Excellent series of posts on writing history

As a history writer with a keen interest in the American Civil War, I was happy to discover Eric Wittenberg's blog, Rantings of a Civil War Historian. Wittenberg has written eleven books on the subject and numerous articles. His main interest is the Union cavalry.

One of my favorite bits in his blog are his rantings against idiotic neo-Confederates and the silly ways they try to rewrite Civil War history to suit their own narrow world view. This hilarious article is one of the best.

Of more direct interest to readers of this blog is a series of articles on writing Civil War history, which is useful to both nonfiction and fiction authors alike. The series is called Things I Wish I Knew Then But Know Now. Part one is "Don't Give Up Your Dayjob", a rather pessimistic view of how much money a writer can expect to make doing books. Well, if you write detailed studies of Union cavalry operations in the Gettysburg campaign like Mr. Wittenberg does, you really can't expect to make a living. You have to go for broader, more popular-level subjects and commercial publishers like Osprey, who still insist on accuracy while selling a lot of copies. It's great that dedicated specialists like Wittenberg are writing books, but narrow topics will get a correspondingly narrow readership. Despite Wittenberg's pessimism, this post is worth a read to sober up enthusiastic beginners who think they'll hit the bestseller list on the first try.

Other posts in the series are about self publishing, learning to take criticism, marketing, working with your editor, the hidden costs of publishing a book, and the costs of researching one.

Public domain photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

New Year's resolutions: six months on

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year’s writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in June.


Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.

I've been keeping up the word count this month, helped by my job at Gadling. Having to write a minimum of five posts a week keeps me busy, and the blogger interface even keeps score. Today it reads "You have written 19,381 words in 47 posts since you started publishing 56 days ago." Looks like I'm doing more than my minimum number of posts.

Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.

I sent out a few magazine pitches this month, as well as a nonfiction book proposal.

Search for another paid blogging job.

This is now no longer a goal, because in May I started blogging for Gadling, the single largest travel blog on the web. It's lots of fun and they even pay on time!

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.

This project has been put on the back burner while I get up to speed with Gadling and take advantage of the research opportunities while I'm here in Oxford.

Try to get an agent for my fiction and nonfiction.

I've been keeping my novels and nonfiction book proposals on agent’s desks, but so far no luck. Why are these people so SLOW!!!!????

Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.

I did some editing on my first novel this month, but have been more concerned with new writing.

Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.

I did a fair amount of writing this month.

Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.

I haven't done anything with these.

Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).

Still haven't done anything with this proposal.

Increase my online presence.

I'm continuing with my personal and writing blogs, and my work with Gadling accounts for another five or more posts a week, so I'm getting my name out there. I'm also writing for another blog with eight other writers.


In general, I think it's been pretty productive. I've been doing a lot of research along with the writing, so I think I'm over the case of the lazies that gripped me when I first got to Oxford. The weather has been alternating between sweltering and rainy, so that helps.

Article kudos

In the course of idly surfing the writing net (slacking off, in other words) I came across a mention of one of my articles in an article on the SFWA website. SFWA, short for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, is one of the best writer's organizations around, and I wish I was a member, but unfortunately I haven't published enough fiction yet. The article is titled Warnings and Cautions for Writers--Electronic Publication. It provides many facts, figures, and pitfalls for people considering electronic publishing, and comes off as remarkably balanced. In its resources section, it cites my article in Writing World, Ebooks from the Publisher's Point of View.

It's always nice to get a bit of recognition for something you wrote. I'll stow that away with all my rejection slips.

I write like Johnny Depp acts

. . .except I'm not nearly as rich or famous. But I'm not kidding. According to a recent article, Johnny Depp has admitted that he doesn't watch his movies once they're done. He says it makes him self-conscious and hurts his creativity.

I'm the same way with my books. Once it's published, I never look at it. It's done, there's nothing I can do to make it better, so I might as well move on with the next one. Occasionally I'll dip into one of my books if I need to look something up for a related book or article. Putting your own work in a bibliography is a cheap way to promote your work. Cheap in both meanings of the word. :-)

So I can understand why Depp never watches his films. It's important for performers (and writers are performers) not too get too hung up with how they look after the fact. Concentrate on your craft, and surrender the rest to the whims of public opinion. As the late, great Michael Jackson proved, you can't sway public opinion. Did anyone believe him when he tried to convince a documentary crew that he'd never had plastic surgery?

Now if I could only get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. . .

Photo courtesy Edward Scissorhands via Wikimedia Commons.