What a hectic day...

The current writing project (the steampunk action/adventure story) hasn't come a long way since the other day, mostly because yesterday turned truly hectic and I didn't manage to squeeze in any lunchtime writing.

To start with, work (the paying job, that is, as opposed to writing work) got extremely busy. The systems that it's my job to maintain had been suffering from some problem that seemed to have all started sometime around last Thursday. From the look of things some kind of network glitch caused the data transfers between systems to get all gummed up, and it took a while to go through error logs and such to figure out what to do about it.

That in itself was only part of the day, though. I was working at home because we were expecting a nice new washing machine to be delivered (the old one having bust a gut). Just after ten the doorbell rang and two guys dragged the old machine out and put the new one in. Now, I'm fairly sure that the old machine is fixable so we gave Son #2 (who lives not far away) the option of taking it away and trying to get it going again. As such we now had a broken washer sitting in the driveway. Plan: move it into the garage until Son could collect it. Problem #1: our old car was in the way and needed to be moved forward a couple of feet. Problem #2: on trying to move the car, I found that it had a dead battery. I couldn't start the car or get it out of Park, so it wasn't going anywhere.

Now I had to go to the local Walmart and get a new battery. That was easy enough, but then I had to get the old battery off. Problem #3: battery is held in place with four nuts - two on the retainer clamp, then the two on the terminal posts. Three nuts came loose without too much trouble, but the one on the positive terminal wouldn't budge. And it's in such a tight spot that getting a wrench on there is tough. Try as I might I couldn't shift it with the wrench I had, mostly because I couldn't get the wrench into a good position what with all the other bits of car around it.

So it was back to Walmart to get a cheap socket set and a can of WD-40. Bear in mind that I'm still on the clock; I'm supposed to be watching email and working out what to do about the gummed-up data transfers, and here I am running around to change a battery so that I can move a car THREE GODDAMN FEET so that I can move a busted washing machine.

Returned home, applied WD-40, used new cheap socket. Success! The last nut was defeated. So I proceeded to lift the battery out and ran into Problem #4: there's a cable of some kind running across the space above the battery, and not enough clearance; and of course this twenty-odd pound lump of lead and acid has no place to get a firm grip. So I'm now trying to lift the battery out with my fingertips while simultaneously trying to nudge that damn cable to one side. If I ever meet the guy that designed that car...

After a few minutes I figured out that I could get the battery out by tilting up the far end and wiggling the thing out at an angle. Gravity helped when putting the new one in place, so that took only a minute, and after that there were no more problems. I put all the nuts and bolts back where they belonged and the car started first time (not too shabby considering it hadn't been started in months). I let the thing idle for a couple of minutes to get the oil moving, then I was able to move it and hence get the busted washing machine inside. Phew! All that just to do something that shouldn't have taken but two minutes.

I was able to get back to the paid work, which mostly meant making some phone calls and sending some emails to arrange to have those gummed-up systems shut down and restarted, and finding out that we weren't allowed to do that until 6pm. By that time my work day was over (except for the 6pm stuff) so I whizzed back to Walmart with the old battery so that it could be disposed of safely, picked up a few things then took care of a couple of errands including going to Sam's and grabbing a roast chicken for dinner.

5pm we had dinner; 6pm came, the servers got restarted, I ran a test to make sure that the data transfers were now ungummed (they were, thank goodness) and that was that. By that time I was so whacked that any thoughts of writing were swamped by thoughts of tea and rest. That was my day. How was yours?

As you can tell, I didn't have time to do any lunchtime writing (in fact I didn't even get any lunchtime lunch).

Well, anyway. Even though it's slow the work-in-progress is coming along. Current word count is just about 83,000; one protagonist is recovering from being shot, another has been captured by the bad guys, the third is attempting a rescue. Yet to come: big fight, then the wrap-up. I'm looking at a first-draft in the neighbourhood of 90K.

On other fronts: Pavonis sales are still flatlined, but to be honest I haven't had the time to do much in the way of marketing; and I'm still waiting to hear any word from Harper about whether they're interested in The Artemisia Chronicle. They said to allow three months, though, so there's plenty of time.

That's enough blog for today. Tune in next week, when I hope to be able to report much better progress on the work-in-progress and, you never know, perhaps even have some news from Harper.

Writing, @MileHiCon and more...

It's Friday, I'm tired and to be honest more than a little bored. I'm actually writing this in my office, and technically I should be working - but the chunk of Java code that I've been working on for the last few days is giving me more than a little bit of a headache right now so I've quit looking at it. Blogging sounds much more appealing at the moment. This will be a short update on a few things that are going on.

The PREVIOUS Writing Project

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Harper Voyager had a two-week window during which writers could submit manuscripts directly, and my script for The Artemisia Chronicle was ready just at the right time so it went in (and it wasn't the only one I submitted; see below). Harper tweeted just after the window closed to say that they'd received 4,563 submissions. It's going to take them a while to go through that pile so I'm not expecting to hear from them any time soon (or ever; they say that if they decide to pass they'll be too busy to notify writers). Still, I think I have a fair chance with them. Please wish me luck, gentle reader.

The CURRENT Writing Project

Coming along slowly but surely, if more slowly than I'd like. It's close to eighty thousand words right now, and I think I'm looking at a first draft that'll be somewhere around the 95-100K mark. As I think I mentioned, this is a Steampunk story set in an alternate 1850s London (and Paris, as it happens) and might best be described as action/adventure. At the point I've reached, our three heroes (or more accurately, two heroes and a heroine) have foiled the bad guy's plans but they still haven't actually caught him (and in fact, don't know who he really is). Coming soon: a big fight, and a shocking revelation about the bad guy. I'm hoping to get another five or six thousand words over the weekend, but that's going to depend on...

Mile Hi Con

This is going on in Denver, and in fact I think the doors opened about an hour ago as I write this. I was looking forward to this and really hoping to be able to spend a full day there tomorrow; there are a lot of SF writers there and they'll be doing workshops and things that I was hoping to learn something from, as well as a lot of fun stuff, special guests Cherie Priest, C. J. Henderson and Steven Brust, and more listed participants than I can count. But there's a problem... my wife Kate is flat out in bed, sick with one of the worst colds I can remember her having, and even if she suddenly gets over it during the night I can't see her being in shape to spend all day at this shindig and three hours in the car getting there and back. Damn, damn, damn. Anyway, follow the action on Twitter: @MileHiCon

Pavonis (The PREVIOUS Previous Writing Project)

Sales have flatlined. Marketing a self-published eBook is a sod, even when it's available from as many well-known booksellers as it is. I'm plainly not doing everything I could be to generate a bit of interest, but frankly I'm at a bit of a loss with regards to what else to try. But things may still turn around - since I still have the rights, Pavonis was eligible for submission to Harper Voyager and so I sent it in the day after I submitted The Artemisia Chronicle. So again, gentle reader, please wish me luck.

Twitter

I found that auto-following everyone that follows me is a mistake, in that I ended up with so much traffic that I couldn't read it all. I'm not a follower-farmer - I follow people because I want to read what they have to say, not because I'm trying to boost my follower count. So I'm sorry to say that I had no choice but to quit following a few people (mostly ones that sent out nothing but promo-tweets, and a few that would send out endless bursts of retweets that ruptured my timeline and that I didn't have time to read anyway). In fact I think I only dropped about a dozen, but it's made a big difference. If I'm still following you, be assured that I read everything you tweet.

Until next week, then, stay safe and be happy. And if you happen to make it to MileHiCon, send me a tweet - you never know, maybe we'll make it there after all.

Writing the Third Book

For the last few days I've been working on a new writing project. Actually, it's an old writing project that I shelved sometime around February because at the time I was having problems getting the thing going in the right direction. (If you want details: I'd reached a point in the storyboard where I'd written scene descriptions that were far too vague to be able to write from, and also at the time I still hadn't figured out one minor character's involvement with the main story line - between them, a killing combination that I have since learned from.)

So this "old" story is destined to become my third book (the first, Pavonis, was self-published, as regular readers will know; the second, tentatively titled The Artemisia Chronicle, was sent to Harper Voyager a few days ago - they're accepting submissions direct from writers until October 14).

A little bit about it, then. It's set in an alternate Victorian London (Steampunk!) and revolves around a plot to plunge Europe into a war, and the tale of three protagonists fighting to prevent that happening. At the moment I've got about 73,000 words down and it's looking like the first draft is going to be somewhere around the 100,000 mark, give or take.

Before I can really get back into this one I need to (1) figure out that minor character's role (mostly done, in my head at least) and (2) get a bit more detail into that storyboard (ditto). At the moment I'm thinking I should have the first draft completed probably about a month from now, but that's a very tentative estimate at the moment so don't quote me. Among other things I'm still winding myself up to full writing speed and we have other things going on so I can't be sure how much time I'll be able to dedicate to it.

In other news... We saw Jim Gaffigan in Denver last Saturday. That guy is just hilarious. Check him out on Netflix. This Saturday (tomorrow) we're off to see Seether in concert.

Until next week, then...

Some Thoughts on Self Publishing

Having self-published my first book I have to admit that for the last few weeks I've been suffering from a certain amount of disillusionment about self-publishing.

Part of the problem is that the whole self-publishing thing is, I think, still trying to find its feet. People self-publish because the traditional publishing process is difficult, and made more difficult by a publishing industry that's been the keeper of the keys for a very long time. Publishers decide what gets published, and often their judgement is bad. Excellent books never get into print. e-Books are often priced far too high, and authors have little or no control over this. Publishers are seen as elitist, keeping stables of established authors as if they're some kind of exclusive club that new authors are highly unlikely to be invited into. When authors have to practically beg agents and publishers to even read a manuscript, let alone take it on, it's no wonder that so many are moved to self-publish.

(I've also heard it said that feedback from agents when rejecting a manuscript can help the writer improve; however from personal experience I can state that this is 100% pure bullshit. Not one agent that I have ever submitted work to has even once offered ANY useful criticism of a manuscript.)

But then this leads to the another part of the problem, which is that thanks to the ease of self-publishing today, anyone and everyone can write a book and publish it - whether or not that book has even been proofread. I've looked at a fair number of self-published books and I think it's fair to say that the majority, to be frank, suffer from being total crap. The situation isn't made any easier by the fact that it's easy for a new author to ask friends and family members to put up five-star reviews of their book, and thanks to the likes of John Locke we now know just how easy it is to hype a book's reviews in return for cold cash. For most self-published authors, getting honest reviews from professional reviewers just isn't a reasonable option. As for readers, they can't trust online reviews and ratings at all. Right now the whole ratings/reviews structure is meaningless.

On the other hand, and despite its faults, traditional publishing does offer some huge benefits to authors. If an author can actually get a publisher to take a book on, the publisher will usually provide editing, proofreading and marketing services that would be far beyond the reach of most independent writers.

As I mentioned, I've self-published one book; I also have another completed one and I have a third that's perhaps two-thirds of the way to a first draft. Over  the last few days I've been trying to decide for these other two books: self-publish, or try to go traditional? And I have to say that the current state of self-publishing, and the difficulties I had with the first book, doesn't make me that enthusiastic about going the same way with these other two manuscripts. That said, my previous experiences with traditional publishing - in the form of agents who plainly think that they sit at the right hand of the publishing gods - wasn't too great, either. So I've been in something of a quandary.

And then...

A couple of days ago I read a very interesting article in Forbes by David Vinjamuri (Twitter: @dvinjamuri) which was linked to by Richard Galloway (Twitter: @RJGalloway1). Anyone interested in self-publishing should read this article. Among other things Vinjamuri points out that self-publishing lacks anything like a proper online resource for reliable reviews and ratings; what it needs is something like Metacritic.com, but for e-Books instead of movies. He also predicts that within the next year or so we should expect something like this to appear. I agree; something has to be done.

I've been doing some thinking about this and it occurs to me that one or other of the big players needs to be part of this. It's in their own interests, after all. Smashwords could do it and given their interest in self-publishing perhaps they'd be the best choice, but Amazon and Barnes & Noble could be in there too. The biggest problem as I see it is simply finding enough people able to review books professionally. Perhaps these big players could offer cash to readers willing to write proper reviews, or something like that. I'd bet that given an incentive it wouldn't take long to build up a corps of reviewers large enough to manage the flood of new e-Books that are submitted to Smashwords every day. I can see any such system taking a year or three to stabilise while all the kinks get ironed out, but the benefits would be enormous - and not just for readers looking for a good book. Writers would also win, because they'd now be able to get real reviews of their work by people who are truly impartial.