Robin Burks's Blog, page 4

Are you ready for Virtual Pop Expo?

COVID-19 means that convention going has pretty much come to a complete halt. And for those of us who love going to cons, as well as those of us who often attend such events as vendors, it’s been tough. Not only are we missing out on those geeky social interactions we love so much, but we’re also missing out on potential sales (which many of us need to pay our bills).

Enter the virtual convention. I think the first virtual con might have been Arda Con, which was organized by Arda Wigs.  It was actually a really cool idea, and Arda let vendors submit themselves to get posted onto their website for the con. It wasn’t an interactive event, but there were livestreams of cosplay-related topics and a costume contest.

The next evolution in the virtual convention was Home Con. Home Con happened almost entirely on Twitch, but offered an array of guests from TV and movies. It also offered paid one-on-one chat opportunities with those guests, with portions of proceeds going to charity. Unfortunately, though, Home Con didn’t offer anything for con vendors.

Now, though, there’s Virtual Pop Expo, an entirely different kind of virtual con. Virtual Pop Expo is trying to make things as interactive as possible. There will be guests and all kinds of livestreamed panels. But there will also be a vendor show floor, where con attendees can visit booths of various vendors, hang out and chat and watch vendor livestreams. It’s an entirely new thing that hasn’t been done before, and guess what? I have a booth there!

Even better is that Virtual Pop Expo is this weekend. The con preview begins tonight, May 8, at 6 p.m. PST and goes throughout the weekend. During con hours, you will be able to visit my booth (just look for “Robin Burks”), hang out with me, chat, watch some livestreams of me and my cats, see my cosplays (yes, I will be cosplaying all weekend) and buy my books (along with a few handmade goodies). It’s going to be interactive and fun and about the closest thing we can get to a con without actually being at a con. I would also like to encourage you all to visit all the vendor booths and say support them, too.

Writing in the Time of COVID-19

As we all know, the world has changed with the COVID-19 pandemic, and with it, so have we. Some keep busy by working from home and/or homeschooling their kids. For many of us, though, our days have started to meld together, into a kind of goo that keeps us from knowing what day of the week it is. And this makes it especially tricky to be creative.

Like many of you, I’m struggling. As a writer, one might think that all this free time would mean I would finish my new novel. However, writing words of fiction has proved difficult on many days to the point that I’m frozen with paralysis. This impending dread hanging over my head makes it seem impossible to write a story about a young woman who does “normal” things like hug her parents, go to school, go to parties and wield magic in a group (well, normal within the setting of the novel). At times, I’ve felt writing about such things is disingenuous, particularly as the novel is set in the modern world.

But it’s not just the setting that is giving me issues. It’s creativity, in general. These days, my thoughts are all over the place, making it difficult to focus on any one task. I have good days, though: those days where I wake up and I know I’m going to be working on re-writes and creating new scenes. And I run with writing on those days, because they are few and far between. On many days, though, words won’t come and I refocus my energies elsewhere: on planning virtual vacations, on learning to crochet  or on reading and watching TV. Sometimes, I just want to dive into a video game, and sometimes, I just want to sleep (I’m sleeping a lot these days).

And here’s the thing: it’s okay that I’m not working on my fiction. And it’s okay to not feel guilty about it. I have a lot on my mind, like most people, and we’re living in unprecedented times. It’s okay if you feel that way, too. And that’s important to remember as we should try not to judge ourselves on how “productive” our days are or aren’t. If you got out of bed this morning, congratulations, you’ve done something productive. If you managed to brush your teeth, give yourself a gold star because, let’s face it, brushing our teeth seems so pointless now. Eating meals is productive. Getting through the day doing the bare minimum is productive in this day and age.

It won’t always be like this. And eventually, things will get back to some semblance of what they used to be. Until then, though, give yourself permission to mourn for what we’ve lost and not beat yourself up if you aren’t accomplishing the next great American novel during this pandemic, or whatever those stupid productivity websites are telling you you’re supposed to be doing with all this free time.

You do you: survive, be safe, be healthy. This is the time of COVID-19. Don’t forget to let yourself breathe and just stare into the nothingness of endless days and nights. And if you do happen to accomplish even little things, pat yourself on the back. You’ve earned it. We all have.

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Speaking my truth. #writing #physicaldistancing #ernesthemingway #authors

A post shared by Robin Burks (@robinburks) on Apr 5, 2020 at 6:45pm PDT

How to Plan a Virtual Vacation

One of the things I always look most forward to in any given year is planning for a vacation. I love the research that goes into putting together a good trip and itinerary and I love booking the airfare and hotel. I love hanging out on travel forums and getting tips about visiting new places (or revisiting places I’ve already been to). I love the whole process so much that I sometimes think I missed my calling in not becoming a travel agent.

Now, though, vacation planning is pointless. With much of the world at a standstill and staying safe at home, there is no big trip to plan for. Although I had hoped to visit Disneyland later this year (in November), I am holding off on making any plans, because, unfortunately, there is no guarantee that any of this will be over by then, or that Disneyland will even be open. I also don’t have any cons to plan for, because so many continue to get canceled. I’m a planner who has nothing to plan for!

During these difficult times, everyone needs something to lift their spirits: a feeling of normalcy in a time when nothing feels normal and may never be normal ever again. So I used my imagination as a writer to come up with something that help me feel like I have something to look forward to. I began planning a virtual vacation. And because I decided to either “go big or go home,” I decided that my virtual vacation would be a weekend in Paris, a city I have often blogged about here.

It’s no secret that I love Paris. I’ve been four times and hope to return someday, but for now, I can, at least, revisit my memories and try to recreate the city here in my living room and in my back yard. And I’ve taken this opportunity to do the vacation planning that I so love, just in a different capacity. Fortunately, in this day and age, we have the wonderful world of the Internet: a virtual airline that can take us to anywhere in the world (and even into space) if and when we decide to go. So I began to plan the perfect virtual Paris vacation. Here’s how I did it:

Plan ahead

I know not everyone is a planner like I am, but for a virtual vacation, planning is key. The idea is to embrace the idea of the virtual vacation and have everything ready for when you want to do it. Look at online resources or even a guidebook to get ideas of things you want to see. Make a list and then decide what your priorities are. Make sure your list isn’t too long because you’ll also need down time to enjoy your virtual vacation. Incorporate the whole family into decision-making.

Once you have your list, check for resources online that will allow you to visit the places you want and attend any events that might interest you. For example, as I’ve been to Paris many times, I decided to do something new. I’ve always wanted to visit Le Cimetière des Chiens, which is the oldest pet cemetery in the world. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any good YouTube tours of the cemetery, so I bookmarked several websites with photos and information that I can peruse during my vacation time.

The most touristy places will always have plenty of resources, with many becoming available while social distancing remains in place. You can take a virtual tour of the Catacombs, for example, although I opted for a YouTube video that included a tour guide explaining everything. Almost all the big museums have virtual tours, too. YouTube is a valuable resource in finding all kinds of tours and travel videos that will allow you to go anywhere you want from the comfort of your living room.

Many performing arts venues are also offering free streaming performances on their websites. You can go to the opera, ballet and theatre just by streaming performances to your TV, PC and/or mobile devices. I decided to watch a performance of Swan Lake at L’Opéra national de Paris.

What will you eat?

It’s also important to plan ahead for the kind of food you want to eat. It’s not easy finding some items in grocery stores these days, but there’s always take-out and delivery in many cities. If you like to cook, plan a few easy meals to make on your vacation that fits the theme of your trip. I decided to keep it simple for my virtual trip to Paris: I bought baguettes, charcuterie, cheese and red wine for a few picnics in my backyard, in true Parisian style. I also thought I would try my hand at making a French omelette (which is traditionally served with frites, aka French fries, in Parisian cafes).

You might not do much planning about what to eat on a real vacation, but planning is essential for a virtual vacation to make sure you have access to the foods you would like to consume during your vacation time. I’m the kind of person who tends to plan vacations around food, so this is my favorite part of planning any trip, virtual or otherwise. Needless to say, for my virtual Paris tour, I ordered a box of macarons.

Dress the part

Let’s face it: most of us have been sitting at home during this time of physical distancing in our pajamas and sweat pants. But for your virtual vacation, go ahead and put on a pair of pants. Treat it like it’s a real vacation and plan a few outfits, things you would like to wear. You can even plan to dress up for streaming performances, treating them as if they were the real thing. Have a nice dinner planned? Make it even more special by dressing up for it! Also, make sure everything you want to wear for your virtual vacation is clean.

Get rid of distractions

Being at home all the time means that we have a lot of real-world distractions. These are the kinds of things we usually go on vacation to temporarily get away from, but when vacationing at home, that’s a little trickier. The key is to try to get rid of unnecessary things that might hinder you from enjoying a real vacation. Put the smartphones down (unless using it to take photos) and unplug from the news. Now, more than ever, it’s important to disconnect from the rest of the world, especially with the sheer amount of information that we’ve seen arrive daily. It’s okay to get away for a day or two.

Start your vacation

On the morning of your virtual vacation, take a moment to get into that vacation mindset, where the only thing that matters is enjoying your day and having fun. Eat breakfast as you would on vacation, add some music that makes you think of your intended locale and start thinking about what you want to do on that day. I chose to go with starting my virtual vacation with a French breakfast: pain au chocolat (obtained from Aldi) and coffee with some French music playing in the background.

Share photos and videos

Get creative with your photos and videos. Think of the kind of photos and videos you would take on a real vacation and start thinking about how to incorporate that into your virtual vacation. Take selfies in front of your TV as you visit a virtual museum or go outside with a souvenir or something that reminds you of where you’re virtual vacation takes you. Have fun with it and be sure to share your virtual vacation with the world.

Virtual Vacation Resources

For some ideas on where to start planning your virtual vacation and what kind of activities are available, I’ve put together a list of links of virtual tours and fun things to do. If you do take a virtual vacation, be sure to share it with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram as I would love to see what you come up with.

Virtual tour of the Catacombs of Paris
Google Arts & Culture
Virtual national parks tours
Virtual visit to the Georgia Aquarium
Harry Potter Virtual Escape Room
Winchester House video tour
Carlsbad Caverns virtual tour
Metropolitan Opera streaming performances
Virtual hike of the Great Wall of China
Opera National de Paris

Come see me at Memphis Comic Expo!

First, I would like to thank everyone who came out to Jackson Comic Expo this past weekend who stopped by my table to say hello and buy some books. The convention was a lot of fun for me and it was great meeting everyone, as well as seeing so many awesome costumes. I always love con appearances because I genuinely feel that when I am at them, I am with “my people.”

With that being said, I’ve got another appearance to announce for this year. I will be an author and cosplay guest at this year’s Memphis Comic Expo, which is at the Agricenter International in Memphis, TN. This is always a fun con and I’m excited about attending as a guest this year. I’ll be there with some other amazing cosplayers, as well as some of the best comic book talent in the industry.

You can get tickets now for the event here. I can’t wait to see everyone there, so please drop by to say hi! I’ll have books available, as always, as well as some cute nerdy bags and jewelry. And as always, I will be in costume for both days.

Endings, Beginnings and Everything Spooky In Between

Something pretty awesome happened last week: I finished the rough draft of Goodbye, Fare Thee Well, the novel I refer to as the “space pirate” one. It’s really not a space pirate novel, but that sounds really cool, right? So I’m taking a little break from writing fiction.

Oh, who am I kidding? A writer’s imagination never takes a break. Instead, I’m drawing up maps for the next book idea tentatively titled The Wandering Tree Tavern. What started out as a sci-fi book is now a full-on fantasy, and I blame TV shows such as Dark Crystal and Carnival Row for inspiring me.

This week has been a difficult one for me. I’ve been low on spoons because of my arthritis, as well as other things. I’ve been down on myself and tired and pretty grumpy. However, I will be tired this weekend at SEMOCon in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and probably not so grumpy when I’m around my fellow nerds. I’ll be there all three days and will have books to sell (along with some other goodies). I’m also hosting a Cosplay Q&A panel on Sunday at 11 a.m. So come out and say hello!

I’m also in full-on Halloween mode, even if it is 100+ degrees outside, thanks to the heat index. Inside, I’ve turned my living room into a tribute of Disney Parks’ Haunted Mansion. And I’m beginning to gear up for my Halloween week trip: this year’s journey takes me to New Orleans. I’m actually kind of shocked I’ve never been there before, but I plan on eating my weight in good food and discovering everything I can about the city and its history.

Everyone should embrace their inner spooky, right? And with that being said, maybe it’s a good time to curl up with a good book and pray for cooler weather. I think Madame Vampire would be perfect for that, don’t you?

Words, words, words…

As a writer, the most important thing that one can do is make time every day to work on writing. That means setting goals, which often means relying on a word count. But what is a good daily word count?

When I first started writing fiction, I did so by participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This is a program I highly recommend for beginning authors because it really does help one get into the habit of sitting down every day to write. NaNoWriMo participants set a goal of 50,000 words in one month. When I wrote the first draft Zeus, Inc., during NaNoWriMo, I set a word count of 2,000 words per day. That’s the only way I felt I would meet the 50,000 word-goal. And it worked. I sat down nearly every day and threw out those words. At the end of the month, I had almost all of a rough draft of my first novel.

Since then, though, I’ve had to adjust my word goals. I now work as a entertainment writer, which means that most of my day is spent writing words. My daily word count is massive now, which means that by the time I get to working on fiction, I’m tired of words. And that makes it so easy to just not write each day. This is especially true when my daily word count goal is 2,000 words per day. I often feel like I just don’t have that many words left inside of me.

I tried adjusting that to 1,000 words per day and that made things a little easier. But even 1,000 additional words per day for fiction, in addition to the thousands I’m already writing, is a bit much. Then I saw someone post a quote on Facebook. I can’t remember which author said it, but it was about small word counts and how small word counts can make a writing goal a lot more achievable.

So I recently knocked myself down to 500 words per day. And you know what? I’m more motivated to write because that’s about 15 minutes worth of work. And it doesn’t feel like much, but every 500 words adds up. Sure, it might take me awhile to knock out a novel, but considering I was having trouble committing to writing every day, this will probably help me get that novel out faster than my normal “I’ll write when I feel like it” attitude that I’ve been suffering from.

Fellow writers, do you have a word count goal you try to tackle every day? Is it high or low? What works for you? I’d be curious to see what works for everyone else. In the meantime, I’m still in the process of wrapping up Goodbye, Fare Thee Well, which is finally making some serious progress due to my lower daily word count goal.

Reviews Matter!

Reviews are a topic that I’ve touched upon before, but I feel that the importance of reviews is something that can always be restated, over and over, if necessary. Reviews are the lifeblood for authors, the thing that can make or break them, the thing that can get books noticed. If you read a book, please consider reviewing it.

But the truth is that not all readers understand the importance of reviews. Obviously, good reviews can often help us sell books, but there’s more to it than that. Even bad reviews can help an author sell a book. All reviews are relevant, and here’s why:

Reviews affect a book’s visibility on sites like Amazon

More reviews on Amazon means higher visibility for books on sites like Amazon. A book with a lot of reviews will get recommended by the site, as well as show up more in rankings. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: please review a book. Even if you just put up a star and say “liked it” or “didn’t like it,” you’re helping an author.

Reviews can affect how an author can market the book

Sites such as BookBub won’t even allow a book to be submitted for its program unless it has a certain number of reviews. Reviewing an author’s book could help that author market the book more effectively. This is because a certain amount of reviews allows that author to participate in programs that companies, such as BookBub, offer.

I love it when someone comes up to me and tells me how much they enjoyed a book I wrote. However, unless that person also leaves a review on GoodReads or Amazon, that doesn’t help anything but my ego. So please, if you liked reading something (or even if you didn’t), leave a review. I, along with every other author out there, would be eternally grateful.

Not stuck in the middle…

I’m one of those people who needs to be creative 24/7. If I’m not writing, I’m sewing, making costumes, or even making new clothes for myself. I always need to be making something, whether it’s food, books, short stories, props or apparel. But I still struggle with one major thing: the middle of creative projects.

I find this is something that doesn’t just happen with my writing (although the middle parts of stories are so difficult), but also when I’m sewing and making costumes. There comes a point where I’m just fed up with the whole project and I feel like it’s such a waste and I just want to get to the end and see what the final thing looks like. It’s hard dealing with the middles, because it often feels like you’re just floundering in the middle of the sea and there’s no land in sight.

Fortunately, the only way to get through the middles is to keep swimming. You have to plow through because the only way to get to the end, that wonderful point where the thing you’re working on is finished, is by working your way through the middle.

So what am I getting to here? I have successfully traversed the middle of the novel I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year tentatively titled Goodbye, Fare Thee Well. And there is a light at the end of the tunnel as I reach the climax of the story and I see exactly where my protagonist is going and how she will get there. This is the first draft, the rough draft (and it’s called “rough” for a reason), but I’m almost to the point where I can call this draft done and take a little break from it before I start diving back in for the rewrite.

This is my pep talk to other writers and creatives, as well as myself. You can get through those horrible middles. Once the end comes into view, it’s the most wonderful feeling ever.

An Update of Sorts and Upcoming Appearances

Yes, I realize that I am the world’s worst when it comes to keeping my readers updated. But I promise it’s because I’m busy writing, either for ScreenRant or for a novel that I’ve tentatively titled Goodbye, Fare Thee Well. I also have an idea for my next book, so at least I can’t complain that my muses have not visited me lately.

I do admit that I hit a dry spell earlier this year while working on a completely separate piece of work. I found myself uninspired to continue rewrites on it, and I finally admitted defeat and shelved it. Who knows if it will ever see the light of day? I’ve learned that this is common with us authors: we will forever have things we’ve written that no one will ever read. However, once I let it go, I was able to return to a previous work, and the words suddenly came flying out of my fingertips.

I also have a few appearances coming up during the rest of the year (and how are we already in August?). On October 5, I will be an author and cosplay guest at Jackson Comic Expo at the Star Center in Jackson, TN. I’m pretty excited about that appearance as they reached out to me and asked me to join them. I will also be in charge of the costume contest there. After that, I’ll be in Clarksville, TN (one of my favorite cities to visit) on November 30 at the Riverview Inn for the Comic Con there. As always, I will have books available at both events, along with some cute purses I’ve made in my free time.

I’m also actively looking for reviewers for Madame Vampire. If you’ve read the book and enjoyed it (and even if you didn’t), please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be anything wordy. A simple “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” with a star rating will suffice. Every review helps get my books more visible on the site. It’s a novel I am particularly proud of, and I would love to get it into the hands of more readers.

I’m going to try to make more of an effort to be present here. I don’t always have updates to share, but I suppose I can still post cat photos, right? This time, I’ll leave you all with a photo I took with my cosplay charity group Cause-Play Memphis at LeBonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, TN, recently. Sometimes, I get to dress up like a Disney princess and meet children and horses.

MidSouthCon Schedule: Updated!

In case you missed it, I’m going to be a panelist at this year’s MidSouthCon at the Memphis Hilton in Memphis, TN March 15-17. In fact, I’ve got a series of panels on Saturday, March 16 and would love to see you all there. I’ll also be available in Pro Row with books on hand if you’d like a signed copy of any of my works. Hope to see you there!

Here’s my full MidSouthCon schedule:

Saturday, March 16, 2019

11 a.m. – Competitive Costuming, Promenade 2

12 p.m. – What’s New In the MCU, Grand Ballroom C

2 p.m. – Pro Row (I will have copies of all my books available)

7 p.m. – And It All Started With Wonder Woman, Promenade 1

8 p.m. – Pro Row (I will have copies of all my books available)