An Author's Nightmare
The horror! Once upon a time, my first manuscript story got locked up in a common word processing software for six hours due to maintenance or something… who knows?
At first, I panicked. The muse was talking in my head. The scene was flowing. I couldn't write any of it! ARRGH!!!!
It was almost painful. I was frustrated without a doubt. I waited. The scene faded and I became angry. (I tried to write it down on paper, but I can't write as fast as I can type.) I decided that I wouldn't suffer that way again.
Now, I prefer to call that divine intervention. It was a sign that I needed to change what I was doing. I was done with that software at that point. (Okay, I still had to use it for work, but I wasn't required to do it for my stories. If you use it and like it, I hope you continue. For me, I'm a Google girl... err tiger.)
As soon as I regained access, I moved everything to Google Docs and have never regretted it. Google Docs is FREE and converts documents effortlessly into document (doc), paperback (pdf), and ebook (epub) formats. (Those formats are the most important ones for publishing.)
It also meshes with Grammarly. Win-win-win as Fox would say... (Disclaimer: I'm not a paid spokesperson for Google. I just prefer that program for my writing.)
Only I didn’t know any of that about Google Docs when I made the switch. What I knew was that I could access Google Docs from anywhere... even on my PHONE! That was great. As soon as I got a Samsung Note 8, I was off to the races. (It was 2017.) I mean I still write mostly on my laptop or desktop, but I was free to write even if I didn't have access to a computer.
With Google, I was writing everywhere: the dentist’s office, waiting in line at the bank teller, in between classes, all summer, every night, and every weekend. (Passion or Obsession? It's a fine line that I'm sure I crossed instantly.)
The Twist! I thought I had escaped the nightmare only to find that Google Docs has a word limit!? What the...?
I was pissed because I couldn’t type anymore. My story would no longer fit on the document. It was almost as irritating as having no access. Now what? (Remember, I was new to writing. Nothing had been published. I was just writing my crazy story.)
I sat back stumped and stared at a screen that simply refused any more letters to appear from the strokes of the keyboard. How could it just stop letting me type? I needed to write the scene.
I Googled how many words a Google Docs manuscript could have. Then I realized how many words I'd already written. It was a lot. I challenge you to do that search and see what you find. (Laugh when you do. It's funny.)
Did that matter? My logic said that a bigger story was usually a better story. (At least that's how I'd bought the biggest book I could find at the grocery store as a child in love with reading.)
I then did the research into how many words were in different types of books and the averages in different genres. I realized I didn’t have one story. I had enough words for three, and the third one wasn’t done. The effort that goes into just learning the tidbits that you are familiar with but take for granted was serious.
I laughed at how unenlightened I was. (Some writer I was. I didn't even know how long a book was.) Then I began the task of discovering where the natural breaks in the story were. I broke the story down into three novel-length tales, finished the third story, and kept on writing.
Later I realized that those three stories were seven tales, but that's only recently come to light for me with operation Divide and Conquer. (You can read about that craziness here.)
I’m a problem solver. Or a work maker. Either way, I could write, the muse was happy, and the need to keep going was assuaged. The nightmare was over.
Shameless Self Promotion
So now that I've mentioned the Divide and Conquer project, I would like to present to you the latest tale in that effort. At the moment, these stories are exclusive to OpheliaKee.com. This particular tale came about as I broke Filth and Death. So my epic urban fantasy of over 130,000 words did separate quite nicely into two novel-length stories. This is the blurb for Eldur and Snow's tale.
Snow’s Dragon A Draoithe Saga Tale
Eldur is a Viking, a resurrected dragon, a death dealer, and the King of the Basilisks. He also suffers from mental illness, owns a host of secrets, and doesn’t play well with others.
The magic he was crafted with allows him to hear the echo of his Valkyrie’s demise before it happens, leading him straight to Draoithe in search of his arctic wolf shifter mate and a way to stop her from dying. On his way, the magic calls him to serve as the underking of a demon-possessed man who’s plotting the murder of the criminal half of himself.
Eldur swears his oath, worried that he may need to kill his king, and sets off on a mission to rescue immortals and his Valkyrie who is trapped in one of Peter Elliot’s medical experiment houses. Can he save his king and win the heart of his Valkyrie, or will the darkness in his soul and a broken mind full of secrets spell his doom?
Welcome to the dream…
Steamy Paranormal Romance 18+ HEA! NC! Fated Mates Urban Fantasy
***Warning: Adult Themes, Fantasy Violence, and/or Explicit Sexual Situations. Intended for a Mature Audience.
Marketing
For the blog readers only:
14th Annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale! July 1 - July 31, 2022
50% off all of Ophelia Kee's paranormal romance and urban fantasy titles with lots of freebies!
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/opheliakee
So paid marketing is on the back burner where it commonly resides as I never seem to have any money. I was lucky enough to land another free promotion with Radish and that has paid off well. Thanks to anyone who reads on Radish. Your support is greatly appreciated.
I ran two super cheap ads on Amazon ($1 a day at $.25 per click fixed bid). One in the UK and the other in America. Nothing happened in the USA. I sold a few books in the UK even though I've spent more on the ad than I have earned in royalties. I'm eyeballing the blurbs as the reason. It could be the covers. I'm still working on it.
I must look more intensely at how to do that properly. It rubs my fur the wrong way to pay in ad spend to Amazon the same royalties that I'm earning from book sales plus a little more. It winds up being a wash or a loss. If I can't learn how to make that profitable, I'll need to back away from it.
I had another awesome weekend of visitors to OpheliaKee.com. We hit over 1000 again this past Saturday. Thanks to everyone who stops in and checks out the posts and peruses the bookstore front. Payhip has rolled out a new bundling ability that I may attempt soon. So if you haven't been to my storefront, I invite you to check it out.
I need to get some other book stuff done. Thanks again for popping in to see what's going on in the dream. Please remember to be kind when you read and leave your reviews.
Be Careful,
Happy Reading,
Ophelia Kee
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Thank you for your support! Sincerely, -OK
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