Writing Diversity. Not a Black and White Situation

I am struggling with a quandary: Can a straight white person successfully write characters of different ethnicity and orientation?

I haven’t included LGBT characters in my books. It’s not from a judgmental ’tude or even a religious bent. I told myself that I couldn’t write from their standpoint since I am not of a gay person’s mindset.

But somehow, I manage to create characters that do magic, have powers. 

Now, maybe I can do a little magic, making a perfect strawberry rhubarb pie.

But performing real magic—as Justus did in Wilder Mage, releasing the elements he gathered and "...fire shot into the sky from around him, splashing the undersides of the cloud with ebony..."—is beyond my abilities.

So what is the difference between writing about magic that I don’t do and a person of the gay persuasion when I’m not?

The answer might lie with people's taste in literature. At a recent book fair, a person asked me about Wilder. I said Justus is a modern wizard who is hiding his powers from those who would bond him to their cause. As soon as I said the word wizard, she snorted, turned away, and said, “I don’t read that crap.”

Ah. Okay. Well have a nice day.

Maybe there is a kernel of truth to that sentiment, but way less harsh. If it is well written, I read all genres, including non-fiction and LGBT, but my meat-and-potatoes love is Sci-Fi and Fantasy. If it doesn’t interest me—like a tech manual or sports—then trying to create something out of my disinterest seems like hauling a ton of rocks up a steep hill...all work and no joy.

One last word on this subject. As I said, all genres are welcome in my brain. But I would hope the writer doesn’t create diverse characters as a token gesture. Write from the heart. Not the trend. Make them your own and don’t let others judge or decide for you. 

Charity's Birth of a Novel. Every Friday you post a quick update on how you're doing on your writing projects. It can be combined with Camp Nano or whatever personal goals you've set.

All you need is a line or two added to the beginning or end of whatever post you already had planned for the day.Then visit the others in the list to encourage them to keep moving forward.

This week was of time, goals, and structure. I didn't make my thousand words a day goal on my WIPs due to Life and other nuisances. But I did create a better work ethic and participated in blogging and commenting. So Yay for me!

Chimera Mage-27,382
The Adamant-First Edits, first chapter
Of Oak and Dragons-102,000, re-write
Diamond Black-8834 

How did your week go? Do you write what you know and love? Do you try to include all persuasions?

How to Switch Publishers

...or, Going Self-Pub

When my publisher went out of business, I had no choice in the matter. I had to find a home for my books.

Musa Publishing informed its authors on February 20th that it was closing its doors. On March 1, all publishing rights reverted to us. So now, what to do with my books?

Submit to another small publisher. I never seriously considered this venue. 

Small presses are great. Loved mine for example. But, since bad ones plague our business, research is paramount and I didn’t have the time. 

Besides, I was already half-way to self-publishing so why blindly look for another small press like a desperate petitioner.

Self-Publishing. I’d tested these waters with Out of Magic so I wasn't totally naive. Only 95%. Luckily, I had help in the form of KMDwebdesigns.com.  Kelly Shorten and Michael Mand were a part of the Musa team and we are all very familiar with our relative quirks. I highly, highly recommend their services.

I bought the cover photos and Kelly re-created them perfectly. KMD formatted the interior for print and e-book.

I had an account with KDP and Createspace. I named my publishing company Shamira Publishing and moved through the various decisions on size and marketing. I bought my own ISBN for print but let KDP chose the Kindle versions. For now, I’ll go with Amazon as my only format. I sold a dozen or so at B & N etc and wasn’t really impressed. Besides, Amazon has all formats available for Nook and Apple so why bother.

Wilder Mage and Mage Revealed are live, print and e-books, joining my first short story, Out of Magic in that self-pubbed goal. 

Amazon - Wilder Mage

Amazon - Mage Revealed

Nothing is permanent in this life. Especially computers and business ventures. 

But good friends are forever.

Plucking Nose Hairs

Or, ain't marketing fun.

I am not good at this stuff called marketing. Grandstanding is as foreign to me as sailing a boat on the ocean. And since I’ve never been on the ocean, that’s like saying vacationing on Mars is my next goal.

But here I am, writing books and waving my arms and yelling, hey! Look at me.

*sigh*

Today Wilder Mage goes on-sale for $1.99 at all markets, including Amazon. Out of Magic, the prequel to The Magic Withheld series is free. And if you like all of the above, Mage Revealed is beckoning you on with a decent price of $4.99.

So have at it. Check out my series, and I’ll blow out my cheeks knowing this round of tooting my own horn is done. For now.

 Oh, the agony an introvert goes through.

Advertising, Reviews, and Introverts

To summarize this post: I had no idea.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/

Yelling at the top of my voice like a crazy woman, “Hey, look at me,” was about the furthest thing from my mind when I started writing six years ago. I knew it wouldn’t be easy becoming a published author, but holy cannoli, marketing was one heck of a surprise.

Thank Goodness, I’ve had help.

My first book, Wilder Mage, is going on sale at $1.99, for three days starting February 19 thru the 21st. Not its first sale but the first I've initiated.  

So how to get the information out there?

I hit a few places, bought a couple ads on Amazon. At the same time, the lead-in, Out of Magic, is free. As the prequel to the series, it was my foray into the world of self-pub.

My first stop on the road of Advertisement was to SciFiFantasyFreak also known as BettyBookFreak. (say that three times fast)

Run by a close friend of mine, this was my numero uno choice. Try this FREE site for cool books. I’ve bought and downloaded more than, ahem, I should have from Betty’s recommendations.

Other places like Bookbub and Fussy Librarian provide good but limit their services. Try 'em though. 

For a personal view of advertising, go to Matt Keith’s site, part I and II.

Review sites.

Yeah, I’ve pretty much given up on reviews for Wilder and for the sequel Mage Revealed. I’ve shipped it off to various sites and heard nothing back. 

Here are a selection for the brave or merely persistent.
Manic Readers
All Things Urban Fantasy

Begging is not one of my personality traits. Not that I don’t do it on occasion, but it doesn’t come naturally. Also, reminding readers to leave a review is a two-edged sword. Those one- and two-star reviews cause (sing along with me) gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep dark depression excessive misery. 

Talk about the Pit of Despair. Especially the really mean ones filled with vitriol. My policy when reading a less-than-super book, aka three stars and up, is to remain quiet and not give reviews. I can’t help but think the nasty ones are not authors but wannabe literary experts.

Paying for reviews is not in my playbook, btw. I can’t do it. But dang, it sure is tempting. When I buy a book on the merits of the reviews and it turns into an excruciating journey, I am appalled.  I don’t see how they acquire the large number of reviews except by monetary means.

So what did you get from this post? That Wilder Mage is on sale? Gee whiz, I hope so.

What Do You See...

...when your characters come to life?

I need a reference when describing or interacting with my characters. I need a mental image, a face, or person. 

Actions, whether in a book, music, or on the movie screen, help me to define and shape my people.

And yes, they are people, as real as the cat sitting beside me. 

I have conversations with her also.

A little older but still the Wilder Mage

Justus Aubre, the wilder mage, is a strong man. He doesn’t think so. He thinks he’s broken, has nothing. Needs no one:

Crystal Ball by Styx
I used to like to walk the straight and narrow line.
I used to think that everything was fine.
All alone and trapped in time.

At war always with the ones who would enslave him. Running.

Bad Company by Five Finger Death Punch
...always on the run.
Destiny is the rising sun.
Oh, I was born shotgun in my hand.
Behind a gun I'll make my final stand.

The people in his life are fleeting. He accepts that they are like the seasons, they come and go. But that is fine. To tie himself to a person, especially a romantic alliance, is to lose his existence. 

Wicked Game by Chris Isaak
No, I don’t want to fall in love.
With you.
What a wicked game you play
To make me feel this way.
What a wicked thing to say
You never felt this way.

Who do you see as Justus Aubre, my wilder mage.

Mage Revealed

Book Two of The Magic Withheld series

Struck with enough malevolent Spirit to turn him into a raving beast of a man, Bert Reese fights to remain human. Alone, he walks a slender path between sanity and madness. Then, an unlikely source enters his life to help—one of the now-hated mages.

But Ashleigh is different and calms his butchered senses. Her fierce nature is the only rock that stands between him and the crevasse that is beast. In all ways, she walks beside him toward a new beginning. But at the end of their journey lies the one who used Spirit against him. Questions arise; did Tiarra, head of the Imperium, lose her magic, die, or simply give way to the new order? Or, like a spider, does she wait for a mage to blunder into her web?

Forced on him without a care for his humanity, Bert is the mage who should not exist, born with a different kind of magic.  

And the gates of Hell are no match for the magic he wields.

* * * *

Release date, October 24th.

Download the prequel to Wilder Mage, Out of Magic FREE at Amazon.

Wilder Mage, Available in Paperback

The earthquake wasn't his fault. 

Not this time.

I wrote those words over four years ago, the first paragraph of my bestseller speculative fiction novel, Wilder Mage. 

Wilder came out as an Ebook in August 2013 and went on to achieve number one status in several categories including Occult, Hot New Releases, Most Wished For, and #4 in Magic and Wizards.

Its #9 ranking in Urban Fantasy honored me the most.

Wilder Mage is now available in paperback at Amazon.

Check it out and see what people are talking about.  

Blogs, DRM, Wilder Mage, and Edits

Is silence golden? Or merely a case of shiny objects diverting my attention from blogging?

Anyway, I’m back on the bloggery track after a jumbled July and an awesome August. Plus, I been sick.

Yeah. That’s the ticket.

Wilder Mage has entered the realm of the Fifth Sense. Or Touch. It is in print now and available through Amazon. My publisher Musa decided to branch out from Ebooks and into the glue-and-paper versions. I most humbly appreciate that Wilder is one of their first to go to print. In October, Mage Revealed will come out in both print and Ebook also. And I’m doing the Snoopy Dance.

DRM or Digital Rights Management. Is it good or bad for an author? I’m reading both sides and confess that I’m more confused than ever. An article in Publishers Weekly breaks it down to a single sentence:

“...all DRM does is punish legitimate users who had the misfortune to be so honest that they paid for the book, rather than taking it...”

By holding the digital rights of our books, is it slithering out of our fingers like a broken egg? This blogger thinks so.

Another question from an article by Writers Beta hit me hard:

"...is pirating going to cost me so much, that I'm better off risking limiting and annoying users..."

Wilder Mage is on the Torrent websites available for a free download and there ain’t nuthin’ I can do about it. Sure, you can email them and give the spiel to remove your book from their lists immediately. But it is a waste of time. Believe me, I know.

Summary: any book, DRM protected or not, can be formatted to fit your programs. Look to Calibre to see how it’s done.

Edits. I am in the final edits to Mage Revealed, the sequel to Wilder Mage. I’m up against a deadline for the first time in my writing career and find it...er...stimulating.

Cover reveal soon. For now, here is the book trailer.

So what do you think about DRM? Ready to cut your book loose and let it fly like a kite?

IWSG - The Accidental YA Author

IWSG—Insecure Writers Support Group, coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

I like the YA genre. My bookshelf proves that. But I am not a YA author. Writing for a younger audience is different from adult.

Or is it?

I've said before that genre designations are confusing. Take mine, the speculative fiction/urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy genre. Yeah, that one. The Magic Withheld trilogy is set in modern times, in the real world, in urban and rural settings about characters doing impossible things.

It is an adult novel. Little cursing, no explicit sex. But I wrote it for an adult audience.

So why are fifteen-year-old boys falling all over themselves to read it?

I marketed it to adult men and women. I didn’t try to use YA lingo or follow the normal well-traveled path of popular youth-oriented novels when I wrote it.

So why are kids in Middle School reading it and writing book reports?

Holy Jehoshaphat.

I had a young man come up to me and blurt out how much he loved it. How he'd read it so many times that he knew every line. I sure my expression was the epitome of surprise/shock listed in The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi:

the mouth falling open, a hand flying to the chest, fingers touching parted lips, an incredulous stare or dazed look. 

Not that there is anything untoward about my storyline. I felt RL Stine was iffy when my daughter was in school and I don't think my books cross that line especially in Wilder Mage.

But that’s the first book. Things kinda heat up in the next one in the series, Mage Revealed, to be released October 24^th.

Uh, eek.

So how do I face parents or the winking school kid when it comes out?

* * * *

Insecure Writers Support Group: The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 

To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.

Don't Buy It

Posting? Again? On Sunday?

Yep. Even though this is the day of rest for us A to Z participants, I am posting. 

I had to clue people in on a secret.

Don’t buy Out of Magic.

Yes. That’s right. Don’t buy the prequel to Wilder Mage.

Now why am I telling you not to buy this short story that opens with Sable discovering she's a mage?

Because this Saturday and Sunday it’s free at Amazon.

Don't spend your money. Wait for it to go on sale this Friday and Saturday.

How to join the Self-Pub Club

It is ridiculously easy, hitting the “save and publish” button at Amazon’s KDP site.

And there it is, in front of God and everyone. My first self-published event.

Out of Magic is the prequel to Wilder Mage, book one of The Magic Withheld series. 

The short story is about Sable, a young woman, who learns there is magic in the world. Finally, her life makes sense. She is a mage. And nothing good can come of it.

My series is about four main characters. Justus, the wilder mage, who fights against the one who would take his freedom. 

Sable, the adept, who holds the ability to do magic, but can’t use it. 

Bert, a young man in his first full bloom of adulthood. His saga is strangest of all. A human youth, in love with magic; until he gets in the middle of a battle between wizards.

Tiarra, head of the magical guild, holds all five elements. She wants all those with magical ability under her bonding collar. Her strength is mighty but underneath, she fights her own demons. Alone and silent.

I invite all to check out my short story. 

Reviews are desperately needed. 

First Drafts, Book Signings, and Pandora

What a journey last year was for me. 

My debut as Published Author, an excellent turnout for my book, Wilder Mage, and the continuation of the series. 

My prequel short story, Out of Magic detailing Sable's first brush with magic, is awaiting a cover.

I completed the First Draft of The Unlikely Mage (working title), book two of The Magic Withheld series. It is now in the hands of my treasured critique partners, Marcy Hatch, Charity Bradford, and L. Blankenship.

Its first outing occurred at UnicornBell, our writer’s realm of informational overload, where our followers critted the first 1400 words.

The third book of series is 1000 words into the first scene and chapter. And just to be contrary, my mind came up with the ending of the book when I was half-asleep. Evidently, that is one of the best times to develop a storyline. The other time is when I’m driving down the highway at sixty mph.

As if edits of the second book and writing the third wasn’t keeping me busy enough, I am promoting the first in the series as well with a book signing at the Mark Twain book club. The following week, I am the guest at the Maryville chapter of the Missouri Writers Guild meeting at NWMSU. The local paper asked for an interview also. Waiting on the date for that one.

Need musical inspiration for your novel? One word: Pandora. 

I had the free app for a quite a while. Then last year I signed up for the paid subscription and have been very pleased with my Nickelback, Daughtry, and Hinder stations. But it didn't occur to me until recently to enter Two Steps From Hell into the faves.

FreaKin’AmaZing.  

I have several albums from this group already. But selecting them as my favorite radio station gives me not only their strictly instrumental music but also groups such as ES Posthumous and Audiomachine, soundtracks from movies like Inception, Pirates of the Carribean, Lord of the Rings, Man of Steel, and Robin Hood. 

Included in this group is Lindsey Stirling, who is an amazing violinist. Her picture alone makes me love her music.

And gaming music! Love, love, love Halo, Assassin’s Creed, and Skyrim. The muse is fantastic.

If you don't care for the Pandora app, I highly recommend all the above groups for your battle scenes, drama, death, and romantic creations.

So when is your muse most active? And do you listen to music? Book signings, are they in your future?

IWSG - Insecurity

IWSG—Insecure Writers Support Group, coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

Writers have many things in common.

Creativity, drive, the ability to hear small still voices in a crowd.

Those are the good things. Other traits are not so desired.

Introvert. Not many of us are the outgoing type, the life of the party. We smile and nod then turn back to our pens and keyboards.

Ego. Our self-image has more to do with context than substance. We don’t look at ourselves as runway models or beefcake stars but as the common Joe or Jane. The difference is that we have a story to tell. Our egos come to the fore when an agent rejects a manuscript or a critique comes back with red slash-and-burn pen marks. That beloved work, our baby...no one likes it. *grieve*

The above traits, in my opinion, pale beside this creativity killer though.

Insecurity or I’m not good enough.

This ugly beast raises its head at least several times a week. Good book reviews, a big thank you from a fan, virtual hugs from my blogger buddies throw a blanket over it like a smothered cat, but it always finds a way to wiggle way out, one ear at a time.

Insecurity never leaves my side, always whispering in honeyed tones,

“Wilder Mage is a fluke. Quit trying. Stop writing. It’s no use.”

For the love of all that is Holy, how do you silence that nasty little Voice?

* * * *

Insecure Writers Support Group: The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 

To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.