Stories are everywhere when you take the time to sit down and talk. But first an update on part of mine. For several months now, I’ve been receiving weekly help to organize my life. I’m at last seeing seeing the dividends, beyond feeling calmer and less like a mouse running, running on a wheel going nowhere. I now have three writing projects on the go:
- Lifeliner, the eBook
- Lifeliner, the screenplay
- She, the novel
Lifeliner, the eBook is out. Currently, I’m in week 2 (or is it 3?) of the hard part: marketing it. To market, one must be persistent and consistent. But brain injuries interfere with both. Even if you can start a project, some little hiccup like a bad day or questions on how to fill in a form or a distracting phone call, will make you stop in your tracks and not pick it up again. Other times you may be chugging along nicely, when all of a sudden you forget or you get out of your routine or your second brain the PDA dies and all your tasks go down the drain as you struggle to remember what you’re supposed to do and all you perceive is great blankness. These problems are worse, of course, if you don’t really want to do it, like with marketing. The great thing about having organizing help is that the hiccup or forgetfulness lasts a week at the most; the greater thing is having help to break down the project, identify its priority, and schedule it in a way that ensures it’ll happen. We’ve done that, and I’ve started regularly writing and submitting press releases. I received an enormous boost from a fellow Twitterer who gave me valuable feedback on the first one. With a solid foundation, it was easier to write the second one.
It’s been over a month since I finished writing the Lifeliner screenplay during Script Frenzy. Since my therapist and I had decided my priority was on something that could generate income – republishing Lifeliner as a multi-format eBook – I had put off revising my script. I can only do so much at once, you know! But after an abortive attempt last week, I got down to it this week. Step one: read the script through all in one go. Step one was tough. My reading ability continues to be weak. It’s partly because the brain injury reset the frequency of my brain’s alpha waves down (more on alpha waves here). Sooo…I tried but I couldn’t do it all in one go. I did, however, do it all in one day in four 30-minute increments, with the help of copious amounts of chocolate, sugar-laden foods, and coffee (the brain uses glucose for energy, and caffeine is a stimulant).
I continue to search for an agent for my novel She, which I wrote last November during NaNoWriMo. I had a nibble or two but nothing came of it. I could forego the headache of searching and go straight to a small publisher or publish it as an eBook, but I’d like to have an agent for all those other non-print rights – film, foreign, game – plus an agent is a good person to help one chart a career. One advantage of publishing it as an eBook right now is it would help me build up a library quickly. Authors with more than one published book under their belt are more credible – unless you’ve managed to write a debut-hit wonder. Not so in my case. Sigh. The problem with myself publishing it as an eBook is I would have to invest about $1,000 at least in a good editing and proofreading job. I don’t have that kind of money anymore. But having worked as both an editor and proofreader, I know how valuable those services are in producing a polished, enjoyable book. And, as a writer, I would not want to skip having those smart pairs of eyes looking over my manuscript, catching problems, ensuring flow, suggesting good ideas to improve upon it.
I have another way to build my libary: put all the short stories I wrote pre-injury, stories that are polished and ready to publish, in one eBook. That is on my ToDo list. And then there is the rare moment I stumble upon a story, a story that is best told in a photograph but provides fodder for one of my blogs, each of which enables me to both practice my writing and engage my readership in the now as I work towards building my library for the future.
