My First Google Alert (setting)

I set up my very own Google Alert!  Now, whenever anybody types in "Colin Alderson" to google I will get an alert.  Boo-yeah!  So no more talking about me without me finding out about it.

Wait, do those cover blogs, too?  I don't know if they do or not.  Perhaps my celebration was short-lived.  Does this post count?  Does it show up as an alert?

At any rate, I have a google alert looking for myself.  Geez, the ego on this guy...

I, Luddite

It kills me that I can't just hit "see blog" somewhere and go to my blog front page.  It kills me, I tell you!  I can eventually find it, but I have to fiddle around a long time to get there.  Why can't there be a "see blog" button on every single page.

There probably is, and I can't find it.

Oh, and I also stink at putting on labels for my posts, too.  That's pretty sad.  I'm just one big disorganized mess.

What the *&#! is Pinterest?

Just when I thought I had this figured out, probably like how old-timey people felt when they first figured out the crank on the car to start it, I see this other button, called Pinterest, which I thought was a photo-sharing site.  Is it a photo-sharing site?  Please, somebody, tell me it's just a photo-sharing site that I don't have to worry about!  Because visual arts are so totally not my thing.  I prefer to work in words.  I'm a, uh, word-writing guy.

Please somebody tell me Pinterest is just photos and I don't need to worry about it.

I had something else to say, but I forgot it.  Is the blog making me stupid?  It might be.

I'm gonna go write some Gob Squad and not worry about it.

I am totally confused

Okay, so now somebody's just messing with me, because I have a post that is "+1."  You know, like in D&D, when you find your first magic weapon.  I wish it was a vorpal blade.

At any rate, I think I figured out how to manually make a post go to facebook.  But I figured I'd be able to do it automatically.  It's not like it's a big deal, though.  What, do I think I'll be doing this a lot?  And right now nobody looks at it but me.

Sigh.  And at some point I know I'll have to go figure out Twitter, which will make me feel dirty.

That was weird...

I finally got Facebook hooked up yesterday night.  Or at least, I think I did.  I wonder if anyone else suffers from Facebook Home Page Dementia, where they wonder if the Facebook page that they see is the same one that somebody else would see?

At any rate, the whole reason I did it is because I was hoping to be able to set up a Facebook presence along with a Blog presence, you know, as part of the whole "Social Media Presence Grow Your Brand" thing.  Which I hate.  But it's a necessary...um..."evil" really doesn't seem like the right word...inconvenience?

Anyways, what was weird is I started fooling around with the blog and trying to get it all fixed up and figure out how to make it auto cross-post and whatever, and I stumbled across my blog statistics.  Did you know that I had 9 page views today?  Which seems weird, because I can't imagine anybody was actually looking for me, for a number of reasons.

So if you stumbled across this by accident, I apologize.

If you're here on purpose, uh, come back later, because I'm sure I'll be more interesting and exciting later.

Chugging Right Along

In between multiple family obligations and things to do, I actually have managed to make really good progress on Gob Squad.  And I also spent considerable time researching people who do book reviews on indie work and scoping out places I might go to get a few reviews and get my work in front of people who might read it.

So I'm making progress on two fronts, I believe.

Plus, Switch is in editing now, which is a good thing.  One of the main things I keep seeing about indie work is "needs to be proofread!"  Which makes a lot of sense: I'm guessing most people think that Word is their friend, when it's actually only semi-literate and can often let you down.  And I've always found that once I write something, any errors are totally invisible.

And then even furthermore I got the final copy of the cover for Switch, and it's fantastic!

Two heads are better than one

I saw the second cover yesterday night, and it is awesome.  I was really impressed.  It's interesting how I gave the same information to the artist, but ended up getting a completely different take on it, one which matched what I imagined much better.

I've been listening to a book about motivation and drive, and it's got a lot in it about how creativity and motivation come together.  It's very interesting, and it seems to jive with what works for me.  I'm at my most creative when I'm trying to do something for myself, and at my least creative when I'm trying to meet an artificial deadline or payment schedule.  So I keep telling myself: finish the Gob Squad the way it should be, not in X days! 

But it comes to me in fits and spurts.  Some days I'll fire off a dozen pages, and others it's a struggle to get one good page.  But stories (for me at least) always get better on the rewrite.

Progress

I've actually made pretty good progress the past few days, at least on everything except for posting anything to the blog.  But thankfully I'm still completely unknown, so nobody's looking for me on the interwebs, and therefore I am flying way below the radar. 

I picked an editor and Switch is now in editing.  I jammed out several more chapters of Gob Squad.  I had a second cover commissioned so I can get a second opinion (so to speak).  And I've been shopping for an avatar for myself for the site.  Plus all the other stuff I do for my day job and my family.

It's a lot of work!  But so far, so good.

Building a Brand

One of the things that you need to do, if you want to actually reach people, is build your brand.

Ugh.

Listen, I'm not by trade an advertiser or promoter, so I approach that end of things with a certain amount of trepidation.  And it's stuff I hate, too.  I understand why a lot of writers end up never selling anything - they're either too scared or too lazy or too busy to put the work in to get their work in front of potential readers.

So I understand why I need to go through the trouble to "build my brand."  But that doesn't mean I have to like it!

That means, though, that I need certain things: I need to be active in the online communities where the kind of thing I write gets read, and I need to have a certain indication of "me."  So the plain vanilla blog I currently have won't cut it, and I certainly will ultimately need to put together a Facebook presence (which I haven't done yet, but will).

If I want to reach people, and get my stories read, then I need to build my brand.  Period.  So build my brand I will attempt to do.

Work List

What I'm working on right now, and where it is:

Final Rewrite (so it's almost done)

In Editing (not by me)
Switch

Beta Reading (wanna be a beta reader?)

Rewrite (by me)
Gob Squad

First Draft
Untitled Short Story Collection

Outline (I might or might not promote these)
Scion of the Creators
The List
Untitled Fantasy Story (Ilhaesa)
Untitled Steampunk/Apocalyptic Thing

Kernels (I got an idea jotted down)

Wrongly Accused Guy (fire story)
Duskwalkers

Got a cover, now...

So I have a cover for a book, now.  But I'm all of the sudden bereft of any capability to pull the trigger on a decision that I like it.  I mean, I look at it and I think it's okay.  Then I look at other books and it looks no good.  I've got a major case of cover envy.  It's exactly what I imagined, and exactly what I asked for, and it's probably a good cover, but I am veering from "I like it" to "waaah!".  I think it's just nerves.

Still plugging away at Gob Squad.  And I'm trying to convince myself that the story needs to be the length that it needs to be, not a certain word count, which is one of those problems that I have always struggled against.  It's far more important to tell the correct story, not to make sure that there's a certain length or style of story.

Cover Iterations

So the very nice and patient artist has been bouncing covers back and forth with me, which I really appreciate given that she did exactly what I ask for, and then I changed my mind when I saw it.  Sigh.  Authors.  What are you gonna do?

I haven't heard anything from the editor, though, which kind of bothers me.  On the one hand, I want to say something.  On the other hand, I need to leave her alone so she can do her work - I'm sure she's busy and has lots to do, certainly more important than me.  So I'm engaging my patience and waiting.

Fortunately, I have lots of other things to do, like get unstuck on Gob Squad.  I went back and re-read my outline and realized I went the wrong direction.  No wonder I couldn't get it going.  So I jammed out a whole chapter once I re-read what I had planned.  See, kids, that's why we outline.

A cover!

Well, sort of.  I commissioned a cover, at least.  And that's a good thing!  I'm totally completely hopeless at that kind of thing, too, so I was really grateful to find a friendly artist who's totally going to realize my vision.  Hopefully better than I would, too.  Ever-when I get it I'll probably post it here, just to show it off. 

In the unlikely event that anybody other than me ever looks at this, anyhow. 

What's goin' on?

I'm working on two things at once (writing-wise, at least; like most people I have like forty things going all at one time, which isn't really what we're talking about here).  I'm pretty much finished with what will end up being my debut novel, which is called Switch.  I gotta get it edited now, which I'm pursuing, and I gotta get a cover for it.  I made some advances on both of those things, and I'm waiting. 

In order to be able to do those things, I used a variety of resources to look stuff up, since I know nothing about either one.  I used Smashwords for a cover vendor, and I looked up several editors and did some research on them (starting from Preditors and Editors, which I think is a good resource).

I figure there will be false starts and problems as I go, so if I run into issues I'll report them here.  You know, in the unlikely event that anybody ever reads anything here other than me.

The other thing I'm working on is a second book, called Gob Squad.  It's not at all like my other book, and is in fact quite different, so it's a challenge.  But I'm hoping to have it done in a month or so and be ready to get it worked on, as well.

Like all aspiring writers, I've got like six other finished books and a whole slew of stories, but I'm not worried about any of those right now.  Some of them are dreadful, some of them have promise, and some of them are pretty much ready to go, but I'm focused on getting these two taken care of right now.

What is Alderblog?

Alderblog is the official blog of Colin Alderson: husband, father, writer extraordinaire, and all-around good guy. 

Should I succeed in ever having someone who wants to discover something about me, it'll also serve as a portal to find me and communicate with me.  I guess I'll start a Facebook page as well, and link the two together.  Maybe I'll even open a twitter handle, and become a twit.

Some people would say that's not a very far journey.