Hanging Upside Down – Page 2

Reading Out Loud

In need of Shave

Last night I decided to be more engaging with the world. I created a video about the ahem finer points of reading your work out loud. This was all based on a tweet that I made a few days ago about how reading your work like you’re performing an audio book helps with evaluating the flow of your story.

I’m all about the flow of a book or a story. I think it’s one of the most important things that makes a book interesting. If a book is easy to read, regardless of vocabulary, the reader enjoys it more and absorbs the message better. I’m a firm believer that anyone should be able to pick up a book and read it from cover to cover. That is why one of the questions I ask my test reader is, “Does the book flow?”

I will also admit (again) that I have gotten in audio books. I find myself imagining what it would be like to have someone read and perform Hanging Upside Down in this medium. I’m sure I can do, but there are some really great voice actor that can do it much better than I could. That, of course, makes me think about the general flow of my writing even more. That’s why tone and dialogue become so important.

I’ve gone through five audio books in about 6 weeks. While three of those are Star Wars books, the other two were Dracula by Bram Stoker and Kindred by Octavia Butler. Both of these classics got me really to love how words sound and thus lead me to read my current project, The Book of Isabel, out loud.

I've been reading my book out loud. This is a great way to find typos & get a feel for flow. Also practice for the audiobook. lol #amwriting

— Tony Snark (@Latinegro) January 24, 2016

This explains the video I created last night. I will admit that I’m a bit goofy and it’s awkward to hear myself but fuck it. I need to start having fun with the work that I do. Enjoy the video and leave some feedback.

Blogging, my life

7 Years of Blogging

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On that rare occasion that I post two blogs in one day, you know that I must a have a good reason. I’ve been doing this for seven years. That’s crazy to me considering there are times where I wanted to stop blogging. But, I keep this going because writing has become my life.

I’m drugged up because I had two wisdom teeth pulled. I planned on going to work today but then I woke with pain and I’m like nah, I need to rest. So if this post seems somewhat different from usual ramblings then blame the good stuff I’m on. Let me just give into the drugs now and tell you all that I love you (this is how you know I’m either drunk or high).

Here I am in Year Seven and I’m working on my second book. I’m working on submitting short stories to places that accept them. I’m contemplating workshops to attend. These things are a far cry from what I was before all this started. I would’ve never guessed I would be two books deep at this point in my life.

In the back of mind is book three. I know it is crazy but at some point this year I will have to start writing that. I know what its about and I have written a little piece of it a few months ago.

What else can I say? I hope that you’ve read or will read Hanging Upside Down. I no longer ask people if they read it. The best thing I can do is move on and encourage people to support The Book of Isabel. All I can say about this book is that my style is evolving and I have extremely enjoyed the challenge of putting this particular story on paper.

I’m happy about the process. Not many people will read it and I know that. But that does not mean that I will stop and that is why I’ve been doing this for so long.

goals, my life, writing

2016 Goals

I’ve finally had time to mull over all the goals I want to set for this coming year. I don’t like resolutions because they lead to a false sense of ambition. That is why so many people flood to the gym in January only to give up by March. My goals are achievable and some are harder than the others but they are promises I make to myself.

As usual, I looked at the past year and noticed that I’ve achieved 60% of the goals I’ve set last year, which always seems to be the case. This is not something that I set out to do. Life has a way of making us veer off course, but in any case, here we go…

I feel like I’ve been really slacking in my blog writing. I know that anyone would tell me that writing a second book as well as a bunch of short stories is understandable but the past few days has shown me that I simply need to blog more. Not just here, but on the Huffington Post and The Commons. It gives me a little more focus on what it is I do. Even after all these years, I still feel like I’m building more of an audience which I hope will lead me to getting a press pass at the NY Comic Con.

I also need to be mindful that I have indeed set a tentative date for the release of The Book of Isabel. I really need to make sure that I make that date. It may sound simple enough but there’s so much coordination in getting this book out that I want to make sure I don’t repeat the mistakes I made with Hanging Upside Down. While doing that, I want to take the plunge into the short story world and actually try to get some of my work published. I’m not exactly sure all the details but I did open up a Wattpad account so I can begin exploring that process.

All this writing makes me want to continue to work my craft. I don’t take any of this lightly and I feel that I can get better at it. This is why I will continue to make an effort to read more. I’ve read more in 2015 than I have in quite a long time. I’ve also gotten into audio books which helps me catch up on books I should’ve read a long time ago. Of course more reading leads to more writing and I also feel I need to do a better job at really getting into writing workshops. I would be a fool to think that I cannot improve.

The other thing that I’ve done more is travel. Seeing the world is essential to any writer. Seeing more of America is crucial to any American writer and while I do plan on traveling in 2016, the goal is to visit more sporting stadiums or arenas. I will keep it real, I would much rather to the baseball stadium thing but, I will include football and basketball just in case I travel to a place off season. There is something about seeing how other city’s celebrate their sport that I find interesting.

Switching gears, I’m quite sure that I’ve made it quite clear that I’ve changed my dietary habits. I’ve been a pescatarian for about 6 months now and I don’t plan on changing that but it does lead me to think about my health in general. I’m not getting any younger and I know that I need to start taking better care of myself. I’m already scheduled for oral surgery in January and I know I need to see my doctor for the routine check ups. For some reason I feel that I need to put my medical well being into the forefront.

Every year I put debt reduction to the list an every year it remains there. I suppose this is a long term goal that will remain on this list for the foreseeable future. Which brings me to the last item on my list. As my girlfriend prepares to graduate from business school there is a distinct possibility that I will be moving out of Harlem. Not sure where to yet, but I have some ideas.

I think 2016 will be another big year. I hope you set some pretty big goals and I thank you for indulging me to share mine with you.

Novel, writing

The Little Things

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Editing of The Book of Isabel has taken more of a priority as 2016 gets closer. The little things are becoming more important. There are things that don’t seem uniquely important by itself but become huge when you put it all together. There are things that have to get done now so that I wont have to do them later.

I always talk about how it is to be a self published author in terms of the mild successes and the pitfalls, but I’m not sure I’ve really gotten into the little things. What I mean about these little things, I’m talking about things that are not ultimately related to the act of writing the text in the novel. These things include but are not limited to the book synopsis, the dedication, and the head shots. The difference between where I was the last time I wrote a book and now, is experience.

In 2014, I felt that I rushed through everything. I rushed through the editing process. I had no real head shots and had no real idea on how to describe Hanging Upside Down. Much of everything I’ve done leading up to the book coming out seemed to be on the fly. As much as I loved the way things happened, I feel like I could’ve done so much better with time and planning.

The cover for the new book is 95% done. Draft two is about 60% done. What keeps me ahead of the game is that I now know what I’m doing when it comes to creating book pages and descriptions. These are the little things that most authors who have agents and book deals don’t have to consider.

This has also led me to think about things I need to consider when it comes to book promotion. I feel like I’ve done a decent job at creating my own marketing and my own buzz but now I have to take things a step further. I’ve been told that I will need to really consider putting more of my work out there. I need to start looking at getting officially published.

I will be hard work and I may start out with short stories. I need to try because it is the little things that will make the difference.

Friendship, my life, relationships

Navigating People

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This is the last week of this year and I find myself wrapping up somethings before the year closes. While, I haven’t laid out my goals for 2016 as of yet, I’m still very much thinking about them. I currently have more time to write some blogs and I wanted to free write.

It’s been an interesting year indeed. I could get into all of the societal and political trash that has occurred but this one is about me. This year has been a year where I had to really figure out my place when it come to people.

I feel like I navigate people everyday. I navigate my family, my friends, and co-workers. I also navigate my twitter peoples, blerds, fellow writers, and trolls. Through this, I makes me wonder what I actually do each day. How did I get where I am now with all this human navigation?

I feel that this year has put into perspective that most friendships are not as archetypal as we think. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, friendships can be fleeting. No matter how much navigation can be done, all relationships are more or less the same. People love each other and they trust each other until they don’t.

Life goes on and new relationships are made and voids are filled. We spend so much time thinking about how we ever had those voids in the first place. The navigation of nouns (persons, places, and things) continues like it never ended as it was a ripple in water only disturbed by a stone of a broken connection.

I think back to a passage from my own book (which I try not to quote myself due to this being a bit self serving):

Everyone in our lives is there for a reason, regardless of the length of time. No matter if they love us or hate us, no matter if they break our hearts or simply hold open the door. I really believe things happen for a reason. I can’t say I believe in fate, but rather I believe that we all play a role in each other’s lives. It’s up to us to decide what that role is.

Fleeting relationships is what life is about. If you have old friends cherish them.

Facebook, Novel, writing

700 Likes

What does that even mean?

So recently I found myself with more than 700 likes on my Facebook page and I wonder how good that is. How many like translate to success? I’m not one to believe that because I have a certain amount of Facebook likes or Twitter followers that I’m a famous or a successful person. However, it may mean that I know a thing or two about interacting with an audience which may mean a little more.

I do see this as way for me to get my name out there but I also feel that it isn’t enough and that perhaps I’m doing something wrong. The question that I immediately ask myself is how does all these likes and followers translate into new readers? This is something I still have trouble answering.

This year I realized that it didn’t matter. None of the likes or followers matter because at the end of the day, I’m still a new author with one book. Of course, this may end up changing as time goes on but as for right now, each new follower has to get acquainted with me. Each new like is a vote for the foundation of success and each new person is a potential customer.

As I push toward the second book, I start to look at things that worked and didn’t work over the past year. I’ve battled with the idea of just posting nothing but quotes and pictures of Hanging Upside Down on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. The problem is I don’t want to be that guy that people think uses social media as a spam platform. I would hate to lose anyone on social media if they felt I was being too commercial.

But here I am with 700 likes. When I made that page I didn’t know what to expect and I supposed I shouldn’t always write about it every time I get 100 more likes but It does make think about how this will play out once The Book of Isabel drops.

Will I sell more? It’s hard to tell.

my life, writing

Fight For Your Dreams

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“Who are you?” That was what I was asked a few days ago by a former student that is still getting used to the person I’ve become. I’m an author and a vegetarian which is vastly different from where I was about 4 years ago. But to answer the question, I am a person who has fought for my dream.

So who was I before that? Was I some person wandering around not knowing what I wanted? Actually, I was that person who didn’t listen to that little voice on the inside. I took life for granted thinking I should just be grateful for what I have and not take risks. I wasn’t willing to change my life because I was afraid I might fail.

I was afraid that I might lose.

Well the thing is, I stand here now saying that I’ve taken risks and that I have won some and I’ve also lost some. Life is about fight and I feel that I’m in that fight everyday. I battle against the toughest opponent I will every face and that is myself. I have expectations and dreams that have become a real part of the goals that I set for myself. Every year I have risen the bar higher, sometimes I make it and sometimes I don’t.

I saw Creed this weekend and it really took me back to a time when I believed that anything is possible if you work hard for it. I may talk a good game about goals and how I’ve accomplished a lot of what I wanted, but the reality is that I find myself feeling a little disappointed about not doing enough. Am I not writing enough? Am I not marketing enough? What am I fighting?

I’m fighting this idea that my first plunge into the literary world is not as successful as I thought. Yet, I’m not sure what I thought would happen. Perhaps I thought I would sell more books. Maybe I thought I would have more meaningful interactions where people actually believe I wrote something longer than a blog post. Whatever the case may be, I realize that this is all in my head because I’m my biggest critic.

Creed reminded me of the fact is that I still put myself out there and I continue to take on the brutal writing schedule where I don’t sleep because I need to prove to myself that I can do this. There is this need for me to do all this on my own with help from a select few people that I’m privileged enough to call a team. I could win or lose, but I get nothing if I don’t but my hat in the ring. So yeah, I was a bit hyped when Adonis Creed did his work outs and ran through the streets of Philadelphia because I understand that passion and the need to achieve that one goal.

I fight for my dreams because no one will do it for me. There will always be naysayers and there will always be supporters and I used them both for motivation.

my life, Novel

Cover Inspiration

One thing is for sure: we never stop learning. As I slowly move along in the process of getting my second book out, I’ve taken a different approach on what I want to do. From where I stand, I’m seeing some pretty awesome things happening in terms of The Book of Isabel. Since I cannot release too much information, it’s both very exciting and also very frustrating.

One improvement I wanted to make from Hanging Upside Down was how I handled the cover. I remember having a vision of what I wanted and I had a very talented artist, Ooge, draw up some sketches. As amazing as they were, to implement any of these onto a book cover would’ve given my readers a false impression that this was a graphic novel. Which means, there could have been a real possibility that kids could’ve tried to buy the book and find no pictures in it. This does not rule out the possibility of me actually writing a graphic novel.

So instead, I picked the final image and ran with it in terms of adverting. If you read the book then you will know that steering wheel concept plays well in the book on so many levels. However, this still left me with a problem of no cover design. So, with my small budget, I had to figure out if I really wanted to spend money on a graphic designer or if I should go bare bones cheap and do it myself. Since I publish all my books with createspace, the decision to DIY the cover was a no brainer. I figured that since I was spending so much energy on editing and re-writes, the cover was something that I just didn’t want to spend too much time on.

Alas, I came up with something relatively clean and basic that I can say I’m happy with. It had the colors that I wanted and it sticks out. Once the back of the book had the proper information, I was pretty much good to go. The feedback on it was great. People liked it and that is all that mattered. However, this time around I knew that I need to do something different. I just had this feeling that if I really want The Book of Isabel to be taken seriously I needed to get a concept and design that is going to work for me.

I was 3/4 of the way down with the first draft when I started doing my research. I knew I wanted the book to look and feel a particular way. I also knew that if I was going to really DIY it again, I needed to up my game. I don’t have the Adobe Suite that includes Photoshop and InDesign so I have to find other way to crop and design pictures. I used a web based program called pixlr for my low level needs. In the effort to explore and play around, I wanted to see if I can make Marble image for the background of my book. I looked up how to do this on YouTube only to find out that I can’t do it on pixlr.

Things get a little interesting when I just start using the drawing tool. A few lines here and there and I had an image. At first, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was almost sure I can never do it again. But lo and behold, I had something. A bunch of wavy lines formed into a woman. This image had been the only thing I worked on for weeks before I finished writing the first draft. I impressed myself by using different skin tones and actual hair color that I lifted from photos of my girlfriend.

What makes this satisfying for me is the fact that I used much of my creative juices to come up with something tangible that I ended up giving to a graphic designer as my inspiration for the cover. The reality of book design is that it is more than just an image and you know what? I’m a writer and I should leave designs to those who know what they are doing even if it will cost me some money.

The final image at the top was touched up by another brilliant young artist (and Syracuse University Alum), @misajc.

This is where I have to end this cover story. I feel blessed to know many talented people from my Alma Mater that continually help me with this process. The cover is 90% done. We’re on hold until the editing process is almost complete. There are some wording issues I have to solve for the back of book before we can continue. The cover looks nothing like this but it is closely related. Once I’m ready to put it out there it will be fabulous.

Unfortunately you will have to wait until 2016.

my life, Novel, writing

Happy Book Birthday (to me).

I can go into this whole thing about what the book is about and how I spent hours upon hours of writing. I can tell stories about how I went through three drafts and had to re-write the ending. I can talk about isbns, self publishing, and the creation of the cover. The thing is, I just don’t want to. I feel that all these things are just to get people excited about a book that came out a year ago.

Instead, I will talk about what it means to be an author. I was having a discussion the other day with a friend a mine and she was telling me that she felt that blogging has become flooded. Everyone wants to blog and if that is the case, does that mean everyone is a writer? I’m not sure I can answer that. I don’t have an MFA. I don’t run writing workshops.

What I do know is that being a writer is something that has defined who I am. I’ve always done it. I’ve always written stories, I just never followed through. Hanging Upside Down is the first real literary work that I’ve followed through on. This does not include research papers, essays, old and new blogs, poems, or short stories that I’ve codified in a nice little folder. The act of following through for me is what changed my status from a writer to an author. It is that act of follow through that has gotten me to finish the second book. I never wanted to be an author of just ONE book.

I’ve enjoyed my rookie year as author. I’ve learned a lot about the industry, about how book sales and royalties work, and I’ve learned how to handle the various amounts of bullshit that comes across my way. I’ve come to respect those who have come before me and those who come out with books almost every year. I find myself enjoying other people’s work a lot more because I can see the little nuances in every chapter while questioning if I would have written some passages differently.

I’ve learned to soak in the successes and deal with the failures and to be honest, there enough on both sides to cancel things out. My measure of success is based on the goals I’ve set for myself. I have never, nor will I ever, base my success on money or fame. Consistency is the only way I can continue to make strides. If I’m constant in what I’m doing the rewards will be far more than I can imagine.

There are some rewards to this. I’ve never said no to anyone who needs advice about writing a book. I feel it is my duty as an author to help writers with their goals. I have a particular interest in writers of color so much so that I have really thought about doing some drastic things. The problem is that I have no time to do anything more than just be a guide.

Lastly, I feel that I need to address a perception that I think people have of authors from my limited point of view in this space. I think there is the perception that because I have a book out that I’m automatically a success in the field. I get the feeling that many people who have not read or bought the book think, I will get to it sometime, he is fine. I say this as a writer of color and not just some self published writer, you cannot simply bypass a product simply because you assume our work is doing well. At the same time, you cannot assume something is not good if we are not mainstream.

Being an author means I’ve joined a community of folks who followed through on their writing goals. I look forward to sharing this journey each step of the way. I still can’t believe it has been a year but pretty soon I will be saying, I can’t believe I wrote a second book.

Novel, writing

Book Two – Legitimacy & Beyond

The last time I counted, I am passed 70k in words for my current novel. The significance in this is that I’m way ahead of schedule on where I thought I would be. I promised that I would finish draft one by the end of this summer and it may jut be that I will finish it sometime really soon.

By my estimates of what I’ve already written and what I have left, leads me to believe that I have about 15 to 20k words left in this story and that is being generous. So I’m three quarters done with the book. Of course, we go into a different phase once actual editing begins, but its safe to say that I can make some short term projections based on where I am right. I foresee the book being released summer of next year. But things can change.

The other thing that is freaking me out is how easy the transitions from book 2 to book 3 will be. I can literally start book three while the second one is being edited. At this moment, I’m not sure I will do that, but I can. At this time, I’m in a pretty good groove. I’ve refined my writing habits to the point where I may not want to stop writing even when I’m done with draft one. While I could write more blogs, I may just continue on to the next book because the drive and inspiration may still be there when the time comes. It will take months to edit and when I get bogged down with that, I have another outlet.

Right now, all this stuff feels like yammering but the point I’m trying to make is that I didn’t realize how fast I’ve been writing all this time. It’s almost like Interstellar where time moves slower in some places and faster in others. There are times where I feel like I’m taking too long of a break and before I know it, I’m at like 70k in words.

The reality is that the number of words do matter to me because I don’t want any of my books to feel too long or too short. I know that stories will be as long as they have to but as a self published author, I feel that there is also a struggle for legitimacy. That struggle is strictly based on where I see myself in 10 years. I can parade Hanging Upside Down all day, but if I just stop there what does that make me?

In 10 years, I want someone to look at my author profile and see 4 – 5 books listed. That is what makes me legitimate in my mind. I need to put in the work and that work never ends. So if my current book does not do well and becomes the book that time forgot, I will have a list of other books that people, more importantly my progeny, can see and realize that I am more than the sum of books.

Right now, what I am is an author who is 2/3 done with his second book.