Tag: career decisions

What I’ve been up to recently

I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick post explaining what I’ve been up to the past month or so, since a lot of things have changed and I’m sure they will be changing a lot more in the future.  So, here’s what’s up:

As you may or may not know, I decided about four or five months ago to leave the USA to teach English abroad.  For the past few little while, I’ve been applying for a program to teach English to elementary school kids in Georgia.  I had the interview over Skype just yesterday, and I think it went pretty well!  I should hear back in the next couple of days, so fingers crossed on that.

If they decide to hire me, I’ll leave in three weeks and stay until at least mid-June.  At that point, I’ll either sign up for another semester or go somewhere else, either the Middle East or Eastern Europe. The pay isn’t great, but it seems like a good cultural experience, and I’m a lot more interested in the Caucasus than I am in East Asia (no offense to Asians).

Ever since I graduated in 2010, I’ve been looking for a fulfilling career that I can balance with my writing aspirations.  I learned pretty quick that that simply doesn’t exist in Washington DC; either you sacrifice everything for your career, including your family, or you end up trapped in an office pushing papers all day.  In Utah, I bounced around a lot of temporary jobs while struggling to make ends meet, but I never found anything more permanent that seemed to strike a balance.

I hope that teaching English will help me to find that balance, and from what I’ve heard from some of my former expat friends, I’m optimistic that it will.  Perhaps more importantly, it will probably enrich my writing by exposing me to new peoples and cultures.  Desert Stars was certainly enriched by the time I spent in Jordan; without having lived in that culture, I don’t think I would have been able to write it.  Besides, English is something I’m good at, and so is teaching–so why not capitalize on the skills I already have?  It certainly sounds better than wasting my 20s in a warehouse.

So that’s the plan: launch a TEFL career and spend at least the next three to five years abroad.  At least.  I might not get married until my 30s–or who knows, I might find someone out there and go native–but this is something I want to do as a career, not just as temporary filler before I figure out what I want to do with my life.  I’m through with filler.  Whether it takes one year or ten for my writing career to take off, I’m going to get out and do something useful and worthwhile.

That’s the plan, anyway.  And of course, I’ll always keep writing.

Right now, I’m finishing up Stars of Blood and Glory; I’m on chapter 15, with only three more and an epilogue after that, so I should finish that well before I leave.  After that, the next big project is Star Wanderers, which is already about halfway finished.  I’ll probably take some time off and work on polishing part II, then release parts I and II sometime in the spring–unless by some weird fluke it wins Writers of the Future.  I’ll know in February.

And after that?  Well, I’m thinking it’s almost time to pick up Edenfall again, but I can’t say for sure. Probably, though–I definitely want to finish that one before the end of the year, and preferably get it published.  After Stars of Blood and Glory, I’ll probably take a break from the McCoy continuity in the Gaia Nova universe, though I may pick up something from Jeremiah’s timeline in Star Wanderers.  I really want to do a parallel novel from Noemi’s point of view–maybe that’s the one I’ll do in seven days, just to hit that resolution.  Everything has to be ready fist, though, and right now it isn’t.

So much is changing–I have no idea where I’ll be in the next six months, creatively or physically. But right now, I’m just enjoying a relaxing time with my parents and getting ready for the next big transition.  Life is good.

Writing log results

For the last month or so, I’ve been keeping track of my daily writing habits to look for patterns that might give me some insight on how to improve my creative process.  I’ve amassed somewhere around 65 data points, and I think the results are clear enough to notice some trends.

Just some preliminary background information: for most of this time, I’ve either been on vacation or at my parents’ house, waiting to start an English teaching job in another country.  I haven’t had school or a full-time job, so my schedule has been pretty open and flexible.  Also, the numbers track progress on the first drafts for Star Wanderers and Stars of Blood and Glory, and do not count revisions of any kind.

Here are the results:

The first graph plots word count by duration spent writing.  As you can see, there’s a definite trend: the longer I write, the more I tend to write.  No surprises there.  Most writing sessions are somewhere between 45 and 90 minutes, or 500 and 1,500 words.

The second graph plots the average writing rate (in words per hour) per session by hours spent writing, and it’s a little bit murkier.  In writing sessions of less than 45 minutes, I tend to average a little over 1000 words/hour, but things get murkier between 45 and 90 minutes, and after 90 minutes, I tend to be around 600 and 800 words/hour.

The overall trend appears to be down–that is, the longer I write, the slower I tend to write–but there appears to be a counter-trend, too, where if I start off slow I can increase the pace by writing for a longer amount of time.  Is that true, or is that simply a sharper downward trend line?

I think it’s a genuine counter-trend, and here’s why:

This graph shows writing rate plotted against word count, and it pretty clearly shows two trend lines: one starting at 1,000 to 1,200 words/hour and going slightly down, the other starting at 400 to 600 words and going up.  At about 1,500 total words, they converge at around 800 words/hour and appear to remain flat, though there isn’t really enough data to be able to say.

What I think this shows is that I have two different writing styles.  The first is to start off slow and gradually write my way into the story, picking up the pace but never really going over 800 words/hour.  The other is to start off at a sprint of 1,200 words/hour or so, but to slowly drop off to 800 words/hour at around 90 minutes or 1,500 words.

The next graph plots the total word count of each writing session by the time of day in which I started the session.  Interestingly, there is no trend; the points are all over the map.  This tells me that there is no “best time” for me to write.  Other time-related factors might influence how much I can write, but time of day itself does not.

A quick glance at the next graph confirms this.  It plots writing rate by time of day, and the results are much the same as the graph for word count.  I tend to write at a more consistent pace in the afternoon–around 1,000 words/hour–but really, there is no consistent trend.

This tells me that my first session of the day tends to be slow and gradual, but that once I’ve written myself into the story, the writing comes a lot faster.  In other words, if I wake up early and hit the ground running, I tend to write more and write faster throughout the day.  If I get lazy and sleep in, the whole day tends to be shot.

The last two graphs plot word count and writing rate by date.  Before January 3rd or so, I was either spending time with family or on the road / traveling cross-country by train.  Even so, there wasn’t a whole lot of variation, though my writing rate converged around 800-1,000 words/hour for a while before fluctuating again.

What this tells me is that stability and momentum tend to lead to more consistency in my writing habits.  If I’m constantly on the road, it becomes more challenging to keep up the pace.  Even so, as long as I can find make at least 45 to 90 minutes to write, I can pound out about the same number of words per session.

So in conclusion, it seems that the best way to improve my writing habits and streamline my creative process would be to:

  1. Get up early and start the day writing.
  2. Write in short, condensed sessions of 45 to 90 minutes each, with periodic breaks in between.
  3. Don’t worry about time of day when planning time to write; just do it whenever time can be made available.

However, unless I can get to the point where I’m regularly averaging +1,000 words after two hours, it’s going to be really hard to put in 10k words or more per day.  At 800 words/hour, it takes 12.5 hours to hit 10k, and after about four or five sessions at 1,000 words/hour, the well starts to dry up.

A much more practical goal, for now at least, would be to shoot for a consistent 5k words per day.  The week before last, I hit about 5.5k on Monday, a little less than 4k on Tuesday and Wednesday, and back around 2.5k for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  My running 7-day total for the entire week was above 20k, which is pretty good, but if I could get to stay between 25k and 30k for some time, that would be an accomplishment.

I haven’t totally given up on hitting a 10k/day average, but at this point, it seems that I need to set some stepping stones first.  5k/day seems like a much better goal for now–especially since I don’t know how things are going to change once I’m traveling again.  But at least I have a better idea of how my own process works.  I expect I’ll be writing a lot more in the weeks and months to come!

plot vs. PLOT and an interesting serial publishing idea

Back in English 318 at BYU, Brandon Sanderson used to tell us that there was a big difference between “little-p plot” and “big-p Plot.” The first applies mostly to chapters and scenes, which he said he could teach us.  The second refers to the overall story structure, which he couldn’t teach in a classroom setting and said we’d have to discover on our own.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, because it seems that my books are starting to fall into a recognizable pattern–and that pattern has some interesting potential for serials and other alternate forms of publication.  Each book is divided into 3-4 parts, each part is divided into 3-6 chapters (typically 5), and each chapter is divided into 3-5 scenes.  Here’s how it works:

Chapter 1: Setup for the basic story arc.  Introduction of the characters and setting, the prominent theme or premise, and a little foreshadowing of the coming conflict.
Chapter 2: The inciting incident, a discovery or event that starts the plot rolling and puts the characters in motion and conflict.
Chapter 3: Complications arise, the problem gets worse, the first attempt at a solution fails, generally leaving the characters at a loss.
Chapter 4: Setup for the resolution.  The characters discover or build something that will help them to settle the conflict.  They stop reacting and start to be more assertive.
Chapter 5: The resolution.  The characters either succeed or fail, but the arc comes to a close either way.  The story question is answered, the thematic elements come full circle, and the story either closes or moves on to the next part.

Basically, it’s the 3-act format divided into five chapters.  When I wrote Heart of the Nebula, all four parts fell into this pattern, and now that I’m writing Star Wanderers, I’m finding myself  falling into the exact same pattern again.  Stars of Blood and Glory is a little bit different; there are three parts instead of four, and each part is divided into six chapters instead of five.  But still, it’s all very structured.

In short, Brandon was right.  It took me a few books to really learn “big-p Plot,” but now that I’ve found a story structure that works for me, it’s starting to come quite naturally.

The cool thing about this particular structure is that it’s very conducive to serialization.  Each chapter is between maybe 3,000 to 5,000 words, so each complete sub-arc is between about 15,000 to 25,000.  That’s the length of a short novella, and it takes me only a month or two to write (sometimes three, depending on how much revision it needs).

The only reason I haven’t done more with serialization up to this point is because I’ve found that sharing my work while it’s still unfinished tends to throw a wrench in my creative process.  The idea of publishing a work in progress on a chapter-by-chapter basis scares me, because if one of the story arcs has a flawed beginning, I wouldn’t be able to fix it.

However, by following a five-chapter arc format (with bits and pieces here and there to hint at a larger overarching structure), I can see myself publishing a novel or epic in a serial format.  It would be something like the Perry Rhodan series, which follows an arc structure of 25 to 100 issues (each a small novella) per cycle.

So here’s how I’m thinking of doing it:

  1. Publish the first installment and price it at free while writing the second one.
  2. Publish the second installment and price it at free, raise the price of the first installment to $.99 and write the third one.
  3. Publish the third installment and price it at free, raise the price of the second installment to $.99 and write the fourth one.
  4. Publish the fourth installment for $.99, drop the price of the first installment to free and publish the completed novel for $2.99.

So what do you think?  Does it seem like a good way to publish a book?  It gives the reader a reason to keep coming back, and rewards those who got in early by charging them less for the completed work.  By selling the novel in shorter chunks, I would be able to put more work out and hopefully gain more visibility, especially by making a portion of it free at any given time.

I’m seriously thinking about publishing Star Wanderers this way, once I hear back from Writers of the Future.  I’ve already finished the rough draft for the second part; it probably needs a good revision or two before it’s ready, but since it’s shorter, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get feedback from some first readers and finish the next draft.  And if the third part is already finished by then…

So many awesome possibilities! 🙂 What do you think?

Climbing the 10k mountain

Many Bothans died to bring you this.

I recently read an amazing blog post by Rachel Aaron, in which she explains how she went from writing about 2k words per day (about what I’m doing) to routinely breaking 10k.

This is something I really want to do with my own writing.  As I noted a couple of weeks ago, I need to pick up the pace if I’m going to keep up with my professional goals.  If I could go from 2k to 10k, and make 10k the standard…holy cow, that’s a 500% jump in productivity.  Who wouldn’t want that?

From Rachel’s blog:

Drastically increasing your words per day is actually pretty easy, all it takes is a shift in perspective and the ability to be honest with yourself (which is the hardest part). Because I’m a giant nerd, I ended up creating a metric, a triangle with three core requirements: Knowledge, Time, and Enthusiasm. Any one of these can noticeably boost your daily output, but all three together can turn you into a word machine. I never start writing these days unless I can hit all three.

The point that I probably need to work on the most is time: I tend to start off the day slow, checking Facebook and blogs and other stuff before getting into the writing, then write for a little while before running off and doing some chore or allowing myself to get distracted again.  Sometimes, I don’t really buckle down until a couple of hours before I should go to bed, and that’s bad.

But really, I think the main obstacle is just thinking that writing is difficult.  If everything comes together in the right way, there really isn’t any reason why 5k or 6k or even 10k should be too difficult–and yet we naturally think that if 2k is hard, anything more should be that much harder.

I’m in a weird state of limbo right now between moving and preparing to go overseas, but I’m going to start a daily writing log so that I can figure out what time of day is most productive.  You can’t wait for life to settle down before you get to work; you have to roll with what you’re given.  Also, I’m going to put a lot more effort into outlining and planning, so that I don’t get hung up by research when I should be writing.  Even discovery writers need a little bit of time to ponder things before putting words to the page.

Also, after considerable thought and effort, I’ve decided to put Star Wanderers on the back burner again.  I finished the novelette last week and submitted it to Writers of the Future; I think it’s quite good, and stands a good chance of finding a home in one of the short markets.  But the full length novel, for various reasons, just isn’t coming to me.  I don’t know if it’s because I lack the life experience to write it, or because I’m too close to it to see what’s broken, but regardless of the reason, I need the break.

I’m not sure whether to do Edenfall or Stars of Blood and Glory next, but I’m leaning towards Stars of Blood and Glory.  This is a novel set in the Gaia Nova universe, with characters from Desert Stars, Bringing Stella Home, and Heart of the Nebula.  I’ve been itching to write it since this summer, but never got around to it because other projects got in the way.  Well, hopefully now that will change.

I know from emails and other correspondence that some of you are really looking forward to Edenfall, but don’t worry, I’ll get around to it soon.  In order to do it justice, I feel I need to reread Genesis Earth and immerse myself in some Carl Sagan, but right now I’m still running on a sci fi adventure trip.  If I can implement some of these metrics and push my daily word count upwards of 10k, it shouldn’t be long before Edenfall gets my attention again.  My goal is to finish it before the end of the year, so there’s a very good chance it’ll be published sometime in late 2012.

As for Star Wanderers, I’ll shop the novelette around after I hear back from Writers of the Future.  I think it has a good chance at winning the quarter, but of course I can’t count on it.  At this point in my career, I should probably be playing both the traditional markets as well as the indie field.

That’s just about it.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to write…

Why I won’t be signing up for KDP Select

In the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion about Amazon’s new Lending Library program.  Just a few days ago, Amazon opened it up to indie writers with the KDP Select program.  By signing up, writers gain access to Amazon Prime members (US only), where readers can borrow the book for free and Amazon still reimburses the writer.

The catch?  Two, actually: writers agree to make their books exclusive to Amazon for 90 days, and payment for all KDP Select authors comes out of a monthly “fixed pot” of $500,000, where every writer gets a cut according to what percentage of the Lending Library downloads were for their books.

Reactions from the indie community have been mixed.  Within only a few hours, several thousand enthusiastic writers had signed up (the current number of participants is ~50k), but many others remain cautious and aloof.

The full range of reactions can be seen in the Kindle Boards thread.  Guido Henkel does a good job pointing out how the numbers don’t add up, while David Gaughran offers a compelling analysis that likewise dampers enthusiasm for the program.  On the Smashwords blog, Mark Coker pleads with writers to keep their options open, while at Writer Beware, A.C. Crispin points out some disturbing language in the terms & conditions that essentially amounts to a non-compete clause.

I’m sure that many others will weigh in on KDP Select in the coming days, and I look forward to reading their analysis, but I’ve already decided that I won’t be signing up with the program.  Even if no one else signs up, with 50k writer splitting a $50,000 pot, the average monthly paymentis only going to be $10.  Unless you’re one of the lucky bestsellers, you’ll probably make even less than that.

But the real reason I’m not signing up is because I don’t feel that it serves my readers.  If I put any of my titles through KDP Select, I’d be giving Amazon a 90 day exclusive, which means that my readers would be forced to either buy through Amazon or wait three months to buy my books.  I don’t feel that that’s fair to my readers, especially in territories where Amazon levies a $2 surcharge.

At this point in my career, my goal is to build up a dedicated fan base that looks forward to each new release.  To do that, I want to make my books available in as many places as possible.  Even if I’m not selling all that well right now at Barnes & Noble or the smaller retailers, it’s not worth it to cut those readers off and tell them to go to Amazon or wait.

However, the KDP Select program does foreshadow the next big phase of the ebook revolution, and that is the move to subscription services.  I expect that in the mid- to near-future, we’re going to see a lot of ebook lending models arise, kind of like Netflix for books.  The big question in my mind is how the writers are going to be compensated.

Like David, I have a lot of concerns with KDP Select’s “fixed pot” model.  Besides the lack of any guaranteed or minimum rate of compensation and the general opaqueness of the system, it fundamentally pits writers against each other in a zero-sum game, where one writer’s gain is another one’s loss.  To me, this represents a giant step backward.

When a reader finds something they like, they’re more likely to try out another book just like it.  This is how readers have historically found new writers, and it fosters a sense of community, where writers work together to reach out to new readers and expand the scope of the genre.  The “fixed pot” model disincentives all this and replaces it with a Machiavellian system that, at its worst, works against the natural advantages of the medium and undermines the genre community.

For all these reasons, I won’t be signing up for Amazon’s KDP Select.  The exclusivity hurts writers and readers, the numbers just don’t add up, and the “fixed pot” model represents a fundamental shift in bookselling that I cannot support.

Why I’m not submitting to the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest

Last year, I submitted Genesis Earth to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and made it to the quarter-finals.  I’m pretty sure I could do at least that well this year, but after reading the contest rules, I’ve decided not to participate.

Why? Because of this:

5. GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting an Entry and if you are selected as a Quarter-Finalist or Semi-Finalist, you grant Penguin the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry. If you are selected as a Quarter Finalist, Penguin’s exclusive first publication rights to your Entry terminate when you are eliminated from the Contest (unless you are selected as a Semi-Finalist); and if you are selected as a Semi-Finalist, Penguin’s exclusive first publishing Rights to your Entry terminate after June 30, 2012.

But mostly because of this:

A. Grand Prize. If you are selected as the Winner in a category, you will receive one of two Grand Prizes each consisting of a full publishing contract with Penguin to market and distribute your Manuscript as a published book…you may not negotiate the publishing contract with Penguin, and you must sign it “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract.

The language is a little unclear as to whether the grand prize winner can elect to turn down the publishing contract, but considering how merely submitting to the contest constitutes a grant of publication rights, I’m guessing no.

So why is this a big deal?  Because it gives the writer no room to negotiate.  Suppose the boilerplate contract is unfavorable when it comes to rights reversion, non-compete clauses, or derivative works.  Penguin could conceivably retain the rights to my book indefinitely, even if I’m earning less than $10 a year on it.  With a non-compete clause, they could forbid me from writing or publishing any other books.  Even worse, they could conceivably buy up rights to the world or the characters, making it impossible for me to write any other books in my own series without their approval.

But even if none of those unfavorable terms are in the contract, the standard royalty for erights is 25% of net, not gross.  For those of you who know the difference between net and gross, that’s a red flag in itself, but even supposing Penguin does pay me the full 25% of the 70% it receives from Amazon, that comes to only 17.5% of the cover price.  Right now I’m getting 70%.  Is it really worth it?

I checked the sales rankings for the last three years of ABNA winners, and they aren’t all that great.  The ebook versions for the 2010 winners have a slightly better ranking than mine, but they can’t be selling more than a couple of books a day.  At the prohibitively high price of $9.99, that’s $.30 less per unit than what I’m earning for Genesis Earth at $2.99.  And the 2009 winners?  Their sales rankings are abysmal.  Whatever Penguin did to market those books, it either didn’t work or they’ve given up and moved on to other things.

Now, I don’t expect to win the grand prize even if I submit to this contest.  Most of the previous winning novels are either literary, mystery, or mainstream YA–no science fiction.  Even so, by submitting to this contest, I would not be able to negotiate a publication contract with any other publisher until my book is eliminated.  That’s a headache I could do without.  And as for the consolation prizes, if this year’s Publisher’s Weekly reviewer is anything like last year’s, I already know what she’ll say: “science fiction is garbage.”

So yeah, I won’t be submitting to this year’s ABNA contest.  If I win, I’m forced to sign a contract that I haven’t seen and have no power to change, and if I lose, I get an unnecessary hassle for all my time and effort.  Thanks but no thanks.

Thoughts on kickstarter

So as many of you know, I ran a kickstarter campaign as an experiment to see if I could raise enough money to fund my next release, Desert Stars.  Over the course of the month, about a dozen people pledged over $300, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to meet the goal.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who made a pledge or spread the word.  I appreciate all of your support, no matter at what level.  My biggest obstacle at this point is obscurity; without you, I’d never be able to overcome it.  So thanks!

While the campaign was a bit of a disappointment, I learned a lot from the experience.  My strategy going in was to set a modest goal and give a variety of high-value rewards at various pledge levels.  However, I didn’t do much to publicize the project, mostly because self-promotion makes me so uncomfortable.  That was probably the biggest single reason why the support never reached a critical mass.

If I were to do it again, I would work out a plan for the marketing and publicity before launching the campaign.  I would also run the campaign for a longer period of time and talk about it more, just to make sure people are aware of it.  Also, I would try to get an endorsement from someone with an established audience that overlaps with my own.  It’s hard to tell people you’re awesome, but if someone else who is awesome tells them, they’re much more likely to believe it.

Will I ever do a kickstarter campaign in the future?  Probably, but only after I’ve built my fanbase a little more.  Kickstarter isn’t a good way to launch if you don’t already have a devoted following.  Like everything at this point, it’s a catch-22.  In order to be successful, you have to be noticed.  In order to be noticed, you have to be successful.  Obscurity is the biggest obstacle, and there’s no sure way to overcome it besides trying and failing until something finally works.

Fortunately, while the kickstarter campaign was a bit of a setback, it’s not going to prevent me from releasing the book.  I’ve secured an alternate source of funding, and should be able to have it out by January if not before.  As a gesture of gratitude to everyone who made a pledge, I’ll send you a free copy once it’s out.

Thanks so much!

Picking up the pace

I’m writing this post from somewhere in Iowa, riding the California Zephyr from Chicago to Salt Lake City. Since I hate sleeping on the train, I figured now is as good a time as any to write a blog post.

One of the good things about traveling by train is that you have lots of time to just sit and think. Yesterday I took a long, hard look at my writing over the course of the last year, and was surprised at what I found. Long story short, I think it’s time for a major recalibration.

As you know, my main writing goal is to produce a minimum of two novels per year, fully polished and of publishable quality. Desert Stars will be my third this year, if I can get it up before January. But after that, I don’t have a whole lot lined up in the queue. Heart of the Nebula is a finished rough draft, but it’s the only one; everything else is either incomplete or just an idea floating around in my head.

Perhaps the best way to see it is to look at this chart. It lists all of the novels that I started, finished, and published by year. The titles highlighted in blue are novels that I’ve epublished. Ashes of the Starry Sea was a practice novel, so I’ve grayed it out, but everything else is a project I intend to carry to completion.

While 2011 was a great year for me in terms of starting new works, it was a downright horrible year in terms of actually finishing anything new. I’m worried that unless I can force myself to buckle down and produce new material at a much faster rate, this handicap is going to bite me in the butt next year.

Here’s another way to think about it: if I want to write two novels per year, and I can only focus on one novel at a time, I should be able to complete any project in no more than 26 weeks. And yet, when I look at my word count spreadsheet (which only goes back to May 2009), here’s what I see:

  • Genesis Earth: 22 to 26 weeks
  • Bringing Stella Home: 50 to 54 weeks
  • Desert Stars: 52 to 56 weeks
  • Heart of the Nebula: 18 weeks (unfinished)
  • Edenfall: 2 weeks (unfinished)
  • Star Wanderers: 9 weeks (unfinished)

What this tells me is that my current writing method is unsustainable. Either I need to learn how to juggle two projects at once, or I need to learn how to produce quality material in half the time–and in all reality, I should probably learn how to do both.

For those of you who might be worried that I’ll sacrifice quality for speed, let me assure you that I don’t intend for that to be the case. Dean Wesley Smith makes a very compelling argument on this subject, how speed and quality are not mutually exclusive. The more I write, the more practice I’ll get, which will hopefully improve the quality of my writing.

One thing I really ought to do is write something new every day. For most of 2011, I was revising something I’d originally written in 2008 or 2009, maybe throwing out a couple of scenes to start from scratch, but overall simply revising an older work. It’s made me a little rusty, and I can feel it. I can say right now, that needs to change.

My biggest concern is that once I’m overseas, it will be much harder to balance these writing goals with everything else going on. However, this isn’t 2008; I don’t have all the obligations of a student. As for whether the obligations of a teacher are any worse, we’ll have to see.

What I really want to do is write a novel in a week–preferably, in three days. Even if the first draft isn’t very good, just the act of doing it will break down some major barriers, I feel. If I finish Star Wanderers by mid-January, I’ll turn it around and write a novel with the same events from Noemi’s point of view, all in a weekend if possible.

In short, this is what I want to do:

  • Produce a minimum of 2 publishable novels per year.
  • Reduce the time for each draft to 6 weeks average.
  • Write a minimum of 500 new words each day.
  • Learn to juggle two projects when revising.

This isn’t going to be easy; I have the feeling that it’s going to involve a fundamental shift in the way I approach writing. However, if I can pull through it, I think this might just transform my career in the way that I need in order to take things to the next level.

In the meantime, I’d better get some sleep. I’ve got a long day of travel ahead tomorrow, and I’ll need all the energy I can get if I want to get some serious writing done.

Heinlein’s rules for the digital age

I’ve been thinking a lot about Heinlein’s rules and how they apply to my own writing career.  While a lot of newer writers like to debate Heinlein, all of the long-time professionals tend to agree with him.  For that reason, I think it’s worth taking a serious look at his rules and doing my best to follow them.

The trouble is that Heinlein formulated his rules before the digital age, when self-publishing was non-viable and writers sold to editors, not to readers.  While I wouldn’t go so far as to say his rules are outdated, I do think that they need to be tweaked a little in order to apply to today’s aspiring professionals.

As a disclaimer, I should say that I’m only a beginning writer without much authority or experience.  However, my goal is not to debate Heinlein, but to explore ways in which his advice can be adapted to myself and writers in my position.  If any of you have any thoughts or input, I would very much like to hear it.

So anyhow, here we go:

Rule One: You Must Write.

Pretty straightforward: if you want to write for a living, then the bulk of your time should be spent writing.  Too many indie writers spend all their time and energy promoting their one book when they should be writing others.  If promotion gets in the way of writing, then you should stop promoting and just go write.

Personally, I could probably spend a lot more time writing new material as opposed to revising stuff I’ve previously written (yes, that’s the infamous third rule; I’ll get to it in a minute).  I tend to spend a month writing something new, then take a couple of months to revise old works without producing new material.  If I want to be strict about following Heinlein’s rules, I should probably change that.

Rule Two: You Must Finish What You Write.

Another straightforward rule, but you’d be surprised how hard it is when you know you can publish whatever you write.  Kris Rusch calls these ideas “popcorn kittens,” after a popular youtube video that embodies what goes on in our minds when we have the freedom to create anything.  The problem with too much freedom is that it’s a struggle not to flit from one idea to another, dabbling in all of them but carrying none to completion.

I myself had this problem over the summer, and to some extent I’m struggling with it now.  The key is just to buckle down and have the discipline to finish what you start.  Pretty straightforward.

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order. 

This is Heinlein’s most controversial rule, especially for new writers.  However, I think he has a good point.  If a story is fundamentally broken, revising it is no more effective than stirring around a pile of crap; and if the story works, revising it without first getting a trusted second opinion could actually make it worse.  After all, writers are often the worst judges of their own work.

The key question, then, is where to go for that second opinion.  In the old days, money flowed from the editors to the writers (or at least from the publishers, who employed the editors), but in the new world of publishing, it’s exactly the opposite.  Most of us can’t afford to hire editors for extensive developmental edits, especially when we’re just starting out, and while it’s possible to publish a rough draft, for most of us it’s probably not a good idea.

My approach is to share my unpolished work with a network of trusted first readers, and use their feedback to guide me in the revision process.  I don’t always adopt all of their suggestions, but I carefully consider each one.  Most of the time, I use them to see where the problems are, then use my creative mind to come up with a solution, sometimes taking the book in an entirely new direction.  And if something works well for some but doesn’t for others, I figure it’s not a problem but a judgment call that requires my attention.

Using this method, it currently takes me about four or five drafts before I feel confident enough to publish something.  If I really wanted to follow Heinlein’s rules, I would probably try harder to nail it on the first draft, but I’ve found that my creative process works better in revision mode than while writing new material.  So long as I can revise efficiently enough to produce at least two novels each year, I think I’ll be in good shape.

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market.

In the old days, this meant submitting your manuscript to contests, magazines, and publishing houses, not self-publishing.  For short stories, contests and magazines are probably still the best place to start.  However, with novels, indie publishing is generally much better.

The trouble is that publishing your own work is as scary as hell, especially when it’s close to your heart.  This is probably the main thing keeping most new writers from going indie: the need for external validation which grows out of a lack of much needed self-confidence.

The key, I believe, is to get some emotional distance between yourself and your work.  As a rule, I don’t respond to reviews, good or bad.  As for external validation, I don’t seek it at all.  I only publish the stories that I believe in, and even if I’m nervous about sending them out into the world, I figure it’s better to suck it up and do it anyway.  It was the same with writing queries; the only difference is that the market is now the readers, not the editors.

Rule Five: You Must Keep It On The Market Until It Has Sold.

This is especially challenging for indie writers.  When weeks go by without a single sale, it’s easy to believe that your work is crap and that you should just take it down.  It’s even worse when your book isn’t selling and you get a bad review.

Just like with queries, however, the key is to keep your work out there until it finds its natural audience.  With indie publishing, you have all the time in the world, provided you don’t lose confidence.

The key question in my mind is whether to take down your old, crappy stuff as your writing improves, or to leave it up alongside your newer, better work.  Personally, I think it should come down to the readers; if the old stuff is consistently getting bad reviews, it’s probably better to take it down, but if not, might as well keep it up.

So there you have it.  From Heinlein’s rules, I’ve more or less crystalized the following approach:

  1. Always make time to write, even at the expense of promotion.
  2. Only chase new ideas if you know you can finish what you start.
  3. Don’t revise without first getting feedback from trusted readers.
  4. Don’t wait for external validation before you publish.
  5. Keep your work up, even if it doesn’t sell.

Not quite as pithy as Heinlein’s rules, but they seem pretty reasonable.  I don’t have the experience to say whether they follow his, however, so if you have any comments or suggestions, please chime in.

Struggling not to settle

I’m in the middle of my first revision pass through Heart of the Nebula, direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and…I don’t know exactly how to put this, but the story seems to be simultaneously smoother and more shallow.  Plot-wise, everything works great; character-wise, there just doesn’t seem to be as much depth as my other work.

I remember finishing the first draft in May, and being surprised at how well structured it was.  Each of the three major plot points happened after exactly five chapters, and each of the chapters was almost perfectly balanced–a far cry from my previous work.  I had a few stops and starts in the first part, but everything after the first hundred pages was smooth as gravy.  What’s more, I’m finding in this revision that not a whole lot needs to change; it works pretty well as-is.

And yet…I can help but feel as if something is missing.  The characters just aren’t coming alive the way they did in my previous works.  The story isn’t quite as engaging, the climaxes quite as gut-wrenching as I would like.  It feels like a good story, but not a great story.

Here’s the thing: my previous stories were all broken in this phase.  Desert Stars was so broken I had to write another novel to figure out how to finish it–and even then, the second half of the book went entirely in the wrong direction and had to be thrown out.  Bringing Stella Home had a solid storyline, but Stella’s character was completely broken and had to be rebuilt from the bottom up.  And Genesis Earth had half a dozen false starts, and at least as many chapters that had to be thrown out because they did nothing to advance the plot.

But Heart of the Nebula isn’t exactly broken, it’s just…not at the level I would like.  And I worry that because it isn’t broken, I won’t feel as compelled to make it better.  I worked hard on the others, and learned a lot of lessons which helped me to write this book, but even if I’ve hit my stride and this is the result, it feels too much like settling.  I can do better.

None of this probably makes any sense if you haven’t read the manuscript, but I hope it doesn’t sound too much like whining.  Even if these are problems, these are good problems and I’m happy to have them.  When I share this with my first readers, they will probably have all sorts of insights that will make me smack my forehead and make everything awesome again.

I guess my point is that I don’t want to settle, even though this draft will probably not be as good as I’d like it to be.  I’ll fix all the known problems, then send it out to my first readers and trust them to help me find the unknown problems.

In the meantime, I should probably start something new.  I have a ton of great ideas for the fantasy novel, and bouncing them off of friends has really helped me to figure out what else the story needs.  After I finish reading American Gods, I’ll stock up on some fantasy to get into the right mindset, starting with David Gemmell (incidently, at dinner group tonight, I literally squeed while talking about David Gemmell.  It was simultaneously embarrassing and really awesome).

Enough of this.  Time for sleep.