I read a lot. I read for entertainment; I read to learn. I read so much that all of the books sometimes start jumbling together. So I've decided to start reviewing the books I read, making notes of the things I enjoyed as a reader, but also as a writer.
In terms of fiction, I quite like young adult fantasy, dystopian fiction, urban fantasy, and paranormal if it hasn't been overdone. I'm just now expanding into adult fiction, and have started sampling the romance genre as part of my research into indie publishing. I definitely sway more toward contemporary romance and sweet romance. I've also started reading some suspense and mystery novels, but again I prefer those that are a little softer around the edges.
In terms of nonfiction, my two main categories are books about writing, and books about productivity/reaching your goals. Although I am also a big fan of what I call, "stealth anthropology," books such as Scratch Beginnings, and Nickel and Dimed. On my to read list are Black Like Me, and The Cross in the Closet. I also enjoy journalistic discussions of the way we think and psychology (The Psychology of Persuasion, Think and Be Rich, Choice), and discussions about sustainability (The 100 Mile Diet, How bad are bananas?, Garbology). I also devour anything by Malcolm Gladwell, regardless of the topic.
So now that you know my tastes, that is what I will be discussing in posts labeled with "Book reviews." I have told myself that I am not allowed to write these posts during my writing time in the morning, so these will have to happen during my leisure time in the evenings. My plan is that once I finish a book, I write a review before I start another. The exception will be this week, where I am training myself to get up early and taking baby steps (i.e., all I have to do is get up and then I can play as long as I get my ass out of bed), so I will try to write reviews of my most recent reads.
Friday, 28 August 2015
Getting back on the train
I'm not one for excuses, but when I'm looking over this blog I want to know the type of things that tend to set me back. My last post was in May. May. That's not to say that I stopped working toward my goal. During that time I devoured information about the indie publishing market. I've read many, many nonfiction books on the topic. I also started listening to the Rocking Self Publishing Podcast, with Simon Whistler, and it has been absolutely fabulous.
My in-laws visited for about three weeks, so things were a wash during that period, but since then I've been trying to get back into a regular routine. I still waiver between wanting to stay up late at night, and getting up early. During the day, I'm energetic, and think it won't be any trouble to stay up late, after all I did it all through university. At nighttime, as soon as the kids are down, I may be able to make it for a half an hour or an hour or so before my eyelids start closing on their own. And I say to myself, "well, just get up early!" And yet when the alarm clock tolls the dawn of a new day (and I set it so that the new day starts before the actual dawn), I have become a zombie.
So I printed off a sheet for Monday through Sunday, when I would wake up, work on the novel, have leisure time, and sleep. I entered a period of optimization. I realized that I am not a robot. You would think that would be immediately apparent, butt it's not. I love to read. I'll often start a book at night when the kids are in bed, and because it is so good I will read until 2 o'clock in the morning and therefore be a zombie for several days. Yet when I was trying to maximize the amount of time I would spend writing, I essentially eliminated all leisure time. This does not work for me. I've also realized that I need more than the standard eight hours of sleep a night, and benefit from occasionally getting extended periods of sleep. Thus, I bring you my new schedule:
My in-laws visited for about three weeks, so things were a wash during that period, but since then I've been trying to get back into a regular routine. I still waiver between wanting to stay up late at night, and getting up early. During the day, I'm energetic, and think it won't be any trouble to stay up late, after all I did it all through university. At nighttime, as soon as the kids are down, I may be able to make it for a half an hour or an hour or so before my eyelids start closing on their own. And I say to myself, "well, just get up early!" And yet when the alarm clock tolls the dawn of a new day (and I set it so that the new day starts before the actual dawn), I have become a zombie.
So I printed off a sheet for Monday through Sunday, when I would wake up, work on the novel, have leisure time, and sleep. I entered a period of optimization. I realized that I am not a robot. You would think that would be immediately apparent, butt it's not. I love to read. I'll often start a book at night when the kids are in bed, and because it is so good I will read until 2 o'clock in the morning and therefore be a zombie for several days. Yet when I was trying to maximize the amount of time I would spend writing, I essentially eliminated all leisure time. This does not work for me. I've also realized that I need more than the standard eight hours of sleep a night, and benefit from occasionally getting extended periods of sleep. Thus, I bring you my new schedule:
| Day | Wake-up | Shower | Write | Leisure | Sleep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5 am | 5-5:30 am | 5:30-7 am | 8-9 pm | 9 pm / 8 hrs |
| Tuesday | 5 am | 5-5:30 am | 5:30-7 am | n/a | 8 pm / 9 hrs |
| Wednesday | 5 am | 5-5:30 am | 5:30-7 am | 8-9 pm | 9 pm / 8 hrs |
| Thursday | 5 am | 5-5:30 am | 5:30-7 am | 8-9 pm | 9 pm / 8 hrs |
| Friday | 5 am | 5-5:30 am | 5:30-7 am | 8-9:30 pm | 9:30 pm / 8.5 hrs |
| Saturday | 6 am | Later! | 6-7:30 am | 8-9 pm | 9 pm / 9 hrs |
| Sunday | 6 am | Later! | 6-7:30 am | 8-9 pm | 9 pm / 8 hrs |
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Registering a business, deducting expenses
As I contemplate purchasing some more software for my novel pursuits, I'm starting to seriously consider officially setting up a business so I can claim all these expenses. Altogether it will cost $175 to have an official home based business in my city. Ouch. But I do have to do it at some point, and it's a one-time fee, so better to pay it now than when my dollars aren't worth as much due to inflation. Also, going by the CRA's definition, my business is already technically started because I know what I'm going to do and have been making steps toward it on a regular basis, so I guess I already have a home office? Of course, still making product so no sales yet. Not sure what my city defines a "start" as, but I'll register soon regardless.
I'm kind of sad that I didn't read through the CRA stuff before I filed my taxes. Last year I purchased a lot of writing books and software to do outlining and that all would have been tax deductible. I could go back and modify my return, but that's a really big undertaking. Plus I think my big push in January is a good way to define the start of the business (seems to match the following from the CRA: "In order that there be a finding that a business has commenced, it is necessary that there be a fairly specific concept of the type of activity to be carried on and a sufficient organizational structure assembled to undertake at least the essential preliminaries."). Anything in this tax year is game now that I have my head on straight! So far I have some writing craft books, a marketing course, and hopefully software if I can convince my husband of the expense, which looks dismal at the moment, heh.
The good news is I won't have to register for any tax account, since I'm not earning more than $30k a year on this... ha! Hopefully I'll have that problem at some point. But even so, I don't sell the books directly, so not sure how this would work (the retailers would collect the tax so don't see why I would need an account). I'm sure there's some process for commissioned pieces in there, but I'll open that can of worms if I ever get there.
Coming back to the topic of business registration: It appears that Canada does not have the LLC option of our American counterparts to protect our personal belongings should anything terrible happen in this process. The only choice I can go for for liability protection is a corporation, and the thought of corporate taxes is, quite frankly, terrifying. It appears the corporation would pay tax at about 11% for a Canadian-controlled private corporation (CCPC) claiming the small business deduction, and I think I would get paid as an employee and that would be taxed for income taxes. So double taxes? Confusing. In any case, the CCPC would function as it's own "person" so I wouldn't be able to deduct my expenses off my personal taxes. I think I'll stick with sole proprietor (or partnership if my husband decides to get on board) for now, and if I become immensely successful I'll look into this further.
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Week of May 4, 2015: Cannot find simple floor plan software to help me visualize my world
Stat summary for the last two weeks can be found here.
I think it's good that I'm starting to track how much time I spend on the business side of indie publishing and how much I spend on actual writing. For the week of April 27, 2015 I spent a total of 13:25 on the author career, and 9:41 of that was used on business related things (learning the business, trends, advice, etc). This is not an acceptable ratio!
I got my butt in gear the next week but came to a point in the novel where my Main character is exploring the school, and I realized I needed a clear picture of the school in my mind. I tried program after program to draw a "simple" floor plan of the school so I could orient myself. It was a major block; I couldn't keep going unless I knew where I was. Going through the motions made me realize that the space I had envisioned was physically impossible because I had huge rooms next to ones that were very small, but for the plot they had to be similar in size. It was a mess.
I spent 26:07 last week on this career, and used 15:17 for trying to come up with a good map. I'm still not there. That said, the exercise was not entirely fruitless. I added more groups inside the school, and came up with their past histories, which groups conflict on a number of different controversial topics, and how the groups work together. Lots of this will be important to the plot, and I feel I have a much better grip on who these people are. I started an excel sheet to lay out what the different groups think about various things (I'm being intentionally vague).
That said, I still do want to make a floor plan. I tried several software programs. I just want one that lets me edit the walls with a snap feature, and let's me copy floors for multi-level buildings, and maybe see the floor beneath. Just something simple to let me draw boxes and stick windows and furniture in them! Here's a quick summary of the software that fell short:
I think it's good that I'm starting to track how much time I spend on the business side of indie publishing and how much I spend on actual writing. For the week of April 27, 2015 I spent a total of 13:25 on the author career, and 9:41 of that was used on business related things (learning the business, trends, advice, etc). This is not an acceptable ratio!
I got my butt in gear the next week but came to a point in the novel where my Main character is exploring the school, and I realized I needed a clear picture of the school in my mind. I tried program after program to draw a "simple" floor plan of the school so I could orient myself. It was a major block; I couldn't keep going unless I knew where I was. Going through the motions made me realize that the space I had envisioned was physically impossible because I had huge rooms next to ones that were very small, but for the plot they had to be similar in size. It was a mess.
I spent 26:07 last week on this career, and used 15:17 for trying to come up with a good map. I'm still not there. That said, the exercise was not entirely fruitless. I added more groups inside the school, and came up with their past histories, which groups conflict on a number of different controversial topics, and how the groups work together. Lots of this will be important to the plot, and I feel I have a much better grip on who these people are. I started an excel sheet to lay out what the different groups think about various things (I'm being intentionally vague).
That said, I still do want to make a floor plan. I tried several software programs. I just want one that lets me edit the walls with a snap feature, and let's me copy floors for multi-level buildings, and maybe see the floor beneath. Just something simple to let me draw boxes and stick windows and furniture in them! Here's a quick summary of the software that fell short:
- Sweet Home 3D was nice, and let me see the floor beneath, but the interface wasn't great, and it was slow. Amazingly, they had no pan ability in the 3D view. The only way to get around it was to do a "virtual tour" and make the person 20 feet tall. The walls wouldn't line up well, but at least I could copy them.
- Room Arranger was the best I think; it had a nice guide feature, but you had to edit the walls separately from the contents of the room (including windows and doors), and there was no easy way to copy a bunch of walls to make multiple storeys. I did the most work in this program, but in the end it took almost a whole day to plan out the first floor of a dorm and the bathrooms. o_O'
- I tried Home Designer but it wouldn't run under my Windows XP Virtual Machine.
- EZBluePrint 3D seemed ok, but lacked a grid and the interface was just plan odd, but the snapping feature was one of the best.
- I even watched some video tutorials on Google SketchUp, but you have to make things like windows and doors from basic shapes and that's way too time consuming.
There seemed to be quite a selection of online options, but I have to make a massive building and grounds, and don't trust that my information won't go piff. I like having things as files that I can put on Dropbox and my external hard drive.
I don't yet have an answer to this issue, except maybe drawing everything by hand. I think it would go faster that way, but my space perception is about as good as a one-eyed newborn kitten's. Software programs let you add furniture to the room so you I can say things like, "gee, when I put everything I need in that room I only ill 20% of the space... it must be the size of a football field!" To draw it by hand I'd have to lookup the normal sizes of things for scale, and I couldn't just drag a wall smaller to get it to fit.
Next week I'll probably come in here with my head between my legs and say I drew the damn thing by hand, and spent the whole week doing it... at least it gets me thinking about the world.
Oh I just thought of something! I'll ask the folks on KBoards! Stay tuned...
Thursday, 7 May 2015
Headset for Dragon Naturally Speaking 12.5
I've been dictating for the past few weeks, and while I like it, I'm still getting used to it. One thing I know for certain is that I'll need to upgrade from the headset supplied with the software. It's killing my ears! I went on the Dragon website and looked at all the headsets rated at 6 Dragons (the top compatibility rating) and decided on the Andrea NC-250V Circumaural Stereo PC Headset. Buying it is on my to-do list. Right after new glasses :)
Modeling my world
I met the point in my book were my main character is exploring the "New World," which in this case is a school complex. I realized I couldn't write about what he was seeing unless I had a good understanding of the space myself. I started off drawing the school grounds free hand, but my skills and proportion are extremely lacking. Then I tried redrawing everything on graph paper, but I kept making mistakes, a racing lines over and over, and then having to start over from the beginning.
I thought there must be a way to do this electronically, but I didn't want to waste a lot of time learning specialty floor plan software. It turns out that there is a free software program available that is very intuitive to use. It's called Sweet Home 3D and it runs in Java, which means it will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I've installed it and I have to say, it's impressive. It even lets you do a 3D mock-up and walk through the room. All this in less than ten minutes. Needless to say, I'm laying out the whole school so that I always have consistency in what my characters are seeing.
I thought there must be a way to do this electronically, but I didn't want to waste a lot of time learning specialty floor plan software. It turns out that there is a free software program available that is very intuitive to use. It's called Sweet Home 3D and it runs in Java, which means it will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I've installed it and I have to say, it's impressive. It even lets you do a 3D mock-up and walk through the room. All this in less than ten minutes. Needless to say, I'm laying out the whole school so that I always have consistency in what my characters are seeing.
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
Beta readers
I use this blog as a notebook for my writing journey, so this is just a short post to remind myself to go to Frostbite Publishing for beta readers. Reasonable prices, and KBoards approved.
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