The Creativity and The Business

/ PaigeRandall

IMG_0570

I should be writing now, at least editing. I have a block of free time, a coffee, good wifi, perfect surroundings. Truth be told I’ve been drinking a bit and writing a blog seems more fun. Okay that isn’t entirely honest. I’ll dig a bit deeper. I am struggling to focus this week.

Forever Falling, my second novel is getting down to the nitty gritty end of the first draft. I finally got the photos off my new camera and I’m able to fill in setting description from a my summer travel. I took about 500 photos of houses in Asheville and I chose one to be the home of my female lead’s father. There are also scenic shots throughout the city and mountains of Asheville and Park City. So I went back to page one, word one, to fill in details and touch up dialog. The story has a nice shape for a first draft.

Meanwhile I am trying to focus on this mad business of publishing so I can set Circling somewhere, permanently. The choices are endless and they are all right. And they are all wrong. How much time do I want to devote pedaling my words to the world of traditional publishing? To agents? If I didn’t have a publishing background, the answer would be ZERO. It is a lot of work and one thing I know about myself is that I SUCK AT WAITING. I fucking suck at it. Sure, get back to me in 16 weeks. My reflux will eat a hole right through my esophagus and I’ll be a raging alcoholic in 16 weeks. I can only get so many refills on my Xanax.

IMG_20140728_104943

Or independent publishing? There are a LOT of ways to do this. The research required makes me what to lay my head down on this table at Starbucks and take a nap. It does not make me want to buckle down and finish Forever Falling.  And what on earth is worse for creativity than business. I’m a Marketing (un)professional.  I totally get the business is creativity philosophy, but it is a little bullshitty. It is what we creative types tell ourselves so we don’t put our heads in the oven Monday – Friday during business hours.

So writers. Feel free to weigh in on your experience with this process? I am wowed by you all. This is a labor of love and those who stick with it have my undying respect. How are you choosing to share your work? How are you birthing this labor of love?

(Please forgive incoherence and typos. It’s Friday night and I found a really good Malbec.)

4 thoughts on “The Creativity and The Business”

  1. I have hosted two guest authors that talked about the very thing in their own post. If you would be interested in what they had to say here are the links. There is definitely a lot of choices. I tremble at the thought when I get to that point. Wishing the best, much success, and headaches free, lol.

    C.L Roth
    http://www.junetakey.com/posts/guest-author-c-l-roth/
    E. E. Giorgi
    http://www.junetakey.com/posts/new-book-release-guest-author-e-e-giorgi/

    Like

    Reply

  2. I don’t like agents, never trusted them, don’t think they are worth the time or trouble. They were essential contacts back in the heyday of Big Publishing when they functioned in a gatekeeper-to-gatekeeper role, making the entire writing process very political…I remember getting “must-do” advice to attend writers’ conferences and schmoozing with agents and smaller publishers who attended. But for all their much-vaunted role-playing, they ended up as collaborators, resulting in the publication of repetitive storylines, and the richness and variety of storytelling suffered from bestsellerism, i.e. stories about sex and politics and violence. I don’t think emergent genres would be as developed as they are today if this continued. I see it as someone (agent) making you audition to see if you are good enough to be his/her meal ticket. You know what? I’ll go peddle my stuff by myself.

    And the other question: peddling, the art and the business of it…well, yeah, there’s that. I hate business, I hate the idea of how to market something I’ve just finished when all I want to do is go on and write the next one…but the process is a little more “storefront” now…get your books, get a blog, get a website, and go on Twitter and maybe MAYBE Facebook, and you can create a presence, start to carve a niche. It doesn’t have to be not-fun, and you still determine how much time and effort you devote to marketing. Plus, you have absolute editorial control: book cover design, font, prurient subject matter…as J. A. Konrath said, there is zero downside to self-publishing these days.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment