Work, Stress, and Perspective

Earlier this week, I launched my first novel: Random Walk, Book One in the Fractured Galaxy series. Very exciting.

Also a little nerve-racking because, as my first novel, there's a lot riding on this project's financial success. I moved half-way across the country just so I could afford to live without a day job in order to write this book (and some other writing projects), and many friends and family gave generously of their time and money to help me bring it to fruition.

As such, this novel is theoretically a major litmus test for my future plans to continue not working a day job and writing pretty much full time instead. It's been a tad stressful to think about at times. As the launch of the book and, with it, the proof of the pudding approached, I found myself spending a lot of time in prayer about that. Here are a few things I've learned during this process:

Self-Publishing: A Few Lessons Learned

If it's been a while since I've blogged, it's because I've had a lot going on.  Work has kept me busy, I switched to night shift a couple times, I got a stomach bug, etc, etc.  And of course, I'm working on my book!  It's been quite the process, and I thought I'd share a few things I've noticed about the self-publishing process, as I have experienced it thus far:



1.  It takes FOREVER.  However long you think it's going to take you, times it by 10.  Or 100.

2.  Being professional means making time and money commitments.  Authors these days are active on social media, so I must be as well.  Authors need professional photos, so I had some taken.  A free-lance author must market their own work, so I have been doing research.  The list goes on.

3.  Better get lots of eyes on your work and be as self-critical of your writing as possible.  You want to ensure that the best work you are capable of creating (without the wisdom and assistance of editors) ends up for sale, not just some hodge-podge that was "good enough".

4.  Know your work and what you're going for, and stick to that ruthlessly.  Be decisive, and be confident in what you're doing.  My poetry book has a theme, and it's important that all the poems in the book are related to that theme.  It's also important that all the poems are of a similar quality; you don't want a really good poem you wrote a few months ago right next to a truly awful one you wrote in high school.  I've had to take poems out, add poems in, and make edits, all in the name of consistency.

5.  Don't be shy.  Talk to people who have self-published.  Send your stuff out there.  Let people know you're Creating Art.  Completely buy into your new endeavor.



I'm still learning all these things, but those are my top five lessons so far.  I'm sure there will be more...

Quick Update

Here's where I'm at with my poetry book:  I have almost finished whittling down the poems I want to include in the book.  I thought I had finished, and sent it out to a few friends and family for feedback, but the very next day I was thinking, "That one doesn't really fit.  And that one isn't very good.  This one I need to work on, but then it should be good to go."  And then, three days ago I wrote a new poem that fits the theme of the book, so that one will be added.  The process is clearly on-going.  As I am waiting on feedback and still making changes, the book will also clearly not be ready by the end of the month.  Instead of projecting out another soft deadline (because I'm making the deadlines, I get to move them, and for me, the quality is more of a priority right now than speed), I'll just be posting updates until it's finished and ready to go.

Some basic information about the book:  The working title is To Do This Right.  This is taken from one of the poems that will definitely be in the collection.  I have decided the type of cover art I want, and I may have decided the exact cover art for the book, but I'm still looking around.  The basic theme of the book is the joys and struggles of walking with God in a season of uncertainty.  The poems form a kind of a scatter plot around it - some of them are about exactly that, some less so, but they all have a basic unifying feeling that relates to the theme.

If you've read the rest of my blog, you know that I tend to write poems that rhyme.  All but one of the poems in To Do This Right are rhyming poems, at least at present.  I will say that I recently bought Horoscopes for the Dead, a collection of poems by Billy Collins (which are not at all morbid).  These poems are all free verse, and having read the whole collection, I wrote my first truly free verse poem yesterday.  And I liked it.  It will not be in To Do This Right, unfortunately, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the theme of the book.

I also took the important modern authorial step of creating a Twitter account.  I had one before, but I never really did anything with it, so I deleted it some time ago.  I have created a new one, @rmlulich.

So there's my update.  Considering that I work full time, volunteer with Civil Air Patrol and at church (by singing in the choir), and currently have a rather wretched cold, I'm happy with my progress.