Lessons from My Reading

Writing Quandries on Marketing the Non-Commercial

2012-01-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Northern Colorado Writer's conference is coming up [March 30-31] which means I have to decide if I'm going to pitch or not. Bummer, because I'm not particularly interested in the pressure of commercial publishing. -[No, that doesn't mean I don't promote.]- Have a possible publisher of my MG manuscripts, but that leaves my Half-Elven in the breech without only my weak marketing skills to sell it. To add to the quandary, a fantasy agent is coming to the conference. Decisions. Decisions.

Don't think I have to worry. I don't think the Half-Elven are really commercial enough. [Do I waste the agent's time or not? That is the question.] Or, to phrase it differently: I'm not commercial enough. Still, the Half-Elven haven't bored fickle-me yet after writing in their world for years.

If you're at the looking-for-an-agent-stage, you might read Rachelle Gardner's article: Is Your Book Good, Great or Hot? It gives writers an insight into how and why agents make decisions. [Yeah, if I pitch, I'll be going in, expecting to be rejected.]

Not commercial or hot enough? Another blog I read on "strong women" emphasized why my stuff isn't commercial ... even though I write strong women characters, I think. [My son says Mariah doesn't kick enough ass, though.]

Anyway, check out J. C. Andrijeski's blog: "Strong" Female Characters and Why So Many Bug Me. It's one of the best thought out blogs I've read in a long time and continues my previous comments about "strong" women.

The above link is an example of why I like Twitter and visit it a couple times a day. I discover interesting points of view now that my following's inching towards 300. Once I skim though all the promotion stuff [ Yeah,I'm guilty of posting my Half-Elven stories there too.], I stumble upon retweets or links to information I might miss otherwise.

Hanging in the same pack can reduce your exposure to new ideas, however much you enjoy them. Preconceived notions are limiting and sometimes wrong. Had to chuckle when I crossed with a Galley Cat blog, thanks to Tamela Buhrke. It's a great listing of how many one star reviews besting selling authors gathered.

No. Bad reviews aren't the reason I think I'm not commercial. My worst review was two stars for the free Gorsfeld short story. Complaint? The story was too short ... even though it's free! Speaking of free. I've permanently made "Cavern Between Worlds" free too. Hopefully, both stories will lure more people to buy Taking Vengeance -- if I can break out of the "writer track".

And, remember. You don't have to have an e-reader to read an e-story. You can download both into your computer at Smashwords.

Magic Systems and Urban Fantasy

2012-01-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

Do you need an introduction to the world of urban fantasy? Stumbled across a list of ten top writers/protagonists at Book Chick City. Take a look at "Laura's Top 10 Fantasy Series".

'Twas nice to see someone agree with me. I've read and enjoyed most of the series though I ofter despair. I don't think imitate their achievement. [Good thing I'm not ambitious.] Still, the important piece here -- if you like to play with the supernatural -- the list gives you some of the genre's template characters. Actually, I read much more urban fantasy than I review. A lot of it seems highly repetitive.

Who stars in your favorite urban fantasy series?

Kalayna Price's Grave Dance isn't repetitive, even though it's second in the Grave Witch series, featuring Alex Craft. She takes some conventional forms of magic and the world of Fae, puts them in the mixer, and comes up with some unique twists on the templates. Price's twists on magic flows in logical patterns that're internally consistent. Quite an achievement that.

The plot twists and turns too. Price has Craft caring about four to six secondary characters, each and everyone of them fleshed out enough to make Craft take actions that no one in their right mind would do. If friends don't motivate her, then the monsters do. Price even gives an interesting take on monsters. Example: I've read many stories that use kelpies as a danger. Price manipulates the trope, and the kelpie, while still threatening, helps Craft achieve a goal.

Price has a way of shading menace into even relatively safe situations. The ability promises a long career ahead of her. Grave Dance is a keeper.

Writing Urban Fantasy -- Or Anything Else

You should check out E. J. Wesley's blog about getting lost in your writing. It's not only your characters who get befuddled as you write. If they aren't getting befuddled, you should double check. You might not be writing something intriguing or exciting.

Is Romance in the Air, Yet?

2012-01-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's only January, but I read a couple blogs suggesting that people add a strong romantic subplot to increase reader-interest. That made me laugh since I don't have a romantic bone in my body. Then, I found this blog by Amanda Nelson on Top Ten Made-Up Literary Couples. The pairings are priceless. My favorite was Bella Swan and Lestat. All the couples are worth a chuckle or two. Just don't drink your coffee while reading.

While thinking about romance, what's a strong woman to do? You know, the kind of women you encounter in urban fantasy novels, where action is in the forefront and the romance come after the mayhem is done. Dr. Fran Cohen Praver, a clinical psychologist, has an article in the Huffington Post about Strong Women Make Better Marital Partners. Since most of my friends are mouthy women married to strong, quiet men, I agree.

For younger women who are still working through their relationships, consider this quote: "Think of your self-worth as a garden that you will weed by countering insidious messages and planting new healthy ones."

Makes me glad I'm an old bat who grew up before today's intensified media. Yeah, there're a lot of advantages to ageing ... as long as you're reasonably healthy.

Strong women aren't only found in urban fantasy. It's close to the second anniversary of the Haitian mega-quake. Takes a strong woman to protect her family in such an aftermath. Oxfam's, Yolette Etienne, wrote about "How Women are Lifting Up Haiti" in a CNN op-ed piece. One thing I thought interesting, she mentions working mixed farming plots similar to those used right after their Revolution. GeekGirlCon provided the link.

Of course, if your a writer, your strong woman needs some vulnerabilities. Noelle Pierce blogged about dreams and offers some possibilities if you're looking for a way to knock your main character down to size.

Now, I'm still left with finding a way of making Mariah, my Half-Elven hero, more vulnerable. She's still an elf, even if she drinks too much. -- We won't go into my son's request I go into more detail in my semi-sex scenes. [Oh, they indulge, but I don't describe the blow-by-blow.]

Buying Books by Intriguing Titles

2012-01-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

The family lending library finally delivered Jim Butcher's Ghost Story, the thirteenth Harry Dresden novel. Thought the title rather cliched since the twelveth novel in the series, ended with Dresden getting shot. If I wasn't a fan of the series, I don't think I would've pick the book up.

[Google "Ghost Story" and see how many different books come up, if you're curious and have lots of time. I was surprised at how many.]

In Butcher's Ghost Story, Harry Dresden's caught between life and death after he's been assassinated. In no-man's-land, he's told that three friends will die if he doesn't solve who killed him. So, he returns to Chicago only to discover he's a ghost who can't interact with the physical world. Imagine Dresden invisible, inaudible and unable to blast his way out of danger. On top of this, you just gotta know that the world has become a more dangerous world after his last encounter with the Red Court vampires.

Watching Chicago's favorite wizard learn how to manipulate events indirectly is fun and the plot twists and turns through a distopian Chicago. New and old characters join the romp as Dresden tries to save his friends. Though Molly seems to have gotten burnt the most by Dresden's adventures.

More important, the story introduces a thinking Dresden. I found this an interesting character development in this long enduring series. I'll have to add this to my list of ways to keep a story line evolving to different heights rather than sinking into carpal tunnel syndrome. I looking forward to new additions to the series, featuring a new more subtle Dresden.

Butcher's prose is just as delicious, as always. An example of distopian Chicago:
"Seedy wasn't a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal. Parts of Chicago are wondrous fair, and parts of Chicago look postapolcalyptic. This block had seen the apocalypse come, grunted, and said, "Meh." There were no glass windows on the block--just solid boards, mostly protected by iron bars, and gaping holes."

Yeah the books going on my keeper pile.

Titles:

Have been muttering about titles -- "on and off the air" ... since my Half-Elven work in progress is title-challenged. Current title is: Traitorous Tides, which at least hints at the scope of the story more than The Somant Troubles.

Titles are one of my many weak spots. Seems every thing I write goes through several title changes. Like, if you've read me for any length of time, you know I've twiddled with the title of this blog too. Felt good to learn I'm not the only one. Kirkus McGowan complained about sappy blog titles. Check it out for a fun read.

Smile, It's Link Mish-Mash Time

2012-01-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

Discovered an interesting blog discussing writers' fears while I researched something else. Julie Dick blogs about five of them. I resonated to the carpal tunnel one. My thumbs whined. But, I think her other listings often make writers pause as they hit their heads against their keyboard.

Since it's still the "new year" and all good people are examining their lives to make improvements ... [gag] ... I thought I'd mention some links that particularly interested me this week. Buried in each, I found a nugget of good advice. Maybe they'll be useful for you too.

So, what's your greatest fear about your writing?

If you found the first blog interesting,
you might find some of this interesting too.

I've removed one fear from my phobia list -- looking for an agent, even though I encourage writer friends to go the traditional publishing route. Yeah, I know seeking an agent is the big #1 step on the route. Why do I do this? Because I don't think print and e publishing are mutually exclusive. Anyway, if you are seeking an agent, you should read Roni Loren's blog: "What Will Make an Agent 'Gong' Your Query'. Some useful editing tips there. Yeah, ya gotta edit and revise your queries too.

Sometimes blogs make scary reading because of the subject matter. I'm one of those kooks who spend extra money to eat natural foods, preferably USA certified organic even though I realize there can be problems there. Ari La Vaux, a syndicated food columnist, wrote an interesting article on the hidden effects of GMO foods.

For those of you having trouble finding your writing grove, horror writer, Lake Lopez has some words of advice on writing every day. Basically, she makes a good point that there is more to writing than stringing words together like beads.

While we're thinking about new-yearsie, resolutiony stuff, Michael Hyatt wrote a blog on "Creating Your Personal Life Plan". This is a plug for his book [free], but it also serves as a useful example of a publicity piece, I think.

In closing, I'll say my "life plan" is simple, maybe even

simple-minded: enjoy myself.

The Importance of Dead Ends

2012-01-11T13:48:00.000-08:00

Okay. I'll admit it. I watch Castle religiously. It's one of the few TV programs that I allow to interrupt my writing. Why? Because the plots always lead to several dead ends as the detectives try to solve the crime. Makes it interesting as you try to second guess them. More important, I think the exercise applies to all fiction, not just mysteries. Your characters -- primary and secondary -- have to have to fail at reaching their goals before they succeed at the end.

Even though it's something of a ghost written-con, I still enjoy ABC's Castle novels. Just picked up Naked Heat, where the Castle clone, reporter Rook, is doing a profile of a gossip maven, who is billed as the most feared muckraker in Manhattan and who gets killed. The Beckett clone, Nikki Heat, starts stepping on celebrity toes to solve the murder. Character after character gets fingered as a suspect until they're ruled out. It was a fun romp, adequately written, but I couldn't see whether it crackled with sexual tension. Eh, consenting adults occasionally end up in bed. What's new?

Dead ends and red herrings make a mystery. Sexual tension, I don't know so much.

--[That's why I wouldn't make a good romance writer. Even though Mariah and Ashton, my main Half-Elven heroes, have the hots for each other, I "close the door on their activities".

As my son wrote of his recent critique of my current Half-Elven WIP, "Mariah and Ashton should be more passionate (weren't they horny elves??). How's he pleasuring her?? Can elves give us any tips?"

I do better at typos than tips.]--

Need a tip on getting out of the procrastination habit? Amy Spencer has a tip at her blog Real Simple: How to Stop Procrastinating.

My suggestion for avoiding procrastination is develop some writing buddies. I find they do more than anybody to keep my fingers on the keyboard. Don't know where to start? Try a writer's conference near you -- if your local library or independent bookstore doesn't help writer's network.

L. D. Masterson has some good ideas on what to look for in a recent blog on writer's conferences. I'll be going to the Northern Colorado Writer's conference this year. Looks like they have a good slate of presenters this year.

I'm going even though I don't have anything to pitch, unless I push the Half-Elven. Last year, I pitched an idea of a Color-a-Comic reader, a set of stories limited to short vowels only with the color book simple. Just got word that the publisher is scheduling it for June, 2012. Just have to get the contract back with their signature on it.

However I've improved my craft skills over the last couple years, I still need help.

Trivia

I make no secret about being a cheapskate, penny pincher or a saver. If you also have a frugal vein, I recommend you read Mariah Zannini's new book: Smart Budgets for Busy People. If you've got kids, they'll thank when they become adults for the habits you instill today. -- Recycling can become a habit ... even for your writing.

Why Are You Reading That Book? Blog?

2012-01-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

Have been trying to figure out why the writer, Yasmine Galenorn, keeps stacking up on my keeper-shelves. Recently finished another of her books -- Courting Darkness -- about the D'Artigo sisters. Story line centers on Camille's capture and torture by her dragon husband's father [who disapproves of his son's choice]. Heads Up: This book is darker than most of the previous books in the series.

I envy Galenorn's craft skills at keeping you reading. Camille isn't my favorite of the three sisters, but the book kept me reading past my bedtime until I finished it two days. Why? Galenorn keeps her characters hopping. Just when you think you've reached a minor resolution, she drops her character into another deep dilemma.

One of the things I like best about the series is Galenorn's deft touch with humor. She doesn't write "funny-ha-ha", but keeps a light sarcastic touch that makes your lips twitch. Her sex scenes are good too. She moves on with the story line just before the scenes get repetitive and boring. All in all, this book is a keeper.

I'm not the only one who's been thinking about keepers and might-read books. Michelle Rowen has been sorting through all the stuff she loaded into her Kindle last year. Her recent blog discusses: the Top 10 Ways to Get on My Keeper Shelf. While the list is as idiosyncratic as mine, her list is worth reading. Her list includes many of the same qualities I've noticed in many of the best sellers I read last year.

Suggestion: emphasize some of the characteristics she likes, and maybe, your current opus will be more salable. And no. I don't think that comment applies only to urban fantasy.

Then, if you're trying to make more time for writing, you might like to read E. J. Wesley's blog, The Open Vein,on why he reads the blogs he does. If you're making the effort to blog regularly, surely you'd be interested in knowing what people look for in a blog.

A Word of Encouragement:

Is your WIP having problems accumulating words? Kendra Turner gives writers some help coping with non-productivity in her blog: "Aim, Shoot, Bull's Eye: Targets for the New Year's". [Thanks to Margo Berenson for mentioning this on Twitter.]

What To Do with the New Writing Year

2012-01-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

Are you staring at a whole new year
lying before you?
I hope you are quickly getting your writing grove back
after the holidays.
Of course, there's more to life than writing ... hope that's getting in gear too.

While we mull the future, it's a good idea to reconsider the pit falls that plagued us during the last year. No place is better for keeping tabs on publishing chicanery than Writer Beware, and Victoria Strauss wrote a great retrospective of the 2011 publishing year. I'm sure someone will re-try some of these tricks, so read and be aware.

Of course, everyone's talking about what they should do. Imagine my delight when I found Chuck Wendig talking about 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing on his blog Terribleminds. [Loved the title of his blog too.] Thanks to Dean Wesley Smith for the link. Guess I should warn you that Wendig's mind is as profane as mine. Guess his mommy didn't pound politeness into him. Guess, mommies don't mind if guys don't have polite mouths.

Maybe I should mention how important it is to get your information right, and I'd say this is especially if you are creating a medievalish fantasy world. Way too many writers get caught up in anachronisms. Jeri Westernson, who writes the Crispin mysteries set in medieval times, just wrote a blog about ten myths about the medieval world -- Top Ten Myths About the Middle Ages.

Westerman's blog's a very good example of a topic blog based on her writing research. If you are even remotely interested in the Middle Ages, she's well worth following. Pay special attention to the end of her blog.

Progress?

Have been revising and cleaning table tops to look for the story beginning I hand wrote while the desktop convalesced from a virus. Found the pages, but haven't gotten close to typing them into the computer. Guess, I doomed to being a slow writer ... even though I tried NaNoWriMo to see if I could speed up.

Big accomplishment? Changed the name of the Half-Elven WIP from The Somant Trouble to The Troubles with Traitors.

Have You Picked the Right Name?

2012-01-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

While we don't pick our personal names, everyone picks up naming rights along their life's journey. Nicknames. Business names. Pseudonyms. Blog Names. The question: How adaptive are the names you've picked for your endeavors? As an example, having the last name of "Fagg" wouldn't be very adaptive in junior high unless you enjoy being bullied. [Yes, there is a book by someone named "Fagg" sitting on my coffee table.]

Thought of names a lot while I read Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles novel, Nightshade. While I haven't read all of the series, I do pick them up at used book stores, mostly because I've driven over the same empty Texan landscape many times while visiting kids in college back when Texan universities were known for quality.

China Bayles is a former lawyer, turned herbalist, and amateur sleuth. Wittig Albert creates a community of interesting characters. Even though I'm a sporatic reader, I found myself remembering even the secondary characters and their problems. I think that might be the key to creating realistic, three dimensional characters -- give them all a problem that gets solved during the course of the book. Of course, if you're writing a series, you have to leave some dangling ends to lead into the next book.

In this book, Bayles is still reeling from her father's death and the fact she has a step-brother. First the emotional problem: Her father cared for his secondary family more than his primary one, which meant she felt neglected even though she didn't know about the other family.

The book problem: the half-brother is convinced their father was murdured [because his mother, the father's legal secretary, thought he was murdered], and hires Bayles private detective husband to investigate. When the half-brother is murdered, Bayles and husband investigate and solve the mystery, in prime cozy mystery fashion.

The secondary problem: a feud between two of Bayles' friends over a misunderstanding left over from previous books.

While she ties up a lot of plot lines, Wittig Albert leaves enough unanswered questions that you feel that her characters are living real lives. I'm having problems sticking with the next book in the series, Wormwood, in spite of my interest in Shaker communities, though. I didn't mind her inserting a dual plotline of Shaker life & problems into Bayles' trip to Kentucky. Did mind how garrulous the opening scene of the boo was. Seemed to me that the backstory interrupted the beads of the story with too much string.

Now for the silliness. I'm always confusing Susan Wittig Albert with Rosemary Aubert, another mystery writer. The dyslexia has me reading both names the same as seen on the book covers.

Found some interesting info on Naming Your Blog by Chris Garrett. It's all about writing a blog title that will scan well in the search engines, ie. have good search engine optimization. It also helps if people remember the title and are hooked into reading it for the benefits the title suggests.

Of course, my blog title's all wrong even though I talk about what it says, like yakking about what I learn from my reading. I've fiddled with my blog title before. Should I change it to Writing Lessons from My Reading? Whatcha think? How about: What I Do Wrong: Writing Lessons from My Reading. Seems too long to me.

Oh, why I thought Naming Your Blog interesting. Many of the checkpoints for writing blog names also apply to writing titles for articles, books, and stories. So says she who just changed the title of her Half-Elven novella [Somant Troubles] to Troubles With Traitors. See, blogs can be handy for more than building a platform. You can talk out loud to yourself ... and maybe people won't think you're crazy.

Happy New Year's

Hope the Breaks Fall Your Way

I don't make new year's resolutions since they're mostly worthless. Oh, maybe I resolve to stumble along the best I can, given the circumstances. Still, a codified list of what's wrong with me? I'm so old that even my faults have become as comfortable as old shoes.

Alex Marcoux wrote a blog on 2012 New Year's Resolutions for the New Paradigm that got me thinking after I thought "good point". She takes a positive spin on the coming Mayan doomsday and how we should respond to it. Rather than get all hysterical about the end of the world, she considers the event more of the end of one era and the beginning of another. Maybe another chance at designing The Age of Aquarius?

Give the blog a read. My reaction was too bad more people don't incorporate her principles into their own lives.

Was Your Christmas Season Enjoyable?

2011-12-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Maybe I should lay on the guilt and ask: Did you accomplish anything over the holidays? I didn't even try -- though I did manage to finish a flash fiction piece for my critique group next week. On the other side of the coin, I can't find the short story I wrote in long-hand while my computer was down. -- Win some. Lose more.

Why didn't I accomplish much over the holidays? I took a trip to Tamora Pierce's Tortall. First, by reading Mastiff, the last book in the Beka Cooper trilogy. Then, I got the itch to read more and went on to an Alanna marathon: Alanna, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant. The first book is YA, and the quartet is more tween than YA.

It's no secret the books are well-written, so I won't blather about what makes them good other than saying Pierce has a deft hand with at her craft skills. I'll wish that you all a successful writing career as long as Tamora Pierce's instead.

So to pad this blog, I'll do a list of some of the things I especially liked about the books.
1) Liked the way Beka came off a failed "pairing" to land in the middle of a major uprising over taxes which resulted in her assignment to rescue the king's son.
2) Better yet, the result of her rescue of the crown prince of Tortall changed Tortall society forever.
    3) The book contains lots enough plot twists and villains to keep the reader guessing.
    4) In the Lioness books, liked how the two villains reappeared in the last book stronger and more evil than ever in the last book. Loved the way Pierce made their respective egos, the stumbling block to their success of their ambitions.
    5) Also, liked the way she used the Cat Constellation as a tie-in between the two series.

If I had the time, I'd read the Pierce's Trickster books which center on Alanna and George's daughter,. but I need to de-emphasize my reading after I read a book for New Year's. After that, I need to write more and social network less.

Yeah, 'Tis the Season for Lists:

Have you written a list of best books, leading men, or what? Sure seems to be a lot of lists on the e-newsletters I subscribe to.

I'm sticking to adding things to my to-do list. Maybe this should be on yours too. -- The book is published in whichever medium, including sideways. Now it's time for book reviews. I've been fortunate to get a few, but you can never get enough good book reviews. Novel Publicity & Co ran an article on increasing your chances of getting a review. Whether the review's good or not, depends on whether you wrote a good book.

The Most Unwanted Present

2011-12-26T07:48:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season to be giving ... given that there are twelve days of Christmas after the 25th, but not all presents are welcome. [Actually, there are more if you celebrate the Solstice which Christmas started out as being.] Probably, the most unwanted present during the season is advice.

I can remember when our first married family dinner when I cringed at "going home" for the big meal. Seems my mother thought nothing I did was right. The biggest sin ever happened at that first dinner. My new husband demanded he eat the dog's chicken backs. Said she could give the dog the tasteless white meat. My mom huffed over that comment for over 30 years.

With those memories in my head, Justin Musk surprised me with some great advice on promoting ... especially important for indie authors. It's all about getting lost in a writer's world, and then, getting a bucket of cold water pulling her back into the real world. Read about her disappointment and how to keep the magic going.

Made me real happy that I had the links from my Half-Elven website to this blog. Only wish I wrote faster so there was more stuff to report on it. The Facebook fan page suffers too. In short, I'm guilty of what Musk cautions about. My Tweets have too much promotion. Must go back and reread some of my promotion links to devise some more interesting ways to build a platform. At the moment, my mind's a blank.

Have Been Reading:

But. Haven't had much energy to put some coherent thoughts together. Was surprised that most of it's been YA and mysteries.

One of the more enjoyable reads was Rick Riordan's The Son of Neptune. Was glad to see he was back in form with this second book in the new half-demigod series. Maybe I was disappointed with the first because Riordan captured the stolidness of the Romans as compared with the Greeks. Unlike his clone adolescent from the Roman camp struggling against amnesia, the first in the series, the two new characters a daughter of Pluto and a different, thinking child of Mars stood out as individuals ... and not just because Riordan changed viewpoints from chapter to chapter.

Summary: Riordan added character depth to all the action he devised. His take on Greco-Roman religion still rings true. He has great fun turning the beliefs sideways whil remaining true to the mythic characterizations.

Ideas for Before and After the Agent Search

2011-12-23T20:33:00.000-08:00

Every writer dreams of an agent who will help turn them into a best selling author.

The first step is to write a good book and be able to write a query that'll interest an agent into learning more about your book. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The first step is to learn what turns agents off, like the person who mentioned her "fiction novel" at Janet Reid's Query Shar k.

Seems most agents think novels are fiction. If you want to avoid such mistakes, Stacey O'Neale's blog at the YA Fantasy Guide has a listing of Agent Interviews. If any of the interviews are in your genre, they might be worth studying.

Of course, you can exhaust the list of reputable agents interested
in Your Genre.
Submitting to publishers or Self-publishing then becomes an alternative.

When self-publishing, what is the most important thing you can do?

After editing your book/story, that is.

I'd say its getting the best cover you can afford ... which doesn't mean you must go to a professional cover artist. Granted I'm biased because I'm a browser. I like to go to the book stores to poke and putter among the volumes.

Your covers are still important if you're e-publishing. Have you looked at the promotion sites? Long lines of book covers which are usually organized by genre. The same is true at the e-publishers. A long line of book titles and blurbs, only they aren't organized by genre ... unless you limit your search.

Guess which of my covers on the left I like best and comment.

Vanna Smythe blogged about her decision on whether to create her own cover from stock photos or hire it done. Interesting reading, and useful, I think, even if you have a publisher doing your cover.

What Do Writers and Agents Have in Common?

2011-12-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

Writers and agents both have to be good salespeople to make money.

Joanne Tomarkos blogged about What Good Salespeople Know That Writers Should, a guest blog at Jane Friedman's blog, Being Human at Electric Speed. #1? Believe in your product. That means you as a writer.

Want to set up something you can sell? The Passive Guy reposted a blog Dean Wesley Smith wrote about getting insulted by an editor. Smith gives some interesting insights on marketing and maybe a marketing plan if someone writes fast enough. [Not me.] The comment that snagged my interest? Two years is an "age ago" in publishing.

Of course, if all that marketing [aka selling] is stressing you out, Pat Stoltey at the Chiseled Rock blog has a list of de-stressers. They even don't cost an arm and a leg. Just get them moving.

Then:

What websites help you the most with your writing?

Angela Ackerman at The Bookshelf Muse gives you the link to nominate sites for the Writer's Digest best website listings.

Give a book for Christmas -- Print or e-Book

2011-12-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Got surprised when we stopped by one of the independent book sellers in our town. They had a folk harpist playing. Couldn't give away free coffee, though, since there was an independent coffee shop on the other side of the hall leading to the bathrooms.

What I liked best at this shop was the section of old classic [pre-1970s] paperbacks. Spent more time than I expected looking at the cover art. Was tempted to buy a couple early Edgar Rice Burroughs for a trip to Barsoom, but bought an Andre Norton instead. [While current Mars exploration is intriguing, it saddened me. Space explorations destroyed the fictional worlds of Mars and Venus. Must say I prefer Eric John Stark to John Carter.]

I like the way independent merchants give you a chance to enjoy the unexpected. Corporate stores ooze sameness from branch to branch. Don't worry for those of you who root for Amazon competition. Barnes & Noble got its hands in my wallet too. I seem to be buying my CDs there since the independent stores went out of business.

Then, there are ebooks

which I don't buy as much as print books.

Looking for a last minute Present or a Treat? You can find dozens of great ebooks for for 99¢ plus lots of prizes too, including a Kindle at the Indie Book Blowout during their Twelve Days of Christmas promotion. Lots of genres. Lots of books. Well worth a look. [Yeah, Taking Vengeance is buried in the back of the pile of fantasy listings.]

My guess is everyone has a network of writing friends. Do you support them? Pam Young wrote a blog on the importance of supporting friends and relatives ... when they've published a book ... maybe, especially when they've published an e-book. Read about ten ways you can help promote your friends' books. Why don't check it out to see if you can add a couple strategies to your networking schedule.Your friends will appreciate it. They'd also appreciate mentions of your blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

No.

I'm not angling for sales and/or promotion.

Surely, you have buddies who would appreciate your help.

I think one of the important things about the indie publishing movement is

declaring freedom from the corporate sales department.

Wonder where I've been?

No. It wasn't Christmas preparations that had me missing in action. A computer virus lowered my flag. Computer's debugged and with new virus software. Hopefully, it won't happen again. Soon anyway. I was actually having computer withdrawal symptoms.

Oh. My right thumb complains even more when I write by hand.

How to Start a Novel

2011-12-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

Got slapped up the side of the head again; this time while I was reading for the fun-of-it. While my thumbs were recovering from NaNoWriMo, I decided to read through all three books of L. L. Foster's [aka Lori Foster] Servant trilogy: Servant, The Awakening - Servant, The Acceptance - and Servant, The Kindred. Decided I really like the way the Foster developed the main character with a different life-goal in each book. Liked her decision not to turn Gaby into a series, even better. [My surmise from Foster's website]

So, what did I learn? Perhaps a solution for my main writing problem: never starting at the beginning of my story. My critique partners are always saying I don't give enough information for them to have an idea of where my story is going. Result is that I'm always tacking chapters on at the beginning -- after I think I'm in the middle of the book. This time, when I re-read the Servant novels, I think I may have found a solution. I noticed how Foster introduced her characters.

Yeah, she showed her characters in action. She's a modern, professional author, after all. That's the easy part. The hard part is to indicate the "problem" while the action's flowing.

First chapter: Foster took care of that by showing the villain first, without naming him/her. "POV break" Then, she showed Gaby, God's paladin to destroy evil in her city, in the throes of her need to save someone from evil and her ambivalence towards that compulsion along with enough back story to understand a bit of what Gaby is. We also get introduced to a major side-kick in a confrontation that demonstrates Gaby's perpetual bad mood.

[The bad mood is one of the reasons I like this character so much.]

The next two chapters are much the same except they introduce Luther, the love interest and main support character who also offers a strong conflict situation since he's a cop. As God's paladin, Gaby is a freelancer on the street. The conflict continues for three books, until it's resolved. Foster sells lots of books because she tells a good sotry, so she's well worth studying.

Money,

something, maybe, too many writers forget.

A quote from Janet Reid, my wish-for agent
but I don't write what she represents

[and I probably don't write well enough for her to be interested any way].

"This is a for-profit business and I spend my time doing what I think is going to make me boatloads of money. Shiploads would be better. Helping you figure out why your book doesn't work is not going to make me any money. It makes you feel better. Those are NOT the same things."

[Yeah, there's a similarity in attitude between Janet Reid and Gaby.]

I'll sum up Reid's comment:

Agents are in the business to make money.
If they don't think you can make them money,
they aren't interested in your story.

You probably want to make money writing too. That means PROMOTION:

While procrastinating instead of writing, I discovered a neat list of promotion sites that Mimi Barbour used to promote her book. Doesn't say much about how to use them, but The 13 Steps I took to Promote My Work gives a good check lists of the ones that seem effective. Her list may very well tip the balance of my signing up for a couple of them -- even though I can't keep the ones I'm doing updated regularly.

I'll close with a link to Allison Pang's blog for a sensible approach to Twitter.

Saving Energy for Your Writing

2011-12-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

Energy levels as well as time influence how much writing we get done.

So how do you conserve your marketing energies when the marketing fires burn low. Rusty Fischer at Zombies Don't Blog offered five tips on overcoming marketing fatigue. Check it out to see if any of them inspire you.

One way to conserve energy is to recycle ... even in the writing world. Had a duh-moment when I visited Julie Issac's blog The Writing Spirit. The gem? How to Quickly and Easily Increase Your Blog's Alexa Rating. The duh? Her first point was: Repost old blog posts. Another idea: experiment with titles.

Now, I don't know what an Alexa rating is, but I assume they're a competitor with Klout. I'm not even sure I care that much. Still, I gives me an opportunity to use some of the stuff I wrote. Yeah, I hate to see things go to waste ... unless it's food I don't like.

Roni Loren at Fiction Groupie wrote a companion blog to her blog on blogging. Setting up a writer's program: The Slow Writer's Reform School on speeding up your writing speed. How does that influence conserving writing energy? Maybe, getting more bang for each hour spent?

Now, all I have to do is take my own advice:

Visit my Facebook Fan Page for the Far Isle Half-Elven.

I'll thank you in advance if you like it.

I'll thank you more if you can give me instructions on how to improve the page.

Sometimes, being a computer klutz isn't adaptive.

What Are Your Goals for Your Piles of Words?

2011-12-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Do you have huge piles of words in your computer?. More than what you just wrote for NanoWriMo or the last novel or short story you're drafting? Completed stories/novels you are submitting don't count. Stories you sold, especially don't count in your answer.

Just put my Half-Elven novella in the closet to ferment before I go back and tear it apart. Yeah, it's got flaws, major structural flaws. So, now I have two recent things festering in there which I need to rewrite, a MG novel [Emma Kloken] and the above novella, The Somant Troubles. Now, to organize time to do it amidst the seasonal baking and presents and clearing off my desk which has piled higher and deeper again.

Went to procrastinate by reading some blogs, and N. R. Williams slapped me up the side of the head with a blog reminding me about how inadequate my description was in The Somant Troubles. Her article on The Writing Craft: Description is worth studying. Actually, if I remember right, she's doing a series on writing craft.

Perhaps my most sizable pile of words, sitting like a lump in the web-cloud, comes from blogging. [So far, I haven't figured if I can do more with them than leave them here.] I've been blogging for, maybe, three years. A good question: can anyone have anything new to say after you've blogged for a month? Six months? A year?

Roni Loren at Fiction Groupie wrote a neat little blog on blogging stages the life cycle of a blogger. You might've missed it in the NaNo madness so I decided to link to it here. Just loved the pics, and wish I knew how to do the mechanics to dress up my blog with free artwork.

I hope I've avoided the problem of boring myself by commenting on other blogs and doing fantasy book reviews. Blogging is like self-publishing. As long as someone reads the blog each week, guess this blog will continue.

As any NaNo writer knows your words need to be polished before they are worth reading. No one will read a formless pile -- other than you first readers/writing buddies. They need purpose. Chuck Wendig, who's published by Angry Robots, weighed in with a list of reasons why readers will stop reading. I took the blog to heart because I often quit reading a book when I get bored -- after the cover blurb, and opening intrigue me.

My goal is to organize my time so I can revise/edit/polish my word piles. I plan to spend evenings revising. For the new year, I'll be writing new stuff, including a short story a month. I plan to practice taking a character, giving her/him an introduction, problem, complication, and solution in a well-described world.

In short, I'm setting the goal to polish my craft skills. Oh, I'll be finding some new words to finish my NaNoWriMo story. Have toooooo many words piled up in 1/3 draft to ignore.

Then, there's the ever-present need to promote your words after you can see your face in them. Came across a great way to promote: tattoo your book's url on your forehead.

For more ideas, check out Angela Scott's 10 Ways to Promote Your Book. The smiles are worth the time.

Snagging a Reader

2011-11-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

'Tis no secret. A thousand-and-one things clamor for people's attention. Don't think retirement will bring you the slow, easy life. I've never been so busy as I am now -- even when I worked, volunteered, and raised kids. Writers must work double time and weigh in with a tuna-hook to grab and keep my attention.

So, how's an author to grab my attention? A cover helps ... in both bookstore and scrolling down the new listings at the e-stores.But, the real hooker is an opening and situation that first grabs me and then keeps my interest.

That said, I'm reviewing Mike Mullin's Ashfall, which starts out with a teen-aged boy throwing a sullen temper tantrum. I'm no fan of jerky teens, so the questions is: Why did I buy the hardcover, something I hardly ever do? The even bigger question is: Why did I abandon my read-a-paragraph-here-and-a-couple-paragraphs-there pattern? Yeah, I sat down and mostly read through until I finished the book in one day. -- A terrible waste of money if you want your book to entertain you for a week.

First the opening two sentences: "I was home alone on that Friday evening. Those who survived know exactly which Friday I mean."

The book then tells the tale of how a sixteen-year-old snot survived the eruption of the Yellowstone [like the park] volcano and became a man in the "... post Friday world of ash, darkness, and hunger." The action centers around his long journey on foot to follow his family's trip [a few hours by car] to the next state to visit relatives. Along the way, he encounters many survival techniques. Some good, and some not so good, in my opinion.

The cover of Mullin's book caught my eye in a local bookstore. It shows two teens, a boy and a girl, looking into a cracked, dusty mirror. The boy wipes a clean streak across the mirror face, to reveal an eye looking back at them. Dark, grey tones add to the feeling of menace, for maybe "death by ash".

Yes, I bought the book in the early afternoon, gave it a deeper checking out, and read until I had to fix dinner, all without going upstairs to do the social media thing. After coffee and the TV news, I made the choice to read instead of writing, something I sometimes do on Friday nights. In short, I read the book in "one sitting". -- What intrigued me so much? Well, my family has visited Yellowstone Park ofter, over the years, and I always felt uneasy on each visit. My sense of danger always rose there, even when just passing through.

One of the neat things about the book was the way Mullin planted his chapter hooks. He spent three chapters on the events of that Friday, 25 pages which included his house burning down. Here is the ending of Mullin's ending for chapter 3:

"Everything would be better tomorrow. I thought: a new day, a new dawn would have to be better than this.

I was wrong. There was no dawn the next day."

Yet, Alex survived and strengthened during his journey through this distopian world and even picked up a companion who saved his grits a few times. The companion's addition kept the book from sinking into a monotonous, teen-aged-boy, one-person point of view. Must admit the action would probably have kept me reading.

Yeah, I think this is an extraordinary book. If I did such things, I'd give Ashfall five stars.Even though this is a hard bound, it's well worth buying to study how Mullin constructs his pacing, complications, and surprises along the way. No, an e-book won't do -- unless you've a secret way to mark pages and make comments on an e-reader.

Another take on pounding out 10,000 words-a-day by Zoe Winters at the Weblog of Zoe Winters. I like her steady writing approach.

Then, there's the glow I'm basking in. Just got another nice review for Taking Vengeance. Here's the tweet I posted about it. Or, is that share? Who cares about the terminology?

Swift ... clear motivations.Taking Vengeance. 22niel review: http://wp.me/p1ToIK-1X Info: http://tinyurl.com/3zk8o6g #IAN1 #reviews #ebook #reading

WolfSinger Press has even lowered the price on the ebook to $0.99. So, now's the time to buy it if you already haven't. It's at Amazon [USA and UK], Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. Just search Theodoratus to find it.

Remember: you don't have to have an e-reader to download e-publications.

Just a computer ... and I know you have one.

E-Publications: Are they Elitist?

2011-11-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

While publishing trends are moving fast, I find the fact that parents continue to buy print books for reading to their kids comforting. Yeah, I find the overwhelming push towards e-publications disturbing. It makes reading, more and more, a past-time of the "haves", making those among the "haven'ts" do without -- except at school.

I can't think of anything more discouraging and limiting to a love for reading than to confine the excercise to the walls of the classroom.

Maria Zannini, keeper of the newsletter for the Online Writing Workshop for SF, Fantasy and Horror, set my mind along this track. She recently blogged about trends in publishing: The Apocalypse is Closer than You Think. All about e-readers and print trends -- which sent off this train of thought.

I'm finding the trend more than a little disturbing. See, I was one of the poor kids who got hooked into reading by cheap used paperbacks. The fantastic depiction on the cover [A. L. Merritt] attracted my attention at the army surplus store, back when the teachers still had me convinced I didn't know how to read. While my dad searched for the tool he needed, I spent my dime on the book. I still have the poor, battered copy as well as three other Merritt novels. I reread them regularly until when I decided I didn't like the way he portrayed girls. [Now, I re-read one or the other every other year.]

[A side note, the second novel I wrote was a counter to Merritt's need to rescue his beautiful female characters. My female character kept saving the male adventurer protagonist, and, I think, had a scar from getting too close to a knife. Too bad I lost the manuscript over time, but I do remember she had titian hair and green eyes. Wonder, if that was a cliche back then.]

I still have a hard time buying hardcover books, mostly because they don't fit into the chaos of my bookshelves. One hardback I recently bought: Mike Mullin's Ashfall -- about the consequences on a family after the volcano under Yellowstone Park blew its top.

###

'Tis the season. I'm making Cavern Between Worlds available for free at Smashwords --
until the end of the season or someone tells me I can't offer it for free.

You don't have to have an e-reader to read it [or any other epub],

you can download it onto your computer ...

and I know you got one of those.

Encouragement for NaNoWriMo Failures

2011-11-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

Do you consider yourself a NaNo failure because you haven't churned out 50,000 words? I didn't, and I don't. My goal was to pick up my writing speed ... and I did it. I'm thinking I doubled it from 500-words-a-day to a thousand, sometimes more, depending on what the priority task is for the day.

Thanks to The Colorado Writer's Daily by Tamela Buhrke, I found Rachel Aaron's blog on how she increased her writing speed to 10,000 words a day. -- The screaming you hear are my thumbs. If they could run, they'd be heading for the hills at such a thought. -- Aaron gives both some great macro- and micro-tips on increasing your word flow. Give her a read. You may find something useful.

My favorite insight was one I sort of fell over while doing NaNoWriMo. -- I realized I didn't have to outline to increase my word flow. I just needed to know what direction I was going. I set up docs for my chapters: 1, 2, 3, etc. Then, started writing notes to myself at the top of each chapter in red. As a thought occurred to me, I'd jot it down on a sticky note ... and then, add it to an appropriate chapter. If the idea didn't get used when the chapter was done, I transferred it down the line ... until it was thrown away in the "bits and pieces" file.

Point: Even if you don't suceed in writing 50,000 words in one month, you may still have set a continuing pattern or habit that'll help you be more productive. Oh, yes. I realize NaNoWriMo isn't done as I write this, but I'm done. I quit trying before my thumbs gave out. Like, I'll be able to write tomorrow.

While not writing for Thanksgiving, I wrote a new opening chapter for The Somant Troubles ... which hooks readers with an unusual situation [I hope] that shows the MC's [Mariah] openness to the "99%" of the Marches. Then, the chapter introduces the continued bickering between Mariah and Linden plus how she maintains her friends at the Half-Elven military Camp even though Linden has banished her.

Now, I still have to write the ending, ie. give more detail and action to the summary for chapters 20/21 or combine them into one. -- Who knows what'll happen tomorrow.

SomeThings I'm Thankful For

2011-11-23T15:00:00.000-08:00

I should be finishing the book review of Ashfall by Mike Mullen, but my head's mush. I wrote all morning ... and still have loose ends to tie up. So, I thought I'd share some of the things I'm thankful for, things that let me continue writing.

1) That I'm sitting at the computer and able to think clearly, mostly, except for when I don't.

2) That I had sense enough to quit NaNoWriMo while my thumbs still functioned. They kinda hurt, but they aren't screaming. My hip's whining too, but I'm going to ignore it.

3) That the old man has recovered from the lousy cataract surgery and is threatening to cut the suckers out of the 40-foot apricot tree. I'm telling him he can do it as long he can guarantee me he'll be 100% for our 50th anniversary next year.

4) That I can still come up with new ideas ... different from what I've done before. My NaNo start sounds interesting, and I'll continue writing next week. Need to clean up all the stuff I let lie the first two weeks of November.

5) That my kids still talk to me ... though sometimes they border on telling me what to do. I listen to them like they listened to me.

6) That I can always use the mute button when stupidities ooze out of Washington, DC too deep.

7) That my Facebook fan page for the Far Isles Half-Elven has some friends ... even if I don't know who they are.

8) That I have at least one kid living in the area so we have family to celebrate holidays with.

9) Important ... I think .

Rebeka Harrington posted my guest blog on where ideas come from.

From 'Idea' to 'Taking Vengeance' – Writing For The Love Of It. Who knows where ideas come from? I've gone through four/five different writing “careers”, and I ...

rebekaharrington.com/tag/kay-theodoratus/

10) There are other things, but I'll just sum them up:

I'm thankful that my life is more comfortable than the life I grew up with.

May your refrigerator hold food until your next pay day.

Enjoy.

After NaNoWriMo

2011-11-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

The revising. The reviving. The bells of doom are ringing, and I haven't even finished. Of course, I don't expect to finish 50,000 words in one month. I do expect to finish the novel and revise. So, revising is on my mind.

If you're still writing your NaNoWriMo effort, Terry O'Dell at The Blood Red Pencil has a suggestion for adding painless words in her guest blog on "The Rule of Three". Have your character do three things in one sentence. -- The principle has been proven in regards to military training. People remember in threes better. Also, it may explain the popularity of trilogies.

Ania Ahlborn at "Suspense Novelist" blogged about Elizabeth Georges' writing process since she loved George's craft book, Write Away, so much. Now, George is one of my favorite mystery writers. Felt warm inside when I learned that George revises on hard-copy. I do that too. Maybe I'm learning something. [Though, I'd never set a book in Britain, even if I lived in Wales a wonderful year.]

Again, what to do with your NaNoWriMo. Dean Wesley Smith, one of the self-publishing gurus, gives an interesting take on the self-publishing vs traditional publishing brouhaha. Do both.

###

I'm no longer NaNoWriMo-ing. My thumbs went on strike. I'm limiting myself to two half-hour computer sessions a day. In the meantime, I can r e a d.

Getting Noticed, the Bug-a-Boo of Promotion

2011-11-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm still hitting my head against the big marketing wall and have the bruises to prove it. Little traffic and sales.

Yeah, "I'm promoting". An example. Just noticed that I've done over a 1,000 Tweets and over 200 followers [most of them pertinent to writing]. The first few months I visited there, my tweets and followers were in the single digits.

Surprising, how promoting your stuff adds up. I'm mentioning all three of my pubs on Twitter. I include the Independent Authors Network' hash-tag and url. They even retweet me ... for what that's worth.

Does Twitter work for book promotion? I think maybe. I know that I get more traffic when I mention my books on Smashwords. Whether or not, someone buys depends on your blurb and other marketing skills. I think writers can chalk one up for the traditional publishers here. At least, I have this dream that they have a set of guidelines to help their writers do the promotion bit.

Back to the bug-a-boo of promotion: getting people to notice your book. A book by the IBC [the Indie Book Collective] people does just that according to Jeff Bennington at The Writing Time Bomb. Why, oh why, do I keep finding such stuff when I don't have the time to absorb it. How to Sell More Ebooks gives some great ideas on getting noticed on Amazon where probably more USA books are sold than any where else.

I'm thinking the book may be a buy ... but how to you study on Kindle? Can you underline and write notes to yourself as you read?

Yet again the ladies at Duolit have come up with some great suggestions for getting your NaNoWriMo project getting noticed by other writers: 5 Ways to Build Hype Before NaNoWriMo. The good thing? Many of the ideas will apply to promoting all your writing.

So, happy writing ... and happier promoting if you sell something. If you are on Facebook, Twitter, etc you can promote even your short story sales. I'm sure editors appreciate all positive mentions of their publications ... just like authors do.

Do Your Characters Live on the Edge?

2011-11-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Why should readers read your stories? Because you're a nice person? I'm sure you are, but I'm not so sure about my myself. Still, I'd like people to read my stories. Thinking about this, I've hit my head against a basic idea: Will your characters survive their trials and tribulations.

[This is a little difficult with my Half-Elven, but I need to address the principle in some way. Maybe asking: how much skin do your characters stand to lose in your story, might help?]

Last Friday, I finished Karen Marie Moning's Shadowfever, the last of her Fever series. The almost 700-word-book spent too much time in the head of Mackayla, the main character, for my taste. But still, the book managed to move instead of spin. The Rainbow girl, oozing with Georgia sunshine, is no more ... and has turned into something darker ... and has to cope with that transformation ... and survive, if not live happily ever after. The series is a paranormal romance, after all.

Actually, the Fever series is longer than the five books listed. Moning included characters and situations from her Highlander series. Hints appeared here and there in previous books, but Shadowfever had the Keltar clan playing a major secondary role. Found it kind of amusing that the hyper-virile Keltars had to play second fiddle to Mackayla. Still, they got to snap and snarl at Barrons and his crew.

All in all, she managed to create a great twist on the Fae. Not the cutsie fairies. But the terrible inhuman Fae of serious legend. I thought her ability to give strange creatures understandable motives one of Moning's more striking achievements.

Moning managed to tie up the loose ends, as far as I can remember, while throwing in some twists which I didn't see coming. I had suspicions that some of the characters weren't exactly what they seemed, but the "reality" Moning presented wasn't exactly like I thought. Moning has two series on my keeper bookshelves.

An Aside:

A good share of my time on Sunday mornings is spent reading the book reviews in the New York Times. Yesterday, they did their children's book insert. Elizabeth Bird's review gave me the most to think about. Consider this beginning:

"Imagine the difficulty of creating an active crime-fighting protagonist in the age of helicopter parents."

One writer solution would be to put your characters into a historical time, which is what Greg Ruth (City of Orphans) and Chris Moriarty (The Inquisitor's Apprentice) do. Baker's take:

"And for today's readers, finding themselves caught beneath the omnipresent, not to say suffocating, love and attention of their hovering parents, reading about children free to go anywhere and to solve crimes, not to say their own problems, may offer them the escape they understandably crave."

[Please excuse the typos. NaNoWriMo is really eating into my time.]

So. What do Agents Feels About Queries?

2011-11-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

Several blogs back, I mentioned Janet Reid's formula for a good query ... ie. one that might give her a positive attitude when she reads your sample ... provided your query lures her on. A query that's low on description and high on action.

I was trying to use her formula for my new query for "Dark Solstice", using Linden as the focus rather than Mariah. So, I had been thinking about queries a lot before NaNoWriMo, trying to get away from describing feelings to show action. Still, I've talked to several people who think writing queries is a waste of time, too hard, or ????? Since self-publishing is so easy, they say, I should just go that route.

Jessica Faust gives an agents viewpoint on why a query is important in her Bookends Blog: The Archaic Query. She considers it just another craft skill which writers have to master. The upside? It allows agents, and probably publishers, to work through their submissions faster.

While we're thinking about queries, agent Rachelle Gardner wrote a blog on interpreting "agent euphenisms": Decoding Query Rejections. What I found interesting: she linked to Janet Reid's Query Shark as a place where writer's can get a specific reaction to their query -- if their query is lucky enough to be chosen. Though I should warn you Janet Reid isn't as nice as Rachelle Gardner.

Then, there's the other end of the process, getting some publicity for your book -- whether traditionally or self-published. The Passive Guy gives some good tips on using Good Reads to reach a targeted market of readers. He makes such a good argument that I may have to go back and visit the site regularly in addition to Facebook and Twitter. After NaNoWriMo, of course.

How am I doing with NaNoWritMo?

I'm behind, of course, but not by much. Sunday threw me off my count when I went to Denver, and I was short yesterday too. Still, I've discovered a completely undreamed of character who is central to the mid-story conflict that launches my main character into deep doo-doo, only I don't know what she's going to do to get out of the mess her contentious attitude gets her into.

PS: Got a good laugh when I discovered all my typos after I published an except of "Combine Mythos" yesterday. Oh, I'm also thinking of calling the story "Combine Blues".

Excerpt from My NaNoing

2011-11-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've amazed myself as I NaNoing along. One weeks gone by and I'm on Chapter 7. Should be on chapter 8, but I'll take what I got since it's about 8000 words more than I usually produce in a week. Got my 500 words in this morning even though I got up late because I read until 2 AM. Whatever, I decided I really liked how Judi Anne Lucca wakes after being hijacked onto a space trip.

Waking Up

The cold sent her shivering until her hands could barely clutch the ax, but Judi Anne kept splitting wood. Crack. Snap. Scream. She wasn’t alone. The wood chunk she slammed the ax into jumped off the chopping block. Judi bent over to pick up the pieces and groaned. Every fiber in her body cursed with pain. Her mother would wash her mouth out with home-made lye soap. The burning flowed down or up into her throat. Judi had no reference points in the darkness. Her eyes refused to focus.

The smell of puke invaded her nostrils. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” A voice near her yelled. “Have mercy on me. I’m dying. I’m dying.”

Screams. Shouts. Shrieks. Moans. All assaulted Judi’s ears, but she kept chopping kindling even as her own muscles pulsed with pain. Raise the ax high. Slam it down. Each whack jarring her body until her shoulders rose off the bed.

Bed? Am I dreaming?

The smell and noise surrounding her cut too deeply to be a dream. She tried to raise her arm, only to bump it against some wall. Judi brushed her hand down. She moved her leg to the same side. The smooth wall seemed to surround her.

Like I said, I like this ... so I'm wondering if it'll turn out to be one of the darlings I eventually kill with a red pencil ... I do know it'll get edited because, for one thing, I haven't described the setting from her childhood farm. And, yes, it's important. Judi's anachronistic skills are going to save her when she and her class get captured by terrorists.

To Write or To Read, That's the Question ...

2011-11-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

So, you're a writer who wants to succeed. What do you do? The simple answer is to write a book that doesn't bore you and market it until you find a buyer(s). As with all simple things, the devil's in the details. [Sorry, I couldn't avoid the puns. A friend has declared Mondays Pun Day.]

For the Indie Author who's wondering how to succeed, Emlyn Chand at Novel Publicity has an interesting blog: Indie Authors can Succeed. Chand takes the general principles of promoting your novel and combines it with the techniques Terri Guiliano Long used to make her novel Leah's Wake a best seller. This is the link to part one.

Unfortunately, for me, I'm so busy with NaNoWriMo ... struggling to write 1700 words a day and not succeeding ... that publicizing my e-things is getting ignored. Oh, I post on Twitter, but I can't see where it's doing much good. People are downloading the free one [dumping Gorsfeld, though, but no reviews yet.

While I puzzle not writing, Roni Loren discusses another crucial part of a writer's life -- not reading. A recent blog discusses: The Dangerous Side Effect of Becoming a Writer. Her basic position is you're shooting yourself in the foot [pun] if you don't read other writers' work. Others would add "in your genre ... and outside it".

Loren mourns the decrease in her reading since she started writing. I'm stuck in the same boat. I used to read two, three books a week -- unless I had an 800-page monstrosity in my hands like Game of Thrones [G. R. R. Martin] and Shadowfever [Karen Marie Moning]. Now, I barely get a book a week read and the to-read pile keeps building again.

Well, back to NaNoWriMo and the insurrection of new hires on the bus.

Series Writing: Will Sookie Out-live Her Welcome

2011-11-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

When does a series and/or character outlive the readers' welcome? Charlaine Harris hasn't outlived her welcome at my house. Just reread Dead in the Family where Sookie Stackhouse tries to reconnect with the remnants of her fae family when she allows her snotty fae half-cousin move in with her. Of course, the vampire and shape-shifter politics is going strong as well. All the elements mixed together is what makes the series endure, I think.

Sookie has grown too. She's no longer the tentative waif she was at the beginning. She has survived all that vampire politics has thrown at her so far, becoming more and more proactive along the way. More important, the secondary characters have grown from book to book, though their importance changes. Perhaps, the most difficult part of the character development, Sookie has retained her good heart. Her grandmother raised her well.

I have friends who criticize the Stackhouse series as not well-written. Yeah, I find nit-picks too, but they never get in the way of the story development. Harris is close to raising another storm. The series has three more books to go, and I predict she'll have fans screaming in protest like she still does for the Lucy Shakespeare series. [She's already announced to her fans that the series will end in a couple of books ... depending upon where you're reading the series.

I'll sit back and wait to see what happens in her Harper Connolly series or whatever new series she develops. You don't knock a master who knows how to tell a good story, wrap up loose ends enough, but not too much not to lead you into the next book in the series. There's a key somewhere in there, but I'm sinking in the NaNoWriMo mess, so I won't dig for it.

Deadlocked is at the publishers, can the mass paperback of Dead Reckoning be far behind?

###

Only four days in [10:30 AM], and I'm 3000 words behind in my NaNo-ing. Granted I was interpolating a future world as well as manufacturing characters, both secondary and tertiary. Hopefully, I get this blog edited before I have to go grocery shopping.

Yeah, I know. Life's details keep screaming as loud as my internal editor. Just don't want to have the old man screaming because the fridge is empty.

PS:

Enjoy the typos and mistakes. I don't have time to re-read this umpteen times to find them.

PPS:

My free e-story is up on Smashwords: The Foiling of Gorsfeld. I don't know how you could miss the cover. If anyone of you folks would like to read it and take the time to review it ... I'd appreciate it muchly. I'll even mention the review on Twitter, even if it's one star.

PPPS:

Rebecca Harrington mentions Taking Vengeance on her blog.

NaNoWriMo Madness

2011-10-31T09:46:00.000-07:00

Do dogs drool over meaty bones? I'm beginning to think writers drool over NaNoWriMo.

Went to the monthly Northern Colorado Writer's, and they devoted a fair amount of discussion to the Time-of-Writing-Frenzy. I knew the two independent book stores in town, sponsored writing tables for NaNoWriMo participants. I didn't know our public library was also in the act of encouraging writer to pound out the words. They even ran "classes" for teen and adult writers.

Even if you aren't participating, I recommend you read the blogs that mention NaNoWriMo. There a lot of good advice on the mechanics of producing words. Breaking through writer's block. Setting up your characters. Plus, much more.

Over at Operation Awesome, Lindsay gives her reasons for not doing NaNoWritMo. She's into quality more than quantity. More important, she gives some links to other blogs with great craft tips.

Morgan Bailey takes the opposite stance in her blog asking: Are You Ready for NaNoWriMo? She even hides some writing tips hidden within the text which will help you whether you join the madness or not.

Then, there's me. I don't expect to come out of the month with 50,000 new words in the computer, but I'm doing it any way. I hoping that pounding out words, without thinking much about them, will help me break my 500 words a day habit. -- I may be planning to shoot myself in the foot. Thanksgiving's at my house, as usual, plus I start my Christmas baking about that time.

Think ... I sort of ... get NaNo ... though. Writing is mostly a solitary activity except for critique groups and writing buddies. In November, writers party and write for the heck of it..

Vampire Weenies Meet Bunnicula: MG Reviews for Halloween

2011-10-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

Found a mystery last September, while browsing in a indie bookstore, with an intriguing blurb about a lady sleuth, who could talk to ghosts. Gave me the idea to do reviews of ghost stories for the Halloween month. After all October is the month when the veils between dimensions thin, until they're gone at Samhain.

Then, I started reading the book. Thought the MC was a wimp. Worse, the ghost was a whiner. A complete turn-off. I read about four chapters and found none of the characters engaging. Kept meaning to go back and give the book another try. I read a bunch of other books instead.

At the moment, I have to dig it out of the to-read pile by my chair and put it in the trade pile. [Have been a little busy trying to finish The Somant Troubles, a Half-Elven novella, about my callused character, Mariah, who many won't like because she's not warm. -- Don't think I'll get it done.]

Still, I've been reading some interesting books. How does Attack of the Vampire Weenies sound? Actually, the book is a collection of short stories by David Lubar. Lovely very short tales that twist and up-end all sorts of legends and cliches in scary and unexpected ways.

Lubar really demonstrates the short story framework: introduce the character/situation, throw down the complication, and solve the character's problem with a slight twist so the reader doesn't quite guess the ending. The book is part of a series. If you are working of plot pacing, a suggest you buy a book and study.

Then, practice by joining Write1Sub1.[The basic idea is to write a short story a week and submit it. The idea comes from Ray Bradbury, and Milo Fowler was one of the people getting it going. -- I may do it next year while I revise stuff in my computer -- five/six finished novels.]

###

How about a vampire of another sort: Bunnicula, the infamous vegetable destroying bunny? James Howe continues his punny narratives of the Monroe family and their pets. In this episode, Bunnicula goes into a massive depression, and the fellow pets try to save him, even Claude, the cat, who usually tries to off him.

Not only did I read both books. I laughed out loud.

Random Thoughts On Writing

2011-10-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

Color my face green for Halloween. Read Maria Zanini's blog on promoting her new book, Chain of Souls. She's running a nice little contest [+], all people have to do is mention it on Facebook and Twitter so it's easy, [+], mentions her first book [+], and feeds her dog at the same time. Seriously, you should take some time to read her past blogs. I like her energetic promotion of her books.

[I'm the contrast for what not to do. All talk, and very little do.]

Ever wonder why so many "mainstream" writers are e-publishing their backlist? The Passive Guy ran a piece where Nina Bruhns, a romance writer [who I haven't read], discusses why she e-published. Seems her traditionally published print book delivered $42.50 in royalties. Over the same period of time, the same number of e-books sold = $1500. Don't need to think much about why there's an indie revolution.

Writing paranormal? If you can put an interesting twist o the cliches, I think you have a strong market. Picked up a paperback at the grocery store featuring five short stories by J. C. Robb and a bunch of other writers I had never heard of before, including Ruth Ryan Langan. In touch with the season, all had a touch of the paranormal.

My favorite story of the bunch was Langan's "The Unforgiven", a ghost story about a highland lord who wasn't too thrilled about have his castle turned into a bed and breakfast by a impoverished woman, who had just inherited said castle. The story was quite a bit more complicated than that but that's a good enough log line for writing of the fly. [Robb's monster was pretty neat, too, but I can't remember the other stories.]

Then, there's NaNoWriMo. The madness is almost here, and the Duolit team gives writers a strategy for successfully pounding out 50,000 words. Look at their other suggestions on their blog: 5 Tips For NaNoWriMo Success. My comment: If I have to do an outline, I'm doomed.

Random Thoughts on Writing Log Lines

2011-10-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Am finding log lines extremely useful. I've been writing log lines for the story ideas that pop into my head. A technique I learned from Trai Cartwright, who teaches writing at the Northern Colorado Writers and colleges in my area. One, it preserves a story idea, until I can hopefully get to it. Two, it's focused my cutting and pasting of the pieces I'm currently working on. Three, it helped me stay productive almost every day while I was working on my current Mariah novella.

Then Janet Reid, the illustrious agent I'd sign with in a minute if she represented what I wrote and I was good enough, wrote a whole blog on how log lines are anathema.

Then, she gives a great summary of what a query should be:

"... Focus on ACTION not description. Tell us what's at stake and what choices the main characters have to make. Give us a compelling INTERESTING villain."

Thank you for the tip Ms Reid. I see where I should rewrite my Dark Solstice query from a different, more sympathetic, character's POV. While others have said much the same thing, her version seems to of stuck in my head better.

Does practice make perfect? Maybe, went back and looked at my idea files. My log lines mostly touched the spots Reid mentioned. Does that mean I'm on my way to being published major, big time?

No. I'm beginning to think I'm not that ambitious. But, I'm wondering how you/others use log lines.

Not So Ghostly Review #3: McCrumb's St. Dale

2011-10-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Not all ghosts are ectoplasmic wonders. Sharon McCrumb's 2005 book St. Dale gives readers a tour of various stock car speedways and racing history. Dale Earnhardt [ senior], a popular stock car racer who hit the wall, literally, appears as a ghost. Adding to the "mystery", the specter is so real he can be confused with an impersonator, who also tours the the speedways where Earnhardt once competed.

Set in the south, where some people consider stock car racing close to religion, Earnhardt is cast as a secular saint who helps some of the characters of St. Dale out of their personal "troughs of despair". McComb uses the "travel tale" motif, an updating of the Saint Canterbury Tales, if you will, where the characters, take a Memorial tour of the tracks where Earnhardt won races and died.

McCrumb's characterizations, as always, are magnificent. She takes a bus-sized load of characters and manages to create three dimensional images for all of them, except for maybe the bus driver. Granted Chaucer earned his laurels by writing some of the first English non-religious fiction. McCrumb added to her laurels by creating a series set away from her more mysterious Ballad series.

The slim plot in St. Dale sort of bothered me this time around. [I've read the book several times] This may be because I'm struggling with the plotting my next story. I'm stumped on what to do with my characters, the characters I haven't even outlined yet. Oh, I have some vague ideas like "disgraced scholar" but can't figure how the world is going to slap them up the side of the head. All my ideas so far have reeked of cliche.

Did discover a new site to follow which offers a nice crib list for plotting, though. Jon Bard and Laura Backes over at Write 4 Kids highlighted a nice blog by Thomas W. Young [with link] on "You Can't Have a Plot Without Conflict". I hadn't thought of their third suggestion: what messes up your characters life and sends them on a journey.

Anyone for another book on a young adolescent forced to flee his/her home to seek his/her destiny?

In one possible story, an academic scandal sent my character into deep space where she got a job on a corporately owned planet. Only I can't figure out who's the villain of the piece ... except for some vague, ambitious corporate flunky. Obviously, I have to turn that one on it's head and make him/her at least a positive secondary character.

Deciding what to do is difficult. Maybe I should just sign up for NaNoWriMo and write even though I know I won't get close to 50,000 words. At least at NaNoWriMo, they care more for volume than quality ... until you start revising stage.

Squeezing the Most out of Your Twitter Time

2011-10-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

I'm always amazed at how Twitter helps me learn about using the world wide web. Some how, this computer klutz grasps many of the details without thinking. More important I find lots of useful information amidst the chatter -- even if I don't study it as I should.

Christine Rose, in her blog, On Marketing, Mochas, and Mayhem, talks about more than the Top Ten Twitter Resources. My favorite was the top one in 11 Ways to Use Twitter to Held Your Site Go Viral : be able to tweet about your website (ie: describe it in 140 characters). Here's my draft example for my Far Ilse Half-Elven website:

Visit the Far Isle Half-Elven for a different take on elves: http://www.half-elven.com You'll also find a free story set in that world. #fantasy

Now, I have the revise the home page before I do anything with it. [I'm also think of switching to Book Baby's website hosting ... if I can even get out from under the revising, drafting, and the messy desk.]

Thanks to Christine, I'll be able to promote Taking Vengeance and and Cavern Between Worlds more effectively, I hope. What's more, I discovered the log line for Taking Vengeance on my website is better than the one on Amazon and Smashwords. Now, to find the time to change it ...

Almost rolled on the floor laughing: Julie Issac claimed that promoting your book can be fun. Some great ideas there too, but I don't think she more comfortable in her corner, growling, than promoting. Some people just have a marketing gene. I'm one of the ones who doesn't.

If I was a good little writer, I'd post this ... clear off a place on my "desk" [aka card table] ... and study the above two blogs. But, I won't. My stomach says it's lunch time.

Procrastinators Anonymous, anyone?

Ghostly Book Review #2 -- School Spirit

2011-10-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

Pity the poor pre-teen whose mother is a medium for she'll never be part of the "in-crowd". For Kat, life takes a turn for the worse when she also starts seeing ghosts.

Elizabeth Cody Kimmel 's Suddenly Supernatural: School Spirit explores the relationship of a middle grade girl, her psychic mother, and the problem of fitting in at school, including coping with the dreaded cafeteria. More important, Kay must grow comfortable with her new found power to see and talk to ghosts.

Menace is supposed to lurk in ghost stories. After all, uncanny chills crawling over you skin is the sign of a ghost. Kimmel's book's more of "I gotta fit in" kind of book,though. One positive note. Kat does find a friend in the form of a cello-lugging outcast. The two do help a ghost, trapped in the library of their school, cross over.

While School Spirit is a nicely crafted story which I enjoyed while reading, the book left me feeling the story was way too benevolent. Guess I felt the book was much too concerned with school relationships and didn't spend enough time menacing the players. The book is written for the 8-&-up crowd, and it's obvious they don't agree with me. The Suddenly Supernatural series contains four books at the moment.

###

Ghosts break into my thoughts a lot now days. I'm almost done with my Mariah [the Half-Elven world] story. I think it's down to three more chapters and the fermentation process before I start revising. In the meantime, I'm thinking about what my next project will be. Key element: What should my next supernatural playground be.

The popularity of paranormal stories has sort of dried up the supernatural possibilities, mostly by over use. So, what's a fantasy writer supposed to do? I can't think of any supernatural that hasn't been used to excess in one form or other ... except perhaps the Windigo of the north-eastern forests. [It's hard to write about a cannibal, except as a villain.]

So, while others write madly for NaNoWriMo, I'll be playing with characters -- mostly villains and secondary characters. Don't really have a setting/world yet, either. Do have my main character and her family, recycled from another story, but I want to put her in another world. "Small town" is the closest I've gotten so far.

If I had the room, I'd put a dart board up and use it to create my people. One thing sure. I have to clean off my desk so I can work. I usually use a pencil and much erasing to create my set-ups. What do you find effective when starting a new novel that doesn't burst half-written from your brain?

What's Your End Goal for National Novel Writing Month?

2011-10-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

National Novel Writing Month: On your marks. Get set. Go to the computer and start punching keys. With luck you end up with a draft of a novel by the end of November. At least, that's the goal. What's remarkable? Lots of people manage to do it. I won't be one of them.

Oh, I think it's an admirable goal ... but my 500 a day pace would get me to about the fifth or sixth chapter. I know. I've been writing a novella since August and have reach chapter 16. I even know what's going to happen it in. I often chuckle as I think of the action. Still, thinking about the reactions of the characters to the action in the story line is different from actually writing it all. How much setting? How much back story? How much description? How to curb a character who wants to run in another direction, entirely? How to??????????

No, this isn't an excuse not to participate. Even if I wanted to participate, I couldn't sit long enough at one time to actually write a whole chapter. [Since my chapters average little more than 2,000 words, that'd be my pace.] Even if the cat didn't yowl to be turned on the other office chair, I'd still have to get up and do yoga exercises so my back didn't freeze up.

I'll just keep writing at my pace ... especially, since I can see the end of the novella in sight ... even if a couple of the planned chapters turn into two. I don't think I have to worry about one of them turning into three chapters. I'm too far along in the process.

Several of my writer friends are frantically organizing so they can devote enough time to writing a new novel this November. I'm sympathetic, but I almost got a cup of coffee thrown at when I asked a friend how he was going to organize the revisions once he had the draft done. He accused me of not appreciating his efforts. ... I do appreciate anyone's efforts who can continually put coherent words into a story until the ending has been reached.

The problems we had? We thought of the results of writing differently. To him, finishing the story was the end-goal. For me. Well, my draft is mostly providing something to revise. No matter how much I back track to make additions and polish words. I find places where I didn't make my characters' actions clear or have assumed some back story info the reader hasn't been told ... or something.

Then, today I took a peek at the National Novel Writing Month Site. There as bold as a school marm was a call to revision. Okay, an acknowledgement that the results of a month of drafting would have to be revised. Basically, now that you have written, now what?

Just realized that I didn't post a blog last week. Have several partials in my computer on different topics, but they didn't get completed. Sound familiar? Anyway, my excuse is that I've been spending too much time in doctor's offices. [Nothing disasterous. Just the chronic, piddle-die stuff which should soon resolve itself.]

How Many Choices Does Your Story's World Give Your Characters?

2011-10-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Lots of people complain about two-dimensional characters, but I've seldom seen people complain about simplistic societies. Seems to me that you need to weave a variety of conflicting values into your settings -- where your characters can "mix-and-match" the possibilities so they aren't all on the same spot of the statistical curve. Conflict creates more texture by just describing what the characters are thinking.

Yeah, values create the core conflicts in any world -- real or make-believe. Your main characters must believe in something. Their opposition must believe the opposite -- at least some of the time. Then, if your world is changing for some reason like my Half-Elven tales, you can create conflict without anyone being right or wrong. The choices possible in your character's world add to the story's tension and add depth to your story, and the choices your characters build relationships or destroy them.

One problem with too many books: They only have two dimensions, "either ? or non-?. How many times to you see a situation in a novel with many conflicting distinctions wrapped up in the same situation. An example of a multiple-dimension description from a Christian Science Monitor article on women's status in India started me thinking along these lines. The sentence: "Go beyond a strip of high-end boutiques in Delhi, into any alley past a cow resting beneath a tarp, and climb up the stairs of a nondescript building." Modern and old India bump against each other in the same description.

I'm thinking a lot about such conflicts in societies as I busily edit Dark Solstice, a Far Isle Half-Elven story. I've often summarized political positions by this formula: one-third of the people are agin' and will never change and one-third of the people support an idea. Any political motion will happen with the middle third where the people haven't quite made up their minds yet.

Seems to me this is also true for moral values too. So, where do your primary and secondary characters line up on the issues that create conflict in your story? Do they support your main characters or do they fall somewhere in between, sometimes for them and sometimes against when the main characters make a different decisions? I think the more they disagree with each other and the better you resolve the issues among them, the greater depth you'll create in your story/novel.

Where am I sitting on the continuum at the moment? I'm afraid my writing is too two-dimensional.

But, I'm trying.

###

Sort of, Just for Fun:
Sometimes, I don't feel like I belong in my own country.

Enjoyed this blog ... then, went back to it when I decided it was important enough to retweet and add it here. David Sirota blogs at Salon.com about a few American Icons that Would Shock the Right.

The problem. I consider myself a fair-deal, fiscally-conservative political type. Don't think I have a political party any more.

###

Ta-Dah. Above is the cover for the free story I hope to get up on Amazon, B&N and Smashwords. Still have to get the formatting and editing done, but I'm progressing.

'Tis the Season: Ghost Story Review #1

2011-09-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

Mary Downing Hahn must be the Queen of chapter book ghost stories. Granted she writes more than ghost stories, but it's the ghost stories I keep running across in used book stores. Wish I could squeeze out the suspense from my stories like Hahn does. What's worse for the inferiority complex is that Hahn makes it look easy.

Picked up Wait Till Helen Comes at the farmer's market. Hahn takes her talent for combining kid's family problems like lost secrets and general friction, then combines them with more tension in the form of a ghost story. Her books may be "simple" chapter books, but the story is scary enough to raise chills in an adult. [Guilty.]

In this 1986 book, Hahn tells the story a blended family -- the mother with two older kids who are expected to take care of their step-dad's younger daughter who hides a heavy secret. All the kids are unhappy about moving to a new home, but the youngest feels picked on until she finds a "friend", Helen, who wants to take her to a hidden land where she'll be happy forever. Molly, the older step-sister, soon finds herself trying to "save" a step-sister who doesn't want to be "saved". Molly finds herself caught getting blamed for causing trouble because every time she tries to help, her step-sister twists events so Molly appears in the wrong.

One of the wonders of a good chapter book is that it has all the elements of a larger novel, but there isn't as much internal dialog, complicated settings, or description to get in the way of the core. An adult reader can easily follow the basic craft structure of a novel in Helen: the introduction of characters, the complication that emphasizes the danger a character's in, and the working out of a realistic the solution. On this simplified framework, Hahn creates a scary story with a warm and happy ending, a must for younger readers.

###

Yeah, writing for kids is deceptive -- looks easy but ain't. I can remember how once I thought I'd write kid's books so I could finish one book in one year. Two tween books even sit in my computer waiting for revision. See how that idea got blasted out of the water? WolfSinger Press, also, sort of distracted me and pulled me back into my Half-Elven world.

If you're having problems plotting your novels, you might study writers like Mary Downing Hahn who have a closet full of awards. The books are relatively short and uncluttered, making the pace of the structure easy to see.

Yeah, when I revise, I go back to this elementary drawing board. I find I can learn a lot from reviewing what I thought I knew.

Tweet, Tweet about Book Promoting

2011-09-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

Tweet, tweet do the writers sing. Sometimes, they even warble useful songs, like Michael Hyatt posting an article on How to Use Twitter to gain the effective publicity for your new book ... or old one. The disgusting thing? I knew a lot of his tips. Doing them consistently and efficiently? Another can of worms.

Tip I liked the best? Posting quotes from your book. [It's also harder to do for fiction than non-fiction.]

The tip I forget to do the most? -- Using hashtags on my tweets. This is important so more people than my followers seen my comments.

Yeah, I printed this blog off to study. So far, it's sitting on top of the pile of print-offs that need organizing ... a month's worth if you look at the post note about chiropractor info. My challenge: To figure out how to use the quote idea for fiction.

Bonus Marketing Tip: Fear Net has a discussion on why post short stories as ebooks, an interview by Brian James Freeman, the managing editor of Cemetery Dance. Read it. The comments by the authors interviewed should give you some effective ideas for promoting your work ... including just your blog.

Main points: Do you write short stories in your novel's world? You might get some added mileage out of them if you polish them and self-publish.

To Market , to Market to Sell a Fine Book

2011-09-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Marketing has become an unavoidable basic fact of a writer's life. Even if you have a major traditional publisher, you'll end up doing freelance promotion for your books. So, I sit in my corner and grumble about my own miniscule efforts at book marketing.

Fact #1, I hate marketing. Always have ... even when I wrote successful ad copy. Fact #2, I'm not absolved from the Basic Fact. Fact #3, it means I must get the maximum effect from the amount of time I spend on doing.

So, loved it when Tamela Buhrke [Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Daily] included a blog link to a Maria Zannini article about: Three Layers of Book Promotion, from Tony Eldridge's blog Marketing Tips. Don't know what her sales are for her book, but to me, Zannini seems to be doing quite well with her marketing. I've caught her all over the web promoting her book Apocalypse Rising. [[How's that for teamwork?]]

On the other hand, I'm not doing particularly well at all. Oh, I've sold a few books, but they're buried deep in the kelp bed and may never see the light of the surf. Maybe regular readers of my blog and a few others might know I have a couple ebooks floating around out there ... if they think hard enough to bring the memory to their fore-brains. So, I wondered what I was missing. If I figured the thing out, I might just jump-start my sales. Study time again.

Zannini divides marketing into passive, active, and lateral forms. Thought I'd would've covered the passive forms -- the do it once and leave it alone stuff of marketing -- best. Some of her thoughts didn't pertain to me, but I have a book trailer ... which people even watch and which has more than tripled visits to my Half-Elven website.

Negatives: I need to revise my website home page. Big time. What needs to be done? Well, add the Taking Vengeance Facebook link and redo my business cards so I have links to the two ebooks for sale. Plus other stuff like getting an email catcher, something I haven't figured out a "prize" yet. There're some other things but I forgot them at the moment.

On the proactive side, I've touched all the bases except for book signings which don't apply to ebooks. I've heard some rumblings about ways to sign ebooks, but the technology escapes my understanding. [Yeah, I'm a computer klutz and can't even get the "like button" to appear at the top of the Taking Vengeance Facebook page.]

Then, there's the lateral forms of promotion. I surprised myself when I learned I was covering this base -- the blogging, Facebook, Twitter, social forum things -- more thoroughly than the others. One thing I haven't done is write articles on a consistent basis.

So, if anyone wants to reprint this as a guest blog, you are more than welcome. You have my permission as long as you give me links to where people can buy Taking Vengeance and Cavern Between Worlds. Or, you could to give reference to this blog since the buy info's in the sidebar. Guess I could add I'm available for interviews, but that might be dangerous. I tend to say what I think.

My thoughts on my mixed achievement? All these are nice given time constraints. At the moment I'm leaning more and more to limiting my social networking activities to the afternoons where they compete with errands, doctor's appointments, gym visits and whatever else shows up on the calendar, including coffee with friends.

Hey, I have a life and set priorities according to my energy levels. I write first and foremost. Marketing's going to get squeezed in at the end.

Why Indie Writers Should Read Best Sellers

2011-09-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Reviewing another urban fantasy by a best-selling author: Jeaniene Frost's One Grave at a Time. Really loved the villains in this episode of her Cat Crawford vampire fantasies. One's the ultimate manipulating bureaucrat with a hidden agenda and the other is the malevolent ghost, Heinrich Kramer of Malleus Maleficarum infamy, who comes back every Halloween to torture and burn three women. Having two villains really adds tension to the story line.

Of course, Cat is out to save the three women Kramer has picked to sacrifice since in his opinion all women are witches. The way Kramer oozes through the simple attempts to contain him proves he isn't just any wimpy evil spirit. He's out to gather enough power by killing "witches" so he can materialize any time of year. One of the twists in the book, one of the ghosts helping Cat catch Kramer was a witch killed by Kramer, who then killed Kramer by materializing and spooking his horse.

The bureaucrat villain performs his role by complicating the attempts to contain Kramer while holding out promises of creating even greater complications in later books. Complications are the keystone in this book. All the secondary characters seem to add both negative and positive contributions to the plot. Not knowing when something will backfire is part of the fun of the read. In short, an evil spirit chaser's job is never done ... as proven by the latest book in the series is hitting the best seller lists.

Frost's book is pretty straight forward urban fantasy. Okay, what do you expect with two vampires as the VP characters. I still prefer mixed genres, maybe because I tend to mix things up in my own writing.

Do you confine yourself to one genre? I've always thought of my Half-Elven as a basic high fantasy with, maybe, a touch of science in the form of genetic drift in a mixed population, but I recently got told I really don't know what I write. Marsha A. Moore at Fantasy Faction has a blog on fantasy sub-genres. Granted it's a matter of opinion, but what they say makes a lot of sense. Will I change my mind? Don't think so. After all, I'm the person who thinks that most mysteries are fantasies.

Hey I found a rationale

for picking the books I review:

Don't know if you noticed, but a lot of the books I review end up on the "best seller lists". Part of this is because I pick up a lot of the books I read at the supermarket ... surprisingly from their best seller section. Hate to admit it, but I follow a bunch of writers who have thousands of other fans. But, there's another factor, the independent bookstore I frequent most is making it by selling more and more used books. Such is the nature of the book business at the moment.

Yeah, I've got stuff loaded in my Kindle ... by I haven't read any of the books yet. *blush* [I least I think I know how to blush even if I don't do it much.]

To the point, The Passive Guy wrote another blog that should have sitting up with their eyes perked: What You Can Learn from Best Seller Lists. His parting comment: Write a spectacular book.

For the Fun of It

In Case You Missed It:

The Passive Guy has been resurrecting Dorothy Parker. Latest quote: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

Even Passive's Guy's readers are getting into the act. The link is to a search I did on his site for "Dorothy Parker".

Dense, Denser, ... Light Reading?

2011-09-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

Urban fantasy is by definition mostly light reading even when dark. Jennifer Ashley's Pride Mates will give you a quick, enjoyable read, but that's not to say it's a simple, one-note book. It's just a quick, straight forward read in comparison to Landy's Skulduggery series [dense] and Martin's Ice and Fire crew [denser].

Kim Fraser, an up and coming lawyer, has battled to represent a career-making case to defend a despised Shifter, who she think is innocent of murdering his human girlfriend. Fraser seeks information about the secretive group, and her world turns upside down when she meets, Liam, the son of the Austin Shiftertown leader. Once the platform is set, Ashley layers on the complications.

I liked Ashley's take on Shifters. No cliched weres for her, but engineered playthings of the Fae, who abandoned them when they retreated from our world. The Shifters were in danger of extinction until they came out and agreed to wear collars to curb their violence.

For example, the simplistic villains would be the prejudiced humans. Ashley builds her conflict on the aspirations of a subjugated group ... which don't necessarily have to be evil. Evil is as evil does. Ashley presents disagreeable people without them being ultimate villains. In short, Pride Mates gives the reader a three dimensional world even if it's based on the girl meets boy- problems rear their ugly heads-boy wins girl formula.

This book is going on my trade pile, but I'll probably buy Ashley's next book if I notice it.

Joining the 9-11 Chorus ...

2011-09-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

Made a comment at another blog that has me joining the 9-11 chorus.

While I sympathize with others' enormous grief, I'll always be eternally grateful -- [yeah, I realize I doubled up there] -- that my middle daughter turned down a job offer in the restaurant at the top of one of the towers. I'm not familiar enough with New York to remember the name of the restaurant, but I can imagine how comfortable the people in the Towers must have felt until the unthinkable happened.

What makes me cringe is that I remember wondering how she would support herself working freelance with her harp.

The most telling comment I've read so far about the 9-11 attack: "We once again had a common enemy and it wasn't ourselves."

The enormous holes in the New York cityscape and people's lives, notwithstanding, I find it sad the American people haven't clung to that sentiment. Seems we have turned on ourselves and are trying to cannibalize our neighbors to further our own self-interests.

Sadness at the violence ... and the stupidity.

Middles: When Do You Write Too Much?

2011-09-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm not trying to social network all over the place, I'm getting more web-reading done. One of my first rewards was discovering Amy Rose Davis' blog, Fantasy Faction. Thanks to a Twitter link, I visited her comments about "Cramped Middles". No, not about eating too much. About making your plot complications meaningful. Davis asks whether your complications contribute or do you just throw a bunch of action against the wall and stop when you get to your word limit.

I tend to concentrate on my opening, primarily because I always back into them. I've sometimes added four chapters onto the beginning of a novel draft before I discover an action-filled, inciting incident to complicate my main character's life. Davis reminded me that middles are important too. Middles of novels not only have to be un-boring, but have to remain pertinent to the MC's problems.

0_0

Then, there's the question of why even bother with the beginning or middle or ending of a book. Like why do you write? For the glory of it? Excuse me while I snort.

Harlan Coben did a blog about "Want to be a Great Writer? Follow These Three Steps". The tone of the blog may be tongue-in-cheek, but he gives any writer a lot to think about, if they ever hope to publish a bunch of books like he has. His most important point, I think, is what would you do if you didn't write. I know I would have a lot less fun each day if I didn't visit Word each day.

Why do you write? Do you even know why?

Progress Report:

Should say I'm still reading The Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin -- off and on. Have about 200 pages of the into the read and don't know if I'll even reach the middle of the book. Martin's opening chapters are a series of vignettes about various characters and situations. He displays his mastery of craft by pulling you from one disconnected scene to another until about 100 pages in you realize he's giving you insights into his cast of characters rather than one character's dilemma.

Having said that, I still don't know if I'm going to finish the book. Another book just pulled me away from the Martin tome. Worse, the book's about shifters rather than political intrigue. Does that I'm sick of politics and the election season hasn't even begun? [To be honest, the shifter book does have some pointed situations about crass authority figures.]

I wonder how many other writer's find Martin's craft skills uncomfortable. For me, I look at my "one-character-plots" out of the corner of my eye ... and wonder why I should even bother with marketing. After all, I write to amuse myself.

Extending the Life of Your Fantasy Worlds

2011-09-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Like the way Stephanie Laurens avoided series fatigue in the latest of her Cynster family books -- Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue. Yeah, the Cynster books are romances featuring aristocratic alpha males and head strong females. Yet, only a few of the books in the series fall off the edge of the story line into the cliche-bogs.

How does Lauens keep pumping interest into her series? She builds interesting characters within the romance parameters [cliches], and then, mines characters from previous books for new pairings. I started reading Laurens after I had heart surgery, and the story lines were just simple enough -- with an adequate mystery thrown in -- I could follow them. Yeah, her books tend to be multi-genre even though not marketed as such.

Laurens' twist on the romance formula hooked me not only because of her admirable craft skills, but because she knows her constructed late-Regency world as well as Georgette Heyer did hers. I hate it when Regency writers throw in Victoriana or other anachronisms. If I want to read about a Victorian world, I'll read Anne Perry's two series and/or the classics.

Why read the Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue? I let several of Laurens recent books slip by without buying because I was focusing more on fantasy and YA. When I noticed this book, I saw the younger females were getting their chance at a Season, and I wondered what could go wrong. Well, Heather Cynster gets kidnapped because of a family vendetta, setting off the chase and romance. Funny, just realized Laurens romances often are coming of age [aka YA] stories.

I get a little tired of Laurens odes to "love", but I can always skip over them. I'm sure lots of readers grove on them.

Good News for Me:

Just read that Karen Marie Moning is writing a sixth Fever novel and more. The new one will feature an interesting secondary character of her Fever novels, which feature MacKayla battling the evil fae, and a scion of her Highlander novels.

It must be the anthropology dose I got in college, but I love revisiting worlds that I enjoyed in previous novels. I found the announcement blog interesting because Moning bristles about protecting her world's integrity against publisher norms.

You can bet you'll be getting a review of the book someday.

The Writing Life:

How much time do you spend building your worlds and characters?

For the last three-four months, I had been building background for a science fiction world. The idea has haunted me off and on for years, maybe over a decade. Gave up on it again, though I have pages of background in my files. Couldn't come up with any focused characters to take the place of the vague place-holders. Another way of saying this: I have plenty of societal conflicts but no personal ones.

Now I'm constructing a grimorie, of all things, to do a non-Half-Elven story based on a short story I wrote in my never-never-California world. I might as well get some use out of the thousands the old man spent building his library. Besides, I don't have to worry about due dates and library fines.

When is Enough, Enough?

2011-09-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

Scrounging for Books Reviews:

To market, to market to sell a fine story or two. Unfortunately, selling a story to a publisher isn't the end of a writer's efforts. Whether you self-publish or are publisher-published, you still end up having to create some buzz about your book. One of the best ways of creating buzz is having your book reviewed ... especially if your social networking platform is on the small side -- like mine.

Slow me took a while to learn enough to implement the book reviewing process, and I thought I'd share what I learned. If you got a publisher who's free with the ARCs [advanced reading copies] and a marketing department, your efforts will be supplemental. If you are the sole marketeer, like me for Taking Vengeance, you're going to end up creating your own buzz.

One of the best ways to create book-buzz is to have others give your work four and five star reviews. To find book reviewers, you can Google-search book bloggers, and you can drag Twitter, Goodreads, and other networking sites to find people who accept requests for reviews. These places will also help you jump beyond your immediate social network into larger circles.

For me, the simpler way was to look for lists of people who review e-books. Then I took several weeks sending review requests to likely looking reviewers/book bloggers. This took time because each reviewer has their specific requirements as to the type of books they review. I then checked out their audience and a few of their reviews. All told, I sent out about 60 requests. Ten/eleven reviewers have emailed back to say I'm in their queue to be read/reviewed sometime between now and Christmas.

What was my magic procedure? There weren't none. I gave the details of the book I was requesting a review for [title, genre, number of words], gave an elevator-type pitch for the book, and explained I could send a PDF or text file if they were interested. Of course, some reviewers hated PDF files, so I didn't send a request to them. The reviewers I liked best were the ones who had a request form on their site.

Who were the best lists? I think Simon Royle's list was the best, mostly because he updates the list. Step-by-step Self-publishing has a good list too, mostly of people who will review indie works in several genres. Another useful list: Lauri J. Owen and Pippa Jay offer a Comprehensive List of Book Reviewers at Owen's blog "Embers". There are others of course. Google indie book reviewers and who knows who'll show up in the links.

How many contacts are enough? Only you can decide based on the time available and any writing deadlines you might have.

One word of caution. You'll find duplicates on the above lists so you need to keep track of who you email your requests to.

[In case you're wondering, the buzz about Taking Vengeance is more like air fizzling out of a flattening tire. I'll report if sales increase once reviews start appearing. Of course, the ebook may get universally panned. I'll tell you that too. So far, one four star review is out by a guy who liked my different take on elves.]

This Week's Fantasy Review:

Finished three more Skulduggery Pleasant books, one after another and didn't get sick of them. The Skulduggery books are written by award winning, Irish author, Derek Landy. While I wasn't as happy with Mortal Coil as I was with the others, the book stood head and shoulders above most books I read. I'll nit-pick that Landy is letting the character development of his villains slide. All too often they appear, do their thing, and go away to come back and fight another day -- twirling their mustaches as they go.

Why do the books hold up after reading six of them? The same mordant sense of humor and snidely named characters doing dastardly things, some of them even unexpected, keep the reader entertained. Of course, the various villains all want to conquer the world. The old and new villains try their best, but Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are there to get beaten up while they save the day. The duo may be powerful magicians, but they get clobbered enough to let the reader know that saving the world is dangerous business.

Valkyrie's still making the wrong decisions but now is often getting out of the jams without being rescued by Skulduggery and her other friends, as she was often in the early books when she was younger. Mortal Coil has some minor shifts in allegiances which may cause some greater emotional conflict in the future than was previously contained in the story line.

The next book in the series, Death Bringer, came out September, 1. Cheapo here is going to see if New Yorkie kids will buy it and send it on.

One of the things I like best about the series is its delicious darkness. The books have been translated into Spanish and German, but the last three don't seem to be published in an American edition. I wonder if the Mrs. Grundies got to the sales reps?

PS:

I've joined the e-reader revolution and am now the owner of a Kindle. It's a Kindle because it was given to me and the price was right.

First thing I loaded? One of my critique partner's story published by TRW Press, Just Desserts. It's a funny little story well worth a buck to watch some kids outsmart the devil ... who also wants to take over the world. [You'd think the bad guys would have better things to do with their time.] Whatever, look up Steven A. Benjamin and preview the story on Amazon. A novel of his is a finalist at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer's Conference.

PPS:

Sorry to be late with the blog this week,

but had too many doctor appointments between the old man and me.

Dark Is, As Dark Does

2011-08-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Review: Skulduggery Pleasant, Dark Days by Derek Landy

YA fiction's getting too dark, complained an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple months back. The debate for and against spread across the web. I wonder what they'd think about dark middle grade fiction. At least, I've always thought the Skulduggery books were middle grade. Though I guess you can use the same reasoning as for J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. They start out rather innocuous at the beginning and grow darker with each subsequent volume.

At the end of Landy's last Skulduggery book, The Faceless Ones, the detective was sealed in the Faceless Ones' alternative world. Valkyrie is determined to rescue him, and she does after surviving another attempt by the Sanctuary, the organization that supervises the use of magic, to arrest her. Other factions besides the Sanctuary seek to kill Valkyrie. Skulduggery, too rattled by being tortured by the Faceless ones to pick up all the clues, puts Valkyrie and their friends in needless danger.

Dark Days starts out with various villains out to kill Valkyrie Cain, not as collateral damage, but as the focus of their murder plots. The ending of the first paragraph clues you in. Dreylan Scarab, the primary villain in this book, had two interests walks and murder. During his imprisonment for assassination he "... kind of lost interest in walks. His passion for murder, however, burned brighter than ever." The days are indeed dark.

The next chapter is the attempted murder of Valkyrie in her Stephanie persona ... but she is saved by a necromancer. I don't think I even knew what a necromancer was when I was twelve even though I read every issue of the comic Tales from the Crypt I could get my hands on. I even hid the comics under the stack of Disney comics so my mother wouldn't see them. All this by way of an illustration that kids have been reading "dark" subject matter for generations ... in spite of bans by parental or others. Bans don't work.

Landy uses the necromancer as a means to an end -- saving Skulduggery from an alternate universe where he was lost in the last book. In reaching that goal, Valkyrie makes decisions that the adults around her object to ... but she uses her own judgement to amass all the magical power she can gather. Valkyrie is growing up. Even though she takes direction from Skulduggery, she begins making her own decisions before adults can tell her what to do.

This fourth volume is fast moving ... with many of the surviving villains of previous books not always behaving as you might expect. Also, Landy has come up with some innovative magical devices to cause the maximum about of destruction if our heroes can't save the day.

One thing lacking in this book, though, was the humor. I missed it. Still, I'm champing at the bit to read the next book to see how Skulduggery and Valkyrie avoid her doomsday future -- which was well planted in the course of escaping all the plots against the duo.

Just for Fun:

What's your potential of becoming a murder victim? You might want to take this quiz to see how much danger you live in ... or it might even be useful in profiling one of your characters. Ken Pence has a questionaire rating Rate Your Risk of Being Murdered.

Pence is a former cop and his home page has other information that could prove useful. Even before I had settled into a dark story streak, I had thought about how the average civilian might encounter a "street disaster" or "home invasion". Pence's info might help you make such a situation more real. -- Thanks to Jordan Ellender for the tweet that alerted me.

Oh, my potential of getting murdered is very low ... unless maybe I smear the old man's dinner with mayonnaise ... and don't duck when the plate gets thrown at me.

Is Your Writer Bio Shopworn?

2011-08-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Is Your Writer Bio Shopworn?

Still using the same bio you wrote last year or the year before? If yes, shame on you. According to Duolit, your author bio is a key plank in your author platform, It doesn't pay to neglect it ... like I've been doing. [*cringes*]

My bios have been static since I sold Taking Vengeance to WolfSinger Press over a year ago. Though I had thought about rewriting my bio recently, I hadn't done anything about it because I was drowning in other marketing junk, ... sorry, duties. Then, I read Robin Sullivan's blog about bios, asking "Is Yours [Bio] Working for You? Talk about a kick in the pants!

Her premise is you need three bios: short, medium, and long. Plus, you should change them often. Wondering what to put in them? She gives you a good example from one of her clients for your long bio. More suggestions for medium and short [Twitter] bios is to come.

Why not check your bio? According to Sullivan, your bio should (1) give your readers some insights into you, (2) be engaging, (3) be truthful/heartfelt, and (4) tell a story.

But your task doesn't end there. The other parts of your author platform need polishing too. The Duolit team did a blog that can help you create a More Cohesive Author Brand. Their five tips threatens to give me two weeks worth or more of work to build my coherent online author image. Just what I need since I'm still scrounging for bloggers to review me ebook, Taking Vengeance.

Where do I stand? Neck deep in do and do more. I don't think I've changed my bio in over a year. Granted, I don't have much to brag about, but marketing is all about presenting a polished image. My online image is totally haphazard. The good news? I found two links that'll help me polish my image ... if I ever get ambitious.

Fantasy Book Review:
Derek Landy, The Faceless Ones

Found Derek Landy's third Skulduggery Pleasant, The Faceless Ones, while cleaning out some boxes under the table last week. My reward was great in new reading because I found two other books in the series, the ones that were published in Britain. I'm looking forward to a Skulduggery read-a-thon over this weekend without even attempting to progress on The Game of Thrones, no matter how much I like George R. R. Martin's character sketches. For my reading enjoyment this weekend, it's Skulduggery all the way.

Yeah, YA print books conquer the might of the TV series. The Kirkus review summed it up so beautifully I think I'll just quote them. "A high-intensity tale shot through with spectacular magic battle, savage mayhem, cool outfits, monster, hidden doors, over-the-top names, narrow escapes, evil scheme, and behavior heroic ..."

I'd add double crosses and false trails or is that red herrings? Whatever, Valkyrie aka Stephanie and the reader are left hanging on her own devises when Skulduggery saves the day in a way Valkyrie doesn't expect. How can I not read on to the next book, Dark Days. Skulduggery Review, continued. Look for the next episode next week ... if I'm diligent.

This book is dark enough and moves so fast, that even adults who don't groove on fantasy will enjoy. Hey, the series even tickles your funny bone. Best yet, the Mrs. Grundies haven't started complaining about this middle grade book's darkness ... yet.

Trivia:

Have a Facebook page up for Taking Vengeance, but don't really know what to do with it yet. At least I figured out what kind of stuff to add to it.

Think I'm going to change the page to the Far Isles Half-Elven though.

As I said, I don't know what I was doing.

Incidently, I'm looking for people to like the Taking Vengeance page.

Agents and Openings

2011-08-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

Agents and Openings

Every wonder how quick an agent makes a decision on your query's sample? Maybe a minute, if you're lucky.

Don't believe me. You can find the answer in the October 2011 Writer's Digest in their section on agents. The cover even teases writers with the possibility of meeting "...Your Future Agent". How can you resist that lure to buy ... even if you don't believe it?

The most obvious first step in meeting an agent for those without the money to attend conferences is to send a query. Chuck Sambuchino has some interesting information on snagging an agent with that letter, including agent interviews, questions to ask if you get "that call", and just what an agent can do for you in this new world of self-publishing.

Kristin Nelson, the agent of many good insights into the world of publishing, gave readers the value for the price of admission, in my opinion. She not only did a "when did I stop reading this sample" segment, but she explained why. Some of the queries she used as examples presented some interesting ideas, in my opinion. Nelson rejected all but one -- all on the basis of a few sample paragraphs.

Yeah, our fates hang on a few opening paragraphs and, hopefully, the first fifty pages if you get asked to supply a "partial". Fortunately, Writer's Digest had another piece: "Workbook: Your First 50 Pages",an except from Les Edgerton's "Hooked".

The page I tore out of the magazine? An excerpt from James V. Smith Jr.'s "The Writer's Little Helper" -- a checklist for your first 1,000 words. I figure that should help me place my hooks for agent or, more important for me, publishers.

Just for Fun:

I find old covers fascinating. Maybe because I have so many of them on my bookshelves with the books and series I've kept over the years. Recently, I discovered an article at Abe Books on the book covers of Georgette Heyer's novels..

In case you didn't know, Georgette Heyer was one of the writers who made "Regency romances" popular as a genre in the 1930s. She also wrote mysteries but they weren't as enduring as her romances. [She was most prolific in the heydays of Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie.]

Any other Heyer fans out there? I think my favorite books were Frederica and Venetia.

Trivia:

Bad enough I get yowled at until I twirl the cat in the extra office chair.

Now, he's fighting me for my computer chair.

[It's better padded and has a pillow.
He usually sleeps on the tops of the couch using a stuffed skunk as a pillow.]

When is a Book Too Good?

2011-08-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

This Week's Book Review:

Everyone looks for good books to read -- however they define that. The Serpent's Shadow by Mercedes Lackey is definitely a good book. I reread it over the weekend because I needed a comfort read as I tried to labor, unsuccessfully, through another book. Lackey had me reading until almost 3 AM after the nightly news ... on a re-read, no less. -- [A big pain since my head was so fuzzy the next day I couldn't write. Didn't get much else done either except two naps. Don't think I remember any of the web stuff I read either.]

The Serpent's Shadow follows Maya Witherspoon's move to England escape from the evil magic that killed her mother and father. Maya fights to establish her medical credentials in an Edwardian world in spite of being mixed English-Brahmin ancestry. The book is part of Lackey's Elemental Magician series, and Maya is triply handicapped by not knowing how to work in the magical tradition she inherited until the love interest finds and teaches her. -- [It's also a take-off from Snow White. Not the Disney version, thank the-powers-that-be.]

Love the way Lackey had separate conflicts for each important secondary characters to solve in this book. Yeah, seemed like every meaningful character each had his/her own problems, and Lackey managed to delineate and solve all those loose ends without pages of back story clogging the pace of the story. I thought it a masterful performance that lured me to read waaaay past my bedtime. [Like, 3 AM.]

Even the villain had problems with incompetent help ... but then, that's the kind of weakness that enables the heroes to defeat the villains. In this case, Lackey created a wonderful straw-villain who was a delight to watch.

Yeah, her characters are well rounded enough to have angles you don't expect.

Grumbling About My Reading:

Is social networking a mystery to you? Thanks to all the people I've been reading on Twitter and the blogosphere, its not a mystery to me ... but I'm sure as h**l rebelling. Still, the social networking titles keep jabbing their hooks into me.

Michael Barrett has a blog with a marvelous pre-primer on social networking which includes a list of all the stuff I should be doing on Facebook and Twitter. Only problem I can't ever get things to work right without lots of trial and error.

Case in point, my marketing guru [Actually, there are many, but only one talks to me.] told me to set up a Facebook page for Taking Vengeance. I did ... and even came up with a gimmick to add content in spite of my slooooow writing/publishing rate. Then, I did a test on Twitter looking for likes. Score: 1 person shows up on the page and 3 people emailed me it works, but didn't show up on the page. Oh well, back to the drawing board someday. -- Hey, I got a Twitter post. Maybe one of them can help me?

Hey, maybe I should share a bit of marketing the guru gave me -- a way to update your book Facebook page. You should have quotes from the book or, maybe, a character[s] making comments about what happens in the book. So, once a week ... if I can remember ... I've decided to write a Mariah grumble. This week's has her commenting that cleavage is more attention-getting than bells sewn to the hem of your skirts. -- Why a grumble? Grumbles are one of my favorite things.

One guru suggestion I'll gladly ignore: Having my name in the title of my blog. My name is in the sub-title. Sufficient. As I said, I'm in a rebelling mood. More important. Seeing my name first thing just plain annoyed me.

If you're caught in the marketing scene, what is your favorite way to make sales? Is it effective?

Trivia:

I can see the end of the endless drops in the old man's eyes.

Only putting them in every two hours now.

It used to be every hour with up to three meds needing five minute breaks in between.

The doctor visits were the worst time-wasters, though, since they always took about three hours.

An Indie Writer's Pain: Gettting Book Reviews

2011-08-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Kay's Book Reviews:

Indie writers can envy writers, like Kevin Hearne, who are published by the corporate big boys. For example, here he's getting a review of his book Hammered, the third novel in his Iron Druid series, and he didn't ask me for a review. -- We won't talk about the almost a hundred reviewers I queried with little results, and no this isn't sour grapes. Just an observation.

Actually Hearne dismayed me when I first started reading. The opening didn't sparkle like his previous books ... until I hit his ode to salad spinners. This bit after he'd finished turning Asgard, the plane of the Norse gods, on its ear. More important, he doesn't dwell on his genius bit of humor but jumps right back into the plot of avoiding god-generated disasters and making Thor pay for his centuries of cruelty and entitled attitude.

Yeah, I admit my envy of humorous writers since I'm incapable of writing funny. Oh, I understand the basic structure of juxtaposing two incompatibilities. Like the forgetful rabbi making the "sign of the cross" with the punch line: spectacles, testicles, watch and cigars. I'm condemned to spending my life being an appreciative audience for others. Books that do humor well while keeping the plot moving ... fast, should be cherished.

Yeah, this book isn't as funny as the others, but more important, it's more than competently written. The lives of the main characters and major secondary characters continue to develop and the loose ends are tied just enough to leave some dangling hooks to pull you into the next set of books. Let's hope Atticus O'Sullivan continues his Brer Rabbit conniving for many books to come.

Bonus Review:

The NYC son has a fascination for old for old cover art. I benefited by rereading Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen in the 0.25 Ace edition, yellow pages and all. I had forgotten what a great chase it was.

Just as Tolkein marked fantasy tropes, I think Alan Garner set off a bunch of his own. Of course, he used tropes himself -- wise old wizard and kids landing in an adventure when they are removed from their normal lives. It's what you do with the trope that matter. I found Garner's mine escapes more exciting than Tolkein's.

Grumbling About My Writing Lessons:

Time. Where does it go. Of course, I had my critique meeting last week ... and my old man's second eye surgery. Even though I was told, not too gently, I need to add more back story to my new Half-Elven novella, I've been spending enormous amounts of time looking for book reviews.

Yes, it is a long, involved process. I blame the book reviewers for being too interesting. First, I have to go to their websites to see what they do. Then, most of them suck me into reading a couple reviews, sometimes more. There are some really good books out there ... even those written by indie writers.

Want to try reading some new writers without breaking your wallet? You might visit: The 99-cent-Book Network run by the Indie Book Collective. Contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a reader to download an e-book ... even on Amazon.

Before I go any further, I must share a link on Why Books Don't Sell from MuseInks. Since I'm one of the thousands who have an abysmal Amazon ranking, I thought I'd share this before I proceed.

Getting ready to draft a new novel? I used to do it every fall, and I bet many of you with children do the same as soon as the school bell rings. C. A. Marshall revealed a simplified way to check on your plot development: The Nine Grid Plan. I printed it off since I could even understand it ... unlike the snowflake method so many people swear at.

Trivia:

Gotta crow ... even if you aren't interested.
Richard Hayes who reviewed Taking Vengeance at What I Wrote said:
Theodoratus' Half-elven "...is a new approach to the Elven legend which is really refreshing."

Romance Rising -- Above the Cliches

2011-08-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

Kay's Book Review:

Discovered Lee Roland's book, Viper Moon, on the grocery store bookshelves, where I seem to be finding a lot of the books I read lately. The cover featured the standard sexy lady in tight leather pants ... eh ... with red hair even... eh ... but she had a red and black banded snake draped over her. Yeah, a paranormal romance tempted me, and I read it.

The front cover blurb read: Evil waits for the dark of the moon. I almost didn't buy the book because of it. What kind of smarmy evil lolly-gags around? True evil blind-sides you until you have to pull your arse out of the blood. -- Maybe: Evil gathers in the dark of the moon? Maybe not.

Fortunately, the back cover blurb developed the primary story line: Cassandra Archer is the Earth Mother's Huntress who rescues children from an imprisoned evil entity fighting to break free of his confines. So the dark of the moon is meaningful because that's the thriller deadline. The book opens with MC running from monsters in the town's sewers, probably without leather pants. The beginning timeline: the full moon. Cass has about two weeks to find and rescue two children from being sacrificed.

One disappointment with the book. I think it's a stand-alone which is too bad since Rowland developed some interesting twists on the concept of the Mother Goddess and her servants. Both Cass and the love interest are well-drawn, but don't quite rise above the paranormal hero cliche. But, the secondary characters, the setting of an urban world in decay, and the twisting villains shine. A lovely little adventure.

Grumbling About My Lessons:

Had coffee with a successful writer a couple days ago. [Yeah, our town has bunches of them.] Among the the things we discussed was editing. He doesn't. I do because I'm so dyslexic I don't know if what I'm reading is really what the print on the paper/screen says. From reading a bunch of free stories on Smashwords, I'm thinking more people than me need a good editor before they publish.

I can hear everyone groaning at the cost of self-publishing books. Yeah, it can be expensive ... especially if you write loooong books. The Passive Guy gave a link to the price guide of the EFA, the Editorial Freelance Association. It'll give you an idea of what you'll need to pay a competent editor.

Most of my time recently is spent writing ... and asking for book reviews. In the process, I've found a list of book reviewers that features mostly romance and sci fi/fantasy: Lauri Owens' Embers. Got Taking Vengeance in another queue to be reviews. Took me some two days to work through the list. Guess marketing trumps networking time.

Oh, I should mention I've given up on downloads/readers? for Cavern Between Worlds. After almost 250 downloads, I've started charging $0.99 for it. Yeah, it's up on Amazon as well as Smashwords.Yeah, the inevitable happened. The downloads stopped dead.

Last but not least. Opened my personal email this morning ... and there was a review sitting it it. Okay, the notice that a review of Taking Vengeance was posted. Richard Hays of Stuff I Wrote did a very kind review. He writes better poetry than my Bad Haiku.

Trivia:
I may be spending a lot of time in my computer chair,
but Wiggles sees to it that I get
my exercise.
He likes to be twirled in an office chair best and
meows loudly if I don't jump up and turn the other chair.

Long Books, Short Books

2011-07-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Kay's Book Review:

What's the proper length of a book? The question comes up regularly in writers' forums, and someone retells the conventions for the various genres. Never thought much about the length of the books I read, though I did notice that they tend to be in the 300 pages range. Mostly because the manuscripts I write tend to be shorter. -- Yeah, the old doubt: Am I doing it right? [I'm beginning not to care.]

Lately, however, the books in the grocery store book section seem to have gotten thicker, maybe a result of G. R. R. Martin's increasing popularity. Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man is a good example. In a world caught in a war between demons of the night and humans, Brett follows his three survivors as they grow into into the stuff of heroes, perhaps saviors. The book's rather episodic and skates along the edges of being back story, but the action and the good transitions keep the book tied together.

The three dimensional characters carry the story from they beginning attack to saving a village with newly found weapons. Brett even gives his secondary characters a in depth motivations which give them three dimensionality too. I had high hopes for an almost perfect book ... until the last pages. The story dribbled into two dimensionality when it tried to set up for the second volumne. -- Did I sense the hand of the marketing department, perhaps?

Grumbling About My Lessons:

If your writing area is like mine, it's piled higher and deeper with paper. Oh, I have managed to keep one card table free as a desk area. Even managed to do the final edit of Cavern Between Worlds before I uploaded it to Amazon. It even survived my revision of the outline of my new story. -- Everything's going so smoothly I may break my arm patting myself on the back.

Then, I read Shelley Hitz's 26 Free Author Tools, and rediscovered how much I don't know and how unorganized I really am. Take a look at her sources/tips. You'll find suggestions about everything from self-publishing a print book at Createspace to some sources to print-on-demand products to use promoting your book.

Hitz's website is crammed full of self-publishing tips and tools. You might even find some of her suggestions useful if you have a traditional publisher. -- Me? I printed off a copy and am underlining the things I should already know. My card table desk is no longer neat and tidy.

Now, I'm grumbling because I have another bunch of information to study.

Bad Haiku:

Desperation

Ships line island shores,

The anvils ring bright death’s knell.

The battle prep starts.

False king’s court dances,

Pretends all’s well in the land.

Servants drift away.

King seeks new allies.

Demons demand greatest price,

His young daughter’s life

Trivia:
How many times to blog? Some say once a week. Some say three times a week.
I'm going to try blogging once a week towards the weekend.
Why? Came to the conclusion that I mainly blog now to update my website the easy way.
I'd rather read blogs than write blog.

Elements of Good Stories

2011-07-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

Grumbling About My Lessons:

Twitter useful? Blow me over with a sneeze. Found a retweet on Friday just before I was going to log off that blew my mind. Lucy Marsden at From the Write Angle wrote a blog on "Writing the Back-Cover Copy". Her handy-dandy ten points include the hook, the conflict, a hint of emotion, a touch of danger, and much more. Her tips make a good check list for writing a good story ... as if you hadn't heard that one before.

Bet you'll find Marsden's pointers apply to more than the back-cover copy. -- Me? I went back and rewrote the entire premise of my new Mariah WIP ... though I don't quite have a handle on how much skin she has in the game yet. How useful did you find the list? Or, were you already in the outline?

The new blog title. Just wanted to say my ego didn't blow up on me. Just followed one of the suggestions from Kristin Lamb on the essentials of a blog. You're supposed to have your name in the title.I can see the search engine logic in the manuever. But ?????

Seems awkward to me. Still, I put my name in the title. I don't know yet if I'll keep it that way. Seems like I've been playing with the title, off and on, since I began writing the blog. [Can't believe I've been doing this since 2009. Yeah, almost three years to the day. A long time in terms of a snail's life.]

Time is a key element in writing. Changing back to writing in the morning seems to work best for me ... after coffee and the cat's lap time. I'm progressing again. Find I'm getting in 750 words a day plus minor revisions. [An improvement of 50% if you're into statistics.]

The idea's definitely turning into a novella, but still don't have a primary motivation for my main character. Actually, she's acting like a cop or sheriff. Maybe I'll just leave her to straighten out everyone elses' confusion.

Bad Haiku:

Rebellion

Assassins renege.

Give their oath to rightful heir,

Sing of mainland dreams.

More men leave false king.

Secret allies raise heir’s flag.

Island king watches.

Green heir seeks advice.

Island king loans brother’s aid,

The heir starts his fight.

Trivia:

Condolences to the people of Norway.

I cringe when I think that American crazies inspired Breivik.

Does Writing Openings Paralyze You?

2011-07-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

My Book Review [aka Comments]:

Okay, I know about the importance of a book's opening sentence, paragraph and chapters. They perform the important hooking function of luring the reader deeper into the book, but oh, is it sweatful. That and the cover and book blurb are major selling points when you look at a book on the rack. Yeah, Nora Roberts' The Search hooked me with the first chapter and the blurb about rescue dogs. I picked it up because rescue dogs interest me even though I'm a cat person. In short, Roberts lured me out of my reading zone.

Then, reality set in. The book's almost 500 words long, long enough to be a pain in the butt if you try to read it in less than a week. But, that wasn't the reason I found myself skimming the book half-way through. I felt the thriller [suspense novel ?] got bogged down in the detail.

Still, there's a lot to like, especially if you're a romance reader. [I'm not.] Still, I liked Roberts lip-lock scenes in this book. They weren't all sugary and weak-kneed but kept a fair amount of heat between two interesting adults. If you want to read a book about a survivor, The Search will give you a good read ... provided you are trying to kill lots of free time. I'll even grant that you might like to read romances.

Bonus Review:

Sins Out of School [a Dorothy Martin mystery] by Jeanne M. Dams ... starts with the premise: what can go wrong when a teacher takes on a substitute assignment. [We'll pause while teachers shudder.] In this case, it's a murder. The book is a nice, if somewhat predictable, cozy mystery about an sleuth who's an American living in Britain. Again, I guess my definition of fantasy stretches to this book since I can't quite accept that such places ever existed except in never-never Britain.

Lessons in My Reading:

Slow but sure does it. Still haven't done much on the book review front, but I did discover a blog about the Five Best Ebook Stores at Lifehacker. In short, the places where your ebook should be. They list these ebook stores: Google ebooks, Project Gutenberg, Kobo, B&N Nook, and Amazon Kindle. WolfSinger Press took care of the Kobo, B&N, and Amazon for Taking Vengeance.

Ugh. I have more research to do for Cavern Between Worlds since I self-published it. It's up on Smashwords which includes Kobo. The rest will have to wait until I start charging for the book in August. [Just like that, there's another item added to my to-do list.] -- One bit of information for self-publishers: you can set your book up for Pub It [B&N] and Kindle [Amazon] on Smashwords.

Yeah, the book review requests keep going to the back burner, mostly because I'm really concentrating on writing new stuff so I can publish something else, maybe. I'm trying write more pointed scenes in the draft rather have my characters drift around in an interesting situation. Found Kathryn Craft's blog about Critique Speak at the Blood Red Pencil quite pertinent. The goal is to present sharp, crisp scenes that intrigue my critiquers the first time around.

There's another reason for the slowness in the review process -- time. Finding places to submit your review means you have to read several possibilities to make sure they review your genre. Then, there's no guarantee you'll get reviewed once you get added to their queue. Still, I image much of my not-so-free time on the web will be spent going through my lists. The two best lists I've found stress indie books: Simon Royke's the Indie Book Reviewer and the Reviewer List. I'm hoping for two reviews from 100 cold calls.

Trivia:

Okay, in spite of complaining about how busy I am, we're going to see the last Harry Potter. I expect a grand spectacle after a nice lunch. No, I'm not all sad that Harry Potter's ending. I enjoyed reading the books, but often the movies did a better job telling a story.

My recommendation: all writers should read to marvel at the world J. K. Rowling created. Her writing would make an anthropologist proud.

Finding Book Reviews, etc.

2011-07-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

Grumbling About My Book Review Lessons:

Haven't progressed much on soliciting book reviews, even though its a primary task. The week-end frittered away into nothing. I accept on faith that the more reviews, the better which means I've got to shift the stick. If you're in the same boat, the Indie Book Collective has a list of reviewers on Goodreads if you're self-published.

[While you're there ... if you join or are a member, you can "friend" me. I plan to get back to visiting there regularly again.]

Then there's Maria Zannini who blogged on good cover design as a guest blog on Kristen Lamb's site: Creating Cover Art: Down and Dirty Tips. The sources of artwork is well worth the price of admission if you're self-publishing ... or considering it. Wished I knew about the sites when I was working of the cover for Caverns Between Worlds. [No, I hired it done ... but who knows what I might have found "wasting time".]

You'd probably do yourself a favor if you follow Kristen Lamb and Maria Zannini. Zannini has a link to her Indie Roadshow, a whole four weeks of self-publishing tips where she discusses various aspects of self-publishing.

Zannini does a lot of "dutch-aunting", basically with the warning self-publishing isn't easy, especially when it comes to editing. Yeah, self-publishers are in charge of the entire show ... including spending money on your project. But, that may not be much worse than low-level publisher-published authors. I've heard many complain they spent more than their advance on promotion of various kinds. -- I know I did for Taking Vengeance.

If you are interested in the changing parameters of the publishing world, you might also take a look at her guest blog at Mason Canyon's, Thoughts in Progress. Zannini writes about the steps in her game plan she made to get her novella, The Devil to Pay, published so the advantages stay in her pocket.

Anyone care to share their experiences?

In the end, the self-publishing explosion may actually be changing the parameters of book reviews. Writer Beware shares a link for an article by Patti Thorn, a former book review editor of the Rocky Mountain News [A Denver newspaper which went defunct]. First she gives a behind the scenes description of the book review desk. Then, she discusses her business: book reviews for hire ... sorry, making the case for fee book reviews, aka Blueink review. Thinking about it? I'll warn you the fee is respectably professional ... which is not to say that free reviews aren't necessarily profressional.

One networking thing I have accomplished: setting up my author's page on Facebook. Hopefully I'll be adding something new soon ... if I can get it written. So far, I've my critiquers and beta reader set up for The Trouble with Somant. Anyone care to like the page?

Quest: Chapter 8 in Bad Haiku

False King Seeks Allies

In the dark of night,

Smoke surges from toxic herbs,

Polluting dank air.

Rats stop gnawing, cough.

Roll over, die. Rightful king

Slumps in his shackles.

Blood drips in circle

As the False King seeks help from

Depraved ghosts and ghouls.

Trivia:

I've enjoyed a couple of Tess Gerritsen's mysteries from time to time. Her comments on her Six Favorite Books Featuring Female Sleuths. is a nice read for all writers, I think. Not only does she mention Julia Spenser-Fleming's Episcopal priest, the Rev. Clare Fergusson [one of my favorite sleuths], but she gives an ode to Nancy Drew ... even if she was written by a composite of writers. Yeah, I was a Nancy Drew sort of gal rather than a Sue Barton one. [from The Week, thanks to a link by Tamela Buhrke]

Magic in Paranormal Fiction, etc.

2011-07-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Book Comments [aka Review]:

Is there a greater cliche in fantasy than "magic"? Ilona Andrews Magic Slays and the other books in that series has one of the more interesting concepts of magic I've discovered. The stuff ebbs and flows, making everyone -- nulls, weres, vampires, magic workers -- cope. In Magic Slays, the coping becomes more complicated because a bunch of nulls is taking advantage of disaffected magic workers to create sleeper cells dedicated to destroying magic.

Do you catch the hint of social commentary there? Yeah, the team writers, known as Ilona Andrews, make some interesting comments about the "human condition" within the context of the story. What amazed me was they stopped before the commentary became tedious a la Edward Bellamy's Looking Backwards.

On the writerly level, Andrews trims all sorts of dangling loose ends as they complicate Kate Daniels' first job as a private investigator. Yeah, its a delight to watch how the flaws in characters come back to bite Daniels in the behind with fangs longer than a were's. The reader is even treated to some back story about her family which doesn't clog the action flow.

Never fear, even though lots of complications are resolved in the Magic Slays' story line, there're plenty more to carry the series forward. This is a series that hasn't bogged down ... yet anyway.

Grumping About My Lessons:

Barb Drozdowich at the Indie Book Collective has blog on book blogger/reviewers, simply titled "Reviews". The reason I mention it is to kick myself in the butt ... or is that "but ..." ... because I've been ignoring the "email for books reviews" on my to-do list. But then, I've also got this little item about formatting for Amazon and Pub It that's languishing from list to list.

Guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and ask "followers" on Twitter to do it. -- My Facebook pages are for people I know/met so I really don't want to beg there. -- I think my dislike of marketing could very easily rub off onto social networking. -- What do you think about begging for reviews? Personally, I don't even care if they're bad.

I'm glad I don't expect to make any money as a writer. It saves me from lots of disappointment since I'm so deep in an accounting hole, I may never see black again on my Schedule C. Then, I discovered a fascinating blog by Ellery Adams "Bares All" ,giving us the statistics on the life of a mid-list author. While he makes some money, he seems to be getting about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield.

Guess I should say I found him doing a guest blog on Jessica Faust's Bookends blog. No, Faust isn't a slouch as an agent. Adams has three mystery series, at least one of them published by Berkley. Still, he doesn't make enough to make the IRS sit up and pant ... unless he didn't file his taxes. -- It's just that most authors don't make the best seller lists. It's statistically impossible. So, forget the leather elbow patches and pipe.

[How's that for a sexist comment?

Whatever, the article is fascinating ... or did I say that already.]

Is there a cure for paltry sales? Maybe the WANA? Don't know the term? Maybe you should read about Kristin Lamb and her approach to social networking. It's a little self-promotional, but has some great insights on increasing your ebook sales. Basically, it gives some pointers on not promoting alone. Kay rating: worth printing so you can underline the pertinent parts.

Doesn't all that sound good? Unfortunately, I think I'm more congenitally geared to growling than glad-handing ... even if I'm only pressing keys.

Trivia:

The dumb cat has decided it likes to be twirled in my computer chair. I get up to touch my knees so my hip doesn't ossify, and he's usually there meowing for a ride. Today, he hissed at me when I tried to remove him. He soon got the message he's not the boss.

Quest 7, Fantasy in Bad Haiku

2011-07-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

More of Quest, in Bad Haiku:

[Taking a break from serious writing.]

Failed Plot

False king frets as spies

Relay worrisome rumors

Of a wise rival.

With threat to his rule

Lurking beyond his grasp, king

Launches assassins.

Tales of youth’s prowess

Stop the killers’ blades, convert

Enemies to friends.

Kay's Comments
(Since my "book reviews" aren't serious enough
to be a review of a book's worth.)

Actually, it's Monday, and I don't have a review per se. But, I am still thinking about a blog by the Passive Guy on reading ... and how J. K. Rowling managed to get people to open pages across the generations. I know I was an early reader of the books ... by the second volume when this cheapskate had to buy the hardbacks.

Passive Guy said it succinctly: "How Harry Potter Saved Reading."

I prefer like to think "How Reading Saves People". Is there nothing so pathetic as a bored salesclerk looking like they wanted to suck their thumb while they waited? The blank faces on subways are worse, like the time of the living zombies. Scary that they can turn off their brains. Books have saved me from such perils ... often.

Came across several bored store clerks in the past week. If they opened a book, they could have saved themselves from boredom. The time-clock probably condemns them to boredom, though. Wonder if you could make a case for "cruel and unusual punishment". Corporations wouldn't understand even though the Supreme Court says the things are "persons".

Grumbling about My Lessons:

Promotions. Promotions. Someone shared the Indie Book Collective with me, and I'm learning a lot there. You might to ... even if you don't self-publish.

But I have even something better to share if you are "indie" published, thanks to them. The $0.99 Network will help you, perhaps, publicize your book if you have an ebook costing $0.99 or $2.99. Don't have an e-reader yet, but it seems to me that this place will help you save money.

I've done a submit for Taking Vengeance [published by WolfSinger Pubs]. Now I'm waiting to see if the site masters agree with my definition of "indie" to include small independent publishers. Don't think it's up, though. I can't find it yet.

No matter really. I'll still be able to use them starting in August when I start charging for Cavern Between Worlds. Whatever, I think we're seeing networking in action -- provided I can figure out out to format the story.

Trivia:

The city road department is trying to turn me into a smarter mouse. Road construction around out town has metastasized. At least, they are creating jobs along with the inconvenience.

Finding New Authors to Read and Writing Craft Ideas

2011-07-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Book Review:

Need a new author to read? Novella collections make a great way to discover new writers. Hexed, which includes stories by Yasmine Galenorn, Ilona Andrews, and Allyson James about magic and mayhem, was no exception. Granted it included two of my favorite authors and reminded me of another whose name I had forgotten [James]. Jeanne C. Stein was new to me.

While I usually don't care much for vampire stories, Stein hooked me with her Anna Strong in Blood Debt. I've a soft spot for people who stand up to arbitrary authority, especially when they use their brains. James even came up with an interesting "other" antagonist which hasn't been overused -- at least not in the books I've read. So, I gave her four stars for creativity. I think she lost a star from me for the vampire protagonist -- even if Anna Strong fights to keep her humanity and can walk in daylight. -- Hey, the vampire meme needs all the innovation it can attract.

Another reason I like novella collections is they can fill in the back story of important secondary characters in a series. Galenorn first hinted at a tragic past when she first introduced Iris Kuusi, a Finnish house sprite, in her D'Artigo sister's Otherworld series. Her story Ice Shards fills in the details. Magic Dreams by Ilona Andrews does much the same for a more minor secondary character in her alternative world of magical Atlanta. Allyson James reminds the reader that a relatively minor character can wreck greater havoc in a story than writers normally assign to them in Double Hexed ... if a writer pushes beyond the obvious.

I was sorry when the book ended. Fortunately, I had rebuilt my to-read pile so I've a couple juicy reads to look forward to. And no, I'm not going to comment on the quality of the writing in this collection. These be master's here. -- Maybe I write half as well.

Grumping about My Lessons:
[Are we learning yet?]

Are you search engine friendly? Like do you want to make it easy to find what you write whether blog or novel? Chuck Sambuchino at the Guide to Literary Agents recently had a guest blog by Hollis Gillespie on How to be Click Magnet. If your a writer, its a skill you must learn to improve your sales and/or the readership of your blog. I know I printed a copy of the blog to study it.

Lesson: Out of the ten tips, I picked up on writing titles. I did notice my longer, more descriptive titles got more visits from search engines, but didn't think much about it. Now I have a list of handy-dandy ideas to improve my blog readership.

Good thing I printed the article. My eyes glazed over the first tips on getting most out of your titles. Did you know Google only lists 65 characters in their search engine titles? I didn't. Now I know why so many search engine listings dangle in mid-idea.

And, while you are writing that title, make it specific. I have to quote Hollis' example. Newspaper speak: "Senile Feline Enthusiast Dies". Web speak: "Dead Crazy Cat Lady of Dayton an Undercover CIA Spy". -- Rather nice that the old lady had an interesting life ... but, maybe, the red tape drove her crazy.

Did you read the article? Which tip seemed most appealedl to you?

Opening hooks have also been on my mind. Since I've been curtailing my time on the web, blog opening lines have to hook me. Then, I find K. M. Weiland's Word Play blog on hooking readers: Is Your Opening Line Lying to Your Readers?

Found another gold mine, I think, on Twitter. Galley Cat did a blog on Find Reviews on the Book Blogs Search Engine. This one's not a list of things to do. It's a link to Fyrefly Books which has compiled a search engine about people who blog about books. They also feature reviews you can search by genres.

Trivia:

Remember. No one ever said writing is easy. I've notice it's also time consuming.

New Chapter of Quest #6 - Bad Haiku

2011-07-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

Bad Haiku:

Exile

The island kingdom

Gives refuge. Heir learns and trains.

Dreams of his return.

As people suffer,

Refugees sail to island,

Search for their leader.

Heir is Island king’s

Squire. Knows ruling’s not easy.

Tells seekers to wait.

Grumping about Web Links and Other Stuff:

Want to feel sad you're stuck on earth? Watch this video, courtesy of the Science Fiction Writers Association. I would have missed it if I wasn't procrastinating on Twitter. It features a series of time-lapsed photos from a very large telescope located in Chile. In a word: Beautiful. Also a perspective people in the northern hemisphere don't often see. -- Retweets are sometimes useful.

Does anyone know why the blogs I follow keep disappearing from my dashboard? It's getting a little tiresome now that I'm limiting the time I spend social networking. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Have you thought about per click advertising? I've been thinking about it since I have credit at GoDaddy. I found Sandy Williams' blog [Magic and Mayhem] about her Facebook per-click-ad-campaign thanks to the AW Water Cooler: Do Facebook Ads Work for Authors? It's a series of blogs I'll be following with interest.

[I have a Facebook author's page under M. K. Theodoratus. So far no one's visited or liked. I can't bring myself to link my various email lists. To me, that's an imposition. Yeah ... I'm the shy violet of social networking.]

Need to go back and study SEO [search engine optimization]. Really missed a great link in my last post's title. Original: Dealing with Envy. Edited version: Dealing with Writer Envy. Most of my regulars have already read the post, depending on their reader schedule. But the search engines might find it ... and people might actually click on it. I have several blogs two or more years old that still draw new readers.

Why do I even mention that? Because I need to spend more time getting keywords into my titles and paragraphs. Keywords are the key to SEO success. [Sorry, I couldn't resist that.]

Trivia:

Forgot what I was going to grump about. Is senility happening before my nose?
The above wasn't it. It was something else that was witty.

Dealing with Writer Envy

2011-06-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

Writerly Fantasy Book Review:

Got Kevin Hearne's Hexed read. First, I want to say, I hate Hearne -- in the teenaged angst sort of way. He only wrote for 19 years before he sold his trilogy. -- [He deserves the success -- and makes my use of some of the same motifs look pedestrian.]

A second volume of a trilogy usually sags. Hexed breaks that rule. The plot arc flows as the gods, demons, witches, and dangling problems from the first book complicate things in the second volume. The story? Atticus O'Sullivan, the last remaining druid, survived an attack by gods and demons in Hounded, but one demon managed to escape and plot revenge. Atticus must defend his southwestern US turf with the suspect help of the local Polish witch coven and the interference of religious fanatics seeking to destroy all magic workers. The writing is fast and funny and totally deserving of envy.

I'm looking forward to Hammered, the third volume. Del Rey Books has turned the trilogy into a series which should be a fun ride. Hearne mix and matches a variety of the world's belief systems into one delightfully funny romp.

Social Networking and Other Web Stuff:

I don't know how Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware does it, but an awful lot of her blogs hit problems I'm facing on the nail head. A recent blog on how to get out of contracts when a publisher goes belly up or some other reason is worth saving. Guess I'm a disgustingly median writer.

[Yeah, I got a contract dangling ... but I've also got a book derived from it almost ready to submit. Book trumps short story ... so guess which one I'm putting into play. The short story can fester for the time being. I also have another contract promised when the small publisher finishes their current project. Have the draft for that one waiting for another revision. So, I'm interested in contracts as well as marketing.]

Have just survived the cover wars with a cover I like [Cavern Between Worlds] so I found N. R. Williams blog at The Blood Red Pencil last week a relief. Basically, she runs through the items your book cover should contain, a pertinent point now that so many writers are self-publishing. As she puts it: What Your Cover Should Not Do. Even if you have a royalty publisher, the article will give you some arguing points.

[Now, excuse me while I dream of some famous author writing a cover blurb for my novel. Of course, first I have to find a major publisher.]

Speaking of major publishers. It's becoming more and more important to go over your contracts with a magnifying glass ... or is that a microscope? The Passive Guy commented on Kristen Nelson's blog on Random Houses change to blanket e-royalties. Seems to me the publisher changed the e-royalties without notifying anyone. Also, I think I read something about one publisher reducing the royalty payout by contracting out to one of its subsidiaries. -- Anyone taking bets on whether the authors on the messy end of the stick will sue?

For all you thinking of self-publishing, the Passive Guy also links to a self-publishing flow chart by the Self-Publishing coach. If you don't know what good the old-style publisher does for an author, your eyes will open. -- No wonder I don't have any time except for marketing. When you self-publish you become the whole smeil.

My Writing Lessons:

My head's still spinning over my Half-Elven bible. When Dark Solstice got rejected, yet again, I went back and looked at the mess of files I have on the world -- some seven crammed folders. *rude noise*. -- So, much for thinking I'll be writing something new. Actually, I am -- another Half-Elven story set just after Taking Vengeance. Something called book reviews.

Oh, the trailer is doing well, according to Big Burrito Media ... but I haven't seen any results in the sales figures for Taking Vengeance.

No. That was not a criticism of the trailer. The results won't be in for at least six months. Mostly the lack of sales is my responsibility. So far, I haven't lined up any reviewers for Taking Vengeance.

Trivia:
The couple generic friends' deaths didn't disrupt things much as my good friend's,
which is sad in its own way.

Bad Haiku Monday & Grumblings

2011-06-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Comment alert:
I seem to have hit a nerve on my comments about shrinking toilet paper last week.

Then Jon Ray at Big Burrito Media who did my trailer for
Taking Vengeance
keeps telling me the book trailer will do wonders for my ebook
when I questioned the usefulness of trailers.
He thinks I'm too skeptical about the results [ie. sales].
His actual comment is somewhere in the comments,
but I couldn't find it in the two minutes I allotted to the search.
Yeah, I've started to time the amount of time I spend doing stuff online.

My Grumbling:

Oh, the pain of it. I'm trying to be organized in drafting my new Half-Elven story, like knowing where it's going before I write it. *hangs head* At the moment, I'm trying to figure how to work description and motivation into the action. Maybe I won't have to revise as much when I reach the end. -- Of course, I first have to find time to write something new.

The Half-Elven world bible is slowing me down though. I know so much more now than when I started it ... both about the world and how to craft a story.

Social Networking Links:

Is your Twitter account useful? I know I spend more time there than other social networking sites. The place is especially useful in keeping up with blogs of people I know or interact with frequently. -- Which reminds me of something I should mention. I've got a link to my Twitter address here. So, if you are a follower or I follow your blog ... follow me on Twitter and let me know about it. That way I can follow you back plus find your blog updates for sure. My blog roll is getting longer and longer as I find more interesting people.

So, the question: how to get the most out of your Twitter account. Jason Boog discusses Five Twitter Mistakes you shouldn't make in your Twitter profile on Galley Cat.

Need a pulse on the business side of writing? Robin Sullivan who blogs at Write to Publish has an article of five blogs you should follow. She includes Joe Konrath who recently mentioned a service that can help you get reviews for your books.

Oh, on Book Reviews.

Anyone out there know bloggers that review novellas?

WolfSinger Press gave me a pdf file I can give the reviewer for free.

I trying to steel my nerves to ask people to review a short piece rather than a full novel.

Time spent social networking is a worry according to writers I interact with personally. I'm throwing hubris to the winds and writing a guest blog on how I contain the time-slurper. [a nice word for "such"]

The Next Chapter of Quest

[More of my Bad Haiku story]

False King Attacks Again

King’s men circle trees.

Beaters narrow circle. Burn

Huts. Kill all young boys.

Heir jumps tree to tree,

Watching death’s bite through the leaves.

King’s men don’t look up.

Old king’s guards find boat,

Convince heir to leave the land,

Row across the sea.

Trivia:

Got tricked at the farmer's market. Needed "real" tortilla chips made from tortillas rather than paste. Bought them without looking carefully and discovered they were flour ... harina. While I don't have celiac [knock on my head], I do limit the amount of wheat I eat because it makes my nose drip. [How's that for an unappetizing detail?]

Cliched Characters

2011-06-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

Writerly Fantasy Review:

Lee Child: Worth Dying For. Yeah, I consider Lee Child a fantasy writer ... with thriller elements ... but really, just how realistic is the series? Reacher dodges bullets better than Superman.

In this book Reacher is creaking [badly in need of aspirin] along after escaping from the inferno at the end of the last book. Found this book disappointing, though. I thought he was moving towards more emotional involvement with people, but this book was just more of the same: Reacher seeking justice for a girl that had disappeared years before -- with help of the gang who controls the town.

Child trots his well-drawn complications [villains] across the canvas. The brutalized citizens cower convincingly -- with good reasons. There's even a cowardly drunken doctor with a heart of gold. Did I mention cliches here? Doesn't matter, really. The book's a good, fast-moving read with well-drawn characters worth studying how he places the details ... if somewhat unsatisfying.

Is there such a thing as internal cliches. Of course, there is. I think writers get into habits ... not always bad, but human brains tend to run in ruts. It takes concentrated effort to jump on the verge and go wandering. The more bushes concealing things, the better. No, I won't demand my money back because of the recycled plot pattern.

Social Networking Web Stuff:

I'm beginning to understand social networking. [I'm a slow learner.] It's simple. You're damn if you do ... and damned if you don't. I think Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware lifted my lid and looked inside my head. She posted about how she spent too much time on the web even though lots of it was work related. Ditto here even though I don't have the excuse. She does.

Then there's the other side of argument with a critique contest.

Which side of the coin do you fall on? Pro or anti or in-between?

Do you remember the brouhaha the Wall Street Journal article raised about distopian YA books? Well, Rob Brunner in his blog EW Shelf Life gives support to the opposite position. He interviews author Jay Asher about how his book, Thirteen Reasons Why, is saving lives.

Thought I'd give another person a chance to wade in on effective social media. Connor Dempsey does just that at on his blog. Of course, I mostly agree with him. -- I think I'm looking for support on cutting back on social media. Still, he makes some good points. What do you think?

I'm looking at the first pages for two of the WIPs sitting in my files as I snatch revising time here and there. Brooke Favero writing about what happened last week in the writing world for The Writing Bug linked to Katia Lief's discussion of the 3 "Cs" of Writing which gives the basics of what your first pages should do. If your manuscript isn't hooking anyone, you might take a look.

Thought I had this wrapped up when I discovered Eric's blog, "The Long and Short of It", at Pimp My Novel. He gives a nice strategy for getting published. Great ... unless your ideas always metathesizes into something longer ... and longer.

Writing Lesson:

Writing a series has other pitfalls than cliched characters. How about keeping everything straight? This problem has been nagging me since last week when I started creating seriously again.

Backstory: Once I wrote a 400,000+ word story about the Far Isle Half-Elven. Somewhere around 200,000 words, I had a harder and harder time keeping everything straight. I solved the problem by keeping a log of features, personality traits, place names, special terms, etc. Later, I discovered many writers call this a bible. Not the Bible, but the go to source when you try not to make mistakes in your own writing. Like being able to edit the mistakes before anyone else notices them.

Then, Taking Vengeance was published, and I find I need to write more in the Half-Elven world to support the ebook's sales. [Thus, the reason why I self-published Cavern Between Worlds.]

Now, I'm writing a subsequential of Vengeance. It's an idea that's been bubbling to the surface of my mind for at least two-three years, but always sank again. Now, I'm 2000 words into the thing, and I'm rather intrigued by the unfolding plot since the main villain isn't one of the Felds. I think they'll end up being the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend this time around. It'll be interesting to see how the story develops after having taken some fiction writing classes and doing critiques.

Main change: I'm having to revise the chaotic Half-Elven bible. [Watch Kay's eyes cross.... especially since she's trying to keep her characters from becoming cliches.]

Do you have a bible for your world, series, or whatever you're writing? Have you found that one helps if you only plan to write one book in your world?

Trivia:

My cheapness bit me ... again. Thought I'd try to save money on toilet paper by buying it at Big Lots. Not only was the roll short by an inch, but the paper was so thin you can almost see through it. Back to the supermarket.

Lollygagging Vengeance Trailer

2011-06-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

The trailer for Taking Vengeance trailer is done!
The final version is 2 minutes long, granted, with a great harp muscic/score by my daughter. The music is worth listening to all on its own.

Click to view trailer. Be sure to have the sound on.

That said. I can see where some people won't like it because it doesn't quite follow the story. ... That said, I like it for it's playfulness and irreverence. There are a few anachronisms, but they add to the fun.

The proof will be in the pudding, ie. if my sales increase. Incidentally, I have no way to tell if Taking Vengeance is selling. I do know that no one has reviewed it yet. Caverns? It's doing the freebie thing. Maybe some five or so people download it a day. How's that for spectacular? At least there's only one posting up now and all the downloads go in one place.

Bad Haiku:

Heir in Danger
4

The King’s men dig trap

While the stripling heir hunts game,

Guard dogs on leashes.

Heir hunts through forest,

Sees deer in meadow grazing,

Stalks deer. Dogs stalk heir.

Dogs chase. Heir sees earth

Disturbed, jumps the hidden trap,

Runs through stream. Trees hide.

The Next Big Step:

Somewhere in all my copious free time, I have to figure out how to get an author's site co-ordidnated ... as opposed to the Half-Elven world website ... up. Am looking at Wordpress, but haven't figured it out yet. Frankly, the internet makes me feel stupid.

One great thing though ... my controlled vowel pre-primer script is out to beta readers. And, I'm in the process of outlining a new Half-Elven story featuring Mariah investigating tales of a wolf terrorizing the northeastern coast of the Marches. -- I'll leave you to guess whether it's a werewolf story.

Make Your Characters Worth their Weight in Complications

2011-06-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

My Writerly Fantasy Review:

Laurell K. Hamilton writes well-drawn, multi-dimensional characters, and her new mass paperback, Bullet, doesn't disappoint with its action packed "A day in the life of Anita Blake". Just reading it makes you ready for about five naps. I can't imagine her writing the book without an outline.

The book begins will with two contentious secondary characters becoming less so ... for maybe about a fourth of the book. Even Blake, herself, shows some willingness to take directions -- maybe, make that suggestions -- from her fellows. Hey, the characters are changing here, guys, right before our eyes. How often do series characters do that?

Then, everything explodes when Blake's "menagerie" is attacked by Mammy Noir and her European vampire minions. The vampires of St. Louis scrabble to build their barricades and alliances to defend themselves. The process is great fast-moving fun. The characters don't appear on cue either, but each appearance contributes unique complications to Blake's day. -- Hamilton has the ability to write detailed action without bogging down the story line, a talent shared by Lee Child.

The pre-release blurbs give this book the feel of a trilogy within a series. Maybe the end of the Anita Blake series once she defeats Mammy Noir ... or will Mammy Noir continue to lurk in the shadows, lusting after Blake's body and supernatural powers so she can rule the world again? Guess I might just have to go to Hamilton's website and find out if there're any hints. [More social networking? Maybe I could call it research?]

Web Stuff:

My reading's really been cut off at the knees with all the bother of getting my free short story [Cavern Between Worlds] up on Smashwords and Kindle [not quite, yet]. Even with help. I also have some major critiques to get done now that the multiple funerals are over. Believe me, it would have been lovely to have a publisher do all that. They'd be done by now. Again, I can't thank Tiger Author Services enough. [I paid them too.]

I never even thought of doing an email campaign to publicize my little e-books. Mostly because I cheer whenever something gets caught in my spam filter. If you are thinking about using an email marketing firm, you might look at this Writer Beware blog. When you know which book marketing efforts don't work, you can save a lot of money.

Writing Progress:

Am in the process of shifting gears ... yet again. Have my vowel controlled pre-primers ready for revision. Yeah, hard to think that a less-than-four-page script needs revision, but it does. At the moment, the script sounds like the text. Not good. Still, don't know if the publisher is still interested. Am waiting for them to finish with the book before me before they turn their attention towards me ... if they're still interested. [Nothing like positive thinking.]

Wondering. How often do you grind your teeth when you get to a stage where a publisher is interested in one of your manuscripts?

Other than that, I'm revising ... revising ... and revising. Yeah, three different things. Oh, I had a flash fiction piece rejected ... so I have to resubmit that.

Trivia ...

While I'm tired of funerals, I think my local friends are too. A group of us are getting together for lunch ... even if all of us are "too busy".

Of Writerly Things and Marketing...

2011-06-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Cavern Between Worlds

is up on Smashwords
You can read the story for free.

"All life has disappeared from an ocean rookery far from shore. Captain Hattenel, a Half-Elven ranger, joins Voron, a disreputable sea captain, to explore the mystery, only to be catapulted into a dangerous world inhabited by dog-headed magic workers."
Cover and Formatting by Tiger Author Services .

Web Stuff:

The process of correcting my mistakes on my blog title.

Kristen Lamb rubbed my nose in my blog mistakes in a recent blog about how writing about writing is wrong ... or at least counter-productive. Why? Well, for one thing ... writing a blog is one way to keep your website updated. Probably the easiest way, in fact. So, what if you snag a reader, maybe a fan, rather than a writer friend. ... Hey, you got two different audiences there. ... I see the problem, but don't have any solutions. Any suggestions? Does anyone have a solution besides two blogs. [One blog is hard enough, time-wise, to do.] ... Yeah, I'm still blaming Roni Loren for puncturing my balloon.

So far, I decided to keep the blog title since I've been blogging with it for over two years. I put "M. K. Theodoratus", "grumbling" in the blurb.

Readers are coming to the blog from Goggle searches.Maybe, I'll get more searches with the new title ... if Kristen Lamb's right. Maybe, not. Whatever, all new followers and commenters are welcome.

Trailer Teaser:

Just learned that there are awards for book trailers: the Moby Awards. Galley Cat has a series of links for the 2011 winners if you care to take a look: best and worst trailers.

The Next Bad Haiku Chapter:

Secret Hero:

Boy roams dark forests,

Not knowing who he is. Ma’s

silent unto death.

The boy’s guard teaches

Sword skills, cunning forest lore,

Battle skills and more.

The rumors don’t die.

Villagers gossip, tell tales.

False king hunts again.

M. K. Theodoratus Learns from Her Reading

2011-06-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

Book Review:

I should hope I learn from my reading ... about many things. Why else do I read? [Okay. I like to be entertained too.] Of more concern is what I learn about writing from my reading. This time I review a book by Karen Marie Moning: The Dark Highlander. I grab the mass paperback editions of her two interrelated series -- her Keltar and Faefever worlds -- as soon as I see them.

The re-read of The Dark Highlander didn't disappoint. The funny parts ... where Chloe finds the discarded condoms under the bed and the make-out scene on the plane still elicited chuckles. Chloe doing something stupid to precipitate the denouement still raised my hackles. The parts in between entertained in spite of the cliches.

A straight romance gets boring. They meet. They fight. They get back together. [My cynic mutters: until the next fight and he, maybe, hits her.] Moning is good at mixing continuous action with her romance which save the book from being a total cliche. Even her two prologues move fast.

So, what should you notice when you read? Her mix of the Highlander series back story into the story line. Her weaving in the motivations of her main and secondary characters into the story so it doesn't bog down. Her villains as a continuous presence without the MCs, even with their magical abilities, being aware of them.

Don't understand great huge hulking men going for five-foot-two women though, even if the love interest has nice curves. As I said, cliches maintain their half-life in her writing. [An infection from the romance genre?] Even adding a unique magical resonance creates a cliche a la paranormal romance. Still, she hooks and pulls the reader through the plot twists fast enough that you don't mind the cliches. -- Hey, I read it to the end -- without getting bored -- even though I knew the specific ending.

Web Stuff...

Free time is a wonderful thing for catching up on other people's blogs ... I thought. Was glad to see Roni Loren's blog on getting the most bang out of your blog, a discussion of a Kristen Lamb workshop. Right off I learned I'm supposed to have my name or the name I write under in the title of my blog. Duh. I knew that. But, my name is Theodoratus. How do I work that into a blog title?

Addition to to-do list: Change the name on my blog. I don't think M. K. Theodoratus' Reading Lessons makes it ... but it's better than Lessons from M. K. Theodoratus' Reading. Maybe, Lessons Found in M. K. Theodoratus' Readings? M. K. Theodoratus Reads? This is getting funny ... or annoying.

For the record, I break the other rule of efficient blogging. I blog about writing. There's more to the discussion and link that you might find useful too.

Thinking of going to e-self-publishing before submitting the traditional print route? Writer Beware linked to Wired.com's John C. Abbell's blog "5 Reasons Why E-books Aren't There Yet".

Progress:

My position on e-publishing? I think self-publishing is a last or marketing option. Take a look my short story, "Cavern Between Worlds", as an example. It should be up on Smashwords soon after the time you read this -- for free. Here's the short blurb I wrote for it.

Must confess this might be considered a romance. In a novella, the story is the meeting third during an adventure to solve a mystery. And, just now, as I'm writing this ... I realize I have another novella ... if I ever find the time to finish the other parts, ie think up some complications.

At the moment, I'm deep into writing scripts for a vowel-controlled, comic pre-primer series ... for which I think I have a publisher. I won't say for sure until I have a signed contract ... though the publisher/editor keeps assuring me I'm her next project. [Hey, a two-person operation can only works so fast and still produce a good product.] I'm not even finding time to combine my separate chapters of There Be Demons into one file.

What's your position on the many options of e-publishing?

Trivia:

A thunderstorm that stripped leaves from trees and destroyed plants interrupted my writing late last night. Fortunately, it was far enough away that I got my slow-moving computer turned off before the thunder hit close. -- Got some extra reading in.

Getting a Dose of Creativity

2011-06-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

Think my creativity finally kicked into second gear. Yeah, I'm getting the haiku organized. [Watch me break my arm patting myself on the back.] With luck, the different form will be the catalyst not only to create something new, but to get it written.

So, what's the haiku doing for the creative cells in my brain? Weeell, I'm writing controlled vowel pre-primer stories again. [Much different from the reading levels taught in school.] though I really must give some credit to the publisher who's interested in an old manuscript, Pat, the Pet. We're supposed to talk contract at the end of the month ... once the artist and I decided we can go back and create new stories.

Then, there's the new world that's been bumping around in my mind for about twenty years. Yeah, that's not exactly new ... but the same motifs kept bubbling up to the surface of my mind and sinking again. Now, I'm not ignoring them. I've written several pages of background about the world, how the conflicting factions came to be, and several characters whispering in my ear.

Problem to write about? I think I'm going to focus on a "religious" shelter house for kids. -- Don't know where Maren fits in this. She's whispering too.

More important, the idea is science fiction ... though I'll probably be handling it like fantasy. Sort of real, but not, without explaining much of anything. The machines just do it.

How do you handling settings when you don't have a firm grasp upon the facts? Does it make the creation process more exciting? Or, do you throw up your hands and run away?

Oh. Someday my trailer will arrive. The music's down and editing's in process. Will also have a free Half-Elven story "Cavern Between Worlds" up on Smashwords soon.

Then, there's the fantasy haiku. I've always dabbled in haiku and thrown it away. Out of pure cussedness I posted a couple pieces on Facebook and Twitter. Now, I'm writing a story in haiku. Oddly, it fits right in with the Pat, the Pet stories.

Bad Haiku...

False Hope
II

Untamed winds whisper

Hopeful tales in people’s ears.

"The true heir survives."

False king’s men search land,

To no avail, then reward’s

Offered for heir’s head.

Heir hides, thinks he’s safe.

Traitor lurks by side. Takes prize.

Heir’s lady love flees.

Not So Trivia...

The Wall Street Journal stuck their foot in it ... the censorship pile, that is. I'm used to narrow-minded fundamentalists dictating to me, but the Wall Street Journal? Guess, I'll listen to their social advice as much as I listen to their financial advice. YA writing serves a function. It lets kids try on different worlds and ideas ... safely.