Ksenia Anske's Blog, page 58
March 12, 2014
Writing a book you don't want to write
I must share this with you. Writing IRKADURA, my 3rd novel, has been quite a trip. I thought I know what I'm doing. Oh my God! I'm writing my 3rd book! Holy shit, I'm so fucking experienced! Turns out, I know nothing. I've gone through periods of loving it, hating it, wanting to share it with the whole world, wanting to burn my laptop in the oven, wanting to quit writing altogether, then deciding not to, adding a whole magical realism layer to the 2nd draft, rearranging...
March 8, 2014
The art of sarcasm
Photo by Rosie Hardy
I've been asked to write about this for a while now, probably because I'm never serious when chatting with folks, whether it's on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or in some other wondrous online place. (Yes, I'm online a lot. No, really, I'm NEVER serious.) I also want to write novels that are so very silly, they choke on themselves from laughter, albeit my first trilogy was soul-rending, but that's because I was going through shitty times. Now shitty times are behind me, and...
March 4, 2014
Giving away and selling your books yourself
Fellow writer Barry Napier asked me this: "I follow you on Twitter and have been marveling at your influence on other writers. Being a bit influenced myself, your strategy and approach to writing has started to open my eyes. I am seriously considering unpublishing my work from Amazon and placing it on my site... it would become the exclusive place to purchase my work on a Name Your Price basis. My fears, of course, are how people will discover my work without the power...
March 2, 2014
How to write the perfect description
I read a lot. Well, by some standards maybe I should read even faster, but I also write full time, so I read a book a week. That's about 50 books a year, and my body being close to 40, probably another 2,000 books in the rest of my life. Although, who knows, maybe by then people will live all the way to being 200 years old (doubt it). It takes 10,000 hours to get good at something, or so Malcolm Gladwell says. That's 5 years of doing something for about 8 hours a day....
March 1, 2014
On Russia, Ukraine, and the tyranny of one
This was supposed to be a post on the art of sarcasm, but after reading this morning's news about Putin approving the use of the military force in Ukraine I simply can't not write about it, and I can't write about anything else. As I'm writing this, I'm shaking. I've been posting my thoughts on Twitter about the book I'm working on right now, IRKADURA, fueled by my experiences growing up in Soviet Union, and how it relates to what's happening in the glorious country of...
February 26, 2014
Plots, subplots, and sub-sub-subplots and the rest
I got asked to write about plots, subplots, and, in particular, about "the subplot of a love triangle or square or pyramid...or whatever shape you want." So, here we go. Ahem. Let's see here. What do I know about plots or plotting? Not much, considering the fact that I do pantsing, although I did plot my trilogy extensively, but then gave up. Plotting ahead of the story is just not my thing, although the more I meet and talk with wildly successful published authors out...
February 22, 2014
Artist's responsibility to herself and to the public
I got an email from fellow writer Theresa Largusa with this request: "Here are a couple of questions I think about often, especially in light of how self-publishing is now considered legitimate: What is the artist's responsibility to herself? What is the artist's responsibility and obligation, if any, to the public? I'd be interested in what you think. Also, if you feel these questions would make a good blog post, that would be wonderful."
I oblige, of course. Here is what...
February 18, 2014
Why it's okay for first drafts to be a mess
I know I promised people to write about my Russian literature influences, like what books inspired me to write, what authors, and someone asked for a post on how to write ABOUT ME blurbs. I will get to it, I swear, but something else bubbled to the surface today, something that I want to share, to help those of you who are like me, unsure of themselves as artists, stumbling in the dark, wanting to share their art and not quite having enough courage to step forward, int...
February 14, 2014
On mermaids and sirens, what they mean to me and why I love them
Alyonushka by Viktor Vasnetsov
Surprisingly, after being asked to blog on above said creatures, I realized that despite having written a trilogy involving sirens, I haven't really blogged about why I picked them in the first place, on my fascination with them and such, only having touched upon them here and there in guest blog posts but never having written one solid piece. Well, this needs to be rectified, correct? Therefore, let me dish on mermaids and sirens, or, more like, let me start w...
February 11, 2014
Why I decided to self-publish
I've been asked to write a blog post on my self-publishing journey, and, more importantly, on my decision to self-publish, why I chose to get out there in the wild wild publishing world on my own. I've written a bunch of posts on publishing before, like about self-publishing platforms (link), how donations make me more money than sales (link), how much it cost me to self-publish (link), and close to 20 posts more. They are all here (link). But I haven't really written i...
