Tag: late bloomer

Better Busy Than Bored

WiP Report # 15

Hi, All!

“Better busy than bored” has become my motto in life, maybe even more after retirement than before. Here’s what has kept me busy (and certainly not bored) lately.

FATAL FEBRUARY

The fourth draft of Fatal February, the second Calendar Mystery is done. (Way late. I’d planned–foolish me–on having it out in February 2015.) Still I revised 100,000 words in 26 days. That means I booked along at the pace of 3,846 words a day. (Yeah, that pun was intended. They usually are, you know, especially when people claim, “no pun intended.”)

But I didn’t have a lot new to add or too much to change this time through, just mostly tweaks. Somehow, though, I managed to add 7,000 more words. If I cut 10 percent–as Stephen King claims he always tries for in revising his books–that would bring the total down to 90,000 words. But we’ll see.

Here’s a picture of Draft 4 on top of Draft 3. Please notice that the new draft only has chapter tabs, not a whole bunch of tabs for corrections that create a hula skirt effect.

IMG_1097

I hope the fifth and final draft of the book won’t require much so I can get it done fast and out soon. It’s feeling about right to me except for the last few pages. Still, I’ve had lots of fun with Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price in their second outing. Sparks and repartee just seem to fly when they’re together.

Of course, there’s always something that slips by even the most cautious editor. For instance, recently, I pulled a sentence or two out of the book to use as an example in a writers’ group. And I discovered I’d left out the verb, unintentionally. Yikes. My early readers will tell me what else I messed up, I’m sure.

CINDERELLA, P. I. STORY COLLECTION AUDIOBOOK

This is really exciting news!

Several weeks ago I posted a request for auditions for Cinderella, P. I. and Other Fairy Tale Mystery Stories through Amazon’s ACX. Just about when I’d decided no one would bite, a wonderful lady named Alyx Morgan sent me a reading of the first five minutes of the first story in the collection. And hearing it, I found myself smiling even though I know that story very well. So we signed an agreement through ACX and she’s working on the audiobook. I’m really loving what Alyx is doing, making all my characters coming alive and all so different from each other.

Meanwhile, for assorted reasons, I decided to design a completely new cover for the audiobook instead of modifying the existing cover. That means this self-publisher has to climb yet another learning curve, this time in Photoshop. Huff, puff, get on up that hill. But practice makes perfect and all that stuff.

Here’s a peek at the audiobook cover. Yeah, I know the title isn’t quite centered. (I’ll fix it.) What do you think about it otherwise?

CPIaud81815I thought that a path through  woods would work since this collection contains stories in which Cinderella goes into forests. (I took the photo in an old Osage orange hedge row near my house.)

Best, Juliet–definitely busy instead of bored

Should You Self-Publish?

Earlier this month, when the wonderful Mysteryscape Bookstore held a Local Author Fair, a baker’s dozen of self-published and small-press-published writers came together to promote and sell their books. During the afternoon, as I sat there behind a display of my books, a tall, dark-haired young man asked me if he should self-publish his novel when he finished it. “Or should I try to get an agent?”

I couldn’t answer either question, certainly not with an unequivocal “yes” or “no.” Too much involved. When I taught Creative Writing, for instance, I spent an entire unit on marketing.

Now I’ve had time to think about his first question and to reflect on what I’ve learned this year as a publisher of my own fiction. And I have to say, “Don’t be in such a hurry, young man. Give yourself time to learn your craft and pay your dues. As the sayings go, it takes ten years to become a writer; you need to spend 10,000 hours on any art or craft to master it; you must write a million words to learn how to write. So, the novel you self-publish now probably isn’t the best book you could write. You might not want it out there embarrassing you as you continue your career.” This sounds like good advice for a young writer to me.

But what if you’re not such a young writer? What if you’ve been writing for at least ten years, spent at least 10,000 hours mastering the art and craft of writing, written at least a million words? That is, what if you’re more like me? I wrote my first novel nearly forty years ago, and I’ve been writing fiction steadily since 1986 when I drafted my second and third novels. I’ve completed ten novels and forty to fifty short stories. (I don’t have time to count my poems, nonfiction pieces, and the journal entries that fill well over a hundred notebooks.) Now retired, I try to write 20 to 30 hours a week.

As for the young man’s second question, from time to time over the last twenty-five years or so, I’ve attempted to get an agent, and I haven’t managed to interest any. Actually, I take that back. I did interest a couple, but neither of those nice ladies sold the project she submitted to publishers for me. And now the whole process has become demoralizing. The rejection depresses me, makes me doubt the worth of my work, and interferes with my writing. So I’m not doing it anymore.

I’m not alone in that decision. At the Local Author Fair where the young man asked his two questions, I sat next to Edna Bell-Pearson, author of the self-published Fragile Hopes, Transient Dreams and Other Stories, selected as one of 150 best Kansas books. A senior as I am, Edna observed that she simply didn’t have the time “to fool with those people.”

And so, though the technical aspects of publishing my own work can make me exceedingly anxious and the marketing aspects of being my own publisher like tweeting, branching out, linking in and befriending folk also take time away from my writing, I will continue to self-publish. Why? For one thing, I hope that the same time-on-task that made me a writer will also make me more comfortable with publishing and promoting.

And I already have lots of well-written fiction to bring to you, dear reader. This includes January Jinx, the first book in a series of historical mysteries set in Kansas City around 1900. Look for it next month. Meanwhile you can read Walls, a Cinderella, P. I. Novel as an eBook (www.amazon.com/dp/B00FQLQ2WI) or in print (ISBN: 978-0-9899504-1-1) and twelve stories that feature Cinderella as a p. i., her loved ones, her friends, and an enemy or two in Cinderella, P. I. and Other Fairy Tale Mystery Stories (www.amazon.com/dp/B00GMMUSTI and 978-0-9899504-4-2).

Hello Again, World!

Two months ago some pervert hacked my website and I was so offended that I took my website down. But more than one person has pointed out that a writer who publishes her own work needs a presence on the Internet, some central address beyond her Facebook and Twitter pages. So here I am again.

In this first installment of my blog reborn, I want to talk about what sorts of posts I made in the past before I lay out plans for future posts.

(Please don’t worry about my losing my previous installments. When I was in graduate school at Ohio State, I had a class with Richard D. Altick, the great Victorian scholar and author of the lively book called Scholar Adventurers. Altick warned us in no uncertain terms to make copies of our dissertations, even going so far as to advise us to keep a copy in the freezer in case the house burned down. So now I print hard copy of all my work. I also back up all my work on my computer and to other devices that now include an auxiliary hard drive. If the house burns down, I can grab it and run. This discussion reminds me to copy my finished books to the flash drive I keep in my purse in case the house burns down while I’m out and about.)

Back to my past blog: For nearly two years, as Juliet Kincaid, Fiction Addict, I wrote about the lessons that I learned from the books I read–mostly mysteries–that help me write my own, fairy tale mysteries featuring Cinderella, P. I., twenty years, three kids, and a few extra pounds after the ball. These essays often included very detailed analyses of fiction I admired along with how I could apply those insights to my own work.

They were lots of work, you bet your bippy, sweetheart. For instance, I spent nine hours (three writing sessions for me) on a piece about James Church’s superb A Corpse in the Koryo. These nine hours were in addition to reading it.

Downside: Spending that much time every other week on somebody else’s work severely cut into my own writing and slowed my progress. And I simply can’t take the time to do that sort of blog now. (However, this past year, I’ve occasionally republished some of these blogs as “golden oldies” with updates on the writers’ careers and how I’m doing on my own “Work-in-Progress.” I might do some more of that.

Later in 2012 I also began to write about myself as a Late Bloomer, someone launching a career after age 60. Also I reflected from time to time on aging generally including where I’ve been, where I am right now, and where I’m going.

These feel more comfortable to me for future subjects though I reserve the right to write about just anything I please. Hey, there are among the perks of being an old gal.

Enough for now. You can expect more installments on the second and fourth Thursdays of every month. To receive notifications, please subscribe to my blogs through RSS.

Best, Juliet

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Currently available as Kindle eBooks are five of my fairy tale mystery stories including the first, “Cinderella, P. I.,” and Walls, a Cinderella, P. I. Novel. All feature Cinderella twenty years, three kids and a few extra pounds after the ball.

You’ll find “Cinderella, P. I.” at www.amazon.com/dp/B00BAZPXEM and Walls, a Cinderella, P. I. Novel at www.amazon.com/dp/B00FQLQ2WI.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JulietKincaid. Friend me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliet.kincaid.