The why of stories, via royal weddings, traffic, and pets

Writing commercial fiction isn’t the same as, say, crafting Viking swords. With the latter, you want to make sure you apprentice with someone who completely knows his or her art, and you want to pay attention. Lots and lots of fervid, note-taking attention. However, with the former, although some basics of craft are good to know, the goal of your art is to illuminate the human condition, and let’s face it, none of us on this planet have a clue what we’re doing. Or why. Anybody else’s guess is as good as mine.

So that’s who I learn from: anybody. Everybody. All the time.

From my kids, who get weird messaging that we should all be leaders, but also we should all work in groups…where not everybody is going to be, you know, leading. So is being second-in-command undesirable, then? But what if the wolf-shifter pack alpha is a craptastic leader and it’s the get-shit-done somewhere-in-the-middle-of-the-hierarchy canid who actually deserves my attention? (And my heroine’s…)

From the rush hour traffic ballet, where the several-decades-old American muscle car with the heavy metal band bumper sticker brakes to let in a SmartCar with an Infowars bumper sticker, and suddenly I’m wondering about the drivers’ genders and demographics and politics and dreams and fears, and how this whole faceless highway social structure might change if, say, we all used driverless cars.

From my news feed, which is filled with clashing stories about the upcoming Royal Wedding (and the new Prince Louis and his oh-yeah-she-is big sis, Princess Charlotte) and Elon Musk, and now I’m wondering how something old and crumbly like monarchy will fare in a future of Mars vacations and cyborg dragons.

From my tiny dogs, who are hosting my mother-in-law’s pets while she is out of town, and are learning to live with a cat. Lily has responded with curiosity and an adorable desire to get to know the newcomer; Tahiti clearly thinks his space is being invaded by something not-dog and is super anxious as a result. Which feels a little like immigration? Invasion? Integration? So many human behavioral stencils can be laid over this burgeoning pet relationship, each yielding story fodder.

Oh, and here’s a pic of the dogs, all together on one chair (Lily, the super friendly gal, is that one in the middle). Notice no cat. OreoKitty is on the stairs nearby, watching, maybe wanting to be part of the fuzzy blanket club. Or maybe just thinking how sad it is that all those pups can’t jump up to the lofty place where she is.

Human condition, right? The lessons are everywhere, and I can never learn enough. Also, each time we interact, you teach me a little more. So, I learn from you, too. Thank you.

Learning from the Creative Community: 3 Places to Start

As in any industry, continuing to develop your skills regardless of how other people perceive your abilities and success is fundamental to achieving your career goals. What's that mean for someone in a creative field?  That means you have to study the art and the business. This week's topic is about from whom we learn: teachers, mentors, and other resources.

KAK's Top 3 Resources for Being a Better Career Author

1. Fellow Authors:  From their works to their social media to workshops they offer, I look to my peers to fill in my knowledge gaps. That means I read widely, I "follow" outside my "clique," and I participate in author-groups. One of the many nice things about genre authors is that they freely share their advice and experiences in public forums. The diversity of our backgrounds and experiences usually means there are some great nuggets of useful information to be had amid the banter and inanity. Find them on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc.

Where to start? Pick 6 authors outside your circle-of-norms, and check their websites for where they hang out online. Choose:
--> 2 authors who are current commercial darlings (1 debut, 1 established)
--> 2 authors who are critical darlings (check the lists of award winners--Hugos, Ritas, Gemmell, Locus, Stoker, etc--for the last 3 years)
--> 2 authors who are industry veterans that other successful authors respect.

2. Reader Groups: There are numerous reader-groups on the Web discussing my genre and its many sub-genres. I've joined a few to listen, NOT to hawk my wares. What do they like? What do they care about? What annoys them and what are they hoping to find? Maybe it's a legacy from my marketing days, but these communities are the best focus groups for which an author could ask.

Where to start? Look to Facebook and Reddit for great reader communities. Yes, the quantity of discussions and daily messages can be overwhelming. Using the sites' digest settings, filtering, and mute tools to manage the deluge.

3. Other Creative Professionals: While publishing likes to think it's a snowflake, there are a lot of issues and opportunities that are common across the greater creative industry. There are also a lot of innovative solutions that can be tweaked to improve your processes and business. Pay attention to discussions about tech, tools, laws, sales, marketing, customer expectations, predators, pirates, etc. Also take note of the tips for mental and physical health, refreshing the creative-well, and humor rooted in the common struggle for respect and recognition.

Where to start? Social media of course. As for who to follow, well, that's a bit more complicated. You're looking for creatives who actually share that "behind the scenes" information on their feeds. I find illustrators and designers are as forthcoming as authors, while actors and musicians are bit more guarded. They often share the pretty and the product; less so with the process and business. To build a list, check the awards nominations from #1 above and look to their retweets/shares.

Dear reader, if you have a follow-favorite, let me know! 

I'm always looking to learn from new perspectives.

How to be a better writer?

So many simple rules, but we're supposed to go with three, so I'll try to behave.

1) Be aware of your craft. By that I mean, READ. Read a lot. Read every damned day. Read all genres, heck, you can even go crazy and read nonfiction without it having to be research. READ. The simple process of reading is honing your skills if you are even remotely aware of your surroundings.

2) WRITE. Every single day. I don't care what your plans are. Write. Be if for ten minutes or several hours, write. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you are putting words on paper or a file. Sometimes that simply means turning off the internet and actually working through issues of the latest story ideas in your head.

3) LIVE. Listen, I can say this a dozen delicate ways, but I don;t want to. It's nearly a natural tendency for writers to want to isolate themselves. The best of us, as far as I can tell, are extroverted introverts, but given a choice, locking ourselves in the dungeons of our own creation seems to be a positive thing in may eyes.
That's cool. Not.
Go out. I'm not saying you even have to be social, but go out, SEE PEOPLE. Observe them. Understand what makes them tick as best you can, because, at the end of the day, we are dealing with populations in the backs of our fool heads, and they should come from reality as much as they come from our imaginations See people. Watch them. Do';t stare, that's rude, but go to a restaurant, go to a cafe, go to a park, relax, and observe. See what makes them unique. Appreciate it, admire it, exploit it in your writings. Even as a kid I was almost always the "quiet one" because I found other people far more interesting than me. They have so many secrets! I want to know them all. And if I can't know them, I want to imagine them.

That's my three.

Your mileage may vary.

I got back the edits for my PREDATOR novel.

This has been a hoot!

PREDATOR: HUNTERS AND HUNTED comes out JULY 31st

Three Ways I Learn to Be a Better Writer

Pretty excited to see the flyer up for my book signing with Minerva Spencer on July 8 at Page 1 Books in Albuquerque. This is her debut, so I expect it to be a fun party!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: Who do you learn from? (Teachers, mentors, resources for skilling up.)

It's an interesting question because a huge part of growing as a writer - and probably in any self-driven profession - is learning when to trust yourself and when to listen to others. As a newbie writer, we all really need to listen to advice from others. Even when we think we don't need it. Maybe even PARTICULARLY when we think we don't need it.

As with all wisdom, recognizing what you don't know is a great step toward truly improving.

And, as with many endeavors, but especially creative ones, there comes a point where taking classes, getting critique, etc., simply are no substitute for DOING THE WORK. Some people throw around the number "one million words" that you have to write before you've cleared the pipes and can really lay down fresh and clear prose. I don't know about one million, but I'd believe it. It takes a lot of just writing writing writing to get there.

So, once you're a more experienced writer - even one, like me, teaching others how to write - how do I learn?

Three things:

1) First and foremost I study other writers. I read widely in all genres, and I deliberately check out those books that win awards, that people love and talk about, and that sell well. (I think these are three different aspects of a "good" piece of writing. Very rarely does a book hit all three.

2) I have select critique partners. At this point I'm blessed to have a lot of author friends, and I hit them up at various times for various stories. I bet you can guess how I decide. Reference #2 above - I ask those writers who are really good at the thing I'm hoping works or am pretty sure needs to get fixed.

3) I learn from the world. Part of being a creative person is taking in the world around us and giving our answer to it. I try to experience all kinds of storytelling in different media, or different arts altogether - music, movies, painting, architecture, philosophy, nature. I'm a Taoist, so I believe that our lives are a long path of growing and refining ourselves. Writing is just one piece of that for me.

I Predict Disruption But Also More of the Same

So not the Author. DepositPhoto

So our challenge this week is to set forth five prophecies for the future of publishing/romance/anything related. We do have a touch of the ‘the sight’ in our family but not for things of this nature LOL (doesn’t work on Lotto numbers either).

The first thing that comes to mind is that Amazon has become a big, stable business (as far as the books and indie publishing aspect) so I expect someone will come along and be a disruptor. Here’s the Wikipedia definition of disruption:  “Disruptive innovation is a term in the field of business administration which refers to an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leading firms, products, and alliances.”

It happened to the phone company, the major TV networks, the record industry, the airlines, the retail industry, IBM, Xerox…so I predict it will happen to Amazon as well.  Yes, Amazon itself has been a huge disruptor in so many ways but time overtakes us all, inevitably.

Second, I think reverse harem will continue to be a big trope in romance, until whatever is next comes along to displace it. I have no idea what the next big popular trope will be. We’ve had the stepbrother thing, the blue space barbarian thing, YA dystopian angst, sparkly vampires…what’s lovely about the indie publishing world is that when a trope ceases to be ‘hot’, authors can still write it anyway and readers can still find it anyway…just not as much of it. Or those of us who didn’t find a particular trope fit in with their storytelling can just keep writing what we write and appreciating our loyal readers.

Third, since humans first sat around the campfire and told each other stories, there’s been a need for entertainment to balance the cares of daily life and work. I don’t expect that need to ever go away but in this day and age there are so many more options for entertainment than our ancestors had. Authors will have to be prolific and nimble to stay in the mix, and keep in mind that publishing is very much a business. Yes, there must be a good story first but discoverability is the key.

As a follow-on to that thought, fourth prediction, I think the older methods of promo – newsletters, Facebook ads/pages/groups, conferences, good reviews in a magazine, blogging, tweeting – are all becoming increasingly less effective. New methods of promo to reach the current and new audiences will have to be found. I’m not a Silicon Valley techie or a PR person so I have no idea what those new shiny tools will be, but I’m keeping my eyes and ears open.

Fifth, I predict someone will become the next ‘overnight success’ with something totally new that no one saw coming that catches the public fancy, becomes a movie or a TV miniseries, maybe even a theme park, and spawns a zillion similar books…because this always seems to happen. Someone will hit the zeitgeist just right, at the right second and BAM. Household word. The author probably really isn’t an ‘overnight success’ but has been writing away in the modern equivalent of a garret for years. More power to you, unknown author!

And if I knew what that shiny fabulous book plot was going to be, I’d write it myself, but as I mentioned above, the family gift is more for premonitions of onrushing catastrophe than what trope to be sure to include in the next book.

My heroine in HEALER OF THE NILE makes predictions by casting colorful stones. Of course when all else fails, she has a direct line to Shae, God of Fate. DepositPhoto

Predictions! 4 of Mine and 1 Guest Prediction

Predicting the publishing future - my stabs in the dark heart of the publishing wilderness. Totally sounds like I should be filming a Predator movie somewhere. Alas. Not happening. Yet.

1. All the Eggs in One Flawed Basket - I'm seeing discontent and conversations going on about how certain LARGE empires are treating authors and books of certain genres. I see the call outs about how scammers are gaming said empire to the detriment of actual authors with actual novels. The writing on the wall says to me that the age of centralization is going to have to come to an end. If you are a reader or writer of content that isn't treated well, it's time to get subversive and create alternative outlets. I'm thinking of co-op publishing models run by the authors and readers themselves.
2. Newsletters Dying a Well Deserved Death - Yes, pretty much every single marketing guru out there who wants to tell authors how we're all doing it wrong (and given the number of people signed up for my mailing list *I* might be doing it all wrong) is pushing mailing list, mailing list, mailing list, I want hard numbers on open rates. Cause nobody under thirty that I know actually reads email unless coerced into it by work. My own email inboxes are so inundated that newsletters I willingly signed up for over time are now auto-filed in the trash. Only so many hours in a day and only so much bandwidth. Makes me sad. Do I know what's going to take the place? Nope. Not that clairvoyant. But when I want to know what an author I love is doing, I search for them on my book store of choice and start clicking buy buttons for the books I don't have.
3. Books that Have Actually Been Edited - This follows Jeffe's point about craft. A well written book is a book that has also been subjected to the fine and knowledgeable eye of an editor. I won't claim a book has to be perfect. It doesn't. But the plot holes need plugging. The turns of phrase need to make sense. Just because *I* know what I meant on page 163 doesn't mean that you know what I meant. I need an editor to tell me that the lengthy paragraph about the green and brown striped haviz makes no sense and maybe some of what I know in my head didn't make it to the page. So yes. I think books that have obviously been rushed and tossed online to cash in on something might start slipping as reader annoyance with such tomes begins growing.
4. Diversity - I suspect we'll begin to see authors of color and LGBTQA authors getting more subversive about publishing with co-ops. (I hope!) I don't see the major publishers, which seem to all be particularly tone deaf to the issues, pivoting on how they're asking their mostly white, straight authors to write diversity. We're already seeing authors using privilege to attempt to signal boost AOC and LGBTQA authors. I'm hoping for a lot more of that.
5. Hatshepsut's Prediction: MORE CATS!

I will do my best.

Perils of the Writer: Trend Chasing

So, the other day I was on a fantasy-lit based message board, and saw someone comment, "I want some fantasy-inspired music, but I don't like heavy metal.  What else is there?"

And I thought, "What are they talking about?  How is heavy metal the go-to trend in 'fantasy-inspired music'?"  And then it hit me:

fantasy music:heavy metal::fantasy lit:grimdark

(If I gave you SAT flashbacks with that, I apologize.)

But the analogy fits-- both fill the same subgenre niche, and both seem to be a popular trend at the moment.  And, I'll confess, I've never been too keen on the grimdark (nor heavy metal), but people like it and it's got some good stuff out there. Or, more correctly, there are a lot of works out there that I recognize their quality, while also recognizing that they are not for me.  And that's OK.  That's the thing with trends-- sometimes they'll be happening around you and you feel out of the loop because you just don't get why it's a thing.

Grimdark feels to be a strong trend in the genre right now, at least in the circles I have my eye on.  But trends change, so we'll see what's next.  I certainly would like it if people gravitated toward heroic fantasy, epic in scope but personal in scale.  I may know a book or two along those lines.

But what will the next fantasy trend be?  If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly (and lord knows I'm probably not), it's non-traditional secondary-world fantasy.  Things that really play with their worldbuilding, creating settings that are recognizable in totally different ways.  Stuff like the 1960s-ish secondary Asia of Jade City. Or the upcoming Titanshade by Dan Stout, set in a magical 1970sesque setting with 8-tracks and disco.  I'm looking forward to that one.

Maybe that's why a part of my brain is churning away with a vague idea involving a dieselpunk secondary-world setting and this helmet.

But it's still just early churnings.  We'll see what develops.

Since I suck at prognosticating, here's my wish list instead.

Predicting trends in the writing biz? Me? Oh dear, I’m afraid I’m the last person you’ll want to consult for prognostications. I kind of fail at them.

Back in the querying stage, I did a crudton of research on the market: what was selling, who was selling it, who was writing it, how they were selling it, what the covers looked like, what movies or television shows were sort of like the stuff that was selling. Even that crudton was barely a crumb on the surface of this gigantic, seaming pile of…er, research you can do. And people were there all along the way, advising me to research more, know more, learn more. Ack!

In the end, I learned that I was basically Jon Snow. I knew nothing.

I signed with an agent three years ago, and holy hell has the book business changed since then. No one predicted the convulsion our industry has endured, and I honestly don’t believe anyone has a clear handle on where it’s headed from here. We think trends are toward more optimistic, fluffy stuff. But tomorrow’s news story stands a good chance of yanking the stuffing right out of us. Alternately, if we go dark and current events go darker, I can’t imagine readers are going to follow us down into the pit of despair. And bless them for not.

So since I’m failing so completely to predict, how about I wish instead? That's what futuristic fictioneers do, after all: we build a world to our own spec. And if I were building the near future of the publishing biz, here are a few trends I would like to see:

• More characters of color. Not just because representation matters (though it definitely does), but also because that's the way the world looks. Humans are a wonderfully, wildly diverse lot.
• A resurgence of cyberpunk or more specifically, post-cyberpunk (e.g., Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash). Technology is eating us alive right now in the real world, so fiction where we pwn that stuff would be empowering.
• Gay characters who exist in stories that aren’t about gayness. You know, where they’re just people, peopling. 
• A retreat from trope-stuffing. One or two are fine, but commercial fiction has become overloaded with tropes, and the stories suffer from this bloat. At least we writer types should seek to invert or turn a few tropes sideways. 
• Less mocking. Mockery isn’t funny, and I’m tired of reading books where “comedy” occurs at the expense of someone else. 
• Consent. So much consent. Consent on every page. Heck, a whole cast of characters who are oh-yeah, all-in enthusiastic about the sexytimes. 
• On a related note, I would like the word “mine” in a romantic context to become archaic usage. People don’t belong to each other and are not objects to be won. 
• Actually, instead of stories about horrible characters doing horrible things to each other, how about some books about good people doing awesome things for each other? 
• I mean, if you need stakes and stuff, they can always save the world. I’m so over being told that I as a reader like to see characters making poor life decisions. I don’t. 
• Oh! And this: a gory, blood-spattered, 'bout-time end to cliffhangers.

Yeah. I feel better now. Probably haven't predicted anything at all, but I definitely feel better. How about you? You got anything specific you'd like to show up on your to-be-read pile?