Category Archives: The Process

A useful tool and a pointless rec

anime nerd corner, The Process

Just tweaked allllllLLLLlllll the keywords with the help of the tool at this site here. (h/t r/selfpublish, I’m pretty sure.) Basically it reorganizes the keywords you’re using: “hey, you could squish these two phrases on the same line, genius, that gives you a whole additional line”

(I have entire. additional. lines. on every single one of my eight listings. I struggle with keywords)

Also raised almost all of the prices. I dunno, universe. I’m trying to value my work more. $3.99 for all the Healers books in the US; $1.99 for the Therapist books. Other currencies vary, though I tend to tweak them to .99s, so some places get a break. (I try to tweak down, not up)

Although I keep hearing that the fall anime season is packed, I went ahead and tried out one of last season’s shows and ended up marathoning almost all of it within a week. It’s about a guy who turns into a vending machine. Yeah.

Here’s why I like this show, though, and it’s a reason I can’t entirely articulate. The word “wholesome” gets bandied about in some ways that I don’t agree with, so it’s not enough to just say #wholesome and go about my day.

I am not sure yet what I mean by “wholesome.” Not cynical. Not leering or exploitative, although I believe that media can be both horny and wholesome (Crash Course in Naughtiness is running that slalom right now). Respecting its characters, even if they are lightly sketched or not very deep: we still don’t know all that much about Lammis from Vending Machine, but the viewers aren’t encouraged to view her with contempt. And mind you, she’s got just as fanservicey a design as any other generic anime girl: short-shorts, big boobs, exposed midriff. But, imagine this, she’s portrayed as a person with short-shorts and an exposed midriff.

Basically, I think it’s a lack of cynicism more than anything. A lack of contempt for the viewers, the characters, and the universe. Oh hell, didn’t I just rant about sincerity recently? It’s related to that. Boxxo the vending machine is ridiculously earnest. All he wants to do is help people, all he can do is spit out goods in exchange for coins, and gosh darn it, that’s what he’s going to do. There’s something to be said at some point about the RPG system that makes it a risk to his life to give stuff away for free, but the show doesn’t seem interested in that.

Although I do have to note that this show is also a junk food version of Restaurant to Another World: all the fantasy-world people get immediately hooked on Coke Zero, potato chips, and instant noodles, and rhapsodize constantly about how awesome they are. I hate moralizing about food, but I constantly waffle between “this is funny” and “this is troubling.” Though if you’ve lived on mutton and gruel your whole life, compressed salt-and-carb wafers are going to taste effing amazing. I get it.

“”””””””” ugh

The Process

I settled down to flip idly through the print proof and unwind last night, and discovered that about a dozen quote marks were flipped backwards — especially nested quotes and those after italics.

I’d seen a few complaints about this with regard to Atticus’ formatting, but I hadn’t seen any issues in a cursory check, and I was eager to get moving. So… lesson learned. I do still like everything else about Atticus’ formatting, but this is something to be aware of. It also seems to drop dashes when words are split sometimes? That’s confusing. But I am doing a more thorough check of the print omnibus now.

Nobody seems to have bought it yet (lol), so it’s a victimless crime, but it is embarrassing. Word to the wise.

What’d I tell you?

The Process

Replaced the un-updateable Goodreads sidebar thingie with two Amazon sidebar thingies. Not one hundred percent what I wanted, but it’s a step forward for now.

General updates:

  • Attempting to check and update the keywords on everything, which is turning into An Undertaking. I’m not even being strategic about it; Amazon is just very slow for me. [Edit: I found a way to make it work. Inside baseball: Don’t use the save buttons at the bottom. Use the tabs at the top.]
  • Also? Since the last time I updated the Healers keywords, ‘Zon now asks you if you used AI to do your work for you. AI didn’t exist in its current form when I wrote Book 1. Back then it was just fodder for funny Tumblr posts about made-up NES titles or recipes or what have you. Instead of, you know, *waves vaguely around*.
  • Also, I’m never fucking using AI, at least not knowingly, nor purchase services from anyone who does. No, not even for grammar checking. I do not care what anyone else does with it; I’m just not giving them money for it.
  • Following r/writing is making me cranky. Let’s see how long this lasts.
  • I plan to bump up the price on Therapist singles to $1.49. [edit: $1.25, I scared myself off] So if you got in while they were 99 cents, hooray? Basically I’m just trying to thread the needle between “people are still willing to buy this” and “I feel like I’m undervaluing my work.” Someday we’ll find a sweet spot, I hope.
  • Just got back from a weekend trip to a hippie/gardening/artisan festival in a neighboring state, dedicated to a particular native fruit with a cult following. Had a great time. I am moderately obsessed with backyard fruit growing (not orcharding, which is fine but not my thing — just working it into the landscape). We don’t currently have accessible space for any new trees, so I didn’t buy any on this trip. Someday, though. Someday.
  • The first draft of Therapist 5 (which backtracks to overlap books 2-4, because I can’t stop shooting myself in the foot) is about 1/3 of the way through and moving along. 6 and 7 have first drafts done. I plan to stop at 8, I think, though I have a couple more ideas for that setting. It’s going to be high time to switch back to Healers at that point.

And on that note… how’s it going with that update, Amazon? … Sigh.

Good news & bad news

The Process

Well, Goodreads believes I’m C.A. Moss. So much so that they merged the author profile with my actual reading profile, which is not, you know, Crafted for Maximal Social Media Engagement(tm). On top of that, the widget I included with the SER book list (currently on the right sidebar) has since been deprecated, so I literally can’t generate one for the new name. I didn’t realize that till I got into the author account and then did some googling about why most of the widgets were gone.

So now I have linked that account to my personal one for absolutely no reason~

(Hi, I have had Wonderbook in my “currently reading” for almost four years now. It’s a good book! I don’t know why I haven’t finished it! Everybody be cool, okay, I’m insecure about what a slow reader I am. That example is excessive, but just generally. I can’t seem to sit down and read anything for hours on end unless I’m on vacation. It’s not good.)

Oh well. I at least updated CA’s profile. Honestly, it’s okay from this side of things. It’s a system for readers, and I don’t intend to do any publicity through it. Just thought it would be nice to have the little graphical list on the sidebar. SHRUG.

(It has bugged me for a while that the widget shows the old cover for Healers 1 — which I liked, but that I couldn’t expand into a series, since it was a one-off cover — soooo maybe that plus the lack of symmetry will eventually drive me to take that one down. We’ll see.)

Some minor making of sausage

The Process

Still existing. Added links to Goodreads on the Therapist sales page, because I was just informed that those books are on Goodreads. Which I’d kind of forgotten about, despite using it as a checklist system for myself as a reader? Anyway, those are up. It would be kind of nice to add a sidebar widget with those books as well, but first Goodreads has to believe I’m also this person. The application is in.

In other constructive procrastination news, I started mostly moving from Google Drive to Atticus, which is a cloud-based paid service aimed at authors (I don’t use that word for myself, but y’know, that’s who the service caters to). This is a two-part decision based on a) the fact that Atticus seems to be quite useful for ebook and print layout, which saves me a lot of work, and b) I don’t agree with Google’s data scraping for AI. I don’t harbor any conspiracy theories about my work being “stolen”; it’s more of an “I’m tired of this techbro bullshit and don’t want to make myself into fodder for it any more than I have to” stance.

Atticus is not, unfortunately, as usable on mobile as it is on a computer. At least in my experience. Nor can it be used for sharing documents, because that’s just not what it’s for — which is fine. So I will continue to use Google Drive for things like brainstorming/notes and reference documents for art commissions. It has drawbacks. I don’t trust it to be secure. But I’m willing to compromise for some purposes.

That said, I’m going to sound like a shill when I say that I enjoyed trying out the layout tools in Atticus. It is so much easier than what I was doing before. I haven’t ordered a test print of the Therapist omnibus yet, but I look forward to it.

However, as much as it pains me to have a prettier option at my fingertips, I don’t intend to redesign the Healers paperbacks at this point. I live in fear that somebody will have bought books 1 and 2 before the redesign, land on 3 after the redesign, and promptly rip my jugular out because they don’t match. I do not need that in my life. They’ll stay as they are unless there’s some drastic need to change them.

Games update: Finished Pokemon Violet‘s main plotline and, since I can’t trade, did not bother trying to fill out any more of the Pokedex. Then played through Road 96 and Storyteller in quick succession (extremely quick, in the latter case). I enjoyed both of them, although Storyteller is ~2 hours long for $15, so y’know. I don’t demand that every single game be 200 hours long, but it seems worth mentioning.

After that, I looked at the funds remaining in my Switch account and the games on my wishlist and, despite my grousing that I wasn’t in the mood for another RPG, went with Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster.

I first played the original version (well, the US port, anyway) around my junior year of high school; it might also have been the summer between my junior and senior year. I bought Final Fantasy III (US) with my own money, which I had hardly any of. Did you know that AAA games with battery saves still cost about $60 in 1994? About $120 in today’s money, according to a quick search. So it felt like a big deal.

Should be fun. I’m only a couple of hours in, and already running into the need to grind for exp. Sigh. Still, it’ll entertain me a while.

100% whole bean, un-ground whatever-it-is-I-do-here

Recs, The Process

Recently I came across this essay, “Be Whoever You’re Gonna Be” by Dave Walsh. TBH, I don’t know who this is, but I really appreciated the essay. (I found it through the always entertaining blog of romance author Jenny Trout; I appreciated her reaction to the essay too.)

Okay, so I started self-publishing in 2014. After the initial “gold rush,” but a hell of a long time ago in internet terms. I have never, for basically one nanosecond, done anything Right(tm) according to any advice doled out for people in this situation. This used to bother me! A lot! A whole hell of a lot. When I started out, bright-eyed and ready to learn, I joined some self-publishing forums. I was told all my efforts were worthless because I hadn’t quit my day job, and as such, nothing I did counted or meant anything. I was told nobody would ever read anything I wrote because I didn’t devote my entire life to marketing. I was told so, so many things. It used to bother me so, so much.

Because I care about this stuff, you know? I love writing. Sometimes it’s frustrating and sometimes it’s hard and I’m never quite as good as I want to be, but imagine that: I like doing this thing that I have chosen to spend a lot of my free time on. Also? I was raised to base my own self-worth on what other people say about me. It’s not good. I’ve been working on that. It’s gotten a lot better.

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t need to slag people who spend a lot of time on marketing, or who research their keywords in order to come up with a story, or who publish every month. Whatever they do doesn’t have any bearing on what I do, and I don’t spend my time slinging shit at them or telling them they’re worthless. Because I don’t need to justify my decisions or cover up my own insecurity.

Just.

Saying.

I’m going to rant. If you didn’t know that, hi. Welcome. You must be new here.

Forward motion

games nerd corner, The Process

Writing: As of last week, I reached 200 days working on some aspect of writing every day — either writing or editing. Lately I’ve been alternating between the second Therapist side story and the Healersverse prequel / side story. Trying to get my daily word count up, since there have been some really, REALLY minimal days — but as long as I keep working on something to the extent my focus and energy can manage, I’m all right with it. It’s something.

Meanwhile, the cover for the Therapist omnibus is in progress, and looking great. Looking forward to that. Book 4 is in the hands of one more beta reader and the cover is done, so we’re still more or less on track for an August release for that.

I also signed on to beta read two other people’s novels, and doing not as well with that than I had the last few times. By no fault of the writers at all; my focus is just shot lately. So there’s another goal. Get the word count up, and beta read more.

Entertainment corner: Still grinding away at Pokemon Violet. As I probably mentioned, I’ve always had the habit of leveling up my party evenly in games where you can swap party members in and out, e.g. Final Fantasy Tactics and the like. This habit is beginning to kick my ass in Pokemon. I have about 250 party members, and can only level up 6 at a time. It’s extremely slow going. But I have yet to change my strategy. Podcast on, game on mute, wander around, fight a bunch of things. Repeat repeat repeat.

The current anime season is… …existing.

In which I really start ranting about power fantasies as a concept

Write stuff, break reality, have fun

anime nerd corner, games nerd corner, The Process

C.A. Moss’s author page on Amazon is finally up, because I was reminded that author pages exist. (S.E. Robertson’s has been up for ages.) So if that’s a thing you use, there they are.

(Also, there’s no way book 2 is the “most popular?” What does that even mean? Oh well.)

This came out of an interesting discussion with a friend of my spouse’s who wasn’t aware of the extent of the writing I’d thrown out there online. Which is in absolutely no way a bad thing; if anything, it reassures me that I’m not boring everyone around me with my constant nattering about my work. Hopefully.

But the gist of it is that you, YES YOU, can put writing out there if you want to. There is no meaningful barrier to entry, to the endless tooth-gnashing frustration of a lot of auteurs. If you feel like it would be the realization of a lifelong dream? Fucking go for it. Why not. Life is short.

Now, making large quantities of money with said writing is exceptionally difficult. That’s an entirely different topic. So is scoring appreciable amounts of recognition/fame/social capital. There are one million and one hucksters hawking hacks(tm) to beat the system(tm), and I am not one of them. I’m not saying you’ll become An Author or that people will recognize you on the street* or that you’ll earn enough money for a white chocolate macadamia cold brew.

But if you’ve always wanted to try it, and wonder if maybe other people, even in the single digits, would be interested in what you made? If that’s not a blow to your ego but a fascinating possibility?

I, for one, think it’s fun and that you should go for it. People whine all the time that there are too many books out there, but hey, what constitutes “too many”? People whine that a lot of them are bad, but a) who decides that and b) who cares? When it comes to painting or learning to play the guitar, we (“we”) are capable of recognizing that the process is gratifying just because humans love to create things and express themselves, but “we” completely throw that out the window when words are involved.

Writing is fun. Do it if you want to. Share it with people. Maybe no one will be interested. But maybe someone will. And at that point, you’ve already had your fun, so no harm done.

You have my permission as an internet rando, if you want it. Try it.

* I’ve never been recognized on the street. Shudder. But I did experience a moment of extreme internet weirdness today when I popped into a book rec thread to collect some book recs and found my book on the list. A “but doctor, I am Pagliacci” except with books about sad jerks who don’t slay dragons. My brain is still turning itself inside-out. I mean it’s an honor, but also *incoherent shrieking noises*.

Updates:

  • Therapist 4 is as edited as it’s going to get. Waiting on the finished cover now. 3 just came out, so I’m going to spend the next few weeks waffling around for no constructive reason before finally releasing it. There will be a lot of work after that point, formatting the omnibus etc., so maybe I ought to enjoy the break.
  • Of the four potential Therapist side stories, I have a first draft of one of them and a first draft of a second about a quarter to a third of the way along. Still moving ahead.
  • Currently playing Pokemon Violet. This is the first time I’ve played a mainline Pokemon game, actually. In games when you have a number of characters that you can swap into your active team, I always level them more or less evenly. This habit is going to be the death of me this time, I think.
  • Skip and Loafer still excellent. Witch from Mercury catch-up continues; still excellent. I am now distracted wondering what in the hell people in the otherworld eat in Restaurant to Another World, since they are constantly talking about how terrible their own food is. Guys. Is the drinking water full of lead in your world? Are you okay?

In my defense, I barely knew what time was in the Before

The Healers' Purpose (Book 3), The Process

I spent last night journaling about what I did during September, and I still don’t know where it went.

Hello. What’s up. Here are some unorganized thoughts.

  • Changed the blog category “proof of life” to “checking in”, because for me it crossed the line between “ironic overstatement” and “hmm, no thanks”.
  • Got all of those great notes back from the beta readers, identified some large elements that Book 3 was missing (more motivation for the “antagonists[ish]”, some logistical changes to the second half, commitment on the shipping question), ignored them for the rest of the summer.
  • Vowed in October to write something every day, whether that’s a bit of the story, some journaling, or this here procrastinatory blog post. I want to make it a habit again.
  • I want to not be scared of finishing Book 3, of doing a bad job, of writing something that some undefined someone doesn’t like. I want to write something that I like. I want to bring this storyline to a close and switch gears. I can do it. I just have to keep moving and keep my motivation in mind.

And what’s my motivation?

I read this tweet recently by the truly original Chuck Tingle, and it really struck me. I’ve tried to force sincerity out of my work and become more of what I feel like I’m supposed to be: better plotted, more marketable. It doesn’t work for me. It’s great if you can; I’m not talking about you. It doesn’t work for me, though.

I felt really bad for a really long time because Some Undefined Person Didn’t Approve of Something I Did, and many things in my personality make that just unthinkable. But it’s at the point where to keep doing something I love, I have to put up with that feeling.

I choose the story. I choose to keep going. Not out of spite; I have nothing to prove to anyone. Just because, well, I want to do this thing, and only I can stop me.

So I want to bring Agna and Keifon’s story to some kind of conclusion. I think after this point, if I come back to write about them, it will probably either be a short story or as side characters in a book narrated by another character. But hell, who knows what the future holds.

At the start, I assumed that I’d follow up Agna’s first book with one about Rone, her mentor, because he’s A Guy with a Sword and everybody loves those, don’t they, that’s important, isn’t it. After a while, I assumed I’d follow up Agna’s third book with one about Lina, her sister, because Lina is closer to the political upheaval in their home country, and political upheaval is Exciting and everyone loves Exciting Stories and Plot and that’s important, isn’t it.

I had a story framework on the back burner for a lot of this. A scenario, a setting, two narrators: more Academy graduates, former classmates who can’t stand one another and get assigned to a posting in the same small town. It takes place before Agna’s story, it has nothing to do with the political upheaval (I think), and I’m still not fully sure what Happens in it. The psychological themes are chewy, there’s the kind of drama I love, absolutely nobody was asking for this story and nobody gives one solitary crap about it. Except me.

And I’m writing for me.

So maybe it’s next. Maybe I’ll jump ship from fantasy and write that sociological science fiction idea ricocheting around in my head, about what happens down the road if nightmare capitalists actually do start a space colony where the poor colonists’ descendants are indentured servants. But by the time I do, nineteen other people will have already written theirs, so I can just read theirs.

I hope to write with love, even if I’m writing about unlikeable assholes or nightmare capitalists. Because that’s what motivates me. Not money, which is fine if that’s your motivation. Not approval, even though I feel like I’ll die if I don’t get it (which is fully asinine, I acknowledge that). I like writing. That’s why I do it. That’s all.