Five years ago, after I decided to take on the ludicrous passion of writing, I wrote down some goals. The penultimate one was to be traditionally published within five years. For the first three years I wrote my ass off -- two novels, several rewrites, brutal critiques, humbling rejections -- but oddly I never changed my goal. I figured it was part of the process. I was talented. Other talented people told me so. It was going to happen.
But as often goes, life/career happens. The Army gave me the honor of an incredible job, responsible for the safety and livelihood of hundreds of Soldiers and their Families. Such was the job that I threw myself into it 100 percent, definately more. Between that, raising two smart-ass kids, and making it happen in a dual-career family, something had to give. Writing.
Over time I've painfully watched the success of good friends. I say painful because I'm an extremely competitive person, honed by years of competitive athletics and a profession which tends to eat the weak. I wouldn't call it jealousy. I do not lie when I say that I am overwhelmingly happy at my friends' success, but deep down I've been quietly stewing. For months now I've been experiencing a perpetual annoyance at my own lack of effort.
My feelings right now towards my writing are probably well summed up by Cake's 1996 classic, The Distance:
Reluctantly crouched at the starting line
Engines pumping and thumping in time.
The green light flashes, the flags go up.
Churning and burning they yearn for the cup.
They deftly maneuver and muscle for rank,
Fuel burning fast on an empty tank.
Reckless and wild they pour through the turns.
Their prowess is potent and secretly stern.
As they speed through the finish the flags go down.
The fans get up and they get out of town.
The arena is empty except for one man,
Still driving and striving as fast as he can.
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up,
And long ago somebody left with the cup.
But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns,
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns.
So time to get back after it. I'm going to have to channel my inner YA fanboy and get back to writing in the appropriate tone. Two years of operations orders and executive summaries have somewhat killed my flow.
When it comes to lack of progress, I have no one to blame but myself.
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Thursday, May 3, 2012
A Quick Shameless Plug
In any case, this week he released his new novel, Crimes Aainst Magic. I was able to read and critique some of the early versions of this novel, and it was as fabulous as the title. Seriously, Steve managed to come up with one of the best titles EVER.
It's on my Kindle and I plan to review it soon. I also plan to revive this blog over the next few weeks. Works been busy and this forum became a victim of my professional success. Now that things are starting to slow down a little, it's time to get back to writing.
In the meantime, go check out Crimes Against Magic. It's seriously worth your time. Did I mention the awesome title?
Friday, February 25, 2011
Twenty Three Hours...
...until registration for the DFW Writers Conference.
So what am I doing? First, I'm reviewing my objectives:
1. Interact with a bona fide publishing industry professional.
2. Interact with other aspiring authors.
3. Cram as many presentations as I can into a single conference.
The first one is guaranteed. I have a name and a slot. I've got my 25-word pitch and 10 talking points to keep the conversation going. I've been trying to familiarize myself with the agent's client list. It's a good mix, I'd venture to say 50/50 male and female. Query Tracker shows this individual has a good number of upcoming titles, almost all of them YA and MG. Dystopian seems to play a prominent theme. They seem to be mostly newer deals, a good things because maybe their looking to add more. I plan to download one of their clients works to my Kindle.
If that fails then maybe we spend the remaining nine minutes talking about liquor and sports.
I love the Internet and I love my writing group folks, but I'm really looking forward to meeting living, breathing writers without the safety-net of Internet anonymity. I've looked for local writing groups, but Google draws a blank. They do exist. I happened upon one doing a reading in the back aisles of a local bookstore. But they're like antelope, just the slightest whiff of outsider and they're gone. Should be fun to see bunches of them move around in packs.
I'll be watching like a lion in high grass.
There's a dizzying amount of seminars scheduled at the Con. I'm pretty sure that I'm a good storyteller; what I don't know is if I'm a good writer. So my focus is going to be on the writing: plot, dialogue, characters, etc. There's several seminars focused on querying and marketing, but I get enough of that from stalk-- err... following agents and other writers on Twitter and Facebook.
Other than that? I've printed my schedules and maps, drawn out my movements through the conventions center, and even programmed in some reflection time to make sure I've captured the important stuff.
I think I have this covered. As soon as work is over, I'll fill up the tank, throw the wife and kids into the car, then head north to Dallas. Tomorrow morning I'll be in the parking lot and walking towards registration.
So what am I doing? First, I'm reviewing my objectives:
1. Interact with a bona fide publishing industry professional.
2. Interact with other aspiring authors.
3. Cram as many presentations as I can into a single conference.
The first one is guaranteed. I have a name and a slot. I've got my 25-word pitch and 10 talking points to keep the conversation going. I've been trying to familiarize myself with the agent's client list. It's a good mix, I'd venture to say 50/50 male and female. Query Tracker shows this individual has a good number of upcoming titles, almost all of them YA and MG. Dystopian seems to play a prominent theme. They seem to be mostly newer deals, a good things because maybe their looking to add more. I plan to download one of their clients works to my Kindle.
If that fails then maybe we spend the remaining nine minutes talking about liquor and sports.
I love the Internet and I love my writing group folks, but I'm really looking forward to meeting living, breathing writers without the safety-net of Internet anonymity. I've looked for local writing groups, but Google draws a blank. They do exist. I happened upon one doing a reading in the back aisles of a local bookstore. But they're like antelope, just the slightest whiff of outsider and they're gone. Should be fun to see bunches of them move around in packs.
I'll be watching like a lion in high grass.
There's a dizzying amount of seminars scheduled at the Con. I'm pretty sure that I'm a good storyteller; what I don't know is if I'm a good writer. So my focus is going to be on the writing: plot, dialogue, characters, etc. There's several seminars focused on querying and marketing, but I get enough of that from stalk-- err... following agents and other writers on Twitter and Facebook.
Other than that? I've printed my schedules and maps, drawn out my movements through the conventions center, and even programmed in some reflection time to make sure I've captured the important stuff.
I think I have this covered. As soon as work is over, I'll fill up the tank, throw the wife and kids into the car, then head north to Dallas. Tomorrow morning I'll be in the parking lot and walking towards registration.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Go appreciate a literary agent
The title's an imperative. I think agent appreciation day was back in December, so I missed the boat, but recently I've come to the conclusion that this group of professionals is forced to deal with more than an unfair share of BS. If you know or have a literary agent, do a favor for me, and shake their hand, tell them thank-you for providing us with avenues and opportunity, and for putting up with loads of crap.
There's a fairly simple vertical hierarchy to the publishing industry: Writers, Agents, and Publishers. Authors create the material, Agents represent it, and Publishers buy it and sell it to the masses. For now we'll toss aside the marketing, distribution, and sales. Make no mistake about it, that hierarchy is still very much alive and kicking. If you want to get a book to market, you still have to pay the toll.
Now, while the industry structure remains rigid and tall, the communication landscape is anything but. My Command & General Staff College buddies know what a huge fan I am of Thomas L. Friedman and his metaphors in The World is Flat. It's his fourth 'flattener', Open Source, which brings me to the title of today's entry.
Friedman's Open Source tenet is all about access. Blogs, websites, social-networking, all of which make it possible for aspiring authors to communicate with experts, learn, and improve. However, communication isn't one way.
I sent my first round of queries out late last year. At first, I viewed agents as adversaries, gatekeepers to a secret world. Since then, thanks to social-networks, blogs, and websites, I've learned there are no secrets. I've also learned that these are decent people. They put their shoes on the same way we do, are always on the lookout for a decent restaurant, and even get excited when they find a marked-down purse or BluRay player.
As a Major, I'm number three in an organization of about five hundred. On a regular basis, part of the job is telling people their work needs correction, isn't good enough, or just needs to be flat-out redone. Sometimes, rarely, I even need to tell people they're just not suited for my line of work. I've seen the disappointment in their eye when someone tells them their stuff isn't good enough. What protects me from reprisal is a system that does not allow my subordinates to send me nasty emails or post about me on Twitter, Facebook, or blogs.
But literary agents don't get that protection. Anybody with a computer and connection can fire off retaliatory hate mail at will. In spite of that, agents stick their necks out there further, promoting themselves, their clients, and the business.
For agents, it's about relevancy. They can't afford to hide. They must represent their writers and at the same time attract the best talent. My point: they're vulnerable. No thin skins, easy targets for frustrated writers who view themselves the victim of unfair rejection.
Via social networking, I've learned tons about the industry and the profession. My personal experiences with agents were brief, but positive. The one who rejected my full-manuscript only provided a singular comment, but it was a remark that changed the direction of my writing in a very positive way.
Certainly, the bad-apples among the aspiring-author crowd are few. I cannot imagine any of my peers in the writing group replying to a rejection letter with strings of angry F-bombs. Nor, to my knowledge, have any of them built websites lambasting the evils of the literary agent profession.
But those people remain out there. So, I wanted to say thanks, I appreciate what agents do. Without them, I wouldn't be where I am, or know where I wanted to go. Without them, there would be no target to shoot for, or a mountain to climb. Writers, don't give me any crap, I'm not trying to kiss anyone's ass. This will be an only-time deal. One of these days, I'll get my agent. Maybe, we'll even share a beer.
There's a fairly simple vertical hierarchy to the publishing industry: Writers, Agents, and Publishers. Authors create the material, Agents represent it, and Publishers buy it and sell it to the masses. For now we'll toss aside the marketing, distribution, and sales. Make no mistake about it, that hierarchy is still very much alive and kicking. If you want to get a book to market, you still have to pay the toll.
Now, while the industry structure remains rigid and tall, the communication landscape is anything but. My Command & General Staff College buddies know what a huge fan I am of Thomas L. Friedman and his metaphors in The World is Flat. It's his fourth 'flattener', Open Source, which brings me to the title of today's entry.
Friedman's Open Source tenet is all about access. Blogs, websites, social-networking, all of which make it possible for aspiring authors to communicate with experts, learn, and improve. However, communication isn't one way.
I sent my first round of queries out late last year. At first, I viewed agents as adversaries, gatekeepers to a secret world. Since then, thanks to social-networks, blogs, and websites, I've learned there are no secrets. I've also learned that these are decent people. They put their shoes on the same way we do, are always on the lookout for a decent restaurant, and even get excited when they find a marked-down purse or BluRay player.
As a Major, I'm number three in an organization of about five hundred. On a regular basis, part of the job is telling people their work needs correction, isn't good enough, or just needs to be flat-out redone. Sometimes, rarely, I even need to tell people they're just not suited for my line of work. I've seen the disappointment in their eye when someone tells them their stuff isn't good enough. What protects me from reprisal is a system that does not allow my subordinates to send me nasty emails or post about me on Twitter, Facebook, or blogs.
But literary agents don't get that protection. Anybody with a computer and connection can fire off retaliatory hate mail at will. In spite of that, agents stick their necks out there further, promoting themselves, their clients, and the business.
For agents, it's about relevancy. They can't afford to hide. They must represent their writers and at the same time attract the best talent. My point: they're vulnerable. No thin skins, easy targets for frustrated writers who view themselves the victim of unfair rejection.
Via social networking, I've learned tons about the industry and the profession. My personal experiences with agents were brief, but positive. The one who rejected my full-manuscript only provided a singular comment, but it was a remark that changed the direction of my writing in a very positive way.
Certainly, the bad-apples among the aspiring-author crowd are few. I cannot imagine any of my peers in the writing group replying to a rejection letter with strings of angry F-bombs. Nor, to my knowledge, have any of them built websites lambasting the evils of the literary agent profession.
But those people remain out there. So, I wanted to say thanks, I appreciate what agents do. Without them, I wouldn't be where I am, or know where I wanted to go. Without them, there would be no target to shoot for, or a mountain to climb. Writers, don't give me any crap, I'm not trying to kiss anyone's ass. This will be an only-time deal. One of these days, I'll get my agent. Maybe, we'll even share a beer.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Genuine Bullet Wisdom and Betas
I'm a Soldier and competitive shooter. Aside from a little creative licensing, I'm also a fan of keeping things real. When folks in my writing group ask a question regarding my profession or its tools, I gladly help. Lord knows, I ask them for plenty.
Last week, a friend closed a comment with a question:
If my friend is married to his idea of a shotgun, you could go classic. I recommend the 1901 upgrade of the Winchester Model 1887. You'll remember it as the famous lever action shotgun used by Governor Arnold in Terminator 2. Fires six shells and can be shortened to movie dimensions. It can even be cocked and fired, swung in a circular motion, in 'true' True Grit fashion.
Now, the modified gun in the movie fired slugs, and modern looking ones at that. It should be noted that this is a classic gun made to fire the reduced loads of the late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century. Getting the right gun/ammo combination into the hands of the heroine could be complicated. For penetration, you want slugs or buckshot, but penetration wanes considerably the further your target. Take a rock and throw it as far as you can, and there you go. For more modern guns, take your pick here. Personally, my fav these days is the Benelli M3 Super 90.
Okay, onto the second half. I'm doing my first beta for a fellow aspiring writer this weekend. For the uninitiated, a 'beta' is a test-reading of a book done for authors. Professional's send their manuscripts to a limited number of confidants who provide their feedback. Generally, us aspiring types go to beta after between completion and submission, with a couple more edits sprinkled in for good measure.
On a humorous note, when I queried my YA manuscript last fall, I had no idea what a beta was. True story. Probably would have saved me a crap-ton of embarrassment over some silly mistakes. Next time, anyway...
It's an intimidating task, critiquing an entire story from cover to cover. My current forays into critiquing are limited to 3500 words at a time, but fortunately, this is a novella, and comes in just under 30,000. I'm about halfway done, and so far, I'm enjoying the experience. For the first time, I can critique not only the writing, but the story as well.
To the contrary of my initial impressions, it's easier to critique the story as a whole when you have the whole thing sitting in front of you. A chapter at a time, month to month, presents a very fragmented picture. With the whole enchilada, I get to see how the writer wove everything together. I'll go through it twice over the next week to make sure I hit everything before sending it back to its anxious master.
Last week, a friend closed a comment with a question:
On the boom and bang angle, I've seen people with shotguns with the pistol grip. I was thinking of using a "super shorty" and was wondering if it was possible to utilize one handed (if it helps the character is female and its a sort of true grit moment.) Oh, and if there's problems would a lower yield of gunpowder make it possible and what effect would it have on the rounds? IE penetration etc.I love shotguns. As much as they're a pain to reload under pressure, they're extremely effective in Close Quarter Combat (QCQ), and are great as a breeching tool to remove doors and locks. They have their disadvantages: can't carry that many rounds, limited engagement distance, slow reloads (on average), and the shells are large and you can't carry all that many of them.
If my friend is married to his idea of a shotgun, you could go classic. I recommend the 1901 upgrade of the Winchester Model 1887. You'll remember it as the famous lever action shotgun used by Governor Arnold in Terminator 2. Fires six shells and can be shortened to movie dimensions. It can even be cocked and fired, swung in a circular motion, in 'true' True Grit fashion.
Now, the modified gun in the movie fired slugs, and modern looking ones at that. It should be noted that this is a classic gun made to fire the reduced loads of the late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century. Getting the right gun/ammo combination into the hands of the heroine could be complicated. For penetration, you want slugs or buckshot, but penetration wanes considerably the further your target. Take a rock and throw it as far as you can, and there you go. For more modern guns, take your pick here. Personally, my fav these days is the Benelli M3 Super 90.
Okay, onto the second half. I'm doing my first beta for a fellow aspiring writer this weekend. For the uninitiated, a 'beta' is a test-reading of a book done for authors. Professional's send their manuscripts to a limited number of confidants who provide their feedback. Generally, us aspiring types go to beta after between completion and submission, with a couple more edits sprinkled in for good measure.
On a humorous note, when I queried my YA manuscript last fall, I had no idea what a beta was. True story. Probably would have saved me a crap-ton of embarrassment over some silly mistakes. Next time, anyway...
It's an intimidating task, critiquing an entire story from cover to cover. My current forays into critiquing are limited to 3500 words at a time, but fortunately, this is a novella, and comes in just under 30,000. I'm about halfway done, and so far, I'm enjoying the experience. For the first time, I can critique not only the writing, but the story as well.
To the contrary of my initial impressions, it's easier to critique the story as a whole when you have the whole thing sitting in front of you. A chapter at a time, month to month, presents a very fragmented picture. With the whole enchilada, I get to see how the writer wove everything together. I'll go through it twice over the next week to make sure I hit everything before sending it back to its anxious master.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Why Are Writers So Accessible?
The further I get into my new passion, the more I'm baffled by how accessible and helpful successful writers make themselves to a large community of aspiring writers. You would think it would be quite the opposite, I mean, why encourage the competition? Instead, there are a generous folks out there ready to share advices and experiences.
One contemporary was quick to point out there are just as many pros who are complete douchebags. My opinion, that's more than likely a function of a personality than the results of success. You encounter disagreeable folks in all walks of life, and the publishing profession is more than likely no different.
To date I've enjoyed the advice from authors Jim Butcher, Mario Acevedo, and David Devereux. All of which were helpful and motivated the heck out of me to work harder to join the exclusive club of published authors. I need to take the time to thank them, and others, for contributing to my growth as an aspiring author.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Kelley Armstrong. Through the Online Writing Group, her Otherworld Forums provide a tremendous opportunity for aspiring authors to come and cut their teeth with the free masochistic beatdowns. Seriously, that group is filled with characters who take their craft seriously and spend a lot of time mentoring new writers.
Without the help of these eclectic collection of individuals, I'd be just another dude peddling a manuscript. When you think about it, it's in the best interest of the publishing industry to assist aspiring authors. After all, better stories equate to better sales. One of these days I plan to go and participate in a 'Con' so I can meet some of these people in person and attempt to learn more in a different environment, maybe even share a beer with one or two.
That's about it for this week. Next week I'll start a protracted distracted about firearms. I'm a Soldier and competitive shooter, and I get question from other writers about things that go bang or boom (I especially like the boom questions). I'll take a stab at some of the things I like and dislike about the employment of firearms in some of the books I've read (without naming the books, of course). It'll be one guys relatively informed opinion of what right should look like.
Should make for some interesting discussion.
One contemporary was quick to point out there are just as many pros who are complete douchebags. My opinion, that's more than likely a function of a personality than the results of success. You encounter disagreeable folks in all walks of life, and the publishing profession is more than likely no different.
To date I've enjoyed the advice from authors Jim Butcher, Mario Acevedo, and David Devereux. All of which were helpful and motivated the heck out of me to work harder to join the exclusive club of published authors. I need to take the time to thank them, and others, for contributing to my growth as an aspiring author.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Kelley Armstrong. Through the Online Writing Group, her Otherworld Forums provide a tremendous opportunity for aspiring authors to come and cut their teeth with the free masochistic beatdowns. Seriously, that group is filled with characters who take their craft seriously and spend a lot of time mentoring new writers.
Without the help of these eclectic collection of individuals, I'd be just another dude peddling a manuscript. When you think about it, it's in the best interest of the publishing industry to assist aspiring authors. After all, better stories equate to better sales. One of these days I plan to go and participate in a 'Con' so I can meet some of these people in person and attempt to learn more in a different environment, maybe even share a beer with one or two.
That's about it for this week. Next week I'll start a protracted distracted about firearms. I'm a Soldier and competitive shooter, and I get question from other writers about things that go bang or boom (I especially like the boom questions). I'll take a stab at some of the things I like and dislike about the employment of firearms in some of the books I've read (without naming the books, of course). It'll be one guys relatively informed opinion of what right should look like.
Should make for some interesting discussion.
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