ARE GOALS A TEMPTATION TO FATE?

First, a shoutout to Caleb and Linda Pirtle’s new website, Here Comes a Mystery, which is featuring Pride’s Children: PURGATORY this morning. Caleb nails small town America, among many other things, and Linda writes cozies, also among many other things. A real power couple with a wonderful backlog.

Bird in hand: PURGATORY

Pride’s Children continues to slowly find its tribe as I navigate the waters of marketing and advertising and publicity in my slow way – via Amazon ads, a fascinating can of worms. Who knew (okay, I really did) that writing ad copy is trickier than writing 167K novels? But it is the only SURE way to make progress among strangers, and that’s what PC needs: to come to the attention of people who read similar books, and who may give it a chance.

Being in Kindle Unlimited has been good – about half the people who read PC nowadays do so via KU. Sometimes, on a slow week, I get the fun of watching a single reader start – and finish – within a day or so, because Amazon gives me a graph which literally shows pages read.

Bird in egg: NETHERWORLD

The first chapter is finished. The way I write, when I get to that point, the story on the page is as close to the story in my head as it will ever be, full 3D staging and moving actors. When the next chapter is finished, Chapter 21 (I’m keeping the chapter numbering, of what is ONE story, sequential) will go to my beta reader to make sure I haven’t missed something, and, in my attempt to keep the word count down, I haven’t been TOO elliptical.

I have been stalled for a while at the LAST scene in Chapter 22 – the reasons have been physical, and are well documented in my writing blog, and should be of little interest here except that I require use of my fiction writing brain for a usable period of time every day, or progress doesn’t happen.

If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans?

That’s where the question about goals comes from.

I sincerely pray the stall is temporary, and on its way out. I wouldn’t be writing this post – which is a promise – otherwise: there are no other goals before me (except one tiny one, almost finished). This is it.

Kind fellow writers have suggested I try writing other things as a way back in to NETHERWORLD’s complex storyline, but that’s not how it works with me. I am not blocked; I am stalled.

I am waiting for the return of my head writer. Me.

Thank goodness there are flashes. Unfortunately, the ability to write coherent blog posts (if you read them, you may actually notice the progress of that coherence returning) does NOT mean I can write fiction. Fiction is the Queen of writing, and requires the very best you have. I hope she comes back to stay.

And no, I don’t really believe that making plans and having goals is tempting Fate. I think they are just necessary to Life.

Thanks for your patience.

On the other hand, when all this started happening that I’m NOT talking about here, I had figured out how to produce finished scenes about an order of magnitude faster – whew! So it won’t take fifteen years this time.

Recommend Pride’s Children: PURGATORY to all your friends – it’s very encouraging to see sales, and borrows from KU.

Peace out.

Thanks to Stencil for the ability to take a few thoughts and produce a graphic – it’s become a haiku-like experience.