Category Archives: A writer’s world

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

Am I working or merely wasting my time?

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As you may have noticed, I just published three books. That’s the good news. The bad news is that that means that I’m out of works in progress, and back to square one, to that dreadful stage that can probably be described as ‘pre-production’. Fair enough, that’s part of the game, and I do have an idea stuck between my ears that I’m currently trying to develop. The problem is that I usually try to maintain a certain routine when it comes to my writing habits, and at this stage the line between working and wasting my time has an annoying tendency to get more than a little blurry, why? Well, because in order to work out a story I have to give my mind a kind of freedom, but if I give it that freedom it tends to wander. If I try to drag it back to what it should be doing -usually kicking and screaming- it just sits there and sulks. If I allow it to go wandering along it doesn’t sulk, but I still don’t get much done.

So here I am, allowing my mind to go where it pleases… and wondering whether I am working or merely wasting my time.

NOTE- for the time being relevant posts such as this one are being crossposted from my new blog, but I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep up that particular practice. Of course, I’ll let you know when/if I decide to stop (as you might have noticed, right now things are in a state of flux)

A writer's world, Adventures in Self-publishing, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

News and updates

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Hi guys. Okay, so the blog has been languishing for a while, the good news is that I’ve been busy writing, and a few new titles should be coming out in the next few weeks. Another thing I’ll probably be doing is redesigning the site as a whole. This blog is not going anywhere, and the same goes for the legacy aspects of the site, but for the most part I’ll probably be changing the way in which things are organized by moving some things to a different site where I don’t have to worry about exceeding GreenGeek’s ridiculously limited ‘unlimited’ service (if you’ve been following this site for a while, you are probably aware that that’s been an ongoing issue for some time, as I’m fed up with the fact that traffic spikes are routinely penalized).

For a while there I considered of opening a facebook page. That would have been the logical thing, but I admit that by now my refusal to have a facebook account is pretty much a matter of principle (I don’t like the fact that having such an account seems to have become almost a requirement, especially considering their rather cavalier approach to privacy). Anyway, that’s where things stand, so watch this space!

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

Like pieces of a puzzle

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Writing a book can feel a lot like putting a puzzle together… with the difference that you only have a vague idea as to how the final thing is going to look like (and more often than not it changes in the process). The thing is that you usually have a starting point, otherwise you can’t really get started, but once you are done with the edges you have a huge span of emptiness with few clues as to what goes where. As you near the end, on the other hand, there are only a few sections to fill in,  and far fewer pieces to fill them with, the end result: if you’ve done it right, you will reach a point where the story will basically lead you towards its natural end.

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

When a story suddenly clicks into place

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Yesterday was a weird day. Early in the morning I realized that I had basically painted myself into a corner in the story I am currently working on. As you can probably imagine, I was not exactly happy about that, but by the end of the day not only had I figured out how to get myself out of that mess, but I had also managed to work around a number of issues in a way that actually made sense.

I love it when things suddenly click into place! 😀

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

Sometimes I scare myself

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Okay, so I was working on a new idea, another take of a possible future, with ‘possible’ being the operative word. The end result? I somehow wound up really scaring myself. Oh, well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

On a more positive note, I just put a book to marinate for a couple of months. If everything goes according to plan, it should be ready before the year is out.

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

New book coming along nicely, Citlalli, not so much

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Okay, so the good news is that the book I’m currently working on is coming along nicely, and will probably be published before the year is out. The better news is that I am also working on another project. That one’s in the early stages, but it too is shaping up nicely. The not so good news is that Citlalli is being stubborn.

I know it’s silly, but it still feels like that one’s been poisoned by the problems I had with my cover artist, who used to be one of my best friends.  No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be abandoning it, but the truth is that I don’t know when will I get around to writing the fourth and final book. What I do know is that it would be worse for me to write it feeling that it is some sort of chore, than to wait a while before coming back to that project.

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

A blessing in disguise

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As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago I was having some pretty serious issues with my cover designer, who up until then had been one of my best friends. I freely admit that the whole ordeal left me feeling utterly miserable (and I still miss her, after all, a friendship of more than a decade is not built overnight, though it can certainly be torpedoed in an instant). The thing is that as I was wondering what to do, and how I could possibly re-imagine one of the covers she was supposed to do, I hit upon an idea. It was completely different from the one I had originally envisioned, but there was something about it that got to me… and before I knew it I had the beginnings of a brand new book. Will that story bloom? I don’t know, it’s too early to tell, but for the time being it seems to have taken root between my ears. Funny how these things tend to work out in the end

A writer's world, It's my life, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

When a book is poisoned

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Okay, as you may have noticed there have been a few delays when it comes to the third book of Citlalli. The truth is that the book itself is done and even formatted, but I’ve been having some issues with its cover. Without going into details, I got into a pretty big argument with my (former) cover artist a couple of days ago, and to make matters worse that cover artist was also one of my closest friends. The problem is that this situation hasn’t just left me in the lurch when to comes to this book’s cover (that’s not such a big deal), but also left me feeling like the whole series has been poisoned. Right now I can’t even think of this project without remembering the fight we had, and I think I need some time to regroup. So where does that leave me? Well, I’ll probably wait a few weeks and then I’ll try to find  a new cover artist. After that I will probably finish the first draft of a different book that is more that half-way done anyway, and then I’ll turn my attention to the fourth and final book. In other words, while there are going to be some additional delays, I am not abandoning the project. I have too much effort invested into it for that, but for the time being I do feel the need to take a step back.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know just where things stood.

No, I don’t like the idea of missing a deadline, not even if it is a self-imposed one, but unfortunately under the circumstance I honestly believe that this is the lesser evil.

A writer's world, Fun stuff, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish, This & that

Borges said it best…

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I just came across this quote from Borges:

Publicamos nuestros libros para librarnos de ellos, para no pasar el resto de nuestras vidas corrigiendo borradores

That translates roughly into:

We publish our books so that we can rid ourselves of them, so that we won’t have to spend the rest of our lives polishing drafts.

Considering how much time I’ve spent going over the same book lately, I can’t help but to agree.

A writer's world, Random Thoughts, Read, write, publish

Of growth and cringing

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I am currently getting ready to tackle the last two rounds of corrections of the third book in the Citlalli series, and one of the things that entails is going over books one and two one more time to ensure continuity. The problem is that rereading them is incredibly frustrating, as I keep finding things I would like to change, but have no choice but to leave as they are. Yes, on a rational level I know, the fact that I can’t help but to feel that the earlier books are missing something is a good sign, I know it shows that I have grown since then, and so on… but I still cringe when I read them, I just can’t help it. Here’s hoping that when I go over book three a year from now, I won’t find it as cringe-worthy… or maybe I should hope that I will.