Category: Writing Woes

There’s more to being an author than writing stories. Making readers aware of new releases is a big part of the job. “Managing the brand” across numerous social media platforms is another requirement. A boss would tell me I need to do better, or else. She’d be right too. The marketing part has always been a challenge. I put a lot of effort into promoting new releases then do no more than my weekly blog post. My writing career is on hold. I haven’t added a word to Cold Revenge (the fourth Philip Potter story and my current work in progress) since August. A blog post every week is about all I can manage — if that. I say a …

December 17th marks the fifth anniversary of the release of my first novel. Signing the contract made me a pro. Becoming a published author remains the coolest thing I’ve ever done. The fame and fortune I imagined would follow still hasn’t panned out. My expectations were out of whack. In my neck of the writing world, selling 1000 copies is great. Selling more than 5000 is fantastic. That’s a lot fewer zeroes than I’d envisioned. It’s not the money. My financial security isn’t tied to book income, thank God, or I’d have starved four-and-a-half years ago. I want people to read and, hopefully, enjoy my stories. Anything else is icing on the cake. For reasons both beyond my control and of my …

My fifth novel, The Case of the Missing Drag Queen, continues to progress at a record-breaking pace. With 41,000 words in 24 finished chapters, I’m well past the midpoint. If all goes well, I should reach “The End” sometime in September. For me to get so far, so fast, is unprecedented. I usually hit a wall somewhere around 20,000 words. Sometimes, I break through and finish, but with a half dozen abandoned manuscripts, I did not. Thanks in no small part to the three-act structure and my epiphany about the role of the main character, I’ve so far avoided the wall with my fifth novel. I’m having fun too. My fear that something would get lost by planning so much …

Writing fiction was missing from my formal education. Discussions about the novels and short stories we read in school revolved around major themes, symbolism, and meaning — not how to craft a story. Or maybe I just forgot. Either way, I consider myself a self-taught author. I make my stories up as I go along. Writers call it pantsing. Based on my recent epiphany, I’d call my old process “uninformed pantsing.” Rather than the main character’s journey, my stories revolve around an event (or series of events) with a cast of characters to show how things play out. Sometimes, it worked. More often, it did not — especially lately. After my epiphany about the central role of the main character …

I recently shared about giving up on writing novels and accidentally discovering the problem with my abandoned manuscripts. Confusion about how to proceed with the trilogy I envisioned prompted me to turn to the gods of the internet for help. A few clicks later, I stumbled upon the cure for my writing woes. My problem is embarrassingly basic. My stories –finished and unfinished alike — revolve around events occurring at particular points in time rather than any particular character. For evidence, I offer my pal’s question about my latest abandoned manuscript: Who is the maim character? I’m not trying to be avant garde or make some kind of literary  statement. People have tried to tell me this for years, but I just didn’t get …

In the previous past, I shared I’d quit writing novels. Too many things compete for my attention to waste time on stories that never go anywhere. Maybe I’ll pick it up again when I retire. At first, not writing was a relief. The pressure to produce was gone. I caught up on chores around the house, spruced up the yard, and watched a ton of television. But quitting nagged at my conscience. In truth, I hadn’t quit writing novels. For some reason (or reasons), I couldn’t do it anymore. I had tried and tried until I finally just gave up. What was going on? The possible causes I could identify made no sense. They weren’t new, and for the most part, had been around …

My process for crafting a novel is entirely organic. That’s a snooty way of saying I have no idea what I’m doing. I get an idea, and, with little forethought or planning, start writing. The plot, subplots, and characters evolve along the way until, with any luck, the story comes together. My first four attempts at writing a book resulted in three published novels and an unpublished memoir. I credit my pals in the Athens Writers Workshop for the novels. They held my hand through countless revisions of Until Thanksgiving, watched over my shoulder as I wrote No Good Deed, and provided invaluable feedback on early drafts and revisions of Happy Independence Day. After leaving the Athens Writers Workshop to free up more time …

A paper-based system is my go-to method for record-keeping. The transition to digital files and folders has been slow. My system works. If it ain’t broke…. The complicated, time consuming, and essentially useless paper-based system I created for tracking royalties is broken. Excel would be better, but I’m spreadsheet challenged. Minions handle such things for me at the day job. At home, I’m on my own. Having used it since WordStar dominated the market, I know my way around word processing software. An online app converted a table I created in Word to an Excel file. My ex (he’s doing great!) helped me set up the formulas. Entering five years’ worth of royalty statements took about thirty minutes. Wow! Why did I wait …

Good news for anyone who has missed my blog. I’m back! Four months without having to write a post every week was good for my soul.  Time off helped me gain some perspective. Becoming a published author remains the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Five years into the gig, however, the new has worn off. Between writing and the day job, I tend to work all the time, but fame and fortune have eluded me. Poor, pitiful, me… To say nobody reads my stories is untrue and unfair. My books may not fly off the shelf, but they do sell. In fact, any of them have been read by far more people than have read all my academic and professional papers, combined. …

Once upon a time, books were only available as hard copies. Digital formats didn’t yet exist. The  pricey hardback edition came out first, and if it did well, a paperback edition followed. Readers could buy the book, borrow a copy from the library or a friend, or shoplift a copy from a retailer. Stealing from bookstores is a bigger problem than I would have thought. I just expected readers as a group to have more integrity. Talk about naive… All readers aren’t criminals, of course, but stealing is against the law. Anyone who shoplifts knows it’s a crime. I’m not sure readers understand that sending ebooks to friends or downloading from a pirate site is stealing too. What happens after a …