The Miike Way

A Brief Introduction to the Middle Way of Creativity

Hey everyone! I hope that 2022 has treated you well so far.

I’d like to talk a bit about a new project I’m working on.

I’ve recently gotten into the habit of waking up between 4:30 and 5am every day to write. I aim for 1200 words each time. So far, I’ve been able to hit that goal. The idea is to slowly ramp that up to 2000 words, then 2500, and so on. I’ll cap it at some point. But I have a goal in mind. A far-out, seemingly unachievable goal.

What is the goal? Why am I doing this?

First, I’ll give you a little backstory.

My debut novel, By the Time We Leave Here, We’ll be Friends, was published in 2010. It was a big hit in the small indie circle I ran in. It won the Wonderland Award in 2011 for Best Novel, and that allowed it to move several thousand copies over the next few years.

At this point (twelve years later), it has sold around 5,000 copies. These are rookie numbers compared to authors who do this for a living, but very, very good for the scene it was published into.

My next book, Low Down Death Right Easy, sold less than that. I believe it’s at around 1,500 copies sold.

Same thing with Black Gum. That was my first self-published book. I put everything I had into it. Every word that came through my fingers felt like magic. When I look back at it, I have no notes. It’s a wonderful artifact.

But then I took a break. And by a “break” I mean that I had two very short novellas out over the next six years, followed by my Strand Essay this year.

Each one of those sold less than a hundred copies.

Which bummed me out.

A period of soul-searching followed. I knew that I loved to write books, but I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t writing, and why the writing that I was doing wasn’t catching on anymore.

It had become a feedback loop. I didn’t want to write, because no one was reading. Because I didn’t write that much, when I did, no one wanted to read. A vicious cycle.

This soul-searching coincided with the birth of my son, and the realization that I need to make more money than I currently do. Job applications went out. That journey is still in process. In the meantime, I continue to edit.

The question nagged at me: is there a way to make a living as a writer?

The common perception of this is: no, lol.

I knew that the big publishing world held very little appeal for me. I didn’t want to go find an agent. I didn’t want to submit to editors, wait, get the red light, repeat, repeat, repeat, only to finally get the green…and have to wait years to see the thing in print.

Besides that, I’m not a good fit for modern publishing for many reasons I won’t go into here. At least not right now.

(Side note: I will never understand people who can’t find their way into Big Four publishing…and proceed to rant and rave about it on the internet. Has anyone ever browbeat their way into a job? It makes no sense. Also “big publishing” is not any one thing. Stephen Graham Jones has been blowing up for the past few years, for example. Brian Evenson regularly publishes work. The list goes on and on…sometimes our greatest living writers get their flowers. Anyway, slight digression, but I had to get that whole thing off my chest. Big publishing isn’t for you? Good, great. Stop complaining and go make something.)

I turned my attention to the world of self-publishing. I’ve basically been self-publishing for the past seven years, but my social circle consisted of indie authors and people with book deals. I needed to immerse myself in this culture, and for that I turned to The Bestseller Experiment. I highly recommend this podcast no matter what “flavor” of author you are. It’s a goldmine.

The premise of the show is: can a new author team up with a mentor, and write a book in a year? Every episode contains a short interview with people from all over publishing: agents, editors, writers, self-pubs, on and on. Like I said, total goldmine, and the inspiration for this blog series. Shout out to them.

I found the most inspiration in listening to the episodes with self-published authors. Whether it was male-male romance, crime thriller, urban fantasy, or archaeological thrillers, I noticed a few key points:

1. You have to write like crazy. These people are putting out 7 to 8 books per year. Sometimes more. That’s because this market expects that kind of output, and that kind of volume is the only way to make a $2-net product profitable.

2. You have to do all of your own marketing.

3. You have to figure out what readers want, and give it to them.

That last point intrigued me. I have always come from the “art is pure expression” camp. You spend a long time agonizing over every word. You don’t ever compromise. You impose yourself on the world and demand respect for your integrity. As I’ve reached the middle of my thirties, I begin to wonder if that’s not too rigid.

On the other hand, and I’m just being honest here, almost all of the writing that I’ve read from extremely successful self-published authors is not to my taste. There’s no music to it. I don’t care for the covers much, either. And this led to a feeling of frustration for me. Are there really only two paths through this thing? The tenure track hiring process of big publishing, or the dashed off (occasionally even AI-assisted) storytelling pulp of the self-pubbed?

Is there a middle way? Is there a way to understand your genre, write a story clearly and quickly, but maintain your distinct style? Can you build an audience while being yourself? These are the questions I aim to explore in this blog series, among others.

The answer, I think, is “yes.” And I discovered that through rediscovering my love for the films of Takashi Miike. Miike wanted to be a motorcycle racer when he was a teen. He quickly realized he wasn’t good at it. Being the son of Korean immigrant parents, he went to the Japan Institute of the Moving Image because it was free at the time. It’s funny to think of it now, but he began his filmmaking career at the bottom of his class. He was hired on to help on the set of different commercials specifically because he was the only student who didn’t finish his final project. He had free time.

He spent a decade working every odd job you could on a movie set. In the early ‘90s, a director dropped out of a sleazy direct-to-video joint about women who solve crimes in bikinis. He made several films in this style, and became known as a dependable guy who got his movies done quick and under budget.

Over the next thirty years, he’d grow to become one of the most sought-after and prolific directors in Japan. He had an absolutely legendary run from 1999-2001, directing twenty features, including his all time classics: the Dead or Alive trilogy, Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, and The City of Lost Souls.

There are tons of differences between the career of a filmmaker (who worked within an industry) and a self-published writer. The point that I’m trying to make is that this guy would take anything that interested him, make it quickly, but stylishly. His films are unmistakably his, even when they’re essentially for-hire work.

As such, he’s re-taken the throne as my hero (I was obsessed with Miike in high school) and the inspiration for this project. To work diligently but persistently, to have fun with my projects, and to temper preciousness with a bit of audacity. Those are the goals.

Takashi Miike’s output is proof that being prolific does not mean you have to sacrifice the things that make your art yours.

We’ll see how it goes.

Which brings us to where I am now. I’ve developed the steady writing habit. I’ve kicked the booze yet again (14 months off, 7 months on, off now), I wake up every morning between 4:30 and 5am to get it in, then I go about my normal day.

Next time I’m going to write a bit about the process that went into my upcoming book Dying World. After that, I’ll attempt to sketch out how I plan to promote the book. Then we’ll really be in self-publishing world.

It might take years, but I am determined to make a life out of this. The title BESTSELLER is meant to be funny, considering where I’m at now…but it’s also an intention. I hope this blog is enjoyable.