Of Writerly Things and Marketing...

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

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. 

"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."

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

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.   

Character Being Stupid

Fiction Lessons:

Review Question:  What do you do when a character acts stupidly?  

Sandra Dallas is one of my favorite authors in spite of her telling her stories instead of showing the action.  This makes a lot of sense for Dallas since she concentrates on the internal life of her characters. In her latest book The Brides House, she sets one of her characters exactly the time milieu I grew up in.  The read wasn't a happy experience.  Why?  The character kept grating on my teeth.  Why?  I had trouble accepting a smart person being so stupid.

As for Dallas' storyline as a whole, I'm wondering if it was a commentary on preordained destiny.  This is where she doesn't hit you over the head with telling you what you should think/feel ... and an avalanche of backstory ... and general internal mental constipation.  What I like best is the finesse she uses in drawing her characters.  You feel like you wished you lived near enough so you could share a cup of coffee ... or tea.

Each of the three women who live in the bride's house face the same general problem. The third story just didn't work for me.  Granted the kid was bullied.  But, for gads sake, the character grew in Chicago for most of the year.  While I'm an easy read, I just couldn't suspend belief to accept a character who could be so naive about men, even as a freshman in college.  The character wasn't dense.

Web Stuff:

Now that I've got "There Be Demons" edited, I'm looking over my idea files to see what grabs my interests.  A curious practice writers do when starting a new project -- unless they have a character chewing on their ear.  Was rather please to see Stacey O'Neal of YA Fantasy Guide writing a blog on "How Do I begin My Novel".  I've used all the techniques in various drafts I have in my files.  It'll be interesting to see what I do next -- besides revising/editing.

I'm wondering.  Anyone care to share how they decide on their writing projects?

Important to progress on your WIP is setting realistic goals -- a great discussion about which you can find from Janet Reid, Literary Agent.  How to set them and follow through, even when at first you don't succeed.  --  I totally related to this post.

How about another check list on promoting your blog?  This one by by Mavis Nong gives info about increasing traffic to your blog that I've never seen before.  I'm going to go back and study it more to see if I can get it to apply to books too.

Of course, if you don't get someone to read your story -- agent, editor, or reader -- you won't make any money.  Rhonda Stapleton, a YA writer and editor for Carina Press, blogs about how to wow and editor,  like how not to turn them off with the first few pages.   If you're revising/editing, she offer some good check points.  --  But, I'm not going back and revising Demons.  She gets to reject it in the form it's sitting in. [Guess where I'm sending it when I get untangled from from the first four things on the to-do list.]

Last but not least, I found some comments by Sebastien on creating a presentable presence on Twitter.  It's basically tips on keeping a professional image.

Thought that was the last comment, but then I read Pat Stoltey's blog on how she revises.  It's close to what I do ... though I don't read out loud as much as she does.  I linked to her personal blog rather than Chiseled Rock so you could click to the correct entry.

There.  I think I've almost got a total revision plan up there in those blogs as well as some ideas on how to squeeze the most out of your networking time.  Hope you find them useful.  [Enough of this blog.  I've got to go on to my next project.] Care to reveal any secrets to your success?

Progress:

Things are in transition around here.  My to-do list keeps growing:  get blog up, get trailer data to producer, get author's accounts set up, get free story posted [Cavern Between Worlds], get vocabulary sheets for the new project that just appeared set up, combine chapters of There Be Demons so I can submit it, finish the next chapter of Quest [Bad Haiku]  ... etc.

New project?  I'm drafting new pre-primer stories to see if I can still write them ... while the artist explores whether she can still draw them.  Why?  A publisher has indicated an interest in doing several books.  Not enough details available to say much.  Just complain about the extra work.  {Still, project gives a warm, fuzzy feeling.} 

Do you ever feel your to-do list keeps growing without any tasks getting crossed off? 

Trivia:

Miller time has arrived.  Not the beer, but the moths.  So far, we haven't had many.  Just enough to keep Wiggles hunting.  Nothing like having a 16 pound cat jump on your head so he can jump on at a moth.  I think I even have a bad haiku drafted about it.  [Those who follow me on Facebook and Twitter ... grit your teeth.  You have been warned.]