When I started my Indie career, I realized one of my most useful skills was my experience with Internet marketing. But I constantly wished I was experienced in legal matters, too. Which is why I was so excited to meet Lucy Taylor, a legal expert at LY Lawyers. Luckily for us, Lucy is also an avid blogger who enjoys sharing her tips and suggestions with her online readers. Lucy often helps people dealing with legal problems, addictions, and crime. Today, Lucy will share with us some useful tips for writers.
7 Most Useful Legal Tips for Writers
Whether you’re writing a blog post or the next great novel, there’s a responsibility that comes with publishing any creative work. Many people don’t realize it, but there’s quite a bit of legal navigation that comes with being a writer, both in protecting your own work and respecting the rights of others. Here are…
(Addition: So, I gained a review on ‘War of Nytefall‘, but lost one on ‘Beginning of a Hero‘. I’m really coming to the end of my rope with this shit. What the hell is going on with Amazon when I gain nothing on a book for months and then I suddenly lose one that looks it’d been there for years?)
I’m writing this pretty far ahead of schedule only because I’m away for the weekend. This isn’t to say I’ll be quiet the whole time. My laptop will be with me even if I can only use it very sparingly. Got the phone too, so I can try to keep up with emails, twitter, and blog posts. I’ll be pretty slow to respond though. Last thing I want is to get accused of being antisocial. The manga I’ve stuffed into my backpack might be more easily accessible than the notebook. Not like I can write or read on the plane since even Dramamine doesn’t get the entire job done.
The main reason the laptop is coming with me is because I hope to hit publish on Quest of the Brokenhearted tomorrow morning before I head home. Everything has been uploaded and set up already. This means I can do the bits of promo at night, which will include sending out the HTML files to those who offered to help. Feel free to volunteer in the comments if you haven’t already. This clears my week, which will be a little crazy with the start of a summer camp and July 4th. Hard to get into projects when you have so much going on, which is why I decimated myself in the first half of the year. Pushing Ichabod Brooks back a year takes even more of the edge off, so I can dive into outlining and editing once Raven’s Wrath is done. That’s the October story, which I already started.
With it being summer, I don’t really know what else to talk about. The week was preparing for the trip and entertaining the kid. Probably let him play video games a bit too much, but some of them were designed to help him with math. I was given a cursive packet for him to finish over the summer too. We’ve made decent progress and he’s good at writing them with a guide. Memory isn’t there yet. The big event was seeing ‘Incredibles 2’, which was a lot of fun. My son liked it so much that he wanted the junior novelization and will be reading that for his summer reading program. He got a novelization of ‘Hotel Transylvania 3’ too. We’re seeing that he will read chapter books if they’re on topics he already loves like Pokemon, superheroes, or various movies. That’s good to know for the future since it’s still a challenge.
I feel a little bad that I can’t deliver a lot of big news here. Focused more on parenting than writing, which isn’t something I can really talk about. For example, I found a package of 100 water balloons in the basement. So, I bought a plastic bat and filled them all up for ‘Water Balloon Baseball’. I only pitched while my son swung. Those balloons were tougher than we expected, so they would bounce off the bat and explode on the ground. It worked better with a brick wall behind him. As much fun as this sounds, you really had to be there for the full effect. I didn’t take any pictures because I was busy throwing water balloons and having fun myself. My wife is the parent who loves taking pictures of everything. She was at work, so all I had was a picture of a drenched kid standing amid the ruins of 100 broken water balloons.
Maybe writing this so early in the week is making things tough. The trip is on my mind and I’m starting to get a little anxiety about everything in general. Had a few bad attacks that were stirred by dreams since I woke up feeling like I was on a medieval torture rack. No idea what I was dreaming of though. Something I’m going to do next week is contact a therapist to talk about this. I wanted to stick with what I had, but I’ve been urged to see someone. I’ll admit that my concern here is money since my wife, son, and I seem to have almost 10 doctors for various things. I probably won’t talk much about this outside of the Anxiety Journal. That segment is going well, but I assume it’ll cool off a bit with the summer starting. People really don’t like talking about such problems during a time when we’re supposed to be having fun.
So, goals of the week?
Survive trip.
Publish and promote Quest of the Brokenhearted. (Anybody know any free promo sites?)
Bring the son to his morning camp.
Continue working on Raven’s Wrath. Maybe get some extra writing time in on July 4th.
Read more ‘Bleach’ and get more ‘Marchen Awakens Romance’.
Symbol of courage
Expected to bend
Yet never break
Ignoring the human side
That all heroes should possess
*
A limit has been reached
Tears flow
Down cheeks marred with dirt
And blood friend and foe
A heroic spirit crumbles
*
Pushing on ahead
The adventure must continue
Death is considered
Both a relief and a fear
How much more to sacrifice?
*
Many can connect
To a hero that carries on
Wounded on the inside
Yet unable to stop
Because life refuses to slow down
I was originally going to do a long post about writing a ‘sad’ character, but it wasn’t coming out well. Instead, this poem came to mind. It’s a challenge to write a hero who isn’t full of positive energy and optimism. You don’t want to bring the reader down, but you need to retain a level of depression even with the character moving forward. The funny thing is that while we don’t like seeing characters like this, it’s a very common mentality in reality. How often have we or someone we known continued pushing forward after a great loss instead of letting it drag us down completely? It’s never an immediate leap back to being positive, so our fictional heroes shouldn’t be able to recover that quickly either. With Kira Grasdon, she might even be one of the people who never gets back to her original level of happiness. Hate to say it, but there are those out there who simply can’t emotionally stand fully erect any more. (Yeah, I’m probably talking about myself there.)
What do you think about heroes who are suffering from depression, anxiety, or have become negative due to life events?
Hi, SEers. This is one of those months with a fifth Friday. You know what that means… time for another group post! This time, we thought we’d address the subject of what fiction authors can learn about craft from television series. (We’ll try to keep it short because there are six of us.)
The Spin-off (Stargate Atlantis)
Stargate Atlantis wallpaper image courtesy of WallpaperCave.com
Ciao. Staci here. I chose to look at spin-offs because I’m currently writing a spin-off (the Nightforce Security Series, spun off from theMedici Protectorate Series) and wanted to explore what makes a spin-off successful. I choseStargate Atlantis because it’s a brilliant spin-off ofStargate SG‑1. Each series was strong in its own right and solidified theStargate franchise as a force to be reckoned with in the sci-fi world.
Welcome all you abandoned children and lost boys, you forgotten souls of every stripe. You’ve landed on Lisa Burton Radio, the only show that brings you interviews with characters from the books you love. My guest today is Michael St. Germain. “Welcome to the show, Michael.”
“Good evening, Ms. Burton.”
“You have a bit of an unusual heritage. Can you tell our listeners about that, please?”
“Certainly. I am very proud of my heritage though my dad was not. My grandfather
was Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the most famous sculptor in the 19th and early 20th century here
in America. Do you know the name Augustus Saint-Gaudens?”
“No, I don’t. But you see I do not know anything about art and sculptures, except the Mona Lisa with her pretty smile and the statue of David, which is so sexy.”
“Yes, those are two beautiful pieces of art. But, getting back to my…
Real life offers inspiration when we least expect it.
That moment can also be awkward, especially if you forget to mention one crucial distinction between you and a psychopath: the word writer.
A service person comes to your home.
While you’re watching her — yes, a woman — do her job, a brainstorm strikes you out of nowhere; it rounds first base, second, and third, and charges at full speed for home plate.
But you need more information to flesh out the idea, mentally draft the story from beginning to end to see if the premise has merit.
So, you drill her with questions, lots of questions, dark probing questions, and then you feel like you have to explain, but you’re so focused on the story — the story is all that matters — you blurt out, “It’s for a murder.”
Out Now in eBook and Audio—Lottery Losers by Lucy Felthouse (@cw1985) #romance #steamy #SupportIA #IARTG
Blurb:
Winning the lottery is a dream come true… isn’t it?
Susie Parmenter and her husband of almost twenty years, Peter, are lottery jackpot winners. They’ve been able to do everything they’ve ever dreamed of—quit their jobs, design and build their perfect home, buy expensive cars, travel the world… So why is Susie bored out of her mind? She thought being a lady of leisure would be amazing, but unfortunately the reality is far from amazing. How can she possibly tell anyone that, though?
Climbing the walls, sinking deeper into irritation and misery, Susie can’t see a way forward. But what she’s not betting on is that Peter has noticed his beloved wife isn’t happy. And he’s taken steps—drastic steps—to turn things around. But will they live to tell the tale?
While Kira Grasdon might have gone through a transformation like the hated guy above, I found that others had to change. To connect this story to Legends of Windemere, I needed to have a few cameos. Nothing too big considering the story line, but enough that people who read the originals will get a kick out of them. In this post, I’m only going to mention one person who turns up because it isn’t a spoiler for the original series.
This was one of the hardest parts of Quest of the Broken-Hearted because I needed to age the characters 2 years. Not so much physically, but their stations in life and personalities have changed. Remember that they survived the Baron and that goes for champions and supporting cast. Many have physical and emotional scars, which haven’t all healed. These characters turn up with a new look on life, especially since they aren’t adventuring any more. Those days are behind them and enough time has passed for them to settle into a new routine. Unfortunately, not all of the changes are for the better because this is still rather close to the final battle.
Now, I’m going to point out one reason why there was something to work off of here. I put a final section on Warlord of the Forgotten Age, which has the survivors returning to Gaia 8 years later. This helped me realize a place further down the timeline that they were going to end up, but I couldn’t have them all there yet. So, their appearances here are almost like a transition stage. The trauma caused by the Baron has faded, but it’s still there along with the stress of adapating to their new lives. This is another reason why Kira had her falling out with so many. It’s clear that they are moving on while she is screaming for them to focus on the ghosts of the past. One could say it’s opposing ways to handle grief, which is another aspect I had to consider for the cameos.
Now, the character I will mention turning up is Kellia Solomon. Not a big spoiler since she wasn’t involved in the final battle at all. Her father has passed and she is the new Duchess of Serab. Physically, she is more refined instead of her more tomboyish beginnings. She is the one who stumbles into Kira and tells her about Lacarsis, but I had to retain some distance to make it clear that they aren’t close any more. This was probably the easiest change to make since it felt minor. Kellia is concerned about an old friend, which shows more maturity and responsibility. That was the gist of her big appearance aside from being a plot tool. I think the ease of this one is what threw me off when I got to the more complicated ones.
Thankfully, the headache was limited since no champion would ever be found within Lacarsis. That was the big benefit to the story, but it also meant I couldn’t have any build up to the cameos. Established characters had to step right into the scene and reveal what they’ve become by simply acting that way. For one in particular, it was incredibly shocking because you can tell that they’ve been having trouble over the last two years. Probably just as much as Kira if not more. I tried to soften this up when I was doing my edits, but I’m not sure how successful I was. I get the feeling that it’s because my mind was still working off the older version. 2 year jump isn’t much, but future jumps will be far enough that I can see the survivors being more settled. I have a few real world years before I have to tackle that again since it’s not until I do Darwin Slepsnor’s series that any of them reappear. Small favors, I guess.
So, what do you think about bringing back characters as older and different? Do you know of any tricks to make it easier?
Annette Rochelle Aben was very gracious to have Gwen Plano, and I on her Tell Me a Story podcast on The Magic Happens Radio Network. We are discussing the collaboration that took place on The Contract between heaven and earth. Here is the link to the site.
Once clicked you need to scroll down until you reach this position.
About Annette.
Annette’s Bio
I was born writing! At least this is how it seems. I had the good fortune to be published while a sophomore in high school so continuing the journey by publishing books has been a natural course of events. It is my pleasure to announce that the book I have just released is # 1 Best Seller! And that is: A Haiku Perspective 2018 which is available in both Kindle and paperback formats! Enjoy celebrating a year of my life as told using the framework of…
Whether you’re writing a blog post or the next great novel, there’s a responsibility that comes with publishing any creative work. Many people don’t realize it, but there’s quite a bit of legal navigation that comes with being a writer, both in protecting your own work and respecting the rights of others. Here are…
