Still Blogging (#IWSG April 2024)

Busy, busy, busy... It's the craziest week of the year at my day job, so I have to keep this short. Which is too bad, since I actually had a story cooking about the monthly question.

Writing and revision have been slow due to how busy it's been at work, but it is plodding along slowly. Hopefully when I'm over that hump I can jump back into it and finally put Gale Harbour 3 to bed (or at least off to the editor).

April Question - How long have you been blogging?

My first blogging experience wasn't with this blog, but with a tabletop gaming blog called RuleoftheDice.com. I wrote about role-playing games and tried way too hard to be edgy - some of the early posts are particularly cringy. 

I won't go into too much detail, but suffice to say I do miss the community. The RPG community at the time was very vibrant, and despite the arguments between "Old school" and modern games, there were a lot of great conversations to be had. A lot of it took place on the now-defunct Google+ social media platform, which I also kinda miss because I never found those same groups again. I mean there are also gaming groups on Facebook but OH MY GOD those people are obnoxious.

How about you? Anyone else lament to the changes to blogging and social media over the years?

Hugs & Kisses,
-CDGK

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

Sigh. (#IWSG February 2024)

I feel like a broken record, but I've been struggling to write lately. I want to, I really do, and I often try, but I never get much out. Life in general has just been a drudgery, from illnesses in the family to constant appointments for ongoing health issues to increasing pressure at work. Even when I get the time to do anything, I just don't have the energy. 

I started to revise Gale Harbour Book 3, which involved going back to read the first two books. You know how sometimes you go back and read something you wrote in the past and go, "Hey, this is pretty good?" Yeah, that didn't happen. I don't know if it's because I'm already depressed, but I did not look back on it with rose-tinted glasses. I am going to keep going, and it will push me to make the next book as good as possible, but it just feels like a mountain that I do not have the ability to climb right now.

Before I get too negative, let's get to the question of the month... which will probably also be negative. Sigh. It is an interesting one, but will likely cause some (hopefully positive) conversations.

February question: What turns you off when visiting an author's website/blog? 

I look forward to hearing everyone else's response on this, to learn things I shouldn't do with my website. I'm sure there LOTS of them.

If I have one pet peeve, it's pop-ups asking me to sign-up for a newsletter. I know, I know, newsletters are important blah, blah, I have my own mailing list, I get it. But asking me to sign-up for a mailing list before I even see anything about you is a big turn-off. If I'm interested enough in your work I will go sign up or buy a book, but I NEVER sign up for something that pops up in my face. It's just a stubborn principle. I refuse to buy anything from solicitors at my door, too (sorry, Girl Guides!).

Well, there's my gloom and grumpiness for this month. How's everyone else doing?

Hugs & kisses,
-CDGK

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

Happy New Year!

I don't have anything else to say. I just needed to post something today to officially break my record for most posts in one year. This is number 72, breaking 2015's previous record of 71!

Happy New Year everyone! All the best I you and yours in 2018!

Trick or Treat for Books (2017 Edition)

It's that time again! The weather is changing, the grocery store aisles are crammed with boxes of individually-packaged candy, and kids are spending more time at school discussing their Halloween costumes than their math lessons.

That last one doesn't matter because the education system is gone to crap, anyway.

What the hell kind of sorcery is this?

In what has become a yearly tradition, I will once again be taking part in Patricia Lynne's Trick or Treat Book Blog Hop. You can check out the details on her blog, but the long and the short of it is, authors will be giving away free books on or about October 31, just like candy! 

The list of participants who have signed up so far is below. Fellow writers, please feel free to add your name!

Make sure to come back on Halloween to grab your free books, from myself as well as the other authors on the list!

In a weird bit of serendipitous symmetry, my announcement of joining this blog hop for the first time back in 2015 was my 100th blog post. Today, two years later, is my 200th blog post. It's almost like I regularly once per week, except I absolutely don't (I go through periods where I post like crazy, and then weeks/months with nothing). Still, 200 posts is nothing to sneeze at, so yeah, me!

Any excuse to use this GIF.

A-to-Z Reflections 2017

So here we are at the end of another A-to-Z blog hop. This was my third time completing the "challenge," and I believe my most successful one so far, at least in terms of page views and engagement. I have a few takeaways from this year's experience, which I will now list in no particular order:

I Really Enjoyed My Theme This Year

I think other people did, too. People like weird trivia and history, and weird trivia about something people kinda know but don't know much about is a fun topic. My previous themes about stuff I'm afraid of and characters from my books I've never published were pretty weak, but everyone knows what Canada is, so they're more likely to click on the links. Plus, I can save this posts and refer to them in the future, because they're fun stories that are not time-sensitive or context-dependent.

I Miss the Linky List

Posting in the comments wasn't terrible, I suppose. Yes it was an extra step but it's not the end of the world. But what I really missed with a big, complete list with the topics highlighted where I could scan through blogs at my leisure. I could pick out topics I knew might interest me right away (humour, gaming, history) and start with those. With the commenting/link system it was just a shifting mess every day. It was a big crapshoot as to what you end up with. I actually didn't discover some of my favourite blogs of the bog hop until the last week of April, because I just hadn't seen them anywhere else.

People Love Winnie the Pooh

My post about the origins of the famous bear was easily my post popular day of the month. Most hits, most comments, and they're still going strong over a week later. People just love that gawddang bear.

Wednesdays Were a Terrible Day for Blogging

Usually Wednesday is a good for me, but this April they were by far the slowest day of the month. I would have thought the Invention of Basketball and the Vancouver Beer Parlours would have been popular topics, but nope. They were cursed by falling on Wednesday. Though I guess I can understand why people might be apprehensive about clicking on a post called Pussy Black-Face (even though it was one of my favourites).

Twitter is Terrible

I mean, just in general. But also it's a terrible way to find blog posts. Posts are quickly lost under an avalanche of folk re-posting other people's links (not retweeting, but creating a new tweet with the same info just so they can get their name on it), or spamming their own posts over and over again. Eventually it's just too much screaming.

I Really Don't Have Time to Do This in April

April is a very busy month for me at work. I knew this and so I tried to get my posts done in advance, but I only got about half of them in before the First. So I was still researching and writing new posts while reading and commenting on other blogs, posting my links every day and replying to comments. But I was just so busy with work at the same time, it was actually pretty stressful. That's why I didn't participate last year, and I'm going to have to seriously consider whether or not I'll do it again next year.

In what I hope will become a tradition, here's a GIF of Kenny Omega doing something stupid.

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That's it. Overall I did have fun this year and discovered some really cool blogs, so I can't complain too much. How about the rest of you. What did YOU learn?

Things Are Looking Up (#IWSG April 2017)

(This is my monthly Insecure Writer's Support Group post. For those looking for the April A-to-Z Challenge post, click here)

NOTE: For some reason comments are not working on this post, and I can't figure out why. They work on the other post I made today. I had the same issue last month with IWSG, but then the comments magically started working again in the middle of the day.
If you reply to my comment that seems to work, otherwise I make no promises. :-(

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I had a good month!

A few bits of news:

1) I officially sold my first story!

Yes, I've self-published books and stories before, but this is the first time someone actually chose my work to be good enough to sell, which is a nice feeling. It will be appearing in Strangely Funny IV, an anthology of paranormal humour edited by Sarah E. Glenn and published by Mystery and Horror, LLC that will be released in late May or June of this year. They've published some really cool stuff in the past so I'm excited to be a part of it. Check out the awesome covers on some of their past editions:

2) The Revised and Expanded edition of Ten Thousand Days is done!

I've hinted at this for awhile, but I've been working on a major overhaul and update to my first book, Ten Thousand Days. This will probably warrant it's own post down the line, but I've mentioned before that I was never fully happy with the original version of 10K Days. I rushed it to print and I've learned a lot about writing in the last two years, so I really wanted to make sure it was the best possible book it could be. The original story was about 40,000 words, but the updated version is over 70,000. The characters are much better fleshed out, the plot has a proper arc (the original didn't really have a third act) and the setting is better realized.

If anyone bought the original version and would like to check out the new one, Amazon should update your file when you sync your device. If for some reason you can't get the new version, hit me up and I will gladly send you a new one file.

If you haven't read it before, now's the time to do so: It's on sale right now for just 99 cents as a special re-release price. It will go back up to $2.99 in a couple of weeks.

3) I'm participating in the 2017 A-to-Z Blogging Challenge!

In case you missed it at the top, I'm taking part in the "post a day" challenge for the A-to-Z blog hop. My theme this year is "Weird Canadian Facts and History," which is appropriate since this year is Canada's 150th birthday. Today's letter is "D," so your lesson is on "D'Arcy McGee, Irish Rebel and One of Canada's Founding Fathers." Check it out, it's about a guy who hated Britain so much he helped found a brand new country.

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April IWSG Question:

Have you taken advantage of the annual A to Z Challenge in terms of marketing, networking, publicity for your book? What were the results?

Wow, this topic is highly appropriate.

Short answer: Yes.

I took part in the A-to-Z challenge in 2015, and released Ten Thousand Days just a few days after it ended. I did not take part in the 2016 challenge, the year I released my second book, Hell Comes to Hogtown.

The result? I sold the same number of copies of 10K Days in the first month that I did the entire last year for Hogtown, despite Hogtown being (in my opinion) a much better book (at least until the Revised Edition of Ten Thousand Days came out).

Now, I know much of that can be attributed to some people being excited and supportive simply because it was my first book, but I wouldn't have even known those people if I hadn't taken part in A to Z. Blogging and commenting every day created a momentum and introduced me to lots of new writers and bloggers. It was marketing and networking without the dirtiness of calling it marketing and networking.

I am 99% certain that my very first sale was to Kristin Cleage (who has a really great and fascinating blog about her family's history and genealogy over at Finding Eliza), someone who I would never have met if it weren't for the A-to-Z Blog Hop. I know a few of the others were thanks to them as well.

So yes, A-to-Z was very valuable to me in the past, though unfortunately I don't have a new book to roll-out this time around. But maybe I'll still make a few new friends who will be excited then the next book comes out.

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group here.

11 Lessons Learned from the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge

LESSON #1: Don't commit to blogging every day for a month two weeks after you wife has a baby.

LESSON #2: Cheat. Write all the blog posts a month BEFORE the baby is born.

LESSON #3: Check out all the blogs around yours on the A-to-Z list to find other blogs to follow.

LESSON #4: Don't follow any of them because they were all either spam or didn't actually continue past Day 1 (or even make it TO Day 1).

LESSON #5: Return the comments of anyone and everyone who comments on your blog.

LESSON #6: Don't just click on their name then try and find their Google+ page and scroll through it trying to find a gawddang link. It's maddening and a waste of time. See Lesson #7

LESSON #7: Add all the blogs you plan to follow and comment on to your Reading List in Blogger. It keeps everything in one handy-dandy location.

LESSON #8: If you find a blog you enjoy and you visit and comment regularly, yet they never return the visit or even reply to your comments, screw them. You ain't got time for that. (I wish I could be nicer but my time was REALLY limited this year)

LESSON #9: Figure out how to remove blogs from your Blogger Reading List (see Lesson #8 above). When you do, tell me how to do it because I still haven't figured it out.

LESSON #10: Meet some nice people. Be polite. Make friends. Exchange pleasantries and Twitter handles.

LESSON #11: Don't visit Tumblr. Like, ever. This is both a A-to-Z Blogging Tip as well as a helpful life lesson.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

On your way out, please enjoy this animated GIF of Kenny Omega wrestling a 9-year old girl.