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.

Published!

Wow. I almost don't believe it (and neither do my friends), but I've finally shipped my young adult novel The Tree of Life. Only that's not what it's called anymore. There have actually been quite a few changes over the last, oh... 3103 days since I started plotting the story.

Back on the 29th of October 2006 in beautiful, but rainy, Galway, Ireland, my wife, me and our baby son had just come back from a vacation to Kenya. Previously that year we had visited family in the U.S.A. and the Netherlands as well as made trips to Prague and Estonia (you can say with a safe heart that we like to travel). All these cultures and beautiful experiences infused me with inspiration. The magical Emerald Isle certainly helped as well.

So when I had finished reading the latest Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter and Series of Unfortunate Events I thought: 'Why can't I write a story like this?' I was quite enchanted with these wonderful works, but equally frustrated by the boundaries the writers had set for themselves. For example, Harry lived in a wonderful part of the world with fantastic magical items, spells and mysteries. But what about the world outside of England? Artemis certainly traveled more, but his problem was that he was always bound to the faerie realms. How very Irish. Finally the Baudelaire Triplets seemed to always be on the move, but their world was one of simple symmetry. Villains appeared and disappeared like clockwork and story lines followed the same pattern and although charming in prose and imagination, it lacked a base of the real world. And that was what I was interested in: the real world in all of its glorious rich locales and exotic cultures. One where magical creatures of all sorts (not just fairy tales or faeries or elves and dwarves) roamed.

And so Aelemental was born. A 5 part series, steeped in the rich lore of cultural myths and legends (Mike Mignola's loves to delve here for Hellboy) where Indiana Jones meets James Bond. Worlds which Harry might find himself traveling to and Artemis would discover races beyond the faerie kingdom. I wove a rich tapestry of mythological races, history, languages and motives, all working behind the veil of Charms, away from humanity's curious eyes.

The first book was initially called Simon and Sally's Storybook Sojourn, then became Simon Spangenberg and the Tree of Life, and finally the Life Tree Discovery. The funny thing is that even though it took me about 8 and a half years to finally wrap the book up and publish it, the very first three days and the very last three days were marked by a whirlwind energy, courtesy of my Muses. Sure I've had many days where I loved working on the plot, characters and locations of the book, many more doing research, drafting and redrafting, but these were all slow and steady waves. I had a day job and a family after all. Besides, we ended up moving from Ireland to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Netherlands to the U.S. in the span of those years. Still, those first three days were magically powerful as were the final three.

And now Book 1 of the Aelemental Journey series, the Life Tree Discovery is available on Amazon Kindle. It's what I call the trailer version, which has provisional artwork and is still under review by my editors, but it's also available at a discount price of $1.99. Somewhere down the road (as I write Book 2) I'll release the full version with its proper artwork, grammar corrections and some extras, and I'm even thinking of setting up print to order hard copies down the road with a whole bunch of source materials and annotations (like a Blu-Ray disc).

Let's hope it doesn't take another 8 and a half years to get that done.

Leaving a Mark In the Final Days

"Knife of Dreams" by Greg Ruth (gregthings.com)

Spoiler alert! More excuses following.

So life happened...again. Since my previous blog I've been on a week long trip to Universal Florida for my son's birthday, celebrated my 10th anniversary with my wife in the Carribean, been for my birthday to Williamsburg and switched from consulting (for the last 9 years) to a full-time graphic designer position with a startup company in Raleigh. But it's not all good news. My father also passed away at the beginning of September. He was 75 years and passed away in his sleep due to a heart attack.

So where does that leave me with writing? Honestly? In a not so good place. I've been struggling for the last few months with a particular involved piece of rewriting. Whereas I was redrafting before, at most adding, rewriting or omitting small sections of my almost finished novel, I always knew I was going to have to do major work at this part of the process. So far draft 4 of Aelemental was about bringing the book to one cohesive read. Separating action and emotion so it didn't feel like every single chapter was trying to emphasize both, smoothing out Simon's character building, so he wasn't an ADD patient on a sugar rush all the time, but also omitting a slew of secondary characters who quite frankly were slowing down the plot. So where the first three parts of the book involved only minor edits (but still a complete syntax and semantic check), the fourth part was where most of the plot, characters and mythology really didn't gel. That's when I decided to rewrite the whole part.

That took me several months, with many interruptions for work, side projects, household duties and a long (and admittedly fun) summer.

Now comes the final fifth part. I've wrapped up pretty much everything I wanted to say. Foreshadowing and hints of things to come are in place and loose plot threads and character conflicts are all neatly resolved and all I have to do is bring the climatic battle to a satisfying payoff...again.

Still, I have my fears. What if I publish it digitally and I can't find the time to advertise it well? Will I still be able to market it to publishers/agents? I still need to do the illustrations and the front and back cover. And winter is coming, which means more holidays, more time on the road commuting to and back from work and a looming flu season.

My dad wanted to become a writer when he retired. He was a chef all his life and only got so far as to self-publish a dozen cooking books on Vancouver Island, driving from inn to store and stocking new copies wherever he managed to sell a few. He didn't get very far, despite his great drive. So he decided to write fiction and find a publisher for that. He never made it. I don't want to become like that. I don't want to leave a legacy of a great ecological fable unfinished except for an unpublished digital manuscript, four more plotted books and a wall full of notes. I'm already 43 and I was 35 when I came up with the story.

Although I can't give up my day job, and I'm also not willing to give up every spare piece of time to force-write, I will diligently and patiently continue plowing on until I deliver a 95% great young adult novel. Anything more will go unnoticed anyway and result in a greater amount of hours second-guessing myself and not shipping. This story must stand or fall on its own merits and I will let go of it with the confidence that I gave it my best shot.

Perseverance

Writing by Bocca (DeviantArt)

All words have been said. Writing is not magical anymore. If it ever was. And maybe I'm just in that phase where the work just needs to be done. I can blog about it until the number of words here exceed that of the book. I can talk about it with friends until they can recite my intentions by heart, but no longer have faith in it. I can replot, redraft and reedit until my fingers bleed and my eyes dry up. But in the end, it's just time and work.

Shipping it. 

It's the most important factor in any endeavor and writing a young adult novel is not exempt. How many would-be writers lay beside the road as reminders of too much good intention and not enough follow-through? How many more shine from the shelves of Barnes & Noble as examples of the possible, but also slowly filling up the white space of our consciousness so that no one can claim to be the next J.K.Rowling anymore? I just need to ship it and that means crunching the hours and doing the work.

I have a son. I am married. I have a job. I enjoy my hobbies. But all of these are also chipping away at what few reserves I have left in time and energy. Eight years ago I plotted this book (and four more). Eight long years that have taken me through five countries, endless projects and many more hours of beach, books and movies. I've painted my series in the meantime. I've seen snippets of my ideas echoed back at me from writers who got their ass in gear, while I was redrafting and remodeling, or simply NOT WRITING. My kid is eight years and he's seen me angry, laconic, passionate, bemused and depressed about this book. This one book, which is the beginning of everything.

No one has covered my topic yet.

It is still a virgin exploration of values both real in the world and fantastic. It ties so many things we find endearing and exciting in storytelling together. And, of course  it's not the Great American Novel, it's not even the best thing since sliced toast. But in my opinion it IS on par with Tolkien and Rowling. If only readers don't have to wait the same length in years between those two for me to get this novel published. And then there's still the other four books in the series. I am confident however that it will not take me eight years to write the next one. After all, if anything, I'm much better and confident now in writing than ever before. I'm bolder and I know what I want. And what I want is to share this with the world.

This dragon is getting slayed.

A Week of Interruptions

The week of writing has turned into a week of interruptions.

It's interesting how our life is dominated by 'interruption technologies.' Social media, communication and Internet devices all seem to vie for our attention and it makes it really hard to write. What started off as a fairly successful few days of writing turned into a battle between the pen, the Internet and life itself.

The Pen
As I said, this started well. Despite my wife being away from home and being alone with my 8 year old, I managed to get a good start on Saturday. My son is quite capable of keeping himself entertained and so over the course of the following two days I was able to edit two chapters a day. Sure I got up at six and went to bed at midnight, but I was on a roll. So I did what every good writer does which is feed, entertain and parent the kid, but make clear that 'writing time' is 'me time' and unless he want his Lego donated to charity he better leave papa be.

The Internet
I can be focused when I really want to be. Sure it's fun to allow the Internet to distract us with social updates, messages and video clips, and yes I do believe the writer of 'The Shallows' who claims our brains are being rewired to process evermore fractured moments of interruptions, vying for our attention 24/7. So I did what every disciplined writer does and turned off my phone, turned off all my notifications, refused to read e-mail and text messages or pick up the phone. I grew a beard and ate Ramen noodles three times a day until I realized mice had moved into my unused shower.

Life
So, yeah. That happened. I guess you know where this is going. Let's face it, when you're juggling a consultancy job, future work offers, a wife overseas in need of technical support, an old body protesting it's not moving for hours at end and a hotter than hell work room in the attic, something has to give. And so I gave. And I gave. And then I gave some more. Oh, yeah and the X-Men movie happened as well. The point being? Writing a first time novel means not giving up your day job, but finding the cracks in between your schedule in which you can write. If you're passionate you'll stick with it and if you're any good you'll stop tinkering with it and publish the damn thing.

If you then still want to be an author who can ship his/her work, you need to get a shack in Nova Scotia overlooking nothing but ocean, with no phone coverage or Internet connection.

And that's exactly the first thing I'll do if this book of mine becomes a bestseller.

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?

Bux or Books 2.0

Book by blindmanphoto (deviantart.com)

The way we read is changing.

At least this is one of the theories by Nicholas Carr, author of 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.' Basically, the way we use the Internet is rewiring our mind in how we absorb and in fact look at information. The skim-and-click technique we use to access what we need when online is making it harder for us to sit down with a 300 page novel and read for long ends at time.

So does this also mean we are entering a new era of how we write books? This question has subconsciously been playing in the back of my mind as I struggle to get not one, or two, but three books written in the last few years.

Book Project 1: The Traditional Fiction Novel

Fairy Tale by KaseiArt (deviantart.com)

The first book project is a young adult adventure novel, roughly 400 pages in length, but born out of frustration with the usual conventions of similar fiction of the time. Long, drawn out dialogues, zero character building and a quick wrap-up in the last 50 pages. Boring! I felt the need to cram a lot of events, character and world-building as possible into 300 pages. Only then it became 450. And then it 600 and then back to 400 until it became (in the opinion of seasoned test readers) a summation of bullet points.

Book Project 2: The Experimental Travelogue

Travel Alone by Freexel (deviantart.com)

Then came my next book idea: a quick turn around experiment in writing and self-publishing (in draft) a book in only one week. It would just be a random collection of thoughts put on paper. A blog-to-book if you will. That didn't pan out. I simply couldn't find the time (or was it Internet-nurtured short attention?) to write the complete thing. It lay in my drawer of unfinished projects for over a year, before I picked it up again thinking: 'What if I turn this into an examination of why people write and read books?' Later it morphed again into a half fictional / half auto-biographical travel story where the main character is alone with his thoughts while riding around the world on his bike. Still: not fast enough.

Book Project 3: The Collection of Quick Reads

The Brothers Grimm by Fran85 (deviantart.com)

My latest project-to-mature is an anthology sequel to the Grimm's Household Tales (or fairy tales) done in a 'death match throughout time' fashion, mainly focusing on telling the stories in the abbreviated narrative the originals were told. What has never changed through all these years is my fascination with fairy tales. Something about their intrinsic simplicity of story and format. So I'm writing my sequels in the same fashion. This suits me just fine, what with each story only being roughly 2 pages long, except that I now have approximately 200 stories to tell.

I think I have an answer to why it takes me (and possibly many other potential writers) so long to actual finish a book and see it get published:

information time span deprivation

We all want the information now! I for one simply can't bring myself to write long descriptions of places, events and character interaction when all I really want is to get to the heart of the matter. And yes, despite that being the point of a novel (lest all the new bestsellers become 100 page 'shopping lists') I think I may have to bite the bullet and commit to writing perhaps the first ever skim-and-link novel. One that reads as fast as it does to order it through Amazon and text your friends about it.