On 'Tropes' ... or where writers mess up.

The rage in writing circles right now is ... hmm, what's the word I'm looking for? Imitation, I suppose is the polite way to say it.

I saw someone say the other day that writers should buy the top books in their genre and literally put them into a Word doc. From there, the writer said that people should break them down by word count per sentence. Sentence structure. Pacing. Tropes (this means themes and plot). Then they should copy what they find while putting in a few unique twists to make their book not a direct copy.

This is, without doubt, an easy way to make some cash. A lot of people are doing it. Indeed, an artist I know just launched his career by doing something similar to this.

I've thought about this a lot, wondering whether that's the way to take my career. Clearly, from a capitalist perspective, we want to give customers what they want, and if they're clamoring for certain things, it would be wise to give 'em what they ask for.

I decided--for now--that I think such a route is disastrous in terms of long term thinking.

I don't want my books to imitate anyone else's. If I tried to emulate James Patterson, I'd basically be selling my soul, and I'm not willing to do that. More, though, what separates me from any other writing doing those things?

The greats--from Hemingway to King--didn't break down books to see what sold. That's not to say they weren't influenced, as all of them read prolifically, but the words they put out were their own.

I hate when people quote Steve Jobs, mainly because I've studied the man a good bit. First, no one wants to really be him, as he was a pretty shitty individual for much of his life, and second, no one else is Steve Jobs. However, he didn't imitate. He stole, sure, but then he combined things in a way that had never been considered before. 

Look at PCs. For decades, they all simply imitated each other, putting out crap that sold really well. You couldn't distinguish an HP from a Dell, though. It didn't matter which one you bought, because you were getting basically the same thing.

That's what I believe will happen/is happening with this 'trope' mentality. Authors will commoditize their work.

Someone responded to the earlier discussion around breaking a book down into a Word document with something along the lines of, "if people listened to this, there would be a lot more intense competition. They won't listen, though, and that's good for me, because I'll keep raking in money."

That's fine and probably true. However, what you're missing is the chance to be great. Give people things they hadn't thought of before; make them wonder questions that have never been posed to them; make them see things in completely new light. Long term, that's building a brand. Long term, that's going to satisfy customers. 

Homogenization is for hacks. Perhaps hustlers, too--as it takes a lot of work to imitate at such a granular level. But a hustler can most definitely be a hack.

I'll choose to be one, but not the other. See ya at the finish line.

2015 Numbers

I think a lot of entrepreneurs are scared to talk about numbers--meaning cash. Hell, most people I know are scared to discuss what they make, and that probably stems from some underlying insecurity that what they make defines who they are.

I, however, am far too arrogant to think such nonsense.

So, what I want to start doing each year is tracking my revenue on a yearly basis (I do this on a daily basis, but nobody has time to update that much).

So, briefly, in 2014, I made about $4,400.

My goal for 2015 was to hit $6,000 which would be an increase of 36%--an astounding increase for year over revenue, even if a modest increase in actual cash. That's the joy of making almost nothing the year before.

My plan going into 2015 was to put out six books and focus on building a mailing list. I had around 200 people on my list going into 2015. Mostly friends. My friends are poor, so they never buy my books. I need new friends.

So how did I do?

My 2015 pre-tax operating income was: $21,282.

An increase of 483%.

Yeah, not a millionaire yet--fo sho. However, at this point, I'm among less than one percent of the population to ever live to make that much money from writing novels. I'll take it.

My mailing list ended up at 4,400. An increase of 2,200%. I think. I'm not that good at math.

Focus this year?

1) Continue building mailing list.

1 A) Optimize mailing list to increase sales of back list.

2) Focus on Facebook advertising for box-sets.

3) Optimize backlist by updating covers for The Devil's Dream series, and creating multiple box-sets for Nemesis series.

4) Spend a few minutes each day reading about the business. (this could be more specific, I know).

5) Write and publish six books while averaging 90 minutes per day at the act of writing.

6) Pray and sacrifice to the writing Gods that Bookbub is good to me this year.

Some brief thoughts on last year: 

1) Writing is tough. It's really tough, man. Sitting down and staring at the keyboard day in and day out is not fun, at least not for me. It's worth it, though.

2) I'm extremely lucky I found my passion. A lot of people live their whole lives not knowing, I think. I'm also extremely badass for having the nerve to keep this up for the past 9 years. A lot of people quit when they don't see immediate results. You should not talk to those people.

3) Drops in a bucket add up. For nine fucking years I've sat here staring at computers, hunched over, ruining my spine and my eyes, just trying to tell stories that would make people want to keep turning the page. Every one of those days has been a drop, and the bucket is starting to feel a bit heavy when I lift it.

4) The only way to succeed is to keep learning. Everything I do is not a success or failure, but an opportunity to learn. 

As always, I didn't edit any of this. Sorry. That I'm not sorry.

Now go out there and be someone!

Life at 1,000 Hours

Most people that read this blog know that I'm tracking my hours of dedicated practice. This next week I'm going to hit 1,000 hours of practice (I have sixteen left). I wanted to write a bit on what the first thousand has been like and where I feel that I am as a writer. It's taken me two years to get 1,000 hours of dedicated practice, but I think I'll probably double this pace over the next year given my current schedule.

So. What's a thousand hours feel like?

It's a grind. I don't want anyone to think differently. You have to wake up almost everyday and slog to the computer and stare at a screen that is surely damaging your eyes and you have to spend hours in front of that screen slamming out words and then when you're done with that, you have to spend hours more editing those words. That's all there is to it. Hours staring a screen and thinking. 

It's more than that though. I was talking to someone the other day about why I write, and one of the major reasons is the ability to lose myself in the world's I'm creating. I spend hours everyday on a different planet, and that's something very few people can say they've done. I'm not being facetious here either. I'm being very serious. My mind is in a different world and I'm witnessing things that can't exist on Earth. I'm there for hours each day and it's pleasurable. Immensely so.

What's the difference between 0 hours and 1,000?

It's hard for me to give a completely accurate answer to this. The reason why is, I wrote for five years before I started tracking my hours. I've done some really rough estimations about what that would look like, and it's slightly a bit more than the thousand I've put in. More, I've spent literally countless hours writing in my everyday life as well as in my schooling. All of this contributes in some way to my skill level. So, I can't truly say the difference between 0 and 1,000 because I don't know. 

But, between starting tracking and now, I can speak to. I'm a better writer for sure. I'm such a better writer than when I started tracking, I'm considering pulling Dead Religion down when I get a few more books up. I don't think it's worthy as a publishable book due to some of my failings as a writer. What's better? My ability to look at fiction and understand what will work and what won't work with fans. My ability to understand that just because I want something to happen a certain way, it doesn't make for a good story. Developing character depth. Developing character diversity. Developing ideas--God, this is huge, too. I have nine books lined up, ready to be written right now and more are coming at me everyday. My grammar is undoubtedly better. My metaphors are growing in strength, and that's something I couldn't be happier with. When I first started writing, metaphors were akin to masturbating with sandpaper for me. Just absolutely painful and the result being a mess no one wanted to see.

I confidently feel like I'm a competent writer at 1,000 hours. I'm bordering on good. That first thousand hours structured the basis for what the other 9,000 will be. The strides I made during that first thousand were huge, and I think they're going to slow down a lot in the next 9,000 as the things I need to learn are harder to master. I'm going to get it though. 10,000 hours of dedicated practice.

I want to be clear though, I have A LOT of room to grow. Competent is 9,000 hours away from master.

Why am I doing this?

I'm going to be a master of the craft that is writing fiction. Simple. 

28 Days Later

6/16/2014-6/22/2014: 18,000 words written. 19,447 words edited.

I counted how many days I've been working yesterday. I'm on my twenty-eighth day as I write this, and when this gets published, it'll be up to thirty-two days. That includes weekends. 

Every excuse I've ever heard about why people don't do something revolves around time. They just don't have enough of it. That's a scary thought. All you have here, in this world, is time and opportunity (If you're born in the US. If you're born in Somalia, don't listen to any of this.). Yet, you don't have enough time to do the things you're saying you want to. What happened to it? Did someone steal it? Did you lose it? 

I imagine they're squandering it. I don't know exactly where the time is being spent, but I know that no one stole it from them. I know that it wasn't lost, put in some jeans pocket before taking them off and then not able to find it again until you decide to wear those same pair of jeans. 

A good buddy of mine reads a few hours each day. I was stunned at this, and slightly jealous. I asked him how in the world he could read that much each day? I mean, can you imagine how much smarter he's going to be than the rest of us? (Except me, obviously. He'll never be smarter than me.) I might get thirty minutes of reading in a day, but that's it--I'll never be able to keep up with him. I could say I don't have the time, but that would just be a lie. I have the time, I just spend it differently. I spend it working for three hours before my day job. I spend it working through my lunch. I spend it watching TV with my wife at night. I spend it walking my dog. The man is dedicated to his education; I'm not as dedicated.

I'm really curious how long of a streak I can go for working. If I hit fifty days in a row, I think that would be kind of cool. I have no vacations planned, so I think it's doable. I'm curious how many days in a row you've worked at what you care about? Being a good spouse? How many days have you showed up in a row saying, it doesn't matter what happens, I'm going to work on this today. Exercising? Eating healthy? How many days are you taking off?