Pursuing Writing Goals

Every year, I make a point to write down my writing goals: which book can be released, which stories will be actively edited, and what ideas should be fleshed out. Things start out rosy, but then life happens and causes detours for many, if not all, of my scheduled plans. When that happens, I’ve learned to pivot. Last year when four of my books won the International Impact Book Awards, it meant I needed to update covers, redo bookmarks, and prepare for an unexpected trip. I still released two books, but the editing I’d planned on doing for a handful of stories fell off to just a couple. Making any kind of progress in my writing projects had to be enough encouragement to spur me on to continue in my craft. I took pleasure in making a page better on a given day versus focusing on whether I got through the manuscript in less than a month. After all, this is a marathon, not a sprint. I still want to record my stories and land more reviews. I just have to be patient with myself and the adventures life hands me. “Keep on going” is my current motto.  

Reminiscing About My Experience as a Kindle Vella Author

When I heard about Kindle Vella years ago, I recalled the time when weekly episodes of stories were aired on the radio. Before that, authors would submit weekly episodes of their stories to the newspapers. Now that we’re in a digital age, the idea of episodic releases had returned, this time to every handheld device.

 

Since I didn’t already have a story set up as episodes, I translated my then newest work-in-progress (WIP), Blood and Bullets: A Cop and Vampire Story, into an episodic format, making sure that the next episode was clear on whose POV it was in and dialogue tags to point out who spoke first in the scene. After a few tweaks, I set out to upload each one into the online tool.

 

The cover was a bit different, though. Only a small circular section of the cover was used for the Kindle Vella story, so I had to capture as many of the critical elements of the cover as possible.

 

The neat thing about Kindle Vella was that the author could leave notes about the episode, what inspired the scene, and hints about the next installment. In addition, the author could also create a fun questionnaire to encourage interaction with the readers.

 

Initially, the first three episodes are free, but the reader had to unlock the rest of the episodes with the appropriate number of tokens determined by the length of that episode. I am definitely glad I tried it and had intended on releasing the second part of my Cop and Vampire story. However, this adventure came to an end a year ago when Kindle Vella was discontinued.

 

Getting this story back out to the world is on my list of things to do. Stay tuned!