I've been talking about it for a while now and it was about a month ago when I did it.
Out with the old...
And in with the new!
To me both covers are gorgeous, but I feel like the second one grabs attention better. As far as I know anyone who has already purchased the book will keep the old cover, while the new one will show up to new buyers. I also made a few minor grammar and spelling edits as well as extra disclaimer/legalese while I was at it. You can check out the new cover on Amazon here!
A couple of days ago I made a Twitter account to help promote my writing. Me and social media get along about as well as oil and water, orange juice and toothpaste, wizards and television. But there are times when I feel like saying something that is far too small for an entire blog post here on Dusted Glen, so I decided to try my hand at Twitter after seeing my brother's Facebook and reeling backwards from it so fast I'm pretty sure I took out a wall in the process.
Nope.
After setting it up and dodging forced followings like bullets ("I don't even know five people!") I managed to get it up and running.
So sit back, relax, and watch me hilariously go down in flames. Come on, it'll be fun! (and I promise no updates from the toilet.)
This is a post I've fussed with for over a year, not sure how to properly go about it, but it's also a factor in writing that I feel needs to be mentioned. I'm going to tread lightly on this subject by keeping my own views on anything gay as unbiased as possible. I will not say anything for or against gays in any manner, any opinions you see are simply a reflection of your own reading into it.
Except for the phenomenon that is caused by reflection of light in water droplets in the planet's atmosphere known as rainbows.
First, I've seen some well-written gay characters and I've seen some horribly written gay characters. Unfortunately, the latter outweighs the former and, for or against, you're not doing anyone any favors by having a badly written character of any kind.
How do you make a badly-written gay character? In the simplest terms: You make him gay. Period.
Now, before you grab torches and pitchforks, let me elaborate.
I REFUSE TO KEEP READING FOR A PROPER EXPLANASHON!!!111
What I mean to say is that he's just gay and that there is no other characterization to him whatsoever.
Say there is a gay character named Dale who calls himself a slut when he's being (inevitably) spitfire who talks about how absolutely gorgeous all the other male characters in the story are, and is the most fashionable character ever.
Being gay is the only attribute they have and, if you were to mentally subtract that, they don't even equal up to a Bella Swan measurement of characterization. Not only that, but they have to keep reminding friends (and, thus, the reader), via dialogue that they are, in fact, still gay.
"We should let Dale handle the Prom Dance decorations, him being gay and all."
"Being gay means I'm the best at this, remember?"
"Does this dress look good, Dale?"
"Absolutely."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I know what looks good, I'm gay, remember?"
These are pretty much paraphrased from some actual books I've read (and I apologize to anyone named Dale). The only way to make it more obvious is if he were making out with another guy for the entire duration of the story.
How do you make a well-written character? Depth. Take away the single, defining feature about a character, do they still stand up okay? or was that the kick-stand of their cardboard cutout?
By now you're going "Okay, okay! I see what's wrong, but how can I make it right?"
Let's look at Dale again. What are his hopes, dreams, aspirations? What is his favorite movie, what does he do on his time off? When he's in a crowded room what is he doing? What's his house like? Does he read? What do other people like or hate about him? What kind of car does he drive?
Don't immediately go for the gayest answer you possibly can, either. Favorite movie being "The Notebook" is too obvious. Liking Lord of the Rings would be more interesting, especially if he uses the excuse of "there being so many hot guys" when really he's using that as an excuse because he's actually a closet nerd.
Characterization comes down to working backwards. Make a character, wholly flesh them out (fill out a character sheet if you find yourself struggling), and then give them that defining aspect, which in this case happens to be the fact that they're gay.
Seriously, no one makes a character based entirely on the fact that they're straight, or female, or Asian, why should a gay character be any different?
Recently, a coworker's friend's fifteen year old daughter (confused yet?) said she wanted to write. My coworker asked me if I could help her out a bit. My response?
In no way am I going to balk at a fifteen year old deciding she wants to write. I started "professionally" at around that same age (which I already told you about). However, any fifteen year old dreaming of publishing their first manuscript at fifteen years old and becoming a rich-successful novelist with the combined incomes of Stephanie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, and Cassandra Clare, is going to be more than a bit heartbroken.
Which is why I warn people that...
1. I have to be mean (even though I don't want to)
Lots of people in the past have asked me for help, or have asked for help from anyone willing to on open discussion areas on the Internet.
Problem is, I have to be mean.
Not out of spite or hatred, of course I mean, if a little kid ran up to me with a crayon drawing of their house, I certainly wouldn't say "The house is not orange, there are more windows than that, the roof is hovering, your tree sucks, we don't own a space ship or a dog who can pilot one."
Unless it's actually fanart of Laika?
However, writing isn't a kid's crayon drawing. At its harshest writing is a profession whereupon you release a product that you expect people will pay money for. If you release an inferior product (meaning crappy writing) then people are not going to pay for your goods and services when there is a wide array of said product elsewhere.
In a lot of ways I have to be mean in order to spare you the real mean people.
I've done it before. The phrase "brutally honest" comes to mind. People post little snippets of their work, usually a first chapter, and ask for help. I come in and say "Nope nope and nope. Don't do this and this and this." Unfortunately 9 times out of 10 that person never wrote again as far as I'm aware.
That 1 person of the 10 though, his response? "Holy crap, you're right!" And that's toning it down a little.
The point is, your fans that are sugarcoating your writing skills (be they your parents, your BFF, your New Age Aunt who encourages you in all endeavors) will get your writing nowhere.
All families are required to have at least one New Age Aunt.
Being mean to yourself is a double-edged sword. It keeps you grounded and your ego in check, but it can also reach a destructive point. The latter is what I see more often than the former, your inner mean self is so mean that it causes you not to write anything at all.
This is why you practically need a designated Brutally Honest Person for your writing. Someone who will point out every flaw, but you know you can trust them because they want to help you.
The problem is, I have to be mean (in the eyes of the writer, their fans, their BFF, their New Age Aunt who has decided to put a Feri Witch Curse on me). I'm not, by nature, a mean person, but I put on my Big Girl Pants and hope the writer has theirs on too.
Being mean, however, is made difficult because...
2. I'm shy
Yeah, like a lot of authors (or runaway best-selling indie videogame creators), I'm incredibly shy. I'm more than shy, I'm downright awkward. I spent two entire years in college with my eyebrows clear up into my hairline because it's apparently my listening face. Also, I bite my tongue by accident a lot, which can cause be to sound like I pronounce certain words like an idiot. I also get kind of pale when I'm talking to someone at length whom I don't know. This is all compounded by the fact that, when I panic, I stutter a little. On the whole I'm betting it's pretty funny to watch, like a dog pressing his face against the window.
I halp wif yur writing. Hurr durr.
Of course, all of this is made pointless to me and the person I give mean/shy/awkward/honest advice if they don't do exactly what they're wanting to to. That is...
3.You have to have already be writing
If someone ever says to you "I want to be a writer!" the first thing out of your mouth should be:
"So what have you written?"
99% of the time you're going to get "Um..." That's a really popular book title, that "Um." In reality there are a lot of what I call the Armchair Author. To write we sit in a chair...
A chair at Starbuck's with a frotha-mocha-lattechino if you're a hipster.
But I use the phrase Armchair Author to mean the same as Armchair Activist. Armchair Author means you want to be an author, but you spend so much time daydreaming/talking to people about wanting to write that you, as a result, don't write. Even before I had Dusted finished I could claim a whole slew of writing that I'd done, people were generally either impressed, or were too busy telling me to write about their ideas.
This is one of my fears in trying to help someone. I ask them "So what have you written?" and their reply will be "Um..." with an implied "Nothing" because they haven't written anything.
That's like saying "I'm having trouble learning how to play baseball."
"Well how often do you play?"
"Um..." (with an implied "I never have before.")
This leaves it too open-ended. There is an endless amount of things they could be having trouble with: hitting the ball, catching the ball, signals, keeping score,
The "No Crying in Baseball" rule.
For writing there is: character descriptions, area descriptions, action scenes, dialogue, chapter breaks, editing, publishing, first-second-third person perspectives.
These are just basics, we can delve further and start using more direct examples: Chekhov's Guns, red herrings, forshadowing, Mary Sues, cliches, plot devices, deus ex machina, dream scenes.
It goes on and on the deeper in you go. It's basically trying to visualize every line in a Mandelbrot Set in its entirety:
(The song that aptly accompanies the video drops an F-bomb, careful!)
Last week I went on a trip to Boise for a One Republic concert. Rather than make an ordinary blog post I decided to try something new, so I made a video.
For those of you not interested in seeing my face (with those dead eyes, toneless voice, camera moving between shots, stutter....I'm getting off track here) a video with just the concert is below.
Enjoy! (or mock, either way it was made for entertainment.)
I used to read every piece of writing advice I got my hands on and would
treat it like a holy sanskrit. That is, following it to the letter.
Enough reading and, of course, I ran into information that was
contradictory. I would always worry because I had no idea which one was
the "right" advice and which one was wrong.
Along with your personality affecting the type of genre you are going to write (which, for those of you who suffer from 10+ days of amnesia, I mentioned in my previous post), it is also going to affect the writing habits you will have.
You
have to read all kinds of writing advice and filter between "That makes
no sense," "That makes sense," and "That makes sense to me." It's the "to me"s that are compatible with your writing personality.
What if you don't have any "to me"s yet? You find out by experimenting. Try one method and, if you find it's not working out well, try another.
Being an alcoholic like ye olde poets is neither recommended nor healthy.
That said I'm going to offer some contradictory advice about two versions of a Writing Chair works for you.
Be Free Little Bird!
Years ago I read writing advice that said not to tie yourself down to one special writing setup because it can cause Writer's Block. "I can only write in my bedroom with Bach playing in the background," you'd say. Problem is, setting up that exact atmosphere is difficult, so you often don't get the chance and, thus, don't write. Instead, leave yourself open to any gap you possibly can, be it ten minutes or two hours. Laptops are handy for just such a thing.
Or...
Situate Your Brain
I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping. This led to long nights that, actually, let me come up with a lot of cool ideas for writing. I've read lots of stuff for insomniacs but what helped me the most was not to use your bed for anything other than sleeping. Don't read in bed, don't watch TV in bed. Your bed is not an awake-time place. It is for sleep only. That way, when you lay down in bed your brain goes "Oh, we're in the Sleep Place. So it's time for sleep!"rather than it becoming confused.
Brains are, ironically, really stupid.
I apply the same for writing.
Contradictory to the previous advice, I wait until a specific time of day, set myself down in a specific chair, and put on some atmospheric music. This says to my brain "Hey, it's time to write!" and I either get writing or sit back and work my way through a scene in my head for a couple of minutes.
So, try both of them out for a while, and decide which Writing Chair works best for you.
For skills (and hobbies, etc) there are two types: Ones that rely on the base of the skill, and the other on someone's personality.
Steve is a lumberjack.
He chops wood with his bare hands.
Steve has a very warm personality with a hint of self-depreciating humor in the form of sarcasm. Now, can he chop wood warmly? Or sarcastically? No. You can't apply personality to the skill of lumberjacking.
Ellen is a hopeless romantic with a love of cowboys and Irish Wolfhounds.
Who doesn't love dogs that can eat entire sheep?
Ellen's personality is going to factor into her writing in big ways. Even if she's not writing romance books she'll be writing, say, murder mysteries with elements of romance and maybe modern cowboys who are the love interests of plucky heroines who own massive Irish Wolfhounds.
There are more obscure skills, but the fluffy ones (painting, music, arts and crafts) are going to be personality-based whereas industrial (plumbing, electrician) aren't generally. There are some blurred lines (carpentry, clothing) but you should get the picture.
Why bring this up? Because along with personality affecting your writing, it will also affect your writing habits, which I will bring up next. Consider this the introductory post to the upcoming one.
