What I'm up to these days...

Half way through edits for Rockapocalypse with my publisher. Also, I've finished a second book entitled 'Cold Currents', a mystery/thriller set in the South. I'm hoping this is my year to go into print. I'm sorry this blog hasn't been updated more often, and I sincerely thank everyone who has followed it. I'm working on another blog with Weebly that will combine the contents of this site and my Wordpress blog. I hope to launch that soon!

Editorial Tutorial…or some form of ‘orial’

It’s been awhile since my last post, but I’ve been busy. Actually that’s an understatement. I thought I would share my experiences, albeit as on-going as they may be, on writing and the editorial process.

First, unless you’re a writer blessed with talents far beyond mortal means, you probably are not the best editor for your work. Why? Because you love your work. Because you don’t handle self-rejection and self-critique very well. Because…well, isn’t that enough? Sure, you can run spell check, catch a few of those seriously stupid words or sentences that crept into your work while you were busy seducing it to paper. Maybe even realize you blew the plot and are able to fix it. But you won’t see it like a reader will see it. You won’t see it like a publisher or an agent will see it. You won’t approach it from a ‘marketing’ standpoint. You simply won’t… because you’re a writer.

With my first book, Rockapocalypse: A Boy’s Tale (now called Rock of Ages: The Keeper, after umpteen million revisions), I contracted a freelance editor to do a developmental edit. It was rather disastrous from my standpoint. My book had various problems and I spent many months re-writing. So much re-writing in fact, that my book changed drastically. Which put me back to square one, and that was not a happy place for me.

Fortunately, I had enough of ‘something’ in my work to get the attention of a small, traditional boutique publisher. After failing to get a contract through their publication board process, for reasons that went far beyond the merits of the book, I was lucky enough to peak additional interest with the owner/CEO, and was offered a collaboration of sorts to get my book up to their publishing standards. Collaboration, you say? Yes. I now meet with the her once a week at their company offices and do a combined developmental/copy-edit on my manuscript. No contract has been offered, but I’m learning a great deal about the editing process and hope it will lead to one in the near future. The really cool thing? It’s not costing me a dime. And that means they’re willing to invest time (=money) in me.

On another front, my second book, Cold Currents, is now under editorial eyes. After a careful search, I landed the editorial services of a well-respected freelance editor with over 40 years experience in the publishing industry. I won’t go into details for discretionary reasons, but he’s associated with a lengthy list of well-known works spanning his career. He’s currently providing a full edit on my manuscript as I write this. The cost will be a bit steep for my pockets, but it’s a sacrifice I feel I have to make at this point. I have to admit, I’m a bit nervous about his pending prognosis. It’s like waiting for a call from your doctor on your lab results.

The hardest part about both of the above? Not touching my work until the editing touches it. I really, really want to get back in there and ‘meddle-in-the- middle’, keep my fingers in it. But for now, I’ll just be content knowing I’m learning as I go with the edits on my first book and that I’ve got a professional’s eyes on my second book.

What are your thoughts on the editing process? Do you think the ‘wordsmithing’ stops with you? Do you have an editor you’re comfortable with that you return to over and over again? Is it important to you as a writer that your work shines to readers, and the industry in general?

Let me know your thoughts!

Disclaimer: This blog post has been edited with the narrow/bias perspective of its originator. Professional quality content should not be assumed by the reader.

Memories can save you $$$

'Get your Van Halen tickets now!'

That was the subject line of the email I received in my Yahoo inbox yesterday. I stopped everything I was doing and ran upstairs. My wife was in the bathroom putting on makeup.

"You wanna go see Van Halen?" I asked.

She gave a me a deadpan look, eyeliner pencil poised for the punchline. She was, at best, a quasi-fan of the band.

"When?"

"In May. Denver. Pepsi Center."

"How much are the tickets?"

I hadn't paid attention to that. The aging teenager in me was to blame. 'IT'S VAN HALEN, DUDE! THE ORIGINAL VAN HALEN!' he implored through pimples and a pre-cro-magnon haircut when the thought briefly flitted across our brain.

I ran back downstairs and clicked my way to the ticket site. I pulled up the concert tour, searched the venue map for the best seats and drilled into the PURCHASE NOW link.

Section 231: $200 per seat

Section 426: $320 per seat

Section ...blah, blah blah 'really expensive seats here!'

My teenage self left the room, surely embarrassed by my old man reaction. I walked upstairs and passed by the bathroom, uninterested in engaging my wife in an 'I told you so' type conversation.

"How much were the tickets?" she yelled, not one to be denied validation.

"Third of a mortgage payment or two months worth of groceries!" I yelled back, not slowing down. I didn't have time to be ridiculed. I was on a mission: find my old Van Halen CD's.

The irony of this?

Back in 1979 (or 1980?), I saw Van Halen live. I paid $20 for an outdoor concert that featured Van Halen, Boston (yes, THE Boston), the Outlaws and Poco.

$20, folks.

I was fifteen feet away from the stage when David Lee Roth flew out of the scaffolding in a harness and glided across the stage doing his hammy poses prior to rocking the bark off the nearby trees and causing dozens of screaming girls to spontaneously lose their undergarments.

$20

I was drinking PJ from a red solo cup when Tom Scholz of Boston came running onstage playing the opening chords to 'More Than A Feeling' and slipped, landing hard on his ass. You know what? He never missed a note. Not one.

Or maybe the PJ was just that good. Who knows?

Or more important, who cares?

The way I figure it, those memories will stay with me until I grow so old I don't need to remember them. They were priceless in what they offered for only $20. Not $200. Not $1000. In fact, after seeing those ticket prices, I felt like I'd robbed a liquor store with a Pez dispenser.

Those good memories saved me money. Besides, who wants to pay two months worth of groceries to watch old men try and reclaim their glory days?

Maybe they should revel in their own good memories and stop tempting that teenager inside me. Or maybe I should just go mix a batch of PJ and dance naked to my CD's. :-)

Slaying the Beast, Surviving the 365, or Just an Excuse to Party?

When I was younger, I gleefully rang in the New Year like everyone seems to do. Friends, booze, food and music, party hats, buzzers, confetti, and some things I won't mention, were all a part of the event. It didn't matter WHY we were there. The general thought was WHY NOT?

As I've aged, the New Year celebration has become a complex beast to me. I watch the hordes of people in Times Square at the stroke of midnight and wonder WHY?, because WHY NOT? does not seem a logical or valid response to me anymore. I wonder if they all feel as if they've conquered some vile, horrendous beast that attacked their lives all year. Or are they just happy they survived personal, economic and social challenges for 365 days? Or maybe they're celebrating togetherness? That would be nice. The tribe of mankind hunkering down together against the evils of nuclear annihilation? Or maybe they've never been able to turn down a good party?

Oh, I imagine there would be good reasons to celebrate the end of a calendar date (albeit symbolic at best). Things like beating cancer, publishing your first book, being in the black instead of the red with the business you started last January, etc.. But what if you looked back and nothing spectacular happened other than the fact that you woke everyday, had your health, had your family safe and happy, wherever they may be. What if, like me, you gave thanks for these things every day? What would that leave you to celebrate on New Years eve?

I've steered clear of this celebration for many years now. To be honest, 12/31 feels like 1/1 to me every passing year. If I could be ten years younger on 1/1, I would certainly funnel champagne on 12/31 to celebrate. If I won the Powerball lottery on 12/30, I would probably be celebrating way before 12/31- 23:59, wouldn't you?

I watch the faces of people in Times Square, look for some indication of what they are actually celebrating, thinking, hoping that each had something significant that explained their over-the-top exuberance. But it's possible, just possible, that they like a good party. So be it. We make our own peace in the world and if that helps them to face another calendar year, I'll raise a glass of cider to their honor.

What did you celebrate this News Years eve? I'd like to hear about it!

Here's to good fortune, health and happiness for all in 2012!

Have You Failed Lately?

Failure, to most of us, is a bad word. It’s a last resort. It’s the one thing we try to avoid at all cost. We choose alternate words and phrases to mask this painful word. Words like ‘unsuccessful’ and phrases like ‘come up short’ or ‘almost succeeded’. Either way you dice it, if you tried to obtain a goal and didn’t succeed, then you failed at attaining it.

But is failure such a bad thing? Life is full of lessons and every lesson is defined more by failure than success. Where would we be if we didn’t learn valuable lessons in life. I like to think of a failure as a reason to try harder, a reason to keep on keeping on. I’ve failed at many things in my life, but I know I’m not a failure because do not accept the ‘failure’ attitude.

So, whether you’re a writer, a teacher, a student, a homebody, or just anyone, keep striving to reach your goals, to grasp your dreams, to succeed. Being a true failure is only possible when you give up on what you believe in and embrace an attitude of failure.

Spiffy fact: In case you failed to notice: Failure, or some form of the word, was used 11 times in this post.

Darn! I forgot I had this blog here!

Not really... just been so doggone busy. In fact, I'm heavy into learning all about ebook conversion software. Why, you ask? Because like it or not, the doors are blowing off the traditional publishing model. Ignore it if you want. It's a quick fix society...has been for years. I've played by the rules, played nice, followed the guidelines, waited patiently.

Nobody has ever said, "You suck as a writer! Don't quit your day job...", so I've maintained the course. But I can't ignore the technology, the tools that are available in a free society. Or the growing tide of self-pub mania. Oh, I've not completely pulled out of the trad-pub realm, just keeping my options open. It's like this...if I came to your playground with my dodge ball and I saw you and your friends playing like a bunch of octogenarians wearing depends and sporting walkers, the dust collecting on the ball as it sailed through the air in some odd (and very slow) time warp, and was told I would have to be voted in to play, I would go form my own dodge ball game. I wouldn't care if yours was the Queens dodge ball league and had been around for 150 years. It's that simple.

My first book has undergone a metamorphosis that would put The Fly to shame. I've done all I can do with it, but it will be published. I will not surrender. My second book is coming along nicely and I just did a line edit on the first 200 pages. I've also "sold" a story to a literary publication that will be in print by January and I'm fishing around another short story as I write this. See? I have been busy!

Here's the deal with the trad-status, per say. I'm working with a trad-publisher to get my book in print, but when, no one can say. There is NO contract, just a "gentleman's agreement". I will not live forever. For the life of me, I cannot understand why traditional publishing takes so long! I know the ins and outs of the process, but there seems to be a floating lag factor that cannot be nailed down and stomped like the turtle-paced, snail headed monkey that it is. We've come too far to be operating like scribes from the 16th century. That's why I'm learning ebook stuff. Enough is enough. Sure, I know if I go that route it will be a struggle, but it will be a struggle that I have control of. It will be a struggle that will keep me engaged in the process and not sitting around waiting for the turtle-paced snail head to tell me what's going on.

Well, that was refreshing. Just needed to get that out.

What’s That Smell? Well, it’s NOT team spirit…

Along with all the good things about being a writer, there are a few that we’re not so fast to brag about to our friends and family. I’ve tried to list a few here.

1. First, there’s the “zone”. You know. That moment when your writing is smoking hot and nothing can stand between you and that Pulitzer Prize? When you’re completely engrossed in creativity of a divine nature so high in the planes of existence that you feel immortal? Okay, maybe that’s flourished-up a bit, but you get the drift, right? How you look and act to others is a different matter all together. To them you look “slightly out of it”. This is followed by, ‘Do you feel okay?’ and ‘Is everything all right?’, inevitably leading to the dangerous one, the one that you should avoid if at all possible: ‘Are you listening to me, dear?’

2. Time. Before you took up the task of covering writing media with words, time was pretty much a task master with specific lines, angles and rules. Day job? Arrive at 8, leave at 5. Movie? They’re scheduled for showing, so pick a time and don’t be late. Doctors appointment? 2 p.m. sharp! (plus one “not so sharp” hour while you wait for the doctor). But if you’ve truly taken up writing, truly committed yourself and jumped in with both feet, you’ll discover that “time”, for you at least, grows fuzzy, losing those lines, angles and rules. Appointments missed, trash not put out in time, missed the last showing of the movie you’ve waited months to see, and the list goes on and on.

3. Which leads me to that smell. My wife works outside the home. That said, I am left with the task of preparing certain foods over the course of the day. I’m good at getting it started. I’m just lousy at stopping it. (See 1 and 2 above.)

I mean, who can stop when they’ve got four injured/bleeding characters speeding to the hospital and one of them is about to lose her unborn baby, and perhaps her life, on the backseat of a half demolished minivan? Did I mention the fate of the world hangs on their success of failure? I’ve done countless mad dashes from my office to the kitchen once the smell of seared, burnt or flaming food has permeated my senses. Dangerous? Yes it is. Insane, actually.

I will have to find an alternative for this conflict of interest and necessity, but one thing is for sure: whatever the solution, it will not interfere with my Pulitzer Prize-winning work-in-progress.

Do you have quirks as a writer that go against the grain of the world around you?