Beth Alvarez's Blog, page 13

The things we do for books

The past two years, I’ve kept a vision board of sorts on my desk. I cover it with photos of things I love, the things I hope to get done, the things I look forward to. Admittedly, there are screenshots of the sequel to Breath of the Wild on there, but hey. I know what I like, and I can’t wait for the next Zelda game. But I digress.

The right half of the board is sprinkled with titles. I stuck that favorite photo of my doll of Rune on there with it, because I wasn’t really sure if he goes on the “things I love” side or “stories I want to write” side at this point. Then there’s a printed copy of Paragon of Fire’s cover in WIP state, and the titles of the next four books. There’s the first Snakesblood Saga digital box set right next to Rune, which is in the works, and at the bottom, the title of a series I can’t wait to start writing. I left space for the title of a standalone book, for when I have time to print it out in a pretty font and add it to the board.

And right now, none of those books are being worked on.

I wrote a bit last week about the validity of being a writer who isn’t writing, because that’s kind of me right now. Right this instant, I’ve been working on edits for Paragon of Fire, but more of this year has been spent not writing than doing what I think of as my profession. Yet it’s still part of the journey, and right now, it’s what I’m doing to overcome some of the biggest hurdles.

Let’s be honest. Being an indie author isn’t cheap.
Sure, I get the benefit of being in control. I get to choose the artist for my covers, choose an editor who really gets my work and sees what I’m trying to achieve, choose what my books are titled and how often they’re released. I get to decide what the interior formatting will look like. Whether or not I get chapter headers. Whether or not I get maps inside. And that’s all fantastic, but it’s expensive. And when you’re new to a genre, one that happens to be incredibly difficult to break into, it takes a very, very long time for the books to start paying for themselves.

The good news is, mine are doing it. The only one that hasn’t earned back its initial investment yet is Spectrum Blade, but that’s also my newest title, and I haven’t had time to promote the book at all. It’ll get there. But if I want to keep releasing multiple books a year, I gotta be flexible, too.

So for a good portion of this year, I’ve been focusing on the odd jobs that I can pick up, which finance the work of getting these books onto digital (and sometimes physical) bookshelves before the previous release earns out. There are ways to publish at lower cost, but I’m not willing to skip paying my editor to make my book the best it can be, and every piece of cover art I hire out saves me a month that can be spent on writing instead. Those side hustles mean slower writing, but it also means that by the time you read this, I’ll have finished another contract, and gathered enough funds to ensure the rest of the Spectrum Legacy series can be published in quick succession.

Ideally, I’ll finish writing the whole series before the end of the year. That digital box set will be going out soon, too. I probably won’t have time for the standalone book that keeps slamming around inside my head, clamoring to get out, and definitely won’t have time to start that tantalizing trilogy with its title at the bottom of my board. But it means I’ll be able to ensure the series is finished, whether or not it earns itself out, and I’m sure that’s as big a relief to readers as it is to me.

Paragon of Fire goes up for preorder next week.

The validity of the writer who doesn’t write

I’ve seen a graphic floating around recently. Maybe you’ve seen it, too. It talks about how it’s okay to take a step back from creating to do other things; you’re still valid as a creator if you take a break.

That’s probably something we should discuss more: the validity of the writer who doesn’t write, or the artist who doesn’t make art. I’m sure there are lots of things to be said about society and the expectation to be productive, but that’s not really where my thoughts went, so it’s not what I’m going to discuss today. Instead, I’d like to focus on a part that’s often overlooked: the need to not create.

My friend Megan shared a blog post last week about when you should write every day and when you should not. It was interesting to see her talk about it, because it was already on my mind when the post went up. ‘Cause you see, writing is hard, but sometimes not writing is harder… especially when you’ve already established the habit of writing daily.

The more I write, the faster I write, but it also means my high word counts are followed by deep crashes where I feel like I have no words in me at all. It’s like putting a kink in a garden hose. The water–the words–come out high-pressured when it’s unkinked, and there’s a deluge for a moment. Then the flow returns to normal, and then, sometimes, it ends up kinked again and the flow stops.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to start adjusting to is that it’s okay to work in spurts. Slow and steady is fine, but so is stopping to refill the well. Except my words aren’t always like a well. A well refills slowly, a trickle of water that seeps in through the ground until the level is back to where it was. Often, my productivity is more like a bird feeder. I’ll have a few days where the birds show up and peck a bit, maybe flutter and frolic a little, then go on their way. These are normal writing sessions. Standard production days. Then we have the days where a squirrel gets into the feeder, knocks the lid off, and sends the feeder swinging like crazy, spraying birdseed out in every direction. Often, this results in weird sprouts in the yard. But it also results in a feeder that’s empty after a moment of wild productivity, and it stays that way until I go out there to make a conscious, deliberate effort to refill it.

But what happens when I’m out there, tidying up and refilling the feeder? Not writing, that’s for sure. I can’t write until the feeder’s full again, because there are no words until I’m done.

Changing to block scheduling has helped this a lot. It gives me spells where I don’t need words, where I can take my time getting out there to refill my feeder and wait for my birds to come back. But it also means long gaps between writing sessions, and sometimes I feel bad for not making steady progress.

Does it matter? Not really, as long as the work gets done. We don’t always have what we need to refill our mental bird feeders with words. Maybe the store was out. Maybe we couldn’t afford it at the time. Maybe we just forgot, or the weather has been too bad to get it done.

The important takeaway here isn’t that the feeder is empty, though. It’s that it’s there. And whether or not it’s got seeds in it, its purpose is never changed. It never stops being a bird feeder, just like the writer who’s out of words doesn’t stop being a writer. Still there. Still valid. Still existing in just exactly the way it was meant to exist. It’s just empty for a bit, that’s all.

Refill when you’re ready. You’re still a bird feeder when you do.

Twenty books down…

How many left to go? I guess I’ll be at this quite a while–the first draft of Paragon of Fire got finished on the last day of February, but there are a lot of books left on my “to write” list. Sometimes, it feels like that list never stops growing.

When I sat down to figure out what the book would need to cover, I estimated it would be around 100,000 words long. That’s a bit shorter than Spectrum Blade, which is the first book in the series, but that’s not surprising given most of the world building happens in the first book. It never needs to be quite so deep after that.  Paragon of Fire also focuses on one location, which has already been visited in book one, so everything here is just growth.

The final word count for book two was 98,271. That’s pretty close to the projection of 100k, and a whole lot bigger than the word counts I expected to hit when I started planning this series. Originally, it was supposed to be a lot shorter. Spectrum Blade was to be around 90,000 words, with the rest of the books landing around 75,000. But after writing for a while, I’ve learned I often go long, and a lot of my books are under-written, to boot. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and I’ll probably share some thoughts on it later this month. Right now, all that matters it that means it’ll probably grow a little bit in the editing stage, so 100k very well may be where we end things.

The cover’s coming along nicely and should be ready for a reveal at the end of the month, though I sent a sneak preview to my newsletter readers as soon as the first draft was done.

And now it’s time for a break. The way my schedule works out, I’ll be doing some freelance contract work for the first two weeks, then start editing over spring break and hopefully be done by the end of the month. As of right now, Paragon of Fire is still on time for release in April, and I expect the preorder page to go up on the 26th. This time, I’m not sure if I’ll be doing a paperback preorder or not. Print times have gotten a lot better over the past two years, but supply chain issues meant changing printers and I’m not used to the new one’s schedule and don’t know what the lead time on printing is.

Of course, if people want to get paperbacks straight from me, I’ll definitely have them! It’s just a question of when they’ll be available, because I don’t know at this point if I can promise to have them available in April, when the ebook will be released.

If you have a strong opinion one way or another, I’ve been collecting opinions, so feel free to drop me a line. I’ll have more to share on this book’s progress toward publication soon.

Tea review: Texas Dirty Chai by Independence Coffee Company

Here we are: The end of the streak.

It’s been kind of weird how many of ICC’s teas have been good. I think that’s all of them actually… They’re well-balanced, nicely flavored, and have lots of punch and nuance at the same time. Sometimes, though, they just don’t hit right. That’s what happened with the Dirty Chai blend, I think.

I could tell from the moment I opened the bag that it was going to be strong, but whether or not that was a good thing is going to strongly depend on your tastes. See, there are two kinds of cinnamon flavoring. There’s spice, like a pinch of cinnamon on your toast or a sprinkle added to your cookies, and then there’s hot. This tea falls into the latter category. The scent of cinnamon is pretty overpowering when the bag is first opened, but I know the flavors you get aren’t always what you smell, so I went ahead and brewed.

I learned two things in the taste test that followed:

I think tea and coffee should stay separate drinks, and this tea is very hot.

The crushed coffee beans are an interesting addition, but the bite they added wasn’t quite enough to balance out the cinnamon, which wasn’t as strong in flavor as it was scent, but it was definitely prevalent and very, very warm.

I generally like a hint of cinnamon, and I really like chai, but this one was focused on heat instead of warmth, so this one’s my first pass for ICC.

My mom should like it, though!

The Wind Calls

I’ve taken a lot of photos of my dolls through the years, but right now, I think this one’s my favorite photo of all time. It was a pretty winter day, late afternoon, and the way the wind caught his hair and the ribbons that tied his shirt was just right…

Sometimes, fleetingly, moments like those make the dolls feel so alive. In the wake of finishing the Snakesblood Saga, it’s been nice to have my “comfort characters” around in their doll forms. I certainly wish I had the means to make dolls for the characters in Spectrum Blade, and I’ve got plans to give it a try with Nendoroids, but that’s pretty different from these. I spent so much time working on this doll in particular, bringing Rune to life by doing extensive modifications and learning to sculpt so I could make his head by myself, that it’s a relief to know they still bring me a lot of happiness and make me feel connected to the series almost a year after it’s all over.

Or is it over?
I guess we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying occasionally sharing doll stuff here, so I’m gonna keep doing it… Especially now that I’m slowing things down on YouTube a bit. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos and commentary while I write.

The Noveling

Keeping this one short and sweet:

Here we go, round two. I didn’t finish Paragon of Fire the first time I rearranged everything to write, because life (rather predictably) had other plans. My time was cut short, but my progress was solid. Now the time for part two has come around, and I’m working on the book again, aiming to get it done by the end of the month.

This time, I’m trying to keep my word count expectations a little more reasonable. Whereas I needed over 5,000 most days last time, I’m aiming for a more modest 3,500. I obviously doubt I’ll get that on a daily basis, but I’m also only writing Monday through Friday, leaving myself time off on weekends. And hopefully in evenings. I’m trying to make sure I’m in a good routine before the next Zelda game comes out, because I want to have lots of time to devote to playing it when it does.

Once gain, I’m sharing progress on Instagram, so you can catch my daily word counts there.

Shop update

Some of the books in my author shop have been out of stock for a bit. I recently got a new shipment of paperbacks, so I’ve finally had a chance to restock them, and update with a few new ones, too.

What’s back:
Some of the Snakesblood books have been out of stock since December. They’re back now, so if you’ve been waiting to order a signed copy of a later book in the series, they’re available again.

What’s new:
Paperback copies of Spectrum Blade have been added, so if you missed the preorder event, you can get the first book in the new Spectrum Legacy series now. There are also stickers of Zaide (which I featured the drawing of on my blog not long ago!) and the super-cool holographic bookmarks of the first book’s cover art, which I personally absolutely love!

What’s coming soon:
As soon as the backs are glittered and sealed, the rest of the Snakesblood keychain charms will be up. That means Sera, Kytenia, and Envesi. I’m contemplating having charms made for Tahl to go with the Westkings Heist series, but I’m not sure yet. What do you think?

What’s low:
I haven’t had time to print sticker sheets for a bit, so a few of the Snakesblood sticker sheets are still in low stock. I’ll probably replenish those closer to summer.

If you’ve never seen the shop, you can check it out by clicking here or by hitting the shop link in the site navigation menu. Everything’s all stocked up right now, so there’s plenty to look at!

Peek inside: Chapter headers

I’ve talked before about how much I love maps in books, but I haven’t really mentioned another thing I adore: little icons at chapter headers. So today, we’re going to take a peek inside a bunch of my paperback books so I can share what I did with the headers.

Some of the ebook editions have these as well. I try to keep them simple, not distracting, but there’s only a tiny handful of books I’ve put out that don’t have them. So I guess we’ll start with the oldest books, and work our way forward. I snapped these with my cell phone for extra candid effect… I’ve done my best to keep spoilers out of frame, but feel free to read what you can of the beginning of each book.

Of Blood and Rain is one of my oldest stories now, a fantasy novelette about breaking a curse to restore the rain. Instead of icons, I drew a dust cloud and stuck it at the top of each chapter.

I’m not sure how well it worked, honestly–black and white print doesn’t offer the most stunning quality, so it’s kinda hard to tell it’s supposed to be dust. It sort of just looks like a gray gradient. If I were doing this one over, I’d draw a scraggly dead tree on a sandy hill instead.

The Keeper’s Kin books are sorta-related in how I styled the headers. Keeper’s Finder mostly deals with red tape and office politics, so a modern fountain pen became the signature header of the Keepers.

The Keepers get a few chapters in some of the other books in the series, so the pen is used there, too. But for Her Midnight Cowboy and the rest of Kade and Felicity’s books, we have…

…a cowboy hat, representative of Kade. I mean, how could I not? The First Hunt uses bullets, but that book was released as digital only, so I don’t have a photo of it to share.

Then we’re back to Fantasy with the Snakesblood Saga books.

A lot of thought went into these. Some are obvious choices, others less so. Serpent’s Mark features the seven-pointed star of Ilmenhith, since getting there is really the primary goal of the story:

The fact we also spend the book learning about secrets hidden by the royal family (who use the star as their crest) is just a nice bonus. Or maybe a little intentional.

But most of Serpent’s Tears happens inside the ruins, so using a circular maze to represent the ruins was an obvious choice. I don’t want to talk about how long it took me to get that vector image right, though. Did I mention I drew these? I don’t think I did. The only exception is Kade’s hat, which was a stock image I bought and then altered. Everything else, I drew on my own.

Serpent’s Bane was where we saw the first split. As time went on, I found it was harder to represent the ongoing story with just one symbol, so I decided to provide one for each faction that had a story of its own going. Rune got his rock. Firal got her rock too, but hers is a necklace, so she’d probably be annoyed that I called it a rock. But the similarity between the two shapes let me keep some sense of unity between the two symbols, which I enjoyed.

Notice how they’re also pointing different directions? Those little things are a lot of fun to put in, but I’m not sure if anyone ever picks up on them!

Book 4, Serpent’s Wake, saw the introduction of what’s probably my favorite icon of all: the Kingsword. But again, there were other icons for this one. Less unity in these, beyond that they represent what had consumed each character’s life.

Rune got the sword…

The temple mages got a pen and ink…

And Firal got a book and her pendant, the significance of which is buried in the story itself. So after the factions split up like that, it was kind of a jump to go back to one icon for book five. But for obvious reasons, a crown was the best possible choice for Serpent’s Crown.

I’d actually really like to make that crown design for my dolls of these characters, but when would I have time? Maybe someday.

Book six also only really needed one symbol, and it’s another favorite. Serpent’s Blood features the merging of Rune’s Kingsword with the crest of Ilmenhith’s royal family. I think that kinda speaks for itself, and is probably the strongest symbol I could have chosen for the last book in the series.

It was an interesting design exercise, too. The first time I depicted the Kingsword, I’d been torn about whether it should show the hilt in black or white, since it’s black in the books. But it ended up being hard to see against the black background. I was delighted when I realized needing to add contrast against the backdrop of the white star meant I’d get to show the Kingsword in black to help it stand out. And also make it more interesting than just pasting the two images over the top of each other.

There’s two more books to look at. The symbol in the Westkings Heist series is the same through all 3 books. The mark of the Ghost appears at the top of every chapter in To Steal the World, To Steal the Crown, and To Steal the Queen. I think I’ve discussed this one a little on my blog before. My husband was the one who whipped up the design for me, something simple but striking, representing an eye glancing out from a hood.

And then that just leaves the newest series, Spectrum Legacy, and the icon I decided to use for the chapter headers in Spectrum Blade. All the major magic artifacts make an appearance in book one, but the only arc the book solidly resolves is the arc for Kolmar, so the forest’s artifact got the privilege of being the header for chapters throughout the whole book.

I touched up the gouache painting I’d done of the Hymnflute and opted to use that for the graphic. I’ll incorporate the other two artifacts in books two and three, and then there will be some surprises in place for the rest of the series.

Right now, that’s all of them. You know which ones are my favorites, but which designs do you like the best?

Tea Review: Independence Coffee Company’s Party on the Brazos

There’s something I’ve noticed about teas I’ve tried through the years. The busier a tea is, the less likely I am to like it. So as I read the label on this one, I found myself squinting and frowning. Especially since I haven’t tried a tea from Independence Coffee Company that I’ve disliked yet. I figured I was due, and there were a couple points against this one from the beginning. Passion fruit isn’t a favorite flavor of mine. While the mango and pineapple bits sounded appealing, I wasn’t too sure about the papaya, either. Nonetheless, I scooped a teaspoon of Party on the Brazos into my infuser and hoped for the best.

Whatever they did with this tea, it took everything I dislike about papaya and passion fruit flavors and tossed them out the window, letting them offer bold sweetness to complement the tang of pineapple, and the sugary-sweet flavors of mango are always a favorite of mine. Needless to say, it was unexpected, and I don’t think I’ve enjoyed anything passion fruit like this before.

Aside from the fruit, it’s a blend of green and black tea with flowers for color, so there are grassy notes in there too that provided a fresh backdrop for the punch of fruity sweetness. I didn’t need to add anything to this tea; I think the hint of bite from the pineapple wouldn’t have gone over well with milk, and it’s already so sweet on its own that any sweeteners would have made it overwhelming. The only thing I think I did wrong was having this in the winter, because the flavor’s really light and refreshing, so I think this would be ideal for summer nights when I still want something warm, but nothing with any kind of spice.

Honestly, can they get no blends wrong? With as picky a drinker as I’ve become, I really feel like one should have struck out by now. I didn’t expect to like this one so much, but it’s going on my shelf of favorites, especially for when summertime rolls around. Five stars!

Use the stickers

When I was a kid, I loved stickers. I think most kids probably did, so that wasn’t unusual. But while I had an impressive sticker collection, I never actually used them. One time, my aunt gave me an envelope full of stickers she’d saved. They were some of the cutest and prettiest stickers I’d ever seen, and I loved them. I loved them so much, I didn’t see how I could use them, because a sticker used is a sticker that eventually gets thrown away. Or peeled off the furniture you weren’t supposed to put it on to begin with.

So I saved them. I became a sticker hoarder. I saved every nice sticker I ever got, except for a sheet of Digimon stickers I got for myself and paradoxically put on my binder of Pokémon cards. They’re still on there, by the way. Those, at least, survived the test of time.

But the nice stickers? The nice stickers always went into the envelope my aunt gave me. I saved them from the time I was maybe seven years old, always adding to the collection, sometimes pulling them out to look at them, but always deciding they were too nice to use just yet.

When it came time to move to this house, our big, beautiful work-in-progress, I saw the sticker envelope while I was packing up my craft supplies. I’d always known where it was; I’d added a few more stickers over the years. Stickers aren’t a frequent part of your life as an adult, but I still got a few, and into the collection they went. I pulled them out to have a look. The stickers from my aunt were still in the bottom of the envelope, and when I pulled one out, it made the most dreadful crackling sound and disintegrated in my hand.

One of my prettiest stickers, a treasure I never enjoyed, because I was convinced it was too nice–like the good pen on the desk, and the prettiest journal on the shelf. And it was a hard realization, because someday, the same thing will happen to those. I’ll pick up the nice pen and the ink will have dried. I’ll look at the journal and the polyurethane cover will be flaking and peeling.

So go ahead. Nice isn’t for later. Nice is for right now, for the little moments where a sticker on a notebook that will be thrown away at the end of the summer brings more happiness than a sticker tucked in a folder that falls apart after saving it for twenty-five years.

Use the stickers.