Shawnee Small's Blog, page 6

Hurrah. Amazon makes good.

So just a quick update…

Amazon.com has finally made the brand-new revised version of Watcher (kindle version) available for previous customers. You’re going to want to read this version as the ending has changed. Trust me.

Everything is go, go, go in Watcherland today. More announcements to follow.

Must. Not. Kill. Amazon.

 

No one ever said this indie author gig was going to be easy. But I want to take just a quick moment to whinge loudly about Amazon.

Now, I’m normally a proud supporter of Amazon and the Kindle platform. Frankly, I’d be out of a job if Amazon hadn’t launched a service that allowed indie authors like me to connect directly to readers. They pretty much single-handedly changed the book publishing industry, and arguably, in a good way. So gold star to Amazon.

The thing that boggles my mind is this, well actually, a little back story first . . .

Watcher is my first novel. Ever. So there’s a bit of a steep learning curve * in trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing, and how to do it well. I overestimated my abilities to pull the whole thing together by myself ** and ta da – I sent my dysfunctional spawn out into the universe.

No content editor. No copy editor. No professional formatter. Big mistake.

Shortly after giving birth to this thing, I decided that for everyone’s sake and my professional sanity, I’d yank it from the shelves and give it to a content editor, Bev Rosenbaum. Of course, this was after I’d already written 2/3rds of Protector, but hey, I don’t like to take the easy way!

Bev had many good points and a lot of hard, home truths, so Watcher got a massive overhaul, something like cutting out 20,000 words. That’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears right there. But I didn’t stop at Bev. Oh no. Bev recommended that I go to a copy editor, someone who was going to help me “pretty up” my actual words, not just the concepts. Already burnt out and not relishing the impact it was going to have on Protector, I was worn down enough that I was like, “What the hell. It’s only my sanity, right?” In came Amanda Sumner and POOF! Another 10,000 words disappeared. Yep, what started out as 128K words dropped to 103K then a final trim to just under 80K. Ouch.

But hey for the greater good, right? And so what if I had to re-write all of Protector again and push it back by two years?

So anyhow, back to Amazon.

I’ve busted my ass to get everything ready for Protector‘s release this week. I mean I’ve been on fire and I’ve had some very talented people behind me to make this happen (thank you, Amanda and Guido). Everything should’ve been perfect – final files uploaded, covers tweaked, paperback proofs ordered, blog and author pages updated everywhere. I was riding the high of my life.

Except for one tiny issue. Amazon doesn’t automatically update a book file for a previous purchaser.

Yep.

What that means is that everyone who was an early adopter of Watcher the first time around currently cannot download the new, revised edition of Watcher, which is actually a big deal because . . . THE ENTIRE ENDING HAS CHANGED. THERE ARE CHARACTERS THAT DON’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE. KILL ME NOW.

All of my perfect planning and ramping up to Protector‘s release on Sunday goes crashing to the floor. If people try to read Protector without reading the new version of Watcher first they’re going to be like, “What the hell was that?” And frankly, I don’t blame them.

Because it makes no sense that Amazon, with all its capabilities, doesn’t automatically do the update or worse case scenario, let’s the author do it.

So my apologies in advance for those who are daze and confused by this entire post. The upshot is I’m waiting on Amazon to decide whether or not my changes warrant an update. Once they’ve made a decision, I’ll let you know if and when Watcher version 2.0 can be downloaded.

Now I need a drink.

 

* understatement of the year

** plus 3 beta readers

Shhh…

I’m currently drowning in the color purple. And while that may seem nice if you’re a unicorn or a pack of Skittles, my eyes are like “Screw this, we’re going to the Bahamas. Where’s the spare suitcase?”

Purple dust jacket. Purple header. Purple namey thingy. Purple books all over the freakin’ blog.

God, so much purple.

That aside. Guess what? We’re almost there. Little tiny yay. In a whispery voice. Because I don’t want to jinx myself, and I don’t want a stampede on my Amazon page. Hahahaha. No, really. So close. Soooooo almost there that I can feel it.

As usual, ibooks is a pain in my ass, Amazon is doing a great job, my formatter, Guido, is on top of things, my copy editor, Amanda, is helping with the final back cover copy, and we’re just about ready to order proofs of the paperbacks.

Holy cow. It’s really happening.

Right now, you can pre-order Protector (ebook format) from Amazon here. Release date is Valentine’s Day. Yep, cheese-o-rama.

Watcher is back up as well, although it’s currently listed at 99 cents. It will be FREE as soon as I can get ibooks to sort itself out. It will also be available on iTunes if you really have to use Apple.

Paperbacks of both books will be available sometime around February 21st for everyone who goes old-school.

As a side note: ibooks really is horrible and Apple’s lack of support for indie authors is really irritating, therefore, Protector will only be available on Amazon for now.

Almost there.

Everything is go, go, go in Watcherland today. Well, actually, it’s been all week. I’ve been bogged down in mobi and epub files, updating Amazon and goodreads like a madwoman, tweaking out of date stuff on the blog . . . just about everything that you forget about until it’s time to launch a book.

The good news is that we’re likely to be soft launching next week. The ebooks are pretty much done, paperbacks are still a work in progress, but it’s all coming together.

I have Guido Henkel to thank for all of this, really. Besides being an old mate of the husband’s and a videogame veteran, Guido has been involved in the indie publishing world for quite some time and is a master then it comes to putting things together nicely. In this case, he’s my Oz behind the curtain. He’s pulling and twisting knobs and levers all over the place to get Watcher and Protector formatted across all the major platforms. The days of me doing it myself are long over. Guido is the man. Oh, and he’s also another indie author, too.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep up a decent word count on Betrayer while starting to panic about book promotion, guest blogs, reviews, all those incredibly useful things that every author is loathe to do. If all we had to do was write then we’d all be best selling authors, right?

Anyhow, this blog will be transitioning over the next week or so and may have some confusing content as we ramp up to launch. It’s not official until an announcement goes out so disregard all the gribblies between now and then.

And thanks again to everyone who’s been so patient. Hopefully it’ll be worth the wait.

-Shawnee

Not Alan Rickman, too.

The universe is testing me. Or that’s what it feels like today. I’m a bit tired, stayed out too late at the Bowie tribute, woke up this morning with a slight edge, only to find out that Alan Rickman has died, too.

Of fucking cancer, too.

God damn it. Another one.

We can figure out how to grow meat in a petri dish, but we still can’t slay the monster that kills more than 1,500 people a day in the US. Cancer is the ultimate equalizer and while it may not be the Grim Reaper of the medical world, heart disease gets that slot, it comes a close second. If heart disease had a right hand man it would be cancer.

Fuck you, cancer. You’re a right ol’ bastard.

I’m tempted to continue to rant about cancer, but let’s talk about Alan Rickman instead.

There was a quality about Alan Rickman that is hard for me to describe – a certain gravitas about him that every time I heard his name, I couldn’t help but repeat, in a rather horrible English accent in my head, that he was an “actoooor.” He had that weighty, intellectual demeanor that spoke of his seriousness about his profession, that he could’ve just as easily fit in on the stage in Shakespeare’s time as he did in ours. If someone had told me that he was a time traveler from the 16th century, I would’ve been like, “Well, that explains it then.”

Alan Rickman was that whole Renaissance package: an actor, a graphic artist, a worldly-conscious patron. His brooding looks, deeply-seated voice, and elegant poise captured his audience, making him the perfect thespian, whether as the deliciously evil character of Hans Gruber, the complicated, tortured soul that was Professor Snape, or as Harry, a cheater who you wanted to shake, yet you couldn’t help but be sympathetic towards anyway. He could wear many hats and bring his gravitas to all of them equally.

I’m sorry to see him go. He was 69 years old, just like Bowie, which seems so young in this day and age, when we boast of cutting-edge science and top-notch medicine, when we can do things like grow protein in a bowl, or put a spacecraft on Mars. Life can be full of horrible juxapositions and vicious oxymorons. Whatever way you look at it, Alan Rickman died way too soon.

Farewell to you, sir.

 

 

 

Saying Good-Bye to the Starman

It took his death to pull me out of my writing frenzy and back here. I know. I’m terrible at keeping up this blog. My guilt has a lot to answer for. But it’s one of those things that had to be done. I wasn’t willing to let one of my heroes go without saying some things about the genius of a man who helped shaped me into who I am today.

I didn’t come to Bowie in the usual fashion. Even though I was a child in the ’70s, I wasn’t a child *of* the ’70s. Nope. Ziggy Stardust was released the year I was born and was Bowie’s 5th studio album. Fifth! Can you believe it? I wasn’t even a twinkle in my dad’s eye when Bowie started recording! It would be three years later after his self-titled debut before my parents even got married. That sort of stuff blows my mind. “Life on Mars” was released on Hunky Dory in 1973, a year after I was born. Finally, at least I existed by the time my favorite Bowie single came into being. Thank god.

But embarrassingly enough, while Hunky Dory and early Bowie is where my heart is, my gateway drug was probably Let’s Dance. I know. Don’t hate me. To be fair, I got Bowie on both ends during my teenagehood. “Little China Girl” was on MTV and I was starting to listen to the Smiths as a twelve year-old loner and then as I got to that awkward social outcast phase around fourteen or fifteen and starting to listen to the Cure then Bauhaus that’s when early Bowie came back on my radar. It was like, “Where did this odd, peculiar, yet-so-cool-I-can’t-stand-it man come from? Yeah, I went from Robert Smith to Pete Murphy to the original. It really happened that way. And of course, moving into the Goth scene from there, what Goth on the planet wasn’t a Bowie fan? It was a pre-requisite back in the day. No self-respecting goth band denied Bowie. It just wasn’t done. The man touched everything.

But that’s the thing about Bowie’s genius. It’s timeless, almost eternal. He speaks to you and by you, I mean all of us. Everyone I know has a Bowie story. And I mean everyone. Whether they liked him or thought he was just “okay”, my FB feed has been filled for days now with people sharing their truths about a man who undoubtedly is one of the biggest cultural influencers of our life time. Listened to Bowie while skinning up in the school parking lot? Check. Lost virginity to Bowie in the back of an old Impala? Check. Dated a girl in high school who wanted me to dress like Bowie? Check. Had a crush on him even when he was old enough to be my dad? Check.

Everyone has got a story. By the way, none of those are my story, ahem, just so we’re clear on that . . .

I’ve blathered on for a couple of paragraphs now and haven’t even touched on his acting career, or his videogame stint (really?), his partnerships with other greats like Eno and Lou. There is so much to this man that it would take more space than I’ve got here. And let’s be honest, Bowie isn’t definable. He defined.

In a couple of hours from now, I’ll be joining a rather eclectic horde of misfits in celebrating the life of David Bowie. It’s a last minute thing that includes musicians, actors, fans, artists, hippies, goths, clowns, old people on unicycles, jugglers, fire breathers, actually I might’ve made some of those up, but basically a hundred plus and a local camera crew. It’s going to prove to be an interesting night, I suspect, but I’m glad I’m going. I’m glad to go out into the darkness tonight and revel and make merry mischief in the name of a man who left this world much too soon, but left us a legacy to remember him by.

Good-bye Starman. It’s time for you to go home.

 

A word from your author.

I’m alive. No, really. I’ve got the video to prove it:

Gothic Revival

I just finished the big re-write on Protector. Thank god. It’ll be winging its way over to Bev for a final read through before tumbling its way over to Amanda for the start of copy editing. So close now. I can almost taste it.

Meanwhile, my brain is incapable of stringing together sentences having just finished going through 280 some odd pages of angst, mayhem, and horror. So today’s blog is going to be rather chaotic and probably slightly all over the place. Bear with me.

First things first.

I’m obsessed with gothic horror right now. Not necessarily unusual. I did my degree in 18th century English literature with a focus on the gothic novel. Add being a former goth on top of that, and it all slots nicely into place. So no surprise there.

I’d sort of lost touch with my previous fascination with that genre, focusing more on fantasy and urban paranormal stuff in the last couple of years. That was my mindset when I’d started writing The Shining Ones series way back in 2010. I wasn’t so much caught up in the sublime or my novel’s setting being a character in itself or mad monks and falling down castles. I was more interested in mythos. More interested in building my own angel mythology from scratch based on two points of interest: Neil’s take on Lucifer Morningstar in the Sandman series and one of my favorite songs of all time, “For Her Light” by a band that still has a very special place in my heart, The Fields of the Nephilim.

But more recently, there has been a resurgence in gothic horror that is taking me back to that genre. Have a look at Del Toro’s trailer for Crimson Peak.

Yeah exactly. I got shivers watching it the first time. Tom Hiddleston and creepy haunted houses. I’m in. PJ Harvey doing Nick Cave? Could it get any better? I was already heading in that direction, but Del Toro’s ability to make beautiful, ethereal things just pushed my mind into creative overdrive.

And if that wasn’t enough, I also just got done reading this, Jack Thorn by Katherine Harbour.

I don’t normally get book envy – it takes a lot for me  to go there – but I was absolutely impressed with her book to the point where I was like, “No seventeen year old should know that much about celtic mythology and be able to weave it into an enticing story that doesn’t read like a history lesson.” It even caused me to stalk her on Twitter. If you haven’t read it, do so. I could probably write a whole blog post on her setting descriptions alone. Very nice stuff. You can also be like me and follow her on Twitter if you’re so inclined. Just go here.

So here’s my second bit to this blog post that I want to bring to the party:

I predict that 2015-16 will see a huge uptick in gothic/steampunk literature, movies, etc.

It’ll be a bit like what Twilight was to vampires and paranormal romance or The Hunger Games and the slew of dystopian novels that followed. It’s coming our way. (ed note – Gothic is different from Steampunk for those who want to be pedantic about it; there is a nuance between the two, but for argument’s sake, I’m going to lump them together.)

If you don’t believe me, take a look at Madonna’s new video that came out two days ago and try not to dry heave. I couldn’t. In fact, I got really really mad to the point that my husband laughed at me. If I could’ve reached through my monitor and bitch-slapped Madonna for yet again more shitty music AND ripping off yet another subculture’s much-loved and respected identity for her own piece of tripe I would’ve. Does she have no shame?

Seriously. Enough already, Madge. Go retire into that good night and leave the rest of us alone. If the Steampunkers wanted to light you on fire, I’d gladly hand them the matches.

Sorry. Did I just say that out loud?

I could list several more examples of why I think this trend is going to continue, but I just realized that I’ve just done a smack down on Madonna so I’ll stop while I’m ahead. I’m pretty tired.

If you can think of any other examples to share, let me know, and I’ll put them up here.

 

Post War Glamour Girls

Because I love them. And you should, too.

Bad Romance

apologies to the author…I think

“I’m not talking about Lady Gaga – although to be fair, the tune is quite catchy. No, ladies, what I’m talking about is the surge in what can only be called appallingly-written-are-you-seriously-suggesting-that-someone-should-pay-money-for-this contemporary YA/NA/whatever the hell they are calling it these days ROMANCE.” – 2/27/15, me

That’s how I started this blog post almost four weeks ago. The irony of this post following one that I’ve written about Fifty Shades of Grey isn’t lost on me. It’s almost embarrassing, but when I’ve got to get something off my chest, there’s no stopping me. It’s a curse.

Normally, I have a lot of tolerance for romance. As a “girlie” girl, I have a soft spot in my heart for a little boy meets girl. Let’s face it: most of us have been there at one time or another: the thrills (and good sex) of a budding relationship, the bad boy that your friends all warned you about but you didn’t listen anyway, even the boy next door. We’ve all experienced love and heart break in our lives. Romance books, even so-so ones, take us out of our daily lives and remind us why we, homo sapiens, require love.

But the wave of horrible romance books that seem to have taken over Amazon, and I hate to say this out loud, but particularly in the self-pub space, is starting to drive me nuts. Like off the charts insane.

Rather than jeer and catcall from the peanut gallery, I have come up with a list of things that any romance writer should think about before even one word hits the page. Call it arrogance or altruism, either probably fits.

Shawnee’s Top 9 Tips for Romance Writers

1) Give your heroine a “real” life – She had a life before he entered it, and I’m assuming she’ll have one if he leaves it, too. Too often, I have found myself wanting to toss a romance book across the room without even getting half way through it because it’s obvious that the only life that the heroine is going to have is one that involves him – every waking moment of every freakin’ day. That’s not sexy, that’s pathetic. We’ve evolved a bit in the last fifty years. Women can have more than a man in their lives.

2) Don’t make her a victim – This is similar to giving your heroine a life – also give her a backbone. Don’t let her be weak, she’s not a doormat. She is capable of making decisions and decent ones at that. Maybe not all of the time, maybe not even most of the time. But she has more than two brain cells in her brain and she’s survived up to this point, which has got to count for something.

3) If you’re going to give her a best friend, make it count – A best friend often acts as a foil in a book, bringing out the best attributes and sometimes the worst ones, in your main protagonist. I love best friends. I love my own best friend. Best friends work best when you put the time and effort into them in your book – they are nothing but irritating and annoying if they don’t add anything to the story. The number of times I’ve seen a best friend introduced into a story only to disappear until the end is more than I care to count. If you want to focus just on the girl on guy action – that’s fine. Just don’t subjugate us to an inferior character because you feel like you need more subplots. It’s okay to just say no.

4) You don’t need sex to be romantic – I just finished a romance book that had absolutely no sex in it whatsoever and it still grabbed me by every heart string that I had and made me cry like a girl. That doesn’t happen very often. Even now, I wish I could create a relationship like the one that was created in that book. It was a thing of beauty and was made even stronger by the fact that it was unconsummated. Sex doesn’t equate to romance. In fact, as an exercise, I think every romance writer should force themselves to write a romance story that doesn’t even have a kiss in it. If you can write a good romance story without falling back on the sex then you’ve achieved nirvana.

5) Don’t make him a cliche – He is muscle-bound, rich, has a fast car, and a god in the bedroom. He is so stunningly perfect that he is in fact . . . B-O-R-I-N-G. Don’t get me wrong, I like hot and rich alot. More than I should. And good in bed? A winner every time. But too good of a thing is almost always that . . . too good to be true. This is probably more to do with personal preference, but I like my hero to be flawed, the more flawed the better. I want him to have hang ups beyond “mommy-issues”. I want him to worry and be insecure and to do embarrassing things because he’s not perfect. And god, please make him funny. Why does he have to be serious and brooding all the time?

6) For once, can he NOT be a stalker?

7) Older men can be hot, too – Why should young, strapping lads get all the fun? I love me an older, experienced hero who has the wisdom and the time under his belt to know his own mind. An older hero means he’s probably got more depth to him and more battle scars to give him character. I’m always surprised when I read a twenty-something man who acts like he’s forty-five. I find myself uttering things out loud like “There’s no way he’s twenty-eight,” or “What planet did he come from? No twenty-four year old has his shit together like that.” Older men can be just as hot – think John Malkovich or James Spader.

8) It’s okay if it’s not happily ever after – This is controversial, and many writers would argue with me on this point, but to me, a romance book is a voyage through someone’s relationship, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that relationship will end in a happily ever after. Some of the best romance books I’ve read didn’t end in the money shot – it ended by kicking you in the gut, with you screaming “Why, dear god? Why do you torment me so?” Those are not fluffy romances, I can tell you that for free. They are tear-your-heart-out-and-feed-it-to-you type of stories. They’re not for everyone. The point is don’t be afraid to pull your characters back apart. Even a brief connection was better than none at all.

9) Just because you think it’s a good idea, doesn’t make it so – This is more about writing in general and I hesitated on this last point because people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and all that. Not every book turns out to be a good one and while you might’ve put a lot of time and effort into it, know when to either re-write it big stylee or let it die a quiet death in your desk drawer. Get beta testers, join a writer’s group, get that thing out to as many people as you can before you publish it. Don’t subjugate the public at large to inferior pulp – you are not doing anyone any favors, including yourself and your career. Anyone can be a writer, not every book should be published. It’s a harsh reality, but a necessary one.