Writing

atthequillsmercy

NaNoWriMo Day One

OMFG, can we talk about how much outlining helped me with this? Now, I’ve basically been a pantser for most of my writing. I have a gerneral idea of what’s supposed to happen in my head and I just go. But the last time I attempted NaNoWriMo… A decade or so ago?

Shit, I’m old…

Anyway, the last time I tried it, I failed massively. Now, I still have the idea in my brain and I have an outline, I’m not rigidly sticking to it. I may have turned into a planner, but I’m not shamlessly sticking to my outline. Stories can be living things that – like children – don’t always follow the plan you laid out for them. They take on a life of their own.

Today was kinda crazy and it took until late at night to get my word goal but at least I didn’t struggle for ideas or anything. When I was able to grab a moment to write, the words flowed just fine.

Be prepared for all my posts to be about this until the end of the month.

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It’s That Time of Year!

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Now that my last project is finished, I’ve decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. Now that I have Shelley and I’m not writing things in a notebook, I think I can try and pull this off. I can just sync the file and put the words into the word counter on the site instead of having written words to type up. If you wanna track my progress I’ll be posting daily updates but you can also be my buddy on the site if you’re interested.

I’ve been prepping for this on the sly and I have a chapter by chapter breakdown of what I want to happen. I’m not sure if it will end up being 50,000 words and I’m not going to fluff it to fill a word count but I will try to complete the story in a month. My core idea is a clean but dark age gap lesbian romance where the main characters are witches. I think even with the time crunch, it will be fun to work on!

I’ll also try to get back to posting reviews if I have time. 

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It’s here!

Dahlia Part 2 releases today! You can click that link or head over to my store to purchase a copy!

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Open for Business!

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My store is ready! I’ve got most of my short stories ready for sale and I’m thinking of moving the longer books there, too.

I’ve still been doing some needlework, that I sell here, and I may post them in the store here as well but I kinda like my existing needlework shop. But, we’ll see how much I can get done.

For now, I’m going back to prepping for NaNoWriMo and I’ll be posting more consistent workout updates.

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atthequillsmercy

Get bent, Bezos

Ok, even the possibility of my stories being available on Simily for free (you get 4 free reads before you have to pay) is enough for Amazon to flag them. So, I pulled every single one of my short stories that were on Simily off of Amazon and I’ll be setting up an ebook shop page on this site. I’ll be offering my short stories in multiple formats; including .mobi – the file type for Kindles. This will give people a chance to support me directly rather than going through any vendor but you can go to Barnes and Noble or Kobo if you want. If you go to my website, there are even more options. Just click on the Books2Read link to see all available retailers.

For now the Amazon links are still up on my website but I’ll be taking them down once I have the store set up. My longer works will still be available on Amazon since Simily only takes short work. You may ask why I’d ditch such a large retailer but Amazon is a terrible company that abuses it’s workers, dodges taxes, and has a history of stealing ideas to make a cheaper version to undersell the original creator. Not only that, but my last payment from Simily for just the last couple weeks was ten times as high as what I got from Amazon; which was literal pennies. They won’t miss me and I won’t miss them.

I won’t judge anyone who shops there. This is a stance I’m taking because I have the privilege to take it. Just like with Walmart, I have my stance and choose not to spend my money there because I have options. If you still shop at Amazon, that’s fine and is why I will be making the .mobi files available to people who have Kindle readers or apps. I have no intention of shutting those people out.

In addition, I am thinking of adding my stories to Smashwords as another platform to sell. When that’s done, I’ll update you all. The wider I cast my net, the more likely I can cobble together a livable wage from doing what I love.

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New Release! Dahlia 2

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On the heels of Amazon playing games with me, I have a new release! The next part of the Dahlia trilogy is currently in pre-order and will be released on October 26th! You can support any of your preferred retailers by clicking here, and all my books will be available via my blog as I am in the process of building a store here. I’ll probably end up selling more than just my ebooks but we’ll see how much I can get done.

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Oh, Amazon thinks they’re funny…

This morning, I wake up to this lovely email:

Hello,
 
Amazon blocked your book titled Fruit of the Dead – Season One: Episode One stating they found it freely available on the web.

They are asking for proof of rights, rights reversion letters, or contractual statements showing you have the complete rights to this work. As part of the sign up to add content to Amazon through this site, you were notified that no portion of your book can be posted freely available online, as it causes Amazon to question the copyrights. I will include Amazon’s email below for you to read through.
 
Amazon only gives us a few days to comply with these requests. Please immediately respond to this email with any documentation you have available as proof of copyrights and confirmation that the content posted on https://simily.co/all-stories/fiction/lightinash/fruit-of-the-dead-season-one-episode-one/ belongs exclusively to you. You will need to sign (physically sign) and send us a form that states this that we can forward to Amazon. 
 
This is some bullshit because Simily, while offering 4 free stories for a user to read, is a paid subscription site. Meaning my story is NOT freely available and I’ve made more money from Simily in the last month than I have from Amazon. My only reply was to say Simily isn’t a free site and that’s it. They can take their documentation and shove it.
 
If they decide to be a giant fucking bully and pull my books, I will have no fucking problem selling the digital copies direct from my blog. I’ve been thinking about putting a store on here for awhile and every day we find out how shitty Amazon and Jeff Bezos are. I’ve been actively shopping at alternative places and I only buy from Amazon if I have no other choice and I get gift cards from Swagbucks or any other of my points sites. I’ve had ethical debates in my head of having my books on there at all because I dislike them so much. So, not that they will give a shit, but I don’t care if Amazon pulls my stuff. Call my bluff, guys. Ya’ll won’t miss me anyway!

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Announcement!

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If you were looking for another way to support my work without supporting huge publishers, I have posted my stories on Simily! Not all of them are available but I’m slowly adding them.

This doesn’t mean I’ll be removing my stories from other platforms. I know there are people who don’t want to or can’t use Amazon or other big retailers for various reasons. It’s a subscription type site so there are plenty of other authors to see as well! Click here to check it out!

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Today’s workout: I’m a dummy…

I totally forgot to bring my Freewrite Traveler to work with me so I couldn’t write all day. Once I got home, whatever plans I had for this story flew out of my brain. Now I’m back to picking at it until things click back into place.

Luckily for me, sitting there on the bike did shake some things loose. I turned down the resistance so I could go faster and just let the time go by as I wrote. Part of me is wondering if I should get back on the treadmill but just set it really slow so I can keep writing but I worry about not burning enough calories since I’d be walking so slowly. Or maybe that would be better for my knees… If I did that, I certainly wouldn’t use Zombies Run for those workouts. It would ruin my stats.

I am anxious to get back to running but taking this time to write has helped. I’m still not making a lot of money but I’ve finally gotten to the point where I don’t go a month with no sales at all. Maybe it’s not a good idea to so vastly alter my health goals around making money but the bank doesn’t care if I’m fat or thin, just as long as I pay the mortgage.

 

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It’s here!

The first part of “Dahlia” is all done and ready for purchase! Click here or the picture above. Here’s the quick blurb:

Dahlia has a peaceful life working for a recycling company and coming home to her loving wife. But when that peace is shattered, a new terrible world is opened up, a dark past is revealed, and a dangerous quest begins.

I’m super excited to put this one out there. I hope you enjoy it!

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