Jennifer Becton's Blog, page 34

Control Issues

A built-in dictionary seems wonderful to me.

I recently came across this article from NYT Book Review about how ebooks change the reading experience.  I hoped to find scientific information about how our brains might react to ebooks versus printed materials. But I found two writers’ opinions about the different media.

The contributors, Moshin Hamid and Anna Holmes,  begin by listing some positives about ebooks: portability of the whole library, ability to read at night, search features, variable text size, etc. Then, both writers mention ebooks’ detractions, which basically boil down to too many potential distractions. Both say they prefer to read paper books.

The writers are entitled to their opinions. I may disagree that their stated reasons for disliking ebooks are valid. After all, you can control the level of distraction by adjusting the settings on your ereader, as Hamid mentioned. Still, they are totally free to dislike ebooks and read paper books. They can spend their money however they choose and read whatever medium they prefer.

But then there’s this statement by Holmes:

When my second book was released this past October, I told anyone who would listen not to buy the electronic version. (emphasis added)

Why would she do this? She continues:

This was not so much a dig at the publishing house production managers who converted my creation into e-book form as it was an acknowledgment of the medium’s many limitations. You see, no matter how fancy the refinements made…an e-book offers little promise of discovery or wonder. Browsers may be ubiquitous in our e-portal age, but an e-book doesn’t encourage actual browsing. Read more here.

So she doesn’t find wonder in ebooks? Okay. That’s fine by me.

But what if I do? I’m a reader too. Don’t I get to decide which version of a book to purchase and peruse? Let me read according to my needs and desires.

Honestly, I don’t understand why so many people write about this subject, even me. I mean, this is stupid. If you like paperbacks and hardcovers, they aren’t going anywhere. You’ll still be able to get them. Buy them and read them. If you like ebooks, then buy and read those.

But let’s agree on this: You don’t command me to change my reading preferences to match yours, and I’ll return the favor.

Photo Friday: Nashville

1. Can’t do a photo post without one of the critters. We left Puttytat at home. She doesn’t travel well.

2. Impression: French Broad River. It started snowing an hour or so after I took this shot.

3. Spending a few days in Nashville. This was taken at breakfast this morning. Not the greatest view, but hey, that’s what I saw out the window.

Have a say in my blog. Please take a moment to do my 4-question survey!

Survey: You Tell Me

I follow various writers on social media and read their blogs, and I often wonder if we aren’t missing the mark when it comes to content. On this blog, I want to write what you want to read, and I’d like my Facebook page to be helpful and fun and not annoying and pointless. So please, tell me what you’d like to see on this blog and on Facebook.

Here is a short, four-question (six if you count name and email address as questions) survey regarding website and Facebook content.



What’s in it for you? By leaving your name and email address at the end of the survey, you will be entered to win signed paperback copies of Absolute Liability, Death Benefits, and At Fault (first edition before I removed the excess swearing) or signed paperback copies of Charlotte Collins and Caroline Bingley.

The fine print: Paperback giveaway open to the US and Canada only. International winners will receive the same books in ebook format. Winners selected randomly on February 1, 2014.

If the form below is annoying, click here to go to the full view.

Take Our Survey!

2014: The Year of the Horse

Are you ready for the Year of the Horse?

I had a post about my resolutions for 2014 all ready to go, but I tossed it in the virtual trash can. I hate New Year’s resolutions. HATE them.

Why? What’s your problem, Becton?

My problem isn’t with the concept of resolving to improve something about yourself or your lifestyle. And it’s not with deciding to make these goals at the beginning of a new page on the calendar.

My problem is with the time frame: 1 year. That’s:

12 months or
365 days or
8765.81 hours or
525949 minutes or
3.156e+7 seconds or
3.156e+10 milliseconds or
Yes, I could go on. I found a time calculator on Google.

A year is a long time, and usually resolutions are big. (Ex: I resolve to eat healthier and publish 14 books this year.) I have to wait 1 year to attain my goals. That’s a long time. (See the breakdown above.) I cannot celebrate until I have eaten healthier in a flawless fashion for 365 days and published all 14 books.

That ain’t right, people!

One of the most valuable things I learned while helping write Riding Fear Free is that all people focus so intently on the end goal that they forget all about the small steps necessary to attain to the goal. They get depressed when they don’t instantaneously succeed at the BIG goal. How do you counter that? By celebrating every single success, each small step that leads to the goal. That doesn’t mean you go out and buy a new toy every time, but you take a moment to acknowledge that you completed the next step. Stop and enjoy!

And what’s more, you might have one goal at the beginning of the year, but by June, you might have changed your mind. Why? According to Dwight V. Swain, it’s because “you yourself change in the interim between the time when inspiration first becomes apparent and the later date.” (Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer, 280.)

And I still haven’t said a word about what happens when we inevitably fail to live up to our goals. Because I’m totally eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Hearts for Valentine’s Day.  That doesn’t fit into the eating-healthy resolution. What if I don’t publish 14 books? Well, too bad. Better luck next year. This year was a big fat failure.

Making realistic long-term goals is not inherently bad, but once those goals are made, the focus must shift to small steps that lead to the big goal.

So my resolutions for the year of the horse are to celebrate each step that leads toward my goals and to move past any mistakes without beating myself up about them. As Anne Shirley said in Anne of Green Gables, “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” Don’t forget that every year is fresh with no mistakes in it. That means you have

12 months or
265 days or
8765.81 hours or
525949 minutes or
3.156e+7 seconds or
3.156e+10 milliseconds

of new beginnings.

Randomosity

Right after scheduling this post I mostly killed my website. Thank you, Tabitha, at GoDaddy for resurrecting it. Now it’s temporarily using a new theme. What do you think?
I fully intend to wear PJs and a tiara to ring in the new year.
Oh yeah! I completed the last of my major edits on Moral Hazard yesterday. To the copy editor! After the holidays…I’m not that mean, Kelley.

On Being Slow

My novel writing pace

No matter how long a writing project takes to complete, I always feel as if the process was too slow. Everything seems to take me longer than it takes other writers. This year, I followed Dean Wesley Smith’s series about ghostwriting a novel in 10 days. After that, I felt even slower. (I’ve also been keeping up with Smith’s Writing in Public series. Interesting stuff.)

Smith wrote a full novel in 10 days. He says he doesn’t rewrite. The man doesn’t mess around. According to his bio, Smith has published more than 100 novels in 30 years.

So when I started looking at my own work in comparison to his, I felt like a pretty huge failure. I became the slowest sloth of a writer ever to climb down the tree and face a laptop. I cannot write a full novel in 10 days, and rewriting is pretty much the only thing my work has going for it.

Smith’s 100 novels is certainly impressive, but the number that impressed me was 30. He has been writing for 30 years. Thirty years! I’m comparing myself to a writer with 30 years of experience.

As a writer with 3 years or so under my belt, it’s foolish for me to compare myself to a writer with that level of experience. I shouldn’t be able to write with Smith’s facility at this stage in my career. I’m still learning. I don’t have it all figured out. I make mistakes. I have to rewrite. Smith even says that

Also, the early days of trying to learn how to tell stories is difficult and very frustrating…. Everything about learning how to write stories in the early professional days is hard. No argument. – Read more here.

He’s right. So I’m cutting myself some slack, and I hope my readers will do the same. I cannot sit at a computer for 10 days and leave it with a finished novel in hand. Not yet anyway. I have to have time to think, to figure out what I did right and wrong, to make the story better and more fun. I have to rewrite and rewrite.

Oh, and then rewrite some more.

That doesn’t make me a bad writer or mean that I’m out of ideas. It means that I’m still learning. So I’m done comparing myself to writers who have ten times the experience. I’m going to enjoy learning and publishing each book as I finish.

But I’m definitely going to look forward to each new stage in my writing journey. I’ll enjoy learning new techniques and gaining the ability to see problems before they arise. Until then, I’ll just enjoy the learning process as much as I can.

Photo Friday: Christmas 2013

Photo 1: Puttytat is not fond of the chaos of Christmas. She spent most of the morning on this sheet of wrapping paper.

Photo 2: What does an engineer actually want for Christmas? Apparently, a 12 pack of boat motor oil and a bunch of wrenches.

Photo 3: Darcy wearing a Santa hat. The other side says, “Nice.” But for obvious reasons, I posted the “Naughty” one. It suits her.

Photo 4: Yes, I suck at Atari Baseball.

 

 

 

Photo Friday

Sometimes I don’t have anything particularly edifying to say, so I thought it would be fun to start a new blog series where I post pictures of what I’ve been up to that week. Hence, Photo Friday.

With Christmas less than a week away, I’m sharing photos of some of my favorite decorations and ornaments. These are the ones I look forward to putting up every year. Well, except the crocheted tree. That’s new!

Click on the gallery below to enlarge each image.

Photo 1. My paternal grandmother sewed a whole set of animal ornaments. This doggie has always been one of my favorites.

Photo 2. My maternal grandmother crocheted a set of ornaments, including balls, snowflakes, and candy canes.

Photo 3. Every year, I must get the Hallmark Grinch ornament! My tree is full of Grinchy goodness.

Photo 4. My mother crocheted the tree and the bows on the presents. Plus, I got this cool Big Bang jump drive set. They didn’t make a Raj. Boo!

What is your favorite Christmas ornament?

Ps. I have no idea why the background turned gold.

Sale: Southern Fraud Box Set, $.99

The Southern Fraud Thriller Box Set–that includes books 1-3, Absolute Liability, Death Benefits, and At Fault–are on sale for $.99. That’s a $7 discount.

This set is only available in ebook format, but the sale price is good at the following retailers:

Amazon

BN

Kobo

Urban fantasy lovers: check out my short story “Carol” in Naughty or Nice. This collection is exclusive to Amazon, and all the proceeds go to Kids Need to Read. It features the following awesome authors: Barbra Annino, J.R. Rain, Christiana Miller, Rose Pressey, Helen Smith, Heather Massey, Liz Schulte, Toni LoTempio, Danielle Younge-Ullman, and me.

Randomosity

Person of Interest is my new favorite TV show, but I’m still loyal to The Mentalist too.
Oh, don’t forget to enter to win virtual fear-free riding lessons with Laura Daley.
I don’t think the time should change in the winter. I operate on Daylight Saving Time all year.

 

Naughty or Nice: Introducing a New World

I’m so excited to have been invited to write a short story for Naughty or Nice, a holiday-themed, fantasy collection whose proceeds will go to the charity Kids Need to Read. Here’s their mission: “Kids Need to Read works to create a culture of reading for children by providing inspiring books to underfunded schools, libraries, and literacy programs across the United States, especially those serving disadvantaged children.” Getting books in the hands of children is a goal I can support.

And you’ll notice that this is a fantasy collection, a new genre for me, but one that I’d been considering delving into at some point. Well, when you get the chance to write alongside names like J. R. Rain, Barbra Annino, and all the rest, you find a way to move up your timetable from “at some point” to “right away.” I dropped everything and began creating a whole new world–from place to characters to mythology–that I hope may one day become the basis of the Soul-seer Series.

My short story contribution, “Carol,”  introduces the characters who populate the Soul-seer world. By day, Calla Hawthorne works as a forensic psychologist, uncovering the secrets behind ambiguous death cases and providing closure for both victims and their families. But on the side, Calla uses her abilities to identify revenants, risen souls who have returned to earth, and to help them find a way to move on. But not all souls rise peacefully, and soon Calla, Pursiful, and the other Soul-seers find themselves dealing with a growing number of violent revenants who refuse to take the final step into eternity.

Naughty or Nice

A mix of magical, spooky, and romantic tales for the holidays.

The Santa Call, by J.R. Rain – Santa calls a radio talk show seeking advice on matters of the heart.

Disco Angels, by Danielle Younge-Ullman –  It’s the holidays, and whether Sarah is ready or not, she and her family are in for a wild, dysfunctional and possibly magical evening.

One Stormy Christmas, by Toni LoTempio – Autumn finds getting a Christmas present for her vamp boyfriend ins’t as easy as she thinks – not when Bad Santa’s involved!

Fortune Cat’s Visit, by Heather Massey – Lynn Chong is alone on the eve of Chinese New Year taking care of the dusty San Francisco Chinatown shop she inherited after her parents’ death when a handsome stranger, Jian Yuen, enters the shop. Jian is there to claim a mysterious alien artifact in Lynn’s possession and price is no object. Lynn isn’t sure she wants to surrender one of the last ties to her parents, but her attraction to Jian, that she suspects is mutual, may be too tempting to resist.

Real Elves, by Helen Smith – As she emerges from visiting Santa in a department store in London, Sophie’s grandfather reports her missing… but the little girl’s right there. Is she a ghost, a twin, an alien abductee—or is there some simpler explanation? Amateur sleuth Emily Castles has fifteen minutes to figure out the puzzle before the police are called and Christmas is ruined.

Carol, by J.W. Becton – By day, Calla Hawthorne works as a forensic psychologist, but on the side, she uses her abilities to identify revenants, risen souls who have returned to earth. This year, Calla’s holiday plans are cut short when she must save a child from a murderer and convince Matt Carol, the murder victim, to take that final step into eternity.

Krampus Klaus, by Christiana Miller – When Gina and Bobby wake up at midnight on Christmas Eve, they catch Santa in the middle of his present deliveries — but he’s unlike any Santa they’ve ever heard of. He’s short-tempered, rude and wouldn’t know jolly if it ran him over with a sleigh. Turns out that Santa has been cursed. Gina and Bobby have to figure out a way to save him before Santa turns into the demonic Krampus, (Hell’s official Punisher and Tormentor of Naughty Children), forever.

Dark Christmas, by Liz Schulte – Ella Reynolds loves Christmas, but not parties. However, at the prompting of her boyfriend she reluctantly agrees to host a Christmas party at her house. But when an unexpected guest arrives, the party is over. A man dressed as Santa Claus is found dead at her front door. Who killed Santa and what does he want with her?

Santa Stole My Ghoulfriend, by Rose Pressey – Psychic investigator Larue Donavan is usually dedicated to helping lost spirits find peace. But this time, she’s tasked with helping a lost woman find her Christmas spirit.

The Perfect Gift, by Barbra Annino – A young wife struggling with fertility receives a unique gift from her husband that wreaks havoc on her home and her sanity.

Riding Fear Free in 2014

Make 2014 the year you start Riding Fear Free, and let us help you take the first step. Enter the Riding Fear Free giveaway, and you have the chance to win one of two grand prizes–a video lesson from Fearmaster Laura Daley and a journal review with Laura–or several other great prizes including copies of Riding Fear Free and a necklace to wear at the barn.

The two grand prizes will get you started on your fear free journey or move you along to the next level. If you win the video lesson, you’ll need to have a digital video camera and access to a video hosting account. If that’s not an option for you, a journal review will be substituted. To learn more about what’s involved, read more about virtual lessons on our website.

Good luck, and Ride Fear Free in 2014!

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