I've got a dirty little secret...and you're reading it right now. I, Josie Dorans, am a procrasti-writer. (*everybody say, hi Josie.)
I will quite literally write anything but what I know I should be writing at any given time. This blog is only one example. I write lists. I write snippets. I write recipes I'll never actually follow. Heck, I would probably transcribe half of a dictionary on the right day because I had some idiotic idea to use it to improve my handwriting. And don't even get me started on editing. Rewriting a piece to death is a whole other can of worms. Why? Well, to avoid writing what I should be writing, of course. Duh! We all do it to some extent or another. At least that's what I tell myself. I also tell myself that it only happens when the next chunk of the story is brewing in my brain or some character from something else that I am also diligently not writing shows up doing cartwheels and demanding a spot in a story they don't belong to. Is it all a lie? Don't ask me. I'm too busy believing the inner narrative that keeps me from heaving every last word into the fire - and then immediately burning myself trying to rescue my little worlds from the inferno. The weird thing is that it works for me. Well, mostly. It does throw my writing schedule (handwritten, no less) out of whack sometimes. That's a bit of a downer. But overall, it does buy me time to get past whatever hang-up or stumbling block I'm pondering in the piece that should be front and center. Take the current W.I.P (work-in-progress for those of you who haven't heard the term) for instance. It's book 2 of a series that I'm hoping to one day find a publisher to give it a home. My overall goal is around 90,000 words. I'm currently sitting at 38,663 words with a goal of reaching 44,000 by Saturday. It will take a miracle of no small magnitude to make this happen. The problem? I've got a serial killer who is needed in one location about 20,000 words from now and she's too close to the spot right this minute. This is an opportunity to drive her even more nuts than she already is. The story will benefit from this even if she won't. I know approximately what is going to happen, I just haven't been made privy to exactly how it's all going to go down. Not only that but by golly-gumption the whole series doesn't have the tone I originally wanted and it irks me way down deep where the worst irks lurk. I'm not saying that I don't like what I'm writing. I do. I like it quite a bit, in fact. It's just not showing up how I thought it was going to. Happens all the time. My characters also love to run amok and screw up my carefully laid outlines - say by being way to close way too soon just as one example. That, mild disgruntlement with the fact that my story listens to my directions just about as well as my cats do sometimes boots me out of the progress and makes me have to dig out my thinking cap. And so, I procrasti-write to fill the time between inspirational episodes. Butt in chair. Words on paper. It's the only way to move forward even when they aren't the "right" words.
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...will they come?
Now that's a question for the ages, especially in the digital world. For example, here's what I've got: * A website for each of my author names * A Facebook page for each of my author names * A Twitter account for Josie Dorans * An Amazon author page for each of my author names * KDP accounts for each author name * An account on Channillo for Josie Dorans (although one of the series is by my nicer side) * An account on Smashwords for each of my author names * My nicer side has a Youtube channel * My nicer side has a Bitchute channel * An account on Duotrope (that I really should actually use) * An account on Pintrest (that I should actually use for book stuff, too) * An account on Wattpad (that I should use) * An account on Upworks (that I've decided to ignore) * An account on Ko-fi that I've pulled everything off of * An account at Authorhouse for my very first book * An account at Freelancer which I believe I've cancelled * And account on Upwork that I ignore * A Zoom account that I keep swearing I'll use for book things but don't * An account at Zazzle with some book related merchandise for my other name that I should make more of an attempt with * And I belong to at least 2 online writer's groups that I am only marginally active with * I'm about to embark on the Amazon Vella route (Pray for me.) I'm juggling multiple books with each name along with some videos about putting together a picture book. If we go with only the books I've self-published, we're talking 9. If we include anthologies I'm included in, that number jumps up to 16. E-zines bring me up to 19. You can also include the newspaper article on the West Virginia Writers, Inc. Summer Conference to round things out to 20 or look way back in the shadows of time for the piece I had published when I was graduating high school if we want to make the count 21 so it can legally drink. So, now that I can sit back in my chair and tell myself the lie that I'm a fairly prolific writer, you may ask how these platforms have led to overwhelming success and phenomenal sales. The short and incredibly depressing answer is: They haven't. Why? That's an easy one. It has two parts and I can't seem to convince myself I'm good at either one. First, you have to get people to go to these places. Forget about "organically" growing your platform. You need to be a border collie rounding up a herd of readers and directing them to the the right pastures. Once they are there, you then need to convince them to part with their money in exchange for your product. Sounds easy-peasy, right? I mean, it's just 2 steps and of course they'll love everything about your book. It's wonderful, for Pete's sake. How could they not want to take it home and curl up with it? The truth is that if you are like me your inner border collie may have arthritis, cataracts, and mange. Your herd is comprised of family, close friends, and fellow writers. The sad truth is that - at least for me - that combination just doesn't produce sales. I love them all. Each and every one of them is near and dear to my heart. They just aren't the right audience. This isn't their fault and I don't expect them to give me a pity buy out of their hard earned paychecks. Sure, sometimes someone will pick one up here or there and I appreciate that. I just don't expect it of them. They cheer for me. They (occasionally) share my posts. They add what they can to my emotional support network. They just don't make me a best seller. The tricky part is to find the right audience to attract. While you are doing that, you also need to keep that audience entertained. You can't just rain down advertisements and expect them to enjoy being loved only for their money. It's the dating game in a way - and lord knows I've been out of that miasma of chaos for a very long time so have no clue how the heck it works these days. Another day I'll go into some of the great advice that has worked well for other authors but has fallen flat for me. I'll even give you my take on why these awesome ideas may not have worked out as well here as they have elsewhere. Hopefully, one or more will help you grow. I'm all for success whether it's mine or not. If I'm destined to always be a bridesmaid and never a bride, well then, so be it. Consider me your cheerleader in this game. (Just remember, I'm a writer. I'm probably too broke to buy your book. LOL) I need to preface this post with some disclaimers and related facts about me.
1) I am not a political creature - especially not online. I am a fiction writer. This, in my mind, means you pay me to lie to you. Why on earth would anyone think that makes me qualified to share my opinions as fact? Why on earth would anyone want to hear my political opinions or take them to heart? No lie, I roll my eyes every single time an actor or fiction writer uses their platform to share their opinion on anything political. 2) I'm more of an introvert than an extrovert. Sure, I can fake an outgoing nature when necessary but I much prefer individuals over groups and absolutely prefer small groups over large ones. I also tend to cheer for underdogs. 3) I believe in giving every single person I meet at least two meetings before I start to form an opinion on whether to like them or not. Sure, I typically get a pretty good "read" within 15 minutes of meeting someone, but I have off days. I figure they do, too. This might sound like my nice side shining through, but in reality I find it more interesting to dislike someone for solid personal reasons than to dislike them for some blanket excuse involving one adjective or another. What can I say? I'm a "verbs > adjectives" kind of gal. 4) I - like every other author out there - truly dislike the process of searching out an agent or publisher. No offence intended to those working in those fields, but it's a lot like picking through a field of land mines while wearing a prom dress and carrying a wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tubeman. 5) I really weighed out whether I was going to post this or not as I am in the process of searching for an agent and/or a publisher and truly fear that a post like this could destroy my chances of finding one. Thankfully, it's long, so what are the odds it will hold an attention span even this far? All that being said, politics plays a part in the book world. This is a (sad) fact of the business. Let's face it, no matter how you feel about political correctness, censorship, or the tradition of the written word stirring the cauldron of independent thought, there is a pachyderm treading the publishing halls. And how about those current "cancel culture" trends that exist no matter how much you might want to ignore the stomping and trumpeting. Terms like "sensitivity reader", "cultural appropriation", "diversity" and "inclusive language" seem to be argued more than the old standby evils of plagiarism and improper manuscript formatting. Don't even get me started on adjective labels for the authors who are currently being sought after. Suffice it to say that nearly everyone one of us writing today is either "too something" or "not enough something" to fit the nit-picky list of adjectives that have absolutely nothing to do with the story being presented. Worse, from what I've seen, the definitions of what is acceptable today may not be the same definitions tomorrow let alone 2 year from now. Trying to find the perfect formula of characters, setting, and plot to please everyone is impossible. True, that's always been the case but these days it feels like the formula has been written in a forgotten offshoot of Sanskrit using live ants as the medium. If you don't believe me, do an internet search of books that publishers have cancelled shortly before their release because someone decided they were offensive. Now, being a reader and having "edited" (read that as "rewritten") for an overseas company in my freelancing life I can honestly say that there is a lot of stuff out there that can be considered offensive in general terms by most people. There are a great many books that I've passed by because the excerpts I've read showed me that I would not enjoy them. I just always figured that it was my responsibility to choose to cast my vote for the success of any book with my pocketbook. Now? Well, let's just say that I'm not appreciating being told what is appropriate for me to read/write and what is not - especially when I see some of the content that is trending. This is coming from me: a writer who occasionally offends herself with some of what she writes (blame my characters, they have minds of their own. I'm just along for the ride) and is not big on the idea of outside censorship unless it deals with what a parent decides to withhold from their minor child. This affects each of us as writers. How many of you have tried to navigate the mine field of disgruntlement by writing a story that hits all the right notes? How many of your characters have you had to twist into some new form during editing. How many settings have you changed? How much more carefully have you had to pick through the editors and publishers to find one that might take a look at your creation and not turn their nose up because the current political landscape doesn't favor one sentence on page three? Or worse yet, how about finding one that not only might think your work is worthy but will also consider representing YOU with all of your varied adjectives? Note: In case you're wondering why I'm posting this now, my nicer side just went through a list of 96 agents who are looking for picture books. Out of that list, there were 3 that I think might consider it. It's a picture book with 32 pages and 13 words. My NICE side created it. How cataclysmicly wrong could my book really be that I could only find 3 maybes? Sure, some of the places not queried were not a good fit for actual reasons like: that agent only handles education related books, or they only handle list books with photos instead of created art. The rest? Well, that's where the murky waters of current trends come into play. I'm all for diversity in writers and writing. I just always considered diversity to be more...well...diverse. As an author on the hunt for representation, it is my job to look at what that representation is looking for and make a realistic evaluation of my likelihood of fulfilling that desire. Sending to everyone willy-nilly is a waste of their time and a waste of my time. It also screams that I couldn't be bothered to do my research on them which is just bad form. Long and short, me and my book were simply not the right mix of things for the other 93 picture book agents on the list. Now translate that to a novel length manuscript. It's maddening, isn't it? It's also exhausting and more than a little soul sucking. So, what to do? I mean, do we just give up? Do we write and then lock it away until sometime in the vague future where it might fit in? Do we try to write to the market - while keeping in mind that we are looking at a market that is at least 2 years away in the case of the larger publishers? Do we try to make the middle ground of self-publishing work because the puzzle in front of us has no reference picture and is most likely missing half the pieces? I don't think there is one correct answer aside from this: Be true to yourself when you write. You have to sell it to readers and that means you have to care about it enough to make them care about it, too. Most importantly, in the end you have to live with your work. Make sure you haven't twisted your stories so much that they keep you up at night. Welcome, welcome. Come aboard and have a seat. Grab an oar. We're all in this boat together and I can promise you some rough seas ahead. Life jacket? Did you just ask for a life jacket? We don't need no stinking life jackets here. It's sink or swim, you silly head. Now, adventuring we go! If you will look to your right, we are about to pass the old word miner's cabin. Looks like some shenanigans are afoot. You may want to duck, that thesaurus is coming straight at is! But I digress... This blog - part of my "procrasti-writing process" - is brought to you by my cats. They have evidently gotten tired of me mumbling, muttering, and generally cussing about certain aspects of this writing-to-authorship game and have deserted my office like a bunch of rats fleeting a sinking ship. Such is life. Even the plague afflicting my marketing skills can't seem to lure them back from the sunshine outside. Who can blame them. But here we are, you and I: Two writers locked away in our garrets dreaming big dreams and smelling in equal parts of hope and desperation. We get it. They don't. No explanation will ever make a non-writer understand our compulsion. Again, such is life. So, this blog is for you...and me. It's a place to dig under the rocks of this writing life and drag the ugly little slimy things out into the open so we can name them - and then call them names. It's to make the big monsters just a little smaller. Maybe we can even give some a spa day to make them more agreeable. Who knows, there might even be a chance that somewhere along the way, we'll be able to save each other from the whirlpools and waterfalls so we can all reach the magical land of Success! Welcome aboard, mateys!
Grab a bucket and start bailing. |
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June 2022
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