After all the frustration of the last couple of weeks, I’m glad to say I’ve got my writing back under control. I’m back to getting my daily practice words working on a rough draft of the next project, while spending my evening sessions working on attempt number four of the Apartment Complex story. I’ve given that project a lot of thought over the last couple of days, figured out (I hope) what works and what didn’t, revised how I’m going to approach it, and I’m just going to go ahead and write the damn thing without any reservations.
This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered numerous false starts, and I know it won’t be the last. That’s part and parcel of the writing biz, unfortunately. All I can do is soldier on, one way or another.
Getting back on the horse can be frustrating in itself, especially when your brain wants you to be running full tilt from the beginning. That rarely works out though. Sometimes you just have to be patient and relearn the process to fit the kind of story you want to write. Take it as it comes, and eventually you’ll suddenly notice you’re back up to your normal processing speed.
[Yeah, I know… I’m going a bit overboard with all the idioms in this post. Sorry about that.]
ANYWAY! The good thing about all of this is that I’m going in the right direction, and that’s the most important part.
Trying to convince myself that my current project is going okay and just needs a bit of TLC and revision…when in reality it needs to be completely tossed and restarted.
I’ve been trying to convince myself — and you, the blog readers, when I mention my progress here — that the Apartment Complex story is just suffering from growing pains. It was far from my best work, but I said that all my beginnings are crap, and I’ll eventually nail it a few chapters in. I said that maybe I was just looking at it from the wrong angle, that maybe I was writing in one format when I should be writing another. I said that I’ll fix it in rewrite.
Yeah, that’s all bullshit, and it’s about time I owned up to it.
I don’t hate this story, far from it. I believe in it, and I’ve got some great things to say with it. So I’m going to start over — AGAIN.
Which of course begs the question: am I trying to convince myself this is a story worth saving when it actually isn’t? Well, no. Most all of the outtakes I’ve written for this project using 750Words are of infinitely better quality, so I’ve already proved to myself that this story is worth writing.
I know exactly what’s wrong with it, and it’s what I call my ‘let’s go out for some hamburgers’ mistake. [It’s named after an embarrassing story attempt I wrote in fifth grade.] It’s a problem of static characters: I have great characters that I know I’ll have fun writing, but all they’re doing is standing around talking. What little action there is, is forced and pointless. I’m trying to steer this story in a direction it does not and should not go, and that’s a big problem indeed.
That’s not how fiction works, and it’s really not a fun way to write it, either. When it happens, I’m hit with a feeling of disappointment almost immediately, that I’m just wasting my time and words. It feels like there’s a big freaking gap in the plot between the opening and the second half. I’m not doing my story justice, and to continue in this manner is folly.
So.
Time to start over. Again.
Either that, or put this aside for a little longer and start writing a different project, like In My Blue World.
I’ll keep you posted.
*
Credit where credit’s due: Victoria Schwab’s recent tweet that she’d completely rewritten her latest project, Vengeful, was the impetus for this decision. She’d originally written it last fall, only to come to the same conclusion I have about mine: this is not how I want the story to go. She tossed that version and restarted it on January 10, and finished it 116k words later just the other day. Kudos to her!
I’m not looking to hit that same insane goal in that short of a time, mind you. I’m just looking to write this story the right way!
[Also: Yes, this is one of the reasons I took last week off from blogging. I wanted to have a good long think about it first before I made my decision.]
After three attempts at starting the Apartment Complex story, I think I finally have it under control. I’ve nailed down the introduction of the characters, established the setting, and started them down Main Plot Line Boulevard.
That was a hell of a lot tougher than I expected. Now for the fun part of writing the rest of it!
In retrospect, I don’t think I had as much of a problem when I was more of a pantser writer. Probably because I didn’t really pay too much attention to such things as weak openings and so on. I just riffed until I got the hang of it and fixed it later. I’ve been trying to move away from that ever since, and let me tell you, it’s harder than it sounds. I’m learning to trust my instincts more, instead of freaking out and getting nowhere.
The irony is that this is exactly what my characters are going through as well. One of the biggest themes of this story is learning to trust someone completely and without any second-guessing. In writing this story so far, I’ve been fighting the Writer Demon — you know the one, the ‘OH GOD THIS IS ALL CRAP’ Demon that wants you to purge all these words and take up golf or something. But I’ve also been fighting it with self-trust. I believe in the story, I know I’ve built up a strong plot and strong characters, so all I need to do is shut that demon down and forge ahead.
This is what I mean by writing without a net. For me it used to mean writing in my old pantsing ways, but now it’s about moving forward despite all my doubts and worries. It’s about trusting that I’ll pull this off, one way or another, and I’ll be proud of the result.
It’s stressful as hell sometimes, but the payoff is almost always worth it.
Earlier this week, just a day after I’d released Meet the Lidwells, I started thinking about a lot of different things related to the writing projects I had going on. I was working out how to publicize the new book while also plugging my trilogy, reading over the chapters of the Apartment Complex story that I was going to read for FOGcon, playing around with my daily words (which are currently focused on In My Blue World), and the evening session words for AC. All while hoping the Day Job wouldn’t cause any delays for everything else. In other words, The Typical Day in the Life of a Writer.
What threw me was that I didn’t feel that moment of wondering if I would ever be a pro writer or if I was just going to continue faking it.
I actually had to stop and think about that for a moment. I’ve been writing for over thirty years now. Sure, most of that time was spent learning, hitting roadblocks and dead-ends, wasting time, getting stuck on the OK Plateau, and trying to figure out what the hell I had to do to make any of this work. I’ve rarely had a crippling self-doubt about it, but I’ve certainly had my moments of wondering if this was as good as I was going to get, and that maybe I’d better focus more on a Day Job career. I hated that feeling with a passion.
Self-publishing the trilogy turned that around; this proved I could achieve the goals I’d set for myself. But what cemented it for me was the release of Meet the Lidwells; that’s when I’d proved to myself that the trilogy wasn’t a fluke or my One Shot at Greatness. [The unexpected icing on the cake, I should add, was the multiple downloads of the Bridgetown Trilogy this past week, thanks to the Smashwords sale. One or two downloads makes me happy; five or six a day all week long felt amazing. I thank all of you new readers for that!!]
That feeling when you suddenly realize you’re exactly where you want to be as a writer, though?
That feels absolutely AMAZING. It took forever to get here, but I’m glad I stayed with it.
HEY THERE! One more shameless plug here at Welcome to Bridgetown to let you know that my new book is still on sale for ONLY A BUCK FIFTY at Smashwords! It’s available in all formats including Nook and Kindle. Today’s the last day of the sale, though, then it’s going back up to the insane price of $2.99. Go get it before it’s too late!
Yes! I know some of you readers out there are also bloggers (and some of you are even GoodReads members), so I’ll lay it out: interested in a fun, quick read about the shenanigans of a bunch of teenage rockers in the 90s? Love reading music bios that reveal all the sordid secrets behind the fame? Interested in doing a review either on your site or at GoodReads?
Let me know by commenting here or emailing me directly at joncwriter (at) yahoo dot com (with the subject line ‘Andersonville’) and I can hook you up with A FREE COPY OF THE E-BOOK, whichever format you need! All I ask in return is that you provide a review, either at GoodReads or on your blog. Doesn’t need to be anything long-winded — even just a starred rating will do!
“Rule number one in the music business: never start a band with any members of your family.
Sure, it’ll start off just fine, everyone having fun, with big dreams of success and gold records, but then you realize you’re stuck in a stinking, too-small tour bus with your siblings for the fifth year running, and your brother hates you. Next thing you know, the band implodes just as it’s reaching its highest success, your family won’t talk to you anymore, the press is having a field day ripping you to shreds, and you’ll need to start your career all over again as a solo act. If you dare to at that point.
Rule number two in the music business: rules were made to be broken.” — Thomas Lidwell
Meet the Lidwells! is the story of four siblings and two cousins who start a band as teenagers and achieve success beyond their wildest dreams. But while they consistently top the charts with their irresistibly catchy tunes, they’re also fighting their own demons: perfectionism, disenchantment, addiction, exhaustion, sexism…and figuring out how to become an adult in front of millions of fans.
** NOW AVAILABLE AT SMASHWORDS! ON SALE ALL THIS WEEK FOR ONLY $1.50! Come check it out!
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in Babes in Arms (1939)
How the hell do you self-promote your self-published book, anyway? That’s a damn good question, because I’ve heard so many different and varying (and often conflicting) answers that I sometimes wonder if anyone knows at all.
So I’m doing a bit of everything, to be honest. I’ve created flyers for the trilogy. I’ve posted hither and yon on social media. I’ve sent copies to various websites like BookLife, NoiseTrade, and so on. I’ve posted to GoodReads. I’ve submitted to legitimate novel writing contests. I’ve created a mailing list. I’ve promoted myself at cons. I’ve read a lot of different blogs and listened to various podcasts. I’ve done a lot of it in one way or another, to varying degrees of success.
This isn’t to say no one knows what they’re doing, far from it; it’s that there’s a hell of a lot of different ways to do it, and they’re doing what works for them.
When I uploaded A Division of Souls as a pay-what-you-want e-book on NoiseTrade a few years ago, I didn’t get much money out of it, but I certain got a hell of a lot of downloads, over 250 of them. And even though I haven’t done any major promotion on the trilogy for quite some time, I’ll still get the occasional download hit either on Amazon or on Smashwords. [Those might be few and far between, but they still put a smile on my face when I get an unexpected payment!]
Right now I’m planning out how to self-promote Meet the Lidwells!, and this time out I’m thinking of being a bit creative with it. I’ll reach out to the websites I tried before, with a focus on music-related blogs and sites (such as NoiseTrade) as well as any other bloggers who might be interested in doing a review. I’m also thinking of doing some minor advertising in some of the writing magazines I read as well — maybe a one-column thumbnail ad or something. The book will drop later this month, so I’ve got to work on getting all this out pretty soon!
If I’ve learned anything over the past three years that I’ve been self-publishing, it’s that this field truly is all about the DIY, where the long-established rules don’t always apply. Sometimes your attempts at self-promotion will fall flat, other times it’ll catch on and grow far beyond your expectations. There’s a lot at play here: the kind of book you’ve written, the people and businesses you interact with, the people you’ve hired for production work, right down to the price you decide to give it. And you can do exactly what professional self-publishers (such as David Gaughran or Joel Friedlander) suggest, and it might work for you, or it might not. It really is a bit of a gamble each and every time.
It’s a learning experience every time I release a book. In a way, it’s like the classic Babes in Arms trope: ‘Let’s put on a show in the barn!’ You’re out to show that you can do it, and that you want your audience to enjoy it, but you’re really not sure if it’ll work unless you actually do it. But regardless, the payoff is still worth it.
Welcome to Bridgetown 