Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Huge Mistake or Best Decision Ever Made?

Posted: January 12, 2012 in Business, Lifestyle, Writing

The End of a Career and Making the Right Choices

On Sept. 27, 2011 I ended a career in the newspaper industry after six and a half years of employment. Let’s just say there were some professional differences of opinion of some management decisions and a certain situation was so poorly handled that it finally triggered my decision to part ways with the company. As the obituaries coordinator and an advertising sales rep, I basically sold advertising to funeral homes and handled all aspects of publishing obituaries for the region. Without boring you with the details of the actual job, while it wasn’t the most glamorous job to have, it was a job that I really enjoyed, particularly in dealing with my business clients (the funeral homes). And before you comment about how it must have been a dead-end job, how the people I worked with were a bunch of stiffs, and start chanting “Bring out your dead,” as an obituary writer, I always got the last word. 🙂

All jokes aside, there was a lot involved in publishing obituaries on a daily basis. There was the death verification process; writing and editing; photo scanning and editing; maintaining the daily death notices column (basically a list of recent deaths with funeral home contact information), keeping up with every visitation, prayer service, rosary, funeral and burial in a 13-county area and ensuring every one of them was published on the correct day with the correct times and locations; coordinating with the editorial department to determine space needed for obituaries; and designing obituary page(s) accordingly. On top of that there was the customer service (both for funeral homes and families of the deceased), payments and collections, selling advertising to funeral homes, (deep breath) and processing memoriam ads. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it.

So, why did I leave a job that I obviously enjoyed? Since this is a public forum, I’ll answer that simply with personal reasons that many people can probably relate with when the stress level in certain aspects of the job (the professional differences of opinion…I’m being very kind there) just wasn’t worth dealing with anymore.

After leaving a company that I used to love working for and planned to retire from, I found myself unemployed and stepping into the unknown. I didn’t have another job lined up, and I spent several weeks trying to find that right job. Nothing appealed to me in this town. So, I decided to take the self-employment route.

Transitioning to Self-Employment

At the time of my departure from the newspaper, I had been working on building a home-based business (with plans on opening an office at some point in the near future) on a part-time basis. I had actually started this business venture back in 2004 with resume writing services, general small business office support (similar to outsourcing temp work), and Photo DVD production. It brought in some extra income, but I didn’t put a lot of effort into it back then. I ended up putting the business on the backburner after starting my career in the newspaper industry, but now I have decided it is time to seriously focus on my dream of small business ownership. I knew there was a lot of risk involved, a lot of trial and error, planning, and long hours of development. A friend and former manager of mine has also been building a small business since 2001 while working full-time as a human resources director. She is now self-employed and focusing 100% of her effort in building her own business. So, we are now helping each other out. I needed a regular small business client to get the small business office support services “department” off the ground, and she obviously needed the admin support. Over the past few months, things have been working very well with only minor hiccups. We have a great system going that works well for both of us. Just recently, one of my former customers from the newspaper contacted me about helping them with a project. They have a full staff, but they just didn’t have time to create all of the documents needed in house. So, they outsourced the job to me. Today I received word that the owner wants to discuss hiring me on a part-time basis. We have yet to discuss details.

So, transitioning from full-time traditional employment to self-employment hasn’t been easy and has been a bit worrisome at times, and there have been times where I thought I made a huge mistake by quitting my job. However, while I still miss my old job and my customers, the “pros” of self-employment have far outweighed the “cons” at this point of the transition. The obvious negative aspect of resigning from my position at the newspaper is the steady paycheck. While the pay wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad either…not to mention benefits (which, to tell the truth, weren’t all that great anyway). However, the steady paycheck issue may soon be resolved to some degree if everything pans out well with the part-time opportunity I mentioned earlier.

What I have most enjoyed from self-employment has been the fact that I’m the boss (although, I can be a bit of a slave driver sometimes…I worked on a project until 2 a.m. last night!) and determine my work schedule and have a lot more flexibility in prioritizing and managing projects. If I decide I want to work in the evening, so I can take care of other things during the day, I can…all while still meeting any project deadlines. Working on my terms and not having to answer to someone else’s opinion of how they think my job should be done (or even as far as treating me like I don’t have a brain) has reduced my negative stress level to near zero. That alone has been worth it!

More Time for Writing

I think one of the most significant things that has occurred ever since I quit my full-time job at the newspaper is that because my stress level has reached much healthier levels, I have been able to focus more on writing. My participation in #WIP500 has been very successful so far with over 11,000 words written in my current work-in-progress (WIP). Granted these words may not be the greatest, but the story is unfolding at a nice pace. My focus is to just get the story written and then go back to polish it up, rewrite and cut out the unnecessary fat where needed.

It feels great to be writing again and I truly believe that 2012 is going to be the best year I’ve had in a long time. I’m not talking about financially, either. I am a firm believer that money can’t buy happiness and that you can be in a job that pays well, has great benefits, but if you’re not happy, then it’s probably time to rethink your priorities. I would much rather earn less and live comfortably, than be rich, stressed out and miserable. Obviously you need money to pay the bills, and the social aspect of many jobs is important too (one thing I do miss from the traditional ball-and-chain job), so I’m not saying quit your job and become a hermit. What I am saying is that if you aren’t happy with your job, if you have the means to explore other options that will make you happy, I say the least you can do is consider it. If you have a great idea for a business that you believe has a customer base in your area, do the research, and go for it!

That goes for writing, too! If you have a story that has been floating around your head for millennia, it’s not going to write itself. Just do it! Don’t worry about whether or not you think people will buy it or not. If selling the books is your main motivation for writing, then you are writing for the wrong reason.

This brings up another topic, which I will write about in next week’s post: “Why I am a Writer…”

I hope to see you there and thanks for taking the time to read my post. Cheers!

Update: It’s now the middle of 2013 and business has been doing well and throughout 2012 I worked on my first horror-thriller Devil’s Nightmare which I published in January 2013. Leaving my traditional job was definitely the best decision I ever made. 

SCRATCH LINE

Profile Photo (Cropped)Robert “Sharky” Pruneda is a native Texan, video game “enthusiast” [addict], and fan of all things horror. He left a career in the newspaper industry in 2011 to pursue the life of a nocturnal author, brainstorming new and creative ways to creep out his readers. He doesn’t only write horror though. He also pens the occasional family-oriented tale just to keep from going completely nuts with all those creatures of the night whispering in his ears. When he’s not pulling ideas out of his twisted brain, you’ll likely find him on social media or fighting alongside his fellow gaming buddies where they all get shot up into Swiss cheese (or turned into little bite-sized chunks because of “Sharky’s” obsession with explosives). Medic!

Pursue your dreams . . . and never look back.

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My Commitment to Writing in 2012

Posted: January 3, 2012 in #WIP500, Fiction, Writing

A New Challenge for 2012

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I decided to accept the #WIP500 challenge that my friend Cara Michaels is hosting. If you aren’t familiar with the #WIP500 challenge, I’ll give a brief explanation. First of all, for those of you that use Twitter (which is probably everyone who follows this site) you’ll recognize the title of the challenge is in the form of a hash tag, so everyone interested and involved have a place to announce their successes and communicate with other writers taking the challenge. Basically, the #WIP500 challenge involves writing at least 500 words every day for your current work-in-progress (WIP). Since this year is a leap year, if you write 500 words a day, you’ll have 183,000 words written by the end of the year! That’s plenty of words for multiple projects. Writing 500 words a day seemed like a reasonable goal for me, so I jumped on board.

The last time I checked, 125 people have accepted the #WIP500 challenge with more than half of them already reporting their daily word counts. So far, for the first two days I have added 1300 words for my current project, The Devil’s Nightmare, bringing it to a grand total of 2034 words.

The Devil’s Nightmare

My current WIP, The Devil’s Nightmare, is only in its infant stage right now, but I’m excited to be writing again and working in a genre that I have always loved…horror! I’ve had this story floating around in the back of my mind for a while now and decided that 2012 was going to be the year to take stab at the horror genre. If I don’t do it now, I may not get another chance later…you know, considering that the world is suppose to end on Dec. 21, 2012. Let’s just hope the Mayans were wrong about that one!

My tentative goal is to have The Devil’s Nightmare ready for e-book distribution by Oct. 31, 2012 and then in print sometime shortly after that. This is, of course, if everything goes as planned, but you know how that goes! If I manage to hit my 500-word daily #WIP500 quota, then getting The Devil’s Nightmare published this year shouldn’t be a problem. One thing is for sure, though…I don’t want to rush through this one! I want to make sure that The Devil’s Nightmare is handled correctly, written well, edited well, and has a great cover. Thanks to the awesome writing community on Twitter that I have had the pleasure networking with in 2011, finding the perfect editor and cover artist for The Devil’s Nightmare will be a heck of a lot easier (and here come the marketing tweets and emails). 🙂

Pushing Forward

Last year was like riding an emotional roller coaster. I have a lot of great things to reflect on from last year, but there were also some events that got me a bit depressed too. However, as the new year approached I was ready to leave the past in the rear view mirror and tackle 2012 head on. I decided to focus on my goals with my head held high and a confident heart that I can and will succeed this year no matter what it takes to do so. In my next post I’ll be writing a little bit about my experience of quitting a job that I loved to pursue a dream of operating my own business and focusing more on writing.

I love reading your comments, so feel free to share your thoughts. Also, be sure to click the follow button below or subscribe to my blog via email by entering your email address in the sidebar. Thanks for visiting!

Author Interview: Carolyn Arnold

Posted: November 15, 2011 in Fiction, Interviews, Publishing, Writing

I’m excited to announce my first guest author at SharkbaitWrites.com, the lovely and very talented Carolyn Arnold. Carolyn just released her latest FBI thriller Eleven last week (on 11.11.11 to be precise) and has taken her book on the road with a promotional blog tour. Today she’s taken time out of her busy schedule to sit down and share a little bit about herself and her latest book. So grab yourself a beverage and make yourself comfortable. We’ll be back after this promotional video of Eleven.

My interview with Carolyn Arnold:

Carolyn, thank you for stopping by to visit SharkbaitWrites.com to help promote your new book Eleven. I have been anticipating its release since I first watched your promotional trailer back in September. I know you have worked hard at promoting it and have had your eyes set on the 11.11.11 release date for what seems like an eternity. Before we get into talking about Eleven, I have a few general questions.

Aside from being an author, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’ve been married for fifteen plus years to my best friend, and am a “furry baby momma” to two beagles, Max and Chelsea, who are two and a half years old.

When did you first realize you wanted to be an author?

I used to write as a teenager and thought it would be amazing to write a full-length novel, but it wasn’t until over four years ago that I rediscovered this passion. From this point, writing became a huge part of my life and now I can’t imagine life without it.

What one author inspired you the most to begin writing novels? What specifically about that author inspired you to write novels?

As far as one author who inspired me to start writing, I can’t say for sure. As I mentioned I did have a desire to write a novel as a teenager – maybe writing is just something I’m meant to do?

However, as writing has become an integral part of my life two authors have influenced and inspired me. This is David Baldacci and Sandra Brown. Both of these authors have inspired me in different ways.

Baldacci writes rich character description, background and motivation. I learned from his example words used to develop and strengthen characters is not only a good thing but integral.

Brown pushes the edge of where I would normally dare venture and I love that.

When you’re not making the keys smoke on your keyboard, what do you like to read?

I love mysteries and thrillers.

When you write your novels do you use outlines, note cards, and intricate planning, or are you a seat-of-the-pants kind of writer… a “pantser”?

Panster! Before I start I have an idea how it’s going to end, but the journey there is with my characters. Before I set out to write, I interview them and get to know them. I find this process helps immensely in rooting out backstory. I also know them better from the first word I write in the book.


Now on to your latest novel…

Eleven published on 11.11.11. Tell us the significance of the number 11 in your latest novel?

Eleven factors into the number of intended victims. Eleven is also the number of incisions the killer makes in his victims. Essentially the number and its representation factor symbiotically into the plot of the novel.

What inspired you to write Eleven?

I love the television series “Criminal Minds” for one. Second, there is this small abandoned home outside of the city I live it. The idea for underground burial chambers just hit me when I saw it one day.

With that said, I’m going to give you the spot light to tell us about your latest thriller Eleven…

Eleven Rooms. Ten Bodies. One Empty Grave.

Brandon Fisher never expected this when he signed up as a Special Agent for the FBI. Working in the shadow of Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper of the Behavioral Analysis Unit his career seemed set. But when the team is called to a small rural town where the remains of ten victims are found in an underground bunker, buried in an unusual way, Brandon knows he’ll never return to his normal life.

With one empty grave, and the case touching close to home, he fears he’s become the target of a psychotic serial killer who wants to make him number eleven. Only thing is, everything Brandon thinks he knows is far from the truth.

Carolyn, this book sounds awesome! I am definitely going to be adding this one to my collection. I look forward to seeing this book rise to the top of the Amazon best sellers list. It has been a great pleasure having you as my first guest author at SharkbaitWrites.com and a part of the Eleven Blog Tour.

Rob, thank you for having me as a guest on your site.

Brief Author Bio:

Carolyn Arnold is the author of several novels in the mystery, thriller and suspense genres. TIES THAT BIND, the first in a police procedural mystery series surrounding Detective Madison Knight, was her debut novel and published May 2011.

Carolyn was born in 1976 in the rural town of Picton, Ontario. While her passion for writing dates back to her teen years, it wasn’t until 2008 that she completed her first novel. She lives with her husband and her two beagles in Southwestern Ontario

Where to connect with Carolyn online:

Amazon Author Page
Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads
Email

Carolyn Arnold’s Books:

A note to my guests: Thank you for visiting SharkbaitWrites.com and I hope you enjoyed my interview with Carolyn Arnolds. Be sure to visit Carolyn’s web site by clicking here, and if you haven’t done so already, you can get your copy of Eleven here.

Flash Fiction Mondays

Posted: November 8, 2011 in Fiction, Writing

Cara Michaels, a friend of mine that I met on Twitter, hosts a weekly flash fiction challenge every Monday called #MenageMonday on her Defiantly Literate blog. On Monday, October 24, I had the pleasure of participating in this weekly event as a judge. It was the first time I participated in such a thing and I have to say it was very enjoyable. Choosing the winners was not easy; there are so many great writers out there and it was a heck of a lot of fun reading the stories as they were posted throughout the day. You can read those stories, the prompts, and see the winners here:

#MenageMonday Week 8 That I Judged
Winners of #MenageMonday Week 8

Sadly I missed out on the Halloween version of #MenageMonday last week, but I made a point not to miss out on this week’s fun. So, yesterday afternoon I decided to take a stab at this week’s challenge judged by the talented flash fictioneer (of course it’s a word!) Maureen Hovermale. Cara’s photo prompt was probably the most difficult part of coming up with a story, but here’s what I came up with:

David woke up with a throbbing headache. He lifted himself off the cold floor he was laying on, looked around, and realized he was in a holding cell at the Sheriff’s Department.

“You okay, bud?” A cellmate asked noticing the bruises, black eye and abrasions on David’s face.

“I’ve had better days.” David responded as he slowly sat next to his cellmate.

“So, whatcha’ in for?” The cellmate asked with a slight shove.

The last thing David remembered was the tattoo. What did it say? Vivre Libre? “To tell the truth, I don’t remember getting arrested.”

“Damn! You must have been wasted! Or judging by your face, you really got the shit kicked out of you.”

Now David remembered. The woman. The legs. The tattoo. The diamond necklace.

David explained, “I tried to mug a woman coming out of a club and…” Then he saw the woman walk by the cell. He saw the tattoo on her ankle… and the badge that she wore on a lanyard hanging from her neck. “Turns out she was a cop.”

David’s cellmate laughed at the risible turn of events, “Say what you want, dude. You got your ass kicked by a woman!”

***

This was the first time I had ever participating in a flash fiction challenge and it definitely will not be the last. It was a lot of fun being a part of #MenageMonday both as a judge and as a writer. So, be sure to keep an eye out for future 100-200 word flash fiction shorts written by yours truly in the coming weeks. Better yet, if you are a writer, be sure to take a stab at it yourself. It’s not only fun, but it also helps get those creative juices flowing in the old noggin.

Lastly, I’d like to congratulate this week’s #MenageMonday champ, Antonio Angelo, for wearing the crown for two consecutive weeks! Also, congratulations to this week’s Judge’s pet, Jen DeSantis, for having the best use of Judge’s prompt.

As always thank you for visiting my humble establishment online. I hope you enjoyed your stay, and if you did be sure to subscribe to my blog site by either clicking on the FOLLOW tab or by entering your email address in the box on the left margin.

Cheers!

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“Pursuit of a Dream” Is Now Available

Posted: September 11, 2011 in #PubWrite, Publishing, Social Networking, Twitter, Writing

A Hard Day of Work Paid Off

After a long day of final editing and formatting, I am pleased to announce that “Pursuit of a Dream” (Book One of Victory Lane: The Chronicles) is now available for download on Smashwords.com! I was originally only going to submit the book to Amazon.com for launch day, but I liked the idea of having the book available in several formats on Day 1. Plus, I was able to submit and test the file conversions very easily on Smashwords. Getting the formatting right was another issue altogether!

Tabs Are Evil!

When I wrote “Pursuit of a Dream” several years ago I had no idea that there would be devices such as the Kindle and Nook to publish my work on. So, when I tapped away on the keyboard I naturally hit the TAB key for paragraph indents. Oh, how I regret that now! I have learned that tabs are evil! They are a complete nightmare when it comes to publishing an e-book. While the process of fixing those dreaded tabs wasn’t complicated, when you have a 155,000 word manuscript and about half of it is littered with tabs, it becomes a literal headache. When I write Book 2, I’m not only going to utilize auto indents in my word processor, but I’m also going to remove that blasted TAB key from my keyboard! Okay, maybe I won’t go that far, but you get my drift. After surviving the dreaded formatting process I decided that I was going to reward myself with publishing my book today.

Publishing Jitters

After getting the tab situation under control and setting up my account on Smashwords.com, I began to get a little nervous. This was it. I’m finally going to publish this puppy for e-readers. It took several upload attempts, further formatting adjustments, and testing on my Kindle, PC, and iPhone to finally step away from my computer and consider the job complete. The book is priced, all of the formats were ready, and now it’s time for marketing. Oy! I didn’t think I was going to be this nervous after hitting that PUBLISH button, but here I am, shaking like a leaf. Did I find all of the errors? Is the formatting going to work? Did I catch ALL of those blasted tabs? Did I… well, you get the point. Seriously, though, I am very excited that I finally have my book ready for purchase on Smashwords. It’s been a lengthy but rewarding process. It’s another goal that I can mark as complete.

A Special “Thank You”

In closing, I want to express my appreciation for all of you who have been so supportive of me during this publishing process, particularly all of my friends in the #PubWrite Network. Your words of encouragement, guidance, and cheering me on has meant more to me that you can imagine. I absolutely could not have completed this project without you. You are all absolutely the most incredible people I have ever met. I mean it truly from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn’t for you, my lovely peeps at #Pubwrite, I never would have followed through the process of releasing “Pursuit of a Dream” in e-format. I also never would have created SharkbaitWrites.com. You all are awesome!

Until next time, thank you for visiting and if you are interested in reading my first book “Pursuit of a Dream“, please click on the image below and download a sample (or purchase, of course) and let me know what you think.

Cheers!

Sample of “Pursuit of a Dream”

Posted: August 28, 2011 in Writing

I was hoping to have “Pursuit of a Dream” ready for publication on the Kindle by the end of August, but due to uncontrollable circumstances, the release date is pushed back to sometime in September. However, in the spirit of #SampleSunday on Twitter, I have decided to publish Chapter One as a sneak preview.

You can read Chapter One by clicking on the link below. I will publish two more chapters over the next couple of weeks. Happy reading!

Victory Lane: The Chronicles – Pursuit of a Dream (Preview)

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The Origins of Sharkbait “Sharky”

Posted: August 22, 2011 in Social Networking, Twitter, Video Games, Writing

Before I considered myself to be a writer I’ve always been a gamer for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the 80s with the popularity of arcade games and home video game systems. I still have my original Intellivision system that my parents bought at a Radio Shack in Austin. It still works.

Sharky and his Intellivision

That’s not the focus of this post, though. I’ve been asked by a number of people where my nickname “Sharkbait” or “Sharky” comes from, so I decided to write about it and post it here on SharkbaitWrites.com. First of all, I’m not a surfer (I only surf the Internet) so I didn’t get my nickname from getting bitten by a shark. Although, that would have been a great story. Sadly, my story isn’t as exciting as floating casually on a surfboard waiting for the next wave to ride, only to be mistaken as a seal by a hungry great white shark. Studies show that sharks don’t care for the taste of human flesh anyway; they typically take a bite and then after determining it’s just a surfer and not a seal, they usually let go and go elsewhere… usually. Too bad for the surfer, though!

great-white-shark-398276_1280 via Pixabay.com

Anyway, back to the nickname. When I first started playing multi-player video games and needed a handle I chose some goofy name and rode with it for a while. I mainly played racing games at first, so I had a racing themed screen name. Well, then I started making some gaming friends and began playing first person shooters with them and quickly realized that playing games like Call of Duty offline is a heck of a lot more challenging when you’re playing real people online. And yes, I was still using my goofy race-themed username. I needed to change it to something more universal.

I thought about it for a while and then after getting blasted by one of my opponents and falling backwards into the water one time, it hit me. Sharkbait! I was getting killed so often in these games that Sharkbait seemed to fit after seeing my character getting the liquid burial treatment a number of times. So, I changed my screen name to Sharkbait and added two Ws so they would look like teeth. WWSharkbaitWW. That’s what the Ws are for. Some people make the connection, while others just call me “WW” during games.

Like I said, the origin of Sharkbait isn’t all that exciting. However, the avatar I use is a little more comical. I originally used a basic picture of a great white shark, but then I started noticing total strangers chanting “Sharkbait! Whoo-Ha-Ha!” when I entered game lobbies. At first I thought it was just funny, but I quickly made the connection to Finding Nemo. So, it was at that time that I embraced this and changed my avatar to Bruce the Shark from Finding Nemo. Now obviously Sharkbait was Nemo’s nickname, so it would make sense to use the clown fish as the avatar instead… but I have such a fascination of sharks that it just wouldn’t feel right. Plus, the shark avatar just looks cool.

My original WWSharkbaitWW Twitter account (my main account is @SharkbaitWrites) was actually only supposed to be to communicate with my gaming friends, but none of them wanted to use Twitter. I ended up meeting some writers on Twitter and the rest is history. One of the writers I met at #PubWrite gave me the nickname “Sharky”. I think it was Karen DeLabar, but I’m not 100% certain. So, if it was someone else, I apologize. Cara Michaels, however, is without a doubt the mastermind who crafted the lovely vV””Vv Sharkbait signature that you may see me use from time to time in my tweets.

Chumming with Sharky™

 

So, there you have it… a little history behind the nicknames of Sharkbait and Sharky. Although, it’s not very exciting I’m sure, I felt it would be a disservice to my lovely followers if I didn’t write about it for you. I hope you enjoyed the post nonetheless, and if you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe via WordPress blog above (if you’re logged in) or via email on the left.

Shoot me some comments, too. I always enjoy reading your comments. Thanks for visiting!

Sharky Teeth

SCRATCH LINE

Profile Photo (Cropped)Robert “Sharky” Pruneda is a native Texan, video game “enthusiast” [addict], and fan of all things horror. He left a career in the newspaper industry in 2011 to pursue the life of a nocturnal author, brainstorming new and creative ways to creep out his readers. He doesn’t only write horror though. He also pens the occasional family-oriented tale just to keep from going completely nuts with all those creatures of the night whispering in his ears. When he’s not pulling ideas out of his twisted brain, you’ll likely find him on social media or fighting alongside his fellow gaming buddies where they all get shot up into Swiss cheese (or turned into little bite-sized chunks because of “Sharky’s” obsession with explosives). Medic!

Pursue your dreams . . . and never look back.

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This Little Place Called #Pubwrite

Posted: August 16, 2011 in Social Networking, Twitter, Writing

The past couple of nights I’ve had the opportunity to settle down and spend some time in a little place called #Pubwrite where many of my fellow writers hang out to just relax and chat with each other about anything, everything, or about nothing in particular. I remember when I first entered the pub; it was so full of life. People were having a great time, laughing, sharing stories, and just cutting up. I also remember how welcoming and friendly everybody in the pub was. It wasn’t too long that I was included in the conversations, random ramblings, jokes, and so forth. I have made some great friendships at #Pubwrite.

So, what is #Pubwrite, anyway? #Pubwrite is basically a chat room on Twitter. By searching and ending every tweet with the hashtag #Pubwrite, you can follow the conversation… or whatever craziness happens to occur on any particular day. #Pubwrite is more than just a simple chat room, though. It is a growing community of supportive writers, published and non-published (Indie and Traditional), who log onto Twitter to hang out with other “writerly tweeps”… usually in the evenings. You never know what to expect in the pub, where by the way, Guinness is the “house favorite”. Sometimes you’ll see a few people just chatting about their day. Some days you may see folks chatting about various literary topics. Other days may get crazy and you’ll see someone giving “bare” hugs, a crazy guy wearing his pants on his head, and pudding wrestling. Yeah, the pub is one fine place to visit.

Sadly, over the past weeks the pub seemed empty. Only a few people found their way to the pub occasionally; the roar of laughter and GABRIEL! fell silent. For various reasons, the pub just wasn’t the same as it used to be and perhaps the writers took their Guinness-filled mugs elsewhere or simply “stayed home”. I was afraid #Pubwrite as I once knew it was going out of business. The “Open” sign flickered and was slowly going dim… but then something happened.

Yesterday, as I was cruising the streets of Twitterville (browsing through my Twitter feed), I decided to swing by the pub, just to see if I saw any familiar faces. I slowed down and was about to just “drive by”, but then something caught my attention. There was a crowd inside the pub. I could hear music, laughter… the pub was alive and kicking. I looked inside and saw a few familiar faces and my own face lit up. I joined the conversation and had a blast.

Monday night was even better. I don’t know if someone was giving away free drinks or what, but #Pubwrite had a great crowd. There were so many people in the pub, it was actually kind of hard to keep up with everything that was going on. It was just like the good ‘ol days that I remembered… the days that I looked forward to logging on to Twitter so I could chat with my friends. I had a lot of great laughs and saw a lot of friends I hadn’t chatted with in a while. It was a good feeling.

So, in closing, I’d like to thank everyone for making #Pubwrite such a great place to hang out again. You all know who you are when I say I consider you true friends. Your words of encouragement and just hearing (or reading) writers encouraging other writers is a great pick-me-up and inspiration to keep at it and never give up. Most of you may not know this, but believe it or not, #Pubwrite is one of the main reasons I decided to pick up writing again and the reason I even have this Web site in the first place.

Until next time, I’ll see you in the pub. Cheers! And GABRIEL!

“Pursuit of a Dream” in Beta Mode

Posted: July 17, 2011 in Writing

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted anything on my site, but for good reason. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working hard to finish editing and formatting “Pursuit of a Dream” and will have it available for you to read on the Kindle soon. A friend of mine I met on Twitter was nice enough to offer to beta read my book, so I’m going to hold off from going live with the Kindle version of the book until I get some feedback. In the meantime, I’m beta reading Sara’s latest novel. The beta reading process is completely new to me, so naturally I was a bit nervous at first. I’ve never swapped stories with another writer before, but I have to say, it has been a fun process.

In a previous post I mentioned that I was having a hard time juggling work and writing, but I managed to put my foot down and made a commitment to work on my book every day after work for a least an hour. I just needed a little bit of discipline and encouragement from other writers. After I got the editing out of the way, I used Amazon’s Kindle publishing guide to walk me through the process of getting my document ready for publication on the Kindle. Since this book was originally written about seven years ago for POD (Print on Demand), I was pretty certain formatting was going to be an issue when it came to converting the document into an e-book. I followed the instructions regarding some formatting issues (most notably correcting indents, which was a pain in the blessed assurance), and then saved my book in Web-Filtered format as the instructions noted. I then downloaded MobiPocket Creator and followed the easy steps to convert the document into the .mobi format, which is the format used by the Kindle reader.

Now that I had the book in the correct format, it was time to put the file through a series of tests. I downloaded another program called Kindle Previewer, ran the program, found my Kindle file, and double-clicked. Voila! Everything looked great for the Kindle version, but then I clicked on the iPhone and iPad app preview. My smile disappeared. Crap! Well, the paragraph indents look fine, but space breaks disappeared altogether, making for a weird flow. I’ve read other Kindle books that looked great on the Kindle, but had the same issues with the mobile formats. I Googled, searched help files, prayed to the Kindle gods for guidance, and vented my frustration out loud, which resulted in my dog cocking her head sideways and then just wanted to play. So, what did I do? I played with the dog, of course.

After playing fetch with my dog, I accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to figure out why the mobile format wasn’t flowing well. I ran yet another test to put my mind at ease and confirm that the book would view correctly on actual Kindle devices. So, I found my USB cord and tethered my Kindle to my computer. I then transferred my test file onto my Kindle device, crossed my fingers, prayed to the Kindle gods again, disconnected the Kindle from my computer and then searched for “Victory Lane: The Chronicles – Pursuit of a Dream” on my Kindle. Well, that part worked, but how will the pages look on the Kindle? I selected the file and waited briefly for the the title screen to appear. The title screen looked good. It wasn’t completely centered on the page, but it looked good. I then scrolled through several pages of the book and was relieved to find that everything flowed as perfectly as I could have hoped.

So, in closing, the whole process of converting my book to publish on the Kindle hasn’t gone as smoothly as I had hoped, but for a first-time Kindle publisher, I think I’m satisfied with the current progress. If anyone has any feedback on how to correct the mobile formatting issues, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to announcing that "Pursuit of a Dream" is ready to download very soon! Take care and have a great week!

Finding the Time to Write

Posted: June 30, 2011 in Writing

How do writers with full-time jobs find the time and energy to write?

When I recently decided to take another crack at writing, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting myself into. When I was unemployed, after job hunting, I had so much extra time on my hands, so finding time to write was obviously a no brainer. However, now that I’m fully employed and have a career that I’m building on (I manage an obituaries column, so maybe my career has actually died!), finding time to write has been a bit challenging, mostly because I find myself figuratively drained of life by the end of the day and I just want to vegetate when I get home… not spend more time in front of a computer screen. Right now, I’m struggling to just write this article at work before I head home for the day. But, it’s the end of the month and I want to have my goal of four posts per month complete, which was my sole motivation to write something for my website today. Exciting, huh?

Actually the real motivation to ponder my struggles with finding time to write spawned from an article that a Twitter friend of mine wrote. Steven Montano, author of “Blood Skies” wrote an entertaining article on the subject which I thought was worth sharing. It’s a two part post and can be viewed here: The Writing Discipline: Part One and The Writing Discipline: Part Two. After reading Steven’s posts, I thought, “Heck! If Steven can manage to write his books with his hectic schedule (which, by the way, although chaotic, it’s very organized and routine) then I can get my tail in gear and do the same thing! I think my problem is just that… I’m not very organized, I have no routine, and I’m easily distracted. It’s worth a shot, though!

Simplification and structure may be key to my literary struggles.

I think part of my problem is that I try to do too much at once sometimes. I have my responsibilities at work, of course, so I can’t get around that hurdle. Well, I guess I could, but then I wouldn’t be writing this article; I’d be holding a sign at the intersection by the mall instead: WILL WRITE FOR FOOD. I have very convenient hours for a writer, too. I work from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and… oh, look at the time! It’s seven o’clock and time to leave the office and finish this article at home…

Four hours (dinner, one episode of Frasier, a few innings of the Houston Astros baseball game, a car wash, half an episode of Sons of Tuscon, and one Smirnoff) later…

Okay, I think we’ve nailed down the fact that writing discipline has become a bit of an issue with me lately, but starting July 1, I have decided to turn over a new leaf and try to get more organized and put together some sort of realistic routine that I can keep. My ultimate goal is to finish editing “Pursuit of a Dream” so I can get it up on the Kindle. I’ve got to keep my routine simple and not try to cram too much into the day, and most importantly, resist the temptation to watch television or (gasp!) play a few rounds of golf on my PS3 until I’ve gotten my daily dose of writing in. This also means I have to resist spending too much time on Twitter, which on the most part I have been successful. While networking is important, writing needs to come first.

Wish me luck!

So, as I strive to become a more disciplined writer and more organized person in general, I ask you, my dear readers, to wish me luck in this adventure we call writing. Hopefully by this time next week, I’ll be able to report some major editing and writing progress. Until then, it’s time to work on that routine. I’ll call it my Mid-Year Resolution Project. Okay, that’s a bit corny. We’ll go with just getting my ass in gear and writing already!

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