K.M. Frontain's Blog, page 34
March 11, 2012
My tweets
Sat, 12:07
: Today, my fingers are adding in quotes where I don't need them.
Sat, 18:16
: Damn, the warns are swarming (too many warned, warningly, warning etc. in same section).
March 9, 2012
My tweets
Thu, 13:22
: Why I don't practice any religion associated with Judaic myth. http://t.co/4NIpbj8Q
Thu, 13:22
: Except for that damned Christmas thing. Despite everything, I can't seem to stop Christmas.
Thu, 13:23
: Or Easter...because of the household chocolate addiction...which has nothing to do with religion.
Thu, 13:24
: Amazing! All these holidays to pad the wallets of merchants rather than the church.
March 8, 2012
My tweets
Wed, 13:14
: Did not sleep last night. Ended up sleeping all morning until now.
Wed, 13:17
: Editing old stuff in R2 (that's not why I didn't sleep), thinking about changing direction of a scene.
Wed, 17:55
: Yay! A sale in the UK.
Wed, 17:55
: And my reader in Sweden bought the last book in the series a few days ago.
Wed, 17:57
: The Soulstone Chronicles is also available as ePUB on Nook and iTunes. Links on this page: http://t.co/50dGULLE
Wed, 17:58
: Nook is weird. You have to search for the specific volume, because the books aren't listed on the same page.
Wed, 18:01
: And two of my books are still free in PDF format. #freebook #free Follow the Lulu link. http://t.co/50dGULLE
Wed, 18:02
: I need to post another section of Crypsids, but I'm feeling very lazy today.
Wed, 18:29
: I posted a squid sex chapter despite my laziness. Fight #PayPal internet censorship. http://t.co/M3da6gJq
Wed, 18:52
: I spent the last two days working out the ecology of an ocean infested with kraken.
Wed, 19:26
: Shall rename R3 "Domineering Monkey meets Gryphons and Angels", or "Krakens Make Good Soup".
Wed, 23:52
: Oh, the intricacies of loincloths, breechcloths, fundoshi and whatevers. The things I have to research.
February 29, 2012
Crypsids, squid sex, science fiction story
Fight internet censorship!
February 27, 2012
Paypal censors Smashwords
Please note that I think Mark Coker has been very decent about this, no pun intended. But I'd like to point out that per the new policy, sex with fantasy beings is now ruled out under the bestiality no-no. Bestiality has never been welcome on Smashwords, and I don't mind that it's never been welcome, but authors who write about fantasy creatures, pay attention here. This is about censorship of material that should never be censored. It's about destroying the imagination that has given us the varied and fantastic mythologies of our world throughout human history.
Get this: All your fantasy creatures better look entirely human if they are to have a sexual relationship with a human being in any story. That means satyrs had best cut off their furry legs and tails and take up screwing women who like riding men on wheelchairs. Minotaurs...well, run, since you probably want to keep your bull heads, and I'm talking about the big one on your shoulders.
Oh, and let's not forget angels. Chicken wing man had better donate those little appendages to KFC before he gets it on with a cute mortal lady.Why, I wonder, are we still allowed to publish stories of centenarian blood-drinking corpses who like to screw virgins with a fetish for the cold and dead?
Let's see... Beware of writing stories of werewolves who become too wolf while getting it on. Maybe their eyes get a little too red. Maybe they grow a tail and long ears, or big teeth, but if they cross the line, which seems to be changing with the mood swings of Paypal, a little too much tail will get your author account cancelled.
Heavens forbid that you did like me and have contagious demon females who look like gargoyles fornicating with men.
Coker is of course trying to weed out offensive stuff categorized under erotica, but get this. Please! Really get this! It's censorship! Once it's weeded out of erotica, the stuff that offends could also be weeded from fantasy and horror. I remind all of you that there is fiction out there not classified as erotica and yet it's full of explicit material. And would the story still be as good if the material were removed?
I'm thinking of A Song of Ice and Fire, thinking of twincest, thinking, "Hey! When you gonna bounce George R. R. Martin off Amazon and wherever else for offending twins around the world?" He didn't write erotica, though, did he?
I suppose you all think he's safe. Maybe he is. He's got a TV series now. Incest is safely on TV, centenarian corpse men having sex with teenagers in high school is safely on TV, but you poor Indie author, you aren't allowed to be daring like George or the writers of The Vampire Diaries and Twilight.
No, you are not welcome to let your imagination pay your bills, Indie author. Paypal has spoken. Take your imaginations, you hopeful fools, take them and choke on your worthless contracts with Amazon, Smashwords and wherever else. If you write about anything Paypal doesn't like, Paypal has a bullet with your name on it.
http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/27http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/paypal-strong-arms-indie-ebook-publishers-over-erotic-content/1097
Get this: All your fantasy creatures better look entirely human if they are to have a sexual relationship with a human being in any story. That means satyrs had best cut off their furry legs and tails and take up screwing women who like riding men on wheelchairs. Minotaurs...well, run, since you probably want to keep your bull heads, and I'm talking about the big one on your shoulders.
Oh, and let's not forget angels. Chicken wing man had better donate those little appendages to KFC before he gets it on with a cute mortal lady.Why, I wonder, are we still allowed to publish stories of centenarian blood-drinking corpses who like to screw virgins with a fetish for the cold and dead?
Let's see... Beware of writing stories of werewolves who become too wolf while getting it on. Maybe their eyes get a little too red. Maybe they grow a tail and long ears, or big teeth, but if they cross the line, which seems to be changing with the mood swings of Paypal, a little too much tail will get your author account cancelled.
Heavens forbid that you did like me and have contagious demon females who look like gargoyles fornicating with men.
Coker is of course trying to weed out offensive stuff categorized under erotica, but get this. Please! Really get this! It's censorship! Once it's weeded out of erotica, the stuff that offends could also be weeded from fantasy and horror. I remind all of you that there is fiction out there not classified as erotica and yet it's full of explicit material. And would the story still be as good if the material were removed?
I'm thinking of A Song of Ice and Fire, thinking of twincest, thinking, "Hey! When you gonna bounce George R. R. Martin off Amazon and wherever else for offending twins around the world?" He didn't write erotica, though, did he?
I suppose you all think he's safe. Maybe he is. He's got a TV series now. Incest is safely on TV, centenarian corpse men having sex with teenagers in high school is safely on TV, but you poor Indie author, you aren't allowed to be daring like George or the writers of The Vampire Diaries and Twilight.
No, you are not welcome to let your imagination pay your bills, Indie author. Paypal has spoken. Take your imaginations, you hopeful fools, take them and choke on your worthless contracts with Amazon, Smashwords and wherever else. If you write about anything Paypal doesn't like, Paypal has a bullet with your name on it.
http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/27http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/paypal-strong-arms-indie-ebook-publishers-over-erotic-content/1097
February 21, 2012
Big Delays are Sometimes Good and more fan art
I have a date on my Redemption 3 manuscript, 2006, same year as the publication of the first two Redemptions. It is now 2012 and at last I'm working on getting this third novel on the virtual bookshelves.
I originally set aside publication to write marketable material for on-line publishers. By that, I mean stories written in a single POV rather than the streaming, cinematic style I prefer. I'd been dinged in the head by enough editors and writers who went rabid over POV switches that I thought maybe I should prove I can write any style I want to write. No one was taking me seriously. No one gave a shit that successful books have been written with "head hopping", as the rabid crew liked to call it.
I did not study how to write until after I had virtual tin cans thrown at my head. Felt more like giant oil barrels at times. Entire ships maybe. I did not know about POV or tropes or anything. I sat down and wrote for the joy of creation. My native style, when I started, tended toward a very strong author voice. I was unconsciously copying Tolkien's The Hobbit. I used a sweeping, panoramic viewpoint that followed the character most needed to tell the story at any given moment. That's how I saw stories, like a movie. In a movie, you don't usually see only one perspective. The perspective switches so that you look down at multiple characters or one character or no characters at all. That's how I wrote. Slowly I shifted away from the strong author voice and relied more on strong characters. I noticed this change in my writing and became puzzled over it, but I liked it and continued.
But of course the tin cans at last started hurting. So I studied. I analyzed. I set aside The Soulstone Chronicles for a few years. I wrote first person, then third person with a single POV. I took up editing for Torquere Press and then Freya's Bower. I looked at the unpleasant mistakes other writers were making with third person. Some would actually assign all pronoun usage to the POV character and constantly refer to the second man in the story by his name. Any of these stories could have "he" replaced by "I" and "him" replaced by "me" and become a first person novel with ease. But the constant use of the other character's name would still have been annoying. I am not kidding. I read more than one novel like this submitted to an on line publishing house. I also read an abundance of stories relying on sentences with the same syntax just about every paragraph (sentences that used "as" for timing were the worst). It became evident most writers had begun like me, writing for the joy of it and without much awareness of their habits. Writers really should be aware of their habits. Some of them just aren’t very good.
So yeah, I learned more about the "accepted" styles, but also I discovered that some people cannot write first person, others cannot write third, and very few indeed could logically write third person with a sweeping panoramic POV. It came to me that the reason the horror of head hopping exists is simply because it has been a horror for most editors to read. The logic necessary to apply it is more exacting than single POV. And so the rabid editors and writers have all this time been protecting their brains from melting.
I gained enough experience to realize the POV I chose for The Soustone Chronicles is the POV it needs. Single perspective writing would have made it unwieldy and irritating to readers who want to experience the flow of the story with the characters. Rather than forcing the readers to give up investment in a character and move entirely to another one, I let them keep their investment in all of the characters up until the plot moves away entirely and drops one.
But while being an editor, I felt my brains close to melting on more than one occasion. Some authors were maniacal, egotistical horrors. I had a number of personal attacks in the form of angry emails. I suffered through months of requesting the author apply the revision recommendations only to discover the author did not. Finally I realized it was because they could not. They simply had not progressed to the point where they could improve their writing. They were still at the "I'm great and fuck you!" stage. Even careful explanations and extensive examples of how to apply fixes didn't work for these authors. You can't improve if you think you're perfect.
After a bit, I couldn't stomach the thought of working with any more of them. I quit editing. I stopped writing. I stopped reading. Three more years went by. And now it's been six.
And here I am, fifty-seven pages into Redemption three and only the first two pages are old material. The rest is new. I am happy I fell on my face for so long.
I've said this to some other people, the ones who desperately want to get better but feel they can't: Sometimes a person stops doing their art for a reason. You might not know what the reason is, but it's likely a very good one. Trust yourself a bit more.
These fifty-seven pages have shown me my reason to trust myself. Everything is coming together. The missing factors I couldn't place concerning the characters, that left me with a niggling sense of "it's not right", I discovered them. The characters interact better. Their stories mesh better. I don't know how much of the original material will remain in this book. I don't really care. These changes are a joy to write. I feel very calm.
Yeah, husband is still out of work, but with regard to my art, I feel good again. That's a gift I'm very grateful for.
And the end of this post, I shall give you another piece of fan art from Ambra on Goodreads. I do believe her enthusiasm has opened my eyes and made this change to Redemption 3 possible. Thank you, Ambra.
Here is a drawing she made of my character Tehlm Sevet. I'll post the coloured version later. :-)
I originally set aside publication to write marketable material for on-line publishers. By that, I mean stories written in a single POV rather than the streaming, cinematic style I prefer. I'd been dinged in the head by enough editors and writers who went rabid over POV switches that I thought maybe I should prove I can write any style I want to write. No one was taking me seriously. No one gave a shit that successful books have been written with "head hopping", as the rabid crew liked to call it.
I did not study how to write until after I had virtual tin cans thrown at my head. Felt more like giant oil barrels at times. Entire ships maybe. I did not know about POV or tropes or anything. I sat down and wrote for the joy of creation. My native style, when I started, tended toward a very strong author voice. I was unconsciously copying Tolkien's The Hobbit. I used a sweeping, panoramic viewpoint that followed the character most needed to tell the story at any given moment. That's how I saw stories, like a movie. In a movie, you don't usually see only one perspective. The perspective switches so that you look down at multiple characters or one character or no characters at all. That's how I wrote. Slowly I shifted away from the strong author voice and relied more on strong characters. I noticed this change in my writing and became puzzled over it, but I liked it and continued.
But of course the tin cans at last started hurting. So I studied. I analyzed. I set aside The Soulstone Chronicles for a few years. I wrote first person, then third person with a single POV. I took up editing for Torquere Press and then Freya's Bower. I looked at the unpleasant mistakes other writers were making with third person. Some would actually assign all pronoun usage to the POV character and constantly refer to the second man in the story by his name. Any of these stories could have "he" replaced by "I" and "him" replaced by "me" and become a first person novel with ease. But the constant use of the other character's name would still have been annoying. I am not kidding. I read more than one novel like this submitted to an on line publishing house. I also read an abundance of stories relying on sentences with the same syntax just about every paragraph (sentences that used "as" for timing were the worst). It became evident most writers had begun like me, writing for the joy of it and without much awareness of their habits. Writers really should be aware of their habits. Some of them just aren’t very good.
So yeah, I learned more about the "accepted" styles, but also I discovered that some people cannot write first person, others cannot write third, and very few indeed could logically write third person with a sweeping panoramic POV. It came to me that the reason the horror of head hopping exists is simply because it has been a horror for most editors to read. The logic necessary to apply it is more exacting than single POV. And so the rabid editors and writers have all this time been protecting their brains from melting.
I gained enough experience to realize the POV I chose for The Soustone Chronicles is the POV it needs. Single perspective writing would have made it unwieldy and irritating to readers who want to experience the flow of the story with the characters. Rather than forcing the readers to give up investment in a character and move entirely to another one, I let them keep their investment in all of the characters up until the plot moves away entirely and drops one.
But while being an editor, I felt my brains close to melting on more than one occasion. Some authors were maniacal, egotistical horrors. I had a number of personal attacks in the form of angry emails. I suffered through months of requesting the author apply the revision recommendations only to discover the author did not. Finally I realized it was because they could not. They simply had not progressed to the point where they could improve their writing. They were still at the "I'm great and fuck you!" stage. Even careful explanations and extensive examples of how to apply fixes didn't work for these authors. You can't improve if you think you're perfect.
After a bit, I couldn't stomach the thought of working with any more of them. I quit editing. I stopped writing. I stopped reading. Three more years went by. And now it's been six.
And here I am, fifty-seven pages into Redemption three and only the first two pages are old material. The rest is new. I am happy I fell on my face for so long.
I've said this to some other people, the ones who desperately want to get better but feel they can't: Sometimes a person stops doing their art for a reason. You might not know what the reason is, but it's likely a very good one. Trust yourself a bit more.
These fifty-seven pages have shown me my reason to trust myself. Everything is coming together. The missing factors I couldn't place concerning the characters, that left me with a niggling sense of "it's not right", I discovered them. The characters interact better. Their stories mesh better. I don't know how much of the original material will remain in this book. I don't really care. These changes are a joy to write. I feel very calm.
Yeah, husband is still out of work, but with regard to my art, I feel good again. That's a gift I'm very grateful for.
And the end of this post, I shall give you another piece of fan art from Ambra on Goodreads. I do believe her enthusiasm has opened my eyes and made this change to Redemption 3 possible. Thank you, Ambra.
Here is a drawing she made of my character Tehlm Sevet. I'll post the coloured version later. :-)
February 11, 2012
February 8, 2012
Telling much? Fine. Just do it right.
Just started reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
Well, there you have it, one of the instances a strong author’s voice works. Sit up and take notice, fellow writers: She TOLD the story. Yes, that’s right. She started the book by telling.
And now repeat these same sentiments in forums, in emails, on chats. How often have you seen these touted by your fellow authors that multiple POV, wherein each POV is not encased within a section, is just wrong, wrong, wrong, terrible writing? Telling is a bad, bad, bad, bad thing to do.
Analyze! There’s nothing wrong with it. Just like any POV style, writing plot with a rapidly shifting stream of POV is not wrong. It’s all about how it’s done. And telling? You think that’s wrong? Well, wake up. Stories are told. We do a little shuffling about with words to make the world more real to the reader, but yes, the story is told. It’s all about balancing the telling between “Look, this point is interesting!” and moving the plot forward.
If you take the case of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the author used a lot of telling. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this story. Enjoying it so far. Totally ripping with laughter (in my head at least) that this very successful book flouts the convention shoved down the throats of most writers who are learning the trade.
And I feel vindicated. Yes, sorry, if I offend any POV purists. But you know, I’ve written single POV (first and third), and I’ve written streaming POV, and I did them the best I could because it’s a point of professional pride that I should learn the skill as far as I can take it. Anyone telling me to stop, can just piss off. It’s all about how it’s done.
Well, there you have it, one of the instances a strong author’s voice works. Sit up and take notice, fellow writers: She TOLD the story. Yes, that’s right. She started the book by telling.
And now repeat these same sentiments in forums, in emails, on chats. How often have you seen these touted by your fellow authors that multiple POV, wherein each POV is not encased within a section, is just wrong, wrong, wrong, terrible writing? Telling is a bad, bad, bad, bad thing to do.
Analyze! There’s nothing wrong with it. Just like any POV style, writing plot with a rapidly shifting stream of POV is not wrong. It’s all about how it’s done. And telling? You think that’s wrong? Well, wake up. Stories are told. We do a little shuffling about with words to make the world more real to the reader, but yes, the story is told. It’s all about balancing the telling between “Look, this point is interesting!” and moving the plot forward.
If you take the case of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the author used a lot of telling. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this story. Enjoying it so far. Totally ripping with laughter (in my head at least) that this very successful book flouts the convention shoved down the throats of most writers who are learning the trade.
And I feel vindicated. Yes, sorry, if I offend any POV purists. But you know, I’ve written single POV (first and third), and I’ve written streaming POV, and I did them the best I could because it’s a point of professional pride that I should learn the skill as far as I can take it. Anyone telling me to stop, can just piss off. It’s all about how it’s done.
February 7, 2012
Fan art from Tress Green
This is Tressa Green’s fan art for Bound in Stone: Volume One. I really love the velvet and lace and the green glow with an ominous quality in the background. Thank you, Tressa! So beautiful! You captured the feel of these guys perfectly.
Tressa left a record of the art from beginning to end. You can find it on Yfrog. It was fun to watch the progression.
http://yfrog.com/user/wl552/photos
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B006G6Z3OU
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/frontain
February 4, 2012
More Fan Art and Redemption 2 re-published
The Redemption of Tehlm Sevet: Volume Two has been republished. See my link bar for where to find my books.
This is more fan art from Ambra, originally posted on her Goodreads account. Ambra has been really encouraging. This fan art is something else. Copyright Ambra for all of them. Thank you so much, Ambra! Nicky is so gorgeous and playful.
Up first, Nicky, drawing.
And here's Nicky in colour. She's so mischievous. Love it!
And this next is Canella waiting in the graveyard.
This is more fan art from Ambra, originally posted on her Goodreads account. Ambra has been really encouraging. This fan art is something else. Copyright Ambra for all of them. Thank you so much, Ambra! Nicky is so gorgeous and playful.
Up first, Nicky, drawing.
And here's Nicky in colour. She's so mischievous. Love it!
And this next is Canella waiting in the graveyard.
