Category Archives: The Candy Store Generation

Documenting America, non-fiction, The Candy Store Generation

2011 Writing Year in Review: Non-fiction Books

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Just before our Christmas trip I wrote out a schedule of posts for this blog that would take me through around January 13. Today I find myself two days and one post behind, the consequence of spending time with family over Christmas. I don’t regret the time, nor the need to catch up. But family is still in town, activities are still planned at least through January 2, so I’m not sure when, if ever, I will catch up.

The good news is: It doesn’t matter if I ever catch up. A day late, two days late, a week late, or even not posted at all, doesn’t much matter. Today I’ll at least begin the catch-up and see where it goes.

Reviewing 2011, in the area of non-fiction, book-length works, I had only one: Documenting America. I have other posts on this blog where I explain how and why this volume came into being, so I won’t take up valuable pixels to repeat that here. I will say what prompted me to finish it and publish it in 2011.

Back in January 2011, when I made the decision that I would e-self-publish some of my works (while not completely severing the dream to have something accepted at a traditional publisher) to test the process, I figured my completed short story, “Mom’s Letter”, was the perfect item to start with. I could practice formatting and uploading. I could see what went into having a cover made. I could see what it was like to track the work once it was live on line.

Then I looked at what to do next. I could have gone to my completed novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, but that didn’t seem right. I had these 18 or so newspaper columns I had written, only four of which I had published, or that I even tried to have published. I decided they could serve as the basis for a book. Lengthen each of the 18 to what I wanted them to be without the constraints of newspaper column-inches. Add to them until I had 40,000 words, and eSP it. The research, writing, and editing consumed March and April. By early May it was available as a Kindle book, though it took a little longer to attach the real cover.

Having got that far, I took another two months, with many other life issues getting in the way, to format the book for Smashwords and have it added there. CreateSpace took some more months, with the cover modification being one problem.

During all this time, I was thinking of what to do as a follow-up to Documenting America. I began research for a second volume (in fact, I almost called DA Volume 1), and have material in hand to generate at least 10,000 words. I also began writing a different, though sort of related work tentatively titled The Candy Store Generation. This is based on blog posts I made at a friend’s political blog about the Baby Boomers and how they (we) are not improving the United States. I pulled those blog posts together, and added some additional material. I believe it stands at about 5,000 words, needing to get to at least 30,000 words to be a viable book. I also did some research into the make-up of Congress, when the House of Representatives tipped to being dominated by the Baby Boomers. This turned out to be slow going, but I have the research started and well organized.

That’s it for non-fiction books in 2011. The next year-in-review post will be fiction of all types.

Documenting America, The Candy Store Generation, Writing

Time: The same old, same old dilemma

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I have only so many hours:minutes a day to devote to writing. Some days are more than others. At the same time, I have only so much mental stamina:physical stamina to apply to those hours:minutes. Sometimes the two don’t align. This weekend they didn’t fully align. After yard work Saturday morning, the first I’ve been able to do since the ehrlichiosis flare-up happened, I felt good. My knees hurt a little, but not too much. I ate, rested, did a few chores inside, then went to The Dungeon to write. Alas, physical tiredness overwhelmed the gray cells, and I got less writing done than I’d hoped. This continued into Sunday.

For the weekend, I think I added somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 words to “In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People”, bringing the word count to around 52,400. It was good to get past the milestone 50,000, but there’s still a long way to go. At 5,000 words a week, I won’t finish until around October 15. That’s just the first draft. I’ll then have rework and rework and rework to make it truly ready for submittal. Of course, by that time I hope to hear from the agent who has the partial.

Unfortunately, to achieve that much production given the disruption in the hours:minutes/mental:physical continuum, I had to neglect other writing chores. I neglected this blog and An Arrow Through the Air. I had to neglect freelance article writing. I’ve quit proposing articles to Buildipedia.com, even though that pays fairly well. I’ve quit writing for content sites, even though that pays a little. The content sites are not a big deal. I miss the money from Buildipedia. I also miss regularly posting to the blogs.

I’ve also neglected any follow-up work to Documenting America. I started on what might be the first follow-up work, The Candy Store Generation, as well as on a second volume of Documenting America. I’ve also pretty much given up on promoting the volume I’ve e-self-published. Sales have stalled in August after a promising up-tick in July.

Then there’s all the household things that aren’t getting done because they won’t get done if I don’t do them. Such as the over that only half works. Such as the microwave that no longer gives us full power. Such as the place way up at the top of the chimney, 30 feet off the ground, where the siding has torn away. Such as the skylight that’s leaking. Such as the painting that will be needed once the skylight is fixed. Such as my various piles of papers that aren’t as neat or hidden as they need to be. Such as the pile of bills and receives that need to be filed. Such as twenty other things I’m forgetting.

Time. There ain’t enough of it. To whom much is given, much is required. Unfortunately, I may be pretty much out of much.

self-publishing, The Candy Store Generation, Writing

The Candy Store Generation

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To have a successful self-published e-book (“successful” meaning good sales), what you need, according to Joe Konrath, are:

  • a great book,
  • a catchy title
  • a dynamite cover,
  • good promotion, and
  • a body of work that builds on itself.

Even while I cling to the dream of having something published through a traditional publisher, and do some things to go down that road, I’m looking for the next thing to self-publish. What that next thing should be finally came to me on Memorial Day.

Why not write The Candy Store Generation? I first thought of this during the 2000 election, watching the first presidential debate between Bush and Gore. They argued about how to spend a budget surplus expected to be 1 trillion dollars over the next ten years, a result of five years of Republican-led Congresses. It struck me that they sounded like children in a candy store who were given an unexpected windfall from daddy.

But it also struck me that these political animals, children of political families and of privilege, were simply reflecting what America had become. By 2000 the majority of Congress had flipped from what Brokaw called The Greatest Generation to the Baby Boomers. The Boomers were now calling the shots. The Boomers made up a huge voting block. I’m one of them, and I see things in the majority of my generation that bode poorly for our nation.

I let the idea gestate for some time, and in 2009 I wrote four blogs on friend Chuck’s blog, “The Senescent Man’. I won’t say I wrote them to rave reviews, because they generated no comments. I also rushed them a bit, and didn’t develop them for the blog as much as I should have.

Last Monday I decided that I should try to expand them into what I wanted to do. I don’t have a complete vision for the book yet, but I don’t see it as a long book. Maybe 10,000 to 20,000 words. It will mainly explain what I see are the bad results of Boomer leadership in virtually all areas of American life. I’ll also discuss some of the why—from my perspective—the Boomers became what we became. It will be a book mainly of my opinions, with some research, but not a whole lot.

On Tuesday night I went to the old blog posts and dumped them into a MS Word document. It begins as a little over 2,000 words. So I’m already 1/8 to 1/4 done. The smaller word count isn’t much of a book, so I’ll probably go for the longer one. I have to get the full vision first, and an outline, and maybe couple of chapters done before I decide.

The good news is that I don’t start with a blank sheet of paper. I start with a concept that has been fermenting in my gray cells for a decade, and which saw the light of Internet day in small part. The blank sheet of paper is the hardest part of writing anything, it seems. Once that is overcome, it’s all downhill. I remember the comic strip “Shoe”. The editor asked the writer, “Is the article done yet?” to which the writer replied, “90 percent.” He then trudged back to his littered desk, rolled a blank sheet of paper into his typewriter, and said, “The white part.” I’m past that. May The Candy Store Generation come to fruition.