Zed Amadeo's Blog, page 2

Reflections on 2015

Wow. It’s hard to believe that we’re now in the final days of 2015. What a year it has been! Now that things have slowed down due to holiday season, I’ve had an opportunity to reflect and plan for the coming year. Over the course of this 2015 I graduated from college, moved, started working fulltime, and made forward strides in my writing career.

As I have previously mentioned (and will continue to mention in the future!) it has been my lifelong dream to be a fiction writer. This year I made several steps to make my dream come true. In 2015, I’m proud to say that I:

Started this blog
Published two novellas
Had a short story accepted into a publication
Wrote a guest post
Got interviewed by another author
Read a gazillion books and articles on writing, blogging, and marketing

Along the way, I learned some major lessons about writing and self-publishing:

1. I can face my fears

Only a couple of years ago I had dreams of becoming a published author but was too fearful of criticism to take the steps to put my work out there. Last Fall I joined a critique group, which I found immensely helpful in learning how to give and receive feedback.

This helped prepare me for submitting my work to the world, where my stories are open for rejection or harsh critique. But I’ve learned that even if I do receive a particularly stinging piece of criticism, it’s not the end of the world. Instead of dwelling on and internalizing the criticism, I’ve learned to look for nuggets of truth that can help me improve my writing. At the end of the day, I believe in my writing abilities while also accepting that I have room to grow and improve. This is just the beginning of what I hope to shape into a long and fruitful writing career. And as I’ve said before, being afraid is not a valid reason to not pursue my writing aspirations.

 

Words of wisdom from Harper Lee. Photo from Buzzfeed

 

2. Crushing my perfectionism

From AZ Quotes

 

I read awhile ago in If You Can Talk, You Can Write just how much perfectionism can lead to paralysis, resulting in never getting any writing done. While I’ve learned the importance of overcoming my desire for perfection when writing a first draft, this year I experienced my perfectionism flare up in regards to the self-publishing process, sometimes too caught up in my fear of making a mistake to choose a course of action.

I particularly found myself falling into the trap of drowning myself in books about writing, hoping I would find the perfect solution elsewhere. While there is definitely a lot of value in soaking up the wisdom of others, it’s also necessary to go out and use the advice instead of simply reading about it. I’ve learned to give myself the room to make mistakes and learn not just through books and articles, but also trial and error. 

 

I am thrilled to take all that I’ve learned in 2015 and do even more in the coming year. Among other things, I hope to make 2016 a big year for Kindred and release more stories in some of the other worlds I’ve created. I want to make 2016 an even more successful year for my writing than 2015.

 

What have been your biggest accomplishments this year? What goals are you setting for yourself in 2016?

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13 Gifts for the Silent Hill Fan

With the holidays just around the corner, are you performing a last minute scramble for gifts for the horror fan in your life? Or maybe you’re looking to treat yourself to something spooky? Look no further than this list of gifts for lovers of Silent Hill. Plenty you can buy, some you can make, and others you can bake!

1. Decorate your life with these stickers of Silent Hill characters

From Coey and Shy

 

2. Populate your desk with Silent Hill 2 Pop Vinyls

From The Mystery Machine

 
3. Bake a “Welcome to Silent Hill” Cake, featuring Robbie the Rabbit

Welcome to Silent Hill cake! by LaIrish on DeviantArt

 

4. Deck the halls with this giant Silent Hill 3 poster

From Amazon

 
5. Light up your world with a Flauros from Origins

From Instructables

 
6. Sport a Halo of the Sun Pendant

From .

5 Questions to Ask BEFORE Submitting Your Short Story | Almond Press

Have you ever toyed around with the idea of submitting your short story to a publication, but felt too overwhelmed or uncertain to actually send in your manuscript? Creating a strategy for myself based on the five questions outlined in this post below helped me prepare one of my short stories and ready myself for the submission process. Find out which questions you should ask before submitting your short story in my guest post at Almond Press. Source: 5 Questions to Ask BEFORE Submitting Your Short Story | Almond Press

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Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books of 2015

What a year it has been! Welcome back to Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week I’m counting down the top ten books I read in 2015 (not including the books I included in my previous Top Ten of 2015 list from June). All covers from Goodreads.

1. Night Film by Marisha Pessl

On a previous TTT I wished to find another book in a similar vein to House of Leaves. That wish came true when I found Night Film!

2. Malus Domestica by S.A. Hunt

I’ve already included this book on so many previous posts, but only because it’s one of the best dark fantasy books I’ve read recently.

3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I took a chance on something outside of my usual perusals with Gone Girl and was extremely pleased. Flynn and Pessl have taught me a thing or two about pacing.

4. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

This book explores the all too common occurrence of public shaming (sometimes over minor incidents) that occurs in today’s rapid pace world and the accompanying schadenfreude. An interesting phenomena for a Psychology geek like myself.

5. The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero

After seeing and becoming mildly obsessed with the film The Room, I was eager to learn more about the wacky story behind its production. The story behind The Room is almost as entertaining as the film itself.

6. The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti

If you’re looking for a light, feel good read, look elsewhere. But if you want something that will make you really think about your perception of yourself, look no further.

7. A Writer’s Guide to Persistence by Jordan E. Rosenfeld

One of my proudest accomplishments this year has been building my writing practice. This book is a prime example of a writing guide that is inspirational while remaining practical, helping to reinvigorate my stamina and overcome those inevitable speed bumps.

 

What are your favorite reads from 2015?

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Top Ten Tuesday: New-To-Me Favorite Authors I Read For The First Time In 2015

Welcome again to Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. My first TTT in almost a month. Feels good to be back! This week I’m counting down my favorite authors that I discovered just this year. All author photos from Goodreads.

Science-Fiction: Jason Werbeloff

Werbeloff is another one of those authors I randomly found while cruising through the Kindle store. At the time, several of his short works (including The Solace Pill) were free on Amazon, so I downloaded a bunch. I’m still looking forward to working my way through his “mind-bending” sci-fi.

Dark Fantasy: S.A. Hunt

Hunt’s Malus Domestica is without a doubt one of my favorite fantasy works I’ve read in recent years. Since he is working on a sequel, I can’t wait to see where the story goes.

Mystery/Thriller/Suspense: Gillian Flynn

I gave Gone Girl a try and was completely blown away by how much I enjoyed it. Flynn knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat. Now I just need to watch the movie!

Mystery/Thriller/Suspense: Marisha Pessl

At over 600 pages, Night Film is probably the longest book I’ve read this year, but it certainly didn’t feel that long while I was reading this tale. I could certainly learn a lot from Pessl in terms of pacing.

Horror: Brian Hodge

I absolutely loved Whom the Gods Would Destroy. If Hodge’s other works are anything like this novella, he could easily become one of my favorite horror authors beyond 2015.

Nonfiction:

This year has been exponential in advancement of my writing. Over the course of 2015 I started this blog, published two stories, and learned a ton about publishing. This section is dedicated to some of the writers whose work provided the knowledge and inspiration to make this progress.

J.F. Penn

As cheesy as it may sound, Penn’s story of becoming a successful independent author reminds me that my author dreams can also become reality.

Frances Caballo

Caballo’s guides to using social media helped me create a solid backbone on how effectively target my social media efforts without wasting too much time.

Jeff Goins

Goins’ newsletter never fails to act as a simultaneous pat on the back and kick in the butt if I’m ever feeling discouraged. 

Who are your favorite authors you discovered in 2015?

 

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How to Identify a Target Audience For Your Book Marketing

I have previously discussed the free compendium of resources available within The Ultimate Book Marketing Guide on the Bookbub partners blog. One of the most helpful pages in this guide is a post on how to define your target audience, which is one of the most thorough descriptions on the topic that I’ve recently seen.

A mistake that plenty of writers (including myself previously) make is not clearly defining your audience for your books. Your understanding of your audience should go beyond what genres they prefer to read. This post suggests defining their demographics (like age and location), psychographics (what activities/interests they enjoy besides your genre), and how they use the Internet. The post also recommends separating your audience into different segments depending on these factors.

I took about 30-45 minutes to thoroughly think through each of these aspects of my target audience until I had fleshed out answers for each of these areas. The post also suggests creating a persona for each of your target audiences and creating a small narrative based on your brainstorming responses, which I found is helpful to refer back to when tweaking my future marketing efforts.

After following the guidelines in this post I found that I had an increased understanding of my different audience segments and have been better able to target my content accordingly. I would recommend any writer who is struggling with understanding their market to check out this post:  

When marketing a book, targeting too broad of an audience is a common mistake many authors and book marketers make. In an age where many readers have access to virtually any book at any time, it… Source: How to Identify a Target Audience For Your Book Marketing

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How To Boost Your Blog Content Engagement – from Successful Blogging

Looking for methods to improve your blogging strategy, but overwhelmed by the number of possible tools you could use? Check out this post from Successful Blogging that outlines 12 tools to help you grow your audience engagement. Discover tools for creating beautiful graphics for your webpage, track your engagement, and more that will help you effectively grow your audience without gobbling up too much of your time. 

 

How to Boost Your Blog Content Engagement with 12 Online Tools

Source: How To Boost Your Blog Content Engagement | Successful Blogging

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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Creating Your Fantasy World

If you’re writing a speculative fiction story, creating a compelling setting can often be equally as important to the characters that populate your world. Whether you’ve already got the bare bones of your fictional setting laid out or need help fleshing out an idea into an intriguing locale, you can use these resources to guide you through every step of creating your fantasy world.

 Create a solid scientific foundation with World Builders
From World-Builders.org

World Builders is a free online course on worldbuilding for creating a non-Earth planetary setting. This guide will walk you through creating a geologically/biologically sound world, beginning with the star your planet revolves around all the way to how the flora and fauna in your fictional ecosystems interact. Though probably more useful to science-fiction authors, this course could also come in handy to fantasy writers for thinking through the plausibility of your world.

 

Construct your culture with The Planet Construction Kit
Image from Amazon.com

If you’re more interested in creating a fictional culture than building a planet, give The Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder a read. Although this book does contain chapters that build upon the biology/geology of your setting, I found that the meat of this guide lies in helping you flesh out the culture of the inhabitants of your fictional world and suggestions for incorporating these details into your storytelling. Once you’ve gotten a lot of the logistics for your world worked out, the book suggests a helpful exercise – write a brief description of the life of a typical inhabitant from birth to death. This guide also provides tips on creating visual representations of your fictional lands from 2D mapping to 3D software.

 

Imagine everyday life in your world using a Culture Test
Culture test from Zompist.com

The culture tests on Zompist.com, created by the author of The Planet Construction Kit, can help you to define the common beliefs and values of your fictional people. Creating a culture test for your world paints an image of what life in your setting would be like on a day-to-day basis – for example, which beliefs they would take for granted as common knowledge in their culture. If you look under the “Conworlds” section of the page, you can find examples of culture tests for other people’s constructed worlds that can serve as a launching point for creating your own.

 

Avoid common worldbuilding cliches with A Way with Worlds
From A Way with Worlds

A Way with Worlds is a series of 56 columns on worldbuilding topics, designed to get you thinking about the logistics of your world and helping you avoid falling into common cliche traps. These series of columns, available for free at Seventh Sanctum, are especially helpful for creating non-cliche tales set in your world.

 

Build a map of your world with ProFantasy Software
A map made using ProFantasy Software

Once you’ve developed a solid setting foundation, constructed its inhabitants, and thought through your fictional culture, you’ll probably want to create a map of your world. ProFantasy has a large library of mapmaking software, allowing you to create realistic maps of your worlds. I’m a particularly huge fan of their Fractal Terrains software, a tool to create a global representation of your world and view its climate, elevation, and temperature, as well as export images of your map to use elsewhere. The map above is an example of a world I made using Fractal Terrains. ProFantasy also has software to create overlays and labels for your maps, design layouts for your structures, and position your space-faring civilization among the stars to help you share your setting with the world.

 

What resources do you recommend for creating your fantasy world?

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DarkFuse: Dark Fiction for the Masses

Are you a fan of horror and dark fiction? Check out DarkFuse, an independent publisher of delectable dark fiction.

I stumbled upon DarkFuse after reading Brian Hodge’s Whom The Gods Would Destroy, a well-written, intriguing Lovecraftian horror tale. Turns out that DarkFuse has a fairly extensive backlog of books in my some of my favorite genres. If you’re a particularly huge fan of their work, you can purchase a membership to their Kindle Book Club and receive a Kindle book each month. Stay updated on their newest releases and special deals by subscribing to the DarkFuse newsletter.  It’s free, and you just might find that new work of dark fiction that you never knew was missing from your life.

DarkFuse: the premier publisher of dark fiction

Source: DarkFuse: Publisher of Dark Fiction | Horror, Crime, Sci-Fi, Suspense, Thriller

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Rundown of Silent Hill 3’s Monsters | Boo-gleech

I’ve mentioned before how much I love the Silent Hill series, its monsters, and the incredible backstory of the town. As part of a Halloween series of posts, Boo-Gleech created a very thorough description of the monsters you encounter in Silent Hill 3. Even as a huge fan of the game, I found out a few things about the monsters I hadn’t known before. Brought back some sweet memories and made me want to play the game again! Maybe it’s time for me to dust off that disk and give Silent Hill 3 a second run through…

Source: BOO-GLEECH – A Silent Hill Monstrouspective: Part III!

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