Random thoughts, April 10.

Procrastinator heaven and hell.

Heaven because there is so much I don't have to do. (Though the weeds grow apace, and the writing isn't getting done by itself...)

Hell because everything I put off BC (Before Coronavirus) is still not getting done and it needed to get done and I can't do them.

***

Watching "Killing Eve," and one of the main premises is that Eve is supposed to be living a boring life, what with an interesting job and a loving husband and friends. Meanwhile, the assassin is living an exciting life, if "life" it can be called. (She seems to be empty of anything but the most primitive of impulses.)

I've never understood people who go seeking danger. Seriously. Danger will find you--as witness our current situation. Try to find simplicity, and complexity will find you. (Fight the Entropy!)

***

I feel the urge to write slowly but surely coming onto me. I think I'm going to tackle the big one. The Epic Trilogy.

I'd planned to do a bunch of outlining and research before I started, but it isn't getting done. I've written about 30 books just by diving in, so I'm guessing I'll probably have to do that again. Once I have the basic plot down, then I can add research details.

Still not ready, but getting close.

***

Whenever I write a teaser--300 or so words at the front of the novel of a scene--I realize that I'm not the most concise of writers. I mean, in many ways I am--I tend to write straightforwardly, without a lot of extraneous material. But in the style itself, I realize that I used more words than necessary and if I'm forced to shrink the wordage, I usually can.

But part of this is purposeful. Whenever I try to be too concise, I somehow lose the flavor and readability of the prose. I used to call it "going sloppy." It turns out that making every word count is bloodless and cold. Hemingway I'm not.

***

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

When I first started writing, in the late 70s, the rule of thumb for most writers was to release one book a year. At the most, two.

Many writers can write faster than that. (For instance, just 1000 words a day will net you the equivalent of three good-sized, or four moderately-sized books a year.) So they'd be forced to use aliases to publish more books than that.

When I came back to writing there was the thought among some self-published authors that the more books you put out, the better. They were more or less industrializing their writing.

I doubt that that works anymore, if it ever did. Certainly it doesn't connote quality. A diligent writer can probably produce three books a year without a loss in quality.

My first publisher put all three of my Vampire Evolution books out at the same time. I don't think that worked very well. My research seemed to indicate that most ebooks had a selling period of about three to five months. This seemed to get the momentum going.

But my first publisher missed that deadline by simply going MIA. I waited for him to publish the third Virginia Reed adventure and it took him almost a year. In hindsight, I should have published one of the books I'd finished, but he kept promising and I didn't want to step on his toes. As it happened, he only released the ebook.

My second and third publishers decided to go mainstream which meant a much longer lead time. It killed all momentum I'd gain. (Plus, because of returns, slower pay times, and the necessity to publish lots of copies, it killed both publishers.)

My current publisher took on most of my books. (The Vampire Evolution Trilogy and the Virginia Reed Adventures both have separate publishers.)

Once I started publishing new book with Crossroad, the pace of publishing slow down a little, which was probably a good thing. I was probably putting them out too fast.

My feeling now is that putting out a book every six months is probably the best way to go about it. It gives everyone time to find your current book and then anticipate the next one.

So...the most things change, the more they stay the same.