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November Summary plus Extras

So first, my story “No Spaceships Go” will be out from Daily Science Fiction on December 17th it looks like.  So go sign up for their daily stories already, geez.  (Though it will also be posted on the website at some point as well if you’re somehow allergic to getting awesome fiction in your inbox each weekday morning).   Besides this being my first pro sale, it is also a story I really love.  I write a lot of stories and I’m not sure I could even list the titles of all of them off the top of my head (probably, with some serious thinking, because I do have a good memory, but I might miss one or two).  However, I play favorites like woah.  This story was one of my favorites and I’m very happy that Daily SF took a chance on it.

So in November my writing went not too poorly, but I’ve discovered that writing while in pain really, really sucks.  Or perhaps rediscovered, since I had to do it this summer when I pinched a nerve in my shoulder.  I have my new keyboard now and am so far liking it (it’s only been a day, so no idea how it will serve in the long term).  I’ve also adjusted my desk and my chair and gotten a wrist brace to try for the more sore wrist.  All these things will hopefully contribute to less pain and a more consistent writing schedule.

All that aside, I managed about 52,000 words this month.  That means a handful of new stories out to markets and some of what will be the first novel in my Pyrrh Considerable Crimes series.  I’m going to be finishing up the novel in the next week or two, then it’ll go to first readers, then to the copy editor, and finally (hopefully!) on or around Jan 31st, 2011, it’ll be available to purchase.

For December I’m going to take it somewhat easy.  While I’d like to be writing 5-6 hours a day, I know that on many days I’ll have other commitments (I have a huge family, and the holidays are always made of crazy sauce).  So I’m setting my daily goal at 10 pages each week day and 5 pages each weekend day.  I’m planning on writing the second Pyrrh novel this month, as well as starting a romance novel that will go out to traditional publishers in Feb.  I was going to write my horror/western, but it needs to percolate more I think, and I’m debating writing it for e-pub instead of trying to figure out how the hell I’d pitch something like that to trad publishers.  We’ll see.  I like that I have all sorts of options now and can pretty much write whatever I feel like (not that I wouldn’t anyway, I’m stubborn like that, but nice to know I might actually get paid for this stuff).

So November was a mixed bag.  I didn’t hit my goal, but I got over the halfway point and I still got something done, which is better than nothing.  Even if I only get 50k words each month next year, that would still be 600k words of new fiction ready for various markets and experiments, which isn’t a bad production rate.  So we’ll see.  I’m going to aim for more like 75k to 100k a month, but it’ll depend on schedules and wrists and my own laziness.

Speaking of laziness, I’ve been playing some Mass Effect 2 (well, helping my husband play by mining planets for him and such).  I mention it because the world-building is boggling and awesome.  Flying around and reading the different planet descriptions alone has been a joy and very inspiring.  After I finish up the next couple novel projects (or perhaps in between), I’m totally going to get some sf stories done.  I wrote fantasy in November pretty much, so maybe it’s time to return to space.  Hmm, I wonder if I can write ME2 off on my taxes? It’s totally helping my writing, totally. *grin*

(Speaking of taxes, I’ll be filing my first schedule C this Jan.  I’ll definitely be posting about that process around then, because I think more information needs to be available on how this works exactly.  I’m going to hire a professional to talk me through it the first time, because while I’m competent as the house accountant, I’d rather not mess up when it comes to the IRS.  They aren’t exactly forgiving of honest errors.  So look for a post about that, and some neo-pro interviews coming soon!)

Links and Interviews

So I’ve been thinking of ways to make sure I keep this blog updated and maybe actually interesting from time to time.  One idea I had was to maybe do interviews of my fellow neo-pro writers.  I know that I’m always curious about other people’s goals and paths.  So if anyone wants to get interviewed, let me know.

Likewise, I should really do some blog updating and get my links section in full working order.  So if you want to exchange links with me (either directly here or www.anniebellet.com) and I’m not linked to you, please let me know. (This is also my nefarious plan to find more blogs to read, clearly).

So… are you a writer? Want to be interviewed?  my email is izanobu  AT  gmail  DOT  com.  Put either “writer link” or “writer interview” in the subject so hopefully you won’t get spam-foldered.

So yeah, that’s it.  If anyone takes me up on the interviews I’ll probably do them with questions via email and then do a monthly or bi-monthly post or something (depending on how many peeps take me up on this).

Lorning and Practice

(Yes, ‘learning’ is misspelled in my subject.  On purpose. It’s a joke. No, it would take too long to explain. Deal)

I tend to talk very openly about my writing goals and word counts and issues that crop up and the like.  This has led to comments, both on this blog and privately, that are along the lines of “maybe you should slow down (ie, write less) and learn more”.

Sounds like a reasonable plan, right? Except, it isn’t.  This statement and statements along the same lines have  logical fallacies in them.  They imply that a) writing slow= writing better and b) learning somehow happens outside of the actual writing work.  Neither of these things are true.

Let me demonstrate my point using videogames (because I can!).

Starcraft 2 is arguably the best real-time strategy (RTS) game out there.  A few months ago I discovered SC2 replay and tutorial videos on you-tube and have been watching them since.  I also own the game and have played a bit, but writing work has gotten in the way of that and I haven’t had nearly as much time as I’d like for videogames (and what time I’ve had, I’ve spent playing Borderlands with my husband).

But I’ve watched hundreds of hours of strategy videos and games.  I basically use SC2 videos as my mental break time during the day or late at night when I can’t sleep and don’t feel like working or reading.  I can discuss build orders and micro/macro strategies and unit choices with the best of them and probably, if no one saw me play, sound pretty much like a hard-core SC2 player.  My knowledge of the strategies and ideas behind them is huge.

I suck at SC2.  I’m really, really bad at it.  I haven’t played my ladder games (the multi-player ranking is called ladder) yet, but I imagine I’d be bottom of the heap.  I can barely beat the AI on easy.  Why is this? I mean, I’ve studied hard core, right? I know how hot-keys work and which units counter which units and what my timings should be on scouting and getting which building when.  My brain is stuffed with SC2 tactics and ideas and strategies.  But I can’t play the game to save my life.

Because I haven’t practiced.  I haven’t PLAYED the game nearly enough to get the practical skills to implement my knowledge.

See where I’m going with this?  Writing is the same.  I can read every book on writing ever written.  I can attend every conference, join every critique workshop, read and talk about writing and other people’s stories until my tongue and eyes bleed, but that won’t make me a good writer.

Only writing will.  All the side things, all the reverse-outlining best-selling novels, all the reading long-time pro’s work and blogs, all the industry knowledge and the business knowledge and the craft books in the world won’t mean jack or shit unless I’m writing my own words.

If I’d spent 200 hours playing SC2 instead of watching these videos, I bet I’d be at least Gold rank on ladder by now.  If I’d spent 100 hours watching videos and 100 hours playing, I might be Gold rank also.

It’s about doing both.  I’m learning and reading about writing and studying good books, but I’m also writing.  Writing is the first and most important thing to do.  All the rest is gravy and, like gravy, if you don’t have anything to apply the skills to, it ends up being a plate full of soupy worthlessness (okay, bad imagery, but you get the point).  Without practice, knowledge means nothing.

So yeah, I’m working hard to get my word counts up, to be more consistent in setting aside three or four or six hours a day to write.  Because the fifty or so writing books on my shelf won’t do me any good if I’m not putting the practice in, if I’m not doing the work.  I need to be writing more, in other words, not less.

So if you find yourself frustrated, if you feel like you aren’t getting anywhere skill-wise, don’t slow down.  Speed up. Do more words.  Stab those voices of doubt that are telling you that you don’t know enough, you haven’t studied enough, your words aren’t good enough, and just put your ass in the chair and write more words.  Because the easy AI might kick your ass while you’re trying to figure out how the hell you tech up to hive, but eventually you’ll have your revenge with an early 7 roach cheese push.   Because you practiced it. Over and over and over.  Until you could do it right, until you found what worked for you.

Practice. Write more.  Want a career in something? Put in the hours to get good at it.  Put in the hours for study also, but don’t neglect the practicing.  Practicing is more important.   Talking and reading about writing will never equal what you can learn by just doing it.  We’re all different, we all have different strengths and weaknesses and habits.  But if you don’t practice, you’ll never learn what those are.  No book, no other writer, no seminar or class or critique can ever tell you how you work and what your exact path in this career will be.

Only writing will do that.  Only writing can do that.

Do eet!

Failure, Rejection, Depression, and Sundry

This post will likely be rambling and a little ranty.  (And apparently sappy at the end)  You have been warned.

As of Saturday to be on target for my goals this month I needed 21,000 words done.  As of Saturday, I had just shy of 9,000.  Writing for the last few months has been very difficult for me, like pulling teeth to get any words out at all (which is why that last novel took four months when it should have taken two at most).  I’ve engaged a friend in a challenge (with whole dinners on the line!) for monthly word count goals in the hopes that I can shove past whatever is blocking me.  Last week, not so much with the shoving, obviously.

Alas, what’s blocking me is… me.  Or more specifically my brain chemicals.  Lots of quote “creative types” deal with depression and other issues, and I’m no exception unfortunately.  I struggle with life-long insomnia issues among other things (which is how I read so damn much, it’s easy to find time to read when you only sleep 2-5 hours a day).  Sometimes the writing process just stutters and stops.  I think this is one reason I’ve always been a “binge” writer.  When I’m running well I have to do as much as I can as fast as I can because I don’t know when suddenly the images will stop forming up right in my head and the mental white noise will start to take over.

The other thing blocking me is my old friend self-doubt.  Writing is easy.  Writing for a living, not so easy.  Especially in the stage I’m in, where I’m starting to break out a bit and hopefully learning my to cross my Ps and dot my Is.  Sales are wonderful motivators, but fear of success can be just as deadly as fear of failure.  Things are tight right now in my home life because of the sacrifices we’ve made so I can pursue my dream and my goals and now, a year and a half into the ten year plan, the reality of the situation has definitely sunk in.  We’re fine, we’re making it work, but as always I can’t help but put pressure on myself to write, do more, learn more, be more. Thinking long-term is good, but it doesn’t necessarily help the short-term panic attacks.

I almost broke my number of rejections in one week record this week, which of course doesn’t help either.  I don’t even know what my rejection total is up to, though if I had to guess I’d say over 200 easily.  In less than two years.  What that number should (and does, when I’m thinking rationally) say to me is that hey, I’m producing and sending out lots of work.  But sometimes I stare at yet another “this was well-written but no thanks” or “this was fun, but ultimately we decided not to publish it” etc and think “so they don’t like fun, well-written work.  What the hell should I be writing?”.  It’s a war inside between the rational/business brain telling me that it isn’t personal (because it really, really isn’t) and that I just need to take a deep breath and put the story back in the mail, and the irrational side of my brain “zomg u suckzorz and r gettin wurse.  stUpid RITUR.”

What does this all really mean? Basically…nothing.  So I’m 12,000 words behind where I needed to be.  Over the next few weeks I can easily find another 12-15 hours somewhere in there to catch myself up.  It’s adding an hour a day to a couple weeks of work.  Rationally not a big deal.  What does the rejection mean? Again, not much (beyond the fact that hey, apparently I write fun, well-written stories and stuff).  But the depression, the sleeplessness, the slog, it all combines to make my life not peachy at the moment.  I’ll catch up though (so stop planning your sushi outing, Amanda…) because I hate to lose a bet for one, and because any job has bad days, and any job I have is one that gets affected by my depression/insomnia issues, and in the end, I get to sit on my ass and make shit up and people have paid me (and will pay me in the future damnit!) to do this.  Which is still awesome, any way you look at it.

So for anyone who is struggling this month (and let’s face it, November ain’t a great month.  I didn’t like it before my brother died during it and I sure don’t care for it afterward either), you’re okay.  Everything will work out.  If you are doing NaNoWriMo and you fail one day, or one week, no need to stress.  It’s cool.  Think about it this way: if you fall short by 10 or 20 or even 30k words, you’ve still written 40 or 30 or 20k words more than you would have if you hadn’t even tried at all.  And for all the writers in my shoes, us neo-pros who see more no than yes still, it’ll get better.  We’re just getting started.  Sure, we take a few on the chin during the opening round, but really, we’re just lulling our opponents into a false sense of superiority.  The next story we write? It’s going to KO some editor, somewhere, sometime.  As long as we don’t throw in the towel, as long as we keep sitting on our asses and making shit up and sticking it in the mail.  Because that’s what counts and that’s the only score worth keeping.

It never ends.

That Time of Year Again, or NaNoWriMo

I’ve technically done Nanowrimo (or National Novel Writing Month) three times now.  I’ve “won” it twice.  Last year I intended to be a nano rebel and do a short story a day for the month until my brain got hijacked by insomnia.  This year I’m going for a hybrid of sorts.  I’m going to write a 45-55k novel and also aim to complete 11 short stories.  I predict this will be 90-100k words this month.

There are many conflicting opinions about NaNoWriMo.  Some seem to feel that it encourages bad writing, and for people to try to publish bad writing in the after months (I’ve even seen some agent blogs complaining that they get nano novels in December and how annoying that is).  My personal opinion is that NaNo is what you make of it.  If you want to write a crazy book that is full of in-jokes, word and plot prompts, and probably something only your mother will love, go ahead.  I don’t care.  Doesn’t bug me a bit.  Writing is fun, or I wouldn’t be doing it.

If you want to write a novel with the goal for publication? Do that.  Is it possible to write 50,000+ good words in a month? Hell yes.  In fact, many professional writers do it all the time.  It’s simple to do if you carve out the writing time.  Here, I’ll do the math for my own plans:

11 short stories: word count on this will vary.  I’m aiming for between 2500 and 7500 words per story.  A 7500 word story takes me generally 6-9 hours to write (depending on multiple factors like plotting, research, etc).  Most of my stories tend to fall in the 4-5k word range, so we’ll say 55,000 words from shorts.  That’s about 55-60 hours of writing at my usual pace.

Then the novel.  I’m going for 45-55k words, which is a short novel.  But this novel isn’t going to be shopped to traditional publishing.  It’s going to be e-pubbed (after first readers and a professional editor see it, of course. I wouldn’t put a rough draft up for sale, clearly).  My natural length for novels is fairly short, so I think this is a good length and a pace I can keep up for four books a year.  The novel will likely take about 70 hours of work (I’ve done a lot of world-building and pre-planning over the last year, so now what’s left is to write the damn thing).

70+60=130 hours of work in a month.  130/30= 4.3333333 hours a day.  That’s right.  A bit over four hours a day.  When was the last time you worked a four hour day?  Writing is my sole source of employment, so there’s really no reason I can’t put four hours a day into it.  My actual plan is to put six or seven hours a day in on weekdays and whatever I can fit in on weekends.  November is  full of weddings, baptisms, parties, Thanksgiving, etc for me, so I know I won’t be able to find hours every single day.  Hence the over-writing on some days so I can have slack time for when things come up (because when in life don’t things come up, right?).

So that’s my NaNoWriMo plan.  I’m on the nanowrimo.org website under “izanobu” if anyone is doing it and wants to be buddies there (progress bars are fun!).

Good luck to everyone going along on the fun of NaNo!

Link SMASH!

I have website!

My official Annie Bellet website is now live.  There are still some tweaks happening, and content will be added, but the basics are in place (including an awesome header image by my friend Greg).  Go HERE to visit.

The official Pyrrh Project website (my soon to be here e-pub series put out through Doomed Muse press) is also live.  There isn’t much content yet, but it’s being tweaked and produced and there will be more stuff added to that site as well over the coming months.  But the publication schedule is up, at least.  Go HERE and bookmark it so you don’t miss any announcements/freebies etc.

That’s that for now.

Writing Goals: Things I Like

As I gear up for my next big project (ie, novel), I’ve been thinking a lot about what kinds of stories I like to read and how that impacts the sort of stories I want to tell.  I figured it might be interesting to have the list (so far) posted on my blog.  Maybe some of you reading will post your own lists (hint, hint).

Things I like to read about/want to write about in fiction:

Fighting. Crimes. Sex. Serial Killers. Details about day to day activities I’m not familiar with.  Training montages.  Bad-ass people doing clever, bad-ass things (note, these characters don’t have to be the protagonists, I like bad-ass antagonists as well).  Love stories.  Space stations.  Starships or outposts in space in isolation type setting.  Post-apocalyptic.  Kick-ass, detailed magic.  Anything that reminds me of a table-top RPG (ie I could envision giving the characters stats and seeing how the world would be laid out etc).  Happily ever after enough endings.  Series.  Epic world-building.  Secondary characters strong enough to merit their own books/stories.

That’s my list so far.  I’m sure it’ll expand as I think of things or find things and go “hey! THAT! I love THAT!”

The next project I’m working on is the first book in my e-pub novel series.  The website for the series will be up shortly and then I’ll make it its own post.  What excites me about this project the most is that I think I can cover a lot of the above list in just one series.  (Not the space-station stuff, alas).  I’m going to be writing something that I fully love, with nothing in it I don’t.  Sounds like fun to me.

I’ve got a lot lined up, actually.  We’ll see how much I get to by the end of the year.  And I’ve got a pile of short stories waiting on final consideration at various markets with “we’ll tell you by X date-ish” dates coming up in the next few months.  Lots to be excited about and lots of work to do.

So, fellow writers (and readers…):  what are your favorite things in fiction? What are your reader cookies?

Okay, Let’s Do Math

This’ll likely be part 1 of this post, with more math and data to come later as I collect more.

Since multiple people have asked, both here in the comments and privately, I’ll show my numbers, so to speak.

I have two, yes just two, short stories up on Kindle/Smashwords etc.  They are literary fiction and available for .99 cents. I put them up mostly to practice the formatting.  A friend did my covers, which I think are beautiful.  If you want to see the covers or check out the stories, follow this link.

First question people often wonder with self-publishing things is how do you know it’s any good.  Well, I don’t.  Good is fairly subjective because some people might like that kind of story, some might not.  I do have some faith the writing in these stories is up to par because these are the two stories I used to get myself into an MFA program, so they can’t be bad on a writing level.   But in the end, you never know.  I would use the rough rule that if you have sold some fiction at pro or decent semi-pro rates and zines, if your submissions get more personal rejections than form letters, etc… as the measure for writing publishable/saleable fiction.  And hey, not everyone will like what you write.  Oh well.  If you have readable writing, a decent grasp of story, a good cover, and a decent description/blurb, I don’t think you’ll suffer much in the e-pub market, from my experience.

So… to the math.

I’ve made about 8-9 dollars total over about 3 months with my stories (counting the one I had to take down because I accidentally sold it).  This works out to each story averaging 1.16 per month for the two up now.  One sells better (slightly) than the other, but it’s longer and the content less violent, so that doesn’t surprise me too much.  I’ve also sold a few copies on Amazon UK netting me another 1.05.

Seems like nothing, doesn’t it?  My two semi-pro sales this year got me 30 or so, my pro sale will be a heck of a lot more whenever it comes out (paid on publication for that one).  But let’s look at the longer game here.

1.16 a month average per story (this will be my minimum, because this is the real number I’m getting now).  I have two stories out.  My goal is to write 40 short stories a year.  (I’m at 21 this year, but I’ll catch up to near 40 by Jan, no worries).  Give each story a year to two years to get through the pro/semi-pro markets on my list, so we’ll say that I get 20 stories up a year on average as the stories either sell (3 months average wait to get rights back) or sunset due to rejections/time.

So next year (we’ll call it year one) I might have 22 short stories e-pubbed by the end of the year (we’ll ignore putting together collections for the moment).  At 1.16 a month each, that’s 25.52 dollars a month.  Which would pay for my comic book habit, no problem.

Year two, another 20.  But the first 20 have been earning as well, so now it’s 42 stories.  That’s 48.72 a month.  Or, another way to look at it, 584.64 a year.  Sweet! I’m now (hypothetically, based on real numbers so far, of course) earning almost 600 a year extra for work I did years ago that I’ve also hopefully earned something on by selling to magazines.

Year three, another 20.  So now we’re at 62 stories up online, each earning 1.16 a month.  71.92 a month.  863.04 a year.  Anyway… you can see the progression.  That trickle? It adds up.  Not fast, but it builds and it sure as hell earns more than a story you’ve sold/didn’t sell/whatever would sitting on your hard drive.

Now, imagine if I wrote a story a week instead of just 40 a year (Bradbury does this, as do other pros).  52 stories a year.  If I said screw it to trying to sell to magazines, I could put up 52 stories a year.  That’s 60.32 a month, or 723.84 a year, the first year.  Second year- 1,447.68.  It just keeps going.  But the really fun numbers are when you start to look at the total ten year earnings.  So let’s do that.

On the 20 stories posted a year plan, after ten years I’d be earning about 2,800 a year in that tenth year from short stories.  But over the course of those ten years, I’d have earned almost 14,500 from those stories total.  Not that bad, especially when you think about it as work you did years and years ago, earning you thousands of dollars in a nice little trickle for you doing NOTHING.  (And it is potentially all bonus money on top of any you made selling the story in the first place, because again, balance is key).

On the 52 short stories posted a year plan, the numbers, of course, look even sweeter in the long term.  In that tenth year you’d earn about 7,240 from your short story inventory.  Over the course of the whole ten years? You’d have earned about 37,000 from those short stories total.  Again, not horrible.

This only works, of course, if you keep writing and learning and producing work.  And I fully believe that if it takes you months to write a short story, this plan and method won’t work as well (though the trickle can still happen, and still build even at a pace like that).

Of course, if you want the math to get very insane, start making collections with those stories.  At the end of plan 1 (20 posted a year), that’s enough for thirteen solid collections that you could sell at 2.99 or even 4.99 (12-15 stories each is pretty good, depending on story length).   Thirteen 4.99 collections, selling just three copies a month each at 70% royalty rates (I don’t have real data for collections yet, of course, so this is now hypothetical time) would earn an extra 1,635 a year.  For practically no extra work (after all, you have the stories already written and formatted, you just put them together.  I’m guessing this would take at most an hour or two, plus time for a cover if you are doing your own).

I’m editing this to add the numbers for if you do collections off ten years of accruing 52 stories a year.  This works out to about thirty five collections (12-15 stories per).  Thirty five collections at 4.99 earning 70% royalties selling three copies a month each works out to about 4,400 a year.  Again, for work you’ve already written, are already earning from (as separate short stories), and have to expend minimal effort on one more time to get into a collection.

Add it up.  After ten years at the 20 story pace, you’re earning 4,435 a year off collections and shorts (370 a month) (and you will go on earning that on top of the 14,000+ you’ve already earned over the last decade).  After ten years at the 52 story pace, you’re earning 11,600 a year off collections and shorts together (970 a month) and again, on top of the 37,000+ you’ve earned already over the last decade (see how it builds?).

So there you go.  Some math, based on what I’m seeing over the last three months from my own very very limited experience.  And I’m a no-name author.  I’ve sold 3 short stories this year traditionally, but under a different name (Annie Bellet, my spec fic name) and in a different genre than the two posted online.  I doubt I have any sort of platform or following at this point.

These are just my numbers and my take on things.  I have no idea how well my e-pub novels will sell.  That’s why I’m writing them (well, and the idea is kick-ass and will be a bucket of fun to write).  I’m curious how this process and the numbers will stack up for a writer who is at this point pretty unknown.  I’m going to do everything I can, of course, to make sure I fulfill the four principals hypothesized by Konrath and others about what makes an ebook sell (write a good book, low price point, good/professional cover, good blurb).

I intend to be open about my numbers when the time comes.  I am very grateful to authors who have trod this path before me and put up their experiences and numbers, and I intend to pay that forward with my own data.

So, hopefully, this post answers some questions.  Now, I’m going to write another short story, because without the work, these numbers mean nothing 🙂

*I did very rough math here.  If I’ve made a mistake (I’m dyslexic, especially with numbers), I apologize.  I triple checked, so hopefully I haven’t totally gone astray with my maths.

Appropriating and Updating the Race

In this crazy new world of e-publishing, the rules of getting published and making a living at writing are shifting.  As anyone reading this blog at all will know, I’m a huge follower of Heinlein’s Rules for Writers.  But where does putting my own stuff up without going to an editor who can pay me fall in the mix of those five rules?  I’m not sure.

But e-stuff sells.  I’m selling handfuls of copies of two literary short stories a month, stories I’ve done basically no marketing for at all.  How much better will novels sell? Novels I intend to push in front of people and do as much marketing for as I can handle?  Does that count as “keeping it in the mail until it sells”?  Maybe.

Dean Wesley Smith came up with a points system called the Race back in the years when I was a wee little girl.  The gist is that you get one point for each story in the mail, three points for each novel proposal (only for each novel, not for each editor you send it to), and eight points for each full novel out (again, only counts once per book).  Dean explains in his blog here and here much better than I can.

But if I put a story up on Kindle… I lose the point in the Race.  I’m sure that Dean will come up with a new Race point system to account for that, but in the meantime, fellow writer Amanda McCarter and I decided on a rough new plan, which we’re calling the E-pub Race (different from the Trad-pub Race).  It works like this:  (and this is probably way more complicated than it needs to be, but hey… games are fun!)

1 point for each short story.  If you bundle shorts, this counts as 1 point up to 4 shorts bundled.

3 points for each short story collection (5+ shorts minimum, repeats allowed with shorts on their own).

5 points for each novel. (Novels bundled in Omnibus form count separately unless they are repeated, in which case you only get the points once).

No points count until you’ve sold at least five copies (the original race has you losing points after getting paid, so we figured the E-pub race should have something opposite of that).  Copies you buy yourself don’t count of course.  Editions don’t count as separate (so if you do a POD version, you still only get points for that novel once).

Ok. Hopefully that isn’t too complicated.  Suggestions and comments are welcome, of course.

Library Study Project

As I move beyond the writing level where advice like “use proper manuscript format” and “don’t insult editors” no longer suffices, I’ve been looking for more ways to expand my writing skills and new things to learn.  In the pursuit of more advanced learning, I’ve come across a lot of advice from other writers, some of which I think is awesome, and some of which just makes me scratch my head (because either I’m clueless or I just don’t learn that way).

One of the bits of advice that I found valuable was to read the bestsellers and study people further ahead down the road I want to walk.  I decided to take that advice.  I’m not even close to rich, so alas, I can’t just go buy a million books like I’d want to.  But on the other hand, that forced me to do something I haven’t done in a while.  I went to my local library, and by local, I mean within a five minute walk from my home.  Can’t really beat that.  I do love owning books, but, from an economic standpoint, the mission I was about to embark on wasn’t feasible.

So in May I decided to suck it up and go to the library.  After paying 13.47 in library fines from 1998, I got my information updated (the library never forgets!) and was on my way.  I was just about to start writing a mystery/thriller/suspense novel (I thought it was a thriller, I’m told it’s actually a mystery, so what do I know? From here on out, I’m abbreviating those genres M/T/S and lumping them together, damnit).  So I decided to start with that section, which I quickly learned is shelved together with general fiction anyway. Sci/fi and Fantasy has its own section, as does YA, and chapter books.

The plan? Read at least five books by any author on the shelf with at least ten books who has been published in the last five years.  That’s a heck of a lot of authors, across a lot of genres.  I started with names I recognized, like Roberts and Patterson.  So far I’ve read over 100 books since May.  I make myself give each book 100 pages to lose or keep my interest and I think only two or three have failed past that point.  I’ve started reading authors I haven’t heard of as well, as long as they fit the 10+ books rule and are still publishing (or have been in the last few years).  The librarians have even commented on how much I read. Crazy.

But I’m not just reading for reading sake (or to impress librarians).  Every book I read I make mental (and sometimes physical) notes on what that author does that I think works, and why I like it, and how I might be able to emulate it.  Some books I’ve read twice.  I’ve even, as much as I detest outlining other’s works, have reversed outlined a few books to see how the plots work and where the emotional and storyline beats are.  I don’t love every part of every book I read, but I’m starting to see patterns and similarities of what these authors are doing with their writing that keeps them selling books.  And this process is starting to show me what I really like in what I read, and thus also what I might want to work on incorporating into my stories.

I’m only a few months into the library project.  I don’t know if I’ll keep it up quite as hard core, since I’m missing reading stuff that doesn’t fit into my qualifications, so I’ve started taking side forays into books that are coming out now or have come out that I want to read.  But I’m going to stay on top of the bestsellers, for sure, and keep seeing what’s working for the long-time professionals out there.  Because they are stomping down a path I want to be on, and while I might make my own sideways journey to the same destinations, I figure I can only learn something from those who’ve carved the paths ahead.

So that’s the library project.  Look at the shelves and see which authors (or pen names, however you slice it) have more than ten books on the shelves.  Check to make sure the author has published at least one book in the last five years (or ten or whatever you want to go with).  Then read at least five books by that author and pay attention to what you like, what you don’t like, what works, what doesn’t, and similarities between that work and others that have sold a lot.

Step three: profit.

Ok, still working on that one *grin*

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