I published my second novel, "Millicent Marbleroller and the Bear Monster Army" back in October. The story is a sequel to the first book, and picks up the action right where the last book ended.
It took quite a lot longer to publish the book than I anticipated. That is ironic, given that I self-publish and the schedule is completely under my control. However, I got stuck on some creative choices for a while. I also made the original version of the book far too long and had to spend a lot of time trimming the story back. Story trimming is somewhat like changing software. Sometimes you remove parts that other parts were dependent on, and you never notice it until you try to make everything work together. The cutting was necessary, though, as there was way too much action that had very little to do with the plot and rather than add excitement and interest it really just slowed things down and made them less interesting.
The other part of the process that took a long time was editing and review. With the first book, I most relied just on myself, with a little bit of a review by family. The result was some rather scathing comments from readers of the book regarding need for proofreading. So, this time I decided to have somebody proof-read it beforehand. I found a friend, Jen Kinard, who had done proof reading professionally before.
The book really benefited from the review. I actually had her do both the first book and the new book (I re-released the first book with illustrations, a popular request). In addition to correct my horrific abuse of commas, Jen also found lots of inconsistencies in the story. There were also scenes that I had put in arbitrarily to do nothing other than initiate conversations that allowed for character development, and Jen was much better at pointing out to me how pointless and flat the action seemed. I had become attached to the character development, and in doing that had ignored the "what is she doing THAT for?" moments the reader was experiencing when reading the story. I had to let go of my attachments and cut some very awkward material. The book was much better for it.
But commiting myself to review of the book before publishing really pushed out the publishing timeline. I am not a patient person, but in the end I believe the patience was necessary.
So, the book has been getting slow sales since its October 26th, 2010 release. That doesn't bother me so much, as the first book had slow sales as well, especially during the first year. I am hoping the Christmas season sees an increase during the first two or three weeks of December. Last year was particularly good for the first book.
I have a box of the books on order so I can take them to book signings. My sister-in-law Theresa manages a Border's down in Tukwila, so I plan on getting there around the middle of December. I am preparing a bunch of bookmarks to give away. I learned that trick from another author who I was sitting next to the last time I was at Theresa's store. She would say "would you like a free bookmark?" and stick it in people's hands as they walked by the front of the store. That was the ice breaker for talking about the book. It worked amazingly well. Much better than my own "Sit at the table and let the book self itself" strategy ;-)
You aren't supposed to say these things until you are done (says who? I think it's some crap I picked up off a Wayne Dwyer show that was polluting the channels as I was flipping around the TV dial one night - some crazy junk about "releasing the energy and losing it"), but I have started the third book. If anybody has finished the second book yet you know by now that a third book is necessary. The first book ended with a nice clean conclusion and only hinted at more possibilities, but the second book ends on a cliffhanger, literally, there's an honest to goodness cliff involved. I was obligated to get started on the third book. One of the things I want to avoid is letting the original audience get so old they wouldn't want to finish the series, so I am trying to get this third one out as soon as I can.
My problem is I don't exactly know what happens in the third book yet. I have the ending figured out, and certainly the beginning, but the middle right now is pretty much "stuff happens until they get to the ending". If you were to ask me right now how it all ends, I would say "well, the ending is obvious, don't you think?", but I have the advantage of controlling the ending, so that statement might not be fair. Still, I have a suspicion that once the book is done and people read it they are going to agree that, of course, the book had to end that way.
There is an over-arching theme in Millicent Marbleroller that should be apparent even from the first book. It has to do with realizing things about yourself and how you approach life. It's not a big heavy handed moral ethic of any sort, but there is a lesson that Millicent is learning. I didn't realize the lesson was there until I was nearly done with the first book. Millicent struggles with certain inner conflicts, and how she resolves those conflicts are key to the lesson of the story. The second book takes this same theme even farther. Like the first book, I did not realize that I was introducing psychological symbols into the stories until after I had written them. The bear monsters, in their misshapen form and uncontrollable behavior, are a physical manifestation of Millicent's inner struggle with herself. The robot box and the black vans are symbolic of pressures and expectations that Millicent hasn't figured out how to confront. These themes of struggle, learning and growth will continue into the final book.
Of course, if I think about stuff like THAT while I write I am probably going to kill the story, so now is the time for me to shove it all into the back of my skull where the ghosts of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell lurk. The real thing to do is see to it that the story moves along, the action is fun and the jokes funnier.
Sophie took a walk
14 years ago
