Writer Advice

Everyone likes metrics for the end of the year. Here’s some of what I did in 2014. This is why I like keeping track of everything I do. It makes me realize that I am productive and that I did accomplish a lot. Sometimes, this is a hard thing for an author to understand.

Number of days worked on freelancer stuff: 361 / 365 (284 days, answered pub industry email.) I really need to change this. Take one full day a week off or something. No wonder I had moments of feeling burned out.

New fiction words written: 230,800 (doesn’t count emails, blogs, etc…) In the form of 12 short stories, 1 novella, 1 RPG sourcebook, 2 novels.

Edited: 3 anthologies, 2 novel, 3 novellas.

Conventions attended: 8

Sold in 2014: 5 short stories, 2 novellas, first 3 books of the Melissa Allen series. (3 short stories still waiting on an answer.)

Published in 2014:
6 short stories, 1 novelette

• “The Bathory Clinic Deal” – The Future Embodied anthology – Simian Publishing, March 2014
• “Ley of the Land” – Time-Traveled Tales 2 anthology – Silence in the Library, April 2014
• “Kelpie Storm” – MONSTERS! Origins Game Fair anthology – Rio Grande Games, June 2014
• “Janera” – Athena’s Daugthers anthology – Silence in the Library, June 2014
• “Dreams of a Thousand Young” novelette – Jazz Age Cthulhu anthology – Innsmouth Free Press, November 2014
• “For the Love of a Troll on a Mid-Winter’s Night” – Night Terrors III anthology – Blood Bound Books, December 2014
• “Written in the Wind” – No True Way: All-New Tales of Valdemar anthology – DAW, December 2014

1 RPG supplement

• Colonial Gothic: Lost Colony, Sourcebook – Rogue Games, February 2014

2 novels

• The Nellus Academy Incident, YA Battletech novel – Catalyst Game Labs, January 2014
• Keystones: Book Three of the Karen Wilson Chronicles, novel – Apocalypse Ink Productions, April 2014

4 anthologies

• Bless Your Mechanical Heart anthology – Evil Girlfriend Media, Editor, April 2014
• Beast Within 4: Gears & Growls anthology – Graveside Tales, Editor, October 2014
• Chicks Dig Gaming non-fiction anthology – Mad Norwegian Press, Co-Editor (with Robert Smith? and Lars Pearson), November 2014
• Shattered Shields anthology – Baen Books, Co-Editor (with Bryan Thomas Schmidt), November 2014

This is the last one I will publish. However, I have found it very useful for the metrics and for learning how I work and what I need to do to improve my working style as well as my relaxing style. (Hint, I need to relax more. You’ll see in the metrics post.) So, I will kept doing my monthly freelance logs but no need to keep posting them. I hope you all got some useful information out of them.

Ever wonder what a freelance author/editor does? Each month of 2014, I’m going to list my daily notes on what I do. As I always say, being your own boss means you choose with 70 hours of the week you work. None of this talks about the random pub IMs, time doing research, time reading books for blurbs, introductions, and reviews, or short author questions. It doesn’t cover my pays-the-bills work either. This is just publishing industry stuff. “Answered pub industry email” can be anything from a request for an interview, to contract queries, to reading anthology invites, to answering questions about dates… and the list goes on.

This month I took a hard look at money coming in and money going out. The money going out exceed the money coming in. Thus, opening up my schedule to freelance editing clients. Then I went back to one of my rules from The Little Finance Book That Could: determine “wants” versus “needs.” A couple things immediately came to mind.

First, DVDs from Netflix. As much as I love getting them, I halved my Netflix bill by dropping that part of the service. We’re keeping streaming because the Husband uses Netflix streaming almost every single day. Thus, it is worth the cost.

Second, my Verio email/website account. This one is definitely a “want.” But it is also very hard to give up. I’ve had this account longer than I’ve known most of my friends—since 1994 when it was owned by a different company. Verio took it over in 2001 (I think). I’ve kept this account all that time. Over two decades.

But, I don’t really use the email or the website anymore. I have my own domain, www.jenniferbrozek.com, for the website and I use yahoo and gmail for my email addresses. The email address has been mostly used for the other accounts I’ve had for so long: Amazon, my bank, PayPal, etc… All these important accounts that, for the most part, I’ve already added 2nd and 3rd email accounts to.

In essence, my Verio account is like me having a paid storage locker filled with once needed books I never intend to read again, but it looks good on reference papers. Occasionally, I glance in it to make sure something important didn’t get lost there but otherwise, it’s useless to me. I’m just being a digital packrat. Or digital hoarder.

There’s a lot of emotions wrapped up in an email / web account I’ve had longer than all my nieces have been alive. At the same time that’s $300/year I don’t need to spend. So, I took a lot of time yesterday officially shifting the accounts to other primary email addresses I use on a daily basis.

This included a lot of swearing as my Live ID was also linked to the old email address. When I opened it up, it forced a merge with Skype which then locked me out of both. Yeah. Not fun. Luckily, the Husband was able to fix most of it remotely and finally fixed Skype by uninstalling and reinstalling it.

Now, I get to spend the next couple of weeks making sure that nothing important, that I’ve forgotten about, is linked to the Verio account and remind everyone (once more) to shift my email to one of the email accounts I actually use. Then, before the end of the month… I cancel the account.

It’s weird. It almost feels like I’m breaking up with someone. Untangling everything, dredging up old memories and forgotten lore. Having second thoughts then letting reason prevail. When I hit the “cancel” button, I can only hope that I didn’t leave something important behind to be lost to the digital void.

Article: An SFSignal Mind Meld on the Best Book Openings.
 
Interview: Wag the Fox interviewed me about Apocalypse Girl Dreaming

Podcast: Baen Books Podcast: BFRH 2014 11 21. Bryan and I talk about Shattered Shields.

Review: SF Crowsnest reviews Shattered Shields. It appears that the review, Kelly Jensen, really liked it. Awesome.

Review: Bookwraiths review of Shattered Shields. 3 out of 5 stars but really like it.

Sale: Apocalypse Ink Productions is running a Winter Special. Code: WINTER2014. 20% entire order. If you ever wanted my Karen Wilson Chronicles, or Industry Talk… or Jay Lake’s Process of Writing… or Ivan Ewert’s Gentlemen Ghouls series… or Peter M. Ball’s Flotsam series… or Dylan Birtolo’s Sheynan series… now is the time.

Writers: I am now open to edit your work. Here are my freelance editor rates.

Give the gift of editing for your favorite writer or to yourself from a Hugo Award-nominated editor.

All prices include a Skype call if desired.

Short stories up to 7500 words. $35/hour. Full story copy edit. 2 hour minimum (Usually doesn’t take me more than 2 hours).

Editorial read on a novel. $35/hour. Average is about 10 hours for up to 80,000 words. This is book doctoring and content development. (This is not copy editing. This is a chapter by chapter analysis of the novel, looking for holes, repeated writing bad habits, and such. It does include a copy edit of the first chapter.)

Novel copy edits are based on word count and due date. Rush deliveries include a rush fee. Normal novel copy edit prices: $1000 for up to 75,000 words. $1500 for 75,000-100,000 words, $150 per 10,000 words after that.

Everything else needs to be negotiated on a project-by-project basis.

Contact me through my contact form or ping me on twitter: @JenniferBrozek.

CLIENT RECOMMENDATIONS
“Jennifer painstakingly edited a few short stories for me. I was very impressed by her diligence and attention to detail as she found repeated phrases and grammar issues. She also had some great suggestions how I can improve my writing overall and make the stories stronger.” ~Elizabeth Guizzetti

“Jennifer paid close attention to my theme and ideas during consultation and captured the feel of my game perfectly. I would certainly be happy to recommend Jennifer to anyone looking for a creative writer or editor.” ~Robin Fitton

“I hired Jennifer to give me feedback on a novel I was working on. Her feedback was extremely helpful; I doubt I will view my writing the same way again. I can’t recommend her enough.” ~Matthew Kagle

“Jennifer, as an editor, is very concise about what kind of images she’s looking for with regards to the art, but not so rigid as to stifle the creative creative process. She is imaginative, creative, and an amazing story teller.” ~Amber Clark

Only one more of these to go.

Ever wonder what a freelance author/editor does? Each month of 2014, I’m going to list my daily notes on what I do. As I always say, being your own boss means you choose with 70 hours of the week you work. None of this talks about the random pub IMs, time doing research, time reading books for blurbs, introductions, and reviews, or short author questions. It doesn’t cover my pays-the-bills work either. This is just publishing industry stuff. “Answered pub industry email” can be anything from a request for an interview, to contract queries, to reading anthology invites, to answering questions about dates… and the list goes on.

I’ve just typed “The End” on NEVER LET ME LEAVE at 51,000 words. But the book is nowhere near complete. When the novel hits “The End” for me, it isn’t done. The bare bones have been laid. I have the shape of the story down and in my head.

But, I have a ton of notes that I’ve written myself that will add probably another 5K to the book. THEN there’s the polish and descriptor adds so that I don’t have talking heads in a white room. Here’s some of the notes I left myself for NEVER LET ME LEAVE.

NOTE: Change floor to Level. Change “taser” to stun gun and describe.
NOTE: Figure actual, specific timeline for the book.
NOTE: Figure out when Carrie got the sedative.
NOTE: Mention the purse a couple more times.
NOTE: Figure out where stun guns and guns are for each chapter.
NOTE: Figured out where access cards are.
NOTE: Stairwells are black dark when red. Hard to get through. (find flashlights)
NOTE: Signs of eating and drinking.

While I’m adding these things I already know I need, I will mark certain spots to strengthen. Or that need a bit more an expert’s advice. For example, I know just enough about computer programming to be dangerous. I broke software for a living before I became a writer. I need someone like The Husband to help make the technobabble not only plausible but real. Or get my friend, Joe, to help me with some of the stun gun details.This will add another 2000-3000 words.

After that, the manuscript is put away until January. January 1, I open the file and I start from the top, polishing, adding, fixing, editing. By the time that is done, I will feel like I almost have a real novel in front of me.

Ever wonder what a freelance author/editor does? Each month of 2014, I’m going to list my daily notes on what I do. As I always say, being your own boss means you choose with 70 hours of the week you work. None of this talks about the random pub IMs, time doing research, time reading books for blurbs, introductions, and reviews, or short author questions. It doesn’t cover my pays-the-bills work either. This is just publishing industry stuff. “Answered pub industry email” can be anything from a request for an interview, to contract queries, to reading anthology invites, to answering questions about dates… and the list goes on.

I am gearing up to participate in NaNoWriMo again, officially, this year. I don’t participate every year. My thoughts on it have changed. When I first started, back in…uh…2006?

[I know I participated in 2007. I wrote THE LITTLE FINANCE BOOK THAT COULD back then. But I think I did Regresser’s Evolution in 2006. There’s a novel that will never see the light of day. But, I digress…]

When I first started, I looked at NaNo as motivation to finally finish a novel in a concrete amount of time. Now, I look at NaNo as a conveniently placed “get shit done before the end of the year” motivator. Thus, I don’t always traditionally participate. One year, it was “finish all of the contracted short stories” NaNo. Another, it was “finish this damn RPG sourcebook” NaNo.

However, when the stars align, and I have a new novel to write, and it is scheduled for the fall, I try to schedule it for NaNoWriMo. This year, everything has fallen into place and it’s time for me to write the next Melissa Allen book, NEVER LET ME LEAVE. The first Melissa Allen book, NEVER LET ME SLEEP, was written during the 2011 NaNo in 13 days. That will not happen here. Mostly because it is a bigger book with more principle characters.

Now. Some people love NaNo. Some people hate it. I use it as a tool. It is an artificial deadline and it gets me working to deadline speeds. Most of the time, I look at my NaNo draft as a 50,000+ word outline and my next draft is the real book. This is my recommendation to everyone. Your NaNo book is your detailed outline. Nothing more.

I know I will do well because this is what I do the rest of the year. Only, I need to make my words publishable words. So far, this year, I’ve written about 145,850 new words of fiction. Never mind the emails, contracts, editing, etc… I’ve done. That’s just under an average of 15,000 new words to be published every month of the year. Or 3650 new fiction words a week. Or an average of 521 new fiction words every single day of the year.

Obviously, I don’t write every single day of the year. To date, my least amount of words written in one day (when I wrote) was: 11 (Jan 14). The most: 4512 (Feb 21, Rainforest Writing Retreat).  The point is this: I wrote steadily and consistently to an average weekly word count. If I wasn’t writing, I editing but thinking about writing.

It’s nice to be part of the yearly writing mob scene because people who don’t really understand what it is like to write every day get a taste of it. Some people love it. Some people don’t. I’m going to enjoy my NaNo time and the fact that people, for at least a little while, understand what it is to be consumed by story writing.

I’m GaanEden on NaNoWriMo. Feel free to become my writing buddy.

Ever wonder what a freelance author/editor does? Each month of 2014, I’m going to list my daily notes on what I do. As I always say, being your own boss means you choose with 70 hours of the week you work. None of this talks about the random pub IMs, time doing research, time reading books for blurbs, introductions, and reviews, or short author questions. It doesn’t cover my pays-the-bills work either. This is just publishing industry stuff. “Answered pub industry email” can be anything from a request for an interview, to contract queries, to reading anthology invites, to answering questions about dates… and the list goes on.