Tag-Archive for » Novellas «

08
Nov
2011

Upcoming apocalypse

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I’m pretty excited to be work­ing on my next piece of writ­ing, White Sands, which will be part of Dark Red Press’s Decem­ber release, 4POCALYPSE — Four Tales From The Other Side Of Obliv­ion (still work­ing on that title!).  :)

Story Descrip­tion:

Jen­nifer “Rock” Wat­son is a girl on a mis­sion. Hav­ing sur­vived the death of the world, she is now in pos­ses­sion of a map that will lead her to the key to humanity’s future. With Kel, her less-than-trustworthy side­kick, Rock heads out across the dunes of White Sands Mis­sile Range to a guarded lab secreted beneath the shift­ing sands. There she will dis­cover the truth of the pan­demic that wiped out all but a hand­ful of the earth’s pop­u­la­tion. She will face the great­est threat to the sanc­tity of mankind, as well as its pos­si­ble sav­ior. She might be able to safe­guard the rem­nants of human soci­ety. The odds are, though, that the so-called sav­ior will likely kill her first.

Every­thing is in place and the story is flow­ing well. The plan is to have the first draft com­pleted and in the edi­tors’ hands by the first of Decem­ber, in time for a Christ­mas release date.

This one is pretty ambi­tious for me, but so far I am enjoy­ing the hell out of writ­ing it. Is it wrong to fall in love with your protagonist?

 

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Category: DRP Fiction, Fiction, Novellas, Writing  Tags: , , , ,  Leave a Comment
18
Jul
2011

The Price Is… Right?

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eBook ImageOne of the cur­rent on-going con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing epub­lish­ing and ebooks is the pric­ing thing. How do you price a doc­u­ment that has no “phys­i­cal” (or, even, to an extent, dis­tri­b­u­tion) costs?

I’ve been fid­dling around with this quandary for some time, now. I think I’ve finally set­tled on a sim­ple, and appro­pri­ate, pric­ing structure:

  • Kin­dle Short (this, to me, is a longer *short* story) — $0.99
  • Novella/Novelette — $1.99
  • Novel — $2.99
  • Extended/Special Edi­tion Novel — $4.99

Now, I’ve seen basic nov­els priced as high as $9.99 (mostly by pub­lish­ers and out of authors’ con­trol); yet, to me this is too high a price for a dig­i­tal item.

Still, don’t get me wrong… I’ve paid (and, will con­tinue to pay) $6–7 for a well-known/prolific author’s e-book. This is in line with the cost of a trade paper­back, and it seems rea­son­able to me.  I would not pay that for an author I am unfa­mil­iar with or who only has one or two nov­els pro­duced. (Keep in mind that I, myself, fall into this lat­ter category!)

I would, how­ever, pay $3–4 for those debut authors’ nov­els. For sev­eral rea­sons: 1) I know how much time and effort, blood, sweat and tears (lit­er­ally) can go into the com­ple­tion of a full-length novel; 2) an author should be paid for their work, period; and 3) you wouldn’t expect to pay $3–4 for a paper­back these days, would you? (And, if you do, you’re not buy­ing any­thing new!)

So, there is my pric­ing phi­los­o­phy. It will remain the exact same until I have at least a half dozen decent sell­ers under my belt. It doesn’t make sense to be any­thing dif­fer­ent, in my book.

As for those 10 buck ebooks… I’m sorry, I just can’t buy into that pric­ing sim­ply on basic prin­ci­ple. Why on God’s green earth would I pay more for a dig­i­tal book than I would a paper­back? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

What are your thoughts? Am I wrong? Why? Feel free to share your rebut­tal, my friends. I await your response.

On another note: I read Jeremy Shipp’s The Sun Never Rises in the Big City the other night and all I have to say is… wow! I have read a LOT of mate­r­ial by a LOT of writer’s in my day, but this guy stands apart from the crowd. Hell, I don’t even know if I can explain it. You’ll just have to check it out for yourself…it’s only 99 cents, so just do it. Let me know if I steered you wrong.

 WRITING UPDATE

Title___________________RED TOME

Sub-Title_______________Book Two of The Progeny

Cur­rent Word Count______4,600

Goal Word Count_________110,000

==========================================

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Category: Monday Revue, Writing  Tags: , , , , , , , ,  One Comment
18
May
2011

Double Helix of Writing

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What are you try­ing to do with your writing?

That was the ques­tion some­one asked me the other day. After almost 30 years of writ­ing every­thing from bad poetry to decent short sto­ries and novel­las to my first well-received novel… I was at a loss for words.

What the hell was I try­ing to do with my writing?

I had to think about that for a while. Was there a pur­pose? Was there a goal toward which I was dri­ving? Was there a moral I was try­ing to get across? Some greater theme that teth­ers all of my work like hydro­gen bonds in a DNA strand? Like a string of grade school kids tour­ing a museum?

No. Just. No.

Do I want to be the next Tol­story? Of course not. I don’t even want to be the next Mar­tin or Tolkien or even Hicks.

I just want to write a good story. What I want to do is to write a story that allows a reader to escape from their day-to-day life for a few hours. Truly, that is all. That is my goal. Those are the sto­ries that made me smile and cringe and gasp and curse when I was grow­ing up (and, to this very day). Those are the sto­ries that I have always wanted to write.

Should I have some deeper mean­ing embed­ded in my tale? Only if the tale war­rants it, I should think. I do have char­ac­ters whose lives are dom­i­nated by rash emo­tion, or tend to make poor deci­sions, or per­haps have a bit of a tem­per. Their sto­ries demand some per­spec­tive and there­fore present a web of greater mean­ing than at first per­ceived. But, those bits and pieces of “theme” and “moral­ity” sim­ply grow out of the char­ac­ters’ world. I’m just relat­ing it as best I can.

I cetainly don’t look for­ward to writ­ing the next great Amer­i­can novel. Not my thing. I’m an escapist at heart and — God will­ing — so are my readers.

I will con­tinue to do my best to write a good tale. Fun. Adven­ture­some. Excit­ing. Romantic.

You know… Fantasy!

I only want to help you escape your own world for a lit­tle while, to join me on the adven­ture my char­ac­ters are going through. Share in their laugh­ter, love, pain and excite­ment. That is escapism. Those things are the ties that bind a good tale. The end result is the DNA of a sto­ry­telling. The dou­ble helix of writing.

So, what are your writ­ing goals? Are you look­ing to write the “great Amer­i­can novel?” Are you look­ing to emu­late your hero(es)? To be the next Stephen King? The next Koontz? The next Bunch and Cole?

Or, are you like me?

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Category: Fiction, General Musings  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment