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Posts Tagged ‘novel writing’

To “e” or Not To “e”?

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 16 Jul 2012| 4 Comments »

Harcopies Rule!The topic that keeps popping up among my writerly friends is “E-Books” I will admit to being less-than-enamored of e-books (read as, “I hate them”) but I have bowed before reality.

Ebooks are here.
They are here to stay.
Get over it.
Move on.

Happily, I have to say that two of my greatest fears about e-books—piracy and death of the hardcopy—have not come true.

We just do not have rampant piracy of ebooks. This is in part due to the proprietary lockdown of various e-readers and tablets, but even outside of that, we just don’t see pirated versions of the latest e-bestseller going viral. This bolsters my long-held opinion that, if you make electronic versions of your creation affordable enough and accessible enough, most people will just pay the price and enjoy the product. Piracy is still a problem in those areas that are overpriced and proprietary: movies, software, and video games. Hacking a $50 movie or a $200 software package and selling a couple thousand copies half-price makes total business sense, but hacking a $5 book? Where’s the profit?

As to the death of hardcopy versions (and the loss of the legacy they provide), my fears about this were swept away just a couple of days ago. A Faithful Reader emailed me, asking if the Fallen Cloud books were available in e-versions (like all my other titles). I had to inform her that, sadly, no, the Fallen Cloud books I-IV were not currently available in e-format, but that when FC:V came out, I fully intended to have all five books available in e-format.

Faithful Reader replied that this was great news. Naturally (she said), she would be buying the hardcopy version, but she wanted to have them in electronic format, too.

This was astounding to me; someone liked my work enough not only to get an e-version for her tablet, but she also was willing to shell out money for a legacy hardcopy. It was humbling, and it also pointed out where books win out over music and movies: People just are not going to buy an album or movie on iTunes and then buy a physical CD or DVD. There’s no advantage to that second copy, and there’s no cachet to a physical disk like there is with a physical book. The closest music can come to that is the old albums that covered LP vinyl, and vinyl is a seriously niche market. So, books have a potential second market, whereas music, movies, etc., have only one.

Add to this the increasing ease of bringing an e-book to market for the small publisher or independently-published author, and the question of “going e” becomes moot. With increased profit margins and decreased costs, it’s a no-brainer; you will go “e”. You’d be stupid not to.

k

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Going Old School

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Low Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 12 Jul 2012| Leave a Comment »

1972 Sheaffer Stylist White Dot Fountain PenI used to be much more disciplined about “writing time.” I also used to have crushing deadlines, which were a great motivator. Now, I have less time, my monkey-boy-day-job is more demanding, and it’s just damned hard to find time to shut myself in the back room, sit down at the computer, alone, without distractions, and pump a couple thousand words past the CPU.

To counter this, I’ve tried many tactics. First, I bought a netbook, thinking it would allow me to work anywhere; it turned out to be too slow and underpowered to provide any real convenience. Then, I bought a keyboard for my iPad, but while faster, it proved to be too clumsy to balance on the bus and still required a larger chunk of time in order to be productive.

So, I went Old School, returning to my writerly roots, as it were. As some of you know, my first books were written longhand, with pen on paper. Yes, kids, I actually wrote four whole novels without the aid of a computer. I swear it’s true; FC:I-II and PC:I-II were all written with a Uni-Ball pen on Cambridge steno pads.

This new/old method has increased my productivity for several reasons. Primarily, it is more suited to my Basher style; cudgeling out a few dozen or maybe a hundred words at a time is much easier than trying to force out a couple thousand words. It is also perfectly suited to my catch-as-catch-can writing schedule, allowing me to squeeze out a couple of lines at the bus stop, en route to the transit station, while waiting for a program to compile, or as I’m cooling down after my workout.

There’s also another, less obvious benefit: because writing with pen and paper is slower than typing, the resulting prose is the product of a more thoughtful and deliberate process. Writing with pen on paper increases the lyricism of my prose, and what ends up on the page is tighter, less cluttered by unnecessary wiggle-words, and is closer to what I really wanted to say. Yes, there are lots of cross-outs and insertions (see picture), which yes, looks as if I editing as I go along (Bad writer! No biscuit!), but this isn’t really editing; this is searching for the narrative path.

Moreover, writing with pen and paper just makes me feel like a writer. It is how almost all of my favorite authors composed. It’s an organic, completely natural way to create, completely divested of the trappings and necessities of computers and cables and cords. It’s immediate, it’s personal, and to me, it’s more than processing words; it’s writing.

k

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A Double-Edged Blog

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , on 02 Jul 2012| Leave a Comment »

No one has said it yet; they don’t have to. There’s already a little schoolmarm voice in my head that says it loud and clear:

You shouldn’t be wasting time with a blog! You should be writing!

True, and yet…

Working on posts and pages for this blog takes time; I cannot deny it. But what I have found is that the time spent on the blog isn’t really wasted. On the contrary, I find that writing here invigorates my drive to write and exercises my technique. It also reinforces my love of the written word as I play with phrases and concentrate on the structure and focus of the much shorter form a blog post requires.

Just as a musician must work at scales and etudes, and just as a painter may create a small study for a larger work, so must a writer flex and build up literary “muscle.” When I had more time (and to be honest, more discipline), I would exercise my chops by writing a short story, but that in itself is a large expenditure of effort, especially when compared to the usually small and isolated payoff.

Thus, most importantly, I find that a blog post gives me an immediate payoff, as well as providing possible feedback via comments and re-blogs. These two things are very strong motivators, and are simply not part of the long marathon of writing a novel (especially for a Basher, like me).

So now, when that schoolmarm voice goes off in my head, I shall remember that time spent on this blog is not necessarily time wasted, and that every art and skill requires practice and study.

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