Go Indie or Publishing House?

 Like the song says; You can buy your own Flowers. 

Yet still we hesitate. 

Agent - Publishing House - Indie

Okay, getting an agent who can give you a 3 book deal with a movie option would be a dream. The question is; How often does that happen? 

A publishing house probably wants you to have a decent social media following. (Agents too.)

 Indie? Enough if you want it bad enough. Amazon and Barnes & Noble can get your book out there but you better be prepared to advertise and share the heck out of it. Build a website, an author facebook/TikTok/BlueSky/Instagram... and whatever other platform comes up. Be social and let them love you back. That helps sell books. See what other authors do and steal some marketing ideas. 

 Publishing house? Check them out in every way possible. Make sure they're legit. There's a lot out there that just want you to pay them. I believe the first rule of "never paying to publish your book" still stands. Good publishing houses don't take your money, they help you make money and take a percentage of sales. If a publishing house asks for upfront money, they're a vanity press. Not exactly legit and will probably publish things without the best editing which will kill your book in the long run. Unless you want to pay a good editor before going to the vanity press. But if you do that, why not just go full Indie? 

Back to agents? My dream was to get an agent to get me a big deal so I could just sit back and write more stories. Is that realistic? I'm sure agents make you work for it, too. 

Bottom line? Check it all out. Spend a day reading reviews on all the ways. Read agent reviews, pub house reviews, and find out what other authors whom you respect are doing. 

Homework makes the Dream work. 

Last Day of NANOWRIMO --- Oh No!

 Where did the month go? 

Certainly not on the page. I have an outline, some character sketches but mostly I have a lot of research notes. 

My story is about Witches who are sisters and when one of them passes the others summon her back from the dead. 

The research involved reading a lot about witches. Yikes! there is so much stuff about witches all over the net. Very interesting stuff. 

Three things I learned about witches; 

1. Not all witches are Wiccan. Wiccan is more of a religion. Some witches are just kind of  free range. 

2. There are many different kind of witches. Hedge witches, Kitchen witches, Animist witches, Green witches, Crystal witch, Eclectic witch and on some pages even more types. 

3. Crystal are frequently used by witches. The history and uses of different crystals is very interesting. I could spend days researching them! 

I also now know the symbolism of the Pentagram. The five points on the star stand for Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.  This was interesting because in movies the Pentagram is often associated with the devil or evil. Actually it's more representing the world around us, nature. 

The problem with researching things I know nothing about? I can spend hours reading and not writing. My NaNo word count has suffered greatly. I'm at a measly 9316. One of my fellow NaNoWriMo buddies (we meet weekly at Starbuckies) said I shouldn't do the research and just get the story down first. I find that hard to do! I'm a natural fact checker and there was so much I didn't know about witches and their craft. It was extremely interesting and sloowed me way down. 

However I do like my story and I know where I'm going with it so that's a plus. At least I have something I can work with. There's been other NaNos where I basically call it quits after struggling through the month because the story just didn't gel. 

Although I'm looking at the word count of 9316, I've written more than that on other story so the words have flowed... just scattered. 

How's your NaNoWriMo? Did you ace it? Do you do any research while working on your story? 

Are you celebrating tonight?  Go NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo Begins!

 It's time to start NaNoWriMo! Yay! 

Are you ready to write the next great 50,000 words of genius? 

It's okay if you're not. Just fire up that old computer/tablet/writing instrument and just write.  Yes, that's the way to do it. 

The best way to start NaNo when you have no idea what to write is to just write something. Don't judge whether its good or bad, just get it down. You can edit/fix after you got those 50,000 down. 

If you have a story idea then you're ahead of most in the game. There's a lot of people who have no idea what to write and they are almost ready to give up before they start. 

Please don't give up! You can do it!

Without an idea the advice to "just write" can still be intimidating. So, what to do? Here's some ways to get started; 

1. Google writing prompts. These are brief story starter ideas that can spark your imagination. You can also google these in your favorite genre. Love romances (the biggest industry in publishing) then put into the search engine; Romance Story Prompts. Sci-fi? Historical? Horror? Erotica? It's all there somewhere on the web. 

2. Ask yourself "What if" and then let your imagination go. What if a man has a body in his trunk? What if he get's back ended and the trunk pops open? What if a woman accepts a date with a man then discovers his best friend is the man who is the father of her kid - and she never told him he was the father? What if a space alien landed in your back yard. He's hurt. Do you nurse him back to health or call the cops? What if you go out for a walk at night and are bitten by a vampire? Werewolf? What if you discover your mother is witch? 

3. Get a book off your self. Close your eyes, open to a random page and point. That sentence is the first sentence of your novel. (Yes, this one is a big challenge. Are you up for it?)

4. Find a piece of artwork. Either in your home or store or anywhere you happen to be. Stare at it and then write about what's next for that picture? Is it a picture of a house? (I have Thomas Kincade pics here) Who lives in that house? What if something happened there? Ghosts? Did the in-laws move in? Did the woman who lives there find a strange animal and raises it only to find out it's a baby dinosaur? 

5. What if you were an alien. What would your impressions of the earth be when you landed. What if you were a time traveler? Would you go forward or back in time and what would you find? 

Remember stories are everywhere. Set your imagination loose and find those story lines that are uniquely yours. It's all good. 

Happy NaNoWriMo! You got this! 

NaNoWriMo 2023 Starts in 3 Days - Ready?

 

Three days till NaNoWriMo starts!

Are you ready to write? A plotter or a pantser? 

I generally make my notes in a sketch book. This gives me room to draw or write and make arrows and lines. Little boxes of character notes. Its a real mess to everyone else, but it keeps me centered. A sketch book also gives me a place to draw out my town. I know which streets my character goes down and where everyone lives. Sorry, but it your character can make it three miles across town, walking and still show up on time for dinner.... someone out there in reader-land will nail you for it. Details! The devil is in the Details! 

For NaNo? I have nothing planned. 

Today we had our NaNoWriMo launch party and someone brought these dice that gave plot ideas when you rolled them. So I gave it a roll.

Next idea came from trying to make a witch for my front yard. There's a way to do it with a gallon milk jug, black plastic table cloths and a stick. So I went to Pinterest and found out how to put it all together. Do you know what happens when you ask Pinterest something? Like witches?
Your feed fills with witchcraft and spells. Next thing I know Facebook groups are showing up with witches. What's a writer to do?

First I started a Pinterest board for witch stuff. I need to know more about this stuff! Did I join the FB group? Well.....

So, in the past week or so the universe has brought to me those four plot point dice and witches. That's what I'm going to write about for NaNoWriMo. 

Witches, Illusion, Non-Gen, Protect & Anti-Hero

Gotta love a challenge. 

So did you pick your plot, yet? Got a seedling of an idea? Or just gonna go for it? 

5 Ways Not to Lose Your Story Ideas

 I'm driving to the day job, watching the road, thinking about the other drivers and the landscape around me. 

SUDDENLY! 

I've got a story idea. It's rolling around in my brain. Building up. Getting legs and growing. Yeah, I like this story idea. I want to run with it. 

However, I'm driving. Not able to write anything down without crashing my car. Options? Pull over somewhere and put notes in my phone or scratch it out on one of the ten a gas receipts flowing around in my console. Do I do this? Naw, I'll remember and take notes when I arrive at work. 

I pull into work and there goes my brain. I'm not even out of the car yet and my mind is thinking about workie things. Did I write this brilliant story idea down? No. Do I remember it hours later? No.

5 Ways Not to Lose Your Story Ideas

1. Always carry a notebook. These are easily purchased in any store (Dollar Store, too!) to keep in your purse or your car. Make sure there's a pen or pencil with your notebook. 
2. Notes on the phone. I use this feature for a lot of stuff. From work passwords to reminders and grocery lists. It's a quick easy place to write it down if you have no pen or paper. 
3. Learn to use the voice recording feature on your phone. I think that comes with every phone on the market now. On the iphone it's called Voice Memo. I moved this to the top of my aps so I can easily click it when needed. --> At the red light and never while driving. :)
4. If  unable to get it down any other way think of key words. Like building anything online a key word will help trigger your brain into remembering. Don't use generic words like rain or road. Think of something more story specific. If the story is about a woman who meets a prince that turns our to be a serial killer use something like killer prince. Story about aliens landing in a backyard of a hippy. Use alien hippy. Whatever is more exact but short. 
5. Repeat your plot/idea out loud over and over. Then again and again. Repetition is one way to memorize things. Saying it out loud helps cement it into your memory. 

Be Prepared and save those ideas! 

5 Steps to Complete NANOWRIMO

 

The challenge; Complete 50,000 words in the month of November.  Don't worry it can be done without panic. 

First: Check out all the good stuff on the official NANOWRIMO website; https://nanowrimo.org/ They've got lots of inspiration and things to get you writing. 

Second: Plot your NANO attack. I don't mean plot your novel but you can if you're a plotter (not a pantser?) I mean plot your work time. Think of your life and where you can get uninterrupted time to write.  I once got up a half hour early to win NANO. That book is now up on Amazon: Soul Mates A Different Kind of Love Story At that time in my life I was in work by 8:30 am so I got up at 6:30 am and wrote for a half hour to an hour depending on how the story was moving. But it was getting up at that hour that gave me time to dedicate to my goals. 

So plot out your writing time. Make it a time when you can have some uninterrupted writing time. I chose morning before the family woke up but if you're more of a night owl go for it. What's your perfect time?

Third: Assemble your space. There's nothing worse than having to get up and clear dishes or toys off your table before getting to work. Truthfully, that has tanked my writing sessions more often than not. Got a desk? A table you can squeeze into a corner or any place you get on your laptop, tablet or however you write and be set to go when you sit down. Make it yours, make it comfortable and make it a place you want to go. 

Fourth: Get down the bones. Write your story. Get up & go to your special place and write. Decide if you're a plotter or a pantser. This is probably something you already know if you're been writing a while but the one thing to know is you don't have to be exactly one or the other. You can combine it. 

I get an idea and first write the blurb of the idea. You know that first inkling of a story that comes to you? Not the whole story but maybe a bit of the direction you're going. The blurb is kind of like that thing on the back of the book or in the book description that gives you a bit of the bones of the story. It doesn't have to be a lot just enough for you. If you like to plot then write down that outline. You don't have to follow it but if it gets you going, then great. If not, then change it as you go. The writing rules at this point are your rules. 

Fifth: Tell people. Join a NANOWRIMO group in your area. Find other writers either in person or online for encouragement and to help keep the NANO alive in your vision. Life gets busy and sometimes our goals fall to the sidelines when that happens. Connecting with others with the same goal can keep you on track. 

GO NANO! You've got this! 

Here....Comes....NANOWRIMO! Ready?

 
No, not ready and have no idea what story I'm going to tell. Could be anything at this point. 

Does NANO have to be fiction?  

    Why? The writer is in control so write what you want. Do you know how to calibrate antennas? Write a how to book. Love to cook and have a closet full of recipes? Write that cook book. (Don't forget the yummy photos) Got a life to tell us about? Write your memoir. Like making up stories and adventures? Write fiction. 

    I write fiction. So I'll think up some kind of murder, adventure or paranormal something. 

    I think it was the movie, The World According to Garp, where the man (Robin Williams 💔) sees a pair of gloves on the side walk and it prompts him to write a story.  The moral here; Ideas are everywhere. 

    When my kids were young and we'd go to a restaurant, or anywhere we had to wait, we'd play a What if game. I'd challenge them to find something in the room and I'd tell them the story about it. Pick up a spoon? Well, I'd say. This was the spoon that George Washington ate his oatmeal with on the morning he crossed the Delaware to fight the British in Trenton, NJ. In fact, since Martha gave it to him, after breakfast he put it in his pocket for good luck. He lost this spoon during the battle and it lay in the dirt for decades. Then when they were building this restaurant a workman found it and put it in the sink of the restaurant. And here it sits, on our table. George Washington's spoon. 

    The kids loved this game as sometimes the stories got pretty silly. (Don't ask how we time traveled and peeked in an outhouse to see Mrs Lincoln on the potty. Yes, some stories stay with you.) Soon the kids were making up stories and asking me to pick the item. Creativity explodes!

    The point is that there are ideas everywhere if you're looking. Remember to keep the "What if" in the front of your brain. Look around, take a walk, eyeball that stranger in the supermarket and think what secrets could be hiding in his closet. 

Okay! Don't scare people by staring at them! 

Be discrete. 

    Think of all the myths and stories there are out there. Can you bend them & take the winged Pegasus and make him human? What if? Or read the news and put something sinister behind the scenes. What if an angel lost his wings and was forced to earth to pay for his sin? (Wait, I already did something like that!) Someone gifts our heroine a plant and as she takes care of it she begins to see messages printed on the leaves. Magic or gaslight? 

    So look around, open your mind to the possibility that anything is possible and get ready for NANOWRIMO!