Start Your Summer Writing Project Today

By

Scott D. Parker

Have you started yet? 

Remember how excited you were on New Year’s Day? You had high hopes about the year, and all the things you were going to do, you know, like write a book (or finish one). How’d that go?

If it went well, congrats. I finished my WIP earlier this year and took a break. I wanted to catch up on some reading and prepare for my next project. Which begins today.

I’ve written about this for a few years now: Summer is a great time to start and complete a project. You have the bookends of Memorial Day and Labor Day. As of today, you have 92 days until Labor Day weekend, 65 if you only want to work on weekdays. That’s 13 weeks. More than enough time to make some substantial headway on a new book—or finish it.

Call it National Novel Writing Season, NaNoWriSe. 

Call it a productive summer. 

Call it whatever you want, but have fun doing it. 

And start today.

How Do You Prepare to Write a Novel?

By

Scott D. Parker

Wednesday marked what I like to call my personal Writer’s New Year’s Day. It commemorates my decision on 1 May 2013 to write and complete the story based on a scene in my head—a man, wearing a fedora, knocking on a door, and being answered with bullets. I resolved to finish that story no matter what. I did, and it’s now called WADING INTO WAR: A BENJAMIN WADE MYSTERY.

The decision, back in 2013, was inspired by a quote whose origins I have forgotten: “A year from now, you may have wished you had started today.” By 2015, I had accomplished something else: I had formed my own company and published WADING INTO WAR.

Also over the years I have extolled the virtues of the summer season as a time with discrete bookends—Memorial Day and Labor Day—to write something. I am planning on doing that this year, but I wanted to warm up again, to get my writing muscles back into shape before I tackle the new book on 27 May.

To take this sports metaphor a bit further, when you warm up, you do smaller things. Pitchers simply throw the ball. Basketball players dribble and practice shooting free throws. Football players keep off the pads and do things at a slower rate.

For me, I’m getting back into gear by finishing an existing book I set aside last fall. I’m close to the end, maybe four or five chapters. The benefit of this kind of activity is that I only have to take the story over the finish line. I don’t have to create a whole new slate of characters and settings and plots. It’s simply a way to get my fingers back into gear and channel my imagination back into a story.

Then, come Memorial Day, it’s off to the races with the new book. 

I know some folks like to mix in short works in between novel-length projects. Others like to do some non-fiction. I’m always curious and always eager to learn from other writers: How do you prepare for starting a new novel?

Two-a-Day Writing Sessions to Speed Up Your Writing

By Scott D. Parker

For those of us with a day job that is not fiction writing, we have to choose to carve out time in our day to write our stories. But there’s never enough time, is there?

Optimizing one’s time becomes crucial in our day-to-day writing experiences. You want to ensure you are making visible progress despite wanting more time to write and not having any.

I’m pretty sure most of us know what a writing sprint is. You set a timer for any length of time and then you go, go, go and write until the timer sounds. Fifteen minutes is cited as a good number, and, depending on how fast you type and how quick your imagination is, you can reach 500 words.

I fell out of the timed-sessions habit mainly because I type fast and my imagination’s on the ball. But I’ve been bumping up against a number of obstacles recently and decided to return to the sprint. With a new wrinkle.

Okay, so it’s not really a wrinkle, but it sounded good in my head so we’ll just go with it, okay?

Two-a-days is a concept usually associated with sports. The athletes practice in the morning, wait hours and then practice a second time in the afternoons. It’s designed to give the body rest and, when it’s time to practice, you give it all.

This past week, I’ve been doing two-a-day writing sessions. In the weekday mornings, I know I can get at least fifteen minutes of writing done before I have to stop and get ready for and commute to work. In nearly every instance, I am not finished with a scene, but the timer’s beeping and the clock on the wall’s telling me I have to get ready for work.

So I close the laptop and do that.

Then, later on at my lunch hour, I open the laptop up again and do another fifteen minutes, picking up right where I left off.

But here’s the actual wrinkle to this process: even at my lunch time, when I have an uninterrupted hour to write, I still do the fifteen-minute bursts. When that timer sounds, I stop typing, stand up, and walk the conference room. I look out the window and soothe the mind. Sure, I might mull over the next line but for the most part, I don’t. That’s the rest time, usually a three-minute span. What that three-minute timer goes off, I sit back down, reset the phone for fifteen minutes, and go.

With this concentrated focus time of three writing sessions in a lunch hour, I can get 1,000-1,400 knocked out in an hour. For my work-from-home day, I do this process in the morning before my work day.

The progress I made this week was eye opening, so I think I’ll keep on this “workout” until this book is done. Our imagination is a muscle, so give it a good workout twice a day and see how far your book will go.

 

Getting Through The Writer’s Drought

by
Scott D. Parker

Remember back on Memorial Day when I wrote a post about The Great Summer Writing Season? I said that in the 97 days between Memorial Day and Labor Day 2022, if you keep up a decent writing habit, you can get a book written or a number of short stories.

How’d you do?

Better than me, I hope, because I failed. Badly.

And the thing is, I’m not sure why, but there were a number of factors, the primary one is the change in the house. My son moved out of the house in July, heading out for his junior year in college. I was not prepared for the emotional wallop that event delivered. In the days and weeks before he moved out in late July, our family centered on being together and a series of Lasts. In the days and weeks since, we’ve experienced a series of Firsts. All of those things churned through the emotions and the end result was a shift of focus.

Then there was the reading (and listening) of books, comics (and audiobooks). I don’t know about you but I have seasons (not the best word but I’ll go with it) with my reading. I’m always reading something but sometimes, the desire to read more and more things consumes my attention. Couple that with the limited amount of time I have to write and/or read and as the summer progressed, I found myself opting to open a book a read in those precious minutes before work rather than writing. The thing was, I didn’t mind.

The reading material was not all fiction or comics either. I ended up on a run of self-help, creativity books. Having read the first Steven Pressfield creativity book, The War of Art, I kept going with Turning Pro and Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be. Both short volumes had great nuggets that subtly began to shift some of the ground beneath my feet and started edging me to getting back into a writing habit. I mean, the title of that third book pretty much says it, right?

But it was the concepts and philosophy behind James Clear’s Atomic Habits that really did the trick. I’m a latecomer to Clear’s book but I picked it up in July and began reading it, annotating it, and compiling my own set of notes and takeaways from this excellent book. I highly recommend it (a couple of folks in my office are now reading it). It’s kind of put some guidelines around this new life my wife and I find ourselves in: empty nesters. It’s a big change, to be sure.

One of the crucial ideas Clear makes, um, clear, is that to start a habit, you have to make it easy. If you leave the dental floss out on the counter next to your toothbrush, then you’ll be more likely to floss when you brush. If you have a desire to become more physically fit, start with something so easy—like one push up—that the barrier is basically nonexistent.

This applies to writing as well. And, truth be told, I pretty much wrote the same thing back in May, but somewhere along the summer of 2022, I forgot it. That is write whatever you can in the time you have per day. Don’t get hung up on striving for a certain word count—at least if you are getting back into the habit.

That’s where I am now: getting back into the habit. I have a project I’m actively working so that’s a nice on ramp to the writer’s superhighway and I’m taking it.

I hope your summer writing season was productive, but here’s an important thing to understand: if it wasn’t, that’s okay. We can’t always be on all the time. Droughts happen. I’ve been through a few myself and I’ve come to learn that they will pass. It’s better to just get through them—enjoying whatever it is that’s taking you away from writing—so you can be supercharged on the other side and hit the writing with a renewed sense of optimism and excitement.

The Great Summer Writing Season

by
Scott D. Parker

Here in the United States, summer officially begins on Monday. Memorial Day. It ends 97 days later on Labor Day, 5 September.  I know it is a great time to travel, watch summer blockbuster movies (by the time this is posted, I’ll have already seen Top Gun: Maverick), catch up on some TV, sit on the patio or beach or dock and sip something cold, and just enjoy the summer vibe.

But it can also be used to write.

Think of it: perfect bookends. There is a beginning and an end. There are 97 days of summer if you don’t include either holiday but do count weekends. If you were to write up to 1,000 words per day, more or less an hour, you’d have a novel.

Okay, you say, what about weekends? There are 28 Saturdays and Sundays this summer. Doing the math, that is 69 weekdays. At 1,000 words a day, that 69,000 words, still a novel.

But let’s say you don’t reach 1,000 words a day. What if you only spend 30 minutes a day and produce 500 words? That’s 48,500 words, a nice short novel. If you take out the weekends, that brings you down to 34,500 words, still very respectable.

And I’m only thinking novels here. Imagine if you wrote a short story per week. That’s 14 new short stories.

This is just to get you thinking about continuing your writing during what Dean Wesley Smith calls the Time of Great Forgetting, when your New Year’s Day resolutions to write more are ignored. You can do this. Just start on Monday and keep going.

I’ll be finishing up a novel rather than starting a new one. And I’ll also be preparing for the Great Departure: my son will be moving out and continuing his college coursework. Sigh. It is time. It is supposed to happen, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

The writing part is, however, pretty straightforward. Just sit and write. Keep at it long enough and you’ll reach those magical words: The End. And summer is a great time to keep that habit going.  

Side Note: Namedropped

It’s not every day when a famous author reads a post and responds.

I always read Max Allan Collins’s blog so imagine my surprise when I saw my own name. It seems he read and responded to my post from last week regarding Legacy Authors and That Last Book. I nearly swallowed my coffee down the wrong pipe when I saw it. He provided some extra examples to address the question I posed. How cool is that?

Moderation Can Be a Good Thing

by

Scott D. Parker

I’ll admit something: it’s been harder than I expected to get back into the writing routine after it laid dormant for a couple of months. Which is odd considering I like this book (why else would I be up to chapter 31 of it) and want to get to the end—I’ve mapped out the scenes up through chapter 39 so it’s not like I don’t have a road map.

Part of the reason I’ll admit is health. I’m healthy, eat well, and walk about two miles every day per week except Fridays and Saturdays. But it’s the lack of sleep that’s actually started to get to me.

There are more things I want to do on any given day and there’s just not enough time to do them. That includes writing, living, working, being with the family, and doing my own thing (usually reading or watching a show). As a result, I recently found myself staying up later in the evenings (a little past 11pm) but still waking up at 5am. After starting off as an evening writer, I’ve become a morning writer.

Every time the alarm went off this past week, however, the body was having none of it. Usually I all but jump out of bed, but this week was a struggle. I actually felt myself dragging throughout the day, including when I’m in the office three days a week. I even resorted to a 15-minute power nap in my office, doors closed, reclined in my office chair, the legs up on one of those padded-top short filing cabinets. After those power naps, I’m good, but its necessity cut into my lunch hour writing time.

And that irritated me. I would have to do something about that.

Late last year as I was enduring some harsh times at the day job, I found myself drinking more. I never got drunk, but I’d have the five o’clock cocktail and then wine at nine almost every day. It wasn’t a good habit to keep, so when Lent rolled around, I gave up alcohol. First couple of days were not hard, but I certainly wanted to keep the muscle memory of drinking alive.

But on Easter, I didn’t rush to the liquor cabinet and make a cocktail. Instead, I reminded myself that it’s perfectly fine to have a glass of wine or a martini but I didn’t need to have both every day. Heck, I could have a day or two per week in which I don’t have any alcohol and let that become the new normal.

Couple the lack of enough sleep with the more limited alcohol intake since Easter and both things got me to thinking that a little bit of moderation can go a long way to a healthy lifestyle. The alcohol consumption is pretty easy: Just limit to one glass of wine on the days I drink and save the martini for Fridays and savor the heck out of it. That’s working well and it’s made the martini preparation something more special.

The sleep thing take more of a challenge. I literally have to cut out something I want to do in favor of making sure I get my six hours. That one’s tougher because there’s just so much I want to read and do and write and watch. But how much do I actually enjoy watching a show or reading a book when I'm nodding off?

What the heck does this have to do with writing? Well, moderation.

I’m fortunate to have a day job that takes care of all the bills and insurance and makes sure we have enough money and peace of mind to get us through the days. Granted, it also curtails my writing/watching/family/myself time, but that’s the trade off.

Where the writing part comes in is this: Moderation.

Right now in my writing career, I have no external deadlines. I have internal deadlines for writing and publishing stories well into 2023, but they are well enough in advance that I can write—wait for it—at a moderate pace and achieve my deadlines. The moderate pace will also enable me to do some moderate marketing and not interfere too much into the day-to-day life.

Because that’s the key, right? Sure, I could have kept drinking at last fall's pace, but sooner or later, I’d have hit the wall and the physical health would have suffered so much that the doctor would advise me to stop drinking. That’s no fun. Neither is constantly being tired during the days because I didn’t get enough sleep the night before.

And neither is writing when you’re under the gun. Yes, the old pulp guys using to do that to pay the rent, but guys like Walter Gibson and Lester Dent ultimately suffered physical ailments because of their constant demands.

I’d rather enjoy the writing process in the time I have rather than be sweating a deadline. I sweat deadlines at the day job and of course I’d sweat a fiction deadline if it ever presented itself.

But for now, I’m just enjoying the ride…moderately.

The Epiphony of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

By
Scott D. Parker

Where has this book been all my writing life? Well, right in front of me, the entire time.

I’ve known about Steven Pressfield for a good number of years. In fact, I have his blog feed in my Feedly app and I am a subscriber to his email. But in all that time, I had never sat down and read his most famous non-fiction book: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.

I guess I just wasn’t ready for it. I believe that there is always a time and place for certain things to occur, and the first quarter of 2022 proved to be especially difficult for my writing life. So difficult, in fact, that I stopped and questioned whether or not I should keep going. Somewhere in that miasma of thoughts and feelings and doubt this book popped in front of my eyes. I had already started back on the upswing via my own journaling but I shrugged and thought why not.

Wow. This book opened my eyes, wide, to see that not only was I not alone in my struggles (we all struggle), but Pressfield laid out a definition of my challenges and a roadmap through them.

Most importantly, perhaps, was this: Pressfield gave the challenge, the obstacle we all face, a name: Resistance. That is the focus of Book 1 of this short but powerful book. Resistance: Defining the Enemy. Pressfield then goes on to list all the things that Resistance is, such as Internal, Universal, and Insidious. He points out that Resistance is strongest right near the finish list, it often makes you unhappy, and carves a place in your mind for self-doubt and self-rationalization.

Very quickly as I started reading the print version of this book I grabbed a pencil and started underlining key passages. I kept underlining all through Book 1, seeing myself in the words.

Book 2: Combating Resistance: Turning Pro serves as the antithesis. It is the writer/artist as hero. Key to this section is in the sub-title: Turning Pro. It is the light bulb moment when a writer decides he is no longer just going to write for fun, but to be a professional writer. Pressfield lists many traits of the professional mindset. Personally, I found I already do many of them—is prepared; we show up every day; we are patient; we demystify the writing process—so it made me question why I was in such a state as to even think about quitting.

But, as Pressfield states, “The battle is inside our own head.” It always is. Always. It can be frustrating to be in a profession where dwell-doubt is constant, but there you go. The mountaintop experience of a writer/artist is also very high.

The last book, Beyond Resistance: The Higher Realm, makes the case for the power of an artist’s way of life. He lays out the evidence that there exists for artist a sometimes magical place where our imaginations and our physical efforts to find our dreams connect. He divides artist into two camps: those that think hierarchically and those that think territorially, using the animal kingdom as an example. By the time I reached the end of the book, pencil tip well worn for underlining so many thing, I smiled. So many of Pressfield’s comments seemed self-evident, and yet I struggled. We all struggle. It is part of the artist’s way of life.

But a book like The War of Art clears out the cobwebs of doubt and shows us a way forward.

I ended up dictating all the underlined passages into my phone and created a 14-page file. It is my own outline of this important book. I know that I’ll encounter Resistance again. It is inevitable. But I also know a means to overcome it. And I’ve got my own printed set of pages to remind me how.

If you are struggling—and even if you’re not—I encourage you to read this book and see if you can turn yourself around.

I want to leave you with one of my favorite passages of the entire book. It explains why it is important to create and maintain a writing habit.

Someone asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on his schedule for only when struck my inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,“ he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at 9 o’clock sharp.”
That’s a pro.
In terms of resistance, Maugham was saying, “I despise resistance; I will not let it phase me; I will sit down and do my work. “
Maugham reckoned another, deeper truth: that my performing the Monday and physical active sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with his. He knew if he built it, she would come.

Carving Up Your Hours and Meat Loaf’s Example for Creatives

by
Scott D. Parker

You don’t find the time to write. You make time to write.

That’s an adage I’ve held onto for years. I firmly believe that if you truly want to write, you will make the time to write. Thus, the excuse of “I would love to write but I just don’t have the time” flies out the window.

But sometimes you have to carve up your time to find those pockets in which you can write. I did a little exercise this week that you might find instructive if you are wanting to find all those extra minutes in your week to get your fingers on the keyboard and your brain into its imagination.

I started a new day job this month and this is the end of week three. Naturally, I now have a new schedule, one that involves three days in the office and two at home. It felt like I had less time to write, so I broke down my days.

Every weekday, I wake at 5am. Yes, I am a proud member of the 5am Writing Club. Have been a morning writing for going on nine years now, and dedicated 5am-er for the past three or four. I find it liberating to have the house to myself, only a single light on over the kitchen table, and just a cup of coffee (two, actually) beside me as I write. Zero internet, zero TV, zero anything other than a psalm a day until the words are out of my head.

I work in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That means I have a hard stop at 6am so I can get ready for work, jump in the car with the daily smoothie, and drive to work, usually listening to an audiobook (most recently finished Carol Burnett’s memoir).

So, accounting for the waking, exercising, Bible-reading time, I’m left with approximately 45 mins in the morning to write, give or take. Doing the math, 45 x 3 = 135 mins. Since I work from home on Mondays and Fridays, I allow myself an extra 30 minutes. 75 x 2 = 150 mins. That’s 285 mins, or 4.75 hours per week in the mornings to write. Not bad at all.

Side note: I don’t write during Family Time at night.

Then there are the lunch hours at the day job. Accounting for regular meetings going long and, you know, eating, I estimate I have 45 minutes I can spend writing on my Chromebook. That’s another 135 minutes, which bring us up to about 7 hours per week that I have to myself and I can write.

I have more time on Saturdays. I tend to wake at 7am, get the dogs, head out to Shipley’s for do-nuts, come home, cook and eat breakfast. Generally, I get to writing around 8am and the family leaves me alone. On Saturdays in which there are few things to do, I can get two hours easy. Then, it’s Family Time (or Chore Time) so the writing is off the table. Now I’m up to 9 hours, more or less.

Sundays are a tad different. I still wake at 7, but I have a hard stop around 9:30 or so to get ready for church. So let’s call it a good 90 minutes. Now I’m up to 10.5 hours of writing time per week.

All it took was for me to analyze my schedule and see what time I have available. There’s a lot I can do in 10.5 hours. I knocked out NaNoWriMo’s 1,667-word threshold in any of those given time frames, but if it’s slow going, I can get 800 words in any one of those writing sessions (although my daily goal is 1,000).

Here’s where the math is magical. If I can average a 1,000 words an hour, that means I can write approximately 10,000 new words of fiction per week. With a day job. With Family and Chore Time factored in.

And all I basically ever do is wake up earlier than my family and write. Makes me really happy, productive, and helps start the day on a good note.

Now, how does your week break down?

Meat Loaf’s Example and His Challenge

The news broke yesterday morning that Meat Loaf passed away. I have an unabashed love for his soaring, Broadway-like anthems. In particular, there is a late-career gem I wrote about back in 2016 that was the first song I went to upon hearing the news. Then I listened it again before playing all the songs I have on my Mac.

In the various comments from folks yesterday, more than one commented on Meat Loaf’s improbably resurgence in the early 1990s. In an era of grunge and rap and early hip-hop, here was Meat Loaf singing about the things he would and would not do for love. The song was over the top, the video was even more over the top, but people ate it up. I know I did. There he was, wearing makeup to give him the appearance of a beast, starring in a mini-movie. Were it anyone else, they would have been laughed at.

But not Meat Loaf. He knew who he was, what his talents were, what kind of music he liked and performed well, and just did all that. He was himself no matter what. Sure, he had some down times, but he kept to his talents. When it worked, it soared. When it didn’t, he kept going.

From the last part of the tweet that announced his death came this challenge: “From his heart to your souls…don’t ever stop rocking!”

That’s his challenge to every creative: Don’t ever stop [making your art].

Ever Have One of Those Chapters?

by

Scott D. Parker

We writers know all about the vicissitudes of writing prose, the good, the bad, the frustrating, and the glorious. Most of us know that for every valley in which we find ourselves mired in will soon vanish when we reach the mountaintop of “The End.”

There are, however, little victories along the way, and I experienced one this week. See if this rings true for you.

My current work in progress has been gestating on and off for about eight years. I completed Version 1.0 back in 2013 but stuck it in a drawer. I picked it up again a few years ago, but it still wasn’t gelling. Last fall, I picked up that 2013 printout, re-read it with a yellow notepad right next to me. Then, I completely revised the outline, exporting it onto 3x5 index cards that now live on the cork board in my writing room.

Those notecards carry the plot. They don’t always carry characterization. That’s for the writer, his fingers, and his imagination.

I’m something like 30,000+ into this story. I’m enjoying it, layering in the various threads for my awesome conclusion. And I’ve got a main character I really enjoy. She’s a woman of a certain age. One of her funny lines goes something like this. “You’re never supposed to ask a woman about her age. And there’s also a certain age when you’re not even supposed to guess.” 

I know her backstory and what makes her tick, but I reached a particular chapter in this book that ended up taking me the bulk of the week to complete. Why? Well, I ended up fighting with how the chapter was flowing versus the text I had written on the index card. I kept trying to steer the chapter toward what I had written on a 3x5 card last fall when I didn’t have the broader understanding of character in place. I kept hitting a wall, no matter what I did.

Finally, I relented. I stopped reading the card and just re-read the first half of the chapter. Then, picking up steam by the words I had written, I just let the two characters talk to each other.

Guess what? My lead became even more alive than before. So did the other character. They both were on a date, just talking to each other, in that typical getting-to-know-you vibe of all first dates. 

For me, my fictional protagonist became a real human this week. And boy am I excited to continue on with the story.

Y’all have chapters like that?

Last Woman Standing

Life as a writer poses many challenges. And not all of those challenges are writing or publishing related. Some challenges are how to carry on when life throws you a curveball.

My wife and I have been married for nearly twenty-one years, longer than most lesbian couples. We're still a lot like two lovesick teenagers, always making each other laugh. In so many ways, the honeymoon never ended.

That's not to say we don't have our challenges. Over the past few years, my wife has become disabled. It's difficult for her to stand for long periods of time or to walk long distances. So I've had to step up my game. And I'm happy to do so.

I do more of the chores around the house. I am doing more and more of the cooking (which is something she's always enjoyed doing.) I take care of our three cats. Plus my day job. Plus my writing career, which she has whole-heartedly supported.

As I said, I'm happy to do it because she's such an amazing person who helped me work through a lot of the PTSD-related issues that I had coming into the relationship two decades ago. In a very real way, she showed me what love is. And I am beyond grateful.

Me waiting for surgery

A couple of weeks ago, I started to feel some abdominal pain. I figured I probably strained some muscles pulling weeds. And then at times during the week, I felt lightheaded and feverish. Wasn't sure what it was, but I kept an eye on it.

Then a week ago last Saturday night, I felt a hard lump just above my navel. I'm realizing this isn't just a pulled muscle. Quite possibly a hernia. Not what I need with so many responsibilities at home.

I went to the Emergency Room and learned I had an abscess the size of a plum in my abdominal muscle. I was admitted to the hospital to have it treated.

Because of my wife's condition, she couldn't visit me. That was hard on both of us.

After a couple of days of being pumped with antibiotics, they drained the abscess, leaving in a JP drain to allow further drainage. After five days in hospital, they finally pulled the drain and released me.

Me getting a little silly on the whiteboard

The medical care was top-notch. The food was...well, it was not my wife's awesome cooking, I'll tell you that. And missing my wife for so long left me a little stir crazy. Writing silliness on the whiteboards.

I'm happy to say I am now home and on the mend. Not sure when I'll be back at work. And while my wife really stepped up to do what she could to take care of the cats and herself during my absence, it was a painful struggle for her.

Despite instructions for me to rest and take it easy, I simply can't. With all I went through, I'm still the most able-bodied person in the house. A day after my release, I was making meals, shopping for groceries, cleaning litter boxes, etc. Because shit still needs to get done.

Yes, I know the old adage about taking care of oneself as a priority before helping others. But the truth is, it's a balancing act. Difficult choices must be made when you're the last woman standing.

Maybe now I can get caught up on my editing.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 2

by
Scott D. Parker


The first full week of 2019 saw two interesting things. One was business related, the other involved writing.

PROOFING THE HARDCOPY

The big news this week was the arrival of the paperback proof of EMPTY COFFINS. On sale in ebook form since 1 Jan, the paperback lagged behind, largely because of the holiday schedules of both me and the POD companies. But Ingram Spark did a great job at getting me the hard copy proof and it arrived Thursday.

First of all, as a writer, there are few things better than getting a paperback of your book in the mail. It never gets old. But as soon as the pride beamed through me, I inspected the book.

And found flaws. The text on the spine is not precisely centered. The text on the back cover is a tad too large. The cover, on the other hand, looks great and exactly as I planned it. Inside, I scanned the intro pages, then the back. Sure enough: I found a few errors. One of them was in the “Also by” section where I switched two covers. I also read through my “Origins of Calvin Carter” essay and found a few tweaks I needed to make. Oddly, on my “About the Author” page, I noted the actual links to my Facebook and Twitter feed were missing.

It’s all the little things.

As an indie writer and publisher, you are responsible for every aspect of your business. Sure, you can outsource some parts of your business, but you’d still have to QA whatever the third party did. Or not. You can trust the third party completely, but would you really do that? Wouldn’t you just want to make sure on your own?

I’ll be making the cover changes today. I made the interior changes on Thursday night in the Vellum program.

UPDATING EBOOKS

I noted the Call to Action in the paperback had my request to join mailing list and receive WADING INTO WAR as a free gift. Well, if you read my post from last week, you’ll know I’ve changed that. So I need to update all my ebooks. All of them. Four mysteries, six westerns, and EMPTY COFFINS. Eleven files in Kobo; eleven files for Amazon, and eleven files for Draft2Digital. Yes, this makes the case for having a service like D2D be the sole source, but as I wrote last week, there are reasons I want to keep a direct line open to Kobo and Amazon.

But this time, I’ll have my Call to Action be more generic, and direct all traffic to my webpage. Then, if I change what I offer, it’ll only be at the website, and not 33 different ebook files.

WRITING THE NEXT BOOK

I am having great success writing this new book. Until late this week, I’ve been using my old draft as a jumping off point and using vast swaths of that content in the new draft. It works well…until it didn’t.

Twice this week, I felt my new creative voice stymied by the urge to go in a different direction. Usually, these little nudges consisted of adding a sentence here or there. Very low key. But what was pulling me this time was a new direction for the story, a direction my newer, more seasoned creative voice was telling me I needed.

Turns out, the creative voice was correct. One thing it said was the story needed a prologue. That thought drifted into my head when I was writing chapter 7 and it went on for way too long. Something in the back of my head whispered a prologue could solve lots of problems.

So I wrote a prologue. Boy, did those words spill out. Almost in an entire session at lunch this week. And they were pretty good. I read the prologue to my wife—a fantastic first reader because she’ll call out anything that takes her out of the story. She liked it.

I learned to trust the creative voice and, from this point forward in writing this newly re-written novel, don’t be such a slave to the existing original draft. Let the story flow.

BLOG OF THE WEEK

When it comes to writing, you can get a degree from a traditional college. For writing and selling fiction, however, there are tons of resources out there. Like I mentioned last week, I created my own curriculum in fiction writing by reading lots of blogs and listening to tons of podcasts by writers who are ahead of me on the writing journey.

Dean Wesley Smith is one of the best. A veteran of the writing business for over forty years, Smith has likely seen it all and written it all. In just the last decade, he has made the jump to independent publishing.

And he’s never going back. He lays out what he’s learned and how we writers can navigate this new landscape. He’s great for blowing up the myths surrounding the writing business—note the second word—and encouraging us writers to take ownership of our careers. His daily posts are almost the first things I read every day *after my writing is complete.* He had some great posts today, one of which I sparked. Smith’s blog is literally a graduate-level course. You could learn so much just from reading and studying what he himself practices.

Give him a read. https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/ 


How has your week gone?

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 1

By Scott D. Parker

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were safe and fun. 

For readers of this particular blog, I hope to provide something new.

I’ll admit: there are days in which I ponder what I’m going to write every Saturday. Sometimes, I’ll scour old posts and re-post them...which isn’t horrible because we’re always getting new readers. But I think I have something special for 2019.

I’m an independent writer and publisher. I enjoy it that way, accepting all the challenges that come my way as learning experiences. I’ve mapped out a rather interesting plan for 2019 when it dawned on me that I have a perfect medium for new, engaging series of blog posts every week: write specifically about my experiences as an independent author over the course of one year.

Ambitious? Yes. Doable? Also yes. Exciting? For me, yes, and, I hope, educational for those fellow writers in the publishing world. Over the past four years, I have learned a lot from those writers ahead of me on the writing/publishing journey. I’m thinking of Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Katheryn Rusch, Joanna Penn, the guys at Sterling and Stone, the interviewees at Kobo Writing Life, and dozens more. I’ve learned a lot--and I keep learning--but I thought it might be interesting to catalog what goes on here at the home offices of Quadrant Fiction Studio for a calendar year. At the very least, it’ll give me a record of everything I do. And, in the future, I can collect these essays and publish them in a book.

So...let’s start.

THE PLAN FOR 2019

I have a rather ambitious publishing schedule for 2019. I am introducing railroad detective Calvin Carter over six books this year. The first, EMPTY COFFINS, was published on New Year’s Day. Here’s the link to the main book page where you can see the cool cover, read the description, and have a look at all of Chapter 1. I have to admit: it’s one of my favorite chapters I’ve written. You get a good sense of who Carter and his partner, Thomas Jackson, are and how Carter conducts his investigations...with flair.

I have five-and-a-half books written, and they’ll be published every other month starting in January. 

In addition, I have other books complete and ready to go. I’m still making decisions on when they’ll be published, but there’s a good chance I’ll be publishing them on the even-numbered months. 

Busy, busy year.

And I’m still writing. Just started a new book on New Year’s Day. My goal is to publish it in August. 



DISTRIBUTION

I use the following three methods for ebooks:

Kobo Writing Life for Kobo ebooks
KDP for Amazon ebooks
Draft2Digital for everything else, including Apple and Barnes and Noble

Why not just use Draft2Digital for everything? Ease of use. Kobo and Amazon are really straightforward when it comes to preparing files for publication. Plus, I’m a part of Kobo’s promotional program, and the KWL folks are wonderful with any questions I have. D2D is also straightforward--maybe even the simplest out there--but I’m comfortable with the systems so I’ll just keep on this way unless circumstances necessitate a change.

Late in November 2018 (barely six weeks ago), I got word from Draft2Digital and Kobo that, due to the holiday season, if writers wanted books published in early 2019, final files needed to be submitted by early December. That took me by surprise, so I quickly stopped writing the sixth Carter novel and jumped on prepping EMPTY COFFINS. It took a few days, but I got all the files in on time.

But what about the paperback? Well, I’m trying IngramSpark for 2019. I’ve never used them before, but for extended distribution reasons, I thought why not give them a go. I used CreateSpace for my existing four paperbacks over at Amazon. I’m slowly converting them over to KDP Print.  

So far, I’ve been very pleased with IngramSpark. One great thing is being able to purchase an ISBN number via their system. Not only is it cheaper, but it avoids the issues that came up in 2018 with the existing provider of US-based ISBNs. All I had to do was create a print-ready PDF, get the proper page count, submit all the metadata, and create a title in their system. What you get back in a template you can use to create your paperback cover. 

Here is where Ingram shines. The template is easy to use. I just insert it into Affinity Designer and created my cover with little headaches. I submitted the files to Ingram...and it got rejected. It seemed some of my text ran into the no-fly zone. I fixed and resubmitted. Viola! Accepted. Unlike with CreateSpace, there is a $49 charge to set everything up at Ingram, but I think that’s a small price to pay for greater visibility. I’ve approved the e-proof and am awaiting the paper proof. When I see it and see how everything lays out, I’ll be more likely to simply approve the e-proof in the future. 

WEBSITE

On 31 December, I updated my website to include Calvin Carter. I’ve posted the covers of all six novels. Between you and me, there’s a chance a couple of them might change. That’s the beauty of being independent: change at will.

I use Houston’s Host Gator to host my website and WordPress to run it. I’ve also purchased the Divi theme because of its WYSIWYG nature. Thought everything was good…

...until I checked the links New Year’s Day. All were wrong. So I spent an hour that morning fixing everything. Again, not difficult, but time consuming.

That’s the theme for much of what I do as an independent. Most of the tasks are not difficult--or just a Google search away for the answer to most questions--just time consuming. As a person with a day job and a family, time is precious. But every now and then, you just have to knuckle down and fix links.

NEWSLETTER and INCENTIVES

I have not been as diligent with my mailing list as I should be, but that changes in 2019. I plan on being quite active with my newsletters, building up the list, and interacting with readers along the way. 

I have a specific goal of discovering 100 new subscribers this year. It’s a discrete, doable goal with specific metrics: 8-10 new subscribers per month. 

Most authors give away a free book as a thank-you gift for joining a mailing list. I did that, too, but I had two lists, one for mysteries and one for westerns. With Calvin Carter--a character who can bridge both these genres--I decided to merge the lists into one. But if I have potentially two audiences coming into the one list, what kind of incentive could I offer? Mystery readers might not like a western, and vice versa. 

So I created a catalog sampler. In this ebook, I have my four mysteries, the opening chapters of my six Carter novels, and excerpts of my existing western stories. It is my hope that readers will read through the samples, find a few things they like, and read more.

And I threw in a couple of incentives. If a reader buys a book of mine, let me know and I’ll provide them with a free book. Buy one, get one free. In addition, if an existing subscriber gets another person to subscribe to the list, the existing subscriber earns a free story. So, potentially, for the price of one book, a person can get three stories.

Is that a good idea? Not sure, but that’s the best thing about being independent: I can experiment and figure out what works, what doesn’t, and adjust. I see few downsides to this equation. 

Want to join? Head on over to my website.

To distribute the free catalog sampler, I use BookFunnel. I upgraded to mid-list plan so I can have multiple pen names and numerous books on file. From there, I can create various landing pages with various giveaways all the while collecting emails for my newsletter. Win-win. 

SUMMARY

So that’s how I’m starting 2019. It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out, but I’m excited. I know there will be slumps of enthusiasm along with mountaintop highs, but that’s all part of the marathon that is writing and publishing in 2019. 

Each week, I plan on updating everyone with my weekly accomplishments. If y’all’ve got questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll address them. Or you can always head over to my author Facebook page and interact there.

Here’s to a fanTAStic 2019!

What are your goals for the year?

The Lunch Hour

By

Scott D. Parker

There’s a reason why some of us stop writing a project when we encounter a barrier. But there’s also the reward when you just start forging ahead: The flow.

This past Monday, I started my latest book. It’s the sixth adventure of my Calvin Carter, Railroad Detective, series. I’m launching it in January and I wanted to have all six books completed before I start advertising, mainly because I wanted to be able to include all six covers in the campaign. Plus I want the ability to make and keep a promise to readers of a new book every other month.

For whatever reason, after I completed the fifth novel, the sixth one was difficult to crack. I had chapter 1 done and notes on how to proceed. But other writing projects kept getting in the way. It happens. Life happens. We all know it. And a large part of the life thing for me was my day job. I had a contractor job and lots of uncertainty. The commute was an hour each way. I’m a 4:30am writer so I tried valiantly to keep that schedule. I did, for the most part, but two hours in a car began to wear on me to where 4:30 slid into 4:45 and then edged to 5:00. With a hard stop at 5:20 to get me and my boy ready for the day, it didn’t leave a lot of time to write.

Now, since August, I’ve got a  new job! Salaried position writing for an oil and gas company. The co-workers are great, the work is stimulating, and the commute is down to about 25 minutes each way. I’m much happier going to the job. Even my boy noted I’m happier nowadays—which was weird because I’m usually really good at leaving work stuff at work. Guess I let a little of it seep through. Speaking of the boy, his school day starts later. I now don’t have to get him up until 5:50 am. You can do the math there. Even if I sleep in until 4:45, that’s a solid hour of writing before the day even begins.

Additionally, I have a lunch hour. The best thing about being a contractor was working through lunches Monday through Thursday and being able to leave at noon on Fridays. Well, that’s not an option now…but I love the alternative better. Now, armed with my boy’s half-working Chromebook—literally, only half the screen works and company wifi prevents me from accessing Google docs—I find a nice, quiet space in my building and dive into the words.

I’m almost instantly in the flow. You see, as of Monday, I was all in on this story. Whatever was blocking me had vanished. Not sure what it was, but glad it is gone. And while I have more overall time to write, I’m still locked into certain time frames. Mornings from 4:30-5:50 and lunch hours from 12:15-1:00. [I call and chat with the wife every lunch hour, too.] With hard stops on both writing sessions, time is at a premium.

Perhaps that fact serves as a catalyst for the writing flow. Perhaps knowing, subconsciously, I have limited time and I want to get as many words as possible down—my record so far is 1681 words at lunch—to move the story forward, all barriers are removed. Not sure. But it’s a gas.

Another benefit? With two separate writing sessions averaging approximately 800 words each, that’s about 1600 words a day. Sixteen hundred words over 31 days is just at 50,000 words. That’s a book.

Lunch hours. As if you needed any other motivation to use them for writing, here’s another one. Use the time you have, and it’ll pay for itself in the long run.

The Man Who Invented Christmas, or So That's What It's Like to Live With Your Imaginary Characters

by
Scott D. Parker

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a writer wrestling with a story? Well, have I got a movie for you.

When I first learned there was a movie based on the non-fiction book The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford (my review), I wondered if it wasn’t merely a documentary. To some degree, it is, seeing as how the movie is based on the actual events of how Charles Dickens came to write A Christmas Carol in only six weeks and publish it on his own. But the movie is more. It is a visual representation of how writers create their characters, how said characters can take over an author’s imagination, and end up becoming something more.

The movie opens in October 1843. Dickens’s finances are not what they once were, with Martin Chuzzlewit not performing as well as Oliver Twist. Add to that the author’s blank-page syndrome: he doesn’t know what next to write. When he happens upon the idea of a Christmas story, his publisher scoffs at the idea. The production time alone makes the notion a non-starter to say nothing of the fact that Dickens had not written a single word. Nevertheless, the thirty-one-year-old author charges ahead.

Anyone familiar with the novel or any of the screen adaptations will enjoy witnessing Dickens encountering various bits of dialogue in his everyday life. The famous line about the poor houses is uttered by a rich patron who dislikes Dickens populating his stories with “them,” the poor. He sees a jolly couple dancing in the dirty streets and envisions Fezziwig and his wife. And, at a funeral, he sees a man, played by Christopher Plummer, who becomes the physical embodiment of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Seeing Dickens struggle with crafting the name for his main character is fun, particularly when Dickens, as played wonderfully by Dan Stevens, zeroes in on the name itself. “Scrooge.” The look on Stevens’s face is like “Of course that’s the name.” I don’t know about you writers out there, but coming up with a name for main characters can be difficult.

But the movie really takes off when Dickens begins interacting with his creations. Plummer’s Scrooge has multiple dialogues with Dickens, and the two actors play off each other well. Stevens possesses a certain manic quality not present in his role on Downton Abbey. I could easily see him starring in screwball comedies the likes of which that made Cary Grant a star.

As any writer will tell you, when you are deep in a novel, the moments are few when you are not thinking about the story. Sitting in traffic? Check. Shopping at the grocery store? Check. Watching a TV where you’re suppose to care about that story? Check. It happens all the time. So it was utterly charming when the movie portrays Dickens’s characters actually showing up in places he least expected it.

Credit the movie also with some genuine tension. The mere fact there’s a movie devoted to this book’s creation means you know Dickens completed the book. However, the movie effectively showed his struggle with the ending just well enough that you might start to wonder if Boz would get it done.

I’m not enough of a Dickensian to know if the author truly had a different ending to his Carol or not, but the movie plays with that concept. Dickens wondered if someone like Scrooge could really turn around his life in only one night. I’d like to think that almost anyone—be it Scrooge, the Grinch, Jimmy Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day” (and “Scrooges”), or even Nicholas Cage in “Family Man” to name a few—would change.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a charming, magnificent movie about a remarkable author and a timeless story. I can’t help but wonder if this movie will, in the course of time, became a classic.

Unfurl Your Writing Banner

By
Scott D. Parker

Never shrink away from proudly letting the world know you are a writer. Sometimes it might open a door for you.

I started a new job this week and, yet again, it isn’t Full-Time Fiction Writer. Someday. In the meantime, however, I am a…well, it’s a funny thing. You see, the job description used the title “Technical Writer IV” (I love the way that looks; like the fourth movie in a kick-ass movie franchise) but the internal job description uses “IT Content Advisor.” That latter title reads like a high-powered government job or something out of Silicon Valley. Actually, it’s neither. I now work at the main campus of ExxonMobil in Spring, Texas. The project is part of the unified IT initiative where I’m part of a team that consolidates scores of content sources and brings it all under one umbrella. Daunting and challenging, but very interesting. The commute is pretty long—45 minutes in the mornings and 65 in the afternoons; I’ve already adjusted to mental mindset of there’s no quick route—but I started listening to Dan Brown’s ORIGIN so I’m getting by.

What does this have to do with flying that writing banner proudly? It comes down to my resume. When I updated my day-job resume, I debated whether or not to include my writing credentials. By that, I mean my mystery and western novels and stories. I opted for inclusion. In my interview, after all the day-job-type questions were asked, my interviewers asked me about my fiction. It enabled the three of us to have a few moments of informality and ended the interview on a jovial note. I found out this week that the fiction was one of the things that differentiated me above other candidates. My history degrees were also a factor. The clients were looking for something a little different and my liberal arts degree* and creative fiction writing set me apart. Another writer started the same day and she has a behavioral science degree, so we both are not your typical technical writer types.

When I decided to include my fiction, I did so with little regret. My fiction is a part of who I am, and I’m damned proud of the accomplishments. And it helped me get my foot in the door. The pride is just a little bit more now.

So, fellow writers like me who have a day job, I recommend you always put your fiction on your resumes if you don’t already do so. In fact, that’s my question for the week. Do y’all include y’all’s fiction on your day-job resumes?


*The Art of Manliness podcast—one of my favorites; the main website is awesome, too—had an excellent episode entitled “The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education.” Host Brett McKay interviews author George Anders, author of You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education. In the episode, they discuss how creative people often possess skills that can be used in various fields and businesses. I had to smile because it came true for me.

Another Milestone Achieved, Another Magic Number Reached

by
Scott D. Parker

Sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to tout an accomplishment, and today I am.

As of Wednesday, 5 April, I have written over 200,000 words of fiction. I’m not sure of your output, but for me, a writer with a day job, that’s a nice chunk of words. And 5 April is the 95th day of 2017 so I achieved 200,000 words in less than 100 days.

Math. It all adds up over time.

For my novels—specifically these westerns—I have two magic numbers. One is 10,000. It means I’ve commented that number of words to the new story and I should have a pretty good idea of how it’s going. The other is 50,000. Westerns are shorter and if I’ve reached that number or thereabouts, I should be fine.

One interesting note: I hit 100,000 words for 2017 on Day 50. I hit 200,000 forty-five days later. The second 100K consisted of the latter half of February’s book, all of March’s, and the first week of April’s. One could make the case that writing constantly and deliberately makes the writing more efficient. For the most part, I’d agree. If I hadn’t had some sub-1000-word days in March as I wrestled that book to the finish line, I’d have reached 200,000 sooner.

For some of y’all, 200,000 may seem like a huge number. It is! Please don’t think it isn’t a substantial number. You may not think you could ever get there. Well, you can’t over night. That much is sure. But you can get there in 95 days, or 200 days, or 400 days, or whatever. But you CAN get there.

All you have to do is commit to it. Once you do that and stick with it, the numbers add up and one day you’ll realize you’ve passed your magic number. Then you’ll type “The End,” and that’s one of the best feelings in the world.

What’s your magic number(s)?

Switching Things Up

By
Scott D. Parker

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned how awesome it was to finish a book before the last day of the month in order to have a break? Well, I achieved that goal for March this past Tuesday. Not sure what happened here but I wrote the shortest of the three Calvin Carter books but actually took two days longer. I’ll just chalk that up to the mushy middle when I needed to right the ship and the story.

Anyway, I finished the story in my early morning pre-work session. I went to the day job floating on a cloud as I always do when I complete a novel. All day long, I didn’t think about writing at all. Ditto for Wednesday. I mean why would I? The next novel would be started until today, 1 April.
But something happened on Thursday. I got the itch. Not to write the next Carter book. No, I start those on the first day of each month. But I wanted to write something.

So I pulled out a novelette I had set aside late last year and re-read it. I made the corrections—implementing some writing techniques I’ve incorporated in writing three novels this year—and then I got to the part where I left off. Now, it was time for new content.

This novelette, however, has a different style than the Carter novels. A more pared down prose than the occasional flowery language I use when writing about the former actor turned railroad detective Calvin Carter. I had to remember the style and match it

I wrote nearly 2800 words over the past two days on that novelette. It was a great exercise, writing something completely different. It was still a western, but the style was different so it felt like a nice break, even though I still pounded the keys.

It made me wonder if other writers do this frequently. Cleanse the palette so to speak.

How about y’all? When y’all take a break, do you simply not write or do you write something completely different than the piece you just finished?

By the time this goes live, I will have started the fourth Calvin Carter novel. Unlike the previous three—in which I discovered the title along the way—a working title presented itself as I cast about for the plot. I immediately wrote it down and named the Scrivener file thusly: Calvin Carter and the Brides of Death. I’ll see if it holds.

Breaking Ain't Bad

by
Scott D. Parker

Sometimes you just need a break.

For the past few years, I’ve committed my writing self to writing streaks. The first one was from late May 2013 to early February 2014, something like 256 days in a row. I had another streak—I think in 2015—where I wrote some sort of fiction every day. But here’s the little secret: not every day was good. Some days will be good—I had an 8,000-word day once!—and some days will suck horribly: a sentence of 10 words? After awhile, keeping the streak alive was more important than what I was writing. The streak became unbearable.

And, more importantly, unsustainable.

I used to think that taking a break in writing was a waste of time. Of course, I told myself, I could keep up my writing day after day. All I had to do, thought I before I embarked on these two streaks, was to swap out what I wrote.

I’ll admit that what I ended up writing was a series of novels. I likely should have thrown in some short stories to lighten the load, but I didn’t. Who knows what could have happened had I done that. Well, I wouldn’t have arrived at my new philosophy.

Starting this year, I set an ambitious writing goal. It was based partly on word count but also on more products. As I wrote in my first column of 2017, the only thing we writers can control is what we produce. I wanted to write a ton of words that formed a ton of products. But more than anything, I wanted to develop a sustainable writing production schedule.

Much to my surprise, that included breaks.

I finished my first book of 2017 on 26 January. That was a Thursday. I told myself that sustainability was key so I gave myself permission not to start the next book until 1 February. That was the following Wednesday. I had nearly a week off from writing.

And it was great. I slept in past my usual 4:30 a.m. weekday alarm, and on those mornings I didn’t, I woke, sipped some coffee, and read. It was fantastic.

February, however, is the short month. I very much wanted to complete the second book—which I started enthusiastically on 1 February—before 28 February. Why? Because I wanted that break. I loved that reward of having accomplished something and the downtime that came with it. I ended up writing over 14,000 words from 24-26 February, but I put “The End” on the Book #2 last Sunday afternoon.

And I had my break. Shorter than January, of course, but still a break. And I started a new book on 1 March.

Two books, each written in 26 days with a full-time job. Both hovering around 62,000 words (they’re westerns so they may actually be a tad long) and both took about 36 hours of actual pounding-the-keyboard writing time. All, frankly, with little major effort except last weekend’s marathon push to get Book #2 completed. (BTW, tentative title for #2: Calvin Carter and the Hell Dragon.) Now, if the pattern holds, then around the last weekend of this month, I should be done with Book #3 and I’ll have earned myself a welcome break.

Is this method sustainable? To date, yes. Is it easy? Mostly. Waking at 4:30 a.m. isn’t always fun, but getting the chance to sit and have an adventure with Calvin Carter is a blast! But I never knew just how important having a break from writing can actually be. It gave me the enthusiasm to get back to a new blank page with and write with gusto!

I’ve learned, and I will be incorporating breaks into my writing life from now on.

What about y’all? Do y’all work in breaks from writing?

Writing Lessons from Frank Gruber

By
Scott D. Parker

Earlier this week, I review THE PULP JUNGLE by Frank Gruber. Reading through all the true struggles he endured to bust through and actually make it in 1934, I realized that I, in 2017, with a full-time day job, have it pretty good as I work at my writing craft and pursue my own goals.
But Gruber’s odyssey as a writer can also speak to us writers today. What follows are some facts and quotes I took away from his book.

From August 1932 (when he arrived in New York) until June 1934 (when he sold the story that enabled him to break big in the pulp fiction market), Gruber wrote 174 “pieces” which totaled 620,000 words, all on a Remington manual typewriter. He called himself a sloppy writer, so he had to retype everything after he corrected the manuscript. The fiction spanned the gamut: Sunday School stories, detective stories, love stories, spicy stories, sports stories, etc. Those words were not solely fiction. He wrote tons of articles often on topics he had to learn on the fly. In the book, Gruber lists the dollar amounts he earned for various pieces. Even in 1932 dollars, those meager sales didn’t add up to a living wage. My takeaway: Yeah, he had it bad, real bad. I don’t. Not really.

The Big Break came in 1934 in one of those great true tales you hear. Gruber gets a call on Friday afternoon. Operator #5 was going to press the next day but was a story short. Could Gruber write a 5500-word story overnight? In his retelling, he started at 8pm and had a character. Two hours later, he had his leading lady. By 3:30am, he had his big finale…but still needed a plot thread to weave it all together. He got it, and delivered the 18 pages by 9am. He didn’t hear back for a few days. He started to worry, so he called on the editor. Oh, he was told, we pay on Friday. Pay? Yup, the story was purchased. And then he was asked for another. According to Gruber, “I was ‘in.’” My takeaway: sometimes, your best work can emerge out of your brain and through your fingers in whole cloth. Don’t be afraid of going with it.

His income in 1934 was less than $400 ($7,200 in 2017 money). In 1935, he made $10,000 ($176,511). My takeaway: Yikes!

Even after his Big Break, Gruber worked steadily and for higher paying markets. The key factor here was that Gruber never stopped working. Yes he had made it, but in those days, a writer was only as good as the next sale. So he kept working on stories, then branched out into novels, both detective stories as well as westerns. All the contacts he had made during the lean years paid dividends later on, including when he moved to Hollywood. My takeaway: always keep learning and always maintain your contacts when you make them. You never know what will happen and with whom.

Frederick Faust, the real man behind the famous pen name “Max Brand,” trained himself to write 14 pages every day, year after year. It added up to 1,500,000 words of fiction per year. It took him 2 hours each day. Then he would often drink. My takeaway: Constant writing and constant production will produce material you can sell. Keep at it. We may not all type as fast as Faust and we may not all have 2 hours in our days, but we do have an hour or so. The words will come, and they will come faster and easier the more you do it.

"There is equality of opportunity. There is no equality of talent." Gruber said that about the days of yore. With independent writer opportunities, the field is even more wide open.


The story of Frank Gruber’s professional life suggests that hard work, determination, and perseverance will enable a writer to hone the skills necessary to become a full-time writer. It also demonstrates that writers must recognize and seize opportunities when they present themselves. Don’t think you could write a story overnight (Insert Your Own Personal Challenge)? Perhaps Gruber didn’t think he could do it either…until he said “yes” and then he delivered and discovered that he could. Then he did it over and over again.

Patience: A Writer's Essential Quality

By
Scott D Parker

To use a sports analogy, writing is never a sprint. If anything, is a marathon. It’s pretty much common wisdom among us writers, but sometimes we just want things to go faster. I want more sales and I want them to come quicker. I want to have written more books and I want that day to arrive sooner. I want to have newer marketing techniques that I want those techniques to be deployed yesterday. But I think we all have to remember that patience is a key to being a long-term successful writer.
The year 2017 will be the year that I experiment with various ways to wrap up and maintain productivity of my writing while I still hold down a full-time a job. After 20 days, I can honestly say that I’m on the right track. I am well into my first book of the year, but something interesting happened earlier this week.

I was chugging along in my first book of the new year when I hit a snag. For the better part of every writing day, I've been smiling as my fingers fly over the keyboard. The story just emerged from my brain and into Scrivener, still my favorite writing tool. For this novel, I have a high-level idea of how this story is going, but that's it. Then, out of the blue, I hit a snag. It was right at the end of my writing hour so I ended up with fewer words written in that session than in others. I showered, got ready for work, all the while mulling over what slowed and stopped my forward progress. It irritated me, to be honest, because it killed my forward momentum and shrank my average hourly word count.  For a writer who has a day job, efficiency of available time and word count is key.

But later that day, I had worked out the snag. It required only a little backtracking and deleting of existing words, but the end result was me back on track. Every subsequent morning of writing went smoothly.

What lessons did I take away from this?  One, sometimes a little backtracking is necessary, up to and including excising text. I always make a note of where a story changed so I can go back and imagine a different type of story. Two, the books don't have to be perfect right out of the gate. Now, I don't necessarily subscribe to the Crappy First Draft school of thought. Doing that only makes subsequent drafts and revisions that much more of a slog. I strive for drafts as clean as possible. It was a happy reminder that patience is an essential quality for a writer. It allows you to overcome the occasional snag.

But most of all was the knowledge that everything I write is making me a better writer. I know that the novel I write in December will be better written than this book I'm writing in January. And this book is better than the book I wrote in 2013. It's all one long process that continually builds on itself. In time—i.e., with patience—you will become a better writer.