For a while now this story stuff I’m doing and letting you know about has become somewhat irregular. Once upon a time I was posting audio clips of stories on Mondays, written stories on Wednesday, then my videos on Fridays.
For me it became a bit of a mishmash of misplaced market-oriented gobbly-gook resulting in omnidirectional creative firecrackers.
Such busy routines may be useful for those entities declaring themselves ‘market-oriented novelists’, but these timely, business-like efforts caused my focus to go all asymmetrical.
It took a lot of time to do and not enough time left over to be. (To let the mind empty then wander then create then — new story!)
Much of my time during the last three years has been spent in interminable administrative tasks. Like an on-going To Do List That Would Not Die. My own private A4 sized zombie. No matter how much I did and was actually Really Productive, finishing one task usually added on another two or three more tasks for follow-up and/or investigating and/or digging deeply into more research. That’s how it goes with a publishing company: one thing always, always leads to another.
This included setting up a number of books, eBooks, connecting with audio and fabric distribution channels, triple checking formats and functioning, working with various designers on various projects, giving things A Try, making errors, making corrections, contacts hither and thither and roll-outs and videos and finding assorted virtual homes to expose my stories, their cozy homes away from home. A one-man interminable putting-things-in-place long drawn-out phase. But times ticks, things do get done, put firmly in place, and this month my To Do list has more white on it then black lines of do-me and I’m-waiting-to-be-done — a lot less of the relentless bang of attention-demanding bullet points.
So currently I’m like a side of beef taken from the flames: I’m now relaxing in my juices. Between now and the summer I’ll come out with an early novel, “The Nice Guy” and a story collection called “Intimate Dialogues”. After the copy-editing was completed, designs of their separate covers and interior layouts is moving forward. Recording and editing the audio versions, getting the eBooks in line and professionally formatted. After this, maybe a couple of more novels in 2012, or maybe a non-fiction collection, but definitely some more t-shirts and “mer-chan-dise”, and then there’s those videos….
Basta and great! I can scratch this Blog Post off my to do list. More shiny white on the sheet.
- Vincent
