I love when hard-awesome things like this take place.
Writers supporting one another while expecting nothing in return. Just for the sheer joy of encouraging & celebrating.
I’m in awe of authors. All authors. People who work hard to create a rich and textured story, and then work harder. And then even harder. And then do that about a billion more times.
And then they show it to the world. That scares the crap out of me.
A few months ago, it came to light that a writer friend of mine was thinking of releasing a book that sounded so freaking good that I couldn’t help but squee all over the place (which is to say all over twitter). It’s a novel that was really close to her heart, she said, but she was concerned. It wasn’t like the young adult novels she usually writes, the ones she’s known for.
It’s about two boys who fall in love. It’s called FALLING FROM THE SKY by the very talented Nikki Godwin.
Now, don’t leave me standing here all alone, kiddos… This is pretty much a prerequisite for writers, right? Don’t blush or try to deny it. I’ve seen your Tweets. And your Pinterest boards. We’ve had conversations. You’re as guilty as I am.
I’m an extremely visual dude. When I write, the scenes play in my mind like a movie. I direct the characters in a sense, but the buggers improv A LOT.
Okay, eff it, I’ll even admit this: my friends and I sit around dream-casting my Phreak Show characters. And a few of you have even volunteered [okay…demanded] to help out on the casting call for Niko. Your amorous intentions are duly noted. [And he’s flashing his crooked smile at you right now.]
Yesterday, a non-writer friend I haven’t spoken to in a while checked in. Curious about where Phreak Show is in the process, the convo went something like this:
Dude: So what’s going on with your book deal? Me: Not to that part of the process yet. Finishing edits with my agent and then we’ll move to the next stage. Dude: Awesome! When do you get the book tour and 3 movie deal? Me: [internal cackling] It’s super rare for books to actually become movies. Dude: Then how are all these books becoming movies all of a sudden? Me: [internal sigh] The % of books being made into movies is probably, like, 2%. Max. Dude: Well those 2% are really getting lucky these days. Me: [reminds self dude is a rube] No more than usual, I don’t think. And that still leaves 98% of authors dreaming about their books becoming movies, but it never happens. Dude: Ahhhh, I see.
This kind of conversation happens all the time. So, obviously, we writers aren’t alone. It seems most folks naturally have this ingrained perception that book = movie. So I started wondering how close my random estimate of 2% really is. Enter: THE MAGIC OF GOOGLE
I submit for your enjoyment and education, the interesting [and perhaps sobering] info I stumbled upon.
First off, some hard-awesome checkpoints we can all keep in mind when writing our next novel or assessing existing ones. John Robert Marlow offers this list of:
10 things Hollywood looks for in any story:
Cinematic concept that can be communicated in ten seconds
Hero that a large segment of the movie-going public can relate to
Strong visual potential
Three-act structure
Two-hour limit
Reasonable budget
Low fat (no unnecessary scenes)
Franchise potential
Four-quadrant (young and old, male and female) appeal
I have no idea how accurate this stat for 2014 is either. I found numbers ranging from 10 to 35, but CNN reports these as “all the books becoming movies in 2014”:
2014 [estimate #1]: 12 book to film adaptions for 2014
But even if a book is optioned, there’s still no promise our friends, family, and fans can check out our stories on the big screen. Author Joseph Finder says:
Maybe as many as 90% of optioned/sold movies never get made.
Feels like a snowball’s chance, right? But, hey, we can’t resist hoping. Perhaps the most important thing in this entire post is something you already know:
Writers are dreamers.
That’s part of the how and the why we create characters, build worlds, and invent delicious plots in the first place. Our dreams refuse to die.
I guess, at our core, writers are optimists. And, for those of us who are really optimistic, we don’t stop at just dreaming. We finish manuscripts. We revise the hell out of them. We send query after query until an agent falls madly in love with our words. We revise again. Even when it hurts. We suffer with impatience during the submission process. We revise those words again with an editor. We do all these things because we are ridiculously optimistic.
We hope. And we dream.
So, honestly, we can’t stop dreaming about our books becoming movies. Even if we try uber-hard. It’s just not who we are as a species. And as long as our expectations are realistic, it doesn’t hurt a thing.
Besides, being dreamers, we always have that 2% or 1.77343% to hang on to. Even if the true number is only .00001% of books becoming movies, that’s more than enough to birth a dream inside us.
Q: What are the chances of your book becoming a movie? A: Are you a dreamer or aren’t you?
[FTR, my answer to the question-posing-as-an-answer is: Incurably so.]
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This vid inserted thanks to the genius inspiration from @EsherHogan
Once upon a time, I wanted to check out what my words would look like on a Kindle screen. I hunted down the process and created my own little cheat sheet. Since that time, I’ve seen others ask if it’s possible, and have forwarded these instructions to a dozen, thankful peeps. [Maybe you’re another one waiting to happen.]
So, should you want or need this capability, here she is.
How to Send Word Docs to Your Kindle
Step 1: You should have an email associated with your Amazon account. If not, you’ll have to do that first. If so – go to Step 2
Step 2: Send an email to your kindle address. It will be the same as the email in #1, only with the @kindle.com extension [e.g. your.regular.email@kindle.com]
Step 3: The subject must be “convert”
Step 4: Attach your Word doc [You can attach MULTIPLE docs]
Step 5: Send that baby!
Step 6: Log into your Amazon account. Click “Personal Documents” on the left-hand sidebar
Step 7: It usually takes 2 – 15 mins of refreshing for the file to appear.
Step 8: Once it does, click on the “Actions” dropdown next to the file name.
Step 9: Select “Deliver to my…Kindle”
Step 10: On your Kindle – “Sync & Check for Items.”
VOILA!
Useful for: – Personal encouragement. Just seeing your created words in that format can give you a dreamy, little boost. – Handy access to your own words on-the-go. [You know, just like any other e-book.] – I find errors that somehow remain invisible on both the hardcopy & computer screen.
– It keeps you from editing as you go. So you can just read. [If I find something major to change later, I scribble a key phrase on a notepad & later do a search for that phrase in the Word file.]
– [Insert your own amazing reason here]
Other tips:
– Insert an image on the first page of the file & it will display as the book’s cover.
– Others, such as beta readers, can forward the file to their own Kindles. [You know, once you pass these instructions on.]
– If your betas/CPs are comfortable with it, they can even authorize your email on their Kindle account & you can send it directly to them. They just have to pick up at Step 6 above.
I’m curious about those of you who use programs other than Word or have different readers/apps.
Do you ever use a similar process? Know of a quick cheat sheet to help others do the same?
OH NO! Not only has it been 500 years since I posted (actually only like 2 weeks), but I’m also out of tat appointments for awhile.
This is a tragedy.
Still remaining:
– The name banner for Mantis & Lil Diva
– Jules a.k.a Shim the Gender Enigma
– Aaron James a.k.a. Gemini the Two-Headed Boy
– Background aether
– Touch-ups
My artist is booked forever in advance, but we’re squeezing more ink in when he gets cancelled appointments.
Which happen to fall on Saturdays…
If I’m also available…
Hopefully the phreak-sleeve will be completed & healed by summer? We’ll see if the planets align to make that happen.
In the meantime, I’m in the thick of hot and heavy edits on the manuscript.
Challenging, fun, brain-juggly (totally a word).
At this point, the hard work feels totally worth it. But then there’s the variable of feedback once the edits are submitted.
Once again, doing my part, but I guess I have to leave the outcome to celestial alignment, literary luck fairies, and the like.
UPDATE on the feedback: !!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 ALL CAPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Douggie! While a genius, Douggie has been labeled and mistreated simply because of his smarts. No worries, Douggie. I immortalized your Phreak Show persona for you.
You know how shallow some folks are. Now, they’ll never guess you’re intelligent as long as you keep quiet.
So, sadly, I had to cancel my Phreak Show Ink appointment today. :: sobs like a baby ::
On a happy, non-sick note, an interview of yours truly went live on Tricia Drammeh’s “Authors to Watch” site today. It’d be godlike of you to swing by and check it out.
It took two weeks to get her image just right, but Twiggy [I feel] is gorgeous. I had a very strong concept in my mind. And, for some reason, I feel like I owe Twiggy a perfect execution of that vision. Don’t ask me why I feel so possessive of her. I just do, and can’t exactly explain it.
Right now, she and Jamie are battling for the top spot of Phavorite Phreak Tattoo.
Until now, the phreaks have been kind of scattered, spread in a pre-ordained layout to make room for them all. With the proximity of the images coming together, it’s actually starting to feel like the beginnings of a sleeve. Over the next couple weeks, the individuals will continue to interact with the ones who have come before them. The gaps will fill, the images will play off one another.
My experiments to either write or edit while getting inked? Both failed. Too much physical sensation to go to the mental place needed for those tasks. But I’ve found I can read easily enough [between conversations]. Last week, I just so happened to be reading a scene which talked about the three kinds of people who get tattoos. In my own words:
– One timers
– I have one and might get another
– The addicts
Wouldn’t say I’m an addict, but I’m definitely a fan of immortalizing ideas & images worth immortalizing.
Twiggy Excerpt
Twiggy was, as usual, sitting on her bed shoving food in her mouth. “How’d it go?” she asked.
I squeezed out my hair. “We damn near got struck by lightning.”
“I hate the thunder. And I eat when I’m scared. Want a chip?”
You eat all the time.
“I don’t think my stomach can handle food right now.”
I caught a whiff of pungent stank. Was it Twiggy’s rank chips? Oh gods. No. It was my skanky armpits, the oniony b.o. rejuvenated by the sweat and the rain. I really needed to slough off the week-old funk clinging to my crevices. I had my backpack, but my clothes and hygiene bag were still in my car. Miles away. Out of gas. But, damn, I needed to get clean. A saying I’d once heard—maybe at school, or online—flashed in my head. All things being equal, fat people use more soap.
“Do you have any soap?” I asked my hefty host.
She wrinkled her nose. “Well, yeah. Tons of it.”
“Can I borrow some?”
“For…?”
“The rain. I’m so in need of a shower. You don’t even want to know,” I said.
Twiggy pinched her nose closed. “Oh, I know,” she said with a smile. “We have showers, silly.” She brushed sour cream and onion crumbs off her boobs. “We may be phreaks, but we’re not slobs.”
Confession: I DO know why Twiggy’s image is even more important to me than the MC Tera’s or the love interest Niko’s. Many readers have identified with Twiggy’s struggle. I feel an obligation to them to get her right. Maybe obligation isn’t the right word. How about, I have the desire to do right by Twiggy and—by extension—to those who identify with her.
Millie’s stencil placement in relation to her phreaky friends
Millicent Cocteau – Mother of the Phreak Show
We had a little plot twist in the tattoo session today. I give Joe pretty free reign on creating the tat images. I start him off with source images & we discuss their physical & emotional characteristics & roles in the story. He then infuses his own style and artistry into the final tat.
Today’s plan was to immortalize Twiggy. But I have a VERY specific image in my melon of what I want her to look like. Thus, we’re taking more time to tweak her and get her just right.
So Millie moved up in the queue.
I have been challenging Joe with my tat requests. Jamie was his first one-eyed baby portrait. Millie was his first albino portrait. Obviously, she can’t be just pure white, so he had to work in slightly darker tones of pale peach and pale gray-blue. And white eyelashes? Also a challenge.
Some skin doesn’t take white ink very well, but mine rather enjoys and holds on to it. Even still, from a practical perspective for the artist, tinting/shading with mainly white is difficult. [SQUEAMISH ALERT] The blood mixes with the white, tinting it pink. Also, the inflamed & irritated skin makes it difficult to discern what is pink ink vs tender flesh.
Pro Tip: After soaking into the skin for 10 minutes, Lanacane spray reduces ALL the redness to show a true picture of the coloring.
Wow. Never would have guessed that one. But it totally worked & Joe was able to see the true coloration. The Lanacane also numbed Millie for the last 20 minutes as he finalized her. That was weird. Like, I couldn’t even feel the needle. AT ALL. Which seems like cheating and just…odd.
Millie is an albino. So she will be radiantly glowing on my skin. And part of how that will work is by hammering in a dark, contrasting background to push her forward. I have to wait for that…
Through this whole process of working towards a finished sleeve, SO MANY ANALOGIES for the writing process are pinging in my head. I’m scribbling them down. So, of course, once this is all completed, I will have that juicy overarching post to sum everything up.
Awww…I think Jamie is so cute. He’s on my tender, fishbelly forearm just like on his big sister Tera.
Only she was expecting a perfect, beautiful memorial to her baby brother. Not a phreakified, one-eyed version…
This was (surprise!) the first cyclops baby Joe has ever inked.
It’s about two boys who fall in love. It’s called FALLING FROM THE SKY by the very talented Nikki Godwin.
LUCAS HARGIS 