A.J. Race's Blog, page 19

Expect Different

hen it comes to life after Edge of Darkness, which admittedly I spend probably more time thinking about than I do thinking about writing Edge of Darkness there is always one universal that rings true. I desperately want to write something that is drastically different from anything I’ve ever written before.

For a long time now I’ve considered working on one of the many different projects that I’ve written and re-written at various times over the years, but lately I want something fresh, something that definitely won’t play it safe (because quite frankly I don’t ever want to play it safe, where’s the fun in that?). I’ve also been debating off and on now whether or not it might be worth it to try for a literary agent again. It isn’t necessarily that I don’t enjoy self publishing, but I keep feeling as though something in my gut is telling me that I need to try this again, and ignoring my self is exactly how I ended up with a month on a WordPress.org blog that went nowhere.

I have absolutely nothing to lose from the endeavor, except maybe a little bit of time, but it could be fun. Of course I’m getting entirely ahead of myself, I still have absolutely no idea what I even want to write next, and I probably won’t until I’ve finished book 3. But I’m a firm believer that it’s good to have goals and something to look forward too. So I will continue to look forward to what the hell it is I’m going to write post-Edge of Darkness and all the excitement that comes with starting a new story. Something fresh, and unlike anything I’ve tried before.

Nightmare

s another chapter finally comes to a close, I’m beginning to realize what part of the problem might have been with regards to why it’s taken me so long to finish Edge of Darkness. 

This particular chapter, tentatively titled Nightmare contains, to my mind, one of the darkest scenes I have ever written, and it’s one that I’ve been sort of trying to avoid for weeks now. It isn’t that I didn’t know that the scene was coming, or that I hadn’t prepared myself. I had known for ever, and I had done my best to try and separate myself from it. But it didn’t make it any easier and in the end, it’s taken the better part of a month to write this chapter.

A part of me hopes that because I haven’t really rushed myself to finish the final book that maybe, maybe it will mean in the end that it’s a better book for it. That said, if I’m ever going to finish it before October (because yes, I really really want this last book to be available by Halloween) then I’m going to have to kick it into high gear from here on out. As of this chapter, I’m probably a little over half way to my word count goal, and I know I have quite a bit of work left to do before it’s all over. But… I’m excited. I’ve finished (what I hope is) the most difficult part of the novel and now all that’s left is what I hope will be a lot of exciting things to come.

I’m still really hoping the move helps give me that change of pace I’ve been looking for in order to finish off the last of the book.

PS: Racewood Radio will return after the move, next Saturday. I’m seriously debating making it a special hour long episode considering I missed two episodes.

Packing

t’s amazing to me how a house can be so full and yet so empty at the same time. Packing all of your worldly possessions into as many boxes as it takes, you start to realize how much you can accumulate in two and a half years. It doesn’t seem like much, when it’s sitting there. Decorations, paperwork, stacks upon stacks of books. A chest of drawers to organize your papers, dozens of pens, and notebooks. It’s the little things that seem to accumulate the fastest, but when you consider that just two and a half years earlier, we had next to nothing except what we could fit in our car (we had given away a lot, and thrown away what was left to get to Seattle) it’s amazing how fast it all builds up. Even still it never seems like all that much, until you have to prepare to move it somewhere else.

As I looked through my closet I suddenly found myself buried beneath mounds and mounds of clothes, clothes I hadn’t seen for months, perhaps even the entire two years. Had I even worn half of these? Did I still fit into them? What about these shoes? Where have they even been? I’ve been looking for this…so that’s where that went! I could spend hours just finding things I was sure I’d lost, or I’d forgotten I’d even had. I suppose you could call that the more adventurous side of moving. Finding old knick-knacks.

But then the question comes, as it always does, of what to keep. Given the opportunity I would probably prefer to get rid of everything I have, and simply start over in a new place, rather than moving. Call it lazy, but to be honest, if I have to move it (rather than have someone do it for me, as in when you have something delivered) I’d rather just get rid of it. But then, that still requires some amount of moving it still doesn’t it? I guess it’s fortunate then that we’re not moving particularly far.

And the Title Is…(gif edition)

I’m

trying.

to.

make.

this.

as

dramatic.

as.

possible.

(I know what your thinking…)

The

long

awaited,

(if only in my own mind)

title

of

Secrets of Witches 

book 3.

is……………

…………

…….

….

…

Blog of the Week: Amelia

here are many blogs that I particularly enjoy from Huffington Post but none quite as much as the blogger known simply as Amelia. I’ve been following her for a long time, pretty much ever since I read her first post regarding her young son who is (much like myself) kind of in love with Blaine from Glee. It was adorable and sweet and the way in which she handled the situation to me, was what I thought every parent should strive for. Every post she writes continues to inspire and amaze. (Having a mother who has always been supportive of me, has been a great blessing, and it’s unfortunate that there are not more mothers like my own and Amelia).

It saddens me the amount of hate she manages to get, how evil people can be, and it’s hard not to be disgusted by humanity on the whole because of it. No not everyone is like this, and the tide is turning in favor of the LGBT community, and it has for a while, but often times I can’t help but wonder if Darwin had seen the internet and what has become of it, if he would not come to the conclusion as I have, that de-evolution may in fact be a thing. There have always been bigots sure, but it seems the megaphone for which they were able to be heard has been impossibly amplified by blogs, podcasts, Youtube and the like. Worse still, it’s even managed to make people who are otherwise not necessarily intolerant or complete and utter dickheads, to become one anyway. Instant communication and information comes at an ugly price.

Reading blogs like this however, that continue in spite of the hate. That refuse to be silenced, and refuse to live in fear of those who are to afraid of anyone who is different from them or who challenges their view of what it means to be a man, that gives me hope. People who are willing to let their kids be themselves, no matter what that means. People who know that it is more important to love your child than listen to the haters who want to tell you you’re wrong, these people are my heroes. To all the mothers out there, who fight for your child no matter what, who will love your child, and defend your child’s right to be them, thank you. You inspire me that humanity isn’t as lost as it sometimes feels.

Co-Authored

ecently my best friend and I decided to co-author a novel together for the sheer fun of it. We had no particular idea in mind and finally after a great deal of consideration we think we’ve come up with what can only be described as a very bare bones sort of deal. What makes it even more exciting is that she’s agreed to allow me to post it here. For you all (as soon as we have a title and actually get something written down of course) to enjoy and comment on.

I’ve been wanting for a long time to write something that I could share exclusively with you on this blog, and up until now (with the exception of the Half Past Midnight) story, I really haven’t been able to come up with anything. I’ve been so obsessed with book 3 that I really haven’t had a spare second to try and come up with anything else. All the other books that i could be working on, the details are there, I know everything, I wanted something fresh, and exclusive to the blog and I’ve finally found it.

I think a major part of the reason I’m soooo excited is because it finally gives me something to work on that isn’t book 3. I’ve been trying to work on something else so that I’d at least be writing (because not writing really makes me crazy) but that I could use to take my mind off of this. We haven’t quite worked out a title, but genre wise it’s sort of going to be maybe like a supernatural thriller. We were trying for horror but I’m pretty sure in the end it’s going to be more supernatural thriller than anything. I’m super excited and I really hope that you all enjoy it as much as we enjoy writing it.

PS: I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’ve made the post yet or mentioned it in a post, so tomorrow I’m going to make an official announcement re: the title of book 3. Pretend to be surprised if you already know it.

Lessons Learned

 should have known from how stressful the transfer over to my own self hosted WordPress blog was, that this wasn’t going to work. I should have known that, it was a terrible idea, and that I would regret it. I could feel it, but I squashed down that little voice inside my head that told me it was a mistake and went on ahead because I was convinced that it would all work out for the best. Of course, I had been down this road before hadn’t I?

I had had a self hosted WordPress blog back in 2008, the first time I’d ever used Cult of Racewood. At the time the brand was nothing like it is now, I had no followers whatsoever and in the entire year I had the blog I don’t think I ever gained even one, part of the reason I even thought I should try again was the simple fact that I had gained quite a few loyal followers, and WordPress had created something called Jetpack which supposedly transferred your followers, but which apparently didn’t do enough, as I quickly realized almost no one was seeing my posts anymore. My likes and comments had dropped through the floor and the only thing that had come close to salvaging it was sharing my posts back on this blog anyway. Now I was blogging in two separate places in the desperate hope that just one of them would reach my followers, whom I so desperately missed hearing from.

April has been a horribly stressful month for about a million different reasons, not the least of which have been this blog. But, at least 2 out of 3 of the things that have been driving me mad are fixed and soon this blog will be too.

At least it only took me a month and six dollars to learn this lesson, it could have been far worse.

PS: I’m glad to be home.

New Beginnings

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For me, and for many of my friends, April has been a hell of a month, or perhaps a better way to phrase it would be, a month of hell. For varying reasons. As May looms around the corner, I find myself trying to be hopeful that this will be a better month than the last. That maybe things will get better. I have to have this hope, because if I don’t, I may very well go insane. (Which for a writer is a fine line anyway).

I noted, however briefly, that I managed to get a bit of writing done during this past week, and in addition to that, I’ve also been working on ideas with my friend Kat as we decided randomly while attempting to record a podcast that it would be fun for us to co-author a novel together. Even though we both have a billion other book ideas we should be working on, instead.

It’s an exciting new adventure for me, the idea of co-authoring a novel with a friend. I had never considered the concept before, and actually if I’m being honest, the idea had always sort of repulsed me before. I like writing on my own, I work well on my own. Having to answer to someone and explain my ideas to someone or my reasoning to someone is something I’ve never had to do before… maybe a little in editing, but for the entire novel? Having to confer with someone and come up with ideas and characters and concepts together? Where would we even start? Who would start and how exactly did we want to write this? Sharing scenes in a chapter or the characters themselves? It all had to blend and be cohesive and the idea was that a reader shouldn’t be able to tell the difference in writing styles at all, which while I do feel Kat is a great writer, we obviously have different styles. It was a tall order to fill, but it was a challenge I was eager to take on. Thus far, we’ve come up with a sort of bare bones of a story, and I actually can’t wait to get started on it.

Telling A Story

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Whether designers know it or not, they are story tellers as much as authors are. As a designer you must paint a picture not only to your clients, but also to their potential customers. With words and pictures you can tell an entire story from start to finish and convince the customer that this product is what they need.

Much like writers, designers have an outline process, the actual creative process and then an editing process. The difference is in the names, but the core concepts are virtually the same and like writing the process for creating a design can be long and arduous, and like most artists they are also often perfectionists.

But there are some things, that could do well to translate over between these two ideas. For instance, one of the core concepts of design is KISS. Not the band, or even kiss in the romantic sense. It’s an acronym meaning Keep It Simple, Stupid. Writers often fall into the habit of overcomplicating things. Getting overly descriptive or trying to use more complex words in order to either sound smart or make their readers feel dumb, whether subconsciously or not. I’ve read a great deal of writers blogs that suggest there’s no need to pull out a thesaurus to look for a ‘better’ word when a simple one would suffice just as well. But there’s more to ‘keeping it simple’. For instance, in Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, he explained that a writer should, “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”

I’ll leave it for you to decide what exactly he means by that, but the main point of his entire ten rules can be summed up with the KISS acronym.

Exclusively on Kindle

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[image error]ccording to Amazon having your book exclusively available via the Kindle through their KDP Select program allows you the opportunity to make more money, but is alienating potential readers who don’t have a Kindle worth the potential better earnings?

In a lot of ways, having my book exclusive to Kindle has been both a blessing and a curse, it’s certainly easier and a lot less tracking to do, I hardly ever look at my Kindle sales, but at least I know that if I want to track how well my book is (or isn’t doing) I only have to look at Kindle. I don’t have to check Nook, or Apple, or Smashwords or really anything but Amazon. If I’m so inclined. It also means a lot less work when it comes to publishing too. I don’t have to format my book a thousand different ways. I seriously hated using Word for Smashwords, I do all that formatting for Nook, Kindle and the paperback version of my novel all in InDesign and you expect me to use Word now?

Depending on what program you use, I know that Scrivener exports to both .mobi (Kindle) and .epub (iPad and nook) but neither one quite guarantees the level of quality you could get from doing it yourself. I say could because doing it yourself is still a pain in the ass. Thankfully following in the footsteps of iBooksAuthor, Nook has taken a progressive step in the right direction allowing authors to write and publish their books from their new nook Press program. Which I’m eager to try out (but haven’t as of yet).

I renewed my KDP Select ‘contract’ a few months ago, when it was up (I don’t remember the exact date) for both Goddess and Bridge of Memories, but the truth is, the ends have yet to justify the exclusive means. KDP Select sounds nice on paper, and really the week I had my books free was a great sales tool, but it exclusivity comes at a fairly high price, and for some authors, especially ones who want to cast the widest net possible, it just isn’t worth it.