Rest

When you meet resistance, you can either force your way through, or back off until you get your energy back.

If you're the type of person that pays close attention, you might have noticed that even though I've been pretty consistent about posting a lot lately, this is the first one I put up since last Friday. Why is that? Well, it has to do with vacations.

Actually, having three days off in a row from my job was just a happy coincidence of scheduling. On Sunday I set out to read an entire book, not to mention beta read about 20 pages, and to follow up on my hunt for a cover artist. I e-mailed one artist, got halfway through the book, and didn't beta read anything. On Monday, my goal was to finish the things I wanted to do on Sunday. I managed to read another quarter of the book, but that was it.

Before long, I realized what was happening. I was trying to get things done on days that simply were meant to be lazy. For the rest of Monday, I just relaxed. Watched TV. Napped. Played games. Maybe it was a waste of time, but I felt like I was recovering from something. Yesterday I just did a little cleaning and then relaxed again, and then I was completely ready for today.

This morning I went back to work. Conditions were tougher than they've been in a while, but I pushed through. After that, I came home and got started on that beta reading after all. And, of course, I finally managed to get a blog post done.

I'll admit, I haven't exactly accomplished greatness in the last week. Still, the downward spiral of productivity has come back to an upward direction. It seems like the reason for that is the time I spent resting. It's fair to say that such patience is sometimes what we need to balance ourselves.

Just don't take this advice as a license to be lazy all the time, please.

Rising Phoenix

Strength is in conquering things that have brought you down.

In a recent post I talked a lot about having doubts as an author. But like many other negative things in the world, as long as you don't give in to them, doubts clear up before too long.

The phoenix has always been a bit of a personal symbol of mine. If you don't believe me, look at the address of the page you're on right now--it starts with beyondphoenixian. I named it that because I originally wanted to call the world of my novels the Phoenixian Universe. (I later reconsidered because Phoenixian is really hard to spell and called it Ephix instead, but Ephix is still, in fact, the name of a phoenix.)

Of course, I don't need to tell you that the phoenix is all about rebirth, rising from the ashes and all that. I do, however, want to speak to how important that concept really is. Because when people who are defeated come back with renewed determination, they are always stronger than ever.

In fiction, this is true of a lot of characters right before the end, when they rise up to take the final victory. In real life, though, only some of us manage to parallel that experience. Why is that? Because we're allowed to give up. We're allowed to back down. Unlike fictional characters, who have to fight to the finish, real people don't have to finish what they started. And I think that's a shame. After all, it's only when we do finish that truly great things come out of it.

I'm not saying that I finish what I start all the time. Far from it. Outside the world of writing, my pile of unfinished projects is staggering. But within the writing world, the one that I care about most of all, I've learned over the last couple of years to keep going.

That's why my doubts, my second thoughts, are gone. It's been a hell of a week for me. But I know that this time, for once, I'm going to keep my promise. I'm going to fight to the finish. And you should too.

The Value of Feedback

I think every author that wants to have success with his or her work will have to get feedback at some point. In the face of the many drafts it can take to get a real, publishable winner, everyone needs a little help.

Some people go to their friends for advice, and inevitably get flowery words of kindness that don't really help improve anything. Others look up professional editors, forking over the cash for it. There are writer's workshops as well, but it's tough to get much on more than a piece of your work. What we really need is a fellow writer who's willing to give honest feedback from start to finish.

So, across the internet, there are many places where we can ask for this (my personal favorite being the Absolute Write forums). But the funny thing is, it's just as important the other way too--if you need this help, so do the rest of us. Offering to look through and give someone an honest, thorough opinion is a great way to make friends in the writing community.

One of my fellow authors, Kat Mellon, just made a blog post on some of the best ways to band together with other writers. It's packed full of great information. She gives at least six valuable tips--all I have is this one, but it's definitely my favorite way of interacting with other writers.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have quite a few projects to go read and comment on.

Second-Guessing

Let me put this up front: The Third Face might not be coming April 5th.

Now I know what you're thinking. I just spent the last two months rabidly rewriting it to make it great, then I released a portion of that to the general public. And I still have two more months to polish it. How can I be unsure that I'll be done with it in time?

Second-guessing. Doubt. That which afflicts every writer at some point or another. I'm just asking the same questions other authors ask themselves at certain stages in their writing. Is this going to be good enough? Will people really want to read what I'm writing? Can I even finish it like this? Should I just start over?

These hauntings affect us all differently. Some people give in to them immediately, and they really do start over, writing the beginning to the same story over and over. Or, they scrap it altogether and try another one, only to put that down, too. The worst victims are the ones that decide to end their writing careers and move on to some other dream.

Even when people do finish, they eventually look back at their work and scream in frustration: how could I not see it? This isn't going to cut it! These people often go through the same set of responses that in-progress authors do, rather than face the horror of revising.

I've started over countless times. I think part of it is that I was never truly sure of what I was doing, no matter how many times I wrote it and presented it to the world. When you read a book, it seems like that's the only way that the author could have told that same story, but the truth is, there are an infinite number of ways to "remix" the same characters with the same issues and the same inevitable confrontation. Out of these, only a handful are on a path to something that will be successful.

The question, then, that every author is really asking is: Have I found the right way to tell my story this time?

All our second-guessing and doubt comes from fearing that the answer to that question might be no. And, even after learning from the pros and writing more drafts than I care to count, I still have that fear, too. Until I can conquer that fear, either by confirming that this draft is the right one or by working the story to that point where it is, there's no guarantees that I can make.

Today's question might be a difficult one, but if you can, leave a comment: what doubts are you most afraid of?

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.