R.J. Blain's Blog, page 83

An Interview with Author Adam Christopher

Hello, Adam! Thank you so much for joining me on my blog to talk about your new novel, Hang Wire. This is one of the most unique books I have had the pleasure of reading recently. Its complexity was really appealing, and I enjoyed the twists, turns, and fantastical nature of the tale. What inspired you to write this novel?

Hang Wire by Adam Christopher

I first had the idea for Hang Wire on my first trip to San Francisco. I fell in love with the place, as it reminds me a lot of Auckland, New Zealand, where I’m from. I knew I had to set a story there! Ted’s encounter with the exploding fortune cookie was actually based on something that really happened to me, although it was nothing quite as dramatic. We went out for dinner in Chinatown, we got fortune cookies at the end, and mine sort of burst open. Inside, instead of a single fortune, was a wedge of paper strips, all printed with the same thing: YOU ARE THE MASTER OF EVERY SITUATION. I thought this was pretty funny, and stuffed them all in my wallet as a reminder.

Then I wondered about the cookie, and what if it hadn’t just been a random fortune – what if it was a personal message? What if there was something else hidden inside a fortune cookie – and the wrong guy opened it? From there the idea just spiraled out. I had my San Francisco novel!

 Before I get into the nitty-gritty about the book, without spoiling things, what is your favorite part of this book? Why? 

I have lots of favourite parts, and I’m especially fond of Joel Duvall’s little interludes. He was originally a minor character, but the more I wrote him, the more I liked him and the more his story expanded of its own accord. So his interludes, in which he travels across America over the span of more than 100 years, were unplanned, but so much fun to write.

I particularly like the sequence where Sara and Kara, two performers from the circus, follow Joel into the fairground, late one night. Then Kara has a fit and collapses – almost as if she’s possessed by some external force – and Sara has to run to Joel for help. Only he’s a little busy talking to his machines…

An excerpt from Hang Wire…

The fairground was moving. Joel bobbed his arms up and down, the rise and fall of a conductor directing his orchestra. As he swayed here and there, up and down, so the machines around him responded. The big dipper behind the carousel rocked, the movements of the sailing ship that swung like a giant pendulum matching the side-to-side motion of Joel. The lights on the Ferris wheel looming over everything on the other side flickered and buzzed, and the wheel rolled in either direction, all in time to Joel.

Sara’s eyes crawled around the ring of machines in horror. Each of them moved, twitching in time with one another and in time with their master. The lights were on full now, and they pulsed, almost organically, as power ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed. Far and near, far and near, as Joel swayed and swung his arms from side to side, side to side. In front of Joel, the carousel puffed like a steam train as the engine at its heart sprang to life, and it began to rotate, slowly at first, spinning about its axis as it should. In the machine’s hub was a pipe organ, surrounded by mechanical puppets and automaton musicians, and on top sat the monkey, as large as a small child. It’s red eyes were glowing, and the organ started to play, a drone, a tuneless wailing, a whistling of pipes that sank into Sara’s bones, the sound of stars falling, the sound of the endless cold of space.

Joel swayed and the carousel began to accelerate, faster and faster, around and around. Sara watched the painted horses and elephants and monsters whip around, their forms and lights blurring in the misty evening air. The discordant drones of the pipe organ formed a familiar fairground melody. But it was slow, somehow, and out of tune. As Sara watched she felt her heart beat and her head thump, in time to the music, in time to the pulsing lights.

There are a lot of elements that blend reality and history with fiction. How did you pull this off? How much research would you say was involved in the process of writing this book?

The history came from the story: it was about San Francisco, and the earthquake history of the place was involved, so that was woven into the book – especially as the book features characters who have lived a rather long time, and has sequences spanning all of Twentieth Century. This made it pretty easy to do, because some of those characters were actually there when this stuff happened.

This also made the book fairly research-heavy. There was the history of San Francisco and it’s geology, for which I had a stack of reference sources. But there was also modern-day San Francisco – I’ve spent time there and it’s one of my favourite cities, but I’ve never lived there, so I had some locals I know on hand to check over the manuscript and key scenes. The book is fiction – fantasy, at that – but it was important to get the feel of the place right. There’s no Gretsch Street in the real San Francisco, for example, but the suburbs of Daly City are leafy and quiet!

You use tenses and perspective types as a tool in Hang Wire. Why did you make the choice to switch up the tenses and perspectives in this novel?

I tend to write using multiple point-of-view characters. I suspect this is a little more common with British fiction, although I can’t say for sure. But it’s a useful tool to split a story into different plots, so long as you don’t spread it too thin.

The tenses was a deliberate choice – my standard writing form is third-person, past-tense, but for the scenes with the acrobat Highwire I wanted third-person, present-tense to get a very particular feel. Highwire is a bit of a mystery – he doesn’t even really know who he is himself, and he doesn’t remember much about his own past, not even how he arrived in San Francisco. He’s single-minded, trailing the Hang Wire Killer across the city, so I wanted him to be very much in the “now”. So his sequences are in present tense, because that’s the way he is.

Did you worry that you would turn readers off by shifting the tenses and perspectives based on the current leading character?

The perspective shifts are fairly standard – so long as everything is clear and you don’t shift POV without signaling it first, readers can keep up. Shifting tenses is harder to do and requires careful editing, but again, so long as it’s delineated clearly and used sparingly.

What was the most challenging thing about writing Hang Wire?

Hang Wire is pretty plot-heavy, so mapping everything out – and making sure all the strands linked together the way they should at the end – was important. As I was rewriting from my original draft I stopped and re-outlined the book after every few chapters. No shortcuts, no quick fixes! Everything that happens in the story is linked, some in obvious ways, some in subtle ways.

How long did it take for you to complete Hang Wire?

That’s tricky to figure out! The first draft was written sometime around 2009, and most likely took about six months. Then I trunked it, and came back to it in about October 2012. The edit and rewrite was maybe another six months, although I was working on The Burning Dark as well, so I have a whole year of editing where it all blurs in one!

But there were two distinct phases, and essentially two distinct books – the draft from 2009, and the new book that finally managed to carved out of that draft around August 2013.

To shift gears a little bit, can you tell us a bit about your writing background? How did you get involved in writing? Was there any secret formula to acquiring a contract with a really reputable publishing house? Any tips for hopeful writers who want to go the traditional publishing route?

I’ve written since a young age, and have gone through various stages of writing lots or not writing at all. Around 2006ish I submitted a novel to a publishing house which had opened up to unsolicited subs, and I was rejected – rightly so – but that spurred me on to take writing seriously. So I guess that’s the beginning of my pseudo-professional timeline!

While I was working on a new book I joined Twitter, not to try and get a book deal or sell a book, but just because it seemed like a fun place to hang out. Eventually I met Lee Harris, the editor at Angry Robot, there, but again only because we share similar interests in books, comics, film, TV, etc. He knew I was writing something, because I would occasional blog about it, but he never asked and I never said anything. I met him at a few conventions and we hung out, and then about two years later I was passing by the Angry Robot office and asked if I could drop in. Over lunch, publishing director Marc Gascoigne asked what book I was working on, so I did a rambling, unprepared pitch, which I’m sure was awful, but he said it sounded interesting and that I should send the book in when it was done.

That was Empire State – by that point the third novel I had completed – and when it was done, I sent in it! They liked it, and bought it, along with Seven Wonders (the second book I’d written – the first is still locked in the trunk!). From there I got an agent, and then another book deal, and then new deals with Tor and Titan, and have reached that point where I’m a professional writer.

There’s no secret formula to getting published, unless you count writing a great book and having a dash of luck to be it. The Work, with a capital W, is all that matters, because without it you haven’t got anything. So that’s the primary consideration, always.

The second thing is the element of luck. When writers talk about luck, or how random the publishing industry seems, it all starts to sound a bit silly and impossible. But while it might be a matter of being at the right place at the right time, you can at least get to the right place by doing The Work. And then when the opportunity arises, you’ve got something ready to show. For me, that was that lunch in Nottingham – I’d worked hard to get to that point, and I had something to show them. I didn’t try to sell a book on Twitter. I didn’t even try to sell a book to Lee or Angry Robot, but after two years of hanging out online, they asked me.

 There’s only two pieces of writing advice that are useful, really. The first one is to write a great book. The second one is to keep going.

“Write a great book” is an easy thing to say, but it’s actually true. And it’s not impossible, either, you just need to stick to the second piece of advice – keep going. Empire State was the first book I sold but the third I had written, because I knew that I had to work as hard as possible to get better as a writer – the more you write, the better you get. So if you want to get published, write a great book. The more you write, the better you’ll get, until eventually you’ll get picked up. It might take three months. It might take five years. Whatever the case, keep writing. And that’s not to say Empire State is a great book. I’m still searching for that, but I can say that Empire State is a hell of a lot better than the awful first novel I wrote. But I had to write that one in order to write the next one. And so on.

And really, keeping these two bits of advice in mind will serve you well throughout your whole career. A writer is rejected more than they are accepted. We get good reviews and we get bad reviews. There are obstacles, and distractions, and a tonne of paperwork. When things aren’t going the way you want, it would be very easy to just stop.

But you don’t. You keep going. You keep reaching for that great book. And, first and foremost, you keep working, no matter what.

 I just can’t seem to end an interview without testing an author’s creativity. You have been given a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare in one bound volume. You are trapped in a warehouse with a zombie horde. How would you use this book to fight your way to freedom without being turned into food for the undead?

The obvious answer is to use the book as a weapon – all of Shakespeare in a single volume is a fat book, and with a bit of luck this’ll be a fancy-schmancy leather bound edition too. So, book as weapon, no problem. In fact, with that flash leather cover it could also double as a shield. If there’s one situation I want The Complete Works of Shakespeare with me, this is it.

Review: Leap of Space (Space & Time Vol 1) by Sharon T Rose

(c) Sharon T Rose & Curiosity Quills

It is really hard to find creative, almost fantastical science fiction stories — stories that blur the lines of what people view as hard science fiction, soft science fiction, science fantasy, as well as political and social speculation.

It’s harder still to find novels that break through the barriers of the genre and push its way to the front of the pack.

I want to say Leap of Space (Space & Time #1) by Sharon T Rose is that sort of book, but it didn’t quite make it for me. It got close; there are so many good things about this book, but I constantly had a sense that it was being held back, reined in by numerous factors that didn’t quite allow it to become that truly stellar novel that it could be.

The TL;DR Version: If you’re a really big fan of character stories, you’ll like this book. If you’re a fan of hard-hitting plots and development, you might want to be wary — plot is not a strength of this novel.

Leap of Space is the story of a slave girl and her attempts to best her Master. It is the story of the people she knows. It is the story of her Master, too, as he realizes he has been outmaneuvered by the slave belonging to him.

I want to say I loved this book. I certainly enjoyed reading it, but it just wasn’t quite there yet. Before I begin on the strengths and weaknesses of this novel, and who I think this book is best suited for, I do think it’s a book worth reading — with a few caveats.

I view this book as a 3.0* novel with a leaning towards 3.5* for unique species, fairly strong characterization, and creative world building.

I think anyone who likes reading about characters will enjoy this book. However, if you’re looking for something to keep you on the edge of your seat, you may find this book lacking. This isn’t a story involving a complex plot or many events at all, for that matter. It takes place in very limited locations, offering glimpses of the world through the characters’ eyes infrequently. We get most of the world building through inner monologue and dialogue.

If you’re the type of reader who wants to explore worlds and learn about them through the character’s interactions with them, you might find yourself disappointed. While the various species do interact frequently, the book is extremely restrained in terms of where the characters go.

Most of the progress of the book is on a personal level with the characters, rather than a blend of characters and experiences. Most of the challenges are emotional ones, albeit there are some physical elements as well. There is a plot, but the plot isn’t a focal point of the story. It can be condensed into several short sentences without losing anything at all.

In short, the stakes and the conflicts are mostly emotional. The goals of the characters feel small, with some characters having everything and doing what they do out of spite and little else. Other characters are fairly passive about their goals and motivations. A few other characters almost seem to exist to give a contrast for what the main character has versus what the main character might want, if she manages to break out of the chains of her upbringing.

There is a lot of room here for huge stakes, and a great deal of reasons — and worries — for these characters. But, as I read through, I couldn’t help but feel there was a certain amount of safety inherent within the novel. The edge of doubt and fear of a character truly meeting a bad end — be it emotionally or otherwise — just wasn’t there. When the characters did finally encounter those risks and pay the price for their decisions, it lacked the punch I was hoping for.

The novel just didn’t have the sharp, cutting edge that should be present in a book dealing with a main character that’s considered a child who is also a slave. This book has so much potential to be strong, but it wasn’t.

There are a few reasons for this, in my opinion. Originally, this novel was a web serial. It was posted in shorter chunks, and then converted into a novel after the fact. This can work, but I don’t think the publisher (Curiosity Quills) restructured the novel in such a way where it could really work as a book. They left it in the original structure of a web serial.

The chapters are brutally short, creating a jarring feeling as I read through this book. The sense of pacing the short scenes and chapters provided didn’t enhance the tension or pacing for me. It made me feel like I was reading while riding a bucking horse. Just as I would settle into a scene, it would end. Just as the tension started to pick up, the story would shift to the next ‘episode’ of the serial.

I can understand how this would work well for web fiction. In a novel format, however, it didn’t come across as strong. By the end, I felt that the scenes were too constrained by the limitations of its original formatting to really have the strength needed to make me love this book.

This book has potential, and a lot of it, but I think it lacked the heart-rending punches it could have had. It spends a great deal of time rehashing emotions and subjects we’ve already learned.

By the time it gets to the end, the impact of the changes the characters do go through don’t hit as hard.

One thing that did bother me a great deal about this book was the ending sequence. I’m not keen on spoiling anything, but if you’re looking for a strong climax, be wary. It’s one of those arcs where if you blink at just the wrong time, you might miss it. Even if you don’t miss it, you might reach the last page with the expectation to keep reading. This is potentially good for a series, but at the same time, there is no sense of closure to this book. It’s obviously meant to be paired with a second half — or even multiple volumes — but as a standalone novel, the ending just wasn’t satisfying. There was no real triumph to the end of this book.

I think the lackluster ending, where it felt like the book should keep going but puttered out, disappointed me the most.

I think the main reason for this is the plot. Because this is a story more about the interaction of characters and the speculation of behaviors of interspecies interactions, the plot fell short of what I was hoping for.

To shift gears, I want to take a few minutes to delve into the production of this book. This novel was produced through a publishing house, so when I went into reading it, I had higher expectations for quality.

If you’re someone who doesn’t want to see any errors in a book produced by a publishing house, this book may cause some problems for you. I stopped counting errors after ten. There were enough of them scattered throughout the book for them to be really noticed, interrupting the process of reading as I tried to make sense of missing punctuation, a few spelling errors, and some formatting issues. While errors in a novel aren’t a complete deal breaker for me, there were enough issues in this book I did notice them more than I should have noticed them.

Still, despite the errors and the lack of real driving plot to match the stronger characters, this book was worth the time to read it. Because of the short chapters, it does feel like a short read, which does help to mitigate some of the problems — if you don’t mind the jarring sensation of the abrupt chapters and scenes.

An Interview with SF Author Sharon T Rose

Greetings, Sharon! Thank you so much for taking the time to join me for this interview. Before I begin, can you tell us about your writing background, particularly regarding how you got into writing online serials? 

Hola, Becna! Thanks for inviting me over for a chat. Here goes:

I began writing online serials in January 2009. I’d been reading online comics for years, yet it had never occurred to me that fiction could be done the same way. One day, while surfing for some new comics to read, I clicked on a link to a serial. One Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO) later, I set up my own free website and began posting. I’d tried to write a whole novel before and been completely overwhelmed by the prospect. Breaking the writing into little chunks made it less terrifying and a lot more fun. I’ve come to value the process of serial writing and depend on the regular updates to keep myself on schedule. Mostly on schedule.

Perhaps the most challenging part of serial writing is the same challenge other writers face: keep going when you don’t feel like it. I set my own schedule and word minimum, but I don’t always feel like doing it. Real Life intervenes without warning, there are days when I’m sick or stressed or busy and I still have to write. By having an update schedule, I have a tangible deadline that allows for very little slacking. It’s a good way to keep up the writing discipline.

 Before I delve into your released novel with Curiosity Quills, what has been the most challenging aspect of writing serials online? Did you ever anticipate acquiring a contract with a small publishing house when you set out to write your serials? 

I began writing as a hobby and as a way to escape from the Desk Job I had at the time. Writing “wasn’t a real job”, so I never expected to do anything with it. The more I wrote, the more I saw when I looked at and interacted with other online authors, the more I realized that this was more than a hobby. It took years for me to gain the courage to approach anyone, agent or publisher, with my work, because I have such high standards for myself that I refused to see any value in my little scribbles. I submitted to Curiosity Quills mostly as a “see what happens but I doubt anything will” experiment. I was rather surprised when they wanted to publish it!

What is your favorite part of writing an online serial? Why? 

Oh, the dreaded “favorite” question. There are so many things that I enjoy about the process that choosing just one is as hard as choosing my favorite book! Hmm. Perhaps it’s the thrill of discovery. I’m primarily a pantser in my writing. I do some plotting and planning ahead of time, but I’ve learned that if I’m too specific, I choke of the flow and go nowhere with the writing. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to stare at what I just typed in shock, awe, confusion, or excitement, because I had no idea that those words would ever show up. So many little things that readers have told me they loved were not in the original concept of the story. Some huge things that changed the entire flow and outcome of the tale showed up when I wasn’t looking.

Your least favorite part? Why? 

I dislike most what I value most: the enforced discipline. There are days and weeks when I don’t want to write. Case in point: the last few months have been hideously stressful in Reality Land, what with family crises, illness, challenges, disappointments, opportunities, and more. I haven’t felt like writing because I was so wrung out from everything non-writing related in my life. I HATE missing an update, but I’ve had to miss several because there were too many conflicts. The requirement to write when I’ve got nothing in me to write from adds as much stress as family obligations. And yet, I still treasure it.

Can you describe the process of converting an online serial to a novel? What sort of challenges did you face going through this process? 

One of the biggest challenges lay in the fact that this was my very first attempt at writing anything more than a few pages in length or scope, and I had next to no idea what I was doing. We had so many things to clean up, fix, rearrange, change, and edit that my head swam and I felt sure I was the worst excuse of a writer in the world. However, I’ve learned from the process, and I continue to learn. I get a little better each day, each time I sit down and begin typing. Another big challenge is the difference in format between serial and novel: I update three times per week, so my updates tend to be between 1,000 and 1,500 words. Most book chapters are upwards of 5,000 words or more. Bite-sized is great for the online reader, and every update has a tiny cliffhanger at the end. It’s not easy to combine those into a single, longer chapter. In the Space & Time series, we’ve chosen to keep the chapters short to preserve some of the online feel. Is that the right choice? We will learn.

Is there anything you would have changed about how you handled writing the serial if you knew in advance you would be releasing it as a novel in the future with a publishing company? 

I don’t know that I could have changed anything way back when. As I mentioned, it was my first attempt; the entire process was a learning experience. Perhaps the only thing I could legitimately change would be doing more edits on my own before submitting to CQ’s editor. That said, I didn’t know about doing my own edits (beyond looking for typos), so how could I change that? I had to learn the hard way, the same as every other writer, what to do and not do. I guess I would change nothing about the process, because then I might not have learned all the lessons I needed to learn, and I would not be the writer I am today had I not made the mistakes I made.

You wrote an online serial. It got converted and released as a novel. Tell us about this book!

“The Galaxy is a big place. No matter how well you prepare, you’re not ready for it.“Space & Time” traces the journey of a young slave who tricks a powerful man into buying her so that she can have a better life. She doesn’t expect him to be as clever as she is, since her first master was an idiot. Jregli learns a lot of things through trial and error, including the fact that while you can’t control life, it is what you choose to make of it. There are dozens of alien Races to discover, constant clashes of culture, failures and successes, and unexpected outcomes. Jregli takes her life in her claws when she dares to change her future.

Without spoiling too much, please tell us what your favorite part is! Why is this your favorite part? 

My favorite part of “Leap of Space” is definitely the Dance sequence. Jregli has always secretly admired the Wind Dancers of her home planet, Yerbra, and when a group visit the space station where she lives, she gets to watch a performance. I had way too much fun choreographing the scene, determining what would be impressive to Yerbrans, and how to explain it all to a human audience. The scene provides a lot of character development for Jregli and fuels much of the later conflict. My favorite part of the series … well, you’ll have to read the rest of it to find out.

You are being chased by an angry unicorn. You have a Shakespearean Insults mug, a sharpie, a water bottle, and an Oxford Pocket Dictionary. How do you defeat the unicorn?

I throw the water in his face to distract him, jam the dictionary on the horn to disable it, draw zebra stripes on the pelt to embarrass him, and drink from the mug with Billy-esque smugness as he lopes off in shame.

Thanks again for having me over!

About Sharon

Sharon T. Rose grew up in the military, which did its level best to turn her into a properly-functioning and positively-contributing member of society. Being a little on the thick-headed side, Sharon needed a few decades to realize that she didn’t have the legs for combat boots, but she did eventually wise up and go AWOL. After a decade or so of college and cube farming, Sharon got the bright idea that maybe, just maybe, all those stories banging around in her head weren’t the waste of time The Brass seemed to think they were.

The break for freedom began when Sharon discovered online serial fiction in January 2009. Enveloped in a Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO), Sharon quickly set up an account with digitalnovelists.com and began posting stories. It was a ray of sunshine in the dark, dank cellar of the cubes. It was a rebellion. And ultimately, it was rebirth.

Late in 2010, Sharon left the cube farm for the greener pastures of her own imagination. The Brass screamed, the farm condescended, and Sharon put one trembling foot in front of another and made it work. After months of trial and effort, she completed a trilogy, released an ebook, syndicated a serial, sold a short story, and has so many WIPs that she sometimes wonders why she did this in the first place.

Oh, right. Because the stories must be shared.

Fun Facts About Sharon!

She lives under a rock.
She could eat Haribo™ brand Gummi Bears until she puked and be glad of it.
She’s allergic to way too much stuff, including flowers, pets, and milk.
She is fluent in over 12 accents.
She quilts by hand.
She is The Pundit.

Sharon’s second novel can be previewed at Curiosity Quills. The novel releases in April 2014.

A New Way of Plotting – An Experiment

(c) @boetter (Creative Commons – Flickr)

As some of you are probably aware, I experiment with my writing process quite a lot. Instead of sticking to one prescribed method, I’m always on the lookout for new, better ways for me to write stories.

Some stories need a different plotting structure than others. Some of the stories I write come complete with bells and whistles, just waiting for me to write them out without needing me to do anything other than write on my part. Some novels are a lot more work, requiring me to carefully consider the plot, the consequences of character actions, and so on.

I’m going to see how much of a novel I can write in one week. When I plot too extensively, I tend to write slower. This doesn’t work so well when I’m trying to do ‘marathon writing’ and accomplish excessively difficult goals in a short period of time.

However, completely writing off of the cuff, or pantsing a novel, can be as dangerous for me as writing without any outlines at all. So, I try to compromise on how I plot stories when I’m anticipating a marathon writing session.

This time, I’m trying a totally new approach.

I am writing one sentence of synopsis per scene. I have to distill what I want to happen, and capture the heart and soul of each scene. This lets me get an idea of what I want to happen without telling the story in advance. (I don’t write as well when I already know everything that’s going to happen. It’s not as much fun!)

In addition to this synopsis layout, I also wrote out the motivations and goals of the antagonist, and how the antagonist connects to the protagonist.

The rest I’ll figure out as I write. The sense of discovery is still there, as I don’t know my new character at all, and we’ll still get to make that journey together as I write.

This time, though, we’ll have a road map. If we take a detour? More power to us. I guess I’ll see how this method works when I try it over the week.

An Open Letter to Publishing Houses Small and Large

(c) JordyR (Creative Commons – Flickr)

Dear Publishers Small and Large,

I love reading books. I really appreciate what you do. I love the fact that you can take a novel and find an audience for it. I love that you provide services — good, necessary services — to your authors.

I love that I’m your audience.

I love that you made me, when I was young, start to read good books. I love that I can go to book stores or online, and look for a trusted brand of publisher, and find a book I’ll enjoy. I might not love the book, but that’s okay. I’ll enjoy the book, and that’s what’s most important to me.

We’ve been friends a long time, Publishers. Sure, you might not know me, but you know my money. I’ve certainly spent enough of it over the years. Remember that one order at Amazon.com where I spent almost $1,000 on books in one order? Yeah. That was me.

You’re welcome.

But lately, it feels like we’ve been getting distant, Publishers. There are a lot more of you out there, now. I love this. That means there is more variety! There are more books out there for me to enjoy. With you, I don’t have to search as hard to find a really good book. A great book, in fact. I can find great books with your help. When I want excellence, I search for you, trusted Publisher.

But something has changed. These small fries — and some of you large ones — seem to have forgotten something really important. You’re still releasing good books, and I get that. Really, I do. I keep throwing my money at you, after all, don’t I?

I haven’t forgotten about you. There’s more competition, though. I just don’t feel like I can trust you as much as I once could. This hurts me. It hurts me a lot.

I love the memories of going to the library and browsing the shelves, putting faith in the fact my trusted, beloved Publishers were producing books that are good. I might not like them for various reasons, but they’re still good books.

They didn’t have noticeable errors. If they did, I could count them on one hand. They had the major elements of good books. They, even if I didn’t like the specific book or a character, were strong, solid stories.

What went wrong, Publishers?

Why am I buying books by Publishers Small and Large with so many errors?

Your job is to produce strong, solid stories that are free from errors. I shouldn’t find missing words from sentences — or a sentence cut off midway through. I shouldn’t find excessive formatting errors. I shouldn’t see exclamation points coupled unnecessarily to commas. I shouldn’t see spelling errors.

Every book has flaws — I understand this! Even the best proofer will miss something. It happens. I get that. Believe me, I get that. I don’t pay much notice to these errors at all — not when they’re just a little handful. A little handful is fine. A handful, for those of you who are curious, is five. 

But, in the back of my head, I’m counting. I’m counting the number of words you butchered, the number of errors within, and the number of times you failed your authors.

If I reach ten, I get this sinking, unhappy feeling in my stomach. I start turning pages looking for the errors. I start fearing them.

They take away from the story. They make me wince. They aren’t enjoyable. They ruin good books. They make what might have been a great book into a good book.

It motivates me to make sure my books are even better in the future, though. So thanks for that, it’s appreciated.

But, seriously. Sit down. Let’s talk about this, Publishers.

You are supposed to be an example for all of us. You charge more for your books than indie authors. You boast having editorial staff to help your authors produce the best novels possible. You pay your authors less in exchange for editorial services, advertising services, cover art, and so on.

You expect readers to pay a premium because your books are supposed to be better than the rest.

I don’t care if you’re large or if you’re small, Publishers. Don’t let scale be an excuse. Where are the really good books I trust you to provide me?

Why am I picking up novels with more than five noticeable errors in them? Why am I finding many books produced by you, Publishers Small and Large, with more than ten errors?

Errors happen. But there should be limits to how many errors there are in a single novel. I can understand just not liking a plot as much as some others. I’m a picky, picky reader. I love new, exciting things. I like characters who grab me by the throat and don’t let go until they’ve taken everything they can from me.

You often provide me with this sense of wonder and discovery.

But you’ve lost your magic touch, Publishers Small and Large. Why?

Why should I lower my expectations for really good books just because the market isn’t as kind as gentle to you as it once was? I understand — good staff is hard to find on a budget. Authors have more burden on them to do their own proofing. I understand.

But when I look at a book on the shelf, where you have smeared your brand, your name, and your logo on the cover, the onus is on you to make sure that book shines.

The author has to play by your rules for so many things.

The burden is yours to make sure all of the errors are gone from these novels before they’re published. I shouldn’t be acquiring books by you — no matter what your size — that is full of editorial errors. I shouldn’t be picking up novels with formatting errors. I shouldn’t be picking up novels with sentences cut off halfway through them.

I trust you to hook me up with good books.

Your books just aren’t as good as they used to be. There are a few of you who are the Dark Knights of the Publishing World. Every recent title I’ve picked up by you has been error free or far within the five-error threshold I have. For that, I thank you.

But, as for the rest of you — the real reason you’re struggling in the modern world of novel publication isn’t because of the self-publishing competition. It isn’t because Amazon is scalping you. It isn’t because you have many more other people to fight against for consumers.

It’s because your books just aren’t as good as they used to be.

If they were, readers would trust you to still provide them with the best books. They wouldn’t feel the need to explore the indie novel market to get the good books they once trusted you to produce.

Independents are charging less for comparable works. Some indies are growing the courage to charge the same for their comparable works.

Don’t blame Amazon for your struggles.

Don’t blame independent authors for your struggles.

Don’t blame your authors for your struggles.

Don’t blame your agents for your struggles.

Don’t blame anyone but yourself. You have a job, Publishers Small and Large. That is to create good, error-free novels. When you started letting those errors creep in one by one, when you started relying on unpaid interns who know they won’t have a real chance to get into your house as an editor, when you started underpaying your proofing editors, when you started trusting your authors to provide you with proof-perfect (despite knowing an author can’t 100% proof their own books) novels, you failed. You failed your authors.

You failed your readers.

You failed me.

So, what are you going to do about it, Publishers Small and Large? The burden certainly isn’t on me to fix your mess. You made the bed, you made a mess on the sheets. Get out from under the covers and fix what you’re screwing up.

Don’t act so shocked and surprised that you’re crumbling at the foundations — because the foundation of your business has always been the quality of the books you produce and select.

Readers can tell the difference between a sparkling diamond and a stinking pile of refuse. We’re not stupid. Sometimes we like mindless drivel. We want to rot our brains on novels with no literary merit. You cater to us when you find the best of that type and bring it to us, your audience.

But you fail us with each and every editorial error you allow to slip into your novels.

There is no reason — no excuse — for a multi-person team of novel producers to allow such things to happen.

You have the edge on independent authors. You have resources. You usually have funding. You have reviewers who would be happy to point out errors in a novel if you, as some publishing companies do, put a notice in the ARC with simple, easy directions on who to report an error to.

As a reviewer, if I see such a notice, I will gladly mention any errors I find in an ARC. But a lot of you Publishers Small and Large have too much pride. You don’t include those notices.

And the Publishers Small and Large who do include those notices often don’t have errors in their novels — even in the pre-release ARCs. What does that tell me? Some publishers still care.

So why don’t you?

Independent authors get skewered if there are editorial errors in their novels. We’re expected to be up to your level. But your level is a sinking ship.

Independent authors aren’t destroying the publishing industry.

Amazon isn’t destroying the publishing industry.

Reviewers aren’t destroying the publishing industry.

You are destroying your industry, all because you don’t have the same qualities of standards you once did.

You have let people understand they can get equivalent novels from independent authors for the same price or cheaper. People are branching out. People are starting to — or have already lost — your trust.

Do you want to be the top dog again? The prime example of what novel production should be?

Act like it. Fire whatever incompetent proofers you currently have. Hire new ones. Pay them reasonable amounts per book. Make them care about the quality of the manuscript being released from the wilds. Draw on your wide pool of reviewers to catch the things you missed — because reviewers love books, and if you ask nicely, most of us would be happy to help you produce even better novels.

We want novels that shine.

You’ve heard this before. It’s been smeared all over the internet for years. Usually by dissenting independent authors who will no longer buy your books because they don’t believe in you.

How do I differ from them? I still believe.

I want you to succeed. I want your authors, your books, and your industry to do well. I want my industry to do well. We’re in this same ship together.

Most of all, I love good books.

By releasing novels with so many errors, all you’re saying is that you’ve forgotten that — that in the effort to make money as quickly as possible — you no longer love those books.

Go ahead, get offended. I know a lot of editors and agents who work many long, hard hours on their projects, trying to ensure the careers of authors. But, by allowing basic errors — you do know the difference between there, they’re, and there, right? — you are sending a message:

You no longer care.

And with that message, you sink your own ship. You turn an empire into ruins. You ruin the hopes of your readership. You lose your audience.

Publishers, I still love you. You’re not broken. Sure, you’re a little bent right now, but you can be fixed.

Start with your proofing department. Let the flaws in a novel be with the characters — and let those flaws be with the opinion of the reader. Let the flaws in novel be with the plot — and let those flaws be with the opinion of the reader.

Don’t ruin great books. Stop ruining great books.

You are an example for all of us. Start acting like it.

Those independents you so fear won’t hold back. Amazon will continue to grow. You could use amazon as a great tool to connect with readers. You already do it. You could be so much more than you are now.

But, until you fix the problem with your editorial staff and your proofing staff, your house is burning down around your ears and you paid the firemen to go on vacation to Antarctica.

Independent authors have learned this less already. Freelance editorial is surging, because independents want to be as good as you. But, there is another problem.

They aren’t just striving to be as good as you.

They want to be better.

Your hull is leaking, and it isn’t because of independents, because of amazon, or because of the crumbling brick and mortar book stores. It’s because of you.

Sit down, Publishers. You can get your panties in a bunch later. Right now, you’re being reviewed by those who love books more than they love you.

You have a huge problem, Publishers, and it isn’t with your readers, independent authors, or amazon. I trust you see where I’m going with that, right?

You, unlike many independent authors, have budgets. If an independent author can afford good proofing editors, why can’t you?

Why am I finding independent novels with the same professional — or better professionalism — that you are supposed to be the trophy, showcase example of?

I’m patient, Publishers Small and Large, but my patience wears thin. My attention wanders — I check even your samples now for quality. I didn’t used to feel like I had to.

What are you going to do about it?

P.S.: I still love you, but we all have to grow up at some point. Give me a reason to believe in you as I always have.

Orangeberry Book Tours – A Review of Many Parts – Part 1

In November of 2013, I decided I wanted to try some promotional marketing for myself. I started looking around at the various book tour groups online, trimming down to a list of four or five. These all had one thing in common: They accepted indie authors.

A lot of the larger book tour companies don’t. This doesn’t surprise me, as many of the blogs and review groups associated with the blogs are interested in professional work only. It’s a bit of an unfortunate truth that there are many more amateur indie authors out there than professional ones at the moment.

I went with Orangeberry Book Tours. This group has a reasonably large tour blog pool, allowing up to 90+ day long book tours. In the interest of testing out the viability of a book tour service, I wanted a group that could support that many ‘stops’ (or visits to various blogs.)

What interested me about this touring group includes three things: Their twitter services, their rafflechopter organization, and their book club. Book reviews tend to be a part of most touring groups, but few tours I have seen use a stable pool of readers in the form of a book club. It is my hope that because the reviews will be coming from a book club group, they’ll be more serious than standard customer reviews.

The impact of their reviews, rafflechopter, and twitter Services, however, will be a discussion for another post of this review of Orangeberry’s services.

Today, I want to focus on the preparation process for the book tour. Due to the extensive size of my book tour with them — which has blog stops scheduled into the third quarter of next year — there was a great deal of preparation work needing done.

I’m going to break this up for you, step by step, so you know what was needed, why it was needed, and my thoughts on whether or not this is an effective marketing tactic.

 

Guest Posts

 

Guest posts are a big part of a book blog tour. Some of you are probably nodding at this point. I get along really well with guest posts, especially about writing and reading. I took to this like a fish to water. I started with 20 some unique 500 to 1,000 word guest posts on a variety of different subjects.

Orangeberry Book Tours provided a master list of subjects I could write about, with the additional perk of allowing me to create my own subjects to write about. This pleased me quite a bit.

In February, I will be writing additional guest posts, as I want every blog to have unique content.

This is something that many people have complained about: There are a notable amount of authors who do not want to invest the time to make a unique post for each blog. This hurts your success at a book blog tour. I emailed back and forth with one of the organizers at Orangeberry Book Tours, and she confided to me that many of the authors who participate on the tours will do the absolute minimum. This hurts their tours.

I didn’t make that mistake. I provided enough guest posts for the first 30 day tour to have unique posts. In the beginning of February, I will be giving Orangeberry Book Tours additional guest posts so that blogs can have unique content.

At the end, I suspect some blogs will share content. It’s extremely difficult to write a minimum of sixty unique blog posts in a short period of time.

If you decide to participate in a book blog tour, invest in yourself and your book. Write unique posts for the participating blogs. It makes them happy, and it’ll make you a lot happier with the results at the end of the day.

 

Interviews

 

In addition to guest posts, interviews are a part of the standard Orangeberry Book Blog tour. Interviews were done in an interesting way with them — and I understand the reasoning for why. It’s really hard to coordinate that may direct interviews with blogs. So, to solve this problem, the Orangeberry coordinators give authors a massive list of questions and ask them to answer as many of the questions as possible, once again with a set minimum of questions needing answered.

Orangeberry then compiles the questions into interview batches to give to participating blogs. This is an effective way to ensure each blog gets a unique interview without adding a lot of additional overhead. Being a fan of running interviews on my blog, I know just how much time it takes for me to get one interview done.

So, from a blogger perspective, I can see how this would be a huge relief — and a major saver of time.

Like with the guest posts, I went overboard with the questions. Unique content is king, and considering you only need to write 50-100 words per question, there is no reason an author can’t answer a lot of questions, making sure their interviews are unique and interesting.

I had a lot of fun with the interview questions. Like with the guest posts, I added some questions of my own to the list to add a little spice to it.

 

Excerpts

 

In addition to the guest posts and interviews, excerpts are used to help generate interest for a book. Orangeberry uses blog posted excerpts and bookbuzzr to handle excerpts.

If you’re in KDP Select, like I am, you have to be extremely careful about the excerpt selection. In KDP Select, you cannot post excerpts from the novel outside of the sampling section listed on amazon.com. Not many authors are aware of this. (Orangeberry was very clear about the limitations on excerpts in regard to KDP Select, as it is in their better interests to make certain their clients do not violate KDP Select rules.)

This was quite appreciated by me, as it shows that Orangeberry does, indeed, care about making certain the authors are aware of potential issues with their novels and the excerpts.

I selected the minimum number of excerpts for the tour due to the fact that I am enrolled in KDP Select, and I was struggling to find good excerpts of the appropriate length that didn’t include major spoilers for the novel.

 

Twitter Blasts and Twitter Interviews

 

One of the more interesting services that Orangeberry offers is their twitter promotions. Orangeberry has some 100,000 followers, making it a good place to get your name out there. I definitely noticed a surge in followers following the twitter blasts and interviews.

Twitter blasts are snippets of the book and the book’s blurb, links to the book, and brief quotes and other things of interest from the novel. The twitter interviews are a series of questions pinged out by Orangeberry over the course of the interview date(s).

 

Rafflecopter

 

An optional component of Orangeberry’s tours is the addition of a rafflecopter. I opted to do one for a $25 amazon gift card. These raffles give users a chance to win a free gift card. In order for them to participate in the raffle, they have to do little tasks. This can be tweeting about the book, following my twitter account, or liking my facebook page.

Rafflecopters are a way to get additional exposure. If you’re dishing out for the tour, I personally recommend you add the extra $25 for the raffle. It has a synergistic impact with the book tour, draws additional attention to the novel, and helps with branding.

Orangeberry set up and maintains the raffle, which is a huge relief for someone like me who has no idea how to set one up and get it posted without help. (I’m sure with some effort I could figure it out, but I like that it was a free service — I just paid for the gift card.)

 

BookBuzzr

 

One of the more frustrating parts of setting up the Orangeberry tour was setting up the bookbuzzr feed. This feed allows users to start reading your book, much like the amazon’s sample reading. KDP Select users must ensure that the sample is the same length, or shorter, than what is available on amazon.com.

Setting up the bookbuzzr was a little more complicated than I like, but considering that each of the book blog posts includes this feed plus links to buy the book, it was well worth the frustration and the headache to set up.

 

Time Investment

 

Orangeberry asks for at least six weeks to prepare a book blog tour. This gives them time to coordinate with their various blogs, find out if their club members wish to review the book, and so on. During the first four or five weeks of the wait period, authors are expected to write up their guest post content, answer interview questions, and prepare the excerpts.

Use this time wisely. These posts do take time to write up, and the responsibility is all on the author to make sure the posts are in good shape for the blogs.

Blogs reserve the right to reject content that has errors or is lackluster.

I expect I spent at least 30 hours preparing for the book blog tour. But, I view this as time well spent, as it is invested in making certain that my book gets the best exposure possible.

The most important thing I have walked away with from the preparation process of the tours is the fact that you really get out of the tours what you put into them. If you want your tour to do well, write the best posts and content possible for them.

That’s how you get the attention of potential new readers.

 

The Branding Potential of a Book Tour

 

One of the reasons I decided to start with a book blog tour is the fact that I want to brand myself and my novels. That means spreading word about my books (and links to amazon) around the internet. With a tour of this size, I will be able to increase the relevancy of my name to my novels. This doesn’t have an easily-calculated value, although it’s valuable all of the same.

More to come, as I experience the tour in full, and have a change to gather some data on how the tour has impacted my novel’s performance.

Killing Your Darlings

I don’t remember which post on Google+ jarred my brain on this subject. It isn’t something I think about very often. I don’t go around chanting “Kill them! Kill all of the darlings!” when I edit — either for myself, or for my clients. I don’t even keep it in my subconscious. It isn’t a factor when I look at one of my novels — or at the novel of a client.

For some reason, I feel like I’m poking at a bee nest with this subject.

As always, these are just my opinions, written up in my straight forward sort of way.

What Does Kill Your Darlings Mean?

My understanding of it is this: Never become so attached to a scene, a phrasing, or a character that you are not willing to remove it from your story.

In application, I’ve seen a lot of writers (and by a lot, I really do mean a lot) take it a step further, making it mean “If you really like it, cut the darling to improve your story, because it obviously can’t be that good!”

Maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe I’m being a hard ass about it. Some might venture that I’m taking a rather bitchy stance on this. Frankly, I prefer my interpretation: Be willing to remove scenes, phrases, and characters that don’t work in the story in order to strengthen it.

I want to flip this on its ear for a moment. I want to take a look at the consequences of blindly cutting favored things in the effort to improve a novel.

Disclaimer: Sometimes it really is necessary to cut a favorite thing from a book. I’ve done it many times, because favorite doesn’t mean necessary.

This is a discussion on the over reliance on this mentality to ‘edit’ a novel.

The Risks of Cutting Your Darlings

After editing a lot of fiction in the last year, there is one thing I can say with confidence: It’s often easy to tell when someone truly loved what they were working on. It’s easy to tell when someone was in the groove, and they were able to create their writing in a mindset where darlings are formed.

The writing is often a step up from other scenes. The characters are more vibrant, more lively. The scenes are better in general.

These darlings, as they are, often create the entire atmosphere of a novel.

Cutting them would be slashing a knife to the novel’s throat and letting them exsanguinate. Sometimes they need adjusted. But to remove them? It would cut away the life from the novel one terrible stroke at a time.

I’m of the mindset that novels can be improved — including the darling scenes.

Improvement, however, is not killing. Killing is a term to remove, to cut away, to destroy.

And by having the mentality of approaching edits and writing with the intent to kill your darlings, I’m growing into a firm believer that you’re running the risk of killing that ‘something’ that makes a novel appealing.

Don’t kill your darlings.

Groom them.

When is it Necessary to Kill Your Darlings?

Sometimes, killing off a favorite scene or chapter or character is necessary. Sometimes, the phrase you so loved just doesn’t work anymore due to how things prior in the novel have changed.

These darlings must go, if they no longer fit in the novel. This is much different than purposefully going out of your way to attack those favorite scenes in a fit of insecurity.

There is a large and notable difference between a necessary but painful cut and wallowing in insecurity. 

Because you like a scene, a character, or a phrasing doesn’t mean it is bad. I am astonished each and every time that a writer cuts something like this for no other reason than it was a darling, and because someone posted a quote out of context on the internet, they have to cut this darling.

It sounds a little ridiculous when I type it out that way, doesn’t it? Well, I guess that is because I do think it’s a little ridiculous that someone would actually cut phrasings, sentences, entire scenes, and characters on the grounds that they are overly fond of them. That this driven creativity, born of love and self-appreciation, is a bad thing in a novel.

Next time you go to kill your darlings during editorial, please take a minute — take an hour’s worth of them, even — and ask yourself this: Why am I cutting this darling?

Here is a handy little mental checklist I use to determine whether or not a character, scene, or phrase needs to be changed or cut:

Does it fit with the flow of the story?
Does its inclusion make the story stronger or enhance the atmosphere or intangibles of the novel?
Does it add clarity to the scene, the chapter, or the story as a whole?
Does removing the scene harm the flow or clarity of the story?
Does removing it alter your characters? If so, does the removal benefit the novel on a whole?
Why do I like this scene, this character, or this phrase so much? (Then I ask myself: If it stays, does it harm the story? If it doesn’t harm the story…. it stays!)

Because there are those who watch me because of my editorial work, here is how I handle obvious darlings in a client’s novel differently:

I don’t handle them differently. I make comments as I see them — if the darling works (and often, I see the dramatic increase of quality when I’m in a darling scene) I tell them how to make the darling better. If it doesn’t work, I try to point out the things an author might do to, well, make the darling better.

Darlings can get better.

Groom Your Darlings

Maybe it’s the glass half-full approach. Maybe its the fact that I see too many authors disparage themselves in the effort to follow this sort of writing advice without being able to understand that darlings are a good thing in a novel.

Maybe it’s my belief that darlings help make the story shine.

No matter what the psychological reasoning might be, I’m a huge fan of taking something good and making it great. There is a reason that phrase, that character, or that scene is a darling. Cutting is easy.

Bringing something to life, making something good into something great — that’s hard.

Maybe I believe that ‘Killing Your Darlings’ isn’t the right way to approach it, but rather to ‘Change Your Darlings’ is more of how I think novels should be approached. Change isn’t a bad thing — it turns good books into great books. It can turn flawed, lackluster books into good books.

It all depends on how the author approaches their editorial. Some authors can naturally go about finding and improving their darlings to make them shine.

Others cut them, because that’s the only thing they know how to do — because cutting to trim down can be perceived as a way to improve a story.

Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes I will sit down with a client and tell them that a scene just doesn’t work. I’ll tell the client why, and make recommendations on how I think they could improve on what they have and fix the weak sections to turn their book into a better book.

I don’t like telling clients I think they need to cut things. It happens often enough. And sometimes, the darlings are on my short list of things to be cut.

Some authors choose to cut, and give birth to new, better darlings. Some authors choose to keep the scenes, the characters, or the phrasing, and find a way to turn their darling into a important part of their novel.

Both ways can be right.

But, and this is only my opinion of course, those things were darling to you for a reason.

It often shows to readers.

Disclaimer: This is not advice to leave your darlings alone. This is my opinion that darlings, like the rest of most novels, do need edited to shine. But I do not believe that cutting for the sake of cutting, or because some internet quote told you to, is really an answer.

Grooming darlings can turn them into stars, though. If you cut them, they’ll never get a chance to shine.

Give your darlings a chance. They might surprise you.

Sometimes they won’t, though. That’s when the axe needs to come down for the sake of your novel.

A Reviewer’s Responsibility

Last year, I wasn’t the most responsible of reviewers. When I agreed to review a book, I would do so, though it would usually take me a month or two longer than I hoped to do it. Granted, none of these reviews were on a deadline, but it did make one thing apparent to me: I wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a professional reviewer.

This year, I’m trying to be a professional reviewer. If I need to have a review done for a tour or release by a certain date, I prioritize that book. I’m more likely to be leisurely on a book where I don’t have a specific date it must be reviewed by, though I don’t want to sit on a title for more than three months. I am now trying to partner book reviews of four stars or higher with author interviews as well. Why? If I believe in a book enough to give it four stars, I believe in the author enough to want them to succeed in their careers.

Another reason, even more simple than the one I’ve already given, is that I care about books.

I think reviewers forget one very important thing.

You are being paid to review books.

You are not receiving a cash payment, but you’re being paid. You’re being paid in the royalties that would have gone to the author and would have gone to the publishing house (if there is one.) By US Tax law, you must pay taxes on the value of the books you receive for reviewing purposes.

Reviewing is a job. You are paid.

Book reviewers forget that. You’re being paid to give an opinion on a piece of literature, not for the author of the literature, but for the potential customers who may want to buy this book.

You aren’t being paid to give false praise of the book, but you are being paid.

That also means if you are approached by an author or a company to review a book, the burden of commitment is on you to fulfill the terms of your contract. If you are asked to review a book by a certain date, and are given a copy of the book, you are being paid to review that book by a certain date.

Reviewers, get off your high horse. You are not above the author who wrote that book. You are not above the company who provided that copy of that book for you. You aren’t above anyone at all.

Your job is to help customers decide if a book will be a good read for them.

You are not there to help the author.

You are not there to act like a creative writing class student giving a book report.

You are not there to make the author or publisher feel warm and fuzzy inside.

You are there to help readers buy books.

You are a marketing tool. You’re there to help guide customers — readers — into knowing whether or not a book will be enjoyable for them or not. You need to understand the different types of readers. You need to know the difference between your personal tastes and the merit of the book.

You need to be able to say who would enjoy this book even while you are saying why you didn’t enjoy the novel. The same thing applies in reverse.

You are being paid to review books.

That author or publishing company is relying on you to do as you said you would. They paid you to review those books. If you buy the book of your own finances and accord, you are more than free to do whatever the hell you want — reviewing it two or three years late, if that’s what you want.

But, when an author or company pays you to review a book — the payment being a review copy of the book — you are the one at fault if you do not meet up to your word.

Authors and publishing companies are more than in their right to ask that you review their book by a certain date. They are paying you for that right.

Books aren’t free, reviewers. If you’re reviewing books just to mooch free titles, maybe you’re part of the reason that many reviewers are looked down on. Maybe you’re part of the reason that the quality of reviews has decreased.

Maybe you’re part of the reason that people don’t trust reviewers to help guide them in book purchases.

You can be critical. You don’t have to lavish a story with praise if you do not believe that story deserves praise.

However, if you were paid to review a book, you are the one who has to live up to the payment. When an author gives you a book, they’re paying you out of their own pocket.

You are being paid to review books.

You are not above that. Remember that the next time an author or publishing company gives you a book. You were paid.

Treat them with the professional courtesy they deserve. Don’t add to the reputation that reviewers are book mooches who only want to read books at their leisure. If you want to read books at your leisure, buy the book and read it at your leisure.

Review copies are taxable because they’re considered by law to be income.

Consider that the next time you want to get upset that an author or publishing company wants your review within a certain time frame. It’s a part of the job. If you don’t like it, I really recommend you stick to reviewing books you bought with your own money.

Book Reviewing is a Service

Your customers are authors and publishers, but your audience is readers around the world. This shift in perspective, for me, made me realize that if anything, I’m a middleman at best.

I want to help people buy good books. I want to help people avoid bad books. I want people to enjoy reading. I want to make sure I understand that just because I did not enjoy a book doesn’t mean there isn’t a great market for that book.

My job is to know the difference and to write reviews accordingly.

Ultimately, I want people to buy books. I currently review both books I’ve bought on my own and that I was paid to review. And yes, by paid I do mean I was given a copy of the book, for free, for the purpose of reviewing.

Why do you review books?

I’ll leave you to think about that question on your own. Me? I review books because I love books. Books are an integral part of my life, whether I’m writing or reading them.

A Rambling on my Writing Process

It is 6:03 am, and I wrote 1,911 word ‘today.’ Today happens to be the period I was awake, albeit ‘today’ is currently Sunday.

That’s about 1,911 words more than I usually manage on a Saturday, so I’m extremely pleased with myself. The scene I was working on turned out better than I thought.

Here is an update on estimated word counts and progress on Inquisitor. For those of you who don’t follow me on Google+, I have been sharing my progress on the drafting and editorial of one of my novels I’m releasing in 2014.

Average transcribed words per page (real): 257.63

Original estimated transcribed word count per page: 228

Original estimated transcribed manuscript total: 82,308

New estimated transcribed manuscript total: 93,004

This demonstrates an interesting part of my writing process: I add a lot of things when I transcribe. I flush out scenes. I modify the tension, the pacing, and the general development. I try to accomplish the tone of the reading while I transcribe.

The first draft — written in my moleskines — is rarely ‘copy perfect.’ I am constantly adapting what I write. My moleskine writing captures the essence of the scene.

The transcription, where a massive amount of editorial takes place, is capturing everything else. I don’t want to say I’m capturing the beauty of the scene, though it’s definitely where I take the spark of creativity forming in the moleskine and give it life as I add it to the computer.

This is what people may find interesting, though. When I work on the moleskine, I usually write one page in 15 minutes. 10 minutes if I’m having a really, really good day. Usually, 15 minutes will sack me around 175 actual words on a moleskine page.

This transforms to 250 words when I transcribe.

Transcription is where the majority of my editorial takes place. Yes, I do copy and line and proofing edits after transcription, but the bulk of my developmental editorial happens during the transcription phase.

The true bulk of the work happens during transcription.

The irony, such as it is, is the fact that I love the transcription process almost as much as I love writing in my moleskine journal. It isn’t just copying words.

It’s writing.

It’s taking something lackluster and trying my hardest to make it something beautiful. This is why I love editing.

The Impact of Diet on Productivity

People say a lot of things about me, but I’m often told (or accused) of being a machine for how productive I can be. It’s true. When I’m on my A game, I can edit several chapters of a client’s work plus write several thousand words of my own fiction.

To those who struggle to write, I guess it does look like I’m some sort of automaton, doesn’t it?

I’ve been asked in the past what my secret is. I’ve always said something along the lines of “I sit down, shut up, and work.”

There is more to it than that. And it wasn’t until I started trying to eat better and live healthier that I realized what it was.

My Diet Matters

I can hear some snorts from here. Some are born of disgust, some of satisfaction. Either way, what you eat and drink significantly impacts your mental capacities.

I learned this the hard way.

Now, here’s the thing. You aren’t me. You don’t have my special blend of issues, nor do I have yours. I’m not a dietitian. I’m not a doctor. I’m an observer of the state of my body.

I’m not you. What works for me may work for you, but at the end of the day, you need to become an observer of your body. Why? Because no one else is going to do it for you. You’re body is your responsibility, and how you take care of it is your choice.

But, here is how the various health things impact me.

About three weeks ago, I checked my weight on a scale and winced. I was up to 190. I was drinking soda daily — usually three or more cans in a day. Cherry Coke is my drug of choice, and it was recently sold in Canada again for $0.50 a can versus $1.00+ a can on the black market.

Yes, where I live, Cherry Coke was a black market item until about two months ago. This is when I gained over 10 pounds in short order.

Sugar, a Horror Story

Sugar is the absolute worst thing I ever did for myself. When I drink sugary products, eat foods with sugary pasta (yes, pasta has a notable amount of sugars in it), and otherwise splurge in the glucose department, my weight starts climbing fast.

With my climbing weight, I lose the ability to concentrate for long periods of time. My 1+ hour focus time deteriorates down to ~30 minutes. I struggle to get the motivation to sit down and work. I have to exercise my will power.

I feel sick. Not with a cold, but not well, either. It’s a constant state of weariness that the winter isn’t responsible for. It’s that sluggish feeling when you get out of bed, not ready to face the world.

In short, sugar sucks.

Cutting back on Sugar

When I start cutting back on sugar, several things happen at once. First, lethargy hits. I mean, knock-me-flat lethargy. I sleep. In quantity. For an insomniac-prone girl, this is both heaven and hell.

Heaven comes from the whole getting sleep thing. Hell comes from the whole getting sleep thing whenever. One second, I’m working. The next, I’m wandering to the nearest soft surface, grabbing a cat, and taking a nap.

Sugar Addiction

I’m addicted to sugar. It’s not a guess, it’s a confirmed thing with me. You cut out my sugar for a day or two, and I am ready to attack anyone and anything, and climbing the walls. It’s not pretty. I’m snarly. I’m grumpy. Lethargy levels go straight through the roof. I crave all of the sweet things like you wouldn’t believe. It’s a textbook case of withdraw.

It’s not fun.

Some people say, ” Just go cold turkey!”

If I had two weeks where I could do nothing but sleep, drink water, and eat foods low in sugar, I would. However, I can’t afford to take two weeks off. Sugar addiction is more than just a craving for sweet things. For me, my body is used to a set amount of sugar intake. It’s too much, and my body doesn’t know how to readily adapt to this resource not coming in. My body is used to hoarding all of the excess sugars and storing them as fat.

In short, my body freaks out if I try going cold turkey. It doesn’t end well. Not for me, or for my short-term health.

The simple truth is, the same thing applies to caffeine. Sugar and caffeine are both stimulants, and amazingly enough, the impact on the brain can be similar. However, caffeine in controlled doses can be quite beneficial.

Sugar, especially the processed white stuff, the stuff added to sodas, and other forms (including high-fructose corn syrup) aren’t good for you. At all.

Even fruit juices and vegetable juices can have an obscene amount of sugars added to them — all of them bad.

Life Without Sugar

At one point, I had cut the sugar completely. I think I went cold turkey. When it happened was a bit of a blur. That was the withdraw. There’s no helping it now.

All I wish is that I hadn’t started drinking sodas again.

But, when I was off sugar, I found my productivity levels were particularly high. I was focusing on single tasks for an hour or more at a time. I was able to drink unsweetened teas and water without feeling unsatisfied or craving something else.

I was able to think faster, think better, and I made fewer mistakes.

Sugar wasn’t the only reason for this, though cutting it out was about 90% of the difference.

The other impact was the fact I was getting sufficient liquids each day. Dehydration does terrible things to the mind — it impacts your ability to think. Drinking water counters that, and encourages better thinking, intellect, and reaction times.

(Seriously. It’s a thing. Go get a medical book or two from the library about the brain and read them, if you don’t believe me. Water + Brain function = significant. Don’t like the fact I’m not linking to this? Yea, about that. Go to the library. That’s what I did for a lot of my basic knowledge. Wikipedia is only good so far, but for things dealing with your health, go to trusted doctors and medical resources… not wikipedia.)

In short, I worked faster, I worked harder, and I worked better. Most importantly, I feel better.

Bonus: I also lost 14 pounds in about 2 weeks as my body shed off the fat and regulated itself once again to normal-people standards.

But only after I conquered the need for sugar.

How I’m Quitting the Sugar This Time

My productivity, lately, hasn’t been nearly what I want it to be. Sleep is in infrequent bursts, ranging from one to four hours at a time. I hate it, and my husband hates it, too. The sugar is, in its nefarious way, slowly killing me.

I have been making concerted efforts this week to cut back on sugar.

Today, I managed to sleep for eight hours in a twelve hour period of time.

After all of that sleep, I crumpled under the weight of addiction and had a hit of Cherry Coke.

It’s okay, though — because I’m not going cold turkey. I’m allowed 3 cans of Cherry Coke in a seven day period of time. I’m not allowed to add sugar to my tea, nor am I allowed to add cream. I’m not allowed to have any sweets or candies, except as a husband-granted reward. (He’s much more reasonable about these things than I am.)

I am not making a concerted effort to remove sugars from my meals.

This is how it’s breaking down. First, I’m trying to eat more reliably. This means a big brunch, or a breakfast and a lunch, depending on how hungry I feel. It also means not eating more than I need to. I’ve always had problems stopping when I should feel full. (I have an issue where it takes me about twenty minutes longer than the average person to feel full, so I have to self-regulate the quantity of food I eat. Ironically, after cutting sugars a bit, and drinking water more reliably, my ‘feel full’ sense has started working better. I don’t know if this is related.)

I’m drinking a lot more water. I bought a rubbermaid bottle with the suggested daily amount of water a woman should drink a day on top of regular foods. My goal is to fill this up with water, or with no calorie, sugar-free flavoring and water, and drink this once per day.

Ideally, I’ll drink two of them.

When I have my can of Cherry Coke, I will be following up with two of them, because the extra water will help purge the sugars a little faster and limit the amount of damage the sugars are doing to me. (I don’t know the reasoning for this, just that there is a relationship between drinking lots of water after I drink sugar and not feeling as off as a result.)

It also limits the coming down after the sugar high. (Which is never a bad thing.)

Goodbye, Cruel Sugar…!

I just hope this time, after I spend a month or so dumping your lousy self, I won’t fall prey to your deliciously sweet and terrible ways.

I want to feel better again. That means without you, excess sugars.

If I’m slow, lethargic, and reclusive for the next two weeks, you now know why.