amwriting

Jun

2014

Thinking of my Writing Journey, Steampunk, and my Blog, So Far

First off, I have a link here to my very first guest blog post:
http://plungingintothenovel.blogspot.com/
K.J. Bryen will be publishing her new book, Lokte in the fall of 2014.
My guest post talks mostly about my writing journey so far and offers some tips that I’ve found are critical to surviving the first months of the self-publishing journey.
However, there is so much more, more than what can be covered in a single post. The entire exercise was quite thought provoking for me. One thought surfaced above all others: I may just have to start another blog!
If I start another blog, it will be dedicated to The Inventor’s Son. Once I start some heavier promoting and get Book 2 out, I’m sure that some readers might want to delve a bit deeper.
I’ve also joined the Google+ community Steampunk Tendencies. Their actual website is http://www.steampunktendencies.com/
When I see how many people are members of this group, and how elaborate their costumes and artwork is, I’m at once encouraged and daunted. Encouraged because Steampunk really does seem to be taking off and becoming more mainstream. Daunted because, compared to many of these people, my Steampunk resume is pretty thin as of yet. It’s such a fun genre, I’m sorry I didn’t get into this sooner.

Jun

2014

What Keeps Me From Sleeping at Night

There’s a variety of things I do that keep me from going to sleep when I really ought to. Just last night, it was already 12:35 and there was someone I had corresponded with on Twitter (because there’s ALWAYS someone to converse with on Twitter, no matter what time it is) that had sent a reply to a reply I sent her, etc. Before that, I did two very productive word sprints, which has an effect a lot like exercising right before bed.
Other nights, I watch tv, and I am not the type that falls asleep while watching television. And sometimes the show makes me so wound up, like the Game of Thrones finale last week, I can’t fall asleep after that.
Once in a great while, I’ll be out late, but I don’t have a huge social whirl, and all of us need to get up early the next day anyway.
It’s also hurricane season, and once I hear about tropical storms forming off the coast of Africa, I tend to watch for Accuweather updates and the like.
Often, I just have to do things at that hour that I couldn’t do all day.
But I don’t like it. I feel like I could do better if I wasn’t sleep deprived.
(This was posted in response to today’s Post a Day http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/sleepy-time/ )

Jun

2014

Calling all Cars for the Amazon Police!

The REAL new cover for the “Prologue” book!

I have renamed my “Prologue” novella-length book to The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning.
And I uploaded it and published it to Nook Store. When it goes live, I will have the links to both the Amazon page and the Nook Store page.
I uploaded the new cover, but Amazon has not updated it yet as of now. Now, I have the old cover with the new title… It’s sometimes a good thing that I don’t have all that much exposure on Amazon, because sometimes they are not too quick with their updates. BTW, I saw a review yesterday (not for my book) that gave one star because, while the reviewer hadn’t actually read the book, the author made one of the words in the title with an ‘s instead of just plain s. Not on the cover, thankfully for him. But, really? I wonder if I’ll get a one-star review for my book by the Amazon police because I’ve got the cover transitioning from “Prologue” to “The Beginning.” Maybe I will, and when the new cover loads, that reviewer will look like a moron. 😉
Also, you might notice the extra details on the cover. In a few days I will be reworking the Book One cover and uploading that. I realize these updates about my book uploads and grand plans might be a little excessive, but I know that soon, Camp NaNoWriMo will be up and running (like in a week and a half!) and I want to have all this stuff straightened out by then. I also won’t be able to devote much time to blogging here, and I know you, dear reader, will miss me… Mwah!

Jun

2014

Why I wrote a Prequel to My First Book

Continue reading →

Jun

2014

The Inventor’s Son Prologue has been Released!

The Inventor’s Son Prologue has been released in the Kindle Store

This prologue to The Inventor’s Son series begins with a seemingly innocuous meeting during which a promising new technology for amputees and soldiers is demonstrated. However, it is soon discovered that the mastermind who created those miraculous prosthetic limbs has only one true intention. He wants to discredit and then destroy the family of his former student, Marcus Stanwood.
A brilliant but flawed inventor and scientist himself, Marcus knows firsthand how ruthless and pitiless his former professor and mentor can be. He sets a desperate plan in motion, and the fate of his son Ethan will hinge on his success or failure.
The Inventor’s Son Prologue is an introduction to a Victorian London that could have been, and a young boy whose life is destined to change dramatically overnight.

May

2014

Living in Dystopia

(Set that title to the tune of “Living in America” as performed by the late, great James Brown.)

Yes, I put the video there, not that it has all that much to do with this post, but it is funny!
Imagine a post-war America where the president must resign before getting impeached. An America where thousands of soldiers, suffering from PTSD, are coming home to a country divided. There are nuclear power plants that leak. It is a country where there are long lines for fuel, and the internet is only for a very select few. Computers need to be built by hand in garages, and the individual is discouraged from trying to own one themselves, being told that it is “unnecessary” and a “toy” and “too expensive.”
Television, if you can get it, is restricted to a handful of channels, and they are never in the schools. Telephones are only attached to walls or to a cord beside one’s bed.
All bread is soft, squishy and white, and no one has any idea what gluten is. The portions of food are a quarter of the size you are accustomed to, and clothing sizes are much smaller as well. To reheat food, one needs to turn on the oven and hope they don’t burn the plate.
Children go outside for recess and take their lives into their hands climbing on monkey bars and the slides are all metal and gray. Their only means of communication with each other is speaking face to face or the occasional, very risky, handwritten note.
Welcome to the Dystopia of the 1970’s. (I’m sure there’s a lot that I missed, let me know in the comments if you want to!)
Hell, even the people in the Hunger Games books had remote controls for their televisions, didn’t they?

May

2014

The Joys and Perils of Owning a Paperback Book

UPDATE: As of this morning, I have sold two copies of my book, and had one person borrow it with their Amazon Prime account. Yay! Baby steps, my friends, baby steps. And as you can see, my makeover of this blog is ongoing.

Recently I was looking through my bookcase. It’s a real, raw wood one that I’m not sure you can get anywhere anymore. Over the years, there have been books that have been “keepers” as well as ones that had a temporary place on the shelf until I would trade them in or donate them to Goodwill. One of the ones that I kept, for some reason, was this one:

Pearl in the Mist, Book 2 of The Landry Series, by V.C. Andrews

The foil on the cover is a bonus. I don’t think you can get anything like this anymore, even if Pearl in the Mist is actually still in print. One thing you really can’t get with an ebook is this:

The peek-a-boo cover, exclusively available with paperback books.

Yes, I suppose one could upload two covers… Although I’ve never seen this as an option. Oh, I know, you’d probably insert the picture right into the text of the book. I’m not sure. I’d have to try it for myself. Anyway, I used to LOVE this when I was reading V.C. Andrews’ books, and would go out of my way to find ones that had this kind of cover, usually the first edition in paperback.
But there’s a price to pay for the glitz… I opened the book and was shocked by what I saw:

Look, they even gave you a cool bookmark that you could detach from the back cover for free!

When I did this:

Terrible acid burning!

I am not certain whether it was only that I kept it in a raw wooden bookcase. For most of its life the book was in a climate controlled (air conditioned and heated) environment, was not put out in the sun… But this is what happens to many of the mass-market paperback books. This copy was $6.50 full retail price back in the day (copyright 1994) so even by 20 years ago standards, that’s pretty expensive! Was this book published with cheaper paper made with a lot of wood pulp? For $6.50 you’d think you’d get at least paper that had the acid buffered out of it.
Now, of course, if I wanted a permanent copy of this book, I’d get the ebook version, fancy covers be damned. The ebook, so long as I own something on which to read it, will be there forever. All my paperbacks will eventually suffer the same fate as Pearl in the Mist.
Just something I thought about.

May

2014

My Book, The Inventor’s Son, Has Gone Live!

If you like a book that’s got a Steampunk feel to it, has plenty of tension and some action, geared toward people who like YA, then check it out: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFK3WKA

May

2014

Here is the Cover for My New Book!

The Inventor’s Son Cover

I was hoping to get a feeling of this being like an old fashioned book cover rather than the ones we see all the time with photoshopped images on them.
I’ve uploaded the book to Amazon. As of right this second it’s still “in review” but I previewed it (to death) last night and everything looked good there.
I hope that from the cover it’s fairly evident that it’s a Steampunk book… I’m experimenting as much as I am writing. I remember years ago when I was in art class, I was working on a project that everyone else was doing. I had started making my sketches different than the other students, and suddenly, I got nervous, so I changed it to make my sketches look like everyone else. When it came time for the teacher to look at what we were doing, he looked at mine and said, “Well, you were going to do something different, but I’m disappointed that you ended up doing what everyone else did.” I took those words to heart.
Sorry if my thoughts seem a little disjointed; I’ve been up all night after hitting that “Save and Publish” button. Gonna make myself some coffee and then start doing my make over of this page as well as my Twitter, Facebook (yeah, just made the page yesterday, sigh) and all that…
If you’ve got any opinions, please let me know what you think!

Mar

2014

When Characters Threaten Your Plot!

Embed from Getty Images

I had encountered a problem between writing the first and second drafts of my first book in my series. I think it is a problem that authors encounter more often than we think.
First, I’ll give you a little background. While outlining Book 1 (and planning the overall arc for the entire series of books), I went into planning the characters. My main character is a twelve year old boy. His main antagonist seemed to be his power hungry uncle. Like most villains, my uncle character had a few “allies,” including a mad scientist character. I had plans for another character, one I titled “Malcolm’s Wizard Ally” in my Evernotes…
The mad scientist and his two lackeys were all a “go.”
But I almost didn’t bother with “Malcolm’s Wizard Ally” at all, until I did something that I advise all writers to do at some point during all stages of the writing process: I got up and went for a walk. Well, I have two dogs to walk, so this makes it perfect for me to get out of the chair and get some air. (If you don’t have a dog, I still recommend going for a walk, preferably without anyone who needs to chit-chat with you while doing so.)
That walk changed the entire course of the series…because that was when I managed to fully imagine this new character in my mind, gave him a name, gave him something to do to make the main character’s life a living hell. It almost seemed like this new character was a godsend. But he turned into a distraction. Suddenly, he was popping up everywhere in the plot, even where he really had no place. He’s just like that!
Yes, he was hijacking my entire series!
I think this may happen more often with villain characters than good guys, but I could be wrong. I also have seen and heard over and over about characters that even readers will like more than the main character! Something tells me that these characters had origins just like the one I developed.
So, I had a decision to make. Do I let him just run wild all over the place and make the story all about what he’s doing to torment my main character, or do I rein the old bastard in? Confession time: half of the material I wrote for NaNoWriMo last November were scenes between this character and my main character! Therefore, I’d venture to say that I have a lot of Book 3 written (at least the first draft) already (yay me).
And I discovered something while writing out this problem character. The problem wasn’t with the villainous witch. The problem was really with my main protagonist. He was weak and was not being challenged enough. He was being coddled by the other good guy characters, and he was having too easy a time of it. I’ve found out that not making my main character strong enough allowed this sort of phenomenon to happen, that other characters began to outshine him.
Every supporting character is supposed to be just that, supporting the main character, even if that “support” is not exactly beneficial for the main character achieving their goals. Yes, it feels nice to “be nice to” my main character, but his character is not built if I make things too easy for him. By sending this new character, this force of nature, to make trouble for my main character, I’m strengthening him, not weakening him!

It turns out that my main character is going to have what it takes to rein in this character. It’ll take a few books to do it, of course ;-), but it’ll happen!
Did you ever experience this phenomenon I’ve described? I found the only way to deal with it was to write as many scenes as I could with this character and my main character and work out how to strengthen the main character so he could stand up to this guy. Had you found any other methods for dealing with this issue?
As I stated in a previous post, Camp NaNoWriMo starts next week!

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