I'm calling this series "Outrun The Corgis of Time." As I explained the other day, you need to write more to write better... but there is another reason you should work on writing more quickly and accurately. Life is short. Time's winged chariot is always drawing near -- and it's pulled by rabid corgis. You only have so much time, so if you don't manage to write all your ideas out into stories, no one else will! Your stories will die. You need to write faster and better so you can get it all done.
There is a Shoe cartoon where the Perfesser explained how to write a novel. It involved sitting at your desk, rolling a sheet of paper into your typewriter, and proceeding to "stare at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead."
I love that cartoon, but it perpetuates a lie.
There's this romantic notion that writer's block is a natural part of writing. This this mysterious and mystical thing that nobody can explain.... Except that it's got a simple explanation. When you're staring at a blank page until beads of blood appear on your forehead, you haven't equipped yourself to write. You haven't prepared.
Now, that lack of preparation may not be your fault. As I pointed out to someone recently, if you're in a concentration camp, and you're not writing, you aren't suffering from writer's block. Writing is the least of your problems, you should be concentrating on getting out of that situation. This is true of milder problems that may stop you from writing. You don't sit around and bemoan your inability to write, you put your energy into changing your life.
That's a part of your preparation.
But there's another romantic notion that also gets in your way. That's the idea that we're all born to be "pantsers" or "plotters." Pantsers, of course, are people who don't plan or prepare before writing, but just write the story by the seat of their pants. Plotters, on the other hand, do outlines and work out all the details before sitting down and writing.
These are both valuable techniques and any experienced writer should be able to do either. The thing that makes this a romantic notion is that many young writers latch onto it as an inborn lifestyle -- and that's particularly true of the pantser side of the equation.
"I'm a pantser!" declares the young writer proudly. "I don't prepare. I just sit down and write!" And then the writer proceeds to sit and stare at the blank page until beads of blood appear on their forehead.
Here's a clue: if you're staring at a blank page, you're NOT a pantser. Not a born one, anyway. You can learn to be one, though.
Real pantsers actually do prepare. They just don't do plotting or outlining. Furthermore, if you want to improve on your writing speed, you can learn something from how pantsers prepare themselves -- even if you're a plotter.
Here are some techniques to prepare you for a writing session:
1. Get a good night's sleep. (Also, make an effort to eat properly.) Sleep has a huge effect on your ability to concentrate. You may sometimes have a really great writing session when you pull an all-nighter... but that usually happens if you go into the session well rested and ready to go.
2. Warm up for your writing session with physical activity - preferably to music. Physical activity -- dancing, exercising, even doing housework -- stimulates and unleashes the 'daydream' part of your brain. Music also awakens your brain, while pulling your focus away from conscious thought.
I find it particularly helps if I exercise to music that fits thematically with what I'm about to write. It doesn't have to be obvious. A scary scene doesn't require scary music (though it can help). Look at your character's mood or attitude, and find a song to fit that, and sometimes it gets you deeper into the point of view. (Confession time, I tend to listen to Hermans Hermits when I'm warming up to write something about Mick McKee, the young gunslinger who narrates my mystery westerns. Why? Because a slice of his attention is always on his young wife Casey... and something tells him he's into something good.)
3. Hold a regularly scheduled super brainstorming session. I'll talk more about these later in the week, but basically I'm talking about raw idea generation. Just sit down for an hour or even a half hour every week and pick a subject and brainstorm ideas based on it. You can also choose to focus on a particular problem you're having with your work-in-progress. Sit there and just write down as many ideas as you can. Set a quota if it helps, just make sure it's high enough that it forces you to start writing down the stupid ideas to meet it -- because that's when you bust outside your walls and start thinking of new creative stuff.
Brainstorming is what your brain is not doing when you are staring at a blank page. You have no ideas, or no good options for an idea you have. If you want to have a good writing session, you need to resolve the lack of ideas before you sit down.
There is another benefit to brainstorming exercises -- it trains your brain to come up with ideas on demand. It gets you in the habit of thinking creatively. (This is the kind of practicing that can get you to Carnegie Hall.)
4. Write whatever. Journals, emails, blogposts, and forum posts. Freewriting and writing exercises. Pick things that will get you to just start writing (journals are especially good for this) and get used to getting your words and thoughts down quickly, even if inelegantly.
I challenge you, today, to get started on some of this preparation -- especially the brainstorming -- because I'm going to challenge you to a writing test tomorrow. But you need to be prepared first.
Daring to live life as a full time writer, with or without success.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Pedaling As Fast As I Can
I know I promised to start a series on productivity today -- and I've actually got a rough draft of the post scribbled on paper somewhere -- but the Corgis of Time are nipping at my heels. I start back at work tomorrow, I'm trying to get Harsh Climate cleaned up, and I don't want to delay my start on Old Paint: Dead or Alive.
So, first lesson in productivity is prioritization. The blog is here to help the writing, so the blog takes the hit when I'm behind.
So where am I on Harsh Climate? I have one small scene to rewrite (it's in the wrong point of view) and otherwise I am two thirds of the way through a final proof and polish. These are things I can do in shorter sessions (which is good to do with proofing anyway), so I am going to start in on the next dare tomorrow anyway.
This dare is going to run from January 10 to March 13 -- but I will take a break in the middle of it somewhere. I figure on about 60 writing days in that time. I'm hoping Old Paint will hit 65k words by the end of it.
I'd like to publish this book by the end of May, but if I find that I have to set it aside to edit it properly, I have a project or two I could substitute for publication in May. (I'm tired, so here I am already assuming that I won't meet this year's goals....)
So, first lesson in productivity is prioritization. The blog is here to help the writing, so the blog takes the hit when I'm behind.
So where am I on Harsh Climate? I have one small scene to rewrite (it's in the wrong point of view) and otherwise I am two thirds of the way through a final proof and polish. These are things I can do in shorter sessions (which is good to do with proofing anyway), so I am going to start in on the next dare tomorrow anyway.
This dare is going to run from January 10 to March 13 -- but I will take a break in the middle of it somewhere. I figure on about 60 writing days in that time. I'm hoping Old Paint will hit 65k words by the end of it.
I'd like to publish this book by the end of May, but if I find that I have to set it aside to edit it properly, I have a project or two I could substitute for publication in May. (I'm tired, so here I am already assuming that I won't meet this year's goals....)
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Footsteps To Nowhere! a children's mystery story
After today's events, I just didn't feel like posting a thriller/suspense for Sample Sunday, even if it wasn't a particularly violent story. So instead I'll post a children's mystery I wrote for Mysterical-E. (This story has the distinction of having been pirated in China!)
It's also seasonally appropriate, as it takes place in a blizzard. Lynn must help her best friend Ann find her little brother... who is lost in the storm!
FOOTSTEPS TO NOWHERE!
by Camille LaGuire
THE WIND was blowing so cold, it made Lynn's face sting. She liked snow, but this blizzard was too much. She turned around to let the wind hit her back instead. She held her hood close to her face to keep warm.
She was only going to her best friend Ann's house, not to the North Pole! It was right next door! She turned around and looked at Ann's house. She was only half way. She would never get there at this rate. They would come out and find a Lynn-shaped ice cube.
She ducked her head in the wind and started to run, leaping over the snow, ignoring the gusts of ice and the cold, jagged breaths of air in her lungs. She leaped up on Ann's porch and pounded on the door.
Ann's mom, Mrs. Ibsen, threw open the door right away. She looked worried.
"Did you find him?" she asked.
"Find who?" said Lynn, as she gratefully stepped inside. The warm air of the house seemed to burn her cold skin. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands and took off her coat. Mrs. Ibsen did not answer, because she was busy putting on her boots in a big hurry. Mr. Ibsen was wrapping his scarf around his face and Ann was getting flashlights out of the kitchen drawer.
"What's wrong?" asked Lynn.
"Nick's gone!" said Ann. Nick was Ann's four-year-old brother. Just then Ann's older brother Josh came in and knocked snow off his boots.
"I went out to the kennel," he said, breathing hard. "There are footprints that go out over the hill toward Swanson's farm."
He rushed back outside, and Ann's parents got up to follow.
"Ann, you stay here," said Mrs. Ibsen. "If he comes back, turn the porch lights on and off several times so we can see it."
They ran out into the snow, and the girls were left alone. Lynn turned to Ann.
"Why would Nick go to Swanson's in the middle of a blizzard?"
Ann groaned and sat down on a kitchen chair.
"It's all my fault," she said. "Mom and Dad got him a pony for his birthday tomorrow. They were keeping it over at Swanson's so it would be a surprise...but I blabbed."
"You think he went to see his pony?"
"I know he did! He was so excited, he didn't want to wait. We could hardly get him into bed." She put her head in her hands and moaned. "It's all my fault!"
This was terrible. Poor Nick lost in the snow. And Ann would feel guilty for the rest of her life. Lynn turned to look out the window at the cold, drifting snow. Something bothered her.
"It's so cold out," she said. "Even Nick would realize after a few steps that he couldn't make it all the way to Swanson's."
"He's only four," said Ann. Lynn shook her head thoughtfully.
"It doesn't matter how old he is. It's so cold it hurts. He would notice that."
"My poor brother."
"I want to look at those tracks," said Lynn, putting her coat and scarf back on. "Maybe he circled around and came back."
"You think so?"
"I would if I were him. Wouldn't you?"
The girls each grabbed a flashlight and went out to the yard by the kennel where the Ibsen's raised Saint Bernard show dogs. Near the door of the kennel, they could see a set of small bootprints leading out, around the corner and up the hill toward Swanson's farm. Unfortunately, the wind drifted snow over the trail, and the prints vanished about halfway up the hill.
Lynn shone her flashlight all around the door.
"There are no footprints going in," she complained.
"He probably went in before the snow fell," said Ann.
"Maybe." Lynn frowned and shined her flashlight across the yard. "There aren't any prints of him coming back." She sighed. She looked up at the hill, wondering where else he might have gone for shelter. Someplace he could see from the hill, probably. She started walking up the hill. Ann followed, and the wind buffed them from behind. Both girls bent over and pulled their hoods around their faces.
"Why did he go into the kennel in the first place?" Lynn asked.
"Because it's cold, like you said. Maybe he went in there to warm up along the way."
"But if he went in before it snowed, it would not have been so cold."
Lynn stopped at the top of the hill and watched the people searching across the field below. Their flashlights danced back and forth across the sparkling whiteness like fireflies. Lynn could see nothing that looked like a place for a little boy to go for shelter.
"Did he go out before the storm?" she asked. "Wouldn't somebody have noticed if he was gone that long?"
"We thought he was in bed. We didn't know!"
"I'm sorry," said Lynn. She could see Ann was very upset. "I guess I'm just making up problems again. Let's go back and make some hot chocolate for when they come back."
They started back down the hill, but halfway down, the wind sent up another heavy gust, sending sharp flying crystals into their faces. Both girls automatically turned away, closing their eyes and covering their faces. They stood with their backs to the wind for a second.
"I've got it!" said Lynn, wheeling around to face the wind. It froze her face immediately, but she ran into it, down the hill. Ann tumbled after her.
"You've got what? A crazy spell?"
"Your brother. He did get too cold," Lynn called over her shoulder. "He did come back."
She raced into the kennel and flipped on the light. There, in the middle of a warm pile of Saint Bernards, was Nick.
"Nicky!" cried Ann. She grabbed up her brother and hugged him.
"Is my pony here yet?" he asked sleepily.
They hurried him inside, and Ann made hot chocolate. Lynn flipped the porch lights on and off to signal to the searchers that they had found Nick.
"How did you know he was in there?" asked Ann, as they sat down to wait. "There were no tracks going in. Only going out, like you said."
"Those _were_ tracks going in," said Lynn. "They were just backwards. When the wind got so cold, Nick did just like we did. He turned around and walked backwards so he wouldn't have to face the wind."
Ann turned to her brother, who was happily drinking hot chocolate. She tousled his hair.
"You're smart," she said.
"I'm smarter than Mom and Dad," he said. "They're still out in the cold."
* * * *
It's also seasonally appropriate, as it takes place in a blizzard. Lynn must help her best friend Ann find her little brother... who is lost in the storm!
FOOTSTEPS TO NOWHERE!
by Camille LaGuire
THE WIND was blowing so cold, it made Lynn's face sting. She liked snow, but this blizzard was too much. She turned around to let the wind hit her back instead. She held her hood close to her face to keep warm.
She was only going to her best friend Ann's house, not to the North Pole! It was right next door! She turned around and looked at Ann's house. She was only half way. She would never get there at this rate. They would come out and find a Lynn-shaped ice cube.
She ducked her head in the wind and started to run, leaping over the snow, ignoring the gusts of ice and the cold, jagged breaths of air in her lungs. She leaped up on Ann's porch and pounded on the door.
Ann's mom, Mrs. Ibsen, threw open the door right away. She looked worried.
"Did you find him?" she asked.
"Find who?" said Lynn, as she gratefully stepped inside. The warm air of the house seemed to burn her cold skin. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands and took off her coat. Mrs. Ibsen did not answer, because she was busy putting on her boots in a big hurry. Mr. Ibsen was wrapping his scarf around his face and Ann was getting flashlights out of the kitchen drawer.
"What's wrong?" asked Lynn.
"Nick's gone!" said Ann. Nick was Ann's four-year-old brother. Just then Ann's older brother Josh came in and knocked snow off his boots.
"I went out to the kennel," he said, breathing hard. "There are footprints that go out over the hill toward Swanson's farm."
He rushed back outside, and Ann's parents got up to follow.
"Ann, you stay here," said Mrs. Ibsen. "If he comes back, turn the porch lights on and off several times so we can see it."
They ran out into the snow, and the girls were left alone. Lynn turned to Ann.
"Why would Nick go to Swanson's in the middle of a blizzard?"
Ann groaned and sat down on a kitchen chair.
"It's all my fault," she said. "Mom and Dad got him a pony for his birthday tomorrow. They were keeping it over at Swanson's so it would be a surprise...but I blabbed."
"You think he went to see his pony?"
"I know he did! He was so excited, he didn't want to wait. We could hardly get him into bed." She put her head in her hands and moaned. "It's all my fault!"
This was terrible. Poor Nick lost in the snow. And Ann would feel guilty for the rest of her life. Lynn turned to look out the window at the cold, drifting snow. Something bothered her.
"It's so cold out," she said. "Even Nick would realize after a few steps that he couldn't make it all the way to Swanson's."
"He's only four," said Ann. Lynn shook her head thoughtfully.
"It doesn't matter how old he is. It's so cold it hurts. He would notice that."
"My poor brother."
"I want to look at those tracks," said Lynn, putting her coat and scarf back on. "Maybe he circled around and came back."
"You think so?"
"I would if I were him. Wouldn't you?"
The girls each grabbed a flashlight and went out to the yard by the kennel where the Ibsen's raised Saint Bernard show dogs. Near the door of the kennel, they could see a set of small bootprints leading out, around the corner and up the hill toward Swanson's farm. Unfortunately, the wind drifted snow over the trail, and the prints vanished about halfway up the hill.
Lynn shone her flashlight all around the door.
"There are no footprints going in," she complained.
"He probably went in before the snow fell," said Ann.
"Maybe." Lynn frowned and shined her flashlight across the yard. "There aren't any prints of him coming back." She sighed. She looked up at the hill, wondering where else he might have gone for shelter. Someplace he could see from the hill, probably. She started walking up the hill. Ann followed, and the wind buffed them from behind. Both girls bent over and pulled their hoods around their faces.
"Why did he go into the kennel in the first place?" Lynn asked.
"Because it's cold, like you said. Maybe he went in there to warm up along the way."
"But if he went in before it snowed, it would not have been so cold."
Lynn stopped at the top of the hill and watched the people searching across the field below. Their flashlights danced back and forth across the sparkling whiteness like fireflies. Lynn could see nothing that looked like a place for a little boy to go for shelter.
"Did he go out before the storm?" she asked. "Wouldn't somebody have noticed if he was gone that long?"
"We thought he was in bed. We didn't know!"
"I'm sorry," said Lynn. She could see Ann was very upset. "I guess I'm just making up problems again. Let's go back and make some hot chocolate for when they come back."
They started back down the hill, but halfway down, the wind sent up another heavy gust, sending sharp flying crystals into their faces. Both girls automatically turned away, closing their eyes and covering their faces. They stood with their backs to the wind for a second.
"I've got it!" said Lynn, wheeling around to face the wind. It froze her face immediately, but she ran into it, down the hill. Ann tumbled after her.
"You've got what? A crazy spell?"
"Your brother. He did get too cold," Lynn called over her shoulder. "He did come back."
She raced into the kennel and flipped on the light. There, in the middle of a warm pile of Saint Bernards, was Nick.
"Nicky!" cried Ann. She grabbed up her brother and hugged him.
"Is my pony here yet?" he asked sleepily.
They hurried him inside, and Ann made hot chocolate. Lynn flipped the porch lights on and off to signal to the searchers that they had found Nick.
"How did you know he was in there?" asked Ann, as they sat down to wait. "There were no tracks going in. Only going out, like you said."
"Those _were_ tracks going in," said Lynn. "They were just backwards. When the wind got so cold, Nick did just like we did. He turned around and walked backwards so he wouldn't have to face the wind."
Ann turned to her brother, who was happily drinking hot chocolate. She tousled his hair.
"You're smart," she said.
"I'm smarter than Mom and Dad," he said. "They're still out in the cold."
* * * *
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Volume vs. Quality - A False Dichotomy
Look, folks....
Fred Astaire did not become Fred Astaire by sitting on the couch and thinking about dancing. Magic Johnson didn't get his magic by standing around a basketball court just thinking about which move would be perfect. My great grandmother did not become a brilliant pie maker by fussing endlessly over her first crust.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? (All together now) "Practice, man. Practice!"
I point out these obvious facts because I'm getting sick and tired of hearing the same old nonsense all over the internet these days. "I prefer quality over quantity."
Folks, you cannot get to quality without quantity.
These are not opposite and mutually exclusive terms - one is actually dependent on the other. If you don't actually get out there and do your words every day, if you don't practice, if you don't exercise and experiment and, yes, fall flat on your face a bunch of times, the very best you can get is polished mediocrity.
Everybody has different limits, but the biggest and nastiest limit is the one you choose for yourself when you say "well, quality is better than quantity, so I shouldn't even try." Don't sniff at people who push the envelope (like for instance when Joe Konrath says he plans to publish seven novels this year). People who push the envelope get somewhere. People who don't... stay safe and cozy locked up in the envelope.
We all have different limitations, and different circumstances. But most people never find out what those limits are, because the instant something gets hard, they pull back and say "Well, I prefer quality over quantity."
Excuse-ville.
But I think sometimes people do that for a good reason. Writing isn't a competition, but events like NaNoWriMo, and the general bravado among writers can make it feel like it is. It isn't. We compete against ourselves, not each other. We have different circumstances, abilities, limitations. We are all at different places in our development. We have different goals.
And, frankly, I think NaNoWriMo does more harm than good -- not because they set an ambitious goal, but because they only do it for a month. People push unbelievably hard... and then stop. And they stop before they get anywhere, and way before they actually establish any good habits or get themselves in shape to keep the effort up. And most people actually have to quit before the month is up. That doesn't help anybody.
A little sprint for a writer with established habits is nice now and then, but what most people need is something they can keep up day-in day-out. The old tortoise and the hare thing. Slow and steady wins the race.
So how do you set a good quota for you?
First, you have to look at your schedule and figure out what you can do as a daily habit. If you have an odd schedule, you may have to skip some days, but it's best to try to make it daily. Even if it's only a half hour a day. Then it's a good idea to experiment a little -- find a daily word count that you can keep up for the long term, but that also challenges you a little. If you don't have to struggle a couple times a week at least, you need to raise that goal.
Don't worry about quality. Quality comes with practice and pushing the envelope. You can't get there if you give up. (We'll talk more about that, though, in future posts.)
I find that the ideal goal for me is 1000 words a day when I'm working half-time at the day job. I can maintain it if I must when the day job gets more challenging. But I've never gotten to the point where doing 1000 words a day is always easy. Some days it is. Some days it's a bear. Some days I fail to do it at all.
The next post will be a short flash fiction crime story for Sample Sunday. But then starting Monday, I'm going to write a series of posts on setting goals, finding your writing limits, and beefing yourself up to do better both in quality and quantity.
Fred Astaire did not become Fred Astaire by sitting on the couch and thinking about dancing. Magic Johnson didn't get his magic by standing around a basketball court just thinking about which move would be perfect. My great grandmother did not become a brilliant pie maker by fussing endlessly over her first crust.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? (All together now) "Practice, man. Practice!"
I point out these obvious facts because I'm getting sick and tired of hearing the same old nonsense all over the internet these days. "I prefer quality over quantity."
Folks, you cannot get to quality without quantity.
These are not opposite and mutually exclusive terms - one is actually dependent on the other. If you don't actually get out there and do your words every day, if you don't practice, if you don't exercise and experiment and, yes, fall flat on your face a bunch of times, the very best you can get is polished mediocrity.
Everybody has different limits, but the biggest and nastiest limit is the one you choose for yourself when you say "well, quality is better than quantity, so I shouldn't even try." Don't sniff at people who push the envelope (like for instance when Joe Konrath says he plans to publish seven novels this year). People who push the envelope get somewhere. People who don't... stay safe and cozy locked up in the envelope.
We all have different limitations, and different circumstances. But most people never find out what those limits are, because the instant something gets hard, they pull back and say "Well, I prefer quality over quantity."
Excuse-ville.
But I think sometimes people do that for a good reason. Writing isn't a competition, but events like NaNoWriMo, and the general bravado among writers can make it feel like it is. It isn't. We compete against ourselves, not each other. We have different circumstances, abilities, limitations. We are all at different places in our development. We have different goals.
And, frankly, I think NaNoWriMo does more harm than good -- not because they set an ambitious goal, but because they only do it for a month. People push unbelievably hard... and then stop. And they stop before they get anywhere, and way before they actually establish any good habits or get themselves in shape to keep the effort up. And most people actually have to quit before the month is up. That doesn't help anybody.
A little sprint for a writer with established habits is nice now and then, but what most people need is something they can keep up day-in day-out. The old tortoise and the hare thing. Slow and steady wins the race.
So how do you set a good quota for you?
First, you have to look at your schedule and figure out what you can do as a daily habit. If you have an odd schedule, you may have to skip some days, but it's best to try to make it daily. Even if it's only a half hour a day. Then it's a good idea to experiment a little -- find a daily word count that you can keep up for the long term, but that also challenges you a little. If you don't have to struggle a couple times a week at least, you need to raise that goal.
Don't worry about quality. Quality comes with practice and pushing the envelope. You can't get there if you give up. (We'll talk more about that, though, in future posts.)
I find that the ideal goal for me is 1000 words a day when I'm working half-time at the day job. I can maintain it if I must when the day job gets more challenging. But I've never gotten to the point where doing 1000 words a day is always easy. Some days it is. Some days it's a bear. Some days I fail to do it at all.
The next post will be a short flash fiction crime story for Sample Sunday. But then starting Monday, I'm going to write a series of posts on setting goals, finding your writing limits, and beefing yourself up to do better both in quality and quantity.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
A Writer's Work Is Never Done (Cough, Cough)
I still have this cough. This the end of the fourth week. And though I have not been seriously ill, and have at times felt just fine, it's not actually letting up.
And my gut muscles are sore from coughing. (I played bassoon as a child. I have a huge lung capacity, and I breathe from my gut, therefore I don't have trouble breathing even when congested, and I don't get sore ribs. I get a sore belly and waist instead.)
I know that there are many aspiring writers out there who imagine the life of a writer as being one long vacation. Something like reading on the beach.
I wish.
For one thing I wish I had the time to read that I used to have before I started writing seriously. I just don't. I need as much of my free time and brain space for writing as I can find. I have piles of wonderful, wonderful books that I haven't read yet. (I think several of them were acquired in the mid-1990's too.)
It's not that I'm tough on myself either. These high goals and all that are a cover. I'm lazy. But the muse is a harsh task mistress. If you try to screw around, you are haunted with ideas. If you try to sleep, you are awakened by them. If you're sick... too darn bad. If you don't at least scribble a note, you'll lose the idea, and trust me, you'll regret it. It's much better to send yourself an email fast if you're at work, or pause the sudoku if you're screwing around at home. (And if you're asleep, it's good to keep one of those pens that light up in the dark. I'm just sayin'.)
And with all those ideas, Time's winged chariot is always at your back. Kicking you. Or maybe biting you in the ankles. (Now that I think about it, I wonder if Times Winged Chariot is actually pulled by corgies. A lot of things about time would make sense if that were the case. Hmmmm, that's an idea....)
Where was I?
Oh, yeah, the Corgis'll get you if you don't watch out.
Writing is a full time job, whether you like it or not. If you already have a job (or have kids or any of the other things that life hands you to take your time an attention) you only have your time off in which to do your work. Plus, like any other difficult job worth having, you've got to put in extra work to get established.
Europeans think Americans are crazy with our skimpy two-week vacations. (And they're right - clearly you can't even get over a cold in that amount of time!) Being a writer, you never even get that.
But tonight the corgis can fend for themselves. I'm setting the cats on guard for the muse (I told them she was a rival "mews") and I'm going to finish my Poirot and get some sleep.
(Imagination can be a dangerous thing when you have access to Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. I know, I need to add wings to the Corgis... but please! I just thought of this idea just now this second.)
And my gut muscles are sore from coughing. (I played bassoon as a child. I have a huge lung capacity, and I breathe from my gut, therefore I don't have trouble breathing even when congested, and I don't get sore ribs. I get a sore belly and waist instead.)
I know that there are many aspiring writers out there who imagine the life of a writer as being one long vacation. Something like reading on the beach.
I wish.
For one thing I wish I had the time to read that I used to have before I started writing seriously. I just don't. I need as much of my free time and brain space for writing as I can find. I have piles of wonderful, wonderful books that I haven't read yet. (I think several of them were acquired in the mid-1990's too.)
It's not that I'm tough on myself either. These high goals and all that are a cover. I'm lazy. But the muse is a harsh task mistress. If you try to screw around, you are haunted with ideas. If you try to sleep, you are awakened by them. If you're sick... too darn bad. If you don't at least scribble a note, you'll lose the idea, and trust me, you'll regret it. It's much better to send yourself an email fast if you're at work, or pause the sudoku if you're screwing around at home. (And if you're asleep, it's good to keep one of those pens that light up in the dark. I'm just sayin'.)
And with all those ideas, Time's winged chariot is always at your back. Kicking you. Or maybe biting you in the ankles. (Now that I think about it, I wonder if Times Winged Chariot is actually pulled by corgies. A lot of things about time would make sense if that were the case. Hmmmm, that's an idea....)
Where was I?
Oh, yeah, the Corgis'll get you if you don't watch out.
Writing is a full time job, whether you like it or not. If you already have a job (or have kids or any of the other things that life hands you to take your time an attention) you only have your time off in which to do your work. Plus, like any other difficult job worth having, you've got to put in extra work to get established.
Europeans think Americans are crazy with our skimpy two-week vacations. (And they're right - clearly you can't even get over a cold in that amount of time!) Being a writer, you never even get that.
But tonight the corgis can fend for themselves. I'm setting the cats on guard for the muse (I told them she was a rival "mews") and I'm going to finish my Poirot and get some sleep.
(Imagination can be a dangerous thing when you have access to Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. I know, I need to add wings to the Corgis... but please! I just thought of this idea just now this second.)
Quick Update - and Some Tips Toward Proofing Your Own Work
I didn't get as much done today as I'd hoped, but I did get two decent editing sessions in on Harsh Climate.
I am currently in the line editing phase of this, but I like to do some proofing and copy editing whenever I look through the manuscript. It is incredibly hard to proofread your own work. You know the acronym WYSIWYG - which means "what you see is what you get"? Well there's a better acronym for proofreading:
WYSIWYM - What You See Is What You Mean.
You know what you were trying to say, and the rhythms of your voice play so easily in your head. You very often see what you meant to write, instead of what you actually did write.
The very best solution to this is to have someone else go over the manuscript and mark errors they see. They will not be perfect either (especially if they're a friend doing a favor and you can't expect them to go over it several times). Whether you have a good proofreader helping you, or you're doing it on your own, though, you want to get the manuscript in as close to perfect shape as you can.
Here are a few ideas toward getting there:
1. Time. Set the story aside for a bit. You can often see errors if prose is cold in your memory.
2. Print the story out and edit on paper. It will look different and that will help you catch errors.
3. If you make a certain mistake all the time, keep notes on it, so you can use the "search function" to find and fix it.
4. Look for common mistakes everybody makes - even if you know better. Even if you know the difference between its and it's, that doesn't mean you won't ever stick an apostrophe in when you're typing fast and your brain just thinks "possessive=apostrophe."
5. Change the font or font size so that things look different on screen. A very large font can help you find errors in particular.
6. Proofread backwards. Well, not completely backwards. Start with the last sentence and proof that, then the sentence before, and the sentence before. There are errors you won't catch this way, but it does help get you out of the flow of the story so you can concentrate on spelling and grammar.
7. Read aloud while you proof. (This is a good way to find awkward sentences as well as errors.)
8. Take your time. Do it in small bits if necessary. Take the time to look things up as you go.
You don't have to use all of these techniques, but even just mixing it up with a few of them can help you get through the dull slog of proofing. You've got to do that job, and you've got to do it well.
In the meantime, I had a comment on my goals post about my 1000 words a day goal. Tomorrow I'll try to do a post on why I think it's the best day-in day-out goal, and how you can keep those words coming, and keep them good.
I am currently in the line editing phase of this, but I like to do some proofing and copy editing whenever I look through the manuscript. It is incredibly hard to proofread your own work. You know the acronym WYSIWYG - which means "what you see is what you get"? Well there's a better acronym for proofreading:
WYSIWYM - What You See Is What You Mean.
You know what you were trying to say, and the rhythms of your voice play so easily in your head. You very often see what you meant to write, instead of what you actually did write.
The very best solution to this is to have someone else go over the manuscript and mark errors they see. They will not be perfect either (especially if they're a friend doing a favor and you can't expect them to go over it several times). Whether you have a good proofreader helping you, or you're doing it on your own, though, you want to get the manuscript in as close to perfect shape as you can.
Here are a few ideas toward getting there:
1. Time. Set the story aside for a bit. You can often see errors if prose is cold in your memory.
2. Print the story out and edit on paper. It will look different and that will help you catch errors.
3. If you make a certain mistake all the time, keep notes on it, so you can use the "search function" to find and fix it.
4. Look for common mistakes everybody makes - even if you know better. Even if you know the difference between its and it's, that doesn't mean you won't ever stick an apostrophe in when you're typing fast and your brain just thinks "possessive=apostrophe."
5. Change the font or font size so that things look different on screen. A very large font can help you find errors in particular.
6. Proofread backwards. Well, not completely backwards. Start with the last sentence and proof that, then the sentence before, and the sentence before. There are errors you won't catch this way, but it does help get you out of the flow of the story so you can concentrate on spelling and grammar.
7. Read aloud while you proof. (This is a good way to find awkward sentences as well as errors.)
8. Take your time. Do it in small bits if necessary. Take the time to look things up as you go.
You don't have to use all of these techniques, but even just mixing it up with a few of them can help you get through the dull slog of proofing. You've got to do that job, and you've got to do it well.
In the meantime, I had a comment on my goals post about my 1000 words a day goal. Tomorrow I'll try to do a post on why I think it's the best day-in day-out goal, and how you can keep those words coming, and keep them good.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Books Are Not Commodities! They're ... Pastrami On Rye!
I just spent $52.03 on two sandwiches (a plain pastrami on rye and a "small" chicken salad with bacon), two very small lumps of cheese and a tiny bottle of spice. And no I am not in New York or any other big city where prices are over the moon. I'm in Michigan, a depressed state ranked eleventh from the bottom in terms of cost of living. Even so, I felt I got off cheaply considering we'd made a day trip to Zingerman's.And whenever there's a debate about book prices - which there are a lot of out there these days as ebooks take off - someone always makes the point about "basic economics" and how the price of any commodity will go down until it is just barely above the price of production, and how writers will have to compete by lowering their prices as close to zero as possible. "It's just basic economics!"
Except it isn't basic economics. It's just he economics of certain elements of open market trading - in particular, commodities. You know, things like gold, silver, oil, corn, wheat and oats. The law of supply and demand rule the price of these things. And if the Saudis decide to flood the market with more oil, the prices go down for everyone. If they decide to hold back, the price goes up.
But the reason it works this way is because oil is oil is oil. When you go to a gas station, you look at the price, and maybe you know that some stations have a tendency to cheat a little, but you don't sniff at the pump and decide whether you want this gallon or that gallon. As long as the legal standards are met and nobody's cheating, gas is gas. So price makes the biggest difference in a customer's buying habits.
Salt is another commodity - one of the oldest. And yes, rock salt, like gold or timber, is sold at auction which sets the market price for everything down the line. Except...
Here is a portion of the salt shelves at Zingerman's. Those bags and cans of salt along the bottom are priced anywhere from 6.49 to 16.99. And I don't know if you can see it, but those little bottles in the upper right corner go for $24 something. These are not commodities.
Bread -- another early "commodity" -- may cost anywhere from a buck to four or five bucks a loaf in your local grocery store. Maybe a little more at your local bakery. Maybe a lot more if you're lucky enough to have a good bakery.
And then there's Zingerman's where you pay something like $8 in the store, but people fall all over themselves to pay $15 plus shipping to ship it all over the world. After all it's not just any bread. It's Zingerman's bread.
Zingerman's is the kind of place where.... Well, once my friends and I tried to arrange for a helicopter to go down to Ann Arbor and pick up a simple pastrami on rye. (We couldn't afford to hire a helicoper, you understand. I could barely afford the sandwich at the time -- but we knew someone who knew someone. The deal fell through because we had no one to deliver the sandwiches to the airport. Unfortunately some of the people involved had never tasted a Zingerman's pastrami on rye, and didn't understand.)
You've got to understand too, that I am not a wealthy gourmet. I am a part-time education worker. I make less than the median income, and only recently managed that. I manage my money well, and I don't own a car which helps a lot. I eat a lot of ramen noodles, which I buy by the case. I do not spend money on snob-appeal foods - no wine, nothing just because it's the latest thing. Most of my foodie shopping is carried out at Oriental Mart, where prices are very low, but the ingredients are exactly what I need. I buy my jasmine rice in bulk for less than I'd pay at the grocery store. Same with my peppercorns.
And I don't eat any pastrami sandwiches which are available in town. You can't price low enough to get my interest.
Books are like pastrami sandwiches. They're not like gas. I don't say this because they are better than gas. I say it because books are not alike. One does not equal another. The price of a book is not about marketing - it's about economics (more on that below) and most of all desirability. Desire varies not only from product to product, but also from customer to customer.
Many unknown indie writers say "but nobody desires my book yet, so I have to compete for customers until they know about it. I have to give samples."
It's true. Zingerman's does give samples. They give them out generously. (It's one of the things they are famous for: the happy, helpful and enthused employees who will give you a taste of nearly anything in the store.) But their prices are what they are. We tasted a lovely sample of fig vinegar that was maybe $35 a small bottle. It was great, but too expensive for us. But they will not have trouble finding customers for it. However, they give samples to everyone because they love that vinegar. They're happy, we're happy, we buy other stuff.
The other thing about Zingerman's is that they're just a deli. They were a sandwich shop with some canned goods and a counter. They weren't satisfied with the bread they were buying, so they started their own bakery. And they wanted better cheese, so they started seeking out better cheeses... and found so many wonderful ones that they wanted to share. And sausages. And spices. And olive oils. They grew out of their own wonderfulness and enthusiasm. They love what they do so much, they refuse to dilute it by franchising. (However they are perfectly willing to train others in how to do what they do.) And they grow and they grow and they grow anyway.
So if Zingerman's doesn't fit the commodities business model, what are they? Zingermans is an Artisan Business. With artisan products, the value is in the touches the craftsman adds to the product.
Books and all other intellectual property products are artisanal products.
Not all artisanal goods are expensive. Many are very cheap. Homemade donuts or pies from a mom and pop store in a small town may be very cheap. But that's not what brings in their customers. Price is a side issue - a negotiation between what the vendor needs and what the customer can pay. With artisan goods, price is economics, not marketing.
So how do you compete in an artisanal model?
The same way Zingermans did! By being wonderful. And sticking at it, one sandwich at a time. Sure give samples - and be personal about it. You're not a machine. Don't leave your customers with a nameless unhappy jerk behind the counter who doesn't care. You are your store. Love your product. Love your competition's products when they are really good. Love your customers. Make dealing with you a wonderful, surprising and interesting experience. Make the customer smile. (Or with fiction, make them cry, laugh, shake with fear, sigh with satisfaction.)
And give it time.
And if you aren't satisfied with the bread on your sandwiches, don't close up shop, and don't lower your prices, learn to bake better bread.
Because in the end, it's all about the bread and the pastrami, and nothing else.
* * * * * Advertisement * * * * *
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Why I Love eBooks
I read ebooks on an iPod Touch. It's smaller than a Kindle, but it has the Kindle app on it, as well as many other ebook reading apps. I love my Touch. And though I like all the other cool things it can do, I love reading most of all. I love reading so much that, even though I bought the hot new game Angry Birds, I have not played it yet.
Why do I love reading on my Touch so much?
Convenience. It's a tiny little item, with a screen the size of an iPhone, but thinner and lighter (and cheaper). It has wifi, so I can download books just about anywhere and any time. I carry it in my purse everywhere, so I always have a huge selection of books with me, and I can usually get more.
More Conveneience. If I'm not near a wifi hot spot.... Heck if I'm not even near my iPod Touch, I can still send books to it. Say I'm at work, and a co-worker mentions a hot new ebook that sounds interesting -- I can go to Amazon, and with one click send a sample to my Touch and get back to work. Same when I'm reading blogs or the newspaper. One click, send a sample. (Of course, if my Touch is asleep, or out of range, it doens't send the book right then. It waits until I have wifi access, then as soon as I boot the app, it sends it then in the background. I don't even notice what it's doing.) I no longer have to remember the name of things that might be interesting. I don't have to buy them until I've looked them over carefully.
Leisure in Book Shopping. I like browsing around in a bookstore, but the selection is so limited these days. Sometimes the only books I find are those I'm not in the mood for. Then I have to remember them for later. And you always have to buy a book before taking it home. Your "to be read" pile not only can get high, but expensive.
With ebooks, you accumulate free samples. You can grab them any time you fancy, and then when you're curled up in your cozy chair with your cat, and your hot cocoa, and your Doritos and edamame, you can browse in comfort and find just the right book. And you don't have to leave out the books you weren't certain about. Since it's a free sample, you have that in your TBR pile too... and if it turns out you love it, you can buy it right then and continue reading.
Space! You don't need four hundred feet of bookshelves with ebooks. One electronic device will take care of that. You also don't have to pack and load and unload and unpack all those shelves of books when you move.
Privacy. Reading is a wonderfully private occupation in the first place. Instead of being on a screen in front of you where others can see and hear the fantasy going through your head, the story plays out _in your head_. Of course, with a paper book, people can still see what you're reading. With an ebook, you really are private. And if you want, so is your library. You can password protect your device even. (Some people don't think this is great, I do.)
Easy on the eyes and hands. Especially the hands. I think someone did a survey and found that one of the largest groups of Kindle users were people who suffer from arthritis. eBook devices are light weight and turning pages is easy. You can even do it when you're reading in bed, and a cat takes possession of one of your arms.
As for eyes, well, if you have eye problems, different devices work better or worse for different people. Some are backlit, some have purely reflective surfaces, like paper and ink. But you can always change the typesize on any ereader, and most of them let you mess with other aspects of formatting too.
Budget Friendly. While ereaders can cost money, you can get a lot of deals on the books themselves. Some major publishers are fighting the idea of cheaper prices, but slowly even they are coming around. The latest best seller may be at full hardback price, but an awful lot of other books are cheaper. Especially older books, and smaller press books and indpendently published books. Many authors are rushing to put their backlists up on Kindle for prices like 2.99 - 4.99. Some new authors are offering their books for 99 cents. Sometimes a publsher, or Amazon, will offer a book for cheap, or for free.
This is not to mention the Gutenberg Project and other efforts to make classic literature, which is in the public domain, available to everyone for free. And it's not just classics - pulp and genre fiction that has gone into the public domain are also available.
* * *
I love paper books. I still have many bookcases full of favorite old books. And I will probably buy paper editions of new favorites I come across in the epublishing world. There are things about paper books and bookstores that I would miss if they ever went away.
But I've got to say it, I LOVE ebooks.
(In the meantime, today's progress was mostly proofreading. I didn't get to the rewrites on Chapter 1 yet.)
Why do I love reading on my Touch so much?
Convenience. It's a tiny little item, with a screen the size of an iPhone, but thinner and lighter (and cheaper). It has wifi, so I can download books just about anywhere and any time. I carry it in my purse everywhere, so I always have a huge selection of books with me, and I can usually get more.
More Conveneience. If I'm not near a wifi hot spot.... Heck if I'm not even near my iPod Touch, I can still send books to it. Say I'm at work, and a co-worker mentions a hot new ebook that sounds interesting -- I can go to Amazon, and with one click send a sample to my Touch and get back to work. Same when I'm reading blogs or the newspaper. One click, send a sample. (Of course, if my Touch is asleep, or out of range, it doens't send the book right then. It waits until I have wifi access, then as soon as I boot the app, it sends it then in the background. I don't even notice what it's doing.) I no longer have to remember the name of things that might be interesting. I don't have to buy them until I've looked them over carefully.
Leisure in Book Shopping. I like browsing around in a bookstore, but the selection is so limited these days. Sometimes the only books I find are those I'm not in the mood for. Then I have to remember them for later. And you always have to buy a book before taking it home. Your "to be read" pile not only can get high, but expensive.
With ebooks, you accumulate free samples. You can grab them any time you fancy, and then when you're curled up in your cozy chair with your cat, and your hot cocoa, and your Doritos and edamame, you can browse in comfort and find just the right book. And you don't have to leave out the books you weren't certain about. Since it's a free sample, you have that in your TBR pile too... and if it turns out you love it, you can buy it right then and continue reading.
Space! You don't need four hundred feet of bookshelves with ebooks. One electronic device will take care of that. You also don't have to pack and load and unload and unpack all those shelves of books when you move.
Privacy. Reading is a wonderfully private occupation in the first place. Instead of being on a screen in front of you where others can see and hear the fantasy going through your head, the story plays out _in your head_. Of course, with a paper book, people can still see what you're reading. With an ebook, you really are private. And if you want, so is your library. You can password protect your device even. (Some people don't think this is great, I do.)
Easy on the eyes and hands. Especially the hands. I think someone did a survey and found that one of the largest groups of Kindle users were people who suffer from arthritis. eBook devices are light weight and turning pages is easy. You can even do it when you're reading in bed, and a cat takes possession of one of your arms.
As for eyes, well, if you have eye problems, different devices work better or worse for different people. Some are backlit, some have purely reflective surfaces, like paper and ink. But you can always change the typesize on any ereader, and most of them let you mess with other aspects of formatting too.
Budget Friendly. While ereaders can cost money, you can get a lot of deals on the books themselves. Some major publishers are fighting the idea of cheaper prices, but slowly even they are coming around. The latest best seller may be at full hardback price, but an awful lot of other books are cheaper. Especially older books, and smaller press books and indpendently published books. Many authors are rushing to put their backlists up on Kindle for prices like 2.99 - 4.99. Some new authors are offering their books for 99 cents. Sometimes a publsher, or Amazon, will offer a book for cheap, or for free.
This is not to mention the Gutenberg Project and other efforts to make classic literature, which is in the public domain, available to everyone for free. And it's not just classics - pulp and genre fiction that has gone into the public domain are also available.
* * *
I love paper books. I still have many bookcases full of favorite old books. And I will probably buy paper editions of new favorites I come across in the epublishing world. There are things about paper books and bookstores that I would miss if they ever went away.
But I've got to say it, I LOVE ebooks.
(In the meantime, today's progress was mostly proofreading. I didn't get to the rewrites on Chapter 1 yet.)
Monday, January 3, 2011
January Dare - the Smaller Goals
Okay, here we go! It's a whole new year. And as I said, you ain't heard nothin' yet.
Yesterday and today I went through Harsh Climate and took notes toward some areas that needed more serious work, and otherwise edited about half of it.
I liked what I saw. I think I achieved my goal to make the reading experience like watching a movie -- it's fast paced and action oriented, but has enough description and internal voice of the characters that it doesn't feel dry. I suspect the ending will need a little extra work, though. I want to get this finished by Friday, and then I'll send it off to a friend who does light proof-reading. (She charges by the mistake, though, so I've got to proof a couple of times first.)
Once I've sent it off, I will start in on the real Dare for the month. It will be 23 days from the 8th to the 30th. I'll be working on Old Paint: Dead or Alive, which is the second novel in the Mick and Casey Mystery series.
I have a lot of material already written, maybe as much as 20,000 words or more. But it's in disorganized notes and scenes, and will take some effort to get it back in shape. Therefore I'm going to write this as if from scratch.
The goals for this January dare will be 30,000 words on this novel. Which is about 1300 words a day. That shouldn't be too hard to achieve given that I have a lot of material already written.
I updated my Dare Goals Page today also, to include my publishing schedule for the first half of the year. I'll talk about those goals one month at a time.
In the meantime, I'm also using this overall publishing effort to take part in Dean Wesley Smith's eRace. You could call that a different kind of dare, where you get points for outcome - that is when you publish something. I'm not sure I agree with their point system, so I'm going to keep two tallies - theirs and one of my own which will be based on price of the published book.
To start the year, I have 21 points in the eRace - 3 novels and 2 short collections. (By my dollar total, I have 11 points.) I will post updates on this once a month, along with earnings and raw sales numbers.
Yesterday and today I went through Harsh Climate and took notes toward some areas that needed more serious work, and otherwise edited about half of it.
I liked what I saw. I think I achieved my goal to make the reading experience like watching a movie -- it's fast paced and action oriented, but has enough description and internal voice of the characters that it doesn't feel dry. I suspect the ending will need a little extra work, though. I want to get this finished by Friday, and then I'll send it off to a friend who does light proof-reading. (She charges by the mistake, though, so I've got to proof a couple of times first.)
Once I've sent it off, I will start in on the real Dare for the month. It will be 23 days from the 8th to the 30th. I'll be working on Old Paint: Dead or Alive, which is the second novel in the Mick and Casey Mystery series.
I have a lot of material already written, maybe as much as 20,000 words or more. But it's in disorganized notes and scenes, and will take some effort to get it back in shape. Therefore I'm going to write this as if from scratch.
The goals for this January dare will be 30,000 words on this novel. Which is about 1300 words a day. That shouldn't be too hard to achieve given that I have a lot of material already written.
I updated my Dare Goals Page today also, to include my publishing schedule for the first half of the year. I'll talk about those goals one month at a time.
In the meantime, I'm also using this overall publishing effort to take part in Dean Wesley Smith's eRace. You could call that a different kind of dare, where you get points for outcome - that is when you publish something. I'm not sure I agree with their point system, so I'm going to keep two tallies - theirs and one of my own which will be based on price of the published book.
To start the year, I have 21 points in the eRace - 3 novels and 2 short collections. (By my dollar total, I have 11 points.) I will post updates on this once a month, along with earnings and raw sales numbers.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Anna Errant - An excerpt from The Adventure of Anna The Great
I slacked off a bit today. I am doing the rewrite/polish for Harsh Climate, and just did the read through and some notes. I will post a publishing schedule for the first half of the year tomorrow, along with my more specific writing goals, which I plan to do month by month.
In the meantime - it's time for Sample Sunday!
Here is an excerpt from my first book, The Adventure of Anna The Great, an old-fashioned swashbuckler about a girl dressed as a boy who goes out looking for trouble.
An Excerpt from Chapter 2 - "Anna Errant"
(In Which Anna Finds a Small Adventure, and The First Hints of a Larger One....)
I WAS NOT far from a town—one never is far from anything in Lifbau—and in no time at all I found a livery stable with a stall available for a few hours. I saw to it that Jupiter’s needs were cared for and I strolled off to find my own breakfast.
I went into a bakery to buy a loaf of fresh bread, and to try out my new identity. It was a small place, but crowded. I moved around for a minute before approaching the counter, to give everyone a chance to see me. No one said anything, which I am sure they would have if they had guessed I was a girl. I moved up to the counter, where the heavy-set baker was gossiping with an equally heavy woman customer.
“I’d like a loaf...,” I started to say, in a very confident and masculine way.
“A minute lad!” said the baker sharply, waving his hand at me. I smiled at him for calling me lad, but he did not even look at me. “... the queen’ll marry him any day now ....”
“Excuse me,” I said, still smiling.
“I don’t care when she’ll marry,” said the woman. “It’s who that worries ....”
“Excuse me!”
The baker slapped a loaf on the counter, and held out his hand for the money, still gabbing on about the latest royal rumor, which I suppose was more interesting than local gossip.
I tried to ask for some butter and milk, but it was pointless. He hardly knew I was there. I walked around for a while, and found a shop with a dairy cow, but though they sold me their goods, they hardly noticed me either. Nobody noticed me.
I know it was silly, but I was disappointed. I felt as if I should be noticed. I had very successfully become another person. It was quite an achievement. Of course, it was my very success that kept me from being noticed. To them I was just a boy, a gentleman by my clothes, and perhaps a bit too young to have a sword at my side, but nothing unusual, no matter how exceptional I felt. The fact that the world was not as enthusiastic as I was put me in a bad mood. I would prove myself if the chance came.
I stalked back to the stable, imitating a soldier I had once met after he had lost a fencing match and considered himself cheated. It was a fun role, and I threw myself into the character. I had worked myself into quite a jolly rage by the time I entered the narrow street which ran up to the back of the stable.
The street was made to look all the narrower by the three and four story houses which lined either side. Very little light got into it at that time of morning, and that suited it. It was a dark sort of place, with closed up shops, dirt, peeling paint, and small yellowed windows. Also fitting the street was a drab old woman who was being harassed by a young bully.
She was only trying to pass by, but the lad, who was about sixteen, would trip her or pull at her shopping bag, while his friends jeered. The bully was keeping ahead of her, walking backwards so he could face her. He could not see me.
This was my chance, I thought, a good deed and a touch of adventure. I gathered myself up and charged, shoving with both my hands on the small of his back. He went down on his face, his arms and legs sprawling.
“That should teach you to leave an old woman be,” I said. He rolled over and got up. I changed my estimate of his age upward to seventeen or eighteen. He was big, and once he saw that I was not, he scowled.
“Hey, Squirt,” he said, and he swung his fist at me. His scarred knuckles hit me square in the forehead. I toppled backward, falling on my right elbow and bruising it. I was dazed for a minute and I could not hear or see. My left hand went straight to my sword, but I hesitated in drawing it. The bully, after all, was unarmed.
The dizziness began to clear and I heard laughing. Four other boys, not so big as the first, but big enough, had joined him and all were laughing heartily at me.
“Look out,” called the first. “His Majesty’s drawing his sword!”
That got my temper up, and when I get mad I get blindly furious. I whipped out my sword and struggled to my feet.
“Oh ho, boys! Run, he’s after us!” It was a great joke to them, but still they skipped out of range as I turned slowly around, watching them and facing any that came at me. The big one pretended to have a sword of his own, and they all poked imaginary weapons at me, while mimicking my fencer’s stance. I slashed my sword across in front of them, and they all leaped back. I ran at them, swiping my sword back and forth as if it were a sabre. Half of them retreated to the safety of a doorway. I turned and saw the rest gathering. I raised my sword and chased them off with a yell, but the first group crept up from behind and hooted at me.
“Over here, Sir Squirt,” the big one said, mimicking my movements.
I felt a whack across the back of my head, and I whirled violently to swipe at the retreating boy who had hit me, but I did not chase him, since another was edging up to the left. I pointed my sword at him, and he stepped back, in mock fear. The rest stayed back, but ready to close in.
I closed my eyes and wished I had minded my own business. This was not the kind of adventure I wanted. I could not see any way to triumph. I could not make them stop, and I felt silly making false lunges at any who came near. My elbow stung.
Keep your dignity, I said to myself. I drew a deep breath and looked around. The old woman had long since made her escape, and I had effectively cleared a path for myself. I drew myself up, trying to hide the shaking that had come over me with the lessening of anger, and sheathed my sword. I walked off with as much dignity as I could muster.
Whistles and catcalls sounded behind me, coming closer. They were following me. My whole body ached to turn around and look, or run. Dignity, I said to myself, you can win with dignity, so I did not turn and did not run. I wanted to see what they were doing. I knew it was probably nothing. They were just following. No need to look back and dignify them. It was best to ignore them.
The stable was not far away. I could see a bunch of loungers in the doorway, watching with keen interest. None of them had made any move to help the old woman or myself, but then, I did not want any help.
“Woo hoo! Let’s see your sword again!”
I wanted to give that big one a cut across the face. Dignity, I thought. Keep cool. One foot in front of the other and you will be out of this.
Something hit my back. I felt my chest tighten up as I froze in anger. My passions were so high that for a minute I thought that I would either cry or kill somebody. The loungers at the stable began to laugh.
I could not help but turn to see what hit me, but I did it slowly, as if merely curious. They had thrown an apple at me. I stopped and picked it up. I would have taken a bite out of it, but it was badly bruised, so I just tossed it in the air and caught it. I turned away without looking at them and walked the short distance left, past the chuckling loungers, and directly to Jupiter, to whom I fed the apple. He ate it with a relish.
I had won. It was not much of a victory, and I did not feel triumphant, but I guessed I had really won. This, I supposed, was what adventures were like in the real world, so I had better get used to it. I was still shaking. I hated being so emotional. I put my arms around Jupiter’s neck until the trembling went out of them. I granted myself that I was tired. I was reacting to the high emotions of the night before, and for that matter, for weeks of planning.
I washed my face in Jupiter’s water bucket and went to pay the stableman. He was busy with a harried but beautiful woman whose coach had a broken wheel.
“I must get to Lifbau this evening,” she said with a very slightly accented voice. She looked worried, but her voice was commanding. I admired her control. My voice squeaks at the slightest hint of stress.
“There will be a coach in an hour,” said the stableman. “That’s as much as I can do.”
“Oh, very well,” said the woman. “I’ll need to move my bags.” She looked pointedly at the loungers. They had been closely watching the conversation, but now pretended not to notice her. They must have had their pockets full, for they ignored her even when she pulled out her purse.
“I’ll get them,” I said, and popped over to her side. The woman continued to regard the men thoughtfully. I thought I saw an odd look cross her face, a flash of emotion, perhaps anger or even fear. It was gone as quickly as it came. She turned away from the men and patted me on the shoulder absent-mindedly.
“Are you sure there is nothing sooner?” she asked of the stableman.
He said no, and I got the woman’s bags from the carriage. They were only a pair of carpet bags, which surprised me, because she seemed the fashionable type. I was directed to put them with the other packages that were ready for the coach. She paid me, and I paid the stableman.
As I led Jupiter out, I noticed that the bullies were still on the street. I was still angry. I mounted and waited, looking at them. They must have thought I stopped in fear, for they gathered together and came toward me, grinning at the chance for new sport. In one fluid movement I drew my sword and urged Jupiter to a gallop, letting out a bloody yell.
Their faces changed from mocking to horror in an instant, and they scattered. The leader went left, so I went left, around him, cutting him off. I ignored the others to focus on him. I trapped him against the wall and held him there with my sword.
“Feel lucky you get off with your life, worm!”
It was a line from a very cheap novel, which I had read until it fell apart.
I wheeled around to salute the onlookers, but I was disappointed to see they were not watching. Most of them were gone, the rest were pestering some gentleman, for money I supposed. Their hands were out and their smiles were supplicating.
Triumph is no fun without an audience, so I let out another whoop and cantered by them, making a defiant salute with my sword as I passed. I thought I heard someone say something about a “pipsqueak” but I imagined it was said with some respect.
If you'd like to read more of The Adventure of Anna the Great, the ebook is currently on sale for $2.99 at Amazon's Kindle Store, Kindle UK Store.
The book is also available in various formats for most ebook readers or computers at Smashwords. Look for it at Apple's iBookstore, as well as the online stores for B&N's Nook, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, too.
In the meantime - it's time for Sample Sunday!
Here is an excerpt from my first book, The Adventure of Anna The Great, an old-fashioned swashbuckler about a girl dressed as a boy who goes out looking for trouble.
* * * * *
An Excerpt from Chapter 2 - "Anna Errant"(In Which Anna Finds a Small Adventure, and The First Hints of a Larger One....)
* * * * *
I WAS NOT far from a town—one never is far from anything in Lifbau—and in no time at all I found a livery stable with a stall available for a few hours. I saw to it that Jupiter’s needs were cared for and I strolled off to find my own breakfast.
I went into a bakery to buy a loaf of fresh bread, and to try out my new identity. It was a small place, but crowded. I moved around for a minute before approaching the counter, to give everyone a chance to see me. No one said anything, which I am sure they would have if they had guessed I was a girl. I moved up to the counter, where the heavy-set baker was gossiping with an equally heavy woman customer.
“I’d like a loaf...,” I started to say, in a very confident and masculine way.
“A minute lad!” said the baker sharply, waving his hand at me. I smiled at him for calling me lad, but he did not even look at me. “... the queen’ll marry him any day now ....”
“Excuse me,” I said, still smiling.
“I don’t care when she’ll marry,” said the woman. “It’s who that worries ....”
“Excuse me!”
The baker slapped a loaf on the counter, and held out his hand for the money, still gabbing on about the latest royal rumor, which I suppose was more interesting than local gossip.
I tried to ask for some butter and milk, but it was pointless. He hardly knew I was there. I walked around for a while, and found a shop with a dairy cow, but though they sold me their goods, they hardly noticed me either. Nobody noticed me.
I know it was silly, but I was disappointed. I felt as if I should be noticed. I had very successfully become another person. It was quite an achievement. Of course, it was my very success that kept me from being noticed. To them I was just a boy, a gentleman by my clothes, and perhaps a bit too young to have a sword at my side, but nothing unusual, no matter how exceptional I felt. The fact that the world was not as enthusiastic as I was put me in a bad mood. I would prove myself if the chance came.
I stalked back to the stable, imitating a soldier I had once met after he had lost a fencing match and considered himself cheated. It was a fun role, and I threw myself into the character. I had worked myself into quite a jolly rage by the time I entered the narrow street which ran up to the back of the stable.
The street was made to look all the narrower by the three and four story houses which lined either side. Very little light got into it at that time of morning, and that suited it. It was a dark sort of place, with closed up shops, dirt, peeling paint, and small yellowed windows. Also fitting the street was a drab old woman who was being harassed by a young bully.
She was only trying to pass by, but the lad, who was about sixteen, would trip her or pull at her shopping bag, while his friends jeered. The bully was keeping ahead of her, walking backwards so he could face her. He could not see me.
This was my chance, I thought, a good deed and a touch of adventure. I gathered myself up and charged, shoving with both my hands on the small of his back. He went down on his face, his arms and legs sprawling.
“That should teach you to leave an old woman be,” I said. He rolled over and got up. I changed my estimate of his age upward to seventeen or eighteen. He was big, and once he saw that I was not, he scowled.
“Hey, Squirt,” he said, and he swung his fist at me. His scarred knuckles hit me square in the forehead. I toppled backward, falling on my right elbow and bruising it. I was dazed for a minute and I could not hear or see. My left hand went straight to my sword, but I hesitated in drawing it. The bully, after all, was unarmed.
The dizziness began to clear and I heard laughing. Four other boys, not so big as the first, but big enough, had joined him and all were laughing heartily at me.
“Look out,” called the first. “His Majesty’s drawing his sword!”
That got my temper up, and when I get mad I get blindly furious. I whipped out my sword and struggled to my feet.
“Oh ho, boys! Run, he’s after us!” It was a great joke to them, but still they skipped out of range as I turned slowly around, watching them and facing any that came at me. The big one pretended to have a sword of his own, and they all poked imaginary weapons at me, while mimicking my fencer’s stance. I slashed my sword across in front of them, and they all leaped back. I ran at them, swiping my sword back and forth as if it were a sabre. Half of them retreated to the safety of a doorway. I turned and saw the rest gathering. I raised my sword and chased them off with a yell, but the first group crept up from behind and hooted at me.
“Over here, Sir Squirt,” the big one said, mimicking my movements.
I felt a whack across the back of my head, and I whirled violently to swipe at the retreating boy who had hit me, but I did not chase him, since another was edging up to the left. I pointed my sword at him, and he stepped back, in mock fear. The rest stayed back, but ready to close in.
I closed my eyes and wished I had minded my own business. This was not the kind of adventure I wanted. I could not see any way to triumph. I could not make them stop, and I felt silly making false lunges at any who came near. My elbow stung.
Keep your dignity, I said to myself. I drew a deep breath and looked around. The old woman had long since made her escape, and I had effectively cleared a path for myself. I drew myself up, trying to hide the shaking that had come over me with the lessening of anger, and sheathed my sword. I walked off with as much dignity as I could muster.
Whistles and catcalls sounded behind me, coming closer. They were following me. My whole body ached to turn around and look, or run. Dignity, I said to myself, you can win with dignity, so I did not turn and did not run. I wanted to see what they were doing. I knew it was probably nothing. They were just following. No need to look back and dignify them. It was best to ignore them.
The stable was not far away. I could see a bunch of loungers in the doorway, watching with keen interest. None of them had made any move to help the old woman or myself, but then, I did not want any help.
“Woo hoo! Let’s see your sword again!”
I wanted to give that big one a cut across the face. Dignity, I thought. Keep cool. One foot in front of the other and you will be out of this.
Something hit my back. I felt my chest tighten up as I froze in anger. My passions were so high that for a minute I thought that I would either cry or kill somebody. The loungers at the stable began to laugh.
I could not help but turn to see what hit me, but I did it slowly, as if merely curious. They had thrown an apple at me. I stopped and picked it up. I would have taken a bite out of it, but it was badly bruised, so I just tossed it in the air and caught it. I turned away without looking at them and walked the short distance left, past the chuckling loungers, and directly to Jupiter, to whom I fed the apple. He ate it with a relish.
I had won. It was not much of a victory, and I did not feel triumphant, but I guessed I had really won. This, I supposed, was what adventures were like in the real world, so I had better get used to it. I was still shaking. I hated being so emotional. I put my arms around Jupiter’s neck until the trembling went out of them. I granted myself that I was tired. I was reacting to the high emotions of the night before, and for that matter, for weeks of planning.
I washed my face in Jupiter’s water bucket and went to pay the stableman. He was busy with a harried but beautiful woman whose coach had a broken wheel.
“I must get to Lifbau this evening,” she said with a very slightly accented voice. She looked worried, but her voice was commanding. I admired her control. My voice squeaks at the slightest hint of stress.
“There will be a coach in an hour,” said the stableman. “That’s as much as I can do.”
“Oh, very well,” said the woman. “I’ll need to move my bags.” She looked pointedly at the loungers. They had been closely watching the conversation, but now pretended not to notice her. They must have had their pockets full, for they ignored her even when she pulled out her purse.
“I’ll get them,” I said, and popped over to her side. The woman continued to regard the men thoughtfully. I thought I saw an odd look cross her face, a flash of emotion, perhaps anger or even fear. It was gone as quickly as it came. She turned away from the men and patted me on the shoulder absent-mindedly.
“Are you sure there is nothing sooner?” she asked of the stableman.
He said no, and I got the woman’s bags from the carriage. They were only a pair of carpet bags, which surprised me, because she seemed the fashionable type. I was directed to put them with the other packages that were ready for the coach. She paid me, and I paid the stableman.
As I led Jupiter out, I noticed that the bullies were still on the street. I was still angry. I mounted and waited, looking at them. They must have thought I stopped in fear, for they gathered together and came toward me, grinning at the chance for new sport. In one fluid movement I drew my sword and urged Jupiter to a gallop, letting out a bloody yell.
Their faces changed from mocking to horror in an instant, and they scattered. The leader went left, so I went left, around him, cutting him off. I ignored the others to focus on him. I trapped him against the wall and held him there with my sword.
“Feel lucky you get off with your life, worm!”
It was a line from a very cheap novel, which I had read until it fell apart.
I wheeled around to salute the onlookers, but I was disappointed to see they were not watching. Most of them were gone, the rest were pestering some gentleman, for money I supposed. Their hands were out and their smiles were supplicating.
Triumph is no fun without an audience, so I let out another whoop and cantered by them, making a defiant salute with my sword as I passed. I thought I heard someone say something about a “pipsqueak” but I imagined it was said with some respect.
* * * * *
If you'd like to read more of The Adventure of Anna the Great, the ebook is currently on sale for $2.99 at Amazon's Kindle Store, Kindle UK Store.
The book is also available in various formats for most ebook readers or computers at Smashwords. Look for it at Apple's iBookstore, as well as the online stores for B&N's Nook, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, too.
Publishing 2011 - You Ain't Heard Nuthin' Yet
1927
At the moving picture show.
The scene was a caberet. A young singer gets up from a table, and shakes hands with his companion, and the title card flashes up on the screen and said "Wish me luck, pal!" The young singer jumps on stage and sings. There is music of course. After all music has accompanied silent movies for years, and music on a record is not that hard to sync with a movie pretty well, as long as there is no talking to make it tricky.
But then at the end of the song, the audience is applauding and the young singer waves them down.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," he says, not on a title card, but in his own voice on a soundtrack, in actual synchronization with his lips. "You ain't heard nuthin' yet. Wait a minute! You ain't heard nuthin' I tell ya."
The movie was The Jazz Singer, and the performer was Al Jolson.
And suddenly Hollywood was never the same. Sure they still made silent movies for a while. (Chaplin made Modern Times in 1936. But it was already an anachronism.) Sound was a huge success and a huge opportunity...
...and for some a huge disaster. It was expensive to switch over to the new technology. And careers were ruined as macho leading men were revealed to have wimpy girlie voices, or elegant leading ladies turned out to have thick Brooklyn accents. (As dramatized in Singin' In The Rain.)
Shifts like this don't really happen gradually. Sure little changes in technology and culture accrue over time, but very often when all those little pieces are in place everything changes fast.
We're on the cusp of this kind of change in publishing - bigger really, because it affects more than just the actors and the cost of technology - and right now it looks like it's coming faster than anybody expected.
2010 was a watershed year. eBooks went mainstream. Self-publishing, too, went in one year from something distasteful and on the fringes, to something in the mainstream. People who declared they would never ever ever read a book on a screen were suddenly oo-ing and ah-ing over cute little ereaders. People who never intended to start, found themselves reading on their smart phones and mp3 players.
And Barnes and Noble - the major power in the publishing industry, once a monster company eating up little bookstores like candy - is now in financial trouble. Today Publisher's Weekly says that Borders has announced they're in financial straits and will delay payments to some publishers.
Not good.
And yet it's also a boom time for authors - at least where they are not too entwined with the fortunes of the publishers and bookstores. And who knows, those small independent bookstores that were put out of business 20 years ago? Maybe once the giants fall (or more likely go into anohter business), the boutiques will be able to take up the slack, with the used books and the papercopies as collectables. And savvy publishers like Baen will be able to step to the forefront. You never know. (There are still buggy whip manufactures around, you know.)
I'm not one who feels in any way qualified to make predictions, but I've got that song from R.E.M. playing in my head: It's End of the World as We Know It (and I feel fine). So now I look back on 2010, and all that has happened in the publishing industry, and look ahead to 2011...
I think we ain't heard nuthin' yet, ladies and gentlemen. We ain't heard nuthin', I tell ya.
At the moving picture show.
The scene was a caberet. A young singer gets up from a table, and shakes hands with his companion, and the title card flashes up on the screen and said "Wish me luck, pal!" The young singer jumps on stage and sings. There is music of course. After all music has accompanied silent movies for years, and music on a record is not that hard to sync with a movie pretty well, as long as there is no talking to make it tricky.
But then at the end of the song, the audience is applauding and the young singer waves them down.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," he says, not on a title card, but in his own voice on a soundtrack, in actual synchronization with his lips. "You ain't heard nuthin' yet. Wait a minute! You ain't heard nuthin' I tell ya."
The movie was The Jazz Singer, and the performer was Al Jolson.
And suddenly Hollywood was never the same. Sure they still made silent movies for a while. (Chaplin made Modern Times in 1936. But it was already an anachronism.) Sound was a huge success and a huge opportunity...
...and for some a huge disaster. It was expensive to switch over to the new technology. And careers were ruined as macho leading men were revealed to have wimpy girlie voices, or elegant leading ladies turned out to have thick Brooklyn accents. (As dramatized in Singin' In The Rain.)
Shifts like this don't really happen gradually. Sure little changes in technology and culture accrue over time, but very often when all those little pieces are in place everything changes fast.
We're on the cusp of this kind of change in publishing - bigger really, because it affects more than just the actors and the cost of technology - and right now it looks like it's coming faster than anybody expected.
2010 was a watershed year. eBooks went mainstream. Self-publishing, too, went in one year from something distasteful and on the fringes, to something in the mainstream. People who declared they would never ever ever read a book on a screen were suddenly oo-ing and ah-ing over cute little ereaders. People who never intended to start, found themselves reading on their smart phones and mp3 players.
And Barnes and Noble - the major power in the publishing industry, once a monster company eating up little bookstores like candy - is now in financial trouble. Today Publisher's Weekly says that Borders has announced they're in financial straits and will delay payments to some publishers.
Not good.
And yet it's also a boom time for authors - at least where they are not too entwined with the fortunes of the publishers and bookstores. And who knows, those small independent bookstores that were put out of business 20 years ago? Maybe once the giants fall (or more likely go into anohter business), the boutiques will be able to take up the slack, with the used books and the papercopies as collectables. And savvy publishers like Baen will be able to step to the forefront. You never know. (There are still buggy whip manufactures around, you know.)
I'm not one who feels in any way qualified to make predictions, but I've got that song from R.E.M. playing in my head: It's End of the World as We Know It (and I feel fine). So now I look back on 2010, and all that has happened in the publishing industry, and look ahead to 2011...
I think we ain't heard nuthin' yet, ladies and gentlemen. We ain't heard nuthin', I tell ya.
Friday, December 31, 2010
An Award for Have Gun Will Play - and the traditional pubishers were right, sort of
Forgot to mention this: Red Adept has started to give out Annual Indie Awards, and Have Gun, Will Play was second in the miscellaneous genre category!
I was very pleased. I also noticed something interesting as the apparent result of the award. I did not see a jump in sales for HGWP, but I did see an unexplained jump in sales for my other books, especially the short mystery collection.
I have the feeling it's an illustration of how right the traditional publishing industry can be, because this isn't the first time that has happened. I get a good review, or someone mentions how much they enjoyed the book... and my other books get a bump in sales. When I marketed HGWP to agents a little (before going indie), the response I got was that it was a great book, but readers have a high resistance to reading a western - and since it isn't actually aimed at the narrow western audience, no one would actually pick it up to find out if it's any good.
No don't get me wrong, it is my best selling novel, but it seems like people approach it slowly. Someone recommends it, or it is featured on a blog, or I run an ad, and either nothing happens, or I get sales on the short story collection instead. Then a few weeks later the sales on HGWP trickle in.
On a larger scale, this also may be how the audience is approaching indie books in general. They don't know if they can trust an indie book, and because time is more important than money, they approach with care. Checking out the sample and other shorter, cheaper works.
Which only confirms to me that it's good to have a variety of works available. I guess I'd better get cracking....
I was very pleased. I also noticed something interesting as the apparent result of the award. I did not see a jump in sales for HGWP, but I did see an unexplained jump in sales for my other books, especially the short mystery collection.
I have the feeling it's an illustration of how right the traditional publishing industry can be, because this isn't the first time that has happened. I get a good review, or someone mentions how much they enjoyed the book... and my other books get a bump in sales. When I marketed HGWP to agents a little (before going indie), the response I got was that it was a great book, but readers have a high resistance to reading a western - and since it isn't actually aimed at the narrow western audience, no one would actually pick it up to find out if it's any good.
No don't get me wrong, it is my best selling novel, but it seems like people approach it slowly. Someone recommends it, or it is featured on a blog, or I run an ad, and either nothing happens, or I get sales on the short story collection instead. Then a few weeks later the sales on HGWP trickle in.
On a larger scale, this also may be how the audience is approaching indie books in general. They don't know if they can trust an indie book, and because time is more important than money, they approach with care. Checking out the sample and other shorter, cheaper works.
Which only confirms to me that it's good to have a variety of works available. I guess I'd better get cracking....
Just a Word Count Update
I wrote 1111 words on a sequel to The Man Who Did Too Much. It was a fun scene in which George rather rashly tries to help Karla out by destroying her reputation as the town spinster. She will have to admit it what he did was funny, and I expect her reaction will be:
"Now we have to pretend we're not having an affair."
"But we're not having an affair," protests George.
"Exactly!" says Karla. "If everything is pretense then you can do anything you want and nothing is real."
Haven't got to that part yet, though.
"Now we have to pretend we're not having an affair."
"But we're not having an affair," protests George.
"Exactly!" says Karla. "If everything is pretense then you can do anything you want and nothing is real."
Haven't got to that part yet, though.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Day 26 - DONE plus my other goals for 2011
Today's Progress - 2524 Words on Harsh Climate
Running Total: 26978 Words for a finish!
I did not get to 30k, but some of the prose is pretty thin, and I expect this will get a little longer on rewriting. I will start the rewriting on Saturday, and I hope to have it ready for publication on the 9th, but I could take as long as MLK day.
One thing I forgot to mention about my writing goals for this coming year: I will be working on a lot of little dares, with some gaps in between. I will also have a lot of prep work to do on various stories. Therefore I'm going to set a goal of 1000 words a day (or maybe a little less) every day, even the days in between the dares. (For instance; tomorrow and Friday.) I can write on anything I feel like, but I have to keep up the word count.
No on to the ridiculous part of my 2011 Goals: the Blog.
I do have to post on this blog every day. That's a part of my routine. And I want this to be interesting reading, because the more readers I have the more pressure I feel to perform.
But I also have some ambitious goals to improve my blogging. For one thing, I want to be able to contribute some guest posts around to other blogs. And for another, I have my two other related blogs - Daring Adventures and the Spoilers Blog, which I haven't really used at all. But since I hope to keep up the "#samplesunday" stories and excerpts every week, I hope that will work with the Adventures blog. (Maybe, maybe not.)
But I really want to play with the Spoilers Blog. Because I have a dream for it.
I've always been a student of film and story, and I've always liked to do analysis of film. I was gravely disappointed when I learned that isn't what you do in grad school. (Grad school work appeared to involve only the analysis of the critics who talked about film. You analyzed how they analyzed each other. You never got to talk about film itself, just about the theories of academics who never made films themselves. It really sucked.) Ahem, anyway....
When I started studying screenwriting, however, I had one teacher who gave us a sheet with seventy lines on it. It was a kind of beat sheet for breaking down a TV movie, and she found it a useful tool for looking at film of all kinds. You'd watch the film and record when each scene started, and make a code mark for when some important plot point happened. It was a great tool for seeing plot structure - and you could apply it even to plotless "art house" films, as well as action stories and MOWs.
The cool thing about it was that it was blank. Sure, my teacher used it to teach a very specific structure, but you could also use the method to find unusual structures. It was a tool, like a ruler, to help you see the rhythms and patterns in a particular work. You could also use it on a flawed (or downright bad) movie to help see how it didn't work.
I loved that assignment. And long after the class was over, I kept doing it. Except that I couldn't limit myself to just listing the scenes and times, or marking important transitions. I found myself freeze-framing and charting, and breaking down the scenes themselves, and marking the entrances and exits, and revelations.
Eventually I realized I was writing a freaking commentary track. I usually wouldn't finish them, because it's a lot of work to no purpose, but I would generally use them to study some element of film - beginnings, ends, entrances, etc. And you've seen me do it here on occasion.
What I'd really like to do with the Spoilers Blog is to publish multi-part commentary tracks analyzing story. And though some of that could be done here, I don't really like to get into full spoilers here - and what I would want to do is to go into depth from the start about how this beginning is already setting up the end, etc. I don't want to just have a spoiler someplace off in a corner. I want to use that information fully.
That has long been a dream of mine - for many many years - but because it is time consuming, I probably won't do it. Still, if I can do it this year, without hampering my ambitious main goals, then that will prove I can do it. And now the blog is set up and waiting. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get around to it.
Tomorrow I will be writing a thousand words on something. I don't know what. It may even be bits and pieces of many somethings.
See ya in the funny papers!
Running Total: 26978 Words for a finish!
I did not get to 30k, but some of the prose is pretty thin, and I expect this will get a little longer on rewriting. I will start the rewriting on Saturday, and I hope to have it ready for publication on the 9th, but I could take as long as MLK day.
One thing I forgot to mention about my writing goals for this coming year: I will be working on a lot of little dares, with some gaps in between. I will also have a lot of prep work to do on various stories. Therefore I'm going to set a goal of 1000 words a day (or maybe a little less) every day, even the days in between the dares. (For instance; tomorrow and Friday.) I can write on anything I feel like, but I have to keep up the word count.
No on to the ridiculous part of my 2011 Goals: the Blog.
I do have to post on this blog every day. That's a part of my routine. And I want this to be interesting reading, because the more readers I have the more pressure I feel to perform.
But I also have some ambitious goals to improve my blogging. For one thing, I want to be able to contribute some guest posts around to other blogs. And for another, I have my two other related blogs - Daring Adventures and the Spoilers Blog, which I haven't really used at all. But since I hope to keep up the "#samplesunday" stories and excerpts every week, I hope that will work with the Adventures blog. (Maybe, maybe not.)
But I really want to play with the Spoilers Blog. Because I have a dream for it.
I've always been a student of film and story, and I've always liked to do analysis of film. I was gravely disappointed when I learned that isn't what you do in grad school. (Grad school work appeared to involve only the analysis of the critics who talked about film. You analyzed how they analyzed each other. You never got to talk about film itself, just about the theories of academics who never made films themselves. It really sucked.) Ahem, anyway....
When I started studying screenwriting, however, I had one teacher who gave us a sheet with seventy lines on it. It was a kind of beat sheet for breaking down a TV movie, and she found it a useful tool for looking at film of all kinds. You'd watch the film and record when each scene started, and make a code mark for when some important plot point happened. It was a great tool for seeing plot structure - and you could apply it even to plotless "art house" films, as well as action stories and MOWs.
The cool thing about it was that it was blank. Sure, my teacher used it to teach a very specific structure, but you could also use the method to find unusual structures. It was a tool, like a ruler, to help you see the rhythms and patterns in a particular work. You could also use it on a flawed (or downright bad) movie to help see how it didn't work.
I loved that assignment. And long after the class was over, I kept doing it. Except that I couldn't limit myself to just listing the scenes and times, or marking important transitions. I found myself freeze-framing and charting, and breaking down the scenes themselves, and marking the entrances and exits, and revelations.
Eventually I realized I was writing a freaking commentary track. I usually wouldn't finish them, because it's a lot of work to no purpose, but I would generally use them to study some element of film - beginnings, ends, entrances, etc. And you've seen me do it here on occasion.
What I'd really like to do with the Spoilers Blog is to publish multi-part commentary tracks analyzing story. And though some of that could be done here, I don't really like to get into full spoilers here - and what I would want to do is to go into depth from the start about how this beginning is already setting up the end, etc. I don't want to just have a spoiler someplace off in a corner. I want to use that information fully.
That has long been a dream of mine - for many many years - but because it is time consuming, I probably won't do it. Still, if I can do it this year, without hampering my ambitious main goals, then that will prove I can do it. And now the blog is set up and waiting. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get around to it.
Tomorrow I will be writing a thousand words on something. I don't know what. It may even be bits and pieces of many somethings.
See ya in the funny papers!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Day 25 - Still Coughing, No Progress
I think I did write about 500 words today, but I have to ditch them because I chose the wrong point of view. Bringing that character into the scene too early changes the dynamics too much.
So instead I did a little editing on some old stories, and thought over some of my publishing plans. I found notes for a screenplay concept that I had been stuck on-- and I realized one of the reasons I was stuck is because it was the kind of story that needed summary, and it also needed some internal monologue. It will work as fiction much better than as a screenplay.
So I did manage to do an outline for the story, and that I'll count as a kind of progress too.
Sorry to poop out on you, but I'm in need of sleep and a warm cat. More tomorrow.
So instead I did a little editing on some old stories, and thought over some of my publishing plans. I found notes for a screenplay concept that I had been stuck on-- and I realized one of the reasons I was stuck is because it was the kind of story that needed summary, and it also needed some internal monologue. It will work as fiction much better than as a screenplay.
So I did manage to do an outline for the story, and that I'll count as a kind of progress too.
Sorry to poop out on you, but I'm in need of sleep and a warm cat. More tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)