by Kristi Belcamino
I've been in journalism off and on since 1990 and during all that time I've never even attempted to be a critic.
Part of getting older—in my opinion—involves realizing what you are good at doing, and what you should avoid.
Reviews and criticism are something I avoid.
As Holly brought up a few weeks back, being a writer and reviewing other writers is a decision each of us has to make. In my opinion, I skip it. I have several reasons for doing so. One of the smaller reasons is that I'm not necessarily good at explaining what I liked and didn't like about a book, a piece of music, or a film.
Sure, I can discuss it on a superficial level, but really it comes down to this: The Cry Factor.
Let me explain:
Did it move me enough to cry or not?
Yep. That simple.
It boils down to whether I was emotionally invested enough in the art to cry of sadness or happiness.
To me, The Cry Factor is a sign of a great book, movie or piece of art.
I was out walking my dog today and listening to U2's Miss Sarajevo (Vertigo: Live from Milan - Matthew Clemens I'm talking to you!) and the ending of the song (which I've heard several dozen times) had me in tears when a woman recites the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Yes. That. Something so powerful that it moves me to tears. The Cry Factor.
In my writing, it is something I strive to achieve. If you cried, then I'm happy.
Do you have to be that emotionally moved to consider something great or are the stakes different for you?
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Planning Ahead
by
Scott D. Parker
I’m an independent author early in his writing career. Year zero, in fact. What that means for me is that 2015 has two main goals. The first is to publish books and start to build a body of work. The second is to see how well I can simultaneously produce new work while publishing new work all the while maintaining a day job.
Ironically, the publishing part is much easier. You see, I have six manuscripts already written. All I have to do, really, is pull another manuscript off the shelf as soon as another is published. I read and revise the manuscript, send it off to my editor, make the changes, make the changes other readers find, get a cover, and then publish. I’ll admit that all the struggles I endured publishing WADING INTO WAR were all but gone when I published THE PHANTOM AUTOMOBILES. Experience’ll do that for you.
The harder part is the writing of new material. Day job holders, like me, must carve out writing time amid all the other duties. In fact, just yesterday—one of my off-Fridays—was the first time in nearly six months in which I didn’t have something that needed to be done that wasn’t writing. I woke, I wrote, and I nearly completed a short story that should see the light of day this summer.
Earlier this week, as I was looking ahead to the rest of the year, I took pencil to paper and mapped out the schedule I’d like to maintain for the rest of 2015 and into 2016. I started by listing the books I had on my mind. To my amazement, that total was eighteen. Eighteen, not including the eight I’ve already written. It surprised me, so, naturally, I broke out the spreadsheet.
I’ll say that 13 of the 18 are planned as 30,000-word novellas. Some of those books might expanded when the time comes to write them, but they’re planned to be only 30K. The other 5 are envisioned to be 60K on up. All told that’s 1,148,000 estimated words of fiction I’d like to write.
Wow. So, how long would it take to write that many words? Some full-time authors match that number in a year. I am not a full-time author. I guess you’d call me a part-time fiction author since I hold a day job. But, in the past two years, I have managed to carve out about an hour a day to write. That time is 5am on weekdays, 6am on weekends. Hey, I allow myself to ‘sleep in.’ Also, on weekends, I get an extra hour or so per day. When I am in the zone and the words are flying out of my head and through my fingers, I can bust out 1,000 words in an hour. That doesn’t always happen but it does, more often than not. So if I write an hour a day, it will take me approximately 1,148 days to write just these stories. That’s 3.14 years.
3.14 years to write 18 books. One of my thoughts when seeing those numbers was satisfaction. It is really neat to map out future stories on a schedule and know the approximate order. On the other hand, it’s sobering to know that as much of a pull the fiction writing life is for me, I can’t just stop the day job. I have to have it in order to sustain my family. But, like all lists, you take the first one and begin. Soon, it’ll be done and then I can turn to the next one. Others will arise and work their way into the writing schedule so the list will grow.
On Thursday, Alex wrote about “Playing the Long Game.” I consider this list, this plan, to be my long game.
I’ll always consider these 18 to be the Core 18, the foundation on which I will build my fiction-writing career. Business people always talk about the 3-year plan or the 5-year plan. I’ve got the 3-year plan. The only thing left to do is make it work.
So, other writers out there, do you have a business plan for your fiction-writing career? What is it like?
BTW, today is the 71st anniversary of D-Day. Thanks, as always, to the men who did the incredible against the unimaginable. Just a couple of days ago, I ran across this amazing video about the death toll in World War II. Staggering is an understatement.
Scott D. Parker
I’m an independent author early in his writing career. Year zero, in fact. What that means for me is that 2015 has two main goals. The first is to publish books and start to build a body of work. The second is to see how well I can simultaneously produce new work while publishing new work all the while maintaining a day job.
Ironically, the publishing part is much easier. You see, I have six manuscripts already written. All I have to do, really, is pull another manuscript off the shelf as soon as another is published. I read and revise the manuscript, send it off to my editor, make the changes, make the changes other readers find, get a cover, and then publish. I’ll admit that all the struggles I endured publishing WADING INTO WAR were all but gone when I published THE PHANTOM AUTOMOBILES. Experience’ll do that for you.
The harder part is the writing of new material. Day job holders, like me, must carve out writing time amid all the other duties. In fact, just yesterday—one of my off-Fridays—was the first time in nearly six months in which I didn’t have something that needed to be done that wasn’t writing. I woke, I wrote, and I nearly completed a short story that should see the light of day this summer.
Earlier this week, as I was looking ahead to the rest of the year, I took pencil to paper and mapped out the schedule I’d like to maintain for the rest of 2015 and into 2016. I started by listing the books I had on my mind. To my amazement, that total was eighteen. Eighteen, not including the eight I’ve already written. It surprised me, so, naturally, I broke out the spreadsheet.
I’ll say that 13 of the 18 are planned as 30,000-word novellas. Some of those books might expanded when the time comes to write them, but they’re planned to be only 30K. The other 5 are envisioned to be 60K on up. All told that’s 1,148,000 estimated words of fiction I’d like to write.
Wow. So, how long would it take to write that many words? Some full-time authors match that number in a year. I am not a full-time author. I guess you’d call me a part-time fiction author since I hold a day job. But, in the past two years, I have managed to carve out about an hour a day to write. That time is 5am on weekdays, 6am on weekends. Hey, I allow myself to ‘sleep in.’ Also, on weekends, I get an extra hour or so per day. When I am in the zone and the words are flying out of my head and through my fingers, I can bust out 1,000 words in an hour. That doesn’t always happen but it does, more often than not. So if I write an hour a day, it will take me approximately 1,148 days to write just these stories. That’s 3.14 years.
3.14 years to write 18 books. One of my thoughts when seeing those numbers was satisfaction. It is really neat to map out future stories on a schedule and know the approximate order. On the other hand, it’s sobering to know that as much of a pull the fiction writing life is for me, I can’t just stop the day job. I have to have it in order to sustain my family. But, like all lists, you take the first one and begin. Soon, it’ll be done and then I can turn to the next one. Others will arise and work their way into the writing schedule so the list will grow.
On Thursday, Alex wrote about “Playing the Long Game.” I consider this list, this plan, to be my long game.
I’ll always consider these 18 to be the Core 18, the foundation on which I will build my fiction-writing career. Business people always talk about the 3-year plan or the 5-year plan. I’ve got the 3-year plan. The only thing left to do is make it work.
So, other writers out there, do you have a business plan for your fiction-writing career? What is it like?
BTW, today is the 71st anniversary of D-Day. Thanks, as always, to the men who did the incredible against the unimaginable. Just a couple of days ago, I ran across this amazing video about the death toll in World War II. Staggering is an understatement.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Playing the Long Game
By Alex Segura
I don’t have a book out this year. That’s probably stressful to a lot of authors. I will admit, it was a little stressful to me at first.
But it’s okay.
As some of you know, earlier this year, I joined the great team at Polis Books. Polis will be publishing my first two Pete Fernandez novels, Silent City and Down the Darkest Street, next year, with another - tentatively titled Dangerous Ends - to follow. I am extremely excited, super grateful and still in that “pinch me” stage that I hope never ends. Added bonus: I’m part of a group of amazing writers. The crime fiction stable Jason Pinter has put together is seriously impressive.
Did I mention I don’t have a book out this year? Right. See? It can be stressful. But seriously, it's okay.
One of the things I’m most thankful for, in terms of being an author and managing my career, is my day job experience as a publicist. Not just because of the contacts I have, but also because I know publicity - and building a career - isn’t about a flurry of activity. It’s a marathon. It’s about knowing when to go loud, when to step back and when to ramp up. It’s about knowing when to step back and “go quiet.”
For me, “going quiet” doesn’t mean I disappear completely. Quite the opposite. I’ve got a few short stories showing up here and there, a few comic book projects percolating, readings, publishing events and conventions, day job stuff to promote, other people’s books to talk about and there’s always The Next Novel. (I’m just starting revisions on Dangerous Ends now, after putting the draft aside. The book feels new and I can look at it as a reader, not as someone who just wrote it.)
On the other end, I’m not doing a ton of interviews. I’m not plugging the books or where people will be able to find them. When I do readings, I read a short story or something different, as opposed to something from Silent City or Down the Darkest Street. I’m not doing any major crime/mystery cons this year, either (though, I would probably still be at Bouchercon if it wasn’t the same weekend as New York Comic Con. It’s just not the right moment. I have to be patient. The time for that is coming.
As writers, we need constant validation and need to know what’s next - but sometimes, what’s next is months away. Maybe more. But publishing isn’t about instant gratification, even if you feel like your work is done. You have to be ready for that, and be okay with hibernating for a bit. You’ll know when it’s time to pull out the bullhorn and start the publicity machine, trust me.
In the meantime - work on your Next Big Thing. Plug a friend’s book. Write something different. Start planning what you’ll do to build buzz for your book when the time is right - events, press, marketing. There really isn’t any down time as a writer - there’s just what we do between publications.
Try your best to do anything but fret.
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