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!