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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Three
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Three This is going to be fun. I want to repeat that often. The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Ready to Go I’m going to start writing tomorrow. Honestly, I could have started today without much problem. But I scheduled starting tomorrow because of the work day outside of writing that I have on day three, where I will need to do 5,000 words. Day three…
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Two
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Two This is going to be fun. I want to repeat that often. The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Writing into the Dark Two days until I start writing. Tonight is Thursday, I plan on starting the novel on Saturday. So am I planning the book at all? Nope. This book I have a rough idea, more than normal, because of the short story in Stories…
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Topic of the Night: Day-Job Thinking
DAY-JOB THINKING VS LONG-TERM THINKING In the great comments on the last topic of the night, this new topic was brought up. So thought I would expand on the idea. Day-Job Thinking goes like this: I need a certain amount of money to make my bills this month and a day job gives it to me in a “secure” fashion. Nothing at all wrong with that thinking. Nothing. We all have to live and make bills and eat and all those sorts of things. This is survival thinking, folks, plain and simple. So again, nothing wrong with that kind of thinking. Critical. Long-Term Thinking is the ability of a person to see…
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Topic of the Night: About Time and Sales
ABOUT TIME AND SALES At the writer lunch today we talked about a royalty statement I got recently from Pocket Books on one of my many Star Trek books. It showed that the book had sold six copies. Under the old system, I would have glanced at that and just tossed the sheet laughing at how a book can only sell six copies in six months. But I am trying to move my thinking to readers. The old traditional thinking (and those in traditional publishing to this day) never considers readers at all. Just sales, numbers on a piece of paper to be batted around with graphs and profit/loss statements.…
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Topic of the Night: Balancing the Parts of Modern Publishing
BALANCING THE PARTS OF MODERN PUBLISHING Over the last week I have received three different letters from writers worried about the same problem. That problem is simple to describe, but very complex in nature. How do you balance the writing with the production and promotion of your work? That sound familiar? I bet just about every indie writer nodded to that. I am no exception, neither is Kris, or any of the other professional writers around town here or in the workshops. This balancing act we all must do is a continuous battle. We all talk about it all the time. And I do mean all the time. Of course,…
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Topic of the Night: One Reader
ONE READER: New and Old World I have been been just sort of thinking through different aspects of the new world of publishing compared to the old world. And adding in what is success in this new world and time and other factors. It has been kind of fun and I hope to continue approaching this from different angles at times. Not all the time, just at times. So for a moment here, I want to be clear on the summary of some of the clear differences between when I sold my first novel in 1987 (not first novel written) and the world now. First, what was happening thirty years…
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What I Do Not Believe
WHAT I DO NOT BELIEVE Since I listed a number of things I do believe, figured I would list one or two things I do not believe about writing. ——- THE DAY Made it to the WMG store around 2 p.m., then home again, then to the snail mail, grocery store, and back to WMG offices to work on Smith’s Monthly and other things until around 6 p.m. Home to take a nap, then cooked dinner, then got in here around 9 p.m. and got out all the letters for the February online workshops. (Still time to jump in. They start on Monday.) Then more television, then back in…
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Responses
RESPONSES TO LAST NIGHT’S POST As I expected, my short little topic of the night last night made some people very angry. I’ll talk about it below. ——- THE DAY Made it to the WMG offices around 1:30 p.m., grabbed some banking things that needed to be done, then headed out to the banks and then a meeting. Got back to WMG around 4:30 p.m. after running another errand. I did some work around there for a time before heading out to the grocery store, home to take a nap, then dinner. Got in here to work on mail around 8:30 p.m. and then ended up doing some other stuff. Finally…
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Perspective
Topic of the Night: Perspective This is just a thought a friend had about why so many great writers are getting discouraged and quitting. He thinks it might have something to do with perspective, and I think he might have a point. The system when he and I came into publishing worked like this in general: You expected to spend five or so years learning your craft, getting rejections, then eight or ten years into the process you would sell a novel which would take a couple years to come out. Then, if you wrote regularly a couple books a year, in ten years you might be able to make a…
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Topic of the Night: Lawrence Block’s New Writing Book
Last night I went on about how writers need to focus on writing, but not forget about learning. One great way to learn is read how-to-write books and books about the industry. When learning, always go to learn from those a long ways ahead of you on the road you want to walk. Simple rule. And with publishing and writing books, you read it and take what makes sense to you and ignore the rest. Every writing book should be treated that way, including the ones I have written. Take what makes sense and leave the rest, but don’t give the book away. Put it on your shelf and in a year or…