Writing to the Market Is Not My Super Power

One of my 3 SFR Galaxy Award winning titles

I’m the wrong person to address the issue of writing to market, because I don’t.  Since I’m independently published, I write what I’m in the mood to write and as my own nimble small business, I can get away with that. I have loyal readers who love science fiction romance or ancient Egypt, or both.  My stories fall into niche markets with goodly amounts of readers, but probably not enough at the moment for major publishers to pursue.

Although as an aside, the SFR Galaxy Awards were just announced and I wrote a post for USA Today Happily Ever After, where I asked this year’s winners for their views on the future of SFR. Nearly everyone said it’s on a growth curve, which – YAY! I would tend to agree with that assessment and I’m happy because I love the genre and I love writing in the genre.

This week, other Whores have already thrashed out the issues traditional publishers face trying to bring books to the market while that market is still hot and growing, versus being latecomers. Life was probably easier when it was ALL about the traditional publishing business and if they didn’t put the books out there, you couldn’t read in your favorite niche.

The other issue for me would be, even if I had a crystal ball and could foretell the future, it’s probably not going to be something I want to write. I might love to read it and put every book that comes out onto my poor kindle, but my Muse is finicky. Everything falls from my mind onto the page with a science fiction twist, or fantastical elements. I have notes somewhere on a Regency romance, because I would so love to write one of those, but once I get beyond the governess and the Duke and either a house party or a snowbound inn, I’m out of inspiration. The. Words. Do. Not. Flow. And maybe at that point I go off and reread my favorite Mary Balogh book.

Someone I respect, who is a longtime participant in the publishing world, recently pointed out the popularity of the Hamilton Broadway musical and wondered if that might mean romances set in the Revolutionary era would make a comeback. Hmmm, I said to myself, good point! But yet, no plots come to my mind. (The “Swamp Fox” theme song from the old Disney show comes to mind, which isn’t particularly helpful.)

The other thing for me, is that if I’m writing something I don’t have genuine enthusiasm for, it doesn’t flow and it doesn’t read as well as my normal prose (at least in my opinion). So I’m lucky to be writing in  time where “the market” can exist without me and vice versa.

Leaving you with an excellent little clip from "Hamilton":

Villains for Valentine's Day?

I have to write about villains on the most romantic day EVER? (Whine.)  Reviewing the topic as assigned: development of positive traits builds better villains. Hmm. Somewhat tongue in cheek, I offer:

In my novels to date the "villains" have been:

Isis, Queen of the Egyptian Great Ones, who doesn't think a god and a mortal should fall in love...

Nephthys, her sister, who doesn't think humans count for much and doesn't care about two mortals in love...

A Hyksos commander who's been ordered to retrieve a certain Egyptian dancer...

A practitioner of black magic (can't say who or we'll have spoilers happening)...

Various assorted demons...

Or, if you prefer science fiction romance, I've had:

The penny pinching and evil corporation behind the Wreck of the Nebula Dream...plus pirates and very scary aliens...

The person masterminding a planetwide rebellion in Escape From Zulaire...(again, no spoilers)...

And, last but not least, a barbarian warlord who's determined to keep the unwiilling bride sent to him in an arranged marriage....

Well, ok  each of my villains has their reasons for doing what they do, even the demons, who have to report back to their scary master (and who might be hungry as well...). Isis and Nephthys certainly have their attention on the greater good of all Egypt in 1550 BCE, and it's up to the human heroes and heroines in the Gods of Egypt books to figure out a way to survive while still accomplishing the mission....

I just tend to focus more on my protagonists and take the villain at face value. He's got his motivations but he (or she) is the Big Bad and we're in the middle of the story when I start Chapter One and so let's just get ON with it. Can I make a tiny confession? There's a series I used to read (not written by a fellow Word Whore) where I skipped PAGES of internal monologuing from the villain in every book. Ok, don't be shocked! I'm sure it was all very well written but I...just...wasn't...that ...interested. Give me the stuff about the hero and the heroine.

Perhaps it's because I was imprinted young by Ming the Merciless. The one in the 1930's serials actually, because our local TV station ran them every day in the late afternoon. Do we know Ming's back story? Do we know what motivates him, other than a craving to conquer the universe and quite understandable desire to marry Dale Arden? Do we enjoy the adventure and know who to root for? NO! I rest my case.

Now I will say there's one villain I always was fascinated by, and

Richelieu & Milady deWinter

that was Cardinal Richelieu. I did get that - as portrayed in The Three Musketeers -  he was motivated quite a bit by his desire to do the right thing for France, and a little bit by his um 'admiration' for the Queen. So he could be flexible, and not all evil all the time.

Perhaps at some point in my writing life I'll have a villain who compels me to delve deeply into his/her backstory and have sympathetic aspects. I do have a couple of characters in mind, both in ancient Egypt and for my SFR's who might start out as less-than-white-hat people and evolve. We'll see.  

Musketeerly goodness for you:

The Immutable Law of Canceled Series

Ah, yes. The canceled series. Have one of those. The SFR Enemy series was canceled after book two in a five book arc. And I'm currently writing a series that is open ended enough to on forever or end where ever. Canceled series can and do happen to anyone. The publishing world is littered with the corpses of perfectly good books that just didn't sell well enough. Fortunately, for readers and for authors there are now options for wresting victory from the claws of CANCELED defeat.



1. Shop the rest of the series to another publisher (hard, but it can and has been done).
2. Self publish - this includes all sorts of permutations like serializing the remaining novels on your website (think a chapter a week posted), Ebooks, web comics - whatever makes sense for your story and your interests.

The only caveat is: You DID read your contract before you signed it. Right? I ask because some publishers don't just buy the rights to the novels you present to them. They tie up your characters and situations. If you signed such a contract, then your only option is to stick a fork in that canceled series, cause it's done. Any attempt to self pub or go to another house with those characters you adore could get you sued. So, please. READ your contracts. If you don't understand them, find a contract lawyer, paralegal, or agent who can explain what you're signing. Ask questions. Make sure you aren't selling rights you want to retain.

Bonus: The Little Known But Immutable Law of the Canceled Series - any series canceled before the story has run its course will be canceled on a cliffhanger ensuring that readers and critiques alike curse the poor author's name for years to come.

I don't know what to do except shrug and say this is an immutable law. If you decide to write a series, keep it in mind as you decide how to end each novel. If you decide to read a series, I beg you to keep this law in mind as well because I assure you the author is banging his or her head against a wall about it, too.

What do *I* intend to do about my canceled SFR series that did indeed end on a cliffhanger at the end of book two? Write the rest of the series and get it out into the world by hook or by crook. In fact, finishing up book three is next on my slate. Right after the proposal for book three of the urban fantasy series (Nightmare Ink and Bound By Ink). With luck, book three will be available in some form or another by the end of the year.

I won't lie. It is a major kick to the ribs to have a series rug yanked out from under you. Scream. Cry. Consume mass quantities of chocolate. But then get to planning and writing. Because you have options and your readers may threaten to hunt you down and beat the story out of you if you don't avail yourself of them.

The Lines I Have Crossed

I've committed plagiarism. It's how I found out what it is. I was in the tenth grade, writing a paper analyzing some book or the other. In reading someone else's analysis of the story, I picked up a sentence verbatim and subsequently didn't cite the source. Isaac Asimov, I think. Hell, if you're going to screw something up, go straight to the top. It wasn't a research paper, right? Citation didn't belong in an essay, or so I thought. One teacher called it out. Another defended me, saying I was bright enough to have come up with that sentence all on my own.

I'll love her forever for her faith in me.

Except I wasn't that bright, was I? I wasn't even clever enough at fifteen to figure out that by not citing my source, I'd passed his work off as mine until someone said the word 'plagiarism'. After I'd looked it up, and realized with one of those nasty thumps that makes you feel two inches tall that I was guilty, I made damned sure I never made the mistake again.

That was writing nonfiction, something that doesn't particularly fill me with smurfy joy and glittery rainbows. Not like fiction does. Okay. Maybe not smurfy joy. Don't let it shock you when I confess I might be a titch more Vulcan subdued than that. Regardless, the point of writing fiction is that I'm putting words on paper in an effort to get the all-consuming story and its noisy characters out of my brain space. Other people's words will not do. I do have sympathy for anyone on a deadline who suddenly finds there's nothing in their heads but an echo chamber - but that's part of the writing experience. You're a writer when you stare into that abyss, wrestle down anxiety, and show up at your keyboard anyway. It's also the point at which inspiration might be useful.

Except when I get a hold of inspiration and break it.

I was attempting my first SFR novel. There was a TV show I loved. I wanted to imitate the tone. Got a third of the way into the book. A contest came up judged by librarians and book sellers. I entered the opening of that WIP. The scores came back. They were good. The comments were enthusiastic. "My customers would love this! It reminds me of *name of TV show*." This is how I discovered that I seem to have a knack for mimicry. Not a line of what I'd written was plagiarism per se, but I'd done so well imitating the voice of the show that two different judges nailed it by name. Inspiration had crossed a line that gave me the willies.

I took the WIP out and buried it, unfinished, in the backyard.

My cold comfort is that I can do this singing, too. Not like the gal who imitates 19 different singers in one song - cause if I could, I'd totally be looking for a way to parlay that into a European tour of some kind. Ply me with alcohol sometime and ask for Barbara Streisand. Or don't. I'm not sure that demonstration would win us any friends.

Kind of like how writing a story that lifts copy from someone else, or strangling inspiration to the point that readers can ID what inspired you (unless you're writing really skillful parody) won't win friends. It sure influences people, though. In that 'you're going down in infamy' kind of way.

Not Exactly Playlists

When I first started writing, a long time ago, I did listen to music. It wasn't anything as sophisticated as a playlist created for each writing project but more of a compilation of my personal favorites. I have wildly eclectic tastes so there might be a drum-heavy 1950's track followed by a showtune following by Lady GaGa or Ne-Yo. But very shortly after I'd sit down to write, the music would fade from my consciousness and I really didn't pay any attention to it.

In the last few years, I don't play music at all when I write. As others have said this week, now it would be too much of a distraction, instead of a way to guide my mind into focussing on the creative task at hand.

My favorite thing to do is go for long drives on the California freeways, just blasting tunes from my iPod and think over plot ideas. The driving and the music seem to really get the creative juices flowing. The catch here is that now I live only three miles away from work, instead of the hour plus commute I used to have, so I don't get that daily plotting session. On the upside, neither am I subject to the vagaries of the freeways! All in all, I think I prefer the current situation and I'll do my plotting sessions in a different fashion.

Even if I did do playlists, I'd be reticent to share them because what might set my Muse (there she is - I knew you were waiting!) to happily writing a certain scene or character probably has no resemblance to the story I'm working on. It isn't a soundtrack! For example, I wrote one entire science fiction novel basically to the "Riverdance" soundtrack and key portions of the book to the Russian dervish dance music set on endless repeat. Why? I don't know, something about that combination of sounds was just amping up my creativity at that moment in time. Here's the youtube clip and I have to say I really love these dancers, who were amazing athletes and performers.


Occasionally I'll get inspiration for a character from a song though, which brings me to my newly released science fiction romance ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE. There's a supporting character, a Sectors Special Forces sergeant who at one point had quite a backstory, as far as wanting to sing in bars when he was on leave, and not quite having the sheer musicality to carry it off, shall we say. Well he still has all that backstory of course, but now it's been edited from the novel. I left a few tiny references to his singing here and there to please myself LOL. But in this case, years ago I happened to hear "Nothin But the Tail Lights" by Clint Black and there was Mitch, full blown in my head. (To be clear, I love the song and I've always enjoyed Clint Black's singing - Mitch is not meant to BE him! A wanna-be maybe...) Andi and Tom, the main characters, couldn't make their perilous way across Zulaire without Mitch, trust me. (Or don't trust me and read the book for yourself - shameless pitch now inserted.) Here's the best version of the song I could find. Apparently Mr. Black never made a formal video so I certainly apologize for the quality of the sound.)

 And the book's blurb is below!

ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE:

Andi Markriss hasn’t exactly enjoyed being the houseguest of the planetary high-lord, but her company sent her to represent them at a political wedding. When hotshot Sectors Special Forces Captain Tom Deverane barges in on the night of the biggest social event of the summer, Andi isn’t about to offend her high-ranking host on Deverane’s say-so—no matter how sexy he is, or how much he believes they need to leave now.

Deverane was thinking about how to spend his retirement bonus when HQ assigned him one last mission: rescue a civilian woman stranded on a planet on the verge of civil war. Someone has pulled some serious strings to get her plucked out of the hot zone. Deverane’s never met anyone so hard-headed—or so appealing. Suddenly his mission to protect this one woman has become more than just mere orders.

That mission proves more dangerous than he expected when rebel fighters attack the village and raze it to the ground. Deverane escapes with Andi, and on their hazardous journey through the wilderness, Andi finds herself fighting her uncomfortable attraction to the gallant and courageous captain. But Deverane’s not the type to settle down, and running for one’s life doesn’t leave much time to explore a romance.

Then Andi is captured by the rebel fighters, but Deverane has discovered that Zulaire’s so-called civil war is part of a terrifying alien race’s attempt to subjugate the entire Sector. If he pushes on to the capitol Andi will die. Deverane must decide whether to save the woman he loves, or sacrifice her to save Zulaire.

(Trust me, Mitch is in the book! See you next week!