Five Things I Do Wrong in My Publishing Career. And You Can Too!

1 - I Write What the Hell I Want With No Regard to the Market 

That's how I began publishing gay fiction, by the way. My agent believed it would be the kiss of death, and she was right for a long time. Well, no. She was right that I did not make any money writing gay fiction for many years. But I continued to write it anyway, and hey! Eventually I found an audience.

That said, I do market my work appropriately.  Because to try to sell your work to the wrong audience is an exercise in frustration for all concerned parties.

2 - I Do Not Network With Other Authors

I do however form real and lasting friendships with other authors. And I guess that can lead to "networking," but I don't try to force alliances, I don't exchange reviews, I don't promo books I don't like, and when I promo books I haven't read, I make it clear I'm promoting a friend or a publishing colleague.

Here's why. I have five thousand Facebook friends. And around that number on my Fan Page (with relatively little crossover) and no idea how many Twitter followers I have these days. Even if I wanted to, it would be impossible for me to "support" all my fellow writers. I would spend all day on social media and I would be blasting a never ending stream of promo into the ether. That would not do anyone any good. I love to interact with my author friends, but it's got to be organic.

I'll tell you what else I don't do. I don't write fake hostile reviews, I don't backstab or bad mouth colleagues in mixed company, I don't undermine or undercut other authors, and I try to control my jealous, competitive streak. I mind my own business -- because that's what my writing is. A business. And I try to run it in businesslike fashion.

3 -  I Don't Read Reviews

I should qualify that because I do occasionally go through and read a ton of reviews all at once--it's really the only way to do it because that way you see how crazy-ass-subjective it all is. Good reviews make you self-conscious and bad reviews are demoralizing. So I avoid them and thus preserve what's left of my mental health.

Which isn't to say that I don't value reviews. I do! Very much so. In fact, I need to be way, way better about organizing reviews. But I still won't read them because...what am I going to hear at this point? Someone thinks something I disagree with. Or someone thinks something I agree with. Either way that book is over and done and I'm already working on the next one.

That said, I did read reviews for many years. I think reviews can be valuable for new and beginning authors, and I think authors still learning their craft and trade should most definitely listen for a consensus of opinion when hearing from readers.

4 - I Like Tropes. I Like Clichés.

Every genre has its tropes -- and they are not optional. They are required. In the detective story, the detective must go around asking people questions--even if he is an AI and does all investigating on the computer. In genre romance, there must be a HEA or at least a HFN. These are the parameters, they are how we define any given genre--a western will have to take place in the WEST--but they can equally be regarded as tropes.

But my sins go deeper. Much deeper. I LOVE goofy tropes. Secret passages. Secret babies. (Okay, maybe not secret babies. Not big on the kid trope.) I love trying my hand at a story concept that has been done a million times, giving it my own spin, my own treatment. I love kooky motifs and YES clichés like Happy Endings. I have to like what I write. Otherwise it's just data entry.

5 -  I Don't Use my Political Affiliations as My Writing Credentials

There's nothing wrong with posting support for the causes you believe in and support, but I also don't feel like I have anything to prove at this point. I'm not a flag waver. I never have been. I also didn't like wearing a school uniform. But I donate more to the causes I believe in than most writers earn in a year--in fact, one of the causes I believe in and donate to is the Author's Guild retirement fund. I believe in and support a lot of political and social issues. I think my work reflects my opinions and sensibilities, and because I'm a competent and persuasive writer, that can be a good thing. But I don't think sincerity replaces craft or talent. Mostly we're all writing to a built-in audience. It's a given--or it should be--that we're on the same side of these issues.  


 So there you have it? Would I--could I--be more successful in my writing career if I didn't do some of those things? Maybe. What is Success? It's relative, right?

I kind of think being happy in your work is a sign of achieving real success.

So that was summer?

We had a sudden snap in the heatwave, and all at once last night was cool and breezy. What a relief!

But at the same time there was a sense of No! Is summer over? Not yet!

It needs to be over for the sake of the wasteland that was my garden. But I need that quiet solitude of water and sky. Where it's just me and the hummingbirds.

My summer was spent writing. I wrote two novels. Fair Play (out in November) and Boy with the Painful Tattoo (out in October). In between the writing there was time spent with kidlings who are now taller than me. I read some good books, I had some nice meals. watched a few interesting documentaries, I argued with the SO. But really...that was about it. This was a working summer.

I heard coyotes last night -- loud and nearby. When I woke this morning, it smelled like autumn. Summer is fading. The clock is ticking.

So time for another FIVE THINGS I LOVE. I suppose this is the autumn edition. We've already had summer.


1  - Action-Adventure movies.

Edge of Tomorrow. Well, they changed the name (Live, Die, Repeat?) and it's still wrong. But the movie is right. Possibly the best action-adventure movie I saw this summer. I loved it. Yes, lurved it.

It's now on video/stream, so go treat yourself to an entertaining Friday night.

2 - Mournful sounds.

The wind through the trees. Coyotes at night. Train calls in the moonlit distance. I had ALL of them last night, so I maybe be sleep-deprived right now. There were no sobbing ghosts, so that's something.

3 - The light in Autumn

The light changes in Autumn. Everything is more intense, more luminous. It's a sunshine and shadow thing, but...it really gives a strange power to every afternoon. The days linger. You feel reminiscent and weirdly anticipatory. It's a strange time, these few weeks while everything changes. It is a time of possibility, and yet I feel more connected to the past. I am always both melancholy and excited in the fall. In short, I am harder to live with than usual.

4 - Black and White photos

This often pops up on my Goodreads lists of Daily Things I Love. I saw a documentary lately about a woman -- an amateur photographer by the name of Vivian Maier. Anything I tell you will be too much. You must discover this story for yourself. I think it speaks to the nature of creativity and art.

5 - The Mysteries of Frances Crane

Well, vintage mystery in general. But I am really enjoying the Crane's extensive backlist. I like to hunt down original editions with the gorgeous (or sometimes just crazy) cover artwork. Right now I'm reading The Golden Box, which I've started several times before but just was never quite in the right frame of mind. Now I am loving it, and looking forward to reading every night before I fall into bed.

So now it's your turn. Five things you love about autumn. Maybe you'll pick the very same things you picked last year at this time. That's always interesting. Some things are universal.  The seasons are changing. But how much do we change? ;-)

I Hate Writing

Well, no. Not really.
 

But as I'm working on this new story, I've been thinking about what an odd thing writing is.

Not storytelling. Humans have been telling stories to each other around the campfire since there was a campfire. No, I’m thinking about writing itself. The craft of telling a story -- which is unique and personal to each author.

Granted, genre fiction has always been more about the story than the craft of telling the story, but even so. Every author has a personal and private relationship with each story he or she writes. We can never experience the story as the reader does. But the reader can never experience the story as we do either.

That seems so weird to me sometimes. Especially when discussing the book with readers.

Anyway.

I like outlines for longer works. I know some writers feel like outlines kill spontaneity, but I don’t mean a point-by-point chiseled-in-stone outline. I mean I like thinking the story through and writing out the first and most obvious scenario. That’s what an outline is. You answer most of the basic questions before you start writing.

But of course writing is an organic process, whether you use an outline or not, and as I write, the story evolves, changes, deepens. So a lot of those first choices change. They would anyway, but having an outline means I’ve already done the original thinking and can move immediately to the next level. It saves time and I think it results in a more complex story than I would otherwise write.

But with or without an outline GOD IN HEAVEN I find the first draft to be hell. Hell, hell, unmitigated HATE IT hell. That first draft is torture. No matter how short the story, no matter how long it’s been simmering, whether there is an outline…it just doesn’t matter. It’s hell. I hate writing every word of the first draft.

No, I mean I hate writing. Period. I always wonder all the way through the first draft why I ever wanted to be a writer. What was I thinking?

I think part of why it’s so hard to write a first draft is that…letting go and sinking into the story. It’s the same thing readers do…let go and sink into the world of imagination. The difference is the writer has to do it first. The writer has to create the world for the reader. That first layer of imagination is the writer’s.

And it’s hard laying that foundation. It is extremely difficult to build an imaginary universe out of words alone, probably more so than ever in this visual age -- to create a world convincing enough to distract the reader from her own insanely busy world, to create characters whose fictional concerns temporarily supersede the concerns of the real life people she knows?

I guess that’s what I struggle with during the course of the first draft. It takes awhile before the world of my imagination is concrete enough that I see anything but typed words when I open the file. All that first draft I -- every writer -- struggles to black out the real world long enough to build the structure of the story world. Brick by brick, word by word.

And then it’s done. That horrible, wretched, deformed mess of a first draft is lying there finished. Well, I use the word "finished" lightly because the damn thing is barely started.

Ideally I like to just hand it off to my editor and forget it for as long as possible. Not even think of it again.

But then when I do finally come back to it, something has changed. It’s actually exciting to open that file and start the rewrite. That rewrite is, well, not fun. No. But this is where the magic happens. This is where the story comes to life. For me, I mean. Until then, it’s just words on a page and a lot of ideas and feelings. But when the rewrite starts, it does really change. Everything changes. I start to layer in the, er, layers. Emotional backstory, for one. Not the who-went-to-college-where or that unfortunate shooting incident. No, that’s mostly first draft stuff. Second draft is all emotional backstory. The psychological nitty-gritty. Who the heck ARE these people. Really.

So many revelations, so many layers. None of them possible until that godawful first draft is done and complete....

 

This Probably Means Something…

I had a dream last night.

 

I was traveling across country (which I don’t do much anymore) and my flight was delayed and I had to spend the night in the airport. Except that the airport was sort of a combination of an airport and a museum (too many episodes of Sister Wendy, I know). It had a lot of natural science and natural history exhibits (which I love) with those enormous stuffed animal displays and giant windows offering incredible views of the stars and planets.

 

When I woke in the morning I was running through the museum to catch my plane and as I looked out the windows the scenery was so incredible that I had to stop and stare. And then I thought…I want to remember this forever. I should take a photo. If only I had my camera! And then I realized my phone was a camera too! So I reached for my iPhone and it fell apart in my hand.

 

I tried and tried, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to put it back together. So I went looking for someone to help me fix my phone. Everyone kept trying, but when I would take the phone back it would fall apart again. It had all these cardboard pieces and washers and nuts and plastic inserts that just didn’t make any sense to me.

 

(Ya think, Josh?)

 

OH. And I ran into Ginn Hale and Nicole Kimberling who were (this part still gets me laughing when I remember) traveling with a theatrical troop of little people who were putting on performances of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. They were all in costume. Including Ginn and Nicole.  Lots of red velvet and breeches.

 

Anyway, they couldn’t fix my phone either.

 

So I finally I was left standing at the window staring at this breathtaking scenery with my broken phone in hand, trying to memorize everything I was seeing.