Patricia Hamill's Blog: I read too much!, page 25

Here's to progress.

My plans for attracting an author include: 1) writing more books, 2) getting those books published, 3) gaining followers, and 4) writing a blog.

I can say I have made quite a bit of progress since I first thought up my plan to attract an agent.

I've completed one book, drafted another and am working on the draft for a third. All these in addition to The Golden Ship, the book that first made me consider getting an agent. Shadows of Valor is, of course, already published and I've mentioned it in a few posts already. The Zombie Logs is a draft ready for editing and revision. Finally, the as of yet unnamed Shadows of Valor #2 is in progress, perhaps about 80% complete (give or take depending on where the story takes me). So, that's one.

Two, I finally went with self-publishing on Amazon, to which I will probably devote more time in future posts. You can find my books there and read the first few chapters or pages of each. My next foray into self-publishing will be to look into other distribution paths for The Golden Ship. We'll see how that goes.

Three, gaining followers is a work in progress as well. So far I've got about five fans on Facebook (look for Patricia Hamill (author) to join their ranks) and two on Goodreads. I've also managed to earn at least one fan at work and another through her. I don't know whether I should name names, but I want to say that it is absolutely awesome when someone reads your work and tells you how much they enjoy it. It's also a great feeling as a writer when they describe how the story made them feel and what they hoped would happen as they progress through the story. I'm incredibly thankful to everyone who takes the time to give my stories a chance.

Four, writing a blog, well, that's what this is isn't it? I'm enjoying posting my thoughts and am hoping those of you who find this are enjoying them as well. I'm trying to post every four to five days with reviews sprinkled in here and there for good measure. Blogging may also help with number three, but even if it doesn't, it is worth it.

As I work towards completing all four of my goals, I realize that I'll probably never really be done with any of them. Another story will always be waiting to be written. Those that turn out good, I'll get published. As I get better at writing, publishing, and marketing, more people will discover my work (and hopefully become fans), and as that happens more of those may discover my blog.

So here's to progress. Hey, I might even send out a few more query letters.

Review: Educated Injun by R. L. Kiser

Educated Injun by R.L. Kiser

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Educated Injun is an energetic, action-adventure set in the Old West.

The main character, Merle, finds himself in trouble when he takes on a job that's too good to be true and ends up on the bad side of some cattle rustlers. He soon teams up with Hawk, an indian marshall, who helps him out of the bind in exchange for his assistance in going after the guy behind not only the rustling, but also smuggling and other nefarious deeds.

I most enjoyed the fast paced, action driven storyline and the tongue-in-cheek banter between Merle and Hawk (and between Hawk and the judge that put him through college). Besides that, I got a kick out of Merle's nemesis, a certain shoulder cannon with, well, a kick.

In summary, Educated Injun is action-packed, funny, clever, and entertaining.



View all my reviews

Inspiration: Dreams, a bit cliche? Maybe. . .

Last time I visited this topic, I shared some of my tips for writing without a plan. This time, I'll discuss one of the most celebrated and tricky sources of inspiration: dreams.

Dreams. A bit cliche? Maybe, but dreams are the playground of the creative mind. All things imaginable and unimaginable are possible in dreams. The trick is remembering them when you wake up.

I don't write down my dreams, although that is one frequently recommended method. Instead, I purposefully think about the dream, what happened in it, how it made me feel, the colors, tastes and sensations it generated. What I'm doing is creating a mental roadmap to the realm of my own imaginings, one that I can revisit at a later date, perhaps even years later.

Shadows of Valor was spawned by a particularly exciting dream, the kind you want to sleep in to finish and can't help but mourn when reality crashes in. The dream was a few years old before I decided to map it out in a notebook and take a shot at writing a story about it, but even now I can picture it in my mind: the wild freedom of flight, the fear of being discovered in hostile territory, the heartache of falling for the enemy, and the life and death struggle for survival when everything falls apart.

There's nothing like waking, your heart racing, and realizing you've just experienced something truly epic. Don't let that moment escape your grasp. Write it down, map it out in your mind, draw a picture, or wake up your partner and tell them about it (even if they grumble a bit).  

And, keep this little tidbit in mind. A dream doesn't have to be yours to provide inspiration. The next time a friend or family member volunteers their latest foray into the strange and wonderful, listen carefully lest you miss out on something extraordinary.

Review: I Peed My Pants for My Mom: Aging Semi-Gracefully? by Dawn Behrens

I Peed My Pants for My Mom: Aging Semi-Gracefully? by Dawn Behrens

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I absolutely loved this book. It's filled with relevant, funny stories about life and aging.

I found myself grinning and outright laughing throughout as I imagined each situation unfolding before me. Even now, a week since reading it, I can't supress a smile. I don't want to spoil the experience for you by revealing too much, but I can say that if you want a good laugh, this is definitely the book for you!

Very well written and entertaining. I plan to get my mom a copy for Christmas (don't tell her!).







View all my reviews

Finding Inspiration: Writing without a plan. . .

Sometimes inspiration is fickle and not even a good mind map can save the day.

This year was my first NaNoWriMo and all I knew going in was that I wanted it to be about Zombies and that it would be a journal. That's it.

These are a couple of things that worked for me:

1. Just write whatever comes to mind. That's the key to writing without a plan.

2. Free yourself to write the story that 'wants' to be told. The characters will appear when they need to appear. The plot will make itself known. The twists will shape themselves.

3. Don't resist the urge to burn down the stronghold, kill off the main love interest or otherwise foul up the lives of your characters.

4. If your story manages to define or put limitations upon some aspect of the story, such as your zombies behave in certain ways, you might want to consider keeping in those limits. If the story decides that the zombies swarm in fall and you hit fall again, by all means swarm those zombies!

5. Finally, since you didn't plan any of it, you are very likely to forget what you were up to last time you dropped your pencil or shut off the computer. So, read what you wrote (don't edit, the story might need that crazy thing you wrote last time for a surprise or two later on). Always read through the last bit and then return to number one: just write.

It's a lot of fun writing without a plan and a great way to keep going if you can't think of any details up front. However, just like any project you want to share with others, edit, rewrite and revise for the win!

Oh, and I won the NaNoWriMo challenge! I reached 50371 words on November 24, 2012. Perhaps you'll see The Zombie Logs hit the shelves in a few months once I've had a chance to tame the craziness that writing 50k words in 20 days tends to generate (started late, finished early).

Time to get writing!

Step one, write another book or books.

Back in early January I learned that authors who have more that one book under their belts are more likely to land an agent, so I realized that it was time to get writing.

Part one, prewriting.

Did I prewrite for The Golden Ship? No way! I just wrote and spent several years editing away the plot abonormalities, disjointed storyline, and scenes that didn't really fit into the story. Sure, it turned out great, but several years to produce one book was not in the plan. I needed a new book this year, so I decided that this time I would put some thought into things before I got started. In a 70 page, wide ruled notebook I picked up from a local grocery store I began to draft the startings of a new story, at the time unnamed.

There are many methods out there for pre-writing and each have their own pros and cons. I chose one that served me well for writing essays when I was working on my BBA at Strayer University. I've seen the method refered to with different names, mind mapping and the double bubble method, but both are essentially the same thing.

What I love about mind mapping is the sheer craziness and freedom of it. All you have to know to get started on one is one word or a topic. Then, you draw lines off from that to things that relate to the topic. From there, you branch off from each of those new related topics into more topics and the process continues until you have a very thorough idea of what your topic (or in this case, story) is about.

I also like that a mind map, by it's very nature, organizes your thoughts into logical sections and categories, something that is sometimes difficult to do when you don't know where to start.

So I began on page one of my notebook with a mind map. The topic in the center, the one that started me on the path to writing my second novel, Shadows of Valor, was "Flying Air Troups." From there, I branched off into "hats make them fly", "home", "chronology", "war", "country/state", "gear", "love", and "weapons". Did I keep all the original ideas when I started to actually write the story? No, but my mind map did provide an excellent reference and medium with which to define my characters and their environment. Before I began writing I created two more: Main Character and Main Character's love story. Other mind maps followed whenever I reached points in the story where I found myself blocked.

Of course, there are times when mind maps aren't the best tool, especially when it's time to describe a new location or even a memory, so the other method I used was drawing. Basically, if I was about to write a scene in a new location that deserved a detailed description, I would take a break from writing to sketch what I had in mind and then I would refer back to the picture whenever I wrote a scene for that location.

Along with the mind maps, my notebook is peppered with sketches of symbols, buildings, rooms, layouts, and even maps, which I still refer to today as I work on the second volume for what became Shadows of Valor.

Did prewriting help? You bet it did! I wrapped up my draft for the book in just six months, and when it came time to edit I found very little that needed attention.

Will I always prewrite? Probably not, but I won't hesitate to drop everything and do so when a topic eludes me or I can't quite picture what I want to put into words.

I encourage you to try these methods out in your own writing and see where they take you.

Next time, finding inspiration. . .

Back to the drawing board...

Last time I detoured into a quick tally of all the books I devoured this year. This time, let's go back to where I left off.

I had come up with a few easy (read short cut) steps and worked up the courage to send a query letter to an agent. The response was swift and decisive. Either my book or my pitch was lacking. So, back to the drawing board I went.

First off, I needed to come up with some more realistic steps for attracting an agent, steps based on actual research. So here is the revised plan I came up with:

1. Write another book (or books).

2. Get published, somehow.

3. Earn a following.

4. Start a blog.

This list wasn't quite as simple as the first one, but each goal, simple or not, was a worthy accomplishment in its own right.

Maybe I wouldn't attract an agent or write the next big best seller, but what I would gain would be worth the effort. Now, all I had to do was get started.

First up, new book...

Sidebar-I really do read too much...

So this week, I just wrapped up The First Swords, by Fred Saberhagen, fun stories I haven't read in over 10 years. Did I mention they are also huge? That's a big plus for me, because I usually devour books in a day or two.

This year I've been reading 2-3 books at a time, on average, plus writing 1-2 at a time. If it sounds exhausting, you're right, but it's worth it. I've had a lot of fun and now I have two books out there for people to enjoy.

I'm working on my third now, another completely unrelated story told from the perspective of a survivor in the zombie apocalypse, but don't worry, the sequel to Shadows of Valor is still in the works, about 25% done and I'm anticipating rolling it out in April 2013.

So, just to solidify that I do, in fact, read too much, in December and early January when I was wrapping up The Golden Ship , I was finishing up Terry Goodkind's awesome epic fantasy The Sword of Truth series for the 3rd or 4th time, starting up the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon is the first in that series) by Christopher Paolini, and starting up Robert Jordan's and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time series for the 5th or 6th time (or maybe more, I re-read the whole thing every time a new one comes out).

In January, I also started writing Shadows of Valor (This of course was part of my quest to attract an agent by becoming a prolific writer).

By the time I was wrapping up The Wheel of Time again around March, I started on the Death's Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (probably also about the 5th or 6th time) and I finished up that 7 book series right about when I hit a stopping point on Shadows of Valor (including the first few chapters of the next volume) and began the process of final edits for The Golden Ship.

That's also about the time I got my first tablet and started the downward spiral into the reading frenzy it enabled. Let's see, since August, I've read the following:
The Morcyth Saga by Brian S. Pratt (7 books), The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, Shadows of the Sun, Soul Stalker and Abyss by Laura Kreitzer, Storm Front (Dresden Files #1) by Jim Butcher, Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. That's 17 books from August to mid October, assuming I didn't forget to include any.

So, as you can see, I read too much. But that hasn't stopped me from writing, playing, working, and getting published.

More on that last one later...

Amazingly enough, ignoring reality doesn't make it go away...

Now that I knew what attracted agents, I must admit that I was intimidated. So I decided to break it down into steps. Steps are doable.

Step one: Disregard the fact that I have one book, no following and no idea what I'm doing.

Step two: Write a query letter and send it to an agent.

Step three: Wait.

You may have noticed my steps did not include any of the three things agents like to see. Let's see how that worked out for me.

Step one: Easy enough. Done.

Step two: Less easy. It's incredibly hard to write a description of your own book and your self. Plus, you have to tailor the query letter to the agent. Not too hard if you have a good source of information, like Writer's Digest. I sent off my first letter (they want emails, not mailed letters by the way) early on a Saturday morning.

Step three: I expected about a four week wait, based on my research, so I was incredibly surprised to find a reply within 24 hours. The response was kind, but it wasn't what I was hoping for.

Back to the drawing board. New steps were needed.

Agents, a circular reference

Circular references are when you define a word with itself. Why do I mention this with regard to agents? Let me explain.

My research in January quickly branched off into a process of finding and sorting through various agents and what they were looking for. Before I began I was under the impression that an agent was a magical person who would champion my book to the publishers, land me book deals, arrange for signings and readings, etc. Shortly afterwards, I realized that my guess was off a bit.

First of all, marketing. I discovered that agents were most interested in authors who already had a good grasp of marketing their own works, had blogs, had followers and fans. Basically, agents want someone who will champion themselves.

Second, published works. Sure agents are the go betweens between authors and the publishing houses, but I learned that they are most interested in prolific writers. This means that agents want to represent authors who are already published and who are churning out quality books at a good rate.

I can see how that would be attractive, but here I am with one book under my belt and no presence. Hence the circular reference, in order to get published, I would have to have an agent; in order to attract an agent, I would have to be published and established (with some sort of following).

Hmm, now what?