The path to success

I've been reading The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises, and really enjoying it.

One thing I especially liked was this:


It is, I believe, a diagram of a realistic path to success.

From the bottom up
At the bottom are people who "want to" write, maybe write a very little, but abandon it and don't move on to the next level.

Next up are people who are trying to learn something about writing, through books, conferences, classes, critique groups.

And some from that group will actually finish their novels.

And while they try to find a publisher for that finished novel, they start a new one (or ones), because most people don't have their first novels published. (For me, it was my fourth book. It sold in three days. It was like a seven-year, overnight success.)

If they persevere, if they keep learning, keep writing, then eventually they get published.

And if keep at it, they are multi-published. (Are there times when your career might seem dead, when you can't get anyone to bite, even after you are published? For me, yes, there have been times. But I always figured the only one who could take me out of the game was me.)

And James Bell's diagram shows that having a breakout hit is not something you can really control. Every now and then the Ferris wheel dips down and picks you up and carries you off. I had that happen last year when Lis Wiehl's and my first book together showed up on the NY Times bestseller list.

Want to read my next book - Girl, Stolen?

Want to read my next book - Girl, Stolen?

Come on, you know you do. ;-)

Here’s the description: “In Girl, Stolen, 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is napping in the back of the car while her stepmom fills her prescription. Before Cheyenne realizes what’s happening, someone is stealing the car - with her inside. Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne; all he planned to do was take the car. But when Griffin’s dad finds out that Cheyenne’s dad is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes - now there’s a reason to keep her. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare? She’s not only sick - she’s blind.”

Girl, Stolen comes out in October. But I’ve been hearing from some enthusiastic readers/bloggers/reviewers who want to get their hands on an Advanced Readers Copy (which looks just like the real book, except done as a softcover, not a hardback). I feel terrible I can’t send ARCs to every one of you. But I do have two I can share, and I’d like to launch them on a whirlwind trip.

What I'm proposing is to send my ARCs off on a cross-country adventure. Each of my two ARCs will make stops at the homes of interested readers, who will then send it on in turn.

Would you like your home/office/school to be a pit stop on the road trip for Girl, Stolen? Then leave your email address in the comments.

That means you - yes, you! - will get to read Girl, Stolen months before it comes out. The only catch is that you’ll have to send it on to the next reader after you’re finished, which means you have to pay for postage. And since there will be more readers waiting after you, you have to swear on a stack of Bibles that you won’t let it lie around, gathering dust.

If this sounds like your kind of deal, just leave me your email.

Doing the Monster Mash (up)

Time magazine looks at the latest mashup, from the guy who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He wrote that book in two months, it sold more than a million copies, and now it's being made into a movie starring Natalie Portman.

"The conceit of Abraham Lincoln is that Grahame-Smith — his very name is a mashup! — has come into possession of Lincoln's secret diaries detailing his life as a stalker of vampires. As a frontiersboy, Lincoln loses his mother to the undead and swears lifelong vengeance. A giant among men — he was 6 ft. 4 in. (1.9 m) tall — Lincoln adopts the ax, that most American of edged weapons, as the tool of his trade, hiding it inside his signature long black coat."

Read the rest of the Time article here.

And, in a rather unlikely mash up, you can listen to a radio program that featured:
- Seth Grahame-Smith, author of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,"
- Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, professor of English and teacher of a course called “The Uncanny,” which explores how the bizarre and unexpected feature in the art, music, literature and film of the last hundred years, and
- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Lincoln biographer.

You can hear the show here.