Sara Jayne Townsend's Blog, page 33

Another Year Older

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

Today is my birthday. I am 43. I am slightly bummed about this – I rather enjoyed being able to say I was the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything when I was 42. 43 just doesn’t seem to be a very interesting number. Though it is a prime number, and I guess there aren’t too many of those.

However, looking back on the past year it does seem I have cause to celebrate. The last 12 months have seen the release of my third published book. Maybe I’m not making loads of money from the writing, but I’m getting published, and that’s something to cheer about.

It seems a lot of our friends have lost one or both parents recently. Mine are still around. Some people have been dealing with losing their jobs, or debilitating illness. I still have the day job, which lets me pay the mortgage, and I’m still alive and kicking. So it seems there’s a lot to celebrate.

I’m off to raise a glass to being another year older. Bring on 43.

My Life in Books: David Starr, Space Ranger

Still in my science fiction phase as a teenager, I found this book in the school library.  It was the first in a series of six books by Isaac Asimov, written to introduce kids to the solar system.  The main character, David Starr, is a dashing young adventurer, and each book of the series featured a different planet in the solar system, on which David “Lucky” Starr would get involved in an exciting adventure (I think he was supposed to be something like the Lone Ranger in space), using facts about the planet as a backdrop.  This first book was set on Mars. 

The problem was, these books were written in the fifties, and our knowledge of the solar system was erroneous back then.  I remember, for instance, that in the book set on Venus it was a planet where it rained all the time – we have since learned that the clouds shrouding Venus contain no water.  I read all six books in this series, and in the front of each was an apology from Isaac Asimov, pointing out what errors had since come to light since he wrote them, but since changing the books to correct the facts would change the plots too much, he’d decided not to rewrite them.

They may no longer be the educational tools that Asimov intended, but they are still rollicking good space adventure stories, and a great science fiction books for teens.

A Room of One’s Own

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

Since we moved house, I have done no writing.  Somehow I seemed unable to to get back into a normal routine until all the boxes were unpacked and everything had a place.  And there were a lot of boxes to unpack. The disruption of this, coupled with no internet access, is also why I’ve not been blogging.

Hubby and I have been together 22 years and we’ve moved four times during our life together. Each time has been into a bigger place than the last, and each time there was more stuff to move.  We’re both terrible hoarders.  I’ve been unearthing some fascinating artifacts whilst unpacking this time around.  Every story I wrote in high school, for instance.  All my school notebooks.  Every letter that everyone ever wrote to me from the point I moved from Canada back to England in 1988.

So now there are two of us in a four-bedroom family house.  You’d think that would be enough space for two people, but we’re still working on finding a place for things.  Much of the space in our house is taken up by books. We are both bibliophiles, and although we’ve now both converted to e-readers, that doesn’t mean we want to get rid of all the physical books we have acquired over the years.  In the last house, the books were spread throughout every room.  When we moved, we got a better idea of just how many books we’ve got.  Taken in total, there must be close to a thousand in all.

The two of us have always dreamed of a private library, and with the layout of the new house we began to think that we might finally realise that dream. The house has an extension at the back – a lovely sunny room the previous owners called ‘the sun room’ that we thought would make a perfect library. However, when we actually got in the place and started unpacking all the boxes, we began to realise that we actually had too many books to fit them all in one room.

For once, though, we moved into a house that already had bookshelves built in – the first time we’ve bought a house bought by fellow bibliophiles, it seems, as usually the first thing we have to do is put up shelves in order to put the books away. The dining room in this lovely old house was built with a fireplace, and although the actual fire has been removed, the alcove on either side of the chimney breast has been filled floor to ceiling with sturdy shelves. Just right for putting books on.



Of course, we had far more books than these shelves would fit, and so we have bought more book cases and have managed to create our library – see attached image. I have to admit I am very fond of this room. It’s a wonderful room to sit and read in, and it’s one of my favourite spaces in the new house.

The plan is to keep this room free of TVs, computer and stereo equipment, and keep it as a quiet space – a proper ‘room of one’s own’, where we can retreat for solitude and quiet reflection.

With this room being at the back of the house, as part of a single storey stone extension, we are already getting an inkling that it will be a tad chilly in winter – the season we are, of course, moving into. However, this is such a wonderful space that I don’t think the cold will put even me off from spending time in here. I might just have to get into the habit of wearing thicker sweaters around the house. And of course, when one sits and reads, a nice hot cup of tea doesn’t go amiss either.

I’m Back

We finally have telecoms service, nearly a month after moving house. Up until now we’ve had to do without a landline, or internet service, and no TV apart from freeview channels (which are really not worth watching).

So what have I been doing this past month, apart from sticking pins into wax effigies of Virgin Media representatives?  I moved house.  One of my cats died.  I had to go into hospital for minor surgery.  I interviewed Kathy Reichs (yes, really!).

All in all, it’s been quite an eventful month.  Now I am back online, I shall be blogging about some of these things very soon.

Apologies for the neglect of the blog these past few weeks.  Thank you for bearing with me during technical difficulties.  Normal service will be resumed forthwith.  Watch this space!

Mondays Friend: Calle J Brookes

Today I am pleased to welcome Calle J Brookes to the blog to talk about serials. And not the kind you have for breakfast.

WRITING AN ONLINE SERIAL FOR YOUR BLOG

By Calle J Brookes

First, I want to say thank you for having me, Sara Jayne! I don’t do many guest blog spots and I’m thrilled to be here!

Today I want to talk about serial writing. I don’t mean series writing, I mean writing a story in ‘installments’, and publishing it for your readers in chunks.

I got my start in serial writing several years ago with fanfiction and quickly grew to love the instant feedback it would get me. I’ve recently brought that love of serial writing back into my life by writing The Wolf God & His Mate. This story started out as a very short one intended as a ‘freebie’ on my blog.

Feedback was so overwhelmingly positive on this story—which was part of my larger paranormal romance universe—that I kept going. And going. Until it ended up being 20,000 words long! That’s longer than the first novella I published in the series!

I do credit The Wolf God & His Mate with helping build my blog readership—and increasing my book sales overall. The online read was tweeted and shared and had many hits from searches of ‘free paranormal romance reads’ and other similar search terms. It brought tons of new readers to my blog who otherwise wouldn’t have found me, or my books. I don’t do very much book promotion and this is the primary way readers found me. I now get close to 1500 unique visitors to my blog each month. The Wolf God & His Mate gets the most hits overall.

There are a few reasons why I think The Wolf God was so successful:

1.  I updated regularly. I would do my very best to have a new chapter posted at least each month. My ultimate goal was every two weeks. Sometimes I posted more frequently, other times far less. Each installment also ended on a cliffhanger.

2.  I listened to feedback. I loved that my readers could tell me what they liked or didn’t about the chapter. And if I contradicted myself they would let me know and I would fix it!

3.  I kept each chapter short. I tried to keep each installment less than 900 words or so. This made for fast, easy reading.

And,

4.  I didn’t charge for it or only post half, and tell readers they could buy the rest. (I’ve seen it done the opposite way, and I did not like that!) I started out with a free read-in-progress, and it was going to remain a free-read-in-progress. I don’t believe in charging readers for installment or serial stories, unless the entire story is completed and bundled together. Why would someone want to buy a book that they don’t get the whole story?

Serials are a great way to build readership, and for author-bloggers just starting out—especially those who intend to write many books in the same series—a serial story could help build the blog. But care must be put into it from the beginning to ensure the visitors get what they want and expect!

Currently, I’m working on a serial for my romantic suspense series featuring Agent Jasmine Len.

FBI Agent Jasmine Len loved working for Deputy Director Edward Dennis in the St. Louis Field Office. They were working hard to get the Prevention & Analysis of Violent Acts Division off the ground. When someone threatens Ed and the new division, Len will do whatever it takes to keep him safe…even pair up with Special Agent Dakon Royal to find the culprits, despite how Royal gets beneath her skin…

Please feel free to hop on over and check out my serials—and my series’!

About DARDANOS, CO. (paranormal romance)

They’d inhabited Gaia long before humans, the Dardaptoans, the Lupioux, Demons, and Warriors alike. They’d lived, loved, and battled through the millennia. Now, the time has come for them to stake their claim on the world they loved—before it was too late. The vampiric Dardaptoan race had settled in the mountains of Colorado, where they’d existed in peace with their human neighbors. Until the human Leo Taniss started hunting them. Now the leaders of the Dardaptoans have to do what they must to protect their people…even if it means eliminating Taniss’s granddaughters one by one…

PAVAD: PREVENTION & ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT ACTS DIVISION: (romantic suspense/thrillers)

PAVAD—the Prevention & Analysis of Violent Acts Division is a special directorate of the FBI, located in St. Louis, and ran by Deputy Director Edward Dennis. PAVAD was formed by Dennis to combat today’s increasingly complex crimes in a modern nation. PAVAD consists of only the best of the FBI’s best, and addresses cases involving everything from kidnapping, money-laundering, extortion, all the way up to RICO violations. The PAVAD unit consists of more than a dozen teams ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice to every corner of the United States…

At this point, each series has at least ten books planned and in the works. The second installment of the PAVAD series will be released Monday, Oct. 15th, and the tenth story in the Dardanos, Co. series will be released around Christmas 2012.

ABOUT CALLE:

Calle J. Brookes is the author of several paranormal romances set in Dardanos, Colorado and of the PAVAD romantic suspenses. Her work can be purchased at every major ebook retailer, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon. She can be found lurking around the web at www.callejbrookes.wordpress.com.

She has been writing professionally since the age of eighteen when she lucked into a part-time journalism position; her love and enjoyment of working with the written word has only grown throughout the years. Now, she is glad to say that she writes fiction full-time (and does part-time content editing for other authors), and self-publishes most of her works.

Her current writing obsessions include her paranormal romance series featuring the Dardanos, Co. characters and my romantic suspense series featuring members of the PAVAD division of the FBI.

Her latest release WANTING should hit the Amazon and Smashwords ‘shelves’ today!

Monday’s Friend: Renita Pizzitola

Today I am pleased to welcome new Lyrical Press writer Renita Pizzitola to the blog.

Writing YA for an Adult Audience

By Renita Pizzitola

With the ever growing population of adult YA readers, how do writers appeal to both the young adult and adult readers? For the most part, I’d say don’t change a thing. Isn’t that the appeal behind YA? 

Teens view their world from a unique perspective and, often, I think it’s this sense of nostalgia that hooks adult readers. After all, we (adults) will always have one thing in common with YA books…surviving the teen years. And though at the time, life may have seemed doomed by the smallest inconvenience, as adults, we can now look back on those memories fondly.  Not to mention, reliving youth vicariously through a fictional hero or heroine (that’s probably a whole lot cooler than you were at that age…or any teen is for that matter) is the kind of escape from reality readers look for.

But, while these aspects can be fun, sweet, even comical at times, I think some readers want more from YA. Specifically, more romance…and not just hand holding. And it’s not only the adult readers looking for this change. Older teens and twenty-somethings crave their own niche of books. They may feel too old for some YA but not ready to move into the adult romance genre and stories about issues that aren’t really relevant to them yet such as marriage, kids or jobs. They need transitional books about life after high school but before the responsibilities of true adulthood. A good middle ground is upper YA (sometimes referred to as Mature YA or New Adult). This genre combines the elements readers love—carefree lives, first love, self-discovery—with more adult content.  Eighteen-and-up characters are, typically, considered old enough to make their own decisions. Thus allowing writers more freedom to push the limits on relationships, life events, actions and consequences. And for me, I feel writing upper YA combines the perfect amount of adult appeal with the sweet side of youth and first love. It’s a story I love to tell and hopefully something both teens and adults alike will love to read.

Blurb for GOSSAMER:

Shouldn’t all faerytales end with happily-ever-after?

 Kyla Ashbury is nearing her eighteenth birthday when a mysterious boy appears at school. Her instant attraction to him inexplicably awakens something inside her and she discovers her true identity.

 Now, armed with the knowledge of her past, she is forced to leave behind the life she has always known for a new one filled with temptation, faery charm and magic, and a future she wasn’t prepared for.

 Kyla is left with a difficult decision…but no matter which path she chooses, someone will get hurt.

 Purchase Links:

Amazon / Barnes and Noble /  iBooks / Lyrical Press

 Renita Pizzitola writes Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. An avid reader herself, she has always enjoyed stories with witty humor, romance, and fascinating characters. Renita lives in Texas with her husband and two children. When not writing, she enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and playing referee to her two typically adorable children.

 Visit www.renitapizzitola.com for more information.

Contact Links:

website/twitter/facebook/blog/goodreads

Monday’s Friend: Kenneth Hoss

Crime writer Kenneth Hoss is celebrating the release of his latest book, STORM WARNING, the first novel in an exciting new police procedural series. Today he’d like to tell us all about the book.

STORM WARNING By Kenneth Hoss



When her new partner is shot during a botched robbery, Detective Kelli Storm never expected that the trail of the shooter would lead her to Colombian drug lord Miguel Garcia; the man who’s cousin she had killed months earlier, and had made numerous attempts on her life. A man she had believed to be dead.

Detectives Kelli Storm and Eric Ryder follow the bloody trail of a notorious drug kingpin from the streets of Washington Heights, New York and south to Medellin, Colombia.

When the suspect in her partner’s shooting is killed while in custody, the man makes a startling deathbed confession. With this revelation, Kelli finds herself unwillingly thrown back into the world of the drug cartels. With the aid of DEA Special Agent Gregory Larsen and Narcotics Detective Javier Vasquez, Kelli works to stop the Cartel’s operations in the city, and bring down the notorious drug lord.

Storm Warning – A Kelli Storm Novel. Exclusive to Amazon in ebook and paperback.

About Kenneth Hoss



Kenneth Hoss was born at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas in 1957 to Albert and Mary Hoss. He served a combined total of fourteen years on active duty from 1974 to 1987 in both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. His tour in the Army took him to Frankfurt, Germany where he had the opportunity to travel Europe. While in the Navy, Kenneth spent most of his time stationed in San Diego and Long Beach. His Navy travels took him to Hawaii, Guam, The Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Okinawa, the Middle East and Pakistan. He has lived in several States, including South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Washington and California.

Storm Rising – A Kelli Storm Novel is a Police Procedural and is the first book in a three book series. Storm Warning, the next book, has a planned release of 9/15/12.

Kenneth currently lives in Irving, Texas.

Moving

We’ve just moved house and I’m currently up to my ears in boxes.  You never know how much stuff you’ve got until you try to move it all.  The new place is a 100-year-old four-bedroom semi detached house, and you’d think that would be plenty of space for just two people.  At the moment, though, we are crawling over boxes and it is a bit hard to see the bigger picture.

It’s ours at last!

The process has been remarkably quick. The day we moved in – Tuesday the 18th – was three months to the day of accepting an offer on our old place. We have been busy since then unpacking boxes, and now my knees and legs are killing me from constant bending and lifting.   And yet there is still much to do, and nothing is actually where it should be.

The worst thing is we have found out that our TV, internet and phone provider can’t connect us for another week and a half. So not only am I missing the new season of TRUE BLOOD – annoying in itself – but blog posts are going to be few and far between.

So, apologies for the lack of posts. Normal service will be resumed as soon as we’re back online.  Hopefully by then we will have managed to unpack most of the boxes.

Monday’s Friend: Ricky Bush

Today I am pleased to welcome Ricky Bush to the blog, to talk about the influence of music on his writing technique.

Winging It

By Ricky Bush

Call me a “winger”. Yep, and it’s simply because I prefer it to the term “panster”, and because “winging it” describes my style best. As I self-taught myself to play blues harmonica, or blues harp as we like to say, I did so by listening to tons of blues harmonica recordings, but never learning music theory. My playing was by ear and feeling. Once I felt proficient enough to stand on a stage with other blues musicians, and did so, I found that I could hang with most any blues songs called out. I might not have known the song, but had played enough blues scales that “winging it” worked just fine.



As a teacher of journalism, English, and geography for almost three decades, I was required to turn in detailed lesson plans designed to meet certain goals each class period. I wrote them to satisfy the administration, but never followed them and “winging it” worked just fine. Of course, being intimate with the material was instrumental, like the blues scale, in getting the lesson of the day across.

After deciding to move into the realm of fiction, after writing about blues music and blues musicians, I began “winging it” once again. My general idea revolved around the deaths of John Lee Williamson, Little Walter Jacobs, and Henry “Pot” Strong, who were all famous blues harp musicians, and who were all murdered in Chicago in the fifties. I sat down with a legal pad, words flew, and I had no idea where the story would turn next. What I found remarkable, was that it really seemed as if I was reading a book and had no inkling as to what the next chapter held until my pencil began “winging it”.

I did have two blues harp playing protagonists set to investigate the murders of harmonica musicians sixty years later, particularly the death of their good friend, but it took me little longer to develop the “bad guys” in the story. The story winged along, though, and came at me when I least expected. Maybe on my morning walk, or while sitting in church, or listening to a blues recording.

There were plenty of starts, stops, scratch outs, and revisions. I did decide on fictionalizing the Chicago murder victims at some point. Plenty of times my internal GPS screamed, “RECALCULATING” at me because it didn’t exactly know where I was heading or which route to take, but at some point I did arrive at my destination, now called River Bottom Blues. The debut novel finally saw the light of day by being published by Barking Rain Press in January of this year. The second in the series featuring the blues playing crime fighting duo of Mitty Andersen and Pete Bolden, The Devil’s Blues, will sprout wings this November.

I may not always be a “winger”. My WIP keeps whispering, “C’mon man, at least jot down some plot points”, but I keep stubbornly resisting the urge.

Bio



Richard “Ricky” Bush has been listening to, playing, and writing about blues music for most of his adult life. His two novels, River Bottom Blues and The Devil’s Blues, meet at the dark crossroads where blues and murder mingle deep in the heart of Texas.

River Bottom Blues is available at all the usual online suspects, his website/blog, and Barking Rain Press. The Devil’s Blues is due out in November.

http://www.richardbushbooks.com

http://www.bushdogblues.blogspot.com

http://www.barkingrainpress.org

My Life in Books: The Sword of Shannara

In this series of blog posts, I have been talking about books that made some kind of impact in my life.  Terry Brooks’ SWORD OF SHANNARA made an impact, alright, but a very different impact to the other books I have been blogging about.

I mentioned that I got into science fiction after becoming obsessed with Star Wars.  In grade 10 I discovered Dungeons & Dragons, when I joined my high school’s D&D club.  I enjoyed the game, and thought perhaps I should read some fantasy, since it was this genre that inspired it.

The first fantasy book I picked up was this one.  And I thought it was a dirge.  Overstuffed with two-dimensional and boring characters and overlong descriptions of foliage, it was a world with a complete lack of strong female characters and it left me cold.  I didn’t finish it.  And that’s pretty unusual – to date, I can count the number of books I have abandoned halfway through on the fingers of one hand.

If I had started with something like LORD OF THE RINGS, would my perception of fantasy be different?  It’s possible.  I still connect fantasy fiction with overlong descriptions of foliage, plodding plots that take ages to get going and a mysogynistic society that has no real place for kick-ass women.  I am sure there are plenty of books out that that can disabuse me of these notions, but I never felt passionate enough about the genre to go seek them out. And for that, I’m still blaming Terry Brooks.

On the other hand, it might just be that fantasy will never be my genre and my life-long fondness for kick-ass women solving mysteries and stories about supernatural monsters eating children would have prevailed no matter what.

Bizarrely, I enjoy watching fantasy films. I’ve still never read LORD OF THE RINGS, but the Peter Jackson films rock. I particularly enjoyed the kick-ass women that were Arwen and Eowyn. I have been told that in the books, neither of them are quite so kick-ass.

And I still enjoy playing table-top D&D, where the world is interactive, the players control what’s going on, and in the games my husband runs (he’s still my favourite GM) there is generally a mystery to solve. And if I want to play a six-foot Amazonian female warrior who’s a demon with a quarterstaff and is, frankly, a one-woman killling machine, I can.

In fiction, I still prefer reading about kick-ass heroines with a mystery to solve. However, if someone can name a fantasy book that fulfils that criteria, I might be prepared to give it a try.