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What book is everyone writing right now?

Beanbag

Illuminator
Beanbag
Joined
Jun 7, 2003
Messages
3,468
Reading a book is one thing; writing a book is another. I know there are authors in this forum (Conspi: I'm looking at you).

So, what are you working on?

Me? Lessee:
1) I'm revising my absolutely terrible first novel (unpublished) called Tales of The Winterhawk;

2) converting my "best" screenplay to novel form (The Molenschtadt Rotors);

3) got a scifi modern-day thriller in the works called Lazarus Flats, where an aging researcher has to deal with the consequences of developing a process to transfer consciousness into another body, made more difficult because on the eve of its release, he was bonked on the head and woke up eight years later in the body of a twelve-year-old boy abandoned on the side of the road;

and

4) about halfway through a young adult novel concerning a bachelor whose quiet life is turned upside down when his cat drags home an injured faerie.

I'm also using my first novel, Tales of The Winterhawk, as a test subject for producing ebooks. I figure it might be interesting to bypass the whole publishing house mess and deal directly with the readers via the internet,

Beanbag
 
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My enemies list.


I'm on my eight volume, at the moment.
 
Not writing, but I'm working as a freelance editor for a California publisher, currently working on another writer's history of the last stages of the war in Viet Nam and its effect on U.S. politics.
 
I have three drafts in the works, mostly in my head. Just got my first payment from Amazon Kindle - $16!!! For about five months of sales. Not quitting my day job.
 
Beanbag said:
I'm also using my first novel, Tales of The Winterhawk, as a test subject for producing ebooks. I figure it might be interesting to bypass the whole publishing house mess and deal directly with the readers via the internet,
Click to expand...

I thought it might be useful for me to share my experiences as a reader/consumer. I downloaded a couple of self-published ebooks on Kindle. I won't be buying any more; the quality of the writing is just terrible.
Publishers perform an extremely important quality control function with books. I'm sure it's possible to successfully bypass that function in other ways, but a lot of readers are not going to want to give the book a chance if it can't make it with a publisher.
 
I have two manuscripts in the almost-final-draft stage, already accepted for publication, and overdue by going on two months now. The first is an adult sf-fantasy crossover, the second a YA.

I also have a non-fiction manuscript nearly ready for release to my first readers.

Progress has been stalled since December for a variety of reasons -- health, family, and work have all had crises lately. My publisher is, unfortunately for my productivity, quite accommodating and patient. I've set aside the months of May and June to get all three manuscripts out the door.

Writing is never something I've enjoyed doing, although I tremendously enjoy having done it.
 
I'm waiting for the acquisition editor at my publisher's to tell me whether they will be publishing the second book in my trilogy (they published the first); if so, I'll begin editing work on that. When I'm done with the editing, I'll begin my own editing of the third book prior to submission. It's still 105,000 words and I need to chop it down to 100,000 or less.

Avalon, I agree for the most part. I'm glad I got a professional editor and also a cover artist for my first book, through my publisher. I recently read a self-published mystery that had a great premise and horrible typos, punctuation, grammar, and formatting. Even a proofreader could have caught most of the issues. It's a shame. There are some authors out there with enough experience to pull it off, and some who hire editors themselves, so don't completely give up on the self-published experience. The problem is sorting out the good from the bad. Amazon offers the ability to"look inside" and read a few pages in most books; it's feature worth using.
I'm also working on a short story that might become a novel in the future and reworking an old mystery (the trilogy is fantasy fiction).
 
What's the title of your first book, Tiktaalik? You can PM me if you prefer.
 
Nothing commercial, not for some time. I have finished by (second) thesis and am waiting for my vivas to be scheduled.
 
500 pages into my first attempt “ A clear golden Pool”
Real events from my family history and some done right lies, set in a 19th century historical, romantic adventure.
 
I'm writing a book about the worst religious leaders in the history of the western world. I'm most of the way finished with it and I must say I rather like what I have!
 
I haven't written anything in ages. A few years ago I tried my hand at writing a Star Trek fanfic, set 100 years in the future from TNG. I got through about 100 pages, then set it aside for a couple weeks. When I went back and re-read it to pick up the thread again, I realized it stunk on ice and deleted it. I haven't written anything longer than three paragraphs since.
 
Not a book, but a short story. I've been tweaking it for a while and it's awful damn preachy, but that's sort of the nature of the tale. I'm about ready to say I'm done with it. Shall I post it in this thread? Shall I? Shall I?
 
Brown said:
Not a book, but a short story. I've been tweaking it for a while and it's awful damn preachy, but that's sort of the nature of the tale. I'm about ready to say I'm done with it. Shall I post it in this thread? Shall I? Shall I?
Click to expand...

You shall.

And If it's really preachy, you can just call it a parable.
 
I'm about to become unpopular in this thread, but what I'm going to say is (at least as far as I can see it) the truth.

Self-publishing and e-book publishing that circumvents the traditional process is only a means for the mediocre to soothe their egos.

Hate me yet? It's true. Now I'll tell you why.

We can all as writers, published or aspiring, point to examples like Twilight, or Danielle Steele's entire body of work, and lament about how corrupt and awful the publishing industry is. They make for handy excuses. But, that's all they are. These books are, yes, horrid. I agree. You agree. Let's shake hands.

But they sell. I don't precisely know why, and it's tempting to write off the mass of readers as stupid cattle, but that still leaves us with a problem: who else is buying in large numbers?

As well, examples like this tend to cloud over the fact that each year many hundreds of wonderful books also get published and do well.

Here is the truth: agents want you, publishers want you, and readers want you. But only if you can deliver. It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. This system disenchants many writers, but it also makes a lot of them better writers.

When somebody says to me "I'm going to self-publish or e-publish" then, sorry, what you're telling me is that you've given up. You don't want to try, because trying is hard. You're going to stick it to the man, ride the wave of e-revolution, cut out the middleman, and put the power back to the people.

Fair enough.

You have failed. Done. Cooked. Happy? I sure hope the hell not. I hope you're pissed right off, in fact. Because if you're inspired to write then you should be inspired to be read, and if you're inspired to be read then you better damn well mean it enough to fight for it or you're a dilletante who has no business scribbling in the first place - and e-publishing cannot fix that, so stop kidding yourself. It's not a fix.

The fix is in you, and in your work. Instead of giving up and taking the easy route, you should be looking for ways to make it better. And if you do this, you can compete in the traditional publishing industry. And if you do that, you'll have all the readers you'd get from the e-book plus more.

Isn't that worth a bit of effort? I think it is.

And that's why I think e-book self-publishing is a delusion propagated by the lazy, the unwilling, and the unworthy. I won't waste my time on them, because if you're willing to cheat yourself as an author then I can guarantee you'll cheat me as a reader.

So don't do it. Don't lie to yourself. Just work harder and find ways to do it better. You'll win and your readers will win.
 
I believe the rule of thumb is that it takes six goes before you manage a decent novel. Or, rather, manuscript - it's not a book until it's been published, and you can't get published until you get an agent, except agents won't take on an author who hasn't been published. Catch 22!

My current work is a Doctor Who fan-fiction - no! stop! come back! The First Doctor, the crusty grumpy old git Doctor with nubile grand-daughter and two teachers in tow. Featuring space-bandits, land-travelling squids and an archetypal Big Dumb Object.

Other stuff - first draft of Zombie-Apocalypse-in-the-UK, first person narrative from perspective of army officer. All very matter of fact, nothing supernatural, avoiding teleporting-zombie, silent-zombie, human-more-stupid-than-zombie tropes.

More distant prospects: linked short-stories/novellas of intrepid Action Geologist, who manages to fall feet-first into unusual situations - first one being excavation of 1940's Iron Curtain uranium mine, buried for 50 years and now revealed to be chock-full of hideous - ah! but that would be telling.

I don't expect any of these to see the light of day, but - heck, a man's got to have a hobby, and it keeps me off the streets.
 
Fully aware that I've just trod on some toes, here's my follow-up.

I don't want to oppress you. I'm not trying to be a bully or smash up your dreams for my own amusement. Precisely the opposite.

All writers are siblings-in-arms. All of us. We get an idea, like it, and start writing it down. Only a relative few ever make it.

But, you know, anybody inspired enough to write in the first place does, I believe, have it within themselves to make it. Most don't because there are a lot of traps laid along the way.

The resources exist for you, too.

What I want, as a writer and a reader, is to see more good stories. Anybody else want that? I imagine a lot of hands just went up.

That's why it irks me to see people trying to cheat the system somehow. Not only is it bad on its own, as evidenced by the many horrid e-books self-published, but it serves to waylay and destroy potential good writers who settle into mediocrity - and it also destroys the viability of e-publishing for everybody else.

Getting published seems undemocratic, but really it's the most democratic thing there is. Ultimately, agent or not, published or not, sales or not, the entirety of your future rests with one thing:

readers.

Welcome to democracy. You won't like it, I promise you. It will boggle your mind, torture your soul, and in far too many cases lead to substance abuse. We write for ulcers, they're all we can count on getting.

Best thing anybody ever said to me when I was starting out was this, following a rather cutting critique of my beloved pet project (which all of my friends and mom had thought brilliant, of course, and told me I should be a writer):

Writing is like farting. What comes out is influence by what goes in, and everybody likes the smell of their own the best.

Crude, but apt. What she was saying was that I could never make it so long as my ego needed shielding, so long as I couldn't see past the end of my nose long enough to realize the work never stops. The struggle to be better never ends.

And it shouldn't. You agree, whether you know it or not.

How many people here have had a favourite author whose work petered out and became boring and flat?

I imagine a lot of hands went up.

Struggle never ends. They forgot that, and went coasting. They turned into crap writers, some so bad if their latter work was what they had submitted in the first place they'd have been shown the door.

So, Beanbag?

Don't give up. Don't give up on yourself, and don't give up on me, the reader. Come on, fight for it. Fight for it! Let us read it, but let us read it when it's there, when it's good, when it grabs us and slaps us upside the head with awesome.

Do it!

But don't you dare cheap out on us.
 
Comsat Angel said:
Or, rather, manuscript - it's not a book until it's been published, and you can't get published until you get an agent, except agents won't take on an author who hasn't been published. Catch 22!
Click to expand...

Myth. Total myth. I have a list of some 200 agencies (good ones) worldwide currently accepting open queries from new authors. They want them, they're looking for the next big discovery.

And the other side of it is that if you're already published and your sales see a dive, good luck competing for representation with the new blood. Far from it being a blue-blood hierarchy you'll find yourself out in the cold while somebody new gets your spot.

Remember, it's a business - not an aristocracy.
 
Comrade Raptor said:
I'm about to become unpopular in this thread, but what I'm going to say is (at least as far as I can see it) the truth.

Self-publishing and e-book publishing that circumvents the traditional process is only a means for the mediocre to soothe their egos.

Hate me yet? It's true. Now I'll tell you why.

We can all as writers, published or aspiring, point to examples like Twilight, or Danielle Steele's entire body of work, and lament about how corrupt and awful the publishing industry is. They make for handy excuses. But, that's all they are. These books are, yes, horrid. I agree. You agree. Let's shake hands.

But they sell. I don't precisely know why, and it's tempting to write off the mass of readers as stupid cattle, but that still leaves us with a problem: who else is buying in large numbers?

As well, examples like this tend to cloud over the fact that each year many hundreds of wonderful books also get published and do well.

Here is the truth: agents want you, publishers want you, and readers want you. But only if you can deliver. It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. This system disenchants many writers, but it also makes a lot of them better writers.

When somebody says to me "I'm going to self-publish or e-publish" then, sorry, what you're telling me is that you've given up. You don't want to try, because trying is hard. You're going to stick it to the man, ride the wave of e-revolution, cut out the middleman, and put the power back to the people.

Fair enough.

You have failed. Done. Cooked. Happy? I sure hope the hell not. I hope you're pissed right off, in fact. Because if you're inspired to write then you should be inspired to be read, and if you're inspired to be read then you better damn well mean it enough to fight for it or you're a dilletante who has no business scribbling in the first place - and e-publishing cannot fix that, so stop kidding yourself. It's not a fix.

The fix is in you, and in your work. Instead of giving up and taking the easy route, you should be looking for ways to make it better. And if you do this, you can compete in the traditional publishing industry. And if you do that, you'll have all the readers you'd get from the e-book plus more.

Isn't that worth a bit of effort? I think it is.

And that's why I think e-book self-publishing is a delusion propagated by the lazy, the unwilling, and the unworthy. I won't waste my time on them, because if you're willing to cheat yourself as an author then I can guarantee you'll cheat me as a reader.

So don't do it. Don't lie to yourself. Just work harder and find ways to do it better. You'll win and your readers will win.
Click to expand...



Your assumption is that someone who goes the self-publishing route doesn't put as much time and effort into getting their book of high quality as someone who goes the traditional route.

While this may be true of some self-publishers, it's certainly not true of all.

There are self-published authors who have achieved levels of success traditional published authors could only dream of.

I'm self-publishing my book. I'm not doing it because I am lazy, or because it's the easy way out, but because I've done my research and concluded it offers me the best deal; a deal no publishing company can offer me.

My book is going through the exact same process a book being published traditionally would go through, in fact it's probably being more rigorously worked before release.

I've worked and reworked my book more times than I care to count, going over every inch of it, and yet that only gets it to "writer's draft" level. From there, it will be flayed alive by no less than two professional editors.

A professional artist will produce the cover, and a professional designer will create the layout.

The only difference is that at the end of the day I will retain total ownership of my work, and I will be the one that profits from my hard work, not a publishing house.

As for your blind dismissal of self-published eBooks, I'd love to hear you make your arguments to Amanda Hocking.
 
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