Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Stupefyingly Dense

Contrary to popular opinion (and in spite of what those two nitwits have been saying about me), I haven't really gone away, but more like simply taking an extended vaca from part of my cyberworld existence. Specifically, a brief powder from Facebook.

While Facebook may be a pretty good thing to keep up with friends and family, it can also be a bit of a soul crusher.

Case in point: I have an ungodly amount of writers in my circle of friends as well as amongst the fifteen dozen pages that I have liked, and with the exception of about what I can count on one hand, it seems like almost all of the writers in my newsfeed are type AAA personalities with extreme tunnel vision and density.

Every time I look at my newsfeed, I get seriously disgusted with the type of status updates these people throw out on a regular basis. You know the kind I'm talking about: "Oh, I just cranked out 20K more words on my next book!"; "Oh, I'm inviting you to a cover reveal for next book that's coming out in  three weeks!"; "Oh, I just made Amazon's top 2,000!"; "Oh, can you give me enough likes to hit 2,000!"

It's just so never ending, pounding my eyeballs and brain cells until I'm about ready to punch out my computer screen to make it stop.

I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but the excess verbiage is so relentless that more often than not, it's seriously making me question my chosen path of relaxation.

This past weekend (6/22 & 23), I finally cried uncle. While I didn't do something drastic as deactivating my account, I did the next best thing: I stayed away.

Staying away allowed me to finally get off my sorry ass and do something about my writing, which as luck would have it, is what the 2nd half of this post is all about.

First, a brief update on "Shadow's Vengeance" (aka ASWR).

After doing a little judicious editing as it was suggested by the editor, I resubmitted to another imprint under that publisher's umbrella. Sadly I received a rejection in early June. I have not decided on whether or not to continue with my querying. I am for the moment leaning towards self-publishing. However, I do have the luxury of biding my time with this, which is directly due to the next item on the agenda.

Rewriting my chapbook "Betrayed!"

I am doing a complete hatchet job on this book as I quickly realized that even though my writing was pretty decent in '09, it was not for this particular story.

There are way too many issues with this book for me to list, so I'll simply skip to how I'm rewriting it.

1} Paranormal. I'm currently hip deep and extremely comfortable with this genre, so it's being rewritten much like my other novellas that I have.

2} Sex. Lots of it and better written than what's already there.

3} Verbiage. Because I'm applying what I know now to this story, the page count will grow exponentially. Example: while keeping within the basic outline of the first chapter, it has now ballooned to something more in line with what I have out there now.

This weekend was spent making excellent progress as I cranked out roughly 4,500 words of text. And for those of you who don't think that's a lot, keep in mind I write everything out by hand first before transcribing to the computer. Writing by hand allows me to focus & concentrate on what I want to say better than sitting in front of my computer waiting to be inspired.

I'm hoping to carve out another chunk this coming weekend now that summer is here and the mountain and town is in full bloom and my bicycle is now back in working order, but a recent accident involving the wife has thrown a small wrench into that plan. Nevertheless, we will persevere and hopefully will have something completed by the end of the summer.

And for those of you who know me on Facebook, I'll still check in from time to time, but until I can get my anger under control (writing while angry, you know I haven't done that for a few years) small doses of Facebook is about all I'll be able to do.

10 comments:

  1. the updates about a couple of thousand words a day are less troublesome to me now than they used to be, but I know where you're coming from.

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  2. Facebook is so silly, isn't it? It's been a good way for me to reconnect with long lost friends and keep up with nieces. I've carefully edited out the marketing stuff on it, as much as I can. I use that "Hide" button a lot.

    I hope your wife is OK! And I admire you for your writing perseverance.

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  3. You already know this, but that would drive me up a wall as well. I love the idea of an AAA personality...

    I vote for keeping on querying.

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  4. Charles: I wouldn't mind if people simply said, "Hey, just added another two thousand words", but I've had people who actually said "I've added 20K words".

    Lynn: Absolutely silly. I've longed used the 'hide' function for games, but now I've started using it to eliminate people from my newsfeed.

    Eventually, as she suffered a broken ankle over the past weekend.

    M: It isn't so much an idea as an actual concrete reality. Someday you should cycle through my friends list/page list and you'll see what I mean.

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  5. ROFLMAO there's a wealth of difference between those that like what they do and those that only want "recognition" by any means. "Fame" isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'd rather write that one book that sells one copy.....the kind of book where as you're reading it, someone says "hey, what's that book about", and you tell them, and they ask if they can borrow it when you're done....Before you know it, it's made it's way around the world 50 thousand times, and if you want to read it again, as tracking it down is now impossible, you must buy it again. I have a few books like that, from authors not as "well known" as other authors I read, but they are so well written and so creatively different from others that they are popular in a way others can never fathom.

    Don't feel down about the ones that have to tell everyone how many poops they took a day, color and consistency, I can write a mint, but that doesn't make it good, creative or different than what's already out there.

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  6. Carla: Hey there sparkly person! Thanks for stopping by to coment!

    It doesn't ger me down as much as it just seriously annoys the living daylights out of me. It's very irritating to read that kind of stuff when I know I can't match that kind of output (and I don't even try to match that kind of output).

    Bragging how much you churn out can and is annoying to people who don't choose to pursue this as a full time "job" and thus have to work their writing time in with their real world existence.

    As you say, I would rather write that one book that will make people people sit up and say "hey! what's that about" (and I have), than simply churn out book after book after book that is mediocre at best.

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  7. Ah, Facebook people and their updates. Fortunately I am not friended to anyone with a triple-A personality. That would be super-annoying.

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  8. S.R.: You are super lucky. I have a lot type AAA personalities in my circles and the only way I can deal with most of them is hide them from my newsfeed. Makes life a lot simpler.

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  9. I'm not that keen on FB either, G. I have mainly my friends with the exception of a very few writerly friends.Most are friends/acquaintances. Nevertheless it is the same overdosing with some of them - I swear to god if I see another picture of a latte/smoothie/beverage/cake covered in cream I shall leave one of my acerbic messages. There's a subliminal message in all that stuff which is.....

    "I am still thin, nah, nah, nah, nah. I can eat all of this stuff and still look good!" Cue photo of said offender in aerobic leggings.

    I'm not going to get an author page on FB. I am just not convinced it is a worthwhile investment of time for cultivating readers.

    Right, I'm off to take a picture of my black coffee.

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  10. Jane: You might be right on cultivating readers, but if you only have one book out, it makes it extremely hard to cultivate readers.

    So for the moment, I use mine to post links to my blog and to give the occasional writing update.

    As for the other issues, at the moment I'm in lurking mode/participating just in my groups. Plus, I managed to tidy up my newsfeed by hiding a lot of people and a lot of pages.

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Go on, give me your best shot. I can take it. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have created this wonderful little blog that you decided to grace with your presence today.

About that comment moderation thingy: While yes, it does say up above I can take it, I only use it to prevent the occasional miscreant from leaving thoughtless and/or clueless comments.

So remember, all of your comments are greatly appreciated and all answers will be given that personal touch that you come to expect and enjoy.

G. B. Miller

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