Ricky Black's Blog

The Target finale wasn’t always something I was sure I would write.

Initially, my intention was to leave ‘Takedown’ ambiguous, but as things often do in the creative process, plans changed. I felt there was still something to say with the story; I just wasn’t sure what, and it took a while for me to get there.

A ‘while’ being roughly two years, on and off. I had a concept in 2019 and wrote roughly 60,000 words on it, before deciding I didn’t like it. I went back to working on the other Target books, and ending Takedown in a way that set up the sequel.

During lockdown, I started thinking about the final book, with the intention being to release it in November 2020. I wrote out an outline and wrote roughly 120,000 words of the first draft. When I settled in to proof the draft, I realised I didn’t like what I had written. It just didn’t seem to work. It was passable, but not acceptable, and decided to start again from scratch as the 2020 deadline passed.

I took time over the Christmas period to delve into the theme, and understand what I was trying to say with the story, as without it, I’d never be satisfied with what I wrote. I read ‘Save the Cat’ for the first time and made notes whilst doing so, finally beginning to understand what I wanted. With that behind me, I wrote a stronger outline and in late January, I began writing the final draft.

I was worried at this point. The book was firmly fixed for a March 9th release date, and there was no way back from that. I got to it, though, and began writing a story which flowed far better than the older drafts. Marc helped me, always there when I needed a second opinion, or I hit the wall, but by the end of February I had finished, and even managed to get the book edited in time for the release.

When I finished, there was a strange sense of emptiness. I was pleased with the end result. It’s easily the best thing I’ve published, but for so long, this series was a part of me. It put me on the map, so to speak, and the idea of it being over left me strangely hollow for a few days.

Now, I’m ready to put out more work and the excitement has resurged. With the last two Target books, both came with a level of insecurity I’ve never experienced before, and I wondered so many times if I could write them. I put tremendous pressure on myself to make them better than what came before, and I’m happy to say I achieved that.

Now, it’s onwards to the next projects!

Target Part III: Absolute Power is available now! Click here to buy

Lockdown has suited me for the most part.

I’ve never minded my own company, but initially, I didn’t see my daughter for 38 days, and that nearly killed me. The first time I saw her in late April, we hugged for 10 minutes, and we both had tears in our eyes. Later, I told her that she could never leave me for that long again, because she was my centre and I needed her. Thankfully, I’ve seen her regularly since.

Writing wise, I’m still working on the final Target book. I have other books around it that are in the finishing stages, but the Target finale has my attention, and it’s going to explode onto the scene. I have so many ideas for it, and the scenes are flowing nicely!

In other news, I’ve started to make headway with my reading. I’ve read the first 3 in Mark Dawson’s Milton series, which I thought were fantastic. I also read the 2nd book in the Reacher series after a 5 year break. I enjoyed it, but it was a hard read at times, and didn’t flow as well as the Milton books.

I recently abandoned Owen Parr’s Joey Mancuso series. I found it a bit slow, and I just couldn’t get into it

What are you reading at the moment? Let me know, or add me on Goodreads so I can check out your reading list.

Check mine here: https://bit.ly/2ZIQyav

Stay safe!

Free novella? Click here













Download Homecoming, absolutely free!

I accept the GDPR rules

Homecoming - The novella of Justin Holmes' life after prison, is available for free download now. Click on the link to get started

2009:

Initial inception, based on Lamont fleeing the country and Shorty taking over the crew. Generally dealt with a destruction of his personal relationships and his attempts to co-exist with Delroy.

A shooter named Tanka is on the rise, trying to kidnap dealers in an attempt to extort them. The book remained unfinished.

2009/2010:

Similar concept as above, with the addition of another protagonist, Lennox Thompson. Lennox was a tough criminal with a ruthless background, who specialised in moving guns, heroin and weed in large quantities. Lennox had a younger brother named Quentin whom he doted on, and a mother that he idolised.

The story never took off, but dealt with Shorty attempting to take over the streets, and Quentin’s attempts to get out from his brothers shadow.

2010 -2013:

Total direction change. Removed Lennox from the equation and went with Shorty as the protagonist. He took over from Lamont and established himself as the dominant power. Delroy was wary, one of his team jumped the gun and attempted to take out Shorty, but clipped his daughter instead. Shorty ended up getting arrested.

I worked Marrion Bernette into the version, with him wanting revenge against shorty and Lamont for the deaths of his friends.

Multiple deaths and a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. Teased the concept of a female assassin named Lisa.

These concepts had potential, but the story didn’t have enough in the middle to lead it through. It felt muddy and disjointed and simply led to me writing myself into a corner multiple times.

When I went back to the drawing board and reworked Target, the old versions of Takedown were completely abandoned. The versions weren’t sustainable. I decided target would be a stand-alone novel and abandoned the idea of writing a sequel.

2015 – 2017

Having completely revamped Target, I began looking into marketing and publishing. Research showed that sequels and series’ tended to attract a bigger audience, so before the manuscript for Target was sent to a proof-reader, I rewrote the ending, tying in a sequel that I had not yet written.

I tried using a similar concept to the one I’d used to finish Target, namely laying down each scene in a notepad, so that everything was pre-written, allowing me to know exactly what was going on at any particular time. I was able to see how each scene connected, which avoided any plot-holes.

Influenced by my research, which showed books needed to be written quickly, I used a simple point-by-point outline, with no great detail. The outline had thirty or so points, or scenarios, and I just wrote them.

When I’d written them, they didn’t make me feel anything. I felt pleased by several of the scenes, but there were no connectors; nothing pulling the scenes together that would make readers want to turn the page. I didn’t read the scenes and gain any sudden clarity about how to finish.

I moved onto other projects and avoided the idea until 2016, where I started working on the project again shortly after finishing Target. I added multiple scenes that helped with character development, but didn’t help me finish. I had characters that I wasn’t sure where to take. I wanted to do all of these little things and I was pulling myself in different directions. I was throwing ideas at the wall but nothing was sticking. Every time I sat down to work on Takedown, there was no discipline. I didn’t want to do it.

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to write, but no idea of how to get there.

Consequently, I distracted myself, read more, considered giving up publishing altogether and writing fun, went through writer’s block, and then I dusted myself off.

People helped. My friend created a plan to work towards and I analysed the tasks and what I needed to do with each one to complete it.

It simplified things. Seeing what I had to do for each task seemed to make it easier. I looked at my disastrous launch in 2016 and how I could do better. I completed Homecoming, edited and formatted Target. I finished several projects I’d had on the shelf for three years, set myself some long-term goals, and got to work.

My confidence increased. I read my work and enjoyed it. It felt tighter, with more finesse and purpose. Less words, more meaning.

August 2018 – Now:

I changed my mind and decided that I would change the order of the plan and finish Takedown, with the aim being to release it in December. I had a plan in place that I’d utilised over the summer:

Each scenario was written on a separate document card. I then placed the cards in a way I could easily refer to them, then wrote a detailed scene by scene outline of each area of plot. I reworked my thinking, inspired by Thanos’s role in Infinity War. I wanted to create a believable antagonist.

I thought about what I wanted to see in a villain and more importantly, how the villain would play against Lamont and the others, who aren’t innocent themselves.

I brought Lennox back from obscurity and tidied him up. He wasn’t just some angry drug dealer anymore. He was a cold-hearted criminal with a master plan. He had a purpose and more importantly, he felt he was totally justified in his actions. He felt like he was the good guy. I added social issues, but that was background plot.

Takedown is a continuation of how my Target characters are navigating life.

I started writing and quickly decided that I would power through it. I have a tendency to self-edit and let work breathe and basically give myself every opportunity to get out of writing, but I stuck to my written scenes and started writing. I powered through them and got a lot of work done, but after several chapters, I wasn’t motivated. What I was writing looked like trash. I stopped writing it in October 2018 and decided I would put out some other work first to build up to the sequel.

I re-read it over Christmas that year, and loved it. I felt like I was on the right tracks and that the story worked. I loved the characters and their struggles and Lennox fit into the proceedings. To me, Takedown was proof that I loved my story. It was proof I had figured out what I wanted to say just through trial and error and learning and putting things into practice.

With this new momentum, I finished Takedown very quickly into the new year.

Now, here we are. It’s November 2019, almost a full year since I’d ‘given up again’, and I’m sitting on top of multiple finished pieces. Takedown will always remain one of my greatest triumphs though; a ten-year journey to get me here.

This is why I write.

Target Part 2: The Takedown is out this Friday. Click this link to Pre-Order.

The idea behind Lamont’s Origin story comes from my love of back story.

To put it simply, I’m the person who will go onto various wikis and read up on characters and plots and concepts. I want to know all of the details I can. It consumes me.

When I’m writing, I write this way. I used to just plunk all of the exposition and back story in the main story with no care or regard, but I learned over the years to change that.

The concept for Origins began in 2010/2011, when I was going crazy writing various scenes between different Target characters. It was part of my If-I-have-an-idea-I’ll-write-it stage, and I loved it. I credit this with helping me create characters that fans told me were realistic and in some cases, felt like people I knew.

For Origins, I had written some scenes where Lamont was younger, which were based from scenes that I’d put in the draft of target at the time. The early scenes were simply called scribbles. There was no set plot or structure to them.

In 2014, I became excited about the thought of giving Lamont an origin story and making it fit in. I worked hard on an outline, and had an ending written before I’d even planned the beginning. By 2014 though, many things about Target had changed. I had gutted much of the initial story, and it wasn’t first-person anymore.

I think the biggest challenge when it came to crafting Origins was devolving Lamont. In Target, Lamont is composed, respected, rich, and he is afforded a certain level of leeway. His enemies are wary of him and his mind and the way he runs things.

Origins was initially about a slightly spoilt boy who starts selling drugs to make money. It was flat and my mentor hammered me about it. There was no substance to it, no reason to turn the pages.

So, I made him a loser.

He was still smart. When he spoke and was confident, people still listened, but he had been raised in poverty after his parents died, and there was a family member who didn’t like him. He was trying to go to school and resist the lure of the streets, dodge bullies and look after his little sister. It had more legs to it now, and then I wrote in scenes that made Lamont the man he is today. Teflon, so to speak.

I wrote those scenes and then I wrote the birth of Lamont the criminal, and the steps he grew to build his empire. His road to power, so to speak. I added in some of the other characters from Target, added bad guys and compelling supporting characters, and focused more on Lamont’s struggle to balance a normal life along with this impulsive idea he had to become a drug dealer, and everything that came with it. Ultimately, the goal was to have a completely differently Lamont in the first chapter, where he’s sixteen years old and it’s 1997, to the Teflon-prototype character he is at the end in 2002.

I knew straight away that I was going to draw heavily from both Martina Cole and Mario Puzo on this. They both wrote books that covered sagas of a crime family, and would move the story forward by years and sometimes decades if it was necessary. I wanted to cover a five-year portion of Lamont’s life, but not make it boring. I wanted everything to keep moving at a nice pace, and still get the development of Lamont and Shorty and the other characters. I wanted to show both a different side to Lamont, and the side that people recognised from Target, and I think I achieved that goal.

Initially though, it was hard. I wrote a few key scenes that I loved, but I wrote them so far apart that there were no connectors. As is always the case with me, I began writing other projects, but over the years, I would go back and read what I had, sometimes adding some more or taking some away.

In 2016, I had a rough first draft but I knew even as I finished it that it had massive plot holes. I was just relieved to have it done though.

Because of the way I write, with some of the other pieces I was working on, new characters were created and because Origins was the beginning, I wanted some of them included, which meant going back and rewriting certain parts of Origins to make these characters fit. I basically made the whole process harder for myself, but the struggle builds character and as my mentor is forever telling me, I have to suffer for my art. So, that’s what I did.

I reached 2018, and I desperately wanted to get Origins finished. I was looking over some of the scenes while simultaneously wanting to finish the sequel to Target. I bounced between the two projects before finally focusing on Origins. I adopted a process that had worked for me with other projects. I wrote each scene on a document card so I could see how it connected to the next one. I wrote the final draft exclusively on Vellum, breaking the book down into two sections: Lamont, and Teflon.

Lamont dealt with his early life, giving an insight into how hard Lamont had it, and giving him some motivations and goals to work towards. I left Lamont on a cliff-hanger, and then moved onto Teflon, which dealt with Lamont’s reasons for moving into the drugs game, how he started, and how he grew.

I enjoyed writing this immensely. It was a new challenge for me and knowing that I already had books around it made the process both harder and better at the same time. Alongside a new erotic project I was working on, I prioritised Origins and soon had a finished draft. I sent it out to my advanced readers and they loved it. It had achieved everything I wanted it to achieve.

I guess the point of my rambling is to establish that whilst I often berate myself for just how long it takes me to finish some pieces of work, I’m rarely if ever unsatisfied with the end result.

Whether you read this before Origins, or after, I hope you appreciate the journey.

Origins: The Road to Power is currently available for pre-order on Amazon. Click here to order a copy!

I’ll start this by saying that the first serious story I ever attempted was fifteen years ago.

It was some action/adventure type of story with guns and violence and chase scenes. The main character had a sword which was because I loved Lord of The Rings and more importantly, I loved Final Fantasy.

I won’t lie and pretend I was always a fan of the series, because I didn’t get a PlayStation until I was eleven years old, in 1999. At the time I was a massive wrestling fan, so playing WWF SmackDown was a bigger deal, as was playing Tekken, Fifa, and Crash Bandicoot, amongst other games.

Fast forward a few years though. In 2001, I was thirteen years old, and a friend of mine received a load of chipped PlayStation games by his sister’s boyfriend. Most of the games we didn’t care about, like Metal Gear Solid (Gasp). There was Final Fantasy VII though, or rather, the first two discs. I must have been living under a rock because the game meant nothing to me.

My friend didn’t want to play it, but he’d at least heard of it, and he offered to sell me the discs for £1. His selling point was that it was ‘like Digimon and Pokemon.’

That was enough for me, I gave him the pound, took the two discs and I went home. I put the first disc in and started playing.

I was hooked.

When I enjoy something, it consumes me. My favourites rarely change, and when I started playing the game as Cloud, Barrett, Tifa and the others, it was like nothing else I’d played before. I didn’t care about the graphics. I only cared about the story, the characters. The monsters. The journey. I adored this game and my friend soon complained that he didn’t see me anymore because I was in my room playing it.

High school was a strange time, and people that I was friends with when I was younger were changing. We were all going in different directions and trying to find ourselves. Losing myself in an immersive world for hundreds of hours seemed like a great idea. I played through the first disc until a certain section where I needed to dig for this lunar harp to get through a forest to the next section. For whatever reason, I couldn’t complete this part of the game. I didn’t have the internet, and I wasn’t schlepping to the local library to use theirs. I couldn’t afford a strategy guide, so I just shrugged and stopped playing it.

By chance I went to HMV soon after with my mum, and Final Fantasy VIII was there. I convinced her to get it by promising her I would do chores, she wouldn’t have to give me pocket money, it wouldn’t affect my work, etc. She ended up buying me both Final Fantasy VIII and IX. I started playing VIII first, reading the little booklet on the bus ride home, learning about the characters and the basic storyline. I couldn’t wait to play.

I was hooked.

The opening scene. The character. The musical score. everything about this game gripped me, and I loved it far more than any other game I’ve played. I’ve enjoyed a lot of games, and the Pro Evo Wars of my late teens will always hold a fond place in my heart, but Final Fantasy VIII changed everything. The storyline to me, was better than Final fantasy VII’s. I could relate to the characters more. They were a few years older than me and the main character, Squall, was this loner type who kept most of what he was feeling bottled inside, and I could relate to that. I played this game religiously, and some moments affected me to where I can remember them vividly now. I still write with the soundtrack playing to this day.

When I finally got to the end of the game, I remember having a tear in my eye and being sad that it was over. I played it again and again, but that first play through was special; levelling up characters and fumbling around trying to learn the junction system and figure out where the hell I was going most of the time.

I played Final Fantasy IX and loved it. I finally bought a proper edition of Final Fantasy VII and completed that. I played IV, and I played VI because they were available in this weird anthology edition for a while. I even branched out and played games like Tales of Destiny and Chrono Trigger.

Soon, I got a PlayStation 2, and the Pro Evo Wars began, and games like WWE SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain took precedence. I wasn’t playing Final Fantasy games as much, mainly because I was playing multi-player games and none of my friends wanted to watch me grinding the same enemies for hours on end. I liked the look of Final Fantasy X though, and I bought it in December 2003.

Now, during this period, no one really saw me. I got Final Fantasy, and I bought several music CD’s: The Neptune’s: The Clones, Jay-Z’s Black Album, and G-Unit’s Beg for Mercy album. I would sit and play Final Fantasy X and listen to those albums, along with Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner album, for hours on end.

The game gripped me, and I loved the fact that they voiced the characters. Auron was my favourite, because he spoke little and let his Masamune weapon do most of his talking. When he spoke though, everyone listened to him, and his words were full of wisdom. I played through the game and got hooked on the characters and after all the twists, when the game ended, I sat in my room and cried, because it had affected me so much. I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was in the game. I wanted to change the ending because as profound and brilliant as it was, I couldn’t handle it.

I think that was the first step of the writing idea being planted in my head. I liked the idea of being able to control the journey, delay the ending, write sequels and keep the journey going for as long as I wanted, but I wasn’t there yet. This game helped me there though.

My top 3 would have to be:

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy VII.

It’s controversial, as it’s considered almost sacrilege to not put Final Fantasy VII at the top, but I rarely do what I’m supposed to.

So, back to the point.

I was in love with these games and the characters. Characters always had a massive impression on me. Don Corleone in The Godfather. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Squall. Auron. Sephiroth. Dumbledore. Harry Potter.  Aragorn from Lord of The Rings. Gandalf. I enjoyed learning about the characters. I loved backstory and little details and learning what made people tick, and all the while I was feeding my creative brain.

Anyway, fast forward to 2004. I start writing and I want to write a digital action-adventure story where people carry swords and fight people and train and get stronger, and they travel in groups for protection and wear armour. Not sure where I got the idea for that . . .

Early on, I realised I would be a character-based writer, and that directly comes from the influences of my teenage years. When I first started, I would write massive expositional backstory pieces for every character usually as soon as I introduced them into the book. It was awful to read, but it was excellent practice.

I knew nothing about outlining my work and what little structure I had was based on my love of reading fiction, but I kept writing, and eventually wrote around one hundred pages on this story before running out of creative stream.

Around this time though, I read the Godfather, and that kick-started my obsession with crime figures. I read other Mario Puzo books, read Layer Cake, and suddenly, I’m a crime writer, and would remain that way for the next fifteen years.

In my mind though, it all started with Final Fantasy and reading Harry Potter books, and reading and watching and loving Lord of The Rings, because they taught me that with the right characters, in the right story, anything is possible.

Without them, I don’t think I’m a writer and maybe even if I was, I wouldn’t be the same writer. I wouldn’t be as effective.

They weren’t my only influences, but they were my main ones, and even now at my advanced age, I would sit down tomorrow and play them, if only I had the time.

Do you have a favourite final fantasy game? Comment below, or drop me an email at admin@rickyblackbooks.com to share!

As of late, I’ve had some in-depth conversations about writing and all the different ways we approach it. I had the idea to put together some suggestions, or tips.

These are all things that I do when I’m writing, so have a look and let me know what you think!

Keep your dialogue tags simple. Stick with ‘said’ unless absolutely necessary.
Try to limit adverbs, but don’t be over the top with it.
Show, don’t tell, but don’t be over the top with it.
Set yourself some simple writing targets and stick to them. Use this time to establish what type of writer you are. Do you like to outline and plot point-by-point what you want to write? Do you prefer to sit and just write without a plan?

The more you write, the more you will learn.
Write what you want to write. If it’s not fun, you’ll stop doing it.
Look for critique partners, people who you trust. Share your progress with them, and look over each other’s work. Be honest! Don’t say something is brilliant if it isn’t. Give constructive feedback, and take the feedback you’re given on board. There is always room for improvement.
First drafts are supposed to be messy. Tidy them later.
Carry a notebook or use a notepad app when you’re out in public. I’ve used the Evernote app for half a decade, and I’ll never stop.
Write multiple scenes with your characters, even if they’re not doing anything. This helps establish them and builds realistic interactions for your final drafts.
Read. Research. Repeat.
Track your words! Use a spreadsheet or write them down on paper, but track how many words you’re doing, and how long it takes.

It’s not a competition, but being able to track how much writing you’ve done in any time-frame is amazing and very useful.
Keep it simple. Always.

That’s it for now. If you think I’ve missed anything, drop me an email at admin@rickyblackbooks.com, or leave a comment!

 

Free book? Click here!













Download Homecoming, absolutely free!

I accept the GDPR rules

Homecoming - The novella of Justin Holmes' life after prison, is available for free download now. Click on the link to get started

Everything made so much more sense at the beginning of the year.

I was focused. Driven. I had high hopes about releasing numerous books. There were plans in place, the concept simple.

First up? Release a collection of erotic short stories. Seemed simple. I wasn’t a stranger to reading or writing erotica by any means. I’m good at it. Maybe even better than good.

Seems easy, right?

I overlooked one small factor.

I can only write erotica in short bursts. Once or twice a year, I get the urge to pen some. It’s not as consistent as the other genres I write in.

In January, I put everything else aside to write the collection, and I was highly motivated. I planned to stuff the scenes into one book. After that, I would promote it, get the monkey off my back, and go back to my other genres. I was prolific, setting targets, crushing them. I had over 40,000 words even after taking several scenes out. I had useful feedback from my beta readers, but one piece of feedback stood out: there were too many scenes.

In my panic to write as many words as possible, I’d rushed through several scenarios, wanting a larger word count. The feedback was that the scenes were intense, and it was overwhelming reading them one after the other. I made a decision that has plagued me ever since: I chose to split them into multiple collections.

It seemed smart. After all, more collections meant more money, if done right. I decided which stories would be bundled together, had covers made, planned my marketing strategy. The blurbs were ready. I had the right keywords. I was ready.

My manager requested to read the collections before I published. My plan was to release them within weeks of each other. He proofed MM1, outlined some areas of improvement, which we discussed, deciding whether to amend or leave each one. I made the changes, and released MM1.

It was stressful from the moment I pressed ‘Publish.’

I had some promo in place, yet my ads were blocked by Instagram/Facebook, due to their unwillingness to promote sexual content. My passion for erotica was ebbing at this point, and the stress of publication added to it. I was obsessed with checking the numbers on day one, annoyed people weren’t immediately buying.

My passion for erotica dimmed, I moved onto my Target series, and threw myself into editing and tweaking them. Erotica was a hindrance, exasperating me to the point where my manager advised me to stop checking sales and ‘page reads’. I did, and haven’t looked since.

My manager was proofing MM2 at this point, and I was outlining a few additional scenes for MM3, along with my editing. He took his time, wanting the scenes to be right. I just wanted to release the collection and move on, and we clashed over this. He asked me to request people leave reviews, and I flat-out refused, saying I’d tried before and no one listened. I suggested multiple times that he ‘leave the collection’ to me, and I would tidy up the scenes and just release them, wanting to focus on the rest of my year, driven by the idea of having more titles in my backlist.

We went back-and-forth, but he essentially reminded me that I wasn’t the sort of novelist to release sub-standard work, and told me I would regret it if I did. He was right. His feedback for MM2 was brutal, logical, and utterly to the point. I implemented the necessary changes, wrote up my additional MM3 scenes, and here we are.

The lesson here is that he was right to suggest I wait. Blindly releasing books isn’t in my character, and I’m a long way off becoming the salesman I want to be. What I have going for me above all else, is my skill with the pen. I can’t compromise that in order to churn out books.

I need to find that ever-elusive balance.

Leave a comment below, or drop me an email at admin@rickyblackbooks.com

FREE BOOK? CLICK HERE













Download Homecoming, absolutely free!

I accept the GDPR rules

Homecoming - The novella of Justin Holmes' life after prison, is available for free download now. Click on the link to get started

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!

This won’t be a particularly long post. I received my feedback from my beta readers, and it was fantastic. They rated the piece highly, and the areas that I’d worried about were not an issue. There were a few teething issues and silly errors, but I can fix those prior to the release.

In other news, I read ‘Let’s Get Digital’ by David Gaughran recently, and I thought it was a fantastic read that really opened my eyes to several aspects of the publishing process that I wasn’t previously aware of. I’m only 10 books into the Goodreads challenge, so I need to step up my game and take a break from writing every once in a while!

I pushed ‘Publish’ on another novel today; a collection of short stories entitled ‘Anthology of a Wordsmith Volume 1’, a collection of short pieces I wrote and uploaded onto Instagram. They received an amazing reception and brought a lot of new eyes to my writing. Because not everyone enjoys reading in picture form, I compiled them into a book and added several other exclusive scenes, and a teaser of the Erotic Collection soon to be released. I think it’s an amazing book and it’s free for a limited time, so download now if you haven’t already!

Other than that, it’s business as usual, editing my next project and looking into designers and promo strategies. Confidence-wise, I’m still feeling good and I believe that it’s going to be an excellent month!

Check out my other posts and enjoy the rest of your night

Another strong week as we grow closer to my release date!

I finished the first draft for my Erotic Short Story on Monday – It clocked in at 42,000 words, which is almost twice as long as the intended target, but there are worse issues to have than being motivated and writing too much.

I’ve tried to keep the balance of working on my next project, whilst also doing everything I needed to do to make my next release a success. I put out a call-to-action on my Instagram for beta readers, and received 6 quick requests to read, which was a massive motivation.

Other than that, I’ve written words on various projects to stay sharp, and I’ve tried to keep up with my reading — I’ve read 8 out of 100 books for the Goodreads challenge, so I’ve got a lot of work to do.

I’ve also been tweaking and reading other projects, coming up with an order of release that will not overwhelm me, which is a challenge. Another massive point of contention is whether to stay exclusive to Amazon KDP, or to go wide and sample the rest of the world (Kobo, Apple Books, etc). I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons while I wait for my beta readers to finish reading. Thankfully, I already have a title for my book, and an idea regarding the theme which a close friend helped me with!

I also need to organise a book cover and decide on the first stage of promo — I have a lot of solid ideas and I’m looking forward to it. There’s such a difference from the Target and Homecoming releases — I’m enjoying everything I do, and I’m relishing using my creativity a little different, so we’ll see how it all turns out.

Personally, I think the release will be a success as long as I do everything I’m supposed to do.

And, I WILL do everything I’m supposed to do

This week has been a mix of ups and tentative downs.

I’ve continued writing, hitting my word-count for my next release. Ideally, I’d like to have the first draft finished by today, so I need to finish this piece and get back to work!

I sent a teaser chapter for my erotic story to a few of my friends on Instagram, and I’ve received some excellent feedback. We’re pushing the collection to a certain market, but I still get nervous about making mistakes. There is a sense that this year will be massive for me if I keep the energy up, but it’s so tiresome. Leading up to the release, I’m trying to keep people engaged, which means coming up with new concepts and ideas, trying to build connections and enticing people to notice, pay attention, read.

I’ve had a spate of people clicking my books recently, but January is a long month, so I’ve tried not to overdo in terms of promotion. It’s an interesting dynamic, trying to get used to the idea of asking people to do something. Even people that know you can write, and write well. But, I’m still doing it and more importantly, I’m still having fun.

In the background, I’ve been working on other projects. Seven releases in one year is a massive step-up, and I want to ensure everything is right. With each release in the past, something went wrong. I can’t let that happen this time.

I suppose the hardest thing has been sticking to my schedule. I’ve had days where I’m still writing, but not at the times I’ve set for myself, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. It feels bad though. I get worried that I’ll fall off the wagon, so to speak, and stop writing.

This release will set me up for the rest of the year, so I’ll get on with it.

I hope anyone reading is attacking their goals in spites of any negatives or setbacks they may be experiencing!

FREE BOOK? CLICK HERE













Download Homecoming, absolutely free!

I accept the GDPR rules

Homecoming - The novella of Justin Holmes' life after prison, is available for free download now. Click on the link to get started