Update on Works in Progress

I feel compelled to update this blog on the progress I have had on my current projects.  I do this not to brag, I swear.  It's more designed as a kick-in-the-ass.  See, my idea is that if I put it in writing here, then it's out in the universe and more than being compelled to document it, I might actually be motivated to finish it.

I'm talking mostly about the project I am calling The Deadlies.  This is the one about seven girls in an antebellum school who have been possessed by the seven deadly sins.  I am only about 5-10k words away from the conclusion.  The problem?  I cant get there.  I have them in the last scene before the big confrontation I am planning and everything I am writing sounds lame-ass.  It was a three-day weekend and I don't think more than two hours have gone by without my thinking about the end of this story.  Including a Dodger game Friday night with 60k other people around me.  The story arc always creeps in.  But, luckily for me, so does Musina.  She and I are sorting out different ideas and we'll hit on one soon that works perfectly, I have no doubt.

I'm also beginning to jot down notes about the final book to Spellbound.  I am playing with titles, arcs, and a couple fun new characters I want to introduce.  There are a lot of loose ends to tie up and many of my notes do just that.  I'm looking forward to starting soon.  I'm not sure why I haven't yet, but I never force myself to write.  It will come when it's supposed to come.  But, I feel like it will be soon.  I tend to write really well in the summertime.  Something about the beautiful blue skies either makes me want to paint a glorious happily-ever-after, as with my YA's, or smash it all to hell, like with my adult horror.  Won't it be fun to see which way I swing?  *giggles evilly*

It's not all bad news, however.  I have completed the adult horror collection I have been working on for the past two months.  Way Past Midnight, an assemblage of five horror stories, is through the editing and I have commissioned the coolest, creepiest cover from my go-to gal, Paragraphic Designs.  What do you think?  Spooky, right?

I have always been able to rely on Paragraphic Designs for my homegrown stuff.  She also did the cover for my YA paranormal Ghostly, released through Astraea Press.  Check her stuff out here: http://paragraphicdesigns.blogspot.com/

I have another project I am working on as well.  This one is another YA paranormal, but edgier, like Waterdancer.  Actually, even more so than that one.  This one is scientific and biologic.  Called Wingspan, I am about 1/3 of the way through this one.  I'm looking for Summer and Musina to light a fire under me for this one too.

So, let me know what you think of this new cover.  I am not certain if I want to go through my publisher or try out the kindle program again. I'll keep you posted.

And thanks.  Every so often I need a good kick in the patootie.  You just let me administer one to myself.  :-).  I'm done moving, the new house is great, and the new job is awesome.  I'm out of excuses.  So pardon me now, if you will.  An impatient Muse is waiting for me.

Finding Your Voice

When I was only contemplating becoming published, I had many misgivings about whether or not I had the chops to do it.  I dove into my research, having written what I considered to be a publishable story, Spellbound.  Almost every blog, every author interview, and especially every agent interview I read, had something to say about two things:  having a platform and having a voice.

I had a voice!  Didn't I?  I sat down and re-read my story and decided I did have a voice.  Then further research advised me how I had to describe that voice in an engrossing manner, well enough to catch the attention of an agent or editor or, best of all, a publisher.  Describe it?  What the hell did that mean?  I had a story, I wrote it.  End of story, right?  Wrooooong.  So very wrong.

I submitted to a couple agents and while there was interest, they didn't take my bait.  And then I started hearing about the second thing:  platform.  Again, I was all, what the hell is that?  I studied some more (thank God for the internet!) and learned platform was actually the application of that voice you think you have.  You needed a blog, a facebook account, Twitter, all the social media one person could handle.  Whew!  It seemed like a lot but I had committed to this and besides, hadn't I told my husband this was my dream, and also it was my time?

So I started a blog.  Holy cow, did it suck at first.  I may have had a voice, but I certainly wasn't used to using it.  I wasn't sure what to do except talk about my story, which I did.  Then I started writing about my other work, then work I wanted to write.  I joined facebook and developed this whole community of other writers going through the same thing as me.  I bought Writers Searching for Agent-type publications and began to look for my angel.  I mean my agent.  I compiled careful lists of agents who I thought I might like, who had the same lists as the book I wanted to publish.

I taught myself how to write a query letter, how to play up the fact that I had zip for other publications, and I banged out blog posts.  I even started to blog on other people's sites.  For some reason they thought I had something to say.  Then my first exciting bite!  Defiantly, I had sent my submissions to a place that clearly stated they didn't take unagented submissions.  I figured, what was the worst that could happen?  Then the unexpected did happen: Harlequin Teen asked to see my manuscript!  I sent it in and me and the hubs made a list of things we would like to do with the advance money.  I know, right?  I didn't know ANYTHING!

The rejection came a couple weeks later, a lovely worded letter with some great advice.  They were passing on this one, but wanted me to submit in the future with any other projects.  I was bummed and elated at the same time.  Me and the hubs put the list we'd drawn up in a desk drawer.

Then a small independent publisher I had submitted to asked to see the manuscript.  Fully jaded now, and expecting, realistically, nothing, I sent it in.  Two days later they offered me a contract.

So, I don't have an agent yet.  But what I do have is a voice.  And five published works. And a platform.  You are smack in the middle of it here on this blog.  I passed 10,000 views recently and am pretty jazzed that most posts receive at least 35-50 or so hits.  I suppose the take-away from this post is exactly like many others will say.  Don't give up.  Keep writing.  Develop your own platform and your personal voice.  And it's okay if you make a list.....just keep it in that desk drawer.  I do, and I know someday I'll be pulling it out.  And if you have a blog, let me know about it.  I'll be happy to support you.

Everything Happens for a Reason -or- How Samantha Got Her Zen Back

You know me.  Or, at least you know most things about me; I'm not the philosophical type.  At least, I didn't think I was.  This latest move has taken me to a kind of zen place about my actual place in the world.  More than once over the last few days, I have heard myself utter this little cliche: everything happens for a reason.  It may sound pithy, but the phrase has accompanied me through anger, denial, acceptance, and all the other things.  But, here's what you need to know.  No person died; a house did.  Or rather, my home did.

See, I attach to things really fast.  I've always named my cars, I get immediate vibes about the "liveability" of a house, and I am unnaturally drawn to my laptop.  A key broke, it will cost $175 to repair, and yes, I am considering it.  So, the last house, I REALLY attached to it.  It wasn't perfect, but it was down the street from the kids' school, it was central to a part of town we really love, and there was a super great breakfast place just blocks away that do amazing things with a feta and artichoke omelet.  While I lived there, I never thought I could find a better place.  Then, it turned out I had to.

You've been following the blog, so you know the searching was really intensive.  At the end there were two places I liked, both in the price range, the right area and the right school district.  A decision had to be made, and I had to make it.  Now, I don't come naturally to change.  Some people embrace it, and go willingly and joyfully into that unknown good night.  My brother is one of those people and I envy him fiercely for his ability to just go with the flow.  He never frets about anything.  He just lets life happen.  He tells me that wherever I am, that's where I'm supposed to be.  In the past I have looked at him like he just threw up on me and quickly consulted my Blackberry to see what I'm supposed to be doing or where I should be going.

But recent changes in my life have caused me to reevaluate the way I operate.  Unemployment, a cancer scare, and uncontrolled upheaval has given me a new perspective.  I thought, what better time to put my new attitude into play than now, in the Big House Decision.

So, I did nothing.  It about killed me, but I did nothing.  And I shit you not, where I sit typing this, is exactly where I am goddamn supposed to be.  This house is great.  This house chose me, it loves me and I can see me loving it back. There is a peacefulness and zen calm about it.  So what if boxes are all over the place?  Who cares?  I'll get to them.  I haven't written any stories yet, but the notepad on my iphone is filling up.  So many ideas are flooding me.  I feel like I am doing the virtual equivalent of rubbing my hands together in perverse anticipation of the gush of words waiting to let fly.  And I have no doubt that they will.

I let life happen and surprisingly wonderful things happened in return.  My kids found great friends across the street, who will go to the same school as them, and their parents don't have third eyes or anything.  My Mum came and loved the place.  And more stunning, I have slept here three nights now and not awakened once during the night, something I always have done, most of my life.  I just go to sleep and wake up in the morning.  What a concept!

I have always had a personal motto of: That which does not kill me, only makes me stronger.  Then, in a more literary sense, I adopted a new motto: Write, publish, and be informed.  This one was born of my low-down dirty dealings with The Publisher Who Shall Remain Nameless.  Now, I have a new one:  It is what it is.  In other words, wherever I am, that's where I'm supposed to be.  And tonight, I am home.

What's your personal motto?

Why Moving is Like Writing....Part Two

I'm sitting in my living room as I write this, where I always sit and write.  The difference is the living room currently looks like a bad day in Beirut.  I mean, literally, there is crap EVERYWHERE!  I'm moving, remember?  Except you wouldn't know about that just by looking around.  What you would think is that perhaps we were robbed?  By organized and tidy thieves? Or this is what the aftermath of an earthquake or a 9 year old's birthday party likely resembles?

As I gaze around, at the tumble of boxes and jumbled piles of God-only-knows-what, my mind goes back to where it always does.....my current project.  And I start to consider that my writing is just like this room in disarray.  Things that make me happy, but scattered all over the place, with no rhyme nor reason for being.  And as the Head Packer and Decider of All Things Moving, I alone have the ability to organize it all into something cohesive.  The same goes for my writing.  There, I am the Head Decider of All Things Scary.  Currently anyway, as I am into horror right now.

I pack boxes with canned goods, pantry items and linens and I am really only half there mentally.  This largely mindless task allows my head to wander all over the place.  As usual, my writing comes first. It's funny, because I read tons of blog posts and articles about how to make time for your writing and I laugh until my sides hurt.  Because they are doing it wrong if they find they have to make time.  I find I have to make time for the rest of my life, because my writing, my projects, are always foremost in my brain.  Even knee-deep in packing material, my projects occupy the most valuable real estate upstairs.

I survey my scattered surroundings, and I imagine that each box is one of the short horror stories I have recently written.  I am assembling them in order to be delivered to their new home, the same as I am assembling the stories in one combined grouping, which will be the collection I envision.  Just as I can see a week into the future when this hell of moving is over and everything is in its rightful place in the new house, so too, can I see the stories in proper order in the new collection, just as organized and tidy as the new house.

So confident am I, that I am ready to reveal the new title: Way Past Midnight.  I have the hopes that the title evokes the uneasy feeling any time beyond the top of the hour can bring, when the dark envelops you and the quiet is not your friend.  And my artist is rocking the new cover hard.  Big reveal for that soon.

I'm nowhere near done packing.  Likewise, I feel as though the collection is incomplete as well.  I have five terror-tastic tales and just as I decided five was the magic number, Musina popped up.  Nope, she said.  Five doesn't work for me....what say we go for six?  And this seriously scary and bitchin' idea formulated as a whole piece.  I have the beginning, the middle, I even know the ending line.  The move may have taken me away from my computer physically, but mentally I am all about the stories. And isn't THAT what makes us all writers?  The actual, physical inability to let the words go?  Yeah.  I knew you'd agree.

It's like that Jackson Browne song I have always loved: The Load-Out song.  The musician implores the roadies "Just make sure you've got it all packed to go, before you come for my piano."  I promise you, this laptop will be the last thing that leaves this empty house.

Horror, Paranormal, Fantasy Anyone?

Through all of my wonderful new facebook friends, I have garnered a close and supportive cadre of awesome people.  I want to take this time to introduce you to one of them.  My brilliant friend E.H. James is an amazing writer of horror (something I am just trying to break into) and paranormal and fantasy.  She and I survived an experience with another publisher, and found a wonderful home with Musa Publishing.  


I asked her to write a guest blog and give us her short story writing experience.  We both really enjoy the genre of short stories and I thought you might like to hear from someone new!  :-)


In the words of E. H. James:

"I was asked what inspired me to write these short stories, and to be honest I had to think about it.

When I sit down to create a story and bring its characters to life my mood sets the tone and genre, and that can be anything from thriller, to fantasy, to paranormal, to horror…

The story unfolds before me as I write it, and when it’s a short story I am always drawn to write something paranormal or horror based. I’m not sure why that is; perhaps it has something to do with watching Twilight Zone episodes. You hope that you have been able to create enough of a story that it truly pulls the reader in. You hope that your characters are fleshed out enough for the reader to become invested in their welfare. That is not an easy task when writing short stories.

To try and pinpoint precisely where the inspiration for any one story comes from is impossible to say because for each story it’s a completely different experience for me. Each story has its own feel and I am taken to a different place when writing it, perhaps some place dark, or mysterious, or unpredictable. I guess what I am saying is the stories themselves are their own inspiration, that in the process of writing them the inspiration is created in the moment."

Go ahead and support her by checking out these links:

Laura - Blurb

George had seen some pretty strange things over his lifetime, travelling those roads. But if he had thought he’d seen it all, he was sadly mistaken. For if he thought finding Laura alone, along some deserted roadside in the middle of the night was strange, then he had no idea that what was to follow would challenge the very boundaries of everything he’d ever known.

Goodreads link for Laura: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13413102-laura

Laura – Buy Links:

Musa Publishing: http://www.musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=154

Amazon US:  http://www.amazon.com/Laura-ebook/dp/B006WSVWF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331218995&sr=1-1

Bookstrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/laura-1

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/123041

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/laura-e-h-james/1107226299?ean=2940032996781&itm=11&usri=laura

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Laura/book-NseKTk7R90qwqY3aqCxjWQ/page1.html

 

The Visitor’s Room - Blurb:

If Amy thought this day on the psych ward would be just like any other she would be wrong.

For although everything seemed normal, well as normal as a place like that could be, there was something that was not quite right. That she couldn’t put her finger on it only made it all the more perplexing.

Don’t go asking questions you don’t want to know the answer to, especially when you're on a psych ward, and even you begin to question your sanity.

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13557434-the-visitor-s-room

The Visitor’s Room – Buy Links:

Musa: http://www.musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=217

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/The-Visitors-Room-ebook/dp/B007NRVOBM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332515377&sr=1-1

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145010

Author Bio:

E. H. James is an author writing novels and short stories in the science fiction, horror, thriller and fantasy genres.

Contact Links for E. H. James

Blog: http://ehjames.blogspot.com/

Web Page: http://www.wix.com/ehjames1/ehjames#!

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/EHJames1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorEHJames?ref=ts

How I Promote...Sometimes By Not Promoting At All!

I guess you could consider this a post script to my post about spamming on social networks.  A new facebook friend recently asked me how I promote.  She mentioned she had noticed that I have a lot of friends, and a lot of reviews on my books.  She wondered if I was doing anything special.  I intended to pop a quick answer back at her, but realized, she was really interested in my answer and I owed her to treat it with courtesy.  As I wrote, I thought others might benefit from my response.

When I first started writing, I wasn't even ON facebook.  I had a blog, but I didn't feel I had that much to say.  And as for facebook, truth be told, I had an irrational fear of it.  I thought people would be unkind, laugh at what I had to say, and anyway who would care?  Who was I anyway?  I finished writing my first book and the publisher who welcomed me told me I was just a bit nuts not to be on facebook.  I was told it was a great marketing tool, so in July I think, of last year, I joined up.

I was amazed.  I found people who were going through the same things as I.  I found fellow writers, published authors and friends.  Another discovery was blogs.  I loved them!  I learned more about the publishing business than any class would ever teach me.  And then, I took an even bigger step.  I joined Twitter!  Even now, admittedly, I haven't much idea what I'm doing.  But in my blogging, my facebooking and my tweeting, I have learned one valuable thing:  people want to know about you as much as your work.

I have blogged before about being annoyed by the constant marketing some people do, so I shy away from doing  it myself.  I will market when my book comes out, but I don't constantly pound my books in posts.  Rather, I let myself be human.  I may not name or allow photos of my family, but that doesn't mean they don't figure prominently in my facebook or blog posts.  I give my readers a chance to get to know me as a person and an author.  I give a glimpse, and sometimes way more than a glimpse, into my writing process.  I think social networking gives writers today far more of an edge than previously published authors had in this respect.

I feel confident that my readers and, dare I say, even some I could call fans, follow me and join my blog because I don't just talk about my own books.  I showcase other writers and their books, I offer advice that has worked for me, and I comment and invite discussion on topics in the industry important to both established authors and aspiring ones.  I probably should do giveaways and contests, but they seem self-serving to me, so I don't.  They work great for others and I applaud their efforts and success, its just not my thing.

What I do do, is try and blog on other's blogs as often as I can.  I average 2-4 outside blogs a month.  I guess it could be more, but as a working, writing, publishing, mothering wife, its a tall order.  :-).  I also invite others to blog occasionally on my site.

I like to think these things are working for me.  I have great facebook pals and a good deal of activity on this blog, and better still, the books are selling.  Well after their release date, they continue to sell.  I suppose my point here is remember that you may be an author/writer now, but you have a whole other part to you.  Let your readers in on that part too, and you'll have friends and followers galore.  So, go ahead.....get social!