Daisy Harris's Blog, page 29
February 11, 2013
The Myth of Word Counts
Ask any writer how they’re day is going, and one of the first answers you’ll hear is a number. Not their place on a bestseller list, or the lucky number from their star charts. I’m talking Word Count, the number by which many authors—myself included—judge themselves every day.
My kids will tell you, a day on which I’ve written lots of words is a day when I’m happy. A low-to-zero word count day? I’m prone to grumpiness, and fits of angry dish washing. No one wants to be around mommy on a day without words written. At least, that was the case until my recent attempt at a change of heart.
Like many authors, I’ve swung wildly over the course of my career in terms of how many words I feel I should write per day. At first, I had no way to know how much or how little other people were writing. I knew nothing about the business and had no writer friends. (I was a simpler time.) If I was on a roll, I could write 3 or 4 thousand for a day or two, but then I needed to take a couple days off to recharge my imagination before diving in again.
Sometime around when I started wanting to think of myself as a professional writer, I decided that I HAD to be consistent. Professional writers, I reasoned, plotted and made outlines. They wrote EVERY DAY. Taking this to heart, I laid out elaborate plot outlines, and forced myself to write a thousand words a day, with a plan to amp that up over time.
Well…that worked. I guess. The truth was, most days I ended up writing more than a thousand words, and I only followed my outlines when I was feeling completely devoid of the creative spirit. The biggest problem with this method was I ended up having to cut TONS. Like, tons and tons of words that were in there only because I was meeting my word count. I was a rewriter, I reasoned, and continued to press ahead.
Then at some point, I decided I wanted to make money at the writing gig, and decided I needed to write LOTS. I read a string of articles by successful authors shouting about how they wrote five thousand—nay ten thousand—words a day!
THIS was the answer, I reasoned. 5K days. I could do it. I knew I could write a thousand words an hour without breaking a sweat, and with the tiniest application of elbow grease, I could slam out the kind of word counts that the Big Girls wrote!
That was last year. And yeah, I did write a lot of books. A full length novel, and ten novellas. But I also wrote TONS AND TONS of false starts, misguided scenes, and just plain crap I had to cut. Writers always quote Nora Roberts and say that “you can’t edit a blank page.” Well, I gave myself pages to edit alright. Pages and pages of total garbage that may or may not have had anything to do with the rest of my story.
Let’s take a look at what 5K-a-day really meant for me, shall we?
I could write 5K in a day, sure. I could even do it two days running. On the third day, though, it fell apart. I’d spit out 2K (usually of worthless nonsense) and then freak out and read through my story from the beginning. Then I’d rewrite the 12K I’d done within an inch of it’s life before repeating the process of two days of high word count, followed by yet another attack of terror and fit of rewriting.
The side effects of my experiment were evident. More books released, yes, but also an increasing rate of false starts and just plain sucky words as the year went on until in both July and September I wrote absolutely nothing I could ever publish.
I’m extremely proud of much of the work I did last year, especially the stuff I wrote at the very end of the year. Those last three books, though, were written AFTER I’d abandoned my 5K-a-day efforts, choosing instead to write 3-4K a day for a few days at a time.
This February marks my third year of writing. One could argue I have more time to write now, and one could argue the opposite. But the fact remains—a “good” writing day for me is 3-4,000 words. And I can NEVER do it for more than 4 days in a row. Honestly, I’m best if I do it for 3 days at a time. No more.
Generally speaking, my writing process is very similar to what it was in the beginning. I can write 8-10K fluently, then I need to go back through it, editing and reworking, before sprinting ahead over the course of another few days.
I don’t write every day. On the weekends, I reread, edit, do paperwork, or even spend my days driving my kids around.
Now, when I plot and outline, I know it’s just to get my creative juices flowing. With three years of experience, I know I’m not going to follow my outlines. More importantly, I know it’s a terrible idea to try and follow my outlines. My absolute worst writing fuck-ups happen when I blindly followed my best laid plans.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. For me, the story tells the story. Outlines, pictures, graphics and the rest are just disembodied ideas. The ONLY way I can know what comes next is to take a break, read what I wrote, think, rest, rewrite, and then write it forward.
I wrote my first three books in four and a half months. You know that sad little process I had when no one was looking? It worked. I’m glad I fucked with it, because I’ve learned more about writing, and myself, but the truth is, I could optimize my internal schedule, but never change it. To do so ruins the spark that got me writing in the first place.
The best advice I can give to new writers is a paraphrasing of something Suleikha Sneider said earlier today on twitter—only YOU can know which process words best for you. Plotter or pantster, sprinting or plodder, non-stop writer or frequent chillax-er, what matters is that you turn out work you can be happy with, on a schedule that keeps you sane and productive.
The rest is just words.
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February 1, 2013
New Cover and a New Series!
Coming this summer to Total-E-Bound—the first book of my brand new IVORY TOWERS series. Check out the pretty, pretty cover! For more deets on the book, including an excerpt, check out the book page.
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January 19, 2013
Next Big Thing Blog Tour!
Hi, guys!
The lovely Cat Grant tagged me for the Next Big Thing Blog Tour. I appear to be the Last Author On The Internet to get tagged, so I fear this is the end of the line for the tour. 
But at least we’re going out with a bang, right bitches?
Let’s do this…
1. What is the working title of your book?
Right now I’m working on a four-novella series called Ivory Towers, and my WIP is the third book. It’s tentatively called Junior: Undirected, but I’m thinking of calling it Junior: Undone.
Though each 20K novella will be it’s own story, these four books are really all part of the same journey of my young couple Shane and Angel. So in my mind, the series as a whole is my WIP.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
I wanted to write another Holsum College title, but once I started writing, I realized the story I wanted to tell didn’t fit the Holsum College universe. Angel and Shane needed more than a single book to reach a happily ever after, and I loved the idea of choosing snippets of their relationship to highlight what they go through in their journey to be together.
More books=more sex. And who doesn’t want that?
3. What is the genre of the book?
M/M contemporary romance, BAYBEE!
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie
rendition?
I don’t always picture actors when creating characters, but this time I did.
My film TA Shane is modeled after Canadian actor Marc-Andre Grodin. I will say, though, the image of him in my mind has morphed, so that the longer I write Shane the more differences he has from the actor.
My closeted freshman Angel is played by British actor Wayne Virgo.
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A tough-but-vulnerable freshman and a jaded grad student fight to stay together through college, graduation, the tribulations of the outside world.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency/publisher?
Ivory Towers is coming out this Spring/Summer from Total E Bound.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I’m still working on it! Books one and two of the series are finished and submitted, and I’m working on book three.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Ivory Towers is a little like Holsum College, and also like some of the other college-age romances out there such as the Cal Pac Crew series by Christopher Koehler and the Theta Alpha Gamma series by Anne Tenino. The main difference is that this is something of a serial, with four snapshots of the same couple.
I adore novellas, but with college age heroes I feel it’s hard to reach a satisfying Happily Ever After. I wanted to create a couple who found their true love in college, but had to hold on tight to that feeling while they grew up and changed.
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My heroes! Marc-Andre Grodin and Wayne Virgo are two of my favorite actors ever. Once I had a clear picture in my mind of Shane and Angel, nothing could stop me from writing their story.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Gosh. I don’t know. Just, if you like Holsum College, you’re guaranteed to enjoy Ivory Towers. It’s more of the sweet love, hot guys and great sex that Holsum fans have grown to expect. Ivory Towers is maybe a little higher on the angst-o-meter, but still light enough for a beach read.
I hope you’ll all give it a try!
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January 13, 2013
Gay Film Blog Tour WINNER!
The winner of the Daisy Harris Gay Film Review Blog Tour is… MAYA! The Canadian woman from Joyfully Jay!
Don’t worry Maya, I’ll find you and get you your copy of Weekend. 
Cheers.
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January 9, 2013
New Adult: Romance by Any Other Name
There’s been a lot of hype recently about the NEW ADULT genre. The New York Times books section ran this story about it while I was off in Hawaii for Christmas, and because I was camping on a beach with barely enough power to tweet an emoticon, I decided to hold off on reading it until I got back home and could rant on my blog.
See, I write New Adult. Well, sorta. I mean, I write stories about college guys, and there is indeed plenty of sex. So my Holsum College series and my upcoming Ivory Towers series both fit the criteria of “New Adult.” But there is a very distinctive difference between the types of stories I’m writing and this supposedly brave new genre unfolding before our jaded eyes.
My stuff is never, ever going to be on bookstore shelves. Like, really. And the whole point of New Adult is for Big Six (soon to be five) publishers to get books on shelves.
It’s not that people don’t read my stories. Plenty do! It’s just they read on ereaders or phones. I write gay, college boy, erotic romance. Yeah, it’s hot, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Not the way 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight or any other male-female, younger heroine-older hero, BDSM-lite, run-of-the-mill romance is.
I write reluctant tops, bossy bottoms, sex so sweet your eyes water, and low-to-moderate angst. My stuff plays to a niche market, and I’m cool with that.
Who doesn’t like beefcake?
New Adult, on the other hand, is mainstream.
Say it with me, people. Main. Stream.
In fact, for the most part, New Adult is just romance. Young girls just coming into maturity, swept off their feet by love? Dude—that’s every romance novel ever written. The reason people like New Adult is simple—people like romance. So why, you may ask, aren’t they just calling it “romance”?
The answer is simple. Publishers need to put books on shelves.
As anyone who’s ever started a business knows, creating a product is the easy part. The hard part comes in figuring out how to get your product to the right market. Publishers have books, and they need to figure out how to put those books in the hands of their audience.
And pubs see their audience quite clearly—late teens, twenty-somethings, cool, young-at-heart thirty-somethings who loved Twilight, Harry Potter, and 50 Shades of Grey. This audience is largely, but not entirely women and girls. They want to sell books especially to those in that age group with the money to actually buy books (as opposed to only being able to afford them from the library, or dollar bins.)
So, young-ish adults, with some disposable income and education (because educated folks read more. It’s a fact.)
I wonder where these people live? Where could they be? Um… I know! Cities!
If these urban customers want to read books, they’ll go to a bookstore, so the logic goes. (This is of course not necessarily true. They may buy books at the grocery store, or Target—if there is a CityTarget nearby.) But what bookstores are in cities? Barnes and Noble? Well, within a 30-day span this Christmas season, Barnes & Noble closed stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Manhattan, and two in Dallas.
Places college students and young professionals may live, no?
Without as many Barnes & Nobles, and without easy access to mega stores like Target and Walmart, these twenty-somethings have only a couple places left to buy books: indie bookstores and college bookstores. I’m not sure if most college bookstores carry a fiction selection. I know that here in Seattle, the University of Washington bookstore carries a wide range of fiction.
I do know one thing for certain, though: The UW Bookstore doesn’t carry romance. Neither does Elliot Bay Books, the big, hipster indie place in Capitol Hill. (Capitol Hill is a young, hip, educated, gay, nightlife area in Seattle. AKA, right smack dab in the middle of customers publishers might like to sell books to.)
If a UW student or resident of Capitol Hill wants to buy books at an actual bookstore, they’re going to go to one of these two stores. Sure, they could drive or bus across town to the one Barnes and Noble left in central Seattle, but urbanites are notoriously reluctant to drive anywhere they don’t have to. 1. They don’t always have cars, and 2. they don’t want to lose their parking space.
But the UW Bookstore and Elliot Bay books don’t carry romance. So how is a Big Six (Five) publishers to (hehe) penetrate this market?
They’ll re-brand romance as something else. UW Bookstore and Elliot Bay carry Young Adult titles. TONS of young adult titles. I’d bet good money (and I bet Big Six publishers would too) that indie booksellers that turn their noses up at romance will be perfectly happy to carry “New Adult”.
Well, that is until they realize it’s actually romance in disguise, or until indies all go out of business.
The interesting thing about all this is that New Adult is aimed at Millenials, that generation that includes my baby brother 8 years my junior. Millenials fall into an interesting age bracket vis-a-vis reading. Unlike my kids, they didn’t grow up reading ebooks, and unlike me, they may not see the point in buying an ereader.
Of course, they’re all buying tablets. Maybe they’ll eventually start to read books on them. Personally, I think publishers should be spending more time trying to figure out how to turn tablet buyers into book readers. Random House, Harlequin, Avon, and others have created e-imprints, with Random House launching one specifically for New Adult. Just last year, Bookstrand launched apps for iPad, iPhones, and Androids, but they’re the only publisher I can think of who’s done so.
Anyone holding a tablet or phone in their hand may as well be in a bookstore, because they could buy a book at any moment. The challenge, as I see it, is how to convince the people in that big, wide virtual space of the internet that they want to buy books instead of staring at cat videos on YouTube.
As for me? I guess I write New Adult.
But really, I write college-Age MM romance with a supersized helping of hot sex.
I wonder if there’s a shelf for that.
December 25, 2012
Gay Film Review Blog Tour: Eating Out (Part 2)
December 18, 2012
Gay Film Review Blog Tour: Eating Out Franchise! (Part 1)
December 4, 2012
Coming Soon: IVORY TOWERS
Hola, fair readers!
Been wanting more sexy college boy action? I know you have! Well, you won’t have to wait too much longer.
Starting in May, I have a brand new college series coming out from Total E-Bound. It’s called Ivory Towers, and who knows? After four books I may not be able to stop.
Keep an eye out for excerpts from the first book, FRESHMAN: UNCUT. You’ll likey, I promise!
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December 3, 2012
Welcome to my brand new site!
Things are a-changin’ round here, with a brand new look and a whole new website. It’ll take me a few days for me to get everything populated and running, so please excuse the transition. I promise it’ll all be smooth sailing here at Daisy-land soon!
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