A bit of a dilema – at a crossroads

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Kai

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So, I’m taking part in another blogging challenge, the V7N one that Cricket runs (remember to share the love!) and I have a bit…. a lot of a dilemma.

I need to start getting focussed. Specifically, I need to make time for both fiction writing and publishing. I also really want to get back to the stuff I’m *really* passionate about, which is language, specifically, the language that we use to write ‘stuff’. But I’m also mental about WordPress, and knitting, and…and….

Ok. So there’s a couple of complications to this.

One – I have a dissertation due on the 3rd of May. I also have ~~two~~ sorry, three assignments due in, one next week. It’s creative writing so it’s not *that bad*, but it’s still….a lot to deal with. At the moment, I’m working with taking an hour and a half out every day to do *stuff*.

Two – I want to spend some quality time with the two leading men in my fiction, Elliot Peters and Marcus Farran. So, we’re looking at being torn between two genres too, and it’s difficult to work with blogging and fiction when it’s going forward to be published. But I can write about the *process* right?

Three – I’ve got five different blogs that I *could* do the challenge on. And that’s when my dilema really kicks into high gear.
The five blogs are:

Kaiberie.com – ie. this one.
booksbykai – this is my book blogging site, though it’s currently being co-hosted on writers-bookshelf
literary-forensics – one of my major MASSIVE passions – I love talking language. It’s just out in front of talking coding, when, if you get down to the nuts and bolts, is about the same thing really.
WP-for-Authors – Doing a project that I could blog about, though the principles apply to anyone, I know who my ideal market is and why.
The Blogging coach – Talking about blogging in general.
And of course, I *WANT* to be as involved in the community, if not more, but I’m also highly aware that I’m not running it, so my instinct to help out is probably misplaced :S

The complication comes in, of course where you factor in that I’m a full time copywriter, a full time WRITER, a full time student, a full time mother….I want to find time for all of my projects, but it’s just not physically possible. It used to be, especially as there is a massive amount of overlap in my time. It’s difficult to be a (copy/student) writer without there being a bit of overlap. Still…..

So, here’s where you guys come in. Help me choose. I need to get the blog or blogs listed on the V7N challenge thread before Monday, so I’d love some feedback from everyone
Also, I’ve ‘vollunteered’ to add at least two posts to the V7N blogs. I can talk ‘tech’ or ‘Seo’ – which would you like to hear about and what questions are burning through your concentration demanding to be answered? Other, of course, than ‘who is this crazy lady’

30 posts later – where I am, where I’m going etc

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Kai

I noticed this morning that I hit the magical 30 post mark, from the 30 posts in 30 days (in my case, really it was 30 posts in 45 days!) and wanted to do a quick round-up, along with some observations.

First up – I suck at timetables.
Actually, more accurately, I suck at working within timetables, when there is lots going on around me. In the last month I went back to Uni for a new term (my last one), I moved laptops to a much sleeker, faster, sweeter piece of kit (which leads me to a point I’m going to make later), and I finally discovered that my love for writing definitively needs fiction to keep the flames burning. And that simply reading it for now isn’t enough.
I also discovered that 30 billable hours equates to much *much* more than that, and I procrastinate too much, which lead me to another project idea for this month/next month. I discovered that I’m not in the best shape mentally, or physically, and that I really need to find and adhere to boundaries. That means less answering email on my phone when I should be chilling out, and more spending my time working on the things – all of them – that makes me happy. Journaling, despite being suggested, isn’t something I can get into any more – I had a horrible time of it when my then psych council got his hands on one of my stories and tried to commit me because it was about suicide, and jumping out the windows of my flat. I know mental health care has moved on in leaps and bounds since then, but there have been other incidents where people have used my journal against me. Next best idea is to go back to fiction .

Specifics though

Of the 30 posts I had planned, I’ve still got 14 drafts left. I’ve also added to that and have ideas for about another 60 blog posts – or partial posts. If I got them scheduled and farmed to the right blogs (because some of them might not belong *here* when I’m done) then I’ve got content for two blogs for a month, or several blogs for several months depending on posting schedules.
I’m so not over my blogging apathy. I still find it difficult to interact on Livejournal, where I started to blog – I don’t know if it’s transient but it’s lasted about eight months so far and hasn’t abated any. I work a full-time job, study practically full time for Uni, write when I can, plus I’m the primary parent for a nine-year old with emotional difficulties (she’s getting MUCH better), and an eleven year old that is an amazing wee guy. And then I fit my relationships with friends, family and my fiancée into that massive mix. It’s not an easy balancing act, and gets harder in November, when I run the Nanowrimo, and in April for ScriptFrenzy. I think it’s a symptom of my life being too busy, but it could just be that I’ve outgrown how I used to blog (24 blogs, updated on a three-day schedule). It could just be that I’m burned out still – and that I need more time to myself. It could be that it’s just one of those things. The 30 day challenge brought me back to a lot of that, but there’s still a lot to be said for needing more time to fall in love with blogging all over again.
I really don’t write enough fiction. I’m not editing at all – I’ve got this one task in my task manager that keeps getting bumped to next week to actually sit down and write Glass Block – which lead me in a very circumlocutory way to a project I want to try. More about that below though.
Emotionally, I’m not over any of the miscarriages I’ve had in my adult life, but of all of them, this last one was the hardest. I think it’s a mix of us both being on board with the idea fully, and the traumatic way we found out I wasn’t pregnant, plus the hospital stuff afterwards, but now I’m not doing well with any of that stuff. The last one resulted in the problems we had when I moved and the referral through the Crisis team in Gloucester (who, really I can’t praise enough) to the Recovery team and my wonderful worker, whom I really *really* miss. This one seems to be worse in some ways, because I’m still feeling it all and I’m ON medication. Time will tell I suppose. December doesn’t seem that long ago, but that morning in the hospital feels even closer to me still.*

Moving on

I guess the positive in that phrase is that I actually know where I’m going and what my plan is. Well, kinda anyway.
There’s two immediate projects I want to get out of the way and through before I decide what I’m going to do with myself full-time from now on. Lots of the projects I’ve got in mind are just going to have to wait till after I’ve graduated – realistically, I don’t have time to blog in all the places I want to, but I will soon.

But the two big projects.
I want to show the impact social media has on someone’s day – so I’m going to do a Friday *with* full social media interaction, and a Friday without. The Friday *With*, I’m going to use Facebook and Twitter through my laptop – without I’m going to check in on my phone. To get to that point though, I need to rebuild my tweetdeck and reader set-up, plus update what I’m looking at because I’m pretty scattered all over the place right now.

I’m going to journal what I’m doing, and track the time using an app that I’ve long since gotten used to called ‘Rescue time’. I’ll log my full day on (and off) the computer, and post the results and some conclusions I’ve drawn at the end of it. It’s a teeny tiny project, but it’s one of those wonderful things that others can attempt to duplicate and they too can talk about what they found, so it’s going to be interesting. I’m going to stick that happy little project up on Work at home Writers, because it’s primarily about productivity.

The second is a little more hazy now. I’ve got to get the books I’ve written into Scrivener, and then move on from there, but I’m deliberately declaring Sundays ‘fiction day’. I’ll most likely have to skip a couple of them to get my dissertation finished, or when there’s a massively pressing deadline, but if I’m so reluctant to write non fiction, it’s maybe for a different reason and I want to test that For that second, specifically, I need lots of encouragement. I am deliberately removing billable hours from my schedule, and guilt aside, I’m not sure that I’m even particularly confident in my fiction abilities any more. So if you could hop onto one of the social media areas where I talk writing, cheer me on at Writers-bookshelf or otherwise play ‘cheering squad for me’ I’d love it, I really would.

* I don’t talk about what went on – and would appreciate that people don’t pursue this one reference to it with me. I’m not interested in baring my soul about it and while I appreciate it’s an area that women really don’t talk about enough, I’d rather err on the side of not talking about it. That said, I’d rather people knew why I was prickly, than simply smack them upside the head.

Shameless self promotion – books, sites and how to encourage me ;)

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Kai

One of the off list conversations I had with the people who were asking me about my stuff, and encouraging me not to be shy is to ask to have you guys urge me.
So I bowed to peer pressure, in a positive way. The following ways are the absolute best ways to get me to – find out about the books I’ve mentioned in the past, urge me to write them, and get access to them, and the writing process before/after/getting your mitts on them. Having a strong fan base will also help me convince publishers that I’m a great bet after the first ‘oh, this is good’.

I’m considering whether I should work to a self publishing schedule for some of my books – I’m not sure whether I should keep slogging on with Elliot Peters and his stuff or just get it out there so that those that want it can get their hands on it, while those that want to wait till it’s backed by a publisher can still support me by passing the book onto others.

Facebook

I’ve got a page for my main book stuff – and as the books come out, I’ll create a page for the big ones – and a short story overall page for the shorter ebooks. You can sign up at D Kai Wilson-Viola’s Facebook Page. As a quick side note, I won’t add people to my main Facebook page if you’re only interested in my books, or I don’t know who you are. This is not to say I won’t welcome you on my fan page, but I have lines that I tend to defend. If you know me from somewhere and think that I should add you, it goes faster either way if you tell me where we know one another from – but I’m always happy to gain new ‘fans’.

Twitter

I have two main twitter feeds – Kaiberie (my personal one) and BooksbyKai – where I’ll talk writing/publishing/share notices and reviews. I add people back as long as they aren’t constantly offering information on making money

Blogs and websites

I’m currently in the process of redesigning my website, so for now, I can’t point you at anything – but what I can do now is point you at my writer’s blog – at writers-bookshelf.

Anything else?

I’d love to hear if there’s anything that you would like to hear or see?

Showing my chops- the Merry-go-round

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Kai

: Image via Wikipedia

Or, as my partner and best freind have both pointed said ‘showing just how warped I really am’.

Before we moved to our sunny location in the Cotswolds, my beloved and I were walking along a street in our hometown, looking down into Princes Street gardens. The shed at the back of a merrygoround that had been set up was on fire, but we didn’t know that – and I just suddenly turned to my other half and said ‘what if the merry go round is on fire’.
Another ten steps as we made small talk about how sad that was, then I chirp up ‘oooo…idea for a story…’
He stops and looks at me, then says ‘go on then’.
At this point in our relationship, we had been together for less than a year (it’s coming up on seven years this March!) so he’s just getting used to the idea that he dates someone that writes books, and was currently putting up with me while I worked out some pretty gruesome, CSI level graphic ideas for my detective (Elliot Peters – more about him later).
We’d gotten past the line of sight of the fire, and were walking past the church on the West corner of Princes Street when I started this story, about to cross the road near Bruntsfield place, and head for the bus round the corner from there. It’s about a four minute walk, especially if you’re corralling someone waving and gesturing as enthusiastically as I was.

And I proceeded to tell him this:
“What would happen if a serial killer was storing dead bodies in a frozen food truck, and had saved them all up, before bringing them down into the gardens, sticking them on the merry-go-round and setting fire to it before setting it in motion?’
What would happen is a forensic mess. What actually happened was my other half was backing away from me, at speed, into a plate glass window outside a shop with a look of sheer amazement on his face. He sees a merry-go round on fire and thinks ‘dammed shame, it was painted so nice too’.
I see a Merry go round on fire and think ‘Elliot would have a cow, and forensics would be at it for months…..’

I really should finish that story tho……

Blogging for the 30 day blog challenge – you can too!

What’s forensic linguistics then?

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Kai

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Thursdays is ‘language’ day – it’s one of those happy areas where I could talk for days/weeks/months.

But before I get into the *really* geeky stuff, I thought I’d give my perspective on Forensic Linguistics and how it fits into my world.
First up, I love the definition at Blogs.berkeley.edu (linked in the footnote). Forensic linguistics is the study of language as it relates to crime – but more importantly, it also covers the psychological and socio linguistic ways we use language.
Translation – language shapes everything we do – down to how we think and define our world.

Forensic linguistics specifically is the art of looking at language as it relates to crime. It covers language, as in our language and how we use it, to how we translate the language use of others and beyond. It looks at everything from socio interracial interaction (including racism and inclusion/exclusion) to the way language shapes our opinion.
My interest runs slightly deeper than that – and relates more to the ‘how we use language’ and how it relates to writers. I call it Literary forensics, and talk about it on another blog (mostly) at http://literary-forensics.com . I really enjoy talking about the writing and interesting pieces in the corpus of language (that’s the individual use of your own language – your idiosyncracies and colloquialisms). It’s really facinating, and can give real insight into everything from the writer themselves, to making characters more believable. It’s something I’m genuinely passionate about, so I apologise for my geekery. I hope you’ll enjoy it though.

Forensic Linguistics (blogs.berkeley.edu)

It’s been over 20 years in coming….

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Kai

: Image via Wikipedia

I’m not really ready to *launch* the blog yet, as in, I’m not ready to start talking about everything that I need to, because I’m still getting a grip on the change in schedule that just, quite suddenly, dropped in my lap, but I wanted to intro myself, and say ‘hi there!’

So, most of you know who I am, but just in case, my name is D Kai Wilson. I write under several dozen names, though mostly it includes Kai and ‘Wilson’ or ‘Viola’. You can read more about the rationalle behind that on my ‘about – personal’ page later, but I’ve got a couple of entirely off the wall pen names.
8 years ago, I took part in a project called ‘The Nanowrimo‘ – and became an ML for them at the same time. Myself and a lovely lad called James ran that first year in Edinburgh, where I lived at the time, and it was a blast. And during that year, I wrote what became an obsession for me, that’s spawned a series of seven books directly and two spin off sets.

The building pictured to the right is Teviot House – a couple of the Nanoers were roleplayers, with a group called GEAS – John being one of them – who then introduced me to Gregor and others – from *there*, I went through some really interesting times – got really sick, and met the man I’m marrying. We’ve since moved 100′s of miles south and quite a bit west, but I’ve got some very fond memories of that time, and the books that started it all. Yeah, that’s right, Nanowrimo changed my life .

Eight years of edits, massive life changes, and seven other Nanowrimos later, and here we are. I have a contract (this really should be surrounded by flashing lights), and now, I get to talk about how this works. All of it.

‘Glass Block’ isn’t my first novel. it’s not my first book. I’ve been writing since I was 4 (I just turned 32), so this has, quite literally been over 20 years in the making. I’m so excited, but it’s not entirely unexpected. I know a lot of people compare it to winning the lottery, and it is, and yet it isn’t. There’s a lot more work for a start.

So, there’s going to be a couple of great things I hope to do with this – I want to talk about editing manuscripts, and working with an editor and publishing house through the whole process, writing more books. Y’know – the works.
I’m also hoping that we can get other authors roped into talking about stuff – and working through everything that we’ve got, going on and more.

But, for now, I’m just revelling in the glow of having my first contract. I’ll get to share more when it’s all settled – but for now, I’m just so goddammed excited!

Free Chapter – Glass Block

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Kai

: Image via Wikipedia

And he’s the free chapter from Glass Block – let me know what you think, and whether you like it or not. Interested, not interested, I’d love to hear your views!

Glass Block free prologue

Glass Block Blurb

Sometimes games and reality shows just shouldn’t be revived – Elliot Peters, detective at Quadrant A, Downtown Darkness knows this best. When he’s plunged into a nightmare game show, he begins to realise that the religious element of the city might just be finally making their move and it’s a race against time to stop the release of a deadly virus that four of the prisoners had been carrying.

Available for Pre order July ’10.

Free download – project cover sheet

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Kai

: Image by mattymatt via Flickr

I’ve got these deadlines in my calendar for writing short stories, based on the duotrope theme calendar. But my main problem is I have to do three or four of em in a month, or at least attempt an idea at them – I could postpone submitting till March and roll up to it slowly, but it’s easier, in most cases, for me simply to jump in both feet.

So I designed a deceptively simple cover sheet for my projects – it’s got space to track the idea, or outline, the title, the link, notes, and each draft status. You can print it or simply open it and update it once a month, and is also a handy dandy cover sheet for any contracts you may need to later file.

You can download, modify and mess with the file from deadline planning – let me know if you get any use out of it?

Who’s ready for the Nanowrimo?

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Kai

I’m so excited. Not only did I get to meet Stephen Fry AND Mark Carwardine this weekend at the Cheltenham Literary festival, who both signed my book, and join Neil Gaiman (05)John and Carol Barrowman(08), and Toni Morrison(08) on my pride of place ’signed’ corner, but we’re nearly at Nanowrimo 09!

For those of you that don’t know what it is (where have you BEEN, it’s been running now for 11 years!) basically you go mad for 30 glorious and (legal) stimulant of your choice fuelled days (mine is Coca-Cola and fresh air, alongside copious hugs from the kids and my other half, and write 50k. I take it a step further and aim to do three books during that time – two main, one alt (and I’ll announce what they are this year on Wednesday). Not only do I write three books a year (or at least try – and make it most years to around 120k), but I’m also an ML and a full time student.

I’m actually ready (writing wise at least) this year. I have two different writing software projects – Liquid story binder and WriteWay Pro. I’ve *got* both because they suit the different styles of writing I use, and makes it easier for me to spend time actually writing instead of bending the program to my will.

I also, as a first, grabbed the spreadsheets that have been published for the Nanowrimo – I’ve seen lots of nice ones, but this one (by salzke (nanowrimo username) ) is really cool. Easy to customise to what I need (because it’s a pain in the ass to unlock a sheet and find all the different places that it’s using 50k in it’s calculations instead of, say 150k), and pretty too .

I’m already having to make concessions to my other plans – one Nano is part of my dissertation, and I’ll probably be submitting a fragment of the other one for my assignment in December, because there’s no other way to handle it, without going noisily mad.
So, who else is ready?

Kai's blog

Insanity is contagious mk x

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