FREE Writing Survival Guide

I'm proud to have my work appear in a FREE Writing Survival Guide created to help inspire writers for NaNoWriMo 2019.

Writing about 2,000 words a day isn't hard.

Doing it sustainably is the hard part.

That's why a group of amazing authors got together, under the guidance of Laura Crenshaw, to create 50 pages of useful, inspirational content to help other writers as they dive into 30 days of National Novel Writing Month.

You can check it out and download it here.

So Long And Thanks For All The Books

A few weeks ago I did something I didn't think I would ever do.

I said goodbye to a job that I not only loved, but that I felt was the absolute perfect role for me.

It wasn't easy.

Starting in October of 2011 I had the role of Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations for Rakuten Kobo, Inc. It truly did feel like a role that was custom built for me. And not just for the fact that, before I even applied for the job, I met with Kobo's current CEO, Michael Tamblyn to discuss the idea he had of forging a new element of Kobo's business, a platform or tool that made it easier for self-published authors and smaller publishers to publish direct to Kobo's catalog.

I still remember, with a brisk and fresh fondness, how it sounded as if the job Michael was describing was custom made for me.

In some ways I still think it was, because the experience, the ride, of being a part of Kobo and being at the forefront of building Kobo Writing Life, which wasn't just a free publishing platform at www.kobo.com/writinglife, but it was an entire movement and spirit, as encapsulated at www.kobowritinglife.com that gave writers and publishers a place where the craft and business of writing were explored, celebrated and shared openly and freely.

In the six years that I was at Kobo and in the five full years of KWL's operation (it was launched in July of 2012), Kobo Writing Life went on to represent 1 in every 5 books sold at Kobo globally, and 1 in every 4 books sold in the major English language territories.

KWL was a huge success and I had hired the absolute best people to work with me on making it that success. What more could a guy ask for? But I suppose what made saying goodbye really hard was saying it to my amazing colleagues and to the thousands of authors that I was privileged to work with over the year.

Just prior to the public announcement on the KWL Blog ("Thank you, Mark" - Nov 2, 2017), I quickly composed a letter that went to as many of the authors whose emails were easily accessible by a quick-fill in my Outlook email.

The letter was entitled "So Long and Thanks for all the Books" - because, ultimately, KWL was successful because

Below is an excerpt from that email message I sent out:

It was, of course, not an easy decision to come to, because I’m sure most of you already know how much I adore Kobo and the fantastic people on the KWL Team that I have been very fortunate to work with. But, after having the privilege of building Kobo Writing Life, which launched in 2012, to working with the teams at Kobo and with authors around the globe to establish its place as a wonderful success story, and, of course, a world-class platform for publishing to Kobo, it is time for the next phase for both Kobo Writing Life as well as for me, personally. As many of you know, I have always loved my job at Kobo and have always loved interacting and engaging with authors – and I WILL miss that the most. Of course, I won’t be going far, as one of the things I plan on pursing is to double-down on my own writing, which has taken a back seat for the past 6 years. (Yes, I find all of you so inspiring, and the one thing that was perhaps lacking for me was the satisfaction of actually writing more)

And, of course, I couldn’t be leaving “my baby” Kobo Writing Life in better hands. And that is one of the things that gives me great comfort.

Christine Munroe, Senior Manager, Author Performance, will be overseeing the KWL team and I couldn’t be entrusting KWL into more capable hands. She is an experienced and forward thinking publishing professional that I am not only proud to get to work with but am excited to watch help take KWL to the next level of greatness. Many of you likely already know her, and I’m sure if you don’t yet, you’ll soon have that pleasure. 

Below is a quick snapshot of the current KWL team – (yes, I left myself in the picture just for the pleasure of getting to hang around with them for that much longer) -- so when you are emailing them you can get to love them the way that I do. They are an amazing group of people whose hard work, passion and commitment to excellence I have been the “front person” for. I am tremendously proud of this fine group of people who, like many of you, have felt like family.

And, if you don’t have their direct emails, that’s just fine. Please never hesitate to reach out to the KWL team at writinglife@kobo.com – They are an absolutely amazing team who are very responsive to your tickets. Chances are you’ll hear from Laura or Joni or, if your issue is related to Publishing Operations, from Tara and Stephanie. If the message needs to get to someone else on the team, the team works closely together to ensure the right person gets the right question. The average response time, during business hours is usually within 4 hours. They’re top notch, they are experts and they all truly care about authors having a good experience with Kobo.
 
I know that, I, for one, am looking forward to continuing to publish to Kobo via Kobo Writing Life and I have promised the team that I’ll not only be their biggest advocate, but that I will, of course, be an informal author QA person, always eager to offer suggestions about things that make an author’s life easier. That is, of course, the way that we originally built and have continued to maintain Kobo Writing Life. And it’s only going to be getting better thanks to this amazing team and feedback of authors like you.

Lastly, I want to thank you all for writing amazing books, for connecting with me over the years and for providing content for Kobo’s customers in 190 countries. In the same way that I’ll be watching Kobo’s and the KWL Team’s ongoing growth and success, I’ll be watching and cheering you on as well.

Thanks for all that you do. I’m sure I will see you around many of the old familiar places.

Yours in writing,

Mark Lefebvre
Director, Self-Publishing & Author Relations
Rakuten Kobo, Inc.
 

So it wasn't an easy email to write. And leaving Kobo was not an easy thing to do.

But I look back on a truly unique and amazing previous six years and I am appreciative for all that it brought to me and all that it continues to bring to me. Because the connections and friendships and benefit I have personally received from being a part of this amazing company and the incredibly extraordinary movement in the publishing world, have fulfilled me and made me rich in ways that I am still barely able to count.

I am appreciative, and honored and thankful.

So I suppose it might be appropriate, with my US friends in mind, to be thinking in that way during American Thanksgiving.

Okay, now back to some writing. After all, I have a NaNoWriMo novel to finish in less than 7 days (the sequel to A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK entitled FEAR AND LONGING IN LOS ANGELES), and I also have a contract to co-author my next book for Dundurn (MACABRE MONTREAL). (Of course, there'll be more on both of those things shortly here on this blog which I have been ignoring too much in the past few years)

Love and hugs to you and yours!

[EDIT - If you've worked with me and are interested in sharing a brief "testimonial" on my character, how I've helped or supported you, feel free to make it official:  Show Mark Some Love!]

Post NaNo Chat

So I made it through another NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), hitting the 50,000 word mark but not quite finishing off the novel I was working on. Ideally, I'll have some time between now and the end of the year to wrap up that first draft and then let it sit for a few months before attacking the second draft.

But, for the Kobo Writing Life Podcast, I recorded a chat that I had with some fellow Kobo staff members: Shayna, Camille and Bessie -- we shared our personal experiences with NaNoWriMo.

Video snapshot from the KWL Podcast NaNoWriMo Chat

You can download the MP3 here, listen online at the Kobo Writing Life Blog, or even subscribe to the RSS feed.

It was a fun chat -- always interesting to hear how different writers approach the same task.

The Eleventh Hour

So I made it through another NaNoWriMo.

As predicated, I fell behind mid month. I hit a slump that I couldn't seem to pull myself out of.

But I managed to pull it off mostly in the 11th hour. I made it to 50,000 words but know that I have another 2000 odd words to write to finish the short novel.

I'm temporarily out of words. I'll let the images speak for me.

Started strong, faltered, remained flat, then starting pulling up my socks

And...

 

NaNo OhOh!

This morning, I'm about to continue working on the first draft of a novel that I've decided to write during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)  And by novel, I mean a really short novel. Something in the range of about 50,000 words.

It's called Coversion (potentially Covert Operations, but I like the title parallel option) to the much-requested sequel to Evasion, which I wrote last November.  Evasion has had almost 130,000 reads on Wattpad, and I've had a lot of people ask for the next one . . . so why not just roll with it.

I started out the month a few hundred words ahead on the 1st and the 2nd, but I have started to lapse.

As of this morning (I haven't started writing today), my average daily word count is 1284 (with a goal of 1667), meaning I wouldn't be done the book until December 9th. Not bad, but if I let it keep slipping, I'm in trouble.

Here are my stats. (Note that if you click this link after 9:30 AM EST on Nov 8th you might see different numbers than appear below)

I had started off okay, but I'm slipping. Time to double-down (which is what November 8th is at NaNoWriMo - okay, they call it Double-Up Donation Day because it's about doubling your donation if you plan on donating on the same day many writers try to double-down their daily writing because, like me, they likely worked long hours during the week and thus fell behind in their word count)



But I'm hopeful, because here's how Evasion looked throughout the month last year - LOTS of falling behind with a final giant last minute production styled day where I ended up okay just in the nick of time.

Evasion stats from 2013

I came close a few times, but didn't ever hit the point I was supposed to be at any point during the month. I played a terrible game of "try to catch up" all month. But I managed to pull it off at the last minute. Not bad.

Evasion Wattpad Reading Stats

And Evasion was a fun short novel to write. So far, Coversion is intriguing for me to write, because I'm having to explore a lot of questions and unanswered mysteries that I set up in the first book but, even though I resolved the basic plot of that novel, I still have some 'splainin' to do.

Apart from being able to read the entire novel for free at Wattpad, Evasion is available in eBook via many platforms including Kobo and Kindle and is also available in print.

Evasion

I'm rather excited that my novel EVASION is being featured on Wattpad.

There's nowhere to hide when everybody you know is trying to kill you. Scotty Desmond's day begins like any other until his boss calls him into the office, pulls out a gun and start shooting at him. Scott manages to escape the surprise assassination attempt, but everyone else he meets, colleagues, friends and strangers are all similarly obsessed with killing him. Will Scott survive long enough to understand what is behind the relentless attacks and how it might relate to the investigation into his father's mysterious death?

The story was inspired by something that kept happening to me in the first couple of years after my father died. I kept seeing him everywhere. When you lose someone you love, there's always that little part of you that sees them everywhere and in everything. The mind does that to you.

But I started to imagine (speculate, if you will), a possibility where the things I had been seeing hadn't been my mind playing tricks on me, but that my father was actually alive.

I kicked the concept around and made a few attempts to write the story.

But, shortly before NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2013, I started jotting down some notes and outlining the characters and plot that went along with this premise. And I wrote it during November.

The daily word count for Evasion during NaNoWriMo

And Evasion was born.

The book is set mostly in Toronto and Sudbury and opens in the thinly masked building that is Kobo's head office in Liberty Village. It's a fast paced action thriller written in the style of the movie Die Hard -- ie, some crazy shit goes down and the hero has to think on their feet in order to stay alive.  Of course, readers have already commented that the opening reminds them of Joseph R. Garber's Vertical Run. It might also conjure up thoughts of Duane Swiercynzski's Severance Package. I adored both of those novels and watch Die Hard every Christmas, and I wrote this novel to satisfy my own thirst for that type of tale, so I suppose anybody who has enjoyed either of those three might also get a kick out of Evasion.

I had fun playing with the premise -- and not just the action, but the father/son relationship: The novel includes a number of flashbacks into Scott's childhood and memories of his father.

I wrote the first draft for Evasion in November 2013. I let it sit, then did a re-write of it and recently sent it off for an edit.


The book is being featured this week at Wattpad, which is a social platform to connect writers and readers, filled with stories you can read for free online or via apps for your smart-phone or tablet.

I'll be releasing Evasion as an eBook for $4.99 this summer.  The pre-order is currently available at Kobo. It'll be added to the other places shortly.

NaNo NoNo's

So NaNoWriMo is half over.


At just over 20,000 words, I'm slipping behind. I can blame the extremely long hours that I work, all of the traveling I have done these past few weeks and the fact my job is one of those 24-7 ones where I dip into email at virtually any hour of the day.

But, ultimately, I have NOBODY to blame but myself.

My stats as of 8 AM this morning - I wrote for about 1 hour and produced 1000 words. I need to write at least a few more hours today and a few more hours on Sunday to get back on track

Here are a few things that I have done wrong.

1) PLAN & OUTLINE
I fully intended to outline the entire novella I'm working on in advance. At least get the beats down. And I had started on it - I had made some notes regarding the generic story arc, but I never completed more than the first third of the novella's detailed story beats. So far, it has been good, and I have (as always happens) discovered characters and situations and scenes that never occurred to me while planning the story -- but that has also slowed me down, meaning I might produce 1000 words on a particular day rather than the 1667 required.

2) EMAIL & OTHER DISTRACTIONS
I have dipped into email first thing in the morning, where I had originally budgeted a half hour to one hour slot for writin, and ended up falling down the rabbit hole that my 24-7 job can often become. The work will never go away, there'll always be well more than I can tackle. Thus, if I don't put writing first before digging in to email, I'll never get back to the writin.

3) NOT WRITING EVERY DAY

To get 1667 words per day, I need to plant my butt in a chair and produce words. Simple enough. I must remember my favourite writing quote, which comes from Hugh Prather: " />If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write."

Here are a few things I have done right:

1) I have taken advantage of unique fresh time-slots and locations to get extra writing done - at the airport, on the airplane; writing instead of watching TV at night, etc. I have also used an audio dictation while in the car to record notes and story beat ideas

2) I have done my best to shoot for 2000 words rather than 1667 words, so I can buffer myself for those days I don't write, or don't write as much. The reality is, those no writing days, or less writing days will happen, so that buffer has helped.

3) I have kept at it and not let myself get discouraged. When I look at the monthly chart above, I see more green than red, so far. Sure, I'm behind, but I'm still fighting the good fight.

I look at it this way -- even if I don't hit 50,000 words, the fact that I have dedicated time to getting writing done is a GREAT thing. In my mind, EVERYONE who writes at least SOMETHING during NaNoWriMo ends up ahead.

I plan on getting back on track this weekend by investing a bit more time and ensuring that I can hit this forthcoming week AHEAD of the curve, rather than continuing to fall behind.

We'll see how that turns out.

NaNoWriGo

It's crazy that I haven't posted to this blog since October 10th - particularly since this has ben the most wonderful time of the year. And I'm not just talking about the great Halloween season that I adore, but about the release of SPOOKY SUDBURY and all of the promo, events, book signings for the Sudbury book as well as HAUNTED HAMILTON, the release of another short story in TESSERACTS SEVENTEEN, taking place.

But, alas, work has been absolutely crazy, and taken away virtually any free second I have had.

Which is what makes November, and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that much more important.

I have signed up and committed to writing 50,000 words this November as part of NaNoWriMo. Last time I signed up (2006), I wrote only about 40,000 words, but that work turned into the forthcoming novel A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK (which I'm rolling out a draft version of on Wattpad)

This time, I'm writing a novella tentatively titled EVASION.  And, though I have some notes and an outline for the novel started, I haven't written a single word yet.  Here's my NaNoWriMo profile page.

Today is the start of that, here is my tracker (so far 0 words written).

I'm traveling today for work, but do plan on taking advantage of some layover time to get some writing done today - and for the rest of the month will have to sneak in short bursts of writing time amidst all the other things keeping me busy......

Ready, set . . . GO!!!!!