Taking stock of my journey as a writer…..
Having finished writing book 5 (A Taxing Death) in the Jill Quint mystery series, I'm taking a break from the daily goal of writing a set number of words each day. I feel like I have reached a junction point in my writing endeavor. There are comments from the experts that you don't really have an evaluation of your writing until you produce five to seven books. I've climbed the mountain and I'm looking back down the trail at where I came from with a view of choices to determine where I am going. There are some twenty paths in front of me to take to the next peak, or I could end my journey and return home, never to produce another book again.
For the most part and indeed like most authors I have been on this writing journey alone. I have a few close friends that have helped me shape and edit the books, but every brilliant and lousy decision has for the most part been my sole responsibility.
What started out as a question of 'I wonder if I could write a better mystery?' than the disappointing book that I just put down; has turned into a love of creating stories and solving imaginary crimes. My greatest strength is my imagination, but it is also my greatest weakness. I see words in sentences in my imagination that simply AREN'T there on the printed page. When you have a book the length of 85,000 words, there are a lot of opportunities for those imaginary words to play havoc with a manuscript. I have also broken the cardinal rule of indie publishing - use an editor. I had an editor for my first book and felt that I learned what my bad writing habits were and how to correct them. I was wrong; I'm probably incapable of correcting them. So I am now revising them with a professional editor to improve the experience for the reader. I also listened to a wonderful series of college lectures from the University of Iowa geared to improving my creative writing and I hope readers will notice the difference in A Taxing Death.
I just read the recent newsletters of Louise Penny, a favorite author of mine. She has such a way with words that it feels like poetry. She mentioned that she writes 250 words a day at the start of a novel and eventually advances to 1,000 words a day. That is such a different goal then what you hear from nearly any other writer. Many male crime writers blog about writing 7,000 to 10,000 words a day including the famous Erle Stanley Garner who wrote in the pre-computer era, a remarkable 66,000 words a week. As you may know from previous posts, I try to achieve 2,000 words a day when I am focused on finishing a book. There is no denying the quality of Louise’s 250 words and maybe I have mistaken quantity for quality. Certainly, I think my most productive day has been about 3,500 words. Having a words-per-day goal is a method to moderate my production, but perhaps it's in the way. It's something to think about as I stand atop the hill trying to choose that next right path.
Writers speak to a need to write. On occasion, I’ll feel like sitting down and writing, but the feeling doesn’t beat a drum in my head nagging until I satisfy the urge. Instead, during this no writing period, I miss being a storyteller, observing people’s behaviors or mannerisms for inclusion in a future book.
I guess the other reason I am sitting at a writing crossroads is for the first time, I don't have a book title and cover designed before I begin writing. I know what is bothering me there – should I use the word ‘death’ in the title as I have in the previous three books or do I move on to a different name. Book six is supposed to have a murder take place at a nursing convention in Dallas, and it's likely poison, but nothing is springing to mind in regards to title and cover. I’m sort of tired of using the word 'death' in my titles and I feel like I need to walk away from the “branding” of that word with this book or not at all.
I also have plans to update my website. For an indie author, a website may not get much traffic, but I have seen recent improvements from 7 visitors a week to 150. I’ve got my fair share of Russian and Brazilian spammers visiting, but the increase is also coming from the U.S. according to Google Analytics. I studied several other author websites and have some good changes to incorporate with mine.
Two and a half years ago when I began the journey of being a mystery writer, I thought my only hurdle was figuring out how to tell a big enough story that it would take me 80,000 words to get there. But being an author is so much richer than that – it’s an entire industry itself, undergoing explosive change. I'm always learning about the mechanics of good storytelling, professional organizations and meetings, and just plain good English. And Marketing - how do you make your book discoverable? The answer to that question hounds me from sunrise to sunset simply because there is no easy answer. Furthermore as other writers state and I agree with, there is a certain matter of luck sometimes involved in a bestseller. Finally, reader taste is involved which is very complicated. I listen to 1-3 audiobooks a week - they are my background noise. Each book gets 30 to 60 minutes to engage me and there are things I look for to avoid selecting the wrong book. I have a long list of what I don't like in a book and much of it is popular in today's book world. Discovering new authors is difficult as generally only the most popular writers have audiobook versions.
So where am I one-thousand words later with this blog?
Still standing on that first peak, looking out in the distance, considering my options…
I am a mystery writer after all.
For the most part and indeed like most authors I have been on this writing journey alone. I have a few close friends that have helped me shape and edit the books, but every brilliant and lousy decision has for the most part been my sole responsibility.
What started out as a question of 'I wonder if I could write a better mystery?' than the disappointing book that I just put down; has turned into a love of creating stories and solving imaginary crimes. My greatest strength is my imagination, but it is also my greatest weakness. I see words in sentences in my imagination that simply AREN'T there on the printed page. When you have a book the length of 85,000 words, there are a lot of opportunities for those imaginary words to play havoc with a manuscript. I have also broken the cardinal rule of indie publishing - use an editor. I had an editor for my first book and felt that I learned what my bad writing habits were and how to correct them. I was wrong; I'm probably incapable of correcting them. So I am now revising them with a professional editor to improve the experience for the reader. I also listened to a wonderful series of college lectures from the University of Iowa geared to improving my creative writing and I hope readers will notice the difference in A Taxing Death.
I just read the recent newsletters of Louise Penny, a favorite author of mine. She has such a way with words that it feels like poetry. She mentioned that she writes 250 words a day at the start of a novel and eventually advances to 1,000 words a day. That is such a different goal then what you hear from nearly any other writer. Many male crime writers blog about writing 7,000 to 10,000 words a day including the famous Erle Stanley Garner who wrote in the pre-computer era, a remarkable 66,000 words a week. As you may know from previous posts, I try to achieve 2,000 words a day when I am focused on finishing a book. There is no denying the quality of Louise’s 250 words and maybe I have mistaken quantity for quality. Certainly, I think my most productive day has been about 3,500 words. Having a words-per-day goal is a method to moderate my production, but perhaps it's in the way. It's something to think about as I stand atop the hill trying to choose that next right path.
Writers speak to a need to write. On occasion, I’ll feel like sitting down and writing, but the feeling doesn’t beat a drum in my head nagging until I satisfy the urge. Instead, during this no writing period, I miss being a storyteller, observing people’s behaviors or mannerisms for inclusion in a future book.
I guess the other reason I am sitting at a writing crossroads is for the first time, I don't have a book title and cover designed before I begin writing. I know what is bothering me there – should I use the word ‘death’ in the title as I have in the previous three books or do I move on to a different name. Book six is supposed to have a murder take place at a nursing convention in Dallas, and it's likely poison, but nothing is springing to mind in regards to title and cover. I’m sort of tired of using the word 'death' in my titles and I feel like I need to walk away from the “branding” of that word with this book or not at all.
I also have plans to update my website. For an indie author, a website may not get much traffic, but I have seen recent improvements from 7 visitors a week to 150. I’ve got my fair share of Russian and Brazilian spammers visiting, but the increase is also coming from the U.S. according to Google Analytics. I studied several other author websites and have some good changes to incorporate with mine.
Two and a half years ago when I began the journey of being a mystery writer, I thought my only hurdle was figuring out how to tell a big enough story that it would take me 80,000 words to get there. But being an author is so much richer than that – it’s an entire industry itself, undergoing explosive change. I'm always learning about the mechanics of good storytelling, professional organizations and meetings, and just plain good English. And Marketing - how do you make your book discoverable? The answer to that question hounds me from sunrise to sunset simply because there is no easy answer. Furthermore as other writers state and I agree with, there is a certain matter of luck sometimes involved in a bestseller. Finally, reader taste is involved which is very complicated. I listen to 1-3 audiobooks a week - they are my background noise. Each book gets 30 to 60 minutes to engage me and there are things I look for to avoid selecting the wrong book. I have a long list of what I don't like in a book and much of it is popular in today's book world. Discovering new authors is difficult as generally only the most popular writers have audiobook versions.
So where am I one-thousand words later with this blog?
Still standing on that first peak, looking out in the distance, considering my options…
I am a mystery writer after all.
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