Quick Recap

I feel like every time I write, I need to recap it, even though I suspect no one is reading this blog. It's still helpful to me to sum up where I'm at with my novel. Sometimes just getting it down helps to figure out where I should go next, or sometimes to realize where I've gone astray.

I didn't exactly advance the story yesterday, although "advance" makes me think of a line of marching soldiers, and thanks, soldiers, but I'm not too worried about getting there by a certain time. So, take a break, guys; there's still a long way to go.

While I'm cognizant of not writing boring sections, I can't always skip over the nuts and bolts or the story would be spaghetti-thin. Thus, I detailed my main character's band's first recording session with their volunteer producer. Nope, they're not in a fancy, modern studio; they're recording in a motel room. Their producer has flown in to the small town where MC lives, and the town barely has a fast food joint, much less a recording studio. None of the band member's residences are suitable for recording, so the producer decides to use the motel room that had been reserved for him as a makeshift studio. (For some quirky reason, he preferred to bunk with a member of the band, so the room isn't being occupied anyway.)

Together, the group works to soundproof the room, using blankets and even a rug, and by shoving furniture up against the walls. I like the old children's "put on a show" aspect of it. Seriously, what part of an actual recording studio would be interesting anyway? They even soundproof the door by heaving a bookcase in front of it, making fresh air breaks a real chore to undertake.

This claustrophobic atmosphere perhaps doesn't lead to problems, but the problems that occur are exacerbated. At one point, MC gets so upset by something that happens, she runs into the bathroom and slams the door, the only place she can get away from everyone. And yes, there are frustrations and even tantrums. Part of it is nerves, part of it is crossed signals, but the day does not get off to a promising start. MC has quite a history with the producer ~ he was the A&R guy from her record label who fired her. He's since quit his job and is floundering, looking for something meaningful to do. The back story of why he quit will trickle out eventually, but for now MC is wary of him and he's wary of her. She knows, however, that he is the only producer they'd ever have a chance of landing, so her dealings with him are cautiously cooperative. By the same token, he's trying to be less abrasive, but with all the screw ups occurring, his patience is tested.

The two of them have professional disagreements as well. He doesn't understand her reticence in recording certain songs, nor in shopping her best song to popular artists (which would virtually guarantee her a nice payout in royalties). 

Their relationship, such as it is, has become a weird twist in the story. My original intention was for him to only pop back up again via a single phone call. 

I also wrote briefly about the MC's attempts to reach her mentor by phone. Producer guy wants MC's band to record some of the songs she had sent to the mentor, but without an explicit rejection from her, MC refuses to record any of them. The whole episode has become frustrating. The mentor is ostensibly MC's friend, but she's certainly not acting like one by ghosting her. I only have a vague idea where this is heading, but I want it to end on a positive note since I love the mentor character so much.

At this point in the story, I need to bring all the important characters back into the fold, which will be a problem. I haven't thought of a way to reintroduce MC's friend from (the town of) Chance that's plausible, and she has no reason to travel there. I think my imaginary readers would be disappointed if he doesn't show up again, though. 

I left off with the producer starting to tell her a bit of the history regarding her dismissal from the record label. This is another aspect of the story I'm unsure of, so multiple conundrums remain.

At least I'm no longer in a hopeless mood. Things are moving. 

 

 

"Services"

 

Quick ~ what's more lucrative than self-publishing? Well, pretty much everything, but also apparently "book marketing services". 

I wonder how many self-published authors have been turned off of social media because of the relentless bombardment from marketers. I have. While I stopped participating in most social media sites a while ago (Facebook, X, Instagram), LinkedIn consistently hounds me with connection requests, regardless of the fact that I'm not active on the site. It didn't take me long after I joined to stop responding to my connections' messages. The deceptive connections are those who list themselves as authors, but really aren't. There are a few, but they are pretty easy to spot. They just want to say hello, and they leave it at that. My first interaction with an "author" started out friendly enough, but she soon started pushing publicist services on me. Just as I would never open my door to an itinerant salesman, I refuse to engage with people nagging me to try their "wonder product", meaning book marketing, proofreading, formatting (seriously?), and anything else even tangentially related to publishing. 

There are so many of these people out there, it's hard to believe any of them are making actual money. And hypothetically, if I was interested in pursuing any of these services, I would research and find the right person for the job. Sorry, not picking Random Guy on LinkedIn because he said, "Hi".  

Sadly, I believe that most of these people are scammers. Not sophisticated ones who really put a lot of effort into their scam (like the one I almost fell for), but they'll still gladly take your money and run. Why would I need someone in Africa or Pakistan to do my book marketing for me? Who would they be marketing to? A lot of them don't even speak fluent English.

Today I received my first ever comment via my author website. From guess who? Why, a marketer, of course. Now they won't even leave me alone on my own personal site.

I've considered adding a note to my LinkedIn profile, stating that I'm not interested in any services, but I doubt any of these people read a person's profile anyway. I'm getting close to the day when I'll deactivate my account. I only joined because some doofus online said that it was a good marketing tool. (It's not.) But it seems that no matter where I go, or even if I don't go anywhere, they track me down. 

I neither want nor need any help with my enterprise, failed though it may be, but best of luck in your future endeavors, I guess.

 

Tip for Beginning Writers ~ Don't Be Afraid

Some people, a few at least, are natural novelists. They can sit down and type out their very first manuscript and it will be so engaging, so natural, so imaginative, that literary agents are breaking down their door.

Then there's the rest of us.

When I decided to take the plunge into writing fiction, the only thing I knew was "how books go", meaning I'd certainly read lots of books, so I understood my story would need a main character, that things would need to happen to her, and that everything would (probably) work out in the end. I was so focused on the mechanics that my story turned out as dull as dirt.

It wasn't so much that I was afraid to take chances, but that I didn't think I should. Each scene should glide predictably into the next, and it wouldn't take a telepathic reader to figure out where the story was heading. And of course the novel's ending would be tied up in a big red bow. Sweet...and snoozable.   

Every would-be writer has at least one talent. Some people are wildly imaginative, some are masters of grammar and sentence structure, some instinctively know how to build tension. But for someone who's serious about writing, the talents that don't come naturally have to be learned. I learn by doing, mainly by doing something wrong and realizing it. If I was to reread my first novel, I'd understand that while a lot of "events" happened, they were so surrounded by boring drivel that even I wouldn't keep reading. (Oh, but the sentence structure is A plus, and all the verbs are conjugated correctly. 🙄)   

Since none of my stories are pre-planned, I'm constantly asking myself, "what if?" The trouble with that first attempt was, none of my what if's were one bit surprising. If I did have an original thought, I quashed it. "No, agents won't like that." Thus, my what might happen became what should happen. 

Now, after eleven published works, my biggest takeaway is, don't write boring. I'm hardly the first person to say it, but every scene has to count; not necessarily in big ways, but if the scene is there, it had better be accomplishing something. 

And those "what ifs"? Be surprising. Another reason I don't (and can't) outline, aside from the fact that I don't want to be just a stenographer, is that my best ideas appear out of nowhere, completely unintended. I can be writing along, knowing right where I'm heading, and then, wait! What? What did the main character just do? Oh, great. How am I going to get her out of that?  

Growing up, I was grimly focused on doing what was expected. I could avoid trouble if I did or acted the way someone ~ parent, teacher ~ wanted me to. If I did everything just right, I patted myself on the back. Whew! Dodged a bullet! In my first eighteen years of life, I think I only got in trouble once. That's kind of sad. I was too scared of the consequences to be a risk taker. But now as a writer, who is there to be scared of? Scared of having only a handful of readers? That's disappointing, but not fear-inducing. I'm not trying to snag an agent, and frankly, they hate everything, so if I was to start querying again, I'd still write whatever the hell I wanted. 

I could go back now and rewrite that first novel, retaining the premise, but writing it so much better. (No, I'm not going to do that.) This time it would be full of twists, full of "what ifs". I could actually make it interesting. 

If you're just starting out, don't waste a lot of time and effort like I did. Write your story the way you want to write it. Take chances. Writing is taking a chance to begin with, so don't blow it. 

Gotta Keep Going

The other day I wrote about a recent long writing session that got out of hand. I found myself zig-zagging from one plot point to another...and then to still another, with a few new things mixed in, and LOTS of dialogue. Without even rereading it, I knew I had a mess on my hands.

So, yesterday as I began my latest session, did I go back and fix everything that was wrong? Hell, no. I read the last sentence I wrote and just picked up from there. See, I have to keep moving! I've gotta get this thing done! There's no time to waste. Seriously, I can't worry about editing right now. As slow a writer as I am, a couple hours of writing doesn't get me far, and if I spend half that time reworking the narrative, I'm going to be stuck in the same spot forever.

The good news is, that manic writing session wasn't the norm. Yesterday I was much calmer and more deliberate. More good news ~ while I didn't reread anything except for that last sentence, I recalled most of what I'd spilled out and it's not that bad, plot-wise.  

I'm aware that my previous writing has problems, but part of that derived from not knowing where to take the story, so I did what I always do: write and write, hoping a lightbulb will eventually flicker on. And I think I managed to do that. I'm feeling much more confident, and what spurred that confidence was reintroducing a few of the supporting characters. I was in a rut; my main character was really only interacting with her cousin anymore, and that led to dullness. With a few other characters popping in, new possibilities opened up.  

While I constantly bemoan my overuse of dialogue, one thing I do well with it is create a specific voice for each character. No, everyone does not talk the same. I'm not talking accents, but word choice and manner. Yesterday, the MC's former boss showed up in town. He'd quit his job and had time on his hands, and somehow he ended up volunteering to produce MC's band's album. Coming from the professional world, he has a direct way of speaking; not unfriendly, per se, but "to the point". Whether MC knows it or not, she needs someone like that in her life. While she holds fast to her principles, she's constantly worrying about other people's feelings, and having someone advising her to be direct absolves her of her guilt. 

I also brought back a character who only appeared once in the first third of the story. In fact, he never physically appeared, but he showed up in some bad recollections. He's from another country and he'd heard MC's original band's music online and strangely became a super fan. He fancies himself as a "videographer" and came over to America, filmed some of the band's performances and stuck the videos online. Really, what he was was a pest. Those videos came back to haunt MC early in the story. (She hadn't divulged her previous status as a singer to her new love, and he broke up with her due to her dishonesty once those videos were unearthed.) Now this pesky character turns up again, this time for comic relief. It's really only a throwaway scene, but again, it allowed for a new voice to come into the frame. He speaks in a style which leaves out articles of speech, such as "a" and "the", and doesn't consistently use the correct verb tense. No, I didn't stereotype him; instead I used my ears, recalling the manner in which someone from his country actually speaks. Plus, he doesn't get many lines. He's only there to be an unwanted annoyance. It's little things like this that perk up my interest in a story. I try to always weave a "different" character into all my stories ~ not dangerously different, but quirky. 

Unlike a few days ago, I'm feeling good about what I've done. Most importantly, I'm energized again. I'm ready to keep going.

 
 

Exploring Book Trailer Creation ~ Tips

The nice thing about book trailers is that they're short, or should be! The not-so-nice thing is, regardless of length, creating one is still time consuming. I've been pondering creating a few for embedding in my author website, which is the only practical purpose for having them. I do have a YouTube page under my pen name, but it's only populated with two trailers that I made years ago, and how anyone would find them remains a mystery. 

Back when I was creating music videos for our band, I used Windows Moviemaker, which, to me, is still the best free application for ease of use and intuitiveness. Microsoft now has something called ClipChamp and I checked it out yesterday. Immediately I was turned off by its web-based functionality. It's often taken me a few sessions to finish a video, and so I like having it stored on my hard drive as opposed to having to worry that my hard work might simply disappear. 

I was willing to experiment with it, though, and it does have some nice features. If one is looking to add narration to a video, ClipChamp has several AI voices from which to choose, and many of them are natural sounding (some aren't). It also has a good-sized media library with images, video clips, and music; but here's the rub. Almost all the selections are only available to premium members. I discovered that when I tried to add a very nice music clip to my test video and was told, "Not so fast. You've gotta pay extra for that." I pay to renew my Microsoft 365 subscription every year, and being expected to pay an additional monthly fee for a video editor is outrageous. I'm guessing ClipChamp won't last long under these requirements, when someone can flat out buy a better editing app they can store on their hard drive.

So, ClipChamp is out. And no, I'm not willing to shell out money for an application I'll only use sporadically, so my default is Windows Moviemaker. I'm fine with that, but more functionality would be a bonus. With WMM I'll have to find my own free music, but I've done it before and I know there are several sites that offer it, including Pixabay. And no, my book trailers won't have audio narration, but I don't think I'd want that anyway. A book trailer should set a mood, entice someone into wanting to read the book, and the best way to accomplish that is with a combination of nice images and video, along with the appropriate musical accompaniment. I'm also not averse to inserting a few quotes from the book, if they'd help to drive interest. Creating those are simple enough with an app such as Canva ~ one can even turn these into dynamic (or "kinetic") typography that'll zoom onto the screen however you want it to zoom. WMM also has this function, but if you want something fancier, create one with Canva and download it.

I had a true forehead-slapping moment yesterday when I was searching online for free video. I've used Pixabay many times for royalty-free images, and never once noticed that the site also offers royalty-free videos. (By the way, it also has a library of sound effects, as well as the afore-mentioned music.)

The truly time consuming aspect of creating a book trailer is finding appropriate images (again, Pixabay!). A creator will first need to at least mentally outline what aspects of the book he/she wants to emphasize. With some genres, that can be simple ~ the themes are obvious ~ but for my own particular genre, things change from book to book, so for example, if I wanted to make a trailer for Shadow Song, there are a few fundamentals I would want to feature; a dark woods definitely being one, since that's where the inciting incident occurs, but off the top of my head, I would emphasize the lake and its surroundings, since that's the setting for the story. I might include some amusement park video or images, but one sort of needs to know the story in order to "get" that reference. In short, I don't yet know what I would include, and I don't even know which book I'll choose to make a trailer for yet. Once I do settle on a specific book, I'll tend to let the images I find guide me. One might not always end up choosing the most obvious ones. Remember ~ mood.

I dislike a video that simply clicks from one image to the next, so I employ WMM's transition effects. It's more visually appealing to dissolve in or fade out each frame or use any number of the other effects available. Moviemaker also makes it really simple to shorten or elongate a frame, so if you preview your trailer and the scenes and music don't seem to mesh, or if you have a particular frame you want to really resonate with the viewer, just drag the status bar to make it as short or long as you want.

This probably goes without saying, but don't forget to include your book cover, either at the beginning or end, or both. If you want to steer viewers to your website, you could add the address at the end of your video. (WMM does let you create text clips.) I personally would include the book's "buy" link in your YouTube description. Flashing it on screen as part of the trailer simply isn't practical. I suppose that goes without saying. (Yes, also include your website link in the description.)

Plan to devote some time to the project. I'm very particular about my videos; even a frame that's just a smidge too short or too long will drive me nuts. Remember, your trailer is a reflection on you, the author.

My understanding is that with newer computers, Windows Moviemaker is no longer part of the package (I suppose especially now, when Microsoft is pushing its new and "improved" video editor), but it's still available to download (and it's still free). I've downloaded trial versions of several different editing programs, but all of them had a learning curve that I wasn't willing to spend hours mastering, so I deleted them all. If a program is going to drive me to the brink of insanity, forget it. When I go to start a project, I want to start the project.

I still haven't decided if I want to spend time doing a trailer, but I can at least browse images and download the ones I like, and I can still sample Pixabay's music and video. If I end up taking the leap, I'll be sure to post it here.

  

More Wastes of Time ~ Publishing Widely

"Hey, can you find this book for me online?"

"Sure, I'll just pull up Apple."

"Sure, I'll just pull up Kobo." 

"Sure, I'll just pull up Amazon."

Lots and lots of self-published authors distribute their books widely. Not me. I bought into that myth with my first two novels. I added my books to various sites, including Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Kobo, and others whose names I no longer remember. Know how many copies I sold from those sites? None. I suppose if you use Draft2Digital, which is a book aggregator, there's nothing to lose by having your books on multiple platforms, but there is also nothing to gain. You'll also be prohibited from participating in KDP Select, which might matter to you or it might not. 

Yes, I'm curmudgeonly, but more than that, I'm practical. I don't feel like messing around with anything that doesn't provide a return on investment. None of these other marketplaces will ever compete with Amazon. Believe it or don't believe it, but it's true. Amazon is the Big Boy. I have never once purchased a book from anywhere but Amazon. Trade publishers might feature their books in places like B&N, but I'm guessing that's because B&N also has brick and mortar stores. Having a book on B&N's site is a lure to get a customer into the physical store, where they'll maybe pick up two or three books. If you're like me and only publish ebooks, though, why would you give a damn about that? If you do publish physical books and are an indie author, your books won't find a home inside an actual store anyway.

I get frustrated reading "tips" on how to market books. They all include little tidbits like this, which only serve to mislead authors. Know why these articles only mention publishing widely, newsletters, and social media? It's because the people writing them have no clue how to sell books, the same as us. (Apparently they know how to sell articles, though.)

I prefer to tell you how not to sell books. At least I'm honest.

 

Trying to Figure Out How to Proceed

I've made a mess of my novel. 

I don't know how it happened, but I suspect the culprit was story fatigue. I recall writing my very first book, and how I would take walks once I reached the halfway point to ponder how to proceed. I think if it had a really engrossing plot, the whole thing might have flowed naturally. But my plot was thin. While the initial concept was fine ~ a woman, through some kind of magic turn of events, assumes the identity of her grandmother, and subsequently her mother. My problem was, once I began delving into each woman's story, I ran out of ideas.

That's similar to what's happening now. I had a blast writing about my main character's first experiences in Nashville, especially the humorously humiliating ones. I even enjoyed the Iowa scene, which drove her to quit and run away. That scene is long because it was fun to write. I kept piling on new disasters.

But after a while, there were no more surprises. Things became mechanical. Getting the MC out of her messes was just a matter of coming up with the most logical solutions. What fun was that? Yes, there were a couple of confrontation scenes, but because I knew they were coming, the spontaneity was missing. It's my own fault I created some situations early on that would eventually need to be resolved, but now that I'm reaching that point, they feel like have-to's. 

It's not that I keep adding new scenes because they're exciting; it's because I haven't figured out how to settle those outstanding issues, so I'm delaying. The worst part of all is my over-reliance on dialogue. 

The possible solutions I've come up with so far is to use the text-to-read feature in Word to hear just how bad things are, which is step one. Then I might have to start pasting individual paragraphs into a new document in order to break up all the dialogue with description. Starting with the manuscript as a whole would be too daunting, but if I tackle it one piece at a time, I'm hoping it'll be easier. 

I'm currently watching a video that offers different ways to edit. Some of them are impractical, such as printing out the manuscript and cutting it into different blocks of text, then rearranging them. Seriously? I wouldn't do that even if I had a working printer and unlimited funds to buy ink. Besides, rearranging isn't my issue. The novel flows chronologically, and no, I'm not going to try some crazy trick involving putting a scene first, then relying on flashbacks to add context. I'm not Quentin Tarantino. 

Editing will not be as simple as creating a jigsaw puzzle. It's going to be hard, tedious work. I'm not good at description, which is why my stories have very little of it. It's a steep mountain I'm going to need to climb. 

I know that journeymen authors have a lot of problems they need to solve, but I bet most of them haven't messed up a story so badly that they don't know how to get out of it.