Been awhile since revisiting the 2008 writing resolutions, so it seemed a good time to review my actions versus my intentions.

My goals for 2008:

Intention: Write 14 hours a week.

In practice, worked out to about half of the plan, on average. Some weeks went very well, others quite badly. While there were a number of non-recurring external factors, such as the divorce, a regime shift at work, and dating ( lots of dating! ), my failure to reach this goal rests entirely with me.

Intention: Complete the first draft of The Confession by July 1, 2008.

Still in progress. Long way to go. I’d like to have it by the holidays 2008. Not sure, yet.

Intention: Finish the screenplay started last summer by September 1, 2008.

Unfortunately, still in the same place.

Intention: Resume whole scale querying for The Last Track.

So done. Contacted a substantial number of high quality agents about this project. One final blast within the next two weeks.

Intention: Follow the Abs Diet for 6 weeks–the initial length of the program. If the results are good, continue.

After many months, began losing a bit too much weight, so I changed up the regimen, adding more calories. Still searching for the most sustainable eating plan. On the plus side, my weight remains stable and well south of the danger zone where joints complain.

Intention: Review my progress with these above goals every eight weeks.

Checked in thee times so far. Let’s call that one a push.

Since this is the third go-round of drafting writing resolutions, one trend that clearly needs addressing is a tendency towards drafting a large number of goals, that often proves to be too many. Whether or not anyone could reach those goals, or if they were realistic, hardly matters. What I actually get done matters; that’s what carries me closer to where I want to be.

Every year, I complete one-half of the resolutions, flub one entirely, and have mixed results with all the rest. While the intentions are deliberately synergistic in construction–working towards one goal often involves some investment into another–it’s time to move to an even shorter list.

Therefore in 2009, there will be two–three at maximum–resolutions. With that kind of mix, odds might prove better for getting what I want.

A few statistics about samhilliard.com

Years of operation: 5

Posts: With this one, 957 though a few more entries remain in draft status, some approaching nearly three years.

Comments: 8240. Due to comment moderation, diligence and filtering scripts, less than one percent of these are spam

Lessons learned: Countless.

Contacts created and/or maintained: Less than indeterminate. A goodly amount, let’s say.

Friends made because of the site: At least three.

Girls who became more interested in me because of the site: More than expected, let’s say.

On other fronts, the marketing stuff is falling into place. While I never expected the project to take this long, given my experience lands in other areas and there’s a large group of people involved, I’m learning to deal with delays. Next time the estimate will be more realistic.

At least one part of it is very close, so I can feel good about that. I might be able to post a peek of the graphic that as well a still from the . . . other piece.

“But for those of us who lived and died in them furious days, it was like everything we knew, was mildly swept away. And no matter what they did to build this city up again, for the rest of time, would be like no one ever knew we were here .“   - Amsterdam Vallon, Gangs of New York

Like a lot of people, I have a strong affection for Martin Scorcese’s work. Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Departed and Gangs of New York are some of the greatest films in cinematic history. So I was curious to read about Scorcese’s battles with anxiety, addiction, and a utter lack of confidence with women. Funny to think how a person can look so practiced on the outside, yet contain such a fiery a maelstrom beneath the surface.

A good article on the master.

Mom said it best when someone asked about what was going on with me lately: “Oh, he’s trying monogamy again.”

In spite of my every effort to the contrary, I have a girlfriend. Boy, does that sound gay. By the term girlfriend, I imply a female who wants to see me in the daylight. And not because it means a free hot breakfast. My omelets are legend, after all. While this situation was pretty much the last thing I planned for heading into 2009, because really, slutting it up has served me so well, I welcome the development.

She’s a writer–a really good one, too–and a professor.

Yeah, did I mention she’s drool-worthy?

On other fronts, I’m writing seriously again. A lot of stuff has been bottling up since mid-summer, and I’m letting loose on the page with great force.

As for the oft-mentioned marketing effort, I met with the graphic artist this weekend and shot some pictures in the woods; she already has rendered an awesome graphic in which she will incorporate a new image from the photo shoot into the existing design. Depending on the amount of photoshopping and final lighting, some may recognize the person depicted in the scene. Can’t say too much more about that without the graphic in hand.

But speaking of the marketing stuff, there’s actually four separate but complementary components to the plan. Of the four pieces, I have direct control over only one. Learning how to deal with so many outside voices has proved a major challenge. I’m used to being able to do whatever I want at the keyboard, with no compromises until after there’s a good draft. First I get a draft hammered out to my liking, then I open the office door and invite feedback. But getting The Last Track on the right desk means getting it off of mine, and working with other people. So I’m learning how to play nice with others.

While a lot of it is in flux right now, and I’d rather keep everything under wraps pending the final package reaching completion, I can mention there is a visual element to this strategy; that includes a short depiction of some hand-to-hand combat.

I can also mention I damn near took a knife across the stomach while filming the segment.

As the sun dipped behind the trees, the sight of razor sharp steel slicing towards my torso in the hands of someone who could gut me twenty-five ways to Sunday, yeah well, that woke me up.

Uh-huh.

Been thinking a lot about a September 15th article in New York magazine that decreed the end of modern publishing.

For those on the outside of the situation looking in–like myself–or refugees who are breaking the mold, the ecosystem of entertainment based print material is in big trouble. By and large, the primary collective vision the publishers share about their predicament of falling sales ostensibly is that . . . well, sales are falling. Like New York Times meets the Titanic kind of sinking.

That reality and jeez, some of the advances paid out recently are too damn big, yet publishers can not stop writing those monster checks even as the bottom line ebbs beneath the horizon. Recouping a 1.5 million advance to James Frey, whose second title sold 65,000 copies verges on mathematically impossible. His Million Little Pieces audience is proving “too selective” to follow him into the future. Well, that and the fact that memoirs–in fact, most books who hinge upon single use characters that lack the mettle to be recurring players, and their authors–rarely have a second act.

And who paid Frey 1.5 million for number two? The same industry who thought his Million Little Pieces fictional memoir was a good idea. Though now known as the man who duped Oprah, his actual origins were more auspicious. He tried for quite a while to sell his breakout work as pure fiction. But then some bright spark uttered something like, “Memoirs are easy sells in this market. Couldn’t this all be true?”

My point is less that Frey failed to catch lightning a second time around. That is a rite of passage for most literary mega-phenomena. I’m not going to comment on the duplicity either. No, my contention is that publishers bet the farm on a formula that worked a lot better years ago–at the expense of minting new acts.

A million and half dollars could have brought fifteen mid list or unknown writers to market, and even paid them a modest advance. Odds are good at least one of them might have minted at least copper, if not silver. Instead a lot of ducats were spent digging for gold and only netted a cupful of rusty tin. Multiply the Frey case by twenty-five–a rough estimate of how many big bets the industry made in 2007 that rank as its most notable failures–and that’s almost four hundred voices idling on the sidelines. Even being extremely pessimistic, I find it hard to believe that there were not at least eight to twelve home-runs in the woodpile.

So why do publishers reject the math?

For starters, it’s easier. One project takes less focus and oversight than fifteen. Second, big bets like it worked in the past. So far so good. But there’s another motive: door number three, aka Hollywood math, and my own personal theory. Frey got the huge check because someone got off on the idea they could pay a writer that kind of money for a book that had at best a modest chance among the sharks. It really was never about profits. To be crass, the very image got a publisher’s dick hard. Big money brings media attention and ego strokes.

The problem with resting decisions on operations that exist below the belt, is that well, the flow of blood can only last so long. God knows, I’ve fought that reality more than a few nights myself. Eventually the brain has got to drive the body, rather than the reverse arrangement. Getting there in one piece is just more important.

And of endpoints, where might publishing be headed? I have long pondered the economics of the adult fiction model and their prospects for survival. It’s my conclusion that adult fiction publishers are staring into an abyss.

My money is on the marriage of publishing on demand and a 8,000 pound gorilla poised to become the biggest publisher the world has ever seen, who can operate without filling the distribution channel with millions of books destined for the shredder before the author typed the last sentence.

They have no need for remainders, literary agents, advances, or book tours. They can take a chance on publishing a lot of titles a year because they do not need to pay to place them in superstores. They already have a line of customers that stretches across the Internet.

All they really need is new material.

To be continued . . .

In early October, the reason for my near silence these past two months will be revealed. I’m working with some super talented people behind the scenes on that oft-mentioned-yet-never-quite-materialized-guerrilla-style-marketing project for The Last Track.

At this time, it’s best to keep the details brief, but I will mention the background of a few of the people involved.

1) A former lead art director for Harper-Collins.

2) A professional film editor.

3) An advice columnist and actor who once attended acting classes in college with a star on The Office.

4) Me. Natch.

OK, so my pedigree is a bit speckled, but still, if you’ve hung with me so far these past few years, I’m just saying it’s about to be worth your while.

You know who you are, and I’m forever indebted to your support and advice. Just a few more weeks and my raptors will be loose on the Internets.

Oh yes, they will.

Had my first hiccup in years with the site this week. At some point the entire thing became, well, unusable. Initially I suspected the cause was due to an upgrade of some of the underlying software on the server; being on a shared box, maintenance schedules are completely beyond any one occupant’s reaches. So I upgraded the Wordpress install and the databases to the latest versions. That got me closer.

Yet the content remained unavailable and attempts to access anything threw up ugly errors.

On a whim I started deactivating some of the plug-ins that add functionality to Wordpress. After squelching the Markdown plug-in, everything was lovely. Essentially the server upgrade was the catalyst, but the actual problem stemmed from how the new software interacted with a single pre-existing file that functioned incident-free for more than three years. Maybe I do have some tech chops still. Years of maintenance programming served me well.

While I’m doing some personal accounting, I’d like to explain why things quieted down so much on the site. Things are happening, but there’s been very little evidence of movement this summer.

Here’s the short version:

1) As a result of a reorg at work, I went from four bosses to one. Two of the four are, ahem, “exploring other opportunities.” Boy, I sure do wish them well.

2) My new boss kicks ass. And their new boss is even cooler.

3) The new bosses increased my responsibilities and compensation.

Essentially I’ve been attending more to my professional side, which left less time for recreation. I’ve also been taking a long hard look at the finances. Now that every dollar earned after taxes is mine to keep and not subject to division, I’d like to keep as many as possible. That led to some adjustments in savings and investments plans, as well as allocations.

Before I continue on with the previous entry, an email came in from a good friend about word count. In brief his question: how many words does it take to make a novel? While there is no hard and fast answer for this–it’s a subjective matter–there are some general guidelines:

Short stories: A few hundred to 15,000 words.

Novellas: 15,000 to 40,000 words

Young Adult Novels: 40,000 to 50,000

Novels: 60,000 and up.

Keep in mind, there is a lot of room within those guidelines. There’s also plenty of exceptions. Rather than arguing whether a manuscript is a novella instead of a novella, I think what’s more important than how long or short a piece of writing is, is whether the words on the page work. If the writer feels what’s on the page serves the story, and they’ve left nothing on the table, then the manuscript is the right length.

Certainly, history offers up several examples that prove this, great manuscripts in the 20,000 words range. Jonathon Livinston Seagull, for instance. Tuesdays with Morrie is another.

And brevity might be ultimately less of a problem than unwieldiness. Without naming names, there’s definitely books that are unmanageabe, verging on endless. To me, if it takes laying sideways in bed to keep from cramping my hands up while reading it because the goddamn thing weighs so much . . . anyway, I leave it at sometimes less is more.