blog « Robin Writes

Yeah, kind of in a galaxy far, far away. It sure seems like it!

So a long, long time ago—three years this month, actually—I’d just come off a long-time writing gig for non-fiction, Internet only (okay, mostly) and had started writing my first novel, REDUCED. I had author friends, thanks to the bookstore, and writer friends from way back, and I was up to my eyeballs in the book business.

But now it seems like I’ve always been an author. Make me blink whenever I realize that REDUCED has been out for only two and a half years. Seems a lot longer!

Sure, I made mistakes. I still make some, although honestly, I won’t take the blame for some of them. It’s technology that will occasionally throw me for a loop—as in it’s not working the way it’s supposed to . . . but by and large, I’ve got this.

Blows me away sometimes how new authors think and make decisions; even some experienced authors who should know better, but don’t. I try really hard to be kind and to teach, not lecture. Certainly I don’t make fun of them, although I’ll confess to frequent head-shaking.

Here is the short list of how to be an author:

Don’t pay someone to publish your book. Ever.

Check references and quality before handing over money to editors and cover designers.

You need to know or learn punctuation, spelling, and grammar before you start.

You must have a story, a good story, that will be interesting to a lot of people.

Your book must be as long as it takes to tell that story, but it should also be a book and not a novella or a short story or just something you threw together.

You need to learn a lot of things. It will seem overwhelming. It’s not.

I don’t care who publishes your book, you will have to sell it.

There are a lot of ways to do this.

You have to keep doing them, consistently, forever.

The overwhelming bit was what got to me. I was inundated with blogs, articles, posts, etc., all telling me to do this or that. Fortunately, I’m able to mostly cut through all the bull, and so I found some things quite useful. Others, however, are things that need to be tried and tested, like promo sites. Not everything will work for every book.

Likewise, not everything will work for every author. Read, study, bookmark the good stuff, and go back and look at your leisure. Don’t be afraid to try things.

And don’t think you have to do it all, or even do things a certain way. Just do it.

All the papers are signed, the closing date is set, all the details worked out for possession, etc.

And I’m a mess.

You know how it is when you have SO MUCH to do? Me, I just kind of shut down. Random thoughts fly through my head at odd moments, and when I have a chance to sit down and think and make lists, my mind goes blank.

As you can guess, this plays havoc with my company. And family. And day-to-day stuff.

But we do have a plan. Sorta:

Actually see the place.
Go to the auction on March 14.
Walk the property—this is separate from the first thing on the list, because initially we just need to see the buildings and check it all out.
Decide where a few outside improvements are going to be built. We’d originally planned to camp while we were building the cabin, and even though it’s more like remodeling and cleaning now, we still need a place to sleep and cook and shower and all that. So that’s first on the building list. Plus, there will be a place for ALL OUR FRIENDS to stay while they’re um, helping. [wink, wink]
Start the clean-up. The seller is having an auction, but we don’t really know how much of the “stuff” will be sold and removed, and we don’t know how much of the leftover stuff will be taken away. And, too, there’s some trash and things, overgrowth, and who knows what that will be need to be cleaned out.

Based on the calendar and our schedules, we hope to have these things done within a few weeks after closing; by the first of May, at least. Once school is out for the summer, we’ll have more time to go down there and stay for a few days or so. Of course, we won’t just be working—what’s the fun in that?

Next up will be putting storage stalls in the barn so we can start moving stuff out of our garage—if you’ll recall, over the last year I’ve been moving things into a big pile for a garage sale and packing up all the other things, memorabilia, etc., that I don’t want to exactly get rid of, but we don’t use. You know, kids’ mementos, papers and things from my grandparents, those kinds of things.

Our sale is set for April, and when it’s over, EVERTHING left—that the kids don’t take—will be donated. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. Ruthless. That’s the keyword.

And then we have the house itself to deal with. The stuff. That’s all moving out too, eventually, to the garage for the next sale. Whew.

By the way, I hate garage sales. Loathe them. Despise them. Words are not strong enough to describe how truly terrible it is to have a garage sale . . .

So, up and at ‘em, onward and upward, and so forth. Go forth. Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m getting a little loopy making all these lists!