F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

fpdorchak

Can Reading Make Us Happier?

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Wow. Who Knew? (Deutsche Fotothek‎ [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Wow. Who Knew? (Deutsche Fotothek‎ [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons)
To be totally honest, when I read this long article, about how reading can make us happier, I thought two immediate things:

1) It’s the New Yorker, so they’re looking to fill issues. And they love long articles.

2) It’s another article making much to-do about nothing…yet trying to also pump up reasons to read.

Wow. To make this simpler…do you really need to be “preached to the converted” about how doing anything you like or interests you is going to make you feel happier? Improve your quality of life? To throw around such deep analytical considerations, such as how reading a book “splits us into two parts as we read,” or “the state of reading consists in the complete elimination of the ego,” while promising “perpetual union” with another mind….

To me this is what this article is really about: whether or not your “forcing” another to read for “medicinal” purposes or not, once you are reading, you’re going to continue reading something that interests you…otherwise—forced or not—you’re simply going to stop. I would. I am one of many.

Oh, and this “prescription” has a new name: “Bibliotherapy.”

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of good in this article or all it talks about, and I get it that researchers love having things to research…what I am saying is that doing anything that interests you or that you like doing will improve your well-being, whether it’s reading, walking, or skydiving.

That’s all.

 

 

Canceled Voice Pre-Order

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Need I Say More? (By Granny Enchanted [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Need I Say More? (By Granny Enchanted [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons)
I decided to cancel the Amazon pre-order of Voice, initially expected to be released August 7th. Turns out I only had one pre-order (and it’s a friend of mine and we’d already talked), I still have a lot to do, my proofer is still hard at work, and, well, I’m getting a bit burned out.

So.

I’m gonna take a break from my Voice redlines all of next week. I need to air my head out. Have a lot of things going on and there’s no real reason to [once again] force myself to meet some arbitrary deadline of my own making when there’s no real need. I just thought I’d try it. It’s a cool function.

Voice will get released when it’s ready. Apparently now’s not the time.

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Chicken Before The Egg

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Reengineering The Past. (By Hephaystos (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Reengineering The Past. (By Hephaystos (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
There’s a lot of advice out there on how to be successful at anything. But as I reread some articles as I look for ways to promote Voice, I really had a good laugh from something I’d read from Seth Godin’s 2006 blog post about how book promotion should be done THREE YEARS IN ADVANCE of writing the actual book! These are rules #2 and #10.

Three years!

Now, I totally understand what’s being said, here, but it still made me chuckle!

Of course it makes total sense that if you wanna sell anything that you have to make yourself known so you have a [ready] market. Now, call me Retro or old fashioned, but I still can’t help believe that there’s something’s dreadfully backward about this whole process.

Get famous BEFORE writing your best seller?

Really, this is today’s world?

Am I the only one shaking my head in utter dismay at the paradox of it all (you know, short of being a celebrity)? For me it’s not even about being “famous”…I really don’t care about all that (I severely dislike all pomp and circumstance)…I just want my work to be read. Would love to be able to make a living of this novel writing biz. It’s just the distant-end part of being a writer. You write something…others read it.

Of course what Mr. Godin says should work…but I have four novels out and have been doing this for years and I’m still not reaping the aforementioned pots-of-gold benefits.

There’s also another rule that’s just as important, more so in my humble opinion: rule #17. This one is about marketing, sales, distribution, and risk. This is where I do fall painfully short. Getting my words out there. I am slowly but surely building a following…but it’s gut-wrenchingly slow. You’ve heard it all before, full-time jobs, life, writing. Nothing new here. The word of mouth, the “face time” I’m trying to generate just isn’t traveling at light speed…but it is traveling. Just the other week I was stopped in the street where I live by a neighbor that was reading The Uninvited.  He was so impressed with it and amazed that I had written it! Was surprised at how well I’d done my job…even wondered if I was as “rough mouthed” (can’t remember exactly how he’d put it…) in person as my writing was…though couldn’t fathom it, because we do interact off and on and have for years. I chuckled and told him what you see is how I am! But in my writing, yeah, I’m a little different! He really was beside himself that I had written this book, and it moved me. Thanks neighbor-who-shall-remain-nameless! BTW, this neighbor is also a writer and his work has been held in high esteem in his publishing circles, so he really appreciated it on an author level. Thank you, sir!

Anyway, back to this issue. Maybe when I release Voice things will pick up? It is a sexy thriller and sex sells. But it’s so much more than that…a story of relationships, love. Tragedy and redemption. It’s my most mainstream effort.

But, no matter how I analyze it, it all seems to be about word of mouth—for selling anything, and selling anything well. Timing. And, sure, anyone can pick anything apart, but come on, call it grass roots, blogging, interviews, whatever. It seems to me that it really doesn’t matter how much promotional and marketing platforms one has…how much of a “sure thing” one thinks they have…word of mouth and timing seem to be the torpedo or bouyancy that can sink or swim one’s efforts. And maybe I should go one step beyond and say just knowing about all this isn’t the magic bullet…but getting everyone else out there who hears about it to buy and like it is the magic bullet.

People telling people.

It’s the ground fire that sweeps beneath everything—no matter what’s going on on top—if there’s a ground fire beneath, it’ll burn, baby, burn. Ground fires are tougher to put out than surface fires.

In addition to all this is all this platform talk, which is great for nonfiction writers, but I kinda find it insane for the fiction writer. Curiously, Mr, Godin doesn’t specifically talk about that—which I like—but he does talk about building a following, etc. Yeah, we all have something we’re passionate about, but what if you just wanna write a great story—you just wanna entertain?

Platforms? Fiction writers don’t need no stinking platforms….

Yeah, right, say the opposition.

One of my brothers and I had this discussion a couple years ago. He asked some good questions. What do I stand for? What’s my selling point? If I were to be selling my work to someone like me…what would that a “me” want? Good stuff, everything. But nowadays in the traditional world it’s more than just having a good book and that book itself generating talk among people.

Can you sell a million out of the gate? That‘s the new deal.

And I’m not naive about any of this, already know about it, but it just kinda hit me from a different angle. “Defining myself” is a great way of attacking the situation, as much as I claim I want to hit as many readers as possible—because this is true (and, agents and publishers, what’s so wrong about that?). I do want my work read by more than just the SF/F/H or visionary/speculative fiction contingent. I want it read by everyone. Call my work “mainstream” or “fiction,” it doesn’t matter to me. Pick up a copy of Voice and see what you think.

One could get metaphysical about it all and propose that it’s not so much the Herculean physical effort that is needed…not the physical “time spent” that is needed…but the mindset…and I can’t argue that. And I have no answer as to why with all the mindset adjustments I’ve [thought I’ve] made over the years that more books aren’t selling from my hands (which typically isn’t exactly true: I find that in most situations when I’m actually handselling books, I do manage to sell a few! So the obvious inference is that I need to get out there…). Obviously, I’m not doing something right in getting my shit “out there.” But the one thing I am doing right is writing.

So, getting back to Seth Godin’s comments…apparently I need to:

Find more ways to promote myself three years ago.

Write more blogs three years ago.

Get on more radio three years ago.

Attend more conferences three years ago.

Devote all my waking hours to everything promotional and marketiering three years ago.

Basically, I need to change my past.

Well, I’m working on that….

What Kind of Writer are You?

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Writer's Block 1
Serenity Now! (Photo credit: NathanGunter)

A couple of years ago I read a post from a well-known writer about the “two kinds” of writers that supposedly exist…and I couldn’t believe my eyes. What perhaps bothered me the most about the post was the OCD-like rehashing of all the points made in the beginning of the post…continually pummeled throughout the rest of it (yes, it was looong…). And it went beyond just defining a writer’s genre, but into the realm of how many books you have in you and the heavily implied analysis that being one way was outright better than the other way, and yada x 3….

Reading that post and revisiting a blog post I was going to write-up-about-it-then-but-forgot-about brought me back to all the writer conferences I’ve attended and all the discussions on this subject I’ve been a part of. It is a good question…what kind of a writer are you?

Are you a one-book writer…or in it for the long haul? And is one way better than the other? One genre better than another?

Agents and publishers want (and okay, need) to pigeonhole you, nail you to a wall with all these publishing metrics, because they have to figure out where to fit you into their business plans…their promotion and marketing of you. But once you get past all that…how do you define your writing? Your “authorness”?

And is it any reason to get hung up on said definitions?

Should it matter to you that you fit into someone else‘s description of who you are?

There are many out there not directly within your publishing food chain who like to slice and dice and nitpick and analyze and delineate to death whether someone has one or two or three books in them and whether one is in it for “the long haul.” Some people are just oriented that way (numbers and stats)…while some like to rack-and-stack their competition and see where we all fit in. Some use this information to feel superior about where they feel they are in their self-described (and oft lauded) hierarchy. You know the bit: I have sexier shoes…I look better in that outfit than you…I have more (and better defined) muscles…my car’s got more horsepower.

Don’t get caught up in that game.

Figure out your genre, then just write and don’t worry about your “label.” About where you fit into somebody else’s grand literary schema. If you want to publish—publish. You can Indie publish now, so you can define where you think you best fit. Publish one or two or a hundred books. It doesn’t matter.

What should matter is the quality of your work.

Starting A New Novel

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Heading Back Into The Woods.... (By Anne LaBastille, 1938-, Photographer [NARA record: 1422473] [U.S. National Archives and Records Administration] [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Heading Back Into The Woods…. (By Anne LaBastille, 1938-, Photographer [NARA record: 1422473] [U.S. National Archives and Records Administration] [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
As I finish up Voice and consider which new novel to start, many thoughts run through my head. On the one hand, there’s the part of me that just chompin’ at the bit to get ready to start…then there’s this other voice that questions: can I do this again? Will it be as good as my previous efforts?

What do I want to spend the next two-three years of my life working on?

Yes, three years.

I write novels part-time, since I hold a day job. Now, I’ve managed to whittle a little off that over the years, so it’s more like two-and-a-half years, and I haven’t worked anything brand new start-to-finish since ERO, so, really, who knows how much more effective I’ve become. Voice, set to be released this summer, was originally written in 1997-1999. So, in the interests of readers like Mandy and Edie, I’m going to try something a little different…if it pans out. I’m going to try to do a little outlining. I’ve tried this before, and it failed. And by “failed” I mean I began just staring at blank screens and sheets of paper. It became too much like my tech writing life: work. So, I’d been blocking the outlining effort. Once I realized that and just organically began writing…just sitting down to the keyboard and writing whatever came to me…then it all worked.

So…I may try a hybrid approach and see how it goes…if it goes any faster. I know, technically, it shouldn’t be about getting things done faster…as long as the quality doesn’t suffer…but I really would like to get more efficient at putting books out! So, let’s look at it as being more efficient. When it’s all said and done, I figure were I to write full-time it would take me about a year to write what now takes me two-three. And, I really do like living the lives of most of my characters (not the bad guys/gals) and the story itself, so I’m really not in any huge hurry….

…in fact, as I write this…perhaps it’s become more of a habit than a necessity. After all, for most of my writing career the goal has always been to get a novel, any novel—just one—out there, for chrissakes. But, now, since I’ve gone full-monty Indie and have four-soon-to-be-five novels out, there is no urgency to hurry…to kill myself as it were…in getting these books out there.

And, if I (or my readers) really get antsy to release new work, I can always compile my better short stories and publish those…which is something I’ve considered over the years. That may very well happen, especially the more I think about it.

So, for now, I’m mulling over which project to start next. I think I know which one I’ll start…have actually begun looking back into it (it’s already partially begun, back in 2011, actually), but getting Voice out is still consuming my time and efforts (have to complete the back cover copy, incorporate Mandy comments, get the cover art done, format it for e-book and trade paperback—and keeping up with blog posts!). And, once I get it out there, I’m going to do my best in better promoting it and my other works. I know, all the traditionalists scream I should have already been doing all that months ago, but I never make things easy on myself and I hate being told what to do. I’m just me…trying to squeeze in writing and promotion into all the other things I have to do in a day…with little-to-no-real-budget. So, it is what it is, maaan. And the good thing about Indie publishing is that no matter what you do or don’t do, a book is not going out of print unless the world ends or the publishing arms goes under. So, new is new to readers who discover a book at the onset of its release…or years later. It really doesn’t matter. And I want to enjoy my life and significant other rather than burning the midnight oil and killing myself trying (like I used to) to complete a novel then hit every frigging promotional/marketing milestone dead on. I’ll get to it when I can physically get to it.

So, I guess I answered my own questions, huh?

Oh, by the way, I’ll be at the following events in Colorado Springs and Denver this year:

Colorado Springs Pikes Peak Library Publish Your Own eBook Panel, October 10, 2015

Denver’s MileHiCon47, October 23-25, 2015

I may be contacted at fpdorchak at fpdorchak dot com for review copies, interviews, speaking engagements, and whatnot. If you want some cover art.

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Voice–An Erotic Tale of Nonphysical Love

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Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

I must admit, this cover near brought tears to my eyes!

Here—at last!—is the title and cover for my sexy new paranormal/ psychological mainstream (erotica?) novel, due late July/early August! Yes, the genre is mixed, but it will make for quite the steamy summer read!

Voice.

The cover is yet another awesome, amazing, incredible, extraordinary effort by Lon Kirschner, of Kirschner Caroff Design Inc., out of East Chatham, NY! Lon did my ERO cover, and he continues to deliver extraordinary results! I first met Lon through author/teacher/musician all-around-Renaissance Man Marc Schuster, and Marc’s book, The Grievers.

I love everything about this cover!

I love the artwork. The spacing. The blackness. I love the blue of the lady and my name…what Lon did with the title—look closely at it and you’ll see the Adirondack Mountains…see and hear loons on the lake…smell the must of the woods—and the mysterious woman against the black background simply gives me chills.

This cover is absolutely stunning!

It packs a powerful, emotional punch to me on levels I simply can’t explain. Don’t want to. I want it to rip my innards, my soul apart…I want to feel the impending torment, tribulation, and mystery this artwork foreshadows….

I just can’t stop looking at it.

I love all my covers, but I have to say…this…may well be my favorite.

Check out this post on Lon’s work.

Not only am I psyched by revealing the cover artwork, but also finally being able to voice the title of this novel out into the world! It has been a real effort keeping it under wraps! It feels so goood!

Despite the paranormal/supernatural elements, this is the most mainstream effort I’ve ever produced. As I’ve mentioned before, it also features some quite explicit sex scenes and is not for the easily offended. Voice is a density of story…a love story…one of families…and a search for meaning in one’s life. Pain. Redemption. It has supernatural/paranormal elements, but not in a “monstery” way. In a deeply psychological, maybe even uncomfortable way. It may actually make you squirm a little as you sit and read it. It is a story I could not put down…could not put away. Sixteen years in the making, it kept whispering to me…calling out to me. It is my most daring effort. It will be sad to let it go…to stop working on it…stop thinking about it….

It touches me deeply…largely, perhaps, because of the setting…the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, where I grew up and continue to visit once a year. I so love that region, with its ancient mountains and dark, mysterious waters (another novel is forthcoming about this region and the dark, foreboding waters…). But I also love the characters…so flawed…so well-meaning…so enigmatic. It’s about what seemingly normal people who are conflicted…in love…do. How they wrestle with their demons. What they might do in the dark corners of their lives away from prying eyes….

What do you do in the wee hours of the night…and is it something you’re proud of?

It is fair to say I’m in love with this story.

Sigh.

The current status of Voice is that I am inputting copyediting redlines from my final reader. I then have to have the manuscript formatted for both e-book and trade softcopy (yes, I am doing both, the e-book first; I also hope to create an advance order selection on Amazon). The formatting could take as little as a week or as much as 2-3. So, this puts it at a late July or early August release. Stay tuned!

And in the next week or so look for a “faux interview” with me by one of the characters of Voice!

As always, feel free to use and e-mail and plaster the cover graphic around the globe—but, please, give proper copyright attribution to Lon and myself. If you’d like the actual files, request a review copy, e-mail me at fpdorchak at fpdorchak dot com, and as soon as they’re available, I’ll send them out!

And, write up a review once you’ve read it! Send me the link!

Thank you all for your support!

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