Last Night’s Dream
Somehow I wound up in the trailer home I grew up in way back in Minnesota, only it wasn’t still in Minnesota, it (along with the addition and basement) had moved to Canada and was in a strange location I’d never been in. The addition on the trailer was still unfinished (the two bedrooms still had no doors or walls) and the back door had been moved from the read of the house to the side. Still, I knew where I was.
I found myself sleeping in a recliner and when I woke up, I realized that the animals hibernating the in the basement would be waking up because the last snow was finally melting. And I was right! First the bears left through the back door. Most of them were small and lethargic. I stayed in the recliner and watched them leave. The last bear was so large that he shook the entire trailer as he left and I rolled off the recliner and hid behind it to watch him leave. I was happy to see him go. He scared the bejezzus out of me.
Then the last animal left. This one wasn’t a bear. It had a bear’s forelimbs, but a tiger’s rear end and a head that looks like a mash up of the two. It was narrower than the last bear, but taller. I watched as it left and once I knew it was fully out the door, I leaped up and rushed to close the back door (it shifted from the side to the back once the last animal left). I watched through the screen door as the animal walked down the hill. It stopped, sniffed, and turned back around. I knew it was hungry and I was stupid for watching. I should have just closed the door. The thing came back.
He head-butted the back door several times and shifted the trailer off its mounts and caused a split in the side. Wolves saw the opportunity and came through the opening. Then I woke up.
My second dream wasn’t nearly as vivid. I can still smell the animals leaving. Maybe that’s just me. Hmmm..
So in the second dream, a tarantula was running for president…and won. I think it’s because I was watching “All the President’s Men” documentary last night. I need to finish watching it tonight. Great stuff. I also need to watch the movie with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. I’m wondering why my brain translated Nixon as a tarantula.
There is much to do this week! Two books should be headed your way! Paradise Palms and My Teacher is a Vampire. I will, of course, let you know when they drop!
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Last Night’s Dream
I had a great dream! I did! Sadly it escaped me in the morning heat, but I do recall my second dream. In case you’re noticing a pattern, yes, I have multiple dreams during the night. Most I can recall, some I cannot.
The one I can remember isn’t nearly as exciting as the one I forgot. The one I forgot I woke up all excited (not that way!) and felt like I needed to go somewhere. I blame being shut in the house for a couple days and being down all day yesterday being sick.
So, the dream.
My Team Lead (from work) and I were driving a 4×4 out in the woods. We were chasing our other team mates who were on quads. There was much mud, many dirt roads, and racing through the trees. For some reason we were playing vehicle tag. In my dream it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as real life would be. We ‘tagged’ someone and then drove off into the woods. I don’t recall who was driving, I just know my team lead and I were in the vehicle. My sense of perception was in front of our vehicle, not from inside.
We drove over to a pool that was shaped like an O, but squared off. We crossed a small platform to the middle and stood there watching people swim around. I wanted to jump in and wearing only my shorts (where did my clothes go?!) I almost did. Then I remembered that I had my keys (the wife’s actually) and my cell phone so I couldn’t go swimming.
A woman was getting ready to go into the water. She put on her headphones and clamped her phone in a waterproof case and away she went. I thought that was quite interesting (I’ll have to see if this is a real product). The case was filled with a waterproof/conductive gel that allowed her to still use the phone while it stayed dry.
My team lead and I hopped back into the vehicle and drove away. For a short time we made our own road through the woods, knocking down trees, plowing through a river, scaring small woodland creatures. Then we got back on a dirt road with huge dips and ruts.
Then I woke up wishing I could remember my first dream. It’s a hot morning and will likely get hotter. At least I’m not feeling crushing pressure on my brain from my sinuses today.
Today I’ll spend some time writing, some time editing, and some time working on a friend’s website. Should be a good day.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Why I went the Self Publishing Route
I post regularly over at sffworld.com and here is a post that some might find of interest. It’s most of the reasoning behind why I went self-published vs traditional published. The main thread is here.
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My two cents:
I decided to go the Indie (self-pub, whatever you want to call it) route. I’ve been writing since the 90s, been submitting stories and books since 1999. Been on these forums for quite some time. I’ve developed quite a thick skin. Over those years I’ve written over 100 shot stories (most of them are terrible) and 14 novels (a few of those suck and a couple have been completely rewritten). I’ve submitted to publishers and agents both big and small both via snail mail and email. I’ve collected a large number of rejection letters (all of them form letters for my novels). I’ve even attended conferences and had one publisher that said pull me aside for a personal conversation and had me pitch him my novels and asked me to send them along. After more than a year with no response, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands.
First of all I’ve been watching the self-pub movement for quite a long time. I’ve watched the vanity presses suck in authors with hopes and dreams and watched people get taken. I’ve watched people toss their one book they spent 15 years writing and re-writing and watched them fail because no one bought their one book. I’ve watched podcasters skyrocket to stardom (Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty, Nathan Lowell, Tee Morris, Philipa Ballantine) and a couple do very well being persistent and release multiple podcast novels to coincide with their novel releases (both traditionally and self-published), and others release one novel, release a book, and wonder why it failed. I’ve watched J.A. Konrath and read all his blogs. I’ve watched Dead Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathrine Rush, Michael Stackpole, Amanda Hocking, and many others go the self-pub route and have great success, but I’ve also watched a LOT of other smaller name authors have a level of success that has allowed them to quit their day jobs and write full time pulling in a nice annual income with many titles.
What I’ve seen is those that can produce a large volume of work reap the rewards. Those with one or two titles generally fail because they don’t see immediate success and throw up their hands and give up. This isn’t a game of throw your book out there and you’re guaranteed success. You can’t force people to your book in 6 months and expect it to be a hit. That just doesn’t happen. All of the people I know that have made it spent years working hard to improve their craft and wrote a lot of books. Amanda Hocking release 9 books her first year and did so in a hot genre that helped her gain popularity. J.A. Konrath acquired his backlist and got better editing, better covers, and re-released them all. Same with others I mentioned. They fought for their backlist, got it, and put it out there. People couldn’t find their backlist due to publishers not giving these authors priority. They’re a rare handful.
As for me, I’ve done a couple podcast novels, but due to life happening I stopped. I had released one novel myself, but again, life happened and I stopped. This year will be different as I never stopped writing. I have a backlog of 14 novels and several in process of being written and/or plotted out. A couple of my older books I will be re-writting because I know I can make them better. I have a great and inexpensive cover artist. I have three friends that all proof read my work (one is a technical writer with a background in editing, another went to school for editing because when she retires she wants to be an editor, the other is just good at picking my stories apart for content). It’s taken me many many years to reach the point where I’ ready to get my stories out into the world. I also have a backlist of my own stories that I’ve had edited, I just need covers, book layout, and I can get these books out the door and into readers hands. I’ve spent nearly a decade watching the market, the self-pub movement, and keeping an eye on what’s worked and what hasn’t.
I didn’t come to this decision lightly. I would love to have a standard publishing contract from a major house, but I’m not getting any younger and I’m frankly tired of waiting and submitting and waiting and being rejected. I haven’t been idle and I know it’ll take a long time to gain readers. Going this route, for me, won’t mean overnight success. It might take me another five or ten years to gain an audience, but I need to keep at it and keep trying. Getting my books out there, going to cons, doing interviews on podcasts or where ever I can, and doing blog tours, anything to get my name out there. I also need to keep a steady stream of books flowing out. I need good covers. I need good editing. I need to be patient.
If you’re wondering, I currently have 5 titles out (2 middle grade, 1 collection of short stories, and 2 novels). I currently sell about one book every other day. That’s since the start of this year. I’ll be releasing two more books next week (1 middle grade in the same series, 1 sci-fi thriller novel). I’ll be releasing another novel next month. I’ll be re-releasing my first self-pubbed book with better editing the month after that. I’ll be releasing at least one novel per month for the rest of this year. If I’m lucky, I hope to sell a book a day by the end of the year). I’ve got next year planned out and I’m writing books to release next year, this year. I’ve got 10 years worth of books planned out and I have no real intention of stopping. I’ve got many more ideas than I can write in a short period of time and I am a fast writer. Last year I wrote 490,000 words. This year I’ve written 100,000 thus far and I’m shooting for 365,000 as a good goal given my release schedule. I’ve got a spreadsheet to track my progress. I’ve got friends pushing me to stay on track. I’ve communicated with my family my goals for the coming years.
Even with all of this in place, I still might fail. That’s a very real possibility. But if I don’t get books out there and try, I’ll fail before I start. I can’t have that. I have to give it a try.
So what am I getting at with all of this? Don’t just jump into self publishing without being aware of what you’re getting into . Don’t think this is a road to riches. If you’ve got one book, I would recommend rethinking and keep trying to get that book through a traditional publisher. Write another book, and another, and another while you wait. If you’ve built up a number of books and you’re still not getting anywhere with traditional publishing, then consider self publishing. Understand that you’ll need to learn cover design, you’ll have to learn scheduling, you’ll have to learn book layout, you’ll have to build your blog and your website, you’ll have to learn all the distribution outlets for your book and ebook, you’ll have to learn all those systems for getting your books into the hands of readers. Yes, you could take your word doc and throw it up on kindle tomorrow, but ask yourself what you’re hoping to get out of it? You’ll only get out what you put in and there is so much to learn.
I said a lot more than I intended. Wow! I’m sure I could say a lot more, but suffice to say, do your homework before making the jump. Don’t just jump and hope. Hope doesn’t sell books.
Last Night’s Dream
Welcome back to another installment of “What’s Going on Inside Jay’s Brain?” Remember, this is a dream (actually 3 today).
First dream was weird. Well, okay, all my dreams are weird, but last night I cannot even begin to explain. The first dream we were on a family vacation. Everyone was there including all of my wife’s family and all of my family including my dad (we lost him a few years ago). That wasn’t the weird part of the dream. The weird part was we were at an abandoned water park with a broken sign. Everything was dirty, dark, and rather ugly. I’m not sure why we went there. Dead leaves blew around. The water was murky. The alligators looked hungry. Despite all that, we got into rafts and went down some sliding rapids that went on for a long time and had to dodge alligators all along the route. At one point it was my turn to jump off a platform and into the water, but the alligators were waiting for me just swimming around. So I jumped, landed on the back of one and woke up.
Then I fell back asleep and my dad and I were running away from an alien invasion. Buildings were burnt out. We needed to get away. We wound up inside my Uncle Bob’s apartment.
Quick aside, my Uncle Bob is…special. He’s been declared as a paranoid schizophrenic. When he’s not medicated properly he had some peculiar behaviors. He’s also invented a number of great devices over the years, but due to his condition he’s never been able to successfully market any of them. He’s also an incredible artist.
So in Bob’s apartment we needed to find some things to help us. We got out a couple of expandable backpacks. By that I mean they opened all the way up and had many smaller pockets to put things in. We loaded up one for my dad that when folded properly, looks like a regular backpack. Mine, on the other hand, was HUGE! and was like carrying an unrolled sleeping bag. I kept asking my dad for help, but he’d gone off. So I tried to do it myself, but saw a small cube on a dresser that lit up. It was made of hard, white plastic mesh with colored flowers. Each flower had an LED light that complimented the color of the flower (Yellow flower had an orange LED, blue flower had a purple LED, etc). It was fascinating. I started to take it apart to try and figure out why it was lit up. There was no power anywhere in the world. This thing shouldn’t be working. It was plugged into the wall and when I unplugged it, it stayed lit up. I pulled the cord from it so I could take it with me, but it started to fall apart once I did that. My dad showed up and asked what was taking so long. I showed him the pieces of the box and started to cry.
and then I woke up. Confused.
Then I fell back asleep and had dreams about going to the bathroom in public (in fountains, on people’s lawns, in a lake, next to a river.) Then I woke up and realized why I was having that dream.
I don’t claim to understand my dreams, but they can be entertaining. I blame this one on two nights of taking good sinus medicine. 
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Last Night’s Dream
Last night I only remember having one dream. I had to take my good sinus meds due to the Santa Ana winds deciding that my butt needed some kicking. I even had to use my nasal spray. Ugh! At least I took them early enough that today I don’t have medicine head.
Onto the dream!
So The wife and I went out to dinner to a new restaurant. It was all fancy and everything. It was also inside a parking garage. Not like sectioned off, but inside. Stalls had been cordoned off to show where the restaurant was. So the cooking area had 3 or 4 stalls marked off and each table was in its own parking spot. The waiters had to cross moving traffic to deliver the food. It was interesting to watch them dance across the traffic with trays of food and not get hit.
Then I was in a different eatery, a deli? with a laptop open and typing something. A man sat across the table from me also on a laptop. We were in a chat room and he was asking me questions. I didn’t type with my hands,but words appeared on the screen. I knew he was asking me personal information and for some reason I felt he should have anything he was asking for. He asked for a lot of things that were personal, but not damning and nothing he could exploit (where did you grow up, who was your best friend in 5th grade, things like that). Then he suddenly slammed his laptop closed and motioned with his head that I should follow him.
I did.
We got into separate vehicles. I got into sputtery truck and followed him. We were parked in a field and went to a mall and drove around a department store. I got yelled at and lost the person I was following so I got out of sputtery truck and started to push it. This made the perfume ladies happy and they stopped complaining that I was driving through the mall.
When I finally mananged to get outside the mall once again, I was outside, the sun was shining, and my alarm was going off.
Some day I’ll understand my subconscious, but not today. No idea what all that meant.
On the plus side, I installed an application last night that I spent all of last year working on and much of this year. It felt good, but now come enhancement requests for changes, new features, and everything else.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Last Night’s Dream
I had two dreams again last night. I find this strange, but who am I to question the sleeping brain. Sadly, one is lost to the aether.
The second dream I was in a yogurt shop. I mean a HUGE yogurt shop. I had a dish of raspberry frozen yogurt and I was looking for toppings to put on it. The strange part was it was a small dish. I never get a small dish of FoYo. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was I couldn’t find a topping I wanted to put on my yogurt. It’s not that they were not toppings I wanted, it was that the place was a mess. When I went to find the mini M&Ms (I never use mini M&Ms so why was I looking for them?) they were covered in something that looked like a cross between peanut butter and chocolate sauce (Nutella?). I wanted to fish some out, but even the serving spoon was covered in the goop.
I went looking for cookies or something to put on my yogurt and all the cookies were crumbled into a fine, powdery dust. I licked the tip of my pinky, dipped it in the cookie powder and gave it a try. Yuk!
When I tried looking for fruit (fresh fruit, fruit in that sugary sweet syrup, any fruit) the manager started to follow me around. He kept telling me that my yogurt was melting and I’d better find toppings fast or my yogurt would go to waste and he wasn’t going to give me a refund just because I took too long to pick out my toppings. For some reason I didn’t complain about the state of the toppings bar (and it was a disaster). Some of the containers were empty, but the rest were all mixed with something I wanted with something I wouldn’t put on my yogurt. Like chocolate chips mixed with peanut powder, some crushed nuts with coconut, the M&Ms mixed with some goo.
Somehow, and without my doing, I wound up with two toppings. One was little colored vanilla wafers with letters on them. They spelled something, but my brain couldn’t translate it. The other was an oddly shaped piece of chocolate. By this time my yogurt was amply melted and the manager kept saying ‘No refunds! No refunds!” and for some reason stood behind me looking over my shoulder trying to get me to the register as quickly as possible.
What does it all mean? Pfft. I don’t know. I hope I never end up in this yogurt shop.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Last Night’s Dream
So I asked on Twitter if people would like to hear about my dreams because I have some strange dreams from time to time. Okay, they’re strange almost all of the time and a majority of the time I can remember them. Last Night’s is a two parter.
The first part of my dream had me waking up and checking my phone. My alarm had gone off. Looking at my phone it was only 1:30am. Confused as to why my alarm had gone off, I went to turn off my phone and it melted through my hand. I sat up and fought to keep the liquid goo from getting away because I didn’t want to lose my phone and I still needed my alarm to wake up in the morning.
Yeah, that one woke me up. I had to touch my phone to make sure it was still on the nightstand. It was. So I went back to sleep. And oddly enough, I checked the time. I was a little freaked out that it was 1:40am.
My later dream was a little more interesting. The wife and I were looking to play some basketball. We had a ball. We had out uniforms on (a mash up of a Lakers’ uniform and some other team with black and white checks). It looked cool in my dream. We found a game at a church. The building was a large cube with towers at the corners. Each tower was rounded off at the top. The inside of the church was filled with broken pews and lots of torn up bibles and hymnals. We didn’t know where the game was until we heard the whistle and we ran for the roof!
Up the stairs and we were on top of the church. They’d laid asphalt on the roof and put in a basketball court. I didn’t question the wife going up and making a dunk. I was just happy. We played ball for a short time before it began to rain. I have no idea who all the other people were, but we played basketball on top of a church in the rain. Then the wind started. My favorite daughter appeared and said it was going to get worse. I reassured her that things would be alright. She punched me.
Then the wind really started up. The towers on the corners of the church started to sway. The rooftop court was suddenly inside and we were looking out windows. That didn’t protect us from the wind and the lifeguard seat the referee sat on also started to sway wildly. The towers crashed down. The lifeguard seat with its bright-yellow umbrella crashed down. We all too the spiral staircase that appeared in the middle of the court down into the church. We decided it wasn’t safe to stay there because the floor turned to mud. Sitting at the pews were a few of my favorite daughter’s friends. I don’t know who they were, but we tried to encourage them to come with us. They wanted to wait for their parents. I clicked the remote on the car and our massive, double-sized hummer crashed their the wall of the church. I told everyone to get in.
Then I woke up. I wanted to go back to sleep, but it was really 5am this time. I had the feeling that when I touched the screen on my phone to turn off the alarm my finger might go through it. It didn’t.
I’ll post more of these as I remember them
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Weekly Update: Dialing Back My Ambitions
Some days I feel like an idiot. The rest of the days just help confirm that fact.
So I’ve been doing my spreadsheet for some time. I went through and started scheduling the titles I’d like to release and gave them each a ‘window’. In this case a month window when I’d like to release them. This is an ambitious thing I want to do because I have a lot of books I’ve already written and a LOT more I’d like to write. Most of these are in a series so I wanted to put out one in each series each year. I write fast. I can do that, right? After all, I’m only shooting for 80,000-90,000 for the bigger titles and 20,000-25,000 for the middle grade books.
Then I started looking at all the series I have. I did this before, but it’s fun to do it again. Plus I’ve added a new series. I’ve shown the series and potential length of each book.
V&A Shipping (80,000)
Billy Barbarian(80,000)
Giant Robot Planetary Competition(80,00)
Golden West (60,000)
Jack Kane(70,000)
Astel(60,000)
Of Gnomes and Dwarves (80,000)
Supernatural Learning (20,000)
Unnatural War(25,000)
Asteroid Bunnies(25,000)
Now in order to write just the ones on this list, I would need to write around 600,000 words a year. Not an insurmountable feat. I’m sure I probably could write that much. The trouble is I also need to edit, layout, get cover art, re-write certain pieces (like trashing 25,000 words and starting over with GRPC). There’s a lot going. Plus I still have a full-time job, a kid that goes to school, plays volleyball, a wife, other family. I would LOVE to write enough to put out one of each in these series each year, but sadly, it’s just not going to happen. Well, unless I start selling thousands of copies of my titles a day and I can support myself, my family, and my lifestyle solely on my writing.
So what’s needing to happen here? I’m going to schedule everything right now. In order to write the books I want to write in the next two years, I need to write (over 24 months) around 770,000 words (all the series titles plus a few stand alone titles). That’s just shy of 400,000 words a year. My current target is 365,000 words of new fiction a year. Now watch as I close my eyes and do math again. This is dangerous, please don’t try this at home. 730,000 words is my current target. Now if you REALLY look at my release schedule (not included here) I’ll be publishing over 1,000,000 words over the next 24 months (from Jan 1st of this year to Jan 1st 2015). I’ve already published a number of those books as well as completed a number of those books. Many others are currently either plotted, being written, or needing editing.
Actually, let me edit here. I need to write 1,500,000 words for all the titles I WANT to release. I’ve written 750,000 of those words. So I’m half way there. (Sorry, Jay keeps typing, looking at his spreadsheet, typing more, making mistakes. I’ll have him flogged later for his lack of cohesive though before writing a blog post).
So over the next two years, just to stay on schedule, I need to write around 750,000 words. Can I do it? Maybe. There’s so much I’d like to throw in there like short stories, blog posts, emails to friends, etc. I’d also like to get outside once in a while. Perhaps watch a TV Show.
Okay, all kidding aside. I’m going to try. If I can stick to my schedule I have a shot of getting 28 novels out in 24 months. THEN I can slow down. A little. The trouble is, I have 690,000 schedule to produce in 2015. Now that might be a little more difficult. That’s when I’ll need to step back and reassess my release schedule. Take a look at what titles are doing well, which are not. Perhaps one title will get pushed back in the release schedule. There are some close to my heart, but if they’re not performing and bringing in money, then they’ll have to take a back seat while I produce titles that are succeeding.
This is known as the shotgun approach. Fire out a bunch of titles, see what sticks, and run with one. I’m not sad that one will have to wait. I’ve scheduled out ten years of titles I’d like to write. There’s a LOT of room in those last five years, and not so much in the first five. I’m going to give myself ten years to be a success. I’ll figure out where I’m at after each year to determine if I’m heading in the right direction. Am I being ambitious? Hell yes! Have I stretched myself a little thin? Perhaps. But remember, I’ve got a lot written and so much more that I want to write. It’s just a matter of making the time.
One thing I’ll make note of here and now. I have done no advertising of my books. I’ve mailed out a couple review copies. I’ve had a couple of contests. I’ve done one free giveaway. You may ask what I plan on doing. Well, nothing. I plan on writing a lot at the moment. Once I have a number of titles out and in people’s hands, THEN I’ll get out there and I’m sure many will be surprised to see what I’ve produced. That’s kind of my plan at the moment. Sneakily release titles until people are shocked that I’ve been as busy as I’ve been. I want to do something that gets people talking about me rather than me having to talk about myself. By putting out 1,500,000 words of fiction across 28 titles in 24 months will get people talking (or so I hope).
So what can you do to help with all this? Well, tell a friend. Actually. Hold off for right now. I don’t have a lot available (only 5 titles) and if you’re excited about one title in particular, hop onto your favorite book review site and drop me a review. I should be everywhere and if you don’t see me somewhere, let me know and I’ll try to get there.
Well, like I said, there are a lot of words to write and I’ve got to go write them. Well, I need to do the day job first, but THEN I’ll do some writing!
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Super Evil Strikes Back!
Perhaps you’ve heard that Mike Plested has been kidnapped, along with his entire family by the despicable villain, Lord Aquarius. What has he done wrong other than to write the book Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero and edit the wicked compendium A Method to the Madness: A Guide to the Super Evil? I think that trying to mix oil and water are bad enough, but trying to produce a superhero tome along with a Super Evil guide as well? He has gone too far!
As an interviewer of the SuperEvil (you can find my interview with Dr. Nefarious in this forthcoming tome) I can say this delights me to no end. I had thought that the SuperEvil of this town had gone soft. It’s not often in this line of work you get to see the Super Evil actually pull one off. If we’re lucky, Mr. Plested has not completed his editing work. I would hate to see this compendium of Evil Knowledge fall into the wrong hands (those of superheroes!). The interviews I have performed were never intended for their eyes. If you happen to see this book out in the wild, make sure to buy it, read it, and burn it before it can fall into the hands of heroes like Mik Murdoch! (no relation to this interviewer. See, his name ends in an H, mine ends in a K! K for EVIL!)
Hopefully in the near future I will be able to get a hold of Lord Aquarius to see what his plans are with the offensive Plested. I’m sure whatever his dastardly plans are, they will not go far enough! Stay tuned! I will be back with more on this topic in future posts!
J.R. Murdock – Interviewer of the Super Evil!
Weekly Update: Lesson Learned, Again
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now. I have written 14 novels, a hundred plus short stories, and been at this for quite some time. Then I make a mistake and feel like a rookie all over again.
So I was cruising away writing my giant robot story. I was having fun, things were moving along. I had plotted before hand. I was excited. I’d nailed down 25,000 words. I was rocking and rolling.
Then, of course, life happens and I took a short break from the story. I was able to spend time reading and what did I pick? Oliver Twist. A story of an abused orphan boy. His life sucks and really doesn’t get any better (at least as far as I’ve read.) He’s got challenges that he’s ill equipped to deal with.
Oh crap.
I looked at my story and my main character was suffering from ‘Mary Sue’ syndrome. His life was simple. No challenge. Everything handed to him. Here’s a giant robot, now go fight. That’s where I’d intended for the conflict to take place, but it was weak. Sure I’d have giant robots fighting to the death, but there was little personal threat. He had nothing involved. So little at stake. He was even expected to lose, but they’d hope he’d do better. Everyone was nice to him.
blah blah blah
Yeah, that’s 25,000 words that no one will ever read. I had tried to justify it to myself explaining that I was world building. The action would come later. The personal struggle would come later. It would all come later. No, I was going the wrong way and Oliver Twist showed me why.
Ravi, the main character, needs to struggle. He can’t just have things handed to him like his privileged. This can’t be something that people aspire to do, this needs to be something that his life is at stake. There’s needs to be a very real chance that he’ll die. People need to look at him like something lesser and he needs to prove himself and overcome. A whole different sequence of events needs to take place.
I’ve spent time going over and over in my head the new direction. Yes, this book will be darker. Yes, this story will be stronger. Yes, this will be the story I should have waited to write instead of getting all excited about giant robots and just bashing away on the keyboard. I should have taken the time to allow the story to gel in my brain before putting pen to paper. Rather than jumping in feet first, I should have plotted and let it sit for a couple weeks.
Like I said, I’ve played this game before. I’ve written books and usually when I’m all excited, I’m heading in the wrong direction. I did that this time, but I know that the story will be better for the re-write. I could just keep going from the point I’m at, but the entire tone of the novel is going to change and there will be so many differences from this point forward that I just need to scrap the whole thing and start over. It’s for the best.
Do I feel bad? Oh heck no. I’ve written a lot of words that will never see the light of day. This is just 25,000 words. It’s not like scraping an entire novel and starting over (that’s called a re-write). Yes, I’ve done that multiple times. So this doesn’t break my heart because it’s all part of the process.
Speaking of the process…
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
