Tanks for the memories

I filled my car with gasoline yesterday. A week ago I would have thought this was nothing to blog about, but after cruising past a number of empty gas stations I found one which didn't seem to be too crowded. I thought perhaos the shortage was easing, but it turns out they didn't want cars cluttering the place up while they waited. I was told to go to the back of the line over there. When I circled round behind the other cars in the station, I was told with dissapointment that he had already asked me to go to the end of the line. I finally made out what he meant, the front of the line was across the street and about a block away. I wondered how to get to the back of the line, but he devined I lived in the area and had me be creative through back streets. Despite my bad sense of direction I made it, really only had to wait a half hour. I'm very lucky, today odd and even rationing starts, depending on your license plate. You can only refill if the last digit of your license matches the day. There have been several studies indicating it doesn't help ease shortages or waiting, and none that I know of indicating that it does, but it's one of those things politicians do.

Amazon is instituting a new online wine store. This raises many questions. If you download wine to your kindle, will the screen get sticky? And is red or white better with mysteries? How about science fiction?

Dagwood Bumstead didn't win the election.

I voted for Dagwood Bumstead for president yesterday. It was a protest vote, since New York State was already considered a done deal by both sides.

How do you like my new cover and title?

Ty Johnston: life on the written page: Talking novels and talking sandwiches with science fiction author David Weisman

Ty Johnston: life on the written page: Talking novels and talking sandwiches with science fiction author David Weisman

This is my first rafflecopter giveaway, so it's kind of experimental. Since the prize is a single book, I'm not giving extra tickets for retweeting or blogging the raffle. Just visit rafflecopter, add Absorption to the wish list on your Amazon profile, then drop by and say a quick hello here. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Beginning of a long road

Although publishing my book is the end of a long road, it is also just the beginning. Now I have to market it, and the book above is the best, most specific, and most up to date book for selling e-books for the Kindle on Amazon's site. I'll bet most of the people reading this have better instincts for it than me, because I'm a ferocious introvert, but I love my book as if it were my baby and I have no other children. Right now it seems to be outgrowing it's baby clothing, so I'm getting a new cover. That's the first thing 8 Hours advised me to look at.

The End of the Road!

It's been a long journey, but my book is now live on Amazon! I want to thank everyone who has given me great reviews already, and hope that more of you will join them. If you review books for the Kindle on Amazon, please ask me for a review copy!

A Writer's 2011: Some Highlights

Happy New Year, writers and would-be writers! As you prepare to get a fresh batch of literary masterpieces on paper for the new year, these are some of writer/editor/book reviewer Erin O'Riordan's articles from the year past to provide inspiration.

January: My Favorite Weird Fiction of 2010

February: Attracting More Reviews For Your Books

March: Great Books For Women's History Month

April: Review of The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

May: Review: The Strangest Book I've Ever Read

June: The Art of the Anagram

November: Two Articles for Aspiring Writers

Two New Articles For Aspiring Writers

My guest blogger at Pagan Spirits today is Harry Bingham, the UK writer behind the website The Writers' Workshop. Harry's guest post addresses:

-Obsessive editing
-Writing a good book
-The query letter, synopsis and manuscript presentation
-Professional feedback

You can read Harry's post here.

Earlier this week, I featured a post titled "So You Want to Be a Writer We've All Heard Of," focusing on post-publication marketing. This time, my guest blogger was Jane Wenham-Jones. Jane gives advice on crafting the perfect author biography.

Hope to see you there - and keep working on those masterpieces!

The Kindle Author blog presents promotion tips for self-published authors

The kindle-author.blogspot.com blog put forth a set of promotion suggestions for self-published authors in November 2010. These tips, which come from ten different self-published authors in various genres, are worth repeating again this year.

Although there is no "magic bullet" tip that will make your book sell thousands of copies overnight, every book campaign can benefit from strategic promotion and careful social networking.

The list can be found at http://kindle-author.blogspot.com/2010/11/top-10-tips-for-promoting-your-book.html

Another good source of marketing tips for newly published authors is Social Media Examiner. Aimed at small businesses of any type, the site allows patrons to sign up for a free e-mail newsletter, which comes Monday-Saturday.

Social Media Examiner's tips address everything from the best ways to set up a LinkedIn profile to monetized Facebook applications. The site occasionally offers free e-books with additional promotion tips, too.

In September, Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Expert (another free e-mail newsletter) published a post called "Twenty Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Website and Blog." It appeared in the Huffington Post.

Not too sure about things like Google Page Rank? Don't worry. Penny puts things in terms even non-technically oriented writers can understand.

Good luck, and happy promoting!

Flood Zone!

It turns out I live in a flood zone. My wife and I went to visit my mother.

Light blogging and fifty percent chance of showers

I haven't gone on another one of my long hiatuses yet. I'm doing a critique for Deadly Prose. The manuscript is fun, and I hope it does well in the publishing jungle.

Meanwhile, I may have some exciting news soon, but I don't want to say for sure until the details are finalized.

Susan R. Mills has started blogging again at A Walk in My Shoes, One Step at a Time!

I learned a lot from her blog, and even from the long period when she stopped blogging. I shouldn't read too much into that, since I've done the same thing, but I will anyway.

For a long time she posted three times a week. Every post was well thought out, and about something all writers should be interested in, except when she talked about her personal triumphs and those of her friends. She always found an appropriate picture of shoes which was related to her post. And she did all this in addition to her regular writing, rewriting, and other forms of online networking. How did she do all this without burning out? Well, she sold her children on e-bay.

Actually, I think she did burn out, at least partially, although I can't say for sure how much writing she got done while she wasn't blogging. Building a platform is important, but you have to pace yourself.

Look at Marcy of Mainwords. She has lots of great content, and she's teamed up with another blogger to critique the first page of a different author's manuscript each month. She gives herself a little break sometimes though:

Under the category of 'whatever' she says:

"when I get published...
I am so going to get me a new washer/dryer unit. One that doesn't make that horrific high pitched, grating, whining noise that mine does when I first start it up (I'm thinking belt. You?). And when it's done drying? There will be NO annoying buzzer that shoots through my skull like a laser. Like I really need a buzzer to tell me my stuff is done drying. Hello? The dryer stopped. I got the clue. Thanks."

Of course there's an art to that too. You make it personal but not too personal, knowing what not to say. People who like your writing voice enjoy these posts too.

So Susan, if you feel like you're pushing too hard, just post a picture of a single shoe. Accumulate a bunch of pictures of sexy shoes with legs in them, and nobody will mind if they're not related to your posts. And dry humor is good, but sometimes dryer humor is even better.

Of course they both have a lot more real and regular content than I do, but I think we can ignore that, or at least I can.

Am I too cheap to buy something intangible?

Apparently not. I've been known to subscribe to monthly online services. And even pay my electric, cable, and phone bills, or at least let my wife do so! And yes, I've gotten to the point where buying a book for three dollars or less to read on my iPad kindle app is preferable to going to the library when I don't happen to feel like it, especially when I see the e-book on Amazon and haven't checked my library yet. I feel bad for the librarians though. I hope nobody gets laid off because I'm paying less in fines.

Of course your big six mainstream publishers want you to pay ten dollars or more for many e-books, rarely less than four. Thus my financial support for indy and self publishers. While I would still love to have an agent and a major publisher, for the first time publishing on Amazon aka Konrath seems better than a desperate last resort to me, because I can imagine I might buy my own book if I were someone else, provided I price it at three dollars.

You can't read the whole library!

So, if you like the library, you have more good books than you can possibly read, right? Sort of. I like science fiction, a rather small section of the library. Plus, I'm rather picky. If I read the jacket cover and the first couple of pages, and they don't hook me, there still may be a chance I'll enjoy it, but ordinarily I won't go on to find out. Life is short.

Of course you can get books through interlibrary loan, of go to libraries other than your local one. We're getting less and less convenient now, and in the former case you can't read the first page either, unless you visit Amazon.

Also, old library books may be dirty, or smell funny. It never used to bother me.

I gather it's not too hard to get books not from Amazon onto my Kindle, but so far I'm too lazy to fiddle with it. Any e-book three dollars or less is worthwhile for avoiding hassle and indulging impulse gratification, I've come to feel. It's convenient to be able to carry around several books easily, in case I lose interest in one. And my iPad is it's own book light, convenient for reading in bed next to my wife with the lights out. I know they have book lights for that with clips, but they will probably work better if I have an extra hand grafted on.

I pad into iPadland?

When I first got my iPad, one of the first apps I downloaded was the kindle reader. Many Amazon e-books are free, more than you could read. Amazon has set up a 'most downloaded' list for the free books, if you get tired of browsing a sea of mediocre free uploads. It doesn't help as much as you would think, most of the books in the top 100 aren't something I would read.

Why buy a book when you can get it in the library for free? And paper books have many advantages. They aren't so expensive when you lose them or they get stolen. You don't have to recharge the batteries. And because paper books in bookstores and libraries are mostly by major publishers with many people involved, most of the absolute dross gets filtered out.

So tomorrow I'll explain some of the reasons I'm using my kindle app more and more.

Kick Ass Heroines

(I'm sorry I'm putting up this guest blog by Beth Barany late, I tried to send her a blogger link so she had total control of the formatting. It may not have worked, and I wasn't able to check because my wife and I spent a night in a hotel due to air conditioning problems in a heat wave.)

Kick Ass heroines, Bad Girls, in Science Fiction and Fantasy
by Beth Barany

David, thank you for having me on your blog to write about kick ass heroines in fantasy and science fiction.

Major confession up front: I love kick ass heroines in science fiction and fantasy and love to write and read about them, too.

I've recently published my first novel, a YA fantasy, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer. Yeah, she's a bad ass!

Henrietta is a bit of a bad girl as the story opens. She’s gettin’ out of Dodge, leaving her hero days behind, not wanting to be her kingsdom's hero anymore. She's leaving behind her responsibilities for a life in the sunny beaches down south. Her heart is hurting and she doesn’t even know it. Yet.

ABOUT

Henrietta, the legendary Dragon Slayer of the Kingdom of Bleuve, can’t stomach the thought of one more kill. Yet, in order to save her dying mentor, she must go on one last quest. But will misfit companions, seasickness, and an ego maniacal king derail the quest for the healing stone? And will she be able to cut past her conscience and kill the dragon?

Read an excerpt of Henrietta The Dragon Slayer here.

Where did the inspiration for Henrietta come from?

Other bad girls!

I devote this post to the bad girls and kick ass heroines I know and love, drawn mostly my favorite authors, books, movies and TV shows. And from a few surprises thrown in for good measure.

The Bad Girl archetype is a powerful and ancient one, and well represented in our modern stories.

The Bad Girl archetype is about reclaiming female power for the good of the community and for benefit of the Bad Girl, who sometimes becomes more than just a Bad Girl. But more on that in a future post.

I'll be doing a giveaway at the end of the month for a free copy of Henrietta The Dragon Slayer and picking a winner from all the people who comment during my blog tour, so please to chime in with your favorites!

In Science Fiction...
Elizabeth Moon writes smart science fiction featuring most often women space captains. Ms. Moon was one of the first women in the Marine Corps in the 1960s and her military knowledge flows through her stories like a second skin. I love reading about women facing leadership challenges in space. There is nothing like the threat of zero atmo to make a leader come alive.
My current favorite book of hers is Once a Hero in The Serrano Legacy series. I also loved the Vatta’s War series, and the stand-alone, Remnant Population.
Sharon Shinn writes fantasy and science fiction, for young adults and adults. The first book I read of hers is still my favorite: Mystic & Rider, the first in the Twelve House series. A hardened warrior devoted only to his king and a mystic shunned by her family but trusted by the king must roust out those that scheme in secret against the kingdom.
Her heroines are complex, the love stories unique and varied in each of her books, and her worlds feel so full and real.

In Fantasy...
I have a primary place in my heart for Nikita in the original Luc Besson film, La Femme Nikita.
She’s bad out of choice and circumstance. Then she gets a chance at redemption. Or does she? I like how she has the opportunity to remake her life.
Another kick ass heroine I like is Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.
She's a spoiled rich girl, or is she? Not just. She lost her beloved father early and seems to be driven by some sort of justice. She’s strong, she’s capable, and she won’t stop until she gets what she wants.
And then there's Lilu in The Fifth Element, another Luc Besson film.
She may not be considered a bad girl, because she’s supposed to save the world. But if the world is not worth saving she will let it be destroyed. That is definitely a Bad Girl trait, in my book. That takes guts, and the strength of doing what’s right, in the face of the potential horrible loss.

In Archetypes...
The ultimate bad girl is Kali, the Hindi goddess of birth and destruction, and eternal energy.
I’ve been drawn to her all my life, without consciously knowing why. Then in preparation for this article, I read this: “She is also revered as Bhavatarini (literally 'redeemer of the universe').”
I love stories where the Bad Girl gets redeemed. She’s on the outside looking in, her violent tendencies seemingly keeping her at odds with the expectations of what it means to be a woman.
Only through acceptance of her benefits to the community that both she and the community agree on, can she find her place in the community.

In History...
Lastly, I want to mention the book, Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines by Jeannine Davis-Kimball, with Mona Behan.
From an editorial review at Amazon: “Nearly one-quarter of the women buried in some late Iron Age sites were either warriors or priestesses. Even the remainder ‘hearth women’ were important players in the tribes’ surprisingly egalitarian societies. Further, southern Kazakhstan’s famous ‘gold man’ was in fact, a ‘gold woman.’ ”

I know I come from a long line of warrior women, many of them viewed as Bad Girls from the culture of their day.
It’s time for us, for me, to reclaim our Badness and use it as a force for good! And use our considerable abilities to be kick ass heroines in our own lives.
Who are your favorite Bad Girl or Kick Ass Heroines?!

P.S. All who answer the question and comment on this post are eligible to enter my July book giveaway for a copy of Henrietta The Dragon Slayer (print or ebook -- your choice!) and also the blog tour Grand Prize, Henrietta's necklace, featured on the cover. All the Giveaway rules here: Henrietta The Dragon Slayer Summer Blog Tour. The novel is available is Amazon US, Amazon UK, Nook, Smashwords.

PPS. An earlier version of this article first appeared on my blog, http://www.writersfunzone.com/blog.

The Foolish Samurai

I just read an unusual online story. One thing that makes it unusual is that I read it to the end. I abandon lots of fiction after a page or even a paragraph.

The Foolish Samurai breaks some rules, but it draws me and holds me anyhow, so the story is worth thinking about.

At the end of the long first paragraph I don't understand what is going on. Is the Samurai sleeping in the sewer drain and planning to break into the Evil Wizard's corporate HQ part of some kind of role playing game? It sounds too fantastical to take seriously even in the bounds of the story, and we have no real hint of the problems or fears, so it doesn't generate much suspense by itself. It generates a bit of curiousity though.

He doesn't exactly 'save the cat', perform some immediate deed of kindness to make us empathize with him. Somehow the wistful dream of eating fried chicken with his family brings us closer to him, even as little hints make the story more mysterious than ever.

I don't know if this story will be read in twenty years, if the metaphor for us and our society is profound or unique enough to stand the test of time. But it drew me in to the end today, and that's an accomplishment, even if the author doesn't realize or appreciate it.

Love and Writing

As I navigate the world of trying to get published, I often look back on early drafts of writing. It makes me happy to see how far my writing has come in the last 14 years. Working on the skill of writing is, as it turns out, quite similar to working on a good marriage.

A marriage starts with a good proposal. Take my husband's proposal to me: We were on a romantic drive through the Appalachian Mountains. The trees were changing colors. The southern breezes must have been whispering sweet nothings into my then-boyfriend's ear. He pulled over at scenic drive along the Cumberland Gap. With an engagement ring full of diamonds in his hand, he smiled at me said, "Marry me, or I'll jump over." I laughed, of course, and agreed that marriage sounded wonderful. I love his sense of humor, but I also love that he is responsible, driven, and adventuresome.

A good piece of writing shares those same qualities. It was actually when I went to write my vows—naturally, we had decided to write our own—and began to list all the qualities I loved in him that I thought about how that translates into writing fiction.

Responsibility
I am a writer of young adult fiction, which means I have to pay special attention to morality in my writing. Where in adult fiction, a writer can publish a piece that is dark, a young adult piece without a hopeful ending will likely be a hard sell. But in most fiction, young adult or otherwise, readers relate to the good guy. It could be the guy who may be long-suffering, but has strength of heart or the underdog who works hard to bring his team victory in the face of difficulty, or possibly even the boy who does the right thing when the wrong thing is easier. Authors give a reader a reason to read the same way a guy gives a girl a reason to say yes to the engagement ring. It starts with some kind of moral ground.

Drive
If a character isn't driven to solve problems, you have no book. Successful characters succeed because they stay true to the one thing in life they need or want most. They don't give up. Marriage is similar. It's probably different for every couple, but if they stay true to the thing that is most important to them as a team, I think that marriage will be a strong one. I guess I can only answer for my own, but that has been my experience thus far.

Adventuresome Spirit
Not all books are adventure stories, per se, but I think they all have an element of characters doing something new or becoming something new. Great books begin with a character's problem, mystery, or desire and end in his or her transformation. So, even if a character doesn't end up somewhere physically different from where he or she started, something has changed for him or her. Readers love to follow around a character that allows them to experience a new world or a new mindset. I'd say the same is true for spouses. The very act of getting engaged and then married is doing and becoming something new. But, it can't stop there. Love and marriage is truly exciting when you realize you've become something new—something better—because you're together.