writer failure - Sacha T. Y. Fortuné

Taking a Break from the Book Baby

I’m barely two weeks back from vacation and my world is still coming back into focus.

And, well… I’m a little ashamed to say that my favourite part of my vacation was the DISTANCE from my books.

Writer burnout is real. Your books consume you.

My book babies have possessed me almost constantly since I first released Book 1 on July 28, 2018.

From there I dived head-first into the downward spiral of a newbie indie self-published writer, and pushed myself to release Book 2 (January 22nd, 2019), shortly followed by Book 3 (March 31st, 2019).

I love writing, I love my books, I love my characters… but all of this took an inevitable toll on my physical and emotional health.

By April (while I was packing for my vacation) in the aftermath of Book 3, I felt like I’d been ripped apart by my characters…

Real-life emotional toll

I guess part of the issue is that I get very, very, very deep with my characters.

It’s real-life romance, baby… and though it’s fiction, it takes a real-life-sized dollop of energy, heart and soul to breathe life into my characters.

I’ve spent so much time living with this story, with these characters, that it’s hard to LET GO. I need to write for other characters, but I’m haunted by the highlights of the characters fully fleshed.

It’s hard to write a sweet scene when I’ve got Darren’s and Luisa’s nasty fight on replay in my head — “YOU THINK YOU ARE SO F**KING LOYAL…” (Book 3)

I’m trying to write something fun for my remaining characters — who SO deserve something fun — but all I can see is Nicole’s dark eyes, her desperation and damage begging — “TOUCH ME, TASTE ME…” (Book 3)

Oh, dear. I’ve made my characters so real for readers — but a little *too* real, for ME!

I needed a break. Thankfully, my vacation — a 3.5-week-long country-hopping cruise/hotel combo — came just in time. And for almost a month, I didn’t do much writer-y stuff. At all.

Writer on vacay (sorta)…

Well, I do need to mention a couple of significant “writer” updates that happened while I was on vacation.

I made a definitive decision to reduce Book 1 of my series.

Before I went off on vacation, I was in two minds about it, as I shared on my blog here. I strongly believe that books shouldn’t be republished and updated constantly, but with some distance, I was able to come to terms with my own feelings of self-doubt and failure as a writer, and I finally decided to take the plunge and cut it down for the greater good.

I worked on it throughout my vacation, and came down to 415 pages (from 555 pages) which is awesome. I’m still hoping to get it under 400 but that would be *really* pushing it, considering how much I’ve already cut. I’ve given myself until the anniversary of Book 1’s launch (July 28th) to produce the slimmer version… so watch this space!

I got an award as a first-time author in my country.

My award from NALIS in recognition of publishing my first novel

In honour of World Book & Copyright Day, Trinidad & Tobago’s National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS) held a celebration for all first-time authors.

It was unfortunate that I missed the ceremony as I was out of the country at the time, but I sent a representative to collect this fabulous little plaque and pin on my behalf (pictured).

There were a few dozen fellow first-time authors altogether, with a range of different types of books under their belts — self-help, medical, and all types of fiction. Any form of creation takes an amazing amount of courage, and I salute all the others who shared this honour with me.

There was once a time I doubted that I would ever publish anything, so I’m thrilled to say it’s great to now be part of my country’s history!

Next Steps…

So, I’ve got the revised slimmer version of Book 1 due soon… and then what?

Well, I still have the pesky Book 4 and Book 5 to complete. The stories are half-assed and all over the place in my head, so I need to seriously sit with myself and get my head back into it.

You see… my book babies did me in. My characters dug their claws in, and hung on tight… for months. I had to let them go, finally, to get to some level of sanity.

And now that I need them to come back, I don’t trust myself (or them) to maintain a safe distance, and at the same time I need them to cross that “safe” barrier so that they can inspire me to write them.

Oh, dear. You’ve ruined me, my darlings. And now what? How do I top that? How do I fall into another character the way you’ve taken me hostage?

It won’t be easy, I know, and I also don’t want to fall into that downward writer spiral again. There is a delicate balance as a writer that you have to tread, so you don’t cross into that danger zone!

I’m happy that I got the break I did, and now at long last I’m ready to take the next step, whatever it may bring.

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The Post-Publish Big Chop: Should I Fix My Fat Book Baby?

Now that my third book is LIVE, I can take a little time to reflect on the journey thus far.

In my launch day post for “Book 2: Pandora’s Poison”, I mentioned that I’d learnt a lot since becoming a published writer, and the book length issue was a huge part of what I’d learnt.

It continues to plague me to this day…

Back to the Beginning…

Usually, once readers start in on the book, it doesn’t feel nearly as long as it really is. There is a lot — a LOT — of dialogue, so it’s easy to flip through scenes.

I know my writing style is on point when it comes to DIALOGUE. My characters feel real because of it. And there’s a lot of it, so it helps you to dive right in.

The problem is, when you’re a reader used to 200-300 page books, and you see a new author clocking in at 500+………. yeah, it’s a hard sell.

While I think my story is worth the long read, and most readers did enjoy it, quite a few harped on the length.

Some said they read every word, some said it discouraged them at first but then they didn’t care, some said it was long but kept their interest throughout, and there was the odd one or two that mentioned skipping ahead or that marked it down primarily for that, calling it “long-winded” despite being such a good story.

But even my amazing blogger who gave it a fabulous, thoughtful review (and who eventually ended up doing an Author Q&A with me because she loved the book so much)… well, even she mentioned, in a nutshell:

“Fabulous story, but it just takes so long to get there!”

The thing was… whether in a good or bad light… it was MENTIONED. It was a TOPIC. And THAT might be the issue here.

I’d love to ignore it and hope I’m one day famous enough to not care. After all, Stephen King can afford to suck his teeth at short-attention-span readers, but even he noted that he went way overboard at times and lamented some of his longer works as he grew as a writer.

You see, sometimes… you’ve just got to kill those darlings!

Length as a Hindrance for Reader Interest

The problem is getting readers in the first place.

My book is already outside the genre norms as my characters aren’t “heroes and heroines” — fair enough. So, adding a super-long length on top of that… yeah, I’m just asking for trouble.

I recently ran a couple of marketing promo services and realised that bloggers preferred to simply promo the book rather than write a review… probably because of the length. So it feels like an uphill battle.

The thing is, I believe in the core of my soul that “published” means “published” and despite the ABILITY to do so, there’s only a small margin of what you really should “edit” once you hit that button.

So I’m still on the fence about cutting down Book 1.

It took me awhile to decide to “cut” my story into Books 2 & 3 and do some rewriting, but at least those weren’t published yet. Making a major change (like cutting 150 pages!) will require a LOT more effort.

I also have to consider what it would mean for future stories — as Book 1 had loads of minor characters with back stories since I knew I had plans for them later on. Sigh.

I don’t know if I have what it takes to “slim down” my first fat book baby. I’m glad that it is POSSIBLE, since I’m a self-published writer. And I know other indies do this ALL THE TIME.

But… still… sigh.

I guess part of it feels like… I’m a bit of a failure, if I have to go backwards and “FIX” my debut.

But… is taking this hit to my ego worth it, in the long run?

Planning for the long (book) trip

I myself don’t always look at book length before diving in. Most times, I just start reading and stop if my interest wanes. Usually, by 10% of whatever the length is, I’ll know.

But readers don’t all think like me. And some are voracious readers and have a very specific idea of what they’re looking for in a book.

Maybe I can’t hit ALL of their “wish list” items, but length can be a deterrent from the jump.

I guess it’s a little like thinking about planning a trip to Australia.

It looks great, I’m sure it’s great. Everyone who went tells me it’ll be great. But it’ll take me over an entire day to get there. So… I haven’t gone yet.

It’s not that I’ll NEVER go. I still WANT to go. I just don’t know when I’ll be prepared to make the trip. And in the meanwhile, I’m popping over to everywhere that’ll take me 12 hours or less…

And, if I’ve ALREADY gone to Australia or somewhere nearby (i.e. read another book by the same author) and I’m familiar with the journey, I’ll settle in and enjoy the 24+ hour trip, as I know exactly what’s coming.

Maybe I’m waffling on about “journeying” because my vacation is coming up and I’m excited! 🙂 But… well, you get the point.

A book is a journey. An unknown author is an unknown destination. So if the destination seems too far in the distance…

Yeah. You see where I’m going with this.

Going backward to go forward

If it were a single one-off standalone, then I would be more comfortable just leaving it in its chubby unwieldiness.

But I’m writing a SERIES. And while you CAN go straight to Book 2, I don’t recommend it.

Most readers will want to start at Book 1. Yep: the fat book baby.

So if it’s an issue that’s going to plague me and all future books in the series… yeah. I have to give it some serious thought.

In the meanwhile, I’ll hold off on promo-ing Book 1 again until I’ve made a decision either way… but in the meanwhile…

Sigh.

A book isn’t a piece of software. I shouldn’t need to do “patches”. It’s a piece of art. It should exist, intact, once revealed to the public.

And I’m an overachiever perfectionist. I don’t do “failure” well. And going back feels like failure. Republishing feels like failure. Needing to have a “Version 2” feels like failure.

But is “failure” worth it, to succeed in the long run?

Can “going back” help me to “go forward”?…

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