Lovelyn Bettison

Paranormal Horror and Suspense

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Finding Time to Write

Some people are able to write for hours everyday and acheive an amazing daily word count. Others don’t have that luxury. For many of us family and a day job prevent us from having the time we’d like to finish our novels. With so many people and things competing for your attention how can you find the time to write the great American novel?

I read an interview with Walter Mosely once in which he talked about waking up super early to write Devil in a Blue Dress before leaving for work in the morning. That has become his habit now. He writes everyday for three hours as soon as he wake up.

Some people aren’t morning people. I’m not that’s for sure. Maybe you do better writing in the solitude of the late night hours after the kids have gone to bed. If that’s the case, turn off the television and start writing.

I saw an interview on television with Tony Morrison were she described writing The Bluest Eye by hand on a legal pad. She was raising her two young children at the time and said that often times she’d be holding a child in her lap while writing. Her notebook was stained with food and her baby had even spit up on it.

Most people don’t have an ideal situation to write in. Don’t let that lack of time prevent you from achieving your dream. Even if you can only write for 15 minutes everyday it’s enough to get your book finished eventually.

Whether you can only afford snacks of time or you can set aside whole blocks of time it all makes a difference. Saying you don’t have time is an excuse. Make time. Make time and do it everyday. That’s how you form a habit. Once you’ve formed that habit it will stay with you throughout your life.

Picture by alancleaver_2000

The Courage to Share

If you’re reading this blog because you want to be an author, but you feel nervous about sharing your writing this post is for you. I’ve recently been reading an interesting book called Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words by Kevin Hall. Yeah, it’s a personal development book. It may seem lame to some, but that’s how I roll.

The book talks about the power of words and how the words we use about ourselves and others have more power than we might think. I really like the idea of the book and many of the points made in it fall in line with the themes of my novels.

This morning I was reading a passage from the book in which the author describes a conversation he had with movie critic Gene Siskel. Siskel told him that he thought that not using your unique talent was a sin. Not a waste he said, but a sin. Whether you really believe in sin or not is irrelevant in this case. The point is the severity of the word. We all have unique gifts. Most people who read this blog are writers. If writing is your unique gift do you feel a responsibility to share it with others?

Do you know your voice? What is the message you’re trying to get across in your writing? I would argue that sharing this message is your responsiblity. No one else can tell the stories you feel driven to tell.

I’ve always written. Ever since I was a little girl I wrote stories of some type, but no one ever saw them. I used to have so many stories tucked away in notebooks and stored on my computer that no one ever read. I only broke this habit of not sharing my work when I was in my early thirties. That’s right I wasted years hiding my talent away. It’s unbelievable really.

Submitting my first story for publication was terrifying. It got rejected and I gave up for a little while. Rejection can be difficult, but you have to remember not to take it personally. Eventually, I started submitting again and I got a few short stories published. Then I started working on novels. Again letting people read my novels was difficult at first, but now I’m accustomed to it. It’s no problem for me really.

If you write don’t hesitate to share that writing with others. Not doing so or feeling incredibly uncomfortable about doing so is just a habit. You can break that habit by simply acting differently. Of course you have to edit it and make sure it’s the best it could be, but don’t get so stuck in perfection that you end up not sharing anything. Write, edit and get it out there. Let friends and family read your work first to get used to the idea of people reading it.

Treat yourself as an artist and a writer with respect. Look at your work honestly and share the best of yourself and what you can do. That’s how you can use you talents to truly make your mark in this world.

Picture by SashaW

Owning an Ereader Changed the Way I Format Ebooks

I bought a Kobo ereader as a Christmas present for myself. Yeah, I know that most people get a Kindle, but I’m different than most. When I bought my Kobo I was so excited. Owning it has changed my reading habits. I find that I read more and I read a wider variety of books.

Being able to read ebooks on an actual ereader has really helped me with my ebook formatting issues. Prior to getting my ereader, I uploaded my novel onto Amazon’s KTP site as a doc file. The information on the site says you can upload doc files so I assumed that it would be fine. Well it wasn’t. Once KTP converted my file the indentations in my book were all messed up. Lines that were supposed to be indented weren’t indented and vice versa. I tried a few different methods to fix my doc file and re-upload it, but it kept turning out the same way once it was uploaded. Finally, I gave up and left it that way thinking that I probably wasn’t the only one with that problem so it was probably fine to leave it that way. Sometimes I can be so lame.

Buying my Kobo allowed me to see how other ebooks were formatted and made me want to do something about the formatting of my ebook.

You can hire someone to format your ebook for you. That’s the easier way to go. You don’t have to worry about learning a whole new skill set to get your ebook published. You can just hire someone who has those skills already.

If you don’t have to budget for hiring someone or you’re the type of person who insists on doing everything yourself you, you’ll have to learn some HTML.  Don’t be scared. It really isn’t as hard as it sounds. In order to get the best result when uploading your book onto Amazon KTP you should upload it as an HTML file.

When I fixed the formatting of my book I did so by uploading my doc file to KTP and previewing the file. When you preview your book you’ll notice that at the top of the preview window is a download HTML option. When you download the HTML from the preview you’ll get a giant document that is full of messed up HTML code.  To format your novel you’ll need to clean up that code. I did it in a simple HTML editor called Arachnophilia that I downloaded online years ago for building my content websites.

I bought Kindle Formatting the Complete Guide because I really didn’t know what the heck I was doing. The book is easy to understand and will walk you through several different methods you can use for formatting your book. If your formatting your book for Kindle I highly recommend buying this book. It will help you create a professional looking ebook. You can check out that book here.

Publishing your book on Smashwords will require different formatting than what you used for the Kindle. Smashwords doesn’t accept HTML files. You’ll need to upload your book as a doc file and their required formatting is quite specific. Smashwords has a thorough style guide. You can download it here.

Making Mistaking, Learning, and Continuing On

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to write. That was my dream. I looked up to women like Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. I wanted to be like them–strong, dynamic, creative. I wanted to write. When I closed my eyes and pictured my future that’s all I could see myself doing. Then life got in the way. When I graduated from college I had to start working and there was less and less time to write.

I wrote stories on and off for awhile, but never did much with them. Then in my late twenties I decided to write a novel. I wrote it and left it on my computer for a long time untouched. A few years later I started editing it. Then I started sending it out to agents. You know the drill. I was constantly writing and rewriting my query letter and trying to figure out how to get my book published. I received piles of rejections. (Okay, I have to admit that piles in this case only means five. I didn’t send the manuscript out to very many people.) Then I decided that book wasn’t good enough anyway and I started writing another.

My second book was a breeze to write. Once it was finished I edited it and started passing it around to family members and friends to get their opinions. One day I heard about the Amazon’s DTP site where you could upload your novel to be read on the Kindle. I uploaded my novel and didn’t give much thought to it at all. Months later I checked the site and found out that I had been selling copies. I hadn’t even tried to promote it. I didn’t understand how people were finding it and buying it. So I uploaded the book to Smashwords and used CreateSpace to get a print on demand paperback copies made.

You may be wondering why this page is called Making Mistakes Learning and Continuing On. Well, I made a few mistakes along the way. First, I uploaded a book that hadn’t been properly edited onto Amazon, and I have to admit that the formatting was a bit messed up too. That’s not really something you should do if you’re trying to make a career out of writing. That’s one of the major reasons people complain about indie authors. I had to take my book down and fix it.

The second mistake I made was that I had no real plan. I’m a writer. I love to write, but I have to bite the bullet and make a business plan too. With no plan there is no writing career. This is true for all authors, but I think it’s especially true if you’re an indie. You need to know about writing, but you also need to know about promotion.

I’m not sure if uploading my first draft onto the blog was a mistake or not. I’m leaving it up for now to see what happens. I may take it down though in the future.

I’ve started my indie writing career with a big pile of mistakes. That’s not the best way to get started, but it’s better than not getting started at all. I recognized the mistakes I’ve made and have been able to correct them. Now I need to move forward from here to get things on track.

Sometimes a bad start is better than not starting at all.

My New EReader

I got an ereader for Christmas and I’m so excited! I didn’t get a Kindle even though that does seem to be the most popular of the ereaders. I’ve never been one to jump on the most popular option though. I like living on the outside fringes of society, so I got a Kobo.

I did tons of research before deciding which reader I wanted. I decided on the Kobo because I wanted to be able to read epub files from the library. I also liked the look of the Kobo better than other readers I looked at in stores. (Really, it was the quilted back that sold me. That’s a stupid reason to choose a reader though, so I don’t like openly admitting it.)

The Kobo is easy to navigate and comfortable to hold. It doesn’t play MP3’s like other readers, but that doesn’t bother me.

These days I’m doing a lot of reading on my reader. I can buy ebooks through sites like Smashwords.

I just wanted to share the news with all of you because I’m so happy to finally have my Kobo.