Not the best at expressing myself

It's not a big surprise that I'm horrible at expressing myself. I had a whole relationship where both my boyfriend and myself didn't think the other party liked us. I liked him, but I'm fairly sure he didn't like me all that much. What does this have to do with anything? Well, this translates to my blog as well. Like I've written before, I'm not very good at blogging. I keep a journal and write my personal feelings/thoughts in there, but that's different from a public blog about writing. I know how to express myself in writing, and that's pretty much the only place I know how to express myself. Actually, I know how to let my characters express themselves, I'm still not to sure about myself. While I am good at essay style writing, I'm not so good at blogging. Sometimes what I mean gets lost in what I am trying to express. Writing a blog isn't the same as writing an essay. I don't take the time to read over and rewrite if I want to. Once I press the publish button it goes public. It's live on the internet, even if no one decides to read it (which seems like the case in this blog). I think a few things were lost in translation during one of my last posts. I wrote about my thoughts about the business angle of Amanda Hocking. I don't really have thoughts on her personally, as I have never met her. I think her success story is wonderful, and I always like to see a writer doing well. The part of my post where things may have been mistranslated was when I was talking about her story being more about her fans than her. It's her fans who made her what she is. I think it's amazing that a group of people could make someone so successful. I know she's been posting a lot less lately, and that's understandable. Everyone needs a break, and there are things people need to keep to themselves. I actually wish some celebs would take a break, but anyway, it seems like her break means less sales for her. I don't know much about the business side of amazon (yet), but it looks like she's selling less. There are less reviews on her newer books. That could just be because the books are newer and people are waiting for a price drop before purchasing, or it could mean that her fans are moving on, or at least not as interested. That's pretty much what I meant to say. I'm trying to learn a little bit about the business side of self publishing before I release my own self published novel into the world. Her story is a rare success story that I enjoyed reading.

Darkly Disappointing Dexter

I finally watched the last episode of Dexter. I guess I held off so long because I heard how disappointing the ending was. There are still a few Dexter books that I haven't read through, so my adventures in Dexterland are far from over, plus I haven't picked up the comic book either. I always considered the tv show as something different from the books. The only book I ever compared was the first book to the first season. There are a lot of things from the books I would have liked to see included in the tv show, but that's a post for another time. Right now I'm going to talk about the season finale. There were things I liked in the finale, Dexter killing Saxton with an ink pen was one of them, but as rewarding as it was to see Saxton finally get what he deserved, it was nothing like an old Dexter episode. The old Dexter was careful, and would never have taken the risks the new Dexter took. The part where Dexter threw Deb overboard made sense, she was sort of his victim, but the part where Dexter through his phone overboard and faked suicide made no sense. Dexter stated that he no longer felt the urge to kill. He had basically found his humanity with Hannah and Harrison. All of Dexter's problems were because he had the urge to kill. He could have just lived a peaceful life with his son and girlfriend, but instead he isolated himself as some sort of punishment. It didn't make sense. It would have made more sense if he would have killed himself. The only point I can see to Dexter living an isolated life if because the urge to kill came back. Maybe this time he'll see the ghost of Deb instead of the ghost of Harry. On another note, someone needs to hire the actor who played Saxton in one of the terminator films. Watching him walk around with no emotion really reminded me of the terminator.

My thoughts on Amanda Hocking

It's hard to be involved in the self-publishing world without knowing who Amanda Hocking is. She got rich by self publishing young adult books similar to Twilight. I tried to read one of her books, but I couldn't. I think it just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't normally read young adult novels. I remember hearing about her sometime in 2011, when I first started to research self publishing. This was way before I decided to self publish. Her story was one of the reasons that I decided to self publish. Not because I think I could make a fortune doing so, but because I could control my publishing experience. I'm one of those people who likes to experience things for herself, even if I'm not successful. Every now and then I google Amanda Hocking to see what she's up to, and it seems like she's disappeared. No more blog posts, no more twitter remarks. Is she forgetting that her interactions with her fans are what made her so rich and somewhat famous? She got to live her dream because of people she now ignores. Maybe she doesn't have time for all the posting anymore, but she also has an attitude that I don't like toward her publishers. Someone at a publishing house sent her flowers and she dismissed them by saying they were from 'people'. She failed to mention that those people were now busting their butts to promote her stuff. Her old blog posts are mostly about her wanting to get published. She doesn't go into detail about why she decided to self publish. I think Amanda Hocking only made it so far because of her fans. She was able to reach out to the younger crowd and sell them a product they were looking for at the time. Her story is one about her fans more than it is about herself.

My 'playlist'

A lot of authors post the play lists that they listened to while writing a book. I used to listen to music when writing, but for some reason I stopped. That doesn't mean that I write in silence, it just means I write to something different. I leave the tv on when I write. It's usually old episodes of the tv show face off, the show from syfy where they create monsters using movie make up. I would love to be able to do that, and the people on the show are extremely talented. I pick this show because it's a rerun. I'm not going to be interested in doing more than glancing at the tv from time to time. I don't have the longest of attention spans, in fact, that's why I stopped listening to music. Sometimes I can leave the tv on syfy original movies, since they don't usually interest me, but most of the time I'm writing to face off.

My writing corner

It's finally finished! Now my desk looks looks the way I want it to. I still find it pretty funny that this is the desk that I write about werewolves and zombies from.

Giving my writing space a little make over.

Above is the space I've been using to write about werewolves and zombies. It's not a bad writing space, but it's not me. The desk isn't me, so I bought some paint and sandpaper and I am currently working on painting it. I'll have to post pictures when I'm finished, but I may not post much until it's finished.

Blogging is a great tool that I don't know how to use.

I'm sure this translates through the current state of my blog, but I don't know how to blog. I don't know anything about layouts or what content I should include. I have no idea how much I should share. It's hard for me to share information with people I know offline, which makes it even harder to share with people I've never met. Not that anyone is reading this blog. I'd be surprised if anyone looked past the boring layout at all. Most of the traffic I get is probably from people browsing through blogs. This is all my fault. I could devote more time to researching layouts and what content I should include. Blogging is a great tool and can help me reach lots of readers, if I include the right content.

Do people shop the same way they review books?

Maybe I've been in retail for too long, but I think there's a link between the way people shop and the way they review books. I've recently been reading book reviews of authors who are self-published (like I plan to be). I wanted to know what I should expect when the time comes to release my book into the world. Every review I've read, the good, the bad, and the ugly, have all been like customers I've had. There's the customers that don't want to be bothered, they probably won't review at all. The customers who look at the item from every angle: the reviewers who pick the book apart. The customer who happily asks for suggestions: the reviewer who reads and comments on other people's reviews. I think the customers/reviewers who are open to suggestions are my favorites and that's probably the category I fall under when I shop or review. I'm always looking for something new to read so if you have any suggestions just leave a comment. There's the customer who knows what they want and often leave happy: the reviewer who reads the same types of books or authors all the time. Then there's my least favorite, the customer who finds a blemish and wants something free. This type of customer is equal to a review who isn't reviewing the actual book, but instead something like the font size or formatting. They don't actually review the book, but they do give it a negative amount of stars. I hate seeing that type of review for anyone's book, but I know I'm bound to get a few of those myself. Despite that, I'm still looking forward to starting my journey and living my dreams.

Early writing mistakes

I've always wanted to be a writer, it seemed like my calling since I wrote my first non school story in second grade. I stopped writing for awhile when I was a teenager. I wish I had kept writing, it would have only helped me improve. I picked writing up again when I was about twenty three or twenty two. I'm not sure why I picked it back up, my only guess is the stories that were in my head begging to be written wouldn't go away. It's been a rough journey for me. I have trouble finishing projects, although the one I'm working on now just needs another glance over. I was often broke when I was writing these stories, and I actually tried to sell books after just writing the first draft of whatever I was working on. That turned out as well as you can expect, and I know it wasn't good for my writing career. The only reason I rushed through the first chapter and sent it off was because I was poor, I was struggling to pay for gas to get back and forth to work. My situation improved a little when I got a job that was closer to home, and so did my outlook on writing. I decided that I didn't want to sell my book to a publishing company, I wanted to self publish. I wanted to live all the ups and downs of my journey. I know it's going to be hard, probably harder than I could ever dream, but I decided this is the path for me. I haven't sent off what I'm working on to a literary agent, at this point I don't want one. Maybe one day that will change, but for now I want to see what this is like. In fact, I hope to soon, maybe late this month or early next month. Another mistake I've made is letting other things get in the way. When I get home from work, it seems like I'm too tired to think. Maybe I should take naps and write when I wake up. I've also allowed other things to get in my way, like getting a new video game or book. Things that I shouldn't put before my writing. I know I need a break sometimes, but a break shouldn't turn into me catching all 150, or however many pokemon they have now. I've made a lot of mistakes, and I know I'm going to make more, but that's my journey to take.

Reviewing my lunch

I know this is a little weird, but I feel the need to review a sandwich I had for lunch on Saturday. I went to a local grocery store on Friday and picked up an egg salad sandwich (along with a regular salad for my dinner Friday). I decided to bring it along to work with me. By the time lunch rolled around I was really hungry, but after taking one bite into that sandwich, I was no longer hungry. It wasn't the egg salad itself that was so gross, and the lettuce was probably the best thing about this sandwich, it was the bread. When I bought the sandwich I thought the bread was wheat, but when I opened the package I found that it was a strange bread that had seeds all over it. It was the most disgusting bread I had ever eaten. The bread left seeds in the egg salad, so I couldn't even pull the messy sandwich apart and attempt to eat it. I ended up throwing the sandwich away after a second bite. It's something I hate to do. I hate wasting food, but that sandwich was so nasty it gave me a stomach ache.

Resume

It's been a long time since I've written a resume. The last time I wrote one was in high school and the teacher made us use a Christmas theme. I guess being one of Santa's helpers made me pay less attention. Now I'm an adult, in the adult world, trying to figure out how to write a resume. Out of all the things I learned in school, resume writing is the only one I wish I'd paid attention to.