Category Archives: writing

Brutal Honesty about Self-Publishing

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Truth About My Self-Publishing Journey

I was inspired by Hyperbole and a Half’s come-back.  She talks honestly (and humorously!) about depression.  I need to have that kind of heart to heart with you, my reader.  I mean that, there’s probably just one of you, and that’s ok.

Apparently, you can’t just slap any book into e-book format, self-publish on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and just make money.  I wasn’t trying to get rich, but I had a goal of earning $1,000.  I have not earned enough for them to send me a check yet.  My book is not erotica, does not have special instructions or have any sparkly vampires.  It’s a silly send-off of the show Murder She Wrote, examining what happens to relatives of those amateur detectives who seem to be encountering a murder every week.  No one has written a review.  I have sold 13 books on Amazon, earning me $9.10, and 12 books on Barnes and Noble, earning $9.60.  They won’t send me money until I get over $10.  My last sale was in March, when a bunch of my friends showed me support (thank you!).  I can’t rely on selling my book to friends and relatives.

I thought that if I self-published, I wouldn’t have to deal with rejection.  Ha.  It’s just different.  I have to determine how to write the rejection letter to myself.  ”Dear Jane, this is not working.  I suggest trying something else.”

My something else will be a book for Librarians.  I have specialized knowledge, and it is a niche market of known readers.  I also know who to market to.  I’ve got the start of the book and I’m trying to pull together something that is both informative and entertaining- a slightly snarky how-to of running a small library.  I’ll include things like a “Are you burned out?” quiz, book lists and coping strategies.  When I’m done I have a beta-reader in mind, a colleague of mine whose opinion I value.  I think she’ll do it.

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Moments

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51HCa3RHsOL._AA160_I just finished a memoir called “Paris in Love” by Eloisa James.  It was assigned by my book group and not something I would have picked up otherwise. It relates a year of the author’s life when she took a sabbatical in Paris.

What makes it remarkable is that it is made up of little moments, often not more than a few sentences, relating something she experienced.  She not only talks about food and art, but the homeless people she encounters, her children’s school experiences, her in-law’s overweight dog and the way light shines through a window.  It inspired me to capture more moments in my life.  As I’m writing this, I’m remembering a song from “Into the Woods“.  Life is more than just moments, but they are to be gathered up and savored.  Of the moments that happened today, which ones will I remember a year from now?  Probably replacing the flooring in our TV room.  But the serious discussion I had with my daughter about what Phineas and Ferb must be like in school (their poor teachers!) should be remembered too.

Writing a journal seems like another chore, a self-indulgent one at that.  It can be more than that- it can be art and therapy and self-discovery.  Give it a try, and start with a small moment of each day.

Author Motivation

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Fake Acceptance Letters

Motivation is not a one size fits all prospect.  Some people fuel themselves with anger: “I’ll show them, I’ll show them all!”  Some people respond well to people yelling at them, some do well with gentle coaxing.  Some people plod along with a mulish refusal to give up.  I do well myself by having the loving support of family and friends mixed with small successes.  These small successes are my scientific evidence I’m not just wasting my time.

Right now I have not had even small successes, and I realized that I needed an acceptance letter.  Why not just accept myself?  I know what I want to hear.  So I wrote:

Dear Jane,

We are pleased to inform you that your novel has been accepted.  We were blown away by your characters and the writing is brilliant, fast-paced and sharp.  I shared your manuscript around the office and we want to see everything you have ever written so that we can read all of that too.  You need to write faster!

I am sending you our standard rich and famous contract, author edition, for you to consider.  Later we will send a private helicopter to bring you to NYC for dinner with the editor and cover artist to discuss your book tour.

I understand that you almost gave up in your pursuit of writing because you were feeling disheartened and unappreciated.  That would have been a heartbreaking shame!  The world needs your novel.  We look forward to seeing your next project.

Sincerely,

Big Time Editor

That was fun, so I asked my friends to accept me as well, and got these gems:

Dear Mrs./Mr./It. Jane

On behalf of the Random Houze Publishimaciky Company, I would like to be the first of THOUSANDS to congratulate you on being accepted. We wholeheartedly and fully, without question, compromise or second thought, accept your work as the brilliant masterpiece that it is. We prostrate ourselves before you, and beg of you to provide us more of these fine novels upon which we may dine in delight. Please accept our apologies for not hand-delivering this letter, as our normal courier Benji is presently sick with the dog flu. Nasty illness: phlegm and mucus everywhere, not to mention fecal discharge and urinary crystals. The vet says he’ll be back to normal, or blissfully deceased, within a week. We can only hope!

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, we thank you for your submission, and will be putting you in touch with our copy editor soon, so that we may transform this brilliant work of art into a glorious first, second and thirteenth edition, post hate! Haste, rather. Post haste.

I have just one, small request, however. You see, I have a, how shall we say, penchant, for purple prose. I was wondering, if it isn’t too much to ask, if you wouldn’t mind including a small nod to Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton’s masterful execution of “Dark and Stormy Night”, or perhaps John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE’s brilliant execution of elvish and dwarvish singing in a passage or two, that I, er, rather, we, might bask in the purply goodness.

At any rate, I look forward to welcoming you in person at our new office in the Staten Island Landfill, just as soon as our variance is approved and enough gas masks can be procured to ensure the safety of our guests and prisoners. Employees. EMPLOYEES. I didn’t say prisoners.

Best Regarded Later,
Jeffery Popplebuff

Ah.  Um.  Well.  Moving on…

Dear Mrs. Jane;

It has come to our attention that a grievous error has been made. It has been our goal for the last several weeks to contact you, but due to a tragic accident involving peanut butter, a wooden yardstick and an over-zealous hamster (darn those guys in IT), the computer that contained all of your contact information was confused with another Jane that lives in Waderutalkinbout, Tennessee. She wrote a 1317 page novel on the theoretical implications of dental floss on the general shape and meaning of the universe (complete with footnote and an annotated bibliography.) Although I am loath to say it, I was forced to complete the entire story in order to explain in detail why we wouldn’t be publishing her book. It took 4 trained assassins, 2 sessions of water boarding and a very stern look from my 6th grade English teacher to complete the book. The letter I originally wrote in response to her caused my computer to short out. Instead, I had to send a form letter offering phrases like “not right at this time,” and “thank you for your submission”, when in fact I wanted to hire the assassins myself. In short, it was bad. To compound the issue, her letter was sent to you, and vise-versa. We are now in court proceedings, as she thinks that we are obligated to produce her drivel. If we can find a judge who can stay alive long enough to finish the book, I’m sure we can clear things up very quickly. However, I am delighted to say that after all of that, I was able to sit down and enjoy the thrilling tale you spun from the pure gold that is the union of your heart mind and soul. Such sweet nectar rarely crosses my desk and acted as the golden buffer between myself and a lunch of brightly colored pills and a bottle of cheap and varnish like alcohol. I now live to read your next work of brilliance! However, I do regret to say that I can not allow your book to be published. The general public is not ready, nay they cannot be allowed to sully such a fine piece of literary triumph! Please accept my most humble thanks and apology in this matter. Your words have been heard and approved. Your friend, Harding Cutthroat III

Mrs. WJane,
We deeply regret having accidentally misfiled our previous acceptances of all your submitted works to date. It seems the clerk, who has been flogged, filed them under “W” and we were unable to find them.
We believed, to our shame, that you had rejected us. We wept at staff meetings as we thought of your delightful works published by some better filed house. 
But now, our clerk has seen the error of her ways and located all your acceptances, including, we now realize, three for one book alone. It is only fair that we publish that one three times, with three separate covers, to make up for our grievous disorganization.
Please allow us to publish your stories! We promise the best artists, the creamiest white paper, the silkiest ink and the firmest of bindings if only you will take us back.
Sincerely,
Mr. My Name Stamp Has Also Been Misfiled

So, if you have not been getting any praise for your art lately, I suggest you go out and accept yourself today!

dearest author

Flash Fiction

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Our guest blogger today is Melissa Mead! She has published over 24 flash stories in publications such as Drabblers, Daily Science Fiction, and The First Line.  Keep an eye out for something special from Daily Science Fiction in the near future.

We Write Short Shorts!

Well, I do, anyway. Short shorts, flash fiction, microfiction. Whatever you call it, writing short is a handy addition to any writer’s toolkit.

Not everyone agrees on the definition of flash fiction. Often, it’s under 1,000 words long. It does need to be a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. A real story, in miniature.

How do you cram a whole story into such a tiny space?

I find it easiest to write long, then cut. My first sales were to a market called The First Line. Back then, TFL had an upper limit of 600 words. I’d write a 700-1,200 word story, then cut it down, using tricks like these:

Choose a small concept. No galaxy-spanning epics. Show one moment in the life of one character. Use what your reader already knows. Ex, I love to rewrite fairy tales. The reader knows what to expect without the author having to set it up, leaving the author room to turn those expectations upside down.

Make every word count. Any adverb, adjective, or word that isn’t a noun or verb had better have a reason for being there. Nouns and verbs should earn their keep too.

Edit, edit, edit. Once you’ve finished your story, go over it and cut everything you don’t need. Sleep on it, and the next day do it again. Chop words, sentences, etc. out with an editorial axe. Then go back with a jackknife, then a scalpel.

Just for fun, here’s an example:

Beginning/setup “Look! Up in the sky!” (If you’re a certain age, you’ll be filling in what comes next.)

Middle/create expectations Joe didn’t bother looking. It was always a plane, or yet another superhero trying to save the planet’s dying fauna.

End/twist His daughter looked, though. She still believed in birds.

Have fun flashing!

mini dragon

Inspiration is like milk

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Ok, you are writing along and then… then what?  You need ideas.  Inspiration.  What happens next?

Waiting for inspiration to strike is like hoping the empty carton of milk in your fridge will refill itself.  You have to go out and get it.  Gather up ideas from everywhere- friends, enemies, random people in the supermarket, tv shows, books, movies, articles and so forth.  Don’t be surprised by where the ideas come from- I just got an idea from a toddler tv show that I’m going to use in my novel.

Is this copying? Is this unoriginal work?  I suppose so.  I suppose all creativity is building on other creativity.  Look at J.K. Rowling- she took things from many different places- Merlin, school stories, mythology and fantasy, and made it her own.

So I’m currently building up inspiration with books about fairies (my story involves an ancient fairy city full of wonders).  So I’m reading:

  • The Fairy Bible by Teresa Moorey
  • The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries by Pierre Dubois
  • Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee
  • The Nightwood by Robin Muller
  • Faeries: Doorways to the Enchanted Realm by Lori Eisenkraft-Palazzola

NaNoWriMo

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National Novel Writing Month, November, is here.  For those not in the know, it’s a chance to shed all reservations about writing and just write with literary abandon, with the goal of writing a 50,000 word novel in a month.

I have participated before, and every time I’ve hit the goal.  It is a wonderful experience.  First because you are letting go of judgement.  It’s all about quantity, not quality.  Although you may be surprised at what gems appear when you write without censorship.  Writing that much and with that consistency leads to flow.  Secondly, it is great because you are in it with thousands of like-minded people from around the world.  You finish the month a bit dazed and burned out, but you have made a creation from start to finish.  It’s a bit like running in a marathon.  The sense of accomplishment is marvelous, and it makes smaller challenges seem do-able.

So, you have a goal, a deadline and tools to show where you are along the way.  This is something that everybody needs, whatever they want to accomplish.

writer’s block

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Right now, nothing I write is any good.  In fact, it’s horrible.  Worse than drivel.  It is so hard to fight against the inner critic.  While it is destructive, it’s also subtle.  I don’t even realize I’m sinking, that I’m avoiding the few precious moments I have to write with excuses.  Then the excuses run out.  Here is the time.  Here is the place.  Here are all the resources I need to work on this project.  Silence.  Oh, all right then dear, how about this project?  Silence. No worry, let’s just try this one.  Rapidly going through all potential projects and dismissing them as not worthy.  Then I realize that it’s not time management that’s the problem.  It’s pre-judging.  In my mind, nothing is any good.  I should just give up, because I can’t write.  I’m just fooling myself that I could ever publish a novel.  No one would ever like such boring, trite, clunky prose, plots tangled up in cliche and melodrama.  No editor would waste her time on it.  My best friends would only read it to be polite.

 

Is it any wonder that it’s easier for me to start something than to finish it?  I’ve done lots of first drafts, segments of stories, bits and bites, but hardly anything is really polished. I get to a certain point where looking at the story gives me a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I were reading an eviction notice or an obituary.  I have eight works in progress.

 

So I surf the net, do laundry, read, watch tv, stare off into space, instead of write.  Then, in the last few moments before falling asleep, I try to write something, finding my head nodding over my computer.

 

The only solutions I have are to not start anything new until I’ve completed something, and to find some other person to give me input, to tell me, in a way I can believe isn’t just being polite, that my work doesn’t suck.  That, in fact, I should keep going. It may not be award-winning, paradigm shifting stuff, but it’s good enough to publish.

 

Anybody?