Yes. Blame whatever makes you feel good. We made it through the holidays and are now starting the new year. For those that care the next two paragraphs are quick catch-up summaries, one for the freelance/writer career and one for family. Then I’ll write other stuff after. Maybe.

Freelance writing is bringing in a little money. Not a ton, but a little. It couples with Fiverr gigs for now. The income is generating enough to cover monthly freelance costs after paying us, so that’s a start. A ways to go until it covers a mortgage though. The trickle should only grow over the next few months. Until fiction writing can start taking over, hopefully this spring. At the end of this are the latest articles I’ve written and had published. I’ll also update my portfolio page soon. Nonfiction writing is going alright considering. I need to finish the research for book 2 and write it. Book 1, How To Register A Drone, sold a copy the day before Christmas and has had some Kindle page reads. (Kindle page reads is how authors get paid for books in the Kindle Unlimited program.) I’ve done effectively no advertising for it, but once book 2, on licensing regulations, is done I may start. Book 3 will be a study guide leading to a training course. I may need to invest in an actual commercial grade drone (unless someone has one sitting around?) to do that one properly. (Another side business could come of that I suppose.) I also released a journal while learning how to create them that I’ve done literally 0 advertising for. I honestly don’t even know how good it is printed, I didn’t order the proof. It was largely to practice going through the publishing process that I released it and forgot about it. It sold a copy in early December. The next journal is one made more or less specifically for Heather, but I’ll release it as well.

The baby is going to be here soon, likely still in this house though. We’re checking every house close to our spec as it hits the market here. We had one we were ready to put an offer in on, but in a rare situation the buyer’s financing that fell through in the final hour was a FHA buyer, and there was another FHA offer coming in at the same time as ours. We couldn’t beat the assessment inspection timeline, nobody but another FHA could. It hurt for a couple of days, but we’re back watching for something to hit that fits us. The kids are both in scouts, cub for Gideon and daisy for Cecilia. Not much else to say about family. We’re all here and doing as well as we can.

Hmm. Now that I think of it, there isn’t much else to write. My main motivation for today was to get the latest articles I’ve written out there. There are multiple, so tweeting them will take a few days. Here’s the list, I’ll try to remember to tweet one each weekday until I’m through it.

http://data-insider.com/2016/12/big-data-project-ready-apache-ignite/

http://blog.bigstep.com/data-pros-belong-department-somewhere-else/

http://blog.bigstep.com/data-analytics-priorities-stack-rest/

http://blog.bigstep.com/data-analytics-iot-revolutionizing-citymanagement/

http://data-insider.com/2017/01/the-value-of-a-comprehensive-incident-response-plan/

I’m not gonna lie, the last half of September was tough.

The writer’s conference was OK. I’m not sure I’ll try hard to attend that one again. It was a decent experience and I could see some value, but it’s really focused on non-fiction authors using books largely as part of a greater platform. As someone more interested in a fiction career long-term it didn’t line up completely with my goals.

I did start getting some alright freelance work. It pays well enough for what it is. More importantly, it’s a chance to get experience working with editors and build a better portfolio. I may try to get on the list of editors there in a couple of months depending on how things go.

I didn’t finish the non-fiction. I also made slower than planned progress on the novel. Very slow. The good part is I think I know why the progress was slow and I finally made it past that last week. I increased my total word count by 50% in one week versus the whole month of Sept. I anticipate in a couple of days when I can get back into it I’ll be writing much faster and get through it. I’d love to use NaNoWriMo as a time to write book 2 and I can fathom it happening. Once I’m starting on the 2nd book I need to plan more short stories and book 3. The increased speed will also encourage me to finish the non-fiction so I can start the follow-up for that one.

We had a short trip in our new to us pop-up camper to start the month. We got an amazing deal on the pop-up and I think it’ll be good for us come next year. (It’s at a storage lot right now and likely will be for the next 5 months or so.) The kids are excited about it and I hope the house we manage to find and afford next spring has a garage that can hold it.

The kids break is in the final week. Thanks to the help of Heather’s family in the area I’ve managed to get time to work during it. This is great as I have no good way to try out dictation, especially away from the computer, at this time.

Before I go I guess there is one thing I’d love to get input on. Does anyone have a suggestion for a tax person? Last year’s taxes were a bit of a mess, and this year’s looking to be worse. We made it through last year and everything worked out fine. This year we’ve got a new business started with more put into the start-up than I imagine it’ll earn this year. I could be wrong, and I’d love to be, but I’m not planning it that way. If I am wrong I’d rather it be a happy surprise than plan for it to make more and be disappointed.

Are you all ready for the holidays? We aren’t!

It’s midway through September and Heather and I are both ready for a break, but we won’t get a slow down until, I dunno, mid-October? The last couple weeks have seen Heather working hard at birthday party stuff for Cecilia, and this weekend I’m attending a local writer’s conference. The kids days off of school start within a couple of weeks, including their first two and half week break at the beginning of October, so busy.

The kids are still excited about getting a new sibling. The novel is coming along nicely. I sold one copy of the short story. I think Amazon’s page told me to over price it and am dropping it down to $0.99 for a few weeks to see if there’s any difference. I’ve also started one of two non-fiction books in an undeserved niche that I think will be worth the effort. I hope to have the first one live by the end of the month. That does mean less short stories being written, but I think that’s ok for now. I think the non-fiction novel is going to be better at getting some income in the short-term whereas short stories are part of the longer-term play.

Some freelance writing work should be coming in the next month. I found a service that pays alright, not as well as direct contract work, but better than similar services traditionally have. The other thing I believe to be true is that I’ll actually be able to refer back to the work I do for them as examples (“clips” in the biz) for prospective direct clients. Ultimately this is a way to get income on the way in while building up a base of released books. I see writing such as this as the short-term filler for the long-term game of being an author.

That’s all for now. Every minute writing this is minutes not writing other stuff!

August is coming to a close which means it’s State Fair season back in Minnesota. I hope to get us to visit that fair again in the next few years. Every year is obviously not happening anymore, but I do miss it.

Out here the kids have settled into school and the new routine. The computers in the house have been having issues though. Since the upgrade to Windows 10 mine has been restarting as much as 4 times a day blaming the video driver. (Usually about once every 12 hours though) Some searching has revealed the issue to possibly be related to having an SSD as a primary and a SATA as a secondary drive. I hope whatever it is it gets fixed fast. I am working such that stuff is saved to the cloud in near real-time, but it’s frustrating when the computer restarts two times in less than an hour. The laptop is better, but still restarts occasionally and has screen blackouts once in a while.

All of this wouldn’t be quite as bad if I had income coming in by now, but that hasn’t yet happened. The freelance bit is hard to get started due to my lack of connections and introvert tendencies. I’ve been trying to vary my marketing approach to get results. I think I need to figure out how to offer a writing service a company needs to them still. the novel is almost ready to be written. I’ve got it mostly planned and the group I’m in has September as a writing month. I’d love to see the first two books of the trilogy written by next year, and that’s not too far-fetched. I’ve started working on some in-world short stories to help build a mailing list and maybe even get early sales, but of course as a new author that can’t justify spending $300 on a cover for a <5,000 word short story that’s not likely to make more than $50 over the next few months. (It’s about the ROI of the investment. the math just doesn’t work yet.) The job market continues to not be great. I’ve had a few leads over the last month, but they have either been development jobs, to far to commute, or didn’t result in an interview.

Speaking of the short stories. The first one, bad cover and all, is out now and currently free. (Amazon Link) I won’t get any royalties if you pick it up now, but if you do and can honestly leave a positive review, that can only help me. Something to remember, it’s a science fiction/cyberpunk short. If you’re a die-hard romance reader you probably won’t like it. However, you could send it to someone you know that likes that type of story?

That’s all for now. I really want to finish that outline ASAP. Hopefully tonight, probably tomorrow. Writing month starts Thursday.

Somehow we managed to make it to the mid-point of August. Wow.

The kids are settling into school. Cecilia is taking to the new schedule with a little bit of difficulty, but I suppose that’s to be expected. Gideon struggled with it too.

I’m still struggling to find my place as a freelance writer. I know technology and can write for it, but I’m struggling to write compelling Letters Of Introduction (LOI) to companies. I think my problem at this point is a lack of identifying specifically what I will write for them. I tend to leave it open, kind of a “let me know what you need” statement instead of a “let me write you a <type of writing job>” statement. I think I can overcome this if I do a bit better research on the companies before I send out letters.

The novel-writing is coming along. I’ve narrowed a focus to Cyberpunk and am working on knowing my story. That means I’m meeting the characters, touring the setting, and figuring out the story/plot points. It’s going alright. By the end of the month I should have a solid outline with enough detail to allow me to flow out the novel itself. Based on my typing speed when I’m not trying to figure out a story to tell that means I’ll easily finish on track for a February or so release.

I guess an author’s mailing list is their lifeblood, and I have two ideas of freebies to entice people to join a mailing list. Thing is, I need to write them alongside the books. One should do for a mailing list reward, the others can become novellas or short stories on Kindle Unlimited I think. For now, I have nothing other than the offer of a newsletter at unknown intervals to entice people to join.

Speaking of that mailing list, please feel free to join it here. You’ll be in the “in club” when I make it as a successful author later. You’ll be like those kids that were all “I’ve known about <insert band name here> for years, they’re selling out now” when your friends ask if you’ve heard of this new Sci-Fi author. Or not. Hopefully not, nobody wants to be one of those kids…

(Here’s a big long version of that link in case the one above got hidden. thanks for joining!)