Michael Kanuckel's Blog, page 3

Skipping stones

You're standing on the banks of a clear, calm pond. The grass has given way to dirt and mud beneath your bare feet, and you casually pick up a jagged grey rock and throw it into the water. What happens?
The surface of the water is disturbed. Rippling waves run out from the point of impact in an ever-widening ring. But what happens after that?
The water is still once more.
The same principle applies to the work that must be done as an indie publisher, if one wishes to have any success. It's not enough to make one announcement, have one promo, or join a group of your peers. That one gesture will make a ripple, but the effect will dissipate quickly. If you wish to keep the waters from growing placid once more, you're gonna need a lot of rocks.

Sink or Swim

There is a sea of fiction out there. No matter what you write, someone else is writing it, or has already written it, or is planning on writing it. Vampires. Fairies. Private Detective Vampire Faeries from an alternate earth, chasing an angel who framed them for the murder of the King of Goblinland. Paranormal romance. Epic fantasy. I could go on.
The point is, all of this stuff is out there- and there you sit, smiling over the finished product that is the end result of weeks, months, or years of your time. It has been the most important part of your life for all the time you've been working on it. You obsessed over it. You lost sleep over it. Hell, maybe you're like me and your writing was a contributing factor in the end of a marriage. You bled for your Urban Dark Fantasy where the only item that can destroy the Dark Lord is a shard of unicorn horn, and the very last unicorn is dying (just an off-the-cuff example, not the plot of my own novel).
And now? Well, it turns out that yours is only one of a million messages in bottles drifting in the sea of fiction. No one really cares. It's sort of like thinking that your baby is the cutest, smartest, most precious child in all of existence. The other guy thinks the same thing about his. EVERYBODY thinks exactly the same thing.
So what to do?
Keep swimming, that's what. You used to sit down every day at your keyboard, or your typewriter, or with your pen and paper to write that epic story trapped in your head. Now that's finished, you have to get out there every day and let it be known that YOU have created something worthwhile. You have told a tale worth reading. And you cannot let any setbacks or roadblocks stop you. It's not a question of sinking or swimming- it's a matter of building yourself a raft out of the shattered remains of the ship that was your fantasy and floating on top of that foaming sea.
If you want to catch a break, you have to put your hand out. Someone will take it. And if no one grabs you today, you have to do it again tomorrow.

Writing vs. Working

Since a time beyond even my first real memory, I have loved books. I knew in Kindergarten that I wanted to be a writer. My very first short story, presented to my class for show and tell, was only illustrated by me; my father had to write the words, because I just couldn't do it legibly yet. It was titled "The Raindrop Who Didn't Want It To Rain". That story was the first step on a long and winding road, one that has been full of pot-holes, construction cones, and rambling detours through unknown country. But it has also been a road full of wonders. Many of you know the feeling- those days when every word seems right, and the pages are flying by, and the world you've created is so real that the reality passing by outside your head pales and becomes a dull, second-rate attraction at an aging amusement park. On those days, writing isn't work. On those days, writing is pure pleasure, an experience like nothing else in the world.
Then there are the other kinds of days. Days when you're engaged in a fight to the death with your own mind, clawing and kicking, while the white space on that page mocks you like a duplicitous lover. Maybe you're the kind of writer who sets goals- five pages a day, or whatever. I don't really do that, because it makes it like work. For me, setting that kind of goal takes away the magic. Maybe I get five pages done today. Maybe I only get one. Maybe I don't get to work on my new project at all today because I'm trying to edit something, or promote something. I might only write a blog entry one day. But whatever I might do, I want to enjoy doing it.
I want to write, not work. This isn't a business, or a factory. This is about building worlds full of magic.
We are the song singers.
We are the dreamers of dreams.

A brief word.

There are days when things will feel hopeless. You will feel like nothing is going the way that it should; that for all of your good intentions, all of your effort, you are accomplishing nothing. All I can tell you is this: wait until tomorrow. It might be a giant cliche, but tomorrow really is another day.
Wait until tomorrow.
That's what I'm doing.

Super-late Blog Time.

It's almost four in the morning and I should be in bed. Instead, I keep jumping back and forth between the sites where my book is either for sale or possibly being talked about. I've become a bit obsessive about checking up on it. It's sort of like when you have a new baby sleeping in the next room; you just have to go by and see if everything is okay. This entire process has been very exciting, and also very nerve-wracking. When I was writing the book, that part of it was just for me. In theory, I knew that one day I would send the book out into the world, but that would be far in the future. I never really considered how it would be, leaving my story out in the elements of a cold, cold world to fend for itself. Now all I can do is watch, and do my best to talk about it and nurture it, and patiently watch as it either gets up and stands on its own or falls flat. It's not an easy thing to do. In the end, all anyone can do is sit back and hope for the best.
Hope I have in abundance.
Patience?
Not so much.

On Writing

The best book ever written on the subject of writing fiction (in my ever-so-humble opinion) is Stephen King's On Writing. The reason for this is the same reason that his fiction has been so wildly popular for the last forty years- his voice. No matter what he's writing about- a town taken over by a buried UFO, modern-day vampires, a woman who might very well die handcuffed to her own bed with no one for company but her dead husband- his voice is true. He welcomes you in, he wants to tell you a story. Every one of his books is like coming home to find your favorite uncle sitting at the kitchen table, having a drink and rolling a smoke over the oiled checkered cloth; he's waiting for you, and you can tell from the grin on his face that he's got one hell of a tale for you. Even in the novels I didn't care for (and there have been a couple), his voice is always true. He is not an author, or a novelist- he's a storyteller; he is a wordslinger. He's never less than honest with you. King's voice is the strongest it's ever been in On Writing, where he sits you down and tells you all about writing. There is no secret formula, no arcane magic, and no real sure way to success. If you want to write, you write. Write honestly, write what you love, never use a fancy word because you think it might sound better- just write. That is the secret. If you are a writer, you do it for yourself first. You want other people to read what you've created, yes- but the act itself is a wholly selfish one, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're a writer, write. Every day that you don't, you've only failed yourself.

first time for everything...

never had a blog before. it's like a journal, right? well, what to say...
first, i'm a first-time book author, going the indie route. i tried to go the traditional way; i sold a few short stories and tried to find an agent for my work, but just couldn't attract anyone's attention. i worked on my novel for years- reading and revising and re-writing it, and finally i decided that the only way it was going to get done was for me to say it was done and get it out there. so here i am. i don't know how i'll do with this blogging thing. there's not a lot to write about in the course of my day-to-day life. but if i have anything worthwhile to mention, i'll do it.