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alexandraerinA conversation about Diane Duane and her problems that happened on an earlier post made me think to go looking for a post I once made about shame and the lack thereof. I was surprised to see that I made it almost a year ago... just over eleven months ago, in fact. I was surprised because it honestly took me a long time from making that post to actually being able to follow through on its resolution, so it still feels like a lesson freshly learned.
There's a lot of post-mortem being done on Diane Duane's e-xperiment all over the internet, as is natural. She's a published author with an established following and she tried a crowdfunding project. Those always get lots of attention. Her attempt seems to be being broadly counted as a failure even though it has apparently produced a book and it did, in fact, raise funds. In her own post on the subject and in the comments on Boing Boing (the top link, above) from her supporters/subscribers, it's clear that the failure was not in the model, nor in her lack of timely updates per se, but in her lack of communication.
I know exactly what this is about. The times I have come the closest to failing in my own experiment were not when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion, they were the times when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion and I felt helpless and alone. They were the times when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion and I was wracked with guilt and didn't know who to turn to. They were the times when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion and I was so ashamed.
They were the times I didn't update in a timely fashion and I didn't talk to you, I didn't let you in and tell you what was going on.
And when that happened, sometimes the troubles passed and I was able to resume work without comment. When that happened, I expected that the resumed updates alone would be enough to earn back the reservoirs of trust and patience I had begun with, but no... people saw me starting and stopping without a word of explanation.
Sometimes the troubles didn't pass and I reached a breaking point and I was finally forced into a position where I had no other choice but to open up... and when that happened, kindness and trust and patience flowed forward like a great gushing river of kindness and trust and patience and also water and some fish. And it was amazing. Money flowed forward, too... more than enough to alleviate the more immediate problems... but the outpouring of emotional support was a real revelation.
Not enough of one, apparently, because I remained reluctant to open up.
Anyway, Cory Doctor makes the interesting point in his post above that off the rails is the natural state of a novel. Books get delayed, they don't pan out, they veer off in unexpected directions or collapse under their own weight. This happens all the time. It happens with first novels and it happens with bestsellers. I hadn't considered it in terms of "The Industry" as a whole, only my own creative experience, but this is why I'm moving away from "I SHOULD MAKE A SERIAL OUT OF THIS!" as my model for everything to the literary snackbar approach.
It's a lot easier to bring a 20-to-50 thousand word book to life than it is to write a novel or sustain a serial. The Gift of the Bad Guy was originally intended to be a novel. Now that novel is three short books. The first one is substantially finished. The second one I've got a decent start on. If the third one never materializes for any reason... well, we got some story out of the idea, didn't we?
(I'm not doing cliffhangers, and the second one's going to have a more conclusion-y ending than the first one, just in case.)
I can develop a lot of ideas at once this way and see which one catches on in my mind. Tales of MU is going to remain my main focus for the foreseeable future and beyond. I'm not tired of it and I see no reason to end it. Even if the story of Mackenzie wrapped up or became unsustainable (not something I foresee, especially with the volume shift to liven things up) I wouldn't be done telling tales about MU and the MUniverse. But for my other ideas? Oh, maaaan... I know they're not all going to pan out, but I'm excited to think that some of them are.
There's a generalized lesson in this that all writers can take away something from, but damned if I know what it is because FedEx just showed up with my Kindle and I want to see how the title page of The Gift of the Bad Guy looks in it, then maybe take a look at the MU feed.
There's a lot of post-mortem being done on Diane Duane's e-xperiment all over the internet, as is natural. She's a published author with an established following and she tried a crowdfunding project. Those always get lots of attention. Her attempt seems to be being broadly counted as a failure even though it has apparently produced a book and it did, in fact, raise funds. In her own post on the subject and in the comments on Boing Boing (the top link, above) from her supporters/subscribers, it's clear that the failure was not in the model, nor in her lack of timely updates per se, but in her lack of communication.
I know exactly what this is about. The times I have come the closest to failing in my own experiment were not when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion, they were the times when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion and I felt helpless and alone. They were the times when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion and I was wracked with guilt and didn't know who to turn to. They were the times when I wasn't able to update in a timely fashion and I was so ashamed.
They were the times I didn't update in a timely fashion and I didn't talk to you, I didn't let you in and tell you what was going on.
And when that happened, sometimes the troubles passed and I was able to resume work without comment. When that happened, I expected that the resumed updates alone would be enough to earn back the reservoirs of trust and patience I had begun with, but no... people saw me starting and stopping without a word of explanation.
Sometimes the troubles didn't pass and I reached a breaking point and I was finally forced into a position where I had no other choice but to open up... and when that happened, kindness and trust and patience flowed forward like a great gushing river of kindness and trust and patience and also water and some fish. And it was amazing. Money flowed forward, too... more than enough to alleviate the more immediate problems... but the outpouring of emotional support was a real revelation.
Not enough of one, apparently, because I remained reluctant to open up.
Anyway, Cory Doctor makes the interesting point in his post above that off the rails is the natural state of a novel. Books get delayed, they don't pan out, they veer off in unexpected directions or collapse under their own weight. This happens all the time. It happens with first novels and it happens with bestsellers. I hadn't considered it in terms of "The Industry" as a whole, only my own creative experience, but this is why I'm moving away from "I SHOULD MAKE A SERIAL OUT OF THIS!" as my model for everything to the literary snackbar approach.
It's a lot easier to bring a 20-to-50 thousand word book to life than it is to write a novel or sustain a serial. The Gift of the Bad Guy was originally intended to be a novel. Now that novel is three short books. The first one is substantially finished. The second one I've got a decent start on. If the third one never materializes for any reason... well, we got some story out of the idea, didn't we?
(I'm not doing cliffhangers, and the second one's going to have a more conclusion-y ending than the first one, just in case.)
I can develop a lot of ideas at once this way and see which one catches on in my mind. Tales of MU is going to remain my main focus for the foreseeable future and beyond. I'm not tired of it and I see no reason to end it. Even if the story of Mackenzie wrapped up or became unsustainable (not something I foresee, especially with the volume shift to liven things up) I wouldn't be done telling tales about MU and the MUniverse. But for my other ideas? Oh, maaaan... I know they're not all going to pan out, but I'm excited to think that some of them are.
There's a generalized lesson in this that all writers can take away something from, but damned if I know what it is because FedEx just showed up with my Kindle and I want to see how the title page of The Gift of the Bad Guy looks in it, then maybe take a look at the MU feed.
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no subject
on 2011-02-09 11:59 pm (UTC)Keep being shamelessly awesome.
no subject
on 2011-02-10 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-10 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-10 05:23 am (UTC)Until a few days ago, I had the figure 500 words in my head, so I always thought of NaNovels as being 100 pages.
I also just realized I have been consistently undervaluing/underestimating my own output when I tried to translate it into pages per day.