L.R. Lam's Blog, page 40

Flabbergasted #75

This is from Edinburgh Airport. I know that Pantomime is/was in Heathrow and Inverness airports as well. Maybe others?

I don’t really know what it means. Am I 75 across all genres? Or just children’s though those don’t seem to be children’s  books)? Is that across all WHSmiths? But whatever it means, I’m going to take it as a good sign!

A huge thank you to everyone who’s picked up Pantomime so far. You are all wonderful

The LGBT Read-a-thon!

The 3rd-6th of May was the LGBT Read-a-thon, hosted by Faye @ Daydreamer’s Thoughts. I joined though I couldn’t quite participate in everything as I was swamped with schoolwork. I read one book for the readathon, which was I am J by Cris Beam.

Description:

J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was; a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up a “real boy” and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible – from his family, from his friends…from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he’s done hiding – it’s time to be who he really is. And this time he is determined not to give up, no matter the cost.

An inspiring story of self-discovery, of choosing to stand up for yourself, and of finding your own path – readers will recognize a part of themselves in J’s struggle to love his true self.

Transgender teens are some of the most underrepresented groups in YA fiction (Gay YA is about 1% of books published, with trangender teens about 4% of that 1%). It was a great book. J had a young, authentic voice, and he was full of so much confusion and rage. He did typical, stupid teenage things, but he grew quite a bit throughout the book. I read it in a day and definitely recommend it.

I also participated in the Twitter chat that happened Sunday evening. If you missed it, check out #LGBTread on Twitter. I answered some questions about Pantomime as well.

Faye is also hosting a LGBT Giveaway at her blog, which you can read more about here.

I hope there’s another one, as I had a lot of fun, and there’s still plenty of LGBT reads for me to get through!

The Rainbow List and Recent Reads

Hello, all.

Recently, Pantomime was nominated for the ALA Rainbow List for 2014. Wonderful! Very honoured to be included.

Books read last month were very low. I had to finish editing Shadowplay, do loads of uni work, and I’m slowly but surely working through some beta reads for friends.

1. The Night Itself – Zoe Mariott. I won and advance reader copy of this. It was such good fun! Japanese myth let loose in modern day London.

2. Beauty – Robin McKinley. This was one of my favourite books as a child, so I re-read it. As an adult, I had some niggles with the pacing, but it was still a fun read and reminded me how much I needed this book as a bullied 11-year-old.

3. Poison – Sarah Pinborough. A clever spin on Snow White, with the queen being given a more multi-faceted approach. A pity Snow White and the Huntsmen wasn’t this good. My only niggle is that it ended on a more open note than I was anticipating.

4. Life After Life – Kate Atkinson. Damn her and her clever prose. It can make me weep with envy. This book is like an endless series of dreams, showing both the roads taken and not taken. Ursula Todd is many women, yet she is the same woman in all of them. So very clever.

I just have to hunker down for another week and a half, and then I’m going to throw myself back into my WIP and another few projects. Can’t wait!

Shadowplay (Pantomime2) is Submitted!

So, a few days ago I pressed “send” and delivered Shadowplay to my editor at Strange Chemistry. It’ll be out on shelves in a little more than eight months, which is crazy to think.

It’s another one of those milestones in my fledgling writer’s life. I proved to myself that I could do it–I had more than one book in me, and I could write it over twice as fast as the other one. I could continue Micah Grey’s story and in the end, I’m really rather proud of how it turned out. In some ways, this is the beginning, as now it’ll start the process from manuscript to Real Book, but all in all, I’m pleased with my sequel. I think I raised the stakes and challenged myself as a writer. I definitely had my sticking points, overall the process wasn’t quite as difficult as I feared (I jinxed myself, though–my WIP is currently REALLY difficult to make up for it!).

Soon, I’ll go through the whole process I did with Pantomime again–more edits, a new cover, new blog posts, interviews, holding the ARC, reviews (though of course I have the fear that people won’t like the sequel as much as the first one! Ah!), seeing the finished books, sending it off into the world, hoping it flies.

But not quite yet. So, off goes my second book, which I can happily ignore for a bit while I get on with other projects, and keep dreaming and hoping.

Recent Events

I’ve done a couple of Pantomime events over the past few weeks.

On April 13th, I had a signing at Waterstones in Aberdeen at the Langstane Branch. It was a quiet day in the store but I still met a few strangers and sold some books. It was really wonderful to meet Lee, the manager, Pamela, the amazing bookseller who kept me company, and Dawn, a fellow Robin Hobb fan. There’s still leftover signed copies in that branch, and evidently last week Pantomime was their #1 title in store! Yay!

On April 18th, I Skyped a library in Florida, St. Johns, and spoke to a few teens for their teen coffeehouse night. It was a really nice, relaxed event. One teen even read me one of his poems and another showed me his artwork. The librarian, Alexandra, has been an online friend for years, so it was so cool to be able to talk to her face-to-face and have a glimpse of where she works.

If you’re interested in an event, such as a school or library visit, either in person or via Skype, please get in touch via my contact form on this website.

Catch-up Post

Event!

I have a signing next Saturday, April 13, at the Waterstones (Langstane branch – the one by Bon Accord St) in Aberdeen. It starts at 1 pm, and it might go until 3, or until it seems like I’m just sitting there by myself. It’d be wonderful if you could come or tell people who might be interested about it. I’m numbering the first 500 signed copies of Pantomime, so who knows, maybe they’ll be an investment down the line

Faceboook Event Page

Books read in March:

Geek Girl – Holly Smale (contemporary, YA, model, humour). I know Holly on Twitter and was just in the mood for a light fun read when this book came out. I devoured it in a day. Harriet Manners, self-proclaimed-geek-turned-model is clever and self-deprecating, and while the plot might be a bit predictable, it’s a fun journey. And if you think the idea of getting plucked from a mall to become a high fashion model sounds far-fetched–it happened to Holly!

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan – Jake Adelstein (nonfiction, memoir, japan, crime). Craig read this about a year ago and I finally got around to reading it. It’s a really interesting look at a world I didn’t know much about.

Writing the Other – Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward (nonfiction, writing, diversity). Considering most of my writing addresses the notion of “the other” in some way, I thought I’d give this a quick read. I felt I learned a few things from it.

The Girls – Lori Lansen (contemporary, conjoined twins, canada). A beautifully written book about two conjoined twins growing up in rural Canada. One of my favourite reads this year.

Some stuff:

I had a nice review in SoSoGay magazine (reveals “spoilers”)

I had an interview at Pen to Paper, and Dani ran a giveaway for a signed copy of Pantomime.

That’s all for now. Finishing up edits on Shadowplay to give to my editor at the end of the month, plus lots of uni work. I do miss free time.

 

Guest Post: Mike Stewart on Adding a Dash of Transmedia to your Writing

Today on the blog I have my fellow Inkbot, Mike Stewart. The Inkbots are an online writing group from the people who made it to the later rounds of Angry Robot’s two Open Door months. Mike has just self-published his short YA novel, Assured Destruction, and it’s an ambitious experiment on transmedia. It’s a lot of work, and it’s really interesting to see all the various outlets he’s creating for people to interact with him, his characters, and his story, and I hope it pays off.  Here’s Mike!

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Do you want to separate your writing from the pack? To rise above the noise? Why not employ a methodology used by major Hollywood Studios, from the creators of SUPERNATURALS to HEROES, to many major films and gaming franchises like Assassin’s Creed? It’s called transmedia!

So … Transmedia … WTF is it? The best definition I’ve ever seen is, Transmedia=Storyworld.

It’s every entry point for your readers to your story. I’m not talking where they can buy your book, or your Facebook fan page, those are marketing channels, not story … channels. Are your characters on twitter? Do they Facebook or create videos on Vimeo or YouTube? Maybe there’s a puzzle in your novel that readers can solve on an iPad app which unlocks back story? These are story extensions. Transmedia creates opportunities for readers to discover your book, to continue the story, and creates a feedback loop between fan and author.

Here’s an example, this is the Storyverse for my novel ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

The company in the book has a website, the protagonist has a blog, there’s a secret website to discover, a Facebook page and every character has a Twitter feed that reflects their personalities.

So, for example, if you follow @Heckleena, you’ll gain access to her graphic novel origin story. If you tweet at her, she’ll identify something about you to make fun of. She knows your location, whether you used an iPhone to tweet, what time of day you’re tweeting, where you live, and how many followers you have. All things she can mock, just like her character in the book. I also personally monitor all the Twitter feeds and respond where appropriate.

Transmedia is about collapsing the distance between the book and the reader. It also serves to reduce the distance to the author, so the writer can identify areas of particular interest and develop them further.

Wanna try it? Here are a few tips.

• Plan for it from the start. Should Moby Dick be a Facebook app? Should Shakespeare tweet? Maybe, but we can do better than gimmicks.

• Keep the book standalone. Don’t mess with the fictional dream. Have all content be additive to the overall experience, but not entirely necessary for a compelling story.

• Leverage existing platforms. Don’t make your readers have to find and sign into a new platform or forum. Develop content where the audience is (Hint: they’re on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube).

• This isn’t marketing, it’s storytelling.

If you want to learn more about transmedia and whether it’s working for me, like my Facebook page and you can keep track. Interested in ASSURED DESTRUCTION? See some reviews on Goodreads, or learn more on my website.

Have questions? Ask away!

About Assured Destruction

You can learn a lot about someone looking through their hard drive…Sixteen-year-old Jan Rose knows that nothing is ever truly deleted. At least, not from the hard drives she scours to create the online identities she calls the Shadownet.

Hobby? Art form? Sad, pathetic plea to garner friendship, even virtually? Sure, Jan is guilty on all counts. Maybe she’s even addicted to it. It’s an exploration. Everyone has something to hide. The Shadownet’s hard drives are Jan’s secrets. They’re stolen from her family’s computer recycling business Assured Destruction. If the police found out, Jan’s family would lose its livelihood.

When the real people behind Shadownet’s hard drives endure vicious cyber attacks, Jan realizes she is responsible. She doesn’t know who is targeting these people or why but as her life collapses Jan must use all her tech savvy to bring the perpetrators to justice before she becomes the next victim.

“A fun, fast-paced thriller guaranteed to distract teens from Facebook for at least a little while.” –Kirkus Reviews

Find Mike elsewhere:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

About the Book:

Assured Destruction Series

Assured Destruction on Goodreads

Trailer

Get the Book:

Itunes, Kobo, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Before I Wrote…I Drew

I was procrastinating on all the various things I should do and poking around what my FB page looks like to the public again. It’s sort of fun doing that because the only content that is visible is stuff from around 2007, so it’s like I step back in time. This time I found a link to a bunk of my artwork I had photographed and put up in a contest. They didn’t win. What’s sort of strange though is that some of the motifs I drew are now in my fiction.

I used to draw quite often. I found it soothing, and the intricate ones were especially good for my anxiety. I’d listen to music full blast and draw away, my mind wandering, feeling calm. Even if the pieces look anything other than calm.

When I have more time (if I ever have more time), I’d like to get back into art with ink and graphite instead of just art with the printed word.

They are more below the cut (warning: there’s one drawing of a nude woman):

Pantomime2: Shadowplay

The sequel to PANTOMIME has a title! The title is: SHADOWPLAY.

Here is a very brief placeholder cover blurb (full one to come later):

Micah has another juggling act to perform — he must help Maske, the once-great magician who shelters Micah and Drystan, at his last chance for redemption, escape those who pursue him, and find out how he and the new magician’s assistant Cyan are tied into the mysteries of ancient and modern Ellada.

SHADOWPLAY is on Goodreads, so please add it as to-be-read if you fancy. It will be out in the US/Canada January 2, 2014, and January 4 in the UK/Australia.

Pretentious Artist Statement

For a bit of fun:

My work explores the relationship between emerging sexualities and UFO sightings.

With influences as diverse as Caravaggio and L Ron Hubbard, new tensions are created from both traditional and modern discourse.

Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by the essential unreality of the universe. What starts out as hope soon becomes finessed into a carnival of temptation, leaving only a sense of chaos and the chance of a new order.

As spatial phenomena become distorted through undefined and critical practice, the viewer is left with a summary of the limits of our existence.

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