A.J. Race's Blog, page 31

Happy Christmas Eve

Translation, in case you can’t read my handwriting. 

Happy Christmas Eve Racers,

I’m finally enjoying a short vacation with a stop in Cali to see my family for Christmas, then its back home to probably do more writing. Hope your Christmas Eve and holiday celebrations are fun.

Magically Yours,

A.J.Race

the Blame Game

long with being the supposed end of the world, yesterday (the 21st) was supposed to be the day when the NRA provided what they claimed were “meaningful contributions” to ensure that shootings like in Connecticut never happen again.

Instead what we got was the same old story… blame the video games, violent movies and television. Pretty much, blame everything that isn’t guns.

I take a major issue with this assertion by the head of the NRA and really anyone who asserts that it’s violent video games, or violent movies or the like that’s causing this problem, as a novelist, and occasional scriptwriter I know that sometimes we write particularly dark and violent scenes. Sometimes we do it because that’s what the story calls for, and sometimes, (as in the case of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood to give an account of a very violent real world event in a book form. To tell a story of something that really happens.

Sometimes, art imitates life, paintings, films, television and even novels depict things that really happen… so why is it the solution of some to place blame on the storytellers? I’m not a gamer, but even I see that in a lot of games there is a story to be told, it may not be the typical story; and I will grant you that some people take things way too far, that’s true with everything. Think about it this way, people joke that men after a movie like let’s say Skyfall (being that’s the most recent action movie I’ve seen) makes you feel like you can kick ass! I personally feel like I want to be in a movie where I kick ass, or write a character who kicks ass but that’s just me. Conversely, if a woman (again I’m generalizing to make a point) were to see Bridget Jones she suddenly feels like anything in love is possible if she can only meet Mr. Right. I know, I’ve been there as well.

Both are pretty bad combinations if we’re honest with ourselves, but no one is talking about banning Romantic movies just because they give women unrealistic expectations of love, romance, sex and men.

Movies, and video games, and books (though I notice no one ever specifically says books–but where do most movies come from, particularly lately), are art. We have as a society agreed that art, regardless of what some might think about what constitutes “high” art or “good” art, contributes to make us a civilized society, and that’s one thing we never discuss in relation to the denigration of society, the fact that we cut funding for the arts first. Not everyone is meant to be a scientist or mathematician. Some people should be artists. Perhaps if we concerned ourselves more with providing children with a well rounded education that includes artistic programs rather than higher SAT scores that mean very little in the real world, we could make a real change for the better.

Guest Spots & Interviews

A while back on this blog I offered anyone who was interested the opportunity to write a guest post for the Daily Racewood and even to be interviewed by me. Thus far only two people have taken me up on the interview front and only one has taken me up on the guest post part, but the offer still stands. Anyone who would like to contribute a guest post that they feel would be appropriate for this blog, preferably about self publishing and/or writing, I would love to hear from you. Same goes with interviews, you can contact me via the form on my Contact page or you can simply comment on this post to let me know your interested and I’ll get in touch with you. You can tweet me @Racewood, Facebook me at www.facebook.com/CultofRacewood. Or email me direct at thedailyracewood@gmail.com

You can also contact me if you have any suggestions for things you’d like for me to write about, or discuss in my upcoming podcast, the Daily Racewood Radio.

1-21-13

 

 

 

(the following was written 12/16 and 12/18 respectively, originally I had this finished then, changed my decision, so my new thoughts have been added in italics)

irst and foremost I’d like to thank everyone who commented and let their opinions be known on my Second Opinions blogpost. I deeply appreciated everyone’s thoughts on the matter and I took them into consideration when making my final decision. Though everyone seemed to agree (as I did, at the time) that if it served the story I should keep it, ultimately I decided that a long with pushing the date back one month, I realized that the alternate version I’d written in the wake of the terrible tragedy that unfolded, would better serve the story. I confess, the tragedy did play a large role in my decision to go with the rewrite. As authors, we write things, sometimes terrible things, that happen in real life, and maybe we don’t think about what they would look like in reality, until we see them up close and personal like this. And for me, there is nothing more terrifying than seeing something I wrote months before, suddenly played out like some horror movie all over the news. It forced me to ask myself, why I had written such a scene in the first place (where had that even come from?). It was only after deep introspection that I remembered why…

Goddess of Carnage is a story largely centered around the end of the world. The culmination of World War III, as it’s mentioned in book 1, and this ending was, for me, the idea that, just because the world had ended (perhaps more in a metaphorical sense), did not mean that evil would suddenly vanish from the world. The world had gone through a change, many had lost things they held dear, and so with nothing to lose, a minor character, did a horrible thing that will forever change the life of my main character. The point was to say that after everything that had happened, after all of that, could we honestly expect things to really change? Sure for a few months it would be peaceful, maybe even a year, but if the war we still find ourselves in has taught us anything, it is that even if we will never forget the lives we lost in one tragedy, that won’t stop other evils from occurring.

One thing I realized however was that evil, didn’t necessarily have to have a face. As writers, as human beings really, we expect that evil, the cause of suffering should have a face. That the very real monsters and demons we all face should be tangible, but sometimes those demons are unseeable. I decided that if there was no physical being to blame the character’s death on (as in the rewrite it’s an accident) Eric is still changed forever, but in a completely different way. 

At the end of the day… life goes on. It has too. If we allow ourselves to be stopped by every horrible senseless tragedy, we might never get out of bed in the morning. Because there’s a lot we don’t know about, a lot that doesn’t make the national news, it’s the gang violence, the six year old with leukemia, the children in countries so far away they almost seem like they’re on another planet that live in the worst possible conditions imaginable, the daily horrors that some people are forced to live, but that we don’t see. Maybe we don’t want to see them, maybe we know if we did it would be far too painful. The truth is, this isn’t just an American problem, or a gun control problem, it’s a lot of really small problems, all around the world that have culminated into very large problems, that have to be addressed and dealt with, but that, unfortunately have no easy solutions. Change will not come easy, or maybe even soon, but we have to believe that it will come. And that, in the end, is what it’s all about. Hope. Because in the end, that’s all we really have. Hope, and love, and the knowledge that even the darkest times can’t last forever.

It’s interesting how such a small scene, can weigh so heavily on a writer’s mind. I suppose this is what they mean when they say what makes a writer is their ability to feel others emotions. 

The Final 24

This post was written prior to my decision to push back the publication date of Goddess of Carnage to January, I’m keeping it here however because my heartfelt thanks is still very much  meaningful. I will probably repost this again in January towards the final 24 hour mark before publication. 

-A.J.

 can’t believe it’s finally here. In just under a day Goddess of Carnage will officially be available after months of hard work, as I make my way into the home stretch I have to say I’m incredibly excited and there are a lot of people I would like to thank. First and foremost my editors Lori Fox and Kiri Smith who helped me make Goddess of Carnage better than I ever could have imagined. I would also like to thank my cover designer Adrianne for providing me with another inspiring cover, and most especially I would like to thank my mother for being such an inspiration and continuing to support me throughout my self publishing endeavors.

I would also like to thank all of you wonderful readers for following me and supporting my insatiable need for attention. For wonderful and insightful comments and for the friendships I’ve created here on this blog. It’s been a crazy ten months since Bridge of Memories, and a lot has changed. I now have more followers than I ever imagined, and I hopefully have broadened my readership a little as well. I’m incredibly excited that after such a very long time coming Goddess of Carnage will be available shortly.

Thank you all.

-A.J.

ICYMI: Jack of all Trades

Originally posted: 2/29/12

f you’ve read any kind of books on self publishing (and I suggest that you do). Somewhere you’ll have come across the sentence: “self published authors must be a jack of all trades”. You have to learn marketing, and design, how to layout your book and do your own cover, be your own publicist and if you don’t have one your own editor, accountant, web designer, social networker and all around badass.

There’s a lot that goes into this process. And if you’re not prepared it can be overwhelming. Hell even if you are prepared it’s overwhelming. There’s a million different things to consider, and unfortunately things will happen that you simply cannot plan for.

For instance, I’ve been working on getting my ebook onto the iBookstore through apple, quite unsuccessfully I might add. In large part due to the fact that they insist my metadata title match up with the title on my cover. Which I changed, but for some reason Apple still isn’t accepting. (Suffice it to say, I think I’m going to just use iBooksAuthor for this one, even if it is mostly for textbooks, for the sheer fact of –– this process is driving me a little crazy. Barnes and Noble and Kindle both accepted my book as is. No meta data problems, nothing… but this is a rant for another post)

The point to all of this, is that when it comes to self publishing, you sort of have to expect the unexpected.

I for instance didn’t anticipate some of the coloring issues on the cover… or that wanting to put my hardcover on Amazon would require a ridiculous markup that would make it almost un-buyable for any perspective purchaser, and I still would not make even 10% of the cover price. Royalties and how much money they say you’re going to make and how much you actually get paid per book are sort of two different things, or at least… according to my calculator.

ICYMI: Interior Designer of Books

Originally Posted: 2/26/12

his might sound lazy but… I kinda think next time around I’d rather have someone design the interior of my book for me. The reason is simple… I’ve done it myself before. I know that I can do it and I know how to do it and… quite honestly. I’m exhausted. Knowing that you can do something and wanting to do it again… it’s a tough call.

Of course having said that… I know I’ll end up doing the interior of my book again for the simple fact that I’m an OCD control freak who if I let one more person do something that I can’t have some control over might lose my goddamn mind.

I don’t really control the cover beyond the extent of telling the designer what I want it to look like, and I don’t have control over the book while it’s with my editor so… there isn’t a whole hell of a lot I have control over anymore… which makes me wonder… how much worse would I be had I gone the traditional route?

Let’s face it, I’m a serious SERIOUS control freak. I can freely admit the ONLY reason I even put my book into InDesign to revamp the interior was because I needed something I could control. I needed to feel like there was something I could have some sort of control over so I didn’t go insane.

I’m taking a psychology class, believe me I know how fucking insane I am. I get it. But actually I’m dealing with it. Let’s be honest… had I not decided to throw everything into InDesign there’s a very good chance I would have been driving everyone insane with questions of when is this going to be done or when is that going to be done. Having control over some part of the book keeps me some semblance of sane. And for what it’s worth I think it was worth it to have that control. I love the way the book turned out… and ultimately we made it on time.

Second Opinions…

I’ve written and rewritten this post a thousand times now… I’ve debated back and forth on all my options and I’ve decided that I want the perspective of other writers…

A long time ago, before what happened in Connecticut on Friday, before even what happened in Aurora, I wrote the ending of book 2 in which in a small scene, admittedly smaller than I realized in retrospect, a school shooting occurs. An elementary school no less. It’s not really seen, merely mentioned on the news, but a main character was involved in the sense that his daughter was the target.

After what happened in Connecticut I’ve been debating ever since whether or not I should hold off on the book altogether for a month or so, or whether or not I should just change the ending altogether.

I could really use some help on this guys. I don’t know what to do, and I would love a second opinion.

A part of me thinks I’m reading too much into this, I am after all, a small self published author, but another part of me thinks it’s selfish to even bring it up at all. As writers, we often blur the lines of fiction and reality for the sake of a story. We write very real, very traumatic events that have happened, or could happen, because it’s part of the story. It isn’t to be calculating or heartless, it’s just part of what we do.

But that leads to an even bigger question… is there a line that art shouldn’t even cross? I feel there’s a bigger debate to be had here, beyond just the debate of whether or not we need to reform our gun laws and our mental health care system.

The Next Big Thing: Blog Chain

Pat Bertram over on her blog posted about the Next Big Thing blog chain and how she was invited to do it by a fellow author and rather than tagging five authors she decided to make it sort of an open opportunity which naturally I leapt at the chance for. The first time I heard about this I hoped I would eventually get invited to participate for the simple fact that I really wanted an excuse to talk about book 3 and what better way to do so than this?

What is your working title of your book? The Raleigh Affair
Where did the idea come from for the book? Pretty much since I started writing Secrets of Witches in 2002 I had the basic idea of this final novel, a lot of course has changed since then, but the idea that started it all has not.


What genre does your book fall under? I would imagine fantasy and perhaps a bit of thriller depending on who you ask. 
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Oooh. Well I’ve always imagined myself for at least two roles (I’ll leave you to guess which two), but I think someone like Sarah Jessica Parker for Elizabeth could be fun. 
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? The facade is crumbling and soon all will be revealed.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Self published again. 
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Still in the process but thus far longer than I’d prefer.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? I really don’t think there’s any thing like it. 
Who or what inspired you to write this book? Well originally with the series as I expressed in A History of Secrets I was inspired by Harry Potter and J.K.Rowling however more recently I’ve been inspired by the fact that I don’t think there’s really a book like it for many many reasons. 
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? It’s the final book in the Secrets of Witches trilogy and I’m super excited for it. 

Well there you have it folks. Book 3 in a nutshell. I love the title The Raleigh Affair but as with several titles I considered before Goddess of Carnage and Bridge of Memories, it doesn’t quite fit with the theme. Drat.

As for my five authors:

Michelle Proulx

Journey of Jordanna East: Jordanna

Huw Thomas

Whitney Rains

Wondering Grace 

I kinda wish I could pick more than five but that’s my list for now.

the Daily Racewood’s Favorite Things 2012

ast year around this time I took a page from Oprah’s book and created my favorite things. Things that I absolutely can’t live without and that I simply had to share. And this year I decided to do it again, for those of you who may have missed it.

1. MacBook Pro. I think by now it’s pretty obvious that I’m a major Apple fanboy. I have been for years… but my love of Apple was rekindled when I bought my first Macbook back in 2007 as my eighth grade graduation present. I had been working on Windows for years, more out of no other option and I hadn’t realized how much I’d even missed it. After an ugly mishap less than a year later and the Macbook deteriorated I got my first Macbook Pro in early 2010. I do everything on my Macbook Pro from writing novels with Scrivener also on this list to writing blogposts (occasionally also with Scrivener). My graphics are created on my Macbook, pretty much everything is done on my laptop. I love the convenience of having a laptop and the portability.

2. iMac: I don’t have a desktop anymore (and may not for a while) but when I saw this new beauty with it’s sleek design I realized that there was a lot about having a desktop computer that I missed. Specifically sizing. It may not seem like much, but when your a graphic designer, a thirteen inch computer screen doesn’t quite cut it.

3. iPad: For a long time my mother wondered why on earth I would need a Macbook, iPhone and an iPad, but after you’ve had one for a while you can’t imagine how you ever lived without the trio. It sounds crazy but I actually use it for a lot. Checking email is actually a lot more fun most days on the iPad than on my laptop, and I definitely prefer it to the iPhone for reading. Occasionally I like to use the iPad to check WordPress and play games.

4. Scrivener: The one stop shop powerhouse for writers. To date I have never found a piece of writing software that I have enjoyed as much as Scrivener. And I’ve tried more than I care to remember. To my mind the greatest feature of Scrivener is it how it’s so simple and yet so powerful. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from what began as an Apple application.

5. Adobe Creative Suite 5: For those of you who are graphic designers you’re probably wondering why it’s not CS6. I like CS6 but like the iMac I can’t currently afford it, so I’m still on 5. And 5 is still extremely powerful and useful and I like that. (Currently the school is on CS6 so I have played with it). Between InDesign in which I create all my graphics for this site and Photoshop and occasionally Illustrator CS5/6 has everything I need to make my graphic work.

6. WordPress: I absolutely love WordPress and blogging. In particular, I love the sense of community.

7. Garageband/iMovie: I recently bought the iPad version of Garageband mostly just to play with when I realized that it actually might be helpful for the podcast coming later this year. iMovie has been particularly helpful in my creating my first book trailer and between the two of them I feel like I can create a lot of really fun and exciting things to add to my website over the next few years.

8. Spotify–I think it’s a pretty safe argument that art requires music. Music is the cornerstone of all artistic creations and to that end, Spotify is one of the best options I can think of. Because like the radio it’s free, but unlike the radio you get to chose what songs you want to listen too. What could be better? Like Classical music or Jazz to write to? Spotify has you covered there too. Actually Spotify Radio is probably the best option on that front (unless you already know the names of classical songs)

9. iTunes 11: Not 2011, system 11. As an Appleholic, I’ve loved iTunes since the beginning, but this change is by far one of my favorites mostly because from a design standpoint it’s just so pretty. Beyond the psychical however, there’s a lot to love about iTunes 11.

10. Pixelmator: If you can’t spring for the expense of Photoshop which admittedly is a lot, Pixelmator is a surprisingly powerful alternative for about a quarter the cost. I actually purchased this before I was able to get CS5 and I have to say it definitely did the job.

11. Dropbox and the Cloud: They say that cloud computing is the wave of the future and I think that’s.. mostly true. I’m not sure that people would blindly accept going exclusively to the cloud any time soon, however I love the convenience that the cloud offers. I can’t tell you the horror stories I’ve heard from designers about the fatal crash of flash drives so it’s nice knowing that I have alternatives where I need them. Dropbox is by far one of my favorites, with SugarSync, and Box.com in close second. I’ve tried Microsoft’s Drive and Google Drive, neither of which are particularly special in my opinion and while I love Apple, iCloud isn’t so much for Cloud storage like Dropbox as it is backing up and updating your iDevices, music, movies, etc.

12. CreateSpace/Lulu: As a self publisher these two companies make my life. They are the reason that I’m able to create psychical versions of my novel without much cost to myself, and that’s something I’m extremely grateful for, particularly in a world where traditional publishing is slowly creeping into the self publishing market, it’s nice to know that for now at least companies like CreateSpace and Lulu exist without cost so I can publish my book without spending a fortune.

Blogs: 

Here at the Daily Racewood we (and by we I mean me) love blogs. It’s hard to chose any kind of order so this is really in no particular order  my favorite writing blogs of 2012.

Writer Unboxed

Catherine Caffeinated

Writers Digest

Jordanna East

Pub(lishing) Crawl

Terrible Minds

Read>Play>Edit

InkyGirl

The Book Designer

I feel like there are probably some that I’m leaving out, and this only includes writers blogs that I happen to follow.

And of course my favorite thing of all, is all of you lovely followers who have made this all possible for me. Thank you, and Happy Holidays