An idea sprung up that refused to go away so I’m working on another novel right now. It probably won’t go anywhere but (shrug). Gotta go for it while the iron’s hot in the fire etc., you know how that goes, in the meantime I’m typing as fast as I can to get it all down while it’s still hot in my head.
- Badtux the Writer Penguin
write madly and good luck with it!
Good luck, and get out of your characters’ ways!
And if you make real progress, just remember Yog’s Law.
Hmm? I didn’t realise you were an author – what else have you written?
I like pie.
Karen, luck doesn’t play a part in it, typing until the story is done is the deal. Somebody asked me once how a million-line computer program is written. I replied, “One line at a time.” The same general principle applies to fiction.
Nangleator, my problem is plot, not character. And Yog’s law is definitely in play here — I don’t have the time to do the polishing to turn my novels into final commercially viable product, and decidedly am not going to push out crap via a vanity press.
Phoenician, I’ve written one complete novel, most of two other novels, and a bunch of scraps here and there that could become novels. I mostly operate in the mystery/thriller arena with a very dark almost Raymond Chandleresque vibe (not surprising, since the first novel was written with The Big Sleep as its model, all the way to the protagonist getting knocked out by an unknown party early in the novel), although I was reading one of the scraps the other day which was the beginning of a quite chilling near future science fiction novel. None of it has been published and none of it will be until I get a large chunk of free time. At the moment I’m being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do computer stuff for most of my time, so my writing hobby remains a personal hobby for now.
I had never heard of Yog’s Law. In a Just Universe, that’s the way it would work. Too bad that’s not OUR universe.
I have been following for many years the life-course of a political blogger who’s also got novelistic ambitions. This guy is talented, but way down on his luck (due in part to the irascible character that makes him such an invective-filled political writer.) He’s ranted about unfeeling book agents who don’t even bother to read, various vanity press money-leeching scams, and the general travails of anyone who’s not already famous trying to get a book printed. It sounds like an awful world. Be glad for your day job, Tux.
In case you’re wondering, Bukko, here are the numbers:
Average book advance: $8,000
Average time to write a novel: 1 year.
Average sales for a novel: 8,000
Average sales for a mid-list author: 20,000
Average sales for a “best seller”: 100,000
Most books never sell out their advance. There’s maybe a dozen books that sell over a million copies in the course of a year, while there are tens of thousands of books published per year.
In other words, it’s no way to make a living unless you’re capable of churning out work at a rather rapid pace or manage to hit the jackpot in terms of market appeal and publisher interest. The number of authors who do *not* have day jobs is numbered in the dozens at best.
In other words, I looked at the numbers and, as with songwriting, said “Don’t give up my day job.”
Yog’s Law is meant to help writers avoid scams. Scamming writers must be huge business, because of how many people are good at it.
What I meant about letting your characters run free IS about plot. There’s two kinds of writers, and I assumed you were in my group. The other group plots out the entire story (even before and after the events of the current book,) before starting to write the story. I can’t do that.
My kind of writer sets up an interested starting point, with good characters, conflict, etc., then lets the story fill itself in while he writes. I have typed along, creating as I go, and been shocked at the direction my character chooses. At that point, I enjoyed watching the story write itself, as though I was reading someone else’s novel. It was the most fun I ever had writing.
And yes, writing is a terrible, terrible way to make money. But, like intestinal gas, creativity has to be let out. Preferably when it most wants to come out. Preferably when you’re alone. While the result is often awful, sometimes you enjoy parts of the process.
But it’s best not to tell the people around you about what you just did.
Make hay while the sun is shinin’, Badtux.