Writer's Block Daily

I'm not clever enough to come up with fake swears.

Gave them our reactions, our explosions, all that was ours For graphs of passion and charts of stars...

I printed out the first 8 pages or so of my movie script, Ricochet. I had a couple classmates read it, and the reaction is positive (one gave me advice and gave some input, the other visibly reacted to a death sequence, which is good). I just need to finish the rest of it, and work on the storyboards for college portfolio day.

Life is hard, that's why no one survives.

I'm putting the draft of Moonflowers up on a publishing site called Inkshares.

It's like the gods heard me complain about how jealous traditional publishing was and how exhausting self-publishing sounded, and they went "Hey girl, check this thang out on FB. CROWDFUNDING FOR AUTHORS BUT WITH LEGIT EDITORS."

That sounds awesome. Linky?

That does seem interesting! Do I take it, however, that "FB" is "Facebook"...? (I try to stay away from that site. ^^; )

Heh, I didn't truly think that your character acted as I described—I was just teasing via an overly-literal reading of your description. ^^;

By the way, I happened to be thinking about your premise today, and another thought occurred to me: While your character's development makes sense to me, I'm a little surprised by his boyfriend's reaction. If you haven't already, it might be worth including in your story some mention of why he so (seemingly, by the admittedly short description above) readily agrees to his partner having sex outside of their relationship—perhaps especially if he's aware that the character is looking for intimacy more than pleasure.

Depending on his reasons, this might be no more than a line or two, whether it's closer to "Well, it's just sex, after all!" or "This tears me apart, but I want my beloved to be happy, and I'll take a hammer to my own heart to do it".

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Just check out http://www.Inkshares.com, guys!

For my polyamorous guy: Yeah, the boyfriend's pretty cool with it. They have a straightforward "use protection and clear it with me first" agreement, and there's going to be at least one talk between him and his boyfriend where they're checking in on their relationship. I get the feeling that Guy 2 has some idea that it's not just sex that Guy 1's looking for, but he's still clearly invested in the relationship and so it's not some sort of commitment issue, so neither of them can pin it down.

When the protagonist comes into the mix and Guy 1 gets a lot more physically affectionate with her than he does with his other friends, it worries Guy 2 initially and then they have a talk that goes something like:

Guy 2: I don't have a problem with your booty calls because we already talked about that, but I'm just wondering if you want a relationship with her, too. I mean, if you don't know what it looks like, I'm just saying that you and Protagonist look like you're dating—

Guy 1: What?! EW! That's like dating my sister!

Guy 2: Then why are you always hugging her and shit? You both have boyfriends.

Guy 1: I just... I really like hugs, and she's fun to hug. [Insert something about why he likes sex so much, and then they both realize that he's not actually going for sex.]

Inkshares... very interesting. You cant argue with the financial tersm (50% of all pre-orders, 50% of the gross on any printed post-orders, 70% of the gross of any digital sales). OTOH- they appear to receive all (and I do mean All) publication rights to your work. Here's an article with some more information. They use crowd-funding to subsidize a pre-order of 1000 copies, then obtain the rights. They also provide editing and marketing services. Their distributor is Ingram- highly reputable.

On the other hand, I dont know how successful they are. What is their average sales volume? Also, it isnt obvious to me how the crowdfunding works. Is that the author's responsibility? 1000 pre-orders at, say, $10 an order is, obviously, $10000. If I knew how to raise that much money for my book, would I even need them?

So it's interesting, but I'm not certain I would go with these guys over KDP/Amazon or Createspace. Another option is always good, though.

I would be interested to know what other's experience with them has been, if anyone has some to share.

I had a dream last night that can make a really great web serial novel/fictional blog— there's not much plot in it, and is still interesting. Problem is, I'm already working on like 3 projects at the moment. Whoops.

Life is hard, that's why no one survives.

Argh, yet another service not offered in my country! >_<

From the FAQ page:

(I live in South Africa.)

This seems awfully familiar to me. All too often it seems that wonderful services like this are reserved for first-world countries. :/

It's possible that there are workarounds, admittedly. Perhaps one may publish via a third-party located in one of those countries. For one thing, they indicate that one must live in one of the above-mentioned countries, but it's possible that they'll simply accept citizenship. For example, if I recall correctly, Kickstarter requires a bank account in one of a small list of countries, but people have managed to work with that and thus start up projects despite being located elsewhere.

Nevertheless, it's a little frustrating that any workaround is called for, especially for people in non-first-world countries.

Now, in all fairness, I feel that I should note that I'm far from underprivileged. But I also feel that my frustration is at least somewhat valid, especially given that these issues may well affect other, less privileged people.

Otherwise, I'm a little bit put off by the fact that it relies on pre-orders, which I'm not sure that I like. My disinclination comes from discussions that I've heard regarding pre-orders of video games: simply put, as I understand it, the argument is that pre-ordering asks consumers to buy something without much means of determining whether the final product is any good or not, whether by review or word of mouth.

To some degree I suppose that this also applies to purchasing on the first day of release, but in at least some cases that may still allow one to gather information from pre-release reviews.

All of that aside, however, it really does look like a promising service, and I'm glad that it exists at all, I believe; crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are movements that I find rather heartening, exciting, and hopeful. Sharysa, thank you for sharing this! ^_^

By the way, don't forget that we have a Writers Resources page that might benefit from the addition of such sites. ;)

(Speaking of which, I should return at some stage to putting that page somewhere a little more visible. :/)

Hum, that seems counter to what their FAQ claims: I haven't read through much of their publishing terms, and I'm no lawyer, but what I see there seems, at first glance, quite acceptable to me.

Fair enough. What I'm suggesting, however, is that it might be worth mentioning why it is that he's so cool with it. It's a perspective that might seem somewhat odd to a portion of your audience, I imagine, so a bit of exposition might be worth including.

edited 14th Oct '15 7:38:40 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

Inkshares: Apparently they don't hold EXCLUSIVE rights—I'm uploading my first draft of Moonflowers and they said it's perfectly fine to keep it up on on Hitrecord. Also, their website is extremely intuitive and well designed. Always a plus for me. Plus for pre-ordering, you CAN read the drafts of the book and give feedback! So you're not going into it blind or from the twenty-word synopsis.

As for fundraising: Sure, you can get MONEY through a ton of different options, but a really important detail is how the author doesn't have to market/promote BY THEMSELVES.

Polyamory: Don't worry, there's a little bit of exposition where my protagonist thinks Guy 1 got too drunk/high to remember he has a boyfriend, and then Guy 2 gives her a quick explanation.

According to the contract template that they post online, you dont have an agreement with them until you meet the crowdfunded pre-order goal. Until then the rights are yours to distribute as you will. I have a strong hunch that they will make you take down any errant copies once they decide to begin the actual publishing process.

Sharysa, can you tell me when their editing services become available to you? If you can get access to an editor before the crowdfunding goal is reached, then that is a pretty good deal.

I'm going over my story's first act and downplaying the fantasy elements. The story focuses on the protagonist's gradual introduction to the supernatural beings that hide in the shadows and I can sculpt a very powerful moment if I have a first act of ambiguous build up that leads into the first very big fantasy moment- the protagonist and his girlfriend getting ambushed by a trio of talking bears and his girlfriend turning into a grendel to fight them off.

Got it! It's probably going to be when I finish Moonflowers and actually need an editor, but I have no specific time except for a vague "story is three-fourths done" feeling.

I've recently returned to work on a long-running project of mine—a set of short stories that I'm considering reworking into book form. The story on which I'm now working is intended to be the final in the set (barring a short epilogue), albeit not necessarily the final one that I'll write—I feel that there are some gaps in the narrative that call for filling in.

It feels good to be writing again, although I'll confess that it hasn't been flowing as easily as I might like.

(I also have a vague concept for a romantic short story set at a wedding ceremony in a fantasy culture, although I haven't done much more than write some vague notes on the subject.)

True, and it's perhaps a preferable form of pre-ordering than most in that case—but I imagine that one still can't get one's money back if the drafting process takes the work in a direction that one doesn't like, leaving the end result something that one might not want to buy. After all, a work can change significantly between draft and final product, I believe.

Thinking further about it, I'd probably be less uncomfortable with the idea if they labelled it as crowdfunding, rather than pre-ordering. Crowdfunding, as I see it, is helping someone to complete a project, providing resources in order to see something come to fruition. Pre-ordering I see as buying something sight-unseen. In some ways this might be closer to crowdfunding than traditional pre-ordering.

Does the label used affect the acceptability of the process to me? It might: how a thing is labelled might affect how people see it, and thus what they expect to get out of it.

That said, I think that if I were to consider supporting any of these books, I'd likely do so looking at it as crowdfunding: looking at it as supporting the project, hoping to get the final product, hoping that said product will be good, but without an expectation of a decent product at the end, and considering any money put in to be given, not spent.

Ah, fair enough! ^_^

edited 15th Oct '15 9:41:38 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

So there's a person who'd like to publish my graphic novel. I'd love to publish that thing, but it needs to be basically rewritten and redrawn completely to really work.

Been following coverage for Just Cause 3. And today, this popped out.

I might just take them up on that challenge.

That is such a badass idea.

So in the next week, I have to write a portion of a script and do story boards for it. I think I can rise to the challenge, as it's my only ticket to get a scholarship.

Life is hard, that's why no one survives.

Editing now...GAAAAARRRRRR it's so crazy. On the bright side most of it is really just cutting down long-winded phrases and stupid filler words like "started to" or "decided."

Unfortunately, I think I'm still going to have a horribly long story even with trimming it. =P =P

Was going to ask this on the RQ thread but since I'm here...it's a weird, kind of gross question so I'll tag it just 'cause... Say you barf on your clothes; if you wiped off the barf but didn't wash clothes how long would it take before the smell goes away? This is during a time before showers were common and said character forgot to bring extra clothes...

edited 17th Oct '15 11:11:19 AM by Coujagkin

There would be a slightly fainter, lingering smell due to residue until a proper wash and shower.

Just remembered that NaNoWriMo is coming up in a couple weeks, and now I'm starting to think about which screenplay idea to work on. Seeing how Script Frenzy doesn't exist anymore, November is my only option.

100 pages in 30 days? I'm gonna try it!

Award-winning screenwriter. Directed some movies. Trying to earn a Creator page. I do feedback here.

Go for it!

I'm actually gonna try to participate in Na No this year other than write for a week then quit. My county library has write-ins, and I'm probably going to them, so. Not sure which project to do— my weird/supernatural 50's surburbia soap opera or dieselpunk-sci fi fantasy conspiracy story. Both are interesting and done being in planning stage and I have started them, so...

Life is hard, that's why no one survives.

Just finished A Game of Thrones (that's the book, not the show). Much like Tolkien, George RR Martin is good at many things, but pacing is not one of them. Still, overall, quite good.

I'm currently working my way through A Line Upon the Wind, a history of the Franco-British naval war, 1793 through 1815. It's fascinating reading especially since most of the popular literature really picks up post-1800 or so, after the rise of Napoleon to power.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

I'm probably going to use Na No Wri Mo as an incentive to focus more on my writing projects, namely my novel and my graphic novel script.