R.E. Carr's Blog, page 3

Books for Blood and other Announcements

So it’s another week another blog post… who am I kidding, my posting schedule follows a mystical logic dictated by the movement of the stars, planets, and whatever pile of accounting ties up my brain all day.  I did want to give everyone the heads up about an amazing event happening in October.  I will be joining a group of talented authors to participate in Vampire Books for Blood.

For the entire month of October I will be donating $1 for every sale of both Four and Six to the American Red Cross.  Furthermore there are some great authors to discover who are also giving a little bit to help those in need, so please check it out.

I will also be visiting the always hilarious Bookies site for their annual Authtoberfest, and if you like and share my Facebook post (I need to share it on R.E.Carr then you can link), you have a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card.  Last time I gave away a Four Playset so who know what sort of crazy shenanigans I’ll be up to this year…

Last, but not least, I have finally started up a newsletter and have a mailing list you can join. Don’t be alarmed, I promise to not spam you guys unless you want my recipe for an amazing musubi.  (My Hawaiian fans are totally getting this joke while you guys Google it…)  It’s just a list so that you can hear about new releases, sales and appearances from time to time, and I have a feeling you’ll want to join before October… wink, wink… know what I mean?

It Lives…

Just when you thought it was safe to talk about blenders, R. E. Carr has returned from the dead to write a blog post.  Well I wasn’t actually dead, I just threw myself wholeheartedly into finishing a rough draft of a little manuscript in the Rules Undying series.  I hope to have more news on Ten in upcoming weeks as well as on some exciting charity projects I’m working on for the fall so stay tuned.
I also have joined up with the awesome team at Ill Popcorn to participate in a weekly podcast that covers video games, pop culture and lots of superhero, sci-fi, and fantasy topics.  We even occasionally sing our tribute to Sharknado: the Musical.

I’d love to hear what you, my fantastic Four fans, have been up to while I’ve been holed up in my writer’s chair and generally looking scary and speaking nonsensically.  Please give me a shout out on Twitter @TotalRECarr or post to my Facebook page.

In the meantime here is a picture of baby platypuses in fedoras… because lord knows we all need a little more of that in our lives:

XOXO – 
R. E. Carr

So I Did a Thing…

I just wanted to give my fantastic Four fans a quick update on my writing, as well as some insight into just how my process works.  We writers come in all breeds.  Many are meticulous architects of grand designs.  I love reading about their method and how they do detailed outlines of their work.  Oh, and I love hearing about research.  There is something truly beautiful about the process of creation when it is careful and controlled and full of technique.

I, on the other hand, and like a cat being taunted by a laser pointer.  I just see the shiny and run around and around chasing it, often at frenetic speed.  Naturally this leaves me collapsed in a heap ad sleeping for a good long time.  I also usually want tuna…

So when one of my super-talented writer friends, Meredith Pritchard, told me that Tor.com was taking submissions for Sci-Fi novellas only for the month of June, I jumped at the opportunity to chase that shiny.  Mind you, it didn’t occur to me that not actually having a novella in one of the four genres that Tor was looking for – Near Future, Space Opera, Cyberpunk, or Time Travel – was a barrier to entry.  Instead I just started writing.

Then I gave up and worked on some more Rules Undying, because, hey, that story isn’t done…

Then I just goofed around one night and started writing my nonexistent novella again.  Three days and 15,000 words later, HOLY CRAP, I had a novella.  I also have probably lost most of my capacity for rational thought; as evidenced by my searches for Kardashian-licensed products on the internet.

Now, I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen next.  I haven’t thrown my hat into the traditionally published ring for almost a decade, so my nerves are shot and my confidence is low, but I know that I have to try, even if it is just to hear the words “no”.  I’m climbing back up on my writing horse and I don’t think I can ever go back.

Oh, and I also took up co-hosting a podcast… because I didn’t have enough to do!

Check us out: Ill Popcorn

Monsters Have Been Known to Eat My Brain….

In today’s installment of me apologizing for not updating my blog regularly, I would happily like to report that the delays are 85% due to me working on a little manuscript known as Ten and only 15% due to random crap on the internet taking my free time and flushing it down the virtual toilet.

I suppose it would be best to give you a small insight as to exactly what happens when I start writing a book.  It starts with a great deal of whining, followed closely by scribbling notes on everything available, and then I start wandering around my kitchen late at night muttering obscure ramblings under my breath.  Thankfully, my family is now used to this and I haven’t been committed.

Once I have a solid body of incoherent notes that only make sense to me, I will sit and stare at a blank screen for at least a solid two to three days (hah, OK, it’s usually weeks).  It’s at this point you will find me doing things like posting on social media and blogging my wee heart out.  I’ll even be super productive at my day job until one terrifying moment where the monsters come out.  Those monsters simply love to eat my brain.

It starts with a trickle.  I’ll write a page or two, pat myself on the back and move on.  Then those couple pages will turn into an hour of missing time… then it becomes three of four hours a night.  Finally, I end up shuffling around my home and office like a zombie, using copious amounts of caffeine and meditation techniques to bring myself back to the present.  Sometimes it’s like a movie is on repeat in my head and I have to walk three miles at lunch just to let it play out while dodging suicidal caterpillars and other hapless individuals simply trying to walk at lunch.

I’m now at that point where I start forgetting things like where my keys are.  I move from task to task, using all the energy I can just to do a herculean task such as remember my name or where I parked.  Sentences remained unfinished, posts remain unread, and basically I appear to be a hollow shell of my normal self by day.

By night however, the voices in my head come out to play.  The words rush out of me like kids on the last day of school, and eventually a manuscript is done. I hope that the upcoming flood is worth it, and I’ll try to keep you updated when I’m more coherent.

Mada ikite iru…

- R. E. Carr

Numerical Nonsense and Quiet Time…

It’s funny the sort of things that can derail a regular blog post – work, school, hours of Netflix binges… but I am happy to report that my silence as of late is because I have been plugging away at a little manuscript called Ten.

I start books all the time, yet I finish them rarely.  This has given me a complex of sorts, namely that a book is not real in my mind until I hit a set milestone.  I have a terrible graveyard of unfinished works and what they all have in common is the simple fact that I never finished writing chapter five in them.  On the flip side, if I actually finish writing chapter five, I end up finishing the manuscript.

Needless to say, I just managed to get through chapter five and about 30,000 words so all of a sudden the monster that is my creative brain has gone into overdrive.  On one hand, I apologize for not posting in here, but on the other, I’m really excited that I could get past my mental hurdle and really dive into the third book of the Rules Undying series.

However, that is not the only thing I worked on.  As you may have read on a certain day in April, I threatened the world with a special side project… Churning Desires!  I am genuinely overwhelmed by the response I received, including the fan fiction written about a book that actually hasn’t been written.

In honor of that love, and because reading the line “It’s the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room, mother******” filled me with such joy here is a short, short except from the book that never was:

“I never wanted to be a killer.  I never chose that life, but when you see a group of no-good hipsters turning your beloved homeland into a coffee-shop-filled, beat-poetry-rapping wasteland rife with slouchy hats and pointlessly thick black spectacles, what are you supposed to do?” Jedidiah sighed as he set his glass back on the bar. “It wasn’t murder.  It was justice.  How can any goodly folk charge six dollars for bad coffee?”

“Oh, Jedidiah!” Destiny cooed as she delicately clutched his hand in hers.  Her sparkling lavender nail polish reflected the concern in her big, brown eyes. “I never knew you experienced such tragedy.”

“That was only the tip of the iceberg, darlin’,” he said as the words caught in his throat. “I never told you what happened to your pet goat Biscuit…”

To be continued… maybe!  Feel free to add to it.  I’ll take whatever horrors you come up with if you tweet me @TotalRECarr.  #churningdesires

Avatars that Aren’t Overgrown Smurfs

I’ve had a week of blasts from the past.  First, they announce that there will four, count them, four Avatar sequels in the future . Then I start reading an interesting book, Status: the Game, by fellow Kindle Scout selected author, Vincent Robert Annunziato .  What do these have in common?  It’s not hackneyed environmental preaching and big blue people.  Instead both of these books involve a virtual self and a “real-world” self.

Anyone that knows me has probably heard me ranting…err discussing this topic.  I watch the Matrix on repeat.  I obsess over Sword Art Online and any anime that remotely deals with virtual selves.  I play MMORPGS and basically accept that one day I may become her Royal Highness Queen of the Geeks.

I even once wrote a serial of shorts touching on those very topics.   I then stitched the shorts into a novel(ish). You know, people sucked into a virtual world and exactly the sorts of shenanigans that follow.  As a special treat, I’ll even share the original, uncut, unedited first episode with you all, and who knows, if you like, I might release the whole thing again….

Click here for Episode Zero and see you next week.

Summoning My Inner Gollum

“I wants the readers to leave me reviews!”

“No, I don’t want to know…”

“But if we reads them, we will get better…”

“No, if we reads them we will know they hates it!!!”

Just giving you gentle readers a deep insight into the mind of a writer, and yes, before you ask, I really do make the little hissy Andy Serkis voice, sometimes loud enough for the coworkers to hear.  If you’ve spent any time around an indie writer you have probably heard them begging for reviews.  As soon as they get then though, it’s like the sky is falling because, unfortunately, the writer has discovered that not everyone in this world thinks that their masterpiece is more awesome than a rainbow unicorn tyrannosaurus rex playing a steel guitar (I’m sure a trip to Google will find an appropriate image of this).

What causes such insanity?  Why do we beg for pain?  Are all authors masochists?

The short answer is probably not the most romantic.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that I want reviews because it is a double whammy of more money and more potential approval.  If I get more reviews, the all-mighty Amazon promotes me more, and that usually means I make more money.  Ooh, accounting-Gollum Rachel is pleased by this!

On the flip side, every good review makes my ego grow three sizes that day!  I fell loved and wanted and higher than a kite.  We won’t talk about the bad ones, the bad ones kinda sting, but I console myself that even a bad review gets me closer to whatever magic numbers make my book seen by more people.

So there you have it, the nasty little monster in my head (and quite possibly other author’s heads) that makes them beg for reviews. Is it a ground breaking revelation, probably not, but I bet you’ve totally searched for a heavy-metal, rainbow-painted dinosaur with a horn now, and there are far worse things to occupy a Friday afternoon.

P.S. I am working on some new fiction writing and not just talking to myself.

And now for something completely different...

Dearest friends and fans, I am overjoyed to share with you some exciting news.  Today I am thrilled to announce that I have finally discovered my true voice.  While I know that some of you have enjoyed my trifling tales of vampires and werewolves, I can deny the truth no longer…

Jedidiah Smuckers lives his life by the code, but that code is put to the test when a demon from his past returns to Lancaster County.  Her name is Destiny Lovegood, the legendary siren of the silver screen turned psychic investigator after a freak accident with a boom mic left her with power to talk with the dead. When she saunters up to his buggy, he knows that there is no running anymore.

Together they must uncover the deepest, darkest secrets of the local barn raising slumlord, all while fighting the passion that rises every time Destiny’s bonnet slips sideways.  Jedidiah may not wear buttons but somehow she always finds a way to press his…

His enemies tried to butter him up, but the margarine for error was too high and all the while he must fight his…

Churning Desires!

 

Nerves of Steel (Wool)

First off, I can’t believe that it’s finally time to set my second book baby, Six, loose upon the world.  Six will be a part of the second set of books published directly by Kindle Press (along with the talented Brian Spangler’s A Painful Truth).  Joseph Souza’s Need to Find You is already killing it from the week prior so I’m in pretty awesome company.  Of course all this pressure shows the true nature of any writer…So yeah, I’ve been alternating gnawing my knuckles and dancing around giddily waiting to share my work with you all.  I can’t thank you all enough for supporting me with Four to the point where I completely changed my mind and decided to expand upon that wicked little universe.  Who knows, maybe I just have to keep going a little more.  Be sure to tell me what you think, because it’s really you, the fans that keep me going between lattes!The Marshmallow err… R. E. CarrP. S. I’ll have more to share on Friday. Maybe this blogging thing isn’t so bad…

The Perils of Being a Marshmallow

I probably should have started this article with some amazing click bait, something like “Batman V Superman is as Great as Deadpool in Wolverine: Origins”.  What about “Lose Weight with This Weird Old Tip”?  I know, “Do This One Thing and Make Millions!”  After all, if there is one thing I’ve learned about the Internet is that you need a catchy title to sell something that has probably been written before.However I chose to write something only partially lucid, something that only people who know me would even understand.  Clearly I’m not taking about literal marshmallows, right?  The only peril the average one of those face is death by hot chocolate or being drowned in breakfast cereal.  Oh no, I’ve broken another Internet rule.  Not my title is not only bad, it makes no sense and I’ve wasted two precious paragraphs talking about nothing.  Any editor worth his or her salt is throwing things at me!Now that I’ve possible lost most of you, I thought I’d introduce myself formally.  I’m Rachel Elaine Carr, author of five novels, two of which are actually being published by Kindle Press.  I go by R. E. Carr because a Rachel Carr already wrote some vegan recipes online and I was ever so helpfully informed that it’s probably still a good idea to use those gender-neutral initials unless you’re writing romance.   I’m also as thick-skinned as the aforementioned confection – far too squishy and sickeningly sweet to be a jaded old author.  My “peril” is that I dared to put myself out in the world.  In fact the very first thing my family said when I announced that I was going to go for publication again (after a slight ten year rejection recovery) was “oh, my, are you sure you aren’t too sensitive to deal with all this?”So there you go, I’m here writing for time-to-time about random things.  I make no claims to any real plan yet because even if I tried, I would probably change it midway, but I will share a little bit and welcome any readers out there to join me for an interesting and unusual 2016.  I may even start sharing a little serial… or would that be cereal?  I am a marshmallow after all.-R. C.P.S. If you haven’t guessed, I totally wrote a book!  Check it out by clicking here.