What Was On My Butterfly Mind?

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We’re supposed to write about one thing that’s been on our mind this week. Well, mine is pretty much occupied with the adorable new grandbaby. Sorry I have no photos to share but his parents are trying to keep his social media footprint as tiny as his real footprint, at least for now. You’ll just have to take my unbiased, totally impartial word for it that he’s the cutest baby EVER. Or at least since his mother was a baby.

Jake the Cat

I have a butterfly mind, flower to flower, thought to thought. Or stream of consciousness perhaps. I don’t brood over any one thing to the exclusion of pondering other stuff. Well, maybe when Jake the Cat is yowling at me to FEED HIM. That’s pretty hard to ignore. But I’m not getting up at 4AM because he has a craving for smelly fishy catfood from the can. Never mind he has dry food in the bowl at all times and is thoroughly spoiled. By who, you ask? (Looks around guiltily.) Couldn’t be me!

So of course there was stuff this week that I thought about – the current state of world and national affairs, medical insurance, local freeway construction delays, author drama (there is so much of this but that’s kind of a constant, only the names and the central issues change, beware the flying monkeys), fasting for my blood test today, the novel I’m writing, many MANY plot bunnies for other books I don’t have time to write…

Well, ok, how about this one? I don’t know the person myself but there’s an author whose first book sold like hotcakes AND got made into a movie that did fairly well…and five YEARS later they are back with the sequel…and oh, surprise, not only have the readers not been waiting with bated breath, the entire industry has changed a LOT. What worked then does not work now. (Except when it does, of course, in the confounding manner of publishing.) I keep visualizing this poor person being like Rip Van Winkle in a way, emerging from the writer cave, book in hand, shouting “Here it is!” to the waiting crowds…only there aren’t any.

Never mind five years, seems like the publishing industry changes every six months or even more often, or so it seems.  I’m grateful for the various author groups I’m in online, where people compare notes and share generously as to what still works, what quit working, what’s new to try…

I’ve kind of had to unwind my view of myself as an author from my view of myself as the small business-publisher-of-myself, to keep my writing sanity. I write what I write and enjoy telling the stories and don’t let myself worry if this particular book I’m in the middle of now will pay the bills in June. Paying the bills in June is a whole other issue than whether my hero and heroine will defeat the Big Bad and get to that HEA. I'll handle the bills issues when I'm in business-mind mode! Too much pressure on the creativity kills the whole thing for me. I can’t “write to market”, nor do I want to, nor do I want to fret over it.

My market is people who happen to enjoy the same kinds of stories I do, and buy books that I write.

I do my promo activities and my networking and I certainly don’t let myself slack off on any of that because there are so many other good books and so many other good authors out there, and I don’t want readers to forget that they enjoy my books too. Reminding people that Veronica Scott exists and oh-by-the-way she has a new release (see below) plus a growing backlist is just good business sense.  I love scifi romance and I enjoy talking about the entire genre and other authors I admire on various platforms. I’m honored and have fun doing that!

But I have had to give myself a few stern lectures fairly recently on not getting spun up over the latest twist some large ebook seller has thrown into the business mix, or that alien planet barbarian dragon shifters with secret babies are now the rage in my genre when I write books like the adventures of Ripley and Hicks in “Aliens” but with more romance, less gore and less dripping ick and an HEA. Or any number of other wrinkles, permutations and new stumbling blocks in the indie author biz.

I’ll never be a statistical whiz, analyzing all the clicks per bid or whatever it may be, and I needed help with the complexities of creating a MailChimp newsletter…so I do the things I can, make myself learn the ones I totally require to survive as an author nowadays, and I keep it all FAR AWAY from my creative process of writing the next scifi romance.

This excellent article by Kristine Kathryn Rusch comparing the indie author phenomenon to a gold rush, an investment bubble and a business cycle was extremely clarifying and helpful to me and I highly recommend it.

New Release! Ta da!

The blurb:

I’m really excited to release three Sectors stories that have only been available previously in anthologies, none of which are available currently. (I know many of you purchased the Pets In Space anthology, which first contained STAR CRUISE STOWAWAY and thank you so much!) Along with STOWAWAY, I’ve really been wanting to get the other two stories out there for you, especially THE GOLDEN TOKEN, which was only in the  limited edition paperback we handed out at last year’s RT Booklovers Conference. So I’ve bundled them ALL into one book with the lengthy title STAR CRUISE A NOVELLA: STOWAWAY WITH RESCUE AND GOLDEN TOKEN SHORT STORIES.

Here are the story descriptions:

Star Cruise: Stowaway: A novella of 22K words, previously in the award winning ‘Pets In Space’ anthology.
Cargo Master Owen Embersson is shocked when the Nebula Zephyr’s ship’s cat and her alien sidekick, Midorri, alert him to the presence of a stowaway. He has no idea of the dangerous complications to come nor does he anticipate falling hard for the woman whose life he now holds in his hands. Life aboard the Nebula Zephyr has just become more interesting – and deadly.

Star Cruise: Rescue: A short story of 9K words, previously in the ‘Romancing the Stars’ anthology.
When a shore leave excursion goes terribly wrong for Mira Gage, a member of the Nebula Zephyr’s crew, Security Officer Clint Miltan races the clock to find her before the ship leaves orbit and abandons Mira to her fate. Clint’s got more than a professional interest in Mira, but will he be able to save her from the aliens holding her prisoner?

The Golden Token: A short story of 13K words, previously in the limited edition ‘Dealer’s Choice’ paperback anthology put together by Linnea Sinclair and handed out at the 2016 RT Booklovers Convention Interstellar Bar & Grille event.
Sectors Special Forces operator Charlie McBrire had a few days to kill on a layover at Space Station 47. He never expected to find himself in the middle of a miners’ rebellion, fighting to save the life of a casino dancer he just met but can’t imagine living without.

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Plotting Obsession

Plotting. Plotting is what brings us together today.

If you did not read that in the voice of the Impressive Clergyman from The Princess Bride, we can no longer be friends. Sorry. You can redeem yourself by reciting the first two Classic Blunders.

Anyway. Plotting.

Remember me complaining about needing a mentor of my own last week? Well, my friends, that's what craft books are for. If I haven't mentioned the book before, The Fantasy Fiction Formula is my latest foray into learning. This book is by Deborah Chester. It came recommended by a critic group member. I'd picked it up out of curiosity - that and I'm a sucker for trying out new ways of approaching what I do. Yes, I have a process. One that works, mostly. But you know me. I'm always open to better ways of doing things. If there is such a thing as a better way. So I read this book.

And eventually texted my fellow crit group member that I'd finished the damned book and I hated her now. She laughed at me.

I did disagree with some of the points in The Fantasy Fiction Formula (One example: There's an assertion that every scene until the climax must end in failure for your protagonist - I disagree. The protag can absolutely win scenes - but when that happens, the win has to turn out nothing like the protagonist imagined. But eh. Minor detail and some people would say that's an aggregate loss anyway.) I learned far more than I disagreed with, though.

The book is packed with useful tidbits. Until I read the FFF, I didn't know what an A/R unit was. It's Action/Reaction unit. Turns out, I'd been getting mine wrong from time to time. I knew about scene and sequel, but I'd never really paid much attention because every explanation of them I'd ever had went right over my head. Until Deborah Chester. I *think* I understand them now. And I'd like to believe I comprehend how they need to be put together in order to drive a story. She does a fantastic job of laying out plotting. She says you need three BIG scenes - and by big - she means weighty. Emotional. These three scenes are your twist points in your story. End of Act 1 twist, Act II twist and the Climax. Get those and you can then plot out the other scenes and sequels you need to drive your characters through those twist points. Add in whatever subplot scenes and sequels you want/need and presto. You have a solid start on an outline and on a synopsis.

Straight forward, right? It would be, were I plotting one book. But no. No, no, no. Why would I do the sensible thing? I'm attempting to apply this brand new, untried strategy to a five book arc where the first two books are already written and published. So not only do I need the three BIG scenes for each book, I have to consider each book as a scene/sequel set within the overall arc of the series. But no pressure.

I have this sense that if I can get this down and make it work for me, I'll have a better hold of story craft. I'd like to think it's a worthy pursuit that's worth the risk of upending my usual slowpoke process.

Yes. It is rather like a walk in the Fire Swamp. If the fire spurts and lightning sands don't get me, the ROUSes might.

Illegitimi non carborundum

The writing business is rough.  You put stuff out there, and you kind of have to accept that rejection is the baseline.  That's the thing you have to earn yourself out of.  Success is never a given.  You've got to toughen your skin.  None of this is new information, of course.  If you read any sort of writing advice, this is a front-and-center thing.  

And you've got to allow yourself to be critiqued.  You've got to be able to take your licks and then stand up and say, "All right, what's next?"

But when you're looking for critique, look for critique that is useful.  It isn't good critique just because it tears you down.  (Nor is it just because it fluffs you up, either.)  Choose your critique partners with care, because getting tied in with someone who isn't interested in actually critiquing your work-- or worse, thinks they understand what critique is, but doesn't-- can do so much more harm than good.

Here's my little story: I was on one small, private on-line critique group.  The set-up was pretty casual: upload things to a shared folder, and then critiques are either A. sent via group email or B. also uploaded to the shared folder.  No specific timeline, just put it up and people will get to it or not.  Because of this system, I had some things up there that I wasn't actually seeking critique on anymore.  But I hadn't taken them down, mostly because I wanted the other members of the group to be able to look at the whole body of work/larger plan if they were so inclined.  

And then I got this on one manuscript.

I made it no further than page 5 before nearly chewing my left arm off in the frustration of knowing that a writer with a great imagination, a lot of drive, and most likely a wonderful story to tell hasn't bothered, after all these years of effort, to learn the basics of story crafting. To improve your writing, you need to, at the very least, read some well-crafted books and analyze the plotting, sentence structure, foreshadowing, and subtlety of the writers' works. No one is born knowing how to write or craft a story. Those are skills that take some effort to learn. You could be a great writer. If you don't put in some study time, all your efforts and talents are wasted.

Wow.  That's brutal, no?

That's the sort of critique that could send someone running for the hills.  Heck, that's not even a critique, that's a dressing down.

Fortunately, I just laughed at it, and then promptly deleted myself from that group.

Because the manuscript in question was The Thorn of Dentonhill, which at that point had already netted me an agent and was out on submission.  And it was bought by my publisher just a few weeks after I got this.  I mean, what exactly was this person trying to accomplish with this critique?  I'm not sure.  But I feel like they were trying to just grind me down.

And, like I said, this business is tough, and you do not get handed anything and certainly don't deserve anything you don't earn-- you don't just get handed accolades and awards and film options-- but you need to keep pushing on as they try to grind you down.  Success could be right around the corner, and if you let them beat you-- you let a drubbing like that one up there break you-- you won't get there.

Because there are people who've realized that they aren't going to make it in this business, and then they decide they don't want anyone else to either.  They will try to grind you down.

Illegitimi non carborundum

Don't let the bastards grind you down.

New Book Hype

Two things are heavy on my mind. Okay, honestly, there are a thousand things on my mind, like getting the mulch for the flower beds and when we're having all those ash trees brought down, why did the dog throw up yesterday, will the Actor want to take those summer classes and will the Arteest actually go to college this fall... but writing-wise there are TWO THINGS on my mind.

FIRST is my novel JOVIENNE. It's being released in a matter of days. I'm working on plans for the release party, the book trailer, signings, and giveaways. I'm also prepping on-line promotional material not limited to writing blogs. (If you'd like to have me on your blog, hit me up via messenger or send me a message through the contact submission form on my website www.authorlindarobertson.com )






SECOND, is my CD also titled 
JOVIENNE, being released at the same time.  Containing seven songs that I wrote during and after the writing process in order to set a mood in my mind, the CD offers themes for characters like any good movie score. This is basically a concerto, with a few solo instruments while accompanied by an orchesta. That said, my rock-n-roll heart does shine through in spots.

*Yes, the CD uses my married name, Reinhardt. I figure I can keep my two creative pursuits separate that way, as I plan to score more books in the future, as well as have music available that is not tied to a novel.

I'll post the trailer and buy links soon. 

Also, I'll be attending MARCON in Columbus, Ohio May 12-14th. MARCON stands for Multiple Alternate Realities CONvention and is a good-sized genre / fandom / cosplay con in the middle of my lovely and daily multi-seasonal state. Hope to see you there!!!

Do the Arts Have A Responsibility to Be Contrarian?

I'm plotting the third book in my upcoming UF series and--with seven books planned--each book has to deal with a piece of the Save the World series-plot. When I started writing this series, the real-world was in a different place The USA was doing comparatively well domestically. The popular vision was of an equalist society and was encouraging innovations to fling us out of well-entrenched, decaying ruts. Globally, we'd made a few missteps but we still had the respect of other nations caught in the same struggles we were.

I'd started writing these books when the arts had the luxury of being dark.

A bit of an odd statement, I realize, but one that is on my mind. There is no doubt that the current state of affairs is of unrest. Regression, polarization, subjugation, and application of corporate greed superseding the survival of the community. Every day ignorance is touted as might and as right; it is replacing facts and critical thinking. The USA is lead by a man whom most of the world considers a charlatan and a buffoon, a man who goes to no great lengths to prove his callow nescience on a daily basis. Our leading political parties are so entangled in their Faustian deals that national prosperity doesn't enter the discussion. Sweeping powers of governance are being returned to the States and the States are soon to discover that with more independence comes less Federal support--including funding. The Constitution is without teeth and setting dangerous precedents. In short, we are living in a time of burgeoning crisis, a crisis that will far outlast the politicians and media who enabled it.

In my little microcosm, I wonder if--as an author--I have an obligation to be a contrarian to reality. When I consider the plot of the overarching series, I wonder if, perhaps, the struggle should lead to the idealistic payoff. That the good guys should win. All of them. Frankly, a year ago, they weren't going to. I was gleefully conniving to be the Debbie-downer. The almost-made-it crushing disappointment being the big final twist. The Grand Sacrifice breaking hearts as it reflected the ugly truth that sometimes the good guys lose. But now, as I look around, I wonder if now is really the time to add to the disillusionment? What is the point of escapism if you can't fully escape? Don't I want my readers to feel better--if even for a moment--when they finish the series? Do they really need the reminder that life is a bitch, right now? When times are good, it's sometimes necessary to throw the caution flag into the Universe. But when times are shit, shouldn't it be hope that I contribute?

When the real world is a dystopia, do the arts have a responsibility to be uplifting?

That is what is on my mind this week.

Ummmm.

No article from me this week, folks. I'm working teh day job, then I'm finishing a move from one place to another.

Have a great week!

Crying Wolf

The bright day after the big snowstorm. The snow is melting fast and I'm betting it will be all gone by midafternoon.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is an open author riff, an invitation to talk about whatever's on our minds.

I kind of want to complain about bad security advice on the Internet, but that's just me being cranky. It doesn't hurt anyone, as it's overprotective. Still, folks, I could advise you to burn sage to purify your laptop of demons and we could argue the same. It doesn't hurt anyone, but let's try to rein back superstition and separate it from computer science.

Oops, I guess I did go there.

Did I mention I'm deep into writing a book riddled with conflicts around magic, science and superstition?

Okay, since I already started down this road, let's look at this Ten Concerts thing. There's a trajectory here I notice a lot with social media.

Last week, people on Facebook started posting lists of ten concerts - nine they'd been to and one a lie. I saw a friend do it, it looked amusing, I did it too. People had fun guessing which was the lie, and we ended up riffing about great concerts we'd been to. Other people did posts of their own. Lots of people doing it, lots of engagement...

Next inevitable step is people bitching about it.

I don't know why, except that any time a bunch of people get excited about something, there have to be some other people shaking their canes at it and yelling at the concert people to get off their Facebook lawn.

Then came the article about it. This one really took the prize for me, because the New York Times did an article about how the Ten Concerts Meme was a cybersecurity risk. The had an quotes from a guy in the business who called it a "moderate security risk" because some websites ask for the first concert you went to as a security question.

Note that the Ten Concerts list wasn't necessarily about a first concert at all, even if, out there somewhere, this happens to be one of yousecurity questions. (They also dragged in that since those sites often ask for your high school or high school mascot, you should either lie on the site - and hope you remember it - or never reveal to anyone that super-sekrit information. Besides, of course the thousands of people who were associated with your high school.) They also concede that since this isn't a shared "quiz," there's no danger of embedded code.

Then the article goes on to add that any information we post can be used to target marketing, as if none of us have seen the shoes we glanced at on a catalog site later popping up in a sidebar ad. And as if the fact that I saw the Go-Go's - YES, YES I DID! - when I was 18 somehow informs my current buying patterns.

Though I have been contemplating buying some thigh-high lace stockings and big bracelets lately... HMMM.

The thing is, folks, this article is about absolutely nothing at all. You know why they wrote and posted it? BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE ENGAGED. Engagement = clicks = advertising dollars. Why *not* write a fluff piece making vague generalizations about moderate security risks when you can be pretty sure that a chunk of all those people who played the game would click on it?

Hurts no one, right?

Except now people are sharing the article with vague warnings of their own, stirring up fear and concern where really nothing exists. Seems to me there's a story about the dangers of calling out dangers that aren't really real.

The thing about sensationalizing news is that it's main purpose is to get people excited, not to transmit useful information.

Might as well go burn some sage over my laptop and change all of my security questions. Just in case.

The Energy You Put Into the World

Our assigned topic this week is mentoring. I like this quote:  “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” — John Crosby

In the old day job I definitely had mentors and owe a great deal to all of them. One thing I ran into, however, is expressed well by Steven Spielberg: “The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” Because I was a woman in a spot where there had been few if any women at that time, some of my early mentors had definite ideas of who and what I should look like when I ‘made it’…and their vision didn’t always match mine. This led to a few problems down the road but I’m still grateful for the help I received.

I’m a firm believer in the adage of paying it forward and I worked hard to do that in the old day job, and to continue to do it as an author. I know the areas where I’m strongest and I’m happy to mentor on those things. Many topics I know nothing or very little about, or only have opinions, so if someone asks me for my input or advice on those, I make clear what they’re getting. I also try to pay my own debt forward by highlighting others when I can, usually either in a blog post or in social media, rather than mentoring outright.

I had two major mentors in the writing world – our own Jeffe, who I met at the RWA conference in Anaheim in 2012 when I was a brand new, probably very confused, just-published author. She was so generous in advice and moral support!  Still is! The other was my own daughter, who was published years before I was and patiently showed me the ropes on many things too numerous to mention here. Between the two of them and several other very patient, lovely people, I didn’t have to learn everything the hard way but could benefit from their trail blazing. I found other mistakes to make, believe me!

My favorite way to mentor and pay it forward is to take time to judge unpublished author contests in various Romance Writers of America (RWA) chapters. Contests are always in need of experienced first round judges, especially in the fantasy, futuristic and paranormal categories, and authors who enter for the most part genuinely want the feedback. I enjoy reading the first twenty pages of a WIP, or the first 5000 words or whatever the entries may be, and offering constructive criticism and suggestions. I like finding the things that are done well – a unique plot, a cool turn of phrase, a character who really comes alive on the page – and I feel I’ve been helpful if I can also highlight a few things that may be more problematic – too much backstory, an overuse of certain words, etc. -  or downright “don’t do this unless you want one star reviews, shrug, up to you” items.

I may not be able to advise you on how to get an agent or what to say in a pitch session, since I’m independently published and never had those experiences, but I can offer you my insights on the writing, especially in my genres. People may take the advice or not, or they may adapt parts of it, or do the exact opposite, but at least I’ve done what I can to pass along the help and support I received.

“I believe in luck and fate and I believe in karma, that the energy you put out in the world comes back to meet you.” Chris Pine

(All photos purchased from Deposit Photo stock images.)