Going With the Flow

 As I said yesterday, "Right now, I have to go where the inspiration takes me.  And right now, the inspiration is following reader input."  

I'm not sure why this is so, but it's reality.  Last month, a reader was commenting on one of my book posts, wishing for another SCIU book, so I worked on that.  Last week, a reader sent me an email about Song of Storm and Shroud, told me I'd done a good job writing it, and said he couldn't wait for the sequel.  And like that, my gears shifted.

Actually, that's not entirely fair.  I was getting to a point in SCIU4 where I wasn't feeling it.  I was pushing out the words instead of them pulling me.  Last week's reader was a nudge I needed to make the words pull me again.  Unfortunately for the SCIU book, they're pulling me toward a different story.  

I'm not usually that flighty.  I start writing a book and I work on it until its either finished or I'm stumped on how to proceed.  Since I'm not finished with SCIU4 and definitely not stumped, I'm guessing I'm just not feeling it right now and the reader input gave me the excuse I needed to move onto something else.  

Having said that, I am rolling along right now with Shroudlands2.  I have stuff happening.  I have a good idea where I'm going next.  I know what the main thrust of the story is going to be.  It feels right.  Right now, at least.

I can't guarantee this'll keep going on like it's been going.  I'm trying not to question it too much.  I'm just going with the flow.  If the flow dries up, I'll switch back and see if I can make that work.  The point is, I guess, I'm writing again.  And I've always said we have to write however we can to get the words out.  What works for us one day may not work the next, so we have to go with the flow.  Probably not the answer readers are looking for, but it is what it is.  I'm going with the flow.

Is It Lame?

Welcome to Wednesday, where today's topic is:  Is it lame?  Who the hell cares?  Or how to write a dirty first draft and get the damn book done.

Probably the biggest roadblock to getting words out for me is worrying whether the words I'm typing are lame... stupid... WRONG...  Well, ya know what?  Who the hell cares?  It's a first draft, for pitysakes.  The words don't have to be awesome.  Hell, they don't even have to be good.  They just have to be words.  Sure, they have to make some kind of sense, but the point here is...

EVERYTHING CAN BE FIXED IN EDITS... 

Except a blank page.  If there are no words to fix, then... well, duh... you can't fix them.  The point of every first draft is to get the damn thing written.  

Did you just write a sentence that would make even the kindest reader want to throw the book at the wall?  No problem.  No reader is going to see it yet.  

Do your characters sound wooden?  Easy peasy.  Fix it later.  

Did you use... :gasp: the wrong word?  Have typos?  Misspell something?  Forget a comma?  Use too many commas?  All of that can be fixed with your handy dandy EDIT ROUNDS.  

No matter what you've written that you think sucks, it can be fixed.  The only thing that can't be fixed is...  Well, actually there is a fix for a blank page.  It's... wait for it...

WRITING!

Set your big ass, your narrow ass, your flat ass, or your bubble butt down.  Hell, I didn't used to have a butt at all, and I could've slapped that down, too.  Now put your fingers on the keys (or your lips to the microphone, for those using a speech to text program) and write the damn story.  

So what if it's lame?  So what if you don't think anyone will ever like it?  So what if you don't like it right now?  It's your story.  Write it.  Then fix it so you do love it.  (Psst... there's not much you can do to insure anyone else likes it, but they sure as hell won't like it if you don't write it.  Eh?)

And yes, when I wrote this last night, I was thinking that what I am writing is LAME.  Ultra-lame.  Lamey McLamerson from Lameville, Lame-abama.  So what?  My ass was in the chair and I got to work writing.  It'll get unlame later.  And I'll come back to fix this lame part when I finish.  

Now, get out there and slap down some new words!  Go, go, go, go!

Update: After I wrote this and scheduled it, I laid down more words and ended up with a total of 1561 mostly unlame words.  See? You've gotta push past the lame to get to the good.

New Month, New Attitude

 It's my favorite month of the year and therefore, I am using this month to get reinvigorated and set my feet back on the path.  Onward!  

One can only wallow for so long, after all.  

To that end, I sat down yesterday with my trusty notebook and had a meeting with myself.  It went sort of like this:

'Where do we go from here?'

Then I listed all the things I could be / should be writing.  Pros, cons, etc.  The key to deciding what to move forward with turned out to be 'which one can I write the fastest that'll be the most likely to net me sales?'  Looking at it all that way, the answer was SCIU #4.  Tentatively... JUSTICE SERVED.  :shrug:  It's a working title.

Last night, I sent Hubs off to bed and then opened the file to start writing.  Unfortunately, I've been away from it long enough that I couldn't just pick up the thread.  That meant that I needed to go back and read everything I've already written.  And I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole renaming the main character.  (I really need to start searching the name before I fall in love with, ya know?  Who woulda guessed the name I had was also the name of an 'international escort'?  ROFL)  Anyway, she's got a new name that doesn't seem to also be the name of anyone famous or infamous.  And I'm ready for tonight when I will sit down and write the next scene.  (Barring acts of nature and power outages.)

The plan is to have this first drafted by the end of the month, so I guess this is a NoWriMo situation.  MaNoWriMo?  I kinda like it.  It has 'mano' in it, which is like Spanish for hand, as in mano a mano or hand to hand combat.  Heh.  Just me fighting with myself, doncha know.

Another thing I'm doing this month is ditching all negativity in its many forms.  Easier said than done, but I'm working on it.  

And now, I'd better get this posted because we've got a whopper storm coming in and losing power and.or internet here is always a possibility.

Anyone want to do a WriMo with me?  Jump on in, the water's fine.  ;o)  

Opening the Tap

I sat myself down this weekend and had a long conversation about what I'm doing and what I'm going to do.  As a result, I did not get my edit notes done yesterday.  On the other hand, I did get 2259 words laid down on a new book.  Okay, not a new new book, but I wasn't that far along on the manuscript, so those words about doubled its length.  

Part of the impetus for picking this particular book was reader input.  As in someone I don't know contacted me filled with excitement about my books and she had asked for more of three different series.  Since I can't write four different books at once (those three plus the sequel to SSS), although lord knows I wish I could, I picked the first one she mentioned.

I also decided I need to be more business-like as a writer.  As in, I need to stop with the 'only writing when the mood strikes me' crap.  Like some precious flower who can only grow when the circumstances are right.  I need to be a dandelion and grow wherever and whenever.  

The world is going to hell and I can't control any of it.  But I can control this.  

So, to that end, I will be working more.  Edit and do business stuff during the day, write at night.  So basically, back to the way I used to work.  

As for the book I went back to working on, it's SCIU #4, tentatively called Justice Served.  If you're not familiar with the format of SCIU, these books don't hide who the villain is.  The story is in the actions of the villain and the heroes.  Who's going to die, how are they going to be stopped, who's going to stop them.  The tug and pull between the characters.  And the justice at the end.  There's always justice at the end.

Anyway, I will finish SSS and get it published by the end of the month.  I will also write subsequent books, but later.  Right now, if my gumption holds up and I keep whipping myself to work, the plan is to complete this book and get it out, then another Dennis Haggarty and another Duke Noble.  Can I do all that this year?  :shrug:  If I fail, I hope it's not due to lack of trying.  Although, I'd rather it was due to that then the world collapsing.  All I know is I'm gonna go out fighting one way or the other.

And now, I'll leave you with this quote: "If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow." - Louis L'Amour  

I'm going to keep the water flowing.  Open the tap and let it gush on out.

Can You See Them?

I have a confession to make.  When I write a story, or even when I read one, I can't see the characters.  

I don't think my brain works that way.  Maybe it did before it got crumpled, but it doesn't now.

Oh, I hear them fine.  And I do have a general impression of what they look like.  But I couldn't give their descriptions to a sketch artist and have them draw these people so they'd look like what I think they look like.  I couldn't pick them out of a line-up.  Because I don't think they look like anything more than an amorphous blob.

Looking for models for my book covers was the hardest thing.  My cover artist gave me a link to the site she uses and had me go at it.  I scanned hundreds of photos to find the best approximation of what Jo Mayweather and Jeni Braxxon look like.  I must've scanned hundreds more to find images for Accidental Death and Natural Causes, and those aren't even full face.  All I had to do was find a general shape.  

Once I'm made to go look for a character's face, then they have a face forever after.  Jo will always look like the cover model to me now.  So will Jeni.  Before that?  Not a clue.  Once I went looking for an image of Zeke - because I think someone asked me for it - and Zeke now looks like that dude.  (I'd show you, but the link to that model is broken now.  Oops.)

I have author friends who are all like 'this is what my character looks like' and they'll show a picture they found.  I'm a little jealous of those folks.  I want to see my creations in my head, but I can't.  

Thinking about it now, I can't really hold the images of someone's face in my head either.  Real life people are amorphous blobs, too.  :shrug:

As a result, I'm probably not the best at describing my characters in writing.  At least, I don't feel like I'm the best.  My readers are probably a better judge of that than I am.  The image the reader has in their heads probably isn't anywhere close to what I would have, if, you know, I had an image.  I guess that's okay.  I want the reader to picture the characters as they see them.  I guess what I do write as description is sufficient for that purpose.  

Like in Untitled Fantasy... Captain Vere, the head of the Academy, is tall and wiry with silver hair (not silver as in old, just silver) and a scar running down her cheek.  She's a battle-hardened lady and obviously tough enough to run an academy full of kids learning magic and skills for battle, but there's a sadness to her as she never really had a childhood of her own and her twin was killed in battle.  Can ya picture her?  

But let's take Aryl, the main character.  He's average height/weight for a 15-year-old boy.  He's a farm boy, so he's got some physical strength, but he's also way smaller than his friend, Galin.  Black hair, violet eyes.  And that's all I've got for him.  Can't picture anything else, so there he is.  And I need to go find a model for him so I can do the freakin' cover.  Derp.

His sister, Lyra...  White hair, violet eyes.  Pretty.  Or at least pretty to Galin.  I guess she would have a similar facial structure to Aryl... they are twins, after all, even if it's fraternal and not identical.  Since I can't see him, I can't really give you her either.  She's a wisp of a dream of a drawing of a person.

Galin... Aryl's best friend and sweet on Lyra.  Big dude for his age.  A 'pull the plow when the horses get tired' kind of guy.  

Anyway, I don't want to talk about every character here.  I have the basics, but I can't SEE them.  Wish I could.  Can't.  

What about you?  Can you see the characters you write or read?  Are they fully-formed or just blobs?  Does having a picture help?  Or when you see a pic of the characters do they totally harsh the image you formed on your own?

Is it Pertinent to the Story?

Okay, I know I'm probably gonna piss some people off by saying this, but those people probably don't stop by here anyway, so here goes... If your character's sexuality has nothing to do with the story, then you don't need to mention it.  Not in the story.  Not outside the story.  Not after the story's over.  No need to do a big reveal there, JK - it wasn't pertinent to the story.  Ever.

But let's say it is pertinent to your story in some way.  If your character is gay or bi, show them having romantic feelings toward a member of the same sex.  (Although, I'd only really think it was pertinent if you were writing romance - with suspense after or paranormal before or whatever).  Show a dude going out with his boyfriend.  Show a gal checking out another gal.  Make it smooth.  No need to beat your readers over the heads with it.  If you don't feel like you've gotten the point across without being explicit, work on your writing.

Unless, of course, you FEEL THE NEED to beat people over the heads with it.  Then, perhaps, you need to think about why you feel that way and whether you're writing fiction or proselytizing.  Personally, I prefer the fiction.  If I wanted the other thing, I can find it in plenty of other places.  Leave it out of the fiction.

Yeah, I DNF'd a book yesterday where the author came out with a good phrase about the female MC - she found a woman beautiful but the gal wasn't her type, but they'd already said she was living with a man, so I got the point there.  Then a couple pages later, the author actually came out and said the character was 'bi'.  Why?  I didn't miss it before, so why did it need to be explicit?  Because things like that have to be explicit in certain realms or you don't get credit?  :shrug:

That's poor writing, by the way.  If you can show it another way, you don't need to tell it.  Show, don't tell.  How many times have we writers heard or read that?  I couldn't begin to count over the past 18 years how many times I've heard it.  So many times, it's embedded in my head now.  

Personally, I don't care about a character's personal tastes in bed.  Unless I'm reading a romance and then I prefer the sexy bits align with my own preferences.  Same sex romances don't interest me, but more power to ya.  If it's not a romance... whatever floats your boats.  I used to enjoy an urban fantasy series* where the sidekick was gay.  She wove it in rather than tell the reader about it and it was just part of his personality.  Gnarly.  Write on, McDuff.   Actually, thinking about it now, I've read a lot of books where a character was gay and they were written as part of their personality.  It wasn't jammed in there like someone was checking a special box.  That's the way it ought to be done.  

In short, and I know I've said this before, the story is the thing.  Write the story, populate it with the people it requires, and write it to the best of your ability.  Show don't tell.  Etc. etc. etc.

* I say 'used to' because she stopped writing it.  Then I saw on social media where she'd gone full on ACTIVIST, so I didn't bother reading anything else by her**.  I enjoyed the stories but I don't enjoy indoctrination.  K thx bye.

** This has, unfortunately, happened a couple of times.  It makes me sad.

2021 Writerly Wrap-up

Well, 2021 is in the can.  Err... yeah, it was a shitcan, but it's over.  Now let's look back at it so we can move forward...

Out of a possible 365, I did something writerly 157 days.  Writing, editing, marketing, publishing, etc.  I only got one book published, but I finished writing it in 2021 and I finished writing the first draft (and the first round of edits) of another book this year.  I also noodled around with a couple other things.  I know I only worked 43% of the days, but that's about all I could manage in 2021.  It was an ass-kicking year whose name pretty much told the story - twenty-twenty WON.  

I did get one book published - Rumor Has It.  It sold 11.38 copies.

Speaking of sales... well, I did worse than 2020.  I only sold 69.92 books overall.  I made a little bit more money over 2020, but I had fewer 99c sales, so there was that.  I won't bother you with the book-by-book breakdown I usually do.  It was bad.  So bad, that I didn't sell a single copy of Unequal all year and only a tiny fraction of Project Hermes (like a page or two).

In case you weren't following along, I am in the process of removing all my books from the Kindle Unlimited program and taking them wide.  All my books are wide except for Fertile Ground (still in KU), Early Grave (waiting on FG to drop), and Project Hermes (also still in KU).  Everything should be out and wide by the end of the month.  

To try and coax more sales, Dying Embers and Wish in One Hand are now 99c for the duration.  This isn't a sale.  It's a price change.  I'll let you all know if I decide to put the prices back to $3.99.

Looking forward, I hope to have this Untitled Fantasy ready to publish by no later than the end of March.  There, I said it.  Now I have to stick to it.  I also hope to write at least one or two books this year and see those published as well.  As long as this year doesn't turn into Twenty-Twenty 2: Son of 2020, I should be able to reach those hopes.  (Hopes, not goals, people.  After 2020 kicked my ass, I was so over making goals, and then 2021 happened.  Blerg.)

How was 2021 for you?  Did you reach your goals?  Did you even bother to set them after the year before?  What are you hoping for this year?

Change It Up

Everyone's got their own way of writing, and that's a good thing.  Everyone also has their own way of editing, which is also a good thing.  As long as it actually is a good thing.

See, I have this usual way of editing my books.  I send the first draft to my Kindle, then I sit down with a big notebook and read the book while making notes about things that need changing.  I then input the notes and when I'm done with all of them, I send the next draft to my Kindle.  The second time, I generally input the notes as I go, once I get a page or so I enter them.  Other than that, it's lather, rinse, repeat until the book is as far as I can take it by myself.  At which point, the book goes to my readers so they can make notes however they make them and send them back to me.

It's a pretty good system that worked well for a lot of books.  So, I was working on that system for this book.  I did the first round and everything was fine.  Then I sat down to do the second round and it wasn't working for me at all.  And when things aren't working well, I tend to not want to do them.  I made about five notes and then I didn't want to pick up the book again.  Blerg.  

Then I sat down to input the notes, even though there were so few of them, thinking it might jump start the process.  Took like five minutes.  At which point, the general rule is to get up off my ass and go make more notes.  But the thought of that made me want to go play poker instead.  

So, what's a gal to do?  Change it up.  If doing the way I've done it for years isn't working, do it a different way.  Instead of making edit notes, I sat my ass down here, opened the manuscript, and started over from the beginning, changing anything wrong with the story.  I usually need the middle man, but I cut him right the hell out.  And it seems to be working for me.  Right now, anyway.  

Anyway, doing this goaded me into getting sixteen pages edited last night.  After only doing three pages during the previous session.  And two pages the session before that.  Yes, this deep, line by line editing is going to take longer, but I believe the end result will be closer to finished than the other way.  And if it isn't, well, at least it got me working again.  If it's closer to finished, I may only have to do a proofreading pass, which would cut the time off the end considerably.  We'll see.

The point is, there is no one right way to do any of this.  There isn't one right way from person to person, and there isn't even one right way for the same person from book to book.  Do what works until it doesn't work.  Then change.   If you feel like you're pushing yourself to work instead of being pulled by the work, mix it up a bit.  Do something... anything... a bit differently.  Hell, do it all differently, if you have to.  Put some jumper cables on that dead battery and get the engine to turn over again.  

At least this is working for me.  Your mileage may vary, but what could it hurt to try?

What NOT to Do

Last night, I sat down to watch the remake of the original movie for the series The Waltons.  I do love me some Waltons, doncha know.  I've seen every episode of the series multiple times.  And with the way entertainment is these days, I wasn't so sure I wanted to watch this remake.  But there was nothing else on, so I waded in.

It was bad.  So bad.  I mean, we watched it all (Hubs joined me about halfway through), but it was not good.  The acting was bad.  Most of the time, it was like they were reading the lines instead of acting the characters.  But this blog isn't about acting.  It's about writing.

And the writing was bad.  The dialogue was bad.  Good god, people.  Did you even think about how people talk to one another?  Especially how people talked to each other in 1933?  Some of the slang for today would not have been slang then.  I wish I could remember some of the instances, but I don't.  Trust me, they were there.  Glaring.  Spotlight right to the eyes.  

And it wasn't like writing the script would've been hard.  The movie followed the original plot for the most part.  They could've used the original script for petesakes.  Geez.

And whoever researched the historical period should be slapped.  1933... Virginia.  A black police officer?  Come on.  Really? And considering, it was post-Depression, so why the hell was everyone dressed so nicely?  Oh, sure, they put Mary Ellen in overalls, but they were nice overalls, like they'd been bought recently for her instead of the hand-me-down ones she would've been wearing.  And all the other children were so nicely dressed they looked like they were sporting their go-to-church clothes instead of the cheap, raggedy play clothes the children of a poor mountain family would've been wearing.  Everything should've looked well-worn, like they'd been passing the clothes down for years and making everything else by hand.  Hell, even when the dad was laying in bed in his long-johns, the damn things looked like he bought them online last week.

Did they even bother to watch the original movie???  They could've made it all so much better if they had simply followed the formula that worked so well it spawned a hit TV series that lasted for NINE YEARS.  (Okay, so maybe they should've stopped after Richard Thomas left, but that's just my opinion.)

Anyway, if you're writing a period piece or anything else, pay attention to how people talk to each other.  Pay attention to the period you're writing.  Otherwise, you'll leave your readers like that movie left this viewer... irritated and wanting to write a scathing one-star review.  

Making 'The Decision'

To write or not to write, that is The Decision.  Whether it is nobler to suffer the vagaries of banging away at the keys or to make it, and all the stuff that comes with it, stop

This morning a writer friend of mine made the announcement that she's taking a hiatus from writing.  It's totally understandable, but it gives me a sad.  

I'm sad because it means more of her books won't be dropping onto my Kindle any time soon.  But I'm also sad because I know how hard it was for her to make this decision.  Lord knows, I feel like I'm never too far from facing the decision myself.

And I don't even have the health problems she's faced over the past few years.  Sure, it's harder physically to sit here and write for long stretches.  The wrists, doncha know.  And the hips.  And the eyes aren't what they used to be.  I'm getting older and the body has been through some trials in the past 51 years.  

For me, it's mainly the heart that keeps me wondering whether I should just chuck it all and take up throwing tires at the warehouse down the highway.  Not heart as in the thumping, pumping muscle.  That sucker is fine. No. HEART as in the will, the gumption, the driving force.  As in, some days I just don't have the heart.

Of course, it's also the other part of the brain that thinks all of these words suck.  Yeah, I know you don't think they suck.  You can't convince that pissy part of my brain it's wrong.  I've tried.  It's a futile battle.

Right now, I know of two other friends who stopped writing altogether.  (You know who you are.)  I had another acquaintance who stopped writing her own books and went ghost writer, so I'll never again know what books she's written.  Who knows how many others simply disappeared from the blog roll and the shelves?

Many of us make the decision during the whole 'finding an agent' phase.  It's hard to keep going when all you're doing is reading rejection letters.  Man, don't I know it.  If you make it through that intact, then you've got the 'sales suck' phase.  Also known as the 'why the hell am I doing this' phase.

I spend a lot of time in that last phase.  'Sales suck' morphs into 'everything I write sucks' which inevitably leads to 'I suck'.  Ever seen an ant lion trap?  The ant lion is a bug that makes a sort of funnel in soft sand or dirt and sits at the bottom of it under the surface.  When a bug wanders into the funnel, it starts to slide downward toward the waiting predator.  If it tries to get out, the ant lion spits more loose dirt at it until it ends up at the bottom and in the crushing mandibles of the ant lion.  The writing life is sort of like that.  For me, anyway.

Honestly, there's no shame in making The Decision.  At least there shouldn't be.  But there is.  Oh, I don't think other people cast shame on these writers.  I think the shame is all internal.  Each person who's made The Decision probably feels like they've given up.  They've let their dreams down.  They've let the pissy part win.  

Some days, it's the only thing that keeps me going.  Fear of the shame.  :shrug:  I won't let this bastard win.  Dammit.  

Most days I try not to think about it.  Soldier on and all that, doncha know.  

If you need to stop, stop.  Take a break.  Take a hiatus.  Regroup and re-evaluate.  Down the road a piece, you might be ready to forge in again.  Or you may find it freeing and never come back to this masochistic way of life.  But you may also rediscover your love of writing and jot little stories for yourself again, like you did when you were younger and full of hope.  No one can know what the future holds.

For me, I'm still at it.  I may take little unannounced hiatuses here and there, but not for too awfully long.  I'm not ready to make The Decision yet.  

Embracing the Old Stuff

 Every Wednesday, my most awesome and wonderful friend, Silver, posts a thing called Wednesday Words, wherein she takes a prompt and posts a snippet with that particular word in it.  And asks others to post their own snippet.  Today's word was 'telescope'.  And it made me trot out my first book.  (Because I don't think any other book I've ever written has that word and I can't seem to write to spec.)  You can read my snippet over there.  Warning: It's pretty bad.

And that's what I want to talk about today.  

Early writing can be awful.  Actually Fear Itself can't have been that bad.  It helped Hubs fall in love with me, after all.  But it's not where I am right now.  And looking back at it makes me want to cringe.  

That snippet alone... ugh.  I used 'breathed' as a dialogue tag for pitysakes.  

It's nearly 18 years since I started writing that book, though, and I've grown a lot.  Thank goodness for that.  Eighteen years.  I don't know how many books I've written in those years, but 16 of them are now published.  One would hope after all that, I'd learned some things.  I don't use 'breathed' as a dialogue tag anymore, that's for damn sure.  LOL

I think every writer should go back and read the early stuff they've written, though.  It helps to see where you've been.  And then you can celebrate how far you've come.  

Even better, go back and try to fix your early stuff.  It helps stretch the editing muscles.  I still love that book, flaws and all, and I have tried, from time to time, to fix the writing.  I may do it yet.  I'm stubborn that way.

One thing you should never do is shitcan your old stuff.  You need it.  Even if you never look at it again, it's part of your journey.  It's your history.  It's like an old movie of you learning to walk.  You'd never destroy that because you walk perfectly now, would you?  No, you embrace it.  

Embrace your early writings.  They may suck.  They may make you cringe.  You may never want to ever show any of it to the world, because, frankly, it can be a little embarrassing.  But they're part of who you are now as a writer.  Don't cringe.  Smile.  The same way you'd smile at uncovered art from Kindergarten.  You've grown, sure, but that burgeoning writer is a part of you.  Embrace her.

Not a Real Writer

I've heard said time and again that if you don't show up and treat this writing thing like a job every day, you're not a real writer.  :shrug:  I guess that means I'm not a 'real' writer.  

Oh, the first year of publishing, I treated it like a job.  I was crankin' and spankin' on some writerly thing every day.  If I wasn't writing, I was editing.  Or marketing.  Or formatting.  Or doing cover stuff.  Or schmoozing.  I published 4 books that year.  For all that work, I sold 1017 copies.  Of course, during that year I spent just under $5000.  

The next year, I was still treating it like a job but treating it like a job was getting harder.  I published three books that year.  I sold 693 copies and spent a little over $2000.

Year three, the 'treat it like a job' thing fell apart.  I published 2 books and the numbers were 262 sold and $1500 spent.

I'd go on, but I think you can see where I'm going with this.  Maybe.  

When you look at the numbers, you might think: the more work I put into it, the better I did.  Or you can look at it the other way: the worse I did, the less likely I was to want to put the work into it.  It's the latter.  

Oh, I do see an uptick in sales when I'm putting more effort (and more money, by the way) into it, but it's rarely enough of an uptick to make it seem worthwhile.  I'm sitting here shelling out funds I don't really have to make sales that don't even come close to covering what I spent.  The reality of that is that I can no longer justify the outgo.  In money or in time spent.

I realize that last part there might make it seem like I'm prepping y'all for an announcement that I'm quitting.  I'm not.  I'm still writing.  I'm still editing.  It's just slower now and I'm more likely now to put time toward other pursuits that might actually give me something to show for my efforts.  If that makes me not a 'real writer' in others' eyes, I guess I'll have to live with that.  :shrug:

But when you get here and see that I still haven't progress toward the publication of another book, you might understand a little better where I'm at.  The last three books I published sold 30 copies.  Not thirty each... thirty combined.  The one book I published this year has sold just over 11 copies.  Numbers like that don't make me jazzed about putting in a full day at the job of writer.  

Add in the other, non-writing stuff that gets me in a bad place, and you can understand a little more.  

Of course, even to me, that all sounds like excuses.  If this was a regular job, I would've been fired years ago.  I'm not putting in the hours and I'm not making any money for the company I work for.  Thankfully, the CFO likes me.  And he sees all the non-writing things I do for the company as a whole.  And he appreciates the writing stuff I do do even if it's not making money, so I'm not in danger of being fired by him.

The CEO isn't so sure.  I may fire myself yet.  But not today.  

So, I'm not a real writer.  Not at the moment anyway.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe next year.  Until then, I'll be plodding along and hoping.

Updates... Finally

Sorry that it's been a couple months since I posted here.  If you've been following along over at The Writing Spectacle, you know why.  If not, I was helping a friend prepare to move.  That's done now, so I am trying to get back to my regularly scheduled life.  Which means writing... or rather writerly pursuits.

Yesterday, I picked up Untitled Fantasy again and got back to making edit notes.  I was a little over halfway through.  Now I'm a little bit more over halfway through.

I feared I wouldn't be able to get back into the groove after six weeks away, but I picked up right where I'd left off and it was like I hadn't ever stopped.  Which was totally cool.  Usually my brain is all like 'what the hell is happening here' and then I'm forced to go back and figure out where I left off.  Yay for brain cooperation.  

This is still a behemoth and I still have 42% of the book to make edit notes on, but I'm progressing again.  Now, let's see if the notes I made in July and August make any sense when I circle around and start inputting them into the manuscript.  

I've also been playing with the idea of writing that Christmas short story set in my genie world.  Don't get your hopes up.  I started that thing a few years ago and never got back to it.  But it would be a nice thing to finish and get out there in the world in time for the holidays.  We'll see.

One thing I really need to do is get back to marketing, but I'm not sure where to start and how well any of it will be received after all this time.  I mean, it's been a while since anything sold, so the rankings are in the basement and generally, whether we like it or not, that means people are less likely to want to take a chance on a new-to-them book with craptastic rankings.  It's best to market when you have a reason to market - like a new book out.  Since I don't have a new book out and I'm not going to any time soon, I guess I'll have to make up my own reasons and go for it.  Halloween is always a good reason.  Maybe I'll do a sale on the genie books around Halloween.  Maybe the model books.  We'll see.  Stay tuned.

Also, looking forward, we have a little less than three months to the end of the year.  Yeah, I know you don't want to think about that, but I need to.  Spreadsheets arem't going to make themselves and all that.  

So, what's on your plate these days?  What's up for the rest of the year?  Any plans?  Or are you hiding from the 2022 workload for a bit longer?

The Book... Err... Books

 Just so you know, I'm not dead.  And I really am working on the book.  Books.  Whatever.  

Okay, so it was a book.  As in singular.  Now, I think it might be several books.  A trilogy of books.  Each would complete an arc for the characters, with the overall main arc completed in the third book.  And subsequent books will follow the overall arc for these characters and this world.  

If I'm right, it'll go like this: 1) Training at the Academy 2) Hero Stuff 3) Epic Battle Stuff.  

Not sure if I can pull it off as three whole and complete novels, but I'm digging deeper into everyone and everything.  Fleshing it out.  Making it real.  And re-writing the beginning.  As I do this, I know it's going to be a behemoth if I leave it as just one book.  So, the idea now is to make this one book into three books.  We'll see how that goes as I keep making notes and writing new words into the beginning.  

Fantasy... it's a bear, but it's so much fun.

And hey, since I'm not sleeping, I have plenty of time to write.  Right?

Writing and Editing a Fantasy is Hard Work

Writing a book is hard.  I mean, if you want to do it right, you have all this stuff you have to do and remember and juggle so it doesn't get lost and so every single thing makes sense.

Writing a fantasy takes hard to a whole new level.

Let's say you write a book filled with normal people set in the present.  You can pull from everyday to populate your book and color their world.  Then you write a book with not-normal people (paranormal) or set in another time (history/dystopian).  You can still pull from everyday for the setting or your experiences as a human interacting with normal stuff.

Fantasy has not-normal people in not-normal places interacting with not-normal things.  That's a lot of stuff you have to make up in your head.  And it all still has to be believable.

There still has to be rules.  You make a critter that lives in the dark, and it can't have attributes of critters that live in the light.  That sort of stuff.  You make a character with loads of power, they still have to get tired.  Eat a muffin.  Sleep.  Your rules can go against normal rules of physics, certainly, but they need to be consistent.  (An all-powerful magic user would get pretty boring, by the way.)

Anyway, I kind of understand why a certain author takes forever to get his books to print.  Although, one might think he'd have his world down by now so he could easily slip into it and crank out whatever book number he's on.  For the record, I don't read this particular author's books, but I hear people complaining about them and how long it takes.  Perhaps someone could suggest a series bible type thing to make the process quicker.  :shrug:

As I sit trying to make progress on the editing of this book... still haven't nailed a title yet... and find myself looking at the percent meter and barely seeing it move from day to day, I'm struck by how much harder this seems than editing my other books.  I built a world.  And as I was building it, things changed between the beginning and the end, so now I need to make the beginning match the end in all the world-building ways.  

I don't know how many pages of notes I have now.  A lot.  Everything from a comma to 'this needs to be moved over there' to rewrite this scene.  And I'm only at 9% as of last night.  That's like 9000 words out of 97000.  Blerg.  So, I guess what I'm saying is... if you're sitting around waiting for this to be done, don't hold your breath.  This shit is hard.  I'm loving it, but that doesn't make it any easier.  Might make it harder because I want this to be the best book it can be and that's going to take a lot of work.  

But I'll do it.  Sometimes I lay in bed at night wondering why I don't just go back to mystery and suspense.  Give myself an easier task.  But I started this and I am going to finish it.  I'm mulish that way sometimes.  And this will be so satisfying when it's done.

What's a task you've completed that you knew was hard going in but had to complete?  

Nothing New Under the Sun

There really is nothing new under the sun.  I was scrolling through my newsfeed this morning and saw a post by a cover artist I follow of a cover for a publisher.  On it was a beastie who looks a lot like the beastie I was just trying to draw.  (His was way better, of course, but then again, he's a pro and I'm a dabbler.)  

I assume his drawing was to the specifications of whatever author the cover was for.  Which means two authors who've never met each other pulled similar beasties out of their heads at nearly the same time.  

I've been thinking about this a bit.  I mean, look at the commercials - specifically the taglines.  Marketing people have to be running out of new things to say about their products, or they're becoming increasingly stupid.  (Here's one that's still new and fresh - with a cat - but most commercials aren't this smart.)  I wish I could remember the worst one I saw the other day.  It went something like 'Dog food  brand... because you have a dog'.  It wasn't dog food, but the gist was the same.  'Eye drops... because you have eyes.'  Maybe it was 'Skin cream... because you have skin.'  Yeah, that sound closer to right.

Anyway, with mankind having written stuff for centuries now, it's hard to come up with something totally new.  

I've talked about this before - a friend wrote a book, got it published, and then got crap about it on the internet because it's similar to another book that had been published a couple years prior.  I had read the previous book and I read my friend's book when it was still pre-published.  There were similarities in the plot and in some of the devices, but that's where the similarities ended.  One's book was lighthearted, the other's was more serious.  

So, my friend dropped her book.  Which was too bad because I thought it was the better book.  I had a major sad that the previous author did nothing to stop her fans from attacking my friend.  A 'hey guys, thanks for your support, but she didn't steal my work, so cut it out' would've been nice. And even sadder is that both books had a particular twist in them that was similar to one in a popular movie, so there really wasn't something NEW to 'steal' anyway.

How do we, as writers, keep this from happening?  How do we write something NEW when it seems like everything out there has been done already?  No clue.  I guess we write our books to the best of our abilities and hope that what we've created isn't too similar to someone else's work.  

You could, of course, read everything that's already been written, so you know for sure.  Heh.  You could research everything and change whatever seems similar, but you run the risk of 1) changing it so that it's now like something else and 2) ruining your own damn book.  

For my part, it's a matter of read what I can and research what I can and hope for the best.  Yes, I will probably change some basic things about the mistmorph.  (Have to research that name so I don't end up having named my critter something someone else has already used.)  Specifically, the quills running along its spine - which is what makes it exceptionally close to what that artist had drawn.  Other than that, I think I'm safe.  His had a wolf head - mine has a panther head with bat eyes and ears.  His was furry and mine is furless with slick gray skin.  Not really that big a deal.  

I really am trying to write this so that it comes off as fresh and original.  I already talked about having a similar name to another fantasy author which gives me a slight stumbler from the get go.  Nothing I can do about that.  People will think what they want to think whether there's a rational basis for it or not.  

And there's a slight plot device that similar to another popular book, but the actual thing and its mythology is, I hope, adequately unusual as to make that a non-issue.  

Is it any wonder fantasy novels take so damn long?  Maybe I'll talk about that next time.

Finished? Yeah, I Guess So

Once again, I wrote this and forgot to post it...  Sorry it's late.

----

Last night, I finished Untitled Fantasy.  At the time, I wasn't sure I was finished.  In fact, I said something on FB about it being finished unless my brain said otherwise while I was trying to fall asleep.  But my brain was quiet.  Well, other than starting the next book.  That didn't last long, though.  I told my brain to shut up and it did for a change.  Best night's sleep I've had in weeks.

Now I need to let the book marinate for a while.  A week.  Maybe two.  Maybe less.  The story will tell me when it's ready to be edited.  

I guess I really need to find a title for the damn thing.  Everything I think of sounds lame at this point.  No biggie.  Rumor Has It was 'Duke Noble 1' until it was time to make the cover.

From here, I need to wade into the book and decorate.  It needs paint and furniture.  Or frosting and fondant.  Whatever metaphor suits you.  

Anyway, now I can relax a bit.  This story I started in 2011 is finally done.  I'm pleased with it overall.  It ain't perfect, but its imperfections can be sanded away and polished up.  Yay for edits.

Oh, here's another song for you.  This one really speaks to the muse for me.  Bottom of the River by Delta Rae.  Watch the video.  It's totally cool.  I think she's supposed to be a witch being dragged out of her house in the middle of the night and taken to the river.  But she gets them in the end.  Hehe.  Fun.

Music and Words

Recently, I created a station on Jango specifically for this book, which is as close to a playlist as I'll ever get for my books.  I started out with the band Of Monsters and Men then added in The Lumineers and Phillip Phillips and then Delta Rae.  All artists that, for me, say 'fantasy'.

It has totally helped me get in the mood for writing.  Even when I don't feel like writing, once I throw this on, I can sit down and at least knock out a few hundred words.  And this is totally awesome, considering I've had a tough time these past couple years getting the words out.

Last night, I was in the process of knocking out way more than a few words when a song came on that was totally not in line with the mood I was going for.  Oh, it was in line with the general theme of the station, so I wasn't going to give it a thumbs down and have it removed permanently from the playlist.  I was just going to click next and move on.  But by the time I had made the necessary move from Word to browser, I was already hooked on the song.  Then I went to my search engine and looked for the video of it and listened not only to the song, but to the lead-in where the songwriter talks about writing the song and why he wrote it.  (The song was No Piece in Quiet by Delta Rae, btw.  It's pretty and kinda sad.)  

By the time that was finished, I was derailed.  Pretty and sad is fine, but it definitely didn't put me in a place where I could write the next BIG SCENE.  I mean, if the next scene had been a pretty and sad scene it would've been great inspiration, but the next scene is fraught with tension and action.  I need zippier music for that.

In the end, getting derailed was okay because it was after 8 anyway and I did already have over 1700 words.  The song probably derailed me because I was already getting tired.  My writing stamina ain't what it used to be.  I let it atrophy.  Still, I really should've just clicked past this song and kept writing.  Worked on rebuilding the stamina and all that.

What about you?  Does music help or hurt your writing?  If you don't write, does it help or hurt your focus on other things?  Do you ever just get derailed by a song?  

Epiphany

I've been struggling this week, trying to create an awesome climax for this book.  The big battle scene.  What's a gal to do when she's created a baddy so bad that nothing could stop it?  

I knew when I reached the point of actually needing to do something about the baddy that I wouldn't be able to sleep unless I fixed this.  The hamster was running hard on its wheel and not getting anywhere.  And it would continue to run.

So, I stopped.  I got up off my chair and put on my workout clothes.  This is the point where I'd usually go for a walk, but it's so hot and humid right now, I'd probably drop over halfway through.  Instead, I got on the exercise bike.  (Which I've moved into the spare room, positioned so that it looks out a window and I've placed the stereo next to it so I can listen to jams, too.)  Eighteen minutes on that sucker.

I still didn't have the answer, even if I was in a more-receptive place.  

I flopped into my recliner and vegged out while Hubs watch Mountain Men.  (He loves that show.)  And I let my mind wander over the problem.  I was determined to figure this out no matter how late I would have to stay up.  What to do.  What to do.  What to do.

Epiphany!

I got right up, grabbed my beverage, and headed into the office where I made magic.  The answer was bloody brilliant, if I do say so myself.  

Plus, I got it all out and finished in time to go to bed at the normal time.  Of course, I was totally hopped up on cold coffee drink and iced tea by then, so while I had hoped to avoid not being able to sleep because my brain was turning over the problem, I still didn't sleep because of the caffeine.  

Time and readers will tell whether my brilliance was actually brilliant, but right now, I'm loving it.  

It looks like I will actually finish this book this time.  The hard part is over.  Now there's the denouement and some additional excitement as there's still a thing or two the characters have to deal with.  (Which actually might be dealt with in edits.)  I'm just over 89K words as of last night.  Maybe another 5K... perhaps 10.  

I do love epiphanies.  I wish they'd happen more often, but then again, they wouldn't be as awesome if they came more frequently, would they?

Writing for the Love of Writing

Yesterday, my friend Silver posted about writing for herself.  Which dovetailed nicely into something I've been thinking about this week.

Why am I suddenly writing right now when I hadn't been able to write for a while?  I stopped thinking about what was marketable and started writing what I wanted to write.  If for no other reason than I needed to write again.  

Hell, the whole reason I never finished this fantasy in the first place boiled down to worrying about whether it would be something I could sell.  It's why I couldn't muster the will to finish Duke #2.  It lays beneath every unfinished novel I have on my harddrive.  Including the ones I didn't finish before I started publishing my own books.

Of course, back when I wasn't publishing, I was querying and the thought was more along the lines of 'why finish this is no agent is going to want to look at it?' Which in a circuitous way led back to selling books. Down the road.  Eventually.  

I get to worrying whether anyone will want a book and I lose faith in the book.  Yep.  That shit's a killer.

So, yeah, I picked up this old book I never finished and now I'm working on finishing it.  And still, the demon whispers that I'll never sell it.  I'll never be able to make a cover for it or buy a cover for it.  I'll never be able to pay for marketing.  Why bother finishing it?  

Because it's the book I want to write and I'm going to fucking finish it this time.  Screw the market.  I realized a long time ago that the market - as traditional publishing sees it - doesn't jibe with my set of philosophies anyway.  And no, that isn't sour grapes.  It just is what it is.  

There's a market out there for me somewhere.  It might not be huge.  Or it might be bigger than I think.  It's filled with people who want a good story, well-written and well-organized* and well-edited.  People who want to be entertained and maybe think a little while they're doing it (or not because my some of my books encourage rather than force you to think about issues).  I seek to entertain.  I seek to uplift through heroic actions when I can, but the entertainment is the priority here.

Anyway, you might not see me publish anything else any time soon.  I'm writing.  You also might not see me marketing stuff because putting all that effort into marketing and not seeing sales harshes my groove.  And I certainly don't need that.  

I'm writing for the love of writing again.  And that's all that really matters.

*Typing those words made me remember a particularly heinous reaction to a paper I wrote in college.  The prof said it was well-written and well-organized but he didn't like the topic, so he gave me a D.  (The assignment was to write a paper on some form of aggression.  I chose to write it on 'assertiveness as positive aggression'.  He hated that.  Buttwart that he was.)  Looking back, it was probably my first taste of a bad review of good writing.  He was definitely not my target market.