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My Top 10 Books for 2015

12/31/2015

1 Comment

 
This was a very good reading year for me.  I’ve always read a lot, but this year two changes happened.  First, in beginning to promote my own novel (The Seventh Magpie), I discovered many new sources of information about books, authors, and reviews, so I had a constant stream of potential new reading material tempting me every day.  And second, I became much more ruthless about not wasting my time on books I didn’t love.  First paragraph doesn’t grab me?  First chapter doesn’t hold my interest?  Characters become tedious halfway through?  That book is gone, and I’m on to the next.

So if in the list below I seem to be overly effusive in my praise, it’s not because I’m just that enthusiastic and gushy in general (if anything, I’m the opposite).  It’s because these books were so exceptional that I want everyone to know about them.  And read them.  And love them as much as I do.  That’s not asking for much, is it?

The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman

Have you ever read a book that was so beautiful you wanted to cry?  That spoke to the deep places of you in a voice you’d didn’t know you’d been longing for, about people and places you’ve missed your whole life without ever having encountered them before?  This was that book for me.  Like the duck pond in the book that is said to actually be an ocean, this small book is so much more than its modest page count would suggest.  There is darkness here, and magic.  Tragedy and hope.  Loss and love.  Danger and protection.  Readers of fantasy often debate whether they would rather live in Middle Earth, Narnia, Wonderland, Neverland, or Hogwarts.  But me?  I would forsake them all if I could only live on the Hempstock’s farm among those wise and magical women.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
by Claire North

What if when you died, you were born again back into your same life, over and over again, only with a perfect memory of of everything that happened in all your earlier lives?  And what if, on one of those cycles, you got a warning that changed everything?  Complex, suspenseful, poignant, and profound, this is a startlingly new and clever twist on the time-travel story, with a plot that spans lifetimes.  It’s  a book I know I’m going to revisit and reread many times in the years to come.  I highly recommend it!  Maybe one of my top 10 books of all time.  I haven’t yet read any of the author’s other works (she also writes as Catherine Webb and Kate Griffin), but you can be sure I’m going to.

The Martian
by Andy Weir

Let’s put it bluntly:  This is quite possibly the best sci-fi novel I’ve ever read, and the most believably realistic.  From the very first sentence, it had me hooked, and it kept my interest all the way through the protagonist’s grueling ordeal.  Stranded alone on Mars with only his brains and resolve to keep him alive, he keeps his composure and his sense of humor.  Never has a novel made math and science seem so relevant and so page-turningly compelling.  This book deserves every ounce of the hype it has received and more.  Destined to become a classic.

Bloom:  Or, the Unwritten Memoir of Tennyson Middlebrook
by Martin Kee

Of all the books I read this year, this one takes the prize as the most original.  Is it a classic fantasy adventure, with monsters, magic, and fairies?  Is it a modern urban apocalyptic sci-fi with strange, invasive alien spores?  Wait, is that a hint of steampunk coming in toward the end?  Can this author possibly tie all these seemingly disparate threads together in a satisfying way?  Yes, my friends, he can, and it is awesome.  Also, mega bonus points for inventing the most biologically satisfying (and frightening) portrayal of the fae folk that I’ve ever read.  If you like your fiction weird and genre-bending, this book’s for you.

The Ghost Bride
by Yangsze Choo

I love everything about this book.  It’s historical and it’s supernatural, but the quality of the storytelling is such that it rises above simple genre descriptions and shines as a unique gem all its own.  It has the sympathetic, poor-but-respectable heroine and the unwelcome betrothal of a classic fairy tale.  It has the ominous hungry ghosts of an unsettling supernatural story.  It has Chinese folk magic.  It has lush, beautiful descriptions that immerse all your senses in the intricately realized landscape and culture of colonial Malaysia.  It has a dangerous quest through a very creepy underworld.  I try a lot of new books on my Kindle, but after I’m finished only a rare few are “shelf-worthy” enough get put on my must-buy list to get a real paper copy because I know I’ll want to revisit the book repeatedly in the future.  This is one such book.  I’m eagerly awaiting the author’s next book, too.

The Little Stranger
by Sarah Waters

I do love a good gothic novel, and this one did not disappoint.  A crumbling English mansion with a tragic legacy.  An unexplained presence that may (or may not) be ghostly.  Incipient madness… or is it just the lingering stress of war, death, and poverty?  Just enough dissonance between the words and actions of the main characters to keep me on edge, wondering about their true motivations. A creepy, suspenseful atmosphere thick as the English fog.  Having loved the author’s earlier novel, Fingersmith, I was braced for a huge plot twist (and had my ideas about what it was going to be), but the twists and resolutions of this book were much more subtle and insidious.  Excellent character development too.  After finishing this book, I immediately went out and bought two more of the author’s books, so that should tell you something!

The Seventh Bride
by T. Kingfisher

I love fairy tales, especially dark ones, so it’s no surprise that I enjoyed T. Kingfisher’s (aka Ursula Vernon’s) retelling of the Bluebeard story.  I loved the charmingly wry and pragmatic writing style and the delightfully grumpy young heroine who (of course!) has an intelligent hedgehog sidekick. For all the horrors and dangers that the heroine encounters during her adventures, the narrative maintains a kind of cheerful nonchalance that kept a perfect balance between the lighter, more humorous aspects of the tale and the darker, creepier ones.  I would read this author for the pleasure of her writing style alone.  The fact that she writes in one of my favorite genres?  Even better!  I’ll be seeking out more of her books in the future.

Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline

It seems like an oxymoron to say so, but this is the most fun dystopian book I’ve ever read.  Set in a bleak future, it’s about an an eighteen-year-old boy competing in a virtual reality world to win a high-stakes contest that could change his life forever… or get him killed.  I’m probably not quite the demographic this book was intended for, since I was never a teenage gamer boy, but I did grow up in the 80s so a lot of the old pop culture references in the contest were familiar for me.  The book is face-paced and suspenseful, and the protagonist encounters plenty of challenges and dangers, yet for a dystopian novel the whole story felt surprisingly upbeat.  This is an adventure designed to delight children of the 80s, gamer geeks, computer nerds, and D&D players.  If you are (or were) any of those, you’re going to love this book.

Bitter Greens
by Kate Forsyth

Exquisitely crafted.  A rich, multi-layered story that weaves together history, fairy tale, passion, suffering, witchcraft, and the lives of several remarkable women.  This complex, thoughtful re-envisioning of the Rapunzel fairy tale captivated me from the first sentence.  The narrative felt fresh and intimate, the characters easily relatable, while still capturing just enough fairy tale magic and plenty of lavish, realistic historical detail from Renaissance Italy and seventeenth-century France.  This book kept me torn between wanting to hurry forward to find out what happened next and wanting to linger over the scenes to stay in the beautiful historic settings longer.

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club
by Genevieve Valentine

As soon as I heard the description of this book, I knew I had to read it.  It’s a retelling of the fairy tale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses set in the Roaring Twenties of New York, complete with speakeasies, jazz music, foxtrots, and the Charleston.  The book sheds the dreamy, distant enchantments of your typical fairy tale and recasts our twelve young heroines in a hard, twentieth-century man’s world of tyranny and seclusion, where the only release they can find is in their secret rebellion:  dancing the night away, incognito, at the town’s glittering nightclubs.  Their desperate thirst for even that tiny slice of freedom collides with stern social expectations and family loyalties in ways that were, at times, heart-wrenching.  Kudos, also, to the author for managing to develop distinct personalities for all twelve girls in such a concise way.
1 Comment

Book Promo Sites for Indie Authors

6/10/2015

13 Comments

 
I've been planning a big promo for The Seventh Magpie, coming up soon.  Obviously, that has involved researching lots of book promo sites.  Who knew there were so many of them?  I'm still sifting through more, but I thought it might be helpful to other indie authors if I posted a list of the ones I've found so far.

Some of these sites will list your book for free.  For others, you have to pay.  Some only list free books or books that are at a discounted price.  Each site has its own criteria, its own rules, and as in any business I'm sure some of them provide more value for your money/effort than others.  So make sure to examine each site carefully before deciding where to promote  your book.

My listing of any of these sites below is not necessarily an endorsement.  I have used some of them before, and will be using others in my upcoming promo push.  I'll post more information about my results after that's over.  But what works for one book or author may not work as well for another, so use your own judgement.

I'll come back and add to this list from time to time as I find new sites.  If you know of any, or if any of the links below no longer work, let me know in the comments. 

Good luck promoting your books! 

(If you found this list helpful, you can say thanks by buying a copy of one of my books.)


7 Billion eReader Books
http://www.sevenbillionereaderbooks.com/free-kindle-book-submission

A Girl and Her Ebooks 

http://www.cheapbookpromos.com/p/services.html

Addicted to eBooks 
http://addictedtoebooks.com/

Armadillo Books 
http://www.armadilloebooks.com/

Ask David
http://askdavid.com/for-authors

Author Marketing Club
http://authormarketingclub.com/members/submit-your-book/

Authors Den
https://www.authorsden.com/join/Default.asp

Awesome Gang
http://awesomegang.com/submit-your-book/

Babs Book Bistro
http://www.babsbookbistro.net/media-kit/

Bargain eBook Hunter
http://hotzippy.net/feature-your-book.html

Bargain Booksy
http://www.bargainbooksy.com/for-authors/

Bee Zee Books
http://beezeebooks.com/promote-your-book-online/

Best Ebooks Free
http://www.bestebooksfree.com/

BesteBookReaderLovers.com
http://bestebookreaderlovers.com/

Betty Book Freak
http://bettybookfreak.com/authors/

Book Angel
http://bookangel.co.uk/submit-your-book/

Book Barbarian
http://bookbarbarian.com/

Book Basset
http://www.bookbasset.com/authors/submissions/

Book Bear
http://www.bookbear.info/promote-with-us/

Book Bunny PR
http://www.bookbunnypr.com/for-authors-book-publicity-for-books-ebooks-audiobooks/

Book Circle
http://www.book-circle.com/submit-free-kindle-ebook-listing/

Book Club Reading List
http://bookclubreading.com/authors/

Book Daily
http://www.bookdaily.com/authorsignup

Book Deal Hunter
http://bookdealhunter.com/submit-free-book/

Book Deals Daily
http://bookdealsdaily.com/promote/

Book Freebies
http://www4.bookfreebies.com/

Book Goodies
http://bookgoodies.com/submit-your-free-kindle-days/highlight-your-free-kindle-days/

Book Goodies Kids
http://bookgoodieskids.com/contact-us/authors-tell-us-about-your-book/

Book Gorilla
http://www.bookgorilla.com/advertise

Book Hippo
http://bookhippo.uk/

Book of the Day
http://bookblow.com/submit-book/

Book Pinning
http://bookpinning.com/?sws=home/submit-book

Book Praiser
http://bookpraiser.com/

Book Preview Club
http://bookpreviewclub.com/authorsignup/

Book Review Buzz
http://bookreviewbuzz.com/our-services/add-your-book/

BookBub
https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing

Book Buzzr
http://www.bookbuzzr.com/plans.php

Bookchoice4u
http://www.bookchoice4u.com/

Book Daily
http://www.bookdaily.com/authorsignup

Booklovers Heaven
http://bookloversheaven.com/

Book Pinning
http://bookpinning.com/?sws=home/submit-book

Books Butterfly
http://www.booksbutterfly.com/order/

BookScream
http://bookscream.com/authors.php

Books Direct
http://booksdirectonline.blogspot.com.au/p/list-your-book-with-books-direct.html

Books on the Knob
http://blog.booksontheknob.org/subscribe-about-contact/authors-read-this

Book Sends
http://booksends.com/advertise.php

Books Go Social/The Book Promoter
http://thebookpromoter.com/

Booktastic
http://booktastik.com/advertise-on-booktastik/

BookZio
http://www.bookzio.com/submit-a-listing/

Buck Books
http://buckbooks.net/buck-books-fiction-promotions/

Choosy Bookworm
http://authors.choosybookworm.com/newsletter-and-website-feature/

Contentmo
http://contentmo.com/submit-your-free-ebook-promo

Daily Bookworm
http://thedailybookworm.com/submit-free-books/

Daily Free Books
http://www.dailyfreebooks.com/promote-your-kindle-book.html

Debut City
http://www.debutcity.com/Submit.htm

Digital Book Today
http://digitalbooktoday.com/12-top-100-submit-your-free-book-to-be-included-on-this-list/

Discount Books Daily
http://www.discountbooksdaily.com/

E-Book Bird
http://www.e-bookbird.com/ebook/authors/

EBookasaurus
http://ebookasaurus.com/authors/


EBook Bargains UK
http://www.ebookbargainsuk.com/listing-fees-3-w.asp

EBook Blitz
http://ebookblitz.com/promote-free-ebook/

EBook Booster
http://www.ebookbooster.com

EBook Deal of the Day
http://ebookdealoftheday.co.uk/submissions/

EBook Deal of the Day UK
http://ebookdealoftheday.co.uk/submissions/

Ebook Hounds
http://www.ebookhounds.com/


EBook Impresario
http://ebookimpresario.com/advertise

EBook Korner Konnection
http://kornerkonnection.com/

EBook Lister
http://www.ebooklister.net/submit.php

EBook PRO
http://ebookpro.org/

EBooks Habit
http://ebookshabit.com/for-authors/


EBook Soda
http://www.ebooksoda.com/authors/


EBook Stage
http://ebookstage.com/authorAreaPage.xhtml

EBook Universe
http://www.philipsmith.eu/


EFiction Finds
http://www.efictionfinds.com/p/author-corner.html

EPublish a Book
http://www.epublishabook.com/2011/09/25/advertize/

EReader Café
http://www.theereadercafe.com/p/authors.html

EReader IQ
http://www.ereaderiq.com/contact

EReader News Today
http://ereadernewstoday.com/bargain-and-free-book-submissions/

EReader Perks
http://www.ereaderperks.com/

EReader Utopia
http://ereaderutopia.com/

EReaderGirl
http://ereadergirl.com/submit-your-ebook-2/

Feed Your Reader
http://www.feedyourreader.com/submit-your-book-2/

Fiverr bknights
https://www.fiverr.com/bknights

Flurries of Words
http://flurriesofwords.blogspot.co.uk/p/book-advertising.html

Free & Discounted Books
http://freediscountedbooks.com/submit-ebook/

Free Book Dude
http://www.freebookdude.com/search/label/Promote%20with%20The%20Book%20Dude

Free Books Daily
http://www.freeebooksdaily.com/promote-your-book/

Free Books Hub
http://www.freebookshub.com/authors/

Free Books Hub UK
http://www.freebookshub.co.uk/

Free Kindle Books and Tips
http://fkbt.com/for-authors/

FreeBooks.com
http://www.freebooks.com/submit/

Free Booksy
http://www.freebooksy.com/editorial-submissions/

Frugal Freebies
http://www.frugal-freebies.com/p/submit-freebie.html

Fussy Librarian
http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/for-authors/

Genre Pulse
http://www.genrepulse.com/

Good Kindles
http://www.goodkindles.net/p/submit-your-book.html

Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/author/program

Ignite Your Book
http://igniteyourbook.com/submit-your-book/

ILoveEbooks.com
http://www.iloveebooks.com/for-authors.html

Independent Author Network
http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/

Indie Book Lounge
http://indiebooklounge.com/register.php

Indie Book of the Day
http://indiebookoftheday.com/authors/free-on-kindle-listing/

Indie Book Promo
http://indiebookpromo.com/submit-to-ibp-3/

Indie House Books
http://indiehousebooks.com/

Indies Unlimited

http://www.indiesunlimited.com/submissions/

It's Write Now
http://itswritenow.com/submit-your-book/

Jungle Deals & Steals
http://jungledealsandsteals.com/submit-your-kindle-freebie/

Just Kindle Books
http://www.justkindlebooks.com/authors-corner/

KBoards (Kindle Boards)
http://www.kindleboards.com/free-book-promo/

Kindle Book Promos
http://kindlebookpromos.luckycinda.com/?page_id=283

Kindle Book Review
https://www.thekindlebookreview.net/advertise-books-2/

Kindle Nation Daily
http://indie.kindlenationdaily.com/?page_id=642

Library Thing
http://www.librarything.com/about_authors.php

Lovely Books
http://lovelybookpromotions.com/submit-your-kindle-freebie/

Many Books
http://manybooks.net/promote.php

Masquerade Crew
http://www.masqueradecrew.com/2014/10/basic-book-promotion-via-masquerade-crew.html

New Free Kindle Books
http://newfreekindlebooks.com/authors/

OHFB
https://ohfb.com/kindle-book-advertising-for-authors-and-publishers.html

People Reads
http://www.peoplereads.com/list-your-ebook

Pixelscrolls
http://hotzippy.net/feature-your-book.html

Pretty Hot
http://pretty-hot.com/submit-your-book/

Publishing Points
http://www.source4.us/promote-your-book-2/

Read Cheaply
http://readcheaply.com/partners/

Read Freely
http://www.readfree.ly/

Readers in the Know
http://www.readersintheknow.com/aphelp#faq_howlist

Reading Deals
http://readingdeals.com/submit-ebook

Riffle Select
http://www.rifflebooks.com/advertise

Robin Reads
http://robinreads.com/author-signup/

Romance eBook Deals
http://hotzippy.net/feature-your-book.html

Shelfari
http://www.shelfari.com/help/question108

Shelf Media Group
http://www.shelfmediagroup.com/pages/author-services.html

Slashed Reads
http://promo.slashedreads.com/free-listing/

Snicks List
http://snickslist.com/books/place-ad/

Story Finds
https://storyfinds.com/

Sweet Free Books
http://sweetfreebooks.com/advertise/

The Books Machine
http://www.thebooksmachine.com/deals/dealspromote.html

The Midlist
https://www.themidlist.com/submit

The Reading Sofa
http://www.thereadingsofa.com/authors.html

Virtual Bookcase
https://thevirtualbookcase.wordpress.com/how-to-submit-to-the-virtual-bookshelf/

Wanton Reads
http://wantonreads.com/tell-us-about-your-book/

Wattpad
http://www.wattpad.com/writers

World Lit Café
http://www.worldliterarycafe.com/content/find-your-books-wings

Xtme: Gute EBooks
http://www.xtme.de/submitting-a-free-e-book-to-xtmeenglishbooks/
13 Comments

Debut Novel Blog Hop

4/24/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
To celebrate the re-release of The Key of Amatahns by Elisabeth Wheatley,Inkspelled Faery is hosting ten days of visiting your favorite authors as they talk about their very first novels, topped off by an all- day Facebook party with fun, games, and giveaways. Check out the full line up of authors and don’t forget to join the Facebook party on the 25th!

My Debut Novel:  The Seventh Magpie

Picture
Paperback:
Kindle:
Picture
Sometimes you must give up what you value most
to gain what you want even more.

Princess Catrin is just a child when her mother vanishes, leaving her a cryptic legacy:  a priceless magical book and the warning that if Catrin ever loses it, she’ll surely die.  But she is a young woman on the brink of a whole new life when, in a moment of defiance, she forgets that warning and triggers a catastrophe that shatters all her hopes.

Stricken with grief and guilt, and seeking a way to correct her terrible mistake, Catrin risks everything on a dangerous bargain.  Too late, she realizes just how much more she has to lose.

With advice from a half-mad witch and help from companions she meets along the way, Catrin embarks on a desperate quest to defeat seven riddling Magpies—magical tricksters who can shapeshift into anything or anyone—and win back her book or face losing everything she holds dear.

With each step the stakes get higher, and there are secrets she still doesn’t suspect.  How much is Catrin willing to sacrifice to finally unmask the Seventh Magpie?

A dark fairy tale of loss and renewal.

My Answers to Elisabeth's Interview Questions

Elisabeth:  To start us off, can you sum up your first novel in a tweet, 140 characters or less?

A queen's disappearance. A magical book. A lost love. A deadly game of riddles with all at stake. Can Princess Catrin regain what she lost?

Elisabeth: What are you most proud of in this title?

I'm pleased with a lot of the language of the book.  I was aiming for a style that was minimal yet lyrical and full of imagery, and I think the book achieves that.   I'm also proud of the book's climax and resolution.  The story starts out seeming like a simple, predictable fairytale, but it gets gradually deeper and more complex until the unexpected twists and deep emotional impact of the end.

Elisabeth: Do you think your writing has changed since your debut? In what way?

Well, I started The Seventh Magpie when I was 19, wrote the majority of it in my early 20s, but didn't finish and publish it until I was 49.  So my writing certainly changed and matured over the duration of writing the book.  A lot of the simplicity of the style, the use of archetypal characters, and the inclusion of some of the standard fairytale tropes were dictated by the book's genre.  Now that I am working on other novels--fantasy, sci fi, and paranormal, but NOT fairytale--I'm enjoying the freedom to develop much more complex and multi-layered characters and plots, and to explore the world building more deeply.

Elisabeth: If you could give one piece of advice to yourself when you were writing your first book, what would it be?

Don't give up.  It's okay if you get to places where the writing or the plotting or the structure is bad.  It doesn't mean that you're a bad writer and it doesn't mean that you can't do it.  It just means that you haven't figured out the right approach yet.  Every aspiring writer gets to that stage at some point in every work in progress.  The thing that turns "aspiring writers" in to "real writers" is that when they reach that point of doubt, the real writers don't give up.  They keep on doing the work and improving their skills until they figure it out.  Be a real writer.  Persevere!

Elisabeth: Worst piece of writing advice anyone’s given you?

One of my teachers back in high school told me I should give up writing fiction and concentrate on journalism, because there was no money in fiction.  Even at the time (way back in the 1980s), I thought that was remarkably short-sighted.  First of all, I don't think anyone who has any awareness of the publishing world at all goes into fiction writing because they think it's the best way to make money.  They go into it because they are passionate about it, and can't imagine NOT doing it.  Second, it wrongly equates the two careers, as if someone who is suited to and passionate about one would automatically be good at the other.  And third, of course, with so many newspapers and magazines struggling or closing down, print journalism isn't exactly a booming career choice either.

No matter what advice anyone ever gives you about your writing, you have to measure it against your own creative instincts and not follow it blindly.  What may work for someone else might not work for you.  If the advice seems reasonable, you can try it out.  But be prepared to change it or ignore it completely if you find that it doesn't coincide with how you envision your work.

If you thought this was fun, drop by the Facebook party going down on the 25th for more interviews with your favorite Fantasy authors as well as games and goodies galore!
0 Comments

How to Become a Published Author in Just 5 Easy Decades (Part 3:  The Third Decade)

2/19/2015

0 Comments

 
You're Never Too Old (Or Too Young) to Be a Writer. Lessons Learned During 49 Years of "Honing My Craft"
Continued from Part 2
Once I moved out on my own and had to start supporting myself, managing my life became an important priority.  Making sure I had I job I could stand, enough money for rent and groceries, and a car that (more-or-less) functioned had to take precedence over writing, at least for a while.

But I still couldn't let go of the dream.  As if trying to force creativity through my pores by osmosis, I dated a published author, a professional storyteller, a photographer, a musician.  I surrounded myself with creative people as much as I could.

In between jobs, friends, and travel, I still wrote, and I tried to follow the suggestions I read so avidly in Writer’s Digest.  I wrote poetry and short stories.  I entered them in contests and submitted them to small literary magazines.  I had a modest amount of success with my poetry, including some first place wins in contests (even one that paid me a whopping $100 which for an 84-word poem seemed like a great deal of money at the time). 

I wasn’t anywhere near my dream of being a full time writer, but I was still working at it.  I was living, working, exploring, traveling.  I fell in love so enormously and got my heart shattered so badly that it inspired the initial idea for my first novel, The Seventh Magpie (although I wouldn’t have the emotional or literary maturity to actually finish this book until this year).

I read books and magazines about writing.  I joined an excellent local writer’s group where we read and critiqued each other’s work every week.  I kept writing, and I started getting used to that horribly uncomfortable feeling of sharing my work with other people on a regular basis:  asking for, receiving, and giving constructive criticism.

Unexpectedly, I found that my lifelong habit of voracious reading had given me a skill I didn’t know I had.  I was unusually good at critiquing other writers’ works and giving them  helpful suggestions.  Even though I felt as if I didn’t have any real qualifications,  my writer friends encouraged me to start offering critiques professionally.  I did a few freebies to get some testimonials, and then started freelancing for money.  It still wasn’t enough to really support myself full time, but it was a way to at least make some money in the publishing field. 

But one’s twenties are an unsettled time.  Between changing jobs, changing cities, changing relationships, life was a constant deluge of  new experiences.  I wrote more poetry, I started a few different books, but my progress toward actually submitting my work dwindled to nothing.  I knew that none of the stuff I was writing was finished enough to meet my own standards.  I simply wasn’t mature enough yet mentally, emotionally, or in my literary skills to perfect my work, so I refrained from trying to publish.  If it had been the age of easy electronic self-publishing, as it is now,  I might have succumbed to the temptation to  put my work out there anyway, but the reality of it is (as with many self-publishers nowadays), my work simply wasn’t good enough to go public yet.  So, thanks to being born a long time before the age of Createspace and KDP, I managed to keep slowly experimenting and honing my skills while also avoiding publishing any majorly embarrassing works.

I dabbled in learning commercial copywriting for a while.  I lived with a professional storyteller and frequently helped him develop his stories.  We collaborated on a story that he performed on the local radio one Christmas.  Collaborating was interesting and our particular efforts went relatively well, but over all I decided that it was more satisfying to write solo.

In my late twenties I moved to a new city, joined a new writers’ group based on the free-writing exercises in Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.  My poetry took on a much less constructed, metaphorical, and lyrical tone, and were more personal and conversational.  Although I occasionally tried to get some of the poems published--and occasionally succeeded--I made little progress toward completing any of my novels.  However, the free-writing techniques I learned were tremendously valuable tools that had a lasting impact on my productivity and creativity.

I fell in love, got married, and moved to yet another city, this one far from anyone I knew except for my husband.  The job market was favorable at that time, and before long I found myself with an actual job as a low-level writer/editor on a real live magazine.  Yes, it was an industrial trade magazine whose subject matter held no personal interest to me at all, but for the first time I was fully supporting myself by my writing and editing skills.

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Lessons Learned from Decade 3:

  1. Sometimes life takes over.  That's okay.  You're gathering material for later writing projects.
  2. Even if your writing can't be top priority right now, you can still make it a priority.
  3. Feed your creativity by interacting with other writers.
  4. If your work isn't ready to publish, don't publish it.
  5. Keep writing, even when you don't see progress.
  6. Try new fields, new formats, new methods.  You never know when you might find one you love.  Or one that will pay the bills!

Stay tuned for Part 4!
Image credit:  By 관인생략 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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The Lost Composure

2/17/2015

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As most of you already know, my first novel--a dark, illustrated fairytale entitled The Seventh Magpie-- was just published this week.

Only, as my sister Donna has just reminded me, it wasn't my first illustrated fairytale book at all.  It wasn't even my first illustrated fairytale book featuring troublesome, trickster birds.  The other fairytale in question had a very limited print run of one, and was a birthday present to Donna, somewhere around twenty years ago.

Now Donna has kindly scanned her personal copy and sent it to me so I can share it here.  So, without further ado, I present to you, The Lost Composure, written and illustrated by Nancy Chase.  (You'll quickly understand why I hired the talented Katrina Sesum to illustrate The Seventh Magpie, rather than doing it myself!)

And in case you're wondering, yes, the heroine of the story really does live on a little farm with ponies, cats, and chickens, in a place called Siberia, Maine.  This is what it really looks like.
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How to Become a Published Author in Just 5 Easy Decades (Part 2:  The Second Decade)

2/17/2015

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You're Never Too Old (Or Too Young) to Be a Writer.  A Tongue-In-Cheek Look at the Lessons I've Learned During 49 Years of "Honing My Craft"
Continued from Part 1

By fifth grade, I was on a roll.  I alarmed my Gifted and Talented Program teacher by writing a short story about a man and his German Shepherd who are the only survivors of a small plane that crashes in the Alaskan wilderness.  After days of struggling across the tundra without any supplies, trying to reach civilization, the dog finally attacks and eats the man, then sets off to find the nearby village alone.

My teacher liked the story, but seemed a little concerned that I might be some kind of young sociopath.  She was relieved when I explained airily, "Oh, I read a lot of Jack London."

Around that time, inspired in part by my grandmother, Otta Louise Chase, who was an award-winning poet, I started writing poetry.  In sixth grade, I wrote, directed, and starred in my one-and-only venture into playwriting:  a dark tale of two girls spending Halloween night in a cemetery, who are confronted by Hades and Persephone, god and goddess of the Underworld.  I still remember staying after school to paint cardboard gravestones for our set.

The writing kept pouring out, but in seventh grade the quality took a dip.  I had reached that painful stage where, for the first time, you're aware that you're writing crap, even as you're writing it.  I remember my teacher loved one story I wrote about a Native American teenager who is ostracized because he is "different" and won't do stupid things like drink and drive with the other boys.  Even at age 13, I recognized my plot for heavy-handed preachy drivel, but kept my mouth shut because that drivel got me an A grade.

Another story I wrote at the time featured a rich teenage girl whose attempted kidnapping is thwarted by her loyal horse and dog.  It was obvious wish-fulfillment fantasy, and I had the good sense not to show it to anybody.  Even so, I was not (very) embarrassed to have written it.  I just acknowledged its flaws and moved on.

All this writing was fueled by constant, voracious reading.  My seventh grade English teacher, astonished to see that I had done my book report on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, asked me why I had chosen that book.  Embarrassed, I admitted that I had done it out of laziness, because it was a book I'd already read once before.

In eighth grade English, we learned to diagram sentences and write five-paragraph essays.  I liked the logic of sentence diagrams, but resented the tedium of the essays ("Every paragraph must have one topic sentence and three example sentences.").  When I was later a finalist in the Voice of Democracy "Youth:  America's Strength" essay contest, I knew my essay was plodding, dutifully patriotic pap.  I was actually pleased when I lost to an essay that was actually good, and didn't mindlessly follow the rigid structure I'd been taught.

Also in eighth grade, my Reading teacher gave us the best assignment ever:  We were to write a story, make a cover, and present it to her as if it were a real book.  Finally, someone was asking me to do what I'd been trying to do since I was four years old!

I wrote a science fiction story entitled, "Exiled to Earth," about a scientist in a utopian world who gets sick from handling a contraband cat, and ends up exiled to earth, which is now uninhabited by humans and has reverted entirely back to nature.  He learns primitive survival skills and adapts to his environment so well that when later human explorers arrive, he doesn't go to them and ask for rescue, but slips silently back into the forest to continue his solitary life.

My book had an elaborate cover of blue construction paper with illustrations of the iridescent glass domes the utopian people lived in, a rocket shooting across the sky, and lots of little silver dots of glitter for stars.  My teacher gave me an A++ and took  me aside to ask me a question that blew my mind:  "Do you want to be a writer when you grow up?"

Everything stood still.  I could not believe that for all the thousands of books I'd read and all the dozens of stories I'd written, it had never once occurred to me that writing was something you could do for a living.  It was like being informed that you could get a job breathing or eating.  All my other potential dream jobs (jockey, veterinarian, ballerina) dissolved into dust in the face of this wondrous revelation.  "Yes.  Yes, I think I do."

In high school, the momentum continued.  As a freshman, I was invited to audit the senior creative writing class with the wonderful Myra McLarey, who was the first teacher to actually show me ways to improve my writing.  I was editor (and chief contributor) to the school literary magazine Halcyon for all four years of high school.  I hounded my friends to contribute, I submitted my own stuff, I got swoony feelings for the boys who submitted good poems and stories, and secretly looked down on those who submitted drivel.  I even turned in my best friend for plagarism when her English teacher gave me a poem she had turned in for his class which I recognized as actually being the lyrics to a John Denver song.  I was thrilled to be chosen for the region's Gifted and Talented Young Writer's Program, where we traveled to different places around the state and got to meet and have workshops with real famous authors and poets.  The one I remember best is Morgan Llywelyn, who gave me good advice on writing a supernatural goddess character I was working on (to avoid making her seem unread, give her vulnerabilities or little human habits like nail-biting).  Morgan also generously corresponded with me for a while after that, giving me encouragement and advice.  I started writing a sword and sorcery novel, The War of the Wizards, and even was interviewed by the local paper about it.  I never finished it, but although I now recognize the plot was full of clichés, I do still like the three main characters, so who knows, maybe I'll go back and rework it someday.

At age 18 I got my first paid publication--$5 for some poems and a story, "The Fool" about a court jester who overthrows his king--published in a local magazine, Bittersweet.  I asked for a fancy typewriter for my graduation present, and started feeling my way in the big world of real-life publishing, writing stories and poems, and figuring out where to send them out, not even minding the rejection slips that came back.

Lessons Learned from Decade 2

  1. Experiment with different genres and styles to find the ones you like best.
  2. Read.  Read everything.
  3. Learn the rules of grammar and structure.  You need to know them, even if you later decide to challenge them.
  4. It's okay to write stuff that isn't that good.  It's inevitable.  Don't make a big deal about it, just let it go and move on.  Don't be surprised when some people like it anyway. This is the Universe's way of trying to make up for the fact that later, when you write something brilliant, some people will still hate it.  Nice try, Universe!
  5. Keep writing.  Write all the time.
  6. Learn from experts whose work you admire--and from those whose work you hate.  Just learn!
  7. Don't be afraid to submit your work for publication.  Even if you are afraid, submit it anyway.  The thrill of one paid acceptance is worth the disappointment of a hundred rejection slips.

Stay tuned for Part 3!

Image credit:  By 관인생략 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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How to Become a Published Author in Just 5 Easy Decades (Part 1:  The First Decade)

2/16/2015

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You're Never Too Old (Or Too Young) to Be a Writer.  Lessons Learned During 49 Years of "Honing My Craft"

I wrote my first book before I could, well, write.  It's true.  Back in my toddler days, when I was still trying to master that pesky task of combining bits of the alphabet together to form words, I'd already deduced that books were the Best Thing Ever, and the world should have more of them.

Confident that I was the girl for the job, I immediately formed my own publishing company.  I folded and cut a stack of drawing paper into pages and stapled them together to form a book.  Undeterred by the fact that I was still illiterate, I scribbled line after line of gibberish across all the pages and declared myself done (a process I would replicate several times in later decades while participating in NaNoWriMo).

Eager for my first 5-star review, I presented this charming first edition
to my father.  "Daddy, I wrote a book!"  Unfortunately, my father is not a man of refined literary sensibilities.  After a bemused glance at the scribble-covered pages, he not only declined my proposal that he fund a series of sequels by giving me more drawing paper, he also neglected to even finish "reading" all the pages. 

Once I recovered from the shock of having my masterpiece panned by my own father, I intuited that perhaps for less avid book-lovers than myself it was important for books to contain actual words.  So I set about learning some words and soon returned to my publishing ventures.  To supplement my limited vocabulary, I also provided crude pencil drawings depicting the subject matter, which ranged from reporting current events (my sister got bitten by her horse, which made her late for school) to more encyclopedic works illustrating all the different kinds of animals at a zoo or circus (despite the fact that I'd never been to a zoo or circus).

Buoyed by the positive reviews these picture books generated among my family members (except the sister who got bitten by the horse)
, I eventually turned to writing fiction.  My love for speculative fiction emerged immediately.  In second grade, I wrote a series of illustrated ghost stories.  Soon afterwards, I began the multi-part saga of an orphaned horse named Safari who lived in the jungle and battled tigers and elephants.  Realism took a back seat to adventure, but I didn't care as long as the stories were exciting.
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Lessons Learned from Decade 1

  1. Raw enthusiasm is not enough.  Content matters, so hone your skills.
  2. Don't let bad reviews get you down.  Learn from your failures and do better next time.
  3. Write the kinds of stories you love to read.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2!
Image credit:  By 관인생략 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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This Is How My Heart Was Broken: The Real-Life Fairytale Behind The Seventh Magpie

2/14/2015

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Once upon a time, more than thirty years ago, there was a fifteen-year-old girl who was very shy.  She read a lot of books, walked alone in the woods a lot, and spent most of her time in the world of her imagination.

Like most girls that age, she felt lonely and misunderstood.  She had already developed a passion for writing.  So, that summer, to fill her loneliness, she decided to use her writing skills to make up the perfect man, the one who would be her happily ever after. 

She considered herself a sensible person, so she approached it logically.  What did she like?  What attracted her?  Straight off, she knew:  She had a special weakness for English accents, so her dream man would have to be English. 

But she didn’t like cold weather, so he’d be from the southernmost part of England.  She got out her family’s big red atlas of the world and looked at a map.  The southernmost part of England was Cornwall.  The only Cornish town of significance shown on this particular map was Bodmin.  Fine.  He’d be from Bodmin, Cornwall, England.  What else?  She started making a list.  Hair, eyes, interests, personality, she chose them all.

Well, now that she had created the perfect man, he needed a name, right?  J---- sprang to mind instantly as a strong but simple English-sounding last name.  But what was his first name?  C----?  No, P-----.  That was it.  P----- J----.  Her perfect man.

In time, summer ended, and the girl started her sophomore year in high school.  Caught up in her studies, she mostly stopped daydreaming about her perfect man.  But one day in Spanish class, the teacher told the students about an international pen pal organization, where they could pay a dollar and be matched up with a student in another country. 

The girl didn’t allow herself to think too much about it as she filled out the form to indicate her own interests and personality and to choose the attributes of her future pen pal.  But still, before she paid her dollar and handed in the form, she did check “England” and “Male.”

Several weeks later, the pen pal company sent each student back the name and address of the person they had been matched with.  The girl opened hers, curious, but not expecting too much.  Yes, it was a boy her own age, from England.  Cornwall, in fact.  Bodmin!

His chart of interests matched exactly the boxes the girl had checked.  She raised her eyes to the top of the page to see his name.  Her heart stopped.  His last name was J----, the name she had picked for her perfect man!  The first name was different, though:  R----. 

She wrote to R---.  He wrote back.  She wrote again.  He sent cartoons, picture postcards, flirtations.  It wasn’t hard to get to know each other.  They wrote to each other for three years.  It got so she could feel it when his letters were waiting for her in the mailbox, before she even got home from school.

It was inevitable.  When she graduated from high school, she wanted to go see him.  She had vacation time from her job that January.  She bought her tickets.  New Year’s eve would be her first night in London.  R---- promised to meet her at the airport.

She thought she would recognize him right away, but it took her a moment.  He was taller than she’d realized, pale and dark-haired.  And he was waiting there for her.  After a few awkward moments, they got on the train to take them into London.  Before long, they were side-by-side, leaning forward, talking intently.  Across the aisle, a total stranger looked at them and asked, out of the blue, “Are you two brother and sister?” 

“No,” they laughed.  “We just met.”  But secretly, the girl was thinking:  Kismet.  Even strangers on a train could see the connection between them.

That night they roamed the streets of London, while around them, the whole city celebrated New Year’s Eve.  In a foreign country, amidst thousands of total strangers, the girl felt at home at last.  Later, the boy dropped her off at her B&B and left to return to where he and his roommate were planning to sleep in the car that they had driven there from Cornwall.

But after a little while, she heard him calling outside her window.  He’d missed the last train.  He couldn’t get back to his car, so he had nowhere to stay.  She ran down to let him in.  It all felt like a movie.  She gave him a pillow and a blanket.  He stretched out on the floor next to the radiator.  She curled up on the bed. 

The plan was for her to accompany the boy and his roommate back to Cornwall, where after a week, they would have to go back to school, and the girl would continue on her month-long tour of the country.  But on the way, they stopped in Bristol, where the boy and girl took a starlit walk up to the top of a bluff to view the lights on the Bristol suspension bridge.  Standing there beside him in the cold night air, looking down on the lights, for the first time in her life she felt a moment of absolute, pure, perfect happiness.

“I love you.”  Which of them said it first?  It didn’t matter.  In that moment of perfect happiness, they kissed for the first time. 

Upon arriving in Cornwall, the girl learned the proper way to make tea.  She ate things she’d never heard of before:  Eccles cakes, saffron buns, marmite soldiers, Cornish pasties.  And, within a few days, she and the boy made love. 

The week was too short.  She didn’t want to leave him to finish her trip.  She was torn.  Then he decided to ditch school and come with her.  It would be tricky, traveling for two on her budget for one, but she didn’t care.  Anything to have more time with him.

They were lying in bed one morning, when she finally mustered the courage to tell him the story of her perfect man.  By the time she reached the end, when she told about picking the names, the boy was looking at her very strangely.  “What?” she asked him nervously.

“R---- is my middle name,” he said slowly.  “My real name is P-----.  C---- is my father’s name.”

The girl felt like the breath had been knocked out of her.  Three years of writing to each other, and she had never known that.  This was really, truly it.  Fate was hitting her over the head with signs and portents.  She had found her perfect man.  But they were only nineteen.  The weight of it all was both dizzying and terrifying.

They traveled together for the whole month.  They saw Stonehenge and Cardiff Castle, Buckingham Palace, and York Minster.  They fed swans in the park, browsed in used bookstores, and made a pilgrimage to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.  When the time approached for the girl to return home, they talked about what they would do next. 

The boy wanted to come to the U.S., and for him to get a green card, they would have to get married.  But he’d just witnessed his parents going through a messy divorce, and he was terrified of marriage.  The girl didn’t care about the marriage issue one way or the other, because she knew that we were destined to be together, regardless of what it said on a piece of paper.  They could get married for green card purposes only, and see where the relationship grew from there.  She had no doubts that everything would work out.  Together, they visited the embassy and learned about the paperwork they’d need to process.

All too soon, the time came for the girl to go home and leave her love behind.  He’d follow in a few months, after they got everything arranged.  That last morning, he brought her a single red rose, and, sobbing, she carried it onto the plane.  She had exactly one coin left in her pocket:  a single British pound.

Back home, time passed.  The girl went back to work.  The boy went back to school.  The girl filed the paperwork to get him into the country.  It got lost in the mail.  The boy’s letters got further and further between.

And then one day she just knew.  The same way that she used to know when his letters would be waiting in her mailbox, she knew that he had decided not to come. 

Blindly trying to wrench herself back from the abyss where she teetered, she allowed an old friend of hers to come over to visit.  She allowed him to make love to her.  She felt sick inside, but somehow it seemed like a way to seize control of the situation before she fell apart altogether.  She had done it, not the boy.  She had broken the magic spell that brought them together as soul-mates, not him.  She, of her own volition.  But it wasn’t true.  His letter breaking up with her was already in the mail.

It was worse than she could imagine.  She could understand him being afraid of marriage, of emigrating to a new country sight unseen, of making a commitment to a girl he’d only known in person for a month.  But this was worse.  It would be “too hard,” he claimed, for them to remain friends.  After three and a half years, and one magical month, he never wanted to talk to her again. 

She became a whirlwind of despair.  She dated a lot of men, slept with most of them, liked them all, but loved not a single one of them until seven years later.  She thought the timing was interesting.  Seven years, she had read, is the time it takes for all the cells in your body to die and be replaced with new ones.  She could not love again while there was a single cell in her body that still remembered R----.

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Yes, the above is a true story.  Yes, it happened to me.  And yes, it was during the resulting tempest of emotions that I began writing the first draft of The Seventh Magpie.

Now, when I look back on that time, the memory of my own image is blurry with the emotional tumult surrounding me, and R----’s has faded away to a few indelible impressions.  Mostly I feel bad for putting him into such a situation.  He was only nineteen years old at the time, OF COURSE he made the right decision not to uproot his entire life.  I don’t even know if we’d still have anything in common today.  I know that my life would have been narrower, and I would not have learned as many of wisdom’s lessons, nor met as many beloved people if I had been allowed to wrap my life around his until the end of our days.  I’m sure I would have strangled him with the force of my expectations.  He was the Perfect Man, after all.  How could he ever have been just a person to me?

In the years since, I’ve had a very satisfying life, and I've learned to appreciate the benefits of Free Will instead of fickle Fate.  I have a very happy, 19-years-and-counting marriage with my wonderful husband Ken.  I wouldn’t change a thing.  All the same, it was the friendship abandoned that I mourned the longest, the fact that R---- and I would never be able to look back together on our young foolish passions and laugh fondly, while sharing a good cup of properly made English tea.  In memory of that long mourning, even after all these years, I still keep a few remembrances:  All the letters he ever wrote me.  A single British pound coin.  And the dried petals of one red rose.

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    Once More Unto the Dream

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