Project Update

Well, June comes to a close, quicker than I expected. The girls have already been out of school nearly two weeks and now go daily to their day camp. We’ve spent weekends at Pennsylvania and down in Washington DC. Day trips to the park and zoo. Saw a Yankee game. Ran the sprinklers and filled the backyard kiddie pool. Summer stuff. 

I’ve maintained an upbeat frame of mind over the past six weeks of unemployment. My resume has been professionally updated and I’ve applied to nearly 20 places and have only received two outright rejections. Physically I’ve been walking a mile or two and lifting weights just about every day without fail. Rising at six every morning. No booze, and keeping those pints of ice cream to a bare minimum (like celebrating Little One’s grammar school graduation). And when it comes to my great nemesis, that demonic pairing of pizza and Diet Coke, just once this summer. Once.

Now, how’s that writing project coming?

On schedule. My goal is to self-publish my best novel by September. To do that I need to build a writing platform, which comprises all my social media accounts and an author website. I also need to polish the novel to perfection as well as research what needs to be done and how exactly to go about doing it.

I’ve spent a little over 80 hours doing so, to date.

The “galley” phase of the novel is almost finished. After that I have another novel, a novella, and then four lengthy short stories I want to compile into one single work. I plan on releasing a work every three months or so. When a year is up, I’ll have the novel I currently have in limbo finished and ready to go.

The author website is generally sketched out; four or five more hours to get it to perfection. Then I have to research the best web hosting company for my needs. Register my URL. Get a professional picture done (and apply that all my social media outlets). Plan out some blog posts, start a mailing list.

As far as releasing the novel, I still need to research which form would best suit me for my genre and my economic situation. Nook, Kindle, iBooks, or POD (print-on-demand). Or something else? Still sketchy on many of those details. I have websites of writers who are currently doing what I want to do, so I need to research them, analyze what they’re doing, research the companies that publish these forms (i.e., B&N, Amazon), find out startup costs and formats, etc. I will probably spend the majority of July on this.

Then there’s marketing. Need to expand my contacts and acquaintances. Have a few ideas how to do this. For example, I want to give away something on my website for those who sign on to the mailing list. I also need to become more active on appropriate bulletin boards and forums (fora?). The one forum I was active on a few years back I’ve been quite dormant in recent months. Get business cards printed up. Etc.

Lots of things to do, but this project is keeping me sane during my bout of unemployment. Keeps me from feeling worthless – no, better yet, gives me a sense of power, a sense of taking my future and my destiny in my own hands. It’s a great and still unused-to feeling. As long as I keep on track, put in my 2-3 hours a day (in addition to hunting for that 9-5 job and taking care of the little ones), I should hit my goal of going live in September.

I’ve burned through two thick books on the topic of self-publishing (750+ pages), spent 20 or 30 hours reading online articles on the topic, bought a brand new laptop (from some unexpected unused vacation time the ex-company graciously paid me), read lots and lots of psychological motivational stuff, found all the electronic copies of my novels and short stories (save one I’m still searching for – may have to retype a hardcopy on to my laptop), and am slowly reconciling myself to becoming an Author.

Next update: July 31, and hopefully I’ll be light years ahead of where I am now!