Category: Lessons Learned About Writing

Wednesday Words 4.11

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 13 Comments

A while back I applied for a review from a professional review publication. A few friends had used them before and considered them not a scam. I heard nothing for like 8 months. I assumed A) they hated it. B) it was so bad they declined to even send it out to reviewers. C) well you can imagine.

So um today I found out I am up for an award from them for how highly I was reviewed.

The review is here.

But I’ll cut and paste to save you some effort:

An interesting take on a time period in the not so distant past, “Ostrich Mentality” is an eye-opening tale with a colorful cast. Despite being 316 pages, the reader will fly through this fast-paced novel, immersed in its intelligent suspense. The fact that this novel is not far from the truth gives the story a sinister feel. The reader feels invested and engrossed in Galatea and her journey. It is also refreshing to read a clever tale where advanced technology is very different from what we know today without the story losing its credibility and development. Overall, “Ostrich Mentality” is an engaging work of espionage and biological warfare. Some may find the topic boring and tedious, but fans of speculative fiction should make sure to add it to their to be read list!

Say what?

Ostrich Mentality is up for a RONE Award. Reader voting will take place April 23rd to April 29th for my category, Suspense/Thriller.

Vote at www.indtale.com for Ostrich Mentality April 23 to April 29th.

If I get through this round it goes to a panel of industry professional who will pick the winner in each category.

I’m kind of flummoxed. But what the heck…

Vote at www.indtale.com for Ostrich Mentality April 23 to April 29th.

Wednesday Words 3.7

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Cold but sunny. Makes it nice to write at the family computer in the kitchen. Warm with great views.

I spent a little too much time look at retirement property today. Given we’re still like 20-25 years from that. Sometimes you just have to look around while you can.

I finished a short for an anthology this morning. It’s off to my critique partners before I polish and send it to Dan. He’s running another contest this spring, enter if you like, and then putting together other anthology. The Box Under the Bed was the last one and it’s still doing well on Amazon.

I’ve been writing daily again. It’s been very enjoyable. I forgot how much fun it can be to create a world and some people and then make bad things happen to them so they can grow and change and have good things. LOL.

I recently made my writing students do a little exercise. I said “I want you to describe a fight for me.” Then I asked how many thought physical altercation and how many thought verbal sparring. Then I made them write the opposite of what came to mind. LOL. It’s all about stretching away from what’s comfortable to grow as an artist and person. Sometimes just moving forward even when I can’t any traction is all I can manage in the realm of personal growth.

What about you? Where do you need to grow? What can you do to challenge yourself a little?

Wednesday Words 2.28

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Goodbye February. You were colder than you had any right to be and way more snowy than you have been past years.

Hello March. Normally I have little opinion about March. It comes between my god it is obscenely cold and the month of never ending birthdays, so March gets short shift. But this year, I am embracing March. I am marching forward on my murder mysteries. I am marching forward on a short story for another anthology. I am marching forward on ripping out the ugliest peach shell adorned 90s bathroom tile, I hated since I toured this house 4 and half years ago. I am Marching forward.

And yes, you can interpret that above paragraph to mean I am writing and editing actively, then ripping out tile when I get mad at my drafts.

But today I read a little blog post on Writer Unboxed about knowing your ideal reader. Not just knowing your ideal reader but picking the ideal reader than actually works rather than the one you think will make you look good.

In reality, my ideal reader is mostly 30-45 year old women with lives they want an occasional intelligent escape from. Readers who are knowledgeable and want to believe what they read without working overtime on their suspension of disbelief. Which strangely enough sounds quite like me. LOL. (I may occasionally appeal to the same male reader.)

Which in some ways works to my benefit because I read another statistic recently that said like 62% of all readers are female. So there you go.

What about you? What kind of reader are you?

Fiendish Friday: “I hate rich people”

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

I LOVE teaching teenagers. I do. They are at this amazing time in life where they have begun to develop opinions about almost every subject under the sun. But they haven’t quite refined their thought process yet. So it’s often the funniest things that pop out of their mouths.

A couple of Friday’s ago, this one kid pops off with he hates rich people.

I say why?

“Because they have soooo much money.”

“And you want that money?”

“Who doesn’t?”

I manage to say, without laughing, “It is almost impossible to become that which you hate. Maybe you should try learning from them. How did they make their money? Where did they get? How can you do that?”

Drop the microphone, baby. Stunned teenagers.

But my subconscious didn’t want to drop the microphone. It started niggling me in the back of my mind.

“Hi There. Come here often? Anyone you might be hating on you could learn from?”

Aw man.

I started thinking about James Patterson in the shower the next day. (Don’t go there, when you have kid/s the shower is often your only refuge.) I refuse to read his books anymore. They aren’t his. He doesn’t write anything anymore. He suggests, someone else writes, he looks it over. I’ve been angry about that for quite some time. I liked his early books, the ones he wrote, rather a lot back in the day. But one could say, I kinda hate him.

The other side of that, he’s a household name. He’s got so much traction in readers, he can not even write his own books and they still SELL.

What can I learn from him?

He published his first book in 1976 (I was born that year, FYI). It took him ten years to publish his first five books. He releases a couple of more and then he starts a series. Popular series that lands him a couple of movie deals. He puts out a book a year in that series, while dabbling in a few other interests. Then hits on a second series.  Shortly after that he starts getting co-authors and his books per year expand exponentially.

What can I learn from that?

— It takes time. He’s been building since I was born (clock check – 42 years). I’ve been building for 3 years.

—- A series always helps.

— Don’t bite off so much I feel the need to get co-authors to keep up with publication. LOL Wouldn’t that be a nice decision to have to make?

Happy Little Surprise

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

I got interviewed again.

This time over at Book Shelf Battler.

A little snippet….

QUESTION 1 – T.A., welcome. I could be wrong, but you seem like a serious person, so I thank you for lowering yourself enough to be interviewed on a blog run by a man who swears he talks to aliens. I’m telling you, hang on a year or two and you’ll be interviewed by Jimmy Fallon, who only acts like he is a space alien.

History. You might have told me but I don’t remember because I’m not a good historian, but I’m wondering how you got into writing historic fiction. Give the history of your historic obsession to my 3.5 readers, or to my 2.5 readers, since you are a reader.

ANSWER: One day the window got left window open and I crawled out on to the ledge. Uncle Bob tried to chase me back in but I was scared, who wouldn’t be? Uncle Bob is creepy, and so I jumped up on the roof. Bob kept coming though. He got out this weird metal contraption and bam it slammed into the edge of the roof. So I ran to the other side. But the shingles were loose and as I tried to jump to the nearby oak I slipped. And fell. 3 stories. Into the road. Amazon was making a Prime delivery and wouldn’t you know it, I got hit by a load of….wait what was the question?

Oh, how I came to be a historical writer, yeah. I fell into it. What else do you do with a degree in history and no chance to teach because your hubs got transferred and you have no connections in the local community college scene.? LOL.

 

Read the whole thing if you’re inclined.

Fiendish Friday: Holy Crud

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

I like routines. I think you’ve caught that if you ever read my blog at all. I like routines. I also like coffee. In fact, me without coffee is not someone you want to meet in a back alley, or anywhere else. LOL.

I get up, I make coffee, I do a little work for the coop, I read my email, I read posts from the blogs I follow that are already up (I get up fairly early since my ten day run on east coast time, I am trying NOT to adjust back), then I read my daily email from Writer Unboxed. Usually this all takes about half an hour and then I am ready to do real work.

Some days the post from WU gets deleted before I am a paragraph in. Some days, I read half of it before thinking “Oh this is a Donald Maass post.” And some days I finish reading only to sit in my chair dumbfounded. Today was the latter.

One line blew my mind.

Whether they’re changed forever, at this point, is mostly luck; they already made the wrong decision.

Fucccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk.

The author, Annie Neugebauer,  described what her husband called summit fever. The phenomena that occurs when climbers see the summit in their grasp and toss their carefully crafted plan into the wind, to go for it. It may all work out just fine or they may die.

Then she tied it to the life of a writer. You go read her post if you like, it’s quite good and not at all long, which increases the punch, in my opinion.

But there I sat in my chair, almost empty cup of luke warm coffee clutched in both hands, wondering, did I already make the wrong decision? Am I so focused on the summit, that I am following everyone’s advice even when my instincts tell me no?

I think I am. Damn. Time for a snack break and an evaluation of the plan.

Wednesday Words 2.7

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 9 Comments

Greetings and Salutations, long lost writing and reading friends.

I went on vacation. Two weeks no internet. Yup it can be done. It really can. Yes, I vaguely missed you all but come on – sun, sea, deck boys with trays of delicious alcoholic beverages…. If the hubs didn’t have that pesky job problem, I wouldn’t have come home.

Sigh

But I’m back. The PacNW is slowly sucking my tan out of me with cold and rain. I have an appt for a pedicure later today and I’m not sure why I bother. My toes won;t be seeing the light of day let alone sun for the next 4 months minimum. LOL

Been reading a lot lately. Including some betas. I think, maybe, I might like fantasy when it’s done well in a modern (ish) setting. ROFL

So where am I at writing wise?

I decided to pen a couple of short stories in an attempt to get into a couple more anthologies this year. We’ll see how that goes.

I have a really momentous decision that is rolling around in the back of my head. But like those donate a quarter machines at the zoo, it just keeps rolling round and round, it’s own velocity keeping it from sliding down the hole. Maybe next time I’ll be ready to share.

How about you? What are you doing with those 50K words you spit out last November? Is your current work in progress hibernating in the winter cold or playing in the snow? Inquiring minds want to know…

 

Fiendish Friday: And the hits keep on coming

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 10 Comments

I mentioned before that I teach at one of my local libraries. Been doing it a few years now as part of a co-team. This is my first year out on my own. Thursday was the first class of the new session.

Join local self published author, T.A. Henry, for a year long series on surviving self publishing. From cover design to launch parties, she will walk you through the ins and outs of going it alone in the publishing world. January’s focus will be in cover design: do it yourself, pay big money, or something in between – how do you know what it should look it like, what information to provide, and where to find the help you need.

Sounds awesome right?

Too bad no one else thought so. I sat alone with my laptop and a projector – waiting….

 

Wednesday Words 1.10

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 18 Comments

How do you get reviews?

I’ve done everything I have heard suggested before.

I have a link in the back of the book.

I offer a short story, that explains something alluded to in the story, if you review.

I used paid marketing, the only one I could get so far because I don’t have enough reviews, to supply a free day, hoping for reviews. Not a single one.

I bothered every human I know who has read my book to leave a review. (5 did, thank you, you know how wonderful you are and how much this helps me)

I have submitted for “profession review.” (Although I would love to hear more pro sites that are legit from people who have used them…)

Please, Please, tell me how you get reviews if you’re an author? And if you’re a reader, what gets you to review a book?

 

Fiendish Friday: Virgin No More

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 7 Comments

It’s happened ladies and gentlemen my rejection cherry has been popped and vastly sooner than I anticipated hearing back from the publisher.

What did she say?

Despite the engaging read, I am sorry to say that I have to pass on your series. The majority of readers in this category are looking for a murder that can be solved within the space of one book, and I don’t know that it would be possible for us to find commercial success by breaking out of that formula and requiring the reader to invest in three books to discover the serial killer.

Ok. Sure.

Except when I pitched the series to her, I made it clear that despite murders being solved in books one and two, the Dismember Killer would not be caught until book 3 and she still asked to see the manuscript of book 1.

Reading between the lines?

The book sucks and she wanted to be kind or maybe avoid any drama from would be authors. LOL.

Which brings me back to that same old grind. Maybe the reason all the things I do for marketing don’t work for me when they work for other people is I’m just not starting with a good book.

Sigh.