In reply to Heather.

Hmm. Lots of stuff here! {8’>

I do like the idea of asking readers what they’d like to read next. Because, after all, I’m writing for them anyway. Your notion is sort of like the concept I suggested a while back of posting covers and asking people for ideas/blurbs/titles. I’m just not convinced a lot of folks would participate–or I’d probably be doing it right now. Also, though, I’m crazybusy at the moment, so I’ve put that on a back burner.

It’s still on my mind…I could even put up a cover image each week, and give people a few days to make suggestions, and then write a corresponding story. It’d be a blast if folks wanted to play.

I’m just not a big fan of Wattpad, though. I have nothing against it for other people–but I don’t want to invest a bunch of time and effort over there, because the site might go away without notice. Or change the rules on me at some point. Sort of like MySpace or Facebook…or, from way back, GeoCities. Just doesn’t make sense for me to get embroiled.

In reply to David.

David, you sed:

“I offered to look for ways to solve problems for small businesses for free.”

Any thought that falls out of my mind is OBVIOUSLY mine (your reactions may vary), but I feel, since my recent adventures in ebookWorld, that this idea of ‘solving a story problem for an audience with a vested interest’, is you going to a place like Wattpad and climbing on and saying, “hey, kid, what do you want to read NEXT?”

And ‘work’ the feedback animal, for all its worth.

Something is ‘clicking’ for me here. When I first saw that Amazon was setting up a stream for Kindle Singles, I REALLY sensed that shortStoryWorld has re-arrived. But, to do it at Amazon? There, I still feel, it’s a process to help you get into their ‘trad publishing’ clique group, and just like I was reading on David Gaughran’s website, if you are ‘too busy’ to do it yourself, people like Amazon (and Authors Solutions and every bloodybody else that want your buck before you make it) are tres happy to do it for you.

For a price.

And as I think on it, and was in the book museum, er, library on Saturday, what will happen is what I’ve spent years see happen. You’ll end up ‘writing’ the same damn book. Every season. Great……

And good to hear you speak of a story you are writing turning into a series.

I worry when people set ‘objectives’ for themselves and then shoot the dog because the dog is growing extra limbs.

I am in the middle of this myself. And I don’t know why it happens but I write something, it flows and then I stick it over there–I have a ‘something’ that I didn’t have five or twenty minutes ago.

And yes, you CAN create good art that fast.

If anything, I’ll relate how I started, on dA, as a poet. And it usually took me ten minutes to write a poem no edits.

But forty or fifty YEARS to arrive there. And I don’t mean I was writing all that time; I mean, I was experiencing LIFE all that time.

But being on dA, I got poo-poohed, a lot, because, “well, if it only took you ten minutes to write, how good could it be?”

*grin*

Hope that makes sense.

H

In reply to William Ockham.

Pardon my intruding, but I dealt with software developers who wrote, the minute I breathed in this idea to write and came to the internet. I found some of THE best fiction writing come out of some of these guys.

But what I also found–ie. my particular friend–was people who agonized over perfection; agonized over typos and grammar; and, pretty much, talked themselves OUT of writing very much. A two edged sword here, apparently. And it jibes with what you suggest.

To add to the analogy, Harlan Ellison was a sloppy cowboy coder, no?

*grin*

In reply to David.

David, you sed:

“I’ll just read a book. Or wander around and talk to people. It’s what I do.”

Then, maybe, it’s what you SHOULD be doing. What i mean is wander around and read people a book. Maybe vlogging on the spot would get results.

And personally? As I notice David Gaughran seemed to fall into that “How I make/sell a story” groove and he still seems to be there–maybe do a vlog off the cuff of YOUR version. Instead of focusing on writing it down. (You could always do it later, drawing from your vlog)

The world is FILLED with a lot of teachers teaching Writing 101. I wonder about that sometimes. *grin*

And. I’m, again, thinking of Harlan. I feel a LOT of what made him “work” was having the arena of an audience–I’m gonna be brief. But more on this later.

Also, one of the most busy artist I know just walked in here. I’d recalled connecting with him upon hearing him tell a class the most IMPORTANT thing you do is finish…the work. And he’s so right.

What HE said–and even he is struggling with this–is to find people around you that ‘support’ that idea. Of finishing.

Having friends that take years to write a book is not gonna get you writing. Having associates who give you deadlines or objectives is what will make this happen. You have been given OUTCOMES.

Even Lawrence Block–who is incredibly prolific but DOES do formula (and I can say this cos I’ve read a lot of Block–he and Ellison are good friends) had, at the start of his life (just like Harlan) the dilemma of deadlines. Magazine deadlines. And he made it a priority to follow it through.

Harlan is bad on deadlines. But usually, he’s just missing by moments–it’s not like he hasn’t started; not at all. But when the sun shines, he loves going out. And doing people. And his vibe, to me, is ’emotion’. Another reason, I think (besides having COME from a pulp/short story generation which, hey, maybe we in the digital age are entering and yes a story a week is that easy–FOR YOU._), Harlan is about short and very emotive.

A long book was never his forte. And he excepted that. And did thousands, thousands of short intelligent, imaginative fiction.

Which, I think YOU could do.

Just my view.

That’s why being the programmer worked. You, essentially, knew how the story would end, because someone asked you for a two headed beast with eyes that twirled to the left–and you CODED them that.

And, like Sherlock, (I am reading an annotated version of four of his novels; looking at technique), you are always ready to receive new data–which is good, like, BE real, make the object based on what you’re being asked, even if it’s YOU that’s doing the asking–but you have that ‘objective’ in mind, whatever it may be.

I still feel that Stephen King is my best ‘technique’ type. He often sees or imagines ONE image and uses his story to EXPLAIN what is happening in the image.

So, also, probably, a real good reason for you to ‘create’ a cover before you start.

And King was definitely influenced by Conan Doyle (as he was influenced by Harlan Ellison, which is why I found Ellison, reading King’s “Danse Macabre”) and I am finding Doyle SO clean, so easy to read.

And also, one thing King seems to do is create a situation, a what-if? and then solves the puzzle. Something, I sense, for you, as a programmer, that you’d be good at using too.

But just my view.

Heather
wordwan

In reply to Barefoot Josh.

Curses! My secret identity has been revealed! But thanks for coming by. {8’>

It’s good to know even spambots have struggles!

In reply to William Ockham.

I guess what I really ought to have said is: we need shorter feedback loops. This waterfall-style silo-development stuff just doesn’t cut it for the sort of semisocial apes we appear to be. It’s hard to do, it wastes a lot of time and resources, and we can do better if we’ll just look at the problem straight-on. My opinion, anyway, as of today. This goes to both motivation and quality/utility, which is handy.

In reply to James.

I might. I looked at Amazon and there’s no ebook listed. The “Look Inside” thing did seem interesting, though, so I stuck it in my cart to think about for the next time I want to deal with physical delivery. Thanks for the suggestion!

In reply to William Ockham.

Ha- you’re speaking my language here. I’ve had similar thoughts, and I still think Agile is largely hogwash in practice…not ’cause the ideas are horrible, but because it depends on customer interaction to a degree I’ve frankly never seen in the wild (excluding a few corporate cultures here, ’cause they had other issues). So when I started my own software company I offered to look for ways to solve problems for small businesses for free, with the proviso that I’d then sell my solutions elsewhere–which meant I started off with engaged customers who were willing to overlook MVP-style flaws (I think Lean Startup is very not-hogwash btw) and help me see the big picture. How do I do that for writing? I dunno. Working on it. I’m hoping the story-per-week thing will help to draw people in. IMHO storytelling is always collaborative on some level anyway, so the more I can make the process look like the goal the more I’ll believe in it.

Not much of an answer for you there. I guess short stories can function as an MVP for a larger idea? Funny, b/c I just got back from deciding over lunch that the story I’m working on today might be the start of a series…or at least I’ll float it & see if folks bite.

David, you might like George Leonard’s short book “Mastery”. Not the current, overpromoted book by that name, but Leonard’s. It addresses those plateaus between gains on the neverending road to mastering a thing.