Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 158

Random Friday

I stumbled on this post because someone posted the wrong link, but never mind! It’s about dubbed movies. I have already mentioned that I hate dubbed movies and think that’s the Italian plague – because 90% of Italians don’t speak any other language and 95% of Italians don’t read or whatever, they think we have the best dubbers in the world.

They’re so good that in the 1950s and 1960s, they dubbed even Italian actors (I don’t think Sophia Loren has her real voice in the movies, not even the ones shot in Italy. was dubbed in movies until he did a TV series in the 1980s and I was very disappointed with his real voice, LOL). It’s really a profession here, but as there aren’t enough dubbers for each actor alive, we tend to see movies with always the same voices! Like the late Ferruccio Amendola used to dub Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, so when Sleepers came out he had to give up one of the two who went to Giancarlo Giannini.

I don’t know if Mr Giannini (who is a real actor, not a dubber, in case you didn’t know) has inherited all of Ferruccio’s voice jobs because I haven’t watched dubbed movies in 10 years – my brother took me to watch Matrix Reloaded in Italian because his then girlfriend was sick and he had already bought the ticket, luckily I had already seen it in English so it wasn’t too bad, LOL!

I could rant about dubbing for a very long post (for my first movie love, Matt Dillon, I always wondered “which voice will he have this time?” as only major actors have a “steady” voice – and he wasn’t major yet in the 1980s…), so I’ll end it right now. Like I said, I don’t mind reading subtitles in a language that I understand, even if the spoken language is Korean or Japanese or – well, Hindi, of course.

Now, in case you’re wondering how the Hindi lessons are going… I’m going to disappoint you! (well, mostly I’ll disappoint Vijay – I’m a bad student) No, I haven’t learned much, and I’m not really doing my homework, but then, who knows… maybe eventually I’ll learn to write and read and speak Hindi – in my next life! Just kidding. It’s a very slow process between all the writing and drawing – check the DeviantART page… – and translating.

This is really the language week with me lost in translation between Italian and English and having to fit Hindi into it! But then, I’ve done only 3 lessons, so I’m not despairing. This weekend I’ll try to do the homework instead of drawing, but I won’t guarantee it! Got movies to watch as well, LOL!

Anyhow, I don’t think I’ll do more translations… to many things get lost and all your precious words so carefully crafted will have to be completely rewritten to fit another language and another culture. And I stopped writing screenplays because I didn’t want to be hired to rewrite other people stories – which is what I’d be doing if I kept the translation “job” (it’s a barter, I wanted to test my skills… and I’m afraid I failed! ).

So I’ll complete this because I want to do it, but won’t accept any more. I’m beginning to appreciate the work of people who translate or adapt stuff (books or moving images) – quite often underpaid as well…

Speaking of translations and adaptations – I’ve been checking facts for the body switch and I believe the translation of Hijra as Eunuch is a little outdated. Eunuchs were in the Middle Ages, and I’ve been told to my great chagrin we’re not in the Middle Ages anymore! I think a modern translation could be “drag queen” – although I’m aware they’re not really the same thing.

Anyway, I’ll have a “kothi”  who is actually a drag queen as he lives in America and is married to an American (I guess he lives in a state that allows gay marriage, LOL). And I’ll keep bothering my Hindustani friends with my silly questions for a little longer!

Signing off now… Have a great weekend!

Writer Wednesday

I’m working on a translation at this time, the first I’m doing on somebody else’s work. At the same time I’m typing some old stories in Italian that are still written on an electric typewriter (remember those?) – which is good, because after writing in English for the past 4 years, I’ve forgotten how to format dialogs in Italian, LOL! So, no new words this week, but still writing.

If, by the end of the week, I can’t think of a beginning for the body switch, I’ll postpone it to later in the year – I obviously need more time to muse about the characters and how things are going to happen and possibly switch back. So I’ll write the Passion Stories mentioned in Six Months instead. One is already out, Obsession, but I’ll have more short stories ready by the end of the month – which is just perfect for my offline writers group, they can comment on a complete short story instead of the beginning of a longer work!

So it’s the other two pseudonyms that will issue something this month – although I’ll be doing a final pass on The Death of Queen Amazonia  as soon as I hear from new beta and editor, so I can publish it at the beginning of March. By the way, reading the post, I already saw two typos, I better go and correct the manuscript before I forget – just in case they escape the eagle eye of the two aforementioned people!

I’ve also sent Star Minds 3 to betas, so that’s all set too – the main pseudonym is not sleeping, don’t worry! She has 200Facebook likes, so she’s got to feed them – although I doubt any of those 200 people ever bought one of my books except a couple (and I know who you are, so no need to comment, LOL!)… I’d like to hear from other authors if they ever sold anything through Facebook likes!

A few links again – Kris Rusch on editors for self-published authors. Which includes me. Mine are mostly copy editors, as the line edits are more the beta-readers’ domain. I mean, from a beta-reader I want to know if the story flows, if there are plot holes, if I was too fast or too slow, that kind of stuff, while the editor takes care of the grammar and typos and all that nitty-gritty. Although Mighty Katy is also very good at pointing plot holes or other inconsistencies, so I really recommend her!

But then, I’m hardly a beginner. Even if it’s unpublished, I still have a huge backlist. Even if half of it is unpublishable, it did teach me how to write a story. And as I can’t help you with motivation, because I’m way too deep into habit already, I’ll point you to David Farland’s post on motivation vs habit. Hope my friend who asked me to do a post on it catches up with his e-mail and reads it, LOL! He’s just back from Angoulème – the French BD major comicon – so I’m guessing it will take him a few days to go through his backlog.

Colleen Doran for aspiring artists, but it works for aspiring writers as well, so go check her post. If you want to be a professional, learn to act as a professional. Work is good, Spam is not – and I think indie writers who keep giving away their work for free should read this as well.  And check the financial reality of a genre novelist while they’re at it – including the comments.

As for my own sales numbers, I got one sale on Kobo (the second since I went direct) and one on Smashwords in February, while Amazon (who won hands on in January) is still at 0. It’s a slow slow rise… but I’m not giving up! As for Kobo, it seems to be strong in Switzerland, as both sales were there – the first an Italian title, the second English, so I’m guessing it’s not the same person (unless he/she is trilingual like me)!

Yeah, I know, I won’t get rich with Kobo yet, and they won’t pay me until I get that 100$ minimum, but I might have reached that with Amazon in 1 year and a half… so maybe in 3 months I’ll have that Amazon check (2 months to get paid and 1 to get the actual check, in case you’re wondering – third world country for snail mail, sigh)…

Now back to translating and typing… have a wonderful week!

Happiness is…

Oh, boy, how many of those are still blogging? How many more names should I add? It’s been 3 years, looks like a lifetime…

Surprise Sunday

A combination of Art+Excerpt, how’s that for a surprise? Let’s start with last weekend’s procrastination technique: Smeraldo and Kyrio.

These two are the real protagonists of The Death of Queen Amazonia, and even if it’s still in WiP stage, I thought I’d put an excerpt here – a new scene that wasn’t in draft one, so it’s a surprise even for the beta-readers! This drawing should illustrate the scene – sort of.

Smeraldo was born in what will be known as the Amazons Country. As the first queen, Amazonia, is  still alive, it’s called only Queendom of Maadre and its inhabitants Daughters of Amazonia. Kyrio is a foreign merchant who bought him from his owner, as men are properties in the Queendom of Maadre. Smeraldo is traumatized, but Kyrio has managed to unblock something, albeit not completely, and they’re now lovers.

Warning: snippet not edited for typos/grammar/etc!

Then it was time to go back to sea. Kyrio, Smeraldo and Jack headed back for the coast and reached the harbor where the ship was berthed. Kyrio sent a call to his crew who quickly reported to him.

Smeraldo could understand what the other said now, so he decided he could be part of the crew instead of sitting in the cabin with nothing to do all day. His eyes pleaded Jack to teach him something about sailing, so he became a ship-boy.

At night he slept with the captain, and on deck they pretended there was nothing between them. But when they locked the cabin’s door, Kyrio’s tenderness enveloped Smeraldo like a blanket.

The dancer was also more curious about the places they visited – Ixos, capital of the Tattoo country; Inessa in the Kaden Kingdom; Akulina on the coast of the Kingdom of Akkora; smaller towns on the shores of the Black Empire – where men had skins so dark they were invisible at night – and then the ocean, where the islands that had given birth to Kyrio’s mother lay.

They reached the archipelago and landed on a sandy white beach, welcomed by half-naked natives with tribal tattoos and big grins. Smeraldo couldn’t understand their language, but deduced where Kyrio had gotten his features from – slightly exotic even in his ignorant, untraveled eyes. Kyrio must have taken more than traditions from his mother.

The island had only a village of huts inhabited by fishermen and pearl gatherers. Kyrio took him to dive in the blue waters, looking for shells, corals and other treasures. At fist Smeraldo was a little afraid of all that water, but he trusted Kyrio, so he held his breath and followed him to the most amazing underwater world.

They were given a small hut apart from the rest, so at night they could make love to each other on the ground, as there was no furniture anywhere on the island, except some hammocks hanging from trees.

Smeraldo was grateful for the discovery of a new place that looked very much like a garden of heaven, and wished they could stay there forever. But his voice didn’t come out as he fell asleep in Kyrio’s arms.

 Have a wonderful Sunday!

Random Friday

I didn’t have time to read anything new because I was going through manuscripts all week – both mine and others’ (BTW, I wonder what beta # I am – I hope I’m #5! ). But I’ve started reading a classic, so I won’t review it anyway, although it will count to my yearly goal of books to read. But then I count other people’s manuscripts as well (not mine, or I’d be way over that count, hehe), which I can’t add on Goodreads, so it will probably look as if I didn’t meet my reading challenge by the end of the year. Unless I manage to read 65 published books, that is. But if I read 60 published and 5 manuscripts, I’ll consider I have reached my goal!

Now I’d like to thank all the new people stopping by this blog: January has seen the most visits since 2011 – the previous peak being May 2011 with 1280 visits! January 30 was very close to my previous “most visits per day” goal (I think on that day I went on some kind of search engine and had 170 visits – never happened again, I’ll never beat that record from June 2010, sigh. Although, like I said, January 30 was pretty close).

I pasted together the monthly visits (to the left) and the daily visits (to the right) + the stats for the life of the blog (top right) – see that Best ever 170? Not repeated yet, but close! Final count for January is 1997 visits. So thank you to everybody stopping by – mostly coming from Goodreads but also from who knows where…

I don’t do social networks much – noTwitter, for example – but I enjoy Goodreads, and I have a few groups I belong to there. The LGBT Fantasy Fiction group started a thread about women writing m/m romance or erotica, which prompted someone to put the link to this very enlightening post: How to write like a man, comic relief by Roger Armstrong. I don’t write m/m romance or erotica, but I do write lots of gay characters. And I’d make a distinction between women writing m/m romance and women writing yaoi/shonen ai – the second kind really write women inside men’s bodies!

I still remember reading a friend’s story were both her protagonists (both young, barely out of their teens, but still) cried for everything that happened to them or between them. I remember commenting “ENOUGH TEARS! I can take one whiny character, but not 2!”! Besides, I read some gay literature (and even some gay porn, hush!) before writing about men loving men, so sometimes when I read yaoi I really think it’s women inside men’s bodies – and I’m a woman, so I’m not surprised gay men feel insulted by some portrayals of them.

As for my own writing, I don’t put myself in any of the above categories. Besides, I write fantasy or science fantasy, so even if they’re supposedly human, they can be also Humanoids (like the Sire, who don’t need to shave, and have no hair on their body except you can imagine where – much like the Magical Races of Silvery Earth. What can I say, my ideal man is a little androgynous, LOL!) and they don’t have to behave like the Western Man – which, I think, is portrayed it in the aforementioned link.

I’d like to hear some Asian men’s opinion – from what I could gather Hindustani men dance and don’t feel their manhood is diminished if they do, like it happens in the west, right? I also think boys don’t cry but real men do – maybe not in front of other men, but they do. But then, I have a twisted idea of humanity, and I’m a writer precisely because I like to reinvent it all! And I write mostly about outsiders and outcasts, so if they’re “different”… well, that’s the whole point of telling their story. Normal is boring!

Anyway, I might give a taste of my m/m couples soon, and you can tell me if you think they’re men or women in men’s bodies. Now I need to go back to Star Minds 3 so I can send it out to betas during the weekend! Have a great Saturday and see you for Surprise Sunday!

Writer Wednesday

O-okay, new week… and as of Tuedsay night I feel aready a wreck. Anyway, I managed to rewrite the Death of Queen Amazonia, so I should be able to send it out to beta/editor soon. Today I hope to work on Star Minds 3, although I already added a few words, expanding a scene (because in the previous book I went after Kol-ian, in this book I’m going after Ker-ris, so I wrote his breakdown). But I still need to add stuff about other characters’s POV – okay, I’m biased, I’d talk only about Kol-ian and Ker-ris if it was just me!

This week’s links: Lulu is taking out DRM from all e-books, let’s hope everybody will do the same soon. I  don’t have ebooks on Lulu, but I still have some DRMed books on Kobo, they don’t seem to be able to fix the issue. So, if you’ve got a Kobo reader and you see the Kobo file is DRMed, go to Smashwords instead (where, by the way, you find more free titles…).

One of my favorite historical publishers for researches on weapons, armies and castles, Osprey, has opened a fiction line – although there’s no  submission guidelines anywhere. I have two dozens of the military history books from Osprey (mostly about Middle Ages, but not only the European Middle Ages…), but some day I’d like to try their Myths&Legends books – althought the alien’s guide to conquering Earth looks fun too!

Kris Rusch on editorial revisions – and don’t forget the comments. Read it even if you’re an editor – and I look forward to the post for indie authors as well. Never had an editor-with-an-attitude before, but makes me not want to work with traditional publishers, haha!

David Farland on dealing with large casts – a problem that plagued most of my earlier works, with lots of characters and omniscient narrator. I still have multiple POV characters, but trust me, they’re much less than what they used to be! And I’m told I’m not the only one, althought the other writers usually write 800pages books and I’m around 200, but that’s me… I’m the queen of summaries, hehe!

Now, Mighty Joleene gave me a blog award, and because I so love the picture, I had to post it, even if I don’t copy those awards on the sidebar anymore! But I’ve added it to the blog award page. She said I don’t need to do anything to pass this on except nominate a few bloggers, so here I go…

Vivienne Tuffnell

Shafali the Caricaturist

Nafees

Chronotraveler

Laxmi Hariharan

You guys just shine on and pass on this neat little image if you wish! If not, just shine on, watch the shooting stars, and be happy! Have a wonderful week!

Happiness is…

mmh, I should take a new pic of my wall! That desk calendar is now on my PC table and this year I finally changed subject… I also changed most of the pics on the left… and I have 2 wall calendars with two different subjects (Buy links: Keanu Reeves & Hrithik Roshan) in case you forgot!

Sunday Surprise

And it’s… Art Sunday! From last week-end procrastination technique, spurred by this article (and because it was the next in line), I give you My Muse!

Of course it’s also on DeviantART – new Favorite Deviation… Now, if I had the time to fly to Toronto to see at least one of these in theaters… sigh! Considering that the first I’ve seen in theaters is The Matrix… anything before 1999 would look great on the big screen, LOL! (especially River’s Edge – love the shoulder-length hair, hehe).

While we’re on the art subject – no, I didn’t start SKYBAND 13, but I did toy with a couple of drawings.

I did this drawing back in 1986 as illustration for a science fantasy novel (still to be rewritten, probably in the future of Star Minds) – it’s black paper with white and yellow pencils pasted on Schoeller’s thick paper (can’t find it here, but they used to sell it in big cardboards and I had them cut to 25x35cm – that was the 1980s, when computers were just at the beginning. You wouldn’t believe how many things vanished from art stores since) where I painted the background with watercolors.

I had already “recycled” it for the chapter’s illustration, slightly changing the hair to adjust to the new characters.

Then I decided to invert the black silhouette and turned it into this… the cover of chapter 15 or the epilogue. This is photoshopped couple on watercolored background, so to speak!

I guess it looks different from the other covers, but well… it’s the last chapter, so why not? Looks like a happy ending, right? Is it a happy ending, though? No spoilers, sorry…

Yeah, I know, procrastination technique… Having finished typing Star Minds 3, I need to check the Death of Queen Amazonia and then no more excuses, its SKYBAND 13, promise! Although I’ll soon need to start writing something new, so I might postpone until I finish draft  0 – the handwritten stuff. My hand can’t handle too much holding of pen or pencil!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Random Friday

TANTI AUGURI, FEDERICO!

Sorry, that was for my one and only beloved nephew who turns 8 today (can’t believe it, where did time go?!), hoping one of his parents shows him the message. I’m trying to teach him English, but now he’s too smart to tell him I forgot how to speak Italian and he must talk in English to me, LOL! So I’ll just let him play with PBS Kids whenever he visits me…

And because he’s going to get his own copy of the DVD from his grand mother (a.k.a. my mum), I got myself Ice Age 4, so I’ll have something to discuss with him when I see him – maybe tomorrow at the official b-day party, maybe who knows. I should start buying those movies abroad, so I have only the English voices and if he wants to watch them, he’ll have to watch them in English, LOL! Anyway, 4th instalment is as funny as the previous ones – I like the boot of Italy kicking away Sicily and screaming “Goal!” at the very beginning. And we all know it’s all Scrat’s fault if the continents drifted, right? Looks like there might be a #5… In the extras there was a summary of the first 3 – boy the first was from 2002! Ten years later we got 4… and that’s the only series with talking animals I can bear to watch  because, hey, they’re extinct anyway, LOL!

In random order. The book I finished last week – Devil’s Lair by David Wiseheart. I liked it because it’s original historical fantasy. I didn’t really like it because I’m Italian and it gave me high school nightmares with all that Latin, Dante and poetry, LOL! Thank God I’ve forgotten everything about that time period, so if there were inconsistencies, I’m not aware of them. Besides, it’s historical fantasy, so anything goes. I admit I skipped the Latin and poetry bits – but that’s just me. Also, the first half is much slower than the second half, the trip through Hell feels rushed compared to the set up.

The first Hindi lesson *waves at Giovanni and Vijay in case they’re visiting the blog* – interesting! Here’s the first page of my brand new notebook (I filled 3 while in the classroom – then I’ll have to do more before Tuesday):

Now, you native speakers, please don’t comment, unless you plan to learn a brand new alphabet when you’re close to 50, okay? Now I have more excercises to do, and maybe by the end of the year I’ll be able to write a short note of some kind, LOL. Maybe. I have a good ear for languages, but when it comes to writing… that’s another matter! But if I can do this, I can start Japanese afterward!

This week read: Ashes of deceit by Joleene Naylor (a.k.a. book 4 of her Amaranthine series). Fellow Sadist Author did a great job on her poor characters, I’m not surprised sometimes they take over her blog and try to rebel – but they have no power over us, mwhahahahaha! Ahem, sorry. I can’t have spoilers here, but the author knows about my favorite scene. I also liked seeing Verchiel a little… different than his usual impossible self! Anyway, here’s the GR/Amazon/Smashwords review:

Another instalment in my favorite vampire series – and I’m not a vampire fan, in case you’re wondering. My first and last vampires books were the first 3 Ann Rice’s books in the late 1990s and I was so NOT impressed that I quit after Queen of the Damned and thought I’d never read another vampire book after those 3. Then comes the new millennium, blogging and Joleene Naylor. Now I’ll have to wait for book 5, gah!

Anyway, I still love her humor, her perfect balance of adult themes and gore, and her crazy characters who often take over her blog, so you better follow that as well. Sometimes I feel sorry for Katelina and Jorick – will they ever be free? And what is really going on in Verchiel’s head? Only the author will tell…

Okay, on Smashwords I might have posted it twice or not at all. I’ll check again today. If I posted it twice, sorry, but it didn’t show – anyway, I don’t think anyone will complain for a double 5-star review, right? Have a great weekend, everyone!

Writer Wednesday

Okay, writer’s news first. End of Draft 0 of Star Minds 3 – 10 days. Now to the keyboard, and already I’m making changes, LOL. Happens when you have those a-ha moments mid-draft but you don’t stop to rewrite what you’ve already written. Quite happy with the result, but I’m always happy with the new baby – until a beta-reader says something or a few days pass and I go “Yikes, how could I write that?!”. Anyway, “The End” is written on this series. Now I need to write the prequels, as at least one will be added to the Omnibus/printed edition this summer.

Now, because I sold another copy of SKYBAND 12 (Killius’s nakedness sells, can you believe it?), I guess I should go back to drawing chapter 13. As I need to alternate sitting at the laptop, typing, and some other position, it’s just perfect! I’ll prepare the sheets and start the pencils ASAP. Having less writing planned this year, hopefully I’ll manage to finish the darn graphic novel. Then we’ll see…

Writers links – this week Kris Rusch’s round-up of links, including Patricia Cornwell suing her accounting firm and business manager because she couldn’t bother her pretty head with business matters. Poor Pat. Not feeling sad for her. I also hate finances – and DayJob is at a bank… – but this doesn’t mean I’ll let a stranger handle my own… I hate the business part of indie publishing (love everything else because I’m a control freak, haha), but I still handle it myself.

And I don’t believe in the “ability to write is dependent upon the ability to avoid distractions. A quiet, uninterrupted environment, free of the distractions of managing her business and her assets, including her investments, is essential to her ability to write and to meet her deadlines.” My friend (who just turned 30 – another generation, sigh!) suggested I write a “how to” book on motivation for writing, but I can’t help you there, because I never needed a motivation. Okay, maybe I grew up with less distractions (read: no internet) so I disciplined myself to write, but I always wrote full stories.

Then in the 1990s I started meeting writers who never finished their stories because they wanted them to be perfect. They can’t be perfect if you don’t tell them all – you can’t see what needs changed and what’s fine if you don’t write it all down. And then on Goodreads someone started a thread on the death of the novel as we know it and someone else complained that you can’t be prolific because you’d write crap – to this I say “Wrong! The more you write, the faster you become!” I’m this prolific precisely because I never stopped writing new stories. And I always poured them out as fast as I could. And yes, the first 10 to 20 years of writing were pure crap, but they allowed me to grow as a writer and be able to be what I am today!

So prolific doesn’t mean you write crap. And yes, I write shorter-than-traditional-publishers-guidelines novels (Star Minds might reach 100.000 words when I combine the 3 books), that’s why I’m glad to be indie. But then, I’m prolific to the point that my aforementioned friend (who is also the one who calls me control-freak) says I’m not human. I am – I just don’t have a human life, because I’d rather stay in and write than waste time meeting people. Nobody is as interesting as my characters, LOL! Besides, I’m a megalomaniac, and I like being a creative goddess with rights of life or death on her creatures…

Dean Wesley Smith on counting numbers – you’ve read my post about my numbers. I’m not whining, even if sometimes I despair I’ll quit DayJob, but then, I already adjusted my expectations. Originally I thought it would be a 5 years plan, but both Dean and Kris are right, it’s more like 10 years. I’ll be very happy if by 2015 I’ll cover all the expenses (at this time I’m way in the red, if I didn’t have DayJob to pay the bills, I’d probably have to quit).

That’s why when I’ve been contacted by a translator I had to turn him down. I cannot afford him at the moment as I’m giving all my money to beloved editors *waves at them – you know who you are!*, but if you’d like to try to break into the German and Spanish markets, please e-mail me and I’ll put you in contact with him. I’m keeping his address for when I’ll be able to afford a translator – while I wonder how much market there is for fantasy books in Germany and Spain, LOL! He seems to be a nice guy with competitive rates, so if you want his name, just drop me a line!

Two more links and that’s all for the week – John Scalzi on the state of a genre title in 2013 and what authors want (re: traditionally published writer turning self-published). Now back to writing and wishing you all a wonderful week!