Robin Burrows's Blog, page 8

#BooksAsGifts – Support Your Favorite Authors This Holiday Season

#BooksAsGifts – Support Your Favorite Authors This Holiday Season! (Image by Tim Robbins – http://www.facebook.com/TimRobbinsArt.)

Thursday is Thanksgiving and the next day is the biggest shopping day of the year. As you fill your carts for the upcoming holidays, think about supporting your favorite authors.

Everyone hears the glamorous stories of authors making it big (like JK Rowling). But normal people don’t usually hear the statics on normal writers. At a recent conference, I learned that only 200 novelists in the US actually make a living with their novels. Everyone else has a day job or two, on top of writing their novels and taking care of the chores of daily life. I have enough trouble with a day job and writing. I can’t imagine how people who have kids or work more than one job also manage to find time to write.  So this holiday season, support the writers that aren’t in the top 1% because they struggle just like everyone else. How? Here are some tip:

Buy books as gifts. You may own every book by your favorite author, but you probably know someone who doesn’t. You could introduce them to the author. Who knows they might even become a fan!
Review your favorite books. When you write a review of your favorite book on websites like Amazon or GoodReads, you are not only providing encouragement for the author (who can use it, I’m sure), you are also providing a tool to help introduce new readers to the author.
Use the #BooksAsGifts hashtag. During the holiday season post tweets and FaceBook messages about your favorite books, using the #BooksAsGifts hashtag. Share the love of your favorite books and support the author. People buy more books because of word-of-mouth than any other reason.

Happy Thanksgiving (to those in the US) and please use the #BooksAsGifts hashtag to share your favorite books this holiday season!

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NaNoWriMo Writing Tips from Beauty and the Beast, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, and Arrow

Looking for writing tips for NaNoWriMo? What can your favorite tv shows teach you about writing? Quite a lot as long as you remember that tv shows are only written for the sense of sight, but novels need to appeal to all of the senses. Here are a few of my current favorites and a few writing tips from each show:

Beauty and the Beast- We all know the story. A beast saves a beautiful woman and they fall in love. So why watch the show? Why did so many people watch Titanic even though we all know the ship sinks at the end? In many cases, the journey is as important as the ending; especially when it comes to romances. If your characters aren’t challenged, then the ending feels too easy and honestly a bit boring. If the ending of your story in inevitable, you have to make the journey memorable with lots of plot twists, emotional turmoil, and conflict. People will continue reading or watching if the journey keeps them guessing.

Grimm- Season one of Grimm started off slow. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the episodic nature of the plot. But it got more plot heavy and less murder-of-the-week as the season progressed. Season 2 have been even better. The writers for the show have found ways to make the weekly murder closely connected to the larger plotline. This is an excellent way to keep a character’s day job realistic while the bigger plotline unfolds around them. If you have a story with an episodic nature, connect each episode into the larger plot in important ways. For example in a recent episode of Grimm, they tracked down a new Grimm in town who was murdering supernatural creatures, friendly or not. This tied into the larger plot line because our hero is a friendly Grimm and he had a lot at stake because he has lots of supernatural friends.

Once Upon a Time- This show is so good on so many levels. But I think my favorite thing about it is the interwoven story telling. Each episode contains two stories. A real world story and a fairy world story. Both stories are interconnected and tie into the larger plot. I think the real-world story by itself wouldn’t be as interesting without the fairytale story interwoven within it. The fairytale stories add depth to characters. They show why a character is the way they are. They make the evil characters more grey; more human and likable. Some people have complained that the background/fairytale stories for Mr Gold and Regina ruined their villain personas. However, I liked learning the villains past. It helps the readers/viewers connect with the villains and it can make villains scarier because we see the reasoning behind their actions. Plus, I’m a fan of making bigger and badder villains that our current villains fear. In order to make the current villains into characters we care about, we have to know more about them. This show has done that and season 2 they introduced the antagonists of the season 1 villains. Now the season 1 villain don’t seem so big and bad in comparison.

Arrow- I didn’t have high hopes for this show because the CW had recast the person playing the Green Arrow. (The actor who played the Green Arrow in CW’s Smallville now plays a doctor on Emily Owens, MD.) But I was pleasantly surprised. This show hooked me quickly with its redemption story. It’s human nature to want to believe in redemption. Oliver Queen’s secret life as the Arrow keeps the tension high. He has to lie to all of the people he loves to protect them while he completes his mission; even the conflicted love interest. The viewer is in on Oliver’s secret so we see the heart-breaking truth behind his lies and flamboyant behavior that the other character may not. Arrow is also great about cliff hangers. They wrap the plot of the episode and then add a twist at the end which instantly makes you want more. They are not afraid to take risks and put the character in grave danger (in the 5th episode Oliver is arrested for being the Arrow and we wonder if his secret is out).

Why do you like your favorite movies or tv shows? Those elements that draw you to a story are the same elements your readers want when they pick up a book. Happy Writing!

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Encouragement to keep you going through NaNoWriMo or PiBoWriMo or whatever challenge November brings

November is full of challenges from National Write a Novel Month (NaNoWriMo) and Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo) to all sorts of non-writing challenges.

Here are a couple of videos to help inspire your creativity and keep you going this month.

The first video is great for anyone struggling with a creative project. It explains one way to take the pressure off yourself and just enjoy the process.

The second video is about vulnerability, but it can easily relate to writing and creativity. We all want believable characters, and making characters vulnerable helps make them believable. The line that really caught my attention was the line about how when you suppress the pain, you also suppress the joy. Lots of good insights here.

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Alternatives to NaNoWriMo

If you are not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it is short for National Write a Novel Month. Each year writers all over the world challenge themselves to write 50,000 words during November. How does it work? You sign up for their website and then in November you write and write and write. The website keeps track of your word count, and provides a great support community to help you get your words down on paper. You can also connect with local people in your area who are also participating in NaNoWriMo.

But what is you don’t have time to write 50,000 words during November? Or what if novels are not your forte? Here are some writing alternatives to NaNoWriMo:

1) PiBoIdMo – Picture Book Idea Month - This is a similiar challenge for picture books. You have to think of a new idea for a picture book each day during November. You don’t have to write or ilustrate the manuscript during November. You just have to think of picture book ideas. This is basically a month-long brainstorming session, and it can provide you with lots of great project ideas for the upcoming year! You have to sign up on the blog by Nov 4 to officially participate (which helps qualify you for prizes at the end of the event), but you can still do this challeneg on your own if you miss the sign-up date.

2) Writer’s Digest’s Poetic Asides Chapbook Challenge - If you write poetry, this is the place to be in November. Robert Lee Brewer will provide a poetry prompt each day in November. Then you pick (and edit) 10-20 poems you wrote during the event and submit it as a chapbook!

3) Script Frenzy – The script-writer’s version of NaNoWriMo is in April, but if that’s your passion, why not do your own version of the challenege in November?

4) Set your own achievable writing goal for November and use the NaNoWriMo forums as a support group to help you through the tough times. The NaNo forums are a great way to overcome many writing challeneges. Who knew other writers struggle with the same problems? :)

Happy November and Happy Writing!

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Novel – a Poem By Robin A. Burrows

Novel

By Robin A. Burrows

 

words

like leaves

in an autumn

breeze

 

float by

in her head

page upon page

day by day

 

each letter

a soul-touched

ribbon; tying,

binding, creating

 

each sound

a gentle orchestra

filling the soul

or breaking it

 

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New TV Shows to Keep an Eye On

This time of year, we are bombarded with new tv shows as well as all of our favorite shows returning for another season. There’s so much content available, it can be hard to decide what to watch. Obviously you know your opinion of returning shows, but what about all of these new ones? Here are a few that caught my attention (there are a few potential spoilers):

Vegas: Scifi actors take on the roles of cowboys vs mobsters in historic Las Vegas. I was really surprised I liked this show. It’s like a cowboys vs indians show, but instead of indians, you have mobsters. There is a very tenuous balance between the cowboys and mobsters. If either side pushes too hard, there will be trouble. I feel a little sympathy for the mob boss in Vegas because he has so much pressure from all sides to make Vegas successful. Perhaps that’s leftover from my view of the actor in his previous role as the father in No Ordinary Family. This show also contains the actor who played the father in Terra Nova and the actress who played Trinity in the Matrix trilogy.

Revolution: The power went out around the world. Fifteen years pass. A girl sets out to rescue her brother from a militia, and during her journey she might uncover the secret to why the power went out. This is the show everyone has been talking about, and critics have been pretty harsh. Everyone wants to know why the power went out. The mystery is slowly weaving itself into the episodes. My theory is that there was an experiment that created a field around the planet that caused the power to go out an electricity to dissipate; otherwise someone would have been able to generate some sort of rudimentary electricity in the past 15 years.

Beauty and the Beast: I had high hopes for this show because 1) I love romance stories and 2) I love Kristin Kreuk. But the first episode started off slow. It took me most of the episode to really connect with the main character, Catherine Chandler. Sure, Cat’s mother dies horribly at the beginning of the episode, but it was a flashback and provided little urgency to the present story and very little emotional connection to the character’s currently near-perfect life. Then there are a bunch of sterile detective scenes. While the clues would have been intriguing if we didn’t know the beast was the beast, they felt more like a means to an end since everyone already knew who was the beast from the previews. Catherine puts some clues together and contacts the investigator who worked on her mother’s case, but he attacks her in the subway with several of his friends. That whole scene felt like action for the sake of action. I love that the main character has developed some kick ass fighting skills, but the fight felt long and showy. Then Cat loses her cell phone at the subway crime scene which is the first real hint of tension in the present timeline, but nothing bad happens because her partner snags it for her. That felt a little too easy. Although the first episode was slow, I feel like the show has a lot of potential, especially now that Catherine has discovered the identity of the beast. I foresee a lot of tension in future episodes as friends the investigator who tried to kill Cat come after her again. This is one show I will be watching closely. I still have high hopes for lots of goodness to come (as long as they don’t focus on Cat’s day job as a detective).

Arrow: I didn’t expect much from this show because I liked Smallville and the actor who played the Green Arrow in Smallville is not the actor who plays the character in this show. But I was pleasantly surprised. I connected with the character shortly after meeting his ex-girlfriend, and feeling the tension between them. I hate to compare this to Beauty and the Beast, but I watched this pilot right after I watch the BatB pilot, and right away the big difference between the two show si the tensions. In this show the main character has tensions with nearly every other character which drew me in quickly. Nearly all of the events were emotionally charged in one way or another. I wasn’t overly fond of the survivor-type island scenes, but they were short and most of the focus was on the present. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised and intend to keep watching.

Elementary: This is a modern day retelling of the Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes is a recovering addict and Dr Watson is his live-in sobriety coach. Oh yeah, and Watson is a woman. This is a fun series. It has little comparison to the original Holmes character, but on its own, I enjoy it. The banter between Holmes and Watson is probably my favorite part.

Last Resort: A US nuclear submarine is ordered to fire on another country, but the order comes through the backup network, and no one on the primary network will confirm the order. The commander refuses the order, so the US tries to shoot down their own sub. It barely escapes, and the crew take over an island with a NATO monitoring station. They try to find out what happened and clear their names. There is lots of intrigue and I’m not really sure what’s going to happen next. There is obviously a conspiracy in Washington in this show, but even the people in Washington don’t seem to know what’s really going on.

Check out other new and returning scifi and fantasy tv shows for 2012-2013 in my blog from earlier this summer.

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Over a Dozen Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors All in One Limited Edition Autographed Book and for a Good Cause

New stories from Terry Brooks, Patrick Rothfuss, Robert Jordan /Brandon Sanderson, Tad Williams, Jacqueline Carey, Daniel Abraham, Peter V. Brett, Robert V. S. Redick, Peter Orullian, Geno & R.A. Salvatore, Todd Lockwood, Carrie Vaughn, Blake Charlton, Kevin Hearne, Mark Lawrence, David Anthony Durham, Jennifer Bosworth, Eldon Thompson, Naomi Novik, Michael J. Sullivan, Lev Grossman, and Shawn Speakman all in one book – one book autographed by all of these authors? Almost sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t. And this magical anthology is for a good cause.

Let me start at the beginning. If you are a fan of Terry Brooks, over the years you’ve probably heard of his web druid, Shawn Speakman. Shawn is a new novelist, writes for Suvudu, handles websites for a several authors, and runs The Signed Page, a bookstore that specializes in autographed books. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, and beat it. But like many writers, Shawn did not have health insurance, so now he is buried under $200,000 in medical bills.

In an effort to alleviate his medical debt, Shawn is publishing his debut novel, The Dark Thorn, and he has also gathered the authors listed above for a short story anthology called Unfettered. The proceeds from these books will go towards Shawn’s medical bills.

The Dark Thorn is about a man who protects a portal between his world and Annwn – a Fey world in turmoil – and the artifact and events that might destroy both worlds. You can read the full description here. It was reviewed and critiqued by Terry Brooks. The Dark Thorn is already available as an eBook, but there are two hardback editions that can be ordered now. The hardbacks are being published specifically to help with medical expenses and are only available through Grim Oak Press.

The first version of The Dark Thorn is a leather-bound Signed & Numbered 1st edition/first printing edition that is limited to only 500 copies. It is triple-signed by author Shawn Speakman, artist Todd Lockwood, and cartographer Russ Charpentier who supplied the map of Annwn. It costs $75.00. If you buy the first version, an autographed copy of Unfettered will be reserved for you to order. Only 500 copies of the fully-autographed limited edition leather-bound versions of The Dark Thorn and Unfettered will be available, so I would order soon. I waited until after my birthday to order my copies because I was hoping someone would get me these books for my birthday. Based solely on my order numbers, I suspect the autographed versions of the books are at least half sold out. So don’t wait too long to order.

The second version of The Dark Thorn is a trade hardback. There will be between 1,500 and 2,500 copies of this book available. It sells for $30 and is not autographed.

There are also two versions of Unfettered. The first version will be limited to 500 copies, and it will be autographed by all of the contributing authors. It sells for $150, but it is worth every penny. At conferences, you often have to pay $50 for an autograph from a well-known actor. But with this book, you are getting the autographs of over a dozen authors. Plus there will only be 500 copies, so it will be a collector’s item, and the money is going towards a good cause – Shawn’s medical bills. Like I said before, I suggest you hurry and order because this version might sell out before the book is actually released in 2013.

The second version of Unfettered is a trade hardback. It will not be autographed. It sells for $35.

If you are a fan of any of these scifi and fantasy authors, I highly recommend these two books. You get new stories by some of your favorite authors and your money goes towards a good cause. What more could you ask for? Order The Dark Thorn here, order Unfettered here, read Shawn’s original announcement of Unfettered on the Terry Brooks blog here.

*UPDATE: Between when I wrote this article and the scheduled post date, Unfettered has opened for public purchase without needing to order The Dark Thorn special edition to reserve your copy of the Unfettered special edition. As of 10/05/2012 there were only 150 copies of the Unfettered special edition still available to order.

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Haven’s explaination for the blackouts in Revolution and other theories

Did you see the season premier of Haven? This contains spoilers, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see spoilers about Haven or Revolution or FlashForward.

In Haven, people called the “Troubled” have unusual abilities. Most of the time their abilities are considered curses, not superpowers. The abilities often reveal themselves when the person is stressed and wreck all sorts of havoc across the small town in Maine.

In the Haven season premier last week, the protagonists investigate two missing person cases which are connected to a man obsessed with aliens. The man’s beliefs about aliens are so strong that they start to happen just as he imagines (his “Trouble”).

The man flees from the cops when they don’t believe his alien stories. They pursue, but their vehicle and all of their electronic devices go dead – just like in the man’s stories.

Maybe it’s just me, but I saw this scene as a very obvious reference to the new tv show, Revolution - where the power mysteriously goes out across the world and supposedly know one knows how or why. I saw this as the writers of Haven saying: In our setting, if the power mysteriously goes out and will not come back on using normal logic; it’s got to be aliens (in Haven’s case, aliens via a Troubled’s abilities).

While the aliens are a common reason for blackouts/mysteries in scifi shows, I think if aliens were the reason for the blackouts in Revolution, that in the 15 years since the blackouts occurred, someone would have seen an alien.

Personally, I think the blackouts in Revolution are more of a conspiracy; probably involving some secret scientific experiment. Like in FlashForward, where the people blacked out because of a scientific experiment, but switch people for power in Revolution. Anyway, that’s my current theory for why the power went out in Revolution. What’s yours?

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What Kind of Book Reader Are You?

The Atlantic Wire recently published an article of types of readers (not eReaders, but people who read), and a followup article that shared even more types of readers.

I don’t think I necessarily fit into any of the categories they listed. Perhaps a combination of multiple categories.

I like to collect books and display them like art; especially books by my favorite authors. I am a bit like a chronological reader in the sense that I prefer to start at the beginning of a series and read the series straight through before I start on a different book or series.

I also fit into the category where I own more books than I have read. Book sales are heavenly. But my list of books to read seems to grow faster than I have time to read them.

What kind fo reader are you?

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A Revolution in the Dark: Review of Revolution Pilot with Spoilers

Back in July I shared a post about upcoming scifi and fantasy tv shows for 2012-2013. One of those shows was a new series on NBC called Revolution. I recently saw a preview for it on Hulu, and I am hooked.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/397518

The main premise for the show is a world without electricity. The show is set in our world. All of the electricity around the world suddenly and mysteriously stops working. Then fast forward 15 years as people learn to fend for themselves. It’s a little like Jericho without the bombs…so far.

Supposedly no one knows why the electricity stopped working. Except perhaps the heroine’s father (who so very inconveniently dies in the first episode). That’s when the story really begins. A small group sets out to learn the secret to why the power went out, and maybe turn it back on.

Of course there is a love interest for the girl. There is also a strange pendant involved that contains a flash drive with data downloaded during the last few seconds before the blackout. Obviously important. The pendant may also be a dampening field that negates whatever caused the blackout (as hinted at with the ending of the pilot episode).

The first episode was quite a ride, so if you like scifi/fantasy and haven’t seen it yet, I’d suggest you check out Revolution on NBC. The pilot airs on September 17, 2012, but it is available in advance on Hulu and the NBC website.

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