Tag: publishing

Giving Up, Going On

  1. On a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990, Rowling wrote her initial Potter ideas on a napkin. She typed her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on a typewriter, often choosing to write in Edinburgh cafés, accompanied by baby daughter Jessica, now 19, named after Jessica Mitford, a heroine of Rowling’s youth. ~ J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and other novels.
  2. In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help. But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60? Three weeks later, Susan sold The Help to Amy Einhorn Books.     ~ Kathryn Stockett, author of ‘The Help’.
  3. After she wrote Still Alice and was ready to get it into the market, Lisa spent a year trying to get literary agents and editors at publishing houses to speak with her. The editors all treated her as yet another aspiring writer not worth their time, and the few literary agents she managed to reach thought her novel wouldn’t sell. ~ Lisa Genova, author of ‘Still Alice’.
  4. The situation was improbable. Just one year prior, Weir, a computer programmer by trade, had given up hope of becoming a professional writer after failing to get a single agent or publisher excited about his work. But then he posted The Martian online, and it generated such buzz that now here he was, signing mid-six-figure deals with both Crown Publishing and Twentieth Century Fox. His self-publishing success story—well-paid tech nerd becomes really well paid novelist—made him the envy of every would-be author who ever fantasized about ditching his day job. Even critics were on board. (“Brilliant. A celebration of human ingenuity and the purest example of real sci-fi for many years,” said The Wall Street Journal.) ~ Andy Weir, author of ‘The Martian’.
  5. He pitched the book and was rejected 27 times before a chance encounter with a friend who had just landed an editing job.  Geisel told his friend about his book, about the rejection, and told him he was fed up and about to destroy the book.  The friend read it and Dr. Seuss was born. ~Theodore Geisel, author of ‘The Cat in the Hat’ and other books.

It’s just something to think about. You, and your good taste and writing skills, may be unknown and yet still be a brilliant writer and yet still be unpublished and unknown.

And you, along with the editors, publishers, agents, family members and critique group who rejected you, might all be right. You don’t ‘deserve’ publication. And you do.

If you go into Amazon and read some novels, you’ll discover scathing reviews of great classics and best-sellers. And there are books like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, which I didn’t like, that began as fan fiction published on a website and ended up as a best seller and movie.

You can’t predict what will happen so invest that energy elsewhere. Write like crazy. Plan and write. Revise and edit. Establish a process or system and keep trying, keep trying, keep trying. Write because you enjoy writing. Write a book in a month in November. Do what it takes. Believe in yourself. Keep believing.

And keep trying.

 

4

Liberated!

I’ve been mentally hemming and hawing, doing an aw shucks shuffle self-effacing, anxious shuffle off to one side, afraid of being in the spotlight, afraid of being ignored by the spotlight, and frightened that if the spotlight finds me, it will illuminate all my shortcomings, limitations and errors.

I’m a person of hypocrisies and conflicts, dreams, judgments, anxieties, hopes, optimism, and pessimism. I’m trying to let go, hang on, and move ahead. Ultimately, I have accepted myself as a failure. That’s important, and reassuring. And it’s a lie.

I don’t consider myself a failure (at the moment, although that can change in a moment). But without realizing it, that’s the crux of what’s bothering me the last few days. Publishing another book. Self-publishing, with all its baggage, an epub, with all of its connotations. Some of these perceptions are fossils I acquired in another era, and I know they’re not true on one level, but they’re hard to let go. But sometime yesterday, I literally said, “Fuck it.” I was speaking to myself, and allow myself to use such language with myself and around myself. So, “Fuck it,” I said. “Publish it. You’ve done your best. Will there be errors? Maybe. But maybe not. Will people like it? Maybe. But maybe not. But what will happen if you don’t publish? You will stew and fester and keep re-living the pro and cons of the possibilities. So, fuck it. Do it.”

I feel much better now.

At least, today.

3

Sour Grapes, Writing Ed.

Yeah, it’s like, bleah. Like work. Ugh.

Published Road Lessons with Savanna this week. It acquired the attention an elephant bestows on an ant. Anxiety and conflicts arise. Depression. Acceptance, the need to be patient, the requirement to market the book. It takes time, I tell myself, and scream back, “Time? Time?” Because time, you know, stirs fear, impatience, anxieties, as I await time’s passage. Time can be a right cruel bully.

That’s my background moodiness as I return to copy-editing Everything Not Known today. A quarter million words, seven hundred plus pages. I have completed editing on seven chapters. 21,000 words.

Oh, boy. This is going to take forever.

Forever? Could you be exaggerating?

Trying to encourage myself, I say, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

“Shut up, you moron,” I answer. “Keep your platitudes to yourself.”

I enjoy the novel, which is good, happy news, even, as it was written with me in mind as the audience. That’s the only audience I understand, so I kowtow to me and my taste. I’ve tried writing and editing to others’ preferences but their guidance, feedback, and input, is confusing and conflicting. So, responding with great insight and maturity, I replied, “Whatever,” and write for myself.

The snarky corner of me notes with withering contempt, “Who do you expect to read your book if you write if for yourself, you marketing moron?”

Ready for that query, I tell myself, “Good to hell.” So there.

Enjoying the novel does help copy-editing it, but this isn’t my favorite pastime, so I chaff, complain and offer childish whines about what I’m doing and most do. Intellectually, I know, yeah, this must be done, and this, too, shall pass, and other pithy, worn encouraging sentiments. Intellectually, I can see into myself and see all the nuances of living and existing irritating me and the ridiculousness of my complaints.Intellectually, I know enough of myself to know it’s part of my cycles of spirit, attitudes and emotions to drift into the dark side. I know I’ll emerge from it in a few days.

Intellectually, I know it’s all human nature.

Intellectually, I still tell myself to go to hell. Then I drink the coffee, take a deep breath, and play a game.

Then I go to work.

0

Basking

Pardon me, everyone, but I am basking today.

I have at least reasons three for basking, all related to my writing endeavors, and by basking, I mean enjoying the glow of accomplishments.

The first is that my ebooks are doing better than I expected (although not better than fantasized…but, come on…). Their buying patterns are so different so I’m curious about whether that will continue. My mystery novel, Life Lessons with Savanna, a KDP exclusive, shot out and up for a few weeks, but then dropped to nothing. On the science fiction side, Returnee (also a KDP exclusive) began with slow sales but has consistently built and grown, now accounting for all my sales and reading activity. Either way, someone out there is looking at them, and I’m basking in that.

More importantly and satisfying for me is completing the second book in the Lessons with Savanna series, the sequel to the previously mentioned Life Lessons with Savanna. This one is Road Lessons with Savanna. I finished writing it yesterday and completed the cover design last night, presenting me with double basking reasons. Some people are impressed that I took Road Lessons with Savanna from concepts to novel in less than four months (I began writing it on March 3rd, 2016, and finished on May 30, 2016), which is decent for 100,000 words. I attribute that to becoming more comfortable with my conceiving, writing, plotting and editing processes. I hope I’m right and that I’ll successfully duplicate that performance.

My third basking reason is perhaps more profound. While writing Road Lessons with Savanna and conceptualizing the next in the series, Personal Lessons with Savanna (and even writing two chapters), I discovered I grew more into my writing skin. That means I more easily put it on. Writing sessions are typically 90 to 120 minutes. I generally achieve 1,000 to 3,000 words in that period.

After basking today, I’ll update my Booklife profile and work on preparing Road Lessons for KDP processing and release. Road Lessons will also be a 90 day KDP exclusive. Returnee will come off the KDP exclusive list in June, and I’ll then take it to Smashwords to provide it with more publishing venues. I plan to keep Life Lessons with Savanna and Road Lessons with Savanna on the KDP exclusive list until I write and publish the third book in the series, Personal Lessons with Savanna. Personal Lessons will also spend 90 days in the KDP exclusive club. Then the three will expand to Smashwords.

Meanwhile, for June, I’m completing the final edit on a science fiction novel, Everything Not Known, targeting an early July release. It’s been edited several times but it’s a complicated, 200,000 word tome, so I want to go through it one…more…time.

So, yea! I’m basking. Now, I have my quad shot mocha. To work.

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