Gary Richardson Author Blog

I don't post much about myself on social media, even on my personal account. I'm just not the type of person that lives his life online like that. I may...

Few people know these stories. I only shared them verbally with a select few. This is the first time, and likely the last, that these details will ever be put into print as they are not fond memories nor do I enjoy dwelling on them. But as a writer, I think it is imperative to understand how my life influences my writing and as a reader, it might interest you as well.

To say that my writing has slowed down recently would be a bit of an understatement. I have done some writing in recent weeks but it has been nowhere near as prolific as usual. Here lately my time has been dominated by my latest obsession, Apex Legends.

For those of you who are not gamers and have not heard of Apex Legends, this is a video game. More specifically, this is what is known as a MOBA, multiplayer online battle arena. Some also refer to it as an online battle royale. Regardless of what genre you choose to classify it, Apex Legends is a FPS (first-person shooter) that pits teams of players against multiple other teams (or squads as their known in the game) in a free-for-all fight for survival.

In today's modern age of online shopping, consumer reviews hold an ever-growing importance on commerce of any kind. Rarely does anyone buy anything unfamiliar without checking for ratings and reviews. Whether you are buying a car, a new laptop, or even a coffee maker, people judge the quality of products based on the reviews of others. It isn't always about the brand name or the price any more but about what others have to say about it.

Well, books are no different. We live in an era where literally anybody can publish a book. Thanks to services like Amazon Direct that allow anybody to publish and distribute literary works without regard, the book market has become crowded with books of every genre. Amateur authors, first-time authors, serious authors, established authors, and even popular authors are all contending with one another for sales on popular retail sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

In an earlier blog I mentioned that I like to write while listening to music. What I didn't really talk about was what music I tend to listen to. Well, I have over 12,000 songs in my library. For some that might seem like an insane amount but others that might be little more than a drop in the well compared to their collection. For me, 12,000+ songs is a lot! My collection spans from 60s rock music to top hits of today. I mean, I have everything from The Beatles to Taylor Swift. From Elvis Presley to Die Antwood. From Willie Nelson to Hunter Hayes. From Sir Mix-a-lot to Juice WRLD. From The Beach Boys to Twenty-one Pilots.

I can find something from just about every genre for the past 6 decades. I have dozens of movie soundtracks and even some classical music. Everything from the popular to the eclectic are at my fingertips in my local music catalog. But that doesn't mean that when I write I want to just listen to whatever. Sometimes I'm in a specific mood for a certain genre, artist, or even a specific album.

It should be no surprise that once you've written a book that you have to market it if you people to know about it and hopefully buy it. This is something I knew going into this endeavor and despite my lack of marketing know-how, I jumped in with both feet. Some of those effort have yielded some colorful feedback from those who crossed paths with my marketing exercises. Of them, there is one that has stood out with me and brings a giggle to my throat every time I think about it.

In today's society, social media marketing is a key area for any brand or product. If you don't have a social media presence for your brand or product then you might as well not exist. Likewise, you have to market that brand or product on social media to really get anything out of it. When I started the process of getting my first book printed, I immediately setup a Facebook business page, a Twitter account, and an Instagram account. I posted updates to those pages infrequently at first but I was just starting out and learning how to really use social media for something beyond the general purpose to sharing photos and stories with my friends and family.

I know people who have languished over their books for YEARS, and I mean YEARS, and they still haven't finished writing. One friend in particular started writing his book BEFORE I met him way back in 2000-2001. I touched bases with him about his book about a year ago and he was still working on it. That's a 20+/- year effort on a single book that was still yet to be published. I'm not saying that's a bad thing or a good thing, just that it seems like a really long time to write a book. I'm sure he has his reasons for taking that long and I would never encourage anyone to publish their work until they are ready, regardless of however long that takes.

That said, I didn't really start my writing journey until well after he and I met and so far I've completed 9 books with several others in development. This difference in time made me question how long it took me to write some of my books. Thankfully, because I do all of my writing in One Note, each chapter is timestamped with the full date that the chapter was started. It doesn't necessarily tell me how long it took to write that chapter but because I write sequentially, meaning that I write each chapter in order, I can look at when the next chapter started to get an idea of how long each chapter took to create and how long it took to write each book. The timelines established using this technique might not be 100% accurate but they are reasonably close.

No, this is not a repeat. In the past I have talked about the different tools I use to write and edit. I have talked about things that inspire my books and my writing. That's all fine and well but this is more about the environment I create for myself when I do the majority of my writing.

Sure, inspiration can come at any time and every author has their own way to capture those thoughts and inspirations in the moment. Some may use their phones or tablets while others may carry a notepad and others may carry an audio recorder (though technically today's phones can also record audio). But however an author jots down those flash of the moment ideas, that is not typically how they write the bulk of their material. I doubt many authors have written a full novel by only writing in the spur of the moment line by line or jotting down random notes that were later cobbled together into a cohesive story.

No, most authors weave those moments of inspiration into story lines, character backgrounds, and world details that they have agonized over for months, sometimes years. Some authors like to work in silence. Some like to work while out in public. Each author has their own preference of how they like to do a lot of their writing.

For me, its with music somewhere isolated and at least semi-private.