The Best Things

As they say, the best things in life are free, like butterflies or dandelions, or... I know, Echo Valley and Deadlines!

Kindle Select is a Kindle program that lets the author give away books as a promotion. I listed Echo Valley and Deadlines. I haven't yet figured out what the actual benefit of it is for the writers to give away their work, though I can see the appeal for readers. Free books? Okay.

I suppose the point for writers is to generate interest and, one hopes, reviews, which, the the benevolent circle of commerce, lead to sales, more reviews, ad infinitum.

I am so far at Step One: Give Away Books. I was delighted to see that both books posted some pretty healthy numbers, meaning that they now reside collectively on some 650 - 700 Kindles from the U.S. to Germany.  That's cool. I hope the people enjoy them.

But what does does it mean that people have downloaded my books for free? That's hard to say. For one, it says that the covers were eye-catching. So, for that, I thank Barbara Morgenroth for Deadlines, and my son, Drew, for Echo Valley.

That people downloaded the titles must also mean that the descriptions made them sound interesting. I'll take almost all the credit for that, except Barbara again gave me good advice as to the blurb for Deadlines.

So, we have answered a couple of crucial questions in the marketplace of ideas: namely, that based on the cover and the descriptions, people are willing to take a few seconds to download the books. But the question remains as to how they value them, or whether they value them. That's a trickier calculus.

I suppose that a Free Food day at the supermarket would draw enormous response. The shelves would be cleaned out in an hour. Does that mean people are hungrier? Maybe they just like free stuff. If that's so, are they more appreciative of the box of mac & cheese they paid $1.69 for, or the one that cost them nothing? Probably the one they paid for. However, maybe they'd never even try mac & cheese if it weren't free, and I guess that's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that people who downloaded my books, a) read them  and, b) review them and/ or tell their friends about them.

I mean, really, is that too much to ask? If you got a box of mac & cheese at the Free Food Giveaway, wouldn't it be a nice demonstration of gratitude to tell your friends, "Hey, I got some free mac & cheese, and it was really tasty. Go get some!"

Not to get moralistic about it, but I think it would be wasteful, to just just stash that mac & cheese in the cupboard and not appreciate that, any other time of the day, it had measurable value.

If I've lost you in this dense metaphor, let me return to the concrete and say that I hope that all of the people who downloaded Echo Valley and Deadlines read it and enjoy it, and that if they do they will take just a few minutes to write a review and tell their friends.

Now, for some reason I'm hungry. I wonder if there's anyplace giving away food for free?

Writing is rewriting

Since last I posted here,  Inhuman has continued to sell sporadically. It is an unusual book, I know. Maybe people can't handle the gore or the weirdness of getting into a killer's head. At this point, I'll consider publishing it as a public service, await its viral sweep through the publishing universe and try not to take it personally if said infection doesn't occur. Haven't heard word one from Joel Bernstein, and I'm tempted to stick my thumbs in my ears and wiggle my fingers at him, saying "neener neener neener." But that would be immature.

Instead of obsessing about Bernstein & Co., I have done the mature thing: written a new novel! After all, I am heart a humor writer, so this new book is for me a return to familiar territory. My first published novel was Echo Valley, a comedy. After that, there was the sequel, Huttle the Hero. The novel Deadlines, though a detective story set in the Pacific Northwest, is also, well, not a comedy, but breezy and funny. All are available for Kindle and Nook.

In any event, my new book, Secret Spy (working title) is a prequel (hate that word) to Echo Valley. Set in 1982 Los Angeles, Secret Spy is based very loosely on the case of an FBI agent who fell in love with a KGB agent, and to win her affection passed along to her some classified information.
Tom Huttle, the hero of Echo Valley is swept into the plot when he gets a job writing feature stories for the corporate magazine of  a big insurance company. But, though TransCom Insurance is a legitimate insurance company, it is also a front company for the CIA, which uses it to re-introduce its compromised field agents to the real world of commerce and business. Tom has no idea that the people he's writing about are former spooks.

I won't spoil the plot, but before long the subjects of Tom's articles start being murdered, and Tom is believed to be the culprit. Meanwhile, the FBI agent becomes more and more deeply ensnared with the seductive KGB agent, both of whom suspect that Tom Huttle--completely oblivious to what is going around him--is a Master Spy.

So far, I've completed a first draft, 64,000 words and change.

I won't delve too deeply into the process of writing quite yet, but I started the book June 16, and I wrote almost every day. Weekly, with a break at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I presented a new chapter to a small group of writer friends, including the incomparable Deb Norton (www.debnortonwriting.com) who provided invaluable feedback. I incorporated all of their notes before proceeding to the next chapter.

Now is the fun part: rewriting. Secret Spy is my seventh novel. Though all of them are not published, I did learn a lot in writing them. Through the process of writing the novels, as well as many screenplays, teleplays, and short stories, I've developed a scheme for rewriting that I thought I'd share, in hopes others can benefit from what I've learned.

I didn't outline Secret Spy at all. Periodically, I'd write down some possible plot developments and such, but generally speaking I winged it and trusted--to employ a cliche--"the process." Not everyone is comfortable doing this, but I thought I had a strong enough premise, and strong enough characters, to let them take over the story. In fact, I love working this way because as the narrative develops, things start to occur that I never would have anticipated, and that keeps me interested.

The farther I got in the book, the clearer the characters and conflicts became. It was a wonderful experience.

And that leads to my first "Writing is Rewriting" Tip: Rewriting begins with the first draft.

How? Because, as you move along in the narrative, ideas will occur to you. Maybe you'll want to set your story in Dallas rather than Phoenix. But, if you go back and start changing the thousand and one references you made to Phoenix and environs, you might lose steam. It's best to simply make a note to yourself, and write it in ALL CAPS in the manuscript: "From now on, the story is set in Dallas." That helps you keep your momentum going.

Moving ahead helps you refine and develop your characters and your plot. Going back and fixing everything in the earlier portions of the work can get discouraging.

The best argument I can present for continuing to move forward is this: even if you have outlined your story to within an inch of its life, as you write, you learn more. Characters and conflicts become clearer. New ones arise. The plot unfolds. The theme emerges. Going back and revising too early is like living a life of regret. I've known too many people who wrote the first thirty pages of their book over. And over. And over. And over. They never finished because they were determined to get it right.

As the saying goes, "Don't get it right. Get it written."

Unlike in real life, fiction permits a "do-over." That's called rewriting. My step-by-step strategy in posts to follow.