Transitioning

[caption id="attachment_3815" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="I love to read. I used to have time for that."][/caption]

Some of you may know this, some may not, but one year ago at this time I had just found a publisher. Vamplit Publishing had my debut novel about vampires with a Christian twist, and I was simply waiting for the editor to send back my carved-up manuscript. At that time, I had one MySpace account which was gathering dust (for spying on my teenager, don't you know), as well as one Facebook account. With that, however, all that I was doing was looking for old friends and playing Vampire Wars. Other than checking my e-mail multiple times per day for my edits which would ultimately not come in until Christmas Eve day, I had nothing to do in terms of writing.

     Oh, what a difference a year can make.

     Why am I telling you this, you ask? Some may be wondering why I am retelling it. Faithful readers of this hallowed page may have noticed that what was once fairly regimented has grown, shall we say: loose. There’s a reason for that and our hope here is it will be temporary. You see, many of us have gotten busy at quite the same time with regards to writing projects becoming published novels, and blogging evolving into PR campaigns and book tours.

     For me, 2010 transitioned from checking my e-mail every day, waiting for my novel to be published - to being published nearly every week. First came the blog. I didn’t design that. My publisher handed me the keys, but it was certainly up to me to fill it with stuff. I posted information about my novel, as well as film and music reviews and the occasional rant or editorial. A guest post on Wicked Writers transitioned over to a regular spot every other Friday. A review in a local magazine brought me to the attention of an editor who had just launched her own on-line magazine. I had never written articles before, nor did I have any kind of experience in Journalism; however, I have now been writing articles for her since the summer. I now have a second Facebook page (The Official James Garcia... You get the idea) as well as a Twitter Account.

     The point I’m attempting to make is, we spent a lot of time dreaming that these days might come; that we might be writing. Little did we realize, perhaps, just what form that might take; or how it might all come together. I think many of you have probably gone through the same things. Notice how I’ve mentioned nothing at all about us having houses to maintain, or children or grandchildren to parent. Or day jobs! Many of you are writing and running blogs; others are reading, reviewing and running blogs; and a whole bunch of us are trying like heck to do it all. Busy, huh?

[caption id="attachment_3816" align="alignright" width="225" caption="There's a few DVDs there I still haven't seen yet."][/caption]

 This brings me to the heart of the matter: please hang in there if we suddenly seem to have neglected to post on our day; or if we fail to update the poll or go a while without offering another contest. I think everyone here would agree that this site is very special to us, as well as all of the interaction with you fine people. Many of us are simply coping with transitioning at the moment. C.J.’s flying about the country on the Wicked Writer’s corporate jet, doing lectures and signings. NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) has claimed a few of us braver ones who are endeavoring to write a complete novel in one month (Anastasia and J.D.), Greg can’t hardly get any work done with Hollywood pleading with him to save some blockbuster project of their's by taking the lead role. And for me, between writing posts and articles, I’m supposed to be overseeing the PR machine as it figures out new and improved ways to get the information out about my positively reviewed novel that few know about. I am also supposed to be polishing up its sequel and getting it ready for the moment that my trusty publisher asks for it.

     John Lennon is famous for a great many things, but in the Beatles’ song, “The Ballad of John and Yoko”, he sang, “Christ, you know it ain’t easy…”. It isn’t one of my favorite Beatle’s songs. In fact, I typically skip it. However, being motivated by music, it was the one lyric to leap into my head as I was crafting the paragraph. You may also notice one of these days that the blog appears a bit different. Potentially, we’re moving. I’m told it will be seamless and you will not have to be redirected or find one of those notices that we’ve moved. You will not have to pick up our mail or kick the pile of newspapers out of your way while walking to the front door. Nothing like that.

[caption id="attachment_3817" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Jones is waiting for someone to come play with him! "][/caption]

     Just please hang in there (like my cat), because that’s all that we are attempting to do as well, amongst all of the stuff.

     As I like to say over on my blog…

     …We’ll talk soon.

It's My Duty to Inform You That...It's NaNoWriMo Time!

I don't know how this fell to me, but I'm going to leave the humor aside for one week (and I know many of you are saying "what humor?") so I can remind faithful readers about the one time of year we all really enjoy...besides Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, July 4th and Halloween -- namely NaNoWriMo. 

For those not familiar with this event, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and was started by Chris Baty back in 1999. The challenge is to write a coherent novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days. It began yesterday (Nov. 1) and runs through 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 30.

By that date, you'll either be beaming with a new novel or still pissed at the results of the Grambling State-Southern Bayou Classic.

Anyway, there is no actual prize associated with being a winner. Writing 50,000 words in a month and making them fit into a novel is prize enough. You do get a little banner that you can paste to your writing.com account (if you have one).

And who knows? You may find your novel getting picked up by a publisher. Think it doesn't happen? Ask Sara Gruen and her novel Water for Elephants, which hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. For a list of NaNoWriMo participants whose novels got picked up for publication, check this out.

If you should decide to participate, here's how to get started:

1) Sign on to the Internet

2) Go to www.nanowrimo.org

3) Sign up

Note: If you're one of the 60,000-plus who did this last year or the year before, use your old sign-in name, please. Otherwise, they won't remember you. They have the means to help you if you've forgotten user name and password. Also, remember that the word count will appear on your WDC page.

[caption id="attachment_3767" align="alignright" width="251" caption="Want to be the next A.M. Homes? Join NaNoWriMo"][/caption]

And don't worry if you've never written a novel before. A friend of mine wrote something about vampires, vacations and Alaska and it got published. And the writer was from Jersey, no less. So, it's not that difficult.

Anyway, here are a few helpful hints for writing 50,000 words in one month:

A) Be loose. Set aside time to write. Say about an hour a day. It can be morning, noon, night or late night. Especially a time with no distraction like kids or snoring spouses (hey, husbands can snore, too). Most importantly, write every day because, if you don't, it's like missing a day of exercise. You'll suddenly miss more and more and it will be Nov. 30 before you know it.

B) Have some flexibility. You might find yourself wanting to change directions with your novel. It might start out as a memoir of how you met your husband and then change into how you met and married husband no. 5.

C) Set goals. Now, NaNoWriMo suggests writing at least 1,667 words a day, but that's mathematical. Write what you can. You'll have days when you don't feel like writing much of anything and then there will be days when your significant other can't pry you loose from the computer. Go with the flow and just write something.

D) Wait until the end to edit if you must. Trust me, I've fallen into this trap too many times in the past. Think of NaNoWriMo like the SATs. With tests, you answer all the questions and, if you have time left, you go back over them. With your novel, write until it's done. Then, if it's not quite 11:59 p.m. on the 30th, go back and browse through it. (one exception to this hint: please use Spellcheck and Grammarcheck).

Also, here are a couple of books, including one by Chris Baty himself, on how to write a novel in 30 days (both available on Amazon.com):

[caption id="attachment_3764" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="By Chris Baty"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3765" align="alignright" width="150" caption="by Victoria Lynn Schmidt"][/caption]

Special note: The winner of the Halloween novel contest is Kris M. Kris, if you would please review my last blog and pick a title from the list, I will have that sent to you post-haste. Just leave a comment on this week's blog when you decide and then we'll go about exchanging info offline so I can order it.

From "WIP"-ed to "Published" (I hope)

If I may be real for a moment...no, seriously. I really mean it.

I finally got frank and earnest (they weren't cheap either; sorry, I tried) with myself and started getting my stuff published en masse.

The reason?

It’s called the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA), sponsored by Amazon.com’s CreateSpace publishing division.

[ Deadline Feb. 7, 2010 or first 5,000 entries (be quick). Right now, the site is accepting unpublished manuscripts (ones that have not had any contracts tendered for it) until Feb. 7 or  until 5,000 entries are received, whichever comes first. ]

Anyway, the ABNA contest spurred me to finally stop tweaking Land of the Blind and send it in as early as I could.

Before this, I had sent things piecemeal to various small groups like Lulu.com. I dabbled with vanity publishers, but dismissed them when they wanted tons of money up front. I finally found Writing.com and made myself content with putting my writing on the site, occasionally trying contests on the site.

By not paying attention to the publishing end of the writing thing, I missed valuable opportunities like the most recent edition of Abaculus from Leucrota Press.

I did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which only gave me the satisfaction of writing a novel in a month (though not one even close to publishable). While I did that and felt satisfaction at writing more than 50,000 words, I almost missed ABNA.

Fortunately, I started paying attention and entered ABNA. Prepping for ABNA got me researching for possible publication sites. That led to looking at online sites and other venues, which led to a flurry of activity on my part. I'd been sluggish for the last several months and needed that swift kick in the...pants.

So, I am now concentrating on the next reason to finish something. It’s called “Page To Fame” from Webook.com.

Now for what I sent out during my flurry of activity.

I currently have part 3 of my novella Crawl appearing in the latest edition of Spectacular Speculations.

I just published They Call the Wind Muryah, Dark Tidings (Vol. I) and Dark Tidings (Vol. II) on Smashwords, an ebook service that puts items through a literal meat grinder and reworks them to be compatible with Kindle, Sony Reader and others.



I submitted a short story called “Onward” for Farspace Anthology 3 and another called “Atonement” for www.farsideofmidnight.com. And I’m still not sure what I’m going to submit for Writers of the Future (which I can only do until I sell 5,000 books or get 5,000 or more hits on ebooks).

One thing that getting published on Smashwords and the other sites did was get me to go back into my old folders. I had stories in one of my files marked “finished” that I hadn’t done anything with. So, now I am editing stories like “Romantic” and “Only Human” to send out.

I’ve also gone back into the “Unfinished stories” and “Story ideas” files for more writing stuff. With Land of the Blind and all the aforementioned items published or submitted, I suddenly have time on my hands.

Finally (and none too soon), I am trying to figure out what to do with Hunters, my first completed full-length novel worth publishing. I had a contract for publication with the late (but not lamented) Mystic Moon Press (an ugly mess I won’t get into here). Now, the rights are back with me. I could try PublishAmerica and let them have first right of publication for seven years or I could go with a small, independent press.

Ah, decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, I'll get my idle hands active (sorry Lucifer) and start doing the research, leg work and prep work for sequels to Hunters and Land of the Blind, along with some short stories from my "ideas" file (including ideas from the 90's).

Sometimes I wish I could be like Bethany Page, this week’s guest blogger. She’s juggling six titles, plus a household, numerous contests and — gasp — teenagers. Meanwhile, I’m fretting over a novel I finished a year ago and wondering how I can juggle all of the things I want to do.

But, that is where I am at the moment with my writing.

Until I top the bestseller lists, enjoy the blogs and view my stuff — please (before I become rich and famous like...oh, wait, I'm not supposed to mention her in my blogs for awhile...let's make it Wendy and Supriya).

It looks as if my attempt to be serious is failing, so I will sign off.

P.S.: If you haven’t read Bethany’s guest blog, by all means do so. After seeing her ordeals, trials and tribulations, your efforts won’t seem so bad. You’ll get a lot of inspiration.