Input, influence and independence

Recognizing that I'm just another 40 something hack trying to write his first novel I have been reading about the craft of writing. There are lots of great blogs and sites out there that can teach the topic.

I am open to input and will try to acknowledge my influences as best I can. But I'm finding it hard to maintain independence. I read a post from an editor the other day that said she is looking for books with strong teen girl voices or non-white protagonists. It's not her fault, those are stories she would like to publish. But I started thinking about how to change my book to include one of those two items. The more I read about publishing it seems that writers, particularly in fiction, come up with ideas and then try to morph and cram them into what editors are looking for. If the writer has a story and plot outline they can write a character into it based on what is in demand. But that doesn't really work for me.

I devised the story I am writing in my head over several months. It uses my family as a basis for the characters and with the exception of the Sci-fi aspects I'm writing about what I know. I get that it is supposed to be fiction, but I have never been a teen girl or a non-white.

My feeling is that if I write the story I love and truly believe that I have developed the story to the best of my ability, it will be a great story. So I will remain open to input on plot lines, logic that may not flow and writing critiques (thanks to +Robin Jenson  for helping with these). I'll also lean on and acknowledge my influences like Jimmy Buffett and Star Trek. Hopefully I will remain independent though and write my story with my characters. I know I'll be independent with my publishing ;-)

How about you, are any of your characters influenced by what someone else is looking for? 

Writing a book is like making music

With each performance on the Grammy's last night I was struck with the different levels of creativity that were on display. I realized that to be successful, writing and publishing books requires a blend of creativity similar to making music.

When you see the award for song of the year and realize that some of the nominees were songs not written by the person who performed it you can see two levels of creativity. To me the singer or band is like the editor. They take great content and polish and present it in a way that interests a wide audience. They make it easily consumed.

When I see Mumford and Sons on stage and the keyboardist is rocking out with a huge smile on his face you see his level of creativity. It's different than the creativity of the lead singer, but equally important to the song. The keyboardist is your books layout. If the background and format are not right the content will not be as engaging.

Justin Timberlake did an amazing set in front of an old-school style big band setup. The clip is below. The facade was intriguing and made me want to wait and listen to the song. His choice of graphics caught my eye. This one is easy, the cover of your book.

I could go on like this; choreography, producers, clothes etc. The point is that these amazingly talented artists think creatively on many levels. But they don't get to the #Grammys by themselves. The finished product comes out with input from multiple resources.

So as a writer why would you try and do it all yourself? It's OK to get help. Editors, professional cover designs, layout specialists they can all take your vision and your art and make it customer friendly.

Screw passion, pursue something interesting

Chances are that if you have something you are passionate about you're not reading posts like this. If you're asking yourself "what should I do" or "how do I find my passion" you've read a hundred posts like this. I think that have found my "passion" but it's still a little too soon to declare victory. Instead I would like to talk about how I got here and what I'll do next.

Recently I read a blog post form +Joshua Fields Millburn at the Minimalist papers. The title is "Follow your passion is crap." The advice is to instead "cultivate your passion." In simple terms this means to work at something until it becomes a passion. If you are like me though it leaves you with the question of what to work at.

As a stay at home dad with three kids in school full time I had the chance to take time and figure out what I wanted to do. With eight "free" hours a day I could take classes, get a job, pick up a new hobby.  The options seemed limitless. I was paralyzed by the opportunity. It wound up being that I spent all my time trying to figure out how to spend my time. A viscous cycle.

When I finally came out of my rut I started to investigate things that I thought were interesting. I would somewhat arbitrarily decide what my "passion" was going to be and then read, research and think about the topic for a while. I pursued them because I found them interesting, not because I was passionate about them. Many of the things I pursued I still find interesting, but not passion inspiring. Fly fishing still fascinates me and I would love to be good at it. I do not see myself staying up late to tie flys or invest in the latest gear, I have no passion there. I really like golfing. Over the past year I realized that I enjoy being outside, hanging out with friends as much as I like the golf itself. I'll keep playing golf, but if my handicap doesn't get any lower it won't bother me. Again, no passion.

So I keep pursuing things that I find interesting. Some of them  will remain as hobbies while others will be put away in the memory bank as something I was once interested in. My expectation is that once I find that interesting thing that I want to stay up late working on I will have found my passion. Then I can cultivate it. My guess is that I will be elbow deep in something before I realize it's my passion but that's a good thing.

How about you? Did you wake up this morning with a pre-existing passion or are you going to pursue something interesting and give it a chance to become a passion?

Profit and Loss

Technically I am not writing novels to make money. Truthfully speaking though I would not be writing everyday and working to understand the self-publishing market simply for relaxation. I'm writing stories that I want to read, their comercial acceptance or failure will not determine my satisfaction with the tales.

At some point when we try and monetize our hobbies we need to start looking at a return on investment. How much are we spending on our hobby and are the returns big enough to continue with a sustained investment. There are a number of authors who are very open with their comercial success. Joe Konrath shares some sales figures on his blog. I hope some day that I can do posts like his and let you know how many thousands of copies of my book have been sold. Today however my book is a cost center.

I'm about 6 weeks from publishing on Kindle. To date I have spent $265 on my book. The break down is simple:

• $9.95 for my domain name
• $5 for a place holder book cover from Fiverr
• $250 for 10 ISBN numbers

The expenses above do not include a few things that a hardcore accountant may expect to see. The laptop I use for writing is a seven year old MacBook, in my mind that makes it a free resource. I should put a value on my time, I have thousands of hours invested in the book, but no line item for that. My cell phone is actively used for social media updates and book marketing, but I would have it if I weren't writing so again, no line item. All of the writing has been done with Google Docs so there is no software cost for that. However yesterday I signed up for a trial of Microsoft Office 365 and I already know that I will pay that subscription when the trial is over, that will be a line item.

Over the next six weeks I expect to drop thousands on my book for things like a professional cover design and professional layout services. I'll update my profit and loss statement to reflect those expenditures when they occur. In March I will publish my book so starting with the April update there will be some income to balance out the expense.

Are you tracking the investments you make in your book?