ABNA: Oh, the Drama!

So, being the middle of the week, I have nothing specific in my mind to blog about again. I suppose I should plan these things a little better but, at the same time, the randomness of just writing is actually quite fun. Thus, as long as you don't mind, I'll continue to muse about whatever strikes me.

Not too much is going on with me at the moment which is probably for the best. I did get one more rejection since the crippling one from last week but the generic language was actually a comfort when I compared it to the specific critique/criticism from the previous rejection. In a little under two weeks, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) will move onto the next stage and up to 9,500 of us will be rejected. I'm trying to be an optimist and hope that I did, at least, make it to the top 2,000 contestants. This year, the quarterfinalists aren't notified the way they were last year; Amazon won't notify anyone until the top 500 semi-finalists have been selected. If we made the first cut, we'll have access to our message box or something on Createspace, the print-on-demand company that co-sponsors the contest. I'd like to make that cut at least but having read a few of the excerpts, this year there are a lot of good writers in there and there's a lot of competiton.

However, even if I don't make it through, it's been an interesting experience this year just lurking and occasionally posting in the forums. Over the past week, it has been a little less civilized and a little more "America's Next Top Writer". For anyone who's never watched "America's Next Top Model" or the UK version, the show takes twelve somewhat plain girls and turns them into Tyra Banks' version of supermodels. In the beginning, the contestants get along, sweetly attempting to be friends and playing nice for the cameras. There is always one girl who doesn't want to play nice with others because she's "In it to win it!" As the show progresses and the number of models gets narrowed down after a weekly elimination, the true colours of the girls start coming out. I know it's all made far more dramatic for the camera but, trust me, you cannot put a bunch of competitive girls in a house and expect them to play nice forever. I've had roommates, good ones and bad ones. No matter how much you love them, you will fight.

The Amazon Breakthough Novel Award message boards (or forums, whichever term you prefer) have started to deteriorate into catfights. I must confess, it's actually quite interesting to lurk. After all, these are writers and the way they fight/verbally spar/insult each other is always rather clever. It makes for good reading.

I'm not sure I know exactly what happened on the boards but I've managed to figure out that someone posted about the cliques on the board. I must confess, I, too, have been board to tears with these cliques. I won't name names but there's a group of about 10-15 posters who know each other from last year. I admire their camraderie but it gets to be rather obnoxious. For example, I posted in a forum that was discussing the hard process of getting published and how it sometimes makes you doubt yourself. It was a good discussion. Then one of the 'clique' joined in and it became a series of about 30 posts where they were all going to get "Nekkid" with one another. I'm sure it was hilarious but it pretty much ended the discussion. I've seen it happen on countless other forums. I'm not jealous of the camraderie but part of me wishes they'd just stick to the countless discussion threads they've created that are inside jokes to the clique and stay off the serious discussion unless they have something of value to say.

The clique isn't unwelcoming but they are hard to interrupt. Once the group starts a series of 'sillyness' in the thread, the thread loses its luster and few people get to contribute. There are some brave souls who push through but I can't be bothered. Now I just scan the thread headings, see if there's anything of interest and leave.

Back to the drama of the forums. After this initial discussion of the clique, it started to get a little bitter. Sides were defined. The side that favoured the "cliques" and the side that was anti-clique. Needless to say, it got a little heated. It was almost a war. I haven't looked this morning but it was still going on last night. Writers can be rather sarcastic. They can be rather mean. Several regular posters have attempted to make peace, to start new discussions that are not snarky exchanges about secret identities and what-not. Unfortunately, these discussions are being replaced by flaming posts that are the equivalent of using rocket-launchers during hand-to-hand combat. I'm all for freedom of speech but I think maybe it would be good to have a moderator on the boards once in a while, not a just kindly poster whose peacemaking attempts are flattened by by a train of defensive attempts to state 'the truth'.

However, from an outsider's point of view, it's the literary equivelent of watching the Jerry Springer show only with far better grammer and less chairs being thrown. Though given some of the barbs I've read, these are the verbal equivelent of chairs being thrown.

I admire the creativity I'm seeing here. I can't help but wonder if it could possibly be channeled into something a little more useful like, say, a new novel but, at the same time, people are getting a little antsy about the upcoming eliminations and this is the manifestation of their stress. As a lurker, I'm not going to choose sides but I will say it's not black and white. I do find it fascinating that the proxy ringleader of the 'anti-clique' side is making such a huge deal about his identity. He/she goes by the name R.E.Cluse and is adamant that he wants anonymity. It's started a guessing game as to whether this R.E.Cluse is actually someone well known. Personally, I think he/she is just another hopeful like us, a decent writer but someone who is loving the attention and the chance to grandstand in the forums. He/she even posted an excert for everyone to read about someone who's having a bad experience in an online forum. It's decently written but it's a little too personal. As writers, it's extremely tempting to want to eviscerate our enemies, those who've wronged us in fiction. Creating thinly veiled characters based on these people is easy and it's therapeutic. However, after you do it, a few months later, you feel guilty or the piece has lost its meaning. The heat of the moment is good for writing but it shouldn't be something so personal that it can hurt someone. I prefer to use that kind of energy and passion to create something new, something unrelated to that which has riled me up. Angry writing can be the best writing of all but there's a fine line between literary therapy and slander.

I don't have a clue what will happen on March 16th. If I get the elusive email that says I've made it through, I'll be ecstatic. And, if not, I'm going to treat it as an experience. After all, I have written enough novels that I could actually choose which to submit. I suppose I was brave enough to put my work out there. These are things to be excited about.

Regardless of what type of email I do get, I will say thank you to all the other entrants for keeping me entertained on the forums. While some of you are a little scary, you're also providing entertainment which, as writers, you're supposed to do. You writing is getting out there, people are reading it though I think, perhaps, it might not be what you had in mind. Nevertheless, I say Fight on, people. Fight on!

Happy Wednesday

To self-publish or not to self-publish...

It's Tuesday. It feels better than a Monday, at least. My car wasn't frozen over this morning. Also a good thing. Always look on the bright side of life...That Monty Python, so full of wisdom...

So, I'm debating the question that faces many writers who don't achieve immediate success: Should I self-publish? I've gone over it in my head. And over it some more. And then even more. The thing is, I know that self-publishing is regarded almost with pity by people in the publishing world as well as by other authors. The assumption is that a writer couldn't get his or her book published commercially and so in order to see his or her name in print, he or she turned to self-publishing.

Yet, to me, that assumption is like every other stereotype, begun in truth but distorted to the point that no one considers that the target of the stereotype can grow, can evolve. And while stereotypes will always exist, they are not the only way to view a person, place or thing.

I admit, as I did in my earlier post, that I've been rejected quite a few times. Yet, mostly, it's for short stories. I've dabbled with trying to find an agent for my books. I've sent a couple of queries to publishers. But it's like I'm merely sticking my toes in the pool of the publishing industry, I haven't dived in and got completely soaked.

Partially, it's because I'm scared to death. My novels are, to use a bit of a cliche, a bit like my children. I love them. My characters are very real to me and I've discovered that even when I finish a novel, they never quite leave me. Sometimes that's quite nice. Sometimes, it makes me look a little nuts. Either way, I owe it to them to get their story right, to make sure it gets into the world properly. And, as I mentioned, I'm scared to death of putting my work out there, of seeing my work discussed on message boards like Amazon.com's. I'm a lurker on those boards. I love to read the discussions on books I've read, particularly Stephanie Meyer's. But those readers are brutal. I participated in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest last year (and do NOT let me get started on what a debacle that whole thing was). But one thing I did enjoy was the sense of community on those boards from the other contestants. What they said was funny, clever and brutal. But they were right. Same as when I read the comments on "Breaking Dawn"...wow, those people can be be harsh but...yet....mostly, they're dead-on.

They scare me because these are the folks who might read my books. But, on the flip side, if they like my work, I'm in. And, for that reason, they're part of the reason I am considering self-publishing. But more on that in a bit...

The publishers are the ones who truly scare me though. Not because they'll make me change my work, edit it beyond recognition but because they're very hung up on money. They have to be. It's why the massive publishing houses have eaten up all the nice little ones that actually gave new writers a chance. Try getting a manuscript to Random House without an agent and see what I mean. Short of an Oprah endorsement, without an agent AND credentials, it's hopeless. It's like being the Little Match Boy or Girl..you can stare in the windows and see the dream but you're still left out in the cold.

And, once they get hold of your book, there's no guarantee they'll care. Let's take, for example, my current favourite subject for a rant, Ms. Meyer. She was allowed to publish "Breaking Dawn" as she wrote it. ANY publisher, agent or editor who took their time to see beyond their cash cow and realize their was a huge fanbase at stake would have stopped when they got the manuscript. They would have sent it back to her, politely saying, "This isn't going to work. We need you to take a step back from what your personal needs and wants and go back to the story you originally began." They wouldn't have let her publish the badly-written, self-indulgent, character-assasinating book that is now in stores. This is why I actually feel bad for Stephanie and the backlash she's receiving. It is partially her fault but not completely. Someone should have stopped her, someone should have coached her. They didn't.

This is why I'm scared of publishers. There aren't enough of them and the ones that are left are too big and powerful.

My logic for considering self-publishing is inspired by someone I consider to be a fantastic writer, though he doesn't write in novel or short story format. He's primarily a TV writer: Joss Whedon. He's the writer of Buffy, Angel and Firefly. And before you scoff, I challenge you to watch Buffy, particularly episodes like "The Body," "Restless," or "Becoming" and tell me he isn't bloody brilliant. Recently though, Joss wrote "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog." He did it because he was disillusioned by the TV network that never gave his shows a fair chance and cancelled them because they didn't care enough to keep them alive. They would air his shows, then preempt them for a couple of weeks and start moving the changing the timeslot for the show. It never gave viewers a chance to get invested or to be able to follow them. Then, with little warning, the show would get cancelled because it had no audience. At least, that's what happened with "Firefly". So he made "Dr. Horrible." He wrote the short 45-minute musical in three segments with the help of his family. He cast Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day (all of whom were fantastic) and filmed it on his own, with no studio support. Then he released it on the web.

It was a smash; fans brought down the server immediately with their eagerness to see the show. I think it's still making money on iTunes and is going to be released on DVD soon.

I had the pleasure of getting to see the "Dr. Horrible" panel at Comic-Con this year. Joss was there and, as always, was hilarious and charming. When asked what would happen if his newest show ("Dollhouse") got cancelled, he diplomatically pointed out that he'd found a way to make shows and give them directly to the audience without having to go through the studios and that was, most likely, going to happen more and more.

He inspired me. He made me wonder what would happen if I took one of my books and did the same thing. What if I released it directly to the people who would read it and enjoy it? I have a good friend who is a high school English teacher and she thinks that her students would enjoy a particular book I wrote, one that teenages could relate to and understand. I'm debating using Lulu or another company to try printing my book, to let her distribute it, to start my own 'grassroots' campaign for my book. After all, these are my audience. I'm not worried about making tons of money on my work...I just want people to read it. Would those scary but awesome people on the Amazon message boards receive me gracefully or would they turn on me and attack a work that is near and dear to my heart? Or would my book fall, quietly unobserved into the void of unread books? I don't know but it might be worth finding out.

The downside, is that I'd forever be labeled as an author who had to self-publish, regardless of my reasons. If I ever wanted to get an agent, I'd have that on my head. It's a toss up.

Yet, Joss did it with his show. Granted, the show was brilliant- I mean, what show where the good-guy, superhero can say "The hammer is my penis" with a completely straight face, wouldn't be brilliant? But the fact remains, he cut out the middleman. It worked.

Maybe it would work for me too.