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My Favourite Review

It’s one thing to have your book reviewed by family or friends.  It’s another to have a complete stranger review it.  Over on Kobo.com, this review of Empire’s Daughter appeared:

“A story both hard and beautiful, Empire’s Daughter handles with depth and eloquence the issues of its time. The Empire is so like a past that our culture could hold, and creates a reflection on our decisions and traditions and their impact. For all its insight it still drives a narrative of growth and action.”

It’s written by someone I don’t know at all, who had no reason to be polite or to hold back on what he/she really thought. For that reason, it’s (so far) my favourite review.

Interested in reviewing Empire’s Daughter?  You can download the e-book it for free for a limited time from www.smashwords.com for no cost, using coupon code: ML72W.

A Map of the Empire

MAPTAKE1

Here’s a map of the lands known as ‘The Empire’.  It’s perhaps 800 miles north to south, two hundred and fifty miles across. Two hundred thousand square miles in area – twice the size of the UK, about the same as France, half the size of Ontario, just a bit bigger than the Dakotas.

Note that the villages of Delle, Serra and Tirvan are shown in relation to the Road, but actually are on the coast below the Road.

What did Dickens do? The challenges of publishing-by-installment.

Publishing Empire’s Hostage in installments (www.empireshostage.com) is proving to be an interesting process.  It is reducing my procrastination considerably – the first book in the series took me over a decade to write – ok, I was working at the time, and travelling, and providing a great deal of care to my aging parents – but still!  My goal is to have the book completed by my next birthday – April of 2016 – and knowing nearly 100 people (to date) are following the installments certainly gives me incentive to write.

But I’m not a writer who maps out the entire story in detail and then writes it. While I have the general gist of the story arc in my head, things just happen.  Characters turn out not to be quite the person you expected them to be.  Questions are asked by the protagonist – and you don’t have an answer (and it’s a really important question.)  When you write and publish a book in the traditional way, when these things happen, you go back to the earlier chapters and make sure they contain appropriate foreshadowing, or just plain don’t contradict the later chapters (and rely on your editor to catch anything you didn’t.)

So far, there’s enough space between my posts and what I’m writing now to go back and make the necessary changes before the installments go public.  At some point, that may not be the case.  I haven’t quite decided how to handle it – I could go back and change the earlier installment.  I could leave it alone, or add a postscript to the installment explaining.

Charles Dickens wrote a lot of his books as installments in a monthly magazine.  I wonder how he handled this problem?

Any thoughts or advice from my readers?

thanks,

Marian

Encouraging a fellow writer

I think we all need to do this for each other as much as possible in the indie writing community!  This is a link to Dave Whaley’s site for Z:UK, his newly published book.

https://authorwhaley.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/2015-dave-whaley-the-published-author/comment-page-1/#comment-26

Britain and zombies…what more could I ask?  I’ll be reading it soon!

Procrastination

Here I am, in my best writing place, in the study carrel at the university that I’ve used on and off for thirty years.  I’m supposed to be working on Empire’s Hostage.  I have my lunch, and my coffee; I have my notes and a mug of water.  So why I am I not writing?

Well, firstly, it’s because writing is hard work, and like much hard work it’s easier to procrastinate than do it. When I do start (and I will), if I hit a flow I can write for hours; other days the whole process is excruciating, as if I forgotten who my characters are and what they are doing, or at least why they are doing it.  If that happens it’s really tempting to shut up the laptop and go home, but what I should do on those occasions is wonder if subconsciously I’m seeing a problem: maybe my plot or my character’s motivation or feelings aren’t clear. And if they aren’t clear to me, then they won’t be clear to a reader. Time to re-read what I’ve written, sometimes from the beginning, with this in mind.  This is a valid piece of the writing process, so I shouldn’t see this as wasted time.

Sometimes it’s just that my mind isn’t focused: I’m still thinking about the shopping list, or the conversation with my husband, or the car that cut me off at the intersection.  This is where I find rituals – if that’s the right word – are important; it’s why I write in the same place in this library, with my coffee at hand, when I could choose anywhere.  I actually tried a new location, large tables facing the big windows on the ground floor.  It was quiet, and I could spread out – and I couldn’t write there nearly as effectively as I can where I’m sitting now. Even the walk from the parking area I use is part of getting my mind into the right place to write.  Madeleine L’Engle once said to be a writer, one needed to be able to write anywhere.  I wish I could, but it’s just not true for me.

Writing this blog post falls somewhere between procrastination and warm-up.  It’s a form of metacognition – thinking about thinking – I’m thinking about why I procrastinate.  I could also think of it as a warm-up, or a new part of the ritual.  To be honest, I’m not sure yet.  But now I can feel my characters tugging at my mind, wanting me tell the next part of their story – so I should heed that call.  I hope it’s a day of good flow: I’ll go find out.

Download Empire’s Daughter for free for a limited time!

Upon reflection, I decided that serializing Empire’s Hostage without making Empire’s Daughter equally free for readers wasn’t logical.  So, for a limited time (until September 15th), you can download Empire’s Daughter from www.smashwords.com for no cost, using the coupon code available on the About this Project page of Empire’s Hostage.

Available e-book formats: : epub mobi pdf rtf lrf pdb txt html

Enjoy!

Marian

Coffee and Writing

Saturday and Sundays are my days to really focus on the new book, Empire’s Hostage.  These are the days I work at the university library for the afternoon.  I started this when I was still working and weekends were really the only time I could write; now it’s a combination of habit and the fact parking is free on the university on weekends (and expensive other times.) Plus, as I said in a different post on a different blog, I’ve been writing there for thirty years, and the environment is conducive to work.

The library incorporated a cafe last year – good and bad for me – it’s a Starbucks, which I really don’t like, but then again I want a coffee during my writing hours. But I’m also trying not to spend money unnecessarily now I’m retired (although I still have a Starbucks card that was a retirement present.)

Right now I don’t have the dilemma, because it’s still the summer and the cafe isn’t open on weekends.  The library opens at eleven, so even if I have a late breakfast before heading out, I’ll still want the coffee at some point.  I like coffee when I’m reviewing what I’ve written, or pondering the next scene…whether or not it really enhances creativity or I just think it does doesn’t really matter – it’s just one of my rituals now.

At this point in the year I have only one choice – to take a thermos with me.  The library (unusually?) has no restrictions on food and drink in the building, so I can drink my coffee at my study carrel.  Once the school year starts again I have a plethora of choices – there are a dozen places on campus to get coffee then.  But that means packing up my laptop and walking somewhere; that too has its positive side, movement being good for my body and the creative process, even if I just walk over to the University Centre, buy a coffee, and walk back to the library.

So will I give in to the convenience (and better taste?) of purchased coffee or stay frugal and drink thermos coffee?  Now I’ve set myself the goal of writing at least three thousand words a week of Empire’s Hostage I need all the rituals (and discipline) I have. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m also curious – what writing rituals do you have?