Remember me talking about that Real Life Family Event (RLFE) that might go off at any time? It went off. Catastrophically. Yes, it impacted my writing this week. On a brighter note, I experimented more with AuthorScale, and I think I’ve figured a few things out. Also, I worked more with Apple’s Logic Pro and Summer Foovay’s audio narration. How’s that coming along? Let’s take a look at the key performance indicators first.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
I hit my goal, but not for the reason I prefer.
Now that I’ve experienced the receiving end, I’m utterly against the idea of privatizing anything to do with services like support for those with disabilities. Back in the day, I didn’t like the idea of privatizing prisons, because I didn’t want to mix the profit motive with depriving citizens of their freedom. But it happened, and now we have examples of prison executives campaigning for more crimes so their profits can go up.
It’s even worse in the arena of providing support for folks with disabilities. I won’t go into any more detail, but damn. These folks dropped a high yield bomb right in the middle of my family’s life. It’s going to take months or even years to recover.
Everyone’s okay. Nothing overtly illegal happened. But that’s part of the problem. Namely, that a private company can inflict such damage on a family and that the act can be perfectly legal.
It hit my writing goal this week as a matter of self preservation. I can’t not write in general. But when things get darkest, I most need to write. I didn’t feel like writing at all, but I knew if I didn’t, I’d psychologically pay for it. So I wrote. I need to be at my best to help my family right now.
I guess the good news is that I no longer need to wait for the other shoe to drop. It done dropped. Now we have to deal with it.
AuthorScale is Starting to Make Sense
I’ve seen some slideshows on TikTok, Instagram, and even (less often) on YouTube. They didn’t make sense to me. They’d start with some random question, then excerpt text from a book. Sometimes the slideshow would display graphics from the book; other times, there might be a video of someone just flipping through the pages in the background.
That kind of marketing wasn’t effective on me. But then it occurred to me that marketing seldom works on me because I’ve worked hard over the years to recognize and ignore it. Sounds laudable, right? But as I wrote this section, it dawned on me. As praiseworthy as that might be, it made me blind to what ad techniques might work.
I’m trying to get my head around why some writers are seeing such success with these ads. Another way to put that is to ask why some readers stop and watch these slideshows. I relied on AuthorScale to help me build prototypes. I used several key scenes that AuthorScale pulled from Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners to create slideshows. The more I did, the more I started getting a sense of what it was doing.
The opening slide presents a quick scenario. The dialogue pulls the reader in deeper. At the end, many of the slideshows show the book’s cover. There’s no link to click; that’s not what the ads are for and that not now TikTok works. They warm up the audience in a low-intensity interaction. So the next time they see an actual ad (on Facebook or in Amazon), they’re more likely to click.
I think it’s finally making sense. And I think I need to start running these slideshows for all my books. Since there’s no specific ad campaign, why not warm up audiences to my brand in general?
I’m starting to get more into the operational phase — like figuring out how many times to post daily (they recommend three — yikes!). For now, I’ll continue to build an inventory of slideshows. Then we’ll see if this works for me.
AuthorScale helps with scheduling. It also tries to identify the top dramatic scenes and pulls them out to turn into slideshows.
Logic Pro and The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone
I worked on another one of Summer Foovay’s recordings this week. As I get into the rhythm of how Logic Pro likes to do things, I have to say that it feels more natural to me than Adobe Audition. It helps that Summer’s recordings are clean, so I don’t have a ton of editing to do.
I’m still getting used to some of the Logic Pro’s ideas. For example, exporting the audio to an MP3 (or any other format) is called “bouncing.” Since Logic Pro seems to have its foundation ins professional audio recording, I’m sure there’s a story there, and I’ll look into it some day. But for now, I’m going to enjoy working with a less expensive product that seems to be a better fit.
Progress Against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did compared to last week’s goals:
- Write 10,000 words in The Fissure Kings Book 2: Athena Unleashed: Done!
- Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak: Ongoing!
- Engineer two more chapters for the audiobook of The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone: Half done! My energy levels are way off, given the RLFE; and my schedule was a wreck
- Create two more slideshows with AuthorScale and finish preparing my TikTok account for use: Half done! I think I need to make a fresh account for my writing; I used my existing account too long and watch too many cat videos.
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 37
Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Write 10,000 words in The Fissure Kings Book 2: Athena Unleashed
- Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak
- Engineer two more chapters for the audiobook of The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone
- Create two more slideshows with AuthorScale and finish preparing my TikTok account for use
What Do You Think?
Does writing help you get through real life family events? Or do you find yourself unable to write? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
