In the Void

I recently ran across this meme, and it feels like an excellent description of how the last few years have been going for me:




For the last few years, the whole idea of doing all the promotion required to be successful as an indie pubbed author has been far beyond my reach. I just don't have the spoons to do all that screaming into the wind.

Especially when I know that the screaming into the wind of self-promotion I did when I was pubbed by the world's largest publisher did me no good whatsoever. That really ups the perceived futility of trying to be a 'successful' self-pubbed author. 

My husband was asking last night if I want to try to get back into the trad publishing rat race, and I just can't see any upside to it right now.  When I was trad published, I was heavily in the red, exhausted all the time, and horribly frustrated. I was doing all the things I was 'supposed' to do, but not getting any backing or help. 

Weirdly, with no promotions and very few publications right now, I'm in the black. With some health frustrations and family issues going on, this honestly feels like the best I can manage right now. I'm okay with this for now. 

(ETA: Yes, there's a lot of 'now' in that paragraph, but that's the point. This is the situation now. It could change in a month, a year, or a decade. I just don't know.)

In any case, I really like the idea of waiting until my writing career lays down to die and then I can bash it over the head and eat it. Ha!  

 Huh. I do still have a journal here. Go figure. 

I've been thinking a lot about my social media interactions lately, and have actively considered walking away from it. If I were not trying to keep my writing career limping along, I probably would. 

Some part of this is about addictive behaviors. I don't like that feeling I get when I realize I'm anxious because no one has responded to my post.  It makes me start asking why I need that perk of having a heart show up, a thumbs up, or an anger icon.  I don't like the idea of being dependent on that.  And yet...

A lot of time that's the only way I interact with people. Writers by their very job description are working alone a lot of the time.  I have my dogs, but neither of them is a brilliant conversationalist.  

I love my Twitter feed for its short-lived righteous anger with its larding of hilariousness. I adore my Tumblr, which is just pretty pictures and fandom gifsets. (If I'm stressed, I'll go look at my archive...not my feed, just my archive.)  My FB is the one I've been cutting back on because it allows for such extended angriness that I often find it stressful. It's also my best means of reaching my readers right now, so I'm somewhat stuck with it. 

I'm a member of two writers groups, one of which basically ignores me (I'm not well known enough for any of them to bother with me.) The other one is pretty awesome, although I am aging out of that group as well. At 53, I'm too old to be in the 'cool' groups. (BTW, I don't blame them for that. It's human nature.) 

And my LJ/DW...well, it's pretty quiet out here these days.  

All that said, I'll stay on social media a little longer.  I would love to be one of those authors who's important enough that I don't need to keep myself out there, but I'm not counting on that any time soon. ;o) 

Yesterday someone posted a labyrinth finder website link, so I looked it up and located a labyrinth not far from us. This one's in Allen, Tx., the suburb one over from us. The labyrinth is actually on land owned by the local First Presbyterian Church, but is also noted on the (next door) Methodist Church's site online. 

So this morning, after walking a bit at the nature reserve, I popped in there, just to see what it  was like.  

It's an interesting hybrid, combining a labyrinth, a garden, and the twelve stations of the cross. The man who laid it out evidently put those twelve 'rest and contemplate' stops into the fabric of the labyrinth. 
(This photo is taken from the edge of the property)

So I started walking the labyrinth. It was full of native plants and wildflowers, with places to sit and contemplate. I was, admittedly, too distracted by the plants to concentrate much. 


I was not alone in the garden, either, as there were multiple inhabitants who were perplexed by my refusal to walk in a straight line. 




The cottontails kept trying to guess which direction I was going, but the path of the labyrinth forces one to turn and change direction a lot, so I was annoying them.  



Plus there were some interesting specimens: 


This looks like a white version of stachys (lamb's ear). Even though it looks a bit odd, it's perfectly healthy.  There were several interesting plants, including one of the loveliest red yuccas I've ever seen, and a huge prickly pear. 

As I was nearing the end of the pathway (I'm a believer in following the path--otherwise why are you in a labyrinth at all?) , an older woman in gardening gear came out of the church and told me a bit about the garden/labyrinth.  

Among other things, it's a community effort. Apparently it was originally built with the help of some young miscreants from the nearby court, members of the local church, and...Mormon missionaries. This may be a regularly scheduled thing for them, because the gardener (Nita) told me that some were coming at 10 to help weed and water.  

Also, the garden doesn't have sprinklers. There's one spigot near the middle, and they can carry buckets of water to needy plants from there. Therefore, the bulk of the plants are native or drought-tolerant ones. Nita also told me that the majority of them were donated or bought on sales at local nurseries over the years since the labyrinth was first built in 2012. 

Here is, by the way, the aerial picture from their facebook page: 




That's just to show you that the scale is pretty large for a labyrinth.  So after I talked to Nita, I finished my trip to the center and left a penny there.  And then--even though I would normally go back the way I came, I took the cheater's way out. 

All in all, it was a pretty amazing thing.  

Recently there was a post made in the Daily Beast that talked about how you should write every day or just go ahead and quit.

Now most people who took exception with that article took exception to the bit about writing every day.

I agree. It's a dumb rule. Art is art, not science. It's helpful if you write frequently, but putting an "EVERY DAY" rule on it is neither helpful nor realistic.

Or the part where he says he hates all other writers. That was hyperbole, I think.


However, the thing about the article that bugged me the most?

This part:
What is certain is that on that same day, whichever one it is, one thousand other people will start their novels. In order to publish mine, it has to be better than theirs.

I don't know if that was also supposed to be some form of hyperbole, but here's what I heard: Publication is only for the BEST BOOKS. 


Not true.  

We all know that. We all pick up books and go, "How did this get published???"


There are a lot of factors that influence publication:

1) Talent, but also...
2) Persistence
3) Luck
4) Marketability  
5) Connections

Sometimes things are actually published because the writer knows the right people. People pull strings for each other.

I recall purchasing a book from an author who seemed perfectly nice. His debut novel was published by a MAJOR publisher, part of a trilogy released in hardback, ebook, and paperback. Fancy Schmancy.

Not far into the novel, I figured out that it was Full of Tropes. Painfully so. And the writing had some issues, like having the POV character's head explode...and yet that scene continued....somehow. 

The blurbs were admiring, but the reviews weren't. Publisher's Weekly was downright...well, it wasn't pretty. 

Notably, there wasn't a second series.

It was not the Best Book...but somehow, this person had gotten a lucrative 3-book deal with a major publisher. Instead of #1, the writer had 4 and 5. He was young and good looking, and a protege of some old-school Big-Name Writers. He was connected in another industry. And there may have been luck involved. I don't know. 

But I still remember reading that book in my hotel room, over a decade ago now, and thinking of some of my friends who'd written truly amazing books. And they weren't published (or were having trouble selling books at that time.) 

I wasn't at that time, either. I had written Dreaming Death a couple of years before that, but had only gotten form rejections from agents at that point. (Including one from my future agent!)

My whole point being that the assumption that his books are the Best Books because he's being published is a false one.  

It's entirely true that his books might actually BE the Best Books. They could be.  

But every day the Best Books are languishing on an agent's desk. They're being rejected by publishers. They're being left on computers because the writer's health is too bad at the time to deal with sending things out.  Or they don't have enough spoons. Or they have to work too many hours to pay bills and keep a roof over their heads to learn the systems of submitting and querying. And they surely don't have time to go to a conference and pitch to an agent/editor.  

And you can say that those people just aren't trying hard enough, but if you can say that, you may be suffering from privilege. For most people, keeping a roof over their head isn't an option. Trying to keep their health isn't optional. 

(As an aside, this isn't a statement about self-publishing. I'm only talking about traditional publishing and the assumption that the gatekeepers choose the best books. The self-publishing discussion is one for another time and place.) 

So while a lot of people took exception to that article for other, very valid, reasons, that was the thing that annoyed me. I dislike the automatic assumption that any book published by a Big Publisher is going to be great...or that all the books that didn't get there are inferior. Look around and you'll probably find dozens of great books that are published by smaller publishers, or indie-published.  And, on occasion, you'll find a real lemon under the hardcover jacket at the bookstore. 

Memorial Day weekend is upon us, which means my wedding anniversary (we don't do anything for that) and and extra day. I'm hoping that the Monday means I will get to sleep!

I am writing away feverishly, and hope to get more back into the swing of it as
a) I have declared a moratorium on house repairs until Fall, and
b) my dog's ear (hematoma) actually seems to be improving without a third surgery, so I've called the vet and told them to take us off the tentative-surgery schedule.

So I'm hoping that for the next three months I can concentrate on
a) my writing (I want to have Oathbreaker finished by the end of summer)
b) learning some graphic art platforms (as I'm doing some of my short story covers)
and c) getting back to a better eating and exercise schedule.

I've been struggling for the last two years because I have had so much house/dog trouble that I haven't been able to establish a regular schedule. As much as I'd like to believe I'm a creature of whimsy, my body prefers routine.

So Tuesday will begin an intensive effort to get my act back together.

Here's hoping! ;o)

I've posted about my winter project over at LJ, where it's easier for me to insert photos...

http://j-cheney.livejournal.com/561190.html

Since I often write in actual existing places (the "Iron Shoes" stories in Saratoga Springs, the Of Blood and Brandy novels in Porto, and the Russian novella outside St. Petersburg, for example), I have to do a lot of research.

Now my work is fantasy, so I'm actually writing a form of 'alternate' history. I can change things, including geography, within reason. I like to have a reason behind those changes, though, and I tend to obsess about making things fit.

I want to get the trees right. I want to get the birds right. I want to get the cobbles in the road right....so I research waaaay more than is likely needed by my readers.

For "Iron Shoes", not only did I procure as many period books about Saratoga Springs as I could find, but I also went through blogs. I dug through web-sites. I read diaries about horse-racing stables. I ran down costume books and catalogs so that I would have my characters dressed appropriately. I purchased a movie DVD because it was partially set in a Saratoga Springs hotel that was subsequently demolished. Google Street View. Google Maps.

I had also -visited- Saratoga Springs. From the train I watched the trees and undergrowth as we passed so I would know what trees I would find in the forest there. I tried to remember what kind of birds I'd find there.

I've just returned from Portugal, where I noted that there are 2 kinds of seagulls in Porto (brown and white). The pigeons of Porto are uniformly dark, while down in Lisbon, there's a lot of variety (white, brown, gray, mixed). There are also super-cool little diving birds out on the Douro River that made a little popping sound when they broke the water (although we only saw two...and I haven't figured out yet what they are.) It can be drizzling and then suddenly raining in sheets...and then stop again a moment later.

But St. Petersburg? No, I'm not visiting there any time soon, so I have to research on paper.

One of the things I like to use is stuff written by the people who lived there and then to give me that background. I've read some biographical work for this story: The Pearl and A Life Under Russian Serfdom: The Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii (still reading), both tales that talk about the relations between the slaves and masters in pre-emancipation Russia.

A lot of things can be found via your library. Other things aren't available that way, especially books written decades ago (if they're not popular, they're removed from the library eventually). The used-book market can be useful here. Also, a lot of it, if published before 1923, is going to be available on-line via Google Books or Project Gutenburg. If you can put up with the iffy OCR, you'll find a lot of things are still out there.

But these days web-sites are also your friends. Google Maps and Google Street View are awesome resources. I've used the archives of the New York Times a lot. You can also use the internet to contact librarians...which I've done. I communicated with the public library in Saratoga Springs on a topic where I couldn't find the answer, and the librarian tried her best to find the answer for me. (In that case, she didn't have the answer. I found the answer in the NYT Archives and ended up sending that link to her so she could stick the article in her file for future reference).

I'm a bit obsessive about this...and no matter how hard I've looked, there are some things I've had to fudge. But I'm still going to keep trying...

I'm proceeding on the Russian novella now, with still over 30K to go. I'm not sure there's enough tension, but I'm mentally working on that. Since this is primarily a romance, it's not going to have as much 'conflict' as I'm used to....

I spent a couple of hours writing and re-writing 3 paragraphs last night...a synopsis for my new editor. I -hate- writing synopses, especially ones that short. It's not quite a blurb--it has to get in more info, though, like the resolution. But in three paragraphs, all subplots go by the wayside. So what I sent her had no mention of either protag's family problems, personal problems...or the romance that's kinda central to the book.

No we just have to see what the new editor has to say about the whole thing. Since she never read the original, she's coming in to the revised version with no idea what was altered. Now I wait...

I'm posting over here today just to keep my hand in. I'm not planning to leave LJ, I jsut want to make sure my DW is still functioning.

I'm in limbo, more in the void than usual. I hate that. But it's out of my control. BUt any good thoughts you want to send my way would be appreciated.

Also, I am extremely bored with my diet already. There's only so much one can do with meat and fruit. Especially if it's 110 outside and one definitely doesn't want to cook anything. Meh.