tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291097527917940322024-02-26T17:34:49.235+00:00Aleksandr Voinov - Letters from the FrontAleksandr Voinov's official author's & writing blog.Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.comBlogger439125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-35111037373853523522023-12-23T01:05:00.003+00:002023-12-23T01:05:46.815+00:00Ending 2023, starting 2024 (Still here)<p><span style="background-color: white;">Happy Solstice, everyone. I just re-read my preview blog post and ... well, life can change a lot in 6 months. <br /><br /><b>Life</b><br /><br />2023 was a year of career transition. Trying out various paths after the old one ended abruptly, seeing what makes me happy, what gives me satisfaction (outside writing). I tried translator, I tried a new start in a new industry (media) ... and then "fate" intervened.<br /><br />Backing up. In June, I was contacted by a headhunter for a great full-time job at a market-leading company with a fearsome reputation. The money was so good (and the headhunter made a convincing case that the, ahem, "cultural factors" I was worried about had changed) that I went into the process. This would then drag on for two months (and multiple interviews/tests) as the recruiting manager/s couldn't make up their mind which one of the two final applicants they wanted. In the end, I lost out against somebody with more experience.<br /><br />Fast forward a few months. Same company, different team needs to urgently replace an editor who's going off on parental leave for 7 months. Apparently I'd impressed some people enough that they referred their colleagues to me. Two 20-minute phone calls with a colleague and my future manager later, and I got the job. Being asked on Wednesday, "So can you come to work on Monday?" was ... something. My then-employer was nice and released me earlier, so the whole thing took 10 days and everything changed.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;">Pay. Schedule. Industry. Team. Job.<br /><br />At that point, I'd resolved I'm just going to be a sword for hire - take short gigs for whoever pays me the most as I make my way toward retirement. I thought I had all sense of loyalty or connection beaten out of me during my career.<br /><br />That worked for a like 2 weeks, but the company is so impressive - and the management and team so refreshingly non-toxic - I wouldn't mind going permanent with them if they want me. They certainly can use the help, even after the parent comes back from leave. Anyway, I'm now in a place where I'd be fine with both outcomes: getting made permanent would have a very large impact on my finances, but if I leave after serving out my contract, I'll walk away with a smile and many good memories. Plus, that name on my CV means I'll find some other well-paid mercenary gig easily.<br /><br />So what else did I do in 2023? I travelled to Germany and France. Made new friends and reconnected with old ones. Finished a book and wrote another one. Improved my health, lowered my stress levels. I'm back to lifting weights and generally more active than I was. I donated a ton of clutter to charity shops. I trimmed down my book collection to the point where there are actual gaps on the shelves. More needs to go. I reorganized my study/office - got rid of some furniture and now have a lot more space. I set pretty healthy boundaries in my personal life (painful, but necessary). I quit my RPG group because of incompatible styles (it's always important to work out what people want out of their games, and if you don't have enough common ground, it's easier for everybody if the group dissolves or switches out the incompatible player/s). I reached a major financial milestone thanks to the mercenary gig. I translated books. Joined a local RPG club. I generally had a great time at interviews and jobs and in a professional environment. This was the year I learned that a day job can actually be 100% fun and engaging. I had some good weeks in journalism way back when, but this is a whole 'nother level.<br /><br />For 2024, the job situation is wide open. I'm also working on some health and well-being stuff that will take a few months to sort out.<br /><br /><b>Writing</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;">I started edits on the book I wrote in 2022, and I'm 95% done with the sequel that also needs editing. I'd hoped to finish the book while in France, but turned out it was longer than expected. Both these books are pretty chunky m/m novels (romances, sure), and I originally planned to have them out before the end of the year. That's not going to happen, so I'm now aiming for mid-2024.<br /><br />I did plot out the fantasy novels, I have a world, and several important characters. Beating all of that into shape is definitely a 2024 task.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;">I'm also pondering my overall strategy - and might go "wide" again next year. I've always had issues with Kindle Unlimited, so being exclusive with them doesn't sit right with me. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;">I have plenty of ideas for books and characters and hope to get something into publishable shape soon. I mean, stuff I write in the day job is (theoretically) being read by hundreds of thousands of people who pay a lot of money for that content, so my ego got a little boost from that. I also think those two novels are pretty good. I recently met Jordan in London and we've been talking about plans for the Witches series. There are at least two more books there. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;">At some point I'll also have to do the layouts and do print versions. Forgive me, it's a really tedious job and relatively low priority, but I do hope to get to it in 2024. I prefer print books too, after all.<br /><br />I also want to translate most of my English books into German. I will translate the books of some friends. And I think that's plenty on my plate right now.<br /><br />TL; DNR: The promised m/m books are late, but will be out in 2024, plus likely a fantasy novel or two. </span><br /></p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-80665506264002658972023-07-01T13:33:00.003+01:002023-08-20T15:36:09.051+01:00Update (it's 2023 and I'm still here)<p> It's July 2023 and apparently - apart from one post about Pride - I haven't blogged here in two years. I'm not sure people still read blogs, but in case anybody does, maybe a general life and writing update.</p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Life</b></p><p>In August 2022, I benefited from a general staff cut across the whole company and took voluntary redundancy, which involved getting a chunk of money and four months' paid holiday. Also, I knew it was coming, so I was prepared for it.</p><p>Over the years, it had got increasingly difficult to stay in that particular industry (shift work, for example, really wrecks my sleep patterns), so that was a really good exit for me. I made the most of the "gardening leave", travelled a bit, tried out a full-time gig as a freelance translator, wrote a book, started another, then in March 2023 started to get a bit restless and applied for a few jobs again, this time only those with good work/life balance. Received multiple offers within two weeks or so, then decided to go work for a gigantic media company, dealing with general data quality stuff. The money isn't the same as in financial services, but it's enough for me, mostly because I paid down the mortgage aggressively during those years with the large paycheck.</p><p>I also spend some time getting therapy and worked through some childhood and teenage issues, as well as the death of my mother. I'm not sure I feel "better" - that was my first course of therapy, and I didn't like the snotty crying every damn week at 10:00 on Tuesdays. I'm more aware of some patterns now and know why some stuff hits me in the heart and other stuff I just shrug off.</p><p>Job-wise, things remain in flux, though - I've applied for an internal job at my current employer and an external company recruiter has approached me for the kind of opportunity I'd be silly not to go for. I'm already past the first interview stage and expecting further assessment. Job stuff seems to come in waves - I had multiples nibbles and about fifteen interviews in November/December, and always made it to "second place" - somebody had more experience, usually, or in one case the job just vanished. Anyway, I'm happy where I am and could easily stay here and do a few more years working for corporates. If that other opportunity happens, I'll take it and work there for 4-6 more years before I ride into the sunset.</p><p>Otherwise, not a huge amount happened. I still live where I lived, live with the same person I've lived with, write with the same writing group (though happily I've met a great fellow writer from Germany who's smart and driven and really brightens my days). I'm back to the gym, lift some weights, walk a lot, and declutter stuff I bought mostly as some kind of stress therapy during the banking years. I also bought a fountain pen I've been wanting for many years as a "getting fired" present to myself. I'm playing a bit on the X-Box, got pretty good at Call of Duty multiplayer ("pretty good" means I'm no longer just target practice for more experienced players) and looking forward to Phantom Liberty. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Writing</b></p><p>I still can't believe Burn this City came out in 2021. I guess time flies when you're working hard. 2022 up to August wasn't a very creative time for me, especially after returning to the office in the first seven months of it. There's something about open-plan offices, shift work and stress that kills my writing mojo.</p><p>When I got out, I threw myself full bore into translating - seemed like a great way of doing something creative without actually having to be all that creative (after all, the plot, characters and scenes are already there). For a while, the concept of "travelling around with my laptop, translating" held a lot of appeal, but I still returned to corporate work for several reasons. I'm a good translator and reasonably fast, but I'm not sure I was born for it. What this period did was allow my characters to talk to me again.</p><p>I became a member of several libraries (British Library, London Library) so I can access them as places to work/study/look up things, and started working on the concept of my fantasy novel/s. I had only a vague idea in 2022, but fleshed out the conflict/world in early 2023 while travelling.</p><p>My old problem remains - I can't write commercial work fast enough to have a viable career in m/m romance ("viable career" meaning replacing my paycheck), so I'm looking at spending most of my time/energy on fantasy novels, where consistency seems more important than huge volume. It's daunting to start from nothing, but over the past few years, I haven't been able to find any m/m romance I enjoy reading (a few exceptions prove the rule), and I feel alienated from the current trends - or the trends that were current when I looked last. I am a member of various Discord and Facebook groups focused on m/m and the books that seem popular don't do anything for me - and the tropes that are popular don't align with what I like to write. Like, at all.</p><p>That said, the book I've finished in 2022 is an m/m romance, and I'm currently working on the sequel. There will probably be a sequel <i>after that</i>, because the characters talk and plan their little plans in my head, and it'll be fun to give some old characters closure, and tell the story of the new characters that cropped up while I was writing about the old characters. I'm ostensibly editing the first book, and there are some re-writes I need to make it really work. The idea is to publish that book and the second book pretty close together and then I'll see if the third book has any legs (it might be just a novella, in the end). I'm aiming to get both out by the end of the year.</p><p>This week, after lots of planning and plotting, I've also started on the fantasy novel/s, and I think those are 2024 releases (we only have six months left, after all, and fantasy wordcounts are usually higher). I'm curious where this thing will go - I do plot, but the characters usually end up doing something else entirely. I'm also still doing translations, but only occasionally and mostly my own books. </p><p>TL;DNR: expect new m/m releases this year, and fantasy novels in 2024. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-3844342345894705772023-07-01T11:51:00.001+01:002023-07-01T11:51:06.229+01:00Thoughts on Pride 2023 ("And those who identify as attack helicopters")<p>My new employer is rated among the top companies for LGBTQ+ inclusivity. That's why I chose them out of multiple offers, all of which actually paid more money. People here are openly queer. We have our pronouns in our work profiles. Everybody uses the "singular they" naturally, even with gendered first names. Nobody assumes because you're a Sarah, you're a "she", or a "he" because you happen to be called Tom.</p><p>After two months there, I still have mental whiplash.</p><p>See, I've worked in cis-normative and hetero-assuming workplaces so long, I basically can't cope yet. I tread carefully, and I'm almost a little intimidated, fearing that my behaviour, which has been modulated to fit into a cis/hetero workplace, will end up offending people, or I trip up or make a mistake. At the same time, it's liberating. I haven't realised how relaxing it is. It's not just the industry (media) versus banking/finance, it's everything. Everything and everybody is more colourful, open, human and genuine. Possibly the rose-coloured glasses will come off and I find something that annoys me about the new place, or maybe I have some kind of employment-related PTSD that some part of me is waiting for the downside.</p><p>So, my employer put on a Pride party (it was organised and run by the LGBTQ+ network), and I went. I didn't originally want to - I'm not much for parties, or alcohol, and the combination of both I find really unpleasant - but a friend (who also now works at the same company) went so I decided to go too. First lesson: queer people getting drunk is much more chilled and fun than cisstraights getting drunk. No unpleasant experiences, in fact, it all felt silly and joyful, as we sat on the comfy chairs on the lawn in front of the main building, I had a virgin margarita, and we watched and listened to the live drag acts. I was honestly surprised how much this heavy introvert liked it. (Plus, it gave me an idea for the book I'm writing, so thank you, Yshee Black and the others!)</p><p>But, as the organisers said, "let's not forget that Pride isn't just a party, it's also a protest." The same drag acts we were enjoying are under pressure from threats and closures and cancellations because of the UK's atrocious policies, which are very clearly coming from the very top - the Tories have decided to go full "culture war", and they're persecuting the LGBTQ+ community, and singling out the "T", and in that dragnet they also catch the non-binary folks and everybody who doesn't do "gender" in the way that the narrow-minded among the cis people like.</p><p>In the fun (hanging with a friend, sitting chilling on a lawn, laughing about a drag queen's jokes), I couldn't help feeling sad and angry (and a host of other feelings I can't yet verbalise in public, as it were, but it has to do with regret and pain and self-compassion and tenderness).</p><p>I mean, these kids make me <b>hopeful</b>. I'm quite optimistic that the arch of human history bends towards justice, not dystopia (and not even species extinction), but the UK, its socio-political climate scares the fuck out of me. I'm historian enough to be hopeful in the long run, and too much historian to not be scared in the short term. </p><p>Healthcare provision for queer people is already a joke. Even 10+ years back when I went to a trans* folk meeting, the way to access care was to "go private", and addresses of places to get top/bottom surgery were traded like some City folks would trade the contact details of their drug dealer (I assume - my life in the City didn't involve drugs). Since then, clinics have closed and accessing gender-affirming care is harder than ever. Astonishingly, my employer offers two years' healthcare support for trans* folks (assessment and accessing care), after which point, you might be able to switch over to private options or other.</p><p>On an even darker note, mental health support is possibly a worse issue. If you happen to come out of an abusive environment, or maybe a global health emergency, or maybe just life with any kind of need for support, you're basically screwed. I looked into getting some mental health care, and the waiting list at a charity-supported place was 3-4 months. I didn't even bother trying to go through the normal NHS. If you pay privately, you're seen the same week, of course. If you're poor, or your disposable income has been eaten up by sky-rocketing energy and food bills, or your mortgage just doubled or tripled because of the Tories' irresponsible and social-darwinist policies, you're shit out of luck (I'm glad I got 5 months' of therapy to deal with some stuff that happened in my late teens/early twenties, and the total fuck-up that my family was - and I didn't even scratch the surface of some issues I have buried really deep inside, but I know they're there and for the moment I can deal).</p><p>But the thing is, being non-cis (being trans*, or non-binary or just not performing gender as expected) is a huge emotional and mental burden. It's like running the same marathon everybody else is running, but at some point on the first few kilometers or so, the crowd on the sidelines (or maybe one or multiple of your fellow runners) take a metal bar to your ankles and thighs and knees, and you get up again, in pain, and a few kilometers later, it happens again. And behind that curve, on the steep climb, it happens again, and some are lucky and don't get hit hard and complete the race, and others have their bones broken and get beaten to death (look up stats for domestic partner violence against trans* folk if you think this metaphor is hysterical/overblown).</p><p>I guess we'd be okay if all runners were like us, or everybody in the crowd, but no, we have to function and perform in a hostile environment at all times, while dealing with the same shit every other person has to deal with: money and career, family, housing, maybe kids, maybe frail parents, except trans* folks struggle accessing support, mental health, even normal healthcare, and public discourse is intensely hostile, further amped up by TERF wizard lady and her cohorts. Trans* folk have fewer resources to deal with (on average) much tougher lives.</p><p>It's no wonder most of us are resilient as hell. We gotta be. But we have the bruises and broken bones, and we remember the ones that didn't make it.</p><p>We exist in a super hostile environment, and frankly I think cisstraights would rather we just "go away" and "shut up", and belittle our actual needs (toilets, anyone?). It's where the jokes come from: "Oh yeah, and those who identify as attack helicopters" or "litter boxes for those who identify as cats". Those are "jokes" brought into circulation by conservatives - and isn't it striking how humans are either turned into machines or animals - two ways of taking away our humanity (I mean, sure, I wouldn't mind being an Apache - but don't ask me what I'd do with my turrets and rockets, chances are, some bigots would get blown up, and I wouldn't feel pain and I could have a mechanic replace the parts that are beginning to creak/not function as well as they did). </p><p>It's not about "choice", it's identity. The very core part of your being, that secret small part of you that often only speaks while you lie awake at night in your bed and you know is TRUE, when everything else isn't, or is to a much lesser degree.</p><p>It's not about litter boxes. It's about seeing - and respecting - the humanity in somebody who is different. I'm still hopeful. I start to believe that the next generations will get this shit sorted. They already know that the cat litter and attack helicopter jokes are transphobic dogwhistles, and not funny at all.</p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-29554617610385245472021-09-05T18:53:00.001+01:002021-09-05T18:53:00.195+01:00Quo vadis?<p>With <i>Burn this City</i> done, where will I go now?</p><p>I've spent some time working on concepts for a couple mainstream trilogies (non-M/M) I'd describe as historical fantasy - the leads will mostly be female, but minor characters will most certainly be drawn from diverse backgrounds and sexualities, because the last thing the world needs is more fantasy with straight white cismale leads set in heteronormative worlds. I'll now spend some time reading in the new genre to see what's going on and to make sure that my ideas can stand up.</p><p>The first new project will be that WWII novel I've had in my head for years and where the leads (one apparently asexual and the other gay) wouldn't have worked out as lovers, which stalled me for a long time. I'm still pondering whether there's a way I can turn that book into a trilogy or series because the concept is huge and might simply not work out as one book.</p><p>The second project will revisit concepts and ideas I had in the <i>Memory of Scorpions</i> trilogy and which I never really fully developed to their full potential.</p><p>And to be perfectly honest, I'm still trying to find a way to weasel my way out of the genre switch. It goes like this: "But my readers will be disappointed, and I shouldn't disappoint people who've supported me for that long", "What if you throw away a career that didn't work out for another career that also won't work out?", "Maybe you could make it all work out okay if you managed to write a book a month, too, can't be that hard because so many people are doing it", and the classic, "But what happens if you get another M/M bunny?" and "But what about those fragments of M/M books you have on the hard drive and that you've kind of been promising people?" (There's pages and pages and PAGES of that stuff in my journal.)</p><p>And yeah, I have a beautiful M/M concept I've been itching to write. There's also Franco's story and Julian's story and both guys deserve some kind of closure. I have another <i>Witches of London</i> romance plotted out completely. I have a 20k fragment of an enemies to lovers/secret baby romance with a decidedly lighter tone that would only need a couple months to make work. That's five M/M books that are in various stages from concept to 30-50% written, and I'm not even talking about that really painful WWII romance that has 50k written and that I promised a friend (who didn't live to see completion - I'm sorry, R). Six novels in total. Hundreds of hours of work already done, thousands of hours of work still to do.</p><p>Basically, I have no idea what to do. I might reactivate my Patreon (asleep for lack of time for the time being) to share the fragments, or even to complete the books just to get them out of my head. Any funds raised on Patreon would go towards paying for editing and covers. Not sure a Kickstarter for those funds would work - nothing is more embarrassing than asking for money, and it takes significant energy to promote a Kickstarter.</p><p>I could publish those books on AO3 as original fiction - at least that would be a completely free - since it's non-commercial work, my standards regarding editing are lower, so I could just clean them up as best as I can and put them there for free.</p><p>What I definitely can't afford is to go on the way I have - burning money on books that just won't earn the money back. I already face pretty large investments on getting those fantasy books edited and covered. I have to have a trilogy ready before I can even make a start in that market, which is very much driven by trilogies and series. It's very likely I'll need two or three trilogies before I even get anywhere there.</p><p>So, yeah, I don't know. The rational mind tells me to write off all the work I've already put into the M/M books and not hurt myself by putting out subpar, unedited work or spending thousands of hours on a mission to get those books out there at a financial loss. My rational mind knows what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect">the sunk cost fallacy is</a>. My heart is still in love with those concepts and ideas and characters and wants to give those characters a happy ending.</p><p>Nobody said writing was easy. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-88428498917183949182021-08-29T18:53:00.003+01:002021-08-29T18:53:42.802+01:00Burn this City - ARC stage<p>I've spent the past few weeks working through the various drafts of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Burn-this-City-Aleksandr-Voinov-ebook/dp/B098419K7C/">Burn this City </a>- all thanks go to the beta crew and my editors who've really done most of the heavy lifting. Rhis book is now as good as I can make it. I hope to fit in a final proofreading pass reading it on a tablet on a ereader, just so that the text appears "new" to my eyes, but ultimately, we're there.</p><p>I'd call this the ARC stage, except I'm not organized enough to do ARCs. This is roughly the stage I feel comfortable with handing out if people want to read review copies; except I don't really do review copies - we're two weeks from release, so it's way too late for those anyway.</p><p>At 104k words, it's a beast, and, from a writer's point of view, I never again want to write something his long because the editing <i>hurts.</i> But the boys wanted and deserved that much - enemies to lovers needs space - they spend 50% of the book being enemies and the rest of the book they become lovers. So yes, it's slow burn, probably he slowest burn I've ever written. Basically, you'll need to trust me a lot that I'm going to fulfil the various promises - this isn't a fast book or even a very simple one. It'll take work to read.</p><p>Below the cover, I'm going to talk about the "warnings" ("content words"), so stop reading before the cover if you don't to see the "warnings".</p><p>First though, if you liked Silvio Spadaro from <i>Dark Soul,</i> he's making an appearance, killing people, having fun and looking great doing it.</p><p>I consider this my m/m swansong, so that's the standards I've applied - I've worked through themes and characters and dynamics that attracted me to the genre in the first place. There's lots of plot and back story, there's a few nods to other books (a couple Easter eggs). I feel it's a great closing bracket to <i>Dark Soul</i>, which kind of started my journey in the genre in earnest. </p><p>I've deleted some rambling about what I plan to do next, but that should really be its own entry, so I'll publish that next week. For the moment, I'm happy it's done, and I'm exhausted, too. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVVYoToYQAicDRe26mjrJr2uFoyYZYVjEX_HtVGXHJ2VZpo9jX44bIOmJH4Hc1qrP3DSR5uoLCWMY5YtBuUQtSmEiUz0TskuTWpIn9KQ-gFnKSo2Ibvlt0-tc8NaJC-qYLEEx78S4lRg/s2048/Burn+This+City+HIGHRES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVVYoToYQAicDRe26mjrJr2uFoyYZYVjEX_HtVGXHJ2VZpo9jX44bIOmJH4Hc1qrP3DSR5uoLCWMY5YtBuUQtSmEiUz0TskuTWpIn9KQ-gFnKSo2Ibvlt0-tc8NaJC-qYLEEx78S4lRg/w426-h640/Burn+This+City+HIGHRES.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>The content words are: <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">suicidal ideation, organized crime, threats of sexual violence, dubcon,
mental health (depression), minor character death (past, off-page), murder
(mostly off-page), grief, bereaved spouse, drug use (voluntary and
involuntary), corruption, domestic violence (off-page), bisexual rep,
demisexual/graysexual rep</span></p><p>If you react strongly to any of those, chances are, this won't be for you. Personally, I think it's one of the lighter "dark romances" out there. It starts kind of dark but lightens up a lot as the guys find their stride with each other. </p><p>But then, my perception might be completely skewed. What's mild for me, might be triggering to others, so fair warning, all of that plays that role and I'm not adding these lightly. I think that's the first time I have actually provided content words like that - one of my friends in the space recently suffered the loss of a spouse and since Sal in the book is lingering quite a bit on his grief, the last I wanted to do was to toss people into emotions that they can't or don't want to deal right now. But again, it's a HEA in my head and at the very least a HFN on the page. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-37232957910813257142021-08-06T12:04:00.002+01:002021-08-06T12:04:28.587+01:00Burn this City - cover reveal<p> Just popping in to reveal the cover for Burn this City - as usual by the amazing Tiferet Design.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4CX1J_RMSKju7dspvPpZZkEHqRsSWyhZzLcgNo5NZhDdqWfgz0FxqWMDx9JFMBaKr0xn1-meJSdAz4yYJvKydtClFfBqNZzud_WZWtR_mdgWxHX8pqnHv30Y7OnHAGYnYXnTzaUtWbQ/s2048/Burn+This+City+HIGHRES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4CX1J_RMSKju7dspvPpZZkEHqRsSWyhZzLcgNo5NZhDdqWfgz0FxqWMDx9JFMBaKr0xn1-meJSdAz4yYJvKydtClFfBqNZzud_WZWtR_mdgWxHX8pqnHv30Y7OnHAGYnYXnTzaUtWbQ/w266-h400/Burn+This+City+HIGHRES.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p>The book can be pre-ordered <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Burn-this-City-Aleksandr-Voinov-ebook/dp/B098419K7C" target="_blank">here</a> and will be released on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited on 13 September. I'm still working on some edits to polish the text. This is most likely going to be my final M/M book (I might wrap up some manuscripts that are half-written, but there are no deadlines attached to that and I might just publish them on my A03 account when the time comes) before I embark on a new journey in historical fantasy. I'm really quite proud of it and think it'll be a great swansong. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy it. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-120337456876816552021-08-02T13:07:00.002+01:002021-08-02T13:07:33.977+01:00Burn This City - it's a big book<p>The official second draft of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burn-this-City-Aleksandr-Voinov-ebook/dp/B098419K7C/">Burn This City</a> is weighing in at 106,531 words. It's been pretty intense "self-edits" - really a misnomer because those were both my edits and I've also gathered feedback from the betas, and some of the feedback had a major impact on what is now the second draft. </p><p>The first draft had about 101k words, and I know for a fact I've cut short scenes and multiple paragraphs to the tune of 7-8k, but ended up with a longer book, so I've probably written around 10-15k new words, and this is before the editors have even touched it. I'm expecting a cover concept in the next few days too. </p><p>I'm still laughing when I think that this was meant to be a "simple dark romance, no more than 50-60k because I don't really have much plot". You'd think I'd know how this will go by now. </p><p>With the book sent of to the editors, I'll now focus on some translation work and research for my mainstream fantasy trilogy and the WWII book I've been meaning to write for far too many years, but those won't be 2021 news - just the WWII book alone will next probably 6-8 more months, and the trilogy could easily take longer than that. </p><p>Mostly, it'll be good to clear the mafia research books and notes from my desk and think about/work on something different. This pass has been really intense because the first draft was in a very poor state (not going to work like that again), and keeping 106k in my head at the same times is really quite tough. </p><p>But, in any case, it's done and I think it's shaping up to be a good book, and that is what counts. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-21625738023734220792021-07-24T11:14:00.006+01:002021-07-24T11:14:38.973+01:00Burn this City update<p>The edits of <i>Burn this City</i> are taking pretty long (I wanted to be done last week, and then the heat wave just short-circuited my brain, so I'm likely going to need a few more days). <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B098419K7C">But the link is up</a> and I should hit the deadline. This one will be my first KU release. We don't have a cover yet, but I'll reveal it on this blog once Lady Tiferet has sent me the final version.</p><p>I've now called Burn this City my m/m swansong a few times and while that shocked me the first time, it's now something I'm increasingly accepting. I think I'm through all five stages of grief when it comes to m/m; I'm not <i>quite</i> at the place where I'm excited about the future, but I'm mostly done with the past at least. And it's not like I've wasted those past 15 years - I've met great (fictional and non-fictional) people, learnt some important life lessons, grown as an artist and had fun. That's worth a lot and I'll always remember that period fondly.</p><p>And once the mind relaxes, the Muse brings ideas. So a few days ago, I woke up with an idea.</p><p>I spent the morning on a Discord call with a very old, dear friend of mine, and I pitched him my historical fantasy series that's been taking shape. I already have four characters and set a few very broad parameters (technology level, type of magic/occultism, gender relations), and now I'll incubate - that is, gather ideas, plots, read some books, put together an outline, and so on.</p><p>Basically, I'll pour everything into the book that I love and have loved for decades. One big change will be that the principal character will be a (bisexual) woman, and love/romance will be a part of the plot, but I'd expect won't take more than 10-15% of the time on page. At this point, I've definitely left my old comfort zones behind.</p><p>I think one reason why I've clung to M/M for as long as I have - and may write the occasional book to complete arcs and series I've started, or if the idea is so compelling that it overrides everything else - is just the people. As I explained to my friend, pretty much everybody I know socially is somehow involved with the industry. Almost all of my social media feed comes from M/M and romance people, and the time and focus spent on observing the industry and looking at trends etc have taken a huge amount of my mental hard drive. And re-orientating myself towards my new genre will take time and I'll be the new kid in the school, even though I was around there 15-20 years ago.</p><p>I think fantasy in Germany has evolved past all those barriers I encountered there when I started out in fantasy/sci-fi. I went into M/M fifteen years ago because the type of book I wanted to write had no market/space in the genre I came from. It occurs to me I'm leaving it pretty much for the same reasons, so we're coming full circle, and as somebody who thinks in cycles, I like that idea very much.</p><p>I keep re-reading <a href="http://aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com/2021/06/future-plans-burn-this-city-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">the previous blog entry</a>, and I still attempt to poke holes into the logic and reasoning. I guess I just on some level don't love change. I'll feel more comfortable and more excited about the change once it's actually <i>done - </i>and done in the writing game means stories are actually being written. Once I'm halfway through plotting and/or writing the first book in the series (I just know this is a large multi-book project), I'll find my wings again. It's always that way.</p><p>I did have to reckon with the reasons why I write the things I do, and why they don't sell enough to make this successful (and financially viable) for me. I'm not going to break myself on the wheel of trying to inhabit the space I've created for myself and which is just not working for me anymore - if it were just about grinding for a few more years, I could do it, but all I see is ever-diminishing returns. A friend in the m/m space said it bluntly: "They've forgotten you." And he's right.</p><p>At the same time, historical and fantasy m/m doesn't sell, and I've felt constricted by the m/m part of it for so long (things you're allowed to do and things that people expect, such as a certain heat level and number and explicitness of sex scenes, but mostly how much of the book I need to spend on developing the romance), so going back to a bigger audience that is now much more ready for queer characters makes sense for me. I'm even thinking of "porting over" a couple of my backlist books by cutting back the romance and ramping up the fantasy elements, hey, presto, instant military fantasy trilogy. </p><p>Market research indicates that mainstream fantasy is largely driven by trilogies and larger series, so my friend said, "The faster you can get yourself anchored in the market with two or better three trilogies, the better." So once I've made Burn this City the best I can, I'll get started on that.</p><p>I'll have to set up even a rudimentary website for the "new" author, though I don't think I'll do quite as much social media (I just don't have the capacity). In addition, the new books will be written in German and then translated into English. I'm aiming for a very specific voice which will be easier to write in German. </p><p>The "acceptance" stage of grief comes with a huge amount of relief. Dragging all those negative emotions and fighting the inevitable sure was exhausting. </p><p>I'm not yet at "happy and excited", but at least I have a large, complex series to sink my mental teeth into, and my German fantasy buddy is excited about the concept, so I'm off to a good start. In many ways, all I'm doing is coming home. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-69685245444873589952021-06-29T00:38:00.002+01:002021-06-29T00:38:23.570+01:00Future plans (Burn this City and beyond)<p>I'm currently reviewing the beta feedback/edits I've received from my beta squad - thank you! - and I'm pretty sure that I can fix the big issues and all the small ones too, so I've possibly optimistically put the book up for pre-orders. Readers who enjoyed Dark Soul should get a kick out of this one. I'll devote the next six weeks to polishing up this book and making it what it can be.</p><p>Meanwhile, and after much back and forth with friends, publishers and peers, and after spending a lot of time reading about and research audience targeting, it's clear I'm missing the mark with my "gritty plotty m/m romance" niche that I've tried to inhabit for the past, oh, 12-13 years.</p><p>I've always written books that I'd like to read - writing is hard enough, not writing what I enjoy would make it too hard for me - but that audience is very small indeed. It's clear to me that I've tried to serve three disparate audiences and failed at satisfying even one of them enough that I could grow my sales in a way that's financially sustainable for me. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over.</p><p>I've always said that I can't afford to subsidise my writing from the day job. Writing was supposed to be my financial escape hatch, not another ball and chain that forces me to stay put where I am only so I can afford good quality editing, covers and marketing.</p><p>My failure, if one can call it that, is that I've failed to satisfy an audience that's large enough to help me build that financial escape hatch, and getting out of the day job is my life goal number 1. I've pondered all kinds of solutions - mostly writing "to market", but the truth is, I already have two jobs that feel like work, and both are much better paid, and I don't have the energy to add a third job just for the money - because I sure as hell wouldn't enjoy it.</p><p>I've failed at ever gaining any traction in Kindle Unlimited, but it's clear to me that the vast majority of readers no longer pays outright for books (I get it, the pandemic has been tough) - I've heard so often "if it's not in KU, I'm not interested", I've watched my sales and royalties dwindle, and I've seen the past few books sink pretty much without a trace. How much of that is because Amazon makes my "wide" books invisible to my readers, and how much is me simply failing to deliver a reading experience that creates repeat non-KU readers, I'm not even going to speculate. Probably a bit of both.</p><p>Another thing that doesn't work for me is the incredible volume expected from "romance authors". With the day job, I'm glad if I can write one, maybe eventually two books a year. That's not enough in m/m romance to even get noticed, and the Amazon algos will sink any book after six weeks max. One used to be able to survive for three months on a new launch, but those days are now ancient history. I've tried every productivity trick and plan and method I could find - but the truth is, writing is emotional labour for me and I need to understand and wholly develop the characters and world and plot, and that's not possible for me in a week or two. The truth is: I'm too slow to "make it" in romance. Meanwhile, I'm also not going to publish half-cocked, unedited, rushed stuff as part of a "minimum viable product" strategy that's being touted in indie circles.</p><p>M/M romance also doesn't allow an author to approach a big publisher, so there's not even a chance to get those sweet advertising millions from one of the Big Few.</p><p>I've tried to find different solutions, but all of those facts are pretty much given and can't be changed or offset. </p><p>So the future strategy will look as follows:</p><p>- I'll publish Burn This City on 13 September in Kindle Unlimited.</p><p>- I'll be focusing on translating my English language books into German, where I'll dump them into KU (it's the only game in town now, even though I still hate and detest Kindle Unlimited and will never love it). </p><p>- I'll wrap up those books I have half written (i.e. one Witches of London book, one Return on Investment book, one Dark Soul book, and one historical WWII book), hopefully at a rate of one book a year. All new books will be dumped into KU.</p><p>- All old books that are already wide will remain wide - I'm not going to pull them from other retailers. I'll upload those to Radish and Smashwords and whatever other "wide" platforms appear.</p><p>- I'll sort out print editions for all books. My apologies about those, I avoided those because I couldn't get the layout right, but I'll renew my focus on that. </p><p>- I'll properly reactivate my first German pseudonym. I've already restarted my networking in that market and building new relationships here with peers and old friends. Under that new old name, I'll return to my "home" genres, sci-fi, fantasy and historicals, with a focus on a mainstream audience. Main characters will be a mix of straight and queer, but the love plot will either be very small or non-explicit (mainstream audiences are turned off by explicit sex). </p><p>It's pretty clear to me that I've failed to mix a non-romance plot with a romance plot in a way that satisfies both types of readers, and since I have no more energy to keep doing that same thing and hope that things change against all evidence to the contrary, I'll dial down the romance so it becomes a subplot. I still think some of my characters will be transformed by love, will make decisions out of love, and will be hurt and healed by love, I will also refrain from killing main characters (especially if they're queer), but it's time to move on from all the ambitious failures I've produced trying to square the circle.</p><p>Ultimately, I think I have to make a choice about what genres I want to write in - and remaining in m/m romance would mean writing tropey books that are laser focused on certain tropes and kinks. There's only one way to make it in m/m and that's writing a lot of books to trend very fast. I fail at all of those requirements, and even if I forced myself to do it, I know I would no longer enjoy writing, I'd likely write sub-par books (and lay awake at night as my inner perfectionist rips me apart for "phoning it in") before quitting writing altogether in utter disgust at myself and my work. </p><p>So, it seems I have to choose between the genre I'm combining with m/m romance and m/m romance itself, because any combination would still make it primarily an m/m romance - except one that's way less appealing to an m/m reader than a "pure" m/m romance, if that makes sense. So the only way out of that dilemma and forward is to choose the other side - sci-fi, instead of sci-fi m/m romance. At least I can - even just potentially - reach a larger audience. And this is made easier because my home genres are becoming more open to queer characters - provided the sex and romance aren't that central in the book.</p><p>So, I can't help but feel that Burn This City will be my m/m swansong, and the themes in there, the imagery and symbolism and issues I'm addressing in that are literally where I am emotionally and spiritually, so I think it's as good, authentic book, at least once it's properly edited (the other genre in there is suspense/thriller).</p><p>I'll finish the books I have half-written and I will try to provide as much closure for ongoing story arcs and characters as I can - I'll do my best to clear the decks and leave the house nice and tidy - "besenrein" as we say in German - "broom clean"). The German market will have a few more years of m/m books from me as it'll take a while to get everything translated. And there will be a transition period of 2-3 years, but ultimately, I've given up on my ambitions to write the kind of m/m that I want to read, so I'll focus on writing the kind of fantasy, sci-fi and historicals I want to read. </p><p>I have one bisexual poly romance I want to write and submit to a small publisher, and I might drop the occasional piece of m/m fanfic on AO3 if I feel like it and it really wants to be written. I also think I'll write a few book in German and may or may not translate them - I currently "hear" those voices in German, so German will be their first language. Lots of different avenues to take.</p><p>The new/old pseudonym will start out with a book series I'd describe as occult urban fantasy paranormal historical, and I expect to get that written and edited in 2022 - so pretty soon, really. I'll also make clear who the new pseudonym is so those of my readers who've enjoyed my voice and approach and are open to other genres can find me.</p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-24682275154592648792021-06-09T12:52:00.001+01:002021-06-09T12:52:31.253+01:00Waiting for beta feedback<p>I'm trying to be all organised with the current book - one big challenge has been to get beta feedback from people who are not overly invested ("objective") so I can look at the book with fresh eyes. I did send quite a few emails with the current manuscript to a range of people and set the deadline of 19 June.</p><p>The idea is to get as much and as varied feedback as possible (I didn't pre-select at all) and then review all feedback and build an action plan to fix those things that are actually problems rather than personal preferences. That's the part in the process where you saw off all the extra limbs and make sure things will be in proportion, and any plot holes are addressed. It's the structure part of the book, and definitely a separate pass. In traditional publishing, it would be called developmental edits - I call it the "bones". I have a few ideas myself, and will make a scene plan and a timeline and make sure it all hangs together logically - or is even possible.</p><p>Then I'll do an intermediate stage - looking at individual scenes and chapter structure. Does this chapter have a right to exist or can I collapse it into another one? This looks at tension, pacing, and scene-based conflict. This is also where I make sure that both POV characters have distinctive voices and don't overlap. This is the "muscles" stage of editing. </p><p>There will be another stage where I'm just going to look at language and metaphor and how the words sound when they're actually spoken. This is also where I hope to chase down the last of the Britishisms (I write in an approximate generic American voice as both POV characters are from the US). Let's call this "skin, clothes, and make-up". </p><p>Proofing happens kind of alongside this - obviously I'll fix all the stuff I spot on all of those passes - but there will also be proofreading from friends and I'll do what many indie authors do and try out some computer software to spot repetitive phrases across the whole manuscript. I do think that a computer is better at highlighting repetitive phraseology (which is one of my pet peeves and really difficult to spot for the human eye in a 100,000-word document).</p><p>I've also booked a paid editor as a second line of defense, but really 80-90% of the work should hopefully be done by the time I send her the book, so that pass should just be a general tidy-up. </p><p>I'd say the first three stages will probably take 6-7 weeks, and I'm throwing in August as a buffer for further passes and changes.</p><p>This laundry list might horrify some people - I see so much talk of "publish now, fix mistakes later or never, publish, publish, PUBLISH, GO GO GO!" in indie circles (I've been reading a lot of samples outside of m/m, mostly het YA stuff and some het romance, spurred on by what I see being discussed in author groups on Facebook). What I see a *lot* is people publishing what are clearly raw drafts. That said, for many of them, this very much works and they make five and six figures per year that way. Of course, every writing making money and putting food on the table is a bloody hero.</p><p>I've worked out for myself that I want to publish books I'd pay to read, and I don't buy books for myself that clearly haven't been edited. It's a professional deformation - I just can't ignore poor prose and "just enjoy the story". I often wish I could. Every time I've compromised on this, I wasn't happy with the book and I've regretted cutting corners, and these regrets linger for decades.</p><p>So, next steps:</p><p>- pull together self-editing action plan based on my own "notes to self" during the writing and the round of beta feedback by 20/21 June</p><p>- Big picture/structural edits ("bones")</p><p>- Scene edits ("muscles")</p><p>- Line/word-level edits ("skin, clothes, make-up")</p><p>- Editor stage by end-July</p><p>- Proofreading and final clean-up during August</p><p>Still aiming for a release in September. Cover by Lady Tiferet has been commissioned, and I'm looking at writing the blurb so at least I can set up a link with the title and cover for pre-orders.</p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-29571695172692683722021-05-30T17:12:00.011+01:002021-05-30T17:12:00.214+01:00The title conundrum<p> I'm actually pre-writing this on 24 May - today I've officially finished the first draft of The Book, by which I mean the current book.</p><p>I spent a couple hours batting around titles with friends because the book already had three working titles, ie "The Mafia Romance", "Jack & Sal", and finally "Dealmaker". For quite a while, Dealmaker looked like it would be the final title, because one of the character is one of the main fixers/dealmakers in my mafia-riddled little (fictional) city, and we start with his POV. </p><p>Then a friend alerted me to "Deal Maker", a successful and well-regarded m/m romantic comedy published in 2017, and my book might be m/m and is structurally a romance, the tone is really quite different. </p><p>Since then, we've gone through multiple potential titles, with the "emergency fallback" title literally "Mobster's Kiss". I also liked "Mobstertown" and "Lucky We Survived that Shit" (this one came up when I was asked to characterise the relationship between the MCs). One of the apparent rules of writing is to indicate the genre of the book with the title - and I'm really not very good at that part, but I guess I have a few more decades to get that one right. (The title for the next book, BTW has been set for 10 years or so and it's a banger and no-brainer.) </p><p>I'm now about 80% set on a title and will roll that one around in my head for a week or so before I make it properly public and set up the book on Goodreads/Amazon/etc. </p><p>Mostly I'm extremely jazzed to have the book done. My "easy, quick mafia romance that will be no longer than 50-60k because I don't have that much plot, lol" (which is how I've been talking about it to friends) topped out at 101k words in first draft and I'm still too close to really understand what this beastie is, but I sure enjoyed writing it a whole lot and I'm deeply in love with the characters. </p><p>I'll be aiming to get it edited over the next 6 weeks and then publish at some point in September ((yes, this will be self-published). Stay tuned! </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-61057754890119469452021-05-23T19:10:00.002+01:002021-05-23T19:10:29.821+01:00In my defense, I'm writing<p>So I do apparently need to make a note in my calendar when I should blog. The pandemic/lockdowns have really messed with my perception of time. When I thought about blogging, I thought "I just did that" - but "just" was three weeks ago. </p><p>In my defense, I'm at the stage in the book where I've basically upped sticks and am now living in my book. The characters are more real to me than people I've met in the flesh, and I'm both looking forward to being "done" and dreading it a little. It's a huge investment of energy and focus at this point in time, and I don't have capacity for much else that's also going on. </p><p>So when I blogged three weeks ago, the book was standing at about 80k. I've been going at a solid clip and am now closing in on 97k. So this will be even longer than Mean Machine, which was already a beast. </p><p>My characters are now weirdly adorable to each other. I think my favourite thing about this couple is that they <i>communicate </i>quite seriously and earnestly and are smart enough to really nail down what's going on and how they feel. I've at times written avoidant characters, but these guys feel grown up and mature and they totally deserve their happy ending. </p><p>Then I was approached by a budding writer today to talk about writing. And since that's one of my other favourite things to do in my life, I'm thinking I might go back to developing a workshop to be held over Zoom or Discord to help writers. I might charge a nominal fee (£5/10) or go completely free on this and just take donations (as the pandemic has hit lots of people pretty badly). I'm going to think about that some more, but basically I've always enjoyed teaching/mentoring writers and want to get back into it.</p><p>In any case, the book will get done before the end of the month. I know there's going to be 2-3 large scenes of 1-2k each left and that's it. Beyond that, I only see black, so the inner movie is done after that. June will be the month when I clean up the book and get the book off to editors and betas. I'm thinking September could be a good release month - it's the time when the book is set, so that would suit it quite nicely. I'm also still pondering titles, hence I'm just talking about "the book" here for the moment. But - things are moving in the right direction. For the moment, I'm trying to build back up to one novel per year and then speed up again once I've handed in my resignation at the day job. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-67721248958477609242021-05-05T19:52:00.006+01:002021-05-05T19:52:53.465+01:00Almost there<p>I'm kind of hoping to blog weekly about the book's progress. The original idea was to get the book done by 4 May (my birthday) with an expected wordcount of 80,000 words. Well, I hit the wordcount, but not the deadline - I still have quite a bit of plot left at currently 81,500, so I'm now expecting a 90,000-word book and a new deadline of mid-May. </p><p>So much for "I'm writing a quick 50-60k romance". </p><p>But I'm really enjoying the work right now, and it's generally going well, with a solid amount of days where I write 2,000 or 3,000 words, hence my hope to finish the book in the next 5-10 days. </p><p>I've also lined up editing, and am just off the Zoom with Tiferet, who's designed all my covers and will handle this one, so the idea is to self-publish it at some point after June, but before October, with the exact date likely set once I have a feeling that this is the best I can make the book. Even with my level of perfectionism, there comes a point where I can't find any more issues, and any additional self-editing pass just means digging up some stones and then burying them a few yards to the left or right, so it becomes pointless. </p><p>Meanwhile, it's a pretty odd beast. I was discussing how strange the book is with my alpha reader, and she allowed me to share her comments with you:</p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>“Hi, my name is Aleks and I’ve written a... romance... <.< where a Boss kidnaps and tortures another Boss’s Consigliere, only they kind of fall in love during the torture, and now they’re. Together. Kind of.”<br />“And my beta reader is in love with both of the characters, but doesn’t have a clue how to market it either, because the romance is all twisted up in deep feelings, and it’s more of an abiding love than superficial romance—everything hurts and then it’s all gorgeous, blissful happiness in the middle of all these really dark elements, memories, and actions.”<br />“Also, the boss is slightly feral, and the consigliere is a gentleman, but they’re both broken-hearted, and they just... fit. Beautifully.”</blockquote></div><p>So yeah, that's what I'm writing - "everything hurts and then it's all blissful happiness". </p><p>Hope to report in in a week with a (messy) first draft completed. Meanwhile, I'm also hanging around on <a href="https://t.co/DOtQXiALbd?amp=1">Discord here</a>, and posting snippets, etc (they're too long for Twitter and vanish on Facebook). </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-38141419254334850542021-04-25T22:10:00.004+01:002021-04-25T22:10:38.874+01:00Is this thing on?<p>First things first: the pandemic has been pretty good to me. I started a new side gig doing translations, and I'm apparently back in the saddle in terms of writing. Just not having that commute has been a super positive change in my life and overall stress levels. And last week, I got my first AstraZeneca shot - the second shot is 10 weeks away - so I should be able to travel again in about 13 weeks. </p><p>Between October and now, I've also written about 70,000 words of a new book. I've actually written more than that, but those are fragments - this book looks like it's actually going to happen, and fairly soon. I'm in the last 10-15k or so, the stage I like to call "bringing the herd home" - getting everything to a satisfying end, wrapping up sub-plots, etc. The goal is to have a reasonably clean first draft at my birthday, and then hand it off for editing, so currently casting about for editing talent. </p><p>I'm just keenly aware that this is going to be the first all-new solo book since <i>Witches of London - Lars</i>, which was published in 2016, and really the main reason why very little has happened is that the day job plus commute just drained me. Plus, of course, a couple crises of confidence and a complete re-organisation of my creative life - where to publish, how to publish, and more importantly, why and what. </p><p>I've looked at classes and so. much. advice about writing faster and "making it" in the new e-book environment, but none of it works for me. Thanks to Becca Syme and her Write Better Faster platform, I also know why - I'm just wired in a way that makes this "rapid release" stuff impossible and actively destructive to me.</p><p>(And there will be esteemed colleague who read this and go "balderdash! Everybody can write a book in a month if they want it enough, if they need to pay bills, if they're properly disciplined, etc ..." but I'm going with "Know Thyself", and I've spent a lot of time to try and tweak my process - ending up in a place that's no longer creative, immersive or even fun.) </p><p>As an example - the current WIP. I started this in October as a "fun side project", while I was working on my mainstream genre novel. It was going to be my take on "mafia romance", darker than <i>Dark Soul</i>, proper "dark romance".</p><p>Yeah. One of my beta readers has described it as "a surprisingly uplifting, warm novel about family". I'd add it's an exploration of self-worth and authenticity, but the main thrust stands. It's not the thing I thought it would be. The characters gathered too much depth, too much soul, too much baggage for a simple dark thrill. And the dark stuff - didn't really happen. The characters just didn't go that far. Too much empathy at play. It's still very much "enemies to lovers", but instead of a simple book I had a complex book - that has so far taken six months to write and should soon be finished.</p><p>While I still can't quite walk away from the day job (but I'm getting much closer), that's going to be the modus operandi in Casa Voinov - I'll focus on one book at a time and just write it the way it wants to be, regardless of tropes or marketing or genres. I was originally going to throw this up on Kindle Unlimited, but I don't think this is the kind of book that does well there, and I continue to loathe and despise KU anything. Mostly I'll have to find a way to finance editing and cover. That'll become a much larger consideration once I do walk away from the day job, so I'll need a solution I can use again and again afterwards.</p><p>But for the moment, I'm happy to be writing again, and I'm hoping to be blogging about the process again - likely just short updates, mostly so I can look back how far I've come and also so you know what I've been up to. </p>Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-41741984487899190212020-07-25T19:13:00.001+01:002020-07-25T19:13:39.389+01:00Splitting into three<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Spent the day soul-searching, and went over ground I've already covered. I've spent a few weeks with Becca Symes' YouTube videos (and books, and Patreon, and Write Better Faster Academy), and I didn't necessarily like the conclusions I've reached. So, in order to change what I didn't like, I went through it again. And again. Just to make sure that all the factors still sum up to the number I've reached that first time around.<br />
<br />
I've discussed this with several writer and non-writer friends, who helped confirm inklings I've had. I've always had that voice whisper to me, ever since about 2014, when I hit a point that I'd summarise with "And now what?" I pushed it away, and then I got busy with a different book. And then I got that day job that made a lot of those thoughts complete moot.<br />
<br />
It's become very clear I'm just not really as much at ease in the genre I'm currently writing. A consultant would use expressions like "not competitive", but for me it's never been about competition. I'm not competing with anybody but myself. I've sadly once or twice come across people in the genre who were determined to "beat me" (on whatever measures I don't know - they were making 5-10x the money I was making even in my heydays), and it's really weird to be a team player when others are obsessed about "beating you". It's like somebody jogging next to you with gritted teeth and clenched fists.<br />
<br />
Part of this is that I've just done my 2019/20 taxes for my company. I'm actually financing writing from my day job income at this point. I'm not making a profit. This is the second year running. It's one reason why I'm now translating books into German (and into English) - I make (much) more money translating other writers' words than writing my own. Writing won't get me out of the day job - translating is much more likely to do that.<br />
<br />
The way the industry is structured - click farms, ghostwriter stables, "minimum viable product", people unwilling (and sadly often unable) to pay for ebooks - the model I've been running won't work. It's nonsense to believe that if I keep doing what I'm doing, that things will turn around. Meanwhile, I can't (and won't) compromise on the quality.<br />
<br />
As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.<br />
<br />
The only thing left for me to do is to do something else.<br />
<br />
1) I'll keep writing the weird m/m books under this name, because I quite frankly enjoy doing it. I'll have to re-jig my expenses in 2020/21 so I stop financing the writing with the day job. I can't afford to do that, quite frankly. I'm not going to schedule any books, though, and I can't promise any specific books at least until I've phased out the day job and freed up some time and energy.<br />
<br />
2) I'll translate my existing books into German when there's a hole in my translation schedule.<br />
<br />
3) I'm starting up a mainstream pseudonym to write fantasy and science fiction in German and English. The vote is still out whether it'll be a name I've used before or a new one. I'll likely link that name back to "Aleksandr Voinov" so you can find them and read them - they'll just not be explicit romances, though might contain some romantic elements. Or they might just be straight, and "diverse" books. Depends a bit on what happens.<br />
<br />
4) I'll go "play". There will be 1-2 names that won't be linked back to this name. It'll be KU exclusive and it'll be just about quickly generating an income by quickly writing a lot of books. I don't expect any of those will be m/m. It's pure "work for hire", "hit the tropes", "don't worry about anything else", writing. That name may do ghostwriting for others (not sure about the rates) or be a co-writer for hire, but the general idea is to quickly build a backlist and earn some cash so I can quit the day job. I have friends who are already doing it coaching me through that process and it's a fun challenge to try. If it fails, I'll just write off the books, and do something else.<br />
<br />
It's just clear that I need to break the pattern and do something else. </div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-63889203380436889362020-07-25T08:20:00.003+01:002020-07-25T11:23:26.231+01:00Masterful Plot/Character: Warrior Nun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have been bingeing Warrior Nun on Netflix. My partner wasn't too convinced about trying it, but after one episode he thought it was interesting, and after two episodes he suggested the next evening we should continue it. Somewhere in the middle we were fully invested.<br />
<br />
I believe that both good and bad stories can teach us a lot about how to do our books/stories. I'd recommend Warrior Nun as a good example.<br />
<br />
The thing I want to talk about specifically is the payoff.<br />
<br />
Because, boy, what a payoff.<br />
<br />
(Now, if you haven't seen the show and don't want to get spoilered, go, watch it, then come back.)<br />
<br />
In some ways, of course it's a YA story and has quite a few cliches, but it's acted with heart and filmed well, the characters are interesting, and it's frankly refreshing to see so many women/girls on screen driving the plot. I was also really into how the debate "science versus religion" was handled, with the "rational people" not nearly fully rational (or even driven by rationality) and the religious people no crusading fanatics by any means. Excellent mix of grey here, no whites and blacks. A worse writer could have completely ruined that, but the mix was compelling.<br />
<br />
But what really blew me away was the payoff.<br />
<br />
We spend a lot of time in what at first felt like the "debate" beat - the "will she/won't she" moment of "will she accept her destiny or live selfishly etc". Ava has all reasons to not want to become the Warrior Nun - her experiences with religion aren't exactly positive (a nun tried to euthanise her), and quite frankly, she's a teenager and likes cute boys and partying and running along the beach (considering she's been confined to a room all of her her life). It's "faith versus fun". "Self-focus versus "team player". She has good reasons to be selfish, of course, considering she's been on her own from an early age. We also know from the start that she cares about people.<br />
<br />
She's rebellious, she's a smart-arse, she questions authority, and very much has her own ideas. She's a tricky customer to have if you're a medieval demon-fighting order of Catholic nuns who know she's the Chosen One. Many think she was chosen by accident, and some decide that her chosen status needs to be taken away so the order can move on and fulfill its purpose. Clearly, somebody who takes her super powers and runs away with the cute boy instead of meekly serving her new purpose is a big fat problem.<br />
<br />
Over the course of the last few episodes, we see her "accept her destiny" (though she's doing it very much on her own terms, in part inspired by "Shotgun" Mary). She marries "fun" and "faith" - clearly enjoying the company and friendship of the other nuns, as well as the "mission" to find the tomb of the angel (for reasons).<br />
<br />
This is when the big question is answered. Ava (from her perspective) faces the choice to return the "halo" to the trapped angel (who's alive in the tomb). Her compassion for those who are trapped and betrayed (as she was) wars with her dis-belief (the person she sees down there has been alive for a thousand years while trapped in a small cave, so hard to explain that with science), and, from what she knows, he's been betrayed and the halo that gives her super powers is actually rightfully his and will restore him to full angelic power.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, she has reason to believe that returning it will kill her or at least return her to her previous state (quadriplegic, no super powers, unable to walk or move or escape that tomb). And how smart to set this in a tomb - these choices always happen in caves, archetypically, with Luke Skywalker meeting Darth Vader in the cave on Dagobah for the first time.<br />
<br />
This is when we realise that any other of the nuns would have given the angel the halo back. They're Christians who've been trained to follow the hierarchy, despite their personal misgivings. Any other halo bearer would have (we get to assume). But not Ava. Her rebelliousness and general mistrust of authority - as well as a well-developed ego - make her go "hang on a minute". Luckily, the halo also gives her access to visions of the actual history.<br />
<br />
Turns out, whatever the immortal guy is, he's not an angel.<br />
<br />
The whole scene could be taught as part of a master class in writing. The deepest structures of the main character working synergistically with the all-important question of the plot. The big decision of the story is answered in one specific way like only the heroine can. We know she'd give up the halo (at the cost of her life/health/freedom), but her ego and her strength to question what's put before her allow her to pull back from the brink and realise it's not redemption or liberation, but truly the Cave of Death.<br />
<br />
We know she's the "Chosen One" because all other nuns would have given up the halo. And other humans simply wouldn't have gotten far enough to get asked the question in the first place, since it took the halo's powers and a super human effort to get there. Or rather - we know she's special. We also know that she appears to be the "Chosen One" to others. On a different level, she's a strong person making the best of a weird situation and retaining her agency against overwhelming odds. It's been some of the most riveting minutes of visual story telling I've seen in a long time.<br />
<br />
(The episode then ends with a Major Character Betrayal, and just before a big fight, so it's a nasty cliffhanger, but I'd strongly recommend watching the show for the "scene in the tomb" alone. I've rarely seen it done so well.)</div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-73218067304001841762020-07-12T12:10:00.003+01:002020-07-12T12:16:09.467+01:00"Mean Machine" vs "Counterpunch" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think I keep telling the story - "Mean Machine" is the book I wrote that had the most title changes. Some books have always been called on thing from the start, or maybe there was a working title. Well, "Mean Machine" started as "Untouchable", then became "Counterpunch" when it was published by Storm Moon Press.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtQJBnz3tYdkmsBkK52-5bUIIgVAH8J_fXF7K-Dv6HmublHYMx6PSmJl93BD1ku-ulgk9TLgLlVXxhbbD4j5W3EibvYmmaLK8bKN3eP1bYiqjnUu-YKJIdfeXgy7Aoz2XXPMjEHDcog/s1600/MeanMachine09+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtQJBnz3tYdkmsBkK52-5bUIIgVAH8J_fXF7K-Dv6HmublHYMx6PSmJl93BD1ku-ulgk9TLgLlVXxhbbD4j5W3EibvYmmaLK8bKN3eP1bYiqjnUu-YKJIdfeXgy7Aoz2XXPMjEHDcog/s640/MeanMachine09+-+Copy.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
When the rights reverted, I knew the book wasn't quite right. Reviewers talked about how the ending was "abrupt", and some felt the book was rushed. No wonder - trying to tell that much story in about 54,000 words was complete nonsense. It's safe to say I've learned some things about plotting since Counterpunch was published first in 2011.<br />
<br />
So when the rights came back to me, I was no longer comfortable with the series it was (loosely) set in - besides, I didn't have the rights to the overarching elements in that series and wouldn't have wanted them if my lawyer would have secured them. What needed to go were the "series elements", so I looked into re-building the world, and attacked that problem from multiple angles. It was still going to be somewhat dystopian in tone, but much closer to reality in some ways - plus I extrapolated a "worst case" Brexit, considering how much time and energy I ultimately had to spend on understanding and preparing for that. (That was way before COVID-19 really changed the game completely.) I also researched and thought a lot about criminal justice systems and trends currently going on the UK.<br />
<br />
You could say I took research to pretty extreme levels, considering most the stuff only showed up in a few sentences and shaped a lot of stuff that's not even on the page (Nathaniel's whole POV is missing - and he'd think a lot harder about that stuff than Brook would). I also went back hardcore into boxing research - watched fights and read biographies to get into the headspace of people inside the sport (now, there's some very serious dystopia - it's clear that Brook is both exceptional and exceptionally lucky).<br />
<br />
I also did a structural analysis of the book and worked out that some very important emotional beats/signposts were completely missing. Luckily, I had about 15k or so of a sequel of sorts that never went anywhere (called "Suckerpunch"). I took both apart, worked out which bits were missing and while I ended up taking very little from the "sequel", I decided to call the "new" version "Suckerpunch" to help readers not get lost about what the book actually is (I didn't want them to think it was still part of the old series). Once I'd found my stride, "Suckerpunch" grew very nicely. I'd had about 50,000 words from the old version and a few thousand from the sequel, but by the time I was done, I had 110,000 words. Arguably, there's a lot more "Suckerpunch" in there than "Counterpunch", but now all the beats/signposts were there and all subplots were properly developed.<br />
<br />
THIS is now the story I wanted to tell - and I definitely failed in the first attempt.<br />
<br />
"Suckerpunch" then went to the publisher - I worked with a publisher on this because the day job is so intense I knew I wouldn't have the time to promo and look after reviewers etc. What little time I have left at the end of the day I'm pouring into writing, so partnering with a publisher for this one made sense.<br />
<br />
The publisher then informed me they'd contracted a different book called "Suckerpunch", so I needed to change the title. My first suggestion was "Southpaw", but during the edits "Mean Machine" moved to the foreground. Brook's defining characteristic isn't that he's a lefty, it's really his ring name. And if you'd think that "Mean Machine" also works when applied to both the sport of boxing and the world the book is set in, you wouldn't go wrong. I then asked for the title change and the various editors and staffers agreed.<br />
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Of course, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52568255-mean-machine">Goodreads still thinks that Mean Machine is the same as "Counterpunch"</a>. I've had my struggles with that site over the years, and I've given up fighting back against people who apparently know my books and intentions better than I do. Mean Machine really, really isn't the same. It's more than twice the size and set in a different world, for starters.<br />
<br />
And now to a few questions I've been asked.<br />
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<b>Will you get paid for the book? </b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
I've received my pre-order royalties without problems. I'd assume I'll get paid for the rest. And should that change, I have recourse to solutions. So yes, please buy the book either <a href="https://www.dsppublications.com/books/mean-machine-by-aleksandr-voinov-561-b">directly at the publisher</a> (I get paid more and a lot more quickly for direct sales) or whichever internet or brick and mortar retailer is best for you.<br />
<br />
<b>I see it's published via DSP Editions, so does that mean it's not a romance?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>[This contains hints that might constitute a mild spoiler]</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
A specific scene later in the book violated DSP's policy regarding what content is permissible in "romance", so they asked me if I was all right with it moving under the mainstream label or whether I might be willing to change the book so it could go in under the romance label.<br />
<br />
Considering that scene pulls together Brook's whole emotional arch (it's not gratuitous at all), moving it under a mainstream label made more sense. The book still has a HEA and focuses on both Brook's career/development/redemption and his romantic relationship with Nathaniel. It's happy endings all around, I promise. </div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-88903539629703833152020-03-22T11:07:00.001+00:002020-03-22T11:07:29.421+00:00Songs of self-isolation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Since people have been reaching out (thank you!), here's a quick update. As COVID-19 spreads, I've been working from home since 13 March, and my partner followed on 17 March, so we're basically self-isolating, only dashing out of the house for supplies, and we expect that to continue for the foreseeable future. Our hearts go out to everybody who can't work from home or who got laid off or people who are in the "at risk" categories - we're doing what we can to support small businesses and make sure the virus doesn't spread because of us.<br />
<br />
Obviously, Salon du Livre in Paris was cancelled, so I didn't get to meet my French/Belgian/Francophone readers - I hope to get to Paris later in the year or, worst case, next year.<br />
<br />
Amid dealing with the changed circumstances and reorganizing our days and routines, I've been focused on proofreading Mean Machine (was: Counterpunch, was Suckerpunch, was Southpaw), which is a 110k book and is scheduled, I believe, for June. I've gone through the book about ten times now so the very final pass is ironically the slowest because I'm now pretty blind to the actual text. I should finish tomorrow if I stay disciplined for a few days. I think what really strikes me now is how casually everybody in the book touches - that's probably the biggest cultural shift that we're going through.<br />
<br />
On the positive side for me personally, my stress levels are actually way down. I'm an introvert, so skipping the cattle train to and from London, the shoulder-to-shoulder Tube, the busy open-plan office where I share a desk with chatty co-workers and a micromanaging boss just dropped my background stress level by at least 50%. It feels like I can relax, possibly for the first time in five years. Which is ironic in a global pandemic, but there goes. My pension fund got slaughtered, and we'll see how much will be left of the economy on the other side of this, but on the positive side (again), "leftist" or "extreme left" policies such as nationalisation and a universal basic income are now mainstream topics (I'm definitely in favour of UBI and think some things should be run and/or controlled by the state). If I received UBI, for example, I'd be freed up to write more books.<br />
<br />
We're dealing with the isolation part by reaching out to friends on Skype and I've even signed up for a roleplaying game (which I haven't had the time for before) played via Roll20. Thank Gods for broadband (yet another basic utility that everybody should have). I've been pondering how to support the wider community - should I do "public writing" on Google Docs or maybe use some online streaming service to read my work? But I'm really not a great reader and I'm not currently writing (I will though, once Mean Machine is all wrapped up). I don't have anything fresh to publish that I could fast-track. Many authors are already offering free books - any contribution from me would just vanish in the masses being offered. Please comment if you have any ideas!<br />
<br />
I was thinking to deal with the backlog of work - ie for once attempt to get my inbox to zero, do my tax filing and attack the piles of unread books for research, as well as make solid progress on one of the next books. I have online drawing and writing courses I want to get through. I've already completely reorganised my desk and caught up with the laundry.<br />
<br />
I'm hoping you're all safe and sound; be kind to yourselves, take this thing at the speed you can cope with. This, too, shall pass. </div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-27215124277964487132020-01-01T12:50:00.002+00:002020-01-01T13:49:37.196+00:00Happy New Year! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Boy, it's been a ride.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure how useful it is to look back over the whole decade; 34 to 44 is kind of the middle chunk of "adulthood", and the super big changes that seem to be so common didn't happen for me (no children, no major illnesses, no major life crisis). Still, here goes.<br />
<br />
<b>In 2010,</b> I managed to jump from "journalist" to "editor" and switched from covering private equity in the DACH region to even weirder financial products: global exchange-traded derivatives. Wrote a few smashing articles (if I dare say so myself) and my first deed at the new day job was literally to call US lawyers and ask them what they made of the Wall Street Act. I'd just bought a house and was deliriously happy about the £5k/pa pay rise that still put me well below London average wage, and there were no benefits and the company was super-toxic with a weekly "name and shame the writer of this headline" culture.<br />
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I had a real sense of "growing up" when we moved into our house. I didn't write much that year, but <i>Scorpion</i> happened to me (or rather, I picked that 18k fragment back up and finished it). Finished that year by getting out of that toxic workplace to switch over to my Favourite Job Ever at an investment bank with a massive pay rise, much less stress and a much nicer office. This allowed me to spend money on courses and self-development, which I did. So yeah, <b>2011</b> was good, even great, though ended with us all getting fired again. That job gave me a lot of time to write and edit and look at this writing gig seriously, which continued for a few years. I was keeping my head down and focused on writing, meeting good people and other people who proved to be a complete waste of my time and energy, but I did put out a solid amount of work, which was the main investment and payoff. Laid off again from a super boring job in general financial services, and <i>loathing </i>Canary Wharf by that point.<br />
<br />
Having dodged unemployment during the actual financial crisis, things caught up with me in mid-<b>2014</b>. Major reorientation; too much time to think, depressed, sleeping a lot, not very productive overall. Hopes I could live off writing. I did work for three months at an insurance magazine in a start-up - main lesson: if a start-up run by a former McKinsey consultant offers you a job, laugh, but not so much that you can't run hard. Miserable three months; holy hell, can office work be awful. Self-published <i>Return on Investment</i>, which did much better than expected - strong sense that self-publishing is the way forward. During ten months of "unemployment", I studied massage in a formalised setting, but worked out I love massage but don't want to ruin my hands/wrists for that kind of pay. Had a seriously mystical experience during massage practice. Finally decided to get Reiki attuned (level 1). Did the NLP Practitioner course after learning TFT and hypnosis. Used my new sharp skillz to get my current job in 2015.<br />
<br />
Much of <b>2015</b> passed in a blur of work-related stress. Trying very hard to find a new balance between work and life, and failed for 6-10 months, until I slowly clawed back my creativity. <b>2016</b> - <i>Witches of London</i> happened when I asked the question, "What should I write and what do I actually know/care about?" and a lingering sense of deep burnout from erotic romance. Decision to let my freak flag fly. That book set me on the path to Asatru and astrology - nothing like writing a book as an offering to a divine entity, and learning astrology so I could work out how Julian thinks (I got things wrong there, but by now I think a lot more like Julian - funny how that works). Got Reiki level 2. Did the NLP Master Practitioner plus hypnosis. Still the question of "What do I want to be when I grow up?", with so many of my former "dream careers" falling well short of expectations or being actively destructive of things I love and value, though I did work out I love coaching and hypnosis, and am actually great at hypnosis, and people found the coaching valuable.<br />
<br />
Life at this point took a majorly spiritual turn; truly a year or two of The Hermit, as I go inside and look at the stuff I find. Meet my coven mates, and finding spiritual people so much more pleasant than my former associations. Deciding to get back into tarot seriously, dabbled in various magickal systems, work out I'm a total intuitive. Past-life regressions and dealing with old karma; conscious decision to "play white"; examined multiple spiritual orders and practices and worked out I'm not a Buddhist but love Buddhism, and occult orders very much aren't for me. Enjoying the writing of weird books, though it's a departure from the easy erotic stuff, though the Brexit referendum is decided and puts a dark cloud over everything.<br />
<br />
<b>2017 -</b> getting my stuff back together and refocusing on writing/publishing. <i>Eagle's Shadow</i> gets published, as well as <i>Exile</i> and <i>Shadow's Watching</i>. Mostly I'm busy going through the old backlist, proofing and editing and then re-publishing books while the day job remains intense. I also translate <i>Witches of London</i> into German as a exercise to get my language skills back up and publish that. Part of the language thing is due to the thought that I might have to return to Germany and some translation experience might be good to have, just in case.<br />
<br />
<b>2018 - </b>Spiritual questing continues, and I waste too much time following US/UK politics, but in happier news, I re-jig our overall diet towards being more plant-based. Several crises of faith about the day job, but can't seem to find a way out. Reached an agreement to split the rights of co-written books, freeing me to publish some stuff and getting most of my old books back out under the "new" branding after a spit and polish.<br />
<br />
<b>2019 -</b> <i>Moonstruck</i> is the last of the old books that don't need major re-writes and gets published in April. Layoffs result in major stress increase at work; months spent trying to work out how to get to part-time lead to nothing. Have multiple job interviews but am not biting. Brexit a major stressor; I'm making more contingency plans in case I can't secure Settled Status. <i>Southpaw</i> (formerly <i>Suckerpunch</i>, formerly <i>Counterpunch</i>, and originally <i>Untouchable</i>) doubles in length and is acquired by Dreamspinner and now called <i>Mean Machine</i>. I waste too much time following US/UK politics. I apply my strong financial background to personal finance and re-jig our finances, putting an actual plan in place to quit the rat race.<br />
<br />
Overall, I created a solid body of work and grown tremendously as a person. Financially, I went from really quite precarious to having a solid foundation in place. Struck it lucky multiple times when it came to job changes and salary increases. My partner's been my rock throughout. So glad to have my spiritual and witchy people, and a plan to go forwards. Some of my best experiences in publishing were about working with great voice talent, my foreign-language publishers Triskell and Juno in Italy and France respectively, and my translators, of course. It was great to sign translation deals for French, Italy, and Hungary over those past few years.<br />
<br />
I also deeply value my writing friends, editors, cover artists and beta readers - all of those are relationships that happened in those past 10 years and I'm looking forward to taking those with me into the next decade. Some of my happiest times were relating to travel too (Lanzarote, France, Germany, New Zealand especially, though I also went to the US a few times, Russia, Poland, Italy, the Netherlands), and if anything, I want to travel more next year, though places right on the water are really the best for me. And there were so many fun and energising encounters with readers and clients. I'm hoping to make more time for those as well.<br />
<br />
<b>2020: </b><br />
I've really only set a few goals, and these will be adjusted and reprioritised as time goes on.<br />
- Write/finish 2-3 books and publish them<br />
- Maintain my overall spiritual practice<br />
- Trim down/optimise possessions<br />
- Contribute a certain amount to investments, pension plans and the mortgage<br />
- Do more coaching work and consultations (writing, astrology, tarot, etc)<br />
- Ignore politics unless I can actually do something about it - it's not like there will be many surprises from here<br />
<br />
<b>2030:</b><br />
Just looking back over the past decade, it would have been impossible for me in 2010 to predict or plan for "me" in 2019 - though the seeds were there and the actions were there. I did harvest from work I put in during that time, and the overall trajectory is very much "up". Money, people, writing, spiritual wellbeing are all so much better now.<br />
<br />
The one thing I can plan for is financial independence; by 2030 and with current cash flows, I should be able to have quit the day job and do something else. My date for that is 2025. I might work part-time because having a bit of structure helps me. Maybe the consultation stuff actually pays my bills. It would be great to have found an actual structure/office hours for the stuff I love doing and get paid for it, while I keep writing. I can't tell where the spiritual quest will be leading me.</div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-69439555021100975622019-12-14T22:02:00.000+00:002019-12-14T22:19:20.287+00:00The song of the immigrant<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
With the politics off my chest (<a href="http://aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com/2019/12/notmyprimeminister.html">#NotMyPrimeMinister</a>), and having spent three years in an anxious stupor (plus my stressful day job, but that could have been more manageable if I had had more surety about my status), it's enough. I've had enough.<br />
<br />
One of my first responses after the referendum was shock and horror as a human being, as an immigrant, and as an artist. See, I came to the UK almost 14 years ago. I intended to stay. I had a lump in my throat during the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.<br />
<br />
I'm not going to talk about how all that has shifted - it's summed up best as an overwhelming sense of alienation.<br />
<br />
When the referendum was announced, I was halfway through <i>Witches of London: Lars</i>. If you're perceptive, you can feel the tonal shift of the book between the bit written pre-referendum, and the bit written post-referendum. I've done everything I could to even the caesura out, but I can definitely feel the rift like a scar when I re-read the text. In fact I almost lost that novel because I felt so much horror at Brexit that I could barely bring myself to continue writing about English people - who've been my material and personnel ever since I came over.<br />
<br />
But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so I muscled through. I loved the Witches of London premise very much and willfully pushed through both Eagle's Shadow, and Shadow's Watching with Jordan Taylor. Both of those novels found a way around the wound in my mind - the first has a huge hopeful message about how nationalities are constructs and how we're all just humans, and we moved the second novel outside of London and into Switzerland - literally "neutral territory".<br />
<br />
But WoL has always been multiple books. It could easily have sustained me for a few years and 7-10 novels. I don't often get a premise that is so flexible and that I care about enough to keep going for so long (I admire authors who can stay in love with long-running series after long-running series and keep pushing forward with those). Lars was easy to write until June 2016.<br />
<br />
You might have noticed that I haven't been writing much recently. I'm fed up and disgusted with so many aspects - the rise of UK*P and other authoritiarians, the complete shitshow that is the press, and the political establishment, the cowardly, brazen, nasty, corrupt and frankly incompetent main actors - the daily outrages, the race-baiting, the constant shitting on immigrants, the slander, the childishness and spinelessness.<br />
<br />
I know in my mind that lots of British people are still doing the right thing, alas, I've lost all faith in this "mature democracy" on the collective level. All those WWII jokes are getting very old (yes, you bombed my grandparents, turned the city of my birth to rubble, and it's still godawful ugly because of that, well done you, I hope you enjoy). If somebody gave me British citizenship for free, right now, I wouldn't take it. I've been called a "citizen of nowhere" too many times and used too often for target practice. I'm not going to bend the knee to the people who've used me as a pawn and continue to do so. Let me be a citizen of nowhere, then. I have a golden eagle on a burgundy passport that says I belong somewhere at least, if all else fails.<br />
<br />
And if the alienation and anger weren't enough, all those small and large insults, fears and horrors have had another effect on a much more insidious and painful level (because writing and stories are my refuge from the world, where truth is still true, where spine and conviction will win out, where determination, faith, and love always win), is it put a glass wall between me and my British characters.<br />
<br />
(I dodged all that with <i>Exile</i> by moving things back into space - a book basically nobody has read but it gave me time to come to terms with some stuff, so I had to write it, but yeah, the title is meaningful and telling.)<br />
<br />
This year, I managed to write Brook in a new version of <i>Counterpunch</i>, because let's face it, I've known that guy for nine years and he came back to me the moment I told him I was interested, and besides, his story is now very much about Brexit and the pain of alienation, so that fit me nicely. The very diverse cast also helped. Moving the story a few years into the future and half a step to the side from the timeline we're currently on helped me write about the UK, though I was relieved when I could move the story to New York/Vegas - it was respite from the current shitshow. It's also an angry and political book now and should come out as <i>Mean Machine </i>next year.<br />
<br />
But I had to come to terms with the fact that the referendum, and the aftermath, have broken my link to my characters. I could have happily written the four or five Market Garden stories that were always planned (even without my ex-co-writer, because she would not have been involved), but the problem is, I can't write about British people boinking happily ever after anymore and the tone would now be so gritty and dark that readers would be unlikely to enjoy the shift from what's largely guilt-free rentboy porn to "sexual exploitation and immigrant bashing with explicit sex". I wouldn't be able to keep my anger out of it - so better not ruin a good thing.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, I can no longer inhibit these characters naturally - the same way I feel unnatural and alienated in the UK. In the "real world" I can go through my day - every day - as a "guest worker", knowing I'm here at the sufferance of a government for which I'm just a cost/profit item and barely a human being. But I can't live like that inside my characters.<br />
<br />
I can't count how often I've told myself, "Oh, get over yourself", and I've struggled along, stared owlishly at fragments I wrote when I hadn't yet lost my faith in this country. I can't continue. I need to believe in my characters and I have to live inside them, and that means inhabiting their cultures. In many ways, writing about a character who's from a culture that's not my own is a bit of a love song to that same culture (<i>Nightingale</i> has given me a deeper love for the French, for example). I have not enough love or faith left to sing that particular song now. Maybe as a person I'm not strong enough to see beyond that pain.<br />
<br />
In many ways it's funny, one of the reviews I'm most proud of, went along the lines of: "Aleksandr Voinov writes alienation like no other". Well, that got dialled up to 11 in 2016 and I've struggled against that since then, and even my stubbornness hasn't helped me win the day - I have to admit that the weight has proven too hard to lift or carry. Time hasn't healed the pain - it has only turned my anger cold - I still don't want to write about those people anymore. I can't. And that's the reason why there haven't been more Market Garden books, even though they were easy money - or more Witches of London books, even though I love that premise and those characters so much.<br />
<br />
I've questioned pretty much everything - should I maybe write German fantasy again? I used to love fantasy. Maybe focus on just translating my work into German. Both would help getting my mother tongue fluent again. Allegedly, you can still make a bit of money from books in Germany, which is less competitive. I could team up with my old friends and build something totally new.<br />
<br />
If I can't inhabit English characters anymore, maybe write about continental Europeans. I've entertained the thought of writing a very large novel cycle based on German history (I was aiming for one novel per century and then, from 1910 onwards, one every 10-25 years because history feels like it's speeding up there), following one or two families or building a city as a setting and show how it changed. Those would be very much focused on how German history is very much European history (multi-national cast, with "nationhood" something that is being negotiated and may change). There's so much material here that nobody has really touched, especially from a LGBTQ+ perspective. So that's something like 20-30 novels - easily a life's work.<br />
<br />
I've thought about writing about the Great Northern War, about August the Strong, Duke of Saxony and King of Poland (and, according to family myth, one of our ancestors because "the Strong" was a monicker about his sexual prowess and he sowed his oats very generously among his subjects - and one branch of my family is from Saxony). I've thought about writing about a wandering alchemist/astrologer travelling Europe during the Enlightenment (the main attraction is certainly the clothes - I can't understand why we ever moved away from tricorne hats). I've also thought about returning to sci-fi and fantasy and write sexy stories about virtual reality (I have a concept and everything). There's a book about a Nazi hunter, and about a guy or two re-building his life among the rubble post-1945. There's a story about a German Afghanistan vet, too, current day, who's rebuilding himself and coming to terms.<br />
<br />
I keep circling back to WoL, though, trying to somehow adjust the premise to my changed inner life and structures. I want to finish the series, which has always been about chosen family, but my feeling is that the characters will eventually leave London. Don't worry - they'll be fine. I'm not sure how they can stay together, so the "coven" will get destroyed - it has to if I stay true to the setting - as the witches are scattered to the wind.<br />
<br />
Maybe that's the way to finish the series. If Brexit had been called off, I could just have pretended 2016-2019 had never happened on that timeline and continued with a pre-Brexit London, or, more accurately, a no-Brexit London. I could have blithely continued on that path. Well, reality has destroyed that option. The setting those books were set in no longer exists, and I can't pretend that it does.<br />
<br />
But maybe that's a good story, too. I will try to finish the stories I have half-written, but I can't promise I can keep my anger out of them, or Brexit, or alienation. I'll finish the fragments mostly because they're really good, and then find a way to write about Europe instead of the UK. That's the song I've been given to sing, the material I have to work with. The only thing I can do is honour that and speak my truth, as always. </div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-72979389426850064382019-12-14T20:15:00.001+00:002019-12-14T20:21:07.315+00:00#NotMyPrimeMinister<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've organised my thoughts sufficiently to talk about the UK elections. Firstly, I believe the campaign, driven by shady characters and shady money, is a prelude and a test case for the US in 2020. The tactics, the plutocratic interests, the slogans, even the Twitter troll armies (and Facebook ads) are too similar to ignore. Two of the "great global democracies" have begun their descent into authoritarian, proto-Fascist darkness. Hell, they even use the phrases that were test-driven in another "great democracy" 90 years ago, and proved a huge success. Both are dissolving consensus reality - we can't trust what we see and hear anymore, and, insecure about the facts, we freeze or step back. The good lack all conviction. It surely won't be as bad. Right?<br />
<br />
I don't know what it is about humanity that we need these fragile strongmen, every few generations, to lead us towards perdition. Meanwhile, climate change is the ticking clock on the wall. It's dire. BJ is still considered a "buffoon". Well, when that other guy rose, 90 years ago, the politicians and population who weren't his ardent followers (and he had those) considered him a bit of a clown too. People now think that BJ will soften his stance, now that his majority is so overwhelming that he doesn't have to cater to the hardcore extremists.<br />
<br />
That other guy, 90 years ago, would "surely mature in office" and "his incidentary rhetoric will surely calm down now that he's Chancellor."<br />
<br />
Turned out, he didn't.<br />
<br />
BJ even got his "empowerment law" through parliament (those Henry VIII powers are scary, guys).<br />
<br />
I hope I'm wrong. But I'm a historian by training, and I've studied the same playbook that these players are using, and am frankly shocked that that shit flies when we have all the hindsight and books dissecting how Fascists and authoritarians and supremacists have done it, in multiple countries.<br />
<br />
But that's the cards we've been dealt, and as Mark Twain is said to have said, history doesn't repeat, but it sure rhymes.<br />
<br />
I'm still pondering what to do. My immediate future is secured, the Home Office has deigned to grant me Settled Status - which means nothing without a deal, and I don't trust the UK Government to not curtail my rights later when it's expedient. Not only am I for the moment allowed to cast my filthy immigrant shadow on Albion's hallowed soil, poppies and all, they've also told me I can apply for British citizenship, but I find the very thought revolting, to be honest. Firstly, Germany allows dual nationality only with other EU countries (so with the UK leaving next month, that's a very small window of time), and I'd never give up my citizenship, because ironically it'll protect my partner's rights if and when we choose to get the hell out of Brexitannia.<br />
<br />
We had that chat late at night after the exit polls showed that the UK has switched the light off. For the moment, we're fine - we are both employed in the City, we make solid money, we stuff money into our private pensions, and we're paying off the house quickly, and we have private medical. As homeowners, we'd be Tory voters (except I'm an immigrant, and nobody in this house will ever vote Tory at any election). I asked whether he wanted to bring our exit plan forward, explaining to him he has every protection in Germany (and, I think, by extension, anywhere in Europe), which seemed to surprise him.<br />
<br />
He said: "Yes, but I'm aware of all the people who can't leave, like $godson, and $goddaughter, and for them we gotta fight back."<br />
<br />
So that's one thing we'll do. We'll do our very best to fight back. Time is on our side - demographics show that the kids (i.e. people below 40 years) are all right. And the kids will grow up witnessing 15-20 years of Tory cruelty, and seeing the NHS getting sold off, with all the suffering that will entail. The Tories are turning the young generation into activists with political awareness, while their own supporters age out and die off. In the long run, we'll be fine (though climate change might get us before then - but even then, the youngsters have grown up with Tories doing absolutely fuck-all in the face of an existential threat).<br />
<br />
In the small details, Dude and I will both most likely join a political party, and help where we can. Our "get out" plan is established and automated - we are ready to leave pretty much within mere months if necessary. I'm pushing even harder our efforts to put money aside (diversified into euros because we'll most likely end up in the EU somewhere, France or Germany), and increase my earnings. On an even smaller level, that'll mean writing more again because royalties will help reach the point where we can walk away from the blazing fire in time and unscathed. Personally, I now consider the government and its agencies hostile i.e. actively xenophobic, racist, supremacist, and unaccountable - I've run out of trust and I'll do my very best to be prepared and stay prepared to leave, while monitoring the power grab and hostile actions in detail, and getting and staying organised.<br />
<br />
But for the moment, we stay and fight, for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7_y-F8VtSo">the children of our friends</a>.</div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-45224776546492368392019-10-30T21:28:00.001+00:002019-10-30T22:04:33.916+00:00The new Master Plan (the good and the bad)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
While I was waiting for my Southpaw edits (the book is no longer called that, by the way), I went down a particular rabbit hole; there've been odds and dead ends and books that led to other books, but in the end, I found what I was semi-consciously searching for. I say semi-consciously, because where I started with my questions wasn't where I ended up.<br />
<br />
The question was: when will I have enough money in my pension to be able to say "Cheerio, Ms Sophie" to the full-time, all-out, screamingly mad day job, with the aim to spend more time writing and no longer trying to fit two and a half full-time jobs into my 44-year-old brain, which is seriously getting old. All of that without getting my partner to carry the burden of looking after another human being who'd rather spend time talking to people who don't exist than earn money, and who is very unlikely to "break out" in a tiny genre dominated by author collectives and people paying for Amazon ads while employing a dozen ghostwriters to make a million or so on Kindle Unlimited.<br />
<br />
(I write because I love writing, not because I want to make a shiny million running a stable of ghosts.)<br />
<br />
And the answer was... complex.<br />
<br />
Backing up.<br />
<br />
I crunched numbers, ran scenario analyses on various returns of investments, multiple income streams, various cash flows, and then I compared that against a number of budgets. Ultimately, it was "what can I achieve if I hustle" versus "What do I actually need", and then I changed the variables like two dozen times to account for Brexit, being kicked out of the country and having to return to Germany, sterling tanking 30%, etc. I looked into every bank account, every pension fund, every debt, and I read several personal finance books and blogs and sat down with a big sheet that had "assets" and "liabilities" and then "net worth" written on it, and I tallied it all up until I knew to the exact pound how much my partner's worth and how much I'm worth (ie our household worth), and where that value is trending. Also what my pension entitlement is, and how to maximise my partner's state pension.<br />
<br />
Then I tracked my budget - how much do I spend on what. I still had the numbers fresh from doing my company taxes, so that part was relatively easy.<br />
<br />
That gave me numbers; on the positive side, the numbers are quite pleasing by themselves, but they aren't big enough to do what I've set out to do. The good news is, the income side is pretty generous (thanks, day job), but the bad news is that I was throwing out a lot of money without return for lack of a strategy.<br />
<br />
That last part has now been remedied. I have a strategy. It involves a multi-pronged attack on the problem:<br />
<br />
1) Save money.<br />
2) Cut back.<br />
3) Invest.<br />
4) Patience.<br />
<br />
<b>Point 1</b> means I'll stay the course and not spend money just because it's there. That should be pretty logical, but the mental habit to break is "I can afford this" or spending as a comfort blanket, and just put the money into the kitty. So that expensive fountain pen I've been eyeing for two years just got cancelled. This will have a direct impact on audiobooks - I don't really make the money back if I pay for them myself (I make maybe £50/month in Audible royalties, meanwhile having a novel produced easily costs £1,500 - so 2.5 years of income go into one audiobook, and I'm leaving out the fact I'm paying taxes on that money, which is another 20% at least, while I could use the money to buy my freedom. Same for author swag - I had some really cool ideas that cost like £800, and those are cancelled too, much as I'd love full-colour printed insulated coffee mugs with my cover art.)<br />
<br />
<b>Point 2 </b>entails cutting back on spending that I was already doing. I've cancelled pretty much all subscriptions (gym, Audible, KU, Muso, etc) and I think I had one takeaway coffee last month. The idea is to keep cutting back to reduce my outgoings to the bare minimum. This also involves being super selective about which conference I'll attend. There's no way I can justify the £2,500 to attend GRL (flights, hotel, lost income/value of the holidays), but I can swing the UK Meet and EuroPrideCon, as well as Salon du Livre. If I were super hardcore, I'd cancel those, but the truth is, they refresh my soul. This will also include spending on holidays and restaurants, birthdays, Christmas, etc. I love food and travel, but I love my freedom more. The biggest challenge will be how to fit charitable giving in there, and I'm still working on making sure I'm helping people in some way.<br />
<br />
<b>Point 3</b> is kinda funny and relatively recent. The extra "saved" money is getting invested into a number of assets. I've been in financial services long enough to have a strategy. Even assuming there's a crash, I'll come out quids in. And if the global financial system collapses, and my strategy stops working, well, then I'll likely have bigger problems than retirement, to be honest. But so does everybody else. I've tested my strategy backwards and forwards and plan to beat - at the very least - the guy who's running my pension fund at Scottish Widows. I know an insane amount about finance, so this is the part where I'm putting all of that to work. I've pondered the ethics of this quite seriously and 2020 is the year when I really get going on this. Paying off the mortgage is part of this strategy, so that's happening too. Once the house is paid off, I'm taking a big chunk out of the amount I need to spend just to live, so a paid-off house will seriously help.<br />
<br />
<b>Point 4</b> is possibly even more important than the others. Over the past 12 months, it's become very clear that my day job has a "best before" sticker - it won't be forever, or certainly I won't. I tried to go part-time, but the bank basically said "these are the parameters of your role, take them or leave", and I decided to take them. Based on the numbers I've crunched, I need to stay for anywhere between two and seven years. Two years is "must", five years is "should", seven years is "can", so I'm aiming for five, to be safe and because I don't have money coming to me by way of inheritance, otherwise I could shorten that period.<br />
<br />
Thinking five years ahead is a bit of a sinking feeling, but the truth is, I've already done 4.5 there and I can do another stint, because I know what I'm doing it for, and I know to the hundred pound note <i>exactly</i> how much my freedom costs - and that of my partner, because if I'm going to walk free, I'm taking him with me. I already have a headstart in some ways - I'm still healthy, well-educated, I have all kinds of skills, and I contributed to a pension even while I strictly couldn't afford to lose that money. Past me, thank you for every penny you put into that kitty 11 years ago, this is really helpful now.<br />
<br />
In 5-7 years, I should get to the point where I live mortgage-free, have some modest income from investments, and greatly reduced need for money (thanks to all the cutting back), and <i>then</i> I can live off writing. Or reading the cards and/or interpreting horoscopes, coaching, or running other people's money - I don't expect I'll ever stop working, but at least I won't have to commute to an office anymore.<br />
<br />
That actually leads me to <b>point 5:</b> Learn more skills that allow me to earn some more money from side hustles for the point in time when books are written by computers in thirty seconds each. I'm quite seriously considering getting actual qualifications as a portfolio manager (yes, I'm absolutely going to channel my inner <a href="https://books2read.com/u/mY2OY4">Francis de Bracy</a> for this journey).<br />
<br />
The guiding principle of all my planning, as I said to my partner this morning, was that I need to get us to a place where we're both comfortable even if one of us dies, or we separate - and that very much means earning double incomes for as long as it takes, ie a few more years from now, and stash most of the cash and put it to work. It's not a flashy "rockstar" lifestyle, but it'll be sustainable, modest, and safe, and allow me to spend the next expected 40 years of my life doing things I love.</div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-36668823429411249832019-08-11T11:44:00.003+01:002019-08-11T11:44:56.207+01:00Southpaw is done, reformatting my mental drive <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've finished the book currently known as "Southpaw" and it comes in at 111,000 words, which is the longest I've written since the, oh, 150,000 words of Return on Investment (which were trimmed down to about 112,000, if I remember right). So that's a whopper. It's now with betas because at this stage in the process I can't tell whether it IS actually good or whether I'm too far up my own book to make a judgment.<br />
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I'm currently in the process of reformatting my mental hard drive and catch up with some reading and streaming shows, and getting the rest of the year organised. To that end, I've re-read four fragments of books I have and that I want to finish (Dark Heart, Julian, the historical paranormal and what I call the "author romance").<br />
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Some of those have outlines/plots, others don't, so I'm now putting together outlines for the ones that don't have any where I'm too vague in the previous outline. I've never been much of an outliner, but I had to do it to get Southpaw sorted, and considering how often I've changed the outline here (it went through at least five very different versions), and the fact that it all still worked out in the end - without constricting me in the slightest but giving me a kind of handrail to move along whenever I need it - I think I'm now pretty much converted to the outliner camp. It seems like the best way to make sure books actually get written, so the payoff is worth it.<br />
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Day job remains intense; nothing new there. I have an appointment with an occupational health doc in mid-September, and I'll see where things are going from there - it will ultimately be a test of whether my company actually adheres to its own "Health, Safety and Wellness" handbook or whether all of that is lipservice and I'll be gently encouraged to leave if I can't hack it. The main issue with getting a different job is that most of them pay 20-50% less than I'm earning now and there's no guarantee that I'll work less or have less stress.<br />
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Meanwhile, the economy is cooling - thanks to Trump's inane trade wars, and Brexit - so the recession/downturn is on track for late 2019/early 2020. Right now, my options are very limited, so the best thing I can do is suck it up and do what I can with the time and energy I have left. I'd be hoping for two books per year now, but I'd consider even one per year a victory. Ideally, I'd like to publish those 1-2 books a year in the same month/s, to get some kind of regular schedule going and keep myself accountable (it also seems to be how many mainstream authors do it).<br />
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It's very much a "shoulder to the wheel" period in my life. Lots of work, very little time for anything else. The payoff is still 2-5 years in the distance, but we'll get there.<br />
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Right now, I'm expecting to get Southpaw into shape after the beta feedback etc to hand it in at the publisher at the end of September. Then I'll have two months or so to finish one of my fragments.</div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-24476885640354413332019-07-13T16:36:00.003+01:002019-08-11T10:40:35.962+01:00Mid-year update (day job, publishing plans, etc)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've just come back from EuroPrideCon, which for me is a must-attend event and greatly enjoyed meeting industry people, bloggers, readers, fellow authors and everybody else. I'll absolutely be there again at next year's Summer Solstice in Leiden, Netherlands. :)<br />
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So, what have I been up to/what are the big news items?<br />
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I've signed pretty much all of my back catalogue with Juno Publishing, except the Scorpion series (which is being translated privately), and Nightingale, which we agreed would be offensive to too many people, and I totally agree with that. It's a super delicate part of history and people didn't necessarily behave heroically or perfectly. Meanwhile, with the rise of Fascism and Totalitarianism across the "western world", I don't think the questions some of those books are asking are really that important anymore. They could be examined in a solidly liberal democratic environment and Zeitgeist, but as that is very under an organized, globally organised siege, the questions must shift to how to defend the freedoms and human and citizen's rights that my generation has taken for granted. I'll be looking at themes of "how to stay sane under totalitarian pressure" and acts of passive and active resistance, as well as the post-totalitarianism fallout, in part because I absolutely believe that the long arch of history bends in the direction of human rights and dignity, despite everything. But it is a long arch. I only have vague ideas so far, but no doubt that I'll return to that period of history.<br />
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I'm writing! I signed a contract with Dreamspinner for a book currently called Southpaw (though I feel the name might change again), which some of you may remember as Counterpunch. It's kind of funny how this book has gone through so many titles already. Its working title once upon a time was "Untouchable", then it became Counterpunch at Storm Moon Press and another publisher, then I retitled it to Suckerpunch because that was the name of the sequel and I wanted as clear a break as possible between the "versions" (it's not going to be the same beast at all). Dreamspinner said they'd already signed a book with that title and whether I had an alternative. So I arrived at Southpaw; but by now I think there's a better title in the book and has been for a long time. I'll have to discuss that with Dreamspinner though.<br />
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My original personal deadline for Southpaw was 1 July, and I'm now way past that, but there's a reason for it. I did believe that I could tell the whole story by adding around 20,000 words to the circa 52,000 I had left after some cutting and replacing, but I've written about 45,000 words since then and I have another 5,000-10,000 to go, so it'll be a whopper of a book, possibly more than 100,000 words (which is longer even than Moonstruck, and that was a co-written book).<br />
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I'm hoping to write the rest over the weekend and this week, so the new deadline is more like 20 July, and maybe end of the month for my first editing/clean-up pass. Dreamspinner expects to publish the book in the second half of 2020. Compared to my previous productivity, that's pitiful, but it's the best I could do with everything going on, and a lot more than I achieved in 2018.<br />
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That does mean I'll have five months left in the year to work on a different project, and that will likely be Julian's book from Witches of London, which is half written in any case, so hopefully that'll be a release for early 2020. I'm not going to plan beyond that - there's a pile of books I started and fragments and ideas, but I'll see which one will come through when the time's right.<br />
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I'm planning to teach writing again, and will announce the shape and schedule when we (i.e. Chris Ethan and myself) actually have a structure; right now, it's mostly looking at ideas, locations, formats, and how much time we can put into this, since we're both still full-time employed. But I've always enjoyed teaching things I love, so I'll try to do more of that again.<br />
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Beyond that, I have opened a dialogue with the bank about going part-time or on a job share. I've had some interviews, but haven't found a job that resolves my main issues, which is the long, intense days and the sense of burnout/exhaustion when I come home, so that's a first step, and I hope it'll lead to a resolution. If I can wrangle a job share, that would mean three days in the office and four days at home/writing, which for me sounds about perfect - I could stay employed on that schedule for a long time.<br />
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This whole matter of "balance" and "what am I doing with my life" has become very acute for me. A few days ago, an old roleplaying friend of mine died from leukemia. He was 38. Another friend is terminal and so poorly now that staff at her hospice has advised that visiting her basically makes no sense and exhausts her and makes her anxious. She's deteriorating rapidly, in their words, so I hope she'll pass over quickly without further pain or anguish. I find that the dying are giving us a tremendous gift in that way, reminding us that our time on this planet is indeed pretty limited and might end a lot sooner than we planned. It makes no sense to sacrifice all that time to capitalism and uncaring corporations with the hope to retire and then do the things we enjoy. I know for a fact that I enjoy being a storyteller and teacher much more than being an editing office drone. </div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29109752791794032.post-50387742991822863542019-04-06T11:18:00.001+01:002019-04-06T11:18:37.907+01:00Long overdue update (includes stuff on day job)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm back from Paris, where my French publisher, Juno Publishing, hosted me at their booth at the Livre du Paris. I had a really good time meeting both French (and Belgian) authors and writers, and spend a lot of time chatting with the Juno ladies as well as the Dreamspinner ones.<br />
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There'd be much more to talk about, like the food and how Eurostar suffered delays and how I still made it home, exhausted, but happy. It's all good.<br />
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Yesterday was my fourth anniversary at the day job. I remember pretty clearly that, two years ago, I was already unhappy there - it had too much of an impact on my writing (let alone sleep patterns),<br />
but they mollified the pain quite well with bonuses and raises, and the financial security is worth something too.<br />
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The idea was to build a second income from writing while employed, and once the big debts are taken care of, to downshift in some way. That is, either work part-time or change jobs. The three years of the Brexit process also haven't helped - if the UK applies the same rules to EU citizens as it (shamefully) applies to non-EU immigrants, I need an income of £35,000/year to be allowed to stay (or my partner does, but I've always hated relying on others for basics like being allowed to stay in the country where my house, books, etc are located). If the current UK government has shown one thing then that it's xenophobic, nationalistic and anti-immigrant - the details of their deliberate "hostile environment" are frankly mind-boggling and worth an internet search for stories of people who've been affected.<br />
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I'm still hoping I can make better plans once Brexit resolves itself - one way or the other. At this point, I'm prepared to stay, I'm prepared to leave. If I'll leave, I'll need more money, quite clearly, because re-building a life isn't cheap, which is where the day job comes in. If I stay, my status needs to be sorted, so I know what rules apply (how much money do I need to make to be allowed to stay, because I cannot imagine myself taking British, that is, English, nationality). And on the thoughts circle. It's surprisingly draining, certainly emotionally, and it has an effect on my desire and ability to write.<br />
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Which has a negative side-effect - with no new books out since July 2017 (which was Shadows Watching), the huge hit from Kindle Unlimited and piracy, the back list sales are dwindling from "breakfast money" to "coffee money", and I can see the trend towards where it won't be even that. At this stage, the money is really only a nice "ego boost", a weird measure of success (and arguably, the most successful thing I've done, Special Forces, never earned me a penny). But way beyond that; as the income stream becomes an income trickle, the door to "becoming a full-time writer" is closing. Were I to attempt to live off writing, I'd be far far below the poverty line. I'm simply not making enough to live off those books, even if my house is paid off. It's scant comfort that even big authors complain about their sales these days - not in public, mind.<br />
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The plan of "working this job for a few more years, build a second income from writing, while I pay off my house and reduce my outgoings to the point where writing will support me" and then quit to write full-time (plus some coaching and weird shit) needed to be revised. I have no inheritance coming my way, either, so I don't see any of this changing.<br />
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Meanwhile, my work load at the day job has at least tripled since I started there. Brexit has beaten my love of England out of me (I'm even struggling to write in England at the moment because everything is poisoned by what's currently going on) - that had an impact on the Witches books. Which are half-written. We were already barely coping in December, but then the bank decided they needed to make cuts to the workforce and one team member was fired. Since then, it's been a mad scrabbling to keep up. Morale is at rock bottom, as far as I can tell.<br />
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Good stuff is also happening - I found a fantastic source for ways to kill people, and will meet him in London in May to discuss a book project (and ways to kill people). The house payment is progressing. Things are steady, but highly pressured and intense. I'm picking meditation back up again because that seems like the only way to cope. They fired some of the worst bankers I had to work with (but hired two more that are... difficult).<br />
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I still have book ideas, just no energy/time/emotional capacity to write. I attempted marketing old titles and seems they have no life left in them.<br />
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So I had to step back and think. I'm in the "simplify your life" groove now, where I reduce all the processes I have to keep up with (or thought I had). I left Facebook groups, cancelled Patreon subscriptions, other subscriptions, and am running a budget to cut my expenses to the bare minimum over the next few months. I'll have to file the taxes for my company and will see in actual black and white numbers how the self-publishing income is coming along - specifically the drop versus every year since 2014.<br />
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There are so many things I want to do - translate my books into German, lay out the print versions, sort out merchandising stuff for giveaways, learn how to do Amazon ads, but the truth is, I'm still behind on the one crucial thing that really makes a writer - writing. I'm not writing in any meaningful quantities.<br />
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Turns out, if you edit for 8-12 hours per day under high pressure and add a three-hour commute, the last thing your brain wants to do is work more while staring at a screen. I've thought about mobile solutions, I've bought a million lovely notebooks to write on the go, but even then you need headspace to do all that. I can outline and plan on the go, I can't actually write prose f I can't fall into the book and feel what's going on. I need to see and feel my characters inside or it's just not happening. In other words, I really do need more time, and I don't have the time and I'm already behind on everything. I've tried every time management system and app, and I'm already getting a shitload of stuff done, but it's not enough, because my energy is limited. I've pondered at great length whether I'm depressed, but I don't think so. I'm pretty mentally resilient overall, which is truly a blessing.<br />
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I want to write. I have three or four half-written books on the computer that all need just maybe a month of concentrated work each.<br />
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I used to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, as it were. Do a few more years at the day job, even if that means sacrificing most of my writing, build an income, pay off the house, and leave. I don't currently see that light anymore. As the day job expands and keeps pushing, the rest of my life simply has to accommodate and retreat. Most of that battle is in my head (and I'm already much better than most of the team at defending my life against the job - I can see colleagues getting eaten by it, bite after bite). I still have to wait for the outcome of Brexit before I know what my legal situation is, and I'll feel a lot better once the house is paid off, which is why I'm cutting expenses and distractions to the point where I can manage them with the energy currently available.<br />
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I also need to retrench in terms of writing and publishing - I'm clearly lacking the core skills of the successful indie writer (ads, mostly, but also the willingness to hire cheap ghostwriters to churn out a book per week or form an author collective to share the workload while pretending to be one person).<br />
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I don't have the time to manage all that in a way that it needs to be managed, so I'm going back to "hybrid". I'll be publishing "commercial m/m" books with a small press (I'm currently negotiating my first contract in that vein with Dreamspinner, and more will follow), and do the sequels/prequels to self-published books still myself, because switching things up mid-series is just a headache.<br />
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That takes pressure off my income - the royalties aren't enough to pay for covers and proper developmental edits, so my day job income would have paid for that, which is totally counter to the plan of building a second income - at that point, writing and publishing would have just been an expensive hobby that I'm financing with the day job. It also means no expenses for audiobooks or translations (they're just not in the budget, for the same reason). I'll keep supporting my self-published books as best I can, but I'll also have to focus on writing new books very urgently at this point.<br />
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As to the weird, "non-commercial" books, I'll do those myself as well. I'm not going to compromise on the quality or covers. I have a good level of quality (as a publisher told me in Amsterdam, "I point people at your books when they ask which indie gets the quality right"). The writing will remain slow while I try to find a way through the tunnel and chip away at the budget and mortgage. I'm bracing myself financially and mentally for the incoming recession as well (various economists think we have another 12-18 months, others think we're much closer), so I'm not going to make any radical decisions that would have an impact on my ability to support myself.<br />
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Going with a publisher will mean a delay in putting the books out - you hand in a manuscript and it comes out maybe 12 months later. On the positive side, they'll be available in more markets, and I do feel we need to push back against Amazon (Kindle Unlimited is not an option for so many reasons). I can't promise any releases - I'll need to get my grove back, finish the book for Dreamspinner, finish all the others I have half-written. The guy I'm meeting will help me with writing Franco, hopefully. Right now, I'll just continue chipping away and regroup and recover. It's still a marathon and not a sprint, but it feels like they've just tacked an Iron Man onto the marathon I was already running. </div>
Aleksandr Voinovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06583805228909693924noreply@blogger.com1