In the Beginning...

Today I want to talk about pre-production of the writing process.

First comes coffee. Period.

 It must be Millstone Chocolate Velvet coffee. It must be properly adjusted with cream and flavoring, and it must be served in a.) the Star Trek mug above, or b.) the Maleficient mug below. Without the adjustment or if served not in the proper mug, the coffee cannot be drunk. If served improperly, whipped cream and purple sugar sprinkles must be added to the top as a measure of penance. Oh, who am I kidding. I add the topping for the Hell of it.

For me, after the required coffee provisions are met, if there's a new seed and new work at hand, then before I get into the bulk of the writing the whiteboards and planning come into play, followed by reading.

It starts in my head with that seed of an idea. When it starts to root, it goes to the whiteboard. Here that nifty scheme gets explored and refined. In the case of Seph books, I'll research what has come before that is primarily relevant to this story and make notes, draw lines, use colors and make it interesting to look at because, hey, yeah, the artsy shit in my head doesn't turn off.

Once the appropriate connections seem made, I start plotting. Might be a few beats like the points on a W plot frame. You know, two triggers leading two turning points before the resolution. Easy, right.


Whew, we needed that laugh, you and I, didn't we? Yeah. Writing a book is never easy. But starting a plot can be as simple as five sentences.

Examples:

Point 1.) Due to feisty droids, Luke meets Ben.
Neo's at work one day, gets a weird package, and a weirder call.
Harry finds out he's a wizard, is sent to Hogwarts.

Point 2.) Due to his Aunt and Uncle's deaths, he leaves with Ben and meets Han and Chewie, and shortly are captured.
He learns about this reality, doesn't believe it when Morpheus says he's special. 
Harry makes friends, meets his teachers, learns about the school and his parent's. 

Point 3.) The group hides on the Falcon, come out later, rescue the princess and get away with the important plans.
Neo trains, meets with Oracle. He still doesn't believe. 
The potions teacher seems to be up to no good, which Harry investigates

Point 4.) Regrouping with the Rebellion, they plan how to defend against the attack that is inevitable.
Baddies attack, take Morpheus, and Neo and Co come up with a plan. 
Harry and his friends face various trials and 3 headed dog

Point 5.) Luke hits the mark and destroys the Death Star.
Neo accepts his fate and faces the baddies and wins. 
Harry faces and defeats the true bad-guy, another teacher than suspected.

Okay, okay, I over simplified it, but you get the point, yes?

Knowing a few beats allows me the freedom to explore the story and characters as I learn more about them through research and through the writing itself, so the whole process is discovery in large or small ways.

Those few sentences (or less) might be all a panster needs to write a whole novel. But I like a little more. Not a full forty-page outline, but the main points, certain details about characters (fill out character sheets, etc), items, places, and the expected emotional journey of the characters. I say 'expected' because the characters sometimes change their minds mid-story.

Then comes the reading.

Yes the reading. Those details on the chart turn into sparks that make me want to read up on items or places (view pictures, read personal accounts of being there) or psychology (quirks/patterns/etc). This is not just to reinforce my plot points. There's inspiration in those readings, if you want to find it.

I might write a scene or two here and there, but I generally have a well-rendered picture in my head before I really delve into the story.

Now, I'm bound for World Fantasy Convention in Columbus Ohio. Hope to see you there!

Pre-Production: Films Say Storyboard, Books Say Outline

Pre-production. To me, this is a film term adopted by multiple industries. I knew the details of pre-production in certain circles but not in filming. Because I like to pretend I'm smart, I looked up the details. Gods bless Google, I now know more than I meant to. All of the pre-production checklists--all of the decent lists at least--had "Lock Your Script" as the starting point.

Aaaahahahahahehehehehe

Okay, okay, okay, that's near the end of the process for us. But they did have line-items that meshed fairly well with the author-verse. Things like: Know Your Budget, Write the Production Schedule, Hire Your Crew, Cast the Show, Find and Secure Your Locations, and Complete Storyboards.

Strangely enough, that's pretty much what I do before I stare at the very blank page of Chapter One.

Budgeting: How much can I spend on cover art, editing, formatting, ISBNs, copyright filing, and marketing? The length of the book is often determined by the funds I have to pay the editors.

Production Schedule: When do I want to release the book? How many days before that do I need to lock-in the final file(s) with assorted distributors? How much lead time do I give ARC Reviewers & Street Teams? How many days does my formatter need? Proofreader? Copy-editor? Dev Editor? Artist?

Hire Your Crew: All those people from the production schedule need to be booked well in advance. I prefer a minimum 90-day lead; though, some artists and editors need to be contacted 6 months out.

Cast The Show: By the time I think "hey, this might make a good book" I've had many, many, many conversations with the protagonist about their plight, their scooby-crew, their most exhilarating/debilitating moments. I always cast more people than I really need, but, hey, that's what edits are for.

Find & Secure Your Locations: The couch hasn't gone anywhere in twelve years. However, before I start writing, I declutter and clean the house. Physical clutter is a distraction and I am too easily distracted when I write. Cleaning is necessary because once I start writing, the level of tidiness is on a constant decline.

Complete The Storyboards: Since I'm a plotter, this would be the outline phase for me. Outlining often explodes into full-on story writing, so...yeeeeah, this is the very, very last step of pre-production for me.

Driving the story forward.

I like to drive. Often times I'll hop in the car, crank up a little music and hit the road fro a while, preferably with a nice soundtrack and light traffic to keep me company. Sometimes I visit friends, or meet them for lunch, etc. In any case, I like to drive.

Because that, friends and neighbors, is where at least half of my creative process is done.

I was listening to THE SICKNESS by Disturbed when I came up with the idea for my YA Series SUBJECT SEVEN. The songs, the solitude, the lack of everything else that I should have been doing correspondence, the business of writing, etc) allowed my brain to plant a seed and watch it germinate. It was a lovely thing.

The seed of the TIDES OF WAR series WICKED WITCHES the latest anthology from the New England Horror Writers was inspired very heavily by a trip to Salem, Mass that I took a few months earlier. I looked around the historic sites and thought of all the deaths caused by the witch panics both over here and far more explosively over in Europe. The story came from that trip and festered in the back of my mind for a while before I let it out.

came from watching an old black and white movie (King Kong) and reflecting on the fact that the world didn't end when the hero of the story saved the damsel in distress from being chewed up by Kong. The rest of the story gelled for me when I was driving around New England and getting to know the area a little better. There's still TONS to explore, thank goodness. My story for

That's really very common for me On a few incredibly rare occasions I've had stories explode into my skull from a news article or a conversation, but those are the exception and not the rule.

Now and then I need to drive.

Now and then I need to dream.

Always I feel the need to write.

Family Stories

Because last week was the anniversary of my grandmother's death and because I am in nearing the end of a draft on a story set in New Orleans, I've got family on the brain. In part, because my mother's family is from the south. And in part because both in the story I'm finishing and in my life, family plays a complicated role.

This photo at right is of my grandfather Watson. He's the man on the right, in the suit and tie. This is in Arkansas, taken just after a church meeting. I have no notion of the year. Of all my family ties, my relationship with him was one of the least complicated. He and my grandmother both believed that my sister and I could do no wrong. We had an advantage, having both been born in Alaska, so far away form either set of grandparents. I met my maternal grandparents for the first time with I was five. I think they thought they had five years of spoiling to make up for. They were lovely people who accepted me without question and without fail, simply because I was their daughter's daughter.

But you know, they had six children. And those six children all had children. Some divorced, remarried and had still more children. By the time I'd come along, some of those children had married and started having children. That's a lot of people to have in the house at Thanksgiving. It's also a lot of people with a lot of different opinions, some diametrically opposed to my own. There are interdependencies and drama and accusations of terrible things. Dynamics of love and jealousy, rivalry and kinship are etched deep into the people who make up the family. We are mostly Scots/Irish and in the south, the clan identity never quite gave way. Your blood is your tribe for good or for ill. In reality, it's both. We have a body of stories in this part of my family - stories like Four Brothers Come to America and Marry Four Brothers. It was a headline in a local paper when a many times great grandfather arrived from Scotland. He and his brothers married four sisters whose last name was Brothers. When the Civil War came around, the entire line died out save for one lone boy who'd been too young to enlist. These make up a huge portion of our identity on Mom's side of the family. They're intertwined with the complicated side - like the occasional display of bigotry. I don't get to embrace one and ignore the other. They are part and messy parcel of the family.

And I'm not here to get up on a soapbox about anything. What I want is to have this complex, sometimes maddening, but ultimately loving and fertile ground woven into the story I'm finishing because it so defines the Southern experience and I suspect a big portion of the Civil War - in that it sundered families, both from an ideological stand point  and from the stand point that so many men died. The heroine of the story is already an orphan. She has no idea who she is. But she knows family. Crazy, maddening, loving and protective family. She'll do anything to protect them. Anything.

Perils of the Writer: Keeping Your Mind on the Work

So, I'm supposed to talk about whatever is on my mind, and of late my mind has been on the toxicity of social media, especially in the SFF community.  But at the same time, that's the last thing I want to talk about, because it is so toxic, and my brain power is better spent on other things.

So that's what's on my mind, but it is not what I want to talk about.

Because, when you come right down to it, the toxicity of social media should not matter.  What should matter is writing books, doing the work, and all of us authors can be "We've got books!" and everyone else can be "Yay books!" and that should be it.

I mean, my focus should be sitting down and writing.  Which is exactly what I do.  I've got deadlines coming up.  I've got more books coming out.  I do not have time to get into a tweet-war, nor do I have the inclination.  Why would I want to?

So: focused on the writing.  I'm deep in the process of Lady Henterman's Wardrobe, the second Streets of Maradaine novel, which is a lot of fun.  I'm looking forward to the things to come.  Heck, right now I've got three novels out, and a year from today, I'll have three more.  And I'm so excited about that.  I think you'll really enjoy meeting the Holver Alley Crew.  And you only have to wait until March for that.  

And only twelve days for An Import of Intrigue!  I'm so very excited.  We're do a full blog tour, kicking off on Saturday.  So keep your eyes open.  

You Tell Me: Urban Fantasy Covers--People or Objects

Since we're riffing this week about what's on our minds, I'll go with...covers.

I'm a fixin' to start work on the covers for my new Urban Fantasy series: The Immortal Spies.  I'm torn between using the traditional protagonist on the cover and the less common thematic art piece.


Examples of Protagonist-Centric Covers:

Examples of No People on the Covers:

For fans of Urban Fantasy, what are your thoughts? Preferences?  Strong feelings on either front?

Now And Then You Have To Eat Crow.

So, as I have said to several people in the last few years, I can be a luddite. I can be stubborn and I can even be down right repetitiously set in my ways. The subject in this case is self-publishing. Listen the fact of the matter is I've seen a LOT of people selling their self-pubbed books from the backs of their cars, both to individuals and in some cases even selling successfully to bookstores. I'm not saying that the works were amateurish, I'm just saying that you shouldn't have your seven-year-old nephew do the book cover, your auntie Mildred (You know, the one with dyslexia?) do the editing or your cousin with the xerox machine do your printing. It was about that bad when I was starting out. Mock me if you will, but those of us who have been there know the truth. There was a reason that self-publishing was sneered down at with open contempt. Most of the editing done was on par with one of my first drafts, before I proof it. That, folks, is just plain not pretty.

Well, over the last decade or so I've slowly learned a lesson. Self-publishing is like anything else. There's a right way and there's a wrong way. Only, until very, very recently in the history of publishing, doing it the wrong was was easier and far more common.

J.A. Konrath certainly deserves a great deal of credit. Not only was he really one of the pioneers of the new self-publishing frontiers, he was also one of the first to point out how he did it and make regular reports. He had a step up, of course. he had a traditional career as a best selling author to help boost his name and he's wise enough to use that momentum and keep going.  The man is practically an empire these days. complete with other people writing novels in his world and making profits as well, provided they receive Joe's approval.  That's damned impressive.

But in my mind he was the exception, and not the rule. There are always exceptions, right?

Enter E.J. Stevens.  Last year at Boskone, a fantasy convention set in Boston, E.J and I were on a panel together. I couldn't even tell you which one anymore,  (I THINK it was on keeping old myths alive in horror and urban fantasy).What I can tell you is that in the few minutes we had to chat before the panel started she caught my attention with her, frankly, impressive track record. In seven years time, E.J. had written and published fifteen novels. Self published. She had post cards, business cards, mini-posters, and actual books to show and they were well done. They had good, solid covers (I think the new artist she's working with is better. She improves. That is wise.).

Now, that's impressive enough. Let me clarify: E.J. had fifteen novels. Most of them already translated into multiple languages. Most of them either already out as audio books or heading in that direction. She had professional editors, professional translators and professional voice actors lined up and working for her on multiple projects. She had translators she could trust to double check that the first translators were doing it the right way.

She had, in other words, all the stuff anyone could possibly want from a traditional publisher. Only she was footing the bill for all of it and making a handsome profit to boot. In her own words, 80% of her time spent on books was spent on handling the artists, the translators the voice actors, the publishing and publicity details. Only 20% of her time was actually spent writing.

I'd say we exchanged cards, but I wasn't carrying one, I wasn't prepared. She was.  Even gave me a card that gave me a free download of her first novel in the IVY GRANGER series. As I love free books and was properly intrigued, I broke down, downloaded the book to my Kindle and read it. It was damned solid. I liked it enough that I bought the rest of the series. I can safely say that as a series they wander through the four and five star review territory for me. A with most every writer I've met, her style has changed and improved over the span of the series.

I thought about that for a few minutes when I was done reading the first one, by the way. Because five years earlier I would have been the guy that shook his head at the notion of self-publication. I mean, like Bill Clinton and pot, I've dabbled, but never anything serious. Unlike the former president, I can even confess that I'd inhaled on the notion of self-publishing, but only after the books had already been out.

E.J. Stevens had a few incidents in her life that made her decide to try her luck with self-publishing and set about the idea like a general running an elite killing force. Again, in her own words, she's a control freak. She HAS to have control over every aspect of her publishing career or she ain't happy.  I'm a traditionalist, I prefer to have other people working on the things I can barely comprehend.

But that's changing.

This Halloween the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival is taking place a block from where I'm living, at the public library in Haverhill, Massachusetts. I've been given a table to share with E.J. All I could think about was the fact that I would have nothing to sell but a couple of limited edition books. Next to me would be a woman hawking fifteen different novels, offering swag, with banners for several of her books. It's like being the kid in the playground who forgot to bring any toys. A little uncomfortable and awkward. And really, who needs all those looks of quiet pity? So I decided to self-publish a book for the event as an experiment. I got help from a lot of people, E.J. among them. Also Dan Brereton, John McIlveen, Bracken McLeod and Dyer Wilk.

Okay. Stop. Breathe.

E.J. Stevens. John McIlveen. Dyer Wilk, Bracken McLeod and Dan Brereton. That's five people to help me make one book. Six if you count in the foreword by Christopher Golden.

E.J. does all of it herself, or hires the people who do. She takes care of her own website (I occasionally dress myself successfully), she does all of the publicity and everything else. There are teams of people with my publisher whose sole responsibility is to make sure that my book (okay and their other authors) get great book covers, proper PR, layout, edits, etc. I quite literally have trouble grasping the volume of work involved.

E.J. Does all of that and well enough that she is, in fact, a best selling author many times over, Currently she set up and posted about two books on Saturday. One of them is in the top fifty from pre-orders alone at Amazon and the second ain't far behind. The books do not come out until January.

I have a lot of backlist books that are out of print. I can give them to someone else, or I can publish them myself. I can share in the profits or be a greedy bastard and actually do the work myself. I have a few books I want to write that no publishers think are a good fit for them. I think they are damned fine stories and I intend to prove it. I quite literally just published my own book (albeit with help) and I intend to explore these waters carefully.

A little while ago I posted the following at my blogspot. I couldn't post it on my website as I don't have the access codes and couldn't figure out what the hell I was doing in any event.

 I think it bears repeating:

Well, I have always said it's best to learn from those who actually DO rather than those who don't. E.J. Stevens is proof of that. 

E.J. has gotten so successful as a self-published author (Fifteen novels in seven years, multiple times over a best selling author and the winner of numerous awards) that she's told me during almost every time we get together that she's fending off people who want to play twenty questions and learn her deepest darkest secrets. So she decided to do something about it. Enter her new books. Listen, Christopher Golden and I founded the River City Writers in part because of a similar challenge. Want to help, want to teach, can't keep doing it for free when we have careers. 

That's the challenge here for E.J. Below are her solutions. 

The covers are self explanatory, but let's go one step further. 

Here's what E.J Says about the books on their back covers. 

SUPER SIMPLE QUICK START GUIDE TO BOOK MARKETING.

Want to improve book sales?

This simple introductory guide will give you the basic information you need to begin promoting your book. Learn how to find readers, increase sales rank, and become a bestseller. Both independently published and traditionally published authors will benefit from the tips, strategies, and checklists provided in this how-to guide.

This book provides an introduction to:

• Building an Author Platform
• Social Networking and Blogging
• Creating a Marketing Plan
• Checklists, Spreadsheets, and Calculated Risk Taking
• Designing Book Swag and Promotional Items
• Cover Reveals and Book Blasts
• Book Tours, Interviews, and Guest Posts
• Giveaways
• Book Reviews and ARC Reviews
• Retail Product Pages
• SEO and Keywords
• Advertising and Promotions
• Building and Maintaining an Author Newsletter
• Bookstores, Libraries, and Sell Sheets
• Book Signings and Conventions

Begin using these simple methods to help your book sales soar.

SUPER SIMPLE QUICK START GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING

Want to self-publish a bestseller? Check out the Super Simple Quick Start Guide to Self-Publishing. E.J. Stevens

And, of course,

Want to self-publish a bestseller?

This simple introductory guide will give you the basic information you need to begin self-publishing.

Whether you are writing your first novel or looking to breathe new life into your backlist, this guide will give you the tools you need to successfully self-publish. Useful information and checklists will help you create a professional quality book.

Simple tips will save you time that you can spend on writing, publishing, and promoting your next bestseller.

This book provides an introduction to:

• Copyright
• Beta Readers and Editors
• ISBN and Barcode
• Font Licensing
• Book Covers
• Ebook Formatting
• Print Book Formatting
• Audio Books and Narrators
• Translations and Translators
• Retail Product Pages
• Blurbs, SEO, and Keywords
• Pricing
• Book Reviews

I have, of course, already pre-ordered mine. They're out in January. 

Side note: Here's the cover to my first ever self-published boo (that isn't just a reprint). I chose an award winning artist to handle the cover as I do not have a seven-year-old nephew. 

Oh, heck, here's a LINK where you can buy it if you'd like.

More Important than Money

Caught this gorgeous full moon setting in the warm sunrise colors on my run this morning. Glad I took my camera along. Although it annoyed me bouncing around, so I had to tuck it inside my zippered hoodie - which made me look pregnant, though unnaturally so.

Unnatural camera baby, ftw.

This week at the SFF Seven - whether by deliberate ploy or mental lapse (there's some debate on the topic - our calendar guru KAK missed giving us a topic. Therefore this week is an open "on-my-mind" theme.

What's on my mind? I hate to tell you guys, but it's marketing. And the love of money.

Quite topical, really, with the U.S. Presidential election coming down to its final days, with one candidate a multi-billionaire known for his devotion to building a commercial empire, his campaign heavily funded by other corporate giants.

But really it's mainly on my mind because I discovered last week that a "new" author selling incredibly well in a subgenre is a pseudonym for an woman who wrote in a totally different subgenre last year (and sold well, I understand) under a different pseudonym, both of which were different than the name under which she wrote a prominent review blog well known for taking authors to task for bad books and bad behavior.

Without going into detail, I can only say that this disturbs me because it feels so calculated. More than one of my sister authors - all equally disturbed - in discussing this new revelation said, "well, I guess she's laughing all the way to the bank."

And right. So it goes. She's found a formula that works, that apparently satisfies readers, and is making money at it. A lot of people will say there's nothing wrong with this, and there isn't.

There's nothing wrong with money. I happen to be a big fan of money, mostly because it makes for a much nicer quality of living. As someone who now totally relies on my book sales to pay the bills, I like for them to sell. Like most all of us, I suspect, I'd love to have a lot of money. I have a bathroom/kitchen dream remodel I like to fantasize about (and maybe collect pictures for, mumble, mumble). I'd love to travel and do it high end style. I'd like to have enough money that I wouldn't have to worry about money.

But there are more important things than money.

What's weird to me is that, several times lately when I've given my reason for not wanting to do certain kinds of marketing, or to plan books a certain way - which is that I believe some things are more important than money - people have actually laughed. And then they stop when they realize I'm not joking. Then kind of subside into an uncomfortable silence.

I suspect they think I'm being weird by saying that. Or perhaps naive.

Both could be true.

Still, I believe in this. The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil and the Taoists say that putting the pursuit of money above all else maddens the mind. This is a real thing - becoming consumed in the acquisition of money above all else can drive a person crazy. That's why we say money can't buy happiness. Sure, as David Lee Roth famously said, "Money can't buy happiness, but money can buy the big yacht you can park right next to where the happiness is." Why not? Hey! A big yacht could be great fun.

But there are more important things than money.

I had a birthday in August and, as is our culture these days, I received many good wishes via Facebook. It can be staggering, all those people - from ones I've known all my life to those I've never met in person, who may have only read my books - wishing me a happy birthday. A few however, were static images that said "happy birthday" or some such, along with the author's website address and book series. This was the first year I'd seen that. And I could imagine just how that came about. Some marketer gave the advice that when you wish someone a happy birthday on Facebook, you're missing a promotional opportunity if you don't have your author information on there.

My point is, what's more important to you - grabbing that promotional opportunity or wishing me well on my birthday? Maybe some of you are saying both. Maybe you're wisely pointing out that rando person I don't even know doesn't actually care about me or my birthday, so why would I even be naive about their intentions.

I just find it troublesome. If even wishing someone well on their birthday has an alternative agenda, what does that say about what's most important to us?

For me, writing books and telling stories is an expression of art. And I feel funny even typing that. Some of these writers of genre would curl their lip at me for that. Funny thing is - I've always celebrated that aspect of genre-writing. I started out in the literary/arts council world and grew weary of the nobly poor writer. I have zero patience with the idea that writing a good book takes years of angst and thrashing. When I transitioned from writing creative nonfiction to writing novels in fantasy and romance (and the interstitial places between), I loved this community for focusing on making it into a business. We're here to make a living at it. I've written before about the concept of selling out - and how I didn't believe in it. That "selling out" essentially demonizes making a profit from our art and that's bullshit.

I still believe that.

I also believe there are some things more important than money.

Telling a story for the story's sake is one. I think there's a huge difference between trope and formula. I believe there's a huge difference between art and manufacture. They might be difficult lines to draw, but I think we all have to find them. I believe there's a difference between creating something out of love versus designing it to sell. Maybe not in the end product - they may be indistinguishable - I mean for the creator. It's another version of me wishing someone a happy birthday out of a desire to celebrate their existence in the world and in my life, as opposed to doing it to gain attention.

I think personal integrity is more important than making money. I don't believe they're necessarily in opposition - you can both make money and have integrity - but if it comes to a choice between the two, then I choose integrity. My integrity may not be yours. Only we know what we're at peace with in our hearts. But I do think we all have to make this choice. It informs who we are as human beings.

I read an interesting essay recently by Joyce Carol Oates, Quilts, in a collection edited by Elizabeth Benedict called What My Mother Gave Me. (I linked to my Goodreads review of it - very much recommend the book.) Oates talks about an old quilt her mother gave her decades before, now very worn, and the comfort it gives her, now that her mother is gone, along with both her first and second husbands. She says,

In extremis we care very little for the public life - the life of the career - even the life of literature: it is comfort for which we yearn, but comfort can come to us from only a few, intimate sources.

There are more important things than money.