Krista D. Ball's Blog, page 8

Six Sunday

Whew! It's been a busy week for me. Here's a little bit from Harvest Moon to get you through your Sunday cleaning!

"For the Creator's sake, don't look at me like that. Brave up, Dancing Cat, or that name of yours will turn you into a woman." He motioned at her food. "I got the grouse for you. Eat it all, if you need it. When was the last time you had a nicely roasted bird like this?"

"Over two years," she mumbled between bites.

 

A to Z: "H" is for holiday

I'm on holiday from writing right now and it has been glorious. Some of you will remember that I took a week off mid-project. It did not help. In fact, I felt anxious and stressed the entire time. Last week, I finished the first major draft of "Sisip Learns to Shapeshift" and decided that it was time to take a break. This time, it's been much more relaxing.

I've been able to read, do some research, clean the house, play video games, and hang out with the cats. I've been re-watching a documentary series that I love called Tales From the Green Valley. I made peanut butter balls for the squirrels and woodpeckers.

I plan to get back to writing starting on Monday. I'm feeling ready to get back at it. I'll be working on my editing course material and will be making more headway into the major revision of Tranquility's Grief.

There are plenty of people out there that say "write every day." I say, "occasionally, take  a break."

A to Z: G is for Google Searches

/begin rant

I know that I have an unfair advantage over a lot of writers: I have a history degree. Not only do I have a solid basis for many European and Canadian time periods, but I also know how to go about finding the information, examining it, evaluating it, and figuring out if it's a lot of crap or not.

However, I think any writer worth their salt should be doing more than just a google search for their books when research is called for.  Let me give you an example.

Do a search on life in the middle ages. You'll start to find that a number of websites are all saying the same information – word for word. That must mean that information is correct, right? No. What is means is that a number of people copied from one source. Now, look at the page information. Many times, you'll discover that this is an elementary or junior high school project. Can you find the sources of this information? No? Then how can you confirm it?

Here's another one. Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy. Now, it's not as bad these days, but in the weeks following the movie, "Becoming Jane", the first couple of pages of Google had information on Jane Austen's torrid love affair with Tom Lefroy. Wikipedia's entry on Jane Austen had an entire paragraph dedicated to this, even.

And guess what? It was a load of caca. There is no evidence that Jane Austen ran off with Tom Lefroy. There is evidence that they behaved shamelessly together at a dance, flirting and being silly. There is evidence that Tom Lefroy might have told a relative that he had a schoolboy crush on her at one point. That's pretty much where it ends. Yet, if I didn't know better and just listened to the internet, I would  have had a very different biography of Austen.

Looking on the internet just isn't enough. Go read some magazines. Check out a couple of books. Email an expert. Watch a documentary. You'll soon discover that they all have a slightly different point of view of things. And that is where you start to learn what your own take is on things, if a point of view is even factually correct, and understand how to use it in your own writing.

/end rant

A to Z: "F" is for French Fries

Ode to French Fries

Oh, glorious french fries.

How I love thy crispy outside.

Flaky

inside

Covered in gravy

Covered in ketchup

turned into poutine

I crave thy embrace.

Can't

Diet

Agony

 

 

A to Z: E is for Ego

Oh yeah. We writers have egos. HUGE egos. We're also terrified of our own shadows and will sell our souls to publishers. I feel that my work is the best ever written and complete garbage…at the same time. You can see why we authors drink so much. It's hard coping.

One thing I've learned about being in the publishing business is that ego has got to go. Confidence needs to stay, as does the willingness to improve. Ego just gets in the way of learning, of relationships, and makes business decisions personal.

If I don't like a contract term, confidence lets me ask for a change or the power to walk away. Willingness to learn lets me be edited and accept that I don't know the proper use of a semi-colon and that my main character should have a relationship with her horse. Confidence lets me know that a suggestion is changing the tone of my book to something I don't want, and willingness to learn helps me address the issue and come to a compromise.

Ego does none of that. Ego says these are my words and how dare you change them. Ego blames rejection on others and not my own work, errors, or lack of proper market research. Ego tells me to lash out at agents and publishers and magazines. Ego tells me to publicly berate reviewers for saying my work sucks.

Once I figured this part out, writing, publishing, and every day life suddenly got a whole lot easier.

 

 

A to Z: D is for ….

I'm taking today off the blog. A very close family friend, whom I consider more of my family than many members of my family, passed away. I'm feeling rather low and unable to come up with anything right now. So, it's going to be a skip day.

A to Z April: "C" is for Career

I think we all make choices in our lives. Some people choose to get university degrees, have established careers, raise families, have a nice house, and write small pieces of work when they can. Some people choose to live on red beans and rice and travel to different countries. Some people choose to live their childhood dreams and put it first. Some people just want to watch reality TV or play video games.

I decided to put writing first. It wasn't an easy decision and I don't recommend it for most people. Yes, I am lucky that I have a partner who can afford the mortgage.  I also work part-time to help with giving us wiggle room in the budget (I do software testing, development support, copy editing, and writing for an educational company). I've picked up any freelance work that I could find (I'm back working with Merge Magazine this year).

Late 2009, I made the most terrifying decision of my life: I decided to write full time. I gave my job 2 months notice and left Jan 31, 2010. It's been just over a year later. In that period, I've sold a novella, three short stories, a novel, and have edited and submitted another novel. I've written a children's historical fantasy, several short stories, a novella, and two non-fiction projects which are all at various stages of editing. Oh, and I've started three other books, one has a full draft finished.

So, I'm not joking when I say this is my career. I work hard. And, even more annoying, all that work doesn't result in instant income. This career isn't for everyone. I would say it isn't for most people.

But it's for me.

 

Six Sunday!

Ack! I'm so sorry for flaking last weekend. I feel asleep several hours earlier than normal. By the time I woke, it was 10am MST. So, I'm scheduling this post DAYS in advance!  Today's excerpt is from Flying Kite, Crashing Ship, my time travel comedy. Dr. Sally Pescan and Miss Amanda Grey meet for the first time. Miss Amanda Grey, a lady of great stature in the community, is rather surprised by the futurist Dr. Pescan:

"Colonel, you must come see," she urged. "There is a French lady inside, with a man. Iassume it's either her husband or brother, by the liberties she was taking with her speech.And look, she is wearing trousers. How scandalous!" She had never seen a woman in trousers before.

 

A to Z April: "B" is for Books

Most of the writers I've spoken to had parents who read to them or were heavy readers themselves. I never had that. In fact, except for the Disney encyclopedia my mom bought me when I was five, I owned a total of 6 fiction books my entire childhood, right up until I was eighteen. In fact, other than school books, I don't believe I bought a book until I moved to Edmonton, just after graduating university.

My parents have low literacy skills. My mom dropped out of school when she was thirteen, as her income scrubbing floors was needed to pay the bills. My dad dropped out after grade nine because he could make decent money driving taxis and working construction.  The only books I ever saw read in my house were the bible and daily devotional books (read alongside the bible).

I don't remember when my love of books really caught on, but I believe it was around the time I was allowed to bike down to the local library. I have fond memories of spending the majority of my childhood summers and teen Saturday afternoons hanging out at the library.

However, they had the oddest collection of books. Many of the typical books SFF writers cite as their childhood favourites – Tolkien, Asimov, Heinlein – I never heard of until my late twenties. Sometimes, I feel defensive about that, because SFF folks are rather, err, passionate about their favourite authors.  I never got that attached to any one author as a kid. We never even had complete sets of series most of the time! Of course, that doesn't mean I wasn't well read, even if certain SF authors have publicly stated otherwise on their blogs/books.

In fact, I'd argue that being forced to read so many genres really helped me as an author. I got to see so many different kinds of worlds and possibilities, plus a variety of ways to "do" things. Also, I can write in a number of genres and subgenres and enjoy pushing my own literary envelop whenever possible. I don't know the proper way to write SF or the fantasy rules, since I have read too many other genres. I just know a good story. Personally, I like it better that way.

I always have new favourite authors or new favourite series. If I pick up your book one and enjoy it, I'll be loyal throughout the end. After all, I have two decades of book buying to catch up on!

Project Update

The beginning of March, I posted that my main focus was between Road to Hell obligations, Tranquility's Grief, and a Middle Grade project. (You can read the post here). Today, I finished the major revision of my MG project, tentatively titled "Sisip Learns to Shapeshift".

I also finished the first draft of Tranquility's Grief.

After finishing a major revision or a first draft, I put away my drafts for a few weeks/months/years. It really helps separate yourself from it and helps with gaining the proper perspective necessary to edit a project. It also helps me from getting too burned out on one project.

I'll still be working on Road to Hell (the publication date has been moved up to Nov 4, so the time lines are going to get shorter now for me). I will also be working on my untitled urban fantasy (before referred to as my untitled paranormal mystery…it's changed genres).  Also, I've been wanting to put together a beginner course on editing for unpublished writers that I might teach online or in person. So, I'm going to totally change gears and work on that for the next month.

So, that's the goal for April. I'll check back in the beginning of May and let you know. I also do regular updates on my Facebook fan page, too!