Paulette Miller's Blog, page 3

Digital > Print

Before I tell you about how I go from a silly idea swirling in my head to a written story, I want to spend a few minutes discussing the differences I found in writing for digital publishing versus a printed book. If e-publishing is your goal, read on.

In my day job, I develop system documentation, which includes utilizing a wide variety of formatting options – headers, footers, margins, disclaimers, revised dates, varied font sizes, paragraph spacing, etc. Much of this is to make it look and print nice. I use Microsoft Word 2010 to capture my stories and, the moment I started to write, I fell into the trap of writing like I was at work. My fantasy / adventure started looking like a well-formatted reference book. Yes, I was an idiot.

Lesson learned…digital does not equal paperback so keep formatting simple! Given a digital story may be displayed on multiple types of devices, it doesn’t care about fancy formatting. Actually, these cause problems and must be stripped before you can publish. I learned that lesson the hard way and, after reworking several 400+ page books, it’s a lesson I’ll never forget.  

Head it off before you start. If you know what site you want to publish on, go get their style guide first and find out their rules. If you don’t know where to go or the style guide from the site you chose is worthless, I would recommend going to smashwords.com. Their guide is a free download that you’ll want to read from beginning to end, but it’ll be worth it. It lays out the rules of creating a digital book in a way that’s easy to follow and understand. It provides great “do’s” as well as many key “don’t” items that, if avoided, will prevent you from taking a bottle of aspirin later.

I’m not going to give you a lesson in using Word (say thank you) but, in terms of formatting, here are the basic elements I use:

Font >> Ariel – - for everything. I left fancier fonts for my cover art. Can’t wait to discuss cover art in a later post.
“Normal” style >> 12 pt, line spacing 1.5 lines,  first line indent 0.25″, no extra spacing between paragraphs. This last one I personally hate but it keeps my book length as short as it can be, so I’ll get over it.
“Header 1” style >> 14 pt, bold, centered. I use only for chapter titles. When you set chapter headings using a Header style, Word will automatically create internal table of contents when you use the “Find” option. It’s a great way to quickly navigate around your book while you’re writing. If you use meaningful chapter names, it also keeps the major storyline clearly in front of you at all times.
Page numbers >> I do insert page numbers to help navigate the book while its being drafted but I remove this before publishing. Author’s like to talk in number of words but if someone asks you how long your book is and you answer with 161,919 words, they’ll think you’re nuts. Number of pages may be irrelevant in the digital world but it gives you a metric that everyone understands.

That’s pretty much it for formatting. Once the basics are setup, I forget about it and resist the urges of my inner formatting nature. Instead I pull out my mental cork to let the brain drain of ideas flow… that’s when the real fun begins.

Digital < not > Print

Before I tell you about how I go from a silly idea swirling in my head to a written story, I want to spend a few minutes discussing the differences I found in writing for digital publishing versus a printed book. If e-publishing is your goal, read on.

In my day job, I develop system documentation, which includes utilizing a wide variety of formatting options – headers, footers, margins, disclaimers, revised dates, varied font sizes, paragraph spacing, etc. Much of this is to make it look and print nice. I use Microsoft Word 2010 to capture my stories and, the moment I started to write, I fell into the trap of writing like I was at work. My fantasy / adventure started looking like a well-formatted reference book. Yes, I was an idiot.

Lesson learned…digital does not equal paperback so keep formatting simple! Given a digital story may be displayed on multiple types of devices, it doesn’t care about fancy formatting. Actually, these cause problems and must be stripped before you can publish. I learned that lesson the hard way and, after reworking several 400+ page books, it’s a lesson I’ll never forget.  

Head it off before you start. If you know what site you want to publish on, go get their style guide first and find out their rules. If you don’t know where to go or the style guide from the site you chose is worthless, I would recommend going to smashwords.com. Their guide is a free download that you’ll want to read from beginning to end, but it’ll be worth it. It lays out the rules of creating a digital book in a way that’s easy to follow and understand. It provides great “do’s” as well as many key “don’t” items that, if avoided, will prevent you from taking a bottle of aspirin later.

I’m not going to give you a lesson in using Word (say thank you) but, in terms of formatting, here are the basic elements I use:

Font >> Ariel – - for everything. I left fancier fonts for my cover art. Can’t wait to discuss cover art in a later post.
“Normal” style >> 12 pt, line spacing 1.5 lines,  first line indent 0.25″, no extra spacing between paragraphs. This last one I personally hate but it keeps my book length as short as it can be, so I’ll get over it.
“Header 1” style >> 14 pt, bold, centered. I use only for chapter titles. When you set chapter headings using a Header style, Word will automatically create internal table of contents when you use the “Find” option. It’s a great way to quickly navigate around your book while you’re writing. If you use meaningful chapter names, it also keeps the major storyline clearly in front of you at all times.
Page numbers >> I do insert page numbers to help navigate the book while its being drafted but I remove this before publishing. Author’s like to talk in number of words but if someone asks you how long your book is and you answer with 161,919 words, they’ll think you’re nuts. Number of pages may be irrelevant in the digital world but it gives you a metric that everyone understands.

That’s pretty much it for formatting. Once the basics are setup, I forget about it and resist the urges of my inner formatting nature. Instead I pull out my mental cork to let the brain drain of ideas flow… that’s when the real fun begins.

Let the Obsession Begin

“You’re doing what?” That’s the response I get whenever I tell anyone that I’m writing a Fantasy / Romance series. I don’t blame them for questioning my sanity since I’m not exactly sure why I’m doing this either. I just can’t stop…I’m addicted. I’m not sure where to begin the tale of my writing journey, but since I’m telling a story about a story, let’s start the traditional way.

Once upon a time… there was a middle-aged, menopausal woman that woke-up to find an inner writing nature screaming to come out. Where did this desire come from? I have absolutely no idea. Until I started writing the Blue Fire series I had never even written a short story. As I was growing up, English classes were the hardest for me. It wasn’t that I couldn’t write; it was that it exposed too much of myself. I was terribly shy and just wanted to hide in a corner, watching the world go by. As I’m finding out, you can’t hide from anyone when you publish on the web. And then I go and post a 400+ page ebook with 4 more books close on its heels. Crazy!

So what changed?

For many years my “normal” consisted of insomnia, chronic migraines, and other medical issues. To make a long story short, in 2009 everything changed. Can you say hysterectomy and hormonal replacements? It was like being born again and I desperately needed something new in my life. I tried the red convertible, a flaming pink compound bow, and even dyed my hair but nothing quenched my thirst. Without migraines, I was able to read books so I read a lot, but I quickly became frustrated with weak female characters or strong leads that had absolutely no flaws. I wanted something in the middle. And try to find fantasy/romance that isn’t written for a teenager or are sex ‘how to‘ books. Ugh! I thought about trying to write my own story but my lack of confidence and non-existent writing background quickly pushed that urge to the side.

When my mother passed away from cancer, that was the final straw. Life is too short to be held back by silly fears of what others might think or say. So I picked up my laptop and started to write. I typed my first word on October 31, 2010 and I haven’t missed a day since. Blue Fire is just one of many stories I came up with while enduring long nights staring up at the ceiling.

For a long time I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Then one day at work I confided in my good friend Courtney. Instead of laughing at me, she encouraged me and the obsession began. We would spend our lunch time giggling over storylines and characters. It made me feel like a teenager again. Originally I told her I was going to write a short story but, when I broke 450+ pages (160,000+ words), I split my ‘short’ story into 2 books…which quickly became 3…finally settling on 5 books in total with over 500,000 words already written. I call it my trilogy with beginning and ending bookends. I decided to e-publish Blue Fire because what good is a story if you can’t share it with others?

Now you know how I got started and, with only the first of five books published, my journey has just begun. My book series may not amount to anything and become just one of millions that very few even find or read. I’m okay with that. At least I can say that I gave it a whirl. Someday my grand-kids are going to be able to ask me in shock, “Grandma, you wrote romance books?” and I can answer with a wicked smile, “Yes, I did.”

By the way…if you have a hidden writing nature that you’re holding back, ask yourself why. Whatever your story is for why you want to write, don’t hold back. Pick up that iPad, laptop, notebook and pencil, napkin from Chinese takeout, whatever…and just start and see where it takes you. Trust me—if I can do it, anyone can.

Until next time…

Welcome to my blog!

First things first. Thank you for stopping by my site. Knowing how busy we all are in our own lives, I really appreciate you taking a moment to pause at my little corner of the world.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Paulette Miller, the author of the Blue Fire series. This is my first post, to not just this blog, but to any blog. I’m trying to embrace the world of social media, although I feel like a fish out of water. I yell at my son upstairs constantly with “How do I…” questions. He’s being very patient with me and hasn’t called me stupid yet…at least not to my face. He does roll his eyes a lot and I know if he could growl his chest would be giving off a constant rumble.

If you want to learn more about the books themselves, you can take a peek at ”The Novels” tab within this site. But the blog itself is going to be dedicated to sharing my personal experiences as I write and publish my 5 book series. I have no background in writing, other than the required English classes in high school and college, so my journey will make you laugh, cry, and bang your head on the wall, desk or any nearby hard surface. I know I have done all of the above MANY times over.

That’s enough babbling; let’s get this blog started. Just sit back and enjoy the ride….