Searching… For A Plan?

Once again, I’m finding that I’m able to write these blogs a bit better on my phone because of procrastination. You know how that goes.

Once again, I think that I get into the situation where I try to do a whole bunch of things at once and then it turns out that I don’t focus on getting every single thing done. And again, I’m writing this late on Saturday night. At least it’s Saturday rather than Sunday.

I went and looked back at the list I first set up about two weeks ago and laughed a bit in despair and ruefulness. I might as well review what did (and more often did not) happen.

1. Continue to set up the email list, especially this “landing page.”

This got stalled out to be honest. I’m getting the idea that I might be able to try and do an email list with someone other than ConvertKit or whatever it’s called. If you asked me what that alternative was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what it is.

So, the new goal will be, make sure the ConvertKit account is fully set up and start looking into alternatives to it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

2. Look into Canva. I suck at designing things.

Like I said before, I’m signed up but haven’t really messed with it. I’m considering whether getting the paid subscription might be a good idea, at least for a little while. It seems like it would give me more access to other designs and clip art. Anyone who has used it, feel free to let me know if it was worth it.

3. Set up a query letter for my new project.

Totally blew this off. I need to take a look at the synopsis I typed up of it and see if I can turn that into something.

4. Get more writing done.

🤣🤣🤣 …anyway…

Yeah, I was on a cold streak for at least the past three days. I think this is due to me spending a bit too long in fanfiction. I’m beginning to feel a little bit of obligation to continue it, and I will because I feel like I started something that I need to finish. However, I want to also start on my original work, the work that the A Song Of Ice And Fire world sparked in me. I’m getting close to having the main story finished, and after that… I think that I will be able to take things at a bit of a slower pace.

I will say this about fan fiction, however. So many people have classified it as illiterate nerds trying to fulfill whatever fantasies their favorite books, movies, or television series sparked in them. There is a bit of it there – I will say that a bit of wish fulfillment was the reason I started writing it. I’ve been writing and judging other people’s writings in different circumstances for around 25 years, so I think you can trust what I’m about to say. There are more than a few examples of fan fiction writing that were as accomplished or more accomplished than many published authors of original content that I’ve ever read, and that’s the absolute truth.

5. What I did rather than what I said I was going to do…

I signed up for Substack and Gumroad. I was a bit disappointed to find out that I wouldn’t be able to do print on demand through them, so it would have to be through Amazon self-publishing or maybe another service. I don’t just want to sell electronic copies of my books, I want to have some physical copies as well.

It’s going to take me a while to figure out the best system for me. It’s probably going to take a bit of trial and error. Whelp, such is life.

Next week I think I’m going to give a review of one of the pieces of software that I’m going to experiment with. At least that should give me plenty of material to write.

Also… I’m trying to read a new series, and that is giving me a some fits. It might be worth another blog about my feeling on spoilers.

On a totally unrelated note, I found out that I got my 1,000th “like” on this blog. So, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice, as Bill Murray once said.

A Step Or Two Forward And A Step Back

Decided to type this out on my phone because it takes me a bit to get upstairs and we’ve got trick or treaters in our modest south central Iowa town.

Ahead of time, I want to apologize for these past few non-journal posts being a bit talkative about me just experimenting with stuff. However, I guess that’s better than me just doing my journals, so… I think I’m improving? It’s a long process.

Looking back a week ago, I set myself a few goals to try and accomplish. So, I figured that I might as well look back and see how well I accomplished them (since I’m low on ideas at the moment, lol).

1. Continue to set up the email list, especially this “landing page.”

Well, I certainly worked at that. If a few of you noticed how the look of the site was changing a bit. Part of that was trying to see if I could get something set up with that email list.

However, I wasn’t able to quite get it set up. Apparently the easy way to do this would be to sign up for something that would cost me $25 a month rather than $8 a month, and the question becomes, how much do you spend on something that is a bit more than a hobby but not quite a business.

It’s a good question… but also not a question that I need to answer right away. I might want to experiment with a couple other mail clients other than ConvertKit. (You can always email me over at jasonliegois@liegois.media if you wish).

2. Look into Canva. I suck at designing things.

Signed up for Canva and also got the app. I figured why not, since I’m not an artist and I don’t know anything about Photoshop. (How much does that cost nowadays anyway? Maybe I need to check into that). Anyway, if Chuck Tingle manages to design his own covers it might be easier for me to try my hand at it if I’m seriously considering trying to self-publish. They have a “prime” paid membership, and it might be worth it if I can do some decent work with it.

3. Set up a query letter for my new project.

Actually, I might have already done this, but I might have misplaced that/didn’t look around for that. I’m vowing to do that tonight.

4. Get more writing done.

Whether I got that done this week, well… I’ll have to check out the journal on that to be sure. But, I think I’ll do better this weekend than last weekend, at least. And I got this post out late Saturday night rather than late Sunday night, so that’s a minor victory. If I manage to post early Saturday evening I might be starting a trend.

Well, I think some additional progress on projects 1-3 are in order. Plus, I’m planning to look into Substack and/or Gumroad.

Publishing the follow up post to this post before 8 pm next Saturday might be a good goal too. 😉