ROW80 Round-Up!

Won a Bronze Medal in a Jinglebell 5K...

Dear Readers... It's been much too long since my last ROW80 update, and this one finds us practically at the end of the Round... Since my last post, I've had a Marine die under tragically idiotic circumstances and led my remaining 116 Marines through a visit by an assortment of Generals and Admirals that resulted in kudos all around.

The ROW in Review - overall I scored about a 36 percent success rate, which is pretty terrible... (You can see my nerdy scoresheet below!)

So, on the writing front, which is sort of a big thing for a writer, I didn't really do too well - was touch and go with my blogging, my novel-in-progress, and my short stories. On the plus side, I wrote and finished another totally new and unexpected short story In a Yellow Wood (which came about as a result of the social/dating goals) and also finished The Warrior Ethos: One Marine Officer's Critique and Counterpoint. I also started blogging for the professional journal of the U.S. Marine Corps, The Marine Corps Gazette, and published a serious non-fiction article there.

Published a Short Story...

I got one short story published, and am getting close to releasing my first book (The Warrior Ethos) but have so far failed to get the Parasol Publishing imprint off the ground. I got about half as much yoga done as I had planned, but again, I feel I made up for that by completing an 8-week "mind-body medicine" class, where I learned meditation skills and worked through a number of self-awareness exercises. I also got a medal for 3rd place in my age group in a Jinglebell 5K!

I didn't get any language teaching done, but I attained Level 6 in the Duolingo French curriculum, passed my Indonesian language test with good enough grades to get paid at the second-highest tier, and got a third of the way through a Russian language course in the Air War College curriculum. I also registered to volunteer developing the Indonesian-English syllabus on Duolingo, so we'll see what happens there!

Dabbling with dating has been, well, interesting - and got to race NASCARs around a short track, so that can be knocked off the bucket list.... Networking and "New Economy" goals fell a bit short, but perhaps in the next Round...

Here's the breakdown, as promised...

WRITING

- Chapters of The Perfidious Mister Wickham written and posted - 4 of 11

- ROW80 updates posted - 6 of 11

- Posts on my GypsyDangerously blog - 6 of 11

- Finish The Artillerists (short story) - Fail!

- Finish Ho B-52 (short story) - Win!

- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington (short story) - Fail!

PUBLISHING

- Publish Ho B-52 (short story) - Win!

- Start the Parasol Books imprint - Fail!

FITNESS

- Run two 5K races - 1 of 2

- One yoga class per week (flexibility) - 4 of 11

LANGUAGE

- Teach French for 2 hours per week - Fail!

- Teach Indonesian for 2 hours per week - Fail!

SOCIAL

- Begin dating - a bit of a beautiful disaster / work in progress...

- Go on 5 “bucket list” adventures - 1 of 5

NETWORKING

- Spend 5 hours per week on Social Media (Twitter, FB, blogs, etc...) - Fail!

- Join Lowcountry RWA - Halfway there! Joined the national organization...

NEW ECONOMIC

- Join Air B&B - Win!

- Reduce my personal carbon footprint - Fail!


So, that's it for this week... Hope you are all reaching a successful conclusion to your Round of Words, and best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Warm regards,
Edward

Sunday ROW80 Update - Goals!

Thanks to everyone (Steph, Shan, and Gloria) who made suggestions on my last post regarding their approaches to setting goals...

I shall indeed plan to build on my past success (French, physical fitness) and work on areas where I didn't do so well last time around.

But, as usual, I'm going to build my goal set in a format that should appear familiar to anyone who's followed my past ROW80 adventures.

WRITING

- Post one Chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham each week.

- Post at least one ROW80 update

- Post at least once on my GypsyDangerously blog

- Finish The Artillerists (short story)

- Finish Ho B-52 (short story)

- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington (short story)

PUBLISHING

- Publish Ho B-52 (short story)

- Start the Parasol Books imprint

FITNESS

- Run two 5K races

- One yoga class per week (flexibility)

LANGUAGE

- Teach French for 2 hours per week

- Teach Indonesian for 2 hours per week

SOCIAL

- Begin dating

- Go on 5 “bucket list” adventures

NETWORKING

- Spend 5 hour per week on Social Media (Twitter, FB, blogs, etc...)

- Join Lowcountry RWA

NEW ECONOMIC

- Join Air B&B

- Reduce my personal carbon footprint

It's an interesting set of goals, for an interesting time. So, I do hope you'll join me here occasionally to see how I progress through the next few months, as winter comes to the Lowcountry and my cozy little boat rocks gently at her moorings.

Another #ROW80 Check-in from the Desert!

One of the several types of
aircraft we support here...

So, my Wednesday check-ins are proving challenging, which is perhaps a good reason to make more of an effort at doing them… 

My “battle-rhythm” here has my workload heavily weighted to Monday-Friday (even though we work 7 days a week, at least 12 hours a day…) But the two classes I teach, the squadron newsletter which I edit, and most of my other recurring tasks occur earlier in the week, so this week when Wednesday came around, I found I had very little to report…

By the end of the week, though, I’d paid the flood insurance on one of my houses, and goten a little information on another investment property that I’m interested in… I also had run 13 miles, including a 5K race which I finished in exactly 24 minutes (thus setting a baseline for future improvement!) I accomplished 5 solid workouts, and have been eating very healthy and drinking 3 liters of water a day…

Will work on getting better at spreading my various tasks throughout the week… C’est la vie!

I fell a bit short on a few of my target goals – didn’t get a chapter of the Learning Indonesian book written, but did get some other non-goal writing done… Also didn’t make any forward progress on the Parasol Books imprint, or do much in the way of networking, but overall, another generally successful week in most goal-specific areas:

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - in which Wickham absconds to London with Lydia in tow!
- Completed most of a professional book review for the Air Force Research Institute… Will send it off next week…

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 11th issue of our Squadron newsletter – 6 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat down by 1 percent – now at 15 percent… The goal is 9 percent!

LANGUAGE
- Completed my requisite 5 hours of language study, et ecrire un petit letre pour ma niece en Francais!

NETWORKING
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals!

Another quiet week in Afghanistan – no rockets, no bombs, just a big windstorm and some heavy rain… So, no complaints!

I hope everyone has had a great week of writing, and I will try to do better about getting out and about and commenting on other people’s blogs…

Best regards!

Edward

Sunday Check-in from Camp Bastion...

Hmmm, you may be off to a rough start at ROW80 when you totally miss the first check-in, like I did on Wednesday! But, in my defense, I only missed it because I was so busy accomplishing all my weekly goals…

And it was an incentive for me to get my Sunday check-in done early, so here goes! A successful week in most areas:

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - where we discover how Lydia and Wickham became intimately entangled…
- Wrote Chapter 2 of my Learning Indonesian book… The Indonesian alphabet!
- Did the last bit of research needed to finish up Ho B-52 .

PUBLISHING
- Did a little research into a logo and domain registration for the Parasol Books imprint.
- Brainstormed marketing ideas for the short story collection.

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press, which brought me up to 195 lbs, or 1.2 times my own bodyweight.
- Bodyfat actually went up this week, but I’m not worried, because the test for it is notoriously finicky, and I’m confident my diet/workout routines will get me where I want to be.

LANGUAGE
- Knocked my goal of 5 hours of training out of the park! Finished off the last part of an 80-hour training syllabus, and started in on another course. Je comprend l’Francais a peu plus bien maintenant!

NETWORKING
- Looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals!

Otherwise, life goes on in the desert… A quiet week, which is always good when you live in a warzone! I hope everyone is having a similarly productive start to their ROW, and I shall look forward to perusing the results as part of my effort to expand my social networks.

Best regards!
Edward

An International Debut!

FREE 'til Sunday!

Authors, have you ever considered having your book translated into another language? It allows you to reach out and touch a whole new audience!

I've just released the German translation of HAPPILY EVER AFTER, which is entitled UND WENN SIE NICHT GESTORBEN SIND... (literally, "and if they are still alive...")

The book is FREE THIS WEEKEND - here's a link to the German Amazon site - http://amzn.to/S0AZyF - so if lesen Sie Deutsch, I cordially invite you to grab a copy... If you don't read German, but have any friends who do, won't you please help me spread the word by forwarding them the little link above, or recommending this blog post?

Also, if you're on Twitter, a Tweet to the world would be wunderbar! Here's a cut-and-paste sample you can use!

Tauchen Sie in die Welt der „bösen Hexe“ aus Ihren Lieblingsmärchen, selber zu Wort kommt http://amzn.to/S0AZyF #frei #buch #deutsch #marchen

OK, enough with the promotional stuff, here's a little more about the process.

Translation requires you to find a good translator - I found the wonderful Sabine Ströbele by talking to my friend Julia, another German translator who was too busy to do the work. Translation does cost money, unless you have a friend who's willing to help you out. Some translators may work for a percentage of the profits... Do NOT use Google Translate unless you want to be laughed at, and if finding a freelancer on Craigslist or elsewhere, it would be wise to have them translate a short passage, and then have a friend who is a native speaker of the language read through it and comment on the quality of the work.

Translation also benefits from having an appropriate story. In the case of UND WENN SIE NICHT... it's based on the old German Märchen that we know as "fairy tales" - thus, a German translation seemed appropriate, and this assumption was justified after a couple of German friends, who had read the English version agreed that it would be a great read in German.

That said, I doubt I'd have SEVEN LIVES TO REPAY OUR COUNTRY, a WWII story featuring Japanese and American soldiers on Saipan translated to German - even though I know a good translator, the audience connection just isn't there. However, SEVEN LIVES... would be a perfect book to translate to Japanese, because it's written from the perspective of a Japanese soldier.

So, when you're looking at your bookshelf, consider this - to get a new book out on the market, you can write another one - or consider having an English title translated into a new language! The choice is yours!

Bonne chance!

Edward

A Death in the Family (Circle of Life, Part One)

5 September 1977 - 15 July 2012

Friends, followers, fellow readers and writers...

I know I haven't been very active online for the last couple of weeks, but my commitments in the real world have taken me away from the virtual world of blog posts, Tweets, Facebook posting, etc...

As you may or may not know, I recently returned from Indonesia to take over as the Executive Officer at a Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron in Beaufort, SC - the Number Two man in a unit mustering 600-plus Marines... Still single after all these years, my family is my squadron; my Marines are my sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters in arms.

Sadly, only a couple of weeks after I arrived, every officer's worst nightmare happened - we lost one of our Marines in a senseless, tragic accident. It happened on a lovely Sunday afternoon just after I'd sat down to do some writing - and since then, I've done a lot of writing, all the sadly necessary paperwork to document this tragic event and ensure that our fallen brother's relatives get all the support that they are due.

This event saddened me personally, and also gave me a renewed appreciation for how much life is, in the end, so much sound and fury. As important as you may think you are, if tomorrow you are no more, the world will still keep turning. So stay safe. Keep yourself healthy. Say "I love you" to the people that you care about. Hug your kids, your significant other. Do something nice for yourself that you've been putting off.

That's all for now... I'll get back to blogging about happy topics in the days and weeks to come, about new writing projects and great novels I've read, but for now, I'd just like to dedicate this one to the memory of Staff Sergeant Jerome H. Carter, USMC. You were well-loved by your community, you made a daily difference in your squadron, and you will be missed. Semper Fi, brother. See you on the other side.

Dedicated to the Memory of Staff Sergeant Jerome H. Carter, USMC 

#ROW80 Round Three Goals...

Well, I'm afraid I stumbled at the finish of the last ROW80 round, and I'm slow out of the gate at the start of this one, missing both a final post last round, and a timely opening post this time... Which just shows why now, more than ever, ROW80 is an important tool for me to help focus my limited time on the things that matter when it comes to writing, publishing, etc...

What's the difference between this and the first two rounds of ROW80? Well, I've just completed (more or less, still waiting for one shipment of stuff to arrive) a move from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Charleston, South Carolina... I've also started a new and highly demanding position at work, have some work to do on my new house, and am a bit behind of where I'd like to be on my Perfidious Mister Wickham project. Last but not least, I just had a new little nephew born, so I'm spending a good bit of my weekends helping take care of my brother's two-year-old son so he and his wife can get a bit of a breather.

Looking back at the last couple of rounds, I've tended to over-commit by about 30 percent, so my goals this time around reflect the fact that I set some initial goals, and then sculpted the original set by about three-quarters...

All that said, here's my list of goals for Round Three of ROW80.

 WRITING
- Write 10 Chapters of The Perfidious Mister Wickham
- Write 3 Chapters of my Learning Indonesian book
- Finish Charming
- Finish The Welsh Mouse
- Finish The Artillerists
- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington
- Finish Intercepts

PUBLISHING
- Publish the German Translation of Happily Ever After
- Publish A Matter of Honor

FITNESS
- Score 300 on the Combat Fitness Test
- Bench Press over 100 kg

LANGUAGE
- Five hours of studying French per week

NETWORKING
- Execute my “Social Media Plan”
- Build my “Core Group” to 25 people

ADMINISTRATION
- Re-Design my blog
- Create a Kickstarter Project to support The Perfidious Mister Wickham


Those are my goals! Looking forward to keeping you updated on my progress through the next couple of months, and following the progress of my fellow ROW writers...

Best to all,
Edward

Emily Dickinson in Hanoi... a #FridayFlash Post!

Emily Dickinson was not impressed, and her face reflected it. Sighing, she climbed onto the back of the motor scooter and fastened her helmet over the damp, loose bun of her hair. The helmet offered not the slightest protection against a fall, being constructed entirely of bamboo covered with a faux-leather facade, but it was sufficient to satisfy the local constabulary, and Emily had always possessed a fatalistic turn of mind.

The man in front of her was had extremely long legs, long arms; in fact, everything about him spoke of a gaunt, wiry sort of elongation, as if he had been stretched by a well-meaning giant when his body was quite pliable, the consistency of Silly Putty, or a drunk woman's morals. If his fundamental organs were a match for the rest of his anatomy, the grim-faced Miss Dickinson had no reason to frown so, or perhaps she just couldn't be satisfied by any mortal sort of pleasures.

We shall never know; moments later the man started the scooter and drove away, bearing the unimpressed Emily and a plastic bag containing four cans of Tiger beer and a pack of Marlboro Lights. In the space of a few moments, they vanished up the street and out of sight of the man and woman who sat observing from across the street, quaffiing Tiger beers on a rainy Hanoi afternoon, clinking their glasses and drinking to a toast of "Daywear!" every time a pajama-clad figure hove into view.

What we can be reasonably sure of is this. That woman's first name was not Emily, and if it was, her last name was even less likely to have been Dickinson. But stranger things have happened. Astronomical, though, the possibility that her name was Emily Dickinson, and that she was also a somber poetess of some future fame. Astronomical, and yet...

***

Author's Note: I was sitting in a bar in Hanoi, and my friend and I saw a woman who was a dead ringer for Emily Dickinson getting onto a scooter across the street. We joked about the expression on her face, and I whipped out my Blackberry, opened a 'notes' page, and wrote this little piece in about 5 minutes, before returning to the Hemingway-esque pursuit of getting slowly tight in the middle of the day.

Terra Cotta Warriors and #ROW80 Update!

Well, it's Sunday here in China, which means it's time to check in with my ROW80 progress. I'd like to say that I've got lots to report, but... Still lagging on my French / fitness goals, but looking forward to getting focused on both next week when I'm back in one place for a few days.

Looking back over my original goals in writing / publishing / artistic / networking, I see that I'm sitting at:

WRITING - 12% Complete - Behind on finishing up Charming, The Welsh Mouse, The Artillerists, and Merry Christmas Mister Washington and logging the required number of chapters for my two non-fiction works-in-progress. In my defense, I just wrote 2700 words of a brand new short story inspired by my latest travels, and completed a similarly inspired flash fiction story.

PUBLISHING - 50% Complete - Got Lethargica launched, and the German translation of Happily Ever After is nearly complete, thanks to the awesome efforts of Sabine Ströbele. Once I have the translation in hand, I'll be able to format and upload it to Kindle, and see how well it's received in Germany.

ARTISTIC - 100% Complete (video trailer and cover art for Lethargica) - and a bonus here as the draft cover art for A Matter of Honor and The Perfidious Mister Wickham have also been created.

NETWORKING - 50% Complete - got caught up on Author Karma, but still behind on building my Core Group. I did get some bonuses here as well, getting onto Triberr and Klout, and also found some Twitter tools to help me improve my use of that platform. Wrote a guest post, got all my critiques in on Author Salon, and have an author interview pending.

PROMOTIONS - 100% Complete - Ran 3 KDP Select promotions and blogged about the results, which I'll use to hopefully improve the sales rank of future releases and promotional days.

Last but not least, I have built a good bit of the framework (websites, write-ups, Twitter accounts, Facebook celebrity pages, etc.) necessary for a couple of upcoming Kickstarter projects; one of the being a serialized release of my first novel, and the other being a test for an alternate payment model for future short story releases.

The bad news - with 69% of this round behind me, I've only accomplished about 43% of my original goals; the worse news - the thing that has suffered most is the thing that should be the most important for an author - writing.

So, I clearly need to get focused and knock out some of these unfinished projects.

Wishing you all the best in the coming week,
Edward

ROW80 Round 2 - Checking in from Kuala Lumpur!

Well, the first few days of ROW80 have been productive enough. While traveling around Malaysia, I've found the time to finish all the chapters of my novel that are required for this second round, so anything done in the next 70-odd days in that regard will be icing on the cake. I've also done a decent job of keeping up on the fitness and French study goals; knocked out a few more pages on "Charming", popped over to Author Karma and did my 30 minutes of networking, and have drafted an analysis of my latest KDP Select promotion which I'll post up here in a day or two. Major milestones listed below. Looking forward to seeing how everyone else is doing this week!

WRITING

- Write 6 Chapters of “The Notorious Mister Wickham” - 100%

- Finish “Charming” - 80%

NETWORKING

- Build my “Core Group” to 25 people - 8%

PROMOTION

- Run 3 KDP Select Promotions - 33%

ROW 80 Update, KONY2012, etc...

Well, folks, it's almost the end of the first Round of Words challenge, and I am feeling pretty good about it, overall. Conceptually, it has turned out to be a great way to set and achieve goals, improve my networking with fellow authors, and encourage me to blog a little more often than otherwise I might.

Before moving on to the ROW80 update, let me touch on another subject, that of the KONY2012 campaign, which seeks the capture of one of the International Criminal Court's most-wanted criminals, who until March 5th, was known to a relatively small number of interested people worldwide. I was impressed enough by the video to make an immediate donation, but also pledge the 2012 proceeds of my story "Seven Lives..." to the charity that is organizing this campaign. Why? Although I'm not positive that it will succeed in capturing Joseph Kony and delivering him to justice, I do think it has the potential to serve as an example of how modern citizens from around a nation (or the world) can mobilize to make positive changes in policy on issues that affect them, and the world we live in. My sister wrote a great piece that expands on this idea. Now, if only someone would start a similar campaign to get Congress to restore funding to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which was cut to send a political message, but will end up depriving UNESCO of some of its ability to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, the implementation of sustainable development and the expansion of intercultural dialogue.

With just a few days left to go, there are a few tasks that remain undone, and shall probably still be in progress come 22 March. I did get a non-fiction essay submitted to Current Intelligence, but it was not the one I'd been working on, but a complete "flash of inspiration" piece of travel writing that occurred to me while I was on the road in Borneo last week.

1. Publish 1 non-fiction book.

• Edit all material: Still working...
• Publish: TBD

2. Publish 1 more short story on Amazon.

• Cover art: TBD
• Trailer: TBD

I'll be in Hong Kong next week to play and watch a bit of rugby, so writing's on the back burner for the next 10 days, although I'm sure I'll get some done on the airplane to and fro. A lot of other things going on in the coming week, too, including closing on an investment property, trying to arrange visas and clearances for some upcoming trips to Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

But, by the time the second Round of Words kicks off, hopefully life will be a little less hectic, and I can get back in the swing of writing (and everything that goes along with it; publishing, covers, trailers, promotion, networking, etc.)

I have found that traveling and reading have been great sources of inspiration for my writing, and have added 2 more short stories to my growing stack of work in progress. Stay tuned for anthropomorphic mice, charming Princes, scandalous rakes, war-weary snipers, barbarian queens, Yugoslav artillerymen, and death from above, all coming soon to a short story near you!

Until next time,

Edward

Blog Hopping...

You learn a great deal about promotion as a newly self-published author. There are a lot of modern methods being used, and I'm slowly figuring them out, often with a bit of trial-and-error. It's been an interesting enough experience that I'm actually writing a book on the topic to help others navigate the path from publication through promotion more easily, but that's a topic for another time!

Here, I'd like to thank Sharon over at Beck Valley Books for introducing me to the concept of "blog-hopping", where authors and readers are encouraged to visit writing-related blogs, follow them, and post comments.

This is my second week doing Sharon's blog hop, and although I'm a bit limited for time (what with moving out of my apartment, packing for my upcoming trip across Indonesia, etc) I still have enjoyed checking out a few other pages, and have already got several new followers out of the process.

If you're an author, I recommend this as a way to get your works out in front of more readers - if you're a reader, it's a great way to discover new authors!

Happy hopping!

Edward