by john | Jun 20, 2011 | Vampires, Writing
Saturday I sat down at the computer and decided to do something I’d never done before – write, edit and publish a short story all in one day. I had the kernel of an idea for a short story with the Black Knight boys (& Sabrina), and thought I could probably get it into decent short story length, but there wasn’t nearly enough there for a novel.
For those interested in definitions, most people count flash fiction as under 1,000 words, a short story as 1,000-10,000 words. Some folks put the cap at 7,500 words on the high side, but I usually stick with 10K just because it’s easier. Then you get into novellette (10,000-25,000 words) or novella (up to 50K words) and novels (over 50,000 words, but that’s been drifting higher lately). My figures may be low for a lot of people who write 150,000 doorstops, but I write shorter books, so I’m going to skew in that direction. And it’s my blog, get over it.
So I sat down and wrote a short story about a movie night interrupted by catastrophe, because everything in the lives of these characters is interrupted by catastrophe. It took me about 4-5 hours to write, then a couple more hours to create the cover. Yes, I realize the cover looks very simple. Once I got Illustrator running, found a photo I liked on istockphoto.com, set up an account and bought the photo, it only took me about 20 minutes to do the cover. Then I decided I didn’t like it, so I had to go back to searching and find a new photo, buy it and twiddle with it for a little while to get the very elementary cover that you see below.
I never claimed to be a graphics guy, and I know that it’s not a great cover. That wasn’t my intent. My intent was to get a short story from Point A to Point Z (available for purchase) in 24 hours. And I managed the parts that were in my control in about 10 hours. Then I uploaded it to Amazon and Barnes & Noble (except for the cover on BN, which is still goofy – I said I wasn’t a graphics guy) and watched a little TV before bed. When I woke up in the morning the story was available for purchase on Amazon, so mission accomplished!
Click here to buy it.
It’s just a quick little read, about 20-25 print pages or about 6,000 words. It doesn’t reveal any backstory that isn’t in the books, and falls between Back in Black and Knight Moves in the chronology of the world. My hope is that I can knock out about one of these each month (and I have a list of short story ideas, so I’m lined up to do several over the next few months) and keep people happy in between novels. And if it makes a little money, that’s great. Once I have five of them, I’ll collect them at $2.99. Then when I have ten, I’ll collect those for $6.99 or $7.99. All just another way of attracting readers and getting embedded in the social consciousness. 🙂
So if you’ve enjoyed the other Black Knight books, here’s a heads up that more stories are coming. I’ll likely get to editing on Knight Moves this week, and then we’ll see how that goes. I have a long writing weekend planned for 4th of July weekend, so hopefully it’ll finish up by then.
by john | Jun 17, 2011 | Return to Eden, Writing
So I started Return to Eden right after I finished The Chosen. Then I put it aside for a couple of years, and just recently (like this week) got back to work on it. I’ve written three novels and a collection of poetry in the interim, and it’s been an interesting experience to look back on the bits I’d written and see how my writing style has changed in just a couple of years.
Now it might have only been two years since the time I started the project and the time I came back to it, but those have been two really full years. Let’s take a look at what I’ve written since then.
Hard Day’s Knight – 60,000 words +
Back in Black – 60,000 words
Knight Moves – 60,000 words+
Several short stories for various websites and anthologies, all pretty short pieces – 10,000 words
Red Dirt Boy – Collection of a couple dozen poems
Not to mention a few hundred blog posts, but the voice in those hasn’t really changed. Also, I’ve read a lot about story and craft in the past two years, and really studied a lot about how to write a novel and a series. So it’s no surprise that my style is a bit different, and that I see a LOT of things I want to go back and tweak in the early parts of the book. But I’m going to force myself to forge ahead, and get at least the first draft completed before I make any major revisions. Heinlein’s rules have been quoted around the internet for years, and I’ve come across them several times in the past week, and they’ve really helped me keep from going back and tinkering with Return before I get the first draft done.
Heinlein’s Rules for Writing
1) You must write
2) Finish what you start
3) You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order
4) You must put your story on the market
5) You must keep it on the market until it has sold
6) Start working on something else
Obviously I don’t agree with all of these, particularly the not rewriting except to editorial order. I’m still a believer in the process of revision, but that’s the great thing about rules – once you know what they are, you can break the ones you don’t like!
So I’m bulldozing through on Return, and it’s an interesting process. This story moves a lot more slowly than the Black Knight books, which worries me a little bit. There’s always that niggling doubt about whether or not the fans of one series will enjoy a series that’s very different. In this I take inspiration from Jim Butcher, who writes The Dresden Files in a very quick style, but also writes the Codex Alera series in a more slow, convoluted style. Both series are excellent, but one moves at a much slower pace than the other, just because that’s how those stories want to be told. The characters in Return want their stories to unfold slowly, so I’m letting them tell the story at their pace. And that pace so far is 20,000 words without any supernatural events or anyone getting killed.
Once it’s finished, I may need to tighten up the pacing somewhat, but there’s been plenty going on in those 20K words. The catalyst for the magic in the story just hasn’t happened yet. But it’s coming. Oh yes, it’s coming soon…
by john | Jun 13, 2011 | Writing
Well, partially done, at least. Last night i finished the first draft of Knight Moves, book 3 of The Black Knight Chronicles. There are some spots in this book that are darker than the two that have gone before, but I think there’s still enough humor in there to avoid becoming too gloomy. I introduced a bucketload of new characters this time around, some of whom will be around for several books to come, and some of whom die horrible, grisly deaths by the end of this books.
And in other related news, I have an overwhelming desire to spell whom “whome” today for some reason. I’ve typed it incorrectly every time I’ve used the word so far.
So now I plan to let the book percolate for a week or two, then go back through and start work on my notes. I made some notes to myself as I went along, things I wanted to flesh out in a second draft, a couple of scenes that need to be added in, that kind of thing. So I might give myself tonight off, then work on another project for the rest of the week.
It really should be Return to Eden, but to be honest with you, I’m a little afraid of that book. It started so slow that I’m afraid no one will stick with me for the payoff. And if no one is going to read it, why should I spend the time writing it? I know that I’m 10,000 words into the book and very little has happened as yet. A couple of creepy encounters, but no major fights. No magic, no supernatural occurrences, just people trying to figure out how to live in a world that’s changed pretty dramatically overnight.
I know, 10K words isn’t that much in this world of 100,000-word behemoths, but that’s a long time for me to go without a fight scene, or at least something going horribly wrong. The tone of the book is also very different – it’s a very serious book, and given my long-cemented status as a raging smartass, it’s hard to write serious stuff. But I like the overall concept of the book and series, and everyone I’ve told about the book seems to think it’s a neat idea, so I feel like I owe it to myself to at least write the thing. And hey, if it sucks I don’t have to publish it.
Okay, Mission Talk Myself Into Writing the Hard Parts accomplished. Wish me luck! And for the writers out there – is there a book or story that you want to write but it scares you? What scares you about it? What are you going to do about it?
by john | Jun 10, 2011 | Writing
Or more to the point, this marks the final stop on my blog tour by The Bookish Snob. I don’t have enough thanks for all the great people who’ve hosted me over the past several weeks, it’s been a lot of fun posting all over the internet, answering interview questions and meeting some new folks (virtually). Hopefully some of you will make it out to a signing or a con someday and we’ll be able to meet face to face.
I know, destroys the whole concept of the internet, this real life meeting thing. But since I moved out of my mom’s basement last week I’m feeling much more confident about myself. 🙂
For this last post let’s talk briefly about process. My process is constantly evolving, as I read more books and blogs by other writers, go to more workshops and talk with other writers and generally try to grow my craft. So don’t hold me to any of this, because I may not do it this way six months from now.
I try to write every workday, and my goal is at least 1,000 words each night. I have a day job, so I have to write in the evenings. Typically I’ll come home, eat dinner with my wife, we’ll watch an episode of something on Netflix (currently Trauma, but almost done with that), then once we’ve spent a couple hours together I’ll retire to the office to write. This is usually around 9:30-10PM. That leaves me with an hour or two to write each night, and I can easily crank out 1,000 words in an hour.
But of course there’s more to it than that. I write using a program called Scrivener, which has been Mac only up til now, but the Windows version is in beta for the rest of you. I like the way it lays out chapters for me, plus it exports directly to ebooks, which saves me $150 per book on formatting. That can be substantial over time, and since I have a lot of stories to tell, those savings will add up quickly.
I always write to music, and I tailor the music to fit what I’m writing. I usually go with singer/songwriter stuff when I’m writing normal scenes, but go heavier when I get to a fight scene. If you hear Rage Against the Machine or Rob Zombie coming from the office, you know I’m working on a fight scene. If you hear instrumental, please stay out – that’s what I use to work on problem scenes. Last night was a lot of Joe Satriani, because I needed to work out a few things plot-wise that were hanging up the continuity of the book, and I had to find a place to put another break in the action, no matter how much I hated it.
That’s one tough thing about writing vampires – there’s only so much dark time. At least in the spring and summer you’ve got to cram a lot of action into not a ton of hours. So I had to rewrite a few things, move a building across town and put in another daytime break because I just had too much going on in one night.And since my vampires can’t stand the touch of sunlight, I can’t cheat.
So I write to music, and I outline to music. I started outlining with Back in Black, and I find that it really does help me stay on track and write faster. Yeah, I know, it’s faster to get somewhere when you know where you’re going, right? And yes, that does mean that I wrote my first two novels completely by the seat of my pants, counting on my witty dialogue to cover any huge plot holes. Not the best strategy, but those books turned into The Chosen and Hard Day’s Knight, which are pretty good in my opinion. So now I outline religiously, and refer back to it all the time. I’m starting to put more detail in my outlines, too, in an effort to boost my word count. Rachel Aaron had a great blog post about this earlier this week, so I’m trying out her method to see if I can be more productive.
The goal is to generate 3-4 novels each year, so that I can keep more than one series going at a time. Maybe if I someday land a fat publishing contract (or two) I can cut that down to 1-2 novels per year, but that seems unlikely, since I’m not actively chasing traditional contracts right now. For now I’m pretty happy with the way things are going, and if the traditional publishing world wants to find me, I’m pretty easy to locate. I wouldn’t turn down a traditional contract if a good one dropped in my lap, but I’m focusing on writing for now and letting everything else sort itself out.
So thanks for stopping by, and thanks for hanging out on the tour with me! It’s been a lot of fun, but now you want to know how to win the contest!That’s right, all you have to do to get your name used for one of the villains in Knight Moves (and there are male and female villains, so you can win either way) is to comment on this blog post. Just leave a comment, make sure to fill out the email address field, and I’ll notify the winner next week. The contest will run until June 17th, so go ahead and drop your name in the hat now!
by john | Jun 8, 2011 | Writing
I talk a lot with other writers, both online and in real life (because that’s where the beer is!) about what makes an e-book sell. After all these discussions and head-scratching, I’ve come up with one simple, unquestionable answer.
We have no frickin’ idea.
I don’t have any idea what makes a book take off, while better books languish. I have no idea if it’s a cover thing, a blurb thing, or a marketing thing. But I do know a few things that will contribute to good sales, and in this series of posts I’m going to share what I think I know with you. But first, a disclaimer: this works for me, today. It may not work for you, and nothing I say may have any validity six months from now. The world is changing rapidly, and anybody that tells you they know exactly what is going to be happening in publishing a year from now is either a liar or an idiot, and you’re probably well-served to run away from them.
But we’re going to start with two things that I know are important – covers and blurbs.
That old saying “you can’t judge a book by its cover” is very nice when talking about things other than books, but the fundamental truth is that we can, and do judge books by their covers all the time. The cover is one of the most important things about a books, and that’s why a lot of really good writers spend a lot of time agonizing over their covers.
It’s also not something I’m very good at. Frankly, I love the covers of my first two books, but they do absolutely nothing to tell you what the books are about. As much as the cover of The Chosen is exactly what I had in my head when I got started working with my artist, it says nothing about angels, devils, immortals or saving the world. And Hard Day’s Knight is no better.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the HDK cover is beautiful, but look over at the sidebar and tell me that it says anything about funny vampires to you. Yeah, me neither. So I have cover issues, and I really didn’t come to that realization until this weekend at the HeroesCon, where I realized that people would glance at my covers, the covers didn’t speak to them, and they’d move right on. So at some point I’ll redo all the covers. Right now, I have good enough blurbs to get my sales cooking online, and online is where most of my sales come from, so I’m not going to spend the cash right now. But at some point by the end of the year, I’ll redo all the covers. I want a unified theme for all the Black Knight Chronicles books, and I want The Chosen to have a more fantastical feel.
So there’s one thing about covers – they need to reflect what your book is about, at least on some level. Here’s a better cover example, but one that still has a couple of issues in today’s market.Another thing that some folks miss when designing covers is the fact that they don’t just need to look good in mass market paperback size, they need to look good in the thumbnail, too.
Without picking on anyone’s covers, there are few things I notice with covers that take away from the impact.
1) Author’s name – it’s either too small to be legible, too big for the layout of the page, or the color of the lettering makes it impossible to read online.
2) Text – there seems to be a race to find our just how many blurbs, quotes and stats can fit on a cover nowadays. They’re almost always impossible to read online, so strip them off the file! If it’s fuzzy or illegible, cut it out! Move all that information to the blurb, where you have plenty of room to write all that stuff.
3) Overused royalty-free images. This is kinda limited to self-pubbed and small press books, but I’m tired of seeing the same chick looking through her hair at me from the cover of a book. There are a bunch of images out there, please at least look through YOUR GENRE bestsellers before using one that has been used a couple dozen times.
I’m out of space, so next time we’ll talk about blurbs. Leave your favorite cover gaffes in the comments.
by john | Jun 7, 2011 | Appearances, Comics, Writing
I’ll post more from HeroesCon/ConCarolinas later, once I’ve had a little more sleep and time to process. Needless to say it was a great weekend, and I even sold enough books to make back my table fee! The coolest thing that happened all weekend is at the end of this post, so you’ll have to read the whole thing to get there.
We’re not going to discuss the pile of money I spent on comics, we’re going to call it a win and be done with it.
No really, that’s what we’re doing.
Regardless, I’ve got some great stuff coming up, and I hope some of you will be close enough to come out and join me for it!
This Saturday night, downtown (uptown) Charlotte, I’ll be reading poetry and maybe a selection or two from my novels (but mostly poetry) as part of the Festivities with Collaborative Arts. They invite local artists to participate in their Charlotte Shakespeare Festival as opening acts, and then we get a chance to hawk our wares at intermission. I had a great time doing this last year for their production of Othello, and I’m excited to be asked to return. I go on at 7:15 at The Green, and I’ll have copies of all my books with me for sale.
But I’ll only have two copies of Hard Day’s Knight, because that’s all I have left after HeroesCon.
You like how I snuck that in there? Yeah, it doesn’t get any more stealthy than this.
Then next month I’m participating in a killer mega-signing at Barnes & Noble in Columbia, SC with Kalayna Price, Faith Hunter, Rachel Aaron and Misty Massey. We’re working on a cool name for the event, and I’ll get you more info as we lock down the details, but we’ll have books to sign, a badass giveaway, and a couple of panel discussions as well, so that will be super-cool.
And in September I’ve used up a year’s worth of Marriott points to pay for my hotel room at Dragon*Con in downtown Atlanta. I don’t have a table or anything that cool, because I’m still the new kid, but I’ll be there hanging out, drinking and going to panels. I’ve only ever been to one Dragon*Con, and that was in the very early ’90s, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the show has grown in almost 20 years. I also have some hopes of meeting a few of my favorite writers, like Mercedes Lackey, and getting at least a little bit of useful information out of the panels.
I don’t have much booked for the fall, need to get my ass dialed in on the writing front. I had what I think was a cool idea for a YA series the other morning, so I’ll start playing with that once I finish up Knight Moves. It’s about a kid in a world where most everyone has magic, except for her, and what happens when she finds out that she really does have a gift of her own.
So the coolest thing that happened all weekend – I went to ConCarolinas to hang out with a few friends and sit in on a couple of panels. The first panel I went to was called “The Future of the Printed Word.” Obviously something I have a vested interest in. After all the panelists had their say, I raised my hand to comment, and Faith Hunter (NY Times bestselling author of the Jane Yellowrock series – totally badass shapeshifter series) told me to introduce myself before I got to my comment. So I did, and mentioned that I had three self-published novels, and she then told the room that Hard Day’s Knight was one of the best self-published novels she’d ever read. I blushed, and was touched, and flattered, and all those things. I didn’t even know I knew how to blush anymore! But it was super-cool to get that kind of vote of confidence from someone who I count as a friend, and someone I respect a hell of a lot as a writer, too. That kind of affirmation doesn’t come along very often, and not very often in a public forum, to boot. So needless to say that was the highlight of my weekend.
