Yearly Archives: 2016

Results

Last week I sold one copy–thanks, Kristen! This week I also sold one copy–thanks, Mark! Hope you both enjoy the book!

War Mage still is not finished editing. I have one month until RI Comicon, and it takes about a week to get the proofs ready, another week to ship it to me. That leaves two weeks for editing on my part, which I was hoping to have. Unfortunately, this month, I can’t take any extra days off because it’s our crunch time at work.

Needless to say, I’m getting worried.  Our editor is under a lot of pressure, I get that. But this is time sensitive, and I need copies of a promised book in a month.

Just another thing to add to my anxiety plate.

Meanwhile, Grimaulkin is up to 32K words. I am getting to the end of the mini-story (you’ll see what I mean when you read it; and you will read it, right?) and I still have about 20K words to go. I had hoped to do 55K for this book. Although I might go long on this one and introduce another mini-story/mystery in addition to having Mike finally go out with Scott, and Mike finally meet his parents at the wedding. If this is a stand-alone, then I can do that. I’ll have to see how it sells. How many people would want to read about a gay mage just out of prison? That reminds me, I have to come up with a hook for him.

This one guy at the Scituate Art Festival yesterday sold a book to nearly everyone he came in contact with. He was amazing. I noticed that he engaged people, first asking “What do you like to read?” and then going into his book. His book is a mixture of genres, he said. He also talked about reviews. I have to point out to people that my book has a 5 star review on Audible. He was an excellent salesman. I wish I had that much engagement when I present my book. It’s something to learn from.

So, I’m going back to Grimaulkin and try to figure out what other mystery he can get himself into with Bennett, how he asks Scott for a date, and other filler until I hit 55-60K. Any ideas, let me know in the comments.

Sold!

I sold one!

I actually sold a Homecoming book, face to face, to a reader at a meet and greet. I’m so excited.

War Mage is still at the editor’s. I have been reassured that it will be ready for publication for RI ComicCon. Good thing I have a beta reader’s response here. My goal is to do some of that fixing over this week.

Grimaulkin is going along smashingly, with 26K of perfectly beautiful flowing words that just won’t stop. However, I’m having issues with the mystery portion of this story. Grim’s involved with the cops, and I don’t have the nerve to go up to the cops and say, “I’m, um, writing a novel, and, um, I’m just wondering what, um, procedures you do when you find a dead body somewhere? And how do you investigate?” I’d have to put together some questions and interview a detective.

I know how I want the “epic battle” to be, though I have to add a few things to make it more “epic”, and I’m wondering whether I should make that the end, or the wedding the end. The wedding will bookend the story, and possibly hook a book two. If I keep going like this, I’ll have it done by the end of this month definitely. I have to do some serious editing. I first had it take place in Boston, but then I realized that having it take place in Rhode Island might be a neat selling point for the locals.

Meanwhile, Casey and the Blue Lady is still kind of bubbling on the back burner, though I haven’t done very much prep for that book once Grim showed up. I might skip the whole NaNo thing and, if I can get Grim done in a month, I’ll put that in as NaNo. Hey, it’s 30 days, right?

I’m going to order a mic and get a podcast going. Probably next month.

Book review:

Run, don’t walk, and pick up Syd Field’s Screenplay. It’s amazing, simple, and has everything you need to write a screenplay. But not just that, it goes into how to write a story! I’m in the middle of it now, and I am just amazed at what films he chooses for illustrations (I haven’t seen some of the classics, but I will!). It will hopefully be a help with me and Grimaulkin (two stories at the same time and trying to balance both).

Mission Statement

I’m terribly sorry for not putting up a blog last week. I got bitten by a writing bug, and I’ve been on Hemingway (my iMac Mini, located in my cellar) this past week, rewriting Grimaulkin, while I wait for War Mage to get out of the editor’s hands. So far, in one week, I’ve written 20K words  I’m dong this instead of NaNoWriMo. Maybe. I have a story idea for NaNo which, depending, I might do.

Anyway, last week I planned on a blog based on a podcast that I listen to. It’s called Write Now!, by Sarah Werner. She’s refreshing because she has a gentle and encouraging voice, she hasn’t published anything yet, and she wants to give encouragement “to write every day.” Her last podcast (not the “Coffee Break” one) was about developing a Mission Statement. What is my purpose for writing?

I did a little journaling about that. (Which reminds me: I need to somehow burn my journals so that no one finds them after my death.) I came up with something that might sound pretentious, but I think is truly why I write.

I will express what I intrinsically believe through authentic stories.

All of my stories have a theme. these themes are my values. “Home and family is where your heart is.” “Revenge is sweet at first, but eats you up inside.” “The straight and narrow is difficult for any man to follow.” These three themes are for Homecoming, Dark Prison, and Grimaulkin respectively.  These are things I believe. How can I write something I don’t believe in?

This is why I can’t write romance. I don’t believe in it. Why is it important for me to show people what I believe? Because, I think, I never had any validation for my beliefs. What I believe in, my values, are progressively odd according to my family and even my friend.  Somewhere out there, others believe in my values.

The key woard here is “authentic”. This is why I feel guilty for creating Jake Logan. He’s not real. He’s not authentic. L. A. Jacob is. And from now on, I’ll be writing as L. A. Jacob. This is why War Mage has jake Logan and L.A. Jacob, because I’m eliminating Jake from my consciousness. Maybe if I ever become famous–which I doubt–I’ll re-release Homecoming under my own name.

Next week, I’ll be appearing at the RI College (my alma mater) Homecoming Day, in front of the Adams Library. I’ll be signing books and probably writing Grimaulkin while I wait for people to come by. Like the last time, I don’t expect to sell much because my subject matter is not, shall I say, pertinent or interesting to most of the people there.

Comicon is just over a month away!

The Market

Went yesterday to an Author Meet & Greet in Narragansett. I had the best table–right at the door.

I sold nothing.

All around me, (memoir, children’s books) they sold at least 2 copies. I sold nothing.

I’m still depressed over it. But as I was thinking about it on the way home, I realized two things.

  1. The story is too niche.
  2. The market wasn’t right.

The story is about a bisexual wizard, in the US Army, during the war in Afghanistan. My audience is guys who are into the military and fastest on a fringe basis. They like reading military stories, but aren’t into the nitty-gritty.

I’m probably not going to sell anything at the next two places I’m going to, because of the same reason. My market isn’t there.

Makes me wonder if I should write to market, if I’m going to make any sort of money out of this.

I have the feeling too, that my editor doesn’t even like the story. She did two books ahead of mine, knowing that mine needed to be done by November. Supposedly we pushed back the date to October, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening. If the second book doesn’t come out in November, then I might as well hang up this series. I’m tempted to say the hell with trying to publish in general.

This third book is a bear because I’ve been stuck every single time on the interrogation scenes. Grimaulkin is stuck on the prison scenes. Why? Because I have no experience in either one of those things. And I’m not going to sit down and binge watch Oz for the prison scenes.

If I go to Comicon and sell nothing there, not only will I be out of $300, but then I’ll know that my story is too niche. And the 50 or so people who has bought it so far either did it by mistake, or that is where my true market is.

So maybe I should write a book for the general market here (my memoir-in-three-parts is still in my head). Nothing I have is really good for a general market. I could pull out Casey and do some historical fiction, or clean up Blood From a Stone. Or do something entirely different.

At this point, right now, I’m too depressed to write about anything. The muses are crying.

Update

Sometimes I can fake being an extrovert.

Next week, I’m going to have to. It will be an appearance in Narragansett, along with about 40 other authors, at a theater by the pier marketplace. I drove by there, being that I’m unfamiliar with the southern part of the state.  I couldn’t find the exact place, but hopefully I’ll be able to get there early enough on Saturday to find it.

I have my dragons, my candy, my books, and books that I’ll be selling for the Press.

This week I sent my novel to the editor. Yes, I know I did it earlier last month, but she didn’t get a chance to look at it until now. And come to find out it was a physical mess. I needed to put it through Word’s grammar/spelling paces (I later found out that Scrivener has a more robust one). After fighting with Word’s choices of grammar (which took two days), I resent it to the editor and hopefully now she’ll get a chance to look at it. Our timeline is to have it soft-launched on October 1, so it’s in time for the big launch at RI Comicon.

Book three of War Mage is coming along slowly. I think I wrote two pages last week, which is pretty sad on my part. I am reading “Make a Scene” which deconstructs scenes, the building blocks of story. I really should stop reading books on writing, because they’re not telling me anything I don’t already know; but I have so many of them on my shelf to read. Go to my Goodreads list and take a look to see what I’ve got there. Way too many writing books.

I’ve put aside Grimaulkin. Part of me wants to dump the whole thing. I’ve been working on it for over 6 years. It’s a good story, but damn, I’m bored with it.

The Day Job

My father does not believe in me as a writer. Whenever I call him, he never asks me, “So how’s the book selling? How’s the new book going?” It’s always, “You still have a job?”

My day job has nothing to do with me being a writer. It is a mindless drone-like task that Koko could do. Not in any way challenging.

I’m planning on changing my day job, to finally take that step up the career ladder.I’ve been there for 9 years and have been insulted to show for it. So I’ve been trying to get at other positions, mostly in the writing and editing fields. I’ve tried inside and outside of my company. No dice.

So here’s my dilemma: do I take a job that will eat away my writing time, and possibly my creative spirit, or do I stay in a mindless job that doesn’t sap my creative ability?

Unfortunately, most of us writers have a day job, and the ones that don’t are lucky. Either there’s a spouse working so they can keep the writing life, or they’re selling that many books – and living much more simply – than I am. Do I want to make this a real job?

I keep telling people no, because I need inspiration for my characters. But my real reason is that I’m not disciplined enough. On my weekends, I want to write, but do I really? I did yesterday. Haven’t today, not even in my journal. I write when I’m pressured: during my lunch, 5 minutes before leaving for work, waiting during doctors’ appointments.  If given two hours, or even days, I find something else to do other than write.

Sleep is a big thing, actually. Game is second. Writing…yeah, I think about it a lot, but I’m not consistent. If I get this new day job, I’ll be very inconsistent, and my muse will be upset. Because writing will no longer be the big thing in my life, but just something I do when I get a chance.

 

Appearances:

September 10, Narragansett Meet and Greet 10 a.m-3 p.m. Narragansett Theatre by the Sea.

Will have Homecoming books, and Best Intentions under the table. Also testing out my “attract money” spell. 🙂

Writing when Depressed

A lot of writers suffer from mental illness. Many of them famously self-medicated with alcohol and drugs.

I’m in a crisis. One of my cats, Trixie, had to be put down because she suddenly got sick. I, of course, am blaming myself for that decision–could I have done something more? If I hadn’t paid bills, I could have saved her. If I had done a lot of things, I could have saved her. I’m still kicking myself for it.

And I’m depressed.

I should just write, but I can’t seem to get the gumption, the energy, to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. So if I can’t write, then I can read.

When the well has run dry or been blocked, I have found that it’s time to refill the well.  I will read writing books, watch war movies, and generally do “research” for my books. Then, when this is over, I’ll get back to writing.

Artist’s way update:

I’ll be honest, sleep is more important than writing. I know, I know, I should set my priorities straight. Maybe this week I’ll think that writing is more important…Maybe.

I can’t write to a theme, I’m an ARTIST.

There is a Kindle book out there called Write to Market: Deliver a Book That Sells by Chris Fox. I skimmed it for funsies (Kindle Unlimited, so I wouldn’t feel so dirty after spending $3 for it). He basically says if you want to sell books, you have to write what people want. To hell with your art. To hell with what you like. You write at the behest of your fans.

This goes against why I write. I don’t write to sell, though that’s nice. I write to read. I write a story that I myself would plunk down money for. Another reason why I write is because the muses have this story idea that they want to get out on paper, and if it goes out into the world, so much the better. That’s Brent’s story, which started as a dream. It turned into a “story I would pay for” later.

Which brings me to the title. I found out that the Association of Rhode Island Authors is holding a contest for their next anthology (title TBD), and they put out a theme “People of the State of Rhode Island.” Instead of my muses saying, “*scoff* That’s stupid. Why write to what they want?”, they took the bone and tossed it into the cauldron. What I got a couple of days later was a memory: my Uncle Manny telling me stories of prohibition.

Hm, hm, hm, I thought, and mulled it around like sucking a hard candy. I had heard other stories from my family – my Aunt Alice’s courtship, my grandmother Elsie’s love for an Irish boy, my Aunt Emma’s death at 14 from some unknown sickness, my Uncle Charlie’s death in the war. My great-grandmother Rose was still alive when I was very young, couldn’t speak a word of English; but my Uncle Manny would tell me all the stories of how she, as the matriarch, kept the family together after her husband, also named Manuel, had died (before my time).

I brainstormed in my journal. I gathered the characters, made them young enough for Prohibition and courtship, and then put pen to paper to start writing. As I usually do, I research on the fly. There was a “Danny Walsh” who operated in the Valley, an Irish bootlegger centered in Pawtucket. I threw him into the mix. I made up the name of the bar and owner (until I get to the Cumberland Library for research).

Of course, my first draft is just getting it down on paper, but I’m already editing as I’m going. I have 5K words to get this story on paper, and I’m not even sure if it’s worth a story on its own. But I’m going to try it, get my beta readers to look it over see if they like it, and then submit it. What’s the worst that could happen? They say no?

So when given a theme, an idea, or a spark, I notice that it’s something the muses thrive on. It’s a writing prompt, not a command. My art won’t suffer for it, but will thrive.

Next Appearance:

I’ll be at an Author Meet and Greet in Narragansett, RI in the Theatre-By-The-Sea on Beach Street, September 10 from 10-3. I’ll have Homecoming, and also Best Intentions selling under the table. There will be about 40 other authors there with their wares, as well. It’s after the tourist season, so it would be a great time to come to the beach and check out one of the more beautiful places in Rhode Island.

Somebody Set Them Up The Bomb

This week, for the past week or so, I haven’t been writing. It’s not that I don’t have the time. I have two books that I’m working on at the same time, and I don’t know which one to concentrate on, so I decide to not work on either.

At this point, what’s got me stuck is the indecision of what to work on.

I pulled open both books and noticed I had stopped in the middle of a scene, which Hemingway always did, to spur me on to the next scene. Problem was, I forgot what I was writing. Again, stuck.

When I’m stuck, I blow something up. Or as Chandler put it, “When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”

I realized the power of this when I wrote a collaborative story a few years ago. My character, Rusty, was doing something boring. The characters around him weren’t doing anything much, either. I blew up the dock Rusty worked in, and it was on.  The story picked up, things moved.

Exposition is well and good; internal navel gazing is important to the protagonist; but conflict, action, making things happen–that’s the meat of the story, what the readers really want.  It might sound like I’m writing Chandler-esque stories: books that are there for the action, and not much else. It’s a hard balancing act to have story–characters, world–and the conflict. Anybody can throw a bomb into a room, but there has to be a why, even if it’s explained after the fact.

So, I opened up Dark Prison, my newest War Mage novel that I’m working on, and introduced a man with a gun. It’s like putting gas directly in the carburetor; it’s a jump start, but not something you want to do as a rule, or the shock value will fade. The gun could be anything from a real gun to a new reveal, something that would create a conflict for the protagonist, or even for a secondary character to develop a subplot. Even during introductions, throw in a “gun” to make things move.

My first appearance – wrap up

At the New England Author Expo last Wednesday in Danversport, MA, I was ready. I had my talking points. I had my swag. I had my setup.

I sold nothing.

But people were impressed with the idea. My business cards went more than the cards for the books, so I ordered more and updated them. War Mage cards went more than Homecoming cards. The post cards, very few. The brochures, I think 2, and I passed those out myself.

The guy next to me had only his books. He was a bit OCD about them – if someone handled them, he would wipe the covers clean. He sold one. One guy looked at his set up, looked at my set up, and said, “Are you serious?” to him. “No business cards? Nothing someone can take away?”

One guy came up to me and said that he loved my idea, and wanted to see what would happen with it. He’s in line for the second book, he said.

I bought a book called a “digest” that someone did. He said it was meant to be like a “whet your appetite” kind of book, with short stories from his different worlds. I thought that, or an anthology of the writers in Paper Angel Press, would be a cool idea. However, thinking it over, I wondered if people would do that, or want to read the stuff for free on the website. The Digest is a good idea for people who don’t like the internet, but these days…nah.

I went to a panel about Marketing and networking. Got some good ideas. I asked about “swag”. 1) Make it useful. 2) Make it pertinent or symbolic of your book. (The guy next to me had 50 cent pieces lined up on his table, and I said, “Oh, what does that have to do with the book?” “Nothing,” he said. “I just figured if someone wants to give me two quarters for one.”) 3) avoid as much paper as you can. (bookmarks = bad “Nobody uses book marks anymore.”)

Now, I’m not a marketing maven. I don’t want to quit the day job because that’s where I get my inspiration from; and to rely on my muse to pay my bills is a very scary thought. I don’t plan on running all over the state and country to try and jostle my way into position. I make some money, fine. I made enough to pay for Hulu and Netflix for the next three months. That was awesome!

The way I do marketing is the way I do gardening.  I throw the seeds on the ground and hope some grow. Some will get eaten by birds– trivialized, or disappear under the Amazon ratings–but some will thrive and grow–someone will read it and I’ll have a fan.

My next appearance isn’t until October 2, at the RI College Homecoming Day. I might be the only one, because they were excited to see me at the College. Either that or I expressed interest early, like I usually do.

What I’m reading:

  • Best Intentions by J. Dark. Still.
  • Tarot Interactions by Deborah Lipp, just started.

Take a look at my Goodreads lists to find out what I’m reading and what I’m going to try and read. Be my friend!

I am on chapter 2 of the rewrite of Grimaulkin. It’s slow going because I feel I have rehashed this story so many times now, and I have to come up with seven years worth of stuff while he’s in prison (he gets out when he’s 22-23). I also have a new pintrest and instagram site.