Allison Hurd's Blog, page 21

Coming Attractions

It was perhaps optimistic of me to think I’d have “The First One’s Free” out the door this weekend.  I’m still waiting on a few things to happen so that I can feel confident that I’m giving you the story you deserve to hear.  Alas.

BUT! That won’t slow me down too much! I have for you today the synopses for the next two books!

As you know, Book 2 is called Sacrifice and it’s coming out later this year.  Where “Feeding Frenzy” spans about a week, “Sacrifice” happens over three action-packed days. Summer and Lia get roped into the schemes of a manipulative conjure woman who forces them to decide how much blood spilled is too much?

Then in Book 3 (as yet unnamed), right in the middle of Monster Season comes the scariest job of all: Thanksgiving with the extended family.* The sisters head back to the ol’ homestead, with all of its memories, secrets, and yes, skeletons. When they learn their cousin’s in trouble, Summer and Lia struggle against the past which threatens to rise up against them.

Dun dun dunnnnn!

I hope you’re as excited as I am!

*Note: this is not real life. The author loves Thanksgiving, especially with extended family!

My Writing Isn’t Mine

I’m trying this click bait thing.  Sorry.  Is it working?  You’re here, at least!  First, don’t get worked up.  Plagiarism is abomination.  I still get mad thinking about the college kids who thought I wouldn’t notice their wiki-reports.  I own my writing.  Its copyright is in my name.  The words come from my mind and my hands.  But I can’t claim all of it exclusively.  I am a HUGE proponent of collaboration.  Not necessarily co-authoring, but definitely haranguing loved ones nigh constantly for input and validation. Do this all the time always.

My signif-o is also a writer, so I am blessed that I have someone to talk shop with.  This is so helpful.  He tells me repeatedly when I’m being too nice to Summer and Lia–which so far has been about all the time.  He lets me know when something sounds funny or boring or what other things I should be thinking about because that’s what my audience will be thinking about. And let me just say, according to him, some of y’all are very deep, and some of y’all are chuckleheads.

My friends are comprised of several writers and the otherwise-creative, too, and my stories wouldn’t happen without them.  We talk about nuance, we talk about race and sex in books.  I’ll ask for synonyms, and they’ll give me back Shakespearean responses.  And, when I hit that point in editing when I’m pretty sure every word I wrote is an affront to our language–nay, our species–they are there to keep me from deleting all of it.

And that all seems so…common, right?  But it’s really not.  We see a lot of books that you want to ask “Hello!! Did you even mention this out loud to anyone before you said it?  Because it MAKES NO SENSE!”  The one-dimensional story is real, and a problem.  As authors, we get so caught up in the minds of our characters that we forget that all the things we know but aren’t communicating effectively don’t exist for our readers.  Alpha and beta readers help with this (I recommend having ten people read over books before you send it into the world).  But don’t stop there.  I recently gave the mile-high overview of the rest of the series to a friend who only said this:

“Wow.  Intense.  I’m not sure I love X, but that’s just my own worldview.  It sounds really cool though.”

And by him saying that thing about X, I gave it another thought.  I was out of my own head for a second, and the tweak I made to address his feelings?  Oh, man I am so excited to write this story.  I thought I was excited before.  But now it almost writes itself.  How could I not have seen that!  I was so caught up on what I knew about my characters that I didn’t think about what it’d be like to read that part of her story.  And now that I have, I can’t imagine it making sense the old way.  It would have been so trite.  Now it has a new twist.  Because my story isn’t mine, you see.  It’s my world, my characters, my words.  But I’d really like it if y’all read it and loved it, too.  And for that, sometimes I need a poke, prod or a cannonball to the chest in the right direction.  It’s my book, but the story credit goes in large part to the patient, creative, honest people who give me feedback I can use to make the story you’re reading be the story we all want to read.

So my advice, if you’re looking for advice, is: ask around!  People often have great ideas that they don’t want, just lying around.  It feels good to help people, to get swept up into a wave of creativity you don’t have to then finish and put in a home.  It’s like being the aunt to an adorable but energetic child with whom you can go on adventures, and then send home when they get crabby.  And really, while we love our own stories, isn’t being an aunt to one sort of the best?

 

Goodreaders! Your Books Are A-Comin'!

And they're bringing Hell with them! Not, like...actually though. It's well contained between two covers by two twenty-somethings that are figurin' it out, okay? So just relax.

Thank you SO MUCH for participating in the giveaway, I hope you like it! All y'all should friend me so I can read your favorite urban fantasy, too! I'm editing 2 books and reading Octavia Butler's "Wild Seed" right now. It's strange going from my world, to a world with an assassin in my hometown to 1700's New York? But I like it.

Stay in touch, happy reading!

Scared Of Strong Female Protagonists

 

I think we’ve all been here. “You’ll like this book,” they say.  “It’s got a strong female protagonist!”

And then I enter an intense struggle, where I fight not to roll my eyes, and to keep the fear at bay.

She’s so good at this. And also rill strong.

Sex-based words over gender-based words aside, hearing “strong female protagonist” is enough for me to ring the “intruder alert” bell and call back all of my emotional resources against impending loss of trust in the person giving me the recommendation, and probably faith, while we’re at it. Not because I dislike the idea–I mean hello, just look at the book I wrote! But because it’s almost always followed by an explanation about how she’s “the leader of the group”, or is “sassy” or “confident” and “knows what she wants.”

Sassy. Confident. Knows what she wants. Writes songs to decimate your heart.

I L-O-V-E sassy, confident leaders who get what they put their minds to!  But girl? That better not be all you have to tell me about her. That lady character better have a mountain of skeletons in her immaculate closet who keep reanimating to come back and beat at her with their pointy finger bones.

To me, strong is the ability to stand on her own, in glorious 3D.  Strong is a woman living in a world that either accepts her authority as a person no questions asked, no comments made about her gender, or someone who fights internal battles, has quirks and flaws (that aren’t always fatal!  Sometimes they’re just flaws. Lord knows Hollywood’s killed enough female protagonists–we don’t need to help overmuch).  She is complex but relatable, in some way.  She’s surprised by her inevitable period, or mad that her co-workers assumed she’d take notes in the meeting, or couldn’t tell you how to work anything in her kitchen other than the microwave, for example. In short, I’m looking for someone in whom I can find a mirror of my own humanity, or who lives in the world we might have once we get past this whole “girls exist only to be caretakers, full stop” mentality.

Tamora knows what I’m sayin’. 

A strong female protagonist can be a stay-at-home mom who knows when to let things slide so that there isn’t always a fight.  A strong female protagonist can be the woman in the grocery store when gunmen take them hostage and who organizes a coup or keeps everyone from flying apart. A strong female protagonist can be an assassin-spy-wizard who also is horny all the time and likes being fed strawberries. Strong female protagonist is versatile, and frankly knows she’s badass even if she manages an inn and can’t function without a pot of coffee.

Try and tell me she isn’t strong.

It isn’t about their jobs, their title, or wordplay. Strength is whether or not she is real, and how much of a person we can identify in her. Jobs, titles, wit are something so easy to take away or to give to characters. Indeed, I think many of us have read the books with the “strong female protagonists” and wondered when she’d show up, because sure this person is captain of a space ship, but she also doesn’t make any decisions without a dude, spends half the time worrying about feelings, and by the by was hurt in her past by her now-boss, and no one did anything about it.

Is this real life?

Gina’s not sure either.

I’ve been female and a woman a goodly while now, and I am certain that if  I had to take the choice between “influence and respect but no title” or “title, but can’t do anything for yourself” I would choose the former every single time.  Unless I’m feeling sickly that day, and just want someone to take care of me while I watch movies from the 90’s.  But aside from that time…give me true power, which is the love, admiration, fear or respect of my associates. Piddle on your stupid titles if it comes at the cost of my self-worth. Piddle, I say!

And this has been your rant on my click-bait title about why the term “strong female protagonist” should either step up its game or get out of my way already, except for the exceptional web-comic by that name.

The End.

P.S. Supergirl can heck off.

Shoot Shoot Shoot

I am not telling you to aim your piece, or take your turn at pool.  Instead, the title of this post refers to the word I’m ACTUALLY repeating to myself, but for the sake of young or easily-widened eyes, I won’t use it as the title for a post.

I’m saying “shoot” (which replaces an I with two O’s, in what I believe to be the Gothic German tradition*) because I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO POST SUNDAY.

In my defense, Sunday was the day that we decided to host a quad-birthday party at our home, and it was totes rad.  In my condemnation, I knew about this quad-birthday party  well in advance and did not manage to schedule a post.  For I am a small, chaotic being built on good intentions, and average follow-through.

So here’s your post, quick and sweet.

-You have about three hours as of this publication to sign up for a chance for my book on Goodreads.

–Feeding Frenzy is now available on Nook, should any of you still cling to Nook (not judging! I just didn’t realize it was still fighting the good fight).

-I’m editing video (and by “I’m” I do mean “The Other One is”) for an exciting new series of posts about amazing humans with their own cool projects! Let me know if you know a self-employed go-getter with a neat story!

-This is the end of the updates.

Enjoy your late post! Sorry it was late!

*You shouldn’t believe me when I discuss declensions. That’s just a solid general rule.

 

 

 

 

 

The First One’s Free

Ta da!  Here’s the cover for my new short story “The First One’s Free!”  David Berg once again shows off.  The “feel” of this cover is different than for my full book.  This one I wanted to feel more like a journal than a painting, for it is just a brief look at a normal job for our two intrepid sisters.  I think he really captured that.

As the name suggests, this story picks up with Summer and Lia literally running into a person who is baked.  They help to return the lost woman to the facility from which she escaped and instantly know something is wrong.  It isn’t until Lia is kidnapped, however, that the enemy starts to take shape, and it is Summer’s worst nightmare.  Luckily, all of the people around her are too high to be freaking out with her.  With quick wits, humor and good ol’ fashioned stick-to-it-ness, the sisters are able to save the very souls of the captive patients, and only burn down a building or so.  All in a good day’s work!

Those who have already read the first book I think will enjoy a few references that will make more sense, and for those of you who didn’t want to commit to the price of a full book without knowing what you were getting yourself into, I hope you find this an enjoyable foray!  This story gets intense, so hop in and buckle up!

It is with my editors now–I hope to have the short story out by the end of April.  Hopefully sooner, if possible!  It will be free on Amazon when it does go live, so stay tuned for more updates!  And for now, enjoy the beautiful “wrongness” of the flowers at the heart of “The First One’s Free.”

Got a Cool Monster?

This was an exciting week for The Summoner Sisters.  First, “The First One’s Free” is almost full of words and I’ve got my carpentry tools in the wings ready to chisel this bad boy down to something a human would intentionally read just as soon as the last word is corralled.

Then, I wrote the end of the series (!!!) It’s gonna be quite a ride and I so desperately want to tell you, but you’ll just have to read it in real time because I don’t think you’ll appreciate it right now.  I don’t think the girls will appreciate it right now, either, and we must be ever sensitive to their feelings.

As of right now, I’m scheduled to write eight full length books and probably five or six short stories, which will be compiled into a book (along with two more short stories!) in a book called Banished at the end of it all.  So, nine books about Summer and Lia and their shenanigans, which are legion.

Now I need to start thinking of monsters for the other short stories.  I’m trying to focus on lesser known or regional monsters because those are super interesting to me.  You probably have a local legend or know of an interesting-but-unknown devils.  You should tell me of these things, that I might use them and credit you for the inspiration!  Comment here or on Goodreads or Facebook or…wherever it is that you hang out in social media land–I’m always looking for an excuse to get distracted.  Hit me up, let’s set up some cage matches between your favorite booga booga and my banishers!

Perhaps I’ll even make you one of these, from blog.koa.com

 

 

“Bro, Do You Even Outline?”

“How” to write is something a lot of people like to talk about.  I don’t think I have a very satisfying answer. Maybe I haven’t done this enough yet. But here’s how I wrote the first one, and how I’m making progress on two new works.

It starts off simply.  I freakin’ love my characters.  I love them.  They’re so easy and fun for me to write, that every time I get to a scene with them chatting it’s like giving a small treat to myself.  And I think the book reflects that.  I love when they talk, they love when they talk, and the only thing that keeps them from being together always is work–both for them and me.

Sketch by Joanna Hurd

Secondly, I needed a plot. I say secondly because I would read about Harry Dresden finding out his local bodega was out of eggs when he’d promised Karen pancakes, honestly. (Actually, anyone know Jim Butcher? Can this happen?) I like Harry. He’s interesting to see in action even when he’s doing normal stuff. But for most days, we’d like to read a little more than that. So think of something that would be fun for you to write and leave room for the plot to change. I think a lot of my “writer’s block” was because I was trying to fit the narrative to an idea that wasn’t fully formed, or that sucked, on second thought.  You shouldn’t be forced to tell a crappy story just because you said so.  You didn’t buy that logic as a kid, you shouldn’t stand for it in your own world.  Sure, it’ll mean rewrites.  Ain’t no one writes a book without rewrites.  This is just a Truth, like gravity.

And then just…write!  I’ve started…four? books in my life so far, and only finished one, because I connected with this story.  I loved figuring out what came next.  I loved not knowing what came next til it happened.  Which isn’t to say I didn’t outline.  I think maybe for 76,000 words I wrote about 1,000 of outline.  It looked something like this:

Ch 1: Find job. Meet someone on the way to talk about world

Ch 2: Get settled in area of job, think something weird is going on.

Ch 3: Investigate; talk to sorority; find monster too late

It’s super sparse, as you can see. Sometimes I didn’t have enough for a full chapter from this, and it had to become part of another chapter. Sometimes these things, vague as they were, evolved into more story, and I needed to add a chapter to address it.  Like dees:

Ch 3: Investigate, go to party.

Ch 4: Realize monster was there, narrow down what it is

This gave me room to adapt and move on if my original idea belly flopped. It allowed a sense of collaboration with myself that was pleasing and kept my work interesting to me, even the 20th time I read it, which is important.  Step one to convincing other people to read your book: not wanting to die after you finish re-reading it.

So, that’s how I got a first draft.  Your mileage may vary.  My tl;dr?  Get excited, bitches. Make enough of an idea that you can riff off of it, and be prepared for copious amounts of rewriting. And have fun! If you’re having fun, your readers probably will, too.

 

 

New Goodreads Giveaway!

Hey y’all!

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I’m not a huge fan of how this holiday’s gone, but I am an enormous fan of showing care and appreciation to the people in my world–you all rock!  So, I’ve set up a book giveaway, because SHARING IS CARING. And I care 500%.

Because I care 500%, you can enter for a chance to win one of five paperbacks over the next month!  If you’ve been on the fence, or think a friend would like the book, but they’re on the fence, here’s a good opportunity to cautiously dip in a toe.  I get it.  “I’ve self-published my first book!”  Is right up there with hearing that your co-worker now does Troll Bead parties or whatever new thing there is.  Part of you wants to be supportive and thinks this could be a lot of fun!  And the rest of you is overwhelmed by sirens of impending doom.  I am with you.  I’m sorry your sirens are going off.  Go ahead and silence them while still being the supportive, adventuresome folk you are and enter for a free copy!

Life As Usual

It’s Super Bowl Sunday! I hope your team wins, your half-time show has better sharks, and your commercials are worth the wait! Also, that you get lots of bad-for-you delicious things to eat.

 

I don’t have a full/interesting post for you today, so here are the highlights:

Feeding Frenzy is selling in fits and starts! It’s out now in both paperback and e-book.  Bloody sorry for how pricey the paperback is, but my hands are tied by CreateSpace. Thanks, everyone who has read and reviewed the book so far, it means a lot to me! Please keep the reviews coming, even if you didn’t like it. Right now my reviews (which I love!) look too good to be true, so whatever you have to say, say it!
Sacrifice is a little under half written in the rough! I’m excited for you to see this one. It’s more action packed than the first book, and you’ll get to see more about the other kinds of rituals, and how magic works. I’m having fun writing about it.
Soon I’ll unveil a really interesting side project I’ve been working on! I’ve had the great pleasure of interviewing a few self-employed people whose jobs I think my readers will find interesting to know more about. I’ll be posting them here for your viewing pleasure. Some truly fascinating people with great stories and tips for us. If you know of anyone else who is self-employed and who has experiences that can be tied at all to the story, let me know! I’m having a lot of fun doing this, and would love to keep going.
My life will have normal hours again soon, so that will slow me down.  I’m looking forward to it, but I won’t give that an exclamation point because I was just getting to the meat of my story and I sort of wanted to rend its writing bones. (How’s that for a metaphor?) I was hoping to be done with the first draft of Sacrifice by now. Alas. Magic is not something I can do in real life, it seems. Total bullshit. But I am throwing around the idea of doing short stories of “between book” jobs Lia and Summer take. What do you think? Would you be interested in seeing a few more of their jobs?