Kenneth Mark Hoover, Writer 2.0

I'm not saying I'm putting aside all my old stories. There are one or two that might be salvageable. Heck, I sold an old story as a reprint a couple of weeks ago, but can't say anything specific about it right now because the magazine is still being put together. But I think that story might be the exception, at least as far as my older stories go, than the rule.

You see, when I made the decision to write nothing but short stories this year I was also making a conscious effort to reboot my writing career. I looked at my old stories that had not sold and decided I have moved on in a lot of different ways. I'm not saying they don't have any intrinsic value, because they do. I just decided they don't portray the voice I have now, and the voice I'm using now, the story I'm telling now. Or trying to. That's all.

So, yeah, I've rebooted myself. And so far I've been satisfied with what I've written and what I've been able to sell. And the inroads I've made with a few through these new stories. Even rejections, when viewed in that light, are valuable.

I don't know if what I'm doing is smart in the long run. Maybe I shouldn't be trunking all these unsold stories from last year and beyond. But I've done it anyway and I'm concentrating on all new stuff, at least for the remainder of this year. And it's kinda worked.

Yeah. I'm pretty happy with Kenneth Mark Hoover, Writer 2.0 so far.

So far.

Idea vs Story

Today I made my notes and fiddled with names and stuff for the new Haxan story. I have all that down, but it's only an idea right now. I don't see the story yet. I know it's there. I just have to dig a little deeper in the motivations of the characters to find it.

And that's cool. Sometimes story jumps right out from the idea and screams to be noticed. Sometimes you get the story in your head, but can't find the idea to use as a framework to tell the story.

I'll find it, eventually, I'm certain of that. Half the fun (oh, who am I kidding, all the fun) is finding it along with the characters themselves.

How I Write

I can carry a story in my head four or five days, but I don't go longer than that. I meet another writer once or twice a week at a coffee shop and write there for two or three hours each session and I will write at home during the day (out on the deck when the weather is nice) for as long as I want to. I don't keep regular hours; I see no need to as long as I keep making progress.

Sometimes my instinct will tell me I'm falling a little behind and I might put in a longer day to make it up. I don't obsess over how many words I write per day. There's a story about Oscar Wilde who worked in his room all morning. When he came down someone asked him what he did. "I put in a comma," he replied. He went back up after lunch and stayed the afternoon. When he came back down he was again asked what progess he had made. "I took the comma out."

I don't know if the story is true, but it sounds like Wilde. Some days are like that.

I often do the office donkey work (preparing mailings, queries, researching markets, etc) on Sunday so they can go out Monday. Anything I write during the day I often review at night, and then again the next day before I write more. I find this keeps the story fresh in my mind. Even if I skip a day of writing I will still often read through the story I have so far so I can keep it in the forefront of my mind, and, of course, I am ALWAYS thinking about the story no matter what I'm doing: driving, going to the store, listening to music, etc. The story is NEVER very far from my mind at any time, and I find this helps me quite a lot in both the creative process and understanding how the story must be written.

Of course, that's just me. Ask 100 writers and you'll get 100 different answers.

Tricky Endings

"High Moon" is coming along slowly. The ending is tricky. It's one of those endings that if I don't get right the reader will say, "Well, that was dumb" and I'm trying to avoid that for obvious reasons. Hence, the "tricky" part.

It's like feeling your blind way through a hall of Jell-O. Sure, you can push your way out, but it's better to follow the path, I think. Squishy, though.

Rewrite Request

Beneath Ceaseless Skies wants me to rewrite "Haxan" and resubmit. I thought about this all day yesterday, if A.) I wanted to do that, and B.) How I would do that.

I thought about it and figured out "B" easy enough. "A" was a little more difficult because I didn't want to make the story into something it wasn't meant to be. But after thinking about it I realized all they really want is to have some of the supernatural elements front-loaded in the story. I can see their concern with the current story structure and don't have a problem with fixing that.

I always approach a rewrite request with the same metric: Will this make the story better? If I'm convinced it does then I don't have a problem with a rewrite. This rewrite request doesn't really help the story much, in my estimation, but it doesn't hurt it, either. So on that basis I don't have a problem giving them what they want.

I'll be working on this today.

Diminishing Returns

I'm thinking about quitting and not for the first time. I'm...tired. Tired of the hoops I have to jump through, tired of the postage, tired of being treated like a POS by agents and editors alike, tired of writers themselves not willing to stand up to the publishers who take them for granted and therefore make everything harder on those of us who view this as art.

It's not worth it. I don't know if it's ever been worth it. I've become hard pressed of late to see any value in sitting alone in front of a computer screen for hours on end with absolutely NO guarantee of worthwhile outcome. And since self-publishing is an absolute anathema to me...well, that pretty much leaves quitting as my only option.

It's not that I don't believe I can't sell another story or even another novel. I just don't see the value in it any longer. It doesn't mean anything to me. It's not as important as it once was to me. I just don't CARE about it any more.

I wasted two years and three novels and got nowhere with them. That's a huge investment in time and energy and for what? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It's really got me bummed.

I'm not posting this on my other LJ. This is just for here. But it's how I feel lately, and no amount of quotations can change that right now.

Erasure

Color me irked.

I was thinking about my story these past few days and decided I don't like the direction it's headed so I'm going to delete the last page or so and find a new direction. No big deal, but the way I have it set up now gets my hero in trouble in a similar way he experienced in the first story. I'm guessing he's smart enough to have learned from past mistakes so I'll back up about 200 words and take off again.

I still hope to finish this story soon, though. Got a big query and manuscript mailing planned for Monday so that's kind of hanging over my head, too, cuz I gotta get it prepared.

Details, details....