Journals of the Undead

Tag: fantasy writer

  • New Year’s Resolutions: Yay or Nay?

    New Year’s Resolutions: Yay or Nay?

    Dear reader, 2025 is here and by this time in January many people will have failed their New Year’s Resolutions already. I’ll offer my explanation in a minute but first I’d like to say that I have mixed feelings about them. It’s good to strive and often we do need to push ourselves a little and set a time frame or a deadline in order to achieve something. I had that when I wanted to publish my first novel, Journals of the Undead, in Latvian. It wasn’t a New Year’s Resolution as such but it was January 2023 when I realised that the reason why I was stuck was because I wasn’t working towards a specific deadline. Instead, I thought that I would get it published once I’d finished the editing, which was very vague. So, I decided I want my collection of vampire stories to hit the shelves in Autumn 2023 and that made a massive difference. The Latvian edition, called “Šķautnes”, was released in September 2023.

    But why do so many New Year’s Resolutions fail? I’ve got several suggestions. These are my personal opinions, of course. Firstly, it’s the lack of commitment. I’m not a gym person. I’ve never been, never will. I enjoy exercising… outdoors. Let’s say I’ve been socialising with an active gym goer and suddenly start thinking I should get a gym membership after all. I wouldn’t last long because my own commitment would not be strong enough – I’d simply be influenced by another person and once that influence had worn off I’d probably end up paying for something I don’t use whilst hesitating to cancel the membership. Whenever you want to do something you need to be sure that it’s what YOU want. TRULY want.

    Secondly, and this is my personal observation here in the UK, is that a lot of people are too harsh on themselves. They’ve either overindulged over Christmas or feel bad about having had a nice festive season or both and feel like they have to saddle themselves with resolutions to compensate for it. I’m Latvian so it’s a foreign concept to me. In the Baltics where the weather is… well, Baltic, we like to celebrate and see no reason why the good times should stop just because it’s January. So we keep your Christmas lights on and keep eating Christmas food leftovers. Also, with the winters being cold it’s normal to hibernate and drastic changes are better saved for Spring.

    What I do instead is use January – the whole month – for deciding what I want to focus on this year. I really think it through and ask myself questions to establish why I think I have a need for this or that. Then I pick a few main goals and decide on a timeline. For instance, this year I want to focus on creative writing and I will share my progress with you in future posts.

    To sum this up, if New Year’s Resolutions work for you, go for them but make sure you know why you suddenly want to start running, learn how to play the guitar or have a surfing holiday in Portugal. If they’ve never worked for you, feel free to replace them with something that does work.

  • One year since “Šķautnes”

    It’s been a year since “Šķautnes”, the Latvian edition of Journals of the Undead, came out. What is the main thing I have learnt since then? I always thought that writing a book is the hardest bit. I was wrong. It’s actually the marketing bit. Writing a book can take a few years and getting it published can take even longer. Ok, self-publishing comes in handy but there are still a few obstacles to jump – for instance, how to turn a Word document into something presentable and aesthetically pleasing? A bad mockup and/or a bad cover design can ruin an otherwise great novel. We live in a very visual culture, after all! If it won’t look good in a social media post… You can’t have that, you need to make sure it will.

    Ah, marketing… How many authors actually think about that when writing their novel? In the past, far fewer books were published and therefore any new book was the talk of the town. It’s easy to get spotted when there are, let’s say, no more than 20 other paperbacks in the bookstore. These days, books are everywhere. You’ll spot dozens of them whilst waiting in the supermarket check out line. Charity shops are full of books. I have several book swapping places in my area. Cafes often have books on their shelves. And when you walk into a bookstore… You get the idea. Any new book is like a needle in the hay, how would you spot it unless you know it’s there?

    This is something that I’ve tried to explain to people over the years. Those who don’t write stories themselves think it’s so easy – just publish a novel on Amazon, bypass the middlemen and see the royalties rolling in! That’s the theory. In practice, there are millions of books on Amazon. How will potential readers find it? In order to generate organic traffic you need to be good at SEO. Or pay someone to do it for you (it won’t be cheap). Ads can generate traffic but, again, for them to be effective you will need a monthly budget that contains at least two zeros. What about social media? The sheer amount of posts and ads there means that people are bombarded with information and most of them will only be seen by a few people.

    In short, connecting with your potential reader and promoting a book is a long, time consuming and often expensive process with no guarantee of it ever paying off. I was watching an interview with Ville Valo some time ago and he said that you never get back what you put into an artistic project. If one of Finland’s most successful musicians says that, what hope is there for the rest of us?

    I don’t want to end this post on a negative note, though. Going through difficulties and overcoming obstacles is great for building up resilience and growing as an artist. We live in an era when there is more competition than ever in music, literature, film and TV. We have more tools than ever at our disposal but, precisely because they are so accessible, it is so difficult to get noticed. When I was in my early 20s I had lots of ideas but there were few tools to bring them to life. Smartphone cameras were in their infancy, video editing software (not counting Windows Movie Maker) was pricey, a good photo or video camera cost between 3-6 months earnings. I simply didn’t have the money for all the equipment I wanted. Plus, I lived in Latvia which wasn’t exactly known for its bustling art scene back then. Now I can make videos on my phone and edit them for free using InShot! It doesn’t matter where in the world I am as long as I have a reliable Internet connection.

    So, my advance for all the creative people out there is… Create! Just keep in mind that finding and building your audience can take a very long time and you’ll probably need to keep your day job. That, I think, is actually a good thing: when you’re not relying on your art as your sole source of income it gives you more artistic freedom.

  • Music & Editing

    Music & Editing

    I usually listen to music whilst editing as it helps me: a) get in the mood; b) stay focused. When I find a song I really like I can listen to it for hours on repeat – I’m not exaggerating! One of such songs is Burn by The Cure. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve listened to it, one of my all time favourites! The Crow (1994), one of my favourite movies by the way, had a great soundtrack but I like Burn the most.

    And then there is the opposite… I realised early on that Type O Negative and editing don’t go together. I love the band but find Peter Steele’s voice to be too distracting. Instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing I ended up watching the band’s music videos instead.

    The trouble with editing is that I need to be super focused and, because I have a day job and other commitments, the time I can set aside for this task is limited and needs to be used as efficiently as possible. Writing is different: I let my mind wander and I write down everything without thinking about it much plus writing can be done anytime as I nearly always carry pen and paper with me and, if I don’t, then I record a voice message on my phone.

    Editing is when I assemble, filter and arrange text so my mind needs to be completely present. Also, as much as I like to burn the midnight oil, I cannot edit at night. Write yes, edit no – I’ve tried it and lost hours the next day dealing with typos and silly mistakes from the previous night’s editing session. So no editing past 9 pm for me.