Monday Randomness

As often happens on Monday as I clean out my feed reader, I am presented with a series of seemingly unconnected thoughts that I wish to relay.  Call it an visit from the most ADD of my Muses.  Often, it is simply that I find said better in other places what I would have said, given time.  Then, I feel the urge to relay these ideas, citing my source of inspiration, and getting them out.  Once the ADD Muse is satiated, on then may I progress to more solid thought content.

That's a very long way of saying: Today you get Random Monday links and bullet points.  Yaaay.

• Let's lead off with the Michael J. Sullivan.  I'm itching to read his books, and they're in my Goodreads queue.  I love his take on writing (I think I've mentioned before).  Today he helps me clarify the idea I was trying to express last week with my Chapter Breaks post.  Namely, I feel like I write mini-stories.  I approach each chapter and each blog post as a mini-story.  My novels, then, are large collections of related mini-stories.  That's exactly how I see it.  Thanks Michael!
• Lisa Schroeder reminds me that it's okay to keep my money.  For some reason I always battle guilt with asking people to pay me for my stories.  I certainly believe they're worth it, I just want so bad to share them and know how money can be an issue sometimes.  I try to remind myself that it is also in a reader's best interest to pay me.  It's "support" not a "paycheck."  The more copies I sell, the closer I get to the dream of being able to focus purely on writing, and that's a happy day for everyone involved.
• Following on the heels of Lisa's article, I read this over at Write to Publish from Michael's wife Robin (see, these aren't as random as you'd think!).  She writes about Rick Murcer who is experiencing indie success right now on the Kindle charts.  Reading about his background and approach, I consider his success to be a "proof of concept" for me.  Lisa cautions against spending money simply to "keep up with the Joneses" and Rick took a very homegrown, family approach to publishing (tends to be cheaper in terms of money... but quality?  You decide.)  It's good to see that the approach can work.

So that's it.  Three semi-related ideas.  Three bits of inspiration I found over the weekend.  Now maybe I can work on getting a fiction post up.  Or get back to that my work in progress.  I'm so close to the end of that that I can taste it.  I'd love to have it out for Christmas.  Fingers crossed.