Perils of the Writer: Deciding What's Next

So, upon the writing of this, I'm putting the final touches on The Imposters of Aventil, getting ready to send that in (along with finalized maps, appendix, acknowledgments), and with that, Imposters of Aventil will be done. Save, you know, copy edits and proofs.  But the fundamental book that will come out next October (i.e., 2017) will be what it's going to be.

Now, what am I going to do next?

Fortunately, I have contracts and deadlines to tell me what that's going to be.  Namely, my top priority is going to be finishing the working draft of Lady Henterman's Wardrobe, the sequel to next March's The Holver Alley Crew.  I'm well along with it, but it is rough, and it's still got plenty of work to go.  That's really not a decision, though: that's what's next.

After that, my decisions and prioritizing get a bit more complicated.  I need to get moving on the third Constabulary book, The Parliament of Bodies.  But part of working that involves redoing the outline.  I'm also rewriting another manuscript-- one that's finished-- and getting that polished (and sold) is somewhat tied to Parliament.  This is the challenge with writing these interconnected stories in the same setting: having that re-write locked down will help me figure out what I need to do in Parliament.  The core story plan won't change, but there are shades and elements that weren't fully anticipated when I wrote the original outline.

Beyond that, I have a few things on the backburner that I will pay more attention to.  I still have a space opera book I'm working on, and it needs a lot of work.  Like, an ending.  And a serious re-write of the first three chapters.  I also have a fantasy project that is well-outlined, but it wasn't coming together.  I realized the problem is in the worldbuilding.  So I'm going back into that aspect and re-doing it in a way I'm finding fun and exciting.  Of those two, I think the latter is going to become my real 'back-up' project for the foreseeable future. 

But still, first things first: Lady Henterman's Wardrobe.  That's an easy choice.

Works in Progress: How to Determine What Now and What Next

Deciding what to work on now and next comes down to backing into dates of a marketing plan.

Want me to try that again in plain English?

I currently subscribe to the theory that the ideal release schedule for a self-published series is one book per quarter/four books a year. (Yes, there are lots of other theories out there, so YMMV.) I have four series I want to publish. Basic math says that equals sixteen books released in a year. Basic sanity says that's never going to happen. Creatively, I cannot focus on only one series because of burn out. (It's like having pizza every day; awesome at first but then you can't stand the sight, smell, or mention of it.) So, more than one series, but less than four. Three series is a book released every month. Again, not remotely realistic for me. So, knowing my personal limitations, I'm going with two series.

Which two? The one I've already launched and the one with the hungriest audience. Both are sub-genres of Fantasy. I don't want to confuse or lose any audience I'm fortunate enough to build by jumping into an unrelated genre. I don't (yet?) have that kind of dedicated following.

Eight books drafted, edited, and produced in a year is...frankly still beyond my abilities. How do I address that? Well, I've already screwed up the release timing of my High Fantasy series, so I'm going to accept that four 150k books a year isn't going to happen. That series is not going to fit the ideal marketing schedule. Not now. Not ever. Fortunately, High Fantasy audiences tend to be more forgiving of long gaps between releases. I'll shoot for one release every nine months.

My second series is Urban Fantasy with half(ish) the word count of the High Fantasy, yet a much higher reader demand for more frequent releases. So, four books per year has to happen for this series to succeed in a glutted market.

Now I'm looking at five books a year. Possibly still unrealistic for someone who's only managed to launch one book in the last eighteen months. How do I give myself a fighting chance?  I'm taking advantage of my foible and I'm stock-piling. I'm writing four books in the Urban Fantasy series before I launch it, so I have one year of work in that series ready to go while I write the next year's planned books.

When I wrap up a series another one can slide into its place.  That is The Plan...and we all know the plan is the first casualty.

That, ladies and gents, is how I determine on what I'm working now and next.

Juggling Multiple Projects - How to Decide What to Work on Next

Here's me on the Iron Throne (from Game of Thrones, if you're not in the know). I'm feeling like I look pretty natural there. The only thing missing is that I did not yet have my WWJJD? (What Would Jessica Jones Do?) ribbon.

Still pretty kickass, though.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven (which totally sounds like a superhero group to me, to continue to riff on the theme), is "What next? How do you decide which projects when?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

What is this "decide"?

Seriously - once upon a time this used to be an issue for me. I remember once making a list of a dozen or so story ideas and using a random number generator to decide which to work on next. Long gone are those days! 

Some of this comes from working with traditional publishing contracts. We end up "deciding" to work on whatever thing has the closest deadline. Due next week? DECISION MADE.

But it's also a natural consequence of writing series. If you have one, two, three, more books out there, then readers are going to be messaging about when the next one is coming out. That's a big decider, too. 

Of course, even with supposedly finished series, I get those messages, so...)

All this said, you know me. I keep a spreadsheet. 

OF COURSE I DO.

This is what mine looks like right now. I cropped so as to make it easier to read. As you can see, the "In My Court" section is the most salient. Right now I have four projects all solidly with me and none in "Someone Else's Court." Which is too bad, really. You'll also note that I classify them as either "Up to Bat" or "On Deck." The irony of me using sports metaphors for these should be lost on no one. On the other hand, the fact that I've mixed tennis with baseball says it all.

Also noteworthy is that THE NOISE OF FUR, which has a later deadline than THE TIDES OF BÁRA and SENSATION, is at bat. It seems counter-intuitive, but this is where my deciding comes in. I *had* planned to do revisions on that story starting 9/12 (which you'd be able to see if you could scroll to the right), but two things happened. First, Grace Draven, who is heading up the anthology, TEETH, LONG AND SHARP, that THE NOISE OF FUR is for, asked me if I could send my story to Ilona Andrews, who's writing the introduction. I didn't want to send it in bad condition. But then, second, I received the content edits from my editor and she thinks the story is in great shape! (Such relief!) So, I knew could both polish this story quickly and give it to Grace for Ilona to read. Thus, I did make a decision within my framework to move that up to being at bat and I'll do that today.

Sharp eyes might note that SENSATION and THE TIDES OF BÁRA share a deadline. This is an artifact of me getting behind schedule, which means the deadlines slid and stacked up against each other. In my head I know that the SENSATION deadline is a somewhat artificial one, and that's the one that will slide if one of them has to.

And if they all slide then... WWJJD?

Flash Fiction Fun with the Classics

With apologies to every lover of The Classics:

The Brothers Karamazov set out on an Odyssey with Great Expectations of finding Anna Karenina, whose Pride and Prejudice had led her to refuse the offer from The Catcher In The Rye. After checking her options at The Foundation Trilogy she’d climbed the Dune and was Gone With The Wind.

Peter Rabbit decided to keep her company and they hitched a ride on Revolutionary Road with Ben-Hur. They were making Pilgrim’s Progress while eating The Grapes of Wrath and talking Of Mice and Men.

Little Dorrit saw them thunder past in the chariot and being a girl with Sense and Sensibility, she talked to the Little Women and Little Men about what to do next. Report Anna? Chase Anna? It seemed the Call of the Wild was upon their friend as she fled her past mistakes.

“I think she’s going to Wuthering Heights,” said The Great Gatsby. “We could send The Three Musketeers after her.”

“What started all this?” asked Jane Eyre. “I thought she was content at Northanger Abbey with A Room With A View of the Bleak House and the Mill on the Floss? She assured me she could enjoy A Hundred Years of Solitude there because it was Far From the Madding Crowd, so what changed? Is it The Time of the Plague or what?”

“Our Mutual Friend received The Scarlet Letter from Oliver Twist, telling her A Tale of Two Cities about The Count of Monte Cristo and Tess of the D’Ubervilles having an affair in Paris and London, under her nose.”  Dracula winked at Frankenstein and sipped his dark red wine. “Now she’s On the Road and going Around the World in Eighty Days apparently.”

“But her true love since 1984 has been Tom Jones,” said Dorrit. “Ever since he sang in those tight pants at the Animal Farm, remember? She was on a date with The Lord of the Flies but she only had eyes for Tom.”

“It’s a Catch-22 and everyone is Les Miserables all right.”  Don Quixote stopped jabbing at Charlotte’s Web. “She needs a Time Machine to return to 1984 and have a do over because The Metamorphosis started then.”

Heidi, The Prince and the Pauper rushed into the room, all three hand in hand. “We just read in today's edition of The Pickwick Papers that Anna booked A Passage to India with The Old Man and the Sea! Should we go Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and try to arrive before she does?”

“She’ll run into Moby Dick and end up with The Swiss Family Robinson, or perhaps even Robinson Crusoe,”  Candide exclaimed. “The Idiot, going North and South on The Good Earth, with no clear plan.”

“At least she wasn’t Kidnapped.” Don Q ate a crumpet. “This is A Moveable Feast you’ve prepared for us today, Dorrit; my compliments to the chef.”

Smiling, their hostess said, “Frederica took a turn in the kitchen today, right before she left to attend the Cotillion with the Devil’s Cub."

 “Everyone should relax and stop being A Confederacy of Dunces. I’ll call The Lord of the Rings and he’ll not only find Anna, he’ll bring her to Washington Square, where Doctor Zhivago can examine her. Then he can advise us in The Remains of the Day what we should do next.” Dracula reached for his cell phone.

Dorrit turned to the only person who had yet to weigh in on their friend Anna’s problems. “What do you think? Are they talking White Noise or are the vampire and Don Q making sense?”

Atlas Shrugged.

The Classic that Wasn't

Catcher in the Rye.

I read it. Even finished it. Not because I wanted to. Not because I liked anything I read. I finished that book solely because I had innocent, blind faith that it HAD to get better. Somewhere. Somehow.

It didn't. Ever. How the ever living hell do you write 300 plus pages of some dude whining? I swear to all the gods, Salinger was paid by the word for that piece of kindling. I was (and still am to this day) vastly disappointed that Holden Caufield never DIED in that book.

I get there are people who love this story and this character. Maybe teenage angst wasn't my thing even when I was a teenager.

The other one I loathed and still do is A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Again. Had to finish it. It was on the final. But ye gods and little fishes. Did you know that all of these so called 'classics' by angst-ridden (and now dead) white guys could have been hundreds of pages shorter with just a little Prozac?? Why are despicable characters without any kind of hope of redemption worth any amount of my life energy?

All I can say is these two books totally justified the speed reading course I'd taken in 8th grade. I could not quit those books fast enough and still comprehend enough to write the papers on them that were required. Bleh. Even after all this time, I want to go scrub my hands clean after recalling those stories.

I far and away preferred The Color Purple. And To Kill a Mockingbird. And The Plague. And Wuthering Heights - though how Heathcliff came to be a romantic icon is beyond me. Wrote him up as an illustration of the concept of evil in literature for my English AP exam. All while singing Kate Bush in my head. How did you cope with reading books you disliked for required courses? And do you still force yourself to finish books you don't like?

Ignored Classics

All right, back when I was collegiate, I lived in the Scholar's dorm-- aka everyone here is smart and well-read.  That led to a fair amount of academic posturing.  You had to be all, "Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?  Yeah, of course I know that theorem, who doesn't know it?  Impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff act?  Please, I wrote a paper on that.  For extra credit.  Pride and Prejudice?  Yeah, I read that.  I read that in 7th grade."  

Friends, I did not read Pride and Prejudice.  Never have.  Was supposed to junior year of high school, but... yeah.  No.  Now that I'm not trying to prove anything (you try being a film student in a scholars dorm surrounded by STEM people), I feel no great need to fake it. 

But let's talk about some of the classics in the genre.  Because I'm unlikely to have my geek card revoked for not having read my Austen.  

In genre?  Let's see.  I've never read Lovecraft.  Never read Howard.  Never read Burroughs.  Never read Arthur C. Clarke.  Never read Leiber or Vance.  

But here's the thing: that's OK.  I've had a few moments at conventions, around other writers or fans, where I've felt that same thing creeping up my spine of, "Oh, you can't let them know you aren't an expert", but I've long since learned to beat that down with a stick.  There's plenty of the classics I haven't read.  Plenty of new stuff I haven't read yet, either.  And I'm all right with that.  

OFF TO DRAGON CON!

I'm off to Dragon Con (SQUEE!!!) this week so my post is short.

Classics I never read and why...

First, why....

TIME! THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH TIME....

Last, classics...

There is such a variety when considering 'classics.' I read what I read because I wanted to, it was recommended, or it simply interested me via the cover, the back copy, or the author's name. I was never compelled to read anything because of expectations of others. I read for pleasure, or for work.

Check in next week for my annual recap and "THE TOP TEN of  THINGS I OVERHEARD AT DRAGON CON" post.

The Classics: Fie on the Establishment!

Once The Establishment insisted I read a book where the dog dies, I seriously questioned anything they considered "a classic."  When they did it to me twice and followed up with a dead mouse chaser, I became that kid in school. The one who could talk "around" the book without having read the book. Yes, it was back in the pre-internet dark ages. Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, never read them. Beowulf didn't happen either. Don Quixote, Moby Dick, and Call of the Wild...I read the comic book versions. What? Classics Illustrated comics saved my sanity and gave me the time to read the books I actually wanted to read (Hello Victoria Holt, Agatha Christie, and Morgan Llywelyn).

Never fear, I atoned for my sins by getting a Bachelor's in English. Aka, The Sexton, Plath, and Woolf Will Haunt You Forever degree.