Well, you made it past Valentine’s Day. As a reward, you can get the Kindle edition of The Redheaded Stepchild today. If you’ve been waiting, today’s the day!
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Category: Announcements
Today, a recent flash fiction piece I wrote based on a Wednesday Wrant is being featured on the Rose City Sisters flash fiction anthology. Check it out, and all the other sub-1000-word stories these hardworking ladies put together.
http://rosecitysisters.blogspot.com/2012/02/65-johnson-county-mr-coffee.html
Leave a CommentGreetings, loyal fanbase of fans! Today I sent the drafts of the short stories that are going in my newest collection to the people they were about. If you’re unfamiliar, I’m working on a collection of short stories about women and their tattoos. The stories are chained, meaning you meet characters in a previous story and learn more about them in the next.
I’ve been struggling to come up with a title, but I have a few ideas I’ve been throwing arond, so I want to crowdsource this one… tell me in the comments: which one do you like best?
- Vodka Chicken Soup for the Tattooed Soul
- Written in Ink
- The Girls with the Draggin’ Tattoos
Or, choose your own!
3 CommentsIt’s day 2 of my KDP Select promotional giveaway, and why not use Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day a giveaway? Go get yours, Kindle owners.
Leave a CommentHappy weekend, all!
I just finished this new poem, that I got the idea for after reading a sappy, sentimental poem about a mother’s hands, and as I was about to take a nap. I never got the nap, because I kept writing and rewriting this in my head.
It’s called My Mother’s Hands. Go check it out, and tell me what you think.
Leave a CommentWhen I started my Wednesday Wrants, I said that part of the reason I wanted to do them was to have some avenue for my ranting frustrations, but also a record of something I could write about later. My newest flash fiction piece, Johnson County Mr. Coffee, is just that.
I ranted a few weeks ago about our fancypants coffeemaker a few weeks ago in this post, and it inspired the following story.
https://kellyhitchcock.com/flash-fiction/#joco
Go check it out, and tell me what you think 🙂
Leave a CommentToday, I’ve got a guest post over on fellow writer Deborah Court’s author blog. Go check it out, #1 fans of mine…
http://deborahcourt.blogspot.com/2012/01/guest-of-day-author-kelly-hitchcock.html
Leave a CommentI just got done reading my 2010 review, and now I’m ready to do the same for 2011. It’s been quite a year, and was way different from 2010.
- I had two manuscripts published in 2011. It was less than 2010, but I’ll still call it a win because I spent more energy on getting The Redheaded Stepchild published and writing my next novel. I also spent more time writing new manuscripts in general than I did in 2010.
- 2011 came and went, and the two poems that were accepted for publication in February 2010 are still waiting to go to print. And people wonder why print is dead…
- I forwent the book deal and decided to publish The Redheaded Stepchild myself. I’m still experimenting to figure out what works as far as sales and marketing go, but I’m not in this for the money. I’m in it because I love it and I want to try new things.
- I tripled my Twitter followers.
- I once again pimped my writing at South by Southwest. I also submitted a panel proposal for SXSW 2012 which is still under review. Fingers crossed!
- I used my Kindle to check out works by other Kindle authors. I’m hoping that it’ll be great for you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of sales.
- I joined a writer’s group, and I’m now leading that group. I look forward to Weird Austin Writers meetings every single time.
- I began volunteering at my local library. I’m hoping this will help me reach out to readers once I get more established.
Goals for 2012
- Sell 1,000 copies of The Redheaded Stepchild. I’ll have to figure out what works marketing-wise to make that happen, but it’d be nice to know that my book is in 1,000 new hands!
- Publish my next novel. I’ve got a lot of rewriting and editing to do, but I’m really excited about the project and I think it’ll be my best work yet. Now if I can just think of a title…
- Build relationships with readers and other authors. This means I need to keep up with my other author blogs all year round. (Compound goal.)
- Publish The Other Dentenia Zickafoose. I’ve been shopping this guy around for almost 2 years now. It’s time.
- Become a contributor on other author blogs. Guest posting, book reviews, whatever I can do. I need to put myself out there.
- Write 15 new manuscripts. I’ll have the new novel, but I also want to write 10 poems and 5 short stories to add to my repertiore. Can’t be myopic with my manuscripts.
On the whole, I’ll call 2011 a win. I think 2012 is gonna rock.
1 Comment.jpg "WoMen's Literary Cafe")
I do believe I am setting a personal record for earliest morning blog post. I’m usually not even up for another few minutes. Part of that, I think, is the excitement of being part of the December New Release book event by the Women’s Literary Cafe. I’m not exactly expecting people to line up at the bookstore for it, especially since there is no physical form to be had in bookstores, but I am hoping that I can see some traffic and get my name out there for my first novel.
This event is for independent authors, such as myself, who have recently released new books, so feel free to support any other independent authors with new releases that sound interesting to you.
Here’s a link to the event: WoMen’s Literary Cafe December New Release. Happy Holiday ebook shopping 🙂
Leave a CommentI’ve been working on the tattoo story collection I discussed a few posts ago. It’s been going very well, but it appears I am short of the 25,000 word count mark by about 11k. That tends to happen when you get new freelance clients every night for the first couple weeks, then have to go to a 3-day conference for your real job.
The main reason I wanted to do National Novel Writing Month was because I had a project I was crazy excited about, and I wanted to start getting it down before I lost that initial excitement. Perhaps more importantly, though, it took me seven years to write my last book, and I don’t want it to take another seven years to write my second. NaNoWriMo is great for me, because it forces me to find the time – often time I don’t have – to write something, anything, any day. As a result, I’ve written on the city bus, in coffee shops during meetups, on my lunch breaks, while watching college football recaps, you name it.
Part of the problem I’ve had with NaNoWriMo is that the process needs to be fast, and my process is typically much slower. I’m a big edit-as-I-go kind of person; it’s how I’ve always been and why I think my editing phase is a little easier. It’s difficult for me to write something I know I don’t really like, am going to have to change later, and just leave it and move on. It may prove useful though, because when I do come back to this in December to start editing (yes, I am an optimist), I’ll have a little more dramatic distance than I typically have when I edit as I write. No process is ever going to be perfect, though, so I guess I’ll take the productivity in exchange for the rework I’ll inevitably have to do later.
It’s likely that I won’t get to 50,000 on time, but I’m not overly concerned. I’m happy with the progress I am making and I think the prose is really well done so far. I’ve also been getting some great feedback from my meetup group members, which I will feature again soon.
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