Writing Tip Wednesday: Dayjobs #amwriting #amdrafting

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When I was an MFA student, thanks to a visiting author program through my school and an author-interview radio show I co-hosted, I often had the privilege of meeting and speaking with a number of successful authors. Even if I didn't directly ask, one of the first things I always wanted to know was how the hell these people managed to be so prolific while working other jobs. What jobs had they worked that allowed them to write, or had they somehow found a way to make this writing thing profitable? I never found a definitive answer. Probably because I rarely asked the question. I wish I did. It shouldn't be taboo. It's a genuine problem, especially for young writers. In last week's post, I wrote about headspace--finding a mental and emotional safe space to write from. Along those lines, you have to keep in mind that writing creatively--for the vast majority of human beings on this planet--doesn't put food in your mouth. There are exceptions, of course, but they are exceptions. I like to think of writing as a privilege. If you're struggling to put food on the table, or if you're drowning in debt, writing may not be a top priority. Or it might be a pipe dream. Whatever. The point is, you have to decide how you're going to make ends meet and pursue this writing thing at the same time. If this seems like a daunting task to you, you're not alone. Very few people out there manage to avoid this struggle early in their careers. If you get a chance to talk with someone who has, ask them how they did it, and let me know.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: Headspace #amwriting #amdrafting

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Headspace is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. You have to be in the right mindset if you're going to finish a lengthy, demanding project. And guess what? There are going to be times when outside factors in your life take over, and you simply can't focus on the task at hand. This might last days. It might last weeks. It might even last years. That's okay. Think of it this way: how can you focus on a fictional character's actions in the face of adversity while you are also struggling in the face of adversity? You need a safe mental and emotional place where you can hide out and let your imagination do its work. If, for whatever reason, that cozy place gets disrupted or taken away for a while, don't force yourself to get back to work before you're ready. It might just ruin the project you were working on. There's always more work to be done. Take care of yourself first. Don't forget your project, but know that it'll be there waiting for you when you're ready to return.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: Prewriting #amwriting #amdrafting #amprewriting

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I have taught several semesters of English Composition in the past, and one of the first tools a teacher will introduce in those courses is the concept of "prewriting." In an academic setting, this consists mostly of outlining and freewriting. Yet there's a lot more that applies when you're writing a book. It will almost always be a huge time and energy savor to plan as much as you can about your story before you try to pound out a thousand words a day or whatever your goal may be. One of the most common issues I hear from writing students is that they can't seem to finish a damn book-length project. They get to about 30,000 words or so and sort of lose the thread. The story gets away from them. This has happened to me too many times to count, so I fully sympathize. There can be a lot of reasons for this. Sometimes you realize through the drafting process that you don't actually care about this story as much as you thought you did. But more often, you thought you knew where the story was going, but something went off the rails. Maybe there was a plot problem you didn't see coming. Or maybe you never worked out a character's backstory and now you're stumped. Or maybe the plot became just a little too convoluted for the story to contain. I've found that holding an idea in my brain a little longer, meditating on it, freewriting about it, outlining and re-outlining, producing character sketches and even diary entries from characters before I start chapter one can save me a lot of grief later on. This is true for the book overall, but it's also true for each scene. Sometimes, I'll get stumped mid-scene because I suddenly don't know all the actions that are supposed to take place. When that happens, I shut my laptop and take out my notebook (or use my personal whiteboard ) and brainstorm the mechanics of the scene. Who's in this scene, where are they, and what are they doing and why? Once I figure that out, I'm ready to go back in and finish the scene with gusto. or, just as importantly, I realize that the scene never made any sense in the first place, so I should replace it with something else. So don't devalue the process of figuring things out before you try to blast through your word count. However, keep in mind that some writers will use this as a stall tactic because they're afraid of putting the words down and getting them wrong. The prewriting has to end sometime. Trust your gut to know when. If you feel like you're rushing, you probably are. If you feel like you're stalling, check your notes and reassess how confident you are that the story is there. If it is, I think you'll know. The more you do this, the better you'll come to understand your own process.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: Read #amwriting #amdrafting #amreading

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This piece of advice is not particularly new or original, but it is of supreme importance. If you are not reading regularly, your writing will suffer. If you're binging on the latest Netflix craze every night, your thoughts are going to become Netflix thoughts. Your imagination will begin working in a visual storytelling mode. But writing is not visual. Imagery and visuals are not the same thing. We work with language. If you aren't constantly putting new language into your system, like a motor running out of fuel, your creativity may stall or sputter out. I often find I'm less motivated to write when I'm not reading. So read, and read widely.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: Decompression #amwriting #amdrafting

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The ability to produce strong writing is as much about your mental and physical health as it is your dedication to the work. If you aren't taking care of yourself, the likelihood of completing multiple drafts of a 60,000+ word story is pretty slim. If you start to feel overwhelmed and overworked, take some time to decompress and relax. When you feel balance returning, get back to work.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: When To Abandon Your Baby #amwriting #amdrafting

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Some projects don't work. You try and you try, you draft and you draft, you write and you rewrite, you outline and re-outline, but nothing fixes the issues. If that's happening, it's time to step away. Put the project on a shelf. Don't think about it. Let it call you if it calls you. If it doesn't, leave it where it is. Walking away doesn't always make you a failure. Sometimes, it makes you wise.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: Ego #amwriting #amdrafting

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Don't waste time comparing your successes and failures to the successes and failures of others. That's the ego, and the ego has no place in the writing process. Focus on the work.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Writing Tip Wednesday: Time #amwriting #amdrafting

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Writing a novel is not the sort of thing you can accomplish by sitting down once a week for a few months. You'll sacrifice a lot of personal time for a project that is often more frustrating than rewarding. Persist or quit. Those are the choices.

Every Wednesday, as I draft my second novel, I will be posting writing tips, advice, and tough love reminders for myself and anyone who may need it. Feel free to share your own.

Still Here, Still Working #amwriting #horror #scifi #fiction

Just a quick update and then I'm going to skedaddle.

Deathform has been out for a few months, and it's been great to see a number of kind reviews drop in on Amazon and Goodreads. It's always helpful to see those posted, so thank you to everyone who has taken the time to share your thoughts! If you've read the book and haven't posted a review yet, I would be immensely grateful if you did. Indie presses have low exposure already, as do indie authors, and The Great Algorithm that controls the internet requires your participation for others to find the book. You cannot simply opt out of The Great Algorithm. You must feed The Great Algorithm. You wouldn't want to anger The Great Algorithm, would you?

Though I would like to come back to the universe of Deathform eventually, my current novel-in-progress is an unrelated project. I can't say too much about it yet, but I'll be concentrating on it for the next few months, so expect few updates to this site. I may try to tackle a short story here and there, but when you're working on something as lengthy and demanding as a novel, I find it's best to focus on one thing at a time.

Alright. Back to work.

Deathform Paperback Temporarily Unavailable, But Will Be Back Soon!

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For the next few days, the paperback version of Deathform will not appear on Amazon. There was a minor formatting issue in the early pages, so my publisher has sent a corrected version to be re-processed. It usually takes around five days, at which point the paperback will go live again.

It's actually pretty cool to me that this is possible. I wish we had caught the issue before the book went up, but just a few years ago, any error would have been immortalized in print until there was a second run of the book. Kinda nifty that print-on-demand services allow books to be more like living documents now.

As soon as I see the paperback is up again, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, you can still buy the book on Kindle.

Countering Bad Advice for Beginning Writers: Yes, Genre Does Matter #fiction #writing

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For whatever reason, this was on my mind this morning, so I thought I’d share. In a way, it’s a PSA for creative writing teachers, especially for anyone teaching fiction. It's also a heads up to beginning writers who plan to query an agent or publisher at some point.

All my life, I’ve been told not to worry about what genre I’m writing. A number of published authors who visited both writing programs I attended said this. A (smaller) number of my professors said this. “Just write the thing. Genre is a marketing term. Let the publisher figure out how to market the book.”

While it's true that genre is a marketing term, and you should just write the thing, the idea that you don't have to market your work is toxic bullshit. 100% pure manure, fresh in the field.

Right now, I’m working hard on what I hope will be my second published novel, and I think constantly about how I am going to market it, because when you complete a manuscript, it doesn’t magically end up in the hands of a publisher or agent, who then says, “Bingo! I know exactly how we’ll sell this thing!” In reality, the first step—arguably the most important step on the writer’s end—is that you, the author, have to get an agent or a publisher excited about the thing you’ve written. Like it or not, that is a form of marketing. And in order to do that effectively, you have to have a clear handle on what you wrote, who may want to read it, and how you can define it for that particular audience. Not only is this key to writing a good query letter, it is key to finding the right agent or publisher in the first place.

I’ve read numerous articles from literary agencies bemoaning authors who have mislabeled their work in their query letters. “Do your research,” they say. “Know what genre you’re working in. Know who represents that genre.” And these are the people who will be marketing the book to a publisher! We’re not even talking about marketing to readers yet!

I don’t think the authors and professors who’ve given this bad advice are dumb or malicious. I think some of them have forgotten what it’s like to query. Or maybe this advice was more sound in the past. I can't speak to what worked ten years ago, but today, the market is very small and extremely competitive, with more writers and less readers. Agents and publishers have less resources to dedicate to all aspects of their jobs. They're busy. Most--if not all--get paid on commission. They need books that will sell. If you send a query that says something like, “Here’s a novel I wrote. I’m not sure what it is, but I think it's great, and you will too,” it's going to end up in a little trash can on a webpage or desktop.

How does this translate to writers? Do you decide to write something you think will be marketable, and let that guide you? Do you write the book you want to write, then work hard at defining it? Do you find a niche genre, research its conventions, and then try your hand at it?

That’s up to you. But whatever you do, ignore anyone who tells you genre is not important. And do yourself a favor and research genres for yourself. If you’re not sure how to define your project, there’s a good chance you haven’t read widely enough.

And, finally, to anyone who has ever told a beginning writer that genre is not important: for the love of God, stop.

 

Note: this post is geared toward traditional publishing. If you're self-publishing, you'll handle every aspect of the novel from the top down, so knowing your genres will be even more important.

Deathform Cover Reveal #sci-fi #thriller #horror #fiction

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After some collaborative back-and-forth with Severed Press, which included me sending three terrible pencil drawings that are too embarrassing to share, we have it. The cover.

Check it out:

I love it. The lighting, the design of the spacesuit, the otherness of the creature, and its explosive violence. I hope it gets your imagination going. More importantly, I hope it makes you want to read the book. It's a pretty good representation of what the novel has in store. I'm not certain who the artist is, but I'll ask.

Severed Press has informed me that the book may be released on Amazon as early as next week. I don't yet have an exact date, and I may not have one right up until the release, but if I learn anything, I'll keep you posted. I'm looking into holding a small release party at an indie bookstore near me, but I don't know if this is possible given the constraints. Severed Press is based out of Tasmania, and most of their sales are in eBook format or print-on-demand, so we'll see. I'd like to do something semi-official to kick things off. Check back for details.

Severed Press to Publish My Novel, Deathform

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I'm extremely thrilled to announce that my debut novel, Deathform, has found a home at Severed Press. You can read a basic synopsis of the novel here for now, and I will be updating with new info as I receive it. Words can't express how glad I am to be joining their catalogue of talented writers.

I'm especially grateful to my beta readers, Ashley McNamara Fritz, Ben Wheeler-Floyd, Sam Hastings, and of course my amazing fiance, Carey Feagan, who in a little less than two weeks I will be able to call my amazing wife.

So, all in all, not a bad month.