How accessible is your work?

A post on Kboards included a link to this site.  Apparently, successful authors tend to write at a 4th-9th grade level. 

Want to know where your own work falls?  Here you go.  Just copy your text and paste it in the box.

I put in a selection from Buddy and scored at about a 7th grade level.  I input a different selection and scored at about a 4th grade level.  Obviously, my work varies a little from paragraph to paragraph.  So, to get the most accurate score, I figured I'd run the entire 10,000-word story.

Here's what I got:

 

I'm pretty satisfied with that.  And, believe it or not, I make a conscious effort to "streamline" my prose during revision.  My sentences tend to be shorter and simpler after editing.  It's nice to know that my efforts are paying off in the form of a high readability score.

Planning

The more I write, the more I realize just how important it is to plan out the storyline before starting to actually write the story.  It's this stage, the outlining and brainstorming and whatnot, that makes all the difference.  The actual writing is secondary in importance.

For that reason, I really want to get this outline right.  The temptation is to rush it so that I can get to the actual writing part, but I've got to resist that urge.  I've got to be as careful and deliberate as I can and make sure the story's skeleton is as good as it can get.

I also need to get back to my Wool fan-fiction piece.  I haven't done any work on it since before the Christmas holiday rush.  It's probably about half-done.  I don't plan to publish it until after I get a full-length novel up anyway, so there's no hurry, but I'd still like to get it under my belt.

The difference a day makes

Almost as soon as I made the previous post, things started to come together.  I've now got the gist of a story worked out.

My goal, once I finalize the outline and start writing the actual novel, is to crank out the first draft in six weeks or less.  It won't be easy, but I think I can do it.  Anyway, it's a goal to shoot for.

I also need to start playing around with Blender.  If I'm ever going to use it to make images for book covers, then I'll need an idea of what I'm doing.

Stuck

I'm working on an outline, but I'm stuck. 

That's the problem with the whole Thanksgiving-Christmas season.  It saps all your momentum.

Been reading lately

...so I haven't been doing much writing.  I have been thinking, though, and going through plot ideas in my head.  There's a story I've had in mind for a while, and I've started assembling its skeleton.

No hints, though.  ;)

Back to work

I've survived the holidays unscathed.  Yay!

The Buddy audiobook is available on Audible and Amazon.  It's supposed to be on iTunes, too, but I don't have a Mac, so browsing the iTunes site isn't easy.  If the audiobook is there, I haven't found it yet.

I've been doing a lot of soul-searching regarding Larsons.  I'm not sure I'm hitting the tropes in the way that readers want to see.  I may spend some time on other works for a while, at least until I figure out what to do with it.

In any event, I hope 2015 turns out to be a good year for me, both personally and as an author.  And, to anyone reading this, I hope you have a happy new year.  :)

Buddy is free!

Amazon was kind enough to price-match it.  The ebook is now a free download.

My hope is that making the ebook free will drive sales of the audio version.  Will this strategy work?  I have no idea.  I'm like a babe in the wilderness, toddling my way through the self-publishing forest and hoping to not get eaten along the way.

Trying something new is definitely exciting, though.

Now if I could just get these holidays out of the way so I can start being productive again...