A.J. Race's Blog, page 24

Writing as a Career Choice

et’s face it. Being a writer isn’t for everyone, and like many art fields, it’s not even a viable career choice for most people because there isn’t necessarily great money in it. Let’s face it, art is an unappreciated necessity. I say necessity because imagine what life would be like without art? Without paintings or music or even literature? How much different would our lives be? Sure most people could care less about literature, and maybe even paintings but what about music? It’s just as much of an art form, and whether we realize it or not, it’s also a form of writing. It’s a form of self expression that people have used for centuries to convey feelings or emotions or even stories.

But for those of you like me, who know in their heart of hearts that writing is really all you could see yourself doing (or really any form of art) you have to go for it. Most people will tell you that if you love what you’re doing you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s kind of an accepted fact, however these same people will probably tell you that if you don’t make money, it’s not really a job. Here’s an example.

I’ve been writing since I was about twelve or thirteen. Or for an even number since 2003. Technically since 2003, I have been without a job, because I’ve never been paid for my work and I don’t have to log hours, I don’t have a boss breathing down my neck or anyone to answer to except myself (which can be just as bad, cause I am demanding as hell of myself) most would argue that I’ve never worked a day in my life. In fact, some members of my family are constantly harping on me for not having a job. To them I can only say… try writing a novel. Or ten, for that matter. And then come talk to me. I may not get paid for what I do (yet) but it is work. Granted I love every second of it, so it doesn’t always feel like it, but trust me, it’s work. It’s draining, and demanding, and I’m usually up all hours of the night working on it. It haunts my dreams and every second I’m awake, and especially recently there is almost not a second of my time that isn’t spent working on it on some level. I’m a full time student (which those in college can tell you is a job in itself) but I love what I do. And that’s what makes it a viable career to me.

Editing and Sequels

he proof arrived yesterday afternoon, almost a week ahead of schedule. It wasn’t expected until the 18th of the month so you could imagine my excitement to find the book on my doorstep yesterday. I tore it open almost instantly and upon further inspection I realized that the mockup cover I’d created so the proof cover wouldn’t be blank was more horrendous than I’d even imagined. I took a picture to send to my mother who was extremely excited (and no, I have no intention of showing it here.) It’s a cover that will never see the light of day again. But the important part of all of this is that, after a lengthy debate as to whether or not I would wait until Monday to give my editor the book or give it to her today I decided that as I was taking it with me, I would give it to her today. She was super excited that it had finally arrived and that she was featured in the acknowledgements page. I have absolutely no idea when it will be finished (and I’m not going to be to OCD about that fact) according to my cover artist I finally get to see the cover at long last on Monday! It won’t be in full color just yet (and something tells me she won’t want me posting it just yet) But I’m incredibly excited to see the progress thus far. So far everything looks perfectly on track for my original projected publication date, but as Murphy’s Law will tell you, if something bad can happen it probably will so I’m not going to say the official date is the same until I’m 100% sure.

Meanwhile, in between finally receiving my proof, creating the official A.J.Race Facebook page. And the official Google+page I’ve also been managing to work on the sequel as often as possible. So far I’m still on the first chapter but it’s actually very exciting and it’s really great to finally be writing something new again. Plus it’s a very good way to take my mind off of the editing and cover so I don’t drive people crazy.

On Self Publishing

 feel like for a long time now, self publishing has been getting a bad rap and maybe it’s because people feel there’s a credibility issue or maybe it’s because it’s given some people who wouldn’t have gotten published (and perhaps shouldn’t) the ability to have their book available to the world, regardless of whether or not it’s read. But for me, I’ve been working, fighting to get into the publishing industry for almost ten years. I’ve struggled, year after year to come up with just the right query, just the right pitch, just the right anything to catch an agents eye and somehow it’s never managed to work. And the simple fact is 90% of publishers will not look at you without an agent, believe me I’ve looked. They don’t have time or the energy and the agents are the gate-keepers so without them you might as well forget it.

There is however another solution. One that, arguably could work better for some people. Because while in the past self publishing has been seen as the ugly stepchild of the publishing industry it’s quickly become a viable alternative to an industry that’s almost impossible to get into. So much so that Penguin publishing (one of the largest publishing houses in the world) has created a self-publishing division. It gives authors a freedom like never before and allows them to be a part of a creative process of creating their novel that most authors would otherwise not be a part of. Obviously theres pros and cons to both sides, but for me, and for so many authors this is an opportunity to make a name for myself. With any luck one can potentially garner an agent or publisher from self publishing (it has happened a handful of times) but if you’re doing well enough on your own, I don’t really see the problem in doing it yourself.

Editing and Beyond: Life after NaNoWriMo

ecember 2nd and I still feel the ravages of NaNoWrimo all around me. It was beyond fun and exciting and I have to say for all the craziness I do feel like I got a good product out of it. Now that it’s over however comes the long and arduous process of editing. Here late night grammar and spelling errors must be dealt with. Scenes that were written more for the wording than actual relevance will have to be chopped or edited (you never know the hidden gems that may lie within) and everything else must be polished up to the fullest. In a way I’m excited, particularly because this is a book that I’ve been working on off and on since about 2003. To give you a more accurate picture I’ve written and rewritten this novel at least a thousand times in a thousand different ways and it’s only recently that I’m really really happy where this is going. To top it all off I’ve got a lot of ideas floating in my head for the sequel. A part of me wants to do the edits quickly because as any writer will tell you edits are generally the worst part of the job, and second because I want to be able to work on the sequel. A more daring author might be multi-tasking but given everything I’m trying to accomplish at once I’d like to limit what I pile onto the list. I’m terribly excited for everything to come over the course of the next few months. Wish me luck

Cult of Racewood Calendar Collection: March

click through for full sized calendar

This month in Racetory: March 29th, 2012: First draft of Goddess of Carnage was completed.

Thankfully for me the month of March this year is literally an exact replica of February except with an additional three days, so in that respect little changed. However, I wanted to make use of some of the beautiful graphics I’ve created thus far but have been able to find little use for in it’s intended place. Originally I had hoped to make this Daily Racewood graphic into a t-shirt/hoodie but the cut off as seen above looked more like a printing error in the final product rather than a design aesthetic as it is intended.

In last month’s calendar I had placed the Racetorical event directly on the calendar, however while designing this, I had a difficult time placing the event without ultimately detracting from the graphics and decided ultimately that the calendar would be better suited if I did not add it. That said, if I could actually remember things from say 2011, 2010, 2009, etc my Racetorical events might actually be a lot more exciting than just one event.

PS: Racetorical is not to be confused with rhetorical. I will continue my usual blog/rant post tomorrow.

SERIOUSLY?!

Those of you who follow me probably know by now that I have a tumblr account that’s completely unrelated to the official Daily Racewood tumblr in which I often express personal views on various topics. Last night, I made a post discussing my view on the assault weapons ban, actually the post was really about how no parent should have to go through what the parents in Newtown and really parents all over the country often have to face with regards to gun violence. But the post got a little out of control and I suddenly found myself in the middle of a debate.

Well, not so much debate. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was wrong, didn’t know what I was talking about, was an idiot, etc. etc. Oh and then someone played the faggot card and really I wasn’t having it.

Here’s the deal. Whether or not you agree with my opinion isn’t the point, because actually the assault weapons ban wasn’t really my point in making the post. When I wrote it I hadn’t even intended to mention it, but I did at the end and clearly that was my first mistake (tagging it was my second). We can disagree on things and still be civil about it, without bringing my sexuality into play (regardless of some people’s trying to say that faggot has nothing to do with being used as a gay slur) words have meanings folks, just because you think you know better doesn’t make that any less true. To be fair I think a lot of straight people have this opinion too. I’m not asking the government to take away all your precious guns, but maybe we can talk about making an AK-47 or it’s equivalent not available at say WalMart. That’s my view. The assault weapons ban as I have understood it, specifically maps out guns that would be considered illegal under the new law. I say, every little bit helps. You can disagree, you can tell me why I’m wrong, but if you can’t do so without telling me why I’m an idiot and this and that, then we have nothing to discuss.

And hey maybe I am wrong… I never said I was perfect or knew everything… but it’s my opinion and ultimately telling me how stupid I am, or how I don’t know what I’m talking about, isn’t going to change my opinion. People are wrong sometimes, it happens, even people who can’t afford to be wrong because what they say has an actual significant difference. I am a lone blogger, I represent no one but myself, so if I’m wrong, hey that sucks, but I’m not a politician, I don’t have sway in Congress, so basically my opinion isn’t going to effect the outcome of this decision one way or the other.

I shouldn’t have to say Let’s all be fucking adults about this every six seconds, but apparently on the internet, all bets are off. I get it, its a sensitive issue, we all have very strong opinions about it… and for the record to everyone who may or may not think about commenting, just remember, the beltway media (and pretty much everyone else) is in agreement that it probably won’t pass, so all of this chest-pounding and shouting really won’t have made any difference.

A Deeper Meaning

esterday in my interview with author Misha Burnett, he discussed the fact that he felt books should be more about entertainment value, rather than being preachy about a political viewpoint or ideal. And I would agree to an extent. No book should ever be so preachy as to alienate readers, but I read recently that fiction has the unique ability to change people’s opinions more so than non-fiction because in non-fiction there’s a stated idea or theory that people come into the story having an opinion on one way or another. If it’s a book about global warming (let’s say) regardless of how many diploma’s in science the author has, there will always be people who think he’s full of shit. In the fictional aspect however, as long as you aren’t trying to convert people actively with the story or trying to convince them of anything, you have the ability to change people’s minds with a concept or an idea and that is sort of magical.

Books should be entertaining yes, but we as fiction authors have a unique opportunity to present a viewpoint in a way that could actually make substantive change. The vice-president said it best when he described how Will and Grace probably did a lot more than any P.A.C. to change people’s view of the LGBT community. It’s not a novel, but television is equally as powerful and I believe equally important as a tool to create change.

I think there’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to do this of course, and one of the books that I’m working on shortly after (if not directly after Secrets of Witches) will be the test of whether or not I can have a clear message without alienating readers in the process.  Let’s just hope future generations aren’t forced to read my books in high school looking for the deeper meaning in all the wrong places. Nobody needs that.

the Daily Racewood Interviews: Author Misha Burnett

irst of all thank you to Misha for agreeing to let me interview him, it’s been a while since I got to interview anyone and I really missed it. I love hearing about author’s stories and what got them into writing and why they do it and Misha’s was probably one of the most fascinating. There’s a memoir in here somewhere. For those of you who don’t remember I like to sprinkle my own thoughts in here and there, but I will mark them as such.

Daily Racewood: What got you started in writing?

Misha: My mother. My mother did and does love books—she works now as a freelance writer and editor. She read to my sister and I when we were growing up, and the house was always filled with books. Consequently I grew up reading, and not always “kids books”. Poetry in particular, I can remember reading T S Eliot and Oscar Wilde when I was far too young to really understand the concepts discussed, I was just in love with the rhythm and the beauty of the language. She’s also a science fiction fan, and so I didn’t find out that science fiction isn’t considered “real literature” until I was in high school. By then it was too late—I’d read too much from writers like Bradbury and Clarke to ever be able to dismiss a book because it deals with speculative concepts. I didn’t know that sci-fi wasn’t considered real fiction until just this moment….

DR: What’s your favorite genre to write in? Would you ever step outside that genre?

MB: Well, to continue my above answer, “genre” isn’t really a concept that I have much use for. I wrote a fairly long guest post on Robin Tidwell’s blog asking the question, “Is There Such A Thing As Genre?” To sum up what I say there, I think that genre is something imposed upon an author’s work from without, by librarians and booksellers. I use fantastic and speculative elements in my current series because they suit the story I want to tell. If I tell a different story, I’ll use different elements.

DR: Did you self publish? Why or why not?

MB: I did, and I intend to keep doing so. Why? Well, because I think it’s the best option for my work. I did a lot of research before I decided to go ahead and self-publish, and I did send out a boatload of query letters to agents. About one out of ten agents replied, actually, and those that did sent an automated reply. Right or wrong, I got the feeling that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with traditional publishing, and went ahead and did it myself. One book that did influence my decision was Elisa Hategan’s brilliant Alice In Writerland, a very personal memoir of her experiences with legacy agents. Another book I will have to check out soon. I definitely know the pains of querying to agents and getting no responses, that to me was always worse than just an outright no.

DR: Tell us a little bit about your book.

MB: It’s basically a film noir plot—my protagonist, through no fault of his own, gets caught up in a conspiracy that he doesn’t understand and tries to figure out what’s going on before somebody kills him. Along the way he meets a damsel in distress who has other pieces of the puzzle and they fall in love. James is basically a very simple man, who just happens to have an alien intelligence he calls Catskinner living in his head. I set out to write an urban fantasy/science fiction novel in an entirely new world—I don’t have any zombies or werewolves or vampires or fairies in my book. The fantastic elements are mostly drawn from William Burroughs and Samuel Delany, actually.

DR: You, like myself and probably like most authors like to keep new projects hush hush, but is there any kind of exclusive you can give us about your upcoming project?

MB: I have two, actually. The first is Cannibal Hearts, which is a sequel to Catskinner’s Book, and I am about halfway done with it—I hope to have it out in the summer. The other is a project that I have just launched called The Fauxpocalypse Project. It’s a collaborative world that I hope will interest other authors—my goal is to produce a book of short stories by indie authors all set in the same fictional universe. I’m actually quite fascinated by the idea of a collaborative author effort, and yet terrified at the same time, because I’m so used to working alone. I’d like to hear more about this in the future.

DR: Who are your favorite authors?

MB: Donald Westlake, Robert Heinlein, William Burroughs, Edna St. Vincent Millay, G. K. Chesterton, Charles Fort, China Mieville, T S Eliot, Jim Butcher, Samuel Delany, Robert Frost, Tannith Lee, C S Lewis, Ray Bradbury, Tim Powers, Tom Waits, John Carpenter, Daniel Pinkwater—man, I could do this all day… I read everything.

I should give a shout out to some of my favorite indie authors—Michelle Proulx, Glynn James, Kendra Highley, Katherine Sorin, Shannon Yarbrough. I know I’m forgetting some. Go to my GoodReads page and check out my reviews.

DR: What would you be doing if you weren’t an author?

MB: Fixing stuff. I do building maintenance right now to pay the bills, I’ve always had mechanical jobs. Machines fear and obey me.

DR: What do you like to do outside of writing?

MB: Honestly? Sit on the couch and watch TV. I am a huge fan of streaming television. Right now I’d list The Walking Dead, Lost Girl, and Supernatural as my favorites. I loved the first few seasons of Dexter, but I think the show has drifted from its original focus. My partner and I tend to take a series and binge-watch the whole thing. Oh my Rowling, thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only author who liked a little tv resting time now and then. I feel like there’s such a stigma that all authors do is write or read, so it’s nice to know I’m not alone. And I loovee Supernatural as you can read about here. (At least I think that’s the right one)

DR: What is your favorite type of book to read?

MB: The fun kind. As I get older I get less impressed with “literary” fiction and more interested in a good fast read with enjoyable characters. I want excitement and gee-whiz and stuff blowing up. At fifty I find that my taste has pretty much gone back to what it was at fifteen. I’m okay with that—I got nothing to prove.

DR: What is your favorite quote on writing (or just quote in general).

MB: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” which is usually attributed to Sam Goldwyn of MGM. I think fiction should entertain, first and foremost, and that we as writers should eschew polemic. This is why I find Ayn Rand’s fiction completely unreadable, even though I am in substantive agreement with Objectivist philosophy. Too many times I have seen good fiction spoiled by characters who are clearly just mouthpieces for a particular philosophical or political viewpoint. Yes, every character should have a philosophy and a political viewpoint, and sometimes people do talk about such things. But let’s leave the morals to Aesop, and just get to the part where the monsters jump out, okay? I may have a rejoinder to this coming soon.

DR: Who is your biggest inspiration and why?

MB: I don’t know that I have one biggest inspiration. As a writer, I probably admire G. K. Chesterton more than any other writer, because he always maintained his perspective and never lost his temper in print—no matter how strenuously he disagreed with what someone said, he always treated the person with respect and courtesy. In Heretics, for example, he takes on a dozen of the most admired writers of his day and dissects their philosophies with utterly ruthless efficiency, without once making any personal attacks on the writers themselves. Today’s political pundits could learn a lot from reading Chesterton.

DR: What advice could you give to aspiring authors?

MB: Write, publish, repeat. You are going to find a lot of flaws in your first book after it is published, because the act of writing and publishing will teach you things. We learn by doing. Your work will never be as good as you want it to be, just make it as good as you can, and use what you learn from your mistakes to make the next one better. I wish I could frame this quote. Because it’s so true and so something we all need to see every day. In gigantic letters scrawled across the wall.

DR: Anything else you’d like to add?

MB: It’s very hip right now to talk about the “e-book revolution” and what it means, but I don’t think any one person can see what it all means—we’re too close to it. It’s still going on, and I don’t believe that anybody is able to see how it’s all going to shake out. There are a lot of different parts to what is happening in publishing at the moment, and some folks focus on the financial aspects, some folks focus on the technological aspects, some folks focus on the social aspects.

My personal hobbyhorse is the transformation I see in the entire concept of “genre” as it applies to fiction. I touched on it above, but I want to revisit the issue.

For about a generation, authors in the Western World have been taught to do what I call “writing to the schematic”. Chain bookstores were the major outlets for books, and they were all laid out a particular way that was set by a marketing executive. Bestsellers in front, romance over there, mysteries against that wall, science fiction in the back under the leaky pipes, poetry pretty much not anywhere, except maybe a copy of Leaves Of Grass that someone ordered by mistake and put in with the gardening books.

Publishers would structure their lists to suit the chains—so many mysteries, so many romances, so many sports books, and so on. Agents, naturally, would select the books they represented based on the publishers lists. A writer, in order to get an agent, would have to pitch a book so that the agent could sell it to publisher, who was looking to publish books that would get a spot in the chain bookstores.

All of this happened so gradually that the people throughout the industry honestly believed that they were giving the people what they want, but in reality, they were giving the people what the marketing executive who set up the schematic could find shelf space for.

So if you had a story about someone looking for her husband’s murderer, that was a “mystery” and it had better fit the mystery profile—car chase in chapter five, gun battle in chapter ten, and the murderer revealed as the victim’s best friend in chapter fifteen.

On the other hand, if a story had a dragon in it, it went into “fantasy” all the way over on the other side of the store, and it got a cover with a elf maiden with a chain mail bikini and a battle ax.

Well, nowadays that marketing executive is faxing out resumes and studying C++ in night school because the writing is on the wall for the chain store model. We don’t need him to get our work to the public anymore, and we don’t need to follow his rules. There is absolutely no reason that an e-book has to fit on just one shelf.

So if someone wants to write a story about a dragon who takes on human form to track down the party of adventurers who killed her mate, she can just go ahead and write the story without worrying about if it’s a “mystery” or a “fantasy” novel. If it’s a good story, people will find it and buy it. I would.

DR: Thanks again for doing this interview with me. I know you have a lot more to say on the subject of genre and I’m actually thinking about sponsoring a sort of genre month. I’d like to get a multiple author viewpoint on the subject, what is genre, how does it help or hurt an author while writing a story, etc. Anybody who’s interested feel free to email me at cultofracewood@gmail.com.

You can learn more about Misha Burnett and his books by checking out his blog.

Editorial Work

he concept of beta readers has been a staple in the fanfic world since as long as I’ve been there, though no doubt before as well. But more and more I’m hearing about authors using them, (or at the very least indie authors) and I’m starting to wonder is this the new thing?

Going through a professional publishing house, an author’s book goes through lots of professional editors, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it going through beta readers of maybe friends and the like, people who’s opinion you trust. In a way it makes perfect sense, because who better to tell you what’s missing from a story than actual readers, but conversely it also seems a little… strange. Maybe is the word I’m looking for. Writing has always seemed like such a private venture that the idea of making it into this giant group collaboration seems more foreign than perhaps it really is. And maybe it’s something I should consider with book 3. After I’ve done at least one round of edits on my own, maybe I’ll have someone I trust read it.

The big question is… should beta readers see it, before or after your editor?

Decisions. Decisions.

In Retrospect

f I could summarize some of my best or perhaps favorite blogposts into one sentence it would be: Lessons I learned along the way in self publishing. Some of them are lessons I wish I’d learned before I decided to self publish, but I write about them now, so hopefully authors after me will not make my same mistakes. I think it would be impossible not to make any mistakes in this business, self publishing is tricky at the best of times and the process by which you do it is different for everybody. Nobody’s journey is the same, but there are probably going to be some things we will all have in common, and in that respect, whatever advice I can give to help my fellow authors avoid some of the pitfalls I tripped headfirst into, I will.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned and really this applies for writing on the whole: If you can try not to have any expectation of how good or bad you’re work will do.

This may sound contradictory to what a lot of people will tell you, putting positive vibes into the universe and all that, but the problem is, if you’re like me, you were hoping for the stars and so naturally when that didn’t happen, you’d be disappointed. If you have almost little to no expectation, any sale is a blessing. (Surprisingly for as much as I like to dream big, I actually tried not to have any expectations for books 1 and 2 and so I’m always excited when I get a sale, regardless).

The second lesson and this is perhaps one of the hardest for writers is: It’s not for you to decide whether or not your good.

Artists are our own toughest critics, as I evidenced in my blogpost a few days back MDNA & Me. All artists, everywhere second guess ourselves, question whether or not something is good, and we’re almost never happy no matter what. But eventually there’s a certain point where we have to say (at the very least) that was the best I could do at the time. It doesn’t mean I can’t do better now, or that I won’t grow, but… it was the best I could do at the time, and if you can say that and mean it, then nothing else matters. Ultimately you have two choices as an artist. You can spend you’re whole life debating whether or not something is good enough to put out there, or you can just do it, and you know what those who will love it are going to love it regardless and those who are going to hate it, would have hated it no matter what. You have too much to do to live in fear of what-if this or what-if that. It doesn’t mean that fear just goes away… but courage is not the absence of fear, it is the realization that there is something else more important than that fear.

Finally, and this is just as important: Have a support system.

This isn’t so much something I’ve had to learn the hard way as much as it is common sense advice. This can be a lonely, isolating world. Writers isolate themselves for the sake of their art as a matter of routine and sometimes all that alone time can lead to depression and self doubt and worst of all self loathing, you have to remember to get out, hang out with friends and people who love you and most of all people who support your dreams, because there are always going to be people who will say you can’t do it, and feeling as though you’re the only one who thinks you can, isn’t fun nor is it healthy. If all else fails however, just remember, that I believe in you.