K.M. Shea's Blog, page 79

Life Reader VS Page Turner

Today’s post I’m taking the opportunity to illustrate to you how different a book becomes through rewrites, using Life Reader as my example.

I finished the first draft of Life Reader eight years ago. Back then it was called Page Turner, and instead of going undercover as a preppy girl, Raven went undercover as a mousy teenage boy. Isaac Eastgate did not exist, Daire Eastgate was the library’s teenage director, and the Errësi were called the Facade Squad. (Yeah, I know, dorky.) I edited it, but then it sat on my computer for approximately 5 years. Back then the plot of the story was Raven was after a (fictional) artifact called the drops of pretense. Bluntly put the plot was horrible.

I took another look at it and decided that the teenage boy front wasn’t working very well, so I switched it to the pretty chick masquerade you all know of today. I also realized the drops of pretense bit was really awkward and really stupid, so I switched the artifact to a (fictional) music box. While that created a major overhaul for the entire story, I didn’t change much else.

Again Page Turner sat on my computer for about a year and a half. I took another look at it and followed some advice, booting Daire out of his spot as the teenage director. I added Director Isaac Eastgate and Alison–the children’s librarian. I also changed a ton of the name schemes–the lame-o name of Facade Squad was one of the first to go–I removed William from the line up of hired page turner employees and made him a trainee due to his age, and I deleted two characters: Raven’s dog and Raven’s little brother. Neither the dog nor the little brother served much of a purpose. I thought I would have to do a major rewrite of all family scenes since the little brother was gone, but I was shocked to discover he was only in three scenes total, which means I made the right decision to give him the axe. I took out two side characters–they were not completely deleted as they will be appearing in the next Life Reader book–and I finally redrafted the plot so Raven was chasing after Macbeth’s Cauldron.

This final rewrite of Life Reader got rid of all traces of Page Turner. A few snippets of dialog remain from the original rendition of Page Turner, and almost all of the characters are still in the story, but none of the scenes and actual writing remain from Page Turner. Essentially the two are different books. That is how radical rewriting a book can be.

Not all of my books go through this extensive rewriting process. Red Rope of Fate was never rewritten, just edited. The books I rewrite tend to be books that are longer, more complex, and have a lot of characters. Life Reader is my most elaborate example of a rewrite. Princess Ahira was rewritten as well. It went through one major overhaul, which changed the last third of the book. Characters and names remained intact, the biggest point of the draft was to tighten up the writing and to radically change the end of the book.

I’ve decided to suck it up, dispose of my pride, and provide  a small sample of the original Page Turner for you, Champions. This sample will show just how important the rewriting process can be. (The writing? Yeah it’s bad.) Thanks for reading, and please have a good laugh.

“What time is it?”  Raven asked herself.

“I dunno. Do you Aron?” another voice asked.

Raven whirled around to be greeted by the recovered twins.  “Oh, hi,” she said.

“What are you doing all the way back here?” one asked, holding a box in his arms.

“I was cleaning off the bookshelves, but I decided to take a break,” Raven responded.

The one on the left raised an eyebrow.  “Oh?  Why don’t you come hang out in the computer room with us?  Today is really slow, so the Odd One decided we could use it as ‘bonding time’.”

“I see, I guess I could…Asher,” Raven said, frowning.

“Aron,” the twin said unabashedly.  “Come on!” he shouted, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her out of the fiction section.

When they walked down the corridor Raven was greeted by all of the Library Boys.  Daire was sitting behind the desk, looking at some paperwork; Jeremiah was spinning around in a spinning chair; Royce was leaning back in a chair, his hat tipped over his eyes, and Brannon and William were reverently discussing the newest software.

“Dad gave us some more ‘strange artifacts’,” Asher said, tossing the box onto the floor.

“Does your father even have clearance to take these things home?”  William suspiciously asked as Jeremiah gave a violent shudder.

“Probably not. Those things should be outlawed!” Jeremiah said in a hushed tone.

“They are outlawed, that’s how Dad gets them,” Aron carelessly drawled.  Raven was quite surprised, usually the twins were subdued and terse around the rest of the group, but today they were quite civil.

“I don’t think I understand what’s going on,” Raven said, scratching her head.

“Our Dad is on the board of Strange and Mystical Artifacts.  He’s the head executive so whenever he gets a minor outlawed artifact he brings them home for us to play around with,” Asher said, sitting down and propping his legs up on an empty table.

“Usually it’s just really old stuff that is either extremely rare, or harmful, which is why it’s outlawed.  Most of the time it’s stuffy boring things like paintings, furniture that bites, and musty scrolls.  But every once in a while we get some good stuff,” Aron snickered, glancing toward Jeremiah who let out a small mew.

“The twins usually test stuff on Jeremiah,” William said, leaning over to whisper in Raven’s ear.

“So what did you bring today?” Royce asked, poking a corner of the box with his foot.

“Junk mostly,” Asher said, flipping through a magazine.  “Hey Dad, do we have anyone coming in this morning?”

“Dad?” Raven echoed.

Daire resisted the nickname a moment before he gave in and looked up.  “We have a total of ten users signed up for the day.  Two have already come,” he droned before returning his attention to the papers.

“Dad?” Raven repeated.

“Recently the twins have taken to calling Daire “Dad” since he sort of is.  I mean, he’s stricter than my own father for pages’ sake!” Jeremiah exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

“Dad, why don’t you give up the hermit role for once and talk?” Aron asked.  “I know that Saint Cloud Library can’t have that much paperwork,” he scoffed.

Daire resisted the nickname again before he raised an eyebrow.  “Would you like to find out?”

“No,” Asher and Aron said, rolling their eyes in unison.

“Sheesh.  You don’t have to be such a grouch,” Asher grunted.

“I’m hungry!” Brannon announced.

“You’re always hungry,” Aron growled.

“Great going Daire, you’ve put the spawns in a foul mood!” Jeremiah cried.

“It’s past eleven o’clock right?  We can eat soon,” Royce drawled.

Brannon cheered, the twins scowled, and Jeremiah quivered in his chair.

“So William, is this normal?” Raven asked, turning to the younger boy.

William shrugged.  “I guess.  Usually the twins get violent and torture Jeremiah, if they can catch him.”

Raven blinked.  “Oh,” she said, turning her gaze straight ahead once more.

“Hey Odd One!” Asher called, standing.

“We’ve got about half an hour till we’ll eat,” Aron said, a smirk sliding across his features.

“Wanna do something?” Asher asked, an identical grin creeping across his lips.

“No!” Jeremiah assured them, standing to run behind Daire.

The twins gave each other vague looks of irritation, before turning to look for William.  The small boy had already positioned himself next to Brannon, who was cheerfully and obliviously beaming.

Royce had saddled up next to Jeremiah, leaving only Raven unprotected.

“Um, I’m sick?” Raven suggested.

They closed in on her like lions in a kill.

“Come on, Rai!” Aron chided.

“Let’s go do something,” Asher jeered.

“I think I’ll go get my lunch ready,” Raven quickly said before slipping out of their clutches and scurrying off to the kitchen.

Book Banquet: Heidi

As a book geek and food lover one of my favorite things to do is attempting to recreate drinks and food that are mentioned in books. I decided I would share this hobby of mine in the form of a new category: book banquets.

The book for today’s banquet is Heidi, and we’ll be taking a look at her usual breakfast: bread and milk. Today’s ‘banquet’ can’t really be called a recipe, but In the book Johanna Spyri (the author) describes the milk and bread breakfast frequently so it’s the one I decided to go with. Every morning Heidi’s grandfather would milk one of his goats and give Heidi a frothy bowl of warm milk and a piece of bread. This sounds fairly simple–and it is–but I had to experiment for a while before I found the right milk/bread combination.

Heidi’s Breakfast

Ingredients:

1 piece of bread
approximately a cup of milk in a bowl

Preparation:

Rip off a piece of bread and soak it in the bowl of milk. Let the milk soak through–or you won’t get that milk and bread taste–but don’t leave it in too long or it gets soppy and pretty nasty.

Easy, right? It is, but if we want to get close to Heidi’s actual breakfast you need to be picky about the kind of bread and milk you use. For starters DO NOT use skim milk. Normally I can’t tell the difference between whole and skim milk, but bread with skim milk was down right nasty. It mostly tasted like like soggy bread that was dropped in water. Whole milk is best, and the fresher the better. If you really want to go for authenticity try to find someone locally who owns dairy goats. Even if they don’t run an actual goat dairy they would probably be willing to sell you fresh milk, just make sure you know your milk seller has clean facilities and high grade milk. (Fresh, local cow milk would be a good substitute.) Even if you use whole milk you can add a teaspoon or tablespoon of cream to get the most authentic taste. Since Grandfather gave Heidi milk that came straight from the goat he wouldn’t have separated the cream from the rest of the milk.

Secondly, for most of the book Heidi raves about wanting to get Peter’s (the goat herder) grandmother soft bread. She says the dark, hard bread is too difficult for her to eat. What we can infer by this is that the bread Heidi eats is very heavy and has a thick crust. (This also makes sense because crusty breads hold up better in the milk.) Again, if you’re going for authenticity I would suggest making bread in a bread machine. Bread machine bread has a thicker crust and tends to come out darker than store bought bread. DO NOT MAKE A FLAVORED BREAD!! If you want to go for something lightly sweet, like a honey bread or apple bread, that would be fine, but don’t go for herbal breads. It doesn’t taste horrible, but it certainly doesn’t taste breakfast-y. If you’re in a time crunch and you want to use store bought bread go for it. Try to get something that is heartier with nuts or whole grains–not super soft white bread. This is because, again, we know Heidi ate extremely crusty bread and because soft white bread doesn’t hold up in the milk.

If you want to take this a step farther you could make Heidi’s lunch–which was bread covered with soft goat cheese and milk. (I’m pretty sure if this is all people ate they would suffer from scurvy.)

That’s all for today’s banquet. If you have a book banquet you would like me to make leave a comment!

Extra Chapter Available

Good day to you all, Champions!

The characters who show up in the extra chapter of Life Reader have been officially named as the prize of the Spread the Secret contest!

Sara named the Bakertown city official, Stanley Whalberg

and Tiffany named the second page turner trainee, Violet Rockette

You can meet Stanley and Violet in the extra chapter of Life Reader. All you need to do is review Life Reader on Amazon and fill out the contact form in the contact me section with a valid email. I’ll send you an email with the chapter in a PDF and/or word document format. Thank you to everyone who participated in Spread the Secret!

In honor of Life Reader I have some library trivia to share! The two largest libraries in the world are the Library of Congress and the British Library. Both libraries have approximately 150 million items in the library, and both receive approximately 1.75 million visitors a year. The third largest library in the world is the New York Public Library, which has over 53 million items in its collection. However, it has 87 branch libraries and boasts a whopping 18 million visitors a year. Compared to those libraries, the fictional Saint Cloud is quite small, huh?

Life Reader: Wow

Today I’m closing up shop for some of the Life Reader events!

First of all, Spread the Secret is officially over! The winners are Sara and Tiffany–they’ll be getting an email from me shortly in which they have the chance to name a Life Reader that will appear in the extra chapter, and the next Life Reader book. (I plan to start writing book two this fall, so it’s pretty safe to say it will be available by Christmas.)

Talk Shop is still running, so if you want to read the extra chapter of Life Reader review it, send me an email, and once Sara and Tiffany name their character I will email you the chapter.

Finally, Life Reader did fantastic during it’s five free days! Yesterday it reached number 14 for free YA fantasy books, and 34 in the free urban fantasy section. To those who are here because they read Life Reader, welcome!

Thank you, Champions, for participating in the contests! Stay tuned for more information on my next book, and the next Life Reader book.

It’s Alive!!

Champions! It’s finally here! Today Life Reader is not only available for purchase, but it’s free! Spread/share/like the news far and wide–Life Reader lives!

Now that I have that melodramatic moment behind me, extra sample chapters of Life Reader are going up on Textnovel and Fictionpress to alert readers of it’s free status. Also I had my first author interview! Star over at The Bibliophilic Book Blog interviewed me in promotion of Life Reader‘s giveaway. Please check The Bibliophilic Book Blog out and give Star a chance to experience some Champion love!

Finally, watch the date, because the next Life Reader contest is about to kick off. The prize is an extra chapter of Life Reader, and anyone can snatch it provided they review Life Reader on Amazon and then contact me so I can send them the chapter. For more information look at the top post, or click here.

Thanks Champions, I couldn’t do this without you!

Promotion Error

Champions I am ashamed to announce that there was a promotions managing mishap. As a result Life Reader will now be available free starting tomorrow, June 7. I’ll be going an extra day since it was unfortunately pushed back, so Life Reader will now be offered for free from June 7 to June 11.

I apologize for the change and delay.

Camelot is coming

I’m excited to announce that tomorrow marks the first day that Life Reader will be offered for free! It will be free from June 6 to June 10. Life Reader is the second young adult urban fantasy book I’ve published, although it takes an entirely different stance on magic and paranormal beings than my first YA urban fantasy, My Life at the MBRC. My Life at the MBRC is something of a satire. Life Reader revels in the marvels of magic. If you’ve liked any of my other books please pick up a free copy of Life Reader! Remember to review and send me an email and I’ll send you a free extra chapter of Life Reader.

I also have some news on the next book I’m publishing. King Arthur and her Knights (Yes, the title is still pending, you know me too well) is started. Right now I have a measly 5,000 words, but the deeper I plunge into the story the faster I go. King Arthur and her Knights is going to be a series–don’t worry, I promise not to end the books in cliffhangers as I did for Robyn Hood: A Girl’s Tale. The reason its a series is because there are too many legends and stories I want to explore. The Knights of the Round Table are a fascinating bunch, and there’s more literature out there about them then there is about King Arthur himself. King Arthur and her Knights will be approximately 40,000 words, and it will show how Britt secures her throne. In spite of how most movies portray it Arthur didn’t pull the sword from the stone and waltz up to a throne. There were a number of kings and rebellions he had to subdue first.

Thanks for reading, Champions. I hope you enjoy Life Reader.

eBooks and the mixing of media

This week Thursday, June 6, marks the five days that Life Reader will be free. Please tell everyone you know, enter in the limited time contest Spread the Secret, and get ready for the Talk Shop review giveaway!

Earlier last month I read an interesting article where a Scottish author, Irvine Welsh, talks about the possibility of mixing media to make eBooks. He wants to include not just pictures, but video and links in his book as well. Some writers are already doing this. A friend of Welsh’s published an eBook that contains links to short films. This idea both overjoys and horrifies me.

I love the idea of adding another dimension to books that was previously unavailable. How incredible would it be to read an eBook that comes with it’s own background music? Pictures and video would allow a reader to further bury themselves in the story. Think of all the tie ins! Let’s use Narnia as an example. Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to click on the words “Turkish Delight” (the sweet that Edmund eats and betrays his family for) and be redirected to the author’s website where there is a recipe for it?

However, I can think of a few drawbacks. First of all I would hope this kind of format would not be wide spread. Why? I believe in imagination. While providing that extra media would make the book experience richer, it would also be like chewing someone’s food for them. Reading a book gives the author a chance to tell you a story, yes, but as the reader it’s your responsibility to flesh out the story in your mind. I don’t often like movies based on books because the characters don’t look at all similar to the way I pictured them.

Secondly, not all books need this. I see this idea as something similar to 4D movies. Not all movies need to be 4D because most movies aren’t made for it. The movies that are made for 4D shine brightly and make you think that the $20 ticket was actually worth it. I think that’s how mixed media books will be. It will be perfect for some, and not at all necessary for others.

But the biggest drawback I can think of is monetary. If books include videos, pictures, and links, what’s to keep sponsors from swooping in? Of course this gives the author more chance for merchandising, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. (If Harry Potter eBooks contained links to Harry Potter costumes and trinkets you can bet your sweet pages I would happily buy stuff.) I’m thinking more mainstream, like corporations buying their way into books. Suddenly main characters will be sipping Pepsi or going to Starbucks for half the book. The hero’s mother only uses Tide to clean his clothes, and his girlfriend drives a Toyota which is pictured in almost all the media. I don’t think it will ever get that bad–after all it’s not like that in movies or TV and they have plenty product placements, but I suspect it will make books appeal to the corporate world in ways they previously did not.

What do you think, Champions?

Community Spotlight: Cover Artist

In book news Life Reader is now available on Amazon, but remember I’m offering it for free June 6 through June 10!

Today I’m going to shine the spotlight on one of our community members: my cover artist. Her artist  name is Myrrhlynn (pronounced Merlin) which suits her perfectly because she works magic with photoshop.

Myrrhlynn has made all of my covers for me, with the exception of Princess Ahira. She also made all the extra graphics for Life Reader. As far as I know I am the only author she creates covers for.

Working with Myrrhlynn is both eye opening and a blast. I usually have a vague cover idea and relay it to Myrrhlynn. Myrrhlynn very graciously does not scream at my total lack of graphic artistry and whips up a sample cover of her own design–which is a million times better. (Believe me, you do NOT want to see the original cover of My Life at the MBRC. That is a painful memory.) She usually uses a royalty free stock photo as her base and works from there. Sometimes, as is the case with Life Reader, she does a great deal of manipulation to make the graphic perfect (In the original photo the book is not positioned where my cover has it).

A fun thing about Myrrhlynn is her passion for fonts. I enjoy the benefits of this passion as it makes my covers a million times better, but Myrrhlynn is very specific and purposeful with the fonts she uses in her work. A cover font sets the tone of the book, she says. I gave her a few headaches with the title Red Rope of Fate. She had a horrible time choosing a font that didn’t make the book look sleazy, which is pretty funny considering it’s nothing but a sweet, fluffy love story.

I owe a lot to Myrrhlynn and her fantastic covers. Good cover art is an important step in attracting readers, so in a way, Champions, you are all here because of Myrrhlynn. So this is a shout out thanks to Myrrhlynn: the wizard of photoshop!

New Contest + Loading Life Reader

Horrah! Life Reader is uploading to Amazon as I type! It should be available for purchase in the next 24 hours, but remember I’ll be offering it for free June 6-June 10.

The release of Life Reader marks two new contests:

Spread the Secret: The point of Spread the Secret is to get the word out about Life Reader, specifically the five days I’m offering it for free. The rules are pretty simple: the two people who spread the news about Life Reader the most will each get the chance to name a character that pops up in the extra chapter of Life Reader. To enter all you need to do is post in the discussion on my Amazon Author page (click here) or email me a list of all the ways you shared the secret of Life Reader. Feel free to use any of the Life Reader media I have made available on the Life Reader page when you share/like/talk it up! Here are a few ideas of places you can spread the secret: Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, Shelfari, Google+, verbally (Yes, if you TELL a friend about Life Reader I’m counting that!), Amazon, blog about it, Youtube, review it, etc. How many ways can you spread the secret?

Talk Shop: Starting date: June 10   Ending date: June 30

Talk Shop is my favorite kind of contest because everyone who enters automatically wins. (Yaaaay!) All you need to do is read Life Reader, review it, and email me a copy of your review with a valid email address. Within 48 hours I will email you an extra chapter of Life Reader. Please give Life Reader an honest review–you don’t have to wax poetry over it.

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