Book Review: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

As a reader I never noticed this distinction, but as a writer it now seems like a no-brainer. There are writers and there are storytellers. I'm more of a storyteller than I am a writer, and while my ego would like to be considered part of that rarefied group of writers, in truth, I don't mind being a storyteller. Because there are some very good writers who are primarily storytellers, and Stephen King is one of them. Pretty good company to keep.

I consider King a damn good storyteller, perhaps the finest storyteller we have in the U.S. today. I also feel that way about James Lee Burke, but Burke has a foot in both camps (I consider In the Mist of the Confederate Dead one of the most lyrical books I have ever read; it's up there with F. Scott Fitzgerald according to my lights), so he doesn't really count. But King? A damn fine storyteller.

On the book: I loved it. It is the first book in probably two years that I have sat down and inhaled every single frigging word. I couldn't put it down. It has been so long since that has happened that I was beginning to think that I was just a malcontent. Too stuck up to enjoy a decent book. Too wedded to standards that were persnickety and harsh and unfair. It was nice to be proven wrong.

For those of you who've been living under a rock, this book is the sequel to The Shining. There are only two books out of everything that I have ever read that scared the living shit out of me. The Shining is one of them; Ghost Story by Peter Straub is another. I STILL cannot see topiary animals without looking over my shoulder. To this DAY, I half expect to feel the rip of a claw/branch down the length of my back. THAT is how powerful that book was. And it was a little ironic that I was in Disneyland this weekend, and as I rode by the topiary "zoo" dotting the Small World ride I couldn't help but smile because I had Doctor Sleep in my luggage just waiting to be cracked open that afternoon.

So we have Dan Torrance many years later, an alcoholic like his father, so scarred, stumbling through life, falling a lot, drinking a lot, this boy has become a man and it's not pretty. There are a cast of characters and I won't bore you with basic plot details. I will say that this is a true circle novel. We come back to the Overlook, Dan Torrance must finally face the demons of those years, and once again try to survive and more importantly defeat evil. I think some readers might find this a little too pat, but I enjoyed it. It seemed to me to check off all those boxes that sequels need to do. It finished his story arc. There certainly is room for another story should King wish to pursue it, but Dan Torrance's story seems finished to me. It was very satisfying for precisely the reasons that usually float my boat. This is a book about atonement, a theme that always resonates with me.

Some critiques I've read said that they thought the last third of the book was too soft. I can see that. A younger King would have killed off a couple of people we would have mourned. This older King doesn't feel the need to do that. It did strike toward the end that this had very much a Ghost Story feel about it, with the tribe of evil types being led by a woman (much like Ghost Story), and the ending of the book featuring a road trip. But this is a quibble because maybe books like this just end like this.

None of these quibbles mattered. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Gee Willikers, I'm Overloaded

So my plans for a Sunday post seems to be something of a pipe dream, but here I am again. One of the most tried and true bits of advice any writer will say to you is that you need to keep writing and working this social media thing. Which I agree with. The more you write, even in places like this, keeps your name fresh. And with a zillion people writing and liking and also working the social media, you need to keep a "leg" in, so to speak. I can't even seem to manage a baby toe these days. Life is crazy busy. I'm editing up a storm. A STORM. I'm trying to fit in some writing, which isn't being very successful, by the way. And also trying to keep my name fresh. I guess it would help if I didn't have one of the most generic last names ever. Sigh.

What authors don't tell you is that social media takes gobs of time if you do it right. Time. Lots of it. Time that could be spent writing. You know, the stuff that actually constitutes and validates what you do. This is what I suspect is the true tragedy of the collapse of the legacy publishing system. Not that I didn't have to hoof it to conferences, etc., book stores, etc. I did, but their pipeline to bookstores and media was and is invaluable and where the real sales happen. Or used to. I don't know where real sales are these days.

Sure, I enjoyed the conferences for the sense of community and meeting up with fellows writers. All that jazz. That mostly came to a halt when I attended a Bouchercon, was on a panel with some great writers, and we had a fantastic turnout. The room was large and it was packed. I entered the book signing room with a confident spring in my step, absolutely convinced  I'd waltz off with fifteen sales. At least! I had none. Big zero. After sitting at my table and not having one person walk up to me during the course of thirty minutes, I slunk off to my hotel room to have a big cry. Yes, authors cry. I barely managed to get it together to get to my room without bawling my eyes out in the elevator. What went wrong? All those people who came up to me after the panel who loved my presentation? Why weren't they buying my book? Why????

Well, it turns out they were. They were buying it off of amazon. My amazon stats were great for two days. And I realized that I wasn't hardback material. I was an amazon-worthy author. But even those sales were hard to justify in terms of the cost of attending a conference all the way across the country when you factor in airfare, con fees, and the hotel. That wasn't the final nail in my mystery conference attending coffin but it was the first nail. The second nail happened the following year.

Despicable Me

There is a great book out there that I would encourage anyone who is thinking about writing to read: The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner. She was a former editor now turned agent, and it has some of the most insightful analysis of how writers relate to words and the neurotic responses that dog the process. In my admittedly limited writerly circle, one thing stands out for me, and that is that most of us have egos bigger than god (take your pick which god, I'm nothing if not ecumenical), and almost all of us--okay a lot of us--struggle with humongous feelings of inadequacy. It's that compelling desire to be seen and heard--me, me, me!--but from behind a bunch of paper (or bytes as the case may be these days).

I had a lot of trouble (aka horrible time) writing my second book. I'd gotten a lot of nice feedback on the first book, was nominated for a prestigious award, was a Booksense pick, got some decent reviews, and you'd think that it would have been a total slam dunk to write the second book. It had the opposite effect (and I know that I'm not alone in this). Many people have trouble writing that second book. I knew the plot, I knew where I wanted to take my characters, I had an excellent sense of the gestalt of the book (which is what gives a book its overarching theme), but I couldn't write it. Why? I was terrified. At least in my case, writer's block essentially boils down to fear of failure. You've tasted the sugar of success, and the last thing you want in your writing wine glass is the vetch of defeat. If you don't write, then you don't fail.

This is why the collapse of the legacy publishing system is devastating. Because the self-doubt is often overwhelming, and the one thing that the legacy publishing system does (or did) was to provide a modicum of legitimacy. Yes, you can write. You published a book. You were nominated for an award. You are one of us! Of course, I had all that and it didn't do a damn bit of good; I was still in a state of paralysis for years as I struggled to write that second book. But it was something of an emotional lifeboat when I was in that Grand Canyon of self-doubt about my writing.

There is no modicum of legitimacy when you self-publish. The only person promoting yourself is you. The only feedback that you're getting are the daily sales figures from amazon (and I'm ashamed to admit that I check those stats a minimum of 10 times a day) and the reviews (from those who don't know you).

Self-promotion suck (see previous paragraph vis a vis massive feelings of inadequacy). But, you say, you did book signings and were on panels at mystery cons and had speaking gigs places, and even did a radio interview (which was very cool). I did, but I also had an entity behind me (my publisher) who believed that my book was good enough to hit the marketplace. And there is so much competition to get a publishing contract that I basked in that approbation. The only monolith behind me in the self-publishing venture is me. I suck at being a monolith of legitimacy. It's scary and I'm not good at it.

Plus, OMG, the time suck. If I'm "networking," I'm not writing. It doesn't get any plainer than that. I'm editing full-time, I have editing gigs on the side, I have a huge yard that takes some time every weekend just to keep the weeds down to a minimum. Life is crazy busy. I find myself making choices in terms of my time every single day. Some aspect of my life suffers on any given day. I shortchange something to devote time to another something.

If someone asks me about Pen and Prejudice, I can say with total confidence that I think that it's fun, funny, and an excellent commentary on genre writing from the POV of a small-fry author. If you asked me, do you think this book is good enough for the larger market, I would say without hesitation, yes. It's a good book. What is more important, however, is that it's a marketable book. It would sell. Put my feet to the fire. I honestly believe this. And yet I'm also always apologizing for it at the same time. Why? Because the yin and yang between self-confidence and self-doubt that dogs most writers I know always comes down squarely on the self-effacement side of the equation when I dip my toes into the self-promotion tsunami.

And the water is so cold.

Am A Guest

Drive by comment:

I am a guest today on the Ladykillers blog. Come have fun with me: http://www.theladykillers.typepad.com/

 

Cheers,

 

Claire

So, How's that Book Selling?

So Pen and Prejudice has been out for a couple of weeks and not like I'm checking my amazon page like six times an hour or anything (of course not!), but I'm doing better than I'd hoped  and, of course, not as well as I would have like  (which, indulge me here, would have had it jumping within two days of uploading it to the best seller lists for both the paperback and the Kindle version). There have been a few surprises based on what I can glean from the sales info provided by amazon.

1.  The mystery community is not interested at all in this book, even though it's about writing and the mystery community. I didn't think I'd get a ton of mystery readers, but I thought I'd get some. Doesn't seem that I am.

2.  I'm getting a ton of buy-in from the Janites (those who love Jane Austen in all her lovely permutations). I thought that this would be my core audience and I was right. I knew that there were a bunch of novels out there that are just like mine (Jane Austen fanfiction), but I was actually surprised at how many there are. I will say briefly that I am a huge supporter of fanfiction, which is anathema to many authors, I know. I'd give my right eye to have one of my books becoming a fandom darling because that would mean sales for years.  I could retire. J.K. Rowling is one of the few authors who recognizes the power of fanfiction and what it does in terms of market share. There will be an upcoming post on fanfiction and how it is a way of extending the fantasy and benefiting the original author, but that's for another day.

3.  No surprises regarding Kindle versus paperback sales: Kindle sales far outstrip paperback sales by a wide margin. Some of it is that I priced the Kindle version to be less than a cup of coffee, and some of it is why pay more for a paperback version when the Kindle version is roughly $6.50 cheaper? I believe that the reading experience for this particular book works much better as a book than a Kindle offering, but Kindle readers, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

4.  I'm ashamed to say that I didn't time the release of this book to coincide with the release of the movie Austenland. I wish I could say that this was due to sheer brilliance on my part--helloooooo, Austenland, how lovely to see you in the theaters--but it was actually just luck. But I will take it. Note to those of you considering self-publishing: Time all book releases with some related movie release as there is bound to be a bump of some sort. I can't say for certainty that the release of Austenland has helped book sales, but my gut says it has. Plus, it certainly can't hurt!

I'm going to try to post here more often. I am shooting for weekly Sunday blasts of trivia and opinions (no surprise, I always have lots of opinions), and I owe everyone a review on Myer's The Borgias).

For those of you who have bought the book in either one of its incarnations: thank you. For those of you who were kind enough to leave reviews on amazon: thank you! For those of you who have been willing to host me on your blog(s), thank you. Speaking of which, this upcoming Friday, August 30, I'm going to be featured on the blog The Ladykillers, which is authored by a host of lovely people who also write mysteries. Stop on by.

And We Are Live!

Houston, we do not have any problems!

Oh, there were some linkage issues and perhaps operator error as I kept uploading these documents over and over again, but to beat any and all metaphors to death, we are now cooking with gas.

Pen and Prejudice is up and for sale!

My sister, Valerie Mighetto, did the cover and I think it's all kinds of awesome. I wrote it. Which, hello, is also kind of awesome. As a writer, when you finish a piece and then see it bound up in its own little concept, all whole and largely saying what you want to say, well, amazing doesn't quite cover it. But to the important stuff...

I have priced it so that basically I make four cents on every copy. Although I am thrilled at each and every single possible sale, be it the paper version or the e-version, I think that the paper version "reads" better because of the formatting issues that I've discussed ad nauseum. I tried to address the formatting crap in the e-version and while I think it works, the print version works better, if you know what I mean.

Print version is available here: HERE

E-version is available here: HERE

Recap: This is not a mystery but it is about the mystery writing world. Using the mystery writing world as a backdrop, Pen and Prejudice is a modern pastiche of the Jane Austen classic, Pride and Prejudice, but instead of our witty, playful heroine and attractive but arrogant suitor willfully misunderstanding each other while attending balls and dinner parties in the nineteenth century, they metaphorically duke it out in the twentieth at mystery writing conferences. For those of you who have ever attended Malice Domestic, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, or Thrillerfest as mystery readers, this is an insider's look at these conventions from a writer's PO. A cross between I Don’t Know How She Does It and Bridget Jones’ Diary, this novel is a social comedy that provides an insider look into the struggles facing most writers of genre fiction.  Plus, you know a romance, plus, you know, a happy ending! Enjoy! BONUS! The Kindle version of Pen and Prejudice is currently FREE, YES, FREE if you are a member of amazon Prime.




And it goes without saying that my traditional mystery novels, Beat Until Stiff and Roux Morgue, are available in both trade paperback and Kindle versions. Enjoy those as well. Hell, Beat Until Stiff is only 99 cents on Kindle. A steal!

The Perils of Self-Publishing Pen and Prejudice

Things I've learned about self-publishing Pen and Prejudice so you don't have to:

1.  The more clever you are with your manuscript, the greater the headaches. I got cute and once it was written I couldn't really "uncute" because the cute aspects of the book were integral to the general gestalt of the book. But it ate up a zillion author hours as I wrestled with html.  I think it looks fairly decent now, but it came at a cost in terms of my time and sanity.

2.  Clever doesn't translate well to ebooks. Yes, I made it work. Yes, I bashed that html seven ways to Sunday so that a fair approximation of the "book" translated to the e-version, but it was a total BITCH to pull off, and there are parts where I don't think it looks as good as it should. But then I couldn't possibly afford to pay someone to do all this.

3.  When you upload to amazon, try to work from two screens at once. I have a lovely 24-inch screen desktop and a 17-inch laptop. I uploaded the book or the e-book onto the laptop and had the same file open on the larger screen so that as I flipped through the pages on amazon's previewer, I was able to catch mistakes (AND TYPOS, OMG! STILL!) and fix them directly. Seriously, and I am not joking, I uploaded that books roughly fifteen times and roughly ten times for the e-version before I got it right .

4.  The e-version. This is where it gets complicated. And yes, my book was something of a formatting nightmare, but I think these issues are endemic and these tips might help you from making the same mistakes I did.

•  WORD is a rigid, unforgiving program. When you make changes and reformat material and change things and then change things back and then change things again, all this meta happens behind the scene. All this confusing code is still there, you just can't see it. Who sees it?  The program that converts your material to an html file, or in WORD-ese: "Web Page filtered." So if you have extra lines and spaces and your paragraphs don't line up and suddenly the font changes sizes or none of your italicized material is in italics, it's because the code is confused.
• How did I solve this? I edited out all that garbage using Dreamweaver. You can do it in Notepad but it's a lot more difficult. But needs must. All that extra code creates problems and it needs to go.
• Limit yourself to two fonts. TWO. No more. I thought I'd be clever (which always bites me on the ass), and since I was using Dreamweaver I put back in all the fonts differentiating the different "speakers" in my book. I have a lot of email exchanges and it helped (see real book) differentiate between who is speaking by using different fonts for different "voices." This works in the book. It doesn't work in the e-version. All that lovely formatting was stripped out, and I was left with what I started with: basic text but now it was laden down with all these code (because I'd changed fonts), which meant that phantom lines appeared and a host of other problems. Yes, I know I could have had paid to have this formatted so that all my clever little ideas translated to the page, but frankly I can't afford it.
• For some odd reason all my basic formatting (italicized and/or bolded words) didn't translate to the html version. You could probably hear my screams in New York. My advice is to create your final version and then make an "E" version. Go into your "E" version and hunt for every single italicized and/or bolded word and add html code. I would also recommend doing this for em dashes and ellipses, which I seem to use a lot of. Perhaps too much, as evidenced by all the coding I ended up putting in.

5.  What did I learn from all this? It takes a tremendous amount of hours to format a book so that it looks professional, and now I understand WHY there is so much complaining about the e-versions of books. Creating a book for the page is not the same as creating the book for the "screen." Clearly a lot of publishers ARE treating these entities as one and they are not. They need to invest time in making the e-experience worthwhile. There's a lot of competition for a reader's time. Don't piss them off by sloughing off a badly formatted e-book.