Liebster Award!

This is what I found in my comment box at the bottom of my last post:

Congratulations, I've tagged you for a Liebster award! Here's how you claim it:

Answer my 11 questions
Share 11 facts about you
Pass the Liebster on to 11 favorite blogs
Come up with 11 new questions for your nominees to answer.

Here are my questions:

1. What's your favorite book?--I have too many to mention and they change with alarming regularity...maybe Through the Looking Glass, at least for today.
2. What's the latest book you read? Susanna Kearsley, The Rose Garden
3. What did you have for breakfast? fried egg on whole grain toast...
4. Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry, or none (or all) of the above? all and in the same order you've listed
5. Where would you go on your dream vacation? hmm...I loved Bali...I want to go to Bhutan...
6. What was your favorite subject in school? duh...english, but most specifically, writing...
7. The zombie apocolaypse is here, and you grab the object immediately to your left to use to defend yourself. What is it? a metal hanger for bird feeders
8. Night owl or morning person? definitely morning
9. Who is your favorite villain (from your own characters or other people's characters)? since I've just finished the last book of my trilogy, I would have to say Brandubh, my priest gone very very bad...
10. What do you do when you aren't reading or writing? yogaing, walking, pondering, meditating
11. What's your computer wallpaper? picture of the Catalina mountains behind our house covered in thick fog...

You can check out the facts I shared, download your own copy of the lovely award image, and see your fellow nominees at http://www.kyrahalland.com/1/post/2013/05/ive-been-liebstered.html

UGH! 

So, next...11 facts...

1. I don't smoke but I did until I was 30.

2. I love wine and lately sangria

3. I have my gray hair woven with dark lights (dark lights????)

4. I'm interested in herbal remedies and use them often

5. I hate going to the dentist

6. I hate to cook

7. I don't like crowds

8. Talking in front of people scares me

9. I've been married for over 30 years...

10. I'm stubborn

11. I'm a capricorn
Here are the bloggers I'm tagging:
non-conformist
Ellie
Uvi
Debra's Book Cafe
Alaine's blog
The Warrior Muse
cabin goddess
love of the goddess
Veronica's Garden
Blue Monkey Writing
Kate's Book Life

formatting, marketing and other suicidal endeavors

Things are coming together, more or less. My new cover is in process...my interior e-proof should be sent to me any day now.  I have now decided, from speaking with several other indie authors, that formatting is not so difficult. Now that I have a cover designer I think I may give it a try on the next book. According to one source it will take a day. Hmm...I'm recalling my frustration just two days ago when I tried to work on my Wordpress website and the button to add a photo refused to do what it was supposed to do..I tend to go ballistic rather quickly when out of my comfort zone--especially when it includes electronic devices. But if I manage this, working with Createspace will be a breeze, without all the delays that I've had to deal with. We'll see...

This past week has been devoted to marketing. I've contacted several sites for reviews with some success. I joined a paranormal writing group on Goodreads, which has a lot of interesting discussions, including one on reviews. My book is by no means a bodice ripper but since it does have a strong love story woven into it I am calling it a fantasy romance--or should it be romantic fantasy? In any case it opens up a much wider audience and gives me more options to explore. Romance seems to be a very popular genre but there also seem to be many sub-genres, from the Harlequin type to just a plain old love story and everything in between...and what exactly are the parameters? I guess I  should read a bit more before jumping in with both feet. Some of the sites I've visited have covers that depict half naked women and men that seem to point to a storyline very different from mine. And heading off in the other direction, I've come upon reviewers who will not review a book with sex scenes!

In the spirit of my new bravado, I've signed myself up to do a reading in Portland when I'm there in June! It's easy to do such things when they are in the future and in a galaxy far, far away--how will I feel in early June? I plan to drink several glasses of wine beforehand...will my slurred words make any sense? Maybe I can enlist others and put on a little skit--a dialogue scene. That actually sounds fun and a lot more entertaining for the audience of my three friends.

Do you do your own formatting? And if so, how frustrating is it, really?

more of the same different day...

And so the createspace debacle continues. I would love to say that because I was so thorough with my editing, the book took less hassle and time to produce, but sadly that is not the case. They no longer do the 'interior changes form' and that is a good thing since it was meticulous and time-consuming in the extreme, but...I got the digital proof back with all sorts of weird formatting issues (numbers and letters where words should be)and dotted lines that didn't belong that I can't get rid of--things that were NOT in my original MS... I called them and of course it's on me to go through the entire book AGAIN and correct their mistakes. Deja-vu anyone? What is it with them?

I know what it is--they don't look at what they're doing. It is VERY annoying to pay a lot of $ and then have to clean up the mistakes they add. But on the good side I have been rewriting some rough spots--of course I could edit forever...

The other issue is that I've decided not to go with the cover they did for me, but when I asked if I could change it, they said no--only if I submit my own artwork...I guess what they meant was no unless you pay the original fee all over again. Well, on that note, I found Viola at-www.EstrellaCoverArt.com--and discovered a cover that I like a lot. And for a nominal fee I can have it altered to suit.  And so this all pushes the book release back again. But what does it matter? I'm in no rush and I mainly want it to be right.

So any suggestions for my next book? Has anyone had experience with Lightning Source? Or are they the same company; everything seems to be merging these days. Or maybe I should have it formatted myself...it probably wouldn't be any more difficult to do everything piecemeal. And it might cost less too. My main concern is getting it up on Amazon as POD as well as Kindle. Guess I have some research to do...

Why do we write?

What is the main reason you write? Is it because you can't not, or is it that you have something to share that you think will add value to the world? Or maybe it's a little of both and many other things combined.

I've always loved to write but also felt that what I had to say was boring, not well written or, 'you fill in the negative' blank. This still applies but in a lesser sense as I grow older. With two, almost three, self-published books under my belt I still worry that my writing isn't good enough or the stories not compelling enough but I still write them and publish them. That's the difference. My own angst doesn't keep me from keeping on, the thoughts are just a minor glitch in the process. Without these considerations I wouldn't take the time or money to get my work properly edited. PRACTICE is what improves the writing, not someone else telling you how to do it.

Everything is subjective and because of this I made an executive decision to trust my own voice. I knew for sure that if an agent picked up my book they would want to edit the hell out of the story. I wasn't willing to have my ideas  changed around to suit a fickle public according to an editor who might or might not know what was around the next corner. If I wanted my antagonist to be a Catholic priest, he was going to stay a Catholic priest. If I wanted several pov's in order to add fullness I was not about to rewrite to satisfy someone else's whim about the marketplace.

So what it really comes down to is: I write for myself. The stories weave their own way across the page and I follow them. Sometimes I need to rein it in a bit, sometimes I need to let it run wild. At the end of the day it's my choice and my creative spirit that I don't want to tamp down with 'shoulds'. The idea of writing to please someone else just doesn't compute. Of course I hope that people enjoy reading my books but I know for certain that some will and some won't.

I realized early on that the books I write are the ones I want to read and can't find. Many times when I'm writing, the process feels like reading a good book-- I don't know exactly where the writing will take me. I've had the strange experience of trying to work out in my head where I want the story to go and at the same time my fingers are typing out some completely different scenario. But I'm a 'seat of the pants' writer, not a plotter. A while ago I attempted to write a first person present mystery and ended up writing myself into a corner...mysteries need to be plotted!

So what is it that drives you to write? Are you a pantser or a plotter? Would you consider changing your story/novel to suit an agent?

Marketing Genre Fiction

Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful comments on my last post! It's interesting how people handle this issue...I no longer feel as I did when I first began Wolfmoon Trilogy six (could it really be that long?) years ago. I feel as Mike mentioned (last post) that my own voice does now shine through. But at the beginning I was very nervous about writing in such a narrow genre. Which brings me to the topic of this post.

Is it easier to market genre fiction? When I was still banging my head against the wall trying to get an agent, I was told that it is. At the time YA fiction was HOT, especially fantasy. I tried to market my books in that niche but then realized that it wouldn't work--according to the agents I spoke with my protagonist was too old. For a while I thought about changing her age but for the purposes of the story it just wouldn't work. Being older and wiser now I've determined that there can be several niches for a book to fall into. Mine is suitable for young adults, just not VERY young adults. When my ten year old granddaughter wanted a copy of The Moonstone my answer to her was, 'you won't like it'. And she wouldn't. My books could be categorized as part fantasy, part myth, part romance, part adventure and part mystery with a sprinkling of Celtic spirituality mixed in for good measure. Trying to go too narrow can be a problem as well.

Logically it would seem that as authors we would want our book to have as wide an appeal as possible, but a Celtic fantasy should not be pitted against a work of literature, such as, (first one that came to mind) 'The Great Fire' by Shirley Hazard. And so we try to find our readers in various ways, targeting different groups on Facebook, tweeting to #___ and/or placing them in bookstores, Celtic stores or metaphysical stores--places our readers tend to frequent. We roam the internet searching for blogs and other places where we might collaborate or interest a blogger in our books--we exchange blog urls, we do interviews and ask strangers to review our books. All of this seems pretty obvious but there seems to be a lot of flailing around out there in the cyber world, and I'm one of the flailers!

So how do we narrow our focus without turning our niche into a knife edge? I know there are search engines that can help with this--I've done the searches, but haven't gotten much out of it. Blog tours are the big thing that everyone does, but do these tours work? I was told by a well-respected editor/marketing consultant, (Christine Myers), that I would need to find 100 blogs and contact them all.  If anyone has an answer, please write a comment below.

We all get stuck in trying everything when we first bring out a book, but in order to have time to write we need to cut out the chaff.  The trouble with social media is that everyone is in the same boat! Well, maybe not everyone, but enough to fill the thing to capacity so that it might be in danger of sinking. I guess the best idea would be to interview all the successful self-published authors and find out what worked for them--I'm sure there's lots of information on this topic floating around out there. Which brings me to another subject that I plan to explore very soon--gatekeepers for self-published books. Any thoughts?

Thanks for reading and I appreciate any and ALL comments!

Genre writing

I'm wondering about the process of writing genre fiction and I have several questions to pose, but before I do that I'm going to talk a bit about what I went through while working on my trilogy.

Being that Wolfmoon Trilogy is fantasy I decided to avoid Juliet Marillier, (a favorite of mine),  or other fantasy/sci-fi writers once I got into the narrative, for fear that  I might inadvertantly copy some aspects of their stories. I was bound and determined to write something fresh and different. (good luck, you say?) I wanted to create a world out of my imagination, as all writers do, concentrating on avoiding the usual suspects, such as elves, fairies, ogres, dwarves, dragons, wizards and witches. I researched Celtic myths for my gods and goddesses and found Gaelic names for the alien species that appeared in my imagination. As I write this I realize that I've forgotten how I came up with the name Crion, the people in my book who stand around four feet tall and are part of the 'keepers of the wisdom'. I'm sure there was something that brought that word to mind! The word Amuigh, another species in the story, a sort of cross between humans and apes, is Gaelic for 'outside', which I interpreted as outside the known. The Wildmen, a clan of humans that live in caves and have no laws, are also known as the duin fiain, Gaelic for wild or untamed.

In my first drafts I called the villains Fomorians, for a mythological race in Ireland, but later changed it to a Gaelic word, Oillteil, which means terrible or dreadful. Doing this allowed me to make up their description and not be hemmed in by myth or have them confused with comic book characters. Of course I've taken liberties with several myths that I hope will be forgiven in the over-all gist of the story. I also have to admit that there is a druid who is a wizard, although I don't call him that, as well as a 'seer' who is a witch.

So in conclusion I wonder how you genre writers approach your work. Do you avoid reading books in your genre or do you read them avidly? Do you worry that your characters might be too closely associated with characters in other books? How do you get around the 'usual suspects' issue?

A Rant

I have a rant that refuses to go away! It's about books that get published that have no redeeming quality and are poorly written and badly edited. There is a specific book that has recently come into my hands that fits all these criteria and is now a best-seller. Am I jealous? Maybe, but mostly I'm just irritated after the YEARS of hard work I've put in as an author including numerous re-writes,  professional editing and on and on and on...how do these people do this?  How does someone steal another story, re-write it and have the world KNOW this and somehow get an agent to pick it up and then have it become a best-seller?

And the goddess thing just has to be voiced here--are goddesses sex-fiends? I mean, really. This made me more angry than anything else about the story-line. I write about goddesses and although they might have love-affairs, NONE of them are sex-fiends. They are all-powerful beings who help or don't according to their whims, but NEVER do they lead someone into a sexual liaison that smacks of bondage. NEVER.

Have you figured out the book yet? That's right, Fifty Shades of Grey. And guess what? More are on the way. AND, a MOVIE! Yay!

Are women in this country into being subjugated by their men? Because, according to sales, it certainly seems so. Time to don the veil, ladies. If you like your heroines to say 'jeez' every other word then this is the book for you. Or how about 'holy crap'?  another epithet that appears on nearly every page.

If you like this sort of thing try reading the Beauty series by Anne Rice. This book is titillating as well as being well-written.

If anyone loved this book and would like to take me to task, go for it. I would love to hear what you liked about it...