November Nonsense

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Well, that didn’t work out the way I’d planned. I’d say nothing ever does, but that’s not true. I’ve had some successful challenges over the years. My 2010 Grindathon worked out just about exactly as I’d intended. Analyzing the reasons for failure might be more constructive than celebrating victory, so I’ll take a shot at it.

Yoga. Hot yoga. I love yoga, but the heat isn’t quite my cup of tea. I prefer the flowing style of vinyasa, but over the course of 21 classes, I learned to enjoy the heat. I’ve never minded the sweat. My goal was 30 classes, so I got 70% of the way there. I started strong with 12 consecutive days of class, but then got sick for 10 days and managed only 9 classes over the last 18 days. Yeah, there were holidays and sick days and even days when I took the bus into Manhattan only to get stuck in 50 minutes of traffic and miss class altogether. Some of those are excuses and some of it is legitimate.

Despite failing this particular challenge, I’ll grade this out as a success, since I feel much better than I did in October. 21 classes may be 9 fewer than 30, but it’s still 20 more classes than I took in the previous 3 months combined. So that’s a net positive.

Writing. So the novel didn’t get written. Novels don’t get written. People write them. And I didn’t write one in November. I did do a lot of other writing. Stuff on forums about baseball and poker. Some short stories. Journals.

One thing I realized is that a murder mystery requires a lot of plotting. I can’t just write one from the seat of my pants. So I did a lot of plotting and very little writing. So now I know who kills whom and where and how and why.

I imagine writing the novel in December would be manageable. Instead of setting that as a goal, though, I’m going to simply require 10 minutes of fiction writing from myself every day. If I write for 10 minutes, find inspiration, and keep going for thousands of words, that’s great. But if I struggle for 10 minutes, write 100 mediocre words and then move on with the rest of my day, I’ll still have 3100 words of a story by the month’s end.

Poker. I started the month without a clear idea of what I wanted to do with this. I had money on offshore sites, but with regulated poker so close in New Jersey, I had very little interest in playing on these sites. So I cashed out, then started playing on the new NJ sites on November 21st. I have at least one major complaint about each site, but I’m also encouraged by the traffic and by the progress that the sites are making.

In December, I’m going to set concrete goals for hours played. I’m focusing on quality over quantity. Fewer tables, greater focus. In short, the stuff that worked for me when I was at my best. And I’ll keep studying and writing and improving.

2014 Mets Plan

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I wrote this up for a Mets message board. That’s one of my biggest means of procrastination. I thought I’d share it here, since this is my eclectic site and all.

The New York Mets’ actual payroll in 2013 was about $93 million. If you include Johan Santana’s $5M buyout and Jason Bay’s deferred $3M in the 2014 payroll, then the effective budget for 2014 will be $85, assuming total payroll remains constant. Of course, ownership told us that those expenses were considered part of the 2013 payroll, which would then be about $100M, leaving an effective payroll of $100M for 2014. This $15M could be the difference between fielding a very good team in 2014 and merely a decent one.

My plan will show how the team can be significantly improved on an $85M budget, but also where those extra $15M could be spent to ensure a better 2014 without compromising the future. Continue reading →

New Poker Plan

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I love it when a plan comes together, but I don’t have one. Technically, I’ve got two plans – to do 30 consecutive days of hot yoga and to write a novel in that same timeframe – but I have no poker plan. Assuming I spend 100 hours writing and 100 hours on yoga practice and travel, how many hours of poker should I play? I’m going for ambitious, but achievable. I want something to build on instead of something to break myself on. I’m thinking 100 hours, as light as that sounds, since a poker job includes more than just those 100 hours at the tables. There’s at least another 25 hours of studying and reflecting to consider.

I’d like to say I’ll make some videos and write daily blogs, but I don’t want to over-commit and under-deliver. I’ve made that mistake in the past. (See: 100 Days of the Zen Madman.) Maybe I’ll wait to launch a more ambitious poker challenge until the regulated sites go live in New Jersey.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Bueller?

First Cover Reveal

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The PDF of my first novelette, First, is complete. The Kindle (.mobi) and EPUB versions are almost done. There are some issues with indentation and line spacing, but I’ll figure that out over the weekend. If you review short fiction (~11k words) and would like an advanced copy for that purpose, please post a link to your site in the comments. Fair warning: this is a story about teenagers, but it features sex, drugs, and violence and is littered with expletives.

Without further ado, here it is: the not-so-long-awaited cover of First.

First Cover

A Return To Poker

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I got back from Portland Wednesday. It was September 11th and I didn’t get blown up, so I can be thankful for that. While I’m counting my blessings, I’ll express my gratitude for reconnecting with my dad’s side of the family. I spent time with my uncle, both cousins, and my new cousin-in-law or whatever you call him. There was a wedding, you see, up by a lake under Mount Hood. Beautiful setting. I’ll try to work a photo in here tomorrow. This post isn’t about Portland and family, though. It’s about poker and friends. But mostly poker.

While I was in Portland, I visited my friend and co-author, Dusty Schmidt. I was hoping that hanging out with him might help me get excited about poker again. It did. Being around people who are passionate about and exceptional at a given skill can be inspiring. I was in need of some inspiration.

My poker play over the last 13 months has been spotty. The biggest problem was a lack of direction and dedication. It’s hard to be dedicated to a goal when the goal keeps changing. Or maybe it’s easy to change a goal when you’re not that dedicated to it. Is it the chicken or the egg? Don’t ask me. I don’t eat either. (Portland is a great city for vegans, in case you’re wondering.)

I moved from heads up limit to shorthanded limit to live holdem to live omaha to online no limit to live again, then online again, then limit again. My movement from game to game was so disorienting that I can’t construct a proper sentence to describe it.

In addition to switching games and formats, I added too many tables, too quickly, trying to reach too-big goals. I was treading water, not sure which shore to swim towards. I didn’t lose a bunch of money or anything, but I did waste a lot of time and energy.

It’s time for a new plan! A more modest plan. I have decided to become awesome at No Limit Holdem. At the moment, I’m a rather mediocre No Limit player. So where does this modesty come in?

I’m going to set reasonable daily goals. Not too many hours. Not a huge win rate. I’m going to do four things well, do them consistently, without regard for the immediate outcome. That’s the yoga talking. So what are these four things?

1) Study every workday. I might watch a video or read a book. I could phone a friend or post on a forum. Maybe I’ll even crack open some software.

2) Warm up before every session. I wrote a chapter about this. It’s important. But I haven’t always done it. I’ll start with some kapalabhati breathing and then write down one or two things I want to focus on during my session.

3) Focus. This is a big deal. When I focus on a small number of tables instead of spacing out (and timing out) on a bunch of them, two things happen. My immediate results improve; and I learn faster, so my skill develops more rapidly. If I can only focus for two hours, then I’ll play two hours. If I can focus for four, I’ll play four.

4) Review each session. I’ll scrawl some thoughts in my journal after I play my hands. I’ll review my marked hands as well.

If I consistently do those four things, six days a week, I’m confident that my No Limit game will develop nicely. I used the same process before to become pretty good at Limit Holdem, so I have empirical evidence that this can work.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll start writing about poker again, too. But one thing at a time. Step one: get awesome.

Kickstarter #2 – What I Learned

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Last year, I ran a Kickstarter for $777. Over the course of 28 days, I raised $1191. I promoted heavily early on, a moderate amount in the middle, and a whole lot at the end. I don’t enjoy the self-promotion process. Something about it feels dirty, even though intellectually I think that comes from prejudice.

Last month, I decided to run an experiment. I set my Kickstarter funding goal at a modest $111. Over the course of 11 days, I raised $112.11. With minimal promotion, I got about 40% up front, then a little trickle through the middle. Closer to the end, with the project stalling, I posted the link a couple more times, and barely reached my goal.

There are a few takeaways here.

In both Kickstarters, I received the bulk of the funding near the start and finish of the project. I also received the bulk of the funding when I did the bulk of the promotion. More promotion led to more funding, from project to project and within each project.

So more promotion is a good thing, right? If the goal is to raise money for a single project, then yes. But that’s not my goal.

My goal is to raise a little money for a lot of projects. My goal is to create a sustainable method for arranging pre-sales of my work, which amounts to an advance – a tough thing for a self-publishing author to come by. The Kickstarters also act as pre-promotion of the work.

If my readership and Kickstarter following grows over time, then I can set my goals a bit higher each time. But I’m happy setting modest goals and reaching them. If I rely on consistency, minimal self-promotion, and word of mouth, then I can run a lot of these things and wind up with a bunch of short e-books on the market. That’s the long game.

Next goal: make a 60-second video instead of a 6-minute one. After all, I am an agent of the short form.

Comments are fun.
What are your thoughts on crowd sourcing for authors and publishers? Discuss.

Indie Block Party – What I Learned

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Pardon my French, but one of my favorite words in the English language is denouement. So I’ll take a moment to reflect on the past two weeks and untie some loose ends.

Thanks to Dawna Raver and Fel Wetzig for setting up the blog hop. It’s been a great motivation to read and write more blogs, ponder things I should be pondering, and meet some fantastic fellow writers. Writing is more fun when I know people are reading, and it’s more gratifying when people post comments. Reading other blogs is more fun when I develop a sense of the writer and have some interaction.

As my current non-fiction reading tells me, it takes about four weeks to establish a habit. I’ve been posting every day or two for the past two weeks, so if I can keep it going for the next two weeks, that may help establish a permanent habit. After running a modestly successful Kickstarter, I’m busy working with my designer on the mobi, ePub, and PDF versions of First. But I’m determined not to lose blogging steam.

I’ll do my best to take my own advice and get ahead of the game. After I publish this, I’ll finish up my blog about “The Spider, The Mosquito, and Irony.” Yes. That shit is mad ironic. Pardon my French.

Anti-Social Media

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Indie Block Party Post #8 – Social Media Tips

I’m not a fan of social media. I don’t make the most of it. As a writer, that’s a problem. I imagine some of you are like me. Let’s find a solution.

I’m not an antisocial person. I like people, taken individually. But I find “society” annoying at best and I’m prone to moods where I don’t want to interact with anyone. I become a hermit. It’s not bad for writing, but it’s terrible for selling.

Social media is a set of tools a writer can use to build a platform. One key to building a platform is consistency. The frequency of blogs and tweets may be as important as their quality. Writing ten posts in two weeks is great, but if it’s followed by two months of radio silence, then it’s wasted effort. I’m not into wasting effort.

Publishing one or two posts every single week gives readers a rhythm, something to expect. But how do we deal with those weeks when the well runs dry, or we don’t feel like sharing our water? The solution is simple.

If the goal is to publish every Wednesday, then don’t wait until Wednesday to write. Don’t write on Tuesday, either. Unless the subject is time-sensitive, write as many entries as you can, as far in advance as you can. Then publish those entries on a set schedule.

The same thing can be done for twitter by using a service like twuffer. Tweeting is best done at least once per day. It’s probably better to do a lot more than that since you don’t want every tweet to be an ad. More non-promotional tweets provides cover to slip in more self-promotional tweets.

I usually think of clever things to say at about three in the morning. I don’t think that’s peak twitter time. What I don’t do, but I should, is to twuffer those tweets so they appear when normal folks are awake and putzing around the internet.

That’s my advice on social media. It’s the same as my advice on writing. Do it often, with minimal effort and maximum effect. Now if I would just follow my own advice….

I look forward to reading the social media tips from the rest of the Indie Block Party. I’ve got a lot to learn in this area. It’s been great fun following everyone. I’ll list links below as I gather them.

Let’s Not Talk About The Weather

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Indie Block Party Post #7B – Editing Tips

Elmore Leonard, great American crime novelist, died at the age of 87. Following Dennis Farina, 69, and James Gandolfini, 51, it would appear the Get Shorty curse of three has run its course. Enough death. Let’s talk about the weather.

“Looks fuckin’ cold out there.” - Tommy Carlo

That’s the first line of the movie.

When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio’s on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off.

That’s the first line of the original novel.

Never open a book with weather.

That’s Elmore Leonard’s Number One Rule of Writing. So what gives?

People talk about the weather when they don’t have anything else to say. It’s small talk. Don’t begin your book with small talk.

Of course there are exceptions. There are always exceptions. Get Shorty opens with weather, but it doesn’t really open with weather. It opens with a hell of a long sentence which introduces two characters, one setting, a little backstory, and a very important leather jacket. Oh yeah, and the weather, too.

The weather sets the plot in motion. It also sets up a joke for Ray Barboni to establish himself as one dumbass antagonist. We’re talking about the weather, but we’re not really talking about the weather.

While I don’t believe in rules – I prefer guidelines – I do agree with 9 of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. The weather thing sums up my view of good writing. Say what you mean to say in exactly how many words you need to say it. Minimal effort for maximum effect.

Whittling down an obese sentence, paragraph, or chapter may take a lot of work. But your readers will thank you for it by continuing to read your words, because you’re not wasting their time. Spend your time to save their time.

A long time ago, some famous dude opened a letter with: “I am sorry to have written you a five-page letter. I did not have the time to write a one-page letter.”