Rabia Gale's Blog, page 13

4 things I’m doing as a creative entrepreneur

Last year, I crossed the line from writing as a hobby to writing as part-time work. I get to wear a businessperson hat as well as an artist’s beret. Looking at my writing through an entrepreneurial lens has changed the way I do things.

Without further ado, here are 4 things I’m doing as writer-turned-businesswoman.

Tracking

This is the first year I’m seriously tracking my writing output from month to month. Right now, I’m only tracking raw, first-draft words, but it’s a start. I can’t come up with a realistic production schedule–nor can I increase my productivity–without first knowing how fast I write.

I also track my sales across all channels, my income, and my expenses. This will help me know which projects and which markets to focus my energies on.

Diversifying

So far this year, I’ve self-published a novella, written a paid non-fiction article, submitted short stories to anthologies and magazines, and started a serial on my site. I’m spreading my stories across lots of little baskets, so that if one gets stomped on or upended, it won’t bring my career to a screeching halt.

(Diversifying also means getting POD versions of Mourning Cloak and Rainbird ready: files are uploaded and I’m impatiently waiting for them to be verified so I can order proofs!)

Saying Yes

Part of diversifying is an attitude of openness. I’ve never had a problem saying no (I realize that many people have the opposite issue). “No” is my automatic response to anything I’m asked to do. I don’t have the time. I don’t know how. It’s out of my comfort zone. It’s inconvenient. I just don’t want to.

Well, no one got better by staying in a rut and refusing to experiment. Nowadays my policy is to say yes more than I say no. Work on a secret project with my best writing buddy? Yes! Get an invitation by an editor to submit to an anthology? Yes! Write a non-fiction article about creativity as a writer? Yes! Appear on a podcast to talk about my stories and self-publishing? Yes! Donate time to help another artist/writer put together an awesome giveaway for first-time self-publishers? Yes!

Building a List

I’m a big fan of permission marketing, so I’m working on building up an email list of fans. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you get news of my latest releases, coupons, and exclusive content. I use MailChimp, and I’m very pleased with it.

Are you a creative entrepreneur? Do you have any business/marketing tips to share?

goodreads giveaway of One Small Step

One of the few rays of light brightening my Week of Gunk was the arrival of One Small Step: An Anthology of Discoveries and Jo Anderton’s The Bone Chime Song and Other stories. I’m reading One Small Step right now, and I’m so impressed with the caliber of all the stories. I’m honored to be in among such company.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can enter a Goodreads giveaway for One Small Step for a chance to see for yourself!

And while you’re there, you could also enter to win a copy of Jo’s short story collection. She’s a fine writer and I’m looking forward to the stories of hers that I’ve missed!

first quarter reads

2013 has gotten off to a great start, reading-wise. Here’s a sampling of some of the books that have kept me up late into the night, turning pages.

An Urban Fantasy of a Different Kind

The Rook by Daniel O’ Malley

Dear You, the body you are wearing used to be mine.

Who can resist an opening like that? Mwfanwy Thomas finds herself in a London park, surrounded by bodies wearing white gloves, and no memories. Following a paper trail left behind by her meticulous former self, Mwfanwy finds herself in a super-secret organization staffed by people of extraordinary abilities–and a deadly conspiracy behind it all…

Fairy Tale Retelling

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

A SF retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Rosalinda wakes up after 62 years in a stasis tube to find that her parents and young love are dead and that the world has fallen into and pulled itself out of the Dark Times. Rosalinda is a fragile young woman, making sense of her past and putting together a future for herself. This poignant story does not offer easy answers for heartache.

I-Really-Should-Read-Something-By-China-Mievelle

Railsea by China Mievelle

And I finally did!

This Moby Dick-inspired yarn is set in a fabulously original world. It slogged in the middle, but the ending and the payoff were soooo worth it.

Middle Grade With Whimsy

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

Beautifully-written, with compelling characters and fantastic setting. Reminded me a lot of the Joan Aikin books I read as a kid.

Shakespeare With a Twist

Prospero’s Daughter and sequels by L. Jagi Lamplighter

What if the events in Shakespeare’s The Tempest were only the beginning? What if Prospero didn’t renounce his magic? What if he and his children (yes, plural) had lived into the modern era, shielding humanity from the caprice of elemental spirits? This is the premise of Lamplighter’s ambitious trilogy, which combines Shakespeare, pagan and Catholic mythology, and historical detail in a unique way.

Oldie Comfort Reads

Death in Cyprus and other mysteries by M. M. Kaye

I had a hankering for these atmospheric mysteries set in various British colonies and ex-colonies. I wish Kaye had written more of them!

Indie Reads

Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon

I felt like a superhero story and this hit the spot. A lot of fun characters with a great deal of potential and well-thought-out world.

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos

A fun military SF. There’s not much of a plot, really, until the final third or so of the book, but if you like a story about how warfare would look like in the space-faring age, this is a book for you.

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Do you have books to recommend? Share them in the comments!

quartz episode one…

… went out to Inboxes all over the known universe early this morning!

Rafe Grenfeld, diplomat and spy, has problems. His entire embassy’s been arrested, he’s stuck in a hostile foreign city with police looking for him, and he’s been hiding in a smelly cramped dumpster for far too long. And that’s just the first two paragraphs! To find out more, go here.

Episode Two goes up on Saturday.

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In other news, I have the nasty cold that my boys passed around this past week. And just as I was beginning to think I’d escaped the winter sniffles that have plagued my entire family these last few months…

Here’s hoping to resume writing and blogging regularly SOON.

How are you all?

 

Quartz serial is coming soon!

As in, next Tuesday, April 2nd.

*gulp!*

We’ve set up a separate page and mailing list for it, which you can find here.

Aaaand, here’s the revised blurb (I can NOT stop tinkering with it, apparently!)

In order to save their world, the mages of long ago plunged it into eternal night.

Now rare veins of quartz provide light, heat, and food to a dying world. And Rafael Grenfeld has just learned that the biggest quartz pillar of them all, the legendary Tower of Light, exists. Unfortunately, his informer died before revealing its location and he’s stuck in the hostile totalitarian state of Blackstone.

Desperate to find the Tower of Light for his people, Rafe forms an uneasy alliance with the mysterious and maddening Isabella. They’re not the only ones interested in the quartz. The Shadow, chief of the Blackstone secret police, is also hunting for it. As darkness-loving demons devour souls and dangerous magical artifacts resurface, Rafe must tap into the lost powers of the mages in order to find and secure the quartz—before his world is destroyed by famine and war.

If you’re interested in receiving Quartz episodes in your Inbox, sign up here. (If you’re reading this in your feed reader or Inbox, visit the site to sign up).

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Also, Sean over at Adventures of a Bookonaut interviewed on his podcast. So if you want to hear me talk about my year of trying new things, the books that influenced me, self-publishing and slow build, click on the link!

 

Tia Nevitt on writing novellas

Tia Nevitt is the author of Accidental Enchantments, a series of novella-length fairy tale retellings. Her latest release, the Snow White-inspired The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf, features an unusual protagonist in one of the seven dwarves–a young woman looking for her own happy ending. Today, Tia is here to share her biggest novella-writing tip.

Welcome, Tia!

Novellas are hot in eBooks right now. Now that bookbinding is no longer an issue, it is no longer cost-prohibitive to produce novellas outside of a serial publication. ePublishers love them.

A novella is considered a story that is between 15,000 and 50,000 words. Here’s a rough guideline on manuscript length classifications:

Up to 1000 words – Flash Fiction
1000 to 8000 words – Short Story
8000 to 15000 words – Novelette
15000-50000 words – Novella
50000 to 100000 words – Novel
100000 and higher – Epic

Shorter works are often harder to write than longer works. Plenty of authors love writing novels but wince at the thought of writing short stories. They might say something like, “I meant to write a short story but it kept wanting to turn into a novel.”

Here is my number one tip on writing novella-length works.

Limit the Number of Characters

When I was writing The Sevenfold Spell, I learned that each new secondary character brought with it at least a thousand words. At the time, I was expanding it from short story to novella, so I cut a bunch of really minor characters and added two major secondary characters–Talia’s best friend (Widow Harla) and the third man in her life (Prince Andrew). Each came with a story and a purpose. The Sevenfold Spell is a tight little story, and so it ended up with a very small cast of characters.

With The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf, I faced a new problem. I wanted to write a novella from the start, but I knew right away I would have to have seven dwarfs. Hmm. Seven dwarfs plus the prince, the princess and the evil queen. And I had better not make any of those dwarfs stereotypical. No one like Sneezy or Grumpy in any way.

So I ended up with ten characters, but an eleventh one wrestled his way in—the minstrel.

My characters ended up fitting the following classifications:

Protagonists – Gretchen and Prince Richard. I knew I would have parallel love stories, so I made one person from each love story the principal POV. Otherwise, I felt the story would be overwhelmed in POV changes.

Love interests – Lars and Princess Angelika – They have fewer POV scenes, but each plays a principal part.

Principal Secondary – Marta,  Johann and Rudolph – Marta is Gretchen’s mentor and matron of the dwarf farm. Johann is the minstrel and has key interactions with both Gretchen and Richard. Rudolph is a minor villain, a bully who inadvertently helps bring Gretchen and Lars together.

Minor Secondary – Gunther, Klaus, and Dieter – Gunther is the supervisor of the farm; Klaus is the youngest of the dwarfs and is often bullied by Rudolph, and Dieter is the confrontation-adverse owner of the dwarf farm.

How much of the story did each take up? Here’s a pie chart.

The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf

Character Prevelance Chart

Of course, there’s a lot of overlap. All of the green and purple slices include at least one protagonist or love interest.

Since this was just a guess, I tested it. So considering that the story is about 44,000 words, I generated approximate totals for each group. It looks about right, with the possible exception of the Minor Secondary characters having a smaller portion of the pie.

Another tip I might have is to limit the number of plot twists, but I think if you concentrate on limiting the number characters, that will help more than anything else. This will give you the room that you need to develop the characters and grow it into a fulfilling story without making your readers feel short-changed.

Not even a stint in the military as an aircraft mechanic could erase Tia Nevitt’s love of fairy tales. To this day, she loves to read (and write) books that take her to another place, or another time, or both. She also dabbles in calligraphy, violin, piano and songwriting. Tia has worked on an assembly line, as a computer programmer, a technical writer and a business analyst. She lives in the southeast with her husband and daughter.

Tia’s novella, The Sevenfold Spell, won the 2012 EPIC ebook award for Fantasy.

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 Check out The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf at the following retailers:

Carina Press – Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Google Play – Omni Lit

Audiobook Version

Prince Richard is cursed. He is enslaved to the magic mirror, and must truthfully answer the evil Queen when she uses the mirror to call on  him. To keep from betraying innocents, Richard wanders the countryside and avoids people.

Gretchen has been teased all her life for being small. When she hears a tale of a hidden farm full of little people like her, she sets out to find it – and is welcomed by the mostly male inhabitants. One in particular, Lars, woos her with his gentle kindness and quiet strength.

But danger looms when Gretchen meets a runaway Princess and offers her shelter at the Little Farm. Wandering nearby, Richard instantly falls in love with the young beauty, and is compelled to tell the queen that she is NOT the fairest of  them all. Enraged, the queen vows to find the Farm and destroy it.

If either Gretchen or Richard are to have any hope of a happy ending, they must team up to break the mirror’s spell before the Queen kills them all…

tell me about deserts

It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in a hot climate (over ten years now). And even when I did, my experience was of a coastal urban environment.

Right now I’m writing a story set in a desert.

I’ve read up on real-life deserts. I’ve looked at dozens of pictures of sand dunes, barren hills and salt flats. I’ve watched videos.

But none of those gives me the sensory details I crave. What does the desert smell like? How does the wind feel on your face? What’s the light like? What sounds do you hear in the desert night?

Since I can’t just hop on a plane for some first-hand research (I wish!), I’m asking for details from some of you who might’ve experienced a desert environment. If you live in, or have visited, the American Southwest (like the Death Valley area) or any other hot desert, I’d love to know some sensory details that’ll bring the setting to life for me.

behind-the-scenes sunday

Oops. I didn’t get around to planning, writing and scheduling posts for this week. Life has been busy of late, but in a good way. So, let’s go behind the scenes and see what I’ve been up to lately.

Homeschooling

We went back to school after a week’s vacation. That required planning on my part, some of which included:

Find copywork sentences and passages for the olders
Correcting school work and ordering new workbooks as needed (math for Sir I., spelling for Miss M., phonics for the Baron)
Looking over the next few history chapters, picking supplementary books, and checking them out from the library
Choosing which science topics to cover and gathering supplies for experiments (current list includes cream of tartar, a head of red cabbage, and graduated measuring cylinders!)

And then there’s actual school time, which takes up all of the morning and an hour or so in the afternoon.

Writing

Folks, I’ve been struggling through Ironhand (working title of the Mourning Cloak sequel).

I’m a weird breed of fantasy writer. Barring a set of loosely-related short stories featuring the same character, I’ve never written a sequel. None. Zilch. Nada.

And I realized that I’m terrified of sequels. Yes, I would rather build a whole new world and bring a whole new set of characters to life than write a sequel.

Sequels come with baggage. Other people’s expectations.  The sinking feeling that you might’ve broken the story. The duh moment that you wished you’d added that one detail in book one that would’ve set everything up so well for book two. The feeling that you’re writing yourself into a corner and you can’t do a darn thing about it because the first book is already published!

Working on Ironhand was like being a rabbit running away from a big scary dog.

It wasn’t pretty. One should not get that anxious and sweaty-palmed over a scene in which characters aren’t even being attacked.

So I took some time out to write a very short story, and a few nights ago the right brain and I had a little talk. In which right brain handed me some ideas for how to finish up the Kato/Flutter story in one novella, gave me some truly scary monsters, and some helpful plot guideposts along the way.

I’m calmer now.

In other writerly news, I’ve started a fantasy novel about a girl and a pegasus for 6yo Miss M. and a sci-fi collaboration with 8yo Sir I.

O.o

Yeah, that was my reaction, too.

This and That

Things are happening with the Quartz serial! I went through the novel and divided it up into 90 episodes. I’ve polished, proofread and stuck the first four into WordPress. My tech people and I are working on figuring out how to integrate the serial into my site (current plan is to give it its own page and RSS feed). A weekly episode will run on Tuesdays, with Saturdays open for a bonus episodes (at $5 each).

I also have a very tentative production schedule for this year (always subject to change), but it includes Ironhand, a follow-up anthology to Shattered, the completion of a Kai’s book that is sitting (still) at 80K, and a Snow White-inspired novella with electricpunk elements (and no, I don’t know if electricpunk is really a word).

 

How about you? What projects are you working on?

friday this and that

Are you a NaNoWriMo winner planning to self-publish for the first time? My fabulous and generous cover artist, Ravven, is giving away a FULL publishing package to one deserving writer–complete with editing, proofreading, formatting, cover art, website graphics, and marketing help.

(And yes, yours truly is one of the volunteer beta readers!)

Go here to find out the details.

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The cover for FableCroft Publishing’s One Small Step is here!

This anthology contains the short story “Sand and Seawater”, co-written by Joanne Anderton and me.

Our tagline–brought to you by Jo–is Dolls are creepy, read this story!

(Better tagline coming soon…)

Aussie peeps, you can pre-order a copy here (you lucky things, you!)

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Links from around the web:

You Don’t Do Much Else Interesting and 25 Other Reasons Why No One Likes Your Art

More Insights on Sharpening Your Creative Mind

IndieReCon (posts, videos, chat replays)

Out, All of You! On fighting for your own voice

a tap shoe and an owl statue

Today I drew a tap shoe and an owl statue.

My creative (non-work-writing) goal for February is to draw every day–though at the rate I’m going, it’s more like Draw Every Other Day.

I didn’t draw much as a kid. Actually, I hated art class. I didn’t have an abundance of natural artistic talent. The disconnect between the picture in my head and the one on my page frustrated me. My Bs and Cs in art dragged down an otherwise stellar report card–which made me rather cross.

And I was slow. My art pad was filled with incomplete projects since I always ran out of time. (I’m that way with all hands-on work, including labs. I was always the last one out of lab, one of the reasons I didn’t minor in chemistry. I never finished my wooden-spoon doll with the paper mache head nor my embroidery sampler in Handwork during elementary school. And yes, it still galls after all these years!)

I would’ve rather done extra math than painted a still life.

But, secretly, I always wished I could draw well.

There were two things I didn’t understand about art when I was a kid. I don’t know if it’s because no one ever told me, or that I didn’t listen (I was stubborn, too, as well as being a loather-of-art-class).

First, you can learn art. What I thought of as talent is mainly skill. A teachable skill. No one ever taught me things like how to use my art materials, how to create depth, or the proportions of the human face. I didn’t realize that one could take art skills and break them down into smaller steps, and that an ordinary person like me could learn them.

Second, because I had it in my mind that being good at art was an innate talent–either you had it or you didn’t–I never bothered to practice it. One art class a week was not enough to make up for my lack of giftedness. If I wanted to draw well–and yes, I wanted to, still do–I should’ve been practicing.

Twenty years later, with a writing career and homeschooled kids, I’m finally squeezing it in. It’s not much, it’s not going to be consistent, but it’s still keeping the dream alive.

How about you? Do you have something that you secretly wish you could do well? Something that’s always appealed to you, but that you’ve never tried?