Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 47

Advice From a Literary Agent

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I mentioned previously that I am pitching some agents in February at an event and so I decided to ask one of those agents I plan to speak with for some advice when pitching agents. While it helps to try and get the pulse of lit agents, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, of course. Jennie Goloboy of Red Sofa Literary responded with 3 things to keep in mind when pitching.

#1 Know that it’s not about you. Agents/editors only will take on work that reflects a need on their list. This one is new to me and, while I knew it deep down, I’d never looked at it that way. I’d always heard that “agents take projects they can also be passionate about and can sell,” but I never looked at it from the hardest end of the business spectrum–they snap up something most quickly that they’ve got all-but-sold based on their individual connections.

#2 A big don’t: don’t memorize your pitch and then say it as fast as humanly possible. Twitter can sometimes be unclear… I don’t believe she’s saying not to memorize it. She’s saying not to be wound so tightly that blow through your pitch in twenty seconds and then sit awkwardly for the next nine minutes. Relax and remember that your job as an author is to be a  expert communicator, so chill out and communicate effectively. Have trouble relaxing? I’ve heard social lubricants, if that’s your thing, can take the edge off

Free Fiction Tuesday

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I’ve been pretty neglectful of Wattpad lately. Truthfully I’m never really sure that what I’m doing by way of online promotion is really working and as such I’m not totally sold on Wattpad–it just seems overrun with bad fan fiction and erotica written by fifteen-year-olds. (I wish that was an exaggeration. Believe me.) But those stories like Fifty Shades of Junior High (okay–that title I did make up,) literally get millions of hits. There’s got to be some way to harness it effectively without sacrificing my writing quality or my integrity. I guess time will tell, but until then I will try and connect with a readership there by posting some new content.

While I can’t post Wolf of the Tesseract in its entirety I can put up a big teaser chunk of it and a back-link to the Amazon sales page. I also plan to put up book 1 of the Kakos Realm. Here are a few links to those stories on Wattpad.

My main profile:

https://www.wattpad.com/user/ChristopherSchmitz

One Star

https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/95167670-one-star

The Kakos Realm: Grinden Proselyte

https://www.wattpad.com/story/95208072-the-kakos-realm-grinden-proselyte

State of Writing

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I’m very nearly done with a Novella I’m working on titled One Star. It’s kind of an unrelated book 1.5 for Wolf of the Tesseract and writing it helped me get my creativity flowing for Wolves of the Tesseract: Subtitle Here (trying to nail down a specific title… The Lost Temple of Koth, Into/Opening the Darque, The Sign of Akko Soggathoth, Seven Heralds). One Star is about an author who kidnaps a notorious Amazon reviewer and tortures him, but the details from the writer’s book seem a little too real and begin to overtake his mind. The details of his book (titled Black Goat) tie directly into the plot I’m outlining for WotT2. I’m thinking about making it a free release to everyone on my mailing list and probably will not try to have it published in a fiction outlet.

Also I brainstormed a little more for a 5 book Young Readers novel series I want to work on titled The Hidden Rings of Myrddin the Cambion. Each book will be about 40k words (minimum novel length) so each is more like a long Novella and I ought to be able to sit down and write all 5 straight through (I hope, anyway)… all 5 should be something like the first two Kakos Realm Books combined.

Speaking of TKR, book 2 is in the hands of readers and I should have final edits done and have the book released around Feb 1. I’m thinking about doing a print collection of my short stories as well… mainly as something else to sell when I do conventions, but I’ve got a LOT of written works completed and some of them don’t work in an electronic format (mainly due to rights issues). I also don’t have the time/ambition/whatever to submit so many stories to a bunch of magazines over and over. As an indie who does lots of events where I meet readers face to face and have opportunities to put copies into hands it might be better to use it as a promo/direct sale vehicle than anything else.

The Black Moment

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This is maybe my favorite thing about being a writer… “the black moment.” I came across a nifty article recently about the subject over at Rayne Hall’s blog.

The Black Moment is a descent into darkness – physical, emotional, mental, psychological or spiritual, or even all of those.

Perhaps I have a streak of sadism, but I enjoy running my characters through grueling physical and emotional gauntlets and ratcheting up the tension in a story until my poor creations verge on breaking. ahem. Some of my favorite moments are from Tolkien when total despair is imminent (Frodo dying by Shelob being a huge one.) King and Martin are also masters of this.

My daughter is a big-time reader. She got quite a kick out of this image I posted to my Instagram and totally agreed it fits me:

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I’m proud to have hosted angry phone calls when readers come to points when I’ve put a character through the wringer or even killed him or her. Those moments of tension that nearly break the story are critical to a memorable climax! Don’t skimp on the turmoil and check out Rayne’s blog for some great advice on situations and nuances to increase the intensity of the effect.

Review: Enden

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I had the chance to review an early copy of David Kummer’s Enden which promises to be the first in a larger series. There are a number of things to appreciate about the novel which I got as part of the review section for my Inside the Inkwell blog. One of the first things worth noting is that the author is still a high school student. That’s significant to know because of the level of mythopoeia surrounding the story. I read a pretty large number of books each year and focus my efforts on Sci FI and Fantasy; Enden might be the most Tolkienesque story I’ve read this year.

As a fellow fantasy author I appreciate the replete notes and indexes. It goes a long way to building the world. The writing does have a Tolkien flair as well which has pros and cons. It may turn off some younger or first-time fantasy readers, but a familiarity even with just the Peter Jackson movies will make the text more accessible to readers and help envision the settings, races, etc. I did find (and appreciate) the level of magic, which also hearkens to LotR rather than Forgotten Realms and that makes it more important/more powerful by comparison, IMO.

I mentioned that I had an early draft to review. There were some formatting glitches and consistent grammatical errors. I did mention them to the writer who discovered it had been the early draft; some of them have been fixed through revisions, but I can’t speak to it in the final version. I also don’t care for the cover; readers of my indie writing blog may be familiar with this amongst my other pet peeves, but don’t let it deter you, especially if you’re looking for a new, up-and-coming author to follow and a new realm to explore.

There are great seeds planted for a great series. Time will tell where it all goes and with such a young author things will only continue to build the world of Enden one page at a time.

Get it here:

www.amazon.com/Enden-Dark-Fantasy-Novel-Wars-ebook/dp/B01MYS1XFH

State of Writing

So it’s the day after Christmas. I’m enjoying some vacation time and find I have to sneak away from family to do some of the writing that I want to accomplish. I finished my third draft of Fear in a Land Without Shadows a couple days before Santa’s big show (my first day of vacation when everyone else was still in school/work) and feel it’s ready to for beta readers to start looking at.

I spent a couple days trying to nail down my next project. As I flipped through my little black book where I keep my idea hooks and outlines for stuff I’m working on I came across a hook that I’d forgotten about. It’s a short story I hope to have written before New Year’s. It’s called One Star and kind of a reverse of Misery where an obsessed author kidnaps a vindictive Amazon reviewer and tortures him. I’m kind of channeling my inner psycho for it which makes sleeping a little scary… I’m kind of a method actor when it comes to writing. I’ve done some twisted stuff in my dreams the last two nights… on the flip side, though, it inspired me for something else… I had to stop writing about a third through the story (right after the kidnapping,) because I needed to sketch out what the author’s book. It turns out he was a speculative fiction author and the book he wrote is critical to the plot of the second Wolf of the Tesseract book which takes a more Lovecraftian appeal (though I definitely side more with the August Derleth side of the mythos than with Yog-Sogothery) One Star will likely be a part of a series of short stories that set the stage for Wolves of the Tesseract.

Diversity in Books

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Last week I mentioned twitter pitch contests. One of the link/resources featured some drama regarding some perceived racial discrimination during a pitch contest. I don’t have any info about that but was intrigued by an article posted by a literary agency. White Writers: Don’t Write Diverse Books. Instead, Read Them.

Getting outside your own point of view is a great exercise in writing–and it goes beyond just race. Write outside your own gender or species even! As a matter of pure exercise I wrote Piano of the Damned to do exactly that. As an Evangelical Christian youth pastor I put myself in the shoes of a gay pianist with mafia ties in the 1940s.

I don’t put much stock in “white privilege” arguments (we’re all messed up human beings and just in different ways) and do my best to live life with race-blindness. (I’ll refrain from talking specifics about my fairly diverse family and friendships as that has somehow become a part of white privilege, too.) Still, the advice in Upstart Crow’s blog is good.

“The best story you can tell is your own story, one that speaks the truth about your experiences. One that translates your triumphs and failures into an unforgettable character.”

Tell your story from your POV in the human condition, but don’t be too scared to write characters from different points of view, too. Don’t skimp on the research–if you have a black character or asian one find a friend with that background and get some feedback. Just remember, our humanity is the primary thing that binds us together. Use that well and everything will take on an air of authenticity.

Review of: The Eye of Nefertiti, A Pharaoh’s Cat Novel

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The Eye of Nefertiti, A Pharaoh’s Cat Novel is not my usual style of book. I received a paperback copy in exchange for an honest review. Every now and then we often say, “what the heck” and give something different a try… like the time my wife and I went to a sushi bar with friends. Turns out I’m veeeeerrryyy particular on my sushi. This book was a better choice than the Spicy Unagi Roll.

We’ll start with the positive. It’s different, at least for me, and is a low-investment book. It wasn’t a riveting book that plays with emotions and kept me awake at night; it felt more like a cozy mystery. Truthfully, though, it was interesting and constantly threw out little nuggets about the larger story (it didn’t seem like a sequel either and really was a stand-alone) with magic time-traveling boats by page two. Page one mentions the Pharaoh’s vizier, even. I mention him to demonstrate a comfortable plot (not exactly “predictable,” but comfy… cozy;) the vizier kills the pharaoh on page two. The book continually reminded me of stories I checked out of my local library as a teenager. I read a lot more variety in fiction as a teenager and something in the pacing and style reminded me of so many of them. Wrappa-Hamen (the cat,) is likable enough and is bit of a wise-cracker which helps keep the mood light (it might otherwise be a pseudo-Shakespearean tragedy at many points.) The writing was tight and it appeared well edited so the little “format things” didn’t make it difficult to stay engage.

So here are only gripes with the book, for what they’re worth: I really don’t like the cover. It seems unrelated, but I’ve blogged a bunch about the importance of covers for a while over at Inside the Inkwell.  It’s from a first person POV… while I didn’t mind it once I started the book, I opened the cover after committing to read it and groaned—I might not have agreed to read/review had I known (also, see blog for more.) I will also admit, though, that it worked for her book and was maybe helpful from a fundamental standpoint since her protagonist is not a human. The “cozy mystery” style is not my thing—and that’s just another personal preference—but I can still recognize good writing and quality when I see it. I know some people who really love it and while reading kept thinking I know so many people who would love this. One of them is my daughter. If I think she would like it, it gets a thumbs up… er, paws up?

You can get the book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Nefertiti-Maria-Luisa-Lang/dp/0996335218

State of Writing

I’m feeling pretty good about this last week and the rest of the year. I think I’ll make my goal of having the next draft of my horror novel done before New Years. I’m 150 pages deep on the edits. I’m 80k words deep into a total of 105k and edited like 80 pages last week. Plus I go on vacation mid-week, so I’m feeling pretty optimistic and would like to have it done by this week if possible so I can start on my pitch letter for it. I’m going to have that polished and shine up a presentation for pitching agents this spring.

The next couple weeks have scheduled book reviews in progress and I’ve already got a months worth of blog material written and ready for release so I should be freed up to concentrate on my next couple projects.

Over the last couple weeks I’ve notice one little wrinkle: with the crazy online flurry for holiday shopping my book ads are lost in the mix and can’t compete with the more expensive budgets of dropshippers, etc. I think I’ve spent less than a quarter in the past week and my ads have rarely been shown… crossing my fingers for post-NYE to see it bounce back.

Twitter Pitch Contests?

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I feel like I’m pretty well up to speed on things in the author world. If you’ve been following my blog, you might agree. But here’s the thing, I’m really not.

At least, not as much as I’d like to think. Typically I spend a lot more time making new worlds than engaging in the real world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you know that and take steps to overcome the situation.

Last year I went to a writers conference in Boston hosted by @ChuckSambuchino who puts out the annual Writer’s Market guide to publishers and literary agents. When hit asked who was familiar with things like #pitpub, #pitmad, or #pit2pub I suddenly realized how bad I am at utilizing Twitter.

While getting ready to do the 2017 MN Writers Workshop in St Paul–after a 3 year absence in my state I thought I ought to revisit the idea. (Go ahead and check out the conference… I’m actually in the event photo–hairy guy in the lower left corner! Mama always said I was pretty.)

I still don’t know as much about Twitter or about #pitchwars kinds of submissions events but I consider myself a real author and so I thought I’d look into it more. If that describes you as well you might check out some links I compiled to help ease you into the scene.

Here are 3 great resources on the topic:

https://novelpitch.com/tag/pitmad/ info and advice

http://carissa-taylor.blogspot.com/2013/01/contest-madness.html pitch contest schedule

http://carissa-taylor.blogspot.com/2013/01/contest-madness.html pitch wars info/home

I’m still brushing up on my pitches (being that short is hard). Here are a few samples of what I’m working on. (shooting for at least 3 pitches to alternate during a contest)

Earth’s last 300 humans fear the dark, but the lights begin failing. A barren OB & her brother with Down’s syndrome must join a recluse to turn back a 2nd demonic Armageddon.

An infertile obstetrician & man w/downs syndrome team are trapped in a bunker w/an atheist & priest and must stop a demon bent on apocalypse

happy tweeting. If you’re coming to the