Monthly Archives: August 2011

10 Things I Believe About Writing

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With all the uncertainty in our economy and in the publishing industry, in particular, I thought it might be important to talk about the passion we all share. It’s the basic thing that drives us with such conviction. Whether you read books or create them, novels can lift our spirits, tug at our imaginations, make us believe in the impossible, and take us for a journey into the past. (Talk about a cheap vacation!) They dole out justice when it feels as if there’s none and they transcend international borders, making this a small world after all.
If you’re an aspiring author, I believe it’s harder to get noticed by traditional publishers these days, yet with the digital boom in e-books, I feel there is even greater potential for getting discovered in a whole new way that still feeds our addiction. So take heart. Below are my thoughts about writing and what I’ve learned on my journey.
1.      Tell YOUR story, your way. If you have enough drive, you will discover a unique story that you must tell. If you’re lucky, more stories will follow. Ideas for books can be a contagion worth embracing. Since you use your life’s experiences to filter through your characters, scenes and settings, only YOU can tell this story. How cool is that?!
2.      Develop a tough skin. There will always be negative people telling you that you can’t write or reviewers who think you should quit. Screw ‘em. If it matters to you, you will learn from your mistakes and keep doing what’s important to you. And if anyone thinks a book is easy to write, let them try. In fact, please be our guest.
3.      Be picky about your critique buddies. They can be invaluable if you find the right person or group, but too much of a good thing can dilute your voice. Whatever your story, this is your book. You must have a sense of who you are as a writer in order to push back on any advice that doesn’t fit you and only you can be the judge of that.
4.      Find the time to write regularly. Even if it’s only a few hundred words or a page a day, set attainable goals but don’t beat yourself up if life gets in the way. Write because it matters to you.
5.      Focus on the basics. Writing is the only thing you can control. Selling your project, promoting it, dealing with proposals, these things are not in your hands and can become a mental road block. When things get tough, your writing is the backbone of your passion.
6.      Keep writing. While you have a proposal out, don’t wait by the phone or the mailbox. Get on to that next project and learn from your last one. Push the envelope of your craft, because you can. It’s great to find success in a trend, but why not BE the trend?
7.      Trust your talent. As human beings, we all have self-doubt. Some hide it better than others. We all deal with it, but the voice and talent you have shown with each new project will follow you. Trust your ability to tell a story. Your basic talent will sustain you.
8.      Make the words bleed. If the story is worth telling, it’s usually because of the emotion you have to convey. Write what you fear, what you love, what you hate. Man has been telling stories since drawing on cave walls and within those stories has been the thrill of the hunt, the profound sorrow of death, or the joy of good fortune. Emotion connects us all, regardless of any language barrier.
9.      Support other authors. This is your world. Our world. We’re not in competition with each other. We’re up against people who choose video games or movies over books. Make them see how powerful the written word can be, how it triggers the magic of our imaginations. Books are brain food.
10.  Find a way to deal with rejections. They will come, in one fashion or another, whether you’re published or not. Rejection comes in all forms. Create a ritual to dispel the negativity and move on, but if you don’t risk rejection, you’re not getting yourself out there enough. Find a happy balance and keep writing. Not many feel passion for what they do. Count yourself lucky to be one of us, TKZers.
Since we all share the love of books and writing on TKZ, please share any words of wisdom that gets you through the tough times. What keeps you going?

Goin’ through them changes

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By Joe Moore

ssAfter 26 years, I’ve canceled my daily subscription to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The main reason was delivery issues which I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say, at some point the aggravation factor exceeds the patience factor.

I really enjoy sitting at my kitchen counter each morning sipping my mug of freshly brewed Dunkin Donuts coffee while I peruse the paper. It’s a morning ritual decades old.

So what do I do now? How do I get the local news beyond just watching the network affiliates? Solution: For $5 every four weeks, I subscribe to the digital edition of the paper. It only took a few minutes to realize this is a very cool alternative. Each day, I click on an email link that takes me to a perfect, pristine, crystal clear copy of the paper. This is not a website but the actual newspaper in digital format. It’s searchable. I can zoom in on all photos and ads. I can jump to different sections. I have access to back issues. Everything is there that’s in the printed version and is visually the same.

No more hoping the delivery guy throws the paper in my yard and not my neighbor’s. No more worrying if it will land in a puddle and be a water-soaked log by the time I get it. No more need to put the old newspapers out at curbside for recycle every Thursday. No more chopping down trees.

I have moved from the kitchen counter to my desktop monitor to read the paper and drink my DD. It’s fast, convenient, and fun. I only wish I’d made the switch long ago.

And it’s just another sign of the changing times in print media versus digital format.

How about you? Do you still read an analog version of the paper? Or do you use your phone, tablet or PC instead? Or have you abandoned the local newspaper altogether?

In the New Media, how are the book sections?

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Oh me, oh my. Things have been feeling apocalyptic of late, haven’t they? Flash mobs burn down London. Flash traders melt down the stock market. And then there’s the book biz–which, as everyone knows, is having its own problems.

In the wake of last week’s news about Borders going under, the LA Times announced that it is laying off a large percentage of its book review staff, including all of its freelancers.

Book reviews will continue to be done by in-house staff, but the trend is clear: In the Old Media world, book sections are becoming a thing of the past.

But what about the New Media? Is it picking up the slack? Over at the Huffington Post, under “Culture,” I did find a book section. It looks very un-LA Times-ish.

Here are some of the recent posts:

“Sexy Book” Editor Offers Her Top Picks (along with, I might add, some very sexy pictures),

Was Albert Camus Killed By The KGB?

Burning Books: The Hottest Scenes in Literature

Gay ‘Archie Comics’ Character Scores Monthly Spin-off

Writers We Loved in the ’90s: Where Are They Now?

Yuppie Lit: Books About The Filthy Rich

And here was one by our buddy Jason Pinter: You Should Date an Illiterate Guy

I’m sure there are serious book reviews tucked in here and there, but the tone of most of the posts is breezy and gossipy. They read a bit like Us Magazine for books.

Do I mind? Hell no, I love this stuff! Who needs stuffy, “serious” book sections? Trust me, authors and publishers need every bit of glitz and glamor we can get. Go to any writer’s conference, and you will be surrounded by MVPs (Middle-aged, Very Pleasant people). Few of us are ever confused with models for the cover of the next “Sexy Book.”

Maybe this new type of media coverage will change our image. Maybe someday we’ll have to duck behind palm trees to hide from paparazzi, or “wear someone” on the red carpet.

Heck, I’m ready. So are my Jacki-O sunglasses. 

How about you? Do you like HuffPo’s book section? Do you lament the decline of book sections in mainstream newspapers?

In Communicado

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Happy anniversary fellow Kill Zoners!

I’m on my way to Tucson as my Dad is having knee surgery so I’m effectively ‘in communicado‘ (assuming it’s spelled that way!) this week. Tune in next week when I will be back online!

Cheers
Clare

Happy Anniversary Kill Zone!

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Three years ago, six talented, good looking and verbally adept authors started up a group blog called Kill Zone. It was to be a place that talked about about writing, books, the book business, and whatever else was living in their heads at any particular time. 

Not much has changed, save for the addition of five more writers. Along the way we have gathered a nice following and have had a rousing good time.There have been heated moments, moments of levity and, I daresay, a whole lot of great writing tips for those who share our passion for storytelling.

So today we are popping the champagne and opening things up to you, our readers, for anything you’d like to tell us. We’d love to hear from you. Know this: we appreciate each and every one of you and thank you for stopping by on a regular basis. 

Here’s to another three years!

Spotify for Books

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I’ve been immersed for the last several days in something called Spotify. It’s a music listening service. You sign up (if you just want the free service, you ask to sign up, and then they send you an email giving you the chance to do so; it’s kind of like standing in line to get a wristband to come back and stand in line to buy a ticket to a concert), download the software, and it gives you streaming access to as much music as you can possibly listen to. Cubed. Everything from new music like Lady Gaga and to musicians like Robert Johnson (not the delta blues singer; the white one) who are so obscure they haven’t heard of themselves. It’s like a giant music listening library on your computer. If you just want to sit and listen to music on a computer — any computer — it’s free, other than for sitting through an occasional commercial. If you want more bells and whistles, there are two subscription platforms which are fairly modest (five dollars and ten dollars per month, respectively) and that let you access Spotify from your Smartphone or whatever and to listen without the occasional commercial.

So I’m curious…is there a market for a subscription service this in the book world, with, of course, some fine tuning? Would you pay five or ten dollars a month for electronic access to three to six books for a limited time (say twenty-eight days)? I’m talking about a selection of books which would be basically unlimited, everything from that long lost volume of The Motor Boat Boys’ Mississippi Cruise published in 1912 to The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill, which dropped this week. You wouldn’t be owning, but renting. The advantage over the library, besides selection, is that you would no longer have to wait for that new soon-to-be bestseller to be returned by the gaggle of unwashed ahead of you in the reserve queue. The advantage over buying the book outright, at least as far as the more popular books are concerned, is that you no longer are in a position of paying more for the e-book than for the physical copy.

I am well aware of the difficulties involved in such an enterprise — rights, the fixing of a subscription price, and, most importantly, how do we divide up the subscription fees among the writers? — but we’ll play with those crayons down the road. For now, I’d like to know if readers find this idea at all appealing. Do you?

Nathan Is Running Again

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By John Gilstrap
As part of our larger plan to carpet bomb the planet with Gilstrap fiction, NATHAN’S RUN, my first novel, originally published in 1996, is once again available–first as an eBook, and then next year as a mass market paperback.

My publisher, Kensington, is trying a few cool marketing gimmicks for this release. Most notable is the fact that it will be exclusive to Barnes and Noble’s Nook for the first five months–through the end of 2011. Then, in January, it will be available on all eBook formats.  I guess this is a way to gain favor with the world’s only remaining behemoth bookstore.

When the Kensington team and I were discussing the plans for the rerelease, we came up with another idea that I thought was exceptionally cool: the alternative ending. My original ending for NATHAN’S RUN was significantly different than the ending in the published book.  Readers of the new version will be directed to a site where they can read my original version. It will be interesting to see what kind of response I get.

Truth be told, I’m not one hundred percent comfortable doing this.  A printed book lives forever locked in the version that was printed and distributed. There is no alternative version, and part of me thinks that’s the way it should be, with the artist’s vision locked down and reflecting his or her world view at the time.

On the other hand, I’ve always been fascinated with the process that produces art. I love, for example, reading the line edited works of the masters to see how their thoughts evolved over time.

What do you think?  Is it intriguing to see what “might have been” in a work of fiction, or would you prefer that the original version stand alone forever?

It was a dark and stormy metaphor…

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by Michelle Gagnon

So I was inspired this week by the recent Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad writing, which went to the brutally mangled metaphor, “Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.”

Wow. Tough to beat. But here’s my challenge: let’s try. American academic Sue Fondrie’s disturbing description of thoughts like mutilated sparrows has been declared the worst sentence of the year.
I think we can top it. This was the shortest sentence to ever win the prize, so extra points will be conferred for brevity.

I’ve certainly had some humdingers in my day, most of which were thankfully edited out of the finished product. But imagine what would transpire if you really let loose?

Some other examples, presented for your enjoyment:

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.


And here’s my submission:

“He wept, and the tears fell like a thousand tiny lemmings leaping from the precipice into a black void.”

Do you have a truly awful metaphor lurking in the depths of your cranial cavity like a really bad thing hiding in a very dark place, yearning for the light of day? Have at it…similes are also welcome.

Show Me The Body

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This question came up on one of my writer loops: how long do you wait for the body to appear in a mystery? Assume we’re talking about a traditional whodunit. Does it make a difference to you as a reader when the murder occurs? How about when plotting your own books?

Based on my experience, if you’re a new author, it’s best to get the body up front and center. Once you’re established, you have a bit more leeway with the characters. But even if your setting is quaint and the story is more of a crime novel than a whodunit, action engages the reader.

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I’ve had several rejections over the years to mystery proposals wherein the criticism essentially said to move up the dead body. In my latest project, the initial first chapter had the heroine enter the scene, play mah jong with her friends, go to lunch, and then the person dies. I’ve changed it so that she meets her friends for lunch first, and in the midst of their meal, the murder occurs. Later, they gather to talk about it and automatically play out the motions of their mah jong game. As this is the first book in a proposed new series, I have to get the action moving as quickly as possible.
I should have seen this when writing the first draft, but often we need some distance from our work before we can see it clearly. Or we need someone else to point out what is blind to us in our closeness to the material. Also keep in mind that readers can download the beginning of your book nowadays and so you want it to be an attention grabber.

Yes, there are books I read where the characters and setting are so appealing that I just read on for pleasure, and it may be 100 pages or so before someone is killed. But I do find myself saying, “All right, where’s the dead body already? This is supposed to be a mystery.” So genre conventions come into play as well.
What’s your take on the subject: murder them now, or introduce your characters gradually and slide into the crime after the story is in motion?
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to The Kill Zone Blog! I am proud to be part of this illustrious group!

Reading, Writing and Radio: Can you hear me now?

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By: Kathleen Pickering http://www.kathleenpickering.com/

radio_announcerMy marketing plan has taken me to interesting places. Conferences. Book signings. Post Offices. Restaurants. Bars. Beaches. Office supply stores. Publishers. Printers. YouTube, Facebook and all paths deep into the Internet.

That last one, friends, is my favorite. And, as of last week, I discovered my most favorite place on the Internet is radio talk shows.

I’m hooked.

Looking for another outlet for MYTHOLOGICAL SAM-THE CALL, I submitted a request for an interview to SPIRITUALLY RAW, a radio show where no topic on religion or spirituality is taboo. It’s a fascinating site. You have to be pretty open minded. You’d like to know that I found a forensic investigator, and a few mystery writers there. My biggest surprise was to find movie producer, James Cameron (AVATAR) and actor, Timothy Dalton, among the friends list.

Since MythSam contains strong spiritual undertones, my request was accepted, but I had to go through a process. First, I was slotted for a 15 minute interview where I presented myself, Mythological Sam-The Call and my thoughts. That Friday I was invited to return to see if I would be voted back. Once again, I had the chance to chat with the radio hosts on the air.

It was a close call (I’m sure it’s because my story sounds well . . . unbelievable), but to my delight, I was voted back. And, guess what? I can completely confirm that I am a sucker for a microphone! Holy guacamole. I loved being on the airwaves.

I’m convinced it’s because I’m one of eight kids and I never really got the proper attention I needed as a child. Not only that. For someone who has a hankering to know as many people on this planet as she can possibly meet, nothing beats sending your story out into the ether. Who knows who might call me back! (I just hope they speak English or Spanish.)

I’d love to share last Thursday’s interview. Just let me warn you. I don’t come on until 13 minutes into the broadcast.Speaking before me is an interesting woman who wrote a book on orgasms as spiritual experiences. (Really. Makes sense. Don’t you think? I’ll have to buy a copy. My husband will be thrilled.) Unfortunately, that woman was not invited back. You can listen to her as well, or move the line on the radio dashboard into the 13 minute mark. Here’s the link to the first podcast. Be sure to click on the return arrow in the top left to get back to this page when you are finished.

http://spirituallyraw.podomatic.com/entry/2011-07-28T08_40_09-07_00
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April and Ajay MattaAjay and April Matta have invited me back to talk more about my strange religious experience and how it relates to the Mythological Sam trilogy. The show will air on August 18th at 10 a.m. Mark you calendars. If you are available, I would love to have you listened in. Here’s the link for the information:

http://www.spirituallyraw.com/forum/topics/mythological-sam-the-call

The Spiritually Raw website has a fun chat room while listening and a phone number so you can call in to heckle me. Wouldn’t that be fun?! If you do call, be sure to tell me you’re from The Kill Zone. I want them to know about everyone here, too!

So, I ask you. If someone offered you a microphone as a marketing tool, would you take it? And if you have already, how did it work for you?