ROW80 Update - Rearranged Goals

A Round of Words in 80 Days round up:

Sunday, Day 7 - 76 minutes. Beginning to decompress. That was the problem with the previous book, it was in a state which really required a lot of close attention. And this book seemed similar, because it started life as a tightly plotted novella -- but it's beginning to let out the corset and feel like a novel. Mick and Casey stories have a natural flow to them anyway. I think the Starling and Marquette stories will too, next time.

It really helps reading Rex Stout and other really well established mystery series, though (even modern ones like Archer Mayor) to feel the relaxed pace, and how a mystery is often about the parts you skip in other kinds of books.

Monday, Day 8 - 122 minutes. In keeping with my new goal set, I worked on art and design work today, since this turned out to be more of a day at the day job than it was supposed to be. (It's the first day of the semester, so I "stopped in" to put out fires. Turned out to take a whole lot longer than I expected.)

Tuesday, Day 9 - 71 minutes. I had too much other kerfuffle today and didn't get to writing until late. I did more outlining than writing, partly because there are a couple of directions I could go, and I don't want to burn my steps on some of the clues. But I am finding the relaxed rhythm of Mick's voice allows me to slow down easily and still have fun.

Shifting My Schedule - New Goals

As I mentioned in previous posts: my work schedule has changed, and I'm kind of excited about it. In the past, this sort of shift hasn't helped, but I think this is a very good time to try it this way again. As I mentioned in the "Weekend Writing" post, my day job work week is all shoved together at the end of the week now. Which leaves my writing week in a four day block.

For the sake of my sanity, I am going to split my week, so that I don't write on Wednesday through Friday. I will, however, do other things. Particularly art and layout work. Maybe some editing or other formatting work. Normally that work is off the clock to keep it from crowding out the writing work -- however, since there is a separation by calendar going on, I'm going to put this work on the clock. An hour a day Wed-Thur-Fri.

So here are the new goals:

• Saturday to Tuesday: 120 minutes a day, writing.
• Wednesday to Friday: 60 minutes as day, art and layout.

That comes to 11 hours a week, which is actually a slightly higher goal than I was going for. So for the total, let's round it off to: 7000 minutes!

This is going to be a bear this week, though (and perhaps other weeks ) because Wednesday is my looong day, and I really would like to get to the stuff I only just started tonight -- but I doubt I will be able to. It's frustrating.

Last time I posted about the disadvantages (and advantages) of what I'm doing now -- Weekend Writing -- and Friday I'll post about the opposite method of managing your writing time: Workday Writing (with a nod to Every Day Writing). Then next week I'll talk about the bigger issue -- making the transition to full time writing, and why habits matter as much as money.

See you in the funny papers.

Weekend Writing - Writing as a Second Job, Part 1

There's an old union song, sung to the tune of "Free Americay" (a Revolutionary War song that was sung to the tune of the British Grenadiers -- link here to recognize which tune I'm talking about). The chorus goes something like this:

Eight hours we'd have for working
Eight hours we'd have for play
Eight hours we'd have for sleeping
In free Americay

(Some more revolutionary folks weren't very pleased with the "for play" part, and had a version with "for what you will.") The point was that everybody needs sleep, and you can't just work for the rest of your time. Aside from the basics of cleaning and feeding yourself, and taking care of family, you also need some time for yourself.

Writers who work a day job have to figure out how to manage that "spare time," and one of the eternal questions is:

Is it better to spread your work out in small amounts every day -- especially work days -- or to work on weekends and other days off?

Most of us end up by not choosing at all, which either leaves us burned out from never stopping, or with no writing at all, because we don't have a set time for it.

When you stand back though, you realize that you need some time off. You need to do some things other than write with your "eight hours for play" and weekends. And you need rest and recreation. And to read.

So for the sake of sanity and argument and giving myself good worker representation here, I'm going to change the question as asked above:

If we give ourselves working hours for writing -- treat it as a job -- is it better to write on workdays or on weekends and vacation days?

Today I'll take a look at Weekend Writing

The advantages of writing on the weekend and during vacations is that you theoretically have longer blocks of time to throw yourself into the work. Theoretically, you are more rested and relaxed.

The reality is usually that you forgot that your weekends aren't actually clear. They are, in fact, filled with all the social obligations you put off during the week, and also with what the Scots so beautifully label "kerfuffle." Grocery shopping, housework, yard work, bill paying, making lists of things you forgot to do during the week that you can only do during the week but have no time to remember them (like making dental appointments).

Trying to add major writing efforts to all that can be frustrating, and worse yet, you end up with never having a "vacation" at all, ever. You can burn out that way.

But the biggest issue with Weekend Writing is that it doesn't become a habit. This is especially true when you work full time. You spend five days a week on doing things by habit and rote, and then you need a day to decompress and switch gears. It can take a long time to fall into The Zone if you put it off completely all week. And then once you're in The Zone, suddenly it's Sunday, and you realize you'll have to go back to work the next day... Your mind starts re-compressing to prep itself for the work week.

Transitions can be a bear.

I have discovered over the years, that I'm better off when writing is a part of my daily routine. I'm always disappointed when I leave it to do when on a break, or a special occasion. I'm better off when, mentally, it's something I take a break from.

And yet here I go, changing my habits for this dare from Workday Writing to Weekend Writing.

The main reason for this is that my day job schedule changed. It's now all smooshed together at the end of the week. And since I'm a part-time worker, that puts me in an odd position: My day job week is shorter than my "weekend." That creates a whole different mental dynamic. The day job becomes like a second, moonlighting job. And I can treat my writing like a main job.

This is one of those critical transitions you make in moving toward full time writing.

Sure, this long weekend will still be full of kerfuffle, but it's less compressed, and you don't have as many transition problems from one mindset to another. Furthermore, when you work as a writer full time, you will still be battling kerfuffle -- so get used to it.

Wednesday is update day, and I will spell out my new writing schedule with a new goals post. Then on Thursday or Friday I will post about the positives and negatives of Workday Writing -- which is actually the more commonly useful method. And next week, I will get to a discussion of that transition to full-time writing.

See you in the funny papers.

Quick Note on Non-Amazon Income

While not all of Smashwords' figures have trickled through for 2011, and Amazon requires a little digging and math....

I think I can say with some assurance that about 40 percent of my writing income comes from Smashwords and associates right now. (Most of that is Barnes & Noble, with an assist from Apple.) About 60 percent of my income comes from Amazon's KDP.

Since I hear a lot of authors sneering at non-Amazon markets, I thought I would post this bit of information. I would also point out that it isn't because of anything special I do for the other vendors. If you'll notice, nearly all my book links on this blog are to Amazon, for instance. Or Amazon and Smashwords itself, since it's much easier. It takes a while for a book to propagate to Barnes & Noble, and Apple doesn't do direct link to their store, so I very seldom get around to posting the links to them, even though they account for a nice chunk of my sales.

Amazon has all sorts of advantages over other vendors in terms of marketing and sales. They have their lovely algorithm, and a wonderful shopping experience, for instance. But the one thing Smashwords and its vendors have that Amazon does not is the ability of the author to more fully control free books.

I'll admit that most authors are not great business people and don't know how to use sales and special offers and free books to help their income. And I know very well that Amazon has its eyes on a distant horizon that no one else can see. They don't think in the short term and they have different priorities.

But given the stats I mentioned in an earlier post about free books and pricing, I do think that my ability to control the offering of free books is what allows my sales at other vendors to catch up, no matter how bad those other vendors are at marketing.

Tomorrow I'll get on with the posts about writing schedules.

See you in the funny papers.

RWO80 Update - Writing Schedules and Productivity (upcoming)

It is horrible when you end a "vacation" and start a writing dare utterly exhausted. I really think writing will refresh me, but I need to start slower. Plus it's the beginning of the semester and things are always wild.

So I'll be slacking a bit until the 14th, at which point I hope to dive fully into the new schedule. (Maybe build up some steam.) I'm going to start by just getting some minutes done every day. That's the goal for a while yet. I am determined, though, that the Year Of The Dragon will be something special!

A quick update on my A Round Of Words In 80 Days dare:

Wednesday, Day 3 - 30 minutes. The scene I was working on yesterday still needs one more layer. I thought up what it needs, but mostly just moved on to the next transition, which sets up the, er, well I guess it could be called an actual pie fight scene.

Thursday, Day 4 - 45 minutes. Right on past the pie fight, an don to the murder.

Friday, Day 5 - 98 minutes. Today was a good day. I paused to do a little off the clock idea generation for short story writing. I realized I have two train stories, and maybe that could make for a nice thematic collection. In the meantime, I got to a section I had to write new for Devil In A Blue Bustle. It feels nice getting into the voice of the story.

Speaking of voice, I am reading Black Orchids -- an early Nero Wolfe -- and it suddenly struck me how similar Mick's style is to Archie. Oh, not as sarcastic and sassy, and his personality is not the same, but they have that hard-boiled poetic dryness in common. I think this is also helping to get back into the voice and flavor of the series. I'll probably read another Nero Wolfe after this one.

Saturday, Day 6 - 0 minutes. Muther Effin' Migraine. I don't get 'em like other people do, but I do get them whenever my hormones fluctuate. And given that I am a woman of a certain age, those fluctuations are unpredictable.

Schedule Change

My schedule will shift this semester, in such a way as to change the way I look at my writing time. I'll be posting about it this coming week in a series of posts about Weekend Writing vs. Workday Writing for those of us who have to work a day job. And, of course, the related subject of prepping to work full time at writing.

I was going to post these as a part of the update posts -- because I figure ROW80 participants would be most interested. However, even though I have a good first post hand written up, I am drooling on myself right now, so I'm going to post them separately. I'll post links to them in the update posts.

See you in the fuzzy papers... Wait. Strike that.

See you in the funny papers.

Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch - Wiser Than You Think

Kris Rusch just posted a great post about the short-sightedness of writers who work for cheap or free, because they can't seem to do the math to see that patience will be better for them and for their work. She runs the numbers, in her usual very well researched way, and shakes her head at the foolishness of both traditionally published writers (who sign awful contracts) and indie writers (who go after marketing gimmicks like publishing is a lottery).

The most striking part of her post is the beginning, where she points out that during the depression, writers were paid much better than writers are now. And that the average beginner and midlist advance has barely changed in over a decade, and where it has changed, it's shrinking.

That post caused some strange flashbacks in me. I remembered running those numbers myself as a young writer and being horrified and disappointed when I realized that I couldn't afford to succeed at a professional writing career. I ran the numbers a million times, and you just had to do more work than there was time for if you worked a day job... but if you quit the day job, it would be years before you got any money.

I was always shocked at how few writers actually did do the math like this until they were in the middle of a horrible situation.

However, Kris' post reminded me of one more thing, and maybe it's part of the explanation of why our culture breeds people who can't plan ahead. It's a folktale, and I remember this particular version very very vividly -- though there may very well be other versions which are not so idiotic.

There was this milk maid who was carrying a bucket of milk to market. It was her own milk and she could keep the money she got for it. As she walked, she thought about what she was going to do with the money.

She figured she'd get some chicken feed and some eggs to raise in an incubator. When they hatched, she could raise those chickens, and they'd lay eggs for her, which she could sell at the market. But she wouldn't sell all the eggs. She'd let the hens hatch some, and then she'd have more chickens to lay eggs.

And with the money from the eggs, she might buy her own cow, and then she could sell milk and eggs, and maybe hire a milk maid to do the work. She could pay her in buckets of milk, after all. And if she kept growing the business, she would eventually become a leading lady of the town, and be able to afford a find dress and some horses and carriage....

Ah, but as she was dreaming about this, she tripped and spilled the milk and had nothing to sell at the market.

Which only goes to show that you shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch.

And even as a child I wanted to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You MORONS! That is not the lesson here!

That milk maid did exactly what she needs to do if she wants to achieve her dreams -- she actually bothered to THINK IT THROUGH. So she had a setback. As far as I know, cows need to be milked twice a day. So there's going to be more opportunities, you know? ( Unless she was an utter idiot who never learned from her mistakes, she'd be more careful next time.)

Let's face it, folktales like these often have their roots in a time when people were supposed to know their place and accept what they were given. (Especially girls -- they shouldn't be dreaming about earning the money for fancy dresses, because their husbands are supposed to supply that.)

And it seems to me that writers are treated like Victorian damsels -- told not to think ahead or run the numbers, but just accept their lot and hope a lovely man can come and rescue them. (And this is true of male writers as well as female.)

And that's why I never fit in and never could accept the terms and conditions of publishing. Because I preferred to think ahead and count my own eggs, thank you very much. For the amount of work I did, I didn't want some shiny dime. I wanted some compound interest, dang it.

See you in the funny papers.

What Triggers the Pie Fight? An ROW80 Update post

Going back to work is not fun. I am, indeed rather tired. However, in this first leg of the dare I sat and thought about about how I was going to make use of the prep work. I want to find what works well for me -- and I find that partly depends on how tired I am. (Check out the goals for this writing dare.)

To whit: Sometimes all I need to do is stop and make those "blank page" decisions (i.e. what scene am I working on, what do I want to get done in this session, how does the pie fight actually start?). Then it's off to the races. It really works great....

But when my brain is dull, I write dull at first. "The pie fight starts with, um, um, with um, well somebody throws a pie, right?" Sometimes I have to go at it for a while -- letting the characters move around the stage like not-very-good actors, blocking things out -- before something finally clicks and I can then start over and just let the scene play out.

So I'm still working out the efficiency of the prep work. For now the rule is that I don't start (and the clock doesn't start) until I know what my goal is for the next writing session. However, I'm thinking that I need to change that to knowing what the trigger is for the fun stuff in the scene.

So from here on in, the question I need to answer before each session is: What Triggers The Pie Fight?

So here's the progress for the first couple of days:

Sunday, Day 0 - I did some prep work, mainly gathering up what I've done and listing the scenes and turns. I discovered that a lot of it -- as with any mystery -- is discussing and speculating on the turns of plot. Since that will change, a lot of the text I have now really is useless. However, there are a lot of jokes and "turns" which I'll keep around for reference.

Monday, Day 1 - 105 minutes. I think. I had a phone call while I was working and I forgot to stop the clock.

I started today thinking up the rules, and then I got on to the first chapter. Although I have a bunch of stuff written, I decided to type it in from scratch, only taking what I like, and moving on from there. This is a great way to begin with an old story -- it gets you back into the voice of the story.

Tuesday, Day 2 - 65 minutes. Today I was as dull as dishwater. (Old used dishwater -- not freshly drawn dishwater with spiffy sparkling detergent in it. I was definitely not lemon scented today.) Had to get up a little earlier for work, and also the cat is going through an acute boredom phase, and therefore has been tap-dancing on my head all night.

Interestingly, out of those sixty-five minutes, it took me forty to scratch out the dull stuff, until I finally got the scene trigger, and then I drove right through about 600 words in 20 minutes. So I ended up getting 1000 words done in that time.

And in honor of my epiphany, I give you a highly edited version of what is probably the greatest pie fight in movie history. It isn't just pies flying, of course. It's Laurel and Hardy, who are very clever and deliberate about these things. (The clip comes from is The Battle Of The Century, from 1927). Note how helpful Stan Laurel is throughout the sequence, and also the cute little tribute to Charlie Chaplin at the end.

See you in the funny papers.

First Quarter Goals 2012

This year I have a couple of more general goals. In particular, I feel as though I am starting to find my groove again -- which was lost due to both good and bad life events.

This year is my Mind Like Water year.

"Mind Like Water" is a zen concept. Water keeps its equilibrium all the time. As my dad used to say, it seeks its own level, and then stops. Forces can act on it, and it responds -- splashing, waves -- but when the outside force acting on it stops, the water flows back into place and is calm again.

In other words, water is focused on its business, and though you can distract it, it always goes right back to its business. A compass might be another good metaphor. So for me, this year is about focus.

And my focus is on hitting 2014 with at least two more Mick and Casey books, and two more Starling and Marquette books, plus a few miscellaneous other things.

So for all of 2012, the prime directive is to write Devil In A Blue Bustle, and The Man Who Stepped Up. The secondary goals are to write a novelization of a tricky screenplay, and publish an old trunk novel (YA-ish Fantasy, which I'll talk about later), and write a few shorter things, especially for Mick and Casey. I figure a quarter of that will be....

A Round Of Words in 80 Days, 2012, First Round:

Finished draft of Devil In a Blue Bustle. This was supposed to be a short story, the a novelette, and somewhere about 20,000 words I gave up on it because there wasn't a market to sell it to.

Now I think it will be a good short novel, 40 or 50k. Here's a concept for the cover. (I think it's going to be a transition to a new style.) And the blurb will go something like this:

A mysterious woman in blue attempts to hire Mick and Casey to fake a murder of her husband, so the husband can escape his debts. When the woman and her husband are killed for real, Mick and Casey are the only hope of the poor dumb gunman who took the job.

This might take the whole round to "ripen" but it shouldn't take up all the actual effort, so I will also be brainstorming and outlining other works. (Particularly The Man Who Stepped Up.)

As before, the preliminary measure is going to be minutes:

6500 minutes total by March 22.

That will be divided up into 600 minute weeks (with an assumed week off somewhere in the middle). Or about 90 minutes a day average.

Prep Work

I seem to have completely lost the extensive post I wrote about this. So I will talk more about it later. But one of the big efforts I'm going to make is tweaking my working method. In particular this blog post by Rachel Aaron inspired me to think about formalizing some of my prep work.

I already do nearly all of what she proposes, but just in a natural, half-assed sort of way. I'm not aiming to get to 10,000 words a day or anything, just looking for a baseline with these kinds of habits, which I know work well for me. I just don't know how well.

So tomorrow, in New Year's Day, I will start at Day 0, by gathering my notes and getting the outlines in order.

Blogging

My goal for the time being is to do two posts per week in addition to the update posts on Sunday and Wednesday. If my productivity efforts pay off, I might do more, but since I'm also going to do a blog tour in February, I really want to keep my eyes on the prize this year. In the Mind Like Water pond, blogging is a kid throwing pebbles.

So... I'm hoping for Tuesdays and Thursdays as my other posting days. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime....

See you in the funny papers.

The Book Is Up

After a LOT more trouble than I had expected prepping it all, I finally have the book up at Amazon and at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Smashwords. (It will trickle into other vendors in the coming days.)

I will do a more formal announcement on Monday or Tuesday, and since I'm doing the "higher price experiment" I will have a Smashwords coupon for my loyal followers.

Later tonight I'll post some some goals (and probably tomorrow two -- I have drafts of a bunch of posts I was going to do this week).

See you in the funny papers.

A Look Back At The Book and The Rewriting Issue

Robert Heinlein put a loophole in his "Don't Rewrite" rule by adding the phrase "except to editorial order." This is an exceptionally large loophole for self-publishers because the writer is the editor.

So you have to ask yourself, who's asking for the rewrite -- you as writer, or you as editor -- and do they have a good reason or not?

I bring this up because Dean Wesley Smith started a new series about setting goals the other day (great post -- read the comments too) and one of the things he pointed out was that one reason people go into that destructive endless rewrite cycle is fear. (Fear is a bad reason to do anything.)

This seemed like a good jumping off point for a look back at the book I just finished -- a book I did more rewriting than usual on, but also a book which is done.

"...which is done" has a special meaning here.

What it means is revisions are closed. The ship has sailed. It's after hours and no new visions will happen on this story. It's a done deal. I may do some line editing as I proof it (I always do) but that will be purely spontaneous, because it is what it is.

And that, imho, is what Heinlein's Rule 3 is really all about -- it's a reiteration of Rule 2 "You must finish what you start."

When you are your own editor, you need to be a hard-nosed business person who wants to get that dang story out there. You've got to know when to stick a fork in it. You've got to set deadlines for that creative fuss-budget who works for you.

If you rewrite from fear, you are doing the opposite. You're using the mean boss inside you to demand more work and waste your time. Fire that boss. Hire the one that sets limits instead.

When I rewrite, it's for me. I have a very strong vision of what I am going for, and yes, I do rewrite to meet that vision. (And yes, if the boss tries to stop me from that rewrite before I'm ready, I tell him to go suck an egg -- but I do recognize that is his job. His job isn't to tell me what to write, or whether it's good or not. His job is to say "hurry up!")

When you are younger and just learning your craft, your vision will be more malleable. You second guess yourself, and you're not sure about anything. This leads to what DWS calls "writing by committee." You let critique partners and book doctors and editors co-write the darn thing with you. And instead of having the best of all of the above, you end up with the average of all of the above. Just plain bland.

(I would stop to note that, for all everyone snarks about Hollywood and the way it produces stories by committee, we should all remember that Casablanca was written by committee. So sometimes the best of all the parts do make a brilliant whole.)

Ahem, where was I? ....I rewrite for me, right.

When I look back at the process I went through on The Man Who Did Too Much, you could call a lot of what I did "revision," but I don't see it that way. I see it as creation.

I've mentioned before about my method of layering in scenes and story, like a painting. Or like a movie. A movie is not done when all the shots are in the can. It still has to be assembled, and the transitions marked in and efx added, and sound (which is a multi-layered effort in itself).

I hope I'm not ruining your enjoyment with the following revelation, but take a look at this two minute clip of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.



The voices you hear are theirs and probably (though not necessarily) the sounds which were actually made by their mouths at the time the shots were taken. And I'm sure you know that there wasn't an orchestra playing in the room as they danced either. A recording was being played as they danced, but we aren't hearing the sound of a record being played in the studio. Because the sound on that would suck. No we're hearing the sound of the actual orchestra, edited in later to match the steps.

Furthermore, those tapping sounds you hear? Not Fred's or Ginger's feet (or at least not at the time they were filming.). All the tapping and shushing were sounds made by the foley artist, who danced on a box in a sound booth afterwards while watching the shots being screened.

It isn't that Fred and Ginger's feet didn't make such sounds during filming, it's just that capturing the sound effectively is tricky, and sound is so very important to tap dancing.

So even though those tracks were recorded separately from the production of the scene -- the orchestra on its studio, and the foley artist in a booth -- these are essential parts of the story. They are necessary for the creation to be fully realized.

Laying in the soundtrack is not revision, it's creation.

Now, fiction is different from film -- film is a logistical nightmare even at its simplest level -- but even so, it's an apt metaphor for what goes on in my head in writing. Just as a live sound recording can't effectively capture the sound of the voices and the orchestra and the tapping all at once, my attention span can't always deal with all I want to deal with in one pass at a scene.

So yes, I do "revise" up to the point of finishing the scene. This particular book was like a musical, with lots of complications on the technical end.

Beware The Siren Call of Doom

However that was all done to meet the vision. The thing I never do is change the vision itself out of fear that others won't like it as much as I do, or it's not "good enough" or it's too silly or embarrassing or stupid. As soon as you start down that path, you're lost. That's the Siren Call of Doom.

And that brings me to the rewrites I didn't do.

I said above that this story is done. Not because I could think of no way to make it better, but because I declared it done.

Let's just pretend I did not have the sense (or courage) to declare it done.

In the writing of this book, I discovered something: this series is not about Karla, it's about George. Furthermore, the genre model I thought I was going for isn't really suited for the characters. I thought this was going one of those cozy madcap series where each story starts with Karla getting into trouble and calling on George to help out. Silly me. Karla is not a meddler. George is the obsessive compulsive hero who can't resist "helping" people whether they want it or not. Karla is... Nero Wolfe. A kind of zany Gracie Allen sort of Nero Wolfe, but still a person who would prefer to stay in her house and mind her own business. (Unless you want a movie recommendation.)

So if I were the "it's not done until it's perfect" sort of person, or if I were the sort of person to listen to publishing gurus, I'd be frantic right now, and put off the publication of this book for another year, so I could tear the plot apart and make it fit the new model.

And you know what? It might well be a better book if I did that... except for three things.

1.) It wouldn't be THIS book. And my motivation for writing this book is to write THIS book.

2.) That direction I discovered is where I want to end up. Why would I ever want to start there? You don't get places by rearranging the furniture where you are. You get there by moving.

3.) The first book in the series is not going to be the best book in a series. (At least it had better not be.)

That last one is the one I think most young writers (and a lot of modern agents and publishers) miss. All the great series -- the ones that last for twenty or thirty books or more -- develop over time. The first book is never the best book, and certainly not the most successful. Even those series which seem very formulaic often started differently: The first ten Perry Masons, for instance, didn't involve much lawyering. And even though they are different from later books, they are still fun to read.

Here's the kicker: most readers of any successful series did not start that series by reading the first book. MOST of the readers will come after the series is established.

And because modern traditional publishing doesn't recognize that fact, we don't have as many successful series as we once did -- because we never get to the sixth or seventh or twentieth book which draws those readers into the series.

When seen from that perspective, you have to realize that the job of the first book -- for most readers -- is very different from what we are led to expect. In traditional publishing, the first book is everything -- it's make or break. With indie publishing, not so much.

With indie publishing, we can publish the way books used to be published. We can let things sleep. The first book rather than being the lure to bring readers in, is more of a back story. It's there to fill in, to bring the reader up to speed. It's there to just be an interesting book in and of itself.

Your first book is not going to be your last book. But every time you stop to revise a book, that's another book you won't write at the end of your life -- when you're a much better writer.

So... if I were to decide to tear this book apart to make it a perfect whiz-bang kick off for the series: not only would I cause the readers to miss out on the journey to get there, more than likely I will rob them of a later, better, more satisfying book.

I'll wrap up with a thought about fear.

I have one writing fear, and it only gets worse as I get older: I am afraid that I'll never get the stories in my head written down an released into the world.

If you let fears prevent you from finishing your work when you're young -- whether it is fear of failure or embarrassment or what-have-you -- you WILL have my fear when you get old. Time is a precious thing. Don't waste it worrying about what anyone else thinks.

See you in the funny papers.

One Frazzled Christmas

I had some great things I was going to post today (and every day of break) but I ended up rushing a friend to the ER, and I just got home. I think the soonest I'll get to it is Tuesday now.

This has been one frazzled Christmas. The school decided this would be a great time to be stingy with the break between semesters, so everybody was exhausted coming into this weekend. On Christmas Eve, we usually have what I call The Culinary Indulgence Fest, which is a hog-wild potluck. Everybody was too frazzled to do much -- but we had a plenty nice dinner anyway. However, approximately 5 minutes before I was to head over to the party I realized... I had forgotten to wrap presents.

I discovered that it is actually possible to wrap 8-9 presents in 15 minutes flat. At least if the cats are too intimidated by your tizzy to "help."

Also, I am a woman of a certain age where hormones are doing whacky things, so I had something like a silent migraine going on today. Not painful, but fuzz headed. It felt rather like a large squid was wrapped tightly around my brain, and also covering my eyes and plugging my ears.

Oh, and I have a cat helping me type right now.

And that's why you're not getting a blog post tonight or tomorrow.

See you in the funny papers.

ROW80 Finale - And a New Book Published!

There! The end of the last day of the last round of A Round Of Words In Eighty Days for 2011.

I finished and edited a novel, The Man Who Did Too Much, which should see light at an ebook at least by New Year's Day. (The paper version will probably not be available until Chinese New Year, on January 22.) Here's the blurb page for that book.

In the meantime, I published another set of short stories tonight. Amazon is processing it, but Smashwords has it up and live. It will be a while before it trickles in to the other book stores, but does that matter? NO!

Because Smashwords has every format you could want, and further more, it's being offered there for FREE FREE FREE!

Here's the cover! And the blurb!

5 Twists

These five flash stories from the Daring Novelist blog each have a twist. Some are hard-boiled, others light and fluffy. The stories include:

• "Burning Bridges" A hard-boiled woman must guide a young bimbo in trouble.
• "Balancing Act" A klutzy woman, a charming man and a the theft of a jewel. The question is whether the fellow was just a bit too charming....
• "Deadmen Don't Eat Fruitcake" It's a Noir Christmas when tough guys get their stolen jewels mixed up with fruitcake and a tough old lady.
• "Power Is Greater Than Love" A dictator knows only power, a simple woman knows only love. Which is stronger?
• "The Unexpurgated Story of the Baby Shoes Which Were Sold Unused" The story behind Hemingway's famous six word story: "For sale, baby shoes. Never used" may be more complicated than he expected, as an upright Victorian spinster explains to a newspaperman.

This collection is approximately 8500 words long.

In the meantime....

I had a wonderful day brainstorming some issues on Devil In A Blue Bustle, and I think this could very well be a novel, not just a long novella. That book will be the focus of the next dare -- which I will again run through ROW80.

Throughout next week, I'll be musing on various topics, past and present and future. The posts will appear Boxing Day morning. So have a happy holiday, and to send you off, I give you Beeker and Ode To Joy:



See you in the funny papers.

ROW80 Update - two days to go!

I stopped keeping track of time for this last leg of the challenge. I long beat my goals, and I'm tired. (The end of the semester is tough.) And I'm doing good work.

On Sunday and Monday I got the last run-through on the book done and sent it off to beta readers (wait, I think I have one more person to send it to...) I'll do one more proofing run after I get the feedback.

I did not get 5 Twists fully formatted and uploaded yet. I spent a little time playing with html, and creating a perfect CLEAN template. However, I discovered that, contrary to popular belief, Word does not do a clean job of turning html into a Word doc, so I need to continue using Word for the original document.

I really seriously can't wait until Smashwords accepts html.

Upload day, I think , will be Thursday. I have to work Wednesday, and I want to get my blurbs and author note and all that right. So I'll post that book announcement on Friday.

Christmas is the deadline for feedback from beta readers on The Man Who Did Too Much. I won't be able to get the paper book laid out before New Years, but the ebook should be ready sometime next week. (That was one of the reasons I was experimenting with my workflow for 5 Twists -- in case I wanted to upgrade my prep methods on Man Who.)

Movies Watched

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (WB, 2011) This isn't a classic, so it doesn't count, but it was beautifully done. It lives up completely to the first Robert Downey Jr. Holmes. It's still intelligent, yet nicely silly. And it features Stephen Fry as Mycroft!

This is the very first time I have ever been impressed with a depiction of Moriarty. (Whenever I hear a Holmes flick features Moriarty, I always prepare myself for disappointment, and I've, um, never been disappointed in my expectations of disappointment before.) Jared Harris does a fine job, but he was also given a lot to work with in the script. And the movie features an incredible climactic confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty at the end. Even though it had to be an action scene, they managed to make it a full battle of high intellect, too.

The Lady Vanishes (Gainsborough Pictures, 1938) I've been thinking about meticulous preparation before production on writing, and that made me think of Alfred Hitchcock. I will be writing more about Hitch and about this flick soon. (In particular a scene with some brandy glasses near the end.) The Lady Vanishes is probably the height of Hitchcock's British career, made only two years before coming to the U.S. to make Rebecca. It's light and silly and cheery, and yet full of suspense, and packed with so much irony it might require chelation therapy for excess heavy metals.

The story is an old trope, and the best ever done with this particular formula: a young woman meets an old lady on a train. The old lady vanishes, and the young woman can't get anybody to believe she ever existed. But unlike so many imitations which beat the premise to death and get boring before The Truth is finally revealed in a startling twist (much too late), this one keeps the premise in check. It's something that drives the action, and allows us to see continuing vignettes of all the little dramas, all the characters on the train.

See you in the funny papers.

Deadmen Don't Eat Fruitcake - a Holiday Noir Story

Here is a short Noir story for the holidays. Like all Noir, it's a little dark, (though it's in the lighter end of the Noir spectrum). Call it counter programming....

Deadmen Don't Eat Fruitcake
by Camille LaGuire

IT WASN'T A dark night on account of the snow, which reflected the light of the two street lamps from every available surface, except the bloody patch under Tig Arbuckle. That is, under Tig's body. There wasn't anything left of Tig inside there. His life had leaked out faster than his blood, which stained the snow around him.

Phil stuck his gun back in his pocket and knelt down as Bud came running up.

"Geeze," said Bud, his breath puffing out in a wreath around his face. He paused as Phil pulled off his gloves in the freezing air and quickly searched the body. "He got the fruitcake?"

"No," said Phil, rising and heading back toward the car.

"It wasn't in the car, neither," said Bud, looking back and forth from Phil to the body.

"He must have left it with old lady," said Phil. Four hundred thousand dollars worth of hot jewels, and Tig had to hide them in a fruitcake. It made him want to spit, but the freezing air was too dry.

#

There was a police car outside the Arbuckle Bakery when they pulled to a stop across the street. They sat a moment and watched. A cop came out--a young woman huddled in her short thick jacket. She adjusted her belt, and paused to warm her hand over the small bag she carried, which steamed slightly in the frigid air. Then she got in the car and left. Just a customer. Phil considered.

"You know anything about the old lady?"

"Tig always said she was a right guy," said Bud.

"A what?" said Phil, turning to look at Bud. Bud shrugged and shrunk a little.

"That's what he said. She's like one of the guys. Tough. A regular wise guy, he said."

"A wise guy baking fruitcakes," said Phil with a sneer. He shoved open the door and got out.

#

The old lady was shoveling cookies off a sheet and onto a rack when Phil and Bud entered. She paused to look them over, but she didn't say anything.

"We're friends of Tig...," began Phil.

"I know." She kept shoveling the cookies. She put away the sheet and started on another one without looking up. "He was here a few minutes ago. You just missed him."

"We're gonna meet him later," said Phil with a reassuring smile. "We're just here for the fruitcake."

She turned to look more closely at them, and her eyes were sharp with suspicion, like a teacher. Phil was immune to that kind of look, but Bud's shoulders twitched. Bud chafed his hands and looked over his shoulder.

"What were the cops doing here?" he said. "You been robbed?"

She put the spatula down and came up to the counter, wiping her hands slowly.

"You know cops and donuts," she said.

"You don't sell donuts," said Phil.

"My niece happens to like cookies instead."

"Niece?" said Bud. Bud shuffled nervously and looked at Phil. Phil wasn't sweating.

"Yeah, my niece, Maggie," said the old lady. "She stopped by for a present for her boss...a fruitcake."

"We're here for fruitcake too," interrupted Phil. "Tig said you had one for him. Special for him. We're here to pick it up."

The old lady narrowed her eyes and looked them both over, then she leaned forward and set her hands on the counter.

"Yeah," she said slowly, like she'd just remembered something, "he did have one picked out. Stupid kid messed with the dough. Ruined it." She nodded to herself, and then jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "I threw it out."

"Where?" said Phil.

"Out back, in the dumpster." She watched while Phil considered. "If he wants another one, he has to wait. I gave the rest of the batch to my niece."

Phil headed for the door. Bud followed, grumbling.

"What's Tig doing with a cop in his family anyway?"

"Every family's got a black sheep," said the old lady. She came around the counter and followed him to the door. She turned the lock as he went out, and stood and watched.

#

The dumpster was full of cartons and garbage and dough, all blending into a sickening cement in the cold. Phil stood on his toes to look in, and he wrinkled his nose.

"That idiot," he said. "What did he hide the jewels in a fruitcake for anyway?" He reached in reluctantly to pull a couple cartons out. He poked at them with a stick, and then at the garbage still inside. No sign of a fruitcake, but maybe it had blended in to the rest. He tried to reach for some bags in the back, as Bud climbed up on the edge. But then Bud hesitated.

"Say, Phil," he said. "Your ma ever make fruitcake?"

"No," said Phil shortly.

"How long you think it takes to bake a fruitcake?"

"I don't know and I don't care." But he looked up at Bud anyway.

"Try an hour and a half," said Bud. "That's at least what it took my ma to bake it. And then it had to cool for a while."

Phil dropped the stick. "So if he dropped those jewels in the fruitcake dough...."

"They're still in the oven, or maybe just coming out now. They weren't in the batch she threw away or gave to the cop."

Phil was already headed back up to the street. Bud jumped down and scrambled after him. The lights at the front of the store were already off, and the sign said closed. Phil pounded on the glass, and then pulled the pistol out of his pocket and pounded the glass with the butt of the gun.

"Freakin' old ladies," he said. "Freaking Tig!"

"Hey, Phil, cool it," said Bud, looking around nervously.

Phil shoved him back and took aim at the glass of the door. It was shatter resistant, but not really bullet proof. Three shots cracked it up enough to break. He knocked the rest in with the butt, and reached in to turn the lock. Bud stayed back and craned his neck to keep watch. Phil didn't bother. He was gonna get that old lady. She was just like Tig. A cheat.

He yanked open the door and charged in.

He was met at the counter by a shotgun blast. Buddy, who had rushed in after, didn't have time to back pedal. The second barrel got him.

#

Flashing lights decorated the front of the bakery, as officers milled, and the CSI unit worked over the mess in the front room. In back, in the kitchen, a detective and two officers accepted slices of fruitcake from Granny Arbuckle.

"Granny," said one of the officers, the niece, Maggie. "Why don't you stay with Ma and me tonight?"

"No, no. I'll settle down better in my own home."

"Well, then, let me stay with you."

"No," said the old woman firmly. "I'll be fine."

"Let me do something!" said Maggie. "I feel awful. I saw them out there casing the place, and I didn't even notice."

"They're friends of Tig," said Granny, patting her on the arm. "You recognized them."

"Yeah, and that itself should have put me on alert."

"Eat your fruitcake, Maggie," said Granny, and then she waved a finger at the detective who was attempting to slip the uneaten bit of cake back on to the plate. "You too young man."

She turned back to the racks of slightly burned fruitcakes, and pulled a sheet from the big box of tin foil.

"You young people don't appreciate something good," she rattled on. She picked up a fruitcake and set it in the center of the foil. "I remember when I was a girl, I always thought it was a treasure. All those little colorful pieces. Like jewels...."

Maggie pointed at the cake in Granny's hands.

"Granny, that one's all messed up."

"That's all right...."

"You won't be open tomorrow, so there's no point in saving the good ones for customers. Take the best one home."

Granny stopped and looked down at the little misshapen cake and smiled at it.

"This is the best one, dear. Trust me, I know fruitcakes, and it may be ugly on the outside, but it's the best on the inside." She finished wrapping it in tin-foil. "A little jewel chest just for me."


This and several other short stories are now available in an ebook collection titled "5 Twists." Find it at Amazon, Smashwords and other fine ebook retailers!

ROW80 Update - home stretch!

Golly, this thing ends this week, on Thursday.

Thursday Day 73 - 81 Minutes. I am definitely winding down. While I am doing work, my record keeping has dropped to nil. And I haven't been updating the sidebar at all. Maybe I'll do that when I post this post.

Although I did blog posting today, I decided that from here on in, I'm working on the final polish/rewrite. I've still got some beta reactions trickling in.

Friday Day 74 - 135 minutes. Portfolio Day at work. Very very busy, which left me very very tired. I didn't end up looking much at the student's work, but there seemed to be a decent turnout. I did a little blogging, and I caught up on my paper notes. I'm going to work on the read through tonight -- marking typos, at least, on my Kindle with the notes feature. Then I should be able to do serious work tomorrow. (Note, added in 50 minutes of read-thru editing.)

Saturday Day 75 - Uh, six hours? I have no idea. The counting thing only matters with longer term goals. Right now, I'm just working, because I wanna get this published. I'm really enjoying the read-through, too. (However, I'm getting to the end point where it is going to need more work.)

AND today I realized that the story I'm going to post on the blog here Monday makes for a nice collection of five short short stories to publish too. So by the next ROW80 update on Wednesday, I hope to have that short story collection uploaded.

The collection will be called "5 Twists" -- and all five are stories I've published here on the blog this year. Not all of them are mysteries, so I didn't think of putting them together until I realized they are all twist stories. It wasn't hard to knock out a pure typography cover. (A very nice one, although I needed a second font, and I didn't find one that really suited. But the one I found was close enough for a freebie/99 cent short collection, with sample chapter from new book.)

Now, off to get sleep, and then we'll have dim sum and watch Sherlock tomorrow. Then I'll finish this last run through on the book.

Movies Watched

Lady For A Day (Columbia, 1933). This old Frank Capra flick, based on a Damon Runyon story (and later remade into Pocket Full Of Miracles with Bette Davis) is very much a classic. I don't think there is a good physical copy extant of this. It's dark and scratchy -- but the only restoration I know of has a good sound track, and that particularly important when you have a story as full of snappy dialog as t his.

It was right around this period when American film was finally making a technological recovery from the problems caused by the shift to talkies. For several years before this, the camera had become static, and everything had to be carefully staged for the sake of the new sound systems. Film had temporarily lost all the visual innovation of the great silent directors -- but here we begin to see the return of multiple angles and good editing. Great use of close ups and different angles. (Too bad much of the remaining film is so dark. Watch it in a darkened room so you can see it all.)

The plot is something we haven't seen done with intelligence in a long time -- it became a long-standing TV sitcom trope and has been done to death. (A loveable but pathetic character has to fake high social status for a visiting relative and dignitaries.) However it's fresh and funny and poignant here. Capra, as always, plays UP to the audience. And the performances, by master character actors, are top notch.

See you in the funny papers.

Update On The Pricing Experiment

Well....

The 99 cent price experiment didn't do much. Sales had been in a slump, and they returned to their normal range... which may have been due to the sale or not. Especially since I did do some advertising on Project Wonderful. (These ads did not mention the price.) I did get a recognizable bump of three or four sales at the very beginning and end of the experiment.

So my conclusion is that 99 cents as a price point doesn't really do anything by itself. It only helps if you are actively seeking the 99 cent audience -- but since I didn't do that, you can't prove that by me. I also assume it may work if you have an established audience, and those with tighter budgets are already actively waiting for a sale. I do that myself: This very weekend I sent emails to friends about a favorite author who had a backlist title go on sale.

(Oh, and there were NO sales of Anna The Great. Only Have Gun, Will Play.)

Now on to the higher price experiment.

I raised my price everywhere to 6.99 just before I lowered the price at Amazon to 99 cents. (I had some hope that they'd show 6.99 as the list price and the discount as 99 cents -- but no such luck. They did not list it as a discount at all. They only do that when you raise a price, not lower it.)

I have already seen indications that the higher price hasn't hurt my sales at Barnes and Noble -- and may have even helped. The ranking on Have Gun, Will Play rose after I raised the price. It sells very slowly there -- one or two a month. Smashwords recently updated my B&N numbers for November....

And I sold three books within a few days of raising the price! Which is pretty much what happened with the 99 cent price. (And I'd already sold the normal 2 copies at the regular price.)

It will be a while before Smashwords updates the other vendors for that period. I'm eager to see what gives at Apple. In the mean time, Amazon is currently discounting Have Gun, Will Play to an earlier price of 4.95. (Which is higher than I have offered it before, and though sales are slow, it has already made more money than the 99 cent experiment.)

The plan is to leave the full novels all at $6.99 until March, then cut to $4.99. Maybe I'll run a lower sale again at that time, but I'll judge that partly based on how soon I publish more books.

In the meantime, three factors will make it hard to judge the sales:

• I will be releasing The Man Who Did Too Much, and new releases tend to boost sales. (I also expect to release some other things before the end too, but possibly not soon enough to make a difference.)
  
• I will do a short blog tour, end of January, and beginning of February, which should also boost sales.
• eBooks are on the rise, and there tends to be a boost in sales in January anyway.

Since those three factors all tend to boost sales, I will figure that if I see no boost in sales at all, the price is too dang high. If I see a moderate boost, I'll shrug. If I see a big boost, I'll have to say that a higher price doesn't hurt my sales. (But I will still want to see what happens with the 4.95 price.)

See you in the funny papers.