More Limpass than Kickass?

Read the first 20 pages of my "kickass 100 pages" at writer's group and, well -- they didn't kickass.

I asked for it. And they told me.

So back to the drawing board.



Slept on it. I think I can punch it up a little by starting with an action scene from toward the end of the book, and then flashing back.

If I change the order of chapters a little after that, and try to tighten them up, I should be able to get across what I'm trying to do.

I've always thought this book would benefit from research, but I'm not going to do the research without a contract, and maybe I can't get the contract without the benefit of research.

So it may not happen.

I just keep telling myself that's OK. This isn't my kind of book, ordinarily. I gave it a shot, but in some ways it would be a relief to go back to my previous way of doing things.

I still think the book is a good idea though. But if they can't see that...

The "Hot Hand."

For years, I've been touting the fact that there is no such thing as the "hot hand." No such thing as the "zone" that athletes talk about. It's an illusion.

That "career years" and "streaks" get rounded out by statistics.

Turns out, there is some doubt now about those studies. A mathematical error I don't understand.

So maybe there is such a thing as the baseball looking like a basketball to a baseball hitter, a hoop looking five feet wide after all.

Why did I tout this? Even though my intuition and instincts seem to tell me something different?

I think it was a way for me to reinforce persistence as the  most important attribute in any enterprise. The race doesn't always go to the swiftest, the smartest, the whatever, but to the guy who hangs in there, keeps trying, working, learning.

If you do it long enough, the statistics even out -- you'll have the "hot" month or year, just by an average result.

So for instance, my feeling was that if I wrote 30 books and they were consistently strong efforts, that statistically one of them would be "hot" just through the law of averages.

So now what?

Well, it doesn't make much difference, once I think about it.

It just means that if I write 30 books, that at some point along the way, I'll have a "hot hand." The same persistence applies. Heh.

Or it just proves I'm going to do what I'm going to do and I'll rationalize the reasons later. 

Nice to have choices.

Taking another full day off before diving in to the re-writing of the "100 Kickass pages."

I started to feel the grind lift a little yesterday, and realized I need that. I need to put the whole enterprise in perspective.

It's a flyer and need to remember it's a flyer. It isn't that big of a deal, one way or another.

Meanwhile, I need to get on with things. I had a nice little plan of getting a book out every four or five months, and thought Tuskers III was going to do that. I thought The Darkness You Fear would come four or five months after that.

But because of the publisher reboot of going into distribution, Tuskers III will be delayed at least six months.

I'm trying to decide if I want to go ahead and publish The Last Fedora: The Gangster Golem Chronicles myself. I love this book, but it doesn't seem fit into a nice genre category. I already have the editing done, and the cover is complete. There is nothing keeping me from putting it out. 

I'm going to sleep on it for a week or two, but I might very well do it.

I have a plethora of projects I want to finish, but I always want to leave the door open to new stories as well. Nice to have a choice though.

Creative without an ulterior motive.

JOURNAL: 10/25/15.

I've been fussing and fretting way too much.

Today is going to be a worry free day. To hell with it. In fact, I'm going to read a book. Yes, that's what I'm going to do. Pick a nice book and read it.

Mow the lawn, go for a walk, watch the Sunday shows. 

But no thinking about my writing. I've worked through all the ramifications, I've a pretty good idea of what's going on and what my reaction will be. Any more fussing, and I'm just churning over the same thoughts.

I enjoyed writing a poem yesterday. Poems are pure inspiration, tapping into the creative part of myself without any regard to results. Because generally, the only one who will read my poem is myself. That is, the joy is in the creating.

I'd like to do more of this. Remember that I can be creative without an ulterior motive.

 

RED ROAD

Sitting high on a red rock road,

Distant traffic on the highway below

Curves cut by trees, and pebbles rolling,

Down a gentle but persistent slope,

Here where no one else has been,

Or will be, at this moment.

Silence, but for a high away plane,

The wind low and sweet.

I doubt myself and my writing,

But my words are what they are,

The story is as the story,

And my job to get out of the way.

The art of the moment,

The words of today,

The musings for tomorrow,

Gone yesterday.

It’s what I’ve always wanted,

Fulfilled as what it is,

A gentle, persistent warning,

Not to stay dormant.

To live on a red rock road,

Distant from these worries,

Set apart from the world,

A land of my blessed own.

Personal scales.

I've always made up personal scales to gauge my writing. I don't know if they bear any relation to reality, but they are useful tool for me to feel like I'm making progress.

So when I started writing this time, this was my scale:

1-4. Better off doing something else.
5. Minimum necessary to continue writing.
6. There's something there, but pretty amateurish.
7. Worth reading. Something that is pretty close to competent.
8. A book worth publishing.
9. A good book.
10. A classic.

Now the later numbers shift into a more of a kind of logarithmic scale. So the difference between a 7.5 is higher than the difference between 6 and a 7, and so on. A 7.8 is higher than the previous difference, and so on.

So I felt when I started this time around that I was probably a 6.5 to start with, because of my previous experience with writing. (Back in the 80's before I took classes and wrote a lot, I was probably a 5.)

Now, looking back, I think Led to the Slaughter went to an 8 right off the bat. I think it was a book worth publishing. At the time I published it, I probably thought it was a 7.5, so I admit I've been influenced by the reaction to it. I think Tuskers is a good solid 8.

If you think that's being hard on myself ("What, you don't think you wrote a good book?") my definition of a "good" book is a high one. It's the book that everyone just has to tell everyone else is a good book, the kind that best-sellers are made of, and so on. Classics are on another level altogether.

So, anyway, put that to one side.

Lately, I've been trying to gauge the effectiveness of rewriting.

Most of my stories comes together in the first draft. My feeling is, if I don't get at least 70% of the way there in the first draft, I probably don't have a book worth pursuing.

So assuming that I get 70% of the way to a competent book, I can get to 80% of the way there by paying mindful attention, making sure it all works.

So how do I get to the final 20%?

I have to spend at least as much effort as the first 80% -- and take about the same amount of time.

The arduous task of rewriting, of sending it to an editor, and then rewriting again.

All for just 20% of the result.

But on a Five Star Review system, 20% is the difference between a 4 Star and a 5 start. More importantly, it's the difference between a 3 Star and a 4 Star, and most importantly of all, it's the difference between a 2 Star and a 3 Star.  (Any less than a 3 Star -- I get it, you don't like me.)

It's hard when you know that you're 80% of the way there for half the effort, but I told myself I would make the extra effort this time, and I think it's the right thing to do. These books are going to be out there with my name on them forever, so taking the extra times makes sense.

Again, these are personal scales -- something I use to try to improve. I don't know if they are real or not, but they seem to work to motivate me.

Most important thing is to keep writing.

My goal is to finish up the first draft my mainstream book proposal, the "100 kickass pages," today or tomorrow. I have one chapter left to write, then a rough outline.

Then spend the next eight days getting it edited and doing a quick rewrite.

Finally, send it off and try to forget about it.

Whatever happens, I'm good with it. As I keep saying, I'm happy with the ways things are going. This whole mainstreamy thing could be an overreach and disruptive.

I want to be careful about that.

I'll accept whatever happens.

Another word for patience is Limbo..

So I expected to succeed or fail, but it seems that more often than not I'm in some sort of Limbo.

In my previous writing career I used to call it "Sending it into the Void." Long, long waits for tiny responses. Six months, a year, even a couple of years. It wasn't flat rejection, in fact the publishers would even say that, "Be encouraged! We're still considering it!"

Or "This book would be improved if you do..." this and that. And since they were editors at the top of the pyramid who were telling me these things, I would rewrite to their suggestions and send it back...and then have to wait another six months, a year, even a couple of years.

It was like I was being punished for being almost good enough.

So I'm leery of the "almost" limbo state.

The last editor I dealt with said this: "If your next book is as good as this I'll publish both."

So I wrote the next book, and he said: "This book is better, but I've decided not to publish both."

Now in hindsight I can see that I was at the door, that I was close. Everything I read later told me that getting letters back from editor-in-chiefs was a rare thing. But it was too late, I'd gone on with my life. I was on to running my store and having a family, full time jobs. I put off writing for 25 years.

So when I came back to writing I felt freed by the idea that I could just publish myself. No waiting, no approval necessary. Just do it.

And then...I started getting a little bit of response from the small publishers, which has led to other small publishers, which has led...to, I don't know.

But it has led to a sort of Limbo.

Books of the Dead seems to be in a kind of Limbo right now. They've told me they want to publish my next Virginia Reed novel, so I'm doing that. I like the idea of consistency in the look and feel of the books.

Ragnarok is making the leap into bookstore distribution, which by necessity means that everything is going to be delayed, even rebooted.

I've got another small publisher interested.

I've got another opportunity which I want to keep vague but which could be big or could be nothing, but means long, long waiting.

Nothing is keeping me from writing, but the backlog is getting bigger, because I really do work at it, and I really do produce. These novels are waiting for opportunity. Not to mention all the novels that have healthy first drafts but which I've left in....well, Limbo...while I write my more current stuff.

Nothing wrong with being patient, but I kind of liked the immediate production and feedback I was getting from the small publishers.

I don't want to do anything rash. But it appears that the alternative is...Limbo.