Just Like A Needle In A Haystack

Turner Classic Movies is running a Charlie Chase marathon today which, as uninteresting as that might be, is far superior to The Unit marathon over on Sleuth TV.  Not that I'm watching, it's just on, mostly to cover the wailing of coyotes or whatever so the girls don't keep barking and distracting me.  So I was in here in the office and I hear a familiar tune but when I go out to listen the words are all different.  It took about 3 hours to realize the tune is from a Fred Astaire movie and luckily I can provide you with the clip.

I will also point you to a very valuable but free book over Scott Nicholson's website,The Haunted Computer.   Write Good Or Die is about writing in the 21th century and contains articles by Joe Konrath, M.J. Rose and Harley Jane Kozak and many others.  You can download it in several formats, I took the PDF.  You can also find it at Smashwords.  A Kindle will cost you 99 cents (that situation won't last, amazon will not be underpriced, so they'll force Scott to raise his price, and he'll probably offer a 99 cent coupon so it's still free at Smashwords--just guessing here).

Now I'm going back to Sweet Cider.  I'm at a transitiony sort of chapter where groundwork is laid for future events but nothing so dramatic happens.  I left off at a real transition last night and had a huge shock at how the chapter ended.  Yes, I'm capable of shocking myself.

If you are stuck in the loop of kowtowing (yikes that sounds harsh) to tradpub, they want assurances, they want to know what they're buying, they don't trust you.  You are a dopey writer.  They are happiest if you come up with a detailed outline and stick with it until the book is completed.  I know some writers are comfortable working that way but I'm not.  I never have been.  I know where I'm going and I trust myself that somehow I'll get there.  That leaves all the room in the world for potential surprises and character uprisings or rebellions.  I want that vitality, I want to feel my way through a story in real time.

So say you want to work this way, the tradpubs are going to insist you write the whole book because they're nervous nellies and want to see it before they buy it.   You do that.  You spend 6 months or whatever, writing this book because they expressed a vague interest in it.  You hand it in.  It takes them 6 months to decide it's not for them.  Goodbye year!  And nowhere to turn.

Now I can write the book the way I want and publish it.  Readers are not guaranteed in either arena so on the whole, I'm better off.   I rise or fall on my own choices.

For those reading this blog at amazon which won't show vids from youtube, here's the link if you want to see Fred do his thing.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLfNusklXtI