Cynthia Harrison's Blog, page 55

Dancing on a Chair

I used to be one of those little-known authors who bemoaned her lack of reviews. Why did this other writer I knew have a hundred and I only had three? Well, I think I know why now. It doesn’t have much to do with courting book bloggers on Twitter, although that helps a smidge. I’ve never been good at courting in general. Most boys I dated approached me. I don’t do a lot of approaching. I’m shy until I have a couple glasses of wine.

The key to getting reviews is not your friends, either. I am blessed with a large group of friends. Not all of them read, not all of them like romance, and not all of them care that I’m a writer. I’m just Cindy who used to dance on chairs when she had too much wine. Sure, some friends will read the book and tell me they liked it. Even when I then ask them to post a review, they don’t. Not everyone is comfortable writing (or dancing on chairs) and I’m not going to put my pals on the spot like that anymore.

The one thing that got me many reviews was giving Blue Heaven away for free the first week in October. I’m still not sure how many people took advantage of that free book, but I know I gained more than forty reviews. That cannot be a coincidence. So these reviews are largely from people I don’t know, have never met, have no investment in me. And the reviews aren’t all 5 stars, either.

That’s the thing that you have to be prepared for. If you get reviewed a lot, chances are one or two people won’t like your book and they will not mind saying so. Amazon has a rating system 1-5 and I got two 2 star ratings. I read them and they didn’t hurt my feelings. I took note of what the reviews had to say and will weigh that criticism for my next release. There was at least one good take-away for me from those not-so-great reviews.

However, I am happy to report that most of the reviews are glowing and kind. Now to turn on the music and find my dancing chair…and if you’d like to read Blue Heaven it’s on sale for a limited time: $2.99 on Kindle. BUY

Series Situation

I’ve noticed that everyone seems to be writing series these days. They’re not anything new, but seem to be picking up traction. Or maybe it just feels that way because I’m working on Book Two of a series after having written several stand-alone novels.

Yesterday, members of my critique group, especially the member who was not in the group for the critique of Blue Heaven, kept asking questions about things I’d explained in the first book. And I found myself saying that I had “covered that in the first book.” After a few of those type of phrases, I realized, oh, I have to tell it all over again. Every time. Every book in the series.

Each book must be able to stand alone. I am a reader and there is nothing worse for me that picking up a book mid-series and finding awkward clues that some person or place has been previously covered. There’s a trick to inserting series info. It has to flow naturally from the current book. No person or place should be in the current book as just a wink to loyal series readers. That just annoys me.

But I know this, too–there’s always the obligatory explaining, the need to go over the broad strokes of the series’ core people and places. Once I write it, very little will have to be changed book to book. Where I place that core info is key.

Last week I threw out 30 pages. Now I need to add a few.

Sure, my editor would have told me that. But it’s much better that she doesn’t have to. Which is why I so dearly love my critique group.      

Life as a Blonde

 My husband once said to me “I have always loved blondes, but I knew I’d marry a brunette.” When we were dating, I was a bottle blonde, which, because I colored from a box, was really more like a strawberry blonde. He knew my natural color was many shades darker. So, he got both his wishes. He also likes my hair long, but he goes along with my forays into short and sassy. Right now he’s half happy. I’m blonder than I’ve ever been, but the length is just not where I want it. Maybe by Christmas, according to my stylist.

When I create characters, I tend to make my heros dark blonde with blue eyes, just like my husband. Sometimes I don’t even tell the reader the heroines’ hair color. I’m a reader too and unless it’s important to the plot, hair color doesn’t matter much. The trend these days is to leave appearance up to the readers’ imagination. Readers fill stuff in with their own preferences.

This is just one way that reading is an active relationship between writer and reader. To go from words on a page to inner visions is fun. Our brains love to play. Our imaginations, whether reader or writer or both, are always ready to party. Which is why readers don’t like to be told too much. Hence the saying “show don’t tell.” Readers love predicting plot points. They love it even more when they’re wrong and the writer totally surprises them with a twist they didn’t see coming.

Which is sort of what happened yesterday when my husband came home from work. He was expected my dark hair and instead he got the blonde of his dreams:)

Pirates!

It’s almost Halloween and Al loves to dress up as a pirate. Johnny Depp makes a very handsome pirate. This is not the type of pirate I’m talking about today. I’m talking book pirates. Was doing my diligent search to see what popped up on Google with my name. All was good until I got a little bit of the way in and then found a site that had my latest novel front and center FOR FREE.

Then I found another one.

It’s true. I gave my book away on Kindle for free from October 1-5. But these sites are unauthorized. They are stealing. From me. Really? Isn’t it bad enough that I’m a pretty much unknown writer? That I make very little actual money for my writing? I guess these pirates have no heart. Not sure what to do about it except feel really bad.

I hate when something happens that makes me feel bad. I almost immediately set about a way to make myself stop feeling bad and start feeling good again. But this is hard. I am going to write to my publisher, but I was so flipped out when I saw the sites I did not even write down their names. I just poked around enough to know they were not reviewers, they were pirates.

We need a worse word for these thieves. How about liarcheaterstealerhorribleperson?

My plan was to write today. All day. Now I feel like “why write?” a LCSHP will just take my book and give it away for free. Am trying to get back to that “yay! I get to write today” mood I was in before I remembered about the pirates. I mean the LCSHPs.

An Idea Knocks

This is for Sharon, a wonderful writing friend from way back in the e-zine 50-something days:) Her question was: How do you know where to start a story?

This is one of the reasons it’s easier to be a writer than a knitter. In knitting, if you miss a row, it has to be unraveled immediately. In the first draft of a novel, all you need is the slightest whiff of an idea. You write it down and, if it’s a book, ideas and words accumulate. I freewrite first drafts with no plan or plot in mind until something comes to me, like a gift. No unraveling until the first draft is complete in all it’s clumsy awkwardness.

Usually at about 30K or so, I have a real grasp of what I want the book to be, so I print it out and read over what I have. Then I make an outline, which I rarely follow to the letter. Ideas are still coming, much of the time faster than I can write them down. I take notes, reminding me of a scene I must write and the location I want to put it in. At this point I also create a collage incorporating images, patterns, and colors that remind me of the book and its characters. That collage usually goes on a corkboard above my writing desk.

As you see from the picture above, because I recently moved house after 25 years, I saved just a little bit of my last collage: the names of my characters. Since I have a series (Blue Lake) started, I am going to keep my ocean picture and the snapshot of Al & me on our honeymoon with the Pacific Ocean in the background. I plan to create my next collage on Pinterest. If I ever get this WIP finished.

In revision, my beginning is usually cut. That’s how it goes. Lots of darlings are killed in revision. But that’s another post. The short answer to your question, Sharon: I don’t decide where to start. An idea knocks and I answer the door.

A Moment I’ll Always Remember!

You can’t see my name or the title so well, but you sure can see that #1. In the interest of full disclosure, I was #1 on the free list, not the paid one. The pink object in front of the picture is my ever-present lip gloss. Had a tough day yesterday with students. Felt like I failed to reach them, or at least some of them. So good to be back in my little office, doing my own thing♥

I Can’t Stop

This past week has been full of good and bad, I think if you’ve been following along, you’re pretty much filled in. Today everything caught up with me and I had a physical meltdown in the form of a nasty migraine. Took meds which eased head but made me sleep most of the day so got no school work done. When I’m feeling really down, my back up plan for pain relief is food. Today I just ate and ate and ate some more. Now it’s dinner time, I’m not at all hungry, and the migraine is knocking again.

I could go to my other “make it stop” activity, drinking a glass or two of wine, but no. Instead I made dinner for Al and checked Twitter, where I read a very nice review of Blue Heaven. This cheered me up. I looked at my bank balance, which cheered me up even more. I made just under $3 for my writing last quarter. Yep, you got that right. $3. That’s from my publisher. Amazon sends money to the bank when I sell $10 worth, and I didn’t have one of those.

Yes, this writing business is making me rich:) But I can’t stop. I don’t even want to. I love to write and now there are a few people in the world who love to read what I write. That makes me happy, damn the stupid migraine!

Stat Rat

This morning, Blue Heaven was about a thousand on the paid list. It’s a little more than that now. It’s #75 in the top 100 romance novels. I promise this is the last update. Unless I get to #1 again:)

Free Week Results…so far

I am not a marketing genius; the past 5 free days were my publisher’s idea. Wow it was fun. I printed out the page showing Blue Heaven at the top of the chart. It’s fun being #1. Today’s a different story, of course. Everyone got the book free and it’s down somewhere around 500K in paid lists. However, there has been some unexpected added benefit.

My first book, a writing manual with dollops of memoir, is #75 on the paid list, (which, let’s face it, that’s the one that counts) for adult and community education. I have the whole story of that book, how I came up with the idea right down to how I created a small press and handled distribution.

Your Words, Your Story was printed in ’07, early indie days. The chapter on self-publishing mentions Amazon’s Create Space. I interviewed someone who published with them and she graciously allowed me to use her experience in the book. Today, I could add more now with KDP and the digital book explosion. But the basic facts are there.

I also noted that my indie novel, Sister Issues, is about six times higher on the lists than the two newer books. Both my indies are .99 cents, and that may be a factor in their continued sales. What happened is that those free days for Blue Heaven made me and my back list more visible. And I’m pretty happy with that outcome.

 

Best Day, Worst Day

Just home from a family funeral. My favorite cousin’s husband died and today our family paid our last respects. My parents are here from Florida, many others also in from out of state. His boss gave a speech and broke down in tears. The thing that stuck with me most was when someone said that Brian is the kind of person that is put into this world to balance it toward the side of good. Never saw him frown, never saw him yell, never saw him anything but happy and mellow.

Al got home from work and we left here about noon. We just got home. It’s 8 pm. I turn on my laptop. Wasn’t on much today checking all the “free” tweets and the Amazon rankings. First I went to Twitter, not a lot of action, but several nice RTs and new followers. Then over to Amazon where to my amazement Blue Heaven is #1 in the top 100 free books. It’s #1 in romance and #1 in contemporary fiction free books, too.

I’m happy. I’m sad. All at the same time. Also, I’m tired. We will see what tomorrow brings. Oh, that’s right. My folks are coming tomorrow for a sleep over. Their first!