My Crazy Writing Life - Day 12: The Christmas Spirit

When I don’t start with writing, it gets difficult to squeeze it in during the course of the day. But if I write when I first wake up, even if it’s only a few hundred words, it puts me into the right mindset, and I find myself being drawn back to it time and again. To a certain degree, the writing feels natural, and I don’t have to force myself to put down a few words.

If I don’t get started early, any number of things can happen. It’s easy to get distracted, make excuses, and seek out other forms of entertainment. And the longer that the day progresses, the more of a burden writing becomes. The distance that we put between a task and actually doing it alters our perception of it, making it appear more difficult than it actually is.

Oh, the mind games writers play!

To avoid this pitfall, clear your mind and jump right in. Not only does the act of writing shatter many of the preconceived notions that a writer has (it’s too hard or you don’t enough motivation to do it), you may find that it’s one of your most productive days. Don’t be quick to judge the day before it has unfolded. There’s plenty of time to get back on track and turn things around.

I remember one such day when I was working on my languishing project The Christmas Spirit. I got stuck on a transition where my main character spies a thief at the end of the hall going into an apartment. He follows him inside and, err…ugh! I had established a good rhythm up until this point before grinding to a halt. This was going to be more difficult than the previous 3,000 words and writing description isn’t my strong suit.

But a funny thing happened when I finally sat down and started writing. Although the first few sentences were difficult as expected, once I’d gotten past them, I was able to move the story further along than I imagined. Not only that, the writing was good and didn’t require tons of edits. By showing up to write and taking a shot at it, I was able to break through any mental roadblocks.

Unfortunately, The Christmas Spirit still isn’t done. It’s one of those projects that’s lingered far longer than it should. The original draft was written back in December 2010, during a series of vigorous writing sessions that also produced Literary Dynamite. Although I was pleased with the result, I knew that it needed a lot of work.

A year later, after I’d finally published a few short works, I decided to dust off The Christmas Spirit and do an all-new version. Since the original was 2,000 words, I figured that if I doubled the length or hit 5,000 words I’d be happy. Once I got started, the manuscript kept growing and growing. I surged past 5,000 words in no time and wasn’t close to the finish line. But instead of staying the course, I switched to another project.

When I missed my goal of publishing The Christmas Spirit by December 25, 2011, I was mad at myself. I’d missed the most important holiday of the year and had the perfect product for it! I didn’t get back to it until the following summer, determined not to miss another Christmas. After reading over what I’d written, I decided to edit what I had and push the story forward. But this time, progress was very slow. Every paragraph felt like a mountain, and hours dragged by with getting little done. When I finally admitted that I wasn’t being productive, I switched projects yet again.

It wasn’t until December 2012 that I begin working on it seriously. Despite all of the time and energy that I had invested into the project, it was still moving at a snail’s pace. Finally, I gave up. Too many other projects demanded my attention. If I couldn’t be productive, I’d try my luck on something else.

Then I had a change of heart. In early 2013, I vowed to make one last attempt to get The Christmas Spirit done. I set up a blog and began posting what I’d done, bit-by-bit. This proved to be beneficial since I hadn’t broken up the story yet. By concentrating on each chapter, I zeroed in on what I was trying to accomplish and moved on. I did this for a while until the first ten chapters were up, the last one giving me plenty of trouble.

Then fresh doubt set in. Something was off, I knew it. Not only was it off, I felt that the monster that I had created was mortally wounded. The beginning had been promising, but now it had gone down the tubes. It stunk, in fact. I was no longer laughing at the ridiculous things that my main character was doing. He was annoying, and I was just trying to find the end so that I could put it out of its misery. Rather than pushing forward with a half-hearted effort, again I took a break.

September would be the last time I worked on it in 2013. Afterwards, I didn’t want to see it again. It was going to take a minor miracle to get it done.

But I’m not a quitter, am I? I’ve encouraged many authors not to give up. So why was I? Everyone starts a project for a certain reason. You owe it to yourself to see it through. Don’t throw away your effort. Collect yourself and try again!

Many pulp fiction writers would disagree with this assertion. Georges Simenon famously discarded everything he’d written if he’d stopped writing for more than 48 hours. It didn’t matter if he was nearing the end—once the spell was broken, he couldn’t rekindle the passion to finish it off. Considering that Simenon wrote in excess of 500 books in his lifetime, he certainly knew what he was doing. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to toss a project every now and then that’s causing problems rather than let them pile up like I have.

But there’s a lot that can be gleaned from Simenon’s stance. I stopped too early, thus breaking the spell. Once I got going again, I introduced editing into the process too soon. And once you begin to edit, look out! You’ll always be searching for the perfect turn of phrase before moving on. Don’t be surprised if your pace slows to a crawl.

Lack of discipline is my real problem. If I had worked a little on it each day, The Christmas Spirit would be done. Knowing this, I decided to revisit it two days ago. If I could produce 250 words per day—merely a page—I could finally put The Christmas Spirit to rest.

On Friday I read the first twelve chapters, tweaking here and there (I couldn’t resist). Afterwards, I worked on the thirteenth unpublished chapter, which was better than I had remembered. Surprisingly, I even liked it. With a little work, I polished off chapter 13, posted it, and then decided that was enough for the day.

When Saturday rolled around, I took another stab at The Christmas Spirit. I read chapter 13 again, made a few more tweaks, and then started writing the next chapter. Again I was confronted by the same question, “What should I write next?” You see, just ahead in the same document I have pages of notes that I’m incorporating into the final act of the story. There are some real gems mixed in with horrible writing and none of it’s organized. Rather then bumble my way through another chapter, I took aim at the notes.

It took me a while to get through them, and I found myself adding to them just as much as I was trimming the fat. Although I had added quite a bit of new content, I couldn’t say for sure how much I’d written. All I knew was that I had righted the ship and finally organized the project. That’s not to say the writing is going to be a piece of cake from here on out. If I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s not to underestimate a task. At least I couldn’t blame my lack of organization anymore.

By working on the notes, I also got a good idea of how much is left. Originally I thought I could wrap it up in a couple thousand words, but that’s no longer the case. There are three sequences left (this I know for sure), and it will be another 3,000 – 5,000 words before it’s all done. Since I have 9,100 already, that means I have about two thirds of the story.

I’m close. Very close.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how much is left. As long as I make a little progress each day, it’ll get done. That’s all I can ask at this point. There will come a day when everything snaps into place and I sprint towards the end. But I’ll take it slowly for now. It’s given me so many problems, the best way to defeat it is with patience.

It’s too bad that I didn’t write the story in its entirety while it was still hot in my head. Life happens, and it’s easy to get out of sync. It’s not in my best interest to be writing the same thing months or even years later. Six weeks should be enough; otherwise, I’ll start dreaming about writing something else. Anything, even these journals.

Wait a minute. What?!

Day 1: 1,035 words
Day 2: 1,045 words
Day 3: 1,035 words
Day 4: 1,560 words
Day 5: 1,193 words
Day 6: 1,157 words
Day 7: 1,102 words
Day 8: 1,643 words
Day 9: 2,057 words
Day 10: 1,038 words
Day 11: 1,560 words
Day 12: 1,601 words
Total: 16,036 words

My Crazy Writing Life - Day 8: Giving Back

I realize that I’m not supposed to look at my sales too closely, but it’s easy to get depressed when you read about other authors finding success when you’re struggling, especially when they’re making over $13,000 a month. That’s something I never did. I’d be happy with a quarter of that amount. As long as I can scrape by, I’d be happy writing all day long.

And I mean that with every fiber of my being.

(Oh boy. It’s going to take awhile to complete this paradigm shift. Can I really say that money isn’t that important?)

Before, when the money came easily, I got complacent. I convinced myself that I needed a break and was tired after all of the years working in the hotel industry and web development. Of course, that was utter nonsense. I really needed to be developing as much content as possible, especially since Amazon’s algorithm changes were just around the corner. Sure, I couldn’t have predicted that this would happen but I should never have assumed that the money would continue flowing as it did.

That is my mistake, and I paid the price for it. If I can get back to where I was, I will give it my all and publish frequently, if not every day. I want to be successful and am willing to do whatever it takes to be a full time author again. It’s a dream worth fighting for.

When I see numbers like “$13,000 in December” I no longer see it as a given that an author can repeat those numbers the following month. If she can, great. She deserves it. Things are changing so rapidly I’m surprised that she’s been able to increase her income.

And she’s certainly put in the work. Back in October when Amazon began pulling erotica titles left and right (I believe one of the offending keywords was “Daddy,” which makes me surprised my children’s book My Daddy’s Cool Car Collection wasn’t pulled), she had several profitable titles that got banned. But rather than sit and complain about it (which I would have likely done), she reworked the titles, toned down the content and got them reinstated with correspondence from Amazon.

I doubt I’d have the same reaction. In fact, I’m certain I wouldn’t. I have three titles that have been blocked by Amazon because they were in the Indonesian language and it made me absolutely furious when they were pulled and I was notified afterwards. “They don’t deserve these titles,” I said, and put them up in all the other venues. That’s right, I didn’t bother fixing them (I could have made Bilingual English and Indonesian versions to comply with their policy), and vowed to make a bunch of money with someone who actually wanted them. “I’ll show you Amazon!” I declared, but perhaps it’s time to put aside my anger and get these books back into the #1 e-book store on the planet.

Although there’s no guarantee K. Matthew will break $13,000 next month, her chances are good. Readers tend to stay active during the winter months in spite of work, school, etc. In fact, the shortest month of the year, February, was my most successful month ever, so there’s plenty of opportunity to earn a decent income post Christmas.

Everything she does seems to turn to gold, and lately, everything I’ve been doing has turned to crap. I can’t complain, though. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve published and there have been a few surprises in the international market. I’ve also jumped around a little more than was wise, following up unprofitable works rather than zeroing in on what makes money.

(Are you sure that money doesn’t matter?)

When I was first successful with children’s picture books, I followed up My Little Pet Dragon with My Crazy Pet Frog. It wasn’t exactly a sequel, but it was of the same ilk. Afterwards, I published A Little Book About You (which is free right now if you’d like a copy), Pigtastic, A Pocketful of Dinosaurs, Ninja Robot Repairmen, Happy Healthy Hearts, My Daddy’s Cool Car Collection and If I Were A Robot. In between there was a lull for these similarly themed books (by that I mean the look and feel). Taming Your Pet Monster: An Operational Guide hit a few months later, followed by The Penguin Way a month after that. I would not release another children’s book of this type until a year later with Baby Blue.

Granted, I did work on other children’s books during this time. I wrote 11 volumes of Alphabet All-Stars that has been largely unsuccessful (but personally rewarding for my son), and put out five books in the Adorable Dogs series that sell here and there and were lots of fun to do. I also did a pair of girly books (does that make me a girly man?), Aveline and The Most Beautiful Flower, but it’s obvious from the covers that they are in a different class than my popular children’s books.

Looking at it this way, it’s obvious why I haven’t been successful recently. Even if I published one children’s book per month like I was previously doing, I should see sales improve, especially if I extended the length.

As I’ve said before, I’m in this for the long haul, and I’ll keep working until I get this ship turned around.

But I do admire that I didn’t chase the money, at least not to high degree. Instead, I focused on being an artist and wrote the stories that I was interested in. Sure, I paid for it financially, but I feel good about everything I’ve written. To be quite honest, it was personally fulfilling to come up with an idea and see the finished work materialize in a matter of hours or days. Who doesn’t like to be productive and follow their instincts? It’s very liberating.

But I shouldn’t become a starving artist, especially since I’ve found success in the past. I have profitable franchises; is it too much to follow them up? Will I really be selling out by doing this? All of us need to eat, right? And many of us like to eat well. Would it be worth it to sell out a little (just a little, I promise) and reach $10,000 a month?

Ugh!

Personally, I hate to think of writing as a series of business decisions. Ideally, I should feel free to write what I want whenever I want, regardless of the financial circumstances. Actually, that’s how I became successful in the first place. I took a chance and went for it. And the person that doesn’t see the value in taking risks won’t hit the big payday.

You also shouldn’t shy away from your ideas. Don’t turn off the creative faucet because, even though you like the idea, you’re afraid that your audience will not (i.e., you won’t sell enough copies). That’s why I want to write faster. If I move quickly from project to project, I might just be able to keep up with my feeble brain and take more chances than the average writer.

But success should be followed up. That’s money left on the table. My Little Pet Dragon was a huge hit when it was first released, but I never wrote the extended children’s novel like I intended to. I was too busy chasing the next idea, and many didn’t work out.

I’m glad I took those chances, though. I really, really am. But I would have been better off mixing in sequels with new projects. At very least, it could fund all of my crazy ideas, like those fart books I rattled off.

That’s a change that I need to make this year. It’s worth my time to mix in a few projects that could result in big sales. The first two are My Little Pet Dragon Ness and Secret Agent Disco Dancer. I have the covers for each as well as a good start on the actual stories. If I work on them a little each day along with my journal, they’ll get done. That gives me a real shot at reversing my fortunes.

The relationship that authors have with readers is a fragile one. When we don’t deliver, they tune out and there are many things to distract them these days. The worse case scenario is that they never check back again, and that would be a real shame. I’ve got so much more to show them—fantastic voyages with twists and turns and characters that are out of this world. I owe it to them to finish these projects.

The truth is, you can’t just be an artist who chases the winds of creativity. You must also be a smart artist, and realize when it’s in your best interest to work on something despite your reservations. Working on a project, however commercial in nature, won’t change who you are.

Remember, the art that is produced isn’t just for you. Some consideration must be given to the reader. Do something just for them as a thank you for making you successful.

In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

These sequels are love letters to all of those who gave me a chance and made me (at least briefly) a full time author.

And I’m not going to delay any longer.

Since I’ve done the most work on Secret Agent Disco Dancer, that will be the next project following The Forgetful Alien. I may be delayed while working out the kinks with this daily journal, but it’s at the top of my list—my highest priority—and I will not stop until it is done.

Give back every once in awhile. It will also pay you back in the end.

Or, simply grow a brain a follow up successful books. That works, too.

Day 1: 1,035 words
Day 2: 1,045 words
Day 3: 1,035 words
Day 4: 1,560 words
Day 5: 1,193 words
Day 6: 1,157 words
Day 7: 1,102 words
Day 8: 1,643 words
Total: 9,770 words

My Crazy Writing Life - Day 7: New Year's Mayhem

The following was previously written on January 1, 2014, but I’ve been unable to edit it until now. Still, it seems appropriate. Enjoy!

Caca Pedo Poo-Poo

With a new year comes new possibilities. And challenges. And mayhem. And excruciating pain. And little kids pulling out your hair (what's left of it), and screaming at the top of their lungs.

That sort of thing...

Such was the scene last night. Even though 2014 was barely a minute old, a voracious mob of abandoned children thundered into my room, screaming into my ear, smacking me on the side of the head, and occasionally removing their clothes.

"Foolish children," my voice darkened. "Keep this up and I'm going to add you as a character in my book!"

"Oh yeah? Well you're a caca pedo poo-poo!" My pint-sized nephew Keyvan laughed.

"You're lucky that Christmas has already passed. Do you know what Santa does with naughty boys like you?" Sparks of fire raced through my eyes.

"Caca poo-poo!" He pointed.

"He punishes them. Perhaps he sends you a gift, a gift that looks ordinary on the outside, but is far from it." I leaned forward. "A few years back, one such child got a toy Jeep for Christmas. Although he could see something in the rear of the car, he couldn't open the back door."

"Poo-poo!" Keyvan insisted.

"When the little boy was fast asleep, the rear door opened and a tiny creature scampered into the darkness, making a home for himself in the musty, old basement. Every night, the filthy creature crawled through the ventilation ducts of the house and gazed at the naughty little boy, whispering foul things that materialized in his dreams. Nightmare after nightmare, the boy could not get any sleep, and slowly he became aware of the hideous beast lingering in his basement. When he caught a glimpse of its shadow one night, he woke up his parents and told them that a monster was living in the basement.

"Don't worry, it's probably just a mouse," said his father. "We'll call pest control in the morning." He rolled over and went back to sleep.

But if any of them knew what was living under them, they would have known that hiring an exterminator was a futile effort. Goblins live off the rodents in one's house, and more importantly, the fear in little boys’ hearts.

As the weeks went by, the little boy locked himself in his room, taped the vents shut, and secured all the windows. Still, the fiend with a face full of scars and rotten teeth carved a path to his room.

The boy cringed as he heard the creature chew through the floorboards and slip under his bed one night. He jumped up, and grabbed a baseball bat nearby. "Leave me alone!" he screamed.

The goblin snickered, his green peepers pulsing with a supernatural energy. Finally, the boy couldn't take it anymore, and charged forward swinging.

Although his bat did not find its mark, the intruder's teeth did. The goblin disappeared in the basement where he was not seen again.

Upon learning that a wild animal had bitten her son, his mother promptly took him to the hospital, forcing him to succumb to the prick of sharp, pointy needles that stabbed him like daggers.

But it did little good.

Boils began forming all over the kid's skin, even the most private parts. Though his body itched all over, he dare not scratch it, lest he be subjected to even crueler rashes that might never go away. Shortly thereafter, his hair fell out, and teeth broke off and began to rot.

It was not long before the boy ran away, now a hideous goblin searching for a new home to haunt. But all of this could have been averted if he had simply been kind to his elders.

"You're a caca, pee-pee, poo-poo booger that's farted out of a goblin!" The psychopath smacked me on the top of the head and ran away.

"Just wait until next Christmas!" I hollered.

Productivity Log

Even though this household of lunatics did not want me to jot down a single word, I still had a productive day. As I waded through an assortment of stock imagery in my archives, I came across a story that I started last year titled The Forgetful Alien and promptly vomited out 3,000 words. Yes, just like the exorcist, and no less possessed.

While writing, I took a wrong turn somewhere and was unable to resolve the ending. Still, I put in some good work, and have about three quarters of it now. Tomorrow I will go through what I've written and push through to the end. If I can just reach the finish line, I know I’ll sort out the details and eventually publish it. Finishing an idea while it's still fresh is of utmost importance.

I've also done a good job keeping up with my writing journal thus far, and now readers have a good idea of the maniacal character that I am. 2014 promises to be my most productive year yet. Now I just need to produce. Even though my goal was to write only 1,000 words a day in this journal, I already have an entry over 1,500.

Yikes! Here it comes…

Don’t be surprised to see a few 2,000-word entries in the near future. I just can’t help myself.

Ok, that's it for now. Certainly I've gone over my allotment for the day. 2014 is off to a great start. It’s time to become the writer that I always wanted to be.

Make something of yourself! Be the inspiration that others need in their lives.

--S.E. Gordon
(Kind of an author)

Simple Truths:

• It's impossible to win with a child, no matter how clever you are.
• Caca Pedo Poo-Poo is not a grammatically correct.
• There’s a goblin in every child; it’s an undeniable fact.
• Composing your thoughts in a house full of lunatics is like swimming upstream in a pair of water-dissolvable shorts.
• Even the best children's book can be improved by adding Caca Pedo Poo-Poo.
• If you lock yourself into a dungeon, the monsters will still find a way in.
• Go to a land far, far away where no one can see or bother you, and you'll find your angry wife at the other end of your cell phone every five minutes.
• In short: take advantage of those quiet moments before they slip away. Once they’re gone, they’re gone for good.

Oh yeah, and:

• Finish an idea while it's still fresh in your head.
• If you can reach the finish line just once, you’ll find a way to polish and publish your work.

Day 1: 1,035 words
Day 2: 1,045 words
Day 3: 1,035 words
Day 4: 1,560 words
Day 5: 1,193 words
Day 6: 1,157 words
Day 7: 1,102 words
Total: 8,127 words