The Unknown

It’s a strange time for Scribblerati Agent Shawn. My WIP is once again back overseas, nestled up against all those British 1’s and 0’s on my editor’s computer – and I wait.

But for what?

Decisions

We make decisions every day, and even the smallest affect the course of our life. For instance: soy milk or almond? Okay, maybe that one doesn't have a significant impact, but the experience is different, and those experiences do put you on a slightly different fork of the road than you would have been on otherwise. Even the act of writing this blog sends out little ripples into the course of my life and the lives of those who read it.

But what about those moments when you reach one of those big forks, where the course you choose takes you off the well-traveled path you’re familiar with and sends you into the unknown? Like getting on that airplane that’s going to take you overseas for the first time, or debating that job offer that will take you across the country, or looking at your girl and thinking, I’m going to marry her.

That’s where I feel like I’m at today. The road hasn't forked yet, but I can see it running up towards this mountain with the words BIG DECISION carved in the rock face, and I have no idea how my life is going to look afterwards.

That decision is going to come in the form of an email with British 1’s and 0’s. My editor is going to tell me just how close I am to publishing, and then…

Do I just have more of the same to look forward to? Do I throw in the towel? Start something new? Revel in her praise, put To Kill the Goddess on Amazon, and focus even harder on writing the next?

The wait is driving me crazy!

Good Advice

So there’s this kid at work. He’s a writer, or at least on his way to being one. He found out that I write and we ended up at lunch, where he proceeded to tell me all the problems he’s having with his writing. It was so familiar – like listening to myself from a decade ago – trying to figure out how to do the most basic things.

So I gave him a few pointers, a little try this, or how about that, and it felt good to be able to help someone out – even if only a little bit. But then he really began to open up, and his questions turned into a litany of self-doubt. How he doesn't measure up to JK Rowling, or his own expectations, and how sometimes he despairs of ever being any good.

I finally stopped him and said, “Don’t be so hard in yourself. You are at the beginning of a lifelong journey and you can’t expect to be perfect right out of the gate. Think about how many canvases Claude Monet must have thrown away before painting waterlilies. And consider that I recently heard an interview where Stephen King said how ten years ago he wasn't a good enough writer to write his new book.”

He looked at me, really looked at me for maybe the first time we sat down, and I said, “Be patient with yourself. Put words on the page. The rest will come with time.”

Maybe I should listen to myself, eh?

That fork will get here when it gets here, and when it does, I’ll face what comes (or doesn't).

The unknown will resolve itself when – as my father would say – it’s damn good and ready.

I just wish it would hurry the fuck up.

To Genre, Or Not To Genre

I’ve been thinking a lot about genre lately.

Specifically, genre as it relates to the speculative fiction we write here at the Scribblerati, as well as my Work in Progress, To Kill the Goddess.

Exhibit #1

It all started while reading Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. This was a recommendation by my editor (I’ve made a habit of asking her what’s good) and I read it over our Fourth of July vacation to San Francisco.

In case you’re not familiar with it, Life After Life is a story about this woman – Ursula – who is reborn into the same body every time she dies. Each life is a redo, starting in the 1920s, and going through World War II or beyond, assuming she lives that long.

It was a fascinating story – mostly. Sometimes she made terrible choices and the story was hard to read, other times she chose better and the book was fun. But the longer it went on, and the more times Ursula died, it became… tedious. This is not to say it was a bad book, or that it was poorly written, because it was none of those things, but the author shied away from getting into why Ursula kept being reborn. What was the point of it all? Was there intent behind this miracle? Was there a lesson to be learned? A change to be made?

None of those questions were answered, and maybe I’m reaching here, but I think I know why. The answer to those questions would have taken the book out of the realm of literary fiction and into genre.

Exhibit #2

My own writing has been coming along quite nicely. I finished a new draft based on my editor’s comments, and now I’m making one last cleanup pass before I send it back to her. The process has taken about six months, which is longer than I’d hoped, but not as long as I’d feared. During that time, I’ve become a whole new writer. I’ve refined and honed my style, vastly improved my self-editing, but the most important thing I’ve learned is how to focus the story around character.

Character, is entirely what Life after Life was about. Ursula was the same character throughout the book, but her character changed (impressive, eh?). In regards to my own work, To Kill the Goddess has (I hope) become as much about the characters in it as it is about the fantastic world they live in, or the terrible/exciting events taking place around them.

A confession

I have – and this is an entirely unexpected development – thought about giving up writing speculative fiction.

It is, I think, a bit of snootiness, and a notion that will fade with time, but there is merit behind the thought. I still think about those cool sci-fi/fantasy things that used to completely melt my butter, but the more I think about character, the less I think about the facets of my story that make it genre.

I see now why so many choose to write literary fiction. There is a purity there, a laser focus on character that can so easily get buried within the fantastic elements of genre.

Genre, whether it’s fantasy, science fiction, dystopia, or something in between, allows the writer to confront their characters with challenges entirely outside the experience of our normal lives.

If I wasn’t writing genre, I could never so completely turn my characters’ lives upside down, not in any sort of way that wasn’t retreading events we’re all intimately familiar with (e.g. World War II), or turning it into a historical fantasy. Genre lets me tell a story that is fresh, engaging, and exciting.

Could I tell a fresh, engaging, and exciting story without writing genre?

Absolutely.

And I might even do that someday.

But I could never write To Kill the Goddess that way.

Indie Publishing: Editors, why you hide?

Hey Scribblerati fans, today I'm blogging about my experience as a first-time Indie Author looking for an Editor.

You can find my post, Indie Publishing: Editors, why you hide? over on my blog.

I hope to see you there!

In Which Shawn Merges Onto the Self Publishing Highway

Note: This post originally appeared on my personal blog Writing and Whatnot.

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My book is done! Woot!

But I've been here before and here too.

I'd like to say, this time I'm really done, but now I'm older and wiser (ha!) and I know there's more work ahead. Have I taken this thing far as I can by myself? Yes, unless one of the few people who I've lined up to read this says, "Hey this part blows." I'd fix that but otherwise, yep, I'm done.

So what's next?

What I'm not doing: querying agents.

I want creative freedom, fair compensation for my efforts, and full control of my intellectual property rights. Agents work with traditional publishers and traditional publishers won't give me any of those things.

What I will do: self publish

But not this kind of self publishing:

[David] has no interest in self-publishing and worries that the flood of substandard self-published books is creating a backlash. "You have to be dedicated to the craft of writing," he said. "I don't think doing straight e-books answers that. You don't get better. There isn't an editor, an agent or a line editor to go through the books with a very fine-tooth comb to massage it into something that is of high quality. Instead, you have people who think the first draft of whatever they put down is good stuff."

That's David Housewright in a recent Star Tribune article. I understand his point of view, it's point of view that he shares with many, but I do not believe that self publishing and producing a quality product are mutually exclusive. Plenty of authors have already demonstrated that self published works can be of high quality and not only do I plan on doing the same, but I plan on doing it entirely though ebooks. Will I have a Print On Demand option somewhere down the line? Probably, but that's getting ahead of myself.

First, I have to write the best book I can. That involves hiring a story editor and then making revisions. It also involves hiring a copy editor and making more revisions. Finally, there's the book cover designer. No revisions there - whew!

So as you can see, there's no part of what comes next that is going to be easy or expedient. Or cheap. I have a lot of hard work left.

I think this puts it best:

When I suggest that self-publishing a book is too easy, I mean it in the sense that descending a mountain by jumping off is too easy.

That's Clark G. Vanderpool in a post titled CAUTION – Self-Publishing Is Too Easy, which I have pulled from Porter Anderson's Writing on the Ether. Clark goes on to say:

It can be accomplished with minimal effort, little or no assistance, and very short-term planning, but too often the too easy can lead to disaster.

Unfortunately, some authors who consider self-publishing seem ready to take the swan dive rather than endure a controlled descent.

That is what David was talking about. More from Clark:

I began my analogy at the top of the mountain…Now, in the rarefied atmosphere of accomplishment, he or she (our author) searches for the fastest way to disseminate this newly written creation to the population below. A relatively small percentage of authors will be able to descend in the harness of a publisher’s parachute. The thing about parachutes is that they require a commitment preceded by a leap of faith and followed by a lack of control.

And with no publisher’s parachute?

And that is what I was talking about. As well as this:

For the rest of us who do not wish to remain on the summit like a solitary Oracle awaiting the sincere reader to scale the heights in search of our wise words, there is always self-publishing–an increasingly accessible option. But the ease of access carries with it the temptation to ignore the process. Those who succeed through self-publishing do so, more often than not, by careful steps and with the help of a guide who has been over the ground before.

If an author will invest as much effort in getting down the mountain as in reaching the summit, self-publishing can be a rewarding path.

So wish me luck, friends. I'm about to go where no Scribblerati agent has gone before. I'm going to jump off the mountain, but I'm going to do it the right way. The hard way.

I'll keep you posted.

So here's a crazy idea...

I've been working on a lot of edits to To Kill the Goddess lately and I'm at this phase where I'm doing a lot of really down and dirty editing. In the process, I find myself thinking about the structure of my book in ways I haven't previously focused on. One result of new focus is some rather serious changes to the arc of one of my characters, which I've talked about here. Another result is this bizarre idea:

What if I were to split my book up into three separate books?

Let me back up a for a moment. At this point I'm 99% certain that I will self publish To Kill the Goddess. This means, at least at the outset, that I'll be going entirely digital. Furthermore, my last version of To Kill the Goddess clocked in at roughly 130,000 words. That's one porker of a book. It's not long because it's bloated and full of unnecessary fluff, I just need that much space to give each of my five separate point of view characters the the fair shake that they deserve.

Now back to my crazy idea. Most books these days are around 70,000 to 80,000 words. That means To Kill the Goddess is nearly the size of two books all by itself. In addition, my outline has, for a long time now, split To Kill the Goddess into three separate parts, each about 45,000 words. In some ways, these parts almost work like acts of a play. Part one introduces most of the characters and defines what at stake. In part two, plot lines begin to intersect and the story evolves. And in part three, as I like to say, the shit hits the fan.

Individually, those three parts would each be a little on the short side for a full novel, and no, the first two wouldn't be self-contained, nor would they achieve much resolution, and yet… why not split them up? Where does it say you have to tell a story all in one chunk? Comics don't do it. Neither do series. Did the Wheel of Time ever actually end?

Remember, were talking digital here. I don't have to worry about printing, or contracts, or any of the other issues if traditional publisher would have to deal with. All I have to do is format three different files and send them in.

The biggest question I have is how the mass public react to an idea like this because, as far as I know, it hasn't been done. Although it seems like it could have appeal. For example, someone could try out part one for $1.99 and if they didn't like it then they wouldn't have to buy any more. Or, I could give away part one on a promotional basis and then charge $1.99 for each of the other two parts. I'm sure someone will complain and say I'm just trying to make an extra buck, but there are a lot of e-books out there selling for a completely asinine amount of money and I guess if somebody wants to complain about paying $5.97 for all three parts of my book then there's really nothing I can do about that.

Anyway, it's all just an idea at this point. Just one of the many rolling around in my head as I look into the Wild West of self-publishing and wonder what the hell I'm getting myself into!

Be a little dangerous

You have no idea how badly I want to be done with To Kill the Goddess.

And I'm close. So frakking close!

But there's still work to do.

I started working on the public beta draft of To Kill the Goddess shortly after the new year. I was feeling good. I had two solid drafts of Witness It (my new novella) completed and I was ready to kick some ass and take some names.

“This should be a breeze,” I thought. “I shouldn't need more than a day or two of fine editing per chapter and the whole thing should be done in a month or so.” And for the most part, I'm on track. I'm cruising through chapters, one after another, and then…

You see, here's my problem: my thought process is really methodical. That's great when we're talking about  down and dirty low level sentence structure changes and that sort of thing. It's demanding work, but it's also kind of like climbing a steep hill; you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Unfortunately, all that methodical logic only takes you so far. What do you do when the path disappears? What do you do when you come across a comment as vague and troubling as, “the argument these two characters is having feels wrong.”

Speaking very broadly, there are three basic tools that are writer needs. The first is to think logically. For example, event or action A leads to B, leads to C. The second is creative inspiration, coming up with those great ideas and twists that make for an engaging story. The third is the ability to blend the two, or maybe more appropriately, to develop the ability to sense which tool to employ at any given point in time.

My first impulse is to tackle a problem with logic. I want to reason my way out of everything. When I see “the argument between these two characters feels wrong” I immediately start looking within the argument to fix it, or to the section immediately preceding it, and when that fails I get frustrated. Part of the reason for that frustration is that I just want to be done with this book, but the greater and more important reason is that now I'm out of my comfort zone. Logic has failed me and I need to turn to that other tool, to creativity. I need a burst of inspiration to pull me out of the hole I've dug for myself.

Those situations are always a challenge for me because I have to go against my nature. I can't tackle the problem head-on. I have to free my thoughts from that rational part of my mind that wants to grab hold of and fix everything. I have to set aside expectation and want.

Because sometimes there is no straight path to the top of the hill. Because sometimes you have to let go and be … a little dangerous.

WIP Update: Jaskaran's Tale

Okay, I'm not gonna lie, it feels pretty damn good to sit here and write that I've completed the first draft on my second story. Count it, that's two, baby!

*dances wildly*

Yes, I'm pretty impressed with myself right now. I know it's only the first draft of a novella, not a complete book, and there's still a ton of editing ahead of me, but it's still pretty darn cool to know that within the matter of a few months I should have two different stories ready to be sent out there.

So you want deets? The novella is tentatively titled Jaskaran's Tale. I know that title doesn't reach out and grab you from the front of the shirt like To Kill the Goddess does, but I think in this case that simple name serves my purpose well. Jaskaran's Tale is a companion story to To Kill the Goddess. It's a tragic, YA-ish love story that follows the exploits of Jaskaran, a female character who plays a minor role in To Kill the Goddess. My original plan for To Kill the Goddess was for Jaskaran to be one of the major characters, but it soon became apparent that her story was tangential to the rest of the rest of the novel and so *shredding noise* I ripped her out.

Fast forward a about a year and a half, to sometime in late September. I was sitting in Common Roots, drinking a beer – as I am wont to do before Scribblerati meet ups – and working on plotting out the broad arc to To Kill the Goddess’ sequel when I flipped the page in my notebook and wrote Jaskaran's name on the page. One Surly later I had the shell of her story mapped out and now I have just a hair under 15,000 words completed.

My plan for the next month or two is to edit the heck out of Jaskaran's Tale and have it ready for the Scribblerati to review sometime January-ish. After that? Well, I'm not sure.
Jaskaran's Tale and To Kill the Goddess both exist in the same world and in the same timeframe so I thought about using one to help sell the other. But do I put them out at the same time? Put one out before the other?

Yeesh. Marketing. Now I have to figure that out too!

RIP

Years ago I was having a conversation with my dad. We were sitting on his crappy couch in the little apartment he'd rented after separating from my mom. I don't remember exactly why I was there because at the time I was married, graduated, and no longer living back at home. I was probably just there to visit, and it probably wasn't too long after him setting up in the apartment.

We talked about a lot of things that day, most of which I no longer remember, but there was one thing he asked me that I'll never forget. He asked me why I didn't have any kids yet. I wasn't really prepared for the question, but I answered truthfully. I said I didn't know and that it just hadn't been a priority. He asked me, “Don't you want something to pass on in this world? Some kind of legacy that will last after you're gone?” I told him I didn't know if I'd ever have kids, but that I hoped that someday my legacy would live on in a book that people could read long after my time on this world was done.

Strange that I finished the beta draft of my first novel a day before Steve Jobs died.

I don't expect to be famous. All I want is to make a nice little ripple in this pond we live in. All I want is for some geeky picked on kid, or some tired and aspiring college student, or somebody's mom or dad to pick up my book and find a little escape from the crappy world that we live in.

If that was my legacy, I’d put that on my tombstone and die a happy man.

I can't imagine changing the world.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.

Fall Update

Welcome back loyal readers!

It's a gorgeous time of year, isn't it? Everything's still lush and green and yet it's cooled off and dried out and there's just a nip of fall in the morning and evening air. It's perfect weather for outdoor barbecues, Big Ten college football (go Gophers!), and a WIP update from yours truly!

You may recall this post back in February where I said I'd finished my rewrite of To Kill the Goddess. Now I can one up that because I've just recently finished my Beta Draft! That's six months of work for those keeping track. Six months where I edited the heck out of everything, rewrote a few chapters, and generally holed up inside my room for hours on end and disappeared from my wife's life.

Thank God it's over!

I mean seriously, it was a frakking death march.

So what am I up to now? I have to admit, there's a little bit of relaxing going on. One of the big reasons I was making a big push to get done was so that I would have time to watch a bunch of college football without feeling guilty. So I'm doing that. (How about that Jerry Kill, eh?)

I've also been doing some writing. Something new. Something without all the fighting and biting that takes place at the end of a good sci-fi/fantasy novel. It's a little something I've tentatively entitled, "A Red Blooded American Guy and Gal Get Stuck in an Elevator." Yes, it's a little outside my usual genre, okay a lot, and I won't be querying it, but damn is it nice to write something different for once. It's like standing up and stretching after sitting at your work desk for hours on end, only just a wee bit different.

Of course, all this begs the question: Shawn, what are you going to do with this fancy pants novel now that it's done?

Good question.

I've written a lot of posts about self-publishing, and many of them have ended with me saying how happy I am I am I don't have to decide whether I want to self publish or not. Well, time's kind of running out on that.

So here's what I'm thinking. I'm going to query TKTG. Yes, I'm going to take the plunge, but like everything else I seem to do, I'm not going to do it the traditional way. My query letter is going to say something along the lines of: “Yes, I'm seeking agent representation, but I don't really have any interest in signing a traditional contract with a traditional publisher. I want to self publish, or I want to publish through a publishing house that puts e-book distribution before physical book distribution.”

Yeah, clearly I have to wordsmith that, but you get my drift.

So am I crazy? I don't know. What I do know is that every day I see new tweets about some bookstore or another closing and about how e-books are taking a bigger and bigger slice of the traditional market and that just isn't good. The way I see it, it's simple economics. An industry based on physical book distribution can't exist in today's environment, not without change, and I just don't see enough of that happening. Don't get me wrong, it would be a dream come true to publish with somebody like TOR, but I just don't think I can take that risk right now. Like I said here, my worst fear is that I would sign a contract and then in the 18 to 24 months it would take to get my book on shelves, the industry would fall apart and I'd be left with my book rights wrapped up by a company that was either severely wounded, bankrupt, or worse.

I'm just not gonna do it.

So there you have it, folks. Maybe I'm crazy, but maybe I'm not. All I know, is that I feel like I'm standing at the entrance to a long, dark tunnel that has no visible end and I don't know where I'm going to end up, but it's COOL. I feel like somewhere inside that tunnel is a door and just like Roland Deschain, I'm gonna open it, and it's gonna take me to places I've never been before.


Stay tuned….

On Diversicon and the Success of Amanda Hocking

So a couple of writing groups, a senior editor at Tor, and a bunch of writing enthusiasts go to a con…

No, that isn't the start of a really poor joke, that's what happened at Diversicon last weekend. The Scribblerati were there, as were some of the Wyrdsmiths and several others. We, The Scribblerati, hosted a panel on writing groups and then we attended several other of the sessions. It was our first con and we’re all glad we went, but now that we have dipped our toes into the great pool of con-dom (get your mind out of the gutter) we’re ready for more. I think Wiscon or Convergence might be in our future. Stay tuned!

Among the many things I heard at Diversicon, one offhand comment really caught my attention. The comment was made about self-publishing and was made in a rather disdainful in tone. It went something like this, “there's a clear difference in quality of self published books.”

The Diversicon comment wasn't the first time I've heard that opinion about the quality of self published books. I've done a lot of research on self-publishing because, as longtime readers of this blog know, I have been thinking long and hard about self-publishing my WIP, To Kill the Goddess. But one thing I hadn't done (until recently) is actually buy a self published book and read it. So, a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to check out some of the competition. Who better to start with then someone who has turned themselves into a millionaire by self-publishing?

I chose Switched (Tryelle Trilogy, book 1) by Amanda Hocking.

At this point I've only read about half of Switched. The story is put together well and the technical/grammatical editing is actually pretty good (although not as good as what I'm used to seeing in print) but there is, IMHO, room for improvement. In fact, there are things in this book that would be called out in a Scribblerati critique session. And speaking of the Scribblerati, I’m willing to go on the record as saying that everything we are currently turning out is just as technically well written, if not better, than Switched.

So maybe the person at Diversicon who made that comment was somewhat right, at least in this case, but I think they are missing the point. Amanda Hocking may not have written the best book I've ever read, but neither was it the worst and, if you ask me, I think Amanda Hocking is brilliant. She has made a boatload of money off the Tryelle Trilogy and I don't care how you slice it, that is nothing if not brilliant.

It's also, in my opinion, not terribly surprising.

One thing I think that we writers are is perfectionists. I mean, we are artists and artists tend to be highly critical of their own work. I'm no different. We tend to look at our art and say we need to make it the absolute best it can be and while that's great, the lesson that Amanda Hocking's success is giving us is that it's not necessary to be great.

I think this is something that people in the movie and music business have known for a long time. You and I both know a lot of money has been made off less than perfect songs and movies. Similarly, Amanda Hocking is telling us that we writers don't need to write War and Peace in order to be hugely successful. We just need to write something that's “good enough.”

If you stop and think about it, this notion of “good enough,” combined with our ability to self-publish something that falls into that category, is actually quite a revelation. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating a new world order where books are full of spelling errors, poor grammar, and disconnected plot threads. But maybe we writers should take a look at Amanda Hocking’s success and think about “good enough” the next time we’re staring down the face of a contract that pays a fraction of what we could earn by self-publishing.

After all, I imagine that after Amanda Hocking reads reviews that call into question the quality of her work, she laughs all the way to the bank.

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UPDATE 8-13-2011

I like to maintain a positive attitude toward self-publishing, which can be challenging given how many people out there bagging on it. But today I am bummed out because just had a brief yet interesting twitter exchange with @jane_l regarding a HORRIBLE self-pubbed book (you can find the review here, but I don't recommend it because of the subject matter involved).

I think it's one thing to self-pub a novel with a few grammatical errors, or one that may not be as polished as it could be, but it's another thing entirely to self-pub something that's just awful.

As someone who would like to self-pub someday, that makes me mad. What is the likelihood that someone would take a chance on my self published novel after reading something as horrible as the book mentioned above?

Clearly, self-publishing, should I choose to go that route, will be challenging.

Shawn Throws Down with the Wyrdsmiths!

Okay, so really it's more of a thoughtful, civilized, and engaging conversation, but that just isn't as snappy, you know?


Tate started it here

Then Eleanor posted here and here.


That's where I "threw down" - check out the comments. (I'm like a moth to flame when it comes to e-pubbing.)

Then Doug posted replied here.

My Superfly-splash is in the comments.

Will there be more?  Stay tuned...

I'm done!

This week I finished my rewrite of To Kill the Goddess. It's a pretty amazing achievement, but I don't plan on talking about that much in this post. The Scribblerati will be critiquing my last three chapters on Monday and I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched, if you know what I mean!

So what am I going to talk about? Doing nothing. Yes, you heard it here, I plan rewarding myself on taking the next couple of weeks and doing absolutely nothing - related to the book at any rate. Now, I'll probably be thinking about book 2 nonstop and I might even jot down a few things here and there, but the focus of my next few weeks is going to be not writing.

I need some time to do nothing.

#1 Do Nothing Activity: spend more time with the lovely @mplstravelkitty

Sometimes I think I would see more of my lovely wife if we had two dogs to walk and three kids to ferry back and forth to hockey, gymnastics, and baseball. The lovely @mplstravelkitty has been amazing through this long journey and I'm looking forward to a little do nothing time with the love of my life.

#2 Do Nothing Activity: READ!

Everyone else in the Scribblerati seems to be able to write and read just fine, but I can't do it. I'm not exactly a slow reader, but I’m far from the fastest. On a normal day, by the time I've been to work, made dinner, and spent a few minutes with the lovely @mplstravelkitty I'm usually left with an hour or two to write and even less time for any reading. I just can't get into a novel if I only have 10 or 15 min. at a stretch to read. Comics are another story, and I've definitely found refuge there, but holy frakking cow do I want to read a book! I have three on tap and I plan on doing a little book review blogging with them as I finish. Stay tuned!

#3 Do Nothing Activity: Purge!

This particular activity is already in full swing. If any of you have seen my man cave you know it's wall-to-wall books, comics, and God knows only what else. Two weeks ago we pulled it all out (that took a week just by itself), had new carpet installed, and painted. At first, when the lovely @mplstravelkitty tentatively mentioned the idea, I was dead set against it. The mere thought of moving all that crap out of my room and then back in was, quite simply, terrifying. But then, one night when I was in there finishing up To Kill the Goddess I looked around at all the crap and I thought: purge! So that's what I'm doing, and there is a really amazing symmetry with this purge coinciding with the completion of my rewrite. I feel like I'm stepping off the plank into new, uncharted waters.

And speaking of uncharted waters….

#4 Do Nothing Activity: catch up on the RSS feeds and figure out what in the heck is going on with the publishing industry.

Has anyone else been paying attention out there? There is some crazy stuff going down. I plan on blogging more about this later, but it appears as if the publishing industry may be falling into that tailspin I've been yammering on about for a while. The landscape could look a lot different in several months to a year from now and while nobody knows anything for certain, I feel absolutely confident in saying there are some choppy waters ahead. The million-dollar question is once the storm is over will the industry see land or will it get sucked down into a spiraling maelstrom of corporate death?

#5 Do Nothing Activity: Blog!

Expect to see more of these in the next couple of weeks.

Until then, I have a book to read.

Interesting Bits

Interesting Bits – my thoughts on a few interwebby things I found interesting

Foreign Rights: How Authors Tap a Rich Vein of Royalties

I really can't disagree with anything the author of this article says. I can, however, disagree with the underlying subtext, which appears to be: here's something else those silly self-pubbers don't get. Clearly, the author of this article did not explicitly say that, but for the sake of this post I would like to focus on that particular notion.

This isn't the first time I've seen defenders of the mainstream publishing status quo make the argument that those who self publish are missing out on all the advantages that come along with mainstream publishing. I can't really disagree with that either. Mainstream publishers bring many advantages to their clients, including foreign rights. The problem with that particular argument is that there is no guarantee that anyone will be interested in obtaining foreign rights for your book. So while one can claim that foreign rights sales are an advantage to the author who chooses to mainstream published, it's only an advantage if it's a realized.

(I could belabor this point, especially in regards to marketing, but that's another post.)

The other thought-provoking bit about this article is that I don't see why foreign rights sales and self-publishing need to be mutually exclusive. The article states that navigating those murky legal waters can be terribly challenging for the typical author and again I can't disagree with that. But whoever said that you can't self publish AND have an agent who understands these things?

I've mentioned before that I'm pretty close to finishing my novel, To Kill the Goddess. Once I finish I will start querying agents just like everyone else. The difference between me and those who are only looking to mainstream publish will be that I will be keeping an eye open for an agent who is interested in representing me even though I may choose to self publish.

There are of course a whole host of questions around how that particular arrangement might work, but I've caught wind of these relationships here and there on the interwebs and I think that sort of thing just might be the wave of the future.

Hmmm… That sounds like another post too…

Goodbye Cruel World - BLACK HEART Writing Retreat

Doesn't that sound like heaven?

After having been unemployed for 2 1/2 months this summer I totally know what Holly is talking about. I can't possibly convey how much of an incredible experience that was for me to have that block of uninterrupted time. It's just like she says in the article, you really do become immersed in your story. You think about it all the time and you even find yourself dreaming about it.

But could I really go away for a month and do nothing but write? I kinda don't think so.
One of the nice things about being at home was that I didn't have to be away from the lovely @mplstravelkitty. Actually, after being by myself all day I was like a big puppy dog by the time she got home from work. I was all like, “How are you doing? How was your day? Guess what I made for dinner?”

The other reason I don't think I can go away for a whole month is that I found that I needed to get away from the writing on a fairly regular basis. Don't misunderstand me, I wrote every day, but after writing from 8 AM to 2 or 3 PM my brain was kind of mush. I needed the downtime to recharge for the next day. Besides, what better way is there to recharge then spend some time with your honey?

The Random Post

So whatever happened to that #Reverb10 thing you were doing?

Yep. I feel bad about letting that one slide. I really meant to go all the way to the end with that one, but then there was all of this business:

And it was a weird one too. Yes, there was all the usual family and Christmas stuff going on, but the lovely @mplstravelkitty and I had this great idea that December was a wonderful time to start remodeling our master bath. To be clear, we hired it done because I'm about as inept at remodeling as I would be flying the space shuttle, but it takes a ton of time even when someone else is doing the heavy lifting.

Do I want a nickel or chrome finish on the faucets?

Undermount sinks?

Do I think Dave's Den is the right color to paint the bathroom?

Dave’s Den??

Thankfully, the aforementioned lovely @mplstravelkitty is a whiz at navigating the bathroom supply websites and we survived.

Admission: I liked Dave's Den, but it didn't end up in the bath.

Self-mutilation

Yesterday I tried to kill one of my toes. I'm not entirely sure why kicking the side of the couch seemed like a good idea but I did and the lovely @mplstravelkitty insists it's not broken but I'm kind of a whiner and ooowwwwWWWW! Plus, I can't really do much yoga with my toe like that so – POUT!

Hey man, isn't this supposed to be a writing blog?

Well, yes, so here’s my WIP update.

I'm so frakking close to being with this draft that I'm ready to freak out!

I don't know if anyone else is this way, but when I was a kid in school, taking those standardized tests, I would get all squirmy and itchy and sweaty the closer I got to the end. Kinda like: oh my God make it stop! That's how I feel about my WIP right now. I've been on a serious push the last couple of months and I'm “this close” to done. Can't wait!! And not just because I want to be finished, but because I want to hear what the rest of The Scribblerati has to say about it. So far so good, but…

Unicorns kick ass and I don't care what anyone says

It may surprise some of you to know that unicorns are a frequent topic at the Scribblerati meetups.

It all started with people making fun of me because I have a unicorn in my WIP. It's not just that I have a unicorn, but that I have an elf princess who rides the unicorn. Now, in my defense, I am writing high fantasy, and I can't help it that fantasy has elves and unicorns, but still, I know how it looks.

I suppose I could've stayed away from the cliche, but that's really not my style. When you get right down to it, my whole book is about taking fantasy cliche, tropes, whatever you want to call it, and turning them on their head. Yes I have a unicorn, but my unicorn is kick ass. And my elf princess? Hot, of course. Okay, so I have one tiny little cliche…

But it all works and it isn't crochet.

(Um, that's cliche, voice translator, not crochet.)

You'll just have to take my word for it – for now!

PS. This is for you, Scribblerati:

#reverb10 - Action!

Hokay…

It's now been over a week since I last did one of these #reverb10 posts and that makes it official: I've fallen off the wagon.

I have good excuses though. Really! I was kind of under the weather for a few days there. Then there's the weather itself which has really blown goats and frakked my commute up good. The real killer was last Saturday's family Christmas. We hosted, which means lots and lots of prep work, but it was all good. We went non-trad this year and had Mexican Christmas. We made to slow cooked beef brisket, homemade refried beans, fresh salsa & guacamole, tortillas, and, of course, plenty of liquor. Good times!

Time to get back up on the wagon.

December 13 – Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

This is the big one, isn't it? That was rhetorical because, of course it is! It's so easy to talk the talk, but walking the walk is another thing entirely. I'm gonna walk it good, baby! Walk what? The book. What else?

I'm not exactly sure yet how it's all going to go down, but 2011 is the year in which I'm going to start moving ahead on the publication front. I'm putting To Kill the Goddess out there one way or another. My plan is to start with the traditional old-school publishers and see what kind of response I get. Clearly, that's the easy way to go. No, easy isn’t the word I'm looking for. Safe. It's the safe way to go. We all know how that process works.

For those aren't familiar:
1.    query an agent
2.    wait
3.    pray

I think in my case there is going to be a lot of praying. I think my book kicks ass, but like this years Christmas, To Kill the Goddess is non-trad. At its core it's high fantasy, but there's also a healthy dose of suspense thriller, sci-fi, and horror. Add in the multiple point of view storyline, an adult / non-YA target audience, and a complete lack of vampires and, well, you can see how it might be a hard sell. It's going to take someone with vision and while I truly believe there are agents who have the vision to see what I'm trying to accomplish those agents still need to sell my book to an old-school publishing house that is typically more interested in the easy/safe sell than they are taking a chance on something unique.

Add all that together and I think the best I can hope for is a mid-list commitment which translates to selling my book for peanuts and if that's the case then I'm going to take the option behind door two, which is self publication.

Stay tuned to The Scribblerati and see how it goes!

#reverb10 – The Catch-up Post! (Shawn's 9-12)

I’m a wee bit behind.

It all started with Friday. Hey, it was Friday people, and Friday means beer, not blogs. Plus, Claudia posted and I was having fun arguing with Mark about Lucifer. Yah, THAT Lucifer.

Then, there was the snowstorm, or #snownami as it’s called on Twitter. 17 inches or so in these parts. Let’s just say I had a lot of quality time with my snowblower.

But I can’t blame it all on #snownami. There was also a lot of fun. Baking cookies with the lovely @mplstravelkitty and devouring a delicious slow cooked pork roast were among the highlights.

Now it’s Monday – back on the horse and all that.

Let’s get cracking!

December 9 – Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

I know this is going to be a huge surprise to those who know me, but I’m not big into the party scene. For me, my favorite social gatherings are small, intimate affairs with friends and/or family.

My favorite times are when it’s just the lovely @mplstravelkitty and I. I’m thinking summer. A trip to the farmer’s market and then grilling, throwing together a spread of veggies, grabbing a bottle of wine, and enjoying it all on our deck.

Sorry, a gentleman doesn’t give details about shenanigans.

December 11 – 11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

OK, seriously? 11 things?  11?!?

I don't have all year, you know...

PS  Yes, I know I skipped #10! Wait for it!

December 12 – Body Integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

Oh, this one is easy. Almost every time I go to yoga.

December 10 – Wisdom. Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

I saved this one for last because it’s actually related to writing – shocker!

(To be fair, the Scribblerati will probably remember that I half made this decision in late 2009, but it wasn’t until this year that I actually went full in.)

The wisest decision I made this year was to rewrite my book. From scratch.

You see, naive me had this notion that I wanted to write my book a certain way. I wanted to write a fantasy loosely based on the same event timeline as 9/11, a timeline where the characters didn’t understand what was happening or what the stakes were until the big event at the end of the book. So I did. I did it perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that not even the Scribblerati understood.

FAIL.

So, I took their comments and reactions in stride and reassessed. I knew I couldn’t change the major plot arc, not and still be true to the story I wanted to tell, but I could tell the story in a different way. I could still have the same loose 9/11 concept, but this time I would need to make sure the reader understood what was at stake and what the consequences were, even if my characters didn’t.

As a result, I’ve changed a ton of things. Some characters are gone completely while other have been introduced. As for their arcs, they all start and end in the same place, but the way they get there is almost entirely different. All told, I’ve kept maybe 10-15% of what I had in the previous draft. The rest is entirely new.

People, especially writers, tend to look at me with a wide-eyed ‘you did what?’ reaction when I tell them I did this, but truthfully, it was liberating. It’s also been a lot of fun because this time I know I’m doing it right and comments from the Scribblerati – so far – have been largely positive.

The last 1/3 of my book is just starting to work it’s way through the Scribblerati right now. My fingers are crossed!

#reverb10

I bet you I know something you don't know.

Well, I didn't know it either until yesterday but I like feeling important so play along with me, eh?

So yesterday I was sitting on the couch, watching a spot of TV with the lovely @mplstravelkitty and she asked me if I'd heard about Reverb 10. I was like, what?

Actually, it's #reverb10

And what in the name of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is #reverb10? 

My synopsis: it's a big, writerish, end of the year blog thing.

This says it much better:


Go ahead. Check it out. I'll wait.

Kind of nifty, I think. Don't you? Although, I have to admit, it is kind of touchy-feely for what goes on around here. We Scribblerati are all about gritty fantasy, bad-ass angels, zombie apocalypse mayhem, redemption seeking bear-girls, sassy time travel, and the occasional rainbow farting unicorn. That's just who we are. I'm not sure that will really fit in with the majority of the #reverb10 crowd, but what the hell. Cyberspace is a big place. Certainly there is room for a Midwestern geek in along with all those mainstream bloggers, right?

So here goes.  And I'm behind, so don't expect a treatise on each one of these.

December 1 - One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

2010 word: Progress

Yeah, I know, it ain't the snazziest but it is accurate. In 2010, give or take a month or two, I have completely rewritten To Kill the Goddess and I'm closer than I ever have been to being finished. On top of that, this has been my second year of doing yoga on a regular basis. Yoga has rebuilt my body and has given me a focus I previously lacked. I am strong in body and mind and I feel like I can do anything.

2011 word: Launch

I'm going to finish To Kill the Goddess.

I'm going to launch and who knows where it will take me.

December 2 - Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I go to my frakking day job. I'm working on it.

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

There's so many places I could go with this one. On the plus side: sitting on the beach in Aruba with the lovely @mplstravelkitty. On the minus side: getting canned. And, of course, countless moments in between.

But I'm going to take this one: Success!

That's the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher football team and a whole bunch of fans storming the field with Floyd of Rosedale in hand. Those of you who don't follow college football, much less the Gophers, will find it difficult to appreciate what a moment like this is like. Sure, we can all understand the excitement that comes with winning a game, but this one was special. The Gophers have had a number of horrible seasons in a row and this year they have had some absolutely dreadful losses. I'm a season ticket holder and I haven't seen them win a home game since sometime in early / mid fall of 2009.

So this moment?

My throat is raw; hoarse from screaming and yelling. My head is buzzing from the realization that we actually won a game - and from a nip or two (or ten) of Jameson. My hands are wet and cold, fumbling at my phone and trying to get the camera to snap a picture. My ears are ringing with the shouts of those around me: startled cheers, hoarse shouts, and my dad, a disgruntled Iowa fan grumbling, “Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!”

Success!

PS. there's likely to be an avalanche of these coming from me so prepare yourself!

PPS. Any of you Scribblerati want to join me? Hop on!

Hump Day Surprise: Part One is in Beta!

Huge milestone people! Part One of my WIP, To Kill the Goddess, has been through the Scribblerati, revised, and is now in beta draft. Wooooohoooooo!

Part One is the logical first third and opening act of my book. It is twelve chapters in length and clocks in at around 46,000 words and change.

Yes, it's a bit thick, but that's down about 7000 words from the last draft and I expect the average chapter length to decrease as the book progresses. In all, there are a total of 38 chapters and I'm targeting a total length of 120,000 to 130,000 words. Big, but not too big for an epic fantasy.

So what's next? In regards to Part One, I expect to begin distributing it to an as of yet undetermined group of beta readers. I do plan on letting the Scribblerati have another go at it, but I would also like to get some opinions from people whose perceptions aren't burdened by the original draft of To Kill the Goddess, a draft that I completely scrapped and rewrote based on the feedback I received from the Scribblerati.

As for Parts Two and Three, Part Two has made it through the Scribblerati and I intend to begin beta revisions soon. Part Three is in what I refer to as ‘solid draft’ form, meaning it's written, but not polished. I will probably begin working on that too, alternating with Part Two revisions.

So who's awesome?  ME!

Do I Write, or Am I a Writer?

Faithful Scribblerati readers may remember a post I made a while back about getting canned from my day job. At the time I talked about how excited I was to actually have time to write and I have made the most of that opportunity. But like most writers who struggle in these years before publication, I need to work. Even though I would love nothing more than to stay home and write, I can’t.

Me need moo-lah!

But let me tell you, there's nothing like being able to devote hour after hour of uninterrupted time to your craft, and doing so day after day. My work has increased in both quantity and quality and in two months time I have shaved roughly nine months off what it would have otherwise taken me to complete To Kill the Goddess. Two months ago I was maybe 35% complete, now I'm probably somewhere around 80%. I have solid, finished drafts of all but three chapters and I'm working on the final, post critique drafts even as I finish the rest.

I've always wondered what the difference was between writing and being a writer and now I know. Being a writer is living and breathing your characters. It's immersing yourself in story, swimming in character and plot, and weaving it all together like a tailor. It's an amazing, wonderful journey.

But now this fantastic blessing (otherwise known as unemployment) is drawing to a close. I start a new job next week. It'll be a good thing, for a number of reasons completely unrelated to writing, but I'm really going to miss all the time I've been spending with Seamus, Kaytlyn, Cassandra, Coltrane, Mathias, and Airelai. They have become my friends in a way they never have before, even though I've known them for more years than I care to admit.

So now I go back to writing, snatching an hour here, a couple hours there, and doing my best to balance everything that demands my time and attention. One never knows what curveballs life will throw your way but, thanks to my time off, I think it's entirely possible that I could be finished and ready for publication before the end of the year.

So, yeah me, and thank you God (and Goddess) for this astonishing time.  I’ll be back to being a writer as soon as I can. You have my word on that.

The Rules to Fiction

I think that by now most everyone on the face of this planet has either heard of Twitter or has Tweeted at least once. Correction, let's make that everyone in the solar system because there is that astronaut on the space station who Tweets.

Twitter isn't for everyone, but I'm a big fan and have been pretty much from the beginning. It's an interesting place. At its best, Twitter is a fantastic medium for quick, efficient, real-time communication. It allows you to be a part of events as they unfold, whether that's the Olympics, the MacMillan / Amazon fight, or the Iranian protests. At its worst, Twitter is a great place for allowing people to share every mundane, inane thought that crosses their minds.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily classify the following Tweet as inane, but, well, see for yourself.

“There are NO rules to writing Fiction. None. Zero. Nada. Nyet. Zilch.”

Taken literally, that is true. There are no rules for writing fiction. Now, insert the word “good” before “fiction” and we are rapidly approaching Inane Land.

Speaking from experience, I can most definitely say that there are rules to writing good fiction. You can bend some of them, even break a few here and there, but there is a basic flow and structure that must be adhered to in order for people to comprehend what it is you are writing.

Case in point: the previous draft of my book, To Kill the Goddess. That draft was the culmination of several years of effort where I was bending the rules of fiction as far as I could.  I wanted to tell the story in such a way that the reader and the protagonists were in the dark up until the very end of the story. I wanted the reader to feel what the protagonists felt upon the revelation of what was happening to them. It's a neat idea, something different from most other things I've read, but…  I wouldn't say it flopped, but there was a definite similarity between that draft and a fish lying on the shore, gasping for air. I was so successful in keeping the reader in the dark that not one of mine fellow Scribblerati knew what was happening. They missed the vast majority of the clues I dropped throughout the book and their commutative reaction at the end was: huh. OK.

Not exactly what I was going for.

So let's revisit that tweet for a moment.

“There are NO rules to writing Fiction. None. Zero. Nada. Nyet. Zilch.”

Um, sorry, but yes there are.

I’m now I'm about a third of my way through my next draft. The cards are on the table this time. Those clues that everyone missed are now front and center and the result is astonishing. The comments have turned from “I didn't get this” and “what's up with that?” to “this is a really strong chapter.” Sure, I still get suggestions and there is room for improvement, but this time I'm following the rules and it shows.

As for the unnamed Tweeter who I have just drug through the mud, I hope, for his sake, he figures this out quicker than I did.