In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* I’ll Get to the Lie
* The Number One Lie Professional Fiction…
* Of Interest
Quotes of the Day
“Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.” John le Carre’
“Forever is composed of nows.” Emily Dickinson
I’ll Get to the Lie
in a moment, but first, as a preface, something I got from a friend via email. No doubt he thought it was funny:
“In a brief exchange in a book I read a while ago, two undercover FBI agents were on their way to meet and arrest a drug bigshot. The women says to the man, ‘Do you think this is an ambush?’
“He replies, ‘No. I won’t get gunned down in an Izod shirt. God doesn’t hate me that much.'”
For whatever reason, people (apparently including my friend) bought and read this book. Does anyone grab a book off the rack without opening it and reading a few paragraphs?
I ask because you literally can’t write that poorly in one dialogue exchange between characters and then write well through the rest of the book. Like that smell that comes up through bad plumbing, horrible writing spreads throughout.
If I knew who wrote those Bulwer-Lytton Contest Worthy lines, I would BEG him or her to write a guest post on marketing for the Journal, because to have sold more than a few copies of that book, s/he would have to be a masterful marketer. Which leads me to
The Number One Lie Professional Fiction Writers Tell Amateurs
1. The best marketing you can do is write the next book.
Actually, I’ve passed that one along myself on more than one occasion. I didn’t realize it was a lie. I hadn’t tested it yet. Now I have, and I’m here to tell you it’s the worst kind of mushroom fertilizer. My sincere apologies.
If you are an established major author with major publishing companies and film studios salivating over even the opportunity to vie for your titles by throwing money at you in the form of six- or seven-figure advances, this is probably true.
But for us working-class schmucks, not so much. The best marketing we can do (apparently) is making friends with people with whom we probably wouldn’t speak at all if we weren’t writers and they weren’t potential readers.
We have to bust our butt begging for names and email addresses and “followers” while trying to appear friendly and trying not to feel like a shyster.
My mental image is of an alligator lying in the reeds at the edge of a stream, peering up at a gentle, fragile, innocent flamingo: “Oh, what a lovely creature you are! Come closer. I want to be your friend.”
So readers venture closer, and then Some Of Us reward them with complete and utter crap about God not disliking us enough to let us be killed while wearing an Izod shirt. Expletive deleted me.
I’d rather take my pay from being entertained by my characters.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “7 Ways Public Readings Can Help Your Writing” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/7-ways-public-readings-can-help-your-writing/. See PG’s take and the comments.
See “Author’s tweet about a disappointing book signing snowballs…” at https://mashable.com/article/chelsea-banning-book-signing-tweet-stephen-king-neil-gaiman.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 540 words
Writing of WCG 7 Santa Fe 2 (novel tentative title)
Day 1…… 2190 words. Total words to date…… 2190
Day 2…… 3049 words. Total words to date…… 5239
Total fiction words for December……… 21653
Total fiction words for the year………… 236627
Total nonfiction words for December… 9290
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 207370
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 443997
Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 4
Calendar Year 2022 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2022 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 70
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. Because It Makes Sense, I trust my characters to tell the story that they, not I, are living. This greatly increases my productivity and provides the fastest possible ascension along the learning curve of Craft because I get a great deal more practice at actually writing. It will do the same for you if only you trust it.