P.J. Fox's Blog, page 4

Greetings from Beyond the Grave

Where have I been the past few months?

In the hospital, and then at home, and then in the hospital again!  Hey, doesn’t that sound awesome?  This is probably why I’ve been so productive, writing: being too sick to get out of bed can leave you pretty bored.  But without going into the gory details, my hair situation has slowly morphed from Don Rickles into Don Knotts…and I might soon be entering Don Johnson territory.  I’m feeling a lot better, and a lot more up to the challenge of doing things like blogging.

I’ve been sick, some of you know, for awhile now.  This whole “writing full time” thing started, because I was sick.  Finally, the universe gave me the kick in the pants I needed!  But it looks like, fingers crossed, I might be–really–on the mend.  I’ve just published a book (Book of Shadows was released on September 6), just completed the manuscript for a different book (Dark Obsession, which is currently available on Wattpad and which will hit stores some time in the hopefully not too distant future), and am at the “I might start taking notes soon” stage with another.  I’ve also been painting, on the days I can both sit upright unaided and feel my hands.

You’re also probably noticing that I have a snazzy new website!  Isn’t it awesome?  I now have a separate announcements page, for those who’d rather not sift through my blog looking for info on when I’m finally going to start writing Predators in the Mist.  Which…more on that soon!

So…I hope to see a lot more of you, over the coming months.  To those of you who are new, hello!  To those of you who’ve migrated over from the old site, hello again!  And my apologies about having to subscribe, a second time.  If you’re missing the content from the old blog (and who wouldn’t?), remember, there’s a “best of” collection already available: I Look Like This Because I’m a Writer, available on Amazon and in bookstores worldwide (and also on Wattpad, natch).  Since my posts from here on out are going to be even more awesome, I anticipate a second volume coming very soon!

Please let me know what you’d like to see me write about.

I am, as always, taking questions (although not about my personal life).

PJ’s Blog Is Moving!

I’m thrilled to announce that I now have a stupendous new website!  Which still has a blog!  The thing, though, is that because it’s a new website with a new blog, you’ll have to subscribe all over again.  Which I sincerely hope you do!  My first few posts, over there, are going to be explaining why I was MIA for so long and what I’m doing now and where you can read my latest books for free and what’s about to hit the bookstore.

So please visit me at pjfoxwrites.com and say hi!

Dark Obsession: Chapter One

What follows is the first chapter from my new book in progress, Dark Obsession.

Chapter One

Apprehension

I glanced over at her again, but she was still asleep.

Or pretending to be, I couldn’t tell which.

At least she was silent.

As creepy as she was, now, almost as slack and motionless as a corpse, at least her eyes weren’t on me.  Those strange, pallid eyes that looked like all the color had been leeched out of them.  Like advertising posters that’d been left in a store window for too long.  She claimed it was due to her heart medication.  Because when she’d picked me up at the bus station, she’d caught me staring.

And that was how my new employer and I had gotten off to a wonderful start.

I hadn’t wanted to get into the car with her.  I had, in fact, wanted to run away screaming.  From the bus station and from what appeared to be my life.  But I hadn’t, because I couldn’t.  I needed a job.  And Octavia Louise Sprague-March, Mrs. Sprague-March to her friends, was the only one offering.

Not, sadly, employment as a graphic designer.  Which is what I’d always dreamed of being.  Or even as a graphic designer’s assistant.  Which would have been okay, too.  But as a nanny.  And so maybe I, Charlotte Dane, had lied.  Just a little.  Because I wanted a chance.  I wanted to get out.

I mean.  I hadn’t lied much.  I’d told her I knew a lot about children and, well, I did.  In a way.  I knew a lot about having been a child.  Once.  And, having lived in an orphanage until the previous week, I’d had a lot of exposure to other children.  Sometimes as their caretakers, off and on, but mostly as their friends and fellow sufferers.  Because unlike some of them, I’d never been adopted.  I’d been too old when my parents had died, and left me alone; everyone wanted babies.

And the sad truth is that you don’t stop being an orphan when you turn eighteen.  Or even nineteen, which I was now.  No Daddy Warbucks had ever come along offering me a scholarship to college and so, after spending the last year doing odd jobs around the only home I’d ever known in the hopes that they wouldn’t kick me out, although they really probably wouldn’t have, I decided to take my life into my own hands and try to earn some money.  So I could, like, go to college.  Go somewhere.  Do anything, except continue to stare at the nuns who’d raised me across the dinner table.

I snuck another covert look at Mrs. Sprague-March, whom I’d already begun to think of as Corpse Lady.

I really, really hoped I didn’t blurt that out at the wrong time.

Wait.

Was there a right time?

The March family, of whom Corpse Lady appeared to be the only representative, was offering seven hundred and fifty dollars per week plus room and board.  If I never went anywhere or did anything, I could save a lot of money.  And quickly.  I hadn’t dared hope, when I applied; when the woman from the agency called to tell me I’d been selected, I’d thought I was being pranked.  But then she’d mumbled something about me being the only person to apply—or something—and hung up.

I felt another shiver touch my spine.

It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

The sense of apprehension that had dogged me since had to be…just in my mind, right?  This was just me leaving Somerset County, Maine, for a new place.  A place with more people than cows.

Well, I consoled myself, at least Corpse Lady wasn’t driving.

Then things would definitely be a whole lot scarier.

Her chauffeur’s shoulders, in the front, were aggressively square and his posture was ramrod straight.  He hadn’t spoken to me at all, when he’d swung my two suitcases up into the trunk.  Everything I owned, in two suitcases.  I’d said hi, and his eyes had widened fractionally as though I’d just done something really rude and he was trying not to embarrass me by pointing it out.  Like, I don’t know, if we’d all been out at dinner and I’d started chewing on my toenails at the table.

Corpse Lady and I were sitting in the back.  Of some kind of Rolls-Royce.  I’d recognized the stupid little flying lady.  I looked around.  Everything was beige.

I thought back to what I knew.

What little I knew.

Maybe that would help me quell this rising tide of panic.

My new charge was named Phillip.  I hadn’t even seen a picture.  All I knew about him was that he was ten.  And that, like me, he’d lost his parents.  His, in some sort of boating accident.  But that wasn’t even when things had gotten bad….

Phillip’s grandfather, Slade Pew March, had been enormously wealthy.  His grandfather had gotten his start packing various fish—mostly codfish and mackerel—in barrels of salt and selling it to the army.  Slade, though, had transformed a profitable local factory into a worldwide empire.  Packages bearing his name, of every kind of seafood imaginable, could be found in grocery stores all over America.  And in grocery stores in most of Europe, Asia, and even parts of Africa under different names.

Slade hadn’t been as successful in his personal life, though.  His wife, or so I’d read when I looked the family up online, had hated him.  And his children had hated him more.  Almost as much as they’d hated—and still continued to hate—each other.  Slade had had three sons, total: John, the oldest, Hunter, and then Esmond.  John, who’d taken over the company after Slade retired, had gotten the bulk of the family’s fortune.  As well as the family’s estate, where I’d soon be living.  John had gotten a smaller estate, nearby and Esmond had gotten a large plot of land in Maine.  On which he’d apparently built some sort of cabin, which he’d then apparently forgotten to use.  Esmond was an archaeologist; unlike his brothers, he spent most of his time abroad.

John, preferring life in Boston to life in a podunk town that even H.P. Lovecraft had pronounced too strange to live in, had asked his brother to live at the main house and manage it for him.  Which Hunter had been only too happy to do.  If he thought Magnolia, Massachusetts, a tiny hamlet near Gloucester with virtually no people, was too boring to tolerate he’d never said.

I felt something crawling on the back of my neck and turned.

Corpse Lady—Mrs. March—was watching me.

I forced a small smile.  I hadn’t realized that she’d roused.  “It’s beautiful, here,” I said.  Just to have something to say.  The road, on either side, was lined with trees.  Which meant that, so far, Boston’s fabled North Shore didn’t look so different from most of Maine.  I didn’t think I’d seen a house, or much of anything else, for miles.

“There are houses, behind those trees.”  Corpse Lady’s eyes flashed.  “We like our privacy, around here.”

I nodded.  “Great.”

Corpse Lady’s lips compressed into something that might have been a smile.

“So, um…Phillip was living with Esmond?  Is that right?”

“Until recently.  Yes.”  Corpse Lady paused, considering.  “We thought it…best.  Wrest Park isn’t….”  Her eyes narrowed.  “A place for children.  Especially not those as weak and sickly as Phillip.”

“I…see.”

“Phillip was with Esmond for a month or so.  But then Esmond had to leave.”

“Leave?” I echoed stupidly.

That sniff again.  “He’s supposedly some sort of academic.”

“An archaeologist, right?”

“He spends his time digging in pits.”

And that, judging by my employer’s tone, was that.

But, surprising me, a few minutes later she spoke again.  Her voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, somehow.  I’d preferred it when she was pretending—I was now sure she’d been pretending—to be asleep.  “John, my husband’s older brother, was a confirmed bachelor.  At least, for most of his life.  Then, at nearly fifty, he surprised us all by getting married.  And producing an heir.”

Phillip.

“Then he and Alice—well, you know.”

I did.

Or at least I thought I did.

I nodded.  I wanted to appear friendly.  I wanted to tell myself—to keep telling myself—that there was nothing wrong.  That the fact that I hadn’t been able to stop myself from dubbing her Corpse Lady didn’t mean that my new employer wasn’t the most wonderful woman in the world.

People couldn’t help how they looked, right?  It wasn’t her fault that she looked like Cinderella’s stepmother in the old animated film.  Only thinner.  I can’t help how I’m drawn.  She had the same steel gray hair, forced into the same out of date hairstyle, and the same way of looking at you that…made no sense.  Her eyes weren’t as green, though.  They were gray.  Like the underbelly of a fish.

The words were out before I could stop them: “what happened to Phillip’s last nanny?”

“She quit.  In a fit of tears.”

As though crying was the worst sin in the world.

Corpse Lady shook her head once, dismissively.  “No one knew why.”

I turned back toward the window.  It was midsummer, and the world was a riot of deep green.  Here or in Maine, I still loved it.  “I think this place is wonderful,” I said.  “And I’m positive, absolutely positive, that I’m going to love it here.”  Maybe I was trying to convince myself, I don’t know.  But the words felt genuine enough as I was saying them.

There was a silence.

And then, in that same controlled voice, “I hope so.”

The Rest of the Interview (and News)

You can read the rest of my interview on Book of Shadows here.  In it, I talk about everything from religion to age gaps to dating in the Victorian era.  It’s the first part in what will be, eventually, a (published) companion volume to the series.  Why am I working on a companion volume?  Because, amazingly, people seem interested in the idea.

I’m sort of working on it, simultaneously, as I edit; pulling things as I go.  Which provides, among other things, a great opportunity to check my own continuity.  You think you’ll never forget your own characters’ birthdays, or middle names…but then you do.  Although, seeing as I can barely keep the biographical facts of my own family in my head, I don’t know why I have such high standards for fiction.  What I’ve learned–and what I still fail to do–is write it all down.  At the time.

When not editing (I have a manuscript deadline of July 29 for all three books), I’m painting.  You can, if you’re interested, see some of my art here.  Eventually, I’d like to have cool things like a website.  I’m officially launching my Patreon in September.  My current project is drawing all the various characters from Book of Shadows.  Well, not all of them.  The interesting ones.  Having multiple projects going is great, too, because it keeps me busy without letting me get burned out.  Doing nothing but editing, I’ve learned the hard way, leads to boredom…and mistakes.

I’m currently about 75% of the way through my first pass of Book of Shadows.  Then, once I’ve finished, I’ll do another pass.  Two is usually my limit.  I’ve been enjoying editing this book, though, more than I think I’ve ever enjoyed editing–or maybe even writing–anything.  I have a lot of hope for this series; this is blatantly self-aggrandizing of me, but I think it’s pretty good.  With both my first and my second passes, I tend to make–sometimes dozens on each page–tiny corrections.  It’s like being killed with paper cuts.  The big changes, the “throw this paragraph out”-type changes, I tend to make during the writing process itself.  Which is why some chapters take me so long to produce.

I promise, I’m going to write a more interesting post soon.  I have a whole list of topics.  But I’ve been so inundated with, first finishing Blood to Drink and then painting and editing and, of course, caring for my family that I honestly haven’t had time.  Or, every time I’ve sat down, after dinner, to write something I’ve fallen asleep.

An Interview on Book of Shadows (Part One)

James Cormier is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novel Exile: The Book of Ever, which is available on Amazon from its publisher and is also currently on Wattpad.  Wattpad, that wonderful place, where it all began.  He is also my husband, my number one support system, and the real life human being on which Alexis Rex Sutton is based.  He thought that, given the amount of interest in Book of Shadows and the number of questions I’ve been asked, over the past few months, that it would be incredible to do an interview.  Of course, being my husband, he knew most of the answers to the questions already; but he thought about what he’d like to know, as a reader, if he didn’t share the same house with me.  And so we took Memorial Day weekend, cracked open a bottle of wine, and had a little fun.  I hope you have fun, too, getting inside our heads.

JC: First, is Alex really based on me?  And why would you do that to people?

PF: He is!  He really is.  And, first of all, because all of my male protagonists are to some extent based on you.  I can’t help it; it just happens.  You’re the funniest, most intelligent, most charming man I’ve ever met.  When I think of “man I find irresistible,” as a concept, to inspire me to write something romantic, I think of you.  Which means that even when I’m not thinking, consciously, “I’m going to base this person on Jim,” to some extent it happens anyway.

JC: You’re delusional, but thank you.

PF: Alex, though, as a character, is more directly based on you.  More than, for example, Tristan from The Demon of Darkling Reach.  Although there are, of course, elements of you in him as well.

JC: Because you think I’m pale and depressive?

PF: Well, when we first met, you did joke about having that vampiric tan.  But no, because Alex is a man who doesn’t see his own worth.  And thus doesn’t understand why everyone loves him so much.  But in terms of more immediate things…that sense of humor is all you.

JC: If by “sense of humor” you mean “state the obvious,” then I suppose.  Yes.

PF: Exactly!  That is exactly it!  You and Alex both have the same…well, you can both be very deadpan.  The same dry wit.  But most of the time, when I was writing Alex’s dialogue, I would ask myself, “what would Jim say?”  And really, dear, you are very chivalrous.  And you’re such a total clotheshorse.  I didn’t even know about half the brands I mentioned in this series before I met you.

JC: Including Agent Provocateur.

PF: Including Agent Provocateur.

JC: You should stop selling me.  I’m taken.

PF: Finding the right person, and marrying them, can be the best thing in the world.  If they’re the right person.  If there’s one idea that I hope people take away from this series, it’s don’t settle.  For anything.  For a man, for your life.  People say, “have the courage to be yourself.”  But you won’t know who you are, in order to be that person, if you don’t first stand up for yourself.  Standing up for yourself is how you learn: who you are and, at the end of the day, what you’re really about.  You gave me the courage to be myself—and to write.  When there were a lot of competing, negative voices telling me to be less weird and do something more practical.  And now, a lot of people are going to say, “you don’t need a man to do this” and maybe some people don’t.  And that’s great!  But some of us did, and do.  Some of us shine the brightest as part of a team.  And that’s also great.

JC: So why does everyone think Sepha and Alex should have had a baby?

PF: Because they’re not parents?  Honestly, I don’t know!

JC: Do you think they’re being unrealistic about parenthood?

PF: That’s tough to say.  People like to read about a lot of stuff that they wouldn’t necessarily do.  I love that film Everest, and I’m not about to climb the actual mountain any time soon.  One thing I do know is that, while babies are wonderful, and I love ours to pieces, there’s nothing romantic about them.  Babies are hard work!  And while I think parenthood can—with the emphasis on can—bring a couple closer together, that’s only if the couple is really, really already strong and has their goals and dreams figured out.  I might have been ready to get married when I was Sepha’s age, but I wasn’t ready to be a parent.  I’m glad we waited a few years.  And I’m glad we waited to get married, too, until we were finished with school.  No one can decide, for another person, when they’re ready to do anything—I was more mature, ten years ago, than a lot of the people I know now who are ten years older—but there’s also no reason to rush.  And that’s something else I hope people get about Sepha: she’s doing what she’s doing, because she’s ready.  And because, as crazy as her choices might seem to the outside world, they’re the right choices for her.

JC: Do you think she wants to be a parent?

PF: Probably some day.  But there are, also, lots of ways to be a parent.  Love is about more than biology.  Which is something I grew up knowing, but that most of us don’t necessarily have cause to consider.  At least, not until something happens that gives us reason to reevaluate the meaning of the word “family.”  Through the miracle of adoption, I think, I’m really blessed.  In more ways than one.

JC: Is it hard, being adopted?

PF: For me, no.  And for me, too, I think of parenting as being about love more than biology.  After all, I am the product of two biological parents.  But they didn’t want to be parents.  And that’s another thing that’s important to remember: family, whether in the sense of blood ties or the people in your life who’ve become family through love alone, is still a choice.  It’s one you have to make, again and again, every morning when you wake up.  What keeps someone in your life forever isn’t that they gave birth to you, or share DNA with you somehow, but that they want to be there.

JC: So is that why Sepha considers, and discusses, adoption?

PF: Yes.  It’s also the same reason that Lorelai, when the series starts, is a single mother.  There’s more than one way to be a parent, and to be a family.  People say “write what you know,” and I guess I am.

JC: Like getting married young?

PF: Yes.  You are, as I’m fond of telling people, the only boyfriend I’ve ever had.  Or wanted!  I guess I just struck gold on the first try.  There are a lot of—valid—arguments against getting married, or at least getting engaged young but sometimes those arguments just don’t apply.  I wasn’t much older than Sepha is, when the series starts, when I met you; and, like Sepha, I’d been through a lot and because of that I knew exactly what I wanted.  I never felt like I sacrificed anything to make the choices I did and that’s really important.  I can honestly say that, sitting here, having this conversation, is what I most want to be doing in the world.  I can’t think of anything that would make me happier.  Every morning, when I wake up, I feel like I won the lottery—but better.

JC: You poor, poor fool.

PF: You love me.

JC: I do.  But back to vampires.  Some, apparently, can have babies.

PF: Some can!  Sepha and Alex can’t, because of the limitations on vampires in this world.  There are a lot of different vampires out there, imagined by a lot of different authors, and there’s nothing really wrong with any of them.  They’re just not…my cup of tea.  I’m something of a traditionalist, when it comes to horror, and my vampires are more Dracula-style.  As in, Dracula the book.  They’re subject to a lot of limitations that their human counterparts aren’t, and that’s because they’re a fundamentally different species.  They might have started out as human, but they’re not now.

JC: And that’s why they can’t reproduce?

PF: They can reproduce by creating more vampires.  But in the conventional sense?  No.  Just like they can’t eat or drink or do anything else “normal.”  Their bodily processes simply don’t support that.  Because really, they don’t have any bodily processes.  They’re undead.  So, in a kind of suspended animation, both created and supported by magic.  And maybe all life, as Peter observes in the last book, is just magic—but this is decidedly a different kind.  Which also explains why they don’t do things like use the bathroom.  They draw their life—or, to be more technically accurate, they feed the magic that keeps them going—from others’.

JC: So a vampire can’t just break into a blood bank?

PF: It’s the life force they need, from a living victim, which flows through blood.  Blood, once it’s been removed from a person, is no good.  Because that connection is gone.  It has to be actively keeping someone alive, while the vampire is feeding from them, in order to provide any sustenance.

JC: What about animal blood?

PF: Human beings, being natural creatures, can create life.  And not just in the sense of giving birth; their life forces are self-sustaining.  Renewable.  Vampires, on the other hand, have no life of their own.  They have this magic, which needs feeding.  Some vampires, in some worlds, can feed on animals but in the world that I’ve created, because vampires were once human beings they need to now feed on other human beings.  Feeding on an animal instead would be trying to fit the proverbial square peg into a round hole.  There’s just no match up.

JC: Sort of like how deer can survive on bark, but we can’t.

PF: Yes, exactly.

JC: I like that your characters have limitations.

PF: Again, I guess there’s no “wrong” way to imagine a vampire but, for me, there have to be limitations.  It’s always bothered me, the idea of vampires essentially being “human plus.”  Like, vampirism is this great thing with no drawbacks.  They can eat, drink, go out in the sun, basically do everything a human being can do except they live forever.  The first problem I have with that is that—I mean, at what point do you stop being a vampire and start being a different kind of being altogether?

JC: And the second problem?

PF: The second problem is that—again, for me—conflict creates drama, and drama is what keeps a story moving.  If there are no limitations, then there’s no conflict.  An essential part of Alex’s character, and of the conflict that drives the series from beginning to end, is this idea that being a vampire isn’t necessarily all that great.  Just like being a human being isn’t necessarily all that great.  Elevate people above their problems, and you’ve taken away anything they had to fight for.  What’s, like, their reason for being?  Once life stops being challenging, it stops being interesting.

My Daily Schedule

I’ve been asked, recently, by a couple of different people to talk about how long it takes me to write and edit each chapter and about my writing process in general.  And the easiest way to do that is probably through the lens of my actual daily schedule.  And yes, I said daily.  It amazes me, how many people say they want to write for a living but refuse to actually treat writing like something you, well, do for a living.  If you want this to be your job, great.  But you actually have to treat it like a job.  Which means going to it every day if it’s your full time job and going to it for at least a couple of days out of the week if it’s your part time job.  Thinking about writing a book, however hard, does not produce a book.

I’ve completed two full books since November, and it’s because I’m extremely boring.  

I wake up every morning at 4.30.  Am I a “natural” morning person?  Is there such a thing?  I have a family and a life and all the obligations that come with both and if I slept in I’d never get anything done.  By five, I’m at my computer and actually writing.  I really enjoy this time, because everyone else in the house is still asleep.  I can drink my coffee and work in peace.

At 7:30, I get my son up for school.  School, for him, starts at 8:30 so after I drop him off I do whatever errands need to be done and then go home.  If I’ve had a really good writing day already, I might have 1,000 words under my belt.  Other mornings, I have more like 100.  In either case, I try to add to that.  My daily word goal is 2,000.  Sometimes it’s a struggle to meet that and other times I write twice that amount.  It all depends on where I am in the manuscript and where I am, of course, mentally.  Some days are just plain harder than others.

My son comes home at 2:00.  We talk about his day, and try to do something fun–weather permitting–like play soccer in the backyard or drive to the park.  We have some incredible parks around here.  Not all of which feature tanks!  If I get any more work done, it’s usually while he’s having quiet time before dinner and my husband is cooking (this is usually when I finish up editing that day’s chapter, or chapters, if I haven’t already, and when I answer emails).  Because really, you’d rather eat his cooking than mine.  After that, it’s family time.  I try to put everything aside and just relax and be present.

I do try, also, to work on the weekends.  On the days I’m not writing, it’s because I’m doing something more important.  As in, spending time with my family.  I never skip a day of work because I “don’t feel like it.”  I actually asked my husband to bring me my laptop in the hospital, although that proved a little overambitious!  I never wrote a word.

Before writing was my full time job, it was my part time job.  That’s actually how I got into the habit of starting my day so early.  I couldn’t rely on being creative when I finally dragged myself home, at the end of the day; “creative” was remembering how to unlock my front door.

So I adopted the ass crack of dawn program, so as to ensure that I was writing when I still had–in theory, anyway–the most intellectual and creative power at my disposal.  These days, I guess I could sleep in but I don’t really want to.  Even when I wake up dead tired, I’m just too excited to get downstairs and start writing.  Moreover, knowing that I have people waiting for the next chapter–and the next, and the next–on Wattpad is very motivating.

What’s your writing schedule?

Reader Retention: the Conundrum

This is something I’ve been pondering quite a bit lately: what makes people finish a book?  What makes them finish a series?  It’s more than a strong opening paragraph, or even chapter.  And what counts, for lack of a better term, as a good conversion rate?  As in, not every single person who starts your book is going to finish it; what percentage of complete, first to last chapter reads qualifies as a success?  And then, of course, if the book is part of a series the question becomes: how can you quantify, with statistics, if the series is gripping?  If fifty percent read through to the last book?  If twenty-five percent do?  If five?

Authors might not like to think about numbers but numbers matter; they help you to understand, and thus control, your career.  Ignoring the fact that, say, no one’s finishing your book is no way to write a better book next time.  Nor is it wise to ignore criticism about your series arcs as a whole.  Yes, at the end of the day, you’re telling your story; but if it’s not captivating anyone, are you really?  You’re trying to, maybe…but don’t you want your story to be as gripping on the page as it is in your mind?

Of the roughly (at the time of this writing) 28,000 people who’ve read the first chapter of Book of Shadows, only about twenty-one percent made it through to the end of the book.  Now, with my other, non-Wattpad books, I never got to see these metrics.  Most people don’t; how could they?  I have absolutely no idea how many people started, and then lost interest in The Demon of Darkling Reach.  So I’m really not sure if this is a fantastic conversion rate or a terrible one.  One thing I have noticed is that, as the series progresses (and, presumably, less dedicated readers are weeded out), my numbers have gone up dramatically.  Pretty much everyone who’s read the first chapter of Blood to Drink has also read the most recent chapter I’ve posted.

Thoughts?

Book of Shadows: Coming to Barnes & Noble!

And, indeed, to Amazon and many other places.

When?  The tentative release date, as of now, is September 6.  That would be of this year.  Which, to me at least, is very exciting!  Book of Shadows is going to be a real, hold it in your hand book!  It will also, of course, be available for Kindle.  I personally think Kindle is a great platform, because you don’t need a specific reader, etc.  Amazon’s Kindle e-reader app is free to download and works on any device.  I do love my actual Kindle, though, but that’s really mainly for the screen.

So far, Book of Shadows has gotten over 400,000 reads.  A lot of people seem to like it.  Which makes me happy.  I’m also taking note of everyone’s questions for the companion volume, which will hopefully also be released before Christmas (but we shall see).  So if there’s anything you’d like to know about the world of Book of Shadows, or the characters that inhabit it, please let me know!

The Five Kinds of Trolls You Meet

Whether you’re on Wattpad or somewhere else, you know you’re succeeding when you start to attract trolls.  Trolls whom, it must be said, never see themselves as trolls.  They are, rather, bringers of important wisdom.  Or, at the very least, a (naturally valuable) perspective that you haven’t considered before.  They have only your best interests at heart.  How to repel each of these trolls–or, at least, keep your sanity while they make like the proverbial chess playing pigeon–depends on what specific type of troll they are.  So without further ado…

The “I can fix your story” troll lives for pointing out what’s–supposedly–wrong with nearly every paragraph in your story.  Sometimes every sentence.  That they haven’t, themselves, completed a single paragraph of a single story isn’t relevant; should they try, they’d be a better writer than you.  What they gain from criticizing others’ work is a false sense of superiority.  They can tell themselves that they’re literary experts, and therefore don’t need to have put in the hard work of learning how to write in order to have any special insight into the process.  You can spot them most easily criticizing things like the grammar in your dialogue, because to them “good” writing is everyone talking like they’re declaiming in a play.
The “I hate you” troll lives to tell you that your story’s stupid and so are you.  Their goal is to undermine your efforts, because then you won’t be in competition with them.  For what, they don’t know.  Not really.  They just can’t stand the idea that someone else has the courage to create.  The best way to handle this troll, like the “I can fix your story” troll, is to ignore them.
The “I’ve seen it all before” troll wants to tell you that literally every single person, place and thing in your story is derivative.  You can spot them most easily by how they don’t actually know what they’re talking about.  They’ll rage against your supposed Twilight references when you’re actually referencing Dracula, or claim that any name you choose for any character is secretly a reference to something you’ve never heard of.  To them, nothing is new under the sun and nothing–save their own powers of observation–is truly worth celebrating.  The best thing to do, when you encounter one of these, is to be charitable.  Thank them sincerely for their observation and move on.  They aren’t educated, even though they think they are, and we all know what Oscar Wilde said about going into battle with an unarmed man.
The “I’m here to promote myself” troll doesn’t actually read your stories, or posts, or whatever you’ve got going on.  They see your creative space as an opportunity to plant flags.  Becasue natch, anyone who’s there is really looking for something even better.  I don’t personally delete these comments, but a lot of people do.  The best response, in terms of ignore versus ignore and delete, is whatever feels least confrontational to you.
The “I’m more socially conscious than you” troll wants you to know that your historical characters aren’t sufficiently modern and their ideas aren’t sufficiently correct.  How dare you suggest that a man born in the 19th century might find corsets sexy?  Doesn’t he know that [insert thoughts about the subjugation of women here]?  I’m not sure if it’s that they lack an appreciation for historical fiction, or simply can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction.  In any case, to them, nothing you write is just a story.  They’re going to treat every sentence like it comes straight from yesterday’s newspaper, and react accordingly.  So unless you feel like explaining the purpose of fiction, the best response here is also to ignore them.

What do you think?

Did I miss one?

What I Learned by Reaching #1 on Wattpad

Last week, Book of Shadows reached the top of the heap in Vampire on Wattpad.  If you haven’t read it already, I hope you do!  It won’t be free, in its entirety, forever (although it will be at least through August of 2016), as I eventually do have plans to publish it.  But right now, you can read both it and its two sequels.  The third of which is currently a work in progress.  But anyway, having accomplished this, how did I?  What do I think you should, and shouldn’t do, if you want your book to succeed as well?

Read on.

First, write a good book.  And by write, I mean write completely.  Your book isn’t going to gain much momentum, however awesome it is, if you only ever post the first few chapters.  Write consistently and update consistently.  For most of the time I worked on Book of Shadows, I updated on a regular schedule of three chapters per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).  Later, I added a Saturday update.  With Prince of Darkness, I just updated whenever I’d finished a chapter.  And yes, by finished, I mean read, proofread, edited for content, and then proofread again.  I wrote as fast as I could while still maintaining a (hopefully!) consistent quality.  But quality always came first.

It helps to get your book featured, which you can ask to do, but be aware that even Wattpad’s stamp of approval isn’t a guarantee.  It can really, really help and I think will help in almost all cases.  But at the same time, getting your book featured is like getting a really good review; even if the New York Times loves your book, readers might not.  You just never know.  And you know?  That’s okay.

Which brings me to my next point: ignore the haters.  Yes, you’re going to get some mean-spirited comments (although not many, as I find, personally, that Wattpad is a very friendly and supportive environment).  You’re going to get people who read your first chapter and not your second.  That’s okay!  Not everything is for everyone.  The best thing you can do is remain positive.  Don’t engage in a flame war with trolls.  That’s just going to make you look bad and chase away potential readers.  Your best bet, on Wattpad and off, is always to focus on what matters most: your writing.

Which, in turn, makes it a lot easier to…be patient.  Nothing happens overnight.  Not reads, not votes, not followers, not anything.  People who plug away, one day at a time, do a lot better in the long run than people who start out with a bang and then fizzle.  I know people who’ve gotten a thousand reads in their first week who gave up because they didn’t feel popular enough and people who posted their whole books before reaching half that number of reads.  And guess who succeeded in the end?  Karma doesn’t reward quitters.

It also doesn’t reward people who look for shortcuts, and who otherwise try to game the system.

So, other than practicing Buddha-like patience while focusing on becoming the most amazing writer you can become, what else can you do?

DO reply to every comment, as graciously and kindly as possible.  When people compliment you, thank them!  When they point out something they don’t like, or don’t understand, likewise be polite.  They’re taking time out of their busy schedules to talk to you.  Building a rapport with your followers is going to help you gain followers–and reads, in the long run.  A number of the people who do follow me, have told me that they followed me because of how I replied to their comments.
Do NOT use the comment section of someone else’s book to advertise your own work.
Do NOT post on people’s walls, asking them to read your work.
Do NOT message them privately, asking–or in some cases demanding–that they read your work.  Or as has happened to me, demanding that they fulfill a list of editing services!  And then demanding their email address!  However much you want to succeed, this is not the way to make friends and influence people.
DO realize that followers, just like reads, are a natural consequence of consistently putting yourself out there as a member of the community.  In order to like you, people have to first know who you are.  So let them get to know you, and give them something to like!  Not by being fake (and that includes trying to impress people), but by being yourself.  In my personal opinion at least, real always wins.

What tips would you add?