A Sense of Doubt blog post #3872 - Writing Wednesday - Don't Worry About the Publishing Market

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3872 - Writing Wednesday - Don't Worry About the Publishing Market

The image above is one of my favorite books. It comes from a pulp tradition of old school science fiction.

I judge any science fiction section of any book store with used books by whether there's any Edmund Cooper (and a few other authors).

Though not super popular, Edmund Cooper as author and the the book in the image (Seahorse in the Sky from 1969) was published and thus represents "the market," the publishing market.

I know I have read this advice in many books on writing, but not which ones.

It's natural to contemplate the kinds of books that are getting published while conceiving or even writing one's own, let alone the books that are popular.

However, this is not a good thought process for the writing of the story that is trying to come out.

I do read a lot of books, though not as voraciously as some. I skim through book stores and read Locus magazine every month to keep up on what's what in speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and horror).

And as I write, I hope I have great characters and a good story in novel idea for the genre for which I am aiming.

I have several projects in the works: superhero parody, two different young adult books, a modern fantasy romance, a murder mystery and suspense story, a speculative fiction novella about a lost film, and the project I am currently working on is what I call a sword & sorcery cyberpunk story set in an alt-history America.

I have moments throughout the writing process about whether my characters are engaging enough, whether my narrative flows strongly enough, whether I am balancing exposition and action, whether the book will grab readers from the start and keep them turning pages, whether the world is unique and vibrant enough to not be over-reliant on tropes without innovation and new twists.

But if I let all those concerns overtake me (as I have for years before), then I would not make forward progress.

Though it's important to know what books are getting published and what kinds of characters and stories gain popularity, it is more important to FINISH THE DAMN BOOK.

I know too many people who claim to be writers but they do not read enough of the current products in the market place. I feel that this is a mistake. Old stuff is good, no doubt. And some writers read too much fiction and too little non-fiction (BIG MISTAKE!). But ignorance of the marketplace is worse than worrying too much about it and second guessing every writing decision based on what other people are doing.

Do your thing.

That's my newest motto.

I recently read John Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye. The book shared a series of vignettes or serial vignettes on how the moon turning to cheese would affect various people ang the world.

One vignette concerned a a writer who had three chapters of a novel that she had worked and re-worked and re-worked some more but she had not pushed forward and written the rest of the book. She had workshopped the chapters with other writers and self-consciously kept revising to meet their suggestions for her work.

She talks with a writer who tells her to bake more bread. She has one loaf. She now needs more loaves.

"You can't win workshopping," he said (page 273).

This advice really resonated with me.

He told her to stop rewriting those first three chapters: "you are not allowed to touch them again until you finish the rest of the book."

That advice hit home.

Of the projects above, a few months ago I went back to the sword & sorcery cyberpunk story set in an alt-history America: I call it CYBERSPELL.

I started CYBERSPELL in 1995 after I had finished and was trying to sell two novels. I had just read SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson, and I was so inspired that I devised a cyberpunk-flavored sword & sorcery fantasy.

I have been working on it off and on ever since. That's THIRTY YEARS.

I would say that over 30 years, I have been more OFF it than ON it.

I have reams and reams of world building. I have a rough draft of thirty some chapters in various stages of completion.

At two points, I thought I need a prequel and started working on back story, one was a new start to the book and the other was a whole, separate pre-CYBERPUNK novel. That prequel called VITRIOL grew to 30 some chapters and probably 100,000 words before I abandoned it.

I had re-drafted the first chapter twelve times when I sat down a few months ago and did a thirteenth draft.

The drafts are not variations on the same start. Many are completely different from one another.

And with the new resolve from the advice in Scalzi's book, I am moving forward. I will not re-start and draft a new version of chapter one.

FINISH THE DAMN BOOK.

This is the main focus along with 

DON'T SPEND ALL YOUR TIME WORLD BUILDING.

World building is necessary, but it's a black hole with no end. I could spend all my time world building and never have a STORY,  and the only book that results from that is a kind of encyclopedia style BIBLE to a book that has not been written.

And so, forward I go.

Thanks for tuning in.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2509.24 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3737 days ago & DAD = 391 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.