About Time, Thoughts about real life as an aspiring writer, Part 2

Continuing my series about my experiences, thoughts and lessons learned on my journey to becoming a writer is this second installment best subtitled "About Time".

Time can be seen as a gift or the perceived lack thereof can be seen as a curse.

One of my author bios says something like "he has always wanted to become a writer...". This is true, especially since I found that my childhood aversion to reading books was not the fault of the books but it was more of the "I'll do it but I won't like it" attitude I had toward compulsory assignments.  So this leads to the question, if I have really "always wanted to be a writer", why did I not start sooner? I don't know if I can pinpoint it down to one single reason (or excuse, take your pick) but here are a few:
1. I was too busy. I work a full-time job as a computer programmer, meaning 8-5 Monday - Friday and sometimes more. I have a wide and two children.
2. How could an unknown first timer break into the publishing world? I don't know any publishers. I can't afford the expensive fees I've heard about to get a book published.
3. Fear of failure. What if I wrote a book and everyone hated it? Could I handle writing something and it not selling? Would I end up with a stack of unsold copies?

Once I answered my own questions, I didn't any reason not too write. Here are my answers:
1. We all have the same amount of time in a day, its just a matter of prioritizing what we have to do with what we want to do.
2.  Simple answer, self-publish. When I found out that one of my co-workers sister made a full time career out of self-publishing books through Amazon, I set my sights on their sites kdp.amazon.com and createspace.com. This would allow me to publish a paperback and Kindle version almost for free.
3. Some fears are meant to overcome, and for me F.O.F. was one of those fears. It helped to make it easier to make the jump when I found out that Amazon self-publishing services are almost free. My thought process was that if I "failed" it couldn't really hurt me, just my pride. Sure enough, I'm not in pain, even though I have only sold into the double digits.

Another angle I could use to look at time in the process of writing Teddy Visits Mitchell Farms is the time I spent writing it. It took much longer than I expected to finish. I'm pretty sure I stayed up all night several times writing, working on the layout and editing the book.  I think it was all time well spent because I learned so much about the publishing process and I had a lot of fun doing it. I'm still having fun when I'm able to use some of my time to blog, post, or tweet. Today I took some of my day off and donated a copy of my book to the local public library, while I was there I got a library card.

Writing Tip:
If you have written something , a book, article, blog post, paper, report, anything, you need to proofread it. If you can afford the time, step away from it for a while and come back and read it again. If you can afford an editor, hire one. While I haven't yet taken my own advice on this, because I'm cheap, I plan to use an editor for any novels I write.

 The next part of this series might include something about character development.

Thoughts about real life as an aspiring writer, Part 1

Before I wrote my first book I thought that it would be easy. Somehow I had it in my head that I could quickly become a successful writer and be able to have a steady stream of extra income. Looking back now, I laugh and wonder how in the world could I have thought that writing would be easy or instantly successful. My experience with writing has been rewarding and has been a lot fun.

In each part of this blog post series I will share some of my experiences, thoughts and lessons learned.

One lesson I learned along the way:

Know you limitations and push them -

In my day job I am used to making software work. Both purchased software and programs I have written myself usually will eventually submit to my will and do what I need them to do. I knew I wasn't the best at the graphical side of things and I thought that I might have a little trouble with getting the images to look just right. I really had no idea how tricky it would be. My easy solution was to have someone do all of the images and split any profits from book sales with them. When this didn't work out I decided I would do the illustrations. I tried, but I don't have much skill at free hand drawing so my next idea was to try to use image manipulation software to alter photographs to make them look more like children's picture book illustrations. From here I started looking into the different software programs available and quickly realized the I was cheap and most image manipulation software is not. A friend recommended that I try a very affordable , aka free, called GIMP. This was exactly what I needed to finish turning high quality amateur photographs into the illustrations for my first children's book, Teddy Visits Mitchell Farms. Now I am almost ready to really start the process of taking a second book in the Adventures of Teddy series from first draft to published. This time I think I might push though my cheapness and hire a real artist to draw or paint the illustrations.

Quick Tip:

If you plan to put photographs in a book make sure the orientation matches the book format, before you finish taking all of them. Otherwise be prepare to do a lot of cropping.

The next part in the series will be "About Time"

Illustrator has the pictures

Tonight I handed the illustrator a flash drive with 30 pictures for the children's book.  She confirmed with me that I want them to look cartoony.(correct spelling?) I also emailed a copy of the text to an author and, possibly more importantly, mom of two to read and give me her opinion.

Maybe soon I will have an official book announcement to send.

Children's Book In Development

I have written a rough draft of what should become my first self-published children's book.

Yesterday, I went to Mitchell Farms and took pictures. I emailed some of the pictures to the illustrator last night.

I am hopefull that this is a good start to a good book.

Book Two Before Book One Update

Last night I met with the owners of the business that is going to be the the subject of book two of my children's book series. They seemed excited about the idea too. Everything went well and the gave me permission to use thier business in my book. I will come back later and take pictures.

I have already received a few thumbnail sketches from my illustrator and they look good. I think this book will be awesome! I hope to push myself to have this finished in time for a big 2 day event that will draw lots of people.