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  J M Beal

Full Power Aft! Let's Try That Again...

10/7/2015

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Picture

That's a visual representation of the proof I got in the mail last week.

Anybody who's ever tried to get a book through any kind of online system by themselves knows my pain, I'm sure. It's a catastrophe waiting to happen. And that's assuming you've actually done all of your stuff right. Did you forget you added a page? Haha, good luck with that. Was your title a little off center on the cover? You're probably better just recreating it.

So this epic horror got me thinking. I'd love to hear some of your horror stories, about what's happened in your publishing adventures. We'll call it shared learning. I'll tell you what all went wrong with mine, and then you can tell me about your disfigured creatures from beyond.

I did the added page thing this time, and you never realize how accustomed to having things on the right facing page until they're suddenly on the left. Also, if you go back to my home page you'll see the cover for The Mystery of Raven's Moor. It looks blueish to me. It's a purpley kind of blue, but it's still more blue than freaking purple. The cover came in purple. Like wrap a Plantagenet baby in it purple. And then my kid picked it up, started reading it, and found a missed typo.

Yeah. No worries, right? I had plenty of time to add that to the schedule...

So, tell me about your horrors, and come back Friday and we'll talk about a different kind of horror. 
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Baaaa...

4/29/2015

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So my friend Tamela did this post called "Seven Things (Or that time I was a sheep and followed the trend)."  And she tagged me---hehe...sheep tags---so I'm going to do it too. God I love sheep jokes.

Seven Things About My Writing:

1: I occasionally get so far inside a character I will pick up their bad linguistic habits for months.
I don't know if I should be proud of this or not, but it's the truth. This next book coming out, I abused the ever-loving-crap out of the ellipsis. In the first draft I'm not sure my male main character ever actually finished a thought. And for a minute I genuinely thought that was just a phase I was in, in my writing. But then I went and looked at a couple of other projects I've worked on since then, and I don't think it is. It's just Nate. That's my story anyway.


2: I'm still learning.
I mean for the love of Pete I'd like to spend the rest of my life learning so I hope I'm still learning. But also, I'm still learning about my writing, about the way I plan a project out, and the way I carry an idea, and what themes speak the most to me. It seems like every book I write, I've got a different bad habit. I just keep hoping they're smaller bad habits, at least.


3: I have so many unfinished projects I can't list them all off the top of my head.
Some of them aren't more than a loose plot synopsis and a couple of character sketches. Some are four written books out of a seven book series. Some of them are probably dead ends. Maybe. If I can let them go.


4: Sometimes I miss just being a writer.


5: I get unreasonably happy about early-stage editing.
I dig out the color coded pens, and post-it flags, and I leave myself notes in the margins I would never say to another living soul. There's something visceral and enjoyable at that moment. I'm making it better. It's not until like the third edit I start to dread editing with the same passion as most people dread going to the DMV or spending six hours in traffic with no A/C or radio.


6: I get the most inspiration from non-fictional television.
Not "reality tv" or anything like that. I watch a lot of historical documentaries, and unending runs of Crash Course, which you should totally go find on YouTube if you haven't because I could watch John Green talk forever. My other favorite is anything I can find by Ken Burns. 


7: Every book I've written came from an idea about one character in one situation.
I usually call those Snowball Moments. Where I look at that one situation and wonder what would happen if I pushed the snowball down the hill. And then started putting obstacles in its path. Then I plot the wholly living heck out of it. Down to snatches of dialog and ever single scene. When I'm finished with the plot I put it in a file and just go write the book. Sometimes it goes where I thought it was going, usually it doesn't. It's better when it doesn't.


So there's my seven. I'll tag some people on facebook to do theirs.


And come back Friday where I might have a guest blogger ;)
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The Monthly Report and Exploding Snowballs

7/1/2014

2 Comments

 
I have utterly no clue what I said I was going to do this month. I think it was said with the full understanding that if I hadn't mentioned Golden Fleece Press yet, it was already hovering in my work folder and therefor whatever I thought was going to happen was more or less slated for failure.

It's hard to say I failed last month, when I sit back and look at everything I actually did. Did I do the stuff I said I was going to do? Well...no. I'm pretty sure I did nearly none of it. 

Whatevs. It's a new month full of new beginnings. I opened a publishing company last week! Arguably with a crap-ton of help and the coolest business partner in the universe, but I digress.  So. Goals for this new month.
  • Ignore the faintly horrifying number of blogs I am responsible for upkeep on and ACTUALLY DO THEM. I know, this one might be a little difficult. Still, moonbeams and stardust and all that jazz.
  • Edits. For the thing that's my placeholder in this whirlwind snowball of doom. I have months, but given everything else I need months so...
  • I am doing Camp Nano. Because you all know I am crazy and I said I wouldn't, but you all knew that was a lie. You did, come on, admit it. I'm writing content for projects to be announced later and I know for a fact at least one of them is going to be utterly unhelpful in the way that means a 25k word project decides to be ten books. So. I've got that to look forward to. 
  • Plan out a blog tour. Because my professional life isn't full to the gills already.

Right. So. There's my July, mixed in with my birthday and my kid's birthday and two visits from my parents and one national holiday and...

I wonder if there's a floor on my attic. That seems like a legitimate place to hide.
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I like deadlines...

5/27/2013

1 Comment

 
--Cross posted from Tumblr


They make a fun noise as they rush past.

I know, it's a ridiculously over-used joke by writers. But it's another Monday, and pretty much everything I said I was going to do last week didn't happen. And the continued medical shenanigans going on in my life are a tailor made excuse for that, sure. That doesn't mean I should be using that.

So, last week I made some sort of vague promise about how I was going to blog about something involving writing this week. Which is a little difficult, as I haven't really managed to do much of that lately.

Hello Topic, so lovely of you to join us. Better late than never.

As you might know, I tried to write a ridiculous amount for the first part of Camp Nano this year, and while I didn't make the goal I set, I did manage to get through the first draft for two separate books and start the third. 

It's not like this is the first time I've had to stop a project in the middle and go back later. And I'm going back much quicker than I generally manage. Sometimes it's years before I pick a project back up again. I feel like the disconnect is always huge once I stop, whether it's for three weeks or a year. 

And much as I'm trying not to think about it right now, a lot's happened in my personal life since I stopped writing that book.

If this was LiveJournal I'd be hitting that little 'I'm lost' button. So I'm kicking it back to you.

What do you do when you've left a project for a while and it's time to go back?

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    There's a link to my bio at the top of the page, but for these purposes it's probably best to just say I'm strange.

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