On January 30, 2012, Last Dance was launched. Book launches are kinda cool, at least the two I’ve had. Generally, it’s a pretty favourable audience, made up, as they tend to be, of family and friends who already think you’re pretty terrific, regardless of the quality of the work you’re about to release. Heck, most of the time they haven’t read it yet and even if they had, they’re family and friends so they’re not likely to say something bad about it even if they didn’t like it. And anyone who isn’t family or friends is there because they like you, your work or both. Not exactly a tough crowd.

A year seems a pretty reasonable amount of time for reflection.

I’m guess that a key indicator of how successful the book has been – or hasn’t been – is sales.

But for a relatively new writer – unless you’re one of those new but unexpectedly wildly outrageously successful writers for whom the New York Times is writing stories about how wildly successful you are – finding out your sales numbers is once or twice per year at best experience. My publisher’s year end appears to be at the end of February. Given that my book only came out on January 30^th of last year, the numbers were, hopefully, artificially low.  This year should give me a better sense of how well the book has done. Stay tuned. I’m sure to report it unless it’s depressingly low. Then I’ll probably keep it a secret.

Another indicator may be the reviews that the book received. And to be sure, when Deadly Lessons came out I was hard pressed to even get the damned thing reviewed at all. Not that I’m bitter or anything – it’s been over six years – but I couldn’t even get The Vancouver Sun to review it. Here’s a book written by a Vancouver based author, who has even written for the Sun, with a story set in Vancouver and the same week it came out, our local paper was publishing reviews of big American titles.

Okay, maybe I’m still a little bitter.

Last Dance, on the other hand, did receive a fair number of reviews. It's almost as though reviewers won't look at your first book, perhaps thinking that getting published was some kind of fluke; a second book shows some staying power. Margaret Cannon, who Canadian crime writers will tell you is the key person one wants to have one's books reviewed by, said Last Dance is a "solid mystery with a sad message: Hate does kill." Don Graves of the Hamilton Spectator said it's "a story about searching for a life that can sustain the soul regardless of how uphill the battle shouldn't be."

Heady stuff.

Publisher's Weekly, the first reviewer out of the gate, said "Russell [that's me!] artfully lets Winston's own words paint Winston as a bit self-righteous, prickly and less discerning than Winston believes himself to be" and that the "initially straightforward plot takes a number of surprising twists, which suggest that a simple, reprehensible hate crime may be something else entirely." 

Still no word from The Vancouver Sun. Still a little bitter.

Overall, the reviews were mostly positive on both sides of the border so I can’t really complain. And yet, a year later, it is difficult to determine how I feel about how the book has done now that the momentum of events and press has slowed down. And as that momentum deteriorates, so grows the pressure to get the next book completed.

Sigh.

Next week: checking in on the progress of Winston’s next mystery.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 3:21 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 30 January 2013 4:48 PM PST

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Apparently the internet is not a passing fad. This is despite the litany of users who believe the internet to be no more than the world's largest album of cats in funny poses. My sister may also need to be taught that accidentally deleting her Safari icon on her computer has not, in fact, put the internet's existence in imminent jeopardy.

While many intended the internet to be this free lovin', down with the man, anti-corporate, open space (save for the military who actually created it with Al Gore) well, that didn't happen.

Faster than you can say "visit our website for more information," relatively speaking, presence on the web is beyond ideal; it's a requirement.

This, I've been assured, is true for authors.

Certainly, Amazon changed the way that books were sold beginning in 1994. It may have made it harder to do an in-store book signing but by all accounts, the reach of Amazon’s web presence was a game changer. And once an author was found on Amazon, it was only a quick search for readers to find out more about a writer, his or her work and biography. Gone are the days of the reclusive genius. Like other forms of celebrity culture, authors suddenly needed to be findable on the worldwide web. And just as importantly, they need to be ready to interact with readers.

“I’m waitinnnnggggggg.”

Of course, some authors are much better at this than others. Robert Crais, author of the Elvis Cole mysteries has a visually appealing site, with pictures of all his books, information about public appearances (this pre-supposes sufficient interest in one’s work to warrant a whole section dedicated to public appearances), biographical information and the requisite links to purchase information.

Having a website is one thing; finding content to make it interesting or unique is quite another. Best-selling crime writer Michael Connelly’s website includes a photo gallery that shows locations of scenes from his many novels, usually include an excerpt from the book in question, allowing the reader to get a visual sense of the settings in his books. He also includes some ‘bonus’ work, unpublished in other forms that readers can enjoy when they need a Connelly fix.

To be sure, really big name authors are usually the clients of publicists who take on a great deal of the writer's online presence, something not readily available to the smaller or burgeoning scribe.

Even there, some authors have been fortunate enough – and talented enough – to generate such enthusiasm from their fans that they readily take on the management of the writer’s website as a means of staying connected with their favourite writer. Canadian novelist Michael Slade, whose fans lovingly refer to themselves as Sladists, have been co-creating and managing the author’s online presence.

For us relatively new published authors – and complete simpletons when it comes to website development – developing content is a significant challenge; we don’t always get invited to that many public appearances we need to promote. My own site is incredibly easy to operate. Hosted by a large web company in the U.S.(it met my needs at the time) it offers the simplest interface. I need keep no files on my computer per se. There is no uploading to do. I simply click on ‘Add a Page’ and start writing the content or cut and paste it from whatever document I choose. The only down side is that with it being an American company, they did not have access to .ca domains, which means I point my website to the American address. It offers a blog, obviously, to which you can subscribe by RSS feed (hint, hint).

Even still I’m planning to migrate to a Canadian site; Netfirms is in the running as they’re the company I registered my domain name with when I finally got it but I’m very much open to suggestions.

Then there’s Facebook (no I haven't figured out a so-called vanity page yet) and Twitter, where I try to maintain some kind of presence but keeping the content fresh and alive on all three platforms is consistently a challenge, particularly when what I really would like to be doing is writing more and marketing less. My website still refers to Last Dance as having been released in January. That was, of course, January 2012. Time flies.

The goal, I know, is that Facebook and Twitter will drive traffic to my website and blog,which will channel interest into my books. But it's a lot of work and one can't help but wonder how much impact it's having.

Next week: Last Dance - one year later.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PST

Updated: Thursday, 17 January 2013 9:45 AM PST

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I have, to date, met but one author – and I have met quite a number – who professes to genuinely enjoy the necessary evil that is the marketing component of the writing process. To be fair, it could be that we’re supposed to not like marketing – it’s the socially appropriate thing to say amongst a group of artists, which is where we generally encounter one another, book festivals, writing groups and the like. And in James’ case, having a bubbly, vibrant personality may make one more adept at the very people-intensive skill of selling books, generally seen to be a different skill set than the rather solitary one of writing them.

People think – at least I assume they think – writers are by their very nature solitary creatures. It seems logical the very nature of gathering publicity would be anathema to our personalities, which is clearly an exaggeration. Many of the authors I know or have met are very vibrant, large personalities who are outgoing and wouldn’t at all fit the stereotype of the quiet, bookish loner. Of course, I generally meet them at events where we’re surrounded by fellow authors. There’s also often liquor.

Marketing for authors falls into a few categories. The first is all of our professional associations. In Canada, most writers in my genre below to the Crime Writers of Canada, for example, and most other genres have their associations, guilds, and unions. Apart from networking among fellow scribes, most offer conferences open to writers and their fans and newsletters and information to keep readers informed about upcoming releases. Authors and their publishers are also often in search of contests that will bring public exposure to their works.

The most time consuming marketing – and often, it seems, the least effective – are the public appearances. My least favourite of these is the book store signing. In theory, at least as they appear on television - the author is brought out to the well decorated table where a line-up of eager book fans eagerly awaits, often with stacks of books in arm, looking for the signature and personalized message from their favourite writer.

It may come as a surprise that it doesn't generally look exactly like that.

Most often, bookstore signings involve a small table, sometimes near the front of the store, occasionally with some decorative draping cloth and two to four hours to kill, hoping beyond hope folks walking into the store will be sufficiently intrigued by my presence to want to come by, chat and buy your book - hell, even if they come out of pity. More often than not, unless the author is willing to step forward to greet each customer and attempt to engage in conversation there is a lot of quiet reflection time.

Other public appearances are certainly more enjoyable - at least in my experience. I enjoy events that involve public speaking, question and answer sessions and the like. That could be the performer in me, or my ego talking, but at least I'm not sitting alone at a table like a doll at an open display case. Perhaps not surprisingly, these events tend to sell more books: given the chance to speak with perspective book buyers the odds of sales seem to naturally increase.

Both of these types of events, of course take time and sometimes money. Many authors to whom I have spoken acknowledge how torn they often find themselves between needing to get out and do the requisite marketing duties and using that time to be doing what we allegedly do best: write books. And it isn't uncommon to invest significant moneys traveling to book fairs and conferences during which the book sales come nowhere near to covering the costs associated with attending.

Still, the publicity generated by these events is supposed to help with exposure and so soldier on we must. The more our names and our titles are seen in public - with authors in tow - the more readers will familiarize themselves with our work. Stay tuned for more public appearances, I guess.

Next week: my attempts at electronic marketing - from website to social media. I'll be open to suggestions.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 9:26 PM PST

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Snoopy was right.

This was actually the book that was supposed to 'write itself.' This is an expression I have heard about writing that has been expressed by people writing about writing but I have yet to hear another author describe having experienced the phenomenon.

To be sure, some stories seem to flow much more easily than others. Deadly Lessons more or less went that way (seriously, as I promised last week, the origin story of Deadly Lessons is coming in a subsequent column). Sure there was work involved but I don't recall having had so much angst and struggle with the direction of the story. I could be looking back at that initial novel through rose coloured glasses but I know that while there were elements of the story with which I struggled, by and large I had not only a very clear direction from the outset but also a pretty good foreknowledge of the paths I'd take from beginning to end.

The latest book or W3.doc as it's lovingly known, as cheesy as it sounds, originated overnight in a dream. And it really was one of those stories that arrived with such clarity that for the final two years in which I was working on Last Dance I was literally chomping at the bit to get to this third book that would, I assumed, write itself.

Of course it hasn't worked out that way. Like Last Dance before it, W3 has proven to be a challenge, not helped by the significant gaps of time between sessions of sitting down to write. I have blamed all kinds of factors (see post from November 28, 2011), not the least of which has been increasing doubts about the efficacy of the story: the longer it is taking me to write this book, the more doubt I have in the narrative itself.

But there is reason for hope. As I have taken to spending some quality time with the story so far, I have renewed faith in it - at its heart it's a missing person's story. Why I have struggled with it is that I'm realizing the story isn't completely flawed, it's actually just much more complicated than I had thought.

My first two books were fairly standard mysteries in that the premise of the book is trying to establish who is responsible for the central crimes. There are elements of that in W3 as well. But W3 really will focus more on the why of the crime rather than on the 'who dunnit' aspect. In fact, it will likely be pretty clear who dunnit fairly on; the question to be solved is more along the lines of what exactly did the doer do and why.

I'm hardly breaking new ground in the genre - far from it. It's just different territory for me and I'm discovering that the further I go into the story, the complexities involved require me to pay much closer attention to detail and discovery than perhaps I had in the past.

And as far as hope go, I went through significant doubt on Last Dance as well and nearly everyone who has read it and shared their opinions have told me they liked it better than Deadly Lessons.

If quality is determined by self-doubt, W3 ought to be outstanding.

Next week: a little about the thing I like least of the writing life - marketing.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 2 January 2013 4:03 PM PST

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When riding the Tube in London passengers are audibly reminded while exiting the trains to "Mind the Gap." For daily or regular London Transport users, the warning is largely irrelevant and likely is no longer even heard by weary commuters on their daily trudges into the city and back out to the burbs where all but the most-wealthy of London's workers must live. They simply step over the gap between train and platform and continue on their way, no twisted ankles or high heels stuck between terra firma and terra traina.

There's a parallel to writing.

In my case, the gap is the seemingly continually expanding span of time between sessions of writing the next novel in the Winston Patrick series, currently titled “W3.doc” on my computer, though the publisher already asked me some time ago for the title to begin advance marketing. I take that as a positive sign but also an increase in the pressure to, you know, write the damned book.

I experienced the gap in writing Last Dance too, wherein weeks and occasionally months would go by during which no real meaningful writing on the book went on.

This differs significantly from my experience writing Deadly Lessons; I wrote the first draft of that first book, start to finish, in about ten months. To be sure, those were the halcyon days of being on a six month sabbatical from work, pre-child, with really nothing but long stretches of day in front of me to in which to write my literary debut. That and golf, which became quickly evident was not something to which I should devote serious time. Having been granted a leave from work to write a master’s thesis I found that by the time my leave had come I had more or less completed it and turning to fiction seemed something worthwhile to do. It helped that it was a partially paid leave, which meant that for that one and only time in my life I was a paid writer. More on the Deadly Lessons origin story in a later post.

The real danger of the gap is maintaining, hell even remembering, the consistency of the story. On more than one occasion I’ve returned to the story after a significant gap only to find myself wondering what the hell was going on in the story. This happens to readers when they’ve been away from the text awhile but it’s deadly for the writer. We know eventually that our ability to get the details correct and the story flowing is critical to keep the reader from wandering away from the story in the first place.

In Last Dance, I actually found myself trying to pick up a scene following a pretty significant gap in writing productivity. I had to go back multiple pages in search of the identity of a character about who I was reading, only to figure out I had inadvertently changed a character’s name, which was why, of course, I couldn’t figure out who the hell I was reading about. No small thing either: the character whose name I had altered was one of the central protagonists and the homicide victim who is, in fact, the premise of the story.

So yeah, the gap is a challenge.

Which is at least in part why I’m not getting as much writing done on this holiday break as I had hoped and planned (and for those of you keeping score from the last two weeks’ postings, no, I haven’t written the discovery scene mentioned in both those posts).

Instead, I have gone back to the beginning, printing out the entire work in progress to date, which I plan to read from start to finish to make sure the story hasn’t gotten swallowed in the gaps between writing. I need to get a renewed handle on how I’ve developed the story so far, hopefully paving the way for renewed flow and output going into the New Year.

Makes for a pretty decent resolution too.

Next week: this story may be more complicated than I thought.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PST

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“It’s not that I think dialogue is a bad thing,” he said, staring at the blinking cursor.

“It isn’t?”

“No, it isn’t,” he continued, though his voice had taken on a higher-pitched, self-justifying tone. If he had been an adolescent girl his hand would have been on his hip, his hip jutting out in that awkward position only an adolescent girl could find comfortable. “It’s not just filler. Dialogue can be used to actually advance the story. In fact, it should be.”

As I noted last week, I have a tendency to be dialogue-heavy. Worse, as a former high school classroom teacher, I not only overuse dialogue but often feel a need for more dialogue to explain the dialogue I’ve just used. I think it drove my first publisher – herself a former English teacher – a little crazy. “It’s the curse of our day jobs,” she told me.

See how it advances the narrative?

For some writers, even within the crime genre, dialogue is the principal tool for advancing story. One of my earliest crime writing influences is surely Robert B. Parker, author of the famed Spenser series of some forty novels. Spenser was a hero of sorts to me, limited in his dialogue generally to short, snappy sentences but somehow managing to solve crime nonetheless.

Parker, who famously wrote four pages a day, every day until literally dying at his computer nearly three years ago almost reversed what is often the standard mantra of writers: sparse dialogue with lots of action. Parker’s stories are so dialogue driven that the short bursts of action actually do come as a surprise. In the middle of a conversation someone is suddenly punched in the throat or a bullet flies.

And of course, Parker’s dialogue was witty (and always included the line “we’d be fools not to”), replete with literary references, and intelligent in a way we’d all like to speak on a regular basis, like the West Wing of crime novels (Sorkin-esque dialogue would require a whole other post simply to contain my fawning). I’ve heard critics decry Spenser’s literary and culinary prowess, as though it’s not possible for a hard-boiled detective to read classic literature and know how to cook. I find it charming.

But I get it – there’s more than one way to skin a cat and readers may well prefer a variety of narrative tools and structures to advance the story.

Which leads me back to the quagmire in which I found myself last week: how does Winston Patrick determine this newest piece of information I need him to have without relying on dialogue, and yet remain plausible?

In this particular scene, it may not be possible. And given the slowing impact it has had on my writing (though the novel has been progressing rather slowly of late anyway) it may be an indicator that perseverating on one reviewer’s point of view is, in fact, as unproductive as everyone tells me it is.

Next week: I hope to have the scene written. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 19 December 2012 8:36 PM PST

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Among the litany of reasons my current novel writing seems to have stalled is a problem I’m having with dialogue.

I like dialogue.

To be sure, when I first started seriously writing, my ambition wasn’t novels but situation comedies. Loved ‘em. Still do, really, though the selection of quality sitcoms from which to choose has greatly diminished from when I watched with more regularity. Or I’ve become much pickier about sitcom writing, certainly a possibility: Growing Pains, after all, really wasn’t all that good. In fact, the only blog that I read daily is Ken Levine’s, formerly a writer on such little programs as M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frasier. I live vicariously through his adventures and misadventures in the sitcom writing trade.

Way back when, I viewed sitcom writing as my one-day work. When we’d watch the Emmy awards (doesn’t everyone?) my wife would look at the collection of, well, nerdy-looking mostly men in ill-fitting tuxedoes up on the stage as the head writer accepted Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series awards and wonder aloud, “Are  you sure that’s to what you aspire?”

And I did. I wrote spec scripts and pilots of my own creation. I sent out queries. I was rejected by some of the biggest names in television. Once, I’m convinced, a series even stole my idea they assured me they hadn’t read.

I was a big fan of Mad About You. When the show debuted, my wife and I were about to be newlyweds and we sort of grew up in marriage alongside Paul and Jamie Buchman.

I wrote a spec script and sent the pitch to the production company. This was before I knew one wasn’t supposed to send spec scripts of a show to that show. Who knew? Everyone but me, apparently. They sent me a polite, standard rejection letter.

A friend “in the biz” suggested I wait six weeks and try again. What did I have to lose, aside from my dignity and sense of self worth? After the second attempt they rejected me by telephone. They’re warming to me, I thought. By the third attempt I figured they’d fly to Vancouver to reject me in person.

I decided to pre-empt them. After hopping a flight to L.A., we rented a car and drove out to Columbia Tri-Star Television in Culver City. As we rolled to a stop outside the gates, my wife asked what the next part of my plan was. “I didn’t think I’d find the studio,” I told her. “This is as far ahead as I’d thought.” Momentum flowing, I approached the gate, asked for the producer, gave them my name and…was allowed in.

No one was as surprised as I.

We had a lovely chat, following which I left behind my little package of scripts and went on my way. A few weeks later, I received a package in the mail containing photocopies of my scripts, with different bindings than those I had left, with a letter assuring me my scripts could not be considered or even read. Later, an episode bearing an uncanny resemblance to one of the scripts I had submitted, aired.

I thought my version was funnier.

Friends told me I should have been outraged but I wore it as a badge of honour. I couldn’t realistically have expected a hit series to buy the work of an unknown, unproduced wannabe script writer from Canada who had broken all the norms of breaking into the business. I took it as a sign that at least my writing was on the right track.

So I like dialogue.

The reviews for my last book, Last Dance, have been overwhelmingly positive. But Jack Batten in the Toronto Star says my protagonist, Winston Patrick, talks too much. I know we’re not supposed to fixate on our reviews but I also think we can learn something from everyone’s reactions to our work and it’s giving me pause.

Because right now I’m in the middle of a scene where some important information is going to be revealed and I’m hung up on trying to get Winston to discover it without relying on dialogue. We’ll see.

Next week: more on the influence of dialogue-heavy writing on my own work. 

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PST

Updated: Thursday, 13 December 2012 9:42 AM PST

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In an effort to increase my output, I’m returning to the blog (man, I hate that word). I’m planning to document some of the challenges and hopefully much more of the progress as I continue writing the third in the Winston Patrick series.

Below is a little tiny piece of mind fluff that came out at the beginning of a workshop I was leading. I hope to make this a regular (shall we say ‘weekly’) entry to move past whatever wall I’m up against as I’m writing. Stay tuned…please.

It’s difficult to write when my fingers are tingling, not because I can’t hold a pencil or type on the keys – I’m doing fine with that. It’s because it’s difficult to think of any other questions beyond ‘why are my fingers tingling?’ What the hell is happening here?

The ibuprofen helped in the short term but it seems like it’s wearing off. I can feel tingling again.

In comparison to feeling nothing, like I’ve had the big jammer or something, feeling tingling isn’t even a minor annoyance. It’s victory itself. But it’s a hollow one because it’s a victory achieved by using the malady that’s causing my anxiety as an indicator that I’m not, in fact, dead.

I may be writing a Neil Simon play or a Woody Allen movie here. I guess it worked out all right for them.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 10:43 AM PST

Updated: Thursday, 6 December 2012 10:46 AM PST

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I haven’t been writing a lot lately.

That’s sort of an understatement. I really haven’t been writing at all.  On the one hand, it could be I’m suffering from writer’s block.  For the most part, this is a fictitious condition, or so the psychologists would have us believe.  Of course, they haven’t had to write anything since their PhD theses and God knows no one wants to read those.

It’s probably difficult to get sympathy.  Kurt Vonnegut once famously said: “Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”  I am neither bound nor gagged by policemen and while the freedom in which I live is less than perfect, I don’t yet feel I have nothing more to say.

The fact of the matter is that like anything else, I’m sure, the longer one stays away from a thing, the harder it is to get back to the thing.  Take school – with which I have a fairly significant amount of experience.  Skip one class and going back doesn’t seem so tough.  Skip five classes and the thought of going back and catching up on all that has been missed seems so daunting that continuing to skip further seems preferable, even though it’s clear the longer absences are going to make the eventual return that much more difficult to face.

Writing, I find, can be like that.

And to be sure, writer’s block is mostly just a fear of re-starting that which I walked away from some time ago.  The blank page, the blinking cursor, the time alone all become these ominous demons to be slain before productivity returns.  And it’s amazing the list of reasons one can concoct to legitimize absence from the writing.  Here are some of my current ones:

-          I haven’t purchased an iPad.

-          my office is too messy/crowded/loud/quiet

-          I’m busy planning the release party of my new book

-          I haven’t finished writing my 3 x 5 index cards of the story

-          the cork bulletin board in the basement that I want to bring up to the office on which to organize the 3 x 5 cards has a spider behind it.  It’s a dead spider but it’s really large and it kind of freaks me out.  I thought of sending my 7 year old daughter to get the board and feign ignorance about the spider when she sees it and screams.

-          I’m a horrible father.

On their own, none of these items ought to prevent progress on the next book.  I even started watching the West Wing again for inspiration.  But focussing on Aaron Sorkin’s writing could only serve to make me feel incapable and thus joins the list above.

Julia Cameron claims to have a sure fire method for releasing me from writer’s block and to be sure, I have tried her program before and I have had some success.  On the other hand, it involves writing three pages a day of basically journaling, which seems to me to be taking up the precious little time available for writing and thus belongs on the list above.

Still, I’m not ready to give up and I’m pseudo-publicly committing to increasing the output so feel free to hold me accountable.  If you read this (and who would?) feel free to nag me. If you bump into me on the street or the Apple Store, remind me of my commitment. 

Progress reports to follow.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 7:12 PM PST

Updated: Monday, 28 November 2011 7:30 PM PST

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