With all the talk over the past year about self-publishing on Kindle, I finally decided to delve into it in January. I finished up a short ebook that I'd had on the back burner for a few months and submitted it. It was accepted and published in less than a day. The process wasn't hard, but there are a lot of formatting specifications, and I had to reformat it twice to get it to go through. Being so used to Web writing, I hadn't done any tabbed paragraph indents. Who knew?
The niche I chose isn't over-saturated, but it isn't totally wide open either, so I didn't really have much idea about how sales would go or what to expect from any of it. It's been out for about seven weeks now and has sold exactly eight copies. However, sales aren't the only way to do things through Kindle publishing.
If you publish through them exclusively for 90 days, you can join a program they have that makes your book available through their lending library. With that, Amazon Prime members can check it out for free. Why would you want to do that? Good question. The whole idea sounded kind of stupid at first, but I did some research and found out that it's actually a pretty good way to market the book. When people check it out, you have a better chance of getting some reviews, and if you ever buy from Amazon, you know how important reviews are.
And, you don't go without royalties when it's checked out. There's a monthly fund that Amazon keeps for authors who offer their books through the library program, and you get a small percentage of it each time your book is checked out. The amount you earn for it depends on the total library checkouts on the site as well as how many of yours were checked out over the month. Last year, the Authors Guild wasn't happy about this program, but that was a month before Amazon actually started paying authors whose books were checked out. I don't know how much my meager two checkouts have earned, but I'm glad that it's getting out there. My Kindle book may not be sweeping the site by storm, but with zero, and I do mean zero, marketing, it is still selling about a copy a week as well as being checked out. It may sound backward, but I wanted to test the waters a little before putting time into marketing it.
I don't see anything at all wrong with self-publishing non-fiction ebooks. Non-fiction, particularly practical information, changes so quickly that it's actually a pretty good idea to do so in a lot of cases. However, this hasn't changed my mind about self-publishing fiction. Unless it's a short story or short novella that just can't find a home elsewhere, I think it's kind of a cop out. Over the years I've read so many times about writers who were rejected again and again and took that opportunity to make their manuscripts better. The woman who wrote "The Help" was rejected several times, and it made her go over the book again and again, rewriting it and trying to make it something publishable. Apparently, the first drafts were wretched and had little to no actual plot. But by taking months to rewrite, submit, get rejected and rewrite again, she came out with something that was as good as she could make it and that has won her worldwide acclaim. Now imagine if she's just said, "Screw it, I'm going to publish it myself. They just don't appreciate me!" Yeah.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Blogging: What the Heck Is It?
I've been thinking about blogging a lot lately- the nature of it and what it is really about. I've been a big fan of a funny, fantastic blog for a long time, but in the last few months it has turned the narcissistic rant of someone telling its readers how to think. It isn't the first blog that I've seen go in that direction. Getting popular and gaining legions of followers can give bloggers a sense of importance that I frankly hate to see. I think that becoming popular destroys a blog, and I started to wonder whether blogging is nothing more than a narcissistic enterprise.
I actually started this blog because I was doing a lot of guest blogging a few years ago and I wanted some sample blog posts to show to potential clients. It worked pretty well, but I found that I liked blogging for myself so much that I soon made it for myself. It was my place to talk about whatever the heck I wanted to. It isn't SEO'd or marketed. It isn't what the client expects or what will sell a product. It's just me.
It's the tornadoes that I saw last Friday, a day that crushed me utterly. If you've never watched a relatively big tornado pass about two miles from your house, you might not think it's a big deal. But the fact is, it changes you. At least, it changed me. Since last April when I watched an EF-4 pass by, I haven't taken much for granted. Seeing what I think was an EF-3 a few days ago really, really bothered me. Luckily, I have a manuscript that I can channel all of it into. I've created someone who can fight against the elements. Since last April's tornado terror, it feels like the sky is trying its best to kill me. But, my heroine can fight against such things, even if I can't. Channelling your feelings into your work is the only real reason to write, in my opinion.
Have you ever heard someone say that they want to write but they don't know what to write about? I can't fathom such a thought. My feeling has always been that I have to write because I have to channel feelings into something constructive. Most blogs update twice a week or so. But, do they really have anything to say? My posts may be erratic, but I can't post unless I actually have something to say. I guess what I have to say right now is that any day that you don't see this from your living room window is a good day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOSG-P1EjfU
I actually started this blog because I was doing a lot of guest blogging a few years ago and I wanted some sample blog posts to show to potential clients. It worked pretty well, but I found that I liked blogging for myself so much that I soon made it for myself. It was my place to talk about whatever the heck I wanted to. It isn't SEO'd or marketed. It isn't what the client expects or what will sell a product. It's just me.
It's the tornadoes that I saw last Friday, a day that crushed me utterly. If you've never watched a relatively big tornado pass about two miles from your house, you might not think it's a big deal. But the fact is, it changes you. At least, it changed me. Since last April when I watched an EF-4 pass by, I haven't taken much for granted. Seeing what I think was an EF-3 a few days ago really, really bothered me. Luckily, I have a manuscript that I can channel all of it into. I've created someone who can fight against the elements. Since last April's tornado terror, it feels like the sky is trying its best to kill me. But, my heroine can fight against such things, even if I can't. Channelling your feelings into your work is the only real reason to write, in my opinion.
Have you ever heard someone say that they want to write but they don't know what to write about? I can't fathom such a thought. My feeling has always been that I have to write because I have to channel feelings into something constructive. Most blogs update twice a week or so. But, do they really have anything to say? My posts may be erratic, but I can't post unless I actually have something to say. I guess what I have to say right now is that any day that you don't see this from your living room window is a good day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOSG-P1EjfU
Monday, January 16, 2012
Troubles and More
Hi all, I've been away for quite a long time, but I do have a few reasons. I mean, not good reasons, but reasons nevertheless. Since I've been gone:
* I wrote about 8,000 words of a novel during NaNoWriMo. So, I was quite the loser, but I did write more fiction during that month than I did in the rest of the year combined. So, I was perfectly pleased with it. That novel is now about 12,000 words and I actually showed it to a living human. I'm still working on it steadily, and I hope to have it completed entirely by the beginning of the summer.
*I spent part of December in the hospital. That makes three hospitalizations during 2011. Up until last year, I had only been in the hospital to pop out various kids, so it was kind of shocking. I even spent Christmas in the hospital. They were unfestive there, but I did get some killer drugs, so it was merry in a life-threatening kind of way.
*I wrote and published a Kindle book. I started it last year and really got serious about it at the beginning of the year. It has been published for about four days now, and it has made exactly one sale. Promising start. I think.
*My dear, beloved Mac died. He was my best ally and like one of my offspring. Except, he made money for me instead of costing me money. I got a new Mac that doesn't look much like my old friend. It's silver. Why????
*I had a truly disastrous trip out of town for Thanksgiving. It was seriously the worst trip you can imagine and several people who I never thought I'd need to cut out of my life are completely and permanently cut out. Through the disastrousness, though, I learned a bit about myself. If someone messes with one of the offspring, I found out that I am capable of shanking them in the face, and I am not above shanking the elderly. I suppose that's unfortunate in some ways, but it's who I am.
*I started smoking again. I can usually quit for a few years at a time, and I hadn't smoked regularly this time for three years. I thought I had it beat and had reached the occasional-social-smoker phase. I was utterly wrong. I am now trying to beat this, but the events in November pushed me into it. It's up to me to get out of it.
*I redesigned my business website. I put together a complete site that doesn't just rely on samples pasted here and there. Based on what I see others making for articles and copywriting, I really should be making more than I do. We'll see if the new site helps make that happen.
In 2012, I'm going to have to find a lot more private clients. The 2011 Google insurgency collapsed almost every content mill out there and lowered my residual income by about 2/3. It's been icky. About 85 percent of my work last years was for mills because I'm quick at it and make a good hourly income doing that. I got lazy about finding new clients and now have less than a handful. I still have enough mill work to keep me going, but if just one more fails, that's pretty much it.
I had forgotten how difficult the marketing aspect of freelance writing really is. Craigslist is totally useless, and most of the sites that put together writing gigs are scraping the bottom of the barrel right now. I may actually consider going out and getting a corporate writing job if things online don't get a little better. Things are more precarious now than I have seen them in the 10 years that I've been working online. We'll see how 2012 treats freelancers.
* I wrote about 8,000 words of a novel during NaNoWriMo. So, I was quite the loser, but I did write more fiction during that month than I did in the rest of the year combined. So, I was perfectly pleased with it. That novel is now about 12,000 words and I actually showed it to a living human. I'm still working on it steadily, and I hope to have it completed entirely by the beginning of the summer.
*I spent part of December in the hospital. That makes three hospitalizations during 2011. Up until last year, I had only been in the hospital to pop out various kids, so it was kind of shocking. I even spent Christmas in the hospital. They were unfestive there, but I did get some killer drugs, so it was merry in a life-threatening kind of way.
*I wrote and published a Kindle book. I started it last year and really got serious about it at the beginning of the year. It has been published for about four days now, and it has made exactly one sale. Promising start. I think.
*My dear, beloved Mac died. He was my best ally and like one of my offspring. Except, he made money for me instead of costing me money. I got a new Mac that doesn't look much like my old friend. It's silver. Why????
*I had a truly disastrous trip out of town for Thanksgiving. It was seriously the worst trip you can imagine and several people who I never thought I'd need to cut out of my life are completely and permanently cut out. Through the disastrousness, though, I learned a bit about myself. If someone messes with one of the offspring, I found out that I am capable of shanking them in the face, and I am not above shanking the elderly. I suppose that's unfortunate in some ways, but it's who I am.
*I started smoking again. I can usually quit for a few years at a time, and I hadn't smoked regularly this time for three years. I thought I had it beat and had reached the occasional-social-smoker phase. I was utterly wrong. I am now trying to beat this, but the events in November pushed me into it. It's up to me to get out of it.
*I redesigned my business website. I put together a complete site that doesn't just rely on samples pasted here and there. Based on what I see others making for articles and copywriting, I really should be making more than I do. We'll see if the new site helps make that happen.
In 2012, I'm going to have to find a lot more private clients. The 2011 Google insurgency collapsed almost every content mill out there and lowered my residual income by about 2/3. It's been icky. About 85 percent of my work last years was for mills because I'm quick at it and make a good hourly income doing that. I got lazy about finding new clients and now have less than a handful. I still have enough mill work to keep me going, but if just one more fails, that's pretty much it.
I had forgotten how difficult the marketing aspect of freelance writing really is. Craigslist is totally useless, and most of the sites that put together writing gigs are scraping the bottom of the barrel right now. I may actually consider going out and getting a corporate writing job if things online don't get a little better. Things are more precarious now than I have seen them in the 10 years that I've been working online. We'll see how 2012 treats freelancers.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
NaNoWriMo and Fear
Wow, I've been away from Ye Olde Blog for quite a while, writing like crazy and wishing that I was writing something other than whatever I'm writing at the time. I went to DragonCon and attended a number of fascinating writers' panels. I had been planning a long blog post about it but never quite got to it. To sum up, I:
Met Wil Wheaton - twice
Heard a number of interesting sci fi and fantasy writers speak about their craft
Dressed up like Tom Baker and danced to classic rock of some kind
Talked with other writers about publishing, short stories and copywriting
Squeaked oddly and yelled "holy crap!" at Gates McFadden
Made some concrete plans about writing fiction and getting onto those panels some day
Got my picture taken with Wil Wheaton
Demanded a business card from Brent Spiner
Apparently got my picture taken with some guy in a Boba Fett costume
Took notes on publishers that the panel writers talked about favorably
Stalked Wil Wheaton
Listened to a bagpiper
Now that the con is over and life has returned to normal, I have NaNoWriMo to contend with. The concept is to write feverishly without editing along the way and to get a novel of at least 50,000 words at the end of November. Last year I threw my hat in the ring and got to a miserable two pages. This year I am determined not to slink away in shame when November is over. To get myself motivated to really work on my fiction, I did something unprecedented.
I went out in public and talked to actual people. I went to a local NaNoWriMo meeting and discussed my novel with other aspiring novelists. The basic goal of the program is to write at least 1,667 words a day. It's now early into day two, and I have about 950 words.
Thinking about 1,667 words seemed like such a ridiculous goal. I can write 1,500 words for clients in about two hours. I once wrote a 10,000 word ebook for a client in one day. Piece of cake. I write all day, I can handle it.
I can't handle it. The words are coming so slowly, with every new paragraph staring at me with teeth bared. This is the writing that I have always wanted to do. All of the non-fiction that I've been doing for money was just until I could write fiction. I could pretend to be all into product descriptions or corporate writing so that one day fiction would be my living. Except, I haven't been pretending for a long time. Non-fiction has taken over so much of my life that fiction seems strange and unnatural.
When you write non-fiction, you put up a wall and write with a bit of a veil in front of you. You aren't inserted into the text at all. When you write fiction, your soul slips into it and says whatever it needs to. And if what is written isn't good enough, I don't know if I could stand it. That's the fear that's kept me back for a long, long time. I'm still not sure how to get over it. People write novels every day, and they don't put their entire identity and self worth at stake. Do they?
This first couple of pages in front of me is just the start. I'm going to push this beast until it can't push back, and I'll have a novel at the end of the month. I hope.
Met Wil Wheaton - twice
Heard a number of interesting sci fi and fantasy writers speak about their craft
Dressed up like Tom Baker and danced to classic rock of some kind
Talked with other writers about publishing, short stories and copywriting
Squeaked oddly and yelled "holy crap!" at Gates McFadden
Made some concrete plans about writing fiction and getting onto those panels some day
Got my picture taken with Wil Wheaton
Demanded a business card from Brent Spiner
Apparently got my picture taken with some guy in a Boba Fett costume
Took notes on publishers that the panel writers talked about favorably
Stalked Wil Wheaton
Listened to a bagpiper
Now that the con is over and life has returned to normal, I have NaNoWriMo to contend with. The concept is to write feverishly without editing along the way and to get a novel of at least 50,000 words at the end of November. Last year I threw my hat in the ring and got to a miserable two pages. This year I am determined not to slink away in shame when November is over. To get myself motivated to really work on my fiction, I did something unprecedented.
I went out in public and talked to actual people. I went to a local NaNoWriMo meeting and discussed my novel with other aspiring novelists. The basic goal of the program is to write at least 1,667 words a day. It's now early into day two, and I have about 950 words.
Thinking about 1,667 words seemed like such a ridiculous goal. I can write 1,500 words for clients in about two hours. I once wrote a 10,000 word ebook for a client in one day. Piece of cake. I write all day, I can handle it.
I can't handle it. The words are coming so slowly, with every new paragraph staring at me with teeth bared. This is the writing that I have always wanted to do. All of the non-fiction that I've been doing for money was just until I could write fiction. I could pretend to be all into product descriptions or corporate writing so that one day fiction would be my living. Except, I haven't been pretending for a long time. Non-fiction has taken over so much of my life that fiction seems strange and unnatural.
When you write non-fiction, you put up a wall and write with a bit of a veil in front of you. You aren't inserted into the text at all. When you write fiction, your soul slips into it and says whatever it needs to. And if what is written isn't good enough, I don't know if I could stand it. That's the fear that's kept me back for a long, long time. I'm still not sure how to get over it. People write novels every day, and they don't put their entire identity and self worth at stake. Do they?
This first couple of pages in front of me is just the start. I'm going to push this beast until it can't push back, and I'll have a novel at the end of the month. I hope.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
A Crazy Find
I did one of my very rare self-searches today on Google because I had to find some article samples to send to someone. I hate doing that because every single time I do any lengthy search for samples I find at least one copyright infringer. Today? Yup. Found one.
However, I also found this:
The Growing Zones for Watermelons
This is an eHow U.K. article that cites my book as a reference and me by name as its author. I've seen a couple of my articles used as references before, and once I saw one of my niche sites used, but this is the first time I've seen my actual book cited.
I remember doing a book report in third grade and thinking that someday I wanted kids doing book reports to use my name in the bibliography sections of their book reports. It consumed my thoughts so much that I never really got that idea out of my head. It's one of the things that I have on my short little list of things I want accomplished before I die. This is just a Demand article for eHow, but it's one step closer to some kid's book report bibliography. Somehow it all seems so much more possible right now.
However, I also found this:
The Growing Zones for Watermelons
This is an eHow U.K. article that cites my book as a reference and me by name as its author. I've seen a couple of my articles used as references before, and once I saw one of my niche sites used, but this is the first time I've seen my actual book cited.
I remember doing a book report in third grade and thinking that someday I wanted kids doing book reports to use my name in the bibliography sections of their book reports. It consumed my thoughts so much that I never really got that idea out of my head. It's one of the things that I have on my short little list of things I want accomplished before I die. This is just a Demand article for eHow, but it's one step closer to some kid's book report bibliography. Somehow it all seems so much more possible right now.
Monday, July 11, 2011
OK, I Guess I Need to Do This Again
A little over a year ago, I outlined what I thought was a fairly solid bit of arguing against using Facebook. I don't want pictures of myself all over the interwebs and I don't need more online time wasters. I don't want to post my "mood" or "status" and I don't want to read anyone else's. Apparently, this wasn't enough. I am still being cajoled, prodded and basically harassed about Facebook almost daily. So, I'm going to try to make this a little more clear:
I will never join Facebook. I don't care if they give out free money and sex with Sting. It isn't going to happen. Ever. I don't care if I am not cool for not joining. That actually cements my decision so you guys can stop saying it. But for those who I will end up directing here, there are several more every good reasons that I don't want to join:
*I don't want to have friendships reduced to scanning my "wall" every once in a while. I don't want to be chastised for not reading someone's latest updates. I don't want real, actual relationships to be replaced with this crap. No.
*I don't want anything that I might happen to write there to be owned by someone else. Did you know that they have, in the past, changed the rules to give themselves the copyright of anything posted on the site? I write for a living. I don't want to inadvertently write something there that I want to use and find that I can't use my own words elsewhere. I don't know whether they still claim copyright over everything their members post there, but the fact that it was done once means it can be done again. This is my living we're talking about. No thanks.
*Sites are increasingly tied to Facebook, and that worries me. I don't want everything that I do online to be the knowledge of everyone I know. Sometimes I take on kind of stupid work because it pays decently or just because it's quick and easy. Virtually anything you do online now gets posted on Facebook. That would be extremely inhibiting for me as a Web writer. I don't want to weigh every single thing I write based on whether I want my best friend from third grade to know that occassionally I write about zombie movies. It would seriously impact my bottom line.
*I really, really don't want to find my best friend from third grade. I always frame things that happen to me as stories- tales that have a beginning and an ending. The stories that I've lived through won't be the same if I know the eventual outcome of each character. Picture the gross cheerleader who made your life hell in high school. That's fodder for plenty of YA stories- at the very least it's a nice starting point that can take you in millions of different directions. Would it help if you find out that the hated cheerleader eventually became a boring middle-aged office worker in Texas with a haircut like Peggy Hill? No, it did not. I don't want any more of that, thanks. I want plenty of story fodder filled with characters who don't become middle aged and are forever the heroes and villains.
*Facebook members are free copywriters. Since I make a nice wage as a copywriter, I don't want any part of this. Did you know that if you talk about a product on Facebook, the site takes those words and uses them in ads for other members? They do. They post them as ads on the pages of your Facebook friends. That may some day expand to site-wide ads that you're essentially writing for free and without your permission. Reading about that was the absolute last straw for me.
If you're a writer you may think it's worthwhile, and that's perfectly fine, but I don't. I think it's dangerous and gross and has the potential to take away my words as well as my inspiration. But don't worry, I predict that within two years they will go the way of MySpace. Google is taking over as they have everywhere else. In two years I'll be hearing people beg me to join Google+ so that they don't have to slog through a muddy field to pick up a phone while under sniper fire or whatever the excuse is. I can't promise anything.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Rules for Writing
I ran across this Guardian piece today- it's a massive list of rules for writing fiction, as written by several well-known authors. Reading it through is pretty inspiring, and a little eye opening in some ways. I managed to break two of these "rules" in that last sentence. Anyway, this is long, but many of the rules were just too interesting not to share.
A few of my favorites:
Elmore Leonard- "Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary."
Interesting, I interjected suddenly. I'm guilty of using words other than "said" in my own fiction. I think it's perfectly permissible as long as it's done sparingly.
Margaret Atwood- "Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B."
Too true. There's no possible way to please everyone, I exclaimed.
Roddy Doyle- "Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide."
I have a figurine of Oscar Wilde on mine. Does that count? I'm thinking not.
"Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy."
I've found in non-fiction that this is vital. I've been guilty of writing to a topic and meandering around until I finally put a title on it. That forces a focus. Did you see the Bleak House version with Gillian Anderson? That was outstanding. Netflix it if you haven't.
"Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet."
Oddly, I did that yesterday on Amazon.com, I argued. It wasn't there. Get ready for it, suckers!
Helen Dunmore- "Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue."
This is the only one of the bunch that I can't figure out. Why would you do that, and how can you? When I'm going, I have to go. If it's 4 a.m., then it's 4 a.m. When the work demands it, it simply demands it.
Geoff Dyer- "Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something."
This is likely why I have at least eight novels in various stages of completion but never seem to actually finish any of them. One will start to piss me off and I'll punish it by spending time with one of its brothers. Because, you know, fuck him.
"Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation."
This may be the most thought provoking of them all. I have actually struggled with getting back into the cliches of observation and thought out of fear that my stuff is not the expectation. It's not what the masses want, and that makes it a little scary. These little bastards may end up living with me for the rest of my life instead of leaving home and finding the safety of a bookstore to rest in.
Anne Enright- "Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free."
True. It is quite freeing, in a tied-down kind of way.
Richard Ford- "Don't drink and write at the same time."
Don't be insane.
Jonathan Franzen- "The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator."
That is a fascinating statement. Imagine your reader as a friend, and here is a story that you are sharing with him. I can imagine that JK Rowling saw readers as friends and confidants as she wrote her series. I don't think that I have ever, ever done that, but it makes all the sense in the world. I'm going to sincerely try to do this instead of seeing him as a spectator and wanting him to sit down and shut up and listen to what I have to say.
"The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more auto biographical story than "The Metamorphosis"."
This is an interesting thing that doesn't sound as true as it is until you think of fantasy works and just how personal they are. I do think that my fantasy items are far more personal than my other pieces.
Esther Freud- "Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into life."
I think I've cut more than I've kept in my fiction. Maybe it's meant to be that way. Editing your own work out is so painful, though. All of those imagined scenes that will never be. :(
"Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they'll know it too."
This is the difference between knowing what the force is, what it does and what it feels like and being fed some crap about midichlorians. Sometimes, you have to trust the reader and let the story loose so the reader forms his own conclusions.
A few of my favorites:
Elmore Leonard- "Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary."
Interesting, I interjected suddenly. I'm guilty of using words other than "said" in my own fiction. I think it's perfectly permissible as long as it's done sparingly.
Margaret Atwood- "Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B."
Too true. There's no possible way to please everyone, I exclaimed.
Roddy Doyle- "Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide."
I have a figurine of Oscar Wilde on mine. Does that count? I'm thinking not.
"Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy."
I've found in non-fiction that this is vital. I've been guilty of writing to a topic and meandering around until I finally put a title on it. That forces a focus. Did you see the Bleak House version with Gillian Anderson? That was outstanding. Netflix it if you haven't.
"Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet."
Oddly, I did that yesterday on Amazon.com, I argued. It wasn't there. Get ready for it, suckers!
Helen Dunmore- "Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue."
This is the only one of the bunch that I can't figure out. Why would you do that, and how can you? When I'm going, I have to go. If it's 4 a.m., then it's 4 a.m. When the work demands it, it simply demands it.
Geoff Dyer- "Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something."
This is likely why I have at least eight novels in various stages of completion but never seem to actually finish any of them. One will start to piss me off and I'll punish it by spending time with one of its brothers. Because, you know, fuck him.
"Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation."
This may be the most thought provoking of them all. I have actually struggled with getting back into the cliches of observation and thought out of fear that my stuff is not the expectation. It's not what the masses want, and that makes it a little scary. These little bastards may end up living with me for the rest of my life instead of leaving home and finding the safety of a bookstore to rest in.
Anne Enright- "Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free."
True. It is quite freeing, in a tied-down kind of way.
Richard Ford- "Don't drink and write at the same time."
Don't be insane.
Jonathan Franzen- "The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator."
That is a fascinating statement. Imagine your reader as a friend, and here is a story that you are sharing with him. I can imagine that JK Rowling saw readers as friends and confidants as she wrote her series. I don't think that I have ever, ever done that, but it makes all the sense in the world. I'm going to sincerely try to do this instead of seeing him as a spectator and wanting him to sit down and shut up and listen to what I have to say.
"The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more auto biographical story than "The Metamorphosis"."
This is an interesting thing that doesn't sound as true as it is until you think of fantasy works and just how personal they are. I do think that my fantasy items are far more personal than my other pieces.
Esther Freud- "Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into life."
I think I've cut more than I've kept in my fiction. Maybe it's meant to be that way. Editing your own work out is so painful, though. All of those imagined scenes that will never be. :(
"Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they'll know it too."
This is the difference between knowing what the force is, what it does and what it feels like and being fed some crap about midichlorians. Sometimes, you have to trust the reader and let the story loose so the reader forms his own conclusions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
