Today, I'm guest posting for my friend and fellow author, Carol Tanzman at the writing blog, ADR3NALIN3. She is a regular contributor to the blog, which is a fun and inspiring resource for readers and writers. The authors involved specialize in mysteries and thrillers but their posts address all kinds of issues that most writers face: writer's block, world-building, character development, and so on.
Carol has a new YA novel, "dancergirl," which is currently out from Harlequin Teen. It's a fast-paced thriller about a dancer whose online life attracts a real-life stalker! Check it out at your local store or here at Amazon: dancergirl. Her next book will be out in July, another YA thriller titled, "Circle of Silence."
My post is about turning off the internet and turning on your focus. Thanks, Carol, for asking me to guest post for you!
So here is it - my post about writing and the internet: I’m not addicted. I can quit anytime I want to.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Building a writer's toolbox
I'm calling this my Toolbox Post #2 because I recently wrote about a dancer's toolbox on my ballet blog and it made me think about writers and how they have toolboxes too. While most of a dancer's resources come from classes they take and corrections given to them by teachers, how do writers get theirs? I can think of 3 ways:
1. High school and college courses: This is where a writer gets her flashlight and her hammer. You know, the basics of craft, such as -
--Three act structure.
--Grammar.
--Literary devices like metaphor and simile.
2. Writing workshops: This is where a writer will get her needle-nose pliers and snake, items that are more specialized for different uses. It could be during a one-day or week-long course that addresses a specific issue, such as -
--Writing in genre.
--Publishing and agenting.
--Rewriting.
3. Reading: This is where a writer will find her tubing benders and pipe extractors. What are tubing benders and pipe extractors, you say? "I didn't even know they existed!" Exactly! That's the reaction you have when you read books by authors who approach storytelling in new and exciting ways. That's the moment when you say, "I didn't know I could do that!" Such as -
--Unreliable narrators.
--Multiple POVs.
--World-building.
As I said in my ballet post, when you have a leaky faucet, you get out your toolbox and you fix it. And when you have a book that's got plot issues or pacing or structure problems, you do the same thing. Diagnose the problem and fix it. No wringing of hands, no pouting or running away. A plumber doesn't get upset when the pipe is broken and neither should you.
1. High school and college courses: This is where a writer gets her flashlight and her hammer. You know, the basics of craft, such as -
--Three act structure.
--Grammar.
--Literary devices like metaphor and simile.
2. Writing workshops: This is where a writer will get her needle-nose pliers and snake, items that are more specialized for different uses. It could be during a one-day or week-long course that addresses a specific issue, such as -
--Writing in genre.
--Publishing and agenting.
--Rewriting.
3. Reading: This is where a writer will find her tubing benders and pipe extractors. What are tubing benders and pipe extractors, you say? "I didn't even know they existed!" Exactly! That's the reaction you have when you read books by authors who approach storytelling in new and exciting ways. That's the moment when you say, "I didn't know I could do that!" Such as -
--Unreliable narrators.
--Multiple POVs.
--World-building.
Monday, December 26, 2011
In 2012, I resolve to...
1. Self-publish my entire backlist as e-books across all platforms. Also make them available in print editions.
Reason: I need to wipe the slate (i.e. my hard drive) clean of old titles. Whether people read them is not up to me but at least all of them will be out there and available to be enjoyed.
2. Write the books I want to read.
Reason: I fell in love with reading when I was a teen and I devoured all genres, including fantasy and science fiction. I have always loved spec fiction too. When I write for others - for the marketplace - I get stuck because I'm not excited to find out more. Then I'm trudging through it rather than racing through it.
3. Write the books I've always wanted to write.
Reason: It takes a very long time to write a novel - and to rewrite it and rewrite it until it's ready for others. I am tired of wasting my precious writing time on books that mean nothing to me, that may have a fun premise but are nothing more.
4. Read more of what I love.
Reason: As a YA writer, I tend to read what I should read, what's popular among my audience. While it's important to know what sells, those books shouldn't be my sole literary consumption. And now that I have a Kindle, it's easier than ever before to get what I need.
5. Organize my social media more efficiently.
Reason: Again, time is a precious resource. I need to streamline what I do and when I do it. Toward that end, I stopped using MySpace altogether and I linked my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I also have to set specific times of when I'm online - it's eating up my day!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
"Who does that fat girl think she is?"
That's the strange comment I've read on some reviews of my novel, ALL ABOUT VEE. Perhaps not quite as harsh but certainly I've read comments that express that sentiment.
Why? I always wonder. Why would a reader be upset that my mc, Veronica May, a plus-size actress struggling in Hollywood, has confidence in herself? Plenty of other characters in other books know they are good at something, whether it's acting or painting or sports. So what's the difference between them and Veronica?
Her size.
There's an attitude among a lot of people that overweight women shouldn't be happy with themselves. They should want to look thinner. They should not like who they are. They should feel inferior to others. Many readers who pick up VEE expect that Veronica will be sad or have low self-esteem and that, over the course of the book, she will learn to love her body the way it is (or change it and then be happy and get the guy!). They don't expect that the problems she has in the book are ones that other people impose upon her.
I've often told readers how I came up with my story about Veronica and her friends, Val and Ginny, the original 800 page book that was called FAT GIRLS IN LA. I had been walking on my lunch hour in Beverly Hills and saw a lovely young woman waiting to cross the street. The neighborhood was filled with agencies for film and TV and this girl was overweight. I wondered if she was an actress looking for an agent - or maybe she was a model or a writer. I thought about who she might be, where she might have come from.
And I thought about being a fat girl in LA. You can never be too thin in this town, no matter what your profession. Even if you're a writer and you're attractive and thin, they can promote you better than if you're not. Everyone, it seems, wants to be thin here. But what if you came from a town where no one cared? What if you were really good at what you did but you also happened to be overweight? Why should that matter?
Behold, the Vees were born. Three plus-size gals from Arizona who were best friends and who wanted to make their lives more exciting so they moved to Hollywood. Veronica was the actress and she got all the best roles in her small town - why shouldn't she be positive about her talent? Why shouldn't she assume she could get roles here in LA? Ginny was the writer and Val was the model. They all suffered discrimination here. Their friendship was tested. Their self-confidence was challenged.
I think a lot of readers who have problems with Veronica's positive self-esteem have struggled with it themselves. They may want her to feel as they do and are disappointed that she likes herself the way she is. They may have had people in their lives tell them they need to lose weight in order to be hired - or loved. Make no mistake: Vee does not think she's the best at everything, that she's beautiful, that she should get every guy she meets. That's the assumption readers place on her just because she's a good actress. She struggles too. She just doesn't struggle with what you expect her to.
She's just like you.
Why? I always wonder. Why would a reader be upset that my mc, Veronica May, a plus-size actress struggling in Hollywood, has confidence in herself? Plenty of other characters in other books know they are good at something, whether it's acting or painting or sports. So what's the difference between them and Veronica?
Her size.
There's an attitude among a lot of people that overweight women shouldn't be happy with themselves. They should want to look thinner. They should not like who they are. They should feel inferior to others. Many readers who pick up VEE expect that Veronica will be sad or have low self-esteem and that, over the course of the book, she will learn to love her body the way it is (or change it and then be happy and get the guy!). They don't expect that the problems she has in the book are ones that other people impose upon her.
I've often told readers how I came up with my story about Veronica and her friends, Val and Ginny, the original 800 page book that was called FAT GIRLS IN LA. I had been walking on my lunch hour in Beverly Hills and saw a lovely young woman waiting to cross the street. The neighborhood was filled with agencies for film and TV and this girl was overweight. I wondered if she was an actress looking for an agent - or maybe she was a model or a writer. I thought about who she might be, where she might have come from.
And I thought about being a fat girl in LA. You can never be too thin in this town, no matter what your profession. Even if you're a writer and you're attractive and thin, they can promote you better than if you're not. Everyone, it seems, wants to be thin here. But what if you came from a town where no one cared? What if you were really good at what you did but you also happened to be overweight? Why should that matter?
Behold, the Vees were born. Three plus-size gals from Arizona who were best friends and who wanted to make their lives more exciting so they moved to Hollywood. Veronica was the actress and she got all the best roles in her small town - why shouldn't she be positive about her talent? Why shouldn't she assume she could get roles here in LA? Ginny was the writer and Val was the model. They all suffered discrimination here. Their friendship was tested. Their self-confidence was challenged.
I think a lot of readers who have problems with Veronica's positive self-esteem have struggled with it themselves. They may want her to feel as they do and are disappointed that she likes herself the way she is. They may have had people in their lives tell them they need to lose weight in order to be hired - or loved. Make no mistake: Vee does not think she's the best at everything, that she's beautiful, that she should get every guy she meets. That's the assumption readers place on her just because she's a good actress. She struggles too. She just doesn't struggle with what you expect her to.
She's just like you.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Things I've Learned During Self-publishing (so far!)
1. First of all, the cool kids call it "indie" publishing and as we all know, when you stick the word "indie" in front of anything, its cachet is magnified a thousandfold.
2. Apparently, there was no Chapter 13 in my published novel, ALL ABOUT VEE. Yes, it's true! There's a Chapter 12 and a Chapter 14 but no 13. This was due solely to human error (many humans' errors), not a superstition, although if it had been a superstition, that would have been pretty neat.
As we reformat the book to publish it as FAT GIRLS IN LA, I'm making changes, adding a little material here and there that I always wanted kept in. So there will be a Chapter 13 in the new edition.
3. I only used one ellipsis in the entire novel of ALL ABOUT VEE. Weird, huh? An ellipsis is "..." Which I use all the time in my normal daily writing so it's truly bizarre there's only one in nearly 300 pages of text.
4. LOVE, MEG in Hungarian? Maybe! When you're getting ready to re-launch, you need to regain control over all the material you own that's out there. Ninja Webmaster and I are always on the lookout for websites that have my ebooks listed so we can get them removed so we are constantly Googling, etc. But according to Goodreads, there was (or might have been) a Hungarian language version of MEG as an ebook and as a paperback. They have ISBN numbers and everything!
2. Apparently, there was no Chapter 13 in my published novel, ALL ABOUT VEE. Yes, it's true! There's a Chapter 12 and a Chapter 14 but no 13. This was due solely to human error (many humans' errors), not a superstition, although if it had been a superstition, that would have been pretty neat.
As we reformat the book to publish it as FAT GIRLS IN LA, I'm making changes, adding a little material here and there that I always wanted kept in. So there will be a Chapter 13 in the new edition.
3. I only used one ellipsis in the entire novel of ALL ABOUT VEE. Weird, huh? An ellipsis is "..." Which I use all the time in my normal daily writing so it's truly bizarre there's only one in nearly 300 pages of text.
4. LOVE, MEG in Hungarian? Maybe! When you're getting ready to re-launch, you need to regain control over all the material you own that's out there. Ninja Webmaster and I are always on the lookout for websites that have my ebooks listed so we can get them removed so we are constantly Googling, etc. But according to Goodreads, there was (or might have been) a Hungarian language version of MEG as an ebook and as a paperback. They have ISBN numbers and everything!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
New cover reveal: Vee's back!
...and she's bringing her friends!
Finally, we've got a little action going here on the blog. It's been a long time percolating but we've got a brand new cover for the re-release of ALL ABOUT VEE, now titled FAT GIRLS IN LA, as I originally wanted it to be. Check it out (thanks Ninja Webmaster for the redesign!):
Vee will be released this month followed by...! Nope! Not gonna reveal that title yet! You'll have to wait til December. Keep up to date with Vee and her friends on her Facebook page or her Twitter page and be one of the girls!
Finally, we've got a little action going here on the blog. It's been a long time percolating but we've got a brand new cover for the re-release of ALL ABOUT VEE, now titled FAT GIRLS IN LA, as I originally wanted it to be. Check it out (thanks Ninja Webmaster for the redesign!):
We're all Fat Girls in LA - even the boys.
Vee will be released this month followed by...! Nope! Not gonna reveal that title yet! You'll have to wait til December. Keep up to date with Vee and her friends on her Facebook page or her Twitter page and be one of the girls!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Upcoming books?
10, 9, 8, 7...
We're getting ready to launch. Re-launch, that is. My intrepid Ninja Webmaster is designing a brand new website and new book covers for the re-launch of 2 of my books plus several absolutely, never-seen-before new ones, including two sequels in my Fat Girls trilogy. Currently we are tweaking images and such - plus lots of technical stuff I don't know anything about. We'll go to Amazon and other e-tailers online first but will hopefully have the books available for print as well.
6, 5, 4...
And why am I doing this? Well, first of all, I always felt like my novels, LOVE, MEG and ALL ABOUT VEE weren't given the opportunity to reach a wide audience. Part of that was due to the very small marketing budget those books had- not my fault, not the books' faults, not the editor's or agent's fault. It's just the way traditional publishing works: only a select few books get the money spent on them. They are usually the ones whose authors received large advances so the publishers need to spend even more money on them to recoup that original outlay. Those books are the ones which are expected to rake in the big bucks.
Then there are "small" books like mine - "quiet" books that don't have big high-concept hooks - that don't receive big advances, big marketing budgets and are expected to do nothing. Publishers throw these books into the mix and let them flounder on their own. If they make any money, hurrah! If not, they go out-of-print. Well, how many do you think fall into the former category? Not many is right. Mine fell into the latter and they went OOP and now, I have the rights back.
Another reason why I'm putting my e-books out online is that the market has changed an awful lot since I first got published. The books I wrote after MEG and VEE were also "quiet" without high concept hooks and since MEG and VEE did not flourish, no one wanted these. I disagree - I think readers want them. I think people are hungry for good stories, regardless of whether they have a hook or not. As a reader myself, I enjoy good characters and solid stories that entertain me. I have a Kindle and I want to load it up with books. I think there are a lot of people out there like me. And my books are for them.
Sure, I'm also writing books that do have "concepts" that I hope traditional publishing will want to put out but if not, I am creating an avenue directly to readers and I'll get them out there one way or another.
3, 2, 1...
We're getting ready to launch. Re-launch, that is. My intrepid Ninja Webmaster is designing a brand new website and new book covers for the re-launch of 2 of my books plus several absolutely, never-seen-before new ones, including two sequels in my Fat Girls trilogy. Currently we are tweaking images and such - plus lots of technical stuff I don't know anything about. We'll go to Amazon and other e-tailers online first but will hopefully have the books available for print as well.
6, 5, 4...
And why am I doing this? Well, first of all, I always felt like my novels, LOVE, MEG and ALL ABOUT VEE weren't given the opportunity to reach a wide audience. Part of that was due to the very small marketing budget those books had- not my fault, not the books' faults, not the editor's or agent's fault. It's just the way traditional publishing works: only a select few books get the money spent on them. They are usually the ones whose authors received large advances so the publishers need to spend even more money on them to recoup that original outlay. Those books are the ones which are expected to rake in the big bucks.
Then there are "small" books like mine - "quiet" books that don't have big high-concept hooks - that don't receive big advances, big marketing budgets and are expected to do nothing. Publishers throw these books into the mix and let them flounder on their own. If they make any money, hurrah! If not, they go out-of-print. Well, how many do you think fall into the former category? Not many is right. Mine fell into the latter and they went OOP and now, I have the rights back.
Another reason why I'm putting my e-books out online is that the market has changed an awful lot since I first got published. The books I wrote after MEG and VEE were also "quiet" without high concept hooks and since MEG and VEE did not flourish, no one wanted these. I disagree - I think readers want them. I think people are hungry for good stories, regardless of whether they have a hook or not. As a reader myself, I enjoy good characters and solid stories that entertain me. I have a Kindle and I want to load it up with books. I think there are a lot of people out there like me. And my books are for them.
Sure, I'm also writing books that do have "concepts" that I hope traditional publishing will want to put out but if not, I am creating an avenue directly to readers and I'll get them out there one way or another.
3, 2, 1...
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