S.M. Butler's Blog, page 16

I’ve been working on the serial’s first book for a while now. I’m almost done with it, and now I get to decide how exactly it’s going to go out into the world. Eventually, it’ll hit retailers, but I decided that my followers on Patreon should get the finished version before anyone else.

So here’s the deal. It’s gonna be ready later this month, or maybe early March. Not sure of the date yet. So for those of you that sign up to be a Patron this month and are still a Patron after the monthly charges go through on March 1st, I’ll send a copy of the finished book in epub format for you guys to download.

The bonus will be that since you’ll be a patron, you’ll get access to my weekly podcast update thing that I do there (if you choose that reward tier), and book 2 of the Marked serial as it comes out (which is available for all reward tiers).

Next piece of news is that I’ll be at the Haltom City Public Library tonight for their annual Night of Romance, with books in tow. I’d love to see the local peeps if you guys can make it out. They’re gonna have refreshments, and a chocolate fountain, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Hey guys! I’ve been writing a lot lately, so I’ve been kind of neglecting online time, both here on the blog and on social media. I did send out a newsletter a week or two ago and probably will send out another in the next week or so. And they get all the juicy details before everyone else does so you might want to sign up if you’re into that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I’m finishing up the expansion of the first book in the Marked serial this week. I’ll be putting that out probably late February or March. Book 2 will start posting over on Patreon shortly after that releases, but I don’t really have a date for it yet. I’m thinking  doing something fun for the release, but I don’t know what. We shall see, I think.

And finally, let’s talk about the Seekrit Book You Will Love. I’ve been talking on social media about this book for a while. Even posted progress bars. You guys give me such motivation to finish when you’re commenting on the progress bars all excited and stuff. It makes me really happy that you guys are still so excited even though it’s been a while since I published a book.

Time’s getting close to when I’m going to unveil what book it is, but I had to set it down for a little bit to finish the first Marked book’s revisions. It kind of got set back about a month from when I planned on finishing it. This is actually why I don’t announce them immediately, because that happens a lot, and I don’t want to disappoint y’all by saying this is what I’m going to release and then have to change the dates on you. So I usually wait until it’s more concrete to announce it.

I guess I’ve been doing the same thing with this book, keeping it close to the vest until I know for sure that I’m going to finish it and be able to publish it. It does feature Lucky Thirteen characters in it, but I decided when I started writing again, that I needed a fresh start as well, so it’s actually book 1 in a new series that sort of spins off from Lucky Thirteen.  I’ve also started writing and trashed 6 different versions of it, so I had yet another reason to keep it close until first draft was done.

I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turned out so far so I’m hoping I’ll be able to put it out there soon.

I think that’s all I got for now. I’ll be sending out a newsletter in a few days with a little bit more info on stuff coming up, so don’t forget to get on that list so you don’t miss anything.

Love you all. I better get back to writing now.

Oh, darn. *snaps fingers in disappointment* /sarcasm

 

We have a matter of days before the end of 2017, and I wanted to at least get one more blog post in before then. So I thought it would be fun to look back and reflect a little on the year. By far, it has been a way better year than 2016. I can safely say that 2016 was probably the worst year of my life, for a myriad of reasons that I’d rather not go into right now. But when you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere else to go but up.

My decision to make this site more about me as a creative rather than just a writer was one of the best decisions I really ever made. I spent a year frustrated and angry with myself because my motivation and my inspiration were at an all-time low. So when I came back to the online world around the middle of 2017, I promised myself little to no stress. I didn’t want to experience the burn-out again.

I think I’ve been able to do that quite well. Balance is still a struggle, because with my personality, I want to do all the things, and I want to do them all RIGHT NOW. But that’s not physically or mentally possible for me to do that and stay sane.

I think balance is the key that I’ve always missed. I’ve always been a all-in sort of girl. As soon as I get an idea, I’m 1000% focused on it for two or three weeks. Then suddenly, it fizzles. That’s kind of what happened with writing. I went full force for longer than I ever have on a creative venture. Then suddenly it all crashed.

Refocusing myself has been a long process. It’s been nearly six months since I nuked my old website and started over. I can’t say that it’s been an amazing year. It hasn’t. But it also hasn’t been a bad year either. It’s been a year of rebuilding. Of fixing past mistakes and trying to move on from them. Of getting off my ass and putting the pieces of my life back together.

I retooled my serial idea, and made it into something more enjoyable for me.
I started working on my next to-be-published work, a book that took me 5 false starts to write at all. Yes, this is the seekrit book I’ve been talking about on Facebook. I’m almost ready to talk about it. I just wanted to get through the first draft before I did, because I feel like admitting the characters in it would put a lot of undue pressure on me to finish right NOW.
I got a job with a company I love, making more money than I ever have. I’m still not rich, but I’m not hurting anymore. my job gave me stability and peace of mind (and insurance and a retirement plan) so I could focus my efforts on creative endeavors.
I set up to launch another part-time business. I’m opening an online stationery shop next year under my real name. You might think I’m nuts to do that because part of my burn-out was overdoing it. But I think this will be beneficial because it’s going to be something different from writing. It’s going to be a different part of me, allow me to switch gears from writing to drawing or painting or whatever when I need to take a break from writing.

Every year, I sit down and think about what I want to accomplish for the next year. From all that, I figure out what the common theme is, and choose a word that best fits that theme. I actually do this around October or November, and I’ve done it for years, some more religiously than others.

This year, I decided on the theme of CHANGE for 2018. This year was about getting back into things, and fixing what broke. Next year, I’m going to take those newly glued pieces and make something out of it. Rebuilding didn’t seem like the right word though, because that’s what I was doing this year. CHANGE worked better for me, because it’s about not repeating the same mistakes, and changing my old habits for new ones that will be better for me in the long run.

So here we are at the end of 2017, looking into the near future to 2018. There’s a lot of changes, most for the better, coming, but that’s the whole point. I’m excited, for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling good about my life, about my online life, and so much more.

Here’s the 2018, folks. May yours be as fruitful as you wish it to be. Let’s make 2018 a fantastic year for us all.

A year or two ago, some of you may remember, I posted a serial in my newsletter every week for a few months. People loved it, but I was stretched too thin and was too busy to continue it. I abandoned the project to work on other things.

But as with all good stories and characters, they wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to find a way to write them but posting free content, while it’s awesome for you guys, sucks up a lot of time I could be using to write new books that you guys will also love and also makes me money. It just wasn’t feasible and I was back to square one, especially since I’m now working a full-time job.

But then I remembered I had a Patreon account that I’d completely dropped for a long time. So I started thinking hard about how I could leverage that platform to make a steady income and be able to write the stories like Section Five that I really wanted to write.

The website is all put together now, and I will be continuing that poor doomed serial over at its new home site, The Section Five Serial. Posts will be about twice a month. I thought about once a week, but I don’t want to push it too hard and burn out again. So new serial posts will be bi-weekly for now, starting in early 2018.

What does this mean for readers?

It means you can read the Section Five story on that site by pledging a small amount a month via Patreon to gain access. But that’s not your only option. Once each book is completed, I’ll compile all the parts together, get a thorough edit done, and upload to all major retailers for sale. The first book in its original condition is already there on Patreon, from when I sent it out to my newsletter group. The new version that will go out to retailers is a little different, somewhat longer, but the core of the story has stayed the same.

Look for the first book on retailers soon!

If you weren’t on my newsletter when I first posted the story, no worries. Early 2018, I will be releasing a completely reworked and expanded version of the first book in the serial, Marked for Death. Even those of you that have read the previous version might be interested in the new one, as many changes have been made. The core story is the same, but I added some flourishes. It’s currently going through edits, and hopefully will be ready to go soon.

2018 is bringing a whirlwind of changes here in the SM Butler world. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to share my writing with y’all. I’m excited. In fact, I can’t wait. I’ve really missed this.

I’ve been working a lot on the website this past couple of weeks, which is why I haven’t really posted any blog posts lately. I didn’t want to have to move a lot of content.

You never know what you’re going to like when it comes to websites until you try it out. I tried Squarespace because it was easy when I needed easy. But it is limiting for my purposes, so I decided to move back to WordPress.

So you’ll see a new look now when you go to the home page.

When I first started writing and creating again, I needed some things to be automatic and not something I needed to think about a lot. My website was one of those. Now I have a graphic design background, and you might wonder why I wanted to give up a lot of control over the way my website looks. The answer is that it’s because it was simple. I could drag and drop what I needed and not have to think about much else.

But now I’m back to the point where I need a little more customization than Squarespace can offer me, and that’s ok. I like Squarespace a lot, but it’s to the point where I’m outgrowing it again. So I’m back to wordpress.

So from now on, now that I’m moved over, I should be more regular with content. I will be posting about once a week, maybe twice. I’ll also start posting the second book in the serial in a few weeks, though that’s probably going to be more of a biweekly thing and it will be on the serial website and exclusive for paid Patreon members. You can read about why I did that in this post on the serial website.

Oh, and I’m on Books+Main Bites now. It’s a new site focused on readers. I’ll be posting snippets of my books there every once in a while. It is a site that charges for authors to be on there, though it’s free for readers, so I don’t know if I’m going to stay there or not. We shall see how it goes and if it’s worth the money. I’m trying to move soon, so I don’t really have a lot of spare cash. LOL.

Okay, I think that’s all I got right now. I really just wanted to post something to say, yeah, I’m still around. I didn’t disappear again. Just been doing a lot of behind the scenes work and didn’t want to screw it up. I’ll see you guys soon. Gonna have some news to share soon, too, so stay tuned!

Much love, you guys.

I’ve been doing a lot here in the Butler homestead. Last week brought a lot of writing, and it’s crazy to think a month ago, I was having trouble writing at all. Now the ideas are flowing, and I’m working on multiple projects again.

What does that mean?

It means I have to be careful not to fall into my normal habits. Part of the reason I had to take a break from writing and publishing was burn out. I pushed hard, I wrote a LOT… And made it a chore instead of something I should love to do. I was doing too much, and in the end, I disappointed a lot of people.

So, what am I going to do?

I’m still going to let myself work on multiple projects. One I’m channeling into something that was an old project, but I’ve revamped into something new. Then there’s my NaNoWriMo project. I’m doing fairly well on it right now. I haven’t written every day, but I’m staying on track to finish 50,000 words by November 30.

What else is going on?

I’ll be starting my newsletter back up this week. I was waiting to get some link issues resolved before I sent anything out on the newsletter. It won’t be weekly like it was before. Probably just one good one a month, maybe two. Not sure yet. I was worried about not having content for you guys, because I’m not publishing anything new until early 2018 at this point, but I think I’ve figured it out and I think we’re going to have a good time.

Look for more awesome soon!

I’m still doing other creative things, like I’m still practicing my hand lettering and using mandala art to relax and wind down. I think those were instrumental in getting my mind back on writing again. And I think that when you concentrate on one thing for too long… at least for me… I get burnt on it, it loses its appeal. And I don’t want that to happen.

So it’s all about balance now. How I manage the writing and the other stuff in my life so I don’t have to take a year or two off again. It’s important to me that I can keep this going. And I couldn’t have done any of it without the support and love I got from everyone of y’all that read this blog or follow me on Facebook or Twitter.

Ok. Time for me to get to writing, so I will end this now, otherwise I’ll just keep on talking.

See you guys on the flip side after I get word count done for the day.

I've been doing a lot here in the Butler homestead. Last week brought a lot of writing, and it's crazy to think a month ago, I was having trouble writing at all. Now the ideas are flowing, and I'm working on multiple projects again.

What does that mean?

It means I have to be careful not to fall into my normal habits. Part of the reason I had to take a break from writing and publishing was burn out. I pushed hard, I wrote a LOT... And made it a chore instead of something I should love to do. I was doing too much, and in the end, I disappointed a lot of people.

So, what am I going to do?

I'm still going to let myself work on multiple projects. One I'm channeling into something that was an old project, but I've revamped into something new. Then there's my NaNoWriMo project. I'm doing fairly well on it right now. I haven't written every day, but I'm staying on track to finish 50,000 words by November 30.

What else is going on?

I'll be starting my newsletter back up this week. I was waiting to get some link issues resolved before I sent anything out on the newsletter. It won't be weekly like it was before. Probably just one good one a month, maybe two. Not sure yet. I was worried about not having content for you guys, because I'm not publishing anything new until early 2018 at this point, but I think I've figured it out and I think we're going to have a good time.

Look for more awesome soon!

I'm still doing other creative things, like I'm still practicing my hand lettering and using mandala art to relax and wind down. I think those were instrumental in getting my mind back on writing again. And I think that when you concentrate on one thing for too long... at least for me... I get burnt on it, it loses its appeal. And I don't want that to happen.

So it's all about balance now. How I manage the writing and the other stuff in my life so I don't have to take a year or two off again. It's important to me that I can keep this going. And I couldn't have done any of it without the support and love I got from everyone of y'all that read this blog or follow me on Facebook or Twitter.

Ok. Time for me to get to writing, so I will end this now, otherwise I'll just keep on talking.

See you guys on the flip side after I get word count done for the day.

You know how I was having trouble writing a month ago?

That’s not a problem now. LOL.

I don’t know what happened. But i started writing this book on Friday last week, and it’s literally all I can think about. it’s torture at work, because I have zero time to do writing-related things at work. I’ve written 13k in a week when I haven’t written 1k in a year. LOL. It’s crazy, but I’m running with it.

I’m trying hard not to ramble about the new book on here, because I don’t want to curse it. It does feature some Lucky Thirteen characters, even though, i think I’m going to put it as the first book in a new series. I think it’s a little different in tone than the Lucky Thirteen series, but it still has the charm I think that everyone loves about that series.

I’m also doing another redesign on the website, because I’m ridiculous and can’t help myself. But I really love the new look. Make sure you’re subscribed to my BFF newsletter, because they will be getting a sneak peek and be able to see the site before it goes live. More info on that will be going out via email later, if you are on my list. It’s been about a year since I sent out a newsletter, so I’m preparing myself for the massive unsubscribes that will happen when I do send one out. And also, I’m not incredibly sure how to broach the email, since it’s been a year. We shall see how it goes soon, though.

I think that’s all I had. New book. New website. New newsletter. 

I’m probably forgetting something.

I always do.

That’s okay though. I’ll make another post if I remember it. I’m trying to think of things to do for Patreon too. This book I’m doing isn’t the right project for it, but maybe I can think of another one that might do well there. Or maybe I need to concede that I just need to write something specifically for it. LOL

Okay. I’m going back to writing. Y’all have a fantastic Friday, and a wonderful weekend. I’ll see you guys on Monday! 

You know how I was having trouble writing a month ago?

That's not a problem now. LOL.

I don't know what happened. But i started writing this book on Friday last week, and it's literally all I can think about. it's torture at work, because I have zero time to do writing-related things at work. I've written 13k in a week when I haven't written 1k in a year. LOL. It's crazy, but I'm running with it.

I'm trying hard not to ramble about the new book on here, because I don't want to curse it. It does feature some Lucky Thirteen characters, even though, i think I'm going to put it as the first book in a new series. I think it's a little different in tone than the Lucky Thirteen series, but it still has the charm I think that everyone loves about that series.

I'm also doing another redesign on the website, because I'm ridiculous and can't help myself. But I really love the new look. Make sure you're subscribed to my BFF newsletter, because they will be getting a sneak peek and be able to see the site before it goes live. More info on that will be going out via email later, if you are on my list. It's been about a year since I sent out a newsletter, so I'm preparing myself for the massive unsubscribes that will happen when I do send one out. And also, I'm not incredibly sure how to broach the email, since it's been a year. We shall see how it goes soon, though.

I think that's all I had. New book. New website. New newsletter. 

I'm probably forgetting something.

I always do.

That's okay though. I'll make another post if I remember it. I'm trying to think of things to do for Patreon too. This book I'm doing isn't the right project for it, but maybe I can think of another one that might do well there. Or maybe I need to concede that I just need to write something specifically for it. LOL

Okay. I'm going back to writing. Y'all have a fantastic Friday, and a wonderful weekend. I'll see you guys on Monday! 

I’ve always been a pretty hardcore pantser. In fact, I used to boast about it quite a bit. But when you take a year off from writing, your writing muscles atrophy. You have to relearn a lot of what was already automatic.

I think for me, it was less that I didn’t plan, but that the process I used was so automatic that I could hold it in my head. When I came back to writing, I found that I couldn’t do that with any kind of success anymore. So I spent a good couple weeks rereading writing books I’d read before, and picked up a couple new ones recommended by other authors to me.

So maybe my process has changed a little. I realized this may be the case as I was prepping for NaNoWriMo, and figuring out the story I wanted to tell in November. I don’t know how much yet, just know that it’s different.

But different isn’t bad. It’s different. It doesn’t mean that I won’t love the process any less. But maybe I might love it more? I don’t know yet. Let’s see how it goes.