Tag: amwriting

i’ll do anything to write, but, I won’t do that

Dear Internet,
I’ve been on a massive pitching frenzy in the last few weeks. I “sold” (no payment) a flash piece to 101words.org and I have an interview and another review on No Flying No Tights, also upcoming. Currently, I have 12 pieces outstanding, including pitches to big name websites. Anything interesting showing up on freelancewriting.com, I snare ferociously. Everyday I find at least one job to apply for, one more pitch to write, and several fingers to cross.
(A magazine I queried, who seemed to love me, reneged when I submitted my pitches. My followup went unanswered. A small note, “Sorry, these aren’t right for our site” would have been appreciated.)
(I know this frenzy of finding freelance work is what I should have done last year when I officially left my job to write full time, but, hindsight and etc.)
Rejection, I know, is all the name of the game.
Here is what I also know: Non-fiction is my strength. Based on what I’ve done so as much as writing fake articles for the applications, I’m good at what I do. It’s not Pulitzer (yet) but it’s pretty decent.
My love, what I want to do, is write fiction. Again, my strength seems to be in short (flash sized) pieces. 1000 words or less, I’m your girl. It’s the bigger chunks of text that perplex and make me nervous. I can do stream of consciousness on Twitter to the tune of 70,000 tweets at 140 characters per tweet is, well, a lot of characters. (Last count approximated about 10 books based on what I’ve tweeted. Holy. Shit.)
So I work hard everyday writing something, no matter how minute, in the fiction world. I have a project I’m challenging myself with by writing 100 stories that are only 100 words a piece. I’ve got 10 so far. It’s a start.
Also in the writing mix, I’ve not worked on any Freyja Thomas stories in quite some time. That’s another thing in my todo pile that seems to get bigger and bigger.

The thing about being a burgeoning paid author is we’re willing to take just about any opportunity thrown at us to get our name out there. freelancewriting.com is a great resource, along with my trusty Google alert which looks for “fiction” and “call for submissions”, ProBlogger, and Writing Career have been great sites for fiction AND non-fiction. Also, I cannot forget my favorite site of all, Duotrope. There is a lot out there and it’s a matter of finding the right niches for me.
I am specifically thinking of sites like UpWork, which is where you barter work for pennies on the dollar. Literally. Lots of the employers have small budgets, want content created with no byline, and created on the super cheap. By cheap I mean $1 for a 300 word piece. Not $1 a word or $1 per sentence, but $1 for 300 words. Fuck. That. I tried it for a week and the amount of work vs the payoff was worthless. Fiverr is another example of this great American capitalism.
There are a lot of other sites out there that prey on the same ideology: Starving writers need to eat, write for pennies, do not receive bylines or able to show their clips. The more you work, obviously the more money you make, but to what cost? Why spend your time giving other people credit for your work when you can use that time to create (and sell) your own?
That, my friends, is the million dollar question. Not pennies, but million dollars.

In other news and world reports, I bought lisa.wtf sometime back and I’m using it as my portal to all of my sites. It was getting confusing on what sites to put on what signature file, hand out, and other tides and greetings. This solves the problem. (For those wondering, no, I do not use this URL for profesh stuff. Let’s be real here.)

Go check out lisarabey.com with its brand spanking new front page and some updating. I’ve been writing so many damned author bios (each site has a different word count), that it seemed easier to have them all in one place.

xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. Don’t want near daily emails or can’t make it here everyday but want to keep up with what’s going in my world? Subscribe to A Most Unreliable Narrator, a monthly-ish newsletter roundup of what’s happening. Bonus! Comes with GIFs!

This Day in Lisa Universe: 2014, 2000

things I have written

Dear Internet,
It’s been a busy week over here in Lisa-Universe. For starters, the written word pieces I mentioned a few weeks ago, published. The first piece, “How To Divorce Your Mother In Three Easy Steps,” is available over at WittyBitches.com. The piece proved to be pretty popular.

Preen.
Preen.

That was pretty exciting.
The second piece published, for No Flying, No Tights, is a review of a new manga series, Manga Classics, which specializes in classic books translated into visual prose. My first review, Manga Classics: Emma, is now up! I interviewed the author, Stacy King, yesterday (I’m currently transcribing a 45 minute video call into text. Oi!), which will be published sometime in the next few weeks. The nice thing about doing reviews of this calibre is the publisher is sending on books from the current collection for me to read and review. I adore that this job has a lot of perks.
This, of course, means I got to update my bibliography and resume. I’ve also added a few sample clips that I churned out this week for writing jobs. It’s nice to see published pieces from places that I do not own. This has been, in the writing world, a pretty awesome week.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

I’m on the East Coast now and have been for the last few weeks. The whole reason I am here is to go job hunting, which — isn’t happening. I’ve had nary an interview or even a phone call since I’ve been here; it’s incredibly frustrating. I’m forming plans, as I always do, but what I can tell you is I am mentally and emotionally exhausted. While I don’t necessarily feel as if I’m at the end of my rope, I do feel as if I’m running up against walls.
If it were not for the published pieces, I don’t know how I would feel.
In order to keep myself relevant, I’ve been teaching myself to code. I know, I know, I’ve been on the offense in regards to coding not the only thing in the tech world. But as more and more positions I’m interested in start to advertise they want coders of varying degrees, it was time to bit the bullet and get with the program.
I’m constructing my entire education around various coding classes I bought over at Stack Social and Udemy. I’m also looking into Code Academy for additional classes.
The thing that is having me chomping at the bit is where I’m located, there is nay a place for women coders to hang out. Interestingly there is very few social clubs for programmers as a whole. I’m only a short train ride away from NYC and yet this area is a wasteland. I’m working on finding online spaces for women to get together and that has also been slow going.
It’s all a wait and see game, one of which I have grown weary.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥


In other good news, I took Jeeves in for an alignment this week and the wait was three hours longer than they had quoted me — so the manager gave me a MINI watch. With my MINI car collection (nearly a dozen and growing), my world domination of MINI is coming to fruition.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Mentally? I’m doing – okay. Not 100% great but not down in the dumps either. I’ve long correlated my mania is a tip off of my hormones racing at the beginning of my period but this is one thing I find I cannot 100% control. Hell, even 50% control. My feelings of sadness, anxiety, and loss of overall control have very realistic seeds and I have to keep reminding myself of those things are natural, not disease based, things.
I’m seeing a therapist now and I have signed up with the local Depression Bipolar Support Alliance group, giving me a support system in place. I’m also mediating daily — I’m on a 37 day streak! But I still feel anxious most of the time, I’ve got a new fear of driving, which is apparently not unusual but it makes for interesting dichotomy in regards to the fact I’ve been driving for over 20 years, including several coast to coast trips. Why now? It’s a new thing, for sure, but why and what is what perplexes me.
Therapy better fucking help. I’ve got things to do.
The therapist and I talked about my hyper-sexuality and the coinciding factor I do not get a lot of pleasure out of the sex act itself. She pointed out, with my sexual history, by initiating and fucking someone first, I’m in control (as opposed to previous experiences where my control was taken from me). Once those words tumbled out of her mouth, suddenly everything clicked into place and I sighed a huge sigh of relief. I no longer had to be the goddess of fuck anymore — and that in and of itself is freeing.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. Don’t want near daily emails or can’t make it here everyday but want to keep up with what’s going in my world? Subscribe to A Most Unreliable Narrator, a monthly-ish newsletter roundup of what’s happening. Bonus! Comes with GIFs!

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2012, 2010, 2003

I need to be in the town where they know what I’m like and don’t mind

Dear Internet,
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done a serious update, thus it’s time to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in my little world.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

First up, I’m moving. Again.
I’ve been holed up in Kentucky these last six weeks, staying with TEH, as I’ve run out of day to day living money.The GR apartment was pre-paid for a year and I received my refund for the remaining six months, but that would only cover monthly expenses sans rent/food so it was time to go. The plans is I would be responsible for paying my bills and TEH would cover food/housing/gas. (We have the weirdest divorce, ever.) One of the conditions of me living here was keeping up daily chores and job hunting, which I’ve been doing with aplomb.
TEH decided to head up to the cabin for a month or so, starting in the first week of August, in which I would fly to CT to stay with TheBassist as I could not take a break from job hunting. Then TEH decided he was going to go up later than planned after which my open return ticket had been purchased. Since we’re now looking at me being out in CT for roughly two months now, I decided to cancel and swap the ticket over to TheBassist, whose flying out here on Sunday with planning on driving to CT that day.
Follow that? Okay good.
Right now my packing is skilled enough that it’s frightening. If you ever need help to pack for a trip or a house, I’m your girl.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Speaking of jobs, as of July 30th I am up to 113 applications from everything to librarianing to content curation and (now) retail (bookstores). I’m also heavily looking for positions as a tech/copywriting/content. No stone unturned and etc.
My interview rate is about one in ten, which is above average. I often get second interviews and then! Rejection. One place rescind an offer 24 hours later after extending said offer exclaiming I did not “show enough interest in the job” though I drove an hour one way for a 30 minute interview. So yep, totally not interested. I was shopping for apartments in Lexington, KY when they called to rescind the offer. Was it because of the case?
Probably.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Speaking of writing, I sold my first writing piece to a web ‘zine and I’m super excited about it (natch). I cannot publish the piece here nor do I know when it’s going to be published, but I can tell you the title is, “How I Divorced My Mother in Three Easy Steps.” It is non-fiction and clocks in at about 1800 words before editing. My beta-readers said, “It’s impossibly dark.”, so that should give you an idea of the atmosphere of the content. As always, I keep it real.
In other writing news, I’m doing reviews for No Flying No Tights, mainly in adult graphic novels. I assumed I had spread the word for this but apparently not! This is not a paid gig, but it will help with my bibliography (or clips) page. I’m super excited about this possibility.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Flipping back to the job thread, I am using Udemy.com to build my own education, concentrating on front end web development, content, and SEO to extend my skills. TEH and I purchased bundles from them over the years as well as taking advantage of free classes is allowing me to do this on the cheap. I know, I know. I KNOW. I was on the defense war path that coding was not the only technical thing and yet, here we are! I do apologize deeply to those who got tired of that schtick. It’s pretty clear a lot of jobs require some if not all of these for the typical unicorn they are trying to catch, so why not?

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Mentally, things have been more or less okay. Last week was awful with the mania where I was hopping off the walls while crying for entire days. The only recourse, at the time, was to drug up on Klonopin and sleep with Ted E. Bear.
Things came to a head when TEH and TheBassist both insisted I up my Lamictal to the last dosage as approved by doctor in Grand Rapids and take myself to the free clinic to talk to someone.
The free clinic in Louisville is designed mainly for the homeless and those on their last hopes. As a walk-in, I was told they could see me when first available slot came open. Four hours later I requested more info to discover the therapists were all at lunch and they closed at 3:30. Would I liked ot make an appointment? Sure, why not. Okay, we can fit you in two weeks. Two weeks? Yes. What if I came back tomorrow? You’ll have to start the waiting process all over again.
(…)
I called six places in Louisville and every single one was booked out for weeks and months. If I was suicidal, which I wasn’t but I was in crisis, I could check myself in at the local emergency room who could throw me in a locked ward for 48-72 hours. THEN I could get help.
(I don’t know if I told you all this but I was stuck on the east coast during a massive blizzard back in January with an appointment with a medicating therapist in GR the following day. I called and canceled and explained why, they said they couldn’t fit me for another five months. This is an emergency I insisted. Doesn’t matter they said. When I finally say said medicating therapist and told her about the run up, she said they had policies in place and times open for just things. It should not have taken me five months to see her.)
Thankfully I had an appointment set in CT JUST IN CASE if I happened to come back that same time, so I’ll be okay in CT. I’m also set up in CT with a local bipolar support group.
I’ve, and others, have said over and over again the state of mental health wouldn’t be this tenuous unless the pain was physical and obvious. It’s frustrating, anxiety inducing, and pointless. But that is a rant for another day.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

That’s pretty much it for me at this time and juncture. Sunday is the 12 hour drive day so it might be a few days before I post here again. Happy weekend everyone.
 
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2014, 2012, 2012, 2008

55 Minuts Til X-Files (2015 version)

Dear Internet,
In 1997 I was living with a dominatrix in a dump of a house in El Cerrito, California; a ‘burb of San Francisco. With barely any income, I survived by the generous help of others, my wits, and eating one meal a day.
Every Sunday night my roommates and I, plus circular friends, would get together for pizza and X-Files. This was our ritual, without fail, every Sunday for nearly a year. Even when I moved out with one of my roommates to a house in Oakland, we kept the ritual going. But after awhile, as all things seem to wont to do, X-Files and I parted ways. I was still somewhat of a rabid fan but the magic, and the lure of pizza, were almost gone. Pizza was now saved for video game binges and other special occasions.
I’m excited about the upcoming reboot but also a bit sad as I remember the supposed very last X-Files movie in 2008 where they made it pretty fucking clear that they have tied up all the loose ends, thus no more X-Files. The last shot was of Mulder and Scully in a raft, waving good-bye to the camera.
I was reminded by TheExHusband recently, when the news broke the X-Files were not only coming back but most of the original case (including The Lone Gunmen) would also in attendance, about a piece I wrote one evening before that week’s episode was on.
Here is that piece I wrote 18 years ago (!) about that one particular benign Sunday night, starring a rotating cast of characters in my life, before the night’s episode appeared. I’ve cleaned up the piece for grammar and spell checking but for the most part, it’s as it was when it was published all those years ago.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

55 Minuts Til X-Files
The pizza has been ordered.
The seats have been staked out.
Simpsons are on and I am killing time.
My stomach still is grumbling from all the coffee I have had today. Maybe it is still regurgitating from the Taco Hell from last night. I have no idea why in the hell I am going to eat pizza. I should eat I suppose, but, for some reason food hasn’t seemed appealing in the last few weeks. Everyone is telling me how good I look. My mens pajama bottoms keep falling down, showing off my cute little underwear from Victoria’s Secret.
I laugh.

****************************************

Every Sunday, at my house, is brunch day. My housemates and their friends all come over and my job, being miz coffee person, is to make coffee. I can cook, but I tell them I can’t. I just make coffee and swap stories with everyone.
Today I attempted to make bacon.
I burned it to a crisp.
I resolved just setting the table and making coffee.
Rob looks over at me and says “Lisa, I didn’t know you were so domestic.”
“Rob,” I say, “Tell anyone and you will die slowly.”
He laughed.
Brunch has become a tradition here. Every Sunday my two roommates and I prepare from having anywhere from 5-10 people show up. We all crowd around our tiny kitchen table and actually eat a home cooked meal. Eggs, bacon, steak, toast, fresh brewed coffee from yours truly. It sure beats all the frozen and fast food we eat on a daily basis.
A few hours later, we all grab movies and watch the afternoon away. Sleaze tests, teasing, arguments, and scalp massages are all part of the routine. Today, due to one of the guests having their kids with them, the movie selection was trimmed down. We all wanted to see Toy Story which I had on tape. Problem was, so were two other movies. Also on one of my tapes was a video declaration from Danny. Only problem was, I couldn’t remember which tape it was on. I called Danny and left a message. He called me back and told me what tape it was on. Grateful it wasn’t on the one we were planning to watch, I told him I would talk to him later and hung up. He called a few minutes later and said “When you have a few minutes, tape after The Lion King. I don’t want you to see what I said.” Slightly amused, I said okay and hung up.
We ended up watching Trainspotting instead.

****************************************

This is what has been most amusing to me. Danny and I dated on and off for nearly year and a half. We lived together. We were together when my grandfather died and when everything else came tumbling down around me. But for some reason, I can’t conjure up anything but memories of him, and even those, are blanking out. I can’t say I even loved him. I used to think so, but, I can see I never really did. And my “coldness” for him, so apparent, when, not so long ago, when I had resolved that I would never treat him like I had, is something I can’t help.
The person Danny is, is no way related to who I am. It never was. My assertiveness, my aggressiveness, my lust for life, never matched his. He would have been happy living in Grand Rapids for the rest of his life, while I wanted to see the world. If my plans of marrying him, would have been carried out, I would have either cheated on him OR committed suicide within a year. How stifling that was. How limiting. He said, “You’re so special. You have no idea how special you are.” I laughed. I knew how special I was. I did’t need anyone to validate it. I have no remorse for being cold to him, then and now. I used to, but guilt, for being who you are, trying to fix something that isn’t really there, is not me. I no longer think about it. He asked me once, a few weeks ago, how would I feel if he moved and didn’t tell me.
I didn’t answer. I simply didn’t care.

****************************************

35 minutes till X-Files

****************************************

Yesterday, my friend Michael took his wife Beth and I down to the Lick Observatory in San Jose and to the Rosicrucian Temple as well. For over 20 miles we traveled up Mt. Hamilton, talking about various and sundry things, while I looked out the back window and dreamed. How beautiful the area was. How so, un-plastic it seemed from everywhere else I have been in California. It looked so New Englandish, with the leaves changing colors and the air crisp and strong. I wandered around the observatory and wished it wasn’t so foggy.
But I could still see into forever.

****************************************

At the Rosicrucian Temple, I felt so at home. My love for the Templars gave me appreciation for this. Michael and I sat in a little area that had a fountain spilling water into a pool. We talked about various and sundry things. The changes in my life. My flying out to Pennsylvania to see Jeff. Michael’s marriage with Beth. My writing. Michael’s music. I opened up my backpack and took out my wallet. I dug out a penny and pitched it in, and made a wish. Not to be outdone, Michael pitched in a quarter. Not to be outdone, I dumped all my change out (about $5 dollars worth) and pitched it in with glee. I laughed out loud and spun around.
Michael and I walked around the Temple, wishing we could get into the Egyptian Museum, but sadly it was closed. As we stroked the papyrus (Direct from Egypt!) plant (“Looks phallic,” I said) we walked past the fountain again. I stopped short, and ripped off both rings given to me by two different lovers, Michael (a different Michael) and Danny. I tossed them into the water with nary a thought and kept on walking. I suddenly felt more free than ever before. I didn’t feel binded to anything. I didn’t feel as though I was making the past complete. I did not have to apologize to anyone. I didn’t have to make excuses for what I did. I could rid of it all.
I had told Jeff that, today, I was going to do the symbolic thing and burn EVERYTHING ever given to me by an ex-lover. Letters, clothing, stuffed animals, books, video tapes. Thinking of the hug bonfire this could produced, I have resolved just to do letters and stuffed animals. Now it grows late in the day.
X-files will be on in 17 minutes.
After that, I will be watching Leaving Las Vegas.
Hopefully tonight, under the moon, I will dance my ass off and burn it all baby. Just burn it all. What I wanted to do last New Year’s Eve…
Someone just knocked on the door.
Pizza Hut is here.
Time to go.
Till next time.

****************************************

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2012, 2012, 2003, 2000

Read. Write. Everyday.

Dear Internet,
Rules on how to be a successful writer are as fluid as how to be a successful librarian. Everyone and their sixteen cousins has an opinion on what the “right” or “correct” way to get ahead in this tough industry. I’ve been reading blogs, books, magazines on/about writing for years and the only consistent everyone agrees upon is:

Read. Write. Everyday.

That’s the easy part. Now that’s done, you start asking harder questions such as: Where to submit? How to submit? Should I go indie or should I go traditional? How do I invoice for work? How do I do X,Y,Z? What kind of coffee should I be drinking? Should I brush my teeth today? I mean, there are a fuck ton of questions and ten times the answers.
It’s overwhelming. Confusing. Often contradictory. No wonder people give up.
I’m friends with a lot of writers: some who are traditionally published, others who are indie, and others yet who a hybrid of the two. Most write fiction, some also write in other areas such as articles for news sites, non-fiction, graphic novels, and everything in between. Some dabble in other arts or may have a job or a career in a field not related to their work. But the common thread between all of them is that like librarianship, calling yourself a “writer” really on scratches the surface. It can mean anything and everything in one go.
You write? You’re a writer. Simple. It’s great if you have a tight story and your prose is perfect, but unless you’re content to write for yourself and not have the world see your work, this is the hard shit. The difficult shit. Writing is actually the easy part, it’s the admin work that kills you.
Since I have the opportunity to quit my full time job and write fiction for a year, one thing that is important to me was transparency. Here is what I did, this is what worked and what didn’t. This is what I’ll do again, and this is where else I’ll go. All the gory, juicy, and miserable stuff that no one wants to talk about. And to make sure it is without bullshit. Because I swear to all the gods in the sky, if I stumble across one more author’s site hawking their classes and wares with borderline exploitative pricing, I am going to scream.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

It’s been nearly a year, to the day, that I wrote this and in light of what I wrote yesterday, it seemed apropos to post. And it’s a swift kick in the pants to keep my word on the transparency of the projects.
xoxo,
Lisa

This week in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2003, 2000

in which we have reading and writing adventures

Barker at the grounds at the Vermont state fair, circa 1941. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
It’s a long, lovely holiday weekend and I’m digging into my stack of books, aided by hot tea, for entertainment. Since my own book has stalled, I thought it would be a good time to take notes on the books I’m reading to see what worked and what didn’t and apply it to, hopefully, jump start my own writing as well to see what makes me happy reading. (AKA, these notes are mainly more for me than you, but hey, if you get something out of it; Awesome!)
The number one rule you’ll see anywhere on writing is, “read more,” but is that all? Yes and no. Below are some of my notes from chewing through a few books this weekend.
♥If influenced by a particular era, do the research. In reading a book set during the Belle Époque (France’s version of the Edwardian era / American Gilded age), the book should have a feel for that period. This one did not and it felt what details were made available were slapped on from Wikipedia. Just no.
♥Alternating POV should move the story along, not show the same scene from different prescriptive.  Thus far, I’ve finished three books this weekend, of which two used alternating POV as a story device. One used it well to advance the story, spending less time on recreating the setting, while the other not so much. In the second, I felt as if the author was slapping my hand for not getting something right so they had to tell me again.
♥Chapters are not always necessary. Yes, they break up the scenes and action, but if done stealthy, the shift between could remain seamless without the use of chapters. Chapters may be like periods, pauses to break up the scenes, but are not necessary. Terry Pratchett was the king of lack of chapters. In one of the books I read this weekend, the switching happened with the alternating points of view and was so seamless, it took me half the book to realise there were no chapters.
♥The length of a book, by page number, does not necessitate how good it is. The ones on the longer side are more than likely just like to hear themselves read. Get it? (They all can’t be winners.) One book I’ve read recently, and was quite good, was a slim 150 pages. Another book that was pure dreck clocked in at 400. Length does not mean everything, as much as we like to believe.
♥Give the book an old college try and read the first 50 pages. I’ll go out on a limb and say this applies to writing as well; if you can’t make the story palatable within the first 50 pages, neither will your readers. And readers? There are too many good books for you to read terrible ones.
♥If heavily using phrases of a language that isn’t your primary language or the colloquialisms of a particular thing, include an appendix of sorts. It’s presumptuous to think your readers are going to have the same breadth of knowledge on the same topic you’re writing about. An aforementioned book set in the Belle Époque period heavily used ballet terms and dropped French like it was ice cream sprinkles. This makes sense because this was the subject matter, BUT if you aren’t familiar with ballet or spoke even rudimentary French, a lot of what was happening with the characters would be lost on you. Yes, I get it, we learn by reading outside our comfort zone but there is a difference between needing to look up “demagogue” and wondering what in the hell is “battement développé” and having translate.google.com by your side.
There were a few more main things I forgot to write down, but this is the gist of it. So it is true, the more you read, the more you learn. Hrm.
x0x0,
Lisa
P.S. Last winter I decided to put together a newsletter for those who read my stuff but can’t be arsed to check it out daily (no worries, I get it, I do!) so this is a monthly round up. I’ve decided to resurrect it again! Called Skaldic Press Presents, you can check out the archive here (http://tinyletter.com/amostunreliablenarrator/archive) and subscribe here (https://tinyletter.com/amostunreliablenarrator).
P.P.S. There are GIFs involved!

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2014, 2000, 1999

looking for book reviewers / beta readers

Dear Internet,
So – who knew! Memoirs / biographies / non-fiction books are not in high demand for book review bloggers on the interwebs. Even better, if you have profanity or explicit sex in the book, the number plummets even more.
So I’m taking this into my own hands, as one should.
book reviewers
If you’re up for the challenge of reviewing The Lisa Chronicles, I’ll send you an uncorrected ebook (.mobi format) ARC if you’ll do the following:

  • Read The Lisa Chronicles
  • Write a review and rate it on Amazon and/or GoodReads and/or LibraryThing or similar site
  • Let me know when the review is up so I can give you ever loving thanks. 🙂

If interested, contact me or comment below.
beta readers
I also need beta readers for my fiction / creative non-fiction. I had a list from a few years ago but I’m not going to presume that people would still be interested. The writing, for now, is going to be under 3,000 words. At some point in the near future, I’ll be adding in book chapters and creative non-fiction.
You don’t have to comment on every story and some stories do have a time line, but if you think you can comment a few times a month, I would love to have you.
If interested, sign up for the discussion list.
Questions?
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2010, 2010, 2001, 1999

WIP: January writing schedule summary / February writing goals

Dear Internet,
Italicized is the original list. Regular text is add-ons. Bold is completion and totals.
Projects for January (apparently I was overly ambitious):

  • Plow through current library loans and ARCs from NetGalley and get reviews written
  • Collate notes on the Edwardian mystery, continue with research, and get most of the structure sorted
  • Collate notes on the 45th parallel project and continue with research
  • Research (aka read) stream of consciousness novels
  • Finish or shelve in-progress short stories and submit completed ones; submit at least one a week
    • Total submitted: 3
      • To be fair, I had forgotten about this particular goal, but, I did do it and finished three in a week and submitted all three!
  • Get most of Vol 1 of secret Kindle project formatted and edited – Completed January 31
    • Huzzah! Finished this on time and started the print version. Thank the gods this first bit is over.
    • Vol 2 (year 1999) and Vol 3 (2000) started.
  • Continue note carding ideas / quotes / etc for future projects
  • Query/submit non-fiction pieces
  • Continue shilling to get more submissions for so glad is my heart
    • Launch is planned for February 16!
  • Outline and begin 3rd Triangle novel
  • Blog writing count for January
    • Words written: 7,633
    • Number of posts: 13

February projects:
The above, plus!

  • Print proof The Lisa Chronicles Vol. 1
  • Finish organizing The Lisa Chronicles Vol. 2

Previous WIP

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

and with that, it is done

Dear Internet,
My deadline for completing the book for Amazon was January 22 at midnight. I made it with 1.5 hours to spare. It felt like I was back in grad school all over again! But the book is finished and ready for pre-orders.

Operators are standing by! Pre-order me now!

From the forward,

Dear Internet,
In May of 1997 I moved, for a boy, to California to gain riches and fame. In July of 1998, having ditched the boy and gained neither riches or fame, I started putting my diary online. I named it The Lisa Chronicles for who better to tell my life story than me? While I didn’t think I was extraordinary, I seemed to continually get into extraordinary circumstances. What I also wanted was the ability to connect to others who were like me: the scared, the frightened, the unsure, the outsiders, and any other group that felt rejected by society. Adding in 1998 I wanted to eat the world, what better way to do that was through the Internet?
What can you expect from the first volume? Love, conflict, obsessions with people, places, and things. Rotating cast of characters and adventures. Sprinkle of song lyrics here and there. Pop culture references galore. Sex. More sex. Profane words and a bipolar girl desperate to connect with a world she did not understand.
While this work has been edited for grammar, clarification, and the obvious typo, it remains largely unchanged from when it first appeared online nearly two decades ago.
And lastly, every word here is true.
xoxo,
Lisa

I have been asked by several people on the process, editing, and WHY I decided to go to Amazon first.
Why Amazon
I’ve been following the self-publishing world for about 10 years (probably longer actually). I wanted to do a chapbook or something along those lines.

  • What persuaded me to go with Kindle (as the first step in the world publishing biz) and ebooks is because:
  • Your book is pubbed immediately across ALL of Amazon’s global sites
  • You can set the price and have control over royalties
  • You have complete control over everything
  • You can use Amazon’s print service, CreateSpace, to make print copies
  • Kindle ebooks is available on all devices via the app, so it’s not necessarily proprietary unlike ibooks or nook. iBook is available on Apple devices only and Nook is now defunct. HOWEVER Kindle ebook format is proprietary while iBook/Nook use non-proprietary ebook formats so you can use any app for those books.
  • Amazon’s reach is bigger
  • It’s super easy to EXCEPT the cover creator. I ended up spending $10 for an image from iStock and following Amazon’s guidelines to make the one that I thought was far better.

Now that it is safely up in Amazon’s cloud, I’m looking into adding it to iBooks and other eBook locations.
So that describes the whys, now for the process.
Process/Editing
Because all of these were journal entries from my online journal, I cut and pasted them into a Word document. I was pleasantly surprised to find the book was 117 pages NOT 50 as I originally thought. 1998 has 51 entries while 1999 has 88, which means the second volume could well go close to or over 200 pages. Yowza.
After the entries were in the Word document, I began the process of creating a style guide for me to follow. This included everything from how to format dates to whether or not I was to use AD or CE when speaking of years to how to format images. I wrote all of this down to refer to as I worked.
While I was working, I also created a separate list of To Do items as the book got nearer to completion, including book bloggers, writing an introduction and so forth.
On the document itself, with a style guide now more or less in place, I started line editing. Line editing, to me, was to read each line out loud to catch missed words or wrong spellings, correct them and also grammar. As you can image, this took forever. I corrected a lot of mistakes but if you go through it again with a fine tooth comb, you’ll find more I’m sure. The reading out loud is an old trick I was taught in grad school since my brain processes faster than I type, so I drop a lot of words.
I did a massive spell check, which took several hours, to correct all common spelling mistakes and to add words not found in Word’s dictionary. I also did a search and replace function to make sure there was consistency across spellings such as cd’s became CDs and so forth. For images, I decided to use tables to place them and decided on a width of each image for singular and multiples. Additionally, I broke each month out like a chapter to make it easier to read.
All in all, I probably spent close to 50-60 hours doing the line editing, proofing, prepping and other work. Now that I have a process of sorts in place, time frame for next volumes will be more based on length of the volume rather than figuring out style guides.
Takeaways
I learned a lot about the process of writing and editing a book, which I’ve more or less outlined above. What was more interesting to me was the comparison between 26 year old Lisa and 42 year old Lisa. I discovered a lot of things about myself that were embarrassing, depressing, enlightening, comedic, and shocking. Some things never change, while others, change was definitely a good thing.
While there are a lot of things about 26 year old Lisa that 42 year old Lisa would never stand for, much of who I am today still shines like a diamond after all these years.
I found that,

  • 26 year old me was a classist, racist, abelist, and other -ists that make me cringe today. I decided not to erase those words because I’m not going to white wash my history.
  • I could clearly see the patterns of mania vs depression in my writing. When I was manic, it was a hot mess of grammar and spelling mistakes, while I was stable or depressed, my writing was a lot more measured.
  • A lot of my problems then (instability, unable to commit, etc) are still prevalent today. Now that I see the triggers and patterns, I can easily work on them where I’ve been struggling before.
  • After reading nearly 118 pages, the startling realization that I’m everyone’s favorite crazy ex-GF smacks me across the brain.

With that, now on to volume two!
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe:  2011

year in review: 2014

Dear Internet,
Working at home today and getting supremely in the groove. Re-discovered that I used to do a round up, by month, of things that went on in the previous year as a year in review. This seems like a good idea to continue insofar as giving me a perspective for the year and helping me figure out what I need to improve or cut back on.
Previous years: 2000, 1997, 1996

Neil Gaiman’s New Year’s wish for 2015:

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It’s too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them.

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

It’s been a helluva a year. Here’s to 2015 being boring and slow.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2013, 1999

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