Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 28
February 28, 2018
All About The Verdict
I’m not unobjective about my stories. I sit down and try to organize a variety of impressions in my head—a snippet from this; a trailer from that; a line from this; and a random character who appeared out of nowhere. They’re all connected, otherwise I wouldn’t be thinking of them all at the same time.
Once it’s done, I pay careful attention to reader responses and compare them to what I’ve already learned from writing the story. It’s readers who are unobjective about my stories, not me. They just say whatever’s on their minds. The only reason I write any story is to find out who is there—if there’s a hidden audience, good or bad. Entertainment can be very deceptive and it’s easy for people to get roped into following something they don’t fully understand. If I know a story is good, people complaining about it is a red flag. If I know the story is boring, people praising it is a red flag. I balance what readers are doing with the content of the story and rapidly see whether this book has a bad crowd attached to it.
One thing that really alerts me to a bad crowd is abusive reader behavior. Now whiny reviews; snarling comments; and sudden, personal feedback don’t always mean the book has a bad crowd. Many times it’s just people who are disappointed it wasn’t closer to them—and based on their behavior, farther from them is a good thing. But if they’re combined with the Wicked Twin of friendly with a dose of silent, I know I’ve got a little bad egg on my hands.
The Friendly Recluse is a quieter, more latent way of being abusive. While the others storm and rant, the Friendly Recluse tries to get close to you in a hope of changing what you said or at least reinterpreting what you said while you play along. Some are also silent, not wanting to implicate themselves in the midst of all this. (A sign of guilty involvement.) Why is it that these are the only people around the book who seem to like it? Because those screaming others are really friends of the Friendly Recluse. In my years as a writer, I’ve seen this over and over. The Friendly Recluse will morph like a werewolf and suddenly join the other side. Where, of course, they really belonged the whole time.
Once I know that it's got not only people who are rude, but ones who are fake-friendly, or silent when you expected them so speak, I’ve seen enough. I retire or marginalize that story away from me and my readers. Not because I’ve been scared off, but because there are lots and lots of better stories out there that deserve more time.
And there will be more updates.
Once it’s done, I pay careful attention to reader responses and compare them to what I’ve already learned from writing the story. It’s readers who are unobjective about my stories, not me. They just say whatever’s on their minds. The only reason I write any story is to find out who is there—if there’s a hidden audience, good or bad. Entertainment can be very deceptive and it’s easy for people to get roped into following something they don’t fully understand. If I know a story is good, people complaining about it is a red flag. If I know the story is boring, people praising it is a red flag. I balance what readers are doing with the content of the story and rapidly see whether this book has a bad crowd attached to it.
One thing that really alerts me to a bad crowd is abusive reader behavior. Now whiny reviews; snarling comments; and sudden, personal feedback don’t always mean the book has a bad crowd. Many times it’s just people who are disappointed it wasn’t closer to them—and based on their behavior, farther from them is a good thing. But if they’re combined with the Wicked Twin of friendly with a dose of silent, I know I’ve got a little bad egg on my hands.
The Friendly Recluse is a quieter, more latent way of being abusive. While the others storm and rant, the Friendly Recluse tries to get close to you in a hope of changing what you said or at least reinterpreting what you said while you play along. Some are also silent, not wanting to implicate themselves in the midst of all this. (A sign of guilty involvement.) Why is it that these are the only people around the book who seem to like it? Because those screaming others are really friends of the Friendly Recluse. In my years as a writer, I’ve seen this over and over. The Friendly Recluse will morph like a werewolf and suddenly join the other side. Where, of course, they really belonged the whole time.
Once I know that it's got not only people who are rude, but ones who are fake-friendly, or silent when you expected them so speak, I’ve seen enough. I retire or marginalize that story away from me and my readers. Not because I’ve been scared off, but because there are lots and lots of better stories out there that deserve more time.
And there will be more updates.
February 25, 2018
Heroine Spotlight ~ Cassandra
In all of my stories, there is only one Cassandra Mel-Kallai. She is unique. Not only is she in a story that’s out of character for me, she is almost the only heroine to actually drive a story. This girl is a touch too old and forests don't appear in Halogen Crossing. But it still captures a bit of her personality. 
Halogen Crossing truly is about Cassandra and what makes the story complex is she is nonetheless a placeholder like many of my characters. The story is dictated by her decisions about the Belt—but she is a narrative voice through which we can see a broader story behind her. The story of the world that Belt came from (the kingdom of the sea) and what it represents.
I’ve never heard anyone speak about Cassandra. Not once. And I’ve always found that suspicious because she has an unusually strong presence. The only hint I had of how strongly others might react to this story came from a strange, very confrontational statement made a by a girl several years ago. She attacked a cover I had with a blonde girl like Cassandra on it and said it was homemade-looking, “blurry, and really hard on the eyes,” She insisted on showing me a picture of a place like Bespin in Empire Strikes Back, and that was the impression she got out of the story. I was like, “Whoa, RUDE.” It was quite a while afterwards that I realized she was very upset about the story, not the cover. No one else has said a thing-- to my knowledge.
This story wasn’t difficult or unpleasant to write, but it has some dark themes, shown in a veiled way. I don’t apologize for that because I don’t feel personally about it. I first thought of Cassie as a human personification of the element Calcium (this take on the story can still be seen in the name of the villains, Halogen, a family of elements) and in no way like me or connected to me. I was trying to get at something basic and primitive, as primitive as the elements that make up our world. Cassandra is sold into something represented by the people of the sea and the Belt—something she knows is dark and she wishes everyone around her would acknowledge.
It might be troubling to people who are interested in this kind of fantasy to know others can see what their world is about without belonging to it. As I saw them. There was a lot of interest in fantasy, especially sweeping, allegorical sagas, during the decade I wrote this story, and I think audiences were considering who is really interested in that kind of work. So I know who Cassandra is. Everyone knows. And that’s why, although I considered doing a sequel in which she and Karl traveled to the bottom of the sea, I stopped because there was no more to tell. People know what this story is about.
What she is about.
And there will be more updates.
Halogen Crossing truly is about Cassandra and what makes the story complex is she is nonetheless a placeholder like many of my characters. The story is dictated by her decisions about the Belt—but she is a narrative voice through which we can see a broader story behind her. The story of the world that Belt came from (the kingdom of the sea) and what it represents.I’ve never heard anyone speak about Cassandra. Not once. And I’ve always found that suspicious because she has an unusually strong presence. The only hint I had of how strongly others might react to this story came from a strange, very confrontational statement made a by a girl several years ago. She attacked a cover I had with a blonde girl like Cassandra on it and said it was homemade-looking, “blurry, and really hard on the eyes,” She insisted on showing me a picture of a place like Bespin in Empire Strikes Back, and that was the impression she got out of the story. I was like, “Whoa, RUDE.” It was quite a while afterwards that I realized she was very upset about the story, not the cover. No one else has said a thing-- to my knowledge.
This story wasn’t difficult or unpleasant to write, but it has some dark themes, shown in a veiled way. I don’t apologize for that because I don’t feel personally about it. I first thought of Cassie as a human personification of the element Calcium (this take on the story can still be seen in the name of the villains, Halogen, a family of elements) and in no way like me or connected to me. I was trying to get at something basic and primitive, as primitive as the elements that make up our world. Cassandra is sold into something represented by the people of the sea and the Belt—something she knows is dark and she wishes everyone around her would acknowledge.
It might be troubling to people who are interested in this kind of fantasy to know others can see what their world is about without belonging to it. As I saw them. There was a lot of interest in fantasy, especially sweeping, allegorical sagas, during the decade I wrote this story, and I think audiences were considering who is really interested in that kind of work. So I know who Cassandra is. Everyone knows. And that’s why, although I considered doing a sequel in which she and Karl traveled to the bottom of the sea, I stopped because there was no more to tell. People know what this story is about.
What she is about.
And there will be more updates.
The Continuing Adventures of My Heroines
In a couple of earlier posts, I stated very firmly that my heroines are not ME and put this down to a supportive passivity that most of them exhibit. I’d like to expand a little on that. Many people read the book for the MC, to imagine themselves as him or her. Most authors also, if only unconsciously, do give the MC experiences they relate to or have had themselves. My style of writing is a little different in that I don’t view the MC as important. In almost all my stories, they truly are narrators only—a framework to hinge the story around so we can watch it unfold.
This is what makes them appear so passive. They don’t usually state a lot of their own opinions on anything because their job is to be a placeholder. Somebody has to be voicing the story, otherwise it will get too disorganized. The story is what you should be looking at, not the heroines. In fact, when I post on individual heroines I am trying to talk about the story behind them, not the girls themselves. So if people have been looking for the story in my heroines, they’ve been looking in the wrong place. The heroines aren’t clones because the stories aren’t identical. But in most cases they remain quiet, relative to the other characters.
That doesn’t mean that I am a passive, supportive person. I actually have a temper (something my characters never exhibit) and broke hinges on drawers that the man in the home improvement store said were almost impossible to break. (I grinned and thought, “whoopsie.”) I threw books at the wall when I was mad and the dent is still there, covered by a calendar to this day. And I certainly had opinions on the people around me. I just felt the best way of expressing those opinions was to show what the people are actually like as a world, as a functioning group, rather than to create a heroine who said what I thought.
Saying that makes me supportive and to be treated cavalierly is as stupid as saying Bilbo Baggins is supportive of Gollum by agreeing to the riddles game and not killing Gollum later. He’s supportive of the plot, not Gollum. If he doesn’t do these things, which are important to the story, he’s not a feisty, strong character. He’s a useless character. I have a reason behind what I do, as do my characters. And that reason is the opposite of passivity.
And there will be more updates.
This is what makes them appear so passive. They don’t usually state a lot of their own opinions on anything because their job is to be a placeholder. Somebody has to be voicing the story, otherwise it will get too disorganized. The story is what you should be looking at, not the heroines. In fact, when I post on individual heroines I am trying to talk about the story behind them, not the girls themselves. So if people have been looking for the story in my heroines, they’ve been looking in the wrong place. The heroines aren’t clones because the stories aren’t identical. But in most cases they remain quiet, relative to the other characters.
That doesn’t mean that I am a passive, supportive person. I actually have a temper (something my characters never exhibit) and broke hinges on drawers that the man in the home improvement store said were almost impossible to break. (I grinned and thought, “whoopsie.”) I threw books at the wall when I was mad and the dent is still there, covered by a calendar to this day. And I certainly had opinions on the people around me. I just felt the best way of expressing those opinions was to show what the people are actually like as a world, as a functioning group, rather than to create a heroine who said what I thought.
Saying that makes me supportive and to be treated cavalierly is as stupid as saying Bilbo Baggins is supportive of Gollum by agreeing to the riddles game and not killing Gollum later. He’s supportive of the plot, not Gollum. If he doesn’t do these things, which are important to the story, he’s not a feisty, strong character. He’s a useless character. I have a reason behind what I do, as do my characters. And that reason is the opposite of passivity.
And there will be more updates.
February 22, 2018
Heroine Spotlight ~ Victoria
Victoria is being highlighted today. This is a girl who reminds me of her and the second image is of a real castle in Spain, described as her home in the story. In addition to being in one of the Facets collections, this story will be available individually soon. Once I trimmed it the page count was too small for an individual book, but I will add another story to the back to add pages. 
This story was a bit of a blip for me and I didn’t have a strong hold on it at first. It was quite a bit longer, with a long subplot and details drawn from my trip to Spain. But once I realized it was a shorter story and couldn’t stand alone, I was able to corral some of the ideas, drop a fairy tale angle that was there at first, and put it into the Facets collection. I was glad to do this too, because Victoria is one of my most viscerally real heroines.
An idea of glamorous, macho, intriguing historical in big costume dresses is the center focus of the story—Spain’s castles, plazas, and scenery being the perfect crystallization of what people get out of that kind of Bigga historical. (I’ll post on Bigga later. It’s roughly 1400-1790 historical eras, typically among rich people in Europe.) It took me a while to understand that Victoria’s not cunning, cold, practical, and a little heartless—in contrast to her warm, spontaneous sister Bella. That’s what she thinks she is. Actually, Victoria is a bit of a sucker and at times a dumb bunny. Bella—or someone undefined, it’s hard to tell because Victoria is so vague about it herself—is the true manipulator.
Victoria has so little idea what is going on that a number of men start to march all over the castle, and all over her, trying to tell her to get real. Something serious is happening in people’s relationships and she’s bopping along in a stale zone, not seeing what’s going on. A dangerous, ambivalent assassin kidnaps Bella and leads Victoria on a goose chase in an effort to get her attention. A tough young duke from the south shows up, practically interviews Bella, chews out their father, and helps Victoria to understand a threat to the family. Victoria’s cousin, a weird young scholar, constantly speaks to her in code Victoria thinks is silly. He’s trying to get her attention.
Victoria spends most of the story on the run—perplexed, afraid for Bella, manipulated by the Hirado, advised by Ignacio, taunted by Webster, worried by her father, and freaking out. Since she never does fully understand what’s going on—it’s hard to shake her idea she’s in charge instead of ignorant—it is a little unclear. But a sour tone hangs over the castle and all the adventures. Sour and surprisingly violent. My feeling is Victoria represents the kind of woman interested in this historical. In Bigga. What Bigga is all about, I’ll describe another time. This post is only about Victoria—that Woman-In-A-Red-Dress who’s living in a sort of nightmare.
And there will be more updates.
This story was a bit of a blip for me and I didn’t have a strong hold on it at first. It was quite a bit longer, with a long subplot and details drawn from my trip to Spain. But once I realized it was a shorter story and couldn’t stand alone, I was able to corral some of the ideas, drop a fairy tale angle that was there at first, and put it into the Facets collection. I was glad to do this too, because Victoria is one of my most viscerally real heroines.An idea of glamorous, macho, intriguing historical in big costume dresses is the center focus of the story—Spain’s castles, plazas, and scenery being the perfect crystallization of what people get out of that kind of Bigga historical. (I’ll post on Bigga later. It’s roughly 1400-1790 historical eras, typically among rich people in Europe.) It took me a while to understand that Victoria’s not cunning, cold, practical, and a little heartless—in contrast to her warm, spontaneous sister Bella. That’s what she thinks she is. Actually, Victoria is a bit of a sucker and at times a dumb bunny. Bella—or someone undefined, it’s hard to tell because Victoria is so vague about it herself—is the true manipulator.
Victoria has so little idea what is going on that a number of men start to march all over the castle, and all over her, trying to tell her to get real. Something serious is happening in people’s relationships and she’s bopping along in a stale zone, not seeing what’s going on. A dangerous, ambivalent assassin kidnaps Bella and leads Victoria on a goose chase in an effort to get her attention. A tough young duke from the south shows up, practically interviews Bella, chews out their father, and helps Victoria to understand a threat to the family. Victoria’s cousin, a weird young scholar, constantly speaks to her in code Victoria thinks is silly. He’s trying to get her attention.
Victoria spends most of the story on the run—perplexed, afraid for Bella, manipulated by the Hirado, advised by Ignacio, taunted by Webster, worried by her father, and freaking out. Since she never does fully understand what’s going on—it’s hard to shake her idea she’s in charge instead of ignorant—it is a little unclear. But a sour tone hangs over the castle and all the adventures. Sour and surprisingly violent. My feeling is Victoria represents the kind of woman interested in this historical. In Bigga. What Bigga is all about, I’ll describe another time. This post is only about Victoria—that Woman-In-A-Red-Dress who’s living in a sort of nightmare.
And there will be more updates.
Those Annoying Authors
It might seem exaggerated to compare authors to the title of a Japanese comedy show about aliens (Urusei Yatsura = Those Annoying Aliens.) But it just has a ring of honesty to it. Aliens belong to a different civilization from yours—hence the term “alien” is kind of self-explanatory—and their interactions with your civilization aren’t always the worried, philosophical dramas people make them out to be. Often they’re just plain ridiculous.
Authors are some of the biggest aliens today. They are a group of insiders sold into each other and each other’s books. Not into readers. Readers are the last thing on their minds and that's because they don’t have readers. 90% of the time, they don’t even have an audience except each other. They produce circular work that doesn’t correlate to what other people are experiencing. “Authors” have become “Readers.” They read each other’s work. They support each other. The vast majority of reviews on any book are from other writers and people in the book industry who offer services to authors. Not organically produced, real readers off the street. It’s a very rare book that gets that kind of outside interest from real people. Generally, there’s just some writers jumping to get a book to 50 reviews and make it look like people want to read it—or jumping to say something snotty and make it seem as if people don’t like it.
Because these authors believe they have an excess of power, they behave ridiculously to me and assume I care what THEY think about the book. I actually have readers out there. Real, organic readers I need to find. It’s been hard to locate them because most authors have to wade through the thick mud of this industry below the surface before they can break through and get seen by real people. I’m stunned at the fresh, arrogant tone other authors have taken with me because they assume they’re the only readers I could have. If they don’t offer that supportive network for me, I’ll plummet. Of course.
This is nonsense that just shows how circular and locked-in they’ve become. They cannot even recognize anymore whether a book would be interesting to people. The point is to support their little civilization and disguise that their industry has no actual investment coming from the outside. That’s like people having an attitude about you because they have green skin and bug eyes and you look like a human. After a while, it's not much of an insult.
And there will be more updates.
Authors are some of the biggest aliens today. They are a group of insiders sold into each other and each other’s books. Not into readers. Readers are the last thing on their minds and that's because they don’t have readers. 90% of the time, they don’t even have an audience except each other. They produce circular work that doesn’t correlate to what other people are experiencing. “Authors” have become “Readers.” They read each other’s work. They support each other. The vast majority of reviews on any book are from other writers and people in the book industry who offer services to authors. Not organically produced, real readers off the street. It’s a very rare book that gets that kind of outside interest from real people. Generally, there’s just some writers jumping to get a book to 50 reviews and make it look like people want to read it—or jumping to say something snotty and make it seem as if people don’t like it.
Because these authors believe they have an excess of power, they behave ridiculously to me and assume I care what THEY think about the book. I actually have readers out there. Real, organic readers I need to find. It’s been hard to locate them because most authors have to wade through the thick mud of this industry below the surface before they can break through and get seen by real people. I’m stunned at the fresh, arrogant tone other authors have taken with me because they assume they’re the only readers I could have. If they don’t offer that supportive network for me, I’ll plummet. Of course.
This is nonsense that just shows how circular and locked-in they’ve become. They cannot even recognize anymore whether a book would be interesting to people. The point is to support their little civilization and disguise that their industry has no actual investment coming from the outside. That’s like people having an attitude about you because they have green skin and bug eyes and you look like a human. After a while, it's not much of an insult.
And there will be more updates.
February 20, 2018
Heroine Spotlight ~ Sekana
Today's heroine is Sekana, the main girl in Jurant. Below is a picture of a girl who looks a bit like her, except Sekana's hair (especially in the unpowered state she is at for most of the story) is very thin. Sekana is a character it's hard to find pictures for. The second girl is Julie, Don's sister. Julie's hair is a very short bob, but otherwise I love this girl's face and stance. 
For a long time, Jurant has occupied a strange, almost creepy place among my stories. No one ever criticizes it. Since I’m a magnet for the argumentative, I’ve always been suspicious of Jurant’s quiet resilience. I’d grown to dislike the story, actually, because so many people praised it whose opinion I’d learned to find dubious. If they said anything else about my books, it was rarely true. So I was sure they couldn’t really like Jurant. Besides, who could really like such a boring story?
But after it was written I realized it did have a sneaky something—because Sekana does. People always mention Don, but never Sekana. And it’s the silent things that really get people’s deep attention. I wasn’t consciously working with any ideas from pop culture when I wrote it. I just closed my eyes and the story was there. But one of my friends said it reminded her of Star Wars and I have realized that’s true. But that just makes it weirder. Sekana isn’t the sort of person who appears in Star Wars. All the women are very brash, even at the risk of being bratty and childish. And very tomboyish as well. Sekana is introverted, cunning, unathletic, and in a world of her own. She’s far more like Elsa than like any SW woman and Elsa, as I saw on a Jedi Princesses picture, translated very poorly to Star Wars. She’s a Disney, not a galactic princess.
I had a brainwave of what might be interesting to people when I realized Sekana was bad. Writing it from Don’s POV, I entered his mind, and Don’s not very smart. He feels strongly, but it’s easy to overrule and fool him. But Sekana and her rebellious planet Rindon represent a bad element that Lord Haltyn fears has infested the military school. They’ve got a way of thinking—a worldview. They have beliefs that aren’t accepted and don’t belong. Sekana might seem vulnerable, a pawn of her parents, and shy. But she’s actually sneaky, incredibly stubborn, manipulative, and self-absorbed. She always seems to be up to something, something she’s sure is banned. So the basic idea of the story is that the Emperor sent Anakin (pre-Vader) to kick Elsa out of Star Wars. Sith often fight with each other and she is a kind who isn't organic to the world and doesn't belong.
I didn’t know whatever Elsa represents was even in Star Wars. It must have been deeply hidden. Anyway, whoever this interloper in Star Wars was, somebody found them and so I wrote about it. In the end Don accepts her worldview (symbolized by her healing of his sister) and moves with her family to Rindon. I wondered how that could be right. If Sekana is bad, shouldn’t she be shown as doing bad things instead of raising people from the dead? But the best way to really get rid of a Sith is to become an apprentice and play along. Because they’re Sith. The apprentice always destroys the master.
And there will be more updates.
For a long time, Jurant has occupied a strange, almost creepy place among my stories. No one ever criticizes it. Since I’m a magnet for the argumentative, I’ve always been suspicious of Jurant’s quiet resilience. I’d grown to dislike the story, actually, because so many people praised it whose opinion I’d learned to find dubious. If they said anything else about my books, it was rarely true. So I was sure they couldn’t really like Jurant. Besides, who could really like such a boring story?But after it was written I realized it did have a sneaky something—because Sekana does. People always mention Don, but never Sekana. And it’s the silent things that really get people’s deep attention. I wasn’t consciously working with any ideas from pop culture when I wrote it. I just closed my eyes and the story was there. But one of my friends said it reminded her of Star Wars and I have realized that’s true. But that just makes it weirder. Sekana isn’t the sort of person who appears in Star Wars. All the women are very brash, even at the risk of being bratty and childish. And very tomboyish as well. Sekana is introverted, cunning, unathletic, and in a world of her own. She’s far more like Elsa than like any SW woman and Elsa, as I saw on a Jedi Princesses picture, translated very poorly to Star Wars. She’s a Disney, not a galactic princess.
I had a brainwave of what might be interesting to people when I realized Sekana was bad. Writing it from Don’s POV, I entered his mind, and Don’s not very smart. He feels strongly, but it’s easy to overrule and fool him. But Sekana and her rebellious planet Rindon represent a bad element that Lord Haltyn fears has infested the military school. They’ve got a way of thinking—a worldview. They have beliefs that aren’t accepted and don’t belong. Sekana might seem vulnerable, a pawn of her parents, and shy. But she’s actually sneaky, incredibly stubborn, manipulative, and self-absorbed. She always seems to be up to something, something she’s sure is banned. So the basic idea of the story is that the Emperor sent Anakin (pre-Vader) to kick Elsa out of Star Wars. Sith often fight with each other and she is a kind who isn't organic to the world and doesn't belong.
I didn’t know whatever Elsa represents was even in Star Wars. It must have been deeply hidden. Anyway, whoever this interloper in Star Wars was, somebody found them and so I wrote about it. In the end Don accepts her worldview (symbolized by her healing of his sister) and moves with her family to Rindon. I wondered how that could be right. If Sekana is bad, shouldn’t she be shown as doing bad things instead of raising people from the dead? But the best way to really get rid of a Sith is to become an apprentice and play along. Because they’re Sith. The apprentice always destroys the master.
And there will be more updates.
In Continuation
The website continues to grow and become better organized as I sort my books. I’ve added a page or two, removed some excess blog categories so the news page is less cluttered, and moved both Bellevere listings to the same page. Here’s a breakdown of what’s new and what to expect.
Consuela is in its final stages. The cover’s been narrowed down to 4 different images and the book just needs one more grammar edit. I’m already plotting the third Palladia book, but I have a large amount of pre-existing work to organize first.I now have 4 book pages—for Facets Blue; The Palladia Chronicles; The Birthday Present; and Ryan and Essie. Books I’ve marginalized are being put in a separate page, see below.I’ve introduced a “Specialty” page. This is for books I’ve retired—if I feel negatively about the story or think it has no potential for some reason, it gets retired. The books on the Specialty page have attached PDFs that can be read for free, if anyone wants to. They are also on Amazon, but that’s irrelevant since anyone curious can just pick them up.Bellevere House (contemporary version) has joined the vintage version on the retired page. I would be quite happy if I never saw this book again, but I had to continue with it a few months more because of later published books in the series. The Kindle book has been switched back to vintage setting, with an included link to download the contemporary version.The Test of Devotion has been brought back, edited, and given a new cover. (I’ve learned to avoid anything cream-colored if I can.) It’s a heavy story that’s always a lot of effort to work on and it's now completed and moved to the Retired Page so it can be kept track of along with all my other work.
In the future I hope to post more on Ryan and Essie, TBP, and the upcoming A Year With the Harrisons. Most people probably aren’t familiar with these books and I think they’ve got some pretty good plots and characters. So I look forward to expanding on that. And of course there’s always Palladia.
And there will be more updates.
Consuela is in its final stages. The cover’s been narrowed down to 4 different images and the book just needs one more grammar edit. I’m already plotting the third Palladia book, but I have a large amount of pre-existing work to organize first.I now have 4 book pages—for Facets Blue; The Palladia Chronicles; The Birthday Present; and Ryan and Essie. Books I’ve marginalized are being put in a separate page, see below.I’ve introduced a “Specialty” page. This is for books I’ve retired—if I feel negatively about the story or think it has no potential for some reason, it gets retired. The books on the Specialty page have attached PDFs that can be read for free, if anyone wants to. They are also on Amazon, but that’s irrelevant since anyone curious can just pick them up.Bellevere House (contemporary version) has joined the vintage version on the retired page. I would be quite happy if I never saw this book again, but I had to continue with it a few months more because of later published books in the series. The Kindle book has been switched back to vintage setting, with an included link to download the contemporary version.The Test of Devotion has been brought back, edited, and given a new cover. (I’ve learned to avoid anything cream-colored if I can.) It’s a heavy story that’s always a lot of effort to work on and it's now completed and moved to the Retired Page so it can be kept track of along with all my other work.
In the future I hope to post more on Ryan and Essie, TBP, and the upcoming A Year With the Harrisons. Most people probably aren’t familiar with these books and I think they’ve got some pretty good plots and characters. So I look forward to expanding on that. And of course there’s always Palladia.
And there will be more updates.
February 18, 2018
Heroine Spotlight ~ Violet
With Facets of Fantasy being the highlighted free book for next month, I thought I’d discuss these three stories a little more in-depth. For The Amulet of Renari, there’s Violet. Here's a picture of a girl who sort of resembles her, except Violet's eyes are darker. But I like this girl's expression. The second pic is a fantasy art piece I found online and thought, "That's what Judith looks like. It's her exactly." 
All my heroines are unique, but Violet does stand apart in a couple of ways. I’ve always felt she wasn’t much characterized and is in a way one of my flattest female leads. But she has an extremely strong presence. We don’t get to know her much, for a reason. She’s the sort of person who can really, really surprise you. There’s an edge to Violet—I’d almost call it mildly disagreeable. And it’s important that we don’t see her very clearly throughout the story. The whole purpose of her character is to feel uncertain about her.
The Amulet of Renari is an idea of Narnia—not fanfiction, not dealing with any characters or actual plots from that world. It’s a story about Narnia. About why this place has always been different from other fantasy. Narnia has unique underlying ideas and a specific hold that won’t go away. But I was surprised when I worked on Renari that I found these ideas so unlikable. I think we may not know yet who’s really interested in Narnia. Something, hinted at by the wolf-people in Renari, seems dark, actually, and it’s never talked about. I’m not sure that all of the people around Narnia are aware of this or would like it if they found out. And that’s where Violet’s personality matters. There’s a kind of person who’s deeply underestimated and just when you think you know them—you realize you don’t. Violet is that sort. The sort who moves.
Whatever Renari was really built on in the past, nobody has told Violet exactly what it is and they may not have told us either. And I do get the feeling people are watching Narnia closely to see what it’s all about. I’m not sure whether Violet represents the deeply entrenched, hidden aspects of Narnia or whether she belongs with the many who’ve grown up loving Narnia and don’t know that someone else might have been there all along. Either way, we might be in for some surprises. Whoever she is, she’s fundamentally untrustworthy. You never thought she had it in her.
And there will be more updates.
All my heroines are unique, but Violet does stand apart in a couple of ways. I’ve always felt she wasn’t much characterized and is in a way one of my flattest female leads. But she has an extremely strong presence. We don’t get to know her much, for a reason. She’s the sort of person who can really, really surprise you. There’s an edge to Violet—I’d almost call it mildly disagreeable. And it’s important that we don’t see her very clearly throughout the story. The whole purpose of her character is to feel uncertain about her.
The Amulet of Renari is an idea of Narnia—not fanfiction, not dealing with any characters or actual plots from that world. It’s a story about Narnia. About why this place has always been different from other fantasy. Narnia has unique underlying ideas and a specific hold that won’t go away. But I was surprised when I worked on Renari that I found these ideas so unlikable. I think we may not know yet who’s really interested in Narnia. Something, hinted at by the wolf-people in Renari, seems dark, actually, and it’s never talked about. I’m not sure that all of the people around Narnia are aware of this or would like it if they found out. And that’s where Violet’s personality matters. There’s a kind of person who’s deeply underestimated and just when you think you know them—you realize you don’t. Violet is that sort. The sort who moves.
Whatever Renari was really built on in the past, nobody has told Violet exactly what it is and they may not have told us either. And I do get the feeling people are watching Narnia closely to see what it’s all about. I’m not sure whether Violet represents the deeply entrenched, hidden aspects of Narnia or whether she belongs with the many who’ve grown up loving Narnia and don’t know that someone else might have been there all along. Either way, we might be in for some surprises. Whoever she is, she’s fundamentally untrustworthy. You never thought she had it in her.
And there will be more updates.
5 Words That Should Be Illegal
Continuing my posts about junk directed at writers and at me personally, I’ve made a list of words that show a disrespectful attitude. One of the rudest, most disrespectful things you can do to a person is not give them your full, real attention while still wanting to express an opinion. If one of my books is worth your commenting on, it’s worth your full time.
What sort of person tries to make or break a book; destroy all an author’s hard work; slices up something they barely even understood; makes sweeping, negative judgments on something they didn’t even finish? Or read so hastily, basically planning what they were going to say before even reading. A person who is stating disrespect. “I don’t like this person/movie/book. I don’t want other people to find and like them either. But I didn’t pay them the compliment of giving them a full chance before I decided, so I’ll just throw out some random insults."
This makes the person doing it look stupid and contributes nothing to the social conversation. Why people do this, I don’t know, but if people ever approach you with some kind of attitude that’s just involved enough to say something rude and not involved enough to actually give you real time, put them on mute and show them the door.
“Confusing.” This is one of the oldest bad-guy tricks. If people say this, they are trying as hard as ever they can not to understand the point of your book. That’s why it “confuses” them. They still want to say something critical so other people don’t find your book and like it. But they don’t know what to say because they’re tuning the book out. So they say the setting, plot structure, or dialogue is “confusing.”“Bad Writing.” This is similar to the “bad acting” and “bad directing” labels in the film industry. This is just plain old snotty nonsense. “Bad directors” are simply directors that you don’t like, like George Lucas. Same for writers, a stale cliché of being bad at what they do for a living if you don’t like the person. But being told you’re bad at something you’ve put much effort into is downright mean and should be ignored.“Building.” I know this doesn’t sound like a word to be outlawed, but talking about something other than the story is shady. People trying to cover up what they’re thinking about you will often reference a set-piece like buildings, and if they’re so vague they shouldn’t be talking at all. My ears are ringing still because of one older man who pounded, pounded, pounded that a palace on an old book cover of mine was a GERMAN building. GERMAN, German, German, German, German, German building. Eventually I felt like, “Knock it Off. That has nothing to do with the story.”“Editing.” Oh, the big, bad editing slap. This is the go-to trick for people who want to undermine something. It’s not even pretending to talk about content. After all the effort of building a world, people come and give you a fresh little, “but it has some editing errors.” Occasionally I’ve seen books with serious errors, but mostly they are tiny and are, by the way, found in almost all professionally published books. They are easily fixed and if you were reading the story you probably wouldn’t see them so awfully much. And if you’re not fully reading the story, drumroll, drumroll—“Why are you talking again?”“Descriptions.” This is like saying you don’t like someone’s hair color. You just . . . just like black hair better than blonde. You just honestly DO like brunettes better. What’s the point of saying that to a blonde woman? It will hurt her feelings and the sad thing is she shouldn’t even care what you think. Same when discussing whether someone has a lush, spare, wordy, or terse writing style. It’s just the author’s appearance, basically. And no, they don’t all look the same. If I had received a compliment on my writing to replace each little comment like this, I’d be too vain for my own good, most likely.
And there will be more updates
What sort of person tries to make or break a book; destroy all an author’s hard work; slices up something they barely even understood; makes sweeping, negative judgments on something they didn’t even finish? Or read so hastily, basically planning what they were going to say before even reading. A person who is stating disrespect. “I don’t like this person/movie/book. I don’t want other people to find and like them either. But I didn’t pay them the compliment of giving them a full chance before I decided, so I’ll just throw out some random insults."
This makes the person doing it look stupid and contributes nothing to the social conversation. Why people do this, I don’t know, but if people ever approach you with some kind of attitude that’s just involved enough to say something rude and not involved enough to actually give you real time, put them on mute and show them the door.
“Confusing.” This is one of the oldest bad-guy tricks. If people say this, they are trying as hard as ever they can not to understand the point of your book. That’s why it “confuses” them. They still want to say something critical so other people don’t find your book and like it. But they don’t know what to say because they’re tuning the book out. So they say the setting, plot structure, or dialogue is “confusing.”“Bad Writing.” This is similar to the “bad acting” and “bad directing” labels in the film industry. This is just plain old snotty nonsense. “Bad directors” are simply directors that you don’t like, like George Lucas. Same for writers, a stale cliché of being bad at what they do for a living if you don’t like the person. But being told you’re bad at something you’ve put much effort into is downright mean and should be ignored.“Building.” I know this doesn’t sound like a word to be outlawed, but talking about something other than the story is shady. People trying to cover up what they’re thinking about you will often reference a set-piece like buildings, and if they’re so vague they shouldn’t be talking at all. My ears are ringing still because of one older man who pounded, pounded, pounded that a palace on an old book cover of mine was a GERMAN building. GERMAN, German, German, German, German, German building. Eventually I felt like, “Knock it Off. That has nothing to do with the story.”“Editing.” Oh, the big, bad editing slap. This is the go-to trick for people who want to undermine something. It’s not even pretending to talk about content. After all the effort of building a world, people come and give you a fresh little, “but it has some editing errors.” Occasionally I’ve seen books with serious errors, but mostly they are tiny and are, by the way, found in almost all professionally published books. They are easily fixed and if you were reading the story you probably wouldn’t see them so awfully much. And if you’re not fully reading the story, drumroll, drumroll—“Why are you talking again?”“Descriptions.” This is like saying you don’t like someone’s hair color. You just . . . just like black hair better than blonde. You just honestly DO like brunettes better. What’s the point of saying that to a blonde woman? It will hurt her feelings and the sad thing is she shouldn’t even care what you think. Same when discussing whether someone has a lush, spare, wordy, or terse writing style. It’s just the author’s appearance, basically. And no, they don’t all look the same. If I had received a compliment on my writing to replace each little comment like this, I’d be too vain for my own good, most likely.
And there will be more updates
February 15, 2018
The Timeline of My Books
It still seems hard for people to believe I’m not a new writer. Even though I’ve been writing my whole life and publishing for 10 years (TEN YEARS!) there remains a perception that I’m in some way “new.” New to the field. New to the craft. New to the social scene. New to marketing. And I am not. If people haven’t seen me before, that’s their fault. I’ve been steadily ticking away and have become more developed with each year.
Actually, by the end of the summer I hope to have 1 book published for each year. Not bad. And on a pace with most typical career authors. I don’t do the churning of several books a year normally. This year I’m working fast because a lot of the books weren’t presented right the first time. (Which might be one of the reasons people didn’t see they were there.) I’ve been accumulating a body of work and here’s the timeline on it.
The Birthday Present (2008.) First published with a small “Millhaven Castle” story. Now contains a teaser for The Prince’s Ball instead. Book was unpublished for 8 years before returning this year.Facets of Fantasy: Burgundy Cover (2009.) Collection of 5 novellas that formed the basis for later stories. Now retired, but still available on the specialty page.A Year with the Harrisons (2010.) Formerly called “American Homeschooler” and released weekly on my FB page during 2010. It never came to print. I’ll be publishing it this year, but view it as a book from 2010, so it can fill this slot.Facets of Fantasy: Blue Cover (2011.) I often altered this book and uploaded or removed stories. Now it contains 2 of the first Facets stories, as well as Victoria. Victoria was published in 2014, but was created and based on a trip during 2011, so I’d certainly put it with the 2011 slot.Ryan and Essie (2012.) This book was resurrected from my childhood and finished in 2012. It took 3 years to come to print, but it was written in 2012 so I’ll put it for that year.City of the Invaders (2013.) This was an expansion of one of the stories in the 2009 Facets books. It was unpublished and fell off the map until this year, when I brought it back and started a series.Consuela (2014.) Originally the second part of a defunct “fake-history” story with a fairy-tale bent. It likewise vanished and was unpublished, but was rewritten this year. It will be the second installment in the Invaders series. They did belong together. I just didn’t know it when they were first presented.The Test of Devotion (2015.) A western that got off to a rough start because I marketed it as western romance, not true western. Written in 2015, published extreme early 2016. Now it has a new cover and a bit of a remake.Everwood (2016.) This was my least productive year, one of the reasons being so much time being taken with Bellevere House. I rewrote Bellevere during this year, but had to redo it again the next year, so this doesn’t count. However, I did produce a short story.Bellevere House (2017.) Published in the summer and then moved to a contemporary setting in December. The “vintage” version has been retired. The contemporary one is still available.The Prince’s Ball (2018.) The book for this year will be The Prince’s Ball, but it’s still old material. I started the story almost 20 years ago. In a way it is also a replacement for “Alyce,” which was published in 2014, so again it’s not entirely new.
After all of that is in order, I’ll work on new books. But you see I’ve definitely been producing steady work, once it’s organized in a way people can find. And I’ve certainly been on the scene for a while.
And there will be more updates.
Actually, by the end of the summer I hope to have 1 book published for each year. Not bad. And on a pace with most typical career authors. I don’t do the churning of several books a year normally. This year I’m working fast because a lot of the books weren’t presented right the first time. (Which might be one of the reasons people didn’t see they were there.) I’ve been accumulating a body of work and here’s the timeline on it.
The Birthday Present (2008.) First published with a small “Millhaven Castle” story. Now contains a teaser for The Prince’s Ball instead. Book was unpublished for 8 years before returning this year.Facets of Fantasy: Burgundy Cover (2009.) Collection of 5 novellas that formed the basis for later stories. Now retired, but still available on the specialty page.A Year with the Harrisons (2010.) Formerly called “American Homeschooler” and released weekly on my FB page during 2010. It never came to print. I’ll be publishing it this year, but view it as a book from 2010, so it can fill this slot.Facets of Fantasy: Blue Cover (2011.) I often altered this book and uploaded or removed stories. Now it contains 2 of the first Facets stories, as well as Victoria. Victoria was published in 2014, but was created and based on a trip during 2011, so I’d certainly put it with the 2011 slot.Ryan and Essie (2012.) This book was resurrected from my childhood and finished in 2012. It took 3 years to come to print, but it was written in 2012 so I’ll put it for that year.City of the Invaders (2013.) This was an expansion of one of the stories in the 2009 Facets books. It was unpublished and fell off the map until this year, when I brought it back and started a series.Consuela (2014.) Originally the second part of a defunct “fake-history” story with a fairy-tale bent. It likewise vanished and was unpublished, but was rewritten this year. It will be the second installment in the Invaders series. They did belong together. I just didn’t know it when they were first presented.The Test of Devotion (2015.) A western that got off to a rough start because I marketed it as western romance, not true western. Written in 2015, published extreme early 2016. Now it has a new cover and a bit of a remake.Everwood (2016.) This was my least productive year, one of the reasons being so much time being taken with Bellevere House. I rewrote Bellevere during this year, but had to redo it again the next year, so this doesn’t count. However, I did produce a short story.Bellevere House (2017.) Published in the summer and then moved to a contemporary setting in December. The “vintage” version has been retired. The contemporary one is still available.The Prince’s Ball (2018.) The book for this year will be The Prince’s Ball, but it’s still old material. I started the story almost 20 years ago. In a way it is also a replacement for “Alyce,” which was published in 2014, so again it’s not entirely new.
After all of that is in order, I’ll work on new books. But you see I’ve definitely been producing steady work, once it’s organized in a way people can find. And I’ve certainly been on the scene for a while.
And there will be more updates.
