Finding Your Inspiration

Most of the time when people ask authors - and even me, a newbie - where they get their ideas and inspiration, the answers are always stock phrases, like, "I go for a walk and the ideas just come to me," or, "I don't know. They're floating out in the ether until they end up in my head."

These answers aren't very helpful to budding authors who generally view the process of storytelling as some mythological, magical experience. (However, the tip about walking is great to help the writing brain!)

So, I thought I would write about what inspires me to write the often eccentric, undead-filled stories that I've been publishing as of late. Keep in mind that everyone is inspired in different ways, so some of these techniques may work for you, and the ones that don't can just be discarded.

The first step for me becoming inspired is to see or read a story that resonates with me deeply. What makes me hooked on something? Currently I am hooked on horror. To take that a step further, I am hooked and fascinated by supernatural horror.

What fascinates me about that particular genre?

I now go through and mentally come up with reasons for my addiction to the genre.

• I'm interested in the unknown and what happens to people when they refuse to pass on after death.
• I'm interested in the struggles of a family dealing with an entity that they cannot see.
• I'm interested in the process of figuring out how to battle an invisible foe - if they can be battled at all.
• What do you do when your house is no longer your home?
• Where do these ghosts come from?
• What is the history of an old home? How many life stories has it been witness to?

The list can go on for a while, but it's great to get those hooks into the front of my creative brain because those are exactly the hooks that I'm going to be using in my piece of fiction. Hopefully these hooks will also captivate a new reader.

What's also exciting about the horror genre is that I am free to create anything that I want. What terrifies me? As I said, I am afraid of the unknown. This allows me to write plots where unexpected and often times unexplainable phenomena will happen to my characters and they will react in ways that are human and realistic. When they were just coming to terms with their everyday problems, a supernatural problem will take the cake in their lives. This can be a zombie infestation, a rogue virus, or even a home invasion haunting.

Next in my journey of inspiration I will look for research and odd bits of information to fuel my imagination. Typically I will follow a thread on Wikipedia and follow the links deeper and deeper until I find something I've never read or heard of before. This is great practice because it will give you a well of information and anecdotes to sprinkle through your story. It also helps to read about real events that have happened to real people in order to ground your story somewhat in the real world. Even horror needs to be grounded for the audience to extend their disbelief, otherwise it becomes a farce.

Then from there I craft characters and their backstories and come up with the beginning of my plot outline.

This exercise is so rewarding. I highly recommend any new writers give it a shot and see how much more enriched their imagineering time becomes - and how quickly their notebook fills up with bits of information that can sometimes be too crazy to be real. But, you know the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction.

It's definitely spot on.

Can You Survive Book Two?

Or should I say, can I survive book two of the Can You Survive series?

I'm hard at work on a second "Choose Your Own Ending" book for adults and this time it's a much crazier scenario than The Zombie Apocalypse. I don't want to say too much about it yet, but let's just say that your escape options are limited this time around and there will be more chances for interaction with a bunch of secondary characters.

Writing one of these type of books has been very challenging in a creative sense and in an organizational way as well. I might try to document my strategy and write some posts about it if anyone's interested.

Until then, look for more updates coming soon! There may be a synopsis reveal in the near future...


Photo Credit:
Ben Earwicker
Garrison Photography, Boise, ID
www.garrisonphoto.org

3 Things I've Learned About CreateSpace Paperbacks

I recently put the finishing touches on my physical edition of The Zombie Apocalypse using CreateSpace and I've come away a little wiser than my first outing in November of 2013. A lot has changed, and I think there are some things that anyone going the physical route with their novel or book should know before diving in.

Are you ready? Here we go.

• Choose matte over gloss cover finish.

Since the entire reason you're designing a physical printed book is to have something you can hold in your hands, you want that book to feel as professional and elegant as possible. No joke - I bought the 15th Anniversary Edition of the Harry Potter series in paperback because of the new cover art and the matted finish. They just feel wonderful to hold.

You want your reader to have the same reaction when they hold your own literary baby. You want them to show off your book to others and have them reaching for it the same way they do for someone's infant. It needs to be irresistible.

• Choose cream paper over white.

Again, you're creating a physical printed book because someone wants to hold it in their hands (even if it's just your mom!) and the cream paper is thicker and therefore sturdier than the white paper. Especially for my game book where the reader will be constantly flipping the pages back and forth, I wanted something sturdy. This type of paper was just the ticket. (I also remember the guys over at the Self Publishing Podcast saying that they always go with cream paper instead of white after their own experiences.)

• Lastly, don't choose the default size dimensions.

I went with the suggested book dimensions my first go-round with CreateSpace when I designed Macyntire & Hough. Although the book looks nice, it is pretty bulky to hold. I used the 9x6in size for that book and it felt strange, like it was a little too big to carry around comfortably.

I became enlightened when I walked into my local Bullmoose store and saw Morgan Rice's A Quest of Heroes sitting on the shelf - and it looked so good I had to pick it up. Compared to the bulky oversized paperbacks that I saw, this one was smaller and more appealing. The dimensions were 5x8in and it was a pleasure to hold. And so, I went with that trim size. Making it a little bit smaller complemented the cover finish and the paper weight. It just felt like it was better quality.

So there you have it. Those are the three things I've learned on my second printed book. Doing all this stuff yourself is hard work - but when you have a real copy to hand to someone technologically challenged, it makes it all worth it!

Diving Into Your Imagination

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted on my blog, and I promise you that the reason is mainly because I have been very busy working on writing and reading!

What's interesting to me is the reading part since when, as a writer, you consider sitting down to spend an hour or two reading, it seems to be counter-intuitive. Why should I waste an hour reading for pleasure when I should be creating content? Do more work, damn it!

That is what my brain has been telling me. And it's basically screwed with my imagination for the better part of a week. Writer's block is basically the fear that you have run out of ideas. Essentially with my brain telling me to constantly produce, produce, produce, I was backing myself into a corner, afraid that I had run out of ideas.

This is not the truth. If you are struggling with this, don't let your brain do this to you! Our realistic and pessimistic side loves to tell us that we only finished that first book because we were lucky. I'm here to say that it wasn't because I was lucky - it was because I was inspired and my creative juices were flowing. When I was stuck a few weeks back, it was because my creative juices were too terrified to flow, and a drought was happening.

To continue to write inspired fiction or any type of writing, we need to feed our imaginations. This includes reading for pleasure and, in my case, forcing myself to enjoy reading for pleasure again.

And, wouldn't you know it - reading for pleasure also forced me to do something else that I haven't done in a long time, and something that is essential to being inspired - I read some books and authors that I've never heard of! It was so exciting! After being transported to some new fictional vistas, I wondered why I was so scared to create more of my own in the first place.

Then I sat down and started to write.

It feels good.

If you're checking out the blog, you will see that I've posted a widget to enter into my Goodreads giveaway for an autographed paperback edition of my latest book, (Can You Survive) The Zombie Apocalypse. It will be open for entries for a month, but if you don't want to wait that long, you can pick up a copy here. The Kindle version is available for the low price of $0.99 so that you can use that extra penny for something else!

In short, summer weather is here, and that means time to read, explore, and above all, write.

Give It Everything You've Got!

I've just reached another milestone in my writing journey and finished a new genre book, which I've been meaning to do for a long time: horror. It's a genre I love so much and at last I have my first horror book out there. It's also a humor book since it takes after the classic "Choose Your Own Adventure" series.

Don't be fooled by the simplistic idea of a "game" book. It stretched my creative muscles more than my first novel effort. This led me to the realization that writing is a tiresome task when you finish. Mentally it is the equivalent of running a marathon. I was exhausted when I finished uploading my Kindle file to the website, and I hadn't physically done anything other than type!

If I am going to continue to write, I believe this is a sign that the task is important to me. I will be drained by the end of it, but that also means I have given the story everything I have. That's what counts to me. Hopefully that means it's a fun and engaging read for the audience.

Now, to recharge and start something new!

The Zombie Apocalypse is available now if you are interested in fleeing the undead! 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Zombie-Apocalypse-Can-Survive-ebook/dp/B00JHOKJ38/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1396754255&sr=8-6&keywords=Franklin+kendrick

Go, Speed Racer!

Lately I have been pondering a sense of urgency that I have been experiencing in the front and back of my mind. I have a full time job, a secondary job, family obligations, and still I feel like I am not moving fast enough when it comes to my writing. Mostly this happens because I am eager to have my digital shelf stocked with tales I have written and deemed publishable, but right now I am stuck mentally because the act of writing a book is not easy, and it definitely is not fast when it's not a full time job.

So, what am I doing?

Mostly my solution for now is to put aside a few of the massive novel ideas and practice some shorter pieces, or alternative pieces. One of these is a hopefully fun book that will appeal to readers looking for a change and a bit of nostalgia. Basically, I am trying to jump start my creativity when I don't have a ton of time for it, and so far it seems to be working. It definitely has kept my brain thinking when I'm not in front of the keyboard, so that's something, right?

Right!

Positivity Is A Choice

Now that the rush of the holidays is over (and far behind me) and I have successfully began the new year - the gloriously freezing 2014! - I have come to a realization. There is an awful lot of negativity floating around in various areas, especially when it comes to writing and independently publishing. Reading too much about how impossible the odds are that anyone will want to read your work is always a disheartening activity, and I found myself getting down as I watched numbers and felt crushed under the weight of producing another manuscript. (Keep in mind that most of us are doing this on our free time, and the constant advice to produce! produce! produce! is not always realistic or helpful.) What am I to do when all the signs say that writing and publishing is a meaningless task?

I say remain positive. If you believe in yourself and your writing, the readers will follow. Mine have been a slow trickle, but I only have one full-length novel out, and I am generally getting more eyes on my how-to book than my fiction. Perhaps as I strive to change up genres a bit I will attract more eyes on other things. Positivity is not something that just comes naturally. It is something that we must work at and practice, even when the odds seem to be against us. Besides, even if it doesn't seem to help right away, it is something that we can control, and it will hopefully give us the courage to continue sitting at that chair and pounding away at our keyboards! Who's with me?

(Cue crickets)

Fight The Fear

I've recently come down with a case of ending-terror, or what is basically the fear of writing the finale to my work in progress. I don't know where it comes from, but I do know when it starts - always when I slow down long enough to actually think of what I am writing. This happened after NaNoWriMo when I had just a handful of chapters left to write for my rough draft, and then took a small break where my brain had a chance to tell me lies about how much pressure there is.

In reality, there is no pressure, other than the pressure that I'm placing upon myself. I've received both good and bad feedback on my first published novel, and now I need to do the same process again. There is a deadline. I'd like to be done by the end of January. But, this fear in my head needs to go. Do you struggle with this fear of completing your art?

For now, I'm just going to plow ahead and hype myself up until I reach the end. I know how it's going to end. I know how things play out. I just need to put them onto the page. Ready? Here we go!

World Building

As I start to explore a few different ideas I have, I come now to the part of the creative writing process where research is essential and world building becomes the foundation of everything else I will write moving forward. A lot of people I've read say that it is easy to get tired of the world you start creating when it comes to fantasy, but I look at it more as a challenge and a framework that the rest of my narrative will hang from so that it doesn't just come crashing down when I reach something that I don't know how to explain.

My process of world building so far has been to look at how things work in our own world and then tweak them to fit my own. I've started a map of the two continents I am creating with names of towns and bodies of water, and then filling in information about all the cultures and peoples that will live in these areas.

I am also making profiles for all of my main players, which I haven't done so far in my writing journey, but decided that this time I would give it a try. So, I'm creating a binder of sorts and filling in all the information I might need for these characters - including pictures of people who are inspiration, etc. It's pretty fun!

So, if I am not updating on here, you know where I am - either work, or working on something that will hopefully end up being an epic novel before the summer. There's another few things in the works, and I will have to start organizing my time more wisely now that I've had a break from the writing marathon. Lots of creative muscles are being stretched in the evenings!

Chugging Along (Sequel News)

It's been a quiet week on the blog mainly because I've been spending a lot of time writing for two hours a day, amassing around 2,000 words per day, in my marathon trial of NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know about it, November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to have 50,000 words written before December, and by my calculations - and with a lot of self-encouragement - I am going to be done early just so that I can check to be sure that I really do have the correct number of words.

I'm choosing to write my sequel to Macyntire & Hough this month and get as much done as I can in order to fast-track my paperback edition into the next year (and perhaps a few preview copies for my family, if they actually finish the first one with their busy routines!). I thought I would talk a little bit about my process of writing as it has been a little eye-opening for me in terms of needing to get done a set amount of words per day. If anything, I hope that by the end of this month I can have the habit of writing a set amount daily into my normal routine. It's been very gratifying to sleep after typing and knowing that I didn't slack off on my characters. I mean, come on - they're fighting demons and all. They don't want the battles to rage on forever!

As far as needing to write 2,000 words a night (the estimated minimum to finish on time is 1,667) I ended up having my entire novel outlined on notecards as I did with the first book. This is useful and really just a guideline. A lot can change in a chapter when my brain takes a hold of the idea and starts writing down dialogue and character interactions, but this way I have something to write every single night. I also get bored with writing an entire chapter, and I usually don't finish a chapter in one sitting. The times that I do, it's usually because a flash of lightning hits me and the inspiration pulls me through. That said, with the majority of my writing sessions starting out without that flash of lightning, I have to work my way into something that takes my interest. How do I do this?

I have a few chapters started at a time so that I can jump around. It's very refreshing to do this for me, and I love being able to write different characters whenever I feel like it. I can pick up where I left off and practice writing a fight scene and then move back to a more romantic scene. It's really fun! It also keeps me on my toes when I need to crank out three hundred more words and can't keep going on my main scene of the writing session.

I've estimated that it takes me about an hour to write 1,000 words. Committing to this goal of 50,000 in a month is really exciting and daunting. It's also flexing muscles that I haven't used in a long time - not since high school when my head had a lot less adult stuff to worry about. Perhaps I'll do a video blog about my progress later after typing. As it stands, I've finished a little over 14,000 words in seven days. That's a record for me, and I hope to keep it going. There are too many stories I want to tell and I don't want to take years to do it. All it takes is a little discipline and the story will grow over time. Just don't look at the whole and you won't get (too) discouraged!

If you're also doing NaNo this month, best of luck! I hope you get to the end with a book on the page - or at least a portion of a book, for those who are crazy prolific!

Late-Night NaNoWriMo Shenanigans!

This is my first ever video blog! In the video I talk about starting out NaNoWriMo 2013, my new book, and also about outlining my novel prior to NaNo starting. Very brief to start out. Hope you enjoy!

Book-Jumping

It's been a busy week since I last posted here, and that's mostly due to family obligations and also a surge of story ideas that demanded to be outlined. I'm making good progress into a new novel and also a few other, shorter pieces. Writing for the enjoyment of the craft and storytelling process, and anxious to see what comes of it all.

Been dipping into a few different books a day, which is generally frowned upon by my friends and colleagues. I can't help the fact that my tastes change every time I wake up. Rarely do I follow a huge, 800 page novel through to the end in a month. I just don't have the luxury of that sort of time on my hands. Most of my reading time is done in the half hour before I fall asleep with the book in my hands, and that doesn't lead me to make a ton of headway. The weekends were made for reading, when I have them off.

But, this idea of book jumping is interesting to me. I learn a lot about styles and structure when I read a few different chapters or pages in a single day or week. Look at the different ways that a fight is described in each book, or perhaps a conversation where a character is trying to get something out of the other one. It's really cool to note the many ways that these things can be handled, and there's no better way to learn than to experience them in a book yourself. Give it a try, and keep that stack near the bed ready and up to the ceiling!

How We Write

At the beginning of last week through the beginning of this week, I ran into a dilemma. More specifically, I created one with my own clumsiness. Yes, I broke my iPad Mini.

Believe me, it was the end of the world. I am a perfectionist, and the sight of a cracked screen, no matter how usable it is, brings chills to my spine. I needed this to be fixed! Needless to say, I couldn't do it myself, and ended up damaging my device beyond repair.

I was shocked to find that I wasn't mainly upset because my gaming and entertainment device was now rendered useless - I was upset because my main ability to type on the go had been taken away.

Most of my novel Macyntire & Hough was typed on my iPad Mini using one of the many typing programs. At first I was skeptical about being able to use the screen's keyboard, but after a few days of using it, I became very fast and loved being able to see the word count and only the blank page as I worked. Moving on from my last novel, I began the next and started setting goals for myself (which I've already failed on some of them, but still trying to get back up there!). I wanted to type 1,600 words per day. So far I've had three days with that amount, two days of typing notes and outlining, and one day off to recharge my brain from a busy day at work looking at a screen.

I did end up getting a new iPad, and it now has a fancy case to protect it and makes it easier to hold, but I have to think that if this accident didn't happen, I might not have really considered the way that I've been writing. How easy is it to just pull out the iPad when I'm waiting in line somewhere and type out a few paragraphs? Or when I'm waiting to close down the movie theater in the evening, waiting for folks to finish their movies? It's so convenient, and has been a good use of otherwise wasted time. I used to do this with an old-fashioned notebook, but now I am enjoying being able to skip the retype business and just export my text and format it from there.

How do you type? Has your process changed with the advent of new digital technology? What do you think about the changing times for writers?

Working (And Resting)

I've noticed a strange stigma around indie writing that people who are looking to become successful writers need to be producing product all the time. It's a terrifying notion that must lead many writers into a period of shut-down. It certainly did that to me a few months ago before I came to my senses and powered through chapter after chapter of my draft.

Writing is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Especially when your project is a novel, you need to work at your own pace - but be wary of neglecting the job at hand. Write regularly, but don't become overwhelmed by the enormity of the project.

This brings me to my point, which is, a writer needs to take a break like the rest of the working world. Our brains need to be entertained, to relax, and to get sleep. Working a few all-nighters is fine, but not when you make it a habit just to produce as many books as author X. This sort of routine is not sustainable and is absolutely harmful to your health. I do just one all-nighter and it wrecks me for the rest of the week!

Remember to take breaks and recharge your imagination as you work on your projects. It's a fine balance between work and rest, but it's one that we need to take seriously as we pursue our goals of filling our bookshelves with our books.

Evolution and Using Nostalgia

Now that I am finished one project and about to wrap up a short story (my first in years - so that's a pretty good achievement) I am looking forward at my next novel. Of course, it's going to be a continuation of my series because I am running on creative steam from the first book, but I am also curious to see how my writing evolves now that I know the characters pretty well.

Knowing the characters is only part of the battle with a sequel. The goal is to throw so much stuff at these characters that they are forced to evolve beyond what they thought was possible. Look at Star Wars Episode V. Luke is forced to travel to meet Yoda and discovers that it's nearly impossible to become a Jedi. He can't harness the force easily enough, and he's ready to give up. Add to that the revelation that his greatest enemy outs himself as Luke's own father, then you have your characters dealing with such drama that they have no choice but to evolve with the story.

I think I have this kind of material for my sequel to Macyntire & Hough. For those who haven't read the book yet, a quick intro of my characters.

Tadin is a ghost who has been dead since the 1970's.
Shelley is a living human who shares an apartment and also a business with Tadin.
Maris is Tadin and Shelley's paranormal investigator friend.

There you have it. My core characters. Now I need to shake their lives up enough to get them moving. I've been meditating on the story for the second book and it's going to be much more emotional than the first time around. I'm very excited, and I'm doing research.

What kind of research?

Nostalgia is a useful tool to a writer because it allows us to revisit stories or times of our lives that were creatively empowering. I always think back to Star Wars and Harry Potter and can almost feel the electricity in the air from back then. The sense of excitement that these stories evoked within me was palpable and something that will always stay with me for the rest of my life. If you can look at that kind of nostalgia in your own life and harness the feeling that it brings to you, then you can use that feeling in your own work. What did you love about those stories? What made them connect on a deeper level with you?

As I move forward I am going to tap into this energy more and more to get my characters to the emotional state that they need to be. If you're also working on a piece of writing, give this technique of nostalgic research a try. It doesn't have to be a story. It can be music, television, or even memories of a trip. Fuel your creative fire and write!

Why Print?

Since launching my eBook Macyntire & Hough, I have received a lot of push-back about it being just a Kindle book. The plan has always been to have a print version via CreateSpace, but I just haven't formatted the text for that platform yet. Needless to say, I am making it a priority now that there has been a good deal of interest in my circle of friends and acquaintances. Whether or not the book actually sells to more than just my family remains to be seen. Yet, having a print edition of my book will be a great personal accomplishment, and definitely make it easier to provide books as gifts once Christmas comes around!

Here are my thoughts on formatting for print at the point where I am right now - preparing to export a PDF to submit to CreateSpace. (If you haven't checked out their options for print-on-demand, I highly suggest you do so! It's very exciting stuff, and perfect for a newcomer to book formatting such as myself)

I do have a background in print layout. I worked for two years at the University of Southern Maine as a graphic designer for the music and theatre departments. Essentially, the students and staff would give me the text for their recital and play programs and it was my job to be sure that it was all formatted correctly, spelled correctly, and printed nicely with the pages ready to fold and staple if needed. That meant a lot of calculating and a lot of mock-ups. If you don't know what a mock-up is, basically it is a test print that is used in the roughest sense to figure out which pages need to be where before printing.

These skills are essential if you are planning your book for print. There need to be blank pages in certain areas so that your first chapter doesn't start on the back of a page, and so on. The amount of time it takes will be worth it in the end. You also need to be sure that your margins are set up correctly. I've noticed on professional paperbacks before that some of the margins are too close to the edge of the page and that means that if your book is well-read, the pages can get worn down and the text will become destroyed. I did not like this and had to replace a few books in the past because of this issue. Make sure you give the text space! It's the most important part of your book.

Personally, I really love physical books - even though I'm a huge supporter of Kindle and other eReaders. Having the ability to get a book that was written by an independent author via Kindle is so exciting, but I still have to have my physical copy of everything JK Rowling and Stephen King write! Hopefully someday someone will say the same about my own work. Even if it is just my mother! (She's waiting somewhat patiently for the print edition of Macyntire & Hough...another reason to get going!)

Short Attention Span

I've been pondering the way that readers are experiencing books in the wake of the tablet revolution, and some of it is affecting me the way that the streaming binge-watching on Netflix has maxed out my ability to really enjoy an episode of television. Readers are reading more with eBooks. There are tons of options out there right now, and as with Netflix, some of the options are great, and some are not so great. There is filler, hoping that you will click on it because you liked something similar, the way that whenever a hit movie comes out, you can reliably find a rip-off on Netflix immediately with a word changed in the name (ala Jack The Giant Killer as opposed to Slayer).

Even if the readers aren't actually reading what they download to their tablets, they are still stockpiling a ton of digital books that they hope to someday enjoy. I'm guilty of this hoarding, and I have to say that because it's "free" really entices me to just download and add to my stash. I love trick-or-treating, after all!

But, this glut of media can be damaging to me as a reader. Yes, there are more options than ever, but do I really want to rush through ten books a week just to say that I've read them and not even remember what happened in them the next week? I like my media to be spread out. I like waiting a week to see a new episode of something. The anticipation is what gets me excited.

With all the digital bookshelves of writers growing quickly, I am forced to look at my own output. I'm just starting out, so I'm slower than normal. I have two jobs and a dying car (that will be replaced soon, much to my wallet's dismay!). Even if I wanted to sit down for five hours and write, I am not practiced enough to actually write for that entire time. I made it through a few pages last night and really enjoyed it, but I know I have to speed up a bit.

My question is this: Will the readers really be willing to wait for my work as I write it? It's a legitimate fear in this digital age. Where a writer would put out a single new book a year, that was considered prolific. Now, authors are putting out three books a year, sometimes more than that, and it's considered the norm. Can I ever get to that?

I hope so. I just need to keep my fingers crossed that the audience won't lose interest in me - or pass me over completely - in the quest to find something new and exciting to keep their attention.

The Power Of Observation

Here are the statistics:

By the time we die we will have spent six months waiting in lines.

What a horrible waste! Think of how much you could get done in six months. I could read a handful of books. I could write a novel and outline a second one, and perhaps even craft a few short stories. Six months?! I want that time to be useful!

The good news is that it can be useful.

My challenge to you is to stop the next time you're waiting in a line and observe both the person in front of you and the person behind you. What impression do they make on you? What do they look like? What are their mannerisms? Perhaps they are a car-full of little league soccer players and the neighborhood mother, carpooling them to practice. What is her life like? It's up to you as the writer to make it up! Be inspired.

Jot down these things after you're done waiting in line, or on your smart phone - wherever you keep your notes, and save these sketches for characters down the line. This is a great way to observe people and get realistic characters out of your time waiting for lunch at the fast food restaurant, or even at the supermarket.

Let's Get Physical!

Or not...

I've been reading a lot of posts lately on different forums, in particular with the digital release of Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, that some people are upset that there is no physical option available for purchase. Being the writer that I am, I looked at this frustration through the lens of eBooks.

I'll admit that I was hesitant to go all-in on Kindle at the beginning. I viewed eBooks as a novelty and not a necessity. After all, I was one of the millions who plunked down cold, hard cash at big book retailers to buy Harry Potter at midnight releases, and even now, I still prowl the book sections at both local BullMoose outlets, looking to feed my hunger for a paperback or even the occasional hardcover.

But, are we really losing anything when it comes to a physical product? More important to note, in my opinion, is this: In many cases there isn't a physical product simply because it doesn't exist. In the case of indie book publishing, this is almost always the case. Unless you go with CreateSpace for a paperback, a physical book like you would pick up at a store just doesn't exist. It's not hidden somewhere - not locked away in the Disney Vault (which still hasn't given me my Aladdin on blu ray!). The product is the digital file, as you can see with the whole Amnesia issue.

Why is having a digital file scary?

Well, I can say that people are always worried that their collections are going to just become deleted someday, and that's fair enough. I went through a year or two when an album I'd purchased on iTunes was unavailable due to a contract expiration and, since I hadn't backed up a physical copy of this album, when my iPod crashed, I was without that album. Poof, goodbye.

But, with the cloud and Amazon, I am not afraid that my eBook collection is going anywhere in a hurry. In fact, I have downloaded books I bought back in 2010 to my new Paperwhite, and they were exactly the same as they were when I purchased them. I believe that is the plus side of all this digital marketplace business - the products don't age.

I can't tell you how many books I've purchased as physical objects that are now collecting dust and wearing away on my shelves at home. They get old. Nothing lasts forever. The surprising thing is, once my eReader becomes obsolete or battered, I can get a new one. My books remain the same quality as they did on day one.

So, as you shop for eBooks and other digital goods, keep in mind that the shelf life doesn't expire on these goodies. This means a lot less dusting in my own home, for which I am always very thankful!

The Editing Process!

I thought I would write a post about my editing process, since I've been learning as I go along and perhaps someone else will benefit from what I've found works - and what doesn't.

I have done all my formatting and finishing in Scrivener. Earlier in the writing process, I used Microsoft Word exclusively, but I have moved on from that after a long relationship. I found that software to be too clunky when it came to compiling a Kindle book. Scrivener also gave me a ton of tools that I use on paper and was able to utilize once my writing was formatted digitally.

Once I was finished my first draft I printed out the most basic, single-spaced version of the chapters I could get. This decision was mostly for monetary reasons since printing 200+ pages was more of an investment than I could handle at the time and keeping everything single-spaced cut the number of pages in half. In the end I had 132 single-spaced pages printed, and that's my entire first draft. For an idea on the word count, it was roughly 55,000 words long.

I am very old-fashioned when it comes to my writing and editing process. Usually I write a lot of the manuscript by hand and then type it out afterwards. I also work out of order and jump around from scene to scene as I feel compelled, so it was a big accomplishment to have a manuscript that was in one piece! For my editing, I used the printed document to scratch out sentences or paragraphs that didn't make sense or needed to be re-worded, and I wrote the adjustments in pen in the margins or in between the lines (I can write very tiny when I want to!).

I found that if I started from the first page and tried to make my way to the last one, my mind got very tired very quickly. I'm not sure if it was because I already knew the story and had read it twice, or if it was just my brain looking at the number of pages left to go through - but, I realized that this wouldn't work for me in the long run. So, I ended up jumping around from page to page - much the same as I did when I wrote the scenes. I got rid of the shortest pages first so that I looked like I was going faster than normal, and then tackled the larger pages with lots of description last. I made sure that every page was scribbled on before I moved on to the Scrivener document for finalizing the changes.

Here's the fun part in Scrivener. There are nifty drop-down tabs in the inspector of your document that you have total control over. I added a bunch of different descriptions like "First Draft," "Second Draft," "Final Draft." As I update the text, deleting the bad sentences and typing the revisions, I update the drop-down tab. This is a great way to keep track of what I have revised and what is still left to do.

I also go back on my printed document and add a check mark to the top right corner of the page after I add the changes to the Scrivener document. This way I can keep track physically of what I have left to add to the Scrivener document as far as revisions.

The entire editing process took me about three months - from handwriting the changes, to adding those changes to Scrivener. That doesn't include the time it took for my beta readers to look at the .mobi file I gave them and give me feedback. I consider that third draft the "final" draft after feedback from readers before publication.

It's a long process, but it's essential to having a polished piece to give to your beta readers. I want my writing to be as close to published as possible before it goes in front of other people's eyes. I am a very self-conscious writer when it comes to my fiction!

Hopefully this was useful as you plan your own editing process for your masterpiece in progress!