After trying to change this page into something that looks professional, I think I’m gonna start maintaining a blog over on Weebly. I’m gonna do some tinkering over there when I have more time, but I think it’s just plain easier to keep up with things from one site.
I’m not getting rid of this because I’m not ready to let go of this chapter of my life. But, if you want updates, head on over there. You can even sign up for my newsletter from that site 🙂
I keep promising I’ll do better with this author/promotion thing, but then times ticks away…
So, while I could dive heavily into the technical writing that actually makes me money these days, let me take a few moments to post something on here. As promised, I have a couple of topics in mind to write about in the near future, so we’ll begin with one of those.
The first topic is a review of my first Knickerbockers experience.
What is Knickerbockers? It’s a photography company that allows people to sell coupons for professional pictures. Those people keep, I think, all profits from those coupons, but the company takes more shots in hopes of persuading people into buying bigger packages.
My experience, to be honest, was not so great. First of all, I had issues with the person selling the coupons, as in my two-year-old niece didn’t get her pictures because this woman, in spite of being self-assured she’d done everything she could, didn’t do what she was supposed to do until pushed by a third party. I will no longer buy coupons from her (or the organization she represented since she dragged them down during her own defense), but Knickerbockers can’t be blamed for this. They aren’t responsible for this part of the process.
Knickerbockers can, however, be blamed for having dumb rules. For instance, your coupon has to be for an immediate household member, as in no one outside of your household can be in your picture. If I buy the coupon, I should be able to line up stuffed animals for the shot if want to. What if the Avengers come to town and will sit for the picture? Can I not get Iron Man sitting by the Christmas tree, surrounded by his superhero buddies? I would want that picture!
Anyway, two out of three of my nieces did get a picture at their school’s cafeteria. When I walked into the room with my sister and nieces, I was a little iffy about the Christmas scene since everything looked a little worse-for-wear with the tree and fence post, but hey. That could’ve just been what they were going for. And, I figured the photographer might’ve known more about taking the shots than I did, which I reminded myself when I noticed he was getting shots that were really close up to my girls in the pictures. Now, close shots are great and all, but if you’re trying to get a back setting, shouldn’t there be more back setting? Again, though, I’m not the photographer. I let it go and hoped I’d be pleasantly surprised when the pictures came back.
I wasn’t because, as it turned out, I was right. He did get too close, to the point where you see very little tree on one side and very little fence on the other (you can’t even tell what the fence is). Honestly, it looks like a picture you could take at home with little skill whatsoever—just put your kids in front of a white wall and get little to nothing Christmas-ish in your shot.
I’d post the picture to prove this to you, but I didn’t buy any additional items, including the disc. That being said, I probably don’t have the right to post the picture. Suffice it to say, though, there was just no way I was gonna pay $275 for pictures that looked so unprofessional and boring.
Now, judging by the pictures on the website, it’s entirely possible that we just got a bad photographer. But, still, the overall experience isn’t one I’d recommend passing on. Overall, I’d give it 2 out of 5 cupcakes.
It’s been a little while, I know, and this year has been filled with…things. I lost my mom, for one thing, and I’m still trying to get my bearings from that one. I’ve been hustling through technical writing projects as well and pretending like I’ll find time to finish up a new book.
I won’t lie, guys. It doesn’t look too promising for the near future for new books, and the reason is because I have so much to do, in light of my mom’s passing. I need to spend the next year or so working my way through one issue after another before I can step back from being crazy-work-lady and find time to pursue things that just make me happy. It’s hard, but my mom was strong. I’ll be like her and tunnel through.
In the meantime, though, I don’t want to leave you with nothing. I do plan to try to tweet and post on FB more, and I do have one draft that’s written. I can’t guarantee I’ll have it polished and ready for publication in the next week or two, but maybe soon.
I also plan to blog more, and I already have a couple of ideas to post about. I plan to post them after Christmas or sometime in the new year.
Have patience with me, guys. No one wants my books to take off more than I do. It was the one natural thing I was doing that my mom said she didn’t want me to quit 🙂
Anyway, Merry Christmas!
There’s a method to madness, I assure you!
GFXBNCSS161903655
I don’t know when WordPress started throwing random ads on my page, but I’m not amused. If I end up switching sites, I’ll let you all know where I go. But for now, know I do NOT like it, and I have not approved these ads.
Ugh. I’m such a bad blogger. I just write so much for work that I don’t really have time to write or feel like writing on other things – which is sad because “other things” also includes my books. I’m planning to do the A-Z Blog Challenge though, and I want to launch a business in 2020 (at least). So, basically, I hope to get better at this social media thing! No immediate promises though!
This has been a unique year with different freelance opportunities. Some were good, and some were terrible. Honestly though, at least one of the terrible ones has given me fuel to make 2018 amazing and have the last laugh. Does that make me a terrible person? If so, eh. Who cares? 🙂
I’ve learned a lot about the freelancing world and how little respect can be garnered for writers. Random people on Amazon may not mind spending their free time to plagiarize reviews. One freelance company might do a rewrite instead of an edit. Another company might be so unprofessional that I suspect they actually posted their own positive review on Glassdoor because too many people griped about the company on the review site. Again, it might make me a terrible person, but I like seeing that Amazon was kind enough to remove those plagiarized reviews and that those two companies have since been searching for employees, as if they’re running low on writers because of their unprofessional and horrible tendencies. It does me good to know that even a little bit of justice happens in that way.
But what I’ve learned, overall, is that if you find a company that works for you through freelancing, hang on to that company with both hands because finding one that treats contractors with respect and courtesy is hard to come by. I wish I’d known how hard it was earlier so I could have given other opportunities a more thorough chance. I just didn’t know that so many companies would treat writers who create posts for their sites with such little dignity and so much disregard. People read what writers write, after all. That’s kind of important when your site is wanting readers.
I’m going to keep my eye out for companies to freelance with, but I’m going to keep my options open. I plan to enter into each possibility knowing it could fall to pieces so I don’t entrust too much of myself into it, and if it doesn’t, I plan to promote that company as much as I can for being such a rare gem.
Beyond that, I plan to try to carve myself a personal corner next year by starting a business by the end of the year, one that will be based on Etsy. I plan to craft quilts, dream catchers, and candles to start, with room to expand into other fields as well. I’ve already gotten my new sewing machine for the endeavor, and I’m very interested in diving into this opportunity throughout the new year. I’m even thinking of selling fresh fruits and vegetables, but we’ll see how this develops.
I’m going to try and make a point of keeping this blog more current with news about that store as well as possible future writing possibilities, but this post is just kind of touching base to let readers know 2017 will be different than 2018. I’m tired of pouring myself into projects for ingrates and jerks, so I’m going to focus on the opportunities that make me happy and can lead into creativity that can pay the bills. I guess, in essence, that’s the plan for 2018. I want to start on my way to business success in a new way, and I want to be happy. There’s no room for companies that make me miserable in that equation, and I need to just laugh off the immaturity of these previous opportunities and keep going. I mean, honestly. Posting a positive review of your own company in defense? When did you see Wal-Mart do that? So sad…
Anyway, the plan is for a new book to be out by Christmas of next year and for Hazel Rose Hollow (my Etsy shop) to be up and running by then as well. Cross your fingers with me that things go well!
Ordinarily, you might see an author asking you to leave a review. This time, I’m asking you to report a review on my Amazon account. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if the reviewer just didn’t like my book since everyone is entitled to their opinion on each of my stories. And at the end of the day, if The Hunger Games can get a 1-star review, what book is safe, you know?
This situation, however, is different, and I hope you’ll see that by the end of this post.
You see, I wrote this so-cute-you-could-die love story of a couple of teenagers—Lila’s a dancer, and Austin’s a football player—falling in love. Today, I noticed that my average rating for that book, Jivin’ Tango, had gone down, so I assumed there was a bad rating. There was—1-star. Imagine my surprise though when I started reading the review that talked about dragons and Mohammed, labeling my work “hate speech.” I assure you that there are no mentions of Mohammed or lightning-resistance dragons in the book, so I was shocked.
Knowing you aren’t supposed to engage with a bad review, I still left a comment on this one. Why? Because this isn’t even about my book, and I think people who might be influenced by that review need to know that. The review was just too wild to let it stand and influence without confronting it.
Since, I’ve labeled that review as unhelpful and reported it as abuse, and I encourage you to do the same. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, I can still prove to you that something is iffy about this review. For instance, parts of it are word-for-word what appear in the “Problems” and “Lesson” sections of the #2 addition on this list. Pardon any kind of vulgar language that’s on this page, but it’s the best evidence I can offer that something is askew.
The idea that people could be this vindictive (and perhaps have too much time on their hands) is so bizarre to me, but it isn’t like I actually am the author of The Hunger Games here. I don’t have a big enough fan base to rally for support so they can point out the review isn’t valid. What happens then is that this stands as ¼ of my reviews with only my comment and evidence saying that it’s different.
If you were just a reader browsing and saw that, would you buy the book?
If you were Amazon and you became convinced that the review was valid, would you un-publish the book?
If you were an employer browsing my Amazon link from my resume, would you hire me?
This is a big deal, no matter how much random vultures like this seem to believe. I’m asking you to please, please, please help me get this review down. Clearly, it’s plagiarized, and it in no way represents my book. I want to put this horrible chapter behind me, and I’m begging you to help me.
Please label it as unhelpful. Please report it as abuse. Please leave a comment stating that the review isn’t valid. Help me let people know it’s wrong, and help me get it taken down.
Thank you,
Connie L. Smith
This is a post that I’ve assumed was coming for a while now, and it’s finally here. You see, for the last months, I’ve been in heavy edit-mode to get my Division trilogy ready for publishing, and I had the end-of-edits in my sights for a time to step back and breathe.
I turned in the final version of the third book, so now, breathing time!
It’s also time to open up a little bit about what will be happening in the future, and that’s less publication. The truth of the matter is that I’m at a point in my life where I can’t rationalize dedicating so much time to something that isn’t a major source of income in my life. A girl’s gotta make sure she’s getting her bills paid, after all, and other priorities simply need to come before putting hours for weeks, months, or maybe even a year for something that’s not really going to make a dent in anything that falls in line with those priorities.
I still love writing, and I plan to continue to write! I’m chasing some freelance opportunities, and you can keep tabs on my Nimue account for food and health related posts. And, of course, Sewing Machines Plus is still a place to find my writing.
I also plan to dive into Fanfiction again, but I won’t be giving out the name of the account from here. I find that writing Fanfiction can be a very relaxing process, but if I tie my professional name to it, the pressure is on to make it more perfect, closer to a book I’m going to publish. That ups the stress and tension levels, and therefore removes the relaxing detail!
You shouldn’t be too surprised if other books show up online from me either! I’m not saying it won’t happen! I’m just saying I’m letting my writing take more financially productive and/or less stressful avenues for the most part, and other details might be more delayed in coming.
Regardless, thanks for all the support!
As of last Saturday, Within the Essence is officially for sale! You can pick up your copy here, here, or here!
One other thing that happened this weekend was that I tried a new baking recipe with two of my nieces. It’s one of the things we do together, so much that the eldest credits me for teaching her how to crack an egg. I don’t necessarily remember it, but it’s kind of cool that a tiny detail like that sticks out so much in her mind. My heart melts! Metaphorically, at least. Otherwise, that could be a problem…
Anyway, as I said earlier on this blog, I want to try and post more often for a number of reasons, and I figure adding in some baking details here and there would be a good concept to bring to the blog. So, with that in mind, I’m going to try and review some recipes that I go through—and/or ones I come up with—with a 1 out of 5 rating system. Right now, we’re going with sprinkles, but that label could change should I choose something more fitting!
So how about we dive right into the first recipe?
Recipe: Mini Doughnut Cupcakes from this book
Ingredients:
1 cup of sugar
1 ½ teaspoons of ground cinnamon
1 package of white or yellow cake mix (and the listed ingredients)
1 tablespoon of ground nutmeg
Instructions:
Rating: 3 out of 5 sprinkles
Now, originally, I’d planned to give this recipe the lowest rating possible, but to be fair, the first one I tried wasn’t quite done. It’s entirely possible that it took me a moment to adjust to give them a fair shake after that! Once I retried them later, they weren’t that bad! They were just… different! I could even get a sense of the doughnut flavor in them with the blended nutmeg, though I might’ve called these “muffins” instead of cupcakes if the recipe were mine. The blended ingredients came together into a fair, but admittedly unique, tasting dessert. Still, there was nothing knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark that makes me plan to remake these, so it’s hard to give them anything above a 3/5 rating.
If you want a new twist on a muffin though, this blend of nutmeg and cinnamon is an interesting way to go!
Connie L. Smith 