K.C. Sprayberry's Blog, page 114
February 5, 2018
Twitter Tales
Good morning and welcome to Monday Blogs. Today, we’ll be talking about flash fiction and posting to Twitter.
Flash fiction involves stories of one hundred words or less. Working with this type of writing is an art. You have to tell the whole story in these few words. In order to do this, the author must concentrate on using as few words as possible. Instead of being very descriptive of location or the people involved, you have to cut out extraneous words and focus solely on the activity occurring.
Many an author will cry nay at this point, swearing they need those words in order to have a story the reader will understand. The art of this type of story isn’t easy to master. It takes patience to develop the plot and entertain the reader. Most of all, it takes dedication to create tales that are interesting and intriguing.
A group of authors recently took to Twitter to write flash fiction stories. They are using a single image and are setting their stories up in 280 characters or less. Their first outings, on the first two days of February have fans intrigued enough to retweet their tweets over four hundred times. All of them will be back on the eighth and ninth, in fact on each Thursday and Friday until their stories finish at the end of this month. In each successive month, they’ll have a new picture to create stories about, where they hope to gain more fans, intrigue these people into checking out their books.
Some might say this is blatant self-promotion. It is, to a degree. It’s also a really fun way to write a story without worrying about anything except entertainment!
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
February 4, 2018
Overcoming Your Past
Good morning and welcome to Sunday Book Blogs. Today, we’re discussing how to overcome your past. We all have parts of our past we want hidden, events we don’t like thinking about or discussing. But those events can and do have a tremendous impact on our lives in the here and now. Just how do we conquer what held us back years ago and move forward?
Get Starllight's Curse on Amazon!
Jayme, Brad, and Jake all have secrets they’ve hidden. These enigmas are centered around Starlight Mansion, a place long thought to be haunted by uneasy ghosts demanding justice for the past.
Blurb
The discovery of three teenage girls found hanging from an ancient elm tree, alleged suicides, on the grounds of abandoned Starlight Mansion by a teenage boy sets him on a mission to find the truth. Nearly forty years later, now the sheriff, Big Jake finds himself drawn into the investigation of a mysterious “suicide” and the disappearance of another teenager.
Jayme Barclay sees her fifteen-year-old daughter swinging on a rope from a tree at the mansion the county commissioner is turning into a resort. Brad Patterson loses a piece of himself when he answers the 911 call to get to Starlight on a snowy December night.
A year later, the mystery surrounding Tawni's alleged suicide still haunts both Jayme and Brad. Big Jake has been shackled in this investigation, much like another sheriff so many years ago.
Reluctant teens hold back information, until Jayme returns to the hometown she abandoned, to find the truth. Brad hates that he had to intrude on her grief, but also believes this is his chance to redeem himself for not protecting the daughter of the woman he loves. Big Jake suspects who the killer is and that the person isn’t done yet, but must stand back and allow a younger man stand up against a powerful and corrupt group of politicians.
Excerpt
Sleet and snow whipped around Starlight Mansion. A young teen, a mere thirteen-years-old, scampered in and around the tree stumps, scooted around boulders filling a former field where corn had once grown tall, and laughed as the winter storm pelted his face and bare hands. Jake Haskins had no problem with the bitter cold. Not one bit. Even the legends surrounding the long abandoned, decrepit mansion didn’t bother him.
Being the normally curious boy that he was, Jake crept up on the rear of the fabled house and tiptoed onto the back porch. Planks creaked under his boots, held together with duct tape around the toes. There’d been hints he’d get a new pair tomorrow, if he was good. He figured being good meant staying away from Mama until she cooled off after their earlier confrontation. Of course, she might not cool off much, since their words had been those of an exasperated woman putting up with half a dozen young children and a surly teen stuck in a house that was too small at best. Getting angry with his life had never been something Jake did, but he was fed up with being called a poor pig farmer whose daddy couldn’t rub two nickels together.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 31, 2018
Attitude, Attitude, Attitude
Good morning and welcome to wwwblogs. Today, we’re taking about attitude, and how it’s not a good idea to flaunt it.
You just received your first contract. Hooray! You are about to take your first step in becoming a published author. Once the editor in chief responds after receiving your contract, you might feel a bit overwhelmed. Or not, depending on your attitude.
That all important contract has been reviewed and signed. You’ve returned it to the publisher that selected your book as one they want. Depending on the workload of the individual who offered the contract, or their assistant, you will be contacted with several things you need to accomplish while an editor is being assigned to your book. In most instances, these requests seem easy. Except the cover art form.
Some publishers will ask you to describe your ideal cover. Others will direct you to a stock photo website and ask you to make five selections of images you’d like to use. Most authors follow the directions for this important element to the letter. Others decide those rules are for other authors who don’t have as important book as they do. They give specific instructions on the models they’d like used to portray their characters on the cover, what sites the photographer will have to use. Or they’ll go through the images on the stock photo website, select several and point out they want the background from one, this part from another, and that part from yet a third photo. When told they must pick a five images that will be used as they come from the site, this author will explode all over the messenger, calling their cover art “juvenile” “trashy” “not fit for my very important book.”
The rage exhibited by this author will probably set the publisher’s staff back for a moment or two before they respond with a carefully worded response that may or may not defuse the irate author. This could go on for several days before the author is grudgingly accepts the cover art made by the publisher’s artist.
Once an editor is assigned, probably one of the best the publisher has in order to avoid another explosion of “prima donna author,” the staff cautiously holds their collective breath, hoping the early rage has been appeased. And in most cases it has, but there are still a few authors who are determined to be feted every step of the way and will create waves throughout the whole editing process.
This goes on until the author’s book is released, after which our darling author demands that his/her work must be promoted heavily by the staff on a carefully selected group of sites that will give this book the exposure it needs. Never mind the fact that the contract stated the author would do their own promotion. The response of the staff brings about another bout of rage until this special author decides they will wait out the contract and move on to a more receptive publisher.
Sound familiar? Have you ever been this author? Bear in mind that today’s online publishers have a small staff to service many authors. Their contracts are very specific what the staff will do and what the author is responsible for. The publishing world has changed greatly since the turn of the century.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 30, 2018
Making the Right Choices
Good morning and welcome to Tuesday Book Blogs. Today, we’re talking about making the right choices, even if your friends tease you.
Get Dumb Decision on Amazon
Blurb
Leslie’s friend dared her to run a yellow light. She did but never saw a drunk running the red light until it was too late. Now, her friend is hurt and she’s scared. Can she face the consequences of her decision?
Excerpt
Blue and red lights flash furiously. Leslie shivers inside the rough blanket and stares at the devastation. Beyond the lights is her mother’s car, or what remains of it. Of all the stupid mistakes she’s ever made, this is the worst. She shivers again when a stretcher appears out of the darkness and is quickly loaded into an ambulance. Lights along the highway slow. She moans, causing the officer standing next to her to jerk and stare at her.
Inwardly, she rails against the drivers that are slowing to watch the spectacle that is in front of them. A squeal of tires, a slamming door, and the frantic pattering of sandals on the pavement makes her look up. Mom is here. Tears drip down her face. Leslie knows that she’s in for it now.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 29, 2018
The Story at Work
Good morning and welcome to Monday Blogs. Today, we’re focusing on the story at work, or how does your story present itself to the reader.
We all know the mechanics of how to write a story. There’s description, narrative, dialogue, and maintaining a plot to think about. We also have to ensure the tale is interesting. Most of you are probably shaking your heads and asking “What else is there?” To which I reply, a whole lot more.
Your story at work should flow easily from word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph. As an author, you should always make smooth transitions so the reader isn’t left wondering if there’s something missing. You must also tie up all of your minor plot lines in addition to coming to a satisfactory ending.
Once a reader completes your book, they may or may not decide to leave a review. They may or may not contact you via your social media sites to tell you job well done. What the astute author needs to remember is to accept reviews when they appear, thank the reader for the compliments in a timely manner, but never beg for a review. That puts the reader in the position of thinking they’re paying you not just for the book but the effusive compliment you seem to want.
The relationship between an author and their readers is tenuous at best. At any time, you could anger your readers with your work, but in a way that is a healthy relationship. If they’re angered, you’ve raised a strong emotion within them. If they’re happy, you’ve done the same thing on the opposite spectrum. But we also have to be careful with strong emotions, as they’re draining. That’s where we, the authors, have to learn balance in our stories, to give readers moments of pulling away from intense action with some normalcy.
In other words, we must make our stories as close to real life as we can while also maintaining the mystique of fiction. That is where the story is at work.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 28, 2018
Family
Good morning and welcome to Sunday Book Blogs. Today, we’re talking about the importance of family and the holidays
Blurb
Get Grace on Amazon!
Grace Winston yearns for one last family Christmas, but she has to convince her brothers and sisters it's worth their while to come home. Her reason for this is that her parents, while happy that she's been accepted at Oxford University in England, are pining away for their family to gather together. She manages to force her older brothers and sister to help out, to come home, but it's up to them to bring the other – a brother who attacked their father to get money to feed his drug habit, and a sister who recently gave up alcohol and is raising four children under the age of five without their daddies. The family does return home, and they surprise their parents, but Grace is soon wondering if this was really worth all the trouble she's gone through, when no one acknowledges her efforts to make this a Christmas to remember … until she receives an early gift that leaves her certain things will turn out all right.
Excerpt
Grace Winston had celebrated her eighteenth birthday a mere three weeks ago, the same day as Thanksgiving. There were no thanks in her house, no special foods prepared to celebrate her becoming an adult, nothing to mark the day as unique.
Her parents hadn't said "Happy Birthday" until it was time to go to bed. Even then, the acknowledgement had sounded more like "goodnight."
It's not Mama and Papa's fault. They can't help how sad they are. My brothers and sisters should have come like they said they would. They're not even making false promises anymore. All of them claim that they have other plans for Christmas, and we need to get over our selfish desire to have the family together.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 24, 2018
How Not To Submit
Good morning and welcome to wwwblogs. Today, we’re talking how to impress with your submission to a publisher.
You’ve finished your book. Your beta readers have told you that it will impress every publisher you submit to as literary genius. But, you have to go through this fabulous manuscript just one more time, to ensure you’ve caught every single error, have fully developed characters, witty dialogue, intense and descriptive narrative. By the time you finish a week later, you decide your new additions are perfect. There is no need to go through the process with your beta readers again, even though you put the prologue all of them insisted was unnecessary back, because it’s absolutely essential to the story.
Satisfied you’ve created a book worth of the attention of every publisher on the planet, even if they claim they don’t accept the genre you’ve written this tale in. Hours later, after having gone through the online submissions process for all of these publishers and a few literary agents for good measure, you sit back and grin in anticipation of the wonderful time you’ll have getting exactly the contract you want.
Day one comes and goes without any responses. A week passes and nothing. By now, you’re wondering exactly what’s going on. Then, one morning, you open your email and discover responses from most of the publishers and all of the literary agents. One by one, you open them carefully, searching for an attachment indicating you’ve been given a contract. You’re dismayed there aren’t any contracts. Every response is nearly the same: Thank you for submitting to us. While your book, Rush: a Tale of One Family, is good, it is not right for us.
Your first reaction is these publishers/literary agents need to fire their submissions manager and find people with imaginations who can see the brilliance of your work. Your second reaction is to fire off emails to those hacks that tossed your work into the recycle bin and tell them that they need to learn what is excellent and what’s not.
Undeterred, you resubmit to these jerks, because they are the best publishing houses for your work, only to receive a faster response that they are not interested and you need to move on. Finally, after a week, where the rest of the publishers respond without a contract offer, you are faced with the reality that your book hasn’t been accepted anywhere.
At this point, instead of dumping those rejections into the recycle bin, you need to go over exactly what was said to you. A few of the publishers mention that the prologue seemed to have no connection to the full story. Exactly the same thing all of your beta readers said. The other instances of problems brought up by the submissions managers center on all the additions you made after deciding your beta readers hadn’t identified those areas as problematic.
Realization dawns in a hard way. Throughout the whole process of writing and editing your book, you followed the advice of many experienced authors about how to prepare your novel for submission. It was only after it was time to submit that you lost your nerve and decided you had to make your work better, but you made it worse.
This harsh lesson is one learned by first time authors every day. They follow all the right steps to achieve publication but falter before submitting to fix non-existent problems. If you have gone through this, remember that this isn’t the end of the world. Take a step back. Work with your beta readers again. Give it some time before you resubmit to those publishers, but slowly. And never give up.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 23, 2018
Walking Away From Trouble
Good morning and welcome to Tuesday Book Blogs. Today, we’re talking about how to get out of trouble by walking away.
Blurb
Get Soar High 1 Standing Strong 1 on Amazon
Parents, siblings, spouses, friends. People you love. People you thought loved you. People whose truth you keep hidden, even from yourself.
People who make you feel guilty for the harm they cause to you and others, by their choice. People who cause you to doubt yourself into thinking it’s your fault.
K.C. Sprayberry presents a collection of devastating short stories on relationship abuse. To those in the midst of such a relationship, stand up, stand free, and stand strong.
Excerpt
I sit in the crowded waiting room, watching people rushing around behind a set of hydraulic doors. Hunching my shoulders, I stare at them, wishing for the doctor to come through and tell me everything will be all right. It has to have been my imagination that her leg looked funny after she fell downstairs.
Please, someone, come out and tell me that Mom will be taking us home.
Pulling up my legs, I half turn and stare. The windowpanes are frosting. It might snow. I hope it doesn’t. Snow means no school. I want to be in school. Turning back, I watch in terror as the doctor slowly approaches. He’s looking past me. I turn and see flashing blue lights. He’s called the police. I can’t talk to the police.
Where’s Mom?
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 22, 2018
New Authoritis
Good morning and welcome to Monday Blogs. Today, we’re going to be discussing a condition that could end your career as an author before it ever begins. This is more than being a problem. It’s more like an author who no matter how many times they’re told they need to maintain a social media presence they refuse to believe that rule applies to them.
I can still remember my first contract for my novel, Softly Say Goodbye. I did carefully read the contract, even discussed some points with my husband. The part he was most concerned about was my lack of a social media presence as an author. I’d only been on Facebook and Twitter for a little over a year at that time. My posts had nothing to do with my books. We were both concerned that I wouldn’t have enough interest in my book.
Fortunately, thanks to a fabulous cover artist who understood my dream cover, I was soon able to begin talking up this novel about teen drinking. Interest began and I reveled in that interest. No, I didn’t sit on my laurels, but rather I began the process of building my fan base. My first thought during this time was that no one had ever told me how hard it was. Sure, people will talk to you about your cover art. They’ll speak about incidents in their lives that match what your book is about. But commit to purchasing the book or becoming part of your fan page just wasn’t happening. Now, I’ve always been one who doesn’t let a perceived failure slow me down. More than five years later, I’m still building my social media presence and have expanded to many other sites that give me the opportunity to talk about my book.
That is only one of the steps you, the new author, need to take in order to generate interest in your book. Don’t get too excited when people say they’ll buy your book. Softly Say Goodbye only had 2 sales during release week. That didn’t slow me down. It had become a challenge for me to get more sales. I saw this need as a challenge and have never slowed in my quest to promote my books daily since then.
Many new authors wait until their book is ready to release and ask questions about what to do in order to generate interest. Even though I know they will in all likelihood not have a fantastic release day, I’ll point out what they need to do and that they’ll need to aggressively. Not many have come back to say this didn’t work, but those who have also say they’ll promote on the next book, or the one after that, so they have more than one book to offer their readers.
That’s when I realize this person is passive/aggressively telling me that they aren’t ever going to promote. It’s too hard. They don’t like “begging” people to buy their book. They don’t see any reason to put that amount of effort into selling a book no one is buying, but the next one will be a winner.
All this says to me is this author is stuck in a debilitating case of new authoritis. They are too afraid of failure to make an attempt of treading the waters of social media. Unfortunately, they will never discover the joy of seeing their rankings jumping upward, of knowing you’ve made a sale and all your hard work has come to fruition.
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
January 21, 2018
Siblings
Good morning and welcome to Sunday Book Blogs. Today, we’re talking about siblings. Remember those days when you and your sister or brother, or a combination thereof, couldn’t get along and you wished they were gone forever? What if that really happened?
Get Go Away on Amazon
Blurb
Lainie’s older stepbrother, Mark, is the bane of her existence. He always embarrasses her. She swears she hates him… until a terrible day when she realizes just the opposite is true.
Excerpt
Glancing in all directions, I sneak toward where I live. He can’t see me. I can’t let him know that I’m home. Not until I’m safely inside.
“Hey, Lainie! Do your friends know that you dance in front of the bathroom mirror every night? Maybe I should sell tickets.”
Face burning, I duck my head, running up the stairs and the last few feet to our apartment. How can my jerk of a brother do this? Turning, I stand in front of the door and scream out my frustration.
“Mark, I don’t want you to live here anymore. You should stay at your dad’s this year. Like in never come back!”
About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
Find out more about my books at these social media sites:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
Google +
Manic Readers
AUTHORSdb
Readers Gazette
