PitMad -Why my novel was likely a tough sell.

I may as well hit myself over the head with a hammer…

#PitMad Writer of Serial Killer Series Kills his Agent, Editor and Publisher when they cancel his contract and ruin his career.

That was my pitch to #PitMad, looking at it now they likely think it is a joke post, or a threat but seriously, this is what my story is about.  Here is a little run down of it, not that anyone on the receiving end of #PitMad would go this far to find out more (They have likely all blocked my account by now :D)

Ed Putts is a writer, mildly successful, well, successful enough to pay the bills and write full time.  When his publisher is bought out by a Christian Focused publishing house his gory, sex filled novels no longer fit.  Neither his agent nor publisher have any interest in continuing their relationship with him.

Upon the termination of his contract he discovers that nothing he has written belongs to him and neither is his pen name.  He is an established writer but finds himself thrown back out into the publishing world without a recognizable name, a usable manuscript or an income.  He's fantasizing about murder, nothing new, but instead of writing it down he starts thinking about acting it out.  With a plethora of knowledge about committing and cover-up crimes he begins to believe that he is capable.  A scary encounter with a crazed fan that leads to her death solidifies his belief and he's certain that the only way to be able to get on with his life is to dispose of the three people who ruined it.

Obviously this wouldn't fit in 140 or less.  But here is a question, would this be too much for an agent or publisher to stomach?  Likely, but hell, this is my story, this came out of my brain, what could I do?

Thanks for Reading

Other attempted pitches:
He used to kill fictional characters with his pen,but since his writing career was destroyed his pen will no longer do the trick. #PitMad CF

#PitMad CF What happens when an Author of a series of gory novels about a prolific and careful serial killer has his career destroyed?

If he can’t release his lust for death through writing, there are always other ways, starting with those who killed his career. #PitMad CF

CF→ Imagine a killer whose blood lust is satiated by writing gore, now, imagine what that writer will do if he can no longer write?#PitMad

No bites but my spidey senses tell me… I don't have spidey senses. Let's just say that I was a needle in a needle stack =)

The Writer's Dojo Returns!

The Writer's Dojo is returning to its roots and invites you to join in on the fun! 

When I first started the writer's dojo in 2008, I did it as a way to keep the glory of National Novel Writing Month alive all year long. I loved the camaraderie and support I received during the month of November and desired that same feeling of community every month of the year, in every aspect of writing--not just the drafting.

Beginning February 1st, 2013, the writer's dojo returns to its roots and ushers in a new age of ninjawesomeness. Each month we will open three training rooms at the writer's dojo website. A room for drafters (Writing Month, aka WriMo), a room for revisers (Revising Month, aka ReMo) and a room for those querying (Querying Month, aka QuMo).

We invite you to set your own goals, whether it's to write a thousand words a day, revise ten pages a week, or submit twenty queries in a month, and register your goal in the appropriate training room.

Every Monday we'll post the leaderboard for the previous week, and at the end of each month those who met their goal will be able to post the coveted Writing Ninja Warrior badge on their blog or website.

To help you reach your goals, we have a number of ways to support you:

CHATS: At the dojo every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time.

TWITTER: Anytime, day or night, at #writingninja.

GOOGLE+: Join our community for random write-ins and sprints.

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe to our Ninja News and once a month you'll receive an email with an encouraging note and a list of the top performers for the previous month. There will also be opportunities for giveaways, starting with February's newsletter!

We hope to see you at the dojo as you reach for--and achieve--your goals! If you’re interested in seeing what it looks like, just post it in the text box of your blog and then click on “Preview” and you’ll see the simple message=) Please feel free to add your own thoughts on the matter. I’ll see you all around The Writer’s Dojo!!

My Obligatory "Thoughts on Twitter" Post

I tweet.  Actually I probably tweet too much and of course I see a kazillion tweets about how to effectively tweet to get followers, and how to sell your products and yourself and yadda yadda yadda.  I DON'T CARE!!!!!

There.

What do I tweet about?

1. Writing.  It's why I joined in the first place.  I like to interact with other writers both about writing and day to day things.  I have learned so much about writing, publishing drinking wine from these great folks.
• #WritingTip when you are writing turn off spell/grammar check, they only slow you down. Editing and writing are two separate tasks.
• Just had a brain buster of a thought… mobi is to epub what apple is to android take that as you wish
2. Family.  I have two adorable kids and an awesome wife.  I love to share anecdotes, comical annoyances that I have.
• Given up on getting our daughter to sleep in her crib so we delegated the task to our 4y/o. Seems to be working! #ParentingTip
• She grasps the bars screaming hysterically unable to utter a word. She wonders what she did to deserve this. #NotPrison#TellThatToBabyGirl
3. One-liners.  I think I'm funny (I'm not offended if you disagree, lots do :D).  I toss these out when I feel like it.
• I hope there's no airports named after Bush "We are now landing in the bush…" (screaming passengers)
• Did you hear about the #Zombie outbreak in the Cannibal village? It was self contained.
4. Smart ass remarks.  Come on people, sometimes you just ask for them…
• Tweet: The fiance had all four wisdom teeth taken out this afternoon. Fun!
• Reply: @rainyofthedark fun? Oh you're sharing his pain meds ;-)
• Tweet: If you smoke a four leaf clover... a leprechaun will magically appear and eat a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms with you.
• Reply: @Jack_Wagon1 isn't that with a five leaf clover?
5. I also "run" two dailys, The Flash Fiction Daily and The Daily Mongerer

I talk to everyone of the people that I follow as if they are old friends, whether it's George Takei or @JSHyena.  I don't expect responses, retweets/etc.

What I don't tweet about

1. I don't do #FFs/#WWs/#MMs etc, I have nothing against them and I do occasionally read them and even follow people if you have a good reason why.  I don't like them because they take a hell of a long time to do and I like to bring attention to someone you should follow whenever I think of it.
2. I don't do a lot of marketing.  Sometimes I toss out links to:
•  my book: Why am I giving away my book?Exposure.How do I get that?You reading.What do I want in return?An honest review #FreeBookhttp://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Counting-Down-the-Storm/book-M_5sB8b0uEq_R7Ac23KFuw/page1.html …
• my blogs, (This one, Alphabet Wine)
• my music Noteflight - Dennis Leask's Home
3. My sex life, sorry
4. Everything I do/eat/drink or send a tweet from every site I visit on-line
5. I also very rarely ever curse, get too political or controversial

What I retweet

1. Funny stuff, if it makes me laugh I'm sharing, even if it is a bit off colour
2. Good tips, great sites, interesting articles

If you follow me I will follow you back unless you

• Are part of #TeamFollowBack
• Have not tweeted anything what-so-ever
• All of your posts are about 
• marketing
• Self help
• Inspirational Quotes
• Random Links
• Jesus or other religious dieties
• And if your posts start being or turn out to be like the above I unfollow

So, I'm not going to tell you how to Twitter and I don't want you to tell me either 'cause guess what, twitter is a Social Network and I am there to:

1. Be Social
2. To Network

Thanks for Reading

Took a Break From All That Is Writing, And it Was Good

As you may have noticed I haven't really been all that active lately on the writing front.  I finished the first draft of my novel at the end of June and then didn't really know what to do.  I attempted to start editing right away but I didn't think that was a good idea so I moved on to my next project.  I got about 15,000 words into it and lost interest.  What I think I needed was a break, a break from writing, thinking about writing, writing about writing and talking about writing.
Over the past few weeks I haven't been on Twitter much, I think I was somewhat embarrassed about my failure with my story I was working on for NaNoWriMo although I know I have nothing but supportive friends.  I think that the biggest issue however was that after my first draft of "Death By Putts" was finished I just didn't know what to do with myself so I headed off in too many directions and then just stopped everything, but I now have a plan:
(This is what I am holding myself accountable for)

1. Finish Beta Reading for Steve
2. Finish Setting Up and Pimping out my G+ account
3. Work on a Design Idea I have for Threadless
4. Return to my one a day one liners for My "My Brain Farts Stink" Blog
5. Catch-up with friends
6. Re-start editing for "Death By Putts"

This is my plan for the rest of 2011.  I am going to take things a bit slower now.

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Calling All #Pubwrite rs Free advertising for your e-book!

I am this ( || ) close to posting my novella "Counting Down the Storm" to Smashazonbles (That's Smashwords, Barnes and Nobles and Amazon).  Someone on twitter today mentioned about helping other indie authors by including each others synopsis in our books.  I think it's a great idea!  I have decided to delay the launch date for my own book in order to do this.  This is an open invitation to all of my #Pubwrite friends.

Here is some criteria before sending me your synopsis:

• Have a look at mine (here) and see if you think a blurb about yours would fit, there's no point advertising a YA novel at the end of my adult oriented fiction or even SciFi/Fantasy etc.
• Your e-book needs to be currently for sale at Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and Smashwords, the three stores that I am going to sell through.
• The synopsis should be short, about 150-200 words, don't worry about editing, formatting  etc, I can do that. 
• If you have a good quote from a review you would like me to include as well, that would be cool too, for example:
• "The Greatest Piece of Modern Swashbuckling I have Read." - B. Beard, Pirates Port Magazine
• Try to keep it to a sentence
• Another option is if you think the first 200 or so words of your book would draw the reader in and force them to buy your e-book that would work as well.
• Send it to me via E-Mail (Twitter DM me), Post it as a comment in this blog or whatever
• If I get multiples I will pick the one that I think would best work with my book, don't feel bummed if I don't pick yours.
• As payment?  Nothing.  Big publishing houses pimp their other authors all the time, this is just doing the same thing.  The next time you publish something do the same for someone else.

I will place your blurb at the end of my book on it's own page and have it available in the Table of Contents.

I will give people until Wednesday May 18 to submit a synopsis.  I will let you know either way if I will be using yours.  If no one submits one or I don't feel any of the submissions would work out I will go ahead and post my e-book with out it.

I hope this is the start of a really great thing for Indie Writers!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Is Early Morning Writing Right For You?

 

This started out as a response to a blog post by the wonderful horror novelist R.A. Evans (read Asylum Lake).  In his post (link here) he talks about ways to find time to write.  It's some really awesome advice and if you aren't a full time writer (and let's face it only a select few are and likely no one reading this blog).  He has five easy steps.

 

There are two parts to this blog.  My personal foray into early morning writing and steps to be successful in your own journey.

 

 
 
 
How I Started Early Morning Writing 

 

A few weeks ago, before I read R.A.'s blog I did an inventory of my time.  I am a father of two.  My son is a busy 2-½ year old boy who wants to spend every waking hour with his daddy and try as I may to write when he is awake I can't help but give in to his pleas to play or bike ride or do other fun things that little boys want to do with there dads.  My daughter was born in March so she is really new.  My services are needed there a lot as well.  Especially after my son goes to bed.  My wife is struggling getting used to being at home all day and craves my attention in the evenings for some adult interaction even if it's just sitting on the couch, chatting or watching TV.  If I attempt to write after she goes to bed I tend to go a little overboard.  I have been known to write until well into the morning which messes up my day/week/month/mood.  She learned long ago that if she doesn't get me to bed when she goes I may not sleep (I once spent an entire night on the computer designing a track for an online game called line racer).  Good call honey!

 

I also have a day job.  It's not overly demanding and I can get some writing done during the day if I work hard and fast on what I have to do and keep a look out over my shoulder.  This is not optimal and I may REALLY get in trouble some day (I am at work while I am writing this yikes).  So as per Mr. Evan's blog here is a typical weekday.

 

• 7:00-8:00 - Prep for Work
• 8:00-8:15 - Commute (Driving wish I could take public transportation, used to write on the bus on the way to my old job)
• 8:15-12:00 - Work
• 12:00-1:00 - Lunch, I usually spend at least a half an hour writing and eating.
• 1:00 - 4:30 - Work
• 4:30 - 4:45 - Commute
• 4:45 - 7:30 - Spend time with my son, eat supper, do odds and ends around the house
• 7:30 - 8:00 - Put son to bed
• 8:00 - 10:00 - Quality time with my wife
• 10:00-7:00 - Sleep (well as much as I can with a 6week old sharing the bed)

 

Weekends are entirely at the wit and whim of my wife and any free time I can sneak in go into upkeep and maintenance of our home/cars etc.

 

So about three weeks ago I sat down with my wife and we had a very frank discussion about how serious I was about writing and how I felt that I wasn't getting the time I needed to do it.  I would like to say that I feel that my wife is supportive of my writing, and in her own way I guess she is, however she is not willing to sacrifice any of her time with me to let me pursue my passion.  I sat down and thought about what I could sacrifice.  After all it is my passion.  I looked at my schedule.  Sleeping from 10:00 - 7:00?  Sometimes we are even in bed earlier.  Do I really need nine hours of sleep?  I wanted to do two things.  Prove to my wife that I was serious about my writing (she is not without cause to think I may not be, I chased the dream once and abandoned it) and I also wanted to prove it to myself.

 

I'm not sure what other people are like but to me sleep is one of the most important things in the world.  If I could sleep 10-12 hours every night I would.  I had to tell myself that writing was more important than getting 9 instead of 8 hours of sleep.  That is easy to do on the front end but I already expressed earlier why I shouldn't stay up later.

 

Three weeks ago I decided that it was time.  I had to tell myself that writing is more important than sleeping and if I wanted to write 6:00am was the time to do it.  No one is awake, I have until 7:30 before I have to get ready for work (on Saturdays I can sometimes even write until 9:00!) and it's just me and my coffee and a bowl of Shredded Wheat with a little too much brown sugar on it.

 

If You Want to Be an Early Morning Writer...

 

1: Just Do it!

If you are already a morning person than you obviously don't have much trouble getting going.  Me, I find that I have drank an entire pot of coffee before I have gotten the energy to even blink.  You have to realize it's a mind set, a habit you must break, figure out your priorities.  I always thought that getting up before you had to was for old people.  That normal people stayed in bed for as long as they possibly could, calculating what you could shave off time wise to hit that snooze button one more time.  An hour and a half of writing?  That's like ten hits on the snooze button!  STOP IT! If you can't find anything other than some sleep time to sacrifice for writing time you are likely a grown up (I'd use adult but I was that long before I became a grown-up).  As a grown up you don't need to laze around in bed as long as you can.  If you are serious about writing then use this time.  If you have to skip watching the news and go to bed an hour earlier so be it.

 

2: Eliminate Distractions
It is so much easier to surf, hang out on twitter, catch up on e-mail and all the other things that computers are used for.  It's time to pretend your computer is a typewriter.  The computer I use is almost old enough to vote.  I can't hook up to the Internet if I wanted to.  Have an old laptop kicking around?  Use that if you can.  Trust me, early in the morning is the easiest time to click on the little e  (or C or whatever) and then before you know it, it's time for work.  Unplug your computer from the Internet, create a profile that can't access.  Do something that will keep you from turning on the Internet.  This time is for writing only, not even anything writer related (research/marketing etc).  Have your coffee and breakfast ready before you start, feed and walk your dogs, drug your wife, whatever it takes to eliminate anything that will get in the way of your productivity.

 

3: Start With "Mindless" Work
I knew from the get go that there was no way I could write new stuff at that time in the morning.  If you are an outliner, that's awesome.  Don't try outlining, try filling stuff in.  I am not an outliner, I am a plodder.  If I try to plod ahead with my story this early in the morning when I'm not used to hid my face will be in the dirt.  Nothing is more disheartening writing page after page of crap.

 

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  All work and no.......... you get the picture.

 

I had a story written in a few notebooks.  I used that.  I just started transcribing it.  It was pretty mindless work and I was able to write almost 1000 words everyday from it.  I'm likely one of a few that actually hand writes much but what you can do is edit, go through your WIP and re-read it.  If you don't want to do that what about rehashing and old story that you've written.  Maybe you have no choice but to work on either your WIP or something new.  Do what you wish, but if you are frustrated that your writing is sub-par take it down a notch.

 

4: No Excuses
I do it six days a week.  I take Sundays off because, lets face it, I'm dedicated but not crazy.  Think of it like your job.  If you stayed up late the night before and were really tired could you sleep in in the morning?  (The answer is no by the way).  You have to tell yourself you are doing this because you are a serious writer.  Explain to those around you that getting up early doesn't mean unloading the dishwasher or taking the dogs for an extra walk or changing a poopie diaper.  If you wake up to a puddle on the floor from a blown pipe think to yourself, if I had woken up an hour later then what?  Go write and deal with it in a hour.

 

5: Be Accountable
Share your writing with people, your S.O., tweet about it, set goals and share them in a Blog with a table.  My goal is to write at least 500 words every morning.  I tried to set up a club on twitter (#6amWriters) where you reported you word count and encouraged others to share theirs.  So far I have only convinced one person to do it one time, I blame it on #pubwrite.  If this could get off the ground it would be a great resource.  I find that it's all fine and good to set your goals and try to achieve them but if the only guilt you feel for not doing it is your own you eventually loose focus and that snooze button starts growing again. 

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Do My Twitter Multiple Personalities Cause my Followers to Ignore me?

This blog was supposed to be about the next chapter of To Dumb To Dance but I forgot to save it on my USB stick and it's on my Dinosaur at home.  So new topic.

Our Twitter Personalities.
I tweet alot, I think and I sometimes wonder if my lack of followers responses/retweets etc. as well as not being able to get many followers to this blog (where if you follow it you will recieve my novella Counting Down the Storm signed and free!) is due to my lack of focusing my tweets.

Do I tweet about too many things?
The main things that I tweet about are:

My Family

• especially my son, I want to share my 2-½ year olds exploits as he discovers life
• Example Tweet:
• My 2 1/2 year old feeds the dogs all by himself #proudpapa
• Would it be wrong of me to let my 2-1/2 y/o wash the floor with his special cloth? He wants to and it is covered in dirty dog prints

Threadless T-Shirts

• I've made lots of friends here and like connecting and following them as well as promoting and retweeting their artwork
• Example Tweet:
• WIP - Loves Characters - T-shark by @RicoWarehouse Subbed! http://t.co/4SCJU8E via @threadless pre-voing hype. Too cool in every way!
• Some have some very comical things to say which I often can't help replying to:
• Example Tweet:
• By @dschwen Apparently my credit card numbers went on a vacation without me to Florida.
• My Reply: Did they at least buy you something nice?
• I also take part in Sloganeering, a Threadless community of people who come up with smart, witty or thought provoking sayings using 62 characters or less.  I send my own submissions to twitter and often retweet those of my friends and also ones that "Make Me Chortle Audibly" (thanks bygrinstow)

Random Thoughts

• These are sort of related to my Threadless slogans but not always.  I run a seperate blog here entitled ...and you can quote me (aka my brainfarts stink).  I have a number of witty (at least to me) short thoughts about everything from food:  Enjoy Rare Meat, Endangered Just Tastes Wrong to Monsters: I have my finger on the pulse of the Zombie Nation and lots in between.  I toss one out everyday and usually a "classic" that was part of the blog before I started posting.
• Example Tweet:
• "It was a dark and stormy night but still no cliches happened." -D. Ryan Leask
  more of my unfamous #quote s @ http://t.co/tCpVDRv #slogan
• ...and you can quote me: I'm Not a Geek I'm a Nerd, Geeks Bite Heads off Live Chickens... http://t.co/cQmHRZZ #quote
• Sometimes I toss out lines like this tweet:
•  I'd want more followers but I'm paranoid people are following me ---Not Jesus

Writing

• Although I started out tweeting as a means of promoting my Threadless slogans I was immediately swept up in the world of writing which is really my first (other than people) love.  Most of my followers are of this variety as are most of the people I follow.
• This is where I post things like links to this blog, word counts, my fledgling #6amWriters group (of which there are two) and tweets like this:
• 
  "Don't Tell anyone about my 'little' problem." He said. "It'll ruin my #sheetcred." |
  
  "Sheetcred?" | 1/2 #amwriting #ruleswhenhavinsex
• "Yeah, I have a rep to maintain." | "Come again?" She replied. |"Ha ha." | #amwriting #ruleswhenhavinsex (dialogue with no story... yet)
• I also retweet interesting posts about writing etc. etc.

Randomness

• I sometimes think I'm funny and tweet something using popular #hashtags and watch it retweet over and over again, it's like #BreedingDodos
• Anything that is #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement about Jon Kyl is in fact #AFactualStatementAboutJonKyl

The question I ask myself is am I putting off people that follow me because of one of my above "personalities" due to the others?  I want to be a real person, to share my thoughts: idiotic, random, eccentric and quirky, with the world, or at least a tiny corner of it.

If you think my approach is all wrong maybe let me know how to go about changing it.  I would love some feedback!.

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask