C.V. Cook's Blog

Back at It….

Hello, all. I’ve decided to start using/adding to my website again.

ANIMAL CREW (my next novel)

is almost done. I’m really excited about it.

Updates coming soon.

Chris

Books Your Kids Should Read.

I was influenced by all kinds of wonderful, amazing books as a child. That got me thinking back to what those books were. Here’s just a few of them that come to mind. You can give a child no greater gift than the love of reading. What books had the biggest influence of you when you were growing up?

Finally…

Monster Makers and The Magic of Jane are finally for sale at Amazon.com. Click the links at the top of the web page to go there. Here’s the final cover. Thanks for the quote, Erica. You’re the best reader ever. Please go to Amazon and “Like” the book. Buy it and enjoy. Oh, do you want to know how it ends? Ok, so… Just kidding. You need to read it to find out.

Readers and Writers

When creating an author’s website, a big question is: Do I want this site to be for fellow writers, or mainly for readers and fans? Me, well, I still haven’t decided . So, for today, something totally random. I like Football (Soccer here in the U.S.).  So here’s a cool video.

Editing.

I’ve been doing a lot of final editing in preparation for the release of Monster Makers. First, for those who don’t know, an “Editor”, generally, isn’t the person who goes through a manuscript and finds all the errors. An editior is a person at a publishing house who acquires a book. It is that editor’s baby. That editor wanted it. That editor pushed the publishing house to buy it. The editor might have suggestions for changes, but those changes are generally more macro than micro. When the book is closer to actual publication, it is a “copy editor” that gets involved. When most people think of an “editor”, then are generally thinking of a “copy editor”. Now why does a writer need a copy editor? Because, frankly put, A WRITER CAN NOT EDIT HIS BOOK BY HIMSELF. Well, a writer can, but it will turn out like $#%&*@ (Do you like the comic book swearing? That’s always fun). Here’s the main reason… When writers read their own copy, they tend to subvocalize their sentences the way they think it is written, as opposed to what is actually written on the page. For about a four month period, I wrote the word “women” when I really meant “woman”, and did I know it? No, because every time I reread my stuff, I subvocalized it the the right way. So, if you are a writer, and you are to the editing stage, gets lots of beta readers. Then, after you’ve made their suggested changes, finish up with more proofreaders to catch any final mistakes. NOTE: I’m sure there will still be some mistakes in Monster Makers. It is almost impossible to get rid of all of them in a novel, but, right now, my proofreaders are trying to track all of them down and kill them (oh, sorry…too harsh; how about “eliminate them with extreme prejudice”?) .

Learning to Write…

I’ve read a lot of writing books. I own forty or fifty of them, and I’ve read more than twice that many. You’d think that would make me an excellent writer…maybe, I don’t know. But just because you know something doesn’t mean you know how to do something. Yes, knowledge is the first step, but the application of that knowledge is another skill set. Someone once described it as the difference between memorizing the Encyclopedia of Basketball (Is there such a thing?) and playing with Michael Jordan. Still, you can’t work on getting good at something if you don’t know what that something is. So, out of the hundred + writing books I’ve read, I present to you my favorite. Dwight V. Swain died in 1992 and I never met him (I wish I could have), but he left this awesome book for us. Thanks!

The Dark Side

Here’s a couple of fun creatures. The monster on the right is a low-res version of the monster embryo on the new book cover.

Getting Going on the Web Page

Hey, guys.  This is a work in progress, and will be for a while.  I hope to have it looking good by the time Monster Makers and Magic Jane go on sale on Amazon.  Keep checking back in the next few weeks as I add more content. The “Buy My Books” buttons above will just take you to Amazon’s main page for now…it will link to my books when they publish.  If you don’t have a Kindle, go download the Kindle apps for your computer, or phone, or iPad (http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771).  It’s free and then all kinds of great ebooks will be available to you.

Early Book Cover

Here’s an early cover for Monster Makers.  The one with the monster won out, but I still like this one.  I think it’s simple, but still interesting.