It’s been all about craft for the last 6 months or so. Just mad writing of draft one of the new manuscript, my third, maybe my fourth if you count this one awful thing from my 20s. But, yeah, I have something marketable here, I think, and so I’ve been really working it offline. Problem is, of course, one cannot be so myopic in publishing or marketing and I know this. I am a Marketer by trade! But I fell prey to it.
Anyway. All this to say that I am now in draft 2/3ish. And it is time to make and work a platform or marketing plan for myself and for the book. Complete with deadlines for pitches and proposals, lists of prospective agents, a new blog for a character, decent networking online and some offline. I need a steady critique partner to read large swaths of writing and not just chapters. All that.
The time to practice writer, to dabble, is over. I’ve got to morph into the full package. Which in practicality means morphing from writing 2 hours a day. To writing two hours and platforming/networking/marketing for 2 hours. And while that allocation seems off (should the craft not take more time?) I think it’s accurate actually. And I did spend close to 300 hours writing in these last months without the marketing piece, so I’ve got catching up to do.
Really, I need to dedicate half my working hours to my writing career. The other half can go to SageRock projects and freelance work. Oh, to be paid to write fiction. Paid anything, really, would help justify these offset hours. But, I’m young. There’s always time to earn money… somehow. And I’m crazy lucky to have the business to provide me work when I need cash.
Okay, that is all for now. Back to work.