Author: Robert Tomoguchi

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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.   

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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.  

 

    

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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. 

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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!

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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

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Blood and Blurbs

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

It seems The Scribbled Victims is finally gaining word of mouth. I can see on Kindle Unlimited that about 3,000 pages are being read every day. I just hope it continues (and grows).

It was my plan to do a photo shoot at the end of September to create a new cover for The Scribbled Victims as well as create the cover for Scribbling The Eternal for when it releases. Though I love my current cover, I thought my books would gain more visibility if I put Orly on each book cover. I’ve spent months preparing for this photo shoot–arranging a studio, finding a photographer, hiring a model, finding a special effects artist to make fangs and do blood make up, and purchasing costumes. Everything was coming together until last week, when I found out that Amazon will not allow me to advertise a book if the book cover has blood on it. I can have a book cover with blood on it, but I just cannot use AMS (Amazon Marketing Services) to promote a bloody book. 

Well that sucks. These are vampire books. How can I not have blood on the covers? 

Since word of mouth is finally happening, part of me thinks–fuck it, just put blood on the cover anyway. But the conservative part of me doesn’t want to limit my options in the event I want to use AMS in the future. 

I also just read this book called Mastering Amazon Ads. I didn’t think it was written very clearly, but I did glean some helpful advice from it. One thing I really dread (and that I think many authors dread) is the thought of rewriting the blurb on the back of their book. This was stressed heavily in the book. I’ve rewritten mine a couple times already, but I suppose there’s always room for improvement. So I just ordered a book that is solely about writing your book blurb. I hope it’s helpful and that I can approach the rewrite of mine with an open mind. To be completely honest, I wish I could just hire a professional to write it for me, but I don’t know how to go about finding a professional blurb writer, let alone vetting one out. 

But stay tuned…a new cover and a new blurb are on their way. 

-Robert Tomoguchi

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