A piece of good news on the writing front besides my continued launch into self-publishing land on Amazon once again – this weekend I’m working on the final edits for COLD BLOODED from Wild Child Publishing. God only knows once the finals get turned in this weekend when WCP will actually give it a ‘for sale’ date with listing, but I’ll at least know it’s finished and in line for a launch date.
I figured this might be an occasion for posting about another writer’s nemesis – time passing. I didn’t do it consciously, but COLD BLOODED is rather timeless. I wrote the novel without real time stuff that could have dated it. There is no mention of real life events in the world. It’s a completely fictional account of a writer/assassin who decides his life needs more than the next contract killing. Much to his shadow-government bosses’ displeasure, Nick has a string of bestselling novels featuring an assassin, where he has used bits and pieces of his jobs as fuel for his writing.
He one day gets a contract to kill a young woman. When Nick visits the restaurant she works at in the Witness Protection program, he makes a decision to alter his lifestyle. He travels across country and puts a fifty caliber bullet through the head of the guy who ordered the hit. Then it’s roller coaster ride time as he icily kills everything in the way of his plan to save the woman, her little girl, and their dog named Deke.
My main point here is although I signed the contract for this novel in February of 2009, nothing dates the book in the writing, which as it turns out is more important than I ever thought it would be. The lesson I’ve learned here – unless you have a series already sold and churning them out one after another for publication, there can be a hell of a long time between when you sell something and when it actually is listed for sale. If your characters exist in the real world they better have a timeless bubble to complete their journey through your fictional plot. Otherwise by the time your book cover shows up on a publishing website, they may be as stale as three year old Oreo cookies. :)
8 comments:
Congrats on those final line edits, Bernard. I remember the story--glad it'll be getting out there. :)
And definitely agree about the timeliness factor. I've got more than one ms lying around featuring walkmans and ex-popular clothing designers.
After this experience, Raine, I'll never forget again. I'm updating STORM this weekend for publication on Amazon too. I watch out for the clothes tells all the time. Electronics are a real on-going problem for us.
My new WCP editor wrote me this morning. Her husband was in a motorcycle accident. He's okay, but has some broken bones and she spent all night in the hospital with him. After my original editor disappeared, it's beginning to seem like COLD BLOODED has a curse on it. :)
Oh, no! But glad to hear he's ok!
And I hear ya on the curse thing, lol. But it'll be that much more satisfying when it does get pubbed. :)
Raine, you're probably right, but the process is sure getting freaky. :)
Congratulations, Bernard! You deserve every ounce of success you get and more.
Thanks, Rick! I was a lot more excited about it back in February of 2009. Publishing COLD BLOODED has become 'The Neverending Story'. :)
By the time Cold in the Light was accepted for publication, I had to make a few changes to update it related to cell phones. Otherwise it would have come off as unreal. and that change happened pretty quickly. AT least there's no "dating" of a story set on Talera.
Other worlds with their own reality are immune to the writing time factor as you say, Charles. I'm sure going to keep the time lesson in mind after this three year pilgrimage to publishing land. :)
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