My Weekly Summary

I can't say I accomplished a lot this past week, so that record is yet to be broken, but I did sneak in about four hours of writing, a pitiful amount, but better than zero hours.

Those four hours amounted to one unnecessarily long scene and a sprinkling of short ones. The rap on my writing is that my stories are rushed, and if you've been following along, you know that I've resolved to do just the opposite. It's generally worked out well. I'm trying hard not to shortchange my scenes, and I'm moving the story along chronologically (with very few time jumps). Sometimes, in the weirdest spots, I elongate a scene too much. The long scene I wrote this week involves the main character arriving two hours early for her appointment, in the hopes that she can use that extra time to corner her A&R man. Of course it doesn't work out (he's not even there), so she's stuck with too much time on her hands. Returning home would be silly; she'd just need to turn around right away and head back, so what does she do? She paces the parking lot. (I don't know; what would you do?) She's too wound up to sit in the lobby that long. A very boring pursuit leads one to notice inconsequential things, like how the cars zooming past on the street sound. I can relate to her circumstance, because I, too, have had to stand outside and wait. What's there to do? I'd end up counting the number of silver vehicles and the number of white ones and black ones, all the while praying that my ride would show up soon and save me from my utter boredom. Maybe I'll leave those parts in; maybe I'll find a replacement, but at least the dreaded "rushed" won't come into play.

Even in the minimal time I spent writing, I've moved the story forward. I blogged yesterday about MC's big pronouncement, but I haven't quite figured out how to phrase it. Still, she's finally reached that point. I'm also leading up to the reveal of her mentor's secret. It's going to take a circuitous route, and I like that. I have plans! There needs to be a catalyst for the mentor to succumb to her secret, one I hinted at earlier in the manuscript and am now obliged to follow through on. I'm hoping it'll play out in a big way.

 

On the analytics front, I've recently become inexplicably consumed with driving more traffic to my author site. It's working a teeny, tiny bit. My average engagement time has increased from one minute and thirty-nine seconds to four minutes and forty-seven seconds. I wish I could say that adding more novel-in-progress insights to my news section accounted for the increase, but the views for that page haven't moved. Visitors also aren't spending much time on my books page, so I have no idea what they're doing. There isn't much else to spend more than a minute on.

Whatever is doing it, great. It's a small achievement, but it beats no achievement. 

My giveaway promotion for Lies and Love has resulted in seven downloads, with one day left to go. That might sound puny, but I had to cancel my giveaway for The Apple early, since no one wanted it. That was mortifying. I've since reworked its blurb, but I hadn't done it in time for the giveaway. I'm not sure it would have made a difference.

 

So, while I'm unable to write much, I'm staying involved in all things publishing related. And based on the stats I cited here, I'm really easy to please.