Inner critic

I follow story coach and writer Jennifer Louden. She’s one of those people who always comes across as enthusiastic and energetic. She’s so positive, you know?

One of her emails this month said she had decided, after four years of effort, to scrap her current memoir.

Four years.

One hundred and twenty thousand words.

She confessed that it was not salvageable.

And I hurt for her. I know how that feels.

Today she had a soundcloud link to her talk about hiding. If I was her, after making that announcement, I’d be hiding. I probably wouldn’t have got out of bed, but here she is still working, still talking, still being positive and still trying to help others.

She asked listeners to write down their responses to their inner critic. She calls it the itty bitty shitty committee. The voice in your head that tells you you’re going to fail. You know the one.

Write down what you should say about yourself in response. So I write: I’m smart, I have three degrees, I’ve done amazing things, I’ve turned unplanned jobs into successes, I made more money for ANZA charity in Jakarta than anyone ever had before, I made speeches, I met ambassadors and world leaders. I’m the #8 reviewer on Goodreads. I have written and posted 78 stories on fanfiction. I have published seven short works that have been downloaded a few times. *runs off to look up stats on Smashwords – 9,130 times. [cool!]*

I write stories that people tell me they like. I have… *runs off to look up ffn stats*

Wait…

WHAT?

I have a total of 12,001,668 hits on ffn.

*jaw drops*

Twelve million?

I should be proud of myself. I AM proud of myself. So why does my inner voice tell me I can’t do this? I already am.

Dammit brain.

Links:

Home

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2154210/Mrstrentreznor

Boxed sets

Hi, my name is AMG and I’m addicted to boxed sets.

Hi, AMG. *bored AA response voice*

I adore a bargain.

My brain sees a box of books as a better deal than a single title. I think… maybe they could be good? Honestly, I don’t get how my own brain works some days.

I’ve bought box sets for one title. Or one author. Or just because they seem like a good deal.

So, my kindle is full of them. I’ll admit there are some dodgy ones. Bad writing, bad formatting, bad covers… no hot linked table of contents. Believe me, that is a sin of the first order.

They aren’t easy things to organise as an author in the Amazon world. The reader might pay 99cents for their six, eight, ten books but Amazon cannot credit multiple authors separately for their share of that 99cents.

So, one author has to take responsibility for the payment and the distribution of that royalty earning and that has historically not gone well.

It can get ugly fast. There have been disastrous boxed sets that kept breaking the Amazon 5,000 page limit. There have been attempts to milk the Kindle Unlimited page read count with overlarge titles. And there have been copyright issues once a box is published with another author’s name on it.

But for me, the ugliest thing has been my inability to know what I own. I kept buying books I already owned. This is the opposite of a bargain.

So, I ‘tidied’ up my Scrivener Goodreads file. I made a folder for boxed sets and I added in every single boxed set I owned; with a separate scrivener link to the actual review when I read each title. I review each title separately. [Why should a good book get sucked down for being in a bad boxed set?]

They are metadata marked as amazon, kobo, audible, library and so on… it’s super easy to search scrivener; easier than the kindle app. And I counted how many in each set I had read, and marked the completed sets as ‘read’.

Bless me, I got ORGANISED.

It took me days.

You want to know how many… right?

238 boxed sets.

*face plants into keyboard*

It’ll take me years to read ‘em.

YEARS.

*stares straight into the camera*

Bring it.

Blanking myself

I grabbed a new notebook to throw in my bag as the current two were down to the last couple of pages. Once I got on the train, I opened the blank notebook only to find a story snippet – two pages or so.

It’s my handwriting but I don’t remember writing it.

I don’t remember where I wanted it to go, or where I thought it was heading.

I suppose I could treat it like a writing prompt; and start from what I have.

The protagonist is an accurate fortune teller. Nobody wants the truth of their own future, do they? Not really.

I did have an idea about a person knowing the hour of a person’s death. I think it’d be a good thing to curse someone with but I feel Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black series has done that idea too well.

An accurate prophecy also reminds me of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.

So what was I thinking of? I don’t know…

This month my challenge was to write something short to give away to my website mailing list.

I failed.

But, in failing, I got a lot of other steps done along the way to that final step.

And the idea I have is good, I think. But it wants to be longer than a quick 5-10k words.

One of my signature traits in fanfiction was writing a one shot of say, less than 5k words. I’d post it and then everyone would ask for more. After thinking it over I would extend it until it was a 200k word epic spanning a decade; with lives lost, worlds-changed, the whole shebang. Tsunamis… there were tsunamis!

So it’s not unexpected that I’d itch to extend this freebie.

I could post it as a ‘teaser’ but fanfic readers would be okay with that whereas original fic readers probably wouldn’t like it.

So, I went back into my Word document files and tried to find all my flash fiction and short stories. I loaded them all into a Scrivener file.

What was most obvious was that I haven’t written many lately. *frowns at self*

Also that some of them are pretty good. *pats self on back*

And a lot could be extended, exactly like my old fanfic one-shots. *rolls eyes at self*

So, maybe that’s what I’ll do… pick one, edit it, run it through Scrivener to make a file, make a cover in Canva, work out how to use Bookfunnel or one of the other delivery devices, and THEN I’ll give it away.

Sheesh… maybe that’ll be next month’s challenge?

Or next week’s; I can get that done in a week. *laughs at self again*

Procrastination

For once, my innate ability to procrastinate has paid off. Count them… one.

I subscribe to Audible – the audiobook arm of Amazon. Each month I pay for a credit that entitles me to purchase one book. Sensibly, I try to make it a big book, or a boxed set, or something that seems like value for money. I won’t use it to buy a book that costs less than the credit did, that’d be dumb. I also won’t use it to get the audiobook of a title that I already own in eBook form. Also dumb, as the website automatically links with my Amazon account and offers the audiobook for the low price of $2.99 if it’s already in my library. I’m not sure how long they’ll keep doing that, it seems like a loss leader to me.

For instance, Anna Karenina is a free eBook; it’s old and out of copyright. The audio production is brilliantly read by Maggie Gyllenhaal. I expect she got paid a lot for that. But as I own the free eBook it cost me less than five dollars to hear Maggie’s breathy voice read to me. I think. Honestly I forget the price.

It’s a neat way to read those classics we all put off.

At any rate, for months, I hadn’t taken the time to trawl through my wishlist and I was busy listening to free audiobooks borrowed from my local library via the online app.

Audible had a promo; buy three books and they’d give you a $20 credit.

Oh now…

I check the fine print: or spend three credits.

I just so happen to have three credits. I’m in. I spent the credits on boxed sets and I used the voucher to buy all the library matches.

Seven audiobooks for twenty bucks? Bargain.

3 million hits

Back in May 2015 Best Friends Share Everything passed 2 million hits.

http://amgray.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/2-million-hits.html

Now it’s trundled past 3 million.

Well… I am amazed. It just keeps going. An odd pairing (okay triangle), a long story (over 200k), and for relatively minor characters like Embry and Quil. I certainly never expected it to be popular but almost every day I get a review from someone and it says something like: they’ve read it 20 times, or so many times they can’t count it; that the characters were their friends and they miss them.

I know people don’t often comment on older fics and I still respond to all the reviews that allow me to reply. I’m still just astounded.

I adore my three and I’m still struggling with trying to work out what I got right with that story because if I could somehow replicate it in an original work, I’d be golden.

And my total hits are: 11,898,571

And as always, Apologies is right behind it.

The banner was made by GoldenGirl and she even made a receipt with an employee discount as Quil’s mother owns the store.

Bullet journals and my creative brain

Whoops I was supposed to post an update and I forgot… or it got lost in my electronic reminder lists. I have tried all kinds of apps, electronic lists, reminders and other methods. I end up more overloaded with distracting things that rely on me being near my PC or my phone. And doing that means I’m not away from those distractions.

All my kids are special needs, and it was recently suggested that I probably have ADHD. It makes sense, but… it’s one more thing to deal with. You know?

*sighs*

Tonight I decided to try using a bullet journal. I like analogue stuff. I have racks of rubber stamps, letter presses, coloured pens, albums full of stickers and stencils, and files full of multi-coloured papers. Things I adore; but oddly, because I adore them I don’t want to use them.

I know… I have so many issues.

How can NOT using something be good for it? Or good for you? You’ll literally end up with a house full of couches covered in plastic and all the grandparent nightmares of my childhood. The china – preserved and never used. The untouched rooms – saved for guests who never came.

Why?

You know the situation, right?

Nightmare stuff. *shudders*

So I will break out one of those hoarded hardcover journals. It’s a pretty pink and grey one. And some of those pens, that miraculously still work.

I will let you know how it goes.

Comparisonitis

I was talking to someone about me and not getting my work done, and I said ‘I have comparisonitis but I’m not comparing my achievements to other people, I’m comparing my work output to the me of a few years ago.’

I’ll show you. This week I got one of those reviews that make all creators happy.

I’M CRYING I’M GONNA MISS THEM THESE WERE MY FRIENDS OH MY GOD. But seriously this was so beautiful. I love the complexity of the relationship and the smut was *italian chef kissing fingers* but I also love that it was never out of place, they only diddlied when the time was right. Bella and Molly Swan’s similarities in being like “screw the system, I’m gonna do what I want”, also amazing. I LOVE EVERYTHING AND I’M GENUINELY UPSET THAT MY FRIENDS ARE GONE BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CREATING SUCH AN AMAZING PIECE OF LITERATURE. DEFINITELY MY FAVORITE. I’M GONNA GO MOURN THE LOSS OF MY FRIENDS NOW THANKS.*

How good is that? And I agreed (I always respond to fanfic reviews) that I felt the exact same way. I could not let these characters go because they went together so well, right from the start. They were solid; from day one.

It is for ‘Best friends share Everything’; my most popular fanfiction work. It’s just shy of three million hits. I have often asked myself what I got right about this fic. People tell me all the time, that they love it. And it was a really risky thing: three people, a permanent polyamorous relationship, m/m/f meaning the men have sex with each other as well as with the woman, the men are two secondary characters from the books, those men are rarely written in fanfic, and it covers an entire decade of their life.

At over two hundred thousand words it’s basically two novels.

There is no reason why this should be a popular fic. But it is.

I got something right. And to this day, I don’t know what it was.

Maybe that my love for these characters shone through? I don’t know. (In fact, I’ve asked reviewers what I got right.)

But it was 2012. As I often did, I wrote a quick sexy one shot and posted it on Jan 24, 2012. But people asked me for more. And I couldn’t let these characters go. I finished it Apr 21, 2012. What is that? Twelve or thirteen weeks for 208,077 words.

That’s nuts. I mean, that’s 2,250+ words a day.

And *whispers* that wasn’t the only thing I was writing at the time.

I reread one chapter that the reviewer commented on – I had honestly forgotten what happened in it – and I kept reading. I did one of those ‘hey, this isn’t so bad’ things. I head hopped a little. I noticed a few mistakes. But it was okay. And it was years ago.

I just need to stop choking myself. I published my fanfic and let it go. And I really need to get over choking myself over my original stuff. Good, bad, indifferent… it can’t even be read unless it’s out there.

*thank you LovingVillians

Links:

Best friends share everything

My 2017 in reading

And listening – yes, I count audiobooks as books; who doesn’t?

I did aim for a book a day. I read 424 for the year but my stats break down like this:

Rating	number
5 stars – amazing	58
4 stars – really liked it	156
3 stars – liked it	96
2 stars – it was okay	61
1 star- did not like it	18
Did not finish	35
total	424

If you take out the dnf’s then I still make a total of 389, so I count that as above my target of 365. I have a giant Scrivener file that holds all my reviews. I even have a separate folder for boxed sets. I try to keep track of whether I’ve finished a whole box set. I have an estimated 180 of them. I also count a humble bundle as a ‘set’.

My cute Goodreads graphic looks like this:

gr 2017

… but it’s wrong.

Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection of four novels and five short story collections – which I counted as ONE book – had 2,435 pages. And it clearly hasn’t counted it. I feel cheated.

If I had less works, I’d check the page total as well, but I can’t be bothered. And it counts audiobooks as none or single figures. See Charles Paris on the 1 page side? That book has 196 pages, but it’s been turned into a radio play and who knows how many pages that becomes after editing. More than one, at any rate. Plus, I read a few epic fantasy and they are always bigger than a thousand pages.

Goodreads, you are flawed.

It averages out at 182 pages per title. *shrugs*

I suppose it works out, as I do break boxed sets up into single titles, so that I can review each one. It’s hard to give a mark to a set that has varied works in it. Do you average them? That seems unfair to the good titles. You see my problem.

This year, I discovered library audio and ebook borrowing. Very dangerous indeed.

For 2018 I’ve set the target as 365 again.

the lighthouse and my creative brain

Today after I finished my headspace meditation I wandered off to look around the site. There was a creative writing prompt. Ooh… the guide suggested you feel a flame of creativity inside you but I imagined that flame as a lighthouse.

Why? No idea.

And then – instead of meditating- I started thinking about lighthouses and imagery in fiction. A quick scan of dream dictionaries suggests that dreaming of a lighthouse means: a spiritual development; to overcome trials and rough seas; guidance in difficult times; warnings about wrong directions; truth and thanks to Freud, penises. [Seriously, that man saw them everywhere.]

But it seemed kind of apt to me. The lighthouse light passes across a space regularly but it isn’t stationary; it’s off or on and constantly moving. Maybe it’s a better image of my ADHD mind. [Mind helpfully supplies an image of a cartoon lighthouse darting all over the place rather than sweeping around in a cycle. Thanks, brain.]

I can’t be creative all the time. It does come in a cycle, and on dark days, the light goes out.

And then I started to think about lighthouses in fiction. The first that came to mind was Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’. Wikipedia quotes the theme as ‘attempting to understand people in the act of looking’. Helen Garner mentioned it in Monkeygrip. It was in Susanna Moore’s ‘In the Cut’. When I go searching in my kindle, I have a copy of Woolf’s book so I add it to my ‘currently reading’ tag along with 39 others. Scattered mind, indeed.

My therapist suggested I get a figurine to represent my creative mind as a trigger thing; see it and write. I adore Funko dolls but they are disappointingly bereft of creative reps. Bob Ross does NOT work for me. I tweeted funko and suggested they make a Jane Austen one. But for the moment, after some rifling around in drawers, I have a small figurine of a lighthouse.

Wattpad update

I also forgot to let you guys know that Wattpad deleted off the plagiarised story. Very quickly, I might add. It was gone in 24 hours. Plus, they sent me a message to ask if I was happy… and I was.

I’m gonna guess the plagiarist wasn’t… but… I STILL don’t get it.