Quickie Update

Just writing something quick before starting my shift at work today. Whole family is feeling under the weather including your's truly. Brandon wanted to come to work even though he isn't sure he'll make it through his shift. I don't know if I feel better or worse than he does. If he hadn't decided to try and tough it out, I'm not sure I would have come in myself.

Twitter campaign has been paused because I debate its effectiveness. I think the strategy needs some tweaks. My intention is to make some improvements, set things up so the family can send the tweets even when I'm doing other things. The work load is too much for me for what I'm getting back out of it. It'll be back better than ever.

I'm having a tough month with writing.  Still at minus one for the month but on the plus side for the year. Things are better than they were and there is hope that I'll be on the plus side for the month again.

Hopefully in a few days everyone will be healthy again and I'll be feeling more positive. Nicer weather would sure make a difference. It's been really cold or really wet or both.

Inspiration will come again and then I'll have dozens of stories and articles to work on.

Dug a Writing Hole

Courtesy Pixabay

First time I've been in this position this year. My goal of writing something each day is mired at minus two for the month. I fell behind by one early in the month and then caught it back up. Unfortunately I used up a lot of writing energy if you can call it that doing so. Missed the first one upset over something unrelated. I have a hard time writing anything other than a rant about the issue at hand in those situations and I this wasn't something I cared to share with the world. The following day I had my work hours extended and I didn't have much time or energy left by the time I got home.

Being ahead by one or two is far different than being behind. No pressure. Being behind is worse than it looks. Writing this today allows my to hold the line and keep things from getting worse but it doesn't make up any of the lost ground. It is hard to be happy with that. There is a lot of month to regain the lost ground but for the next few days my schedule is not going to help me.

Part of me is feeling out of ideas, but that is probably just a mood thing. There are times when I have more ideas than I could ever write. That just isn't the case right now though. I have to sit down and generate a new list of writing ideas. That might be more useful than trying to force things right now. Friday is a mostly free day and if all goes well I will catch up then and hopefully put myself ahead. That will kill all the perceived writing pressure again.

Got a few other things on my plate to take care of before I go to bed. Betting tomorrow I'll be feeling more positive.

March Progress Report

March Progress Report

May seem to be a little odd for me to be making a progress report this early in the month. There is progress though and besides that I'm stranded at work for a few hours and really don't have much else to do.

At the beginning of the month, I started a Twitter campaign. It's taken a week and a half but it is finally in full swing. This is the point where I wanted to start but couldn't quite get it all together that fast. I have created four sets of tweets that I post from twice per day rotating through. I needs serious refinement but I'm happy with how it is progressing.

I don't know what all this work is translating into but there are statistics that I can look to and at least feel like I'm accomplishing something. Twitter impressions have skyrocketed. I'm doing in a day what used to take me a whole month and the numbers are still going up. There is an increase in views on the websites I'm advertising so it is translating that far. I don't know if my book has been experiencing increased sales or not. I have no way of knowing. I'll keep plugging away. At least I know I'm not doing any harm.

I am minus one on the month for articles produced. Still on the plus side for the year but I have work to do. No excuses for this right now. Might catch up before the day is out.

My freelance work is still mired near the beginning. Been slow to add work to Francine's art site. It's moving forward but I'd like to see more happening. I may break down and try to pick up some lower paying work from some of the freelancing sites. Staying patient isn't an easy task for me.

I need to be more disciplined with my time and be more aggressive in pursuing my goals. Don't need to be too hard on myself though. Progress is being made. My writing goals are moving forward.

An Obvious Issue

Courtesy Pixabay

Twitter campaign is in progress and right at the start I have an issue that I would like to resolve. I started small with rotating tweets for just my book and my wife's artwork. The tweets for my book are doing about as well as I could possibly have hoped. The tweets for my wife aren't generating much, which I find very disappointing.

I think if we keep plugging away, the problem will eventually sort itself out. I'd like to see results faster than that though.

The problem is probably a combination of things. Number one is the fact that she really doesn't have a lot of followers. That is something that will have to be addressed slowly. I don't have a huge following myself but the difference is very noticeable. I don't know if the content is an issue. I can see that writers might do better in the Twittersphere than artists in other mediums. I'm just not sure. I'm learning as I go but I would like to see her work gain popularity. The fact that she doesn't spend much time on it directly herself probably isn't helping either.

I will try to draw more interest with how I retweet. This running experiment will tell me how much difference things make. The fact that there is an issue is obvious. How to fix it quickly is not so obvious.

I will continue to expand this effort. I added a campaign for Inknbeans Press in general. I intend to put together campaigns aimed at increasing the readership of all my blogs to add to this. Maybe by the end of the month I will achieve the level of promotion that was my grand plan from the beginning.

At this point if you look at my rate of impressions on Twitter, I'm getting as much attention in twenty-four hours as I was getting in a month two or three weeks ago. Just have to be patient with myself and allow myself to be human.