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This is Story Over Everything episode 8, Back to Formula. So SOE 7 was quite a

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while ago. What happened? Why the absence? Is the muse done? Who's going back to

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formula? Here's the real truth. No one is going to make your dreams come true for

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you. You have to put in the hard work. You will fail, fall, feel like you're dying

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as you make your way, but it all comes down to a matter of choice. Will you

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choose to make your future, or will you stand with the rest of the masses? I want

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to be exceptional. I want to carve out my destiny as a storyteller. This is what I

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was made for, and every day I don't work at it. I am doing something wrong, so I'm

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making a plan. I am plotting and scheming to make my way how I want to. So if you

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were around for the previous Story Over Everything episodes, which I hope you're

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catching this from the audio podcast feed, and you were, and you'll listen to

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them, and you're saying, hey what happened? Here's the explanation. I got too busy.

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Too many things happened in my life. I think I was sick for about a week at one

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point, and then like a month went by, and then I was sick again for a few days, and

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I really have always had this dream of building a buffer for my content so I

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can have a steady stream coming out. But the thing is, I got too distracted making

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my other content. I think it's important for me to be analyzing stories because

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that's part and parcel to me learning how to write better stories, but it's not

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the whole kit and caboodle. There's more that matters to me, to my skill as an

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author, than me analyzing things, and that's me actually making things.

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Completed projects. Not half done or just barely started projects. Not concepts or

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little sketches of things, but full-fledged projects I need to finish.

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Whether that's short stories or children's picture books or whatever it is,

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I need to finish more stories in order to build my skill as a writer, as an

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artist, as an author, and that's something I'm working on. And I've had this idea in

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mind to do for a while, and I even, to pull the curtain back a little bit, I

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even prepped all of my stuff for this story over everything, everything eight

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last week, and I decided, you know what? No. I'm gonna push it off because I need

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a buffer. I need that space. I need to be able to focus on my creative work first

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and on my documentation of and recording of my creative process afterwards, or

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rather the creation needs to be the priority and the documentation needs to

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be a secondary thought. It's a it's a tertiary secondary or tertiary matter,

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and I did in doing story of everything come up with some great ideas, some great

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series planning for my project that I'm still working on, my great work, my

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magnum opus, if you will. And I think that's wonderful. I'm very pleased with

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that, but I almost got myself to stra- I only was able to do that once I let go of

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everything else that I wanted to do, my weekly analysis of stuff. Unfortunately, I

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was trying to do two or three different shows at the same time, as well as other

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things, and it's just it's for right now, for where I'm at, it's too much. I'm

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working too much at my main job to take that much time, devote it, and have it not

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distract me from doing my creative work. So in the meantime, I'm gonna again peel

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back the curtain a little bit and say I've gone ahead and done scripts for I

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think three more of my children's picture books. Actually, a Girl Bug Book 5

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I'm working on right now, but the draft for three and four are done 100%, and I

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basically made them the minimum viable product. I didn't get- let myself get

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distracted. I went ahead and just- I made a premise, a theme, a beginning, middle, and

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an end. I blurted all that stuff out as much as I could, as quickly as I could,

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into my document, and then I went back over it, and I cycled through, and I said

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okay, this is my theme, these are my ideas. I think this synopsis for the story

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works, and then I went and I expanded that synopsis into 16 points roughly, and

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I said okay, here's my synopsis, or yeah, here's my synopsis for page or spread one

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of this 32 page children's picture book. Let me write the text for it. So there's

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dialogue, there's description, there's you know a whole, you know, it's a whole

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smear. And I went line by line, bit by bit, point by point, beat by beat, until I

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created my third Grobuck story, and then I made my fourth, and then I worked on my

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fifth, and it was a lot of fun, and it was hard, and it was a struggle, but I went

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ahead and did it, and I'm satisfied, and I still need to go back on number five

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and actually do my work for the manuscript, the raw text, the body of

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the work, but honestly I have my beginning, middle, end, I have my theme, I have my

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premise, and I expanded that premise into an outline for the 16 points of the story,

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and hopefully tonight, maybe tomorrow night, I'm going to go back into it, and

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into my document, and I'm going to keep working on that, and I'm going to expand it, and

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then beyond that, I also made a plan for, the fact is, I want these to be children's

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picture books that have, you know, lovely illustrations in them, professionally

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done, and I don't have the skill to do the illustrations myself, so I'm not going

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to try to do that, I'm going to focus on what I'm good at, on what my strengths are

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for now, and if I want to develop things so that I'm the sole author and

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illustrator at a later point, I'll do that, but for right now, I'm writing the

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manuscripts, and I'm planning out, well, I did some, what do you call it, like

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storyboards for some of the books, but I didn't stop myself and let

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myself get bogged down on doing that for three, four, and five, I figured, no, I'm

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just going to write three, four, and five, I don't need the storyboards right now,

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because I don't have an artist to pay to do the work, so it doesn't make sense to

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get caught up and distracted on doing the wrong thing, I need to do, put in the

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least amount of work possible to have a solid product, and to be able to turn it

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around and get a return on that investment, and that's what I'm doing, so

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in addition to writing the pros for these five children's picture books, one

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of them is, you know, according to industry standards, way too long, it's

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2,000 words, which I might have to trim down, or I might not, because I'm

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self-publishing these, but I also thought, okay, what can I do with these, I have

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five stories here that I can craft into something more, and I can sell a Just

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Pros picture book, and maybe I can, you know, commission an image, or you know, an

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image with one figure, or multiple figures for a cover for this, and maybe

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that'll be part of my crowdfunding campaign, and I can say, hey look, I've got

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this whole big story of this, you know, sweeping fantasy adventure for kids, and

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it touches on these things, it has these five, five or ten, however you want to

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call it, you know, central, I'd say the kids are the central characters, it's got

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these five central characters, and it have these, you know, little life lesson,

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life lessons learned adventures that they go through, and they have these

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adventures with these guardian angel magical bug things, and it's a cool thing,

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and it exists in the form of a story that you can read in a chapter book

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format for an older kid, and it's a bonus if you, you know, sign on to my campaign

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for the, you know, you get a digital copy free for signing up and pledging to the

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campaign to turn each of the five stories of these five kids into a full

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fledged picture book fully illustrated by, you know, an author, or sorry, an

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illustrator who I'm gonna hire, and like that's it, that's the plan, I'm planning

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on, you know, using my writing and leveraging it to figure out how to get

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these books published the way I want to have them published, and yeah, that means

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I'll have to do after these manuscripts are done, and after I do a six

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manuscript where I knit the five, you know, small children's stories together

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into a larger children's story, chapter book story, with a narrative to it with,

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you know, 12 to 15 chapters in total, I'm gonna have to figure out how to, you know,

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put that together, I mean, it'll put me through my paces, I'll put together

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the book through somebody who I can publish wide with, so I'll have, you know,

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e-book version of it, I'll record an audiobook probably, I'll do a, you know,

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not while I'm in a car though, and then I'll do, you know, having the e-book file

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ready should enable me to very easily have the digital book, or sorry, the

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physical print-on-demand book file ready, and that's something I can, you know, I

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can create, and I've already got another product there, and it will be, you know,

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value-added because I'm gonna take the core stories from these five children's

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picture books I have and expand them, and you know, I came up with cool lore ideas

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for one of the girl book books, I won't specify which because it'll turn into a

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pedantic mess of me mumbling over myself, but I came up with a really cool idea

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and I want to expand that, and I feel like, hey, I'm the author, I can expand

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this however I want, I could make one of the characters conflicts or the enemies

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that they face kind of the center point of the entire book and have it all, have

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it all get to that point and have that be really cool, or I can give a similar

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treatment to the other enemies, enemy forces that were faced, and the children

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overcame with the help of these creatures, I can do a lot of stuff, but

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basically that's the plan, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna write, and I'm gonna make

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all this stuff happen, so anyway, that was all off-the-cuff information I want to

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share and things I wanted to say to just share what my progress has been on this,

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and you know, why there's been a delay, and tell you that the plan is to let

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there not be any more delays, but I'm gonna focus on the writing and the

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creating of the actual main content that I want to sell, you know, sell and make of

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my storytelling and the, you know, documentation and the vlog and podcast,

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that kind of stuff is all gonna come afterwards, so, but that's how it is,

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because I need to focus until I'm a more powerful creator or until I have more

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time free for my regular job because I'm making money off of, you know, these other

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things that I can devote to, you know, doing everything else that I want to do

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as well without losing focus on my work as an author, and of course not

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sacrificing anything with my family, so anyway, real quick, you know, I just

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blurted all that stuff out, but I had some bullet points I wanted to go

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over and just kind of share with you and make some inspiration and

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encouragement for you to do the same, because if you're listening to this, I

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bet it's not because you think I'm some wonderful person, I bet it's because

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you're interested in storytelling as well, so here we go. What am I doing to

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achieve my goal? I am finally working on building a buffer for my content. I am

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constructing a social media drip feed. I am working on league magnet content to

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find likely readers and build an email list. I still need to learn how to manage

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an email list, but I have to start somewhere. I am working to define a niche

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for myself. I'm developing and designing content that can be used and reused in

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a variety of ways. I am figuring out the best yield for the least input so I can

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work like my life depends on it, because it does. Most of all, I'm writing. What do

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I have to say to you, my fellow author? Write when you can. Write what you can.

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Write where you can. There is no perfect, there is no ideal you will ever reach

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that will allow your craft. The craft is waiting on you to do it. It can wait

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forever. It wants to be worked, but you have to do the work. Do it or don't. The

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choice is yours and yours alone. It's all on you.

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By the way, as a bonus, if you can tell me where the question back to formula

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comes from, I will appreciate your refined taste and sparkling memory. But

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anyway, that's it. I am MJ. I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here and I thank

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you for your time and attention. Check out MJMunoz.com for all my other work

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and check out the crowdfunding campaigns and the finished book I'll have in the

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book section or somewhere on the main page when you go to MJMunoz.com at

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some point pretty soon. Peace. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, you can find

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more at MJMUNOZ.COM as well as my entire library of analysis, art, and fiction.