Michelle Garren Flye's Blog, page 49

Blog Tours: The Why and Where I am Today

In my first journalism class, I learned about the who, what, when, where, why and how. Today I kicked off my umpteenth blog tour for my fourteenth (?I think?) book. So who is me, what is a blog tour, when is now and how is through Goddess Fish, a blog tour company I’ve worked with successfully before.

Why is a little tougher. Why do blog tours? I already blog. Sometimes I neglect my own blog, so why write guest posts and interviews for someone else’s blog? Why pay a third party to set it up? Simple. Hope.

Hope that somebody who reads these blogs will want to read my book. Hope that they’ll love it enough to tell ten friends and at least five of those friends will love it enough to tell ten more. And so on.

Hope springs eternal in the breast of every born writer. We are made of hope or we wouldn’t keep writing. We exist on hope because we know our writing is never going to support us. We live for hope because without it, there is nothing.

Today, I hope you’ll join me at Edgar’s Books for an interview in which I speak about what makes Becoming Magic different from everything else I’ve written and from much of what is available in the romance market these days. I also reveal what my first reaction is to a bad review. And why I hope I keep getting them.

Find me here: Becoming Magic: Book Tour and Blog Giveaway. Oh yeah, and there is a giveaway to register for, too!

Poem: The Ice Cream Truck

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Ice Cream Truck

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

Don’t say goodbye yet.

Just wait. It’s not time to go.

The ice cream truck will be here soon enough.

See—you can hear the music.

I know your mouth is dry and you’re hungry—

I know the music is still far away,

But I can give you water while we wait.

We can watch the cars together.

Maybe there’s a fancy one.

They streak by in multicolored glory.

You almost forget the ice cream truck if you watch.

You almost forget you’re waiting.

But wait. Don’t leave.

I hear the music now.

Write the change you want to see: A Birthday Thank You for a Friend

Special Note: I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of teachers in my life. Some of these people probably don’t even realize I was their pupil at one point or another. I’d like to dedicate this blog post to a friend who greeted me in the hallowed halls of the Zoetrope writers workshop at the true beginning of my writing career. Her example and kind words of encouragement have helped many a writer over the years, whether it was as an editor or reviewer or friend. Happy birthday, Beverly![image error]

Mahatma Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” I think writers have another obligation. Write the change. It’s the charge given to each of us with this calling to write our feelings and dreams down and send them out on paper airplanes into the world.

Don’t like the world with less opportunity for lower classes? Imagine it different. Write the change.

Don’t like racism? Write a world with more tolerance.

Don’t like partisan politics? Erase them with a few strokes of the keyboard—in your writing, anyway.

Horrified by the attitudes that resulted in the #metoo movement? Write a world where consent is actually romanticized. For instance:

She loved and trusted this man. Nothing they chose to do together could be wrong or destructive. —Dickens Magic, coming October 31, 2018

I’m not saying you’ll change the world with your stories. I’m saying it’s up to the writers and dreamers to reach out to others and show them what the world could be. Imagine a world where the rights of every human being are respected. Imagine a world where technology aids instead of replaces human interaction. Imagine a world where everyone is valued for what they bring to the world, no matter what their skill is.

Imagine it and write it.

Writing is a funny, funny thing.

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Photo by Lum3n.com on Pexels.com

Funny weird, not funny ha-ha.

Funny in that when the fever is on you, you can write five to ten thousand words in a day.

Funny in that on those days, you don’t want to stop for anything.

Over the course of the past few days, I wrote the last fifteen thousand words of my next Sleight of Hand novel Dickens Magic. And then I started another one that I’m not ready to talk about yet. I’m now six thousand words into that one.

Writing is funny, but not exactly fun. While you’re in the fever, you’re aware of the other things you  need to be doing. But even though you’re not having fun, there’s no way you want to stop.

For instance, right now, I want to be back at work on my work-in-progress, but I knew I needed to stop by here and remind you that:

(a) Becoming Magic is out there now, just waiting for readers and reviewers. It has two reviews on Amazon and still sits at five stars.

(b) All my self-published books with the exception of Becoming Magic (because really, it’s a new release) are available in the Smashwords Summer Sale for FREE with coupon code SS100. Go get em!

With that said, I’m off to indulge myself some more in my funny, funny chose profession.

Leaving the backlist behind

Over the past week—especially since Wednesday when I discovered my dog had chewed through my computer cord—I have been working on getting the last three of my self-published books online at Smashwords. Smashwords will make these books available in multiple formats at multiple outlets, so that you aren’t just limited to Kindle if you wish to read in ebook format. In a few days, every one of my books will be available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, iBooks—you name it, I’ll be there. Every format.

Revisiting my backlist became less of a chore than I’d imagined it would be. I actually found myself giving my last three books (Weeds and Flowers, Ducks in a Row, and Saturday Love) a thorough proofreading…and enjoying it. I haven’t read those books in ages.

Weeds and Flowers isn’t even a romance like I write now. More of a coming-of-age story that was written in a sort of patchwork quilt way—bits and pieces that I stitched together to make a novel. Appropriately, it was actually probably the first novel I wrote, though not the first one published. I had forgotten how much that book meant to me, though. It’s the only one—so far—that has something in it that actually happened, not actually to me, but to people around me. Re-reading it was like reliving some of my own childhood, even if I was more watching than experiencing at the time.

As for the other two, Ducks was the most difficult book I’ve written thematically. I think of it as sort of an anatomy of both a marriage and an affair. I actually still dislike the heroine, though she did grow a lot during the course of the book. And I fell in love with one of the male characters. So much so that he ended up getting his own book, Saturday Love, because I just couldn’t leave him hanging like he was at the end of Ducks. Regardless of my feelings for the characters, however, re-reading those books was like visiting with family I hadn’t seen in a while. And it revived a past resolve to write a third book in that series. If I can ever get past the two or three other projects I have waiting for me now.

But for now, I am returning to work on Dickens Magic, my next in the Sleight of Hand series and my first ever attempt at a holiday-themed book. I’d reached a sort of roadblock on that one. I couldn’t quite figure a believable way to drive a wedge between the hero and heroine but over the course of the week, I had a brainstorm. I plan to give myself two more weeks to finish the first draft of Dickens Magic, then I have another start on a not-magic-related book and at some point I have to get to work on Magic at Sea… 

But maybe that would wait. Maybe I could start my third book about the Hubbard family, Agape Mou (Greek for “My Love”). There’s a reason it’s Greek. If you read Ducks and Saturday Love, you’ll understand. I have plans for a very good-looking Greek hero for that one, but his ties to the Hubbard family are very complicated and bound to result in some drama. Especially when he gets involved with the daughter of the family…

Oh crap. If I’m not careful my imagination will get stuck in sunny Greek vineyards instead of a theater all decorated for Christmas. Better get back to work! Herete, my friends.

Happy Friday the 13th: A dog, a backlist and computer woes

This Friday the 13th I’m counting my blessings.

I’m fortunate that I have a dog that I love dearly.

I’m fortunate that I have a backlist with 13 novels that I can offer for free on Smashwords Summer Sale (coupon code SS100).

I’m fortunate that I have an iPad. It gives me something to work on while I’m waiting for a replacement power cord for my MacBook Pro that my dog chewed. That severely limits my productivity. It’s very difficult to upload a manuscript from an iPad to Smashwords. Most of my files are in Dropbox, fortunately, so I can access them, but it’s not what I’m used to. So I managed to upload Ducks in a Row, but yesterday I contented myself with thoroughly proofreading Saturday Love, thinking any minute UPS would arrive with the computer cord replacement I’d paid extra to have delivered overnight. 

They didn’t come.

I checked the tracking last night. My cord never made it past the UPS facility 30 miles away. It said something about the house number being incorrect, which is, of course, bull, since I’ve had plenty of things delivered from Apple with no problem. And they always use the same address. UPS, you’ve now taken the place of my dog in this screwed up saga of my week. Which is probably a good thing.

I still love her.

 

Can you blame me?

 

So, anyway, look for Saturday Love to be online (without the two typos I found) later today, hopefully. In the meantime, you can obtain every book in my armada in the electronic format of your choice on Smashwords for $2.99. (That’s for Becoming Magic, which I just published, so you know…) That’s fourteen books once I get Saturday Love done. Come on, that’s pretty good. Go. Download. 

And if you have a dog, keep an eye on your computer cord!

Reviving the Backlist: 13 Novels are waiting for you!

Yesterday while pondering whether or not I could be considered a “Southern” writer and not just a writer from the South, I started thinking about my backlist. I realized three of them were still only available on Amazon because I created book covers for them using KDP. But creating simple ebook covers is easier than ever now, so I looked up an online book cover creator and got to work.

I’m happy to say I now have book covers for all three and one of them—Weeds and Flowers—is now available (along with most of my backlist) for free on Smashwords with the coupon code SS100. Ducks in a Row is in process today and I’ll work on Saturday Love as soon as Ducks is ready. I’m excited about getting Ducks out there to a wider audience. It was what I call “critically acclaimed” having earned the following comments from reviewers on Amazon:

“I highly recommend this unsettling book.”
“A beautiful story about love, choice, redemption, and family.”
“One of the best books I have read this year, very thought provoking.”
“…a very beautiful but painful story…”

Saturday Love is actually the sequel to Ducks because I felt I left too much untold at the end of Ducks. At any rate, I’m thrilled more people will soon see these and maybe add them to their to-be-read pile. For now, here are the covers of all three:

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Q: Am I a Southern Writer? A: Maybe.

[image error]Every morning I read three things. Politics, sports and anything about writing and literature. This morning I happened to see an excellent article in The New York Times called “What Is a Southern Writer, Anyway?” by Margaret Renkl. Renkl wondered if Southern writing could survive the modern age—”mass media and Walmart”. I had to agree, I wondered if she was right.

Growing up in the North Carolina mountains, I saw a lot of Southern tropes and missed out on others. We had snow when I was a girl, and even the summers were not unbearable. Fresh mountain breezes made the 80-plus degree heat quite bearable and no one had air conditioning. We sat on front porches in the evenings, but my mother didn’t allow smoking (or any kind of tobacco) or drinking. Ever. Ahead of her time, she’d witnessed the destructive effects of both.

Most of my childhood, we had one car which my father used to get out and back to work at the DuPont plant where he moved up from mechanic to shift supervisor. We rode bikes and walked to get places when he was gone until he bought my mother a little Pinto to take us to school in. I remember riding back from the grocery store on my bike, balancing a gallon of milk between the handlebars.

And yes, there was the ugly part. I wrote about that in my book Weeds and Flowers. Shades of prejudice, rumors of Klan meetings, memories of burning crosses and hangings. There were ugly weeds in our Southern flower garden, but we only saw hints of them.

Renkl concludes in her article that, “Maybe being a Southern writer is only a matter of loving a damaged and damaging place, of loving its flawed and beautiful people, so much that you have to stay there, observing and recording and believing, against all odds, that one day it will finally live up to the promise of its own good heart.”

If that be the case, then I am a Southern writer although I don’t always write Southern literature. Every single one of my books has some tie to North Carolina, though, and most of them take place at least partly in my state. However, of all my books, I would only consider two of them to actually be somewhat Southern literature. Weeds and Flowers, of course, but also—if a romance can be Southern literature—Tracks in the Sand. (For the record, Tracks in the Sand is free in the Smashwords Summer Sale with code SS100.)

So although I grew up in a little town that became a tourist attraction with a booming economy and now live in another small NC town, I see the faults of small southern living. I love my state and always have. The two years I lived in other states (Maryland and Virginia) were miserable times for me. North Carolina is home, and home, after all, is what both Southern and romance writers write about.

A New Kind of Romance: Changing the soul of romance literature

I just read a wonderful article in The New York Times by Alexandra Alter called “The Changing Face of Romance Novels”. The article addressed how romance novels are slowly changing to more accurately reflect the growing diversity in our world. However, Alter points out that many of the more diverse authors who write diverse romance must turn to alternative publishing outlets to get their books to readers as traditional publishing does not embrace change—at least not right away.

The article got me thinking. More diversity is a wonderful thing. More accurately reflecting the world we live in is invaluable. And yet, that doesn’t address what I see as the core problem in my genre the way my new kind of romance will. You see, though the face of literature definitely needs to change with changing times and audiences, the soul of romance must be addressed as well.

Gustave Flaubert said, “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” If the romance genre continues to explore the darker desires and pitfalls of humanity, is that what we romance authors believe love is all about? Is that what the publishing industry believes?

Isn’t it our duty as artists to illuminate the brighter side of love?

Yes, sex sells. It always has and always will. It sells books and clothes and cars. It sells candy and music. The publishing industry needs to take note, however, that you can’t just give the romance genre a facelift (even if it does need one). In today’s world, however, it is more important than ever to show through the romance genre that sexy does not need to include what women don’t want in their lives—whether that is controlling heroes, discrimination, assault or harassment of any sort.

 

 

Take the Plunge: See beyond the stigma of “self-published”

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How to convince a reader to take that leap of faith into your book? Photo by Oliver Sju00f6stru00f6m on Pexels.com

I get it. I’m old enough to remember vanity presses. I remember the indie-publishing phenomenon of The Christmas Box. Remember how quickly indie publishing grew after Richard Paul Evans’s little treasure was discovered by mainstream publishing? Vanity presses became independent presses and developed into KDP and Smashwords, providing a voice for authors who either can’t make it through the gatekeepers of traditional presses or, like me (I like to think, anyway), lost patience with the hoops you must jump through.

I’ve had three books published by two different traditional publishers. In all three cases, I enjoyed the experience of having professional cover designers, editors and book designers. It was invigorating working on a deadline. But at both publishers, my editors eventually left, putting me back at square one of trying to sell my book to another editor.

I’d rather sell it to you, my readers. But finding you is another process. Gaining your faith is yet another. I’ve been doing this for eight years now. My first book, Secrets of the Lotus, was published by Lyrical Press (now the digital first arm of Kensington Press) on July 5, 2010. I started this blog around then, too. Eight years, fourteen books, and countless blog posts later, I’ve got a few devoted readers. They’re the ones who’ll take the plunge no matter what I put out.

So I better make it good.

I think I’ve managed to improve both my writing and my publishing skills. I edit my own work now, but I have worked with enough professional editors so I have pretty good idea of how to find the holes in my own plots. I put all my manuscripts through a thorough proofreading at least twice by me and I have some beta readers who’ll look over drafts for me, too. I’ve learned a lot about the formatting of both ebooks and print. My self-published books look good now. Clean and pretty with clearly delineated breaks and chapters. And my covers are almost always professionally designed.

Now, I’m working on the marketing. That’s the really tough part. That’s the final push every author—traditional or self—must somehow summon to convince a reader that their book is worth reading. That’s why we query book reviewers and write blogs, why we spend hours writing guest posts for online book tours and tend to all our social media sites from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and Goodreads.

It’s all to push you, dear reader, over the edge of a cliff and into the world of our writing.

Go ahead. Jump. If you don’t, you might miss out on the next self-publishing phenomenon.