Happy 4th of July & Checking-in with Goals

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Besides acknowledging my country's day of declared independence, I figured it was also a great opportunity for me to check-in with myself to see how I'm doing on my New Year's writing resolution/goals. Now that the year is officially HALF over (that was fast!), I need to see how I'm doing on this front.

So far, I have written 55,287 words since January 1st, 2015. For me, and I stress the word "me," this is pretty amazing. I've never written so many words within the first six months of any year, so that is an accomplishment. My goal is to reach a minimum of 93,000 words by the end of the year, so I can see that I'm already slightly more than half-way to that goal at the half-way point of the year, so I'm on-track to meet it.

Although, I admit I've been slacking off on my writing as of late. June was a horrendous month for me and I was sick with strep throat. I'm still trying to completely get over that, but I think I can get some writing done now. Hopefully, I can at least do that for the remainder of the week and I'll just have to see how next week shapes up.

Perhaps I'll check in with myself again at the 3/4-mark of the year. I suppose there's nothing like checking in on yourself to motivate you to keep up with your yearly goals.


How is everyone else doing with their yearly writing goals?
 

Once Upon a Nightmare BLOG TOUR - Author Cherie Reich

An Excerpt from Cherie Reich’s Once upon a Nightmare: A Collection

“Are y’all really going?” Denise glanced from James to Cassie to Mary. How dare they consider leaving me in the truck alone! It was so unfair. All of her good spirit and fun for driving around evaporated like morning dew under a hot sun. She stomped her foot. Stupid, piece of shit truck had gotten them into this mess. She pounded her foot against the floor again for good measure. A huff of frustration burst from her lips. “I’m not going.”

“I definitely am.” James buttoned his coat. “Y’all shouldn’t come along.”

“I’m walking. There’s no way around it.” Cassie zipped up her winter coat.

“I’m coming too,” Mary said.

Denise stared at them. They’d lost their freakin’ minds. Mary didn’t have proper shoes to go hiking. Only Cassie was appropriately clothed for a December walk. “We’ll freeze to death out there!”

“We’ll freeze in here too.” Cassie sighed. “Walking will at least keep us warmer than sitting in the truck.”

“We could turn the heat on.” Denise pointed to the air vents.

“It’s almost on E.” James tapped the gas gauge. “Don’t know how much longer the engine’ll run. If somethin’ is seriously wrong with the truck, we shouldn’t start it up.”

“We can’t just sit here.” Mary bounced in the seat. “Denise, we all have to go. Please.”

“Let’s face the facts.” Cassie turned toward Denise and held up one finger. “No one knows where we are.” She added a second finger. “The cell phones don’t work here. We have to move and try them elsewhere.” She put up a third finger. “It’s cold out, and we’ll freeze just as much in the truck as we will outside. We have to go now.”

“Do you have reason number four and five too?” Denise couldn’t keep the snide tone from her voice. She knew she was outnumbered. Did she want to stay in the vehicle by herself? Hell no! She flung her hands up, almost smacking both James and Mary in the process. “Fine! Let’s leave, but this is a bad idea.” 

 A monster hunts us. After hibernating for a decade, it’s ravenous. We long to stop this nightmare, but the end of the road is far. There is no waking up once a legend sets its sights on you. 


Purchase Once upon a Nightmare: A Collection by Cherie Reich at Amazon. From June 22-28, the collection is only $0.99!

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Cherie Reich is a speculative fiction author and library assistant living in Virginia. Visit her website and blog for more information.

Self-Publishing and Taxes

I've been thinking about taxes, still, even a month after the issue of taxes is sort of out of our collective minds. Since I have yet to publish any sort of fiction in any way, I was wondering how authors who self-publish have to declare their taxes.

From what I understand, but I'm really not sure, self-published authors are considered self-employed. This is what I can make of things from a little research I've done on the topic. Those of you with experience can tell me, so please do! When you self-publish, you really are expected to figure out and pay your own taxes, right?

It also make me wonder what traditionally published authors have to do with their royalty earnings. Are traditional authors self-employed, too? I'm thinking they're not, but that would be really cool to know, as well.

IWSG: New Pen Name Edition? (#18)

Insecure Writers' Support Group (IWSG) is a really awesome meme that you should be doing along with the rest of us writers. Unless you truly are happy with your writing and don't feel the need to vent about your insecurities because they don't exist for you. But, really.... Don't they?  
IWSG is hosted by Captain Ninja Alex at his blog, Alex J. Cavanaugh.

I know it's been months since I've been regularly publishing blog posts, but I'm still alive! I've been writing, just like I said I was going to for my New Year's Resolution post. Since I made it a very easy-to-follow resolution, it's been 'cake' keeping up with it. I pretty much write everyday, although, because I get so far out ahead of my word count pace, I can afford to take some days off. It's pretty cool, and I've never been able to get myself to stick with a regular writing plan before, until now. So, I'm very happy with that. *silently celebrates* 

But, of course, I still have insecurities. Lots of them. Too many, like what do I blog about on a writing blog as an unpublished author? Since I can't ever come up with anything to blog about, hence my most recent post being published back in January, I just rarely do anymore. What is there to even say? "Hey guys, I'm writing.... Writing still.... Still writing.... Thought y'all might be dying to know I'm STILL WRITING." Uh... I just don't think anyone really wants to know about my boring life so badly.

Anyway, besides all this anxiety and angst over blog writing, I've been having serious issues with being able to fathom publishing my horrid stories. I typically never finish any of them, but that's sort of why I don't. Because I know they will be read by real super mean people one day, and because of how bad they are, those people will either lose all respect for me, or tear me a new one for deigning to make them waste a few hours of their life on my drivel.

On top of that, this anxiety is the kind that keeps me awake all night. I'm not exaggerating about that. When I write something I intend to publish one day, I get insomnia really bad. Like, REALLY BAD. The kind that will kill you if it even keeps up for a full week. The kind that makes you go insane for real. So, you can see how averse I am to finishing anything I write.

This, naturally, makes me ponder, "What is my life?" I can't be an author for a living as per my dream if this keeps up. Should I just quit? Probably. But, I thought about different scenarios of not quitting, and the only thing that seemed to greatly relieve my anxiety was the idea of publishing under a pen name. Yes. Because I can't put crap into this world with readers knowing it came from me (and, no, I don't write erotica, or anything like that. I just write crappy YA that embarrasses me). I do think I'll be able to do it so long as they believe me to be someone who doesn't actually exist.

I think one day, after years and years more of writing, I might be able to write books that don't make me or other people cringe, but, in the meantime, I can make a few bucks a month off some unsuspecting readers who either don't mind reading low-quality crap, or who just won't realize what they've gotten themselves into until it's too late. I'll keep the costs of producing the books very, very low and just see what happens. I know plenty of books have fared surprisingly well and are worse than mine. Might as well do it and see what it's like to be able to sleep at night, again.

So, assuming I actually do this in the future, I'll mention it, but won't let any of you know what the books' titles will be, nor the name I'll be using to publish them under. Unless you are going to be helping me edit the stories (although, they aren't going to be painstakingly edited), I need to keep everyone's awareness of my connection to them at a strict minimum.

Drastic times call for drastic measures. I'm sorry to those who will hate me for inflicting more crap onto the self-publishing world, but there's no law against doing it and sometimes, even those bad authors make a buck or two. That extra income will be very helpful as I've got credit card debt to get rid of. In a perfect world, I'd be writing at the level I want to be right now and publishing best sellers, but we all know that quantum reality is just too out-of-phase for me to reach. Someday, though. Maybe someday.

Have you ever published under a pen name? If so, why and how was your experience with it?