R. Munro's Blog, page 5

What Makes Me Write?

 

What makes me want to write?

I’m creative. It’s what I do. When I’m not writing (like at the moment), I make art. I’m trying to sell my art but not having much luck since everybody’s tending to hang onto their cash in the lead-up to US elections and the (bleurgh) “holiday” season.

I started writing when I was ten. I finished my first novel when I was eleven, and had a dozen novels completed by the time I was eighteen. My parents, being the generous, intelligent and far-sighted angels they were (*cough*) threw them all away and told me to go and find a proper career. Later, subsequent writings were lost after water damage in a house flood, but I didn’t give up. Hard drives dying and taking works with them didn’t make me give up. I just kept writing. I wrote poetry, novels, short stories, movie scripts, you name it.

I wrote to let it out, I wrote to vent, I wrote for therapy, I wrote to invent friends I wanted for my lonely self, I wrote to tell stories. In uni I wrote for money to buy food and pay rent while I studied.

These days I write because I need to write. At least, I’d be writing if my meds let me. Since I can’t seem to string two words of a work of fiction together at the moment, I’m drawing and calligraphing and painting and selling my writing and my art, spending an inordinate amount of time on social media hustling away as best as I can.

Maybe I’ll earn something, maybe I won’t, but I’m a bit of an autotelic creator, so for the most part it’s not really worrying me. When the meds let me, I’ll just keep on writing.

 

Smash!

For some inexplicable reason, the first time I heard about Smashwords, I developed an instant gut feeling it wasn’t to be trusted.

Now, months later and I’m not only perfectly happy to admit I was utterly wrong about that*, I’m in lurve.

My initial expectation was since I have all the marketing aptitude of a blade of grass, I would send my written work out into the world via a publishing house. You know – the type of place run by clever people of distinction with experience and business acumen. Far better than someone who sometimes walks around with his underpants on his head**. I could trust them to take my scrawlings and transform them into market gold via their brilliant advertising capabilities, distribution models, genius cover design and typography, and point-of-sale displays courtesy of their comprehension of product cut-through and target demographic metrics. Meanwhile, I would stay out of the way, thereby guaranteeing not scaring people away after turning up to something with my underpants on my head (it’s not a habit, I swear****).

I still live in hope that publishing via a publisher may occur with some of my writing, but at the same time dire poverty has forced my hand to self-publish something of my own in the (admittedly pathetic) hope that I could earn some coin a little sooner than the expected 12 to 18 months it takes a publisher to go from accepting a manuscript to printed-book-on-shop-shelf-earning-something.

So … thanks to the awesomeness that is the Australian Writers’ Forum, I learned about self-publishing e-books. Coming as I had from an environment where I had been surrounded by print books and little else, there were things I’d never heard of before, such as “Kobo”, “Nook” and “Smashwords”. Being a little shy of violent things I thought: Smash? That can’t be good!

Despite whatever reason they elected to call themselves that, once I finally swallowed my fears (and a stiff cup of tea), I registered and went through the process. The trouble is I blinked, and lo! it was all done! Here was the e-book version of a novel I had written that was up and going and distributed to mysterious places with curious names like “Scribd”, “Tolino” and “Flipkart” on my behalf. Amazing. Astonishing.

Smash!

Then I thought to myself: all right … that didn’t kill you, so do what you can to make it as pleasant a process as possible for visitors and prospective buyers. Smashwords recommended doing an interview. My Social Anxiety Disorder instantly dove for cover under the table, taking me with it, but when it turned out the interview came with written questions, my system relaxed enough for me to get up from under the table*****, sit down and fill it in.

You can read it here if you want: Smashwords interview

The best part: some totally and utterly awesome individual has already come along and purchased a copy.

How wonderful is that?

* Serves me right for listening to my gut. Stupid gut. Shut your … er … just shut up.

** All right, it was just the once***

*** Twice, but the second time was as a joke****

**** This is a lie

***** Yes, of course I bumped my head.

Conundrum!

So … very shortly after my self-publishing debut, I get an email from a publisher. It’s regarding the first few pages of a manuscript for another novel I wrote and submitted six weeks before. “Oh dear, here we go” I thought. Yet another rejection slip to add to the Pile of Woe I have going in the back corner of the garden*.

I’d had a crap morning, I was stressed, no sales on my Redbubble site despite the awesomeness of my art, no sales on Etsy, no views on Facebook, and a measly ten “impressions” for a Twitter tweet I felt had great merit and appropriate hashtags**. I felt low, and now here was somebody else telling me I wasn’t up to scratch.

Bring it on, the day can only get better from here.

“We want to read the rest of the manuscript, can you please email it to this address.”

Wha–? … What? What the blazes?

Way to turn my whole world upside-down!

Sitting there stunned at the completely unexpected, and what should arrive soon after? A critique from a fellow writer who wanted to have a good go through the self same manuscript and see what problems there might have still been. He’d been on it for weeks. Providence! My day was set. Fix up any remaining foul-ups, implement critique recommendations, and voila! Done! Email sent at 10:30pm, and a day well spent.

Fingers crossed they like it.

Now for the conundrum – I have another manuscript targeted at a similar demographic in the hands of another publisher. Should I withdraw it? Leave it where it is? What if the second publisher wants to go with what I’ve sent them? Two publishers?

Oh dear…

*Not really, I just file them away to look upon sometimes to remind myself I’m a terrible writer. What’s the opposite of “hubris”?

**I have over 2,700 followers on Twitter. I would have expected a better reaction. Come on people…

Published!

All right, don’t get too excited – it’s self-published and not something picked up by a publisher as such, but still, there’s a certain thrill when one has a genuine ISBN allocated and it’s something of yours that’s actually in print.

I must confess I’ve started my publishing career with a novel I wasn’t expecting to write, yet it poured out at a rate of knots and fell onto the page requiring few subsequent tweaks and editing, which is something.

It’s a nonsense of course, an absurdity that pushes even the most hardened accommodation of speculation, but as a spy thriller it’s the sort of romp I’d like to read if I was ever a spy thriller fan, and so far my proof readers, beta readers and the like have unanimously agreed it’s a fun read with appropriate twists and turns. It’s not for the faint of heart, it’s certainly not for under-eighteens (chiefly from the excessively foul language from the protagonist, although there is some rather gruesome stuff in there too). I guess it remains to be seen what the reading public make of it. Yes, it has my soap-box polemics about social problems, but I make no apologies for that.

The next big step for me is to get the e-reader side of things sorted and get it out there on multiple platforms. Right now, it’s a hard-copy from Createspace: Terror in the Ranks and then I’ll make it available via sites like Google, iTunes, Kindle and others.

Hoping this will be the first of many!

Time for a celebratory cup of tea…

Self Publishing

Well … what can I say? It’s been a busy twenty-four hours.

First came a flurry of re-reading, then checking, then re-reading again, and checking once more. A few edits, a couple of tweaks, all salient reminders any work is never finished, only ever abandoned.

I’ve never gone down this track before. Self-publishing has always been lower on my priority list because I know my limits and they include being not-very-good at marketing and promotion of my work. Still, I decided to give it a try because I have so many of my projects out there in the hands of publishers and the waiting game is torture.

I’ve always had a good eye (actually, two of them), and that includes with typography, so with Adobe InDesign in hand, I typeset my entire novel Terror in the Ranks, and then put the cover art together. No idea what anybody else thinks, but I reckon it looks all right:

Today I uploaded both to Createspace (which I have to say is an excellent site), and now I have to sort through tax documentation and a wait for approval from their end before it goes live. With that out the way, I’ll then move onto the e-book side of things, which I anticipate being a little easier.

I started desktop publishing in the 1980s and spent years providing services to the city of Sydney business community. With the proliferation of DIY in the mid-1990s, my business tanked, but I kept my skills and it’s nice to be able to trot them out occasionally and put them through their paces.

Combined with my literary editing skills, I’m now looking at providing a host of services to the writing community to help get books polished and ready to go. We’ll see. First step’s first though – I really need a book of my own out there and getting read. Its sales won’t rescue me from my dire financial predicament, but they’ll still make a difference.

Also I’ll be able to claim I’ve published, even if it’s myself doing the publishing.

Short Story: “Abyss”

Toes jutted beyond the edge, tips chilled to the bone.

He gazed beyond, the terrifying maw draining all essence and light, all cheer and life.

The far side beckoned, yet no bridge could span that divide. Above, the radiant blue caressed his face, assuring him for every dusk there was a dawn; but such promise echoed hollow against the gaping black before him.

Its embrace was inevitable. Even now his head was pierced by stabs of pain, his heart murmuring with uncertainty and panic, limbs aching and knees quivering.

None cared where he was, just as none cared for his own private darkness. None could see or comprehend, and none asked, perhaps fearful they be drawn in themselves, perhaps too self-centred to offer any measure of empathy or understanding.

He was beyond help, beyond guidance, beyond knowledge and wisdom. The hunger drew him in, beyond any ability to divine or resist, yet his heels remained firmly rooted to the last vestiges of ground at the periphery of the abyss, as if they dwelt independent, fiercely resisting that downward slope into darkness.

Teetering on the edge, he desperately wanted to turn his back, to step away and roar defiance at the inevitable, yet he had not the strength to move to the left or to the right or even fall backwards.

The chill had seeped up from his feet and now curled around his chest, pulling him in. He could no longer feel anything below his neck, his heels at last surrendering.

He tipped without realising, the blackness embracing him.

Even encased in bleak despair, he vaguely realised he still had a choice. He could stay still and calm, sinking to oblivion…

…or he could swim.

The abyss still had a far side, after all.

Short Story: “Mirror”

Look at you.

Just sitting there.

So what?

You’re such a loser.

Loser.

Don’t talk to me.

Don’t look at me.

Look at you just sitting there.

You’re such a loser.

Your ears stick out.

You’re too skinny.

Do you ever brush your hair?

You’re so pale, do you ever go outside?

You smell.

You’re such a loser.

You must be a faggot.

Just stay away from me and my friends.

You don’t have any friends, do you?

Loser.

Eh? Hey?

You’re such a failure.

You’ll never be as good as anyone else.

You’re so ugly.

If I had a dog as ugly as you, I’d shave its bum and teach it to walk backwards.

You’re such a friendless loser.

Nobody likes you.

Your mum should have had an abortion.

Everything you eat is wasted.

You talk shit.

You’re so dumb.

You walk funny.

I hope you die.

Why don’t you just die already?

You’re such a waste of space.

You’re an oxygen thief.

I bet you’re gay.

Your breath stinks.

You’ve got zits, everyone can see.

Why would you wear that?

Do you realise how stupid you look?

My God, you can’t be serious.

How can you be such a loser?

What did you say? How wrong is that?

You’re gonna get smashed soon, somebody’s gonna smash you good.

Everybody hates you.

Nobody loves you.

Loser.

Loser!

Die.

The Perils of Job Hunting

It’s a tricky world out there.

For someone looking for income-earning work, it can be a minefield. At every turn lurk scammers and fraudsters, each ready to prey on the unwitting and unaware. Rich promises for free lure the unwary, and only dedicated research can help identify the authentic from the predator.

For me, I’m looking for work.

It doesn’t have to be $4000+ a day and owning my very own private jet in a year or two, but then I’m also realistic and have done enough laps around the block to spot the too-good-to-be-true crowd. Others don’t appear so fortunate.

I need to work my way out of welfare dependency, and to do it as soon as possible. I reckoned the best course of action was looking to my strengths and working within my abilities, as to do so would best guarantee I could deliver for paying customers. I figured since I’m pretty damn okay with my language I could offer literary editing services, concentrating on being a copy editor or proofreader (or both combined), to see a manuscript through to readiness for publishing. Whether this was a novel or a screenplay really didn’t matter to me – it’s about format, story, language, grammar, spelling, punctuation and not being bad.

Trouble is I looked up such work on job sites and there’s absolutely nothing.

I’m a member of the Australian Writers’ Forum, which is a great site for Australian writers. There are a couple of authors there looking to engage my services, as they appreciate my own writing and reckon my prices are highly competitive, so I’ve got that going for me, which is great. Trouble is the work is sporadic, and when all’s said and done I’d still be living below the poverty line.

So I reckoned expanding into another old strength of mine – desktop publishing.

Over 20 years ago I was operating as a desktop publishing sole trader. One time I designed a corporate brand, which included a client’s logo, logotype, branding scheme and other aspects all incorporated into a styleguide. It was a great job, and the client was delighted. My agreed price of $150,000 was considered a bargain (a similar job done by a large agency at the same time set back their client $2.2million), but to my horror I lost it when one of their board decided not to pay me, coming up with excuses that went all the way to court. I won my case, but they wriggled out of it by relocating, modifying my work (so they could “legally” use it) and the CEO filed for personal bankruptcy. They even wrangled the situation in such a way where I had to pay my own legal fees, so instead of earning $150,000 I lost $20,000 (It would have been $50,000 but I had their $30,000 deposit).  Such is the power of a corporation against a sole trader. I vowed I would never go down that alley again, and now these days I find I don’t have to, when clients on Airtasker consider $20 a fair price for logo design, and corporate identities don’t have to extend beyond a website.

Despite designing brochures, catalogues, pamphlets and goodness knows what else, I have close to no desire to offer website design. I just don’t have any enthusiasm there at all, so it’s not a strength for me. I have to work within my capabilities, hamstrung somewhat by my ongoing mental health issues, so any desktop publishing I can do might be restricted to – say – the publishing world, where there’s typesetting, page layout, cover art, promotional collateral and the like, but whether I can get work like that as a work-at-home freelancer remains to be seen. It’s a good thing I’m intimately familiar with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. I’m probably going to have to come up with some samples first to show what I can do, but I’m sure I can manage something. In the meantime I’ll stick with editing, since I seem to do well at it.

All of this would be on top of my own writing, which I enjoy. The trouble with writing novels is they take an awfully long time to yield dividends for their author, and I need to climb out of my welfare dependency pit now.

Enough is enough.

Novel Five

I first conceived of my fifth novel back when I was studying ancient history. It’s an idea I’ve been mulling over for a very long time, and like a good wine, it’s been improving as it ages.

I write about places and people I like – typically places I can never visit, populated by people I could never hope to meet. The thing is they’re real to me and so when I finish writing I feel a sense of fulfilment that includes having visited and met the impossible.

My characters are real people to me, not simply thumbnail sketches of personalities on a page. I treat each of them as if I’ve met them fully formed, and as a writer use my words to describe them. Some of my characters are based on people I’ve met in real life or studied in my various researches. Some are even ones I’ve dreamed about.

I listen to music all the time, typically classical. Australia’s ABC Classic FM continually presents a diverse range from early to recent, and much of it is wonderfully inspirational. Through music I can can also experience personality – Liszt is still alive through his music, as is Beethoven, Shostakovich and Brahms, and each speak to me when their music is played. Each present their own personalities as they were at the time they composed their particular pieces. This is how I meet people. I also watch the news, and while it is highly pre-digested and skewed, it also occasionally lets slip insights that can prove useful. I read a lot. Non-fiction but fiction as well. I find reality infintely more fascinating than fantasy. To me good fiction is a metaphoric mirror of reality well told.

My latest novel has a protagonist I have not based on anyone I have met. I have intellectually designed a personality that has likely existed at some point, but for the life of me I couldn’t say they were based on anyone I’ve encountered in any context. I prefer to create likeable protagonists because I prefer likeable people, and I reckon readers prefer to like the sort of people they read about (except some antagonists, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish). A story is about – amongst other things – growth, whether physically, psychologically, spiritually or intellectually. Change is the engine room of a good yarn. My protagonist in this story does a great deal of growing on pretty much every count, but I have set myself a challenge in creating someone I don’t actually like. I wouldn’t want to count this individual as a friend or colleague. They will grow eventually into some semblance of a likeable person – that’s part of the journey – but I must confess to be struggling to care about them in these early stages.

The novel is mapped out, plot points devised, character arcs designed, twists and turns abound, and the setting is exotic and dramatic to say the least. For a reader it should prove a thrilling adventure set in an astonishing world (that really existed), where they get to witness a protagonist evolve from unlikeable to likeable, but for me the challenge is to push my envelope to bring to life an individual outside my own world of comfort.

That’s the adventure I find in writing.