Finding the feels.

Four years ago I forced myself to finish a book called Almost Human (which has become Faerylander).   I gave it to some people to read and they came back with lukewarm endorsement.

Martha said, "All the characters except the Mayor sound like you."

Ouch.

It was a flat book.  Had some interesting ideas and settings, but no emotional content.  It had a snarky tone, the main character being a faery creature observing the foibles of humans.

Thing about satire. To me, it's boring.  I can't read it.  I can't get involved.  I really don't like Hitchhiker's Guide, for instance.  Or Terry Pratchett.  One Piers Anthony Xanth book, and I was done.  (Don't judge me, just my personal taste -- I totally understand why others might like it.)

Thing is, if I don't like reading it, why would I write it?  How involved could I really get?

So then I went in and tried to add drama, which helped a little, but was awkward.

All along these many rewrites, I've felt the writing was better than plot.

So in trying to fix the plot, I thought I was trying to figure out the backstory -- how this world worked.

But here at the end, I've figure out that what I was really trying to do is figure out the character's motivations -- what made them who they were -- and even more importantly the emotional connections between the characters.

In other words, why the plot even mattered.

I had to take that "flat" book and infuse it with personality.  Create interesting characters the reader could care about, and make them interact in ways that created feeling.

So...I think I've done that.  All the pieces fit.

Now I need to increase the quality of the writing to match the plot, instead of the other way around. I need to really make those character interactions have feeling and meaning.  If I do that, the book works.  If I don't, the book is just a collection of incidents and ideas.

I think I've got solid emotional possibilities and now my job is make sure those are realized on the page.  That the reader feels it.

I feel a huge sense of satisfaction that I've ended up with a good book in my eyes.  I like these characters and why they do what they do. If I can somehow get that across, then I've succeeded.

Man was it a struggle, but all the more gratifying for it.

This time is the Last Time.

Almost done with Faerylander rewrite #2000 or so.   This is it.  No  more.

To follow up on yesterday's dilemma.  I decided that I wouldn't use the C.S. Lewis and Charles William meeting (which was a mash-up of two weak chapters, but still weak).  I really wanted them to be among the authors of the "strange and macabre" that Cobb interviews, but it wasn't to be.

I'm sticking with Poe, Lovecraft, Howard, Tolkien and the unnamed Holocaust author, most of them in the first third of the book.

I also decided not to use the new powerful Faery creature that Cobb goes to meet.  Too late in the book to introduce a new major character, especially a totally new made up one (especially when I'm already introducing a new major character in a couple of chapters though not as "major" as she was before, because I'm taking out the love-story element.)

I put the Old God's perspective chapter in with another chapter, instead.

The chapter I actually wrote is Cobb's confrontation with the whiskey bottle, his transformation into his Dragon form, his flying to Faery and being tempted to stay, and then reluctantly deciding to return to Mortal Realms and ask humans for help confronting Cthuhlu.

It was fun to write some new material.  That's the part I always like.

I then put the rest of the book into sequence to see how long it would be.  It came out at 95K instead of 101K, which isn't as much of a cut as I expected -- but then again, I probably added about 2K in new material, so the overall cut was about 8K or so.

I still have two scenes to write, one of them the final scene which obviously is very important.  I'm always leery of being anything but inspired when I write the final chapter -- which is often why I leave them for last.  (Last chapter, heh.  But what I mean is, I will often do major rewriting before I go back and do the last chapter for reals.)

So by the end of the day, the basic structure of the book will be in place.  Then it's just a matter of rewriting, making it work.  I'm going to send it off the Beta readers and editors and hope that the whole thing works.

No matter what, this time I swear is the last time.

Went to writer's group, and there were four readers and fighting my impulse, I let the others read first and then there wasn't time for me to read.  I was slightly peeved, but I knew it would probably happen, and to put it in perspective, I've probably read at every writer's group for a couple of years -- and often was the only one reading...

Crux chapter.

I'm halfway through the rewrite of Faerylander.  Because I've moved chapters around, I suddenly have a hole in the book.

But I decided it was a great opportunity to fill this hole with a chapter that deepens the theme of the book, and to turn the story from a things happening to the main characters storyline to the main characters making things happen.

Anyway, I've actually written three variations of this chapter.

One is a meeting in the Eagle and Child tavern with C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams.

Though this explicates the theme of friendship, it is kind of weak chapter, in many ways.

Another is to have Cobb, the main protagonist,  go into the heads of the Old Gods.  This is kind of cool, though I think it's difficult not to water down pure evil when you explicate it.

The third is the have Cobb drink some whiskey (I've established he's a drunk) and turn into this Faery shape and fly into Faery where he talks to kind of Father Nature/Buddha type guy who gives him advice.

The first option, as I say, feels weak.

The second option doesn't really explicate the theme that well (but I can still use it as part of another chapter).

The third option is more dramatic, but kind of comes out of left field, introducing yet another complication to the story.

Today I'm considering having Cobb transform and fly into Faery, and there somehow he overhears the Old Gods.  That would keep the elements within what has already been introduced as well as add a little action.

That's my thinking today -- who knows what I'll be thinking tomorrow. 

Nerds eat their young.

It's bad enough that mainstream critics more often than not don't like science-fiction or fantasy films that don't go down easy. 

"It's too complicated," they whine.  "I don't understand it."

I watch the same movie and have zero problems because the movie is sophisticated enough to use the shortcuts that every S.F. or Fantasy nerd understands.

But it's the nerds who really kill movies.  They are savage, scathing, scornful.  It isn't perfect, it isn't like the movie they would have made, the makers of the film dared to make changes to their nerd conceptions.

Then a year or two later, they'll pop up and say,  "Hey, this movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

Too late to do any good, you know.

Nerds can pre-judge things like you can't believe.

I'm going to say something here that no one will like or agree with, but I was there dammit.

NONE of you watched Firefly when it counted.  God knows, I tried to convince you.  I begged you.  I pleaded. 

"Not interested you said," one and all.  Your nerd memories tells you that you did watch Firefly during it's initial run.  Nope. You watched the reruns, after it was cancelled. In fact, most of you didn't watch it until Serenity came out.

It seems to happen over and over again.

And all I got to say is -- if you expect every S.F. film to be perfect, a classic -- if you savage the decent films, or worse of all, never go to see them -- don't expect them to keep making them.  They'll make the lowest common denominator films instead.

And it us Nerds fault.  

Bloodthirsty woman!

I need to sacrifice a major character at the end of Faerylander to make the book work. 

I told Linda yesterday my plans, expecting her to object (she gets attached to characters), but she simply nodded and said, "I think you're right."

"What if I just really, really wound him?  Take him out of action?"

"No, you have to kill him."

Bloodthirsty woman!

Smooth Transitions:

Seems to me that if the story is going right, if the plot is working, you don't really need many transitions.  The flow is already there.

But if you change the plot as much as I have in Faerylander, a transition here and there can smooth things over even if events don't quite mesh the way they did once.

It's worth the cost to make the story better, though as I say, I'm hoping by the end of the book I won't need very many.

But something I'm noticing in this rewrite -- the transitions I'm writing now are smooth and easy.  They'll need to be tightened up slightly, making sure there isn't any word duplication and so on, but mostly they read well.

Which has made me notice some of the earlier clunky writing.

When I pick up one of my published books and open to any random page, a test of the writing is whether I can read a portion out loud and it feels seamless, smooth.

So part of this last rewrite will be to make the entire book pass that test.  If I was reading this aloud -- or more to the point, if a future professional was reading an audible version of this -- would it pass muster?

No Explanations:

You also don't need a character explaining things.  The story does that.

In the previous iterations of this book, I had at least three different sections where the main character is explaining things.  Or more specifically, trying to convince people to help him by explaining things.

They were the weakest parts of the book.  Slowly, I've managed to replace them with action scenes that do the explaining for me, or making previous developments and motivations clear enough that explanations aren't needed.

I think I pretty much do this automatically now.  But this was my first book, and I was all into explaining things and coming up with what I thought was interesting material (that needed to be explained) instead of letting the story be preeminent.  Hard thing to fix retro-actively.

"There is no friendship without sacrifice."

Some potential good news this morning, but I want it all confirmed before I announce it.



Meanwhile, this rewrite of Faerylander is extraordinarily satisfying.

Most of you know, I hate rewriting.  Always have. I'm always afraid I'm screwing it up by messing with it.  I get the "word-jumble" effect where I seem to lose emotional connection the more I change things, and it's hard for me to tell if one phrasing is better than another.

But for some reason, this rewrite of Faerylander isn't working out that way. I think it's because I'm coming up with solutions -- big ones.

I'm so proud of myself for continuing to work on this book.  I could have accepted the way it was at any time, but instead I had the instincts it could be better.

Last night I thought of a huge change.

Dave Goodman had already suggested that bringing in a character I'd introduced early in the book and using him in the climax was a bit Deux Machina.  So I'd already decided to jettison this.  Cobb is the major protagonist all the way through the book, and it's his battle to win or lose.

But I needed something else to make that last scene work. I'd taken out one solution, so I needed another one.

Last night I found the answer.

It requires that I sacrifice a major character.  The minute I thought it, I realized it was the right answer.  I hate to do it -- I really like this character, and he's in the other two books -- but it has to be done to give the climax a satisfying resolution that means something.

The theme of this book is "friendship."  There is no friendship without sacrifice.

(A little late in the game to be figuring out the theme of the book, but hey, it was there all along, I just wasn't quite seeing it.  Now I need to play it up.)

It will mean rewriting both Wolflander and Ghostlander (though I think I have a nifty solution of lifting up a different character to take the place of the sacrificed character.)

I love it when the plot comes together.

Faerylander -- my learning book.

Four years after I started, Faerylander continues to be my learning book.  I can see my mistakes and I am continually trying to correct them.

Because of that I've jettisoned more than half the book and completely rewritten the other half of the book.

I must really like Faerylander because I could have written several books in the time that it's taken me to finish it.  But if I see it as a learning experience, the time wasn't wasted.  Especially if I come up with a good book at the end.

1.)  The biggest problem with the book was the tone.  I've corrected that mostly.  At the cost of throwing out lots of choice bits and some great dialogue.  But the witticisms didn't fit the story, so out they go.

2.)  The second biggest problem with the book was the plot, which I've wrestled with over and over again.  As I've mentioned, the problems were so big that I could only fool myself into tacking a portion of them at a time.

The plot didn't move forward, but circled around.  To try to correct the lack of forward momentum, I tried to amp up the drama, putting in a timeline threat.  I've backed off that now because I'm convinced that drama has to be intrinsic to the plot and can't simply be added on.  That's like adding an exclamation mark to a sentence and thinking that makes it more dramatic.

So my largest effort has been in moving the plot forward.  In the end, the answer was the eliminate as many chapters as possible, and to consolidate wherever possible.  The book is still a little more clogged than my other books, but I'd like to think now that it has more content than my other books.  As long as the forward momentum is stronger than the content, it will be all right.

What I'm realizing now is that if I can think of a plot solution, I can write a plot solution. I no longer look at each word as a terrible struggle, but something I'm quite capable of knocking off.  Which leads to:

3.) The third biggest problem, which I was noticing last night, is the stilted writing.  I was simply trying too hard to find the "right" words.  Problem is, you can see how hard I'm trying. So I'm loosening that up, letting my instincts take control.  Letting it feel more natural.  Sometimes the natural isn't the most concise (rewriting to me often means making things more concise) so I need to relax that impulse.

All of these diagnoses have helped me understand the writing process, and in turn have made the book stronger.  Eventually, at the rate I'm going, it will strong enough to be presented to the world.

Hopefully this time -- though I've thought that a dozen times before.

Writerly thoughts.

I'm reminded every workday why I couldn't write for 25 years.  The job is totally absorbing -- I have no energy or psychic space left to create.  Thankfully, the store is doing well enough that I can take the time off.  Pegasus Books is just packed with cool things, these days, and Cameron and Matt are doing a great job.  

Jeff Barr, the guy whose tweet led me to trying Books of the Dead Press, came in and we had a nice talk about writing.  I really like talking about writing.  Too much, I'm afraid.  I sort of neglect customers, and keep thinking of new things to say, even when the person I'm talking to is giving every hint they need to move on.

I've made a conscious effort not to hype my books over the last couple of weeks.  Not posting pictures of the covers and so on.  As far as I can tell, it has had zero impact on sales. In fact, if anything, sales seem to be slightly higher without me saying anything.  (Or anyone else saying anything.)

What it means, I think, is that just having the books out there, and the covers, and the reviews, and  the general idea of the books, is what sells the books.  All the promotion in the world seems to have little effect.  I mean, I can see how the right trigger happening on the right site could have a huge impact.  But everything I've tried has had minimal results.

By the end of today, I should be about halfway through the rewrite of Faerylander.  So it will probably take only a couple of weeks, maybe a bit longer.  Broke a tooth a couple of days ago, so getting a crown next week. That may throw me off my stride.  But I can feel the quiet settling in that allows me to write.  Should be able to keep that up that quiet for a few more months.

I can tell the Faerylander is better.  It's only taken me four years to create the same level of readability as books that I've spent mere weeks on -- but I hate to give up on anything, once I start.  If the result is a good book, it was worth it, and how long it took won't matter.


 

I'm at peace with my Beanie Baby past.

Yes, I carried Beanie Babies.  Did quite well with them, thank you.

There are a bunch of anniversary (?) articles on BB's right now, and a lot of head shaking.  How could we have been so dumb?  What made us do that?

Most people get one bubble or fad in their lives -- and it is always pretty devastating.  (Especially if your first bubble is housing....)  Most people make the same mistakes, and I'm no exception.

But to my mind, you get a guilt free pass on that first bubble or fad.  Because there is just no way to understand how they work until you've experienced them.  I mean, I'm going to tell you how they work right now, and you won't listen.  When that bubble comes along, you'll fall for it.

Basically bubbles require that you go all in, and then collapse before you can get out.

There -- now you know.  Not that you'll listen.

My first bubble was sports cards and it was a biggie.  Bigger than all the other bubbles I experienced put together.  It went on for about 7 years, almost exponential growth and me putting the revenues into bigger and bigger enterprises.  At the end I had 4 stores and tens of thousands of dollars in orders out there.

When the bubble started to collapse, not only didn't I see it, I saw it as yet another opportunity to expand my market share.

Big mistake.  Not only didn't I get a share of the huge amount of money that went through my stores, I lost a ton of money.

Ironically, it was a series of fads that followed that saved my business.

Almost immediately on the heels of the sports card collapse, comic books took off.  I rode this wave too, and it helped me pay off much of the sports card debts.  I thought I could "manage" this fad -- but I was wrong.  Once again, I was left holding the bag.  Fortunately, my suppliers at the time helped me make it through (because they had to -- most of the businesses they serviced either went out of business or were suffering.)

I vowed never to get caught again.  (There were other fads along the way -- non-sport cards and magic, for instance, for which I didn't get killed, but didn't really make money either.)

Along comes pogs.

Yes, pogs.

And I managed it perfectly.  I pitched a perfect game.  I maximized the profits and minimized the risk.  It was easier because the supply wasn't limited and I didn't have to gamble.  But still...

I walked away from that fad paying maybe half of what I owed on the other fads, as well as adding a product line or two from the store.  I was still broke, but closer to viable.

Then along came Beanie Babies.  I pitched, if not a perfect game -- I'd say a no-hitter.  I minimized the risk by buying what I wanted from a middle man.  I could have made more money by going direct, but I would have increased the risk.  I took what I could get.

That got me more of the way back, and also added a couple of product lines.

Then came Pokemon, and again I used a middle-man as a cut-off and minimized the risk.

In both Pokemon and Beanie Babies I let go some of the revenue I could have made.  I bailed out when I saw them begin to weaken.  I was smart.

I paid off most of my debt and restocked my store through this process.

But it was still a gamble.  All bubbles are a gamble if you choose to partake.  My solution is to partake as much as I can without taking extreme risk even if I don't quite make as much money as I might have.

There hasn't really be a fad since Pokemon, that I've been part of anyway.  My business isn't vulnerable to a "fad" element, which is kind of a relief.

But if one came along, I'd try to play it -- get what I can out of it.

And watch the other people go nuts.

If every word is changed, is it the still same book?

We aren't wearing the same bodies we were born with -- the cells have all been replaced, and yet we still are who we are. (I'm not sure of the science of this, but you get the point.)

When I first finished Faerylander, I knew it had problems.  I set it aside.  Looking back, I'd have to say about 70% of the book was wrong, about 30% right.  The 70% that was wrong required extensive rewriting.  I didn't think I could face that.

Not to mention, I'd sort of figured out how not to make so many mistakes -- thanks largely to my experience with Faerylander -- and it was just easier to write a new book.  And another.

But eventually I went back and addressed the worst of the problems.  I came away with a book that was probably 60% wrong, and 40% right.

Again, I went away and wrote other things.  By now a couple of years had passed.

I came back to Faerylander because I still liked the ideas and the characters.  During these rewrites I also changed the tone of the book several times, and that doesn't even include the structural changes.

So I came back and worked on it again, and after several attempts, I'd say I got about 60% right and 40% wrong.

Again, I went away,

I came back again. By now, almost 4 years had passed and I'd written multiple books, many of which were published.

But I still wanted my first book to work.  I realized that in order to make the 40% right, I'd have to change much of the 60% that was already fixed.  So I threw it all in the blender and tried again.  In each attempt at fixing the book, I wrote new chapters and threw out old chapters.  At one point I put together a "Director's Cut" which included everything I wrote (whether they contradicted each other or not.)

I came up with a version that more or less worked.  About half the size of the Director's Cut.  Lots of inconsistencies had been ironed out -- and yet, I sensed it still wasn't ready.

Still, I thought I would go with it. "Good enough," I thought.

The very second I made that decision, I was somehow empowered to think about what final steps I could take to fix it.

And down the rabbit hole I went.

As those of you who read this blog know, in each and every attempt I thought I had fixed it.  But each and every time I held back with the suspicion I didn't quite have it.

So this time around has required yet more trying to fix chapters that had already been fixed, in order to fix the problem chapters.

Out of the first third of the book, I'd say I needed to fix about 10%; out of the last third of the book, the same thing.

It was the middle third that required complete rewriting -- the plot simply went in circles, not getting anywhere.  Too many duplications of scenes, too much explication, not enough forward movement.

So this last rewrite (Oh, Please Let It Be The Last Rewrite!) means pretty much rewriting over a half the book again.

By now, there is almost nothing left of the original book.  It has all been replaced, rewritten, removed.

But it is still the same book, just more deeply thought out.  In fact, this book has more backstory than any book I've written.  All that stuff I discarded is still part of the history -- just not necessary for the forward momentum of the story.

Truth is -- the book always needed to be discarded and started over.  I just couldn't face it.  So instead, I fooled myself into thinking I could fix it partly.

Funny thing happened -- each part fix added up.  I could face working on a third of the book at a time, and that's what I did.

I think -- I'm pretty sure -- I've got it this time.  

Buy your kids books -- any kind of books.

There's a LaVar Burton quote meme floating around: "If your kid likes superheroes, then dammit buy your kids comic books."

If I may be allowed to expand on that.  Buy your kid any kind of book they want.  Buy them more than one book.  Hell, let them go hog wild.

I can't tell you the number of times a kid in my store has come up to the parent wanting a book and the parent told them to put it back.  It is often hard for me not to just say to the kid -- "Hey, you want that book, I'll give it to you."  I don't do it not because of the cost to me, but because I'd be interfering with the parent.

But here would be my first rule.  Buy the kid the book.

I would love to take the parent aside and say, "Okay, it's great that you have a weekend with your kids and that you've come into a bookstore.  But if I may ask, how often does that happen?"

I know what a lot of you will say, and it's exactly what the parent I ask will say:  "Oh, all the time."

But really, more than a few times a year?  (If you are really the exception, congrats.)

Now's your chance to "reward" the kid with a book.  To make books special.

You,

the kid,

and the books

are altogether in one place --

Make the most of it!

Don't make it something about affordability (often, you have bags of candy in your hands, so that ain't the real problem), not about whether the kid has been good or bad or because you "just bought a toy" or -- worst of all -- "you already have a book."

Buy the kid the book.  Put your own stuff back and buy the kid a book if you are tight on money.  Let that kid stack the books high, and he or she will be the richest kid around.

Not only that, but buy the book the kid wants.  Don't meddle.  Let the kid explore, experiment, read the wrong books, books that are too adult, books that are too kiddy.  (I of course don't count the extremes -- you don't want to hand your 12 year old Fifty Shades of Gray, obviously)

Buy the kid a comic, a cartoon book, a reference book about dinosaurs, or the silliest sounding book you've ever heard of.

I've come to really dislike the YA label.  What the hell?  You're telling the kids and parents what is appropriate to read?  Let the kid decide that, thank you.  I very distinctly remember a period in my life when I alternated between the Children's Library and the Adult Library.  I wasn't shoe-horned into one or the other.  The YA age is exactly the age where the kid should be trying new things --not relegated to some YA ghetto.

I was a free range kid.  I read anything and everything.  Sometimes I tackled a book I didn't completely understand -- that was Okay.  Sometimes I'd read a book below my supposed reading level because the subject interested me.  No rules.

Just reading.

Just books.

Books as something special.

Books as an everyday part of my life.

Minimum Wage Bunk.

A bookstore in San Fransisco is closing up and blaming the minimum wage.

I'm skeptical. I think that's bunk.

Most of the time, normal raises in rents and wages aren't enough to do a business in.  They become part of the equation of how you do business.  If rent becomes too high, you move. If business is slow, you have less employees.

I think most of the time it is business mistakes that do a business in.  Not ordering enough, ordering too much, not pricing correctly, etc. etc.

It's interesting, the wages they are talking about are pretty much what I'm paying -- or will be paying long before the time the 15.00 kicks in in S.F.  But done in at a steady pace, I think I can keep on making adjustments.  Add a dollar to a employee's wages and we're talking about 40.00 a week?  Add 2.5 dollars and hour, we're talking 100.00 a week?

Frankly, if that is enough to close you down, you had other problems.   

Remember, all these expenses are proportional.  If you have enough business to need two employees, you have two employees, if you have enough business that you need three employees, you should be making enough money to pay three employees, and so on.

But that means the higher minimum wages forced you to cut hours! I hear you thinking.  That means you were forced to cut employees!

But I would rephrase that: 

A properly managed store is a properly managed store, with or without the raises in hourly wages.  It may mean, as the owner, that you need to work more hours.  It may mean you need to make more money through other means.

Overhead is nothing to dismiss, but the job of the store owner is to carry enough of the right kind of product at the right prices to pay for the overhead.  Or to lower the overhead to match what you're making.

You know...business.

Writer Mode.

I feel like I'm back to real writing (or rewriting).  Less distractions -- less caring about what other people are doing or saying.  Basically, I feel writerly again.

It is kind of a messy process, but the point is to just keep doing it, to focus, and I think I'm doing that.  I believe this will be the version of Faerylander I will probably publish.  I've now tackled two messy chapters, and have several more to go.  That plus a new ending, and this draft will be done.

Then I'll quickly finish Nobody's Killing me.

Then on to Tuskers III.

Mostly, I'm trying to get things in the right order -- as well as rewriting as I go along.  The writing is somewhat stilted compared to what I do now, but that can be corrected by lightening up.  And especially by cutting. So much of what I wrote wasn't really necessary.

It's very freeing to know that I'm done with Tuskers II and that my changes worked to make it better.  (I have one small scene I think I still need to write.)

It's very freeing to see the improvements in Faerylander and to know I can probably get it done in a relatively short time. 

It's very satisfying to be building a body of work. 

If I keep my eyes on that goal, I feel motivated.

Plus, I really like telling these stories.  Figuring them out.  Meeting these people. 

When I'm in writer's mode I remember that.

Rewriting is like doing a house renovation.

Worked on Faerylander all day yesterday, hoping to make quick progress.

This is going to be harder than I thought, but still worth it.

Rewriting a book is like doing a house renovation -- it'll take twice as long and cost twice as much as you think it will.  (Cost in this case being energy.)

But I can see the improvements already.

The biggest problem is that the plan I have in my head isn't what's coming out on paper. The first chapter I'd hoped to eliminate is still there, just completely changed.  A new viewpoint character, and it will probably be about half the size.  Less confusing.  But...unfortunately, I wasn't able to consolidate two chapters into one.

I have another chapter I need to move up in the order, and I'm afraid it slows the story slightly at that point, but works better in this slot than where it was before.

The real major rewriting is the middle half of the book.  I'd say about 60% of the book needs little to no change, 20% needs rewriting, and 20% is probably going to almost be written from scratch.

But then, that just tells me that 40% of the book was wrong.

So I can't regret changing it.

I'm fully engaged.

What's happened to Faerylander is that enough time passes between major rewrites that I'm willing to "let go" what I did the last time.  It's hard in the middle of rewriting something to throw it out, but a year later, is becomes tolerably feasible. 

It been a long slow struggle, but each time it's improved the story so much that I wonder that I ever thought it was ready.

The time before last, I thought the book was "Okay."

Last time, it was better.  "Good Enough.

This time, I think, the book will be something I can be proud of. "Good."

Oh, my god, what have I done?

I had a perfectly good book and I've decided to rewrite it.  Faerylander.

I feel like I've piled a ten foot pile of shit on my front porch, for no good reason.

Nothing to do but pinch my nose and dig in.

I told Linda the new plot and she started nodding halfway through and said, "Much better."

I know it is, but damn.

Anyway,  I don't really know how easy or hard this is going to be.  It's a bit like writing from an outline, which I've rarely done but when it happens, I do find it easier to power through.

(I don't outline because that isn't how I discover the story.)

I think I'm just going to write fresh chapters whenever possible.  I'm a better writer now than I was 4 years ago.  Some of the early stuff seems clunky to me now.

I know this is the right decision, but I can't help but wonder if the pile of shit is going to topple over on me and bury me.

Replacing an OK book with a Good book.

I've been struggling with Faerylander for 4 years now.

I finally had a version that I thought was workable.  I mean, everything made sense.

I like the writing, the characters, the whole basic idea.

But the plot has always been a mess, and all I've been doing is tidying up around the edges, making it acceptable.

Here's the thing.  So far, I've been surprisingly mature about what I've published.  I haven't put books out until I thought they were worth reading.  If I had doubts about them, I put them aside.

But the problems with Faerylander seemed unsolvable.  I could make them better, I could make them almost good enough, but I couldn't fix them.

I'd re-written it so many times, I was having a hard time seeing it.  So this last go around solved most of the worst problems, and yet...I knew the plot was still a problem.

But it was "good enough."

I have two sequels which are good, no problems.  But I can't put them out until Faerylander is out.

So I thought, enough is enough.  This is the version.

So I send it to my editor and two beta readers last night.

I'm in bed and I ask myself a simple question.  How would I fix the last lingering problems.

And Boom.  The solutions just started flowing, and they continued this morning.

They require completely rewriting half the book.  In the end, Faerylander will have had every single chapter of the first draft gone, pretty much, or so revised as to be unrecognizable.

But I just can't let go a book that isn't ready go out.

This will replace an OK book with a GOOD book, and that's worth the effort.

I just wish my scumbag brain could have given me these answers before now!

The Seaslugs vs the Pattywankers.

I'm not anti-sport, I've just sort of drifted away from it.  My experience with sports cards kind of soured me, made me cynical.

But if I have a sport, it's football.  Dad watched every game he could, and what Dad watched is what we watched.  (Those were the days.)

Anyway, I watched football until the last decade or so.  I'm old enough to have seen a lot of legendary games.  The Snow Bowl, Unitas versus Namath, and so on.

I have a weird resentment against the Seahawks, because back when we'd only get a couple of games a week, we in Bend would ALWAYS get the Seaslugs, not matter what other game was on.  It was like the networks had decided that Washington and Oregon were all one big state.

I stopped watching the Ducks not because I didn't care (I'm a U of O alumnus) but because I cared too much.  I'd channel change and see how they were doing and if they were safely ahead, I'd watch.  Pretty cowardly, I know. Also superstitious.

Anyway, whenever I watch a pro game, I'm struck again about the constant chest-thumping and slow pace.  Just bugs me.  Hey, if you gained 3 yards, you FAILED!  Don't fucking celebrate.

I'm going to handle the Super Bowl the way I do the Oscars.

Tape them and fast forward through them in about 1/4th the time.

It's harder with the Oscars, because I have to confer with Linda every time I fast-forward.  With the Super Bowl, I can zap through all by myself....

Faerylander is done, one way or another.

I'm sending Faerylander: The War Between Cthuhlu and Faery to Lara, my editor, in the next week for a final edit.

She calls it my "problem child."  After wrestling with it all day yesterday, I think of it as my "quagmire."  I so struggle with it.  I started this book 4 years ago.  I went off in the wrong direction, tried to correct, made it worse, tried to correct again and made it slightly better.  Most of the next 18 or so versions have been slightly better, a few have been much worse.

It has been my "re-acquiring my skills" book.

I've been 1st person and 3rd person.  I've been present tense and past tense.  I've been breezy and I've been dark.  I've had serious horror elements and cute faery elements. There has been some highly polished sections right next to newer less polished sections.

It has fallen into my dreaded "Word Jumble" which is what I call it when I've rewritten something so many times I lose touch.  What I've learned by testing, however, is that these word jumble stories are often better received by the readers than the ones I'm totally in tune with.  Because by definition they've been re-written so many times.

Thing is -- it's got great characters, and a neat idea, and an nicely invented world.

So I like these characters and this world.  I just don't know if I'm introducing them to the world right. 
I'm tempted once more to mash them all together for an "author's cut."  As disparate as all the elements are, in my fictionalized world, they all happened.  (Whatever happens, I may let a few years pass and go ahead an throw up my massive 200K "author's cut" and not care if anyone reads it.)

I've also written two sequels that are as good as anything I've done.  But the sequels require that Faerylander actually exist.

This final version is about half the size of the "author's cut."  More focused, more serious.  I've accentuated the horror elements and de-emphasized the cute Faery elements.  There is less extraneous material. I think it has more forward momentum than other versions.

Questions is -- does it have forward momentum enough?

It's not that I don't think it's good enough, it's that I've worked on it so much I can't see it clearly anymore.  I can't quite feel it. 

Intellectually, I think I've assembled a version that works.  But I don't know for sure.

I think it's time to put it out there, and let it do whatever it's going to do.

I'm undecided about self-publishing it, or offering it to my publishers.  I've already purchased the first two covers, so there is nothing keeping me from putting it out myself.

On the other hand, as an example of self-publishing, Cyber Flash, my current self-published book just sits there day after day without selling.  I like this book, but I've been promoting my other books because ironically, I feel an obligation to my publishers.

I suppose I could send it to Ragnarok and see what they think, and not take offense if they don't like it.

Like I said, it isn't that I don't think it's good -- it's that I can't tell.

I think I'm O.K., because it feels good to be done.  It's been nagging at me for a long time.  I love the Lander series, and it's time to get them out there.

Good or not, though, it's my first baby (of my second writer's life).

Why most small businesses don't survive.

This morning, I mentioned I was letting go of my list of downtown business Comings and Goings that I'd been keeping for the seven years of the Great Recession.

I mentioned that "most" small businesses don't survive, downtown or anywhere else.  I'll actually expand on that assertion and say, almost no small businesses survive.

Maybe my standards are too high, but I think a successful business is one where the owner makes a living for a career.  I'm aware that not everyone approaches business that way -- that some have limited time horizons.  But at least, as far as I can tell, very very few businesses last more than 10 years as a going concern.

Service businesses seem to do best.  Retail after that.  Restaurants have it the worse.

But my assumption is that business that is doing well for the owner (either monetarily or emotionally) usually doesn't close down.  No matter what anyone says.  (Except for burnout, and more about that below.  Just to say, working yourself to burnout is also a failure.)

I'm now in my 32nd year of managing or owning Pegasus Books in downtown Bend.  It's been in the same (expanded) location for the whole time. 

And I have some observations about small business that maybe somewhat reductive and simplistic, but I think get to the root of the matter.

First of all, to me it doesn't matter why you close down. You can maintain you had a "successful" business because you were making money -- but in my opinion if you close down you didn't have a "successful" business.  (The only exception to me is if you sell out or close down for retirement.  Or I suppose if you make a huge profit selling your business -- which is so rare as to be barely worth mentioning.)

I think there are two equally valid reasons businesses fail.

Lack of money, of course.

But equally important is burnout.

The two are related of course -- not making money leads to burnout, and burnout leads to not making money.

So here's the crux of it.  In order the making a living in a small business, you have to put in time, energy, and money.  You have to work hard.  You have to take on risk.  You can never settle, but constantly have to change things, add things, drop things, and grow.  It is a constant struggle.

If you don't do the above things, you will fail.  I guarantee it.  I've seen lots of businesses fail because they don't want to take on risk.  Or they don't want to change and adapt.  Or they want to hire managers rather than work the store themselves.  Or they take too much money out of the store and don't replace inventory, or fail to invest in the necessary upgrades.

But the Catch-22 of the matter is that if you do all the necessary things to make enough money to make a living, you constantly risk burning out. Constant change and risk and hard work and on and on takes a toll.  It ain't fun after awhile.

What I've noticed is that so called "successful" business that suddenly close up -- you know, because of "other" opportunities, are usually people who went too far in promising the customers everything in the world.  The more promoting and adding on and working you do, the more you risk burnout.

So there is a very fine line between Burnout and Success.

My way of handling this is to diminish anything that makes money but is unpleasant if I possibly can, and instead, to accentuate things that may not make as much money but are pleasant.

Obviously, this is a pretty fine line, but I recognized early -- because I was pressed up against the wall -- that hating my business was at least as dangerous as not making money.

I always want to tell the newer gung-ho businesses to be moderate.  Don't take too much money out of your business; work it as much as you need to, but don't overdo it.  Don't make tons of promises -- or offer too many extra services.  Stick to doing a good job on the basics. Ask yourself if you will still be comfortable offering such services five or ten years down the line when it no longer has a beneficial effect but is taken for granted. Take on risk, but not too much. 

In other words, don't underestimate the danger of burnout in your pursuit of money. 

If you own a business, you want to like your business. People will reward you if you like your business -- they'll pick up when you don't, or when you're being cynical, or when you are on your way out the door. 

So that's my simplistic answer as to why most businesses fail.  They either don't make money -- or they work so hard for the money, they give up.

Letting go of Comings and Goings list.

I've been keeping an accounting of downtown business's Comings and Goings for the last 7 years or so.

Since 2008.  It was a scary time. The economy was crashing.  I didn't know what to expect, and I realized that I could never quite remember when businesses arrived and when they left.

So I started keeping a simple list.  Non-judgmental and objective, without trying to explain why and wherefores -- just a list of who was moving in and who was moving out.

Well, it looks to me like the Great Recession is over.

What's interesting is that the downtown district never did have a very high vacancy rate.  Chuck Arnold from the Downtowners and others were concerned that my list wouldn't reflect well on downtown, but if anything it did the opposite.

The list showed the strength of downtown, not the weakness.  There were always more Comings than Goings.  Downtown showed a real resiliency that was somewhat unexpected.

Keeping what I'd hoped was an objective list only showed the truth, which was that downtown proved to be an attractive place even in the midst of a Great Recession.

There was a lot of turnover, but I'm not sure that the rate of turnover was that much worse than normal.

Normal turnover is probably more extreme than people think.  The list exposed at least that much.  Most small businesses really don't make it.  But that has always been true.

I'm glad I kept the list, if only for my own curiosity.

I've stepped back from the business these days, and I'm really not in touch with what's going on.

I've always been very very careful to list "Goings" only after a great deal of confirmation.  Telling people that a business is leaving if they aren't could be very destructive.

So because of that carefulness, I have to wait, and by the time it comes to pass, I'm on to something else.

There is another round of turnovers downtown, but I'll let you guys figure that out for yourself.

Time to move on, folks.  I hope you found it edifying.