Flames

I've never really had a story that I felt compelled to write that I didn't want to. Except "Flames." I've never started a story three times, only to abandon it, feeling scalded before it ever really got started. Except "Flames." I've never had a story lurk in the back of my mind, that can bring up such stormy emotions and even a terrified sort of panic - even when I feel like God is saying, "Write it and I'll produce it. This is your way in."
Is He really saying that? Is he truly telling me that if I write this screenplay, He's going to take it from my computer into the world and do big things with it? Or am I just feeling desperate to convince myself that I will be in filming someday while it seems like it's handing itself over to my cousin while it's eluding me? But if it was that - why is it "Flames"?
I can see the potential in Flames to help inspire churches and Christians. It's not a "reach a lost world" movie. In fact, it doesn't show the church in a very flattering light at all. But it shows it in a truthful one, touching on the universal fear of Christians to admit that they have problems in their lives. And to tear each other down over little things and disagreements.
But do I want to be associated and known for this type of story? It's like putting all my worst memories and fears onto the screen and projecting it to the world. It's not about me. It's not about my family. But there are some similarities - enough for me to fear what my family will say when they read it or others will surmise just what was based from my own experiences.
I'm the worst person in the world to tackle something like this. I'm not healed from it. I'm not even sure what the proper resolution would be.
Which makes me think even more that God is telling me to write this. God likes working through the worse choice for the job.
If he was going to heal me through writing this script, I'd write it. If he was going to heal others through it, I'd write it.
But what if he's not. What if I write it wrong? What if it's just needless torture that will escalate into something worse than I ever experienced?
What if he's not really telling me to write it?
But what if He is?
I wrote out some of the characters. I even plotted it, finding things falling into place. It looks - I'm not sure. Kind of like a Christian soap opera. I can sort of see how God might work through it but I don't see it having a "Fire Proof" effect on the world.
But if God said it...
But did he? If I spend my time on it, will He use it? It's half exciting and mostly terrifying.
I just don't want to get flamed by the people who watch it.
And I really can't imagine any of my writing really moving people on a large scale.
That seems something I think COULD happen but seems like just a cruel trick that will taunt me and never materialize.
Unless He said it.
But why me?

Giga Pets

Today was Ryan's 26th birthday. Mom and Dad came and we went out to eat. It was great seeing them again. They're leaving tomorrow and Mom already fell asleep. I can't even get onto her because I'm swaying myself...
When I was a kid and Giga pets were all the rage (any of you youngsters remember that?) my dad came into the kitchen where we three kids were playing with our pets. He asked Sarah if he could see it. So she handed it over, he pressed two buttons.
The giga pet let out this high-pitch wail and the puppy died.
We restarted it but forever after the puppy would jump out of the basket, die and fly away.
He did it with watches too.
Fast forward to tonight. He sees my kindle sitting on the table.
Dad: What's that?
Lindsey: It's my kindle.
Dad: Can I see it.
Lindsey: Sure!
Ryan: You sure you want him to touch it? Remember the giga pet...
Lindsey: (large eyes)....
Mom: Yeah, honey. Let me hold it. You can look.
Lindsey: Yeah. I don't have the warranty on it...

September 22 - This Publishing Thing is Harder than I Thought

This morning I woke at 6:00 from a stressful dream that involved getting engaged to a man who wouldn't speak to me and swaping places in a speeding car with Jami Jinkins, because she was driving and people were trying to run us off the road.
It was still night, yet I know it was 6:00 and time to get up.
It was hard.
I told myself I could sleep later. That if I kept sleeping now, I would probably only get more sleepy and I'd regret missing all the productive hours. So I got up, made myself peppermint tea and read some of the HTML book (after my Bible, of course.) I did the examples in HTML. My browser wouldn't really display them so it was hard to check my work, even the stuff that looked just like the example. Not sure what's going on there. Then I ran the grammar check through "Across the Distance" - yeah, I know I should have done that before but I forgot it existed. It's a lovely tool despite having to run it through all the stuff it gets wrong or you want to keep. Then I found every "and" in the entire book and made sure the comma was in the right place. It took all morning for those two tasks and I scarecely got through before I was falling asleep in the chair. I lay (whoops, I mean 'lied') down for a few minutes and only got dizzy for my troubles. I loaded "Swing" only my kindle to look over. I helped clean the house. I started laundry since I'm down to wearing my "Lion King" production shirt and Christmas socks...
I planted the sprouts. I tried to organize the rest of my life with varying degrees of success. It seems I'm waiting on lots of things before I can go forward. Right now I can really only do the editing and the more I review and remember grammar rules, the more paranoid I get. How will I know when it's ready?
Should I take "Across the Distance" down for minor edits? What do I do???
I don't know. I'll keep learning and improving but eventually I'm just going to have to allow the fact that my first novels aren't going to be as good as my last. Still, I do want to be as professional as I can.
Speaking of which.
Pop and I have a new brainstorm to get a external hard drive. On this external hard drive, I'm going to locate and store a novel organizing program, the best editing program I can download, and Grandma the same graphics/layout program that the publisher used for "Secret of Sentarra" - wish I would have known that then. So when this hard drive comes in the mail and we manage to get all these programs onto it, I'm going to have a novel-factory and HOPEFULLY by then I'll have figured out a good system so I won't have to do things like - edit a book again, and then reformat it for kindle and then figure out what size the cover has to be NOW that I've cut out the first chapter... la la la.
Now. If I can just figure out the best and quickest way to become a good editor.
But do I focus all day on one aspect, like editing? Or do I edit one book and begin plotting another and work on formatting a third? Which would be more efficient? Which would be diverse enough to keep my brain from going on auto-pilot? I dunno....

Progress... slowly...

I woke today all by myself at 6:00. Though I can't say I was mentally ready to get up, I wasn't terribly tired either. I got up, read my Bible and went to read some of a grammar/editing book. But I inadvertently opened "The History of Ireland" and that turned into a bit of a detour. It's not as boring as it sounds, especially when I'm comparing it to the early Erish history. Forcing myself to close it (after a bit of reading) I read some of "Dunn with Editing" by Nann Dunne and more of "No Excuses!" by Brian Tracy. I've finished the book but I'm going back through. I worked all morning putting five pages through the editing program, using the Dunne book to figure out what to do with the results. Then I stopped the editing program and started mass runthroughs with search and found.
These are the things I searched and found. *Wags eyebrows.*
Search for “seem” – delete when you can.
Search for “Now.” – delete when you can.
Search for “well” – consider deletion (My characters said it in nearly every sentence sometimes)
Search for “up”. You can often delete or rephrase with a better word.
Delete “so”
Delete “still”
Delete “before” especially at the end of a sentence.
Delete “turned”
Search for “move”
I discovered. I talk weird. I talk like a Southerner. So many of these suggested searches, I didn’t think I’d find much – or not as much as I did. Martha said “well” nearly every time her mouth opened. Most of the time you can delete anyone who’s turning toward anything and use whatever action they do afterward as a stand-alone. I've never noticed how many times I end a sentence with "before."
And except a few breaks to get away from the computer - that's what I did today. I feel much better about my writing - at least the one I've changed.
I also (think) I got the glitches in "The Calling" fixed. I've uploaded it again. Cross your fingers.
I took a shower before rehearsal for the sake of my fellow actors.
Now I've got about ten minutes before I leave to be Dorothy.
I'm running out of ideas for things to add to the character. I'm going to have to work on that too.

Burned Out

See that candle over there burning at both ends until it's a pile of nothing? That's me.In fact, right now I'm sprawled out on the big chair in the living room much like that.

Watching a wedding movie of all things....

I didn't start it.

But back to the candle.

The farther I walk down this publishing road, the longer it gets. It's not just writing. It's not just editing.

Now it's finding the proper way to format a professional book for hard copies. And redoing the HTML for the ninth time for the ebook. And trying to find an editing software so I can get a manuscript clean enough to hire a professional editor with money I don't have so I don't get my final book and find spelling mistakes in it.

And trying to make a good book cover that doesn't look like a template or self-published.

I do want to produce my own books. I want to learn all of this stuff.

But I'm having to learn it all at once and I don't know how to start. I don't know the professional standers so I don't even know what to compare to.

I will learn this. I'll learn how to do it right the first time and it won't take a million hours. I don't know what else to do now though. I need to get it working. I've been getting up at 5:45 - I can't get up earlier. I've been working hours and hours and hours every day and I know that's normal for starting up a dream.

But it's not making enough income to hire people to help me. If I get an outside job I will have even less time than I do now and things will be ten times longer. Besides, that means giving up Palacios and I just can't.

I can't even pay my parents back for the money they put into my book and I'm not sure how to publicize to get enough sales to even make back what was in it.

I've been reading as much as I can. I've been working as hard as I can.

And now...

I think I'm just about surrounded by brick walls I'm going to have to chip my way through.

There has to be a way.

There has to be.

Others have done it and if they can, I can.

I just really have no clue how.

So what do I do?

Do I focus on getting the cover for "Across the Distance" done so I can send off for the proof-copy or does the book need more editing, polishing and a better layout?

Or do I work on taking a picture of my book cover so I can get a high enough DPI to make them into posters so I can make the signing packs and send them out to the libraries?

Or do I begin editing "The Captive" because it does no good to have a first book if I don't have the sequel ready?

Or do I focus on finishing "Swing" first because that one is closer to ready to publish than "The Captive" is?

And what about networking and driving people to the websites and all that jazz so someone knows that the first two books I have even exist?

(Photo by photo8.com)

Sunrises and Rain!

Today started the exact same way yesterday did: By being jarred out of long-awaited sleep by an alarm clock going off at 5:45. By a minute of confusion sorting out dreams from reality and resisting the urge to go back to sleep.

I got up. I took a shower and trouped into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Then curled up with my kindle to read my Bible and then more of the "No Excuses" book. I need to fill out more of the forms. I read for around thirty minutes. I also finished the book I bought on an editing method, finding it really didn't have anything that I haven't used in the past. For another person I'm sure it would be helpful but for me, it wasn't terribly insightful. I decided to start the day with a walk/jog and began going around the block. I saw the sun rise. There was a pile of dark clouds in front which made a nice contrast and as I walked toward it, the clouds began to blow away. It was inspiring. I stopped just to watch it, feeling like God had made it just for me to show that though I'm so confused and I'm don't know enough to make the best decision, I soon will.

I enjoyed it every moment except for the one when I was wondering if it was actually smoke from a huge fire. But after I decided it was a cloud, I continued my jog/walk and went nearly two miles.

I returned to the house and inserted the chapter numbers back into the heading for "The Calling." Then I ran the grammar check to see if I could find those little typos I noticed in the book. I found a few. Now I'm trying to figure out if I read back through it if I'll find anything else. I researched more on a woman who formats for kindle, explaining my problem to her. She said to send it and she'd take a look. On closer investigation I decided what her normal routine is what I already tried. I'm not sure why this book isn't working when the others are fine. I began looking for someone with more knowledge of HTML. I found a website that looked fantastic. www.kindleformatting.com. I'd love to use it but as of the moment, I can't afford it.

Along with that, even getting someone to do this book, doesn't teach me how I did it incorrectly and I want to learn how to format novels to professional standards. I did find out, however, that the guy that runs this company, Joshua, wrote a book. I bought it.

I've only begun to read it but looking at the Table of Contents, it looks like it's solved all my problems and more.

In other words... I think if I study this book, I can really put out a good product. Of course I wouldn't stop learning here as there's always more to learn but I think this will give me all the answers I've been looking for.

I might even be able to offer to format OTHER PEOPLE'S books and help supplement my income so I can afford that professional editor I need for my own work.

Seems like a good deal to me.

Other than that... I haven't gotten much done. But knowledge is power and if I have to take a few hours to find what I need to be informed, it's not wasted time.

I've also been researching editing software. Most places require a yearly subscription and I'm really more interested in software I can download once and be done. However I've found one that looks good and I'm waiting to hear back to see if I can put it on more than one computer - I use two. Or if I can redown load it later if I switch computers or have a crash.

Oh! And it rained! Then sun's back out now but it poured for a good half-hour. I'm hoping they got rain where all the fires are as well.

Lindsey's Blueprint

New Heights Productions

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