Tag: writing

Writing–The Characters in Me (and Vice Versa)

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperMy mom is a supportive mom and she reads most everything I write. I either give it to her for a beta (because my mom is not shy about her opinions and won’t be biased in my favor just because I’m her kid; if she doesn’t like it, if she thinks there’s something wrong with it, she’ll let me know) or she buys it. But either way, she reads it and there’s something she’s pointed out to me on more than one occasion.

Sometimes she has trouble with the story because she can see bits and pieces of me in the characters and it distracts her.

Now this is not a huge concern to me. Joe and Jane Average-Reader aren’t going to be able to pick up on whatever characteristics of myself I put into characters, so it’s no big deal. I just find my mom picking up on even the smallest little tidbit amusing. And also accurate.

I do put bits and pieces of myself into my characters. And not just the protagonist either (though, they might have more than the rest). Something of me can probably be found in every single character I put on the page. And not just my good points, either. Many of my characters get saddled with some of my worst traits.

Part of this is probably ego. I find myself to be a great, complex, interesting human being on occasion, so why wouldn’t my characters benefit from a little bit of my awesomeness?

But the bigger part I think comes from a revelation I had when I was in high school.

For a while I courted the idea of being an actor. It didn’t matter to me that I was too fat and not pretty enough and my boobs were too big. It was something I wanted to do, so I gave it a run. I took theater arts my senior year of high school and I think I did a pretty okay job of it (I got an A in the class, for the record), though maybe the stage wasn’t my best venue. However, when it came time for our final project, a play put on for elementary school kids, I got the full-taste of what I could expect for my acting career.

I had to play Mother Goose.

See, the play was about Mother Goose’s children acting out various nursery rhymes to raise money so the bank wouldn’t foreclose on Mother Gooses’s shoe-turned-house. I wanted to be one of the kids because I wanted to play a bunch of the different parts in the nursery rhymes. Instead, because I was 18 and already looked like I’d had eight kids, I had to play Mother Goose.

And that’s when I realized I’d never be an actor. I didn’t want to be Mother Goose for the rest of my life. I wanted to be everybody.

Now, as a writer, I can be everybody. I can be a private investigator and a gigolo and a medium and a vampire and a bartender and a serial killer and a teen in the ’70s and a corrupt sheriff and a man gone missing. My size and my face and my ability to cry on cue don’t hamper me. And just like an actor, I use bits of myself to make the characters I play become more real.

It won’t win me an Emmy, but it’s still pretty useful.

Now I’m Just a Slacker with Only Two Day Jobs

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

slackerYou read that right, kids. I quit working one of my day jobs. I am no longer kid-minding.

During my semi-vacation from teaching home school, I was asked to consider taking on more subjects. So I considered it. I considered it and I considered it. It wasn’t really the actual teaching that was in question, though. A big part of my considering was trying to figure out how to schedule the additional subjects into my work week. If I wanted to keep working all three jobs (as well as the little online plus jobs I do for a few bucks throughout the week), then I’d have to cut into a significant portion of my writing time.

Writing is my career. The day jobs just pay the bills so I can pursue that career. In other words, writing is the priority.

I chose to quit kid-minding and do more home schooling.

There are a few motivations for this.

One, I’ll be teaching science in addition to taking over the reading assignments (I already teach English/grammar and Spanish). I may possibly take over math later on. It’s more lesson planning, but I’ll get to do science, which I love. Plus, I get to make the children read the books I had to read when I was in school. Revenge really is some kind of sweet. Plus doing the reading projects with the kids may prove beneficial for my own writing.

Two, one less job means less stress. Not that kid-minding was hard. The boy, for the most part, was well-behaved (at least with me) and his randomness was quite entertaining. But that three-job schedule could be a bitch to juggle sometimes and to be honest, I was pretty burnt out on it. It’s not fun to be working all the time, even for a workaholic like me. Yes, working one less job means less money, but the bills still get paid, I get a little bit more time for writing, and I’m a little less frazzled thinking about running from one job to the next while trying to squeeze in the household obligations and my own writing deadlines.

Three, this move sharpens my focus on my writing career. It’s time that I stepped it up. Now if I want to make more money, I either need to go back to working three jobs (or worse, get a “real” job) or I need to sell more books. Which would I rather do? Consider this the kick in the ass I’ve long needed.

So, there you go. My reasons for being a slacker and only working two jobs. Not that I need to justify my slackerdom to anyone, but sometimes people like to know the why’s and what for’s of my life as they are generally interested in my existence.

I know. It’s weird.

Writing–How Do I Sell Books When I’m Not Popular?

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yearly special editionThis is going to be very messy, slapdash sort of post. I’m brainstorming out loud, looking for advice and help and ideas and partners-in-crime and such.

See, I need all of the help I can get here. This is not the part of the writing business that I excel at (really, when it comes down to it, I’m not really good at any part of the business). Some folks are naturals when it comes to selling their books. They’ve got that charm and charisma and ability to be forward and not worried about coming off like an egotistical hack (that last one is my hang-up; I’m not saying any of those people are egotistical hacks. They might be, who knows, but I’m not saying it) and I do not. I have negative of those values.

Anyway, the point is, I’m looking for ways to sell the Yearly: Special Edition. I mentioned this in my projects post (mostly because I didn’t think it would be available anywhere but Lulu until the end of this month, maybe beginning of September, but surprise! It’s up on both sites, though Amazon doesn’t have a picture of the book cover because why would it? Meh). I know there are things I can do online because I do those in the absolute minimum for my eBooks (seriously, it’s a wonder that I’ve sold any copies of anything at all). But I’m really looking for ways to sell this book in my physical world, too. I have an actual book, not just a digital file. I could actually take it out into the world and talk to people about it and they could actually hold it and flip through the pages and such. Think of it as old school nostalgia.

Now, I’m one of those people that often thinks I can do something, but in the end, I cannot. I tend to fail spectacularly because there are always variables that I don’t factor in or I think I can do something on my own when I really can’t or I think my effort alone is enough when it’s far from it. So that’s why I’m finding this book-selling thing so confounding. I think I can, but I know in reality, I probably can’t.

So here’s what’s been going on in my head and if anyone has any advice or ideas or comments or cute pictures of hammerheads being their adorable selves, please, give me a comment.

(I moderate the comments, so if you’re going to use this as an invitation to be an asshole, let me tell you, I’ll be the only one to see it. The only attention you’ll get is me marking your comment as spam and rolling my eyes at your attempt to troll the BCE troll killer. Shout out to the way back now.)

-I’d like to do a sort of raffle for signed copies of the book, but also use it as a way to get up some interest in the other titles. Like, show me proof of purchase for a copy of Night of the Nothing Man or A Tale of Two Lady Killers and you’re entered in a raffle for the book. Or maybe a straight up Twitter contest, RT to be entered, deal. This is really the only online idea I have outside the realm of the usual.

-I’d like to try to do some in-person selling. I’m trying to think of a place where I could do a cheap sort of event. Maybe book clubs. Maybe an on-my-own do. Maybe I could talk to the local library. I don’t know. The guaranteed horror is that no one would show up. I have past experience with that nightmare.

-Has anyone ever sold books at cons? Expos? Flea Markets? Gatherings? Things of that nature? That might be something for me to try, but not on my own. Like if I could team up with several other indie authors and we all go in for some exhibit space. Yeah, it’d be more money to do, but there’s the added bonus of being in con territory and that’s always a good time. Plus, it’d give me an opportunity to get more author friends. I’m very terrible at being a part of the writing community. I still don’t feel like I quite belong.

That’s not as many ideas as I thought I had. But they are still ideas that exist and can be used and improved upon.

So, won’t you please, lend me your brain? And maybe a hand?

Writing–August Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

sunI’ve decided to take a slightly different route with my projects this month.

I’m still feeling a bit burnt out on the whole revising thing. I looked at my list of projects that are still on the editing block and went, “I don’t feel like it”. And though I got a great rush from writing the Zak novella, I really don’t feel like it’ll be a good idea to spend another month working on something new, especially when I don’t think I have anything that in my mind is ready to be put down on paper. I don’t feel like spending a month struggling to get a first draft down just because I need something to do.

So I’ve decided to make August the month that I focus on business and organization. There are a couple of little writing things that I’m going to do so it’s not like I’m totally slacking (“She’s Not Here Anymore” needs to be polished and there’s an idea that’s been gnawing away at my brain that I want to get out and into a notebook before I lose any of the fun bits) and there’s nothing that says my revision burn out won’t become a flame before the month is out and I pick a project to work on. But I think my main goal this month needs to be a little bit to the left of writing.

The special edition of Yearly is currently available on Lulu. If it passes all of the distribution muster, it probably won’t hit any other distributor (Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, etc.) until September at least. I feel like I should use this as an opportunity to generate some sales and interest. When I did my first print anthology, I pretty much did nothing outside humble suggestions to buy it (and that got me to a place known as Less Than Nowhere).

But the difference with Yearly is that it is selling as an ebook. I’m wondering if I could get bold and offer the opportunity to get autographed copies (my ego!) or maybe even hold some kind of a contest to win copies. Something. Anything. I really need to work on this part of the business, the drumming up business part of the business. I have something that people are interested in. I should probably capitalize on it.

I’m also feeling a bit disorganized. I’ve got one more project going to the e-presses this year (Spirited in Spite is coming out in October! And it needs a cover still, but whatever) and I feel like I need to start lining up things for next year. I’d like to keep the same sort of publishing schedule, putting out two or three projects. I need to figure out what’s going to go out and when so I know how to really focus my project energy.

It sounds easier than it is considering this year I was so sure two of the projects I was going to publish this year aren’t even ready yet.

I think this month is going to feel weird because I won’t be so focused on working on the individual projects, but it’ll still be productive nonetheless.

Writing–Back Into Print

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yearly special editionThe very first self-published thing I did was print. There was something very exciting about holding a physical book, even if it was self-published. It was a real thing with weight and dimension that contained my words.

And then it didn’t sell and the luster faded and I decided that eBooks were they way to go. They were easier to format, with fewer distributing requirements, and they were cheaper. They didn’t cost me anything to do whereas the actual books required me to buy a proof copy and verify everything was golden if I wanted wider distribution. As cheap as it sounds, I didn’t always have the money to do that.

However, when I realized that Yearly was selling well as an eBook and it wasn’t a fluke that it was selling well (by selling well I mean relative to the meager sales of my other works, not like selling well I can buy a yacht), I started thinking about print again. I wondered if a physical copy would sell as well as the digital one.

I think I already know the answer to this.

But!

There’s actually something egotistical about print copy. I can SIGN a print copy. I can scribble my name on the inside page with some not-nearly-clever-as-I-want dedication. I can actually physically hold this thing as I look at someone with crazy Gloria Swanson eyes and say, “Have you read my boooook?”

There’s also something about the physical form of a book that pushes me to be more of a salesman. Let’s face it, as an indie author, it’s just me trying to hock my cheesy wares out here. And I’m not very insistent about it. I’m very uncomfortable with forcing a product. I was a shitty up-saler in retail and the fast food industry. Nobody got the credit card or the extra nachos for sixty-nine cents. But if I’m going to build a fanbase (and more and more that’s what agents and publishers want to see, that you’ve already got people ready and waiting to buy your shit), then I need to learn to be a little more involved, I suppose.

The eBook of Yearly sells itself.

The special edition print version is going to have to be sold by me.

So watch this space for details.

Writing–Reading Goals Update

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

booksSince we’ve accomplished half of a year already, I figure it’s time to check in to see how I’m accomplishing my reading goals.

As you may or probably don’t remember, this year I laid down the gauntlet of reading 24 books in total, 2 books a month, only 4 could be re-reads. The object of these goals was to get me into the habit of reading steadily. I also hoped that I would continue reading widely, which was what my reading goals emphasized last year, even though I put no restrictions on what I could read.

So, according to this, six months should equal 12 books. Let’s check the math. Here are the books I’ve read so far:

1. The Badge by Jack Webb

2. The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations edited by Alex Ayres

3. Jaws by Peter Benchley (re-read)

4. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

5. Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt by Kenneth McKenzie and Todd Harra

6. Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way by Marcia Wallace

7. Ron Santo: A Perfect Ten by Pat Hughes and Rich Wolfe

8. Horns by Joe Hill

9. Just Farr Fun by Jamie Farr

10. The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

11. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

12. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

Looks like I’m right on target. Decent mix of fiction and non-fiction. Even got some chick-lit and a classic in there. It hasn’t always been easy getting in my reading time every day and I admit to being lazy about it sometimes, but I’m meeting the challenge pretty well. Reading two books at once helps.

The best part about this is that I have a pile of books waiting to be read. I won’t need to be scrambling for something to read any time soon.

Writing–July Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperIt’s official. I am burned out on revising.

This revision/rewrite of The Timeless Man has been most successful. I think I’ve fixed most if not all of the major story problems that were plaguing it. It’s not nearly as boring now! Everything in it now has a purpose. The only thing left hanging right now is the ending. It needs to be changed, yet be the same, if that makes any sense at all. Don’t worry if it doesn’t. I’m not exactly sure how to work that either.

But since I’ve had my revising, I’m going to take a step back from that and focus some energy elsewhere.

The read of (Vampires) Made in America continues (I got a late start on it last month and I measure out the reading so I fully digest what I’m I’m dealing with). The ideas I had for fixes going into the reading are sort of not going to happen at all. It seems that the first draft was a better than I remembered it being, so far story-wise. There are some changes that need to be made, but they’re not nearly as big as I thought they’d be.

I’ll be honest with you. When I got to the end of the first chapter, the last line made me laugh out loud. Now that doesn’t mean I’m fucking brilliant or anything, but it did signal to me that maybe this story wouldn’t be so bad after all.

To counteract my revising fatigue, I’m going to write something new. Sure that seems counter-intuitive since I’ve already got a huge list of projects that need revising and duh, stupid, why are you adding to it? But I need to flex my first draft muscles more often than just in November. The idea is for a longer short story, possibly novella, something that I’ve been kicking around in my brain for a while. I think it’ll be nice to just take the month and play in that world for a while.

And finally, I’ve decided to journey back into print, at least for a while. I’m going to put together a special print edition of Yearly featuring Gone Missing. I may throw in the first part of Night of the Nothing Man, just to see if I can’t drum up some interest in it. If this project goes well, I might look into giving other projects the same type of treatment, most notably A Tale of Two Lady Killers, since it is a novel. It’s going to have sell a more than a few more copies before I commit to that, though.

I’m really looking forward to shaking things up in July. My brains need the break.

Writing–And, Lo, Here Is the Fix You’re Looking For

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperI’m not going to lie to you. The revisions/rewrites on The Timeless Man have been a slog, a real downer. I like the story, but I don’t. I like the character of Arthur Meadows, I like what Ivy is doing for him, I like the Blackout Wednesday parallel I worked, but the story is damn boring. I realize that I don’t need a mythological creature trying to kill people to make a story interesting, but dammit, something needs to be happening. And I have struggled all month long with that.

Until, like a beam of light straight from the Heavens coming down, washing me over with its brilliance, I think I found a way to make this story interesting.

Of course, it couldn’t come at a better time (she said sarcastically). After all, I’ve only slogged through this first round of revisions/rewrites and I’m almost to the finish line and I was so looking forward to putting this masterpiece away for a little while before I tried tackling it again. And for me to put in this fix, I’ll have to go back to the middle of the story and write in the new stuff, the new scenes and characters, which means I’ll probably end up changing part of the last third of what I wrote and probably the ending as well. So, here, when I thought I was almost finished (at least for now)…I’m not.

I am excited about the idea and I think the changes will improve the story greatly. I think it might actually save the whole mess from being a snooze-fest. This is a great, great thing.

However, I’m not thrilled with the amount of backtracking this change will require.

This is what I’m talking about when I keep thinking the more I write, the more fluid and less time-consuming the process will end up being. I keep thinking the more I do this in general, the less I will end up doing THIS, i.e. rewrites because I should have thought of this in the damn first place.

Oh, well.

All part of the gig.

Writing–My Writing Process

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperThis post is part of the My Writing Process Blog Hop, which is  pretty nifty. I’ve never participated in a blog hop before, so I hope you’ll be gentle.

Anyway, I was drawn into this by my lovely, long-time internet friend Helene Kwong, a writer of novels, short stories, blogs, and reviews. Helene and I achieved internet buddy status through LiveJournal, Twitter, and NaNoWriMo. She’s delightful and I could hardly say no when she asked me to do this.

So the premise of this blog hop is to answer four simple questions and then tag three more victims writers to do the same. Groovy. Let’s go.

1.  What are you working on?

At this precise moment, I’m currently rewriting/revising my novella The Timeless Man, the second novella featuring my fat-girl private investigator Ivy Russell. I’m also prepping one of my old NaNo first drafts, (Vampires) Made in America, for revisions. It features another one of my frequent characters, happy-go-lucky vampire Stanley Ivanov.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I imagine it differs because I’m lousy at genres. My short stories are usually very easily defined as horror, but the longer the story goes, the harder it is for me to slap a nice, neat label on it. I suppose the one thing that sets me apart no matter where I’m at is that my female characters don’t necessarily end up with a male character, even if the story line would strongly indicate such a thing happening. If my female main character enters a story single (Kim Ales in Night of the Nothing Man, Ivy Russell in Cheaters and Chupacabras, Edda Blue in A Tale of Two Lady Killers), then she’s probably ending the story the same way.

3. Why do you write what you do?

When it comes to fiction (I’m still experimenting with non-fiction so I can’t really answer about that), it’s what comes to my head. It really feels like this is just what I was programmed to write. I seem to do better when there’s some kind of horror/paranormal/supernatural element to my stories. I’ve tried to write straight stuff and it doesn’t feel like it’s as good to me. I was not meant to write literary fiction, my friends. I just don’t have those chops. But if you want something quick and entertaining and don’t mind getting creeped out, I can help you.

4. How does your writing process work?

Slowly and sometimes with many hang-ups. I keep hoping that the more I do this, the more fluid and faster I’ll get, but so far, that hasn’t happened. I tend to do a lot of the first drafts for my longer works (novellas, novels) during NaNoWriMo because I’ve become incredibly disciplined in the context of that contest. For me, the worst part of writing is the first draft, so the quicker I get it all down on paper, so to speak, the quicker I can get to revising, rewriting, and editing.

There’s almost always at least two revising passes on any given manuscript and then a polish. Some stories I find don’t need a lot of work and some need tons. I probably revised A Tale of Two Lady Killers ten times over five years before I decided it was done. As a self-publisher, I’m a stickler for good editing, particularly the technical stuff, but when it comes to the story, I just know that I got it right and it’s done and I can stop revising. Then comes the polish, which is just correcting errors and spiffing up the word choice.

So which writers do you need to check out next week because they’re answering the same questions?

Johi Jenkins, who’s published Resurgence, The Thirst Within, and Margarette (Violet) (Volume 1) (with K LeMaire). She’s a Chicagoan and if you ask her, she’ll tell you that she writes young adult paranormal romances because she’s clearly immature. Ha!

Shana Hammaker,  author of creepy stories like Charlie (I love this one, so it gets shout out) as well as unflinching memoirs The Cookie Dumpster and Hieroglyphs. She writes shit, reads shit, drinks shit, and talks shit, and she does it all like a pro.

Lisa Fernandes is a long-time friend of mine. I think we’ve known each other around fifteen years or so (let’s not say longer, otherwise we’ll start looking our age). She and I have both struggled through this writing life together, walking different paths, but still in the same forest. In addition to fiction, she also does some really fabulous reviews.

Writing–June Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

roseAfter a month of doing a lot of revisions and polishing…I’m going to be doing more of that.

I’ve decided to go ahead and tackle The Timeless Man. I still haven’t worked out all of the kinks I think need to be worked out, but I’ve got several of them figured out and I might as well get them down on paper (or laptop computer files, as the case may be). It’s quite possible that the act of making those changes will lead to me figuring out the solutions to my other problems (or deciding that they’re not problems at all; that’s always possible).

I’m also going to prep (Vampire) Made in America for revising. This mostly involves re-reading the manuscript, putting everything together in one file, and making notes on what needs to be changed. I hated this manuscript when I finished it for a NaNo win a few years ago but after finishing The World (Saving) Series, it occurred to me what I could do to fix (Vampires). So I’m going into this reading with an idea of what needs to be done, which should make the read easier.

This should be enough to keep me good and busy for the month, but I’m aware of a growing itch to write something new. It’s been a while.

Also, it’s time to publish my latest masterpiece. It should happen in the next couple of weeks. Which will it be? Novel or novella?

I guess you’ll have to stay tuned.