On A Year of Publishing

So as of this month, I've been an independent author for over a year. Since December 2012, I've published five books, written a few others, and have some working their way through the revisions process for this year. I'd say that is a pretty good accomplishment for a year's worth of experience.

Unfortunately, it looks like my beginner's luck has come to an end. Wolfhound was an incredible success, but it looks like I am going to have to work through some hard times before I can replicate it again. To be honest, it is a little relieving to come to that conclusion. I've always been better at working hard and building up slow rather than depending on the occasional brilliantly lucky shot. If 2013 I grind through a lot of work again with far less reward, than so be it.

So, onto the lessons I've learned as an independent author for the year 2012. Based on my wealth of experience and wisdom, of course. Heh heh.

First of all, I've learned to not sweat reviews so much. There is nothing so exciting as getting a good review; similarly, there is nothing so frustrating and maddening as getting a poor review. It's twice as hard if the poor review critiques something you feel was misunderstood, something outside the initial purpose of the book, or just mean-spirited. Initially, I tried to manage those ups and downs as they came, and made a promise to myself that I would personally respond to every review, no matter the rating. The best decision I made was to stop doing that. The reviews gave me such a rollercoaster of happiness and outright rage that it became hard to actually focus on writing. I would worry about what to say to this comment or how to respond to that critique until I was tied up in knots and couldn't continue with my current project. Of course, that resulted in a bunch of crap I had to wade through just to get to producing something again, and generally wasn't worth the effort I stuck into it. I think it's telling that the moment I stopped responding and focused on writing instead, I managed to write a full novel in about nine weeks. So, first lesson learned: when a bad review comes in, don't sweat it and go write something.

Second, I've learned what should be realtistic for me in terms of setting goals and publication deadlines. When I went into 2013, I set the goal to have one book out every three months. It sounded like an achievable goal, and it was something I put a lot of pressure on myself to do. Unfortunately, I had failed to plan for the unexpected. Those unanticipated factors (moving a thousand miles with two weeks notice, changing jobs and work schedules, my sister's wedding, ecetera, ecetera...) added up to delays I couldn't have possibly expected, but I still put loads of stress and anxiety over those deadlines in spite of it. On top of that, I'd locked myself into those deadlines by publishing them in my books. While I think publishing the fact that the books were coming was a good idea, I don't think that trying to set them in stone was a bright move on my part. Life has a way of throwing the unexpected at you, and if a major publishing house can't manage to dodge delays or disasters, I shouldn't try to hold myself to an impossible standard until I have more experience in the field. So for now, rather than month or even season specific deadlines, I think I'm going to stick to announcing which year I expect the book to be out, at the very least until the book comes back from the copy editor. Otherwise, I'm just setting myself up for stress-related breakdowns and failure--and I have no doubt that life has enough of those planned for me without my own decisions adding to the mix.

Third, sequels are really, really different from first books. That may seem a little like common-sense, but I can't stress enough how different it is to work on the second book compared to the first. The challenges are different from what you expect out of a first book. You have to worry about character consistency, development on a much larger scale, all while trying to preserve what made the first book work. The worldbuilding has to go much deeper, while remaining consistent with the first book, and that occasionally presents an obstacle all on its own if you played a little free and loose with things before. All in all, it's felt a little like I've been learning to write an entirely different kind of book, and to be honest, I'm still trying to work out the best way of doing it. Hopefully I'll get better at that formula as time goes on.

Fourth, keep your business finances separate from your personal finances. Ugly, terrible, nasty things will happen to you otherwise. Sandra Tayler gave that advice at the LDS Storymaker's conference this past year, and certain events have proven it very wise counsel. Without going into the unpleasant details, just trust me on this one. It will save you a load of grief and pain later on.

Fifth, and final, I think I have refined my ability to revise. Going into this, I had thought that my revision techniques had already gotten as good as they were going to get, but I was wrong. I've managed to identify a bit better what steps I need to go through to end up with a good story, and I am looking forward to employing them in the new year.

So there you have it, my incredibly deep and probably boring post on lessons learned in 2013. The next year looks like it may be a hard one, but I am looking forward to it. Every challenge brings an opportunity to grow, and as difficult as the past year might have been, I think I have a lot more to learn. At the very least, the journey should be interesting. I hope everyone is having a good start to their new year, and I'll see you around.

On Revisions and New Stories

So I've started on the revision schedule that I had planned for February. The fact that I'm moving in less than two weeks has kind of complicated things, but not too badly. The plan is to do a quick readthrough of Badger, mainly to remove characters that shouldn't be in some of the scenes, refine some of the relationships, and organize the whole book a bit better. That part of the effort has gone well so far, and I am happy to say that I think I will finish that pretty soon.

Revision plan number two is to move on to Murders once Badger is done. Murders needs a pretty similar treatment, with a few more detailed revisions to iron out some of the inconsistencies. My hope is to finish that by the end of the month so that I can dive into a revision of Iron Angels after that.

As far as new stories, I've started Social Contract now in earnest. I guess a lot of my obstacles in that story had to do with what kind of a story the book was turning out to be. It's very hard to write a book that touches on societal conditions and politics without turning preachy, and the initial sections of the story seemed to be headed in that direction. After a few weeks of writer's block and a lot of pondering, I think I've got the direction of the story figured out, though, so hopefully I can dive right into the meat of things! My goal on that one is to have the first draft done by the end of March, so that I can start on Eagle, the third Jacob Hull book.

That's the plan for now, at least. I'm sure the move will require some...adaptations...but I remain confident that I can get all of this done on time. After that, it should be a pretty straight shot from here to the beginning of May, when Iron Angels will launch, and after that I just have Badger and Murders to get up in the summer and fall respectively. Meanwhile, I need to be working on the novels that will hopefully be ready to launch through 2013, namely Social Contract, Eagle, Airships Over London, and Iron Angels 2.

Sigh. When did the hours of the day get to be so few...

On Full Term

So as of yesterday our little baby has reached full term. That means at any point in the next four weeks, she could just decide to pop in and surprise us. As you might imagine, this is slightly worrisome for a first time father. If I seem like I'm a little shaken or off-key due to that, just wait til she gets here. I'm sure it gets worse.

In other news, I actually finished version 6 of Wolfhound. Now I will settle in and rip through it one last time before I send it in to this contest. Maybe that way it can get set up for submission to publishers/e-publishing in the near future. Wish me luck; I'm sure I'll need it.

In any case, I'll see you around!