Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 147

Creating Emblems

It's FenCon week, so I'm going to be a little crazy. In addition to trying to get a book proposal written, I also need to edit a video, prepare a reading, do some PR work, do my usual choir stuff, and then spend Thursday helping set up and picking up a guest from the airport and then start the convention stuff on Friday. Which means I need to make good use of my time this week.

Fortunately, I have all my promo giveaways put together. I made postcards of the front cover of Rebel Mechanics, and then I made pins of the red ribbon and gear that are featured in the book and on the cover, and I attached those to the postcards. There are about 100 with the pins, and I've found that they go fast from the freebie tables.

But as I start work on the second book, which is about the other rebel group in the picture, the ones from the upper class who want to break away and upend the class structure, I found myself wondering what their insignia would be. I don't recall thinking at the time I wrote the first book that the red ribbon and gear would be something to use in promo, though I've always pictured it on the cover. Of course, I figured very soon after writing the book that I'd have to use it. But now what can I do with the other group to put on the cover and then use for promotion? I'll need to make a trip to Michael's to see what jewelry bits and ribbons they might have that might inspire me.

Meanwhile, I found a book in the library on bragging -- finding a way to promote yourself without annoying people. I think it's stuff I know how to do -- mostly, make it conversational and relevant and make sure it's information that actually of benefit to the person you're talking to rather than just promoting yourself -- but have been reluctant to do. I've sat on panels with so many people who introduce themselves by listing every single thing they've written and quoting their reviews that I tend to go in the other direction and just vaguely mention that I'm a novelist, with the idea that if you've heard of me, you know who I am and if you haven't heard of me, maybe I'll be interesting enough for you to look me up. But maybe I'll rethink that and give it a try this weekend as an experiment.

Now off to do work-type stuff!

Telling Stories

I had all kinds of grand plans to write yesterday, and then a high ragweed count hit with a vengeance. Ah, it's that time of year. It's not as bad since I discovered Allegra, but I've only just started taking it daily, so it's taking a while to kick in, and then I forgot to take it for a day. I've definitely felt worse during early ragweed season, but it's just enough to mess with my head. I can think, but I have a hard time translating my thoughts into language. (So be warned that there may be odd flubs in this post that I haven't caught because that was what came out of my head and it made sense to me even when I was editing.)

So instead of writing, I read some of those books on marketing I got from the library. One had a very interesting premise that marketing is essentially the story you build around something, and the story is what often adds the perceived value. The audience already has a built-in worldview, and the trick is to suggest a story that they want to tell themselves that fits their worldview. The real marketing comes from people who are telling themselves a story, and then they spread that story to other people. So, for example, when it comes to a car, they all pretty much get you from point A to point B, and when you look at reliability ratings, the more moderately priced car is actually more likely to get you to point B. So why is a car that's more likely to break down worth so much more money? It's mostly about the story we can tell ourselves about a car like that. There's luxury in the details and the experience that makes people feel better about themselves -- if they're the kind of people who feel better about that sort of thing. If they're not, it's not going to work on them. If they are, then the more expensive car may be worth it to them because it matches the story they tell themselves about success or the kind of person they want to be. So the way to sell a car to them is to weave that story around it.

I'm still trying to figure out how this might apply to marketing books or an author. Can you spin a story around a story? I think the trick might be to capitalize on the sense of "I'm the kind of person who reads this kind of book, and that makes me better/smarter/more in-the-know than people who haven't read it." But then you have to figure out what "this kind of book" really is. In my case, I'm not sure there's really an established niche because I blur a lot of lines. For the most part, maybe what makes my books different is the lack of edge -- so much else these days is dark and edgy, but here's something for those of us who are tired of it and just want to have some good, clean fun.

There's some built-in "tribe" stuff with Rebel Mechanics that probably resonates with society today -- the makers and innovators who may be a threat to the status quo. It's also a steampunk book that's actually about steampunks -- people starting a rebellion with their technology, an actual counter-cultural movement that looks a lot like the cultural group we have now.

The trick may be to find a way to communicate these stories to these groups. Once you find some people within these groups, they tend to spread the idea to others and word of mouth spreads. The down side of that is that word of mouth spreads slowly from person to person, so you don't get that huge spike that gets you noticed in the publishing world. The up side is that it does tend to be more "sticky" that way because it's not about the latest trend but rather is about something that resonates with these people, regardless of the trend, which is why Enchanted, Inc. is still selling relatively well ten years after publication, when most of the books that were published around that time are now either out of print or went out of print and are now being brought back as self-published books. The idea didn't spread fast enough for the publisher to take notice, but it's still hanging on.

But actually coming up with a plan to do something about all this is more than my ragweed-addled brain can deal with at the moment.

I did reread a short story I wrote a couple of years ago (I think), and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I'm not entirely crazy about the ending, but I think it works. I'm not sure what to do with it, though. On the one hand, I think it could be fleshed out into a decent novella or novel that scraps the current ending and develops the middle a lot better before coming to a more satisfying ending (the current one seems abrupt, but I can't make it much longer and have it be a short story), but then again, in its current form it's short enough to read in a convention reading and it's easier to sell either a short story or a full-length novel. If I decide on a form, then what do I do with it? I'd probably make more money self publishing it, but then selling it to a good market would turn it into advertising, in a way, helping me reach a different group of readers who wouldn't find a self-published novella/short story.

I'm planning to use this story for my FenCon reading, and then maybe get some feedback from the audience, kind of like a focus group.

Priorities

I really slacked off on the "devote time to my priorities" program. It seems I really do need to keep the calendar and to-do list to keep it working, and until I get in the habit, it looks like that calendar and to-do list need to be on paper. I tried using the calendar on my computer, but while I'm working or online, that's out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I'd try it with my phone, but that would possibly get annoying if I set reminders and had it beep at me. Then again, maybe that's what I need to get myself in line.

There are some priorities I'm already pretty good at sticking with. The main thing I need to work on is devoting consistent, dedicated time to my work when I'm not on a deadline crunch, and devoting consistent, dedicated time to other things when I am buried in a book. That all-or-nothing behavior isn't good for me, isn't good for my work, and doesn't make me happy. I wouldn't need the all-or-nothing if I could be more consistent.

Then I really need to step it up with the marketing, because that's how I sell books. Most of my books now are independently published, so I have no publicist, and I'm not really getting publicity support from my publishers for the others, since I'm not in that tier of author. So I have to do it, and I need to do it consistently. The problem is that it's easy to get discouraged and slack off. When you do what feels like a big promo push for you, and the result is your number of Twitter followers shrinking and your Amazon ranking getting worse, it's hard to remind yourself that these things aren't necessarily connected. What I really need to figure out how to do is break out of my own circle. The people I can communicate with are already on board. But how do I find and connect with the people outside that circle who might be interested if they knew about me? I'm terrible at networking, social or otherwise, and especially online. In person, listening to what others say without feeling the need to chime in unless you've got something useful to add counts for a lot. Online, that's invisible, so staying on top of other people's feeds without inserting myself doesn't do me much good. And yet I can't bring myself to just pipe up for the purpose of getting my name out there. So I need to work on some ideas. I checked some books out of the library yesterday, but anything they had on social networking was hopelessly out of date, with the newest published in 2011, and things have changed since then.

I know I talk about getting my house in order a lot, but it's something I want to do, and I think I could do it if I dedicated consistent time to it. I think I really am a neat freak at heart. The main reason I love staying in hotels is that for a few days, I can keep my world perfectly in order, with no visible clutter. I only have the things I need, and there's a place to put them all. At home, though, this priority falls below other priorities, and then I get good at blocking it out. I think I'd be happier, more productive, and less stressed if I could do a better job at this. I just need to make it a priority and be consistent about it.

And then there's music. Singing is a physical activity, so daily exercise makes it better. I know when I'm keeping up with practicing my choir music, my range extends by a couple of notes on either end. I also would like to get better at the piano and actually learn the left hand. It's something I enjoy that's important to me, so I need to dedicate the time to it.

Theoretically, prioritizing these things and scheduling time to do them will then free up other time to do other things I like to do. But it's very easy to get into the "doom loop" of checking e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, lather, rinse, repeat.

Today, I might actually start writing words on the new book. I've written a synopsis and done some research. I've planned an opening sequence. I have on my "What you do may appear in my next book" writer t-shirt, and I'm using the mug with that slogan for my tea. So I need to put it in my calendar as something to do.

How Not to Start a Story (Maybe)

Continuing my writing theme of beginnings …

There's a lot of writing advice out there on ways you should never begin your story. And it's mostly right. There are exceptions, but you should think carefully before deciding that you're the exception.

Never start your story with:

1) The protagonist (or any other character) waking up in the morning.
It does seem like a logical place to begin and a good way to show the ordinary world before the character's life changes, but do we really want to read about someone waking up, having breakfast, getting dressed, and otherwise starting their day? I suspect that another reason this is popular is that it does show up frequently in movies, especially romantic comedies, where the heroine starting her day is the sequence that goes with the opening credits, while the movie's theme song plays. It's a good way to establish a lot of the character's traits and establish the story world. But in a film, the more visual information you can cram into that sequence, the better -- show whether she's a neat freak or a slob, how does she dress, what does she wear, what's her attitude, what's her routine, etc. -- while in a book, all that kind of detail just bogs down the opening. It's better to start as close as possible to the point where the character's life changes. Skip the teeth brushing and dressing part.

EXCEPT this can be a really shocking opening if the character wakes to something she doesn't expect to find, like discovering herself in a strange place or not knowing who she is. But then you're not going to get that going through a normal routine stuff because there is no normal. Or if you plan to make things seriously not normal within a few paragraphs, then it works to start with a very mundane beginning. We meet Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when he wakes in the morning and goes about his morning routine, with the tiny detail of seeing a bulldozer outside his house slipped into the mention of him opening the window, and then it takes a little longer, until after he's made coffee, before that thought catches up with him and he runs outside to confront the bulldozer. But you need to establish within a couple of paragraphs that something is really crazy.

2) The protagonist traveling somewhere and thinking about where she's going and why.
This is a very popular opening for romance novels, even some that get published, but it's become such a cliche. Unless something happens during the journey, the story either starts when she makes the decision to go, and then we can skip to the part where she arrives, or it starts when she arrives at her destination. The character sitting in the coach/car/airplane/train and thinking about her entire backstory makes for a dull opening.

EXCEPT you can play with that trope and make something happen. I got a book out of that when I was snarking about the trope and then wrote a book that opens with the heroine on the train thinking about the new life that faces her when suddenly a group of bandits robs the train, and this is what actually changes her life (though she doesn't know it at the time). The thing to keep in mind is that you need action, not thinking.

3) An exciting action sequence that turns out to be a dream.
This is a double whammy because first there's the letdown that that the exciting thing didn't actually happen, and then you get that "waking up in the morning" opening. This kind of opening can make the reader feel betrayed, and it looks suspiciously like an attempt to provide something exciting for the opening because you didn't have confidence in your real beginning. It also means that you've wasted pages on something that actually has no consequences.

EXCEPT I think this can be used judiciously in fantasy if it's a key element of the story that the character has dreams that are either prophetic or that provide a view into other people's lives. But you'd need to show us pretty quickly that this is what is going on. Like within a paragraph or so of waking, something in real life needs to happen that echoes something in the dream. You would have to use the dream to create a sense of danger and unease, not do the "whew, it was just a dream" kind of opening.

Book Report: Saying Goodbye to Discworld

This is a post that I've put off writing for a while because it feels like writing it makes it real, but it is real, regardless of what I say. I read The Shepherd's Crown, the final Terry Pratchett book, last week, and I want to talk about it, but it also feels like talking about it will somehow give it a sense of finality that it wouldn't have had if I hadn't yet talked about it. If that makes sense. Maybe it's that talking about it completes the process of reading the book, so it really is over. I also procrastinated about reading it. I had it about half a week before I let myself read it, and then after plowing through about half in one day I made the rest of it last the rest of the week.

It's hard to talk about the plot without spoiling a major event, and it's a book that isn't really about the plot. It's about the characters. The story is about the elves deciding to try to make a comeback, and it's up to young witch Tiffany Aching to find a way to stop them and save her land. But it's really a major coming-of-age story for Tiffany, who's still young but having to function like an adult, and it's about the way the world is changing, with new technology and new ideas.

I've read some reviews that say it reads like Pratchett knew this would be his last book, and I'd have to agree. There's a bit of a farewell tour among some of the major characters from the entire Discworld series, and it feels like most of the plot threads that intersect this particular sub-series are wrapped up well enough that we can feel like we know the outcome. I had the sense of an author saying goodbye to his people. Those were the parts that had me sobbing. There's a note at the end that says this book wasn't quite finished -- the story is complete, but all the usual tinkering that would have been done in revisions didn't get finished. I wouldn't say that I noticed this or felt any lack while reading it, but looking back and comparing it to other books, I can kind of see it.

It's hard to judge the book itself without all the emotions attached to it. I enjoyed reading it. I found it profound and funny at the same time. I want more, and it's sad that there won't be any more. It's definitely not something slapped together posthumously. It's worthy of the name on the cover. But it may be difficult for fans to read, in some respects, because these people have become real to us, and it's hard to say goodbye. Fortunately, there are all those other books we can revisit.

I would say that this is a book best read alone, with a box of tissues handy, and with your calendar cleared for the day (unless you end up doing like I did and dragging it out).

First Hints of Fall

My fall schedule is now complete, with the start of yoga class this morning. Now I just have to get used to the schedule of activities -- yoga Monday morning, children's choir and choir rehearsal Wednesday night, ballet Thursday night. I really hate the Thursday ballet because it interrupts the possibility of long weekends, and that's why instead of registering for the whole semester, I got a punch card for a certain number of classes. Then I don't pay for classes I don't take and I don't feel so bad about skipping classes. In a nice bit of luck, it turns out we won't be having a yoga class the Monday after FenCon, so I'll have recovery time.

I had a reasonably active and social weekend. I went with some friends to a festival and antique car show on the town square. I felt rather old when there was a "classic" car on display that was newer than the one I learned to drive in, but there were plenty of really old cars, like the Fords from the 1920s with rumble seats. Of course, going to any event on the town square requires going to the old-fashioned ice cream parlor on the square.

It's getting to be the time of year when it's cool enough to go outside for festivals and things like that.

I watched a movie Sunday afternoon because there was a nice bit of scheduling on HBO. My library is doing some events around The Book Thief this fall, and I plan to read it, but the movie was on one of the HBO channels Sunday afternoon, so I watched it because I'm the weirdo who likes to see the movie before reading the book. That's because if I loved the book, the movie is very likely going to disappoint me. But if I like the movie, the book will probably be even better and is sure to include lots of extra stuff, so it's like getting the special extended edition director's cut of the story.

It's hard to describe this story in a way that at all reflects it because it's a pretty simple story about a young girl taken in by a childless couple in a small town in Germany in the late 30s and how they're affected by the war. The girl loves books, a love her adoptive father encourages, and during the deprivation of the war, she sneaks into the well-stocked personal library of the mayor to borrow books to read. But it's really more a story about the characters, not so much how they develop but rather how they unfold as we get to know them better and see them in difficult circumstances. And the whole thing is narrated by Death. Since I've been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett lately, I kept thinking of this being the same Death, so I kind of expected to find a skeleton in a robe having a curry.

I definitely want to read the book now and see what the movie inevitably had to leave out. It actually kind of fits into some preliminary research I'm doing for a planned future book that takes place in a totalitarian society. There's not a lot out there about ordinary people in that regime -- not necessarily running a resistance movement, but also not party members -- and that's what this story focuses on. There's the fear from every knock on the door, the worry that neighbors are watching and might inform on you, sometimes for no reason other than spite, the indoctrination in schools, the fear parents had of their own children who had been indoctrinated and the uncertainty of whether the school's teaching or the parent's teaching would win out.

And now that I'm feeling all virtuous for starting my day with exercise, I have to get to work.

Plotting a Sequel

I had another busy day of brain thunderstorming, and I had the "duh!" moment of realizing that one problem with the plot outline I was trying to put together was that I hadn't stopped to think about what the goals of the various characters and factions were. Once I did that, it fell into place a lot better because it made the events make sense. I can't just look at what the protagonists' goals are. I have to look at what's going on with the other people and with the antagonists. Today's task will be digging more into what the antagonists are doing.

Outlining the plot for a sequel is a little different than a first book because some of the steps have already taken place in the first book. The "Ordinary World" segment is mostly about establishing the new normal after the events in the first book. There may not need to be a new "Call to Adventure" in the sequel, depending on how the first book ended. If the first book ending was a "whew, that's over, now back to normal!" then you might need all the initial steps, including the call and refusal of the call. But if the first book ending was more "we may have won this round, but it's only just starting," then the call from the first book can carry over and there's no need for the refusal/mentor, etc., stages. The hero is already over the threshold. But then that makes structuring and pacing a little more difficult.

But I'm seeing events play out and I'm getting back into that world, which is fun and exciting.

It's been interesting to look at my old synopsis for this sequel, written while I was still writing the first book, and see how much has changed. I think my opinions of some of the characters have changed. This was before I decided the book was YA, so there's a different focus. And I've learned so much as an author since then. If I wrote the book I outlined, it would be rather boring. I want a bit more adventure.

In other news, as a television reminder service, Continuum starts again tonight on SyFy, but in the post-prime time slot, at 10 Central. I'm glad they're getting the chance to wrap up the story because that was a big cliffhanger. I have this thing for time travel and seeing the repercussions of fiddling with the past, and this show scratches that itch. If I can stay awake that long. I hope it'll be OnDemand.

Back to Preschool

I survived the first night of children's choir, and most of the twitching has even stopped. It looks like I'll have about 10 preschoolers, depending on who shows up. We had a couple of serious separation anxiety/shyness cases whose moms stayed in the room with them and who ended up leaving early because the kids just clung to mom and cried or tried to hide behind mom. What's funny is that both of them had younger siblings who tried to participate with the other kids while the older sibling who was supposed to be in the choir just hid. One was a little girl of maybe 2-3 who raised her hand to be called on and answered questions and did everything the bigger kids were doing. I'd invite her to join us, but I suspect that would just make things awkward for her big brother. The other was a toddler just barely old enough to walk on his own, but boy, did he try to clap and dance along with the music while his big sister hid behind her mom.

I can already tell which one is going to be the biggest challenge. There's one boy who's the first to raise his hand and who has all the answers and learns things quickly, but he also doesn't do well with being at all still or following directions, and his idea of moving with the music is running in circles around the room. So I'll need to come up with extra challenges for him or find ways to make him be the helper so he has a task at all times to keep him too busy to run around in circles.

Otherwise, they seem to be good kids, and they make me feel old because many of them are the younger siblings of kids I've taught before, so I'm getting all those toddlers who used to stand in the doorway and watch wide-eyed as their older siblings came to choir. Then there's the one girl who, when she was a baby, was known for holding her arms out toward me and screaming, "Mama!" when she saw me, even if her mother was right there. And I look nothing like her mother. That got awkward if we were in the parking lot and I was parked near them and her mother was trying to get her in her car seat while she was crying and calling out for "Mama!" while waving at me. It looked like the poor woman was kidnapping my child.

Meanwhile, I've been brain thunderstorming the new book (when it's more than just a brainstorm). I realized that one major event I was building this book around might be better suited to its sequel, and then I realized that the sequel I'd been planning probably hinged on the wrong events and there was a much more dramatic way to do things. So now I feel a little unmoored and have to figure out how to fit in all the other events I came up with. This is the exciting part of the creative process.

Rethinking Things

Well, day one of my new, improved life didn't quite go as planned. I underestimated how much time it would take to do some things and also underestimated how much time I spend on non-priorities that are still things I enjoy. I need to work a little breathing room into my schedule to make it easier to adhere to. But I did get the amount of writing and publicity work I aimed for, and I did some housework, some exercise and some music practice, even if it wasn't as much as I hoped for. So, overall, an improvement.

I'm going to have to veer from the planned plot of the next Rebel Mechanics book. That synopsis I wrote years ago requires a character to do something that I now believe would be very out of character, and it's sorely lacking in a sense of adventure. The main plot will be more or less the same, but it will be resolved in a different way, I think. Scenes have been coming to me, which is a good sign. I know I have a book shaping up when it goes from being a list of events to seeing a movie in my head (which is why I don't have any Enchanted, Inc. books planned right now -- I can make lists of events, but they're just lists of events. I'm not seeing the scenes happen).

I really wish I could find a way to get a ride in some kind of airship (blimp, dirigible, whatever) because I think that's going to play a big role and I want to be able to describe it better. It looks like you can do that in Germany, but the US company that was offering that sort of thing in California has closed down.

Tonight children's choir starts, so I'll be fully in my fall schedule. I need to come up with a lesson plan that will entertain four-year-olds for 45 minutes. I don't plan to do a lot of "teaching" tonight, but I will need activities to do with them.

Now to do some other promo stuff for the day and then do some plot outlining and then some lesson planning. We're having a cool, rainy day, so I feel energized.

Charging Forward!

I'm diving into my latest stab at being super organized and productive. We'll see how long this one lasts. I figured out how much time I really need to be devoting to various priorities, and it was surprising how much time that still left me in the day. So I set out to schedule all those priority activities on my calendar, leaving the rest of the day unscheduled. I also got specific about what I wanted to do for each of those priorities. I've tried things like this in the past, where I said I wanted to spend an hour a day on publicity and marketing activities, and then it fell through because I wasn't sure what to do with that time. So I'm making a to-do list within the priorities.

If I go by my usual pattern, I'll be gung-ho for about a week, and then life will intrude on my carefully prepared schedule, and it will all fall apart. But I'm hoping this makes enough sense that it might stick. If I feel like I'm making progress and accomplishing a lot, I'm more likely to just make it part of my life. If I find myself realizing that I'm getting so much done, producing work, increasing sales, and getting my house in order, and I still feel like I have free time, then it may become routine. I've already adjusted some things when I realized that my overly ambitious schedule that I put together last night wasn't at all realistic.

But I have actually accomplished something publicity-wise. For that video I had to do for that subscription box service, I found some cool vintage film that's from a little later than Rebel Mechanics is set but that still gives the same feel. As I was doing my reading from the opening chapter at WorldCon, several lines jumped out at me as perfectly matching the footage. So, here's a short teaser/intro video I put together, just playing around with iMovie to see what I could do:



I don't know if it will sell any books for me, but apparently YouTube is a big deal among YA readers, so having a presence there is a good thing. So far, though, most of my social media efforts seem to just sit there without getting a lot of traction or feedback other than from my personal friends. I'm trying to figure out how to get some impact there.

This was also good for getting me back into the mindset of that world because this afternoon, I'm going to start work on book 2 in that series. I wrote a synopsis for that book way back when I was writing the first book so that we could submit the proposal for the first book with the plans for the series. I'm sure that a lot has changed in the past five years, so it may require some reworking, and then I have to figure out what happens in the first few chapters so I can write the beginning.

At least I already have a title in mind, so I won't have to go through that process again for a while.

Now, off to go be productive some more!