What's Up Wednesdays

What’s Up Wednesdays is a blog hop hosted weekly by Jamie Morrow and Erin Funk to help authors network. You can find the rest of the WUW blog hop here


WHAT I'M READING I just finished reading The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. I got an ARC to preview. It’s a bittersweet graphic novel about a sculptor who makes a Faustian deal with death: the ability to shape stone/metal by hand and in return he dies in 200 days. And I’m reading Appointment the Edge of Forever by Perrin Pring. It’s SF and so far, it’s pretty good.


WHAT I'M WRITING (+ ONE WRITING GOAL) *
I met my goal of working on chapter 3 of Blood Red Roulette and to work on A Wolf in the Fold. I think I’m going to shelve the latter. I don’t have time to do it justice and honestly, it’s not really romance which is what the anthology is. I wish there were more indie LGBT opportunities that aren’t romance.
I also got my writers group critiques done so there’s that accomplished. It’s not much but I’m taking it.

My goal for next week is to work more on Blood Red Roulette. I’ve realized that needs me to rewrite the beginning so I plan to make a new chapter four and to put all the Nanowrimo scenes in order so I can eventually use them.

I also plan to work on one scene with the detectives for my steampunk/mystery.


WHAT WORKS FOR ME Social networking. Things like this blog hop, networking with authors on twitter and facebook, author lists etc. You get the idea. It’s nice to have contacts who know what you’re going for. It helps to have them when it comes to doing blog tours and things like that. They’re a huge help when it comes to figuring out how to market yourself and some are even willing to beta read.
There are some down sides to it. On facebook for example, it’s hard not to notice you post something and get zero comments and someone else posts almost the same thing and in spite of the fact you have mostly the same friends, they get fifty comments. I haven’t felt more like I was back in high school than I do on facebook. I hated high school. Sometimes I feel just as invisible now. So there is that pit of self doubt social media can open up under you.

What DOESN’T work for me are the people on twitter/facebook/etc who friend you and you friend back after maybe looking at their pages and they seem legit and the very first thing they do is send a PM going ‘READ MY BOOK!’ OMG, really? It’s rude. It’s pushy. Has this ever worked for anyone? It makes me want to just unfriend them immediately. I wouldn’t mind down the road once we know each other, you bringing up the book but the very first thing? No, thank you. This last time, I turned it around said, ‘sure if you buy MINE.’ I noticed I didn’t get any acknowledgement on that (except from one). Yeah, don’t do that. I don’t know anyone who likes it.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW
I have a rodent of some sort making huge fiberglass nests in the heating ducts. The landlord is unmoved by the fact that fiberglass is being shot all over the damn place in my apartment. Sigh. I got a steroid injection in my hip yesterday. I feel so much better. I have a lot of upcoming doctor’s appointments. I’m feeling old. I have to go back to the eye doctor for the third time in three weeks. Whee.