Just a quick blog today since Iām busier than a workaholic. At least thatās how it feels. But thatās a story for another time.
First, I want to announce that I plan, schedule permitting, to attend Alma-Con in Alma, Michigan, February 5-7. My friend/co-author Eric Anderson will be running a table for his ministry Nerd Chapel in the vendorās hall, where he will also be selling our devotional, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom. Iāll be there helping him with his table and a worship service he plans to have that Sunday. Feel free to come see us.
Now on to the main thrust of this blog.
Iāve been thinking a lot about how I need to manage my writing time better, especially when I keep getting projects thrown at me and/or I bite off more than I can chew. So, in light of this, I wanted to share with you what I think should be a reasonable amount of material you can expect from me. It may take me a bit of time to get used to this new schedule, so donāt expect me to get into the rhythm immediately. I also reserve the right to change my output at any time.
Regardless, here it is:
-one (maybe two) articles a week for Examiner.
-at least two articles a month for GigaGeek Magazine.
-one (maybe two) blogs a week on my website.
-one āBut I Digressā¦ā video a month (with intermittent āDigressionā videos as they come to me).
These are the things I want to do with regularity. Iām seeking other freelance opportunities while also writing books, among other things.
Itās been one of those days. Or weeks. Or months.
Not only have I let my writing projects pile up higher than the stack of comics I needed to buy at my local shop (itās what happens when you neglect to pick them up for two months), but somehow everyone and his dogās cousin is vying for my attention. I have friends who want to hang out just because, for their birthdays, etc. I sometimes run errands for my family or spend time with them. I have my increasingly demanding āday job.ā I have hobbies I try to enjoy now and then.
All of this is eating into my precious writing time. I havenāt penned a word in the nextChildren of the Wells novella in a month, nor have I touched Hopeās War for a long time. My last Examiner article was in December. Yet here I am firing off a quick little blog because I resolved to be more consistent with posting content on my website. Blogging should be secondary to all my other writings.
Iāve heard that a writer should never blog about how he hasnāt been writing much. I broke that āruleā a long time ago, unfortunately. Besides, I hope I can use it as a lesson for aspiring writers.
Learn to say, āNo.ā
Itās totally okay to do that.
Youāre only one person. You canāt do everything. If you want to be successful at anythingāespecially writingāit will take sacrifice. Youāll have to turn down many things, even good things, so that you can squeeze in that daily goal of 1,000 words or whatnot. Youāll probably upset some people, but the ones who love you most will understand. In fact, they may eventually adjust their expectations and schedules to better accommodate your goals.
Iām not sure how I became as āpopularā as I am. I do, however, know that what I do with my time is my choice. I have no one to blame but myself if I miss a deadline or donāt get something done. I have an active mind that seeks as many creative outlets as possible. Iām also a bit of a weird writer in that Iām extroverted and have to come out of my writer-ly solitude to be with others. All of those things together can create a lot of tension. What am I saying? I know it does because Iām experiencing it right now!
Thatās why saying, āNo,ā is an important skill to have. You canāt please everyone, no matter how hard you try. You have to learn to make priorities and stick to them. Otherwise, youāll lose your mind. Iām sure most loony bins have wards set aside for writers and other creatives who went crazy. Youāll have plenty of collaborators and time to write, but I doubt anyone will publish you. š
Anyway, I have places to go, stuff to do, people to kill. (Waitā¦did I say that out loud?)
Finally! A new episode! It’s my 3rd anniversary special, which as usual is all about selling books at conventions (sorry–“Avengers: Age of Ultron” review will come later). In this episode, I give tips for crafting a great pitch to use to attract readers and sell your books to them.
As Iāve stated before, Iāve been negligent on blogging for the last month. It wasnāt just this blog that suffered, though. Most, if not all, of my other projects were put on hiatus so I could finish editing my two latest books, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom and Ninjas and Talking Trees, in time for Gen-Con 2015 next week. But it was only one of the many things I had to do.
One of the perils of being a self-published author (as I think I mentioned in an early episode of āBut I Digressā¦ā) is you have to do everything, or at least almost everything, yourself. Your work doesnāt stop with writing the book and making recommended changes. You have to become an entire publishing house. You write, you edit, you hire cover artists (assuming you donāt create the cover yourself), you do layout, you promote the book, etc., etc. Unless youāre an excellent project manager, this can be tiring, especially when you also work a day job and have a social life. In the last month, Iāve found myself thinking many times, I just want to write! I understand now why some authors forego self-publishing, despite its advantages, in favor of traditional publishing: they have much less to worry about. Their attention isnāt nearly as divided, so they can focus more on their craft.
Strange (or selfish) as it may sound, one of the reasons I want to get married is because Iād like to have a wife who could help me with some of this. Yes, I admit it: Iād like her to be my secretary. Hereās the thing: she wouldnāt be my subservient, but my partner. Weād work on things together as equals.
Regardless, I already practice this to some extent. I hired friends/professional editors to look over these books so it wasnāt just me. Fresh eyes can see things I donāt. The artist who created the cover for 42, Ruth Pike, also did the back cover and some promotional materials. My friend Nick Hayden then did the layout. Anthony Gangemi drew the artwork for Ninjas and Talking Trees, which required a bit of faith on my part because it was the most expensive cover Iāve commissioned. I was thinking back on a self-publishing seminar where the instructor insisted authors should invest money in our careers. But I had to add the text and do the layout myself because Nick was unavailable. Then I had to wait for CreateSpace to process everything. (Thankfully, their shipping department is awesome, and my orders arrived four or five days early).
Let this be a warning to you: if you want to be an indie author, expect to put in extra work.
Itās worth it, though. š
P.S. Please leave reviews for my books on Amazon and Goodreads!
As a teen and young adult, I used to regularly read Focus on the Familyās Plugged In magazine. Recently I checked out their review on the film Fury, which Iād recently seen. It can be summarized with these paragraphs:
Some will see that unflinching glimpse at perpetual bloodshed and gray-smoking destruction as something of an antiwar declaration. They’ll see a cautionary tale of men hollowed out and broken by the unspeakable horrors they’ve witnessed.
Others will see this pic as a one-dimensional splatter-fest dressed up in khaki Army fatigues, with limbs innumerable being severed by large-caliber machine gun fire and mortar rounds in a story of brutal, hard-fisted soldiers battling a Nazi evil even more wicked than themselves.
āDid you watch the same movie I did?ā I asked.
In case you donāt know, Furyis a WWII film released last fall that stars Brad Pitt and Shia LeBeouf. Itās about a greenhorn Army clerk who ends up on the frontlines with a battle-hardened tank crew and sees firsthand the horrors of war, which makes him more willing to kill the enemy. I read Plugged Inās review because I wanted to see what they thought of Shia LeBeoufās character, who is a Christian. (LeBeouf reportedly became a Christian during filming). Unsurprisingly, they complained about him, saying, āWe see him praying over a wounded soldier and quoting Scripture several times before battle. That said, his faith doesn’t keep Bible from being every bit as foulmouthed, boozy and death-dealing as the rest of his crew.ā
āWhat would you have preferred?ā I asked. āThat he fit the equally one-dimensional perfect or nigh-perfect stereotypes that populate āChristianā films?ā Besides, he swears much less than his compatriots and I only saw him drink alcohol once (and he didnāt get drunk, which is what the Bible condemns, not the consumption of alcohol). When his buddies make crude comments about German women, he rebuffs them. When they harass a German woman, he doesnāt participate. Heās not perfect. No Christian is. But heās also not the typical religious loon usually seen in Hollywood films.
They also presented Pittās character āWardaddyā as a one-dimensional, jingoistic jarhead you typically see in bad action movies. That more than anything baffled me. I saw a character who in many writersā hand wouldāve been exactly that, but both the script and Pittās performance add layers of nuance to him. Heās a man who will shoot an unarmed POW in the back and a few scenes later protect two young German women from his horny subordinates. When he walked into the womenās apartment, I fully expected him to do something terrible to them. But he didnāt. He does encourage the new recruit to sleep with the younger woman (which isnāt shown, so itās debatable if they did anything). When they walk out he tells the young guy ānothing needs to be said.ā But his defining characteristic is his desire to keep his men alive. Yes, heās a borderline psychopath and possibly mad, but heāll do whatever it takes to save his men. They respect him for that. Heās a complicated character. I was enthralled by this.
Not only was I bothered by this magazineās overly biased review, it reminded me of the challenge writers have creating characters. Whatās the difference between a well-rounded character and an inconsistent character? The line between them seems fuzzy. A common trait of bad writing is having a character act, well, out of character. For example, itād be out of character for a patriotic superhero like Captain America to suddenly become a communist. On the other hand, people are full of contradictions. Hardened criminals in prison will abuse child rapists because despite their depravity, they have enough moral fiber to know not to do unspeakable things to children.
This is why my favorite character from Beast Wars(a childhood favorite cartoon) is Dinobot. Heās easily the best-written character in the show because of how complicated he is. Heās too honorable to be a bad guy but too rough to be a good guy. Heāll pull an opponent from cliff edge if said opponent slipped, but he has no qualms with throwing him off the cliff during combat. He defected from the bad guys but considered betraying the good guys later. Yet all of this fit his character.
A more literary (and nebulous) example is Hamlet. Talk about complicated! I havenāt the time or space to adequately examine him. All I will say is he is a man who has a strong sense of justice and strong moral convictions. He believes his uncle is a murderer who should die, but he hesitates to kill him because of that same moral compunction against murder. (I donāt subscribe to the theory that Hamlet was insane). Thatās one of many reasons why Shakespeareās Hamlet is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of literature in the history of the world: the titular character is nuanced, complex, and seemingly contradictory.
Writing characters like this is hard. This is why many writers prefer static, two-dimensional characters. That isnāt to say such characters are inherently bad. There are plenty of great examples out there. But even they must act in ways consistent with their character.
What do you think is/are the difference(s) between well-rounded and inconsistent characters?
Since my last few YouTube videos have been somewhat controversial troll magnets, I decided to check their statistics. While one has close to 3,000 views (itās since slowed down because itās designated as āunlistedā), the average amount of time the 12-minute video was viewed was two minutes. (In fact, that was the average for almost all of my videos). In other words, itās been viewed many times but not often finished (and yet garnered such hateāI guess thatās an accomplishment). š On the other hand, most of my other videos have only a few hundred views, at best.
I could look at this two ways: 1) Iām not as good as making videos as I thought, or 2) people on YouTube have super-short attention spans and get bored more easily than most. The former puts the blame on me and the latter puts the blame on the audience. Honestly, Iām not sure which is true.
Writers arenāt much without readers. They need a fanbase in order to make a living. The problem is building one. Fans are notoriously fickle, particularly in the speculative fiction realm. Striking a balance between giving them what they think they want and what they (or the stories) need is a tightrope act thatād scare most acrobats. Iāve been told by a few publishers and agents that the stories I submitted to them were āwell-writtenā and that I had talent, but what I wrote wasnāt ātrendy.ā This annoys me. Iāve rarely, if ever, been one to follow trends. Iād rather be a trendsetter. I have far more respect for authors who dream up fresh ideas as opposed to trying to become the next J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, or Stephanie Meyer (God help us if any writers try to become the next E.L. Jamesā¦). My English professor, Dr. Dennis E. Hensley, always told his students to be themselves as writers instead of watered down versions of other writers.
People sometimes ask me how many copies of my books have sold. I honestly donāt know. I once asked my publisher a few years ago how many copies of Pandoraās Boxhad sold, but I was disappointed with the numbers so I havenāt asked since. Iām not expecting it to be a New York Times bestseller, but I do hope some people are buying it and enjoying it. While I know number of copies sold and video view counts arenāt necessarily indications of quality, they can be indications of how well the creator is reaching his audience.
Regardless, when I hear people describe themselves as a āfanā of me, Iām surprised. Hopefully someday that wonāt be such a shock anymore.
Fellow creators, what do you do to build your fanbase?
Most writers have āstrangeā habits when they write. One of the less strange ones is listening to music. I know many writers who do this, including myself. Some, however, find it distracting and prefer to work in silence.
For me it serves as āwhite noiseā that helps me shut the rest of the world out and focus on crafting my story. I prefer to listen to music that has no lyrics because lyrics tend to pull me into the music and away from storytelling. Again, this isnāt true of every writer. I read in his book On Writing that Stephen King listens to ā80s metal bands like AC/DC when he writes (which explains a lot). Regardless, thatās why I love listening to soundtracks, whether they be for films or video games. Thatās music being used to supplement a story or in many cases tell a story. It helps keep my creative juices flowing. If itās the right song, I can āhearā it playing in the background while my characters are performing their actions.
Heck, Iām listening to a few OC Remixes as I write this blog. š
I try to stick with soundtracks that befit the story Iām writing. My go-to albums for my writing of Hopeās War (the sequel to my first novel, Pandoraās Box) include the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack by Daft Punk, the Man of Steel Soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, and Mega Man X: Maverick Rising (a 5-disc album of Mega Man X video game remixes produced by OC Remix). All of these have strong science fiction themes and elicit emotions ranging from triumph to despair. They help get in touch with the characters so I know how to tell their stories (which makes me and other writers sound like schizophrenics, but thatās a topic for another day).
But sometimes songs have lyrics that fit beautifully with the story Iām writing. For Pandoraās Box I actually assembled an unofficial soundtrack for it (and even burned it to a CD to give to a writer friend). So far Iāve only found one song like that for Hopeās War: āIridescentā by Linkin Park.
(Ignore the obvious Transformers tie-ins).
In fact, the first scene I ever conceived for the bookāand one Iāve yet to writeācame to me while I was listening to this song. Its melancholy hope inspired imagery both beautiful and terrifying. Another one of their songs, āWretches and Kings,ā inspired a chapter title in the book. Those are a few of the many reasons why āA Thousand Sunsā is my favorite Linkin Park album (yes, I know that makes me weird). š
Do you like to listen to music while writing? If so, what genres and/or artists? Why those?
Are you an aspiring writer? Love science fiction and fantasy? I give some handy tips on how to write speculative. In part two of my four-part series, I explain story construction conventions, including the MICE story types, and how to handle exposition and literalism. I did have some help from the great author Orson Scott Card, though.
As promised, I’ve started my series on writing speculative fiction. In this episode, I give tips on world building. Be sure to take notes. Leave comments so we can discuss the topic.
Be careful what you delete from your laptop thinking its malwareāit may be a $100 mistake.
A few weeks ago, I did just that. My laptop had been running slow and bombarding me with pop-ups. I went into control panel and deleted any programs I didnāt recognize. I restarted the computer, but I got the newfangled āblue screen of death.ā I called a comic/hobby/computer shop in Columbia City, Indiana, to have it repaired. Iāve been going to that place since high school and knew everyone there, but I had never utilized the computer repair service before.
That was nearly two weeks ago. Apparently, I deleted a recovery partition, and fixing the thing is proving to be more difficult than they expected. (So they say. Other techies Iāve talked to say it shouldnāt be such an issue).
This has put quite a damper on my writing. I have several half-finished projects still on the thingās hard drive (thankfully, I backed most of it up on a portable hard drive). I also have a few videos I want to make. Now, I can use my local librariesā or friendsā computers, but that isnāt always convenient. As for writing, itās been suggested I write it shorthand. Iāve done this before, but I must admit I like the immediacy of having it saved on the computer so I donāt have to transcribe it later. (Makes me wonder how old-timey writers could write multiple drafts before the advent of PCs!)
Iāve felt unproductive, for the most part, the last two weeks. It drives me crazy. Despite hanging out with some friends, I feel like Iām wasting time. Perhaps Iām a closet workaholic (I hope not). Itās like a weird version of cabin fever.
(Gotta love the Muppets!)
More likely, itās because I have all these things to say, all these stories to tell, and I canāt get them out of me.
In college, my friend and fellow writer Keith Osmun shared a Bible passage with me he called āthe writerās verse.ā It goes, āBut if I say, āI will not mention His word or speak anymore in His name,ā His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannotā (Jeremiah 20:9).
Now, Iām not about to put my writingāor anyoneās writingāon par with Scripture. However, it does describe most writers, especially Christian writers. God made us storytellers. He blessed us with talent and ideas. If we keep them in, we would burst like overfilled water balloons. In Jeremiahās case, it was like containing an internal inferno. It will eat us up inside until it is released. Since Iāve temporarily lost my primary means of release, Iām about to lose my mind. No wonder most writers are neurotic.
Anyway, thatās another reason Iāve been quietātoo quietāon the site. I meant to write something about why Iām not participating in National Poetry Writing Month this year, but that will have to wait.
Until then, fellow writers, be like the Human Torch and āFlame on!ā
A Man from Another Time Exploring Another Universe