Happy Leap Day everyone! For those who wonder why I now find this day incredibly entertaining, I have included a link to a scene from 30 Rock. It was a great episode that can be fully watched on Hulu.
I was thinking long and hard about what I should talk about today, and I could only think about things that were kind of a repeat, but not entirely. I think they are worth mentioning again, because as a self-published author without a massive income to pay for an advertising firm, getting your name out there is incredibly important, and there are some ways that seem too subtle to work that actually do wonders!
First, and the one that I have seen a lot of success with (at the very least in terms of this blog) is simply joining a forum. I was coerced (I like that word) into joining a writers forum. Now I will be the first to admit that I am TERRIBLE about remembering these things exist. I have no explanation as to why, I just seem to forget about visiting sometimes. This one though I am working as hard at as I possibly can, and for a few reasons: 1) They are incredibly helpful and supportive (just like my guildies at the Steampunk guild) 2) it's really nice to network and talk with other writers, it's especially nice to know that some things I run into aren't just me. 3) My information is getting out there.
You see, with forums you have a signature, something that (if you may not already know, but I'm sure you do) gets attached to every post and/or message you send. In these signatures you can have messages, quotes, but most importantly: links! In mine I have links to my finished projects as well as this blog. The more I post, the more people will see that information, which means the more likely someone will view it.
There are other ways to help get your name out there, like I've said before there's multiple ways to work social networking to your advantage. I tried out both Google and Facebook ads, and while they may seem rather cheap at first, that cost goes up rather high too. So utilizing as many free ways as possible will help you out a lot.
Something that's also fun are contests. Writer's Digest has a lot of them throughout the year, but there are also some smaller ones that hold them too. Most will publish all the place winners in whatever publication they have, which means your work will be seen by all their readers/subscribers. It's a little more of a gamble, since you're going against so many other people, but at the very least it's fun.
I look forward to seeing you all back here on Friday for the review. I also wanted to let everyone know that March 4 - 10th Smashwords is having their annual sale. I have added The Light Rises to the list, so it will be 75% off that week. I will post the link/coupon info as soon as I have it.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
02/27/2012 Magnificent Monday!
Hello all! I hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was filled with friends, education and strangely snow. Last night was the Academy Awards, and while I didn't watch it, the only award I cared about this year was for Best Song, and the song I was interested in was 'Man or Muppet' from the new Muppets movie written by Bret MacKenzie, and it totally won!
I got some writing done, but I am realizing an issue that I'm currently having and now it's a matter of getting through it. I found a contest for short stories, but they seem to be more towards literary fiction rather than genre fiction, and I am at a loss. I've noticed there is kind of a 'we don't want genre fiction' in the world, and that makes me sad. Also, I don't have any ideas for literary fiction so that's hard too.
The other issue I'm currently running into is more of a self-esteem one that will (hopefully) pass soon. It hasn't stopped me from making progress, but it has stopped me from working on edits, or even fully acknowledging some pieces of work even exist. Still though, I'm sure it will pass, I just need to get that to actually happen. I have a lot of work ahead of me and I want to get through it!
Thanks everyone for stopping by again today. I will be back on Wednesday with my normal column. If there are suggestions, comments, questions or anything like that, please let me know and I will respond accordingly. Until then, I hope you all have a good start to your week!
I got some writing done, but I am realizing an issue that I'm currently having and now it's a matter of getting through it. I found a contest for short stories, but they seem to be more towards literary fiction rather than genre fiction, and I am at a loss. I've noticed there is kind of a 'we don't want genre fiction' in the world, and that makes me sad. Also, I don't have any ideas for literary fiction so that's hard too.
The other issue I'm currently running into is more of a self-esteem one that will (hopefully) pass soon. It hasn't stopped me from making progress, but it has stopped me from working on edits, or even fully acknowledging some pieces of work even exist. Still though, I'm sure it will pass, I just need to get that to actually happen. I have a lot of work ahead of me and I want to get through it!
Thanks everyone for stopping by again today. I will be back on Wednesday with my normal column. If there are suggestions, comments, questions or anything like that, please let me know and I will respond accordingly. Until then, I hope you all have a good start to your week!
Friday, February 24, 2012
02/24/2012 Fantastic Friday!
Greetings and welcome back! This week has just blown by, and I'm a bit surprised it's already Friday. I hope this was a productive week for everyone, but let's get right to it shall we?
Today I have "The Magic Garden" by Shane Greenhough, it's free at Smashwords and is a fun short story about a man and his garden.
The garden has a world in it that only he can see, and has seen since he was a child at the home. You learn of how he learned to handle others not being able to see it, and how that world has come to see him as well. It's a sweet little story that's, while a bit silly at times, was rather enjoyable on a Friday morning to read.
When it comes to things about the fae, it all really depends on how it's done. Whether or not I like them will often depend on my mood, since sometimes I prefer some of the more twisted and darker portrayal of the fae than the free-spirited magical possibly harmless versions. Today I felt like the latter, which is why I selected this story. It's enjoyable, and you feel satisfied for the main character when he finally gets accepted by the world he's been watching for so long.
While there are plot twists and spoilers in the story, and for politeness I won't go into them here, they aren't too far out of the realm of possibility. I caught on fairly quickly, but that doesn't mean the story isn't enjoyable. It's light-hearted and if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have put it up on my site. "The Magic Garden" is free on Smashwords and I recommend checking it out if you just want something to brighten your day.
Thanks everyone for stopping by all week. I see we have new members and the visit number has been rising much higher than it was before. Thank you for all your support and continued visits. If you ever have any questions, concerns, or recommendations never hesitate to post or contact me. I hope you all have wonderful weekends and I will see you back here on Monday!
Today I have "The Magic Garden" by Shane Greenhough, it's free at Smashwords and is a fun short story about a man and his garden.
The garden has a world in it that only he can see, and has seen since he was a child at the home. You learn of how he learned to handle others not being able to see it, and how that world has come to see him as well. It's a sweet little story that's, while a bit silly at times, was rather enjoyable on a Friday morning to read.
When it comes to things about the fae, it all really depends on how it's done. Whether or not I like them will often depend on my mood, since sometimes I prefer some of the more twisted and darker portrayal of the fae than the free-spirited magical possibly harmless versions. Today I felt like the latter, which is why I selected this story. It's enjoyable, and you feel satisfied for the main character when he finally gets accepted by the world he's been watching for so long.
While there are plot twists and spoilers in the story, and for politeness I won't go into them here, they aren't too far out of the realm of possibility. I caught on fairly quickly, but that doesn't mean the story isn't enjoyable. It's light-hearted and if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have put it up on my site. "The Magic Garden" is free on Smashwords and I recommend checking it out if you just want something to brighten your day.
Thanks everyone for stopping by all week. I see we have new members and the visit number has been rising much higher than it was before. Thank you for all your support and continued visits. If you ever have any questions, concerns, or recommendations never hesitate to post or contact me. I hope you all have wonderful weekends and I will see you back here on Monday!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
02/22/2012 Writing Wednesday!
Greetings all! So my attempt to do my post via my phone was unsuccessful. Something in the coding apparently makes a mobile interface SUPER strange. For instance: apparently punctuation and capitol letters are just as much for chumps as is getting out of bed at a decent time when you have the day off. So my apologies.
After must deliberation I've decided to do this entry about something that is simple, yet at the same time can make or break pretty much anything you do in writing: Naming Stuff. This goes for pretty much anything, titles, characters, objects, locations. Anything. Admittedly there are some that are harder than others (title, main character) but that doesn't mean they aren't all important, which is why I've chosen that as today's topic.
Now figuring out the title is important because it has many jobs to do. Next to your cover it's going to be the first thing a potential reader sees, so you want it to be strong enough to catch their attention while not make it too obvious what every plot twist and turn is going to be. Unless that of course is what you'd like to do, then by no means let me stop you! The title also needs to make sense for the genre, if you're writing hard-core science fiction space opera, having a title like "Working at the Old Dairy Farm" might seem a little strange, especially if your cover image has space ships shooting lasers at each other (again if you want to do this, by all means, go right ahead, that story might be incredibly entertaining.)
Next, the names of the characters in the story are also going to play an important role in everything that happens. If your story is a drama-mystery-ummm-horror type, having your
main character be Frankie Jigglebotham is seriously going to take away from whatever atmosphere you were trying to create the second his name is said. (Satire however is excluded, do whatever you want, you glorious thing you!) Now there are glorious Random Name Generators out there that are incredibly helpful, especially when you're stuck on what to call people. I strongly suggest using them, if not for the whole name, then for at least parts or to help get the idea juices flowing.
Something else that someone very close to me has started doing is saying the names out loud before settling on them. They started doing this after they had a character, who was an investigator of sorts, that was trying to find the main characters named Hunter Chase. Needless to say that game was paused while the players collectively gave him a new name. This happened because he had come up with one part of the name first (if I remember correctly it was the last name, then the first name later) and on paper it looks awesome and might not have been caught on as quickly (see American Gods for my favorite example), but when spoken it makes things a little...different.
When it comes to naming locations and items you have a bit more leeway in what you can get away with. Things are often named so they get some kind of attention; like book titles. Or so that they're easier to remember. Or if you're an intrepid astrophysicist you can just name stuff after what they look like (black hole, black spot, wandering black hole, I'm not making any of these up.) As long as they seem to make sense for what they are, it will be fine. Now if you call something that's described as a cube and call it the 'Prismatic sphere' then well...more power to you I suppose?
I hope this was helpful at the very least. I have provided a link to my personal favorite random name generator as well. I look forward to seeing everyone here on Friday for my weekly review. Please forgive the lateness of my post, it's just that sleeping in was so wonderful!
After must deliberation I've decided to do this entry about something that is simple, yet at the same time can make or break pretty much anything you do in writing: Naming Stuff. This goes for pretty much anything, titles, characters, objects, locations. Anything. Admittedly there are some that are harder than others (title, main character) but that doesn't mean they aren't all important, which is why I've chosen that as today's topic.
Now figuring out the title is important because it has many jobs to do. Next to your cover it's going to be the first thing a potential reader sees, so you want it to be strong enough to catch their attention while not make it too obvious what every plot twist and turn is going to be. Unless that of course is what you'd like to do, then by no means let me stop you! The title also needs to make sense for the genre, if you're writing hard-core science fiction space opera, having a title like "Working at the Old Dairy Farm" might seem a little strange, especially if your cover image has space ships shooting lasers at each other (again if you want to do this, by all means, go right ahead, that story might be incredibly entertaining.)
Next, the names of the characters in the story are also going to play an important role in everything that happens. If your story is a drama-mystery-ummm-horror type, having your
main character be Frankie Jigglebotham is seriously going to take away from whatever atmosphere you were trying to create the second his name is said. (Satire however is excluded, do whatever you want, you glorious thing you!) Now there are glorious Random Name Generators out there that are incredibly helpful, especially when you're stuck on what to call people. I strongly suggest using them, if not for the whole name, then for at least parts or to help get the idea juices flowing.Something else that someone very close to me has started doing is saying the names out loud before settling on them. They started doing this after they had a character, who was an investigator of sorts, that was trying to find the main characters named Hunter Chase. Needless to say that game was paused while the players collectively gave him a new name. This happened because he had come up with one part of the name first (if I remember correctly it was the last name, then the first name later) and on paper it looks awesome and might not have been caught on as quickly (see American Gods for my favorite example), but when spoken it makes things a little...different.
When it comes to naming locations and items you have a bit more leeway in what you can get away with. Things are often named so they get some kind of attention; like book titles. Or so that they're easier to remember. Or if you're an intrepid astrophysicist you can just name stuff after what they look like (black hole, black spot, wandering black hole, I'm not making any of these up.) As long as they seem to make sense for what they are, it will be fine. Now if you call something that's described as a cube and call it the 'Prismatic sphere' then well...more power to you I suppose?
I hope this was helpful at the very least. I have provided a link to my personal favorite random name generator as well. I look forward to seeing everyone here on Friday for my weekly review. Please forgive the lateness of my post, it's just that sleeping in was so wonderful!
Monday, February 20, 2012
02/20/2012 Magnificent Monday
Welcome back everyone! As always, I hope your weekend was as fun as mine. I saw an orchestra do a tribute to Muse and it was fantastic! I have 2 videos on my phone, which while not the best video quality, let me listen to some of the music again. They're doing a tribute to The Beatles in May, so, yay!
I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should stop hoping I'll get writing done on the weekends. I seem to do rather well with working it into my routine during the work-week, but I think because I want a break from everything, writing has started falling into that. Luckily I'm making good progress still, so hopefully my goal of having "Rending the Seal" done by the end of February is still a realistic one. There's two weeks to go, so we'll see!
I've also been trying to work out other short-stories I can work on to get my writing catalog a bit more filled-out. Nothing's been written yet, but I have some ideas; character bios, short unrelated stories, releasing things by chapter, and so forth. I was wondering what others may have tried and what worked for them. If you have any advice it would be wonderfully appreciated.
I would love for this blog to become a bit more active. Comments, discussions, questions, suggestions, all of it would be super helpful. I know it's hard to be the first one to do something, trust me, I totally feel you there. I love and appreciate all the support that I continually get and I look forward to the day when the hit-counter goes up by 100s a day.
If there are any topics anyone would like to see me address, I encourage you to contact me and let me know. I will do everything in my power to get it done for you. The same goes for book reviews as well. If there's something that you absolutely love and would like to see me do a piece on, let me know that it will happen.
I look forward to seeing everyone back on Wednesday for my writing segment. I hope the start of your week goes well, and that you get to do everything you want. Wednesday is also my bf's birthday, so yay happy Birthday to him! Anyway, until then, have a good couple days!
I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should stop hoping I'll get writing done on the weekends. I seem to do rather well with working it into my routine during the work-week, but I think because I want a break from everything, writing has started falling into that. Luckily I'm making good progress still, so hopefully my goal of having "Rending the Seal" done by the end of February is still a realistic one. There's two weeks to go, so we'll see!
I've also been trying to work out other short-stories I can work on to get my writing catalog a bit more filled-out. Nothing's been written yet, but I have some ideas; character bios, short unrelated stories, releasing things by chapter, and so forth. I was wondering what others may have tried and what worked for them. If you have any advice it would be wonderfully appreciated.
I would love for this blog to become a bit more active. Comments, discussions, questions, suggestions, all of it would be super helpful. I know it's hard to be the first one to do something, trust me, I totally feel you there. I love and appreciate all the support that I continually get and I look forward to the day when the hit-counter goes up by 100s a day.
If there are any topics anyone would like to see me address, I encourage you to contact me and let me know. I will do everything in my power to get it done for you. The same goes for book reviews as well. If there's something that you absolutely love and would like to see me do a piece on, let me know that it will happen.
I look forward to seeing everyone back on Wednesday for my writing segment. I hope the start of your week goes well, and that you get to do everything you want. Wednesday is also my bf's birthday, so yay happy Birthday to him! Anyway, until then, have a good couple days!
Friday, February 17, 2012
02/17/2012 Fantastic Friday!
Welcome back everyone! I hope your week has been exciting and full of at least some form of entertainment. I'm looking forward to the weekend though, I get to see an orchestra do a tribute to Muse, so that's bound to at least be fun. For now though, let's get right to the book reviewing!
Today we look at "The Journey of Three Friends; a Leaf, a Mud, a Water" by John Rudram. I liked this story because of the premise it followed. Three people come together to perform an experiment, they have all been given code-names by members of the International Bureau of Investigation, who are trying to intercept them before the experiment can be completed. What the experiment is exactly is hidden, so it's a mystery as to whether or not it would be good or bad for the world if it were successful.
I like the idea the story told, it was enjoyable, and was good at giving the reader something to think about. The actual names of the three characters are a little strange, but that was easy to look beyond (since it made it fairly easy to deduce who was the leaf, mud, and water.)
The story also makes the reader have to decide if they want the three characters to succeed in their experiment as well, or if they want the investigators to be successful in stopping them. You feel torn between the two ideas, which isn't something that a lot of books are able to do.
"The Journey of Three Friends; a Leaf, a Mud, a Water" is available on smashwords for .99, as is the collection of other works by the author. I suspect it'll be in the premium catalog soon enough, but I don't know what day that will be.
Thanks for stopping by all week and for always supporting this blog. I will be back Monday after what I'm sure will be an entertaining weekend. I hope everyone has fun and gets lots of writing done! Until then, have a good weekend!
Today we look at "The Journey of Three Friends; a Leaf, a Mud, a Water" by John Rudram. I liked this story because of the premise it followed. Three people come together to perform an experiment, they have all been given code-names by members of the International Bureau of Investigation, who are trying to intercept them before the experiment can be completed. What the experiment is exactly is hidden, so it's a mystery as to whether or not it would be good or bad for the world if it were successful.
I like the idea the story told, it was enjoyable, and was good at giving the reader something to think about. The actual names of the three characters are a little strange, but that was easy to look beyond (since it made it fairly easy to deduce who was the leaf, mud, and water.)
The story also makes the reader have to decide if they want the three characters to succeed in their experiment as well, or if they want the investigators to be successful in stopping them. You feel torn between the two ideas, which isn't something that a lot of books are able to do.
"The Journey of Three Friends; a Leaf, a Mud, a Water" is available on smashwords for .99, as is the collection of other works by the author. I suspect it'll be in the premium catalog soon enough, but I don't know what day that will be.
Thanks for stopping by all week and for always supporting this blog. I will be back Monday after what I'm sure will be an entertaining weekend. I hope everyone has fun and gets lots of writing done! Until then, have a good weekend!
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
02/15/2012 Writing Wednesday!
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day (if you celebrate it) or just a good day in general yesterday. My day was spent waiting for that guy I live with to get off work, so I played with my new phone and watched Harry Potter. I consider that an entertaining day off if I do say so myself.
In order to stick with the holiday theme, I thought I'd take a look at romance writing today. Now because you jump in and say 'OMG you're going to talk about lady pr0n!' you're incorrect in this assumption, so if that was what you were expecting, you may want to stop reading before you're disappointed. I will not write that kind of romance, mostly because I can't bring myself to do it, something about being shy or whatever.
No, the type of romance I'm talking about is just the general boy-meets-girl, or what have you, kind of stuff you see in movies and books all the time. This involves a love interest and such, and doesn't necessarily mean they just have a physical relationship. It involves them having one on an emotional and intellectual scale as well.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because there are going to be times when you may be worried you're focusing on it too much. At least that's a worry I'm currently having right now with one of my projects, and I'm trying to get through the beginning of a new one just so I can get away from it for a moment. I keep getting told that it's fine, but you know, the self consciousness is hard to get by sometimes.
Anyway, when you're going to be having the relationship 'blossom' as it were, throughout your story, the best way to do it is to make it feel natural. Don't shove it down the readers' mouth and make them choke on it. The way you do this is by having their interactions just seem like a normal conversation, and have their body language or tone change throughout the story to show a growing level of comfort. It's important, just like in real life, to make them friends as well, if it's just about romance it won't seem real, and the reader won't be able to relate to it. It's fine when they're first introduced for there to be physical attraction, mostly because they don't actually know anything about each other yet, and the first thing they get is the look at the person. Just make sure it grows from that.
Now there are many ways things can be done with the progression, some choose to have it get to it's 'we are in love, so now we have everything we ever need, to the bedroom!' stage somewhere between half and 2/3 of the way through the story. Others, decide to have it come to a similar stage at the end, when all of the conflicts or drama has been resolved, since the characters finally have time to focus on the tension. You also don't NEED to have them have sex, this isn't a requirement at all, at the very least you don't NEED to write it out so the reader has something they can reference. If you set things up, the reader will know, and it doesn't, again, need to be shoved down their throat. You also don't need to have the characters have a conversation about sex using euphemisms or double entandres (I'll admit, I have no idea how to spell that word, no matter how many times I tried to figure it out.), mostly because I realized that people don't actually talk like that, at least not in private company.
I hope this helped but some minds at ease when it comes to writing out the more 'sappy' parts of their stories. Don't be afraid of them (like I am sometimes), if they make the story and the characters seem more like real people, go for it (like I'm trying to!).
I look forward to seeing everyone back on Friday for my review. I hope you all have a good rest of your work, until then!
In order to stick with the holiday theme, I thought I'd take a look at romance writing today. Now because you jump in and say 'OMG you're going to talk about lady pr0n!' you're incorrect in this assumption, so if that was what you were expecting, you may want to stop reading before you're disappointed. I will not write that kind of romance, mostly because I can't bring myself to do it, something about being shy or whatever.
No, the type of romance I'm talking about is just the general boy-meets-girl, or what have you, kind of stuff you see in movies and books all the time. This involves a love interest and such, and doesn't necessarily mean they just have a physical relationship. It involves them having one on an emotional and intellectual scale as well.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because there are going to be times when you may be worried you're focusing on it too much. At least that's a worry I'm currently having right now with one of my projects, and I'm trying to get through the beginning of a new one just so I can get away from it for a moment. I keep getting told that it's fine, but you know, the self consciousness is hard to get by sometimes.
Anyway, when you're going to be having the relationship 'blossom' as it were, throughout your story, the best way to do it is to make it feel natural. Don't shove it down the readers' mouth and make them choke on it. The way you do this is by having their interactions just seem like a normal conversation, and have their body language or tone change throughout the story to show a growing level of comfort. It's important, just like in real life, to make them friends as well, if it's just about romance it won't seem real, and the reader won't be able to relate to it. It's fine when they're first introduced for there to be physical attraction, mostly because they don't actually know anything about each other yet, and the first thing they get is the look at the person. Just make sure it grows from that.
Now there are many ways things can be done with the progression, some choose to have it get to it's 'we are in love, so now we have everything we ever need, to the bedroom!' stage somewhere between half and 2/3 of the way through the story. Others, decide to have it come to a similar stage at the end, when all of the conflicts or drama has been resolved, since the characters finally have time to focus on the tension. You also don't NEED to have them have sex, this isn't a requirement at all, at the very least you don't NEED to write it out so the reader has something they can reference. If you set things up, the reader will know, and it doesn't, again, need to be shoved down their throat. You also don't need to have the characters have a conversation about sex using euphemisms or double entandres (I'll admit, I have no idea how to spell that word, no matter how many times I tried to figure it out.), mostly because I realized that people don't actually talk like that, at least not in private company.
I hope this helped but some minds at ease when it comes to writing out the more 'sappy' parts of their stories. Don't be afraid of them (like I am sometimes), if they make the story and the characters seem more like real people, go for it (like I'm trying to!).
I look forward to seeing everyone back on Friday for my review. I hope you all have a good rest of your work, until then!
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