind them.

I write about writing because I'm a writer with experience with problems, and a teacher with the insight to find solutions to them. I write about it because I enjoy combining my professional practice with what used to just be a hobby.

In Five Years

My friend Rebecca asked a question of people, sometimes, when she's trying to get them to really think about their lives. She asked them, Where do you see yourself in five years?, not just out of curiosity, but because of what their answer means to their current situation. If you see yourself married with two kids in five years, but you're currently single and childless, you either have high expectations for the future, or you need to really start taking relationships more seriously.

If you want to be doing something in five years - mothering, publishing, travelling - you need to be working towards that now.

For me, it comes down to a happy little mix of writing, publishing and travelling.

Don't get me wrong. I don't expect to become an overnight hit in the writing department. Writing books isn't how you make money from writing. The biggest earners, aside from the big bestsellers in the publishing industry, are usually screenwriters. Of the Average Joe variety of writer, screenwriters make the most from a single piece of work. (It's also the most competitive market - fun!)

But I'd love to be doing it. I'd love to be trying my hand at screenwriting, while continuing to write my books, and attempting something of a freelance career. It's a difficult life to get started in, nearly impossible to do while in full-time education as an Undergrad. student, but it's not outside of my reach at this point in my life. I have books for guidance on screenwriting and freelancing, and I understand the book publishing sector relatively well, and it's just a case of applying everything I have to that dream.

That's what this month is all about for me, with Operation Overdrive. I want to create my work-life balance now, with an over-the-top last ditch attempt before my Masters starts in September.

And that Masters is where the second part of my five-year-dream comes in: publishing. My Masters is in Multimedia, which will help build up a skill-set in digital image editing, video production, and audio production - among other areas - which I see as being vital for publishing in the future. I have my own plans, aside from wanting to work with a major publishing house in the UK or the US or even here in Ireland (though there are fewer publishers here), and I'm confident that once I get the ball rolling, I'll be able to sort out something big.

Obviously, my explanation here will be lacking in details while they're still being worked on, but I've already started working on what I want to do, and how I want to do it, and it's just a case of getting the background work in place before I fully commit to it all - including putting my energy into the Masters.

As for the travelling, that's where things get complicated. Conventional work wouldn't allow for travel, and neither would a low income, and I don't plan on living at home when I'm approaching 30. I could tell you all of the places I want to go - and I will later in the month - but that doesn't explain how I'm going to afford it.

The travelling aspect is where I get to see the world. I know I can't afford to do it now, not while I'm saving everything I've got for the Masters (because aside from the fees, I'd like to get my own equipment, like a new laptop, and a proper camera). But if I could make the travel part of my work, if I could use it as research, or as part of a freelancing job, then it makes the money put into flights and accommodation part of the necessary expenses.

It's a child's dream, I suppose, but growing older doesn't mean that those dreams have to go away. Growing older just means that I can make more sense of those dreams, and how to make them a reality. In five years time, I want to be doing just that.

Future Books and Future Plans

My friends poked fun at me when I said, in response to the challenge to come up with a book idea in thirty seconds, that I had a wall full of ideas, and I could easily pretend I just came up with one of them. I got the whole "Oh, I just have so many ideas..." line.

Well yes, yes I do.

I don't have plans, but I do have ideas. The ones I really like, I make sure to focus on. They're a mix of fiction and non-fiction, and I don't know how many of them are actually good yet. I have to see how they pan out when I try planning them, when I try to find the story around the idea.

My general plan for the next couple of years with books looks like this:

- I want to release the third Modern Irish Myth book. It'll require re-planning, and writing from scratch, but it's going to happen. Then, the series will be put on hiatus.

- I'll be releasing a series of books set in an Irish college. To put it really simply, it'll be creating a fictional world around my own college experience, inspired by events rather than people. I'm fleshing out a lot of it at the moment, but it's been exciting me for a long time, now, and it'll be appearing sooner rather than later.

- I'll be focusing on a couple more writing books in the future. Some will be specific genre-related titles, others more broad, addressing all writers. Without just giving away ideas, that's all I can say.

- After my Masters, I'll be turning my attention to researching and writing about mental health. I want to make the material accessible. If my experience on teaching placement in 2013 was any indication of the trend, even the people who should know about mental health don't. This is something I've been wanting to write about for a long time, and for the time being it'll remain in my fiction, but in the future I'll be taking on a more proactive role in the field in Ireland - and maybe even abroad.

That's just the books, of course. There's a lot else to focus on in the future, which I can't really discuss until I actually get started (I have books on mental health, and have read a bit of some of them, so I'm not breaking my own rule there). This isn't just a secrecy thing. This is a hype thing. As in, I don't want to create any hype in my own head over this stuff.

Being a writer can be a scary thing, especially when public announcements are concerned. It's with that in mind that I'm keeping a lot of things quiet until I'm ready to talk about them, and why I haven't given any indication as to what's actually going to happen in my new books. For now, you'll have to do with the vague answers I can give, and accept the fact that new material is on its way.

How Long Should My Book Be?

This week, 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block is free on the Kindle. To celebrate that fact, we're going to look at some of the basic questions new writers ask. I've addressed this next question before, but things have changed.

How long should my book be?

Figuring out how long a book should be is one of the more complicated aspects of starting out as a writer, by and large to the amount of varying sources online. Let's look at it this way:

A novella is anything from 15,000 to 40,000 words. Most publishers of novellas actually expect them to be in the region of 25,000 to 35,000 words. It's more obviously a book than a short story, but not long enough to be a novel.

A novel is, technically speaking, anything longer than 40,000 words. (This is the adult market, by the way. Books for young readers have considerably less words.) In general, publishers look for work that's at least 65,000 words in length, but different genres look for different word/page counts.

A safe bet is to aim for about 90,000 words for a novel. It's on the lower end of expectations by a lot of publishers, but still long enough that no one will turn their nose up at it as being a "short book". (Take this from a guy who works in a bookshop - the reading public expect shorter books to be cheaper, when that's very rarely the case.) Keep in mind, some books you'll see on the shelves are near or beyond the half-million word mark.

It really does come down to one thing: how long is the story you want to tell?

There's no point writing a longer book for the sake of writing a long book. It will become painfully obvious that you're writing just to add words, and most publishers would require you to cut out anything like that before publication. Write the book you want to write, and see how long it ends up being afterwards. If you want to write a long book, then make sure you have the story to back up your aspirations.

For a better idea of how long other books are, I'll point you in the direction of this website: http://commonplacebook.com/culture/literature/books/word-count-for-famous-novels/

But what about non-fiction?

Typically, non-fiction books are shorter than fiction (though, again, it depends on how much has to be said on a topic.) To put it simply: depending on the field you're writing in, your book could be extremely long (History books tend to be quite long) or short (short for a novel, typically looking at some health or relationship books.) Books at about 50,000 words are common - shorter still when they're from dedicated ebook publishers - but they tend to target a more niche market.

The best thing to do is to consider how much you have to say on a topic, and write the best book you can. Plan it in detail, do your research, and let the word count figure itself out.

About 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block:

Have you ever struggled with writer’s block? Have you sat at your desk, looking at your work in progress, wondering what to do with a character who just won’t budge, or a poem that just won’t take form, or an article that just won’t work for you? Have you ever joined thousands of authors in the search for a way to beat writer’s block? 

From the author of Planning Before Writing comes a solution to the problem of writer’s block: 25 ways to tackle one of the biggest issues facing writers, each with an exercise to help you to develop as an author and improve your writing skills. 


With exercises to suit every writer, and drawing on over ten years’ experience in the craft, 25 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block is a must-have reference for your collection.

Available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HYMVZJ2
and Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HYMVZJ2

What 'Work' Means

When applying for a job, the typical CV includes a number of details that effectively break down as a simple introduction to who you are and how you see yourself. Let's look at my CV briefly, leaving out the details like where I live, and the specifics of where I work. Safety first online.

Hi there. My name is Paul Carroll, I'm twenty two, and I'm a recent college graduate. I have six and a half years' experience as a bookseller, I write books and plays, I consider myself quite empathetic towards others, and I took part in Drama while in college. I'm technically a qualified teacher, a detail I include to indicate that I have developed skills in communication, organisation and working with large groups of people in sometimes stressful situations.

Looking at that, it's not a bad introduction. However, if I had this in in the form of a CV, what it looks like is:

Hi there. My name is Paul Carroll, I'm twenty two, and I'm a recent college graduate. I have six and a half years' experience as a bookseller, in a shop where my time is valued at minimum wage. I write books and plays, but I haven't ventured into the world of traditional publishing. As the current understanding of what it means to be published is still changing, you might think I'm either afraid of failure, or that I am a failure. I consider myself quite empathetic towards others, which is my way of saying I'm sensitive to others and their needs; while this is useful when working with the public, as a personality trait it's underestimated. I took part in Drama while in college, something I can point out to show that I had a balanced work-and-social life, but that might also suggest I could bring the theatrics with me. That is not always the case. I'm technically a qualified teacher, a detail I include to indicate that I have developed skills in communication, organisation and working with large groups of people in sometimes stressful situations. My lack of a teaching position might indicate that I never bothered, or no school would hire me. The former makes it look like I changed my mind, which makes me look fickle.

With the added cynicism, my CV doesn't look too great. It indicates that I am undervalued but not willing to take drastic measures to change that. It suggests I chose self-publication for reasons other than the challenge of doing it all myself. It doesn't say much about what it really means to pay attention to how others are feeling, or how Drama helps to develop a sense of belonging to a group about which I was passionate. Furthermore, it doesn't say much about how I feel about the teaching world right now, or my position in it.

On the latter, I'll be brief. Teaching in Ireland is tricky at the moment. There are union problems. There's a new Junior Cycle programme on its way in. At least, that was the plan. These are all adding to the workload and food for thought for teachers, who must still prepare lessons for pupils, grade work, prepare exams, and - when industrial action isn't taking place - arrange meetings and out-of-school trips. It's all quite headache inducing at the moment, and I'm barely four years older than the sixth year students.

I'm not on a sub list for teaching at the moment as a result of a combination of the above paragraph and, more significantly with regards timing and scheduling my life, the time I spend working in the bookshop and minding my niece. The sub list is not a guarantee for work. Few people on it will work every week, fewer of them every day of every week, and fewer still will be lucky enough to find sub work as maternity leave cover. I'm not currently in a position to drop everything with an hour's notice Monday to Friday. Social obligations are less of an issue - friends would understand. It's the days I could be working in the bookshop, or the days I'm minding my niece, that would cause problems.

So, that's that. That's why I'm not currently working as a teacher.

However, even that represents only a limited understanding of what it means to be a teacher. Looking at my CV again, we can see a few key points jumping out: I'm a writer, with speaking practice, trained as a teacher. Those three points actually go together remarkably well.

You see, my college experience has helped shape me into someone who is quite capable of doing something I wouldn't have thought possible fifteen years ago - when I didn't know what it meant to be a published writer, when writing books wasn't even an option because I had never found a book for my age that told a story I really loved. (That came later.) What's changed is that I'm in a position to make my own work as a teacher.

Classrooms are important for group teaching. That said, they're only vital when the group is consistently larger than a dozen - at least on the class list. Nowadays, technology allows for group discussions through video conferencing (and conversing) software. Google Hangouts make talking to a group of people an easy to manage environment. But even with that in mind, the Internet and the advent of digital publishing and the decreased requirement for a "gatekeeper" allows for someone like me to redefine what 'work' means.

I've spoken about this already, but this is what I'm planning in 2014. I'll be back to working barely any hours in the week, still on minimum wage. I'll have plenty of time to myself during the week, time which I can use to revalue myself publicly. Lets face it, I have nothing to lose in trying to work on things I'm actually passionate about - not magazines and newspapers and stationery, not someone's problem with a book they received, or the finer details that arise from working under a brand name, but in a different company altogether.

Work shouldn't have to be about doing things at a pay-rate that belittles the trouble you go to for people, or the effort you put in to make sure everything runs smoothly. Work shouldn't have to involve doing something that doesn't make you happy.

Yes, I'm grateful to have a job. But it's not good work. Retail, especially at Christmas, is difficult. I'm at the end of six days working full time, leaving me exhausted and exasperated, and the closest thing I get to a Christmas bonus is €20 under my name for a Christmas party that hasn't even been arranged yet. This is after restocking and re-merchandising the shop for six days in a row. This is after customer complaints over transactions I wasn't involved in - too often not even from my shop. This is after customers failing to observe the store's opening hours. This is after recommending and/or locating books at least a dozen times a day - most likely more than that. That, for minimum wage.

I'd like to clarify: I understand the company's financial situation. I understand the rush at Christmas. This isn't about the job itself. It's about how much value is placed on the work I do, from where I'm sitting. I know that come January, things will go back to what could loosely be described as normal. I know I'll be back to working just weekends, despite having proved myself as being able to handle more than just the few hours I receive with the responsibility that's placed on me.

Having a job and being valued for your work are two different things. I know what it would take when I control my work to indicate that I am valued. I know the difference between the job I have in the bookshop and the work I'm putting into place for next year. I know what work means to me, and what I ought to be valued at, and I know how it looks from the outside. All I have to do now is make sure it's clear from the point of view of others when I'm working and when I'm not. (Here's a hint: if I'm typing a lot on my laptop, writing a lot on notepad, or looking intently at a screen - sometimes with a tablet and a pen in my hand - then I'm probably working. Even if you hear music blaring at the same time. It's called a 'working environment'.)

Daily Content and a Publishing Schedule

While reading The Millionaire Messenger (and yes, eventually I will stop mentioning that book), it occurred to me that if I really want to sell books, I need to do more than just write books, or writing articles or stories when I wanted to sell a book. Having brought up the book so much, and thought about it a lot, I got the idea to publish The Winter Folk over the period of December.

It was a no-end-in-sight plan. Not that it had no end, but that I wasn't doing it for a particular reason other than: (1) I wanted to do something nice in the run up to Christmas and (2) ParagraVerse has been awfully lonely, lately. So, I wrote it as twelve-part poem, to help make it last longer while my work schedule picked up.

As it happens, the poem created its own end.

In the writing of it, I began to think about how interesting I might find the story to write. In particular, I wanted to write the story of the Ice Queen. The world has seen Jack Frost. The world knows all about Santa Claus. But the Ice Queen... well, any time there's a queen or a witch who dresses in white and surrounds herself in ice or snow, she seems to be a villain.

Not for me, not this time.

So, that's what I'm writing now. The Ice Queen. It's a short story. I'm hoping to publish it for Kindle later this month. I'll need to design a cover, soon. And write the two flash stories I want to publish this month on ParagraVerse, too. All of this, out of a little wish to write a poem and make it last.

I hadn't even been set on writing this, until yesterday. And even then, I only thought about it. It wasn't until I actually sat down to plan a schedule that I also decided to plan the book. The schedule was for daily content online this month. I know I missed December 1st, but from then on out I've got things in mind. The Winter Folk helps by taking up half the days between now and Christmas. Thankfully, the poem also sparked a book which sparked a couple of other pieces that need to go online.

Somehow, the poem created a published schedule around itself.

It wasn't the practice I had in mind, but that's fine. At least I know in January, when I get to work on a campaign towards launching another book, I'll have an idea of how best to follow through on my ideas. Scheduling is definitely of benefit to me. It's basically the only way I'm managing this right now.

Anyway, my original plan for daily content, now fully completed, is seeing the following going online:

- 8 blog posts,
- 9 videos,
- 2 flash stories,
- 2 poems - one in 12 parts, and
- 1 ebook.

How much of this is written or prepared? Less than half. How much will be prepared in advance and pre-scheduled? More than half. And how much of it is going to be fun to put together?

I'm going to go with just about all of it.

What this all boils down to is releasing a lot of content that I find interesting, setting new challenges for myself on a regular basis, writing about what I know and, with the exception of the ebook, making it all free for anyone to look at. I think it's a fair deal, getting all of that for nothing and having no obligation to buy the story in the end. And if you enjoy yourself along the way, all the better. That is the point of this sort of stuff, after all, to provide some entertainment.

If all goes well, I'll keep up this sort of thing in 2014, and not just because I'll be releasing new books in the future. This is the essence of The Millionaire Messenger, I think, or part of it at least. The best way to reach an audience is to give people something for nothing, and tell them that there's also something they can buy if they want. The point, though, is that the "messenger" is passionate about what they're talking about.

I think in this case, that goes without saying.

(P.S. If you want to keep up with everything I post this month, Twitter is probably your best bet. You can find me @writeranonymous.)

From November and Beyond!

Traditionally, I've attempted some form of writing challenge in November, ever since my first attempt at NaNoWriMo when I was in 6th Year in school. Since then, I think I've only really managed to complete it a couple of times, and I usually feel crap about not doing it. (Silly, I know, but that's how it is.)

This year, I'm not signing up. November, while having less working hours in story for me, is still going to be busy. I've been hired to direct a play at my old college, I may end up with random working hours in the middle of the week, and I have my graduation to attend. To keep myself from going entirely mad with deadlines and the likes, I'm setting myself other writing targets. Instead of word counts, I'm aiming to complete certain projects.

First up, I need to complete The Blood of Leap. Ideally I can work on it a lot over the coming days, to finish up early next week. When I have a cover designed for the book, I can then decide on a release date to finally release the third book in the Modern Irish Myth series.

When the book is written, I'll be moving on to another series entirely. I'm hoping - and this might be more difficult than I'm currently letting myself believe - to release twelve books next year. That's one a month in 2014, all in one series. I need to get the first book written in November, and have some work done on the second, so that I can make an announcement officially in late November/early December.

The intention is to fill the year with writing in a way I haven't done before. Part of me wants to attempt a year-long blog tour, but that's just insanity with everything else I'll have to do. However, I will be putting it out there to write guest posts on blogs (and take part in interviews), as well as interviewing other writers about what they're up to. I think it'll be fun, and it'll help keep me busy.

If things go to plan, 2014 will be a big year for me. Getting settled after finishing my exams took a lot of time. It might sound silly, but it's not easy replacing a schedule when it's all you've had for your life. While things were certainly more hectic of late with a few extra hours per week in shop, November is seeing a significant dip in the amount of time I'll be working. I'm looking forward to filling up the "days off" with writing. The value of that time is becoming more and more evident, and it's something I didn't get an opportunity to figure out during the summer months, when I wasn't receiving many more hours at all.

Things are changing in my life, and I'd like to think it's for the better. I'd like to say that I'm getting a grip on the vacuum of days without timetables.

Tomorrow morning is the first morning I'll have a chance to do something in November that might actually go somewhere. I'll be tackling the last chapter I was working on in The Blood of Leap. Saturday will then see me going for the next chapter, with a morning and an evening to myself. Sunday's the same, though with an hour less in the morning to do something. Monday is almost a write-off, unless I can squeeze an hour in before bed. Tuesday sees me with potential plans in the afternoon, but the entire day to myself otherwise. That'll be fun.

That's the gist of how my days will be playing out. I have two days in the bookshop most weeks, a couple of days babysitting (that's a thing I've been doing for a while), a couple of evenings directing, and a cinema visit every week. Otherwise, days off and time to myself, and I intend on making the most out of it all. With little control on when I have days off, they're becoming a valuable commodity. This morning, for instance, has been spent (a) catching up on sleep and (b) reading, because I don't get much time for either a lot of the time.

I'm guilty of announcing great intentions for change in my life and then not following through, but this time, I don't think I could be more enthusiastic about what I have in store for 2014. I'm reading books on marketing and PR, I'm planning a whole-website re-jigger, all with one series in mind.

It begins with November, and it continues until there's nothing left to write. That could take a while. While I plan on publishing 12 books next year in this series (as well as more books in the Modern Irish Myth series), the series won't necessarily be finished with by December next year. At the very least, the characters won't be finished with by then. One of them actually has a whole other series of books to his name in my head (books that need planning properly before I announce anything about them to anyone in any real detail), while the initial 12 have stories to follow them that I haven't fully planning, but haven't entirely abandoned. There's so much to happen in the coming months, and I want it all to start properly tomorrow morning.

The last time something felt as right as this series was when I was writing the press release for the week of writing and publishing that would lead to Balor Reborn. It felt real, and it felt like it was supposed to happen. This new series isn't like Balor Reborn, though. It's not fantasy based. The books are grounded in reality, the ups and downs, falling in love and falling out of it, and the painful experiences of life that people sometimes refuse to talk about. The books are about life, set in Ireland, with all the comedy and tragedy that life entails.

So, while I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year, November is still going to be significant. November is going to be the big month for me, the one that tells me whether or not I'll be able to follow through on my mad ambitions to publish these books. November is the month that needs to matter enough to dedicate time to writing, because it's the first month since days off became valuable, and the last month this year I'll have enough of them to make a difference.

What about you? Are you taking part in NaNoWriMo?

Day 27: Considerations

Today, something occurred to me: in focusing all my attention on writing the Modern Irish Myth books, they became something I didn't want to focus on. Which, you know, means that I wasn't getting anything done at all. It got to the point that thinking about writing The Blood of Leap was off-putting, rather than just requiring me to turn on my laptop and write. After all, that's what I do when I need to write a blog post (usually), so it's not that much effort. But actively disliking the idea of going to write the book?

No, I couldn't have it.

Writing is supposed to be fun. And I was enjoying writing the book, until a lot of different things came up that required my attention in one form or another. I don't believe in writing a book when it's not enjoyable. I purposely picked a topic for a my research paper that was both interesting in and of itself, and allowed me to look at interesting texts (translation: books, poems, songs, films and television shows - I rock at academia). It meant I wouldn't be put off writing it when I had to. (Even though I went into Major Procrastination Mode and didn't write it for a while.)

But I don't want to force myself to write a book in a bad mood knowing that focusing on it means I can't do anything else. This means two things are happening:

1. I'm going to take more time to write other things, not just the Modern Irish Myth books.

Let's look at this logically: I want to earn from writing. Fiction isn't exactly a goldmine for most writers. Focusing all of my writing time for the next few months on writing fiction means I probably won't make much money from it - one of my self-appointed parameters for success being to make a certain amount from writing generally speaking - unless I become a bestselling author - another parameter for writing success.

Add to this an interest in poetry, teaching, writing non-fiction, writing about writing, and writing other stories, and I've got a problem. If I focus entirely on the Modern Irish Myth books, not only am I less likely to find even minor success (the sort that makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere, but not necessarily the sort that makes me famous), I'm less likely to be happy writing.

Considering the amount of changes my life is going through at the moment, I don't think restricting my options is necessarily a good thing. I want to start freelancing seriously. I want to write more poetry. I want to rediscover a certain sense of self from writing. I want to write more about writing.

To manage this step more plausibly, I need to focus on Thing #2 to happen.

2. I'm revising the publication schedule for the books.

I had intended to release a book a month until the series is complete. This is a fast-track system to releasing eleven books in less than a year, which requires them to be written at a pace of at least one per month. Given my difficulty in focusing on the series with Big Ol' Life getting in the way, you might see the problem that might arise from this commitment. Unless I drive myself absolutely insane and risk hating the books as I write them in an effort to meet my previous writing schedule (to finish writing by October's end), a book a month means trying to focus all  the way through various holidays and events, and assumes my employment situation will remain as disappointingly the same as it is now. (I know, lots of people want and need jobs, but a grand total of 10.6 hours' pay per week isn't exactly enviable.)

Reality check: I want to work more hours. I need to. Not because I want to be Stinking Rich, but because I want to do more with my life than work at the weekends in a shop, arrange lunches with friends every couple of weeks (if I'm lucky), read comic books and go to the cinema. I want to travel. I don't even intend on travelling extensively until I can get myself earning enough to justify the expense. I just want to be able to go on a trip out west, or to London, or go to the Edinburgh Arts Festival. Even these simple things are out of my price range.

From my point of view, that sucks. I'm out of college, but I have next-to-nothing to my name and I'm in no position to improve my life. It just feels like I'm getting dragged along by circumstance.

So, with all of that in mind, the new publication schedule - unless I find it as equally restrictive as the current one - is to release the books every two months. This means that The Blood of Leap is due for release in September, not August. It means that the twelve books will take me to March 2015, not May 2014. A longer wait for the finish, yes, but this has a couple of benefits.

Firstly, I'm under less pressure to write the books in a short period of time, which means I'm less inclined to dislike them. (Much less inclined, in fact.) As a result of that, I'll be able to write better books.

Secondly, I'll be able to write other books in the meantime, and work on other projects, without the pressure to release something new all the time. With the series to keep me going until 2015, I'll be able to get other projects ready for launch. I've even got a couple of stand-alone titles in mind, which may find their way into publication either during the publication cycle, or afterwords (with the latter projections bringing the final run of fourteen titles to September 2015.)

Thirdly, I won't be crowding the market with my own books. I'd be a bit overwhelmed with the selling thing if I was trying to promote the books so heavily all the time until March. Yes, I'll have to promote the books, but at least I won't feel like it's all I'm ever doing if the publication dates are set further apart, and it won't seem like I'm rushing the books into publication for the sake of it. (The truth of the matter is, they're short books, which I can write quickly when I get to writing them; it just wouldn't look that way from the outside.)

All that considered...

I'm calling a halt on my Camp NaNoWriMo intentions. Next week, I'm going to make plans to see a friend. On Monday or Tuesday, whichever is free earliest, I'm going to spend the day writing poetry (which will probably require major Facebook stalkerage for scenic photographs for inspiration). I plan on writing a lot of poems in the day. I'm hoping my brain can manage between 15 and 25 poems - even if they require a lot of editing afterwards - to try get the rush from creativity back. I think it'll be good for me.

Basically, I'm sick of being caught up in life and not doing anything with it. It's time to make a change.

Day 16: The One with the Publication

Publication day was fun. I had to add in a couple of things to the file before uploading to Amazon, but it's finally done: The Hounds of Hell has been published!

I had planned to do a couple of things for publication day, but that didn't quite work out the way I wanted to. I'd forgotten that the actual publication process took a while when using Amazon, so it wasn't until a few hours ago (and much later into the day) that the book was actually available for purchase. Anyway, I've sorted those little extras out for tomorrow. (So keep an eye on the social media sites!)

In the meantime, I kept to one of my plans: I released a new flash story! Entitled The Poet and the Bride, it's available to read on the Modern Irish Myth site here: http://modernirishmyth.com/the-poet-and-the-bride/

I have three more planned that I need to write that will be going live over the next three days. I think it's a fun way to celebrate the release of a book, to publish a few short stories for people to enjoy for free. Naturally, I had to start with Ogma. He's probably my favourite character to write about in the series.

The writing today hasn't even begun, unless you count the flash story. I should count that, right?

Anyway, I'll be getting on to that. In the meantime, you can check out the little details about The Hounds of Hell below.

Dogs are going wild in Galway, unable to be killed. Gathering around a black hound, they put Ireland at risk.

In the aftermath of Balor’s attack on Dublin City, Fionn Murray and Michael Curran travel back to Fionn’s hometown in Galway, to visit his sickly parents. With the help of his childhood friend, Emily Shanahan, Fionn hopes to nurse his parents back to health. At the same time, he hopes to find some answers about his birth parents.

With the local hospital filling up with victims of dog attacks, and a superhuman neighbour to deal with, Ireland’s chosen hero has another evil to stand up to. The hounds of hell are on the roam, and no one living is safe.

Available here: http://www.amazon.com/Hounds-Hell-Modern-Irish-ebook/dp/B00DYQNTZA/

Day 15: Eep

I'm not going to lie, part of me is terrified about tomorrow. That part of me is ignoring the book I'd been editing. The Hounds of Hell is coming out!

It's been a fun experience to write the book, but I can't wait for it to be released into the wild, and for the publication party to begin with it. With that said, though, I still have to write tomorrow's flash story.

I'm kind of behind on this, to be honest, but I think it'll be fine. Flash stories are, by their very nature, short. I enjoy writing them. I chose a fun one to start with. In the words of my people, be grand sure.

Today, I was in full editing mode, though. No writing. Yet. As soon as everything's ready for tomorrow, I'll get something done, I hope. Though, I think by then it'll be a bit late. It means I'll be writing a lot tomorrow, between all the fun publication stuff. Expect tweets. Expect Literary Stand-Up. Expect me to be super excited.

And expect tea. Lots of tea.

I would probably be more prepared for the launch if I hadn't been in work today. I was essentially a robot for my shift, grabbing books with stickers belonging to the old shop, and putting new ones on. Okay, mis-representation: we're the same shop, and the same company, but we're a franchise. And the change-over is a nightmare. I officially hate stickers. Especially our old €8.99 stickers. They put up a fight.

Anyway, a full day's work slowed me down in the writing department. I'm not complaining, though. I could use the money for the day in it. Even writers have to eat and buy comic books.

So, yes, blathering on now... I have work to do. And excitement to contain. Eep!

Day 14: Late Start, Awesome Result

Today, it took me some time to actually get to writing. Not to worry, though, because I managed to write over 2,400 words tonight. This has brought me through chapter four of The Blood of Leap, in a second day of writing quite a bit, and has resulted in the second change of plans.

This is a direct result of not planning enough content for the books, but also seeing an opportunity to dedicate chapter four to something special. It's shorter than most chapters in the book, but the most significant chapter in terms of world building and plot development for the series, with the possible exception of the final chapter if memory serves.

I still only have two more chapters planned in the book, though, which means I may be facing some word count troubled in the near future. I need to write at least 12,000 words more...in the next two chapters.

Can you see my problem?

There just isn't enough in the plan to make that happen. Yet. Reading over my plan as I began writing this, I noticed a couple of areas I could expand upon. One of them is going to be sweet and gentle, albeit slightly creepy. The other is going to be much bloodier.

With a title like the one I have, is that really a surprise?

Even still, I worry that I won't have enough to go with. It's a good thing I have a month until I actually planned on publishing it, but haven't actually announced an official release date. I get to finish the book before I do that, I reckon. That's something I plan on doing this month, anyway.

Still, I'm quite happy with how the book is turning out so far. I think I might need to go back over some notes I have for the book, though, to make sure I really tell the story I've been wanting to.

Tomorrow, though, I'll have to focus on the final edits for The Hounds of Hell, to make sure the book is ready for Tuesday. I also need to write the first flash fiction story, format the book, and get things ready for the publication. I'm lucky I'm not working on Tuesday to get a lot of this managed, and to get back to writing The Blood of Leap.

This is a fun month. Hashtag stress, wha'?

Day 5: Publication Preparations

Today, I did two things: I reached 3,000 words in The Hounds of Hell, and I drew up a list for everything I needed to do for the publication and promotion of the book, before and after its release. Be warned: this post might read as a wee bit Official. I apologise for the seriousness in advance. Normal insanity will resume in the future, probably.

The first thing I need to do is create a book trailer. Last year, Balor Reborn's trailer had to be limited to things I could find online that people didn't have to hear until they went into the trailer. Otherwise, there'd be spoilers. Couldn't have that now, could we? Even if it was just a trailer, it was a piece of content in and of itself.

This time around, I have the freedom of not being on camera all day. This not only allows me to take the writing process a little bit slower, it allows me to muck about with the trailer a bit more. My plan is to:

1. Record some audio. I have a script for this, and while I'm not sure my own voice is suitable for this, I can always edit it a bit. I just have to remember to speak slowly. As I'm sure you know - if you know me, or if you've ever watched me on YouTube - I have a habit of speaking quickly. Very quickly.

Thankfully, Audacity (it's free, and I recommend it) allows me to (a) change the speed of the record (look at me using all the technical words...) and (b) change the pitch of the volume. I can make my voice deeper and slower. I can't do away with how I sound, exactly, but I can at least make a difference so it doesn't sound exactly like me on the video.

After the audio is recorded, I need to:

2. Find suitable music. Thankfully, I know a place to get royalty free music for this, for free. As a poor writer, this is beneficial for me. The music needs to fit the trailer, and needs to sound good even when I lower the volume so I can be heard talking.

Then...

3. Create images for the video. I'm thinking Celtic artwork. I'll be "hand drawing" it all, using my tablet. I hope. If not, I'll think up something else, but I'd like to have some interesting artwork in there and be able to say that I did it.

That's all preparations for the video, which needs to be uploaded by Tuesday 9th. But that's not all I have to do. When the book is released, I plan on accompanying it with four flash stories. I'm not going to reveal what myths they relate to, but I can confirm this: they have no yet been written.

Fun, right? There will be one every day from the Tuesday to the Friday, taking place at various times. This effectively gives me a week from the date the trailer goes live to:

1. Write four flash stories.

2. Edit the book.

3. Format the book.

4. Write most of The Blood of Leap.

Even when I finish the book, I'll still have Camp NaNoWriMo to keep up with. I'm possibly going to be working like a mad thing on this series, but it'll be worth it in the long run. I figure, if I can get ahead of myself with trailers and stories and editing and formatting, the process of publication will be easier in the future. Plus, if I publish four flash stories every time I release a book - or just release one a week between books - I'll have a huge collection of stories on the Modern Irish Myth site by the time the final book is published.

Oh, but just for the record: the book has reached the 15,000 word mark, and my Camp NaNoWriMo word count has gone over 10,000 words. I've officially caught up with myself, after only writing 800 words yesterday.

Somehow, I don't think productivity is a problem for me right now.

More FUF?

My Face Up to Fear Day (i.e. FUFDay) has the potential be a weekly affair. But the real question is, will it?

Last week, I had seven ideas for things I could do. I ended up doing two of them, and one other item that wasn't on the list. This week, I have the potential to do up to eight different things. Eight. That's one more!

This includes, of course, a repetition of a YouTube overload. However, I don't plan on doing that five-videos -in-a-day sort of thing again any time soon. Too much work, too little else done. Plus, I don't think my eyes enjoyed it every much. I do, however, have a number of other related videos that could over time, become a new playlist of poetry on my channel. And that's always fun, right?

There still remains, on the list, a few items I haven't even once addressed. One of these is simply to write a short story, to submit to a competition. The real "facing up to fear" aspect of it is the submission of the story. I've been avoiding competitions for a long time, partly for fear of rejection, partly because of the entrance fee. (I canny help being without money a lot of the time...and then I buy comic books.) However, I'm really going to give it a shot, and hope that I can produce something that's up to the standard's expected. Fingers crossed, right?

There are other things I can do more set-up for, as well, though they're more boring now than they have the potential to be, based on their success, and as with a couple of the challenges faced last week, they'll remain unspoken of until such time that they actually result in something happening. Or something. (I've got three this week that are like that, so, you know, don't expect to hear much about those for a while.)

Even now, I can see the potential for the continuance of FUFDay. It can get a great many things done.

However, it can also reduce me to only doing important things on a weekly basis, and that's not ideal. I think, maybe, once I get into the habit of doing two or three things per week that scare the content out of me, I'll double the FUFDay antics. Then double it again. And they I'll have a four-day working week set up for myself in which I make sure I'm always producing and publishing something, and hoping people find some value in that.

And hey, I think I can be okay with working for four days of the week on things I love doing and that I'm just too damned scared in a weird sort of way to not do anything about. FUF fo' life?

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.

Ideally

Worked sucked today. I mean, there was nothing different about it, except that it was unusually hot out. I just didn't want to be there. It's not the first time that's happened, mind you. Every time, it makes me think about what I'd prefer to be doing.

I think you know where this is going: I'd prefer to be writing for at least the money I'm on in the shop. I think the key words there being "at least". I'm not exactly earning a huge amount each week in that shop, even when I work the bank holiday. It's definitely not enough to move out of my parents' house on.

This is where I spend a lot of time planning, how to actually follow through on my dream to write for a living. Being a novelist isn't exactly the gold-mine that a lot of people think it is (and by that, I mean if you have a traditional publishing deal!). So, I'm focusing on a couple of different areas:

- Freelancing. I've been putting it off. Fear of rejection, etc. etc. You know, the usual crap that stops people doing things they actually want to do. However, if I get past that fear and get into freelancing and receive anything close to what I did for my Writing Magazine article (publishing back in the October issue), four articles per month would be worth more to me than my job right now.

- Publishing. It's a ball that's been rolling for a while, but it's really picking up this summer. However, as with all things writing, there's going to be a fair amount of uncertainty around it for a long time. I won't have an average earnings report (for myself) until about six months of publishing a higher volume of titles. All I know is, I need to sell a fair few books each month to match my income from the bookshop.

- Fiverr. I'm tempted to get really serious about a couple of ideas there. I know I can do a couple of things quickly enough that charging $5 for them won't kill me. If I did it for even a little while moderately successfully, I'll be earning a happy little income.

- Submissions. Less certain than anything else so far. I mean poety. I mean short stories. I mean novels. And editors are looking for the best of the best. It's not that I don't think I've written anything worth publishing. The problem, as is the problem for every capable writer, is in finding the editor who wants to publish what you've submitted.

- Advertising. I'm starting a couple of new blogs in the coming months, which will be ad-supported. At the same time, I'll be picking up on my YouTube channel (which now has ads enabled). It's an uncertain earner, but it could - in the long run - provide some sort of financial help.

The only other options I can see right now are getting into affiliate sales more seriously than ever before, or finding a new job. The latter's been on my mind for a long time, now. Almost six years in the same shop, working only weekends, wasn't so bad when I wasn't actually qualified for anything. While I don't plan on teaching for at least a year, I have to consider how to put my degree to use in other ways.

What it all comes down to, though, is making the job I have less...sucky. I think the fact that I'm dependent on the money and there's not much of it - or much responsibility in the job - is bringing me down. If I wasn't tied to this one place as my only source of income, I don't think it would bother me so much. And if I actually  took the chance to get into the sun while it was here, that wouldn't hurt, either.

The Month That's In It

This month is an important one for me. It's not that there are any big anniversaries or grand occasions worth celebrating, either. This month is the first month entirely free from having college work to do. And so, I'm taking advantage of it by defining my own life and how I spend it.

Since blogging so regularly in April proved beneficial for both my blog stats and my general ability to write on demand, I'm doing it again this month: every day, one post on this blog. I don't have a list of back-up ideas to work with. I don't have much to go on except for what I do each day. But I do have that: I have the days and what I do.

With that in mind, I can tell you two things that have also begun today: an attempt to write poetry every day for a month, and a new website.

The poetry is fairly simple, actually. I have a tendency to write poetry when I haven't written something on a particular day, so writing a poem every day isn't much different to how things turned out on repeated occasions over the past five months. This is also coming off the back of a poetry writing day(on Thursday) with some friends, for which writing poetry on demand was a necessary requirement to actually doing what I'd wanted to do.

I've already written today's poem, and though I plan to "perform" some of these poems on YouTube throughout the month, for now I'm keeping it quiet. I went for something more personal than I let myself write on Thursday, and I'm still unsure as to how exactly to share it with the world. It's now among over thirty poems I need to type up, too, so it could be a while before it sees the light of day.

The website that launched today is a fairly important one for me: ModernIrishMyth.com. I've pulled my flash fiction across to that site, and set it up so that over the next month or so I can add in some Behind the Scenes posts about the different myths and monsters in the stories. It's the home for the books that are due to pick up rather quickly. Balor Reborn has been out for some time, but between college, my research paper, The Jerry Davidson Show, teaching placement and exams, I haven't actually had a chance to go near The Hounds of Hell, beyond planning it.

That's all changing, and the new website is the start of it. My rather ambitious plan is to release a new book in the Modern Irish Myth series every month until they've all been published, bringing us as far as April 2014.   By May 2014, there will also be four collected editions of the series (books 1-3, 4-6, etc) in print edition, pending finances. It's going to be big, it's going to be exciting, and it's going to be a lot of work. But then, I'm not really doing much else with my time aside from writing like a mad man.

This month will also see the rise of another site, mid-way through, so keep an eye out for that. I'm effectively setting myself up make a full-time job out of this (though how much I earn depends entirely on how many books I sell!). I need to fill up my time with writing, or I'll really be feeling it in September when I don't start lectures again. Some people travel, some work full-time in the same job they've been working for three or four years, and while I'm still in the bookshop, weekends just don't cut it when you have five other days of the week to fill up.

This is the month that gets the ball rolling on a lot of different projects. I hope to see you around when these changes start happening.

Nothing to be Done

In January 1953, the first performance of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot hit Paris. In the absurdist play, a line is repeated over and over again: "Nothing to be done."

I can no longer use those words in relation to my "spare time". I drew up a list last night of all the different things I have to do. As far as I can far, only five of these things are public knowledge:

1. The Modern Irish Myth books.
2. The new website I hope to launch next month.
3. The book I mentioned in yesterday's post.
4. My exams.
5. Submitting a book to a publisher.

I have mentioned other things on the list to people I work with and friends who are writers, but there's not much revealed about the remaining six items I have on the list. They've been kept very much in the dark, because some depend on others. (One this month affects one that's listed for work to begin on in June, which affects two from June-onwards and one from August.)

So, secrets.

But that doesn't mean I won't be working on them. In fact, when I actually have an idea of how that one pivotal piece of work this month turns out, I'll probably be able to start announcing some of the items on this list.

As a result of having drawn up the list, though, I've revoked my permission to say that I have nothing to do, or to say that I'm bored. The list isn't even complete. One idea that isn't on it is something that will be slotted in based on when I'm free. And it occurs to me now that I haven't even scheduled writing a poem every day for a month, like I said I would do at some point.

Frankly, there's so much to do that if I ever say I don't have anything to do I'm just trying to avoid doing something. I'll have to redo my timetable with this list in mind, of course, but the key thing to remember is that despite all the times I've said I have nothing to do, I've just been putting off doing something. This is largely because of the writing guilt I mentioned last month. I'd feel weird writing a novel when I'm supposed to be studying for exams.

After exams, though, no excuses. I have six items per month after May (only two this month, including exams!) which means that if I only ever put in one day per week on them I'll still have a day off. A day per week doesn't actually seem like a lot when I start looking at the workloads involved in all of this, but some of these projects will take up more time than others.

Off the list, I still have a lot I can write about. Remember those topic cards I put together back in December for the New Year? They still exist. I haven't had to touch them in a while, because of the blogging every day in April, the writing poetry last minute, and the occasional bit of fiction (I can't wait to write fiction again!). But they've always been there. I could very well go through one of them a week and see what comes out (random selection and all that). I could make that a day's activity, if I wanted, to work on a topic card.

Basically, I have a lot to do, and no more excuses for not doing it.

Each project is different. There are novellas, a blog, a business-in-the-making, scripts, non-fiction books on a variety of topics, poetry, fiction and essays, enough to keep me writing for the next few years at least. Considering all the other books I have in mind that I want to write, I don't think I'll be stuck for something for a long time. Any one of these ideas is a lot to take on. Blending them together will be difficult. Overall, though, I think it'll provide the right level of stimulus to make sure that writing never becomes boring or repetitive.

Competitions, Publications and Performances

While I can't be certain as to how my employment status will look for the coming months (aside from the weekend job in the bookshop!), it seems that I'm feeling a bit more prepared, really and truly, for writing competitions, for publications, and for performances. I have tended in the past to avoid them, partially out of a lack of time to consider themed-stories or poems due to college assignments, partially out of fear of being judged.

The first is much easier to get past. After this month, I will have nothing more to do for college. Until such a time that I can actually afford to do a Masters programme, I won't have any such assignments to hand in anymore. I'll have, at the least, evenings to myself. With these evenings, I'll finally have the time to consider submitting something. Within a group I run on Facebook, I've been gathering a little list of publications to consider submitting to. Even just having the list is a comfort.

It's not just short stories and poetry, though. I've been thinking it through, more and more over the last few years, and I'm getting to the point of being mentally and emotionally ready to submit to a publishing house. I've done it once in the past, when I was fifteen, and there was a distinct problem with that: I convinced myself that the book was ready, when I wasn't even at that point myself. (The book also needed a lot more editing than it had gone through. A LOT. I won't deny that at all.)

Now, though, I feel ready. I feel like I can actually submit a book - and I know which one - for publication. I won't be talking about that much from here on out until such a time that I actually have good news to share, though. Aside from the book still needing some work, I don't want anybody getting the impression that it's not worth publishing because one editor or agent didn't consider it suitable enough.

It's all part of one big movement for myself. I've never felt ready for somthing like this like I have now. I'm even considering competitions that have an entry fee, if I can write something that I think is suitable. That's a large step for me. I don't often put money on the line for anything. I'm not a gambler. I never really have been. Putting my money on the line for a competition is going beyond my comfort zone. I guess I never really trusted myself before now.

That's where we meet the fear of judgement.

I don't think I'm alone in that. It's not quite a lack of confidence in my ability (that's partially why I avoid submitting much, but I've managed to overcome that on a few occasions for publication purposes). I think it has more to do with the person on the other end of the submission process, knowing who will be reading what. That's put me off for a long time.

Then I entered the Heart in Mouth competition, on a whim, and that actually turned out okay.

Making that shortlist was a major deal for me. It gave me some confidence in myself. It took away some of the fear of submitting short stories and poetry to competitions and magazines. There are a lot of opportunities out there for someone to submit something, especially if they write across several different forms of writing like I do.

As for performance... I think the anxiety has gone out of it. Having gotten on stage both for fun and for the competition, I've gotten a bit more comfortable doing it. I know I still have a long way to go - it's still beyond my comfort zone - but I know what I need to do to help myself improve. It'll be a while before I attempt actually getting listed as performing - the open mic will do, thank you.

So, there we have it. I'm much less scared now than I was even this time last year. I can't say how well I'll do in all of this, but it's a good first step to get myself emotionally ready for this. The writing will come a bit more naturally, I think.