Tag Archives: author

Overwhelmed by People Stuff

The last two weeks have been packed with people. From both work and personal perspectives, I’ve been inundated with human interaction. It is starting to put pressure on me. As the upcoming week’s schedule is also packed with people, I’ve decided to take today off and be by myself.

My husband had already decided to have sushi lunch with friends, so this works out well from a timing perspective. Sushi is one of the few food styles that I will usually pass on – surprising for someone from the Seattle area, I know – so it is no hardship to skip this lunch for leftovers at home. It leaves me with plenty of time to just exist and take care of internal tasks.

I do have a few goals today. Two of them are must-do items, while some are in the time-allowing category. My self-assigned, mandatory tasks are to complete the “read-alouds” for our D&D session this week and to finish my edits of book one. For D&D, I’m not sure which directions the party will go at this point. They could potentially reach the end of this level in either direction, so I want to have all the level one commentary completed in preparation. I can wing it at need, but I find I forget more details that way, and I prefer preparation that gives them all the initial information they will need to make decisions.

For the book, I only have the epilogue left. I need to edit what exists right now and add one perspective to it as recommended by an alpha reader. I should complete both of these today since the epilogue is shorter than a full-length chapter. With this timing, I’m also posting my beta reader request for a couple more readers today. I want them to focus on plot or character disconnects or areas that pull the reader out of the story rather than line edits. With those items as the focus, I’m hoping to have the book back from them within two weeks.

The timing becomes tighter now. I’m going to schedule a copy editor and will need to finish any edits before that deadline. While I’m going to have some buffer planned in the sequence, any beta reader delays mean less time for my side of the polishing work. I also need to work on the administrative tasks, but I will do that once the book is out with betas.

As for the optional weekend tasks left for today: one is related to how much effort I want to put into cooking dinner tonight, the other is canning some pickles. I purchased some pickling cucumbers the other day, and I want to turn them into pickles. We will see if I can dredge up enough energy to fit that in today or if I procrastinate until a time when it is either “do it now” or “they go bad.” Wish me luck!

Mid-Year Changes

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I hope you are all able to have some fun today. We hosted my family for grilling burgers and dogs. S’mores fixings were brought, so we also dusted off the propane fire pit to toast some marshmallows. The weather turned out a perfect mild, sunny day after that heatwave we had last week.

The long weekend is a great way to start the second half of 2021 and head into some changes. I will be starting a new job in the middle of this month. A big driver for me looking so soon after a job change last year is the commute factor. You may have heard some horror stories about Seattle traffic. After working from home for nearly eighteen months, I did not think I could personally handle a ninety-minute commute in each direction when we go back to the office, so I decided to look around.

It worked out for me and happened faster than I ever thought it would. The new job is at a company that sounds like it has a great culture that I will enjoy, it is part-time remote even after we go back to the office, and the office is only about a ten to fifteen-minute drive away. Maybe this one will take me to my career as an author!

That is the other change as we head into the second half of the year. My goal of publishing before year-end means several key steps pick up over the coming months. I recently shifted this site over to my domain. In July and August, I’m looking into working on some of the business requirements for publication, finishing the book description and frontmatter/backmatter, and looking into the ISBN purchases. September will be looking into the Amazon account and publication requirements and process.

As for editing, I worked through another chapter and a half after work this week. I am targeting another chapter or two tomorrow. If I can keep up the pace, I’m looking at sending it out to beta readers in August, the final edit in September, the copy editor in October, and a final check in November for uploading. That is my rough schedule, and I hope to run a bit ahead of it for all of the stumbles I’m sure to run into along the way. For now, back to editing!

Hidden Memory Status Update

A brief status update today on my path to publication!

I wrote previously on my findings on alpha readers, and Hidden Memory (book 1) has been out with my expanded alpha reader list for more of this initial feedback. My work of late has been on filling out some of the gaps in book 2 of the series. I finished my run at it this week and will be moving back to addressing the new feedback on Hidden Memory.

Before I jump into this round of editing, I am researching some of the administrative/business work. Some of this was speaking with an accountant about how the taxes would work and if I would need a new LLC for selling my books and doing state taxes. While I am still debating on the LLC part, I will need to do business under my name and pay B&O taxes. Based on the thresholds, I think I will only have to file those taxes annually. Unless all of you spread the word so thoroughly Hidden Memory hits the top of the charts right out of the gate. Crazier things have happened.

The publication checklist I received through some friends gives me a lot to think about for action items to complete soon. I have been focusing on frontmatter and backmatter. This work has been reading example acknowledgments and about the author sections in preparation for writing mine with the names on my acknowledgment list. This location also has good information on copyright pages that I have found useful for the frontmatter.

Feedback from a couple of alpha readers indicates a map would be helpful, so I am looking into a simplified version of the Inkarnate map I maintain for my use during writing to include at the front of the book. It will need a note about a cartographically challenged author and distances being more accurate as written than drawn. At least it will be directionally accurate. I also enjoy maps in books I read. The final map will need experimentation on how it translates into the e-book, but I have some time to verify.

One decision I am debating is the second format to target for publication. Do I look at turning the e-book into a physical book or an audiobook? Both have their merits, and over time I will likely get to both, but I think I only want to tackle one at a time. If you have any preferences or thoughts on this question, I would love to know what those are and your reasoning.

Custom Cover Art

People are scary. At least they are to the chronically shy. Maybe you are like me, maybe you know someone like me, or maybe you are going to shake your head like my extroverted husband, but interacting with people is not comfortable at all. I was voted “shyest” in my middle school class for valid reasons.

More than once as a child, I finished my meal and asked for an ice cream cone. My parents gave me a dollar and said I could go order one. Sure. No problem. They would watch, which meant I would be the one going up to the counter and talking to the teenager at the register… That did not happen. There was either no ice cream or I bribed my little sister to order for me.

I am no longer that hesitant, but talking to strangers requires preparation and a great amount of energy to push through some interactions. Quotes for a fence repair – script, job notes, and a self pep-talk with each call. Figuring out how to get cover art and sending messages to artists? While I would prefer things magically appear with zero interaction, at least most of this is via email.

A note first: there are standard templates you can use for digital self-publishing through the main retailers, and they are often free, so I would say to not let the cost of a cover keep you from publishing. However, publishing is also about marketing your product, which is your book, so I decided to spend some saved up marketing money and look for a digital artist to bring my vision to life.

To begin my search, I lurked around a Facebook group my husband found dedicated to beta readers of fantasy novels. Eventually someone – not me – asked in a post where all the great cover art came from, and the responses pointed me to ArtStation. There are others artist sites, but this is the one primarily recommended to me. With my vision in mind, I performed multiple searches, scanning the results for images sticking out to me as similar to what I want for my cover.

Much scrolling later, I documented three artists with work I could reference in my request. Considering reaching out to them was too much for that evening, so I waited and wrote up a draft of my message the next day to send. I am now discussing my idea with artists, and the initial sketches are promising. I have heard a price-range of $300-$1000, so we’ll see what it ends up at for these quotes.

If I had to share lessons from the process so far, I would say this: Do not be afraid to ask the author / reader community questions instead of waiting for someone else. Have an idea for your cover art and share some basic information about your book with the artist so they can help it fit the theme. Know that custom art is not cheap, and respect your fellow creatives for the time and effort they put into their work as well.

I am going to have this same difficulty talking to beta readers, and receiving their feedback, but that is a concern for another day.

Introducing Tiffany

My name is Tiffany Shearn, and I am an author.

The published part of being an author is still in-work, but I’m getting so close to jumping the last hurdles and putting my work out there. I started this blog to share my journey.

I have a full-length novel written, so what is next? I will admit I am still learning this part, but my list right now is:

  • Beta readers.
  • Copy editor.
  • Cover art.
  • Publication

This is where it gets scary. You put so much of yourself into work that you love, it is difficult to receive the constructive feedback you need to take your work to the next level. I love my story, and I love how it has evolved as I have grown, but it is at the point where I want to share it, and I want it to be good enough to share.

I have always had an active imagination, drifting off into worlds all my own. In college I started writing these ideas down simply so they would not keep distracting me from the much less interesting lectures. That is all they were at first. Ideas. Vague concepts that floated on the pages without much substance holding them together.

I don’t know the moment I decided to weave in the threads of a story, or when that story became a world with people I wanted to know. Now here we are, ready to move forward one more time.

As this is about introducing me as well as my work, I should share some of my background. I was born and raised in the Puget Sound (Washington State, USA) and have stayed here all my life. I love traveling, but this area has so much variety to offer and limited poisonous creatures, so I always want to return home.

I work in Finance and have now worked at two of the big employers in the area. The numbers and problem solver are my favorite parts of the job, and I have worked with some great people over the years. Big business office politics can drive me bonkers, but no job is perfect. You try to focus on the parts you love.

Some of my hobbies other than writing:

  • Reading. I am a fan of the fantasy genre primarily, but I also dabble in mystery, romance, and science fiction.
  • Attending soccer games – Go Sounders!
  • Playing Dungeons & Dragons with our friends. I play in my husband’s game and he plays in mine.
  • Ziplining. Okay, this one is not exactly a hobby, but we try to go once on every vacation if there is one locally.

Right now, I have two aspirations. One is to publish my book, so I’m working on sharing my personal story and working through the steps to sharing my literary story. A second is to go in to finance counseling. I love numbers and budgeting, and I would love to be able to offer these skills to people who can benefit most from them. Helping someone get out of debt or buy a first house would be as great as seeing my name on the cover of a book.

I will keep you in the loop on all of this as the weeks fly by, and I hope more people join along the way.