Nora Quick's Blog: Nora Quick Book Updates

Secret Desires Released!

Secret Desires has been released, and Manic Readers has given it 5 of 5 stars! You can read the full review now.

I have been MIA for quite some time, and I am sorry for that. In short, began working more hours at my day job, going through nightmaric family drama, spending half my free time at home and half with my boyfriend, been experiencing terrible writer's block, and also ran out of ideas for a new blog series now that How to Write and Publish a Novel is completed.

However, a different kind of inspiration has hit me, and I am in the process of researching and preparing to launch a new YouTube channel devoted to writing instruction, trivia, and history. As soon as I have any real information I will let you know.

As of now, I unfortunately have no current information on forthcoming writings as I am taking my time choosing between potential projects from existing ideas.

I will do my best to have something meaty for you before Christmas, but if the holiday madness takes me over, Happy Holidays to you and yours, please stay warm and safe.

Missive From the Darkness

First up, I have finished the content editing on Secret Desires , which is currently due out in December of 2016, but that is not final and we may actually have a release date in October depending on red Sage's schedule.

On the other hand, you can see I have not been blogging, posting to literotica, or otherwise active as of late. Sadly, in addition to working a demanding job and sending all my spare time hunting for a new one. In addition, I have had some serious health issues.

I discovered I am non-diabetic hypoglycemic. It turns out I always was, mildly (in retrospect, I don;t know other people who fainted due to not eating as much as I did growing up) and getting that under control took a lot of experimentation. And most recently, I endured an episode you wouldn't even believe in one of my novels, and all I can say is,  get to urgent care off the ER after an animal bite, always.

I'm working on a few ideas, and I am going to be publishing paper copies of my existing self-published eBooks this summer, all while working on a new novel. And I plan to start, in August, uploading a new chapter a week of a novella I have been working on and am 60% finished with currently.

Thank you for hanging in there!

5 Reasons Authors Are Socially Awkward (And How To Fix it)

It's very interesting being a published author of not much note (yet, I hope) who meets new people all the time. It brings up a problem every author I know has: talking about your books with strangers is as awkward as discussing sex with your child.
This actually goes for all writers of fiction. Non-fiction is much easier, for reasons that will become apparent soon. Even if you have only written a short story, when someone you don't know very well asks about it, you stumble.
Why do published authors do this? We market our books, we have the blurbs written, the one-line tag, we should be able to whip it out. Yet you stumble, suddenly discover every speech filler ever ("Um, ah, er...") and try to move the conversation along to another subject.
Figuring out how to fix it requires understanding this phenomena. So why is it so awkward to discuss your writing with strangers?
1. It's a piece of your soul on paper.
You do your best to not reproduce real experiences or people exactly, you write in foibles and strengths to your protagonist(s) you do not posses, but at the end of the day this is a very personal, intimate thing. You have spent hours, days, possibly months or years on it. It's a creation of you, a part of you, almost like a child in that sense.
2. You don't know the stranger's position.
Do they think category fiction is for the weak? Do they only read Oprah Book Club Selections? Do they only read bestsellers, or non-fiction. Did they just read a book similar to yours and can't stop making fun of it? Without knowing, it feels like introducing your child to a babysitter you don't know if you can trust.
3. By the time anyone else reads your story or novel, you're on something else.
Even if you write in the same genre, by the time your book comes out you're onto something else completely. Lately, many people have been asking me about Hidden Magic which came out in 2015. The next erotic romance I've written for Red Sage is Secret Desires coming out in July 2016. It's January 2016 as I write this, and I have written almost two novels since turning in SD, four since HM came out, and my brain is currently in Marly Jackson mode as I write the third mystery. So, though I wrote HM, I have forgotten certain things and I am embarrassed to not remember entire characters, scenes, or orders of events. For those who just read it, they know it better than I do.
4. Feelings for your own work are complex.
Here is a simple truth. Most of the time, for an author, the work the public loves the best will be the one you hate. You hate it with a passion. It was written in a time in your life you regret, or perhaps it involved characters based off people who have since torn your soul out, or maybe you wrote it experimenting with a style you now know you can no longer employ. For whatever reason, this tends to be the work most discussed. this is true for musicians, authors, actors, directors, and visual artists. And how can you tell someone who loves something that you hate it without starting an argument?
5. It feels like bragging about your greatest insecurity.
For any writer, no matter what family, friends, fans, or critics say, you are constantly plagued by the thought you are writing drivel, you barely speak your native tongue, and your characters, plots, and arcs suck. So being asked to describe your book, you want to sell it, put it in a positive light, but it feels like someone on the street just asked you to describe that skin tag that suddenly showed up.
So how do we fix this? 
You can see emotion plays a role in almost all of these issues. Step one is to remove the emotion. How do we do that? Rote memorization. Let's continue as if we are discussing novels.
Don't memorize the blurb or catchphrase. That's what most people do, but what do those things have in common? They are almost always questions. Questions on a book cover prompt the potential reader to answer them by looking into the book, perhaps even buying them. By contrast, questions in conversations invite answers. This has the effect of conveying to the other person you don't know the answer, which seems insane when they have yet to read the book under discussion.
Now, think back to your lessons. every novel should have a synopsis (about 30 pages of Cliff's Notes style summation of the entire story) and a summary (about 3 pages of super short to-the point summation without details). If you're a anal retentive as I am, you have a conflict outline & synopsis, but that is not what we need. 
Get out your summary. You already did this to make your blurb, and we're going to do something similar. I want you to condense it down to 3/4 of a page. This will take time. Edit out any minor details or descriptions. Eliminate all minor internal conflict and minor external conflict. Lastly, eliminate the last lines, ending it at just before the climax. That should get it to 3/4 of a page, but you may have to trim some other sacrifices.
Now, of course, spellcheck, copy edit. Next, I want you to pick a movie that is similar and a book. Just the title and author or director. Try to pick books or movies that are well known, and either established classics or recent releases. Insert the sentence "[Title] is a [Genre], kind of like [Director}'s [Movie]." Then your summary. End with, "Similar to [Book] by [Author]."
Last, memorize it. Read it out loud. record yourself. See where you sound robotic or rush, smooth it out, give it some emotion.
Here's what I got:
Hidden Magic is a sword & sorcery erotic romance, kind of like Red Sonja. 
At the end of a war General and Earless Minn kills a Northlund Duchess who was conspiring with Minn’s nemesis Duchess Serinne to kill their queens. She narrowly avoids a death spell returning home.
Once home Minn finds out Serinne has made her estates falter and calls emergency funds into action to bolster her holdings. That night she meets Tomass, a sorcerer who reveals a spell to kill her was concocted by M’Graough, an evil sorcerer, working with Serinne. He offers up a partnership and argues they must track M’Graough together and defeat him. 
They banter and flirt as they track, and in the capital they discover M’Graough and Serinne are married. Minn contracts for a legal duel with Serinne but the Queen tells her it must wait until they know if Serinne is pregnant. Serinne also wishes a duel and has made claims against Minn.  The Queen tells her that her position would be helped if Minn were married and gives her three days, and when they discover Tomass has distant noble blood, they marry, against his wishes.
They ride to Minn’s ancestral home to await the duels and deal with power imbalance in their marriage.They learn to get along better, but then word comes to them that Serinne and M’Graough are living in the Queen’s palace and are allegedly pregnant with a baby the Queen has designated as her heir. 
They travel back to Plaindand but to hide they go to a friend of Minn’s who hides them in a safe house. They discover pregnant women have gone missing and are convinced M’Graough has been murdering them for the death magic. He has placed the Queen in thrall.
Minn and Tomass fall in love as they work their way towards their duels. Serinne has been conspiring and has raised an army, and a new battle arises on the home front where Minn and Tomass have to learn to trust one another and fight together.
Similar to Ritual of Proof by Dara Joy.
So if you meet me and ask me about HM, this is what you'll hear. I mean no offense, it's just you can tell how awkward it is. Good luck with your books, and better luck talking about them!

Conflict: Not Just For Reality TV Shows

Conflict. I finally understand now why it is the single most important thing to many creative writing teachers. I grabbed a book to read while waiting on my computer to update and returned to I Brake For Bad Boys, a collection of erotic romance short stories I bought back in college.
The second story, Something Wilde, by Janelle Denison, was so well-written I bought two of her books. And then, in my twenty-two year old clumsy and unpolished way left scathing reviews of how bad they were in comparison.
Another author I shan’t name, for she also writes for Red Sage, and we have to stick together, has the same problem. Her short stories are electrifying, hot, and awesome, but her novels…boring, rough, choppy at best.
Now, at thirty-five, revisiting the first short story that introduced me to the problem of writers who rock at short fiction and suck at novels, it hit me like a lightning bolt: when they write novels, they come up with ideas for short stories. They expand them to novel length but do not add conflict that drives the story!
No, instead they add MacGuffins: events masquerading as external conflict designed to create a scene and use more words but does not actually drive the plot. Also the name of the new bars located inside AMC theaters that serve much the same purpose.
Perhaps this is because right now, as I write this post, I am expanding three short stories that totaled 40,000 words to a 100,000 word novel. I’ve done this for my Marly Jackson works, but in all honesty, there I just read the novella, then start from scratch on the novel. Now I actually am expanding on older works. Changing some things, yes, but mainly adding.
If you follow my writing lessons you know I believe in making an outline before writing. Every time I don’t, I stall, so I believe in them with rabid fervency. And you know I am anal about conflict pacing. So when I expand an existing short the first thing I do is go back to the summary and expand it.
I pay attention to the conflict pacing that previously existed. Fast-paced stories have mostly external conflict and usually the instances of conflict come close together. Slower stories have a mix of internal and external spaced farther apart. Literature written in the pursuit of the Great American Novel has mostly internal conflict paced fairly close together. If you’re well-read this distinction will come naturally to you.
So I write new material to expand a short story to a novel in one of two ways: I either create new conflict between existing ones, or I decide to write a new ending or start and add conflict before/after the existing summary. The difference would be (in terms of a synopsis/summary’s paragraphs): creating between existing conflict would be putting sentences into paragraphs, while going outside means creating new paragraphs.
Truly, if you have to go from 50,000 to 70,000 you’re best off creating new conflict between existing ones. If you’re going from 40,000 to 100,000, you’re better off creating mostly new conflict outside the existing. 
It’s not a hard and fast rule, but a good guideline: if you have to increase the word count by as much or more than the existing amount, create outside conflict AND some inside. If you have to increase the word count by less than the existing amount, create solely inside conflict.
This translates into expanding scenes or creating new ones. It should make sense that if you only need to increase a small amount, you simply need to make existing scenes a bit longer, introducing no new plot arcs, simply filing in more detail and action in existing arcs.
And if you need to vastly increase the size, you need more arcs, which means plenty more scenes. That’s the tricky one I think these authors have issues with. I do not know for sure, I’m going by assumptions, and I mean no offense to anyone.
The problem is, how do you add new scenes, new arcs, and not change the existing story? I’m not trying to be a dick, but I don’t understand why this is tricky and I’m trying really hard to. It’s fairly easy for me, but since I know my brain is wired abnormally, perhaps I should explain my thought process. Since I have ADHD, I’ll leave out the 9,000 unrelated thoughts I have while figuring this out.
First, I see the story in my head. It plays like a 3D movie in my mind, and to me characters follow rules of personalities. Yes, perhaps being educated in psychology this is easier for me. Being an INTJ is meaningless, really, but knowing a character’s father walked out when she’s four tells me all I need to know about how she deals with men. Knowing how many siblings a man has and where he falls in the order of children tells me all I need to know about his ambition and drive. To answer the questions in your head right now, yes this can make dating VERY awkward.
So first I go over the sequence of events. Does it seem like the characters would be too worn out by a third of the way through to go on? Do they seem too sluggish?
Then my mind does a little trick. Let’s say in a scene Lucy, who is a Type-A personality, seems to fall for John, who is dominant in bed. My brain will skid there, even if I wrote it. In a short story, Lucy discovering she likes to be tied up and spanked is reason enough to make her open up to loving John. Not in a real life! So my brain will snag on that because it makes the movie I see feel awkward.
Then I know I need more scenes between the hot sex and the confession of love. Speaking as a psychologist, what we like in bed is often the opposite of who we are on the street. This is not 100% true all the time, but by and large the dominant male is the gas station attendant; a man with little control in daily life often craves control in bed.  The submissive woman is the one with responsibilities and struggles who relishes giving up control so she can just relax.
However, books operate by the laws of fiction. In the laws of fiction the dominant man must be dominant 24/7. That does NOT happen, ever. People who claim to be dominant 24/7 in real life are either bullshitting you or are likely insane. Yet, in the laws of fiction, a character can be dominant 24/7 and be completely sane, healthy, and well-adjusted (or in the case of Christian Grey readers want him to be sane so much they ignore the fact he is a nuts and indoctrinating his new submissive like a cult leader – LINK: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&r...).
Now, in the laws of reality, you don’t fall in love because of sex. Sorry, that’s not real love, that is not how it works. Now, the laws of short fiction, they can…but it’s lazy writing. Hey, we’ve all done lazy writing, it happens, but we should strive to do better. 
Love lends itself better to internal conflict (e.g. jealousy/insecurity makes one protagonist realize s/he has deep feeling for the other protagonist). If the story was 40,000 words and we wanted to expand it to 70,000, again we’d be looking at inside conflict.
To do this, you’d go back to your conflict noted summary (LINK).  In short, look at the conflict pacing (is it every third sentence in the summary? It should be.) If you’re expanding from 40,000 to 100,000 simply add a new beginning or ending, and make sure it follows the same pacing. Start there, you may have to go back and edit some prior pacing to fit, but you will find that some has to be moved around, requiring new scenes in the middle as well. For a more thorough explanation, click here (LINK to expanding lesson).
You can do massive expansion by inserting conflict into existing paragraphs in your summary. If, for example, your conflict occurs in every third sentence, you’ll need to space it out with two more. An additional sentence of plot, another of conflict, between each existing instance so that conflict is now every other sentence.
If you do the first method, your pacing will be the same. If you do the second, it will speed up. So you have to note how fast or slow you want it to be. This is especially true if the main source of conflict is external. Inserting too much conflict in an existing storyline opens the door wide to MacGuffins, so you’re honestly better off adding it at the start or end.
At the end of the day, if you have made a conflict outline, as a writer this is not so hard. But yet, it happens. What are some authors you have read that you know master pacing, arcs, character development, and conflict in the short story or novella form, but it fizzles in novels?

The Editing Bug Bites Too

Unfortunately, you can see it's been a month since my last post. Working a seasonal retail job around Christmas pretty much ate up all my time, and frankly time off was spent doing laundry, grocery shopping, and sleeping.

Now things have evened out, and you'd think I'd be hit by the writing bug, but alas, the editing bug got me. I will be uploading the next Fantasy Emporium story to literotica soon, but I am also working on the next Marly Jackson (rather, trying to get started) as my hands as far as romance are tied up until Red Sage releases Secret Desires (TBA 2016). I started re-reading the first MJ mystery, Case of the Missing Millionaire and found a few small errors, so got hit by the editing bug. I edited the paperback as well, fixing an old issue, and decided to turn all my self-published books into books.

Thanks to CreateSpace's printing costs, none are cheap enough that I'd believe any of you would buy them, and it's okay. Truth be told I prefer having a hard copy myself, though I have them all on my Kindle reader app on my phone, it's not the same. It was good exercise and though I eschewed the how-to in my Writing 101 series, I may write a guide as I discovered a method so fast and easy it can be done in an hour (with practice).

I hope you all had safe and happy holidays, and this is my last planned post for 2015. So look for the new literotica story soon, and have a very happy, healthy, and safe new year!

Better Late Than Never...

I’m back, baby!
After a lot of soul searching, I’ve decided to come back to Literotica. I’m staying off the forums. In my wise old age I have learned that the Internet with its anonymity is a playground for assholes, and encourages the darker sides to normal people. As such, I’m no longer participating in forum posts or chains, but I will check it for any private messages/questions.
I miss writing for lit, connecting with my fans, and being able to write shorter stories instead of just focusing on novels.
However, a spot of bad news. I know I left Thief In The Night hanging, and truth be told I haven’t written much past where it left off. I really loved my pulp 80’s novel-style shorts of which it’s the third, but I just am not in the right frame of mind.
I have had some amazing changes in my life. One of the problems…I’m too happy. I finally have my ADHD medicated and under control. After 9 months of therapy my depression is gone. I’m on a small break from my therapist as trial to see if any symptoms come back without seeing her weekly. I’m halfway through, no problems.
I have a new day job that is steady, and awesome. It’s retail, far from the corporate world, but the store is high-end, my fellow employees are amazing (polite, easy to work with, offer constructive criticism and never fail to give a compliment when it’s due), the managers are great (they do not hover or micromanage, but are always there when you need them, and are incredibly understanding and flexible) and most amazing…the customers are the best I have ever had in the retail world. In particular most are children with their parents, and our store blows their minds. Seeing them excited and smiling puts a goofy grin on my face. It’s the first job I have ever had where I find myself getting happier as the train gets nearer and nearer.
In addition I’ve been able to take care of many health problems that have plagued me over the past few years. I’m losing weight, getting back into shape, and doing better than ever. 
Soon, lingering credit problems caused by a divorce (and a petty ex husband) will be gone, and already my finances have greatly improved.
Best yet, the problem roommate whose made my life a living hell for the last two years is moving out! Sadly, so is my best friend and goddaughter, but at last I’ll have a tidy home, with only good, understanding roommates, and the world’s happiest, most awesome dog.
As such…the pulp darkness is missing right now. Instead I feel I have climbed a mountain and can see the road before me more clearly than I have in years.
I know I am sharing a lot more information than I have before, but I do for a good reason. My ability to consistently write has been an issue for at least five years. In that time it was due to:
- Depression (untreated)- An inconsistent, stressful  2nd job (and a struggling 1st job)- Declining health (and no insurance)- Psychotic roommate issues- Severe credit issues due to identity theft and divorce
Now all that is behind me. So while my new writing may be a bit different than you’re used to, it’s going to be very consistent.
The new series I am introducing is The Fantasy Emporium, a series of shorts on Literotica. I just uploaded the first installment, a non-erotic prequel that explains what the series is. I hope you enjoy it when it goes live, and I look forward to feedback.
And in 2016 Secret Desires will be released by Red Sage (date pending), and I will have the 3rd Marly Jackson novel out in the fall (I am aiming for the first Tuesday in September, the 2nd).
Also, weekly blogs will begin, posted on weekends, and there will still be plenty of writing tips even though Writing 101 is done (and as this year I shall embark on finding an agent I’ll be happy to blog that whole process for my fellow authors).
Stay tuned, and until then, happy reading!

I'm Bringing Crazy Back

I apologize for the break in blogging. I've been taking care of some medical issues lately, and thankfully progress is going well. Nothing life threatening, just major enough I will be requiring minor exploratory surgery in the next few weeks and might be requiring more serious surgery in October, we'll see.
However, blogs will appear every Sunday, I've had a chance to work on many, and I promise barring emergency or prior notice to resume weekly blogging. So with that in mind, let's get to the insanity!

Good writers usually think in terms of narratives. Most humans do, however there is one difference:  the human mind thinks in terms of “and” and follows the order of events it is used to seeing in real life, in movies/TV, or reading in books, short stories, and comics. Writers think as “therefore, but.”
What does that mean? Let’s think of people in two categories: writers and readers. Readers are used to taking in stories written by others. So they are used to patterns. A reader will read “John and Mary are fighting. John has to go grocery shopping” and the next thing a reader’s mind hears is “and.” So they might think “John and Mary are fighting. John has to go grocery shopping, and so he gets time to cool off, come home, they cook dinner and make up.” That’s based off real world experience and common story paths.
A writer will write “John and Mary are fighting. John has to go grocery shopping,” and their minds immediately go to “therefore,” which creates a new situation, so they will add “but,” as they do not think in a linear path, but instead move situation to situation which involves incorporating consequences of the prior situation. So a writer will write “John and Mary are fighting. John must go grocery shopping, therefore he buys only beer and hot wings, things he enjoys, but Mary decides to invite her book club over for dinner and promises them a gourmet chicken dinner.” Now you have a situation with a plot: John and Mary are at odds, and now there is a problem to solve: five hungry women expecting chicken and roast vegetables, and John is bringing cheap beer and hot wings home.
“And” would bring us to John and Mary make up, have a quiet dinner, maybe have sex or watch Netflix. Not a story. “Therefore, but” means John might invite his poker buddies over and anything can happen: a battle of the sexes in touch football, an orgy, the accidental summoning of an ancient demon…that’s the magic of “therefore, but.”
This obviously sets writers apart, and if you think off a writer as a story teller, this is why some people are born to tell great stories, and most people are born to appreciate them. There’s nothing wrong with either position, everyone is suited for something, this is what writers are suited for. 
Let’s take something happening in the world (or out of it in this case) and see how a writer looks at it:
Mankind dreams of space travel, and having a moon base would be a great step towards what we need to go further. However, running a moon base is wildly expensive, and even a mission to send a shuttle to the moon costs about one million US dollars per MINUTE. Alas, there is one resource on the moon valuable enough to cover that cost with profit: helium 3.
On Earth, we are running out of helium. America’s obsession with cheap balloons at birthdays is literally killing the planet faster than global warming. A large supply of helium 3 would keep us going, and the moon is rich with it.
This is the main goal of private space companies. They are perfecting flight, discussing space station options for stations halfway between earth and the moon, training, and developing methods to actually keep a base. Hell, they are even working on a way to fertilize moon soil to grow plants.
Now, a normal person would look at that and think, “Cool, space mining, space station, and then there’s gonna be interplanetary travel!” It’s nice, it’s succinct, it’s linear, and it uses “and.”
Now, bear with me to see how a writer’s mind works: So there may be space mining. Therefore, they have to transport goods, people, and equipment to the moon, and they have to transport the helium back, so that means truckers. Space truckers. Just like current truckers, they will do the transports. But, truckers work long hours and need meth to make long hauls. And they get lonely so they need hookers. Therefore, space hookers! Space meth! But hookers and meth labs need buildings, so they will have to build smaller space stations like modern truck stops. But, meth labs tend to explode, so space meth lab explosions! And it depends which company creates the space brothels, if it’s the US or the UK, where prostitution is illegal, it will require a pimp system, therefore space madams and space pimps! Or, the UK allows prostitution, but no brothels, so therefore…space massage parlors? But where hookers and drugs exist in a pimp system there are territories, rivalries, and executions. Therefore, space drive-dys! But you can’t use bullets or lasers or anything that would pierce the hull on a space station, therefore they will go back to knives and swords! Therefore: space truckers, hos, exploding space meth labs, and space samurai pimp battles! Therefore I need to get a good telescope when this starts, pop popcorn, and have a great show every night!
I have yet to explain to this someone without inciting laughter, then a reflective pause, then at last an “Oh my god!” look as they realize it’s entirely possible. 
Not everyone is a writer, but a good litmus test if you see situations and you mind follows the “therefore, but” pattern, then you’re a writer. If it follows the “and” pattern, you’re a reader. There’s no shame to being a reader, nothing special to being a writer.  There are a million different callings in life, writing is just one.
How can we use this for profit, fellow writers? This is how to get inspiration! When you want a fresh story, turn to the news, and follow your “therefore, but,” chain. This is how books were written during the panning phase of the Titanic that seemed to mirror the actual tragedy. These authors aren’t psychics, they just read reports of major ships being built and followed a “therefore, but” chain which opens up different possibilities, picked the most interesting one, and wrote a story.
Good luck to you, but please note: I call dibbs on Samurai Wars of the 22nd Century on the Moon.

106-3: I Have That Goddamn Vitamin C Song Stuck In My Head Too....

We made it to the end. If you are reading this, you have a website, a blog, and social media accounts under your publishing name. You have a completed, published book, you are a member of a writing group, you’ve been attending events as an author, and you’re working hard at marketing yourself. Maybe you have an agent, a publishing contract, or you have a growing reputation as an Indie author.
If you followed all the lessons, whatever your goal was, you have reached it, the first and most important step: YOU ARE NOW A PUBLISHED AUTHOR. Please, let that sink in. Most people never come this far. Most people can only claim to be a writer, but not an author. You are officially an author. Welcome to the club.
I want to take some time and relate my journey as an author, how I found these steps I have shared with you. But we have to go way, way back to September 4th, 1980.
My parents, Ralph and Jane, were awaiting the birth of their second child. Knowing it was to be a girl, they wanted to name me Jill Christine. On the television came The Thin Man, the comedic movie based off the hardboiled Dashiell Hammett novel my mother loved. As I was being born the following morning, she demanded I be named Nora.
My parents were bookworms. My older brother taught himself to read at age two. My mother even wrote stories, always working on a spiral-bound notebook. By late 1984 I was four and struggled with reading. My parents thought I might be dyslexic and I was tested. It turned out I had ADHD, and indeed, reading can be difficult (it does require good attention skills).
I went on medication, and my parents discovered music helped me focus. My mother taught Great Books for kids at the library, and at home every Saturday made me read in the dining room where we kept our piano and she would play music. I was fond of Wagner and Beethoven as a child, and adored soon all books.
As time went on, I began to write. I had a wild imagination, many imaginary friends, and I began writing stories about them. My mother began telling me about her stories, asking for my input on character arcs and plots. I became an even more avid reader, obsessively saving up to buy books and going to the library daily.
My parents divorced, we moved, life changed. I got to know the people on the street, crooked cops, corrupt politicians, street thugs, and whores. Frustrated with the overly-dramatic style of modern crime novels at age twelve I wrote my first novel. I never thought about publishing then, I wrote for the joy of the craft.
Time passed, and I began to realize my mother never wrote a single ending to any of her stories. I never got a straight answer from her why, and it would be years before I figured it out.
In high school I did well in English and had some great teachers, one named Mr. Harris who practically ordered me to get published. I laughed it off, went to college. I majored in psychology but took English classes like everyone else, and once more was told I had to publish, that I had a way with words the world needed. During that time, my mother passed away and left me all her stories, asking me to one day finish them.
I was flattered, but dedicated to my education at first. Then I attempted to write another crime novel, my first love. I was rejected by thirty-seven agents who mostly told me I should write romance like a good little girl. So I wrote a romance, sold it to a gigantic publisher, and due to our disagreement over feminism, it ended in court, and legally that is all I can say.
Discouraged, I turned to poetry and won several awards. Like many people, no one in my life supported me or really believed in me, and at the time it was just an uphill battle to continue.
I returned to fiction, discovering urban fantasy, and wrote a novel of urban fantasy and black humor. Once more I was rejected by agents, twenty-three this time, but more politely informed there was just no market for comedic urban fantasy. Yes, this was years before Mary Janice Davidson’s Queen Betsey series ended that block. After I was done with all my schooling, I began to read erotica from Black Lace, and discovered Literotica.com. I began posting, gained some amazing loyal readers, and began winning awards.
Struggling with depression there were breaks, and in contrast highly productive periods. Older, wiser, better able to stand on my own two feet, I decided to explore self-publishing. I returned to my first love of crime, and added a touch of hardboiled detective in the style of Dashiell Hammett.
I published two Marly Jackson novels and the erotic romance/fantasy novel Wolf Tales Volume I on my own. Feeling bolstered, still wanting some independence, I sold my first erotic romance novel Hidden Magic to Red Sage just before the second Marly Jackson came out. Then, shortly after selling Secret Desires to Red Sage I went from being an independent contractor in my day job to an entrepreneur. 
Like many authors, I’ve suffered from depression. At the time of this writing, I am still on a break from writing to focus on stabilizing and growing my day job and getting my ADHD totally under control and cure my depression. I am 60% of the way through the depression and getting better all the time.
In my time, I have held two publishing contracts, met and spoke with agents and editors at length, been a member of many writing groups, gotten stinking drunk with bestselling authors, presented spoken-word necrophilia stories at goth parties, been interviewed on the radio, taught creative writing for an online school…I’ve done just about it all.
Through it all I’ve learned two important lessons:
1) Anyone can write2) Few can write well
It does seem grossly oversimplified, but what it amounts to is this: it does take natural talent to write. If you love to read, if it irks you to read some plot twists and you daydream about fixing it, then start daydreaming about a story that begins like the one you read but goes in a totally different direction…you have natural talent.
Schools don’t teach you how to write as an author. Being an author is a commercial venture. Literature classes can teach you how to write a grandiose Great American Novel, but not how to write something that actually sells.
Few can write well in that most people don’t pick up on these things that make for good novel writing, and worse, few people understand the business side. My mother could never finish her stories because she didn’t write them to be read by others, she wrote them for herself. She saw the characters as friends and couldn’t bear writing the endings because she couldn’t let them go.
Through my own experience, reading about the experiences of authors over the centuries, and talking with people from the world of publishing, I came about these lessons. I promise you, everything I write about I do, have done, or will do.
If there is one last parting lesson I can offer you, it applies to more than writing, but to life: when you come to the end of something, when all the loose ends are tied up, when the work has been arduous but good, and it makes you weep like a child…you have done it correctly.
Even now as I write this, I cry. It’s taken me two years to write out all the lessons. I don’t get comments on them, but I do get emails. And knowing that there are published authors I have helped is the best feeling in the world.
I hope these lessons have helped you too. But please, find your own way. Use these for your first book, and then figure out what works for you. You will find more writing tips in the future, but from Writing 101-Writing 106 you have all you need.
Never stop reading, never stop writing, never stop editing, and never, ever stop believing in yourself. Anyone can write, but few can write well, and if you’re reading this, you are one of those few.
Welcome to the world of published authors, and I hope someday to meet you face to face. Keep up the good work, and as always, happy writing.

106-2B: Nothing is Certain Until You're Dead, but Your God(s) probably Negotiate...

Are you reading this before your book comes out? STOP! We’re into the world of networking, and it’s damn hard to write and do this, plus your entrée into the world of networking is your book, so it must exist.
Now, for those of you whose book came out, and you’re promoting the hell out of it, what can you do? Of course, keep marketing it online, write and publish another, but you can start also start networking during that process.
Did you join a writer’s group already? If you did not, you’ll be coming from behind, but you can catch up. Do it. NOW. I don’t mean online-only groups…those can be good but at some point in time will fall apart, and tend not to have conventions and conferences. What we want is consistent face-to-face networking.



Any writer’s group that demands dues, has a newsletter, and ideally is national with local chapters is what you want. They will have monthly meetings. GO TO THEM. Go and talk to other members, get to know them, get to know their books. Gravitate towards the people you know you can forge friendships with, and ideally those whose books are similar to yours.
Next, you should have already joined/started a critique group. Not yet? DO IT NOW. Why? Well, aside from honest critiques from people who know not only your genre but how to write it being invaluable, every member has the same chance you have at getting published, the same chance of making the bestseller list. This means you all have the same chance to have a helping hand to lend a struggling friend, or to be that friend that gets a helping hand. In short: best to get in on the ground floor.
That is step one of networking, in two parts. Make real, true friends in your writing group. Cement a small group of close friends where you can become intimately involved in one another’s writing process. This will become important soon.

Remember: there is a difference between making friends and joining a cult
Now, if your writing group is truly established, each month or every other, you’ll have an actual published author come by to speak. Attend these presentations! Ask questions! Buy the author’s book and have it autographed! Most importantly, IF your group leader takes them out after for drinks, do whatever it takes to be invited. 
This means being on time, paying on time, being always kind and polite, following the rules, being an active participant, and doing what it takes to be on your leader’s good side. Then, when you do get invited to go and spend time in a smaller group with published authors, continue to be polite. Tip servers well. Pay your share. Never interrupt. Let the author speak. Ask them good questions. If you can, try to be funny but never in a sarcastic or snarky way. And NEVER discuss your own book unless directly asked, and be prepared to sum it up in one quick sentence, and its status in the timeline of publishing in another quick sentence.
By doing this, you will make a favorable impression and continue to be invited out. Shove ego aside, don’t be afraid to kiss a little ass. Someday you’ll be the presenter and have your ass-kissed. Remember what goes around comes around.

The modern standard of friendship

You can gain invaluable advice, words of wisdom, and perhaps real interest from someone who can help. Writing is a community, and like all communities, sometimes it’s not what you know but who you know.
Next, if you are part of a chapter of a national organization or a regional, you’ll have an annual conference or convention. This is why you have friends. Go with them! Leave your spouse and family at home. Get a double room at the hotel and split it four ways to lower costs. Brown bag your food, do whatever it takes. Make sure you have copies of your book.
This means you need to have paper copies or numerous flash drives with PDF copies (and ONLY PDF, but keep one on you with mobi and other formats in case someone asks for it). Ideally, have paper copies. This means before attending a convention you need to get to Amazon’s Create Space or Lulu and create a paper copy, and order (paying for them) as many copies as you will need. To figure out what you need, calculate how many publishers/agents are there and print enough copies to give a copy to 33% of them. You will never need more than that at a single convention or conference.
Make sure your friends are on the same page when you attend the annual gathering. You want to attend some of the parties and lectures, but you will want to hit up agents and publishers. Carry copies of cover letters and synopsis for your next book as well as copies of your first. Dedicate a particular time period each day and only carry multiples of these materials at that time as you stop by and chat up agents and publishers. Otherwise carry just one copy of each just-in-case.
Try at each convention or conference to attend any meet-and-greets of published authors. Remember, every other new author and wannabe is doing the same. Remember to be a good listener, that is the way to ingratiate yourself with anyone. Do not ever bring up your books first with an established author, wait until they ask, and again keep descriptions as brief as possible.
As long as you are prepared, groomed, attentive, and charming you will begin to make contacts and friends. Collect business cards and file them away, writing on the back where you met the person and some fact that will help you to remember them. Remembering names is very, very important.

Avoid weird conventions! ALWAYS avoid weird conventions!

Now there are related conventions. For example, science-fiction writers would enjoy DragonCon. Once more, save money, plan it out, be prepared. There may be a few agents and publishers there, this time only bring enough copies of your first book to give out to 10% of them. Any meet-and-greet you can attend, do so. You never know who will become a new friend, or who might have a need you can fulfill, or who can help you with your needs.
By all means at either type of convention, get into any photo ops as possible. If in a large group, try to be front and center. If you’re very tall, crouch down in front. In smaller groups stand with the rest of the people to your right, so you will be on the right side of the photo (the human eye is drawn to the right and subconsciously finds those on the right to be the most important person).
There are also conferences. Conventions are for fans, producers, and distributors, conferences are for producers and distributors. Here you will largely be networking with authors in the same position as you vying for attention with the established authors, agents, and publishers.
Once more, the key is prep work. Know what roundtables and Q&As you will want to attend. Know the subject. Prepare by studying up so you have something to contribute. Bring copies of your first book, enough to supply one to 40% of all the agents and publishers there.
In roundtables never argue with someone. Never insult or deride. When making a statement, make it soft: don’t insist you know a fact, lead with “I believe…” or “It’s likely that…” or “It’s possible that…” Keep your responses short and to the point.
In Q&A ask only relevant questions. Come into it with a list of ten. Cross off any that are answered before your turn to ask. Be quick, to the point, keep all questions at ideally five seconds, never exceeding ten.

It may be adorable, but this is NOT the roundtable you're looking for...

Outside of the formal worlds of conferences and conventions you may have one-off opportunities. You may run into a small bookstore owner who would love to host a reading of your book, you might meet a weekend morning show producer who would love for an author to appear on their show to fill a spot, or any other number of opportunities.
It’s a good idea to have business cards…if you have a publisher. I am very sorry to tell you this, indie authors, but none of these people will give a shit about you until you have a publisher. You don’t have to go through the system with an agent (but it is a good idea at some point), even a boutique publisher (smaller publishing house that accepts direct submissions sans agent) will do. Once you have that, if you plan to actively attend conferences & conventions, you will run a decent chance of having one-off meetings. Business cards can be cheap and simple. Your name, your wesbite, and any major awards should appear.
When you run into these one-offs, give them your card, and do not commit to anything. Take time to think it over. Discuss it with your agent, publicist, and/or publisher. 

Sliiiiightly less tenacity would be ideal

Always remember you are representing your brand when you are networking. You represent yourself as an author, your book(s), your website, your blog, your agent, your publisher. It’s important that you always present a professional face, and remember all these components of your brand.
When you reach this stage, you are stepping into the public arena. Are you an alcoholic? Keep it private, try to cut back or quit. Drug user? Quit that shit, but again, if you just can’t, keep it private. If you hold any view that is not commonly accepted by the majority of your countrymen such as racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance, a devoted belief in the Illuminati or chemtrails, whatever it is, KEEP IT TO YOUR FUCKING SELF.

Just imagine trying to work with THIS guy


Be polite. Be gracious. Be concise. Be clear. Be professional. Be clean. Be groomed. Be understanding. Be willing to compromise. Be willing to work your ass off. 
If you keep these things in mind, focus your networking on conferences and conventions, keep on writing, keep on promoting yourself and your brand, and build solid friendships and relationships, and stay dedicated to writing, you will make it.
You may not make the bestseller list, that takes a dose of luck, but keep your nose to the grindstone and soon you will be able to make a living writing your books. And after all, isn’t that the dream?

PICTURED: You in 5 years, if you skip any of the post-publishing marketing steps

You have all the tools you need to make it. You will do it. You will succeed. I am proud of you, and I hope you are proud of yourself. And someday, I hope to see you out and about, perhaps at a convention or conference, and I would love to read your book. 

106-2A: The Greatest Lie The Devil Ever Told....

Today we are going to talk about personal appearances, such as radio/television/print interviews, appearing at conventions, and presenting at conferences. Please note that most websites that push these concepts as good ideas are run by people who have been in publishing for over twenty years, who may not understand why publishing is so massively different today than it was back then.


Let's take a trip in the way-back machine


We have to take a diversion here. Some of us are old enough to remember the publishing world before 1993, but since most Millenials were born around then, let’s go back and explain what happened then, and why the time before was so different. In fact, let’s go back to the beginning of publishing.
Originally books were handwritten and copied in the same style as scrolls, which were in turn the same style as stone tablets. This lasted for centuries. Then came the Gutenberg Press, and pamphlets became easy to write. However, if you wanted to be published you had two options: work an operating a press and write pamphlets at night, or as books became bound a writer had to network to find a sponsor who could pay for the printing.


Yes, it was a little like that, but classier


Oh, those were the days. You met a rich patron who loved your art, sometimes a fellow writer, sometimes a Mr. or Mrs. Moneybags. They would pay a writer’s bills and rent, and then pay for their work to be published. Of course this meant the reach of a book was only as far as the patron’s money could take it: the richer they were, the more copies would be printed, the further they could be shipped. 
This led to brokers across Europe who could print and/or ship books by the early nineteenth century. When a patron bought printings in bulk they’d get a discount, making it a bit easier. But there was a dark side: some of these brokers could reprint books without author permission. One could be seated in, say Paris, get a copy of a book selling well in London, and reprint it. For many years, these sneaky printers kept the money, all the profits. This lasted and grew until the end of the nineteenth century.
Courts caught up, copyright laws came into being, and interestingly enough these former literary pirates became officially publishers in many cases. Look to any major business that has lasted many generations and the origins are almost always illegal. As the copyright laws grew more complex, this gave rise to literary agents who originally functioned more like shipping agents, simply there to travel to printer/publishers and negotiate printing costs and profit splits.
Over time, publishing houses grew and grew, until one could have offices all over the world. Once the industrial age was modernized into mass production, printing could be centralized on each continent. 
Then came the 1920’s and in America, a new phenomenon was spreading like wildfire: comic books. Many companies from then have come and gone, but the biggest was always Marvel. By 1949 they were frustrated: centralized printing of numerous very small pamphlet-length comics was not cost effective to print in a single location and ship all over North America.

This once changed the world every bit as much as the Gutenberg press, but they won't fucking teach that in school

So Marvel led a cabal made up of the major rising comics publishers and came up with a new system: the companies would be national or international, but printing would go by districts. Books printed in Chicago would only be sold in the Great Lakes region, printed in Atlanta would sell in the south, and so on, and this system even went international.
The Marvel system lasted until 1993, which we’ll momentarily address. As a note, this meant the bestseller lists were calculated differently. For those of you too young, before 1993 you could walk into any gas station or convenience store and find a circular rack of books. New books, almost none of them bestsellers. Contrast that to now where you can find books at your pharmacy, but they are all national bestsellers. Remember these old circular racks, they will soon be important.
Then came Safeway. Safeway and Albertsons together own the majority of grocery stores in America. Sometimes they change the name of their new stores to the that of the new parent company, or in the case of Chicago they keep the names of the local chains we know and love. 
Safeway loathed having multiple districts in the USA alone. It meant their accounting department had to do seven times the transactions for books than, say, for pots and pans. 
Marvel was very weak in 1993, and the larger publishing houses saw a potential for profit by centralizing cost (and narrowing the overall number of titles they would produce) in the Safeway plan. We’ll explain that in examples soon to illustrate the difference. Overnight, because Safeway wanted to reduce a few hours a week of accounting time completely revolutionized publishing, and made it thousands of times more difficult to become an author.
In short, they returned to centralized single-location per continent publishing, or how it was before the Marvel revolution in the 1920’s. But the hunger for books was greater, and now in 1993 fewer and fewer magazines and (at the time) comics were being printed, and the nonfiction world exploded with the advent of self-help books. So it was a different beast than the industry in 1910.

Pictured: Stan Lee's Satan

The Safeway publishing revamp of 1993 happened with no press, no contest, no fanfare, no notice at all. As now there were far fewer publishing companies, an agent became 100% necessary for the first time. Contracts became limited to two books rather than a lifetime, the number of contracts shrank, and as such the number of new authors shrank. And with these changes and no more districts, the way bestsellers were calculated changed and it became much more difficult to get onto the list.
As a note, if you watch movies about writers either filmed before 1993 or set before 1993, you can get a better idea of how it used to be. More prominently, in movies filmed before 1993 where writers are portrayed, they tend to be older (over 40), the agent’s role is minimal (if there, and if so, they usually function more like a publicist), and they are constantly doing personal appearances. Those of the current age portrayed in movies? They are young, too young, their agent is their BFF/parent/enabler, and not a single one of their friends is a fellow writer. Remember that.
Then in the early 2000’s publishing was shaken up once again by the eBook and the explosion of self-publishing. I don’t think we need to continue as we’ve all been here for that phase which gave birth to Taken By the T-Rex which, if chosen to be the first book read by our alien overlords when they come, while literally be the doom of humanity. In short, the self-publishing explosion ripped away the barrier-to-entry, but narrowed the traditional publishing world and raised its barrier to entry even more than the 1993 Safeway shakeup.
So what the fuck does this have to do with personal appearances? The short answer is this: before 1993 personal appearances were cheap, smart, and effective. From 1993-2005 personal appearances were expensive, difficult, and not always a good idea. In the modern day personal appearances are prohibitively expensive, nearly impossible, and a completely stupid idea.

Of course who among us is immune to stupid ideas?

Let’s take a look at a reasonable example of a writer’s life in 1985:
John would plot out a book and begin writing it. He’d edit the first three chapters heavily and send it to a publisher. A reader would review what was there, the synopsis for the rest, and the cover letter estimating when it would be finished.
The reader would like it, and pass it along to the editor who would review it. The editor liked it so much he signed John to a contract. It would be open-ended, John would agree to publish all his mysteries with the editor’s publishing house for a term of ten years.
John would be given a large advance. They would calculate what he needed to live on to finish writing and calculate the average expected income from his first three books. John got a check, lived comfortably, finished his book and turned it in.
It would be edited as it is today, but then released in just one market, or one district. Mysteries sell very well on the West Coast or Midwest, and let’s sat John lived in Detroit, so it was decided his book would be released in the Great Lakes region.
It went to book stores and catalogs, but appeared on circular racks at hundreds of stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. John’s book sold well enough there his publisher took it to the West Coast district. It sold well there and gathered buzz, so his publisher then took it national.
At this time reviews were written by critics, the “buzz” had already been put in motion. John was set to radio interviews, magazine interviews, and once his book became a national bestseller, John was asked to appear on television.
His sales were calculated by rank. Not only were total number of copies sold calculated, his ranking among the Great Lakes region was figured in as well as his ranking in the West Coast.
Basically, another book could have sold more copies in the same period, but if it’s rank in it’s first two territories was lower, it entered the list behind John’s book.
That was how a bestseller could happen in 1985. Let’s contrast that with the modern post-eBook-revolution age:
John writes his book completely, edits it carefully, and sends it to agents. He gets no bites, so he decides to self-publish. He gets a website, social media accounts, enters a lot of contests to gain fans.
He drops his book on Smashwords and Amazon. It sluggishly sells maybe two copies a month. John keeps blogging, promoting himself, and commits to writing another book. Over two years, he writes and self publishes two more.
He gets some good customer reviews, gets listed on a few indie promoter sites. He attends a few writers groups and conventions, makes friends, does a couple blog tours.
Finally, he writes his fourth book. Now, with a padded resume, he finds an interested agent. He sends the agent the final book, and the agent refers him to a copy editor. John has to pay out of his own pocket but gets it polished.
His agent, Alan, used to be a senior reader at Bantam. Alan calls up a friend, a former reader now an editor who enjoys mysteries and convinces him to read John’s book.
The editor likes it and offers John a two book contract. John’s advance is calculated at the total expected royalties for his first book. It gets mailed to the agent who holds it up for two months, takes his cut, and passes it along.
John’s publisher edits the book further, without his consent, chooses a cover without his consent, and prepares promotional material without his consent. 
The book is released, buried in a catalog book sellers look through. Sales are sluggish. Oh, they are better than what John has known, though he must wait a year to find out what they are, but they are less than the publisher wants.
John is beholden to turn in a second book and the process repeats. There is no advance, his royalties do not add up to the first advance, so he is offered no money up front on the second. Sales are slightly worse, and he is let go.
Alan, his agent, believes in him. So together they plot a new book. Meanwhile, with five books out, new readers are discovering him. John is still blogging, still promoting on social media, and all told he’s making enough money off all his books it’s a part-time minimum-wage income.
Alan goes to a new publishing house with hungrier editors. The process begins anew. As the sixth is being edited, Alan convinces John to hire a publicist. The publicist costs John a lot of money, but she is smart and connected.
She convinces John’s new publisher to include him as a panel member in a mystery round table at a future conference. She finds reviewers willing to look at his prior books and create a buzz about them.
John’s prior books begin to sell better and better, and his publicist gets him interviewed by a literary magazine. Enough buzz comes out that his new publisher goes into overtime producing promotional material for his forthcoming book.
While the iron is hot the sales reps target the local mom & pop booksellers and presale orders are high. The buzz grows. John’s sixth book hits and it climbs the best seller list, reviewers trip over themselves to offer analysis, and John is trotted out on television shows.
Now, that was a very long route, but I want you to notice a few things:
1) The trip up was much faster/easier in 19852) There are many more if/thens that must happen now3) It costs much more money now than it did before 1993
So you’ve made it this far, you’ve a come a long way, and you’re probably screaming “SO WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH PERSONAL APPEARANCES?!”
It’s simple: DO NOT DO THEM.

The longer you stare, the funnier it gets, but at least by staring you're not off wasting money on public appearances

Back in 1985, it was worth it. Why? Because John’s book was only being sold in one district. It was being sold as a sundry. For those of you who never worked retail, a sundry is any small high-profit item sold near the registers. Since John might sell well in one district but be unknown in the other thirteen, it was only by promoting himself in interviews and other personal appearances that he drove up interest in other districts.
That world is gone. Dead and gone. There is one thing we haven’t mentioned yet, book tours/signings, and it’s a special case because those will soon be dead as a doornail.
This is a the simple rule of thumb: do not ever consider ANY kind of personal appearance until your agent or your publisher suggests hiring a publicist. And then ONLY DO IT WHEN YOUR PUBLICIST SUGGESTS.
If you are a first-time author, know that anyone who would want to interview you or have you present at their event is desperate small potatoes. This is a business, and you have to be part mercenary. When you’re a small fish, don’t trust anyone desperately trying to reel you in. They’re either scammers or idiots, and often both.
Remember this above all else: never set out on a joint venture unless the other party needs you exactly as much as you need them. It’s true in writing and life.
Basically, you’ll need to have five books and a promising publishing contract under your belt before you need a publicist. Let the publicist direct you on personal appearances, if/when/what is right. Honestly, now that you know the history of publishing, and why it used to work, you know why now it’s a different ball game in the twenty-first century.
Now we come to book tours and signings. Frankly, it’s not even worth discussing in this series where we’re talking about becoming a first time author. You really need to just focus on writing, free writing, entering contests, blogging, social media, and promoting yourself as a brand.
All you need to know about book signings/tours is that they are only for those already on the bestseller list, when you make enough money to pay for them. Every flight, car rental, meal, and hotel room comes right out of your own pocket.
This may seem like a depressing lesson, but by now you should know there are too many depressing things about writing. It’s why so many writers drink and/or kill themselves.
You know what is good for first time authors? Not trying to present at conferences and conventions but attending them. And in our next lesson, our final lesson, we turn to networking.
By now your book has been published, your brand is coming along, and you know that all that is left is to keep publishing and promoting, and now to network. Because one day, if you keep at it, personal appearances may become important. But they will be much easier if you know somebody, so next week, let’s unravel that mystery and begin making useful friends in publishing.


Now you're thinking like a writer!