Words of Wisdom…

…gathered over the past week from around the blog-o-spere:

1.  From Karen Knows Best, a post by Azteclady (this was last weekend)  about piracy in the world of ebooks.  The post itself was interesting, but the comments that came after were even more so.  Seriously, are there people out there who actually think downloading e-books from sites that offer them for free isn’t stealing?  Apparently there are.  Come on, people get a clue here, you’re taking someone else’s hard work and not paying them for it.  Hmm…sort of on a par with plagiarism. 

2.  There were multiple posts this past week dealing with New Concepts Publishing and their latest vendetta against the authors who’ve been trying to get their rights back.  Well, they gave some of them back but in shall we say, a less than professional manner, posting the author’s pseudonyms and giving their real names.  Why do they think authors use a pseudonym?  Trust me, there’s usually a good reason and it’s not because they hate their real names!

3.  From the EREC blog on June 23rd, a new market for romance writers–and readers!–coming from Grass Roots Magazine, Love Stories Magazine.  Click on it and check it out!  Their submission guidelines will give you the scoop.  Pays $300 dollars for a short story and $50-75 for poems.  I don’t write romantic poetry, but I have a feeling Ms. Veinglory speaks the truth when she says, “a paying romance poetry market, that’s like finding a unicorn!”

4.  Also from June 23rd, one of my favorite Red Sox blogs had a post that had me laughing so hard I almost hurt myself!  The blog?  Basegirl.  The post?  Walkoffs and Bulldogs. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.   The hilarity?  Kristen (Basegirl) and her friend Amy discuss Jason Varitek’s awesomeness and come to the conclusion he’s the “Banana Republic cut” when it comes to catchers.  I have to agree with them, since I’m almost as big a fan of Tek’s as I am of Manny.  Hey, I didn’t name my car Tek for nothing!  Well okay, it had a little to do with the fact that I drive an Aztec, but note the spelling, TEK, which is in Red Sox Nation, the name for our stupendous catcher/team captain.

5.  I think this one comes from the comment section of #1 above, but I can’t be sure and I don’t have time to go back and look it up.  It’s something I came across early in the week, and it struck me as “words to remember” so I copied and pasted it to my file on Book Promotion Ideas.  It comes from best-selling author, Nora Roberts.

“Most of us who write, as most of us who write know, want to write. Want to be alone, don’t want to go out there in the world. Some of us go out there when we’re told we must, and we do just fine. But that is NOT how we want to make our living. Moreover, it’s not in our skillset.”

Can you believe that?  Nora Roberts feels the same way I do about writing and promoting her books.  She wants to be alone, I want to be alone.  She doesn’t want to go out there in the world, I don’t want to go out there in the world.  She just wants to write, I just want to write.  But here’s the real wisdom in her comment: ”Some of us go out there when we’re told we must, and we do just fine.”  

Thanks, Ms. Roberts, I’ll try my best to remember that!  In fact, I may just make it my mantra as I move closer to the release date of my book.

I’ll do just fine…I’ll do just fine…I’ll do just fine…oh, God, where’s the bathroom?  I think I’m going to be sick!  Is there a doctor in the house?  I want my mama!

Self-Promotion…finding my way.

After a week of furious writing–48,000 words and counting!–I spent yesterday morning researching poisonous snakes–did you know North Carolina is the number one state for poisonous snakebites?  I didn’t, but I do now and I fully expect to have a few nightmares after reading about it!  Then to take my mind off the hideousness of that and to calm the heebie-jeebies a bit, I spent a couple of hours browsing through the promotion sites I have on my favorites list.

There are a lot of them out there, some packed full of really good tips and some with only a few, but worth reading anyway.  A couple of my favorites:

Muze’s Musings (Free Ways to Blog Your Book Promotions)

David Louis Edelman (A Guide to Ethical Self-Promotion)

Both well-worth reading.  And then there’s DeAnna Cameron’s blog, On Writing, Publishing, and Other Odds and Ends (many thanks to author Lisa Alber for directing me to this sight!).  It’s a great source for learning about what other authors are doing to promote their books.  Ms. Cameron has asked various authors the all-important question, “How’d you find your audience?”  Some of their responses are helpful, some priceless, and all entertaining to an aspiring author with a book coming out soon.

Finally, there’s a great article in last month’s RWR, Self-Promotion for the Introvert by Jane McBride Choate.  Haven’t checked to see if this is available on-line, I suspect it is on the RWA site, but I don’t know if you have to be a member to access it.  Anyway, it’s an interesting article and in my case, highly appropriate because I consider myself the most introverted of all introverts.  Seriously, I don’t like people I could do without people I’m shy, damn it!

One of the best things about this ariticle?  It validates something I’ve suspected for quite a while now; the efficacy of having a MySpace, Facebook, etc. page.  The following quote comes from Gwen Shuster-Haynes, a Harvard MBA who has an online class for writers; “Introverts and Extroverts:  Create a Career Path Built on Your Strengths.”  Ms. Shuster-Haynes says, “If you write books that are read by readers ‘of a certain age,’ creating a presence on MySpace.com or Facebook.com doesn’t make sense because your readers aren’t spending time at MySpace and Facebook.  If, however, you write with a hip, fun voice that attracts college students, your marketing priority should be to establish a presence at MySpace, Facebook, and whatever the next communication technique that will he hot for college students.”

In other words, know your target audience and create a presence where they’ll be sure to see you.  Exactly what I’ve told various friends, both in the real world and in cyber-space, MySpace isn’t the place for me.

The thing is…I reluctantly set up a MySpace page back when my first ebook came out, but I haven’t done much with it.  First, it makes me nervous because my computer security system kept popping up and saying I’d clicked on a dangerous site.  Second, it was obvious to me from the start that the MySpace crowd is a little young for my books.  Third–and I admit this one and the next one is a personal thing–I don’t appreciate a site where anyone can send me messages telling me I’m a bitch.  And fourth, am I the only person in the history of MySpace who wasn’t ‘friended’ by Tom–or whatever the heck his name is–when they first joined?  What’s up with that?  Does he know something about me that I don’t know?  Did I do something to offend him?

<sigh>  Getting back to my point, I just don’t think MySpace is the place for me to find readers.  I never signed up for Facebook and I’ll keep the MySpace page, but I doubt I’ll do much with it.  I’m thinking there are a lot better places for a romance author to spend her time…like GoodReads, Gather, Author’s Den, Shelfari, My Library Thing, Cata Romance, Romance Junkies, ParaNormal Romance, Coffee Time and various other of the seemingly infinte number of romance forums, Amazon, Nothing Binding, etc.

Oh man, I think my brain just exploded!  Maybe I should take a break from thinking about promotions and watch the Red Sox go up against the Cardinals on Gameday.  But given the June-swoon Boston seems to be in right now, I don’t think I can take it.  Hey guys, do me a favor and snap out of it, would ya’?  A win today over St. Louis would soothe my promotion-challenged, over-taxed mind. 

   

 

 

Catfight!

What do you do with a character who refuses to do what you want her to do?  Do you force her to fall into line or do you just throw up your hands and let her go the way she wants?

I’m in a down and dirty catfight with one of those right now and it’s driving me crazy.  Not so much the fact that she’s winning, though I’ll admit that has me a feeling just the teensiest bit peeved, but when I read back over what I’ve written each day, I know she’s right.  And damn it, I find it hard to argue with that.   

The thing is…I’ve been told by numerous people, all who know a lot more about writing than I do, that a writer should never, never let the characters take charge of the story.  Yet, it seems with every book I write, there’s at least one character that does exactly that.  And it’s something of a major struggle for me to make that particular character behave according to an outline or the vague guidelines I have in my head and the pithy notes I’ve scrawled on scraps of paper and scattered all over my office.

This character, one Betty Sue Corn–and some day I’ll have to tell you the story of how I got her name, it’s a good one–is a timid, logical, don’t-rock-the-boat kind of woman.  She’s approaching forty, an old-maid librarian at a middle school, and considers herself practical and extremely ordinary.  But when I got her up on Eternity Mountain, the setting for my Eternal Shadows series, and she met Marc, the hero of the story, she turned into a  smart-ass, daring, and at times, flatout bitchy woman.  And let me tell you, I just know she’s not going to be happy if she doesn’t get to be a kick-ass heroine in the end.

But this is a romance.  A paranormal romance, which gives you a bit of leeway with the characters, but a romance, all the same.  The hero’s supposed to rescue the heroine, right?  Well, yeah, but she’s not having any of that!  And given a number of posts I’ve read recently on the romance blogs, and the comments made on them, readers are getting tired of the hero always being the one who saves the day.  So, maybe I should let her do what she wants to do, let her be the white knight, so to speak.  God knows, I did it in the first book of the series, Snow Shadows.  No, I’m not going to give away anything and I hope you’ll forgive this bit of BSP (blatant self-promotion), but the heroine in Snow Shadows, Ellen, doesn’t just lay down and whimper when her happy ending is challenged.  She fights back, or at least tries to.

Difference is, that was my idea, not the character’s!  But Betty Sue has a mind of her own, she’s taking this book in directions I never intended it to go.  And I don’t know whether to be glad that she’s keeping me from the dreaded “midway hump” or flat-out pissed about it.  All I know is the working title for this one, Storm Shadows, is turning out to be the perfect choice for this book because she sure is stirring up a storm of massive proportions in my brain.

<sigh>  I guess I’ll just have to wait till the dust settles to see how this one turns out.

 

A Muse(ing) Conversation

So, I topped 35,000 words on Storm Shadows yesterday and was anxious to get back to it this morning.  The words were right there at the front of my mind and when I sat down at the computer, I could just imagine them flowing in an effortless stream from my brain to the keyboard.  I was happy, content, eager to work.  As I waited for the file to open, I sent up a prayer to the Romance gods that the dreaded “Midway Hump” would bypass me on this book.  Then I shoved up my sleeves, flexed my fingers and got busy. 

Less than a minute later it happened.  My muse popped up and shattered my world by uttering three little words.

Her (smirking):  You’re an idiot!

Me (eyes wide, mouth dropping open):  What?  What?  WTF are you talking about?

Her:  Watch your language, who do you think you are, one of your heroes?  I said, you’re an idiot.

Me (blinking owlishly, trying to hold on to my temper):  And just why am I an idiot?

Her (gesturing to the computer screen):  Pay attention to where you’re going with this story.  You can’t do that, it’s inconsistent with Snow.

Me:  I’m not working on Snow Shadows, that’s finished.  I’m working on the second book in the series, Storm Shadows.  Now, go away!

Her (rolling eyes):  That’s my point, Snow’s finished, its in the hands of the publisher, the ARCs have gone out, it’s ready to be printed.  You might even go so far as to say it’s etched in stone.  You can’t change…

Me (jumping up to dance and wave my hands over my head):  Only a couple of more months.  High five!

Her (crossing her arms over her chest):  Do you have any idea how stupid you look?  Sit down, shut up, and most important, listen up!  Your prologue on this one is inconsistent with Snow.  Hell, the whole thing is inconsistent.  Marc is always going on about his fear of death and about dying, you even have one part where he says he’s died before and he’ll do it again.  The curse, you mental genius, the curse, do you even remember the curse?  He’s immortal, he can’t die! 

Me (sitting down and sighing):  I know, but he doesn’t actually die and the legend I’m using for Marc is different.  I can–

Her (shaking a finger):  No, no, no, a thousand times no.  You can’t, and as long as I’m participating in this book, you damn well won’t!  Go back to the beginning and fix it.  Don’t make me get mean, you won’t like me when I’m mean.

Me (sulking):  You’re always mean.

Her:  No, I’m not.  What I am is consistent.  You’re writing a series, constistency is extremely important.  That (pointing at computer) is not consistent.

Me (sneering):  What was it Thoreau said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”?

Her (throwing her hands up in the air):  OMG, you are an idiot.  First, it was Emerson who said that, not Thoreau.  Second, when it comes to books in a series, a foolish INconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.  And the minds of your readers aren’t little.  You don’t think someone will catch it and call you on it?  Quit stalling and change it!

Me:  No!  Look, I know what I’m doing here.  I’m the writer, for God’s sake!  What I’ve done so far will be resolved later in the book.

Her (left eyebrow arched):  And how, pray tell, are you going to do that?

Me (mirroring her move, arching my right eyebrow):  I have some ideas.  You’re not the only one with an imagination, you know.

Her (snarling):  Your imagination is useless without me.  Now, how are you going to fix it?

Me (hunching shoulders):  I don’t know yet, but it’ll come to me.  Maybe I can…no, that won’t work.  How about…no, that won’t do it either.  I know, I know, I’ll…shit!

Her (laughing as she fades):  That’s what I thought.  Tell you what, when you figure it out, give me a call.  

Me:  Wait!  Wait!  Come back!  I need you to help me fix this, I need your input, your creativity, your thoughts.  I can’t–

Her (looking smug, hovering near the ceiling):  Go on, say it.

Me (sighing):  I can’t do this without you.

Her (shaking her head):  Somehow, I don’t think you really mean that.

Me:  I do!  I swear I do!

Her (pointing at the floor):  Not good enough.  Come on, you know the drill.

Me (getting down on my knees):  I’m sorry I doubted you.  Please, I need your help.  If you desert me, I’ll never finish this book.  I’m begging you, don’t go away and leave me here to do this alone.

Her (shoving up the sleeves of her bright yellow sweatshirt with a glowing lightbulb and the words “Muses do it in your head” emblazoned on the front):  Much better.  Now, get up and let’s see if we can fix this mess you’ve made.  Here’s what I’m thinking…

 

Those crazy kids…

Before I start, I have to tell you this post has me feeling a bit um, shall we say, creaky?  It’s a bit of a reality check when you find yourself watching one of the kids whose diapers you used to change standing in front of a minister pledging to love, honor, and cherish someone.   

Yep, that’s right, we went to a wedding this weekend.  Our oldest niece on my husband’s side of the family got married.  The bride, Rebecca, was jaw-droppingly beautiful, and the groom, Zach, was handsome and very, very excited.  As I watched them exchange vows, I couldn’t help thinking, “Wow, he’s either been hiding a bit of a flare for the dramatic or he’s extremely passionate and really, really, really eager to get married.”  And when it was Rebecca’s turn, she was the same way, though a bit less dramatic, but still…well, again, the word passionate come to mind.

So, when it came time to exchange the rings, the minister asked Zach’s mother to come up and take back the Purity Ring he’d worn since he was thirteen and took a vow to keep himself pure until he married.  Ah-ha, I thought, that explains it.  But then, when the minister at last got to the “You may kiss your bride” part of the ceremony, it became even more clear.  You see, Zach and Rebecca had not even exchanged a kiss on the cheek in all the time they’d been dating and engaged, never mind the lips.  That kiss, at the end of their wedding ceremony, was the first one for them as a couple.

I have to admit, I’m still a little dumbfounded.  I mean, I can understand if a couple wants to wait until they get married before they have sex, but waiting till you’re married before you kiss?  Hmm…I don’t get it, but as I’m clearly showing with this post, I’m old. middle-aged.  Plus, I’m a product of the baby boomer generation and well, you know us, we were all about free love–literally!

The thing is…I’d met Zach before and noticed he wore a ring on his left hand but I never thought anything about it.  I just assumed it was one of those new-fangled engagement rings for the grooms because my other niece who’s getting married in August bought one of those for her future husband.  So, I thought this was another hip–and yes, I know, showing my age again–young couple doing what young couples do today, exchanging not just wedding rings, but engagement rings too.  

But, I never expected that ring was a symbol of a vow he made to keep himself pure for his future wife.  And I do mean pure.  Not one kiss.  Man!  Unreal!  

Those crazy kids…what will they think of next?

Respect, Anyone?

Yeah, I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting this blog.  I’ve been busy writing and in my spare time, I’ve been researching ways for authors to promote their books, ’cause, you know, mine’s coming out in a little over two months.  I figure it’s about time I quit screwing around and get busy…doing something.  And if not doing, at least planning what I’m going to do.

So, I went on the Internet and wow!  Jackpot!  I found a slew of articles, several very informative sites, and quite a few blogs, all pertaining to the best ways to promote your book.  Too many to mention here, but I’ve bookmarked them all and hopefully, I’ll be able to figure out what to do before Snow Shadows is released.

And a big hat tip to Lisa Alber for finding my blog and leaving a comment, thereby enabling me to find her blog, Lisa’s Words at Play, where I found a wonderful, hilarious YouTube video that reminded me I’m not the only one struggling with promotions.  Here’s the link to Lisa’s post and oh yeah, the video came to Lisa’s attention by way of Patricia Wood’s blog.  Go ahead and check it out, I promise you’ll laugh out loud–especially if you’re an author–and you’ll also get a good lesson in what not to do when your book comes out. 

Okay, so when I wasn’t researching, I was writing and reading.  Got about five thousand words written on Storm Shadows–not as much as I’d hoped–but I also started the third book in the series.  No title for that one yet, but I think it might be the easiest one to write because I’ve already fallen hard for Luke, the brother who’s the main character in that one.  On top of all that, I found the legend I want to use for the fourth and final book–again, no title, but for me, finding the legend is a big step forward because it’s been giving me a bit of trouble.  As for reading, I read The Tall Woman by Wilma Dykeman, the story of a southern woman during the late 18th century.  My dad used to work with Ms. Dykeman at the Knoxville News-Sentinel and he loaned me his autographed copy.  Great book! 

Other than that, not much going on in my world, well, except, squee!  Manny Ramirez hit his 500th homerun, but 500 apparently wasn’t enough for him, because he went on to hit numbers 501 and 502 in the next two games and number 503 last night.  Yay, Manny!  Oh, and the Red Sox are back in first place in the AL East after sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway.  Woo-hoo!  Way to go, guys!

Okay, back to my writing world…I happened to catch a post by Jane at Dear Author the other day; ”Hello, I’m Jane.  I have a lot of reader baggage.”  Interesting and as most of the posts on DA are, entertaining.  Quite a few people commented, both readers and writers, and had some interesting points of their own to make.  But the one that really caught my attention was from Emily.  It included a link to Sharon Lee’s blog, Eagles Over the Kennebec, and a post where Ms. Lee writes about The Contract Between Reader and Writer.  A lot of food for thought in that one and I encourage every writer/reader to take a look at it.

The thing is…I’m both a writer and a reader, so I need to really study that thing.  I’m thinking of printing off a copy and hanging it on the wall of my office where I can read it every day.  Oh heck, who am I kidding, I need to memorize it, or maybe make a chart and stitch a sampler of it!

Then again, a better plan might be to pull out my Aretha Franklin CD and play it every morning, because essentially, Aretha got it right with only one word; RESPECT.

So, I as a writer, promise to do my best to remember you as a reader deserve my respect…and I hope you’ll extend the same courtesy to me.