Proofs

The proofs for First arrived Friday morning. I know every author says the same thing, but I’m going to say it anyway: I love the cover. They did a great job using the notes I provided on the concept and turned it into art. I’m excited to share it in the near future.

Also, it’s pretty amazing to see the book formatted and looking professional. I like the interior and am reading through it all. I would say with a fine-toothed comb, but I already did that. I should be done in the next couple of days and will approve the proofs at that point.

On Friday I also received an acceptance email from a hybrid publisher in the UK. Talk about a whirlwind of a morning. Unfortunately, the timing sucks. I don’t know if they’ll be interested in looking at another of my books but I’m already too far down the self-publishing route with First. I do have to say, though, after all the rejection from agents and other publishers, it was really a great moment to open an email and find someone likes your book. Yeah, I felt pretty good last Friday.

Working

I’m a couple thousand words into the new book and I think it’s working. As I said before, it’s a little different from what I’ve written before, at least from the narrator perspective. I think the reason it’s okay so far is because the narrator is a smartass. Like me.

Will this carry a full-length novel? I don’t see why not. I’m not very far into the story, but at least it’s keeping me engaged and wanting to write more. I’ve said this before, but if what I’m writing doesn’t keep me interested then it’s sure not going to keep a reader interested.

I should get the proofs for First sometime in the next couple of weeks. Then I have to figure out how to do some promotion and marketing, not my strong suit. Maybe this weekend I’ll do some research on that. I saw a Facebook ad for a book fair, or author’s show, or whatever they called it, but I don’t think I’ll have book in hand by then. I know there are other options since I”ve seen authors at bookstores, the local flea market, and at the grocery store. Guess I should start making plans. Yes, I know. It’s a little late. All the advice columns say you should plan this stuff out earlier, but it did take until last month to figure out how the books would be published. Lame excuse, but I’m sticking with it.

First Chapter

Yesterday I wrote the first chapter of a new book. Might as well while I’m waiting on proofs for First.

I spent a few days thinking through the things I want to include in this book, and then creating a very broad outline for the first section. I find that approach gives me some guardrails and gets everything started. Plus, it means I don’t leave out something important.

I mulled over the topic of why. As in, why write this book? What’s the lightning bolt that sets it on fire and makes it a book worth reading? I have several thoughts along those lines, but I’m not sure I have the main one. I’m telling the story from a different point of view than I’ve done before, and since it’s a sequel to First there are familiar faces as well as new characters. I think I have even have a name for it, but I’m still thinking that part through.

My perspective is that if I get started with the major themes and story points, I’ll figure out the extra dash of seasoning I’m looking for. I don’t want to write something predictable. I might not be the world’s deepest thinker, but I do like to be somewhat original.

Prose Masters

In my last post I talked about how Louis L’Amour is my favorite author and storyteller. Today, I want to mention a couple of people who are my favorites when it comes to beautiful writing: Pat Conroy and John Irving.

What do I mean by beautiful writing? I mean writers who are masters of the craft. Authors who wring the most of every word they put on a page. Writers who construct sentences so beautiful they make you want to cry. Authors who combine words in ways they weren’t meant to be combined, but somehow still make it seem natural.

Not that this is their only trick in the bag. These men have written darn good novels, to put it lightly: Conroy with books like The Great Santini and Irving with A Prayer for Owen Meany., among many of their bestsellers. I don’t suppose it would profit much to write flowery prose that the world never saw.

Conroy wrote of the American South, for the most part, and made the settings and people come alive. I don’t think this is original and don’t remember who said it, but the main criticism about Conroy is that he never wrote in one word what he could say in ten instead. Yes, his prose can be verbose, but I recently reread his later novel South of Broad and paused numerous times to stop and appreciate a sentence or phrase. Very few writers have ever had that gift. I wish he’d written more books over his career, but what he did write are treasures. He was one of a kind and made the English language bow to him instead of the other way around.

Irving has been more prolific over the decades. He’s not as flowery as Conroy, but the way he constructs sentences and paragraphs are a master class in the skill of writing. Whereas someone like me is just happy to not have any typos in a passage, the reader gets the feeling Irving obsesses over every sentence until it’s perfect and meshes with those around it. I remember reading once that he doesn’t start writing a book unless he has the last sentence written first. I might have mixed that interview up with someone else (and I’m not going to research it because I don’t want to) but even if apocryphal it speaks to his process. To read Irving is to admire his mastery of writing.

Any time I pick up a book by Conroy or Irving I know I’m in for a treat beyond just the story. Are there others like these two? I’m sure there are. But since this is my blog those are my two picks as favorite writers.

Westerns

I might have said this before, but if I haven’t, my favorite writer is Louis L’Amour.

Somewhere around my freshman year of high school I started reading his books. Maybe even a year earlier. Our school library stocked most of his books and the ones they didn’t, I bought. At the time I think he’d already written well over 100 books and I read them all. Multiple times. In fact, I could read one in less than a day, mostly during free time in my classes. Lecture and doing the schoolwork didn’t take up all the time, so I had plenty of opportunities to read.

Why is Louis L’Amour my favorite? I’ve seen enough ‘best writer’ lists to know he’s not usually included. No, my love for him as an author is because he tells a darn good story. His images are vivid, the people talk like real people, and the stories are heavy on human struggles - greed, jealousy, anger, love, etc. They’re not complex stories, and they don’t have to be. They’re stories you can imagine someone telling around a campfire; okay, maybe a little long for that setting, but you get my point.

During my school days, Mr. L’Amour was still alive and churning out new books, including some longer hardcovers, which he hadn’t done in the previous decades. I bought each new one as it came out. Many of the novels took place in the desert Southwest where I grew up, and those that didn’t were stories of exotic lands I thought I’d never see, like Florida or Massachusetts.

Why do I bring this up? Because The Wife is reading through the Sackett series for the first time and with each one she picks up I find myself remembering the characters and story. After all, I did read them more than once. She’s reading them in supposedly chronological order, although there are a few anomalies here and there, which I’d expect since he wrote the stories over several decades. Regardless, they provided me with a lot of reading enjoyment and memories of great stories that have lasted a lifetime. Thank you, Mr. L’Amour.

Day Off

Here in the U.S. tomorrow is a holiday, and many people are taking or given today off as well. Not me, unfortunately.

Today’s just the normal routine. And what does that mean for writing? While I’m waiting on proofs for First, I’m reading through Next Time again. It’s in excellent shape and this is more of a proofread and clean-up than anything else. Once First is out the door I’d like to follow it up quickly with Next Time. Mainly because it’s mentioned in the author bio I submitted. If another book is mentioned on the cover then it should probably be available for the reader to find.

Now I know you’re asking yourself, what about Assignment Day? If all goes well I can also publish it toward the end of the year. Pulling off the trifecta like that would cap off a great year. And tomorrow? I probably will work at least a little bit on writing. No day off in that regard, and that’s how I want it.

Metadata

Yesterday I approved the metadata proofs for First. That involved the book’s short description, long description, author bio, and keywords people would use in an online search.

What was interesting about this exercise is that I was offered the choice of my original text, which I’d input into the publisher’s web forms; an optimized version; or a blank box where I could put something new. The optimized versions were jazzier than my originals, which kind of makes me a little sad as a writer. But then, I write stories, not marketing copy. That’s one of the reasons I’m using this publisher. In most cases I chose the optimized version, although for the bio I took the optimized text and changed a few words to clarify I ‘hail’ from New Mexico and now live in Texas.

It also made me wonder if AI optimization was involved. Not that a person couldn’t have done it, but it seems like the type of task where an AI could do the first pass and a person review it. I find that amusing since one of the major characters in First is an AI. When I started writing the book a couple of years ago, AI was still a concept. Now it’s everywhere. The times they are a-changin’.

Beginning

I had my conversation on Monday with a nice lady who’s going to be my contact at the company that’ll be publishing First. It’s exciting to finally have the process underway.

She didn’t try to sell me on other services as much as I expected, which was a nice surprise. The publishing site caters to writers all over the world, as you must do these days, and I made an appointment on their site for a rep to call me at a time I set where I had an opening on my work calendar. Their site says the conversation will take 15 minutes but it was closer to a half-hour, which was fine. The rep created a quote based on the information I gave her and the publishing package I prefer, and right away it appeared within the Quotes section of my login to their site. Because First is longer than the usual novel, currently clocking in at about 124k words, the cost is a little higher than a regular 75-90k word novel, but not too much.

All I have to do now is finish my final, final pass and upload the manuscript. I don’t think I’ll be done by today but tomorrow is fine. I’ll let you know how that process goes.

Start

Today’s the day. I start the self-publishing journey with a web form or a phone call. Or both.

I’m sure one of the questions I’ll be asked about is services such as copy editing, proofreading, etc. I know the reasoning behind them all, but I also know they come with an additional cost. As much as I’d like to spend money to get First as perfect as possible, I don’t have unlimited funds. I’m sure plenty of authors have declined those services, mainly because I’ve read (or tried to read) some of their books. I think I’m in better shape than most, though.

When I sent the book to be edited early last year, the editor told me she’d rarely seen books in such good condition. In fact, the lack of grammar and typos allowed her to concentrate on the story rather than being distracted by all the errors. Since then, I’ve read through the manuscript at least three more times, and now a fourth, as well as reading it aloud to myself. In the current read, I’m over halfway through and found only one misspelling and one wrong word. It helps that I haven’t read it in quite some time so it’s not overly familiar and I’m able to pick out any errors.

Anyway, that’s where we start: with a polished manuscript. I’ll let you know how it goes from here.

It’s Time

The time has come to move forward with self-publishing.

I’ve tried to find an agent, I’ve pitched my books to independent publishers, and so far have found no takers. Barring a last-minute note of interest from an indie publisher, on Monday I’m going to reach out to a company I’ve been looking at for over a year. They’ll create a cover, format the book for both print and e-readers, make it available in multiple catalogs and sites, print it on demand, and push out ads.

We’ll see how this turns out. Could be just a vanity project that I can use as a tax write-off, but it’d be nice to at least sell enough to cover the cost. I have to admit, I do feel a little excited at the realization that my book (and hopefully plural books) is finally going to be published.

Yesterday I finished the short story I was writing. Today I’m going to start reading through First one more time and in a few days will start the process of getting it published.

Well…

I ended up starting a new short story yesterday. I know, I know, I was going to do something else to while away the time this week. In fact, it started out rather slowly in my head and I almost abandoned it. Instead, it took an odd twist and I ended up with about 1200 words in less than an hour’s worth of writing.

Yes, I’m still going to shore up the book I’m going to work on self-publishing next week. I can do some of that on the weekend. Plus, I still have to determine which book I’m going with first. I was thinking about that while I was walking yesterday (97 degrees, heat index 115) and still haven’t come to an answer.

While I dither in the cyclone of indecision, I might as well write something. And so I am. At least it’s keeping me entertained.

Ideas

Why do book ideas come to me when I’m trying to sleep?

The one that showed up in my brain last night was about something I’m not sure is mine to write. First of all, it’s not a novel, it’s a memoir. Second, and this is the part about my reluctance, I think other people have better things to say about the subject than me. And finally, it would be very personal. Not sure I’m up for that.

I doubt it’s a story that would anybody outside my family would appreciate. But then again, it’s about enshrining memories and never forgetting. That would make it worthwhile. It make take some time before I’m ready.

Next

Finished another short story yesterday. I turned out liking it better than I thought (see previous post) and it was a worthwhile effort. Is it the best thing I’ve ever written? No, but like I said, it gave me a chance to write from a different perspective and see if that would lend itself to a whole book. Maybe? I don’t think I totally captured why this narrator would be different than the narrator who told the story in First. If I end up writing the book I’ve been thinking of, I’ll really need to work on giving this narrator a distinct voice. Otherwise, I might as well write it using the same narrator.

What next? I’m waiting another week for responses from my queries to independent publishers, and if nothing positive comes back then I’ll start the self-publishing journey again. In the meantime, I can get my ducks in order. The first question I have to resolve is this: which book to self-publish first?

Seems like it would be a question easy to answer, right? Publish them in the order written. Except I have this feeling that Next Time would be easier to market. One train of thought is that if it’s successful, people would be more inclined to read subsequent books. Another thought is that I put out First and see how it goes, using it as a means to figure out what I will need to do better when I publish Next Time. And somewhere in there is Assignment Day, but I don’t think that will be the first one I publish.

Once I make that decision, I think I’ll take one more look through the book I choose and make darn sure it’s in the best shape possible, especially story-wise. Then I’ll go from there.

Dislike

What if you’re writing a story or part of a story and you dislike it? That’s a bad sign, right?

It’s happened to me multiple times when writing novels. I’ll be several chapters down a certain path and find I don’t like where the story has gone, or that I’m losing interest. To me, that’s a really bad sign. If I lose interest then a reader certainly will, too. I’ve scrapped tens of thousands of words in some instances.

I guess if I worked from a more detailed outline that would avoid those situations. Instead, I tend to have a general idea of the story and a clear picture of the ending. Everything else is fluid. I like writing that way and it works for me since I’ve come up with some good character development and storylines I wouldn’t have otherwise. But as mentioned above, sometimes it leads off the beaten path.

Why is this important now when I’m not even working on a novel? Because writing short stories allows me to try out some new situations and perspectives to see if they work. The one I’m currently writing is teetering close to the edge of dislike. It’s not a horrible waste of time, but it is making me wonder if a full-length book with this narrator would work out. In contrast, the story I wrote a couple of weeks ago worked like a charm. Trial and error, experimentation, new paths, whatever you want to call it, sometimes it’s worth writing something you end up disliking.

Shorties

I’ve now written a couple of short stories in the world of First, and I have to say I enjoyed the experience. Plus, I now have a little more background on some of the characters. This week I’m going to write another story from the POV of one of the other characters.

Will these stories ever see the light of day? Well, to make sense their parent story has be published first, and we all know how that’s going so far this year. These stories assume you’ve read the novel. They’re standalone tales, but if you don’t know all the context I don’t think they’re as enjoyable. Let’s just say the enrich the book in different ways, but without adding to or distracting from the novel.

How would I publish these? I have several options. On this website, for one. As an incentive to join a mailing list, if I ever create one. As part of a future compilation of short stories. I’ve written quite a few in the past and maybe I could dust off some of those and combine them all into a book.

Let’s see about getting the book published and then we’ll worry about the short stories. In the meantime, I’ll keep pounding away at the keyboard.

Journey

Part of the intent of this site and blog is to chronicle my publishing journey, such as it is. If someone else happens onto it and realizes they’re not alone, then at least this can be marginally helpful. With that in mind, where am I on the journey?

Right now I have a number of queries out to the independent publishers. It looks like several of them would be a good match, but we’ll see. I want to give that process several more weeks, at least until the end of the month.

In the meantime, I’m looking into self-publishing and resources I’ve found for independent authors. There are organizations that offer a whole list of services but I’m not sure at this point I need those. I’ll continue looking into them and keep them in mind if I move forward.

Here we are, almost halfway through the year. Am I frustrated by the glacial progress toward publishing my books? A little, yes. I know it’s not an overnight process but I thought I’d have something in the works by now. Hopefully that just means the second half of the year is going to be a lot busier.

Complete

I finished the short story on Saturday and I feel like it was a success. It kind of went in a bit of a different direction than I expected, but using it as a test for a concept for a longer piece worked out well.

So, what next while I wait for replies on the queries I sent out last month? Probably a break for a few days since I have some upcoming late nights (baseball) while still working during the days. Then probably another short story. I kind of enjoy that approach since it’s like writing “deleted scenes” that show up in the Bonus Features. At least it’s a story with a little more meat than a deleted scene.

Which makes me wonder, is it something that would enhance the book itself if I added it? I thought about that this weekend. In this case, I’d say a definite no. First of all, it’s written from the first-person perspective of a different character. Second, it’s interesting but not critical to the overall story in the book. Which is why I didn’t think of it in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, it fills in some gaps but again, they’re points that took place off-camera, if you will. And finally, even though this is not the most important of points, the book is already long enough. No need to add more.

Sometimes I feel like knowing what to not add to a story is just as important as knowing what to add.

Test Run

I settled on writing a short story while I wait on replies from my independent publisher queries. I’ve received two so far, both nays.

The story I decided to write is kind of a test run for a book idea. It involves one of the characters from First, and while I’m sure it’s not a new perspective from my narrative choice, it's definitely new for me. Without giving too much away, I wanted to see if telling a story from this POV was possible. So far, it seems to be working just fine, and maybe even better than I thought.

Plus, while I’m contemplating a new novel or series of novels, it gives me something different to try. That’s the good thing about writing: the opportunity to fail miserably without anyone noticing. I can experiment with a story line, a character, a situation, or even style of writing, and if it doesn’t work then all I’ve lost is time. I suppose if I actually made a living doing this I’d have a different attitude, but for now I can do a test run in the freedom I have.

Revelry

Last Saturday’s wedding and the surrounding social revelry took up most of my time over the last week. We’ve had visitors in town, at the house, and certainly out and about. I took an extra day after the holiday, mainly because I needed some down time where I wasn’t entertaining guests.

Where does that leave me with the latest on writing? If the above wasn’t clear enough, then let’s just say I haven’t done anything in a week. I suppose in some ways it’s good to take a break and let my brain relax from thinking about writing stuff every day. On the other hand, it’s the end of May and I need to make some progress.

Since I sent out a number of queries several weeks ago, I’ll give them a few more weeks to see if I get any positive responses. No need to panic and do something, anything, without giving publishers time to respond. As you might have noticed from previous posts, I’ve been pondering what to do in the meantime. I’m leaning toward writing a short story or two. Time to get started.

Weddings

We have a wedding coming up this weekend and it got me thinking about why weddings are so common in storytelling. Beyond the fact they’re a major life event, of course. Examples abound of weddings in storytelling.

For example, The Godfather starts with a wedding celebration. In the movie it seems to take up the whole first hour, although it’s probably not that long. But it does serve as the vehicle for an introduction into the world of the Corleone family. We meet the family, we meet the people who want favors from Don Corleone, we see the security team shooing away the police, and we get a sense of the conflicts among the people at the wedding. The other reason the wedding’s important is because it serves as a bookend to the finale of the story when Michael stands in a church at a baby dedication while his men seize power by gunning down all his rivals. The wedding at the beginning gives a glimpse into the culture and conflicts we’ll experience until the payoff at the end.

Weddings are also devices in comedies, not just dramas. I won’t even go into all of them, but suffice it to say, the wedding itself is not always the main piece, but rather, it’s the idea of a wedding. It’s oftentimes a goal or destination. Why? Because it resonates with the reader or viewer, depending on the medium. Is putting a wedding into a story original? Not at all. Is it a useful device? You betcha.