Warning: This is a long one :)

I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be writing again. I've been editing and revising and talking with beta readers and revising and editing for months. That's part of the gig. I'm okay with it and even happy to do it. Those last bits of writing a novel are hectic and scary and, at times, brutal as all hell. But when you're finished...

What a feeling.

I've been looking around a lot at book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Especially, indie book reviews. I've also been looking around at blogs and forums to see what types of things folks are saying. Wow, is it ever polarized out there?!!

A common thread on one side out there, is the belief that all indie authors have self-pubbed because their writing wasn't good enough to get published traditionally. Is there some merit to that? Yeah, of course there is.

When you give everyone the means to put their ideas and opinions out there for the world to see, a lot of what goes out is going to be crap. People who don't know the first thing about world or character building, spelling, punctuation, editing, etc. can now write anything and call it published.

So, yes, of course people will take advantage. Every teenager who writes a poem about how badly his girlfriend hurt him and how no one in the world has ever felt that way before and how the darkness is crushing and the world is fading... They all believe that they are writers. Good writers.

Although, is this true of every indie author? Of course not. Joe Konrath is an amazing writer. Read something from him, I dare you. It's great stuff. He has a general rul, that I think makes a lot of sense. You can't be great at anything, unless you've put 10,000 hours into it. I think he's right.

Writers, real writers, know that it takes time and work to create something worthwhile. There will be failures (oh the failures) and missteps along the way. You will crumple pages full of writing and never look at them again. You will cuss and pound your head on the desk because you have to delete thousands of words that you wrote when you were full of coffee and cable tv. You will finish stories that you spent months on, and then realize that they are garbage.

So, will some indie authors be horrible? Yes. Will they learn from it and get better? Maybe.

On the other hand, do you really believe that agents and other readers of the slush pile the world over will always give every book a fair shake? I don't think so. I do believe that most folks in the writing industry truly love what they do. They have to. Anything to do with writing will swallow time like a fat kid with cake.

But everyone has bad days. Everyone with a job looks at the clock at the end of the day, just wishing they were somewhere else. I know that there are unpublished books out there that would have been great, but were never given a shot.

There are problems with both sides of the issue.

Writers: Write the best book possible, and then get people to read it. Not your family or your friends. Strangers. Find people you don't know that will read your book and tell you the truth. Find lots of them.

Then listen to what they tell you. Revise, edit, do it again. Find new readers. Once you know that your book is at its best, make your decision. I chose to self publish, not because my manuscript was rejected.(I didn't really try the traditional route, other than half a dozen queries I sent out to agents right after I finished my FIRST DRAFT. Don't do that!) I chose this route because I think things are changing, and I want to get in before it's too late.

Could I be wrong? Yes, but I could also be right. I'm happy with my decision and I know that I am going to keep on learning. The day I decide my writing cannot get any better is the day I stop writing.

Thanks for reading through my rambling,
buh bye now

What are You Reading?

Good morning, galaxy traveler. How are things on your side of the mirror?

I've been doing a lot of talking about my writing and self publishing and whoohaa, so today I'd like to take a break from that and talk about reading.

What are you reading right now? Have you ever read it before? Are you likely to read it again?

I am actually in the middle of re-reading The Crystal Shard, by R.A. Salvatore. It's been since high school, but it was still very easy for me to fall right back in love with Wulfgar and Drizzt and Bruenor and all the rest. This book has held up for me and is still worth the re-read more than ten years later.

Of course, even if it had become staunchy and boring, I would still finish it before moving on to something else. Why? Because I'm a book finisher. Even if I hate the characters by the middle of the book, and wish that they would die and take me with them, I still finish. It's a curse. I'm not one of those folks that can read three, four, or even nine books at time. I don't know why, but if I start a second book it just plain irritates me.

So, I'll go ahead and finish up The Crystal Shard, then jump into Streams of Silver, hoping that the series continues to hold up. How many books do you normally have going at one time?

Ok, that's it for today
thanks for reading
buh bye then

Boys Don't Read!

Boys don't read!

That's not true, not even a little bit. I'm jumping a little late onto the bandwagon here, but I have an opinion, and a internet access. so there.

I have read a lot of blogs about the boys and their reading habits. Do they read? What do they read? Why don't they read? ...etc. To be fair, most people seem to agree with me. They know that boys do read, and some boys read a lot.

My experience as a reading boy leads me to ask, "Why is there even a question?"

When I was a young boy (elementary age) I already loved to read. So did most of my friends, who were also boys (yes, most of my friends were boys. no, I did not worry about cooties...). We read kids books; The Hardy Boys, Shel Silverstein, and anything about Batman (Comics count as reading!).

As a matter of fact, I don't remember any girls that I knew when I was that young that liked to read (though, to be fair, I didn't really pay attention).

Now, middle school was a different story. My group of friends began to change. Some of those boys that loved to read like me began to disappear, and girls became an integral part of everyday life. Sports became important to so many people, and reading seemed to fall by the wayside for a lot of others, pushed there by video games.

For the most part, though, reading was still abundant. R.L. Stine's "Goosebumps" stories were a great way to continue reading, without having to worry about books covered with pictures of kissing. (Man, there were a lot of those) My friends and I even began our journeys to Middle Earth and Narnia around this time, leaving plenty of room for Batman, of course.

It continued through high school, though the flock did thin again. R.A. Salvatore became a daily part of our conversations, along with Terry Brooks and whatever our teachers sent us home to read. (Dracula and Shakespeare were among these. Kudos to teachers willing to share their libraries!)

So when people say boys don't read, what are they talking about? I believe they mean boys don't read YA (Young Adult). And, for the most part, they're right. YA books are usually romance centered, even when funny, and often have kissy faces all over them.

Batman does not. (well, most of the time)

This may be a strange, rambling post... but there you are.
Any thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.
thanks for reading,
buh bye then