Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 32

State of Writing

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Most of last week was spent working on outlines for the Hidden Rings series. I only have one more book to outline in my rough, pre-written versions and then I can begin to work out some details and really sketch out my settings and characters. I did make a bunch of changes already and decided to move the 4th book all the way to the front. Hoods of the Red Order is going to be the big lead—the Red Order is important through the series’ continuity and so it made sense to move it to the front. It also feels like the particular storyline that I’m most excited about… I mean, who wouldn’t be stoked by Robin Hood recast as a paranormal investigator and sent by the Church to fight vampires instead of the moors?

Last week the new Dekker’s Dozen story dropped. Weeds of Eden is now out and available for download. I think I wrote briefly about it: it met a few of my writing goals and began as a bit of a test-project to complete while getting comfortable with Scrivener. It really rekindled my love of genre sci-fi/space opera and I’ve sketched out a total of 3 short stories, beginning with Weeds of Eden which shows an earlier version of the Dozen’s mercenary crew (with a few members changed out because of the timeline). The following two stories will take Dekker and his crew through the timeline break that happens at the end of Last Watchmen and establish a new chain of events (think X-men’s Days of Future Past) so it’s both a prequel and a sequel series; each one will weigh in around 20,000 words so it’s effectively an entire book written in a few segments. I also have a new novel planned to followed, tentatively titled Austicon’s Lockbox. I’m hoping to be working on SF again after the 1st draft of Hidden Rings is complete, though I might work on those short stories in between the 5 Hidden Rings books.

This week: hoping to finish that rough outline and begin filling in some blanks. I wouldn’t mind writing a piece of short fiction, too. I need to produce a few of those so I can pad Anthologies No.2 which I hope to unleash next year sometime. Plus, I’ve got so many ideas in my idea/hook notebook and I need to mold a few of them into reality.

Transgender Dwarves, BLM Hobbits, #Resist Elves, and the Publishing World Gone Mad.

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I wanted to include some thoughts and an excerpt from fellow blogger/author Hannah Ross, but her recent post is perhaps the most perfect thing I’ve read all year on a sensitive topic. If the Hobbit were written today pinpoints the Orwellian doublespeak that exists in writing nowadays (which promotes an unrealistic expectation of “diversity” as some kind of modern, golden calf in fiction). I couldn’t cut it apart and will merely copy it in its entirety for you (but you should totally check it out then like/follow on her blog: Flight of Fantasy)

I think that if Tolkien had written The Hobbit today, he would have trouble pitching it to literary agents. Why, you ask?

Well, first off, what is the targeted age group? I can’t define The Hobbit as a book for adults, yet the main character is an adult, and how are kids or teens supposed to relate to someone outside their age range?! *eyeroll*

Second, women and girls are shockingly underrepresented in this book. Gandalf or Thorin Oakenshield should have been female to amend that. What’s up with the all-male dwarves, anyway? Time for a female dwarf protagonist, with or without a beard.

Three, diversity. Do you recall even one person of color in The Hobbit? Me neither. Why not make Bilbo the scion of the one black family in the WASP Shire, struggling against racism and bigotry? It would be a good thing if he has confused sexual identity, too, and finds himself entangled in a romance with Thorin (whether the latter is male or female).

What about some action in the beginning, huh? What is it with the pipe smoking and tea drinking? Give us a dragon falling out of the sky, or an earthquake that destroys half of the hobbit holes on the first page, or we’ll lose interest.

Finally, what about #ownvoices? How can Tolkien be trusted to represent dwarves in literature, when he was of average height himself? I say this is shameless cultural appropriation.

Bottom line: I’m thankful that Tolkien lived back in the time when one could simply tell a good story without worrying about social agendas, when one didn’t have to dance on eggshells trying to accommodate diversity, whatever that means, when it wasn’t a point of shame to be white, male and straight, and when readers were expected to have an attention span exceeding five milliseconds.

Before I go on a rant, I’m going to point out that Hannah Ross does not necessarily agree with my below thoughts. We’ve never discussed it (just a caveat in case I make any new fun and exciting enemies today.)

I’m pretty sick and tired of walking on eggshells and kinda ticked off that so many publishers care more about the fact that I have a white penis and am attracted to females than they do about the quality of my writing. That makes for really bad writers and stories that are explicitly steered towards propaganda for the sake of money. I’m all for diversity. I’m supportive of all people, regardless of their worldview—but the track we’re on pitches a harmful ideology. At its base level, the voices of white men are somehow worth less than those of others based on their skin color and genetic material rather than on the content and quality of their stories. Stories should be accessible and relatable to all—that doesn’t mean that stories must include gay characters in order to be relatable and inclusive: think about Braveheart… there were no persons of color in the film, but many POCs can relate to the oppressive political rule and injustices of racism through the film (even though it was white on white.)

Good stories and good storytelling shouldn’t be crammed into such a narrow-minded worldview that makes writers check off boxes. But that’s what the modern publishing industry does… and that’s why the Indie publishing world is so great. If you want to write a book with nothing but transgendered, nonbinary, racially charged, anti-trump college rebels leading a crusade to end mysoginistic church abuses by systematically enacting post-birth abortion upon unsuspecting white cis male 30+ year-olds, cool. Writing is about sharing what you believe—not shutting out other voices… but that is exactly the direction that we are heading.

I received a book review request last week from a publisher (whose books I’ve reviewed on request previously) and they made a big deal about their promotion of feminism and answering the challenge of novelist Kamila Shamsie who challenged the publishing companies of the world to only publish female authors in 2018. They are taking up the challenge and proudly promoting feminism (feminism does not promote equality, but rather the objectification of men and the idea that retribution should be extracted for generations’ worth of slights. That means one full year of denying the reading public of certain voices simply because you dislike their gender. (And it’s especially unnerving to see that most male-owned lit agencies I’ve looked at have an equal blend of men and women agents while more than three-quarters of female-owned agencies don’t have more than single male staffer if they have any at all.)

I am all for equality and unique voices, but I am against being told my art is bad or improper because you don’t like my lifestyle or my genetic material. That’s just not how you do good art, storytelling, or business—that’s how you do politics, newspeak brainwashing, and psychological warfare.

I might’ve crushed some eggshells today. I’d offer a political apology that I don’t really mean if it helps… I don’t believe that we must agree on all things in order to get along just fine in the world. You are entitled to your free opinion and thoughts on any matter—it’s your basic human right. Just don’t try to cow me into submission; if your logic doesn’t flow or you think you can win arguments by shouting down, political subterfuge, or messing with the free market to silence opponents when rational thought is not in your favor then we probably can’t be friends. I’d much rather have a conversation than a debate. Nobody prospers when sides try to simply discredit each other to “win.” Winning only happens when we strive for better understanding and does not mean that someone else loses.

Maybe we should strive for open dialogue rather than trying to silence others. It’s the only way we’ll ever do anything more than shout in an echo chamber… and surrounding yourself with clone voices does crap for originality.

Where Indie Authors Waste the Most Cash

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I may have mentioned somewhere along the way that I’ve competed on the “pro bbq” circuit in the past. I enjoy cooking (mainly because I enjoy eating!) At one point, I considered launching a small BBQ joint and even consulted the Small Business Association about it. “The most important thing in a new venture like this,” the advisor told me, “is being able to limit waste.” It’s not any different in other businesses, either. And that’s what writing is: your business.

I was sitting off to the back of an after-party at a comicon with another author (cuz that’s where they stick the writers… actually, we migrated there naturally,) and we were laughing about places/things that were an absolute financial suckhole–things that were a colossal failure to even make back the money paid. These are usually author services or advertising avenues. Most of our experiences were the same, and we universally agreed that dollar for dollar, we wish we’d have spent the money on editors, instead.

Without further ado, here is a list of the top worst places to spend money for authors:

Blog Tours & social media blitzs (twitter tours)
Press Releases
Writers contest entry fees at print journals
Online Writers Courses or Classes
Manuscript submissions services
multiple books on the art and craft of writing (moreso if you never get around to reading them–buying them can be a form of procrastination for many)
subscriptions to writer’s websites
Travel for Conventions outside of writers’ areas (conventions/conferences are a great investment, but there are usually ones close enough they don’t require airfare)
Professional Video Trailers for Books
Paid Beta Reviews
Writing Software that went unused

Granted, this is not by any means an exhaustive list—but it’s the items that were repeatedly noted by other authors on a couple forums and writers groups I belong to. They might prove profitable for some people, so this list isn’t a “never use these things,” kind of warning. It should, however, tell you that if you’re going to pay for any of the things on the list you should certainly count the cost and understand that it might be wasteful, there might be ways to achieve the same end result for free, and if you’re on a tight budget but planning to spend cash those dollars might be better served elsewhere.

Another thing comment that came up from many authors alongside those large money holes were time wasters. Spending too much time on bad promo efforts was big. Copy and pasting the same message to four-hundred Twitter feeds or Facebook groups is a huge time-suck; nobody pays attention to those things anyway—their full of bots and fake accounts and incredibly cluttered (even if you get a sale after those four hours, four hours spent doing marketing correctly will pay off better in the long run.)

Where money is best spent, in my experience, is in editing and cover art. A solid cover helps open the door and pique a reader’s interest.  Inevitably, they will crack it open and read a couple paragraphs or click the Look Inside feature. If the first things they see are clunky writing, boring writing, or errors they are apt to pass on a purchase.

As I’ve promised to so many people, you can DIY Indie publish your book with no cash out of pocket. It is absolutely possible! Most people don’t have the full skillset required and everyone should try to outsource things like edits and beta reads so they get fresh eyes and perspective on a story. Some people will sprinkle in some wisdom and set a budget, even a small one, and try to step up their game. If you are pooling some money to invest in your book the best expenditures you can make are 1.editing and 2. cover art… and in that order.

Double Free Book Day!

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Until midnight tonight you can get my novel Wolf of the Tesseract on Kindle for free as part of my publisher’s Cyber Monday push.  I’m also doing an early push for the new Dekker’s Dozen book, Weeds of Eden… I’ll give it a more detailed look next week, but created a giveaway/coupon code for it. Anyone who joins my sci-fi mailing list will get the book for FREE!

Click Here and you could be reading Dekker’s Dozen: Weeds of Eden right now!

To get Wolf of the Tesseract, click this link!

There will be a few more book giveaways in December–so use them to load up that new Kindle, Nook, or tablet you got for the holidays with some new books! In the meanwhile, wouldn’t an autographed/personalized book make a great gift? Email me and I would love to help make that happen!

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State of Writing

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Man. It was a good week, but it blurred by.

I didn’t do much solid writing, but I got some outlining done for Hidden Rings and have 2 of 5 books’ rough outlines done. I’m hoping to complete them all in December so I can concentrate on writing the series throughout 2018. Over the weekend I did two, small holiday craft shows that were scheduled, locally (I literally called the day before each one and made the arrangements) … between the two I think I sold more than 30 books, so I’m very stoked about that.

This week I’m going to aim for outlining another of the 5 books… and reading. I’m in the middle of a couple good books I’d like to finish as well. If I can, I’m also attempting to set up some last-minute, out of state events for next month so I’ll be making some cold-calls to book stores, so cross your fingers.

Today is Cyber Monday and my publisher is running a free giveaway on Wolf of the Tesseract! I’ll be doing another birthday giveaway at the end of the month and will send out a larger push then, but get the book for free on Amazon today and tomorrow only! All I really want for Christmas are book reviews!

When Should I Quit My Dayjob to be a Full-Time Indie Author?

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If you saw the 2007 movie Wild Hogs starring Tim Allen, John Travolta, and Martin Lawrence . Martin Lawrence is staring at a blank page for a year, trying to start his novel when his wife pops in to remind him that he promised to go back to his job at “The Firm” if he hadn’t completed the book after a year. Turns out The Firm is a sewage pumping company.

Most people, at least for big chunks of time, are like that character: we can stare at a blank page for a long time. The dream to become a big-time author is a great dream, but when there’s a mortgage to pay and kids to feed, it might not be sensible. Of course, authors aren’t usually sensible people. If you ask Google when you should quit your dayjob you will find a plethora of people advising you to quit now—many claim that the added stress of a “must succeed or I will die” mentality will somehow propel you into the upper echelons of the publishing sphere and you’ll never look back.

That’s some crap advice. That’s how you wind up flipping burgers at age 40. Most of the people on those first few pages of a websearch who advised writers to quit their jobs list the importance of things like “multiple streams of income” and “Lifetime Value” customers. They are the people who are writers (though I’ve never heard of most of them) but sell other writers online classes, courses, workshops and programs or mentoring services. That is, they sell much more than books and spend most of their time selling writers a product that most authors I’ve talked to say was a waste of their money in retrospect.

I’m not speaking ill of training courses (heck, I love showing others how to succeed), self investment, or in writers who offer classes or programs—but when it’s your primary source of income then you haven’t really quit your dayjob to write… you just took an even more volatile dayjob that forces you to muddy up the Indie writing pool with some murky promises about what success looks like.

I’ve always been a big fan of hoping to be the exception, but planning to be the rule. There are always the exceptions that we hear about, but the rule is far more likely. I read often about authors who made $10,000 in a month, but we rarely hear about how little they made in subsequent months. The internet is stuffed full of articles about authors who made the leap of faith and became wildly successful. Towards the bottom of so many of those articles you will find a tiny sales pitch about buying their seminar or services—that should be an indicator. One page, put up by a “Indie Publisher” who looks suspiciously like a vanity press claimed “it’s easy, quit your dayjob now and publish with us—follow out simple steps and be a huge success,” or something like that.

Quite certainly I am the unpopular voice in the room when I say “don’t.” There is at least some truth in the above statement that you need multiple streams of revenue to be successful and your dayjob is one of them. Until you’ve made the proper preparations and have achieved a certain amount of success do not put all of your eggs in one basket.

It’s certainly not what most people want to hear—but most people who write a book also want to be told that their book is “the best thing I ever read and I couldn’t put it down.” They want to be the exception rather than the rule. Really, most don’t want to hear, “I found a spelling/grammar error every third page or so, one of your supporting characters has no personality, and there’s a major plot-hole and inaccuracy in chapter eight.” That same sentiment carries over and is why we want to hear “you can do it! Quit now!” rather than the truth: this is actually hard work and takes a lot of planning, commitment, wisdom, and effort in order to succeed and profit margins will be razor thin for longer than you want to know.

One of the wisest pieces of advice I’ve received on the topic has been “don’t quit your dayjob until you can no longer adequately do both jobs well (and your writing is able to carry your financial burdens.)” I’d echo that sentiment. Until you are a proficient swimmer, don’t jump into the deep end without your floaties on.

Review: The Book of Ralph

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I was pretty torn when requested to read “The Book of Ralph” for my review blog. I’m rather glad I said yes. There are some genuinely funny moments that jump off the page… not funny “ha ha” but satire humor that puts its finger on some human nature elements and make you laugh while saying, “yup… we’re all gonna die.” Especially in our current culture.

The hook and premise are interesting and the Diet Coke on the moon setup was great (#occupycoke and the North Koreans try to nuke the moon.) It might be more accurate than we’d care to admit.

With spoofs as clever as The Simpsons or Futurama, Christopher Steinsvold walks a careful path that will either get him sued (probably by someone named Kardashian) or propel his book to Hitchhiker’s Guide status (which it certainly seems to have elements of homage within.)

I’ve been trying to focus more on sci-fi over at Inside the Inkwell Blog; it was probably that overture that prompted Steinsvold’s submission. While it’s a far cry from hard SF, it’s maybe the right kind of book for the moment (and likely beyond) with its originality, dark humor, and the way that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Some of the chronology gets some major fast forwards to keep the story moving (almost like World War Z, if the plot was more Shaun of the Dead,) and the twists sometimes feel like fourth graders arguing on a playground or in the oval office (or the storytelling tropes of Axe Cop,) and that’s the charm of it. I’d rate this book 5 Chicken Soup Cans.

I got this book in exchange for a free and honest review. If you want to check out the link, you can find the book by clicking here.

State of Writing

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I didn’t have any super high expectations for last week. I think I’ll keep it low key again this week, too… despite not shooting high I’ve tended to get some projects completed. The cover art is done for the new Dekker’s Dozen story, plus it got like 3 sets of revisions this week.

To top it off, progress logged on a few other writing projects… one is my renfest joint venture with a few other writers. I spent all weekend cutting Christmas trees, though, so I couldn’t expect too much.

This week I do have a few bookstores to call, but can’t plan too much more than that with my holiday fundraisers happening this week.

What the Heck is NaNoWriMo

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If you’ve been around on the internet for any amount of time as an author and read articles, forums, and other posts about writing and publishing then you’ve probably come across the term Nanowrimo. Just like any subculture, writers have their own vocabulary and this completely made up word might confuse the uninitiated.

Nanowrimo is a combination of words: National Novel Writing Month, which happens to be November. Nanowrimo is a challenge to write a full novel (or 50,000 words) between November 1 and midnight of November 30. The challenge has become something of a big deal and there are a variety of websites and methods participants may use to track and measure progress, encourage others, provide feedback, etc.

The word count is a measurement of a rough draft—not an edited manuscript. Writers are encouraged not to make edits or changes, but rather just get the novel written. Everything can be fixed in the edits, later.

Much like running a marathon or 5k, there is no prize. It’s a challenge more than a competition. Every person who makes it across the finish line is a winner. However, many of the websites that track participants have unique incentives and may offer prizes; some participants have gone on to have their novels picked up by literary agents or publishers.

Completing the nanowrimo challenge, which has been around since 1999, means you have written a book approximately 200 pages in length. Divided equally, it’s about 1,700 words per day or 3 single spaced 8×10 pages with normal font sizing.

The official website for the creative challenge is at http://nanowrimo.org.

 

Review: Caligation

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Brhi Stokes’s Caligation uses a common trope that one of my all-time favorite fiction series uses: suddenly waking up in different reality. It immediately made me think of Ted Dekker’s Circle Trilogy (Black, the first book, is in my top 5 reads). Of course, poor Ripley doesn’t have the luxury of returning to the real world every time he sleeps. He awakens in some kind of alternate reality and things keep going from bad to worse as he tries to make sense of it all.

There’s a fair amount of mystery going on that unravels as Ripley’s life unravels, and the characters are memorable (partly due to the interesting descriptions and names that help them really stick, like Zero Demon) and an added dimension of culture with some of the dialects and accents (made me think of the gypsy boxers in Snatch) as Ripley meets Aspectors, Sanguinars, and Feranthropes. This is definitely an Urban Fantasy, but one that is wholly original and with a mobster twist.

I did have mixed feelings about the ending—but don’t want to drop any spoilers. Everything is buttoned up neatly… I just didn’t get the ending that I wanted—which is great, actually! Too many stories are predictable and begin with such obvious outcomes that they are almost not worth readying, so Stokes’ ability to keep you surprised is a strength of her writing.

If you are looking for an original Urban Fantasy with a hint of darkness and paranormal (but without all the glittery vampires and tired, rehashed genre elements,) then this could be your next great read!

I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review at Inside the Inkwell Blog. You can get a copy of Caligation by clicking here.