Gordon A. Wilson's Blog, page 9

Creepy like Steven King?

So in the midst of a discussion about Firetok today a reader described me to her boyfriend, the person I was talking to, as "he must be creepy". He replied that really I seemed like a pretty decent guy. He asked her what she thinks Steven King would be like. She told him he is probably creepy too. I didnt try to tell him that I really dont think of myself as creepy but to keep in mind that I created the whole thing in my imagination. As the day went by I thought to myself. Neither one of them I figure liked the book but at least they compared me to Steven King. The criticism made my day.

A long road to Epub E book

So Firetok has been available on Amazon and Createspace for a little over a week now. I have been pretty pleased and surprised by the initial response. It was such a push to get it finished and quite a relief to push enter that last time. One thing I am sure I learned a bit about is the whole e book conversion process. Kindle direct has some clunky mechanism to auto convert the lets say rtf file into their format. I found it a pain in the ass. It gets done and then provides some problem with the file so I redo it, look at it and redo it again. Total trial and error and a waste of time, it would change the format in some instances where a technical person could tell what and why if I cared, but I dont. I just wanted the book converted. I did this more than a dozen times before I went back to  OpenOffice and just converted it to Epub with a little add-on to the program. It converted it exactly as my original rtf was without all the nonsense. Why didn't I start there? I guess I figured Kindle and Amazon are pretty big deals, they should know what they are doing? Probably so but OpenOffice nailed it first time then I simply uploaded the epub file to Kindle Direct a long way around a simple process.

Firetok Finally

After a solid month I swear of every spare second I had, tweeking reediting, adjusting the cover, reediting. The seeming endless cycle has stopped for a moment. I finally pushed the enter button for the last time for now. I am pretty sure a tear or two welled up. What a journey. I may document here later the whole damn frustrating process of getting on Kindle the trial and error way but next time it will be quicker. It was so exciting to hold a paper proof, go through it with a red pen marking it up and then reedit. We found things in the proof that had eluded us to this point but were very obvious on  paper. Here we go.

Invasion of privacy?

I find myself in a bit of an uneasy spot. Two nights ago I ordered a proof of Firetok. The text has been so gone over during the editing process, I really cant immagine finding any surprises. The strange part is how apprehensive I feel about letting such a personal and to this point private creation out where literally anyone could have access to it. My personal sense of privacy is going to have to find a way to deal with it. I think this is a rather peculiar side issue that has arrived quite out of nowhere. Who would have thought?

Almost Finally.

Ive spent every spare minute of the last few weeks, tweeking, editing, tweeking, reediting. Its seems the details of this book have consumed as much time as the rough draft. Or at least that is what it feels like. I do believe the cover is actually done. I nearly filled up my hard drive with drafts and tweeks but I think I am there. A coworker told me last night that the cover is too gory. While I am not sure that I agree I respect and welcome the opinion. Her auto response when she saw what she considered blood on the dog that it was a gory horror book, which couldn't be too much further from my opinion but the interest in my opinion has a very limited number of people. I feel the text has been ready for some time but felt no urgency to rush the cover art.

Make your passion a bigger part of your life.

So I look once again at the last date of a post here and am disgusted. The good or should I say the best thing about my lost time is that I have been very busy with what I feel will be perpetually called the "final" edit. This time I think I am serious. For the first installment I believe I have told what needs to be told. I have been using this forum to benchmark different things and I saw a story the other day I feel I need to make note of. The story was about a retired carpenter who had found a way to make a living as a sand sculptor. I would have never suspected it possible. His advice was to find something that inspires you and find a way to make it more prominent in your life. He said flat out, don't quit your job, just find a way to make it a bigger part of your life. This of course is my paraphrasing and trying to lay out what I took away from it. I think it was good timing. I will eventually publish this story and begin on the next leg of the journey, some of which is already beginning to manifest. In the meantime I will enjoy the journey to the utmost of my ability and continue to work as I need to while I take the sculptors advice and push to make my writing a bigger part of my life. I hope at some time someone will stumble upon my story and find themselves entertained. What more could I ask for?

Futher character developement

I continue to develop the main characters in Firetok. I put down several chapters this week with what I hope will be pertinent information and background on three characters in particular. It seems the deeper I edit, the more I find I need to add. Two being main characters I spent a bit of time on this week. I am finding on this edit that the dialog for the protagonist is a little short and lacking. It helped to have someone else give me a bit of a list of things they would like to know about them. For me its all in my head but writing down the important details is where I am right now.

What a question.

Last night I came across another mysterious person. She was getting ready to drive to New York  by herself. She said it would be a good time to search her soul. We talked a little and I told her I knew exactly what she was talking about, I had spent over a year on the road doing that very thing. She looked me in the eyes and asked, "Did you find what you were looking for?" Our conversation carried on for a few more minutes about the pointless pursuit of material and monetary ends. Her husband died early consumed with the pursuit of money. I am not sure how I answered the question but her penetrating eyes and question still burn in my mind. I am surely convinced that what I did find were so many things I never knew I was looking for. I cant describe it better in short than I set out for some reason and ended up discovering questions I never realized I should ask. I hope I run into this lady again and have a chance to listen.

Write Tight #2

Another lesson I learned in my first five chapters while going through the edit suggestions. "Writers in general tend to overuse the word that. And he proved it to me by making note of how many times I had done this very thing. I started removing the "thats" and ended up in the same place, much more directly. Some other suggestions that I will not spell out in detail right now created the same effect. This after what I believe to have been fairly extensive editing already, and yet words appear that really don't need to be included to get the point across. Any one that has read much of anything I have written can easily see I am not a believer in rambling on when the point could be made with economy. Sound advice I say, and if anyone ever feels they need to grab a dictionary to read something I have done... something has definitely gone wrong.

Write Tight.

A former teacher and very influential person in my young writing life, mysteriously showed up in my path recently. I had actually tried unsuccessfully to contact him thinking he might be interested in reading my draft of Firetok. It turns out he was very interested and has even taken on the task of helping me with what I feel should be the final edit. Just this weekend I received the final pages after proofreading. Now it is up to me to put it together. I started on Friday and got through the first two chapters, so I am encouraged. In the course of our discussions he offered some timeless advice.
 "Write Tight. Less is best. Use small words in small amounts. When having a choice between a big fancy word and a short common one- the short one is usually best."