F. Scott Andison's Blog, page 5

Monetizing My Blood, Sweat and Tears

I figured out that the book I just finished, The Meghan O'Byrne Chronicle Book One – Fall From Grace, has taken about five thousand hours of my time since I started it in 2011. That's more than two years of full time work for nothing more than the satisfaction of seeing the story come to life. At my old hourly charge out rate it would amount to a million dollars of billing. You know, people complain about minimum wage being too low, and I agree with them, but I would love to get paid even half minimum wage for writing.

Progress Report #2

I actually got quite a bit of writing done on Lost & Found last week! Satisfying. By the end of this week I should be close to half way through. Published my free WIX web page. It looks okay and at least it's there. Not sure yet if I'll do a paid thing with them. I put Meghan O'Byrne Book - One forward to BookBub but they didn't accept it. I think I'll try again with them. Maybe with another book. I joined the site anyway as it looks really quite interesting.
Received seven copies of Meghan...Fall From Grace early last week. Sent off a copy to GoodbooksToday for a review and some advertising. After I get some feedback I think I'll do a Kindle giveaway on Goodreads.
Thought a lot about book two and three in the Meghan series. I think editing/revising them is going to be fun but a lot of work. I may only get book two done next year (as well as the book I'm writing now).

My Vincent Moment

I want to say first off by no means am I comparing my writing to the unique genius of Vincent van Gogh. What I mean by 'My Vincent Moment' is sharing the artist's dismay about trying really hard and getting nowhere. His letters to his brother struck such a chord of resonance in me. Not knowing at the start if he could even do it. Practicing, working diligently and discovering he could, at least in his own estimation, then finding no market for what he had to offer. At least van Gogh managed to barter a few of his paintings for something of value in his eleven or so years devoted to painting which is a lot more than I've managed in the eleven years I've been writing. Thank goodness for my wife's salary, massive patience and support – something poor Vincent sadly lacked! I must say I feel somewhat parasitic at times. But I'm nowhere near cutting off an ear or shooting myself. Not yet, anyway...
Because at least I found out I can write a novel. I'm truly grateful for being allowed to figure that out. A lot of people try and have to give up, or never get the chance. Whether my books are good enough, I really don't know. I read a lot of other stuff and it seems to me that mine are at least in the ball park, but it's hard to be objective. Maybe it's more an issue of marketing, or the lack thereof, but I'm never going to be any good at that no matter how much I kid myself. Regardless of all of that, and putting aside many other practical considerations, I'd rather be writing and “unsuccessful” than doing what I used to do and making lots of money. Maybe I'll kick myself in years to come but that's the way I see it right now – and that's all that really counts.

Progress Report #1

Thought I'd label this as a progress report because that's really what it is. Think I'll try to do it weekly but we shall see what we shall see!
This week I actually got some writing done on Lost & Found. According to the writing key I made in September for the book, I should be able to have it done - or mostly done - by Christmas. The schedule is dependent on me getting into a routine of 3 - 5 hours a day of net new writing five days a week . It's definitely doable. I think I've been fussing with this book over much and doing too much editing as I'm progressing. I'm going to bang it out and then worry about editing in the the new year.
I got the seven copies of The Meghan O'Byrne Chronicle Book One - Fall From Grace yesterday and they look pretty good. Of course I've already found a couple of "issues" but so far nothing major (fingers crossed). I am having an issue with the Amazon site showing the old version of the cover of the book. You may recall I had to change the cover when I moved from CreateSpace to KDP. I've put in a contact query about that to Amazon and we'll see what happens. Also paid for a GoodBooks Today Review. Once I have that I'll do a Kindle giveaway on Goodreads. Not sure how many I should do, but as the price stays the same for one to one hundred, I think I may as well go for the maximum. Tons easier than sending printed copies!

Champagne to Shit in Twenty Seconds

“So what do you do?” When I had a 'real' job this was an easy to answer. I find it interesting how people very often use this question in their first attempt to pigeon hole you.“I mainly work at writing,” I know my answer is nebulous but sometimes it's enough and they change the subject, or talk about what they're doing. But often the mention of writing intrigues them and they continue in their quest to categorize.
“Oh, really! What kind of writing?” They're obviously interested. I answer novels for the most part and that I've dabbled with short stories but they're not my thing. They wonder if I'm making money at it. Perhaps I'm someone interesting to know.
“So, where can I buy one of your books? Are they in bookstores?” Sometimes this is a genuine question but in this kind of conversation it is often used as a way to make me disclose if I'm actually making a living. Making money equals success. I mumble I have a few on Amazon and that I use a self publishing service. It's the truth. I can't pretend otherwise. The look on their face says it all. I tell them “I'm amazingly unsuccessful” and usually get a laugh of sorts.
I'm off the hook. They've lost interest in me and what I unsuccessfully do. The nasty ones are happy to have exposed me, while the nice ones feel badly for me - embarrassed even. I have to admit, both are hard to take.

To pay or not to pay...

So this is Sunday and almost a week has past since my last post. Writing wise it wasn't my most productive week but it wasn't a total loss either. Lost & Found has seven or eight hard fought new pages and several more re-worked. I spent time (too much) working on a WIX website. I have to decide if I want to use the free service or subscribe for a fee. If you pay you don't have advertising on your page and you get a domain name. Not sure I want to spend the money but... Same thing goes for buying a review. Kirkus is probably the best but costs too much. Goodbookstoday has a service that costs about a third what Kirkus charges (about $200 Canadian) and gives you more promotion, but of course it's less professional and has less influence. Why get a review? It helps me get words to describe my books I wouldn't think of using. Plus it gives the appearance of an outside opinion beyond that of the author that the book is okay. I also put time looking into a book giveaway for Fall From Grace on the Goodreads site. I've done it before with limited success. I found the whole thing has changed. Somewhat for the better but also for the worse. Giveaways used to be free. Now it costs about $150 Canadian to run a giveaway. Good news is that you can run one for the Kindle edition and giveaway up to 100 copies. That's appealing because the cost of printing and mailing print copies to people is prohibitive. But is 100 too many? How many is enough to hopefully get some reviews (hopefully positive). One last thing that occupied writing hours was trying to get an updated front cover picture of The Meghan O'Byrne Chronicle Book One – Fall From Grace on the Amazon site. This is an artifact of having to move my self published titles on CreateSpace to the Kindle publishing platform. What a never ending schmozzle!

Taking Stock

Shit - it's been a while since I posted anything here. I've decided to stick to writing about writing because there's really no other place to talk about it - other than to my wife and she's heard it way too often.
This year I managed to self publish two books. It's a lot of work and of course the result isn't perfect which is a drag. I want to say I'm proud of both books but I feel if I was a stronger writer the stories would be more powerful. I think I'm becoming better as the years go by, but I may just be fooling myself. It wouldn't be the first time!
The first book I put out this year is the fourth and final book in my Derrik Chu Urizen Series entitled "God of the Eternal Blue Sky." I must say I was glad to get that saga over, though it was sad to say goodbye to characters I really got to like and love. I can see another follow up story could arise from the ashes but I think that 300,000 words and four books is probably enough for Mr. Chu et al.
The second book I put out this year is the first book in a three part series called The Meghan O'Byrne Chronicle. "Book One - Fall From Grace" has taken me a long time to write. It represents more of the kind of work I'd like to do in the future. "Book Two - Redemption" and "Book Three - Ascension" are already written but need a lot of work (particularly #2). I'm aiming to get them both out in 2019. That'll be tough.
Regarding my current writing project, I'm about a quarter to a third way through "Lost & Found - A Love Story". It is what it says - a love story. I've had the story in my head since university days many years ago so finally getting it out of the ether and written down will be amazing! My goal is to have it written by Christmas. Editing for 2019.
I've already got another book I'm working on quite a bit at a conceptual level. I already know that the title will be "Dreaming at the Speed of Light." I'm going to write it in the first person. I'm really looking forward to that and figuring out how to present it.
That's it for now. I'm going to try and keep posting - maybe weekly? - as I write the love story. For some reason it's been hard getting into a groove with this novel. I'm going to have to get tough on myself!
I'll let you know how it goes...

Not evil but dumb (it would seem)

I'm beginning to think Trump is dumb - which is kind of scary (and almost as bad as evil) given that Napoleon's biggest fear was having an ambitious, dumb general. Being President is not being on a television show. Being President doesn't mean having a personal opinion (ask the Queen) or or abusing power (check out the 'travel privileges' being reviewed for Gold Star father Kizr Khan).
Things are held together whether we like it or not by people in power acting their parts. I'm not advocating it - I'm simply observing it. Trump is so brainless and rudderless it appears that he turns to just about any fool to show him the way. He does, however, know how to make deals. I cringe at thinking what kind of deals he makes to keep in power. It's not Trump that has me concerned, it's the people behind Trump writing the script. This is just one big reality TV show - isn't it?
Yikes!

Donald Trump is not evil

The media that told you Clinton would win wants everyone to think Trump is evil. It is interesting everyone still believes their message. Trump won because people are angry, frustrated and wanted change. I believe Sanders would have beat Trump because he had that same appeal. There is something wrong and the people know it deep down in their collective psyche. There needs to be a change and people who are trumpeting (sorry for the pun) that message are going to be popular. Leaders that say they are certain, pundits purporting to know the way are particularly popular now. The truth is the fix is much harder than people think. True change comes at a high cost, and most of us, including me, aren't ready to pay it.
And that's the truth.

Recipe for tragedy: armed and ignorant

I really feel horrible today. Two more senseless murders perpetrated by the very people paid to protect us. I wanted to believe it was just an American problem, but after the murder of a young man in Toronto by one of the city's 'finest' (bizarrely convicted of attempted murder even though the victim died) it became painfully obvious the problem is common to the US and Canada.

While this kind of tragedy could happen to anybody, it is much more likely to happen if you are identified as belonging to a minority, particularly if your skin is dark.

While calls of racism mount - calls that are hard to discount given statistics and anecdotal evidence - I don't think it's the only factor at play. In fact, I'd say that racism is only one of four main factors contributing to these terribly unfortunate deaths.

Another of the factors is fear. Police officers are obviously deathly afraid of being killed on the job. During routine traffic stops they often have their guns drawn and are prepared to shoot.

Do they have cause for this fear? Statistics show that in 2014 police officers ranked fifteenth on the list of dangerous jobs. Being a logger is more than nine times as dangerous as a job in law enforcement. That said, police murdered on the job, fifty-one in the US during 2015, put them in number two spot after taxi drivers for this category (BTW taxi drivers are more than twice as likely to be murdered on the job than police).

Another main factor causing unwarranted police killings directly relates to the attitude displayed by most North American police. They bark orders, they yell profanities, they bully and escalate confrontations. Is this in their training? My experience in other places - particularly England, Holland and France - is that police only escalate tensions when they need to. Even police officers in the sleepy little city I live in tend to play the bully role without so much as a please or thank you. Where does this 'us' vs 'them' attitude emerge? Why do they end up feeling they have to protect their fellow officers before the people whose taxes pay their salaries and they have sworn to 'serve and protect'?

The final factor is too obvious to point out but cannot be ignored, and that is the fact that there are too many handguns in our midst. The only reason for handguns is to shoot other people. They should be banned outright. Police should have weapons available in the trunk (rifles and shotguns) that immediately begin a process of logging once they are taken from their holding cradles. Long guns are more effective as weapons, are much easier to track (perhaps even equipped with cameras) and would not contribute to the 'gunslinger' stereotype so prevalent in many police officers of the day.

So here is the formula - armed, confrontational, state-sanctioned bullies, in fear for their own lives, shoot people who ignore or fail to obey their orders. Throw in a good measure of ignorance (because racism is ignorance) and you have disaster.

The answer - a complete rethinking and renovation of how we police. The chances of that happening? Zero.

Sadly, we await the next tragedy.