Reforming A Business

I've come out of hiding long enough to say that moving is hard.  I recently moved from Kansas to Tennessee, and all of the BS that comes with moving is creeping up on me.  One of those things is registering my business in my new state.  Unfortunately, my new state isn't making it easy.

I was all set(I thought), only to find out they need more paperwork to charge me $300 for making almost no money.  Some of this paperwork is straightforward, but some is a pain in the ass.  I need organizational articles I didn't need in Kansas.  Furthermore, it's near the end of the year, and I have to decide if I want to register it as doing business this year in Tennessee or if it can wait until next year(ie, January 1st).  The obvious benefit to waiting is no paperwork for this tax season.  However, I don't want to get in trouble with some bureau-weenie because my meager business that makes almost no money was off by six weeks.  Frustrating and annoying.

And yes, this'll likely be the pattern of my posting for a while.  I just started a new job(did I mention that my writing doesn't yet pay the bills?), and I'm still trying to unpack in my new house.  Moreover, I have to finish up Schism and haven't done shit for weeks.  Yes, I got some information to beef up the novel, and there really isn't much further to write, but I have to break the inertia and get it done.  Much better use of time than blogging.  I know, I know...HERESY!

Maybe I'll put together a post on the progress of Schism next week or something.  Of course, that implies progress by next week.  Maybe that can be my motivation...

Blog Break?

I am looking at taking a blogging break.  I will keep trying to blog on weekends to stay caught up, but finding new topics is an issue.  More than that, I haven't done a damn thing on Schism in over a month, and if I want to meet the publication schedule of late April 2020, I need to buckle down and concentrate on it.

So although I will blog on weekends if I can, all of my weekday writing will go to Schism.  If I miss a post or three, just know that I'll eventually return.  Or don't.  It's not like I'm getting paid to do this.  :-P

Five Books And Done?

I may have to stop publishing much after Homecoming(my 5th book, due out in well over a year).  Why?  Because unless I start selling, bringing out books properly will get challenging.

This is not to say I'll stop writing.  I will still write the sequel to Salvation Day and Akeldama, but beyond those and my other three - Wrongful Death, Schism, and Homecoming - I may not bring out much more, or at least not as quickly as I have previously. It's a question of money and quality.  Sure, I could slap a bland do-it-yourself cover on something and just upload it to Amazon, but that wouldn't be my best work, and I wouldn't feel right about it.

Want me to keep publishing?  Help me out by buying my books so I can afford quality covers and editors!

Forgiving Mistakes(ie - responding to Cancel Culture)

Here I go, wading once again into the culture wars like an idiot.  But still, this kind of stuff can affect us writers.  What I'm talking about is the current Cancel Culture.

For those who don't know, Cancel Culture is when we find something - anything - objectionable someone has done in his or her past, and we insist that, based on that past, the person should be excluded from polite society.  The most recent example was that of Carson King in Iowa.  For those who don't know, Mr. King is a 24-year old Iowa man who held up a sign at a college football game asking for beer money as a joke.  Playing along with that joke, lots of people sent him money, and he soon found himself with over $1 million.

Now, if I had that kind of money, I'd pay off my car, put some money away for my kids' college, and pay off my mortgage.  I might give a little to charity to assuage my conscience, but I am almost certain I wouldn't do what King did, which was to give everything to a childrens' hospital.  That in itself made me know he's a better man than I.

Unfortunately, better people are not allowed, so enterprising reporters from the Des Moines Register dug into his past and found tweets he made that were racially insensitive...from eight friggin' years ago when he was 16.  King was not a public figure running for office or someone known for his donations - he is a regular schmoe who gave lots of money to a childrens' hospital that treats kids with cancer.  Then scumbags in the media decided he had to be destroyed for that.  Luckily people fought back against that kind of stupidity, and King will be just fine.

So what was the point of that tirade?  That we all have likely said or done really stupid stuff in our past, especially when we were teenagers.  I'm grateful there was no Twitter or Facebook when I was 15 or 16, and I'll bet a lot of us feel the same way.  Teenage years are for being dumb.  You do dumb stuff, learn from it, and grow and mature.  As people who live publicly, writers say all kinds of wacky stuff.  Do we really want folks looking into us to determine if we've strayed from societal orthodoxy, especially when we were young and stupid?

How about we enjoy what we do now, mmmkay?  Yes, adults who do stupid stuff in the moment should be called out, but even then, unless it's totally egregious, shouldn't we be willing to forgive those who say or do dumb stuff and realize their mistake?  Be careful of what you want to cancel, for tomorrow, you may find yourself in the crosshairs.

Are Writers Crazy?

I've come across a few posts recently questioning the sanity of writers.  Yes, these pieces have been written by writers.  Do they have a point?  Perhaps.

Most of writers write down are the stories(voices?) in our head.  We feel an obsessive-compulsive need to write.  Furthermore, we invent new people and wild situations(if we're any good).  We obsess over tiny bits of dialogue, think our characters are reacting to the story instead of us making them react, and invent stuff that doesn't exist.  Sounds like crazy to me.

Of course, the world sometimes needs a little bit of crazy.  Crazy has advanced the world.  Yes, the boring, hum drum stockbroker or serious news pundit get things done in a sober, serious manner, but they don't progress.  The Wright Brothers were crazy to think they could fly.  Albert Einstein was crazy to think that time slowed down depending on the mass of an object.

As with anything, crazy can be overdone, and writers have no problems going there on occasion.  Go to a writers conference of some kind and you'll see crazy in droves - blue hair, multiple lip piercings, tattooed necks, people with stuffed animals, people talking to...no one, the crazy is evident.  Even as "reasonable" and "logical" as I think I am, I have extremes in my own mind and life, especially in my passions.  I know crazy when I see it because I've got a few symptoms myself.

Hitting A Block?

Going off of my previous post, I'm considering stopping publishing after my fifth book(Homecoming), or at least massively reconsidering my strategy.  It costs me on the order of $750 to publish a book because of a cover and conversion to both print and ebook.  Or maybe I'll reduce costs to approximately $500 by going to only ebooks(covers are still necessary).  Either way, I'm not made of money, and unless I start to make more of it, I'm going to have to scale back.  I'll continue to write, but whether anything new comes out may depend on how much I sell.  We'll see.

Running On Fumes

I'm quickly running out of blog ideas.  Maybe I'm just not writing them down when I have them.  At this rate,  my posts will slow down considerably in the future.  Thoughts?

Differing Styles

I've often wondered how consistent a writer should be with his or her writing style.  Yes, writers should be somewhat identifiable with the style they write with, for many readers stick with an author because they like how they write.  However, can a writer attract new readers by changing styles every so often?

I've written three novels and have a fourth on the way.  I've varied my style twice already - twice with third person limited and once with first person limited - and will do so again with Schism(using a more omniscient perspective with snippets of "news stories" thrown in, as well as no single main character).  I like to do this because I think it gives the reader a different experience in what he or she reads.  That said, I wonder if I'm attracting more readers or driving away a proven audience.

What do you think of writers varying their styles, whether you're a reader or a writer yourself?  Does it help you expand your experience and talent?  Or does it make things too bumpy and the author untrustworthy?

Hooking And Shocking

Books need a hook, something to get readers reading the story all the way through.  The question is...how?

Picking a hook at the beginning of a story is hard because readers aren't yet emotionally invested with the story or the characters(assuming it's a stand alone story and not part of a series...a successful series doesn't need as strong of a hook).  That makes it hard to start with a death or a battle.  It also means you can't drop someone into the middle of a story they don't care about.  I'm not saying I have an answer, for each story is unique, but it's a consideration.

It's similar with shocks.  Twists and turns help make a story compelling as long as it enhances the story and doesn't become the story.  So how do you spin a twist that creates the right effect instead of making readers put your story down in disgust?  It needs to fit and be shocking enough without being so far outside the realm of the story, or negating their happiness, that it makes folks want to read more.  Each story requires its own twist, but you can't use the shock too often or it'll become cliche(look at M Night Shyamayan  for proof of how easy it is to go from promising new director to running joke).

These are the tools we have to consider in our work.  Hook and shock - a powerful combination.

Silly Or Serious?

My blog has alternated somewhat between silly posts and serious posts.  I've talked about the creeping erasure of history, and I've talked about the new header to my blog.  Basically, anything that struck my fancy has gotten on here.

But should I find one way and try to stick with it?  I've been wondering about the fastidiousness of readers and whether or not they prefer me to be serious or silly...or do they like the mix?  Some topics attract certain folks, and some turn off others.  I wonder whether or not my audience grows or shrinks based on what I decide to talk about.

I use this blog as a form of catharsis, so I've varied in what I've chosen to discuss, but I'm curious if I should choose to stay on one track or the other.  I'd be interested to know what you think.

More Time To Blog And Write

I'm almost caught up on my blogging, but I need another week to get through September posting.  Then, maybe I can get back to writing and editing.  I still have the goal of having Schism out by April 20, 2020, but at this rate, it'll be tough.  Most of the editing is done, but I can't seem to get off my ass and finish the last two acts.  I had to split Act IV into two so it made more sense, but I'm stuck on the last 10,000 words of Act IV.  Then it'll be on to Act V.  Maybe when I move to Tennessee, and have nothing to do but write, I can finish so this thing can take advantage of our polarized climate to take off.  I need to get going.

Re-reading Old Favorites

I'm weird.  Yeah, I know that's not exactly a revelation, but I wonder if others share some of my quirks.  For example, I go back and re-read my favorite books several times.  I know people often re-read what they like, but I go back and back and back.  For example, I just finished reading World War Z...for the eighth time.  And this is far from the only book I've done this with.  I'll bet I've read each Harry Potter book over a dozen times each, Guns of the South nearly 20, and Ready Player One approaching half a dozen.  In fact, I have a tendency to go back and re-read something I've really enjoyed more than I am to pick up something new.  Why is that?

I think it's because they're comfortable.  I know and love the characters, and I know I already like the story.  I also enjoy finding nuggets I missed the first time or five, so it's like something (slightly) new each time.  Am I the weird one, or are there any other weirdos out there who do something similar?  Remember, this isn't a movie that only takes up two and a half hours of your life - a book is a major commitment of time.  Is that reassuring or disturbing?

Defaulting On Style

When you write, what fonts and sizes of text do you use?  I prefer to write in Arial 10, but that then becomes what I end up trying top publish in.  It may sound...petty, but I wonder at this sometimes.  I wonder because most folks tend to use Calibri or Times New Roman.  I also see most folks seem to use text size 12.  Whether that's because it's easier to read or what, I don't know.  So I was just wondering what fonts and sizes you use when writing, and whether you publish in that or change it prior.  If you change, how do you deal with the changes within the manuscript that crop up?

Okay, so that was a silly post, but after the past week or so of heavier stuff, wasn't it necessary?

IN YOUR FACE Styles

How breathless and in-your-face do you like a story to be?  I like to be kind of a passive third person observer who is being told the tale by someone who sounds like Morgan Freeman.  However, some folks prefer BREATHLESS stories where the author GETS IN YOUR FACE!  Brian Lumley and Dean Koontz fall into these categories for me, and I have difficulty reading them as a result.

Basically, such books are exhausting.  My feeling is that I'm expected to be on edge all the time.  My personality just isn't suited for that.  I feel like the constant musical score of the book is "DUM DUM DUM!!!"  I feel the urge to push back, and it never sits well with me.

At the same time, I understand how some people don't like the relaxed way of telling stories sometimes because they don't feel the drama, at least not as up front.  I like to infer the drama and get it occasionally, but some folks want to get it all the time.  How do you react to such a style?  Does it draw you in or push you away?

High Fantasy Or Grounded In Reality

I've been wondering recently about the tales we like to read - should they be grandiose and breathless, or should they be more down to Earth and realistic?  It's no secret that I like a certain level of consistency in my stories.  They can be in the most fantastical world, but they need to have a level of consistency and believability within the universe in which they're set.  So maybe I'm splitting the difference a bit.

Maybe this is why some stories are too much for me.  I'm grounded on Earth and present times, so going to a different world where they've never even heard of Earth is a stretch for me.  Don't get me wrong - there are some great stories by some terrific authors out there, but it's hard for me to get into them.  I'm the kind of guy who likes to picture myself in these stories, so I can't just get into what I can't comprehend.

But what do you think?  What kind of stories are in your wheelhouse?  Should our worlds be so far out there that they're true escapes from this one?  Or should they be just enough to take us from the daily grind without being so out there that our mind can't accept them?  It always fascinates me to find out where everyone else lands on this.

Do We Need More Writers?

Listening to a podcast recently, I heard the guest tell us that the world needed more writers.  We needed folks who could put on paper their story and the story of humanity.  This got me thinking - is that really true?  Do  we really need more writers?

The answer I inescapably came to was no.

We need more good writers, but simply getting more people to write doesn't do anything.  I've often said that lots of people think they can write, while most actually can't write their name in the snow.  Just telling people to write more so they can contribute to collective humanity is like saying we need more cooks so we can put food in landfills.

Now I know what you're saying - don't most people start off as poor writers before becoming good?  Weren't you a pretty bad writer by your own admission at one time?  Yes, that's all true, but I made an effort to get better.  I still make that effort, for I know I can get better.  Unfortunately, most folks won't make that commitment.  If we had a bevy of folks who knew they sucked at writing and were making efforts to get better, I'd be all for it.  But most people think they're already pretty awesome and don't need to get any better.  There's little humility, and that makes for some absolutely awful writing.  We have plenty of that; we don't need more.

Okay, I get it - I'm an elitist, I want to stifle creativity, yadda, yadda, yadda.  If that makes me a bad person, then so be it.  However, I don't like trying to wade through mounds of shit to find that one gleaming nugget I might enjoy.  There are already tons of terrible writers who are published.  There are lots of people who can write well in one genre but are bad in another(yet they try anyway).  Do we really need to add to that pile of garbage?

Finally, if you're discouraged by what I've written, then writing isn't for you.  Take the time and effort to get better.  If that's you, then maybe you'll one day be a good writer and will be someone who should be adding to our collection of the written word.  If you think you need no more help and are already the bees knees, then please stop.  For the love of all that's holy, please please please stop.  Writing in and of itself does not make you a great thinker or expresser of ideas, and we don't need you piling onto the (large) portion of crap we already have.

Erasing History

I may as well have titled this one "Stepping Into Controversy."

As most of you know, I have some problems with the current Woke-Scold movement in both our industry and in the world at large.  We are so afraid of offending any sensibility that we applaud the super-sensitive and walk on eggshells, lest the mob turn against us for some perceived slight we didn't even intend.  Those who scour both modern books and the annals of history looking for those without the proper mindset seem determined that all wrong-think will be expunged.

The most recent example of this, and more of why I hold disdain for the current traditional publishing industry, is the excommunication of John W. Campbell from society.  Now, Campbell has been dead for nearly 50 years, and he was hardly what one would think of as an enlightened thinker.  He stated some rather out there - and by today's standards, noxious - views on race and science.  Although some may wonder just how much was genuine(writer Joe Green said that Campbell would often take a devil's advocate position simply to make things livelier), a good bit of what he said would make most folks cringe.

But that's not good enough for the Woke-Scolds.  Nope, they want to erase him from history, remove his name from the award, and hope all is merry again.  This is Stalin-esque, and it should make the stomach turn of any fan of writing.  Although I'm certain that some of the Woke-Scolds that read this will claim I'm defending Campbell's views(they'll do that because they're perpetually mad and don't want to engage on the substance of an issue), what I'm taking issue with is removing from history one of the most influential writers in science fiction.

Analog just removed Campbell's name from its aware for Best New Writer.  Some great folks have gotten this award, from George RR Martin to Carl Sagan, and Campbell's name is on it because the magazine that gives it out, Analog(originally called Astounding Science Fiction), was founded by him.  While one can take issue with some of what Campbell said, there's no doubt about his influence on the Golden Age of Science Fiction.  Who knows where we'd be without both his science fiction writing and his promotion of it.  By pretending he doesn't exist and trying to remove him from the award his magazine pioneered, they are engaging in the same kind of censorship most writers claim they abhor.  The funniest part is that they even quoted George Satayana in justifying it("Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it") without realizing that the quote was a warning, not the opening sentence of an Orwellian instruction manual.  By doing this, they are not only trying hard to forget the past, but they are almost guaranteeing that folks will repeat it.

The Woke-Scolds have invaded the writing and publishing industry.  One cannot get into the field, or stay there, if one does not hold the right views.  It's a sickness, and I'd venture to say that only a small minority actually believe in this PC crap, while the rest are scared to death of running afoul of it, so they'll mouth the right words to stay employed.  Moreover, those who genuinely believe, don't even understand the language they use to condemn it.  Jeanette Ng called Campbell a fascist in her recent acceptance speech for the award, showing she has no clue what the word even means.  Fascist has become a catch-all for what the Woke-Scolds deem as immoral thinking rather than any form of political view of way to run a government.  Those ways are repugnant, of course, but not everyone who takes a different position is a fascist.  Further, it does a great disservice to the millions of dead who died fighting actual fascism to use the word as some kind of "everyone I don't like" term.

And it's not like Ng had the courage to refuse the award.  No, she still wants the accolades.  She just wants to rail against her perception from modern perspectives about someone long dead.  Using this as a yardstick, no one from any past era will ever pass muster.  For that matter, those of today won't pass muster years from now, for who knows what future slights will be used to erase today's people from history.

(BTW, I found it particularly ironic that she went on a tirade against racism without any self-awareness on her part,  saying, "Through his editorial control of [the magazine] Astounding Science Fiction, [Campbell] is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists."  Quite the broad level of generalizations there in casting such shade...I thought that showing such disdain about a group of people based on race was verboten)

Believe it or not, I actually did debate whether or not to write about this.  It's dangerous in today's world to evoke the ire of the online mob, but it's time folks stood up to these people who would erase everything but their view of the world in an attempt to purify the world for the rest of us.  When we let such Woke-Scolds go unchallenged, we cede them the stage by default, acknowledging that they own the narrative and that the rest of us should shut up and maybe occasionally nod along about how smart they are.  Sorry, but I was born too argumentative to do that.

Like I said earlier, I'm sure many will take this as some kind of perverse endorsement of Campbell's execrable writings of the time.  I can't stop people from being stupid on that.  I'm just pointing out that erasing folks from history who don't meet your standards will leave you very few remaining.  We don't live in a pure world, and our history is especially vomitous at times.  That doesn't justify removing it because it makes you feel icky.

Book Store Crap

At an airport recently, I had some time to kill.  So, naturally, I went into the largest bookseller I could find in the terminal and started browsing.  What I came across left me feeling...underwhelmed.

For starters, a large number of the fiction works were this "woke" crap that tries to make some social justice statement and does nearly everything but tell a good story.  Characters should move the plot along; they shouldn't be the plot.  If they are, then your story is secondary to anything you're trying to say.  More than that, most folks read books to escape rather than be preached at.

Then there were novels covering mundane stories that I really don't care about.  Okay, maybe I'm a barbarian who doesn't know good literature, but I don't need slice-of-life tales - I want something to whisk me away to a place I can't find in the real world.  Yes, it should be realistic within the story, but I can find folks having affairs and crying about their children going off to college by going outside; I can't find a 20,000 year old spacecraft buried in the Amazon forest that may have sparked life on our planet.

These bookstores will only carry traditionally published work, and their stock validated most of what I've said about the traditional publishing world.  There was no risk, and there was nothing to make me think.  Further, most of it seemed to be garbage that a nine year old could poop out during daily writing time in school.  Needless to say, I walked away without buying a book.

It really is frustrating to see this kind of...I can't find another word to adequately describe it...shit being passed off as good books.  In addition to the byzantine maze of idiocy folks have to pass through to publish traditionally, this kind of puke-inducing nonsense is another reason why traditional book stores are dying.  Yes, that may be harsh, but it doesn't make it less true.

Bad Ideas Made Good?

I've often mentioned my first completed novel, On Freedom's Wings.  It was a fun space opera that was grandiose, epic...and very, very bad.  It was too Star Treky, and it used far too many clichés that one could easily figure out if only one watched Saturday morning cartoons.

However, I was recently daydreaming, and I came across a few ways to possibly re-create that universe.  For starters, the novel began at...well...the beginning.  What if I started it during the climax?  Moreover, the characters were participating in some stuff that, while adding moral complexity to the story, could not be justified in the end.  But what if the characters still participated in such a thing because they were fed misinformation and thought they were on the right side?  Stuff started spinning in my tiny little brain, and I think I may have the stirrings of a new book.

I hadn't thought about On Freedom's Wings in forever.  The possible new direction got me thinking - how can we make previously bad ideas good.  I'm a better writer than I was 20 years ago when I began to write for real, and I can take garbage and maybe spin gold out if it(or at least plastic).  What other ideas have I abandoned because they weren't initially handled very well?  What ideas have you abandoned for similar reasons.  I think this should give us pause to go back and re-examine our old work to try and find nuggets we can not only salvage, but ones we can make into a great story.

Trolling For Ideas

I like to keep this blog updated as often as I can so that people will rely on there being fresh content to read.  That said, it can be challenging always coming up with new topics.  Yes, sometimes there is something I really want to talk about, but often times I'll find myself staring at the computer wondering what to talk about.  You know...right before I start to daydream about being a swashbuckling space pirate.

I like to pretend I have a great memory, and I do for stuff that happened more than two decades ago, but I can't usually remember that great blogging idea I had in the car yesterday.  Therefore, I'll usually jot ideas down as soon as I have them in the notes section of my phone.  That doesn't mean it's always full; I've had many times where I am staring at the screen feeling like a fraud.

Other blogs can give great ideas, as can other books and movies.  No, not to flat out steal, but reading other writers often provides inspiration on other stuff.  I'll let those ideas play out in my head.  Sometimes they yield an observation worth blogging about, and sometimes they don't.  When I hit a time deadline, I can't be as picky as I otherwise would, but I do try to sift through the ideas for something unique.

Where do your blogging ideas come from?  For that matter, where do your books ideas come from?

Does Blogging Consistently Help?

Looking at my last post, I started to wonder just how much blogging does for a writers.  For example, look at the right side of my page.  Some of the folks on there post several times a day, some post several times a week...and some barely post at all.  There are those who post once or twice a month, and still others who may do it once or twice over the course of several months.  So what's the point?

I think the most generally accepted reasoning is that blogging draws people to our site, and, hopefully, to our books.  But does it?  To me, the biggest reason is to try and reach some sort of "critical mass" that will become self-sustaining.  It certainly isn't to boost our writing skills, as what I post is all too often just a stream of consciousness.  I rarely write new stories on here; not because I don't want to, but because I take pride in the craft and this format, as well as the time requirements involved in putting out fresh material so often, don't align themselves with being like that.

I'd be curious what any of you think.

Missing Posts

Sorry I skipped the last couple of posts.  Life is getting hectic(again), as the Meyer's will soon move to Tennessee.  That...and...well...I can be a bit lazy sometimes.  :-P

The Pursuit Of Happiness

Real life can sometimes suck.  Loved ones die, people lose their homes, and natural disasters wipe out whole towns.  This kind of suckage is one of the reasons we long to escape into stories.  Unfortunately, stories have increasingly become darker and darker, with endings that out-do real life.

Take The Mist, for example.  In this tale, an Army experiment goes awry and unleashes a torrent of extra-dimensional creatures into our world.  A few characters try to escape, but their vehicle runs out of gas and it looks like the whole world is engulfed in the mist that brought the nightmarish beasts.  To spare loved ones and friends the terror of having to deal with the mist, the main character shoots them, but there are not enough bullets to take him out too, so he leaves the car to confront the monsters.  Then, less than a minute later, the mist clears and the Army is coming through killing the creatures.  When he realizes that if he'd held out a few minutes longer, his son and all his friends would be alive, he screams.  A fucked up ending to be sure.

That might be something to say "whoa!" about if it was one-off, but more and more stories are going for this kind of edgy ending, where life sucks even worse and no one is happy.  To tell you the truth, it has started to piss me off.  I don't know about you, but I get invested in these characters, and I want to see them do well.  When things turn out shitty for them, I feel a sense of betrayal.

Readers yearn for happy endings.  Yes, some arteests and fancy-farts may think all-the-time edgy is great, but it drags us down in a world that is already shitty.  Do our escapes have to be equally shitty.

Some writers seem to have caught on to this and have changed.  Robert Kirkman(SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE WALKING DEAD COMIC AHEAD...TURN BACK NOW!!!) just ended his long running comic.  His original idea was to have the zombies win the world.  There'd be a statue of Rick Grimes, savior of what was left of humanity, only the pullback would reveal it was overgrown with vines.  Then there'd be a scene of the walkers striding past.  The dead had won.  Thankfully, Kirkman came to his senses, admitting that ending was dumb and rendered the entire story pointless.  His new ending, while not unicorn farts and rainbows, is at least hopeful and optimistic.

The point is that we should try all we can to make the story end on a happy note, or at least a hopeful one.  No, we shouldn't be Pollyanna, but readers will get pissed off if they came to get away from the real world and we force feed them a pile of dog turds.  Don't do that to your readers.  Give them a way to feel good about life for a few seconds.  Sometimes it's all they have.

Moral Judgment

We live in an age where people are supposedly loathe to morally judge others.  Or maybe we live in an age where folks feel others shouldn't morally judge, but they themselves will have no problem with it.  As a result, we are seeing stories that are more and more bland in terms of moral conflict, or go off on wild tangents and then say that anyone who judges them is a bad person.  This is eating at the writing world.

Stories are supposed to be moral tales that provide a judgment on the state of the world, or at least the characters that inhabit it.  Tales throughout history, from A Christmas Carol to The Three Musketeers to Harry Potter, all offer a clean moral judgment on what is going on.  Readers see that there is a wrong happening, and they root for characters to figure it out and solve it.  This is at the heart of the reading and storytelling experience.

It seems we've come into an age where writing a tale based on traditionally held moral values has become taboo.  This is nonsense.  These things are traditional precisely because they've stood the test of time.  Loyalty, honesty, courage...these are things we see so rarely in the real world that we pay for people to tell us stories that include them.  To me, the only reason to say that we shouldn't tell stories with moral components is because we're worried about our own morals, or about others saying our moral tales aren't up to snuff.  This has got to stop.

Putting our work out there will get us judged.  That's what happens in the public sphere, whether we want it to or not.  It's a natural reaction when folks encounter something, and it really doesn't matter what that something is.  As Jean Luc Picard once said, if we're going to be damned, then let's be damned for who we really are.

Desire

Writers must have a desire to write.  They must feel it in their bones.  A good writer will write regardless of if he or she is being paid or not.  The writer must seek out spare time to jot down a page, a paragraph, or even just a sentence.  Like any good marriage, desire will sometimes wane, but it should always return.  Moreover, a good writer will seek out ways to rekindle that desire so that the "marriage" of writer to writing is never forgotten.

Stream Of Consciousness

My novels are thoroughly thought out.  I think about what I want to write about, outline the ideas into something I can use, and take an enormous amount of time crafting that story.  They're fun and show the effort necessary for someone to want to buy and read them.

Blogging, on the other hand, is different because it's usually little more than a stream of consciousness.  Yes, as mentioned in my last post, I come up with the ideas regarding what I want to talk about, but that's where the similarities to my novels end.  I don't outline my blog posts; I just write them.  I sit down, look at my topic, and start blogging away.  In fact, I'm doing that right now.

The stream of consciousness is easier in the way that I'm just plowing ahead into the great unknown.  However, that can also lead to a blog post that spins wildly out of control and loses focus.  I will go off onto various tangents, only to have to go back and erase large sections because it wasn't related to the topic at hand.

So is there benefit to stream of consciousness blogging?  I'd say yes, but mostly to me.  Yes, the audience gets to see me at my most raw, so perhaps they can have better insight into what makes me tick and how my stories are crafted, but it's mostly about my vomiting all of my thoughts onto the page.  I don't have to think too deeply and can write usually just what comes randomly traipsing into my brain.

It can meander(like now), but it helps me understand my own thoughts.  I can go back later and figure out patterns that can be useful in novel writing down the road.  It also helps keep the audience engaged(both of you) and knowing I haven't forgotten about them.  They see me at my most pure, which can be sometimes good and sometimes bad.  Whatever it is, they see me, not some façade.

Idea Generation

How do we come up with the ideas we write about?  For me, this falls into two categories for my business - novel ideas and blogging ideas.

Novel ideas are fairly easy for me.  Is it because it's easy to come up with an obscure take on a topic or discover how nuanced a new character can be?  No...those things still take both time and effort.  However, I love to play around with those things.  Sometimes a day-dreaming idea generation session can last all day and yield nothing.  And that's okay.  Ideas are malleable and can be reshaped into whatever we want them to be.  It's the sheer spontaneity of raw ideas that makes them attractive, and the biggest part of their "ease" is the flexibility I'm allowed.  Since I don't have an editor on my ass about finishing up so they can make some artificial deadline, I can take my time writing my ideas down.  I can mold them, rework them, and store them until I'm ready to play with them again.

Blogging, on the other hand, is something different altogether(I know, I know...let's forestall the eyerolling about Russ writing yet another post about blogging being harder than he thought).  Some writers post only occasionally and erratically.  Those that follow this pattern have no worries.  Sure, they might like to post more, but they're worried more about their other writings and usually view blogging as something nice that will get done when it gets done.  Others, like me, post much more frequently and on some kind of schedule.  This gives their audience a sense of predictability that they can find fresh content.

But getting fresh content can be challenging.  Some of those I know fill that content with politics, something I swore, mostly successfully, to not get into on my blog.  Others fill that schedule by mostly posting links to other sites, sometimes with a brief commentary.  I like to visit these blogs, but usually as a gateway to other blogs rather than as something independent.  Just not my style for my own posting.  Therefore, most of my ideas have to be original ideas about writing and books.  That kind of subject concentration is hard.

So how do I come up with ideas?  Usually, something will strike me as interesting and what I want to talk about.  However, I also have a horrible memory, so I need to write down these ideas so I don't lose them(I typically put them in the Notes section of my phone).  I cannot tell you how many ideas I've lost because I didn't write down an idea within a short period of time after having it.

Trying to keep track of my ideas and then getting them written on a predictable schedule is the next step, and the one where I fail the most.  I'll look up and suddenly discover I'm supposed to have a new post up tomorrow and haven't started it yet.  I try to get ahead, but I still let time slip by and get near the end of the period, after having up a lot of posts ready to go, and then find out I've got to play catch up again.  Frustrating sometimes, but totally worth it when I get feedback from what I've presented.

Rethinking Strategy

The publishing world is changing.  It has gone from hand-copied manuscripts to the printing press, and now it is going to the internet.  Going...I should say "has gone."  E-readers are the hottest item for folks looking for a good story.  Sure, some folks don't have one, but the vast majority of voracious readers do.  And while most, like me, favor physical books, most can't afford to buy lots of physical books or have the space to clutter up their homes with them.

That's why I'm strongly considering getting away from physical books at all and going solely to ebooks.  This is a tough pill to even think about swallowing, because I grew up with physical books.  To me, that's what represents success in the publishing world.  However, what I need to do to try and stay(gain?) relevance is recognize when the market changes, and change along with it.

I can reduce expenses by going solely to ebooks.  There's a cost to converting my work into something someone can read, and doing both ebooks and physical books is more expensive, which cuts into my profit margin,  There are also imprint fees and proof copy fees, but those are miniscule compared to the cost of converting my work into something that a printing press can print.

Something I've thought through is whether or not I'll be limiting my audience by going to ebooks alone.  However, most casual readers that still pick up physical books on a whim are looking at more established authors like Stephen King or JK Rowling.  They're not prone to just pick up my book in print form off Amazon.  Most casual readers, in fact, buy their books at Barnes & Noble or WalMart, and my books aren't on those shelves because I can't afford the buy-back clause of the contract(it'd bankrupt me).  Therefore, most of what I sell is on Amazon, and on Amazon, people looking to sample an unknown writer aren't going to pay $15 for something they can't say if they'll like.  That's where ebooks come in.

Ebooks are perfect to try and capture an audience, especially in the indie publishing world.  The biggest draw is that they're cheap(my books are $3.99...less than a cup of coffee from most coffee shops).  They also don't take up any space except on an e-reader, so readers don't have to worry about my displacing a favorite author of theirs.

I will likely go this route soon, although I can't say if that'll be with my next novel, Schism, or the one after that(Homecoming).  This is a hard break and is taking me a while to accept as a mindset change, but I think it'll be a better decision in the long run.  Once I've gotten more established, maybe I can re-release them as hardcovers.  We'll see.

Political Entanglements

I recently came across a post about a new President for the SFWA.  Normally I give scant reading to stuff like this - after all, it doesn't really affect my writing - but after the news of the last few months regarding turmoil within various writing communities, this one got my attention.  The struggle seems to be over who is and who isn't included in the cool kids club when it comes to writing.

I've written about the woke-scolds before, and they appear to have grabbed most of the top spots in every writers' association that I can find.  Their main goal, best I can determine, isn't to promote the best writing, but rather to promote the right kind of writing.  Check off every box the woke-scolds can find and then pretend it's a good story that everyone must have.  Beyond that, the wrong writers must not only be shunned, but shut down.

The writers I know tend to focus on writing good stories, and, like me, aren't very interested in who runs SFWA or any other organization.  However, if we don't want to find ourselves out in the cold, we better start paying attention, for many of these people are gatekeepers of a sort.  They can increase or deny exposure, and that gives them some modicum of control over our writing careers.  Apathy is fine until you run into a true-believer whose power runs counter to your interests.  Whether we normally care about the bureaucracy is irrelevant - we will either be made to care or be cast aside.

As painful as it may be, writers everywhere need to get more involved so that loud shrieking small crowds who would shut out folks they don't like don't gain ascendance.  Yes, I'd rather focus solely on writing, but until I gain a large enough audience that likes my stuff and doesn't care what the woke-scolds think, then those who guard the gates are important.  It'd be nice to reach a point where they no longer matter, but that day is far, far away for most of us...assuming it ever arrives at all.  And if we don't take control back from the woke-scolds, like some courageous people have over at SFWA, then we have no place to bitch when we wonder why we can't break through.

Social Interactions

We hear so much about how writers, or any business really, needs to make good use of social media.  From Twitter to Facebook to Instagram and beyond, companies use social media to help get their brand in front of people, and, hopefully, draw more business.

I admit to being a novice at this game.  I have a Facebook account that is open to about 150 people(and where I usually give out my updated blog posts), but the site doesn't get a lot of circulation.  I also have a Twitter feed where I'm followed by six folks(at my last count).  Admittedly, this is partially my fault b/c I rarely post on it(mostly because I'm a forgetful bastard) and don't really understand its uses very well.

Even though this is the way the world interacts these days(I guess), it still seems to me that it requires some sort of viral event to generate traffic.  Going back to my post about being provocative on purpose, I'm sure I could get something viral by calling someone a name or taking a radically unpopular position on something, but that's not really my style.  As event after event proves, it's far harder to gain positive attention than it is negative attention, and negative attention can do far more than just hurt business - it can destroy lives.

That may be where my skittishness regarding social media comes in.  It seems way too easy to piss someone off and get engulfed by a media mob that will forget you five minutes after it has finished destroying your life than to gain good attention that gets people to fork over money.  In order to prevent the mob from forming, it seems we have to be as vanilla as possible, and that rarely draws the traffic necessary to make a living.

What does all of this mean?  Basically that I still know almost nothing about social media.  It's basically another form of advertising, but as with all advertising, its effect is measured by its exposure(that's why Super Bowl ads cost a lot more than an ad during an old rerun of I Love Lucy).  It doesn't help that I'm a Gen X'er who is caught in between the generations of nothing on social media to everything on social media.  I'm sure I'll figure it out about the time I'm being fitted for a diaper in the nursing home.

Provacative On Purpose?

Some bloggers I know are provocative on purpose.  They will pick divisive issues that play well to their hardcore fanbase but which piss off even more.  Sometimes they do this to shout about an issue that they feel really strongly about, but a lot of the time they do it to draw controversy and attention.  The controversy generates a lot of web traffic and may result in a few more sales.  However, I wonder at the wisdom of this.

It's one thing to sound off about an issue within the industry that you feel passionate about.  I have more than a few posts like that myself, so it's not like I hide who I am.  However, I don't go out looking to generate controversy.  It's easy to do - simply tackle a social issue of the day and watch people tear at each other - but is it really wise?  Genuine controversy on the subject of the industry or another book is one thing, but just getting people spun up to generate traffic seems risky to me.  In today's polarized climate, it's real easy to piss off half the audience, and those potential sales are usually forever lost, regardless of how talented you are or how good your work may be.

In addition to controversy, it gets easy to spot a phony.  Those who throw red meat into the lion's cage just to see how many people will watch can be found out.  Yes, I'm sure there is tangential conviction to whatever the position is, but if that's all you do, people will grow exhausted, and they'll figure out you're just trying to play them.

Remember what your goal is.  Is it to piss people off and/or get them talking smack to each other, or is it to get them to eventually fork over their hard earned cash so you can be a full-time writer.  The issues you present are your choice, but whether people buy your stuff is theirs.

Pass It On

I've been getting a lot of compliments recently.  A few readers have emailed me and told me that they really liked my writing and can't wait to see what's coming next.  This is great to hear, but it's not what I want to hear.  What I'd really like to hear is, "Russ, your work is great and I just got one(or two or three or four...) of my friends to buy/read your book too."

I keep having to remind folks that I'm not Stephen King or JK Rowling.  I don't have an audience cache that I can rely on to sustain me.  As shameless as this sounds, I need for readers who like my stuff to recommend me to a friend or ten(those of you who hate my stuff can please remain silent).

That's what we who want to eventually do nothing but this writing thing need - more widespread readership.  I need folks to give my or to others, preferably with the missive, "You will love this book."  As much as I adore my few fans, I'd kind of like to have more friends, so I'd appreciate it if you could pass my work on.

Now enough with the shameless pandering - we will soon return to our regularly scheduled programming.

TL;DR

The second part of my last post is about those walls of text that we all encounter in some books that fill us with despair.  I have to read all that? we think.  Geez, that'll take forever.

TL;DR stands for Too Long; Didn't Read, and it's a common phenomenon when readers encounter the wall of text.  Most people will not read the whole thing.  They'll read the first and last sentences, and maybe glance over the wall to see if anything stands out, but most will skip on by and figure they can catch up down the road if they missed anything.

TL;DR occurs when writers are overly excited about what they have to say and forget to take a breath.  Those text walls come off as breathless rapidity.  Since one of our goals is to get people to read what we wrote(we wouldn't have written it if it wasn't important, after all), we need to sometimes slow down.  The easiest way to do so is with simple paragraph breaks.  Take the following examples:

He knew several bones in his hand were broken, but he still tried to fight.  He had no idea where Chris was, but as he got to his knees, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and the trickle of flowing blood.  One of the attackers reached for him, and Seth managed to flip the gun in his hand and squeeze off three rounds.  He heard a loud screech and his hand broke free.  He scrambled to his feet and took off running.  His heart beat faster and he became vaguely aware of the throbbing in his left hand, but his adrenaline was flowing too freely to let that stop him.  He squeezed through several cars and sprinted to the chain link fence by the ballpark across the way.  He could feel them behind him, like a pack of wolves chasing a deer.  He scrambled over the fence, ignoring the single strand of barbed wire across the top that pierced his already damaged hand.  When he hit the ground on the other side, he felt a new source of blood running down his wrist.  He looked back to see the enemy jumping the gate in one fluid motion.  It was disconcerting to see the grace with which they flew.  Belatedly, he thought about Chris and Simon.  Simon, he reasoned, should be safe, but he wondered if Chris escaped.  He sprinted past several darkened trailers proclaiming their treasures – cotton candy, peanuts, beer, etc.  Seth came to an abrupt halt and tried to bring up his gun as his original target floated down in front of him.  The vampire easily knocked the gun aside.  Seth turned and tried to run in the opposite direction.  However, several more – he didn’t know if it was three or four – were rapidly approaching from that direction.  He took a step backwards and turned again, looking wildly for another escape route.  But there wasn’t one.  No one was running anymore.  Footsteps echoing off of the walls in the ballpark were the only sounds left.  One of the vampires grabbed him from behind in a massive bear hug.  He’d been nervous during fights before, but facing down four vampires generated something he hadn’t since the night his brother was attacked.  Fear.

Now compare that with this:

            He knew several bones in his hand were broken, but he still tried to fight.  He had no idea where Chris was, but as he got to his knees, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and the trickle of flowing blood.

            One of the attackers reached for him, and Seth managed to flip the gun in his hand and squeeze off three rounds.  He heard a loud screech and his hand broke free.

            He scrambled to his feet and took off running.  His heart beat faster and he became vaguely aware of the throbbing in his left hand, but his adrenaline was flowing too freely to let that stop him.  He squeezed through several cars and sprinted to the chain link fence by the ballpark across the way.  He could feel them behind him, like a pack of wolves chasing a deer.

            He scrambled over the fence, ignoring the single strand of barbed wire across the top that pierced his already damaged hand.  When he hit the ground on the other side, he felt a new source of blood running down his wrist.

            He looked back to see the enemy jumping the gate in one fluid motion.  It was disconcerting to see the grace with which they flew.

            Belatedly, he thought about Chris and Simon.  Simon, he reasoned, should be safe, but he wondered if Chris escaped.

            He sprinted past several darkened trailers proclaiming their treasures – cotton candy, peanuts, beer, etc.  Seth came to an abrupt halt and tried to bring up his gun as his original target floated down in front of him.  The vampire easily knocked the gun aside.  Seth turned and tried to run in the opposite direction.

            However, several more – he didn’t know if it was three or four – were rapidly approaching from that direction.  He took a step backwards and turned again, looking wildly for another escape route.

            But there wasn’t one.  No one was running anymore.  Footsteps echoing off of the walls in the ballpark were the only sounds left.

             One of the vampires grabbed him from behind in a massive bear hug.  He’d been nervous during fights before, but facing down four vampires generated something he hadn’t since the night his brother was attacked.

            Fear.

The paragraph breaks alone make the second example much easier to read. If I encountered the first example, I'd sigh and try to plow through, but I think I'd make it about halfway(at most) before I gave up and moved on. The second example, however, flowed better and didn't make me wince when I saw it.

Yes, there's more to getting around TL;DR, such as shortening what you have to say, but the paragraph break is the quickest and makes the most sense, especially if you feel you absolutely must say something.  Once you've gotten past that, then you can go back with that chainsaw mentioned in the last post and cut.  The two have to work in tandem or readers will cut you out.

Writing Quantity Versus Writing Quality

My next couple of posts are going to discuss how writers cover ground.  I think there's a push/pull in the writing community that says that we need to write enough depth to adequately convey a story, but we need to make sure that what we write is quality and not just pages upon pages of fluff.

The first novel I ever wrote, On Freedom's Wings, was the first place I encountered this problem.  Since it was an awful book, On Freedom's Wings has never seen the light of day beyond the few folks I let read it nearly 20 years ago, but as I wrote it, I found myself struggling to give it enough heft to call it a "book."  Some of it, especially in the beginning, was filler material that didn't contribute to the story at all.  Such fluff made it a plodding read that would've made people skip over large sections just to return to the plot.

However, just as too much stuff in your story that contributes little is a bad thing, you can also make your plot so shallow that no one understands it because you've taken too much for granted.  There needs to be sufficient depth for the reader to become invested.  Otherwise, you may as well have told a nice campfire story that no one will remember in the morning.

To me, the way to solve this is to first write everything you want about your story.  Put in the details and plodding stuff that you think you need to give your book "heft."  After all, no one is likely going to see this part anyway.  Once that's done, put it away for at least a month.  Don't pick it up, don't read it, don't think about it.  Then, when sufficient time has passed, go back in with a chainsaw.  Read what you wrote and see how you can re-word it all so you can cut it at least in half.  Afterwards, give it to a friend or beta-reader and ask them how you can shorten/condense it further.  Don't take their critiques personally, and don't let them give plot critiques at this point - this is the time to give your heft depth.  Turn quantity into quality.

Of course, all of this presupposes that you've got a story that has sufficient depth in the first place(going back to the campfire example).  If your story can fit into three pages yet you wrote 200, ask yourself why your tale was unsupportable over time.  But if you can expand while adding, rather than sacrificing, quality, you've got a true novel.

Profitability Mediums

It's no secret that I love books.  Every writer I know loves them, but it goes beyond what's inside for me.  I love the feel of holding a physical book in my hand, the smell of the paper, and the sight of the words on a page.  However, being the dinosaur that I am, I wonder if it has held me back.

What I mean is that I'm seriously considering giving up doing print hardcover books and going mostly to ebooks.  The reasoning is cost and distributor willingness to stock.  The cost in hardcover books is about pre-production work, mostly in conversion and proof copies.  Unfortunately, there are distributor issues that also have to be considered.  You see, distributors rarely buy books and stock them for long periods on their shelves, hoping that some doe-eyed customer will eventually wander in and praise it as their fantasy novel that they simply must buy.  Instead, distributors buy a set amount, sell what they can, and then return the rest to the wholesaler for a refund.

For indie authors like myself, that could be financially disastrous.  I can't afford to absorb the cost of so many books being printed and then returned.  There's a box in my hardcover printing account that makes it so that if I check it, distributors can't return what they buy.  It shields me from having to worry whether or not I'll suddenly face a $10,000 bill for loads of books no one is buying.  However, it also means that most distributors won't buy it because they too don't want to face the risk of lots of books that generate no revenue for them.

Of course, I'd love it if they just bought a few books, found out they sold well, and dipped back into the well to buy more, but that's not realistic.  Let's face it - I'm not a very well known author and can't rely on name recognition to spur sales.  Readers tend to gravitate towards those already established, and I ain't yet one of them, so distributors have no reason to think that even buying small quantities would be worth the price.

Therefore, I'm truly considering not doing hardcovers in the near future.  From a business perspective, it makes financial sense.  What's holding me back is the emotional aspect - it's hard for me to think of myself as an author if I can't physically pull out my book and hold it in my hands.  It's completely illogical, but it's the way I feel...a way I'm working desperately to get over.  And I'm sure I will get over it one day, but that day isn't yet.

Copyright Or Copywrong?

This should be a fairly short post.  I have a question I could really use some help from fellow writers on - what are your thoughts on officially copyrighting your work?  I did a full copyright for Akeldama, but I haven't done it for either Salvation Day or Wrongful Death.  The main reason, honestly, was the cost involved.  No, getting a full copyright isn't very expensive, but it's still a business expense, and I wonder if that expense is necessary.  Isn't our work protected the moment we put it on paper or publish it?  At this point, I really don't know, so anyone with some insight could provide great clarity.

Rushed Writing

Writing on a deadline sucks.  Some people thrive under that kind of pressure, but most of the creative arts don't respond well to it.  Creativity can be fragile, and most attempts to force it come up empty.  That doesn't mean, however, that writers are immune to it, whether it's an actual deadline or a perceived one.

This leads to what I call rushed writing.  Writers start to leave out parts of the story and take much for granted.  While we should try to show rather than tell the reader what's going on, we can't take everything for granted, and that tends to happen when we rush our work.  Characters around for the entire book drop off, and endings that should take a couple of chapters to develop get reduced to a few pages.

Readers notice this stuff.  If a story is flowing at a certain pace, they'll pick up on it instantly when it changes pace.  Usually that change goes from a slow trot to a panicked sprint, and it leaves many questions for the reader.  It can also be unsatisfying for most and piss people off.  Some get so mad that they won't read another book from that author out of fear of being so let down again.

This is where outlining and finding time is important.  As I've said in the past, writing is the fun part, but outlining/brainstorming is just as important, for it sets the direction and makes sure that you aren't out there grasping for straws.  If you can't outline or brainstorm, I don't think you can write well(yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, but those are exceptions, not most people).  Every time I've tried to write without an outline, the writing comes off as rushed and directionless.

You also have to be willing, painful as it might be, to scrap material you've already written.  Some first drafts are great; many stink.  Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame said that he goes over material lots of times, and he points out some of his work that he had to get in under the deadline that wasn't ready.  Trust me - it's easy to tell.

Rush if you like, but be prepared for your audience to tell.  Then don't be mad when they find someone who doesn't rush.  As the old saying goes, it's hard to find someone that can make a quiche and not decide to turn it into scrambled eggs.

Running On Empty

Last time I wrote about when folks change source material for another medium, but what happens when that source material runs out?  This was one of the issues with Game of Thrones, and it is more prevalent than one thinks.  Although lots of TV shows and movies are based around certain source material, relatively few sequels are, and TV has a nasty tendency to outrun what a writer can come up with.

Things can get real dicey when that book we love becomes a movie or TV show and the material it's based on runs dry.  From World War Z(and its thankfully abandoned sequel) to The Walking Dead, many writers simply have difficulty keeping up with demand.  Voracious fans and unrelenting production schedules insist that new material be constantly forthcoming.  Not only do writers just not write that fast, but as anyone who has written anything knows, the creative process is sometimes a fickle creature who doesn't respond well to folks screaming that they want more.

I know this is a writing blog, but with so many popular books becoming shows or movies, it's only fair to ask what happens and how can things be kept fresh.  For one thing, I don't think it's enough to have a fan-boy be the vehicle for freshness if the original author is still alive and kicking.  The author's vision is what drove interest in the first place, so keeping the author heavily involved is paramount.  Further, a great deal of "new direction" must be kept out, no matter how much the studio or producers wail.  It seems like studios forget what made something popular in the first place, and they change things to fit what they would've written.  Well, harsh as this is, there's a reason the folks adapting a piece of work don't have much original success to their names.

As fans, we have to be willing to be patient.  I know, I know...I may as well wish for world peace while I'm at it since fans will gobble up what they can as fast as they can.  But listening to fans bitch and moan about the degraded quality of stories as source material runs dry and new material must be created grates on me.  You can't have it both ways - either you get lots of new stuff of questionable quality, or you get great stuff that has been painstakingly crafted.  Which would you prefer?

Changing Source Material

A large number of movies and TV shows nowadays are based on something other than an original idea inside the writers' room.  Even shows thought of as novel, like Bird Box, are based off of obscure books that few knew of until they hit the big screen.  Basically, Hollywood isn't coming up with much new on its own and is relying on source material to make money.

However, how much should they deviate from that source material?  Some source material is so popular that changing too much threatens the very fan base the studios need to make their venture profitable.  Some is obscure(like the aforementioned Bird Box), but once it comes out that a lot has changed, which one, film or novel, do fans consider the true story?

The biggest one that comes to mind is World War Z.  This is one of my favorite books and an extraordinary tale.  However, it was always going to be difficult to adapt because of how the story is told.  Max Brooks told the story in a series of interviews for a historical book recounting The Zombie War, so while there was a logical progression of the story, there really was no main character to follow.  That said, the movie of the same name is terrible, one of the worst movies ever made, especially to fans of the book(which number in the millions).  Not only did it insert a main character, which I can kind of understand, but it changed so many parts of the book that it became unwatchable to me.  Remember that whole pissing-the-fans-off thing from above?  They did that here, which is why I think they aren't making a sequel, despite it making tons of money at the box office.

In reverse, I wonder how many writers would dare to challenge a movie they adapted or continued for a book.  A prime example is Game of Thrones.  The books were popular long before HBO made the TV series, but the series eventually outpaced the books.  There was a general feeling that the show felt rushed by the end, and the ending itself left a great deal to be desired.  So what would happen if George RR Martin decided to change his last two novels in the series - The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring - to make them better?  Would fans flock to them, grateful for the fix, or would they be mad that either the books didn't match the show or that the new ending, even if better, couldn't have made it into the show to begin with?

Changing source material is dicey, even if it happens all the time.  One wonders why people think dicking around with already successful material is a good idea.  Yes, some things have to be adjusted to fit the screen, most notably length and depth, but a great deal more seems to be changed just because some writer or director thinks he or she has a better way to do it.  That kind of conceit can sometimes pay off, but rarely.  That doesn't appear to stop the conceited from doing so anyway.

Publishing With Errors

No one is perfect.  Not even me.

I say this to emphasize the importance of proper editing/proofreading.  Anyone who has picked up an indie published books has likely found errors while reading.  Such errors intrupt the flo of the story and genrally make me wence.  They ned to be avoided if at al possible.

Each of us thinks we have a great command of the language and can find our own errors, and that's true to some extent.  I can read over a first draft and find approximately 95% of my mistakes...but 95% isn't 100%, and that's where the rub lies.  Missing mistakes causes us to publish books with errors, and these errors not only interrupt the story's flow, but they hurt our reputation as authors.

To my shame, I've published with errors.  Akeldama in particular was beset by a number of errors, one of which was so egregious that I still haven't come to terms with it.  I got the permission of a pretty famous restaurant in LA to use their name in my novel, and I misspelled it!  Not only that, but I sent them a copy of it before I realized my mistake.  They never called me on it, but I also doubt they displayed the book like I'd hoped.  I've long since corrected it, but I have yet to work up the courage to send them an updated copy.

This isn't only a newbie problem.  One Second After by William Fortschen constantly uses "would of" in place of "would've."  I don't know if this is because Fortschen didn't know the difference, or if he figured it out and never fixed it, but it stands out to me whenever I read this otherwise good novel.

So what do we do?  There's the obvious first step - don't publish work with errors.  Hire someone to proofread/edit your book so these errors don't make it to publication.  However, if they slip through, how do we handle them?  Do we quietly correct them and issue a new edition?  Do we trumpet that new edition?  Do we let it go and pretend it never happened in the first place?

Publishing with errors is embarrassing.  Overcoming it is a challenge, no matter what direction we go in.  What direction do you choose?

Business Functions

Some folks have asked why I haven't published more frequently.  That's fair, but it also shows an incomplete understanding of the business of writing.  When one becomes a writer, one begins to understand that the fun part is the writing, but the rest of it is what helps make someone a professional versus a hack.

To start with, I can't just poop out a novel.  Some can; I can't.  Sure, I suppose I could write a bunch of gobbledygook that might pass as a story and then just get it out as quick as I can, but a) people would rightly point out that what I wrote was shit, and b) I'd be ashamed of just putting something out there for the hell of it.  Writing - good writing - takes time.  There's a storyline to flesh out, characters to develop, and depth to create.  Anyone can write a shallow story, but creating something that folks might actually like takes time.

The first draft of writing is only part of that time, and it's by far the most fun.  However, the first draft is not what makes a great story.  There's editing, redrafting, discarding what doesn't work, and rewriting.  This is time consuming, especially if done right(for example, you can't properly edit immediately after writing or you'll overlook a lot).  It takes a solid year after writing the first draft of a novel to get everything right.  Yes, I could publish anyway and roll the dice, but I truly feel that would create something of lesser quality.  Some folks are fine with that and even make money off of that, but it's simply not me.

Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, but doing things right costs money.  Any idiot can  write a book, upload it to CreateSpace, slap a blank cover on it, and voila - a published novel.  I just can't/won't do that.  I need a good cover(Extended Imagery on the links on the side of this page does awesome work), for a good cover draws in readers and captures the spirit of the story.  And it ain't cheap.  Extended Imagery does great work and is reasonably priced, but some cover artists go for more than $1500 a pop.  I haven't made enough yet to cover that cost, so I have to find my financing where I can.  Then there's also getting your book edited/proofread by someone who isn't you(never final proofread your own work), as well as getting the book formatted so it doesn't look like someone vomited on paper.  If you want anyone to find it, you need an ISBN, and those cost money, especially since every format(print, Kindle, Apple ebooks, etc) needs a separate ISBN.

I've got enough now to bring out Schism, but I don't have enough to publish everything all at once.  Moreover, some of what I've written needs major overhauling to be ready.  I remember once thinking that Bill Watterson was pretentious for saying that his work required multiple rework sessions, but since becoming an author, I understand what he meant.  I have another novel, Homecoming, ready for publication, and I'm trying to figure out that timeline, but several others need work.  A lot of work.  Bringing them out before they're even close to ready would show less than my best, and no matter how much I want to sell, I can't do that.

Running Out Of Room

Last time, I spoke of the problem of turning convention on its head, but it occurred to me that doing so requires said convention.  What happens when our favorite stories hit a brick wall because there's no more material to lean on?

That, of course, was one of the biggest problems with Game of Thrones.  Sure, George RR Martin was there to "guide" the show's writers, but he also left them(and everyone else) hanging without any new source material.  The first five seasons of Game of Thrones did so well in part because it was guided by source material that provided a road map.  Unfortunately, Martin has taken his sweet time writing the last two books - The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring - so the depth of his guidance was limited.

I think this problem is two-fold.  First, most shows should be weary in the future about running with a series that has no conclusion(or is at least not so far ahead that they'll hit that proverbial wall).  The Walking Dead may be wandering recently, but that's more due to straying from source material rather than running out of it.  Future series should demand plenty of material before even beginning.  The second part of this is the responsibility it places on writers to...well...write more source material.  Martin has fed quite well off of the original success of his work, but he doesn't seem to feel any duty to provide more.  All well and good if the story is already at a natural conclusion, but a bit of douchebaggery if the story has a more clearly defined arc.

Although the Game of Thrones writers definitely rushed their work near the end, it's hard to blame them since they didn't have much more than Martin's word to go on.  This is akin to a problem I've outlined previously about hitting that wall when I try writing beyond my outline.  At that point, work loses depth and things start to feel forced.  That was the feel of Season 8 of Game of Thrones - the writers still knew where they wanted to end up, but they lacked the background to get there in a meaningful manner.  Martin could've helped by putting out his stuff long before now, but he has never seemed truly motivated to do so.  Yes, it's his work and, therefore, his pace, but there comes a point at which other people are relying on you, so knuckle down.

Had this been simply been a novel, that would've been one thing.  However, with a show now on, and that show having deadlines, Martin's laid back attitude looks a touch more selfish now.  People - real people with real jobs - depended on him, and he let them down.  If any of us are ever in a position similar to his, I hope we'll remember that our obligations go beyond just writing a book.

Flipping Convention

As writers, we need to often strike a balance between doing what the audience expects and being unpredictable.  We don't want to be too predictable, for the audience quickly grows bored and moves on, but if we shake things up too radically, audiences will get mad.  They'll then not only move on, but they'll curse your name until their last breath.

What made me think of this was the recent ending of Game of Thrones.  Some people liked it, but let's be honest - most people didn't.  That's because the show built up certain expectations in our mind, only to shatter them in the final episode.  Part of this was due to the rushed way the ending felt, as if they were sprinting to the end and skipping over all of the plot and character development they'd spent years creating.  However, part of this was due to the way the characters culminated

**SPOILERS AHEAD...IF YOU HAVEN'T YET WATCHED IT, STOP NOW**
(Also, smack yourself for claiming to be a fan while not watching the show for more than a month)

The show was played to be mostly about Daenrys Targeryen and Jon Snow.  Both came from modest beginnings to command respect across the world, and surely one of them would rule the Seven Kingdoms from the Iron Throne.  However, Daenrys went crazy, barbequed the capital, and then Jon Snow, her erstwhile lover(and nephew!), stabbed her in the heart in order to prevent her madness from consuming Westeros.  In the end, Brandon Stark came out of nowhere to become King.

A lot of people were upset by Daenrys turn to the dark side.  Given how much we rooted for her when she freed the slaves of Essos and surrounded herself with wise advisors, that's certainly understandable.  I will say that there were hints of her madness earlier, though, that made it at least plausible for her to turn out like her father.  And I believe that her turn may have been forgivable by most fans had it led to Jon Snow becoming King in her place.  But when the show set these two up for so long, only to throw in a character that was tangential at best, a good number of fans screamed WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!  Bran was that kid in high school who did nothing on the group project but got recognized by the teacher after the presentation, and although people sympathized with him for being crippled, no one thought, "Gee, he'd be a really good King, and I was looking forward to his rule."  Even his presentation on screen was boring, little more than a series of blandly delivered one-liners that they tried passing off as wisdom and insight.

This kind of unpredictability is what makes audiences curse you.  It's Luke Skywalker joining the dark side, Rudolph being eaten by the Abominable Snowman, or Professor Quirrell being made Headmaster of Hogwarts.  It upends expectations so much that it pisses people off.  I know that sometimes we writers like to throw people for a loop, if for no other reason than to keep them on their toes, but this comes off as elitist dickery specifically designed to annoy as many people as possible.

It's okay, even encouraged, to be unpredictable, but it still needs to fit somewhat within the story and come off as something audiences would accept, even if it wasn't the way they would've ended the story.  Going off on a strange side tangent just for the sake of unpredictability makes readers wonder why they stuck with you, and is that really something we should be going for?