In case you didn’t know, I’ve also been writing a companion novella as well, Still Dying: Scenes From Dying Days, featuring short stories of some characters from the first two Dying Days books as well as new characters… what I like to do sometimes, as I’m writing a new character into the series, is do a quick short piece about them leading up to their entrance, or perhaps an origin piece… I’m currently about 10k into this book and hope to finish it right after Dying Days 2 is done and then release them both at the same time…

I also toyed with the idea of doing another Kickstarter campaign and seek donations to have you written into a flash fiction, short story or even a novella of your own… might jump on that asap…

The cover art was done (once again) by the wonderfully talented Ash Arceneaux http://www.asharceneaux.deviantart.com/

Here are the two covers… tell me what you think!

Before this last writing burst, I finished a few other short stories at the last minute and submitted them… and went eight for eight in acceptances, even with four of them written literally at the last minute.

Could lightning strike again? So far… no.

Two short stories have been rejected of the five I wrote recently, including the fungi story that I really, really liked. And they simply said ‘not for us’ (paraphrasing, of course, but there wasn’t any notes accompanying the rejection)… but that’s what happens, right?

I’ll add it to the bottom of the pile, and when it comes back around I’ll edit it again, maybe change a spot or two, and either resubmit it or simply bundle it with my previous “Rainforest of Bones” short story featuring the same character, write a third story with him, and release it as a three-pack of horror shorts…

It’s already after 2 pm and I haven’t written a single word of Dying Days 2 today… this is why I love days like yesterday, where I can roll over 3k in words, but wish I could sustain that momentum… went to breakfast, hours killed in WalMart, and then answered e-mails, traded blog links, got my new business cards from UPS (I’ll scan one later, very cool!) and generally wasted time doing household stuff like trying to get out of actually doing household stuff.

Tonight my goal is at least a thousand words… I have a big turning point in Dying Days 2 coming up this next chapter, so I know once I start it will get done.

And might’ve gotten a cool artist to do the book covers for my Steampunk releases, so I’m excited about that…

I created a character (Clockwork Katelynn), a setting (Arizuma, in the Old West of the Western Colonies), an agent of the Ministry of Defense for Mother England (Kruk), and wrote two short stories in two days.

Then I followed these up with three more steampunk short stories featuring one or both of the main characters and submitted those three to anthologies.

One of them came back rejected today already, which is fine in the grand scheme of things. With the way publishing works today, I’ll stick it in the bottom of the pile, do a rewrite when I get back to it, and either re-send it to another anthology or add it to a collecton of all these short stories.

I’m going to be at a Steampunk convention in Daytona Beach in mid-April and would like to have a Steampunk print book in hand to sell if possible. The goal was to write a short novella with these characters (15k-20k) and have the great editors/readers I use go through it chapter by chapter as I write it), and have it debut at this show.

Now, I’m thinking if one more of the remaining two come back, I might bundle the shorts into a release, add some more stories, and easily hit 20k… and if all three get rejected… nope, gotta be positive!

The rejection also drops me back down to earth with the streak of eight straight acceptances broken, but that’s fine. I’ll just have to start it over, right?

That puts me firmly behind… by the end of today I need to be at 21k, but I’m only at 16k, and I spent the morning chopping large chunks of the last two chapters that I didn’t like and knew needed to go away…

One problem I might have is that I’ve introduced some new, fresh secondary characters and they all have their own minds, own agendas, and probably all want to live. Unfortunately, they’re starring in an extreme zombie apocalypse novella, so that might not happen. It’s called Dying Days 2 for a reason.

Another problem is having many more secondary plotlines running through this one, and it might call for more than 25k, which I’ll be fine with, but it will push me into March with the writing and I already have other writing plans for next month.

We’ll see…

So, my new goal is now 9k in 9 days with no off-days or getting behind again… can I do it? Sure, it’s just another deadline…

It’s been on the minds of every struggling author for too many days and months and years…

JA Konrath is Satan, the Devil, Evil Incarnate, Lucifer, or something right out of an Edward Lee book.

You see, I’ve been an avid reader of his blog, his books, and his books about his blogs. At any given moment one of his blog posts is either on my computer or on my Kindle.

I’m not a successful author – yet – but I’m enjoying myself, selling a handful of eBooks (I’ve averaged over a hundred total sales per month, but I have 30+ releases, so you do the math there) and meeting new and exciting people that I hope will love me back, say nice things about me and buy a copy of each of the 30+ books for sale.

I fall into the illusion that I’m doing well, even though bills pile up, Kim yells at me to get a job that pays me money AND keep writing, my car is currently dead in the driveway, and I’m constantly checking my bank account for ‘miracle money’, like a dead long-lost aunt or the bank to screw up and deposit thousands in my account.

Then along comes the next blog post or next entry in a JA Konrath blog book, and I read about his success and what he did to make himself a success, and I get that feeling in my stomach like I’ve been kicked by a soccer team. I hate soccer.

But the worst part? When he talks of 500 rejections, promotion and publishers he’s made mistakes about, things he’s done wrong, and dead-ends in his career.

I don’t want to hear that! I want him to simply say ‘I wrote my first book, it sold millions, I made millions, I bought beer with my millions, so had to write book two for more beer money, and so on and so on.’ That would make me feel better.

The thought that I might be able to be as big as JA Konrath – hey, it might conceivably happen, read his posts! – gives authors hope that someday they’ll turn that corner.

Bastard.

And I’m not simply talking about huge sales, I’m talking about recognition and being able to pay the bills and be happy as an author.

You know, like JA Konrath seems to be doing now that he’d embraced eBooks and paved the way for the rest of us.

He’s making me try harder, write better, see what works and doesn’t work, and promote myself while meeting new and exciting people.

The Giveaway I’m running right now (see the post here) is going quite well, adding more people to my blog and Twitter accounts, putting my name out there with constant retweets of my post, and meeting new people.

Will it turn into eBook sales? That’s the goal, always the goal. And JA Konrath has proven that it can be done, you just need to try new and different things and see what works and doesn’t work for you.

Like I keep telling you, this dude is the Devil.

Anyway, I’ll be running two contests at the same time because (if you know me and read this blog) you’ll know I do everything crazy and to make it a bit hard on myself, like stupid deadlines and too many projects at once…

My goal is pretty simple:

First, I want to build my followers for this blog. I know, based on the number of daily views I get, that I’m doing pretty good. And the comments are pretty sweet each post, I’ve been able to connect with new people and make new friends. But I want more,oh so more… I’d like more actual blog followers, people who hit the cute ‘follow’ button and/or subscription button and hang on my every word…

To date I have 559 WordPress.com blog followers. The contest is simple: for every 1,000 followers I will choose one random follower to win a FREE eBook copy of

Darlene Bobich: Zombie Killer

and every 2,00 followers will win a FREE signed print copy of Darlene Bobich: Zombie Killer… pretty cool, eh? Just my way of saying thanks…

The second contest, running at the same time, is for Twitter… with the same rules and same prizes BUT the way I’ll pick random winners is simple… by posting (or retweeting) the following tweet, I’ll save your Twitter name and then private message the winners… just post it, mention me, get people to like me, etc. etc. Simple, right?

 #DarleneZombie RT To Win FREE Zombie books  INFO: http://tinyurl.com/77r7fbz BOOK: http://tinyurl.com/7jq8obl @ArmandAuthor

I currently have 3,149 Twitter followers, so I already owe three eBooks and a Print book to start, and then keep it going as long as it doesn’t die out… 

And I might toss in some other contests, change up the books a bit, add more to it, and take suggestions as well…

Again, my small way of saying Thank You…

Case in point… for those who don’t know, I write a series of extreme zombie books in the Dying Days series, starring Darlene Bobich. What started as a simple flash fiction piece for an anthology has grown into thousands of words spent on this character. I can toss anything in her way and she reacts. I write. Simple as that.  She tells the story.

Except, the nagging question, especially when writing horror and especially especially when writing zombie fiction is… when/if the main character dies?

If you’ve read any of my work, whether short stories, novellas or flash pieces, you know I have a tendency to kill someone, anyone… especially the main character.

All those years ago, when I read George R.R. Martin’s epic series, I was stunned when main characters died… how could he kill the fucking main character?!?!! I read the rest of the books and looked at each character differently. If he could kill Ned (oh, and others! Just wait for the HBO series to return!), no one was safe, every page might be their last. I loved it.

I decided that was the right way to do it.

Back in my junior high and high school days I was the coolest kid, Prom King, graduated first in my class…

Nope. Actually, I was the long-haired Metal-head who skated by with decent grades and spent most of my waking time playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Campaigns got boring pretty fast when none of the player’s characters died and everyone amassed huge sums of coins and magic weapons. Of course, I ran a few campaigns as Dungeon Master where I killed almost everyone, and that got boring as well.

There’s a fine line there, and something I’m always looking at. Should your main character die? Everyone around him/her? Anyone?

Eventually, Dying Days will have to end. Already I have a full plate with other non-zombie projects, and don’t have set plans for a Dying Days 3 or other Darlene Bobich stories. Not saying I won’t write them.

Hell, I might just kill her off in Dying Days 2 and see how that works.

But that will be the hardest death I ever have to write. Someday she might die… hopefully before she amasses all the coins and magic weapons and people stop caring if she lives or dies.

And, while I whined like a little girlie bitch yesterday (and a couple of other times this last few weeks), I would not give up this frantic pace of being able to write instead of going back into the ‘real world’ and have to work 50-60 hours a week…

This morning I got up early, wrote a 2,400 word steampunk tale in 2 hours (love when the ideas flow), then went to lunch with Kim (Sonny’s pulled pork sandwich, first time I’ve ever not done the all you can eat…), came home, caught up on e-mails and wrote 500 words on Dying Days 2…

Tomorrow Kim and Dylan (her son) leave until Sunday night and I have my youngest daughter, Katelynn, here with me…  just the two of us, eating pizza and junk, watching horror movies, sleeping in, playing stupid games and reading our Kindles on the couch… looking forward to Daddy Time and not much writing time tomorrow… but it’s so worth it.

Then my goal was to relax, check e-mails, play some Ravenskye on Facebook before bed, and start the day-four story (a ghost story) in the morning…

Except at three a.m. I finished the ghost story.

An idea had been festering for weeks, and I knew I’d probably use it. Last night I figured I’d open up a blank word doc so when I woke I could dive right in. Except I started free-writing some ideas for it, and suddenly I had a scene, and then the opening lines, and then I was back in the Middletown, New Jersey of my youth and writing a story based on a haunted road that freaked us out as kids.

Four hours later, it’s done. I woke up this morning and decided to do a few other things before diving back into Dying Days 2 (which I’m behind on, anyway) and see what else is going on.

Oh, and tomorrow I need another steampunk tale, but might play with that tonight as well…

Anyway, I read and rejected close to 75 stories this morning for the upcoming Undead Tales 2 zombie anthology, and put the stories for the upcoming State of Horror: New Jersey anthology in some kind of order.

I’m also watching the TV on and off, which is noise in the background. A commercial for this Dragon software came on and I’m fascinated by it. Is it really a life-saver for a writer, or is it another As Seen On TV piece of crap that will be more trouble than it’s worth? My problem is I don’t know anyone who uses it. I think I need to know.

I got my January Amazon sales report yesterday, and was semi-impressed. Impressed because my sales have risen steadily every month and I had twice as many loans in the KDP Select program as December. Semi-impressed because I still can’t live off the money I’m making, and the end of the line for unemployment and pressure from mounting bills is making my head hurt.

My print sales for CreateSpace more than tripled in the month, but it wasn’t that huge to begin with. Still, growth is growth…

Even my Barnes & Noble sales have been better than ever. I can pay the electric bill with it, which will be nice. Still can’t pay the rent or car insurance, but hopefully someday…

I’ve been trying Google AdWords for the six weeks. I’ve seen no real increase in sales of the certain books getting the most ‘clicks’… my Dying Days zombie novella has had great sales lately, but I think it has more to do with hype for the upcoming indie film version of it, rather than advertising. I froze the ad for a week to see, and my sales stayed about the same. Damn, I wanted so bad for Google AdWords to be the magic thing I was missing for thousands of sales each month.

I had the pleasure of talking to several fellow authors in the last couple of weeks on the phone. I love chatting ‘shop’ with someone who understands what it is I’m talking about. I hope more writers feel the need to pick my brain about writing, ask about publishing, or just want to meet me and see how I tick.

I’m getting very fat. Fatter, I should say. I’m hovering around the 300 mark, I’m 6 foot and 42 years old. With my luck I’ll have a massive stroke, die, and then my unpublished stories will rake in millions. I need to walk or do something other than sit here, but I have no motivation.

I feel like I’m in a race to get as many stories finished, as many stories published, and as many ideas down on paper. I don’t know why. OK, I guess I do. With being unemployed it feels like I have a very small window to realize my dream of being a self-sufficient author, but there’s that ‘life-check’ deadline coming up very soon, where I’ll have to go back to mindless retail management, and it is soul-crushing and leaves me no time to write.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I could count on 4 out of 5 of my short story submissions being rejected. Lately I’ve been on a mini-winning streak, with 8 acceptances in a row… since last year at this time I am hitting at a .400 clip, with 12 acceptances in 30 sumissions.

This 5 stories in 5 days will be added to that pile as well… I’m hoping 5 for 5… wouldn’t that be great?

Back to the fungi story… I set it in Mexico, and used the same first-person narrator from my “Rainforest of Bones” short story (set in Brazil) that appears in the Skeletal Remains anthology (the link, in case you’re curious or want to buy 786 copies: Skeletal Remains)… I like the character, and it gives me an opportuniy in the future to write another couple of stories with him set in South America. Heck, even if the fungi story gets rejected I can write another tale or two and put them all together in a short short collection. Isn’t publishing wonderful these days?

Looking at my Amazon Author page… I have 40 items for sale in publishing, mostly stuff I’ve released but some anthologies I am in as well. One gripe I had was having to track down anthologies I’m in, get Amazon to add me to the list of authors, and have it linked to my author page so I can sell copies for the publisher… shouldn’t the publisher be doing this, especially to ensure more sales because fans sometimes buy things from authors they like and/or know? It seems very short-sighted.

There’s also an anthology that listed the two editors on the cover really big and them as the authors on the Amazon page… not even a back-cover mention of any authors. This seems weird to be, like an ego stroke rather than a marketing plan to boost sales. I won’t be submitting to them in the future.

Anything else?

Yeah, I have to go and catch up writing Dying Days 2 before I get too far behind…

I also found a unique anthology about fungi last night. I read the prompt, got an idea, and then started to write it. I was 250 words into it when I realized the deadline was February 15th. Yep, today.

Some might think I was crazy to try and finish a short story of 3,000 – 5,000 words in a day, but if you’ve been reading along you’ll see a pattern emerging with my writing… nothing like the last minute.

To that end, and since the previous two days I wrote and finished a Steampunk story each day, I decided to seek out other anthologies due now.

So, the goal is five stories in five days (and write Dying Days 2 AND write more of the Dying Days movie script).

Today will be fungi horror (and mushroom fun!)

Tomorrow? A ghost story – I’ll figure out the plot later

Then on Friday, another Steampunk tale, but I’ve already started another one

Saturday? I haven’t gotten that far… but five stories in five days seems like a nice goal… will let you know how I do!