Every October, I’ve done something called ‘Monster Maker Fun’. People leave a comment on a post with fake words that I turn into creatures and magical items for some posts. This isn’t exactly about that.
For now, I only have Raven’s Dawn scheduled for every day in October. This is the third installment of my attempt at a horror series. Yeah, it might not work since I’ve had Bedlam going for so long, but I promised people another round with Dawn Addison. Now, I could leave it at that and not throw anything else into the mix besides the Saturday goal post. After all, I’m going to be starting War of Nytefall in early September and promoting Path of the Traitors, so a simple month might work best. It could also kill all of my momentum.
So, here are my ideas for October that I would appreciate some opinions on:
Leave it with Raven’s Dawn.
Have that story and do a weekly Monster Maker Fun. (This is what I did last year with a TON of reblogs for friends promoting stuff.)
Have that story and, if possible, Monster Maker Fun 3x a week.
Have that story, a weekly Monster Maker Fun, and maybe another weekly on various monsters of Windemere. Maybe a poll to see what monsters people are curious about?
Have the story, a weekly Monster Maker Fun, and a weekly thing that deals with Legends of Windemere. Not sure what I can do there that’s Halloween-like. I mean, I could try to do a weekly segment with the Lich, but I’m not sure what I could have him do for 4 weeks.
So there are my ideas and I hope at least one of them is appealing. If people are interested in the Monster Maker Fun then I might try to get suggestions for that in mid-September and gradually work through it. I’ll be in monster mode by then since I’ll have gotten a few chapters into my Dawn Fang series.
Announcing the Launch of
Murder at the Bijou — Three Ingredients I
Introducing the second “three things” serial, in novel form — Murder at the Bijou — ThreeIngredients I.
Yes, that’s the cover. (I love making covers!) I kept it similar to the one for the first serial,The Three Things Serial Story, but with different 1920s photos.
For those of you who are not familiar with my blog serials…
Ages ago I developed a writing exercise. I asked friends to give me three completely random things. Then I would write until I had mentioned all the things. I brought that exercise to my blog (Teagan’s Books), but I had the readers send me their things. I let the random things drive every detail of a serial story, setting, plot, and characters. That resulted in The Three Things Serial Story, which gave birth to…
In the past weeks, I have posted tips on crafting the opening of your novel. I also had a post that generated much discussion on the ending of your novel. I saved the best (most troublesome) for last, the middle. Some will refer to this as ‘the muddle’.
This is the part of your novel where you must keep the tension going and keep your reader interested as you lead them from the opening to the conclusion. You have to make sure there is enough action, intrigue, or development (depending on your genre) without giving away too much information until it is necessary to do so.
So, what kinds of devices can you use to keep your plot going without stalling or hitting a wall? Here are some of them:
Foreshadowing:
Foreshadowing involves given an overt or subtle hint to what will be happening in the future chapters of the…
My name is Andrew Joyce, and to my many fans—both of ’em—I want to say hello. To the rest of you good folks, I’d like to introduce myself.
I’m a writer of little renown. Now, as the title of this piece suggests, who am I to give advice? A very good question, one I’ve obviously asked myself. I have four books out and the fifth should be with us any day now. I have gone through what you are all going through. I’ve sat at my damn computer day after day trying to put into words the sensational story swirling around in my head. When I finally had my story on paper—and more or less coherent—I had to start with the editing. Then, to add insult to injury, once the book was published, I had to demean myself to market it. Well, maybe demean is not the right word, but…
A lot of author blogs focus on the writing craft and make posts about tenses, grammar, plot creation, genre, and other topics. Others go into the nuances of Amazon, marketing, and whatever else comes after you hit ‘PUBLISH’. These are very important things to know about and I’ve learned a lot. One of these posts years ago is why I can put a Table of Contents in my books. You really can avoid most of the common pitfalls by looking at what other authors have done. Just read the post and hope over the spike pit, but please make sure to drop a sandwich down to those who fell. I mean, you wouldn’t have been able to avoid the mess if they didn’t stumble first.
Now, I’ve been asked a few times why I don’t write much about the writing craft. I probably have done more than I realize over the years. Mostly, I write about character and world-building things since those are my favorite topics. Haven’t gone into much with the marketing and Amazon side. One reason for the later is because I’ve seen tons of authors tackle the challenge of explaining Amazon and most of them disappeared. There’s a real obsession with figuring out the tricks and hidden workings, but those things probably change every month. Besides, hard to write a new book or promote a published one if you’re spending most of your time analyzing Amazon.
There are a few reasons that I don’t really do a lot of craft-based posts:
I still have trouble calling myself an expert, which is why most of my advice has a warning of ‘this is just me’. There have been many times that another author and I have used a marketing platform or the same writing trick. Yet, one fails and the other succeeds. So, I only know what works for me and I’d hate to jump on a soapbox to declare my knowledge then have people fail. I’ll write about a topic if somebody asks or I’ve figured something out, but I don’t have a lot of confidence here.
I don’t think I write in a common enough style to give advice to other authors. Present tense third person is what I’m most comfortable with, but it means various tools don’t work for me. For example, you can’t reveal the past of a city or person in narration without it coming off very awkward. Conversations are better for information here, which I’ve been told to stop and move to narration because a few past tense authors and readers don’t acknowledge this. Anyway, I can explain my style and that’s pretty much where I stop because the rest is fairly basic like commas and foreshadowing.
Not even sure what to talk about. This should probably be #1, but I can never tell what’s writing craft and what isn’t. Doesn’t say much about me as an author, I guess. The thing is that all of the writing classes and groups that I got involved in were about reading and reviewing. I haven’t been involved in the meat and structure of writing since high school. There were discussions about character development and story structure in college, but I remember the debates more. Well, the thing I remember most is when an author had to sit there quietly while people ripped apart your work in the name of constructive criticism. I always thought this was more to teach people how to handle negative reviews than improve, but that’s just me. The point is that I spent more time fine-tuning my own style than going over the craft basics.
The times I ask for topic ideas, I get requests to write about world-building, specific characters, present tense writing, or fantasy. So, I believe that most people who follow this blog only want to hear about my genre and writings. I’ve been doing that for so long that I can’t even remember what I have and haven’t touched on.
Maybe I’ll figure out a few craft posts in the future, but that could be by accident. So, I’ll open the floor to authors and readers. What is the one piece of writing craft that you would like to read about? Perhaps you’ll see a comment asking about something that you know about, so interact. Let’s just have fun.
First, I would really appreciate it if Pandora stopped trying to make me listen to a cover of ‘Rebel Yell’. I don’t like it and can only thumbs down it so many times before I feel like I’m being ignored. Not against covers, but I didn’t get into this one. Just needed to get that off my chest.
Writing
With my son finishing summer school on Tuesday, I haven’t done much here. Finished the character bios and started the plot divisions for one the Sin stories. Really need a series title for that. ‘Tales of the Ether Son’? ‘Adventures of Sin’? ‘The Ether Son’? It’s hard to figure out because every book is Sin getting into a new adventure with very little connection to the last one until the main plot finally rises up to meet him. He isn’t even aware of the connections beyond running into a few familiar faces and his own personal goal. So, the title has to connect to him, but Sin isn’t easy to pinpoint. He’s a thief who uses a crossbow and is smart enough to get in and out of trouble. Think of Luke Callindor with more arrogance, foresight, and thought. Also, not that interested in being a hero, but he keeps stumbling into situations. Kind of like Mad Max. Anyway, a series title is going to be a pain here.
I managed to get all of the non-interview guest posts done for December and I tested the blurbs of Path of the Traitors on Thursday. Yeah, I just want to mention that they were up for about a day and got no comments. Really hoping that’s not a sign that things are pretty bad. If people want, I can try again tomorrow and see if I get responses and insight into them. Figured a weekday had a better chance of responses, which is partially true. I got a lot of likes on that one.
Laptop
It came back yesterday with the O.S. wiped clean, so I spent the afternoon putting it back together. Didn’t put on all of the programs I used to have since there were a bunch that I never used. I’m still nervous about this machine because they replaced the speaker again instead of the sound card. If it happens again then I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I want to test the machine with external speakers, but I don’t have any or know anybody with them. At least in this case. Still, nice to have the machine back. Oh, and it tricked me into setting up a ‘visual scan’ or something. It only opens Windows when the webcam catches my face. Not sure how I feel about that.
Parenting
This is the main event for the week and it’s been busy. My son got into martial arts last Saturday and we’ve been doing lessons. I brought him to one and my dad brought him to two because I had to cook dinner. They’re early evening, which means we have to rethink our schedules. He’s having fun and learning a lot. It’s MMA from what I can tell since the three classes he’s had are strikes, grappling, and defense. The grappling threw him off, but he was able to demonstrate it on the wife. I warned her it was a bad idea to do it before bed, but what do I know?
We tried to go to a nature preserve too. This really boils down to daddy getting lost in the wilderness for 2 hours. There are plenty of nature preserves around Long Island and this one was in the middle of a suburban area. It had two lakes, which I thought was interesting. Parking was finding a spot on a side street and then wandering along the barb-wired fence until we find an entrance. We saw birds, fish, and dragonflies, but my son wanted frogs. No luck there and finding another way out was a headache. I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and we ended up having to head back towards the way we came in after wandering aimlessly. Hoping to go to one that is on the shore and has ospreys. This one is simpler than the last, so it shouldn’t go south then.
Can’t say it’s been a smooth week though. We’ve been having trouble with food because my son got upset to the point where he threw up. He associated this with eating something bad, allergies, and then being afraid of throwing up. So, we have to convince him to eat and he gets panicky at the mention of breakfast. It’s going to be a long battle to reverse this because he isn’t caring that it makes him sleepy and lethargic. This is made worse by multiple adults having multiple tactics and stepping in each others way.
Oh, there is one funny story here that I almost forgot. My son and I went to a place called ‘Sonic’ for lunch. We had just finished getting the last of his school supplies. He needed to go potty, so he ran off ahead while I cleared the table. By the time I got to the bathrooms, he was inside. I had two shakes and a TMNT figure in my hands, so I needed help getting the men’s room door open. It was black in there, which meant he wasn’t inside. Panic set in for an instant before I realized he would have come to the women’s room first. He’s always gone in with me or my wife, so he never paid attention to the signs. I had to ask the woman behind the counter to check for him. There he was wondering what was going on and unsure of what he did wrong. Apparently, there was someone else inside that didn’t think anything of a little boy in the women’s room. I spent the afternoon explaining the signs and why I couldn’t go in after him. Time will tell if he remembers.
Goals for the week:
Parenting
Working Sin outlines
Maybe do the brackets for Ninja Never Wins
Cook some dinners
Escort little guy to martial arts and swimming
Nature preserves, playgrounds, and other fun stuff
What attracts you to the genre in which you write? I’m not bound to any one genre. What genre I choose to write mostly depends on my mood at that specific moment, or the premise that pops into my head. From there, it develops almost organically. Originally, I started as a screenwriter and wrote action, comedy, and thrillers. As an author, my books follow the same pattern. I’ve written fantasy, action, comedy, and creative non-fiction. Bottom line, my motivation is to write stories that move my readers independent of the genre.
What piece of writing advice do you wish you’d known when you started your writing adventures? That a bird in the hand is no doubt the best advice anyone could get. How I wish I had taken that to heart when I was offered my first sale many years ago. But, alas, I…
Rave Reviews Book Club. One of the objectives of the club is to recognize outstanding talent in its membership. A literary group has been established within RRBC named Rave Writers – International Society of Authors (RWISA). This month the club is featuring these authors on tour. I will be hosting them throughout the month, and I hope you enjoy being introduced to some excellent writing.
Harmony KentLive or Die?
By Harmony Kent
Sometimes, you need to accept help. Sometimes, you need to admit that you need it. Sometimes, you need to take the hand that’s offered. You reached out and took my arm. I let you. I took the assistance I needed. I gripped your hand so that you could pull me to my feet. The last thing I needed was for you to slit my wrists. So much blood. All that carnage. My heart ripped right out of…
In the past weeks, I have posted tips on crafting the 
Foreshadowing:
I’m a writer of little renown. Now, as the title of this piece suggests, who am I to give advice? A very good question, one I’ve obviously asked myself. I have four books out and the fifth should be with us any day now. I have gone through what you are all going through. I’ve sat at my damn computer day after day trying to put into words the sensational story swirling around in my head. When I finally had my story on paper—and more or less coherent—I had to start with the editing. Then, to add insult to injury, once the book was published, I had to demean myself to market it. Well, maybe demean is not the right word, but…
Harmony KentLive or Die?
Legends of Windemere 