December 31st 2020 An Astronomer's Year
I started to go through the Kindle Create process and hope to have the book ready by 4th. I had another thought about my next long-term project. I'm thinking about another astronomy book to follow on from my Messier book released in 2011, based on viewing and photographing bright deep sky objects. For reasons I have mentioned before, writing and astronomy could become difficult in 2021.
December 29th 2020 An Astronomer's Year
Well I did have a late addition. I caught a nice, nearly-full moon on the cusp of midnight.
December 28th 2020 An Astronomer's Year
The year had not quite finished but I wrote up my December summary, with only a small probability of adding to it, given the weather forecast. In case you didn't see my announcement, it will be on free promotion for 5 days after release.
Naturally, I will write "2021 An Astronomer's Year" and that is the only firm commitment I will make for next year. I'm expecting a busy year outside of writing, with many issues that need resolution. I hope to grab the reins of "Turn Right at the Lights" but am not committing to a completing date. Maybe things may be a bit clearer later in the year.
December 18th General Update
From a writing angle, I had been very quiet. I had several issues that needed to be dealt with and they had reduced my time on my computer. Much as writing is important to us all, sometimes life takes over and most of us are spouses, parents, brothers, cousins, employees, etc as well as writers. Naturally, I completed the third edition of "Being An Astronomer" and "The Quantum God" during lockdown and I would not have completed them so early otherwise.
Since then, I have kept up with "2020 An Astronomer's Year" and I have decided to start a free promotion as soon as it comes online. Good decision? Only time will tell.
I haven't made any progress, at least not material progress, on "Turn right at the lights..." the sequel to #TheQuantumGod. However, I have shot down a stumbling block. In the parallel universe, Paul does not pair off with Linda (his life partner in "The Quantum God"). In fact, I've even questioned whether they should meet at all!
I saw a post on Twitter that disappeared before I could reply! It questioned the wisdom of writing a sequel to an unsuccessful book. I don't think it is always a bad idea but, as a writer, I feel discouraged by the lack of sales of "The Quantum God" but believe it is a good book. Now don't start a philosophical discussion on what a "good book" is.
Well, naturally, I will be writing "2021 an Astronomer's Year" but one thing #writers have in common is that we often have more ideas on the drawing board than we have time to write. My latest idea is to do a retrospective on the decade, mostly astronomical but with a few personal anecdotes about There life in general.
Who knows? There is a finite probability in the quantum universe that I may already have written my last word!
July 31st 2020 An Astronomer's Year
With life outside writing becoming busier by the minute, I had not written for two weeks. I made my monthly updates to "2020 An Astronomer's Year", which should (hopefully) be available in January.
July 14th A Leap of Faith
Writing was suspended for a rare bit of astronomical excitement. The brightest comet for 23 years had appeared in the morning sky and was fabulous.
I had written before about writing a sequel to a novel. Sales
of “The Quantum God” have been slow. Embarassingly slow. Surely, the lockdown due to coronavirus meant that all book sales were slow, not just mine. My astronomy books weren't selling either. Debut novels are notoriously slow sellers.
So why even THINK about writing a sequel? Yet I have started and built on a couple of ideas already. "Turn right at the Lights and continue down Nemesis Road" has started.
July 9th The Back Burner
Most writers have day jobs. Most of us wish we didn't or didn't need to. In an ideal world, anyone who writes would make enough money to be able to just write. Some of us moan about our day jobs but, the worst is needing a job and not having one.
I have just returned to my day job. It was nice to complete two books during lockdown and a smaller project just after but now it's back to life with a bump. The sad truth is that I'm making very little money from writing. As well as my job, I have other things I need to do that require more than sitting behind a screen. It also means that I will need to reduce my astronomy time.
As a result, I am not planning any more astronomy books until "2020 an Astronomer's Year", due in the new year. As I previously suggested, I am including updates that I would have made to other books in my annual summary instead.
The first one is a photo of a star cluster in Scorpius that I did not think I could capture from the UK:
As for other writing, there is no commercial justification whatsoever for working on the sequel to "The Quantum God". It has barely sold since release on June 22nd. However, it is a suitable project for the long term, where I can dip in and out of it, as needed.
July 5th Kindle Driving Me Mad (or maybe just slightly worse than I already am)
I am releasing the third edition of "Astrophotography with a DSLR" on Kindle. I discovered, the hard way, that the look and feel of a book needs adjusting and every change needs to be previewed. While waiting for Kindle to do its stuff, I have been updating "2020 An Astronomer's Year", not just the monthly summary for June but also small updates to books and new astronomical data for upcoming years.
So expect an announcement soon. ... or maybe not!
July 2nd Genre or Non-Genre
Leaving aside any possible income considerations, "The Quantum God" (
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BR2JCFG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i8) can be broadly classified as fantasy. I managed to conform closely to the word count of the fantasy genre but it is far from being a typical fantasy novel. I could have tried harder to shoehorn it into something closer to the genre but I felt that I had an important story to tell, which is based on my life experiences as a neurodiverse person with autistic traits but not necessarily "autistic enough". I could not have told the story in a more traditional way.
I suspect that novels that closely follow a genre are likely to more commercially successful. This may be especially true for debut novels.
Strangely enough, when I started writing magazine articles, I found it easier to get published by inventing my own genres then adding more mainstream articles to the mix once my name was more established.
July 1st Writing Announcements
June 27th Being An Astronomer/Procrastination
Having completed the paperback edition of "The Quantum God", I tried again with "Being An Astronomer". To be honest, the process was rather painful and there's still no 100% guarantee it will be completed. I've reached "In Review", so jumped another hurdle.
As I was writing at the time, I did not answer the tweet. It was about writers procrastinating. Although I am guilty, I recognise that life does not consist of writing 100%. Sometimes, I take a break from writing to catch up with tasks or even compensate my family for a lack of attention for a while. If I get offered more hours from my day job, I take them as priority.
But, apart from 90% of us spending too much time on social media, there is another problem. Instead of getting our heads down and finishing our projects, we start daydreaming about our next projects. If you page down a bit, you will see "The Curse of the Sequel".
June 24th The Quantum God: Late Addition
The book is now available in paperback: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08BRH45TF
June 24th The Quantum God
My debut novel has finally hit the bookshelves:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BR2JCFG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Quantum+God&qid=1592990664&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
The paperback version is under review. Although it seems on track so far, my experiences with trying to release "Being An Astronomer" in paper form were quite discouraging. If the paperback version of my current book works, I will try to have another go.
Most debut novels do not fare very well. I am honest and realistic about this. As writers, we all consider that our own book has unique points of interest that make it stand out for the millions of other debut novels out there and even novels by established authors. I am no exception. It may be my first and last novel. Although prior blog entries about the dreaded sequel have discussed this, I see little point in writing a follow-up until I know how well is does.
They say that there is a book in everyone and it may transpire that this is mine. It is the only good novel that I can write and anything else (apart from sequels) would have to assume a non-human or neurodiverse psychology.
Naturally, I am thinking about my next project. Ordinarily, I would probably take a break for a week or two. However, at the time if writing, I was still waiting to return to work. I do have other things I need to do. For example, I am tackling practical jobs in and around the house, many of which I have neglected for years.
Although many writers have written about a publishing schedule, it doesn't work for me! It would be somewhat different if I was a full-time writer. What I can do, though, is discuss upcoming projects. My next one is an update to "Astrophotography with a DSLR". I have been doing a lot more photos of different types and wish to share them and the techniques. This is the link to the existing edition:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JD7K4L3/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
Apart from Kindle increasing the minimum price of Kindle publications, I would advise anyone to wait for the new edition.
June 23rd The Quantum God
I'm down to the final spelling and grammar check and I have also added an author profile:
About Phil
This is Philip Pugh’s first novel at the late age of 65. However, he was
a writing history that dates back forty years when “Angling” magazine published
his spoof article about fishing for minnows. Since then, he has had further
magazine articles published in a variety of genres. He had his first astronomy book
published in 2007 and had published several titles, both by the traditional and
self-published routes.
His books are described and are available here:
He describes his top skill as being able to explain difficult technical
concepts at an appropriate level of detail for his audience. The longest period
of his career was spent working as an international training instructor, where
his unusual and entertaining methods were enjoyed or tolerated by audiences on
every continent except Antarctica.
Phil had played both chess and bridge to a high competitive level and
other sports to a less competitive level. He had also won many fishing competitions
and had large fish of many species reported in the angling press. He was not as
successful as his later ego, Paul, but the birth of his daughter in 1990 marked
the end of his life as a serious fisherman and he stopped fishing completely in
2003. These days, his main hobby is astronomy.
Phil is married with one daughter but likes to keep his private life private.
In contrast to his younger days, he shuns publicity and likes his books and
magazine articles to do his talking. He has not shared any photos of himself
since his 50th birthday.
June 21st: The Debut Novel
Leaving aside the cliche that all releases of writing projects are imminent, "The Quantum God" is at an advanced stage. I am over halfway through the fourth draft and the odds are that there will not be a fifth. I thought about getting close family members to beta read it but decided not to. Experienced novelists would cringe at this but I honestly believe that the story needs to be told as is. Although some details have been changed and some characters changed (two teachers from my past formed the basis of my characters but I added the twist that they married each other), much of it is my life story.
However, the main point is that at the age of 19, the main character's story diverges from my own past and, later on, there are paranormal events that are based purely on my imagination. However, the inherent nature of main character does not change.
Which brings me to the general topic of the debut novel. I am a rare, but not unique, case. I have been a published writer for 40 years. For most of that time, I was contributing articles to magazines on a variety of topics and genres. In that way, I was more of a journalist than a writer. Like most of us, I had day jobs and they were full-time. I tried to write books, both fiction and non-fiction but could not get any published. If I'm being totally honest and neither optimistic nor pessimistic, I believe that my fictional submissions were poor but (save a 12-part story in a magazine), were novel length stories but not novels and that was why I was rejected. By contrast, I consider my non-fictional works were good and deserved better and I was proved right when I got my first publishing contract in 2005 and in 2007 "Enjoying the Sun with Coronado Telescopes and Filters"
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BUBAKC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0) hit the bookshelves.
Like the comedian who always wanted to play Shakespeare, I also wanted to have a book of fiction published. I continued to write non-fiction but also had a work of fiction on the back-burner for many years.I submitted it to a publisher. The news was not good in that it was rejected! In a nutshell, the detailed feedback (for which I'm grateful for) was that I could not write novels. Again, it was a novel-length story but not a novel. It made me question whether I could ever write a novel, as opposed to serial fiction. I've nothing against serial fiction and enjoy it but, for better or worse, the novel has become the de facto standard for book-length fiction. I was a storyteller but not a novelist. The only way I could become traditionally published was to write a novel. My original intention was that I would submit the book to a few publishers, then (assuming a high probability of rejections) publish to Kindle. Fortunately, the feedback I received suggested that if I published the book in any form it would kill off any chances of ever having a fictional book published and might even harm sales of my astronomy books.
My conclusion was that I was as much a novice novelist as someone who had never had anything published before. The only advantage I could see over a raw writer is that I had been through the writing process a few times. Apart from that minor point, I am therefore as much a debut novelist as anyone else.
Let's just assume that I took the publisher's feedback and learned from it. Having been published in a niche market would mean that I might pick up a few readers who might consider buying my book but, apart from that, I am on the same playing field as everybody else.
The huge majority of debut novels are rejected by traditional publishers for the reason that they are precisely that: debut novels. As I'm now 65 and we are in the middle of a pandemic, there is a fair risk that if I go through the querying process, it could take years and I could die before my novel sees the light of day. Also if I go through the querying process (which, of course, I have done before), I am taking time away from further non-fiction projects.
In an ideal scenario, a publisher will read my debut novel and wish to offer me a contract for a sequel. In a less than ideal but still "winning" scenario, I could get enough sales and feedback to declare it a success. There's no guarantees in life (apart from the usual cliches) but I would consider it a reasonable probability.
I'd like to hear from other writers and how they approached their debut novel. For example, did you query or decide to go straight to Kindle? How well did the book sell? Any gems of advice for debut novelists?
You can leave a comment here or respond on Twitter when I post the link there.
June 20th: The Dreaded Sequel
I could not get the sequel out of my head. I wrote the words that nobody may read. In order to clear it from my head, I wrote two fragments of the sequel that I may or may not use. At least I know they are safely tucked away if I ever need them.
June 19th: The Writer's Curse
Lots of writers write about this. Many would say that our biggest curse is "writer's block". Another common theme is procrastination. Those of us with day jobs (i.e., 99.999% of us) get busy and we come home too late and too tired to write. Those of us with families need to spend time with them and most of us without families (apart from ultra-introverts) need to leave our immediate environment to find company. OK, heard that, understand and live it, so what's new?
One theme I have mentioned before is that the most exciting book is the one that we haven't started yet. By contrast, the one we're editing and preparing for release is downright dull, by comparison. Even the one we're writing is less exciting. In general, I'm a bit more disciplined and thousands of books at 90% complete is no use to any writer. I will abandon many projects, not out of bad discipline, but out of the realisation that they just won't "fly". After all, there's no point in spending precious time and energy on something that won't be read.
I've now, having reached the dreaded 90% mark of my debut novel (but NOT my debut book), started thinking about THE SEQUEL. While I was walking our dogs, I was mentally writing the sequel. Of course, it is a totally stupid thing to do. My debut novel isn't even out yet and it may well not sell at all, in which case the sequel will be a waste of time. Why don't I forget about a sequel and write a complete new story instead? Watch this space.
June 18th: The Quantum God
I have now finished the third draft. I have not made many changes to the story but have added a lot about my main character's thoughts. I added a bit to the end, not so much changing it but tying up some loose ends. I even added a second ending which describes one of those "what if" scenarios where a minor detail changes that would result in a completely different life for the main character, entitled "Turn Right at the lights and continue down Nemesis Road".
This is a possible sequel to "The Quantum God" and I felt like starting it but that was not the original plan. My original thinking was that writing a novel was totally uncharted territory for me and I only had one novel in me. If I was totally honest, not only was I unsure whether "The Quantum God" would be successful but I did not even know what constituted a successful first novel.
I had made the decision to publish straight to Kindle and also bring out a paperback version if I could overcome the issues I had with "Being an Astronomer". I did not want to go through the process of querying publishers and agents. I had done that before and wanted my novel to be read this year, not four or five years' time if I went down the traditional route. I also wanted to gauge the reaction, as there seemed little point in writing a sequel to an unsuccessful book.
Despite being advised to keep potential readers interested, I should write a schedule. Unfortunately, I feel unable to do this. My last major project took nine drafts! I don't think this book will, so I'm guessing it will be five or six.
Although I'm taking a few days "off" before starting the fourth draft, another two or three drafts can go very quickly if lockdown persists. As I haven't been working, I have more time to do other things, including writing. If, hypothetically, I start working 60-hour weeks, I could quite easily go weeks without writing at all! Yes, as I'm not getting a full-time living from writing, I need to grab every paid minute I can. Sure most of you know the feeling.
So, yes, maybe a few days of checking and possibly updating my website and the 4th draft starts!
After the release of "The Quantum God", including the paperback, it will be back to updating my "Phil's Scribblings" series about astronomy. For those of you aren't aware of "Phil's Scribblings", they are short booklets that are too big for magazine articles but not big enough to be "propper" books. As a lot of my astronomical activities involve experimentation, I always include any interesting discoveries in my writing. An example was the capture of a global star cluster that I had never photographed before.
As for future progress, keep watching this space.
June 15th: Being An Astronomer/The Quantum God
The Kindle version of "Being An Astronomer" is out.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B1QP3RV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7
The paperback has been a pain in the <expletive>, so I have given up for now. My original plan was to release the third edition on Kindle and paperback but that will now wait.
Meanwhile I'm over halfway through the third draft of "The Quantum God". As it does not contain loads of graphics, it will be easier to do the paperback version. Easier, that is, not easy!
June 11th: Being An Astronomer
It's taken a lot of fiddling with Word and Kindle (PDF was a red herring!!) and my book is finally on its way. I tried to release to paperback but I guess that will happen when the Kindle version is ready.
June 8th: Being An Astronomer
I am inwardly cringing at the moment! I only recently discovered how bad my book looked on Kindle. I've had to re-draw a diagram. I've also discovered that one needs to reduce the size of graphics to get them onto the same page as the caption! I had already decided that I will also publish a paper version of the book on Kindle. I have come to the conclusion that Kindle is more suitable for novels than astronomy books with photos and diagrams.
June 6th: The Quantum God
Thanks to difficulties with releasing the third edition of "Being An Astronomer" on Kindle, I switched my attention to "The Quantum God".
I have finished the second draft but am rather concerned that I have made very few changes, other than editorial ones. I feel that I may have missed something fundamental about the story and my telling of it.
June 1st: 2020 An Astronomer's Year
For those that have only started reading my blog recently, since January 2018, I have written a summary of the year from an astronomical viewpoint. I had a particularly productive May, so completed the May summary.
My 2018 and 2019 astronomy summaries are available here:
May 28th: A Change of Title and Direction
I did a Google on "Quantum God". I saw several books where it was part of the title, by different writers. Although I am not aware of any rules that mean titles have to be unique, it is probably best to change the title.
In the meantime, Venus has disappeared from the evening sky, so I have all of the photos I wanted and more. I will switch my priorities to getting the third edition of "Being An Astronomer" out but I also have a very interesting May to summarise in "2020 An Astronomer's Year".
May 25th: Being an Astronomer (Third Edition)
I had made some more additions to Draft 2 of "The Quantum God" but my main activity was taking astronomical photos. I added the best ones to the upcoming third edition of "Being An Astronomer", showing Mercury, Venus and the close group of both planets near the Moon on May 24th.
May 18th: Being an Astronomer (Third Edition)
Just waiting for the metaphorical fat lady to sing. I've edited the book but just hoping for some last-minute photos of Venus before it gets too close to the Sun for observation. There's also a small chance of catching Venus and Mercury together. However, the weather prospects for the week ahead looked poor.
Then it would be updating the page references and going through Kindle. The exact date of release depends on many things, such as whether I return to work from lockdown.
In the meantime, I have started the second draft of "The Quantum God". It looks like I'm climbing the mountain a second time!
May 13th: Being an Astronomer (Third Edition)
It is amazing how much writing I am doing during the coronavirus lockdown. I managed to check and update the whole book. I am going to wait about another 2 to 3 weeks before release, as I try to get more photos of Venus before it moves between Earth and the Sun, becoming invisible. There was also a faint chance of seeing a comet before release.
Once it gets to June, nearly all of my observations will be the Sun, with a few Moon shots, as it never gets properly dark in the UK.
May 10th: Being an Astronomer (Third Edition)
I continued to re-read the whole book to check for any changes, due to more recent observations and photographs. Unfortunately, I had found a few errors that had persisted from the first two editions.
May 4th: Being an Astronomer (Third Edition)
Having thought about it, most writers advise against editing a book once one has finished a draft. With that in mind, I made some more modifications to the draft third edition. I replaced all of my Venus photos bar two and added some lunar shots, including shots from last quarter onwards. I also added a couple of photographs and a paragraph about the Lyrid meteors, as April had given me a unique opportunity to view and photograph them, due to unseasonally good weather and the opportunity to stay up until the small hours, as I was not working. Here is the best meteor photograph.
May 3rd: The Quantum God
The lockdown meant that I was able to finish the first draft of "The Quantum God" much earlier than I expected. Obviously, I don't intend to publish it as is. I have left it where there is a conclusion but it leaves the door open for a sequel or, more likely, another book in a parallel timeline! However, I had no immediate plans to do so and considered it possible that it might be my first and last "proper" novel. Like my main character, it is likely that I have written all I could have done on the topic and it remained to be seen whether my foray into fiction would be a once-off or the start of an amazing journey.
April 28th: 2020 An Astronomer's Year
I had shelved "The Quantum God" for a while, as I was busy with spring cleaning inside and outside the house. I was also busy with astronomy and much of my observations and photos find their way into my writing.
As the weather had changed, I wrote my April summary for my astronomy yearbook.
For those of you who don't follow my astronomy blog, you can see what I was up to:
https://sungazer127mak.blogspot.com/2020/04/april-2020.html
April 19th: The Quantum God
I had written over 12 000 words in just ten calendar days, nine if you consider that I did not write on Good Friday. Whilst my views on daily word counts are well-known, the significant fact was that I had completed one of the major chapters. One of the few advantages of the lockdown was that I was able to press ahead with the book, If I'm honest with myself, the chapter will probably need many changes but I'm confident that I'd laid the story down.
April 17th: The Quantum God
I had got the first stage of my website. I had three in parallel, in case any of them become unavailable. The full story is here:
https://sungazer127mak.blogspot.com/2020/04/website-news.html
It was back to the Quantum God and made a reasonable start where Paul, an autist, was writing about the mysteries of the human race, The idea of a character writing a book is not new and, perhaps rather cliched but it fits in well with the story.
April 13th: New Website
I have rebuilt and released a new version of my website:
The Master Index will probably be more useful to most people, as it contains (or will contain) more links. I have started a Writers and Readers Resources menu. Please comment on this blog or reply to my tweets and I will include any suggestions that you might have.
April 9th: The Quantum God
I finished the fifth chapter and I am now on what will probably be the 7th, which is the book within a book where Paul writes his book about his view of the universe, quantum mechanics and just about everything and draws his conclusions about religion and philosophy.
As I (on whom the central character, Paul, is based) am a Christian, I will be observing Good Friday, so will not work on any of my books, nor promote them on social media. OK, I don't make a lot of money from publishing but it counts as work.
April 1st: 2020 An Astronomer's Year
March 29th: The Quantum God
I was almost halfway through the fifth chapter and added well over a thousand words. However, it is time to tackle real life now, with housework and paperwork to do.
Even though I can't do my day job, due to lockdown, I'm not getting as much writing done as I hoped but then one really good book is better (and more lucrative) than ten bad ones.
March 28th: The Quantum God
I took a detour to include a recent photograph I had taken of the Great Bear and updated "Being an Astronomer". I am on the fifth chapter of "The Quantum God" where Paul is back in Etalonia and is having some of his possible futures revealed to him by the mysterious Reaper. I have written some new words but also incorporated some others from a previous book called "Etalonia" which is an alternative reality.
March 22nd: The Quantum God
I have finally finished the critical 4th chapter, entitled "Rebirth". It describes a possible scenario of global warming where humans are biologically human but have lost many of the qualities that we take for granted today. The only purpose is to continue the biological survival of the species, at all costs. At 51 000 words, I am now halfway through the first draft. Even if I'm not 100% convinced of my delivery, I am very happy with how the story is developing.
March 13th: Astrophotography with a DSLR
I added a photo of Venus to the draft 3rd edition:
March 2nd: 2020 An Astronomer's Year/Astrophotography with a DSLR
I had a few technical problems with Word on my PC. However, I wrote the February summary. I took lots of photos, so it was quite difficult to choose the highlights.
As I took an interesting photo of Venus in the evening, with only a DSLR, I added this to my booklet "Astrophotography with a DSLR".
February 28th: The Quantum God
I'm not one for daily word counts but I managed nearly 2 000 today. I'm not sure how many good ones were included but I put down a lot of story and was over halfway through a chapter, which I intend to be around 15 000 words. The main character has been transported to a time in the future where it is obvious that some apocalypse happened but history has been erased and he cannot discover exactly what happened. Was history erased deliberately?
February 19th: The Quantum God
I am making slow progress but writing new words most days and on the days I do not create anything, I check what I have written. Honestly, I can follow many things on television while editing but find it much harder when creating new content. Without giving too much of the plot away, my latest chapter questions the nature of humanity. Can we continue to call ourselves human, if we are biologically the same as we are today but have lost our zest for explanation and self-discovery? Is the human race worth saving if all it becomes is a disjointed set of families, miles apart whose only aim in life is survival and continuation of the species?
I like posing ethical questions!
February 10th: The Quantum God
I cannot recall when I last did anything on this project. OK, I could go back to my 2019 blog and look it up but that's not the point of this message! The fact was that life and astronomy writing had taken over and it was well over a month since I touched the Quantum God.
Conventional wisdom says that we should not edit a book before finishing it but consider this: it is quite difficult to return to a shelved project. One has to read the story so far before continuing along the creative path. I haven't made any major changes to the plot but have made some changes to the way I presented it.
The scariest bit was that I had a glaring error in the first paragraph that would cause any casual browsers to drop the book immediately.
January 31st: Self-Doubt and Astronomy Writing
There are few writers who do not suffer from self-doubt from time to time and I am not one of them. Perhaps I'm more like the cliche of the comedian who wanted to play Shakespeare. Being realistic, I have been reasonably successful as an astronomy writer but I don't know how to write a novel. I have written stories but not novels.
I got back to proper writing, at least for a day. Not only did I some planned updates to "Being an Astronomer" and "Astrophotography with a DSLR" and started "2020 An Astronomer's Year" with the January entry.
I'm pondering whether to plough on with my novel or start a new astronomy project.
January 27th: General Update
Due to a family illness, I had not done any writing since releasing "2019 An Astronomer's Year". I was going to update "Being an Astronomer" with some new photos but decided that they belonged in "Astrophotography with a DSLR" instead. I have started making updates but will probably release a new version later.
January 2nd: 2019 An Astronomer's Year
This is a continuation of my 2019 Writing Blog:
I started the ball rolling with the release of my summary of astronomical observations and photos:
You don't have to be an astronomer to enjoy it but if you are it helps.
January 2nd: Year Plans
Many writers have posted ideas about writing and how they are going to write more words, publish more books, etc., etc. I have written about word counts and writing daily before. Unless you have a publishing deadline with a publishing contract, it doesn't matter. I write for two reasons:
- I want to be read
- I like to make money.
The truth is that I have made more money from one book than the other nine put together:
I'm sure this "saying" has been made up by someone before:
It is better to write one word read by a million people than a million words read by one person.
So, in my not so humble opinion, it is better to concentrate on quality, rather than quantity.
The other point is that nearly all writers have a day job and that usually pays the bills and the writing money is zero or a few hundred dollars in a good year. Most of us have families, friends and a million and one other things to do that compete for our writing time. My writing output dropped alarmingly in the last 3 months of 2019, as life happened. One example was having to replace our fridge-freezer.
So my plans for 2020 are (in no particular order):
- Produce the follow-on to "2019 An Astronomer's Year". No points for guessing the title
- Write some more of my fantasy where a clumsy, mildly autistic man tries to make sense of the world and universe around him "The Quantum God"
- Make updates to "Being An Astronomer" (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X94BYD7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i5), my beginner book for astronomers. In particular, I hope to add new photos and more information. When I have enough material to make it worth releasing (which may not be until 2021 or later), the third edition will come out
- Possible updates to existing booklets in the "Phil's Scribblings" series.
Other attempts suffered from focus problems. I caught M35, although it was a very widefield shot.
