Cameron Chapman's Blog, page 6

The 10 Most Awesome Things in the World

I’m going to try to post more general posts rather than just focusing on writing (though since I live and breathe writing, even “general”  posts are probably going to talk about writing to an extent). Part of this is to attract more readers, and part of it is so I don’t burn out talking about nothing but writing.

In this post, I’m going to tell you what I think are the ten most awesome things in the world. This list is completely subjective. It’s only my opinion. So feel free to disagree or make your own list.

#1: Films from the 80s

This includes the requisite brat pack films (St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, etc.), but also includes things like The Goonies, Labyrinth, Dirty Dancing, and Willow. These are the films that made me want to become a filmmaker and a storyteller. Not included on this list are 80s horror films, which all gave me nightmares as a child.

#2: Being Creative

See, I told you writing would make its way into just about any post! I’ve always been creative. I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I’ve also been attempting to draw and design things and build things for as long as I can remember. I still can’t draw, but every once in awhile I try again.

#3: The Ocean

There’s nothing better than just walking on the beach for hours. I’ve been known to dip my toes in the Atlantic as early as April. I live about three and a half hours from the ocean, and try to make the trip more than once a year (often just a day trip). Someday I’d love to live by the ocean.

#4: The Uncensored Hurricane Music Video/Short Film

I’m just going to put out a warning now: if you’re easily offended, uncomfortable with sex and sexuality, or under the age of 18, don’t watch this video. But if you like things that push the envelope of what’s acceptable, then I definitely recommend watching the uncensored version of the music video for 30 Seconds to Mars’ Hurricane. It’s by far one of the most inspiring short films (yes, it deserves to be called a short film rather than just a music video) I’ve ever seen, on so many levels. It’s also incredibly sexy and thought-provoking, both of which are very good things in my book. While you’re at it, watch the making of video, too:

#5: Seven Nations

I’ve been a fan of Seven Nations since I was 13 years old. That’s 15 years. I still go see them whenever they play within a couple hours of where I live (which is nowhere near often enough).

#6: 90s Grunge

I am a child of the 90s. I was born in 1984, and I was almost 10 years old when Kurt Cobain died. I was also an early bloomer, and started listening to Nirvana around the same time (much to the chagrin of my parents, who preferred George Jones, Patsy Cline, and Randy Travis to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Stone Temple Pilots). My So-Called Life was my favorite show (though I didn’t watch it until the reruns were on MTV), followed by Daria when I was a teenager. I wore babydoll dresses and combat boots, way too much flannel, and fishnet stockings with little daisies on them. I shudder when I look at photos of myself from that era…but I still listen to the music on a regular basis (in fact, my favorite Pandora station mixes Nirvana, STP, and Pearl Jam with more recent bands like The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and 30 Seconds to Mars).

#7: The Kettlebell

I started doing kettlebell workouts last year, though I’ve only started doing them on a consistent basis in the past couple months. It’s transforming my body. Kettlebell swings work out your entire posterior chain (from your heels up to your neck) and burn more calories than virtually any other workout out there (it’s equivalent to running a 6-minute mile). It’s also fast. It takes me less than 10 minutes to work out, and yet it’s making a huge difference.

#8: Good Books

There’s nothing in the world better than a good book. I don’t make nearly enough time to read, but that doesn’t mean I love it any less.

#9: The Woods

I’ve always been very comfortable in the woods. When I was around 8 years old, my cousins tried to lose me in the swamp near our camp. I made it out of the woods without issue, walked the mile back to the camp, and arrived an hour or so before everyone else. Needless to say, my teenage cousins got in a lot of trouble for leaving me in the woods.

#10: Good Friends

You know how I said there was nothing in the world better than a good book? I think I might have been wrong: good friends are just as good, if not better. With all the things I’ve been through in the past four months, I can honestly say I would not be where I am if it were not for some incredibly awesome friends. They know who they are.

So there you have it, my list of the ten most awesome things in the world. Note that not a single one of those things has to cost money. They could all be considered “little things,” because the little things are what make life fantastic.

The Things We Say on the Internet

Disclaimer #1: This post is not inspired by anyone I know personally, just things I've observed on social media and my thoughts on it. Also, the intention of this post is not to claim or imply that I've never made an ass of myself on the web. I have. Repeatedly.

Disclaimer #2: This post is only loosely tied to writing…

I follow a handful of celebrities online (maybe a couple dozen on Facebook, a couple dozen on Twitter, and half a dozen on G+). Once in a great while, I'll comment on their statuses or reply to their tweets, or even mention them in a tweet, but it doesn't happen often. I've had a couple of "celebrities" reply to my tweets (and even had one thank me for mentioning him in an article I wrote for Mashable a million years ago). So I don't view it as futile to try to interact with celebs on social media. If they didn't want to interact with people, they wouldn't be on social media.

What I'm about to talk about seems to be more prevalent on Facebook than anywhere else, but I've seen it on virtually every social network out there. It usually goes like this: a celeb posts something profound, deep, hilarious, or even a little boring, and there are a handful of comments that are semi-related to the topic (and often half of them are borderline-illiterate), and then, inevitably, begin the comments along the lines of "I want to have your baby!" or "You're so hot!" or things that I will not repeat on this blog in case there are children or people with taste reading.

Now, I'm not gonna lie, there are times and certain celebs where I am thinking all the inappropriate things these people are saying. But I have this internal filter that prevents me from actually saying these things to a complete stranger. That's what people tend to forget about all these celeb interactions: these people do not know you. They would not recognize you on the street, they would not take your phone call if you somehow got their phone number, and they would not invite you to their wedding or their kid's birthday party. They do not know you. And as much as you like to think you know them because you follow their every tweet and status update, you don't know them.

So why would you say something to these people that you wouldn't say to anyone in real life? Would you walk up to a complete stranger on the street and say "I want to have your babies?" (Note: the correct answer is "no", so if you said "yes" you might want to talk to someone about that.) Would you, sober, scream out in a crowded room that someone you've never met is hot? In front of their family and friends? Again, that should probably be a "no."

It's an epidemic on the internet. It's like everyone loses that internal filter that tells them what they should and should not say the second they log on. Granted, some people don't have that filter in real life, but the ratio is way off online.

This leads to other issues. It leads to trolling and people feeling like they can just say whatever they want when they're online without consequences. Remember: there is a human being on the other end of whatever you're saying. I don't care if they're famous, internet famous, or completely unknown, they're a person! Sure, celebrities might be a little bit more used to people saying inappropriate things, but does that mean they like it? I'm guessing not for the majority of them. I'm guessing some of these things embarrass them. I bet they get uncomfortable when reading some things. And here's the worst part: I bet they censor themselves because they know certain things they post will elicit a certain type of undesirable response. And that's where everyone loses out, because we're getting a less authentic interaction.

On that note, here are my three basic rules for interacting online. The goal here is not to stifle free speech or tell people what to do, it's simply my own personal guidelines for how I interact with people, especially people I do not know in real life (who are more apt to get my special brand of humor), when online.

1. Remember that you're dealing with people. Living, breathing human beings are on the other end of every comment you post.

2. Treat people the way you want to be treated. If something would make you feel uncomfortable if someone else said it to you, why would you say it to them?

3. Before posting anything online, ask yourself if you'd say the same thing to someone's face. If you wouldn't, why would you post it online for the entire world to see?

Following those three basic rules has kept me largely out of online embarrassment (there have been exceptions). I know that if I were to ever meet any of the celebrities or others I follow online, I wouldn't have to be sitting there thinking, "I hope they don't remember that thing I said that time." Considering I want to be involved in the film industry, I hope there's a good chance I'll meet (or work with) some of these people in the future. So maybe that's the difference: I view them as potential colleagues, while others view them as these unreachable figures that they will never, ever meet.

2012: The First Quarter

It's hard to believe that we've already been through a full quarter of 2012. The past three months have been life-changing for me, and while it didn't seem like it earlier in the winter, it's been changing for the better.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I went through a major personal crisis at the end of 2011. While I don't want to get into the particulars in such a public forum, the gist of it is that after eleven years of living together and more than five years being married, my husband and I split up. This has turned out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and while it's obviously not something I would have hoped for, I firmly believe that it was the right thing to have happened.

So my goal for this year has been to really focus on my career. Not just my professional blogging career, but also my fiction writing, screenwriting, and filmmaking careers ('cause a girl can never have too many careers, right?). To that end, I've been very proactive for the past couple of months. In review:

I applied for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, held each August in Middlebury, Vermont. Bread Loaf is one of the oldest and most prestigious conferences in the world, and I've dreamed of attending for a few years, but always felt like it wasn't possible, due to the time and money involved. Now that I'm single, I can spend my money on the things I want, and don't need to worry about obligations to others (well, with the exception of my pets). I'll find out whether I got in or not toward the end of May.
I applied for the Nicholl Fellowship. The Nicholl is probably the most prestigious screenwriting fellowship in the world, run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the organization that runs the Academy Awards). Even if I don't win a fellowship (they do up to five each year), even making it to the quarterfinals can open up a ton of opportunities in the filmmaking industry. As far as I know, they announce the quarter-finalists in early August.
I completed my first short film! This one was huge for me. It's an entirely DIY project, and I did everything from the camera work (or, more accurately, mounting the camera to the tripod), acting, and sound, to the editing and color grading. It was also done on a $0 budget, using only the equipment and props I already had. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I've had a few people watch it and it seems to get across the point I was trying to make. What more could I ask for?
I entered my short in the YouTube Your Film Festival. This is a huge opportunity for short filmmakers interested in creating content for the web. Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions watches all the films submitted, and chooses the best 50. From there, the public gets to vote for their favorites, narrowing it down to the top 10. Those 10 get to go to the Venice Film Festival and have their work shown there. Those 10 films are judged by a panel that includes Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender, among others, to pick a winner. The winner then gets a $500,000 production grant to produce original web content, whether that's a feature, a web series, or something else. Obviously, this would be absolutely amazing. Do I have a shot at it? Probably not. But it's still worth trying! The 50 finalists will be announced by June 1st when public voting begins. Just re-read the rules, and I'll find out whether I'm a finalist or alternate finalist around the middle of April. Which is significantly more awesome than having to wait until June! No idea what the rules say about announcing whether you're a finalist or not, though…


I also entered the short into the Celtx Seeds contest. The winners (there are 10) of that get a $2,000 production grant and Celtx helps promote their work. Again, it's an amazing opportunity for filmmakers. I feel like I have a better shot at this one (I get the feeling the competition isn't quite as fierce as the YouTube contest). They'll announce the winners by the end of April.

Now, next on my agenda is Script Frenzy, which starts April 1st. The goal behind Screnzy, as it's called, is to write a 100 page script in 30 days. Since that's a fairly slow pace for me based on how I normally write, I decided to write three scripts during April, each roughly 100 pages. That means 10 pages a day for 30 days. I think I can do it. And at a minimum I should finish at least one during April!

I'm also spending a lot more time working than I was at the end of last year. I took on the editor position at Webdesigner Depot last year, and have been devoting more time to that in the past couple of months.

As far as bigger, long-term projects go, I've got a feature film and a web series that will be entering pre-production soon. For the feature, I'm kind of waiting until I hear back from the Nicholl (it's the script I entered), as a good showing there would obviously help with attracting talent and crew (and money). The web series may film this fall, depending on how ambitious I'm feeling over the summer. Either way, those are projects that will likely be tackled during the fall/winter of this year.

So while I haven't been posting much here, it's not because I haven't been writing and working on other creative projects. At some point I'll get back to blogging regularly here, but for right now I have too many other things on my plate! And I honestly like it that way!

Of Conferences and Fellowships

Despite everything going on in my life at the moment, I decided I need to do some proactive things related to conferences and fellowships that will take place later this year. After all, deadlines are approaching quickly for two particular writing-related things, and while they won't take place until the second-half of the year, I can't wait until then to apply.

What am I talking about? One is the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, which is held in Middlebury, VT each August. I've been wanting to apply for a couple of years but keep chickening out. But not this year. This year I'm applying. In fact, I've been spending the afternoon working on my application materials (an excerpt from one of my novels, plus a synopsis and short essay for the application). I hope to have it submitted by the end of the day tomorrow. The synopsis is the hardest part for me, because I absolutely hate doing them. If I wanted to tell the entire story in a single page, I would have only written a single page. Condensing 65k words into 500 words isn't easy…

The other is the Nicholl Fellowship, a screenwriting fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (yes, that Academy, the one that does the Oscars). I've got a script that's about 60% finished that I hope to finish up in time for the early entry deadline of March 15th. This is actually the fourth or fifth draft of this script, and it's already been looked over by some professional eyes, and is now being tweaked for a (hopefully) final time.

This is actually the script I plan to produce myself. I had been hoping to do that this year, but it'll probably be pushed off until next year sometime, since I'm just not feeling up to taking on that kind of project (though if I could find a producer who wanted to take over much of the financial/business end of things and just let me write and direct, I'd be more than happy to do it whenever they wanted…).

But the Nicholl can open a lot of doors in Hollywood, even if you only end up a quarter-finalist. Early entry costs $35, which I can manage to part with for something like this (especially since if you're one of the lucky five who win, you get $35,000 over the course of a year). Luckily, Breadloaf is free to apply to (though if you're accepted it's over $2700 including room and board).

So that's what I'm up to at the moment. I'm hoping to start edits on the final books of the Steam and Steel Chronicles this week, and hoping they won't need to be too extensively edited. Only time will tell!

Writing Again

Just taking a minute for a quick update. The third and fourth Steam and Steel Chronicles novellas are currently with my beta reader. She's usually really quick with notes for me, so I may start with revisions on them later this week. Still no idea what the titles will be, but I'll post here when I come up with them.

I'm working on an urban fantasy novel I started last year. I had about 25,000 words done on it, mostly just bits and pieces of scenes. And then I got distracted with other things and dropped it, though always with the intention to go back and finish it. So I'm going to try to finish it soon. It will be the start of a loose series I'm working on, with books all set in the same world, and possibly with some reoccurring characters. I have one other book planned for sure, but it's going to be a big world, so there will be a lot of room for new stories in the future.

I'm also getting ready to launch a new blog. It's something I've been toying with for quite some time, I think since early last year. This one will be focused on blogging, specifically on creating great content, rather than on the technical or monetary aspects of running a blog. I'm trying to get at least two months of content written and scheduled before I launch, so that I can focus on promotion for awhile rather than new content. Plus, with my crazy schedule, I can't depend on creating new content.

I'm not going to lie—writing is incredibly difficult for me right now. Non-fiction, aka My Day Job, is coming back to me slowly. I'm getting back in the groove of it. But fiction is like pulling teeth. And I feel like everything I write is crap. Hopefully as my personal life calms down a bit, that will change. Unfortunately, I have no idea when "calm" will even begin to reappear in my life. Maybe editing my two novellas will help get me back in the right headspace for writing fiction again. Fingers crossed!

Sales for my novellas have been pretty steady for the past two months, surprising since I've been largely absent from social media, other than my personal Facebook account (and I've been way less active on that even). I had expected to see a drop, but that doesn't really seem to be happening. And it's now been over a year since the first book came out! I'll sit down and add up the numbers for it one of these days and post them.

A Hiatus & Some Book News

So, I've gone through some major, life-changing personal things during the past few weeks. The direction of my life is very much up in the air at the moment, and I have to admit it's kind of scary. Actually, it's really scary.

There are a couple things I do know:

I'm going to keep writing, both fiction and non-fiction. This is not something I'm ever going to give up if I can help it.
I'm still working to get the last two books of The Steam and Steel Chronicles out. I had hoped to get book three out at the end of January and the fourth out in February, but that's probably going to be pushed back by about a month. I still hope they'll both be out before spring.

But basically everything else in my life is completely in limbo at the moment. To say it sucks is an understatement, but much of what is happening is beyond my control.

So that brings me to my next point: I'm going to be blogging a lot less for probably a few months, at least on this blog. I need to focus on my work, my books, and my life at the moment, and that means something's got to give. I may still blog occasionally, when I find the time or have something I feel is important to say, but mostly it's going to just be announcements about when my books will be available.

On that note, Hold My Hand is now available through the Kindle Owners Lending Library on Amazon, and will be available for free to everyone via Amazon from January 12-14, and then again later this month or next month (I'll announce that when I finalize the dates). So if you haven't read it (and based on my sales figures, most of you haven't), take this opportunity to get it for free!

My Take on One-Pass Manuscript Revision

I'm approaching the revision process for the last two books of The Steam and Steel Chronicles, and thought I might share my revision process, as it stands now. It's based on Holly Lisle's One-Pass Manuscript Revision process (I highly recommend reading that post before you finish this one—go ahead, I'll wait), though I've made a number of tweaks to it that fit my own way of writing and revising.

A couple of points before I begin, though:

One-pass revision is probably not going to work well for first-time novelists or first-time revisers. If you've never revised a novel or if this is your first novel, you're almost certainly going to need to do more than one pass. That's okay.
You need to figure out what method works best for you. If you prefer to go over your manuscript ten times, then that's fine. Personally, I don't. My goal is to continue writing new things, and get the old things as perfect as is reasonable in as little time as is possible. That means 1-2 revision cycles, tops.

So, without further ado, here is my method:

What You'll Need

A printed copy of your manuscript. To conserve paper, I print mine 2-up on a page, in Courier New 12 point, double spaced. This means I have two pages next to each other on a single sheet of paper, with the back blank. This creates generous margins on the top and bottom for notes.
A notebook, paper, or note cards for making notes. Color-coding your notes either by using multicolored pens or by using colored paper/note cards can be very helpful from an organizational standpoint. Basically, you want to differentiate between notes about story, notes about characters, etc.
Pens (multicolored or not, depending on your preference).

These are the basic tools that make revision your manuscript easier. You might also want to keep sticky notes handy for adding notes directly onto a page for later reference, if you run out of room in the margins.

Before you really start

Depending on how much time has passed between the time you wrote your novel and when you start revising it, you may want to read through the entire thing, front to back. Doing this in one sitting can be very beneficial. And it's okay at this point to skim parts you remember well, as  you'll be going back over them in-depth later. It's important to resist the urge to start editing now. You're just reading!

Next, turn to your notebook. Write down the following on the first page, where you can easily find it (alternatively, you could post these on a whiteboard over your desk or on a bulletin board where you can easily see them):

What is the theme or focus of your story? What is the point?
What does your protagonist want, both internally and externally? This should be the driving factor behind everything that happens.
What does your antagonist want, both internally and externally? This should be in direct opposition to what your protagonist wants.
What do your other main characters want, especially POV characters?
Write down what your story is about, briefly, sort of like the "back cover blurb" of your story.

This gives you a good idea of the direction your story should take. With these things in mind, it's easier to make decisions about what really belongs in your story and what doesn't.

Check each scene

Now comes the nitty-gritty of checking each scene. Like Holly Lisle says, you first need to make sure that your story is written in scenes. Scenes are the basic building blocks of a novel, and without them, your story isn't likely to be very engaging. A scene should take place in a single location, at a single time, from a single point of view. If any of those things change, you need a scene change.

For each scene, as yourself if it belongs in the overall story. Does it move the main plot or any important subplots forward? Does it further develop your main character? Does it contribute significantly to your story's theme? If it doesn't do any of these things, cut it or figure out a way to rework it so it does. Ideally, the vast majority of your scenes should move your plot forward. But it's useful to have occasional scenes that do the other two: either develop characters or theme. Just make sure that those aren't taking up the bulk of your story or it will drag.

Does each scene have conflict? Without conflict, or tension, a scene will fall flat. There's no reason to keep reading it. There needs to be some kind of tension or conflict present in every scene, even if it's internal.

Make notes in your notebook during this process about any story threads you've killed or changed. The same goes for characters you may have combined or eliminated. You want to make sure they're removed from future scenes.

Re-type the whole thing

This is where the one-pass revision system almost cheats a little bit. When you've gone through the entire manuscript, you'll have piles of pages that are marked up. Holly Lisle says that you'll likely have a ratio of clean pages to marked-up ones somewhere between 1:2 and 1:4. In my own estimation, it's more likely you'll have a ratio of 1:10 or even higher, if you include simple things like changing verbiage or other minor corrections.

So, make a copy of your original first draft file to work from (I NEVER overwrite an old file, because the last thing I want to do is accidentally delete something I meant to keep or otherwise completely butcher the editing file). Then, start typing in your corrections. Feel free to make additional changes as you come across them, such as repetitive word usage or awkward phrasing (see, this is the part where it's almost cheating, because you're effectively doing two revision passes in one).

This may take a few days, but overall it's a fairly quick revision process.

Why not do multiple passes?

I've heard more than one writer bemoan the idea of not doing half a dozen or more revisions on their novel. They feel that it's lazy, or that you can't get a polished enough draft with just one pass. I have two answers for that:

First of all, over-editing a piece is just as bad as not editing at all. It's easy to get so caught up in trying to perfect your manuscript that you edit the emotion right out of it. That's not good. As an example, look at Amanda Hocking's self-published books. A lot of people say they're in pretty desperate need of a good editor, but at the same time, they have so much raw story and emotion that it makes up for it (though I would agree they could have used a good copyeditor to catch all the little things). If she'd gone through an editor or gone through dozens of revisions, it's possible that what makes her fiction great would have been edited right out of them and they would have been just another self-published ebook series.

Second of all, if you want to be a writer, you need to keep writing. That means writing new things, not rewriting the same story over and over again. I know there are all sorts of stories of writers who took 10 years or more writing a novel, and I can't help ask myself how much of that time they spent actually writing, and how much of that time they spent just posturing and thinking of themselves as the struggling artist? I have a feeling they probably spent the same amount of time actually writing that your average writer who can manage a few books a year did. And there's no guarantee that revising your book ten times is going to make it any better than revising it twice, once you've mastered the basics of both writing and revising (which is why this isn't the best method for a first-time novelist).

Two Years?

I just came across some pretty disturbing information about the time frames involved in legacy publishing. Right now, from the time a book is signed until it's actually released is running upwards of two years. TWO YEARS! And in some cases, we're talking about ebooks taking that long!

What on earth are publishers doing with writers' manuscripts that it takes them two years to publish them? I mean, seriously. I'm asking the question.

As an individual, I can put an ebook out in a matter of months. That includes a couple rounds of editing, copyediting, cover design, formatting, uploading, and marketing. And I work full time, so it's not like I just have all day to do these things. If I can do this in a matter of months, why does it take publishers years? These are people with staff. With resources at their fingertips I could only dream of. And it takes them twenty-four months to put out a novel? As a freakin' ebook?

And if you tell me that it's because of backlog, because there's too much in the pipeline to begin with, then the problem is only going to get worse. I'd say it's time to fix that pipeline problem. Hire some additional staff or publish fewer books, faster. It's not rocket science. I've worked with a large publisher, and I have to tell you that the inefficiencies in that system are astonishing.

Yet they wonder why indies are doing so well? As an indie author, I can see a market trend that I find interesting and I can write to it. I don't have to wait three or four years (if you consider the time to write the book, get an agent, make the submissions rounds, and finally get signed, in addition to the actual publishing time) for someone else to put my book out. I see a trend, decide if it's something I can actually passionately write about, and I can write it and have it out before that trend has reached its peak.

Publishers have a very hard time doing that anymore, because their publishing workflow and timeline is just too damn long. There are too many steps to the process that aren't necessary and there are too many points of failure (and let me tell you, they do fail, and in my experience, they fail quite often). There are hundreds of digital tools out there that can be used to speed up the publication process and make it more productive and more useful, and from what I can tell, large publishers aren't using any of them.

Granted, some publishers are putting books out rather quickly, in less than a year (my own non-fiction book was done in less than eight months between the time I signed the contract and the time it was available on Amazon, and less than a year when you look back to when the proposal was originally submitted). Some small fiction publishers manage to get books out in a matter of months. But the standard, the length of time most legacy published authors are coming to expect, is now eighteen months to two years. And that's after the contract is signed.

I'm sorry, but this isn't acceptable. Let's actually crunch the numbers here:

I write a novel. Let's say it takes me six months to get it into submission-ready condition (which is typical for a lot of professional, career-oriented authors). Let's say I start this on January 1, 2012 (for ease of tracking). It's ready to go on July 1, 2012.

I send it out to agents. It takes six months to find an agent who wants to take me on (which is honestly probably a bit on the quick side, as I know a lot of people who sub for much longer, but we'll be optimistic here). It's now January 1, 2013. It takes that agent another three months to find an interested publisher, and a month beyond that to negotiate an acceptable contract (again, this is being optimistic, but I'm trying to paint a best-case scenario here, not a worst-case one). It's now May 1, 2013.

The publisher schedules it for release in April of 2015, just under two years after the contract is signed. But that's three years and three months after I started writing the thing. And don't forget that I'll need to do a good bit of marketing after the book is released, so I better just round it up to four years.

Now, let's say I have a very good agent, and she gets me a good advance for a first-time author: $30,000 for the book. I know a lot of authors would jump at that kind of advance, and a lot of them are getting paid a whole lot less than that. But broken down yearly, that's only $7,500.

You might argue that during the two years that book is with the publisher I can be writing other things. But that publisher might just (probably does) have a clause in their contract saying I can't publish any other novels (or even book-length works) before this one comes out. So effectively, my hands are tied. And the publisher isn't going to contract another book from me until they see how the first one fares.

$7,500 a year. A part-time minimum wage job at McDonald's pays more than that. Sure, you might get royalties down the line, but probably not until after that four years is up. And even then it's completely up in the air whether you'll actually get anything more than your initial advance. And we're expected to make a living on that? I don't know about you, but that wouldn't cover my mortgage for the year (and I live in a very, very inexpensive area).

Authors need to look at writing and publishing as a business if they want to actually make a living at it (and if you don't, then ignore what I'm saying here). You need to site down and crunch the numbers and the time involved in each and figure out which one fits your own goals. Just remember that there are indie published authors out there who are making the best seller lists (including at least two in the Kindle Millions Club), so that's not a deciding factor anymore.

Repeat After Me…

I spend a lot of time on writer's forums (probably more than I should). Absolute Write is one of my favorites, as are the NaNoWriMo forums until they die out sometime around the holidays (they don't actually die out, but they do become a lot less active). I've been active on various others at times, too.

I enjoy writing forums, and I enjoy interacting with other writers. Especially since I work at home and have very little interaction with the outside world on a daily basis. But there are some questions that get asked on a recurring basis, with slight variations each time, that kind of bug me (maybe it's just because I've spent way too much time on these forums, and so it all seems a bit repetitive to me).

One such question that I see asked constantly goes along the lines of this: "Can my character do XYZ?" or "If I do X, can I do Y?" Now, questions of logic aside, there is one answer to both of these questions: you can do whatever you want. Let me repeat that:

You can do whatever you want.

You're the writer. It's up to you to decide whether you "can" do something within the constructs of your story and the world you'd created. Sure, there are guidelines (some call them "rules"), and the guidelines are good to follow unless you have a reason to break them. But if you have a reason to break them, you can.

Now, the one caveat to all this "do whatever you want to" stuff is that you need to make sure that whatever you're doing works within the context of your story. And no one can answer that without seeing what you've actually written. You know that saying, "It's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission"? That's doubly true in writing. If you have an idea for how to do something, the only way you'll know whether it can work or not is to try it.

Remember, too, that not everyone is going to recognize your particular brand of genius (a lot of the time, you won't recognize it yourself). That's not to say that everything you do is going to be genius, but once in awhile we all hit on that thing that really is brilliant, even if everything surrounding it is crap. It's your job to recognize when that happens and nurture it, even if some are telling you you can't do it that way because it breaks the "rules".

But seriously, when you're writing, and it's your story, you can do whatever the hell you please. Just make sure it works. And how do you know if it works? You try it. No one else can tell you if it will work, because part of making things work is your particular skills and abilities. Neil Gaiman can make things work that a first-time novelist probably couldn't. Stephen King can write with an omniscient viewpoint while I suck at that. If something doesn't work, you can edit it out. That's part of being a writer: rewriting and reworking. If you're not willing to do that, you're probably never going to get very far…

I think I'm going to make this my mantra for 2012. Let's all repeat it again:

You can do whatever you want.

Don't let anyone tell you differently.

What I’m Reading: Indie vs. Legacy

So I was thinking about my reading habits due to a few discussions on various websites, and I realized something: for the past six months or so, I’ve been reading a ton of indie published books and books published by very small publishers, and very few legacy published books. In fact, most of the legacy published books I’ve read in the past six months were purchased a long time ago and have been sitting in my to-read pile for awhile.

Since I got my Nook Color back in the spring, I’ve read ebooks by Amanda Hocking (indie), Zoe Winters (indie), Lindsay Buroker (indie), Greta van der Rol (small press), Kimberly Menozzi (small press and indie), Poppet (small press), Calista Taylor (indie), and Randolph Lalonde (indie). Print books I’ve read this year only include Stephen King’s Dark Tower Series (which I started reading last year) and Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker. Oh, and some books I either picked up at places like Big Lots (when they’re $2 apiece for a hardcover), or books that have been shared among myself, my mother, and my grandmother (like John Grisham’s A Painted House).

But as far as the books I actually spend my own money on? Those are about 90% indies at this point. And there are a few reasons why:

I can buy more books for the same amount of money. Even at the high end of the indie spectrum, I can buy two indie ebooks for the price of one legacy published ebook. On the low end of the indie price scale, it’s 10:1.
A lot of indie authors give away free ebooks. I read the free ones, and then when I’m looking for something else to buy, I buy their paid books (as long as I liked the free ones).
With free downloadable samples, I don’t worry about quality. If the downloaded sample has quality issues, I just don’t buy the book. And honestly, I’ve run into more poor formatting with legacy published books than I have with indie published ones. And by “poor formatting” I mean 18 pages of front matter so I only get to read 2 pages of actual content before the free sample runs out. And in very few cases is that enough to actually hook me into buying the book. Indie authors, on the other hand, generally only have 2-3 pages of front matter and then a solid 18-20 pages of actual book that I can base a purchasing decision on.
I’m directly supporting authors. When I buy a $2.99 ebook from Amazon that’s been indie published, I know that the author is making over $2. When I buy a $9.99 ebook from Amazon that’s been legacy published, the author is getting what? $1? Maybe? And the publisher is getting the other $6. Sorry, I’d rather support the author directly. That’s not to say that the publisher isn’t adding value to the book, but I have yet to see where they’re adding 6X more value than the author…

Now, I realize that my reasons are not going to be the same as everyone else’s. And I honestly was kind of surprised that my reading habits had changed so drastically in so little time. Prior to ebooks, I’d never knowingly purchased a self-published book before. I’d read one rather poor example that my parents bought, but only because it was written by someone in my dad’s hometown and was a fictionalization of real events. So it was interesting from a personal standpoint (it even mentioned some of my family members—like we all didn’t know that “Ruby” in the book was actually Garnet in real life…), but it wasn’t a particularly good book and I wouldn’t have read it if it weren’t for the personal connection.

But I’m reading some fantastic indie published fiction. At least as good as what the legacy publishers are putting out in the same genres, and often better. Any of the authors I mentioned above are well worth reading, and the best part is that you can generally pick up one of their books for less than the cost of a latte at Starbucks.

I’m curious, what are your reading habits? Do you read indie books often? Not at all? Have your buying habits changed in the past year or so?