Konrath's Writer To-Do List

J A Konrath is one of thee top Heavyweight Ebook sellers, inspiring me and thousands of others to chance Kindle Direct Publishing. In hindsight, maybe he does not exist, and is merely a lure to entice manuscripts for Amazon, who can unpublish your work and make blockbusters with it when you're dead.

I will start/finish the damn book

I will always have at least three stories on submission, while working on a fourth 

I will attend at least one writer's conference, and introduce myself to agents, editors, and other writers  

I will subscribe to the magazines I submit to  

I will join a critique group. If one doesn't exist, I will start one at the local bookstore or library  

I will finish every story I start  

I will listen to criticism  

I will create/update my website 

I will master the query process and search for an agent  

I'll quit procrastinating in the form of research, outlines, synopses, taking classes, reading how-to books, talking about writing, and actually write something  

I will refuse to get discouraged, because I know JA Konrath wrote 9 novels, received almost 500 rejections, and penned over 1 million words before he sold a thing--and I'm a lot more talented than that guy

I will keep my website updated  
I will keep up with my blog and social networks  

I will schedule bookstore signings, and while at the bookstore I'll meet and greet the customers rather than sit dejected in the corner  

I will send out a newsletter, emphasizing what I have to offer rather than what I have for sale, and I won't send out more than four a year  

I will learn to speak in public, even if I think I already know how  

I will make selling my books my responsibility, not my publisher's  

I will stay in touch with my fans 

I will contact local libraries, and tell them I'm available for speaking engagements  

I will attend as many writing conferences as I can afford  

I will spend a large portion of my advance on self-promotion  

I will help out other writers  

I will not get jealous, will never compare myself to my peers, and will cleanse my soul of envy 

I will be accessible, amiable, and enthusiastic  

I will do one thing every day to self-promote  

I will always remember where I came from

Truth About Orphan Black

The same day I completed the main twist in a recent novel the whole file mysteriously disappeared from my online personal PC computer. The rescued document was page after nonsensical page of Latin symbols. If it had not been backed up on an external device, a helluva lot of book would have been like see ya later. As it was the loss was reduced to only a single morning. Not ideal, but a relief. That was almost a hat-trick of ‘losing’ books. Surely no author can be so unlucky!

Sorry, but the similarities between Orphan Black and some of my own content are 2 coincidental. I saw the first thumbnail for it on a torrent site soon after I nearly lost all that data. I’d never even heard of BBC America before until this. Hmm. Am I bothered? Well, the first time I was, years ago. This is at least the third time. Ask yourself this then: What is more likely, a nobody writer from Nowhere Street pitching his ideas to a Hollywood producer and making it big out of the blue, or organised cyber crime guys remotely fishing files? What happens more frequently on a daily basis, I wonder? No worries. The turnaround works both ways. It’s give and take. Wise up cockers. Bin that modem.

I missed the first and last episodes. Although very impressive, it was not soulful enough to make me care all too much. I could tell some of it came from me because I didn’t have the foggiest what was going on. You think I’m joking, don’t you? If you are, then you is correct, because part of me actually is; and if you aren’t, then you is correct, because part of me actually ain’t. 

Once More Into The End of The Grey

In 28 Days Later, as the main character is forced by gunpoint into the woods to be dispatched, a moving soundtrack makes it a memorable standout scene. The music is a classic orchestral number with the word Requiem in the title. It fit perfectly, but it was also used out of context in Mean Machine, starring Vinny 'grab ya balls' Jones and Jason 'dropkick ya in da face' Statham, who between them managed to hoof half a dozen shades of hell’s bells out of their opposing footy-playing cons. Nice movie, and a top cast, but please, don’t go having the same music from 28 Days Later! Sometimes the movie you think is stealing music was actually made before the movie you think has been stolen from, but that’s beside the point, because everyone is stealing. The point is CONTEXT.

Ink, like 28 Days Later, has, at some time or other, occupied the Number 1 film spot here at Anvil Samsara, and the music from that too has also been ripped off, this time in The Grey. It’s called The City Surf by Jamin Winans. But you know what, it’s getting let off. Yeah that’s right, let off, because it works just as good, if not better, as it did in Ink, so pardon granted. A fight to the death, man gegen beast? Name a better context than that. And here’s the thing about spoilers, before y’all complain: Sometimes they make you watch a movie you otherwise would have swerved, and sometimes, in the time it takes getting around to watching it, you’ve forgotten the details of the spoiler anyway. Somebody gave away the ending to Black Swan, but guess who still wants to watch it. Simply knowing the director or seeing the cover is a spoiler of sorts. That’s why the independent hit Ink had maximum movie impact - everything about it was fresh and unknown.

The Grey was nothing special, up until the end, but as you may well know by now, it’s ALL ABOUT the end. It’s gotta be said that with this music, and with the poetic reflection going on, The Grey leaves its mark. Forget the rest of it. Let’s talk, instead, if you don’t mind, about the final killer twist in Ink. Aw man oh man oh man. It doesn’t matter if you figure it out first, or if you watch it a second or third time, because it GETS HIM every time. He’s NEVER going to figure it out. Talk about thunderclap moments!Have a butchers at him. The expression on his face! You feel for him so much. And his response? Aw man. Let’s just say he gets STUCK IN, and leave it there.

Don’t forget, it’s almost that time of year again. Yup, The Hobbit. It’s got us intrigued enough about the dragon that we’re all willing to be blagged by noobs for three hours. And apparently, according to the radio, the new Hunger Games is the movie ‘the whole world’ has been waiting for. Erm, okay, yeah, sure, whatever ya reckon.

Realising, in Purgatory, that you left the iron on

Honesty Policy

Dominoes recently delivered flyers through the door advertising their pizzas at, open and close quotes, "Crazy Prices". At last, a company who doesn't lie to us. You have to admire their honesty. In these dog-eat-dog capitalist times, this is honorable to the bone.

Textbook Politics

When somebody tried doing this to Sean Penn in The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004) he got blasted in the head at point blank range. Lesson learned: When a cheesed-off Penn tells you to fly a plane into the White House (and fly it low), then you better bloody well do it. GET OUT OF MY WAY! GET OUT OF MY WAY! I'VE GOT A BULLET AND I'LL SHOOT YA I'LL KILL YA!

When you're talking about burn-the-world cob ons, he really does give Michael 'goddamn' Douglas a good run for his money.

Jason Manford - Toilet Hygiene

Rich Piana - Mr California

IS THIS GUY THE BEST?

There’s not been a crazy bodybuilder feature here since Gregg Valentino or Zack King Khan but this guy raises the bar among even this esteemed company. He has more than his fair share of web haters who highlight his use of synthol (essentially an oily implant solution you inject into specific muscle fibres for increases in size). As you can imagine, many see this as cheating, and to be honest, due to its controversy, the blog hesitates to even mention it. It is named only because (a) cosmetic enhancement is a fascinating subject in its own right and (b) Rich openly discusses his performance enhancer use on camera, which is as rare in the sport of bodybuilding as rocking horse shite.

We know they all do it but only he admits it so a man has gotta owe him fat respect for that alone.

Let’s forget all those trim dieters weighing their egg whites for a perfectly balanced physique. This in a sense is what true bodybuilding was meant to be like: Morphing into a Mutant. Leaving humanity behind. You wanna be an average package with the same old boring predictable look, or you wanna be a freaky monster? Take the Incredible Hulk. You think he would win a contest if the stage could hold him? He’d come dead last. But whose name would the crowd be calling? Hulllk, Hulllk, Hulllk…

Drugs are only another optional piece of the jigsaw to maximise your natural genetics and hard work. In Rich’s case, I reckon, the final part, after many years taking care of everything else. Imagine sweating your ass off to build a house then having to put up with derision just because you added an extension not to everyone’s taste. And all the while the name callers have barely built anything themselves. The main word beginning with D here is dedication. Negativity is estranged from commitment and consistency.  This is what choosing a path and following it looks like.

Hey, make your own mind up about him. All I can vouch for personally is that this guy got my mate lifting weights again. That’s the bottom line. One look at Rich 'Mr California' Piana enjoying his bodybuilding life and his cosy little lazy layoff was over. He ate some toast and jogged straight the gym in his jeans. The good news is that we can all be Rich Piana in our own way. How? Well, by looking different to everybody else. By keeping freak in mind. And for those of you who may be wondering, freak is an endearing term in the muscle community.

This video is a marriage of inspiration. Not only are they bringing a true freakazoid to our screens, but they are doing so by the expertise of Alex Ardenti and Mustafa Yazicioglu. Alex is a rare master of motion with the lens and Mustafa’s grungy on-your-feet piano speaks of funk and dance, a genuine breath of stylish fresh air. Let’s celebrate a fusion of talents in their own right and revere this marvellous mixture of muscle and music.

a schmoe feature
* FREAKY BICEPS BABY *

Finishing, Outlining, Drinking Pop

Recently, a little system has been discovered regarding getting small sessions of writing done. It’s all about location, device, time of day, and no more fukken Bic Fine longhand. It’s hard at the moment to imagine starting another book afresh from new. It’s sound advice to get crackin’ on the next as soon as the bottom line is starting to dry on your last but it’s also good advice to stop being a saddo and go get a life. The void can fast approach after a self-satisfied ending so it’s handy that other things needing to be done are already well underway and have been so for years. The beginning is not the hardest part but it requires big ideas and motivation. During other sticking points, you can draw on what you already have down in ink. 300 words a session now, in the last phase, is not at all too shabby. Little consistent building blocks, baby. 500+ is a bonus.

All the notes and outlining for this book amount to a couple of pages of A4. (Jeffrey ‘Loves Beaver’ Deaver spends up to nine months outlining before he writes a single word! Er, hello! Is he for real or what man? Imagine him prepping for a bodybuilding show? The winner would be cashing his cheque before ole Jeffrey had ironed his posing knickers! Too many twists define commercial tales. Too many twists, not enough risks, at least 500 pages, and twenny quotes of praise from periodicals you’ve never heard of in the front matter). Not hatin’, just sayin’. The best goal a book can achieve is to make the reader forget they are reading a book, agreed? An excess of formula is a constant reminder.

Where were we? Oh yeah. An essential trick is the spider graph. Learned this during high school revision. A couple of these with half a dozen words jotted around one keyword in a cloud in the middle can produce enough gas to charge through a whole fat chapter. Following a direction feels safe. Knowing exactly where you are and where you’re going does too. It’s when you detour into pure sentence-by-sentence make-it-up-as-you-go-along scenes when the surprises appear. Your imagination burps up some random nuggets. The good news is that there’s no such thing as a wrong turn. Not sober, anyway.

If you don’t surprise yourself you can’t expect to surprise anyone else. All writers are making up the same stuff. Lots of geezers are thinking the same thoughts. Loads of folk say today’s pop scene is dire. They slate the performers. Now that’s propa negative hatin’ coz there’s no appreciation or respect. Have you seen any recent pop videos lately? Like, dude. They’re sick. Too many shots, too many costume changes, too much eyelash fluttering, but artistically and visually, they’re kinda hard to beat. Think of a good idea right now on the spot and the pop vids are probably ahead of you. The choreography and cinematography in some of them are truly ill.  We’re all in a collective consciousness, big fish and small fish alike, a network of backbones all linked. Most have got internet access, but their modems ain’t on...so to speak…as in Smart TV, Thick Owner. Get me blood? It’s a race to get the best ideas first.