Who's Lookin'? Part II

This is my last post of the year and I thought it appropriate to look back at some of my stats for my blog. It is my 96th posting this year, which tied the record set in 2008 as the year with my most blog postings. I had wanted to reach more than 100, which in itself is rather modest, but it's not to be this year. While I am okay with the number of postings in 2010, I want to stretch a little more in 2011.

I first wrote about my stats three months ago shortly after I first realized there was a way of keeping track of some of my page views. I think the stats have been available to each blogger only since May or June.

I was a little depressed by the numbers -- still am -- but I am grateful I have any numbers at all. After pouring over the statistics, I have no greater understanding of what it all means than I did back in September.

Yet, I do find some of it quite interesting.

Though readers in the U.S. continue to make up the majority of my page views, there has been some slippage since September, when 67.6 percent of page views came from the U.S. Today, that figure is just 54.5 percent. Tied for second place are Canada and the Netherlands with 5.5 percent each of my page views, up from 4.3 percent for Canada back in September and 4.6 percent for the Dutch.

Alone in fourth place is Germany, with 5 percent of my page views. Germany wasn't even in the Top 5 back in September.

My most popular month was October, but there was a drop-off in November and into early December when I had less time and opportunity to blog. It has picked up in the latter half of December and I hope I haven't lost many readers.

Although I haven't the foggiest reason why, I seem to be popular all over the world, except in Africa and Antarctica. Apparently, I haven't reached people in some of the hottest places on the planet and in some of the coldest.

No big surprises in my most popular blog postings. (Well, I'm kinda surprised because my two most popular postings are among my oldest.) Just as last September, "Querying agents," from June 18, 2008, and "What's in a name?, Part II," from Jan. 4, 2008, are in a virtual tie for first place in page views. They make up 20 percent of my total page views, though that is a drop from 25 percent back in September.

Coming in at No. 3 is (not surprisingly) "Finding an agent? WTF does it take?" from Sept. 13, 2010. I think the title and the subject matter caught people's attention.

But the fourth-place favorite surprised me. It is "Being a picker at Amazon," which was only posted 10 days ago. In fact, that posting is my No. 1 posting for the month of December, easing out both my top-ranking posts from 2008.

I still haven't the slightest idea what people in Russia, Brazil, the Ukraine, Argentina and Poland find interesting about my blog. But I hope all of you out there keep reading. And it would be nice if you'd comment now and then.

Have a Happy New Year. I will see you in 2011.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

2011 goals

I generally don't set New Year's goals or resolutions down on paper, so to speak, opting mostly to keep expectations quietly in my head. Whether I accomplish them or not isn't anyone else's business so I usually don't say what they are. But not this coming year. I'm putting them out there for everyone to see. (Or at least everyone who reads my blog.)

That's not to say that these goals are that ambitious. Frankly, they're not. But I wanted something obtainable to focus on and to shoot for, and I don't care if you know about them.

So, without further delay or possibly increasing your boredom, here they are:

1. I will attend two conferences this year. I already have one planned for early August, and perhaps the other will be in October. The reason for this goal is to expand networking. I don't do that well enough and attending a couple of conferences should help.

2. Write and try to publish four short stories. I tend to write long fiction -- novel-length fiction. It takes longer to do and just as long to make suitable (or what I consider suitable). Writing a few short stories should help focus my storytelling, character development and dialogue. Plus I should be able to start and finish it faster, and feel the gratification of completion quicker.

3. Enter at least one contest, either with a short story or with a novel-length work. First, I will consider ABNA in January if it is happening again. That will be for a novel. Then I will look for suitable short story contests.

So there you have it. I know it looks like I am reaching for the low-hanging fruit. And perhaps I am but I don't care. I am doing it in 2011. Check with me at this time next year to see how I did. I probably won't bring it up again before then.

Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing. I'm not.

Finding the ending, Part II

Back in 2007, in what was only my seventh blog posting, I wrote about finding the ending of a story. What got me thinking about it was an article in Writer's Digest. In the article, the author suggested looking to the beginning of the work to help find the ending and for providing closure.

I didn't have a hard time with endings then nor do I now. It's probably because I have been a journalist for some long and have written the endings to far more articles than I can count.

But I have been thinking more about endings to fiction stories recently, thanks to a posting on Piedmont Writer, one of the blogs I regularly follow. In it, Anne includes a snippet from writer Graham Greene:

A story has no beginning or end;
arbitrarily one chooses that moment of
experience from which to look back
or from which to look ahead.

That basically is my view and has been for years.

In any writing, the author starts the story where he or she thinks it's interesting and ends it just before it gets interesting again. But, like history, stories have a fluid continuity. Something happened before the telling and something happens after the telling.

I am often reminded of that when I see a movie. Often times I wonder, what would happen if the film were five minutes longer? It's not that I am unsatisfied with the ending. It's just that I know the people and events depicted in the story will continue. Thus, I daydream about what happens next.

In my fiction, I am told my endings often come too quickly, rushing up suddenly on the reader like a fast-moving freight train rounding a bend -- unstoppable and inevitable. I am working on slowing down the train. But that is more a matter of timing the ending than of not knowing what the ending is.

Only time will tell whether, in my works, I have chosen the best arbitrary moment to end things. And in the story of my life, I also hope that's how people will view me.

Thanks for reading. Keep writing and I will see you again later this week when I discuss my goals for 2011.

Synopsis

In preparation for another flurry of queries going out, I am (again) re-writing my synopsis for AN UNTIDY AFFAIR. I have two versions. One that is one-page long, which I will probably lead untouched, and the other that is five pages long. Haven't decided whether to re-do them both.

It is amazing. As much as I dislike writing a query letter, I dislike a synopsis even more. The one upside is that I not only can but must provide the ending.

The synopsis isn't just telling the novel like you would to a friend or relative. Like the query, it is an enticement -- a selling tool -- to get someone to read the entire manuscript.

And, I fear, it is in the enticement area where I fall short.

There is so much that you must get right. The style and format must be right. Failure there suggests that you are not a serious writing or that you are unprofessional. That is likely to kill you with at least 50 percent of the agents who see it. But not with all agents.

Because even with imperfect formatting, the synopsis will rise and fall on how well it sells. And while formatting can be complicated and its requirements often conflicting, it is something that can be learned easily. Not so with synopsis as a selling tool.

Unlike the novel, with its peaks and valleys, I see the synopsis as being mostly peaks told in a compelling way. But, I think as a result, so much of the writing that gives the novel texture and depth is left out. It's a straight sales job. Bam, bam, bam.

Anyway, I was working on it last night. I want to hit the ground running at the beginning of next week. I assume a lot of other writers will be doing the same thing but I am hoping I will still be able to stand out from the pack. Hasn't happened so far but since there will always be a pack, I will have to deal with it.

So there is a little of what is going on in my mind. I am looking for a great 2011.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Merry Christmas

I want to wish all my writer friends and any fans I have a Merry Christmas and a Joyous New Year.

This is a season of joy and happiness, enough for everyone. Make sure you get your share.

Thanks for reading.

Critique groups

I am in two critique groups at the moment -- one that meets monthly and one that meets every other weeks. But I think I will drop one in the new year because I'm increasingly having trouble remembering what to submit to each group and when. Then, after we meet, it's become difficult to juggle the comments and gain the greatest value from them. Both groups are looking at the same work, though at different points.

This is a difficult decision, however, because I have grown quite fond of the members of both groups and will miss their insights. But it is a decision that has to be made.

I encourage every new writer I meet to join a critique group. The insights of fellow writers is often invaluable. When I read someone's work, I consider it as a whole and piece by piece, line by line. In that way, the writer can see where I am providing a more objective view and where I am being subjective and nit-picky.

Plus it always amazes me when another wirter sees the same exact problems I do.

Any critique group is only as good as its weakest member, which I fear in both cases is me. Both groups have their strengths and weaknesses, but the one I will drop is obvious to me.

I won't inform the group until in January but the one I will drop is the monthly group. We only meet 11 times a year, whereas with the bi-weekly group we will meet at least 24 times in a year. Thus, by sheer numbers, it is a more productive group. But it is also a group with strong members.

In the end, I will know fairly soon if I made the correct decision, which also won't be set in stone. If this group doesn't work out, I will just find another one.

So there you have it.

My goals will be coming next week. Until then, thanks for reading and keep writing.

Jealousy

I sometimes get jealous this time of year. Not a lot -- enough to get my attention but not enough to distract my concentration. It's kinda like a bothersome fly buzzing around your head as you are trying to enjoy a picnic lunch.

I get jealous because I get tons of e-mails from big bookstore chains and small, local independent bookstores imploring me to come in and buy some new offering by some author. And it just reminds be -- at least once daily, but generally more often than that -- that I am still an aspiring novelist, not a published or even a pre-published novelist. And I wonder, when it is going to be my turn -- when bookstores are sending out discount coupons for my book?

(And for those of you who aren't in the publishing industry and may not know, a new book marked with a 40 percent discount is still making money for the retailer for an individual copy sold. The retailer got the book for AT LEAST 45 percent off the printed retail price. And big retailers get it for as much as 55 percent off the marked retail price.)

I'm doing the best I can here. I study the industry, I write (and re-write) my novels, I send out queries. I wonder why lightning hasn't struck me yet.

I know a couple of debut authors this year, and a couple more who will debut in 2011. And I am so happy for and proud of them. They are a constant source of encouragement.

And yet I wonder, will 2011 be my year? Will I get that call -- first from an agent and then from a publisher -- some time next year? I don't know. But I know I must believe it will happen and work toward that goal.

So, I will work on the things I can control and trust in God to handle fate. It's all I can do.

I have a few writing goals for 2011 and will probably tell you about them in the coming weeks. But for now, it's only four days until Christmas. I gotta get down to Borders to use than 40 percent discount I got via e-mail.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.

Being a picker at Amazon

I perhaps used a poor choice of wording in a post last week because a number of people wrote to inquire about how I am feeling since I had mostly been offline for a while. Given my past health issues, which I have written about on this site, the concern was understandable.

So, let me just say, I am feeling fine. No problems. In fact, I have lost a little weight, about five to seven pounds. And the reasons for the weight loss and for why I have been too busy to post on my blog are the same -- Amazon.

November was a busy writing month for me, though I wasn't able to post much on my blog. I finished THE TONTINE, my National Novel Writing Month novel, but had to juggle how and where I was writing because my laptop crashed at the end of October. As a result of the crash, I have only finished two freelance assignments since then.

So to make some extra money for Christmas, I took a job working in a warehouse for Amazon. (Actually, it's called a Fulfillment Center. Creative, huh?) It was a seasonal position and I thought it would also be part-time. It wasn't but more about that later.

Amazon has two facilities in central Indiana and I would imagine there are hundreds of millions of items in them -- for virtually anything you'd want to buy online. The logisitics of the place truly amazed me. I was quite impressed.

When you go to Amazon and buy that CD, DVD, video game, book, fuzzy Teddy bear or large, ugly, black, metal jewelry holder that looks like a music stand, it is in one of more than 10,000 (and perhaps a lot more) merchandise bins in the warehouse, and someone has to go to that bin to pick it up and start it on its individual journey to your door.

At Amazon, that someone is called a picker. And for several weeks, I was a picker.

Now that doesn't sound too bad and it isn't. You generally don't have to search. There is a scanner that tells you exactly where to go and when to go there. It also tells you when to put all your merchandise on a conveyor belt and send it on.

But like I said, there were no part-time positions, which I was hoping for. All jobs are for 40 hours a week (four, 10-hour days), except that this is their peak time of year. So there was an additional mandatory day of overtime. And, as they need, they add on one, one-and-a-half, or two hours to your daily shift.

So I worked 11 or 11.5 hours a day, five days a week, walking (conservatively) around 16-17 miles a night. I burned enough extra calories to loose weight. Plus I worked a nightshift, which started at 6:15 p.m. and ended at 6:15 a.m. And you had to work fast. The average hourly pick is more than 80 items an hour, which means you had to locate an item, on average, every 40 seconds or so. (There are pickers who average 125 picks per hour.)

I was so tired that the only things I could do were work and sleep. By the end of my shift, my feet and legs would be killing me. I could fall asleep at home in the middle of a conversation, which happened. I had hard time remembering which day of the week it was and didn't remember the date. I had little idea of what was happening in the outside world, except that it snowed sometimes overnight on the car. And it was cold. I wanted to quit at the end of my first week but didn't.

We were told they hire several thousand temporary workers at Christmas and retain only a couple hundred. They start laying them off as the work slowly dwindles. I got the call over the weekend, thank goodness. It was a tremendous relief!

So that's why I haven't been writing, or reading, for the last several weeks. But I am getting back into the swing.

I'm revamping my query letter for AN UNTIDY AFFAIR and will push forward with it in the coming year. And until I hear something on AFFAIR, I will be re-writing THE TONTINE, preparing to hit the streets with it by mid-year.

The writing life goes on. And so do I.

Thanks for reading.

Sorry I have been away

Sorry I have been away for a while. Will explain soon.

But I got a rejection today from a query I sent three months ago. So, there are still coming in.

More later. Keep the faith and keep writing.

Thanks for reading.