Book Pile Acquired

Writers read. Or at least, we're supposed to. For a long time, I wasn't reading all that much at all. I probably got through a book once every couple of months.

Of course, as you all know, I've resolved to read a book every week this year. My recent slew of orders from both Barnes & Noble and Amazon is going to, at the very least, get me started on that goal. The books are pictured above, in no particular order (although the boxsets do make pretty good bookends).

From left to right:

• The Dark Tower Volumes 1-4 Boxset by Stephen King. I had already read The Gunslinger and loved it, but I didn't own a copy, so it made sense to add these to my collection.
• Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. A conclusion to a great series. I've been meaning to get this for a while.
• A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Honestly, I bought this for the hype more than anything else.
• The Tribe of One Trilogy by Simon Hawke. In these fantasy novels, a young man with serious mental issues leaves his desert village, where he doesn't belong. Sound familiar? It's a lot like The Third Face. Naturally, I was curious to see how it compares. I'll let you know in my review of the trilogy soon enough.
• The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett. The Discworld series, recommended by my buddy Duth Olec, is supposed to be the height of comedic fantasy. Where can I go wrong with that?
• Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. Since I really loved Ender's Game, I of course wanted to check out the next in the series.
• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I know nothing about this book, but it won Book of the Month over at the West Michigan Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fans group on Facebook. I think I can trust them for a good recommendation.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians 5-book Boxset by Rick Riordan. I read The Lightning Thief back in high school, and I enjoyed it a lot, but I don't even remember it very well. This time, I'll read through the whole series.

How big is your pile of books to read? What's in it?

Public Beta

Also known as Advanced Reading Copies, except they're PDF files and anyone can see them. Yes, I've decided to release Parts 1 and 2 of The Third Face to everyone.

The Evolution of Plans

On New Year's Day, many people make their resolutions. Some are more serious about it than others, but in the end, what you plan to do is usually not exactly what you end up doing. Some people give up before long, but others find themselves having to make adjustments after a little while. Today, I'm starting to see what those adjustments look like.

In Endings, 2012, posted on the last day of November, I was already making a few promises, mostly regarding The Third Face. I outlined my schedule for this year, which included finishing that draft mid-January. In fact, I actually did finish it a few days ago, as some of you noticed. Why didn't I write a post about it? Well, I was still in the midst of the "Obscurity" talk that started with my post on struggling authors and culminated in launching the Obscure Authors Alliance. Already, there's something that wasn't in my plan. Not only that, but I've decided to refrain from my lonely Script Frenzy in April, instead focusing the month on marketing The Third Face, as well as possibly recording an audio edition!

Then, in Looking to 2013, which I posted on New Year's Eve, I outlined my actual resolutions: to publish two novels, beta read four, and, each week, read a book and write three blog posts. I was lenient with myself on that last one, and you can see why--though I wanted to do a Drabble Thursday for each of those weeks, well, it's Thursday and there are no drabbles. I don't plan on doing one every single week anymore, but I do still want to do three blog posts, counting entries both on this blog and on Obscure Authors. When I do post the drabbles, it may not always be exactly a week's worth--just a few, here and there.

All in all, though, I'm sticking to my goals. Already, in the first few weeks, I've made a lot of progress on some of them. I've changed them in small ways, in order to make them possible and to root out the things that are just not realistic or useful, but they're still essentially the same ones I started with. That's what goals are all about: sticking with things, seeing your progress, and making little fixes to your plan. We can all learn a little bit from this.

Obscure Authors Alliance

Well, I've been talking about it for a while, and I finally did it. I've created a home for authors who are really struggling, who fight tooth and nail for every friend, follower, and book sale they make. I'm here to pool my resources with every other author I can find, whether they want to contribute posts, join in discussions, or just call themselves a proud member of this group.

The Obscure Authors Alliance is a Wordpress blog dedicated to all things writing. Eventually, I hope to create an article base that covers everything from character building to getting a sale, featuring the talents of as many authors as we can. In the meantime, though, we're a pretty small group, and I'd like to get to know everyone who's involved. Thus, I suspect we're going to have a heavy emphasis on chatting through comments at first.

Anyone can join this site and start making blog posts as part of the group. I personally believe that by contributing to a group effort, everyone benefits. The Obscure Authors Alliance has the potential to attract more readers than an individual's blog, and these readers in turn will see the individual members who write their favorite articles or are helpful in discussion. Thus, the more you participate, the more discoverable you become.

If you're interested in becoming a full-fledged author at the blog, all you have to do is fill out the form with your name and e-mail address, and I'll reply with an invitation as soon as possible. I can't do this alone, so I strongly encourage all of you to try your hand in this adventure. We're just getting off the ground, and every person can have a huge impact.

The Meaning of Obscurity

The blogging world has been a tough one for me. I'll save you the story of my failure to get into a "blogging tribe" (a small group of bloggers) since I don't care to badmouth other people in the community, with or without mentioning names.

Today, though, I saw a post about the "Liebster Award," where the writers of "small" blogs promote one another. Thing is, apparently their definition of "small" is less than 200 followers. Please, people. I have four.

Yup. Super tiny blog here. But I bet there are bloggers out there who don't even have followers at all. Is that because they're bad at blogging, or don't know what they're doing? No. It just means they haven't gotten to a point in the community where people notice them. At 25 followers, people start to have buddies they can partner with, and get the ball rolling. At 50, groups form.

But what about those of us who are still struggling to get to that point? We all want to reach out to the community, but we're so obscure that we can't even find each other out there. And believe me, I am working hard to try and find even a handful of writers who are languishing at the same level that I am. This is the hardest point for an author to be at, and yet it's the one where we have the least support.

After all, when you're where I am right now, you start to question whether you can really do this or not. I read success stories about breakout authors, and they all start along the lines of "I couldn't even sell a hundred books in my first year." You know how many books I sold in six months, print and ebook sales combined? Twelve. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of those went to close friends and family.

I'm looking for people who have that same level of frustration--whether they've already written their book, are still working on it, haven't started or are years deep in the marketing rut. I want to form a sort of alliance here. Does that mean more popular people can't join in? No, of course they can. But only if they can set aside that bit of success they have, and work with us.

Drabble Thursdays #5

Only six drabbles this week--I had a lazy day Wednesday.

DISCLAIMER: Drabbles may suck.

The Marketing Game

What is marketing about? What is it that writers are trying to do when we set out to find readers for our work?

I used to think it was about flat attention. The idea was to tell everyone I could think of, and ask them to tell everyone they knew, in order to appear in as many places as I could. Yeah, I wanted to be liked, too, so people would actually bother with that, but overall it was a pretty shallow look at things.

Recently, I began to look at things in a new light--not just in marketing, but in life in general. What's important is not attention, but respect. I realized that respect is the key to just about everything.

That leads to the obvious question: how do I get respect? The answer, quite simply, is to command it. Be sure of the things you have to say. Know that they're important. When you have conviction, it's obvious. The tone of everything you say changes. Also, be a leader. Take charge of something. If you don't have a place to take charge, start something you can lead. Create situations where people look up to you. (I'm working on a bit of that myself--more on that soon enough!)

That's really all there is to it. I say it in simple terms, because that's what it is. You just have to change your attitude. There will always be an element of giving other people what they need--advice or the like--because in order to get respect, people need to see value in associating with you. But you don't need to just pander to everyone. In fact, that's counterproductive. Let people see that what you have to say is valuable, and that you refuse to waste their time with anything less.

Like I said, commanding respect is useful for all things in life, especially when it comes to careers. It can even make you more attractive to the opposite gender! So try doing everything you do with a little more confidence--stand up straight and speak with conviction. I promise you, the effort will more than pay off.

Drabble Thursdays #4

Finally back on board with this.

DISCLAIMER: Drabbles may suck.

Two Thirds Face

Yes, I am now officially two thirds of the way through rewriting The Third Face. Edition 2.

Pun aside, I just wanted to say that I'm proud of myself for this. What I have down is already 5,000 words longer than the first edition ever was. It's amazing how much real work I can get out in a couple of months if I just push myself all the time. Some of you will think my progress is insanely fast, and I agree--you'd be right to think that it's eating my life a little. (I can do other things when it's done!)

It's amazing to see how the story is shaping up, too. My main character, Rasuke, is turning into a real character that's worth following. His massive mental issues have evolved from being just one more mystery for the reader to solve, into something that he actually has to overcome in the course of the book. Even the villain, Ius, is getting a little bit of character arc as he struggles with being rejected by the one he answers to. And the subplots? Well, they're all falling into place.

I've packed more surreal and horrifying battles, internal struggles, complex relationships, and of course, hilarious Eibmoz moments into this novel than ever before. I know many of you haven't seen any of the content of this novel before, but let me just say this--there's a little of everything in it, and I trust myself to execute it well.

But underneath all the carefully-crafted alternate world and religion, underneath the powerful magic, this is an adventure, wherein a hero of great untapped power is rudely introduced to an enemy of even greater power. And you have to ask, is he fighting out of a hunger for self-worth--or just for his life?

First Week of the Year

Vacations are weird.

I'm sure most people had at least a little one somewhere around New Year's. For me, the vacation was a couple days off work and not writing any drabbles for a couple of weeks starting around Christmas.

You probably noticed that I haven't blogged so much lately, either. There's an element of vacation to that, too, but the fact is that I've just been plain busy. I find that the only way I can get anything done at all on a day off from work is by having a million deadlines and way too much to do. Otherwise, I subconsciously write the day off as one where I can be lazy, and end up doing nothing!

So this week, I organized my To-Do List, which I hadn't used in quite a while. It consists of some of the writing goals I mentioned in my last entry, a handful of free online learning courses, and some commitments I've made to communities (such as keeping up the Facebook group).

I may be a little behind on this blog and my drabbles, but as for beta reading I'm swamping myself halfway to Hell already. Even though I'm just getting started on Duth Olec's Slubes for my second pass, I went over to Absolute Write and started talks with four or five different people about how I can start beta reading their novels. They range from an in-progress story to a 130,000 word epic, but I'm excited about all of them. Needless to say, just getting started on that has really kept me busy by itself.