Melanie Edmonds's Blog, page 36
December 29, 2012
Review happy
Or, how to make a writer smile
I check for reviews periodically on the online stores where my ebooks are sold (primarily on Amazon because it has the highest turnover and tends to generate more reviews). It’s always good to know what people are saying about my work and how it is trending against other books.
I went in and checked on my ebooks recently and was pleasantly surprised to see a number of new reviews had been added in the past few weeks. With the usual trepidation (it’s always scary when you’re going in blind), I clicked through to see what they said.
I was honestly floored by the responses.
“This series is the real deal and Melanie Edmonds needs to learn how to write quicker than I can read. She’s one of the best indie author’s I’ve found in the 2 years since my son gave me a Kindle for my birthday.”
“Best Character Development I’ve Seen in Some Time.”
“Good read and recommend the entire series.”
The praise was wonderful! And some of the reviews were detailed, which as a writer, I always appreciate (have a look on the linked review pages on Amazon for the full text!).
I don’t expect positive comments in reviews. I don’t expect five-star ratings. I hope for them but I don’t expect them; it’s safer that way. Negative reviews and ratings are hard enough to take as it is!
I value honest feedback. It’s one reason why I’m so opinionated about critiquing fiction, and I strive to remove my ego from the equation. It’s difficult and negative reviews always hit me where I live, but I don’t discourage them.
When I was editing the Apocalypse Blog for the ebook editions, I had a list of negative things from reviews that I tried to address. Some sections were rewritten and many were expanded. I tried to improve and learn. For that opportunity, I thank those reviewers.
But nothing beats positive feedback. Nothing beats knowing that someone has read your story and honestly been touched. Yes, I love making people cry, because it’s a sign of my craft that I’ve managed to move someone that deeply. I love making people stay up half the night or spend time at work reading.
“I even put off watching the Olympics at times because this series was so good, I couldn’t stop at times, often reading throughout the night.”
“Wonderful characters and story…loved every page….made me cry at several points.”
“I usually read while working out on my treadmill, I was so into these books I didn’t even notice my time on the machine as it shuts off @ 100 minutes: as it did every time while reading these!!!!”
“Once I started, I couldn’t put the series down. I literally read the entire batch over the course of a 3-day weekend.”
“Love this story, can’t put it down! I find myself very attached to the characters and am really enjoying the story.”
I love the complaints when they reach the end because there’s no more for them to devour.
“I read all four books in a week and I’m so hoping the author will consider continuing on with Faith’s story. I did see a review from someone re: Book 3 asking for more as well. Maybe with enough fans of this writer and ‘Faith’s Story,’ we’ll get our wish!”
“This is the third [book]. I’m bummed. I’ve grown to like Faith more and more. Lots of excitement . Violence and intensity too. You won’t be sorry you gave this series a try. My question is: WHEN DO WE GET INSTALLMENT 4?”
“Great book, have read all the books to this series, hoping the next one will be out soon! great apocalypse book!”
They’re all signs that I’m doing things right. People are connecting with my characters and stories, and they’re reacting to them in good ways.
I’ve even had vindication in some of the things I set out to do. In the Apocalypse Blog, I wanted to show a different side to a post-apocalyptic situation than I’d seen before. I wanted Faith to be a different voice, and I didn’t want the zombies to be the centre of the story; it wasn’t about them at all. And that has been picked up in the reviews.
“When I started with the first book I wasn’t sure what scenario the characters would be faced with in addition to the zombies. Even though they took a while to show up they did not disappoint once they arrived. By then I was so attached to the characters it just added to the adventure. They were not the center of attention but the main problem the characters faced was easily just as interesting.”
“While I’m not a “zombie” fan AT ALL, I was able to get through their appearances in this series. I was also able to shake off the nightmares…yes, that how good the writing is.”
“I do like a good “after the collapse of society”, “dead things back to life” story, and while this one was reminiscent of every other apocalypse/zombie thing I’ve ever seen/read (The Walking Dead, Survivors, Falling Skies, The Road) it still had me captivated. Just enough newness to keep my interest.”
“The book has great characters and is very different than the usual apocalyptic novels currently available.”
“I’m glad to see female authors emerging in this genre. It gets old, reading about the ex-military, gung-ho zombie killer that’s taught all of his sons to shoot but not his daughter and hides the women in a closet.”
Better than that: I’ve been recommended to others on those grounds. It’s different and fresh and new. In this world of fiction, it’s hard to do something truly unique, but I feel like I might have succeeded in at least some small way.
It’s reviews like that that keep me writing and publishing. I write because I have stories in me; I publish because I want to share them, and I want to know that I have something worth sharing.
I should note that reviews are likely to affect sales, and of course, positive comments and ratings will sell me more books. But I won’t beg or buy them. I want my work to stand on its own and speak for me, and so far, it has (I’ve done little marketing, mostly because I don’t have the time). That’s enough for me. If the books do well, it’s because they deserve it and I’m happy with that.
Do I wish that all of my reviews were so effusive? What I’ve quoted above isn’t the whole story; I have only included snippets of them here, and I encourage you to check out the full review text. Many of them came with caveats and notes about stuff that could have been done better. And I’m working to take those on board and take them forward with me in my new writings, so no, I don’t hope for the reviews to be 100% positive. No fiction is perfect (and I’m not deluded enough to think mine is, either!).
I am grateful for all of it and I thank everyone who has commented on my work. But I am especially grateful to those who took the time to tell the world how much they enjoyed my work. You lifted my day.
I hope to give you even better stories to read soon.
December 28, 2012
NaNoWriMo 2012 Part 4: the Writer’s Retreat
As I mentioned in Part 2, every year, I try to do something bigger and better than the year before. Just one thing, because let’s not go crazy. That’d be silly, right? Right. ‘Course.
The end of a NaNo is always a prime time to think ‘how can I top this next year?’, while we’re still caught up in the euphoria and relief of another challenge faced and beaten. Last year, I thought about the awesomeness of our write-ins: 10-hour days of writers in a restaurant, tapping away on keyboards. They’re intended to be drop-in, drop-out sessions, but the MLs aren’t the only ones who are there for the whole time. We have some very dedicated writers. And I wondered: how can we make these even better?
Of course, the natural answer was: let’s go to an island (there’s one handily nearby) and have a weekend-long write-in. Thus was born the NaNoWriMo 2012 Writer’s Retreat.
I knew it was ambitious. I’d never done something like this before; sure, I’ve organised events, booked tables and space, sent out communiqués, etc. But to organise something like a conference, with accommodation and food and transport and money – that’s a whole different ball of wax.
If nothing else, I’ve never had to sort out the payment part before. I hate asking people for money; this is why my Creative Writing Group is free and I tend to arrange events that are free to come to. It’s just a headache that I don’t need.
But screw it, I thought. I’ll have to do it if I want a retreat.
When I polled the 2011 Wrimos for interest in coming to (and paying for) a retreat, I got a positive response, so I knew I’d get people to come. When I went ‘aahhhh’ at my writer friends, I got loads of offers of help. I wouldn’t have to do it all on my own.
Okay, I thought. I’ve got support and an enthusiastic base of writers. I can do this.
So I did. Starting back in June 2012, I got the ball rolling. Sorted out dates, a venue, accommodation and food, and got the booking form set up. I sent the word out to my region, somewhat nervously.
After that, it trundled along pretty steadily. Bookings trickled in, followed by deposits. I continued to work details out with my travel agent and slowly got all the information together.
It was around September when I had enough bookings to make the whole thing financially viable; everything above that was a bonus, and there were still plenty of places available. I could breathe a little easier at that point, because I knew I wouldn’t have to make up any shortfall myself (it was a risk and a cost I couldn’t truly afford, and one of my biggest worries when going into this kind of thing).
Running up to the deadline for confirming numbers, I had to chase people for money (which, as I said earlier, I hate doing), and there was stress over getting it all in on time. A couple of cancellations after the deadline threw a spanner in the works, but luckily the ticket-holders found others to take their places. I got the payments in time to meet the deadlines. Everything was lining up nicely.
One of the biggest headaches I had was the transport. In hindsight, I should have left people to make their own way over to the island, but no, I had to go and try to make things cheap by filling up cars with passengers (the ferry charges per car, so splitting the cost over passengers made it cheaper for everyone). It required a bunch of logistics, including getting everyone to the port at the same time.
This is a good time to point out that there were 35 people going to the Retreat, including me (and a small child, who was coming to distract her parents from writing). 35! That number still boggles me.
I should also point out that I had help. My co-ML was a huge help with wrangling writers and running the weekend. He was tasked with meeting everyone at the port and getting them into cars and on the ferry (by that point, I was over on the island, setting up). And, to my great relief, it all went to plan.
I really don’t know what I would have done without his help. I’m so lucky to have such support.
It didn’t all go perfectly. When I arrived, I had to hurriedly organise a logistical screw-up: the venue couldn’t provide the one thing we needed for the weekend. Namely, a place we could all get together and write. I had been promised by the agent that the deck on the villa we booked would hold up to 50 people with tables, chairs, and laptop power access. It actually only held 20. We had over 30 writers, so this was a problem. You could say I was a little furious (luckily, the agent wasn’t on the island).
After some rapid negotiations with the resort’s manager, we managed to get a closed cafe for an afternoon to all get together, but for the rest of the weekend, we were split over two areas.
I wasn’t pleased (this is an understatement: I’m still pissed that the agent messed up the central requirement of the trip: that we could all write together). But the writers who came all went along with what we had happily and there was no fuss. It wasn’t a disaster in the end, so I’m happy! (However, I won’t be using that agent again.)
The other hiccup we had was the hotel we had dinner at on the Saturday of the Retreat. The agent had promised me it was a 5-minute walk up the road, really close. It was actually a 15-minute walk up a hill. It doesn’t sound like a huge difference when put into words like that, but it was a problem for some of our less physically able attendees (including the 2-year-old). I had to run around and arrange lifts back to the resort for several of them (which put a dent in my ability to drink and relax over dinner).
All of it was stuff I really shouldn’t have had to deal with, headaches I didn’t need. But we sorted it out and made it work and, more importantly, it didn’t spoil it for our attendees.
Overall, the Retreat went very smoothly (despite those things!). People arrived, were sorted into their rooms, and went where they were asked to. There were drinks and games and lots of talking and laughing. People unwound, relaxed, spun stories and played in the ocean. There was a peace train across the floor: backrubs for all! There were no dramas (except in our stories, of course), and everyone stuck to the golden rule of events I run: no hospital trips.
Better than that: the attendees all had fun. I had so many of them stop me to say what a good time they were having and how much they enjoyed it all. They thanked me for organising it and I got so many hugs. When we did the prize-giving at the end of the weekend, one of the writers prompted a round of applause to thank my co-ML and me for the weekend, and it went on for an embarrassingly long time. It’s hard to mind, though!
I was honestly pleased and surprise by the wealth of good feedback I got. The mental overhead of running it and the issues I had to deal with had given me a skewed view of how it really went (for those who are not me). I couldn’t have hoped for a better reaction to the endeavour and I am endlessly stunned by the generosity, understanding, and willingness of my writers. I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of people to go to an island with!
Here are some fun stats for the weekend:
Total words written: 230,407
Most words written by a single person: 19,404
Largest percentage increase on starting wordcount: 301%
Most words written in a 10-minute word war: 1306
Most words written in a 15-minute word war: 1605
Number of people who hit 50,000 words: 5
Number of people who hit 100,000 words: 1
Important non-writing lesson learnt: don’t hug the jellyfish (they sting!)
So of course, the next logical question is: what shall we do for a retreat next year? And naturally, I have some ideas. We’ve done an island, so let’s shake it up again. Let’s go up a mountain, to the top where we can walk through the top of the rainforest. I know a couple of places where we can do that.
The notion was floated among friends and attendees, and the reactions are all positive. Ideas are forming already, plans sliding quietly into place. A roadtrip up a mountain to check into the facilities available is coming up in the next couple of months.
Am I insane? Quite possibly. But that’s okay.
I’m better equipped for it this time. I know what questions to ask and what to keep an eye out for. I know more about what I’m doing (and what not to do). And I know I have awesome support to help me make it fun and easy for us all.
And honestly, I can’t wait. One rocking weekend out of the way: bring on the next one.
December 25, 2012
NaNoWriMo 2012 Part 3: the wrong project
For the past few years, I have worked on my web serial for at least most of my NaNoWriMo wordcount. It’s a good way to build up that buffer of posts that I miss out on for most of the year, and power on towards the end of a story arc, or even the story.
It’s not really what NaNo is for, and I have come to the conclusion that it’s not the best way for me to use that time.
NaNoWriMo is supposed to be about starting something new, about writing that project that you’ve been putting off, or haven’t got to yet, or just can’t find the time for. It’s about kick-starting your writing and galloping on until you’ve got 50,000 words. It’s about making time in your busy life for making stories.
I write regularly – every day, if I can. At least a post a week; sometimes more, depending on my energy levels and what projects are buzzing around in my head at any particular time. I have a routine, a habit.
Disrupting that routine to pump out enough words to meet NaNo targets is hard. It’s especially difficult when it’s the same project that I’ve been writing for months: I’m doing the same as I was before November; I’m just doing more of it. The same characters, the same story, but faster and more frantically. It’s not so much a change as a cranking-up of what’s already there. It’s difficult to really grip that November enthusiasm and run with it, and I struggle to get caught up in it the same way I used to.
NaNo is also supposed to be about turning off the internal editor and just writing. It’s freeing and wonderful for shaking off those wordy cobwebs. But when writing the web serial, I can’t switch off that editor. I can’t do all those things that NaNo encourages, like running off on a tangent or pausing to write up some exposition that’s useful for me but going to be cut before it’s published, or just chasing a plot down a rabbithole to see where it might take me.
I have to publish the web serial every week and that means I have to keep it on the straight-and-narrow. I have to write only what I intend to publish, or I suck up precious NaNo time editing them into shape – and wind up cutting many of those words that I so freely inserted. I don’t have time to explore wild tangents or ramble about a character’s childhood. I don’t want to break the good writing habits I’ve developed around my web serial writing, either. I have to write proper, publishable words.
On the plus side, I know that my 50,000 words are all useable and there’s little dross in there.
I miss the freedom of just writing for NaNo. I miss being able to throw words at a page just to see what happens. Sometimes, I feel like I’m missing some of the frenetic fun of the challenge.
In the last couple of NaNos, I have wound up switching away from my web serial to another project (the steampunk novel is coming along nicely as a result!). I get to a point where I know I just can’t continue writing anything useful, so I move on to something else. That’s the point that I’ve delved into something new, something different to what I normally write, and not something that’s going to be posted anywhere soon, so I have the freedom to let my editor sleep for a while.
That’s been more NaNo-ish for me. And I think that’s going to be my plan for next year.
Now, I’ll be clear: it’s not that I don’t like writing the web serial. I still love Starwalker, with all of its beautifully flawed characters and the plot that is careening towards the end of the story (it’s still a way off, but I have it in sight). I love writing it. But it’s just not working as a NaNo project for me any more.
That has been one of the biggest lessons I’m taking away from this year’s NaNo. Continuing with an existing, ongoing project isn’t good for me, so I need to shake it up. Next year, things will be different.
If I’m still web serial writing at that time (what will happen after Starwalker ends?? I have no idea), then I’ll have to put some effort in to build up a buffer to carry me through November. I’ll make sure that I’ve got something new all planned out and lined up (the robot brothel might be a good candidate).
And when the ball drops on NaNoWrimo 2013, I’ll start something fresh and different. I’ll let my editor off the leash and chase it out into the park. I’ll play in words like a kid in a ballpool.
Who knows, I might even get to the end of the story this time.
December 24, 2012
Merry Christmas!
It’s the time of year again! Hard to believe how quickly Christmas has come around again.
This year has had a lot of ups and downs for me. I’ll do a fuller retrospective post at some point, but for now, I’m doing good. I’m looking forward to a quiet Christmas with my family and friends, and I’m feeling positive about the future.
Thanks to all of you who have been a part of my life this year. To my friends, who help, support, and distract me when I need it, and with whom I have so many fun times. To my family, who love and are loved. To my readers, who make all the work I do in my off-time worth it, and who make me smile even though we’ve never met.
Merry Christmas to you all. May you enjoy whatever holiday traditions you observe, whether they be religious, familial, social, or just relaxing (or all of the above!). Have a wonderful time; I will talk with you all again soon.
December 22, 2012
From Text to Oral Tradition
No, this isn’t a post about porn. Hush, you. Not that kind of oral.
A few years ago, I went to a talk about the future of publishing. It was at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival, but other than that, I can’t remember much about it except for one thing that stood out for me: one of the panel was convinced that the future of fiction was oral.
This notion really stood out for me because it was so bizarre. I went home thinking, “Really? Is that what experts really believe will happen?”
She (sadly, all I can remember is that the speaker was a she, and possibly blonde) put forward the assertion that the digital age meant that eventually, text would drift into disuse and all we would have left is speech. Audio books, aural directions. There would be no physical words at all, recorded anywhere.
She was very convincing. To her, it all makes perfect sense; I got that feeling very strongly. But I can’t help but question: where the hell did that idea come from? Are we really heading that way?
Our world is full of text. Not just books: signs, buttons, instructions, warning labels. Would that really all go away? Would that be feasible, practical, safe? My instincts tell me ‘no’ (and my brain tells me ‘that’s just stupid’, but that’s what her fervour implied).
I’m sure she didn’t mean that. She was speaking mostly about fiction, about how digital books would all become audio and the ‘written word’ as us writers produce it would no longer exist.
I have to say, I struggle to see how that would come to pass.
Reading and listening are very different activities. Listening is passive and done with only one part of the body, but reading is active and done with our whole selves. All of our senses are involved (though with ebooks, the smell and textures are quite different). It demands all of our attention, in a way that listening to the spoken word doesn’t. A reader can curl up with and around a good book, but how would you do that with an audio book?
For me, the difference in involvement makes listening to an audio book quite a different process. There’s nothing for my eyes to do, so they’d get bored and look for something to examine. A portion of my attention just wandered off my gaze. And my hands would be free, so maybe I’d be knitting (or wait, this is the future – I’d be sculpting the cat’s fur with a laser, or sliding my car through four layers of sky-traffic). All these things would pull more and more of me away from the story.
I have a suspicion that reading and listening involve different parts of the brain as well, but I haven’t gone as far as looking it up. I’m sure someone somewhere has done a study!
Then there are all the things that would be lost in an audio book. You get the actor’s interpretation of the story; there is no opportunity to have your own reading and understanding of the material. Different people read things in very different ways, and this is fun to play with as a writer. But when a single voice is reading it out, how can you put in all those double-meanings when a simple inflection can bleach them away? How do you go back and ponder a single line three times, trying it out differently each time? How do you skip the boring bits?
How do you cater for the deaf?
The whole notion of losing text as a storytelling medium scares me. It is such a beautiful art form that I think the world would be a sadder, duller place without it. The impact of a single-word paragraph would be lost in an aural presentation, reduced to lameness and cut.
Gone.
Just having someone say that like it means something isn’t the same.
Text and audio are qualitatively different, in my opinion. You can get lost in text. You can let your imagination run wild over its possibilities, paint wild pictures that make sense only to you, but in an audio book, someone has drawn the outline and coloured parts of it in for you.
Let’s not forget that an oral tradition would be a huge step backwards in human evolution. We might have once happily told stories around a campfire, but the move to literacy wasn’t because we lacked the iPads to speak to us when our voices got tired. We sought something better and still do.
We are developing more and more ways to record our thoughts and stories, but, curiously, we haven’t lost any. We just keep adding more dimensions to our archives: visual representations in text; sounds in audio; movement and visualisation in video. And telling stories is still a big part of who we are.
A part of me wants to rebel against the whole idea of this change to an oral society. I suspect that it’s a gut reaction to losing something that I care so deeply about (and am so heavily involved in!). Just because I think it’s a horrible idea, doesn’t mean the world won’t lean that way.
I mean, I wasn’t a fan of the idea of ebooks either, because I love how paper books feel and smell and age with us. But popular opinion will drive things the way they go, so who’s to say?
But I don’t think that it’s just pure dislike on my part. I can’t logically see how such a change would come about. We live in more text now than we ever have before, largely because of the internet and progress, but this speaker is proposing the opposite. I’d love to know where she got her prediction from (if only so I can feel more authoritative in shooting it down).
I hope that a purely oral society doesn’t come to pass. I fear the future that is nothing but a babble of voices telling us truths and lies. I dread the day when a person can’t escape into a fictional world and have wondrous adventures in perfect privacy. I fear the death of personal imagination.
No, I defy such a prediction. I disbelieve.
Video killed the radio star, but book sales will always go up.
Musing on the likelihood of reading moving to listening in the future.
December 21, 2012
NaNoWriMo 2012 Part 2: it only gets better
One of the best things about NaNoWriMo is the community. It’s about connecting with other writers, with other people as insane as you are, because they’ve taken on this challenge, too. You’ll find people from all walks of life giving this adventure a try: some of them will be just like you; some will be crazier, aiming for ever more ambitious goals; some will look at you in awe for what you’re doing. But you have something in common and that’s powerful.
Writing is usually a solitary activity. It’s so easy to get lost in our lives and not talk about the stories we spin, in our heads or in text. It’s so easy to create in a void and forget that the world exists. NaNo breaks those walls down. It gets people together. It gets them talking. It gets them in a room, writing, and it’s good.
As a Municipal Liaison (ML), I’m privileged in that I get to meet and talk to many of my local Wrimos. Not all of them (there are over 3,000 in my region now!), but enough that I gain a glimpse of the breadth of the writing community we have here.
This was my fifth year in this region (my first year of NaNo was in the UK), and it has been interesting to watch the community change and grow. I’ve come to know so many people. Some have come and gone; some lingered, coming to my writing group or other writing events; some have gone away and returned, years later. Every year, the NaNo landscape changes, and I’m lucky enough to be a part of it.
The first year I was here, I had no idea what I was doing. But the Wrimos were good enough to put up with my mad scrambling to figure out this new city and everything they wanted to do (I had a couple of co-MLs that year, but they disappeared in the first week of November, never to be heard from again). I’m lucky that I don’t mind the deep end, because I keep ending up in it.
My second year here, I had a good friend co-MLing with me and a clue about where to start. We started to establish more patterns and traditions for NaNo in our region. Write-ins, word wars, kick-off parties, wrap-up parties. By the next year, we were MLing machines.
And the flock kept growing. Each year, some of them would stick around, and they’ve grown into good friends. After my third NaNo here, we decided to keep the write-ins going through the year. Just once a month: often enough to be regular and yet easy to fit into our diaries. Some of those faces we used to see only during NaNo returned to the monthly write-ins. The community settled into a new way of being.
Last year was a bit of a bonanza when it came to growth in the community. We had an influx of new blood (more than usual!) and a lot of them weren’t once-a-year novelists: they had a real desire to get stuck into the community. We had drinks meet-ups once a week during NaNo 2011, and then we just didn’t stop. They’re still going now, every week, and the group that comes is only getting bigger.
It’s a great bunch of people. This year, we’ve added some more new faces to the mix, and I hope to keep seeing that happen.
I try something new every year, to see what else we can do to keep it fresh and interesting for all of us. Writing on the city’s train system. Writing out on a lawn in the glorious sunshine. Going on a weekend retreat to an island. I’ve yet to have a flop; whatever we dish out, our writers lap it up and keep coming back for more.
Their enthusiasm and trust gives me the confidence to try different things, to aim high, and maybe to be a little bit crazy. Their willingness to help lets me stretch myself, knowing that I don’t have to do it all on my own. Their support lets me be ambitious. I’m learning new things every year, making new contacts and new friends, and having fun at the same time. NaNo isn’t just for November: if you let it, it’ll seep into every part of your year.
Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary endeavour; NaNo helped me to see this. Now I’m doing my damndest to help other writers come to the same conclusion. It’s the kind of work I love to do, so I’ll keep doing it, for as long as I have wonderful writers around me.
December 20, 2012
Back on the horse
It has been a long, hard year. Health up and down (mostly down), financial worries, work headaches, more stress than I care to tally up… but we’re almost to the end of it now. I have to say: I’m glad. I’m ready for a fresh start.
The relief shows. Here I am, writing on this blog again after two months’ absence. Apologies, faithful readers; I didn’t mean to go away. I am striving to be back, to write more, to ponder more, and to grab some of that energy back in my wording, even if I don’t always feel it in myself.
I started by writing up the amazing journey that was this year’s NaNoWriMo; you may have noticed Part 1 go up a couple of days ago. There are 4 parts in total! Yes, there was that much to say about it. I’m spreading them out a little bit, to give myself time to edit them properly and so I have time to write other stuff too.
One thing I’ve been pondering a bit lately is the way that ideas work when I put projects together. This is partly because I’m attempting to get the robot brothel story set up and ready to start writing, and it’s fighting me a bit. So there might be a post (or ten, who knows) come out of all that.
As part of a discussion with some writer friends on ideas, I was quoted in a blog post! How cool is that? I feel accomplished. I feel like I have Things To Say and people who are willing to listen to me.
Also, it’s nearly the weekend (hooray for Friday!), and Christmas is soon, and it’s all good. Right now, it’s all good.
:)
(Of course, the world is supposed to end today – whoops, nearly forgot about that. But at least I’m ending on a high note!)
December 19, 2012
NaNoWriMo 2012 Part 1: the hard slog
This was my sixth NaNoWriMo, both as a writer and an ML, organising the local community and events. There’s so much to say about it that I’ve split it into four parts. Here’s the first instalment!
Firstly, let me tell you, it was hard going this year. This has probably been the most difficult one for me to get through so far.
November seems to be the month when everything converges. I had a huge changeover at work in the first week: dissolving the team I was running, relocating (packing up my desk and shifting everything to a new one), and setting up a new team. Once all that was done, it was a mad scramble to get the new team up and running before I went on leave for 3 weeks, to finish NaNo and then…
On top of that, shortly before November started, my family and I made the decision to move house in the first week of December. So I was also viewing houses and organising stuff around that through the NaNo period. I was determined not to do any serious work (like packing) until after NaNo was over, but there were still a lot of other things that needed to be done.
Then there was all the ML coordination around and before NaNo itself: finalising the calendar; sorting out co-hosted events with the QWC; arranging prizes and competitions; making up the giveaways packs; arranging the Writer’s Retreat (more on this in Part 4); and generally making sure everything was set up. During the month, there was the management of everything to keep on top of: the forum; the regional emails; attending and running the events; dealing with a few headaches that cropped up; and generally making sure that the whole month ran smoothly for our writers.
All of those things were buzzing around in my head – personal stuff, work stuff, NaNo stuff – competing for brain-space. I was lucky enough to have a lot of help again this year, including a wonderful co-ML, so I didn’t have to do everything myself. All the same, altogether, it was a lot.
Oh, and also, don’t forget to write 1,667 words per day. Don’t forget that we’re all gathered together to write a novel (50,000 words). Don’t forget to be creative and spin wonderful tales for your readers. Don’t forget that you can’t cheat; it has to be good enough to edit and post (more on this in Part 3!).
It’s no wonder that I fell behind after the first weekend. I don’t think I’ve been behind for so long before; I tend to be so motivated by the wordcount progress graph that I catch up pretty quick and strive to stay ahead of the curve. But not this year. This year, I struggled behind the goals and didn’t catch up (and cross the line) until the final day of the month.
I’ve never switched projects so much during NaNo before, either. You’re not really supposed to do it, but I’d rather switch to a different project than continue in one that I know isn’t working. My main focus was on Starwalker this year, and I got a good chunk of it written before I needed to take a break (over 30,000 words).
When I ran into a wall with Starewalker, I started a short story that was born of a weird dream, but I wasn’t sure where that one was going, so I soon switched over to a project that I’ve been wanting to start for ages. That one needs more planning and prep, though, and I struggled to get it started as a result. Instead of beating my head against it, I switched over to the steampunk novel I started last NaNo, and that carried me to the end of this year’s adventure and 52,000+ words in total.
It was a hard, winding slog, but I made it. I’m proud of what I achieved this year. There have been so many distractions, so much going on, and I haven’t been in a great state emotionally or physically. But I made it. I’ve made progress on several projects, and all of the pieces I wrote will be good and useful in the long run. I’m still getting done what I want and need to get done, and that’s something worth remembering.
NaNoWriMo is a great challenge and every year I learn something new: about me, my writing, and how I work best. I don’t regret an ounce of the effort I put in, and I fully intend to do it again next year.
Why, you ask? When it’s such hard work and takes so much out of me? When I burn out on a project and have to switch?
Well, the answer to that lies in one of the important learnings that I had this year, which I’ll talk about here soon (see Part 3). I know some of what I need to do to make next year easier on myself. It lies in the wonderful community (see Part 2). And it lies in its ability to be bigger and better and more challenging for me, as a writer and as an organiser.
Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean we should stop doing it. Every year I am reminded that it’s hard, but it’s worth it.
Plus, NaNoWriMo is giving me a cool pen with my name engraved on it. What’s not to love?
October 3, 2012
Sock puppets and cheap tricks
Sock puppetting: the act of creating alternate identities on websites for the purposes of giving yourself good reviews and/or slamming your competition.
The issue of unscrupulous authors gaming review systems to pump their own work has come up a few times recently. Simply put: I’m disgusted.
I value honesty very highly.
As a writer, I value feedback on my work. I read reviews with trepidation but I don’t seek to interfere; the only way that feedback is of any value is if it’s honest and uninfluenced. Where I can, I try to learn from it and address it in the future.
I want to know I’ve earned my own kudos. I don’t want to pump it up artificially, because I’m proud of my work. If it can’t stand on its own and do well under its own merits, I’d like to know, so I can produce something that can.
So I don’t go onto websites and give my own books ratings. Not even websites where I have a login and can do it easily! It’s cheating. It’s cheap. I’m not good at boasting and I think it would only reflect badly on me.
Some writers do it and that’s their choice. They don’t try to hide it. I can deal with that; at least they’re open about it, and I sympathise with the desire to nudge the publicity of a book.
However, some go above and beyond just rating their own work highly. Some create anonymous identities (multiple on the same site!) to post glowing reviews and give themselves 5-star ratings. They fake up a following, a readership, and good reviews and ratings, in order to suck in unsuspecting readers and sell books. They paper their work with lies. Sometimes, they don’t even do it well.
Some writers do it themselves, like RJ Ellory was caught doing recently. Others pay for a review service to do it for them, like John Locke did in his efforts to sell a million books so he could sell a book called How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months.
(An IndieReader post recently said that it’s common practice to ‘pay’ for reviews, and I can see where this writer is coming from. However, I’d like to point out the difference between bribing reviewers with free books/goodies/whatever in the hopes of a review, and outright purchasing a slew of good reviews. One allows that the review might not be 5-star or favourable, depending on the actual quality of the book/preference of the reviewer; the other does not. It’s the latter that really irks me.)
I get that it’s a marketing ploy. I understand how marketing works. I still think these kinds of actions are despicable.
It’s also horribly lazy. Instead of making up good reviews, why don’t they try to write something that would earn them? Use other kinds of marketing to get people to read it, and then see what kinds of reviews come back? Are we really saying that good reviews are more important than good writing?
On top of that, I have to add that using those fake identities to slam the competition is reprehensible and cowardly. (This is also what RJ Ellory is reported to have done.) Seriously, you’re not happy with putting yourself on a pedestal, so you have to tear others down? And you won’t even do it to their face? Wow.
Writers who employ these tactics make us all look bad. I’m so glad that a group of published writers got together to kick Ellory’s ass (in text, of course). And that other writers I know are equally as dismissive of these types of tactics as I am.
Indie authors, in particular, get slammed by accusations of these kinds of tactics. Self-published authors are already looked down upon by others in the industry and this only makes the stigma worse. They’re not doing any of us any favours.
So, to all you cheaters out there: please stop. It’s sad and you’re spoiling it for the rest of us who are trying to make our way honestly in this business.
To the other published writers out there, indie or otherwise, who are doing the right thing: stay strong and ignore those who wish they could write something worthy of real praise. I know I intend to.
October 1, 2012
Swamped
It has been a ridiculous time since my last post. In that time I have felt better and got some of my creative mojo back, and fallen sick with a horrible virus that I’m still trying to get rid of.
The writing is still struggling on, and I’ve been trying to branch out and do some more Starwalker shorts. When I was too sick to write, I offered my lovely readers the opportunity to vote on which shorts will come next, and that has given me a list to work on. The first of that list is almost done!
In other news, things at home might be calming down, especially now that I have a new PC to replace the blue-screen-happy one I’ve been struggling along with. Many thanks to those who helped me with sorting that out – your help and support is much appreciated.
Work is, for once, blessedly low-stress. I am working to rip out as much of those factors as I can, and this is currently working pretty well. The day job is ticking along pretty well.
Which leaves me with some mental space to fret over the organisation for this year’s NaNoWriMo. I had an ‘omg it’s October already’ moment last night, and I am feeling woefully under-prepared this year. However, when I sit down and think about it, we’re actually in pretty good shape. Just a few things to do in the next 3 weeks and we’re good. And I have a lovely new co-ML who is helping with everything, so it’s fine.
Definitely feeling that I would like to stop and catch my breath, but that’s not going to happen for a while. I’m looking forward to this year’s NaNo, and also for it to be over so I can relax and sleep. It’s all worth it, though. Can’t wait to get going.
Also need to go over the draft posts on this blog and see what I can put up. I was in the middle of at least one when I got sick! Hopefully I’ll get to that over the next week and sort it out.
In the meantime, hope this year’s treating everyone well, and I hope you’ll hear from me again soon.