Check out my Goodreads Giveaway going on now until April 30th. I am giving away three signed paperback copies of my newest children’s book, Broose the Moose on the Loose. Sign up for a chance to win.
Broose the Moose is a sad moose who has no friends. Find out what happens when he meets a little boy in the woods.
Broose has received 5-star reviews on Amazon and is available also as a Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/Broose-Moose-Loose-Janice-Spina-ebook/dp/B00U5G7RJ6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Good luck if you sign up!
Thank you for stopping by and for your kind support!
Let’s get the big thing out of the way. I know there are people waiting for the Cover Reveal and I sincerely apologize for the delay. At this point, that thing may turn into a ‘BOOK IS LIVE!’ post because of something that happened this week. Basically, we want this cover to be great and it’s run into a few snafus. As I’ve said, I’d rather the debut be delayed than release a book with a cover that we’re not entirely behind. So everyone has our apologies and you just have to wait a little longer to meet the 6th champion, visit Bor’daruk, reunite with Fizzle, witness the first meeting of Sari & Kira, and discover several secrets. Oh and somebody gets a few extremely well-deserved beatings.
This week is going to be a rough one for me. I’ll be debuting the book, writing the first Ichabod Brooks story, and handling a 5-year-old who is on Spring Break. Preparing the debut will only take a day and I’ll do the second thing at night. The third is going to throw everything out of whack since he refuses to leave his room. The ‘big boy bed’ had several issues and we used an alternate frame since the final parts for the real bed won’t show up until end of May. We’re still working on getting him to sleep in the bed instead of playing at night. This week is also Passover, which means I’m going to be hungry very often.
I don’t really remember what I have coming up on the blog this week. I do plan on announcing the next TWUBS chat, which will be April 15th. Not sure if the characters or myself will be on the hot seat. It will be midday to allow people outside of the United States to participate. Thinking 12-2 PM EST, which still gives me time to write and get ready for the son’s return from school. I’m going to feel out what people think in terms of topic. The last time taught me a lot, so I plan on this one going smoother.
Question for anyone who has attempted an Amazon campaign. I’m thinking of doing one with a higher bid, but still the minimum limit. Not sure if I should go for Curse of the Dark Wind or Sleeper of the Wildwood Fugue. I’m leaning toward the newest release, but am curious what more experienced people think.
So, what do I have planned for the week?
Release Sleeper of the Wildwood Fugue. Hopefully.
Wrangle 5-year-old and take whatever writing time I can get.
Write Ichabod Brooks and the City of Beasts. Night activity.
Hit a matinee and lunch once Passover is done. Birthday coming up, but ‘meh’.
Outlining future plans since Book 11 is prepped and waiting for Spring Break to be over.
Bike when I can.
Outdoor outings if weather behaves.
All goals are fluid this week and depend on influences beyond my control.
Some awesome trailers that show all of the authors who have been spotlighted on ‘The Story Reading Ape’s Blog’. A lot of people for two years, so give them a look.
(I wrote the first section of ‘Ichabod Brooks & the City of Beasts’. Still deciding if I should make it one short story for 99 cents or 3 for that price. Either way, I’m putting out the opening for all of his adventures that I’ll be carrying to every book. This is because there’s no timeline for reading these. I haven’t edited it yet.)
To All Potential Employers
If you are reading this sign then I assume you have come with a job offer. Possibly referred to me by a previous client or have heard a tavern tale about me. My reputation precedes me and I can assure you that some of it is warranted. The rest is embellishments and drivel created by bards who love money more than truth. So if you have come here to hire me for some fantastic quest that spans the globe then turn around and walk away. I am a simple man who is only interested in providing for his family.
If you are still reading this and wish to hire me then here are my rules:
I take half of the payment up front and it is delivered to my home. The job does not start until my wife confirms the money has arrived.
You will answer all of my questions about the job. Answering with ‘unimportant’ or ‘need to know’ is acceptable. Just know that if the information I requested turns out to be essential, I will have words with you later. Lie to me at your own risk.
I use my own equipment unless the job requires a special item. If that is the case then I will inspect it for curses prior to signing the contract with you.
Write your name on the contract. ‘X’ is not acceptable and the enchanted quill I use is easily angered.
Tell me if I am working alone or with others. I hate surprises.
I am allowed one souvenir of my choice to bring home to my son. It will not be anything that is needed by you, but something small that nobody will miss. This rule is non-negotiable.
Betrayal will be met with creative punishment.
If you agree to all of these rules then proceed to the house and I will meet with you. If I am on another job then my wife will discuss the more specific terms of our potential contract. Do not think that will make your life easier because she is the one who created the above rules. Good luck.
Thank you for your visit and potential business relationship.
Sincerely,
Ichabod Brooks & Family
P.S.- If you are here to attack my family then know that there are many traps on the property that react to aggression. Getting past them only means you face our pet ‘Beardy’. Defeat ‘Beardy’ and you must fight me. Kill me and my wife will be waiting. That will be the end of you. Have a good day.
I’ve talked a lot about writing a long series and done many a guest post on it. Character development over the course of several books, world building, rejuvenating a series that goes beyond a trilogy, and so much more. I’ve learned a lot by starting off on something that will take a few years to finish. Though I should answer a question I rarely get answered.
Why?
Interesting how people ask about my inspiration for the stories, but never ask why Legends of Windemere is 15 books long. With the upcoming release of Sleeper of the Wildwood Fugue, I hit the halfway mark. I think. Maybe Book 8 is a better one for that, but I feel like I’m hitting a milestone. Anyway, I love winding tales and grew up reading some lengthy series. A trilogy was fun, but I found myself going to books that would go beyond that. These weren’t small books either. All of them were 300-400 pages each. So that’s the school of story that I’m stepping out of here.
Now, why did I start with the big series? Nothing I write later will come to the series length of Legends of Windemere. The one rival it had has been cut apart and may only have tentative connections. Yet, it still wouldn’t come first. It goes back to when I was only outlining, planning, and following every story in my head. EVERYTHING will come off of this series. Releasing anything first would spoil a few things because survivors of LEGENDS will have cameos. Actions done in this series will cause new heroes to rise and hints in this one will send readers into the past to see what was being talked about. That’s the ‘curse’ I put on myself with this and it’s not an easy one to walk through for the next 2-3 years. It’s also something that appears to be impossible to explain to anyone else and I never understood why. Guess I always had a problem thinking small. There’s the other goal too, but not sure I should mention that.
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
What have I learned now that I’ve nearly published half of my series?
Later books will not have the same debut impact as the previous ones. Not everyone will be jumping on the book immediately. They might still be reading the older ones and you shouldn’t demand that people keep up your pace if you’re putting out 3 books a year. This is why aiming for consistent sales is a good idea instead of trying to top the previous release. You need longevity for a series that goes beyond a trilogy.
Not everyone will continue after the previous book. Many will stop after Book 1 because they weren’t that invested. Happens to every author and I’m sure every reader has a series they started and stopped. Other reasons will be the dislike of a new character, the death of an old one, romantic plotlines, a villain goes too far, a hero turns dark, and any number of plot events. This is the nature of writing anything that goes longer than a single book.
The author knows exactly what is going to happen, but the reader doesn’t. So a setback that is resolved later or a foreshadowing event can have a negative response. This could be from readers who have followed along and created their own sense of what the story should be. I think we all get like this when we’re invested in fiction. You ever yell at a character for doing something stupid and swear that the writers are being lame to get a plotline going? Well, there’s a lot to that. I’ll go more into detail in another post, but I believe it stems from us being invested. We tend to forget that characters in a story don’t realize they’re characters in a story. Hence why teenagers are always having sex and going off alone in horror movies.
Change in cover style will confuse people. I still don’t know why since the series title is the same. Yes, I’ve received a question or two about if people should start at Beginning of a Hero or Family of the Tri-Rune.
Some readers start in the middle of the series and get lost. This is solved by having a little bit of introduction and references to the past in each book. Previous heroes still come up when the opportunity arises. Isn’t that life? We talk about people and events in our past, so why can’t our heroes?
Never give up and keep pushing forward with your series the way you want to. Changing the direction of a plotline because outside forces are pushing you is obvious in the writing. At the end of the day, you’re the one left with your stories, so you really shouldn’t do anything to them that you’ll regret.
Even when you say that you’re not sure when the next book is coming out, somebody is going to ask. If you say, ‘Spring’ then people expect late March/early April. Take this as a compliment. Otherwise, you’ll be crying at least once a month.
As those of you who follow this blog will know, I, together with fellow authors have produced an anthology to raise money for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, a registered charity which provides highly trained working guide dogs for visually impaired people. GDBA receives no funding from the government and relies entirely on the generosity of members of the public to continue it’s work of providing guide dogs thereby enabling visually impaired people to live and work independently.
The anthology is free to download but we ask that you please make a donation to Guide dogs when downloading.
I’ve had the above song in my head for a while and been waiting for a good post to use it with. Then nothing seemed to be working out. I did a poem based on it, which seemed good enough. Not the ideal plan to use it. After all, there had to be some way to bring up failed plans in a real discussable topic. It wasn’t until a few plans went wrong with me that I came up with this question.
Have I ever had a plan that actually went perfectly?
Nope. College was about as smooth as sandpaper and several unexpected problems came up with the wedding. Parenthood has been one surprise after another. I can’t secure a release date for a book if my life depends on it. The one time I was incredibly prepared, I uploaded the unedited file and deleted the good one. The list of crushed plans is longer than the island I live on and ‘Long’ is in the name. I’m not even the only person this happens to. I know many people that make a plan and simple go along expecting disaster beyond their control. A few times I’ve made a joke that I could get a plan to work once I got a mind control device working. Though, I’m sure that plan would fail in spectacular fashion too.
Rant aside, isn’t this what happens in stories too? Villains rarely get their plans to work and heroes are routinely having to rethink their plans. There’s always a flaw or something unexpected that happens. You can only work against things that you know, so anything that you’re unaware of is a danger.
Highlight Below for A Minor Spoiler . . . Won’t Work Outside of Blog
One of the big events in Sleeper of the Wildwood Fugue is the first meeting between Sari and Kira Grasdon. These two have been rivals for Luke since Family of the Tri-Rune and they’ve never actually met. It’s all because of Kira’s cultural tradition of open relationships and she had the confidence that there was no threat on convincing Luke to go along with it. She simply didn’t see Sari coming. Sari didn’t see falling for Luke coming too and thought she was helping him with his relationship. Now, all three characters are in such a mess that you wonder who is going to kill who. I won’t say, so read the book. This is really where I start putting this plot baby to bed.
My point here is that is that it seems a major part of a story is that something goes wrong with the big plot. If everything ran smoothly from Point A to Point B and so on then it wouldn’t be interesting. It wouldn’t even be real. Strict, inflexible plans never work unless the person in charge has total control over everything. Possibly working your butt off to get things in the right place, but then you might still have an issue that is so minor that you shrug off. Yet it’s still something that happens and alters the results. Why should our fictional characters have an easier time than us? I’d think things are harder for them since they have higher stakes than trying to do all your food shopping before lunch and then getting a flat tire.
So, what do people think about plans in books? Have you ever had a plan go smoothly and perfectly? If so, what demon did you make a deal with to pull it off?
