On Summer's End

I'm always sad when summer comes to an end. The hot summer days spent hanging out at the lake, swimming, summer vacation, hammocking with my favorite little Chihuahua, and so on. I miss the stunning red hot summer sunsets, or the way the pink sky reflects off the water. I miss the carefree feeling of the entire season.

However, I do always look forward to fall. I love cider mills, pumpkins, Halloween, fingerless gloves, and hoodies. I always look forward to the pumpkin patch and baking fall like goodies. I look forward to a cooler house and cooler nights with the windows open, feeling the crisp fall air on my face while I sleep.

So, on saying farewell to summer, I'll say that it was a nice one. Many trips to the park were enjoyed, a trip to Tawas, Higgin's Lake were enjoyed, and then a small tour of Michigan, up to the U.P., St. Ignace and Munising, and down to Traverse City, I've seen a lot of beautiful things my state has to offer. There were bonfires, evening walks, stargazing nights, and a lot of hot, sticky nights thanks to the weather.

Now I can look forward to the impending season, watching the colors change on a little mini-holiday next month, Halloween parties, and Halloween itself (my favorite holiday.) Goodbye sweet summer, see you next year. Welcome harvest season!

On Irritability

I found myself increasingly irritable at the office today. It seemed to surface out of no where. One moment I was mostly content, the next moment I felt like I wanted to break a window. When the phone rang, I wanted to toss it out into the street.

This could be due to low office morale at the moment, it could be due to the fact that this is my fifth year in a job that I loathe (though I am working toward getting out of there... one day.) It could be due to terrible office politics that commence on a day to day basis. It could be due to the fact that this morning on my drive to work, I discovered the antenna on my car has snapped off, and the fix is not so easy.

This leaves me with no desire to write, though I should. I should be writing every day. However, I feel like whatever I might put down might suck, and I just can't have something mediocre down on the page just so I can say I filled up a few more pages.

On A Dwindling Summer

I've been putting a lot of work into the manuscript as of late (save the last week, I've haven't worked on it at all.) I've finished part two, and am about twenty to thirty pages deep into part three. Writer's block has stuck again, and I feel like whatever I put on the page just isn't good enough and doesn't give the story justice.

I went through the whole thing and formatted it into proper manuscript style. All in all, it took roughly eight hours. In turn, I had to read through what I had wrote. Personally, I feel like a lot of missing, and there's much more meat that needs to be added. I was trying to be optimistic in stating to myself that I might have this thing done by the end of the year, but that goal might be out of reach if I play perfectionist and pull this thing apart piece by piece. My biggest fear is that it just won't be any good.

On the business side, I've decided to put more effort forth on that front. I let things lay low for a while because I felt I didn't have the skills to present something worthy to a client, however, after just creating a piece of marketing for a local event and getting it approved on the first draft with no revisions, revitalized my belief in my work. I ordered some brochures (finally) that I created from scratch of course which arrived today. I did some research a few months back and got the addresses of some of the local businesses around me. I figured it couldn't hurt to mail them a little informational package, which may or may not bring a little business my way.

My ultimate goal of course, is to leave the real estate office and work for myself full time, writing, creating, that sort of thing. If I keep my determination, I feel like that might just happen.

On a parting note, a few weeks ago I went on a river cruise on the Detroit River and captured this shot, I've been getting a lot of compliments on it, and since I feel like it depicts a more positive light on the city, I thought I would share it.

Working

Got just a little bit of work done on the manuscript since I've posted last. I always find myself wanting to work on in while I'm at work (of course) and then by time I get home and have the chance to get some pages done, I just don't feel like looking at the computer screen any longer.

Of course, I could write longhand, which would be double work, because after I hand wrote it, I'd just have to type it anyway. I could also use the good ol' typewriter, except a few letters are not working on the typewriter which would leave the print a mess, also, the erase function is currently not working either, which is a huge deal to me, because I'm always making mistakes ans mistyping, it would take me forever to get one page out.

As far as the copy writing business goes... I'm sort of at a halt because I don't have sufficient funds to get my brochures printed, plus I haven't really found a good medium to print them through. However, my lead that I mentioned a few weeks back seems to be live again, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe my first "real" gig will emerge from that. Sometimes, it pays to mass email everyone in your inner circle, sometimes, it might lead to a job.

Milestone

Last night I hit one one hundredth page in the manuscript. A huge milestone for me I feel. I enjoyed the amazing feeling of satisfaction knowing that I hit page one hundred and the last piece I had written about what really good, I felt.

Of course, that feeling of satisfaction is put on hold for a moment, since today, since at least 5AM this morning, I've been feeling under the weather. And while there's really nothing more that I'd rather to do than to keep writing, my energy is waning yet again, and I feel like a nap is in order.

Tomorrow includes getting up super early for my real job and going to a stupid class for a program in which I already know how to work pretty well, but my boss seems to be tech illiterate in this case, and now I'm stuck circling the drain with him.

A Writer Writes... Always!

Worked on the manuscript a bit over the weekend, not nearly enough in my opinion, but I got another ten pages down which felt like at least a little bit of an accomplishment. I'm about 6.5 pages away from hitting my one hundredth page.

I feel like there is a lot of detail missing, like there is so much more I need to add and edit. Confirmation from my husband fueled this thought process. I feel like when this thing is finally complete, it will turn out to be quite the entertaining piece.

I cannot wait for the day when this is my full time job. When I wake up in the morning, turn on the coffeepot, and sit down at my desk, in my own house to write, to write the morning away. While this first project has literally taken years, and is far from finished I feel like if I get it published and it's (hopefully) mildly popular, this will get the wheels spinning for future projects.

I'm longing for the warm days to return and stay (It's the second week of May and it's feeling like March out there.) I want to bring my notebook to the park and lean against a tree and spectate, dream of ideas for future projects, take some beautiful pictures. Hopefully soon, I'll be basking in some summer like sunlight.

Distractions

Needless to say, my mailers have not gone out yet. They are sitting sadly in the corner of my office, just waiting to be send out to their recipients. I've been researching printing prices. Most are outrageous. I can't subject myself to such prices. Mostly, I just can't afford it. I've been looking into cheaper avenues and the only thing I've come up with is buying a new printer (roughly $100 or so) and some glossy paper of my own and just printing out the brochure. Or, editing the brochure into a 1 page flyer and printing it that way. Not to mention, I still need to buy postage, and look into more possible clientele in the surrounding areas.

My lead that I had from a few weeks back seems to be dead, as expected. Though, I must admit, I did get my hopes up a little bit. I don't want to be a pest, but maybe I ought to be?

The manuscript isn't getting much work either. It seems like whenever I sit down to work on it, I always get pulled away from it. I feel like it's never going to be completed or published at this rate, I've already been working on it for close to two years now.

I guess my "real" job is draining my drive and creativity out of me. But I have no choice but to stay here because this is where I get my pitiful amount of money, and this is how I pay the bills right now. Maybe one day I'll finish this manuscript, maybe I'll publish it, maybe it will entertain more than one person, maybe I'll make some money. Wishful thinking?

The Price of Business

Yesterday evening I emailed Kinko's to get a price on 50-100 copies of the brochure I had created for the business, just quickly explaining what it is I do. I simply wanted some glossy paper, color copies. They were asking just over $100 for 50 copies! And just over $200 for 100 copies! I thought this was mildly outrageous. Luckily a good pal who is in the graphic design business: www.bversatile.com, referred me to a website he uses: www.gotprint.com, which had much better prices. I could get the same product at 250 copies for $100. Not too shabby.

As the spring moves forward and we move into May, I know I'm going to find it harder to make myself sit in my "home office" and write. Perhaps I'll just have to take my work on the road, to a park, leaning against a tall old tree with steno pad in hand. That sounds like a pretty good idea. That way I'm still letting the creative juices flow, and I'm enjoying the outdoors.

A Long Road Ahead

Trying to break into this business all by myself is frustrating. I guess I just don't really know how to market myself properly.

I've got a website: www.kldocommunications.vpweb.com. Simple and to the point, I still need to work on it some more. I've joined Linked In and got one of their nifty "paid" accounts and tried connecting to professionals that way without any luck whatsoever. I've sent a mass email to most everyone I know letting them know that I'm trying to get in to this business and to please keep me in mind... I've gotten one, somewhat tepid lead. My next tactic is to send out a small mailer with a flyer and short brochure about what it is that I do to the local area businesses. While I like to think that this might give me a lead or two, I'm not feeling good about it. It just seems like whatever I'm trying isn't working. I've read the "self help" books on copy writing and starting up the business, and while they've been mildly helpful, maybe I'm just not using the tools correctly.

In any case, while I'm passionate about all forms of writing, this business of mine is really meant to be my "fall back," something that I can make money doing while I work on manuscripts. I've always had a love for writing stories. From silly little one pagers, to lengthier, in depth pieces, such as I'm working on now.

My problem has been that with my current full time job, by time I get home, I just don't feel like staring at a computer screen any more to do my own work, which shouldn't really stop me at all. I should want to do it because it is my own work and not someone else's.

An old friend of mine suggested that I take my writing to someone who is in publishing, just to see if what I've got so far is any good and has the probability of being published in the long run. While I've gotten decent reviews from the three people I've let read the work so far, I feel they are sort of biased, and aren't really going to tell me if it's garbage or not. So I'm taking this advice to heart and am going to try to seek out someone in the publishing arena.

Advertising

Yesterday I decided to start working on a flyer just to advertise the business and let potential clients what it is I do, maybe tempt someone to give me a call or shoot an email. I thought, I could mail said flyer out to businesses in my area to start. Of course, the great thing about this business is that I can really work with any one, any where, because of the wonderful World Wide Web.

I still need to polish the flyer a bit, I'm sort of a stickler for details, I don't want to look like a fool to potential business connections, I mean who does? They need to be printed of course, postage needs to be acquired, etc. I'm trying to not put all my eggs in one basket on this one, after all, my mass email technique didn't work so well, or I guess I was just sending to the wrong people.


I still have that one lead from an old friend. She followed up with me yesterday, and will be getting back to me shortly. I'm keeping my fingers crossed in that aspect as well.