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Thursday, September 1st.
Sep. 1st, 2011 03:40 pmNews For Today
Well, August is over. The fundraiser brought in $434, and that's including $270 that actually came in as three large donations shortly before I started it. I'd hoped to at least break $1,000. We got close to the second incentive so quickly I'd been planning on recording some extra tracks (counting several short ones as "one story"), but then things just sort of stalled out.
There's kind of a vicious un-cycle at work, I think, in trying to get things back on track while being very self-consciously apologetic about things having been so badly off-track. I was expecting the fundraiser to be smaller than the previous ones, and as a result I haven't been flogging the fundraiser at all. I didn't ever put a total and link on the front page like I usually do or tweet when somebody updated. I had plans to try out some more incentives if the response wasn't strong enough, but I let that idea fall by the wayside.
In hindsight, this was a mistake... I should have treated it like a normal fundraiser and let people decide to support it or not. The whole point of crowdfunding is that the crowd decides. Especially since the fundraising is a booster for me in every sense of the word. It keeps me engaged, keeps my enthusiasm and creative steam going. As I neglected the fundraiser, I've found it harder to get back into my full creative routine.
So I'm going to keep the fundraiser going at least another month, and I'm going to do it up properly this time, with the big push starting on Monday after I've made a good start on the writing stuff for this month. For now, the details about the August fundraiser (re-titled the "Autumn Fundraiser") are here.
In other news:
State of the Me
Doing pretty good. Before WisCon, during the impressive burst of creative productivity that preceded the total breakdown of this summer, I was doing breathing exercises every morning while listening to calming audio tracks. The breathing regimen came after I read this article from noted medical journal Cracked... after a few weeks of doing it, I found that not only was I calmer but I had more energy, and could do things like go up and down the stairs more times without absolutely exhausting my body's reserves.
I've restarted that this week. Actually, before today I only managed it on Monday, but the change in my mental and physical state let me turn what was 5,500 words of mostly disconnected monologues into 7,500 words of story. Tuesday and Wednesday I had late starts to my day and skipped the morning meditation. I wrote 3,000 words on Tuesday and 1,000 words on Wednesday, but nothing quite like what I managed on Monday.
I've come to realize that the things I start cutting out when I fall behind (or even just feel behind) are crucial. Basically my approach has been to cut everything before I cut out time for the writing itself, but what I've found is that when I take time for myself, I make time for writing... and when I don't, I end up staring at a blank screen re-arranging the same few hundred words.
So today I woke up with the idea of making taking time to breathe job one. So far, so good.
Recent Dreams
Had a dream about using superpowers to infiltrate an evil corporation on Monday night. The 3,000 words that I mentioned writing on Tuesday came from that. They'll be part of the relaunched Star Harbor. Last night I had a dream where I was either very small or living in a world of giants, and was cooking on one of those roller things that they put hot dogs and taquitos on in convenience stores. I blame late-night DeviantArt trawls for that one.
Plans For Today
Today, I'm making plans for the month, which I'll post today or tomorrow. I'm also going to do one hour of writing on the next chapter of Tales of MU.
Well, August is over. The fundraiser brought in $434, and that's including $270 that actually came in as three large donations shortly before I started it. I'd hoped to at least break $1,000. We got close to the second incentive so quickly I'd been planning on recording some extra tracks (counting several short ones as "one story"), but then things just sort of stalled out.
There's kind of a vicious un-cycle at work, I think, in trying to get things back on track while being very self-consciously apologetic about things having been so badly off-track. I was expecting the fundraiser to be smaller than the previous ones, and as a result I haven't been flogging the fundraiser at all. I didn't ever put a total and link on the front page like I usually do or tweet when somebody updated. I had plans to try out some more incentives if the response wasn't strong enough, but I let that idea fall by the wayside.
In hindsight, this was a mistake... I should have treated it like a normal fundraiser and let people decide to support it or not. The whole point of crowdfunding is that the crowd decides. Especially since the fundraising is a booster for me in every sense of the word. It keeps me engaged, keeps my enthusiasm and creative steam going. As I neglected the fundraiser, I've found it harder to get back into my full creative routine.
So I'm going to keep the fundraiser going at least another month, and I'm going to do it up properly this time, with the big push starting on Monday after I've made a good start on the writing stuff for this month. For now, the details about the August fundraiser (re-titled the "Autumn Fundraiser") are here.
In other news:
- Despite my prediction, I actually have now been asked to blurb a book! I'll be posting my review of it later.
- I am back online in Sims Social. If you tried to add me in the past week and couldn't, feel free to try again. Also, I've just discovered Words With Friends. The appeal of a Scrabble clone that doesn't require real-time attention is immense. I'm shy about challenging people if I don't know they're receptive to it, though, so if you play, consider this an open invitation.
- I don't seem to be getting email notifications for all comments on my Livejournal, even though I've turned them back on.
State of the Me
Doing pretty good. Before WisCon, during the impressive burst of creative productivity that preceded the total breakdown of this summer, I was doing breathing exercises every morning while listening to calming audio tracks. The breathing regimen came after I read this article from noted medical journal Cracked... after a few weeks of doing it, I found that not only was I calmer but I had more energy, and could do things like go up and down the stairs more times without absolutely exhausting my body's reserves.
I've restarted that this week. Actually, before today I only managed it on Monday, but the change in my mental and physical state let me turn what was 5,500 words of mostly disconnected monologues into 7,500 words of story. Tuesday and Wednesday I had late starts to my day and skipped the morning meditation. I wrote 3,000 words on Tuesday and 1,000 words on Wednesday, but nothing quite like what I managed on Monday.
I've come to realize that the things I start cutting out when I fall behind (or even just feel behind) are crucial. Basically my approach has been to cut everything before I cut out time for the writing itself, but what I've found is that when I take time for myself, I make time for writing... and when I don't, I end up staring at a blank screen re-arranging the same few hundred words.
So today I woke up with the idea of making taking time to breathe job one. So far, so good.
Recent Dreams
Had a dream about using superpowers to infiltrate an evil corporation on Monday night. The 3,000 words that I mentioned writing on Tuesday came from that. They'll be part of the relaunched Star Harbor. Last night I had a dream where I was either very small or living in a world of giants, and was cooking on one of those roller things that they put hot dogs and taquitos on in convenience stores. I blame late-night DeviantArt trawls for that one.
Plans For Today
Today, I'm making plans for the month, which I'll post today or tomorrow. I'm also going to do one hour of writing on the next chapter of Tales of MU.