Ran Braden's Blog: Braden's Bar - Posts Tagged "indie"

'Same New World: Homecoming' is an Urban Dark(ish) Fantasy/NA Romance.

So I've written stuff for short films, commercials and local television. I've even won some writing contests, for A&E network and others. I've never written a long form story before though. My goal was always directing, I wanted to make films.

I've tried doing the November writing challenge NaNo Wrimo, I never got far unsurprisingly. My heart wasn't in it and I would peter out with nothing to show for it.

In the past couple of years I've changed a lot, my outlook on life and my attitude. I'm starting to realize that I'm unlikely to ever get married or have kids. I'm a true romantic at heart and I don't think this world is built for people like me anymore.

The people I pretended were friends strained incredulity one too many times and I chose to walk away and put those relationships behind me. My brother died and I lost the ability to see my niece, who I previously had in my care half the week.

I did my best to fill the role my brother should have in her life, at least while at our house. Having that taken from me with no recourse, I admit it broke me. I've had plenty of horrible shit happen in my life and I always found a way too compartmentalize or ignore it while moving forward.

But this time I couldn't ignore the fact that such a large part of my life was missing. The thing about being a man is that just because you break a little doesn't mean you get too slow down or call quits. Your problems are your own trouble to fix or get past.

I've always been a writer, but I haven't always given it the time it deserved because I let people convince me that it would never amount to anything.

I had stopped playing video games as much because of life and work commitment and I put more time into that, trying to take my mind off the fact that I couldn't see my niece. I also spent more time writing, whether it was fan-fiction or short stories.

I've been working on the 'Same New World' series in one form or another since I was in high school. The only thing that has remained constant the entire time has been the name of a mythological character in the world, 'Litheran'.

I have the main series and a prequel series planned in my head. My progress on the overall story had kind of withered in recent years. Mind you I had actually been planning on making it a television series this whole time

Before the latest reworking of the world it was about a detective, he is searching for his sisters killer before finding himself at odds with the supernatural world.

In November of last year I found myself injured, stuck in bed for a month and doing rehab for two more. When I was first injured I started catching up on books, manga, anime I was missing out on. I was also scrounging music apps to find new music. Anything to take my mind off the pain.

I was only sleeping for four hours a night after exhaustion forced me to. I had an epiphany one night; the reason I was struggling with writing the book was cause deep down I knew I was telling the wrong story. It was a love story first and foremost, and I was writing it like a action/fantasy.

I've always loved old pulp novels, and the horror/crime comics they inspired. That love was mirrored when I started reading Japanese light novels and manga, since they were also heavily influenced by the old Western publications.

Over the course of that night I brainstormed the changes to the story; removed parts and concepts from the previous iterations that didn't work. When I stepped back, figuratively of course, I got chills.The basic premise had changed but for some reason all the ancillary stuff fit better with the changes. I was finally writing the kind of story I've always wanted to see but hardly ever do, especially nowadays.

I wrote up a quick outline, the bones and organs let's say, leaving myself room to put the meat on the bones.

I managed to get 100 pages on paper before I had to go back to work. I was worried that I would lose incentive or let life get in the way, but I stayed firm. When I got home from work I would immediately go to my desk, write until it was time to eat and then until it was time to bathe and get ready for bed.

Another stumbling block I've had in the past has been editing. I've never been able to resist going back and fixing things or alter stuff that I changed my mind about.

I recommend you never do that, it's a motivation killer. You get bogged down and lose the story, it sucks. This time I managed to avoid the need to do that. The story was alive in my head and I couldn't put it on pause. A co-worker and his wife gave me notes on the first few chapters, other than that I was riding blind.

I finally finished at 298 pages and roughly 120,000 words. Then came the dreaded editing, but this time was different. I had finished the story. Granted the things I decided to change later on didn't match up with stuff earlier in the book. So right after I finished writing the damn thing I read it. Finding the inconsistent dialogue, story points and narration.

I made the necessary changes while proofreading, fixing grammar mistakes and spelling. And when I got done, I read it again, and again. I kept going through it to find errors. It also gave me the opportunity to improve certain scenes and bits of dialogue, places where I felt like I might have rushed.

To tell you the truth, the editing and rewrites took as long as the first draft. And then I had the book. Now the question was what do I do with it. It's kind of an odd bird. The first book sets the world in motion, though it is part of this grand fantasy universe I have planned the first book is mostly a New Adult Romance. The fantasy world is uncovered towards the end of the story.

Baen publishing is a pretty big name in Fantasy. So I ended up submitting it to them. They have a disclaimer that says they are on a very long timeline for reading manuscripts, up to a year. I knew I couldn't wait that long. I am submitting to other publishers who accept previously published work. Then I looked into the self-publishing route. Amazon has a fairly intuitive system for self publishing.

It has its issues but between my experience with MS paint and buying writing software that lets you format for novels, I was able to make a custom cover for the book and make a paperback and kindle ready version.

Amazon will tell you that you get a 60 percent split, after the printing and shipping costs of course, and some other stuff that ends up meaning you actually get 15% of the sales price. But beggars can't be choosers and I'm an unknown writer.

At this point my books are the only thing of me that will live on after I die. Maybe if I write enough of them and enough people read them, a piece of me could live on forever. I hope you'll be one of the people that helps me achieve that.