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My Top 5 Posts

Dr. Robert Goddard at Clark University
Dr. Robert Goddard at Clark University – via Flickr

I have been busy. Real busy. So while keep plugging away I figured in the interim it’d be fun to visit my top 5 blog of all time. So here we go, starting with number five:

5. Building A Better Book Cover

I have spent the better part of 15 years working as a designer. So at the beginning of 2014 I shared some of my knowledge on what it takes to make a great book cover. I got a lot of positive feedback on this one so it’s no surprise it made the top 5 list.

4. Scrivener

Scrivener is my go-to writing software for a number of reasons. Instead of rehashing on others wrote in this post I linked to some of my favorite articles about the best word processing software on the market.

3. Barnes & Noble Closing 200+ Stores

I found it amusing that this was on the list. I’m not a book industry site, nor am I a breaking news blog, yet for whatever reason this post got a lot of traction with you readers.

2. “The Stars Were Right” Cover Revealed!

This one wasn’t a surprise. I love doing cover reveals, and clearly my readers do as well. (You can see Old Broken Road‘s cover reveal here.)

So that covers the top four. The number one blog post was far and away my biggest hit scoring nearly five times the amount of traffic than The Stars Were Right‘s cover reveal and more visits than all the previous posts combined…

1. My New Whiteboard: Scapple

Back in December of last year while I was starting work on Red Litten World I picked up and began to play with Scapple. I wrote a quick review which was then re-posted by the good folks over at Literature & Latte, thanks to them traffic exploded! Since going live the post has garnered views from thousands of visitors and I still get occasional hits to this day.

So there you have it, from cover design to Scrapple, the top five posts in the last two years.A big thank you to all you readers. I really appreciate the support, your comments, and everyone’s encouragement. It makes doing this fun. Here’s to two more years, more posts, and many, many more books!

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My #NaNoWriMo Debrief

487th Bomb Group Debreifing
487th Bomb Group Debriefing – via 487thbg.org

It’s now December 2nd, which is weird because we just had Thanksgiving in America and usually it’s a week or so before December hits. So my mind is struggling to come to grips with the fact that it’s the last month and the end of the year is fast approaching. We’re now two days past the NaNoWriMo deadline, so I figured I’d give a report on my own outcome:

Like every year, I failed at achieving the NaNoWriMo. That’s okay! It’s not like the project I was working on is dead. Far from it! Every month for me is novel writing month, but NaNoWriMo holds a special place in my heart for jumpstarting me towards finishing a manuscript. It’s good practice. It’s why I participate. I went into NaNo with under 5k words and emerged with 22k words in the new project. Not a bad step in the right direction. It’s not (obviously) where I wanted to be (always moar!) but that’s nearly a quarter of the way towards my projected 100k words. A solid start.

The Stars Were Right also got a lot of attention this month. Sales have been trending pretty steadily, and the reviews keep coming in strong. I re-learned how to lay stuff out in InDesign, and the trade paperback is getting really close to release. Hoping to have an announcement for that VERY soon.

Old Broken Road is getting close to the point where I’ll hand it over to my editor for editin’ — I was hoping to do this at the beginning of November; however being a part-time writer means my time is limited, and it’s resulted in delays. I still think I am on target for an early 2014 release. Really like the place, it’s in.

I finally finished a beta-read of a friend’s novel. Other books, personal projects, work, basically everything had delayed me, but it’s done. It’s also one of the best books I have read all year. I’d be very surprised if a publisher doesn’t jump at it.

Oh! I also have started messing with Scrapple. I’m really liking it, but I am going to save my thoughts for a later post.

So that’s where I am at! I went into NaNoWriMo with almost nothing and emerged having learned some new software, finished a beta-read, came out with an edited manuscript, almost have a nearly released trade paperback, and I’m 22k words into a new project! All-in-all: not a bad November.