Tag: fantasy writer
I’ve been experimenting with a few niche websites
I’m starting another four in areas of interest right now.
I did a “best of WV” travel post for another site and doing the research got me interested in doing a kind of travel site for West Virginia. There are so many places here in WV that are great places to tour and visit, lots of great locally owned businesses and small, local artists/artisans and authors and I want to shine the light on those places and people.
After working on the book review/spotlight for Booklure Promotions, I decided to start up a Fantasy site. This one will have exercpts from a few fantasy books/stories I’m working on as well as reviews of fantasy books, movies and series I have really liked.
I also started a site as a resource for both new and seasoned parents- different products, books and other things that I (and others) have found useful as well as tips, research and studies I find that have to do with parenting (none of the celebrity gossip crap unless a celebrity parent comes out with a baby product or baby clothing line)
This month has definitely been crazy
I left my job of almost 3 years and went on to a lower hours/lower stress job.
I ended up starting the job earlier than I thought, and worked 7 days in a row, which wore me out that whole week (only 1 30 minute lunch break and standing in one spot on my feet for 8 hours a day, never knew that was so exhausting)
I am now to the slower schedule (1-2 days a week) and since I had the whole week without working, I looked at my NANO project. In the first 3 weeks of November, I managed to get a grand total of 10,500 words.
As of 1 PM today, November 30th, the final day of the challenge and after nights of going to bed around 1 am, I managed to squeak out 39k words, get 1 1/2 short stories finished and get a very large chunk of my main project.
I did the rebel thing, but one story pretty much ended the first day at less than 10k words, so I had to do something. Either way, between the two projects, it was my first time in 6 years that I won.
I’m making a personal challenge to myself to take all my unfinsihed rough drafts and finish them. Maybe not get them past the edit stage yet, but over the course of 2019, I’d like to see how many rough drafts I can complete. I have close to ten, if not more. I have 2 finished rough drafts and the rest are in varying stages. I just know I’ll never have the chance to publish if I don’t finish them.
This past week has been crazy
Since leaving my job, I have been working on my Nano project- which turned into a short story I will be putting out somehow when I get it finished and a novel I am wanting to self publish when I get it finished. I have decided that, instead of trying the traditional route, I’m going to go ahead and self publish. I’m still looking into the different platforms but I still have time.
On top of that, I’m trying to prepare Bethcessories for the holidays- including my first print advertisement for local business. My word count for Nano is suffering, but my businesses are picking up right now. I guess you always have to sacrifice one thing for another. In the very near future, I’m going to be working more on my DIYmommy page, I’m trying to come up with a good domain for it since DIY mommy is taken. I want this to be different from this website but I’m not sure what to name it.
Looking back through my life I am learning
I just left my second longest job.
2 1/2 years and I left.
I enjoyed working there and I’ll miss my coworkers, but I needed to move on.
As I’ve been applying for jobs and working on leaving my comfort zone, I have had some job apps asking for my full employment history. It had me going through and recounting and made me realize something. I have burned out on nearly everything but two stay in my mind.
Skincare and writing. My first job was in high school. It was my longest running job and only ended because I went to college. It gave me a firm love of writing articles. I loved pitching, researching, interviewing and writing. I loved taking the pictures for the articles and attending the meetings. I loved everything about it.
Back in 2011, I was looking at a website devoted to 30 day challenges where I ran across NANOWRIMO which quickly became my favorite month. It gave me a fierce obsession with writing and as soon as I finished the rough draft of my first, inspiration quickly hit me and I started a new draft. Then another.
The first was my first win and so far, only, but I have planned and started yearly since. This year will be my 7th year doing it and will be my second win. I have a finished rough draft of a short story from a few years ago and am planning the next several in the series. Once I get all 7 finished, I’m planning on publishing the full short story series and releasing it.
I read a lot about finding and following your passion and finally realized I found mine a long time ago. I’m a big advocate of following your passion, I guess now is a better time than never for me to listen to myself.
Only the end of September and I’m starting to plan for November 1st
This is my 6th year doing Nano and I’m planning on it being my second win. My first was my first year.
My first year was a breeze, my oldest was 1 1/2, I stayed at home and had nothing else taking time. Now I have 2 kids, a job, freelance work and an Etsy. I’ve been working on schedule issues to work on everything (mainly at night after the kids are in bed and I’m home from work) and I can easily take a notebook to work and work on that during my hour long lunch break.
I already know I’m working on parts 2-4 (or higher) of a short story series I started back in 2014 (accidentally- the story ended at 11 pages and I decided to make it into a total of 7 worlds in the fantasy series.)
Book 1 is fully finished, I’m just working on editing it. Next month I’ll be going through and finalizing what worlds he will be entering and mapping things out.
I’m also planning several different Christmas decoration designs for my Etsy and I’m in the full swing of the Halloween season.