Today started off great. I slept in for a change, cleaned the kitchen, dictated about 800 words while doing so, read about 10% of a Michael Crichton book (Congo), cleared out my emails, and that was before noon.
I’m also going to be learning the art of cover design in 2022 and I took the first steps toward doing that. I contracted with a designer I work with to create a template for my novels. This way, every novel I create will be within the template. I told him to emulate recent Dean Koontz and Kim Harrison covers. Their author names are gigantic, blocky, clear and easy to read, and scream bestseller. No matter how different their covers are, the name is always the same, in the same position. Same with Jim Butcher, Michael Connelly, Nora Roberts, Debbie Macomber, and virtually any huge name you can think of. That’s the style I’m going for moving forward. Eventually, all my books will be brought under that template, but I’m not in any hurry to do it.
I also recorded and edited 2 YouTube videos which will go on my channel this week. First one will be tomorrow at noon. I’m really eager to get back into making regular videos, but I have to work up to that.
I also took a sledgehammer to the way I organize my emails today. I had over 90,000 emails from the last 15 years of Gmail (!). Kind of insane if you think about it. Those emails were eating up lots of storage space, which was costing me money because I pay for Google One storage. I cut my email storage by about 60% by deleting a ton of old emails and attachments that I no longer need.
I only ever need to search for an email once or twice per year. I do a pretty good job of saving everything that needs to be saved at the time I deal with the email. I also got rid of a lot of folders that I was no longer using.
I also took the opportunity to review Gmail’s terms of service and got acquainted with what happens to my email accounts when I die. I highly recommend you look into that. Fortunately, Google makes it exceptionally easy to pass your information onto your heirs…if you understand the terms of service. Like I said, do yourself a favor and read them. Google puts them in plain language so you don’t have to read a bunch of legalese.
I also took the opportunity to unsubscribe from a metric crapton of mailing lists I am on. That felt pretty good.
I also started preparing for my next book, which is going to require substantial research. It’s a book on estate planning for authors. It’s not the kind of book you can sit down and write; it requires some diligence and forethought, so I’m starting that now. By the time I finish The Good Necromancer Book 4, I should be ready to write it.
I also did a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that helped me dig out of the current hole I’m in. I definitely made progress today, but I’ve still got a long way to go.
Anyway, time to get another writing session in before the weekend’s over. Have a good night.
