Frustrations – Page 7 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Climbing the 10k mountain

writingmetric — 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…

On the eve of publication

First, some housekeeping: I recently did an interview over on Slava Heretz’s blog, which you can find here. I talk a little bit about Desert Stars, as well as how traveling has influenced my writing and how I overcome writer’s block.

In other news, I got smacked upside the head with the flu yesterday and slept in today until 1pm. I feel marginally better, but I’ll probably do the same tonight. Productivity: shot in the face.

However, I did manage to run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and format it for publication. Finished the author’s note today, so as soon as I get the cover art, it’s good to go.

For the cover art, I’ve commissioned Hideyoshi again, the same artist who did the cover for Genesis Earth. He sent me the initial sketch the other day, and it looks good! It comes from a scene toward the beginning, when Jalil and Mira share an intimate moment while overlooking the planetary domes on the edge of the desert:

That night, Mira couldn’t sleep. The wind roared past the window in her room, making an eerie whistling noise as it shook the windowpanes. That wasn’t all, though. Perhaps it was the woody, foreign smell of the room, or the perfect straightness of the walls, or the uncomfortable softness of the bed. Whatever it was, she tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to find some firmness that would let her sleep. Eventually, she gave up and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

The stars, she thought to herself. If only I could see them, maybe I could forget how far I am from home.

She quietly rose from the bed and threw her cloak over her shift. The sound of the wind made her shiver, and she stepped carefully in the darkness, groping her way through the room until she came to the door. Once out, the stairwell was only a short distance down the hall. The night air was cold, the breeze stiff. The familiar stars and satellites stared down at her from the sky, though with all the light from the streetlamps, they were noticeably muted.

Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, she made her way to the edge and stared out across the valley at the glass mountain—the world in a bottle. White and yellow lights shone through the glass, too fuzzy to make out with any clarity. It was a strange sight, and Mira stared at it for some time.

“You couldn’t sleep either?”

The sound of Jalil’s voice gave her a start. She turned quickly and saw him sitting on an old, weathered couch facing the valley. The upholstery was torn, and stuffing was falling out in places.

“Oh,” she said softly. “I—I didn’t see you.”

“That’s all right; I could use some company. Here, have a seat.”

He scooted over and made some room for her. When she sat down, the couch gave way underneath her until she was practically sitting on the ground. The wind picked up, and Mira shivered.

“Are you all right?” Jalil asked. “You look cold—here, take this blanket.”

He leaned forward and pulled off the blanket that he’d brought up from his bed.

“That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to—”

“No, here,” he said. “You need it more than I do.”

Mira tried to protest, but Jalil draped the blanket over her shoulders without another word. She had to admit, the added warmth felt surprisingly good against the chill night air.

Man, I’m so looking forward to getting this book out! It’s been a long time in coming. I started the first draft back in 2008, but some elements of it have been bouncing around my head since 2005. More on that in the author’s note.

In any case, we’re definitely on schedule to get Desert Stars out before the end of the year, probably before Christmas. So keep an eye out for it!

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.

Am I swamped, or am I lazy?

This post might get a little emo, so I apologize in advance.

I feel like I have so much on my plate right now, and yet when I look back at what I’ve accomplished each day, I wonder if I couldn’t have been more productive. I’m moving out of my apartment on the 21st, so that’s the deadline for pretty much everything, and here’s what I’ve got to do before then:

Run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and rewrite the epilogue.
Get the cover art and publish Desert Stars.
Write the epilogue for Journey to Jordan and publish it.
Finish Star Wanderers and submit to Writers of the Future.
Do a guest post for Slava Heretz.
Finish the application for the TLG program.
Get rid of all my remaining books.
Figure out electronic W2 and other forms for taxes (before leaving in January).
Write up the “About My Books” page on blog.
Do a couple of recap posts on the travel blog.
Pack and ship my desktop computer.
Pack all my remaining stuff.
Get post office to forward all mail to home address.
Clean apartment for move-out inspection.
Find suitable traveler’s insurance.
Go clothes shopping.
Half a dozen other things that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

In other words, this is not the time to be playing minecraft.

And yet, taken individually, most of these tasks are not all that difficult. A lot of them are just mindless chores associated with moving, and the other ones, while requiring hard work, are pretty straightforward. So am I really swamped, or am I just disorganized and lazy?

This is something I’ve struggled with since graduating last year. When I was in school, I was constantly busy, but I was also constantly producing. Even though my writing suffered a bit when I was swamped, I still found time to write three novels (Ashes of the Starry Sea, Genesis Earth, and Bringing Stella Home) and hold down a student job. For the last year, I haven’t had any school and most of the time I haven’t had a job, and yet my productivity doesn’t seem to have improved.

Part of it has to do with structuring time and organizing myself. In the past year, I’ve learned that a routine isn’t something you should hang onto doggedly, but something you need to constantly reinvent. And yet, when I’m staying up until 2am-3am and not getting up until 8am-9am, I can’t help but feel that something’s off. The whole moving limbo thing certainly doesn’t help, but hey, the work’s still got to be done.

Maybe it’s just deer in the headlights syndrome. I’ll try making a checklist of everything I want to accomplish in the next two weeks and go for it. In the meantime, I’m going to get out of this apartment and take a walk, because if I don’t, I’m going to go insane.

Also, as a token of gratitude for putting up with my babbling, here’s something cool I made the other day:

See you around!

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.

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.

Managing excitement and an idea for an epic fantasy novel

After getting about 40% through Star Wanderers 1.0, I hit a wall and decided to put the project on the back burner for now. The beginning part, which I’m hoping to shop around as a novelette, has some issues with it and those are keeping me from making any real progress in the rest of the story.

I wish I could just wave my hand and pretend as if I’ve already fixed those problems, but my creative process just doesn’t work like that. I guess I’m more of a discovery writer in that way, because I can only build on stuff that I’ve already written. I have to figure out my characters as I write, otherwise they just fall flat.

It’s discouraging, because I feel like I don’t have enough control or discipline over my creative process. Other writers seem to be able to pick up a project and finish it, even when that project is commissioned by someone else (editors, franchise owners, etc). But with me, if I can’t get excited about a project, I can’t finish it.

Fortunately, even if I can’t always control which project I’m excited about, I always seem to be excited about something. After finishing the last revision for Desert Stars, I felt this unusually strong urge to work on Into the Nebulous Deep (which, after the last post, I’ve tentatively decided to rename Heart of the Nebula). I totally didn’t see that coming, but I’m glad that it did, because that project is getting due for its first major revision. It’ll probably be a quick one, just to fix some major known issues before sending it off to first readers.

As for new projects, I’m not quite sure what to pick up next. I’ve got a feeling I could give Edenfall another shot, though it’s dubious at this point, and I still have a bit of lingering excitement over the untitled Gaia Nova novel that involves Roman, Danica, Rina, and Stella’s son.

At the same time, though, I have a really cool idea for a fantasy novel involving magic swords. The idea is that the swords are actual characters, with the ability to think, feel, remember, and communicate with those who wield them. They can only be wielded by those whose minds have been melded to them, however, kind of like the Dragonriders of Pern.

As the swords get passed down from generation to generation, they pass on their skills and memories, so that those who wield them become legendary warriors. However, all but one of the swords goes insane, turning their wielders to evil. The one sword that remains has refused to take on a new master, even though war and destruction sweeps the land. A prophecy states that the one who wields this sword will eventually defeat the evil of the others, but when the good sword finally does take on a new owner, it ends up being a farmgirl / tavern wench (I haven’t really decided).

I don’t have a lot of experience writing fantasy, but this story is starting to really excite me. If I can combine it with a few other ideas and read some good fantasy novels to get into that mood, I think I can make some good progress on it.

So yeah–I have plenty of projects to work on, so things aren’t that bad. I just need to find one that I can really get into for the next couple of months; if I keep bouncing around from project to project without finishing any of them, that’ll be bad.

Why I’m not a fan of writing groups

I was listening to a recent episode of I Should Be Writing today, and it got me thinking about writing groups and how my philosophy on them has changed. Long story short, I used to love them, but now I’m not such a huge fan.

I should probably start out by mentioning that I lead a college writing group for two years, and I don’t regret the experience at all. The Quark writing group was extremely helpful, both in terms of my own growth as a writer, and the connections it gave me with other writerly people. I still keep in touch with many of them.

But now…I just don’t think writing groups are all that great. In fact, I think that they often do more harm than good, not just for experienced writers, but for the beginner who lacks the confidence to strike out on their own. Here’s why:

The group dynamic gives inexperienced critiquers a false sense of authority.

Most writing groups consist of writers who are at roughly the same level of expertise. For beginners, this means that the people critiquing your story might not know any better than you whether the story is broken. However, because of the dynamics of the whole thing (captive audience, desire to impress peers, etc), these people are likely to act as if they have more authority than they really do.

To be fair, I’ve had plenty of critique partners who have managed to be modest and down-to-Earth when offering their critiques. However, I’ve also seen plenty of others get puffed up and offer some really dumb advice.

Beginning writers often naively look for someone to show them the answers–some mentor or authority figure whose every word is true, who will light the path and show them the way. Put a bunch of them into a writing group together, and more often than not you’ll end up with the blind leading the blind.

The weekly submission process does not simulate the reading experience.

Logistically, most writing groups have to set a limit on the size and number of submissions. For the Quark writing group, our limit was three submissions of four thousand words each. It worked out fine for short stories, but most of us were writing novels, which meant that we had to workshop our books in little four thousand word chunks.

The problem is that nobody reads novels at that rate. Either they get hooked and finish the thing, or they get bored and stop reading. Therefore, while the feedback you receive might be good for helping out with craft issues, by the time the next week rolls around either everyone has forgotten what happened already, or they remember it wrong, or they were expecting something different and are ticked off because they have to wait another week.

After I revised Bringing Stella Home a couple of times (after–see below!), I workshopped it through a writing group I’d put together after leaving the Quark writing group. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “why are we in James’s point of view this week? I hate James! I want to get back to Stella!” I got this comment so often, for a while I thought the book was really flawed. However, when I got the feedback from my first readers, no one had this problem at all.

The reason? They read the book the way it was actually meant to be read.

Workshopping a work in progress is the surest way to kill a book.

Committees might be good at doing some things, but they’re absolutely horrible at producing anything innovative or original. Make no mistake: if you’re workshopping something you haven’t already finished and you follow most or all of the feedback you receive, you’re writing your book by committee.

Most writers agree that when you write your first draft, you should not revise anything until it’s done. This is because the act of revision makes you so critical of your own work that it’s very easy to get discouraged or “fix” something that was actually a good idea.

Workshopping a work in progress does exactly the same thing: it puts you in a critical frame of mind that will literally kill your book. Even if you manage to finish it, it won’t be nearly as good as it could have been because you’ve probably nipped all your best ideas in the bud, before they had time to grow and develop.

A truly great book does not appeal to everyone.

There’s a word for something that appeals to everyone equally, that runs about middle of the road and doesn’t upset anyone. That word is “average.”

No truly great work is loved by everyone. This isn’t just true of controversial stuff–it’s true of everything. For every one of your favorite books, there’s a one-star review of it on the internet somewhere. So if everyone tells you your book is good, that might not actually be the case. In fact, it’s a much better sign when some people hate it and others can’t stop raving about it.

The trouble with writing groups is that the group dynamic can lead to a herd mentality, where everyone goes along with the first opinion that gets expressed. Ever played Werewolf? The same thing happens there. One person throws out an accusation, the vote gets called, everyone starts looking around to see who is raising their hand and before you know it, all the hands are in the air.

So unless one of the seven or eight people in your writing group loves your work enough to stand up and defend it, chances are the feedback will err on the side of being too negative. This makes it very difficult to tell whether your story actually sucks, or whether it’s just above average.

Writing groups teach you to write to rules, not for readers.

One of the dynamics of writing groups is that they encourage people to find and latch on to certain writing rules, where people can say “this story is broken because of x” or “this writing is flawed because of y.” Over time, this becomes so ingrained that people stop reading to see whether the story actually works and instead read to see whether the story follows the rules.

The truth, however, is that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to writing. For example, you’ve heard of “show, don’t tell”? Yeah, go and read Ender’s Game. The entire book is one giant tell–and it’s brilliant. It was the first sf novel to win both the Hugo and the Nebula awards in the same year, and has remained a perennial bestseller ever since.

Nothing hit this home for me more when the cryo scene excerpt from Genesis Earth won first place in the 2009 Mayhew contest at BYU. Parts of the scene lapse from first person past tense to second person present tense, and the members of my writing group pointed that out as a major no-no. However, even though it broke the rules, it worked well enough to win an award.

To be fair, there are some things that writing groups are very good for. They can be a good way to learn the basics of craft (ie “the rules”), and they do give you a sense of community that can be very encouraging when you’re just starting out. However, the drawbacks are so great that I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

Personally, I’ve moved from writing groups to a core group of first readers whose feedback I value and whose opinions I trust. I finish my project, send them the entire manuscript with a deadline in which to read it, and thank them graciously for whatever feedback I receive. Most of them aren’t even writers, in fact–but all of them are readers. Most of them don’t know who the others are, and none of them ever see any of the feedback from the others.

Criticism is good; if you want to grow as a writer, you should welcome criticism and constantly solicit it. But I do believe it’s possible to grow out of a writing group–or to succeed without ever being a part of one at all.

Let the job hunt begin!

Job-Hunting-on-Social-Network-Sites — Pull!

All right, I just updated my resume to account for the last year or so, and I’m ready to start looking aggressively for work. Given the state of the economy, I’m not optimistic that it will lead anywhere, but hey might as well give it a shot.

The ideal job would be something part time that allows me to write on the side while teaching me useful skills like book selling or copywriting. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to have interesting coworkers (especially female coworkers) and a fun work environment, too.

I’ve got to be honest, though; there aren’t very many jobs here in Utah Valley that are awesome enough to keep me here. In September, I finally got my TEFL certification, which means that I could probably land a decent job teaching English abroad if I were to look for one. In fact, if I showed up in Cairo or Amman with $500 USD in my pocket, I’ll bet I could establish myself.

So while there are a few jobs here in Utah that would make me decide to stay, if I can’t find anything satisfactory in the next few weeks, I’m probably going to go with teaching English abroad. My friends who have done it say that it gives you tons of free time to write, though generally more if you have a private apartment than if you’re living in a homestay. Even so, I think I’ll try out the Teach and Learn with Georgia program first for a few months, just to test the waters and see if this is something I actually want to do for a career.

That’s the tentative plan anyways. Things that could derail it include:

Finding an awesome job here in Utah.
Getting signed with my band.
Selling a bazillion ebooks.
Falling in love.

But either way, something’s gotta change.