Weekly Update: 9-19-14

Each week brings me a little closer to publishing my novel but also a little closer to my thirtieth birthday. At night, very often right as I'm about to fall asleep, comes this flash of anxiety. It literally feels like a light bulb going on and off, like a static shock to my spine that bolts me awake. It's this thought of: Is this where you really want to be? Is this really all you are? Is this all you're ever going to do with your life? It's the feeling of the yawning chasm of expectation I had at the start of my twenties to the reality that comes at the end of it.

This week as I scanning through my writing blogs, an article by Jeff Goins struck a nerve. It was called "What Unfinished Projects Teach Us About Our Life's Work," and it has to do with this fear of not accomplishing what you dreamed of achieving at the end of your life.

“We all die unfinished symphonies,” my friend told me one morning over breakfast. He was telling me about his dad who, on his death bed, made a half-hearted attempt to repent for his life of alcoholism and neglect. It wasn’t enough for my friend, nor should it have been, but he realized that he had to let it go. He had to be okay with a lack of resolution, at least in this life. [...]

When it comes to your work, there will be things you won’t accomplished. This is the work of an artist: bravely stepping into a creative field with bold aspirations, while recognizing that the work will never truly be finished. [...] The challenge for the artist — and we are all creating art on the canvas of our lives — is to do our work well while letting go of expectations and results.

Thirty isn't the end of the world, I suppose, but it is the death of my twenties, that supposedly golden era in a person's life where health, freedom, and passion all align; where you figure out who you are and what you're going to do with your life; where you fall in love, get married, have kids; where you follow your dream and either "make it" or fail. My twenties didn't go according to some ideal script, and sometimes I feel the loss of all the things I could not achieve, things I failed to pursue. I need to let them go.

* * *

I'm getting frustrated with my Three Floating Coffins novel, because I'm so close to the end, yet not close at all. With only 4 chapters left, I'm on the brink of completing the manuscript. But then I look back at my beginning chapters, which are awful, and think about how I need to re-write them all over again. 

I had an interview with Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, and I think it went well. If all goes well, I'll be able to sub at different schools and hopefully get more jobs. I've also been starting on a self-publishing workshop run by Kitty Bucholtz (Little Miss Lovesick), in association with the OC Romance Writers of America.

Now On Daily Science Fiction: What No One Ever Tells You About Becoming Immortal

A couple weeks ago, my first paid published short story appeared on Daily Science Fiction,
 a free online magazine that sends short science fiction and fantasy stories to your inbox. Last spring, they sent me a contract to publish my story, but I didn't know they had published it until it popped up in my email. (Apparently, that's common with magazines.) For those without a subscription (it's free to sign up), you can read the story on the website's archives.

What No One Ever Tells You About Becoming Immortal

Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/biotech/rebecca-lang/what-no-one-ever-tells-you-about-becoming-immortal

Summary: Nanotherapy offers Diann and her husband the chance to extend her life indefinitely. But what are the costs of these scientific advances?

Excerpt:

Case Study: Diann

 

The first time the doctor smilingly tells her that she's dying, it comes as a shock. It doesn't matter how much Diann thought she prepared herself, those dreaded words hit like a punch to the throat. Cancer. Diann's mind flashes back to those twentieth-century films depicting chemotherapy, bald women, and missing body parts. Her nerves go numb.

 

At this point the doctor explains that Diann's a good candidate for intensive Nanotherapy.

 

"A relatively painless procedure. You'll be out of the hospital in less than a week."

 

To read the full story for free, just follow the link above or click here

 

How the Story Came to Be: This story came about because I had a root canal. I couldn’t get over how a piece of my body had been removed and casually replaced with something man-made. I pushed the idea to its logical extreme and imagined a future where every part of the body could be replaced. The story poured out after that.

 

Trivia: Originally, this was written in second person. (The first time the doctor smilingly tells you that you're dying, it comes as a shock.) I changed it to third person at the request of the editors.

Book Review: An Eggshell Present

Title: An Eggshell Present: An Abishag's Fourth Mystery

Author: Michelle Knowlden
Genre: Mystery

Summary

After three comatose husbands and three murders, it finally seems that Leslie Greene's days of being an Abishag wife are behind her. But a personal tragedy pulls her into a marriage with a dying man one final time. Money launderers, mysterious old case files, and vengeance-seeking siblings circle her latest assignment. But the hardest thing Leslie has to face is her own beliefs. When you work as an Abishag wife, life is as precious and fragile as an eggshell present. Can she find the courage to hope in the midst of heartbreak?

Review

If you haven't read the other Abishag mysteries, go and read them first. This final novella contains spoilers from every previous book and concludes several character arcs and themes woven throughout the series.

Michelle Knowlden writes beautifully. Her strength is her characters, and they suck you into their world. I think that's why her books keep getting better and better--with every one I read, I fall more in love with the characters.  Each new story cuts a little closer to Leslie's core, and this one cuts deepest of all and forces her to take a great leap forward in character development.

The beginning caught my attention. Almost from the first paragraph, I felt a deep sense of dread. Things happened quickly after that, and it was hard for me to put the book down. There was a lot of drama and poignant emotions. One of my favorite images in the book was that of a tangerine tree and a sudden harvest of fruit it gave right before it died. Leslie speaks of cherishing each precious remaining moment like it was a tangerine from a final harvest.

But the book also has moments of humor as well, especially towards the end. I was surprised how much I laughed. One of the things I loved was the way Leslie started taking self-defense classes, showing she's improving. The mystery, as in all of the books, take second fiddle to the character development, but I didn't mind. It was a fitting end to a wonderful series.

Book Review: Riddle in the Bones

Title: Riddle in the Bones: An Abishag's Third Mystery
Author: Michelle Knowlden
Genre: Mystery

Summary

After two dead husbands and an angry ex-boyfriend, 20-year-old Leslie Greene has had it with being an Abishag wife, the therapeutic "bedwarmer" of rich, dying men.  A summer internship collecting mule bones seems like a good way to take her mind off her dating woes.  But one evening, as Leslie's leaving the Palm Desert Institute of Desert Antiquities, a shot rings out.  Doctor Henry Telemann, Leslie's beloved anthropology professor, lies comatose on the floor, a bullet through his brain.

Why would anyone want to harm this kindly old man?  Could the answer lie in a shoebox full of old bones?  To find out, Leslie enters the Abishag agency once again. And this time it's not just killers after her.  A handsome lawyer, a flirtatious detective, and the grandson of her first husband all vie for her attention.  Leslie might just find her Prince Charming, if she can survive the case first...

Review

Characters are the beating heart of the Abishag series.  I could spend hours hanging out with "romantic rationalist" Leslie, her cool friends Kat and Dog, the charming Sebastian, and even Donovan, who let's just say gets some highly amusing comeuppance in this installment.  "Riddle in the Bones" contains warmth and humor, simmering jealousies, delicious French cooking, beautiful clothes, and, oh yeah, that pesky murder mystery that needs to be solved.

Interestingly enough, this is the first time Leslie's ever gotten to know her husband before she's married him and she's not exactly happy about this fact.  For her, it's hard to separate her boss "Doctor Telemann" from her husband "Henry."  While this sets up an interesting conflict early on, I felt Leslie's bond between Henry wasn't as strong as with previous husbands.  Maybe this had to do with less cuddling time or the fact she wasn't in her husband's house.

That was fine, because a lot of the central pull came from the romantic arc, which Ms. Knowlden has been teasing for the last two books.  Leslie is starting to slowly but surely gain confidence in herself and realize that she does in fact have options.  She also participates more in solving the mystery, rather than letting Kat do all the work.  I appreciate that.  However, I felt the mystery was too easy to solve and got a bit rushed and confusing at the end.

Book Review: Indelible Beats

Title: Indelible Beats: An Abishag's Second Mystery
Author: Michelle Knowlden
Genre: Mystery

Summary

Leslie Greene thinks dating a rich lawyer is a fairy tale come true. But without a fairy godmother to spring for the fancy dresses, she soon finds her bank account empty. Fortunately, Leslie does have one skill she can fall back on: marrying old, dying men. This time her adventures as an Abishag wife takes her to the La Jolla home of artist Jordan Ippel, where Leslie learns the mysterious circumstances surrounding his incapacitation. Could this be murder? Facing art forgeries, scandalous love affairs, and a holiday fruitcake that refuses to die, Leslie's latest assignment may bring her--and her friends--closer to danger than ever...

Review

Whereas in Sinking Ships, the first Abishag mystery, Leslie was just learning the ropes, here she has more experience as an Abishag wife, which means she spends less time reciting rules and more time solving the mystery. Likewise, author Michelle Knowlden has less introductions to get through, enabling her to dive straight into the story. The mystery is stronger and the writing is smoother this time around.

A lot of the same wonderful characters appear, including husband and wife duo Kat (Kathmandu) and Dog (Douglas), as well as the grandson of Leslie's previous husband. But the big new character is Jordan Ippel, who, though comatose, ends up being quite intriguing. Leslie only marries him because he lives far enough away that she hopes her boyfriend won't find out. She initially compares him to Dracula and knows only the rumors of his eccentricity. But as she enters his world and hears the stories from those closest to him, she unearths his true personality. What begins as a marriage of convenience grows into a marriage of love.

While the characters and relationships are my number one pleasure in the book, a close second is the description of food. I wanted to sample artisan oil and vinegar, herb and cranberry porridge, and Christmas breakfast streusel. (I could do without the fruitcake.) The house and the paintings were also well-described, creating a rich and vivid world I could easily step inside.

Weekly Update: 9-12-14 Platform

An author platform, for the uninitiated, is basically your strategy to get your book to the audience, which happens to be the step I'm at now. While muddling through this business portion of writing, I came across an article called "Are You Building Your Writer Platform at Gunpoint?" by Kimberley Grabas. One of the lines caught my eye:

Authors are inundated with the "how-tos" of platform building (some advice better than others), but few are addressing a more immediate concern: how to encourage authors to actually WANT to build their platform. And dare I say, even enjoy building their future empires.

To someone who all but hyperventilates at the thought of selling my writing, the prospect of building a platform is about as appealing as a root canal. (And root canals aren't appealing. I should know; I've had three this year.) But I have to admit, there are a few perks to being a business woman. Like getting my cover. I felt so professional, directing what I wanted to see, getting the work back. This week, I've been working on bookmarks. It's a lot of trouble, but it's nice having something solid to hold onto.

Most of the week, however, I haven't been doing much. I'm not feeling well physically, dealing with backaches, stomach problems, sinus headaches, and heat exhaustion. So I've been resting, trying to take it easy. 

* * *

In other news, my friend Michelle Knowlden just wrote the fourth and final book of the Abishag mysteries. It's for sale on Amazon. In honor of it, I'm going to be writing reviews of Book 2, 3, and 4 this weekend, starting today. (I've already posted the review of the first book here.)

Crowdfunding on Pubslush

A long time ago, I went to a talk on publishing by Sonia Marsh, and at the very end of it, she mentioned using Pubslush to fundraise for book launching parties. I've been researching the website on and off for the last few months, before finally deciding to try and run a campaign on my own to help pay the publishing costs of my novel The Changelings.

The campaign will run in October. You can see it here.

What is Pubslush?

Kickstarter for Books!

Basically, Pubslush is a way for authors to raise money by creating a "campaign" for a set amount of time (15-45 days) and asking your supporters to donate money in exchange for incentives. The authors (or agents or publishers) can use this money to create or promote their book.

A 2013 article in Forbes says this: "Run by mother-daughter team Hellen and Amanda L Barbara, this American start-up is focused on providing crowdfunding services tailored to the needs of authors, agents, self-publishers and small presses."

On the website: "Pubslush is a global marketing platform for literary projects only. We offer flexible funding, we have the lowest fee in the industry, and we provide our campaigners with valuable market analytics. Most importantly, though, we pride ourselves on our emphasis on user education and for being an accessible resource for our campaigners every step of the way with the Pubslush Prep program."

Commentary

The website seems very proud of taking authors under its wing. Unfortunately, since I have issues with asking strangers for help, I've mostly been browsing the site. The "help" button takes you to wonderful links. You can also get an idea of what works by scanning successful campaigns. So there's still a lot of room for independent-minded writers as well.

Money Matters

You must raise a minimum of $500 in order to keep any of the money. You can raise the minimum if you so choose. You can set a maximum, although, if you raise more than the maximum, you can still keep the extra money.

If you reach $500 (or your own minimum), Pubslush deducts a 4% fee, plus 3.5% in credit card charges.

"Supporters of a campaign will be charged on the final day of the Fundraising period. In the event that the Minimum Threshold has not been met [...], Supporters will simply not be charged." This is in the Terms of Services. Basically, no one pays until the final day. If the campaign fails, no one spends money or makes money.

You entice people to donate by offering "incentives," small rewards for certain amounts. Although authors, in general, try to offer "free" rewards, you may have to spend some of your own money purchasing rewards. You will also have to factor in the cost of shipping.  You have the option of tacking on additional fees for international shipping. 

You can also choose to donate some of the proceeds (a minimum of 10%) to a charity called the Pubslush Foundation, which fights illiteracy. If you do so, you'll receive "a special distinction on our site."

Pubslush Prep is "a customized program designed to provide our campaigners with hands-on campaign support." On a basic (read: free) level it offers email templates and an introduction email with campaign relations coordinator. However, it also offers Bronze Prep ($50), Silver Prep ($75), Gold Prep ($175), Platinum Prep ($250), and Strictly Social Media Package ($100). 

Bronze level offers thing like an initial email consultation with the campaign relations coordinator plus 30 minutes of phone time, while Platinum Level gets you customized tweets and a feature on the Pubslush blog. 

Commentary

I think the 4% fee is reasonable. The website does offer authors a wider audience, so it's only fair to take a small cut. I'm a little more leery of paying for the advice, if only because if you fail, you get nothing--so it's a bit of a gamble. Also, in a business sense, you do have to worry about being nickeled and dimed. 

Let's say you paid $50 for a consultation and decide to donate 10% to charity and put in $30 for incentives and shipping. You raise $500. $20 goes to the website fees, $17.50 goes to credit card charges, then you pay another $50 for a donation and include the cost of supplies. That means raising that $500 has cost you $167.50, or roughly 1/3 of the money raised. If you give away copies of your book as an incentive, you have to be doubly careful because you're cutting into the audience who will buy your book later.

These concerns, by the way, come from a first-time publisher with very little money to subsist on, let alone publish with. Don't get me wrong, it's still an amazing tool to have at your disposal. But it's not free. You have to spend money to make money; it's just a matter of considering how much you're comfortable spending.

Other Benefits

Though the primary function is to raise money, the secondary function is to generate interest in your books. First-timers can build an audience outside their usual friends and family. Authors with an audience can appeal to their fan base by offering samples of new work.

Once you run a (successful?) campaign, it stays on the website, so that people can click on it and have a peek.

They also have tools, a blog, and articles for author education.

Commentary

It seems like Pubslush is striving to be not only a crowdfunding website, but also an author platform. They seem to want you to promote the book long 

The articles are a great resource. I recommend browsing them just for the heck of it. Some of these have to do with crowdfunding, if you're uncertain of what it entails or whether or not to take the plunge. Others talk about writing and promotion.

I couldn't use the tools because I have ancient technology which Pubslush doesn't seem to like.

Starting a Campaign

You will need to type/ upload the following:

• Title
• Byline (Your name or pseudonym)
• Image (at least 720 px in width--optional)
• Video (optional)
• Project Overview (a 1-sentence blurb to summarize your project and capture your audience's attention--200 characters max)
• Book Details (aka, your genre)
• Page Length (less than 50, 50-100, 100-250, 250-500, 500 +)
• Book Status (idea, working draft, or completed manuscript)

• Book Excerpt (5-10 page sample, submitted as either a text document, PDF, or series of images--optional)
• Tags (metadata that 
• Author Photo 
• Author Bio (Approximately 2 sentences about yourself--500 characters max)
• Interview (The standard questions ask: Why did you write this book? Wo are your favorite authors? What was your inspiration for this book? What do you plan to do with the funds you raise? You can answer some, all, or none of these question. You can make up your own questions, too.) 
• Links (your website, Facebook account, Twitter, etc.)
• Funding Goal (How much you want to raise--$500 minimum)
• Funding Duration (15-45 days)
• Launchpad (When do you want to start?)
• Levels and Rewards (How much money do people need to spend to qualify for the reward? Is there a limited amount of rewards offered? When do you expect to deliver the reward, assuming the campaign is successful? Do you charge extra for international shipping and if so, how much?)

After filling in all that massive amount of information, you review your information, agree to the terms and conditions, and wait for them to approve your campaign. After that, your campaign will appear on the website for people to browse, although they will not be able to donate until the launch date.

Commentary

I thought about using Pubslush to pay for my cover, but I noticed that most campaigns have a picture, some more professional than others. I, personally, feel more attracted to professional-looking artwork; it reassures me that the author is serious. For me, though, it meant paying for the cover out of my own pocket.

Filling in the information was time-consuming, but helpful, because it forced me to sit down and write (and re-write) promotional material for my book. However, copy and pasting from a word document to the little boxes caused the lines to go all wonky. You may need to re-type.

Before starting the incentives, I read and re-read an amazingly helpful article by AJ Walkley. Since the site recommends using your personal talents to create incentives, I decided to channel my card-making. Shipping and handling threw me a bit, but cards are cheap to mail. Still, I had to factor in that cost, as well as website fees, and card-making materials.

One of my most difficult problems was uploading the sample of the story. Again, I blame ancient technology. (My laptop is 4 years old.) Pubslush was not happy with Internet Explorer, but it worked fine for Mozilla Firefox, once I updated everything. Even though it uploaded my Microsoft Word document, it wouldn't let me actually see the writing. It did show me the PDF document, so I went with that.

I read through the Terms and Conditions, and one part bothered me a bit. "With respect to all Content, by submitting Content to Pubslush, you hereby grant to Pubslush a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable, perpetual, irrevocable ad transferable license to use, reproduce, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and the business of Pubslush, and of its successors and assigns." 

"Content" is defined earlier, "any text, scripts, graphics, images, or other materials which a User posts to the Service," which includes "a segment of the User's original book."

So I think what this means is, once it goes on the site, it stays on the site, and they can distribute it worldwide. They do not have the rights to your entire novel, just whatever you put on the website. You can use the material you publish on Pubslush elsewhere. You cannot charge them to use your work. I think they are just covering their bases so people don't sue them or claim copyright violations. However, if you are uncomfortable with these terms, don't use the site.

What's Next?

In the next few months, I'm going to look at Pubslush from the point of view of someone donating and someone running a campaign. I'll write more when I know more, so stay tuned.

Weekly Update: 9-5-14 Accomplishments

Happy Birthday Sister!

Boy, did a lot of stuff happen this week.

First, and foremost, I finised my (hopefully) last major edit of The Changelings, an effort spanning four months which cut the manuscript from 230,000 words to 191,000.  If 40,000 words doesn't sound significant, I remind you that 50,000 will get you a Nanowrimo badge. Or, for those who think in pages, it went from 920 to 764. I still have to run it by Debra Young, who is doing the thankless and tedious job of checking grammar and spelling, but this a major hurdle down.

Second, and most surprisingly, my uber short story, "What No One Tells You About Becoming Immortal" got published in Daily Science Fiction, a paying online web magazine.

Picture found on Pinterest

Way back in spring, I sent them the story, got it accepted, signed a contract, sent in revisions... and I've been waiting ever since. Now I subscribe to Daily Science Fiction (its free) and get a nice short story in my in-box every weekday. On Thursday morning, I was glancing through my piled-up emails, when, lo and behold, what do I see? My story, with my name, right there. I had come this close to deleting it!

In a few weeks, my story should (I hope) appear on their website archives. When it does, I'll show you the link.

Third, I finally bit the bullet and submitted by campaign for The Changelings on Pubslush which can be viewed here. I'll go into what Pubslush is on Sunday, but it's basically Kickstarter for books, a way of using crowdfunding to raise money for self-publishing. My campaign doesn't start until October 1st, which means you can't pledge money until then. Still, it's up for people to look at and sample if so desired.

Now one of the ways you can "bribe" people into donating is offering incentives. I've decided to turn my card-making hobby into a potential fundraising tool. Which brings me to the fourth accomplishment, finishing 50 homemade cards. I've been working on different pieces of them since July, but it's only in these last few weeks, I've put them all together, pounding out 5, 10, 15 cards at a time. If I can use them to raise money, great. If not, I'm sure I'll find someone who wants them.

One of my more subdued cards

Weirdly enough, this whole dang week, I've been whining to anyone within earshot how I can't seem to get anything done: not cleaning, not walking the dogs, not finishing critiques, not doing marketing research, not setting up a facebook page--nothing! And yet, everything seems to be getting accomplished anyway, just for the heck of it.

What a weird week!

Weekly Update: 9-2-14 Thoughts on Revision

In the last week, I started to focus on finishing my own private editing of The Changelings so that I could get it in to my editor for a final blast of correction.  

My editing process goes something like this: take a pristine white manuscript, slash it to bits with my pen, type the revisions in the computer, underline passages that need more work, print it out, write out 1-3 revisions of the underlined passage by hand, type up the best parts of the revision, and play around with word choice until its as strong as it can be.

Today, after my standard hack-and-slash of words, I happened upon a quote by Amina Gautier on Jane Friedman's blog that spoke about how re-writing rewards mistakes. To quote:

Revising encourages and liberates the writer to “make mistakes.” It rewards mistakes; each “mistake” teaches one something about the story one is writing and gets one that much closer to the story one is meant to write. Revision reconciles the competing versions of the story that the writer carries in his head. Until the writer has gotten the story down on paper or onto the screen, he often cannot tell the difference between what he actually wrote, what he thought he wrote, and what he hoped to write. 

This passage spoke to my heart and reminded me of how far I've grown as a writer.

In my younger days, when I was first learning the craft, I hated to even look at my own writing. I thought it ugly, horrible, boring, and every mistake glared out at me with blood red eyes. My solution was to simply throw everything out and start again. I knew that by some alchemy, revision turned my writing into gold. But I didn't know why, and it frustrated me to no end.

As I got older, I began to understand what was happening. Unconsciously, I was learning from my mistakes. Everything I didn't like, I threw away, trying new ways of writing until something worked. Once I started realizing the value of my mistakes, I began to make a conscious effort to seek them out. Now I read through my drafts over and over again, analyzing why certain passages don't work and brainstorming ways to correct them.

A lot of the magic still happens when I'm not expecting it. It's like churning butter: you churn and churn and churn some more until suddenly this pale milky substance solidifies. A wavering idea turns into a real experience, for you, for the reader. As you get older, you grow to trust the process and learn how to make it more efficient for you.

Final Cover

Here is my beautiful final cover by illustrator Kaleo Welborn.

The first time I saw it I was like, "Wow, I really have a book now." Kaleo really went above and beyond my expectations, creating this photo realistic of my main character Sylvie. I love the embroidery on the coat and the mother-of-pearl buttons, both of which plays a key role in the story.

The Changelings will be available on January 2, 2015. More details to come.