The Importance of Focus

I've put in 8 hours since my last update (I know, it's been a week--I've been busy). 

Today is the last day you can get twenty our horror novels for FREE: Free Horror

If you haven't picked up all those books yet, you should now, before you have to end up paying for them.

I've been thinking a lot about focus lately. I suppose around my junior or senior year of college I began bringing my laptop to class, and I honestly believe that is when my ability to focus intensely on one particular item at a time started degrade. I suddenly had every piece of information I could ever need in front of me, as well as all my idiot friends posting all the time (unless you've bought my book, then you're smart as a whip). It was virtually a foregone conclusion that I would stop paying attention. My grades didn't suffer, but my learning did.

This has transferred itself to every piece of my life now. I constantly zone out, check my phone, check my tablet, check my email, check facebook, check twitter, check my book stats. I check everything all the goddamn time AS IF IT MATTERS. 

It doesn't. None of it does. It's counterproductive. 

I had been writing two hours per day, with all those interruptions (and don't even get me started when someone starts posting politics on Facebook, that can take away HOURS of my time while writing). I cut it in half and now have a strict rule that only my Work In Progress can be on my screen. The results?

I'm getting through more of End Times (my next book) than I was at 2 hours a day. 

I'm trying to import focus into the rest of my life, and I think it would be smart for you to as well. Stop checking your phone when you're at work, talking with someone, or reading. Focus on what's at hand--THAT is what is important, not anything else. 

When Einstein theorized, he used a single notepad, and a pencil. It didn't matter where he was at. Literally, he could be in a crowded room with people talking all around him, and his focus was so intense that he kept right on going. Get that kind of focus, and success is the only thing that is going to be able to interrupt you.

Beginning Again

Put in about six hours since my last update. Got super drunk Friday which meant no writing on Saturday. Put in my time today though.

Got another 5 book bloggers on my list to hit up when this book comes out. All I'm waiting on now is the cover. Really getting tired of waiting. Really getting tired of writing about getting tired of waiting. Just want it to be out.

I started a new book this past week, and I don't want to say this is the hardest beginning I've ever had, because I do remember deleting like 15,000 words in two different novels--but it is certainly tough. I stopped during my period of writing twice today, for like ten minutes, and thought whether or not I could write a book like this. I kept writing, but I'm still not sure. 

I'm about a thousand words in, and the book will be at least 70,000 words, with perhaps multiple volumes to complete it. This will probably be the biggest thing I've attempted yet, but that doesn't scare me. That's not why I'm doubting this.

I'm unsure how it's going to play out. The beginning and the end are solid in my mind, as they always are when I start a novel--but the whole middle piece is a cloud. The idea of being able to turn this into something exciting, because believe me--it seems like much of the middle has to be dull as of right now--is beyond daunting. 

I'm going to write on it some more this week. There's a character I'm developing that I think I've already fallen in love with, partly because he's the only character that is based largely off of me--or rather, what I wish I could be. I don't want to just give up on it, because I remember feeling much the same with the other three novels I wrote in the beginning. A vague uneasiness that there is no way I can put this all onto paper. Or the computer screen, I suppose.

I'm going to plug away, and hopefully my mind is able to grasp the words that will get this thing out of my head. If not, I'll be pretty disappointed.

I really like falling in love with myself, and such.

How I Wrote It

Tomorrow the editing begins. I'm ready for it. Ready to be done with this, ready to be put it out into the world. Ready to hear some form of feedback. 

I have other book ideas, but pushing those out aren't really concerning me right now. Having this done, that is all that really matters. 

I'm trying to setup book tours right now. One author emailed over 500 book bloggers. I'm going through a company to do it--I'm going to outsource until it gets to expensive to do so.

Onto today's topic.

For writers, I think there is a certain uncertainty when it comes to the specific way they write. I know there was for me for a long time. Actually, up until this novel I did not figure out the way that I write best. I've been writing since I was nineteen and I wrote this novel at the ripe, old age of 25. That's six years of writing, plus serious studying of how other writers completed their works. 

So I figure, I'll lay out my path to completing a novel in case anyone is ever interested. It took two novels for me to get there, two novels and another writer beating the shit out of me every time I let him look at a piece of my work. All I cared about was pushing out ideas, getting them on paper as fast as I could, and moving onto next. This led to a prolific amount of words, but quite a few of them were horrible.

So when I sat down to write this novel, I said: Beers, you gotta slow down. How can you make yourself slow down? 

The answer was easy. Write with a blindfold over your eyes. 

I kid, I kid.

What I did was write two pages. Then I went back and hand wrote those two pages, then typed them back up. 

That didn't work either. It kept breaking the creative process, so by the time I finished rewriting, I had forgotten where in the hell the chapter was headed. So I needed a way to slow down and to keep the creativity flowing.

I decided to do the same thing, but with chapters. As I was writing, I read a book by Joe Hill, and at the end he said he had five drafts for the thing. The most I had ever done was two, and that's what I appeared to be doing now.

What did that tell me? I wasn't slowing down enough. 

Currently, I was typing out a chapter, handwriting, and then retyping it in. I decided to add two more steps to it. Once I had retyped the chapter, I printed it out, read it over and made corrections on paper. Then I put the corrections back in. Finally, I read the chapter aloud, making corrections there.

I did that through 70,000 words. Each chapter constructed by itself, my mind almost lost in it--but I think somewhere the rest of the story was working its way out in the back of my mind. Truly, it was the easiest plotting I ever did. Chapter after chapter just came next, without me actually sitting down and writing a single word of plot out (I don't care what anyone says, plotting is the devil). What's crazy, is that it didn't take much editing of the whole book to make the whole plot fit--the pieces just fell where they should, and I think that's because I immersed myself in each chapter and allowed my brain to work through the rest while I was focusing elsewhere.

It took a lot longer to write this one, but I think the end result is a lot better.

Oh yeah, once I finished it, I went back and edited it once more.

Two Reviews and a Quid Pro Quo

I'm looking for some help: I need some people to help me write the 'back of the book' or basically the blurb describing what the book is about. If you're interested in this, I'll buy you a paperback copy of the book and sign it--like that's worth something right? I'm not looking for tons of people, but perhaps two. The first two people to shoot me an email (dukedawg@gmail.com), comment on here, or contact me in any other way will get the free signed copies, and then once I've made  a few mil, you can sell them for a couple grand. Sounds fair to everyone right? Okay, onto the blog.

Haven't written anything outside of this blog in two weeks. Will start the last round of edits on my novel, Dead Religion, Monday. Hopefully will be done in two weeks. Another week for formatting, then publishing.

A friend of mine that blogs at Meet My Husband told me she felt nervous about her first blog post. Nervous about reaction, about what people think. I'm fairly sure that every writer feels what they've written is excellent, perfecto, friendo. I've edited work that made me want to sand paper my eyeballs it was so bad, but the author thought it was good. Loved it, in fact. Still though, no matter how much we believe in our work--there's always that fear that others will hate it. That other's will think were a fraud, cheap, not worth the time. 

I told her it never left. I also told her that's how you know you care about your fans.

I had two reviews on my writing this past week. One was a comment on this blog: I wish you luck with the writing. You're going to need it. 

There are two ways that can be read: A) I'm horrible, and need a lot of luck, or B) it's a hard racket. I imagine the guy meant A, and honestly, it bothered me a bit. Not a whole lot, but it always makes you wonder--is he right? Am I that bad?

The next day my editor turned my book back into me. This was her comment on the novel: First, let me say that I enjoyed this very much. You are very good at anticipation and suspense. Even if I hadn’t been reading this as a proofreader, I would have to’ve finished just to see how it ends, how any of these people were going to make it out of this situation. Then, of course, [redacted]. WTF? You have a wicked clever imagination and can put down a good story. I was invested til the end.

That's a stronger reaction than I could hope for. So in under twenty four hours I was shit and good. I almost wrote that I'm not sure how to take that, but I am. Fuck that other guy.

The book though, I was worried, because it's tricky. The timeline in it doesn't follow chronologically. It switches back and forth between the present, the past, and the deep past--almost at whim. I don't 'time stamp' it, meaning give you a direct mention that says: HEY, THIS TAKES PLACE IN THIS PAST, or, THIS IS HAPPENING NOW. There's a subtle clue at the beginning of each switch, but that's it--the reader must keep two stories simulataneously in his mind. This worried me, whether I would lose the reader or not. 

The editor had this to say on it: Time stamps. I actually liked that you didn’t put dates for each scene that went to the past or the future, or [redacted] time that is future from [redacted{. That was part of the interesting part of trying to figure out what was going on. Some editors might insist on putting those in, since that’s the way it’s usually done. I hope you’re able to go with your gut on that.

I'm going to go with my gut and leave it the way it is. There's no real reason for it other than it feels right--it gives the story more of an 'epic' feeling, I think. 

I have no idea if this thing is going to sell beyond my friends. I'm going to bust my ass, have busted my ass, but that might not mean much. Luck comes into play--people's willingness to spread the word as well. All in all though, I feel pretty good about what I've heard so far.

Where Ideas Come From

So there's not much to write at the moment. I'm spending a lot of time scouring the internet, finding forums, and the like. Obviously much of this to build a platform, but I'm finding I actually enjoy it. Reading what others have to say on literature, or interacting with strangers on twitter, or asking questions that haven't been thought of yet all have their own satisfaction. I'm enjoying it and don't mind it one bit at all. 

I wanted to write a post on something I've been asked about a few times, and something that I don't really have to think about much--it just happens: where the stories come from. For the past fourteen months or so I have very few ideas for new novels. By very few, I mean I've had three. In the past week though, since I've known I was wrapping up Dead Religion, I've had maybe five ideas. 

It's like my mind knows where the creative energy needs to be going and when it needs to be going there. When I'm writing on a large piece, virtually nothing comes to me in the form of ideas for new work. When I'm done, everything I look at becomes a story. I was walking through the Air and Space Museum, and saw some of the old WWII uniforms. A story hit me at the site of them.

I think, though, that the most important--the strongest stories, for me at least--come from songs. Dead Religion was inspired from Hotel California. The line that says "you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave." That one line spawned a 71,000 word novel. Things changed, and the story expanded in ways I never knew when I heard that line, but the basic story is still here. 

Regina Spektor's Samson is definitely a novel that I'm going to write. It's one of the most beautiful and powerful songs I've ever heard, and made me think about Delilah, the biblical character, in a much different fashion.

My next book came from one line from AWOLNATION: kill your heroes. I'm still working out a lot of shit in my mind about it, but the underlying meaning of those words has a really good story in it.

I can put on Snow Patrol's Eyes Open CD and there is literally a story in every song.

A line from The Killers still sticks with me, but I haven't been able to find out the story behind it yet: they say the devil's water, it ain't so sweet, but you don't have to drink right now.

I'm not sure how my mind does this. I'm not sure if it makes me more or less creative, given that I'm using ideas others have already spun to create novels. There's not a lot I can do about it, either way.

So, according to this one post, I have about 4 novels to write. 

I'm okay with a back list.

I'm an Idiot

Put in nearly fourteen hours over the past week.

Have blog searched the f out of the internet. Also read everything Amanda Hocking wrote up until she quit her job and became famous. 

Side note: this chick, Amanda Hocking, wrote like five novels. No one would represent them and no one would publish them. She blogged the entire time this was happening. Her blog consisted of alternating posts between how great her books were and how bad she felt that no one would publish them. Then within ten months, she goes from lamenting her life to: "Quit my job today. Full time writer now." Congrats! and...Fuck you. That's just the jealous part of me talking. 

All I need to do is start writing young adult paranormal romance novels and the paychecks should start rolling in. Although, I'd probably give myself a new smile from ear to ear before I ever saw one.

This blog post does have a point, believe it or not. One that I've touched on tangentially, but not directly--so I want to comment on it. Obviously, the majority of the stuff I write about is going to be based on my life as a starving writer, but I honestly hope that you can take these thoughts and apply them somewhere to your craft or passion. 

I was talking to a friend the other day about how boring my life was. She said what are you doing? I replied that I had spent ten minutes studying a sentence and trying to decide how to fix it. Exciting, right? 

She said she used to write, but sucked at it, so she quit.

That kind of stunned me for a second. My response was: We all suck. That's why we practice.

God, if you read any of the first pieces I wrote, it's like I had never read a book. Even now, editing this novel, their are whole passages where I just think I should set fire to my laptop and never even contemplate writing another sentence. That's after six years of at least writing thirty minutes every day and probably a lot more. Fuck, that's after 18 years of writing through school and training at universities. I still suck.

I'm not sure about all professions, but as a writer you have to be supremely confident or supremely stupid. Luckily, I was both. I sat down and wrote a short story at nineteen years old and was completely sure that I would be a multimillionaire from writing. Let me say that again: I knew, from the first 2,000 words I put down on paper that I was going to be paid money for the rest of my life to do it. That sounds fucking ridiculous. It would be like a kid picking up a basketball, and knowing without any doubt that he was going pro. In my mind though, I had already become the greatest horror writer of my generation. So it would be like a kid picking up the ball and KNOWING he was going to be the next Michael Jordan. The difference between this kid and eye, though, is that I was nineteen.

Supremely stupid.

I didn't care how much I sucked; I didn't care how far I would have to go. I just didn't care about anything. I was a writer from that moment on, and more, I believe all those things now. My friend quit writing, and maybe that's what separates an artist from someone else. An artist already knows they've made it, they're just waiting for the rest of the world to realize it.

You ever done something and knew from that moment forth there was nothing else for you? That you had met your destiny? Maybe it was meeting your husband or wife. Maybe it was looking at your first born child. Maybe it was killing zombies in a video game. I don't know what it might be for you, but find it. Actively search it out. Then when you find it, don't care about sucking--because you will, and hard, but care about becoming better.

Care about not quitting.

Working and such...

First, I really like the Arial font. I don't know why.
Second, I put in about three more hours of writing since my last update.


Most people go to work for 8-10 hours, come home, and spend time with their family, workout, watch television, or whatever else fancies them. That's fine. That's what keeps this world humming along at its pace. Most people enjoy their work, or hate their work, or somewhere in between--but it's basically a way to supply them with a comfortable life. Once again, this is fine.


For me, however, I think I'd rather peel my skin off and walk neck deep into salty ocean water. 


I write because I feel a basic need, not as strong as breathing, but something close. However, I also need to supply myself with a comfortable life--this is where my work comes in. I've been studying, nightly, the writer's that came before me (or, more accurately, the marketers). This has been work for me--after I finish my 8-10 hour day, I spend another 2-3 studying. Thinking. Planning. This isn't enough though, because all this stays within my own head.


Nothing inside your own head is going to do the world one bit of good.

Given that I feel my stories will add benefit to the world, I have to get these ideas out.


So I need more work. So from now on, every update I put on here is going to have what I'm doing outside of the actual writing--the need I have--to further my name as a writer. This isn't simply to brag, or to show people how far I'm willing to go; I'm doing it to keep myself honest. I can't tell you 6.5 readers I'm going to do something, then not do it. 


Today, I edited a story a stranger sent me. In my response I simply asked him to take a look at my blog if he ever gets a chance. It's a simple little nod, but I absolutely hate it when my first point of contact with someone is: hey man, I got a book coming out, keep up to date with all my stuff and then buy it. That shit happens all the time. Don't believe me? Go follow a writer on Twitter. I guaran-fucking-tee that within a day or two, you'll get someone selling you something. That's silly to me. I want to build a fan base, and fans--to me--are simply relationships. Will this guy ever check out my blog? Maybe. Maybe not. Still, I put my name out there.


I also studied some more. J.A. Konrath is a goddamn genius when it comes to marketing books. I'm not a huge fan of his writing, but the guy just straight pushes the envelope when it comes to marketing. I just used 'when it comes to' twice in two sentences--obviously, I have some work to do with my own writing. I think that the studying will die down within a month or so and I'll begin more action, but I have to know what to do before I can do it.


From now on I won't be as in depth about what I'm doing to further my name, but I wanted to give you an example. I'm sure some of you out there aren't simply doing the 9-5 thing, but have some big goals. If you do, you HAVE to work outside of the 9-5 to accomplish them--you have to be building those relationships. This doesn't only apply to writing; it applies to anything you want to be successful at. At the core, there are only individuals with the only thing connecting us being relationships.