I broke my 500 words a day streak two weeks ago at 34 days. I restarted and went another five days. Now I’ve blown it two days in a row. Not just the 500+ words a day streak, but the Write Everyday Streak after 52 days! No words. No fiction. No blog posts. A few social media posts, but very few, at that. And now the anti-streak is started…

Did I get Word Count Paralysis? Maybe. Did I fall out of love with my WIP [Work In Progress]? Well, WIPs in this case, but yes, perhaps. What I didn’t do? I didn’t sit down and say, “I’m going to sit here until I write 500 words.” I have been thinking intensely about the two pieces I’m working on, but both are at a bit of a waiting point. And I don’t really feel like starting on the next two WIPs. Yes, there is a queue. Yes, I know what I’m going to write next. Do I want to start on them without finishing drafts of these? No way.

What I did do while I was not writing? I did put in several hours of Author Work. I reworked the order of the Outward Bound: made the Foreword into an Afterword and cut down the stuff a reader must read before getting to the fiction. Tis also allows the potential reader to read a whole story, plus the beginning of the Title Story. I also added a bonus sample of Toils and Snares. All this is in anticipation of a re-release on KDP select.

Outward Bound has sold a total of FOUR copies on non-Amazon distribution (and about SIX sales on Amazon!), at least one of which was to me. So, I am pulling it from Bookbaby for the time being. In the early years of self-publishing [2012] they charged $100 to list a book and then $ each year. I snagged a killer coupon $29 deal, which obviously never paid off. Even with sales of All Is Silence. BookBaby still made $ off me!

So, I’m going to use Outward Bound to play around with Kindle Select. It can’t do much worse. My goal with Outward Bound was to learn about self-publishing systems, so I am still going to use it as such. I’ll be giving it away for free from time to time. Maybe doing a countdown deal and probably eventually make it PERMA-FREE (kinda like Permafrost, but different.).

So, I did some marketing. Coming Soon, in addition to the Pubslush for Straight Into Darkness’ Editing and Cover Art jumpstart [Save the date 10/17/2014], I will be running a short “Can’t Get to Worldcon” ebook sale on All Is Silence. I’ve also started releasing All Is Silence on Wattpad as an experiment to see if I can expand my readership before the next book comes out. Come check it out, vote for it, comment, tell when needs to happen in the next two books!

Now. Back to writing.