Month: June 2014

One more thing done that needed done…

Lynn

Finally getting some stuff done that’s been needing done for a while. I mean, like five months late stuff.

I finished the paperback formatting of my last novel this morning when I put the finishing touches on the wrap around book cover. Yay!

Unfortunately, I discovered an issue last night after I’d submitted them, so as soon as they’d gone through review, I had to upload the tweaked cover file and submit them for review all over again. But that’s okay. Better now than after I get the proof copy of the paperback!

I put the price on the back cover and I had the price wrong. I didn’t know that until I’d hit the pricing section and realized that because of length, this one was going to need to be $2 higher than my usual. I’m not thrilled with that, but it was $2 or change my formatting, and I like the formatting as is.

So … I tweaked the cover file and resubmitted.

This cover was probably the easiest wrap around cover I’ve done to date. Maybe I really just need more practice. It’s getting easier to do the stuff that’s more technical and less about art (like the front cover—that still gets me every time).

Microsoft Word and Embedded Fonts; Open Type Is a Problem

Lynn

These things matter because I need embedded fonts to generate the right kind of PDF file for CreateSpace. I never noticed a problem with this before, but apparently the font I’m using is an Open Type font and Word won’t embed that font.

Now, this really surprised me when I researched the issue today, because the book I’ve been preparing is the third book in a series and is the third book to use that same font. Why I didn’t notice, or why it didn’t seem to matter, the last two times is beyond me, but this time, it came up as a problem in CreateSpace’s Interior Reviewer.

What I discovered is that Microsoft Word won’t or can’t embed Open Type fonts even if you have license permissions for those fonts to be embedded. I checked, and sure enough, I have the right permissions. Word just won’t embed Open Type fonts.

The solution was ditching the Word “save to PDF” option, and a search for a decent PDF printer that would embed those fonts for me. I installed several, including doPDF, CutePDF, and finally, PDF Creator (their website seems to be a bit broken, but this is the one that worked for me in the end). I couldn’t get any of them to print to the right sized paper for my book (5×8).

Turns out I had to create a new “form” for my printers.

That was tricky to find, since I’d never heard of this before. I found it under my control panel, printers, and when I clicked one of my printers, it was something I needed to do in the “Print server properties.” I created a new 5×8 form, with measurements of, you guessed it, 5×8 inches, and then when I “printed” my Word docx to the PDF Creator printer, it saved just fine!

A lot of work just to get some fonts embedded in a PDF file but it was worth it to know I’ve done it right.* I’m left wondering, though, how in the world did I get my last two books in this series through CreateSpace?

Also, although I ended up using PDF Creator to successfully create my PDF file, I have to wonder if the others would have worked just fine once I had created the new 5×8 form. I didn’t discover that I needed to do that until I found a FAQ on the PDFforge.org website, Word documents with custom page size are converted in default size:

By default, PDFCreator only knows the paper formats that are created when it is installed. If a custom format is defined in Word, PDFCreator does not recognize it and thus Word will use the default page size.

To create new paper formats, they have to be created under Print Management->Server settings. There you can create name and dimensions of the format. Aftwards, you can use it in Word.

And there was the tricky bit. I had no idea what “Print Management->Server settings” meant. But once I figured it all out and did it, my file came out great.

I uploaded it earlier this evening, and there weren’t any apparent issues according to CreateSpace. Yay!

*What I really need to do is learn Adobe InDesign, but for what I do, it’s just not worth it at the moment.

Still working on that ending

Lynn

But hey at least I’m working. I’m still having trouble getting “enough” done that I feel I can use my computer for other stuff, so here I am on my Kindle again. I was sick yesterday so I have an excuse, but I actually did pretty good anyway.

The ending of the novella is making me crazy, though. I deleted so much yesterday, that who knows what my word count might have been. :) I ended up with about 1,200. I’ll post my actual on the accountability page when I can.

I still have so much to delete if the new ending goes the way I think it will. I had to go back one more chapter, and start over there, so now I’ve lost three chapters of about 2,500 words each. I’ve rewritten from scratch a couple of those chapters so many times over the last few months that I’ve lost count.

There’s good news though! If I don’t mostly finish this thing today, I’m scrapping it. I already expect it to be a low seller—I’m not wasting any more time on it. :D

Off to write! I’ve gotta get busy, because I have kids home again and I can’t be a shut-in any longer. They need food for the week. ;)

Bummed

Lynn

So in a moment of inspired genius I finally—finally—had the real ending for the novella-that-won’t-end pop into my head tonight. It works. I mean, really, really works. It works as if that’s what I intended all along and just couldn’t recognize it.

But I’m bummed. Because I spent all day working to get the ending I have further along and it was good writing. I was enjoying myself and it felt good. I mean, the ending wasn’t working, but it felt good to be writing it.

For the “real” ending, I need to delete all that plus some. About 3,400+ words to dash against the cliff that is my delete key.

I can’t decide if I should try to salvage some of what I wrote or start completely fresh. Experience says that salvaging crap almost always takes longer than just starting over, even if it’s good crap. ;) But I really hate to lose some of those moments! They were good moments! But if I don’t get rid of them, I’m basically saying I have to write toward a certain goal, and that might not be right for this ending.

(Let me take a moment to say that when I say I got the ending, I don’t mean I actually have the moves worked out like a movie yet. I’ve discovered my ending, but it’s just this vague blob of impressions in my head at the moment. I actually have no idea what’s coming, other than that a character who wasn’t in this chapter is suddenly there, and that it changes everything, and I know it’s a good thing, and I can tell that it solves issues. I’m a discovery writer, through and through, and there’s still an awful lot of discovering to do. And this right here is probably why I average 500 words an hour. If I wrote any faster, I’d get lost in the fog that is my brain.)

And I can’t decide if I should just call it a night and deal with it tomorrow or keep going—maybe even try to finish it tonight. Because this new ending? I can tell it’s going to wrap up much quicker than the mess I have now, because it works, and I won’t have to use so much spackle to fill in all the damn holes.

Let me think…

A few seconds later…

I need to get going on it. If I don’t, tomorrow will just turn into a morass of hesitation and despair and then I’ll never get myself started. Procrastination will set in and I’ll be right back where I started this week. Not to mention that I might actually forget what I need to write.

Gah. I’m tired. I was planning to get to bed early tonight—like fifteen minutes from now early.

Guess it’ll be a long night after all.

The New Rule; I Feel Calm

Lynn

Well. There’s a nice side-effect for me. Thinking about my upcoming day, I feel calm. Days where I feel calm are rare enough that I definitely notice them. :) Makes me happy.

I’m posting from my Kindle again. I didn’t really get much more done last night. I’ll update the accountability numbers when I can update at the computer. It’s a lot easier than this.

Too many storms last night! I’m already tired and I haven’t even got out of bed yet.

The new rule is helping me with another bit of restructuring I’m trying to do—stop reading so much crap online! :D Overloading my brain every spare moment I have has been squashing my creativity. Just no room left to daydream and be creative!

Well, time to get this day started. :)

The New Rule Worked, But…

Lynn

… Since I haven’t reached 2,000 words, I’m posting this little update from my Kindle. It was probably a terrible idea to start this new rule while I’m trying to finish a book. Ahem. During times like these, I’m known to delete as much as I write. I’m sitting at 1,036 words for the day right now.

I really wish I had the capability of sitting down and just staying with something until I got it done.

Anyway. I’m not quitting yet, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll hold out. It’s already my bedtime. :D

I’m switching stories to see if I can get some momentum going. See ya!

A New Rule

Lynn

I made myself a new rule, something super simple.

I can’t do anything on the computer that’s not directly publishing related until I’ve done a minimum of writing for the day, probably about 2,000 words. (So I can reach my weekly goal.)

And that is why I’m writing and posting this from my smartphone before I’ve even gotten out of bed. :D

But truthfully speaking, I actually think that simple rule will help a lot.

Yesterday, I failed to write, because I got distracted by websites and reading things online. I did manage to knock something publishing related off my to do list that had been there since 2012, so it wasn’t an all bad day. :D

Time to wrap this up. Editing and writing on my phone is a pain in the ass!

Getting started today

Lynn

Alrighty! Time to get busy today. I have some writing I want to do, and I’m racing to see how much I can get done before I break for dinner. :) I’d like that to be 2,000, but I’ll settle for whatever I get. I want to finish that pesky novella today.

Update: Considering how much messing around I did with other stuff today, I feel lucky I made it to a few words under 400.

I spent 6 hours on WHAT?

Lynn

I finally finished that new ebook style set—6 hours after I started at 9 a.m. OMG. I must have been in flow, or the zone, or something, because I’m telling you, it felt like an hour, two tops.

But no. 6 hours. 6 whole hours. I finished at a few minutes before 3, and I know that because I responded to an email from my daughter and then started my exercise. Had lunch. Now I’m feeling all nap-ish, so I think I’ll rest for a few minutes before I start on the writing I want to do today.

It wasn’t all wasted time, despite the fact that obviously I let my inner perfectionist run rampant this morning. I now have a reformatted novella (first in the series) ready to be turned into a fabulous ebook by Jutoh.

I’ve recently started uploading a properly formatted mobi to KDP instead of my docx files, just because it seems to make a nicer ebook. The docx conversion always looks nice, but quite often, the NCX doesn’t work.

The NCX is what gives me the working Go To button on my Kindle Fire and in Aldiko* that will let me choose from any chapter or section of my book that’s linked in the table of contents. I use this for fiction more than I thought I did, something I discovered when I started trying to read more fiction books. I read the same book on different devices, and the Go To menu is the quickest way to get to the right spot in a book when I’m switching to my smartphone to read while I exercise. :D

Anyway, I’ve dragged this post out long enough! I need to either nap, or write, or nap and then write. Whichever. See ya!

*Aldiko has directions on how to install Aldiko on a Kindle Fire. No longer available. However, the Aldiko Book Reader Premium app is now compatible with most Kindle Fires and Fire tablets so you can just get it from the Amazon app store.

Microsoft Word is annoying me today

Lynn

Not that the fault belongs to Microsoft Word. No, the fault is mine.

I meant to get started writing about an hour ago, but I started messing with the former book in the novella series so I could update the back matter (my list of books, my bio, blah blah), and I realized my styles are not matching up, which made me want to create a new style set (again, not like I don’t already have a ton of them), and then I ended up looking up the Microsoft Office help pages so I could see if I’m missing something in my understanding of styles and style sets and templates (oh, I definitely am, even though I know enough to have created about 10 style sets of my own).

This is all for Word 2007. I toy with the idea of upgrading, but  I haven’t because I’m pretty happy with this version.

In the meantime, I’ve wasted a lot of good writing time on something that would take very little time to do, if I could figure out where I need to start to combine the quick styles I definitely need into one new style set, so I can just delete most of the rest of them.

Let’s see, it’s 9:58 a.m. and I’m going to see if I can get this done within 10 minutes before I drive myself crazy with it.

And later…

10:31 a.m. to be exact. I’ve got a new style set for my ebooks and I think it’s going to work. I’ve made a note to delete the old style sets (not the print style sets yet) once I’m sure I’m happy with this new set.

Not 10 minutes but close enough! :D

It’s possible I have no idea what “fast” means

Lynn

So last night and this morning I read Writing in Overdrive (which I really liked, btw) and I came away from the book with the feeling that maybe I don’t know what “fast” means when it comes to writing.

I’ve been daydreaming about hitting daily word counts of 5,000 and 6,000 for a while, and there’s definitely this part of me that thinks this should be a daily thing. Maybe weekends off. But maybe not.

And I have to ask myself, in what world is this realistic?

What kind of writer writes 5,000 words every day? That’s 1,825,000 words a year.

Where’d I get the idea that this is something I even want?

I mean, I could write a new novel every month at around 2,000 words a day. A new novel every month.

At 4,000 words a day, I’d be pumping out two novels everymonth. Or one massive 120,000 word novel.

I have no idea why I’ve fixated on 5,000 words a day. No idea.

When I won NaNoWriMo in 2010 with just a hair over 50,000 words, I thought I’d done something amazing.  When I decided to go back to writing original works so I could try publishing in 2012, I thought I was really accomplishing something when I wrote 56,287 words in two months. I was so sure I was writing a significant enough number of words that I quit my job to start writing full-time. Let me repeat that: I quit my job based on me being able to write about 25,000 words a month.

I have to wonder when I decided it was such a great idea to put so much pressure on myself that I feel like I’ve started to avoid writing, even though I love writing stories. Why have I let my critical self run roughshod over my creative self by focusing so strongly on word counts and hourly output and self-imposed deadlines?

What have I been thinking?

Then there’s the idea that I’m a slow writer at my average 551 words per hour.

I’ve been dreaming of consistently writing 1,000 words an hour for a while now. I’ve done it a few times, but I don’t like it when I push for it. It’s happened a few times when I haven’t pushed for it, and those times were fun. But when I tried to force it? It was too stressful, and I didn’t like how it felt at all. It made writing very much unfun.

There were several passages within Writing in Overdrive that made me question what kind of hourly output I should be expecting from myself.

In chapter 1, Jim Denney talks about Ray Bradbury:

He averaged about five and a half typing hours per day, totaling 49 hours of typewriter time at a cost of about $9.80 in dimes. His daily output averaged about 2,800 words. “It was a passionate and exciting time for me,” he recalled in an article for UCLA Magazine.

…

Bradbury believes in writing quickly, intuitively, explosively, and passionately.

I’m left wondering if 2,800 words in five and a half hours is considered fast? If not fast, I think it’s safe to assume from the context that it’s not slow. At just over 514 words an hour that means…

I’m plenty fast enough.

I actually feel a lot better.

It’s really time I stop worrying about how “fast” a writer I am and just get back to having fun when I write so I can develop a good, strong writing habit.

Also, I definitely feel like I made the right decision to drop the time quota. :)

Set goals that are focused on creativity and productivity, not merely on putting in the time. “I will write from nine until noon” is not a goal — it’s a schedule.

LOL. You better believe I highlighted that. ;)