The End of Year Post

2022 is drawing to an end, so it is time for a proper ‘end of year’ update. This is not just about looking back, though, but also, perhaps even more, about looking forward to 2023. The past is solidly written in stone, after all, while the future is merely sketched into ever-changing sand. I do know what happened this year, but I do not know what will happen in the next. Therefore, I can and will speculate about it. I do have plans, as that is my nature. I always have plans, captain. (I must keep this one in mind, sounds like a good one-liner for a villain…)

For me personally, 2022 was a rather stressful year — and so it obviously was for the world as well, what with the remainders of COVID clinging on and the war in Ukraine and too many other fires burning to name them all here. This has led to my sabbatical during November and December. I needed the rest and I feel much recovered now after two months of doing just what I want and working on my own fan projects. After all, I plotted and finished two long Star Wars fan-fiction novels and a set of three short stories about the same characters.
From now onward, I’ll be careful to give myself breaks throughout the year, just a week or two here or there for my own projects and for gathering new energy and inspiration. Perhaps I’ll make use of my release months for that — I need about half the month for revisions and editing and can then use the other half for relaxation. After editing, I’m usually very ready for some relaxation, anyway — it’s my least-favourite part of writing and self-publishing.

I may take part of January off as well, even though I’m not quite certain about it right now. I will see what the next days bring and how I feel about returning to “Scholomancer” now. Releases will definitely resume with “The Necromancer’s Notebook”, the second volume of stories about Isadora Goode, in February. My release schedule has shifted by one book like this, which means I already have all the manuscripts I plan to release during 2023 written and do not have to worry about my releases this year. That should also help with overtaxing or stressing myself out.
The schedule for 2023 is as follows: “The Necromancer’s Notebook”, February, “The Lady of the Dead”, May, “DI Colin Rook”, August, “Changing Plans”, November. That’s one set of novellas, two sets of short stories, and one novel.

As far as new projects go — well, I do have plenty plotted out already. I could write one book every month of 2023 (which is unlikely) and I would still have some left over. That is only if I do no plot out anything new — as I certainly will. Therefore, finding something to write shouldn’t be difficult, I have a lot to choose from. There’s a lot of different stuff, too, from my Lovecraftian “The Crew” over the Cultivation novel “Shadow and Sun” to much lighter fare such as “On An Adventure”. I will definitely get back to all of it in time, but I have no order planned out right now. I will write the stories as I feel like it.

I’m sure I caught myself just before I could develop another burn-out. I’ve had one a little less than ten years ago and I’d rather avoid another, so one of my personal goals for next year is not to overwork myself again and accept that I might have to set aside writing for a little while when my life gets overwhelming in other ways, as it did this year. The last thing I want or need is being burned out again and hardly being able to do anything. Burn-out and depression are horrid conditions and having the lighter of them once was plenty already, thank you very much.

To a good 2023, an end to the war in Ukraine and the oppressive regime in Iran, and more focus on the long-term problems of the world! For me personally, I want a calm year without medical or other emergencies and the chance to simply concentrate on my writing and, perhaps, projects like creating 3-book collections of my past stories or my own website. Have a good 2023, everyone!

On Self-Publishing

Self-publishing still has a bad reputation. It’s something to feed one’s vanity. It’s clearly ‘lesser than’ being published by a proper publishing house. It’s not something a serious author would do. While this used to be true in the past, at least to a degree, modern means of publishing — including self-publishing — have opened up new avenues for books to reach their readers. Self-publishing is better than its reputation (and then there’s the topic of indie publishing, too).

Some authors choose self-publishing to keep control over their work. The moment an author signs a contract with a literary agency or a publishing house, they do lose control over their manuscript and that can be really bad.
Usually, contracts leave the author little influence as to where, when, and if the book ever sees the light of day. The literary agency chooses which publishing houses to offer the manuscript to. The publishing house decides on when and how to publish the book, usually sets the genre and sub-genre, may make severe changes to the text and change the title. The cover might severely misrepresent what the main character is supposed to look like or give people completely wrong expectations of what the book will include.
Yet, in the end it is the author who gets blamed for all of this — it’s their book, after all, and their name is on the cover. An author who has been through this, perhaps even several times, might choose to self-publish or indie publish instead and keep control of their manuscript.

Some authors self-publish because their book is part of a niche market. Big publishing houses usually do not serve the niche markets and the only way to get the book out can be to self- or indie publish it.
Publishing houses have only one interest: to make money with their books. This means that they’ll be on lookout for possible future bestsellers. They look for books similar to what they already publish, similar to what sold well in the past. While this might be short-sighted, it’s how the business works. Well-known authors with a lot of bestsellers under their belt are wanted — and often can take more influence on how their book will look in the end. New authors who are focused on the same audience as other best-selling authors also have it easier to be published, because the publisher expects that their book will perform similarly well.
Everyone whose book is written for a more niche market, on the other hand, stands little chance to get published that way. The niche market doesn’t turn a lot of profit, the publishing house might not even want to be connected to it (such as a conservative publisher not wanting to publish homosexual romance stories). Self-publishing or indie publishing are the way out and bring those books to their niche audience, enriching the book market.

Self-publishing is also a lot of work. It’s not just about writing your manuscript and all is done.
After writing, the first step is usually editing the text. This can and usually will include content editing, copy editing, and line editing (as I have no printed versions of my books, I do not line edit, but I have to do the other two). Content editing is looking into the content — making sure that there are no illogical parts in the story and all threads are tied up nicely in the end (or as nicely as is possible in a series). Content editing might include rewriting big parts of a text, especially for discovery writers. Copy editing means looking for typos, wrong words, and every kind of grammar mistake. This is usually the most tiring process, as you need to go over the text several times to be sure to catch them all (or at least most of them). Line editing, finally, happens once the printing is organised and gives the editor (in self-publishing, the author) the chance to make sure that there are no widows or orphans (single last or first lines on the page belonging to a longer paragraph) and, ideally, no chapters ending with one or two lines on a new page. As said above, I do not do the last one myself, as I’m not self-publishing in print so far.
Writing a blurb is the next step, so there is a way to advertise the book to the reader on the platforms on which it can be bought. This is something entirely different from writing a story — this is advertising and needs a new skill set.
A book needs a cover, so then it’s about creating a cover for your book. This might be easier if you have a series going and have kept a template, but it still needs work every time you want to put out a new book. Design is also a different skill set from writing a book.
After all of this is done, the next step is to actually put the book online. I personally put my e-books up at Amazon and use Draft 2 Digital for the rest. By now, D2D also does Amazon as a platform, but I don’t want the work of pulling all of my books from my Amazon account to re-upload them through D2D. This can take quite a while, depending on how well your program can format and what way you upload. I personally am quite happy I can upload the .epub format after making it with Scrivener by now.
After this, there’s still advertising to do (also not a regular skill for an author) and a website to keep working and updated these days. This is something I have to look into again, as my Google-sites website just doesn’t really cut it.

The difference between indie publishing and self-publishing, by the way, is that most of the steps above are done by hired professionals if you have the money to do indie publishing instead. Like this, the author doesn’t need to learn all the other skills, but they have to pay people who have them.

In the modern day, self-publishing is no longer just a vanity project. It can be, but it’s much less likely to be one these days than it might have been in the past. There are good reasons for self- or indie publishing. The author can keep control of their own manuscript and make sure it is not advertised wrongly or changed beyond recognition. The author can write for a niche market which the publishing houses ignore. It’s a lot of work — or costs a lot of money —, but it is perfectly viable and can be the best choice for any and all manuscripts.

Character Arcs

Character arcs are important. That’s something which basically every bit of writing advice will tell you. Yet, which character can or should have a character arc? Which character absolutely needs one and for which character would it be a waste of time? Let’s find out.

Generally speaking, the main character, the protagonist, the hero, should always have a character arc.
Always? Okay, superhero comics and pulp stories usually get away with not giving them an arc, mostly because everything is set back to zero at the end of every story — that goes for deaths, romantic developments, and also all other kinds of character arcs. It’s not that it is forbidden, it’s more that it’s not considered necessary. Pulp and comic-book heroes usually are developed enough for their adventures and don’t need to find new skills or associates to master them. Hence, there is no need for character development. It could be there — and, sometimes, it is —, but it’s not necessary to make the story work.
Classic character arcs for the hero are usually upward arcs — arcs that make the character a better person. They can include — but are not limited to — overcoming fears and other flaws (such as more undesirable character traits), building a new relationship, or developing a new skill. Romance arcs, for instance, are usually all about building a relationship and can include overcoming a flaw so the relationship has a future.

Love interests are another group of characters who often do get a character arc — also an upward one which makes them ‘better people’ in the long run. This is especially true if the love interest is male and falls into the ‘brooding’ category.
A full character arc for the love interest, though, is more likely in a romance-based story and less likely if there’s just a romantic sub-plot somewhere. In the romantic sub-plot, the main plot often provides the reason for the couple to get together in the end, even if it might feel ‘unearned’ from the protagonists side.
What should be avoided is turning the female love interest from a confident and able woman into a helpless damsel, just so the male main character can save her and ‘win’ her that way. There are other, better ways to bring two people together than making one the passive trophy to be ‘won’ by the other.

The last big group of characters who might get a character arc are — the villains! Yes, villains can have two different types of character arcs.
More commonly known is the redemption arc in which the villain stops being a villain and becomes one of the good people instead. Good redemption arcs are hard to do, though, and quite often they include the death of the villain — after doing something for Team Good (think of Darth Vader, for instance). Others take the longer, harder route and give us a full redemption with the villain turning hero (a great example would be Prince Zuko from “Avatar: The Last Airbender”).
What if the villain is not supposed to be redeemed? No arc at all then? No, for this case, there’s still a possible character arc — a downward one. A downward arc is the opposite of the upward one — instead of making the character a better person, it makes the character a worse person. The character commits more and more atrocities and proves themselves to be someone who can only be vanquished — and possibly killed — and never redeemed.

In addition to these three groups of characters — hero, love interest, and villain — some other characters might get a character arc of some kind. The most common two would be the sidekick and the mentor.
A sidekick could come into their own over the course of a story — which would set them up as a possible main character in the sequel — or at least lose a bad trait or gain a good one. Their arc usually isn’t as strong as that of the main character, but it might still be there and enrich the story.
Even though the mentor is normally the one giving life lessons, some of them still have something to learn. “Kung Fu Panda” has mentor Shifu learn that sometimes his regular methods of teaching might fail while different ones might yield results when he finds out that food is a good motivation for his new student to give his best. Shifu goes with it and thus trains the new Dragon Warrior successfully.

Character arcs are often referred to as ‘internal arcs’ in opposition to the main story arc which is usually an ‘external arc.’ This simply refers to whether or not the arc is mostly driven by visible action. Taking the One Ring to Mordor is an external action and this is the main arc of “Lord of the Rings” whereas Frodo’s development as carrier of the ring is mostly internal as the One Ring influences his character.
A story needs an external arc so there is something happening, so there’s tension and stakes. It might or might not have an internal arc for any and all of the main characters. Even romance stories need that external arc, which is often about overcoming an obstacle on the way to the ‘happily ever after.’

Character arcs are important for main characters like hero, villain, and love interest. All of them can profit from a good character arc that makes them visibly grow in some way (even if it might be growing worse in case of the villain). Some other characters might profit from a character arc as well. That doesn’t mean that ‘henchman 275’ or that merchant who sells the hero some provisions also need a character arc. Before you give someone a character arc, ask yourself whether it will enrich the story or not. If it does, put it in. If it doesn’t, leave it out.

Taking a Sabbatical

You might already have noticed that I haven’t been writing any blog posts lately (for a little over a month now to be more precise). I’ve found myself almost burned out after the year I’ve had so far and I’ve taken a sabbatical to recover. That did include abstaining from my blog and doing the mere minimum (mostly set up before the sabbatical) for my Facebook page.

My real life this year has been hard — my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer at the end of the last year and went through several surgeries and a stint of chemotherapy from January to September. I didn’t go through all the physical parts of this, naturally, but there was a lot of work to pick up and a lot of care going on as well. Not that I’m complaining — I’m glad I could help him. Only … it doesn’t lead to a lot of spare time for writing and editing and doing all the other stuff which needs doing if you’re a freelance writer.
I forced myself to go through all of it, releasing a new book in February (when my dad had major surgery), May (when his last surgery was just finished), and August (when he was in the middle of his chemotherapy). I simply had no strength left in November, so “The Necromancer’s Notebook” will be released in February next year. I can live with that.
I also pushed myself with writing until I barely could bring myself to go on, despite being all geared up for the stories I wanted to write. Strangely enough, when I re-plotted and rewrote an old Star Wars fan-fiction in October, I was burning for it. I was putting in two chapters a day, Monday to Sunday (I normally take the weekends off from writing). I wanted to finish this and I did — only to continue with part two right afterwards. I wrote into November, pushing the time at which I would start editing — until I realised I didn’t want to edit. Well, I never want to edit, but this time, I just couldn’t find the energy, so I decided ‘no editing and no releasing this month’ and I was all the better for it.

Yet, what this has shown me is that I can write. It’s not that I have lost the ability to really finish a writing project, it’s just that right now I can’t be bothered with commercial projects and need to find my way back to my love of writing and telling stories. That is what my sabbatical will be for, recovering the fun of writing and getting more motivated again.
I will try to get back to regular writing in January — it might take longer, I have two fan projects in the pipeline and they might take up the time until towards the end of January. Even so, I can also start anew in February after the editing. Editing usually motivates me to write more.
I find myself looking forward to writing more already, which is a good sign. I want to write again and I want to tackle a project. I enjoy myself at the keyboard (and I’ve grown fond of Scrivener’s composition mode, too, but more of that at another time). My sabbatical is definitely going in the right direction and that is good.

So far, I’ve only pushed my release schedule back by one book — shifting “The Necromancer’s Notebook” which has been written quite a while ago from November to February.
It’s not as if I was missing out on enormous sales numbers, either. I make little money with my books so far, although it’s getting better. It’s not as if there’s troves of fans who are crying themselves to sleep at night because the book isn’t out yet (although I can say that it’s fun).
It’s also that I wasn’t so much not looking forward to editing the book — I do like the stories in this novella collection and I do like Isadora very much — , it was that I just couldn’t find the motivation to start with it at all. Normally, I can at least tell myself ‘it has to be done and the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be done,’ but not this time. This time, I couldn’t motivate myself at all.

I’ve had a burn-out before, too, and I didn’t want to get down to that again — once was one time too many.
Therefore, I hit the emergency break and got off before it could get to that point. I’m getting better and that is good. I need this time, so I’m taking it. If other authors can publish a book every five years (or so), I can publish three books a year instead of four every now and then.
The last time, by the way, I didn’t publish four books, was when my mum lost half her lung to cancer. I find that real life and family take precedent over my publishing business. Deal with it.

Blog posts might not be quite as regular for a while longer now, but I’ll try to get some up. I actually have three more of them plotted and can write them. I might also take the time to do so before I return to my Star Wars fan-fiction and give my characters a new adventure with less Sith and more investigation. I’m enjoying my sabbatical after several years of basically no breaks and I will return to work when I have recovered enough. Luckily, I have the freedom to do so.