The Unblocking Of Self

Desperately I have tried to get back into the saddle with my writing, after having been diverted away by the demands of smallholding life. Or rather, I allowed myself to become diverted. I was in full flow with a 20, 000 word book, with the words tumbling out at a steady pace, late last Winter. And then Spring arrived, seducing me with its desire to start things growing in the garden. So I left behind my writing pathway and off out into the garden I went, growing pots of seeds, digging, and planting, and watering, and so on.

Then the animals started arriving, pulling me even further away from my writing pathway. And I allowed it to happen, that is what is most frustrating, although I kept up with blogging, but even slowing down with that.

And so my writing creativity grew rusty. Unused, my vocabulary shrank.

But I didn't forget the writing. Just kept putting it off. Meanwhile, I tried to keep on with the editing of Psychic Toolbox. It was useless. So I put that to one side as well.

Winter has arrived once more, and with it the long days inside. The garden still calls, but I can switch off its demands because of the cold. We are getting used to farm life as well, so I have more time-gaps.

And I have realised that without the writing I am not who I am meant to be. So I have made a super duper effort to climb back into the saddle, and I am making a promise to myself to keep on sitting in that saddle and not let myself dismount at all.

And I have realised that I cannot write from my head alone. What I mean is, that to have any sort of word flow I have to be balanced and calm in myself, which is a really difficult state of mind for me to achieve.

So this morning I decided to make time for a meditation. This I have to do if I am going to keep riding along my writing pathway. And for the first time in an age, I woke up this morning with a 'writing sentence' in my head. It is to do with the synopsis of Psychic Toolbox, which I am having difficulty in writing. But at least the edits are done at last. Hopefully I can now pick up the word flow for that shorter book, which is to be a free download.

So, tapping away.......and hoping you are moving along your creative pathway at a cracking pace as well!

Ho Hum Part Two

I have completely fallen out of the saddle with writing since I last posted. Other things seem to be pulling me away. But perhaps it is avoidance. Writing is not something which I can plan. The words either arrive in my head or I don't. But first I have to make the effort to want to write, and sometimes making that effort, is well, just too much effort. 

However, I have become quite down in myself as a result. As if part of myself is missing. And so I seek out this part of myself which is hidden. The writing self. That self which is the best of me. 

Meanwhile, needing to keep a record of our work here makes me write the blogs, keeps me engaged with the art of writing. I think this is a good way to keep in touch with the writing self when other words do not seem to want to come. Even making comments on other people's blogs helps keep in touch with the word flow. 

But I think that probably September is favourite for starting writing again. When the year is winding down perhaps I will be able to rev up!

 

Ho Hum

Being a proper writer one must have the courage to look at one's work in a constructive manner, and know when one has not put forth the message that one aspired to make at the start of the current tome. 

In other words, major rewrite under way as I recognise that I am way off base with Psychic Toolbox. Ho hum. It is far too dreary a read, and needs perking up a hell of a lot. Ho hum. 

Help, I need an editor

Boiling with impatience, I am plugging my way through the final edit on 'Psychic Toolbox'. Having to read the text, then change what needs to be changed is damned hard. Always I have to avoid the tendency to start re-writing it, and focus on the job in hand which is to get it reading smoothly. But just changing one word in a sentence because I have already used it a few words previously can throw out the whole sentence, and sometimes the whole paragraph, so I have to be careful of what I alter. 


Also I have found a difficulty with reading and editing in the same space, which is up at my PC, because my mind gets fogged up after a while. I want to get this edit done, so am finding it easier to read the book and mark  up the errors whilst lolloping on my settee in the house, then back to the PC for the actual changes. Takes longer, but my mind doesn't get so tired. 


Psychic Virgin: Have finally finished reformatting PV and have uploaded it to Smashwords, who have converted it so it can be read on many ebook readers, and am waiting to see if it will be accepted for their ebook listings. 


Smashwords have an interesting philosphy, which is let the reader read up to fifty percent of the book before purchase. I think this is an excellent idea. In a book shop I would browse a book before purchase, and this is doing the same thing. I already post up chunks of the books on the website, and I have made available at Lulu a couple of chapters. 


Wasn't particularly fussed about ebooks and ebook readers in the beginning, but after browsing the listings at Smashwords, I am beginning to see the value to this new technology. I don't think books will ever cease to be, but I think that ebooks will share their space as well in the future. 


Ok, so back to the editing task,.....
 

Formatting frazzle

Psychic Toolbox update: It arrived a couple of weeks ago from Lulu. Doesn't look too bad. Cover OK. Matches the first book. Have a feeling that all these covers will be reworked at some point in the future, preferably by someone else! Now for the next stage of re-reading and re-editing. Won't be as bad as the first, Psychic Virgin, though. It is shorter, and less complicated. Writing about one's life in a funny way so one's reader is not bored out of their skull, well, it was a supremely difficult task. 

And I have been putting off further publishing work with PV, and let it dawdle away at Lulu and Amazon, not doing much at the moment but then I knew it would take a time to get going. My stumbling block has been getting to grips with the ebook formula. Lulu will convert the text to ebook format, but you have to pay if you want it go out on a wide range of readers. Anyway, I have got it out on Lulu's pdf reading service, which is free, and I think it can be read on Sony readers now, as well as on PC's. 

And then I found a website called 'Smashwords', which gave a very helpful description of what I needed to do to get the text of PV into the right format for conversion to the various ebook formats. Now all I have to do is undo ALL the formatting I did for the book form of PV. 

Flip me, but that was the biggest of stumbling blocks for me: how to format a book. Which means getting headers running through the book which are in the right sequence, as well as the page numbers. Then there is the Table of Contents to do. And the long task of making sure the script looks right on each page. Using page breaks in the right place. And trying to be very tidy with the general look of the book. 

All that goes out of the window with ebook formatting. I have had to delete all that previous book formatting from the script and start over again. Apparently the text has to float according to the type of reader which is being used to view the book, so there can't be any line breaks, no faddly fonts, nothing fancy, just plain text written in Word. And I can't make the individual pages look tidy by sculpting the text into an attractive shape, which is something which took ages to do when working on the book format. 

Funnily enough, it took quite a load off me, not having to give the page a 'good look'. I felt like I was handing that responsibility over to my reader, who can then play around with the look of the book themself. Apparently the font and the line spacing can be changed on a reader. 

So, I have spent a couple of days reformatting PV into the format required at Smashbooks, who then convert it to formats suitable for a wide range of readers. And it is a free service, like Lulu, and they take commission if you sell your ebook through them. I really like this site, it is easy to follow, and the instuctions clearly given. To be recommended. 

A bit of a shock with PV. On reformatting it for Smashbooks, I realised that the edition I OK'd with Lulu for distribution was not the actual edition I had worked on last. I had changed the first chapter's first page. But I had shipped out to Lulu a previous edit. Ooops! For a moment I felt a chill run up and down my spine! But on reading that original front page, then re-reading my newer edit, I realised that the original was the better one to go with. So, not to worry. But I think some re-edited typos might have gone through as well. Good job I make an apology for this in the preface pages: I say that I am a cottage industry type of book because I have done all the work on it myself, and that I apologise for any errors which might have escaped the net. 

I hope, in the future, to have someone read the books for such errors, but I can't afford the services of such a person at the moment, so I have to manage as best I can. The same as I can't afford a graphic artist for the coverwork, but hopefully in the future that will change. I don't mind doing the editing and graphic work, but it burns up time.

Have nearly finished the formatting for Smashwords, and will upload in a day or so. Meanwhile, on to re-editing PT, and am also writing a 20,000 word ebook, possibly to also go to a book if it is not too small for Lulu to publish as such.

Well, that's all for now. I would have liked to have given more info about ebook formatting versus book formatting, but time ran out on me. I hope you are continuing to be inspired with your own writing, and that you don't give up despite the many setbacks that one can suffer whilst trying to stay on the writing pathway.

 

Waiting for the post

Pushed through with Psychic Toolbox, finally managing to get the cover graphics in reasonable order, then clicking my way through the Lulu processes and the click: Done! Up on the screen comes this message: congratulations! You have just published your book!

Only it is not quite as simple as that, because now I need to see what the book looks like in print, so have ordered a copy. And the peculiar thing is that now it has reached this stage I seem to have become detached from it, which is the same thing which happened with my first book. It's like I haven't actually written it but someone else has. Odd that. 

Anyway, waiting for the post now. Meanwhile, I was going to crack on with the third book in the series but my mind kept on having other ideas coming in, to do with writing a tarot card instruction book. This one is a free ebook or pdf download, and is about 20,000 words long.

And the thrill of starting off a new project, and seeing the word count rise. At 1,600 words, there is a long way to go yet.

Although the subject I write about may not be a topic you wish to explore, I hope the fact that I am self publishing acts as an inspiration to you. And one of the things I am learning, is that you need to establish a raft of work, some of which has to be free downloads, so that your potential reader can engage with who you are as a person. That if you have  just one book done, then that is likely to become submerged along with all the other millions of books which are on the market. But if you keep on building a portfolio of work, and also build a good sized web site to go with it giving plenty of info about who you are and why you do what you do, then this will ultimately build a following.

I am not so sure about only using the blogging route, as that is time consuming. I tend to write these blogs as a diary for me to look back on to see how far I have come, and it would seem that if you want loads of followers on the blog then you have to invest acres of time in visiting everyone else's blogs, which is minimizing your writing time. So I tend to come and go with my blogs, but I do value people when they visit me and I do go visit them although don't always have the time to leave a comment. 

I think that a website would be heftier to do than a blog, but it would tidy up your writing work and make it more see-able for your reader. That is what I think, anyway. And you could always build a theme upon which to sit your work. Someone I know has built the theme of an old castle/house for their website, inserts blogs into certain 'rooms' and writes in association with the theme. For myself, I have a professional website which the books  I write support, and when I move on to other subjects, such as smallholding and novels, then Labartere.com will be the vehicle for those books, the 'Snippet' blog being the foundation for that project. 

So while I wait for my post to arrive, I hope I have 'posted' some ideas into your mind!

Mental constipation, Paintshop, PV & PT.

My writing pathway seems to have been suffering from constipation of late, perhaps because the weather has been cold and damp, which is most unlike our usual weather here and reminds my bones of UK winters. That, plus some background worries about my mum, and the taking of certain decisions in regards to the ongoing development of Labartere, had robbed me of all writing momentum. 

So then I got bored! Took myself in hand, and got myself back into the saddle. Did some ongoing link checking with my Aspects of Self website, and managed to re-edit one of the pages which needed doing. Simple stuff really. Just to ease my mind away from day-to-day stuff. 

Psychic Toolbox and Psychic Virgin time: the problem is that all I want to do is write, but being a self publisher I have to deal with all the other stuff which a publisher, editor, and  agent would do, which also has contributed to this blocking effect. Always I am breaking new ground with myself, learning new skills, which quite frankly can get rather tiring, even though keeping me mentally stimulated at the same time. 

Ebooks. Hit a wall with Lulu in regards to getting the cover into shape. Assumed that all I would have to do is use the same cover as the book, but no. Lulu assumes that an ebook is a completely different unit of work to the original book, so wants a cover done. But Lulu doesn't let you have access to the 'Design a book cover' wizard, so all you have is an inhouse cover which will be the same as everyone elses, or you can submit your own, but it has to be all the cover. 

Now my original cover for PV was designed via the wizard, so is not 'all of a piece'. What I mean is that I don't seem to be able to convert that cover over as a whole unit for the ebook. So: off into the Internet I went, researching 'how to make an ebook cover'. Then off into Paintshop to have a go, and then stopped, as have to become more familiar with Paintshop before I can go any further. More learning needed.

PT: all re-writing done, now need to do the cover. Since PT is part of the Psychic Virgin series of five books in total, I want to keep a theme running. Did the very simple graphic for PV in Word autoshapes, and Tech Team Guy Husband did some magic stuff which neither of us can remember, and into the Lulu wizard it went without a hitch. 

So did the same for PT. Jiggled about with the same graphic, called Hubs over and he pressed the 'PrtScm Sys Rq' button on the PC, opened Paintshop, right clicked mouse  over blank screen, accepted 'paste in as new image' offer, and up came the recently copies graphic complete with all the Windows toolbars as well.

On to side toolbar of Paintshop, hit the 'selection' button, then over to the graphic, put a square around the graphic, then up to top bar, Image > crop to selection. This fetched up with all the Windows stuff gone and a nice little box with the graphic neatly inserted inside. Saved as a 'png'. 

Over to Lulu wizard. Uploaded graphic. Same process as before, but now error keeps appearing. Image too large. So back to Paintshop and reduce the image. Repeat process several times but still Lulu coming back with image too large. Gave up in the end. Ignore the red triangle boldy sitting on the cover warning me that the graphic might be hazy when printed, hoping that the magic fairy would come along and make it alright somehow. 

Rest of cover didn't take too long. Used the same fonts as PV, similar layout although not exactly the same in regards to font spacings because the overall look of the cover needs to be right as far as I can judge. At some point in the future, when all the books are done, then I will improve the covers, but for the time being....well, this is a cottage industry book so will do it the best I can then leave alone.

Onto the back cover....posted up a photo of myself, believing that my (possible) reader needs to see the person behind the name. Prefer to choose photos which represent who I am in real life, so no 'spit and polish' photos with loads of make-up and tidily coiffured  hair. And definitely no studio-type poses. Just me, happy-snappying with my camera, usually capturing myself looking windswept and therefore vaguely untidy. The photo for this cover was a happy-snappy done by my daughter. There were four of us crammed  close together to get us all in the picture, and we were leaning on a log. 

And the thing is, that this photo, because it is not posed, goes with the rest of the cover, and the contents therein. It is home made. 

Now all I have to do is the blurb for the back cover........ oh dear, have a tad of avoidance creeping into me as I feel the urge to go take the dogs out for a walk! But at least I am not mentally constipated, which is a blessing!

Darkness

This is a writing exercise, posted up on Verbal Verbosity (see sidebar link) and is a great way to exercise the mind.  You have 100 words in which to write a piece, and the title of this week's exercise is: Darkness. 

DARKNESS: (a conversation between a man and a woman)

"Do you love me?" she says.

Demanding, desperate, difficult woman.

"Always" I say. 

Attentiveness away, all away, as acrid amour arrives.

"Remember you are mine" she purrs.

"Kitten, of course, forever" I say. 

Kindred soul wanted. Kerb crawling tonight. 

Kinkyness needed, kissssssssssssEsssssssssss-know-where?

"No. Now. Need you" she whispers.

Need nurturing. 

Nothing otherwise.

"Everything you are to me" I say.

Enthusiastically evading the efficient emotional manipulation.

"So, see you soon?" she half-pleads.

"See you soon" I say.

Sending you out in into the darkness,

seeing you fade into the darkness of my past,

as I go off out into the darkness myself.

The Introduction: My Psychic Toolbox

The introduction is put in the first section of the book, and needs to give the reader a flavour of what the book is all about. This I find hard to do, my first attempts usually being a description about the book which makes for a boring read. 

So: My Psychic Toolbox: have been stuck for the last few days with The Introduction. Have finished the editing of the Pdf downloaded from Lulu, just the intro to read. Oh direness set upon me as I found it to be dull. Couldn't get some sparkle into it at all, which was irritating in that I am nearly ready to upload to Lulu again. 

But: Yippeee! Woke up early this morning with the words: 'This is how it is for me when I am being psychic' and knew them to be the opening words. Launching myself out of bed I grabbed at a pen and paper and wrote those words down, knowing that they would evaporate away into nothingness if this wasn't done. Once dressed, straight onto the PC I went, and not allowing myself to deviate away into checking emails or Internet surfing,  into MPT I went and out the words came. Phew! 

I am not saying that I have done a fantastic job of The Intro, nor that I am a fantastic creator of words, but I am satisfied that I have done my best to reflect the book and that is all I can do. Upload to Lulu this afternoon, then onto the book cover stage. 

I find it useful to write this diary blog, because it pushes me on. Thanks for reading, and if you are a creator of words, or photos, or anything, then I hope your creative flow is at full speed today.

ebooks?

Next step in the self publishing saga. Can't rest on my posterior now. Need to keep pushing forward. There is no publishing house taking doing this for me, taking the marketing, etc, off my shoulders. Trouble is that I am not a person who can 'sing my own song'. What I mean is, that I find it difficult to sell myself. But then I am not actually selling me, am I! I am staying in faith with a book I have written and formatted the best I can, although it will still have a 'home grown' look because it is a cottage industry book. 

So: ebook time. Inspired by Hubs who is a Tech guy, and enthuses endlessly about what ebook reader he is going to purchase when the roofs of our house are paid for. (Snippets, my other blog, for more info about roofs: payment for!) 

Onto Lulu again: Publish button clicked onto: Email section entered. Since book already loaded onto Lulu, files should be available. Then I got stuck. Couldn't find a button which said 'Next>>>>>' So thought I would write to you instead!

But did find out some good info about Kindle, Amazon's ebook service, and Lulu's ebook service. Even though Lulu 'owns' the ISBN of Psychic Virgin because France doesn't have a 'Buy your own ISBN' service and I can't have a UK bought one because I don't live in the UK anymore, it does not make any difference to publishing an ebook with any other service provider. Kindle and Lulu are also marketing houses, so it makes sense to convert Psychic Virgin into ebook formats with both companies. 

Now all I have to do is fiddle about with the Lulu ebook process, then do some more fiddling about with the Kindle ebook process, then I am done!

And all I wanted to do was write a book to inspire others to follow their own star!


Thankyou www.ifunbusiness.com for imparting some of the info above.

Amazon's got it!

The title of this post was going to be 'A Brick Wall', the theme being that I was bang up against a wall and couldn't seem to find a doorway through. After having finished the read-through of My Psychic Toolbox, then the wall banged up infront of me. Effort seemed to have expired. 

And then it came into my head to investigate batteries. Why? Because my new camera gobbles up batteries so Internet search to find out why this is. I need the camera for certain aspects of my work, and also for my other blogs. 

Through a round about route I fetched up on Amazon. And a thought: would Psychic Virgin be posted up yet? But since other people I have read about complain that Amazon take forever to post their books up (normally up to six weeks), and since it was only about three weeks ago that I authorized Lulu to send it to Amazon, then chances are that it isn't going to be posted. 

It is. Posted up with millions of other books hosted by that web site. A tiny little fish in the hugest of oceans. Engage your head with worrying about whether it is ever going to be seen by anyone, and you will get depressed and possibly give up with writing. So what you have to do is get busy with other projects to keep you moving forward. This I am trying to do. Then the brick wall effect hit me. 

How do I feel about seeing PV up on Amazon? First of all, surprised that it had been posted so fast. Second, that the cover is not quite right, but something inside me is telling me that it is a temporary cover anyway, so not to worry. At least it looks original and not mass produced. Thirdly, that I am pleased that people can get inside the book and have a look at a sample of content. Not being able to do so would prevent me from purchasing a book, and I don't want anyone to buy the book without first seeing if it is something they are comfortable with reading.

And I have the tiniest bit of nervous anticipation, like butterflies, in my tum. Crikey! I have made a book from start to finish and got it out to Amazon. I have a smile on my face as I write this. I am not thinking about the money I may or may not earn. After all, if one did focus on the money side then the writing would not be so good. Oh I could have written something which was more 'popular', but then I would have been prostituting my work because it would have lost its passion. Been soulless. It would not have made an impact on the reader, not lit a spark, not made a difference. 

As in all times previously, when brick walls appear, something happens to disintegrate that wall. Inside of me I have a warmness that PV is Amazonned. Now all I have to do is research what the next step is....... will let you know how I get on with that, just in case you are hovering on the brink of that step into the big wide world of Amazon!


10 minutes later: Helful Hint: One of the things you don't need to do is go have a look to see where your actual placement is in the listings for your genre. Seeing how many other books are listed is likely to whoosh the wind out your sails! In your mind focus on your own book. Never mind about the others. Focus on the fact that the right person will find you. Send out positive thoughts to your book. It is, after all, your offspring. You created it. Now off into the world it is going to go, to do whatever it needs to do. Focus on that. Because if you don't, then despondency will set in and up a wall will go infront of you. 


It is the doing which is important, the personal achievement.

The plod of yet another read-through

So, My Psychic Toolbox has now been uploaded to Lulu, who have downloaded it back to me now in Pdf format. Now I have to read it through again. Which I have tendency to avoid doing. Because it is correcting errors, not writing. Therefore it is, quite frankly, boring. Now 'boring' is a word I never usually use, 'too much to do' being my preferred term generally. Not with 'reading through' it isn't. 

One has to be alert all the times. Looking for escapees: little words missed out, like 'and' or 'the'. Or add-ons: like two of 'and' or two of 'the', or 's' tagged onto a word when it shouldn't be. This takes concentration. Previous read-throughs would have been more interesting. Then I would have been re-writing chunks of words which were not running smoothly, or which had been repeated elsewhere, and I would have been alert to repeating the same word too many times in a paragraph. Even the Big Read, when I have to go from start to finish in one hit which has to be my total focus for a couple of days so that I can see how the book flows through itself, is not too tedious. 

But Pdf read-throughs are. Silly really, to sit on this stage in the process, but I do. I am, after all, nearly finished with the book. Yet I sit tightly in avoidance mode, wasting time. 

So: Onto PC this morning. Got the Pdf file opened. Got my Word version opened. Plugged myself into my headphones, banged on some music (classical with no words, Tchaikovsky to start off with, Chopin later) and started reading the Pdf file, altering my Word copy when errors popped up. Managed 50 minutes before my brain became addled, so off for dog walk then back again, determined to not to avoid. Oh so why then am I chatting to you! Ooopss! 

Ok, Ok, Ok! I'm going back to Pdf and Word!

The writing fright.

Why is it that I write like I do? What is it that is inside of me and needs to spring out? Why can't I write at will? Why do I have to wait until I have a start-off sentence, or a title? Why can't I sit down and plan ahead as to what I am going to write? 

For the last week I have been scatching around in my head trying to find something to write about for 'Snippets', my other blog. Nothing. Zilch. Empty. No words to be had anywhere in my head. 

And then this morning the words posted themselves in: 'Hesitatingly stepping forward'. Having learnt in the past to act as quickly as possible and not allow myself to become diverted by other things, I managed to get the words written. But instead of feeling on top of the world because I had updated the blog, all I am left with is a feeling of....., well, .... almost of being frightened. What is this strange thing which makes me write? What is the driver? And why when the words are coming out do I feel engaged with a part of me which seems do be so different to my day to day self?

Also, if I don't write, then the days in between are not so good. I feel dull. Mentally devoid of energy. But when I do have the word flow it gives energy to my day. 

It is not easy being a writer, a creator of words. And I don't even dare to think of myself as being clever, or gifted, or a better writer than everyone else. Therefore I really, really, do feel uncomfortable with the surge of words that come out. When they do. And I feel just as uncomfortable when the surge is not happening.

Why is this? 

But one thing: I wouldn't change this. I wouldn't want it not to happen.

So: does this mean that I am a 'natural' writer? Or does it mean I lack discipline? 

Or perhaps I should just be happy that I have times of word-flow, and be patient when I don't. 

Or perhaps I should be less examining of myself, and say 'This is how it is for me' and accept that sometimes I can write, and sometimes I can't. 

Anyway, thanks for listening, or rather 'reading'. It helps to talk things through sometimes.