It’s a fifth Friday, dear reader. Normally, this is the spot for a “dealer’s choice” post. But there are other things going on (which I talk about at Words Mean Stuff).
FMP is about writing, stories, and business. So, I won’t make any outside invitations here (you can find one at WMS if you’re curious). But, know that good things are happening and I’ll be back next week.
Good luck in your writing, dear reader. I’ll see you next post.
When I’m not writing/editing/working on FMP or Words Mean Stuff (WMS), I’m on the committee of a writer’s conference (and when I have a second or two, I also write books and stories!). On the conference side of the house, it’s a busy month, even though the conference isn’t until October. Why? Because right now is the time we’re doing the planning and defining that will lead to an excellent conference this fall.
There are many tasks on the plate: developing a marketing plan, contracts with advertisers, recruiting and training the folks who’ll work at the conference, recruiting and planning with the people who’ll present at the conference, dealing with that one person who want’s to redesign the system for doing all this stuff (while we’re doing the stuff!), and handling crises that happen because we all have lives outside of running a conference. These things have a couple of points in common:
Some of you may ask what about doing the work. Well, the work needs to get done. But, productive work won’t get done without definitions of the work, decisions and commitments on who’s doing the work, and communication between the folks doing the planning and work. Without those three things, you can have a lot of effort happening but still not get productive work done.
This, dear reader, is why a good conference takes so long to pull off, you have to do the planning, put everything in place and coordinate the efforts of everyone involved (please don’t ask me how my church is pulling off two (actually more than two!) international conferences per year. I’m still struggling with my one conference some days).
There’s an old saying, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” That’s often accurate. So, assume as little as possible. Instead, do your prep work (that seems to be a theme in my world right now…). Define what needs to happen. Decide who’s doing what (you may need to hire some people and/or get some “buy in”). Collect the information you need to make all of this happen and communicate with the people who are doing the stuff. And then, do the communication (don’t be the guy whose star keynote shows up at the wrong place because someone forgot to send a text!).
This is work. I won’t lie about that. It’s not even the fun part of the work (at least for me). But, it’s the foundation for making the fun stuff happen.
Have a good think, make a plan, and communicate with your people, dear reader. I’ll see you next post.
As a feature of the ongoing business/tools thread, we started in February and continued last week (link) this week I’m bringing back a post and a tool from last year, an hourly rate. Overall, I don’t believe the principle has changed. In fact, with the economy where it is and in view of our current discussion, knowing your “hourly” is probably even more important, even if you rarely work on an hourly basis. It’s a valuable decision tool.
There are those that’ll tell you the hourly wage is for blue collar folk. And, the hourly wage might be, but the hourly rate is for anyone who values their time. Actually, that’s what setting an hourly rate for yourself does: it assigns a minimum value to your time.
Once you’ve set a value on your time, you can use that number for decision making. No, it doesn’t mean you have to punch a time clock. What it means is you can estimate how long a project or process will take, and then use that information to decide, like how much money to ask for in a bid, or decide whether that project is worth hiring out or doing yourself.
As writers, we know this won’t work for novels (in a complete sense). But what about hiring an editor? What about editing gigs of your own? Reviews? Ad copy? Estimating based on an hourly rate will never work for the big labor of love projects (we do those for things other than money), but for the other projects, the ones that pay the bills in the meantime, it can be helpful.
Knowing how we value our time helps us make other decisions too. “OK… My favorite drink is on sale for fifty cents less at the store across town. I’m in the market for two cases… Is it really worth my time to drive all the way over there or should I just buy it here?” If you know what your time’s worth, you can make the best decision.
In my situation, it’s probably not worth it, unless I’m planning to go that way anyway…
We can use this process for more than snacks and drinks too…
There are a lot of factors that go into deciding to hire an editor or a book designer (or a plumber, or a mechanic, or…). Do you have the knowledge to do it yourself? Do you have the tools? How long will it take you?
My car’s last oil change cost me about $40.00. It takes my oil change guy 10-15 minutes. It would take me longer. I don’t have a garage so I’d be laying out in the street. And, I’d have to buy some extra tools. That one’s a “no kidding” I’ll hire it done for many reasons. I’m better off paying someone to do it.
I also enjoy eating. Specifically, on ‘big project days’, I like to order from a Chinese place about five miles from the house. I figure I’d have to stop working, drive the 10-12 minutes to get there, order, wait for the food, and then drive another 10-12 minutes to get the food home, where I can resume my bad habit of eating while I work. I could do that. Or, I could pay a 15% fee and have the food delivered (maybe three bucks at most on my usual order). I don’t need any new tools. I’m not stuck lying in the street. But, my time’s worth more that the service fee. So, unless I need a break, I guess I’m having it delivered.
These decisions can get really important in writing work. Not necessarily from a money saving stand point (though that can happen), but from a time saving one. And, possibly, from a quality of work standpoint.
Depending on what’s needed, a freelance editor’s typical rate is about the same as mine. So, hiring one won’t save me money, but by having the editor edit one piece while I’m writing another, I’m getting a lot more done in a day.
Would you like to see the money come in this year, next year, or a few years down the road? Paying the price to hire an editor can speed up when you get paid. Hiring a cover designer can save you time and software fees, and give you a better product than what you might create yourself. Hiring a proof reader might be cheaper than doing it yourself (on a time spent basis), and spot that typo that you’ve gone blind to (We alll have tham).
An hourly rate isn’t just for “work a day” labor types. An hourly rate is a tool we use to help us decide what we’re working on, how we work on it, and sometimes how much to charge for what we’re doing. It’s a planning tool, not a limitation.
Think about your hourly rate if you have one. Think about setting one if you don’t. And, I’ll see you next post.
By the conventional schedule, today’s post should be a non-fiction post. And, it is, in that the things I’m talking about are very real.
Last month, I put out a business post Looking Where We “Dare Not Look” discussing hiring someone to help with the backside work of a writing business. The tldr on that post is that we should consider hiring in help to handle the non-writing stuff so we can focus on the writing stuff.
For today’s post, I considered things we do as non-fiction writers that are behind the scenes work we have to do ourselves (or at least have a hand in). (Note: we can try to skip this stuff but there’s a serious risk of ending up right beside the guy who called a single shot muzzle loading pistol a belt fed fully automatic machine gun and people who say Nelson Mandela needed to check his “white privilege”)
We’ll talk about several of those writer specific prewriting tasks on the blog. That’s part of why we’re here. But between today’s thinking and last month’s post, one topic rises to the top (and fiction folk should pay attention too; you’re not immune!). Whatever we choose to work on, it’s possible to have too many projects going at once. It’s possible to get too many things happening and drown in the details of stuff that’s happening or failing to happen while we’re busy doing something else.
Sometimes we see something shiny and new and want in. Sometimes a project is more complicated than we thought it was. Sometimes the folks we’re working with have issues (It happens… On the conference side of my house my star sales and vender person had to drop out last month and as soon as I had her replaced my education outreach person had to step away…). Sometimes the challenge will be completely unforeseeable (truly random). But complications happen.
Sure, we want to do all the projects, but how much can we really do? What can we get help with? Which projects are really important? Sometimes we have to make choices and hard decisions. Sometimes we need to set it all out on the table and prioritize.
Here are some thoughts for when that happens:
There are lots of interesting projects out there to work on and write about. But we can’t do all of them at once. We have to make decisions and choices based on what we can really do and what’s important to us. Once we’re doing those things, we’ll get a lot farther.
Choose the best things, dear reader. Find success in your projects. I’ll see you next post.
Occasionally someone asks what genre I write in. It’s not a simple “one word” answer. I write in several. In the non-fiction world, I’ve written scientific stuff, self-help stuff, and business stuff. In fiction, I write fantasy, real world stuff, and stuff where fantasy and the real world intersect (I like those stories). I aspire to writing science fiction, but I have enough going on that I haven’t put much work into it.
The next question is often why I would choose one genre or another. That answer is simple. I write in the genre that works for the story I want to tell and/or the point I want to get across. Often it depends on how the thought comes to me. But it also depends on the audience I want to reach. Some people will read and learn from a real-world fiction story that won’t touch a self-help book. Some people don’t like real world stories and seek refuge in fantasy. If I want to be read, I need to go where my audience is (actually that’s a good general guideline for writing…).
Why any of us writes in a genre is an interesting question. It usually has to do with personal taste and personal history. But as a pragmatist, a lot of it comes down to what works best. What genre will reach my readers? What genre tells the story without getting in the way? If we ask those questions, the choices of which genre to work in and why the story belongs there become pretty clear.
So, dear reader, what’s your favorite genre? Why does it grab you? Consider those questions. Leave a comment if you want to. And, I’ll see you next post.
Note: I don’t walk perfectly in the realm of today’s subject. But, I’m learning and doing the best I can. And I encourage you to do so as well, dear reader.
Guy Kawasaki was an Apple guy, back in the old days when they made and sold computers and not “I-toothbrushes”. He wrote several books about business, leadership, and his time at Apple. A feeling of his that I agree with is that “when you let the MBAs take over, your growth is done”.
Neither he nor I mean growth in terms of market share or money. The MBAs are all about that stuff. The fear/observation we share is that the creative and innovative side of things takes a hit when the MBAs push their way in to talk about market share and profits.
I’ve known a number or artists, writers, and other “creative types” who seem to share that opinion, or just find the business aspects of the work to be somewhere between tedious and hideously boring. The thing is, we need to look at that stuff. The challenge is, we need to do it in a way that doesn’t kill our creative and innovative loves.
The business side of things, the worky icky part where we talk about things like SEO, marketing, income, expenses, etc. isn’t something we want to do. But we have to do it (or get it done) so that we have the time, money, and resources to do the stuff we want to do, the fun, creative and innovative stuff (the actual making stuff part of the job).
Practically speaking, we have two choices: we can do it ourselves (not fun) or we can hire things done. That hiring it done side isn’t as easy as it sounds (but I support it!). Hiring out the business side of things costs time and money. We have to pay the folks who do it. We have to deal with the searches and contracts involved in hiring those people. And, we have to be educated enough on the business side of things to know what the #@$@#@$@!!!! the folks we hired are talking about and be able to make the decisions we need to in order to be in charge of our business.
That’s the other challenge. We can’t let the business side take over our decision making any more than we let it take over our creativity. We have to make decisions instead of letting other people do it or “letting the decisions make us”. The folks we hire might make day-to-day decisions, but if we’re really in charge, we should make the ones that “guide the ship”.
The payoff is we get more time to do the creative/innovative stuff. We still need to learn and watch over the business end, but we can pay someone else to do most of the grunt work while we’re doing the part only we can do.
If we want to, we can go the other way and be a “one person shop”. That may be cheaper monetarily. But, if we’re doing all the business stuff, it cuts into the time we could have used for the “real stuff” the stuff we actually want to do. Or, the business stuff doesn’t get done and we never see genuine success (or if we do, it crashes and burns with alarming speed).
There are things we have to do: the creative and innovative stuff; educating our selves about the business stuff; and making the key decisions. But, there are things we can hire out: the book keeping, marketing work, the appointment setting, and even some of the research and editing stuff. It’s worth our time to figure out which is which and how to deal with them.
One of the most important (and most difficult) things to do is decide what we can (and should) do on our own and when, where, and who to ask for help. It’s perhaps the most important skill for us to learn because it touches every aspect of what we do.
Learn this skill, dear reader. Use it regularly and well. And, I’ll see you next post.
One of the most amusing debates among writers centers on how they write. You’ve got pen (pencil) and paper people, computer people, and even typewriter people. There are even “I write on my phone” people out there. And many are convinced they’ve found “the” way to do it!
The truth is, I don’t understand people who choose to write on their phones (like, by choice…). It’s something I could do if I absolutely had to, but as long as something else is available, it’s not what I’m doing. That said, I won’t judge people who write on their phone. It’s their choice.
I operate on the theory that we should use what works best for us and what we’re writing. Sometimes, that means using different tools for different jobs.
Right now I’m writing this post on my computer (in Microsoft Word). Novel material gets written longhand in a notebook. Both processes are matched to the speed of my writing and thinking abilities. Often when I write novel material, my brain gets going faster than my hands on a keyboard can match, but I can write long hand at that speed (albeit with really crappy handwriting). When I write posts, the material on paper either gets over thought and over edited or doesn’t make it to the blog. It seems like working on the keyboard puts me in the right state of mind for blog posts.
Non-fiction (non-blog) stuff is split. Some things, like my current non-fiction book, happen on the computer (in Scrivener). I’m doing a lot of quoting in the book and moving things around. The computer helps with that. Other projects, like my how-to stuff, have to be written longhand. I need to do the stuff to write about it successfully. And, I’m not getting a torch or metal shears anywhere near my precious office computer (I’m less defensive about the shop laptop, but for this stuff, it would still get in the way…).
The point is, I don’t think any writing tool is actually wrong for what we do, as long as it suits our needs and purpose. The tool that works best for you and your project is the right writing tool, no matter what someone else thinks.
Do some experimenting. Do some thinking about your situation. Choose the tool that works best for you. And never feel the need to justify why you’re using it beyond “it’s what works best for me.”
That’s it for this one, dear reader. Keep writing. Keep doing. And, I’ll see you next post.
It’s been said (a lot) that you need to know your audience. It’s true, you need to understand them so that you can understand what they’re looking for, what they enjoy, what they will pay for, and other things. Well, in the world of non-fiction, there’s another reason you need to understand them. Sometimes, the reader is the hero of the story!
Nope, we’re not talking about writing in second person. There are fiction and non-fiction reasons to do that, but it’s not what we’re talking about today. Today’s focus is on areas like self help and how-to, places where your reader wants to do, overcome, or achieve something. In those cases, your focus needs to be on helping the audience to get what they want.
It’s a challenge. Many well intended authors struggle with it (I know I do sometimes). And, if you get it wrong, it’s easy to end up in the “pontificating ass” category, which hurts readership and your publishability.
You’re the author of your work. You’re the one writing it. Hopefully, you’ve got something to say.
If you don’t have advice or experience related to the subject, why are you writing it in the first place? If you didn’t, there’d be no reason for the reader to pay attention to you. But, most of the time, they’re not here to listen to you reminisce about your own successes and adventures. They’re here to find solutions to their challenges. When they pickup or download your writing, they’re giving you a chance. But they’re far more likely to be asking “how can this help me?” than they are “What’s this person’s life like?”
Actually, even if they are asking “What’s this person’s life like?” they have their own reasons for doing it. And, if your stuff doesn’t fit with those reasons, they’re going to put your book down and might not pick it up again.
We like sharing (at least sometimes). The reader is (hopefully) here to read the things we’re sharing. But, we have to do it in a way that helps readers achieve their goals. If we ignore the reader and the reader’s needs, they’ll notice that, and our success rate goes down. So, we have to find the right ways and words to share our stuff and communicate to readers that “this is here to help you.”
We love our strokes. Most of us want to be heard. But, very few of us like being lectured to (and when people like being lectured to, it’s often because being lectured to doesn’t require them to do anything). If we’re teaching and helping, we want to give our audience every reason to “read and heed” that is to actually learn and do stuff.
We’ll also want to reduce excuses and reasons to not follow through with the stuff we’re offering. Putting thought and focus into how what we write helps the reader instead of how it makes us look goes a long way in the right direction.
We want to include our readers and help them feel they can do and achieve things. Yeah, we’ve got stuff to say. Hopefully great and inspirational stuff. But, it should be stuff we’re offering them, not stuff we’re forcing them to accept (forcing them is a great way to get people to not do things (things that we want them to do at least…)).
Willing giving can be powerful. Back in the day, when I worked in a group home setting, one of the most powerful techniques I used was helping the residents understand the situation and giving them a choice. The guys who just told them what to do met a lot of resistance. The teens we worked with wanted to make choices for themselves. By allowing them to make choices, I got the kids to do things the “force-em” guys couldn’t, simply because doing things my way allowed the kids to make their own decisions.
A funny thing happens when you give rather than tell. It happened with my group-home kids and it happens with readers. When you do it right, they think more of you than they would have otherwise.
Yes, I had to set some bounds and boundaries with my kids. They needed some time to learn and see. But eventually, understanding happened and opinions shifted. The “force-em” coworkers struggled to understand why the kids were “good” for me and not for them. On the kids’ side, it was all a difference of perception: the “force-em” guys were weak and petty. I was so powerful that I could offer the kids a choice and not be diminished by the offering.
We can do the same thing in our writing. If we think about our audience and offer rather than lecturing, we can grow in stature as our readers achieve their own success. And that, dear reader, is worth doing!
That’s it for this one, dear reader. Next work we’ll talk about “team work” and teamwork, the cause of and solution to so many of the headaches we have.
Until then I wish you success in your own writing. See you next post.
I was going to title today’s post Creating Story, Fanfic, and Other ‘Stuff’. I was tempted to rant about certain recent series or attempted series. But I’m not going there.
Yes, there are people ‘borrowing’ popular IP and creating ‘new versions’ that are basically their own thing using the old IP’s name. There are also people pulling the name off the IP and calling it their own content. Both sides are wrong. Both sides are abusing someone else’s work for their purposes. So, let’s wag a finger and move on…
What I really want to talk about is almost as controversial: a valid use for fanfic!
Generally, fanfic is fan-created fiction in someone else’s world. We’re not talking about a shared world intended to have multiple authors, or a world who’s creator has died or retired and a faithful successor has picked up the lance and continued the stories (that’s really hard to do (and also another post…)). What we’re talking about today is writing where a fan (somebody who likes a world) attempts the creation of stories in that world even though they’re not an original creator or the ‘heir to the series’ (though, in time, they might get there!).
There’s a lot of bad fanfic out there. I mean poorly written stuff, smutty stuff in a world not meant to be smutty, and stuff written without a decent grounding in the world. But, there’s an actual valid use for fanfic too.
When you’re learning to write, there are a lot of aspects and skills to develop. To get it all right, all at once, requires a tremendous effort and the ability to focus on several things at once (as I’ll discuss next month, the problem only gets worse if you want to write long fiction…).
Two big categories of writing skills are the actual storytelling skills and world building. There’s also an interface that I’ll call world maintenance where you have to keep the world you’re working in consistent (usually) while writing an engaging story. What fanfic buys you is an already created world. It reduces the workload by pulling the world building part out so that the writer can focus on telling a good story and maintaining consistency.
Now, does that mean we should all just write fanfic? No. Not even close.
What it means is that fanfic allows a writer to focus more on one part of the entire array of skills, and then come back to pick up other parts later. If you’re writing fiction, especially speculative fiction, you need to learn world building. But you still need to learn the story telling and consistency aspects. I don’t see fanfic as money making writing. it’s a set of training wheels to help you develop the skills that lead to money making writing.
It’s an echo of things we see elsewhere. In the Asian tradition, painters learn by copying the works of their teachers. Fanfic done right is the same thing with words instead of pictures.
So, yes, there can be a valid place for fanfic. Just put in the effort to learn. Do right by the people whose world(s) you’re using. And don’t pawn off your fan made stuff as cannon.
If you’re at that place, if doing fanfic is helping you learn and develop, that’s ok. The learning and developing is what’s needed. But, eventually, you need to branch out and start building your own voice and your own world. Usually, you end up happier and the fiction community is better off when you do.
That’s it for this one, dear reader. Learn skills, find your voice, and I’ll see you next post.
Making notes on drafts and research is important. It can also be a pain in the butt.
Actually, note taking is a “two problem” problem. It’s two sided. There’s the taking notes part and also the organizing and using your notes part. The best solution depends on how you work and what you’re using the notes for.
The way we take notes may vary depending on what our project is and how the notes are to be used. And finding the actual best method (at least the best method for us and our project) is usually a matter of experimentation. Unless there is a genuine constraint (your teacher wants to see your notes and wants them in a particular way or you have to submit your notes for some other official purpose) do what works best for you.
Sure, you may have been taught a particular method. But, they’re your notes. Unless there’s a teacher/agency/boss demanding a particular method, what works for you is far more important than what you learned in junior high.
All of that said, let’s look at some tools to help in note taking…
You might want to take notes on your phone/tablet/computer. There are many programs out there and good reasons to use electronic notes. If they work for you, do it. You’ll want to experiment with what program to use based on your situation.
Even if you’re more of a paper and pencil person, sometimes electronic notes are helpful. Notes made within an electronic manuscript can be shared with others (and help us writers while working on that next pass). This is especially useful in multi-author/editor documents and extensive projects. Most credible text editors (Word, Scrivener, Google docs, etc.) include ways to make comments. Modern versions also allow you to track revision histories and even revert to earlier versions. I usually have a print manuscript available for my print book/document projects, but by having the electronic notes and revision history available, I can keep it down to one active paper copy rather than having to hold on to multiple paper drafts.
The other place electronic notes are helpful is when you’re dealing with pdfs. And, if you do serious research/writing there will be pdfs.
Back in the bad old days, researchers went to the library and copied journal articles. If your library didn’t have the journal you needed, you did an interlibrary loan request and, eventually, got a sketchy and hard to read photo copy that a low paid student worker at some other library made. I’m very glad those days are (mostly) gone.
In modern research, much of what we need is available on-line, and often in pdf form. Pdfs allow us to store our materials conveniently (no more filing cabinets!) but, unless you print them out, it’s hard to make physical notes on pdfs. Often, Pdf manager and reader software will allow you to highlight and note parts of your electronic research. It’s a space saver and a useful sharing tool. Some e-book readers allow note making too.
If you use “dead tree edition” books, you might not want to read and type. With physical books, that keyboard or finger swipe can get in the way. So, sometimes we do it the old way and write in the book.
I’ve met some folks who swear by this method. I’ve met others who think it’s sacrilege. Of course, that second group often subscribes to the “if it’s in print (or on screen) it must be true!” school of thought, which can be a barrier all by itself.
There is one big problem with making notes in the book (two, if you want to keep your book looking nice). If you make your notes in-book you have to lug the book (and any other books with notes you need) around with you or have them conveniently available in the place where you work, and then you have to remember which book it is, and what page, and…
A method I’ve used for many years that alleviates a lot of the notes-in-books problems is using a separate notebook. You have plenty of organization options in a notebook. Of course, that means figuring out your note taking style and including things like what book and page you’re referring to in addition to making your note.
But, you can make your own notes along with the reference notes you keep and even make a sketch or two (which separates this method from a lot of electronic document note systems…).
Notebooks are also helpful for field and lab notes separate from reading research. There’s more space than in a book’s margins and you’re freer about where and how you can make notes. Of course, now you have to keep track of your notebooks…
I’ve tried and used all of the techniques I’ve mentioned. I still use most of them depending on the project. But there is one tool I currently love and really can’t work without. The sticky note.
Sticky notes allow you to do all the notes in books stuff, and the notes on documents stuff, and the ‘I need to remember this later’ stuff. But they aren’t stuck in one place. They can be moved, reorganized and even transcribed into a notebook or electronic form. Technically, if you want the electronic version, you don’t even have to transcribe them. You can take pictures.
Sticky notes have liberated my note use considerably because I can move them as needed and I’m not afraid of damaging the book or document I’m working with. The fact people have developed and use an electronic version kind of validates their usefulness to…
I won’t say my method is better than yours. My method may not work for you. Many people’s methods don’t work for me. Instead, dear reader, I encourage you to find the tools and method that work best for you.
Take notes. Find your success. And, I’ll see you next post.
Forever Mountain Publishing