Tag Archives: amwriting

5 Myths About The Writing Business

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Here is a great article by Chuck Sambuchino titled “5 Mistakes Writers Make (and How To Avoid Them).” The title is a bit of a “bait and switch,” as it’s about the business instead of the craft. Still, it’s something that all writers–indie or traditional–should read.

Its main thrust: YOU GOTTA HUSTLE

It took me a while before I realized this. With the help of my publisher, Damnation Books, we were able to craft an extraordinary novel in Song of Simon. The support I received from them has been excellent. I foolishly believed that the book would sell by itself. That’s far from the truth.

The problem is that there are millions of books out there, and unless you do something to stand out, you’ll disappear. I’ve tried a bunch of promo techniques in the past. What I’ve realized is that if you write about stuff you love, people that love the same will join you (that’s you guys). I love writing about geeky stuff. I assume that you love reading about geeky stuff. I hope that some of you read my fiction, but I don’t get shameless about it.

If I’m going to do this, I’m going to have fun doing this. I’ll even get out my 20-sided dice.

Ooooh a dual Star Wars/D&D meme. Critical Hit!!!

Anyway, I’ll leave you to read the article (if you’d like). If you’d rather geek out with me, you can always contact me.

Go back

Your message has been sent

That reminds me: I have a blog about Dungeons and Dragons coming up sometime this week. D & D is my truest, sexiest love. Ok, not that sexy (it’s more anti-sexy), but I still love it.

Like my posts? Follow my website or “Like” my facebook fan page and/or follow me on Twitter. You can also purchase my debut novel, Song of Simon, at any online bookstore or a real one (they both exist).

Doesn’t Marketing and Promotion Suck?

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The answer: It does.

I’ve been trying to improve SEO (search engine optimization) for the site. I added a few links to other writers, and they did the same for me. It’s made a huge difference so far in search engine clicks.

I hate promotions and marketing. I just want to write and let everything else take care of itself. That’s the main reason why I submitted to publishing houses instead of self published. I don’t have the inclination (or the money) to do all the little things a self-published book needs.

Despite the promotion that I get from Damnation Books (my publisher), I still have to do a lot on my own. I’m not good at it, but I found that exchanging links with other bloggers is very time-effective.

For no reason, here’s a cat meme.

I like how his tie matches his eyes. Snappy dresser.

So if you are a writer, contact me if you’d like a link on my site. I can’t promise that I’ll add everyone (i’d prefer speculative or literary fiction, check out the writers I’ve already linked to). The only thing I ask is that if I link you, link me back. Together, we can float above all the crap in this pond.

Also, if you don’t have a website, you should start one.

Go Team Writers.

Like my website? Join my Facebook fan page for more awesomeness (and silly memes). If you like dark fantasy, check out my debut novel Song of Simon. It has no memes, but lots of music references and dick jokes. According to the reviews, Simon is pretty cool. There’s also my FREE webserial, The Watchmage of Old New York, which is at JukePopSerials. You can also find me on Twitter, where I tweet about whatever I feel like (but mostly geeky stuff).

Philosophy Explained Through Art…and The Matrix

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I enjoy reading about philosophy. I think it’s a writerly thing, especially speculative fiction writers like me. After all, it’s our job to ask “what if?” “What if a great power is awoken, and the only way to stop it is by throwing his ring into a volcano?” “What if there’s a secret wizard society, and children go to a special school to study magic?” “What if there’s a world where the seasons can last for decades?” You get the idea.

I found this page very interesting. It’s almost a crib sheet to the major schools of thought, explained through art. Of course, you don’t have to follow one school exclusively. I find myself shifting from one to the other. Such is the nature of a thoughtful mind. Debating yourself is one of the best ways to learn.

I’ve been thinking about the “Brain in a Jar” theory lately. To summarize, we may be brains within a jar and our reality is nothing but an illusion (like The Matrix). Maybe we are avatars in some virtual reality game, or characters on a TV show? We have no way of proving or disproving this, since we are prisoners of what we can perceive, existing in our own private universes. If we can’t perceive something or perceive it’s effects, then we can’t prove or disprove its existence.

Dammit, I am!

Sometimes I wonder if this theory pertains to fiction. What if we aren’t the brain in the jar, but the ones who put the brain in the jar? When the aliens create The Matrix, are they creating a true reality for us to exist within?

The answer I keep coming to is that maybe it’s not real as we define reality, but it does exist. To exist, something must be perceived or it’s effects perceived. This chair exists in my reality because I see it. The wind exists because I feel it and see it blowing leaves around. That damn jackhammer outside exists because I hear it and see it shattering the sidewalk outside my goddamn apartment (sorry, just frustrated at the construction crew that’s been outside for over a month). Thoughts exist too because others can perceive or be affected by them.

Fictional characters may not be “real,” but they do exist. They affect our thoughts. They make us laugh and cry. They empower us or bring us despair.

We may be characters in someone else’s book or video game or whatever, but maybe not. Regardless, this reality is real because it’s real to me. I exist because I think. Would I exist if someone else thought of me? If a tree falls in the woods…

So if aliens have our bodies hooked up to weird tubes and created a virtual reality or not, I have to assume that it exists either way. We all do. Except for Keanu Reeves. He’s the One.

Like my posts? Follow my website or “Like” my facebook fan page. You can also purchase my debut novel, Song of Simon, at any online bookstore or a real one (they both exist).

Yikes

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I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I’ve posted a blog entry. I’m surprised because I’ve been pretty busy on the site, along with my facebook fan page and my other site devoted to wrestling.

As for this site, I added a few new categories. One is my collection of music history articles, which I’m going to tie in to Song of Simon. For those of you that have read the novel, you know how important music is thematically. It functions as a greek chorus of sorts. I love music, especially old blues and folk that you don’t hear much of anymore. Even my music is stuck in the past.

Right now there are two up, but I have a ton more. I meant to post one on “This Land Is Your Land” for Woody’s birthday yesterday, but I flaked.

Everyday I got the blues, even if I went back in time.

The second category is a collection of essays modified from my Creative Writing lesson plans. There’s only one up now, but more will come.

The third is on New York history, which ties directly into The Watchmage of Old New York. I don’t have any essays written yet, but I’m a fat, stinking, treasure trove of knowledge here.

It’s like a Russian Nesting Doll, only it smells like urine.

I don’t actually stink, and I’m considerably less fat than I was, but you get the picture.

Speaking of Watchmage, I’m still shopping around the first novel, and I’m revising the first ten chapters of the second, tentatively titled “Cold Iron.” For those of you that remember, this story arc in the serial was called “The Great Goblin Revolt.” The serial is still up, by the way, and still free.

Ok, that’s all for now. I’m off to play some Happy Wars.
–Craiggers

“The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” — Walt Whitman
Song of Simon from Damnation Books. Available on site, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local book store.
Visit my webpage. We have punch and pie…
Like Pro Wrestling? Visit my wrestling blog and podcast, The Jobbers Wrestling Review

Hey Writer! Yes, You!

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Yeah, I’m talking to you. Listen up.

Your words matter. You have something to say, and you say it. You contribute a verse.

You work hard as hell. They don’t see it, because you’re locked away in a room, bleeding onto a keyboard. They don’t see you bleed. They think you do nothing. They think the words appear out of nowhere. They don’t understand. They don’t bleed.

Fuck them. You matter.

Don’t let them tell you no. I don’t care if you’ve a bestselling superstar, or an indie novelist struggling to be heard.

Value yourself. Value your work.

Fuck them. You matter.

Guest Blog: Author Ross S. Simon

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What a treat! Today we have a guest blog from a fantastic author, Ross S. Simon. Simon is the author of The Snow, from Eternal Press, and Red Dhalia, from Damnation Books. He’s a helluva talent. Check out this essay on how his influences helped to hone his craft. All of his pertinent links are at the end of the essay.

HORROR ON THE WING
Ross S. Simon

Grappling with the culture of horror is about as much a part of my life and career as is absorbing it. There are elements I agree and disagree with; oftentimes a horror author, or “fright-write,” has to put the aspects out of mind that they really hate, or else, at least, mentally transmute these aspects into effective ventilations of their own angst and anxiety—often at real-life negativity—in the form of the writers’ very own expressions of horror in literature.

One of my favorite TV shows to watch in reruns, years ago, was HBO’s “Tales From The Crypt.” Okay, it was the heavily chopped-up-for-basic-cable version, but even so, it still entertained mightily. I saw, in this adapted form, the stories and their surprise resolutions of the slick and powerful caliber that kids in the early 1950s undoubtedly experienced when they were first run in the EC comic books. In “Crypt,” on television, I saw the basic paradigm for the great American short horror story.

The maniacally cackling Crypt-Keeper, with his literally grave-level puns, was also a hoot. And yet, here I look deep enough to see the bad side of horror, somehow: the Keeper puppet was created by Kevin Yeagher, the creature-effects designer who was also behind doll-of-doom Chucky, who happened to be an unbearable icon of dire terror to me while growing up. Chucky seemed to press the exact wrong button of horror in me all these years; this was one horror icon whose invocation in culture always left me not only scared but sad at the same time.

The Crypt Keeper

Here we have exposed the horror aficionado’s weak spot. Being scared stops feeling good; the line is crossed between, if you will, “scary (fun) place to go” and “safe (restful-from-motion) place to go.” When this happens, for just an instant it’s two of the “scary (fun) places to go,” at the same time, and then, forever, it’s one, big, “sad (not-fun-at-all) place to be.” This may sound a bit remedial, but one has to factor in the risk of horror violating the mentality of childhood, in particular during adolescence, which can potentially taint adulthood. With the possible exception of tainted adulthood, this is what happened to me with Chucky: his movies were popular during my adolescence. The timing could not have been worse. The suffering was excruciating.

Still, I’ve parlayed whatever traumas I’ve been handed by horror culture into my own horror work, thus not suffering a total defeat, as I can take expressive chance on displaying to all, in my written endeavors of fright, the worst fear I’ve held in very many years, that I’ve held it for very many years, and which is very real: people.

I’ve believed for the longest time that people are foul, dishonest, lying creatures, never making it clear what they want or what their problem is. Worse yet, everything there is—good, bad, having to do with me, or having to do with them—they blame me for, and only me. I can at least use horrific gods, entities, monsters and supernatural forces as an allegory for the basic essence of people as we know them, if I can’t socialize, and if I’m not allowed by people to express my point of view on certain things. Atrociously enough, despite what our Constitution says, they bar me even from that.

I know that to have the horror culture we do—which is there to entertain in such a way that the horror of real life, in most forms, is more readily approachable—is a blessing to horror authors like me. We all give a lot of original ideas a lot of the time, yet that’s as a result of having horror on the wing. In the culture of fright, there are about equal parts good and bad. In the lives of those like me, there’s a major subject—but only one—of negativity. And then, once one gets around all the horror, there’s only the good stuff. When you get back to being scared for kicks, there’s also a good time.

http://www.eternalpress.biz/book.php?isbn=9781615726400
http://www.damnationbooks.com/book.php?isbn=9781615728916

http://www.facebook.com/samuel.ridings
http://rossssimon.com.istemp.com

All Authors Blog Blitz: Casey Harvell

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Hey everyone. As I mentioned the other day, today is the All Authors Blog Blitz. Help me welcome author Casey Harvell to my blog, as she tells you a little about herself and her growth from reader to writer. Enjoy!

Meet Bestselling Amazon Author Casey Harvell

A long-time resident of the Hudson River Valley, I’ve always been a reader—like a big time reader! Sometime in fourth grade (long after tearing through series like The Babysitter’s Club and the Sweet Valley High books) I sunk my teeth into Gone With the Wind. Next came Scarlett and Pride and Prejudice. I never stood a chance. I began writing as well. I began with short stories. As a teen and in college I worked on a sequel to Scarlett. Somewhere it still sits on a 3 ½ inch floppy disk. A college professor thought it promising but somehow it still got shelved.

My first novel (Lingering…2011) was set in the Catskill Mountains across the river from my home. It was a long process (about three years around work and family) and I queried and submitted my little tushie off. Discouraged I returned to life.

In 2011 I was introduced to self-publishing. I figured what the hey—I’d already wrote the thing after all. Crudely covered and grossly formatted out it went to the masses. I made it free—I was a no-name author after all—and eventually it got downloads. A lot of downloads.

So I began work on Righteous Decisions. I had a lot of great support and help and a year later it was complete. Then came Charged and Harsh Decisions. I also released a compilation of short stories. My newest release is Shocked. Last year I made a major life change. With the help and support of my husband I left corporate America behind and pursued my passion full-time. I also write for Examiner.com and am the proud owner of Fancypants Book Formatting (http://fancypantsformatting.com ) amongst other things!

Electric Covers and website

My Electric Series is about a teenage girl who gets charged with electricity during a band accident. Her body absorbs the energy and mutates it. Just as Kat realizes her powers the new molecular nanotechnology goes bonkers and the world becomes a panicked and highly infectious apocalyptic hell. You can check out the book trailer here: http://youtu.be/LIc_Mf7XsvM

My Decisions Series is about Lettie (a misfit photographer) who tries to find her way in the world. She’s lived with a nightmare disorder her entire life but normalcy gets tossed out the window when she meets two men that will forever change her life. She discovers her destiny in a paranormal world and the bounty it places on her head. Good vs evil just took on a whole new meaning.

Recently I’d been asked about my muse and the asker was surprised by my answer. I get a lot of inspiration from music, movies, tv, books (of course!) but also video games and comics. What are my favorite inspirational video games? The Bioshock games! The imagery is extraordinary!

What’s next? Wired will be the final installment of The Electric Series and will be out sometime next winter. Soul Decisions will be out sometime close to that also and while it’ll be the end of Lettie’s journey it might just be the start of another character’s adventure. I also have a couple standalones coming in the future but I’m not quite ready to share other than one will be heartbreakingly sweet and the will be darker.

You can find out more information on my books on my website http://www.caseyharvell.com
Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Casey-Harvell/238364846204319
Find me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/caseyaharvell
Find me on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Casey-Harvell/e/B00DRQSGLE/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Thanks for your time and a big thanks to C.A. Sanders for the use of his blog!
You may return to your regularly scheduled program 😉

All Authors Blog Blitz: Coming Soon

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I’m excited to announce that I will be participating in All Authors Magazine’s “Blog Blitz.” Each participant will host a guest blog post from another writer. My essay on The Heroic Journey in Modern Fiction will appear on Rachael Rippon’s page.

On my page, I will have a post from the very talented author, Casey Harvell. Casey will be plugging her new release

(Book Two of the Electric Series). I’m about 2/3 through the book, and I’m enjoying it very much.

I hope everyone’s having a great week. I’ll talk to you either before or after Friday’s surgery (hopefully both).

Craiggers

IIIIIIIII Gotta Crow…

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I’m currently giving “The Wild Hunt,” the next chapter in the “Watchmage” serial, a good hard edit. As I said, when I wrote this, I was still seriouly grieving. I want to cut back on some of the more painful stuff, without losing the impact of the piece. I am very excited to be finishing this up, and to be working with JukePop Serials again. I have all this ideas for short and longer stories in the Watchmage world, each one doing a bit more world building. I want to focus on lesser characters in some, and expand on the city the way that the novel does.

btw: almost done with the novel as well. As good as this serial is, the novel blows it out of the water. I can’t help but crow.

Bonus points if you get the title reference.

The Return of “Watchmage…”

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*Professor Farnsworth Voice* Good news everyone! After much soul searching, advice-ignoring, and professional pestering, I have decided to return to the serial version of “The Watchmage of Old New York.” I have a 3rd story arc that is almost ready, titled “The Wild Hunt.”

Previously, I stopped writing the serial so that I can novelize each story arc. The fact is, why must I do one and not the other? I could wait and play for the long term, or I can do things now. If a publisher wants to buy the novels, I’ll worry about that then. No use in stifling myself for a bunch of “what ifs.”

Besides, this story arc is so freakin good, I can’t sit on it any longer.

The projected release for “The Wild Hunt” is Mon, August 26.

In the meantime, catch up on the first two stories at ‪#JukepopSerials‬. Registration is FREE