Writing, Goals, Planning

  It has been foggy in the mornings, rather gloomy for summer. Carson returns home Friday night. We have tickets to see the Decemberists at the Greek the same evening. I will drive five hours up north to pick him up then we’ll bring a picnic to the concert. Hopefully I can stay awake to make the drive home. It has been an intense summer. My flash fiction Entropy will be in Scapegoat Review Magazine September. I have the contract for the short stories to be written as screenplays. One first draft I completed in July the other I will start in two weeks. Scheduling everything I do these days. I function my finest when I have the most demands. With working full time, writing full time and caring for my family is a balancing trick. Plan my goals.

  I have some writing projects to organize. What better method than to list of goals.

  The Lucky Boy in final editing with Neal Hock, it emerges from that stage on Wednesday. I have to write an essay for him about what I want the reader to take away.

  I am writing two new novels at the same time. This seems as overload; but is working well. The characters in Pump are ones I already know. I have a story board in the downstairs bedroom and photographs completed. The other novel, Cumaean (clunky working title) is a chapter one I started online as a short fiction about an eco-terrorist but have decided to run with it as a full length thriller. I ran some ideas by an FBI agent to check my story and the plot motivates me to make it full length.

  On the advice of the poetry publisher, I met with their attorney about using the autobiographical elements. I have sixty some poems, flash pieces and photographs we are compiling. The stories range from natural world, literary, dark, and personal. The difficult angle is having it be fiction not memoir. A great number of authors write about themselves or what they know, but in this, I open a door about some negatives in my life.

  Rather than follow the legal advice to file, I asked him to prepare “model release letters” or something saying they would “hold me harmless”. The concern is some person may come back and want a piece of the royalty. Poetry makes no profit but ...

 The First Amendment protects writers but I have known some litigious personalities, so better to avoid the problem. Nineteen letters were sent, the strange thing, those who I thought would protest the most were encouraging and full of praise.

  Next project is taking photographs and short videos for the books. I plan to include links for the digital books that loop to my content and swing back each chapter for more savvy online readers. I completed considerable research about interactive reading and am progressing with our secret project but the technology I want is not yet written. We have conference calls three days a week and the computer gentlemen on the team are the most animated not the comedian or the musician team members. I told them last week we are all geeks and they sent me these weird and wonderful leucandendrons.

It is an exciting time in publishing. I only wish I had 44 hours a day to write.



“Publishers stand firm” in quick sand.

Bridge





There is little a traditional publishing firm or independent bookstore can do to fight the flow of the river.

The printed book on paper is not going to burn for kindling to stay warm. Consumers will continue to purchase hardbound and paperback books.

However, it is better to learn to swim with the flow and join in the revolution. Authors need to write well, keep visible with their readers and keep all four legs in each camp. Publish on paper, digital, audio and read in person face to face.

Young readers desire content, they crave new and authors will deliver stories to satisfy. Digital will dominate the market in two years. It is cheaper, faster and more adaptable. New formats are created that include narrative, music, art and interactive qualities. My advice to fellow authors is: be yourself, take risks, and support each other.

There is not a large difference between today’s publishing industry verses the music industry’s fall. The only upside is there are multiple digital formats. When the music industry rolled out the CD they had no idea how easy it would be to copy that piece of plastic. Multiple formats in book publishing naturally slow the tide of piracy, monopolies and big business. Musicians make a living only from live performance today, not sales of records. Stealing of music copyrights seems the norm rather than a crime to teens. The music business (like publishing) was controlled by big extravagant labels that did not allow fresh talent a voice.

I do not want to see my books in Wall Mart but will learn everything about formatting, new digital advances and make my writing better. As a writer I plan to survive.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-mellencamp/on-my-mind-the-state-of-t_b_177836.html

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/publishers-need-stand-firm-against-digital-wylie.html

We are all in for trouble when Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos sit at a conference table and dictate pricing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-music-industry-sales-2011-2
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0

Caroline Gerardo Being a Writer

books
Caroline Gerardo
photograph by Blair Barbeau copyright  2011

I need a black and white photograph for the Thriller Fest catalogue. I just signed up. I fussed over this weekend. Daughter says I need to look tougher. I was thinking the turtle neck beatnik look. She says NO smiling Mom. I think I have settled on this image.
All these silly decisions can make a person wake up thinking.
Learning curve for an author: it is not just about writing a great book.
1. Edit like a demon - use words as clean as arrows or ones with secret sauce. Writing is not just a process it is an art. (background ballet dancers, symphony and  Musée d'Orsay )
2.know formatting for epub, pdf, word, HTML, paperback sizing. I love Garamond and some formats don't - why? Know why. Understand everything about publishing.
3. Learn to produce and worst of all edit a video trailer ( I wake up hearing the word string) Perhaps my next thriller is about an author killing a video editing program/softwear.
4. Social networking: finding your posse. They call it platform I think of it as posse. Manage the time reading all the fabulous things the posse is doing .I find myself lured by the siren song of now twenty one books on my nightstand that I am dying to read. I think there is some procrastination self-sabatoge in the pile of books. Share with anyone all the great opportunities in the world today. We live in such an amazing moment in time.
5. Memorize new poetry to keep word choices with a sound and a fury ( thank you William F.)
6. Keep taking photographs for blogging and visual cues for the writing. I am playing with the idea of using the thousands of pictures I have in a online reading version.
7. Promptly answer emails and incoming requests This task surprises me. I am hearing from strangers who now are friends.
8. Ask for opportunities for reviews, ask people to listen to me read, ask for people to buy my books
as I write this please link on the Smashwords site and order a FREE BOOK or go buy one at AMAZON .
9. Exercise, keep up the day job, feed and water the children -garden and pets.
10. Pray, be thankful, and tell everyone how dear they are to me. Show my joy and love to them. Write some more.
If you are attending Thriller Fest email or tweet me I plan to have fun.

Epublishing + Smellavision?

If Borders goes out of business, I assume Barnes and Noble will pick up locations that don't duplicate their own map. Independent bookstores might
gain some speed as well. I believe that epublishing will out run the brick and mortar retail store, but there is nothing as wonderful as browsing a bookstore and looking at the covers. Epublishing needs to add the smell of paper to really get it right. Can you imagine a world without physical books?