Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 200

WoW Saturday

Both "writers on writing" and "words of wisdom" can be shortened with the same word. Thus, welcome to WoW Saturdays, June to September 2011. Enjoy this collection of writers quotes throughout the summer.

The habits and methods of writers are sometimes peculiar enough to be interesting.

John Cheever wrote some of his early stories in his underwear. Hemingway is said to have written some of his fiction while standing up. Thomas Wolfe reportedly wrote parts of his voluminous novels while leaning over the top of a refrigerator. Flannery O'Connor sat for two hours every day at a typewriter facing the back of a clothes dresser, so that in those last painful years, when she was dying of lupus, she'd have as close to nothing as possible to look at while she wrote her stories about sin.

Eudora Welty has said that she straight- pinned pieces of her stories together on the dining room table, as though she were pinning together parts of a dress. Maya Angelou secreted herself in a hotel room for days and weeks of concentrated isolation while she worked on her autobiographical tales. Richard Russo wrote his first novels in the secluded corners of cafes.

As for me, I prefer a coal room in the basement of our house in southern Illinois, and I write my first drafts blind on an old manual typewriter.

- Kent Haruf

 

Publication's purest joys belong to the first-time author. Whether you're a novelist, a poet or a nonfiction writer, initially there's something giddy and unreckonable to that process by which an untidy manuscript is converted into the neat, durable-looking, hinged rectangle of a book. Magic alone, seemingly, could account for such a transformation.

- Brad Leithauser

 

Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Rules of Writing:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that they will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character they can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the plot.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

 

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing:

1. Never open a book with the weather.

2. Avoid prologs.

3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialog.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose"

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

10. Try to leave out the parts the readers tend to skip.

 

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop."

- Vita Sackville-West

Book review and author interview – Joleene Naylor

The book is Shades of Gray – and if you want to know what it's about, go to the book page, haha! I'm not rewriting the blurb in my review. Ahem, well, where was I. Oh, yeah, the review. OK, first of all, I'm not a fan of vampires and I'm stuck to Ann Rice's first 3 books (and I prefer the movie of Interview anyway, but I read also the Vampire Lestat and Queen of Darkness, then I had enough of the gore and quit). BUT Katelina's "voice" is so strong and funny (and in third person, yay!) that I really rushed through this. The right amount of gore, sex and humor, so to speak. And I look forward to start the second book of the series and all the short stories I skipped so far. Maybe I'll wait until the author makes a short stories collection, mmmh? I know I recognized the 5-year-old-vampire when I found him in the book, because I read the short story… anyway, I'm rambling, so I'd rather let the author speak and head for a couple of sites to leave my review…

Joleene was also kind enough to answer my usual nosy questions, so here she goes! (sorry the formatting isn't prefect, but copying and pasting sometimes gets screwed…)

B: Where do you live and write from? Tell us a little about yourself.

J: We live in the middle of nowhere Missouri, and have for ten years now (ten years!?!?!) before that it was middle of nowhere Iowa – do you see a trend? I'm also married and support three cats, three turtles and a dog, none of which do any of the dishes or house keeping to earn their keep, though I keep trying to teach them.

B: Tee-hee! I', single, but I hire somebody because I'm too lazy to clean the house myself (but I do the dish and the ironing)! When did you first become interested in becoming a writer? What was the deciding moment for you?

J: I'm not sure when I decided I *was* a writer, it was just always there as a normal part of life. My painted and wrote poetry, so it didn't occur to me for a long time that being a writer was something different. Since we grew up  kind of isolated, there wasn't much to do.  My brother and I did a lot of drawing and writing "games". One of them was to make "books". We'd drag out big piles of paper and crayons and write and illustrate a children's book in a day or two. I still have some of those, somewhere.

B: Where do you find your inspiration?  Do you put yourself in your stories?

J: I can not tell a lie (okay, I can, but…) my main inspiration comes from anime. I've noticed that when I haven't watched any for awhile I start to run kind of dry. I also get ideas from random conversations. I'm not above using other people's suggestions As for putting myself in my stories, not really. I mean there are parts of me in every character because if you can't understand your character, then you can't write them. I did put myself in a book I wrote when I was a teenager, so I guess that it got it out of my system. I'm not interesting enough for more than one story and, besides, it exposes too much of yourself when you're the main character, like giving everyone a magnifying glass and letting them see through your skin. 

B: I've watched many anime too… and read manga and comics and French BD. And I do tend to put myself in my stories because it's like acting a part – how many lives can I have, especially on other worlds, past or future? Anyway… What do you love most (and then least) about what you do?

J: I love  seeing the story unfold and then come together. There's something magical about that. The best part is when I learn something new about the characters. When I first write it, I am usually just as surprised as the readers will be. What I like the least is advertising, marketing, and all of that stuff. I'd much rather just write , put it up and then go back to work. I lose so much time on what little marketing I do do.

B: Don't tell me, I HATE marketing, hugh! When and where do you write? Do you have a specific routine?

J: It used to be every day until I got into doing book covers/formatting etc and now it's pretty much catch-as-catch-can. I prefer to be by myself, though, so it's either before the hubby goes to work (and is sleeping) or after he's gone to bed. I think better at night, though.

B: Do you have any other project on the pipeline?

J: I'm still toying around with the Vampire Morsel's short stories, and am editing Ties of Blood, the third book in the Amaranthine series. I was hoping to have it out August first, but it may not make it. We'll have to see.

B: Did you query agents/publishers before publishing? If yes, for how long?

J: I did query agents with Shades of Gray back in 2008/2009. No one seemed really keen on "more vampires", and those that were wanted straight up paranormal romance, which this only sort of is. (it depends who you ask).Meanwhile I researched Indy publishing on the side and when it came time to submit to smaller presses or just do it myself, I decided to skip the small presses and go it alone, so I haven't actually ever submitted directly to any of the publishers.

B: What was your overall experience with self-publishing so far?

J: I've been very happy with it. I use Smashwords, Amazon's KDP and Create Space and haven't had any real problems *knock wood*. As far as sales go, I'm not a "major" success. I don't sell thousands of copies, but I don't really care. As long as I have a few people who like it, that's enough for me.

B: Anything else you'd like to add?

J: Self Publishing is like anything you do, you get out of it what you put in. Most successful indy authors are successful because they've worked their butts off to get there. Sure, there's always the occasional "lucky break", but those are few and far between. Write a quality story, edit it, edit it, edit it, and then edit it again. Put some effort into your cover and then advertise your finger to the bone and you'll get there in time. Me? I hate the latter (and I don't have time anymore, anyway) so I probably will never be huge. That's the great thing about Indy, though. If I don't become a super-book-star, it's my own fault, no one else's. I control how far it goes, or doesn't go, and so do the rest of us. 

B: Words of wisdom! I won't be huge either, because I write ADULT fantasy, and I don't really care… Did you have some kind of editing done?

J: The first two books were edited by a friend of mine (who does a fantastic job!), and once I get this last round of editing done I am going to send the third book off to her, but I'm not sure she has time this year  having her do it, though, has made a major difference because now when i do my own editing I try to think like her. WWCD? (What Would Carolyn Do) LOL!

B: Haha! Happened to me with an Italian beta-reader (lost to the language switch, sigh)! Did you have to do the blurb and everything yourself ?

J: Well, on the first book, sort of. I had another friend who really encouraged me to do indy, and he did a mock book cover and a mock manuscript layout. I kept the essence of his layout (though I changed the fonts and made a new image for the chapter headings because he'd used one that was for another project I was working on, and also made it fit CS's standards) and though I completely redid the cover, I did keep the last paragraph of the blurb he wrote for the back. Since then I've done it all myself.

B: For how long have you tried to find an agent/publisher before self-publishing?

J: Oh, it was probably six or seven months or more of querying agents. I worked on the query pitch in the Absolute Write forums. they were very helpful, and it was really very educational. For one thing you learn really fast that no two people agree. What one person would say was "punchy and nice!" another would say was "cliche and doesn't work". I also learned a LOT about condensing. I'm naturally long winded, and the query letter word limit forced me to keep rewriting and shortening over and over again. That's something that has really come in handy since.

bored post title

… because I don't know what to call it.

Yesterday we said good-bye to one member of my offline writers group who goes back to the US. Sniff. For me it's one more friend to visit in NYC, but it's a loss for the group. Let's hope we'll find new members soon!

Also I had a look at both a Kindle and an i-Pad (one of our writers is Mac-addicted). The Kindle looks indeed better for reading, but the i-Pad has colors and does more graphic things and… ARGH! I'll never make up my mind!

I uploaded a few more titles on FeedBooks. It looked harder from their explanations, but in fact it's quite easy, especially with short stories. I probably won't be able to upload comics like I did on Smashwords, but you can't have it all!

I'm reading, hoping to get a review out tomorrow. If not, I hope to have an author interview. Sorry I'm not coming to your awesome blogs, but hopefully during the weekend I'll have to time to have a look! Water is off to the editor, Soul Stealers to the beta-reader.

I'm writing this Wednesday at 9pm, so I better go back to reading now… I wanted to watch a movie, but NO! not until I finish that book and review it – the Smashwords kindly reminder is way overdue!

And Thursday looks like a messy day, even it the public transport strike is revoked, so wish me luck with the working day… Hopefully in the afternoon I'll get my parcel from Italy (yeah, I even bought 6 dead-tree Italian books, sigh!), then I'll only have to wait for the last Amazon parcel with the 3 DVDs and the Lulu parcel with printed copies of Fire, so I can check it and make it live on Lulu…

Can I feel tired for five minutes? I'll be back to my usual self with next post, promised!

more writerly stuff

no daily prompt inspired me, so I'm continuing from yesterday. I did my first upload on FeedBooks (Vive la France!), hope to add more during the week(end). It will be all free reads, because at the moment it's the only thing you can upload there (along with public domain stuff). So there goes – they even picked up the Gravatar from WordPress, without me uploading it like I had to do everywhere else!

I've joined another group on Goodreads and was pointed to this post about worst mistakes authors make. Please read also the comments, as the discussion is very interesting. Not that I'm going to spam anyone (I felt so guilty when I announced Air to all my friends, that I didn't repeat it for Fire…), and I'm probably going to lurk before I say anything (although I uploaded my "review" for the book they plan on reading next month, as it's already on my "not to try again" list… ), but as they say in the comments, that's a real school for writers, check what readers want. And of course we must be readers before being writers. But the "forum" form is kinda daunting for me, so I don't know when I'll be actually active on any forum!

Also, maybe because I'm prolific, I don't spend to much time on my latest baby, because I'm already thinking about the next one! But I know lots of writers who spend years on one single novel and can never let it go… don't rewrite eternally, and please do check again Dean Wesley Smith's Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing – he's editing them and I look forward to see the book complete to buy it and save it on my PC even if I already read it for free! Because his advice is just awesome! Also subscribe to David Farland's newsletter, if you haven't already, it's another gold mine of advice from a pro…

OK, I better go back to my writing, drawing and reading… I've just met a long-haired guy (did I mention I love long-haired guys? YES, I did! ) whom I know is a vampire… maybe Louis de Pointe du Lac has finally found a rival? Hope to let you know in a couple of days…

I leave you with this hilarious article that circulated in my offline writers group: 30 harshest author-on-author insults in history. Do you still wonder why authors keep doing it?

writerly update

On Sunday I was on Kindle Author Blog, go check my interview, in case you haven't already from Facebook! I'm still talking about Air, but also the other BoI… which means I'll have to get back to work on Water soon!

In the meantime I'm inking SKYBAND chapter 7 in the morning and finishing the historical novel in the afternoons. I have two weeks like this, so hopefully next week I'll be able to draw chapter 8 in the mornings and do the coloring and lettering (for which I need my home desktop computer) on chapter 7 – does that mean I'm inking on Day Job time? Yep…

I really hope to wrap up the first draft of the historical by the weekend. In the meantime I would like to thank the two bloggers, one friend and one member of my offline writers group who replied to my plead for help, allowing me to write a scene I had totally skipped in draft zero. It was easy to write as a movie scene, much less in a novel. All three gave different views and details, so you will be all named in the acknowledgments page when this is all done. Thanks again for the much appreciated help, hope I'll be able to return the favor sometime.

After reading Shaina Richmond's post on free e-books, I decided I will sign up at FeedBooks and upload some free read. I'm also considering leaving Jessamine for free on both Smashwords and Kindle – after all it was free when I posted it on Serial Central… So, it's FREE on Smashwords already, and can anyone tell me how I make it free on Kindle? If I go to the page, it doesn't allow me to change the price and un-check the royalty rate – should I re-upload it as free? Sigh.

Also I pulled out my first e-book (PDF printed version, as I still don't have an e-reader) to read… and then I got a screenplay to review from a friend. Hopefully I'll be done with that when this post goes live, so tonight I can start reading. And I'm almost sure it's a page-turner, so Friday I might have a review for you.

If not, I'm also reading the writing mags I bought last month in London, so I'll share stuff I found there with you in case I don't have anything else. I hope to get to your blogs during the weekend, like I mentioned last week, so don't worry, I'm not forgetting you, I'm just maximizing my time!

Non-writerly update: I got the second (of 3) Amazon parcel, so my list of ToWatch DVDs is going up. And I didn't watch any last weekend, so they're all there. I've just added Dhoom 1 and 2, Darr, and Jodhaa Akbar. I'll make it through the pile, eventually…

Happiness is…

Six Sentence Sunday – BoI Fire

It's Sunday again, and time for a taste from my brand new novel Books of the Immortals – Fire. Thank you to all visitors and especially to those who comment.

Fire is set 150 years after Air, and the southern kingdoms you've heard of so far are no more. There's a war in the north, but the final battle is close. Falcon is supposed to warn his king of an ambush, but he stops, seeing the prince heir in the hands of an enemy. But…

***

The image trembled like a mirage.

Falcon stopped and backed away, puzzled.

The warrior laughed cruelly at him, then the vision dissolved in a cloud of black smoke.

Falcon looked around, worried. Whatever it was, it had felt his anger and found him. He had been stopped for a reason by a very strong illusion, and he could feel the Dark Magic closing in on him.

***

Fire explores an alternative future as Falcon falls asleep, hit by the powerful spell. It is now out on Smashwords and Kindle. The trailer is here.

Now hop back to the official blog for more six sentences! Have a great Sunday (or whatever day of the week you're visiting, you're always welcome! )

WoW Saturday

Both "writers on writing" and "words of wisdom" can be shortened with the same word. Thus, welcome to WoW Saturdays, June to September 2011. Enjoy this collection of writers quotes throughout the summer.

 

"I love writing.  I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

- James Michener

 

They say writing is lonely work. But that's an exaggeration. Even alone at their desks, writers entertain visitors: characters of a novel, famous and not so famous figures from the past. On good days, all these come to the table. On bad days, however, only unwelcome visitors appear: The specter of the third-grade teacher who despaired of your penmanship. The ghost of the first person who told you that spelling counts. The voice of reason pointing out that what you are about to attempt has already been done — and done far better than you might even hope.

- Allegra Goodman

 

The novelist may be the last to know the theme of her work, may even have avoided thinking about it too particularly, lest, like happiness, it disappear on too close examination or seem too thin and flimsy to live.

- Diane Johnson

 

There is never enough time for writing; it is a parallel universe where the days, inconveniently, are also 24 hours long. Every moment spent in one's real life is a moment missed in one's writing life, and vice versa.

To write is to understand why Keats writes of living "under an everlasting restraint, never relieved except when I am composing." It is to recognize Kafka's longing to be locked in the innermost room of a basement, with food anonymously left for him. It is to know why Alice Munro describes the face of the artist as unfriendly; and it is to envy Philip Roth, who, rumor has it, has sequestered himself in a cabin in the Berkshires. He is writing, writing, people say, writing without distractions, only writing. To which the news part of us asks: Is that a life? Can you really call that a life? That is our sanity speaking. But another part, the writer part, answers, yes.

- Jen Gish

 

Writing fiction is not about first love, that blush of self-love when you discover your name in print. It's about passion and endurance, a combination of desire and grunt work often at odds with each other. More like a long marriage? Yes, the rekindling of the love of writing and a commitment to the solitary hours finding the word, tone, style — and may I mention the meaning? — why you are telling this story that will become a book with its pages.

- Maureen Howard

Linky Friday

In spite of Joleene's generous words, I will have to do this every other week from now on. I've found my own procrastination/time sucker tool: reading other blogs. I was so proud of my almost 40 books read last year, and now, six months in, I'm not even close to a quarter of that number. So I've cleaned up my blogroll and won't be visiting your blogs as often as I used to, but I'll be there. In return, I hope to post a book review or author interview every no-links-week, starting hopefully from the next. Sometimes you have to make choices, like Ruth Ann Nordin said.

Now, to the links! Jo's post pointed me to Judy Croom's post on dealing with the IRS as non-US-resident. I had to comment on that, being one myself! Like Judy and other commenters,  it's not I don't want to pay taxes on my royalties (although a little part of me wonders why I should, haha ), I don't want to pay them twice, in both countries. I also don't want to be labeled "unwelcome visitor" because I had a confrontation with the IRS – I still want to be able to visit friends and places over there… (And don't worry, IRS & Agenzia delle Entrate, today I have a little over ONE euro on Lulu, less than 3$ on Smashwords and around 7$ on KDP – not going to see those royalties anytime soon…).

Justine Graykin on digital self-defense! Cat Woods on series writing as an umbrella! Leigh Townsed on how to train your pets (and the writer in you)! Guest post from Lisa Killan on writing well without writing perfectly! Mike Finn on woulda coulda shoulda – didn't, so what! Guest post Shanna Germain on choosing your own adventure!

Aren't all those authors (published or unpublished) awesome? Words of wisdom a go-go! See how reading blogs can get addictive? Sigh!

On non-writerly topics, Noobcake on waste of water and other ecological stuff. He's darn right, shouldn't take much effort from all of us to do that…

A writing reminder: Write-a-thon is coming, go to Clarion blog to sign up!

Mesmered has interviewed another traditionally pubbed author who went indie, Ann Swinfen. So it's not only on Joe Konrath blog that we read this, there must be some change going on, right?

Blood-red pencil on not using "judging" words and writer intrusion.

LA Times on Kindle spam – reader beware of cheap and free reads… and writers beware of this unfair thing that clogs Amazon, forcing us to do better… Just wondering if those spammers ever rank high on Amazon. Probably not, but they still clog the site, making it even harder for legitimate writers to go up… sigh.

Agent Jessica Faust on email etiquette… and agent Janet Grant on freebies. My freebies haven't brought me any paying readers yet, but I think it's early. I have downloaded free stuff, and often (if I enjoyed it) I downloaded also the paid stuff (Joleene Naylor comes to mind… ), but it's on my TBR pile. Now I simply add things I want to read to my Smashwords library for future purchase!

Speaking of Smashwords, here's the coupon to get Fire half price: AK69D. Simply enter it on check-out. It expires on Sunday, so hurry!

Yesterday I got my first Bollywood movie (Umrao Jaan – my Indian friends can tell me if the remake is better or worse than the original… I know I love Ash&Abishek! ) and I sure hope to find time to watch it sometime this weekend… Have a great one!

More news

Fire is live on Kindle as well (one more title on my Amazon Author Page, yay!) and tomorrow I'll add at the end of the links a Smashwords coupon to get the novel half-price during the weekend. Reviewers, feel free to ask for a free e-copy, but then you MUST review the book afterward, either you loved it or you hated it…

I have ordered the printed copy so I can check it before making it live. Like I said, I'll have only the US edition (although it did cost a lot to have it mailed to Italy, sigh!).

Now between reading blogs (and hopefully a few (e-)books soon) I'm back to my first round of edits for the unfinished historical novel! I'm adding details on the where and the how, and hopefully I'll end up with an interesting story – and well researched, so I hope I won't make too many mistakes! Next week a colleague goes on vacation for two weeks, so in the mornings I'll be all alone in her office: I'll be inking SKYBAND chapter 7, so I can color it and letter it and upload it in July. Not sure yet if I want to do the single chapters as b&w e-books (99cents each), will have to think about it.

I'm still looking for FAST beta-readers (and if you're a writer, I'll return the favor, of course). Water has younger protagonists, but it's still adult fantasy, with homosexual characters and a crazy guy way too spoiled for his own good (or the other characters' for that matter…). It also has a story within the story, which is based on my first official story, so I kept the childish, not very good style of the original – translated from Italian, of course. I started learning English during childhood, but I didn't write anything – except a couple of silly rhyming poems in high school – until my first indie graphic novels, and a review back then called my English "clunky". So if anyone is interested, drop me an e-mail for the dubious pleasure of having a preview of the most controversial BoI (standalone like the others, so don't worry if it's your first).