Q. Kelly's Blog, page 15

Nice Long Interview Featuring Mooooi!

I have a rather lengthy interview out here: http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=140&chapter=2.

I love all my interviews, but this one stood out for sure. For one thing, two of my previous interviews were oral/on the radio. I had to go through an interpreter. Another interview, the questions were already set and listed. This interview with Affinity/Nancy provided a true back and forth, and I'm sure it'll always be one of my most enjoyable interviews. Nancy and I talked for three hours, maybe more, but a lot of that was edited out. (Good thing for your eyes! :-) )

This was done back in October, but Affinity wasn't able to post it until now. You can kinda tell because some of the info is outdated. Info in some places IS updated, though. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy the interview. Should take maybe 10-15 minutes to read.

"The Old Woman and Other Lesbian Stories" Wins Award

"The Old Woman and Other Lesbian Stories" has won a Lesbian Fiction Readers Choice Award. Woo! I'm happy, of course, but I find this win significant for one main reason. This collection is in e-book only. This tells me that e-book-only versions are viable for awards programs.

Print lovers, don't fret. I have another lesbian short-story collection coming out soon. I will most likely do a combined print edition of "The Old Woman" collection and the "Cupid Pulls a Prank and Other Lesbian Tales" collection.

"Switch" Is Out!

"Switch" is out at Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. You can also buy a print copy here or directly from me.

I've also added "Switch" to my Kindlegraphs page.

Be sure to check out the post below for a little "set the scene" for "Switch." And here's the blurb again:

Ellora Landry and June Blue Sky meet after they find out a nurse switched them when they were newborns. Ellora and June are forty years old and have led vastly different lives. June, raised by hippie parents, is an out lesbian who has not had the best experiences in the love department. Ellora, from a conservative family, is coming to terms with her lesbian identity and has just left her husband.

Ellora and June experience an undeniable attraction. However, they are reluctant to risk their hearts, especially since that means revealing secrets and telling the entire story behind half truths.

Will they realize that perhaps they were fated to be together since their births? 


** Edited to add word count: about 68,000 words. 

Why "Switch"?

* A little announcement about "Third" before we get to "Switch": Listen to two "Third" excerpts here (Cocktail Hour Bar Rag). OK! Announcement over. That really was quick. *

Here's a little self interview to set the stage for "Switch," my next novel. (It will be out in about two weeks.) Here's the blurb for "Switch":

Ellora Landry and June Blue Sky meet after they find out a nurse switched them when they were newborns. Ellora and June are forty years old and have led vastly different lives. June, raised by hippie parents, is an out lesbian who has not had the best experiences in the love department. Ellora, from a conservative family, is coming to terms with her lesbian identity and has just left her husband.

Ellora and June experience an undeniable attraction. However, they are reluctant to risk their hearts, especially since that means revealing secrets and telling the entire story behind half truths.

Will they realize that perhaps they were fated to be together since their births?


1. Why switched babies?
A couple of reasons. First, anyone who knows anything about switched babies knows the Kimberly Mays and Arlena Twigg saga. I'm about their age, just a wee bit younger, and so when that case broke, I really identified with them. I wondered what my life would be like if it was discovered I was switched. Later on, another switched babies case hit much closer to home. This one concerned Callie Conley, Rebecca Chittum and the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, Virginia, near my hometown. My  newspaper, The Roanoke Times, covered this story extensively, including while I worked there as a designer and copy editor. Additionally, my mother worked as a labor and delivery nurse and a neonatal intensive care (NICU) nurse at several hospitals, including the UVa hospital. She and I had several interesting discussions about how switches could happen and what hospitals could do and have done to stop them. In other words, it's something that's lurked in my  mind since I was a child. Pretty much all of my novels are taken from real-life news events.

2. Why does the switch in "Switch" come to light when June and Ellora are adults and not kids? (In other words, why not have the romance between the mothers of the switched babies and not the switchees themselves?)
Again, a few reasons. First, all of the switched babies cases I had heard about were exposed when the switchees were kids. That is, until I came across this case a few years ago. Two boys in Brazil were switched, and one always felt odd and left out. When he was a young adult, he paid for DNA testing and found out he was switched. How both families dealt with the fallout is interesting.

I could've done the mothers of small children as the romance leads, but I wanted the focus to be on the switchees. I could've done a YA/teen thing, but nah. I wanted my characters to have a lot of life experience behind them. I also wanted to do something different from all the switched cases out there, real life and fictitious. I don't know if anyone's been as old as thirty-nine/forty when the switches were discovered.

PLUS... see question below.


How did the switches happen? Have any happened this way in real life?
A nurse switched June and Ellora (and four other pairs of babies across fifteen years). The nurse looked for parents who resembled each other and for families who didn't live too close together. In her nursing career, she had that opportunity only five times, presumably. She knew what she was doing. Anyway, one reason I made June and Ellora forty is so that at the time they were switched, hospitals would be more relaxed about security. The switches didn't come to light until the son of the dead nurse read his mother's diary and found entries that she switched babies. He reported it to the police, and DNA tests confirmed the nurse had, indeed, done the switches. From my talks with my mother, yeah, it could've been done pretty easily, especially in these times. Who knows, this may really have happened at least several times around the world.

Why are June and Ellora from different backgrounds?
To create contrast and conflict, basically, and wish fulfillment. A lot of kids grow up wondering what'd happen if they find out they're princesses or the kids of movie stars--or they have this cool best friend with the coolest, most different parents. June and Ellora get to see that maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side. Or maybe it is. Maybe it's green on both sides. ;-)

Six Lessons I've Learned

I went indie in August, and since then I've learned a lot of stuff. Much of it I had to learn from experience and making mistakes because I didn't have a publisher to turn to for questions. I've gotten into my fair share of so-called trouble, and here's a rundown of lessons that I've learned both from my experiences as an author and as a book reviewer.

1. Don't reply to attack emails, regardless of whether they're aimed at you, one of your works or a combination. No matter your reply, you're most likely not going to persuade the sender to see your perspective or to think you're a good person. You'll only fan the flames. Even a simple "Thank you for your feedback" reply could get you another attack followup like: "That's all you have to say? You're disgusting." Just don't reply.

2. Don't comment on reviews of your own books. Get someone else to comment for you under his/her own name. (I learned this from both sides of the equation, once when I personally contacted a reviewer to explain the reasoning behind certain issues and then once again with another book when I commented to say YES my book was edited, not just proofread, on a one-star review that put forward as fact that my book wasn't edited. On the other side of the equation, I learned the lesson again on a four-star review I wrote on which the book's author posted unkind comments about me and the review.)

**OPTIONAL** Don't read reviews of your own books. This is a personal choice for each author to make, but I haven't read any of my reviews in a few months, and I'm happier for it.

3. Don't trust just anyone; never badmouth anyone to someone you do not 150 percent trust. Sad to say, some people will turn on you quickly and blab to other people that you said so and so author needs to work on so and so areas. And they'll make it sound ten times worse than what you said. Keep your cool. Avoid saying anything negative at all if possible unless you really, really trust someone.

4. If you're successful, even moderately, and by whatever metric(s) (books sold, free books downloaded, income generated, etc.) some people (a minority, thankfully) will be jealous. And they can turn passive aggressive. Be prepared. You've gotta have a thick skin.

5. Be careful of offering unsolicited advice. For example, you see a blurb that needs tweaking? You're probably better off not contacting the author unless you know your advice will be received in the good faith you intend it.

6. Write. Write. Write. Write some more. This helps you avoid more drama and keeps you out of trouble. ;-)


****

Suggestions from readers:

1. (from author Devon Marshall): Take regular breaks away from social media. Otherwise, all the drama will become a giant time-suck to your writing, not to mention your head may feel like it's about to explode! I agree 100%!

2. (from a reader, Trish): Don't say anything about anybody that you wouldn't say to that person personally.
I agree this is a good general rule (I wish the people writing attack emails about my works would follow this), but there are times ya just gotta vent. Nothing wrong with that. Pick your ventees very wisely, though. You might have to stick to only your spouse.

Word Count, Oh My

I've had some interesting discussions on Facebook and elsewhere since this came out saying the average book has 64,500 words. This news came on the heels of an author friend telling me her book had 98,000 words. I was amazed. I can't imagine writing 98,000 words. My longest novel, "Strange Bedfellows," is about 75,000 words. My shortest two novels, "Waiting" and "The Odd Couple," weigh in at 56,000ish words. Looks like my average follows the general average, eh? :-)

Anyway, I figured I'd do a quick post on word count for these authors fretting about word count.

Don't fret. Chill. (Unless you want in with a publisher who has particular word count requirements, then yeah, fret.)

My philosophy is that you use however many words necessary to tell your story AND NO MORE. This may mean 10,000 words or 100,000. Anything more than what the story needs is filler and causes plateaus, dragging action and unnecessary scenes. Of course, I realize one person's unnecessary scene may be another person's enjoyable bonus or necessary scene. I enjoy my fair share of long books such as "The Pillars of the Earth," but each word has to count and further the story somehow. Along these lines, look at descriptions that may be overly excessive. Do we really need to know this character's outfit every day down to the tiniest detail? Do we need three pages describing the beauty of a lake? (I usually skim over clothes and landscape scenes.)

If you want to work on telling stories more concisely, I recommend writing short stories. Set a limit for yourself, say, 2,000 words, and you'll see quickly just how unnecessary many scenes are.

I get my most fan mail (and my most diverse too, from gays, straight women, straight men, etc.). from a 5,000-word short story, "The Old Woman" (part of "The Old Woman and Other Lesbian Stories" short-story collection available for $2.99 anywhere). It's a nontraditional romance between a young white woman and a 75-year-old black woman. Could it have been longer? Sure. But its small size lends an oversized impact, I think. I've long been contemplating whether to expand it to a novel that would most likely have two parts, the second part picking up basically where the story as it is now ends. I've refrained from expanding thus far because I'm not sure the story needs expanding. The saying goes: "Don't fix it if it ain't broke." I do think there's room to add more depth and dimension to some of the characters if the time ever comes.

Bottom line: Chill. Let your story tell itself and decide its own word count.

Process of Getting Published

Here's another question for my indie FAQs section here. I'll be putting this question and answer there too as well as in this separate blog post.

What's the process of getting your novel published? I'm a newbie in this world of writing. And have no clue what's next after the book is finished.

This question came to me from someone who said she would probably go indie, but I'll cover both routes. First, read this post. Make sure you meet the checklist. The rest of my answer is predicated on you already having met a certain standard of writing.

Okay! Here we go.

Even if you 100 percent plan to go indie, I recommend you submit to agents and/or publishers IF this is your first book. (If you're an established author, don't sweat this part.) Do it for feedback, if nothing else. Agents and publishers may see things you don't, marketing strategies you don't. And if you're extended a contract, by no means do you have to accept it. If you're rejected constantly and for the same reason (need work on your writing skills) that also tells you that you're probably not quite "there" yet writing wise. If you're rejected because your work "is not marketable," however, then you're especially well suited for the indie world. "Waiting" is my #1 seller by far, and it was termed well written but not marketable. Turns out, yeah, it is marketable. ;-)

Route one: You decide to negotiate and accept a contract (either/and for agent and publisher). Have a lawyer work with you on this process. Some contracts are very harmful to authors. Don't go there. Walk away if you must. (I recommend you read route two as well, especially the latter part, because it applies to all authors.)

Route two: You go indie.

First, I think you have to decide if you're going to be under the banner of a publishing imprint with its own ISBNs and all. (I don't do that. I let the sites I upload to pay for my ISBNs.)

Then decide whether you want to start off exclusive to the Kindle for ebooks (this is called KDP Select; you can still do print anywhere). This is for a 90-day period, with renewals. There are pros and cons all over the Internet, so I won't go into them here. But make the decision. If you can't decide, then don't do it. You can always opt in later.

Next is whether to do formatting, cover, editing, etc. work yourself or pay for it. Some indies use good betas and/or critique groups in place of editors to save money. Some do their own covers. Some do their own formatting. You have to decide all this. Look at your budget and evaluate your own capability. (Think about what you plan to charge for your book.) Formatting isn't that hard. Download the Smashwords style guide and follow it, even if you plan to go Kindle only. For your covers, you don't have to be a Photoshop whiz. Here's a simple bare-bones PowerPoint tutorial.

You most likely have at least one e-reader (mine is Nook). Okay, good. Now download the Kindle and  Nook (and whatever else) apps on your phone and computer. That's what I did.

If you decide to NOT go Kindle-exclusive, you have a lot of potential places to upload. You can do this in many orders. You can decide to do Smashwords first because its autovetter may catch formatting issues and because Smashwords converts instantly. You may decide to do BN first because it takes longest (in my experience and in many others' experiences too). If you're still on the fence about KDP Select (Kindle only) you may decide to do Kindle first for a few days and see how sales there go. Anyway, decide on order. (If you're approved for Smashwords premium distribution, it takes maybe six weeks for your title to appear in the Apple, Sony, Kobo, etc. bookstores.)

Once you have your book uploaded to wherever and it is on sale, either buy it or download the sample. Check it on as many devices and apps as you can. Make sure the formatting is OK. (Have either indented paragraphs--preferred--or a space separating paragraphs, but NOT both.)

Move on to print (CreateSpace is easiest for me). This will be a snap after all the ebook stuff. I recommend paying the $25 for expanded distribution. It's paid off for me. Order a proof. Make necessary changes. Approve.

OK, the book's published. Open a Goodreads author page. An Amazon author page, too. LibraryThings and Shelfari and Facebook, etc. etc. if you want. But Goodreads and Amazon for sure. I also recommend you make an Amazon UK author page. Amazon UK is my #2 audience, in front of even print and BN.

Hold giveaways on Goodreads. Go to Google Blogs and find reviewers for your book. Send what will most likely be courtesy (free) copies. Don't stress too much about this. The main thing here is to KEEP WRITING. More books give you more chances to be discovered. Build a nice, sleek backlist.

OK! That's it for now. Let me know if I forgot anything.

Two Common Blurb Mistakes

I haven't done a writing/editing post in some time. I've noticed a pattern lately with one thing in particular (always did, but more so now, so much so this is threatening to become a Kellypeeve--eek!). So, I decided I'd take a broader perspective and focus on TWO things I often see blurbs get wrong. These two things usually stop me from buying the book. I'm picky, I know that. I'm not your average reader. But it never hurts to have a mistake-free, blurb, right?

So, indies and publishers, listen up! Yep, publishers too. You're the main culprits of this, actually. ;-)

Mistake one (may be turning into a Kellypeeve!):
In your book blurb, don't put the first sentence character's name in commas.

For example, DON'T do: Perpetually lovelorn and crazy writer, Jane Doe, is kidnapped.

DO: Perpetually lovelorn and crazy writer Jane Doe is kidnapped.
Now, if you have a character who has ONE daughter, and only ONE daughter, then yeah, you can do something like: John Doe's daughter, Jane Doe, is kidnapped. (If John Doe has more than one daughter, don't put Jane's name in commas.) In either case (and I'm talking about lesfic here most likely), if Jane Doe is a main character and her dad isn't, forget about the dad! What's more interesting is that Jane was kidnapped. Get the dad out of the sentence.
Mistake two:
Ages. Have TWO hyphens if you're doing something like seventeen-year-old. Don't let your blurb read: Jane Doe is a seventeen-year old girl who is kidnapped.

You risk turning off readers because you need a hyphen between year and old.

Right: Jane Doe is a seventeen-year-old girl who is kidnapped.

No hyphens needed: Jane Doe is seventeen years old.
Yes to hyphens: The seventeen-year-old was kidnapped.

*** Nitpicking, you may cry! This is a blurb. Who cares?

Okay.

You can think that way, sure. But I've noticed that the blurb is often reflective of the book and the book's quality of editing. Why take the risk? Put out an error-free blurb.

"Cupid Pulls a Prank and Other Lesbian Tales"

Debuting the tentative cover for my next short-story collection!

Here is the lineup of stories I have so far. It's possible one or two may be removed, although I don't think so. A few are definitely going to be added.


Cupid Pulls a PrankCupid pulls a prank to end all pranks. For the first time in American history, both the Republicans and the Democrats have female candidates running for president. The Republican is Alice Cowell, and the Democrat is Gillian Marshall. Cupid strikes them during a live, nationwide televised debate, and Alice's and Gillian's reactions shock even him.
ToastedLottie finds out that some women do get toasters for converting straight gals. And not just any old toasters, but toasters of all shapes, sizes and colors. Heck, there's a blue race car toaster, a zebra toaster and a full-sized purple unicorn toaster. Can Lottie win the toaster of her dreams?
Mrs. Santa Claus's Klondyke SecretCandace Claus, a.k.a. Mrs. Santa Claus, is on her yearly two-week cruise with Santa after the madness of the holidays. She is tired of living in the shadow of a man who has gone from jolly to cranky, plus she will no longer deny her true self. The time has come for Candace to fess up to Santa that she's a lesbian.
Lesbian Speed Dating Ginny Yost is intrigued when she sees an ad for lesbian speed dating. What happens is a comedy of errors. She encounters a man pretending to be a lesbian, a married bi-curious woman, a woman eight months pregnant, and horror of horrors, Ginny's old high school gym teacher, who constantly yelled at her to do ten more pushups. Will Ginny find the woman she's meant to be with?
So This Woman Meets This Chick Online And... A joke from the early days of the Internet goes like this: a young woman sets up a hotel rendezvous with a man she met online. They meet, and turns out he's her dad. Yep. They cringe in embarrassment and promise to never tell anyone what happened.
Guess what? This happens to Jillian too, only she is gay, so the person she encounters in the hotel room is her mom, not her dad. No, they don't have sex. Nothing of the sort. Jillian has never been more embarrassed in her life. Can she and her mother make the best of a cringe-worthy situation?
Katherine and Ms. Winslow Katherine wronged her high school English teacher, Ms. Winslow. Twelve years later, they have a chance encounter at three a.m. Can Katherine get Ms. Winslow's forgiveness?
Westinhoffer, Andrew Brian, 16Elizabeth is reading the obituaries when one catches her eye. She thought she said goodbye to Andrew Brian Westinhoffer when he was a baby, but she must force herself to say goodbye again.

When a Character Defines Herself as Butch (or Femme or Whatever)

This blog post is inspired by a question in one of my Yahoo groups. The questioner asked what readers wanted to see from a character who defines herself as butch.

Seems a simple question, right? For the answer, throw up a bunch of butch stereotypes and see what sticks.

Not really a simple question, though. Here's my answer (which, after some thought, I wanted to expand on in this blog post:

What's more interesting to me is WHY the character defines herself as butch and where/how/with whom.

The character's own definition helps me know more about the character. So the exact wording of the definition doesn't matter. What it tells me about the character's worldview and psyche matters. For example, is the character anxious to conform with the stereotype? This is quite telling, a window into her psyche. Does the character have long hair, wear lipstick and dresses and define herself as butch? Oooh. I'd def want to know why.

The very fact that a character defines herself tells me a lot, that the character probably likes labels.

So, say you're an author, and you want to get a character's appearance and personality across in a nifty shortcut. "Oh," you think, "that's easy. All I have to do is have them call themselves butch or fem."

This isn't a bad thing, per se, especially for simple, no-frills books. However, I urge authors to think deeper. What does this character's act of labeling say about the character? For example, take the woman with the long hair, lipstick and dresses who calls herself butch. This intrigues me because on the surface, she seems fem. I want to know why she calls herself butch. Does she have a wicked "reverse" sense of humor? Is she simply poking fun at labels? Does she possess a characteristic that, in her mind, defines butchess?

If you have a character define herself (or himself), just know this tells readers a lot (may be subconscious) about the character. Taking a shortcut can work, sure, but add some meaning to the shortcut. Even a character defining herself as butch without a second thought makes me gather a lot about her identity and her thought process.

Or maybe I'm just too durn meta. ;-)