All posts in category the Human being

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote less than 7K, but I had a busy weekend, so I couldn’t catch up on writing. Also, I realized I had to rewrite a good portion of the current project, and that, too, took time. Hopefully this week I’ll be able to write full speed and finish this by the weekend. If not, I have another week before moving on.

On Saturday I went to the ARF!Festival, a comic con for professionals, more than readers. There are no cosplayers hanging out, and I didn’t see any publisher selling their books, although they did have tables where their authors signed copies. There were a few collectible booths as well, but mostly it was artists and indie authors showing off their works. I didn’t see their call for the self-area on time, so I’m aiming for next year. This will give me time to prepare a couple more things to put on the table!

On Sunday we celebrated my sister’s birthday, so I didn’t have much time to write. But I got some time to spend with Dear Nephew who is now 18 and taller than me. Sigh.

I gave up on that non-fiction, so I may get back to fiction soon. For now I’ll watch movies instead, since I have plenty of DVDs to keep me inspired! Stay tuned for more reading recommendations…

As you can see from the badge in the sidebar, I’m a IASFA member. You can sign up for the readers’ newsletter that will let you know of free or 99c books by members, but they’re also having a Kindle Fire HD10 – US Only Giveaway – enter it if you’re in the right country! 🙂

I will probably enter some book in the promo after the summer. I haven’t chosen which and when yet, since I haven’t put the publisher’s hat on – and won’t until the last week of June. Trust me, it’s heaven! 😀 But then I’ll be off Day Job and I’ll decide what to do with the rest of the year, no new titles before the fall, but I may start considering promos for the old titles.

Meanwhile I shall go back to writing! Have a great week!

Advertisement
1 Comment
by Barb on 17/05/2023  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 17/05/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/05/17/wednesday-weekly-roundup-188/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Slow and steady, I added another almost-8K words to the novel. I should finish Draft 0 by Sunday so I can go through it next week and send it off the Mighty Editor the following week. Meanwhile she has the short stories from the challenge to keep her busy, LOL!

But now I should have written my first 100K for the year. But this is a marathon, so if I don’t reach my goal, I won’t cry. Also, on the first week of May I’ll try to figure out if I want to publish something this year of leave everything for next year. A sabbatical would be good, I guess!

The sabbatical is only from publishing, of course. I need to have fun writing again, with no deadlines or projected “marketing” campaigns (yeah, me and Mr. Marketing still don’t get along). I’m still a prolific writer who finishes what she starts, I’m just less in a hurry to share those stories with the world, that’s all!

And that’s all in this fairly cold spring… Have a great week!

by Barb on 19/04/2023  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged ,

Posted by Barb on 19/04/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/04/19/wednesday-weekly-roundup-184/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote a little over 8K new words but the whole manuscript is already at 14.6K, since I integrated a short story I wrote back in November into it. And like I mentioned to Tori in the comments, I’m having fun again writing a longer work.

Publishing burnout is really a thing. I read of another friend who wrote two books but can’t bring himself to publish them just yet. Another friend has revamped his website, so he should be back on track soon. I’m sure Tori will get back to writing soon as well, and it’s fine if we both take a year off from publishing. It will give time to things to settle in publishing and elsewhere. And eventually we shall find our readers! 🙂

Today marks the 20th anniversary of a writing workshop I did in Northern Italy, where I met my Jedi twin (and challenge partner) Fulvio Gatti. Boy oh boy, so many things happened in the past twenty years! I might have been more prolific, but he earned more accolades and awards – and sold more short stories, but then, I don’t submit that many, LOL!

What can I say… sometimes a theme of an anthology inspires me enough to write something, but sometimes I just take the prompt and write it months or years later, so I end up not submitting it anywhere. Maybe it’s the start of a new series, or a prequel to an old one, or just another story in a universe I already created.

Even the stories I wrote for the challenge, only a few will be submitted to anthologies as soon as Mighty Editor goes through them. Others work as prequels of books I still have to write, or are corollary of series I have already wrapped. And since I plan on doing a volume of original stories, I’m not sending them out at all, so you’ll be able to have the exclusivity whenever I publish them.

So there, these are my news… Have a great week, and (if you celebrate it) Happy Easter! I’ll probably spend the two days off writing my next novel! 😀

by Barb on 05/04/2023  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged ,

Posted by Barb on 05/04/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/04/05/wednesday-weekly-roundup-182/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote a 5K story that was done by Thursday, and spent the rest of the week either drawing or pondering the next story. I should write a dystopia, but the current world events are so bleak, that it can only be something with a happy ending! 😉 Possibly something that helps me overcome this sense of dread (although I’m in a “lucky” country – think Ukraine, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan or any other country affected by war or climate change or Earth trying to shake us off her crust). We’re not doomed to fail! 🙂

So I’ll probably use my Future Earth Chronicles scenario, a little closer to the apocalypse and with no mention to Rainbow Towns, aliens or vampires. Maybe I’ll write a batch and will publish another volume of shorts. At the moment I’m tinkering with two ideas, but I’m sure I can come up with more.

I’m getting back to reading on Kindle, and hopefully I’ll be able to revew what I’m reading from now on! I didn’t have a favorite story in Space Opera Digest 2022: Have Ship, Will Travel but they were all good and helped me with another story/mini-series I’m pondering. So this is definitely the year of reading fiction to improve my fiction skills! 🙂

Also, if you’ve been wondering about taking online classes from WMG (which I do pretty often), here’s someone who breaks them down for you. I have taken only two in the list he mentions, but I’ve taken others, and will take more in the future. And there’s the free class for Kickstarter if you want to try them.

Even though I have the stories I wrote at the end of last year to proofread next week, I’m afraid I won’t publish anything in the first six months of the year. I decided I better concentrate on writing instead, but this means the second half of the year might have plenty of new books for you to enjoy and meanwhile you can catch up with the old stuff (make a Barbathon, like Tori calls them)! 🙂

Know that I’m still tinkering with covers and still thinking of publishing more stuff, but this might be a leap year in publication and I’ll restart again next year – possibly. Because I don’t have full projects in mind yet, but I might start to publish standalone books at the end of this year.

Meanwhile I better go back to reading and writing as much as I can! My yearly worldcount has probably reached 50K by now, and I shall keep trudging forward! Have a great week!

by Barb on 08/03/2023  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, reading, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 08/03/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/03/08/wednesday-weekly-roundup-178/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote a short story a little over 5K. The prompt I used turned out completely different, but that’s fine! This week I hope to be able to write something, since it’s the only respite from the life rolls that keep coming at me. Day Job is getting worse, I look forward to being able to quit – hopefully with an early retirement, so I’ll be able to relax and think about my writing career.

I should also tell my brother to please yes, buy that new laptop, because the old one is really driving me crazy (it’s soooo sloooow), but at the same time I know I’ll lose some programs he won’t be able to put on the new one (I know, I have the netbook – much newer – where I don’t have them and can’t instal them), so I’ll lose them and will have to learn new ones. Sigh.

It will also allow me to start using the graphic tablet, but again, that’s a learning curve, and at this time I don’t have much energy to spare to learn new things. I can try to keep writing to keep my mind off things, but learning something new? Not right now, no.

Hopefully things will get better in spring! I have a couple of trips in mind to visit new places and get away from the routine, then we’ll see.

The good people at IASFA have some giveaway for US and Canada readers. Check them out – these all end on February 28th.

A Kindle Fire HD10 – US Only (due to shipping) https://kingsumo.com/g/sijujn/kindle-fire-hd10-us-only-giveaway

A one-year subscription for two paperbacks a month delivered to your US home – https://kingsumo.com/g/dlmbww/giveaway-two-sci-fi-paperbacks-delivered-to-your-home-every-month-for-a-year-us-only-due-to-shipping

A one-year subscription for two paperbacks a month delivered to your Canadian home – https://kingsumo.com/g/cn0mb8/giveaway-two-sci-fi-paperbacks-delivered-to-your-home-every-month-for-a-year-canada-only

Not much else on this side of the pond… trying to get to the next day without bursting into tears (and often failing)… Have a great week!

by Barb on 15/02/2023  •  Permalink
Posted in the Human being, writing projects
Tagged

Posted by Barb on 15/02/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/02/15/wednesday-weekly-roundup-175/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


And Book 3 of Immortaland Dragons is out! Thanks you for whoever is following me on Amazon and buys it as soon as it comes out, I hope you’re enjoying the reading! I thoroughly enjoyed creating this smaller world with less creatures and skin tones than Silvery Earth, but a much stronger magic system.

Last week I wrote almost 13K on the italian social sci-fi story, and I hope to finish it this week, so I can go through it and decide what to do with it. I will probably submit it to a publisher first, then indie publish it if they don’t want it.

Meanwhile I’m reading, so I’ll be able to write a few more stories in English before the end of the year. I have a few anthologies I want to submit to. And speaking of anthologies, I have a story in the one below!

Witches is part of a storybundle at this time, and you can find it here. For the visually impaired, the blurb is below.

Witches: Cutter’s Final Cut – Issue 4

Witches. Who doesn’t need more witches in their life?

These pages contain stories of witches, big and small.

There to save a baby’s life. Or perhaps a town. Or searching for a helping hand, a friend, or even a very special book.

If you’re looking for upbeat, contemporary stories with just that little bit of extra sparkle, you need this anthology!

Issue Four of Cutter’s Final Cut: dedicated to pushing the boundaries of genre fiction.

Be sure to pick up the whole series today!

My story is about an elderly witch and it’s very different from my other contemporary urban fantasy. Yes, this is the year of experimenting new subgenres of fantasy, LOL! And I’m still not sure what my next big project will be, but I’ll make further experiments also in sci-fi soon – well the Italian story is already an experiment, since I haven’t written much social sci-fi to date, except Soul Thieves.

In case you have no idea of what I’m talking about, here’s Wikipedia’s explanation:

Social science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, usually (but not necessarily) soft science fiction, concerned less with technology/space opera and more with speculation about society. In other words, it “absorbs and discusses anthropology” and speculates about human behavior and interactions.

So there, now you know! Have a great week! 🙂

by Barb on 12/10/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, real world inspiration, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 12/10/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/10/12/wednesday-weekly-roundup-157/

Wednesday weekly roundup


So, last week I was off for my first trip out of Italy since the pandemic, but I did manage to write almost 3K, longhand on a small notebook that I tiped when I got back home on Sunday. So I reached 350K this year and may reach 400K, but definitely not 500K. Although, there’s still four months, so you never know! 🙂

I also somehow reached 500 likes on my Facebook page (thank you very much) and keep getting new subscribers to this very blog, so welcome! 🙂 Gearing up for the next release, since I have to travel again to get my parents back to Rome (Saturday was a bad day for traveling – the train line was interrupted and Techie Bro couldn’t get to Tuscany and I arrived back in Rome at 2.30am instead of half past midnight), so I’ll go since I’m still of Day Job until next week.

The trip was a group tour of a part of England I hadn’t visited (not that I saw much besides London and the medieval castles easily reachable from there, LOL!). We went to Salisbury, Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Mount St Michael, Glastonbury, St Ives, Tintagel and Stonehenge (the order might be slightly wrong, I’m not checking my schedule), and I came back with a couple of books for future research.

I also had time to read another book before plunging back into Dragons of Immortalands, and I recommended it on Bookbub, as usual. I wasn’t the target audience, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Worldcon came and went without me, although I got a link for the virtual part even though I had donated my membership. I passed that on too, since I really wasn’t in the mood for it.

This week I hope to finish a few projects, but I probably won’t make it with Book 5, so I’ll have to ask Mighty Editor to postpone the second week of editing. It should be done on time anyway.

I may put up the pre-order of the other books whenever I finish book 5, but so far pre-orders haven’t really worked for me. But! It’s been ten years, and things might have changed, so… pre-orders it will be for the other books! 🙂

That’s all for today! Have a great week!

by Barb on 07/09/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, reading, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 07/09/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/09/07/wednesday-weekly-roundup-152/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote less than 5K, but managed to put out another Italian title. Also, my cousin’s friend helped me with the covers of the new project, since I’m very limited with what I can do on the writing computer! Still, the yearly total is over 300K, so I’m not complaining.

This week is starting slowly, but I managed to book a week of vacation when I’ll hopefully decompress. And see some new places. I’m currently not happy with the flights, but maybe we’ll be able to change them later… sigh!

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed the free story in the newsletter! It goes out every two months, so I won’t really spam you! Feel free to subscribe, if you haven’t already! Eventually I’ll publish those stories, but at the moment I have no plans for them.

Now I shall go back to writing, and typing Italian stories (written in the 1990s) in the computer, and dealing with life in general, LOL! I wish you a wonderful week!

by Barb on 03/08/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, the Human being
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Barb on 03/08/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/wednesday-weekly-roundup-147/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


This is the last week of the Smashwords July Sale, so make sure you grab any discounted books before they go back to full price. A gentle reminder that the four Ghost Bus Riders books can be purchased for a grand total of 10.50$! Also, most Silvery Earth books are 50% off if you want to try a new high fantasy series of standalone!

Last week I wrote 10K, and hopefully this week I’ll manage another 3K which will bring the yearly total to 300K. I’m traveling, so I don’t think I’ll write much (busy meeting people), but I hope to get down at least another story before the end of the month.

And I’ll be working on the new project’s covers with some help from a friend, while I’m there. If you’d like to know more about that and get a free short story, subscribe to the newsletter on the right hand bar of the publisher’s page… The newsletter and the link to the short story will go out August 1! 🙂

On another note, today is my dad’s 90th birthday, so celebrating him! 🙂 And that’s the reason I’m traveling, he doesn’t spend the summer in hot Rome… 😀

That’s all for today… try not to melt if you’re in the northern emisphere. I’ll be fighting mosquitoes, but being in an old house with very tall ceilings, it should be cool enough to sleep without sweating too much! Have a great week!

by Barb on 27/07/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, real world inspiration, the Human being, writing projects
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 27/07/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/07/27/wednesday-weekly-roundup-146/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Two more older titles had a face-lift – new cover, new blurb – please, check them out! Lost in the Milky Way (formerly known as Yash&Ryo Lost in the Milky Way) and Soul Thieves are now gone from Smashwords as well, until they manage that actual merging with D2D, that is.

Last week was my most prolific of the year with 25K written, but then, I was off DayJob. It’s also a personal record, the previous one being 21K/week! Whenever I’ll manage to be a full-time writer, how much more will I be able to write? 😉

Although again it’s a series of novels… my wordcount drops dramatically when I write short stories, because of the day-break between projects. If I write a 40K short novel, I’m putting down more words in a month than if I write four 10K stories.

There will be a series of shorts when I finish these novels, but they’re all mostly connected, so I should be able to write them quickly. My poor editor doesn’t know what’s coming for her in June, LOL!

Now, about that Kickstarter… my author copies arrived, and I realized that one book has a cream interior, the others white. Teaches me not to check when I publish the rest after four years, but then… Future Earth Chronicles anyone? 😉

For whoever came late to the party, in Future Earth Chronicles, the paperbacks have alternatively white and cream interior because I screwed up with the first two… For Otherside I realized my mistake when I received my copies, so we have a vintage-looking first book and brand new ones! 😀

Otherside paperbacks

There is still time to get Visions of the Future bundle and get all those awesome sci-fi ebooks for a ridicusly low price. Check it out, and if sci-fi is not your cup of tea, share with friends, in case someone is interested! 🙂

Now I shall get back to writing… and working on that non-writerly stuff… and Friday I’m back to DayJob, sigh! Have a great week! 🙂

by Barb on 01/06/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, the Human being, writing exercise, writing projects
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Barb on 01/06/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/06/01/wednesday-weekly-roundup-138/

« Older Posts
%d bloggers like this: