I'm extremely pleased to hand the blog reins over to fellow indie author A.B. Funkhauser, this week!  She's the author of the Unapologetic Lives series: I reviewed the first two books a couple of years ago.  Recently, we got to chatting on Twitter, and realized that we were both in the midst of a similar process with our work.  It occurred to me that a blog swap was in order!  So without further ado ... take it awaaaaay, A.B! 

I’m stoked, not just because the snow’s gone and I’ll soon be swimming in an ever-cleaner Lake Ontario, but also because I’m giving my old books—my companions, my darlings—the facelift they deserve.
 
It’s been almost a decade since I took up the digital pen and started writing things down. I journaled, I made up words that existed nowhere else on the planet, and I mucked around with blended genres in a way that drove my writing teachers crazy.
 
Somewhere in all the lessons—formal and informal—I got hints of where I needed to go with this thing called writing.
 
Was I writing a series? Was I a horror author? Was I a true gonzo? Did my covers make sense?
 
The answer was “yes” and “no” to all the above. A frustrating place to be some days, kinda cool on others. I jumped in “boots first” all those years ago, never giving a thought to commercially viable fiction writing or monetary success. If I loved the book, it was good enough, wasn’t it?
 
“Yes” and “no.”
 
TRY AND BE ACCESSIBLE, STUPID.

It’s now 2019 and I have three books “out there” and four more in production. After a six-month hiatus where I repainted the house and crocheted an afghan while binging Sons of Anarchy and Ray Donovan, it hit me that some of the old ideas had to go. “100% Certified Zombie-Free Paranormal Romance with Happy Ending” read one of my more craftier tweets, but did it get at the core of what I was doing?
 
My covers said otherwise:

​While it was true that the first novels centered on a funeral home where paranormal walked in lockstep with the normal day-to-day doings of living beings, Heuer’s ghostly door—so compelling to me ten years ago—really didn’t do the contents justice. Reviewers consistently talked about the main protagonist and his rather unique predicament: being stuck in a room with his own moldering dead body and no one on the outside caring to look for him. Some reviewers found the set up dark and funny, one going as far as comparing the work to Carl Hiaasen; others described it as heart-breaking, haunting and horrific.
 
I thought I was writing comedy.
 
My favorite comment was “poignant, smart and wunderbar.” Was it true for the other books? Did readers have a different take on what I thought I was saying, and did that impact the way the books were being presented?
 
Absolutely!
 
Scooter Nation, my follow up to Heuer Lost and Found, also has a door on its cover. At the time I thought it was a clever pairing with the first book, but then the reviewers said things like “Chilling”, “Irreverant” and “Visceral.” The package didn’t match the contents. A remodel was needed.

I love the new Heuer cover. It is dark and mysterious and features the strange protagonist who longed to be loved while hating everybody at the same time. To me, it is a more honest and authentic representation of what the story is about. More importantly, it is worlds away from that sad little door that said nothing at all.
 
Sometimes a photo doesn’t do the contents justice. Sometimes you just have to go to the drawing board and with Scooter, I got inspiration from Hunter Thompson’s cover artist Ralph Steadman. Quirky, simple and suggestive comes to mind. The digital artist “gets it” and with extreme longing, I wait for the new cover to arrive sometime in early May 2019.
 
In addition to being described as funny and gory gross, Scooter Nation has also been tagged as mysterious with twists and turns a plenty. Blended genre again. Years ago, I was warned about blending and mashing. “No one will know where to put you,” was the prevailing wisdom. No kidding. 

My third release, Shell Game, jumped on the scene with tags like:
 
When a black cat appears on the swinger’s front lawn, neighbors die in search of meaning.

When a cantankerous know-it-all falls into a pile of sheep manure, a clueless neighbor wakes up.

When a secret society takes her cat and her man, a grieving widow fights back.
 
When my then-publisher asked me to select a genre, I went with “humor” and “satire,” labels more befitting a “psycho-social cat dramedy with death and laughs.”

It held up. A reviewer called this one “dark and excellent” which told me one very important thing, that I was getting closer to figuring out what my books—past and present—are actually about.

I am an indie author now with my own imprint which means I have the power of choice over cover, fonts, layout and genre delineation. But as I reformat and repackage what already exists and make plans for future work, I will apply what took almost ten years to figure out: 

​ To that end, I will dedicate whatever time and energy is required to getting it right.
 
Adult, unapologetic, and wholly cognizant, I am
 
A. B. Funkhauser

​
Dark humor and satire fiction author A. B. Funkhauser is currently prepping her back catalog for release under the Out of My Head Publishing imprint. Her first mystery novel, Self Defense: A Kirsti Bruner Mortuary Mystery is expected this summer. Look for all her titles on Amazon.... Coming Soon. 

In the meantime, you can find her on her website, on Twitter at @iamfunkhauser, where she runs the weekly Indie Author game #Thurds, and on Facebook.

​I'm doomed.
​
At least, according to the prevailing wisdom, I am. I'm going to die alone in a frozen wasteland of blighted dreams, because in order to be a successful writer -- or a productive writer -- or even a marginally-respectable writer, the one thing I absolutely must practice is consistency. And that just ain't gonna happen.

The preponderance of writing advice out there follows right along with mainstream goal-setting advice. It's often based around the concept of the "20-Mile March." Briefly, you set a daily progress goal and finish it. Every day. No matter what. Even if a competitor seems to be pulling ahead in the short-term, your regular incremental progress will get you to your goal quicker and more reliably than making hay while the sun shines and conserving your energy when chaos hits. Jim Collins, who popularized the term, calls it "fanatic discipline."

The 20-Mile March is usually illustrated with the story of the race to the South Pole between explorers Amundsen and Scott. Have you ever read it?

Freaking terrifying, man.

Amundsen (spoiler alert: the winner!) had his men travel by one degree of latitude every day, in all conditions. Scott (in case you hadn't guessed, the frozen corpse) traveled as far as possible in good weather, and slowed down or stayed put on rough days. Amundsen planted his flag first, and returned safely with his team to international accolades and undying fame.

Scott and his last 2 teammates got dug out of a snowbank eight months later, and buried on the spot.
Oh, fantastic. Thanks so much for that great motivational snippet.

See, I don't know about you, but I have a lot of rough days. I'm a mom. I run a freelance business from home. I have an unlovely string of health issues that limit my daily spoons, and an array of elderly relatives in various states of sanity who call me up at inopportune times for help with their head-wounds, legal paperwork, and WiFi passwords. Nothing in my world is going to happen every single day without fail, and that includes food, sleep, and showers.

​It's at this point I start really panicking. Because I've done fanatic discipline. I spent my 20's doing it for an acting career, and wrecked my body. As a writer, I've done "make wordcount no matter what," and wound up with the NaNoWriMo Horror Show of 2014. Fanatic discipline makes my life miserable and unsustainable, and doesn't even produce good art as an excuse.

So that's it. Mottley and Baker's complete series will never see the light of day. My chick-lit serial will shrivel up and get frostbite. I'm doomed.

Fortunately, I did what I always do in the face of panic and doom: research. (No, really. It helps. Even if you don't fix anything, it's like a brain vacay so you can chill the heck out.)

I discovered there's more to this South Pole story than first appears.

Right off the bat, Amundsen was focused on a single goal: get to the Pole and return safely. He built his team for that purpose, and kept it small: 5 guys.

Scott had an elaborate agenda of scientific observations and experiments, specimen-gathering, fundraising, and political payback. His squad? 17 guys.

For transport, Amundsen used a well-tested, low-tech, low-input, multifunctional system: sled dogs. They are bred to run on snow, dig their own shelter, and can eat nearly anything, including each other. If they don't work out for transport, they can be lunch.

Scott set up a fancy, complicated, high-maintenance system combining horses and motorized sleds. Trying to make them work consumed time and resources, and their failure left him depleted and behind schedule.

For supplies, Amundsen calculated a large margin of error, and doubled it. He brought enough food for the journey that he could have missed every waystation and continued another 100 miles before resorting to any desperate measures. Altogether, 3 tons for 5 men.

Scott brought 1 ton for 17 men. No margin of error. Things got desperate real quick.

Finally, that consistent daily distance? One degree of latitude is approximately 15 nautical miles. They could make it in 5 or 6 hours in good weather and have plenty of time to make camp and rest. If the day went badly, it was still a manageable distance.

Scott went as far as physically possible, pushing his team harder and harder, with no set rest point to look forward to. Some days they'd travel 9 or 10 hours. Remember, this is Antarctica, and they were pulling the sleds by hand. You ever walk an hour in deep snow? How about 10?

That's when I realized that consistency is the "B" storyline in the tale of Amundsen Takes the Pole. The real driving force here is resilience.

Amundsen created a process that could absorb multiple levels of failure without jeopardizing the mission.  Like a Time Lord with two hearts, he had a spare for everything.

He respected the size of his goal and the extreme conditions he'd face, and left space in his schedule and resources for the unexpected.

His "fanatic discipline" was not fanatical about pushing harder. It was fanatical about when it was time to stop, even when he felt like he could do more.
​
So will you join me in fanatical resilience?

Let's respect the extreme conditions we face, whether that's physical, mental, financial, or time limitations. Let's respect the size of the goal we're shooting for -- making a life of our art. It's huge! Let's tell ourselves the truth about our very worst day, so we can find a target that's doable even then. Let's simplify -- simplify our process, our goals, and our materials. We make stuff up! All we really need is paper, ink and the inside of our own heads. Let's give ourselves the gift of knowing when to stop, of saying, "you've done enough today."

And let's make sure to build a little extra margin into our schedules, our budgets, and our hearts - not just so we can absorb our failures, but so we have something to give our people. They have needs, too. And we want to still have them with us at the finish line. Right?

I'll do it if you will. Ready? 

Allons-y!