I just finished reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  My book club, The Red Heel Society, is reading this for the month of September.  It is an amazing book about a teenage girl's struggle with Cancer and what it means to live a well-lived life when you aren't well and don't have a long life to live.  When we got together for dinner a couple of weeks ago, each girl who had finished reading it raved about the book and declared it a tear inducing masterpiece.  When I purchased the book at Books a Million, the girl at the counter, a book blogger herself, warned me to have a box of tissues at the ready.
    Spoiler alert:  there is a death in the book and I am about to examine that death.  If you intend to read the book and you are not the type of reader who reads the last page of a book first, stop reading this blog post.  Go read The Fault in Our Stars, and then come back to read my blog post.  Or just stop reading.  I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but I can't explain my state of mind without revealing at least a part of the end of the book.  You've been warned.
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    When Hazel's boyfriend dies, she has to attend his funeral and read a eulogy.  She has to face her life, however short it might be, without him.  They argued; they didn't always see eye to eye, but at the heart of their story, they were in love.  I get the tears, but I didn't cry them.  I wondered if I had become cold and distant and some thing other than wholly human, some monster merely existing through my time on Earth, no longer able to live the kind of meaningful life the characters in the book might have striven for.
    But I am no monster.  I have lived through Hazel's anguish.  I have loved deeply and lost completely without the solace of a painfully long goodbye.  And I was Hazel's age.  Seventeen.  I didn't have Cancer, but I did have a swelling pregnant belly.  My Augustus was Anthony, and he died quickly and tragically instead of slowly and tragically. 

    I have a confession to make.  I haven't really done much over the month of May.   I set very high goals for myself and for Flames in the Midst.  When I did not reach them, I got discouraged.  I know I have potential as a writer.  I know both my first novel and the sequel have potential.  I know I have to get more books out, and the only way to do that is to work hard, but I still let the minor disappointments of the present get to me and create a wall in my mind and in my heart.  A little nagging devil on my shoulder has been whispering,             "Maybe you should quit while you're ahead.  Maybe writing is not your thing.  Maybe it is time to stick with your day job." 
    To confess further,  I let those thoughts get to me.  I let that self-doubt pool up around me until I practically drowned in it.  Then I went to the beach for my best friend's birthday on Memorial Day.  When I walked onto the orange sand (we have orange sand on our beaches due to the broken pieces of coquina), my friend's mother called out to me.
    "Why?  What makes you think you have any business coming to the beach?"
    It took me a moment to recover.  I had to make a mental check.  I was invited to the beach, right?  I wasn't infringing on a private family party.  As I unfolded my chair and let the water-laden mini-cooler slip off my shoulder and land with a soft thud by my feet, I let her explain.
    "Don't you have a book you should be working on? Shouldn't you be home writing?"  She had read Flames in the Midst only out of obligation at first since I practically grew up in her home half of my teenage years.  When she finished, she was hooked.
    Part of me wishes I could tell you I dropped everything (or rather picked it all back up), turned around, and headed back to my house to sit for the next eight hours at my laptop while my children whined about missing the beach in another room and I put 3 or 4 chapters into the document for Dreams in the Midst.  That's not what I did.  I spent an amazing day at the beach with my friends and family.  The kids played on their boogie-boards, we ate lunch, we built sandcastles, and I turned my daughter into a mermaid. 
    She told me, "Mommy, you're really good at this.  How did you get so good at this?" 
    Practice?  Imagination?  Patience? Creativity?  A little of everything?  This was a moment of joy for me. She helped me to focus.  I like creating things, and I like bringing joy to those around me, as well as those I may never see.  I brought joy to my daughter by making her a mermaid, if only for a moment.  I brought joy to my friend's mother when she read my book.  I can't give up on any of these things.  They are too precious and too valuable. 

So, next steps?

1. The May pricing of .99 worked out okay.  I had more sales than normal, but not as many as I would have hoped.  I am going to stick to the pricing experiment simply because it is worth finding out.  I don't think I will see a significant increase until book 2 comes out.  I have just changed the price to $1.99 for the remainder of June, but you should still be able to get it for the next 12 hours or so at the .99 price.
2. For whatever reason, The Caffeinated Diva appears to be behind schedule.  I am sure she is much like me in that there are other obligations in her life that contend with her time.  I will keep checking to see if she reviews Flames in the Midst, but for now, I am not worried about it.  I still appear to be on her reading list, and she is still making posts, so who knows.
3. Write.
   

    That's it.  That's the plan.  Wish me luck!  I want to continue building sandcastles and mermaids.  When they get picked up in the wind or carried away by the waves, I hope they are not destroyed but merely living a life of their own to bring joy to others the way they bring joy to me.

Results of Days 1-3

Flames in the Midst had some great results for the first 3 days of our experiment. 

• Flames hit #1 on two separate genre lists (the pic to the left is from the top 100 Free Books in Urban Fantasy) and came close to breaking into the top 100 free books on Amazon. 
  
• I had set a very high goal of reaching 10,000 downloads in five days.  The first time I offered Flames for free, in four days more than 8,000 people downloaded the novel.  This time around, the total number reached 1987—just shy of 2,000.  Perhaps this is due to being a second free offer.  It is also possible that offering the book at the beginning of the month played a part in these numbers.  Despite the fact that Day 2 only brought a few hundred downloads, this was the day we hit the #1 spots in two fantasy genres.  This makes me think that competition must have been very high during this period of time. 

Next Steps

• On Monday, The Caffeinated Diva will review Flames in the Midst.  I am interested to see if that will increase sales. 
  
• For the rest of May, the price will remain at 99 cents. 
  
• In June, I may raise the price by $1 or $2.  

For now, it is a waiting game.  Overall, I know the best chance for success is to get more books out.  So while I wait to see the results of the experiment, I am busy writing.  By July, the rough draft of Dreams in the Midst should be complete.  I plan to include a few sneak peeks as I go.  So, stay tuned, and thank you for your support on my journey! 

    No one seems to know the best price for a novel by a new author.  I've read blogs that say 99 cents is the way to go.  John Locke recommends this in his book How I Sold 1 Million ebooks in 5 Months! I recently stumbled across another Indie/Self-pub author, Sarra Cannon.  Sarra has sold over 110,000 copies of her books.  Although she doesn't price her books at 99 cents anymore, it was the strategy she used for building her audience.  This makes sense. 
    However, there are other strategies.  I attended a presentation at a Florida Writers Association mini-conference on utilizing Amazon's KDP to publish your books.  The presenter recommended upping your price to $5.99.  The reason for this is because some readers will not look at a book priced below the five dollar threshold.  Apparently there are those who think if a book is priced too inexpensively, it must not have any value.  Now, that's a double-edged sword.  On the one side, I've written a lengthy novel, and I would spend much more than 99 cents for a novel of the same length in the grocery store.  On the other hand, the fact that I can price my novel at 99 cents allows me to build an audience as an unknown writer.  The author giving the presentation already has a readership, so it was easier for him to push the price of his books up. 
    So, what is my pricing experiment?  I am leaning towards the 99 cent price to build my readership. 

The plan:

1. Spend this week editing Flames in the Midst one more time.
2. Schedule 3 free days (April 30-May 2) with KDP select.
3. Advertise my free days on free sites.  
4. Find book bloggers to read Flames in the Midst.  (By the way, last time I ran free days through Amazon's KDP Select, I didn't know about marketing.  I made about $400 after 8,000+ free downloads with no advertising or work on my part.)
5. Change the price of Flames in the Midst to 99 cents. 
   
6. After one month, evaluate.  I will either stay at the 99 cent rate or move up to $1.99 or $2.99 for the next month. 
   
7. If sales slow way down, I do have 2 additional free days I can use.
8. In August/September, release book 2 in the Jade Hale series, Dreams in the Midst (tentative title).

So, the pricing experiment starts next week!  I am nervous and excited to see what will happen.  So far, I have sold about 150-200 books (I need to download all of my sales data and add it up).  Let's see where Flames in the Midst can go from here!

    I just returned from the 2012 Florida Writer's Association Annual Conference.  I've learned a lot, but the most important thing I got from the conference?  I am motivated to write.  So much so that at 4 a.m. I couldn't stop thinking enough to get back to sleep, so I am up writing.  Of course, my daughter heard me up, and now she is up, too.  I guess this is just another challenge to overcome.  How do you explain to an eight year old that 4:30 is too early to get up when you are up typing away?
    At any rate, there are several thoughts running through my head, and I have decided to share them with you.  One, I am going to take a piece of advice from my friend Terri and not give myself a hard time about my blog.  The point is to write.  The point is not to make sure that every blog post is the epitome of perfect prose.  I'll have to work on that one, but I would like to get my thoughts out more often. 
    The second item on my mind has to do with the title of this blog (the whole blog, not this one post).  I decided to go with "Thoughts of a Rising Writer" because I want a place to chronicle my thoughts on writing.  I, of course, will write about topics other than writing as well because let's face it, life happens.  Still, I want to get some things out there about writing and the process a writer goes through from the act of writing to getting published.
    Writing is hard work.  I haven't been putting the hard work in lately.  Writing, particularly when you have a demanding full time job like molding the minds of a hundred plus young people on a daily basis, requires discipline.  Writing requires drive.  Writing requires one to get out of bed at four a.m. when there are things to be said, and sometimes when there is nothing to be said.  Writing is hard work.  I hereby dedicate myself to that hard work.

   The business of writing is crazy.  Still, I want to be a part of it. This past weekend I met with a few agents.  One agent is interested in a project I have in mind that may rise out of a blog post or two.  I haven't done much on this project, but she liked the idea so much she made it a point to approach me with her business card.  Two are interested in Jade, but not book one.  They are interested in Jade when I get book two done (the working title, by the way, is Dreamwalkers).  Book one was self published, and that lends itself to a number of issues if an author wants to switch to traditional publishing.  I'd like to give traditional publishing a try.  So that leads me to my other thoughts.
    When I wrote Flames in the Midst, there were things I didn't know about the YA (Young Adult) genre.  Most importantly, your character should not (traditionally) be in college.  The age of eighteen is pushing the limits on YA.  Jade has a few more books to go in her story, so I am going to make some changes to Flames in the Midst.  I actually think the changes will build her character a bit more.  I am going to knock her down by one year.  How am I going to do that?  You will see.  Since I have a small following (hurray, fans!), I am going to post some of the changes I am making here.  These will add to Jade's backstory and build a stronger dynamic between Jade and Zach.
    What does this mean for book two?  For one, I promised one agent it would be done in six months.  I plan to finish it much sooner than that, but it will need editing.  (Yeah, motivation!)  But it also means I won't be putting it out for the public right away.  Since I do have a few fans, I will put out some of it via this blog.  Let me know what you think.  I need to make book two a stand alone book (since publishers apparently don't want to touch the self-publishing world unless you have six figure sales).  I know I can do it. 
    By the way, one of the agents told me, "Well, obviously you can write."  I know it sounds lame, but it felt so affirming to hear that from someone in the industry.  Truthfully, before I went to the conference, I had almost given up on myself.  Now, I am ready to write!

A friend of mine recently inspired me to take up blogging.  It is not my usual mode of writing, and I don't necessarily want to inundate the world with my thoughts, but it seems a harmless enough way to get my own thoughts out--even if I'm the only one reading them.  Right now, I am working on writing the sequel to Flames in the Midst, planning out next semester of English I honors, and hoping to tighten up my teenage memoir documenting my pregnancy and the loss of my first love.  Oh yeah, I'm also trying not to fail miserably at being a mom to my three kids while still achieving my own dreams.  Somewhere in there, I'm also finding time to have a relationship with my husband.

Back in high school, I had the worst time choosing electives.  It wasn't that any one thing scared me or turned me off; it was that everything called out to me.  I wanted to play in the band while directing a school play, writing for the literary magazine, and running track.  If I had time for art, shop class, cooking, baton twirling, and sports on top of all that, I would gladly take it on.  I settled into a few things, but I ended up feeling like I never put my all into any one thing.  I made decent grades, held a decent second chair in band (once I stopped switching instruments), had a few decent poems published, and had a few decent roles in the theater.  I even won a decent third in my first track meet.  I could have been valedictorian (not that those exist anymore).  I could have earned straight superiors for my flute solo.  I could have published a book by the age of 17.  I could have stared in a play.  I could have been the one to beat on the track.  But I couldn't do it all at once, so I didn't do any of it.  I chose instead to experience a little bit of all of those things and make my choices later.

Then life happens.  Don't get me wrong, life happens all the time.  Every day.  Every minute.  LIfe is happening.  Yet, some moments really stand out and change you.  At seventeen I found myself pregnant and essentially widowed.  I wrote, but I didn't do anything with it.  I graduated.  No one gave that to me.  I worked for it, but to me, it was just going through the motions.  I continued living, but I stopped dreaming.  Not completely, but enough.  The path I was on when I lost my first love was the path I stayed on.  It was safe.  I would graduate high school, go to college, become a teacher.  That was what we had discussed.  There was not room for dreaming something else or exploring something else.  Not when your heart ached and your dreaming had to be reserved for the small bundle crying, growing, toddling across a college apartment.

But not choosing to explore other options was still a choice.  Even today, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but most people I know are lucky enough to be in the same boat.  Is writing a pastime or a career?  Which of those is teaching?  Will it be a lifelong career or only the first of several I will get to explore?  Life happens.  Sometimes it happens in tragic ways and sometimes in miraculous ones.  Sometimes it just happens in a series of little pushes.  Whenever life happens, it molds us.  It helps us choose our electives.  The things that drive us.

My friend Terri wrote a blog recently about human trafficking.  It moved me.  Life is pushing her; God is pushing her, or rather calling her, to become an abolitionist in some way and work against this horrible atrocity.  My dear friend Beth blogs for her son who is undergoing treatment for Hyper IGM Syndrome.  Lucas is her miracle, and when they finally come home, I know she will continue to work to help others going through what their family is now.

I am back where I started in high school.  There are so many causes that call out to me.  There are so many organizations I believe are worthy.  I just can't decide which elective to choose.  So I'll do what I can, when I can, for as many as I can.  One day, I'll figure it out.