Historical Fiction: A Delightful Second Choice

...when done correctly.

First hand written accounts of historical events are something that I treasure greatly. There is nothing better than to get an accurate account of an important historical event. I love history just as much as I love writing. Today I found myself giving my daughter a history lesson about WWII and just how it affected the world today. When people say that history is in the past, I give a little chuckle. I could write a book on how that particular war changed the very face of the world and is the backdrop to the current events that are going on today.

Thanks to the ugly side of the Internet, I've been reading for white supremacists that African history is insignificant until the white man came through. I thoroughly reject that argument and began doing research and found it patently false. I turned to Haiti when I learned of the slave rebellion but there is not many witnesses that recorded the history. It was a gruesome history but history nonetheless.

During my research, I learned of a wonderful book, 'Island Beneath The Sea' by a wonderful author Isabel Allende. I am currently reading this book and I can't put it down. I haven't gotten to the Haitian Revolution and am having a fine time reading about the characters. Even though they are fictional, they seem so real and the story is building to a great climax to when the revolution starts.

I highly recommend the story, especially if you are into that time in history. Of if you happen to subscribe to white supremacist ideology....

Amazon Authors! What's Up With All The Serials?

Yes Harry Potter was an exceptional example of a successful series, but if you're not a known name, then your series won't be worth the paper that it was written on.

Yeah, I'm kind of cynical about them, but hear me out first.

Within minutes, my cat can become an author on Amazon and publish whatever she wants to basically. I don't have a problem with that at all. It's just that publishing serials doesn't work for the average reader.

When you're new, you want to write an amazing story from beginning to end. When you write a serial, you don't want to leave out so much that the reader HAS to purchase the second book in order to find out what happens. If this is your first time, what if you suck? You're almost guaranteeing that they won't come back.

New writers need to find their audiences in different  ways than teasing their audiences with books that are sixty six pages long and that have titles that say this is "Book #1 out of 60 of the Dragon Knight Baby Specials"

Huh?

Have you even built an audience yet with the more  traditional route?
What makes you so sure that I'm going to stick with you long enough to read through the second book all the way to your sixtieth?

It's presumptious.

Stick with your first book and knock them dead with that one. Join book clubs that deal with the subject matter that you're writing in. Smooze book club owners. Talk with other writers. Utilize social media. Create a blog. Read other books in the same genre. Read books in other genres. Completely immerse yourself in the world of writing. Find out what the experts are doing. Find out what the idiots are doing and then, don't do that.

Then if you think you've got what it takes to write a trilogy (and God help you if you don't) go for it. It better be damn good and damn worth it.

A writer should never go into a project thinking that they want to create a series off the bat unless they are under a contract to do so. You, as the inexperienced writer with no base, have no clue that people will give a crap about what you write. You could very well be wasting your time.

Write that first novel but leave a little room at the end to possibly create a teaser. Then wait damnit. Wait. Check the reviews. Have other people professionally critique your work. Mull some ideas over in your head for a possible part two of the series.

Have you ever seen any of the Pirates of The Caribbean movies? The first one was genius but then the scripts became some overloaded with such nonsense that even Johnny Depp threw up his hands and said, "I don't even know what this means!"

You're in the business of writing and entertaining people. You want them sitting on the edge of their beds while their spouses are asleep waiting to jump up at any moment and scare the daylights out of them. You want them rooting for your characters! You don't want the main character in the middle of the scene that YOU wrote saying, "What the fuck is THIS shit?" It's not good.

 Concentrate on what makes a great story. Concentrate on how to tell a great story. Then go from there. If you're new in the game, the trilogy will come much further down the line. Captivate your readers and then you shall build a great and loyal audience. They will follow you wherever you go from there.

Getting Stuck

Ugh....

Writer's block sucks. You have this great outline that details your story from beginning to end and then Bam! You're stuck. What do you do?

With me, it's more self doubt.

This plot isn't plausible. I'm going to lose all credibility with this scene. No one is going to believe this. It's just too out there. My reader is going to throw their Kindle against the wall and then send me the bill for it.

My thing? Continue to write the story. Stopping is Death. Write until the end and then do the rewrite. Find the flaws and pull them apart. Don't stop writing. Don't stop giving up.
 

J.K. Rowling and Writing

It's happened. The most popular writer on the planet famous for the Harry Potter series has come out with a novel very different from her usual work.

The Casual Vacancy is causing a media storm that is not going to let up soon. A million copies have been sold at the time of this blog post and it hasn't hit the stores thanks to pre-orders.

Because of Mrs. Rowling's celebrity, many people are waiting to see if she, who's famous for witches and wizards, can write a novel geared towards adults.

The haters (and I hate that word) have their fangs showing and they're ready to tear her novel to pieces if she can't stand up to the critics. Surely any work should stand on its own merit but there will be those that are already naysayers and the book isn't even available in the stores yet.

I've already heard from several other writers that they don't believe that a  writer has the ability to switch genres like Mrs. Rowling has braved to do.

To them I say it is pure utter nonsense. Most agents and publishers admonish writers, telling them to write what you know and then stick to it!

It is utter nonsense that it's impossible to switch genres for good storytellers. I use the word storyteller because I believe the two are very separate. It's one thing to use proper English and grammar, delivering four hundred pages to an editor ready to publish.

Storytelling goes back to ancient times. It's the oldest form of entertainment. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors sat around a fairly new invention to keep themselves warm as the storytellers would make up stories to explain their way of life. You can teach someone to write. You can show them the rules of grammar. You can show them how to create the perfect sentence.

But you can't teach someone how to tell the perfect story.

I've always envied songwriters as well for they tell stories in a shorter version. I've always dreamed of becoming a writer when I was a young girl and that's where I am today.

Real storytellers can tell a story in any genre and keep an audience mesmerized. If Mrs. Rowling was able to do that with Harry Potter and keep a couple of billion children entertained, I'm sure she won't let the adult fans of her work down. 

Sex Therapy For Free Today!

It sure is fun to see your book being purchased or at least downloaded. I'm hoping that if the reviews come in, they are positive. This was taken June 18, 2012 2:37PM.

Writing While In Pain

I love writing. I'm so stressed out with everything, especially my health, that I feel like I have nowhere else to turn. Writing is it.

But I've lost focus over these past few weeks. Dealing with my disability, home life, and worried about my future has started to take its toll.

I can't help but watch television, even  commercials, and see beautiful, laughing carefree adults just living their lives. Sometimes, I want so bad to be apart of that.

Just a week ago, laughing was something that I couldn't do. Singing was out of the question. Holding a conversation with someone was difficult because of  severe lung obstruction disease.

If you're reading this, don't ever take your health for granted. If you smoke, stop. If you eat unhealthy, stop. If you use drugs, stop. It's not worth it in the end. Don't be one of those idiots that say, "You gotta die from something, right?" You don't have to die on a ventilator. You don't have to die from overdose. You don't have to die from a heart attack.

I had the most scary experience in my life May 14, 2012. I was NO longer in control of my body. I no longer had the say so of whether I lived or died. If you continue to do some of the things you do, taking your health for granted then you need to start writing a will now. Start telling your loved ones how you really feel. Because you won't be around much longer if you abuse your health and take it for granted.

Writing is one of the few things that I can do without getting short of breath nowadays and I never smoked a cigarette or did an illegal drug in my life. I don't eat fried foods and eat plenty of vegetables, fish, chicken, etc. I don't have the healthiest diet, but it's not the worst.

Tread carefully.

What's Next?

Currently, I'm working on so many projects that I want to eventually publish, it's making my head spin. But I take it all in stride. Writing is what I love to do. Reading comes second to that. I try to write something every day but I get so distracted by things that don't matter. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't get so distracted by the television or my obsession with Googling.

I can google all day long before I realize that the day is now over. Hopefully I can finish these projects. Stay tuned, got some great stories coming up.


Tea of the Day: NONE..

Seriously Flawed

Ho hum Ho hum.

Reviewers that don't read your book?

Here they come.

Leaving mass destruction behind,

With a star or two.

You're a babbling idiot behind a keyboard, she said.

If they only knew.

You've worked hard on your book,

You've believed in it from the start.

Secured by their anonymity,

Like a dagger through your heart.

Other reviews come in,

Lavishing praises here and there.

But you'll never forget those harsh words,

There will be more, so beware.


Recently I read another forum post where all of these people, most who have never written or published anything, were taking many writers to task over simple mistakes. We all make them. Even books published by major publishing houses have major grammatical and spelling errors.

If there are one or two errors, MOST people move on, possibly even forgetting that they existed.

But TOO MANY errors become distracting. If your reader is so busy correcting your grammar, then they aren't getting lost into your story. You want your readers lost in your story. You want your reader to look up at the clock, amazed at the amount of time that has gone by while reading your words.

It is the ultimate compliment.

I read a book once about a young woman that was dealing with Lupus. Since I have lupus, I was very interested in hearing her story.

The problem? The first sentence lasted for an entire page without one punctuation mark. I desperately tried to get into the book, but I liken it to listening to someone's thoughts. Here is an example: (NOTE: These are not the actual words of the book)

Lupus is an autoimmune disease okay like your cells going haywire and instead of attacking diseases and bacteria that's not supposed to be there it attacks your organs like your kidneys, liver, brain, and other things and it does not discriminate because my friend has lupus and it attacked her heart when it attacked my lungs.....

I hope you get the picture. That was probably the worst I've seen so far. I try to give each writer the benefit of the doubt and ignore spelling and bad punctuation. Hell, I even cringe at a misplaced comma in my own work. Thankfully, you can edit the changes, and upload a corrected copy to Amazon. I took full advantage of that. So no one is perfect.

But if the reader can barely make out what you're trying to say, it's time to take it back to the drawing board and rewrite my friends.


But after reading the forum posts, I have concluded that SOME people LOOK for errors your book. I just made an error. Did you catch it? I didn't...not while I was typing it. I caught it on the third read and I'm going to leave it there as a great example. They are not interested at all in your story but will sit there and count the mistakes you make. Bored people? Maybe. Unemployed editors shaking their fists at society by taking it out on a few amatuer writers? That would be kind of funny but not really. Or are they consumers who feel like they are spending their money and time, wanting nothing more than a quality product? I could see that too.

But God help you if you misuse a comma or a homonym.

Okay...I have to agree with the homonym thing. Your and You're or there and their. Mixed up homonyms are my pet peeve. They seriously are. Many writers aren't the best grammaticians. Hell if we were, then we'd be editors...not writers. But using the wrong homonym? Not acceptable.

My advice? Read your book over and over again until you damn near have the words memorized. Join a writer's group and have them read it. It is very helpful to get feedback from different people. It will help you in the long run. Then read your damn copy again and again. There are things that I missed when I read my current book, Sex Therapy, when I began editing it the first time.

We will talk about formatting in another post.

Tea Of The Day: Ginger Peach, Tangy Tangerine

Evernote

Evernote is where I keep ideas for stories and articles that I write. It will save entire clippings of items and pictures that you find on the internet and store it for you. I have seven different notebooks in my Evernote that EFFORTLESSLY sync to my Android phone and computer! Even my iPad! I recommend it for writers to use if you want to keep your notes organized. I used to keep all of my notes in Microsoft One Note. Ingenious program but I had it installed on my infamous Dell laptop. I lost everything, including some notes for upcoming screenplays that I've been working on. I had the plots and characters fleshed out from here to next Sunday...all gone.

So I Drink A Lot of Tea

I have somewhere around thirty boxes of any kind of tea that you can think of. Since I have plenty of health issues, I had to forgo most writers drink of choice; wine. So I drink tea and lots of it.

My favorite is Ginger Peach tea that you can find at pretty much any Panera Bread. I like fruity flavors, which is what my mother mostly drank when I was a little girl. There are times when I spice things up with a rare brand of Chai or one of my other favorites, Morning Thunder. Wakes me up in the morning.

I'm running out of space in my cupboard for all my teas so.....I better get to this writing thing, huh? TEA OF THE DAY: GINGER PEACH TEA