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On Writing

From time to time, I’m asked what the novel I’m writing is about. I always give the same boring answer: “I prefer not to say, but it’s a thriller.”

If you had asked me a couple years ago, I might have been more than happy to tell you. But, it seems like every time I talked about my work, I would later feel embarrassed about it and start kicking myself for having pulled the rabbit out of the hat before it was cooked. This can lead to me feeling discouraged about the project, and I might give up on it.

There’s a part of me that does want to talk about my work, to share some details, give people an idea of what the story is about. That part of me wants to tell everyone what I’ve been doing in the story, to even display chapters for you to read before the work in question is done. But I have that part of me on a gag order, allowing him to only share my progress stats.

I’m not the only writer who shares progress stats on a daily basis. Cherie Priest is the writer who inspired the progress form I use on Facebook. At the bottom of almost every one of Priest’s blog entries, she posts her progress stats. But Priest is a bit different from me, she might reveal a little bit on what she’s been doing in the story, she might give an idea on what it’s about and she certainly isn’t uncomfortable about revealing the title.

I won’t give you the title anymore. Now all my projects are numbered, Novel #1, Novel #2, etc. If the novel is accepted by a publisher and is on its way to becoming a published book, then I will probably start giving the title and talking a bit about the book, and I’ll probably put up a few sample chapters. All for the sake of promotion. But at this point, I’m not very comfortable sharing anything about the book, except that it’s being written.

This attitude of mine might change in time.

On Writing

In my blog post a few days ago, I said I finished four novels and hundreds of short stories, and that I had begun more than a hundred novels, but never finished them. I also begun but never finished just as many short stories.

I would say I have been very productive as a writer, maybe even more productive than a lot of writers I know. But most of the writers I know have more sales than I do. Why might this be? Well, aside from the fact that they’re better writers than I am, they have also submitted a lot more stories for publication than I have.

I have (or I had) a tendency.to give up on my projects fast. Even the ones I’d finished, I would decide that they were terrible and no amount of rewriting was going to make them better, and eventually I would throw them out. I threw out a lot of projects, hundreds of them, and some of them probably weren’t half as bad as I thought they were.

Those of you who have been following me on Facebook for the last year or so have probably seen me posting several times about restarting a novel, and more recently I went over what was already written to rewrite parts and get the story back on track so I could move it forward again.

That’s what I’m doing different. Instead of throwing the project out and starting a new one, I’m sticking to the first project until it’s done, cleaned up and ready to go. I don’t care how many times I have to rewrite, or dump the whole thing and restart from a scratch, the project is going to get done and it’s going to be made perfect before I start the next one. It will be the same for every project that follows. I’m not giving up on my projects anymore. I wish I had gotten into this mindset years ago.

On Writing

I get asked these questions a lot, so I want to answer them all.

1) Are you still writing?

Yes, I am. It was never just a phase I was going through. I’ve been serious about writing since I was a teenager. Now it’s more like an addiction. I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. Rest assured that I will be writing until the day I die, even if I’m not selling anything. I write because I have to. It’s who I am. I would be very unsettled if I wasn’t writing.

2) How is your writing going?

Seeing how I’ve been getting in some writing almost every day, and over the last week or so, I’ve been plugging wordage into two seperate projects. That alone says that my writing has been going fairly well, though I wish I was getting in a few thousand more words a day than I have been.

3) How many books have you written?

I think the proper question is “How many books have you finished?” I have to think about that. I finished my first book when I was sixteen, and I’m thirty-six now. So, ticking off the titles of the novels that I remember finishing., there’s Reap It, Colin, The Awakened Dawn and Off Target. I feel like there’s one or two more that I’ve finished, but I’m not sure. Next to the novels, over the years, I’ve finished hundreds of short stories, some of them were actually novellas, which means “short novel”. I’ve also finished a few non-fiction articles. I’ve begun more than a hundred novels and I got a long way into plenty of them before the project came to a dead halt for one reason or another, the most common reason being “It just wasn’t working.” And I have started several projects over more than a few times. So, I lost track of exactly how many novels, stories and articles I’ve written.

I’m planning to finish some of the novels that have been left unfinished.

4) Can I read your books?

You’re more than welcome to go looking for Reap It, Colin and The Awakened Dawn. They might be at a landfill somewhere, hopefully under a pile of rotten diapers. If you find them, go ahead and read them, but I doubt you’ll be impressed. I still have Off Target on hand, but no one gets to read it until I’m done fixing it up and it is a mess. When that’s done, the only people who will get to see it are editors or possibly first readers. Unless it’s published, it’s going to stay under the hat.

5) What do you write?

I know a lot of writers, and most of them are more focused on writing certain genres, such as science fiction, fantasy or horror, romance, mystery, etc. I’m sure they could write any kind of book, but their main focus is on certain genres.

I have a list of novels I want to write (And I’ve gotten much better at finishing what I’ve started, so they’ll probably all get done at some point.). Looking down that list now, there are currently 39 novels planned in advance. Some are thrillers, some are science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, historical, horror. Some are young adult projects and others are intended for more mature readers. I’ve even kicked around the idea of writing children books, So, it’s hard to put me in a category.

I will probably use pseudonyms for several of these projects.

6) Has your writing ever been published?

Yes, I’ve had a few pieces published. But you gotta understand, my first few publishing credits, I don’t count them. I was still young, still learning the ropes, and I… I sent stories to non-reputable markets. They didn’t pay me a cent and they published my stories in their shitty magazines. I’m still embarrassed. I no longer submit to those markets, and after getting a lot of positive feedback from reputable editors, I have high standards now.

Currently I have two sales that I’m proud of. I have a story in the anthology Legends of the Mountain State 2, which was edited by Bram Stoker Award winning writer and editor Michael Knost, and Mike paid a good sum for my story. I also had a non-fiction article published in Strange Horizons, which is an online magazine and I’m pretty sure the article is still in their achives. Both markets paid well.

7) But haven’t I seen other stories by you?

No, you haven’t. I was an assistant editor at Hadley Rille Books and I had a hand in the creation of a few anthologies. I didn’t write any of those stories, I was just an assistant editor. I’ve also done editorial work for a few different magazines.

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I hope that answers the questions.