In Praise of Mentors

When faced with something you have to do, but don't know how to do, what DO you do? Maybe YouTube a how-to? Cause there are a metric crap ton of vids on any topic you can imagine (and a few you can't). There are arcane and amazingly useful channels out there. Then there are the videos that are clearly some desperate marketing 'guru' wanting to entice you into SPECIAL FOR YOU TODAY pricing on their amazing class that will teach you everything you ever needed to know about <insert topic, including writing, here>.

Some writers have channels that are legitimately helpful, but for writing mentorship, I lean on organizations. The single most cost effective way to learn about this industry while participating in the industry is to pay dues to RWA, SFWA, NINC, and other writer organizations that bring writers with all levels of experience together. Had I not found and joined RWA when I did, I'd still be out wandering in the novelist woods wondering why nothing was working.

Chapter meetings taught me the difference between internal and external conflict. It was at meetings that I finally figured out what voice was. When my first rejection letter came in, my chapter mates broke it down for me, explaining what the editor was telling me and how encouraging that rejection actually was. Chapter meetings and local writer conferences led me to classes and to the people who's working style meshed with and enhanced my own. Do you know how much that would cost if I'd tried to get that kind of support and education from a single person? Far, far more than I had. Then or now.

Writer organizations give you access to an incredibly deep well of experience and information. I can go to the email loops or forums, ask literally any question and have germane answers within a day. All for the price of a membership. In that regard, I am super pro-mentorship. Take advantage of the organizations to which you belong and do what you can to give back, whether that's through serving on a board, or volunteering to stuff goodie bags at a conference.

It's vital to recognize, though, that mentorships have drawbacks. First, no one can do the work for you. Second, when anyone talks 'how to', you aren't getting The One True Way. You're getting the speaker's way. Whatever the teacher/speaker is sharing is what works for them. It may not work for you. When you're the one learning, it pays to keep in mind that you're going to classes in order to try out tools to see how or whether they fit your hand. When you find what fits, seek out that instructor and take every last one of their classes. The point is to take what fits and chuck the rest.  In that way, you become your own best mentor.

To be, or not to be, a mentor.

Are you:

1. working your way through NaNoWriMo and your first book
2. querying or researching the indie track
3. have a book or two out in the world, ready to create the next one
4. been in publishing long enough you feel confident in the ins and outs

For the A’s - I’ve got loads of encouragement, and a slew of cheesy quotes if you’re interested. 

For the B’s - I’ve got encouragement and some tips on where to find information. 

For the C’s - I’ve got encouragement and a pretty good set of reader’s eyes. For the D’s - I’ve got encouragement, and a few questions. 

When I started writing, I believed it was a solo expedition, but then I realized that I wasn’t an astronaut. Lone wolf is the term more frequently used, but wolves operate in packs because the strength is in the pack. And that’s true of authors as well.

That understanding changed the game for me. Instead of being alone in a void, I found a writing community filled with people as clueless as I was, only the members were at all levels of their careers. Even when I didn’t think I could contribute I found people coming along behind me looking for suggestions on things I’d just done or gone through, and my voracious reading matched up with others needing a fresh set of eyes on their work.

No matter which letter you picked, you’ve got something to offer. Did you notice I listed encouragement with each one? That’s because everyone, no matter their level of achievements, has bad days, rejections, doubt, and thousands of other life challenges. So join in, even if it’s to offer a smile. Because if we’re all out there together, we may as well be having fun.

Wanted: A DumbleYoda of My Very Own

A couple weeks ago, I tried to sign up to get a mentor through the SFWA, but the slots were all full within, like, an hour of the thing going live. That’s how starved we are for information.

We = all of us who are trying to do this writing thing. Having published a book or signed with an agent does not confer magical status of “I got this all covered now.” Many of us are confused and periodically hopeless.

Starved = sort of ironic, given how many YouTube vids there are for How To Self-Publish Your Book And Make A Gazillion Dollars Doing It! Easy! Everybody Can! I’m not saying they’re all scams trying to get you to pay for a magical placebo. But, um, caveat emptor.

And yet, I still tried to sign up for that  mentorship program, didn’t I? See, I wish there was a magic pill for How Do I Do This? I’m Rey, telling Luke that something has awakened inside me—this incredible urge to tell stories—and I need to know my place in all this and I’m begging Luke to train me and help me make sense of it, and every single day Luke takes one look at my lightsaber and throws it off a cliff. Every. Single. Day.

The bottom line is that as much as I yearn for a Dumbledore or a Yoda to give a crap about my journey and tell me when I’m doing it wrong—and when I’m doing it right—that ain’t gonna happen.  There is no such thing as a wisefolk out in the world who are even half as invested in your success as you are.

So, basically, be your own mentor. Learn your own thing. And message me if you need to scream/vent/rage into the void because this whole gig is confusing and cyclically horrifying, and we are all just flailing here. Sometimes it’s helpful to share.

Mentoring: Would I, Could I, Should I, Have I?

Oh, so you want to know about mentoring, dear reader? Well, here's KAK's 5 Quick Mentoring Hits:

• Have I ever "officially" mentored an author at any stage of their career? 
• Nope. Not because I'm a dick (opinions may vary on that). Mostly, it's because there are moments when we (authors) need advice but it's not a sustained state of apprenticeship. Also, the needs fluctuate from 0 to 60 to -12. I may be the experienced one in April, but by August the mentee probably is the new expert. Roles flip. It's a good thing. It encourages continuous education.

• Am I available to answer questions or offer advice? 
• Sure. All advice comes with the standard disclaimer of "YMMV." While I'm happy to answer questions, don't expect me to do the work for you. Yes, I have strong opinions about certain topics and fluid thoughts on others. Yes, I can be and have been wrong. Yes, I am big enough to admit when that happens.

• Do I consider myself an expert on any one aspect of authoring?
• Oh hell no. I'm passably good at some things and a bit of a penny-in-the-socket on others.

• Ever considered sharing what you've learned in your decade+ of playing in the publishing arena?
• That's the biggest reason this blog exists. Authors at various stages of their careers can read our seven different perspectives on topics ranging from writing compelling sidekicks with fetishes to negotiating for yourself in an industry focused on their bottom line. From pre-published to self-published to hybrid published to traditionally published, this blog comes at the issues from all avenues and across the spec-fic and romance genres. 

• Would you ever want someone to mentor you?
• Who wouldn't want a resource who's been there, done that, and done it with better success? Then again, as Jeffe mentioned on Sunday, a lot of that kind of mentorship comes from friendships with other authors. I value my friendships, heck, it increases the odds I'll listen to their advice. 👼

Authors Mentoring Authors

I love these #shelfie pics - ones readers send me of my book spotted in the wild. This one is from a Kroger grocery store in Anchorage, Alaska. Pretty awesome company it's keeping, huh?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Mentoring: my mentors, ways I've mentored others, how to do it right, how to do it wrong, and whether it's possible to lone-wolf this writing journey.

A lot of writing is done alone, it's true, by its very nature. And I suppose it's possible to "lone-wolf" it, though... why would you want to?

First of all, one of the best perks of being an author is getting to be friends with the authors whose books you love. I highly recommend everyone take advantage of that!

Also, a lot of the industry is stacked against authors. The people who want to make money off of us have their best interests at heart, not ours. (Often these things coincide. Sometimes they don't - and we need to be able to know the difference.) That kind of thing (like paying authors as little as they can get away with) operates best in secrecy. Only by banding together and sharing our insider knowledge can we counteract those attempts to keep us ignorant.

I've had some great mentors all along - teachers, editors, agents, sister writers, business-minded friends - and I'm deeply grateful for each and every one of them. I've done my best to pay that out as well by doing formal mentoring, as with SFWA's mentoring program, and informally by giving advice to friends, and friends of friends, as needed.

How to do it right? My approach is be generous and listen. There is no one-size-fits all solution. Everyone wants different things from their writing. I try to help writers refine their own goals and dreams - and then give feedback on best practices to get there.

How to do it wrong? Just the reverse! Every time I hear some author giving advice like "All you have to do is write a good book" I end up grinding my teeth. If that's all there was to it, we'd all be JK Rowling, right?

This is an apropos topic because I'm moving into a new phase of offering Author Coaching. The information will be going up on my website soon - like, this week! - so keep an eye out for that.

Happy writing, everyone!

I Write Disasters On Purpose

Our topic this week is one thing we think we do well as an author and one thing we’d like to do better.

I think I’m pretty good at writing the action and adventure in all three of my genres (scifi romance, fantasy romance and paranormal).

Personally I like disaster movies and my plots are kind of along those lines – stuck on the futuristic version of the Titanic, marooned on a deserted planet with the enemy aliens arriving, cruising on an intergalactic luxury liner when a mysterious disease breaks out, rescuing a hostage taken by interstellar pirates, fighting a crime syndicate that spans the stars, abducted by evil alien scientists and making an alliance with genetically engineered soldiers…

My main characters in the SFR novels never lack for challenges and daunting obstacles along the way to the Happy Ever After ending. I enjoy showing the growth of the relationship between my hero and heroine as they’re thrown together by the circumstances and come to respect each other’s skills and personality as they fight shoulder to shoulder to save themselves and others caught in the disaster with them.  I have more time in the pages of a novel to show the relationship developing than a scriptwriter has in a ninety minute or even a two hour movie, so that’s a luxury.

I have the structure of my Sectors interstellar civilization well established, which enables me to visualize the elements of the stories as part of a vast world I’ve already built.

In the ancient Egyptian paranormal novels, the problem usually comes down to some form of black magic, and/or someone committing a crime appropriate to 1550 BCE, like an official skimming grain from Pharaoh’s taxes…but the gods are involved too. Occasionally I get a little more cinematic, as with the lost and hidden city in Lady of the Nile where much of the action takes place but I based it on elements of the Sumerian culture to keep the plot anchored in reality to some extent. Sumeria at its peak was 3000 years or so before my Egyptians. But for those novels I’m not writing huge disaster movie type tropes. The key there is the fascination with the ancient Egyptian culture and how the gods would interact with the humans in these situations…as well as the strong hero and heroine finding themselves in the middle of a situation like a clandestine invasion by an enemy and again, having to work together to resolve the problem to save Egypt. Oh, and falling in love, did I mention that?

The one thing I’d like to do better would be to write big sprawling multi volume novels in a fantasy world where I had plot elements that didn’t pay off until late in the series, or where truths evolve over the course of the series and by the end the reader is marveling that “Oh, I never saw that coming but it makes perfect sense.” I have to mention our Jeffe Kennedy and her Twelve Kingdoms series as my example here – great, complex STUFF to keep the reader fully engrossed.

I am getting better at doing series with an overarching plot arc, as with my SFR Badari Warriors series for example. And I have a huge plot arc at play in my fantasy romance series Magic of Claddare but since I don’t plot in advance or outline it’s challenging to do the kind of writing where I have the young page say something casual in volume one that everything turns on in volume fifteen when he’s about to be crowned king and is now a seasoned warrior of thirty.

It’s not a burning desire of mine as a writer but I’d like to continue to grow a bit more adept at it over time.

I write the kinds of books I want to read and I’m happy with my mix of adventures, action and romance. As long as the readers are too, I’m all set!

(May I crow about my new release?)

DAEGAN: A BADARI WARRIORS SCIFI ROMANCE NOVEL
Ex-Special Forces soldier and mercenary Flo Michetti is bored with her assignment as a pilot for the genetically engineered Badari pack in their fight against the evil Khagrish scientists. She jumps at the chance to take a dangerous undercover mission. She infiltrates a group of human prisoners on their way to a secret lab in the southern ocean, where the Badari believe many more of their own kind have been created and are being experimented on. Once Flo has located the lab, found the Alpha among the Badari there and sent a report back, the plan will be to attack and rescue all the prisoners.

Arriving at the island Flo learns the true nature of the horrific experiment for which the humans have been brought to this remote location. Time will be perilously short to escape before it’s too late for all of them. She has to locate the Alpha of this captive southern pack, who conceals his identity to escape death at the hands of the Khagrish, and get him to join with her and her allies.

Daegan feels an instant attraction to Flo when the Badari and the humans are forced together by the Khagrish scientists, but there are mysteries and questions surrounding her. Before he reveals himself as the incognito Alpha she’s seeking, he wants answers to allay his doubts. He also wants Flo in his bed…but can he risk his heart to claim her as his mate?

Complicating the situation is a dangerous rival for Daegan’s position as Alpha, an oncoming hurricane and Flo’s resistance to abandoning her life as a soldier of fortune…as the Khagrish scientists prepare to initiate the experiment, the clock is ticking for humans and Badari alike.
Amazon      Apple Books      Kobo     Nook    GooglePlay

The Good versus the Development Opportunity

Crow wants you to know he has a tough life. (That's a stuffed lion he's resting against there.) So yeah, even the cats have stuffies.

I suppose in a way this leads reasonably well into what I feel like I do well in fiction. I over invest. Kidding/no kidding. My plots and details tend to be a little involved and I have a disturbing tendency to obsess over them. I'd like to believe that creates an immersive read - one that draws readers into the characters and their world. The other thing I'm really good at is editing. Once I've finished a draft, if you tell me something is broken, I may whine and complain, but I will wander off, deep in thought and then come back 24 hours later with a bunch of possible solutions. So while I'm not glib or clever when I'm on the spot (one of the reasons I'm kind of bad at Twitter) I do like the fact that I have some problem solving skill.

Which leads us to what I'm working on getting better at and that is drafting. I'm not fast and I want to be fast. I do better work, I think, when I'm going fast and don't have time to second guess what's going on and/or get too inside the characters' heads. It's a work in progress. Aren't we all?

I want to take a second to say Welcome Aboard to Alexia!

Hello, my name is Alexia Chantel, and I’m a book addict.

That’s how it all started. And then I followed an author I’d been lucky to interview a few times for Reading Between the Wines to another blog site called the Word Whores. 

And that’s when I found my first writing community. Here were seven authors who wrote science fiction and fantasy of all kinds! They had helpful suggestions on how to set up spreadsheets and dream up alien pets, how to manage word counts and reminders, with stoic stares, to keep writing.

And I kept writing. And the Word Whores became the SFF Seven.  

I’m pre-published at the moment, but I have a fabulous agent and good things are coming. I write sci-fi thrillers and fantasy, so I feel at home with the SFF Seven and I can't believe I get to join them! 

I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but I’ll share what works and doesn’t work for me and I promise there'll be some laughs along the way. Not to sound all Disney-princessy, but there’s so much to learn. So, I hope you’ll stop by on Thursday’s to see what I figure out along my publishing journey, what crazy things I can get my fellow authors to divulge, and likely some adorable Siberian husky pictures.

Have a great week and I hope you find an even better book!

You can find me most frequently on Instagram and occasionally Twitter.