Cloudy, but on track

I didn't manage to do very much over the last couple weeks because I'm writing (and editing). I'm also somewhat limited by my new treadmill desk; as I'm getting used to walking while writing, my feet just simply give out after a few hours on it and I'm then doing Other Things and focus my online time on writing to make the best use of the time I do have.

I'm also in the "throw words on the paper" stage of writing Lying with Scorpions (LwS), the sequel of Scorpion. I'd conservatively estimated that LwS would be the same length as Scorpion (72k), but I'm now a touch under 60k and still have 7 chapters in my 20-chapter outline that are barely touched. So far, my chapters are between 3k and 7k, so I have about 21k to 35k left to write. Needless to say, while full-time employed, that's near impossible to pull off by 27th May (hey, next Monday!), but I'm giving it a good race. I'll definitely need another week, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't seem like a Major Thing. For the most part, I'm keeping my head down and working hard.

There's also really no point hemming and hawing over the plot. A few chapters ago, I switched to writing with an outline (recently, I haven't been using one), and my wordcount is definitely up. I've also skipped out of self-editing a while back. Self-editing while I write just makes me question myself every step of the way--which so isn't good when I try to do 1-2k a day.

To hit wordcount, I essentially need to switch off the critical facility and "outsource" it to a couple friends who *will* tell me if I'm writing shit. At this stage, it feels like I'm in freefall while blindfolded--I'm out of the plane and approaching terminal velocity (in a manner of speaking, 1-2k/day is nothing for many writers). I have to trust that the outline holds, the chute opens, and my jump buddies tells me when I'm heading towards trees or a cliff, because on my own, I might not be able to see/avoid them.

I actually prefer to work differently--I edit as I go along, I write more slowly, I don't usually try to "get through that scene to make wordcount tonight", so this is a bit challenging. I'm halfway freaked out whether it's any good. I berate myself for ruining a good first book with a bad second book, I worry how readers who are invested in one particular character will respond to what I'm doing.

In short, I'm telling myself it's a horrific idea, how could I, why would anybody want to read this crap, etc. I'm also telling Rachel every day that nobody's going to buy it, but Rachel just shrugs and ghoes "whatever", which is actually pretty helpful in this semi-freaked state.

People aren't kidding when they talk about being their own worst enemy. There's nothing any reviewer can write later about this book that I haven't thought while writing it. When you wrestle your own angels all the way, reviewers are not actually that bad. Many of them are actually a huge amount more kind than that angel I'm dealing with, who is pretty much pitiless. All of this is an internal battle, and one I have to fight every time, so you'd imagine I'm by now used to it.

The good thing is, once it's written, a decent author and a good editor together can fix just about everything. I'm hoping to clean up the style/writing/repetitions and discover the book isn't hopeless. At this stage, I'm running blind, and I'll have to trust my buddies to get me to the end and then my editor to help me fix the structure (it's a slow book, and I fully expect to lose 10% in the final edit) and all the other aspects. It feels like a huge imposition to just write and accumulate words, but I have to separate those two styeps in my brain. Writing first, editingsecond. It's the mantra I used to preach when writing students were blocking themselves with fear and/or ambition (the combination is even worse).

So I'm working and writing and about 70% there, which explains why I've been scarce in other places. I'm bringing the herd home now, or at least, I can see the destination and have a rough idea how to get there. I j ust have to trust that this is/was a book worth fighting the angel for.

Good things come to those who wait

Remember my two little stories “Burn” and “Deliverance”? They were, after Special Forces, some of my very first works in the m/m space. They got packaged into anthologies and off they went. And while I was proud of them at the time—they did represent my skill level and my themes at that point in time—it only took about two years for me to grow to a level where I wasn’t happy with them.

So, recently, I’ve been clawing back rights (Scorpion, Risky Maneuvers, Transit, Clean Slate, First Blood) to fix them up and fix them up good. End-May, you’ll see Scorpion Redux, the others follow when I have time (and the co-writer, too).

Now, both Deliverance and Burn were short stories (6-7k each), but from early on I realised they weren’t. Now, they still had about 3-4 years on their contracts, but I’m an impatient one, and Burn screamed at me, wanting to be a novella (30k+), while Deliverance insisted it’s a novel (and the third part in a series of a three).

Cue me lying awake at night, grinding my teeth over the rights to them. I just hate having stuff out there that should be different, that could be better. I’m the type of author who loses sleep over missed chances and unused potential.

So after a process that took a while for several reasons (me dropping the ball a few times), the publisher of both stories has agreed to me purchasing the rights, and today I received the signed agreement from the other party. While we’ve both agreed not to disclose the terms—wow, it’s weird using one of my old journo phrases for my personal life, but I couldn’t help myself—I’ve bought my rights for the stories and am now sitting on those stories with lots of ideas where to take them. These stories are very close to my heart, so I’m incredibly relieved to have them back.

Riptide has already offered contracts for both (no, they do turn my stuff down sometimes, I don’t get a free pass), so I’m hoping that both will be out in 2014 in a way, shape and form that’s taking advantage of the full potential in those stories. They’ll be longer, shinier, and completely re-thought and re-worked. I’m really glad about that development and look forward telling you those stories as they should be told. 

Help me celebrate my birthday on 4 May (ask your fav character anything)!

Fourth of May is almost upon us (yes, I was born on a Sunday AND on Star Wars day), and while I will be a little scarce on this blog while I drive the herd home (aka, make tracks on Lying with Scorpions), I just stole an idea from glamourworld:

@aleksandrvoinov Give them some Q&A time with their favorite characters of your's?
— glamourworld (@glamourworld) April 25, 2013

So, the deal is this. To celebrate, you can ask your favourite characters everything. (They have to be mine, though, so only about half the cast of Special Forces). Post the question in a comment on my blog--both here and on Goodreads and the characters will answer. I'm taking some time off around my birthday, so I should get you the answers in a timely fashion.

(I'm also looking at doing a sale at Riptide, likely one or two of my solo titles.)

The unforgiveable crime of family

Every now and then, my life throws up "clusters" of meaning (or my brain turns it to meaning - after all, that's what plotting does - wrench meaning from random events). These are sometimes too random to spark a deeper interest, or even a blog post. Much goes on in my head that's just aurora borealis - impressions of colour, too ephemeral to make lasting expression beyond having been observed but fundamentally without much meaning.

A little while ago I met a reader and we ended up plunging some interesting family depths together. This gave me much to think about, but this review - really mostly the discussion around it - struck a chord today, so that's my blog post. 

Both my new friend and I shared an anecdote of a parent/grandparent telling us we weren't wanted and had contraceptives/abortions been available, we wouldn't exist. In my case (because I don't feel at liberty to talk about my new friend's experience), it was very clear to me from a young age that my existence inconvenienced my father. Essentially, he didn't want me, he never wanted me to live, and gods know whether he pressured my mother (27 years his junior) to do away with the impediment. I'm not putting it beyond him. All my mother's friends CONSTANT, mantra-like assurance "your mother wanted you so bad" and "you were all she wanted" makes sense. You don't tell that to somebody who has not been under threat by a potentially fetus-murdering father.

I may be overanalyzing things.

I also told that "black comedy" moment of yet another large family Christmas get-together going to shit - my family always congregated on Christmas to press each other's negative buttons with sledgehammers for a whole evening, and more often than not, there were shouting matches and old poison being dredged up from childhood ("You broke my doll! I loved nothing more than my doll!" - "Father always loved you most. Of course I beat you up when I could get away with it!"), and during one of those "Hell of Earth is Family" Christmasses, my grandmother roundly declared that if the pill had been around, "none of you would be here." (To her brood of eight children and at that point three grandchildren.)

Somebody essentially retroactively denying your existence - telling you you were a mistake, or an unfortunate development, that, given more convenience and access to funds/medical care/progress, you wouldn't exist at all is an oddly powerful shock to the system. Maybe part of the shock is a blow to our ego - our fundamental narrative that WE are the protagonist of our story, the dragon-slaying hero who'll free the princess, the lightbringer, the Chosen One, or any number of inner narratives that are fundamentally narcisstic and that get often mortally wounded somewhere around middle age, when no wise old wizard has led us to the magical sword and we left our parent's castle largely to be corporate slaves living from weekend to weekend, and we begin to suspect we're not the Chosen One but the Average Joe.

I can't yet make sense of it, and I can't pull all this into a conclusion. I'm absolutely in favour of people making choices about having or not having offspring. From that follows, obviously, that some of these choices might be wrong. A tremendeous potential parent might never have kids. A poor parent ends up with a stable full of them (my grandmother surely was an extremely poor, egotistical parent, almost a non-parent, since her brood was taken care of by nannies). But disclosing that we think it was a mistake TO the "mistake"? That's where I draw the line.

In any case, I understand a little better now why in my work I have so many father/son conflicts that often turn into extinction-level crises. It's me telling my (dead) biological father: "And fuck you--because I'm alive."

Fast versus Slow Writers (my $0.02, adjusted for inflation)

When we talk about fast authors versus slow authors, we sometimes might be tempted to think of one as a "hack" and the other the "auteur". The hack vomits up 20k a day, every day, and "floods the market" all by him/herself. The auteur hand-rears the goose that will eventually produce the sacred quill which which he'll write the perfect book.

Truth, I'm finding, is more complex than that. Every author has the same allotted time to work: hopefully about 70-80 years of lifespan, about 3-10 years of learning how to write. Everything else is individual.

Let's take two authors of the same age, who start at the same time. They roughly have the same amount of willpower and health. All "internal" factors are the same.

One of them has small children. Three actually. S/he might have to hold down a day job. Maybe a second one because the economy sucks. Maybe writing is their third job. Income is fickle from that. At least with the other jobs, s/he gets the same amount of money and can budget with that. Weekends are spent with ailing parents to help them stay on top of their house/garden.

The other one has bought a house pre-crash and suddenly finds her/himself in "negative equity" (owing more on the house than it's worth). The only way to fill in the gap is by writing and publishing fast and hard. Nothing says "Sit down and write, bitch" like a car payment or a mortgage or simply needing the money. Maybe essentials are taken care of by a partner who makes more money anyway and is A-OK with playing "breadwinner" while that writing gamble takes off or not. Both are childless and parents are in good health.

Both these authors will have vastly different productivity levels. Unless they share details about their personal lives (and many authors don't), we might not even know why writer A) has consistently delivered one book every year and writer B) publishes one every three weeks.

None of these factors are "their fault", some aren't even their choice, and yet they have a huge impact on how many words get put on the page.

In my case, I'm middling productive. I do more than a novel a year, and this year I'm doing 3-4 novels, and that's just the start. Among mainstream authors, I'm VERY productive. Among m/m writers or romance authors, I'm consistent, but not special by any means.


Factors that support my productivity:

- I'm young-ish and healthy. There are many authors who labour under physical and mental issues that I simply don't have, and I'm not yet feeling age. I'm born with a minor deformity in my lower spine, but considering many authors I know who have terrible back and joint issues, I'm robust and sound. If you spent almost every waking hour typing in some fashion, that's a huge bonus. I wrote not a word when my back was acting up.

- I'm childless. There are authors who have made a different decision and rearing children is Hard Work that screws with pretty much everything else (such as sleep, which has a huge impact on how well you concentrate). I've never had any desire to have children and am not missing a thing. It's a lucky accident.

- My partner is overall supportive and happy to entertain himself most days. Other partners are more demanding. Some can be needy and jealous, even aggressive.

- I have no financial anxiety. Nothing kills my writing faster than worrying if I can pay my part of the mortgage and whether I'll be poor in old age. I've been in that place and it's a place from where I cannot bring books. There are no books here, just black, horrible, soul-eating dread.

- My job is largely a low-intensity no-brainer. A more intense job (running a team, running a news desk or being a high-flying journalist, or joining a financial company in anything but a support role) kills my writing. I could do all that; in terms of brainpower and talent, it's all there, but I chose to work in a job that's only using 25% of my brain capacity at any given time, because 150% of my brain is taken over by writing and I'm essentially running my day job when I have a moment and overall CPU usage is down. This is common--I know highly talented, very smart, educated authors who work in jobs that are way beneath their capacity because their writing is more important. Their ambition is solely directed at writing, not at making the next rung of the ladder. It's the "bread job" and the "author biding their time". I'm definitely biding my time.


Factors that impede my productivity:

-  I'm full-time employed (40-hour week, 2.5-3hr commute three times a week, 2 days working remotely). This means work commitments can get in the way of writing (Christmas part, leaving drinks, work-related social events). Some days do get so intense that the only thing I want to do when I get home is sleep. Sometimes I do. While I might be able to live off what I'm making writing currently, it would mean placing  the vast majority of "breadwinning" on my partner's shoulder, which I simply cannot do; my self-respect is based on me paying my own way and being independent enough to walk away from any arrangement I've made. What I make currently is enough to pay my mortgage (unless interest rates rise, at which point I'm screwed), but nothing else much. No nice research books, no meals out with friends, no travel, and most definitely no US or overseas conventions costing thousands of dollars. Most months, I'd have to beg my partner for things like new clothes, and gym membership and phone contract would have to go.

- My partner (at times, I am spending an evening/morning/afternoon with him, because, damn, I like that guy and it's nice spending time with real MeatSpace people).

- Healthy diet. I've taken up cooking to feed myself better. That does mean some extra work in terms of cooking and cleaning up, but it's a matter of wellness for me now. Pottering around in the kitchen for an hour is a way to de-stress.

- Exercise. Some days, I go to the gym, lift weights or run, and come home and am mellow and tired and just have a shower and do email. This takes time away from writing. Exercise and diet take a significant chunk of my time, actually. I get home at 18:20, and cooking and housework can be up to 19:20ish, which is when my partner comes home. I might go to the gym (another 60-90 minutes) and return home and then be showered and changed at 21:00. At this point, I have 2-3 hours, tops, to write, and ideally I want to be in bed before midnight (though, Muse allowing, that doesn't always work).

- Social life. I like people and I like meeting them and hanging out. Especially book people. They keep my brain awake and focused on the outside rather than the inside. Then some people having birthdays, there are conventions, and some people ask for responses to their emails.

- Other duties. Sometimes, all writing gets choked off by something that might be more urgent. A round (or 15) of edits. Proofing--my stuff and almost everything else that Riptide puts out (I want to do that because I want to read everything that goes out). A battle with an asshole publisher over my rights (one of them has cost me some very good writing days with their bullshit). Me having promised to help somebody with their book (checking for German, an editing run between friends, a beta read).

I do get a LOT of mileage out of my 2-3 free hours a day, all things considered, and I'm certainly in a lucky and privileged position.

But all writing I do has to fit into the rest of my life, and the truth is, there's a limit to what even a disciplined author can achieve under his/her individual circumstances. Productivity is a balance of a hundred factors, and these are getting constantly re-arranged. My worst enemy might be my insistence on a "cushy" lifestyle, with pension, savings, a mortgage and far-distance travel to see friends, recharge my batteries and attend conferences.

Holding down a day job enables me to keep my dignity and pay my own way, because I don't believe people owe me a living--not even my partner or the state. I'm playing with the hand I've been dealt, and right now, that's the best I can play. I'm a slow author because I only have 5-10% of my time for writing--and I'm a fast author because boy do I get a good wordcount out of a relatively short period of "free" time. Not because I'm a hack or artiste--it's simply how my life is.

Scorpion II update

My attempt to write at least 1k/day is working pretty well at the moment. Last weekend, I had 17k, and now I'm at 25k, so it's moving forward quite steadily. Despite that, as a I move forward, the book seems to be getting longer. I was calculating that Scorpion II would get roughly to the size of Scorpion (72k), but looking over my notes, I have too damn much plot to squeeze it in.

So I'll either have to up my daily wordcount, or restructure the plot. Right now, I'm not entirely sure what makes sense (I don't want to screw up the plot because right now I like what's happening--it has a certain amount of elegance and I hate tempering with something that seems well-rounded and self-contained). The vote is still out, and I might postpone it to the point where I have a first draft, but for the moment, I'm upping my wordcount target to 1,500 and 2,500 on weekend days, just to be on the safe side.

In the next two weeks, I'm expecting my edits for If It Fornicates (long novella) and our WWII novel (70kish?), so there will be days when I won't get anything done at all because editing is intense as you hold the whole thing in your head and fiddle with all the details without losing the bigger picture. Editing a novel can be a special kind of hell. I'll try to at least write a tiny little bit during that period, but I very rarely manage. Editing is usually a dead time for writing. So that'll screw with Scorpion II, no doubt.

In positive news, I've received my biggest ever royalty payment from Riptide. Analysing my numbers there, some of my favourite stories seem to be getting a bit more love than they used to (I'm looking at you, Incursion and Skybound), and having two Amazon bestsellers really did not hurt (Take It Off and Quid Pro Quo). My workhorse in terms of royalties is Dark Soul, however, which sells steadily and disproportionally. And a few people even pre-ordered the re-released Scorpion (I know several of you already owned the old version, and bought it even though I told you that nothing much has changed--but your support is very much appreciated).

So, to everybody who bought anything, everybody who read one of my stories and everybody who reviewed anything, thank you. That royalty payment was a nice big uplift and gives me hope I can quit the rat race eventually to write more stories. (I might still work somewhere for a couple days a week, or maybe take freelance financial editing gigs when they arise, just to keep my hand in and not lose contact to the real world). Every time I look at a royalty statement, I'm very aware that there are hundreds of people out there who enjoy what I do, and that, in itself, is humbling and awesome. It's also a huge motivator to finish this story and edit all the others, as I know people are waiting.

On that note, I'm back to work. Gotta get to 30k by Sunday night.

Where I'm being a wordcount neurotic (Scorpion II)

Okay, I'm now involving you in a spot of wordcount neuroticism. (You're welcome.)

When Riptide signed Scorpion it was under the condition that I'm writing the rest of the series pretty much in one go. My deadline for Scorpion II (Lying with Scorpions) was set at end-May (2013). Five months ago when we decided on the date, that looked easy. I can write a novel in six months. So I wrote my historical novel, while thinking hard about the beginning of Scorpion II.

You see, more than a year ago, I wrote 17k of Scorpion II in short order and send it to a couple friends whether it worked for them. That proved to be a mistake, because to the Muse, just one person saying "it's boring and crap" can kill a book mid-chapter. I lose confidence and the Muse deflates like a burning zeppelin. (This isn't blame-shifting - my mistake is to hand anything out without telling people "Tell me only the good news. Don't tell me if it sucks." I'm much better taking "This sucks, that chapter is bad, that character is a whining asshole, I really don't care about anybody" when I have a completed first draft and switch over into editing mode. At that point, criticism, even harsh one, is helpful. Mid-stride, I lose balance and falter. Timing, as so often, is everything.)

So, Scorpion II stopped right after what I'd call the set-up. The principal characters are in place. The main conflict is established. Let's launch the middle (the part where the pieces actually move and do things and the conflict gets more and more pressing). Only--I didn't. I did re-read what I'd written, and yep, nothing much happened in the first few chapters, so I made some mental notes to revise.

Last weekend, I suddenly realised that I don't have six months anymore, but six weeks. Cue freak-out. Because I'd get into trouble with Riptide if they have to move releases, and my editor, because they only have a certain slot available. Sales are better when the next book is available. Last, but nowhere near least, I'd promised people they'll get the series. I really want to wrap up the whole thing this year, and we're one third through 2013 already, with very little to show for it.

So I spent the weekend re-jigging the 17k I have, decluttered the first chapter and restructured the ten or so chapters I had into four (long ones). It does change the flow of a novel if the chapters are longer. I made the conflict clearer (somebody's trying to assassinate Adrastes - rather than Adrastes and Kendras just having a relaxed little chat about the likelihood that Adrastes will get assassinated. Which ended up making all the difference.) I established a bunch of characters--two new Scorpions in Runner and Blood, a number of potential antagonists in Nhala, Graukar and the generals of Dalman. All of them have their own reasons for doing what they do, which is easy to keep in mind. To me, they are all alive, especially, weirdly, the women.

Then I added a good 2.5k to what I'd written (not bad, since I cut at least 1k, too). I'm now at the point where I consolidate the set-up and Kendras initiates a new Scorpion and will soon meet Graukar for the first time. So, I've entered the muddly middle, where characters push their agendas and Kendras tries to deal with the hand he's holding and starts to learn politics (not a pretty sight). There are many themes that are emerging: tradition versus innovation, the "burden of command" (Kendras is a weaker leader than Adrastes, so the Scorpions are feeling somewhat more "democratic" than they were in the first book, with people challenging Kendras's assessment repeatedly). It's also about "empire versus leadership" or generally a study in power. Some of these themes might become more prominent, others might bleed into the background. A novel is an iceberg--lots of stuff's present, but you can't see everything. For me, though, it has to be there, lagely to entertain myself.

More importantly, I now have 47 days to write 40-50k outstanding words (the first book had 72k, I don't expect this book to be any shorter), which means a solid 1,000 words a day. That would be easy, but I'm expecting to get hit with a pile of edits this month (our WWII historical is coming back, and there's Capture and Surrender, and, of course, the first editing pass of the contemporary cop story we've written), so I'll try to write at NaNoWriMo speed, which is to say 1,600-1,700 words/day. Count the fact that I'm also attending the London Book Fair and my birthday is in there somewhere, it's doable if I apply ass to chair. How much I'll manage to write of other books I have no clue. The "birds book" is an obvious victim, it pains me to report. I had a good flow going on that, but the research takes a huge amount of time, which I don't have when I'm on a tigh-ish deadline.

Though the really shocking thing is that Scorpion II looks to be the second in a trilogy. I never expected a third book, and I have no idea yet what's happening there (apart from one scene, which at the moment means nothing and hints at very little). Writing that in two months is the thing I'm really scared of, though I'm hoping that writing the second book will give me a clue what it all means and make the third one easier.

So, I'll involve you guys and will keep you in the loop how this project is going in sheer numbers of words. I doubt I'll have anything else much to blog about while I try to keep on top of this. I'll likely install a wordcount bar, and I'm definitely keeping the "order of battle" spreadsheet updated.

Let the games begin.