Kater Cheek's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Writing Progress
I've had all kinds of strategies in mind for how to make it as a writer, based on stuff I've been told to do by other writers, marketers, agents. You have to have a web presence, they say. You have to build a blog following. You have to make a name for yourself as a writer or you won't sell. This has been my goal since I first started writing: get my novels published and read.
I've done a lot of things that feel very "writerly" to me, things that are meant to help my writing career. Here are some examples.
Blogging: like this one. Also livejournal (which I just deleted), and to some extent my chicken comic was meant to increase my web presence. Increased web presence leads to increased name recognition leads to increased readership, the common wisdom goes. I'm not sure how true that is. I still write on this blog, because this blog is mostly about books, and I like books, and people who like books should come here and read my stuff. So that makes kind of sense. But I'd rather talk about other people's books than my own. I want you guys to talk about my books, after you read them.
Tweeting and facebooking: Similar to blogging. You have to know how to use social media, they say, they mostly being people who just found out about twitter last week. I still tweet, but I'm not frenetic about it. And I still post on facebook, but not to increase my social network platform, just to say something witty or tell people about my blog.
Writing and submitting short stories: As silly as it is, I once had the follwing train of thought--I need an agent. To find out who I should have as an agent, I should find out who the agents are of people who write like me. This is not public knowledge, but if you're a member of SFWA, you can get this information. You can't be a member of SFWA without sufficient publications. It's easier to get short stories published than novels. I'll learn to write short stories so I can get enough publications so I can become a SFWA member so I can find out which agents I need to submit to so I can get an agent so I can sell my novels.
Silly, I know, but it's better to have a silly plan than no plan at all. And it wasn't completely useless. By learning to write short stories, I got into Clarion, which was an amazing and wonderful experience that I never regret. I also got into some nice anthologies, which is a good experience, and I met some really cool editors. But there isn't as much of a connection between people who read short stories and people who publish novels as I would like. I no longer believe that even writing a brilliant, award-winning short story will help me sell novels.
Going to conventions: Okay, I'm still going to do this. I don't really think it's all that helpful to my goal in bold up there, but they're fun and I meet cool people and I get to travel.
Marketing myself: By this I mean handing out merch and promoting myself, shilling the Kater Cheek name like a hungry and crass real estate agent. Okay, so I have a signature on my email that tells people about my blog. And I have some business cards with my book cover on it that I hand out. But I'm not going to invest thousands of dollars in fliers and what not to give to people, like strip club ads at Vegas. I just don't believe it will be fruitful. Also, yuck.
I have given up this stuff for two main reasons. One, I don't have time anymore now that I'm working full-time instead of being a homemaker. Two, I'm not sure it works.
So here's what I'm doing instead. Are you listening?
Writing the next book.
Yeah. That's pretty much it. Writing, and of course reading (and listening to) books, because I can't not read books. I'm working just about every day on the next book in the Seabingen series. When I'm done with that, I'm going to get the fifth book polished up, which may or may not require a complete rewrite (I hope not) and then I'll do the same for the other books in the series. I plan to have at minimum, a book a year published, and I'm going to shoot for one every six months until they're all out there. I want people to read my books. I want people to enjoy my books. I want people to love them as much as I do. I want to be so popular that hipsters make fun of people who like my stuff, until the backlash comes and they get to enjoy my books ironically.
I'm making good progress on the novel. (Working title: Faerie Killer). I'm about 70,000 words into it, and I think it will be 80,000-90,000 when it's done, so I estimate that it will be ready to go by May. I work on it just about every day, even if I only have a few minutes, and I work on it for several hours on the weekends. I had to pare down, you see, when I realized I no longer had time to fritter away. I had to do what was the most important. Writing the next book.
And to be honest, all that other stuff is boring.
I've done a lot of things that feel very "writerly" to me, things that are meant to help my writing career. Here are some examples.
Blogging: like this one. Also livejournal (which I just deleted), and to some extent my chicken comic was meant to increase my web presence. Increased web presence leads to increased name recognition leads to increased readership, the common wisdom goes. I'm not sure how true that is. I still write on this blog, because this blog is mostly about books, and I like books, and people who like books should come here and read my stuff. So that makes kind of sense. But I'd rather talk about other people's books than my own. I want you guys to talk about my books, after you read them.
Tweeting and facebooking: Similar to blogging. You have to know how to use social media, they say, they mostly being people who just found out about twitter last week. I still tweet, but I'm not frenetic about it. And I still post on facebook, but not to increase my social network platform, just to say something witty or tell people about my blog.
Writing and submitting short stories: As silly as it is, I once had the follwing train of thought--I need an agent. To find out who I should have as an agent, I should find out who the agents are of people who write like me. This is not public knowledge, but if you're a member of SFWA, you can get this information. You can't be a member of SFWA without sufficient publications. It's easier to get short stories published than novels. I'll learn to write short stories so I can get enough publications so I can become a SFWA member so I can find out which agents I need to submit to so I can get an agent so I can sell my novels.
Silly, I know, but it's better to have a silly plan than no plan at all. And it wasn't completely useless. By learning to write short stories, I got into Clarion, which was an amazing and wonderful experience that I never regret. I also got into some nice anthologies, which is a good experience, and I met some really cool editors. But there isn't as much of a connection between people who read short stories and people who publish novels as I would like. I no longer believe that even writing a brilliant, award-winning short story will help me sell novels.
Going to conventions: Okay, I'm still going to do this. I don't really think it's all that helpful to my goal in bold up there, but they're fun and I meet cool people and I get to travel.
Marketing myself: By this I mean handing out merch and promoting myself, shilling the Kater Cheek name like a hungry and crass real estate agent. Okay, so I have a signature on my email that tells people about my blog. And I have some business cards with my book cover on it that I hand out. But I'm not going to invest thousands of dollars in fliers and what not to give to people, like strip club ads at Vegas. I just don't believe it will be fruitful. Also, yuck.
I have given up this stuff for two main reasons. One, I don't have time anymore now that I'm working full-time instead of being a homemaker. Two, I'm not sure it works.
So here's what I'm doing instead. Are you listening?
Writing the next book.
Yeah. That's pretty much it. Writing, and of course reading (and listening to) books, because I can't not read books. I'm working just about every day on the next book in the Seabingen series. When I'm done with that, I'm going to get the fifth book polished up, which may or may not require a complete rewrite (I hope not) and then I'll do the same for the other books in the series. I plan to have at minimum, a book a year published, and I'm going to shoot for one every six months until they're all out there. I want people to read my books. I want people to enjoy my books. I want people to love them as much as I do. I want to be so popular that hipsters make fun of people who like my stuff, until the backlash comes and they get to enjoy my books ironically.
I'm making good progress on the novel. (Working title: Faerie Killer). I'm about 70,000 words into it, and I think it will be 80,000-90,000 when it's done, so I estimate that it will be ready to go by May. I work on it just about every day, even if I only have a few minutes, and I work on it for several hours on the weekends. I had to pare down, you see, when I realized I no longer had time to fritter away. I had to do what was the most important. Writing the next book.
And to be honest, all that other stuff is boring.
Changing Places/Changer's Turf
Well, FAERIE KILLER, the fourth book in the Kit Melbourne series is out now, in ebook and paperback. Congratulations to the winners of the Goodreads book giveaway, which ended last week. They should be getting their signed copies soon.
But of course, I've already started rewriting the sequel to FAERIE KILLER. And by rewriting, I mean I've been writing an entirely new novel from scratch with only a loose resemblance to the original novel, which was titled CHANGING PLACES and completed in 2004.
It's the crap-faeries who do it. Crap faeries are related to shrink moths (the moths that get into your closet and drawers and make your favorite jeans too tight in the rear). Crap faeries take your wonderful stories and make them suck. You finish the draft of your deathless prose, go to bed, get distracted by life, and when you return to your manuscript, the story has huge glaring flaws that you surely didn't put in there.
When I wrote this series, I wrote books 1-3 with a first person perspective, and I strove for as linear a plot as possible. Books 4-6 I wanted to try something different. For these books, I had four main characters in each one, each with 25% of the story. I'm not saying this was a completely ineffective technique, but it's no longer suitable for a series titled "The Kit Melbourne Novels". Kit has to be the main character, not one of four.
The original book #5,CHANGING PLACES has some good elements that I'll be sad to lose. CHANGING PLACES had a girl who was dating a god, and a vampire who lost her money in the stock market, and a man whose migraines masked the betrayal his subconscious knew about. In the original story, Kit is laid up by a difficult pregnancy, and her brother James takes over for her as Dayrunner.
I don't know if I can keep any of this. I'm still keeping the faerie who works at the Renaissance festivals, and I'm still keeping the modern-day private investigator whose life is an homage to his noir heroes. The vampire still lost her money in the housing crisis (who didn't?) but it's no longer her primary motivator.
It's going to take a year to get the new book, CHANGER'S TURF out and ready for reading. It feels like kind of a waste to throw CHANGING PLACES out and write a new one, but when I reread it this summer, it was clear it wouldn't do. It wasn't my first novel (closer to my 6th) but I wrote it in 2004 and I have a few million words of prose between me and it. Also, I no longer feel that a 4-main-character novel is the best thing for this series.
I do worry that the same thing will happen with FAMILIAR BATTLES, the sixth book in the series. For years I considered it my best novel, but the crap faeries tend to get into everything, no matter how much anti-faerie-powder you spray.
But I'll worry about that later. For now, I intend to work solidly on CHANGER'S TURF, the sequel to FAERIE KILLER so that I have enough of it done to begin posting chapters weekly as soon as FAERIE KILLER is all up on line.
Be sure to visit www.katercheek.com if you want to read the serialized version of FAERIE KILLER or if you want to find links to purchase my other work.
But of course, I've already started rewriting the sequel to FAERIE KILLER. And by rewriting, I mean I've been writing an entirely new novel from scratch with only a loose resemblance to the original novel, which was titled CHANGING PLACES and completed in 2004.
It's the crap-faeries who do it. Crap faeries are related to shrink moths (the moths that get into your closet and drawers and make your favorite jeans too tight in the rear). Crap faeries take your wonderful stories and make them suck. You finish the draft of your deathless prose, go to bed, get distracted by life, and when you return to your manuscript, the story has huge glaring flaws that you surely didn't put in there.
When I wrote this series, I wrote books 1-3 with a first person perspective, and I strove for as linear a plot as possible. Books 4-6 I wanted to try something different. For these books, I had four main characters in each one, each with 25% of the story. I'm not saying this was a completely ineffective technique, but it's no longer suitable for a series titled "The Kit Melbourne Novels". Kit has to be the main character, not one of four.
The original book #5,CHANGING PLACES has some good elements that I'll be sad to lose. CHANGING PLACES had a girl who was dating a god, and a vampire who lost her money in the stock market, and a man whose migraines masked the betrayal his subconscious knew about. In the original story, Kit is laid up by a difficult pregnancy, and her brother James takes over for her as Dayrunner.
I don't know if I can keep any of this. I'm still keeping the faerie who works at the Renaissance festivals, and I'm still keeping the modern-day private investigator whose life is an homage to his noir heroes. The vampire still lost her money in the housing crisis (who didn't?) but it's no longer her primary motivator.
It's going to take a year to get the new book, CHANGER'S TURF out and ready for reading. It feels like kind of a waste to throw CHANGING PLACES out and write a new one, but when I reread it this summer, it was clear it wouldn't do. It wasn't my first novel (closer to my 6th) but I wrote it in 2004 and I have a few million words of prose between me and it. Also, I no longer feel that a 4-main-character novel is the best thing for this series.
I do worry that the same thing will happen with FAMILIAR BATTLES, the sixth book in the series. For years I considered it my best novel, but the crap faeries tend to get into everything, no matter how much anti-faerie-powder you spray.
But I'll worry about that later. For now, I intend to work solidly on CHANGER'S TURF, the sequel to FAERIE KILLER so that I have enough of it done to begin posting chapters weekly as soon as FAERIE KILLER is all up on line.
Be sure to visit www.katercheek.com if you want to read the serialized version of FAERIE KILLER or if you want to find links to purchase my other work.
How to Write a Book Review
I love writing book reviews. If reading a book is like going on a vacation, writing a book review is like showing the photos and souvenirs and telling my friends about the trip. Book reviews can turn the solitary pleasure of reading into something shared with a community of like-minded readers. It also helps other people learn about new authors and books I’m excited about.
But some people are daunted by writing book reviews. They don’t know where to begin. They don’t know what to say. Here’s the good news: there are many right ways to write a book review. Writing a book review is not like writing a book report. You’re not going to get a bad grade if you do it wrong.
Many people start by describing the setting and plot.
“This is a book about a girl who moves to a small foggy town on the Olympic peninsula and falls in love with a boy who turns out to be a vampire.”
Other people go straight into the subgenre.
“This book, which came out in 2005, became so wildly popular that it and its sequels set off a chain reaction of young adult vampire romance novels.”
You can also talk about your relation to similar books.
“I read this book because I’d read Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, and my friend said that this one was even more romantic.”
The purpose of a book review is to give your opinion of a book in such a way that other people can read your review and know if they want to read the book for themselves. If you dislike a book, that’s okay, but it’s better to give concrete reasons why you dislike a book.
Bad: “I hated this piece of crap. Only 14-year-old girls could like this piece of drivel.”
Good: “I hated this piece of crap because the main character seems to have no will of her own and this book is basically a supernatural version of an abusive relationship. Allow me to lay out the 35 worst things about it ...”
My own rule of thumb is that a one-star review has to be much longer and more thoughtful than a 3 star review.
And about those stars…
Some people give 5 stars to anything even moderately acceptable. As a reader, I dislike this. I think this is like saying “I love you” to everyone and everything; when you really do love someone, you’ve run out of superlatives. But how many stars you give depends on where the review is.
Amazon’s rating goes from 1 star “I hate it” to 2 stars “I didn’t like it” to 3 stars “It’s okay” to 4 stars “I liked it” to 5 stars “I love it.”
Goodreads is a little less enthusiastic. On Goodreads, 1 star is “did not like” 2 stars is “It’s okay”, 3 stars is “I liked it” 4 stars is “Really liked it” and 5 stars is “It’s amazing.” Since I do my reviews on Goodreads, and I like most of the books I read, most of my books have 3 stars. Because of star inflation, people will look at my 3 star review of a book I liked and think I panned it, unless they bother to read the review. If I wrote the same review on Amazon, it would get a boost of one star just because the ratings are different. Stars, too, are subjective. If refuse to finish any book that you dislike, it’s okay to have mostly 4 and 5 star books in your review shelf. Or maybe you just love everything. (You can certainly give my books 4 and 5 star reviews. I won’t complain!)
Remember this book review is purely your opinion. There are books I gave 5 stars to that had problems, just because something really pleased me about it (The Magicians, Lev Grossman). There are other books that were perfectly executed that I simply loathed (The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen). It’s perfectly fine to have a reaction to a piece of literature that’s purely your own. Some of my favorite reviews are like a little window into the reviewer’s life.
“I loved this book because it takes place in one of my favorite places, the Olympic peninsula, and reading this book made me feel like I was a child again, hiking in the fog and redwoods with my old dog Edward.”
My last piece of takeaway advice is to not read other reviews of that book before you write your own. You will almost certainly find your own opinion colored by whatever else is out there, and the best review is an honest review.
Focus on what you got out of it. Did you like it? Why or why not? What parts didn’t work for you? How did it fit within its genre/subgenre? Did it remind you of other books? I’ve found personally that knowing I am going to write a review makes me pay a little closer attention to everything I read. Writing reviews has made me a better reader, and a better author.
But some people are daunted by writing book reviews. They don’t know where to begin. They don’t know what to say. Here’s the good news: there are many right ways to write a book review. Writing a book review is not like writing a book report. You’re not going to get a bad grade if you do it wrong.
Many people start by describing the setting and plot.
“This is a book about a girl who moves to a small foggy town on the Olympic peninsula and falls in love with a boy who turns out to be a vampire.”
Other people go straight into the subgenre.
“This book, which came out in 2005, became so wildly popular that it and its sequels set off a chain reaction of young adult vampire romance novels.”
You can also talk about your relation to similar books.
“I read this book because I’d read Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, and my friend said that this one was even more romantic.”
The purpose of a book review is to give your opinion of a book in such a way that other people can read your review and know if they want to read the book for themselves. If you dislike a book, that’s okay, but it’s better to give concrete reasons why you dislike a book.
Bad: “I hated this piece of crap. Only 14-year-old girls could like this piece of drivel.”
Good: “I hated this piece of crap because the main character seems to have no will of her own and this book is basically a supernatural version of an abusive relationship. Allow me to lay out the 35 worst things about it ...”
My own rule of thumb is that a one-star review has to be much longer and more thoughtful than a 3 star review.
And about those stars…
Some people give 5 stars to anything even moderately acceptable. As a reader, I dislike this. I think this is like saying “I love you” to everyone and everything; when you really do love someone, you’ve run out of superlatives. But how many stars you give depends on where the review is.
Amazon’s rating goes from 1 star “I hate it” to 2 stars “I didn’t like it” to 3 stars “It’s okay” to 4 stars “I liked it” to 5 stars “I love it.”
Goodreads is a little less enthusiastic. On Goodreads, 1 star is “did not like” 2 stars is “It’s okay”, 3 stars is “I liked it” 4 stars is “Really liked it” and 5 stars is “It’s amazing.” Since I do my reviews on Goodreads, and I like most of the books I read, most of my books have 3 stars. Because of star inflation, people will look at my 3 star review of a book I liked and think I panned it, unless they bother to read the review. If I wrote the same review on Amazon, it would get a boost of one star just because the ratings are different. Stars, too, are subjective. If refuse to finish any book that you dislike, it’s okay to have mostly 4 and 5 star books in your review shelf. Or maybe you just love everything. (You can certainly give my books 4 and 5 star reviews. I won’t complain!)
Remember this book review is purely your opinion. There are books I gave 5 stars to that had problems, just because something really pleased me about it (The Magicians, Lev Grossman). There are other books that were perfectly executed that I simply loathed (The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen). It’s perfectly fine to have a reaction to a piece of literature that’s purely your own. Some of my favorite reviews are like a little window into the reviewer’s life.
“I loved this book because it takes place in one of my favorite places, the Olympic peninsula, and reading this book made me feel like I was a child again, hiking in the fog and redwoods with my old dog Edward.”
My last piece of takeaway advice is to not read other reviews of that book before you write your own. You will almost certainly find your own opinion colored by whatever else is out there, and the best review is an honest review.
Focus on what you got out of it. Did you like it? Why or why not? What parts didn’t work for you? How did it fit within its genre/subgenre? Did it remind you of other books? I’ve found personally that knowing I am going to write a review makes me pay a little closer attention to everything I read. Writing reviews has made me a better reader, and a better author.
