Monthly Archives: December 2018

Best of December 2018

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Best of, Personal, Vanlife

≈ 4 Comments

December 2018 included two nights at Trimble Park, aka my favorite campground in Mount Dora; one night in a very lovely side yard (by a canal!) in Port Charlotte, and many nights in two very familiar driveways, in Sanford and Mount Dora.

Moon over a canal on Christmas morning
Christmas morning, moon over water.

It was an exceptionally good month.

Seriously, it’s the kind of month that makes me glad I write these posts because it was so busy and so full that it would be awfully easy to let all the memories of it slip away. I had no time to write them down while they were occurring, but I’m still close enough to remember and then remember more and then be surprised by what I’d already forgotten.

Highlights already mentioned in previous posts or FB: Christmas music in multiple places; a lovely day wandering Animal Kingdom with R and M; releasing Cici into the wild and being delighted when people let me know that they laughed. (Many, many thanks to everyone who’s done that, you brighten my life!) Also being delighted to discover that two paperback copies of Cici had been ordered and were headed to interesting destinations.

Giraffe at Animal Kingdom
Giraffe at Animal Kingdom

Food highlights: last night’s delightful meal at Hotto Potto, a build-your-own-soup Chinese place; cooking baked salmon & potatoes for my dad & stepmom; a fantastic prime rib Christmas dinner at C’s with squash and brussels sprouts and garlic mashed potatoes.

One of my highlights started with annoyance. After some complicated negotiations about who was doing what over the actual holidays, part of the plan fell through. I was resigned, but not happy, and I sent R a text that said something like, “I’m not going to be pissy about this, but I do expect an apology.” He gave me a beautiful apology, truly beautiful. The kind of apology that should be framed as an example of the way to do it. And the revised plan wound up including one of the highlights of my Christmas: a candlelight church service at a very traditional Methodist church. (Okay, the singing of “In the Bleak Midwinter” was not a literal highlight, because that song is horrible and impossible to sing for non-trained non-professionals, but it amused me mightily.)

Another highlight was doubly unexpected: on Christmas Day and again on the 30th, I played a game called Super Fight with C & friends. The premise of the game is that you pit your character card with two attribute cards against your opponent’s character card and two attribute cards. To be honest, I didn’t personally have high expectations of this game, because I’m not really much on pop culture. Rambo vs Chuck Norris, to me, is sort of like “random fighter guy of whom you know actually nothing” vs “random fighter guy of whom you know actually nothing.” But in Super Fight, the winner is not necessarily the person with the best cards. Quite often, in fact, the winner is the person who can tell the best story about their cards — in other words, a writer’s game! Last night, on our last hand, my Katniss took out the aliens from Alien by using their own dynamite against them. On Christmas Day, my Hermione ran the board and was retired victorious. Super Fight, absolutely a highlight of my month. I don’t remember the exact details, but I know I laughed so hard I couldn’t catch my breath last night.

Chickens
The neighbor’s chickens come to visit most mornings.

But I’ve also enjoyed the parts of the month that weren’t exceptional in any way. The best way to appreciate a place is to leave it behind for long stretches of time. I’ve been loving the Florida weather — sunshine and warmth and more sunshine and warmth. The occasional torrential rain that then stops and turns into sunshine. Sitting in my tiny house, working on my computer, listening to music on a solid internet connection, visiting friends and family and getting to take them for granted…

December 2018. A very good month!

Photo Review, 2018: July – December

30 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Best of, Photography, Randomness, Zelda

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Zelda hiding in the blueberries
I’m not really picking pictures that represent the month to me, just the ones I like that I hadn’t posted before. But this image screams, “SUMMER,” to me. Zelda in the blueberries, Allentown, PA. July 2018.
Zelda close-up
More Zelda. Upstate New York, August, 2018.
Sunrise on Prince Edward Island
Sunrise, Prince Edward Island. September, 2018.
A fishing boat on Cape Cod
A fishing boat on Cape Cod, MA. October, 2018. It was surrounded by seals and seagulls, waiting for the discards.
Zelda
Not a month of many pictures! I was too busy writing Cici. But not so busy that I didn’t have time to admire my dog’s cuteness. Zelda, Sanford, FL. November, 2018.
Christmas lights
The view from my window. Sanford, FL. December 2018.

Photo Review: 2018, Jan – June

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in Photography, Travel, Vanlife

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sunset in Trimble Park, Mount Dora, FL
Sunset at Trimble Park, Mount Dora, FL. January 2018
A flowering tree in Sarasota
Flowering tree in Sarasota, FL. February 2018
Stairs at Cloud Canyon Park in Georgia
Stairs in Cloud Canyon Park, Georgia. March, 2018. (We did not go down these stairs. The holes in the grid are big enough that Z’s feet slipped through, which was sort of terrifying. I was sure she was going to break her leg before I could rescue her!)
Sunset in Arkansas with bare trees
Sunset in Arkansas, April 2018. It was freezing cold that day, with hints of white flakes falling from the sky. The bare trees were so beautiful, though!
Iris
An iris in Allentown, PA. May, 2018. (That is an iris, isn’t it? It’s a beautiful flower, one way or another!)
A deer in Ohio.
Clearly wilderness, right? But this was a park in Ohio, which is not exactly the first state I think of when it comes to wilderness! June, 2018.

Looking back on 2018

23 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Personal, Pets, Photography, Randomness, Travel

≈ 15 Comments

Every day my computer chooses a different picture to put as my background picture. I’m pretty sure they’re from images that I drop into a folder labeled “Background Pictures” every now and then, which I think I set up somewhere in the settings back when I first got this computer, several years ago. But every morning, I get to be surprised by the picture that shows up. This morning’s picture is from diamond mining in Arkansas.

the diamond mine in Arkansas

Yesterday’s was the black bear spotted on the day of the eclipse in Washington State. There was also an interesting bird this week, which I’m pretty sure was a picture I took in Sarasota, and a tree that I didn’t remember at all. It was a pretty tree, though.

Last year, I did an end of year double-post, with a picture for each month. (First half of the year: Second half of the year.) Not necessarily the picture that represented the month in any way, just an image that I hadn’t previously posted that struck me as a good photo. I was thinking about doing the same thing for this year, except I felt like it wasn’t such an interesting year and that I didn’t take as many photos. When I think back on the year, the first thing that I think about is Bartleby and missing him. In fact, if you asked me about 2018, I would say that it was a lot of boring doctor visits for me that turned out to be nothing, and a ton of horrible vet visits for the dogs that were never nothing.

I would be so very wrong. Well, not about the doctor visits and the vet visits, but about that being the sum total of the year. The year was also driving the Natchez Trace, snow and hot springs in Arkansas, sunshine and the costumed college graduation in Sarasota, open spaces in Ohio, blueberries, Vermont, driving through Canada, the gorgeous Prince Edward Island & Nova Scotia, friends and family in Massachusetts, and then a whole bunch of peaceful Florida time.

With the exception of Canada, though, from which I have an insane number of beautiful sunset shots over the ocean, not so many good photographs. I am still going to do a post or two of the best photos of 2018 for me, but I’m not choosing from a position of crazy abundance this year. This does, however, set me up for my very first New Year’s Resolution for 2019: take more photographs!

In 2017, I was taking a photo a day, every day, as a mindfulness exercise that reminded me to look for the beauty in wherever I was. I let go of it in 2018 (along with all my other daily tasks), because I felt like I was overwhelming myself with rules, things that I had to do all the time, and turning my life into a to-do list. But I think I want to bring at least a few of those daily tasks back into my life because it’s really much too easy to get lost in the business of living and forget to savor it as it happens.

This morning, I tried to take photos of the full moon setting over the park. None of them turned out, because I was using my phone and the camera on the phone really can’t cope with moon shots. But Z and I were walking right at dawn, the full moon was huge and white, the air was so crisp (42 degrees) that I was wearing my eggplant coat and feeling grateful for it, and some of the neighbors still had their Christmas lights on and sparkling. It was so beautiful that I started singing “Joy to the World” — and then someone else walking their dog appeared and I shut up, embarrassed to be singing. But I hope at some future day I reread this post and remember that feeling. It was a very good feeling. And I wish I had a photo that could evoke it for you!

Self-publishing Numbers: Cici

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Cici, Self-publishing

≈ 6 Comments

This is going to be another boring post for anyone not interested in self-publishing, but it’s the most efficient way for me to keep a record so skip it if you’re not interested. I suppose it would be more efficient of me to post it on my seldom-used business blog — which I haven’t even updated with Cici, oops — but I’d never remember to look for it there, so it goes here. 

So, I published Cici a week ago, to all the usual spots. Much though I love her, I have very low expectations for Cici. My most similar title is A Lonely Magic, which is the book that I spent the most money on by far — professional editing, professional covers, advertising on multiple sites, NetGalley membership to get reviews, etc.  and which… well, has not rewarded said expenses. ALM was the book where I tried to get serious about self-publishing and while it was an interesting experiment, being serious did not lead to success. (Grace has earned more money in its first four months than ALM has in over four years. Ouch. Sadly, this is not because Grace is making me rich.) 

Anyway, I’m sure a self-publishing guru would tell me that I need to spend money to make money, etc, but eh. Maybe someday, if I ever get a real job and have extra money floating around. Meanwhile, I would prefer to continue to eat. So I’m not spending money on Cici, much though I adore her.

My sum total of marketing dollars on Cici was $5 on a Facebook ad sent exclusively to people who have liked my page. That ad reached 161 people, had 37 engagements, and 6 clicks. So if each of those clicks led to a sale, I might have sold 6 copies because of the FB ad, therefore spending $5 to earn $15, for a profit of $10. 

I also sent out an email to people who have subscribed to my mailing list. Mailing lists are such an interesting thing: I bought a book recently about being a mailing list ninja, something like that, and apparently I should be using my mailing list to chat with readers, “engage them,” and most definitely not to simply tell them when I have something new published. Because apparently telling readers that there’s a new book is asking them for something as opposed to providing them with information that they supposedly wanted to receive? But I honestly hate email, I don’t want junk cluttering up my inbox, and I really think that if anyone actually wants to hear from me on a regular basis they could just read my blog. I view my mailing list as being the people who simply want to know about new books. But apparently not so much: of the 1415 readers who have signed up for my mailing list, 474 opened the email, and 100 clicked on the link. 14 unsubscribed. 2 reported me for spam, sigh. These are, of course, not terrible results: the industry average open rate is 17.2 and mine was 33.7 and the industry average click rate is 3.6 and mine was 7.1. So at least I’m running better than average. 

BookBub also sent out an email to my followers there, approximately 6000 some. I know they did because I follow myself and I got their email. And the chance exists that Amazon will also let people know, those who follow me on Amazon. (I just started following myself so I didn’t get anything this time but maybe I will next time.) 

So, potential marketing outreach: 1415 mailing list readers, 6000+ Bookbub followers, 500+ FB followers, 300+ Twitter followers, and the 30+ of you who read my blog.

Total sales for week one – 103: 

  • Amazon: 85
  • Barnes & Noble: 16
  • Kobo: 2
  • Draft2Digital (Apple, Scribd, Tolino, Overdrive, etc.): 0
  • Google Play: 0

I think there’s some conversion rate thing that I’m supposed to figure out — around 1% of the people reached decided to buy?  That’s probably not a bad number for professional marketers. 

Anyway, I’m really just saving this data for future reference. Cici obviously doesn’t look like my other books, so it’s no surprise that she’s a niche read. Someday I might have to separate out my identities so that people who like true fantasy, no romance involved, aren’t mixed into the audience who likes romance with a little fantasy involved. But at the moment that’s far too much work and I’d rather spend my time writing. Or doing laundry, which is what I should be doing right now! 

And meanwhile, far more importantly with Cici, I have been really delighted to hear from people who enjoyed her and loved the ending and even more delighted that no one’s spoiling it. I usually try to avoid reading reviews because they are not good for me, but I’m totally reading every Cici review that comes my way because I so enjoyed writing her and really like reading that people enjoyed reading her. 

A Happy Early Birthday to R

18 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Cici, Personal, R, Randomness, Self-publishing

≈ 7 Comments

a close-up shot of a giraffe, taken at Animal Kingdom
This photo has not been cropped. It just got cut-off because the giraffe was too close to fit in the frame of the picture. 

There is a new ride at Animal Kingdom, in a new area of the park based on the movie Avatar. It is, apparently, the best ride in the world, the best ride that ever there was, and so, for his birthday, I took R and his girlfriend, M, to Animal Kingdom. 

Backing up, it’s actually really hard to buy appropriate presents for a person who’s living more or less out of a backpack. Me selling my house means that R doesn’t have a real home at all, no bedroom with a permanent closet where he can store things. He owns what he can carry with him and the more he has to carry, the more difficult that becomes. So I decided to look for an experience to give him, rather than an object to give him. Animal Kingdom was our favorite theme park when he was young, but it had been years and years since we’d gone there. It felt like a good choice.

So we were not actually at Animal Kingdom specifically to go on the world’s best ride. Which was fortunate, because although we arrived at the park a little after 8, an hour before opening, and headed straight to the world’s best ride, the line was four hours long by the time we got there at 9:05. Yes, you read that right. The resort guests are allowed into the park an hour before non-resort guests and enough of them beat us to the world’s best ride that the line was 240 minutes long. 

We didn’t wait. 

The good news was that the Avatar crowds meant the rest of the park was reasonably nice. We had a fantastic safari ride, where we got to be the people whose truck had to stop while the giraffes sauntered by, plus see all the other animals who were out and active on a chilly day; nice walks through the gorilla and tiger zones; rides on some of the other main rides, including Everest, Primeval Whirl and (for R & M) Dinosaur; and great seats at the Finding Nemo show, which is really beautiful.  And, of course, excellent company. 

At about 5, we went back to the Avatar zone and the line time had gone down to 210 minutes, so three and a half hours. We didn’t wait, but we did wander around the Avatar zone which is actually worth wandering around, too — very pretty and interestingly done. R wanted to write academic papers on the conflicts inherent in turning a movie whose overarching storyline is about kicking exploitative humans off a planet into a theme park whose goal is to attract humans to buy stuff, but figured it was fundamentally too obvious. 

The one minor bad note in an otherwise lovely day was food issues for me. I made bad choices because I was hungry and the lines were crazily long and I paid the price very promptly. Disney offers plenty of reasonable choices for people with food allergies, but it requires planning. It is not a good idea to wait until you’re already hungry and then start looking around for something to eat. I know this, but apparently I have to relearn it every so often. I’m hoping yesterday’s lesson sticks for the next few years. 

In other news, many, many thanks to people who have reviewed Cici. She is so much a book that I published because I wanted to share her, because I wanted other people to read her story and laugh with me, so I’m delighted to hear from people who have. People have asked about sequels and given how many promises I’ve broken about Grace and Fen, I’m not going to make any promises. But I will say that when I found the artwork for the cover, the artist had multiple variations, and I got all the variations. Which means that unlike A Lonely Magic, which is going to require that I find a cover to go with its sequel when I finish writing it, I will have possible cover options ready for Cici sequels whenever I feel like writing them. 🙂 

And now I think I’ll get back to writing Fen. I’m not optimistic about my productivity over the next few weeks: there will be much socializing, some urgent Christmas present shopping, some great time with family. But on the days when I have time to write, I’m going to try to write. Not because I feel the pressure of impending deadlines, but because writing Cici brought me joy and joy is an excellent thing to have more of in one’s life. May you have some as well, today and every day! 

Published

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Campground, Marketing and promotion, RV, Self-publishing, Vanlife

≈ 9 Comments

http://books2read.com/cici

I’m at Trimble Park, one of my favorite campgrounds, and I spent all day yesterday on the computer, fighting to post Cici in the various places that I publish books. All the usual suspects, in other words, including Google Play, which honestly has such a ridiculously bad interface that I’m not sure it’s worth the bother. I kept telling myself that I should just wait until I went back to my dad’s house because internet is a lot faster when it’s not a cell connection, but I guess I felt persistent. 

By evening, it was up in most spots — not Apple, of course, because Apple takes forever and a day — so I went ahead and sent an email to my mailing list. This morning I posted to Facebook, my three different pages, and paid $5 for an ad, so that people might actually see the post, and now I’m posting to my blog, and then I will be done with publishing Cici. This is why I’m really not a very good self-publisher — one is supposed to do all kinds of marketing, release day promotions, newsletters, giveaways, ad campaigns, blah-blah-blah. Does knowing what one is supposed to do and not doing it mean that one is: a) bad at business, b) rebellious in all the wrong ways, c) lazy? All three, obviously. But Cici is available for purchase, so at least I’m getting the “Step One: Write a Book, Step Two: Publish It” part of self-publishing right. 

Meanwhile, it is raining. Not heavily, but persistently. The main reason why I am sitting in this lovely campground is to dump the tanks and I cannot express how unenthusiastic I am about doing that in the rain. Also, I left stuff outside which is now going to have to come into the van and be wet and drippy inside. Sigh. But! The good news is that it’s a lovely tropical summer-feeling rain, so I should be counting my blessings. And I need a shower, anyway, so probably I should just enjoy it. But sewage in the rain always seems to smell more: psychological, I think, not real, but still.

And the clock is ticking, so I guess I can give up on the rain stopping before I pack up. It’ll be good for me, right? Right. 

Cici and the Curator

10 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in NaNo, Personal, Self-publishing, Writing, Zelda

≈ 22 Comments

I’m not totally satisfied with the ending, but then, when am I ever?

But I am done and ready to move on to something else, specifically Fen. I haven’t decided what I’m doing with Cici yet. Probably publishing her, mostly because she makes me laugh. She is very much my sense of humor. I haven’t really edited or revised her at all, though, apart from a quick run through where I deleted a bunch of extra words: probably, actually, really, just, truly, simply, seriously, manage, and some.

However, I am willing to share! If you want to read a first draft, let me know in the blog comments and make sure to include your email address in the appropriate field (unless you’re positive I already know it). Also, if you want it in a format other than a Kindle file, tell me that, too.

In other than book news, there’s been lots of Christmas in my life this week. I went to the Candlelight Processional at Epcot with a friend last Wednesday, which was lovely. Neil Patrick Harris was the narrator, and the music was beautiful. On Friday, I went to another Christmas musical event at a huge Baptist church in Orlando. Very loud, very majestic. When they burst into “Joy to the World,” it was glorious. On Sunday, I saw my third Christmas musical at the Methodist church in Mount Dora. I should be thoroughly in the Christmas mood by now.

I’m not really, though. Partly, I’ve been obsessed with Cici. And partly, Zelda is reminding me on a daily basis that we’re running out of time. Grown-up Me knows that means I need to be sure to appreciate every day: Kid Me would really prefer to stop time right now. I know I claimed to have a ZLSP (Zelda Loss Survival Plan) in development, but… well, I think the ZLSP starts with a broken heart, no matter how good it is.

But today is what it is, and what it is, is the 7th anniversary of the publication of A Gift of Ghosts! Hmm, that almost tempts me to just put Cici up on Amazon. I was so much more relaxed seven years ago. My plan back then was to write a million words and then consider whether really I wanted to be a writer. By now, I’m supposed to be hard at work as a therapist. Ha.

I have no idea how close I am to my million words, although Grace was probably half a million all by herself. Those wouldn’t count, though, because it had to be a million words I was willing to share. But the short stories up in the Scribbles section would count. I should add them up and see how close I am.

I’m not actually sure I need to, though. Post-Grace, I could definitely see giving up on being a writer. Post-Cici, I know that I am a writer, whether I’m earning my living at it or no. It might be a terrible job, but it’s not a hobby I ever want to give up, because when it’s fun, it’s really, really fun. Regardless of whether Cici ever earns a dollar (and obviously, she will, because my dad would always be willing to buy her!), she was a delight to write.

Bet Me for $1.99

04 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Books, Reviews

≈ 6 Comments

My favorite romance novel of all time is available in Kindle on Amazon today (December 4th, 2018) for $1.99: Bet Me by Jennifer Cruisie

Now I’m second-guessing myself, though — is it really my favorite of all time? There have been others I have loved along the way. There was an Elspeth Thane book, sadly not available as an ebook, that I adored as a teenager. (The fact that it is about ghosts might have had something to do with my future leanings.) There’s a Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, that doesn’t call itself a romance but really is. There are definitely books outside the romance category by Robin McKinley and Sharon Shinn and others that might be slightly higher on my favorites list.

But you know, now that I’ve analyzed this question deeply, I’m going to say yes, Bet Me, still my favorite romance novel of all time. I love the relationships between the characters, the representation of male friendship, the way that the hero/heroine support each other in stressful family situations, the way the hero encourages the heroine to enjoy food, and absolutely the humor. So much the humor. Also, though, the actual romance — the attraction between the characters is fun. So much “romance” these days feels like obligatory lust followed by insta-amazing sex and I find that seriously boring. Cal and Min are attracted to one another, wish they weren’t, still are. It’s appealing. And now I’m going to go read a good book all morning. 🙂