Down the Moors and Through the Mist

Like many authors, I'm no good at the social networking part of writing. I'd rather be writing. Can't make any money, and few books appear on shelves, without the writing. Now that I have a way to get my books into print (virtual and otherwise), it's time to get busy.

I read a post by Joe Konrath this afternoon about how people like John Locke, Amanda Hocking, Barry Eisler, and Joe Konrath, got to the point where they began making real money. They wrote books.

It is a radical concept, the whole writing a book thing, but it is a necessary concept. One can only check sales figures and review postings so many times before it becomes boring and pointless. Little changes in an hour or two, although I did find another review on Among Women from a woman who is a native of New Orleans, and a brand new fan looking for more of my work. Now that I can handle. The readers no one can please, unless it is a child's book for children under the age of three or four, are just too few and far between (you hope) to bother with, and it's never a good idea to engage a reader who obviously has not read your book in the back-and-forth of argument. It's pointless.

I did, however, engage in a discussion with a reviewer because she gave my other novel, a not romance three stars on one site and two stars on another site. It was an oversight, and I never mentioned or questioned her reasoning. She's entitled to her opinion. Can't make everyone happy and not every reader will like what any author likes. There will be fans and not fans and the only thing to do is hope the fans outnumber the not fans.

It takes a great deal of time and effort to write a novel and more than a couple hours a week of promotion is all I can stand before characters begin appearing in my dreams (day and night) and tugging at the strands of creativity to get my attention and get me back to the keyboard to write. That is where the battle is won or lost -- on the page.

I have been working sporadically on the Victorian Gothic novel and I'm beginning to hit my stride. At this rate I'll have it done in about a month -- or a hundred.

It is not easy picking up the threads of a novel begun so long ago and fitting into the narrator's voice, in this case Delilah Makepeace. Luckily, I spend enough time reading British novels and books about Victorian England that it is all coming back to me. I might make that month after all for the first draft, and then will begin the work of editing, revising, proofing, and tightening or expanding where needed. Spending so much time marketing and networking, I forgot how much fun it is to get into the mood and voice of the characters and record the deeds, foibles, and evil. Since Whitechapel Hearts is written in first person, there are fun and thrills to be had, and my imagination is filling in some pretty fascinating blanks. I should consider writing more thrillers, even if of the Gothic version. I sure loved them while growing up, and I still enjoy them now and again.

In the meantime, there is work. I've books to read and review, laundry to catch up, cold showers to take to keep cool, and the odd hour or five to spend with Delilah in Faustin Hall where she will stumble onto a secret that will change her life -- but then it might be too late. You just never know when the writing takes over and the characters speak.

Then I might return to New Orleans for a sequel to Among Women or move on to future Earth where vampires prey on and take care of the remnants of humanity in a world of darkness and cold. There are always the brownies that need to be stalked and a father drinking to forget that once he walked on the wild side to stalk the wild brownie before he was kicked out of the country and left with his craving, and his daughter, to keep him company. So many stories, so many worlds and situations, and no time for socializing.