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.

Pokemon Go and writing

I’ve played a little bit of Pokemon Go, enough to be slightly familiar with the concept. One afternoon I was thinking that Pokemon have a lot to do with writing.

First of all, Pokemon Go superimposes itself on reality. That’s what you do when you write, especially urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy like I do. The characters are in our real life. Sometimes they take over our real life, and it’s all you think about. It’s addicting.

You have to catch characters. They’re fleeting, in certain places and at certain times. To sound a little mystical, they’re out there, but they do their own thing. Sometimes you find yourself with the same characters over and over (How many Ghastlies can you hold, anyway?). You put down lures, or give the characters some reason to exist in your story. They stick around. Then, they evolve.

That is the point of the story, in general–to take your character and evolve it into something that it wasn’t when you first started the story. To make your character grow, you coddle it and care for it, train it and then use it to fight. (I’ve always thought Pokemon was just an baby version of a cockfight, but I digress.) The fight is the conflict, and there’s plenty of them. At a gym, with other people–there’s always fighting. You evolve your Pokemon, your character, and make it powerful enough to surpass the  fight and win.

In order to succeed and get Pokeballs and other Pokemon, you need to go to different Pokestops. This is your inspiration, to go out into the world and let it “fill your well”.  Pokestops around here are churches, parks, and historical sites. Historical sites are the most open-ended places to get ideas. Parks are a great place to people watch and imagine. Churches…I’ll leave that to you. The architecture is nice.

So every time I get a Drowsy (and I have plenty of them at my house), I think of a sad sack of a character, which I might put into a story.

Real Life Muses

Today, I want to give a shout-out to some real-life muses that have helped me along these past few years.

I have been lucky to have such good people around me to give me inspiration and ideas, and, most of all, inspire me to write. They all follow the cardinal rule of improvisation: “Yes, and…”  That is, whatever they do, your reaction should accept what they have done and build upon it. Because most of my muses have been found using role playing (RP) games, this is not an unusual occurrence. Sometimes, though, people take advantage of the rule and “God-mod” their characters so that nothing is impossible for them. It’s tough to play against perfect characters.

Anyway. One of my most important muses was my husband. He still inspires me due to his life. He was a carnie for 4 years, and I joined him on the circuit for one summer so I could get the idea of what it was like. That summer still inspires me. He was a biker, and that inspired me with Knight of the Road, a character I play on Champions Online and City of Heroes. I also have a story on Tumblr called Leopard Knight (which badly needs to be updated). My husband was into the military, but had never joined (though he wanted to so badly), and inspired me with the War Mage series. I learned enough military terms to be dangerous, which is how I wrote War Mage.

He probably would be proud of me, seeing my book in print and in audio. My second book is dedicated to him. He, unfortunately, is no longer with us, but he is always in my memory.

Speaking of City of Heroes, Cedric is another muse I worked with. He fell into the god-mod rule sometimes, also a rule-monger. We played characters from Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and other White Wolf types of characters. Some of the other players were god-modders, playing “races” that were “banned” or exiled. Cedric would jump on that with both feet, which pissed off some people. But he worked with me and Grimaulkin’s character. I wouldn’t have fallen so much in love with Grim if it wasn’t for him.

Steven is another muse. He’s more of a ski-fi type of guy. I never did sci-fi–too much science! He inspired me with his Emerald Flight series, which I developed a character he enjoyed and has taken in for his own, Rusty Raynes. I loved playing Rusty. He’s a constantly recovering alcoholic, drug addict, and all around junkie who is an excellent engineer (he might have some telepathic connection with machines, or at least it seems that way). I can’t wait to see what he does with him in his upcoming book.

Four other guys ended up moving from City into Champions. Chris helped me develop Grim and other characters. Chris was an RP nut, but he was sensitive to his characters.  We developed Knight’s flaws with his characters. Aaron also came along. He worked with Grim (played his “boyfriend” for a time, too and was there at Grim’s rebirth). Chris disappeared; I still get pokes from Aaron every once in a while. Both of them did “Yes, and…but…” which sometimes pissed me off, but helped me to stretch my imagination and my mind outside of the box. Both of them also validated that I could play/write a gay man well.

Two other muses still inspire me today. They have consistently inspired me over the last…wow, has it been almost 5 years? Jon is an RP gamer and, I think, a GM (game master) for some games he plays offline. So he’s very familiar with how RP works. He presents his characters with such wide-ranging issues that I really have to stretch to both accept and work with. He’s not wild or crazy (well, he could be); he’s very realistic, keeping his characters grounded in reality. He’s witty, funny, and sensitive to how my characters act and react. His ERP (you figure out what that means) is second to none. I’ve learned so much from him.

Joel is also a muse that still inspires me. We have so many pairings that I think 3/4 of my guys have touched his characters, literally and figuratively. He’s always accepting of the “Yes, and…” rule. And, most of the time after a session of RP with him in Champions, I walk away with a story idea that I need to write down. It usually finds its way into 800 Words–except recently because I’m working on War Mage. Because he’s so accepting of the “Yes, and…” rule, I often write myself into a corner that he remembers or points out and I have forgotten. He must take better notes or have a more cavernous memory than I do to remember the details of what one of my minor character did six months ago. He’s also consistent, so I can sometimes take his characters and write about them. And he lets me!

The writers’ muses are in conjunction with the well that constantly needs replenishment. The water in the well is only as good as the inspiration and imagination that draws from it. The “Yes, and…” rule is a cardinal one for muses. They should accept what’s going on, accept you and your character, and work with them without judgement.  Hopefully, they’re living, breathing people with imaginations, too, who are interested in seeing where you’ll send your characters–and maybe theirs.

Do I Really Need an MFA?

My friend, trying to be helpful, sent me a link so a university offering an online MFA. “You’re writing, so you might as well get credit for it,” she said. I don’t know if that was what the school told her to write or what she decided to write before sending it to me.

For the heck of it, I filled out the application.  For four days I got spammed, constantly, with emails and phone calls and text messages saying they wanted to talk to me about my degree.  At all hours of the day and night, they tried to get a hold of me. I ignored them, because I found out that the start of the semester was June 9, and it’s long past that.

It got me to thinking, though, do I really need an MFA to write professionally? Perusing the Writer’s Digest fiction winners over the past few years, most of them had MFA’s. Some of them were professors. Do I need to provide a CV when entering the Writer’s Digest fiction sweepstakes?

The key word is “professionally.” Our work world is so entranced by how much paper you can accumulate from different “accredited” schools to prove that you’re good at what you do. That’s not necessarily true. You can be a good writer without having a degree saying that you are, I truly believe that. Academic fiction is far different than commercial fiction, and I think commercial fiction is open to anyone.

I say this not because I don’t have an MFA. I am the type to enjoy school and learning, being exposed to things that I normally wouldn’t be exposed to. But as for one or two professors to judge my work on a literary basis as opposed to a commercial basis, I don’t think that’s fair.  I am not a literary writer. I have a story. I tell it. So what if I follow certain rules, certain conventions, to make it commercial. Not only do I want to tell the story, but I want to make the reader enjoy it, not scratch their heads at what I wrote.

The purpose of an MFA, to me, is to get a better job. So that is why I would persue it. As for whether or not it would improve my writing? I really don’t care.

Aside: I’m reading Best Intentions, Glass Bottles Book 1 (Or is it Glass Bottles, Best Intentions, Book 1? Hereafter it’s Glass Bottles), which is written by my press-mate J. Dark. I’m going through the first chapter, and she broke a cardinal rule that I strive to follow: Don’t infodump the world in the first chapter. She did. But she did it well enough so that it moved the story along. Unfortunately, it’s not my cup of tea because it’s got a female protag (I have a thing about that), so I’m reading it to see how she handles the female protag, which is all the rage right now. Is she a badass or a bitch or neither or both? I’m not quite sure; I’ll have to get back to you on it.

I haven’t reviewed this book yet because, like I said, I’m slogging through only chapter one and it wouldn’t be fair. It’s a magical murder mystery; I like that. I would suggest, if you like female protagonists, magic and mystery, then jump into this book with both feet. She’s good.