Jason Letts's Blog, page 4

The Fall: Fantasy Horror by Robert J. Duperre

Description: An ancient evil, trapped in the ruins of a lost Mayan temple for centuries, has been unleashed. It takes the form of a deadly virus, one that causes violent insanity in the living and the recently departed to rise and walk. It spreads around the globe, throwing the world into chaos and war.

As it progresses, those in the States who find themselves far away from the epicenter watch it unfold with unbelieving eyes. From Washington D.C. to Dover, New Hampshire, regular people are hurled into an existence outside their control, left to deal with catastrophic situations that they aren't prepared to handle. Life becomes a nightmare, and that nightmare is spreading.

First time author Robert J. Duperre presents this scenario with The Fall: The Rift Book I, the first of a four-part series. In this book, he throws his characters into a gambit; when the alternatives are life or death, self-preservation or the protection of others, what path will they choose? Is there a darkness that resides in everyone, from every walk of life, that is screaming for release? When society falls apart and we are left to our own devices, will we make the right decisions, or let the tide take us where it may? There is horror, there is death, there are the walking dead, and all around are choices.

My Review: The Fall by Robert J. Duperre is the first book in a series about a mysterious medical condition that sweeps the globe after a researcher stumbles onto some hidden ruins deep in the Yucatan Peninsula. The story has the structure of those hit Hollywood blockbusters like Independence Day or Outbreak. It never takes its foot off the gas pedal, getting in close with no shyness about the grisly, horrific details.

Joshua Benoit and Kyra Holcomb are true products of a gritty, mundane small town, wasting their lives away the best way they can. The characters in The Fall are often struggling to hold onto their self-respect while they fend off selfish inclinations. When the world falls apart, they have little room to drop. Forced into terrible situations beyond their control, they search for safety, reason, and a shred of dignity.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would heartily recommend it. I'm curious to know where the story leads, and I've got plenty of my own hunches. Don't miss out on the no-holds-barred creativity found throughout The Fall.

How to Turn Your NaNoWriMo Novel Into a Bestseller

Today's the beginning of the exciting novel-writing frenzy known as NaNoWriMo. Those of you who know about this and are participating may already be looking down the road to what you're going to do with this massive collection of words once you're done with it. As of now, the books in my Powerless series, which were written in part during Nano, have sold nearly 700 copies, have garnered countless strong reviews across a number of blogs and sites, and even ended up winning the Webb Weaver's Writer's Competition for best novel. So here are my thoughts on how you can replicate some of that same success once December 1st rolls around.

The first thing you need to do is get serious about revising and editing. Depending on the genre you're writing in and the story you have, 50,000 words may not be enough to tell the whole tale. Think about the scope of the story and make sure you haven't breezed through parts of the beginning, middle, or end that need to be expanded on. Fill in the gaps and continue to get everything down you can think of just like you did through the month of November.

At this point too, I would strongly recommend thinking about who your audience is going to be. What genre would you consider your work? Who is actually going to be reading it, and what do they want? Think seriously about these questions, and then compare what you've written to what's popular in the genre. I'm not saying you should change your work to copy what's already out there, but making modifications to meet your readers' expectations is a safe move for any writer.

To get more specific about the revising process, look carefully at your work for not only plot holes and writing problems, but also tendencies and phrases you have in your writing that are overused. That's something I didn't realize I needed to work on until my editor started to point it out to me. Make sure your beginning reaches out and grabs the reader by the throat. Then maintain that crispness by varying sentence structure and word choice. Have a few writer friends read through your work and make suggestions. This is when you have to start being ruthless with your writing, and your future readers will thank you for it.

After you've carried that spark of creativity that gave you the idea for your book all the way through the revising process, after you've proofread and done everything you can, you've got a choice about what to do with your manuscript if you want to get it out into the world. There's the traditional publishing route, which takes years and may not result in anything at all, or there's the self-publishing route, which puts the responsibility for creating a professional work of art entirely on your shoulders. The choice is yours, and both have their advantages and difficulties.

I'm an indie author, which is to say self-published, and so I'll give you a window into what I've done to make my book as ready for readers as it can be. To start off, the first thing I did was go to a professional editor. I was lucky enough to hear about Chuck Wightman from someone on twitter, and his expertise not only improved my writing, but taught me a lot about the craft of fiction. Until I win the Nobel Prize, I'll still have a lot to learn, and you probably do too, even if the knowledge we need to improve is different. Getting an editor is a must, and it's part of the investment you're making in your work. Before you make a commitment with anyone, ask questions, ask about experience, and you might want to get a few references too.

At this point, let's say you've got the book ready. It's spotless and just waiting for some hungry readers to get their hands on it. But there's a lot more that goes with a book too. You'll need a cover, of course, and that most likely involves contracting work out to an artist. Unless you know someone who can help you, you can do what I did, which was to see out graphic designers on Elance.com. That's how I made the beautiful cover you can see on our mainpage here: www.powerlessbooks.com. Again, think about what you want the cover to be, and find someone with a pleasing style to help you bring your vision to life. A good cover is worth its weight in gold.

The last big hitch in producing a quality book is formatting. There are standards that need to be met to get your book printed at CreateSpace.com and formats the book needs to be converted into for Amazon.com (.mobi), B&N.com (.epub), and Smashwords.com (Word), three of the major ebook-selling outlets. Your options here are to hire someone to format or go it alone. To do it yourself, you'll need a program called Calibre to help with the conversions. I just heard Adobe InDesign has a new plug-in for .mobi files to make it easier to get your books onto Amazon. Creating a quality file is immensely important. Go through it yourself to make sure everything is exactly as it should be, because any anomalies will immediately puncture a reader's experience with your book.

Actually loading files onto these websites and print services isn't that difficult, but now you've got to start thinking about things like your description, which is another crucial factor readers use to choose their books. You've got to choose the price too, and there are various royalty rates for each site, some of which depend on price. Your best bet is to price low to make it easier for people to take a chance on your work. I've sold most of the e-copies of my first book at 99c and the second at 2.99. Being able to price low is an advantage over traditionally published books that are 7.99 or 9.99. For print, pricing low is a good idea too. Ask yourself this question: do you want people to read your book or do you want to make money off of it? Because if it's your first book, you may well have to decide if you'd rather sell a few at a high price or many at a lower one.

When it's all said and done, and your books are ready for sale, then comes all of the marketing. It really becomes a part-time job at this point, one that mostly involves talking about books with people, which is something I enjoy. Visit book forums, search for book bloggers in your genre and submit your book if it is within their specifications. When submitting, be polite, make sure you follow their guidelines exactly, and wish them the best as they read your book!

You can also make use of a huge number of great sites to promote your book, including Kindle Nation Daily and Daily Cheap Reads. You will probably want a site of your own, even if it's just a blog to discuss your favorite genre and reading tastes. Goodreads.com is another place that I've been fortunate enough to find a number of great readers. Get reviews, do giveaways, network, and with some luck your book will take off.

To get a sense of how it looks when it's all done, you can check out my book on CreateSpace, Amazon.com, B&N.com, and Smashwords. It's certainly been an interesting ride, with plenty of ups and downs, but it's really all about keeping that spark of imagination with you and carrying all the way through the development process until you can share it with readers. Remember, it only takes one reader to have a fan, but that's no reason we shouldn't try and get as many as we can!

Good luck with your NaNoWriMo novels!

Rereading Harry Potter

Ok, I'll admit it. I've always been a Harry Potter doubter, someone who believes that J.K. Rowling really couldn't have written that wildly complex story through all seven books. I get images in my head of backroom board meetings full of stuffy editors in suits. Maybe they've stuck J.K. in the corner with a coloring book while they spun out the intricacies of Hermoine's relationship with Ron or how the Horcruxes work.

But I've just finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the second time, and my feelings on that are starting to change. There are so many little seeds planted in there that seem to sprout in the later books. I'm not talking about the obvious things like the Mirror of Erised. Even on the first time through I figured Harry would have more than a few shots at talking to his parents despite them being dead and Ron would probably succeed in breaking out of his brothers' shadows.

I'm talking about the small things that made the story work, like Mrs. Figg living down the street. She turns out to be a magical person in book 4 when Harry is on trial for a dementor attack, but in book 1 she's just a weird old lady he goes to visit on Dudley's birthday. Was that a lucky accident placing a character there who could be used like that or was that intentional? Then there's the snake he meets on his trip to the zoo. The glass magically disappears and the snake escapes. That's the moment we learn Harry can speak to snakes, but is that the same snake that appears later on by Voldemort's side, Nagini? I have to say it would be awesome if it was, but it could just be a coincidence. Maybe these things have already been solved by more thorough scholars than I, but it's fun to consider.

In general, it was surprising how entertaining the story was. I really wondered whether or not I would still like it, but its playfulness, even in the beginning when Mr. Dursley is desperately trying to keep Harry away from the letters, endures. Quidditch was still exciting to learn about, though I still have to say it's a little ridiculous for muggles like us to try playing it.

Though I did enjoy the book, I have to say I'm hesitant about reading Chamber of Secrets. The story did bore me the first time through, actually enough to turn me off to the series altogether. It just seemed aimless, and because of that I never even read Prisoner of Azkaban. The impetus for coming back to the series was the Goblet of Fire movie, and I'm so incredibly glad I read the book first, and from there I loved the series all the way through to the end and ever since.

So I'll keep you posted on my progress, though I have to admit there's a lot on my reading plate (Yes, I read on plates), and not as much time as I'd like. I'm currently reading Draculas by J.A. Konrath, which is a horror story that is basically like reading a Resident Evil video game. Then I just bought Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help, which I have always heard good things about. Hopefully I'll get to Chamber of Secrets soon though!

Book Blogger Hop (4)

"Where is your favorite place to read? Curled up on the sofa, in bed, in the garden?"

I usually read on the couch, lying down. I'm also tempted to say I like reading outside on the porch when it's raining, but I think I just like the idea of that more than actually doing it. Usually you're still getting wet, and the wind is blowing, and it's hard to concentrate on the book. I have enough distractions already! So, yeah, couch or bed.

"Can't Hardly Wait" 12 Years Later–Or "The Dumb Things I Used to Believe"

Today, I had the misfortune of rewatching one of the biggest movies of my teen years, Can't Hardly Wait, which is the story of a high school boy who has waited from the first day of freshmen year until Graduation to finally tell the hottest girl in school how he feels. She realizes he's what she's always been searching for and his greatest dreams are fulfilled. The movie made my stomach turn in a way that can never turn back.

Back in the day, this sweet, honest story about true love proved that good things happen to good people, even if they are unpopular, dweeby, or unathletic. It gave hope to millions of us boys sitting in the audience, all of us believe we would one day get our chance to make out with the Jennifer Love Hewitt of our schools as long as we yearned and hoped for it enough. Rewatching the film now, God, I couldn't think of something worse for me to watch at fifteen.

It's not hard to pick out lines that are hopelessly untrue but we were desperate to believe. By far, the worst offender here is when the high school jock who learns from the college jock that college girls are "totally different, bro. They're all serious and shit. They all talk about world issues and "ecolomological" crap."  How dumb were we to believe that girls would suddenly become unconcerned with appearance and athleticism? The greatest hypocrisy of the whole movie is that we expect women to snap out of their shallowness while we are choosing who we love entirely on their looks (the guy really didn't know her at all)!

It's equally bad that the jock, who foolishly dumped his gorgeous girlfriend and couldn't get her back, finds himself crushed and calls himself a loser. No matter what, a person's self-worth should not be defined by his or her significant other! It's one thing to be sad, heartbroken even, but to depict that someone is nothing because he lost the girl he wanted is troubling and irrational. But it all feeds into the horribly dangerous theme that…

…a person is justified in obsessing over someone for years even if the object of that affection does not reciprocate at all. The movie tells us it's worth it to twist yourself inside out for as long as it takes because it's just a matter of time until that perfect person you want jumps into your arms. This is deeply misleading, the worst kind of phony wish fulfillment, but none of us were smart enough to catch on at the time. As long as we held out long enough, we believed she would come to us, but I don't have to tell you how this story played out for 999 of 1000 guys who tried it. It's misleading, dishonest, and just leads to even worse feelings of loss down the road. Don't you agree?

So what should've happened? The guy should've realized that his pining was misguided and he should've fallen in love with his redheaded friend who he had a real connection with. That would've been both realistic, tasteful, and helpful. It's fitting that I just saw an excellent production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, in which a count sends his beloved servant (a woman disguised as a man) to deliver messages to his love object but ends up falling for the servant when her gender is revealed. He realizes she, the servant, was really the one he had a connection with and admiration for all along.

If only I'd been more interested in Shakespeare than Jennifer Love Hewitt at fifteen…or twenty-seven.

Book Blogger Hop (3)

This week's question:

"When you read a book that you just can't get into, do you stick it out and keep reading or move to your next title?"

I do stick it out even if I'm not enjoying a book. Even if I'm not feeling particularly attached to the writing, the construction of the story as a whole can still offer me something valuable. Maybe this is something from my days as an English student, when I had to finish books even if I hated them so much I immediately threw them across the room as soon as I read the last page (Time of Man by Elizabeth Maddox Roberts=worst book ever written). Most of the time though I don't have this problem and I'm able to make the story work for me even if it's not what the author intended.

Failing Test — Contemporary Fantasy by J.M. Pierce

Description (from Amazon): You know him, but you can't remember his name. He is the one that is always there, in the background, all but invisible to those roaming the hallways. What if he had a secret? What if it was a secret that even he didn't know?

Test Davis has always been a blur to those around him. He's a shadow like a million other kids–not smart enough for the academic team, not beast enough for the football team, not extroverted enough for the drama crowd. In all things Test is just…not, which is why no one ever notices him.

But what happens when someone does notice him– Nicole Paxton, a cheerleader, no less? What happens on the night that Test finds out there's nothing average about him and that a powerful gift has been hidden within, secretly waiting to be set free and alter his life forever? The question is, will that power save him and those he loves or tear them apart?

My review: I just finished "Failing Test" and thought it was a fun read from start to finish. It's a great variation of the superman myth, and I thought it did a nice job of recreating a high school atmosphere. I found myself recalling my own memories several times: the crushes I had, the drudgery of school life, the time I discovered I had spectacular powers. Ok, you get the idea. There were a few spots early on where the writing seemed a bit too journalistic for my tastes, but it wasn't that big a deal. Definitely consider this if you want an entertaining story!

In addition to great dialogue that really resonates with you, the author does a great job of manufacturing conflict between the characters. Not only do you see the problems that arise quickly when Test bucks the normal social order at his high school, you also see the kind of lingering, malignant problems that develop over time between friends and lovers. I'm looking forward to the next book in this series, which I hope will get into more of why Test developed these powers and what he's supposed to do now that he has them.

I gave this book 5 stars. You can find it on Amazon.com in print and digital and also on Goodreads.

Raven's Heart

I'm currently reading Raven's Heart (A Tale of the World of Sacremore), by Matthew and Stefanie Verish. They are married AND writing together (if that sounds like an epic struggle to you, wait until you hear about the book).

A fantasy of the highest order, Sacremore is a wonderfully imaginative place filled with an assortment of magical beings trying to coexist despite deep racial misgivings. According to lore, an eruption of violence in the past known as The Cataclysm gave way to one man's attempt to bring racial unity to the land, which is known as The Forging. In the present, Arcturus, a wise old blood-mage or Markanturian, takes on that mission in an attempt to right the discrimination he himself faces. With him is Kariayla, a perceptive, troubled young girl who has wings, making her a Nemelorean. As much as Arcturus's quest interested me, Kariayla's shameful secret has kept me turning the pages. As punishment for some terrible mistake or atrocity, her wings have shriveled up and hardened like week-old bread.

This story is perfect for readers who want to get in knee-deep with an eclectic cast of characters and their various motivations. You get to know them so well you begin to feel like you can anticipate or expect their responses. But as compelling as the main characters are, I liked the secondary characters and even the extras. One of the most clever things I thought was that the villains were a group of bankrupt aristocrats turned to thievery. Also, there was a talking fireball that was very cool.

It's funny because the greatest strength and weakness of this story is the same. Really, I'm convinced, this story should be three books. That makes it an incredible value to get the entire saga all help together, but then it's tough because you read an incredible climactic scene with teleportation, body switching, and essentially a jailbreak of a magical creature that really should've been the end of an entire book, but then you turn the page and you just have more to read and process.

I suggest you check out the book and see for yourself what it's about. You can get it as an ebook or paperback from Amazon.com. You can also visit their website: http://www.secramore.com/ , where they are currently doing a giveaway. (I won my copy from a giveaway.) The book is also on Goodreads.

Book Blogger Hop (2)

Ok, so I'm going to play this game again, because there were lots of cool people who dropped by last week. Let's see if I can round up a few more!

This week's question: What's your favorite beverage while reading or blogging, if any? Is it tea, coffee, water, a glass of wine, or something else?

The first thing you need to know about me is that I love orange juice! It's basically all I drink, and I'm convinced that it can cure any ailment, alleviate any sadness, and always manage to make life better in general. I drink it everyday!

So What's on TV These Days?

Let's take a momentary break from books to talk about what's happening with popular shows on the boob tube. The fall season is just starting, and new plotlines are just getting off the ground. For me, some amazing shows are coming back, some dead shows are limping along, and shows I don't understand are popular with everyone but me.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia–I just discovered this show in the past year, and it has instantly become my favorite show just as The Office has had its precipitous fall from grace. Every episode has me laughing hysterically as Dennis, Dee, Mac, and Charlie (and Danny DeVito) chase after the worst ideas they can come up with while ignoring whatever is going on around them. Last season was brilliant, and the first episode of this season is the same. It's raunchy insult humor, and it's so funny.

Family Guy–now in its billionth season, the show that wouldn't die is back for more. Its first episode features a murder mystery, and is so hysterical. The hallmark of the show is to dispense with plot and use quick cutaway scenes to go for easy laughs. While that may make the creators of South Park unhappy, the connections still make me laugh. Definitely ridiculous and definitely worth watching. ALSO, this season will have an entire parody of Star Wars Return of the Jedi, after parodying the previous movies earlier. I can't wait!

The Simpsons–I can't believe I'm still talking about this show. I'd written it off and thought they'd ended it. Then I saw the last few episodes from the last season on Hulu and was genuinely surprised. The writing came back to life and I couldn't wait. I suppose I'll also keep an eye on South Park too, but it's not high on my priority list.

Mad Men–This show is one that everybody seems to be addicted to. Because of that, I watched the first few episodes (maybe 5) but couldn't get into it at all. There wasn't a character I cared about or a storyline that interested me. I didn't find the vintage sexism cute, and it certainly didn't help that everyone was smoking all the time. So let me ask you, what am I missing out on?

30 Rock–They are doing another season of 30 Rock, right? The show has been consistently good, if not great. Liz Lemon is a great character, and her complete dorkiness never fails to be charming. It doesn't help though that each and every episode seems to feature another guy she's supposed to be falling in love with. Kenneth also has managed to make me laugh exactly twice in six seasons. We'll see what they come up with next. Isn't there supposed to be a marriage or something?

Glee–I will admit I have absolutely no idea what this show is about. I was living in Japan for two years and when I came back it was huge. I seriously don't have the foggiest idea what this is. Can anybody help me?

The Office–in the hall of shame, we have my once favorite show, which has become so bad I compare it to a molesting uncle. Season 4=Brilliant, Season 5=Came together strong in the end, Season 6= Made me want to saw my arms and legs off with a wooden spoon. I've watched the first episode of season 7 and it was decent. Erin had the best line: "I love that I'm dating Gabe. It's a good thing he's my boss because I wouldn't have said yes to that first date if I didn't have to." But the second episode was right back to business as usual, disappointing. I'll try another one or two but it's likely this'll go right back into the garbage can.

What are you watching? What should I be watching? What popular TV show makes you want to scream?