Desk Cleaning

I think I mentioned last time that I keep my blog subjects on a scrap sheet of paper on my desk.  Since I spend an inordinate amount of time there anyway, especially as the pandemic has made work-from-home a reality, it’s easy when I get an idea to just write it down there so I have it for later.  I used to have the foolish notion that I could remember my blog post subjects until it was time to actually write them, but I’ve since learned that I’m not as able to remember them as I thought.

My desk also occasionally gets messy, requiring me to clean it from time to time.  Unfortunately, the last time I cleaned off my desk, I also accidentally threw away my subject list.  Instead of going through everything, I thought I knew what I was picking up, and I tossed it.  For good measure, I then tossed that garbage in the can outside for the garbageman to pick up.

Fortunately, I hadn’t started blogging yet, so I didn’t lose anything beyond the subject list.  And I remembered several of the topics…but I didn’t remember them all, so I had to figure out new ones.  However, I figured them out, and I reached what I needed to for March.  All in all, just a pain in the ass rather than anything substantive.  Still, I don’t like pains in the ass.  :-P

Public vs Private Persona?

I’ve never understood changing personalities to match situations.  No, I’m not talking about having situational tact, but rather about presenting one face to the world and another to your family.  Is there a bonus in an author, or anyone in the public limelight, to show the public one face and hide their more private one?  It sounds exhausting to me, as well as a little dishonest.  I get the need for privacy, but to me that just means not revealing certain details as opposed to being bombastic in front of crowds and shy in front of friends(or vice versa).  Is this something anyone else thinks about, or am I just a total dork?

Best Book?

Sometimes authors have different takes on things than the audience.  For me, it comes down to what I think my best book is versus what the general public thinks my best book is.

I personally believe Salvation Day to be my masterpiece.  It’s deep, emotionally stirring, and balances the right level of action with the right level of introspection.  I spent loads of time crafting it, and it’s my proudest achievement.  I remain convinced that if only enough people give it a chance, it can have the same impact on the public that The Shining or Guns of the South had.

However, the public seems to find Schism to be my best book.  It has certainly sold the most copies(by far), and it has garnered the most passion.  Perhaps that’s because of the subject matter and its relation to the times we live in.  Regardless, I’ve had far more people query me about Schism than any of my other three novels.  I’ve gotten emails and questions about it, and any time someone brings up a book, it’s Schism they want to talk about.  I don’t get it.

Don’t get me wrong – I really enjoyed writing Schism, and I enjoy going back to read parts of it every now and then…but Salvation Day is a better story.  How could people enjoy a book that has no true main character and is about a subject we all tire of sometimes – politics – than they do a book with such a broad theme as Salvation Day(including all that goes with it)?

I think it comes down to the way all us writers misjudge what is popular.  We all have our own ideas, but it’s the audience that determines something’s popularity.  And once we find out what that is, we have to ride that wave, no matter our disagreement with their verdict.

Chapter Meandering

As mentioned previously, I’ve started writing a new book that is a sci-fi/fantasy mashup.  I think I’m building out the world decently enough, but I’ve found that I’m wandering a bit from chapter to chapter.  That’s because while I am looking far enough ahead to know how each chapter will go when I start writing it, I don’t yet have a full direction for the story.  I mean, I kinda sorta know what I want to do, but the picture has yet to form.

What that means for me is that this could either end up being one of my more lengthy works as I build up a storyline that is in-depth and lays out a full world the way Tolkien and Martin have done, or it could just meander from place to place without ever finding its true voice.  That’s the trap I’m trying to avoid…which means I better find a more clear path in the next couple of chapters.

I’m sure the solution lies in outlining a little more, but even as I look ahead, I’m finding that an entry point into the main story is challenging unless I can more create the world since both of them are so disparate that I need to connect them enough for the readers to properly invest themselves.  I suppose I could just try to separate it into a few books the way George RR Martin did with Game of Thrones, but I don’t know that what I’m working on has enough plot to justify different books.

Oh well, just a look inside the travails of a writer.  😊

Time-Lapsed Second Readings

As with literally every author I know, I love to read.  When I find an author I enjoy, I devour their works.  However, that doesn’t mean I read something and then discard it, never to pick it up again.  In fact, I’ve found greater enjoyment upon reading something I’ve already read, for there are subtleties and nuances I missed in my earlier readings.

I’ve also found that books tend to change a little as I grow older.  Books I’ve already read once are the ones I spend more time on as I read them again.  I’ve stopped in the middle of passages and re-read them so I can figure out what I missed the first time.  I did this with Heir To The Empire, and there were vagaries I failed to notice(such as the complexities of the Bimmisaari marketplace).  And what made it more intriguing is that this was the first time I’d read Heir To The Empire in more than ten years.

To me, that’s one of the keys to truly enjoying a book on a multiple reading, to wait a while before enjoying it again.  It means there has been enough time for it to have some sense of newness while also not being something unfamiliar and, therefore, uncomfortable.  After all, the feeling of comfort is one of the reasons to return to a previously read novel.  I’ve done this with each of Tim Zahn’s Star Wars novels, each Harry Potter book, The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster, and I’m trying to start with The Lost Regiment again.  With each reading, the comfort level grows, just as the new levels of discovery grow.

Why RD Meyer?

My name is Russ, so a few folks have asked why I’ve gone with RD Meyer instead of Russ Meyer.  Well, let’s just say that I share a name with someone who was once famous, and whose name currently dominates Google search results.  This person was active in the early 70s, a fact my parents swear they were unaware of, despite his heyday and my disbelief.

Want to know who this guy is?  Google Russ Meyer.  DO NOT DO THIS FROM WORK.  Once you’ve found him, you can let me know if you think my pseudonym was a good decision or not.

Reader Engagement

I’ve started having some modest success, especially since the advent of Schism.  However, I’m still unsure as to the best way to engage with the audience.  Therefore, I’m looking for some ideas on how to stay better connected.  Is it best through limited-character social media platforms like Twitter and Parler?  Is it through a newsletter or emails?  What ways have you found to keep readers engaged between books.

Getting Discovered

Lots of my writing friends seem to think that good writing is all it takes to be successful.  Yes, good writing is a vital component of success, but it ain’t the only thing, or maybe even the biggest, to get you from No-Name Nobody to Uber-Successful Famous Author.

Let’s first put this into perspective – there are a lot of writers out there.  There are a lot of books and stories out there.  In fact, there’s so much that most people spend tons of time wading through the bad stuff they come across just to find something good.  And most of what they wade through is stuff recommended to them or that they found in some prominent place.  It wasn’t hidden in some small corner of the internet awaiting discovery like a unicorn emerging from the forest.

So what does this mean?  It means that you have to put your work out there and promote it in some manner.  You can’t just sit back, maybe posting a story on the internet or plopping a solitary book on Amazon through KDP, and expect someone to discover your brilliance, thus catapulting you to fame and fortune.  I’ve heard of that happening exactly once, and that was when Justin Halpern’s was discovered by Rob Corddry, jumpstarting Shit My Dad Says.  But as even Halpern admits, that’s the kind of luck reserved for "people who survive plane crashes or find out they’re Oprah’s long lost sister."  It doesn’t happen to nearly anyone.

You have to put yourself out there and encourage others to give you a shot.  Maybe that’s through advertising, maybe that’s through bookstore recommendations, or maybe that’s through newsletters, but it has to be something.  Believe me, no matter how great you think you are, troves of people aren’t looking for you.  You may find an audience, but it’s going to require work, as well as some kind of break, to get you to your dreams.  Otherwise, dreams are all you’ll ever have.

Targeting Readers vs Targeting Enjoyment

Should you write stories you enjoy, or should you try to target a specific audience?  This is the question that has vexed writers since the beginning of time.

I know there are authors who try to write stories for a specific audience, and I’ve never understood how they do it.  I have trouble sometimes figuring out what I’m thinking, let alone what folks who are not me are thinking.  Some folks are great at it, but I don’t happen to be one of them.

But beyond that, I can’t write a story unless I enjoy that story.  I know that many who write to certain audiences enjoy what they write, but if I try to write with a specific audience in mind, I find myself tripping up over whether or not I’m still on the path.  With the sole exception of Wrongful Death, which I enjoyed anyway and really only had to regress in years to my teenage days, I’ve never tried writing with any demographic in mind.  I just wrote stories I wanted to read.  Maybe I’m eclectic and no one else likes what I come up with, but I am not able to write anything decent if I don’t enjoy it.

Am I the only one in this boat?  What I’d really like is to hear from those who write with a particular audience in mind.  How do you tailor your work?  And is it still enjoyable to write?

Politics Comes Through Writing?

Does an author’s politics come through in his or her writing, even when it’s not an overtly political piece?  Is that a good thing?

Most folks I know go to books and other forms of entertainment for an escape.  That doesn’t mean that explicitly political books don’t exist, but most who read those are looking for explicitly political books.  Folks like myself, on the other hand are usually looking for a good story we can get emotionally invested in, and we don’t want to be preached at.

Stephen King is pretty well established as being a northeastern liberal.  However, I have not found that coming out in his books(maybe I missed it and am open to seeing evidence of such).  On the other hand, Ernest Cline is also a pretty open liberal, and that came out in snippets in Ready Player One.  William Fortschen is a fairly rightwing guy, but I couldn’t detect any note of our-world politics in the stories of The Lost Regiment.  HarryStein, in contrast, is also on the Right and does not shy away from politics in his novels.

What is the impact on our ability to reach an audience?  In these fairly polarized times, roughly 40% of an audience won’t even engage with the other side, so are you targeting a crowd with specific political beliefs, knowing you will limit your reach, or are you trying for a more broad swath?  As I wrote Schism, I worked exceptionally hard to make it a balanced storyline about how bad our polarization could get without taking sides, and even then it wasn’t enough for some(according to some, I was either a libtard too soft on the Left, or I was a rightwing nutcase who made room for intolerant bigots on the Right).  You won’t please everyone, especially those looking for offense, but telling a story versus preaching to a choir(and offending the rest of the public) is probably not the best way to grow into a stronger spotlight.

Blacklisting

Folks, there’s a serious problem out there that we need to talk about – blacklisting.

“What?!” you exclaim.  “This isn’t the 1950s any longer.  Besides, isn’t Joe McCarthy dead?”

Yes, the man from the 1950s is dead, and has been for quite a while, but that doesn’t mean others haven’t taken up his legacy, and in this case, it has been grabbed with zeal by the woke-scolds.

I’ve railed against the woke-scolds for a while now.  I think they are perpetually offended and looking for a reason to be mad.  Nothing will ever satiate them.  And while you may think you are part of the in-crowd with this particular mob, the moment you cross them in any way, they will come after you with a fury.

Colleen Oefelein was a literary agent at the Jennifer de Chiara Literary Agency…right up until her use of Parler and Gab was discovered.  Now keep in mind that Oefelein is not alleged to have used these platforms for anything racist or derogatory.  No, it was enough for her to simply use the platforms, as well as identify as a Christian conservative.  This apparently was just beyond the pale.

It seems as if social media has become some farcical simulacrum of the real world, where people think their presence has any impact beyond their followers.  And it also seems as if the various platforms now have gradations of what’s acceptable and what’s not.  Parler was seen as unacceptable because they aren’t as draconian in censoring people as Twitter or Facebook.  Just being associated with the Right looks to be akin to sacrificing virgins to a volcano while drinking the blood of newborns.

This is wrong.  This is dangerous.  And it shouldn’t be solely a Left/Right issue.  Free speech is a mindset, not simply a restriction on the government.  Mealy mouthed folks who would strip free speech from all those they dislike lean on tired tropes about how “well, it’s not the government doing it, so it’s just a private business decision.”  These were the same folks who were rightfully up in arms in the 1980s when stick-up-their-ass preachers were trying to get TV shows axed because they said a bad word.  Now that it’s they who find something objectionable, they have no problem using the same tactics fundamentalists used to use.

Every writer in the world should be appalled by this.  It should also validate leaving thetraditional world, and especially literary agents, whom most know I think are elitist snobs that would rather be writers themselves, in the dust of history.  Anyone or any such group that can exercise such arbitrary control should never be given the kind of power they have over people’s lives.  And gong indie should remind authors that these petty tyrants can’t cancel you if you don’t let them.

I realize that many will look at this and shriek, “OMG, looks like Meyer has gone full Trumpian conservative!”  Those people are what I call “idiots.”  Free speech and not living in fear isn’t a left or right issue.  We should all want to be free to express ourselves, and let the audience decide if they want to buy our work or not.  Some folks won’t, but some folks know that good stories are not constrained by the political views of the author(in most cases).  The mob you support today will be the one coming for you tomorrow.  Remember, even Robespierre fell under the blade of his own guillotine.

Promoting - Yes or No?

How much should you promote your work?  Sure, in an ideal world, you’d be on TV and online showing everyone why they should buy what you’ve written, but in the real world, that stuff costs money, something in short supply for most of us.  Further, inundating message boards with book promos is more likely to annoy people than it is to turn them on to your work.

I promoted both Akeldama and Salvation Day pretty heavily(or at least as heavily as my meager finances would allow).  I may have gotten half a dozen sales off of it, but nothing spectacular.  Schism, on the other hand, I barely promoted at all, and it has far and away become my biggest selling novel.  Whether by word of mouth or just the timeliness of the subject matter, people bought it better than anything I’d yet published.  So what gives?

Real promotion, in my opinion, begins when a writer gets promoted by word of mouth.  Fans buy the work because they liked previous works, so good will gets you further down the road(or course, that means the produced new work must be good, or else you’ll turn off lots of folks in a hurry).  Stephen King and JK Rowling don’t really go on book tours and buy ads in trade publications – they’ve been published and on the best-sellers list for years, so people trust that when they write a new novel, it will be good.

That’s got to be the ultimate goal here, to get the audience to trust you without being urged to do so.  It’s like threading the eye of a needle, but it’s doable.  The real question, assuming you have some measure of talent, is how long it’ll take.

Short Blogging Month

You’re reading this in March, but that doesn’t mean I wrote it in March.  In order to avoid a perpetual deadline panic, I write the next month’s blog posts a month prior.  I tried writing as they were more current, and I tried writing only once a week(ie, doing three posts on a Sunday night).  All that did was lead to gaps and shitty posts.  I figured I had no choice but to write the month prior if I wanted to maintain the consistency of posting three times a week, no matter how few of you read the blog regularly.  Yes, I leave room for breaking news, but that’s rare enough to not be worth holding up the entire blog for it.

I bring this up to say that February nearly got away from me, and that’s because it’s a short month.  True, only by three days, but I was used to having more time.  You see, I write down blog subjects on a scrap sheet of paper as the ideas come to me, and I write three or four when I get the chance.  Often, that chance comes later in the month than I’d care for – working to break my non-writing inertia is always challenging – but in a short month, that chance is a smaller window than normal.

No, not griping here.  Just wanted to bring up that we all have to plan our time and be aware of its restrictions.  When working with a deadline, that matters.  How do you handle it?