Monthly Archives: March 2015

Writing Wednesday – The tortoise and the hare

26 Thursday Mar 2015

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Last Week’s WW: Working With Others

My fella was talking about themes the other day, and he brought up the fact that some people miss the points of some stories.  One such story he brought up was The Tortoise and the Hare.

He asked me: “what’s the point of the story?”

I immediately responded: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

He asked me to think about it.  I did, and I realized that it didn’t matter what the turtle did.  If the hare hadn’t been over confident and messed it all up, he would have won hands down.  The real meaning of that story seems to be “keep your eye on the prize.”

I think that the moral of this story can be applied to writing.  There’s a lot of people who will say write fast, throw it on Amazon, and it’ll all be fine.  That’s the magic formula.  Only, it’s not.  Troll the Kboards and you’ll find a lot of people that this isn’t working for.  Yes, writing fast is an asset.  But you can’t be over confident.  And conversely, you can’t give up.   When you write, when you publish, when you promote, you have to remember why you’re doing it.  Writing is hard.  Publishing is harder.  Keep your eye on the prize, or someone else might beat you to it.   Remember why you’re writing, or you may never even finish the race.

Mention Monday – Bookbub

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

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Last Week’s MM: Cluster Headaches

There has been a lot of buzz about Bookbub lately.  If you’re a reader, you can subscribe to their mailing list and get updates about deeply discounted or free books.

If you’re a writer, well, I hear that getting a Bookbub ad can be career changing.  I haven’t had the opportunity to use Bookbub yet, but I’ve heard great things.  And yesterday, I saw it in action.  Recently, I was included in an anthology called The A.I. Chronicles.  This was the 4th anthology released by The Future Chronicles.  Yesterday, the anthology that came before mine, The Alien Chronicles, had a Bookbub.  And wow, did it have an impact!  By the end of the night, The Alien Chronicles was #6 on ALL of Amazon.  And beyond that, the other stories in The Future Chronicles series got a boost, and even my sales on my stories got a little boost.

One of the hardest things for authors is visibility.  Bookbub is expensive, but I’ve never heard about anyone regretting getting it, or really even losing money.  Hopefully some day they’ll accept me and give me an ad.  I might wait until I have more of a backlist to try.

But whether your a reader or writer, they have something to offer.

Flash Fiction Friday – Mini Edition

21 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Fiction

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Last FFF: The Time Keeper

This week, I was challenged to write a story in only 100 words.  That’s 10x less than a normal flash fiction.  Here’s what I came up with:

Kade stood in the shadows. It was uncomfortable, but the situation demanded he be outside during the day.
His son was graduating. And while he would never know Kade had been there, it was important for Kade to say goodbye, even if from a far.
“He’ll be alright.”
“I know. And I know I can’t walk in that world anymore.”
“Exactly.  You’re not human. You’re beyond it. You’d only put them at risk.”
Kade took one last look at his former life.
“Goodbye, son.”
He turned around. With the quickness of cat, he turned into one, and rushed away.

Writing Wednesday – Working with Others

19 Thursday Mar 2015

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Writing is often thought of as a solitary processes.  However, there’s something to be said for working with other authors.  Recently, I teamed up with the authors of The Future Chronicles.  It got to #2 under Scifi Anthologies on Amazon, and is still sitting at #3.  Today, some author friends of mine who had released a bundle got onto the USA Today Best Sellers list.  It’s a tactic that I’ve seen work for other authors, as well.  Usually, you have to be invited into these sorts of things, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t go looking for them too and express your interest.  So make a friend, explore a common universe, and see what happens.  You never know what will come out of a little collaboration.

Mention Monday – Cluster Headaches

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

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Last Week’s MM: The A.I. Chronicles

This week’s Mention Monday isn’t an exciting review.  Unfortunately, I don’t have much worth mentioning this week.  So, instead, I’ll talk about Cluster Headaches.  If you don’t know what they are, they’re sort of like migraines, but on one side of your hand and much, much worse.  I’ve gone three years without them being too bad.  They’ve come back pretty strong this year.  So far, it’s mostly been shadow headaches, and the clusters have been mild.  This is due in part to identifying them early and cutting out triggers.  For me, chocolate is a big trigger.  Which means I am chocolate free until August.  Which is really hard.  I’ve also been soda free for almost 3 years, so I wouldn’t really recommend it otherwise, but I’ve found that drinking 1 sugar free redbull every 3 days helps keep them away.

Even so, it’s made it really hard to concentrate on getting anything productive done and they make me really tired.  Plus, I’ve been job hunting, which is time consuming.  I hope to get back on track soon.  I missed a few days the last few weeks, and haven’t made any progress on my other projects.  But I promise I want to and I’m trying.  Bear with me.  I’ll be back to posting regularly.

Mention Monday – The A.I. Chronicles

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Sorry my Mention Monday is late.  Been off my game lately.  Stress getting to me.  But that’s a post for another day.

I just wanted to quickly mention The A.I. Chronicles.  If you’re on my mailing list, then you already know about it, maybe even got yourself a free copy.  But if you didn’t get the memo, The A.I. Chronicles is coming out on Friday 3/13/15.  I have a story in this anthology, as well as other amazing writers.  I’m excited to join a tremendous alumni of The Future Chronicles authors like Hugh Howey.  As of today, The A.I. Chronicles is #1 in Hot New Releases Scifi Anthologies, and #3 on the regular Scifi Anthologies list (right behind best selling scifi author David Simpson, who just so happens to have a story in this anthology as well.)

Also, a new release means a new Launch Party.  Join me and the other authors of The A.I. Chronicles for fun, games, and giveaways!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1535855083368828/

A.I. CHRONICLES – http://smarturl.it/ai-chronicles
+ Join the newsletter – http://smarturl.it/chronicles-news

HOSTS (all times Eastern Daylight Time)
– 1 pm — Julie Czerneda – TC
– 4 pm — Logan Snyder – LP, V5
– 5pm — Samuel Peralta – RC
– 6 pm — Ellen Campbell – tba
– 6:30 — Chris Pourteau – UC
– 7 pm — Elena E. Giorgi – tba
– 7.30 — Pavarti K Tyler – 2MS ppbk, SW ppbk, MD
– 8 pm — Susan Kaye Quinn – LH, MJ
– 8:30 — Patrice Fitzgerald – KS, IDP, HH
– 9 pm — Sam for A.k. Meek – IM, 25B
– 10 pm – Angie Cavanaugh – OW
– 11 pm – Samuel Peralta – AC + TC ppbk

GIVEAWAYS!
– RC – Robot Chronicles – 3
– TC – Telepath Chronicles – 3
– AC – Alien Chronicles – 3 + 1 ppbk
– LH – The Legacy Human
– MJ – Mindjack
– IM – The Invariable Man: A Novel – 5
– 25B – 25 Bombs Fell
– OW – Otherworlders
– 2MS – Two Moons of Sera – paperback
– SW – Shadow on the Wall – paperback
– MD – MoonDust
– V5 – Violet, Books 1-5 (yes 5)
– LP – Lazarus Particle
– KS – Karma of the Silo
– IDP – I Dream of Pia
– HH – Hanging with Humans
– UC – Unconditional
– More to come!
– (ebook prizes, paperbacks as noted)

Hope to see you there!