Rules & Readership

If this is your first visit, the journey starts with In The Beginning.

I am always amazed by how much time passes between posts.  It's mind boggling.  It does not seem possible that three months have elapsed.  But they have.  And now I’m thinking, “Christ, I'm three months closer to death than the last time I posted.”  

Morbid?  Maybe.  It’s not meant to be.  It’s simply a fact.  When you’re on the north side of fifty you think about shit like that.  You also realize every day is a blessing.

So, sorry I haven’t been here sooner. I've been busy being blessed.

When I started this blog I had no illusions or expectations about readership.  I had some doubt as to whether anyone would ever read it, ever.  So imagine my surprise when I logged onto the blog site and checked my stats and discovered that, according to my Stats page, I’ve had 1,197 page views since I started writing this blog.  That seems like a lot.  Because when I go to my Posts page, it shows that I have a total of 33 view counts.  

Someone is lying.

On my Stats page I can see that 981 (or 81%) page views have been done on Firefox, 1004 page views (or 84%) have been done on the Windows operating system, and 877 of the 1197 page views have come from China.  236 from the United States, 16 from the Ukraine, 13 from France, 11 from Russia, 10 from Switzerland, 7 each from Germany and Turkey, and 4 each are from the UK and India.

In other words, it seems that while I’ve had a disproportionally large number of views from China, the Brits and Indians couldn’t give two shits.   Of course it could be one Brit and single Indian national visiting my blog four times each.  Or two twice, or whatever.  Or, it could actually be one Brit who travels to India (or visa versa) and has visited my blog four times in each country.  

So now I wonder about Turkey and Germany.  Is it one German and one Turk viewing seven times each or is it possibly a lonesome traveler visiting the site fourteen times, seven times in each country?

Is it eleven Russians?  Or one Russian eleven times.  

I’m thinking it definitely has to be more than one Chinese viewer, right?  Unless it’s a single crazy, obsessed, Chinese stalker viewer—

You know what?  It doesn’t mater.  What matter’s is, I’ve had a viewer.  Someone has read what I have written.  That’s all that matters.  If I have touched the heart and/or mind of a single crazy, obsessed, Chinese stalker viewer, then I’ve done my job.

Back to the question at hand: Has my blog had 1197 page views with a shitload of Chinese readers and maybe a couple Indian readers, or have I only had 33 views of mostly friends and family as it illustrates on my Posts page?  According to my Posts page, only one reader read my last post.  I’m pretty sure that was my wife.  (I love you, baby!)

By the way, we celebrated our one year anniversary in September.  Talk about time flying.  Holy shit!  The year flew by.  We also had new windows put in our house last month.  Holy shit!  Was that expensive.  But it needed to be done and now we can check it off our list… once it’s actually paid for in five years.  Home owning is not for the faint of heart.  (As my bride is happy to remind me, we could’ve bought a condo.)  But I digress.  

Given what I’m able to discern, (and hey, I will be the first to admit that I may be misinterpreting the data,) I have to ask, “Hey Google Blog dudes, exactly what is going on?  What good are stats and analytics if there is a 3600% +/- margin of error?”  

I don’t expect them to answer.   Bottom line?  I don’t think I’ll be approached by sponsors any time soon.

I do have good news.  I’m almost done.  Yup, almost done with the first draft of the book.  I have been working solidly and steadily whenever I have time, and I just started the final chapter.  There will be an epilog.  Take that, rule makers.  (More about this later.)

Overall I’m pleased with the work so far.  I expect it to get better as I go through it again and again.  I’m also happy about the length.  The MS should be about 70,000 words when I finish the first draft.  That’s more than I thought it would have, considering it’s a conversion from the 18,000 word screenplay.  I was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough material for a novel.  When it’s all said and done, I hope to have an 80,000 +/- word manuscript.  

On a technical note, research (Google search) seems to produce the prevalent opinion that the 80,000 page range is the number publishers and editors prefer to publish for a first time author.

I’m extremely excited to start the rewrite/edit phase.  I don’t know that I’ll be doing much rewriting.  That will need to be determined later.  I am concerned about plot holes and logic lapses.  (I’m always concerned about plot holes and logic lapses.) I will definitely be editing, polishing and paring to make it tight and, hopefully, better.  I will also be fleshing it out, expanding on the characters and (again, hopefully) breathing more life into them.  And producing said 80,000 +/- word manuscript.  Which seems to be the “Rule of length for new writers”.

Since this book is destined to be self-published, length may not matter.  But if by some miraculous intercession a major publisher considers publishing Germ Line: Revolution, I want it to be the correct length. 

There are a lot of rules in writing.  I don’t pretend to know them all, but over the years I’ve learned some things and come up with some rules of my own.  In the interest of full disclosure, the act of considering my own rules was inspired by an excellent article entitled Ten Rules For Writing Fiction on theguardian.com.  Inspired by this article, I started thinking about my own rules for writing, and here they are:

My Ten Rules Of Writing

1) Write.  If you’re not writing you’re not a writer.  Talking about it isn’t writing.  Writing is.  So write.

2) Inject humor whenever possible.  Humor is universal and can help the reader identify with a character or situation.  Don’t force it or use it inappropriately, but if it fits, don’t be afraid to use it.

3) Enjoy the process.  It is a process, a long one.  From initial idea, through the actual writing, through preliminary editing and rewrites, through the editorial process with your editor, through those rewrites, through marketing and sales, it is a long process, so you better enjoy it.

4) Don’t talk about what you’re writing.  It’s okay to discuss in general terms, like I’m writing a book about whatever, but don’t discuss details, plot points or progress.  Doing so locks you into preconceived notions and writing must be fluid and open to change. (I also believe it steals creative energy from the project, but I may be insane.) 

5) Finish your projects.

6) Use proper grammar, spelling and formatting.  If you don’t know what that is, find out.

7) Always write on a computer.  Some writers will tell you that you should only write with pen (or pencil) and paper.  I say that’s just plain stupid.  Someone will have to transcribe it into digital form eventually anyway, so you might as well start out that way.  Besides, it makes it MUCH easier to spell check, edit, and play with words, sentences and paragraphs.  Try this: Grab a pen and some paper.  Write five sentences.  Now take the third sentence and make it the first.  Now take out any unnecessary words and spell check all the words that are left, correct those and rewrite the paragraph perfectly.  Now try it with a computer.  That’s right, you don’t have to rewrite the paragraph perfectly, it’s already done.  And it took like a fiftieth the amount of time.  Enough said.

8) Always back up your work.  Always.  Twice preferably.  Once on a hard drive and once in the cloud.  Google, Box.net, iCloud, whatever.  Just make sure your can always access copies of your work if your computer goes to shit.  And they do eventually.  Almost always.

9) Hire an editor.  He or she knows things you don’t.  There allowed to be brutally honest, that’s what they’re paid for.  Your wife, husband, sister, friend, fuck buddy won’t be.  They will tell you that you’re great.  But you’re not, and you know it, and you want to sell your work, so don’t fuck around.  Hire an editor.

10) Don’t worry about using or not using adverbs, similes, metaphors, clichés or profanity.  If they work, use them.  If they sound stupid or get in the way, get rid of them.  Other writers who tell you how to write want you to write like they do.  Write like you do.  That means discovering your own voice.  Whatever it is.  Discover it, and don’t worry about all that other silly shit.  Eventually it will blossom like a rose.  You’ll be hunky-dory.  A fucking veritable writing machine.  With a voice.

So that’s it for this post., and yes, this blog is probably a violation of rule #4, but if I were to have a rule #11, it would be: Don't be afraid to break the rules.  Rules are meant to be broken, as they say.  Just be aware that breaking them is more effective if it's intentional and you are aware of the infraction in the first place, and you have a good reason for breaking it. 

As always your questions and comments are welcomed and encouraged.  If nothing else, type in what country you’re from.  

I'm starting to collect readers for the first polished draft.  If you're interested in being one and don't mind providing feedback, let me know.