Maggie Thom's Blog - Posts Tagged "mutual-release"
Inspiration by Liz Crowe
On Inspiration
by author, Liz Crowe
It’s a funny thing, this business of crafting books, finding the right fit in a publisher, editing, revising, promoting and then starting it all over again.
Every time I’m hip deep in a book tour, or trying to yammer my way through all the noise on facebook and twitter about MY book (vs. THAT OTHER book, whatever it is at the moment) I swear it’s the last damn time I’m doing it. It’s draining, trying to convince the General Reading Public At Large to pick up your story instead of someone else’s. Especially in this day and age of near non-stop communication opportunities coupled with a hands-off attitude on the part of (most) publishers, even the “big ones” in epub or genre specificity.
Having published (hang on, gotta count) 18 books (more actually but I got rights back on 4 of ‘em and am giving them a serious re-vamp for re-release at some point) since 2009 I feel that I can say with some degree of certainty that “writing the book” is the easy part. And that, ladies and gents is saying something because for every book written and published there are probably a dozen or more waiting to be written, almost written, wished they could be written or otherwise drifting around in some office worker’s head. My point is that finding inspiration to actually create can be tough in The Brave New World of promote-yourself-or-die book publishing.
The various “self” or “tiny publishing house to giant book contract and movie deal phenomenon’s of the last year or two should be inspiring, one supposes. But for me, they are not for various reasons.
So, how to truly Be Inspired as an artist?
For me, now that I have more or less emptied my head of 2 entire series and a few stand alone ideas I am finding that a bit of quiet works best. That is to say, stop writing, stop thinking about writing, take a mental break from writing while reading some books you’ve been wanting to read, along with a classic or two is a guaranteed way to get my personal muse (Hans, many of you know him well) percolating and jumping up and down to catch my attention.
I’m at that point right now, but I guess, since 2013 is seeing the release of 7 books for me, maybe I’ve earned a break. Problem is…in this Brave New World anymore of “quick! Write me the sequel!”
To read the whole article, click here: http://wp.me/p2ydBl-p2
