The Freedom of Being a Hybrid Author

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Choosing your freedom - Traditional or Self-Publishing?" We've been asked which freedom we picked: the freedom to write without getting into the business side or the freedom to control it all?

You all know me: I'm the both gal. As with everything, I'm pretty much in the Venn Diagram overlap of both worlds. I'm a hybrid author, with a foot equally in each camp. My income for the past three years has been 60/40% from trad/indie or indie/trad. It goes back and forth depending on the year, but I figure it evens out to 50/50.

I like both routes! Being able to control my covers and pricing is great, but I mostly love the freedom of being able to move my self-publishing deadlines around. I particularly love the monthly income. I also really love being part of a team. The St. Martins team working with my on my Forgotten Empires trilogy - and the release of THE FIERY CROWN in one month! - is beyond awesome. Having a high-quality group of people loving my book, cheering it on and pouring their own energy into making it succeed is really wonderful.

All the freedoms belong to me!

Worldbuilding: Picking a Government

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking: Presidential or Kingly - How do you decide your world's structure of authority and/or governance?

It's funny... as a staunch believer in democracy, I've never considered making one of my fantasy worlds have a government elected by the people. Why is that???

I mean, the easy answer is that it never occurred to me, but then I need to examine my underlying assumptions.

• Fantasy means monarchies with cool castles
• Crowns and the trappings of royalty are pretty awesome
• It's an alternate world, which means not the one I live in

There's also the aspect of creating a political system where a government could be chosen by the people, which assumes a certain level of tech - or a very small population. Still, I could do it. I probably should - and now it's in my head, so that will probably brew up at at some point into something...

All that said, I do love writing about people born to the throne, taking up the noble cause and trying to do the right thing by their people. Interestingly enough, I take this to another level in my Forgotten Empires trilogy, amping up the theme in book #2, THE FIERY CROWN, where the nobility is magically tied to the land. It's an old, even pagan concept, and fun to explore.

Next up: a magical democracy? Hmm....

Reading: To Enter a World

Some exciting news! Book three in the Forgotten Empires has a title!
THE ORCHID THRONE, THE FIERY CROWN (out May 26), will be followed by...

THE PROMISED QUEEN.

 I really love it, don't you? I recall as a kid being captivated by the title "THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING," the Arthurian retelling by T.H. White. It was one of the first times a title really piqued my interest. I feel like I'm evoking a tiny piece of that magic.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is our favorite quote about books and reading, and why.

For some odd reason, I can never think of my favorite quotes when asked the question directly. If I'm babbling on about other things, the quotes just fly into my head. But when I have to think of one out of the blue?

Nothing.

I blame my brain's filing system, frankly.

I know there's a quote on books and reading that I've loved for a very long time - and I was certain I could search for it and get the exact phrasing. I got out my Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I Googled. I looked in a few other books.

Nada.

I asked on Twitter and Facebook, and got lots of great suggestions that came close to the same sentiment, but the exact one nudging my memory?

Nope.

The one I'm thinking of I could swear I even had on a bookplate or bookmark, once upon a time. Maybe in the late 70s or early 80s. With flowers on it? It's an interesting thing about Googling stuff - certain things have made it onto the internet in thousands of instances, sometimes with near infinite variations. Other things from BI (Before Internet) molder away on hard copy, never to be found again.

What's also amusing - and what a few people offering suggestions also noted - is that many quotes that came close were by other writers, attributed to themselves. So, I decided, what the hell? I'm going to try to recreate this quote. And if anyone knows the one I'm trying to remember, please say so!

To open a book is to open a door into another world - a very real magic spell that allows us to live as someone other than ourselves. 

~ Jeffe Kennedy, author and reader

Career Goals for the Established Author - a Work in Progress

Here's a little tease of the cover of THE FIERY CROWN, sequel to THE ORCHID THRONE, and book two in the Forgotten Empires trilogy. The full cover will be revealed on Wednesday, October 16, at Tor.com. There will also be a sneak peek of the first chapter!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the big career goal to which we currently aspire.

It's an excellent question, particularly as phrased, because our career goals as authors do change over time. Recently a fairly new author concerned about their career trajectory implied that I shouldn't have concerns about my own career because I've "made it."

People, I wish I could count the number of times people have told me that I've "made it" in the last twenty-five years.

It's a common misperception that authors with an extensive backlist (which I do have), a loyal audience (thank you all!), and regular releases (which takes dedicated work) are somehow not reaching, even struggling. The vagaries of the publishing industry are kind to no one, and every author has their ups and downs. (As do agents and editors.) Not many of us have retired to Mediterranean villas to be waited upon by cabana boys while we pithily doodle out our next brilliant work.

So, it's an interesting question to pose to any author. What BIG goal do you aspire to RIGHT NOW? The answers may be surprising.

And note that we're specifying a big goal. It's tempting to say "finish this book I'm currently working on" - because that particular goal is all-consuming. In fact, we so often have our heads down, buried in finishing the current work, that we don't always pop our heads up to consider the big picture.

For me? I have a new book and series out on submission and I have a dollar figure advance in mind for it. If I get it, that will be a big, much-needed leap for me. A saltation in evolution, for those of you who know about those things. My other big goal is to hit a bestseller list, either USA Today or, ideally, New York Times. I never have and I'd really like to tag that particular brass ring. I'm hopeful that buzz for THE ORCHID THRONE - which has been really lovely and wonderful so far - will continue to build and that THE FIERY CROWN will have a shot at making those lists. It's looking more possible now that the NYT list added back mass market paperback

There, I've put those wishes out in the universe, which I rarely do publicly. Cross your fingers for me!

Fight Scenes for Peace Lovers

I did a book launch signing yesterday for THE ORCHID THRONE, along with Jane Linskold. So lovely to see that my local indie bookstore, Page 1 Books, has such an array of my books!

It was a fun event and I so appreciate all the folks who took the time to come out.

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Writing Fight Scenes. Now, I - somewhat famously, if I want to give myself that much credit - don't like writing fight scenes. I'm really not much for violence overall. I'm that person who covers her ears and shuts her eyes at the scary part in the movie. The fight scenes - especially those extended mano a mano duels that seem to take up the last twenty minutes of every action movie - bore me to death.

I've even been on panels - like one Jennifer Estep put together for RT one year - on Steam vs. Scream: writing sex scenes or writing fight scenes? Spoiler: I'm the sex scene gal.

I love writing sex scenes. They come easily [heh] for me. I love the way the intimacy and power of sex peels open the characters and can drive transformation. People try to tell me that fight scenes do the same thing and my frank opinion is that they're wrong. Fight scenes can reveal character - and should, if well done - and a fight scene can challenge a character, but overall I think that fight scenes drive plot.

So, this makes sense to me, that character-driven writers like myself tend to prefer sex scenes - or any scene delving into emotional intimacy - where plot-driven writers love fight scenes. Marcella Burnard, our Gal Friday here on the blog, is forever claiming that explosions are perfectly valid plot points. I'm sure she's right - they just aren't for me.

I titled this post "Fight Scenes for Peace Lovers" and that's probably not fair. I know plenty of writers who create horrifying fight scenes while being perfectly calm, lovely and peaceable people in real life.

But what do you do when, like me, you're someone who abhors conflict and finds fight scenes (and I'm including battle scenes in this) tedious at best? When all I really care about is who wins and what kind of damage the participants suffer going forward.

I can personally vouch that treating them like sex scenes, only with fighting instead of loving, DOES NOT WORK.

You know what worked for me? Layering.

I write the bare bones of the fight scene to get it in the story, then I go back and add to it. The major battle scene in book 2 of Forgotten Empires, THE FIERY CROWN (cover reveal coming October 16 on Tor.com!), I revised and layered in more and more detail probably a dozen times. On each pass, I was able to take more time to add to the visceral experience of the battle, to slow things down. This really helped me get past the "Joe and Susan duke it out. Joe gets a gut wound. Susan wins." mentality.

Giving myself permission to revisit the scene multiple times and layer in information really made a difference for this Steam writer. I'm sure our Scream writers here at the SFF Seven will have more advice. I know I'll be reading.