Animosity?

Lately, articles have been written discussing the animosity between writers who publish traditionally and those who self-publish (often called “indie” publishing) through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, etc.

I have to admit my first thought was “Really?” In my experience, I’ve received a lot of love and support both from indie writers and traditionally published writers. Maybe I just have really nice friends (which is true). But why should we have animosity? We’re all in the same boat. We’re writers who are selling books. And that’s a hard thing. The ideal of the “lonely” (happy/undistracted) writer who sits in his/her garret writing doesn’t exist anymore. We all have to market.

I’m sure there are many writers who have the natural gift for marketing, but I suspect most don’t. Most writers I know are introverts—it’s part of the nature of being an observer. We’re people watchers. Some of us have it really bad. My grandfather used to go to the airport an hour or more before a relative’s flight was due. When I asked him why, he smiled and with a twinkle in his eye said, “To watch the people.” BTW, if you’ve never people-watched at an airport, it’s amazing. I mean where else do you get honeymooners, white knuckled travelers, harried businessmen, giddy children, etc.? There are enough stories there to fill an anthology.

Oops. Sorry for that digression—I loved my grandfather. But marketing is hard, especially for someone who’d rather watch from the sidelines. When I have to speak in front of strangers, I hope and pray for a podium so people won’t see my quivering legs. Seriously, the whole “knocking knees” thing is not a cliché. It’s my reality.

Publishing of any kind is hard. That’s why you need a cheering section. Whether you’re indie or traditional, you need high fives when you reach a sales goal. You need someone to say “Great cover.” Or “go back to the drawing board.” Sometimes, you need someone to say, “That agent/editor/reviewer is an idiot.” And you need someone to say, “You should read my friend’s novel—it’s great!”

On that note, I want to thank all my writing friends, people that prove all the articles wrong. You all are amazing. Thanks!!! Maybe those journalists should talk to me and my friends. Of course, that wouldn’t be much of a story—Writer thinks her writing friends are supportive, dear people. Yeah, that won’t sell too many newpapers. But it’s a wonderful reality.

N.B. We have a winner in last week's contest!! The winner of Susan Kaye Quinn's novel Closed Minds is Ariel! Yay!!

Closed Hearts!

As I promised yesterday, here's Susan Kaye Quinn's latest book. I'm very excited to read it, and I'll definitely be signing up for her contest.

If you'd like a chance to win an e-copy of her book, be sure to leave a comment on this post along with your e-mail address. (My blog's contest will close next Monday just before midnight and I'll announce the winner on Tuesday.) Enjoy.


Announcing the release of Closed Hearts, the sequel to Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn.

Book Two of the Mindjack Trilogy

When you control minds, only your heart can be used against you.

Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders’ fears and strips jackers of their rights. While some jackers flee to Jackertown—a slum rife with jackworkers who trade mind control favors for cash—Kira and her family hide from the readers who fear her and jackers who hate her. But when a jacker Clan member makes Kira’s boyfriend Raf collapse in her arms, Kira is forced to save the people she loves by facing the thing she fears most: FBI agent Kestrel and his experimental torture chamber for jackers. Now available! $2.99 Ebook at Amazon (and Amazon UK) and Barnes and Noble Request a Kindlegraph Paper copies available at Amazon or get signed copies from the author

Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling YA novel Open Minds,  Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. Susan's business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist," but she mostly plays on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

CLICK HERE to join the Virtual Party for Closed Hearts

(including bonus content for the Mindjack Trilogy and writerly guest posts) 

and/or 

ENTER TO WIN prizes below

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Winners!!

We have a winner!! Actually, we have two winners. I really enjoyed doing the contest, so I decided to have two winners!

The two winners are: Katie and Sharmon. Please email me: c (dot) marie (dot) keller (at) gmail (dot) com, so I can send you the book. (BTW, I had some issues with the Rafflecopter software. Some comments didn't show up. Other people commented, but they didn't show up in the Rafflecopter entry list. So I wrote everyone's name down on slips of paper, and we pulled two names out of the hat. And, of course, if you had multiple entries, you got extra slips of paper.)

I have another big announcement. Tomorrow there will be another chance to win a free book. But this time the book will be Susan Kaye Quinn's new novel, Closed Hearts. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm very excited to do so. I read the first book in the series Open Minds, and it was great! It convinced me that indie books can be every bit as good as traditionally published books.

Isn't the cover amazing! Here's the book blurb:

When you control minds, only your heart can be used against you.

Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders’ fears and strips jackers of their rights. While some jackers flee to Jackertown—a slum rife with jackworkers who trade mind control favors for cash—Kira and her family hide from the readers who fear her and jackers who hate her. But when a jacker Clan member makes Kira’s boyfriend Raf collapse in her arms, Kira is forced to save the people she loves by facing the thing she fears most: FBI agent Kestrel and his experimental torture chamber for jackers.


So make sure you come back tomorrow for a chance to win this book.

Screwing Up Time Giveaway

In order to celebrate summer--the best time of the year to read a good book (besides winter when you curl up in front of the fire place), I'm giving away a free Kindle copy of Screwing Up Time. You can enter by leaving a blog post comment. And you can earn extra entries by following me on Twitter, etc. Just follow the directions on the Rafflecopter widget below. The contest closes on 12:01 am on Monday, May 22 EST. And if you've already read the book and enjoyed it, let your friends know so they can enter. (Also, if you win and you've already read the book, you can "gift" it to someone else.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rhythm in Writing

Often in fiction we talk about voice, language, and tone. Aspects of writing that apply to individual words and sentences. But there aren’t too many discussions about the rhythm or the pacing of individual sentences. Rhythm is something that we’ve given over to poetry.

Though, that hasn’t always been the case. Shakespeare wrote his plays with careful attention to rhyme, meter, rhythm, verse, etc. I’m not suggesting a return to that (I suspect there are very few of us who know/remember enough scansion to even scan Shakespeare’s plays correctly). But I think there’s a lesson to be learned.

Fluidity, if you want a different word for rhythm, is very important to writing. Even fiction writing. I think there’s some acknowledgement of that in “found poetry.” If you aren’t familiar with the concept of found poetry, it’s when a poet/writer takes another’s writing and reworks it to form a poem. Though altering someone else’s text makes me a little uncomfortable, it highlights the fact that some prose is so lovely that it is poetic.

While literary writers aspire to poetic writing, I believe that all writers can benefit from paying attention to rhythm. Think about the best books in the genres you read and write. Do the words on a page stream along? Then the author has put a lot of work into rhythm.

How do we, as writers, grow in this area? One of the best ways that I’ve stumbled across is to read aloud. I know, I know. You don’t want to hear it. I resisted reading aloud for years, but it’s the first step to getting a feel for rhythm in your own writing. If you’re reading aloud and your reading stumbles, ask yourself, “Why?” Figure out how you can fix it. And don’t start from chapter one. It’s too easy to get caught up in the plot and ignore the words. Start from the last chapter. Read it aloud to the end of the chapter. Then go to the second to the last chapter, and read it aloud. And so on, until you finish the first chapter.

Yes, it takes a long time. Yes, it will take you longer to get a book finished. But it will begin to teach you how to listen for rhythm. And surprisingly enough, you’ll hear more than rhythm. You’ll see which scenes are underdeveloped, which actions and emotions feel false, and which passages of dialogue are stilted.

Go on, try it.

And if you do read your own books aloud, I’d love to hear what you’ve learned. And if you’ve found other ways to work on rhythm, I’d love to hear them too.