Author: Robert Tomoguchi

Thirty Minutes

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

I’m back to writing every day. I think it’s important that I write every day so that I stay present in my work and also because with writing on my mind all day, I’m generally happier and feel less despair working a day job. This idea to start writing every day again came out of a recent session with my psychologist. For the past three years or so, I’ve only been writing on weekends, because I had been feeling so overworked at my day job because of some projects I was involved with. My psychologist at the time and I decided it would be best for my stress level to stop writing every day. It helped with the stress certainly, but it was ultimately a detriment to my happiness and my feeling of having a purpose. Those projects are over now. I don’t know why I didn’t think of going back to writing every day on my own, and needed a therapy session to come up with the idea, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

Needless to say, I am thrilled to be writing every day again. I feel so much more alive. True, I only set a goal to write for thirty minutes a day. But I set an easy goal as a strategy. It’s easy to find thirty minutes in a day. It’s easy to have enough motivation to sit down for only thirty minutes. But the truth is, it never ends after thirty minutes. I become so consumed with what I’m working on that it can go on for hours. And during that time and the hours following, I feel inspired and excited. 

This week I’ve been writing and rewriting a prologue for a novel version of Forever Candy. (It was originally a screenplay.) Though I’m not nearly satisfied with the writing (I don’t think I found the right voice or style for the book), I feel exhilarated just working on it.

 

Share This Post

AMS

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

Because I haven’t written since I finished Scribbling The Eternal, I am really itching to start writing again. I think I’ve taken enough time off. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and watching tutorials about Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), so I can learn how to promote my books better on Amazon. It’s a lot of work and there is a lot to know, but I’m hoping that if I focus devote time to it, I’ll see positive results. 

I continue to dream of a day when I can stop reporting to an office on weekdays and spend all my days writing. 

Share This Post

Final Draft

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

It’s a big day for me. I feel very accomplished. I finished the final reading of Scribbling The Eternal and am now ready to turn it over for editing. The final word count of the 35 page chapter sequel was 125,146 words. 

As I neared the ending of my read, I was overcome with the feeling that I was agreeing to permanence. That this would be the final version, the final words, the final phrases, the final descriptions. A draft is a hard thing for me to let go of because then there’s no more rewriting. It never fails that after months have passed since I finished writing something, that I find things that I would like to go back and rewrite and say in some other way. But publishing makes things so final. You have to live with it. 

Regardless, after twenty-seven months of writing and rewriting, it feels great to step away from the writing process and move to the publishing process. 

Video 2019-03.17.19

 

Share This Post

Sixteen

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

 So this weekend was the weekend I returned to my manuscript to give it my final read. I read for many hours, but unfortunately I was only able to make it through sixteen of the thirty-five chapters. The revisions I made were small. On Saturday I netted nine new words, but on Sunday I netted negative two words. I’m tired now and decided I will just have to continue my final read next weekend. Though I’m behind schedule, I don’t feel bad as I am enjoying the read. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve written. 

Share This Post

My Darling Tragedy

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

This is my second of two weekends I’m stepping away from working on Scribbling The Eternal before I give it my final read. It feels so strange not to be writing, although I’ve been doing poetry exercises from the book I purchased The Poet’s Companion. Writing poetry has been an interesting experience already. Though it is writing, the approach to it feels different. The thinking and daydreaming even feels slightly different. I don’t know that I can put the differences into words (which I suppose is a problem, being a writer, but oh well). At any rate, I’m enjoying it. 

As I was falling asleep last night, it came to mind that the phrase “my darling tragedy” might not have made its way into my new book. The term of endearment was one issued by Mirela Cobalcescu, describing Orly Bialek in The Scribbled Victims. This morning I checked the manuscript and discovered that the term was not used in the new book. 

My checklist of things to address in my rewrites was cleared two weekends ago, but when I do my final read next weekend, I’m wondering if I will find a place where I can insert it. For I do love that term for Orly so much.   

Share This Post

Beautiful

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

This is the first weekend in a very long time that I did not spend writing. As I said in my previous post, I decided to step away from Scribbling The Eternal for a couple of weeks before giving it my final read. I’ve been spending most of my time seeing friends and reading. Today I finished reading Nausea and now plan to read a book about writing poetry that was co-authored by a poet I greatly admire, Kim Addonizio. My aim isn’t to become a poet, but I’m hoping to make my fiction writing more beautiful to read.  

 

    

Share This Post

Finished!

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

Around 4 p.m. today at Starbucks, I finished writing Scribbling The Eternal. It took twenty-six months to write and was completed at just over 125K words, so it’s significantly longer than The Scribbled Victims which was 82K words. 

I feel excited, but the feeling of relief hasn’t hit me yet. 

I’m going to not look at the manuscript for a couple of weeks and then do one final read through before I hand it over for editing. 

Share This Post

The Scribbled Victims 50th Amazon Review

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

The Scribbled Victims received its 50th review on Amazon! 

“Not since Interview with the Vampire and Let The Right One In have the complexity and passion of immortality, love, and death been so masterfully captured in the written word. I will voraciously consume the rest of the series. Perhaps, drink them up.”

Thank you Kirsten Mullins of Kennesaw, Georgia for reading my book and leaving me such a great review! I hope you like the sequel when it comes out next year!

Share This Post

First Draft Finished!

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

I should have posted this back on September 22, but it has not yet become a habit of mine to post to this blog. Anyhow, after 22 months of writing, I finally finished the full draft of Scribbling The Eternal. I was in shock when I finished. I don’t think it really hit me until the next day, which is when I sent out the final eight chapters to my beta readers. 

Since that time, I’ve received their feedback, via the surveys I write for them to fill out. The surveys ask some general questions and some very pointed questions about things I am struggling with in particular. The responses have been mostly positive. All said it was a strong sequel, which was a big relief to me because I think sequels are difficult to write, especially when you know people enjoyed the first book. One beta reader even preferred Scribbling The Eternal to The Scribbled Victims, which made me feel especially accomplished.

All that being said, the amount of notes I took from their feedback is making me realize the rewriting phase is going to take a lot longer than I expected. Since I do a lot of my rewriting as I write my books, the earlier the chapter, the cleaner it generally is (which can work against me if I have to make early changes because that means deconstructing a lot of revised and reworked text). Since I considered the majority of my book to already be clean, I expected about a six week rewrite period, but with all the notes I received and the introspection I’ve done on my own, I’m now thinking it could take between four and six months. 

I’m not discouraged by that though. I know it’s in the interest of producing the best book I can, so it’s all worth it, even though it means the gratification of releasing a new book will have to wait a little longer. Anyhow, I hope people are really happy with the final version of the sequel. 

-Robert Tomoguchi

Share This Post