The Viagra chronicles are done!

yea! Finished another book today.

This one was very interesting. I tried to pay attention to the process as I was writing the book. That is, I tried to get a sense for what obstacles I felt while I was writing, what ideas I considered and discarded, etc. In short, I did a sort of 'metadata' about the book as I wrote the book.

I started on Nov. 26 and ended on January 15. I write a very clean first draft, and I don't anticipate major rewrites. Figure I'll need maybe another few days, so let's say 2 months total.

What was fascinating to me was that I was not at all into these characters until well mid-way through the process. It was like pulling teeth to get me to work on it. I just didn't have them in my head. But once they got in my head, I couldn't stop writing.

I think every book I work on is like that: I approach it reluctantly, unwilling to allow it into my life. Writing is very time-consuming and mentally-consuming, too. It's work. Sometimes it's fun and occasionally I laugh (or cry) while writing. This one had both of those in it -- I mean, some of those Viagra ads! Man, they're weird. But I used them as clues (or, rather, they disguised clues) so I had to some 'research' and troll around and collect the subject lines.

hoot!

But this one also had a problematic ending ... not quite Happily Ever After. I think I had to end it that way in order to stay true to the story. I'll be curious to see what my editor thinks.

SO now I can relax a bit before plotting the next book. I'd like to dig in and edit a few others first, then begin crafting the next one. After all, there's always a next one ...

There's a story all around you

I've been writing on a new book and wanted to put in some cute, clever thread that runs throughout the book but is also a clue to the murder.

Hmm. What to use? I already have a cat (Houdini, modeled my current male despot at home). And I have horticultural references throughout (since the murder does take place in a greenhouse).

What to use ... what to use ... what ...

I was going through my SPAM email one day and was struck by all the Viagra emails -- some of the subject lines are really funny. Wouldn't it be great to incorporate them ...

Eureka! Yep. I'm now working on "The Viagra book", and that topic has generated a lot of interest on my MySpace page (a person can set their profile to whatever text they choose, and I often have 'I'm working on the Viagra book').

I think it just goes to show, whenever I think I can't come up with a new story, there's one waiting for me in my inbox!

Puzzling out the promo

Some writing friends and I are ganging up to work on promo together. This year I'm really going to look at what I'm doing and try to refine it.

What works? What doesn't?

I think it's all cumulative. I don't have big bookstore distribution, and my main medium is e-books. This involves a really steep learning curve for most of my target audience. I'm hoping I'll grab that little niche market of people like ME: older but technologically savvy who are willing to try new things.

I'm trying to push the "ebooks are green" angle, too. Publishing is a wasteful business -- books are printed that aren't used, they're trashed when they're returned, and $$$ and resources go down the drain. Ebooks are a very lean, very cost-effective method of publishing, so we're aiming for that angle, too.

Stay tuned. I will continue to blog about this in the upcoming months and will let you know what works ... if I can figure it out.

A perception of time

I started my current WIP ("The Viagra book") on December 1. It felt like I was dragging my heels on this book. I'd sit down to write, not feel inspired, go back and edit, write some more, yada yada yada...

I've got 12 chapters done and about 6 maybe 7 to go. I'll be done by Feb. 1 at the lastest. The last chapters are all in my head and I just have to put them on the page.

It's weird. It feels like I've been working on this book FOREVER, but it'll be ready for my critique partner in about 4 weeks. This is how the Pig Book went ("Candy, Corpses, and Classified Ads", releasing on Feb. 29). I wrote that book in a blur, words just flying off my fingers. "Autographs, Abductions, and A-List Authors" was the same way (that book releases later this year).

I think all my first-person books are 8 week books. My third-person books are 12-week books. And my paranormals are 16-week books (but those are time travel books and require a LOT of research).

I've written enough of them now to see this as a pattern. I need to start shifting things around, interspersing a 16-weeker with an 8-weeker, etc.

I may get this writing thing figured out eventually...

A phrase for the new year

A friend of mine mentioned that he has a key phrase that he keeps as his 'mantra' each year. That helps him keep focused on his goals and aspirations for the year.

I kind of like this idea, so I've adopted it as my own. My mantra for this year is "don't worry about the other guy."

This means: don't worry about somebody else's salary, don't worry about their hours or their workload. Don't worry if somebody else gets an agent or a better publishing contract.

I can only affect ME -- I can't affect all those 'other guys'. So why worry about them? Focus on what I need to do to make ME happy, make ME successful (however I define that). The other guy? Who cares? He's running his own race. I'm running MY race.

We'll see if I can stick to it. I'm printing it out and putting it on my monitor.

"Don't worry about the other guy"