Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 184

Languages & foreign movies

I've discovered that in India they say the musical notes like in Italy and France – I know because suddenly I heard familiar 2/3-letter words in a song of the Darr soundtrack (Likha Hai Yeh)!

Yep, when I studied music in French schools, I learned to say Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do. I can still remember the "comptines" (children's poems/songs) about them and a more recent TV show title that played with some notes (Do Mi Si La Do Re which reads "domicile adoré" or "beloved home"). And in Italian you say them the same way (maybe with a slightly different accent… ).

So yay, one more thing in common between India and Italy/France. Of course Italian&French have common (Latin) roots, but is it Greek instead? The Romans copied many things from the Greeks and Alexander the Great did reach India… Wonders never cease. Maybe I should study linguistics instead of history!

While speaking of languages, I'll end this post with a short commentary on the Bollywood movies I watched in the past weeks – I'll order the next batch next year, so I won't bother you with them anymore in 2011!

Great soundtrack or great stories, sometimes both. This time I had a majority of Hritik Roshan's movies (it used to be mostly Shah Rukh Khan – blame it on Dhoom 2, LOL) including his latest – Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara – thanks to Amazon because it wasn't on the list but one can't resist that movie poster and blurb so I had to have it and enjoyed it very much, story, songs, everything. I liked Koi Mil Gaya and its sequel Krrish, didn't appreciate sports movie Chak de India (but it has great songs) – mostly because Shah Rukh was unshaven, LOL – and liked Kites's story but not the soundtrack.

So, there you have it, the latest batch from Bollywood NOT reviewed by yours truly, haha. And can someone tell me if ever does dramatic/tragic roles? So far I've seen him only as the Funny Guy (in the Dhoom series but also Mohabbatein) – which he does very well, but I'm wondering…

One more foreign movie to watch, from Japan, then I'm off rediscovering old TV series on DVD… when I'm not busy writing or reading or drawing, that is!

Writerly updates

Weekend spent with the latest/last book trailer (because I had drawings for Earth and didn't do anything new – but I won't waste time with book trailers next year) AND editing the novel that had mixed comments on chapter one (talk about pleasing everyone, sigh!), so I'll just stick to my guts feelings!

The weekend has also seen me bothering my Facebook friends with vocabulary questions for this novel… but I liked the sound of "suitresses"! What's wrong with inventing new words if none of the existing ones applies! Anyway, I changed it to "wooers" mostly, only once to "fortune hunter". And then I had the horse discussion that continued via private emails (hope you heard back from me as my server was kinda crazy last night. If you haven't, let me know and I'll resend. You know who you are! ) – so glad I have many friends who are horse experts (which I'm not)! A special thanks to you all who helped me with vocabulary!

I have also added a chronology page to this blog until there's the Unicorn Production page, just in case some reader stops by but isn't interested in my ramblings (can't blame him/her). The final Chronology Page will also have the Buy-links next to the title of the book, this is only a temporary list for all the books set on Silvery Earth that came out this year. What, too many? Sorry, told ya I was prolific… and that was one of the reasons I went indie! Don't have time to wait for trad publishers!

Also, to the 3 wonderful commenters of the 20000hits giveaway – you're all winners. I'll be contacting you shortly with the coupon code for a free download of Conall's Sons, also to celebrate the fact that if finally made it to the Premium Catalog (better late than never)! From the quantity of those comments I can tell my readers either aren't interested or haven't found my blog yet, but never mind. It's a marathon, there's still time!

Now back to the final touches to Earth and the trailer – if you hear about a map-maker severely beaten up by an author who had to ask him 3 times for a stupid map, hush, don't tell anyone! Friendships start and end that way! – wishing you a great week!

Happiness is…

Six Sentence Sunday – TSK1

As you seem to enjoy The Slave very much, here's a last snippet from that story. This time it's her point of view of the local king.

***

If she had met him back home, she'd have hunted him down; and if she had found him in someone else's Apartment, she'd have requested him immediately. He was darn good looking and well endowed, she could have lots of fun with him in bed! Except he was king and she was a slave, so she had to find a more subtle way to capture him.

But first, of course, she had to lure him back to her bed, which didn't look easy. There were dozens of beautiful women in the Garden, and a queen, pregnant with her fifth child. Kushan came every day to visit his favorite concubine, Meghana, almost a second queen herself, but never bothered with Bekah.

***

More stories about the Amazons will come out in 2013, although they'll be guests in the stories coming out next year. Tales of the Southern Kingdoms vol.1 (which includes the above excerpt from The Slave) is available at Smashwords and on Kindle.

Now hop back to the official blog for more six sentence goodies! Have a great Sunday!

Linky Saturday

New books announcements:

Creative Review's charity anthology Christmas Lites – in the words of our very own Amy, the founder of the best Goodreads group. Check it out, and buy the best version.

Also, The Willing is out and The Reluctant in free for a limited time. Check C.S.Splitter's works now (link to the interview on this very blog). I have both on my Kindle, and hope to read the first soon.

More on the Penguin controversy: everybody seems to be against the launch of Book Country. Check David Gaughran, Dean Wesley Smith (you saw that coming, didn't you? ),  JW Manus and even Writer Beware, who, believe it or not, is the less hostile of the lot.

Formatting and other writing issues: help on manuscript formatting from Loralie and everything you ever wanted to know on dashes/ellipses/hyphens from Blood Red Pencil – I think I'll keep using them and the ellipses the European way, but it's an interesting post!

On literary agents: why would you ever need one (Dean Wesley Smith) and a compendium of their conflict of interest with epublishing (Passive Guy).

Writer Beware started a page of Small Presses and what to be wary of.

Michelle on professional envy – we all fall into it!

Rachel Aaron on how to boost your daily wordcount.

Passive Guy AND Kris Rusch on book contracts.

Have a great weekend! I'll be busy with the last touches to BoI – Earth and OK, this time you can have a sneak preview of the best cover of the 5. Ladies and gentlemen, the five Immortals in one of their many forms!

Book review and author interview – Nora Weston

I won her book, The Twelfth Paladin, at a giveaway, and she's also a member of Creative Reviews.

A little slow paced for my tastes, a little too preachy, sort of repetitive and sometimes confusing with the sudden introduction of third person point of view (omniscient) in chapter twelve. A bad editor didn't really help – and I'm mentioning it only because it's a small publisher (if one goes to a publisher, big or small, and don't get any editing, one might as well self-publish and keep all the earnings, right?). Not my cup of tea, I guess. But if you like angels and demons – and Harleys and happy endings – you can check it! I give it 3 stars.

Now having started a correspondence with the author who is a wonderful person, I got curious about how she came up with the story and the likes, so I sent her my usual questions… hence, ladies and gents, please welcome Nora Weston!

1. Where do you live and write from?

Currently, I live in Michigan, but I'm from Wheeling, West Virginia. My husband's job requires us to move a lot, so I've been lucky to meet amazing people in a handful of states. I can pack up a family of eight…plus two dogs, faster than you can imagine!

2. When did you start writing?

Sad to say, my writing career began in my high school math classes. I know, I should've paid attention, but that was simply not possible since my characters beckoned from afar. Anything that related to writing or history held my interest, but geometry, statistics, and chemistry in a twisted way inspired, or maybe provoked me to daydream. Yes! I wish I had paid better attention in high school, because college would've been much easier.

3. What genre(s) do you write?

My writing is mainly science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Since I have six kids, I tend to like stories that pull me away into supernatural realms where no laundry rooms exist. Escaping reality is all good! Every so often, I'll have a nonfiction piece published concerning kids, especially teenagers. Internet safety for kids is a huge topic I like to write about and discuss.

4. Where do you find your inspiration? Do you put yourself in your stories?

I'm inspired by chaos…like when people are tempted to let go of commonsense, causing them to fall into dangerous situations, by the ability of some people to love unconditionally—and by those who seemingly cannot love at all, and by hope. I don't give up easily on anyone or anything and know people can change. Do I put myself in my stories? Occasionally, a habit or obsession of mine (like an incessant craving for donuts and Twizzlers) will enter the plot, lol—but I'm not like any of my characters too much. If I were like my characters, they would probably charge me a small fortune for the nonsense they'd have to do!

5. Do you have a specific writing routine?

Ah, a writing routine. Yes, if writing at night, when the rest of my town is probably sleeping, is a routine, then I do. That so-called routine is never for the same amount of time, and is frequently interrupted by things I still can hardly believe. Once, when I was just about to complete a story, called Silence of Indigo, high winds delivered a window into my bedroom. I was angrier about having to halt my creative burst than I was about the window, rain, and tree limbs that had inserted themselves into my home…uninvited no less!

6. Outliner or Improviser? Fast or slow writer?

Yes, to all four options! That's a terrible answer, but true. I have more fun writing when I'm improvising, but at times, outlining helps get the story back on track. Now, that's not to say everyone will want to get on that track with me! Train wrecks do occur, characters and chapters have been killed by the delete button many times, so I live and learn something new every day about writing.

7. Tell us about your latest book (add link if published)

My latest book is still The Twelfth Paladin. I'm thrilled an updated version is coming soon!

It was inspired by an actual email I received, which was an invitation to play with wickedness. I thought it was a frightening joke or possibly a virus, so it got trashed. I have no idea what would've happened if I had accepted that invitation, but I'm glad I don't know.

8. Indie publishing or traditional publishing – and why?

My publisher is Melange Books. It is a small publishing house. I went that route because being a relatively new author, I felt better able to handle the publishing process with them. In the future, I want to learn more about formatting, distribution, marketing…just everything about publishing so I have more options. Since I'm also an artist, I'd love to get into graphic novels.

9. Any other projects in the pipeline?

Absolutely! I'm working on the sequel to Guardian 2632, my science fiction adventure, and then I'll begin the sequel to The Twelfth Paladin. Now I know supernatural horror is not for everyone, but I cannot get enough of it…so after those two sequels, I have another novel to complete. It is a cross between science fiction and horror.

10. What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

Okay, this is a tough question! (Two hours have now gone by…yikes!) My goal as a writer is to always leave my readers with a sense of awe about the world we live in and in worlds yet to be discovered. From a very young age, I questioned why people do what they do and why some people always see the cup half-full, while others only see the same cup half-empty. My writing goals also include laughter! Many of my characters have a great sense of humor, because after-all…reading a book should be entertaining.

Achieving my goals? I'll be researching like crazy, connecting with other authors and readers, reading a lot more, and writing as much as possible. It's a grand adventure, isn't it?

It's been a pleasure visiting your blog! Thank you for the review and interview. 

Well, thank you for putting up with me! And hey, we'll meet at the San Diego Comicon some day, signing our graphic novels… how does that sound!

Happy writing, everybody!

Madison's questions elaborated

Last week Madison asked questions for published authors, indie or traditional. Please check the original post and the answers (including mine) she got.

She wonders why my graphic novels didn't sell. I don't know why, maybe because graphic novel&comic book readers don't shop online. Those things don't come out well on e-readers and probably those readers keep going to their favorite brick-and-mortar comic-bookshops (I buy them online because I don't want the translated version of, say, Terry Moore's Echo, but I do buy my dose of manga in a physical comic bookshop). Or they read the web-comic, which are another format altogether (that I personally don't like because I can't read on screen for long).

When I started blogging, though, I had this idea found in Be The Media: find 1000 true fans willing to spend 25$ a year on your stuff. 25$ is 5 novels, and I knew I could write 5 novels a year. The fifth for this year will come out soon. I started issuing them this year because I considered the traditional way first. I'm not very good with short stories, so I didn't try to sell those first. But I knew I'd have to make a five years plan cause, guess what?, I had found that also on a book on how to find an agent and keep him – you were supposed to have a 5 years career plan even to find an agent, so he'd know you were a real writer and not a one-shot novelist.

So, one more reason to love #5 – every writer should have a 5 years career plan, no matter if s/he chooses traditional or indie. For traditional it can be one book a year (has to be, considering how slow trad pub is! ), for indie go for 5 or 6 novel-length books (like Ruth Ann Nordin also suggests) + shorts – the more, the better, you won't have to market much because your name will keep popping up and your readers will find you.

So, make your career plan today and follow your path! Happy writing!

Envelopes

I had scheduled another post, but I thought it was a useless rant, so I'm saving it for some other day. I'm going to muse today on Loralie's post about envelopes – or how we all live in an enclosed space (like an envelope) – trying to figure out which envelopes I'm in and how I make them interact, if at all. Mostly because Loralie makes also an excellent point on readers – you know, those people who buy your books but don't bother to check your writer blog because, guess what?, they're readers, and they don't give a s… about writing?!

So, my envelopes first. Let's see if I can make a list: writers, readers, Day Job, comicon friends, family, other assorted (pen)friends. Do they interact? Not really. All envelopes are quite separate. And if I have to hang out with people from one envelope, I usually don't invite people from another envelope (say, mixing colleagues with comicon friends – although at the latest medieval dinner I was with 1 colleague, 1 high school friend I hadn't seen in 25 years and 3 comicon friends). Not easy to mix envelopes' content. Although it should be easy to mix writers and readers, but most writers I know don't read, so… but then, that's what Goodreads is for!

Now, Loralee's musing about readers are on the spot. Readers who are not writers won't come to your little writerly blog. That's not what this blog is for anyway. I know my readers won't come to look for this – but for a web page that says when the next book comes out, yes. So I'll have to work on that ASAP – a more static page for the readers. I'm not selling books through my blog, really. Yes, I announce new releases, but you don't hear me ranting about that every day.

This is my personal blog, and I'm already thinking of posting less often, so I have more time to write what I love – my stories. I don't care about SEO rankings/traffic for this blog. Readers of my books are not interested in my ramblings anyway. I do this because I like to keep in touch and be part of the blogosphere – and because I'm having fun and meeting new people.

Blogs: Writers, don't do it only to promote, because it won't work, my friends. Do it because you enjoy it. Not because everybody and their mother says so. Sales will come, eventually. The only thing you should never ever forget is WRITERS WRITE. Go write your next book and stop worrying about low sales. Amanda Hocking had 7 books out when she made it big. Do you have that many? Then stop whining and go back to writing.

Which is something I better do myself – editing at the moment, but it's still related to writing! Happy writing!

Writerly updates

Hope you had a great weekend. I did my necessary socializing but also had some time to go through half of the latest book – and then spent Monday trying to mend plot holes that weren't there in the first place! Happens when you add characters or write a new related story that changes some details – or simply put meat on those bones. That's what the first pass of edits is for. Hopefully I won't leave any loose threads before passing it to Alpha Reader.

I'm not only adding meat, but also details that will add to variety. Too many women died in childbirth and too many men in battle, so at least now I have two more original ways of killing my characters – bad author, I know! But at least my historical research helped me to come up with new solutions I hadn't thought of before.

Hoping to wrap up the first draft before the end of the week when I'll hear from my editors and will have to do that final pass on BoI – Earth – by the way, the cover is the best of the five, but it's not finished yet, so no sneak preview!

What Goodreads does to authors: it boosts your ego! See, I'm #6 most followed… not! Only in my country and only this week. I'm at #46 for the year and not even close to the top50 in the world chart… Meh! I should have stayed on my page!

I got my ITIN application rejected by the IRS for the second time, so next year I'll see if I manage a trip to a foreign IRS office (can't remember if the European section is only in London or also in Paris) and ask them to help me to get through. Not that I need it for this year's income… even if I have a boost in sales in December, I don't think I'll see any money this year!

Blog stats reached 20.000hits some time yesterday, so I'll have a giveaway to thank you all for following me. So, a copy of the e-book that doesn't seem to go through the Premium Catalog after one month (it's the e-book I uploaded at the workshop) but is already on Kindle – Conall's son (Smashwords edition). Simply leave a comment if you want it – if you want to comment but are not interested in the win, just say so!

Happiness is…