Surfing The Blur

Let us begin with a digression: I have to report that my daily writing streak is pretty much in tatters, but for a good cause. Travel is hard on writing, but easy on fun and great for thinking. I’ve spent the last two weeks on impromptu travel ‘round these parts, mostly in Bangkok, meeting lots of old friends and making lots of new ones as I circulated amongst the bars and sights. As for writing? I made a conscious decsion to focus on people and let writing rest for a moment. Quoth I: There’ll be plenty of boring stretches of time that can be filled with glorious writing when I get back. Lo! I was correct, for here I am. Here’s the takeaway: Isolation is Bad for the writer, but trying to write with a lot of people around isn’t very helpful. Telling stories with a lot of people around, though?

Yeah, there’s the benefit right there. Each of those impromptu stories will almost certainly get a showing in writing as well. Because that’s all there is to it, this thing Writing: Tell a lie, then make it True. Blur the edges of reality, define the blur as a better reality--’better’ in this case to be read as ‘more interesting’--and then surf that blur with your audience until they’re having too much fun hanging on to notice when you’ve wandered them into unreality. The blur between unknowable fact and blatant fiction is called Truth, and all I need to do is construct a good enough lie to get people to believe in that Truth. 

That sexy, sexy Truth.

Productivity

I came back and read Dean Wesley Smith’s article where he discoursed on Production Schedules. I thought to myself: Why haven’t I thought to do that yet? Well, that’s what I’m going to do, in any case, because it’s so blindingly obvious. I’ve been organically developing a writing and publishing process, so this will be a good way to tie it all together. So far I’ve been writing “by series”, that is, I write such that I’ll fill out a 5-story series for ease of publishing. I think some actual calendar planning would help that out, and it’ll keep me professional to actually set a deadline for something besides these articles. And I’ll be able to brag more easily with hard data, so’s I can point at the wall calendar and say: “QUALE, MORTALS! Productivity is Afoot!” Of course, it might be spelled Quail, in which case mortals will have a jolly chuckle at my expense. Rude.

Writing Schedule

So really it comes down to coming up with a reasonable schedule that won’t get screwed up by overreaching. I had to sit down and think up what a normal day of writing should look like, mere desultory tapping away at the keys, no major effort of will involved. What I’m looking at is about 2500 words. Obviously, there’ve been days when I’ve written more, there’ve been days when I’ve written less, but on any given day that I’ve had to myself and haven’t lazed around like a loser, that’s a fair estimate of output. 

What writing do I want to schedule, then? I have two types of product, the short story and the serial. I want to write and publish at least one serial every month, for obvious reasons. That’s 12,500 words, or 5 days. Looking at the writing numbers, I should be able to write a series (five short stories) every 10 days, so we can put that down for two a month, or 20 days.

Publishing Schedule

Ten short stories and one serial every month, 25 solid writing days, which leaves 3-6 days for Publishing. I’m including these articles (about 800 words each) in Publishing, so that’s a couple hours of one day. Formatting 13 (10 stories, 2 series, 1 serial) titles and making 13 covers will eat up a solid day, but I’d schedule two because I usually try something new with each cover for my education and don’t like being rushed. Writing blurbs and putting everything up on Amazon and Smashwords is not actually that time-consuming if you’re in the zone and properly organized, so that’d be a half day. Any extra covers and formatting (such as a completed serial book or a 10 or 20 story pack) would be done sometime in there as well. 

All the Publishing stuff would happen at the end of the month, and the titles published the previous month would be announced during the publishing phase of the next month. They’d be sure to be up on most of the sites by then. I’d probably just make a big ole’ “Monthly Releases” announcement post on this site with all the covers and blurbs, and maybe schedule some individual title Twitter announcements throughout the month.

Strategy

If this seems a trifle quixotic, it might could be. But it seems like it should work, if I’m not lazy, if I’m, if you will, a Professional . As always, it really depends on my writing output, just sitting in a chair and typing the ideas down instead of sitting around doing nothing. I’m certain that actually having a schedule of some sort will at least motivate me to stick to it, if only to avoid that depressing whir and whistle of deadlines rushing by, like a falcon without a nest, et cetera.

If it works, it’ll work great. And hey? If it’s actually impossible, it’ll still be just the right lie I’ll need to tell myself to surf the blur to possible.

This version of Professional Edition will last until April 6, 2012, updating every Friday. Site design subject to change as I learn by doing. Like what you see? Spot something unprofessional? Feel free to comment!

Writing Short Stories

Enough about business already! It bores me, because it’s just not that complicated. Simple but hard, it appeals to my battering-ram mind. Yah, yah. Why don’t we chill out? With something complicated but fun: Writing a short story. The allure of the short story is easy to explain. For the reader, it’s a neat chunk of story convenient for reading on the go or in the course of a busy day. For the writer, it’s a great way to get a single concept on the page and get on with life. As a reader, I don’t read all that many books, but I boil through short stories like a boiler that is boiling on...extra boil? What? Leave it, the point is I Like Short Stories, and here’s exactly how I write them when I’m on top of my game (Why did he say boil?) Shut up. 

Step the First: Titles

Yes, I’m using the plural. We aren’t LITERARY (heaven help us), we’re in this for the long haul and we’re going to be writing a passle of stories, sirs and madames. You’re intelligent folk, so you’ve got a big slew of literary and pulp references swirling around in your brain, just combine that with the world around you and come up with five sexy evocative titles. Trust me, you’ll eventually use them all. Or if you don’t Ben Godby will steal them and sell the story that results to a magazine. Everybody wins!

So, here’s the first five titles that pop into my head:

-Beer Anchovia, Titus, and Thou

-The Fake and the False

-Leave Now and The Truth Will Follow

-Moorsian Invasion

-The Knives of Iceland

If your titles aren’t as Sexy as those five at first, don’t worry. I’ve had a lot of practice with titles. And sexy. Still, any title you made up will be evocative for you, and that’s all we need right now. You can always change it after you finish the stories, which is what you’re trying to do, remember? (Close the porns and get back here.) 

Part the Second: Ready Set

Now the fun begins. Create five blank documents in the text editor of your choice. I use FocusWriter because it has a convenient sessions feature so I can hotswap between documents. Name them according to the five titles you just came up with, and put the title at the top. LOOK AWAY FROM THE SCREEN! And do not think about Word Count or how long any of these stories are going to be. They can be any length, cats, so long as they’re Finished. And they will be, later. For now, we’ve got to prepare. Look at your titles and write down the first image that comes to mind in the appropriate document. By ‘image’, I mean Character, Blurb, Setting, Dialogue, Sentence, or Plot. Whatever floats your boat, just write it down as you come up with it. Remember that nobody’s going to see this.

Here’s the five titles with the images I came up with as I did this:

Beer Anchovia, Titus, and Thou

Planetary siege in a desperate war, aboard the requisitioned and hastily repurposed spaceliner Anchovia, a ragtag crew attempt to construct a still and keep their sanity amidst a steadily disintigrating chain of command.

First person?

The Fake and the False

Gentilia Lake, the unfortunately named con artiste, competes with the Grim Ghast for the souls of the gullible people of Lambutan. Can she save them from Hell by giving them heck? 

Leave Now and The Truth Will Follow

Gentilia Lake appears again, amongst the sheeple of Nazawrath. But when a wolf in sheep’s clothing strikes terror in the hearts of the people, she discovers that serial killers are harder to fool than she expected.

Bloody belt.

Moorsian Invasion

The Moors descended on rhinoceros-back, pillaging as they came.

The Knives of Iceland

King Jeoffrey the Ironhearted had yet to complete his submarine the day the water disappeared.

So...so thirsty. But hey, a series!

Part the Third: GO!

That’s really all you need to do. Just keep brainstorming in images until one of the titles grabs you by the balls and forces you to write it, then just sit down and actually write it until it lets go. Clear a space, don’t drink any beer, eschew sugar of all varieties, eat healthy, and just roll into the tappity-tip-tip-tappity-tap-tap until your fingers stop of their own volition. You know where the story is going, and know why you’re leaving if you stand up from the keyboard. If it’s because you’re scared, sit right back down and face the words you’ve brought into the world. They’re looking up at you with their big eyes pleading for FOOD and mommies. Do not leave them to starve in the computer. When they grow up they’ll kick your ass. 

I’d start with the Gentilia Lake story, myself. 

The dank swamp glittered in the rising sun as Gentilia Lake crawled out of it, her hair hanging down in tentacles of slime...

This version of Professional Edition will last until April 6, 2012, updating every Friday. Site design subject to change as I learn by doing. Like what you see? Spot something unprofessional? Feel free to comment!

I'm Not Indie

ot to put too fine a point on it, I’m not an indie writer and I don’t like that adjective. The term ‘indie’ has mindset connotations--whether right or wrong, I don’t care!--that I’m not comfortable with. First is the Malevolent Gatekeeper argument, the thought that a monolithic ‘Traditional’ (or ‘Legacy’ or ‘Old’ or ‘Grandfather’) Publishing is acting as a wall keeping out good writing. Second is the Everybody’s Screwing Writers argument, the thought that ‘Traditional’ Publishing is organized to cheat writers, specifically the self-described indie writer. I reject these two arguments with two simple questions: “What other options were available?” and “Who made you sign the contract?”

Thus, having won the War on Straw and being financially uninterested in further debate, I come to the real questions. “What options are available now?” This question was one of the topics of my 200 Days writing blog, and was fairly answered, as you can see by the many ePublished works I have available. “What am I?” This question has two answers: I’m a writer and a

Bootstrap Publisher

I’m a publisher operating on a start-up budget, and investing any profits back into the business. My only writer is me, and I do all publishing tasks myself. My emphasis is on getting as many stories completed as I can with minimal distraction coming from the publishing side and seeing how sales do with a more robust bookshelf. Projected Endpoint for this phase of business is April 1, 2012.

The third real question, then, is “What will I be?” I’ll be a

Small Publisher

I’ll know I’m a small publisher when I have an actual, sustainable budget to work with, which will allow me to increase the quality of presentation of my bookshelf simultaneously with being able to focus even more on expanding it. As previously indicated in these articles, I’m willing to spend money on specialists if it frees up time for me to make even more money by pursuing my specialty. Here are some specialists that I’d employ.

Transcriptionist

So that I could save tons of time typing in the words I get while I’m wandering around talking into my voice recorder. Whether this ends up being an actual human being or a sufficiently advanced technology, I’m not sure yet. I can set up VLC to transcribe, but it doesn’t work very well. Research is ongoing. It’ll probably turn out to be less time-consuming to just find a human.

Cover Artist

Clearly useful, not too expensive. I want people and/or spaceships and/or dragons and/or romance on my covers, dammit! As a Small Publisher, I’d deploy pro cover art on series first, then work my way through upgrading key individual stories. It’ll pay for itself, and give that extra bonus classy that I like to keep around any of my projects. To justify wearing the business suits with the writer hat.

Copy Editor

Find some non-Creative who loves spelling, descriptivist grammar and chewing on words and let her go for it. I don’t really trust Creatives to find spelling errors anymore. As I’ve become a better writer, I care less and less about text and more and more about ideas. Still, it’s embarrassing to get caught out. 

POD Layout Guy/Interior Artists

Print-On-Demand will be the next big adventure, and I’ll need somebody who knows what the heck she’s doing with print cover art and design. My research thus far suggests that it’ll be affordable, especially considering that an ugly print book blows the bonus classy capital. I’d also like interior art, but that’s just because I love interior art. Presumably my cover artist will know other artists.

Web Page Design Guy

At some point along the non-bootstrapped way, I’ll get a proper website and set up a simple webstore for ePub’d books, just to have that option available. Depending on how complicated that turns out to be, I might get a guy to set it up and show me how to do the maintenance. 

All of those combined would mean I’m churning out stories at the speed of pulp, and presumably making a decent half-living. In all that, though, I’d still be the only writer, until I became a

Medium Publisher

I’d know I’m at this point if other writers were being published under one of my publishing imprints, whatever those evolve to be, churning out material and collaborating on collections. With that much material and complications, I’d need a few more employees.

Graphic Designer

The Cover Artist, POD Layout Guy and Interior Artist Guy, possibly rolling up Web Page Design Guy all in one convenient package. Presumably a company (or several similar companies) with a menu of services, this would reduce the paperwork and e-mail and contract shenanigans I’d have to go through. Whenever I needed something done, I’d shoot them an e-mail with the specifications, and the previous working relationship would keep everything going smoothly. 

Publishing Attorney

Obviously important, so enough said. Paid by the hour when I need to check that nothing stupid is being done.

Editor

A professional, freelance editor or editors. A non-Creative whose focus is on enhancing the voice of the Creatives who employ him. I don’t trust other Creatives with my voice, because they’ve got their own. I trust Creatives to evaluate my ideas. I use the word Editor for brevity, but think of this guy as a dedicated first reader, copy editor, and continuity checker, not as someone with any sort of editorial control over what gets into my bookshelf.

Marketing Guys

Hired by campaign to do whatever the campaign is, whether that be sending it out to review sites, (strictly white-hat) SEO, doing a short-term ad campaign, running a Twitter page or something. I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go. Nothing fancy, just some guys. There’s got to be a use for all those “social media experts” you see hanging around on the street corners. 

At that point I’ll be making a decent full living at writing, which brings us to

The Limit of My Ambition

I suppose next would come Large Publishing and Mega Publishing, my preferred words for ‘Traditional’ Publishing because it emphasizes the only real factors that distinguishes them from ‘Indie’ Publishing: Size and Cash. It will always be with us, so long as bringing together big piles of cash for maximum business efficiency is with us. And so it should. I’m not fighting it, I’m not in competition with it, but I’m also not really interested in that level. Allow me a Grand Vision of my future: 

Decentralized Publishing

All that publisher talk up there has lead me to think that I’m best served forming what is essentially a creative co-op, based around a core group of writers who happen to like the same group of contract creative services employees. Each writer would write what he wanted to write, and the decentralized publisher would contract that team of employees to format it up and then the publisher would put it up online and in print and distribute profits accordingly. Imprints would evolve or die, kept in line and managed by the writers themselves, and the general profit pool would be used to invest in better employees and marketing and the rest of the support staff that Creative pulp writers need to produce a quality product without the necessity of giving up control of their Creativity. I can see this future now, in this Internet Age, it’s just a matter of building the team. I’m not independent, I’m decentralized.

I’m not Indie, I’m Decent.

This version of Professional Edition will last until April 6, 2012, updating every Friday. Site design subject to change as I learn by doing. Like what you see? Spot something unprofessional? Feel free to comment!