In The Demons’ Head: Preparing to Launch A Novel
January 27, 2017
As you’re reading this it’s hard for me to imagine that most of you haven’t ever written a book, a story, or poem, or something creatively. That’s because I’m aware a lot of my readers of this blog are some sort of the creative type. However, if you haven’t done something to that effect, let me tell you about it.
It’s fucking traumatizing.
January 27, 2017
As you’re reading this it’s hard for me to imagine that most of you haven’t ever written a book, a story, or poem, or something creatively. That’s because I’m aware a lot of my readers of this blog are some sort of the creative type. However, if you haven’t done something to that effect, let me tell you about it.
It’s fucking traumatizing.
I don’t mean show me on the doll kind of traumatizing, but a bare your soul for everyone to look at and be judged kind of traumatizing. What’s funny about the whole thing is that there are people that want to do that shit repetitively, and get paid for it… turns out I’m one of those people seeking that golden rainbow in exchange for putting it all on display.
Now some of you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with writing a book. If you’ve asked yourself that then it’s likely that you have NEVER written a book, in which case, you probably don’t understand why I’m now missing hair, and have gray in what’s left of my beard. But I’d like to explain to you a little of my journey toward launching my debut novel “LeatherBound” which debuted this past Monday in the Kindle store.
The original concept was one I’d had for a while, but wasn’t sure exactly how I’d execute it and when I sat down and wrote the book, I did it while flying by my ass. I didn’t plan it out, I didn’t structure anything, I didn’t even know what the hell I was really trying to do other finally finish a book that I thought I could publish and not be completely ridiculed for. (I say completely because there will be someone who says your work sucks, and to some degree they’re right but who the hell wants to listen to the haters.)
Once I finished it, I realized that then I needed to edit it, which turned out be pretty damn hard in and of itself. Not because the editing process sucks, I personally love it, but you realize how bad you fucked up the story as you begin to read through it and look at all the holes you dug and then threw away the damn shovel.
I finished that part and sent the book to a few people to read and to my surprise they genuinely liked the book, the story, the concept, they liked it all. There were a few things that needed to be tweaked but at the end of the day it made the book stronger. Then I decided to run through it one more time in order to clean up a lot of things that I hadn’t otherwise noticed. You know one thing I learned through this process?
I repeat a lot of sentence starts, AND I like passive sentences. Not as bad as I thought but I did learn a lot about cleaning up my writing and I used a special program to do it. (I’ll talk about that program in a later post.) I realized at the end of it all as much as I hated going through that process, it taught me about writing and at the end of the day for me, it’s all about learning, if you’re not learning then you’re not doing something correctly. That’s my logic at least, hell who knows I could be wrong to a lot of people.
What’s funny to me though is that now as I gear up to start editing the second novel I wrote last year, I can go into it with a clear head, and a better perspective of what I’m looking at. And the best part is that what came out is a damn fine book that I’m SUPER fucking proud of. So, if you’re interested in reading that book, and I hope you are. It’s for sale now on Amazon and available through Kindle Unlimited. I’d be sure to get it today (January 27th for those of you who find this late) because I’m bumping the price up to 3.99 once Amazon gets it’s ass in gear and updates it once I update it.
For now, I’m going to step away, take a seat, and relax. Fuck, I’m fat and tired, and working two jobs. (One full time gig, and chasing one dream) will wear you out. Plus, my fucking leg just fell asleep as I wrote this, that’s not comfortable at all.
Between now and then, If you’d like to stay up to date on what I’m doing join me on Facebook or Twitter, whichever poison you prefer. Also, you can check out my mailing list which will give you a free version of “Blackout” a story that will be in a collection later this year. Until the next time you want to take a trip through the gates of hell and into the demons’ head, I’m Kyle Robinson wishing you a safe trip back to the surface.
Now some of you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with writing a book. If you’ve asked yourself that then it’s likely that you have NEVER written a book, in which case, you probably don’t understand why I’m now missing hair, and have gray in what’s left of my beard. But I’d like to explain to you a little of my journey toward launching my debut novel “LeatherBound” which debuted this past Monday in the Kindle store.
The original concept was one I’d had for a while, but wasn’t sure exactly how I’d execute it and when I sat down and wrote the book, I did it while flying by my ass. I didn’t plan it out, I didn’t structure anything, I didn’t even know what the hell I was really trying to do other finally finish a book that I thought I could publish and not be completely ridiculed for. (I say completely because there will be someone who says your work sucks, and to some degree they’re right but who the hell wants to listen to the haters.)
Once I finished it, I realized that then I needed to edit it, which turned out be pretty damn hard in and of itself. Not because the editing process sucks, I personally love it, but you realize how bad you fucked up the story as you begin to read through it and look at all the holes you dug and then threw away the damn shovel.
I finished that part and sent the book to a few people to read and to my surprise they genuinely liked the book, the story, the concept, they liked it all. There were a few things that needed to be tweaked but at the end of the day it made the book stronger. Then I decided to run through it one more time in order to clean up a lot of things that I hadn’t otherwise noticed. You know one thing I learned through this process?
I repeat a lot of sentence starts, AND I like passive sentences. Not as bad as I thought but I did learn a lot about cleaning up my writing and I used a special program to do it. (I’ll talk about that program in a later post.) I realized at the end of it all as much as I hated going through that process, it taught me about writing and at the end of the day for me, it’s all about learning, if you’re not learning then you’re not doing something correctly. That’s my logic at least, hell who knows I could be wrong to a lot of people.
What’s funny to me though is that now as I gear up to start editing the second novel I wrote last year, I can go into it with a clear head, and a better perspective of what I’m looking at. And the best part is that what came out is a damn fine book that I’m SUPER fucking proud of. So, if you’re interested in reading that book, and I hope you are. It’s for sale now on Amazon and available through Kindle Unlimited. I’d be sure to get it today (January 27th for those of you who find this late) because I’m bumping the price up to 3.99 once Amazon gets it’s ass in gear and updates it once I update it.
For now, I’m going to step away, take a seat, and relax. Fuck, I’m fat and tired, and working two jobs. (One full time gig, and chasing one dream) will wear you out. Plus, my fucking leg just fell asleep as I wrote this, that’s not comfortable at all.
Between now and then, If you’d like to stay up to date on what I’m doing join me on Facebook or Twitter, whichever poison you prefer. Also, you can check out my mailing list which will give you a free version of “Blackout” a story that will be in a collection later this year. Until the next time you want to take a trip through the gates of hell and into the demons’ head, I’m Kyle Robinson wishing you a safe trip back to the surface.