Help Build Your Platform with These Links

Okay, am planning on catching up with all my emails though I'm still revising Dark Solstice, a Far Isle Half-Elven novel. Below are some interesting things I've found that don't fit into my book review blogs. Hope you find some of the interesting too. You'll find some promotion /social networking stuff since that's what I'm studying. -- Don't act on the information much, though.

Platform building. Does it increase sales? Kevin Lucia discusses his efforts On Building a Platform here. I think his discussion is interesting, especially in dealing with time constraints. How do your efforts measure up. ... And, yes. I retweeted it. [Do you follow me on Twitter [@kaytheod & @TakingVengeance] and Facebook [under the Far Isle Half-Elven]? I'm hiding there.]

Back to Blogging

 The world has conspired against me -- though things seems to be working out. First, I couldn't find stuff in the Google+ new format. [The above was written back in April, I think. Anyway, the above article is still useful.]  Then, a good friend had a stroke and eventually died. Then, there were my own health problems ... but the kidney tumor hasn't returned. So far, so good until the next check up.

Have you thunk about: "Turn Blog Posts into Publishers Gold". The Passive Guy linked to another blog with these interesting suggestions. I read a couple blogs that give interesting information on the time period the writer works in, one who's give a lot of frugal news, but I can even think of some writing blogs that discuss writing techniques that are unique enough to publish. 

With self-publishing so easy, it would give you a way to build a platform which would relate to what you write. Might as well use that research for something.

No, I won't be following my own advice/suggestion. I'm trying to rev up my platform by revising my Renna's Tales and turn them into real stories. Yeah, I'm going to try to write another short story, then, self-publish it for free. -- I'm tired of tooting the same two stories.

Then, there's Fabian Pattberg who has decided not to Twitter or Google+. You can read his blog "My Social Media Experiment -- No More Twitter and Google+ for a Month".  Read his justification. He's going to blog. -- Guess he could come up with a short book if he chose his topics well.

Then, how do you tell if all your efforts are working? Well, there's Klout. It's a "score-keeper" of how many people read you and how you influence them. Guess, it's a handy tool if you are interested. My score is 38, not that I know what it means. Though, I can guess it reflects my non-interest.

Good Writing Advice

Hi, says she as she peeks into the computer screen.

Know I haven't been blogging.  Kept meaning to, but I was frantically trying to get a manuscript ready to pitch at the Northern Colorado's Writers conference, held last weekend. 

For all my efforts, "Troubles" is still languishing in never-novel-land at 55,000 words. I need to add the villain-viewpoint in to increase the suspense. Plus, there are other plot points to revise into the manuscript. What? Most important, I need to keep Linden sitting on the fence until basically the end.

That realization is sort of  Novel 101, but it just hit me up the side of the head. There are so many things to fix in "Troubles" that it makes me tired to just think about them.

Fortunately, I was saved from an empty pitch by a rejection for "Dark Solstice" the day before the conference. 

Background: I have slloooooowwly been submitting the Dark Solstice manuscript to a few small e-publishers. Have gotten a couple of personalized rejections among the form ones. The main criticism? Mostly they wanted romance, even when they say they took plain fantasy. "Dark Solstice" deals, partly with what happens after the "happily ever after" crashes. A "No. No." for romance.

This time around I got a long letter about the shortcomings of the manuscript, and a colossal "DUH" moment. So, when I pitched "Dark Solstice" as a political novel of economic change and genetic drift, I was surprised to get interest instead of a startled deer expression. The agent wants three chapters and synopsis. I'm now madly writing a new first chapter with fewer introduced characters.

Most important, it opens with Mariah and Linden fighting ... rather than have the estrangement be part of the background. Since the estrangement is one of the key elements in this section of the series, you would of thunk I would have figured that out before in my many revisions. 

Nothing like feeling more than a little silly.

 #

Always like to see anthropology applied. In this case, Desmond Morris' work on human intimacy. Jenny Hansen, over at Writers in the Storm, blogs about  Using the Twelve Steps to Intimacy in your writing. -- I think this can be used on several levels, not just for the development of sexual relationships. Of course, I'm referring to the first couple of steps.

The people over at Chiseled in Rock, the blog of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, came up with a great interview with Karin Chaplin, the Tween/YA editor at Harper Collins. A lot of what she says puts the "Market" in perspective, but some of her comments apply to being an effective writer, period.

How to Write a Looooong Book...

Fiction Lessons:

Do long novels intimidate you?  I alluded to measuring the length of , Elizabeth George's This Body of Death on the store book shelves for several weeks.  I enjoy Elizabeth George's straight mystery characterizations and plotting almost as much as Laurie R. King, James Doss, and Deborah Crombie, but her 1,000 page book intimidated me.  [OK.  950 pages.  It's still looooong.]

So, how do you write a loooooong novel that's publishable?  Believe me, it's not by adding a lot of description or walking your characters step-by-step to the action.  It's by complicating your plot with potential bad guys and giving your secondary characters a life of their own.  

So, how does George write a looooong novel without padding?  With these elements:

1. a sub-plot where one villain's previous crime [a child murder than mirrors a real-life British murder] which impinges on the current London murder of a "missing person" in another part of Britain;
2. the complications of Thomas Lynley, the major detective, returning to his old crime unit while still coping with his wife's murder and a new supervisor, who's auditioning for his old temporary position;
3. a sub-plot involving his old partner, who the new supervisor is pushing to look more professional, and a change in the relationship with her ethnic neighbors.  [Dress is a point of humor for long-time readers of the series.]
4. several possible villains, including three from the previous child murder, who are investigated by various members of Lynley's old unit; and  
5. several people who add facts and observations about the murder, including several red herrings and a busybody who gums up the works.

The total gives the reader one long book without violating the various craft rules you keep reading in books and blogs. 

Other Stuff:

Rather than pull a bunch of stuff from the web together since I haven't been spending much time there, I thought I'd mention some useful articles in the May, 2011 issue of the The Writer.  Their article on 12 tips for an air tight contract hooked my attention, what with me being negotiating all sorts of stuff for the trailer.

The issue focuses on freelancing, but there are other topics of interest to fiction writers too.  Ideas on keeping your stories from bogging down, centering you story's emotional core, and creating/controlling conflict. 

I should mention that Writer's Digest did another best of the web section for 2011. 

Progress:

Yeah.  I've finished my edits of "Dark Solstice", but haven't combined the chapters yet.  I'll learn the bad news tonight.  Then, I'll slap my hands if I try to make any more changes.

I did take a detour and turned a flash fiction piece, "Devil in the Details" into a short short story, thanks to E. J. Wesley's mention of some e-pub that likes stories about bugs.  The big light bulb in the sky flashed.  I added beetles as the imminent danger.  Now, I have to smooth the edges.

Almost got the critiques done for our next session.   Oh, there's a short piece on good critiquing in The Writer too.

Trivia:

Our lawn is filled with blooming violets, both purple and white.  Must say I like them better than the grape hyacinths.  Violets are tidier.  --  And, it snowed an inch, a rarity this winter.

Passive Voice, Passive Lives

Trivia:  Got the old man to do something new today.  After the farmer's market (corn, tamales, chilis, peaches, honey for baklava and other good stuff) and coffee, we walked down to the Poudre along one of the Martinez Park trails.  Lovely.  Trees, people, bikes, grasshoppers, dogs, horses -- all using the trail without crowding each other.   A nice quiet walk with birds and the murmur of 287 traffic in the background.

We usually walk  the Spring Creek Trail near Rolland Moore Park.  I see a switch in trails even though we have to drive further and no fishies.  Too much garbage and dodging bicycles.  

Comments:  Just plain disgusted with the whole narcissistic political mess.  Like my bumper sticker says:  "Invest in America.  Buy a Congressman."  Don't think it matters much which party's in power.

One comment does come to mind.  Somewhere I read: 'Invent it in America, manufacture it elsewhere.'  -- And the corporate goons think the American body-politic is going to buy us out of a recession.  Can't they see the unintended consequences of sending American jobs overseas?


Reading:  Finished Louise Penney's No Rules for Murder ... or some such thing.  Dinner Group is tonight, and I have to take it to a friend to read.  Not as much head hopping in Rules and some nice background on Gamache's life.

Have to decide what to read next.  Probably rereading Rutherford's The Forest.  Talk about telling!  I wonder if he could even get it published without major chopping now days, but history is seldom so palatable.  Besides, Salisbury is one of my favorite British cities.

Writing:  Not much is going to get done today.  I have to cook munchies for the Dinner Group. (We've been meeting mostly once a month for forty years now.  Our conversations have switched from diapers/babysitters to medicines/ailments.)

Emma's still on her hill, but I hope to get her off of it tomorrow. 

Tangled is still hogging my sitting time.  While it's the 'second' book I wrote, it'll probably be the most salable of the six if only because of the sexual politics intertwined with the civil/military politics.  Actually, it's rather embarrassing to read, but my critiquers are slapping me into shape -- catching passives, adverbs, telling, and confused sentences.  Back story is getting eliminated up an down the chapters. 

Have gone back to the title:  "Austel's Idiot: Caught in a Tangle Maze".   Yes, there is another one:  "Austel's Idiot: Dark Solstice".


Plenty of passives in writing this, but that wasn't what I was aiming for.  I ran out of time so on-going past action action will have to wait.


Progress:  Chapter 6 of Tangled is now 4200 words, down from 5900.  Talk about unnecessary verbage.