Tag: thoughts on writing

To make mistakes is to keep going

As an indie author, I strive to put out the best product I possibly can.

I use beta readers.

I have an alpha reader.

I have ARC readers and supporters who I bounce things off of if I am unsure.

I pay for different kinds of editing at different stages and strive to have that book as polished and finished as I possibly can by the time readers have spent their hard earned cash on that book. I want their experience to be enjoyable and as flawless as possible.

But when I make a mistake, I own it and do my best to correct it, like with the wonky formatting in Flame True, see this post

And in that post, I had a typo on “street team.”

But wanting to be perfect, and worrying about the technicalities I constantly struggle with is what kept me from writing for a good amount of time. So it was a learning process of learning to be open enough to hear the criticisms and knowing when I have absolutely done my best and not to touch it anymore.

So when I sent out a new newsletter the other day, welcoming new subscribers to my list, with “spciy” in the subject line instead of “spicy,” I cringed. But there isn’t anything I can do about it because I didn’t want to re-send another newsletter over a typo in a subject line – if it was in the context or subject of the actual message, I would have.

Making mistakes and carrying on is a whole skill set that is awfully useful in being an indie author (and in the quest to be a good human, too, in my opinion).

And sometimes, it’s knowing when to give yourself permission to write something really awful.

I’m working on a chapter of Flame For Foe today and it’s clunky, the words aren’t flowing because somewhere in my head, I am in knots about it being “right” or “good enough” and those thoughts don’t have a place here, for something nobody other than me, is going to see – I know it won’t be like this when betas get it. And giving myself that permission – that grace, to have an awful chunk of writing but to do it anyways, is how I am doing this indie-author thing.

If you want to read a BDSM book about an FMC who is a demisexual, Flame For Foe is up for pre-order here.

And check out these free erotica reads in this month’s Erotica Give-a-way in this Bookfunnel promotion!

Free Erotica

 

Finishing with Flaws

There are two points I come hard against while finishing a book.

One is, knowing when not to touch it anymore. Like, just don’t

Could something be better? That’s a never-ending pile of always. But if I just fix this one word…don’t. Knowing when to “don’t” is hugely important.

Set it to formatting, get it out in the world, and be done.

And the second point is where I ask my betas: “This isn’t even a book. What is this book about?” 

Thankfully, I have peers who pat me on the head and say, “You do this with every book.”

We have reached these points with Sasha and Finn and here is something that I realized, with the comments from one of my amazing betas.

I have a thing for the flawed character.

I talked about it here with this post: The Flawed Character Who Doesn’t Apologize, meet Quinn Walsh  but it’s taken to this book, book number whatever (still not sure how Sasha and Finn’s book is going to be numbered) to realize that it’s a thing that is through all my books and I like it.

Their flaws don’t get worked out and in the next book where they are mentioned, they are still their flawed selves, even while living their Happy Ever After.

In Flame For Chance, it is Finn Kraweic who has it together.

Okay, his heart is hurting but he pretty much has it together: a secure job, property, got friends, all those things that tend to make up “stability” and it’s Sasha, with her pesky problem of running out the door when things get too tense, uncomfortable or just because there is a door, who is flawed.

And maybe typically, it’d be expected that the Dom has beat this out of the bratty submissive. Sasha is a brat.
Finn is a Dom but he accepts her shortcomings.

I mean, he punishes her for her behaviour (that they agreed to, consensually) but helps her get to a better place to work it out…but she’s working it out. And when I started to worry if readers would accept this, if they’d expect her behaviour to change, for her to stop doing it…I pressed the button to send it to formatting. Because she is working on it…not perfect.

Anyways, Flame for Chance drops soon and I am so thrilled to have the next Bandit Brothers book out!

(soon, soon)

You can be an author. Badly.

I don’t mean “behaving” badly because that’d put you in the category of being a problematic author and yikes! you don’t want that. I mean, you can do this indie author thing imperfectly.

You can do it and make mistakes and keep doing it.
You can do it with no sales, or low sales. You can do it with one book out or three. You can do it and not have fifty reviews on ‘Zon, you can do it and have zero street team, no hype people and you can do it, even if you’re not sure you’re going to write again.

Every time I start a new book, I don’t know if that’s actually going to be a book because it doesn’t feel like it.

I published Flame For You,  March 21 2022 and I’m going to skip all the stuff that got me to press “publish” because that’s a different post and I’ve talked about it before.
And I (and still am) kind of awful at graphics.
And I didn’t know about backmatter.
And my blurbs (and still can) be better.

But I wanted to connect with readers, share a great story I wrote and do this indie author thing and my mantra became, “I’m doing all of this badly.” Seriously. But that lowered my threshold for aiming for perfection. That kept me in my wheelhouse and it kept me focusing on things that I do well.

So my graphics improved, I upped my backmatter game and I am still playing with my blurbs.

And maybe this year, my mantra should be, “Doing it anyways.”
Because doing it badly is far better than not doing it.
Writing is way, way, less painful than not being able to write, even on it’s most frustrating, I-lost-my-edits-day and I am so grateful to be an indie author, with books out and I couldn’t have imagined how it would roll out, back there in March.

The other day, I posted a video on TikTok, where I said, “I don’t know how to message on this app.” It would have been more accurate to say, “I’m not the most comfortable on this app.” but whatever, it was honest and true and in saying that, people were like, “Oh! Here’s how. Try this.” and it wasn’t the first time I have tried for ARCs but this time, I connected new readers.

This year – or technically I guess, not even full year, has been amazing.
But if I hadn’t lowered the bar, hadn’t told myself that I am doing this very badly and kept going, I wouldn’t have seen it reach three books.

So I’m going to keep going. And keep improving, and growing and it’s not going to be perfect, it’s going to be messy and choatic and maybe even some of it will be bad, but I’m going to do it anyways.