A Personal Poetry Challenge for National Poetry Month

 I decided, late in March, to take on a personal poetry challenge for National Poetry Month: to write one poem a day, and no matter how good or bad it was, I would share it on my IG poetry page. Ten days into the month, and I feel pretty good. 

True, not every poem has been good, but I am thankful for what I've written. I'm going to keep going for the month of April. Plus, I am making some plans for what is coming next here on my website and on Substack. 

For now, here are the poems I've written for April 2023:

Do you write poetry?

Would you like to join me in writing poetry?

IWSG April 2023 and a Bit of Poetry

 

Many thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh for starting this hop and this community. And many thanks to those helping co-host this month: Jemima Pett, Nancy Gideon, and Natalie Aguirre!

If you would like to sign up for IWSG, go HERE.

April 5 Optional Question (s): Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you're at the start of the journey, what are your goals?

I remember my first childhood book, one that I destroyed before I let many people read it. My second start on a novel ended up similarly discarded. My third, written in my late twenties, came after a series of novels started without finishes, and it still resides as an extremely messy draft, a 1.5 version I had edited by someone from an editing class. 

Before I ever wrote a book, and while I wrote my first books, and still, today, I wrote and still write short stories and poetry. My first publication was a poem. My second, a short story. These short works kept me going as a writer, despite doubts, setbacks, and curveballs. 

My first finished, edited, and published novel was Champion in the Darkness. I had so many doubts through the process of writing it that the before-editing final was the fifth or sixth draft. I thought if I could sell 100 copies a month, I would be doing well. 

I didn’t understand the way indie authors have to market their work or how much confidence I would need to have to keep writing even when my books sold far fewer numbers. 

While I don’t regret many decisions along the way, I can say I spent a lot of time learning. My only regrets include not believing in myself enough, not getting my work out into the world sooner, and maybe that one conversation I had with a fellow traveler who was interested in my writing at an airport years ago - in which I said I would never write romance and then I found out he was an agent for romance authors. (Yeah, that was embarrassing. He gave me his card. I was too embarrassed to ever send him anything, and again, back to regret #1.)

 I have learned that no matter the level of editing, a book will have typos. I have found that the amount of success an individual book has does not have an equal comparison to the amount of sweat I put into that book.

I have learned that the ideas I have are numerous, and I need to prioritize them as I go, because I’m still just getting started, even though I’ve published fifteen books, not counting serializations. 

My latest book 25 Impossible Tales of Survivors, Flawed Heroes, and Annoyed Villains is a short story collection because while short story collections often don't market well, my short stories have kept me going as a writer, and I want to continue to honor them, so when I get a number I like, I collect them together and put them out there into the world. One of my ongoing projects this year is poetry collection, beginning with the poem that made me an "award-winning" poet. I plan to publish that collection next year. 

Where are you in your writing journey? 

Based on what I've learned, these are my tips for fellow authors: 

• Have confidence in your voice and your stories.
• If a fellow traveler asks about your writing at an airport, tell them briefly and then ask questions, and don’t say you will “never” write any particular genre.
• Think about your legacy of books, even if you are on your first.

Writing News:

After my older daughter's wedding (this event is worthy of much writing, but I don't have time here), I had a week of exhaustion, but I am writing a poem a day for April and working on some science fiction projects. I have a few Kindle Vella serializations still moving along.

But, due to many events of the last few months, I am pushing back some of my timelines for publications. I had hoped to release Rayatana 3 and 4 this year, but... I will be happy to get 3 out in the fall. 

Likewise, I had hoped to take one of my Kindle Vella serializations and turn it into an ebook and paperback, then release it in June, but it's already April and it's not ready. :(

So, I am continuing to write and work, but I have to recreate my goal schedule, and I think that's okay. 

I'm sharing my poetry drafts for National Poetry Month at my poetry Instagram account and on Substack, but I'll also share a few here: 

Interview at The Mighty Books Podcast

 This is a tiny post to say thanks to Ryan Oliver for the interview at The Mighty Books podcast!

If you would like to give it a listen, it's here:

If that bit of code doesn't work, you can find it on Youtube here: The Mighty Books Podcast. 

March IWSG 2023

 

Today is blog hop day for The Insecure Writers' Support Group, started by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by:

Diedre Knight, Tonya Drecker, Bish Denham, Olga Godim, and JQ Rose!

Many thanks to all who participate and make IWSG possible!

The March 1st Optional Question is:

Have you ever read a line in novel or a clever plot twist that caused you to have author envy?

Heck yeah. I think the first author envy I had was as a kid. I wanted to write like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. They made it look effortless. My first novel draft written at age 12 went into the garbage can because I thought it was terrible. I envied/hoped/longed to be able to write well.

I still have that yearning, even after finishing several books, stories, and poems, even after getting some of my work published by professional small presses and traditional places, as well as publishing my own work. Even after I took second place in a poetry contest just recently. The yearning to improve my writing craft and become a "really good" author is still there. 

However, I don't throw my stuff out anymore. I mine it for rough cut gems and polish them. 

Yes, some days I read a book and sigh with amazement and envy over another author's perfect words, characterizations, plot twists, or resolutions, but then the longing to learn and improve and become the best author I can be with my strengths comes back to me. With that in mind, I head back to work. 

I write to writing prompts, I read craft books, I write stories, poems, songs, articles, novels, and I keep on keeping on, hoping to learn, improve, and discover more heights and depths in my writing along the way. 

The reality is, I'm not going to be an author just like someone else, and I have realized that I don't want to be an author just like someone else anymore. I want to be the best author I can be which means constantly moving forward, step by step. My writing has improved and continues to improve as I lean into my strengths and work slowly at my weaknesses. I'll never be Tolkien or Lewis, but I'll be the best Tyrean Martinson author I can be. 

What about you? Do you ever struggle with author envy? 

How do you work on and take ownership of the best version of your writing?

NEWS FROM THE WRITER'S DESK

I started a Substack. It's here: Tyrean's Substack

I have a different website over here: Tyrean's Tales

Dark Blade: Tempered (Dark Blade. Vol. 2) is going well on Kindle Vella. 

Dark Blade: Forged is going through preparations for eBook and Paperback release. 

Resonance (Rayatana 3) is spinning in a time loop, but eventually I will finish it. 

I have a pseudonym (or two) and will be writing about that here in a few weeks. 

And, as always, my family keeps me on my toes, and my health is making turtle-like progress.

IWSG February 2023: Books Covers

 As the first Wednesday of the month, today is The Insecure Writer's Support Group Day blog hop, a monthly blog hop over a decade old started by Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, Sci-fi Author and Great Encourager.

Each month, several volunteers step forward to help manage the hop, and this month, these intrepid writers and professional authors are: Jacqui Murray, Ronel Janse Van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Gwen Gardner!

Today's Optional Industry Question is: If you are an indie author, do you design your own book covers or have them professionally designed? If you are traditionally published, how much say do you have in your book cover design?

My answer straddles all the writing I've done.

COVER IMAGES FOR SHORT WORKS

As a traditionally published short story, poem, and article writer, I do not often have much, if any, choice in how my work is presented with images or cover designs.

Online publications attach specific images with short works to makes these works pop off the page and be more enticing to readers. However, I often have people assume these are my photos, and they usually are not. For example, I had a poem published at The Drabble called "Quest (ioning) Cat" and a photo of a tortoiseshell cat was attached to it. Readers assumed this was my cat, when actually my cat was a black and white American mix. However, I loved the image they chose, even if it wasn't "my" cat because honestly, once you send your work into the world, the reader's imagination or the editor's imagination fills in the blanks.

This is also true for larger anthologies, like The IWSG 2017 publication of their 2016 Anthology Contest Award Winners, Hero Lost: Mysteries of Death and Life, in which my short story "Of Words and Swords" was originally published professionally. I love the cover of the book and I think it suits the stories within it, even if I didn't design it. I think it's interesting and sometimes fun to see what other people's imaginations come up with for groups of stories.

The Champion Trilogy, Variations on a Theme

The following images show the way my first book covers changed over three different iterations. The first covers were created by my niece, a designer who has decided to work on designs for logos and events, instead of book covers. The two of us didn't really know how to work on book covers together, but her hand drawn images (not shown here) wowed me, and we attempted to figure out book cover design together. The very first cover she created was the one with the girl reaching for the sword, which I loved, but for some reason, we didn't know how to make the colors work with the uploads for Amazon and we kept getting different color variations from the same image, so we moved away from that to simpler color schemes for the trilogy.

After a while, I decided to try to recreate the covers on my own, using a combination of images purchased from Shutterstock and a Pro Canva account, which gives me a license to use certain images for professional designs I create on the account. The last three book covers (the current ones) are those.

Short Story E-book Covers

I created all of my short story Ebook book covers, because I meant from the start of creating them to use them as a "free" or inexpensive way to gather readers' interest for my work. In retrospect, I could have been a bit wiser about this process, but I like many of my covers, both old and new. This is just a sampling of short book variations. I have taken many off the market for now, although I am tempted to put them back up. Keeping them "permafree" on Amazon took too much fiddling with them on a regular basis and most of them need to have their back matter refinished, something I've fallen behind on. Seedling is still my most downloaded short title.

To create these, I used Microsoft Publisher and images I purchased or found free in free domain sites, although that made me nervous even when I cited them properly, so I have gone more and more to using images via Shutterstock or Canva Pro, which I have a license to use and have paid some $ for. In some instances, I have used my own photography, but that is rare. What is more common is for me to find an image, purchase the copyright, and manipulate it until it fits what I hope the cover is conveying.

 

Professionally Designed Covers

Working with a professional designer for cover design and interior design does take a great deal of the work load off of me in the creation of an Ebook or Paperback, and I've discovered in the process that I'm not always a good communicator of what I hope to do, which makes it really hard on the designer to work. If you are an Indie author, I suggest taking some serious time to study the current trends in book covers, then take the main elements of your book, think about how they would fit in the current trends, and then discuss this with your book designer.

I loved working with Carrie Butler, but I ignored some of her suggestions, and I think, well, I think these are lovely, but now, after much more study of cover designs, I think I could have gone a slightly different direction. I love the color scheme, and I love the lettering. I love so much about these covers. However, I missed the trend of putting people on the cover, something Carrie Butler suggested that I ignored. Considering these are YA novellas with a hint of romance in them, having at least one or two characters on each cover might have been wise. And yet, I still love them, which means I need to work on my own way of looking at my books in the future.

More Canva Designed Covers

Due to the fact that I haven't made a great deal of $ from my writing, I have to take cost into consideration for every cover and every aspect of each book. I know covers sell, but I also know how much I have to budget for each book, and I need to create covers which are both cost-effective and eye-catching. I have discovered that I enjoy creating covers, while, as I mentioned above, it's taken me a long while to discover what works, and what doesn't. Certain colors convey specific moods, tones, and storylines, as well as the age of readership. 

These are my own latest designs, using purchased images, and the Canva Pro design tools:

 

Do they all work? Well, there are some I'm thinking of changing at some point in the future, but my understanding of cover design has slowly grown over the years, and I think I'm getting better at it. The amount of time and effort I put into each depends on the purpose of the design and how often/much use I plan to get out of it, whether it's for a series of posts, a short Ebook freebie or inexpensive "interest" title, or a lengthier book I hope to sell again and again. 

You may notice a few Kindle Vella covers in this grouping, and there's a reason for that I will go into next Wednesday.

Do you create your own covers?