Contest Results

Okay, so the drawing didn't have the resounding success I'd hoped. Maybe the suggested prizes weren't attractive. *shrug* First time for everything, ya know.

Anyway, from the 6 lovely and wonderful unique commenters I've had over the past few days, the winner is...

Alex

Don't shoot me. I didn't do the drawing. It was totally blind. I just wrote names on pieces of paper, folded them very tiny, and tossed them to my daughter. All but one of them landed on her chair, and she picked the one paper that ended up on the floor. Alex's name was only in once like everyone else. Honest.

So, thus ends the failed drawing this time around. Maybe the next one will be better. Next time I'll have some other prizes - new fiction maybe or a free proofread of X number of pages. Something.

Alex? I'll talk to you later about your prize. (I promise it won't be a jacket with pretty buckles and it won't be a toaster.)

Talking to Myself

It occurs to me that when I'm blogging, I'm writing most posts as if I were talking to myself. I talk to myself a lot. (Thank goodness, I never answer myself in a different voice, if ya know what I mean.) I use this blog as a means to brainstorm, to sort things out in my own head, and to figure out what the hell is going on. Sometimes I give myself hell. If I didn't love me, I wouldn't bother. So don't worry too much when I've just upbraided myself for doing something boneheaded. And don't take it personally when I've worded something less than tactfully. When I'm talking to me, I don't mind being tactless and I always forgive myself for my insensitivity.

This blog is just a glimpse into the mind of an unpublished (to date) writer - the trials, the heartaches, the little triumphs. I hope somewhere along the way, someone will stumble across this space and find a measure of kinship and comraderie. That they will read something I have written and it will make this lonely writing life a smidgen better.

I know I've made my own life a little better by writing it.

Selling Out

Since I started this whole writing adventure, I've thought about the phrase 'selling out'. As some of you may know, I'm a huge fan of Ayn Rand. Somewhere I read a quote from her (which I am unable to locate at this time) which said something to the effect of "You can't write crap in the hopes that it will catapult you to the point where you can write a great novel."

Those are my words, but the sentiment is correct. To me, that would be the ultimate sell-out.

Selling out, IMO, is ditching your integrity and writing something that goes against your beliefs just to get published. Like if I wrote a pro-environmentalism book or a pro-collectivism book. I look at it this way: Both of those philosophies might be popular and get me published, but by the time I finally got around to writing what I really believe, my credibility would be shot to hell. (And I'd spend the whole time hating myself for writing that crap.)

Writing just a story for entertainment purposes, rather than a magnum opus, is not selling out. If you're writing romance to pay the bills until you finish your 'great American novel', fine. Hell, if you're writing it just because you love writing it, great. As long as you're not espousing anything in those romances that would be contrary to who you are as a person. Same thing with mystery, commercial... Pick a genre someone has turned their nose up at. As long as you're being true to yourself, it's not selling out.

You don't have to write books with big ideas; you don't have to write 'important literary works'. You just have to always ALWAYS keep your integrity intact.

Title Bout

It seems I'm always fighting with my titles. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't like them, and almost always they just seem lame. Lately I've been wondering if the lameness of my titles is effecting how my books are perceived by the people I'm querying. Lame title = lame book?

Spectacle originally started out as "The Comet" - which if possible was lamer than usual. Then it moved to the title "The Doomsayers", spent a few weeks as "Fearmongers". Both of those titles were more geared toward the original premise of the book, and since I changed the basic slant, neither of those worked. Finally, I settled on Spectacle. (Because the fear instilled in us can make the world seem little better than a spectacle. Deep? Yes. But it's also lame.)

Caldera never underwent any title changes because I was fed up with trying to find something snazzy, and Caldera, if nothing else, is an accurate title.

Blink's actual title is "Blink of an I" - because the premise behind it speculates on what would happen to the world if mankind gave their individual rights over to the government.

And AWJ originally stood for "A Widow's Justice" until I changed who the bad guy was. Now it means "A Warped Justice".

Finally, the little story waiting to happen is "Bloodflow", but was originally called Nano. It's about nanotechnology being used for evil. The name Nano fell by the wayside when I realized that if you pronounce it with a long A, it becomes my baby-hood word for the belly-button. (I couldn't say navel.)

Oh, and I can't forget the novel that's waiting in the wings... P.S.S. Redemption. Originally just Redemption until I found out about Leon Uris's novel by the same name, and now Karin Tabke has a novel with that title, too. P.S.S. Redemption is the name of a submarine in the novel, so I guess it works for me. (You'll have to read the book to find out what the P.S.S. stand for, so I guess I have to get cracking on that one.)

I wish I could come up with something snappy like To Kill a Mockingbird or Atlas Shrugged. Nothing too cute, just something that'll attract attention, like Tutu Deadly or Fear No Evil.

What say you? How are you on titles, and what are some really good (or really bad) titles you've come up with? Or even what good or bad ones have you read?

Lesson Learned

I broke a cardinal rule of mine. I didn't do my research before I submitted something. Shame on me.

Lucky for me it was only the difference between standard publishing and e-publishing. Samhain Publishing is an e-publisher. I don't have anything against that venue. It provides a necessary niche for people who, for one reason or another, don't wish to buy a hardcopy book. I'm not one of those people. I like the whole book sensation. The feel of the book in my hands - its weight, its texture; the smell of freshly bound pages or of long hidden classics; the way the binding cracks the first time you open one and the fluttering sound of the pages as you turn them. It's the whole nine-yards for me. Reading online is so... Bland.

I'm a little disappointed in myself for missing that. I don't want the first publication of any of my novels to be in e-book form. I want to be able to hold them, and yes, even to pet them. So I probably won't accept publication there if I make it that far.

It could have been much worse for me, though. I could have made the mistake with a less-than-reputable publisher. (I almost did once with PublishAmerica but research saved my ass there.) I could have made the mistake by sending my work off to a scam agent, which I have managed to avoid to date.

Oh, sure. The link I followed was a reputable one. I knew the folks who posted the link were published authors, and on the up-n-up. But it isn't up to those guys to protect me, and it isn't up to someone else to make the determination whether something is right for me. That's my job.

And after I spent so much time espousing the need to think for oneself, and to never let anyone tell me what I should think about any given thing. I'm very disappointed with myself.

Lesson learned. I'm just glad the lesson was one of personal taste and not a painful one.

BTW, this post is in no way meant to disparage Samhain, which is probably a very good publisher, and has never been presented to me as otherwise. I wish them and their authors all the success in the world.

Now, I have to go mentally smack myself around for a while.

First Line Contest

Samhain Publishing is having a Best First Line Contest. Three (maybe five) people will get the opportunity to get their work in front of a Samhain editor, even though submissions there are closed right now.

I sent in the first line from Spectacle. It's not the best first line in the world, I admit, and the competition is fierce from what I've seen so far. But you know what they say, you'll never win if you never try.

BTW, my first line is: "We're on in two, Alex."

I'm not the snappiest first-liner. Caldera's first line is -It has happened before.- Blink's first line is -“Doesn’t anything work right in this place any more?”- I think my best first line so far is -She stood alone by his grave, as he would have wished. - from AWJ, but the contest is for completed works of more than 12K words. (12K? Seems small for a book but whatever.)

Anyone, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Join in the fun if you have a book ready for publication. Worst that could happen is they don't pick you, and even then it'll be instructional. Right?

*new commenters to this post will be entered into the 10000 Pageviews drawing

10000 Pageviews

I was just checking out my stats (btw, Google Analytics rocks), and I noticed I've reached 10 thousand pageviews. So, in honor of this momentous milestone, I'm going to hold a drawing.

Each new commenter between this post and my posting time on Friday, June 8th will be entered into a drawing for their choice of the following books:

On Writing by Stephen King

or

Agents, Editors and You from Writer's Digest Books

(If you're not interested in either, let me know and we'll work something out.)

Unfortunately, I can only ship to people in the United States. My apologies to my friends in the UK, and my visitors from all over the world. If you'd like to comment anyway, just let me know you're from another country, and I'll keep your name out of the drawing.

Thanks everyone who stopped by. I hope you keep coming back.

(Caveat: Because I run a bookstore, if the book you want comes up out of stock, you'll get a gracious apology and a comparably priced book from my store.)

2007 Reads - So far

I thought I'd take a day off from talking about writing to talk about reading. I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and I just thought I'd share some of the books I've been burying my nose in. In fact, I'm going to try to list every book I've read this year, and keep the list going.

Here they are (in alphabetical order):

1984 by George Orwell
1st to Die by James Patterson
Afterburn by S.L. Viehl
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Door Locked by Various
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Burn Marks by Sara Paretsky
Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner
The Case of the Shapely Shadow by Erle Stanley Gardner
Consequences of Sin by Clare Langley-Hawthorne
Dark Need by Lynn Viehl
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
Deadlock by Sara Paretsky
Die For Me by Karen Rose
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Fear No Evil by Allison Brennan
Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
Forecast of Evil by Laura Bradford
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
The Hammer of Eden by Ken Follett
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling
Highlander Unchained by Monica McCarty
Highlander Unmasked by Monica McCarty
Highlander Untamed by Monica McCarty
The Hunt by Allison Brennan
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (read novella only)
I See You by Holly Lisle
If Angels Burn by Lynn Viehl
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Keys to the Street by Ruth Rendell
The Kill by Allison Brennan
Kiss Her Goodbye by Robert Gregory Browne
Kissed by Magic by Kay Robbins
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Lady of Light and Shadows by C.L. Wilson
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Lord of the Fading Lands by C.L. Wilson
Marked by Fate by Laura Bradford
Midnight Rain by Holly Lisle
Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters
Night Lost by Lynn Viehl
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Ninja Soccer Moms by Jennifer Apodaca
Paper Money by Ken Follett
The Prey by Allison Brennan
Private Demon by Lynn Viehl
Raintree: Inferno by Linda Howard
The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose
The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund
See No Evil by Allison Brennan
The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction (A compilation of shorts by various authors)
Silverlock by John Myers Myers
The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury
Snow Bride by Margey Hilton
Speak No Evil by Allison Brennan
Stray by Rachel Vincent
Tall, Dark and Filthy Rich by Jill Monroe
Tapped Out by Natalie M. Roberts
The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough
The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Tutu Deadly by Natalie M. Roberts
Under the Rose by Diana Peterfreund
Witchy Business by Julie Leto, Rhonda Nelson and Mia Zachary
Woman Without a Past by Phyllis A. Whitney

There are probably others (the list seems too short), but halfway through the year, I've forgotten them. If I remember, they'll be added in at that time. This list does not count the unpublished books I've read as a critique partner, although they really have been worthy of being on a list like this, and they will be someday.

(If you're an author and I visit your blog, but haven't gotten to your books yet, rest assured. I'm working on it. And that includes the missing Allison Brennan novels from the two series I started in the middle. I NEED to read those.)

ETA: I read all the Allison Brennan's I missed!