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cblj_backup) wrote2011-04-22 09:58 am
cblj_backup) wrote2011-04-22 09:58 am
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So, I read Lulu.com's blog, because Lulu's been pretty good to me and I am interested in this whole self-publishing thing in a major way. But there is...some chaff in with the wheat.
JUST FOR EXAMPLE, today's Lulu Blog entry is Fun Ways To Improve Your Next Book. My immediate thought was about structure and content and how to make a book more appealing to the reader. That makes sense, right?
Their tips are as follows:
1. Join a writing group.
2. Use Google Docs.
I just about died. I know that I'm not the typical Lulu user, but still. Writing groups and google docs? That's the content of your blog post? Because even Lulu's most basic users are usually aware of the concept of the writing group. Indeed, most of them are products of writing groups. And nothing against writing groups, they can be awesome and useful. But they're not exactly a revolutionary concept. This is stuff you put up in a sidebar or a links list, not stuff you actually blog about.
I feel like I should offer to blog for Lulu, but I am also of the school that believes that personal processes for creativity are often difficult if not impossible to communicate, and might be useless to another person even if you could. This makes for some inhibited blogging on the subject of writing. Plus the biggest problem in self-publishing is marketing, and while I have worked in PR I'm damned if I know how to market my books. I built an audience and then wrote a book, which is the wrong way round to do it, and even then I don't know how that happened. I mean I kind of do, but it's not like I could re-create it in a lab or anything.
BUT. If I had to offer two fun tips to "improve your next book" that not everyone and their brother knows, it would be these:
1. Write fanfic about your characters. No, seriously. I never actually wrote stuff down, but I wrote fanfic in my head about Nameless and Dead Isle all the time, and I took a lot of theoretical side trips in CG, some of which became major plot points. Fanfic of your own characters serves two purposes: it gives you forks in the path that you can take when you're working, and it satisfies the urge to write ridiculous self-indulgent shit. A statistic I have made up but which is borne out by anecdotal evidence says that 80% of all bad books are the result of writing the story that satisfies your ego rather than the best story you can write. It is totally fine to write self-indulgently, it fills an emotional purpose, but unless you're China Mieville you probably won't get it published. (Oh snap. Sorry, City & The City is legitimately great, he should write more Like That.)
2. Researching a book is like a million times more interesting than most research you will do in your life, and you should do a lot of it, and you should let your research abduct you now and again. It's important to know what to put into a book and what to leave out -- sometimes it's painful to leave out some REALLY INTERESTING FACTOID -- but it fulfills the requirements of a) being fun and b) improving your book. Wikiwandering isn't limited to people with too much time on their hands; following obscure research paths is a legitimate use of your time as a writer. (It is also a major component of the answer to the "where do you get your ideas" question.)
And those are my Fun Tips. HAVE FUN. *jazzhands*
JUST FOR EXAMPLE, today's Lulu Blog entry is Fun Ways To Improve Your Next Book. My immediate thought was about structure and content and how to make a book more appealing to the reader. That makes sense, right?
Their tips are as follows:
1. Join a writing group.
2. Use Google Docs.
I just about died. I know that I'm not the typical Lulu user, but still. Writing groups and google docs? That's the content of your blog post? Because even Lulu's most basic users are usually aware of the concept of the writing group. Indeed, most of them are products of writing groups. And nothing against writing groups, they can be awesome and useful. But they're not exactly a revolutionary concept. This is stuff you put up in a sidebar or a links list, not stuff you actually blog about.
I feel like I should offer to blog for Lulu, but I am also of the school that believes that personal processes for creativity are often difficult if not impossible to communicate, and might be useless to another person even if you could. This makes for some inhibited blogging on the subject of writing. Plus the biggest problem in self-publishing is marketing, and while I have worked in PR I'm damned if I know how to market my books. I built an audience and then wrote a book, which is the wrong way round to do it, and even then I don't know how that happened. I mean I kind of do, but it's not like I could re-create it in a lab or anything.
BUT. If I had to offer two fun tips to "improve your next book" that not everyone and their brother knows, it would be these:
1. Write fanfic about your characters. No, seriously. I never actually wrote stuff down, but I wrote fanfic in my head about Nameless and Dead Isle all the time, and I took a lot of theoretical side trips in CG, some of which became major plot points. Fanfic of your own characters serves two purposes: it gives you forks in the path that you can take when you're working, and it satisfies the urge to write ridiculous self-indulgent shit. A statistic I have made up but which is borne out by anecdotal evidence says that 80% of all bad books are the result of writing the story that satisfies your ego rather than the best story you can write. It is totally fine to write self-indulgently, it fills an emotional purpose, but unless you're China Mieville you probably won't get it published. (Oh snap. Sorry, City & The City is legitimately great, he should write more Like That.)
2. Researching a book is like a million times more interesting than most research you will do in your life, and you should do a lot of it, and you should let your research abduct you now and again. It's important to know what to put into a book and what to leave out -- sometimes it's painful to leave out some REALLY INTERESTING FACTOID -- but it fulfills the requirements of a) being fun and b) improving your book. Wikiwandering isn't limited to people with too much time on their hands; following obscure research paths is a legitimate use of your time as a writer. (It is also a major component of the answer to the "where do you get your ideas" question.)
And those are my Fun Tips. HAVE FUN. *jazzhands*