Denae Christine's Blog, page 2

Last Pagers

I didn’t quite realize this problem was a pandemic (bigger than an epidemic; I’m doing a school project on zombies infectious diseases). The problem is that readers decide to skip to the last page of a book before finishing the rest. If you have done that, shame on you!

Alcatraz often makes fun of such readers in his books. He even puts false last pages in his books to confuse the sneaky last pagers. Still, I naively thought,No one really does that.

I mean, I’ve been tempted to peek at the en...

Writing – a hobby vs a career

Are you making a career out of your writing, or is it just a hobby?

There’s a tough word. Just.

Hobbies can be hard. Go ask all the people who’ve decided to run a marathon. Do I think their training is easy? No. Do I think they’re making it a career? No, unless they’re world-class athletes.

Is writing the same way? Do we have to be world-class in order to make this hobby a career? My answer is no.

1, taxes. I report my writing as a small business on my tax return. If I can say I own a busines...

Interviewed on TV

This week, I was the Off-the-Shelf Author at our local Farmer’s Market. These author events are Thursday 6pm to 7pm at Crystal Books and Gifts.

This was a fun event. I talked with many people and gave out too many bookmarks. One man bought all three of mybooks.

As a promotion for the local author book signing,I had the privilege of being interviewed on KREX. That was Wednesday morning at 6:45am. See, my name is on the screen. So official!

I was nervous enough that I didnot tell my friends be...

Spiraling Revelations

I recently re-readCinder by Marissa Meyer, and it was better the second time. It had already been a good book, but now it was a great one. What caused that to happen? I already knew what was going to happen. Could it have been that I have a new appreciation for retellings, particularly subtle ones set in non-traditional settings just because I wrote a book like that? Perhaps, but I think it’s because I noticed how many things Meyer did right, and one of those is the way she treated her revela...

Inspiration: 90% work and 90% luck

Yes, I know that 90+90 100, but sometimes we have to work hard to get lucky, and that means there’s a lot of overlap. Now, when I say “luck,” I don’t mean the aligning of stars or random good fortune or even karma. I might mean God has blessed you with an idea, but mostly I think “luck” just means “things happening I can’t explain and don’t understand where they came from.”

My least favorite interview question is “Where does your inspiration come from?” (or the equivalent). I skip that quest...

Binge Writing

Sometimes it’shard to sit and write for half an hour. Sometimes it’s hard to stop writing after six hours. Sometimes I go a week without writing. Sometimes I go to bed thinking about my books and wake up motivated to get back to work.

Does this happen to you with your hobbies?

During the summer (less teaching!), I like to think I’m going to write for hours every day. This author thing is my summer job, right? Alas, it’s more sporadic than that. There are weddings and hikes and family visits a...

Book Signatures

First, I had a great book signing at Barnes and Nobleon June 4th. I met many wonderful writers and readers. I think I talked more about books I had read than the books I wrote. This is the advantage of having a table next to the YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy section. All in all, very fun. (I even sold a few books, too!)

Next, what does it mean to sign a book?

Sometimes, I merely sign my name. These books go toa general pile of books (my parents’ house), to be sold to any interested reader.

Sometimes, I p...

#1 Best Seller

First, Risky Perception is out this week! Find it here. I ran a goodreads giveaway for it and will be mailing those off shortly.

In celebration, I ran another countdown deal on the kindle book for Royal Deception. To prepare, I ran promotions with Fussy Librarian, Ereader News Today, and Bargain Booksy.

In addition, I changed my second category of “Epic Fantasy” to “Children’s Royalty.” I kept the “Sword and Sorcery” category. The “royalty” category was smaller than general “epic fantasy,” an...

Risky Perception

Risky Perception isup for pre-order! It is the short story between books 2 and 3 of the Royal Deception trilogy. (Well, it’s really a novella, since it’s over 17k words). This book 2.5 is split between the povsof Symon and Lana, who are essentially doing the same thing in opposite corners of Barido. Today, we get to see the different versions of the cover.

First, we have Tatiana Mariah‘s sketch from my initial ideas.

I liked it; it looked good, but it wasn’t quite right. (I was determined...

To blurb again

If a novella is one-sixth the size of the novel, should the novella’s blurb be one-sixth the size of the novel’s blurb? I’m thinking that is not a proportional relationship. Else my novella’s blurb would be about two sentences.

So, blurb-writing. I spend more time per word on the blurb than I do on any other piece of the novel (except, perhaps, the title). The blurb is often listed as the second thing readers consider when buying a book (yes, the cover is first; the proverb has changed nothin...