be the story

NaNoWriMo almost Here, and Do I Have a Surprise for You

I never do NaNoWriMo, because I believe if you’re a writer, you should write. Period. One month of excitement is not going to change your life. It’s like one of those one-day self-help seminars. You go; you have an enlightening, emotional experience; you feel good about yourself and your future; and three days later, you’re back to being your old self. NaNoWriMo always seemed to me to be like that. One month of hard-core writing, followed by… what? If you’re a writer, you write, year-round. You don’t cram it all into the month of November. I have held this position for years.

However, I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Here’s my NaNoWriMo user page.

Why the change? Actually, no change. It just so happens that I’m almost ready to begin working on Volume 2 of The Conscience of Abe’s Turn: The Birth of the Conscience. This is a sequel to the first book in the series. And I plan to use Agile Storytelling to complete it as quickly as possible. I don’t know whether I’ll finish the whole book before the end of November, but I’m hoping I’ll complete 50,000 words worth (about half the book).

The whole idea behind Agile Storytelling is to adopt a set of practices that make it easy to quickly write a passable story. This works, because you do things in an order that helps you organize your thoughts quickly, and you also avoid writing a lot of prose that you’ll later need to throw out. You make all the big changes up front, and then the bulk of the writing proceeds smoothly. I’ve already tried the technique, in a limited way, while writing the short story “Recovery, Relapse, Relationship,” one of the extra chapters in Abe’s Turn Volume 1. (My dad said it was the best thing I’ve ever written. Nice of him to say.)

I’ll post more about my experiences with Agile Storytelling here as I work on the next volume.

-TimK

You Are Worth Every Word You Write

I know I’ve been away for a while, because I’ve been in the midst of the frantic throes of releasing my new novel, The Conscience of Abe’s Turn and my dad John King’s memoirs, Can You See God in This Picture. (We sold out of the latter on the day of its release, but I have more on the way.)

Releasing Abe’s Turn has taught me something. I need a lesson in humility. Not a lesson in how to be humble, but a lesson in how to admit when I’m good enough. You wouldn’t think a guy like me, who absolutely hates to admit that he’s ever wrong, would need that. But (like Dad), I’ve always doubted my own ability, always been plagued by feelings of inferiority, and usually for no good reason. That’s death knell to the working writer. (Read more…)

How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book?

This post was originally posted at my personal blog.

A friend of mine emailed and asked:

If you don’t mind me asking, how much did it cost you to publish your book (or your dad’s)? You seem to be doing all of the important things that subsidy presses do and probably at considerable savings.

I’m still refining my publishing process, and I don’t intend to publish many books by other authors (which is more expensive than publishing my own books, because you have to coordinate between two people, rather than just between the two sides of my own brain). But here’s what I’ve found out so far: (Read more…)