The Daily Journal, Sunday, March 24

In today’s Journal

▪ I was really surprised…
▪ Daily diary
▪ Of Interest
▪ The numbers

I was surprised not to find a slew of comments on my Journal post from yesterday. Nobody saying “No! Don’t do that!” or “Yeah, I’ve been shopping a manuscript around tradpubs for awhile” or “It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”

Instead, crickets. (grin) UPDATE: I did get one comment after I wrote this.

I suspect that’s because the results will affect only me, at least directly, and that’s fine. I don’t want to think it’s because the topic was simply not interesting, or worse, nobody read it. (grin)

Anyway, just in case anyone’s following along, here’s a maybe-surprising addendum: I’ll be shopping the first novel (or two) from each series to traditional publishers, But Not To Agents.

With the recent spate of even well-respected long-time literary agents going under or even being found to have cheated authors, I won’t be shopping those novels to agents.

I’m not the most well-versed guy when it comes to negotiations, but I know enough about copyright and what I require of a deal to do the negotiations myself. And yes, I’m fully able and willing to walk away if the offer isn’t at least in the high five figures.

Yesterday on our way to Sierra Vista, out of the blue my wife said, “Wait, if a traditional publisher picks up one or more of your series, you’ll sell all rights to that series?”

I said, “Yes.”

In defense of me, she said, “I don’t want you to sell your work outright.”

That was sweet. But I quickly conveyed the story I linked to in yesterday’s “Of Interest” about lightning striking John Gilstrap.

As a reminder, he (his agent) had shopped his manuscript around tradpubs for no more than a week when lightning struck and he got a deal that changed his life forever.

Hence my characterization of it as lightning striking. Or you can look at it as winning the lottery. Same thing. And probably about the same odds.

Which brought me then and brings me now to Why I’m willing to try this at this stage in my career:

1. I’m a good storyteller because I’ve practiced my way through 40-some novels and almost 200 short stories.

2. My stories retain my original author voice (all publishers look for a “unique voice”) because I write off into the dark vs. outlining, rewriting, and forcing the story on my characters.

3. Lightning will never strike me if I’m not standing on my roof in the rain and reaching as high as I can.

When I was teaching GED courses years ago, one student asked why he should even bother getting his GED.

I said because every extra bit of education opens new doors, new opportunities, while closing none behind him. Then I asked whether he would like to win the lottery one day.

He said of course he would.

And I said, “Well, you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. Getting your GED is you buying a ticket.”

Me offering my novels around is me standing on the roof in a thunderstorm. It’s me buying a ticket.

If lightning doesn’t strike (or if I don’t win the lottery) I won’t be any worse off. But if it does, I, my wife, and our descendants will be set.
***

Rolled out late at almost 4, was almost immediately distracted with a bunch of stuff, and wrote the above.

I also added a little to the novel, but it’s Sunday and I’m feeling lazy. The novel’s moving along fine. I might write on it more today, and I might not.

Nope. I wrote a little more, but I’m calling it for the day. Between the distractions in my email inbox and my several trips up to the house, I decided I’ll not count what little I got done today. I’ll be back at it tomorrow. (grin)

Talk with you again then.

Of Interest

See “Do I Do This? Or That?” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/do-i-do-this-or-that/. I can relate. (grin)

See “You Can’t Please Everyone” at https://killzoneblog.com/2019/03/you-cant-please-everyone.html.

See “Words That Take Your Breath Away” at https://www.leelofland.com/words-that-take-your-breath-away/.

See “Creating Custom Templates in MS Word” at https://jwmanus.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/creating-custom-templates-in-ms-word/. Don’t miss this. At least read it over. It’s a lot more than it seems on the surface.

Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 710 (Journal)
FTotal words for the day: 710

Writing of Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden (novel)

Day 1…… 2494 words. Total words to date…… 2494
Day 2…… 3107 words. Total words to date…… 5601
Day 3…… 3076 words. Total words to date…… 8677
Day 4…… 1515 words. Total words to date…… 10192
Day 5…… 0731 words. Total words to date…… 10923
Day 6…… 1002 words. Total words to date…… 11925
Day 7…… 2492 words. Total words to date…… 14417
Day 8…… 4479 words. Total words to date…… 18896
Day 9…… 1252 words. Total words to date…… 20148
Day 10… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… 43228
Total fiction words for the year………… 202286
Total nonfiction words for the month… 19520
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 70740
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 273026

Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date…………………… 4
Calendar Year 2019 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date… X
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 41
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 7
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 193
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31