First Coffeehouse for the new year! And the last one in Mysterious Galaxy's current space. They're moving towards the end of this month, to a rental with (I hear) even more meeting room space.
My notes are below. Thanks again to Jonathan Maberry and Henry Herz for hosting!
Marketing Yourself
- put your credentials — certified electrician, lawyer, martial arts expert — out there for people to find when doing research or organizing panels at cons; you’d be surprised at what other writers want to know about
Upcoming Events
- comicfest in march, smaller comic con
- wondercon in april
Getting Better at Writing Comics
- read lots of comics, pay attention to the storytelling, read comic scripts (find online, including on maberry’s website
- booths are comic-con are staffed almost entirely by editors and editorial assistants; talk to them, trade business cards, but don’t bring a script, they don’t want it
Pitching
- when pitching, and wanting to tell the target audience, don’t say “adults from 35-45”, say “fans of stephen king’s salem’s lot”
State of the Weird West Genre
- with short stories, you’ve got a shot. novels, you’re almost definitely going small press, and you’re probably going to struggle to earn out
Coming Soon: Writing Workshops
- once mysterious galaxy moves, will be doing workshops at the new location: fight and action scenes, children’s books, comic books
Character Description Tips
- old action movie trick: give a bad-ass character something to hold in their hands, like a cup of coffee, so they don’t look dangerous (until they punch someone in the face), the contrast works
- can get more mileage out of describing what a character wears rather than their specific physical appearance (because the clothes show character, but the hair color, eye color, etc, does not)
Setting Writing Goals for the Year
- likes 90 days, 6 months, the year, but also 5 and 10 year plans
- Maberry sets daily writing goal based on a week’s worth of actual writing; finds the average and halves it, then uses that as the daily goal, everything past that is bonus; pays himself for every day he hits his goal, can only use that money for fun
- allows himself business days off when knows in advance (ex: knee surgery, spending all day in business meetings in LA)
- build your schedule for mental health and comfort, not pushing yourself to the limit all the time
- good to have a few projects at once, because writer’s burnout is real; can feel like writer’s block but happens if you’ve been working on the same novel/project for too long (for example, when you don’t bang out a novel in 3-5 months, but years)
- after daily goals, have project goals, and make them realistic too; maberry’s first novel took him 3.5 years to write and revise
- first draft and the revision process should not be part of the same plan, because they’re different sides of being a writer; the first draft just needs to get the story out, and be mildly entertaining and coherent, it really only needs to done
- stephen king’s carrie was a terrible first draft, that he almost threw out, but his wife saved it and made him revise it (6 times) until it was ready to go out
- the person who revises the book needs to be unemotional about the book; because we can see so much that needs fixing that we come to hate the book or lose faith in the book
- trick: when writing a book in a year, break up the project into 11 parts (not 12!) and set the goal of having that first draft done by december 1st (so you can spend december partying)
- careful with the rolling draft (write some and then revise some), because the storytelling mind and the editing mind are not friends! they can barely talk to each other. going back and forth for the same project is hard
- writing down the bones: good book on writing craft
- revising requires more writing craft chops than writing; should do some research first, learn how to revise from others then go about revising
- revision strategy: unique character identities, making sure each character sounds different, moves and acts differently
- one pass character identity, one pass character voice, one pass character arcs, one pass making sure protagonist is interesting, one pass for story chronology, pass on figurative and descriptive language (reads poetry now before writing any prose, to help his linguistic imagination), one pass on the logic of the story (which can mean checking or redoing his research), optional pass on POV consistency, very last pass is how much he can cut out of it
- short story goals: write four new stories, revise them, send them out by the end of the year (that’s one drafted and done every three months)
- if revising a novel this year, decide in advance when you’re going to submit it; don’t plan on sending it from mid-november to early january, because no one is going to read it, they’re all on vacation or at office parties or with family
- other goals: 3 years from now? want to be published! your novel (maybe not the one you’re working on now) sold to a publishing house
- 10 year goal: put things on there that are beyond your ken and your skill, then start looking for and doing the things that could get you there
Social Media Tips
- for social media, two guidelines: don’t be a negative jerk, and post consistently (even if it’s just once a day)
- the three platforms to be on: facebook, instagram, twitter; set it up so you can cross-post from one to the other
- will save up links and quotes and youtube videos in a list and post them when he has nothing to say for that day
- interactive posts: what are you working on? what do you think of this new show? i need a playlist for this book, here are the elements of the plot, what would you suggest?
