Feeling Overwhelmed

First and foremost, today is my son's birthday, so I'd like to wish him a very happy birthday and extra-special day.

As the title of this post suggests, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but also very relieved. I've been unemployed since July 1st and was trying to cope with my sense of worthlessness and lack of income. The job search was tedious and stressful, especially since I'd been comfortable with my previous job for four years. You might say I'd grown complacent. You'd be right. Suddenly finding yourself without gainful employment in an employer's market is not a fun place to be. I work as a computer programmer, have been doing this for nearly twenty years. I'm no stranger to formal and technical interviews, but this time around it seemed that every employer wanted to quiz me like I had just entered the market from school. The tests and questions ranged from defining certain programming terms (many of which come from first-year textbooks) all the way to writing small programs to accomplish some mundane task. I get it! You wanna make sure an applicant actually has the abilities their resume claims. But, seriously, EVERY interview?

Needless to say, I didn't concentrate much on my writing or editing while I was looking for work. However, I'm pleased to announce that I landed a job with a company that seems like a good fit, with great benefits, solid colleagues, and the commute and money are right. That's where a lot of my relief has come from.

The rest of the burdens weighing on me stem from my current novel as well as various stories I've begun or have recently been thinking about. First, I'll tell you about the current WIP, What Goes Around. This is the story of nine children who vanish from a carousel in 1958, while their parents are watching. Sixty years later, when some teenagers turn on the carousel, the nine children reappear on the ride. I think it's an interesting concept and has started to take shape, becoming something I'm eager to finish molding and polishing. I recently handed it to my wife, my first beta reader. Her reaction wasn't quite what I expected. She didn't think the scary parts were very scary, nor the ending as satisfying as I had hoped. However, she saw the potential in it. She provided her feedback, and, while it doesn't necessarily require a rewrite, it's close. She gave some fantastic suggestions that will make it a much stronger story.

I've just finished the first pass through the manuscript to correct the grammatical changes and typos she identified as she read it. Now, I've got to go through it a few more times to change large swathes by altering some of the characters' roles and motivations. Before handing it off to her, I had gone through it four times. That's a heck of a lot when you're editing a manuscript nearly three hundred pages long. I hate editing. It's tedious and with each pass, I become less enthused about the story because it all starts tasting like beans. At this stage, I can foresee several more iterations through the story just to get it up to her standards. This is causing me to procrastinate and think about newer, shinier stories I could be working on.

As I've said in the past, I am always working on new stories. I usually have a couple going at the same time, hopping between them whenever I need a change of scenery. I'm wrestling with these compulsions now. I desperately need to finish the sequel to my crime novel, Majoring in Murder. I have two other horror novels that I need to work on: Into the Black Mirror and A Consuming Darkness. These are only a few of the stories scattered throughout the production pipe. My notes contain a wealth of material for me to mine. In addition, I've recently been thinking about two characters I invented years ago and still have not used them in a story. That's because I think these two characters could carry a story by themselves, much like George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men. The more I think about them, the more details from their story emerge. I don't want to rush it, because doing that will only hurt the work.

In addition to all of the above, I recently wrapped up a free 5 book giveaway on Goodreads. Overall, I think it went well. The giveaway had a higher interest than I anticipated. Now, I just have to wait and see if any of the readers will leave a review. I'd also like to see if any sales result from it. Basically, I'm anxious to see if the giveaway results in any benefits. I enjoyed the process. If for nothing else, it made more people aware of my work and maybe they will become potential fans. I already want to hold another giveaway with even more books, but I have to exercise patience. And for me, patience is a hard row to hoe. I'm always eager to jump right in.

So, as you can see from what I've laid out, I'm feeling the pressure of the stories I'm buried under. The good thing is that I'm not under any deadlines, except for the ones I set for myself. I tend to publish at least one new novel a year, more if I can do it without churning out crap. I think this is a respectable pace. Some very good traditionally-published authors work at the same pace. I just have to keep reminding myself that writing is a marathon, not a race.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Rabbit is on the Run

I have a new book out called Rabbit on the Run. This is a novella of southern literature--quite a departure from what I normally write. The story is set in the Depression-era south, about a field worker named Gordon Mosely who is running for his life from a lynch mob determined to see him swing from a rope for a murder he didn't commit. You can see the cover over in the right sidebar or click the link above to find where the story is available as well as read a little trivia about the story's concept.

If you're into southern literature, then may I also recommend my novel, Lathem's Lament. Despite taking place in different times, I think both stories go well together and compliment one another, especially if you're a fan of a bygone era.

These will probably be the last of the old southern tales I write for a while. I tend to write any story idea I fall in love with, regardless of worrying about staying within the boundaries of a certain genre, as some of you may already know. I'm working to try to finish several books I've already started, which I mentioned in this post and provided sneak peeks of the book covers. While I'm still planning to release those books, new ideas have come to me that I've fallen in love with and some of those have taken priority. My usual plan is to write the first draft of a story and then push it aside to mellow while I return to other works that have, hopefully, already mellowed. Lathem's Lament and Rabbit on the Run are two of those from the last batch of ideas that I've now harvested (so to speak). Carniville is in the editing process right now. Youthanasia and Consuming Darkness are still up in the air.

Lately, I've been returning to my roots: writing horror, and this is reflected in my next batch of story ideas. Currently, I'm hard at work on a story called What Goes Around, about nine children who vanish from a carousel in 1958, in front of their parents. Sixty years later, the children miraculously reappear when three teenagers sneak into the amusement park and spin up the old carousel. I've written nearly one hundred pages of this book, but recently put it aside to edit Carniville. I'm anxiously looking forward to returning to it as well as beginning some other stories I've recently had ideas for. That's about all the inside scoop I have to offer at the moment, and why I've been so aloof from my blog. Hopefully, I'll have more stories ready to publish very soon, stories that all of you who're reading my blog or my books. I want you to be satisfied with what I put out there for you. Thanks for stopping by, and keep a lookout for my next releases!

Throwing in the proverbial towel

So, I was participating in NaNoWriMo this year and I was up-to-date with my word count, progressing smoothly with my story. Yesterday, after writing my required amount of words, I seemed to run out of gas plot-wise.

Prior to beginning the marathon of NaNoWriMo, I made some notes and discussed my plot with other writer, hoping to iron out any kinks. Well, apparently, I didn't map my outline well enough, because the plot seemed to lack the action I wanted. In addition, I think my red herring was more pink than it was red because it didn't distract the reader from the mystery as much as I wanted. I guess what I'm trying to say is the same thing that Bugs Bunny used to say, "I must've missed that turn in Albuquerque!"

When I lost that feeling of enchantment the story held for me, I remembered another story I started some years ago about a man who is able to visit the past where he attempts to steal a famous author's life by beating him to punch by writing his novels first. My wife was a big fan of that idea when I told her about years ago. She still is. And, when I ran the idea by my co-workers, they absolutely loved the idea. Their enthusiasm about the idea was so palpable, that I've decided to shelve my current work-in-progress (yes, you read that right; I refuse to give up on it because I still feel it's a great story given the proper preparation) in favor of continuing with that long forgotten work-in-progress whose title is The Old Royal.

And, for those of you wondering whether I plan to use this for NaNoWriMo, the answer is No. To bring in a piece that I previously worked on would be cheating, and I don't cheat, not even when it would only be cheating myself. I am hereby officially declaring defeat and gracefully bowing out of the contest. Best of luck to everyone still plugging along at their novels. I hope you make it.

Releasing your book into the wild: When is the best time to submit your work?

I've encountered this quite a bit lately and even wrestled with the question myself. I recently read on a writer's bulletin board a post that basically asked when one should finish a work and move on to the next WIP (work-in-progress for those that don't already know). A literary agent even addressed this question as well, so I decided to further the topic. As I've said, I wrestled with this conundrum myself, but luckily, I've managed to see past it. While I still haven't actually released my novel into the wild yet, I have gotten the inspiration to get it finished much quicker.

Here's my account: I began writing The Shadow People in 2005, before my horrible divorce. It took me 3 months to write the first draft. I set it aside while my life was turned upside down. I tried editing the hard copy in 2006, but felt it was too monumental of a task along with the ongoing divorce, so I quit after 80 pages. In 2007, after remarrying, I pulled out the manuscript and began thinking of how to edit the monstrous thing. I had a ream of pages before me and the mere sight of it took the wind out of my sails. Finally, I sat down with a legal pad and pen and read the whole thing through, creating an outline of revision notes on the pad. I thought it was horribly written and decided it needed a rewrite. I eventually rewrote it, although I don't remember how long it took to do so, but I think it was relatively quick. I put it aside again, to let it mellow. While it was tucked away, I began other novels, leaving them in various stages to work on other projects that felt more interesting. Finally, I stood back and looked at the mess of WIPs I had accumulated, realizing that if I kept on like this I would always have plenty of unfinished projects out there and nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, I kept reading agent blogs and news of debut authors selling their books to publishers. If I wanted to join these new authors' ranks, then I knew I had to get off my ass and quit procrastinating with my work. Like writing a first draft, I vowed to set some limits to accomplish the goal. I committed to editing a minimum of 10 pages each day. With 380 pages, it would take me just over a month. I made it through and it felt great! Now, I've decided to make one more pass, a 4th revision, but this one will be a lighter version since I've already completed the line-edit. I'll look at pacing, dialog that doesn't progress the story, etc. and clean all this up. When finished, I plan to distribute it to my first readers who've expressed an intrest in reading it to provide me with feedback.

The moral of my experience is this: writers are great at procrastinating! Whether they think of it that way or not, it's true. Maybe it's the trepidation we feel toward rejection. I could've continued telling myself that my work just wasn't good enough with each revision. Reading it over and over, feeling that I can do better than this. Of course, as writers, we should constantly be growing in our craft and this means that we will always look back at our older writing and see where we could improve it or express something better than we did. Even the famous authors have published books they can look back on, thinking, Wow, I could've done better than that! At least they're published! This is what finally lit the fire under my ass. I want to join the ranks of published novelists, so I decided to get the story written to the best of my current ability. If you sit on the manuscript, thinking you can always do it better, then you'll probably find yourself in the same detrimental cycle I was in. Eventually, you have to see if it has wings and can fly from the nest.