Documenting America, Operation Lotus Sunday, Writing

Locking In Ideas, even out of season

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I wrote a blog post some time ago about capturing ideas for writing. Actually, I may have written several posts about that between here and my other blog, An Arrow Through The Air.

Two situations have come up in the last few days where I was able to do this. Actually, I guess it was three.

On my novel in progress, China Tour, I’m in the middle part of the novel now, between the two main plot points. This is the part where a novel often sags, as the protagonist overcomes a series of conflicts, preferably rising in danger/difficulty, before moving into the end game. And it’s the part of this novel I had mostly not thought out. So I’m writing each scene as it comes to mind.

But while driving home from work yesterday an idea for a conflict came to me. It seemed to be a good one, but I didn’t use memory techniques to lock it in. By the time I got in the house not only had I lost the idea but I forget I’d even had an idea. After supper and going through snail mail, I went to The Dungeon and started writing earlier than usual on a week night. I typed a few words, continuing a scene from where I left off Wednesday evening, when the idea came back. I grabbed a piece of paper to write it on, then decided to just put it at the end of the Word document, set off from the rest of the text.

While writing for the next couple of hours, two or three other ideas came to me. They went at the end of the ms. as well. So by the time I knocked off for the evening, around 10:00 p.m., having added over 2,000 words to the novel, I also had good ideas documented for middle-of-the-novel scenes. It was a good evening of writing.

So upstairs I went, intending to do some pleasure reading, but before I left the computer I saw one of the volumes of The Annals of America, the one for the Civil War years. I took it upstairs with me, and instead of reading for pleasure I went through the Table of Contents to find items to include in a future volume of Documenting America. While that book was a stand-alone volume, I have always hoped to make a series of volumes based on the style of the original book. I listed about twelve documents to include, and spot-read in two of them to make sure they are suitable. They are. The book will need about thirty documents all together, or perhaps a few less if I use some documents for two chapters. It’s not much, but it’s a start—and it’s on paper.

The other idea capture event happened on Tuesday. I was at a professional lunch, a PowerPoint presentation made by an Arkansas state official. It was all words, and sitting in the back of the room I couldn’t really see them. Plus, it’s stuff I already know, for the most part. So rather than concentrating on that I took a napkin (I hadn’t brought a note pad with me), and began thinking through books that might eventually go in my future series, The Alfred Cottage Mysteries.

Now, this is really long-range planning, as I don’t expect to be writing any book in this series. But I’ve thought of the series much over the years, had a couple of books in mind, but not the full series. So as the regulator droned on about short-term activity authorizations, I wrote on the napkin. Here’s what I came up with.

  • Alfred Cottage and The Coroner’s Inquest
  • Alfred Cottage and The Lost Love
  • Alfred Cottage and The Lost inheritance
  • Alfred Cottage and The Lost Years
  • Alfred Cottage and The Wife Murderer
  • Alfred Cottage and The Fornicators
  • Alfred Cottage and Stolen Identity
  • Alfred Cottage and The Cherokee Princess
  • Alfred Cottage and The Abolitionist
  • Alfred Cottage and The Cobbler’s Will
  • Alfred Cottage and The Soldier’s Son
  • Alfred Cottage and The Rum Runners

Each of these, except the next-to-last, comes from something in my or my wife’s ancestry. Some will have large pieces of the real family history as a basis, some just a small part. All of them will be fiction, however, with many embellishments and conflict added along the way.

As I’ve told people, when I dream I tend to dream big. Here’s a big dream: 12 books that are years away from being started, yet are already finding their way out of the gray cells and on to paper.

Stay tuned.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Writing

Self-Publishing Surprises

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I’m currently in my 22nd month as a self-publisher. When you figure I was working on it a month before actually publishing something, that makes 23 months. I must say that a number of things have surprised me.

  • How uncomfortable I feel about marketing. I just don’t like it. It pains me to make posts to Facebook saying, “I have a new book for you all to buy.” Or the equivalent post for some FB writers groups I joined. I just don’t want to be a shill for my own books. This may spell doom for me as far as becoming a well-sold and well-read writer.
  • How difficult the technology is, or at least how steep the learning curve is each time something is needed. I’m not stupid about these things, and can probably figure a lot of them out for myself, but the time sink to do so is enormous.
  • How my books just don’t sell without marketing. Dean Wesley Smith and others say you should just keep writing and publishing. I thought he used to say get 10-12 books/titles available before you do any marketing. Now I notice he’s saying 20-25 books. I’m sitting there with 9, so either way I have more work to do. That’s if DWS is right. What if he’s wrong, and I should be spending more time marketing rather than writing. Oh, refer to a previous bullet point.
  • The total lack of response to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I have three sales total. Three, in the four months it’s been out. I made quite a few posts about it, on this blog, my other blog, FB, and in FB writers groups. And nothing. I don’t really see how I can write a much better book than this one. Surely there are people out there who like baseball books. I guess I just don’t know any of them.

I could probably list a few more surprises, but will end it here. Oh, just one more: how there was no elation resulting from holding a printed book with my name on it in my hands. None. It was more of a so-what feeling.

Yeah, I’ll stop there. Maybe all of this will turn around at some point. Maybe I’ll learn to be a shameless self-promoter. Maybe I’ll find an audience. Maybe I’ll learn to write books that people want. Maybe I’ll return to content farm writing. The future is wide open.

Operation Lotus Sunday, Writing

Into new territory with “China Tour”

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My friend on-line friend and fellow writer Veronica commented on my last post. That spurred me on to post this new update to my work on China Tour.

I’m taking a semi-vacation. Last Saturday we began babysitting our two grandsons. Their parents spent a night here, then went off for three days r&r away from home and kids. I took three days vacation to help my wife, so with the Thursday-Friday holiday I’ll have the whole week off. Their parents just arrived from their trip, my mother-in-law is here, so the house is pretty full.

I decided that I would take the time off from writing: no blog, no novel, no writing resources to study, no research. I would concentrate on the grandsons. However, it occurred to me that I could get up at or near my normal time, 5:45 a.m., and do some writing while the house was quiet. I managed to do that on Monday and Wednesday. I worked on China Tour. On Monday I had a hard time with my computer, due to virus checking and automatic updates and recovery of documents from a power interruption. Then, since it had been a week since I’d written, I had to reread the about ten pages to get back into the plot. Wednesday—today—was better, with no computer problems and being fresh into the plot.

So I began to write this morning. It’s a scene I really hadn’t thought through before, at least not in detail. It’s at the point in the novel after a major switcheroo had taken place. But the words seemed to flow. I typed from about  6:30 to 7:30 a.m., and checked the word total for the day. It was about 1,200 words. Not bad for an hour, in a previously unplanned scene. The total word count is now over 19,000.

I’d like to keep that up. I know I won’t get a chance to write on Thanksgiving Day. I’m the main cook, so I’ll be busy probably from 6:00 a.m. on. Then there’s the traditional Thanksgiving Day long walk, preventing the tryptophan from doing its work. Then rest, leftover, dessert, etc.

The kids got back this afternoon and told us they will have to leave on Friday instead of Saturday. Hate to see them go. It’s been a good time with Ephraim and Ezra so far, and don’t like to see it cut short. But I will also enjoy having time to get back to work on my book. Hitting it hard on Friday-Saturday-Sunday, I’d like to get to somewhere between 25,000 to 30,000 words. Right now it appears the book is running short of my projected word count of 75-80,000. I really want a book that long to fit in with genre expectations. The length required for this next section, which is mostly unplanned, will let me know where I’m going to finish up at.

So stay tuned. We’ll see what the next few days bring.

Operation Lotus Sunday

Progress on “China Tour”

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As I stated previously, I decided to write China Tour, a novel, as my next work-in-progress. I came to this conclusion around October 24, and began work on it in earnest the next week. As I have time to write, I work on that. As of last night, the word count stands at just short of 17,000, I think.

I say “I think” because yesterday I wrote on two computers: the desktop in The Dungeon and my laptop upstairs. I concluded my work on the desktop about 6:00 p.m., came upstairs, ate supper, then went to my reading/writing chair in the living room and decided to write some more there, while the television was going. It’s not an efficient way to write, and I hate hate hate a laptop keyboard. However, once I finished there for the evening I had 1,648 words in a new file. Added to the 2,200 I wrote in the afternoon, and the 13,200 (more or less) I had at the end of the day Saturday, that should put me somewhere around 17,000. I said a little below above, but maybe it’s a little more. I’ll know tonight when I merge the files.

I just finished the fourth chapter, the one that includes the first “plot point.” For those unfamiliar with term, it refers to that action about 1/4 to 1/3 into the book which motivates the hero to continue on the quest. In this case, I have two heroes, Roger and Sandra Brownwell, the tourist couple who become embroiled in the CIA operation in China. The need for them to participate in the operation has been presented, they have argued about it, and the necessary juggling act to make it work is about to happen. Sandra is most unhappy, Roger more accepting. I really don’t want to say much more, for to do so will give too much away. Let’s just say that their marriage, which was already troubled, will really be stretched as they cooperate with the CIA.

My main problem now is to sustain momentum. Thanksgiving is coming. Our company will be here on the 18th, and not leave till the 25th. I don’t know how much writing I’ll get done during that time. Also, I’m at a point in the book that I haven’t thought too much about, so I’ll be writing each scene and chapter from scratch. I did that for the middle of Doctor Luke’s Assistant, and it worked pretty good there. Hopefully this won’t bog me down, and as I write one scene what the next scene needs to be will become clear. A few scenes have come to mind, such as when they get to the terra-cotta army in Xian.

Stay tune to this channel for updates. Right now, at the pace I’m going and considering the holiday period, I expect to wrapping up the first draft sometime in early February.

self-publishing

October 2012 Book Sales

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I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should have posted October book sales results several days ago. Of course, sharing bad news isn’t a pleasant thing. Perhaps that was in the back of my mind.

In October I had only eight book sales. Seven of those were on Kindle, and one was a hard copy of The Candy Store Generation that I sold at work. I actually had one more sale, at Smashwords, but the reader returned it. So I’m not counting that as a sale. Here are the numbers for October, and the totals since the items were published.

Mom’s Letter – 0 in October/23 overall

Documenting America – 0/34

Too Old To Play – 0/3

Doctor Luke’s Assistant – 3/93

The Candy Store Generation – 1/13

Documenting America, Homeschool Edition – 1/1

In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People – 1/3

Whiskey, Zebra, Tango – 2/6

The Gutter Chronicles – 0/0

8 in October/177 overall

The sales graph looks like this. Clearly I have a long way to go to having a viable writing career. Click on the graph below if you want to see it in its un-distorted condition.

Operation Lotus Sunday

Checking In

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I haven’t posted on this blog for a while. Some extra busyness with non-writing things was one cause. Then there was the four-day trip to Oklahoma City to help babysit our two grandsons. Now it’s a cold that is trying to decide if it’s going to be mild, and hence is about over, or if it’s going to deepen, in which case the worst is yet to come.

I’m at work, muddling through, but quite inefficient. Leaving at 1:30 p.m., and will chalk up a half day of sick time.

I’m make a brief report. Since my last post, on October 24, I have been working on China Tour. I’m into the third chapter, 5,100+ words completed. I had been thinking this book would be 75,000-90,000 words, but it seems to be running short to me. I’m in the middle of what I consider the first key scene, when the tourist couple are mistaken for the CIA agents “couple” and thus botch the information exchange critical to the CIA operation. The agents have figured it out, and are just beginning their conversation with Chinese intelligence supervisor to figure out what to do.

This also takes me close to the end of the planning I’ve done. I have the denouement fairly well in mind, and one or two key scenes near the end. But except for the scene where the tourist couple meet the agent couple, the vast middle part of the novel is a blank page to me. Something better come to me, or my writing of it will grind to a halt real quickly.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Looks like it’s probably “China Tour”

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I don’t recommend anyone go about their book writing they way I have for the last twelve days. As I reported in a previous post, because I felt no sense of direction of where to go next with my writing. I could write any one of three novels or one non-fiction book. So I decided to write the first chapter in each and see how the work flowed, how it felt to me during the writing, and choose based on the experience.

First up was Headshots, the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I labored over a Friday-Sunday period, barely getting about 1950 words and the chapter done. I found that picking up the threads of all the people who were involved in the end of FTSP was tedious. In fact, after finishing the chapter I realized I didn’t have all the threads covered: missed one I need to add in.

Next was Preserve The Revelation, the sequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant. This went better. I did a little work on Augustus ben Adam’s family tree and children before I started the writing, to make sure he could have two sons of the ages I wanted at the time I wanted them. It all worked fine. Then I wrote the chapter in two evenings. Though I had thought much about it over a few years, it still took me in a different direction as I wrote it. The needed scenes for the second chapter ran through my head as I concluded the first, which is a good thing.

Next was China Tour, a sequel to nothing. In fact, it will be a stand-alone novel. This has run through my mind many, many times over the years. I found our trip diary from 1983, read through some of it (the Hong Kong days), and jumped in to the writing. In two evenings I had my 1,500 word first chapter. It went fairly easy; but then I’ve run that chapter over in my mind many times, and had recently explained the book in detail to a colleague.

Then, to this mix I added another volume of Documenting America. This would be a Civil War edition, in recognition that we are now 150 years away from that event, with somewhat heightened interest in the reading public. Unfortunately, I found this heavy going. I enjoyed the research, but the writing went much, much harder than I wanted. This would be the shortest of the four books, and I would certainly enjoy the research, but I think the writing would be most labored.

Based on ease of writing and flow of words, it looks as if China Tour should get the nod to be my next book. Given that, last night I decided to give the second chapter a try, and in two hours knocked out the entire chapter, about 1,050 words. The problem is, this book makes no sense to be the next one. It’s not a sequel to anything, nor is it in a series or will it ever have a sequel. It might not be all that long (I’m thinking 70,000-75,000 words), though for all I know it could run longer.

One of the sequels makes more sense. Those 92 people who bought Doctor Luke’s Assistant, or the 5,000 people who downloaded it for free, might just come looking for something similar. Headshots makes more sense because I most recently wrote FTSP, so the characters are all known commodities and fresh in my mind. I’ve thought though what will happen in considerable detail. The problem? With 3 total sales of FTSP, it’s not like the public is clamoring for this book.

I haven’t committed yet, but it is probable that China Tour will be next. I know at least one of my reader/writer friends who will be happy.

Documenting America, Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Writing Progress

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Or lack thereof. As I reported before on this blog, I wrote the first chapter in three different novels, trying to see which inspired me most, and which didn’t inspire me at all, or at least not much. In this way I could perhaps determine which one to work on next, given that none stood out to me before actually writing.

I did that beginning last weekend (that is, Oct 12-14) and during the next week. It was last Wednesday, I think, that I finished the third of the first chapters. Thursday I did little more than re-read and maybe tweak one of them a little. Or, I could be off by a day. It may have been Thursday that I finished the last of the first chapters. One thing I did this time was to start a writing diary for each of these, so I have the exact dates recorded. Alas, the diaries are home and I’m at work as I type this.

Friday I decided to write the first chapter on one more book. I have always intended to write additional volumes of Documenting America. It’s been set aside for more than a year as I wrote other things, but that was always my intent. Given that it is, right now, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, I thought that would be the best next volume to do.

I had also figured out where to start on that volume: with a speech before the US Senate in 1850 by John C. Calhoun, staunch defender of slavery. After that I would move forward nine or ten years, into the immediate lead up to the war and then the war years themselves.

So Friday I dusted off some old notes, grabbed the right volume of The Annals of America, and read the speech, which is actually a long excerpt in that book. Then I went on-line and found the complete speech, and read most of the parts left out in the Annals. This took all Friday evening, a shortened evening as I had a few other things to do as well as writing.

So Saturday, after my normal Saturday routine (which included cutting down a small, dead tree and cutting it to firewood lengths, as well as a good walk), I went to work on the chapter. And I didn’t get it finished. I worked on it for over three hours, finding concentration impossible. I managed to get together a long excerpt from the book (about 1250 words), which is longer than I used in the first volume. But writing my commentary on it was most difficult. By the end of those three hours, after shifting back and forth from the chapter to rereading parts of the speech to wasting time because I couldn’t concentrate, I think I had only 500 words of commentary done, short of a full chapter.

It didn’t help that I was feeling poorly. I’m not sure if it was something I ate, or having done too much strenuous exercise earlier in the day, but I didn’t feel good all Saturday afternoon and evening. When you body isn’t well, it’s tough to ge the mind in gear.

So where does this leave me? I can safely say that the time is not right for me to work on Documenting America: The Civil War Edition. Of the three novels, the one that seemed to flow best to the page was China Tour, the one that was most difficult was Headshots. Preserve The Revelation flowed fairly well.

What I think I will do is take a few more days to think about it. I have a lot of non-writing things that have piled up over the last few weeks, things like my budget spreadsheet, filing, and some cleaning. It’s those things that a married bachelor takes time to get to when his wife is away helping with the grandkids. Then Thursday I head to Oklahoma City to help said wife with said grandkids, returning next Sunday. So I don’t think I’ll do much writing till then. Although, tonight and tomorrow, if I have a spare hour, I might try my hand at chapter 2 in one of them.

writer's platform, Writing

Dean Wesley Smith’s Advice about Blogging

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Dean Wesley Smith has been a writer for over thirty years. He has written a large number of short stories, some novels, and was a writers of Star Wars novels. His wife is also a respected writer.

Smith has a blog in which he gives advice to us in the writing trenches, trying to figure out how to break in. He’s a fan of self-publishing, but does not say you should never pursue trade publishing. He tends to realize that everyone’s circumstance is different, and both publishing directions are valid pursuits.

In a recent blog post about promoting our publications, he had this to say.

DO NOT blog about writing or your writing process. No real book buyer cares. If you must blog, write about the content of your books. If you are doing books with cooking, blog about cooking. And so on. Otherwise, don’t blog. Again a huge waste of time.

So, what he’s saying is that this blog of mine is a waste of my time. Because I have made this blog about my writing process. What am I thinking about writing next? How’s my work-in-progress going? How my sales of published works? My thought was that at some point I would have hoards of adoring fans who would want to know all about that. Well, maybe not hoards, but some number who would be interested.

According to Smith, no one is interested in that information. They might be interested in my books and stories, but not in me. Deflating to think about, but probably true. Probably all of these posts about my writing work, decision-making, and progress is not winning me any readers.

I will think about this. What is or are the right topic(s) to blog about? If it should be about the topic of my books, I have a dilemma in that my topics are scattered across several subjects. I would need multiple blogs to cover them. But Kristen Lamb says don’t have multiple blog. Have one blog and cover all your topics in that. I don’t know, but it seems that a post about the current World Series would not appeal to the same people as one about early church history.

Of course, that confirms the advice of other writing pros: Don’t write across genres, because those who read one won’t read another and you won’t have readers reading all your books. Or, stated another way, you will have to develop a separate audience for each new genre or major topic.

Alas, the course I’ve taken. Will it kill me from work and worry?

Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

New book started; progress slow

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As I reported on Friday, I had hoped to write 5,000 words this weekend just passed. My wife left for Oklahoma City on Friday, leaving me a quiet house and not too much to do. Friday night I arrived home late after eating supper with my mother-in-law. There was still plenty of evening left, and I should have gotten a lot done. Alas, I created folders and files for my three potential new works, and wrote one scene in one of them. Tiredness set it, and I quit for the evening.

Saturday found me in my normal routine. I read in the Bible first thing, then ate a small breakfast, then read some in my current reading book. Then I went outside to do chores, which that day was cutting down a dead tree (only 5″ caliper) and cutting it into firewood length. It was almost too much for this old man, but I got it done. Back inside the house I did some cleaning

That tuckered me out enough that I fell asleep in my reading chair after lunch. I don’t think I slept long: about two touchdowns’ worth in whatever game I had on. Still, I was down in The Dungeon and at my computer by 3:00 p.m. Plenty of time to get a couple of thousand words written.

Alas, I only wrote around 900, taking Headshots up to 1240. I couldn’t concentrate, and kept shelling out to play mindless computer games. I began to write something, wrote ten words in a new scene, and couldn’t think of what to write next. Or, I think more accurately, didn’t want to apply my mind to the scene. So I played games for a half hour, then came back to the scene and wrote it.

Over and over that repeated Saturday, and actually Sunday. By the time I quit at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday I had around 1,430 words written. Well, more than that, I suppose, if you include the two blog posts I wrote for An Arrow Through The Air, my other blog, one which I posted yesterday and one which I scheduled to post tomorrow. That’s another 600 words I guess, bring the total for the three days to 2,000. That’s not bad, but it’s a far cry from the 5,000 I was hoping for.

As I said in a previous post, I’m not sure which novel to work on next, and my plan is to write 1,000 words in each of the three and see which one seems best to me to continue in. I did that in only one, so two to go. Tonight, I’ll be home at a good time. I’ll have to cook supper (stir fry, I think), and do some significant cleaning in the kitchen. That should put me in The Dungeon around 8:00 p.m., giving me time to write the thousand words. I’m thinking of doing so in China Tour, though by the time I get home I may change my mind and go with Preserve The Revelation.

I sure wish I felt some direction in all of this. Possibly the difficulty I had applying myself to Headshots is a form of negative direction. If so, that’s a start.

Author | Engineer