Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 180

Random Friday

Last few days to vote on the poll, although a patten is already there. I'll keep results and final decisions for next Wednesday, though.

Anyhow, this week I answered my first READER interview! There's this guy, Brett, at Creative Reviews (did I mention it's the best Goodreads group evah – for both readers AND writers? ) who decided to discover what readers think. Boy, I might steal that idea (with his permission, of course)! So, here's a writer who decided to find out what readers want – I might never read his book because I don't like horror, but maybe eventually I'll get curious enough about HIM to give it a try. Like I said in the interview, there's no genre I'd never ever read. And I've explored many already – enough to know what I don't like and don't want more of, but you never know.

Another question that made me think (dangerous thing, I know, I just can't stop doing it. Maybe I should get smacked in the face whenever I mention an idea like in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie version. Which reminds me I should reread the books. But I'm digressing now.) was the one on identification. That's something I've heard a lot in writing circles, on how you should involve your reader so s/he can identify with at least one character – so I wonder if this is actually a writer's question. Do readers really identify with some character or other? But then, like I said in my answer, I never identified with anyone. I'm more driven to TV or movie or comic book characters, because it's easier for me to imagine myself interacting with them, but I don't really want to be any of them. Can't you see me standing on the Millennium Falcon, bickering with Han Solo? No, I'm not trying to be Princess Leia, I'm being me. Charlie's Angel that never showed on in the TV show. Arthur of the Britons' secret wife. You can't see me? You have no imagination, pal!

Well, I hope I made my point (and I'd love to hear other readers' answers to this question). It's the same with books, I don't identify with characters, but I can feel sympathy with some of them. Like Isobel of Away with the fairies – we're very different, but I'd love to meet her and be her friend. Which leads me to my latest reading. It's a page-turner, I couldn't figure out where this was going until the end. It's touching, funny and inspirational. The characters all have depth and humanity, and I really enjoyed my second ride with Viv. My reading was even smoother than what happened with Strangers&Pilgrims (thanks to Kindle and adjusting size fonts! ) and I smiled at the thought of my town fairies every time Isabel had to deal with them. I think this second book is even better than the first one and look forward to more novels – precisely because it's not the stories I would write, but I'm enjoying them.

I love Viv's British humor and how she handles her outsider characters and their interaction with the "normal" world. Because like Eva Robin's says in Belle al Bar "You know you can heal from normality, it's not a deadly sickness!". So, there you have it, Italian humor from an Italian movie I still have on VHS, so I don't know if it's available on DVD and if it has subtitles on the DVD version (if it exists). I do love some Italian movies (mostly from the 1990s), but they seem impossible to be found on DVD. Sometimes I wonder what Italian production companies think – but then, considering the main distributor belongs to, you guessed it, Mr B, I often wonder at the whole industry behavior. And buy my DVDs abroad. Except you don't find Italian titles abroad, unless they're classics or European co-productions. Sigh.

Anyhoo, enough rambling for today. Next post, a six sentence scene from my WiP I thought would perfectly fit Six Sentence Sunday – if it's the last one or not, we'll see next week. Have a great weekend!

Writer goals

I'd like to start this post with a few links that look back at 2011 and forward to 2012 before I comment on them.

David Gaughran's Self-publishing Year in Review

Dean Wesley Smith looking back and keeping the writing going

Smashwords year in review 2011

My 2011 in review: I could give a list of what I published and when, but you only have to go to my Smashwords profile and Author Central page to check for yourselves. Sales? Lots of free copies to reviewers who sometimes didn't even bother to review – if they are as backlogged as I am, I understand, though. Not going to remind them anything. Money? Less than 50 bucks between Amazon and Smashwords.

My goal was to publish books, I wasn't hoping to sell hundreds the first year. The first sale of 2012 came in, so the new year is promising well. I've scheduled the writing and publishing times, and I'm ready. Watch out for the Chronicles of the Varian Empire and other titles under my other English pen-name (I have uploaded the first title of 2012, but it's Italian, therefore I mentioned it only on my Italian blog).

First e-release coming in February: Chronicles of the Varian Empire – The Spell and maybe earlier, maybe at the same time, Allan de Sayek, (which I didn't enter in the anthology because it didn't really fit in anymore after the rewrite). And maybe a title by BG Hope – nothing new to whoever used to read Serial Central. And don't go there now, as I deleted that story from that blog!

And here's to hoping Smashwords new employees actually speed up admission to the Premium Catalog as it's my only way into B&N (in spite of the rumors surrounding it, way too many to point you to a single post). With BoI – Earth I had the same problem I had had with Soul Stealers last September, it took them a month to approve it. And if handling many pen-names with KDP keeps being so complicated, I'll stick to Smashwords for BG Hope and Barbara Sangiorgio and put only Barbara G.Tarn on KDP. Sigh. And I still have to open an account with XinXii and see what happens there.

On non-publishing writers topic, here's another little list of links that make me think.

Kris Rusch on writers who work for cheap (both indie and trad)

Dean Wesley Smith on writer vs. author (I'm a writer, but I call myself an author because I do also graphic novels, and being both the artist and the writer of those, I call myself "author". Maybe Dean should write it in French, which is also used for artsy directors: Autheur)

Kenra Daniels on how everybody's a critic (or how writers can destroy other writers with their critiques)

Michelle Davisdon Argyle on when you allow others to decide your dreams

The last two both resonated with me because I had a writer burnout after trying to please everybody – so I toughened up and went back to my one-draft stories. Like Dean, I get the question "How's your book doing" to which my answer with a blank stare has always been "which one?". And now that I'm indie-published some even ask "And how's the marketing?". Me: "I'm writing the next book," to which I get a blank stare as the person wonders why am I not wasting time on Facebook, spamming all my friends with another announcement, and why didn't I open a Twitter account yet?

I spammed my English-speaking friends once last year when the first novel came out. I showed it to the few Italians who can read English. And still I get asked "how's the book" doing – I have 20 titles out, darn you! If you were a friend, you'd keep up! Ah, well, I've given up answering to that. And most of my offline friends have given up asking!

And because they don't bother following my progress, they still tend to give me silly advice like "can't you find a small publisher who can do the marketing for you?" (to which I'd reply "wake up, it's the 21st century, honey! There's nothing a small publisher can do that I can't do myself. And I'd be limited by THEIR publishing schedule!" but I keep my mouth shut – I'm already considered an old spinster as is, LOL).

So, I'll leave you with this list of 25 things writers should stop do with a BIG warning: Very Strong Language! If you can't stand the F-word and other forms of very adult language, don't follow the link.

Happy writing!

Happiness is…

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome Sunday visitors and regular subscribers. Here's another six sentence from Books of the Immortals – Earth. Kevan and Valfred have met, and there's a little misunderstanding between them.

***

"You're nice, but I have no idea what you expect me to do!" Kevan was exasperated. "I don't understand your customs, and you are definitely confusing me with your words!"

"It's not a custom of the clans," Valfred sighed. "But here I learned I could live selling my body. It's your custom, my lord, the Lavafield Clan would have already killed me by now."

***

Well, here's to the beginning of a new friendship! Books of the Immortals – Earth is available on Smashwords, Kindle and Lulu.

Now hop back to the Official Blog for more Six Sentence goodies! Have a great Sunday!

Books & movies

Welcome to the first random post of the year, where I ramble about everything non-writerly! First of all I'd like all Bollywood lovers or Bollywood curious to check this brand new blog. Her review of ZNMD is just great, and she's totally right about those darn subtitles. Thing is, unless they're epic productions like Jodhaa Akbar, I doubt they care for foreign audiences.  Hence they don't care if the English in their subtitles is actually English or the Indian version of it they can all understand throughout the sub-continent!

I choose titles based either on who's in it (reading the pitch on IMDB or Amazon), or with the trailer (unsubtitled, I don't care. If I glance a catchy song, I'll look for the full video and base my choice on that) – that's how I picked the Hritik Roshan's titles (I have Shah Rukh Khan's biography to choose his). Pity the Bollywood Addict lives in Long Island, but next time I visit my pen-pal there (hi, Jen! ), I'll meet her and ask her to take me to the movies, so that would make 2 white women in the audience (well, 3 if Jen wants to tag along, LOL). The only Bollywood title I managed to see in a very small and very empty movie theatre was My Name is Khan because it came out after SRK went to the Rome Film Festival – and there were 4 other people, none of them Indian. I guess the Indian community of Roma watches its movies on satellite TV or DVD, haha.

Moving to Hollywood, I watched The Social Network – boy, they talked fast, I didn't even have time to read the subtitles, glad it was English and not Hindi! I'm not going to delete my FB account (like one of my Italian friends did after watching the movie) because I knew the story and read articles and excerpts of the screenplay (on Creative Screenwriting and Script magazine), so I knew what had happened (while it was a complete surprise for her, hence the drastic decision), and I won't judge the FB founder(s) either – I don't care. I think that like with every technological new thingy, it always depends on the use. And money ruins even the best friendships. Sigh.

My last 2 PDFs (one downloaded the day before I ordered my Kindle, but as I had printed it out already, I didn't download the mobi version) were, as mentioned, traditional fantasy – epic, high, sword&sorcery, medieval-themed, you get the point. Good old Good vs Evil stories (which kinda bores me by now, so that's NOT what I write, but what most fantasy lovers prefer.)

The first is from Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss, The Arm of Stone – I was curious to read her prose after all her "warning" blog posts! Here's my Goodreads review: A little slow-paced, and with some clichés especially at the beginning. It was hard to get past the first half, the second half was smoother and with some surprises. For high fantasy lovers, but not for me, I won't continue this series. It's well written, but too descriptive for my tastes.

The other one (downloaded a few days Before Kindle) is book 1 of the Rys Chronicles by Tracy Falbes – and if it took me 4 months after download to get to it, I understand how even the most voracious reader can get backlogged. Apologies to the author for being so slow. This is a slightly enhanced version of my Goodreads review.

This is the first book of a series, but also one of those series that made me stop reading fantasy after my David Eddings overdose. I have enough of stories that need 3 or 4 100k books to be told. I have enough to end a book with only a minor resolution of the main plot. I don't know when I'll have time to get back to this world (I have plenty of new books and authors to discover), so in spite of the well written book, for me it's an unsatisfying ending.

I enjoyed the omniscient narrator which made me miss my old "voice" (I have used third person omniscient for 25 years until a creative writing course told me about POVs and how omniscient is so "out" – and that was before I switched to English), the action and well balanced plot, BUT I hate the way these fantasy series are told. I'd rather read shorter books or series with better resolutions (like the Amarantine series, if I wait 3 or 4 months for the next book, I won't forget the previous ones and I'm not left hanging, not knowing how they'll defeat The Great Evil – smaller and more personal conflicts are as powerful and effective than those grand-scale thingies for me). I know the next 3 books are already out and all, but the prospect of getting entangled in another 400k scares me. Gotta move on, sorry.

So, if that's your thing, by all means, go for it. It's just not for me. The characters and situations are very real (in spite of magic and non-human creatures), the many POVs are introduced slowly enough that you don't get confused and the plot is well balanced between action and descriptions. Recommended to long fantasy series lover.

That's all for today! Let me know how I'm doing – should I continue with sparser but longer posts or do you want me to go back to shorter and daily posts (this one, for instance, could have easily been split in two)?

Last day of snow…

on the blog, where else! It never snows in Roma (sigh)! So next post I'll go back to Comet theme with personalized header…

Happy New Year, everyone!

The poll is still ongoing, so I'll do a random post. Although I'm very much set for Writer Wednesday where I'll ramble on writing (mine and of others, so if I interview someone, it will be posted on a Wednesday) and Freedom Friday – with the freedom to tackle books, movies, life, the universe and whatnot. Not sure yet about Sundays, so I'll keep going with Six Sentence Sunday until the poll is over. Don't forget to cast your votes!

WordPress provided nice yearly reports this year, but I made public only the Serial Central Report, so my fellow authors can see how we did – in a year we went on permanent hiatus in February, LOL! Last year I didn't receive any report for this blog, this year I got 3 identical. Meh. I won't make it public, though, as most of the "most visited" posts are now private anyway, and I have no intention to write about those topics again. But as some of the posts are older than 2010, my writing has "staying power" – I guess they tell that to most!

This year I'll be posting less and writing&reading more, so expect longer posts but less frequent. As I'm reading the last 2 printed PDFs (downloaded Before Kindle – see, we even have a new way of saying things, a new era has started, welcome 2012 and the new world *singing R.E.M.'s "It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)" again*) I'm having some writerly musings. It's two epic fantasy stories, both with some of the clichés highlighted in Limyaeel's fantasy rants and both with mostly omniscient narrator. And both trad published.

Now, when I was still looking at small publishers' guidelines (two years ago), I remember the "NO HEAD-HOPPING" warning. Not to mention when I had my pieces critiqued at David Farland's Writers Forum, they always pointed out when I slipped back into omniscient. So I had assumed that the new fashion in fantasy was "no head-hopping, omniscient narrator is 20th century".

And now that I'm reading again in my genre, apparently it's not so out of fashion after all. So I can confidently stick mostly to my many POVs, but if a scene or two require omniscient narrator, I'll go with it. I guess the only rule is there are no rules as long as your story comes accross clearly. But you are responsible to find the best way to tell your story, whether first person, third person limited or third person omniscient.  Hey, I might try First Person Omniscient , a.k.a. God Speaks, one day!

I also found another use for my Kindle – having downloaded the mobi files of my books from Smashwords. As Silvery Earth is a puzzle, a tapestry of stories, I often need to check facts in already published books (that's because I'm rewriting and twisting plots from the original Italian stories, so I must remember what I changed and what I didn't…). Until last year, I had to flip through the printed version or switch on the PC to check the document if what I needed was not in my notes. Now I switch on my Kindle and check the facts without moving from wherever I'm writing! Please note, dear writers of sagas or series, that you can do this even if you're unpublished and want to save one copy of your manuscript on your Kindle – simply follow Michelle's instructions if you don't want to bother with Calibre in creating a mobi file for yourself.

This week I'm off DayJob thanks to the stress it gave me in December which blocked my stomach (again) and made me all teary every morning at the thought of going in. So my doctor gave me four days off to cure my bellyache, then Friday is a Holiday and the weekend I don't work. So I'll get back to the dreaded place next Monday, hopefully refreshed and with some decision made. Although when you're used to a steady job with steady work hours and steady wages (and mine is 20+ years old), you can't just ask for an unpaid leave and explore freelance life without considering all the pros and cons.

Now back to writing the next novel while editors and betas work on the first Chronicle of the Varian Empire. I'll be reading and writing and, if my mind doesn't wander too much, coloring SKYBAND 10. Happy and productive and healthy new year, everyone!

Dedicated to my writer friends (I love British humor! )

Happiness is…

Six Sentence Sunday

Happy New Year, Sunday visitors, blog regulars and any casual drop by! Welcome to the last bit of BoI – Earth, and the fourth main character, Thea…

***

The Marquis thought if a woman had been trained as a warrior, she might as well do a man's work. And Thea was well versed with all weapons and had proven to be smarter than many of her male colleagues.

She had been the first female detective, but one year later there were now four out of twenty. Not too bad for a male-oriented job. Thea had had to fight her way in every job she had ever attempted in her life – everybody saw her red head on a dress with generous cleavage, while she had always preferred breeches. Having many brothers had toughened her, and she had been a mercenary for years before settling with the Konigtown police.

***

Books of the Immortals – Earth is out on Smashwords, Kindle and in print on Lulu. Now hop back to the official blog for more six sentence goodies!

Have a wonderful 2012!

2012 goals

I might blog less regularly because I want to have more time to both write and read (if you followed Joe Konrath's link yesterday, you saw he suggests writers read. And I plan on reading many more books next year than I did in the past two).  I'm not setting a Goodreads challenge for it, but I'll try to reschedule my days to fit in more reading and more writing.

I have done my publishing schedule for the whole year, and will have one or more titles coming out each month – long or short. I've also made a priority list for working on those stories, so I have time to send them out to betas and editors before hitting "publish". And I'll be using three different pen-names and two languages and different genres. Looking forward to it – 2011 was kind of "boring" with only fantasy!

I might travel less (a trend started this year, when I spent most of my vacations at home working on my writing career), but I do need to get out of Roma from time to time, so hopefully the Paris Book Fair in March and maybe London in November, but we'll see. My travel plans aren't set in stone, haha!

Blog goals: I'll keep the Happiness is… on Mondays, might do a writing update on Wednesdays (which might mean my writing, other authors or any writing-related link or news) and a random post on Fridays (about books, movies, life, the universe… you get the point! ). Not sure yet if I want to do an Excerpt Sunday – let me know if you'd be interested in that.

This Sunday I'm still participating in Six Sentence Sunday, but if there's something wrong with my link again, I'll stop bothering with the sign up and post random excerpts – if someone is interested in reading them, that is! I might end up setting the static web page for Unicorn Productions at some point as well (fingers crossed).

Oh, and I will stop worrying about things I have no control over (such as sales or reviews or Day Job or other things). Easier said than done, but I will really work on myself. I can say 2011 was a success because I did reach all the goals I had set for myself, even if the dream behind it all (quit Day Job) is still far far away. But it's a dream and I can't control it. So I shall concentrate on the goals and not let anything stop me.

Wishing you all a Wonderful 2012!

 

blog content poll

OK, I was hoping to be able to post this on the sidebar or something but failed, so here you have it, last poll of 2011 and first of 2012! It will be sticky up here until January 15. Cast your votes (and yes, multiple answers are possible)!

View This Poll