Earlier this month I did a guest post on another author’s Substack newsletter about opening my WooCommerce store. You can read it here on Harvey Stanbrough’s New Daily Journal. His page is mostly geared towards writers at various levels of expertise, both published and unpublished. I have found Harvey’s advice and encouragement very helpful over the years. He was the one that encouraged me to publish my short stories, giving me advice on process and pricing, etc. Otherwise I would still not have published anything so far.

The more I think about it, the more I regret shutting down the Writing Whispers newsletter. Was it a mistake? Did I jump too soon?  I’m just not sure. Though if I get it started again, I’ll definitely try it as a Substack. As a result I’ve been researching how to optimize using Substack. The odd thing, Substack is mostly driven by an app and that is where I have an account as S E Knight. However, I couldn’t also have Sylvia Auclair on the app – to be honest there is probably a way to do it, but this luddite couldn’t figure it out (you should have seen what I just went through trying to have my guest post linked above!) – so I always access it via the internet to post my Gluten Free newsletter as Sylvia Auclair. I just tried to add the app on to my MacBook and it’s not a valid app there, so I guess any posts I do as S E Knight will have to be done on my iPhone or iPad. I found this very strange as they are all Apple products. Just one of those things that make you go, “Hmmm?”

Nothing else of note to post, though I have written a little more on Generation Zee. Not a great deal, just getting my feet wet in their new location. I realized I have to give a pretty good description of the place as the next ten chapters take place there and I don’t want readers to be confused. But description is not my strong suit. So I am working harder at it than I expected – give me dialogue to write any day!

That’s it for now. Not even any fun pictures to post, at least I don’t think so…

Progress!

I’ve made some progress on Generation Zee (Finally! Yay!). I’ve started the final book of the novel. I think it’s going to go fast, but I was stumped on how to start out. But the characters spoke to me and told me what came next. I also have to show that feeling of foreboding – will this new location be their salvation or something else? I’m excited to get going again and have it all revealed.

I have also decided that this will be Generation Zee – Book 1 – Evie, with two more book to follow. One for Danny and one for Rick. I think Danny’s story first, then Rick’s to finish the trilogy. That means I have to contact my bookcover designer for her to add the Book 1 – Evie to the cover. I started getting ideas for Danny’s story and I think that is what inspired me to get back to work or Evie’s story. Can’t have a Book 2 without finishing Book 1!

On a sad note, I have decided to cancel the newsletter, Writing Whispers, that I have been doing since last November. I wasn’t getting the response from it that I had expected and it was difficult to write that newsletter and then this blog without repeating myself. And I always felt rushed to get it done at the same time I was trying to write the blog post. It was just too much non-essential and unproductive writing. The newsletter might come back at some point, but possibly as a second Substack, because I’m still working on my Eating Gluten Free Newsletter, which is important to me and close to my heart. But that, too, was not getting the attention from me that I wanted to give it. So instead from this point on (for a while) there will be the gluten free newsletter at least once a month, maybe more often when I’m inspired, and these blog posts. Right now I’ve been doing them once a month towards the end of the month, but I’m going to try to do  them more often in the future (all depending on whether I have anything interesting to talk about).

The Store Page

Has anyone taken a look at it? I’m still pretty happy with it. But! But I cannot fix the font on the heading of the page. All the other pages on the site follow the parameters I have set – Arial font in dark purple. But the store page is black and a super bold san serif font that I don’t know. I’ve been over and over the website admin page trying to make the correction. I’ve tried a bunch of things, but nothing has worked. I’ve gone to google, YouTube, Reddit, etc and all of those suggestions haven’t worked either. It’s making me a little crazy, because, in case you didn’t already know this, I’m a bit of a perfectionist in stuff like this. (It’s like sending out an email and as soon as you hit send, you see a typo. Makes me crazy!) And as I’ve mentioned before, technology, while I love it, is not my friend, or at least not my brain’s friend.

End of Summer

I’m kind of happy to have fall around the corner. It has been super hot here in North Carolina, but I guess that goes for pretty much everywhere this summer. Then the spring and summer were busy with travel to visit the kids and grandkids (twice!) and doctor’s appointments for both me and my husband. Nothing too serious going on, just inconvenient and time consuming running back and forth to doctors and testing. As a matter of fact I had to create a family calendar so I can make sure we don’t double book – which happened in July: I had a procedure in the morning (again, nothing serious) and the husband had a pre-op visit for his cataract surgery in the afternoon. It worked out fine, but added a whole level of stress that I didn’t need. So a family calendar for the first time since the kids were little and I had a calendar on the wall where everything got listed and tracked. Though this one is on my iPhone. And of course I’m in charge of it – it’s not something he wants to be in charge of. Which is fair as he is in charge of the car, truck, yard, and exterior house maintenance. I actually don’t have anywhere as much on my plate, but I guess it depends on your skill set, mine is more towards the banking, filling out forms, scheduling appointments, not to mention laundry and general housework, all that minutiae that runs a household, but I would be awful at car maintenance! And yard work! Yuck! Not my thing at all.

Big doings going on here on the Syloquies website! I updated the appearance, which you all might have seen, to better align with my brand. And a new logo, still a cat, but no longer cutesy:

But the big news is that I also decided to add a store to the website! Now if you are interested, you can buy my stories directly from me, and at a much lower price.

This was a big decision for me, and a lot of work, as I am not technologically advantaged. I did a lot of research, mostly on the fly as I realized that I didn’t understand a step (once they started talking about short codes – I was out!) or couldn’t make it do what I wanted. Luckily, the system let me keep the store in limbo until it was ready to go live.

And then, once it was live, I had to make further adjustments as I didn’t like the look. The whole site just looked too busy. There was the Home page, Posts page, Works page, About page, Contact page, Store page, Cart Page, and Checkout Page. Just too much! So more research and I found a way to reduce the number of pages.  The Cart and Checkout pages are now subpages of the Store page, so it looks much cleaner. Then I realized that I had a lot of duplication between the Home, Works and About pages, so I combined all of the information on the Home page.

Now if you go to the Home Page you will see my brief bio, followed by how to purchase my work – both on Amazon and on my store (both with live links – very proud of myself for figuring that out!) and a request to sign up for my newsletter. Then below that is more information about me and what I write for anyone who is interested enough to go that far. Then the only other pages are a Posts page, Contact page and the Store page. It looks much cleaner and direct. You can see exactly what you want easily.

Let me know what you think of the new look:

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I am very pleased with how it turned out and it took me about a week to create it working on it in small batches of time while I was on vacation visiting family. If I had a few hours in the morning or afternoon, I jumped into it, if we got home early from dinner and had no other plans, I jumped into it again. There was a lot of adding plug-ins, adding pages, then removing plug-ins and removing pages until it got to a point I liked.

Heres what the store looks like now:

It’s still not perfect and is likely to be improved upon as time goes by – if I figure out how to make the various changes I want to make. The big question is: Will the store work?

Each story is uploaded as ePub, PDF and Docx, so you can get it just how you want.

If anyone tries to purchase one of my stories and has difficulty or it doesn’t load correctly or whatever, please contact me so I can try to figure it out and fix it for you.

And if it works easily for you, please let me know that too – that would really make my day!

It has been a wild month and a half since my last post. Sorry about the delay, all. I have been working on my writing, getting files organized, sorting, downloading, etc. Not a lot of writing on Generation Zee, unfortunately. But after completing Book 2, I needed a bit of a break before getting back into the story and getting the final Book written. But I will be starting that shortly. And I hope, as it is loaded with action, the writing will go quickly. Of course publication will be delayed as a result.

But here is the cover:

What do you think? I love it!

I shared it with my newsletter folks two months ago, but here it is for all of you that follow me here on my website and on Facebook. Maybe even Instagram – if I can figure out how to post it there. LOL!

I say that because I did start that other newsletter, the one I mentioned last time. It is in my own name and is about eating gluten free and all that entails. The name of that newsletter, if you’re interested is: Going Gluten Free: The Good, Bad, and Sometimes Ugly. Here is it’s banner:

You can find it on Substack. I’m posting on that every 1-2 weeks and I always share it on my Facebook page and try to share it on Instagram, but with limited success. With each issue, I include a number of photos, but it seems like only one posts and I have to remember to attach the link to the full post so that anyone on Instagram can read it and see all of the pictures. There has to be an easier way. I just haven’t found it yet.

I am also working on a new project. I am going to sell my work on this website instead of just Amazon, Kobo, Apple, etc. This will allow me to set my own prices, which will be more in line with what I think should be charged for an individual short story and collections, than a price based on Amazon’s royalty rules. I’m not removing the works from the other vendors, but by selling directly to my readers, I hope to increase sales and provide my work at reasonable prices to those who want them. It is not a fast process as I have to save each book in multiple formats and then choose what system to use to sell and collect the payments. I am looking at three different systems at this point to see which is the simplest to use for both the purchaser and me. So, more to come on that down the road.

I have a lot of irons in the fire right now, so I’m pulling them out as quick as I can!

This post is a little late as I got behind as I prepared to travel. But I’m still working on the novel and have made some progress. I have maybe a few paragraphs to finish chapter 19 and the first two books are completed. (I will admit that chapter 18 made ME cry and I was the one writing it!) I think the final book will go pretty quickly as it is loaded with action and revelations that I feel will be fast (I don’t want to say easy) to write. Even so, I’m not sure if it will be ready for publication in May or June. We’ll just have to play it by ear.

I will keep you in the loop.

In the meantime, I am also working on some other things. I’m looking at my Slacksville story, to see what I can do to turn this cozy mystery into a supernatural cozy mystery. And I want to take a look at my possible Romantasy – I know it requires a whole new beginning and I’m thinking it will need to have two viewpoints, both his and hers. I doubt I’ll get any real writing done on either project, probably research only, but you never know.

I am talking to someone to get some trailers done. I’m thinking a book trailer for Generation Zee and then an author trailer to showcase all of my work that’s been published and is coming soon. I am considering a new collection of short stories that will include my two new short stories. Though I have submitted one of them, a crime story, to the Al Blanchard Award, so I won’t publish anything new including that story until I hear back from them. Hopefully that new collection won’t be too labor intensive and I can get it completed fairly easily.

And on the subject of new projects, I am exploring starting a newsletter on Sub Stack. But it won’t be writing related. I’ve wanted to do one for some time but having to do with being gluten free and the challenges it presents, what it means for average every day life. Also, some recipes that I like – I do a lot of baking – products that I have found that are good, or bad, restaurant experiences, also both good and bad. It’s a good way to get in the habit of writing, if not every day, at least more regularly than I do now.

That’s it for now and hopefully, I’ll have good news regarding Generation Zee next month!

I haven’t made as much progress as I wanted this month. I got sick again! Plus I’ve been recovering at home from a minor procedure – nothing important, but it still stopped me from sitting at my desk for a little while. I did finish one chapter and started the next, which I thought was the next to last chapter, but realized there is actually two more after it to complete Book 2 of the novel.

Also, as I was writing, the timing of the journey hit me as wrong, which caused me to dig out the maps again to replot the end of the journey. I have them taking a whole day to travel a distance that could be covered in a couple hours, unless there where obstacles on the road, but I didn’t write any in. So I have to make a little change there, one way or the other – either add some obstacles or have them arrive further down the road. That’s what I’m working on now.

I also don’t know if I’ve mentioned the writing program I’ve been using. Like everyone, I started out on Word, but as the book got larger, it was just too cumbersome to find a spot in the body of it if I needed to make a change. So I switched to Scrivener. I like Scrivener, there is space to keep everything related to the book, from notes to maps, the cover, front and back matter. And once I learned it, it worked well. But I found with my short stories that it didn’t format the stories well for KDP – I had to convert them back to Word and reformat them (sometimes multiple times) to upload them to Amazon/KDP. That seemed counter-productive and a lot of unnecessary work. So I heard about a newer program called Atticus and I’ve been giving that a try. I like it. Like Scrivener, everything is broken up by chapters, so I can easily find a section that needs correcting or changing. There is a place for all the front and back matter, along with the cover. I don’t think I can upload my maps, but to be honest, I like the feel of working from a paper copy that I can mark up and make notes on. And the program is supposed to allow me to get the book into a publishable format with the click of one button. I’m still learning Atticus and I haven’t tried to format anything, or export it anywhere yet, but I will be exporting what I’ve completed to my editor soon, so I’ll see how that works for me.

I want to ask my readers something. How do you feel about chapters having titles? I read all kinds of books and some have that and others just number them. I’ve noticed that titling chapters is more common with fantasies, which this book is (Dystopian Fantasy, I would say). So far, I have titled each chapter with a glimpse or clue of what to expect, such as: The Neighborhood, Medical Emergency, or Final Plans. What do you think about that? Use the contact button to give me your opinion. Thanks!

Hopefully, my April update will show I’ve completed more writing – no procedures planned, no more sickness, and the ambition to get this done!