{"id":1565,"date":"2017-06-30T09:07:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T14:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/?p=1565"},"modified":"2017-06-30T09:07:52","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T14:07:52","slug":"june2017updatesgoals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/june2017updatesgoals\/","title":{"rendered":"June 2017 Updates, Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/amesjump.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-892\" src=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/amesjump.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/amesjump.jpg 640w, https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/amesjump-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been over 3 years since I <a href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/the-last-dreadful-sunday\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">left the rat-race behind<\/a> and became a full-time writer! The time keeps flying past. I&#8217;m a much happier person overall, and I&#8217;ve never once entertained the idea of going back to the grind.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Income breakdown (just for fun, $$$ is never the goal):<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n&#8211; I&#8217;m still making about $300-$400\/month writing and editing at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailywtf.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Daily WTF<\/a>. (Feedspot recently <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.feedspot.com\/humor_blogs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ranked us #29<\/a> of their top 100 humor blogs, which is pretty neat!)<br \/>\n&#8211; My royalty income has been a bit higher with 2 books out. Books in a series help sell each other. Still, we\u2019re talking maybe a few hundred a year across all venues, with the vast majority of that coming from Amazon. When I\u2019m done with Book 3, I intend to get more aggressive about selling and promotion (although I think <strong>Sword and Starship<\/strong> has at least 4 books in it).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Updates:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n&#8211; Still outlining Book 3, also getting into some high-level drafting of how I want scenes to play out. What has been abstract up to this point is getting a bit more concrete.<br \/>\n&#8211; The <strong>Sword and Starship<\/strong> books are now available through <strong>Playster<\/strong>! Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/play.playster.com\/books\/10009780990757320\/bloods-force-ellis-morning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Blood&#8217;s Force<\/em><\/a>, there&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/play.playster.com\/books\/10009780990757337\/harbingers-ellis-morning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Harbingers<\/em><\/a>. It seems like an interesting platform, so check it out when you have a chance.<br \/>\n&#8211; Construction continues along my street. So far it&#8217;s taken double as long as we were told it would take. LOL So it goes! I&#8217;ve mostly gotten used to the noise since there&#8217;s been construction in my vicinity for <a href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/my-firefly-break\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">years<\/a> now. My next-door neighbor has a toddler who has grown up with this as his normal. She tells us that one of his first words was &#8220;dirt.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Current Goals:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n&#8211; Keeping up with these monthly blog updates, and maybe some advising\/ranting if the mood strikes.<br \/>\n&#8211; Possibly updating the look of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ellismorning.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ellismorning.com<\/a> and this blog, if I conclude it\u2019s worth the trouble. Now that I have some exposure to Bootstrap, I&#8217;m tempted to go that route.<br \/>\n&#8211;\u00a0Learning how to roll Rs. With a month of daily practice, I&#8217;m closer than I ever have been, but inconsistent. I have an easier time with Rs in the middle of a word (ex. <em>cigarro<\/em>) than at the front (ex. <em>r\u00e1pido<\/em>). Another month of filling my house with annoying noises can only help!<br \/>\n&#8211; Learning Latin. I&#8217;ve kinda surprised myself with how motivated I am to do this. Unlike drawing, I don&#8217;t have to schedule a time and then force myself to actually abide by that commitment. I was expecting to work on Latin once a week, and it became a daily thing all by itself. There&#8217;s something to be said for pursuing what you really <em>want<\/em>, eh? My brain wants this, and it&#8217;s actually a lot of fun to translate dirty poems and old graffiti from Pompeii and realize that humanity has not changed for thousands of years.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Later Goals:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n&#8211; Learn Italian (at least enough to get around town with)<br \/>\n&#8211; Plan\/schedule trip to Rome in 2018<br \/>\n&#8211; Ramp up selling\/promotion<\/p>\n<p>Hope to check back in with you again next month! :)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been over 3 years since I left the rat-race behind and became a full-time writer! The time keeps flying past. I&#8217;m a much happier person overall, and I&#8217;ve never once entertained the idea of going back to the grind. Income breakdown (just for fun, $$$ is never the goal): &#8211; I&#8217;m still making about $300-$400\/month writing and editing at The Daily WTF. (Feedspot recently ranked us #29 of their top 100 humor blogs, which is pretty neat!) &#8211; My&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/june2017updatesgoals\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,15,7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-ellis","category-entrepreneurship","category-sword-and-starship","category-bigleap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1572,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions\/1572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}