The hard part

Now comes the hard part.  Editing and cover design are the toughest parts of writing. I'm 50,000 words into a story and finally have the 25% point crisis. Now it's for sure I'm not writing a 200,000 word book. That's just not my style. The crisis will require a serious rewrite. Serious rewrites are not my thing either.  My philosophy is to finish the story with the crisis involved and the go back and weave the needed changes in.

Covers are another story all together.  I have been fortunate enough to have photos in my own library of camera bug history to use for covers.  But, not this time. This outing will require a trip with the camera. On my book STATE OF THREAT I used a photo my mother took sixty years ago. On this book STATE OF PERIL I need a hacienda, a green truck, and a man with binoculars to make what i want on the cover. I can see I need to do some photo manipulations.

How do you handle these problems?

Write.

Dinking

Been drinking around AZ, NM, and CO in the sweet rain. Home again.

How about you? Been taking some vacation time?  You need a break, too. You cannot just sit and write even if you are wheelchair bound. Life is a roll and if it isn't moving it, or rather,  you are dead.  Your writing will get stagnant without new experiences. 

Go play. Then write.

How you doing?

Slowly but surely copies get sold. How you doing on marketing? What's your target audience?  Mine is basically men. That held very true when I was called to be the speaker atca men's retreat.  The books sold well there.  Didn't do so hot in a ladies books and geegaws store.

Target target target is the message.

Now go write for your target audience.

Anybody interested in an on line writer's group????

Sale

Had the first stand up and be counted sale at the city library yesterday.  It was about what I expected and not what I hoped. Got copies of my westerns in the library and had a lot of fun.

Sales and advertising are tough. Harder work than edit/rewrite. Set your mind to tough decisions and stubborn business owners.

Then, go write and have fun.

Another book

Started reading PLOT WHISPERED by Martha Alderson last week.  Nuggets all over the pages. One was set goals for yourself.  How much. How long. Long term goals like NANO. Or, short term for today. I would add rewarding yourself when goals are met.

Love writing,  hate rewrite/edit.

Go write.

Big city day

How did your day go?  Did you get a bunch of words on paper?

Big city book store took my books on consignment.  They are setting up a display of local writers and working on a promotion day in May when the valley folks run to the mountains to escape the heat.  Three other local writers arr involved.

As a team, four of us are working on places and events where we can promote (sell) our books and get acquainted with folks. 

I'll keep you posted.

Reading books about writing books as never been a favorite activity. BUT, I have gotten at least a nugget out of each book. Today I started reading MANUSCRIPT MAKEOVER by Elizabeth Lyon. Got three nuggets in the first two pages. I think this book will be of great help. I'll keep you posted.

Do you use the pod-a-sphere? Try WRITING EXCUSES.  And, I SHOULD BE WRITING,  with an emphasis on the older ones.

Now get to writing.

Coming Soon

How long does it take to write a book? Great question.  It takes as long as it takes. From first word in 1981 until the middle of February 2014 my first book was in the mill.  With the crash of the western market it was rejected and otherwise abused 45 times, with over 75% of those being the old familiar,  "Does not meet our needs at this time. Try us again."  20 of them said, "Liked it. No market, sorry." or something similar. 

It is now in the proofing stage with createspace.com.

Never give up.

Endo

It is frequently enjoyable to come to the end of a writing project. There are four, count them, four on the shelf. I have enjoyed all four. Now I have a problem. WHAT'S NEXT?

There are 18 ideas in my notebooks.  Which one? I have not fleshed out the basic, one page plot line for any of them. The one sentence idea is there.

My solution - I will take the one I relate to best and just start writing.  Somewhere along the path to the end I will find a beginning.

Go write, quit hanging out on the net.

Life Gets in the Way

Life has really been getting in the way of this blog and the rest of my writing. I have tried doing a tight calendar, which just isn't me, setting an appointed time to write every day. Life gets in the way. I tried making myself do an hour on the keys before I could do the things I like and, you guessed it, life got in the way.

My style is pantser and binges. I write what the voices tell me and when they are talking many words hit the page. For an organizational style, I use piles. There was a time the cleaning lady wanted to do the carpet in my office. I was devastated. Took me a week to repile my piles in the proper sequence and place.

BUT, it hasn't been super bad. God allows me to assist small churches to make repairs and there's a lot of need there. He also gives me the urge to get outdoors and hike or whatever. A small hike last week about did me in. Beautiful country for the first day and on the second, we stumbled through cedar dotted grasslands on old two rut roads covered with round rocks and pot holes. Had to stop in order to look up at the scenery which wasn't worth stopping for. Went camping and fishing, wind blew, temperature dropped, wind came up, and caught no fish. Did get a couple chapters of self editing

AND, I have 76,000 words toward my latest book, ARIZONA. Just wrapping up the war, the uprising, and the extortion to come to the last page. Thinking of throwing out the extortion and using it for a followup book using same characters, except for the dead ones of course. I'll lose over 20,000 words on this book if I do, but then again, the book needs more showing and less telling anyhow. Showing takes more words than telling, so that will balance out.

Blessing, and keep writing.

BORING

When I was a 6th grade teacher I would hear, "I'm bored," all the time. It usually meant I don't have anything to do THAT I WANT TO DO. It never had anything to do with having nothing to do. Although, at times the to do part of the brain shut down and was able to read the list of to do's on the green board.

Well, I am bored. I have nothing to do that I want to do and what I want to do is impossible to do where I am. Where I am has a bit to do with what I want to do, but doesn't help in the category of getting it done, or should I say, "Doed," at this juncture. So, instead I will get something else done which I had no intention of doing this day.

Okay, so it  makes no sense. I agree. I really want to write, but editing is what needs to happen. I need to finish my website and get the store on line. Then there is the NaNoWriMo books to edit and finish. I want to get my first three books on SmashWords, but I have trouble making sense of the directions for formatting and do not understand the reason why. Besides all that, I left the directions at home and don't have a printer in this motel room. Someone needs to invent, its probably out there, a small printer that will fit in my backpack office closet for a guy like me to use on the road. I remember back about 25 years someone made an Apple compatible printer that attached to the back of the Apple 2e console and was hand fed one sheet at a time to print out anywhere you wanted haul that big clunky thing (by today's standards).

You have read my rambling long enough, get writing.

Excitement

Have you gone to the NaNoWriMo site or gotten their latest e-mail?  They are planning things for the whole year. What have you done with the work you did during November? Have you edited yet? Maybe February ought to be NaNoEdMo for all of us.

As for me, I will be digging out the thumb drive with VENGEANCE on it and editing. The one piece of advise I took to heart for November was to turn off the editor inside me. I pulled out the printout of chapter One a week or so ago and was sickened by the typos and misspellings in the first two pages.  Oh, well, nobody asks for perfect on the first draft, do they?

Is there anyone who would like to work together on editing each other's work?

Keep writing.

Vacation is over

When the days roll by and the computer calls, one picks up his or her muse and writes. Nothing has been written since the cookies came out of the oven. Alas, the cookies, divinity, and pies are all gone. My stomach covers my new beltbuckle even more than it did before. But, no worries, I am not able to see the shoes that need shining on my feet.

How's your writing? I have developed a method I like. Try it, if you want to.

I open one window with my writing, one with the timeline, and one with the characters and places listed. With all three open, I can quickly drag up the facts I have already developed for this story and keep the continuity. The project currently in progress even has an outline window because I am outlining ahead as my mind thinks of the good stuff. The muses in the previous blog give me so many good ideas that if I should not write them down immediately, they would be lost faster than the cat can disappear up the apple tree.

So, get writing.

Working

Somehow I think no one is watching.

Tell me about what you do and why you looked at this blog.

How bout some ideas for improving this here blog?

I show cud dues it in countrified weighs. huh?

thanks, doug

NaNoWriMo 3

YeeeeeeHaaaaaaw. I made it in my first year on NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. 59,000 words + in the 30 days.

How did you do? One word is a good start on that book that is in you. Old Chinese Proverb - The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. I don't know why we always quote old Chinese Proverbs, but they sure do come in handy when you need an authority for reference.

Okay, so you have some words that were put down in a hurry. What now? You may be so good that this doesn't apply to you, but the rest of us have a lot of editing to do. I looked back over the first five chapters of my effort and realized it is going to take a lot of work, not just in spelling and grammar, but in continuity and just plain prose, to make it work as a story, let alone a book.

The first thing is a time line with the characters accounted for, or else you have a character in two places at the same time or almost dead in one scene and kicking butt in the next, two hours later.  Might work for Batman, but not my heroine.

The second is continuity of location, people, times, clothes, etc. as you go through the story. Notes under your timeline will help with this.

My third thing is dialogue. Make it fit the scenes and keep all the superfluities out of your characters' mouths.

If this helps you, feedback, please.

Keep writing.

NaNoWriMo 2

Did you get into it with a vigor? I finished on Sunday the 25th. What an exercise for any writer to get 50,000 words in 30 days.  I can hardly wait to read what I wrote.  I took one piece of advise very seriously and turned off the editor mode in my brain and stayed within the boundaries of the write mode. Try it you'll like it. 

Till next time, keep writing.