Stay away, Mr. Doubt!!!

I’ve always been running from something when I write, and that something is doubt. As long as I’m writing at a decent pace, I can stay ahead of it. That’s why I’m surprised I’ve been able to stay out front even though I’m just working on stories on the weekends. The last few days, though, I’ve felt that doubt creeping up, telling me my story is stupid,”nobody’s going to care about the characters, nobody’s gonna get past the first chapter (if that far), your cover art is dumb, if you were meant to be a writer it would’ve happened in your twenties and not your forties.”

F*cking doubt….I wanna stomp its guts out!

Although I want to keep the release date in March, I’m thinking I might have to push it back a month.

This is crazy. When do you know your story is ready for the world? I don’t think that’s a question I’ll ever be able to answer for myself.

Getting very close

To my faithful followers (I think the two of you), I’m in the process of the final, final, final edit with my…uh, editor Apparently I’m very stingy with my commas and a little greedy with other things but I should have this baby out this month.

Now, how much to charge for the book? I could go the 99 cent route like SO MANY other authors do. I’m not sure how much I will charge for mine seeing it took a year’s worth of weekends to finally finish this thing. For an author to charge 99 cents on Amazon, for example, the royalty is 35%. However, if the author charges between 2.99 and 9.99, the royalties are 70%. I haven’t understood this rationale but I’m sure there’s a very good reason for this. It’s just something us non-business-types don’t get.

For now I’m sending my editor a couple of chapters at a time and we’re up to Chapter 14. I’ll send Chapters 15 and 16 today and that’ll leave us 7 more to go. In the meantime I’ll also finish up a sci-fi short story I wrote a couple of years ago but never finished. It’s the only one I have unfinished and I’ve had it on my mind ever since, the damn thing nagging me “When are you going to finish me up?”

By the way, I’m seriously thinking about making my short stories available for free. People seemed to like them on writing.com, which is where they’re sitting on the web right now. But I’d like to get them on people’s e-readers now…along with Disintegration: A Memoir.

 

ON FACEBOOK!!

Finally built my presence on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/jsouthcross

Now if I can finish editing my f*cking book I’d be set. LOL

Cover Art

Came up with some sample cover art a couple of days ago.

 

  

 

Not sure which one I’m going with but it’ll probably end up being a combination of these. Knowing what the book will look like gives me a little motivation to finish with the edits and set this baby free.

ON FACEBOOK!!

Finally built my presence on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/jsouthcross

Now if I can finish editing my f*cking book I’d be set. LOL

15th Post!!

Okay. I just want to see what happens after posting for the 15th time. Apparently it’s something of a big deal, at least that’s what wordpress is having me believe.

Soundtrack for the novel

These are some songs I’ve chosen for my novel’s soundtrack. I listen to them sometimes when I’m writing. I’ll update this list as time goes by.

Enjoy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neverending edits

When do you call it quits when it comes to editing? What’s scary is that even during this 3rd editing process, I find shit that makes me ask myself if I forgot to save anything during the previous edits.  Freakin’ crazy.

Today I’m at Chapter 9.

14 more Chapters to go. It’ll be worth it in the end, I think.

I’ve been wanting to release Chapter 1 here. We’ll see.

Third Draft Complete

Just finished the third draft last night. Initially, the third draft was supposed to go straight to Amazon but…well, me being my worst enemy won’t let it happen yet. Admittedly I’m a little nervous about it. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like I’m uploading a winner but I’m determined to release this story to the public. Hopefully someone likes it (and not just my mom and my wife).

So I need to make some minor adjustments. Maybe flesh out a couple of characters.

Need to come up with cover art…and I already have something in mind.

Need to work on formatting so it’ll look good on the Kindle.

I already have my pen name ready…Carlos Spicy Wiener.

Ok, I’m kidding about the name.

Draft 3

On the third draft now, coming in at a little over 60,000 words. It’ll probably be longer once I’m done with this. Still don’t have an official title for the book. Several possible names for it are Undone, Unraveled, Dust to Dust.

Some of those names already exist but none of those stories come close to what I’m writing about (subject matter).

It’s been an adventure but I’m so looking forward to finishing the third draft so I can let a few people read it. Then I’ll hopefully just have some minor revisions before finally getting uploaded to Amazon. If I’m lucky some people will want the story on their Kindles.

We shall see…