Slef - pubilshing is the dark and stormy night

So I just read a fun little blog post on self-publishing:  http://www.themillions.com/2011/11/reasons-not-to-self-publish-in-2011-2012-a-list.html .  He makes some very valid arguments against self-publishing and quotes some top-notch authors on why to stick to the big publishers.  The big argument that still moves me is that of Refinement.  Editors and Copy Editors that can help you refine your story to be the best that it can be.  I've heard stories about having to remove characters, change plots and rewrite your favorite scene.  But even Harry Potter and Twilight had Editors.  These people read a LOT of stuff and they are pretty good at knowing what works and what doesn't.  That is a big plus for making your book a hit.

But what if you can't get it in to them?  What if the first couple of pages aren't as gripping and they round-file it before it gets good?  What if you send something in and you have no contacts in the industry?  What if it just plain sucks but your friends and family are too nice to tell you but you can't bring yourself to submit it for fear of rejection?  Self-publish.

There is nothing like a bunch of faceless people who can reject you immediately and forget you until your major hit comes out as opposed to someone who might create a file on you, make notes that other Editors can read when your next manuscript comes in.  I can handle a faceless reader dumping on my stuff.  I think.

The other advantage to self-publishing is that I can release my story in pieces.  The first one I plan on putting out there will come in 3 parts.  That's the way it was meant to be.  Will it ever be published as a whole book?  I don't know.  But this way I can publish as I finish each part.  I doubt a major publishing house will be willing to do that. 

So let it be written.  So let it be done.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

When it rains, you get wet.

And NaNoWriMo has started.  My friends are headlong into it racking up word counts like an elephant and peanuts.  It's amazing, inspiring.  Not me.  My sum total of writing for the month consists of writing down the dream I had that would make a very surreal book.  My wife says I should write it.  Maybe that will be for next November when I don't have two group projects and other stressors actively assailing me.  December can't come soon enough.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

Magic

It has been some time since I wrote anything, here or otherwise.  But my niece recently read the first 6+ chapters of my book and loved it.  Nothing like praise to motivate you to write.  But I remember leaving the Oak Wand because my inspiration had packed it's bags and headed to Bermuda.  So, to get back into it, I started at the beginning and reread the entire thing.  This ended at a sentence where I didn't know quite where to go.

I must thank JK Rowling because Harry Potter has afforded me much inspiration.  The Oak Wand is NOT like Harry Potter but a few of the situations are similar enough that how JK writes them, has helped me.  And so it was again.  I started with only a sentence at a time coming to me.  But they kept coming and coming and coming for 5 more pages.  I knew what the event was that would happen (sorry, no spoilers) and how it would be resolved-ish but I just didn't know how.  Now I do.

Sometimes when I write, I don't feel like this is really my story.  I'm merely transcribing the story someone else has is telling me.  I am surprised at how scenes unfold, at the reactions of the characters.  Is it because I'm a fabulous writer?  Or maybe I'm just suffering from fortunate inspiration.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

Days go by

Wow, it seems like forever since I posted last.  Oh, look it has been!  No posts in July at all.  Much too busy lately with school and work and family and laziness to write.  I've also lost some of the fire I had before.  This saddens me but I have NOT needed one more thing to stress about.

The good news though is that I have started writing again.  I'm taking a story I wrote in high school, then rewrote 5 or so years ago and now rewriting it again.  It never ceases to amaze me how much my writing has improved.  As soon as I sat down, with this project in mind, and started reading the story, I couldn't believe how much 'telling' I did.  I didn't 'show' very much at all.  My dialogue was little and ....well, blah.  Then I remembered that this copy was still quite improved over the original.  EEK!  Luckily, I believe my sister is the only one with an original and it isn't a soft copy she can circulate easily.

Still, in my quest to be published is still moving forward.  Since I originally wrote this story in 3 parts, and now that I'm rewriting (page 1 is now pages 1-3), my plan is to release it in 3 parts.  So if all goes well, you can look for "Mysterious Prince Part I" by Christmas as an ebook. 

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

Time doesn't exist

This is a theory debated in a good movie called IQ.  Very funny and romantic movie.  But yesterday I had two separate conversations that seemed to highlight the calendar of my life.  I don't live in months, years, days or weeks.  My life has seasons: Spring (Jan 2-May 5), Summer (May 12-Aug 5) and Fall (Aug 19 - Dec 5).  I also call them semesters.  I'm currently 9.5 semesters old.  My spring starts cold and snowy.  This year my summer hasn't been very warm. 

What does all of this have to do with writing?  Well, when your life is broken down into such small chunks and you feel like you have thousands of things to do in those short periods but no time to do them, something has to be sacrificed.  In most cases, it's the stuff you like most.  In my case it's writing.  The world of the Oak Wand is calling me but I just can't seem to make the time to answer.  So time doesn't exist.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

Dropped the ball

Well, I made an effort to get my piece ready for the writing club.  I even drew up a world map that those writing after me could reference and then things didn't work out for me to go.  Crappy.  But at least it got me to write, right?

But I did come to the realization that a round-robin would have taken all of my writing time.  Not that I have much as it is but I think I really needed the recharge to the creative batteries so I can tackle the Oak Wand again.  Maybe I should have put that in a round-robin.  "Read the first 90 pages and then add to it."  My goal this month is to spend time with my novel in hopes of moving it forward some more.  June is halfway done and the end of the month just gets hectic so I'm not even going to try and hope to finish chapter 7.  I guess we'll see.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

Directional Drift

Writing club is coming.  No, I have not been terribly active in it.  Yes, I like the idea but school and slowly getting re-acquainted with my family are higher priorities right now.  But our fearless leader told me they are starting a round-robin again.  I can't miss that.  The first round-robin got me started on my novel.  Who knew that hastily pounding out a little over a page DURING the meeting we were supposed to have it done would turn into quite possibly the best writing I've ever done?

So what am I doing this time?  Well, I've found that now I'm getting story ideas like I used to get poetry.  They just begin flowing into my head.  Granted, with poetry I could have a finished product in thirty minutes but I find now that the ideas are not fleshed out.  They still come in flashes of images, blips of description without any obvious direction.  So it is with book one of The Phoenix Cycle.  I've created a world, a setting, a character, conflict and have absolutely no idea where it's going.  During the first RR, one of the writer's proposed a ridiculous situation in my story.  The dialogue was campy and awkward.  But I wondered what could possibly make that situation believable?  How could I make people believe this would happen and care about whether it works?

I'm hoping to find that same bit of inspiration this time around.  I'm not expecting to come away with a fabulous story already written for me.  But I do hope to find that gem of direction that will map the path of the main character and save him from my current directional drift.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF* 

Reading the written

I decided to re-read my novel as it has been a while since I worked on it.  This proved to be fairly inspirational and I started writing again once I got to the end.  The only thing I realized is that as this gets longer, if I don't just sit down and write it on a regular basis, re-reading will take FOREVER!  I'm not sure how to remedy that until I'm done with school so I guess I'll just have to see how that goes.  But I recommend re-reading once in a while to make sure that you keep things consistent and who know what you may be inspired to add when you're done?!

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Curbed Enthusiasm

I spent the two weeks off from school doing very little writing.  Why?  I had a great opportunity to write in the evenings that were homework free.  But I didn't.  Well, first I had several home improvement/basement finishing jobs that needed to be done.  Alas, they took priority.  Second, I actually finished compiling my poetry book.  I just need to actually do the hard thing of putting up for publishing somewhere.  And third, I really kind of enjoyed NOT being on a computer every night. 

Thus, my writing has not progressed.  But don't worry.  It hasn't been forgotten.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Booking it!

So I haven't really written much lately.  I blame the end of the semester and a slight desire to NOT be on the computer after work in rebellion.  But at the prompting of several people at LTUE and a neighbor or two, I'm compiling my book of poetry.  I've decided that a big book of poetry could be overkill (and self-publishing makes it expensive).  The biggest problem with that is I have to pick and choose what to include.  Trying to make a 50-ish page poetry book when you have roughly 129 poems and you can only fit one per page in most cases is tough.  What to put in?  Poetry comes from the soul and in many cases (for me) it holds a personal memory or instance with it.  Which memories do I share?  Which shouldn't I share?

I see the attraction to fiction.  Truth is veiled in a story accepted as not true.  A lot of my poetry is truth colored as I felt it.  Rejecting my story is one thing, but having your soul and life rejected.... well I better start working on that thick skin the LTUE authors recommended.  At my current pace, it will be eBook ready in about a week.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Make a break for it

The semester is drawing to a close and I will get a one week break between semesters.  I just need to plow through the next two weeks and I will be free to write, when I'm not working on the basement.  I started chapter 7 and decided that I just needed to get stuff down on the page and not worry so much about whether I'm using "was" because it slowed me down.  I'm a story-teller.  Which is different from a story show-er.  (Yes, I put a hyphen because otherwise it's 'story shower' and that is just silly).  My kids like that I can tell stories, but readers like you to show them.  So hopefully on my one week break, my goal is to pound out another chapter.  That will put me close to half way done. 

April is script-frenzy too.  http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/  I had every intention of doing it this year but with finals and a basement nearing completion, I think I'll have to post-pone.  But if you are an aspiring script writer, by all means join!

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Do you write and drive?

It's illegal to text and drive but can I write in my head and drive at the same time safely?  Ponderous.

Anyway, I came to a crux on Sunday.  It's one of those moments in story-telling where your decision could affect the outcome of the whole story.  It's the "Death" decision.  Many writers at LTUE agreed that killing someone is a great way to keep interest.  Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Professor Lupin.  They all needed to die to force Harry to stand on his own and become a man.  But even in the end, Harry doesn't cast the death spell on Voldemort. 

My crux came because I'd had this great idea to have my main character, Kyle, discover a spell.  It's a cool spell.  But it had the potential of making him invincible.  DOH!  And then it came.  The death decision.  If you mean to shoot and kill someone, there is guilt but there should also be justification.  But if the gun goes off unintentionally and someone dies, can you ever touch a gun again?  But could I do that?

So I turned to my  lovely wife and asked for help.  She guided me wisely as she always does. It took me to new depths and created a more complex character.  It reminds me of the movie "Stranger than Fiction".  I'm not really a big Will Ferrell fan but that was a great movie.  And it taught me same thing my wife did, sometimes they don't have to die to make the story great.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Write a textbook to support your fiction habit

The organizer of our writing club shared a stat with me once that 80% of what publishers put out there is non-fiction. This was backed up by a comment by one of the authors at LTUE who said she is the only fantasy/sci-fi author that Covenant has published.

I've been going to college for three years now and textbooks are horrifically expensive. But why? Because they know they have a fixed audience. They know how many books they are going to sell (roughly). AND college kids EXPECT to pay a lot for textbooks! Sure we grumble about it! But when I have a textbook that costs less than $50 I'm shocked. We don't want to let those college kids down. So my philosophy is this: If you like writing fiction, that's where your love is, write a textbook to make you money (and you can say you are published) while you write fiction to feed your soul.

Or get a day job. :)

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Clubbing

I attended writing club last night for the first time in just about forever. This school thing is killing me. But it was a good meeting. We went over our notes from LTUE for those who couldn't go and shared ideas and thoughts. Our fearless leader asked for suggestions on how we could better organize. Good discussion followed. I did leave more inspired to write. Now I just need to find time.

Current projects include: The Oak Wand, Sword and the Stone, Poetry book, and Burning (the Phoenix Chronicles). Who has time for life??

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Back on the typewriter again

Did you hear the "Back in the saddle again" music playing through your head? Yeah, me too. A quiet Sunday morning seems like a good time to write. Until all of your kids crowd around you sitting on the couch and all read over your shoulder. Then you get too distracted and have to stop.

But still, I got over a page written and some more plot worked out in my head and stuff. That's always good. And I haven't written in several weeks so I liked getting something down. Now off to bathe kids and get ready for church.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Write or wrong

My writing this week has been all school related. A tad depressing indeed but I've been thinking about my writing even if I haven't been doing it. Specifically, I've been pondering pace. At LTUE, more than one panelist mentioned that you can't have a story that is constantly on the run. People need some time to breathe, digest, think, care. If you push too much, then what should be a roller coaster ride becomes and exhausting climb. That's bad. To that extent I've been pondering my stories and wondering if I have those peaks and valleys that keep a reader interested but not out of breath. Because the other extreme is equally bad. It's called BORING!!

I believe I see a need to go back and identify those moments when I'm done with my stories to make sure I have a good flow and some inconsistency to mix things up a bit. I'd love to do it now but I need to write. The temptation to go back and fix before you are finished is something I struggle with all the time. But that, is for another post.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

Code and Prose

I had this odd thought last night as I was working on code for class and I remembered something I heard somewhere, I'm not sure if it was at work or school. But the comment was made that code can be written so it's functional but not as efficient or as clean as it could be. After learning more about writing, I realized that prose is the same way. I guess poetry is too.

I can write prose that gets the point across and tells a story but two paragraphs in my reader has fallen asleep or gotten confused. Unless my reader is my daughter who loves everything I write. But good prose, like good code, cleans up the boring parts and has better description to let you know what is going on as the plot/program moves along.

So a software developer is a lot like a novelist, just with a different syntax.

This is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*

In The Beginning...

And so it was that I attended LTUE (Life, the Universe and Everything) conference at BYU for the first time. Of course it's the first year they require payment as well. Awesome. Anyway, I'm glad I went because I learned so much and had a great time. I got to meet published authors, get great advice and suggestions and come home and realize I've written a lot of crap.

Ok, so it's not all crap. But I do have one short story that I wrote in high school for a girl I liked. Then I revised it around 8-9 years after that. I've poked at it now and again since but not really looked at it in at least a year. So for the first time I'm looking at it with the eyes of someone who has become a much better prose writer and wow. It totally sucked. So I sighed at my suckiness and opened a new Word doc and started writing. I like the story. It's a short story but it is my very original idea and it's been through several re-writes making the plot better. Now it's finally getting written better.

One other thing that was suggested to me was to self-publish my poetry book. I have tons of poetry just hanging around and I did, at one time, compile a bunch into a book format. So I think that sometime soon, I will revisit that as well and hopefully by next LTUE, I'll have a poetry book that is self-published and available to the public. I hope someone NOT related to me will want a copy.

Until then, this is the Novel Mage saying *POOF*