Planning for 2012

Happy New Year! A new year means another chance to make your dreams come true. It also means having to pull all of my paperwork together for taxes, but that’s a different story.

It’s a time for me to lay out a plan for the upcoming year and then see how close I can come to hitting those targets. This falls under that business side of the writing business that most writers don’t like doing. I don’t like doing it either because it takes away from my work, but it’s one of those necessary evils.

I look at goal setting for the year like creating an outline for my business. It gives me a way to focus on specifics rather than running off in dozens of different directions with ideas. The helps me be more efficient so I don’t have to work the business side of things as much.

• In 2011, in addition to the regular magazines that I enjoy working with, I sold articles to nine new magazines that I hadn’t worked with before. I want to continue that momentum and sell to 12 new magazines this year.
• I cracked the $1/word article market with a sale to History Channel Magazine in 2011. I’d like to do that at least three times this year.
• Having experimented with e-publishing last year, I want to get at least six more electronic projects up this year. This is a big undertaking, but the beauty of e-books is that they don’t need to be novels. These projects can be short stories, articles and novella, too.
• I also want to publish two books; one non-fiction and one collection.

That should keep me plenty busy. Now, if my focus starts to wander, I can always review my goals to set myself straight. I’ve got big hopes for 2012.

The Joy of Vacations

A good vacation can give you enough ideas to fill even this meteor crater near Flagstaff, AZ, which is large enough on the floor to fit 20 football fields. By the way, I got quite a few ideas when I visited here.

I just got back from vacation in Arizona. I have been there before and I saw some of the same things this time. However, this time, I found myself pulling out my notepad a couple times a time and scribbling down notes – things about places I visited, people involved in things I saw and connections between those things and markets I commonly write for.

It was only after I got home and flipped through my notes that I realized I had a lot of new ideas. Some might pan out; others not, but I’ve got plenty to work with.  It also taught me that if you are in the right frame of mind, you can find ideas all around you and vacations put me in the right frame of mind.

That frame of mind is to be curious about the world around you. I guess nothing makes me more curious than when I get a change of scenery, such as when I’m on vacation. Visiting those new places usually means just about everything about the place is new to me so I try to take it all in. With no pre-conceived filters on how I take in information, everything becomes a potential idea for me.

So when people talk about how going on vacation allows them to come back refreshed for work, this is one way I think that happens. Vacations make the holes in my idea net a lot smaller so I catch more ideas and it’s an effect that lasts for a while after a vacation.

I think that’s a good excuse to take more vacations.

The Introductions for “Saving Shallmar”

Here’s the introduction for my new book project that I said I would post. Let me know what you think….

Everyone who lived in Shallmar, Maryland, in 1949 believed in Christmas. Every last one of them from nine-month-old Walter Hedrick, born about the time the Wolf Den Mine shut down in March of that year to the president of the Wolf Den Mining Corporation, Howard Marshall, who at fifty-nine years old was probably the oldest man in town, knew it without a doubt even if he or she had no use for Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

They even believed in Santa Claus.

They would tell you that Santa, well, he really wasn’t a jolly, old, fat man with a flowing white beard who dressed in red. And he didn’t fly in a sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer (nine if you counted the red-nosed buck that Gene Autry started singing about in November).

No way was that Santa!

The people of Shallmar were coal miners who lived hard lives that were all too often cut short by a cave in or other mining accident. So they had no time for such foolishness and children’s tales.

They would tell you that Santa Claus was a rather plain-looking man with thinning brown hair, wide shoulders, no beard and he wore glasses. Nor was he fat and his suits were the type accompanied with a necktie. He drove a beat-up used car purchased a few years earlier and it was one of the few cars in Shallmar.

You see, Santa Claus lived in Shallmar.

The people of Shallmar knew this without a doubt because they saw him work his magic in 1949, the year the town was saved from dying.

You might wonder if a town can really die. Well, if the people in the town just die off and leave when they have the ability to do so, then there is no heartbeat in the homes that make up the town. And isn’t that the way to tell whether something is dead?

That was Shallmar. Or rather, that’s what Shallmar was starting to become in 1949. Nobody realized it at first, or maybe it was that nobody wanted to admit what was happening, much less do anything about it.

Except for a man named J. Paul Andrick, better known as Santa Claus.

But everyone just called him Paul.

 

Inconvenient Inspiration

I love it when inspiration hits, though it’s rarely at a convenient time.

I’ve been working at my new book, which is tentatively titled Saving Shallmar. It’s going well and I’m enjoying the writing of the story and seeing how it unfolds as I flesh out my outline.

It’s been a bit of a disjointed process, though. I experienced the same thing with Battlefield Angels. I write different sections of the book at the same time and have different parts of the book at different stages of development. Gradually, I start to tie everything together and bring everything up to the same level. It can be confusing and it’s very different from the way I write my novels, which is a very linear process.

To add to the confusion with Saving Shallmar, I came across the idea for a book. I’m not sure if it will be my next book or not, but it’s definitely one that’s competing for my attention along with Saving Shallmar.

I don’t want to go into too much detail because I’m still collecting information and developing how to present the story. I will say that it’s a true story from 1920’s Baltimore. I believe that it will allow me to tie in the feel of Baltimore during the Jazz Age, space exploration and pulp fiction. It should also be a fun story to write.

I wish I could spend more time on it now, but I’m writing one book and marketing a new book. I just hope it doesn’t take me three years to get around to writing the story.

I found my voice

No, I don’t have laryngytis. I found my voice in a story, though it certainly doesn’t sound like me.

I’m working on a non-fiction story about a Garrett County coal-mining town. I wrote about it years ago for my column in the Cumberland Times-News. Since then, the story has stayed in my mind. I knew there was more to tell, but I just didn’t have the sources that would help me put it together.

Last summer, I was still debating whether I should tell this story as non-fiction or fiction. Fiction would allow me to get more into the lives of the people involved with the story and use more dialogue, but the story is so incredible, I kept thinking that unless it is told as non-fiction, no one would believe that it could happen.

So I set out to write a non-fiction book. I put together the outline, struggling with where to start the story. Once decided, I started out writing and the first few chapters came out pretty easily.

Then an odd thing happened.

One night, I started writing a passage that did not fit into the story where I was writing it. Instead of deleting it, I kept writing. The language was more casual than I had been using so far, but when I re-read what I had written, I realized it would serve as a perfect opening. It also allowed me to include information in the story that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had followed my outline.

More interesting to me was the approach I had taken. The voice was that of the story’s narrator, but not the author.  So now I’ve got a fictional character in my non-fiction book. He’s not putting himself into the story so that the story remains non-fiction, but it’s being told by unnamed fictional person.

If it’s confusing to you, imagine how it is for me. But it works. I’ll put up the opening passage in a few days and you can tell me what you think. Given how this story has made some sharp turns, I wonder if the storyteller will make it to the final draft. If not, I’m sure I’ll learn something that I need to in order to tell this story properly before he gets cut.

Waylon Jennings role as the unseen "Balladeer" on the old "Dukes of Hazzard" TV series is a good example of what I'm doing with my newest book.

Book signings are more than book selling; they’re chances to talk to readers

I had my first book signing for Battlefield Angels: The Daughters of Charity Work as Civil War Nurses on Saturday . I wasn’t sure how good it would go because customers at the bookstore are used to me typically writing about things that happened in their neck of the woods in Maryland. Though I checked, the Daughters of Charity weren’t out there during the Civil War. (Other Catholic sisters were and I wrote about them for two Allegany Magazine articles.)

This book attracted a new group of buyers, which I what I had hoped for but only half-expected to happen. The people I met yesterday were Catholics and Civil War buffs who seemed very excited about the book, though I guess anyone who gives up their time to come to book signing is usually excited about the book.

While some authors are moving away from book signings because of the lack of venues, cost or inconvenience of them, I still enjoy them. I like meeting readers face to face and taking a few minutes to talk with them. I don’t think I’ve ever had a book signing where I haven’t learned something new and many times useful in my writing.

This may be because of the history aspect of my writing. People like to buy the books because they have a connection with the history in it. I don’t know if I would have the same kind of reaction if I was writing fantasy or mysteries. People will stop by and start talking about a relative or a related history story they’ve heard. We wind up having a fun conversation and I get nuggets that might make their way into future stories.

Here I am at The Book Center in Cumberland, MD, on Nov. 19. I'm the one on the left, in case you couldn't tell.

Fun at the forums

If you are looking for information or ideas, I’ve learned that forums are a good place to start your search. I’ve joined a few in the past weeks as a way to market my new book, Battlefield Angels, but also to get feedback about not only my books but other books. I’ve always found it interesting that professional book reviewers and movie reviewers tend to like books that the general public doesn’t.

Also, by participating on the forums and not just going there to sell a book, I’ve been able to get information

• I can use in articles
• Ideas for new articles to write
• Leads for where to search for information

 I’ve joined some Civil War forums and quickly learned that these posters know the minutiae of the war. Rather than jump right in and make a fool of myself, I

1. Read some of the threads that seemed pertinent to my subject (Civil War nursing). I got a feel for the type of questions that were raised and the quality of the comments on the forum.
2. Next, I began posting responses to questions that I thought I could answer.
3. At that point, the forums begin sending e-mail updates to me pertaining to that thread so I can follow it and answer any follow-up questions.
4. Last week, I started a couple of threads, asking questions about an article I was working on and another one about the Gettysburg battlefield that I had always wondered about.

The response was great and useful. Now the problem I’m running into is that I’ve got to try and keep all the conversations I’ve contributed to straight so I don’t wind up repeating myself over and over again on a thread. There are forums for just about every topic you can imagine. Having found them another useful resource, I expect you’ll find me popping up on them time and again.

T-1 day “Battlefield Angels” hits

My new book, Battlefield Angels: The Daughters of Charity Work as Civil War Nurses, is supposed to be delivered tomorrow and I’m having to gear myself up to switch from author to promoter for awhile.

 My life will be crazy through the end of the year.

• I’ve got a number of things that I have to do each time one of my books is released:
• Send out press releases
• Bookstore signings
• Making sure the book is in various stores and with my distributor
• Making sure the book is listed on the big sites
• Getting reviews
• Author interviews and speaking engagements
• Order fulfillment

There’s probably other stuff I’m not thinking of right now, which will jump up and slap me in the face when I least expect it. I’ve tried to so some of this before now, but some things just have to wait until I’ve got the book in hand.

Much of this work is going to be a lot heavier than usual, too, because of the nature of Battlefield Angels. My previous books had a smaller primary audience that was easier for me to do the first phase of my marketing. Battlefield Angels not only has a larger primary market, it has two primary markets.

Add to this, I’ve still got to do all my regular writing work and the additional family things that happen in the holiday season and you can see why I think I’ll need a nice long break in 2012.

Not that that will happen. I’ll probably have to settle for a nice, long nap.

Goldilocks & the 3 Programs

I thought submission management software was supposed to make my life easier. I sure haven’t seen signs of it yet.

For any non-writers out there, submission management software helps you:

• track the editors you’ve got articles/stories with
• know the status of those article/stories
• alert you to what you need to follow-up on

Some programs can do more, but this would be the core functions for all of them.

I am now juggling about 125 active article ideas that I have to keep track of and this doesn’t even count any short stories, novels or copywriting project I may be marketing. In the past, I have lost track on some of those projects. I haven’t missed any important deadlines, but I have forgotten about story ideas that I needed to remind an editor about.

I did my research and after some careful consideration made my first pick. The program was a web download, which I thought would make my life easier. I could be up and running in an hour.

Right!

Here are the snags I hit:

• I had trouble accessing my PayPal account from their web site.
• I had to wait half a day for an access code.
• The program wouldn’t load on my computer.

I probably spend at least 2 hours trying to load it before finding out from the company that an installer problem with my type of system hadn’t been overcome yet. The company was quick to give me refund, but I had wasted a few hours with nothing to show for it.

 My second choice had a had been taken off the market until the company could overcome a similar type of problem it was running into like the first company.

My third choice was a free program called Sonar. It’s pretty basic, but it is free so I can’t complain. It is also easy to use.

Now, I’m faced with entering all of my markets, article and submission info. Like I said, I’ve got 125 active article ideas so it will take awhile, though I can see how the software help me once I’m up to date.

Sounds a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I’ll think I’ll go eat some porridge.

Fiction needs to make sense, life doesn’t

It is nice when you can get into a writing zone and just write page after page effortlessly. The other day I was in a research zone. I had a short blurb about an incident that seemed like something out of Disney’s Apple Dumpling Gang.

So I started looking into the story. I got very little information at first. I kept running into dead ends with my typical places that I check. Then I started checking the U.S. Census for the names in the story and things started breaking loose. One name led to another and another. I was able to track the names down in old newspapers.

Before I knew it, I had lost a couple of hours when I had only meant to use the time for both research and writing. However, now I’ve got a story that stretches over three generations of a family from a single mother who supported her family by becoming a successful merchant to her soldier son who followed in her footsteps only to have his store blown up to his musically talented daughter who was driven to suicide.

It will definitely be a different story than I imagined, but it will be a better one. While fiction needs to make sense when you plot it, that’s not always the case with real life. That’s what can make it so interesting to write.

To see how the story turns out, watch for my Looking Back column in the Cumberland Times-News in November.