Blogs

Retrograde, Schmetrograde...

I've spent a fair amount of time talking to a couple people (Skyla being one of them) about planetary retrogrades this year. For myself, I've always been a weird sort of Mulder-Scully cross when it comes to this sort of thing. (And if you don't get the Mulder-Scully reference, shame on you.) I want to believe, but I question pretty much everything. I mean, astrology? I've read my horoscope since I was a little girl, but I haven't expected it to come true since I was about six.

This year, though, I really started to pay attention and the parallels in what I saw in others' lives (and my own) started to make me a believer...Read more

Happy Days are Here Again!

Today I'm not going to snark at you. I'm too happy to get all ruffled up about special snowflakes and poor etiquette. You see, today I finished writing my third novel. And I'm currently in a state of euphoria that even sparkly vampires can't drain from me.

I first started writing this book in 2007, two years before I was contracted for the first book in the series. I just couldn't finish it. Since then, I've written in spurts, a week here, a day there. But I couldn't find it in me to just get the job done.

Now I don't believe in writer's block. Never have, never will. As far as I'm concerned, it's an excuse for lazy writers. And that's what I was: a lazy writer.

But you know what? That's okay.

Sometimes a story will hit you and the words fly onto the screen so effortessly you don't even realize you're writing it. Other times, a story needs to be dragged kicking and screaming from your head to your keyboard. Either way, you're learning. You're growing as a writer.

And that's a happy thing.

Whoring Yourself

Subtitle: Self-promo, Spam and Sockpuppetry.

Let's talk a little about promotion, shall we?

There's a huge difference between self-promotion, the hard sell, and spam.
Here, have some examples. I love examples. I'm borrowing part of a piece I wrote on Skyla's blog about Twitter douchebaggery here:Read more

Evil Iago

So I've been doing some writing outside my normal genre the past week, and ran into a snag. I've got a couple that needs to get together and do the thing, fall in love, live happily ever after and so on. But as with all of my story characters, they need to experience a conflict or challenge before they get their cookie. With mystery and science fiction, my usual genre, this comes naturally - there will be a conflict and a whodunnit and a whole lot of wtf to figure out for the reader, usually with a thinly veiled, ambivalent villain revealed within the meat of the story.Read more

Are you a writer?

How do you know you’re a writer?Read more

Show Me the Money! Or... Not

First, just to clear up (again) a misconception the general public has about authors... we aren't all rolling in money from our books. Those people? They are the like... 0.1% of authors who top the bestseller lists and get movie/TV deals. Then there's a nice chunk of authors who make a living with their writing. Some make a very good living, and others make a very modest living. There's a chunk below that who work other full-time jobs and write on top of it because they don't make enough yet to quit that day job. And then there is another chunk who don't make much at all.

That is reality. It also means that of the authors who go to conventions and pimp their books (especially the larger and more expensive conventions), a fair number of them pay more than they made the previous year to attend.Read more

DOH!

I know I'm late in posting! Forgive me. This week has been a nightmare. Between doctor's appointments, the kids being home for Spring Break, writing deadlines, edits, and all those things...well, there aren't enough hours in the day.

Which brings me to the subject of my entry.

I'm not sure how it works for New York authors, but small press ones are an army of one. That's not to say we don't have help (or friends and other authors don't pimp us) but when it comes to things like promotion, giving out advanced reading copies, etc we are the ones who are responsible for making sure things get done. Normally this isn't a huge issue. Most people (especially those who converse with small pubbed authors) know that we're responsible for everything, so we might send an email twice, or forget to respond to something when we get busy or have to be nudged to send in interview questions. They also understand when we make mistakes.

At least, that used to be my experience in such things.

What I'm trying to say is sometimes (yes, this is dubious, but I'd rather not go there if you know what I mean) we all fuck up. Even if we have good intentions. Authors have to look out for themselves but in doing so may offend someone. Does that mean it's okay to go around pissing off the reading public? Absolutely not. It's just to say we're human. Sometimes we do things and realize in retrospect we should have approached situations differently. It's the way life works. You live and you learn. Sadly, in many ways, authors are held up to an impossible standard. We're not supposed to say anything when someone lashes out at us, we're not supposed to engage crazed readers who are angry at us for the things we write (or don't), and we're not supposed to show emotion.

Not happening. We are human, after all.

With that, I'm off to break up a fight between my kiddos. You know you're getting old when Spring Break goes from being something you look forward to, to something you dread.

Later, gators!

Jaime AKA J.A. Saare

Inigo Montoya will Show You the Way

The burden of a writer is to find new ways to say the same old thing. Which can be quite a challenge, but lucky for us, there is a lovely little thing called a thesaurus. Words, words, words. Take your pick and mix it up.

But be warned, my friends, because as a very wise man once said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”Read more

Dina Drinks Because You Suck

I drink because you suck.

Well, not really. I mean, I drink…uh…never mind. We're not here to talk about me. We're here to talk about you.

Well, maybe not you. Maybe someone you know. Maybe someone we both know. Maybe someone you have yet to meet. If that's the case, you're fortunate.Read more

What's in a Series?

Today, I want to write about series. Serieses? Serii? Anyway, multiple books related to each other.Read more