Except in my hard drive.
Sigh. Years ago, I did write it, and submitted it to Dell. They got as far as making a cover for it, the whole shebang, and then decided they didn't want it. It's now sitting in my computer, and every once in a while I take a look at it and wonder whether I should do something about it.
So I was dismayed to find that it's listed in Goodreads, and that people had it listed as a "want to read." Some people even have it listed as having read it.
Well, maybe these folks read something else of mine, or maybe I shared with them that unpublished manuscript way back when. But even though it's listed in Barnes and Noble and (I think) Amazon, it really does not exist, there is no way you can buy it anywhere, and I don't know how get all of them to take it off their web sites.
So this blog post is a warning to all of you out there that you won't be able to read it any time soon. If I decide to publish it (probably on my own), I'll let you know.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Star Wars Opera, Part II
In Star Wars I, we meet Anakin as a child. It's fine that he's impetuous and impetuous with his raw talent--that's what children are like. But I'd like to see him start to hero-worship Qui Gon and Obi Wan, and strive to be like them in both manner and discipline. Anakin has no father, so these two men are his father figures. He would want to imitate them in all ways, because that element has so far been missing in his life.
That he leaves his mother at such a young age is of course rightfully important, as the series obviously shows. It's a loss that will stay with him and will affect his future decisions.
It concerns me that Qui Gon does nothing to free the slaves as both Anakin and Shmi hope, but I can see that it's important that he doesn't--if and only if the movie had done something with that fact, which it doesn't. And that is, in my opinion, a lack that contributes to Anakin not being a true tragic hero.
Because as Anakin grows older, he has no real noble goal. Othello at first wants to find the truth about an apparently adulterous wife and betraying friend so that he can have a just relationship to those he loves. Hamlet wants to find the truth and bring to justice his father's murderer--so much so that he won't take the word of his father's ghost at face value; he has to test it to find out for sure. All these are initially unselfish goals.
Anakin's goal...is to be a powerful Jedi. This is not really an unselfish and heroic goal.
What would have been a more noble goal? What if Anakin's desire to be a powerful Jedi had its roots in a deep desire to free not only his mother, but all of Tatooine's slaves? Who wouldn't root for a hero who wants that? What is more noble than a former slave who works hard not only to gain his mother's freedom but the freedom of all slaves?
That goal alone would have had me forgive a lot of Anakin's sins of impatience and arrogance, especially if he had harnessed his power with the discipline of both Qui Gon and Obi Wan. Yes, he was powerful, yes he had that power honed to a fine point, but it would not have been for the sheer lust for power, but for the deep love for his mother and the desire to give freedom to others. No doubt he would have not only been given a seat on the Jedi Council for this, but be a voting member as well--a high honor.
Who wouldn't have been as impatient as he would have been if the Jedi council had told him, "we sympathize with you, but now is not the time to free the slaves. You must wait"? Who wouldn't have felt compassion for him if he found he was too late to save his mother, and had failed in securing freedom for slaves? And who wouldn't have understood his motivation in turning to the Dark Side to make up for his failure, especially if the Jedi Council had said something to the effect of, "we told you so!"
That goal would have made his turn to the Dark Side and his enslavement to the Emperor in exchange for saving his mother and freeing the slaves painfully ironic, and terribly tragic. It would have made Padme's turning away from his now dark nature even more heart-rending. Anakin would have been the embodiment of the idea that "the end does not justify the means." And it would have made me even more eager to watch Star Wars IV, V, and VI in the hope that somehow Darth Vader would find some kind of redemption and eventual freedom himself.
But that didn't happen. Star Wars is not an epic opera on the scale of Wagner's Ring Cycle, or a classic tragedy on the scale of any of Shakespeare's tragic plays. And it's for this reason that I keep feeling disgruntled every time I watch Star Wars. It could so easily have been truly epic in theme and storyline instead of only in special effects, but just wasn't.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
That he leaves his mother at such a young age is of course rightfully important, as the series obviously shows. It's a loss that will stay with him and will affect his future decisions.
It concerns me that Qui Gon does nothing to free the slaves as both Anakin and Shmi hope, but I can see that it's important that he doesn't--if and only if the movie had done something with that fact, which it doesn't. And that is, in my opinion, a lack that contributes to Anakin not being a true tragic hero.
Because as Anakin grows older, he has no real noble goal. Othello at first wants to find the truth about an apparently adulterous wife and betraying friend so that he can have a just relationship to those he loves. Hamlet wants to find the truth and bring to justice his father's murderer--so much so that he won't take the word of his father's ghost at face value; he has to test it to find out for sure. All these are initially unselfish goals.
Anakin's goal...is to be a powerful Jedi. This is not really an unselfish and heroic goal.
What would have been a more noble goal? What if Anakin's desire to be a powerful Jedi had its roots in a deep desire to free not only his mother, but all of Tatooine's slaves? Who wouldn't root for a hero who wants that? What is more noble than a former slave who works hard not only to gain his mother's freedom but the freedom of all slaves?
That goal alone would have had me forgive a lot of Anakin's sins of impatience and arrogance, especially if he had harnessed his power with the discipline of both Qui Gon and Obi Wan. Yes, he was powerful, yes he had that power honed to a fine point, but it would not have been for the sheer lust for power, but for the deep love for his mother and the desire to give freedom to others. No doubt he would have not only been given a seat on the Jedi Council for this, but be a voting member as well--a high honor.
Who wouldn't have been as impatient as he would have been if the Jedi council had told him, "we sympathize with you, but now is not the time to free the slaves. You must wait"? Who wouldn't have felt compassion for him if he found he was too late to save his mother, and had failed in securing freedom for slaves? And who wouldn't have understood his motivation in turning to the Dark Side to make up for his failure, especially if the Jedi Council had said something to the effect of, "we told you so!"
That goal would have made his turn to the Dark Side and his enslavement to the Emperor in exchange for saving his mother and freeing the slaves painfully ironic, and terribly tragic. It would have made Padme's turning away from his now dark nature even more heart-rending. Anakin would have been the embodiment of the idea that "the end does not justify the means." And it would have made me even more eager to watch Star Wars IV, V, and VI in the hope that somehow Darth Vader would find some kind of redemption and eventual freedom himself.
But that didn't happen. Star Wars is not an epic opera on the scale of Wagner's Ring Cycle, or a classic tragedy on the scale of any of Shakespeare's tragic plays. And it's for this reason that I keep feeling disgruntled every time I watch Star Wars. It could so easily have been truly epic in theme and storyline instead of only in special effects, but just wasn't.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Star Wars Opera, Part I - the Tragic Hero
I was watching Star Wars II and III the other night and feeling quite disgruntled as I usually do when watching these movies. And yet, I cannot look away...
The reason is that because I am a writer, whenever a story irks me, I start taking it apart and figuring out how it could have worked. This may seem like arrogance on my part--who am I, after all, compared to George Lucas?--but writing and storytelling is my trade, and my education included analysis of great books and stories. It's not dissing Shakespeare if you analyze Romeo and Juliet to see how it works and why. Or even why it works for you and why it doesn't.
But I think that though the movies are fairly entertaining, if a few things had changed, Star Wars I, II, and III could have been a classic epic tragedy on a Shakespearean scale. It could even have been translated into a Wagnerian opera akin to the Ring Cycle. I mused briefly on this during my lunch hour on Facebook, and Emilie Storrs, an opera singer, mentioned the potentially Wagnerian aspect of the series. She is quite right.
The thing about classic operatic tragedies, however, is that like classic stage plays, the characters must be bigger than life, and it must be clear that they encapsulate some very noble characteristics as well as some serious tragic flaws. They must have tragic heroes/heroines.
In classic tragedy, the hero of the piece is generally a good person, but has a fatal flaw that propels him to eventual destruction of body, mind, and/or soul.
If you look at Shakespeare's Othello, for example, Othello is basically a good man. He is courageous and has integrity. You know he is because he is admired for those characteristics even amongst people who are not of his own race or country, so much so that he is given a position of great responsibility, which causes the villainous Iago to become envious and plot his destruction. However, Othello's fatal flaw is jealousy, so that it overwhelms his good sense and and propels him to destroy, ultimately, all that he loves, including himself. Yet, Othello is clearly a man in charge, who knows how to command respect until his fatal flaw overcomes him. In the end, you grieve that such a man is destroyed; he was noble and good once, a man of honor, until he let his jealousy get the best of him.
I wish I could say the same of Anakin Skywalker. It's clear to me that his impatience arises out of an extreme need to prove himself, which is the essence of arrogance. That, in turn evolves into Anakin creating a shield of invulnerability around him, a shield made of a need to protect himself from any idea that he may be weak or unable to control his environment. And if, in the end, it means accusing those who love him as being his enemies, so be it.
All along, it's pointed out that he has the talent, but not the discipline or the patience to become, for example, a full member of the Jedi council. He is, in essence, immature and remains so until we see him as Darth Vader in Star Wars IV. He can love, it's true. But it's a childish love, not a fully adult love.
Even as the adult Darth Vader, it's clear he's as impetuous and easily manipulated as a child; he is a slave to the Emperor Palpatine until the very end of Star Wars VI. Darth Vader is clearly powerful, more powerful than Palpatine. Why doesn't he ever strike out on his own? Even become an Emperor himself? He could. He has the natural power.
The immaturity persists. In essence, Anakin never really grows up. His death in the end is the death of a stunted child in a broken man's body.
What would Anakin Skywalker as a true tragic hero look like? What would make a noble and fully-adult Anakin turn against the Jedi?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The reason is that because I am a writer, whenever a story irks me, I start taking it apart and figuring out how it could have worked. This may seem like arrogance on my part--who am I, after all, compared to George Lucas?--but writing and storytelling is my trade, and my education included analysis of great books and stories. It's not dissing Shakespeare if you analyze Romeo and Juliet to see how it works and why. Or even why it works for you and why it doesn't.
But I think that though the movies are fairly entertaining, if a few things had changed, Star Wars I, II, and III could have been a classic epic tragedy on a Shakespearean scale. It could even have been translated into a Wagnerian opera akin to the Ring Cycle. I mused briefly on this during my lunch hour on Facebook, and Emilie Storrs, an opera singer, mentioned the potentially Wagnerian aspect of the series. She is quite right.
The thing about classic operatic tragedies, however, is that like classic stage plays, the characters must be bigger than life, and it must be clear that they encapsulate some very noble characteristics as well as some serious tragic flaws. They must have tragic heroes/heroines.
In classic tragedy, the hero of the piece is generally a good person, but has a fatal flaw that propels him to eventual destruction of body, mind, and/or soul.
If you look at Shakespeare's Othello, for example, Othello is basically a good man. He is courageous and has integrity. You know he is because he is admired for those characteristics even amongst people who are not of his own race or country, so much so that he is given a position of great responsibility, which causes the villainous Iago to become envious and plot his destruction. However, Othello's fatal flaw is jealousy, so that it overwhelms his good sense and and propels him to destroy, ultimately, all that he loves, including himself. Yet, Othello is clearly a man in charge, who knows how to command respect until his fatal flaw overcomes him. In the end, you grieve that such a man is destroyed; he was noble and good once, a man of honor, until he let his jealousy get the best of him.
I wish I could say the same of Anakin Skywalker. It's clear to me that his impatience arises out of an extreme need to prove himself, which is the essence of arrogance. That, in turn evolves into Anakin creating a shield of invulnerability around him, a shield made of a need to protect himself from any idea that he may be weak or unable to control his environment. And if, in the end, it means accusing those who love him as being his enemies, so be it.
All along, it's pointed out that he has the talent, but not the discipline or the patience to become, for example, a full member of the Jedi council. He is, in essence, immature and remains so until we see him as Darth Vader in Star Wars IV. He can love, it's true. But it's a childish love, not a fully adult love.
Even as the adult Darth Vader, it's clear he's as impetuous and easily manipulated as a child; he is a slave to the Emperor Palpatine until the very end of Star Wars VI. Darth Vader is clearly powerful, more powerful than Palpatine. Why doesn't he ever strike out on his own? Even become an Emperor himself? He could. He has the natural power.
The immaturity persists. In essence, Anakin never really grows up. His death in the end is the death of a stunted child in a broken man's body.
What would Anakin Skywalker as a true tragic hero look like? What would make a noble and fully-adult Anakin turn against the Jedi?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, May 20, 2012
How I write
Argh! My computer is in the shop now--I haven't been able to log onto the thing since Friday, hence the late response to "Ask Me Anything" Friday.
But, thank goodness for my iPad. Why I didn't think to use it earlier, I don't know. Duh. Anyway....
Anna H commented (via Facebook):
I'm what's known as a "pantzer"--I usually go by the seat of my pants, or, as you say, I have a germ of an idea, let it grow, and then I go where it leads me. At the same time, I'm very conscious of a sense of structure underlying whatever it is that comes up. I know a story is ready and will work if I have that sense of structure, and most of the time, I find out it's sort of archetypal in nature, that is, I can usually find a myth or a fairy tale in the middle of it.
I don't mean something like Cinderella, although that did come up once (more like "Cinderfella"), and it didn't hit me until about half-way through the book what it actually was.
It all sounds rather disorganized, but to put a better word on it, it's "organic." :-)
That said, it's often helpful for me by the half-way point in the book to look back at what I've written already and see how well the story is structured. I use a five-point structure to analyze the story. If the story hits the right points in the structure give or take a page or two, then I know the pacing is going to be pretty solid.
Sometimes, I don't analyze the structure until I'm almost done, or even after I'm done. One of the dangers of analyzing too soon is that I lose the flow of the story, or I end up second-guessing myself, and I've come to learn that second-guessing myself is not a good thing. I really do have to trust that the Muse knows what she wants to say and to let her say it, no matter how odd or crazy it may seem. Or scares me silly. Seriously, there have been times I've thought while in the process of writing, "are you NUTS? NOBODY will buy this, it's way too out there." I remember thinking this back in 1995 when I had a vampire hero in a Regency England-set romance. Yeah, kind of a Jane Austen meets Dracula thing (not actually Jane Austen, but just imagine if one of Jane Austen's heroines had an arranged marriage with a vampire. Yeah, like that).
Years later, everyone was doing that kind of thing, so hey, not so crazy.
So these days, if the Muse gives me a crazy, irresistible idea, I try to go with it, because chances are good everyone will be doing it a few years later. :-) This happens a lot to me.
Which is why, when people ask me what trend they should be writing to, I tell them, whatever story grabs you and won't let you go, THAT'S the trend. Because chances are pretty good that if you're writing something that grabs you by the throat and won't let go, your Muse is telling you what will be the next big thing, and that you need to write it before it passes.
But, thank goodness for my iPad. Why I didn't think to use it earlier, I don't know. Duh. Anyway....
Anna H commented (via Facebook):
When noodling the idea for a new book, how detailed do you get, initially? I mean, do you outline the basic plot and characters and go from there, or do you have a germ of an idea and let it grow, taking you where it will?
I'm what's known as a "pantzer"--I usually go by the seat of my pants, or, as you say, I have a germ of an idea, let it grow, and then I go where it leads me. At the same time, I'm very conscious of a sense of structure underlying whatever it is that comes up. I know a story is ready and will work if I have that sense of structure, and most of the time, I find out it's sort of archetypal in nature, that is, I can usually find a myth or a fairy tale in the middle of it.
I don't mean something like Cinderella, although that did come up once (more like "Cinderfella"), and it didn't hit me until about half-way through the book what it actually was.
It all sounds rather disorganized, but to put a better word on it, it's "organic." :-)
That said, it's often helpful for me by the half-way point in the book to look back at what I've written already and see how well the story is structured. I use a five-point structure to analyze the story. If the story hits the right points in the structure give or take a page or two, then I know the pacing is going to be pretty solid.
Sometimes, I don't analyze the structure until I'm almost done, or even after I'm done. One of the dangers of analyzing too soon is that I lose the flow of the story, or I end up second-guessing myself, and I've come to learn that second-guessing myself is not a good thing. I really do have to trust that the Muse knows what she wants to say and to let her say it, no matter how odd or crazy it may seem. Or scares me silly. Seriously, there have been times I've thought while in the process of writing, "are you NUTS? NOBODY will buy this, it's way too out there." I remember thinking this back in 1995 when I had a vampire hero in a Regency England-set romance. Yeah, kind of a Jane Austen meets Dracula thing (not actually Jane Austen, but just imagine if one of Jane Austen's heroines had an arranged marriage with a vampire. Yeah, like that).
Years later, everyone was doing that kind of thing, so hey, not so crazy.
So these days, if the Muse gives me a crazy, irresistible idea, I try to go with it, because chances are good everyone will be doing it a few years later. :-) This happens a lot to me.
Which is why, when people ask me what trend they should be writing to, I tell them, whatever story grabs you and won't let you go, THAT'S the trend. Because chances are pretty good that if you're writing something that grabs you by the throat and won't let go, your Muse is telling you what will be the next big thing, and that you need to write it before it passes.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Ask Me Anything Friday
Once again, it's Ask Me Anything Friday.
It worked pretty well last week, so I'm continuing. :-)
I'll reply either in the comments section during the week or in another blog post within a week of the question asked (more or less, depending on how many questions I get).
Some topics:
It worked pretty well last week, so I'm continuing. :-)
- Art and craft of writing
- High concept ideas
- Publishing
- Markets
- Writing contests
- Trends - what subgenres are hot--or should be
- How-to items
- Writing life
Friday, May 11, 2012
Contests - worth it?
Roxy asked:
One of the things that contests have historically provided was a certain legitimacy in the eyes of the publishing world. As more and more ebooks are published, this is not only true for traditional publishers, but it’s true for the reader. A reader has to discern—quickly, because people only have so much time to figure out what books they want to read—what new or veteran author they really want to spend their money on. An author announcing that the book won a contest is a promotion tool that also helps readers make their decision.
For example, it says something when a published novel has “RITA winner” on it. Savvy romance readers know that this book has won the equivalent of the Academy Awards in the romance writing world. Anyone can look up this award on the internet and see it for themselves.
Same thing for the Golden Heart, and other well-known RWA chapter contests. It means something to have won, or even been a finalist in, these awards. I imagine the same is true for organizations that support other genre writers.
But what if you didn’t win? Well, there’s still value in contests.
Contests can be a testing field where you put your story out in front of people who don’t know you, don’t care, and will judge your story solely on if it’s a good read or not. One of the worst things for any writer’s reputation is to put her manuscript out into the big wide publishing world only to have her baby die from the scorn heaped upon its birth. News travels fast on the internet, and I know of one author’s public humiliation at the hands of people who commented about her book on an ebook review site. If I recall correctly, that altercation reached all the way to mainstream online news sources.
Trust me, you don’t want to go there.
When you enter a contest, it’s usually anonymous—RWA’s Golden Heart contest for unpublished writers is one such. If you didn’t win or final, nobody but you knows it. If your book wins, finals, or gets high scores, at least you know that whether you submit it to a mainstream publisher or decide to epublish it yourself, you have a chance at doing well in the marketplace. Sure, you'll always get people who diss your work, but at least you have that contest win in your pocket to take out and assure you that a legitimate group of judges thought your story was the hot ticket to a good read.
If you don’t score well—no harm, no fail. You pick yourself up from out of your Godiva chocolate ice cream binge and start fixing your story. You either join a critique group (if you haven’t already) to help you out and take their critiques seriously, or you save up enough money to hire someone to edit your book.
So go ahead and enter some legitimate contests (emphasis on legitimate—do your research!) if you’re at the point where you think you might be ready for publication in any venue. Find one that suits your needs, whether it’s a critique, marketing creds, or having a chance at an editor or agent review. The contest entry fee is a small price to pay for good information about the stage of your writing career.
Wondering what you think of the future for writing contests, given the economy and the rise of indie publishing.Roxy, I think contests—legitimate, reputable contests—still have some real value even in these days of online publishing, especially for the indie author.
One of the things that contests have historically provided was a certain legitimacy in the eyes of the publishing world. As more and more ebooks are published, this is not only true for traditional publishers, but it’s true for the reader. A reader has to discern—quickly, because people only have so much time to figure out what books they want to read—what new or veteran author they really want to spend their money on. An author announcing that the book won a contest is a promotion tool that also helps readers make their decision.
For example, it says something when a published novel has “RITA winner” on it. Savvy romance readers know that this book has won the equivalent of the Academy Awards in the romance writing world. Anyone can look up this award on the internet and see it for themselves.
Same thing for the Golden Heart, and other well-known RWA chapter contests. It means something to have won, or even been a finalist in, these awards. I imagine the same is true for organizations that support other genre writers.
But what if you didn’t win? Well, there’s still value in contests.
Contests can be a testing field where you put your story out in front of people who don’t know you, don’t care, and will judge your story solely on if it’s a good read or not. One of the worst things for any writer’s reputation is to put her manuscript out into the big wide publishing world only to have her baby die from the scorn heaped upon its birth. News travels fast on the internet, and I know of one author’s public humiliation at the hands of people who commented about her book on an ebook review site. If I recall correctly, that altercation reached all the way to mainstream online news sources.
Trust me, you don’t want to go there.
When you enter a contest, it’s usually anonymous—RWA’s Golden Heart contest for unpublished writers is one such. If you didn’t win or final, nobody but you knows it. If your book wins, finals, or gets high scores, at least you know that whether you submit it to a mainstream publisher or decide to epublish it yourself, you have a chance at doing well in the marketplace. Sure, you'll always get people who diss your work, but at least you have that contest win in your pocket to take out and assure you that a legitimate group of judges thought your story was the hot ticket to a good read.
If you don’t score well—no harm, no fail. You pick yourself up from out of your Godiva chocolate ice cream binge and start fixing your story. You either join a critique group (if you haven’t already) to help you out and take their critiques seriously, or you save up enough money to hire someone to edit your book.
So go ahead and enter some legitimate contests (emphasis on legitimate—do your research!) if you’re at the point where you think you might be ready for publication in any venue. Find one that suits your needs, whether it’s a critique, marketing creds, or having a chance at an editor or agent review. The contest entry fee is a small price to pay for good information about the stage of your writing career.
Ask me anything...
Within reason. :-)
I've decided to designate Fridays as "ask me anything" day. Why? Because I frankly can't think of things to post every week, and I'd love to keep on a regular schedule when it comes to blogging here. I find I can blog best when someone asks me a question, and I have to come up with an answer.
So, I'm starting Ask Me Anything Friday. Rules are:
I'll reply either in the comments section during the week or in another blog post within a week of the question asked (more or less, depending on how many blog-post-worthy questions I get).
Some topics I've commented on have been:
I've decided to designate Fridays as "ask me anything" day. Why? Because I frankly can't think of things to post every week, and I'd love to keep on a regular schedule when it comes to blogging here. I find I can blog best when someone asks me a question, and I have to come up with an answer.
So, I'm starting Ask Me Anything Friday. Rules are:
- Keep it clean (about a PG-13 rating, more or less)
- Not too personal (I talk about every-day personal stuff on a non-daily basis on my other blog, The Pollyanna Files)
I'll reply either in the comments section during the week or in another blog post within a week of the question asked (more or less, depending on how many blog-post-worthy questions I get).
Some topics I've commented on have been:
- Art and craft of writing
- Publishing
- Markets
- Writing contests
- Trends
- How-to items
- Writing life
Thursday, May 10, 2012
E-book Prices
A fellow writer commented that it seemed odd many mainstream book publishers are pricing their ebooks the same as they'd price their regular paper books. It does seem odd, doesn't it? After all, there's less overhead in the production of ebooks than there would be in a paper book. Certainly, the cost of materials would be less.
I think the market is in the testing phase, and there is more in the cost of production that goes into pricing.
The natural thing to assume about ebooks is that because they are rather...non-physical compared to paper books, and of course the reproduction costs are minimal compared to printing books,the books should therefore be priced at a lower cost than paper books.
I won't get into the fact that the electrons and molecules that make up data are as real as those in our bodies, and without those electrons, both ebooks and our bodies would burst into nothingness, because that would not only be irrelevant to this post, but would start me down the road to science fiction, which I don't want to get into at this point. :-)
But where pricing is concerned there are a few factors to consider.
1. Cost of production
All books, regardless of type, have a certain cost of production. You ever hear about the fact that "time is money"? Exactly. You go to work, you type up a report, fix a car, or code some software, and your boss pays you for that time. Same thing happens with a book, whether it's an ebook or a paper book. Regardless of whether the book is electronic or paper, someone puts in the time thinking up the story and hours upon hours of writing it. Then that person goes through and edits the book (I hope!). Someone creates a cover for it, whether it's painted or whether it's created on Photoshop. All these people need to be paid so that they can have a roof over their heads and food on the table. For paper books, editors go over the book in various stages to see if there are any errors that need to be fixed, anything from punctuation and grammar errors to story continuity. Trust me, an author can be as meticulous as all get-out and go over her story five times and still miss something, so having an editor or a very good critique group is essential. Editors, of course, need to be paid.
Of course, the production similarities diverge when it comes to the physical production. For paper books, there is the cost of getting paper, printing them, puting physical book covers on them, and all the costs involved in putting the books on trucks and driving them to various bookstores and grocery stores. Oh, and yes, those running the stores have to be paid, too. All of that goes into the price of a book. About 94% of the price of a paper book pays everyone except the author. The author generally gets 6% of the cover price. So, a paper book costs $5, the author gets 30 cents of that.
Even with an ebook, the retailer--Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, etc.--get their cut.
2. Quality
Let's say you had a choice between two outfits. One is designed by Armani, is a perfect fit, makes you look 10 lbs thinner, and is made of silk so soft it's to die for. The other one is made of polyester that could sand the glaze off pottery and makes you look like your mother on drugs. Which would you choose? The dynamite silk outfit of course. The silk outfit is quality, the polyester is not. Most people are willing to pay a bit more for well-made silk than for poorly-made polyester.
3. Perception of value
Which brings me to the perception of value. In the example of quality above, all other things being equal, you'll probably want to get the Armani rather than the polyester-looks-like-your-mother-on-drugs outfit. Let's say you didn't even see a picture of the outfits, but you know that they're in your size and in a color you like. Again, which one would you go for? I bet the Armani. Why? Because chances are really good that the Armani would be better made and look good. In fact, if the polyester outfit cost $75, and the Armani cost $150--$75 more!--you'd still go for the Armani because at that price, it's worth it, even though it costs more than the polyester no-name suit, because a good Armani suit goes for around $200 on sale if you're lucky.
In other words, to most people, the name "Armani" has value. The company has a good reputation for well-made clothes.
But what if there's another company that makes to-die-for clothes--one you haven't heard of? How do you hear about it? Maybe a friend decided to take a chance, and ended up loving that company's clothes. He or she tells you about it. That previously no-name company now has a little bit more value to you--enough so that you're willing to give it a try--because your friend liked it, and you trust your friend.
The same thing goes for books.
In this exploding ebook publishing world, you get every kind of pricing from free to $10.00. You have every kind of person's work--from a teenager's fan fic homage to Twilight to J.K. Rowling--out there for sale. There are probably hundreds of thousands of books out there that you could download. How do you choose?
It basically comes down to cost of production, quality, and perception of value.
Even with ebooks, the cost of production will vary. There are more than a few ebooks out there by writers who couldn't spell their way out of a paper bag, whose stories are boring, or simply don't make any sense. The production costs are really low because the writer just wrote whatever and the uploaded it, and maybe slapped a bland cover on it that they Photoshopped in about a minute. That's low production cost, right there, and hand in hand with that is low quality.
These books may be free or cost 99 cents, but even at free you're going to wonder why you spent the time you did even trying to get through it. Your opinion of the book may be a matter of taste, but there are some real, objective, quality issues that are important to a production of a book that make even a free one torture to spend your time on. And your time is limited, right? Why even spend 5 minutes with a low-quality book, even if it's free? Because, you see, it's not really free. You have to spend time reading it. And your time isn't free. It's time you could have spent elsewhere. Do you really want to spend hundreds of hours online searching through hundreds of thousands of books for a good one? I bet not.
You have a few time-saving choices. You can ask friends. You can go by an author's reputation. You can also go by a publisher's reputation.
When an indie author has a book for sale--and let's say you don't know this author from Adam--you don't have a guarantee that this author has put in the extra effort to create a quality book. I'm sure there are plenty of indie authors who are great. I know some who are. But if you buy from an established publisher, you at least can count on the fact that it's been edited by a professional, so you probably won't find many spelling or grammar errors. The story will probably be understandable, and there will probably be a decent plot. You can at least have that bottom-line guarantee. You can especially have that guarantee if that book has been published by a mainstream traditional publisher that has more than a few bestsellers under its belt. You're going by publisher reputation.
If the indie author is J.K. Rowling, you probably won't care how she's being published, you're going to buy her book or know the quality is going to be better than most. You're going by author name recognition.
Buying a book by a well-known publisher or author saves you what precious time you have in hunting through hundreds, nay, thousands of books trying to find that pinpoint balance between an affordable price and quality.
Right now, mainstream publishers are banking on the idea that you might be willing to pay the same for their ebooks as you would for a paper book because there is a better guarantee of quality. They're especially betting on it if the author is well-known, even a bestselling author. Hence, the price they're putting on it is the same as for a paper book. In other words, they're offering a service: you pay extra for the name brand, because they have just given you some information regarding a better chance at quality and saving you some time in looking for a good book...
...for now.
Because if you find an indie author whose books are fabulous, and she's offering the book for $2.99, are you really going to go to the mainstream publisher to buy an equally fabulous book for $6? Probably not, unless you are deeply craving that particular mainstream-published author's books.
Will mainstream publishers have to bring their prices down a bit to compete after a while? Probably so. The reason is because readers will eventually find indie authors who are just as good as those who are traditionally published, and the prices are between $4.99 and $2.99--99 cents if it's on sale. This is already happening. In fact, there are more than a few indie authors who have been traditionally published authors, and who have decided to epublish that novel they've wanted to publish for ages, but which has been turned down by traditional publishers.
The market is in flux right now. This is a great time to find new authors, and for authors to find new readers, and for authors to actually make a living instead of having to find a day job to support the writing (and trust me, working 60 hours a week doesn't make for great storytelling, it makes for a really, really tired person).
I don't know how long this will last. Authors are already wishing that they had more time to write because they're spending a lot of time on things like editing, finding covers, coding their manuscripts into the appropriate format, and so on, instead of creating a novel. And I don't know how long it'll be before Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, etc., will decide that they, too, can take the lion's share of the profits and leave the author with a smaller and smaller percentage.
I have some hope, though. This new ebook venue means each author or group of authors can become their own small business, and that means they'll need to hire people to help them with the production of books. It means there will be job creation, and that's good for all of us, right?
As long as the authors get paid, that is. :-)
I think the market is in the testing phase, and there is more in the cost of production that goes into pricing.
The natural thing to assume about ebooks is that because they are rather...non-physical compared to paper books, and of course the reproduction costs are minimal compared to printing books,the books should therefore be priced at a lower cost than paper books.
I won't get into the fact that the electrons and molecules that make up data are as real as those in our bodies, and without those electrons, both ebooks and our bodies would burst into nothingness, because that would not only be irrelevant to this post, but would start me down the road to science fiction, which I don't want to get into at this point. :-)
But where pricing is concerned there are a few factors to consider.
1. Cost of production
All books, regardless of type, have a certain cost of production. You ever hear about the fact that "time is money"? Exactly. You go to work, you type up a report, fix a car, or code some software, and your boss pays you for that time. Same thing happens with a book, whether it's an ebook or a paper book. Regardless of whether the book is electronic or paper, someone puts in the time thinking up the story and hours upon hours of writing it. Then that person goes through and edits the book (I hope!). Someone creates a cover for it, whether it's painted or whether it's created on Photoshop. All these people need to be paid so that they can have a roof over their heads and food on the table. For paper books, editors go over the book in various stages to see if there are any errors that need to be fixed, anything from punctuation and grammar errors to story continuity. Trust me, an author can be as meticulous as all get-out and go over her story five times and still miss something, so having an editor or a very good critique group is essential. Editors, of course, need to be paid.
Of course, the production similarities diverge when it comes to the physical production. For paper books, there is the cost of getting paper, printing them, puting physical book covers on them, and all the costs involved in putting the books on trucks and driving them to various bookstores and grocery stores. Oh, and yes, those running the stores have to be paid, too. All of that goes into the price of a book. About 94% of the price of a paper book pays everyone except the author. The author generally gets 6% of the cover price. So, a paper book costs $5, the author gets 30 cents of that.
Even with an ebook, the retailer--Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, etc.--get their cut.
2. Quality
Let's say you had a choice between two outfits. One is designed by Armani, is a perfect fit, makes you look 10 lbs thinner, and is made of silk so soft it's to die for. The other one is made of polyester that could sand the glaze off pottery and makes you look like your mother on drugs. Which would you choose? The dynamite silk outfit of course. The silk outfit is quality, the polyester is not. Most people are willing to pay a bit more for well-made silk than for poorly-made polyester.
3. Perception of value
Which brings me to the perception of value. In the example of quality above, all other things being equal, you'll probably want to get the Armani rather than the polyester-looks-like-your-mother-on-drugs outfit. Let's say you didn't even see a picture of the outfits, but you know that they're in your size and in a color you like. Again, which one would you go for? I bet the Armani. Why? Because chances are really good that the Armani would be better made and look good. In fact, if the polyester outfit cost $75, and the Armani cost $150--$75 more!--you'd still go for the Armani because at that price, it's worth it, even though it costs more than the polyester no-name suit, because a good Armani suit goes for around $200 on sale if you're lucky.
In other words, to most people, the name "Armani" has value. The company has a good reputation for well-made clothes.
But what if there's another company that makes to-die-for clothes--one you haven't heard of? How do you hear about it? Maybe a friend decided to take a chance, and ended up loving that company's clothes. He or she tells you about it. That previously no-name company now has a little bit more value to you--enough so that you're willing to give it a try--because your friend liked it, and you trust your friend.
The same thing goes for books.
In this exploding ebook publishing world, you get every kind of pricing from free to $10.00. You have every kind of person's work--from a teenager's fan fic homage to Twilight to J.K. Rowling--out there for sale. There are probably hundreds of thousands of books out there that you could download. How do you choose?
It basically comes down to cost of production, quality, and perception of value.
Even with ebooks, the cost of production will vary. There are more than a few ebooks out there by writers who couldn't spell their way out of a paper bag, whose stories are boring, or simply don't make any sense. The production costs are really low because the writer just wrote whatever and the uploaded it, and maybe slapped a bland cover on it that they Photoshopped in about a minute. That's low production cost, right there, and hand in hand with that is low quality.
These books may be free or cost 99 cents, but even at free you're going to wonder why you spent the time you did even trying to get through it. Your opinion of the book may be a matter of taste, but there are some real, objective, quality issues that are important to a production of a book that make even a free one torture to spend your time on. And your time is limited, right? Why even spend 5 minutes with a low-quality book, even if it's free? Because, you see, it's not really free. You have to spend time reading it. And your time isn't free. It's time you could have spent elsewhere. Do you really want to spend hundreds of hours online searching through hundreds of thousands of books for a good one? I bet not.
You have a few time-saving choices. You can ask friends. You can go by an author's reputation. You can also go by a publisher's reputation.
When an indie author has a book for sale--and let's say you don't know this author from Adam--you don't have a guarantee that this author has put in the extra effort to create a quality book. I'm sure there are plenty of indie authors who are great. I know some who are. But if you buy from an established publisher, you at least can count on the fact that it's been edited by a professional, so you probably won't find many spelling or grammar errors. The story will probably be understandable, and there will probably be a decent plot. You can at least have that bottom-line guarantee. You can especially have that guarantee if that book has been published by a mainstream traditional publisher that has more than a few bestsellers under its belt. You're going by publisher reputation.
If the indie author is J.K. Rowling, you probably won't care how she's being published, you're going to buy her book or know the quality is going to be better than most. You're going by author name recognition.
Buying a book by a well-known publisher or author saves you what precious time you have in hunting through hundreds, nay, thousands of books trying to find that pinpoint balance between an affordable price and quality.
Right now, mainstream publishers are banking on the idea that you might be willing to pay the same for their ebooks as you would for a paper book because there is a better guarantee of quality. They're especially betting on it if the author is well-known, even a bestselling author. Hence, the price they're putting on it is the same as for a paper book. In other words, they're offering a service: you pay extra for the name brand, because they have just given you some information regarding a better chance at quality and saving you some time in looking for a good book...
...for now.
Because if you find an indie author whose books are fabulous, and she's offering the book for $2.99, are you really going to go to the mainstream publisher to buy an equally fabulous book for $6? Probably not, unless you are deeply craving that particular mainstream-published author's books.
Will mainstream publishers have to bring their prices down a bit to compete after a while? Probably so. The reason is because readers will eventually find indie authors who are just as good as those who are traditionally published, and the prices are between $4.99 and $2.99--99 cents if it's on sale. This is already happening. In fact, there are more than a few indie authors who have been traditionally published authors, and who have decided to epublish that novel they've wanted to publish for ages, but which has been turned down by traditional publishers.
The market is in flux right now. This is a great time to find new authors, and for authors to find new readers, and for authors to actually make a living instead of having to find a day job to support the writing (and trust me, working 60 hours a week doesn't make for great storytelling, it makes for a really, really tired person).
I don't know how long this will last. Authors are already wishing that they had more time to write because they're spending a lot of time on things like editing, finding covers, coding their manuscripts into the appropriate format, and so on, instead of creating a novel. And I don't know how long it'll be before Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, etc., will decide that they, too, can take the lion's share of the profits and leave the author with a smaller and smaller percentage.
I have some hope, though. This new ebook venue means each author or group of authors can become their own small business, and that means they'll need to hire people to help them with the production of books. It means there will be job creation, and that's good for all of us, right?
As long as the authors get paid, that is. :-)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Voice
A long time ago, I went to the Tacoma Chapter RWA's Manresa Castle conference, and there I was one of two people who attended the "poetry in prose" workshop given by a local poet. I sincerely pity the people who didn't attend. There, I learned what voice was, and how to identify it, particularly my own. It's such a difficult thing to identify your own voice. I wasn't sure until I attended this workshop, and that's after writing nine novels. This workshop literally changed my writing life. It gave me one huge tool to work with and sparked a lot of realizations about the interaction of voice and story structure. It also gave me a lot more confidence than I had had about my writing, because I found my voice was already there in my books.
I don't think you cultivate your voice so much as discover it, although once you do understand what it is, you can work to make it stronger and more effective. As beginning writers, you naturally copy the voice and style of those authors you like best--that's the learning process. But your voice is made up of all the influences of your life: the books you've read, the part of the country in which you live, the dialect or language you speak and its rhythms, the music you listen to. Think about all the sounds you've grown up with. These things will influence your voice.
Think of the images in your life that speak to you most. These also will influence your voice, because that's the source from which you take your metaphors and similes.
Voice is your natural sense of poetry--your own and others'. This is the reason why you're clumsily told, "don't use adjectives or adverbs." You're rarely told why, and what effect this has on your work. Of course, you can and should use adjectives and adverbs when you write, but not exclusively. If you do, then you've stripped your story of your voice. It's why I've instinctively railed against people trying to eliminate "wandering body parts" sentences entirely--it takes away yet another poetic device (idioms, metaphors, and similes) that aids one's voice.
Voice is also tied to the emotional pitch of your writing. That is, when you are writing a particularly emotional or vivid scene, that's where your voice appears the strongest. It's not something you can or even should maintain in every paragraph of your story, but it's something that rises and falls with the pacing and structure of the story. When your voice ebbs and flows in sync with the structure, it contributes to narrative drive--that is, it's what keeps the reader turning the pages, even if the action is mundane.
Here are two examples of the same idea; one stripped of metaphors, similes, and most of the adverbs and adjectives (and thus, voice), the other as it was written:
"She sat in the drawing room at the pianoforte but did not play any music. She looked out the window at the sky instead. She didn't want to be here, and in fact felt unhappy and trapped. She wished she could go away."
This paragraph is short and to the point, and that's fine. Sometimes you want short and to the point. However, it doesn't have as much emotion as:
"She sat in the drawing room, her hands on the keys of the pianoforte, but did not play. Instead, she looked out of the window at the blue summer sky. The panes formed small rectangles, the sun casting shadows on each edge--it looked like a cage. But then a movement caught her eye: swallows dove toward the house, outlined in each frame of window like quick sketches, then with a quick flick of their wings twisted away from the house and upward into the air. She envied them; she wished she had wings so swift that a mere glance of a wingtip would send her away."
Here, I don't say directly that she feels trapped or that she's unhappy. But all the images combined--not playing music, looking out of windows that look like a cage, swallows flying away, and the repetition of the word "away," and "wing," etc.--give an impression of her emotional state. Note also that I use concrete images--I say "swallows" instead of just "birds." Read both paragraphs aloud, and listen for a rhythm. I think the latter paragraph is a bit more rhythmic.
This is voice. My particular combination of rhythm, concrete images, metaphors, and similes used together to evoke a scene and infuse it with emotion. You, no doubt, do it too.
I don't think you cultivate your voice so much as discover it, although once you do understand what it is, you can work to make it stronger and more effective. As beginning writers, you naturally copy the voice and style of those authors you like best--that's the learning process. But your voice is made up of all the influences of your life: the books you've read, the part of the country in which you live, the dialect or language you speak and its rhythms, the music you listen to. Think about all the sounds you've grown up with. These things will influence your voice.
Think of the images in your life that speak to you most. These also will influence your voice, because that's the source from which you take your metaphors and similes.
Voice is your natural sense of poetry--your own and others'. This is the reason why you're clumsily told, "don't use adjectives or adverbs." You're rarely told why, and what effect this has on your work. Of course, you can and should use adjectives and adverbs when you write, but not exclusively. If you do, then you've stripped your story of your voice. It's why I've instinctively railed against people trying to eliminate "wandering body parts" sentences entirely--it takes away yet another poetic device (idioms, metaphors, and similes) that aids one's voice.
Voice is also tied to the emotional pitch of your writing. That is, when you are writing a particularly emotional or vivid scene, that's where your voice appears the strongest. It's not something you can or even should maintain in every paragraph of your story, but it's something that rises and falls with the pacing and structure of the story. When your voice ebbs and flows in sync with the structure, it contributes to narrative drive--that is, it's what keeps the reader turning the pages, even if the action is mundane.
Here are two examples of the same idea; one stripped of metaphors, similes, and most of the adverbs and adjectives (and thus, voice), the other as it was written:
"She sat in the drawing room at the pianoforte but did not play any music. She looked out the window at the sky instead. She didn't want to be here, and in fact felt unhappy and trapped. She wished she could go away."
This paragraph is short and to the point, and that's fine. Sometimes you want short and to the point. However, it doesn't have as much emotion as:
"She sat in the drawing room, her hands on the keys of the pianoforte, but did not play. Instead, she looked out of the window at the blue summer sky. The panes formed small rectangles, the sun casting shadows on each edge--it looked like a cage. But then a movement caught her eye: swallows dove toward the house, outlined in each frame of window like quick sketches, then with a quick flick of their wings twisted away from the house and upward into the air. She envied them; she wished she had wings so swift that a mere glance of a wingtip would send her away."
Here, I don't say directly that she feels trapped or that she's unhappy. But all the images combined--not playing music, looking out of windows that look like a cage, swallows flying away, and the repetition of the word "away," and "wing," etc.--give an impression of her emotional state. Note also that I use concrete images--I say "swallows" instead of just "birds." Read both paragraphs aloud, and listen for a rhythm. I think the latter paragraph is a bit more rhythmic.
This is voice. My particular combination of rhythm, concrete images, metaphors, and similes used together to evoke a scene and infuse it with emotion. You, no doubt, do it too.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
You know you're a writer when...
I just thought of this: You know you’re a writer when “girls in the basement” does not mean what happens after 50 if you don’t wear a bra.
Friday, October 23, 2009
MSNBC and the Wickedness of the World
Grammar and usage alert!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33451627/ns/technology_and_science-science/
The article, which is about human evolution, starts out like this:
Apparently MSNBC thinks the vile wickedness of our planet exists despite how closely related people are, even though there might be something pervy about it.
Ye gods.
Okay, maybe not pervy, but we certainly shouldn't be that closely related. Maybe.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33451627/ns/technology_and_science-science/
The article, which is about human evolution, starts out like this:
Despite the sheer enormity of our planet, we humans are far more closely related than we should be.Say what?
Apparently MSNBC thinks the vile wickedness of our planet exists despite how closely related people are, even though there might be something pervy about it.
Ye gods.
Okay, maybe not pervy, but we certainly shouldn't be that closely related. Maybe.
NaNoWriMo
Ack! Ack! I have joined National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and now must try to write 50,000 words in a month. Ack! I am not at all sure I can do this, but I will try, and I will also understand that I will not revise or edit a word but will plow on in a relentless, yet hopefully creative way, until the month ends. Unless not revising drives me so batty that I become stuck, in which case I will allow myself half an hour to do so, no more.
Always good to set some guidelines, yes?
To that end, I've actually done some character sketches, brainstormed some ideas, fleshed out the story a bit. I think I know the characters' backstory pretty well now. Oh, the story? It's the Irish werewolf one I was talking about over in the Pollyanna Files. I think I know what I need to write and how. Whew! I don’t think I’ve ever been as nervous writing a book before. You’d think I’d be used to it, but this time....well, I suppose it’s because I haven’t written a big novel in more than a few years, just novellas. So, this is my chance to do a “don’t look down” draft and see how far I get. I’ll need to do some major number of pages just to get close to the count, but that’s the goal of the event, to get out as many page as possible.
As I go, I might post a few snippets from the work-in-progress, if they aren’t too horrible.
Ack!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I astonish even myself sometimes
From 1/8/08:
Every once in a while, I'll go through and delete my "sent" message files--I subscribe to a LOT of online writing groups, so much that I rarely have time to keep up--and I'll find that I have actually posted something useful vis a vis writing.
About the craft of writing:
Which is actually useful advice, because it means you need to have patience with yourself as you learn, get stuck, are released, and then understand and attain mastery.
The market (advice to a newbie):
Of course, this piece of advice could be pandering to those who think they are somehow "above" the market, which is not what I subscribe to, for that way lies madness, or at least bitterness. You really do have to think of your audience (not what publishers want--that's a different thing). IMHO, it's best to have an attitude of generosity about your writing, a wish to share the pleasure you have in the writing, as if you've created the most delicious meal you can imagine, and have invited your readers in for the feast. The most popular authors I know of have this attitude, an attitude of invitation, so that you are welcomed in to party along with him or her.
Did I ever say how much I love writing? I do, I purely do.
Every once in a while, I'll go through and delete my "sent" message files--I subscribe to a LOT of online writing groups, so much that I rarely have time to keep up--and I'll find that I have actually posted something useful vis a vis writing.
About the craft of writing:
That said...there is a mind-set that is behind Zen archery that I try to
remember. You learn technique until it doesn't matter any more. It becomes
one with who you are and the movement of you, the bow, the arrow, the
target. It is all one...but that only after you learn technique.
There is a pattern to learning the technique. You at first learn it, you
become bound by it, then you break free, and you are beyond it. But it
doesn't happen until you walk the path, learn the art.
Or, as my mother used to say, "so what if you don't have talent? You will
learn talent."
I have often thought my mother is actually Yoda in disguise.
Which is actually useful advice, because it means you need to have patience with yourself as you learn, get stuck, are released, and then understand and attain mastery.
The market (advice to a newbie):
Times change, trends change, and what didn’t work in the past will work now. Running after the latest trend will make for failure. The truth is, if you write what you love, the trend will move to what you are writing sooner or later. Running after the latest trend is like running after the bus that just left the station: you’ll always be running after it and exhausting yourself, instead of catching the next bus when it comes by if you stand where you are. That next bus may well have been the one that would have taken you where you wanted to go. Anyone who writes to the trend MIGHT get lucky and have one, maybe two books published. But you’ll see them burn out pretty quick, because they're always running after that bus instead of focusing on the art. Burn-out can mean the end of their career.
Homily for the day: THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER BUS.
Of course, this piece of advice could be pandering to those who think they are somehow "above" the market, which is not what I subscribe to, for that way lies madness, or at least bitterness. You really do have to think of your audience (not what publishers want--that's a different thing). IMHO, it's best to have an attitude of generosity about your writing, a wish to share the pleasure you have in the writing, as if you've created the most delicious meal you can imagine, and have invited your readers in for the feast. The most popular authors I know of have this attitude, an attitude of invitation, so that you are welcomed in to party along with him or her.
Did I ever say how much I love writing? I do, I purely do.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Learning from writing contests - description
From 8/23/06:
I’m one of those weird people who like to judge writing contests. For some reason it thrills me to find a diamond amongst the entries, and there are some contest entrants who not only get a high score from me, but get comments like “send this manuscript to a publisher NOW,” with lots of exclamation marks. I love those. Then there are the not-so-exciting ones, the ones that have promise if some work’s put into them. Then there are the ones…well, the ones I’m staring at and wondering what the hell is going on, because I can’t make heads or tails of them. Luckily the latter are rare, because then I have to try to find some diplomatic way of saying, “this is SO not going to work. Ever.” I hate to squash anyone’s hopes, and the truth is it’s possible for someone to work hard enough so that they go from dreadful to delightful.
Mostly what I get are the middling ones that need a bit of oomph, some craft improvement, such as sticking to a character’s point of view (POV), or starting at a different point in the story. Those are easy fixes. The harder ones are when the character doesn’t act sensibly, such as going out into treacherous terrain when she’s been told not to by wiser and more experienced heads. There has to be some major, major justification for acting in such a risky manner to convince me. Otherwise, I end up thinking that character is TSTL (i.e., Too Stupid to Live).
What’s interesting is that with every contest I judge, a craft problem stands out prominently amongst the entries. It’s good for me: when I identify what it is, figuring out how to fix them hones my own writing.
This time, it’s description. The group of entries—with the exception of one or two--I recently judged had some problems with that aspect of craft. A couple didn’t have enough to place me securely in the writer’s story world (my own problem, when I’m writing a hurried first draft), a few had some strange ones (a hero with multi-colored, multi-faceted eyes, for example. And he was not a Jeff Goldblum look-alike in a fly costume), and then there were some that were way over the top and placed in the story willy-nilly.
In my humble opinion, there is such a thing as judicious description. We’re told in writing workshops to use all five senses when describing something, but people seem to think this means using Every Sense Every Single Time. As a reader, I don’t want sensory overload. I want concrete imagery. I want the description to mean something to the characters, reflect an emotion, or reveal something about the character and his/her POV. I want the description to be essential to the scene, and do more than just describe.
I think the key is to understand that description resides in the character. It is almost always from the character’s viewpoint that his or her environment is described. Most of us view our world with emotional or mental filters, from a framework of prejudice. I use that word purposely: we rarely think outside our box of conservative or liberal, rural or urban, northeasterner or southwesterner. We view the world from our life’s context, and we react to that world in the way we do because of that context. The same is so with our characters.
As a result, when a character is feeling depressed but has a naturally practical and optimistic nature, she has a certain response to her environment. If it’s sunny outside, the description—from her viewpoint—would be something like this:
Sarah awoke early in the morning and resented the bright sunlight that streamed into her bedroom. Pulling the bedcovers over her head, she tried to block out the light so that she could wallow in her gloom from the night before. It was useless. The bed had a soft sheet and a thin cotton blanket fit for hot August nights; instead of looking at a grey dim mattress and thinking grey dim thoughts, the pretty golden glow on the white sheets made her think of spring daffodils.
Pushing aside the bed covers, she sighed, and could not help a wry smile at her own actions. There was no sense in hiding under bedsheets from the world; it was stuffy and confining under there. The sunbeams pouring through the windows into her pastel-painted bedroom conspired to banish all thoughts of last night’s failure, and lured her into imagining a day of exploration instead.
Note that not once do I state that she’s depressed. Instead, I say she’s resentful of the sunshine, wants to block out the light, and was intending to think dim grey thoughts. All of that contrasts with what’s in her environment: a sunny August morning. Because she’s naturally optimistic, the light makes her think of spring daffodils, which is not a depressing image. And because she’s practical, she’s realistic about the fact that it’s stuffy under bedclothes and therefore not a useful place to be.
The description integrates with who Sarah is. She reacts to her environment according to her nature and the way she’s taught to be. At the same time, I’ve let the reader know what her room looks like filtered through Sarah’s attitudes and character. I didn’t use all five senses in the description, just two: sight and touch. To have put in more would have bogged down the narrative, and even made it more emotional than I wanted it to be (I wanted the mood to be fairly light). I also used metaphors and personification: sunbeams are inanimate objects and don’t have motivation, so can’t conspire. However, it’s a legitimate literary device that makes the description interact with the character.
This achieves more than just describing a place. It also shows characterization, mood, and pushes forward the scene because the character not just perceives her environment, but acts on it, and is changed by it.
Characters, like ourselves, are not separate from their environment. They are in it, part of it, and react to it in some way. I think what might help is to take some time, go somewhere, and take note of what you see, hear, feel, etc. around you. Don’t judge it, take it in and see what emotions come up, what thoughts are evoked, what mood you’re in and how it influences the way you feel about your environment. Try it, and see what comes out in your writing.
I’m one of those weird people who like to judge writing contests. For some reason it thrills me to find a diamond amongst the entries, and there are some contest entrants who not only get a high score from me, but get comments like “send this manuscript to a publisher NOW,” with lots of exclamation marks. I love those. Then there are the not-so-exciting ones, the ones that have promise if some work’s put into them. Then there are the ones…well, the ones I’m staring at and wondering what the hell is going on, because I can’t make heads or tails of them. Luckily the latter are rare, because then I have to try to find some diplomatic way of saying, “this is SO not going to work. Ever.” I hate to squash anyone’s hopes, and the truth is it’s possible for someone to work hard enough so that they go from dreadful to delightful.
Mostly what I get are the middling ones that need a bit of oomph, some craft improvement, such as sticking to a character’s point of view (POV), or starting at a different point in the story. Those are easy fixes. The harder ones are when the character doesn’t act sensibly, such as going out into treacherous terrain when she’s been told not to by wiser and more experienced heads. There has to be some major, major justification for acting in such a risky manner to convince me. Otherwise, I end up thinking that character is TSTL (i.e., Too Stupid to Live).
What’s interesting is that with every contest I judge, a craft problem stands out prominently amongst the entries. It’s good for me: when I identify what it is, figuring out how to fix them hones my own writing.
This time, it’s description. The group of entries—with the exception of one or two--I recently judged had some problems with that aspect of craft. A couple didn’t have enough to place me securely in the writer’s story world (my own problem, when I’m writing a hurried first draft), a few had some strange ones (a hero with multi-colored, multi-faceted eyes, for example. And he was not a Jeff Goldblum look-alike in a fly costume), and then there were some that were way over the top and placed in the story willy-nilly.
In my humble opinion, there is such a thing as judicious description. We’re told in writing workshops to use all five senses when describing something, but people seem to think this means using Every Sense Every Single Time. As a reader, I don’t want sensory overload. I want concrete imagery. I want the description to mean something to the characters, reflect an emotion, or reveal something about the character and his/her POV. I want the description to be essential to the scene, and do more than just describe.
I think the key is to understand that description resides in the character. It is almost always from the character’s viewpoint that his or her environment is described. Most of us view our world with emotional or mental filters, from a framework of prejudice. I use that word purposely: we rarely think outside our box of conservative or liberal, rural or urban, northeasterner or southwesterner. We view the world from our life’s context, and we react to that world in the way we do because of that context. The same is so with our characters.
As a result, when a character is feeling depressed but has a naturally practical and optimistic nature, she has a certain response to her environment. If it’s sunny outside, the description—from her viewpoint—would be something like this:
Sarah awoke early in the morning and resented the bright sunlight that streamed into her bedroom. Pulling the bedcovers over her head, she tried to block out the light so that she could wallow in her gloom from the night before. It was useless. The bed had a soft sheet and a thin cotton blanket fit for hot August nights; instead of looking at a grey dim mattress and thinking grey dim thoughts, the pretty golden glow on the white sheets made her think of spring daffodils.
Pushing aside the bed covers, she sighed, and could not help a wry smile at her own actions. There was no sense in hiding under bedsheets from the world; it was stuffy and confining under there. The sunbeams pouring through the windows into her pastel-painted bedroom conspired to banish all thoughts of last night’s failure, and lured her into imagining a day of exploration instead.
Note that not once do I state that she’s depressed. Instead, I say she’s resentful of the sunshine, wants to block out the light, and was intending to think dim grey thoughts. All of that contrasts with what’s in her environment: a sunny August morning. Because she’s naturally optimistic, the light makes her think of spring daffodils, which is not a depressing image. And because she’s practical, she’s realistic about the fact that it’s stuffy under bedclothes and therefore not a useful place to be.
The description integrates with who Sarah is. She reacts to her environment according to her nature and the way she’s taught to be. At the same time, I’ve let the reader know what her room looks like filtered through Sarah’s attitudes and character. I didn’t use all five senses in the description, just two: sight and touch. To have put in more would have bogged down the narrative, and even made it more emotional than I wanted it to be (I wanted the mood to be fairly light). I also used metaphors and personification: sunbeams are inanimate objects and don’t have motivation, so can’t conspire. However, it’s a legitimate literary device that makes the description interact with the character.
This achieves more than just describing a place. It also shows characterization, mood, and pushes forward the scene because the character not just perceives her environment, but acts on it, and is changed by it.
Characters, like ourselves, are not separate from their environment. They are in it, part of it, and react to it in some way. I think what might help is to take some time, go somewhere, and take note of what you see, hear, feel, etc. around you. Don’t judge it, take it in and see what emotions come up, what thoughts are evoked, what mood you’re in and how it influences the way you feel about your environment. Try it, and see what comes out in your writing.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Character studies
From 6/2/06 - whew! This shows how long the Irish werewolf story has been brewing:
Been getting a bit antsy about writing--feeling like I want to write another story already. I don’t want to start the actual chapters yet, because I want to give this story some time to jell. So, I’m skirting the story, mulling it over in my mind, getting flashes of scenes, thinking of each character and what they’re like.
I have a good idea for the heroine--practical, managing, no-nonsense, a woman of authority in her little village, and she doesn’t take guff from anyone. In my last two books, the heroines were victimized, and had to climb out of the horrors into which they’d been thrust. But this determined Irish heroine is different, and I’m feeling a good deal of relief at the idea that she’s very managing, and she’s the one to whom everyone goes when there’s a problem, and even the village priest will ask her to intercede in local squabbles. She’s so capable and manages...everything and everybody. She’s got a good deal of pride, for she’s from a long line of Bean Sidhe (aka banshee)--wise women who have just a bit of faerie in them, and who have inherited the Sight. Her grandmother was a Bean Sidhe, and my heroine--I think I’ll call her Mary Kate McCree--learned everything from her. I think Mary Kate looks a bit like the actress Maureen O’Hara--auburn haired and voluptuous, and a spitfire attitude.
I even have in mind what her cottage might look like. It’s got a thatched roof, it’s got wood siding and green trim. She’s got pretty lace curtains at the windows, and a nice big porch, with a gravel path through a glorious flower and herb garden. There’s a vegetable garden out back, and a nanny goat in a neat small barn to the right of the cottage, for both milk and butter. She’s got a brother and sister, both younger than herself. I think she’s about 25, which is a bit of an “old maid” for that time (1798 or so), but that’s because while the villagers respect her, they’re also intimidated by her. Her younger brother, Brian, is 22, and is smart enough for Dublin University, where he’s a scholar, but terribly idealistic. He’s being recruited by some Irish rebels, unbeknownst to Mary Kate. Her younger sister, Bridget, is about 17, very pretty and blonde, and much less intimidating than Mary Kate, so has more than a few suitors. But though Bridget has shown no sign of the Sight, she’s a good herbalist and very quick-witted.
The hero, though...I’m having a little more difficulty visualizing him. I’ve decided his name will be James Marstone, and related to the Marstones I’ve written about before. He’s English, and has inherited the local castle, which is not in good repair. Of course, being English, he won’t be liked. And, since he’s living in the castle, which is supposedly cursed, he’s going to feel pretty isolated because nobody wants to work for him. And since he’s also become a werewolf, he’ll be bewildered because he doesn’t remember what he’s done or where he’s been at night during the full moon. But that’s all I’ve got on him. I’ll have to figure out how he became cursed, who cursed him, and why. Although, perhaps that’s a mystery in the novel to be solved. Certainly, nobody in the village wants him there, for he’s a damned Sassanach, and a Protestant to boot.
I know what’s going to bring them together: James Marstone will have young Brian arrested for treason, since he’s been linked to the Irish rebels who blew up something or other. Mary Kate’s going to have to figure out a way to persuade Marstone to let him go. And that bit is going to follow the Grimm’s fairy tale of “The Peasant’s Clever Daughter,” because that’s what I’m basing this story on. Mary Kate’s the sort to do anything for family, even if it’s a blot on her sense of pride.
It won’t be all grim and dark, though. I’m running out of fuel for grim and dark, because I’ve done that with the last three books. This will be lighter, with hopefully lots of banter, because Mary Kate has a quick tongue on her and will get in the last word if she can, and James is no slacker in the repartee department.
Oh, and the village. I haven’t thought of a name for the little Irish village. That place is almost a character in itself. I need to think of a good name, but I don’t know much about Celtic names and what they mean. I think I need something that has to do with “wolf” or faeries. This should be fun: I think I have the Irish speech rhythms in my head pretty well, so the dialogue should have a nice flavor of it. Sure, and I’m thinkin’ it’ll sound fair authentic. ☺
So anyway, that’s what I’ve thought up so far, and with any luck, my publisher will like it.
Well, heck. Here I’ve written all this stuff down, not just mulled it about in my mind. Very well. I’ll keep a copy of this for my files and refer to it again, maybe flesh it out more as I think about it. But I will not start writing the chapters until I have the characters better fleshed out in my mind, and I need to visualize where they are and where they live, and what they look like. I’m really feeling the urge to write the chapters, but I think my big mistake in the past has been jumping into that and then getting stuck because I haven’t thought it through. I really think I need to back off that and do some solid groundwork before I even begin the actual chapters.
Besides, I don’t yet know who cursed James Marstone and why. It could be that I’ll figure it out while I’m writing it, but...no. Gotta try to flesh out the story line and characters first. If I don’t know who the characters are and where they’re coming from, I won’t know where they’re going.
I have a good idea for the heroine--practical, managing, no-nonsense, a woman of authority in her little village, and she doesn’t take guff from anyone. In my last two books, the heroines were victimized, and had to climb out of the horrors into which they’d been thrust. But this determined Irish heroine is different, and I’m feeling a good deal of relief at the idea that she’s very managing, and she’s the one to whom everyone goes when there’s a problem, and even the village priest will ask her to intercede in local squabbles. She’s so capable and manages...everything and everybody. She’s got a good deal of pride, for she’s from a long line of Bean Sidhe (aka banshee)--wise women who have just a bit of faerie in them, and who have inherited the Sight. Her grandmother was a Bean Sidhe, and my heroine--I think I’ll call her Mary Kate McCree--learned everything from her. I think Mary Kate looks a bit like the actress Maureen O’Hara--auburn haired and voluptuous, and a spitfire attitude.
I even have in mind what her cottage might look like. It’s got a thatched roof, it’s got wood siding and green trim. She’s got pretty lace curtains at the windows, and a nice big porch, with a gravel path through a glorious flower and herb garden. There’s a vegetable garden out back, and a nanny goat in a neat small barn to the right of the cottage, for both milk and butter. She’s got a brother and sister, both younger than herself. I think she’s about 25, which is a bit of an “old maid” for that time (1798 or so), but that’s because while the villagers respect her, they’re also intimidated by her. Her younger brother, Brian, is 22, and is smart enough for Dublin University, where he’s a scholar, but terribly idealistic. He’s being recruited by some Irish rebels, unbeknownst to Mary Kate. Her younger sister, Bridget, is about 17, very pretty and blonde, and much less intimidating than Mary Kate, so has more than a few suitors. But though Bridget has shown no sign of the Sight, she’s a good herbalist and very quick-witted.
The hero, though...I’m having a little more difficulty visualizing him. I’ve decided his name will be James Marstone, and related to the Marstones I’ve written about before. He’s English, and has inherited the local castle, which is not in good repair. Of course, being English, he won’t be liked. And, since he’s living in the castle, which is supposedly cursed, he’s going to feel pretty isolated because nobody wants to work for him. And since he’s also become a werewolf, he’ll be bewildered because he doesn’t remember what he’s done or where he’s been at night during the full moon. But that’s all I’ve got on him. I’ll have to figure out how he became cursed, who cursed him, and why. Although, perhaps that’s a mystery in the novel to be solved. Certainly, nobody in the village wants him there, for he’s a damned Sassanach, and a Protestant to boot.
I know what’s going to bring them together: James Marstone will have young Brian arrested for treason, since he’s been linked to the Irish rebels who blew up something or other. Mary Kate’s going to have to figure out a way to persuade Marstone to let him go. And that bit is going to follow the Grimm’s fairy tale of “The Peasant’s Clever Daughter,” because that’s what I’m basing this story on. Mary Kate’s the sort to do anything for family, even if it’s a blot on her sense of pride.
It won’t be all grim and dark, though. I’m running out of fuel for grim and dark, because I’ve done that with the last three books. This will be lighter, with hopefully lots of banter, because Mary Kate has a quick tongue on her and will get in the last word if she can, and James is no slacker in the repartee department.
Oh, and the village. I haven’t thought of a name for the little Irish village. That place is almost a character in itself. I need to think of a good name, but I don’t know much about Celtic names and what they mean. I think I need something that has to do with “wolf” or faeries. This should be fun: I think I have the Irish speech rhythms in my head pretty well, so the dialogue should have a nice flavor of it. Sure, and I’m thinkin’ it’ll sound fair authentic. ☺
So anyway, that’s what I’ve thought up so far, and with any luck, my publisher will like it.
Well, heck. Here I’ve written all this stuff down, not just mulled it about in my mind. Very well. I’ll keep a copy of this for my files and refer to it again, maybe flesh it out more as I think about it. But I will not start writing the chapters until I have the characters better fleshed out in my mind, and I need to visualize where they are and where they live, and what they look like. I’m really feeling the urge to write the chapters, but I think my big mistake in the past has been jumping into that and then getting stuck because I haven’t thought it through. I really think I need to back off that and do some solid groundwork before I even begin the actual chapters.
Besides, I don’t yet know who cursed James Marstone and why. It could be that I’ll figure it out while I’m writing it, but...no. Gotta try to flesh out the story line and characters first. If I don’t know who the characters are and where they’re coming from, I won’t know where they’re going.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Writing Fish Guts
From 9/13/05:
One thing I notice amongst the very dedicated, nose-to-the-grindstone writers is that there is always a point during the writing that they think what they've written is complete crap. There are some people who think their writing is perfect from the first word they lay down to the last and will not bear any edits, but these are not REAL writers. Sorry, but they're not. Real writers try to perfect their work, try to learn new techniques, try to push their creative envelopes. Sometimes they fail, sometimes don't, but they keep an eye out for what works and what doesn't.
I'm no exception to the "I think it's crap" phenomenon. There is ALWAYS a point where I mutter as I write, "this is crap, this is crap, this is crap," and much of the time I'm holding my nose as I'm stuffing that manuscript into the envelope and sending it to the publisher after multiple drafts. Trust me, if I turned in in a manuscript at the point where I though it was perfect, I'd never turn in another manuscript. Ever.
But, writing is an organic process, and when you're going organic, crap is good. Crap is fertilizer. Horse, cow, and chicken manure, also bunny poop. So are fish guts, which might be a step up from crap, but not a big step. A lot of good growing things come out of fertilizer. Think about all the beautiful flowers and vegetables that grow in a garden because of a liberal use of crap and fish guts.
Now, we writers--the story farmers--see the dirt, crap, and fish guts. We're in there with our fingers in it and it's on our clothes and shoes and maybe even our faces. It's there as we hoe and plant the seeds, prune the branches, tie back the vines, and it's there when we pull the weeds. We know what goes in it, even as the sprouts start to push up through the dirt and the flowers form. Farmers see the crap all over the place. They know what crap to use and when and how much, and then keep an eye on the weather as they work. They are crap artists. They create lovely luscious living things out of crap.
But everyone else, the city folk, they're seeing the gorgeous flowers and the crunchy cool cucumbers and sweet ripe red and yellow tomatoes and nothing else. Hell, they don't even get the good stuff. The good stuff is home grown, nurtured out of the black earth with our own hands and hard work. You think not? Get thee hence and try a home-grown, ripe, red Sweet 100 cherry tomato and tell me what you think. Every good book you read is like that, home grown and so sweet and tart it hurts your teeth when you bite into it, and thirst-quenching when the juices run down your throat. It's so good you eat it like candy, I swear to God, and thank God for it. A home-grown tomato might not be perfectly formed like those ones in the grocery store, but they go down so much better. I'll choose a weird looking ripe, home grown tomato over a perfectly formed store-bought every time.
So the next time you panic over your writing and think it's crap, think, "fish guts." I personally use "bunny poop," since that's what goes in my compost. Anything that makes you think of the growing properties of fertilizer will work. Just get your hands in that good black earth and make it fruitful.
One thing I notice amongst the very dedicated, nose-to-the-grindstone writers is that there is always a point during the writing that they think what they've written is complete crap. There are some people who think their writing is perfect from the first word they lay down to the last and will not bear any edits, but these are not REAL writers. Sorry, but they're not. Real writers try to perfect their work, try to learn new techniques, try to push their creative envelopes. Sometimes they fail, sometimes don't, but they keep an eye out for what works and what doesn't.
I'm no exception to the "I think it's crap" phenomenon. There is ALWAYS a point where I mutter as I write, "this is crap, this is crap, this is crap," and much of the time I'm holding my nose as I'm stuffing that manuscript into the envelope and sending it to the publisher after multiple drafts. Trust me, if I turned in in a manuscript at the point where I though it was perfect, I'd never turn in another manuscript. Ever.
But, writing is an organic process, and when you're going organic, crap is good. Crap is fertilizer. Horse, cow, and chicken manure, also bunny poop. So are fish guts, which might be a step up from crap, but not a big step. A lot of good growing things come out of fertilizer. Think about all the beautiful flowers and vegetables that grow in a garden because of a liberal use of crap and fish guts.
Now, we writers--the story farmers--see the dirt, crap, and fish guts. We're in there with our fingers in it and it's on our clothes and shoes and maybe even our faces. It's there as we hoe and plant the seeds, prune the branches, tie back the vines, and it's there when we pull the weeds. We know what goes in it, even as the sprouts start to push up through the dirt and the flowers form. Farmers see the crap all over the place. They know what crap to use and when and how much, and then keep an eye on the weather as they work. They are crap artists. They create lovely luscious living things out of crap.
But everyone else, the city folk, they're seeing the gorgeous flowers and the crunchy cool cucumbers and sweet ripe red and yellow tomatoes and nothing else. Hell, they don't even get the good stuff. The good stuff is home grown, nurtured out of the black earth with our own hands and hard work. You think not? Get thee hence and try a home-grown, ripe, red Sweet 100 cherry tomato and tell me what you think. Every good book you read is like that, home grown and so sweet and tart it hurts your teeth when you bite into it, and thirst-quenching when the juices run down your throat. It's so good you eat it like candy, I swear to God, and thank God for it. A home-grown tomato might not be perfectly formed like those ones in the grocery store, but they go down so much better. I'll choose a weird looking ripe, home grown tomato over a perfectly formed store-bought every time.
So the next time you panic over your writing and think it's crap, think, "fish guts." I personally use "bunny poop," since that's what goes in my compost. Anything that makes you think of the growing properties of fertilizer will work. Just get your hands in that good black earth and make it fruitful.
Selected writing-related posts
Well, now that I have my blog looking up to snuff, I've been going over some of the writing-related posts in The Pollyanna Files, and deciding which ones I want to bring over here. There are actually some of practical use, so you'll be seeing these shortly.
I'm quite pleased with this template, which I got from Infocreek's blog template site. It was remarkably easy to set up, and they have complete directions on what settings need to be modified. Setting up the template was much easier on Firefox, though, than on Internet Explorer. The layout overlaps in Explorer, which was quite frustrating. But it's pretty well set up the way I want it now.
So, on with copying over the blog posts!
I'm quite pleased with this template, which I got from Infocreek's blog template site. It was remarkably easy to set up, and they have complete directions on what settings need to be modified. Setting up the template was much easier on Firefox, though, than on Internet Explorer. The layout overlaps in Explorer, which was quite frustrating. But it's pretty well set up the way I want it now.
So, on with copying over the blog posts!
Welcome to my new blog!
I decided to get all organized and create another blog in which I write about anything that has to do with writing and publishing: "Playing with Words." I will probably transfer my writing entries from The Pollyanna Files to this one, just to have all my writing-related stuff in one place. This one will be my official "me-as-author" blog, rather than the informal one I have over at The Pollyanna Files.
I'll continue to write what I feel like over at The Pollyanna Files, but it'll be more about my travels (oh, yeah, I'm going to relocate to Germany next year--did I forget to mention that? If I did forget, see what I have to say about that later over there), knitting/fiber arts, and foodie stuff. If you want to relax, read, and chat there, you're more than welcome. If you want to stick to writing- and publishing-related topics, and ask questions about that, this is the place to be.
I'll continue to write what I feel like over at The Pollyanna Files, but it'll be more about my travels (oh, yeah, I'm going to relocate to Germany next year--did I forget to mention that? If I did forget, see what I have to say about that later over there), knitting/fiber arts, and foodie stuff. If you want to relax, read, and chat there, you're more than welcome. If you want to stick to writing- and publishing-related topics, and ask questions about that, this is the place to be.
Posts
