Some weeks begin with damned hard work, alone, unpaid, and in isolation, and end with you sitting in your pants, broadcasting to the entire nation.
Writing can be a thankless task. Whether it’s a song, a poem, or an entire novel, the one thing you can’t afford to do at any point during the writing process, unless you’re writing to commission, is to think about what will happen at the end. Therein lies insanity.
You wouldn’t believe how much camera fiddling took place in order to get the shot to look like this. How men suffer for their art.
Writing a book is a longer journey than you’d think, and if you’re the kinda person that likes things to pay swift dividends, you’re gonna be wrestling more than a few demons along the way. First, you get the idea. That’s the easy part. Now you’ve gotta spend some time working out how you’re going to flesh it out – what’s your framework? How does it all progress? What voices do your characters speak in? How does one character’s action affect the story?
If you’re determined that you’ve got a great story to tell, then eventually you’re gonna tell it. You’re gonna tell that story, spend a long time reworking it, and at some point, if you’re very determined, you’re gonna reach the end of that road. You’re gonna look back, read that book, and glow inside. You’re gonna want to punch the air, and tell your story to everyone. You’re gonna want to waft that manuscript under the noses of everyone you know, and demand that they recognise all the greatness that you see in it, too.
And here’s where it all gets tricky, ‘cause you’re gonna find out that the end of that road is just a fork in it, and somehow you’ve got to go and see what’s down both of them. I mean, you do want people to read it, don’t you?
Well, that’s the point we’re at today. I figured that the best way to get “Cliché” out there in the short term was to release it as an Amazon Kindle e-book, take advantage of their offer to make it free for five days, spam the hell outta every social media network I’ve access to, then cross my fingers for good reviews (gotta come, right?), and get to work chasing up some agents. After five days, it’s reached over 1,500 people, so I figure that’s a bit of success. I’ve had a glance down one of those forks, liked what I saw, and now have to go check out the other one.
Finding an agent’s like finding twenty grand in a suitcase beside the road – you know that other people have done it, but you’ve know idea where or how. So last week was spent getting it out there, hitting the road on Trigger to unwind, and having a shufty at the end of day reports, checking it all out. This week’s all about memorising half the names in the Writers and Artist’s Yearbook, coming up with concise synopses for Cliché, and harassing half of the western world until something shifts into gear somewhere.
Saturday morning, bacon sizzling in the pan and lounging around in my pants, I answered a call from Gutsy, our bassist and owner of the funkiest little guitar shop in Blackpool, Electric Avenue. Half an hour later, this was happening:
Goes to show, you never can tell.
S.
Cliche is available in Kindle format, here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clich%C3%A9-Sean-Keefe-ebook/dp/B00KCNP596/ref=la_B00HTQT8GK_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400635417&sr=1-1
