Guns & Magic

 

At nearly 30,000 words (out of a planned total of ~100,000), I figure I’m approaching the end of the first act of my current novel. (Which suddenly seems like a lot of words for a “first act”.)

 

So now I’m on the brink of pushing into that most horrifying and daunting of places in novel writing: The Middle.

 

It’s a scary place, let me tell you. Even if you have an outline for a map. And I have an outline for a map.

 

I know where I’m going, and I know what route I’m going to take to get there. But there are a lot of words that must be written between here and there. And with two significant changes to the outline already, the accuracy of my map is somewhat in question.

 

But I will press forward. There is no way out but through.

 

Onward!

 

-David

 

 

Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, January 16, 2012. (more…)

 

The award is brand new, but I’m still quite pleased to receive it.

 

 

I knew when I wrote The Door to the Sky as my “practice run” for NaNoWriMo in 2006 (during which I wrote the first draft of The Summoning Fire) that the novel wouldn’t have much chance in the mainstream. For starters, it’s a short novel, just over 30,000 words, and to really hammer the point home, it has almost no discernible genre, containing elements of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Cyberpunk, and Steampunk. I am happy, though, that I was able to independently publish the novel last year–complete with an awesome cover by Don Michael, Jr.–and that someone liked it enough to give the book a great review and now a nascent award. Thank you very much!

 

 

Thank you again, Caleb!

 

-David

 

 

From about the time she could walk until she was over 3 years old, my daughter, Serene, would come into my office and grab a finger on my left hand and tug on me.

 

“Let’s dance!” she would say. Usually this was because of some music on TV or in a video she was watching. So I had to move fast, or we would miss the music.

 

We would rush out the door of the office to stand in front of the TV and we would “dance”. “Dancing” mostly consisted of holding hands and jumping up and down, or spinning in circles. We would “dance” our little dance, and then I would go back to work and she would go back to what she was doing, both of us smiling, sometimes laughing.

 

These dance requests didn’t always come at the most opportune of times. Most often, they couldn’t have come at  worse times.

 

And when I’m concentrating, I’m not someone who likes being distracted. I can get downright cranky about it.

 

Sometimes I would be handling email, which is usually customer support and I welcomed the distraction. More often, though, I would be “juggling” code changes across an entire source base, or staring at that same source code trying to puzzle out what the hell was going wrong, or concentrating and type-type-typing on a writing project.

 

We didn’t dance every time she came in and asked me to. But we danced a lot. Because I knew there would come a day when she no longer wanted to dance with me. And I had better get in all the dancing I could while the getting was good.

 

I learned I could deal with the distractions (good and bad) of my family without totally ignoring them (my family, I mean). I learned I could disengage from my current task long enough to dance with my daughter and get right back to work. And I usually felt much better after than before.

 

I learned that there is always time enough to dance.

 

-David

 

 

 

I think authors who Google themselves and find their book(s) have been listed on a blog, should at least leave a comment. Say “Thanks for reading” Or “Hey! Saw you read my book! I hope you paid for it, you cheap bastard.”

 

Because blog owners have statistics-tracking software. They see the search strings that authors have typed into Google that led them to the blog. They notice when its the name of an author they’ve read.

 

Blog owners know those authors have come and admired their name in print, felt the thrill of having been read.

 

Blog owners have feelings too, you know. They also like to know they’ve been read.

 

Just sayin’.

 

-David

 

 

I enjoy writing.

 

I love making up stories.

 

I get a real kick out of making shit up.

 

But, damn, if it isn’t work.

 

Takes effort.

 

Requires time spent.

 

The words stack up, but only if I take the time and make the effort to write the damn things.

 

All of which sounds a bit negative. Which isn’t my point (assuming I have one).

 

I’m actually quite happy with how my current writing project is progressing. The words are stacking up. The story is proceeding apace. The outline is holding up (though I’m only in the 3rd chapter and I’ve adjusted it once already). I have no complaints.

 

Some people tell me they don’t consider writing “work”. I stare at them like they’re silly.

 

I know it’s work.

 

If it wasn’t work, I would have clocked 1 million words of fiction years ago.

 

If it wasn’t work, I would know more people who have completed stacks of novels and piles of short stories.

 

Writing isn’t hard. It’s not like digging ditches or waiting tables. But it is work.

 

You can disagree if you like, but the world of evidence is on my side.

 

Writing is work.

 

-David

 

 

Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, January 9, 2012. (more…)

 

I don’t.

 

When I write, I do it in my chair, at my desk, in my office, in my house (upstairs, second door on the left). Sometimes, if it’s nice out, I’ll sit on my screened-in back porch and write there (though I miss my nice speakers for my music when I do that; laptop speakers are not the same).

 

In my possibly-more-interesting-than-it-sounds past, when I went to such geekfests as the Game Developers Conference as both a geek *and* a writer, I would sometimes write in public. Because there was no option. Pop open the laptop (or, if we go back far enough, whip out the legal pad) in a comfortable spot and go to work putting one word after the other. But I didn’t like it. So now I don’t do it.

 

I don’t consider writing either a public thing or even a social thing.

 

In a paraphrase of George Thoroughgood:

 

I don’t understand why NaNoWriMo participants want to go to “write-ins”. I don’t understand the appeal of coffee shops (who goes to a coffee shop alone?) or even libraries (those are for reading what other people have written).

 

If I was a people person, I don’t know that I would be a *WRITER*.

 

Or maybe I am too much of a people person. When I’m around people, I like to talk (possibly talk about writing). So, as a social curtesy, I don’t go to write-ins. I would want to talk to you while you’re trying to write and we would think the other was being rude.

 

I’m happy to hang out and chat up before I write, or after I write. But when it comes time to write, to borrow a phrase from Larry the Cable Guy: “That’s me time.”

 

So don’t look for me to be writing while laughing with friends and/or sipping a hot chai. It’s not gonna happen.

 

Just so you know.

 

-David

 

 

For the first quarter of 2012, I’m using the following ebook pricing schedule:

 

I put these prices into effect last week. So this is sort of a retro-announcement.

 

As I’ve said before, I like to put as much distance as I can between my work and the Discount Bin. I think these prices reflect that nicely. You want bargain-basement knock-offs, you’re shopping in the wrong part of the store.

 

Back in the late 1990′s when I first started selling The Journal, I went through a similar process as I looked for the right price. The Journal was first available for $15. Then, after a handful of updates, I raised the price to $20 (and sales went up). Then I raised the price to $25 (and sales went up). Then to $28.95 and $34.95 (and sales went up). The last price bump for a long time, because it seemed to work, was $39.95. The Journal held that price point from 2001 through 2009, when I adjusted it for inflation to $49.95. That makes The Journal one of the most expensive programs of its type (personal journal). But I also think it’s the best, and the price has worked very well. And there are even bundles of The Journal priced as high as $99.95.

 

That process of finding the right price for The Journal took about 5 years. I’ve only been indie publishing for about 15 months, and the industry standards are still being sussed out, so I feel there is still a lot of run for experimenting.

 

Come April, I’ll re-evaluate and see what changes seem useful.

 

-David

 

 

Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, January 2, 2012. (more…)