Spirit’s One Monthaversary!

So Spirit has been live for one whole month now. It’s still strange to me to have this series finished. I’m happy to say the characters haven’t left me though. I still see their faces in my mind and hear their voices whispering to me.

The reason why that is so amazing is that it means there’s a possibility to future stories. I’ve talked about a spin off series in the future featuring Shay in her new life but I think it might be possible to have some other stories come out in the future. I like the idea of possibly writing some short stories in that world. Possibly written from Steven or Jodi’s point of view.

Maybe I’ll be able to write some stories about their pasts, some small adventures they’ve lived through that you all missed? Or something in the college years (at least for Jodi and Steven, lol). I don’t want to make any promises or say anything too terribly specific, but I do think it’s a strong possibility.

I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to start writing the first book in the spin off series, but some fun short stories might get my gears moving! 

Genres and Where Should Your Book Live?

I thought I’d talk a little about genres. They can be so confusing, yeah? Yeah.

One of the biggest things writers have to know when they are submitting their work to agents and publishers is what genre their book is. It seems like this should be pretty obvious to most people, I mean, you wrote your book, you should know this, right? Eh, maybe.

Here’s how it can get confusing.

One big example is Dystopian vs. Post-Apocalyptic. A lot of the time these two terms are thrown around as interchangeable and they really are not.

Dystopian, as you can imagine, comes from the concept of Utopian. The big thing about Dystopian books is that the characters in the book don’t actually realize they are living in a Dystopian society, they’re supposed to believe they’re in a Utopian society and then come to realize, as the story goes, that things aren’t so awesome.

The Hunger Games is a Dystopian story. The farther away you live from the Capital, the more obvious your life isn’t awesome, but supposedly life is better than it was before.

Post-apocalyptic means the world has ended and you know, and the characters know, life is officially crap and you’re just trying to survive until you can make things better. There is no fooling anyone when it comes to Post-apocalyptic like there is in Dystopian.

I recently read The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. That is Post-apocalyptic. The aliens have invaded and they are systematically wiping out the human population (that is not a spoiler by the way; you know that by page one). You’re running around, just trying to survive and find other survivors and not get vaporized by the creepy alien dudes. No fooling anyone there.

Another confusion set of genres is Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy.

I write in Urban Fantasy, almost exclusively. Urban Fantasy (UF) is set in a real world, modern city setting. Paranormal Romance (PR) can be set in the exact same space. UF has magic. So does PR. What’s the big difference? Whether or not the story hinges on the romantic plot of two characters.

In PR the whole story, no matter what is going on, depends on the developing romantic relationship in the story. In UF there can be a romantic subplot going through the story, but the main conflict of the story does not depend on the romantic subplot. See why my Elemental series wasn’t a Paranormal Romance? In the beginning Shay and Jensen are coming together and apart all the damn time but the big conflict had nothing to do with them hooking up. The big conflict was Shay and her friends rescuing someone before the big bad villain killed them.

So if you’re trying to decide what genre your book is, take a moment and think, “Where would a bookstore shelve my book?” Then decide what the subgenre is. And don’t think your book doesn’t fit into a specific genre. I often hear writers say, “Well, my book could be this or that or A or B…” No. It fits in one place and then you can say what its subgenre is.

For example, a Paranormal Romance is first a Fantasy because it has fantastical elements, like magic. So your book, The Magical Ride of the Phoenix is Fantasy: Paranormal Romance. And of course the age group is important.

So, speaking of Age Groups! There’s a lot of hoopla going around the internets lately about a newly emerging age group: New Adult. A lot of people are against letting this become a thing. Personally, I am not. I think there is a strong market for New Adult, just not a lot of people know about it yet.

The basic age groups go like this: Picture Books, Chapter Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Adult.  

Picture books are obviously for kids who can’t read yet. Then Chapter Books are for kids who can read up until about age 10 or so (give or take depending on the kid). Then Middle Grade is for kids ages 10-12 and then Young Adult is intended for Teens, so 13-18. Obviously we all accept that when someone is 18-years-old they are officially an adult, right? So anything that has characters older than 18 means that book is an Adult book. Sure, sure, but do you remember being 18 or 19 years old? Are you in your late 20’s now? How about 30’s or 40’s? Have your experiences with life drastically changed over the years?

Would you say your life from ages 18-21 were ANYTHING like your life from age 28-35? Probably not, right? I started college when I was 17 years old and graduated at 21 years old. I was engaged to be married at 22 ½ and married at 24. Not a huge length of time between 17 and 24, right? But you can just imagine how different my life was while in college than what is was like by the time I was engaged and planning a wedding.

So I think there is a place in the book world for “New Adult.” People are making jokes that if we allow New Adult that soon we’ll have Middle Aged and Senior Citizen, blah blah blah. I get that argument, but I think it’s farfetched personally, but you could disagree.

But back to classifying your work. So, when I was deciding what Earth: Book One in the Elemental Series was it came down to this: Young Adult Urban Fantasy.

So do your research and don’t make it so hard on yourself. Your book has a home somewhere, not somewheres.

What I’ve been up to May 24, 2013 edition

My my my, I have been a bad blogger. It has nearly been a whole month since I last posted anything – right before Spirit went live. I’m going to try to make up for that in the coming weeks.

So what have I been doing? Surprisingly enough, I’ve been writing. I know, right?! Crazy!

I’ve shared with you all in the past that I already started on the next few projects that I was planning after the conclusion of the Elemental Series. The first book in a new Urban Fantasy series (Adult this time around, not Young Adult), was finished in early February and I’ve been submitting to agents. I’m super superstitious so I’m not going to talk about that anymore, but I did start on the sequel to that book and finished it on Tuesday.

I’m not wholly happy with it and I know it needs work, but that’s what the editing stage is for. Anyone who has asked me how to get through writing a whole book has heard me say, “Just write the damn thing. No matter how crappy it is, just get the first draft done.” Because you can’t fix what hasn’t been written. So I’m okay with not being wholly happy with it. I will fix it in editing and after my betas rip it apart.

But before I wrote that sequel I wrote a whole different book, a post-apocalyptic book. This was totally outside my wheelhouse, but I wanted to see if I could do it. Again, not wholly happy with it. And really, I thought it was just going to sit in my hard drive and never see the light of day, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and I might print it off and take my red pen to it.

The Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic market is pretty well saturated right now and most agents are feeling a little overwhelmed with this genre, so I think, if I can make it shiny and awesome, I might self-publish this one. So you might see something new from me sooner rather than later. I am debating putting it out as a whole novel or serializing it (offering it in episodes). We’ll see how I feel about it after I edit it and give it to some betas and get some feedback on it. This one is New Adult (the main characters are 18-20) and focuses on a romantic relationship. So again, slightly different than what I’ve written before. If I jive on it and decide it is worth putting out there, it would be a trilogy.

And between that novel and the one I finished on Tuesday, I wrote a novella. So since January 1^st, I’ve written a whopping total of 247,660 words. Yep, almost a quarter million words. Needless to say, I’m feeling a wee bit burnt out. I have officially given myself permission to take a little time off between projects to recharge my batteries.

At the first of the year I made a few writing resolutions. This was the list:

3-4 novels

3 novellas

1 short story

So I’ve completed 3 novels, 1 novella and 0 short stories and it’s only May. That seems pretty incredible to me. But I might’ve set the bar too high, or tried too hard to reach it too fast. I need a break.

It’s incredibly difficult for me to go any length of time and not write. I feel lost and like I’m wandering in fog. But I need to take some time off, if I don’t my writing will suffer for it. I wish my hubs and I could go somewhere for a real vacation because that would really help, but it’s not in the cards right now. Luckily it’s sunny and warm in my part of the state so I’ll read and relax and drink in the sun and when my head is in the right space, I’ll start editing some of this finished work. I really hope to have news of new work for you guys to read soon.

Spirit Goes Live Soon and I'm Not Writing

I haven’t written a word today on my new work in progress.

Tonight I hit “publish” on the final installment of my Young Adult Paranormal series: The Elemental Series. Spirit will be live and the series will be finished. I’ve talked about the possibility of a spin off series in the near future, but I haven’t started on it yet because both, I and my characters, needed a break from that world.

Shay and I went on a five year adventure together. We’ve fought, cried and bled together and came out the other side whole and new. But now we needed some rest.

So I started a new series with a new world and new characters. I’ve completed the first book and am working on the second, but I haven’t written anything today. I’m not sure that I can. Shay was the first voice in my head that stuck around long enough for me to tell her whole story and because we’re celebrating the end of the series, the anniversary of the start of the series and mourning the close, I just can’t seem to hear my other characters’ voices today. I’m sure tomorrow they’ll come roaring back to me, wondering why I took a couple of days off while they were on the cusp of a bloody battle, but not today.

I’m in a weird kind of fugue today. I expected to be excited to release this book, just a bundle of nerves, terrified to hear what everyone thinks, but I’m not. I thought I might dread hitting publish today, but I don’t. I’m almost not even present. Maybe I’m afraid of how upset I’ll be when it hits me that The Elemental Series is over? I don’t know.

I do know that I’ve heard a lot of love from my readers who cannot wait for me to hit publish. And that is incredible. I remember when I first put out Earth almost exactly two years ago to this minute, and how each little sale made me jump for joy, and now I’ll have five novels out and Earth almost has 100 reviews on Amazon alone and readers are reaching out to me. It’s a little strange, wonderful, but strange. It certainly hasn’t felt like two years. Not even close.

I hope you guys like the book. I hope I ended the series well. I hope you’ll feel satisfied. I hope you’ll keep reading the new things I have planned. I hope Shay decides to start speaking to me again, soon. I hope for a lot of things.

I hope.

Water Goes Live!

So excited to say those words! The third book in my Elemental Series is finally live and ready to be read!

You can find it on these sites:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords

Once Smashwords distributes to iBooks and Kobo and the others, I’ll get those links to you as well.

I really hope you all enjoy this one; it was probably the hardest book for me to rewrite. There were a lot of things wrong with this book and I had to take out over 10,000 words to get it back on track. But I’m pretty happy with it now. I know there are going to be some things in this book that upsets some of my readers, and I’m sorry for that, but I have to write the story based on the characters I created, not what would make my readers the most happy. But hopefully you’ll forgive me and stay on this journey with me.

Also, stayed tuned! Next month A Tale of Many Reviews is hosting a blog tour for Water! Follow along for reviews, interviews and giveaways! I have a lot of new swag that I cannot wait to give away to my readers!

Happy reading everyone!

Writing with Dyslexia

This is a huge topic to tackle because a lot of people don’t understand it. Dyslexia isn’t just a straightforward “disability;” it has many flavors and extremes. It’s taken all of my life to understand it, and to be honest with you, there are days where I still don’t understand what my brain is doing.

First of all, let’s clear up some definitions. There is Dyslexia, where you have trouble with letters and then there is Dyscalculia, where you have trouble with numbers. I have both unfortunately. It wasn’t until high school that I knew I had it and I actually was diagnosed with Dyscalculia first.

I not only inverted numbers, but I also invert the operations of problems. If the problem said I should multiply, I would divide and vice versa. So I would get the problem right, if the operation was reversed. I stood and argued with a math teacher one day while she tried to get me to understand what I did wrong and it hit me like a slap in the face. Suddenly I realized why I was nearly failing that class and my teacher had sympathy for me for the first time ever.

Now for Dyslexia there are so many different ways it can affect you. The most simple is the obvious inverting letters. Children often get ‘b’ and ‘d’ mixed up (I will actually write b when I want d and vice versa to this day), the whole ‘i’ before ‘e’ totally throws me. I mean when I write the world field, it looks wrong to me, I want to write it “f-e-i-ld” but thankfully Word auto corrects that for me.

Another way it gets people is what I refer to as the “assumption dyslexia” where you’ll see the start of a word and your brain assumes what is it and is wrong. One example would be “cornflakes” and “cornstarch”. I very rarely do that one.

One that I do without thinking about is similar to "assumption dyslexia", if words are out of order on a page, I can totally read them as if they aren't. So if a sentence says, "You're this reading wrong" I can totally see that as, "You're reading this wrong." I've been told a lot of people without Dyslexia can do this one though, so I'm not sure that's an actual symptom.

One that totally throws my husband off is when I’m very, very tired I can take one syllable of one word and a syllable of the next word and switch them around. Kinda like the saying “knucking futs” (sorry, I couldn’t think of another commonly known one! Lol!). I cannot do it if I try and I cannot do it if I think about it. I just do it without thinking.

But my most common and frustrating trait of my Dyslexia is misusing homonyms. People think I just don’t know the proper meaning or possibly I’m not using an editor or proof reader, but really it’s that I’m mixing up the words. Here is a list of the words I most often mix up:

It’s and its

Heel and heal

Past and passed

Affect and effect

Led and lead

Peal and peel

I’m sure if you ask my proofreader and beta readers, they would tell you there are more, but these are the ones I am aware of. I know the definitions of all of these words, I know the difference, but when I go to write them, I think I’m wrong and go for the wrong word. It’s a vicious cycle. I actually have a bright pink post-it note on my desk with the definition of “Its vs It’s” so if I find myself questioning my choice, it’s right there for me to see.

When I finish a book I do a search for every occurrence of those words I listed and check to see if I used them right. I often have to change all of them. In my YA series my characters almost never wear heels so I can almost guarantee I’ll change any occurrence of that one. I had someone give me a hard time after posting a bit of flash fiction (didn’t send it to my proofreader, it was flash fiction for goodness sake!) because the character was wearing heels and I said her “heals click-clacked on the tiles.” I know the dude didn’t know me and didn’t know I had Dyslexia; it was just his choice of words to point out my mistake. It was kinda bully-ish. I mean, why be mean about something? Then when I point out that I’m dyslexic, you sounds like a jackass rather than like you were trying to help me. Anyway.

So how do I deal with my Dyslexia while writing? I just do. I got through high school and college with it – pulling my teachers aside at the beginning of the year each year to tell them about my problem – now that I’m an adult I have no one to tell to help me out or give me some slack. I know it’s a problem, my proofreader and editor knows about it and my betas know about it so they tell me when they catch the mix ups. I keep a list of my most common mix ups and do the search function to make sure I caught ‘em all and then just pray there weren’t any other I missed. At least I can always update and reupload if I missed one or two.

And seriously, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m totally forgetting things that have just become commonplace to me now.

But I’ll tell you one thing: I will be the first to catch the misuse of your and you’re and two, too and to.

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Remember, remember the fifth of November.

Dear Blog,

So apparently you're supposed to do as much social networking as possible even before you're somebody. I'm not really sure who wants to read a blog written by a nobody, but if I must then I shall.

As of today I have 3.5 manuscripts written, give or take a chapter. I just finished going through the first 3 with different colored pens for editing. I think book 1 is as strong as I can make it without professional help. I got through a third draft of book 2 and a second draft of book 3. I'm almost finished reading through the pages I have done on book 4. I was happily surprised this morning to find out that I had only printed 180 pages of 213 pages. That's 1.5 more chapters done than I thought I had. Once I finish reading these 33 pages I'll try to get back into the right head space to start again. Sadly I set this book down in the middle of June to go back to the much needed proof reading of the first 3 manuscripts. I just hope, with the help of the right music, I can find the voice of this story again.

I woke up this morning to yet another rejection, which brings the count up to 17. Now I know that's not nearly as many as "they" say to expect. But damn, every day I get one, it just sucks. On Oct 4th I got three, that was a bad day. Even though one of the agents liked my sense of humor in the letter. My husband, John, likes to say "That's just one more closer to a yes!" Days like those, I let him be the positive one.

Well today is the Fifth of November, and although its supposed to be to remember what people were willing to do in the face of oppression by their government, I'm going to try to remember what I'm fighting for. I want to quit my day job. I want to be published. I want to go to a book signing and see people there excited to meet me. I want my books to be important to someone, even if it was just a "fun read" for them and they got to escape the doldrums of life. Because that's why books are important to me. Life is so much more ordinary than any of us expected it to be, books let you get away from it even if just for a little while.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.