Category Archives: Uncategorized

June 24, 2015 · 6:45 am

Heading to Renton at AFK Elixers and Eatery #Booksigning

Oh, my gosh–I am getting so excited! The next event, Destination Staycation is happening in just 3 days, on Saturday the 27th of June. Eight local, independent authors will be coming together for one event. We will be selling and signing books all afternoon and evening at AFK Elixirs & Eatery in Renton, Washington, and I can hardly wait!

We will be offering reading-passports and stamping them with our book-related stamps.

Along with myself, AJ Downey, Sechin Tower, Lee French, Lindsay Schopfer, Stephen Matlock, David Moore, and Jeffrey Cook are the featured authors this time around.

And wow–what a fabulous venue–a gamer’s paradise! AFK simply means Away From Keyboard. It’s commonly used in chatrooms and online games and it basically means that you won’t be available (Not at the keyboard = Not in front of your computer). But at AFK Elixers & Eatery you may be away from your computer, but you’re never far from gaming.

My friends and fellow gamers & book addicts in the western Washington/Seattle area are more than welcome to come on up (or down) and join us Saturday, between 2 and 9 pm.

Here are some samples of books being offered by the intrepid indie authors who will be joining me:

Girls Can’t be Knights, by Lee French

Portland has a ghost problem.

Sixteen-year-old Claire wants her father back. His death left her only memories and an empty locket. After six difficult years in foster care, her vocabulary no longer includes “hope” and “trust”.

Everything changes when Justin rides his magical horse into her path and takes her under his wing. Like the rest of the elite men who serve as Spirit Knights, he hunts restless ghosts that devour the living.

When an evil spirit threatens Claire’s life, she’ll need Justin’s help to survive. And how could she bear the Knights’ mark on her soul? Everybody knows Girls Can’t Be Knights.

Lost Under Two Moons, Lindsay Schopfer

Alone. Stranded. Richard finds himself on Other World, a place of fantasy and horror. With no companion but a makeshift journal, Richard must quickly learn the unfamiliar dangers around him as he struggles daily to survive. From the approach of winter to eerily intelligent packs of nightmarish creatures, each entry details another trial of life or death. But when Richard finds the remnants of an ancient civilization, he begins to wonder if he is truly alone, and whether or not the lost people of Other World still hold the secrets that could return him home to Earth.

Dawn of Steam, Jeffrey Cook

In 1815, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, two of England’s wealthiest lords place a high-stakes wager on whether a popular set of books, which claim that the author has traveled to many unknown corners of the globe, are truth or, more likely, wild fiction. First Light is an epistolary novel, told primarily through the eyes of former aide-de-camp Gregory Conan Watts, describing the journeys of the airship Dame Fortuna and its crew through journals and letters to his beloved fiancee.
The first recruit is, necessarily, the airship’s owner: war hero, famed genius, and literal knight in steam-powered armor Sir James Coltrane. Persuading him to lend his talents and refitted airship to the venture requires bringing along his sister, his cousin, and the crew that flew with him during the Napoleonic Wars. Only with their aid can they track down a Scottish rifleman, a pair of shady carnies, and a guide with a strong personal investment in the stories.
When they set out, the wild places of the world, including the far American West, the Australian interior, darkest Africa, and other destinations are thought to be hostile enough. No one expects the trip to involve a legendary storm – or the Year Without a Summer of 1815-1816. The voyage is further complicated by the human element. Some parties are not at all happy with the post-war political map. Most problematic of all, the crew hired by the other side of the wager seem willing to win by any means necessary.

Mad Science Institute, Sechin Tower

Sophia “Soap” Lazarcheck is a girl genius with a knack for making robots—and for making robots explode. After her talents earn her admission into a secretive university institute, she is swiftly drawn into a conspiracy more than a century in the making. Meanwhile and without her knowledge, her cousin Dean wages a two-fisted war of vengeance against a villainous genius and his unwashed minions. Separately, the cousins must pit themselves against murderous thugs, experimental weaponry, lizard monsters, and a nefarious doomsday device. When their paths finally meet up, they will need to risk everything to prevent a mysterious technology from bringing civilization to a sudden and very messy end.

Shattered & Scarred: The Sacred Hearts MC, AJ Downey

She’s Shattered…

Ashton Granger is a perfect wife to her husband. She has to be, if she’s not, he will find a way to correct any perceived imperfections. Such is life, and so it has been for a very long time, eroding Ashton’s sense of self, cracking her sense of worth until she lays in a million pieces on the side of a stretch of lonely highway.

He’s Scarred…
Ethan “Trigger man” Howard is the Sergeant of Arms for The Sacred Hearts Motorcycle club. After several tours as a Marine Corps sniper overseas, he’s seen and done enough damage for a man three times his age. He’s out. Done. So over it, and home to nurse his wounds, physical, emotional and psychological with the help of his MC brothers. Now he simply deals with the scars that life handed him.

Was it more than just luck for he and Ashton both that he was the only other soul traveling that isolated stretch of highway that night?

**Mature Audiences Only (18+)**

Stars in the Texas Sky, Stephen J. Matlock

STARS IN THE TEXAS SKY is a story about 13-year-old Henry Valentine. He’s the school’s star pitcher, intoxicated by first love of a young girl, and all seems right with his world of 1952 racially separated East Texas. Then he is confronted by an unlikely antagonist, a colored boy who challenges him in his town, bests him in a pitching duel, and fights him in the vacant lot outside of town. A wary distance becomes an unexpected friendship when they discover a common love for Texas beauty. He is devastated when a corrupt congressman sacrifices Henry’s friend to win re-election, and receives no sympathy or help from his disapproving family, church, and town. His finds support in the feisty, independent-minded widow with a taste for liquor in her lemonade who helps him fight against the powerful using only the tools of an innocent and powerless boy. In the end he learns the value of standing for what he believes in face of opposition, and discovers that there is nothing more powerful than a boy – or a man – who knows who he is.

This book is a 2012 Amazon Breakout Novel Award (ABNA) quarter-finalist.

The Light at the End of the Trail, David G. Moore

This is a memoir of Moore’s early life–a life filled with equal parts light and darkness. Battling the neighborhood bullies, embracing the world of nature, surviving his mother’s depression, he finally descended into his own world of sadness. But the sadness was nothing compared to what awaited him at college. With the help of drugs and alcohol, a mysterious illness overtook him that baffled both him and the best of doctors. Meanwhile, the Moore family exploded. His parents separated, one sister joined a religious cult, the other buried herself in therapy, and his mother finally moved to the West Coast to escape it all. There were moments of bright light. At times, his illness vanished and during those reprieves he tried to live life to the fullest. But the quest for a life full of passion and joy pushed his mysterious psyche to the edge–then over the edge. It was time to enter the gates of hell.

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And these are just the tip of the iceberg–the number of books my fellow authors and I will be offering is somewhat mind-boggling to me!

Check out the Destination Staycation Facebook Page!

I hope to see you at AFK E&E in Renton Wa on Saturday June 27th!

1 Comment

Filed under Books, Fantasy, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as AFK, AFK E&E, AFK Elixers & Eatery, AJ Downey, Book Signing events, Connie J Jasperson, David Moore, Lee French, LIndsay Schopfer, Sechin Tower, Stephen J. Matlock

June 19, 2015 · 6:45 am

Squirrels hijacked my day.

An external electronic mind is a wonderful tool in the intrepid writer’s toolbox.

When you can get to it, that is.

When your computer answers your call to action.

Yes. THEN the computer is a wonderful thing.

>>><<<

2 Comments

Filed under Humor, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as Computer, error messages, f, Fun with dialogue boxes, wackiness with ms windows

June 15, 2015 · 6:45 am

Why I #amblogging

Writers need to write every day–that is a given. Writing every day takes discipline and dedication. We writers are often told we are undisciplined and lack drive, but nothing could be further from the truth. We simply lack the desire to do what we are told, and have this story that needs to be told.

Sometimes we have nothing to write that will advance our current work in progress. Inspiration has failed us. We have a kajillion ideas about things we could be writing, and things we plan to write…but nothing that sings in regard to the task at hand.

When that happens, I sit down and look back through what has already been written, and inspiration fires me up again.

Other times, nothing. That is when I blog on the craft of writing. The act of blogging loosens my imagination when it is stuck.

One of the first chores I was given by my first publisher, was to blog regularly, at least once a week. This, he said, would help get my name out there, and give me a regular platform for my opinions.

I had no idea what I would ever blog about, and the idea of just sitting down and rambling on about nothing and then publishing it made me feel a bit faint. I have no issue with rambling on–I am grandma, it’s what I do. But publishing it weekly?

It began, as all love affairs do, somewhat awkwardly. I wrote short, stilted posts that were obviously forced and took days to write. I felt like blogging had taken up a large chunk of real estate in my writing time, and I resented it.

Then one day I didn’t know what to write about. The only thing I was interested in talking about was either books I had read or books I was writing. I found the words flowed easily when I talked about either of those. Thus was born this blog, Life in the Realm of Fantasy. This is where I talk about everything from Don Quixote to serial commas.

Blogging regularly has helped me to write more freely when I am using a stream-of-consciousness style of writing, such as during NaNoWriMo.

I have also made many friends through blogging, people all over the world who I may never meet in person, but who I am fond of, nevertheless.

And blogging is where I develop my seminars on the craft of writing. I find that talking to you about the craft helps me organize my thoughts. And, although I hate to say it, my first publisher was right about blogging. Blogging regularly does get your author name out there and does showcase what you are able to do.

I recommend blogging to anyone who has a craft they are passionate about. You want to talk about that craft, but your spouse’s eyes glaze over when you launch into one of your discussions.

Well, let me tell you, the internet is full of folks who want to talk about that same craft. Take welding–there are hundreds of blogs about welding, some popular, and some just getting started. Who knew welding was such a hot topic? Obsessed people make poor conversationalists, but writing a weekly blog about what you are passionate about gives you that platform to wax poetic about what you love.

If you want to know more about getting your own blog up and running, see my post of April 20, 2014: The Girl with the Tolstoy Tattoo:

Keep it down to about 1000 words more or less.
Use the spellchecker tool to look for obvious errors.
Write in in draft form and don’t publish it right away–come back and read it over again, and make corrections.
If you use information found elsewhere, quote it and credit the author
Use images that are either public domain, or that you have the right to use
Put links to other informative sites in the text

Blogging is fun. It’s where I blow off steam and grow as a writer. Every author should blog regularly–some of my most inspired moments have happened here in this crazy blog.

2 Comments

Filed under Humor, Literature, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as #amwriting, blogging, Life in the Realm of Fantasy, The Girl With the Tolstoy Tattoo, writing craft

June 12, 2015 · 6:45 am

Technology #upgrade for when I #amwriting

Two months ago, I got a new thingamajig for writing. I was actually upgrading the phone so that I could get a Square Card Reader to take credit card payments at book fairs. But when we walked in the door at the phone store our wireless provider made us a deal we couldn’t refuse: a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7-inch tablet for just .99 cents, to go with my fine new Galaxy s5 phone.

Technically my upgrade was “free,” and .99 cents seemed like a deal.

So of course I leaped on it. But then I had to get the heavy-duty Otterboxes to protect both the tablet($39.99) and the phone ($29.99) The Otterboxes would have been cheaper at Amazon.

I also got the Square Card Reader while I was there, ($9.99)and well worth the price. I can now accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover–or cash.

And of course, we had to upgrade the wireless plan to accommodate the new technology, so what with a nickel here and a dime there, we were beyond broke when we walked out of there, but we were technologically up-to-date.

We couldn’t afford to pay attention at that point, but on the plus side, I had this wonderful tablet. It’s an awesome way to get email and check Facebook for the onslaught of grumpy cat memes. All my reading apps are on there now, Kindle and Nook–so I can read any book in beautiful, clear color.

Or I can play Majong in bed instead of reading.

I’ve been complaining about my Acer laptop for a year now, but I don’t have the funds to replace it. The wretched thing is a small, red boat-anchor. It takes an hour to load anything. I just need five or six hundred dollars to replace it with a better brand, which isn’t going to happen soon.

My new tablet’s charge lasts about 8 hours, and the it only weighs a little more than the cell phone I went to upgrade in the first place. It travels well in my purse, and so does the little external keyboard.

The tablet comes with a touchscreen keyboard, of course, but it isn’t very useful for an ungraceful typist like me, and I couldn’t see myself writing a book using one. Some people do, or so I hear.

BUT, with a few accessories, my little tablet has become a great, if limited, word-processor. First of all, the top of the Otterbox converts to an easel for it, so it sits up at the perfect angle.

With the addition of the Bluetooth keyboard I can easily key anything with as much accuracy and speed as ever. It will be excellent for write-ins.

There is a reason it took me two months to get this circus on the road.

When I first got the tablet it came with a free word-processing app that had glowing reviews, but which I quite honestly thought sucked, Hancom Office. This app might work well enough for someone else, but it was useless to me.

It looks just like WORD, and seems to have most of the tools, but it wouldn’t connect to Dropbox or Google Drive.

Oh, I could do all the writing I wanted, and when I saved it, it seemed to have been saved just fine. But the next time I opened that document, it had NOT been saved. Hours of work down the tubes, because I couldn’t make the darn thing save a document that had been edited. Nothing I edited and saved was actually saved.

I went to the internet to find a solution. The internet was rife with all sorts of posts touting how awesome a product it is compared to WORD, but apparently no one has that issue, so there were no solutions.

So, I thought it was just me, and I kept trying to figure out what the problem was.

Maybe it was just me, but after two months of trying unsuccessfully to make that app work, I nearly gave up, thinking perhaps the tablet just wasn’t a good fit for me. On a whim, I went looking for Microsoft apps. I am really pleased with what I found.

SO, yes, in order to make this amazing little beast useful for what I need it for, I did have to buy some apps and get an external keyboard.

Despite accidentally purchasing one item from Google Play that shows up on my Paypal account but I can’t figure out and don’t know what it is so I can’t return it, the Office Suite 8 was amazingly cheap as compared to the large cash outlay for my desktop programs. It is the shell for the Word, PowerPoint, and Excel programs, which cost nothing. Maybe you can get these apps for less elsewhere, but I just wanted to get it done so I could use it.

Now I can access my dropbox files, and work in any environment–a huge plus when I am on the road so much.

For me, this will not come near replacing my HP desktop. The screen is too small for my elderly eyes. Even with the extra font pack, the WORD app is limited in what it can do as compared to the full desktop program, so I don’t see me trying to edit or format a book–the little app is not appropriate for that, although I hear that it can be done. It doesn’t really have a good spell-check, and cutting and pasting without a mouse is a bit dicey. I’ll have to remember my keyboard shortcuts for that.

But I do like the way I can write anywhere in the house or on the back porch, or at a Starbucks, with ease, and on a machine that doesn’t randomly freeze up on me.

Or I can play Majong.

4 Comments

Filed under Humor, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as #amwriting, #upgrade, Galaxy s5, Galaxy Tab 4, Office Suite 8 for Android, technology, WORD for Android

June 10, 2015 · 6:45 am

#Proofreading is not #editing

While some people will dispute this, proofreading is not editing.

Proofreading is done after the final revisions have been made, and hopefully it is done by someone who has not seen the manuscript before. That way, they will see it through new eyes, and the small things in your otherwise perfect manuscripts will stand out.

Anita Campbell, in her May 28, 2015 guest post for the SBA’s Blog-Industry Word says: “The first step of effective proofreading is understanding that not every typo or issue is alike. Each needs to be attacked in a different way.” While she is speaking of editing blogposts, and short works, that profoundly true of longer manuscripts.

Even though an editor has combed your manuscript and you have made thousands of corrections, both large and small, there may be places where the reader’s eye will stop. Words have been left out, punctuation is missing–any number of small, hard-to-detect things can occur even after the most thorough of edits.

After the final edit we go over our work with a fine-toothed comb, trying to proof it ourselves. We read it aloud, and we read it from the bottom up, but our eye sees what it expects to see. We catch many things, but we don’t catch it all.

This is where the third person in the process comes in–the proofreader.

First of all, proofreading is not editing. Editing is a process that I have discussed at length elsewhere, and is completed long before we get to the proofreading stage.

SO, at the outset, the proofreader must understand that no matter how tempting it may be, they have not been invited to edit the manuscript for content. That has already been done and done again. If they cannot refrain from asking for large revisions regarding your style and content, find another proofreader.

What The Proofreader Should Look For:

Spelling—misspelled words, and homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently). These are words that spell-checker may or may not catch, so a human eye is critical for this.

Wrong: Bobby wint out the door, slamming the screen.
Right: Bobby went out the door, slamming the screen.
Wrong: There cat escaped and he had to chase it
Right: Their cat escaped and he had to chase it.

Repeated words and cut-and-paste errors. These are insidious and damned difficult to spot, and spell-checker won’t find always them. Sometimes they seem like unusually garbled sentences.

Wrong: First of all, First of all, it is accepted practice to italicize thoughts.
Wrong: First of all, it is accepted practice to practice thoughts.
Wrong: First of all, it is accepted to ot thoughts.
Right: First of all, it is accepted practice to italicize thoughts.

Missing closed quotes:

Wrong: “Doctor Mendel, you’re new to the area. What do you know about the dead man? asked Officer Shultz.
Right: “Doctor Mendel, you’re new to the area. What do you know about the dead man?” asked Officer Shultz.

Numbers that are digits:

Wrong: There will be 3000 guests at the reception.
Right: There will be 300 guests at the reception.

Dropped and missing words:

Wrong: Within minutes the place was crawling with cops, and Officer Shultz was sitting at my kitchen table me gently while I made hot water for tea.
Right: Within minutes the place was crawling with cops, and Officer Shultz was sitting at my kitchen table grilling me gently, while I made hot water for tea.

Each time you create a new passage in your already edited manuscript, you run the risk of creating another undetected error.

At some point your manuscript is done. You have been through the editing process, and the content and structure is as good as you can get it, but you need one last eye looking for small flaws. Before you upload that masterpiece to Kindle or wherever, do yourself a favor and have it proofread by an intelligent reader, who understands what you are asking them to do and who is willing to do only that.

11 Comments

Filed under Books, Humor, Literature, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as #Proofreading is not editing, Anita Campbell, common errors in manuscripts, creative writing, Editing, indie publishing, preparing a book to publish, proofreading, self publishing, writing

May 27, 2015 · 6:45 am

Writers’ Resources

The internet is a wonderful place. You can find just about anything here, and you can get a complete education for FREE!

Of course, it’s not credited, but there is an incredible amount of information on just about anything for free, up to and including college level courses in various aspects of writing through Coursera.

Coursera is a wonderful organization. They are a for-profit organization but you can take online courses from major universities FOR FREE, and while you don’t receive a diploma, you do get a good education. Wikipedia tells us that: All courses offered by Coursera are accessible for free and some give the option to pay a fee to join the “Signature Track.” Students on the Signature Track receive verified certificates, appropriate for employment purposes. These students authenticate their course submissions by sending webcam photos and having their typing pattern analyzed.

I’m not sure how that works, but I am all for it. What I really like is that Coursera offers specializations, set courses that help increase understanding of a certain topic. I’ve take a couple of medieval history courses from them and while I didn’t have the money to get the certificate, I really enjoyed them. Knowledge is such a useful thing!

But for the financially strapped author wanting to increase their knowledge of the craft of writing, an amazing resource is the website Writers’ Digest. They are also for profit, but they offer an incredible amount of information and assistance FOR FREE.

So here, in no particular order, are my favorite sources of Online Information About Writing your novel:

www.writersdigest.com

PBS.org/GuiltyPleasures/HowToWriteRomanceNovel

The Creative Penn

Harlequin.com

Creative Writing Now

Harlequin has one of the best websites, for teaching authors how to develop professional work habits, which is critical to being productive. I highly recommend you go to websites that specialize in writing romance novels regardless of what genre you write in, because the romance publishers have it right: they want to sell books, and they want you to succeed and so they get down to the technical aspects of novel construction and offer many excellent tools for getting your work out the door in timely fashion–something I need to work on. They also offer tips on marketing your work.

They also give you all kinds of tips on how to create a writing space and organize your day so you can get good writing time in and still manage your family. I used to do my writing on an old IBM Selectric that was next to the gerbil cage–not a good environment for writing.

In regard to research, reading one Wikipedia article does not qualify you as an expert in your chosen subject, so go beyond the surface. Find the websites that really explain your subject and go to the local library to research. Once you know what you are writing about, you can mash it up any way you want to.

But even though we are educating ourselves about our novel’s setting and have gained an understanding of how the science that forms the core plot-point actually works, sometimes we hit a bit of sticking point in the creative process.

When that happens we can either drop out of writing mode (not an option for me) or we can find a way to yank that thought out of our head and identify what must happen to get that scene moving. I am a linear thinker, so after a little trial and error, and after seeing how other authors work, this is what I came up with, that works for me in regard to organizing a scene that I am having difficulty with. If it works for you, feel free to:

right click>save image as jpeg or png and save it to your hard drive to print out

Once I know how these seemingly disparate things fit together, the scene becomes unstuck, and I begin making progress again. Also, something about the process of spreadsheeting the scene gives me a little insight as to why a particular character might NOT need to be in that scene.

Sometimes just knowing who does and who doesn’t need to be in a scene is just as important as knowing where the nearest inhabitable (for humans) planet might lie in a given star system.

1 Comment

Filed under Books, Humor, Literature, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as continuing education, Coursera, Writers' Digest, Writers' Resources, writing aids, writing craft

May 22, 2015 · 6:45 am

Baiting the hook

Flyfishing on river Sava Bohinjka, Slovenia photo by Ziga (PD)

You wrote the book. Your friends read it–you hope. At least they said they did, and they still like you. They tell you it’s a good book. They think it’s publishable, so you decide to go indie and self pub it. You spend the next year getting it edited and having a flashy cover designed. You even have a launch date picked out and feel reasonably sure you can get the book through the pipeline at CreateSpace by that date.

Now you are at the point where you must come up with some sort of a blurb.

This is where it gets fun.

Not.

There are many wonderful blurb-writing gurus out there on the internet, offering advice to those intrepid indies who would write that catchy morsel of blurbiness:

Yes, there are many websites offering us insight, and they all have great advice for us. But putting that plethora of knowledge to practice is a bit daunting.

They each approach it differently but when you distill it into a simple, linear form, it all boils down to variations on these concepts (in no particular order) for you to have in your head before you begin:

Use words that clearly evoke the genre
Keep it short– 100 to 300 words
Get the protagonist’s name out there early
Introduce the core conflict
Make it intriguing, mysterious–can this conflict be resolved?
Use a little hyperbole–stunning, denouement, and so on

The Internet Gurus also offer us this advice:

Don’t say what a great book it is
Don’t give spoilers
Don’t summarize the book (or even the first chapter)
Don’t be long-winded or wordy
Don’t say what a great writer you are

Example of what NOT to put on back of book in lieu of proper blurb.

I would also offer this advice: keep it to less than 150 words and don’t skip writing the blurb. It has become popular for the Big 5 publishers to skip writing a blurb and just go with praises for the author’s other works, expecting that their name and fame will sell the book. This tells me that blurb writing is hard and even the the big guys don’t like it. Most big publishers, like Penguin, will have a marketing department. Penguin puts blurbs on their books, so why the others can’t come up with a proper blurb is a mystery to me.

That might work for Stephen King or L.E. Modesitt Jr., but it won’t work for an unknown indie who is trying to build a reputation and a fan base.

Readers want to know what they are buying, and if they have no idea who you are, they don’t care what your friends think about your work. They aren’t going to touch it.

The blurb is a teaser. It’s one part of a three-part lure, the only purpose of which is to entice a customer to buy your book.

Remember, you are fishing for readers and that blurb is part of the triangular bait:

Part one is the flashy cover–even for ebooks that cover gets them to stop and look a bit closer, and
the blurb is part two–the part that hooks them and gets them to crack it open.
Part three of this lure is the words they read once they open the book—that is when you land your fish, whether by ebook or by paperbook.

But until they have read your blurb, they won’t open the book, so they won’t know what wonder awaits them.

I am currently working on a blurb for a stand-alone book based in the world of Neveyah, the world the Tower of Bones Series is set in. Where the Tower of Bones series can be rather dark, Mountains of the Moon has many comic elements.

Right now, this is my blurb. My head is numb, so I’m letting it sit for another week or so then I will revisit it and have my homies at Myrddin Publishing go over it one more time:

Hidden away in the Mountains of the Moon, the ruins of an immense castle harbor a dark secret: entire families have vanished from the valleys in the shadow of the mountains, leaving no trace. The elderly Baron Hemsteck hasn’t been seen for two seasons.

Four mages are sent to investigate. Wynn Farmer and his companions embark on a trek to learn the truth. Along their route, they must battle against the strange beasts controlled by a rogue mage and ultimately face an evil they never thought possible.

Danger, dark magic, and mystery await those who seek the truth in the Mountains of the Moon. The Gods are at war, and Neveyah is the battlefield.

We kept it down to 114 words, and managed to get the World of Neveyah series tag-line in on the end of it.

Sigh. I admit I am not good at writing blurbs for my own books, but I do have a large posse of author-friends who are more than willing to help me hone that blurb. When the back cover is finished, I will have a concise blurb that will hopefully entice readers to read my book.

Finally, at the end of June, I will reveal the cover. I am pretty excited about this new book. I can hardly wait!

6 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Publishing, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as bait, blurbs, buy my damned book, L.E. Modesitt Jr., luring readers, Mountains of the Moon, Stephen King, Tower of Bones, Tower of Bones series, World of Neveyah, writing blurbs

May 20, 2015 · 6:45 am

Girls Can’t be Knights, Lee French cover reveal and interview

My good friend and fellow member of Myrddin Publishing Group, Lee French, has a new book coming out soon. The cover is gorgeous, in my opinion. I also love the title, Girls Can’t Be Knights. This book is a young adult fantasy novel, championing Girl Power while exploring the world of a secret organization, the Spirit Knights. I can totally get behind that!

Set in Portland Oregon, Girls Can’t Be Knights is another in the long line of French’s impressive career, which includes nine books, one trilogy, one epic fantasy series and a short story. Her works are popular among fantasy and paranormal readers, with many re-reading books several times after purchase.

Lee has consented to answer a few questions for us:

CJJ: Tell us a little of early life and how you began writing:

Lee French’s First Book

LF: I was a late reader, not really grasping the whole thing until 2^nd grade. Once I did, I clung to books with both hands and a glare for anyone who dared to attempt prying one away. At that time, my school district ran an annual book fair, for which they encouraged students of all ages to submit “books” for “judging.” With my mom’s help, I self-published an epic six page volume about The Mean Old Man’s Backyard, which is to say that I cut all the paper, wrote all the words, drew all the pictures, and let her glue the fabric to the cardboard for the cover.

From that point on, I considered myself a “writer,” though I considered it a hobby for a long time.

CJJ: That is a cute book! Tell us about your most recent book. How did you come to write this novel?

LF: Girls Can’t be Knights started as all my books do—with an idea that sounds brilliant but is ultimately kinda dumb. I wrote it for NaNoWriMo last year, which means it had curious ideas and plot points that had to be rewritten quite a bit. The primary idea comes from Les Miserables, specifically the idea of two men, eash the hero of his own story, striving against each other. The two main characters were Valjean and Javert, and elements of that remain. What happened is that Claire stepped in and demanded agency. The core ideas had to mutate to accommodate her.

CJJ: How does Girls Can’t be Knights differ from your other two series of books?

LF: This is my first foray into YA. The Maze Beset trilogy is similar to urban fantasy, though being about people with superpowers who got them through a genetic thingy, it’s technically science fiction. Like that trilogy, The Greatest Sin is generally suitable for teen readers, but wasn’t written with them in mind.

CJJ: Do you have a specific ‘Creative Process’ that you follow, such as outlining or do you ‘wing it’?

LF: When I first took the plunge into writing novel length work, I winged it. A lot. October 29, 2008, I decided to do NaNoWriMo for the first time and had just a basic idea of where I’d go. I finished, but it was awful. The next year, I took outlining a little too far. Since then, I’ve found a happy medium that works for me, where I go back and forth between winging it and outlining. The first chapter of a book is usually off the cuff, then I outline a few chapters, then I work up to the outline and wing a bit, then go back to the outlining. It works for me, which is the most important part of any Process.

CJJ: What genre would you consider this book, and how does it differ from others of its genre?

LF: Girls Can’t Be Knights is Young Adult Urban Paranormal/Fantasy Adventure. This book is all about family issues. Justin has a happy traditional family, but he’s the only one, and he came to it by way of domestic abuse between his own parents. This story shows a number of characters in various stages of dealing with broken homes and lost family members, and for various reasons. I’m really looking forward to pursuing the theme further in the second book, which is untitled as yet and will probably be out in 2016.

CJJ: What sort of books do you read for pleasure?

LF: As a book blogger, I don’t really read for pleasure in the strictest sense anymore. My reading material is almost exclusively indies, because that’s who needs book reviews. I’ve had the good fortune to meet a number of excellent indie authors, though, and their writing is mostly what I read, ensuring that steampunk, traditional fantasy, the occasional bit of space sci-fi, and some guilty pleasure smut fills my reading time slots.

CJJ: When you are not writing, what do you do for fun?

LF: Though writing is, admittedly, the most fun thing I do, I also enjoy baking, gardening, and cycling. Every year, I participate in Ragbrai, which is a lunatic pedal-powered festival across Iowa that attracts about 20,000 other cyclists for long days of torturous riding in abysmal heat punctuated by camping every night. It’s awesome.

CJJ: I know why I chose the indie route for my work, but I’m curious as to why you’ve chosen this path.

LF: At first, I chose it because the process of querying an agent or publisher made me freeze in panic. It also made my hideously impatient side cringe at the expectation of waiting months to get rejected. After pursuing it for almost two years now, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d probably be unhappy with a traditional publisher. I’m too impatient, I have too much need for control over the aspects, and I actually *gasp* enjoy formatting my own books. If someone took one of my books and gave me a cover that I didn’t like without letting me at least make suggestions, I’d probably punch them in the face.

CJJ: What advice would you offer an author trying to decide whether to go indie or take the traditional path?

LF: Read everything you can about how it works and don’t discount one or the other because you’ve “heard” x or y thing. Independent publishing is now a major force in the market, but traditional publishing isn’t going to roll over and die. There are benefits and detriments to both paths, and every author has to decide what’s right for them. Investigate the market to discover who your audience is and where and how they shop. Get out and meet other authors in your area. Pay attention to the books you come across and how you came across them. All the information you need to make the best choice for you is out there.

CJJ: I always enjoy your POV, especially on the way the publishing industry works, and what indies need to take note of. And now, the blurb, and the the cover reveal for Lee’s new book:

>>><<<

GIRLS CAN’T BE KNIGHTS

by Lee French

release date June 12, 2015

Portland has a ghost problem.

When an evil spirit threatens Claire’s life, she’ll need Justin’s help to survive. And how could she bear the Knights’ mark on her soul? Everybody knows Girls Can’t Be Knights.

>>><<<

Lee French lives in Olympia, WA, and is the author of several books, most notably the Maze Beset Trilogy, The Greatest Sin series (co-authored with Erik Kort), and assorted tales in her fantasy setting, Ilauris. She is an avid gamer and active member of the Myth-Weavers online RPG community, where she is known for her fondness for Angry Ninja Squirrels of Doom. In addition to spending much time there, she also trains year-round for the one-week of glorious madness that is RAGBRAI, has a nice flower garden with one dragon and absolutely no lawn gnomes, and tries in vain every year to grow vegetables that don’t get devoured by neighborhood wildlife.

She is an active member of the Northwest Independent Writer’s Association and the Olympia Writer’s Coop, as well as serving as the co-Municipal Liaison for the NaNoWriMo Olympia Region.

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Tagged as author interview, Cover Reveal, Girls Can't Be Knights, indie publishing, indie vs traditional publishing, Lee French, My Writing Process

May 18, 2015 · 6:45 am

Book signing events, the art of Paul Cornoyer, and inspiration

From left to right, Sechin Tower, Lindsay Schopfer and Connie J. Jasperson at Forever Knight Games 5-16-2015

The signing at Forever Knight Games in Olympia went well. I met several wonderful authors I hadn’t had a chance to meet in person: Sechin Tower, Jolene Loraine, Rachel E. Robinson (Maquel A. Jacob), and Erik Kort. We were joined my my good friends, authors Lee French, Lindsay Schopfer, and Jeffrey Cook. These wonderful people write great books, and I was privileged to be counted among them!

We had a great time, and it was a good first event at that venue. I want to thank all my friends for coming out and meeting my favorite local authors. Tower of Bones was my big seller–which makes me happy.

paul cornoyer rainy day in madison square

Rainy Day in Madison Square, Paul Cornoyer

But then, after the big party was over (and it was a party–believe me) I had to drag myself back to reality. As I said the other day, sometimes my head isn’t in the right place for reading. At the event this last weekend, a friend asked me how that inability to read without the editor in my head making noise affects my ability to write. I had to answer that it does affect it to a certain extent.

The reason being in an editing frame of mind affects my writing is that while I am creative, it is like my creativity has to go through a maze to get to the ends of my fingers and into written form.

It’s a sloooooow process.

Paul Cornoyer Winter twilight along Central Park

Winter Twilight Along Central Park, Paul Cornoyer

I do a lot of things to jumpstart that creativity. I clean things I don’t really care about under normal circumstances. Something about a really orderly environment gets my mind relaxed enough to work properly.

Sometimes I write flash-fiction, 100 to 1000 word short stories.

I find great art that really makes my mind click–Wikimedia Commons is awesome for that. Today I came across a download of a picture that, two years ago, sparked a 250 word flash-fiction. That image, which I will get to later, was painted around the year 1910 by an American artist, Paul Cornoyer.

Glouster, Paul Cornoyer

His work is quite intriguing, and much of is done in an impressionistic style.

According to the Fount of all Knowledge, Wikipedia, Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement. Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

The thing about the impressionists that so inspires my writing is that they don’t give you all the details–they give you what they saw including the mood of the piece.

The Plaza After Rain, Paul Cornoyer

In so many ways, good literature is like good art–all the important things are there, everything the eye needs to have a perfect vision of the mood, the setting, and characters–everything is there within the piece, but with economy. When you limit yourself to expressing the complete idea of the story in less than 300 words, you discover just how well (or how badly you can write.)

This last picture is the piece that inspired one of my better, short pieces of Flash Fiction, which will be featured later this month on Edgewise Words Inn. I will post links to that here when it goes up

It is called The Plaza After Rain. I love it because, even though it depicts New York City in a different time, it shows the way rain is in the springtime. The sky is dark, but the trees are just beginning to leaf out. The streets are wet with rain, but a hint of blue is showing through the dark sky. When you see this painting, you feel like sunshine could happen any minute.

That is what we try to convey in flash fiction, and that is why it’s so important to practice writing in short, complete bursts. You never know when one will become a longer tale, so you will have a backlog of fodder to fuel your creativity when you need a good story idea. Being able to create an entire story in 3 paragraphs is an art. Sometimes I can do well at that, and sometimes not so much.

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Tagged as Book Signings, Erik Kort, Forever Knight Games, Inspiration, Jeffrey Cook, Jolene Loraine, Lee French, LIndsay Schopfer, Maquel A Jacobs, Paul Cornoyer, Sechin Tower

May 15, 2015 · 6:45 am

Reading for pleasure vs reading for editing

I haven’t been able to read as much lately as I normally do–my editing and writing time has seriously cut into my reading time. In fact, I haven’t written a book review in over a month. I do miss the long hours I used to spend reading, but lately I am lucky to read two or three pages before fall asleep. Thus I have been reading poetry and short fiction.

This is not because the books I intend to read are boring–they aren’t! It’s just that when I am editing for a client, I can’t disengage my mind from that mindset. This means I have a terrible time reading for pleasure. When I am in editing mode I notice things a casual reader might not, and I can’t just enjoy the book. And I am not talking indies here–I am talking books published by the Big 5 traditional publishers.

Sometimes the errors and flaws are hilarious though.

The thing is, errors do creep into even the most carefully examined texts and manuscripts. Usually, no one dies over it, however, in the case of the infamous Wicked Bible, the publishers paid a hefty price: Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, were called to the Star Chamber and fined £300 (£43,586 as of 2015) and deprived of their printing license. The Star Chamber, which held court from the late 15th century to the mid-17th century, was a branch of the English court of law and was established to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people so powerful that ordinary courts would likely hesitate to convict them of their crimes.

Typos and editing mistakes are pretty much taken for granted when left in mass-market paperbacks by the Big 5 Publishers, but woe to the indie who neglects to notice a repeated ‘and’ or any other editing error.

Indies are held to a far more rigid code by most readers than the traditional publishers are because the internet is rife with disparaging rhetoric pointing the finger at indies. And while the Big 5 traditional publishers are just as guilty of rushing-to-publish crap, the truth is, many new self-published authors haven’t yet gotten the hang of the publishing business, and often their books are rife with things they will later wish they hadn’t rushed-to-publish.

Having learned my own lessons the hard way, besides working closely with a professional editor, I now have a reliable group of friends who comb my completed manuscripts for errors and gross cut-and-paste errors, and we can only hope we have caught them all. When you are an indie, it takes a village to help you get your book fit for the public to read.

Anyway–my editor’s hat is firmly on my head these days, and that means I can’t enjoy casual reading for a while more. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy my clients’ books–I love them. I’ve made it clear that I only accept work I feel a strong attachment to, but editing is a different mindset from casual reading, and I can’t just fall out of it at the end of the day. Yes, this greatly slows my own writing, because I am stupidly self-editing instead of just letting the words flow. When I am editing I am looking for all varieties of mistakes–not just structural, grammatical, and obvious punctuation errors. I am also looking for things that will interfere with formatting the final ms for upload to Kindle or Smashwords and I hope I find them all for my client, but it makes writing my own work difficult.

As an editor I do my best. But, nothing is ever sure, and I won’t see the ms after I send her the final suggested corrections. Mistakes can be made right up to the last minute while she is making those adjustments, so someone else will have to proof-read her work. The indie author has the responsibility for the final eye on his/her work. So when my client has finished her revisions, she will have her posse check the ms over for the slings and arrows of publishing fate.

image courtesy http://www.mikelavere.com/motivation/seven-self-improvement-books

I will be finished with my current editing project soon, and I plan to take a break from editing for a short while, when that happens. Then I will let my mindset slide back into the joy-of-reading mode.

I really do love to read–getting lost in a great book is the best thing I can think of, as comforting as a cute kitty purring, or my sister’s homemade chocolate truffles. I look forward to resting my editorial mind and over-indulging in the work of my many favorite authors.