And I unpacked my adjectives

Three words to describe the state of my first drafts:

Complete.

I change very little of the context of my first drafts. When I'm done saying things, I'm pretty much done.

Messy.

Yeah. Typos. They happen and I tend to miss them. The one time I ever hired an editor was because I needed someone to find those typos.
I used her for a few novels, and she was very good, She was also, sadly, not as fast as me.

Late.

It pains me to admit it, but I am seldom on time with my first drafts these days. I'm working on that. honest.

Speaking of which, back to the grinding wheel. these things refuse to write themselves!

Keep smiling,

Jim Moore ( Who is writing this Monday post on a Tuesday!)

Release Day: AVENGERS INFINITY PROSE (the novel) by James A. Moore

James is kickin' it in the movie tie-in business; ALIEN, PREDATOR, and now the Marvel Universe!  So if you're suffering an AVENGERS: ENDGAME hangover and want to linger in the world of the Earth's greatest heroes, buy this book today!

AVENGERS: INFINITY PROSE

The Avengers journey into deep space, where they unite the intergalactic races against the Builders--deadly aliens who seek to destroy the known galaxy. While the heroes are gone, Thanos sets his sights on Earth, sending the Black Order to launch the assault. It falls to the Inhumans, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, the X-Men, and more to defend the planet.

It falls to the other heroes of Earth--the Inhumans, the Black Panther, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, the X-Men, and more--to defend Attilan, Wakanda, Atlantis, and the rest of the planet. To defeat Thanos, the defending forces will need to employ a new weapon--one that may be as deadly as the invading force.

BUY IT NOW:

Amazon  |  B&N  |  BAM!  |  Indiebound

Clean, Partly Cloudy, and Fuzzy

Our topic at the SFF Seven week is all about first drafts, and the adjectives we'd choose to describe them. My three?

Clean

I write pretty clean overall, which is a blessing. I'm lucky enough to have one of those brains that retains spelling and picks out typos pretty easily. My weirdest mistake is the homonym errors that emerge when I'm in deep drafting. Stupid ones - like know instead of no. I think it's because at my core I'm an auditory learner. When my trained, conscious mind is less engaged, I revert to how words sound. Otherwise, though, copy editors love me. There's usually not a lot of minor stuff to correct.

Partly Cloudy

For the most part the story is pretty clear when I'm done with the first draft - but there can be some places that are a little obscure. My developmental edits are almost always adding, clarifying and filling in. The polishing of the first draft makes it all shine with no fogginess.

Fuzzy

I spent way too long looking for the exact word I wanted here. Revising the first draft for me means tightening up the dangling threads. I really wanted a weaving term for this, but could only find the fix, not the adjective for the unfinished state. Sometimes I discover insights as I finish the story, so I have to go back and make sure those threads are apparent from the start. I trim up the dangling threads and sort of hem up the whole story.

Conferences: Tried It, Loved It, Stopped Doing It

Author's own photo from RT 2016

This week’s theme: Lit Cons, Fan Cons, Comics Cons: What’s Best For You?

I’ve been to NASA conferences, Romance Writers of America conferences, RT Booklover conferences and Wondercon. I’ve even done a couple of virtual conferences online and book readings fairly locally. I even got invited to a Star Trek con (on my own dime so I had to pass because it wasn’t in the budget at the time) because I’m an official Red Shirt Enterprise crew member, having read the part in a Star Trek audiobook! I had fun at all times. I enjoyed being a presenter, I enjoyed being in the audience, I loved meeting readers, meeting some of my own favorite authors,  going to parties, doing the book signings. Meeting up in real life with people I ‘knew’ on social media was wonderful!

With Author Friends at RT 2016 after a big reader event

Conferences of all types are off my radar now as far as I can see. Not to go into tremendous detail, travel is currently nearly impossible for me due to a couple of chronic medical conditions so I’m a homebody and internet denizen. I don’t even do days at Disneyland right now and that’s pretty darn close via freeway. I get to the grocery store and that’s pretty much it most weeks.

But even before that, I’d decided in late 2016 I was basically done with conferences. The travel and fees were pretty expensive for my budget and I didn’t feel the money spent was giving me a good return on investment as an independently published author. As a person having a good time, ok WOW, yes, bring it on and do more! But as a business decision for my particular small business (which a self-published author IS), I was better off spending the money on more targeted promo of my own books or paying for fabulous book covers, for example.

The experiences were priceless and I satisfied a number of my own personal goals about being a published author (do panels! do a big signing! do cosplay! Meet Nalini Singh!) But I couldn’t justify the hits to my bank account to rack up more of those fun milestones.

An additional consideration for me was that all the prep work before and the down time after that I required after a big conference and the associated travel cost me a lot of writing time while I recovered. Maybe other people can step in and out of their regular lives smoothly and do these big events with nary a ripple, but I’m not one who can.

I think my experiences go to show the truth of the rule that there’s no one right or wrong way to pursue being a published author and growing your base of readers. I tried doing cons, it was FUN OMG, but didn’t work for my particular business.

Not saying categorically I’d never do another but it would have to be a really special event that I could not resist and would require a lot of forethought.

Conference and Convention Love

Cons

I love me some cons. Comicons are my fav. Always have been. Maybe because they were my first experiences. There's nothing quite like wandering through the tables, flipping through someone's boxes of comics with your list nearby, trying to find those runs you're missing while the vendor helps search another box for the single titles you need. "I know I had some of them this morning!" Eventually, I graduated to sharing a table with some friends at a local con so I could unload parts of my own collection so I could focus in on specific artists and writers. 

Then I got to start going to RWA events. Local conferences. My first National conference where I wandered around wide-eyed and lost for most of the time, but I LOVED them. I got to listen to a few of my favorite authors in the world present classes. Thanks to Jeffe, I even got to have drinks with a few of them and to meet authors I'd never have otherwise met. Best of all, I made a bunch of new and great friends. I also trudged away laden with books. SO MANY BOOKS. I should have known I might be in trouble when there was a station set up specifically for conference-goers to ship boxes home. Yes. I did make use of it and still had to pay excess weight fees on my luggage going home. 

Eventually, I graduated to presenting a few classes of my own. And when conferences were local, I made a point of doing my damnedest to go. Still do.

I'm not to a place professionally where I get invited to speak or present at conferences. I'm working on changing it. One step at a time. The local conferences all comp a part of your conference fee if you present workshops and that works for me. If I succeed at rising from the ashes of my own publishing career, maybe I'll come up with a workshop about how to pull off a phoenix stunt of your own. Guess we'll see. 

On another note, if you'd like to enter for a chance to win one of two $25 gift cards, come give a few likes to a couple of PNR, Fantasy, and SFR authors. Yes. Many of them write shifters. So if that's your thing, c'mon down. You might find a new favorite author or three. Or four.

Con Appearances

Man, I love a good SFF-lit con.  I wish I could go to more, but any that involve travel, unless I'm invited as a guest of honor, is out of my own pocket, so... I have to make judicious choices.

Especially since the fan-run, SFF-lit con is... maybe not dying, but it's definitely in an "evolve or die" place right now.  I see some of them evolving, and I see some dying.  Which is a shame. I will go to the bigger media comic-con if it's feasible (I'm at Comicpalooza in a few weeks!), but I find them less than useful for novel writers.  It's the difference of an event with 800-1000 people, who are pretty much all into books, and an even with 50,000 people, but only a sliver are into books.

However, I definitely feel like my local fan-run, SFF-lit con is on the "evolve" side of the coin, and each year it's gotten stronger.  And that would be ArmadilloCon, and HOLY CATS check out who's the Toastmaster this year.  YES IT'S ME.  So if you were looking for an excuse to check out ArmadilloCon this year, here you go.

BUT if  you need more reason, check out the Writers' Workshop, which is a fabulous one-day intensive workshop. I highly recommend it for beginner SFF writers looking to improve their craft.

And if you've got a con and you want me to come? Invite me!  I'd love to come.

Lurking in the audience at your con. Not creepy at all.

I love going to cons: fan, lit, gaming, comic, anime, and all other cons. Like, love love those things. My family and I attend the local science fiction literary convention here in Austin every summer, and have for roughly the last 20 years. I've been to World Con, PAX South, ApolloCon, AggieCon, Chupacabracon, A-KON, OwlCon, and, most recently, Coastal Magic in Florida.

Only one time have I been invited to attend a con as as writer. (Thank you, Coastal Magic 2019. I just want to hug the whole idea of you!)

Let me tell you, being a writer at a con is a trip and a half. Don't know if it was my lofty seat at the panelist table or having that featured-writer color-coded badge (eee!) that turned the whole universe on its head, but for four whole days, other writers didn't run away from me when I smiled at them. Even better, when I approached a group of them, they didn't huddle in closer toward each other and desperately ignore me, as if I might suddenly break in and force them to listen to an impromptu pitch for my 400k-word unpublished epic about squirrels. I mean, they let me into their conversations, even sometimes invited me! Also, readers struck up conversations with me, and most were kind enough to ask about my books. When I went to panels other than mine and sat in the audience, the panelists treated my questions seriously, as if that badge magically meant that I have a clue what's going on. (I don't.) It was... I dunno, like an alternate universe.

Also, I most likely won't do it again.

For one thing, it was really expensive, and if we are being gentle, we could describe my career thus far as one hell of an IRS deduction. And in terms other than money -- expertise, wisdom, that sort of thing -- I'm not fancy enough to do this on the regular. I still feel like a noob who needs to learn so much and is completely undeserving of that alternate-universe level of respect.

So yes, you are likely to run into me at a con. (I couldn’t avoid those cuties if I tried.) But no, you probably won't realize you did.*


--
* Unless we make arrangements and text each other, and then I will buy you a drink at the bar and you can tell me all about your squirrel epic. I love squirrels. Chupacabracon in May, ArmadilloCon in August: if you're going to either one, let me know and we'll meet up!

Indies at Cons: You're Welcome as a Reader, Not as an Author

Here at the border to the Midwest, we have a lot of book cons within driving distance. Small ones, huge ones, genre-specific, generalized, library-sponsored, city-sponsored--not publisher or Hollywood sponsored, mind--but if you got an itch, we've got the festival with the book on backscratchers.

The catch for me? I'm a self-published author, which for the sad majority of the conference organizers means I'm not a "real" author. I'm welcome to attend as a reader, but not as a professional. "Thank you for interest, but call us when we can find your books in Target." It makes choosing which cons to attend really simple: if the Con welcomes Indies and treats them equal to trad-published authors, then the odds of me participating vastly improve.

Now, there are Indie-specific cons, but it's an author-beware sitch. Too often, they're akin to MLM trade shows, where you're the prey and the "networking" is with vanity publishers, "PR" spammers, and book "doctors." Also unless it's a genre-specific con, most of the Indie stuff is targeted at non-fiction authors. When it comes to those type of cons, the emphasis is on the "con." You're better served handselling books at a local fair.

Locally, there is an exception to the Unwelcome Indies trend. One part due to the genre to which it caters (hello, Romance) and one part to the tenacity of the organizer who embraces the community as a whole. I'm referring to Lori Foster's Reader & Author Get Together (RAGT) that welcomes trad and indie authors for a weekend of hanging out with readers and an open-to-the-public book sales/signing event. It's a pay-to-play event, with conference revenues going to local charities. It is, in essence, a fundraiser more so than a con. Mad props go to Lori Foster and her team of organizers who persevered through all the lumps and bumps over the years of integrating indie books into the event. (The onsite-bookstore had challenges offering indie books, what with the inability to return unsold stock among other issues. Lori and her team continue to revise solutions while offering ones that work best at the time for all.)