Month: January 2018

Op-Ed: The Indie Hypocrisy

Max Misc , , , , , , , ,

Yup, an opinion piece. Kind of an odd one, too. But why not? After all, I finished the first draft of Jungle yesterday. I’m in a good mood. It’s been a while since the last one. And this topic has been on my mind for a good week or so; seems as good a time as any to bring it up.

Last week I had an interesting encounter. I was on a forum devoted to discussing video games (bear with me, this gets back to books fairly quickly) when something unexpected happened. In a thread discussing indie games and how great they were (games that are built and published without the oversight of a game publisher, just as indie books are written and published without the oversight of a book publisher), a group of posters started going off against indie books.

It was the usual argument. How could any book be good if it hadn’t been “approved” by some publisher. Publishers “only approved” good stories so anyone who wasn’t publishing through them was clearly not good enough to bother looking at. Publishers had all the editors, so an indie book would be rife with errors. You know, the usual junk that gets spouted off.

But what really made this whole chain jarring was the fact that this was in a thread devoted to discussing how great indie games were, games that did the exact same thing indie authors did—eschew a publisher in favor of their own efforts to bring a game to the world. So what it had boiled down to was “Indie games are great, indie books are horrible” and the same reasons for one being great were being espoused as reasons for the other being terrible.

This got me thinking about indie books and indie markets in general. It’s not hard to find someone slamming indie books on the internet. In fact, it’s just about the standard reaction. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, at least from what I’ve seen, indie books are the only place that this happens. Everywhere else, indie is embraced by the majority.

And that doesn’t add up.

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Jungle’s First Draft … is Done!!!

Max Books! , , , , ,

Yes, I used three exclamation marks there! I earned those!

Because the first draft of Jungle is DONE! After a writing day of 5,236 words. Bringing the final wordcount for the first draft too …

457,931 words.

Yes, you’re reading that number correctly. 458k. 2.1 MILLION characters.

That’s insane. Colony was only 334k. Which makes Jungle a third-again as long as Colony. So we’re looking at 2400+ pages, easy.

Editing should trim that down a bit, but still. What a beast.

And now, now, editing can begin on Shadow of an Empire. The work never ends, folks.

But I think I’ve earned a small celebration.

And by the way. This book? Prepare for a ride.

Being a Better Writer: Finding Your Strengths—and Weaknesses

Max Being a Better Writer , , , ,

Welcome back readers! It’s a new year! 2018!

Granted, I’m still running a bit behind on 2017. Patreon Supporters, you’ll have your December post as soon as Jungle is done, by the way. I’m just … so close to having Jungle done it’s a miracle I’m even doing this post. No joke. Jungle is sitting at over halfway through the second-to-last chapter, which means I’ll likely finish it today, tomorrow, or Wednesday.

Am I excited? Yes I am. This book has been the labor of a year now, and is sitting at about 450,000 words. For the record, that’s a third again as long as Colony, which was only 345,000 words. There will be much editing to be had here.

But that’s in the future. See, once Jungle‘s first draft is done, I can sit back, relax, and get started on the publication process for Shadow of an Empire. Which means the new year will begin with some buckled-down editing and lots of happy Alpha and Beta readers (which also means Alpha and Beta readers take note; the time is come!), and then after that, work will begin on Hunter/Hunted!

There’s more to come past that, but for now that bit of news will do. After all, it’s a new year, and most you have been starving for a new Being a Better Writer post for some time now. So let’s get going with the first official topic of 2018!

Finding your strengths, and your weaknesses, and using them.

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Being a Better Writer: Forward!

Max Being a Better Writer

Today’s post is going to be a little different. Aside from being late (I was asleep for a good chunk of the day). It’s also going to be a bit less about the act of writing and the gritty details of writing and character development (we’ve got plenty of posts on those already, and plenty more to come) and more on the mentality of it.

Naturally, of course, it also involves this New Year. 2018 here at last. And I have good hopes for it. As should you.

Which is really what this short post is all about: 2018, high hopes, and looking forward.

You know, it’s funny. As often as we may write characters that “have hope,” or write stories where hope is a foundation of what keeps the main characters going, sometimes it’s truly easy to slip a little away from that hope ourselves. When we’re working on a story with a truly staggering narrative weight, it sometimes feel like every bit of that weight is bearing down around our shoulders.

Which is fair. From one perspective, it really is. The whole story is on us. At least, until the editors get it. And the readers.

Which—and again, this is short and sweet—is something we shouldn’t forget. Yes, that story we’re working on now may seem like it is an all-consuming beast in our lives.

But sometimes, rather than looking at the path under our feet and thinking about the weight on our back bearing us down toward it, we need to turn our eyes to the peak we want to reach and keep our gaze there. Away from each plodding step our feet make. Away from the dust and grime. We need to focus on the destination and the scenery around us … not the steady, relentless tread of our feet on the dusty path.

As metaphors go, I don’t think that was too bad. We need to keep our eyes forward. When a book flounders (in sales or in writing), don’t forget the end-goal. Whatever that goal is. Just keep your eyes on it, work your way forward.

After all, it’s a new year. Whatever goal you had in mind? As long as you keep working towards it, it’ll be that much closer tomorrow. Keep your eyes on the goal. Keep stepping forward.

It’s a new year. Let’s all leave a lot of footprints behind us.

Happy New Year!