Written by Ubriel Bryne, a.k.a. Jami Lee Montgomery

Someone Stole My Month

February 27, 2020
I have been so super busy this month. I got started on my job assignment for February and all of a sudden February is basically over. What the heck? The good news is that I have made super great progress on the book!

WIP

The Andran Company Book One

The current word count is 48, 293. That means that the book is about 2/3 done. Maybe a little more. This will be the first official book in the series. The Prequel to the series will be available to anyone for free through either signing up for my mailing list, leaving a review of book one or coming out to see me at a live event.  I will post more on that as it comes up. Right now, I have sample draft chapters for folks to look over and mark up and talk with me about. For anyone interested in getting involved with the creation of a book, come to one of my monthly live events and check it out.

I have decided that this series is likely to be a trilogy in total (with a free-quel, making it four books) that will cover the relationships and major life developments of the various characters that make up the Andran Company. The Free-quel will cover how Lu and Sol met and made their decision to run off and form the company. Book One will cover an event that changes the life of the priestess Cobol and launches her on a quest for a broader truth. Book Two will follow the progress of the relationship between Sca and his son, Hassi. What Sca will choose to teach Hassi and what Hassi will choose to learn. Book Three will wrap us up with the final choices of Lano and Rana; each trying to decide what kind of person they want to be and what role they want to fill in the world as they know it.

Right now, I just have to put the time in and finish writing all the words out so that other people can know the story like I know the story. Drafting takes the longest of all the bits of the process, I think. But it is the part I like the most, so that works out. The problem I run into is stressing over all the parts I don’t like, i.e., marketing, selling, networking, etc. I am not a salesperson. I have done it for a living and it makes me hate myself and life and everything that breathing my way through another day entails. So, guess what I did. I hired my husband, who is a consummate salesman, to do all that stuff for me. Hopefully, he won’t get bored.

Patreon

Chapter Ten is up now and ready for critiques and feedback.

I really don’t want to keep the Patreon page. I realize that I haven’t been on Patreon long enough to really have any kind of following but I also realize that I don’t want to be expected to produce content outside of the WIP chapters. I would rather just take the chapters to events and gather feedback that way than to have to keep up with a weekly post that occasionally I am going to be too busy making a living to actually create. If I am going to kill it, I should do it before I get an actual following. I should also talk to my marketing director before I really kill the page in case it is something he wants to take over and be responsible for.

Then again, I have considered creating storytime videos, which can go up on the Patreon as well as be on a UBB YouTube channel, in which I can read teaser snippets of the books for everyone. I know I love hearing the voice of the author emphasizing things and pronouncing things the way they intended them to sound.

I don’t know. I guess we will have to put some thought into it.

Website
I have decided that I need to start posting a link to the  most recent blog post on the landing page for the website. Once the books start coming out, that top row will have to share space with the book announcements too.

I know I have promised before to make my working writer task organizer available to everyone. The problem has been that I keep tweaking it. So, forget the task organizer for now. You will get it when it is ready. Right now, keep an eye out for my Opinion Article on Writer’s Block.

Teaser: Writer’s do not get blocked. We get slow, searching for the right way to say something. We get interrupted by obligation. We get many things, but we do not get blocked.

SocMed
I have determined that I am really bad with social media. This is another thing that I am going to have to foist off on my husband. It will be his job to walk up with a camera, take a picture and post it with a quippy something I have said recently. Also, I have a bunch of ideas for things that need to be turned into social media posts by someone who likes to navigate those sites. Here is my problem; my grandmother’s voice in my head asking if I really think I am so very interesting that people are going to want to know what I am doing every day. She basically shamed me as a child for enjoying attention; took the fun right out of it. It is not that I do not enjoy interacting with folks. It is more a matter of having trouble remembering that those folks asked for me to interact with them by following me or friending me or whatever. Yeah, it’s a neurosis. I am neurotic. But I can accept that and find a way to move forward. =)
Personally, I had one of the worst “luck” days of my life on the 17th. It was a Monday. But that wasn’t the bad bit… I wrote myself an email just to get an objective view of the day and see if it was really as rough as it felt. It was like every single minor annoyance that could be thrown at me, was. Here is the email I wrote to me at 2pm that day:

First, I woke up late…

Snap lid on coffee popped open in my purse and dumped 12 oz in
Dripped all over the passenger seat of car
Wk computer after system upgrade, word locked up and email locked me out and crashed twice
Only person having trouble
Admin lock out to change desktop background
No answer from client
Skirt is too big and starting to slip
Late for Dept meeting
Had to leave to take hubs to work
Forgot to clock out
Got hubs to work but he had to use a towel on the seat
Auto-read book lost place three times
Stopped for food to cheer me up
Sat in drive through for almost 20 mins
Took safest intersection to get back to work
Almost hit by bad drivers in intersection twice
Asked for tartar sauce with my fish and got ranch dressing
Was tailgated hard by random D-bag almost back at work
Parking spot taken when got back
If I can survive the day, I will expect the universe to be generous with good luck to me for the rest of the year

And this is, I think, proof that the universe was definitely out to get me that day. It definitely could have been worse but it damn sure wasn’t good.

I’m’a go write a book now! Nite-nite,

Ɛ|3  Amy