Tuesday, February 19, 2019

3T Writing Tidbit

This is another in my 25 Ways You're Losing Readers (and what you can do about it) series.

Show, don't tell.

Not always.

In Biting Nixie, I showed the love develop between opposites Nixie and Julian. But one of the first criticisms was... "They never said 'I love you.'"

??? I showed it, right? Wasn't that enough?




Nope. Some readers need the words. But beware! Some readers hate the words. They already got it from the context.

A series I love recently had one character go through a traumatic separation. It was beautifully shown as the character, numb, pushed away the pain and anything to do with the situation. Some readers found her wooden and uncaring instead. ??? For those readers, throw in a quick, "She was numb, unable to deal with the horror her life had become. So she didn't. One day she would, but that time wasn't now." And move on.


For big changes, especially those that are emotionally fraught, it's safest to explicitly acknowledge the emotion before moving on.


Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits. Click here to see all 25 Ways You're Losing Readers.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

2T Repeat Performance

In December 2016, the lovely Magical Musings crew decided it was time to close down their blogging shop. I had three wonderful years with them. This is another of those posts.

The Weird Disorder--Guest Elle J Rossi--originally posted September 3, 2015.

Author, artist, singer, extraordinary friend. Please help me welcome Elle J Rossi!

I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve heard that book people, in general, are weird. They talk about characters as if they’re real. They have book boyfriends. (I’ll admit to having three—okay, maybe five.) They debate book cover choices and cry over the end of a series. They believe in time travel and lore and second chances and happily ever afters. They plan their days around words.

If the people—book people—I’ve come to know over the last several years are considered weird, then I feel very fortunate to be amongst such an awesome crowd. Matter of fact, I wear the bookie label with pride. Someone get me a T-shirt!

Let’s take a few minutes to talk about one facet of the book world. Authors. Not only do authors have to have crazy levels of imaginations, they also need to have a head for business, a shiny personality that makes people want to interact with them, focus, determination, and above all, drive.

On any given day, an author can wake up and have no clue who they are. Will they be a young girl fighting her way through the streets of Chicago because her parents are too wrapped up in their own lives to care? Or, perhaps, a mother of three who’s put so much energy into her husband and children she’s forgotten who she is. Maybe she’s a badass huntress covered in demon guts or a thirsty vampire trying to control the urge. She is all these things and more. Becoming these characters is paramount to getting to the heart and soul of their story.

But wait! After the words (not to mention the blood, sweat and tears) are on the page, many deep breaths are taken and the gears are switched. Time to handle the business end—I won’t even get into the many details of that aspect. In between writing and business, maybe we take a few moments to peek in at the social media sites. Har-har. Peek? Yeah, right. We lurk, we scroll, we crack jokes, we interact. For many, this is our only interaction with people who don’t reside in our heads. Here, we can be whoever we want to be.

When I asked other authors if they ever feel like they have multiple personalities, I got a lot of awesome answers.

Kemberlee Shortland, author and CEO of Tirgearr Publishing, said, “I'm definitely a Sybil!! Three pen names plus my writer persona. Add to that my publisher persona, the 'me' who deals with authors, the 'me' who deals with frisky cover artists, the 'me' for business dealings, the 'me' when I'm promoting, the 'me' for family and the other 'me' for friends... I'm basically the one person and yet also a myriad of other people I drag out when situations arise.”

Author Peggy West said, “This morning I am a woman wearing a bathrobe, drinking a cup of coffee and wondering about the meaning of life yet am also a young woman in 1840 who takes a dangerous chance as she walks along the raging sea to the dark mansion where she will go through the hidden closet of a missing woman and will get stuck there. Writing day.”

Me? I am a reader, an author, a cover artist, a wife, a mother, a friend, and, depending on the day, Wonder Woman. These multiple personalities create the whole me. I’m weird. So what? I’d rather be weird than boring.

So, who are you today?

Check out the newest release in Elle's popular Josie Hawk Chronicles, Indigo Dawn.

IndigoDawnVampire Lust and Pixie Dust.

Josie Hawk is a Huntress. A killer devoted to protecting the humans of Nashville from the shadows that lurk in the night. But the shadows are gaining ground. When an infamous pixie tricks Josie into a drug-induced nightmare, Josie envisions the death of her vampire lover, Keller O'Leary. Was the vision a threat ... maybe even a promise? But from whom?

Desperate to track down the source of the toxic psychedelic pixie dust, Josie kicks and punches her way toward the truth. But her efforts backfire, provoking a deadly attack at Wolfie’s—the bar Josie co-owns with her sister-in-arms, Sage.

Tag. You’re it. Haunted by the threat to Keller, Josie scrambles to outwit her elusive opponent before the deadly game escalates and claims more lives. But in saving Nashville, will Josie lose those she loves? Or will she be too late to stop the deadly game of tag?

Amazon | BN | Kobo

Scarlet TearsAnd look for Scarlet Tears this fall!

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

February 1T Status Update

One of the things that happened last year is I went back to school to update my programming skills. But as I sit here with school cancelled due to stupidly cold temperatures, I thought I'd catch up on some writerly things.

Night's Kiss Countdown. I'm doing a monthly giveaway to get ready for the upcoming second book in the Ancient's series and the sixteenth (!) story in the Biting Love universe. We're on month #2, Biting Nixie. If you haven't read it and you enjoy super steamy, super funny paranormal romance, be sure to enter this one.

In other news
  • we have a tentative release date for Night's Kiss! More on that next month. 
  • Night's Kiss second round edits coming in March.
  • I'm 25,000 words into the first draft of Soul Mates
  • I have another project in mind to better use the small bits of time I have between classes and studying. More on that later.