Dealing with Rejection

Trying to make a living as a writer is a tough gig. It always has been. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Sandra Brown, and JK Rowling. Even among "indie" authors, there are stars such as Hugh Howey, Joe Konrath, Bella Andre and HM Ward.

Before I tried my hand at fiction writing, I worked as a newspaper reporter. I was in the field for about a dozen years and never made more than $40,000 in a year. For the vast majority of my career, in fact, I made $20,000 - $25,000. I looked upward to journalists at the highest levels of the "game" at newspapers like the Detroit Free Press, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post. They made double or triple what I did.

After striving to reach their level for years, it became demoralizing and seemingly unattainable. So, I moved on. Now, I haven't exactly set the world on fire in terms of salary since then, but I am making more. Better yet, I don't have to live with the feeling that I'm somehow lacking, or that I'm not good enough to make it to the Big Leagues (to use a bad sports analogy).

The reason I say all of this is that I am fighting many of those same feelings of rejection and failure as a fiction writer.

To date, I've only published a short story and a pair of novellas. So, if you said I shouldn't even be thinking in terms of success and failure right now, you'd have a point. After all, there are very few one-hit wonders in indie publishing - Darcie Chan's Mill River Recluse comes to mind.

Okay, I know, I get it. I'd have a lot more to whine about if I had published a dozen novels and still only saw trickling sales. Still, at the moment, I feel a lot like I did years ago. Truthfully, I'm having a really hard time finding the motivation to write. 

It takes a big investment of time and energy to put a story together. I can deal with that, and I still enjoy the process of writing. It's the investment in hope that, perhaps, this will be the one that sets me on my way, I'm lamenting over.

Because I know, going in, the odds are steep. I know, despite my best efforts, my next "little darling" will likely languish somewhere around a million in Amazon's Kindle store after a few months of being on its virtual shelves.

There's a line from my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption, which seems apt here:

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Anyway, I would really love to hear how you, my writing colleagues, deal with this issue from day to day. How do you push past it and keep churning the words out?

The Wrong Way, the Right Way and a Pledge

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right....

Honestly, in publishing In the Sunshine, I didn't follow that old, but true adage. You see, I was all charged up with a story idea after the family and I returned home from a vacation in May. I wanted to write it and publish - to score a "quick win."

At least that was my mindset going in. I hadn't self-published in more than a year, and really hadn't written much accept for some freelance articles. So, I intended to write a short story, spiff it up with a paid editor and toss it out into the world.

Goal accomplished, I guess.

I did indeed publish on September 1. The real question is, should I have? In a word, HELL NO (okay, that's two words).

There in lies both the beauty and the trap of self-publishing: asking readers to buy a story before it's really, really ready. In The Sunshine was not ready.

I wasn't honest with myself in that respect. Sure, I had poured over it several times. Wrote and re-wrote. My editor did a good job of catching typos and other grammar issues, even had a few suggestions for me to improve the story - some of which I followed, some I didn't.

The truth is, the process wasn't enough to turn out a story worthy of someone's time and hard-earned money. I should have found some beta readers. I should have looked at my editor's remarks as a starting point instead of a finishing point. You know, it's not uncommon for a manuscript to be completely re-written or at least have several major surgeries before it hits the shelves.

Unless your name is Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, skipping the above process probably isn't a good idea. I think part of my rush to publish was a left over from my days a newspaper reporter. Because of daily or twice weekly deadlines, the stories I wrote generally went into the paper with very few structural changes. As long as there were not glaring errors, misspelled words or other grammatical defects, articles got a headline slapped on them, and BAM they were published.

Fiction doesn't work that way, at least not well-written fiction.

I should have known better.

That's why I'm pledging right here, right now, not to do it again. Ever.

Also, I'm going to pull In the Sunshine from Amazon. I'm going to work on it, I'm going to revise it and then I'm going to find a few kind souls to read the story and give feedback. When that's done, I'm going to seriously consider the feedback, rewrite again, if necessary, and then get it re-edited.

This story is going to get the TLC it should have received right from the start. However long that takes, is how long it takes. If at the end, after I've hit the publish button, and a few people actually buy and read it? Great.

If not, that's fine, too. Because I am a writer above all else, and that's enough for me.

$10.27

In the grand scheme of things, $10.27 isn't a lot of money. It's enough to buy a decent lunch in most places or grab an expensive cup of coffee at Starbucks.

For me, though, $10.27 is a really big deal. It's the amount of my first royalty payment from Amazon.

It has been more than two years since I hit the publish button on first story. Since then, I've published two more and had one made into audiobook (which is where most of the "revenue" care from). I've learned a lot more about writing fiction and a bit about marketing said fiction.

While I may never reach the epic heights of some self-publishers - Hugh Howey and his excellent Wool series - I am having fun and that's what counts, right? Along the way, I've made a few new friends and supporters, like J.B. Chicoine. Writing fiction has opened a new world for me, and I don't plan on giving up on it anytime soon.

The check from Amazon isn't first time I've been paid as a writer. I worked as a news reporter for a little more than a decade and made my living (if you can call it that. My first check as a reporter was $185 for about 50 hours worth of work). Somehow, it feels more satisfying.

As a reporter, I was always writing other people's stories. I was covering governmental meetings or sports games and the material to write about was right there in front of me. It's a luxury fiction writers don't have. There's nothing but you and a blank screen, which can be pretty damn intimidating at times.

If you're a writer and reading this, first off, thank you. I'm wondering if you have some of the same feelings I have about earning money from your efforts? It's not why I write, and probably not the reason you write either, but I'm still interested to hear your thoughts.

'In The Sunshine" a Labor of Love

After a power weekend of writing and rewriting, In The Sunshine is live on Amazon!

My goal was to have it published and FOR SALE by Labor Day and I just barely made it. The story wound up a shade over 14,000 words and I'm generally happy with it. Technically, it falls in the novelette range, but I think most readers will view it as a short story. Anything less than 100 printed pages tends to get viewed that way.

Sunshine has two protagonists - Regan Morel, a recent college grad trying to make her way in the world and Matthew Fischer, who is a little world-weary and coming off of a divorce. The central question of the story is, can chemistry overcome difficult circumstances and a nasty ex-boyfriend. Pick up a copy and find out (hint, hint).

While my two previous published stories, Born Again and Eden Effect, had elements of romance about them, Sunshine is my first for-real romance. I don't think it will be the last one I'll write, either. I can't see myself ever writing Harlequin or Debbie Macomber style romances. I could envision something more along the lines of Nicholas Sparks or Richard Paul Evans.

Anyway, I want to thank my editor, Mr. Bryon Quertermous. He's a real pro, can spot a typo or plot hole from a mile away and his prices are very reasonable. Hire him.  Most of all, I want to thank my wife, Cora, and my kids for giving me the time I needed to write the story.

Done! (at least for now)

After several years of starts, stops and disappointments, I finally finished a manuscript. So, pardon me while I say Yeah Me!

Since publishing The Eden Effect a few years ago, I've started several projects but not been able to actually complete anything. I was starting to wonder if I could.

Most of these failed projects were intended as novels.  I would start off like a house on fire but then burn out a few months down the road for various reasons. As I said in an earlier post, everyday life  tends to get in the way. That's a bad excuse, I suppose. Every writer faces challenge, whether it's working a full-time job, raising a family or any number of other circumstances.

The net result, for me anyway, is that I felt like I needed to get a "win" under my belt. Combined with our family's May trip to Orlando and Cocoa Beach, and the idea for In the Sunshine was born. I initially  intended for it to be a short story of about 8-10,000 words. It wound up just a shade under 15,000 when I wrote the final scene yesterday.

Most of the story was written in late May and over the past few weeks. In between, I was starting a new job and tending to my mother, who was in and out of the hospital twice. So now Sunshine is in the capable hands of editor Bryon Quertermous. I ran into Bryon over at  the Writer's Cafe on KBoards and, as it turned out, we're practically neighbors.

I've instructed Bryon to be brutally blunt about Sunshine. As an industry vet, I trust him to give me the straight scoop about my writing. I'm nervous, of course, but also excited to get his take on my work, what my strengths and weaknesses are. My aim is to publish the story on Amazon and other platforms on Labor Day weekend.

That's almost besides the point. It just feels good to finish what I started for once.