What Unemployment Taught Me About Writing

I, and many college graduates in 2009, didn’t expect to graduate into a world with no jobs, and yet we did.  I was, perhaps happy for awhile.  We had a savings at the time, and Ryan hadn’t yet lost his job.  I watched way too much Buffy, lived off of yogurt and farmer’s market berries with iced coffee while writing all day and I should have been happy.  

I should have used the time to write and submit and publish.  But I am in love with the art of creation, as much as any other writer.  I am incredibly hard on myself and am not inclined to think a thing is ever truly ready.  I should have decided to aproach my writing as a business then.  Vut at 25, I was just too you, too inexperienced with anything outside retail, and far too unconfident.  Even though, to many people around me I didn’t seem it.  I looked my most confident back then.  I appeared and sometimes even convinced myself that I felt the most self-assured.  

But I didn’t do the one thing I wanted with my life:  make a living off of my writing.  I spent so much time blogging and trying to understand the changing publishing world, that I did not take the leap.  I didn’t believe in myself.  Not really.  

I thought that I did.  

Unemployment taught me to feel guilty about my writing to think of it as an effort that didn’t earn me a paycheck.  A time sink that ate up all the time that I should have spent applying for jobs.  

It taught me that I chased my value--not as a writer like I thought I did--but relative to a paycheck.  What a great disservice I did myself.  

At least unemployment taught me that in order to move forward as a writer, the one great area I needed to work on was confidence.  In time, the lesson was learned and now I can make a  decision about what direction to move in.  I understand that I need to make money from my art to see myself as professional, as contributing to the amazing world of literature.  I learned that when I don’t fully engage with these things I wound myself.  I deny myself.  

I have to--had to--find confidence in my own abilities in order to give myself what I need.  A future as an author. A professional writer. So now I can work toward that goal.

What College Taught me About Writing

I, naturally, chose a writing and thinking heavy major in college.  I loved professors best who made me question all of my assumptions about myself and my world. These skills, like a good book, open the mind to see from new perspectives.  

What this taught me was to strive for newness.  Freshness.  

Anthropology, my major, introduced me to other ways of living,thinking, structuring a society and the harm caused by Imperial actions and ethnocentrism.  It taught me what culture was, despite that being such a  vague and intangible concept.  It gave me the tools to analyze my own indoctrination and see where and how my preconceived view of the world helped or hindered me.  The ability to analyze gave me the vested interest in looking into how I, personally, could grow in the direction I wanted to--a direction that represented my true values and ideals without merely mimicking that given by society.  Not that this process is foolproof, or ever complete.  But it is a skill at self-analysis.  

In writing this helps, particularly in Fantasy because of the breadth of issues presented is fodder for stories and the tenants of culture give a writer much material to craft one's own cultures. Also helpful is developing an understanding of cross-cultural power relationships and how this transforms individuals. This has helped me take some of the large cultural ideas that I learned in college--and in life--and be able to break tem down into character driven stories.  You, my readers, can judge how successful I am with this. But all things are a process.

There are questions, too, that come from our modern world.  What is privilege?  What are the constraints of power?  How is prestige given and taken away?  How does perception of one’s place in society promote action?  Or inhibit action? And that is just a few questions that float through my mind right now.  

Questions like this.  Experience.  This settles in a writer’s mind and slowly, subtly affects what writers write.  My perspective affects what I write.  So come and explore these questions with me.  Explore the characters and places that questions and experience shape through a jostling of information and imagination. It should be fun.

Why I Write

If you ask a writer why they write you’ll get a million responses that are likely to reduce to a simple “because I must.”  But why?  

If you asked me why I wrote when I was eleven and had discovered the desire, the need to write, my response would have been: “Because the characters in the books I’m reading won’t do what I want them too, so I’m going to make my own.”

If you asked me at thirteen: “Why do you write?” I would have said: “The world in my head just keeps getting bigger.  At a novel a year I won’t have enough time in my life to tell all the stories rolling around in my head.”

If you asked me at fifteen:  “Why do you write?”

“Because this is what I want to do with my life.  I want to develop the skill through hard work to tell some of the stories I know I’m not yet mature enough to tell.  My writing is who I am.”

At 21: “Because if I want to publish, I have to get it right.  It has to be perfect.  I’ve put so much time and effort into my stories, so much work,  I need them to be what I do with my life.  I need them to sell so I don’t have to find another job path.  There’s nothing else I want to do.”

At 25: “Because I can’t imagine my life without this. I’ve graduated college, but  I’m unemployed, thanks to the recession, and my writing remains all that I have left.”

At 28: “I write when I can, as I can, through the pain, the despair, the hopelessness. I’m not certain I’m very good at it any more, but when I do write, when I can write--I’m not being hemmed in by the diminishing options. When I write, I’m not here.  I am almost myself again.  Almost.  The doubt and despair goes away.”

At 30:  “I am inspired by my day job at a local bookstore which has put me back in touch with strengths I almost forgot that I had. In the interest of starting fresh and learning how depression changed my voice, I started a new project that has put me on an unexpected writing path: Young Adult Fantasy. But really, I am writing my way back to mental health.  I’m writing to discover who I have become.”

Currently, at 33: “I write to maintain self through expression.  My hardship has taught me that this tool I have honed through good and bad times is necessary.  Now, expecting a child in May, I also wish to write to have some solace I can give myself--something that is mine--as I go into motherhood.  I want, also, to show my child we never give up on our dreams, no matter what trials life tosses in our way.”  

A Return to Blogging

My return to blogging is due to a sort of re-commitment to my writing as a career.  It isn’t that I exactly lost focus on it as such, but that I had some shaky years in there and had to immerse myself in fiction writing to survive them.  This mode of writing, blogging,  while I tried it on occasion, no longer did me any good.  

That said, I am back to a place where I can see myself working to advance my writing as a career again. I will be working toward being a hybrid author, some writing will be self published while I seek to traditionally publish novels I have poured my energy and time into the last few years.  

There is much change on my horizon and one thing that I know:  I need to be a full time writer.  So now, every bit of my time and ounce of my energy will be directed to this endeavor.  

What all of this means is that I have sought balance.  I had to find my feet, my path, anew.  And I have. So now it is about going forward.

What does going forward look like?  

I am going to be launching a patreon, blogging regularly, posting a web-exclusive novel to my shiny new website and also launching a newsletter.  By the end of the year I will have a body of work that I will independently publish, while also seeking traditional publication for different works.  There are a few other things in the works as well and I will announce them when they are a little more concrete.  

Endings Blogfest! How do you end a novel?

Thanks L.G. Keltner for hosting "The Endings Blogfest!"  And congrats to her on the 2nd anniversary of blogging.

So what do I think about writing endings?

I am obsessed with the right endings.  I wrestle with the endings to my projects for months, and often fixate on them while writing the whole rest of my rough draft.

With the massive project I've been kicking around the last few years, Silver Mask, I even got so tired of waiting that I opened a doc titled it "Ending 1" and plunged right on in.

Setting up the perfect ending, in my head, often teaches me a lot of my characters' various back-stories. Mostly because I'm popping into the most tense time for all my characters and throwing them together in a way they just won't interact at any other point in the novel.

How these characters act when everything hits usually teaches me more about their characters, the direction that they are growing in and their relationships with the other characters than I might see imagining any other time/scene.sequence in a story.

In Silver Mask, the ending is complicated, full of a lot of threads.  I don't want to miss any of them, and i also want to make certain that when the rough draft is done, each character has been developed evenly.  Writing the ending now is going to tell me how to get there.  It'll also tell me what the main tensions between characters are going to be earlier in the novel, by providing me the instances in which these tensions are addressed in some fashion or another.    

Endings are just so much fun for me.

Insecure Writers' Group January 2014: Genre

   This is my first post of the year!  Sorry for the delay... there were colds, Nanowrimo and too much work in November and December. That said, sharing my goals for the year and my fears about them is the best start to a new year of blogging.  That said, be sure to check out the rest of the awesome participants in the  Insecure Writers Support Group.

     I have been working in a small independant bookstore now for over a year and I've been learning so much about the book industry.  It's been interesting seeing the relationship between book sales, media and staff-customer interactions.  That said, the internet and brick and mortar stores have an uneasy coexistence.  I can't be as anti-amazon and anti-self-publication and the latest technological gadgets delivering books to readers and whatever.  I tried, in the past to be resistant to change, and now I am tired of that.

There is no amount of resistance that will make the future other than it will be. That said there is a synergy among internet dissemination of information, traditional marketing avenues, readers, and bookstores that is a little difficult to put a finger on, much less explain and it doesn't help that so many patrons of the store are either pro-e-book or anti-e-book, with more on the anti side than admitting to owning a Kindle, Nook, or Reading on their iPads.

But the relationships among these things are exactly what I want to understand this year--particularly in its relationship to genre. This question came to mind particularly with iO9's list of the top SF books of 2013.  Their list included titles like "The Accursed," by Joyce Carol Oates, and "MaddAddam," by Margaret Atwood, which in our store is shelved with the literature.

I talked to someone who occasionally helps out in the store, who writes mystery, and he talks about the genre blending lines in mystery as well.  I feel that understanding how the big publishers make these distinctions, or why, can help to understand what the relationship among the new technologies and communication patterns, traditional outreach methods --t.v, radio, and newspaper articles/reviews-- and brick and mortar stores/online stores (sales).

The questions I want to answer with my reading this year will be:  What is genre? What is literature? What is YA? How does genre fiction characterize itself and is there any underlying characteristics that differentiate it from literary fiction?  If there is what are these and why do they exist?

These questions should get me closer to an understanding of what characterizes particular audiences, and lend a more in depth understanding of how the book industry works, and the significance of these various categories to readers and to the industry.

It's kind of an academic approach... and the reason for that is that I *did* manage to complete both Camp Nano and Nanowrimo in 2013.  I have two 50k word rough drafts to turn into something publishable by the end of 2014.  I want to know where my writing falls on the spectrum and why.

So I am planning to read a lot this year, across many genres, while revising Rule of Magic and The Lady and the Bow.  

IWSG Post: Uncertainty in Revision

I have had so may insecurities the past few years, and a few successes.  The Insecure Writers' Support Group is the place to vent them, to read others' opinions, feelings, successes, insecurities, and to just generally share in the ups and downs of writing and publishing.  Participants post the first wednesday of each month, and can be found here.  If you just generally want access to the best hub of links and advice for writing, check out the new IWSG website.  It's amazing.  Thanks Alex J. Cavanaugh!  I am really enjoying reading through the site, and following the links.

Last year, I was so worried about completing a rough draft.  Then, in July, I finished a rough draft.  I wrote so often that I had the urge after Campnano was done.  I just didn't know what to do.  I didn't feel "done."

Well, it isn't done.   But it needed to sit awhile until I was ready to make any real edits, no matter my hurried read-through and obsessive notes after the initial completion.

There was a brain fog that moved in once I wasn't writing every day, and then I never quite got around to making any of the big changes.  I started... but it's still waiting to be done.

Now, I'm entering the November Nanowrimo, and I plan to finish it as well. December will be a month of brain-fog, and I should be ready for it.  After that, 2014, will have to be the year that I brave the revision.  I have learned just how much I need order and structure. If I have found a way to apply it to completing a rough draft, I certainly can do the same for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd drafts.

Do you have a system that you employ to make changes to your rough drafts, and if so, what is it?

Becoming a Writer Part 3: A Different Approach--All in My Head

All right, I know the "freedom" I feel is all in my head.  It's been there all along, there are likely even agents and editors that might like what I'm doing.  But I certainly feel more stressed when I think I need to impress others.  I'm just not good at it.  I can be friendly, and I have even enjoyed customer service jobs for the interaction with people. I know I often leave a pretty decent impression, but I've put so much more of myself into my writing.

Is it rejection that I'm afraid of?

Not exactly.  I am afraid of the same thing that has choked up so many drafts over the years, not producing a end result deserving of the idea, the character, the world and all the time I've poured into it.  Self-doubt. Perfectionism.

I have found that deadlines can combat these flaws for the rough draft level.  I am working on using process to fight off the rest of it.

Considering self-publishing means that I have to approach my writing with greater emphasis on deadlines, on the business of it, but with the underlining goal of being honest to the art of it, the idea of it. I am a paradox, finding certain limitations actually inspiring.  That's why I work well with Nano.

What am I doing differently?

I am exploring an organization to the chapters in my Rextian novels that are in line with the society that I've created, but not an order I'd ever have thought would go well for a "first novel." This is mostly because it isn't exactly something I've seen before, but it makes sense for the piece that I am creating.  

It also frees me to identify certain stories as possible serials.  Suddenly, I  can do all my ideas.  Beginning to end. I can build them my way, and use the very structure of the novel to build not only the plot, but also the context of the world. The outline is posted week by week on Story Snippets. I will follow up at the end of the week with my progress that week on the Nanowrimo project.

I'm very confident about my ability to generate a rough draft... but that's before the real work: the second draft.

 

Becoming a Writer Part 2: Rough Drafts

The challenge of Nanowrimo has helped me immensely.  The deadline helped me to finally and effectively manage my time in July, for Camp Nano.  I finished a rough draft and then read through it and then... let it sit.

The next challenge will be to revise what I have, but before then, I am launching into Nanowrimo. I have a new/old project.  That is, since I've been progressively re-approaching my main world, its history, the stories and characters that I've been building and playing with for years... why not?

I am approaching Nano differently this time.  I made an outline--suitably vague, and with a massive note to self  "achieve the main plot goals--but hey, change is okay."  But I know anything on Don-Yin will be epic.  In the real sense.  I can't expect to write the whole book in a month, but Rule of Magic--my July success-- was not a full manuscript.

The story was written beginning to end, but it is a stripped down version. I can expect to approach November's project with that same result.  That means my outline can be flexible, adjusted, as long as I have the characters and plot mapped out well enough to hang the novel on.

I think I have those things down.  I have, off and on, over the years spent enough time with the characters and plot that I am confident of my love for both, my drive to complete them, and now my newfound-direction that I know I can do this.

I will post my outline, in pieces, on Story Snippets, so if you're interested in following my progress, I'll track it there.

Writing with the idea of self-publication as the goal has changed the approach to the novel, from the beginning. I feel better able to embrace the artistry, and less pressure to compete.  That isn't to say this is not a competitive industry--I see just how competitive every level of the book business is when I go to work. Focussing on the need to compete, to produce a story that would both be familiar enough for the marketability to be easily demonstrated and original enough to seize the enthusiasm of an editor, made me worried.  So very worried.

But now, thinking that I can take control of my project, I can pursue all knowledge I need to produce a professional end product.  The interim, the beginning steps, are less stressful now, with more freedom for me to explore my own ideas of the story and the nature of  "good writing."

Much of this, I know, is me.  
   
 

Becoming a Writer in the 21st Century: Part 1

Over the years of bumbling through this or that rough draft, participating in writing communities, and puzzling through the process and business of writing my focus has skittered about.  At the center of this is was the idea: “Where to start?”

Originally, the idea was with a rough draft.  But after the first few were shelved, or overhauled, I worried what the next step would be when I was pleased with a rough draft.  I got caught up in the idea of “the next step” and it made me resistant to finishing things.  

This had happened due to a few things.  One: the writers’ group i had been a  part of that I very nearly turned into a non-profit before succumbing to my own self-doubt and hanging there, useless, submitting resumes via  monster, watching the bank account dwindle and in such a  haze I couldn't finish reading a book--much less writing one. But before that settled upon me, I had drive and ambition, and a willingness to change and respond to the environment around me.  

We self published an anthology of short stories and I learned the entire process of the thing.   The process taught me that marketing was central to making a book successful.  Generating community, and rising to communicate internally to a particular niche.

Quality is essential to attracting the eyes of the uncertain.  A good cover is not just money, it is a demonstration of the seriousness of the writer.  There are a lot more steps to the process of producing the cover than CreateSpace and other formula-generating self-publishing options generally lead an author to believe.  Not that good covers can’t be produced through CreateSpace.  

Working where I do, I also know that a good cover is not guaranteed when going with a traditional publisher. In fact, it seems that the better covers are reserved for titles that expected to make more money, which means that the author has likely already demonstrated their marketability by reaching out inside a community, in some fashion.  They have been marked by the publisher as an individual with the connections to bring in enough money to make the whole system stay afloat.  

But quality has to be carried through the whole of the book to make certain the sale builds the sort of customer and brand loyalty that can generate a lengthy writing career.   As someone interested in being a full time writer--that’s what I’m after.  

Working in a bookstore, and knowing the limitations and shopping patterns of the book-buying populace I see why marketing is key.  Our store is relatively small--when compared to a box store--and insanely large when compared to most independents.  But there is no way that we can stock the sheer thousands of books published each year.

So whether you’re on a major book tour with your publicist plotting your stays, making arrangements with the stores, or if you are on your own, hauling self-published books out your trunk, it is about marketing.  

Realizing this has actually freed me.  You see, I was so stressed out over “perfecting”: my novel and wondering about timing and how to get an agent and a publisher while also understanding that the system… well, it isn't the same as it used to be.

If it is all about marketing, it isn't about writing to your audience, it’s about identifying who is already prone to like what you want to write.  If it’s about niches--the direction that successful marketing is going-- then it’s about being you.  Because when you market successfully it isn’t just the book--the author becomes a greater presence on the scene.   

And if that is the direction I need to go with my career, than the real thing to do… is write.  not copying the methods that work well for other authors, not harping on what has proven successful before and making it my own-- but generally writing my own thing.  

I am free to explore the form and craft the way that I, hidden under all the uncertainty and insecurity, have always wanted.  I have enough sense, after that, to work it all out.  I have learned enough about the business and about marketing, about the book industry itself, to have a few ideas of just how to go about making a business of it--but first, I’m off to complete a novel.

Complete a novel, my way.

 

The Educating of Myself Part 2: The Working World

Then I got a job--after three years in pursuit of a paycheck--at a bookstore.  Love my job.  But it has given me much greater insight to the changed nature, not only of selling books, but also consumer behavior in buying books.  On top of that, there is a major gap between customer expectation of a bookstore and what a bookstore *actually* has the resources to provide.  Which, has demonstrated to me, yet again, that an author must run his/her own publicity machine--or pay for someone else to do so, whether they are published by the big guys, or by him/her -self.   

What a career as an author looks like now is not the same as the one I expected to attain when I was a teenager reading: “How to get Happily Published,” or piling through Writer’s Digest’s “Writer's’ Market” in ‘98 through ‘05.

Scheduling events with authors and publicists and publishers, I get a further insight into the discrepancy between what people expect from a signing event versus what actually transpires.   Then, there is the impact of changing formats and what e-book popularity is going to make people expect from print.

We (humans) work off of relationships and identity, and reading, art, education have particular resonance and purpose internal to specific American communities.  The physical objects we take into our lives are indicative of our identity construction, even if we are unaware why, how, or what it communicates to ourself and our community.

Books, however,  are a different matter. I think that booklovers reading this know *exactly* what they mean to us and in our lives.  Especially that gorgeous, signed 1st edition by a favorite author…

But the motivation to buy, and what to buy, will change.  It is changing.  It is changing what is published.  It is altering the composition of the bookstore.  But the expectation of the  buying populace, even if they are modelling changed behavior over all, are not aware of this shift.  So what they, and what authors think, a bookstore does is different from what a bookstore is actually doing, or even capable of doing.  

The result is that we are entering an awkward in-between phase where we expect bookstores to be what they were ten to twenty years ago, without realizing that how we use them now is no where near the same way we used them ten to twenty years ago.

This changes how I will approach my own career.

The Educating of Myself: Part 1: My Academic Journey

I chose to major in anthropology because I wanted to soak up knowledge of cultures and history for the construction of my fantasy worlds. Life, as always, has different plans.

What I learned from spending eight years to obtain a four-year-degree can (somewhat) be boiled down to these vague ideas:

1) Culture defines us and our individual identity on such an innate level that we cannot witness or identify the vast majority of its affects on our life, mindset, and actions.

2) Culture is changeable.  The unconscious can become conscious, and history and values can be altered over time.  Technology can change behavior, and as behavior changes, values shift and identity construction adopts new forms.

3) Each people has their own history.  A People’s history formulates the shape of changes internal to one’s own culture, the available avenues to take when your behavior changes in response to an altered environment, and how to interact with others outside your cultural group.

4) Humans relate to the world in terms of relationships between and among things.  This is how all societies develop categories, stereotypes and groups of “like.” But each of these societies arranges the same things differently and their categories may be shaped or changed due to relationships with other groups.

5) The political map is an outgrowth of relationships between and among various societies, forged by the definition of dominant cultures, ethnic minorities, and culturally constructed borders reinforced by economic systems and who is included in that system, and in what manner they are included.  Individuals’ identities and value systems  can be formed and changed by shifts in these relationships and these changes can, in turn, result in individuals taking action as identity and values collide in a manner that can incite action (rebellion, war, law-breaking, etc).

What does this mean?  

For my writing I have fodder for the construction of a very sophisticated political map, based on groups responding to other groups based on deep histories.

For my career--and this is where I’ve been most shocked about my application of my education-- the tools that I developed to be “successful” as a writer are dated.  I saw this when i graduated college and plunged into reading blogs and listening to all the talk of “midlist genre authors being dropped,” but I scoffed at the idea that it would change that completely so quickly.  

I mean, it might be *harder* to get in, but it was still possible. Indeed, it was still *necessary* for success as a writer.  Right???  

The Growing-Up of Drea

I started out just writing--like we all do.  Then I started researching the business, and at that point in time it was all about traditional publishing because you absolutely had to have your books in bookstores to sell, and you have to sell (of course) to make it as a writer.  So it was about queries and synopsis and having the first three chapters of your novel so polished that they shone, flawless on the page.  

The same critique group that honed this awareness introduced the idea that publishers were looking for marketability.  

I was an impressionable 21, with the only certainty in my young life the conviction that, in the amorphous future, I wanted to be a full-time writer and nothing else.  I soaked up the ideas of how to attract an agent, a publisher, and promote oneself as a writer.

Young as I was, I also chafed against this focus.  Shouldn't it be about my writing?  This is, after all, what I want to do?  

Besides, the group’s ideas of what made a story “promote-able” were an exact opposite, oftentimes, to what I considered good writing.  I wanted storytelling that didn't treat the reader as an imbecile with ADD.  

Over time, I went off the deepend, eventually being completely obsessed with marketability.  This happened partially in response to the changing industry and my determination to be traditionally published.  

But the more my academic experience changed how I viewed the industry and the trajectory we were all headed into, the more I questioned the viability of starting out pursuing traditional publication.  I gathered my own ideas of marketing, of writing, of developing myself and my career, and then fell down a recession-forged fiscal hole that finished the destruction of my carefully held beliefs of the adult world.  

Now, perhaps, I am ready for the enacting of my ideas.  It’s a long time coming.

IWSG: Being an Aspiring Writer and a Bookstore Employee

Hello all!  Here's another IWSG post--where we talk about our achievements and insecurities on the first Wed of every month!  I want to thank Alex J. Cavanaugh and her co-hosts for managing this most amazing (and inspiring group)-- you all kept me writing at least a post a month when writing and living was hard--so, I am amazingly thankful for this group and all of the hard work that is poured into it.  That said, the group is about to get even more awesome-- check out the news here, and all the wonderful participants here.

Being an Aspiring Writer--

I, like anyone hoping to publish at some vague point in time, pile through the blogs and books on writing and publishing.  I sort through all the information and make up my own mind about just what I should do in order to start my career on the right foot.

I'm obsessed with the "right foot." But the proper tactic seems so be mired in an over abundance of information and choice.  Wheedling through the options can be exhausting, and yet with the goal of eventual publication in mind...I can't stay away from reading news about the industry or the options available, down the road.

Working  at a Bookstore--

Then there's the whole aspect to publishing you learn selling books to readers.  That is enough to intimidate even the most  determined self-marketer.

Readers by what they hear about on radio, tv, or from a friend, or what is assigned by their book group. That is sort of where traditional publishing comes in.  But the authors who sell already have a presence (more often than not). Cheryl Strayed's "Wild" was a good example of this.

Her travel narrative was supposed to have been a "debut" but when it was wildly successful suddenly a novel and a self-help book she had previously published were reissued and the self-help hadn't previously had her name on it, as it derived from her "Dear Sugar" column in a paper.  So a debut wasn't really a debut after all...

So what does that mean?

Then there's the fact that new authors are increasingly having a particular statement plastered on their mass market paperbacks (in the SFF section): "First time in print!" Which seems to indicate that there is a rising list of successful books selling only as e-book and that, perhaps, an author needs to sell successfully as an e-book before a publisher considers a print run?  Could that be the case?  And if so, what does that mean for the royalties?

It starts to make me wonder, looking at my bank account, if, for a writer starting out now traditional publishing is a (fiscally) viable first step, or if it is more important to prove oneself through self-publishing and a successful promotional effort?

Successful promotional effort--

Most self-published authors who do readings/meet & greets at my work have tiny audiences.  They may or may not have FB pages, or author pages, or websites.  They may or may not have had a professional artist or designer assist with the cover design.  They may or may not attend events regularly, have community connections, or get their event listed in local papers.

I have been doing all I can to gain interest for the events, but internet-based marketing is (unfortunately) only one aspect to my job, rather than the whole of it.  So I'm limited, and the authors' promotional efforts need to be top notch.

So it seems to me that I can piece together from these experiences what I *think* could amount to a successful promotional effort, but seeing the authors in the store--some of whom are blatantly brilliant--but also make a subtle splash in the only remaining bookstore selling exclusively new books in the vicinity of the downtown area of our city, makes that seem daunting.

I hover here, writing, revising, and watching.  And doubting that even as I learn more about the book industry that my knowledge will lead me to make any greater a splash in an Amazon-dominated industry.


 

Dreamer Issues

I'm a dreamer.  I'm a writer--so this is no surprise.  But one of the things that I seem to do well is come up with ideas for things outside of writing.  I always seem to have a project that I want to engage in.

This I know, is a bit of a distraction.  It is hard, sometimes, to maintain focus.  Why?

Because all I really want to do is write, I end trying to plan my perfect day job which is not one in which I work for anyone else, but am able to make the income i require to make ends meet and foster my writing.

Thing is, the income bit can't be guaranteed.  No amount of planning, no amount of dotting i's and crossing t's will guarantee that what I want to happen will happen as quickly as I need it to happen if I threw myself into it...

So I end up telling myself that it is an "eventual goal" and that I will still pursue full-time positions.  But if I do get a full time position--these projects which were hatched as ideas in order to compliment my writing will end up eating into my writing time.  My issue?  I feel that if the job doesn't compliment my writing--it is the thing eating up my writing time.

False.  It is on me to plan my time and to make certain that I focus on what is most important.

My writing,.

Why do I let myself get so easily distracted? Is it procrastination, because even if my current job is part-time, I love it enough to be afraid to move on?

Writing Books-- Perception and Reality

Last weekend I had an interesting discussion with a musician wherein I admitted that my personality was to be quite open, and to basically be just as I am--just as I seem.

To which this man replied: "We all are, it is something about being an artist."

Being an artist.  Writing is an art that marries the creative and the analytical in an odd mixture of things most artists would not assume go together.  With painting you certainly start with learning logic, but when I did the most painting in my youth, all those rules had already left an impression on my mind and things like shading came second nature in paintings, sketches. Only minor tweaks were needed after the painting was done.

With writing, no matter how many years you've been at it, no matter how deep into the subconscious the writing rules have imprinted, the rough draft is always a mess.  

Granted, the writing of it is the easy part.  The hard part, in my experience, has been revising the rough draft and polishing it into the book it was meant to be.  The analytical aspect to writing a book is definitely that second step.  

It is easiest to make mistakes in this step.  It is easy for the story to transform outside its narrow bounds and become a different tale all together, or to branch off into a series. My tendency to over-think has hindered many  drafts, and kept me working on them for years and years.

The perception of writing a book is that the writing of it is the hardest and most time-consuming part.  Perhaps, fore some writers, this is a true statement.  But certainly, for me, the writing is easy and the revising is hard.  And the lesson?

My guy is often fond of telling me when--in any number of areas in my life--a simple idea inflates to a full fledged enterprise, complete with steps and long term goals: "Drea, the K.I.S.S. method.  Don't get ahead of yourself."

But I'm so good at it!  And Keeping It Simple... in any fashion orb form is exceedingly difficult.  Thanks to nano, however, I think I can start charting the path through those woods.

So what step of writing a book is hardest for you?

News!

Last month I got to meet authors from the State Fair Booth, who came in from various parts of the state and had booths at my workplace. I took pictures for facebook, blogged at the AvidReaderTower.blogspot.com to generate traffic and interest for the store and our author-guersts.

In the course of this event, I had the pleasure of chatting with Deborah Cota, author of the Dante Series.  After the event she asked me to guest blog and today it's up!  Go read it here and check out her site, books, and assorted wonderfulness!

IWSG: Achievements and New Angst

It's time to share insecurities, achievements, and court the support of the like-minded. Or, well, it's time for another Insecure Writers' Support Group, that amazing once-monthly internet gathering of writers sharing their trials and successes in an effort to let us all know that we aren't alone.

I have to say, this group has been a major help for me.  It has forced me, in some pretty dark hours, to think of my writing.  i have never wanted to abandon it, but there have been some life challenges that made me face some massive self-doubt demons.

So, if you have any demons whispering in your ears, check out the list at Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog: here.

This month, however, I have a major success to share.  I signed up for camp nano and picked a half-formed, hastily outlined novel to write for it.

I finished.  At 50,300 some odd words, I won the July nano! This is big.  As many of my previous posts for IWSG have expanded upon, I have been having a ton of issues "finishing" things, so this is a big step in the right direction.

It feels really good to have a shiny new rough draft for the first time in years.

But now  the new worry is:  I wrote it in a month, how can it be any good?

I'm almost done with my first read-through, and I'm compiling notes on where to expand, where to increase tension and how to build the characters better.  But it is going to go to critiquers as well... so we'll see.  I'm at once both hopeful and horrified.

Looking for Events in Sacramento?

So... what's been up with me?  Camp nano--over halfway through my project.  That feels really good, by the way.  And... just in case anyone is in Sacramento this month, I thought I'd mention some of the events that will be going down at my work.

The California State Fair is kicking off, and we will be working with the group running the authors' booth. This is really exciting for me.  Anyone who may have seen my posts from a few years ago might see that, aside from writing, generating and being a part of a writing community is one of the things that makes me very happy and excited.  I guess that comes with the territory.

So, naturally, I love my job. Surrounded by books, with the opportunity to speak with readers and other writers, anywhere from the aspiring to highly accomplished--how could I not love it?

I will be expanding on the events that will be taking place this month on the blog here.    

If you are up for the fair, stop on in!  Say hi :)

Camp Nano

So, I seem to remember my blog for this event every month.  Working on building up other posts as well.  What is this event? It is the Insecure Writer's Support Group, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. All posts can be found here. 

We share our goals and insecurities once a month, as well as successes.  

I maintained writing far more continually this past month than I have in a good while.  I came within 8 scenes of finishing a project and then my brain bailed on me.  Or perhaps it was will power.  

Anyhow, I'm fairly certain I will get to finishing it in August.  

In the duration, I signed up for camp nano.  Am I masochist? I have discussed in previous posts that my greatest insecurity of the past few years has been finishing a project.  A novel.  I came within 8 scenes and stopped not even a full month ago and now I'm committing myself to something new and different, and meant to be written from beginning to completion in a month. 

Not only that, but because of work and a few complications, I hadn't gotten around to really starting it until last night.   

On the flip side, I guess it's an accomplishment.  I just keep going.  *cue Ellen Degeneres as Dory* "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."

But I am.  

And if I must say so, I feel the project is off to a good start.  Yes, it might be that honeymoon phase where it's hard to see the flaws in my own work, but... whatever.  It's going.  An it is't bad. Yet. 

LOL.