2015 is coming to a close. And what have I done? I put two novels out this year, after a yearlong hiatus. I diverged from the usual indie path by publishing one (very dark and twisted) standalone instead of turning it into a series of shorter books. I wrote a sequel to Jenny Undead, which promptly bombed (but was a good learning experience). I adopted a dog, which my kids christened Fang. I'm not going to bore you with my drawn-out tales of health and wellness and weight loss, but those are in there too.
It's been a great year, to sum it up. I've grown a lot, writing-wise, and made a lot of very difficult decisions. One of which is that I need to branch out. 2016 will be my year of professionalism. I'm going to be putting new material out, but I also want to test the waters of traditional publishing. Up until this point, I've been writing what I like to refer to as pulp. It's fun, flashy, and quick to read. Slowly I've been going deeper in my characters and found that I love the results. However, it doesn't translate to the indie market very well and I find my rankings slipping (I know, soooo boring, but bear with me).
2016 will be my year of experimentation. I'm working on a crazy standalone with (gasp) a little romance, I have plans for an urban fantasy series, and I'd like to continue the story in my After the Fire series. It's going to be something new for me. Being indie is a path of instant gratification, of seeing the product immediately and being able to look at the results. Of control and direct communication with the readers. I love this, but as a writer, I also need to not stay in a rut. Sometimes you just have to test if you're good enough. I think I might be, so even though I'll be writing as much as ever, I won't be instantly putting every story out like I usually do.
So these are my New Year's resolutions, put into print so I can't back out. We'll see if I can stick to my guns and have patience, waiting for feedback and floating around in a sea of rejection letters, like all our favorite authors always have. I might give up, but I hope I can stay the course.
Let me know your hopes for the new year in the comments!
It's been a great year, to sum it up. I've grown a lot, writing-wise, and made a lot of very difficult decisions. One of which is that I need to branch out. 2016 will be my year of professionalism. I'm going to be putting new material out, but I also want to test the waters of traditional publishing. Up until this point, I've been writing what I like to refer to as pulp. It's fun, flashy, and quick to read. Slowly I've been going deeper in my characters and found that I love the results. However, it doesn't translate to the indie market very well and I find my rankings slipping (I know, soooo boring, but bear with me).
2016 will be my year of experimentation. I'm working on a crazy standalone with (gasp) a little romance, I have plans for an urban fantasy series, and I'd like to continue the story in my After the Fire series. It's going to be something new for me. Being indie is a path of instant gratification, of seeing the product immediately and being able to look at the results. Of control and direct communication with the readers. I love this, but as a writer, I also need to not stay in a rut. Sometimes you just have to test if you're good enough. I think I might be, so even though I'll be writing as much as ever, I won't be instantly putting every story out like I usually do.
So these are my New Year's resolutions, put into print so I can't back out. We'll see if I can stick to my guns and have patience, waiting for feedback and floating around in a sea of rejection letters, like all our favorite authors always have. I might give up, but I hope I can stay the course.
Let me know your hopes for the new year in the comments!
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