Category: Writing Advice – Business & the Writing Life

There is this meme that pops up on Facebook from time to time. It usually runs something like this: Authors do not earn a lot of money, really. If you’d like to help your favourite author, post a review on Amazon. Given enough reviews on Amazon, MAGIC THINGS WILL START TO HAPPEN IN THE AMAZON ALGORITHM. And every time I see it, I cringe a little. Don’t get me wrong – I like reviews. I would like more reviews of my work out there. But the focus here isn’t necessarily on reviews, it’s on manipulating the Amazon algorithms. The numbers change, as do the MAGIC THING, but the gist remains the same: get 50 reviews, and the book will start appearing in the recommendation algorithm; get 20 reviews, and you’ll be included in the “others like this book footer.” Amazon reviews = good things for your favourite book. I am not against Amazon. They are exceptionally good at what they do,

THE SHIT YOU WRITE AFTER TAKING A SERIES OF JABS TO THE FACE Some days, I get punchy. I sit down at this blog and I start writing, only to discover that there’s nothing new in my head. I’ve been fighting the fight too long, taken too many hits to the face, and I’ve got nothing left in the tank but a kind of dogged resolve to keep swinging and hope I get lucky. I’ll start drawing together ridiculous concepts, seeing what I can connect. I’ll throw words at the page and squint at them, wondering if there’s something there. Some days it works. Some days it doesn’t. But if you take most writing advice on the internet to its core principles, digging beneath the layers and seriously looking at the what is being said, it will generally come down to one of two things. One: the best thing you can do for your career is keep on fucking swinging. Two:

I want to write a story that hits you like a shiv to the gut. I want to get inside your head and fuck with your shit. I want to take a thing that seems familiar and make it seem weird and new. I want to finish this story; this novella; this book. I want to do better, creatively, professionally, strategically. I want to figure out this blogging things and deliver better content here. I want to get more stuff out there. I want to do more with the stuff I’ve already written. I want to write a bunch of stuff I haven’t had a chance to write yet: a comic book; a short-story collection; a whole host of story ideas on my hard drive. A whole bunch of novels that I still don’t quite know how to pull off. I want to walk into a bookstore and see a bunch of books with my name on it on the

Still waiting on the laptop to come back from repairs, which means my internet access is largely dependent on an old desktop and the wifi hotspot on my phone. It’s been ten days, which means we’re heading into the outer limits of the time I was quoted. Were I the kind of guy who believed such quotes, I would estimate that I’m back online (and blogging regularly) towards the middle of next week. Because I know my history with computers, I figure it will be me and the phone for another week or two. at the very least. Still, one of the advantages of being laptop free is that I’m catching up on a whole bunch of reading. I spend a lot more time with a tablet while the computer is out of commission, which means it’s relatively easy to slip into the Kindle app and catch up on some of the ebooks I accumulate for travel reading. This week’s reading is

Around this time last week, I suggested rather strongly that if you were a SF type – and particularly an SF writer – you might want to consider registering for the Australian National Science Fiction Convention being held in Brisbane over the Easter long weekend. Some of you, being astute types, may have glanced at the website and wondered to yourself why, exactly, is this event full of fans useful to me as a writer? It’s basically just people getting together to talk about the books, films, and TV shows they love? How am I going to get something out of that to advance my writing career? Peeps, I’ve got your back. First, it’s important to understand how closely tied the writing and fandom community is in SF. A lot of great SF writers came out of the fan culture of the fifties, sixties, and seventies to become prominent names in the field. They’re still the place where new and

The Dancing Monkey 2016 request continues, with a topic that is near and dear to my heart: THE UNENVIABLE HELL OF A BAD BREAKFAST I am old enough to remember a time when Australia wasn’t a breakfast culture. ‘Course, I am old enough to remember a time when the arrival of McDonalds upon our shores was a big deal, and a time when a cappuccino was a fancy-ass coffee. We’ve grown up, in the last thirty years or so, and somewhere along the line we became the folks who are all about our goddamn breakfast. Try to get a group of friends together for dinner, in Australia, and you will have an endless array of maybes and alternate dates, everyone hedging their bets. Break out: “Meet me for breaky somewhere?” BOOM. Everyone is all fucking in. It helps that our cafes got really good at breakfast and coffee over the last twenty years. I can think of three cafes within walking distance

So, back on Monday, I was all thou shalt not be a dude who learns to play the opening of Stairway to Heaven. Go forth and finish your shit. That was in response to Elizabeth’s suggested topic for the 2016 Dancing Monkey series. Today we look at that idea in more detail, courtesy of a request from the inimitable Lois Spangler. Her requested topic: Finishing a thing (project, story, etc.) Right then, let’s get into the guts of it, and talk about actually finishing things. ONE: DEFINE “FINISHED” Not a facetious question, and I’m not trying to be cute. If you’re struggling to get things finished, perhaps it’s time to sit down and figure out what finished really means in this context. More importantly, whether your concept of “finished” is getting in your way. Here is the thing about creative-types: we have this tendency to take something minor that needs to be done, then subconsciously extrapolate outwards to a point

Yesterday I posted about tracking your unfinished work and the major advantage that comes from taking a story all the way through to the end. Today I handle the other half of Elizabeth @ Earl Grey Editing’s query: TRACKING YOUR SUBMISSION (AND YOUR RIGHTS) Tracking your unfinished works is a personal decision. No-one is going to care if you just shove all your work into a folder and forget about it, and it’s not going to affect anyone but you. You do it because it makes life easier. Tracking your submissions, on the other hand, is a core requirement of the writers business, particularly at the earliest stages of your career when you’re doing things on spec. Basically, this one is non-optional if you’re writing to have a career. When you submit a story or a novel, you record where it’s gone (ie the magazine and publisher) and when you sent it. When they send you a response – positive

Today we kick off the 2016 Dancing Monkey series, where I post a series of updates based upon requests from you, the loyal Man vs. Bear audience, about specific topics and themes to cover the fact that I have absconded to parts unknown and have no internet access. We kick off with one of the last topics requested, because it turns out it was the easiest to answer: Elizabeth @ Earl Grey Editing asked me to talk about tracking stories, both finished and unfinished.This is one of those topics that will get split in two, because I have thoughts and opinions and a tendency to write a whole lot of words. YOU NEED TO TRACK (AND FINISH) YOUR UNFINISHED WORK If I’m honest, the system you use doesn’t matter. Notebooks. Excel spreadsheets. Lining up files in a folder on your computer, or a filing cabinet packed to the gills with drafts and finished folder. I’ll talk through my process towards

Of all the processes I was dubious about, when it came to applying the principles of Todd Henry’s The Accidental Creative to my writing, the idea of Unnecessary Creating was the top of the list. The idea behind it seemed so inherently counter-intuitive – when you look at your work week and plot out the things that need to be done, spend an hour every week working on an Unnecessary Creating project that has no deadline and no paid component. Basically, even if your job is getting paid for your art or creation, do a little extra that is just for you. Something that puts you in touch with the passions that fuel your work, and disconnects you from your creative edge. A place where you can try new things, develop new skills, explore fringe ideas, and take as long as you need to get it right. If you’re interested, this blog post and this podcast on the Accidental Creative website talk about

The title is not a rhetorical question – as I track my writing hours and achievements over the course of 2016, the question of what constitutes a good day is starting to become intriguing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week. When I started this year, I had a rough goal I wanted to hit: six new pages in the notebook a day, on average, so I would have time to do other things. Some of those things were writing related – redrafting, managing email, blogging here – and some just in terms of having a life. Doing my laundry regularly would be a welcome change. Six pages a day, on average. It might not sound like much, but it adds up to nine notebooks worth of writing a year, which in turns adds up to four novel drafts and change. I was happy with that goal in January. Forty-six days later, it has fallen by the wayside. Not because I’m