Chart #3: An Online Journal

First Breath after Coma - February 16, 2006

During the day, when I'm not fighting crime, I dabble in Web marketing. You could call it my job, since that's what it is.

If you've reached this page you probably know me as an author of thrillers, science-y, techno-ish, philosophical thrillers, whatever you prefer to call them. But at the moment I earn much of my living as a Web marketer. Which means I'm familiar with the basics of Internet publishing, the very first rule of which is to Always Be Providing Relevant, Fresh Content, otherwise known as the ABPRFC's of Web marketing.

I don't follow rules very well, particularly when they involve nonsensical acronyms.

All writers want to believe they've entertained someone, or passed along some piece of useful information, or otherwise earned the valuable time you as readers have devoted to our work.

Another consideration is that, as a new author, you always wonder if people really give a shit about what you have to say. You can pretend you don't care, but the truth is that writers are communicators, that readers comprise our audience, and if those readers don't give a shit, then what the hell are you really doing? I enjoy talking to myself, sure. The process of self discovery is nice, too. But all writers want to believe they've entertained someone, or passed along some piece of useful information, or otherwise earned the valuable time you as readers have devoted to our work. We want to believe this, but we often doubt it, which means the idea of keeping an online journal can be daunting for some. As in, "Why would anyone give a shit what the hell you're thinking this week, author? Your job is to write fiction. Stop wasting your time."

But the ABPRFC rule of Web marketing behooves me to give the journal thing a try. And yes, I really did just use the word "behoove" in a sentence. This is an author's Web site, after all. I owe a certain obligation to my profession.

So let me start by making excuses: the main reason I've been violating the ABPRFCXYZPDQŒµ® rule is because I've been writing and then rewriting a third novel. Right now this novel is called The Boys of Summer, and I say "right now" because sometimes the titles you choose for your own work don't end up on the cover. For instance, my first novel, Rift, was originally titled Lightspeed. More on the realities of the publishing industry (if you want it) in later journal entries.

I started thinking about The Boys of Summer in 1993. I worked on it off and on for many years, revising the plot and characters and never really going anywhere. Each time I finished a different novel I would come back to it, which is why this project has been known at different times as "the beast" and "my albatross." After I submitted The God Particle to my editor at Ballantine, I picked up The Boys of Summer again. I liked some of what I had, and I'd always been intrigued by the plot, but I never felt like I had the talent to get on paper what I imagined in my head.

Then I had an idea, and over the past year or so I've put together something that perhaps is really good, or is maybe a big pile of shit. It's hard to know when you're talking about your own work. Even when critics seem to like your stuff, that doesn't always mean the reading public will.

But I digress.

I'll try to update the journal once a week or so. If you have topic suggestions, or if you want to tell me how irrelevant or stupid or witty or handsome I am, write me.

Take care,
Richard

Other journal entries:
February 23 : : March 2 : : March 9: : March 16: : March 23: : April 5 : : April 11 : : April 20 : : April 28: : May 9 : : May 25 : : June 13 : : July 6 : : July 25 : : August 27