I have decided to save myself the tedious task of producing a paper back version of my novels. I use the tool scrivener to write and edit my novels. This produces a kindle version with a table of contents. In the past I have converted this to an open source or word document so I could create a paperback version as well as other formats for Smashwords. I don’t have a lot of people buying kindle versions of my novels, I have even less buying paper back versions or buying them on Smashwords. This is a fairly liberating decision although perhaps it’s what I should have done ages ago. For a while, I used creating the paperback version to ensure that I removed as many errors as I could and to ensure the cover was good. But there are easier ways of doing it in an all digital release.
Speaking of tedious work, I spent a week bringing my old blog posts over to my new wordpress site, making sure I had photos from each month to make the posts more colorful. It took time, but I’m glad it’s done. I don’t think the world is extremely interested in my thoughts about writing, but it helps keep me focused to reflect on how I’m doing, what I’m doing and why.
It has been a few weeks since my ‘reading to write’ inspired a short scene in my novel. I really, really like it when that happens. It feels like things are coalescing without a lot of effort on my part. The quote that inspired me was from Marcel Proust, “…remain moored like houseboats to a certain point on the bank of the stream of life…” From that, I had a character complain about how her neighbor, who owns an RV, returns to the same campsite every year for his two weeks of vacation even though the dump next to the campsite has grown bigger every year. She’s tired of hearing him complain about it, since she would never be content to go back to the same place year after year even if it was beautiful.