I Have Been Head Down Writing Lately

Developing a routine to write when you have so much going on in your life is pretty tough sometimes. I have pretty much settled on writing a little during the weekend and Monday nights. My goal is to get at least a few thousand words done each week (I shoot for four thousand). It seems to be what I can manage these days. Some weekends are really productive with me actually surpassing that goal, and some are not. I try hard to keep it in its place.

I feel like the first draft is coming along pretty well. I have finished the first two acts in the three-act format and am well on my way to the third act. I got a little lost when I started the third act, so I had to stop for a bit and get my bearings. This required me to revisit my outline. I find when I get a little lost I go back to the outline and give it a little more detail. This really helps me in my process of getting from one place to another.

I have also finished my laboratory testing with the short story VEHO: A BACKSTORY. What does that mean? Good question…

VEHO: A BACKSTORY was pretty much a means to an end. It was wildly fun to write, but it really served multiple purposes.

First, I wanted to see if I could write an interesting story. I hope you found VEHO interesting…

Second, you can’t set up an Amazon Author Profile without already having a book. I wasn’t willing to spend all this time not having some foundation work laid out. VEHO was that book. It was fun to write and short.

Third, I needed to understand how to create a cover for a book. I used some AI art generation and Canva to create the cover for VEHO. I was pretty happy with how well that came out. Years ago, I went to school for graphic design, so I have a general idea of how to do this kind of work.

Fourth, I was in the process of trying to understand how to do some testing through Facebook ads. I wanted to test two aspects of things for VEHO, could I sell it and could I use Facebook ads for feedback testing? The answer to both was yes. I used it on feedback testing to figure out which cover version to use for VEHO. I simply used two identical ads with different graphics to see which one garnered the most interest. The cover with the ship won by a huge margin, so I went with that. Once that was decided I ran ads for the story to see if I could sell it. This was also a success. The story was sold very cheap, so it wasn’t about making money, but rather seeing if I could get enough interest in the story to sell it using Facebook ads.

Fifth, The whole point of VEHO was to create something to basically give away in order to garner interest in the work I have been doing on the book. In marketing terms that is called a leads magnet. What can I give to people who will be interested in joining my mailing list? Why not give them my work, VEHO…

Sixth, I wanted a story to put through the audible process so I could understand what that world looked like. Again, VEHO was the answer! It was a pretty cheap investment to understand how the Amazon Audible world works.

I can’t be thankful enough for that little story! It helped me so much in navigating this whole process. I now feel like I have a foundation to build on and something more than just throwing a story out into the world with no direction.

I will also say that initially VEHO: A BACKSTORY was going to be the start of my book. I think that has mostly changed now, It feels more like a stand-alone project at this point. I have written a new beginning of the book, and VEHO has become supporting material for the universe that will be Humanity Shattered. Don’t worry, you will find out what happened to Samantha.

Shamon