The Big Black Quiet

After it all ends, what is left?

So, my first novel is published. Self-published that is and on Kindle at that. After years of plotting, drafting and (re-)writing my epic young adult fantasy novel is out there...

...among thousands of others. Lost among the white noise. Unnoticed by all, but family and friends. I sold exactly one copy and got perhaps a few hundred Likes on my promotional Facebook page (for which I paid $65). Where is the release party? The interviews? The press releases and the bestseller nod? One month after my ego manifested itself online and my creativity up for sale, there is only a big, black quiet.

Let's put things into perspective. It's not death. Death is the end of a living being - surely not comparable to the mere release of one's creative endeavor? It's not that bad, and in fact I don't experience it as such, either. I'm having fun advertising my book. But it's not easy...

Any author/(self-)publisher will tell you it takes a lot of time and effort to advertise your work once its finished, getting the word out, making some noise and knocking on doors. Admittedly there are a lot of supportive websites that will gladly promote your ebook for free (as long as your book is for free) or have amateur reviewers read your book and post their opinions in blogs and articles. Then there's Twitter and Facebook. Tweet about your book. Build connections with first adopters, who actively are looking for new authors and new stories. Reward new readers with free give-aways, quizzes and Likes on their pages. There is quite frankly a ton of venues to sell your story.

When you don't have a fan base, you need to make connections.

Connection

 by MistoAcrilico

And so that's what I've been doing. On Facebook and Twitter I've been showing off present artwork in the book as well as sneak previews of artwork yet to come. I've run a single Facebook Ad campaign to test the waters and it's quite frankly a lot of fun to do it at first. 

But I'm not committed to accessing all channels of advertisement just yet. After all, the trailer version of the book - now available at Amazon :) - still has its fair share of grammar errors and temporary artwork. I'm drawing the official artwork as we speak and one of my three editors is already finished with checking the manuscript. So when I'm confident that the edition I release is proofed and complete, I will throw myself fully at the advertisement machine and give it its best shot. 

And to keep me really happy in the meantime? Start writing the sequel. That after all is the best way of getting picked up by a publisher/agent: proof that your not just a one-book wonder.

The Week of Whirlwind Writing

The title says it all. One week. Finish the book that has haunted me for almost 8 years now. It's in it's fourth draft and there really is nothing keeping me back. My lovely wife is away for work and has left me with this one message:

"Ship or get off the pot"

And she's right. The only thing stopping writer's from a potential bestseller success is the ability to ship. Act. Just do it.

So this week marks the last week I will work on Aelemental, Book 1. I've got the mind set that perfection will never be achieved (and then again if it's an EBook then I can always bring out a revision) and I've already gotten valuable input from my wife and a friend as proofreaders. What else do I need?

Bullet Exits Brain Leaving Big Hole.

Wednesday 9th November
Okay, so maybe I overdid it. My tools have maxed out on the amount of creativity I tried to channel through them. Check this wonky schedule out:

• 6:00 Got up and prepped Alex for 1st school day in almost 3 weeks.
• 6:45 Start up desktop...
• 6:46 Try again
• 6:47 :(
• 6:55 Okay, the computer is really dead. The lights are on, but no one is home. Ships.
• 7:00 Start diagnosing my computer myself - I am an IT guy first after all and an artist second, or so my diploma says. At this point of time, I won't argue with a piece of treeware, lest that also leaves me hanging.
• 7:30 I give up. It's definitely a hardware problem as I've run diagnostics and massaged every card, chip and cord in the casing. Time to bring it to the computer repair shop. But because that won't open until 10:30 I fetch water instead - our bottles are empty and our water company has stopped delivering 2 weeks ago due to the flooding.
• 8:10 I decide to get groceries as well. Hop on bike and go to expat supermarket, cuz quite frankly the local markets and smaller supermarkets have not been stocking up lately and at least this way I can get some decent yogurt, bread and canned goods.
• 9:15 Return sweaty. Decide to meditate and do some yoga. Meditate was crap (couldn't concentrate), Yoga was rushed. What the heck am I rushing for? Oh right, I really really want to get to writing, but I have to wait for the repair shop to open.
• 10:30 Ships. Ships. Ships. I totally forgot my coffee visit with my friend JD. This is what you get when you meditate like an ADHD patient on caffeine.
• 10:45 Coffee visit with JD. We share miseries and cures. Always good talks with JD.
• 12:00 Cycle to Fortune City, the local IT mall where I have my desktop checked. It's the graphics card that burnt out as well as the memory that was hickupping. That's what you get when you're such a visually oriented artist like myself. ^_^ Anyway, 30 min. of repairs later and 200 Baht poorer I cycle back home.
• 1:00 Eat lunch (egg/ham/tomato sandwich & green tea/lemonade), shower (aaaah) and hook up my ole computer.
• 2:00 Write 1/2 half of this blog.
• 2:20 GET TO WORK ALREADY!!!
• 6:00 Need to stop. Still in infernal chapter 6. I realize it's because this is also the chapter I left off polishing the text during draft 2 in order to dramatically start cutting in draft 3. I made that bold decision, because I was fed up tinkering details, while so much of the book needed to be axed. Now I'm paying the price.
• 7:45 I'm back.
• 9:15 Ended Chapter 6: The Yellow Dirt Road to the bombastic final two tracks of X-Men First Class. Man, those tunes kick some seriously dramatic @$$!

Good. So this wraps up the first part of Simon's journey in Book 1. He has followed the trail of his kidnapped sister and is about to enter the mythological city of FabelInsel. I'm glad I was able to compress and shorten this trek, if only because it serves no other purpose than to introduce the reader - through Simon's eyes - to the fantastical world of Aelemental. The real meat of the story begins now...


Aaaaand more art:

More Stan Sakai turned Aelemental.

CU latah, alligatah.

A Milestone

Congratulations!

We're at the '250 days until finished' milestone. I like the word 'milestone'. Even though it's not exactly metric, everyone understands that it is a point along a path (or road) towards a dead line (or finish line) along which you employ a task (or drive a car with Muses in the back). And I like it because I firmly believe that the path is more important than the goal. I really do. What joy would writing else wise be?

Anyway, it is a milestone in more than one way. After I found out that I cannot force myself to write 2000 words a day, because then it becomes a chore, and no one likes doing those, I have become a little bit more wiser about what does motivate me to write. First reading other people's work. That I already knew. It is however not just that I read or even what I read, but also when I read. Reading and getting juiced up to write does not work when it's 11pm and I'm lying in bed ready to fall asleep (somehow reading is the ultimate sleep inducer for me). When I type away trying to match the speed of my thoughts on the keyboard, I work up a good sweat. And I really don't like going to sleep all sweaty and with my mind racing. So reading in the morning with a cup of coffee will get me pumped up.

I've also discovered that I should stay away from the Internet, online games and TV. If I watch something mind numbing or simply too time consuming I end up not wanting/able to write anymore. I need a good period of time to start up. I think 15 years of software engineering has conditioned me to the '12-minute' rule. Every designer knows that you need 12 minutes before you enter 'the zone' and can lose every distraction around you to a background static and produce some seriously cool work. With writing for me it's like that as well, only even more intense. I need to be there with my characters. I need to feel the action breathing down my neck. Hear the dialogue being spoken with passion. See the wonderful worlds with my inner eye. So no distractions or creative mind sucks.

Finally I need to have an inspirational place to work. In my workroom on the top floor of our townhouse it works, because of the abundance of light from all sides, the nice draft, the silence (with exception of the birds, but that's a plus) and the comfortable warmth (I can type in my shorts all year long). I sometimes vacate to a coffee shop nearby with good ambiance and tomorrow we'll be leaving for the beach for 5 days, so I wonder what inspiration that might (or might not) give me.

I'm discovering a lot about myself when writing (or not) and it's all good. It feels like sampling a totally new taste at a buffet of foreign foods: you are still the same, but you discover what you like and what you don't and it all feels and tastes fresh. And I am glad that I'm able to explore my strictly creative side on a professional base for the first time in years. Not having any IT work is refreshing and actually...a good thing. I saw 'Up in the Air' the other day and like Clooney's character siad: 'Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it's *because* they sat there that they were able to do it.' I like to phrase that sentiment as such:

Change is nothing but opportunity for which one only needs to look through the glasses of creativity to recognize it.

So here's to a milestone of change. 

P.S. On that note: the next five days of blogs I'm giving you different excerpts of the book Nancy and I are writing. Please feel free to comment on style, content and overall feel. Do keep in mind though it's a first rough draft.