My Triumphant Return

Hello readers, I’m sure all one of you has been anxiously awaiting my return. Your prayers have been answered. I am back.

Where have I been? Where haven’t I been!

I’ve worked a lot, I’ve traveled a bit, I ran marathon, and oh yes, I wrote a book.

Yes, I know, I said I wouldn’t do that until I reads 107 books and wrote up my thoughts and lessons here on this blog. Well, funny story…

I started noodling around with the book, and I wrote a bit here and there, and then more, and then more, and then I was pretty much like fuck it, I’m going to finish it.

I cranked out 250 to 1,000 words a day, stuck to the outline, worked through some sticky plot issues, took a few unexpected artistic side paths that seemed like a good idea at the time (and it turns out, maybe they weren’t such good paths), and eventually, boom, I reached THE END.

I didn’t smoke a cigar or get drunk, or really celebrate in anyway. Instead, I went back, and read the thing from the beginning, going over pages I hadn’t seen for a couple years (I started the things a long, long time ago, Dec, 2010, to be specific).

Strange thing about finishing a novel, you don’t know if it good or not. As I read the thing with fairly fresh eyes, some parts seemed good, some pretty bad, some somewhere in between. My final impression was that maybe I was on to something. There was something there that someone out there somewhere would pay to read, and be happy they did so.

So, I signed up for a couple of internet writers groups, Litreactor and Scribophile, both excellent in their own right. If you want feedback on your writing, I recommend signing up to either.

I signed up for Litreactor first, submitted Chapter One, and got three detailed bits of feedback after a few days, really good feedback. Having strangers give you unfiltered opinions will make your work better, but also leave bruises. Stuff you liked will get dinged, and stuff you didn’t think was so great will be cited as the good bits.

I was so happy with Litreactor, and how much those readers helped me make the first two chapters better, that I signed up for a second group, Scribophile. I also received great feedback there, also helpful.

My plan was to run a chapter through Litreactor, then after polishing it up, run it through Scribophile for a final tune up. Great plan! Except…It was stupid.

The way these sites is work is that you have to read and critique others’ works, getting points each time you do. On average, give or take, you need to read about five other things to be able to post one of your things.

With Litreactor, you don’t get your karma points until the person you critiqued acknowledges your feedback and rates you from great to good to blah. Great gets 3 points, the next gets 2, and the lowest gets one.

Most of the time, readers give you three points if you put in a fair effort to give useful feedback. However, a few time I got two points, which annoyed me to no end. I didn’t want to have to write more critiques. I just wanted publish my work and hear what others had to say.

Then there were the times when writers would takes days to give me my review credit. So frustrating. Especially after I read a 10,000 word piece that was kind of blah, not horrible, but definitely work to read. For that I guy, I had to wait three days for my points, and then, when he didn’t finally give me credit, it was just for two points. I wanted to strangle the guy.

Over on Scribophile, you get point per word you right. The writer can give extra credit if he chooses, but you always get your points, which is the big plus with Scribophile.

I probably should just stick with Scribophile, but I’m torn because I really like the crowd over on Litreactor. They are weird, writing more experimental, edgy stuff. The Scrib folks are more mainstream, more commercial, more trying to write the next Twilight or Hunger Games or be the next Grisham.

So, burned out on writing websites, I hatched another plan. This is pretty much what I’m doing now…

1.       Do one more read through, making a version four. (And boy, let me tell you, the fourth time you read your book, it sucks. Everything sucks. Nothing seems good anymore. I hope it’s not as bad as it seems right now.)

2.       Have a guy I know at work read it, a guy who is paid to write things for a living, and get his feedback. I’m going to pay him, because he is performing a valuable service for me. It is not just a favor I’m asking for. It’s 10-20 hours of work.

3.       Use Writer’s Digest writing services. For $4 a page, they will have a copy editor of a line-by-line edit. Expensive? Yes! Ah well. Whatever it takes. I will learn a lot.

4.       Then, ready or not, I’m going to publish it on Amazon Kindle. If it gets any kind of positive response at all, I’m going to invest in some marketing, maybe a few small ads in places like the New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly.

I’ve got an idea for my next novel. It’s a pretty good one. It could maybe even be a series. Maybe even be published by an actual publisher.

But we will see. First things first.