Back on track.

Took The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murders to writer's group.

They liked the title, though they didn't really know what it meant.  They pointed out some things in the first two chapters that will make it better.  They wanted to know things that are explained later, but I think there are a few hints I can include earlier.

The sex didn't bother them.  In fact, they thought there were a couple of places where I could be even more sensual.

Anyway, I feel like I'm back on track.  Frankly, returning to monitoring the current book sales, rankings and reviews seems to have centered me.

Tuskers II is coming May 25.  So that seems pretty firm.

I will do the rewrite of The MPDG Murders first, and try to get a publisher interested.  Then, either very shortly after or at the same time, offer The Last Fedora.  I like both books, but am working on getting The MPDG Murders done first because it has more of a hook, what with the title and content.

Tuskers III is done but is going to take some work to get ready.

While all this is going on, I'm going to start planning The Darkness You Fear: Ghosts of the Blue Bucket Mine.  I'm thinking I'll be outlining this book much more than usual, because I have some ideas about how I want it to go in advance. (Whereas usually with a book, I discover these things through writing...)

I know, for instance, that I want Virginia Reed to be the POV character through most of the book, instead of only half the book.  I also am interested in using a journal format as much as possible, like I did in Led to the Slaughter.  I think that format lends itself to authenticity.

I also want to diagram the plot so that I can go do some research -- find the original locations in Eastern Oregon and describe them.  So that should take me into the latter part of the year.
I also want to write Tuskers IV (and V if necessary) by the end of the year.

One final thing: if an idea comes along that demands to be written, I will drop everything else and do that right away.  I haven't regretted doing that with Tuskers, The Last Fedora, or The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murders.  They are gifts from the subconscious that I don't dare ignore.

End of an experiment.

I stopped checking rankings, sales and reviews of my books on April 10.

The results were surprising.

I felt very isolated, very disconnected.  It didn't seem to be much of a benefit at all.  In fact, it seemed like a negative.

I also made the mistake of not putting an end-date to the experience, so after a month I started to ask myself when I would check, and whether waiting too long could be even more of a negative.

So I'm ending the experiment.

Checking the rankings, sales and reviews today, I'd have to say that not all that much has changed.  A good review there, a mediocre review there, surprising strong sales on the Books of the Dead titles which haven't been pushed that much.

Led to the Slaughter continues to get great reviews.

My vampire books are selling at B & N better than I expected.

So here's the thing.  There's no such thing as too much information for me -- even if it's bad.  I mean, I'd much rather know where I stand.  Not knowing didn't reignite daydreams of glory, rather the opposite, it brought about trepidation.

I have enough material out there that I can almost always find a positive somewhere in the mix.  For instance, Rule of Vampire is in the top 2% of horror books on B & N.  So I can take that little bit of positive news and nourish it.

So I'm back.

How do I make The MPDG Murders stand out?

My goal is to make The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murders unique and interesting, to try to make it stand out.  That requires both that it be good and that it have something that makes people sit up and take notice.

How do I do that?

The title.  The cover.  The contents.  The sexual element.

So much of it is just luck, all but the content.  So what can I do with the content to make it a memorable read?

Well, I could make everything more extreme.  More sex, more violence?

I could do that, easily enough.  But I don't want to warp the storyline from what it naturally is.  I want it to be a complete story, not just a string of shocking events.  Much like in a blog where one can get more readers by being controversial, I could shoot for that, but in the long run, keeping my integrity is more important to me.

Another way is to be really really good with the writing.

Or to make characters so memorable that the readers care about what happens to them.

Or to put in ideas that make the readers think.

Or all the above...

Well, I've tried to do all those things.  I can only try harder.  So in the end, whether my story stands out really isn't something I can affect objectively (at least, not still be true to myself and the book) but whether the book itself is any good.

And I'm always doing my best.  As I've said before, re-writing is open-ended.  For me, it's a constant balance between retaining freshness and fully polishing the story. 

Each book I strive to do better.

Tuskers II almost here.

I'm not sure, but I think Tuskers II is scheduled for publication on Tuesday, May 12.

Ragnarok Publications has become quite the juggernaut of a publisher, so I pretty much don't pester them.  I know they have a lot on the plate.

Hopefully, this book barrels right along, just like the first book did.  It goes into the POV of the Tuskers much more.  I really like the ending again.  I seem to have an ability to put a little twist at the end of each book.

So I think anyone who liked the first book will like this book too.

Meanwhile, Tuskers III is written.  It expands on the story so much that it requires at least a fourth book to finish, and maybe a fifth book.  III needs some heavy editing because it's more of a reach than the first two books.  More ambitious.

Tuskers has turned into quite the saga.


UPDATE:  Tuskers II coming out May 25

UPDATE:  Tuskers II coming out May 27.  I think this is pretty firm.

Trying not to tinker too much.

This I know.  Line by line editing helps my book.

This I also know.  I run out of steam really fast.  To me, this is the grunt work of writing.  Linda says that every time I'm say, "I hate rewriting," that I'm just reinforcing this negative thought.  But...it's true.

All my writing can benefit from a little extrapolation, a little fleshing out. A little more description and detail.  Not a lot, but a little doesn't hurt.

I've tried to come up with some work processes that make it tolerable.  Little spoonfuls of sugar to help the medicine go down.

For instance, I've discovered that line by line editing doesn't need to be done in sequence.  I can drop anywhere in a manuscript and do that. I've discovered that I can do about 5 pages at a time, give or take a few pages, before my attention starts to wander. Letting some time pass between tries is also beneficial.

I've kind of worked some of it out.  Whenever I'm writing I do a little spot checking here and there, and make those kinds of line edits. Then when I'm done, I go through the entire manuscript, five pages at a time.  Takes a couple of days.  Often it is hard for me to get to the end.

Then I send it off to my editor, who takes a month or two.  When she sends me back her editing, I have a chance to go through and do a little more, with a little more perspective.

I wonder sometimes if I was really diligent if I couldn't improve my books.  But to tell the truth, I'm worried about ruining my books.  If I do too much, I get the word-jumble and I can never enjoy the book again.

So I try to go right up the the word-jumble barrier and not cross.

Problem books become something different.  I'm coming up on my fourth year with Faerylander.  It required all kinds of rewriting.  Not just the line-editing, but an entire makeover -- several times.  I'm long past the word jumble with this book, so I'm not worried about making it worse.  I can only make it better.

But when a "fast" book comes out of me, like Tuskers, like The Last Fedora, and now like The Magic Pixie Dream Girl Murders, I really don't want to tinker too much.

Being "crafty" in my writing.

As I mentioned, as I approached the ending of The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murders, I was worried I didn't have the chops to pull it off.

When I finally came to it, I thought the ending worked out really well.

I came up with a "crafty" way of getting it done.  Unlike the rest of the book, where I had one POV character per chapter, I went into the heads of five different characters.  The emotional and dramatic weight was too heavy for one character, the requirement for an arc was too steep, whereas jumping between POV's got the job done, and in fact probably heightened the drama and emotion.  Like a singer who can't quite reach the high note, but finds a bunch of well sung lower notes to get the same idea across.

Pretty proud of myself there.

I've learned there are crafty ways of making books work.  A major example of this was with Led to the Slaughter.  About 50% of the way in, I had the Donner Party stuck in the Sierra Nevada.   I knew the rest of the book was about them being cold and hungry, hungry and cold.  I couldn't figure out a narrative way to not make that boring.

When I settled on using a "Journal" narrative, it addressed the problem and looking back on it, I think it made the book work.  I could start each "dated" journal entry fresh.  But at the time, I spent several days stuck, trying to figure it out (which is a lot for me when I'm in the throes of a book).

The solution was an intellectual, structural one that worked emotionally.  Cool.

What seems to be happening lately in my books is that I have a general narrative that works, but is lacking a certain something.  Then, partway through the book, I realize that adding a new character and writing new POV chapters without changing the general narrative addresses most of the problems.

It's gotten so that I'm sort of on the lookout for that.  Somewhere along the line -- usually around halfway through the book, the new character comes to me and creates new possibilities.

A great example was the addition of Barbara in Tuskers.  To me, she's the strongest character in the book.  She sort of took over, the way Barbara would.  But when I wrote the original plot, she wasn't in there.  In fact, I could take her out and I could still have a book.  But she adds so much that it would be crazy to do so.

This is such a combination of the conscious and the subconscious, that I choose to call it "craft."  It comes from experience and having confidence in what I'm doing. Finding out things that work through trial and error.  Maybe if I was smarter, I'd get it right the first time.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murders, as planned.

Interesting experience, writing The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murders.

First of all, you'll notice I've gone back to the original title.

Which is apropos, because the experience of writing this book once again proved to me that it is best to stick to original plans. I've gotten in the bad habit lately of getting partway through a book and then changing things.  Which breaks one of the cardinal rules I imposed early on -- write the story completely before changing things.

Both methods have dangers.  When I change things too early, I often lose focus, I create so many complications for myself that I get into a confusing quagmire of contradictory tones and ideas.

If I don't change things I tend to write myself into a corner.

What I've decided is -- a change can be allowed if it is additional or subtractional, that is -- if I don't have to reorganize the book, but simply need to add or subtract.  For instance, add a character and that character's viewpoint chapters.

This adding a character has been an amazingly effective way to address any shortfalls in a book.  It often adds a texture, the information, the dramatic contrast, that the book needs. Without messing with what's already been written.

I've now written three out of the last five books this way, and it is the model I'm going to try to follow going forward. The other two books, I started changing things too soon.  It isn't that they won't end up being just as good, but that they will take twice as long to get done.

I've come to believe that a story wants to be written the way a story wants to be written. I trust my subconscious and my biggest job is to get out of its way!  More often than not, the story veers in unexpected directions.  Consciously, intellectually messing with this is usually a bad idea.

Even the adding new characters is usually something that comes to me full blown as a solution, as if the subconscious had it in mind all along.

Two thirds of the way through this book, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to come up with an ending that worked.  I almost started changing things, but then decided to go the rest of the way before doing it.

So when I finally wrote the ending yesterday, I was amazed at how smoothly it came out.