2012: the Beginning or the End?...

In the Forward to Mai Shangri-La, I talked about the seven-year cycles that shape my life. 2012 marks the 7th year since I began to write "seriously". The question, then is, "Is 2012 the beginning of a new cyle, or the end of an old?

Mai Shangri-La has sold a few copies as a POD title (so few, to be honest: it hasn't been worth registering a tax number with the IRS to collect my Royalties;0). Short story submissions have stalled. The new book languishes in 3rd (or is it 4th?) draft. New starts last year died in the detritus of our move from Bangkok to BC.

I originally asked my wife to indulge me for five years and she has been generous with her support. But as we head into year seven, I don't seem to be able to kick the habit. Like a reformed alcoholic, I still crave the rush when words fall into place and the result is so much greater than the sum of the parts.

And so, when an arthritic elbow roused me early this morning, I dug out my CreateSpace Proof copy of The Wayback Machine for another look.

The result? The Wayback Machine story still engages, the characters intrigue me, and I want to learn more about how it all turns out, maybe in that third story that's been percolating in my subconscious for the past while. But it seems that The Wayback Machine needs a final look before I go there.

First step? Cut 20,000 words from The Wayback Machine and submit as a new YA to the 5th-annual ABNA contest. Let's cut the title too, to The Way Back. Checked Amazon and find the title's available, although the phrase has been used in other longer titles.

Next step?  Realistically, ABNA's just a system of deadlines and a sounding board. Chances of making it past the first cut are slim, and of going all the way with ABNA are slim indeed. So the next step is to get back into the agent hunt.

Starting now....

The Perils of "Going it Alone..."

Mai Shangri-La has just appeared on Amazon, and I'm thrilled - but I'm in a quandry. I've discovered it needs a critical final "polish" and I KNOW I should put it on hold right now - in case anyone out there really buys it. I KNOW I shouldn't release it in a less-than-perfect format.

But it's the last couple of weeks of the school year, and a final polish just is NOT going to get done until summer - so I've decided to leave it out there and to make a gift-book offer to anyone who buys this copy (if they notify me either through this blog or by email, of three undocumented "errata". I'm assuming that the "long-tail" of POD publication is not going to bring in a lot of buyers - and so there won't be many of these May20th editions ever actually printed.

Who knows? When Mai Shangri-La becomes a best-seller:):):), maybe these editions will become Collectors' Items!!! -rjr-

HOLD the PRESSES!

...well, it's a little too late for that, as the book's already been released to Amazon and I've ordered a dozen copies for a few chosen friends who've agreed to be my "First Readers". But last night, while thumbing through it, thinking, for the hundredth time, "Wow. It's hard to believe it's actually finished," I realized that actually, it wasn't.

"What's this?" I exclaimed as my I scanned p. 293, one of the "Dreamories" I particularly enjoyed originally writing, but then reworked extensively in draft 5. "Comfortabl," with no "e?"

I grabbed a pencil and circled the offending typo. "How did I do that?" I wondered. "I ran a spell-checker on the damned thing a dozen times. It would have picked this up for sure!"

I went back to the to of the page.

"OUCH!" I yelped. "Another one!" "Taxi-drives. Should be "Taxi-drivers!" Another pencilled circle. I kept reading, finding two MORE glaring typos. FOUR errors on one page!!!!

How could this have happened? How had I missed a page so glaringly unfinished? What do I do now? The book is already for sale at CreateSpace, and I've initiated sales on Amazon. I've ordered those dozen copies for First Readers. I've emailed a select group of colleagues to crow about finishing my first book...

My first inclination was to go directly to CreateSpace and freeze the publication. But then I thought again. It's nearly summer break. There's no time to correct the errors, order a new Proof Copy, review and approve it again, and get new copies before summer. And I want to get some other eyes on the book. I've spent almost three years "writing with the door closed", as Stephen King calls it, and it's time to open the door on the damned thing, warts and all.

And so I'm leaving it up on CreateSpace and letting it go for sale on Amazon - but I'm going back to do a full re-read myself, and I'll keep a log here of all the errors I discover. At the same time, I'll ask my "First Readers" two additional favors. Along with offering me some general constructive feedback on the premise, the plot and the character development, I'll ask if they'll note specific grammatical, spelling and formatting errors, either by marking up their copies of the book, by dropping me a note to advise me of these, or by posting comments to this blog.

It's a lot to ask, but the people who've agreed to be "First Readers" have been really supportive of the project so far. I'm hopeful that they'll see this as an opportunity to help me polish this thing into a really finished product that we can all take some pride in.

And so, in a new post, I'm going to set up an "Errata" post. I'll note, page by page, the remaining errors I've picked up myself, for cleanup once I've completed a full re-read (this is a busy time of the year, so it's going to take, at a guess, a month). With First Reader input, I'll then put the manuscript on "Hold", resubmit the (final?) polished copy, and then, of course, go through the process of ordering yet another proof copy and, hopefully, on receipt, taking the book off "hold" and back up for sale. This, of course, is one of the really nice things about Print on Demand. It's an ephemeral product, and as such, I can hold to a baker's dozen the number of copies that go out with all these remaining errors. If my First Readers give it a thumbs-up, the final draft will include the cumulative corrections of a half-dozen people rather than just me.

SO - If you're still with me here, something about this process has interested you. I hope you'll join me in this next phase, which will be to get a final polish on this thing, so I can move on to other projects.

And why did this happen? I think I've got the answer. I ended up doing some pretty extensive rewrites of several chapters in Draft 5 - and I did NOT run a Spell and Grammer check after completing the last of these. In fact, I didn't run a spellcheck in the last two weeks I worked on it. So, I'm guessing I introduced new errors in my final rewrites, and in my eagerness to finish and finally get the project off to CreateSpace, I forgot a final check. Egg on Face - bigtime!

Oh, for an editor, a professional who does this for a living, and could probably spot these compositional faux pas in a flash! As the writer, I'm beginnning to really believe that as I read and reread passages I've been over a dozen times, that I start seeing what I "meant" rather than what I really committed to the page.

But hey, who ever said this was going to be easy! Let's not give up when we're this close. Onward!

Why Print on Demand (POD)?

I wrote this post in an earlier incarnation of a "writing" blog that I decided was neither elegant enough in appearance or "meatier" enough in content. I'm much happier with the current layout and except for not yet figuring out how to group postings under different topics like I can in the Edublogs blogs I set up for my work, I'm content with the content so far. For now, this one seems like a "keeper"...But what does this have to do with Print on Demand?

I became a Dad a few months ago. Although this event was not entirely unanticipated (we had tried for three years), when it did happen, it took me almost completely by surprise. Suddenlly, every routine I had established over a lifetime of childless adulthood was turned on its ear. The first to go, it seemed was the writing regimen I had established only two years ago. Luckily, by the time my son made his appearance, I had my first book (Mai Shangri-La) "in the can", so to speak, and my second book at what I estimated was 70% complete. So much for good intentions.

In the nearly ten months now since Jr.'s birth, I have completed the first draft of the second book ("The Wayback Machine"), but the second draft rewrite of Mai Shangri-La has languished - and my marketing efforts have pretty much dried up on this, my first completed novel.

"Too long for a first novel," said one publisher.
"Too complicated," said one prospective agent.
"The flashback technique isn't compelling," said another agent.
"Not my kind of book," said a third, although I HAD carefully (I thought) researched the market to match potential agents with my genre and writing style.

And so, I find myself now with TWO completed manuscripts, and, at the moment, nothing in the way of a really promising publishing prospect in the works. This begs the question, "Should I launch the new book that's been simmering away on the back burner ever since I was halfway through Mai Shangri-La, or should I concentrate on getting something into print to confirm my belief that making the break into the publishing world will, ultimately be achievable.

To cut through this problem, I've decided to finish the third draft of Mai Shangri-La and let it go with the POD service. Although I'll need to spend a good bit of time on promotional work (since I'm a complete unknown at this point), I think that putting a wrap on MSL will free me to begin work on any one of several new projects that have been bubbling on the back-burner for some time (ike MSL did - for ten years....)

I'm not a whiner by nature, but if anyone was ever to read this post who can offer a new, sure-fire suggestion for making that first big break into traditional publishing, I"m all ears....