Like most geeks, I saw The Avengers opening weekend. Like many geeks, I saw it more than once. Yes, it was that good. I did not know if it was going to be good. I was hesitantly pessimistic, but after 99% glowing reviews from people I know (some of whom I actually trust), I gave it a try.
Pessimistic, I say? But how? It's superheroes. It's Joss Whedon! It's Marvel!
Exactly. Marvel has a good way of ignoring professionals who know movies and know how to make movies to do what they think the audience wants. Need examples from this decade (ignoring older disasters that are easy picking)? I give you Spider-Man 3 and Iron Man 2. Both had so much potential and both were wasted by Marvel demanding the directors do things their way, which proved not to be a very good way.
But Whedon is at the helm! This time will be different! Okay, A) the fact that he didn't leave/get fired from the project means he's playing nice, so don't think Marvel didn't have some say in the process (the alien invasion? all their doing). Moreover, is Joss as deserving of praise as we give him? I love his properties (especially Firefly), but they push the super-powered teen girl repeatedly. Can he do something like the Avengers without turning the Black Widow into Buffy?
Well, turns out, he can. Now, if you don't like Joss Whedon as a writer or filmmaker, then you won't like this movie. The dialogue is very clearly his. Yes, Stark, Cap, Banner, and Thor all have their own voices, but they are also expert witty banterers in that way Whedon excels at. I don't mind it. Some people do. It's a matter of preference.
The voice is what makes the movie worth watching, though. If you want to watch the big fightemup beatemup battle against the two-dimensional alien invaders, go watch a Transformers. If you want to watch what is perhaps the best rendition of Bruce Banner, then you have to go see Mark Ruffalo (who took my favorite character and made him the best he's ever been--even better than Bill Bixby! I'll go there). You have an ensemble cast of super-heroes that have no reason for being together that need to be together. It's a daunting task that had every reason to fail. It's master writing that made it even passable and Whedon made it awesome.
I never fully drank his kool-aid (I don't think Firefly would have been the amazing show it was without Tim Minear), but this movie really won me over to just how talented he is. I hope I can excel in my own field in a similar fashion.
Ideas on Stuff
Two ideas that have been bouncing around my head that I wanted to write down.
I want to write a city whose nickname is the Ever-Blossoming City. Every time the monarch dies, the core of the city is torn down and rebuilt in a style dictated by the new monarch. In years of plague or political upheaval, this may actually mean buildings would be torn down before they were finished being constructed. How much of the city is torn down depends on how prosperous the crown is, so you may see a hodgepodge of disparate design styles, grids leading into crisscrosses and what not.
Also, I want to write a short story named HARVEST TIME that focuses on two characters, a royal steward and a ship captain that has recently returned with goods from a newly discovered continent. He gifts them to the monarch and among those gifts is corn. The monarch feasts on the corn at dinner. That night, the corn turns up in the monarch's chamber pot and it is decided that corn is actually poison and the ship captain has tried to assassinate the monarch. It is the steward's job to catch him (and depending on how it develops, may be the person who convinced others corn was poison) while the captain flees in an attempt to prove his innocence.
Really, I just want to write a story where the plot is predicated on the fact that corn is still solid when you poop it out. How does that not freak people out?
I want to write a city whose nickname is the Ever-Blossoming City. Every time the monarch dies, the core of the city is torn down and rebuilt in a style dictated by the new monarch. In years of plague or political upheaval, this may actually mean buildings would be torn down before they were finished being constructed. How much of the city is torn down depends on how prosperous the crown is, so you may see a hodgepodge of disparate design styles, grids leading into crisscrosses and what not.
Also, I want to write a short story named HARVEST TIME that focuses on two characters, a royal steward and a ship captain that has recently returned with goods from a newly discovered continent. He gifts them to the monarch and among those gifts is corn. The monarch feasts on the corn at dinner. That night, the corn turns up in the monarch's chamber pot and it is decided that corn is actually poison and the ship captain has tried to assassinate the monarch. It is the steward's job to catch him (and depending on how it develops, may be the person who convinced others corn was poison) while the captain flees in an attempt to prove his innocence.
Really, I just want to write a story where the plot is predicated on the fact that corn is still solid when you poop it out. How does that not freak people out?
How Thick Is Your Skin?
So agent extrodinaire, Kristin Nelson, has a feature seminar she takes to conventions and the like. Participants bring their first two pages up to the mic and start reading. She tells them when, if they had submitted those pages to her, when she would stop reading and why. You might think, "How awesome! She's giving feedback!" but pause for a second and let it settle in. She tells you when she would stop reading. Not, she lets you finish and then tells you when she would stop reading.
What would it be like, to be up there in front of all those people and have an agent tell you stop after your first sentence? Not so exciting now, eh?
Oh, it is? Yeah, to me too. And how cool is it that she's offering that seminar directly through her new programs? Now you can knuckle down and muscle up even if you're not at a con. Payment is by paypal, so if you're set up to withdraw from your bank account, you won't have your payment processed in time. If you're linked to a credit card, you still could. It's this coming Wednesday at 8pm Eastern (6pm Mountain--I hope people realize the time is listed as Mountain). Submit two pages and see how you do!
I paused in my current wip and returned to PRINCE OF CATS. It's the only finished draft I have right now that I haven't previously queried. I have beta reader feedback, but I've been having difficulty figuring out how to incorporate it. Until Tuesday, which makes this seminar ideally timed. I've started revising the draft for querying AND for this seminar. I am both thrilled at the chance of getting great feedback (and maybe having all two pages read?!) while at the same time terrified at hearing stop after the first sentence. It's like bungee jumping, it's both terrifying and exhilarating.
So if you're interested, you should join in. Kristin rocks the house.
What would it be like, to be up there in front of all those people and have an agent tell you stop after your first sentence? Not so exciting now, eh?
Oh, it is? Yeah, to me too. And how cool is it that she's offering that seminar directly through her new programs? Now you can knuckle down and muscle up even if you're not at a con. Payment is by paypal, so if you're set up to withdraw from your bank account, you won't have your payment processed in time. If you're linked to a credit card, you still could. It's this coming Wednesday at 8pm Eastern (6pm Mountain--I hope people realize the time is listed as Mountain). Submit two pages and see how you do!
I paused in my current wip and returned to PRINCE OF CATS. It's the only finished draft I have right now that I haven't previously queried. I have beta reader feedback, but I've been having difficulty figuring out how to incorporate it. Until Tuesday, which makes this seminar ideally timed. I've started revising the draft for querying AND for this seminar. I am both thrilled at the chance of getting great feedback (and maybe having all two pages read?!) while at the same time terrified at hearing stop after the first sentence. It's like bungee jumping, it's both terrifying and exhilarating.
So if you're interested, you should join in. Kristin rocks the house.
No. Do Better.
I am not in between drafts, but I've already started to see the critical weaknesses in the draft I'm writing. Perhaps the most challenging thing for a pantser is that so much of the first draft is spent getting to know your characters and your setting. Sometimes you know them right away. Sometimes it takes pages and pages to finally understand what makes them tick.
Granted, pantsers can do prep work just like plotters do. It's okay to sit down and write out what your main characters have, what they want, and what they fear. But sometimes the character you meet along the way is not the character you thought you were writing about. The second draft is so much better than the first because you're writing from a point where you finally understand the players involved and the setting. Really, it's almost like the first draft is the longest, most detailed outline one could write about your book and the second draft is really where you start.
I am anxious to get to the second draft of my wip. (Of course, I'm anxious to get to the second draft of a previous work as well, which is making for all kinds of internal conflict). :) Because of all that conflict (and because I recently finished reading Russell Brand's MY BOOKY WOOK), I've started a process I usually save for between drafts. I read a good book (in this case, Peter V. Brett's THE WARDED MAN), one I've read before, and I tear it apart. I read it as critically as one can. How often does he use dialogue tags? Why did he use that adjective? When does he describe people and when does he leave it to your imagination? And so on and so on. Question EVERYTHING!
The reason for this is because I pick up on what I think the author did right and then I compare it to what I'm doing. (I also don't use the same author for this process because then you can get fixated on a particular style rather than the commonalities of good writing.) Describing characters and places is my biggest weakness because I rarely care what they look like. It's the events that occur and the choices they make that matter to me. If they have curly or straight hair is inconsequential. Of course, not everyone agrees with me, so I have to make it a point to remind myself that that kind of thing should be included.
And in fact, as I read a good book so critically and see my own shortcomings, a sort of mantra emerges. "No. Do better." Those two sentences (or one sentence if I chose to use No as a clausal interjection) inform my entire self-editing process. I go over what I did and say, "No. Do better." Repeat and repeat and repeat until you can say, "Okay. That's better."
Granted, pantsers can do prep work just like plotters do. It's okay to sit down and write out what your main characters have, what they want, and what they fear. But sometimes the character you meet along the way is not the character you thought you were writing about. The second draft is so much better than the first because you're writing from a point where you finally understand the players involved and the setting. Really, it's almost like the first draft is the longest, most detailed outline one could write about your book and the second draft is really where you start.
I am anxious to get to the second draft of my wip. (Of course, I'm anxious to get to the second draft of a previous work as well, which is making for all kinds of internal conflict). :) Because of all that conflict (and because I recently finished reading Russell Brand's MY BOOKY WOOK), I've started a process I usually save for between drafts. I read a good book (in this case, Peter V. Brett's THE WARDED MAN), one I've read before, and I tear it apart. I read it as critically as one can. How often does he use dialogue tags? Why did he use that adjective? When does he describe people and when does he leave it to your imagination? And so on and so on. Question EVERYTHING!
The reason for this is because I pick up on what I think the author did right and then I compare it to what I'm doing. (I also don't use the same author for this process because then you can get fixated on a particular style rather than the commonalities of good writing.) Describing characters and places is my biggest weakness because I rarely care what they look like. It's the events that occur and the choices they make that matter to me. If they have curly or straight hair is inconsequential. Of course, not everyone agrees with me, so I have to make it a point to remind myself that that kind of thing should be included.
And in fact, as I read a good book so critically and see my own shortcomings, a sort of mantra emerges. "No. Do better." Those two sentences (or one sentence if I chose to use No as a clausal interjection) inform my entire self-editing process. I go over what I did and say, "No. Do better." Repeat and repeat and repeat until you can say, "Okay. That's better."
That's More Like It
So do you remember back on April 3rd, when I was complaining about how I hadn't been writing that much? Well, I hadn't, and it was frustrating. Work was sucking the creativity out of my brain. I worked late. I worked more when I got home. I worked on weekends. That's how publishing goes. Like the military, there's a lot of hurry up and wait, but once shit's on, shit's on. So all my delayed titles parachuted in at once and I had a few weeks to make them happen. WHILE at the same time being asked if I could publish early.
Want to work in publishing? Behold your fate. This kind of thing never changes. Turn over late, publish early. Glamorous, yes?
Anyway, so I do what I do because that's what I do and get my work done (and publish early, behold my awesomeness). This means I have time to do things other than work, which means I have time to write. It's amazing how hard it is to write when you're spending all your other time working. Even if I wasn't working on the train, I was so exhausted from working all the time, I typically just fell asleep or watched Stargate SG-1.
So, on April 3rd, I was hanging out at 68,000 words. Two weeks later? 98,000 words. That's much better. That's the kind of productivity I like to see! It's going to take a lot of work to get this thing up to snuff, it being a first draft and all. But the main goal of a first draft is to finish the first draft, and I'm glad to see that progress is being made in that regard.
And you? How is your writing coming along? I see Ted Cross is mad in March with his stories and Nate Wilson is blogging like no one else can and Livia Blackburne is on her bajillionth draft. Update the class, kiddies. Let us know how you're doing.
Want to work in publishing? Behold your fate. This kind of thing never changes. Turn over late, publish early. Glamorous, yes?
Anyway, so I do what I do because that's what I do and get my work done (and publish early, behold my awesomeness). This means I have time to do things other than work, which means I have time to write. It's amazing how hard it is to write when you're spending all your other time working. Even if I wasn't working on the train, I was so exhausted from working all the time, I typically just fell asleep or watched Stargate SG-1.
So, on April 3rd, I was hanging out at 68,000 words. Two weeks later? 98,000 words. That's much better. That's the kind of productivity I like to see! It's going to take a lot of work to get this thing up to snuff, it being a first draft and all. But the main goal of a first draft is to finish the first draft, and I'm glad to see that progress is being made in that regard.
And you? How is your writing coming along? I see Ted Cross is mad in March with his stories and Nate Wilson is blogging like no one else can and Livia Blackburne is on her bajillionth draft. Update the class, kiddies. Let us know how you're doing.
The Bell Rings
So unless you live under a log (in which case you have a secret base and I want to come visit), you heard that the Department of Justice sued Apple and 5/6 of the Big Six today (Random House was not included). Of the five publishers, three settled to avoid the legal costs. Two, Macmillain and Penguin, did not.
First, anti-trust investigations happen much more often than is generally spoken of. They just don't usually make it to court because court is expensive. So, in that regard, this is a big deal.
Second, barring a kangaroo court, I think Macmillain and Penguin will win their challenge.
Third, those in the traditional publishing verse on twitter were incredibly vocal today. I have pared away a lot of the self-publishers I used to follow (mostly because they failed at the social aspect of social media), so I did not get a good view of the opposite side of that spectrum.
Fourth, Twitter is an impossible place to discuss the intricacies of ebook pricing. Both sides of the argument are so complex and contain nuggets of truth that a proper conversation cannot be had in 140 characters.
Fifth, and here's the bulk of my topic today, my opinion on ebook pricing is changing. The reasons for this will take more than 140 characters. Quick recap for new readers, I've been making ebooks for a long time, like back when your choices were PDF or .MOBI (mmm mobipocket, you've grown up!). So here are the two cruxes of the argument and both are true.
ebooks are cheaper than other formats to make and manufacture.
The cost of making the actual book is a small fraction of the cost of making a book product.
The problem is, each side of the argument has latched onto one of these two truths to argue the other side. So both sides have taken 1/2 of the truth to argue the other half. It's like watching the heads-side of a quarter argue with the tails-side that only one side is a real quarter. Those watching the argument can do little but bang their head against a table.
When ebooks first went mainstream and Amazon set the bar at 9.99, I thought they were (and perhaps they were) playing to a familiar .99 value similar to that of an mp3 file on iTunes. I was outraged. 9.99? Are they crazy? That thing cost pennies to make. PENNIES!
9.99 was ridiculous. I wasn't going to pay that. Blah blah blah, grumble grumble grumble. Of course, I did pay it. I paid it a lot. That and 7.99 and 5.99. Sometimes 3.99 on special deals. I dipped my toes in the 99 cent self-pubbed market before I ran away screaming (Hocking being the best author by far I found in that pool). But then the agency model rolled out and all of a sudden I saw 11.99, 14.99, and 16.99. What? Are they crazy? That thing cost pennies to make. PENNIES!
16.99 was ridiculous. I wasn't going to pay that. Blah blah blah, grumble grumble grumble. I would not buy a book for more than 9.99. I've broken that rule twice, and both times in extenuating circumstances. First, me and my wife split the cost of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS when it was released, so really, I did not break my 9.99 rule except that the book was priced over 9.99. Second was Galen Beckett's THE MAGICIANS AND MRS QUENT, which was 11.99, but I bought it with a gift certificate I got for Christmas, so it wasn't like I used real money. I have not broken that rule elsewise, and that's so hard! THE MAGICIANS... was the first in a trilogy and they're all priced at 11.99. And Saladin Ahmed's THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON just came out and that's 11.99 as well. DAMMIT! I want to read that sucker, but I have principles.
Principles, dammit!
Having a discussion with a new Twitter friend, Lauren Panepinto, (who did the super duper awesome covers on Joe Abercrombie's novels--serious, I drool over those covers), I began to communicate what I had come to realize about ebooks and their pricing. I had originally expected ebooks to replace mass market paperbacks. As such, I always expected them to be priced like mass market paperbacks. $7.99? I'll scoop that shit up like crazy!
My evolving perception of pricing, however, could not be communicated in 140 characters, so I abandoned the discussion of books costing more than just manufacturing cost with a weak "I know, that's how I get a paycheck."
Kind of weak, it's true after all, but still. Weak.
If ebooks have to be priced so high because books cost more than just manufacturing, how do you justify trade paperbacks? Mass market paperbacks? They're all derived from the same product, and they're priced for what their platform is expected to be priced at (or thereabouts). So saying, we can't price ebooks that low because it costs so much more to make a book than just manufacturing! is crap. It's crap because you're not making ONLY ebooks. You're making other formats as well.
Or so I said. But I was wrong, at least somewhat. I was wrong because ebooks aren't released like other formats are. A publisher doesn't release a hardback at the same time as the trade. If you got the choice to buy a $25 hardback or a $8 mass market paperback, you'd have to really love that book or really love hardback to spring the $17 difference. Most people would go for the mass market. And publishing makes its money from most people.
The numbers are already in. ebooks are gouging mass market paperback sales, which is entirely expected, which only lends credence to my mmpb pricing. But they're cutting into all the platforms, so now where does that revenue come from instead of a hardback if the ebook is priced too low.
NOW, I will say, early numbers studies say that $7.99 is an ideal price point, and that companies will offset the reduced per title revenue with increased sales. It'll take some time for the market to bear that out, though.
Regardless, I'm starting to think that 11.99 for a new release isn't unreasonable. It's not the $25 for a hard cover, but it is, in a way, the cost that you pay to get a new release. Same goes for DVDs, so why shouldn't it be true with ebooks?
The problem where this all derails is when the ebook is priced higher than the available format print book. You know how I mentioned Galen Beckett above? Those 11.99 ebooks? Yeah, I could get a mass market trade of the same title for $6. THAT'S a problem. $11.99 for Saladin Ahmed instead of $16.95? I just saved five bucks. If I don't want to pay that, I can wait a couple years and it SHOULD drop in price and I can get it for an expense that I think is more appropriate. Those are the choices that the market makes. Things change so quickly that sometimes we forget that it takes time for things to work themselves out.
First, anti-trust investigations happen much more often than is generally spoken of. They just don't usually make it to court because court is expensive. So, in that regard, this is a big deal.
Second, barring a kangaroo court, I think Macmillain and Penguin will win their challenge.
Third, those in the traditional publishing verse on twitter were incredibly vocal today. I have pared away a lot of the self-publishers I used to follow (mostly because they failed at the social aspect of social media), so I did not get a good view of the opposite side of that spectrum.
Fourth, Twitter is an impossible place to discuss the intricacies of ebook pricing. Both sides of the argument are so complex and contain nuggets of truth that a proper conversation cannot be had in 140 characters.
Fifth, and here's the bulk of my topic today, my opinion on ebook pricing is changing. The reasons for this will take more than 140 characters. Quick recap for new readers, I've been making ebooks for a long time, like back when your choices were PDF or .MOBI (mmm mobipocket, you've grown up!). So here are the two cruxes of the argument and both are true.
ebooks are cheaper than other formats to make and manufacture.
The cost of making the actual book is a small fraction of the cost of making a book product.
The problem is, each side of the argument has latched onto one of these two truths to argue the other side. So both sides have taken 1/2 of the truth to argue the other half. It's like watching the heads-side of a quarter argue with the tails-side that only one side is a real quarter. Those watching the argument can do little but bang their head against a table.
When ebooks first went mainstream and Amazon set the bar at 9.99, I thought they were (and perhaps they were) playing to a familiar .99 value similar to that of an mp3 file on iTunes. I was outraged. 9.99? Are they crazy? That thing cost pennies to make. PENNIES!
9.99 was ridiculous. I wasn't going to pay that. Blah blah blah, grumble grumble grumble. Of course, I did pay it. I paid it a lot. That and 7.99 and 5.99. Sometimes 3.99 on special deals. I dipped my toes in the 99 cent self-pubbed market before I ran away screaming (Hocking being the best author by far I found in that pool). But then the agency model rolled out and all of a sudden I saw 11.99, 14.99, and 16.99. What? Are they crazy? That thing cost pennies to make. PENNIES!
16.99 was ridiculous. I wasn't going to pay that. Blah blah blah, grumble grumble grumble. I would not buy a book for more than 9.99. I've broken that rule twice, and both times in extenuating circumstances. First, me and my wife split the cost of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS when it was released, so really, I did not break my 9.99 rule except that the book was priced over 9.99. Second was Galen Beckett's THE MAGICIANS AND MRS QUENT, which was 11.99, but I bought it with a gift certificate I got for Christmas, so it wasn't like I used real money. I have not broken that rule elsewise, and that's so hard! THE MAGICIANS... was the first in a trilogy and they're all priced at 11.99. And Saladin Ahmed's THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON just came out and that's 11.99 as well. DAMMIT! I want to read that sucker, but I have principles.
Principles, dammit!
Having a discussion with a new Twitter friend, Lauren Panepinto, (who did the super duper awesome covers on Joe Abercrombie's novels--serious, I drool over those covers), I began to communicate what I had come to realize about ebooks and their pricing. I had originally expected ebooks to replace mass market paperbacks. As such, I always expected them to be priced like mass market paperbacks. $7.99? I'll scoop that shit up like crazy!
My evolving perception of pricing, however, could not be communicated in 140 characters, so I abandoned the discussion of books costing more than just manufacturing cost with a weak "I know, that's how I get a paycheck."
Kind of weak, it's true after all, but still. Weak.
If ebooks have to be priced so high because books cost more than just manufacturing, how do you justify trade paperbacks? Mass market paperbacks? They're all derived from the same product, and they're priced for what their platform is expected to be priced at (or thereabouts). So saying, we can't price ebooks that low because it costs so much more to make a book than just manufacturing! is crap. It's crap because you're not making ONLY ebooks. You're making other formats as well.
Or so I said. But I was wrong, at least somewhat. I was wrong because ebooks aren't released like other formats are. A publisher doesn't release a hardback at the same time as the trade. If you got the choice to buy a $25 hardback or a $8 mass market paperback, you'd have to really love that book or really love hardback to spring the $17 difference. Most people would go for the mass market. And publishing makes its money from most people.
The numbers are already in. ebooks are gouging mass market paperback sales, which is entirely expected, which only lends credence to my mmpb pricing. But they're cutting into all the platforms, so now where does that revenue come from instead of a hardback if the ebook is priced too low.
NOW, I will say, early numbers studies say that $7.99 is an ideal price point, and that companies will offset the reduced per title revenue with increased sales. It'll take some time for the market to bear that out, though.
Regardless, I'm starting to think that 11.99 for a new release isn't unreasonable. It's not the $25 for a hard cover, but it is, in a way, the cost that you pay to get a new release. Same goes for DVDs, so why shouldn't it be true with ebooks?
The problem where this all derails is when the ebook is priced higher than the available format print book. You know how I mentioned Galen Beckett above? Those 11.99 ebooks? Yeah, I could get a mass market trade of the same title for $6. THAT'S a problem. $11.99 for Saladin Ahmed instead of $16.95? I just saved five bucks. If I don't want to pay that, I can wait a couple years and it SHOULD drop in price and I can get it for an expense that I think is more appropriate. Those are the choices that the market makes. Things change so quickly that sometimes we forget that it takes time for things to work themselves out.
Up for Air
I have a blog? Oh that's right, I do! And here I am posting to it. Let me tell you, it's a sign of how much I love you that I'm spending my precious few minutes of free time to say hello.
Hello!
All my December titles have already turned over. What's that? It's April? Yes, yes it is. Welcome to publishing.
I've been cranking it out lately. Ten-hour days plus four-hour commutes. Not the worst I've had in my career. I've done 15+ before, but still, 14 hours out of a 24-hour day doesn't leave a lot of leisure time.
Thankfully, this sort of thing will only last a few more weeks and then things settle back down. What distresses me most is not the amount of time spent working, but the drain it puts on me. Yesterday, trudging my way to the train station, I had to make a choice, write on the way home or watch Stargate SG-1 on my phone. Stargate won out. And it's been winning out a lot lately. Today is the first day I can remember in the last week where I had the energy to write both in the morning and the evening train ride home.
I'm not losing the rhythm of the story, which is great, but the word count is going up sooo slowly. I chopped out 20,000 words (a kick to the nuts but much needed). Then I rewrote the 20,000 words. I've only managed another 8,000 since then. Not bad, certainly, but normally I hit that number in four days.
I have no plans on being a full-time writer (in that full-time denotes having no other job). My benefits at my company are top notch, and I wouldn't want to give those up to be on my own. But there are times, times like this when I'm burning the candle on all ends, that I wish I had more time to devote to writing and less time to publish something in four weeks that would otherwise have eight.
Hello!
All my December titles have already turned over. What's that? It's April? Yes, yes it is. Welcome to publishing.
I've been cranking it out lately. Ten-hour days plus four-hour commutes. Not the worst I've had in my career. I've done 15+ before, but still, 14 hours out of a 24-hour day doesn't leave a lot of leisure time.
Thankfully, this sort of thing will only last a few more weeks and then things settle back down. What distresses me most is not the amount of time spent working, but the drain it puts on me. Yesterday, trudging my way to the train station, I had to make a choice, write on the way home or watch Stargate SG-1 on my phone. Stargate won out. And it's been winning out a lot lately. Today is the first day I can remember in the last week where I had the energy to write both in the morning and the evening train ride home.
I'm not losing the rhythm of the story, which is great, but the word count is going up sooo slowly. I chopped out 20,000 words (a kick to the nuts but much needed). Then I rewrote the 20,000 words. I've only managed another 8,000 since then. Not bad, certainly, but normally I hit that number in four days.
I have no plans on being a full-time writer (in that full-time denotes having no other job). My benefits at my company are top notch, and I wouldn't want to give those up to be on my own. But there are times, times like this when I'm burning the candle on all ends, that I wish I had more time to devote to writing and less time to publish something in four weeks that would otherwise have eight.
Po Tay TOOOOOOO!
Before we begin, watch this. You can thank me in the comments.
Alright, now that you've watched that two or three (or twenty) times, let's continue, shall we?
I have a draft post that I've been working on for weeks. This isn't it. It's a picture of my bookshelf. When I envisioned that post last year, I had no idea it would take me so long to finish. That's how much I love you. I'm working hard on a picture post.
BUT, so that you don't forget I'm here, let's talk! Not about work. Work is busy. Stuff that was supposed to be turned over in December is turning over now, so I have to do a whole lot of stuff in a few weeks. Mmmm, publishing. Gotta love it.
But publishing isn't the only industry going through digital upheaval right now. Sure, CD vs MP3, DVD vs streaming, but those battles are actually old battles (just like ebooks are an old battle--the public just wasn't involved in the first part of it). The big deal now is mobile connectivity. And actually, this has been a big deal for years as well, but again, industry fights its own battles internally and then format adoption moves that fight out into the open.
Smart phone adoption is so prevalent now that I actually forgot not everyone has one. I use my phone more than I use my laptop (including for watching streaming movies). The only thing my laptop is really for any more is writing, because I write a billion times faster on a real, full-sized keyboard than I do on a touch screen. And, now we're getting 4G technology (a rant in and of itself because the G just stands for generation, which means companies hold onto technology until they've milked us for all we're worth and then they move on to the next generation to start all over).
Awesome phones, cloud-based services, and high-speed mobile connectivity. You know what that means? Science fiction is becoming science fact! Or it would, if we weren't limited to 2GB of data a month. For all the people fighting over self-publishing vs traditional publishing, I think the larger impact on us as a society is the control of bandwidth. The "all information should be free" justification for thievery is bunk, but there are some serious implications of a non-neutral, ratcheted internet. So many services are moving to a mobile interface. More over, those services are also going to a cloud system rather than a delivery system (to simplify it, if they don't give you an end product, everyone has to go to them and they make more money--same is true for ebooks which is why the "publishers don't want ebooks" argument is so stupid).
What happens is they take information and services and put it over there. Then they say you can get it over here on your phone. Pay for the service to get it from there to here. Oh, but now we're going to limit you because it is more profitable for us to restrict your access to the materials we've taken away from you than it is to increase our network to handle increased volume.
I left Sprint because of horrible customer service and a poor selection of phones. They're improving on both, I hear, especially the latter. Their bandwidth speeds aren't top of the line, but they still offer true unlimited. Verizon and AT&T charge over 2GB and with music and video going to cloud-based services, you'd be amazed at how quickly you can pass that mark.
How much, do you ask? I average 15GB of usage a month. That's how much. I'm considered a top-tier user in that regard and I'm doing it on purpose. I'm part of the grandfathered Unlimited Data customers from Verizon. If I were with AT&T, they'd ratchet my service so that anything over 2GB would be so slow that I wouldn't want to use it even though I could. Verizon will probably end up doing the same, and frankly, it's the wrong direction.
At some point, the majority of the digital goods we consume will be done through a mobile platform, and as long as our access to that material is constrained, it will only foster piracy and theft rather than inhibit it. More over, it will stifle growth and innovation. This is where the entire industry is moving and has been moving for years. The attempt to constrain that result now is like trying to turn the titanic. There will be a big ass crash when more people discover they're willing to use mobile solutions for high-bandwidth services.
There's a fight a brewing, and it's much more relevant than self-publishing versus traditional publishing.
The Other Side
I don't only read fantasy and science fiction. I think that's a good thing, to read outside of one's preferred genre. Keeps things fresh. Keeps things interesting. You get a view of how things are done elsewhere (setting doesn't matter as much in some genres as it does in sff where many call it another character in the novel). And you get a view of how things are changing there, maybe something you can use in your own work as well.
For me, when I'm not reading sff, I usually turn to a biography. Jerry Lewis' DEAN AND ME, Steve Martin's BORN STANDING UP, Craig Ferguson's AMERICAN BY CHOICE (a much more solid offering than his fiction BETWEEN THE BRIDGE AND THE WATER1), and more. Some are awesome (see Ferguson). Some are completely self-serving (see Lewis). Some are a train wreck of good intentions (see Meghan McCain's DIRTY SEXY POLITICS). Currently, Russel Brand's first autobiography, MY BOOKY WOOKY. I tend to lean toward performers rather than historical, political, or military figures, who so often make up the bulk of the biography section. I like to see how they were drawn to their art, how they suffered, and how they overcame (if they did). Artists often tend to leave off a lot of the polish. Even with Jerry Lewis writing about how he and Dean Martin loved each other to the very end, he speaks on infidelity and ties to the mob.
With Russell Brand, his fiction follows a consciousness delivery much like his stand-up. Tangents come and go and you have to hold on for the ride. I love the book already because he makes a statement that perfectly sums up my childhood as well. "I was awake as a child." It's such a profound statement that people have trouble understanding unless they lived it. I made the local news when I was in kindergarten. My school did a balloon release2, and I was one of a handful of students whose balloons were found first. They interviewed the larger kids first, so I heard the kind of questions they were going to ask. I was prepared with a cogent, intelligent response, but when they asked me my question, I stuck my finger in my mouth and twisted in place, looking horribly cute. Of course, the entire time, I'm screaming in my mind "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" like some guy at the helm of a spaceship, the controls not responding, the circuit boards sparking, and the ship setting course for the closest star.
I was awake as a child.
I don't think I would have ever heard, I don't think I would have ever articulated that experience if I had not read Russell Brand's MY BOOKY WOOKY. Thanks for that Russell. It's a good read.
For me, when I'm not reading sff, I usually turn to a biography. Jerry Lewis' DEAN AND ME, Steve Martin's BORN STANDING UP, Craig Ferguson's AMERICAN BY CHOICE (a much more solid offering than his fiction BETWEEN THE BRIDGE AND THE WATER1), and more. Some are awesome (see Ferguson). Some are completely self-serving (see Lewis). Some are a train wreck of good intentions (see Meghan McCain's DIRTY SEXY POLITICS). Currently, Russel Brand's first autobiography, MY BOOKY WOOKY. I tend to lean toward performers rather than historical, political, or military figures, who so often make up the bulk of the biography section. I like to see how they were drawn to their art, how they suffered, and how they overcame (if they did). Artists often tend to leave off a lot of the polish. Even with Jerry Lewis writing about how he and Dean Martin loved each other to the very end, he speaks on infidelity and ties to the mob.
With Russell Brand, his fiction follows a consciousness delivery much like his stand-up. Tangents come and go and you have to hold on for the ride. I love the book already because he makes a statement that perfectly sums up my childhood as well. "I was awake as a child." It's such a profound statement that people have trouble understanding unless they lived it. I made the local news when I was in kindergarten. My school did a balloon release2, and I was one of a handful of students whose balloons were found first. They interviewed the larger kids first, so I heard the kind of questions they were going to ask. I was prepared with a cogent, intelligent response, but when they asked me my question, I stuck my finger in my mouth and twisted in place, looking horribly cute. Of course, the entire time, I'm screaming in my mind "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" like some guy at the helm of a spaceship, the controls not responding, the circuit boards sparking, and the ship setting course for the closest star.
I was awake as a child.
I don't think I would have ever heard, I don't think I would have ever articulated that experience if I had not read Russell Brand's MY BOOKY WOOKY. Thanks for that Russell. It's a good read.
A Body at Rest Tends to Stay at Rest
So yesterday I started writing again. Vacation + sickness means no writing, but taking that kind of break can make it hard to get started again. I compare it to a cold engine. It's hard to get the thing to turn over once it's been sitting still for awhile. Writing is definitely like this. I have some friends who are beginning their first efforts into writing and others who are renewing their efforts after a long hiatus. The same thing seems to happen. They begin with their first chapter, maybe the second, maybe even the third, and then they invariably stop. Something somewhere in what few words they've written isn't "right." They stop and like so many before them, they no longer continue forward.
I know some professionals edit as they go along, but for new authors, I always think this is a bad idea. Newtonian physics apply to writing as much as they do to bodies in motion, I think. Unless acted upon by an outside force, forward motion begets forward motion. Keep writing and you will write more and more until you have a finished novel.
Yesterday I think I managed only a few hundred words--and by few I mean 500 at best out of two hours on a train. I was tired and completely out of the habit of writing. Today, I wrote on the morning train (1300) words and again at lunch (1200) words. It feels great. It feels like my engine is finally warmed up. And it feels like I am in motion. As long as I keep writing, I will remain in motion.
I know some professionals edit as they go along, but for new authors, I always think this is a bad idea. Newtonian physics apply to writing as much as they do to bodies in motion, I think. Unless acted upon by an outside force, forward motion begets forward motion. Keep writing and you will write more and more until you have a finished novel.
Yesterday I think I managed only a few hundred words--and by few I mean 500 at best out of two hours on a train. I was tired and completely out of the habit of writing. Today, I wrote on the morning train (1300) words and again at lunch (1200) words. It feels great. It feels like my engine is finally warmed up. And it feels like I am in motion. As long as I keep writing, I will remain in motion.
Boy, Interrupted
I set ambitious writing goals for this year.
Goal 1: Finish the first draft of BENEATH A SUNDERED SKY (150,000 words)
Goal 2: Finish the first draft of WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? (15,000 words)
Goal 3: Finish the third (first final) draft of PRINCE OF CATS (50,000 words)
Goal 4: Rewrite BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE (150,000 words)
All in all, I set goals to deal with the largest word count I've ever attempted in a single year. (Granted, some of it had been touched before so maybe that should have a .75 modifier to the word count in terms of difficulty. I can't say for sure.) I didn't set these goals with a "let's see how much of this I can do" mindset. I set goals I expect to achieve. Thus I expected to achieve all four goals.
So why am I obviously leading up to the fact that I'm not going to achieve all four goals? Because it's March and I'm already sick FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS YEAR! I'm not one of those people that get sick every decade. I have a crappy immune system. January and I are not friends. I get sick in January almost every year. Then again at the end of autumn or around there when the weather is turning and my allergies are kicking my ass and everyone has forgotten how to cover their mouths for some reason.
The fact that I've already been sick three times this year is not a good sign. It certainly hasn't made writing easier. It took a bit to get back up to speed after the first time I got sick. Then, after the second time I got sick, I realized everything I had written between those illnesses was absolute shit and needed to be deleted. I not only wasted a month of writing time, I wasted the paltry 20,000 words I wrote in that month (which is half of what I usually write in a month, in case you're wondering).
Beginning the year with SUNDERED SKY and seeing how easily the setting fell onto the page, I didn't think it unrealistic at all to finish it in three months. Add a couple weeks to switch gears and finish CROOKED DOOR and I had thought to have points one and two scratched off by April. I thought maybe to add goals 1.1 and 2.1, revising a second draft over the summer for each of those stories.
It's March 8th and I'm at 50,000 words of goal one. At this pace, I'll finish the book by September! Horror! What a wasted year that would be. I don't expect that to be the issue, obviously. Once I'm well, the word count pace will increase, but damn it's hard to feel that way when I'm on illness number three and I can only manage enough mental capacity to realize I'm sucking it hard this year.
How's your progress coming? Hopefully better than mine.
That question is for everyone, but especially Nate. Everyone stare at Nate and remind him he should not be reading this journal entry. He should be writing his novel. Now. Go. Shoo. Be creative.
Goal 1: Finish the first draft of BENEATH A SUNDERED SKY (150,000 words)
Goal 2: Finish the first draft of WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? (15,000 words)
Goal 3: Finish the third (first final) draft of PRINCE OF CATS (50,000 words)
Goal 4: Rewrite BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE (150,000 words)
All in all, I set goals to deal with the largest word count I've ever attempted in a single year. (Granted, some of it had been touched before so maybe that should have a .75 modifier to the word count in terms of difficulty. I can't say for sure.) I didn't set these goals with a "let's see how much of this I can do" mindset. I set goals I expect to achieve. Thus I expected to achieve all four goals.
So why am I obviously leading up to the fact that I'm not going to achieve all four goals? Because it's March and I'm already sick FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS YEAR! I'm not one of those people that get sick every decade. I have a crappy immune system. January and I are not friends. I get sick in January almost every year. Then again at the end of autumn or around there when the weather is turning and my allergies are kicking my ass and everyone has forgotten how to cover their mouths for some reason.
The fact that I've already been sick three times this year is not a good sign. It certainly hasn't made writing easier. It took a bit to get back up to speed after the first time I got sick. Then, after the second time I got sick, I realized everything I had written between those illnesses was absolute shit and needed to be deleted. I not only wasted a month of writing time, I wasted the paltry 20,000 words I wrote in that month (which is half of what I usually write in a month, in case you're wondering).
Beginning the year with SUNDERED SKY and seeing how easily the setting fell onto the page, I didn't think it unrealistic at all to finish it in three months. Add a couple weeks to switch gears and finish CROOKED DOOR and I had thought to have points one and two scratched off by April. I thought maybe to add goals 1.1 and 2.1, revising a second draft over the summer for each of those stories.
It's March 8th and I'm at 50,000 words of goal one. At this pace, I'll finish the book by September! Horror! What a wasted year that would be. I don't expect that to be the issue, obviously. Once I'm well, the word count pace will increase, but damn it's hard to feel that way when I'm on illness number three and I can only manage enough mental capacity to realize I'm sucking it hard this year.
How's your progress coming? Hopefully better than mine.
That question is for everyone, but especially Nate. Everyone stare at Nate and remind him he should not be reading this journal entry. He should be writing his novel. Now. Go. Shoo. Be creative.
Insight. Powerful Powerful Insight
Some people like "How To" books. They buy "How to be a better ____" books over and over again when to me they so often repeat the same information or contradict one another. Sometimes they read like the person read the other book and decided to do his best "this isn't really plagiarism" impersonation. Needless to say, I had a few bad experiences with such books early on and have for the most part given up on them. (I follow Donald Maass on Twitter, where he posts insightful tweets to make a person a better author, which I find to be an adequate middle ground.)
Then there are magicians. I never wanted to be a magician, but who doesn't love a good magic trick? I grew up during Penn and Teller's rise to fame, which means I hit the tail end of quality magic. More popular magicians who got on TV for not eating were stupid and ruined the profession for people with genuine talent. Give me Ricky Jay any day of the week rather than some asshole in tight pants dancing around a stage hyping up something that doesn't offer a beginning much less an ending.
So, with my curmudgeonly devotion to older magic, I've never heard of Brian Brushwood. I only know of him now because someone linked me to his blog on Google+. On his blog, he's posted a letter exchange with Teller (yes, the one that doesn't talk; that doesn't mean he can't write).
I offer you the entire post because the context makes Teller's words all the more powerful. His closing paragraphs are what got me. His talk about being something other than a magician. Over the years I've often met people who were truly gifted at something other than writing who so badly wanted to be a writer. It reminded me of how much I wanted to be a soldier when I'm very clearly not built for soldiering. Sometimes, when I'm down and worried that I won't ever cut it at being a writer (even though I've been writing longer than I've done anything else), I think, maybe I'm better at something else. Maybe I'm not supposed to be a writer. I'm supposed to be a ______, and I'm wasting all these years writing novels when I should be _____ing.
But Teller should have been something other than a magician, and it's that something that makes him so great at what he does. For the first time ever, that lingering insecurity feels like a blazing torch, I'm carrying to my own professional olympics. Holy shit, I should have been a _______ which is why I'm going to be such a great writer!!!
Thank you, Teller, for your wisdom. And thank you, Brian, for sharing.
Then there are magicians. I never wanted to be a magician, but who doesn't love a good magic trick? I grew up during Penn and Teller's rise to fame, which means I hit the tail end of quality magic. More popular magicians who got on TV for not eating were stupid and ruined the profession for people with genuine talent. Give me Ricky Jay any day of the week rather than some asshole in tight pants dancing around a stage hyping up something that doesn't offer a beginning much less an ending.
So, with my curmudgeonly devotion to older magic, I've never heard of Brian Brushwood. I only know of him now because someone linked me to his blog on Google+. On his blog, he's posted a letter exchange with Teller (yes, the one that doesn't talk; that doesn't mean he can't write).
I offer you the entire post because the context makes Teller's words all the more powerful. His closing paragraphs are what got me. His talk about being something other than a magician. Over the years I've often met people who were truly gifted at something other than writing who so badly wanted to be a writer. It reminded me of how much I wanted to be a soldier when I'm very clearly not built for soldiering. Sometimes, when I'm down and worried that I won't ever cut it at being a writer (even though I've been writing longer than I've done anything else), I think, maybe I'm better at something else. Maybe I'm not supposed to be a writer. I'm supposed to be a ______, and I'm wasting all these years writing novels when I should be _____ing.
But Teller should have been something other than a magician, and it's that something that makes him so great at what he does. For the first time ever, that lingering insecurity feels like a blazing torch, I'm carrying to my own professional olympics. Holy shit, I should have been a _______ which is why I'm going to be such a great writer!!!
Thank you, Teller, for your wisdom. And thank you, Brian, for sharing.
More Music!
For my old job I used to travel to Europe. Sitting in a bar in Amsterdam, I often heard a style of electronica that really spoke to me. It was a popular house music there that everyone seemed to know, but no one would explain to a silly American. It was unlike anything I heard back in the states. Well, years later with the rise to popularity of such performers as Skrillex, I finally know A) what it's called; and B) how to find it.
So what I was hearing way back when was Dubstep. Now that it's popular, people love to make fun of it because that's what people on the internet do. Let this be a lesson for when you put anything you create out there. Some jackass will make fun of you because that's what jackasses do. Regardless, now that I've found the name of the genre, YouTube has granted me plenty of opportunities to listen.
I bring this up because I don't listen to music while I write. BUT some music gets me so pumped up that I want to write. Such a song is Nefarioiusa by Skream. Check it out:
I've listened to that one three times in a row now. Work? Who wants to work. That can wait until tomorrow. Now it is time I create!!!
So what I was hearing way back when was Dubstep. Now that it's popular, people love to make fun of it because that's what people on the internet do. Let this be a lesson for when you put anything you create out there. Some jackass will make fun of you because that's what jackasses do. Regardless, now that I've found the name of the genre, YouTube has granted me plenty of opportunities to listen.
I bring this up because I don't listen to music while I write. BUT some music gets me so pumped up that I want to write. Such a song is Nefarioiusa by Skream. Check it out:
I've listened to that one three times in a row now. Work? Who wants to work. That can wait until tomorrow. Now it is time I create!!!