Writing the End of the Book

I had lunch with a friend in Toronto recently. He’s a literary agent. He’s one of the best in the business, and represents more than 350 of Canada’s brightest lights in literature, theatre, art and culture. I was there on other business, but we did have a few minutes to chat about my own writing career, and the news he delivered brought no cheer to my bookish heart.

According to my friend, book sales are down about 40% across Canada. This is part of a trend that pre-dates our current economic slump, and therefore will likely not respond when the economy starts its languid recovery.

It seems that I’m writing at the end of the age of books.

For those on tenterhooks for me to cut-to-the-chase (a rarity) here it is: I love writing books, and want to keep doing it. So how, in the age of Twitter and Facebook and Kindle and E-Readers, can an upstart like myself make money crafting stories more than 140 characters in length? Jump to the end of this posting to add your comments.

For the rest of you:

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that my Dharma – my purpose in life – is to write. I’ve been scribbling most of my life. When I was a teenager I used to slip out the back door in the middle of the night and perch under a street lamp and write the most ghastly, angst ridden poetry. I’ve penned stories for my collage newspaper and for The Globe and Mail; sold more than one hundred and fifty stories to dozens magazines and papers and had two books published; all the while trying to hold down other meaningful work to afford luxuries such as a mortgage, child support and premium beer.

So this news sucks. At least, it seems to.

And I’m trying to figure out what to do. I think a lot of writers are.

I’ve always said that the writing part of being a writer is easy. I’ve never had much trouble getting the words out. I’ve never experienced writers block. I have often suffered from a scarcity of time to write, and more often from a lack of focus or discipline, but my challenge hasn’t been writing: my challenge has been to make a living writing. The last time I tried was in the mid nineteen nineties and it was slim pickings’ around the Legault household, let me tell you (domestic beer….).

Making a portion of my living as a writer is important to me. It’s a symbol that my writing has value to others; it’s a symbol that people are reading my writing and that they are willing to support my writing with their hard earned pay. Earning at least part of my income as a writer will allow me to keep writing for some time to come.

There’s a lot to be said for the notion that I should just keep writing regardless of who wants to pay for it. If it’s my purpose to write, then I should let nothing stop me. There’s also something to be said that the need to be read has a good deal to do with my ego. While both arguments are true, I’m exercising my basic human right to ignore them.

I’m not a big trend spotter. I still have a pair of “dad-jeans” in my closet. But here are the trends that I see in writing and publishing: first, books are being replaced by digital media. E-books are a part of that, but blogs, citizen journalism, and all manner of social networking sites are providing content where professional writers, journalists and novelists once plied their trade.

Secondly: online, content still seems to be king, but it seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

I recently signed up for Twitter, which until a couple of weeks ago I thought would make me look like a complete twit. I have a hard time taking anything on which one tweets very seriously. But there it is. I have three followers, and I’m pretty sure they are just a “pity” group; you know, the people who choose to follow me because I picked them as the people I wanted to follow.

One friend suggested that Twitter was like Facebook, but with less crap, and shorter postings. To me, Twitter seems like a microcosm of what is happening to content, and I’m trying to figure out how I can compress what I’m trying to say with my life into 140 character Tweets. (For example, last week I sent the manuscript for my next novel – The Darkening Archipelago – to my publisher. At 610, 654 characters (110,000 words) I would have to post 4,362 tweets to convey this books content to the Twitosphere. My three followers might protest. At least their dissent would be brief.)

Digital media contains much promise, and some considerable peril, for writers. I feel like a messenger without a medium.

The digital book market today is where the digital music market was five or ten years ago, but without the promise of Napter to force a solution, though Google might provide the necessary incentive for more publishers to recognize the trend. E-Readers like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader could be to books what the iPod was to music, but they have yet to catch the imagination and wallet of the general public. The promise is great: who didn’t want one of those crazy reading tablets that Captain Jean Luc Picard had on Star Trek the Next Generation? But Captain Picard didn’t have to tot his around in rainy Vancouver, or worry about running out of power in the middle of a plot twist. He didn’t read in the bathtub much, though that’s unsubstantiated.

And what will happen to Libraries and book stores if books vanish? Will the great books stores of my life go the way of Sam the Record Man?

Then there is the story of the Cushing Academy, a prep-school near Boston, Massachusetts, that is replacing its collection of 20,000 books with 18 Kindles, three giant flat screen computer monitors, and a coffee shop. The headmaster explains that he’s replacing the schools meager collection of books with millions becoming available online.

I just don’t know what to make of that.

My literary agent friend explained that I’m a writer between mediums. Books are dying and digital media has yet to catch hold. We’re struggling how to monetize this new format.

But monetize it we must. As a lifelong environmentalist, I know we can’t keep printing books on paper, even if it is ancient forest friendly. I can’t write environmental murder mysteries on an environment that has been murdered.

And monetize it we must: if anybody but the biggest names in literature are going to keep writing books, then we have to find a way to pay them. If we don’t, we’ll all just be blogging about what we did on the weekend with our kids.

I’ve always imagined myself to be a pretty modern person. A little stogy, but also on the cutting edge. Ok, maybe not. But I want to be. And it looks as if I will have to be, if I’m going to write books for a living. I just don’t know what my books will look like when I finally trick a big publisher into accepting my stories for print.

So I turn to you: tell me what you see as part of the trend in digital publishing: how are writers going to make a living? What is the future of books? What can we do to actually get out in front of this transformation of the written word?

Ups and Downs

I had hoped to be writing a note about the forthcoming publication of the next Cole Blackwater mystery at this time, but it seems that book publishing in Canada has not been exempt from the vagrancies of the global economic flu. My publisher wrote recently to inform me that they are putting off publishing The Darkening Archipelago, the next book in the Cole Blackwater series, until the spring of 2010.

This is a disappointment, and I’ll admit not just because I wanted to see the DA in print. What I want is to see the next book after the DA in print, and soon. I have more ideas than I know what to do with, and waiting for books already written to be published feels somehow constricting.

The simple fact is that writing just about anything creative, from my short essay-like entries on my blog Running Towards Stillness, to penning the Cole Blackwater books and other bits of fiction, is what brings me the most professional happiness and satisfaction. To be able to do this more regularly, without having to shift my attention to so many other professional matters such as fund raising and consulting, I need to actually earn a living at it.

It’s a dilemma that many aspiring writers face.

And so publishing The Cardinal Divide has had its share of ups and downs. People who have read it seem to really enjoy the book. Some of them write me to tell me so, which blows my mind. Connecting with a reader who has enjoyed the book brings tremendous satisfaction.

Doing readings for the book hasn’t. I flew to Saskatoon in the dead of winter to read for four people! There were five in Calgary. Mind you, I enjoyed talking with the people who were in the room, bless their hearts. I would have liked a bigger audience, buying more books is all.

All that said, penning Cole Blackwater stories is very satisfying. And I can promise you three books, though who will publish the third book is yet unknown. I know that takes a little suspense out of the process for you as a reader. Spoiler Alert: Cole doesn’t die at the end of book one or two. But I make no promises after that. The first three books are really written as a trilogy where Cole must not only confront the external challenges of mining, fish farming and urban development, but also the internal battle of fear and anger that threatens to consume him. How that turns out for Cole is part of the mystery.

Enjoy the Cardinal Divide, and know that the Darkening Archipelago is on its way, if delayed a few months. Hopefully the adage is true that good things come to those who wait.

CBC All Points West Interview

Recently I had the chance to do an interview on CBC British Columbia's afternoon drive-time show, All Points West. This was a kick off to Mystery Month. You can hear the interview here (if you have REAL Player) by scrolling down until you see the Cardinal Divide's cover.

Talking about Writing

Since the Cardinal Divide was released I’ve had the opportunity to do two readings, one in Canmore, Alberta on November 13^th, and the second in Calgary on December 17^th. It hardly qualifies as a break-neck pace for a book tour: my style is more opportunistic. Until someone comes along with a publicist and event organizer in tow, I’m going to pick the low hanging fruit.

Neither reading was to a sell-out crowd (Cole hates sell-outs….), but both were fun! I want to thank Joy and her staff at Café Books in Canmore, and Chris and the gang at the Alberta Wilderness Association (who went way beyond the call of duty with the masking tape outline – see below) for hosting the events.

The reading was fun, but as Edward Abbey liked to muse, writers like talking about writing as much (or more) than they like writing itself, and so gabbing with friends and book lovers about the books, the writing process, and what’s next for Cole Blackwater was a great.

In January I’m off to Saskatoon to do a reading, and at some point before the tulips come up I’m going to have to pull something together in Victoria.

(an intimate group at the AWA office in Calgary)

(Chris at the AWA office took the theme of the evening to the limit)

The First Review

My former editor, from the time when I wrote a column for the Canmore Leader, penned a review of the Cardinal Divide for the Rocky Mountain Outlook. Its well worth a read!

Also, please note that the book launch has been moved from Wednesday the 12th to Thursday the 13th of November. Apparently Fortis is shutting down the power on Main Street in Canmore that night to do some work...So we're on for Thursday at 7pm at Cafe Books.

Two Boxes of Books

Walk through a book store as an author and you become humbled. Each shelf is stacked with hundreds of books, each having been crafted over many years – some a lifetime – and finally published and put there for the public to hopefully buy. Walk through a bookstore as an aspiring author and you become humbled, and something more: frustrated? If all of these folks can do it, why not I? Meek? All of these books – hundreds of thousands, if not millions: what difference does one more make?

About ten days ago I received two boxes of books from NeWest. My allotment of ten offered by the publisher, and a score more that I bought with my second advance cheque. I eagerly opened the first box and lifted out a fresh copy of the Cardinal Divide. It was a wonderful experience. The book looks great, feels great, reads great. I couldn’t be happier with the job NeWest has done.

What difference does one more book make? Maybe none. Maybe some. Maybe a whole lot. But to me it matters because all of my adult life I’ve been writing and now for the second time I can take pride in the act of creation of something unique. Of all the things I've done in life to make a living, this beyond all else feels as if its what I am here to do.

Substantive form, The Back Story Part 2

While The Cardinal Divide had taken shape in a few days late in 2003, it was several years before it found any substantive form. During the winter of 2004 I managed to pen the first six chapters of the book, but I lost my momentum and the book languished for a while. I didn’t stop writing, I just stopped typing. I do a lot of “writing” in my head, playing with the characters and mapping out story ideas while I’m running or walking in the mountains.

An injury in the summer of 2004 was a boon for the book. I pinched my sciatic nerve (playing with Lego with my nephew) and had to bail halfway through a 250-kilometre backpacking trip. I swallowed a fist full of Advil, found a bottle of gin in the freezer, and drove to the Columbia Valley to hide out at my friend Mark Holmes’ place. I used the remaining six days of my down time to write an outline of the entire book.

Which then sat untouched for more than a year and a half.

In April 2006 my first book, Carry Tiger to Mountain: the Tao of Activism and Leadership, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press. The year previous was consumed with the writing, editing, and marketing of that work, so Cole Blackwater was again put on the backburner. When Carry Tiger was set loose on the unsuspecting public, I found new energy for Cole Blackwater. In just over a month I penned 17 chapters, 75,000 words, and 278 pages. My one-day record was over the May long weekend, when on Sunday I wrote 31 pages and almost 8,000 words. Many, many tea bags were sacrificed to accomplish this feat.

I like writing first drafts, but to me this is a mechanical process. The detailed chapter outline written at Mark Holmes’ place two years before made the first draft easy to compose. With a detailed outline, the first draft is just a process of adding the filler to the plot. Much good narrative emerges and the general gist of the story forms, and from time to time I experience the pure bliss of creativity. But it’s the second draft where I find the real magic of writing. Here I can concentrate on the subtleties of character development and add prose to landscape descriptions. The second draft is my favourite part of the writing process. It’s the next seven or eight drafts I could do without….