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Writing Journey: Journal Entry 61

March 9, 2022

Week 74

Emotional State: It’s (almost) Just Right

Books & Writing

I’m still tweaking the order of Book Two, but at least I’m doing it this time on the fly, while revising, rather than in a spreadsheet. Don’t get me wrong, I love spreadsheets and analyzing my work, but it doesn’t feel like I’m moving the book forward as much when I’m in a spreadsheet versus writing or editing.

I’m still seeing weak spots and I wonder if doing it this way was the right way (aka pantsing a book when I didn’t have a strong handle on themes/character arcs). I have moments where I think this is such a mess, I should start over from scratch. And then I read Act 3 and think, nahhh. It’ll get there.

I hope.

The plan is to get it revised again, for the 3rd time and then print it out. I’ve already done a cold read, but I think I need to do another one. That puts me an additional month out, which will make things tighter on my schedule than I want, but maybe it’ll give me the distance I need to address the larger issues.

I just kicked myself. Why? Because I had a moment where I realized that if readers see my struggle, they’ll doubt if the book is any good. And then I worried that I shouldn’t tell anyone anything about the process. Because if I’m struggling this hard, the book will suck (it won’t).

Then I remembered that writing a weekly journal IS part of my process. It’s how I get inspiration, work through dramas, stop chewing on issues I haven’t solved.

And also – the reason I’m chewing on this book is because I want it to be really good. It’s not bad right now, but it’s not really good. So, shut up inner troll Cass, because the process is working. Back to the regularly scheduled programming…

I will get the book to where I want it to go eventually. I’m glad I built in extra time, though, for this book. It makes me wonder if my incredibly aggressive schedule should be less aggressive to work out similar issues I expect to have in upcoming books.

Nah. It’s just right.

Life & Marketing

Yes, I’m talking about marketing again. But first, life stuff. My stepkid is still here from Australia right now and we discovered something shocking. They had never seen Monty Python OR The Princess Bride before.

Cue the bug-eyed looks between the world builder and myself, followed by a movie night. We picked Monty Python & the Holy Grail, because it’s a classic, but then doubted that pick when the kid didn’t even know (seriously, had never heard of King Arthur or Camelot) the underlying story Monty Python was mocking in that film.

But it was fine. It’ll be fine. So, we surged ahead. And we think they liked it. Maybe. They did laugh, so that’s something. I mentioned something on Twitter about it and the responses came pouring in. Apparently, the kid has been living under a rock for their entire 18 years of life, because they really should’ve known about Monty Python. Who knows what will happen with The Princess Bride. Fingers crossed.

Speaking of Twitter, that tweet was my highest engaged one so far. And that leads me to… marketing.

I’ve been doing some tests with Amazon and FB ads. So far, I’m unimpressed by FB, but that could be because I can’t see if people have downloaded the KU book or not. I can see if they’ve bought it (they haven’t) and I can see how many have clicked – quite a few.

I know that FB is typically a branding exercise for many authors and I’m alright with that. I went into this month knowing it was a test and I wanted to see what worked and what didn’t. I’m throwing a little bit of money at the wall to see what sticks. So far, nothing, but maybe when I launch Book Two, it’ll be stickier or people will actually purchase the book.

The other thing I’ve decided is rather than go full out – Rambo-style – and do all the things all at once, I’m going to tackle one self-publishing topic a month. I’ll take that month to test, learn, investigate and figure out how best to incorporate it into my system and not worry about the stuff I don’t know yet.

In a way, this year has already been a test on that, since I tackled email onboarding, newsletters, and reader magnets in January. February was figuring out Bookfunnel and swaps. March is FB Ads. April may be formatting or it may be something else. It depends on where I am with Book Two.

I’ve also just realized I’ve not used these deep dives in any of my social media. Why not? If I’m digging in, wouldn’t it be helpful to share with others? Maybe or maybe not. I’ve got a lot on, so adding one more thing to do might be too much.

Or maybe, it’ll be just right.