I've set an ambitious plan for the winter of 2013-14. I came about this idea with the completion and publishing of my fourth novel and the second of the Ben Jensen series.
The hardest thing for a writer to do, is successfully promote his work. It's hard because for the most part, there's no fun in it. It is simply work. The same as mucking out a stall when you own horses. No One runs out to buy a horse so that they can shovel road apples! How-some-ever it is a necessary task that goes with the joy of Horses.
Now, writing itself is not an easy piece of work but it is an indescribable joy. If you've done it correctly. At the end of the day you are as exhausted as you are when you buck twenty tons of hay into the barn. The joy is that it's that Good sort of exhaustion. That sort where you look at the barn and it's full of hay. That rewarding sort of feeling that you've accomplished something good.
When you look at the page at the end of the day, and your imagination has strung together 5,000 words of a story, and Good words too, it lights up a feeling inside that puts a smile on your face.
So there's those two competing hard jobs in writing. The writing itself that fulfills something your soul requires, and then the stall mucking labor of marketing.
What I realized when I'd finished Shadow on the Mountain is that I dropped the ball, badly, after the last book. In doing so, I lost the momentum that had begun building.
With an author competing against something over 50,000 new titles being published ever year, in just the United States... lost momentum is something a word whittler can't afford.
I allowed myself to be distracted by life and small things and took waaaaay to long to create the next story. When you've captured reader's imaginations and succeeded in leading them to gain a true liking for a character... leaving them hanging... waiting on the continuation of the story... is just wrong, and a publishing mistake!
When good people choose to risk their money and time in a writers story, that writer has accepted a duty to provide that story. When it comes in the form of a Series... that means he must roll out the next installment of the story in a reasonable time... No Excuses!
Soooo... my Ambitious Plan for this winter is to create the next two installments of the Jeb Taylor Series AND the Ben Jensen Series and have them ready to publish by April.
That means... no distractions permitted. Disciplined placement of my behind in front of the keyboard for goodly periods of time at least five days a week... and a near total immersion in the stories I have outlined.
This winter, the Arizona Desert is going to echo with the sound of tap tap tap tap tap tap tap ... as I wear out the buttons on this new toshiba laptop!
~ BK Gore
