Persistence Is Key

Nobody is going to tell you to write a book. It just never happens. What usually happens is you get an inkling about maybe kinda sorta writing a book. It starts off small. Maybe you come up with a character or two in the shower. By the time dinner rolls around, you find yourself with a plot. Then a beginning. Then an ending. The middle is your job. That's where the real work is laid out. Because if you got a killer beginning and a dynamite ending, then its up to you, and you alone, who has to hold the audience for an extended period. 

It can be difficult at times.

Little trolls plant seeds of self-doubt in your head.

Is this a strong enough beginning? Why did I put that obstacle in front of that one character? Will this even make sense?

But there is one thing to look out for if you are a truly dedicated writer. And that is Persistence.

When I first started, back in 1999, I knew that I'd write garbage. I gave myself time to write the most awful work I could. Wrote 168 pages of fiction then deleted the entire thing. I also had four or five ideas brewing. Maybe altogether I had 500 to 1,000 words to work with.

There was this old desktop computer I had when I first wrote. It was bulky, black, an Acer brand. Thing is, this computer was incredibly slow. It wasn't new either. My aunt gave it to me because she was getting a new one. My writing ritual would always start the same.

I'd take the stairs up to the attic, turn the corner, sit at my desk, turn on the computer, then pull out whatever book I was reading at the time. Different Seasons by Stephen King was always a favorite. I'd read this book because it took 20 to 30 minutes for the computer to boot up. When it was fully on, I'd open up Microsoft Office, which took another 10 minutes, and I'd start typing. There was the occasional freeze which was annoying but would clear up after 10 or 15 minutes. 

So, all told, it took me an hour of wait time each time I sat down to write. But I didn't care. If a novel is intriguing, you'll become real persistent. Wrote 80,000 words on that computer. Now I sit here and wonder how I ever had the patience. 15 years later and I've already written 500,000 words. It just takes persistence.

Persistence is key.


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Rough Draft Interview with Michael Robertson Jr.

As a writer, you have to read a lot. You have to study other people's work. I love reading everything. I like to pay tribute to Self-Published books and Traditional published books because I see strengths in both. So when I stumbled onto Rough Draft by Michael Robertson Jr, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only is he capable of creating atmosphere, likable characters and intrigue but he has also published five other works, including Regret. Which I'm happy to say that is my next book to read.

I contacted the author and wanted to see if he would be up for an interview. Here's what he had to say:

1.     What is your earliest memory of writing?

I remember one time in the 3^rd grade when the book fair was at my school and I saw one of those book adaptations from some current children’s movie that was popular at the time. I was immediately possessed by the idea that I would write a book adaptation of a favorite movie of mine. I got home from school that day and popped in the VHS, sat down with a piece of paper and pencil, and started to write out all the dialogue in the movie. I made it about five minutes…

Not a glamorous or successful start, but a start, nonetheless.

2.     When did you decide to be a writer?

When I was young (Elementary school) I used to love to write little stories. We had this yearly event called the Young Authors Contest, and I always got excited about what story I’d write that year. As I got older, I drifted into sports and didn’t write anything that wasn’t required for school.

However, I’ve always been a reader at heart. Devoured books at all ages, all through school.  I was the guy reading a Stephen King novel on the bleachers waiting for basketball practice to start. One day when I was about twenty I inexplicably got the itch to start writing again. I remember reading books and thinking, Man, I’d really like to try telling a story of my own. That weekend I wrote the first chapter of the first novel I’d ever written. That book will never see the light of day, but I had a blast and haven’t really looked back.

3.     Do you get writer's block? How do you combat it?

People have different views and definitions for what they believe writer’s block is, and to answer I can give you two different ways I’ve experienced it.

The first is more of the common definition I suppose. I was writing my novel Regret, and about half way through I hit a road block. The story had been going along fine, I was piecing it together nicely (so I hoped) and then BAM! Complete plot failure. My issue wasn’t so much WHAT was going to happen, but WHY it was going to happen. And that WHY was going to have to fuel the events of the entire last half of the novel. I don’t think I wrote anything on the manuscript for close to a month. How’d I combat it? Just a lot of thinking and pondering as I drove around town, or as I was falling asleep.

Second, I don’t experience writer’s block as much as I do “Idea Block” – I think my biggest fear is that I will run out of things to write, that I won’t be able to come up with anything semi-original or intriguing enough to justify writing. I go through that a lot. Basically between every story and novel.

4.What's your writing routine? Do you write longhand, typewriter or computer?

I’m self-published, still work a 9-5 as a Director of IT, and of course have a normal life to contend with. My routine is non-existent with the exception of there’s usually coffee or tea in large quantities. I write either in the early mornings, or late at night… or sometimes at work if it’s—I mean, yeah, mornings or nights. I write on a computer and have to have quiet. I know a lot of writers like to write with music playing but I can’t do it. My brain tends to focus on the sounds and not the words I’m trying to put on the screen. Although as an experiment one time I did write a short story with the Inception soundtrack playing. It was pretty gruesome (the story, not the music), so maybe there’s something to it. Maybe I’ll give it another shot in the future.

5.     Rough Draft is a real page turner. What inspired you to write it?

My mother is just as avid (if not more so) a reader as I am and we had an email conversation one day discussing three of our favorite authors and the styles of each of them (they all write horror / thrillers) and what each of their strengths were. I made the comment to her that it would be really fascinating to read a collaboration by the three of them. As soon as I typed the words I saw an image in my head of the three writers sitting in a cabin in the woods, their laptops on a table, working together on this potentially epic novel. The idea grew from there.

6.     I notice that within the book you give a nod to your Pseudonym  Dan Dawkins. Why did you choose to write under a pen name?

I actually wrote a blog post of my own back in January of 2012 explaining why I published Regret and The Teachers’ Lounge as Dan Dawkins. The quick answer is this: My novel Regret is a tell-all memoir of a man who reached his breaking point and snapped in horrible ways. This man also happened to be a writer of fiction. I thought it would be a neat marketing tactic to put the book out as Dan Dawkins and see what the reaction was. I didn’t come clean about it being myself who’d written the book until much later. You can read my full explanation here;http://mrobertsonjr.com/blog-news/2012/1/31/why-i-published-as-dan-dawkins.html

7.     I loved the idea of three writers figuring out what happened to this abandoned town. Is this partly inspired by the Lost Colony of Roanoke?

I’m familiar with the story of Roanoke, and maybe subliminally Rough Draft was influenced by memories I had of the tale, but I don’t think I ever consciously thought of Roanoke as I was writing.

8.     This book caught me off guard with how unpredictable it is. Was it outlined or did you write freely?

When I started writing Rough Draft the only thing I knew was I had to get three horror writers to the cabin in the woods and they were going to be forced to write a book together before they’d be allowed to leave. I had no idea why at the time. I got them there, and then gradually came up with the reasoning. Once I had the reasoning, I had my ending (somewhat), but everything in the middle was unplanned and not outlined at all. I can’t outline to save my life. I just see where the characters take me. I put the puzzle together one chapter at a time. Trying to think one or two steps ahead but usually having to go back three.

9.     What are you working on now?

Right now I’m working on the beginnings of a new novel. Only have about 20k words, but I think it has potential. However, I’ve got a lot going on outside of writing (recently married, trying to sell and buy a house, the holidays are coming up) so I’m not really able to focus on it as much as I’d like. I think I’m going to shelve it for a while and write two other ideas I’ve recently had (they’ll be short stories or novellas), and pick the novel back up once things calm down.

10. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

This is the question that I myself always looked forward to hearing answered during author interviews I watched or read. And the answer that always comes up is simultaneously the best answer, and most boring answer that nobody wants to hear—You have to read a lot and you have to write a lot. There’s no other way to develop your skills as a writer. It’s the only way to find your voice.

Another answer that I’ve recently discovered and I think is fantastic is one I heard Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son, who can write with the best of them) say at a recent reading he did. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, don’t set out to write a short story, or a novella, or a novel. Just sit down each day and make it your goal to write one really good scene. Don’t just write about your character getting up and eating breakfast, just to get your words in for the day, but each time you write, go for one really good scene. You do that over and over and eventually you’ll have something. 

What I'm Not

I'm not a writer dying to be published. I already am. I am self-published and proud of it. Nobody forced me into it and I knew it would not be quick and simple. My biggest fear was never having anything read that I had written. I wanted my voice out there so I put it out there. I'm never going to apologize for that. I'm not a writer who is longing to be published to the esteemed New Yorker. I'm not a writer who feels that exclusivity is a bench mark and that rejection is a totem of climbing success. I'm not a writer concerned about how many degrees you have. You want to impress me? Turn a blank page into something creative.
That will impress me. 

I'm not a writer who toils for years on the perfect modern american novel. I used to think that was what a writer was supposed to be all about. I was highly misinformed. I'm not a writer who will tell you to quit or that there are too many books out there in the ether. I've read amazing stories and have been wowed in many unique ways a thousand times over. Sure there are a lot of books out there. But yours is not out there yet and it needs to be. I'm not a writer who will settle for the notoriety of having written something. I want to support my family writing interesting stories to the amusement of the masses. That's what I'm all about. And I happen to want to write a lot. 

I'm not a writer who will write the same predictable story again and again. I am always striving to write something different; to venture further away from my comfort zone. in doing this I've discovered that approaching each story with a different eye gives the material that much more vibrancy and life. Never be comfortable. Always be willing to change and try something new.

I'm not a writer who believes that you only have one good story in you. Count up all the times you've played the 'What If?' game in your head. I bet it was more than one time. I'm not a writer who will buy reviews, no matter how tempting that might be. You wanna review something of mine? Fine with me. If its a five star review, that will put a smile on my face for a while but it will do nothing for me in the long run. If its a 3 to 1 star review filled with constructive feedback I may brood over it for weeks but in the end I will dust myself off and try to win you back with the next title. I'm not a writer who will offer you runaround advice on how to write. I'm gonna give you exactly what I learned and when I learned it and tell you straight out that you might find a different formula but so long as words get on the page, you've done something right. I'm not a writer who will slow down and take it easy. People have been telling me to take it easy my whole life. If I wanna fill up my tank and take a journey through a landscape of words leaving behind a lengthy back-list of written works in my wake then who are you to tell me to slow down? 

I'm not a writer who will compromise on story. If a story is engaging and rips an emotion from you, then that story has become a part of you and I believe that someone else needs to experience that same visceral feeling. I'm not a writer who believes this is art. This is work. A lot of work. And you know what comes after all that hard work? An income. If you've published hundreds of short stories to countless magazines and in the end you are dirt poor, you need to start selling your stories on the streets. Maybe then, through stomping those streets, you'll see how much more profitable and rewarding it is to talk directly to readers about your stories. I'm not a writer who supports these "Get Rich Quick On Kindle Scheme" ebooks. They are taking advantage of you and are simply driving up their sales on the backs of desperate people. I am not a writer who will ever write a How-To Book on writing. A memoir of writing, perhaps that's in the cards. But how can I possibly tell you how to write a book when I myself am constantly learning new things?

I am not a writer easily dismayed by dwindling sales or lackluster feedback. You ignore me, I'm just going to keep showing up. I'm not a writer who is going to charm you. At the end of the day, if you are driven to read something of mine and want to talk about it or the act of writing itself, then you have my full undivided attention. I'm not a great writer. I would say I'm a competent one. I've weaved enough story ideas that when I explain them to people, they scoot forward and are nearing the edge of their seats. That's why I do this; for the thrill of connecting with readers.

I am not a lot of things. What I am is a writer with heart. And if you've just read this and feel inspired to start writing yourself, then I bet that you have some heart too.

Walk Like An Addiction

For the past 13 years, I have been chasing the dragon. It’s a hard drug. One that many people try to gain but some fizzle out with less than nothing to show for it. I began at the age of 14. A young age. I was unsure and always stumbling. I charged forward, trying to chase some semblance of an existence where I could cling to my addiction while still maintaining a healthy, sane life.

          In the beginning I tried jokes. I aspired to be a comedian, learning the greats…also a bit of the weird icons of my youth. Eddie Murphy, Andy Kaufman, Richard Pryor. I studied all of them. While I lacked the physicality of Jim Carrey, I tried blunt force trauma with my humor. A dash of deadpan, a bit of bravery and I was on my way. I even went as far as perfecting the Eddie Murphy laugh and the simple action of joke and punch line. My segments were normally done in two acts.

          No problem, I told myself, I’d get discovered eventually.

          I was basing this pipe dream on one twenty minute act I had done at a talent show when I was eleven or twelve years old. That’s when I was first introduced to the drug.

          I stumbled, naturally, twice, taking the audience of about fifty or so by surprise by coming out with it and saying, “Oh boy…am I nervous.”

          My quips were met with respectable chuckles but what really floored them was my ending joke. No, I did not wow them with my puppet act which only lasted five minutes or my quick-thinking distraction of pointing my parents out in the audience. But what really let the dam burst wide open was when I said, somewhat abruptly, wiping the sweat from my forehead, regretting wearing a small suit with slicked back hair, “Man, how many times am I gonna be nervous already? Usually they have a glass of water up here.”

          That’s when it hit them.

          It started like a wave.

       One kid, my brother’s friend, fell out of his chair, clutching his stomach with laughter. My father, by the end of taping remarked, clear as day into the microphone of the camera, “I almost pissed my pants.”

         But even after, the drug would not do it for me anymore. I didn’t let anyone know I was taking it.

        Later on in life, I turned, while intoxicated on the drug, to a new way to unleash my eccentricities on an audience. I turned to magic. Even then I was unsure of myself, feeling darkness in the pit of my stomach whenever I tried to abuse the drug.

         One night I foolishly did a practice run of a magic act for my sister which I would perform at someone’s birthday party. Don’t ask me whose house. I have long forgotten that. You would too. I started this sentence with foolishly because anyone would be considered a damn fool for revealing anything to their sister. The sibling rivalry we endured over the years reached epic proportions. But no match was won so brutally on such a bitter night then when my sister, in the middle of a group of kids nearing fifteen in all, loudly proclaimed that the act was flawed. I quivered in my top hat, was shaking with uncertainty as I started my program.

          With each trick she gleefully pointed out all the secrets of my act. I’m talking every…damn...one.

          “The cards are marked!” she cried. “The tube has a mirror, the plates are an optical illusion, there’s a hole in the back of the deck, a string is attached, etc.”

          And on and on it went.

          I was down to the last two tricks in my bag but, in a fever of hate, packed up my briefcase and foldout table and stormed out. I circled the block, dragging the table with me. It made a horrible scrapping sound on the road. It echoed my distaste for such a mean trick. I thought I would get the drug that night, but it couldn’t be found. I had misplaced it.

          As a film director, I carried this burden. I guess I was well in line with everyone else because at that time, in my teens, all the would-be artists were taking drugs.

        Then, like most of my phases, I fell out of it. The drug was there, pedaling around inside my head, but there was still a void.

         It was the month of being a sophomore that I was struck with four ideas. If I remember correctly, these four ideas said something to me in the computer lab on the third floor of my high school that day. They said that they could not be filmed. Sure, they could, but with my budget, a film would not do them justice.

          So I wrote.

          I wrote and set the four ideas aside.

          I wrote a list of more ideas.

          I began writing a novel.

          I began showing people the first twenty pages.

       Now I knew the name of the drug I had been chasing all these years; Awe. I wanted to shock, entrance, hypnotize, command, terrify and juggle with people’s imagination. It was the drug of Storytelling. It was a drug so sweet when you get a taste, that you always go back for more.

        Yes, I have seventy or so ideas waiting to be written, but something tells me, when I’m in my seventies, I will well have surpassed that number in stories. What I’m trying to tell you, friends, is that Storytelling is a very powerful drug. One which I hope to never recover from. For I am happily hooked on it.

         

Now You're Just Some TV Show I Used To Know...

Adaptation.

It's a word we often hear but seldom see it done well. What's the last good adaptation you've seen? Was it faithful to the book? Did it stray from the source material? How about the Characters? Was each one represented well?

I think the last good adaption I saw was The Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont. I read the novella years after seeing the movie and, y'know what? It's pretty much on the mark.

So what is it that has me so frazzled, so steaming that I absolutely 100 percent had to blog about it?

That would be...

UNDER THE DOME

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!

So, okay, let's get into it.

In the past I have seen phrases like this on a movie poster:

Based on true events, Based on a True Story, Based on the Book, Inspired by The Article (Live Free or Did Hard)

I think we should add a new category: Loosely Based on the Book.

At least with that subtitle, you know full well what you are in for. 

In October of 2012, I finished reading Under The Dome and was compelled to write a review of it on this blog.

Since then, I've heard nothing but constant buzz about the movie and how it finally evolved into a show. So when I saw that it popped up on Amazon Prime a month ago, I flipped it on and started watching. For the first three episodes the show was solid. But with each episode after, I started getting aincy. The characters were not being themselves.

Granted, I was up for some changes. But each episode is changing too much.

Changes I don't mind:

- In the original opening of the novel, a woodchuck is severed by the dome. We even get a peek inside his thoughts. In the show, it's a cow instead. I see why they did this. A woodchuck would be silly and a cow being severed in more visually shocking.

- The people within the dome can see through the structure but can't be heard on the outside. Likewise, the people outside it can't hear them either. That's going to be tough to get around, I thought, seeing as how in the book, people held entire conversations with each other through the dome.

- Phil Bushy is a good guy. I don't mind that. He was a good character and I thought, well, it'd probably be more compelling for him to turn bad if people see he was a likable guy before.

Now here's where things start going south:

- There are not enough shots of the dome.

- People seem to carry on as normal at times.

- Barbie, instead of being the drifter not looking for trouble, is now a hitman. (Seriously?)

- Julie Shumway used to be a no nonsense reporter but is now shoved into the vulnerable widow category.

- Junior is psychotic but he doesn't kill Angie. Only holds her captive. In the novel he was way more menacing and a definite threat.

- Big Jim Rennie is now someone who wants the town to like him. (Quick note: None of these criticisms are slights on any of the actor's performances. Given what they had, I think that they act well when they had good dialogue in the beginning. But the more the show strayed, the more the script, in my opinion, took a hit.)

-It can rain in the dome. (Wait. What?)

- Now a new character shows up, Maxine, and tells Jim Rennie and Barbie, "Oh, guess what? I've been watching everything going on inside the whole time. So now, since I'm bored. I'm going to blackmail all of you. Soooo yeah. That's happening. So everyone get used to it because now I have the power. Mah hahaha!" (Okay, she didn't quite say it like that but I was rolling my eyes. This started feeling like a whole other dome on a whole other town. Where were all the characters and situations I had once connected with?)

After the 10th episode, I gave up. It just felt formulaic. But I'm not the only one. Many people have been burned by this show, filling the message boards with nothing but hate. Enough to a point that Stephen King himself wrote a public message on his site, praising the show and its courage to strike out on whole new story avenues. 

Can't fault him for that, right? He's a good writer and if he wanted to sell his work, good for him. He knew there were going to be changes to it. But something about it bothered me.

Then I finally figured it out.

It's not that I hated the show. It's just that it exhibited traits that I had seen before. Gimmicks that I was burned by once before...

That's right. Lost. 

One of the writers on Under The Dome is responsible for Lost.

I see all these traits:

- People asking questions and getting no definitive answer.

- Characters attributing every mystery to the Dome, like the island.

- Villainous characters turning good and good guys turning bad. Then they swap back.

It all just pisses me off.

So I left that show.

Then I started getting interested in reading the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Storm Front and Fool Moon.)

I liked it a lot and will read more of the series but I wanted to check out the show which had one season on SyFy and just so happened to be in my Netflix Queue.

Why is it that a television show will never give me the story I want from the book? 

All of a sudden, I've got nothing but questions: Who is this girl in bed with Dresden? Isn't he supposed to be chivalrous and not a chick magnet? Jeep? What happened to the VW Bug? Bob's out of his skull? Why does he look like a white-haired Tim Curry? Where's the classic Harry wit? I dunno, I guess once tv execs get their hands on it, the source material goes out the window.

So, in the end, I'll just read the books. I like them better. A show or a movie cannot capture what a novel does to you. Maybe that's just the way it is.

My Kobo Experience

As an experiment, and a way of branching out a little, I decided to take one title of mine (Village Americana) and put it up on a site called Kobo Books. Recently they've added the Kobo Writing Life program, in where self-publishers can upload their work. I uploaded the book to both Amazon and Kobo at approxametly 10:30pm on April 7th. Let's see how these two sites stack up.


Uploading:

Amazon - Within just six hours, the title was already live.
Kobo - Kept checking the site constantly. Finally went live on 4/9. They have instructions for you to email them if it takes longer than 72 hours.


Ranking:

Amazon - While writing this post, the ebook is #96,228
Kobo - Ranking in three categories: Fiction, War - #619, Thrillers - #4093, Suspense - #3240


De-Listing:

Amazon - As far as I know, you cannot de-list a book.
Kobo - As soon as you click the button, boom, the book is de-listed.

Free Promos:
Amazon - If you sign up with KDP Select your book has five promotional days which helps promote your work.
Kobo - You can mark your title free anytime you want, with no three month exclusivity clause.


I think Kobo might be a good contender, but it will take some time for it to rival the top dog.

Mr. Mom

Let me tell you something: It is such a thrill being a dad. Seriously. I always knew I wanted kids but when it actually happens its all so mixed up and exciting. On April 30th, my entire life changed. What happened was my wife woke up that day to inform me that her water had broken. Quick as a flash we packed up all our stuff and drove to the hospital. The hospital was 16 miles away, traffic was mild. My wife was not worried in the slightest. Called my work and officially started my paternity leave.

10 hours and a whole lot of praying later, our daughter was born. I was right their on the front line, making grown-up decisions, having a surreal feeling about the experience. She was a tough one and had some trouble coming out so we had to sign papers for a C-section; a procedure we originally dreaded.

A team of doctors and nurses worked hard and made me proud by being very professional, calm and even joyful. They took our daughter to a table where they cleaned her up.

The doctor working on my wife said, "Hey Daddy, go ahead. You can go over and say hi to your daughter."

So I sat right up and I did.

There she was, the little tyke who was previously kicking around inside my wife's belly.

Naturally, I found the humor in the situation as she turned her head to me and cried out.

"Hi, kiddo. Name's Roberto. I'm your father."

I held out my hand for a shake.

Her transfixed eyes studied me then she cried again.

"I know, I know. It was tough in there, huh?"

Again, she studied me curiously, then let out a small, little, teeny-tiny cry.

"I know. I'm sorry. I know it sounds like I'm shouting. I only have two settings: Loud and Too Loud."

This made the doctor crack up.

The funny thing is, she actually kept quiet whenever I spoke. She was actually hanging on my every word. It was so neat.

They cleaned her up some more then we all regrouped in our own private room. It was a room where we endured what I would later dub hell week. I didn't want to sleep, forgot to eat and always questioned the next checkup, blood test and procedure. She was so small and I was protective of her. In five days I must have racked up as little as 9 hours total.

In the end she had to go into a light box to settle down something called Billy Rubin.

We were able to bring her home, once it settled down and we couldn't have been happier. As we fed her in the nursery, my wife was telling me something funny and I laughed. Then our daughter laughed. Then we all laughed.

Over these past couple months our daughter has grown, gotten chunky, gotten cuter (didn't know that was possible) and totally looks like her mom.

I've played with the idea of writing a Dad-Guide Book. I guess my first chapter would be titled: "Don't panic. Everything is already all kinds of chaos."

Raising this kid has been non-stop fun. It's also been very revealing. She seems to get smarter every day. 

Here's what I've learned about myself while raising our daughter:

1. Changing diapers doesn't phase me. I used to work sewer and water and have filled my quota for smelling the foulest things of all the land.
2. I'm always trying to make our daughter laugh. It isn't hard to do. But if you make her laugh to much, she gets the hiccups.
3. I feel at ease in caring for her.
4. When she cries I don't get angry or annoyed. It just makes me love her even more. She's crying because she needs me. As a parent, it makes you feel good.
5. Having a kid promotes the idea of becoming a recluse. I'm a writer already, so it kind of works.
6. Speaking of writing, you'd think that raising our daughter would cut into my writing time. Quite the contrary. Since I have a 2nd shift job, my duty is to help out where I can. My main deal is staying up until 5am for the midnight feeding. After a bottle, a change and a seat in the rocker, my daughter is out like a light, freeing me up to write sometimes 3 to 4 hours at a time. Talk about a boost.
7. Becoming a father has filled me up and made me feel accomplished. I don't care about getting rich or traveling the world. As long as I have my wife and my kid to look after, my life is complete.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

One Happy Papa

(Sophia Grace Scarlato)

In That Moment

Don't wait to write.

Write In That Moment.

Yes, I know what you are saying. Nobody writes in the moment. You have to wait for that moment. You must wait to be inspired. Well, sounds like a bunch of B.S. to me.

Why, you ask?

Well, because lately I've been reading Hemingway's A Movable Feast, an account of his early days writing in Paris. I'm beginning to see what he was talking about. Let's say you've got a scene in your head. Doesn't matter what story its for, just bare with me for a second. You know you have a scene in your head right this second. It's been one you've been toying around with for a while. One that you've been putting off because you don't think it's fully developed yet. You have to wait for that golden moment when everything makes sense and not one shred of it is tainted by clumsy dialogue or wooden prose. Am I right?

Well, would you do me a favor and write that scene right now?

Don't worry.

It may seem difficult at first but, before you know it, that one seemingly innocuous scene will come to life. Your characters will start moving around, talking to one another. The plot will veer in stunning directions you hadn't thought of yet. It will be like alchemy when the lead finally turns to gold. And it will all be due to the fact that you took five minutes and just wrote that one scene down.

I'm not talking out of my rear over here. It's been happening to me too. Every day, in fact, I find that I get a small glimpse of a scene in my head and automatically whip out a pad and pen and start jotting something down to see where it goes. Nevermind that it's not part of the short story that I'm writing. Or that it is a scene three books down the line. The point is that after it is done: you will have something written. And the goal to writing consistently is to have a lot of stuff written

Hemingway comments on how he would write things until he felt empty. Then, in time, he would feel his metaphorical writer's well of ideas filling up again. So, you see, if you are a writer who wants to write. Just write. Your well will always fill back up again and you'll have more stuff written.

(P.S. I tried it again tonight. This whole write-when-you-get-a-scene-in-your-head routine and it paid off. I got about 2,000 words out.)

It Was A Dark And Stormy Day

Chicago is a great place but sometimes the weather can be annoyingly unpredictable. It changes constantly but it also changes moods as well. I would say that winter is my worst season for writing. Usually I'm so utterly frustrated that I don't have the heart to write anything down. But on rainy days, I'm a writin' fool. Lately, our fair city, has been getting quite a few of those rainy days and brother, the proof is in the pudding. A couple posts back I talked about a milestone I had reached. I had written and published 340,000 words. Not too shabby. It's all due to this excel program that my wife suggested.

With this program I've not only been able to keep track of the titles I have up now but I'm also tracking my word count progress on projects in-the-works. Altogether it totals to a whopping 387,334 words. Three short stories are done (Sci-fi, Humor, Fantasy), and several novellas are coming soon.

Back to the weather, today we had partly cloudy with a chance of HOLYS#*@! But the madness only lasted for four hours or so. The sky went from blue, to orange to green. And when the sky turns green you best believe that's the color for "leave the scene."

And as quick as it came, it faded into the distance.

Does this kinda weather bother me?

Not at all. I'm used to it. In fact, I say bring on the rain because if it takes severe thunderstorms to produce 47,000 words, you better believe I'm going to be praying for rain everyday!!!

The Insanity of My First Book Cover

(WHAT HAVE I DONE?)

Covers are the biggest tool to getting your books sold. But as an eager first-time author, I was unaware of just how important a good cover can be. I explained, early in 2008, that if you want a good cover, pay someone to design the cover. Don't do-it-yourself unless absolutely necessary. Believe me, I know the pain of what a so-so cover can do. You may have written a story that is spectacular, original even.

But all the originality in the world will not save you from a horrible cover design.

I recently read a blogpost from Failure Ahoy! which inspired the post I'm writing now. I feel ya, Edward Robertson.

Let me show you the first cover I ever had the displeasure of making.

Here it is, folks. Yikes, there's a lot wrong with this cover. So let's go through it and I'll show you how I got totally blindsided with what I was doing.

1. Here's where I messed up. The way I had envisioned the cover was similar to a comic book or graphic novel. The only problem is, the series I wanted to create had only a few stories that were connected in some small way. They did a write-up in the local newspaper about me and how I planned to pen a twenty book series. Ambitious? Sure. Smart about it? No. I thought I should label each book in the corner  like it was a new issue every time.
2. The D.F. in the bubble stood for the series name which I called Deranged Flashes. Doesn't make much sense does it? I thought it did. So I wanted each one to be labeled this way.
3. So if I have D.F. in the corner, why would I spell out Deranged Flashes Series in the other corner? Also, if you look in the background you'll see black tiles with white grouting. Originally I wanted black bricks but couldn't find the image online and just settled with tiles.
4. In staying true to the comic book feel, the title is in a yellow banner. So already we have too many colors colliding together: Black, white, yellow, green, red. Even though the font of the title is the one I wanted, I have to admit, it is too big. I also put the label A NOVEL underneath it. Y'know, in case you didn't get it the first time round.
5. The main picture takes up about half of the entire cover and boy is it ever complicated. The man in the photo was my friend from grade school. I caught up with him in college, marveled at how much he looked exactly like my main character and asked if he could pose for the cover. So one day when he wasn't too busy I asked him to stand "menacingly" in a hallway that looked similar to a hospital corridor. I put the picture into simple photo editor, added a negative effect with a over-exposed print effect and then turned it blue. I thought each cover would look unique with a different cover scheme. The next book would've been brown with the third book being bright yellow. I don't know what I was thinking but obviously this whole setup does not work.
6. Lastly, my name, sectioned off in a border of white and in the same font which, looking back on it now, makes me cringe. I read somewhere that if you put your name in red it is more likely to be noticed and easy to remember. Well, how can that be when there are so many other things distracting you?

I messed up. I messed up royally. But that didn't stop me publishing this with iUniverse. The book was public for 3 months and sold 15 copies before I wised up and decided to pull it from production. Even so, the book is still available at amazon.

I tried messaging amazon to have it taken down but that went no where. Every so often I see the book for sale for 400 bucks. On eBay I saw someone was trying to sell it for 10,000 bucks. Granted, it was an early draft, not my best, and had a crappy cover. So why that much money? Well, as I said before, I only sold 15 copies, so I guess in some circles that makes the book rare. But to me it will always be a costly mistake.

When the opportunity to re-publish to kindle arose, I didn't want to be too hasty. So I put up a collection of short stories to start with. Then I began the task of re-thinking the cover. Since I colossally complicated the last one with too much over-thinking, I wanted to go simple with the new one. I wanted something creepy and yet mysterious. Something that looked like a movie poster. So, as I was reading this one book by N. Frank Daniels' (Futureproof), and I noticed how visually appealing the cover was and did some research into royalty free images. I must have looked at a hundred pics until I settled for the one I have now.

But I'm glad that I did. Not only does the cover show the world you are about to get into but it also has shades of blue, which was the color that continually drove the style of the story.




So do yourselves a favor if you haven't already: admit to yourself that sooner or later you have to spend money on a cover for your book. 

Which Tool is More Productive?

I was thinking about this earlier today and thought I'd list which writing tools I've used over the years and which were the most effective:

1. Receipts - At most these tiny scraps of paper are good for writing titles, character names, plot points and premises. I doubt you could write a full book on them. (10 - 50 words)
2. Moleskin Notebook - I've only owned a few of these. They work pretty well when you have an entire scene you want to block out or some snappy, yes, I just said 'snappy', dialogue that you want to get out. (50 - 100 words)
3. Blank White Paper - 8x11 white printing paper has become the bane of my existence. Yes, you can carry out a scene on one, even several. But, damn are they easy to misplace. I won't write on these unless I absolutely have to. I use them to make lists of ideas. (100 words)
4. Electric Typewriter - Used one once and nearly threw it at the wall. Typed only three pages and gave up because the damn thing was out of whack and kept erasing my stuff. (0 words)
5. Legal Pads - If they are the small, spiral ones, I can get a lot of work done. I don't enjoy writing longhand but lately I've been able to attack my stories (10,000 words) at a time with these things.
6. Laptop - So far, on laptops I've had quite a bit of luck. I pounded out one novel.  (90,000 words)
7. Desktop Computer - First novel was written on an Acer Desktop that was very slow. (87,000 words)
8. Tape Recorder - I was able to block out a few scenes from my first novel onto this thing. It helped with dialogue. (10,000 words)
9. Blackberry Phone - Lately, I've been having a great time typing story ideas as well as whole chapter on my blackberry phone. Recently I had to discontinue my service on the phone to get a cheaper plan but I still keep the phone in order to write more books. Its great. It's portable, simple, and I can transfer all the files via USB port. Just like a compact typewriter in your pocket. (30,000 words.)

So what is your most productive writing tool?

My Thoughts On KDP Select

I started publishing ebooks as far back as 2009. One of the many questions I had was how on earth would I be able to gain enough exposure and sell more copies? The biggest suggestion is to offer your books for free. So I have. I have taken full advantage of both Smashwords and Amazon when it comes to giving away free books. The only problem I thought I had was the exclusivity agreement that Amazon proposed. Three months is a very long time to wait to put your ebooks up on other sites. But, nevertheless, I tried it.

I tried it with all six of my titles.

Here's how many copies I've given away in all:

Smashwords - 4,274 copies
Amazon - 2,023 copies

Total: 6,297 copies

Does giving away free copies translate to actual paid sales?

In my opinion - Nope!

If anything, I think this helps you lose money. Both Free and 99 cents used to be good tactics to get your books out there. Sadly, that's not the case anymore. Sure, it is fun to get that little bit of an ego boost when you see your free title climb the charts...but that euphoric high is short lived once the promotions end.

The only thing that carried over was that I recieved one or two extra reviews and that's pretty much it.

So, for now, I think I'm going to drop out of KDP altogether and consider it just a simple experiment that didn't quite work for me.

After all, if exposure was key, I think I've exposed myself enough already.

Writer Milestone: 300,000 words!

*340,016

*This is the number of words I have published so far. 6 titles... 340, 016 words. I found this out while creating an Excel writing program for my past and future projects. Call it a Writer's Queue. 


I still can't believe it. 


What a milestone! 


That's over a quarter of a million words. 



So far I put up 25 separate writing projects to organize.



Got three more short stories lined up in the queue. 


I think every writer should make an excel program to keep them on track. What better way to organize your titles, see what date you published, and your word progress so far? I find myself checking and tweaking the program here and there just to see the word count climb.



Just had to share this.